AN: Heya everyone! Well, it's cold here in the Big Frozen Apple but my thoughts are someplace around Port Saint Lucie, Florida. That's where my New York Mets have their spring training complex and it's a week until Spring Training. I'm hoping that a new stadium brings some new luck to the team. The past two seasons have been nothing short of painful for all us Mets fans. I mean like wrecking the entire season on the last game painful…and, of course, the games had to be on Sundays so I was there to watch my poor team explode. Maybe a new field will fix that bad mojo or something. I don't know. Us baseball fans are a superstitious lot. Sorry about the delay, those out there still reading this mess of a story, but I had another idea crawl into my head and it wouldn't go away until I typed it out. I may post it but it's about Pixie's past…her way pre-Pixie past. Anyway, thanks to everyone still reading this story. I really appreciate it. Please feel free to leave me a review…good, bad, or indifferent.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"My friends say I should act my age
What's my age again?
What's my age again?..." (From "What's my Age Again?" by Blink 182)

Still lying on her stomach, knowing full well that her Real World body would show bruises from the way she was laying, Pixie pointed out, "You still look like you want to ask me something? It's alright if you have more questions."

"It just seems like every time I think I have this place figured out, ten more questions pop up and I'm confused again," Neo stated, looking sort of sheepish about admitting that fact.

Neo found it strange to be admitting that fact to the young woman he was sitting with. Part of it was because she was physically younger than Neo--- Matrix age wise, anyway ---and part of it was because Pixie just seemed to be particularly shy and reserved. She seemed like the type to keep to herself but not because she was unfriendly. It was more because that was how she liked it. She was shy and keeping to herself was her way of dealing with that shyness.

Compounding that were the half stories about Pixie having some kind of history with Hawk and her silence being part of her way of dealing with him. Cypher, who'd told most of the stories usually when Pixie was within earshot, had made the history sound racy but Neo wasn't sure. The young woman sitting before him didn't exactly seem like the racy type. Besides, he'd also heard half stories about her having a boyfriend of some kind in Zion. A boy who wasn't Hawk.

Stories aside, this was the first time, as far as Neo could recall, that he'd heard Pixie say more than two or three words to him. Putting her in her element however, seemed make her more comfortable. It made things easier for her to talk to him. Why was beyond Neo but he did appreciate her answering his questions. Even if he did feel a bit silly asking them of someone as young as Pixie.

"It's alright to have questions here, Neo," Pixie said, her tone older but the smile she was wearing very childlike. "Everyone does. This place is kind of confusing for people because it's really unlike the world we thought we lived in. I can imagine--- and I apologize if I offend you by saying this ---that it's more disconcerting for you because you're older than the normal person we unplug."

Pixie explanation, actually made a strange sort of sense to Neo. He'd lived in the Matrix far longer than anyway they'd--- the others on the ship, if the stories he'd heard were to be believed. ---had the occasion to free. As a matter of fact, that was one of the first things Mouse, the most talkative of the three rookies had made it a point to tell Neo he was the oldest person he'd ever heard of being freed.

"Morpheus said that there were rules about freeing people my age. Something about it being hard because the mind can't let go. Whatever that means," Neo repeated, still watching Pixie and, in the back of his mind, wondering just what she'd be before she'd come out of the Matrix.

There was just something very strange about Pixie. He might have ignored it, the strange feeling, if it was just one thing about the young woman. He might have just chalked it up to their surroundings of the fact he found most things in the Real World strange and different when compared to his life in the Matrix.

Where Pixie was concerned, though, there were many things that Neo was starting to see as strange. Maybe not so much strange but different and that was what was confusing him about her. Pixie was definitely over eighteen--- She had to be according to Trinity eighteen was the minimum age for working for the resistance. ---but she didn't look the part. Pixie looked like a girl maybe four or five years younger than her given age and, at the moment, was acting like it. On the tin can they all called home, though, it was like there was another Pixie living there. She was quiet and serious, very adult like for a nineteen year old and very unlike the teenagers he remembered from the Matrix.

It just seemed like an odd combination to Neo. After all, teenagers in the Matrix--- in his limited experience seeing them and being one, himself ---weren't exactly the most serious of people. At nineteen, Neo vaguely remembered college parties and going to said parties, even if he didn't really want to just because his roommates dragged him. There weren't people like Pixie at those parties, Neo was fairly certain of that much.

"Captain Morpheus has never been fond of rules. At least that's what I heard in Zion and around the ship. I know he bent one of them to get me on here, I think, as a matter of fact," Pixie brought up. "But it wasn't as big as the one he broke to get you out. The rule he broke to get you out was one of the big ones."

"What?" Neo blurted, feeling more than a little foolish since he felt like he was repeating himself whenever someone mentioned something new about the world he found himself living in.

At least, it seemed like he was saying the same thing over and over. Neo found that he had a great many questions about the Real World and Pixie, who was older than he in Real World years, was brimming with answers to his questions. For some odd reason--- maybe it was the fact that Pixie really did seem like a young girl rather than a young woman, making her less intimidating that way ---Pixie was just easier to talk to. At least, in this program she was. On the ship, where she was quiet and serious and kept to herself, things might have been more than a little different.

The medic-in-training gave Neo what she thought was a friendly smile and shifted her position so she was a bit more comfortable, relatively speaking. Pixie knew that lying on her stomach wasn't the best way for her to lie but she did it anyway because it was comfortable to her. She knew she was going to have bruises on her hips both here and in the Real World.

That was just the way things were for her, she figured. Where her female friends--- Even the Pod Born ones like Ngaio and Chian ---had filled out and actually looked female, Pixie found herself stuck someplace in between. She wasn't a girl, according to her age, but she didn't look entirely like a grown woman either. Something had happened, thanks to the illness that had plagued her in the Matrix and had nearly killed her, that had stunted her secondary development. Even with synthetic hormones once she'd been freed, Pixie seemed to be stuck in a middling state…she was female but someplace between girl and woman.

"I turned eighteen the day commissions for ships were given out and Commander Lock--- He's the guy in charge of the fleet. Most of us call him 'Deadbolt' behind his back. ---wasn't keen on allowing me to be put into the pool of people eligible for jobs because I wasn't eighteen before commissions were being given out. I had a teacher and a member of the Zion Council convince him to put me in the pool of names. Still, a lot of people don't want to cross Deadbolt so there was more than a small chance, I'd get left behind anyway. Morpheus, for whatever reason he had, decided to take me on has his medic-in-training," Pixie explained. "It's not a huge bending of the rules but it's bending enough I guess. It got me a job where other captains might not have done that, especially for someone like me."

With a very small, apologetic smile--- Pixie was starting to think she was boring Neo with her inane babblings about everything and anything he asked about. ---she continued, "What Morpheus told you is true. We're not supposed to free minds once they get past a certain age. Older minds get so use to living in the Matrix that they're completely and totally dependent on the network. That makes it hard to let go of it all and come to terms with what reality actually is."

"How'd you do it?" Neo wanted to know, curious as to how Pixie's mind worked.

"Do what?" Pixie responded, cocking her head to one side and giving Neo a sidelong glance.

The young woman knew her question could have been taken in one of two ways. Either she was being a giant pain in the rear end by forcing Neo to spell out what he want or she actually had no idea what he was asking her about. If she had no idea, it was necessary for Neo to spell out what he wanted to know from her so the conversation could continue.

Truthfully, though, Pixie was more than a little unsure of what Neo was asking her about. She had something like an idea but she wasn't sure if her idea was right. Who was to say she and Neo were thinking along the same lines and not getting their lines crossed?

Pixie didn't want to confuse Neo any further. As it was, she was a convinced that she was doing irreparable damage to Neo by answering his questions. Maybe, hopefully, someone would be able to undo all the damage she thought she was doing to him. There had to be someone else on the ship--- maybe Trinity or Morpheus ---who could fix the mistakes she thought she was making.

"Deal with the change over form the Matrix to this place," Neo explained, gesturing to the area around him. "Alright, maybe not this place but you know what I mean, right?"

Pixie nodded, understanding what Neo was getting at, and answered, "I had just turned fifteen years old when I was freed and I wasn't exactly pleased with how things were for me in the Matrix. Getting out of the Matrix, for me anyway, was actually a pleasant experience. The reality I knew was kind of ugly so, compared to this, this is great. I actually feel like I belong here."

The young woman didn't want to go into any more detail than she had to when it came to her past. Everyone had their secrets in the Real World, stories about their past that they didn't share. It was a very big deal to share your Matrix name--- as opposed to your hacker name which was, basically, one's given name once they got out---with someone and talk of one's past wasn't exactly everyday conversation.

Pixie could count on one hand the people who knew the truth about her Matrix past and the name she'd been born with. If she didn't count Morpheus and the others who'd watched her in the Matrix and had been present at her freeing, she was almost sure it was three people.

There was Rain and Torrent, the family that had taken her in after her freeing, because Pixie felt they deserved to know. After all, they were kind enough to take her in and share their home with her. Pixie figured the least she could share with them was the story of who she'd been before her freeing. They'd get to know things that others in Zion probably would never know.

The other person who knew about her Matrix life, along with her Matrix name, was Wheeler. She'd confided just about everything--- There were a few things she kept to herself because she still wanted a few secrets. That and the fact there were just some things about her past she really didn't want to share. ---about her past to a certain scruffy haired young man from Texas. Though he knew her given name, Wheeler was good enough to never slip up and call her by it.

He, like everyone else, just called her "Pix." It was strange because Pixie had, at first, disliked anyone shortening her already short hacker's alias. She and Hawk were in an almost constant verbal battle, back in their shared Matrix days and even now on the ship when he wanted to mess with her head, about him calling her "Pixie Sticks." Wheeler's nickname for her, though, hadn't bothered her and had become a variant on her Real World name. Everyone except Morpheus called her "Pix."

Though Neo was new in the Real World, he had a funny feeling that he shouldn't press the young woman any further than he already had. Pixie looked, physically, uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than she'd looked during their entire duration in this program and that was saying a lot. While facing ninjas, traps, and puzzle, Pixie had been bouncing on the balls of her feet trying to contain her excitement or enthusiasm. At the moment, though, the young woman sitting across from him seemed to be glancing around as if she was trying to find the fastest way out of the conversation.

"Can I ask you one more question?" Neo broached. "This one you don't really have to answer. I appreciate all your answers, though. I think this was the most I've ever heard you say in one day."

Pixie's face colored bright red, despite the fact she knew Neo was just stating facts. Pixie rarely spoke on the ship she called home. She kept to herself most of the time because that was just how she was. She was just quiet that way. When she did speak, it was usually just a few carefully chosen words about whatever the topic at hand was and then it was back to her self-imposed silence.

Though she didn't like to talk, Pixie was not entirely unfriendly towards others. Many people--- mostly her friends back in Zion ---had taken Pixie's silence to mean that she was one of those people who was really good at listening and open to being talked to if they needed an ear to bend. Her friends, though it was more Ngaio and Aisling than it was Wheeler and Adoh, would talk to her about anything and everything, speaking about their worries, fears, and problems to the quiet girl with the long hair. Sometimes Pixie offered her advice to them but, most of the time, they'd feel better just by her listening.

It was like Chian, another of Pixie's friends though she was older than Pixie by several years, had told her once upon a time. Sometimes things were better once they got into the open air. Keeping them bottled up inside just made things worse.

The only one who ever found her habitual listening rather than speaking annoying, despite the fact she took advantage of it from time to time, was Aisling. She couldn't understand just how Pixie made it through a conversation with someone without speaking. Aisling, it seemed, had many opinions and had no issues with interjecting them into conversations whenever she saw the need to. The fact Pixie could just listen without speaking for long stretches of time confused her to no bitter end.

"You can ask me anything you want. I asked a lot of questions when I first got out of the Matrix. Only I asked them after I was adopted and not just after I was freed. I think we all have a lot of questions when we first get out, though. It's alright if you want to ask me something else, even though you already did ask me a question," Pixie pointed out, a rather wicked grin dancing across her face.

The grin was what most termed her "pixie smile." It was a mischievous, trouble filled sort of look that danced across her elven featured face when she thought of something that amused her or posed a though that had the potential to confuse another person. While her other friends--- and many of the individuals she worked with ---found the smile troubling, Wheeler found it endearing.

At least, he said he found it endearing. It was the smile, he pointed out, that showed why she had her name. It was the smile that showed just what went on in her head, behind the quiet exterior she showed the Real World. Pixie was, like her name indicated, a whole mess of trouble…just wrapped up in a soft, unsuspecting, quiet exterior.

Just the thought of Wheeler threatened to strengthen the blush that was already staining Pixie's cheeks a bright crimson. It took a physical effort for her to control the fact she blushed so easily, especially if she was thinking of Wheeler. She wasn't sure if she was actually having any luck in that department but she figured the effort had to count for something.

Neo, for a moment, was confused by Pixie's little quipped statement. Then a small grin spread out on his face as understanding set in. Technically, he'd already asked a question, asking her if he "can" ask another question.

The young woman was pointing that fact out to him in a very subtle way and telling him it was alright to ask another. Again, he wondered just what Pixie had been before her freeing. Perhaps some kind of English wiz who stumbled upon the idea of the Matrix while researching for a paper for her high school, maybe.

"Is is considered bad, I guess, to ask people where they came from?" Neo asked.

"What makes you want to know?" Pixie countered more curious than accusing.

"You looked uncomfortable when I ask what you were before you came here," Neo answered, feeling a bit sheepish for admitting such a fact. "Like you do on the ship whenever Hawk corners you to talk."

Pixie, for her part, gave Neo a half-smile and nodded her head, stating, "It's sort of a taboo, in a way. You're not, technically, supposed to ask where someone came from unless you're really close with the other person and even then it's sketchy. It depends, I guess, on how you think of the Matrix past you have."

Getting up and stretching her black covered arms over her head, Pixie pointed out, "That's another story for another day, though. We should probably tackle the boss and get out of here before everyone starts to worry that we're lost or hurt or something."

Neo nodded, standing up from the ground where he'd been sitting. There was actually no telling just how long he and Pixie had been in the program together. It wasn't like there was a timer in the corner or anything of the sort. The older male could only assume it had been a long time. Longer still for him because he'd be in the program before Pixie wandered in and brought her puzzles with her.

"I feel like I should thank you for the history lesson," Neo commented as the pair jogged over to the game's final ladder. "Even if you did call me a freak."

Pixie, stepping away from the ladder she'd been heading up, turned to face Neo and gave him what she thought was her friendliest smile. The young woman knew she lacked the imposing aura many who worked in the Resistance had. She'd gone into the Matrix and had seen the way those she worked with--- maybe with the exceptions being Hawk and Mouse despite what Hawk thought --were able to get the individuals around them to move out of their way with just a simple, pointed glare.

The medic-in-training knew that never, in a million years, would she be able to affect such a look. She'd tried, of course, but it seemed that her efforts were doomed for failure. It was just a look Pixie was unable to achieve on her own. There was just something about the way her face was shaped--- since it couldn't be in her eyes. Those were covered by the mirrored lenses of her sunglasses ---or the way she carried herself that prevented it from happening. She just wasn't a tough or imposing person.

Her friends, the ones in Zion, had pointed out that it was most likely the fact she just oozed this sort of curious, quiet energy. She wasn't physically imposing--- with her long hair and her short, thin stature ---and she just didn't have a mean air about her. Aisling, who had opinions on everything, had said that she didn't have to even look at people for them to know she was just shy. There was just nothing tough about a person who was shy. Such people were just, well, shy.

"It's not a problem," Pixie answered, one of her hands fooling around with the braid behind her back. "I'm just glad I could help. I'm sorry if I confused you or anything. I really didn't mean to do that."

Neo shook his head and started up the ladder after Pixie, who was fairly skittering up the rusted metal structure. It was high time the two of them faced the boss in this little dungeon. That and hope that this whole role playing game scenario didn't end with a turn based boss fight. He'd never liked those, the few times he'd played role playing games in the Matrix. Nothing good could ever come of turn based games.