A/N: I wouldn't call this an extended chapter, but is quite a bit longer than the original chapter had been and has a few more descriptions and whatnot. Just pointing that out.


The mention of his name sparked a feeling that had been long buried, and Rinzler tensed, stomping down on the feeling before it could rise to any substantial value. Tron had been derezzed a long time ago. All that was left of the security Program was the physical shell and a few lingering traits.

Refusing to meet Juno's eyes, he replied dejectedly, "Not anymore."

"But how…" she trailed off, trying to comprehend what he'd just revealed to her. "I mean, you're… you… fight for the Users, Kevin told me so! But now… now you serve Clu, and…" Stopping, she put her hand over her mouth and just shook her head, taking a moment to gather her raging thoughts. "What happened?" she asked quietly, shocked.

Where to even begin?

Sighing, he thought it was best to start from the beginning. "Flynn upgraded my programming immensely and brought me to this system to protect the Grid and the Programs within it. During the upgrading, a majority of my circuitry altered. The 'T' used to be in the center of my chest and was much larger, but it now appears on my skin the same way as it does on my light-suit."

She gave a brief nod, with him so far. "Yeah, Kevin told Sam, Marcus, and me the story a few times, and I've seen the poster of what you used to look like."

"Poster?" He didn't understand, nor did he know what that was.

"Nothing, think of it as a very detailed description of what you looked like," she explained vaguely. "Aside from that, he told me all about how he brought you to the Grid to protect it and how you were the best combatant in the Games."

"Did he tell you about the ISOs?"

Thinking back, she shook her head. "Not that I can remember."

"I didn't think so. He wanted them to be a surprise for your world," he said, sparing a quick glance at her. "ISOs – Isomorphic Algorithms. Flynn didn't create them; they came to be all by themselves because the conditions of the Grid allowed them to do so, rising from the Sea of Simulation. He called them a miracle, but Clu thought they were an imperfection, believing them to be a threat to the Grid. In Flynn's absence, Clu began seizing more control over the Grid. I was concerned but didn't attempt to challenge him at first. It wasn't until he started having the Programs who lost in the Grid Games derezzed I knew something was seriously wrong. We ceased being friends after I started saving the Programs who had lost and openly questioned his decisions. More than once I brought up my suspicions that Clu was becoming unstable to Flynn, but he insisted that things were fine. One day, a Virus began infecting the Grid. In the wake of the attack and Clu's sudden anger towards Flynn, I decided that it would be best if I escorted Flynn back to the portal and left a friend to hunt down the Virus."

"Portal?" Juno echoed. "So there is a way out?"

"Yes, but it can only be opened from the outside. It's been closed for many cycles, but after you and Sam came to the Grid it reopened and will remain open for another four to five hours," he explained.

"Okay, so there's a time limit to it," she summarized. "That doesn't explain why Kevin didn't get out when you escorted him there, or how you changed. I'm pretty positive that Kevin wouldn't be so careless as to wait until the last minute to leave."

Rinzler snorted, and remarked, "Not the last minute, but he always cut it far too close." More than once he'd told Flynn he shouldn't cut it that close that it was too risky to wait so long before returning to the User world, but of course the User didn't listen, and he ended up paying for it in the end. "On our way to the light-jet that would take us to the portal, Clu approached us. Immediately, I knew something was wrong. His circuitry had changed to yellow and he asked Flynn if he was still meant to create the perfect system. The moment Flynn said yes we came under attack by Clu and four of his Black Guards. I told Flynn to go and acquired the identity disc of one of the Guards I derezzed and used it along with my own to take on those remaining. After I finished them off, I saw Clu standing over Flynn, preparing to derez him, so I attacked Clu. He was stronger than I was but my only concern was buying Flynn time to escape. He did manage to get away, but Clu overwhelmed me, and after injuring me severally he altered my programming, repurposing me to serve him under the identity 'Rinzler'." Remembering that day and what had transpired after sent a shudder through him, made him feel ill. "My original programming often clashes with what Clu has programmed, but ultimately my repurposed programming wins and I do whatever I am ordered to do by Clu."

Juno was quiet and Rinzler would be lying if he said he wasn't worried by her drawn out silence. He feared that her silence meant that she was disgusted by what he'd become. If she was, he certainly wouldn't blame her. She had every right to be repulsed by what he had become just as Yori had been. It was precisely why he hadn't wanted to reveal himself to her – he didn't want to see that look again, and certainly did not want her to look at him that way.

Breaking the tense silence after several agonizing seconds, the shocked young woman said quietly, "So, that's why you didn't want to show me your face. You knew I'd put it all together and figure out you're Tron."

He closed his eyes. "Was Tron, Juno. But yes, that's why. The only reason I removed it at all was because allowing you to believe that I have always been this way would have been the same as lying to you. You deserved to know the truth."

"Thank you for being honest with me, but how can you claim that you're no longer Tron?" she asked gently. "While I was on drugs and drank, I wasn't at all myself, but I was still Juno."

A dark memory pushed its way to the front of his mind and he clenched his fists at his sides. "Not long after I was reprogrammed, Clu requested my presence on his Command Ship. He'd captured a Program named Yori – the Program I had been involved with at one point. He ordered me to just stand there and to do nothing while he tested his control over me. I was forced to watch as he tortured and derezzed her. All the while I was unable to do anything but watch. The way she looked at me…" Disgusted, he shook his head. "Tron would not have stood there and let what happened to her happen."

"I'm so sorry," Juno whispered, voice thick with emotion. "But I think you're wrong about not being Tron anymore."

"You're wrong in thinking that I still am," he retorted, trying and failing to keep the weary irritation out of his voice.

"Am I?" she questioned. "You might have tried to kill me when we first met, but after you found out I was a User you were, for the most part, gentle with me. Before I went to the arena you told me what to expect and to avoid the light-ribbons, and then you saw to it that I didn't die on the ground after I ran my light-cycle into yours and patched up my wounds. Do I really need to continue and tell you how good you've been to me since I've been in this apartment? You've been treating me like a guest and friend rather than an enemy." Craning her neck and shifting next to him in an attempt to meet his eyes, she asked, "Does that sound like how Rinzler, Clu's renegade enforcer, would act? Or is that how Tron would act?"

He chose not to answer, knowing that the latter was correct. But how could he still claim to be Tron after all that he'd done? So many had fallen to his discs – Basics, ISOs, it made no difference to him when ordered to kill. No, he was Rinzler, Clu's personal enforcer now.

"Will you please look at me?" Juno's gloved hand cupping his jaw startled him as she gently forced him to meet her eyes, filled with warmth and heartache, but absolutely void of disgust. Even after he finally looked into her green orbs she didn't remove her hand, keeping it at his jaw in what he suspected was meant to be a comforting gesture. "You know as well as I do that you have been acting like you, not like Rinzler."

"Juno…"

"No," she interrupted firmly, pressing her thumb to his lips to keep him quiet. "You know I'm right."

There was no point in arguing with her given that he couldn't convince her that she was wrong, so he just sighed, dropping the subject for the moment, and looked at her.

Without the obstruction of the helmet, he could better see her face but didn't like the orange hue that had tinted her features since their arrival to his apartment, and the orange glow also made seeing the extent of her bruising difficult.

Wanting to see this woman in a better light as well as examine the damage, he took her small hand in his own and led her outside.

She didn't ask what he was doing and followed without question, trusting him.

Inside where her face had had an orange tint to it, some of the bruises hadn't looked so bad. But outside he saw that she really had been hurt badly. In the white glow of the city's circuits, a more natural light fell on them and he saw that the entire left side of her face was black and blue with shades of green and yellow here and there, and the skin around the gash was a little swollen and irritated. His gaze traveled down her arm and seeing all of the bruises and cuts was a disturbing sight to see, given that Programs couldn't sustain such injuries.

Tentatively, reddish orange eyes returning to her face, Rinzler reached out to brush his gloved fingers over the gash on her cheek, then over her healing split on her lower lip. "Does it hurt?"

"Not as much as earlier, but yeah," she replied soft, her breath hitching when he traced his fingers gently over each bruise.

These wounds were his fault. He'd hit her and split her lip. He'd gone after Sam and the Program helping him escape, forcing Juno to smash her bike into his and crash. No… it was Clu's fault. He had been acting under Clu's orders. But he had still hurt her. "These injuries are why you shouldn't trust me, Juno. One word from Clu and I would kill you."

Casting her eyes to the ground, she nodded. "I know. Some things just can't be helped, I guess. I… I like being around you. More than I probably should, to be honest with you." Emphasizing her point, she took a step closer until there was only an inch of space between them. Raising her hand, she lightly traced the T-like cluster of squares on his chest.

The touch sent a shock through the circuits she touched and he started, reaching up to grasp her hand. The touch had been pleasant and wanted, and it roused the feeling in his chest that he didn't want to feel.

"Did I do something wrong?" Juno asked, worried.

Rinzler shook his head, swallowing. "Circuits are sensitive, remember?"

"Oh, right," she murmured, blushing a bit. "That, uh... that felt good, though, right?"

"... Yes, it did."

Nodding more to herself, she pried her hand from his. After a moment's hesitation, her eyes flickering to his in a silent request for permission, she pressed her warm hand to the symbol that the four square circuits created on his sternum.

Rinzler couldn't suppress the sigh that escaped him, caused by the warmth of her hand against the cool circuits, and allowed her hand to remain where it was this time. If only for a moment, he wanted to bask in the incredible warmth her touch carried and remain as they were for just a little longer. What he wouldn't give to stay as they were for forever…

"Is there any way you can, I don't know, override Clu's programming?" Juno asked, shifting her hand to brush her thumb over the upper squares, fascinated when they glowed brighter. "Can't you remove Rinzler?"

Brushing a lock of blond hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear, he shook his head. "I can't change my programming. I can't go back to being Tron"

That wasn't at all what she wanted to hear. "But you're still you around me," she insisted. "If you can retain some part of yourself then you should be able to."

"It's not that simple, Juno."

"Why not?" she demanded, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

"Because if it were simple," he began with forced calmness. "Then Programs all over the Grid would be altering their programming, and not all for the better. It's dangerous enough that Clu knows how to repurpose us. Being unable to alter my programming has nothing to do with me being repurposed or retaining fragments of Tron."

Unable to be contained, the tears in her eyes slid down her cheeks, dripping to the floor.

Curious as well as concerned, Rinzler wiped away a stray drop with his thumb. "You did this before in the arena and when you talked about your mother. What is this?" he questioned, wiping another drop away as it slid down her cheek.

Sniffling, she replied, "They're called tears. I'm crying." Shrugging, refusing to meet his eyes, she explained, "It's something User's sometimes do when they're hurt or sad."

So this was what crying was.

Rinzler immediately decided that he did not like seeing her cry. Unsure of what exactly to say, he pulled her to him, putting his arms around her, providing as much comfort as he could.

Almost as soon as she was against his chest she began to shake, burying her face in his neck, her slender arms holding onto him tightly as tears poured from her eyes and hiccuping noises rose from her throat in time with her shaking. He just held her while she did so, smoothing his hand over her long hair.

If he could he would try to override his new programming, but he couldn't. Not even for her.

A few minutes passed before her crying subsided and she took a few shaky breaths. Blinking a few times, she brought her eyes back up to his, red rimmed and puffy. A look of embarrassment came to her face as did a faint pink to her cheeks. "Sorry. Didn't mean to start crying on you."

"It's all right," he assured her, keeping his arms securely around her, finding it difficult to let her go.

Juno brought both of her hands up to the sides of his face, looking in his eyes. "Rinzler," she stopped, the name not appealing to her. "Tron… you might not have faith that you can overcome Clu's programming, but I do."

He wished she would stop thinking that. The longer she kept believing that he was still Tron the more it would hurt when she was proven wrong.

"Juno…" The rest of his argument died on his lips when she rose to her toes, pressing her lips to his.

The last thing he expected was for Juno to kiss him, and at first he didn't dare move a centimeter, too stunned to do anything but stand perfectly still. But when she deepened the kiss, increasing the pressure ever so slightly, his eyes slid shut and he tangled his hand in her hair while his other held her close, receiving a soft whimper from the young woman in response. All thoughts of disagreement left his mind, replaced with her and the feel of her in his arms. Her lips were so soft and warm, melding perfectly with his own. Her fingers threaded through the hair at the nape of his neck and her little finger came into contact with a few of the thin circuits at the base of his neck where his light-suit started. The action caused him to suck in a breath through his nose and a shiver to run down his spine, warmth and small shocks surging through the cool circuits she touched and spreading to the rest that they connected to. He responded by catching her lower lip between his, hoping to entice a reaction from her that was similar to what he was feeling. And she did react, a small whimper of sorts escaping her, but it wasn't quite one of pleasure.

Abruptly he pulled back, eying her bottom lip, as a small drop of blood formed on the split. He'd completely forgotten. "I'm sorry," he apologized, but she only smiled.

"Don't be."

A half smile tugging at his lips, and he embraced her, resting his chin on top of her head. She sighed contently, shifting in his arms to get comfortable while returning the embrace, her head resting comfortably against his chest. Were it his choice, he'd stay there forever with her, just as they were now…

And then there was a sudden clapping coming from inside his apartment.

Both Rinzler and Juno turned towards the source of the sound. Immediately, without thinking, he placed himself between Juno and their unwanted visitor.

"Oh, don't stop on my account," said Clu, a twisted smile adorning his face.


Stunned, holding onto Rinzler's – no, Tron's – arm from behind him, she could only stare at Clu and his group of Black Guards before overcoming her shock and stepping out from behind him, fixing a glare on Clu. After learning of what he'd done to Tron… never had she hated anyone so much.

Smile still in place, Clu cocked his head to the side. "Finally decided to ditch the helmet, huh? She must be special."

Tron said nothing, and she didn't expect him to. No doubt his new programming kept him from talking back to Mr. High-and-Mighty.

Walking around as though he owned the place, Clu said, "I knew something was wrong with you, Rinzler. I noticed how you took extra care in being gentle with the User when you brought her to me along with Sam. I thought it was just some insignificant flaw carried over from your original programming, but I see now that I underestimated how large that flaw is. Of course I had my suspicions, which was why I decided to keep her alive."

Juno stared at him, brow creased with confusion. Glancing up at Tron and seeing the same look, she knew that he had no idea what Clu was talking about. "You aren't using me as bait?"

Shaking his head, Clu replied, "Not quite. If the opportunity presented itself I would have gladly used you, but no, I kept you alive to test Rinzler."

A look of horror came to her face. "What?"

"As I'm sure you know, he was once Tron. I wanted to see just how much of Tron was still present and how much control that… flawed Program still had." Juno took a step forward, fully intent on wiping the smirk from the bastard's face. Tron, however, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back to him, keeping his body angled between her and Clu. The smile Clu's face grew. "And I see that Tron is still present."

"Told you so," she whisper to Tron.

"Not now, Juno," he hissed.

Chuckling in amusement, a thoughtful look found it's way to Clu's face. "Did you now, Juno? Well, since we've all gathered that he's still around, let's see just how much control Tron really has." Smile permanently on his face, he looked to Tron. "Hit her."

Juno hardly had a second to react before she was roughly twisted around, Tron's fist connecting with her cut cheek. The force of the blow knocked her to the ground with a yelp of pain. Bringing her hand to her cheek, she felt blood seeping from the reopened wound. Fresh tears stinging her eyes, she looked up at Tron. Disgust at his action shown brightly in his red eyes.

"Sorry, honey." Clu walked over, standing over her. "Guess he doesn't have much control after all." His booted foot hit her in the gut and the air left her lungs, causing her to curl into the fetal position out of instinct before struggling to her knees, hands flat on the floor while she struggled to catch her breath. "Hmm, this brings back memories, doesn't it, Rinzler? When I tortured Yori. But something tells me that watching me torture and derez Juno will hurt you even more." He sighed. "But unfortunately I don't have time to torture her properly." Turning to Tron, he said, "Flynn's light-cycle has been found and its origin traced. We're heading there now. Prepare you're Recognizer and regroup with my command ship in ten minutes." Giving Juno a cruel smile, he stepped over her and back into the apartment, flanked by his Guards.

When it was clear that he was gone, Tron was on his knees next to her, running his hand over her back before gently urging her to sit up. Pain flared up from where she'd been kicked and her head ached, but she complied.

"I'm sorry, Juno," he whispered, examining the damage he'd done to her cheek. "I'm so sorry."

She hissed when his thumb grazed the wound. "S'okay."

Pressing his forehead to hers, he said sorrowfully, "He's going to kill you after he kills Flynn and Sam."

"Tell me something I don't know," she murmured, fighting back the tears. She didn't want to die, and knowing Clu he would have Tron watch, or he would even have Tron commit the act.

Just as she was getting comfortable in his arms, he suddenly pulled back and met her eyes with his determined dark red ones. "I won't let him kill you. Come on." Helping her to her feet, he took her back inside to the bedroom.

"What are you doing?"

"Clu said for me to watch you here, but the moment he told me to prepare my Recognizer and be ready to regroup in ten minutes that order was overridden. Call it a loophole." Sitting her on the edge of the bed, he took a baton from its hook on the wall and handed it to her. "As soon as I'm gone, jump off the edge outside."

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "I'm sorry, you want me to do what?"

Clarifying what he wanted her to do, he said, "Use this the same way you would a light-cycle but twist it and pull it apart at the center. Instead of a light-cycle, you'll have a light-jet."

Holding the baton tightly in her hands, she felt her throat tighten. She wanted to survive, but she also didn't want to leave Tron. "Fight Clu's programming, Tron. Please. Just try."

Cupping her uninjured cheek, he gave her a nod. "I'll try. I promise."

She wondered if he was just telling her that to make her feel better, but at the moment she didn't care if he was lying or not.

Leaning towards her, he gave her a quick but meaningful kiss. "Be safe, Juno."

"You too, Tron," she replied, trying not to break when his black helmet slid back over his head, hiding his face from her.

Without another word, he left her alone in the room.

It took all her willpower to keep from curling up in a ball and crying. She had to be patient and alert, needed to be able to hear the Recognizer leave before she left. But her thoughts were on Tron. She couldn't lose him. Not after she only just found him. It wasn't fair. Using the back of her hand to wipe away a few stray tears, she heard the aircraft's engine roar as it rose into the air, heard its sound dull as it got farther away.

Biting back the pain – both physical and emotional – she left the bedroom, looking out the window to be sure that he was gone. But instead of going outside, she went to the elevator. If Clu asked Tron what he'd said to her, he would have no choice but to tell him. They'd be looking for her on a light-jet. If she took the elevator she believed that she might very well stand a better chance at getting away. It would be risky, but it was the only way. Raising her helmet to hide a good portion of her face and removing her disc to change the style of her light-suit so that it had long sleeves, she took the elevator down to the first floor.

Ignoring the looks she received, she walked through the exit, keeping her steps even and forcing her limp away. As long as no one saw the blood or the limp she would be okay.

She hoped.

Having no idea where to go to start looking for Sam and Kevin, she just started wandering. Her best bet was to find a way out of the city. Hiding out in the city didn't sound like a good idea so she assumed that the Flynn's would be on the outskirts. Then she remembered Clu saying that they'd found Kevin's light-cycle. Did that mean that he or Sam were in the city? There were too many questions for her liking.

Sighing, Juno continued down the street, unaware that a hooded figure was following her.


Coffee keeps me awake to write, but reviews keep me motivated to write!