A/N: Hey, look! An update! I just updated this a couple of days ago, but today I went back and read it and found that I had some ideas I wanted to work with. I will admit this is coming out kind of short, but the point was to be a short for Valentines Day…whoops, missed that deadline. I really hope Trinity (yes, Adrienne's identity is revealed!) doesn't seem too OOC, but I have a reason she seems so innocent. This is AU, but not reality…and I'm sure I'm being obvious, but humor me and pretend everything is still a mystery. Anyway…onwards.

This chapter is dedicated to Piegon, who sent me their first review on chapter three.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in the Matrix movies; I'm only borrowing them…

Wide-Eyed Escape

By Ragdolli

Sparks into Flames

I spent two days learning the ropes of the cabaret. At my point, there was a lot left to learn in everything, but the Nebuchadnezzar needed shows to stay afloat, and I could tumble, dance, and provoke. So with that in mind, and my lack of seniority to argue, I left Morpheus to his untold work locked in his study, and went about my business preparing for my first show. I would bartend; be in the crowd were something to happen, some unknown threat to rear its head, and make small talk with the men and boys watching the stage.

Mouse was ecstatic when he found out we would be working together…or maybe it was just the fact that we were working the opening night of the Woman in Red's new show. While I loved Mouse as a brother, just like Apoc and many of the others, Mouse fit the description of "pimp" better than anyone I knew. I can't tell you why it surprised me when I first found out how sweet he was, but for some reason it did. Yet Mouse is not the focus of this tale, so back on track.

"Morpheus? Morpheus…"

"He isn't there."

I turned to find Switch leaning on the wall behind me, watching me knock on Morpheus's office door with a troubled expression. I frowned at this turn of events-I was supposed to work my first show that night, and had been looking for some new drink mixes to practice. "Why? He's been working for the past three days…Switch; he has been working, hasn't he? I'm supposed to be with him!"

I hated the questions suddenly pouring out of my mouth, but I was worried for Morpheus's safety. Assassins in Paris were often looking for him, I had been told, and all the secrecy of the Nebuchadnezzar was starting to build up.

Switch sighed and shook her head. "Calm down, Trin. He's working…just not here. Morpheus is…well, he's just missing for a few days. He and Neo had some work they needed to do."

"Neo? The man I met?" I could feel tingling starting to travel up from my toes as Switch mentioned Neo. I, however, insisted to myself I was worried for Morpheus (as I have learned to say since then: yeah, sure, in another star system).

Switch seemed to have a battle going on inside to rival one of my father's crusades. Finally, she nodded and grabbed my arm, steering me off down the hallway and back towards the practice rooms. "Neo is the One…he's also Morpheus's protégé."

"The One?" Though I refused to show it again, I was getting exceedingly sick of not understanding the titles that seemed to effect to me.

Switch sighed and shook her head, ending the conversation. That would be my first and last bit of information for a dreadfully long time. As Switch let go of my arm I looked up; we had reached the practice rooms. The woman in red was dancing her seductive swirl of arms and skirt (red, naturally) to the beat of a drum played by none other than Mouse in the corner. I looked down at my own black, floor-length skirt. Under it I could feel the knives strapped to my legs and the silver bangles on my ankles and toes. I had confidence in my skills, confidence in who I was and what I would grow into in this ethereal world of the cabaret, but something about the woman in red made me feel inadequate. No, I couldn't really blame her. Her name was Terési, and she had always been helpful in my dance practice; yet even so there was something about her I couldn't quite place that made me jealous.

With both Neo and Morpheus away, the Nebuchadnezzar was run by Morpheus's entourage and special service members. Being a part of these elite groups, I found my day filled with chores to do before the opening of the new show. While the tasks bored me to tears, they kept me from thinking about the mysteries of everything about Morpheus, and kept me from dwelling on Morpheus's protégé, who was simply an interesting person-though he didn't talk much.

"…and that's how I designed her new costume set. Hey, Trin? Have you ever had oatmeal?"

This, (considering the fact that the bar was jammed with bodies and we were both moving faster than possible to fill orders,) was an incredibly random change of topic. Mouse had been keeping me up to date on a rushing commentary of his part in the new show through drunken bar fights, betting arguments, and women…uhm…working. "What?" Oatmeal? Mouse had finally filled my expectations that he belonged in an asylum, not a brothel.

"Have you ever had oatmeal?" Mouse was beginning to sound aggravated-though this was probably more at the man trying to seduce Terési than at me.

"Yes, I have had oatmeal. What does this have to do with a bar filled with men watching the final act of a cabaret show?" I was beginning to get exasperated at Mouse's ability to run everything smoothly while keeping up his apparent lack of focus.

"Well, I was just thinking…haven't you ever wondered why oatmeal always tastes like whatever you put in it? I mean, doesn't oatmeal have an oatmeal flavor? Consider this-hey!"

Switch, coming up on the other side of the bar had just smacked Mouse, interrupting his little epiphany. Mouse, however, shook his head and kept going.

"Anyway, consider this: under the rules of oatmeal I could put anything in oatmeal and it would make oatmeal taste like it. For instance wheat, or, or tuna fish."

My brain had stopped processing when Mouse had reached 'the rules of oatmeal'. The rules of oatmeal? My brain pleaded for me to stop the torture-so I did.

"ZUT! What was THAT for?"

It appeared my pitcher and Switch's had hit Mouse's head together in an attempt to stop more innocent bystanders from finding the sudden urge to get very very drunk. I shrugged and continued to serve our few remaining guests as Switch headed off to throw out the man-now drunk-still trying to seduce Terési.

When I was around five, I remember my mother taking me on a trip while my father was away so my grandmother could teach me how to sail. I don't really remember anything about that trip…just the swirling blue of the ocean, reflecting the sunlight like newly cut glass. The light stung my eyes as the salty air stung my throat, but I was mesmerized by being out on the open water. I would lean in a trace my fingers along the surface, creating little paths of shadow. On the last day in the ocean I fell in and almost drowned, scaring my grandmother thoroughly, and ending any thought of future trips together. Yet I never forgot the mesmerizing sensation of the way I felt out on that boat, in the middle of endless blue.

The Nebuchadnezzar often reminded me of that vast expanse of ocean. I went about my duties in the absence of Morpheus, leaving little Trinity-shaped shadows in the world around me. I functioned mostly as one of the head healers in the infirmary; treating endless sprains and fractures until I thought my eyes would bleed from the drudgery of it all.

That was, of course, until my eighth day at the cabaret. Cleaning up my station, I could hear Switch screaming orders and feet rushing around. Someone (it sounded like Nairobi, one of the dancers) was crying softly in the background, their voice blending with the million sounds of an emergency. And, as I had come to realize was normal, this became another mystery…there was no room on the other side of that wall. Still, I quietly put my ear against it, pressing my hand to the bookshelf. Wait. Something felt wrong.

One of the books on the shelf hadn't been there before, a book called Alice in Wonderland. In fact, I had never heard of the title before. Curious, I pulled the book from the self-and felt the wall begin to slide inside another section. There, on the other side, Morpheus leaned facing away from me, his foot bound and obviously broken. On a table in the center of the room lay Neo, his arm bleeding profusely. It was an odd cut, from what I could tell-circular, as if he had been punctured. Switch was rushing around finding salves and cloths, Apoc giving orders to the rest of the entourage present.

I felt my heart go out to Neo, obviously in pain but ignoring it as he spoke to Morpheus and Nairobi. Strangely, this covered up any surprise or resentment for the hidden room, all traces of those emotions leaving when Neo's eyes met mine, and there were

Sparks.

I felt myself starting to blush and looked away quickly, frowning to hide my embarrassment. He winked as I stepped out of the opening, and motioned at the book in my hand. I nodded and put it back; the empty place on the self just showing from where the wall had folded in on itself. The wall closed as suddenly as it had opened, leaving me with nothing more than a suspicious seen, an odd wound, and a nod. I shook my head and sat down on the floor, my thoughts frustratingly filled with Neo when they should have been filled with everything else.

This only continued to get worse when he and I had our first conversation. That night the bar was slower than usual, so I swapped places with Mouse-he had better things to do than sit in an almost-empty room. It seemed something wanted me to keep running in to this person that could ignite flames in my blood-Neo was Mouse's partner that night. As we sat there serving and mixing drinks for the men who had come with nothing else to do on a Sunday night, he spoke to me.

"That must have been a shock today." He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, as if unsure whether or not he wanted to approach me.

"I wasn't that surprised…I'm used to the unexplained." He seemed to nod at this, as if he felt the same way.

"What do you think of the Neb, so far?" his conversation skills seemed to be minimal, but I had to admit they were still better than mine; partially because i felt warm and bubbly every time he looked at me.

"I love it, compared to home."

"Oh? That's good. I felt the same way, at first. The ceremony, the entourage, it was all interesting."

"Really?"

"mmm-hmm," Neo nodded as he took a sip of his brandy, keeping eye contact all the while.

"Will you, I mean, would you; I mean…can you tell me what things are like here?"

I had expected him to get quiet, to not want to talk about it. Yet Neo grinned at me, his whole facing lighting up with his smile as we talked. I felt light; I felt important talking to him-as if he valued me opinion. Neo was not my brother, as many at the Neb were…talking to Neo was special. We talked a long time, through closing and past into dawn. As I began to yawn, Neo winked at me gain, grabbing my arm.

"Come one, I'll walk you back to your room."

I have to admit I expected him to try something, anything. We were, after all, living in a cabaret. But Neo didn't do anything, except give me another sheepish grin as he deposited me in front of my door. "I'm off tomorrow-the whole arm thing. Are you working?"

I felt all warm at his attention, and I couldn't explain why I felt as if I was back on the French coast, falling into the cold ocean. "Only during healers' hours."

This seemed to make his smile widen, and to my surprise he made arrangements to take me out. "You've seen nothing," he insisted "If you haven't seen the streets of Paris."

I thought to myself as I drifted off to sleep that night that this was the end-I had finally found my place away from Lyon. Yet later, as I looked back on it, I saw something else: it wasn't the end-it was merely the beginning of a new start.

The next night Neo took me walking by the Tour D'Eiffel, and we danced on the cobblestone road to the beats of the street musicians. The candles sparkled, and I felt free of the knives and equipment I usually carried not only on my body but against my heart. We danced into a new suspended reality where we were the only two, and every time I looked into his big brow eyes there were

sparks.

In the weeks that followed, every night off we had together Neo took me somewhere new. Through that month I saw not only the opera, but the Mona Lisa, the Arch De Triumph, and a million and one other things. As we sat on a bench the final night of May, Neo turned to me with the sad eyes I rarely saw when we were together. "Trinity."

I turned to him and met his eyes, the somber tone of his voice threatening to ruin our perfect cloud. "Morpheus and I are setting out on business tomorrow…I can't say how long until I return."

"What?" the cloud was gone as suddenly as it had come, and I was left sitting on a bench in the unrelenting region of Earth.

Neo simply nodded, and took my hand as we headed back inside the Nebuchadnezzar, and led me up a different set of stairs than the ones to my room. As we stopped in front of Neo's door, I turned to him in confusion. "Neo? What? I don-"

Suddenly sparks erupted into flames as warmth spread from my lips toughing his to by fingers and toes. He was kissing me, and it was more real than anything. Soon we were in his room and on his cot, my dress lost along the way along with his shirt.

I closed my eyes as the ecstasy of his embrace took over my body. It was magical, it was special, and it was love…a buzzing sound filled my head as Neo's arms disappeared. My eyes opened with incredible pain and I felt as if my body were limp and fragment; long spines of iron pulling from my body. A swirling tunnel, drowning…and a light above.

Suddenly I heard it:

"Welcome to the real world."

The red ceremonial drink had finally run its course.

A/N: So, good? Bad? Too cliché? I worked really hard on this chapter, and tried to keep everyone as IC as possible…please humor me and let me think the plot had a twist! I can't believe I managed not to rush this part; I really wanted to get to that scene! I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I am enjoying writing it.

Have a good week!