For A
Moment, I Was Human
By Cybra
A/N: It's highly recommended that you read Flying Star's awesome fic "Twisted Reality" first. After all, this fic is based on hers. Written with her permission.
To Flying Star: Because I can't leave Alter Jeremy alone.
Disclaimer: Code Lyoko belongs to the French. The story idea this spawned from is Flying Star's.
I loved her once.
Oh, yes, the mad teenage dictator who killed the leader of a major superpower had at one time cared for someone. And the current commander of his enemies to boot.
Things were different then. Much different.
Then she was the sweet, naïve artificial intelligence who wanted nothing more than to join her friends and me on Earth. I worked on her materialization as part of the farce that XANA and I built. All of the while, XANA grew stronger as I prepared for the moment I would betray them and then begin dominating the human filth.
I was kind to her out of necessity. All part of the role I had to play in the grand scheme of things.
But she…
Aelita was kind to me because she honestly cared. If my glasses were damaged again—courtesy of Sissi, her lackeys, or some other idiot—she showed concern because she was truly worried about me. She saw me not as the boy at the keyboard who was going to pull her out of a virtual world but as Jeremy, a person with thoughts and emotions all his own.
Something no human being had ever bothered to notice.
Sometimes I regret my betrayal as I lie awake at night with only my plans and dark dreams to accompany me.
Because in the beginning, just for a moment, I was human.