Disclaimer: See Ch 1.
"Checkmate," said Feather lightly. Link gaped as his carefully-constructed evil plan to rule the chessboard fell apart before his eyes.
"Wha - no! That can't be right!" he protested. Feather grinned and tipped his king over. He slumped. "So that's, what, three games to you?"
"And only one to you," she agreed, her soft Welsh accent making her tone seem more mocking than she intended, as she moved the pieces back to their starting points. "Again?"
"Nah," he said, standing up and stretching. "I have to get back to work."
"Chicken."
"Merely industrious," he assured her.
"What are you going to do? Go in and poke the controls?" she asked. "None of us has anything to do until Neo re-emerges from... whatever the hell it is he's doing in there."
"He's -" Link began to tell her, but she cut him off.
"Don't! I don't want to know."
"Don't pretend you're all innocent," he said grinning and ruffling her hair. She hated people doing that, but then most small women who think they're tough would. She ducked away, grinning, as there came a noise down the hallway. Somebody was sneaking.
Link stuck his head out the door of the mess and looked in the direction of the loud stealth sounds. Neo and Trinity were creeping noisily down the hall towards them.
"You guys do know we can hear you, right?" asked Link as Feather poked her blond head around him so she could see.
The lovers dropped their exaggerated 'sneaky' poses and stood up normally. "Yeah, we know," replied Neo calmly. "Feather, can we see you in the med bay for a minute?"
"I won't be able to detect a pregnancy for at least seventy-two hours, you know," jibed Feather gently, stepping out into the hall. The middle-aged Welsh woman was the new medic on the ship.
Trinity blushed slightly, but said, "It isn't that."
Feather shrugged. "Sure, I got a spare half hour. Let's go."
"I don't believe it," muttered Feather, sitting back in her chair almost two hours later.
"What?" asked Neo. "What can't you believe?"
"I thought it might just be a superficial thing. You know, just removing the skin deformities and creating the appearance of health again." She picked up Trinity's clothes and threw them to her. "But it's like there was never even an injury at all. All traces of scar tissue - completely gone. The calcium buildup around the break in your knee has vanished, and I'm not sure I want to contemplate what happened to the metal pins in your hip. The muscles and ligaments torn have all become complete again, and the weaknesses caused by that have disappeared. The organs that were damaged are functioning again, good as new. Even that scar on the back of your head has gone." She shook her own head helplessly. "It's not even like it healed up. Even the best healing will leave microscopic traces - for example, the site of the injury will always have a median temperature slightly lower than the rest of the body, because of the way the capillaries break. And yours did - three days ago." She shrugged. "And now, nothing."
"Nothing?" asked Trinity incredulously.
"Nothing," confirmed the medic. "Nada. Zip, zilch, zero. You have no injuries whatsoever. Even the cough you had yesterday is gone."
"How did you know about that?"
The docter gave her a withering look. "I'm your doctor. It's my job to notice these things."
"Right, right," said Neo placatingly. "So, what do we do now?"
She shrugged. "One of two things. We declare it a medical mystery, drag you back to Zion and run you through every test we can think of while glaring suspiciously at you as if you've deliberately done something evil and underhandedly naughty to usurp our medical authority, and finally declare ourselves stumped, lose interest and wander off."
Trinity grinned. Feather had a very strange sense of humour, and a healthy dislike of doctors, despite being one herself. "What's the other option?"
"Proclaim; it's a miracle! Hallelujah! Lose interest, and wander off."
Trinity and Neo looked at one another and shrugged. "Hallelujah."
Feather laughed delightedly. "I thought you might say that."