"Damn."

"Trinity?"

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?"

"Fine."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm coming, give me a minute." He was standing at the bottom of the ladder as she called form her room.

"We have to go in now."

"Neo, can you give me a minute?" She sounded frustrated and he almost smiled.

"What's going on?"

"I can't find it."

"Find what?" He frowned.

"Promise not to laugh."

"Okay."

"I can't find my boot."

"What?" The laughter was barely concealed.

"My boot, I can't find the left boot."

"Oh." The frown was gone from his face, only to appear on hers as she looked out her door at him.

"You promised not to laugh."

"Where did you have it last?"

"I swear I put it…" Her eyes lit up.

"What?"

"Hang on."

"Trinity, where are you going?" She almost ran down the corridor, minus her left boot.

"Your room." She didn't turn to reply.

"Why?"

"It's under the bed."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive!"

"Neo, is she coming?" The captain's voice rang down the ladder.

"Yeah, we'll be up in a minute or so."

"Good."

"Found it!" Laughter and triumph rang in her voice.

"Where was it?"

"Under your bed."

"How did it get there?"

"We keep swapping rooms."

"You have a point."

"I know." She did smile then.

"My mom would have said you were a real goose." She rolled her eyes, lips twitching.

"Let's get moving."

"You haven't got it on properly yet." He pointed out.

"So?"

"Trin, sit down."

"Why?"

"So I can fix your boot." It sounded like he was stating an obvious fact to a child.

"Neo…"

"Stop protesting, start sitting." He pointed to the bottom ladder rung.

"Fuss pot."

"When it comes to you, yeah, I am." A shared smile.

"Come on, we have work to do."

"After you."

"Such a gentleman Neo."

"Thank you." The moment lasted a fraction longer than it would have for anyone else. Although it was only ever Neo who did up her boots so she didn't trip over on the way to the Core and some unknown meeting that was bound to make life on the Neb in the next few hours a little more unusual than they normally were. But that's what news from Zion tended to do to the small crew, complicate matters that seemed as simple as doing what they had already done to understand their choices.

*~*

A/N: Ok, I was on holidays and my brain still isn't in full working mode yet, give me a break okay! Please let me know what you think, I'm always glad of any replies. And to satisfy one particular reviewer *cough* Da Buffster *cough* I apologize to all the chickens in the worlds, virtual and real, for saying you don't count as reviewers. I didn't mean to offend and I would be glad of anything you managed to peck out to me.

Trialia: Hello! I loved revs, even with the ending. It was really quite prefect if you think about it. No sequels. Glad you like my story, let me know if you think it's good enough for HL :)

Da Buffster: Happy now? Oh and it doesn't help to have seen Revs for "Hallelujah", I was full of short stories because they get me unBlocked so to speak. I hope that you like them. I'm trying to come up with a good way to answer reviewers to my short stories, I was thinking of making a story where the characters of my short stories answer the reviews, IC of course, which makes them part of a story and not just A/Ns. What do you think my rambling reviewer? :D

Cinn: Whenever you get time, that would be fine :) I love learning more about the stuff behind the Matrix :D I hope this chapter was weird and wonderful enough for you.

Divamercury: Glad you like, I will keep going, but a warning, unless I get some help, I only have two bits to go and then it's all gone. Help please!

Trinfan: Hiya! Cypher is icky poo nasty and I'm glad he's dead. He could have been a nice guy but never mind, these things happen. Oh, I'll make him the definition of this chapter! Thanks for the inspiration!

Cypher:

Noun 1. cypher - a mathematical element that when added to another number yields the same number, one of the elements that collectively form a system of numbers; "0 and 1 are digits"

cypher - a quantity of no importance; "it looked like nothing I had ever seen before"; "reduced to nil all the work we had done"; "we racked up a pathetic goose egg"; "it was all for naught"; "I didn't hear zilch about it" cypher - a person of no influence cypher - a secret method of writing

Verb 1. cypher - convert ordinary language into code; "We should encode the message for security reasons"

2. cypher - make a mathematical calculation or computation