Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

What if....? Chapter 3 - Knowing

Freeing Neo was a task in itself. When Trinity saw the agents taking him out of his work building she thought for sure that they had lost him. It seemed, though, that the agents just wanted to bug him. They had no idea that Morpheus thought he was the One.

In the car with him, Trinity had deliberately softened her voice to him. He was scared, that much was obvious, but he was also unsure of why all this was happening. He needed a soft guiding hand rather than Switch's wake up call to reality.

So now here he was on the Neb. He seemed so confused and unsure about everything in this world. She wanted to tell him the truth but she couldn't bring herself to. She thought that he wouldn't understand why she had done it. It would make living and working on a small ship with him almost unbearable.

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"Oh God!"

"What?"

"I used to eat there. Really good noodles."

Trinity smiled slightly. Not only at his wonder at his first trip back into the Matrix but also at the fact that she remembered sitting eating noodles with him in that place.

****

"Look into his eyes, those big pretty eyes and tell me. Yes or no?"

Trinity looked up. He was looking at her and he knew too well what was going to happen. He didn't seem scared though, just resigned to his fate. Her mind flickered to what the Oracle had told her only weeks after she had last seen Thomas Anderson.

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"So you're Trinity?" The woman smiled. "I bet you have a lot of questions but I don't think you'll ask the right one so I'll just come out and tell you why you're here."

Trinity just nodded. She had been silent ever since they had been sent in.

"Not the talkative type then, are you? Doesn't matter. Maybe you just know there's a time for words and a time for actions. Tell me, did you love the man who broke up with you a couple of months ago?"

Trinity could hardly believe she knew about that. "I don't know."

A little smile played on the corners of the older woman's lips. "Don't worry about it honey. You'll fall in love. In the real world, where it counts." The oracle stubbed out her cigarette and looked at the surprised girl. "This man you'll love will be someone you know from before and he'll be the One."

"The one for me? Forever?"

The oracle smiled at the misinterpretation. "Not just the one for you honey. But the One."

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She held Neo's gaze and realised the undeniable truth. "Yes," she whispered the word. 'God yes!'

****

She was pulled out and so was Neo. Somehow Tank had survived Cypher's attack and had killed him. They lay the bodies of their crew-members along one wall with a blanket over them. One body was placed away from the others and the only reason that a blanket was placed over it was because no-one could bear to look at the deceiving face.