STUPIDHUMANZZ – Wow! Thank you so much for saying that, I think now I've got a standard to live up to ;) Thanks for reviewing!

Sydney Andrews – Thanks! I agree, Animatrix characters are a lot harder to write, which is why I'm sure they're really out of character in this fic, but hey, it's artistic licence ;)

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I meant to post this yesterday, but my grandmother broke her hip, so I was in and out of the hospital. I will have the next chapters up faster (I hope!), but I've got the start of my 22 exams next week, which won't end until June, so if I'm not updating, leave a comment at my LiveJournal (link in my profile) or email me and tell me to get a move on.

By the way, if any Awakening fans are about, I will have the next chapter up soon, it's just taking longer to write than I'd hoped. Sorry about that.

Enjoy!

Chapter II: Memories

Duo opened his eyes, blinked once, and stretched out like a cat, long and full. Recently it had been harder than ever to get up. It wasn't that he was lazy or ill or anything like that.

It was because he could see Cis when he dreamed.

Probably why he enjoyed sleeping so much.

With a final stretch, he swung his legs over the side of the narrow bed, bringing himself into an upright position. He always stretched before he moved, as almost ten years of fighting and the subsequent injuries had left him stiff and inflexible first thing in the mornings. The coldness of the ship didn't help any either. In Zion they called it 'rebel's prediction', as it was meant to be a warning of things to come. The stiffness was only called that because it was pretty rare. Few people had been in the fight ten years or so.

He didn't know what they were meant to be doing today. He didn't really care. It was always the same stuff, always either repairing the ship, watching the code or jacking in to watch some new target or rather. It got so tedious, all the days ran together in an endless slipstream.

It had been different on the Hermes. It was more light-hearted – sure they were doing difficult and dangerous shit, but they were like a family. They all worked and played together. On this ship, he hadn't really wanted to get so involved again. It hadn't exactly worked out the first time…

Duo walked into the mess hall silently, a trick he had picked up over his years. Some of his crewmates, Alef and Sina, were sitting there, chatting quietly. Duo had never been able to join in properly, and they had given up trying to include him. They weren't cruel, but Duo had chosen his isolation. He hadn't even wanted to join this ship. He only did it for…

A word of Sina and Alef's conversation reached his ears, and he almost didn't believe what he was hearing. They couldn't have said that. They couldn't have known…

He wheeled around, moving so fast he made Alef visibly jump.

"Jeez, Duo, what's wrong with you?"

"What did you just say?" Duo demanded, his voice as soft and strong as before, but steely and hard. He knew Alef and

"I said 'Jeez, Duo, what's–"

"No, before that." Duo's dark face, sensitively lined with the intensity of his character, framed his blue-grey eyes, which were now clear and frozen with anger and confusion.

"I just said, are you still hung up about this?" Alef replied, indicating his food tray, his good-humoured face confused and frankly, a little weirded-out. Duo usually kept himself to himself. He wasn't exactly the type to get hung up because the food supply was running low and they were eating the stuff that was growing other stuff.

He breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't anything about Cis. When he'd heard Alef asking him if he was still hung up about Cis, his heart had almost stopped. It wasn't that it was true or anything. It just surprised him. There wasn't any truth in it…

Oh, who was he kidding?

Was there anything wrong with missing Cis, the person who'd once been closer to him than his own shadow?

Yes. They'd left everything behind them a long time ago. He hadn't even seen her in ages – except in dreams.

It was when he had dreams like those he'd had last night. He'd never slept badly in the Matrix, until he started hacking, but really, at that point in his life he'd stayed up eighteen or nineteen hours a day, and sleep, when he had got it, had come easily. In the real world, at first, he'd been plagued with visions of those he'd killed – even though they weren't real, somewhere, in some mechanical power plant, someone had died because he shot a bullet in the virtual world. That sort of shit had haunted him, but he'd learned to live with it. He couldn't bear not to. It had been almost surgical, the cut between being a remorseful killer and being a killing machine.

He thought back to the dream. He didn't want to, but he had to.

He had been in a bamboo forest, like a Japanese ink painting. He could sense the simulation around him, the unreality of it all, and he knew who had written this program. He knew Cis always liked these sorts of programs. They reminded her of her childhood, growing up in Japan. Everything about the surroundings was clean and fluid, with an artistic streak which he knew could only belong to her.

The sky was calm, almost like snow hanging above his head. He could feel Cis' presence around him, serene yet poised for action.

There. He could see her, long white cape flapping in the wind and lifting her pale hair away from her face. Her skin was unnaturally white with traditional samurai paint, with the dots of red in the corner of each eye. Yes. He remembered it so well.

He called her name, loving the sound of it.

Cis turned, her silhouette framed against the sky. Her face was expressionless, but he thought he saw something flash in her hazel eyes, something that he recognised at first. Something like recognition. But there was something else there. Something he didn't expect.

At once they were much closer, a few metres away from each other as opposed to a ravine away. He could see the anxiety in her eyes, and the pulse in her neck flickering, almost in an erratic fashion. Panic – an unusual emotion for him – filled him up. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Cis. She seemed so distant, so remote right now. Others always thought she was like that, but never with Duo was she so far away. He got to see the side of her that no-one else got to see.

The silver sword flashed in the moonlight, a sudden streak through the darkness, and a sudden, almost clinical pain in his throat. He could feel Cis next to him, but he couldn't see her. His eyes were frozen in front of him, and all he could see was the weapon that was killing him.

He saw the shorn off end in a pair of white hands, and suddenly knew with a sickening realisation, that Cis was holding the blade.

Cis had killed him.

"Duo, man," Sina was looking at him intently, scrutinising him closely. "You okay?"

Duo's hands clenched into fists involuntarily. Something about Sina really grated his nerves, and he didn't know what it was. It almost seemed irrational, as he didn't really know any of the crew very well. He didn't want to know any of them very well. He was only on this ship, the Vishnu, because of Cis. He hadn't wanted to leave her, but it was too difficult for them to see each other every day, to be around each other after everything that had happened. To spare her sanity, he'd left. Simple as that.

No. There was nothing simple about it.

"I'm fine," he lied. He twisted lithely and walked out of the room as fast as possible, forgetting his hunger. He was hardly missing anything. The goop was enough to out anyone off of eating. Goop that was growing a new furry skin definitely put you off eating anything ever again.

He made his way, thankfully uninterrupted, back to his room. He would probably be needed up on the main deck, but he wouldn't be missed for a while. They knew where to find him anyway. There was no real privacy on these hulking metal giants. When he'd been on the Hermes, he hadn't minded so much. They were all so much closer. If he wanted to be alone for a bit, no-one would mind. If there was an emergency, he'd be there, just as anyone else would have been. But he could at least have some time to think.

He remembered one time, after they'd jacked in. He'd immediately gone to his cabin, feigning tiredness, but just masking the real problem.

In the Matrix, he'd seen a date. 3rd November. Just a random date, but definitely not without significance for him. In the Matrix, he'd be celebrating however-many goddamn years of being alive. It was his birthday.

Surprisingly, he wasn't regretful, simply nostalgic. It was a rare moment of true reflection for him. He was so caught up in remembering the life, the part of him that didn't exist anymore he didn't hear the door open.

"Are you always alone like this?"

He looked up, and saw Cis, lingering in the doorway. Whilst her tone and pose were entirely casual, her eyes were completely serious, and there was a depth of concern that shocked him.

"Depends whether I want to be alone or not," he'd replied.

She smiled slightly. "Do you want to be alone now?"

He hadn't known what to say. He suddenly wanted her to stay, in his room, with him. Looking at her, he got the feeling that she knew what he was feeling so intensely that she wouldn't have wanted to leave, even if he asked her to. Duo found himself opening his mouth to ask her to stay, but the words wouldn't come. He couldn't find a string of words that would sum up everything he was feeling at that moment. So he just sat, and waited.

By the time he knew what to say, he was gone.

Duo came back to reality with a thump, feeling out of control. He wasn't used to that. He was used to feeling free, as though he could do anything, but also as though he had a purpose. He wasn't usually so caught up with his thoughts, so introverted and reflective.

If Cis met me now, would she recognise me?

This thought was followed by a bitter laugh, echoing throughout his brain. He could almost taste the poison in the sound. His head was almost reeling with everything, a feeling that closely resembled what Cis had been feeling the night before, though he couldn't know that.

The memory crept into his mind, unbidden.

He'd had a nightshift watching the Matrix. The code was difficult, and it was tiring for him to interpret, especially as it ran down almost too fast for him to read. By the end of his shift, he had a monster headache and he was pretty damn tired. He meant to walk back to his room and get as much sleep as possible, but he knew he wouldn't sleep with his headache, so he went to the mess hall to get some water.

When he'd entered, the harsh electric lighting had illuminated a solitary figure, exposing her to the world. Duo recognised Cis instantly, because even though her scalp was still covered in stubble, the pure white colour of it stood out, marking her. Having such distinctive colouring was not exactly helpful, for if a sentient program saw her, they wouldn't stint on sending in an Agent. It was beautiful though…

Cis sat up abruptly, her face paler than normal, and something not dissimilar to fear rolling over her face. Her eyes followed Duo as he moved around the room, going to the water tap. He didn't say anything, but as he turned around, he took in her features and expression, though no reaction showing on his face.

"Are you okay, Cis?" he asked finally, breaking the silence.

"Nothing – bad dream," she'd lied. He'd known it was something more. A little nightmare didn't make the whites of your eyes show. This was true fear, something stronger than your own will.

Duo said nothing, just sipped at his water, and watched her. The silence was oppressive, and she felt like she had to say something, just to break it.

"I just…" she began, her fists clenching as she struggled to find the words.

Duo watched, taking in the purpling bruise on her temple, and the streak of blood along the back of her hand, the skin around it raw, as though it had been grazed by a bullet…

"It was your first kill today, wasn't it?" he asked her, his low, rich voice kept quiet so that she could deny hearing it if she wanted to.


She didn't though. She met his eyes squarely, her clear hazel eyes reflecting the lights in the room. She seemed so vulnerable, so broken, yet there was a core of strength within her that didn't diminish.

Her hands were clenching so tightly he thought her nails were going to pierce her skin. Suddenly, without warning, the claws relaxed and she placed them over her eyes, covering up the clear pools of emotion.

She didn't let herself sob. She just needed to pretend to herself that she was away from him, that he couldn't see her.

Cis knew he was there. And she didn't want to tell him. Her traitorous tongue however, moved before her brain kicked in.

"I pulled the trigger," she said softly, her voice slightly thicker than usual. "I watched him fall. It was so easy…"

She couldn't see, but she felt herself fitting easily into his arms. In fact, she didn't really know how it had happened. It just did.

Duo had no idea what had possessed him to hug her. There was so much he wanted to say, like he knew how she felt. Everyone did. Everyone had killed someone for the first time, and everyone had been traumatised by it, no matter how well they hid it. He wanted to tell her that she would be okay, not just because it got easier, but because he knew how strong she was. He'd watched her train, helped her spar, watched her as a crewmate and friend, and he knew just how strong she was. She would be okay.

He couldn't say any of that though, so he just hugged her.

She let herself hug him back, and he could feel her smaller frame beneath his. There, in that moment, had he first let himself realise it. Realise what was coming true…

Duo came out of the memory with a bittersweet smile. Even though they stung, thinking about Cis, about the way things were, still kept him feeling human on the inside. It was so easy to become numb in this war, to forget what shred of humanity you had left. But Cis had helped him find his humanity.

But he couldn't forget his dream.

Blood running down the sword, falling onto the stone. He knew he was dying. And his last thought, the last thing he would ever consciously think in this lifetime…

I'm so sorry, Cis…

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