Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own any characters or concepts related to ReBoot. This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.

This is babyfic, which means it is about Matrix and AndrAIa and their hypothetical baby. If this is in some way offensive to you, you should probably turn back now, before it's too late.

This is set post-everything, by a lot.

Small wonders

It didn't really hit him until AndrAIa turned to him and said, "Do you want to hold her?"

The act of inputting their personal codes into the reproductive randomizer, the periodic updates from the principal office as to the progress of the compilation, the projected models of the finished product, the minutes of careful preparation and thorough discussion preceding and accompanying all this: none of it had fortified him for the reality of the child in his hands. His child. Their child.

Matrix's knees locked up on him.

"You might want to sit down," AndrAIa suggested.

She touched his shoulder and pushed gently, steering him back to the chair. He sat heavily; the chair creaked, protesting his weight. Cradled within his hands, the baby stirred, opening its wet and unfocused eyes.

How easily it fit, how neatly: the head tucked into this palm, and the swaddled length of the rest of it even with his outstretched fingers, the breadth of his other hand, his wrist. It turned its head blindly, legs shuffling beneath the cloth binding them, feet kicking. Its nose pressed against his thumb; its lips brushed the folded underside of his knuckle.

"It's so ... tiny," he said.

"She," AndrAIa said. "Not it. We have a daughter, Enzo. I can prove it if I have to."

"I believe you," he said. A daughter. He stroked his thumb across the upturned cheek, the skin green, like his, but brighter somehow.

A daughter.

"Oh, look at her hands!" said AndrAIa. She leaned against his shoulder, reaching out to the baby. "You have to see what she does. It's the most amazing thing."

She touched a finger to the nearest hand, the palm opened to her. Delicately, like a flower folding in upon itself, the stubby fingers closed around AndrAIa's knuckle, the green of their daughter's skin a sudden brightness blooming against AndrAIa's darker orange.

AndrAIa laughed, low and delighted, and the baby turned her face to the sound of it. Her fingers flexed around AndrAIa's captured knuckle; she sighed.

She. A daughter. Their daughter. His daughter.

"I don't know if I can do this," said Matrix.

"It's a little late for second thoughts, Sparky," AndrAIa said, wry. Her voice dropped, teasing. "We can't just slide her back into the coding chamber."

He flashed her a sharp look over his shoulder and AndrAIa rounded her eyes; she touched her hand to her throat: who, me?

"I know that," he said. "I'm not basic. And it's not that I don't want her. It's just."

The baby yawned; she wriggled in his hands. Her chest arched. Matrix stared down at her, at the fat arms stretching, the minute fingernails flashing, the green snub of her nose wrinkling.

"She's so small," he said. His thumb eclipsed her cheekbone. "What if I--"

"You're not going to break her," AndrAIa said: program closed, end of file. "She's our daughter, and a Matrix. She's tougher than she looks."

"She looks like a--" He groped for something small enough to compare her to and settled for, "toy."

"Not all of us are as monstrously huge as you," AndrAIa said dryly.

She cupped his shoulder and rested her cheek on the back of her hand. Her hand was cool, the palm rough: fingers, too. He leaned against her.

"Think of it as a challenge," she said. "An adventure."

Matrix snorted. "Not much of an adventure," he said.

"You just need to adjust your parameters," she said. "I think this parenting thing has a lot of potential."

"You think everything has potential."

"Everything does have potential," said AndrAIa. "Keep your sensors and your processor open and you'll see."

The baby flexed her fingers and rolled her head jerkily in his palm; she snuffled into his fingers. His heart beat like a drum in his throat.

"You're taking this well," he said around it.

AndrAIa shrugged. "It's exciting," she said. "I'm used to excitement."

"Unlike me," said Matrix, sardonic.

AndrAIa did not dispute this.

"You know," she said thoughtfully, "you could try holding her. Really holding her, that is."

"I'm getting to it," he said.

Her laugh, silent and warm, tickled his jaw.

The logistics of shifting the baby from his hands to the crook of his arm were basic enough, but the act itself gave him pause. It took a nano to pull it off, an agonizing nano in which the baby stiffened and rolled her eyes and protested each clumsy jostle. With photoshop clarity, he knew all the things that could and would happen if she fell. If he let her fall.

"Got her?" AndrAIa asked.

He had her.

Tucked against his chest, she whined plaintively, then was silent and but for her breathing, still: her frail shoulders swelled, then fell. He brushed his thumb across her cheek, tracing the ridge of bone, and the baby wriggled; she turned her face into his touch.

"There," AndrAIa said. Her smile echoed in her voice. "See? That wasn't so hard."

"No," he said, watching the baby's lashes flutter, thin and electric blue against her cheeks. "It wasn't."

This story was originally posted at livejournal on 10/23/2009.

I'm sure if Mainframe/Rainmaker ever produced something set within the ReBoot universe concerning sprite (or binome, or number, or whatever) reproduction, it would go along lines similar to human reproduction, but this does not work for me at all.

1: Imagining a pregnant binome makes my brain ache.
2: Dude, it is really freaky how Dot and Enzo look so much like their dad and also each other.

So until proven otherwise, my personal headcanon holds reproduction for non-virals involves inputting one's personal code into a program that randomizes it (with additional coding provided by one's partner(s) or a database if a partner does not exist) so as to create another, separate entity derivative of and distinct from the parent or parents. This would also explain why we never hear anything about Dot and Enzo's mum: she does not exist!

This does not explain why sprites and one binomes have breasts, though, but considering Hexadecimal has an ample, defined chest and she's a virus, which reproduce by evolving, merging with another virus, or splitting in twain... who even knows. (They have breasts because breasts are ~sexy~. That is why.)