Title: It Ends Tonight
Author: Pippin Third
Summary: Believing in fate comes with a price.
Disclaimer: Don't look at me! The Wachowski Brothers support fanfiction!

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Don't speak. Words can only do so much and once everything's been said, we're left with empty air and silence. Look past the blindness of eyes that no longer see. Feel with more than just shaking hands. This is me, caressing your face with my fingertips, tracing the curve of your mouth, smoothing out the creases on your forehead, cupping your jaw gently.

Come nearer, lean closer. Sincerity is the one thing machines can't fabricate. A touch this tender can't be anything but real.

Be comforted.

Time will not stand still for me. Seconds are counting down to an inevitability not even you can change. Believing in fate comes with a price - the knowledge that though you may be in control of your own life, you can't stop mine from ebbing away.

It isn't in your power to bring me back a second time. We're both soldiers; death is nothing new to us. But if I must go down, I don't want to do it alone. You don't have to be a superhero. A human - a man - can save me just the same.

Draw the bitter from the sweet, love, and...

Kiss me, one last time.

(oh, and I can taste the grief in the salt of your tears.)

Nothing lasts forever, but you've given me this to hold on to at the very end.

Do you feel this? I'm never letting go.

Don't cry, Neo. Don't cry.



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A/N: This has been done, I know. It's just that I was in the mood to pound out some angst - amazing what listening to Trinity Definitely (and stopping halfway) can do to a person. Or maybe it's just me.

Feedback would be nice. - Third