A Penitent Man

Disclaimer: I don't own the Matrix or any of the characters in the movies. I only own the ones I've created for this story.

Summary: Bronwyn demands that Jones comes clean about his past when he was working for the Agency.

Bronwyn was silent on the way back home, absorbed in what Smith had told her about Jones' past while he worked for the Agency.

"The next time he touches you, Bronwyn, imagine how many lives he has taken with those very same large hands of his," Smith had told her.

Did he really do all those things, or was Smith lying to me, she wondered. A sudden chill made her shudder for a moment. As much as she tried to forget all that Smith had said, she could not drive out images his words brought to her mind.

"Do you know how many people he's killed? Do you know how many of them begged and pleaded with him to spare their lives but he killed them anyway?"

A man, or even a woman perhaps, kneeling on the floor while Jones stood over them with a gun in his hand, while they begged or pleaded for mercy. Jones pulling the trigger…

'Not only did you shoot them, you squeezed the life out of more than a few with your bare hands…"

His large hands around someone's throat, slowly but surely squeezing the life out of their body as they struggled for their last breath…

"No!" Bronwyn cried out, shaking her head to rid herself of these images that flashed before her eyes. Jones turned to look at her, but she averted her gaze for a moment, then she strengthened her nerve.

"I need to ask you something, Jones, and please be honest with me," she said.

"What would you like to know?" he asked. I already know what she is going to ask me, Jones thought to himself. But no matter what, I have to be honest with her. I've kept the truth from Bronwyn, and Smith knows that; that's why he told her about my past—he knew I didn't tell her what I had done during my time with the Agency and he is trying to set her against me. I can only hope that if I tell her everything now, she will believe me, and perhaps understand; at least a little.

"It's about what Smith said, in the restaurant…Is any part of what he told me true?" she began.

Jones nodded his head slowly. "It's all true. I have taken lives, I've killed people," he replied in a low voice.

"How many? How many people have you killed?" Bronwyn dug her nails into the palm of her hand to provide herself with an external pain to counter the agony that was now gnawing at her from within.

"A lot."

"Did you ever hurt a woman?"

"Yes, I have."

Bronwyn closed her eyes in an attempt to stem the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes and slide down her cheeks.

"Did you ever…..did you ever hurt a woman the way Smith hurt me?" she asked in a choked voice.

"Bronwyn, I…."

"Answer me!" she cried out in anguish, "did you ever rape a woman, yes or no?" Please tell me you didn't, Jones. Please tell me that you are different from Smith, tell me he was lying, anything; just tell me that you could never lift your hand against a woman, she begged silently.

"Yes," he answered, so quietly that she had to strain to hear him.

"Oh God," Bronwyn moaned in horror. Smith was right. For once, he was telling her the truth. And what was worse, Jones had lied to her when he had introduced that older man as his father. What else has he lied to me about?

He saw disgust and revulsion on her face and hastened to explain himself; to erase that terrible, stricken look on her face and remove the hurt he saw in her eyes.

"I'm sorry for what I did to those women, Bronwyn. I am not the same man I was then. I've changed. Because of you. Because of you, I never realized how wonderful being with a woman could be until I met you. If I had only known then what it's like to love someone and have that love returned, who knows what path I might have taken?" He paused, waiting for her to say something, anything, to respond in some way, but she did not. There is so much I have to explain to her, but now that she knows the worst of what I've done, will she even listen to what I have to say? Somehow, someway, I have to make her understand how much I care for her; how much she means to me.

"Please listen to me, Bronwyn. I know I can't change my past and erase what I did, but I want to make things right; here, now, in the present, by making a better future for you and the baby." He tried to take her hand, but she jerked it away out of his reach.

"Don't. Just don't touch me right now, Jones. I need to be alone," she said.

"Bronwyn, please just listen…."

"No!" she shouted, and then faced him squarely. "You and Smith are two of a kind, you know that, Jones? You're exactly like he is," she said, her voice trembling from anger and fear. Bronwyn quickly walked away before Jones could see her tears. Once the words were out of her mouth, she knew it was too late to take them back; to wish she had never said them.

Jones stood where Bronwyn had left him, and once she was out of sight, slowly made his way to his apartment. He did not turn on the light when he got inside and dejectedly sat on the sofa, his head in his hands.

I should have told her about my past, he thought. Instead, Smith did that for me tonight and now she cannot even stand the touch of my hand. She probably thinks I am nothing more than a killer, a cold-blooded murderer, and now in her eyes, she sees me as a rapist as well, and wants nothing more to do with me. I've lost her and it's my own fault. I can't imagine not having her in my life, not being able to hold her when she's afraid, and not being able to love her. What do I do now? Where do we go from here? After tonight, do we even have a future together, or is that gone forever too?

Apprehensive and yet anxious to hear anything that might indicate movement in her apartment and give him a hint as to what Bronwyn was doing, he sat there, motionless, listening and waiting for any sound, but there was nothing at all except silence.

lllllllllllllllllll

Bronwyn, too, was sitting in the dark, with only her thoughts surrounding her. For heaven's sake, she told herself, get a grip. Okay, Jones lied, but what if there was a good reason? Maybe he lied about who that old man was because Jones didn't want to alarm me about how dangerous that man really was. What if he was really trying to protect me from him?

When Jones first came here and offered to help me, I didn't trust him because of his past association with Smith. Added to that is the fact that I thought he was only in it for the money that Mickey was paying him. But over these last few months, he has been nothing but a gentleman with me, no matter what he's done in his past, violent or not, he's never so much as raised his voice to me. Okay, so he's not perfect, but his past is exactly what I told Smith earlier tonight—it's in the past.

Bronwyn chuckled wryly. Who the hell am I to point fingers, anyway? Is my history spotlessly clean? Hell, no. Jones knew what I was a long time ago and yet, he has never asked me a single question about it, not once. It couldn't have been easy for him to become intimate with me, knowing that I've sold myself and slept with men—a lot of them, I have to be honest—for money, drugs, a place to stay, and sometimes all three.

He has accepted me for what I have become, not what I was, and if he is willing to forget about some of the bad things I've done, shouldn't I do the same for him? When he tried to explain earlier tonight, what did I do? Did I at least listen to what he had to say? No. I heard him, all right, but I wasn't listening. I brushed him off and I even said he was the same as Smith. He is not Smith and he never will be.

He didn't have to stay with me at the hospital day after day, but he did. And without Mickey having to tell him; Jones simply wanted to be there with me, to make sure that I wasn't alone, to make sure I was safe and that I stayed that way. He was there when I needed him the most and I never so much as said "thank you."

Jones and Smith were part of the Agency, so it's only safe to assume that he might have committed the same acts as Smith. But I know he enjoyed hurting me the way he did; that's just the kind of monster Smith is--the more pain he could inflict on me, the better the sex was for him--he'd gladly do it again if he had the chance, and if it weren't for Jones standing between him and me.

I may not know what Jones was, but I know what he has become: a decent, gentle man who would never hurt the baby or me intentionally. She touched her now-sizeable abdomen and felt the life inside her move. When I'm around Jones, you seem to be at peace; it's almost as if you know that I'm safe with him and both of us can trust him. I've let him into my home, my life, and finally, into my bed. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Bronwyn got up and went to her door, opened it, and walked right into Jones' arms; each asking for and offering forgiveness from the other without a word being spoken.