I don't know how it happened since it all happened so fast and was a complete blur, but the next thing I knew I was nervously pacing back and forth in the middle of a hallway in the hospital. From what I can remember, it started to pour down rain just as I finished wiping the Twins' faces off. After that I somehow had managed to drag them over into the yard next-door and went to the person's house to ask if I could use their phone. The next thing I knew, I was here at the hospital. The Twins were in ICU, being checked over good. I, on the other hand, was waiting for a nurse or doctor to come out and tell me what the outcome was and how bad it was. I glanced at my watch, which said 1:00. It didn't even seem that late—early—but it was. I was tired—very tired—but at the same time I knew I couldn't sleep. My eyes felt puffy and I kept yawning every two minutes it seemed, but I couldn't sleep. I paced harder trying to keep myself awake. I took the towel that I had in my hand and ran it again over my wet, scraggly long hair, trying to dry it. After being out in the pouring rain, my hair now looked like a mop. At least my clothes were halfway dry. Suddenly I heard the hospital's elevator open behind me. Curious, I turned to see who would be coming up at this hour of the morning. I gasped before quickly ducking into a dark, unused room. I stood quietly while looking around the edge of the half-closed door. The man that had stepped off the elevator wore a black suit, dark sunglasses, and had the longest frown I'd ever seen on his face. It was Agent Smith! How could it be? I shook my head to make sure I wasn't asleep and dreaming, but I was indeed awake. Great Scott, what on earth was going on? First the Twins, now Smith! Had there been a jailbreak at the local theater or something? Or was I hallucinating from not having any sleep? I watched as Smith calmly walked over to the nurse's station. One of the nurses there came up to him and they started talking about something. I was too far away to hear what it was that they were talking about, but I'm sure it had something to do with me and the Twins. Before long, I saw a security guard come up to the conversation. He started talking as if he was asking Smith to leave. Shortly after, Smith walked back to the elevator, pushed the button, and got on when it came back up. I sighed with relief and walked back out into the hall where a nurse carrying a clipboard met me. She looked at the papers on the clipboard and told me that I could go in to see the Twins, but she warned me that they couldn't talk just yet.

I followed the nurse into the cold ICU room. Just being in there was enough to give me the chills. After walking a little ways, she soon stopped in front of two beds, each holding one of the Twins. They both lay motionless—eyes closed, and badly bruised and cut—and much worse looking than when I first saw them.

"They're badly beat up, but they'll pull through, surprisingly," whispered the nurse. "They have bad wounds on their backs, almost as if they were gashed with something sharp. Then there are also marks like a whip would make. Do you have any idea of who did this?"

I stood there for a moment just staring at the Twins, and then I raised my head to answer the nurse's question.

"I don't really know. All I saw was a shadow of someone. That's all." Was my reply before slowly walking over to the side of Twin Two's bed. I stood there for a minute then stretched my hand out to touch Two's hair. This time at touching his luscious silver dreadlocks, he didn't look up at me or jump. Instead he lay there on the hospital bed as if in a deep sleep. The nurses must have given them a heavy sedative to help them rest. I looked over at One, who looked about the same as his brother or maybe a little worse, and sighed to myself. I soon found a chair and set it on the floor in-between the Twins' beds and settled down in it as comfortably as I could, using the towel I had dried my hair with as a pillow. It still poured rain outside, making the night gloomier. It was eerie to hear it from the inside of a cold and dark hospital room. The ICU room was dark except for maybe one light here and there over one of the patients' beds, enough to see where you were going and the details of the room. The lights over the Twins' beds were out, though. The nurse had turned them out when she left me. The only noise heard was the soft beeping of IV machines and other medical equipment, and the occasional intercom outside in the hall. I shuddered at the thought of being in a hospital, then curled up in the chair and stared at the ceiling before drifting off into sleep.

I didn't know how long I had been asleep nor did I know what the time was. All I knew was that there was someone lurking about the Twins' beds and me. The room was still dark, like it had been when I drifted off to sleep. I lay there as still as I could without moving and tried to see who it was without them knowing I was awake. It could have been a nurse, but somehow I had the feeling it wasn't. I waited. The person soon came around in front of me, but wasn't interested in me being there. Whoever it was was leaning over Twin One's bed. It was a dark, tall figure from what I could make out before shutting my eyes again to make it appear I was still asleep. When I opened them again I was horrified to see the person's hand reach into his coat pocket and pull out a syringe. I had to do something fast. I suddenly and quickly jumped up from the chair and grabbed hold of the guy's arm and forced the syringe out of his hand by bending his arm around the back of him. He let out a slight cry of pain then dropped the needle.

"Don't make a sound and quietly follow me out into the hall. Move," I whispered into the man's ear as I pressed my face next to his and gave him a shove to get him going. We both struggled as I moved him toward the doors that would lead us out into the hall where the nurses could see us. Once through the double doors, I yelled down the hall for a nurse. One of them came running up to me.

"I found him snooping around in the ICU. No idea how he managed to get in there. He was about to do something to the twins that were just brought in." I grunted while trying to hold the man still. The nurse quickly ran off to call the security guards. While she was gone, the man finally managed to break free of my hold. I looked in horror when he turned to face me.

"Smith," I gasped with fainted breath.

"Yes. Smith," He frowned. I backed up, too afraid to run. I wanted to scream but nothing came out of my mouth. Smith walked up close to me, so close I could see my reflection in the lens of his dark sunglasses. He reached out his hands and placed them around my neck getting ready to squeeze the life out of me, but before he could do anything a couple of security guards came out of nowhere and jerked Smith away from me and held him tight. I disappeared back into the ICU and listened as the guards took Smith away. My hands automatically and shakily went up to my neck and rubbed the area that Smith's hands almost touched. After I got hold of myself again I quietly made my way to the Twins. My foot hit the syringe Smith had dropped—causing it to make a tinkling sound as it rolled across the tiled floor. I bent over, picked it up, and shoved it in the pocket of my jacket, which hung over the back of the chair. Before I could sit down, I heard a soft moan coming from my right. I looked over and saw that Twin Two was trying to move a little.

"Two? It's okay. You're going to be fine now." I softly whispered as I touched his shoulder. He stopped moving and looked at me. Once again a weak smile formed on his lips as he looked into my face. I was speechless at that moment, and the only thing I could do was smile back. For a minute there, Two continued to look me in the eyes. In a way it startled me, for I had no idea of what he was actually thinking. Did he see me as a means of comfort and protection since I saved his and his brother's life, or was there some other reason? Two suddenly turned away from me and nervously and curiously looked around the ICU room as if he wasn't quite sure he liked the place he was in. I turned away a little to grab hold of my chair and felt a slight tug on my arm. I flung my head back around at Two, who had grabbed onto the sleeve of my shirt—his face filled with fear. He never said a word, but I could tell he was afraid. What he was afraid of I couldn't say. He had just been through a terrible ordeal so he could have been afraid that the person who did this to him would come and hunt him down, or it could be that he was afraid of being in the hospital. Whatever his fear was, it was driving him to the point of almost crying. I softly placed my hand on his that still clutched my sleeve.

"It's okay. I'm not gonna leave. I'm just moving my chair closer to the bed. See?" I whispered in a soft voice as I took the chair with my other hand and moved it like I told him I was doing. Slowly his hand let go of my sleeve when he saw I wasn't going to leave him, and his head slowly fell back on his pillow again. After sitting down in my chair, I turned to Two and prepared to ask him some questions. I opened my mouth to speak but stopped. In what little light was coming from another part of the room, I could see Two looking at me in the saddest way possible, like a child who doesn't understand why it was punished would look at its mother. At first I didn't know whether to ask him questions or to just stay there beside him for awhile. Since I needed to know what was going on, I opened my mouth to speak again while Two was still awake.

"C-can you speak—uh—talk?" I nervously whispered. Two softly nodded his head and continued to look at me in a deep way.

"Can I ask you some questions? And do you feel up to answering them?"

Again Two nodded his head and continued to stare at me.

"Who did this to you and your brother?" I whispered.

"Th-the Merovingian," Two weakly got out. His voice was on the verge of cracking, but it still sounded soft and menacing.

"Why? Why did he do this to you?"

"Because," Two stopped for breath before he continued, "we failed him. He was enraged that we wouldn't go along with what he was planning to do. So he punished us and kicked us out." Two leaned back on his pillow and closed his eyes for a few minutes, and then he opened them again.

"What was he planning to do?"

"Take over your world." Two and I both stared at each other for a good minute before I continued.

"And you and One had a problem with that?"

"Yes."

"I thought—"

"You thought we were evil?" Two finished for me. "We may appear to be evil and we may be unwanted programs, but we still have a heart when we want to. This world is nice, much better than the Matrix world. We, my brother and I, couldn't bear to see an evil being like Merovingian get it in his grasp, especially when you humans wouldn't know what was going on. Seeing the danger in it, we refused to go along with Mero's plans, and in turn took the punishment for it too." Two winced at the thought of the punishment the Mero had given to him."

"Why didn't you and your brother phase out when he was—erm—punishing you? Why don't you phase now and heal yourself?"

"We can't."

I looked at him in a puzzling way.

"When we were brought here by… well, when we were brought here, our powers were taken away from us. We're, in short, helpless. Our powers were only meant to be used inside the Matrix world. Since we're in your world they won't work unless someone programs them to work. The Mero didn't want to program them to work, though." Two again turned to look around him. He seemed to be more alert now since he had been talking.

"You mean that you and your brother are human now?"

"No! Not human. We're still programs. It's just we're without power. Kind of, in a way, mortal,"

"Oh."

Two shivered a little as he looked past me and down the long rows of beds that lined the ICU room.

"Where am I?" he whispered.

"You're in a hospital."

"I've seen one before, but I've never been in one—at least not in this way," Two glanced around one more time. "I don't like it." Two started to move. Not knowing what he was planning, I jumped up from my chair and placed my hands on him.

"You can't get up, Two, you have to stay."

Two looked at me in a sullen way.

"You can't get up. You've been wounded by Merovingian and you must stay in the hospital until you heal, like it or not."

Two, in frustration, lay back down on his pillow and sighed heavily, crossing his arms in a pouting way over his chest.

"Now I feel sorry for you humans who have to heal—lying in a bed all the time instead of just phasing. How do you ever survive?"

I couldn't help but smile at Two then turned my head to hide a giggle. Suddenly another moan brought me back to my senses. It was One waking up. I turned to Two who looked at me in concern, and then I got up and walked over to One's bedside.

"Two?" I heard One weakly mumble before he went back to sleep. I sighed and sat back down in my chair and faced Two.

"Went back to sleep," I sighed to Two. "At least we know he's ok though."

Two nodded at my words. I glanced at my watch the best I could in the low light of the room. It was now around 7 o' clock. I sighed and leaned on the side of Two's bed and smiled at him. He smiled back. Maybe I had found a new friend after all. Two seemed rather attached to me for some reason, though I wasn't sure for what reason he was. Feeling rather tired, I laid my head on the side of the bed and fell asleep.