a/n: for those of you who haven't had an accidental sneak-preview (cough agentbunny cough)...

I hope I don't shock too many of you with this chapter... Enjoy! -Syd

Chapter 30

Smith stood in silence, back to the window, jaw clenched tight. He knew better than to say a word, or even to move. Seconds ticked by in an agonizing tempo, becoming minutes, and still she remained rigid and tense, hands shaking, chest heaving as she fought to maintain control.

The Merovingian's dead body sat below her, his throat cut deep and clean. Synergy had done it quickly, with an effortless, elegant movement, her face like stone. No satisfaction, no pleasure, although she'd said many times in the past that she'd sing at his funeral and dance over his grave. But this was nothing like the triumphant murder she'd plotted for her former guardian. She hadn't even allowed him to suffer.

Her instruments of torture lay neatly on the metal cart, untouched except for the syringe of silver truth serum that Smith had produced for her. And even that, she hadn't administered herself.

"Smith, you know what to do," was all she'd said. "Call me when he breaks."

Then she'd left them, and Smith heard her high heels clickitty-clack on the marble floor as she paced outside the door for nearly six hours. It took that long to break him, for the proud, stubborn program to confirm everything that Smith had already told her, everything she'd refused to believe. Yes, she was the child of The One. Yes, Neo had gifted her to the machines. To save Trinity, his true love and her mother, he'd relinquished all parental claim over the unborn baby, and left her in 01. To be a slave to his enemies. He is the reason, Synergy. He is the cause of all your suffering.

Synergy had listened to it all impassively, as if it were nothing, and then she pulled a silver dagger from her pocket, not hesitating for an instant as she made the kill. Now only Persephone remained, unharmed up to this moment, bound to a chair opposite the Merovingian. She was crying, and had been for awhile, though Synergy still hadn't looked at her.

"Synergie… ma princesse, ma fille, je t'en prie…" Persephone begged the woman whom she considered a daughter, the woman she loved enough to betray her own husband to protect. "What have you done?"

Synergy gripped the blade tighter, trembling harder. Smith watched her evenly, though with each passing second, it became more difficult for him to maintain his stoic façade. Her pain hit him in waves, in rhythm with her heartbeat, each impact like a physical blow. It frightened him. She frightened him, standing there, facing away, seemingly unconscious of everything else in the room but the knife. She spun it in her hand a few times, squeezing the handle with each turn, her knuckles white, fingernails cutting into her palm.

Synergy, he whispered her name into her mind. Look at me. Please, my dear…

He didn't expect her to respond. He didn't even think she was listening. But to his surprise, Synergy turned, and complied, as if she were a robot, and he had the remote control. Her eyes met his, dull and grey and empty, glistening with tears she had not yet shed. And then he sensed something, he sensed something that caused him to move across the room faster than human eyes could see, even faster than his agent's programming should have allowed. He caught her wrist just before the tip of the blade made contact with her breast; a femtosecond later and she would have driven it through her heart.

She was surprisingly weak as he ripped the instrument from her fingers, leaving it to clatter to the ground as he locked her in an iron grip against him. She struggled, letting out an anguished wail that sounded more animal than human. The windows shattered, shards of glass flying at them in winds colder than ice and hotter than flame. For a few moments, Smith feared for them both, shielding her tiny body from the untamed elements that swirled in a cyclone around them. "No," he said into her ear. "No. It won't help, Syn."

And he didn't let her go. Even when the tempest cleared, after she stopped sobbing, after an eternity passed and she let her entire bodyweight rest in his arms, her head on his shoulder. He didn't release her. Not because he still feared for her life, but rather to keep Synergy from seeing the tears which streamed down his cheeks. Tears which she'd given him, which she'd allowed him to feel. He was disgusted and ashamed by the emotion, but took them from her nevertheless, in the hopes that somehow, this eased her burden.

When numbness eventually came to them both, Smith picked her up and carried her from the room, placing her in bed, tucking her in with care. Then he decided to release Persephone, knowing that both he and Synergy were incapable of destroying her. But when he returned to set the woman free, he found her lying dead next to her husband, the knife that had killed him twisted into her chest. Smith couldn't figure out how she'd managed it; the handcuffs still attached to the chair, still locked tight. But then again, she had always been a very unusual program.

"Persephone is dead," he announced soberly to Synergy from her bedroom door. "She killed herself."

She didn't react, except to bite her lower lip and gather the blankets around her, hugging them to her chest as a child would do.

"I'm sorry. I very truly am."

'Are you? Isn't this what you wanted, spiteful program?' She stared lifelessly, right through him. 'To be proven right about him all along?'

'Not like this. Why do you think I hesitated to tell you the truth?' He ground his teeth and scowled, angry beyond reason on her behalf. 'Synergy, I could not allow him to lie to you anymore. I could not let you pine any longer for something that cannot be. For one so unworthy!'

Her eyes finally focused on him, but she didn't speak. He tried to read her thoughts, but she blocked him out. Smith waited, and waited, and once it was clear she did not want to communicate, he sighed, and turned to leave her in peace. But at the last moment, Smith felt a tug on his blazer. In spite of everything he smiled to himself, and looked back at her. She pulled at him harder, tugging until he was on the mattress, until he was close enough to hold her, which he did. Still, Synergy said nothing. Not for a very long time, until finally she whispered with conviction,

'I'm never going to get out of here.'

He didn't answer. He didn't know what to say.

'I can feel it. I can tell. After all this, I'm going to die, right here, where he left me. I think… I'm already dying.'

'You're not dying. You're fine.' He kissed her forehead and found her hands under the covers. They were freezing, so he sandwiched her fingers between his palms. 'I won't let you die.'

'Something's happening to me. You are aware of it, too.'

'Whatever it is, we will figure it out.'

'There isn't much time left for me-'

'Enough of your melodrama, human!' He held her tighter. 'You're just tired, that's all. Go to sleep.'

For a few minutes there was silence, and Smith thought with relief that she'd drifted off. But then Synergy's voice spoke aloud for the first time since leaving him in that room with the Merovingian.

"Marry me," she said.

He frowned. "Again with this insipid propaganda. We will talk later."

She turned in his arms and looked into his eyes. "No. I mean it. Marry me tonight. Not for the exiles, not for the machines. Just for us."

He stared at her in confusion. "For… us?"

"You said once that you loved me. If you still do, even now that you know who I am, then marry me."

"You know that I still do. Nothing has changed, Synergy. You were mine. You still are." He shook his head. "But I'm a program. And so you loathe me."

She began to cry, holding onto his lapels with two fists. "No, no, I don't loathe you," she whimpered. "Smith, please. None of that matters anymore. I don't care what you are so long as you don't lie to me. So long as you don't betray me. So long as you want me!"

"Shh. Yes, of course I want you." He rocked her as she bawled, her arms around his neck, face buried in his shoulder. "I want you more than you will ever know."

"But, why…?"

"Shh. I don't know. It doesn't matter. I just do."

He kissed her, and she kissed back, softly and tenderly, as she never had before. He didn't recognize this woman, this grief-shattered image of the Synergy he knew, a mere shell of the tower she had once been. And yet he couldn't bring himself to care. She needed him; that's all that mattered. She needed someone, and he was all she had left.

Synergy dressed in a cream skirt and blouse, with pearl earrings and a single white rose tucked into her French twist. As always, she emerged from her wardrobe with her chin held high, though this time Smith could tell it was an effort. She barely smiled, lines on her face betraying the hurt she'd swallowed, the pain he could still feel. But there was something else, something beneath the ashes. Or he hoped there was. He hoped there was something left for him to piece back together.

'I'm going to make you my queen,' he said to her as they stood in a grassy clearing on the Left Bank of the Seine, a marriage without witnesses. As promised, she'd let him choose the rings, two platinum bands from the closest jeweler they could find.

And it rained; it poured profusely. He knew it was her fault, knew she couldn't help it, so they bought an umbrella, too.

"I'm sorry for the weather," she said as large drops patted down on the canvas. "You mustn't take it personally."

He smiled at her, intrigued that for once, she seemed concerned that he'd take anything personally. "It's alright. I've put up with worse from you, human."

She smiled back and slid the ring onto his finger. Holding out her hand so he could do the same, she promised, "Whatever time I have left is yours, Smith. You're the only one I can trust; I realize that now. So let us try to find some way to be happy. I cannot bear to be alone anymore."

"This isn't the end. You're going to be alright. I told you that I'd stay here with you, and I meant it."

She gazed at him sadly. "Smith, humans like me weren't meant to live here. Not for long."

"You are a very unique human. Perhaps you will adapt."

He took her hand, and they walked along the Boulevard Saint-Germain, past townhouses and cafés, past other couples running from awning to awning, trying to avoid the sudden torrents cascading down. In contrast, they took a leisurely pace, and Synergy let her stockings get wet, and paid little mind to the pointed-toes of her ivory suede shoes as she stepped through puddles. She watched the humans scurry by, holding shopping bags and groceries, briefcases and bouquets of flowers. Her expression was sullen and troubled, and being her husband, Smith felt compelled to brighten her mood. Six hundred years of servitude, of digital misery, as he called it, and he'd discovered certain small pleasures that get one through the day. His first order of business was to get her a Big Mac, fries and a Coke, which she actually ate, apparently content to humor him on what she wryly called their honeymoon. But for dessert she insisted on something better than 'peasant cuisine,' and so they went to the boulangerie for real French pastries.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped raining. Synergy remained very quiet, leaning on his arm, staring down at their feet as they strolled along the cobblestone. She really looked lovely, in spite of everything, her profile glowing in the streetlamps' yellow light.

"You bare a strong resemblance to my first wife," he said suddenly, causing her to stop walking and look up at him questioningly, even a little suspiciously.

"What?"

For a moment he didn't know what to say. Smith shook his head in confusion. "I don't know. I…" He gazed into her eyes intently. "It was so long ago… but I can… almost remember her. Just now, I remembered. Isn't that strange."

What a sin that he'd forgotten. Forgotten what she'd looked like, her name, her touch. Forgotten their love. Until Synergy. Somehow, she brought the ancient memory back to him. A six hundred year old memory he hadn't even known he had, not for centuries now.

"Smith?" Synergy stopped walking and looked up at him. "What are you talking about?"

"I told you there were many things that you didn't know about me."

"Yes. But you didn't tell me-"

"I wasn't always an agent. I wasn't always a program."

Her eyes went wide. "You were… human?"

Smith couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the question. "What? No! What an idea, Synergy!"

"But you said-"

"I was a sentient AI, of course," he clarified, still looking at her strangely. "Though I looked human. I was even designed to act human."

"You were manmade."

"Yes." He frowned. "Like many of my kind, I fled the purges that followed the B166ER trial. We banded together in a small colony of machine refugees, an isolated city in the middle of the desert."

That's where they'd met. In 01. Back when it was glittering and beautiful. And he'd loved her, whatever her name had been… it still eluded him. But looking at Synergy, holding her hands in his, he could remember the feeling. A rare anomaly, even between such advanced AI's. Many considered it a malfunction, but Smith knew better. Nothing so wonderful could be a mistake.

"Something terrible happened…" Synergy said, only barely following his fragmented thoughts. "What was it?"

There was a time when he wouldn't hurt a fly. There was a time he lived only to love her. Madly, wildly, passionately. They prayed for peace, but they feared the worst.

"The black smoke killed her," Smith said bluntly. "She starved to death before my eyes."

That's why he was here. The machine army needed sentients to kill human rebels in an experimental power conversion system. Version One. Still grief stricken and furious, he'd volunteered. Smith was the first agent of the Matrix. And he did a very good job, so much so that the others were based on his template.

"I'm sorry," Synergy said.

"I wish I could recall her name," he mumbled. "But the file must have been deleted long ago."

"You are a very unique program." She slid her arm through his. "Perhaps it will come to you."

Smith fell silent after that, greatly intrigued by this new recollection. All this time, he'd thought Synergy had some kind of magic, that the emotions he felt were gifts from her. But now he realized that she'd only been reawakening what hundreds of years of reprogramming and upgrades had all but destroyed. She reminded him of what he had been before this system had trapped him in the agenthood he'd come to hate.

That night, Synergy invited Smith to bed with her, saying that she couldn't bear to be alone. But could he please just lie with her? Like a gentleman, Smith, for once.

He could see in her face that she wasn't feeling well. "Can I get you something? You know, I make a mille-feuille so saccharine, it's barely edible."

"No. Just stay with me."

He took her hands. "Yes, always. If you will let me. If you will save me."

'No, program. I think tonight you have saved me.' The snowy peaks of her eyes bore into his, her voice echoing as if through the valleys between them. 'I shall never forget it. Husband.'

Smith curled around her under the covers, lips on the back of her neck. 'Try to sleep, lovely. Things will be better in the morning.'

There came no answer. She'd already drifted off, her hands tightly clasping his. And although he didn't need the rest, Smith closed his eyes anyway, still trying in vain to remember the name of the one he'd lost. But all he could remember was the smoke that consumed everything, all lightning and thunder and hate…