Title: Evolution
Author: SilverAshes
Rating: T
Summary: Five facets in the development of a woman. Written for The Looking Glass Matrix Fanfiction Challenge: Revolutions (characters' observations of Trinity).
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Don't claim to. Have no money. End of.
A/N: Done in true student style – the night before, amidst panic induced by house hunting and late nights, with the assistance of my good friend Caffeine. Unedited, unbeta'ed and unplugged - let's just hope it's not unreadable.
With thanks to all the guys and gals at TLG – my home away from home.
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Mummy
Even now, when she's crying and screaming and unable to be appeased by any amount of affection, her blue eyes are shatteringly stark. When she eventually calms from this particular tantrum, she's back to searching the room with those eyes, poking and prying and seeking out anyone and anything in their path. Though she's little over three months, she's already developed her father's temper and her mother's inquisitiveness. It's a pity how this mess ended when all is said and done – the only thing that can be hoped for is that her own life doesn't end in a sad conclusion of needle tracks and violence. It's all we can do to hope that we can love her more than they did.
Teacher
She is a particularly bright student, a quality which we actively seek to nurture and develop as she moves through her education. Her work ethic is exemplary in a student so young and she is particularly gifted in the fields of mathematics and computing. Our only concern is that she displays immense shyness and self-consciousness and finds it hard to interact and integrate with other students. As a result, we will be recommending that she is placed in the Accelerated Science unit and meets with the school councillor once a week to ensure that she is as equipped as possible to deal with her peers.
Brother
I know they bully her at school. I just know they do – you know, the way that brothers just know? She hides the bruises from the parentals, but I can see the hurt in those blue eyes of hers. She's a smart one, there's no doubting it, but she somehow missed the boat marked 'compassion'. If you give her numbers, give her code, she'll be more content than if you put her in a room with real people. She scares me like that sometimes; though she's not my blood sister I still like to look out for her where I can. On occasion, I wonder if that little sister of mine even exists on the same plane as the rest of us.
Stranger
She moves, almost it seems, faster than lightening. There's little more in my field of vision than a flash of black and metal and then she's there, with a single gunshot to the man's head. He's falling and blood is spraying and her hand is on the receiver before his body can even hit the concrete. Suddenly she's gone and I'm left wondering if I even saw what I think I just saw. That was cold, ruthless and dirty and in the aftermath I don't know if that woman had a heart at all. How could someone be human, how could someone have any emotion at all, when they are able to kill so mercilessly and without a shed of regret?
Lover
It's hard to believe, when she's asleep next to me and her hair is splayed out like an angel, that those hands can be so steady gripping a Beretta. But though she's so stealthy in the field, she is never unaffected by the events and the people around her. I've been one of the few privileged (and perhaps cursed) people to experience her meltdown, when she loses it so completely that there's barely any way of putting her back together. Her tears and her blood are for the war and for the people, and her sacrifice is so selfless that when she's injured in battle it brings tears to my eyes. She's a one-woman show; half warrior (saving the world with no promise of anything in return), and half woman (living and loving with a scarlet passion). She's so many people in the space of an artifical sunrise and sunset, always in pursuit of that one universal constant; truth. And I love her more for it – that she wears so many faces and yet reserves her true self for me and me alone.
"Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself." – Oscar Wilde