Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She kept falling.
Her body ached, and for the past four nights, even in her dreams she had been falling, smacking into only slightly squishy concrete. Groaning, Switch rolled around in her bed, trying to find a comfortable position that didn't make her rib cage feel like one big bruise.
Funny how the body adapted to virtual injuries. It didn't even make sense, besides maybe tensing up to the point of straining muscles.
Finally, at a little after 5:30 a.m ship time, she decided to get up. At least her feet didn't hurt.

Quietly, she snuck down the narrow corridor between the crew quarters. No one else on the deck was stirring yet. Undetected by the guy on watch duty, she made it to the storage area behind the ship's power core. Gritting her teeth, she began her secret exercises.

The ladder wasn't so bad. Most of the way up, it still felt safe. Transitioning to the metal catwalk running around the bay was a bit more tricky. Her body had become strong enough by now to support her, but still, her hands and legs felt shaky when she shifted her grip from the top rung of the ladder to the railing. Right hand, left hand. Consciously relaxing her shoulders, she forced herself to look behind her, around the room, then to the floor. For a moment, she felt dizzy, but at least this time, the floor didn't start spinning.
She pulled herself up onto the flat metal grid of the catwalk. Left foot, right foot, turn around, look down. This was a very mundane level of freeing her mind, but right at the beginning she had decided she wouldn't let the few true fears of her old life bleed into this new reality. Don't ruin this chance.

One hand on the railing, she started her daily walk around the room, eyes trained on the lower floor. This was fine, with the railing between her and the possible fall providing a physical barrier, even if it was not as high as she'd prefer it to be. Next part of the routine. Nobody had explicitly asked her to do this, but after several failed attempts at the jump program, they had talked about some possible ideas for making it easier. Determined to make it before the end of the week, she swung one leg over the railing, fixating a spot on the opposite end of the room.

"Good morning."
Startled, Switch almost let go of the metal bar. "Shit."
Below her, Trinity grinned. "Don’t worry, I'll catch you."
"No thanks."
Still grinning, Trinity climbed up to join her, mimicking Switch's current position. "Let's do this together."

So Trinity did know about her little routine after all. Not sure whether this was a relief or embarrassing, Switch forced a little smile and nod before focusing on her movements. She brought her second leg over the railing, now standing on the edge, her back to the room. Beside her, Trinity did the same.
Slowly, she let go with one hand, turning around, gripped the railing on the other side of her so she was now facing the open space. After a few breaths, she turned back around again, ready to go back behind the safety of the railing.

That was when she noticed Trinity had stopped following her motions, and was working her way down until she was dangling from the edge of the catwalk, hanging just by her hands. The view of this alone created a knotted feeling in Switch's body.
Trinity called up to her, "You don’t have to do this, I'm not sure your hands are strong enough ye-"
"Aaah!" In a moment of stubbornness, Switch flung herself into a dangling situation as well, not quite noticing what she was doing until reality caught up with her and she felt the strain in her shoulders, letting out a yelp.

"Nevermind." A moment later, Trinity let go and dropped down to the floor, landing not quite gracefully but on her feet.
Internally debating whether she should follow her friend, Switch's fingers started to cramp up. She didn't really want to risk the drop, but she knew she wouldn't be able to pull herself up again, not yet. "Uhm, Trin?"
"One moment." Footsteps and the noise of something heavy being dragged across the floor followed. "There's a box under you, it's just a small distance to fall now."
Oh great, she grimaced with internal sarcasm, now this was turning a trust exercise. Not exactly what she had planned for the morning. Don't think, do. With another yelp she let go, feeling Trinity's hands guiding her way down onto the storage container.

As they moved the container back into its original spot, Switch admitted to herself she would need more help to get her jump, even though she usually disliked giving up her independence.
"If you have any ideas how to make me get that jump, I'd really appreciate it."
A brief expression of surprise flickered across Trinity's face before she turned more serious. After a moment of thinking, she asked "How much am I allowed to do?"
"Whatever helps."
Another pause. "Even if it means I manipulate you, and use things you told me in secret against you?"
Shit. She didn’t know whether this was a good idea, but at this point, she felt she was running out of options, and so far Trinity had never disappointed her trust in the weeks since Switch had woken up on the ship.
"Okay."

Not much later at breakfast, Switch found herself alone with Cypher, which made the meal even less enjoyable. She tried to ignore his glance and attempts at conversation, wishing for someone else to appear.
Finally, Apoc and Trinity walked in, joining them at the table.
"We'll run the jump program again just before lunch; right now we're going into broadcasting range to exchange the usual data updates with Zion and the other crews." Trinity nodded at Switch.

Cypher took this as a prompt to poke Switch with the handle of his spoon. "Another day of falling, eh? At least those nosebleeds give you some color in the face."
"Shut up, Cypher," Apoc hissed. "Or should I bring up all the times you fail at agent evasion runs? Very elegant belly flops."
"Low blow," Cypher grumbled, but did indeed shut up for the moment.
Relieved, Switch finished her meal and excused herself. She didn’t have real shifts yet, but knew she was expected to sit in on non-confidential broadcasting sessions and study the operation protocols.

Chapter Text

"You're not going in with me?" Switch turned around to Trinity, who hadn't taken her usual place in one of the battered reclining chairs.
With a nonchalant shrug, Trinity replied, "Duty calls. Morpheus wants me in a meeting. You'll be fine running the simulation with Apoc."

Apoc had hopped into the chair next to Switch and wriggled his fingers at her in a mock wave. "I won’t bite."

Trinity continued, "Anyway. I took the liberty to make a little change to the program, Switch. There'll be an agent following you, just to get you into the spirit of really going all in for the jump. He won't shoot, and he won't come close to you, but I hope the other training programs have taught you to take agents seriously."
Switch felt a heavy breath escaping and nodded, not daring to use her voice, afraid it might crack. She didn't look forward to another round of panicking, blacking out mid jump, and feeling the rough street against her face.

"See you at lunch then." Trinity disappeared behind the mass of cables and computer modules blocking the view to the hallway.

Then the whole room disappeared, first replaced by white, then by the now familiar view of a skyline seen from a flat roof. How convenient, all these flat roofs. Like in a video game.
A few steps away, Apoc was leaning against a wall, casual on purpose. He flashed her an encouraging smile, but there was a strange edge to it, a curious twinkle in his eyes. He wasn't wearing his shades, she noticed. "Ready? Then follow me."

As he straightened his body and started walking towards the edge of the roof, the echoing sound of a metal door being yanked open made Switch turn around. She caught a glimpse of black and white clothing. "It’s the agent!"

Apoc had already started running, and she followed almost at his heels, but stopped at the edge as he jumped. Flailing her arms, she fought to regain her balance. "Shit." The agent was still behind her, approaching slowly but menacingly.

Meanwhile, Apoc had landed on the opposite roof and looked back at her. "Come on!"

Stuck between her innate phobia of heights and the by now ingrained fear of agents, Switch froze up for a moment.

A scream from the other roof made her turn again, just to see another agent appear from behind a corner and sprint towards Apoc, gun in hand.

"Oh shit, no!"
Without even thinking, she took a small run-up and flung herself off the roof, across the yawning chasm of city, hitting solid ground again just as the agent struck Apoc with the gun into his temple, making him falter and almost lose his stand.

She ran over to him, and then the world froze.

And Apoc started laughing, bent over with his hands on his knees. A small bead of blood was glistening at his temple, but he didn't seem to notice.
"Are you okay?" Out of breath, Switch finally reached him, and carefully examined his injury.

Still Apoc was laughing, shaking his head in amusement. "Now look at that."
"What? Oh." It dawned on her she was now indeed on the same roof as him, on the other side of the street. "Oops." She felt a small bubble of laughter in her own throat now, and allowed it to escape.

"Do it again?"
The adrenaline rush was fading, giving way to a wobbly feeling in her knees. She sighed. "Do I have to?"
"Just once. Then you can rest and take a day off tomorrow." He held out his hand. "Come on."

Dammit. He knew exactly how to play her. "I’m going to kill Trinity for this."

She allowed him to take her hand and lead her into running up to the jump back. Almost synchronized, they took off, and this time, Switch dared to look down. She felt a little dizzy again, but the gap seemed much smaller than before. She knew she could make it.

They landed, and Apoc gave her hand a quick squeeze before letting go.
"May I invite you to join me for lunch?"
"Yes please."

Chapter Text

"Trinity!"

Trinity turned around at the angry yell. Carefully arranging her face into a smug grin, she crossed her arms and faced the storm.

"You! You wicked … manipulative ...!" Switch spat at her, almost seething, but not totally in earnest, luckily. Trinity had feared she might have gone to far with her little scheme, but still, she secretly was proud of pulling this one off.
It took her everything not to laugh at the display of fury. The original spunk of her still skinny and slightly malnourished looking friend was finally coming through, which was a good sign after the first weeks of problems adjusting to reality and a far too weak body. "What?"

"You used Apoc on me. Not fair!"

Trying to bridge the gap, Trinity unfolded her arms and affectionately slapped Switch on the shoulder. "But it worked. I had a hunch your fear of losing Apoc might be greater than your fear of heights, so that was the best option I could think of. And you gave me permission to be manipulative this one time, remember?"

Silence, the beautiful silence of victory.

"… yes." Switch turned around and hit her head against the next available metal wall. "Thanks, guess."

"You're welcome." Trinity smiled at her, adding sweetly, "Enjoy your date."

"Trinity!"

Laughing, she evaded an attack and fled into her cabin, leaving Switch to deal with her mixed bag of feeling on her own.