Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine.

Chapter 2

"Stop it." Her voice cut through the thick air of their small apartment. She rolled over in bed, eyes stained with sleep, breath heavy from her jaunt in the dream world.

"I thought you were asleep," he said quietly, turning his attention to her for only a brief moment before returning his gaze to the sleeping baby.

"Leave her alone."

"She's sleeping. I'm not bothering her."

"Neo," she said a bit louder, "you're bothering me. Come back to bed."

He rose from his position on the floor, where he had been kneeling at the side of the small cradle, and slowly climbed into bed. Trinity pulled the covers over him and moved closer, tucking her arm under his and nuzzling his neck. He smelled like baby, like their baby. She was sure he had been cradling Nysa in just that spot, holding her to his chest, her dark hair tickling his neck just where her lips lay now. Everything seemed different when cloaked in that sweet smell, like not only had her life changed, but the entire world as well.

For nearly a year after the final battle, if it could be called that, and their mysterious return to Zion, Neo and Trinity both seemed to move through life like someone wading through deep water, trudging constantly but making little to no progress. They wondered why they were alive, why they had been spared, and spent so much time contemplating this that they were unable to do much else. The only thing that kept them from falling away entirely and retreating within was each other. They shared the same journey, same experience, and above all else, the same love, and this allowed them to go on. But still, even through the months of pregnancy when it seemed they had so much to look forward to, so much to concentrate on aside from their fears and meditations, the couple remained aloof and seemed to their friends to be mere shells of the Neo and Trinity they once knew.

Then it happened. The pains started late one night and by early morning, far sooner than anyone expected, Trinity gave birth to a baby girl. It was then that life seeped back into her veins. In the final moments of labor she let the pain wash over her, all through her, let it course through every inch of bone and fiber until it reached the very tips of every nerve ending, and then she let go. As the child fled from her womb so did all the pain, anxiety, and doubt, all the concern over the past and worry over the future, the need for explanations and reasons. With her daughter's first cries she was liberated from all uncertainty. It didn't matter why the machines had spared her, what reason they had for ensuring her existence, she knew then and there that her reason for being at all was to be Nysa's mother.

When she died the second time, what she thought would have been the final time, she had no fear, no regrets. Her purpose in life, so far as she knew, was simply to love Neo. And what a wonderful raison d'être it was. Even after their return when she was filled with such insecurity, he kept her going, not just him, but her powerful love for him, the feeling itself was enough to breath life into her. But this was so much more. This was beyond any expression of love; Nysa was an embodiment of their love. It all seemed so simple after the fact, so simple that she should have seen it long before. She had never even thought of having children, of bringing more life into a world surrounded by war and death, but sometimes the things you desire the least are the ones you one day find you can not live without. She was complete, mother, father, and child, all different manifestations of the same love; her own little holy Trinity.

Seeing his daughter for the first time changed Neo too. Though he had known for nearly nine months that he was going to be a father, and seemed pleased if not outwardly excited at the prospect, none of it was real until he looked into her eyes. Chocolate brown, a bit sleepy, hazy, seemingly sad yet somehow smiling underneath. They were his eyes. So much had he seen with those eyes, years of unreality within the Matrix. Sunrises and sunsets, children playing in the lush parks of the city, lovers holding hands on the subway dressed for a night out. And of course the things that were real, both good and bad. People dying, sentinels attacking, the Matrix code he had learned to recognize so well. Trinity. All these things were a part of him and now looking down at his baby girl, gazing into those eyes that were also his own, he knew that they were a part of her as well.

The Oracle was right; everything that has a beginning has an end. But she failed to mention that the end of something does not signify its absolute death or deletion, it does not move into utter nonexistence, it is merely transformed. He would die one day, already had in fact, but his child would always carry him within her, bits and pieces that she would think were her own but the universe would somehow recognize as his. He could never truly die so long as she lived.

Being born of the Matrix the idea that a person could be a sort of amalgam of others had not occurred to him since his release. He had no real parents and could not therefor be made up of them, but she was. She blinked at him with his eyes and grabbed his finger with Trinity's strength, a grip that said, 'I will never let go.' And he was overwhelmed with the realization that he was in fact alive, his heart beat inside this shell, as it must have been doing all along, though he never really felt it. All the time he spent inside the Matrix, feeling underneath it all that there was more to the world, that all he knew was somehow separate from what was actually real. All the time he had spent since then living in a reality he could barely comprehend, one he often bitterly resented, and it was only now that he could see there was a reality outside of both of these places. His daughter was real, his family was real, and nothing else mattered.

He reflected on this thought as he felt Trinity's breath on his neck, her lips pressed to his skin. Being freed from the Matrix was a blessing, saving Zion was a pleasure, but she was without a doubt the greatest thing to ever happen to him. He often thought of her death, not the first, which he never doubted he could bring her back from, but the one he thought had separated them forever. It made him ache and somehow she always sensed this.

"Stop," she whispered, so close to his ear he felt the moisture from her breath condense on his skin.

"What am I doing now?" he said almost jokingly, though knowing full well what she meant.

"I'm here, Neo. I'm right here." He turned to her then and they kissed, deeply, passionately, with no thought of stopping, even if it meant certain suffocation. They fell into each other, their bodies melding together until they almost seemed as one, until their rhythmic heartbeats took on a shared pace. Until…the baby began to cry.

"She's hungry," Trinity said, slowly pulling away from his embrace.

"Then you should feed her."

She smiled wryly at him, her daughter's cries echoing in her ears as she rose to gather the baby in her arms. Neo rolled over on his side and propped himself up on his elbow watching as she began to suckle Nysa.

"You know that makes me nervous," she said without meeting his gaze.

"Can't perform with an audience?"

"I don't really do much, she's the one in charge."

"Always," he said as he let his head slip back onto the pillow.

"Get some sleep, you need it. I know how tiring it can be watching sleeping babies…sleep."

"It is exhausting."

"Tomorrow, or I guess later today, really, we're supposed to go see Link and Zee. I think she wants Link to have more practice holding a baby before theirs comes, not that there's much time for practice. I don't really understand it though, I mean she's seen him with their niece and nephew, he's great with kids. I guess it's just new mother nervousness. Neo?" It was too dark for her to see that his eyes were closed, but the distinctive way he was breathing, not to mention the slight snore every few seconds told her he was already asleep.