AN: Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends! Well, like I probably always say when I use that quote, there's an end to this story, of course. It wouldn't be good if there was no ending to it. It's just that ending is a good bit off. There are still quite a few misadventures to be had before the end is in sight. Well, misadventures for Pixie anyway as she rides along with everyone's favorite soon to be One. Like I said before, Pixie's and Hawk are going to be unobtrusive little spectators for most of this ride. They won't be getting into any of the major action since I don't want to totally mess up the movies. Besides, they have their own…issues…to attend to. Anyway, hope everyone's having a good what's left of the summer. I saw the movie Stardust recently, after reading the book, of course. Though the book was a bit better and the movie did mix things up a bit, it was still a really, really cute movie and a nice little fairy tale. Anywho, back to the point! Thanks to everyone out there still reading this little misadventure and thanks a bunch to anyone who's left me a review. You're the best!

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 in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Fantasy and microchips

Shooting from the hip

Something different

We're makin'

Weird science…" (From "Weird Science" by Oingo Boingo)

Everyone- That is, everyone who worked as a medic on a ship in some capacity- knew that rebuilding an individual took time. The amount of time varied by age as the younger someone was, the less time it took for them to "bounce back," so to speak and regain the ability to move about just like anyone else. That wasn't written in stone, of course, because, as was the case with any rule, there were always exceptions. There was always the one story about the one young person who's rebuilding too extra time for whatever reason they had.

Still, the rule of thumb was that the younger the person was the shorter amount of time it took to rebuild them. The other side of that rule was the idea that the older an individual was, the longer it took for them to be rebuilt. In a way that made some sort of sense to Pixie, who'd spent the better part of the past few days musing on what she knew about rebuildings.

If the rules actually applied the way they, technically, were supposed to- Without any of those nasty exceptions that were so annoying- the young woman figured that Neo's rebuilding would take about…forever. Unless he was one of those exceptions she'd learned about during her days in the Academy. It was probably best to hope he was an exception because it probably wasn't a good thing for the rebuilding of the many who might, potentially be the person to save the Real World, to take just about forever.

After all, forever was a really long time to wait for anything.

A handful of days had elapsed since Neo had been brought on board the ship Pixie called home. The young woman, spending more of her time now in the role of medic-in-training than any other role she usually wore, was starting to consider curling up on one of the metallic tables and spending the nights down there. That was just how much of her time she was spending down there.

According to Morpheus' orders, someone was to be with Neo at all times. Someone had to be there just in case something went horribly wrong. Be it she, Dozer or the captain, himself, down in the medical bay doing the routine "stuff" that was involved in a normal rebuilding or Trinity who just seemed very interested in coming down to sit with Neo, there was always someone in the space.

Pixie, being the rookie of the group, usually found herself taking the late shifts, watching over the prone form of the man who was supposed to save the Real World. Her only consolation was that the late shifts watching Neo got her exempt from her late shifts on guard in the Core. Pixie was almost certain that she wouldn't have been able to do both without losing her mind…or what was left of her mind anyway.It was probably a good thing, then, that there were very few serious injuries where the rest of the crew was concerned. Having to deal with both Neo's rebuilding and someone needing a limb reattached- for example- wasn't anyone's idea of a good time. Sure, there was a final check of Hawk's broken fingers to deal with but that was no big deal. It was something Pixie could do quickly which was, in her mind, a good thing.

The less time she spent around Hawk, the better in her mind anyway. The more time she spent around Hawk, the less she liked him. There was just something about the way he'd been acting, especially with Neo surviving his freeing, that was giving Pixie a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't say why but he just did.

There was also the feeling that she needed to go talk to Wheeler after talking to Hawk but that was a horse of a different color. Pixie figured that talking to Wheeler was out of the question for the moment. She didn't have access to anything communications related because she was spending time in the medical bay.

With a sigh, covering up a yawn, Pixie slipped off of the table she'd been sitting on and headed for one of the drawers in the room. Her intention was to do, yet another, blood test on Neo just to check the state of his immune system and the bacterial that were making their home in his body. Colonizing him just as they colonized every other individual who came out of the Power Plant or born in Zion.Truthfully, Pixie had been pretty sure that, at first, Neo wasn't going to make it. The initial blood tests they'd taken showed that while Neo's body was being colonized like it was supposed to, his immune system wasn't playing its normal role. If anything, it was slow in responding to the bacterial that was trying to make its home in his body. A situation like that could lead to all sorts of ugly things.

Things that a shipboard medical bay might not be able to handle. Not for lack of skill in the medic department- Dozer was an excellent medic and Pixie figured that she could do what she could in a pinch- but because the ship wasn't stocked to handle such situations. To fix something like that, they'd have to go back to Zion and Pixie wasn't sure there was enough time to do that.

Neo, eventually, started to take a turn for the better, though. The levels of harmful bacteria in the blood were starting to subside and the white blood cell levels were increasing…a sure sign that his immune system had decided to wake up and kick in. He was on the mend and things were even starting to look up.

Well, look up as much as they could considering Neo was still a long way off from joining the walking members of the Real World. There was still plenty of rebuilding, plenty lying on his back in a half awake-half asleep state as they tried to get him in good working order.Pixie inserted the syringe into a jack in Neo's arms and drew off a small amount of blood. She walked over, prepared to place the sample into one of the machines what would analyze it and spilt out the desired results, when a noise from Neo brought her back to the table.

He moaned again, eyes fluttering open to find a harsh bank of lights glaring above him. Unlike Eurisko and, apparently, herself, Neo was drifting into and out of consciousness. He'd woken up once or twice before but just for a handful of moments. That was taken to be a positive thing since, according to Morpheus anyway, he was able to respond to outside stimuli and his neural connections were functioning without any input from the Matrix.

In her own "medical"- and she was using that term very loosely because Pixie still didn't feel right calling herself a "medic' in any sense of the word- opinion, Neo's opening his eyes and even speaking were good signs. Any signs of his brain being able to work without the Matrix's help meant that he, despite his age and the supposed reliance on the Matrix people his age had, could survive without the machine's telling him what was going on.

"Go back to sleep," Pixie urged, walking around so that Neo could see who was talking to him without having to pick his head up, "It's very late and we're still working on making you better."

"What's wrong with me?" he croaked, his voice still a bit hoarse from disuse.

"You're still weak from taking the red pill. We're working on fixing you up," Pixie told Neo, in a soft voice.

Giving him a friendly sort of smile- Bedside manner was something she'd been told she'd have to improve. Being nervous when speaking with patients wasn't exactly the best way to give them a good impression. - Pixie added, "You're safe now. No one's going to hurt you while you're here."

That might not have been entirely true but the young woman didn't want to scare Neo. It was bad enough that he was in a new situation, a situation that was a far cry from the one he'd thought he'd been in. Pixie didn't want to make it worse by scaring him.

"Thanks," Neo mumbled, laying flat and staring at the ceiling once again.

Neo's eyes closed once again leaving Pixie to wonder if he'd fallen asleep or blacked out again. There were ways she could check, or course, but pulling out all the leads for the machines involved was far more work than she could do alone. Plus she didn't want to wake anyone with the banging and clanging she was sure she was going to make while working.

Checking his pulse and heart rate, both within the normal range, Pixie decided to leave well enough alone. With one final look at her latest patient, Pixie went back to waiting for her results.

Not before turning and telling Neo, "You're welcome," though she wasn't entirely sure what he was thanking her for. It just seemed nice to respond to that, let Neo know his thanks were appreciated even if he couldn't hear her.