I seem completely incapable of having normal pairing loves. And recently I rewatched Code Lyoko and remembered how much I adored it. Make of this what you will. Reviews feed my muse.
Four years old, Maya Stern knows her family loves her. Mama kisses her when she drops her off at daycare. Papa reads her bedtime stories every night when he's not working the late shift. Her older sisters Kimi and Erika let her dress up in their clothes. Her baby brother Ken wraps his little fist around her finger when Mama lets her hold him.
Uncle Odd lives with them, and he's always happy to throw her up high into the air or play-fight on the living room carpet. He picks her up and swings her around and calls her "little princess." She's always glad when he calls her that, because he tells wonderful stories about how Mama and Papa and he saved a princess in a special world they went to when they were children.
When she has a nightmare, she can crawl into the big bed with Mama and Papa and Uncle Odd. Sometimes she can have a sleepover with Kimi and Erika, and they all share Uncle Odd's room, which is big and purple and has a nice bed with no railings on it to keep her from falling out. Kimi and Erika sleep on the outside so she doesn't fall off the bed. Uncle Odd almost never sleeps there at night, but he sits on his bed to write, and it smells like him.
Aunt Aelita and Uncle Jeremie live in Paris, but they come down once every month or so and bring Francois, who's not their cousin but is the best at hide and seek. The grownups sit in the kitchen with Ken and talk and Maya and her sisters and Francois run around outside until it's dinnertime.
Maya's already decided she's going to marry Francois when she grows up, because he's only a little older than her, but big enough to pick her up and spin her around and that makes him the best boy ever.
She tells Uncle Odd this after Francois says that she's the only girl he knows that doesn't have cooties, and he laughs at her and ruffles her hair.
"Well, we should start planning your dress soon, shouldn't we, little princess?" he says. Maya grins because Uncle Odd never thinks she's being funny when she tells him important things, like that she's going to marry Francois or that she found a fairy in the garden but let it go.
"I love you, Papa Two," she says, and Uncle Odd gives her a hug like he always does when she calls him Papa Two.
Six years old, Maya's starting school, and it's a lot more confusing. The teacher, who just wants to be called Madame, is nice though, plump and soft and easy to hug and good at explaining.
She asks the class to draw a picture of their family, and Maya's really happy when she gets to explain it to the whole class.
"This is my Papa – he's a gendarme(1), he has a gun and uses it to stop badguys. This is my Mama, she owns a Japanese restaurant. That's cause she's Japanese and I am too, even though I don't look like it. These are my sisters Kimi and Erika. They're twins, but Erika has curly hair, so you can always tell them apart. This is my baby brother Ken, he's only three and he can't talk very well yet. This is my Uncle Odd. He writes books, and sometimes he goes all over the world to sell them and sign copies for people. – "
"What sort of books does your uncle write, Maya?" Madame asks.
"Stories. About a place he went when he was a kid. Lyoko."
"Ah, I've read those. When you next see your uncle, tell him I liked them very much."
"Okay, I'll tell him tonight!"
"Tonight? Is he visiting?"
"No, he lives with me and Mama and Papa and Ken and Kimi and Erika."
"I see. Go on. Who's the woman with pink hair?"
"That's my aunt Aelita. And my uncle Jeremie. And their son Francois, who I'm going to marry when I grow up!"
"But isn't he your cousin?"
"No, because Aunt Aelita and Uncle Jeremie aren't related to us, really. My real uncle is Hiroki, but he lives in Japan and I only met him once when I was too little to remember. Uncle Odd isn't my real uncle either. He's more like my second papa.."
"I see," Madame purses her lips, "Well, it's a very nice picture. You should take it home to show to your parents. Amelie, will you be next?"
At nine years old, it occurs to Maya to wonder why she's the only one in her family with blonde hair.
She then spends a lot of time wondering about it, because it's easier to wonder about strange genetics (she likes that word a lot, she's read the dictionary a quarter of the way through and learned a lot of new words) than why Mama has all those lines under her eyes and why Papa always comes home looking sad and not cheering up until Mama and Uncle Odd have hugged him a lot.
It's easier to wonder if maybe she spent so much time playing with Uncle Odd when she was a baby that the blonde hair rubbed off on her than wonder why the mysterious and strange thing called "puberty" is making Erika pretend to be shy around boys and Kimi seem to get angry and start yelling over stupid things.
It's a lot easier than wondering why Francois has decided all of a sudden that she has cooties even though they're both old enough to know there's no such thing. He and Ken have started a 'no girls allowed' club and it makes her want to cry.
At least Uncle Odd is still the same. He takes her seriously and answers her questions as best he can.
But either he's getting dumber, or her questions are getting harder.
When she's thirteen years old, Maya figures it out. Mama, Papa, and Uncle Odd are a ménage a trois, and she is not Papa's daughter.
They were lying to her, so she says it at dinner when Aelita and Jeremie and Francois are there too, so everyone will know that they lied.
"You aren't my uncle, are you?" She says to Uncle – no, just Odd. He lied, they all lied, and so he doesn't get to be uncle anymore.
Unc – Odd looks at her curiously, "No, I'm not. You already knew that, though."
Maya takes a deep breath. Aelita and Mama are still talking, and Francois is shoveling in food, but she gets their attention when she looks at Papa, takes a deep breath and says, "You aren't my father."
"Maya!" Mama says, shocked.
Everyone's eyes are on her now.
"It's true, isn't it?" she demands, looking at Mama and then back at Papa, "You aren't my father. Uncle Odd is."
There is a very long silence. Everyone is staring at her, but she looks only at Mama, Papa, and Odd. Her gaze flickers back and forth between the three of them, waiting for one of them to dare to say anything now that she knows she's been lied to.
Odd puts his fork down on his plate, and rests his forehead in his hand. He looks like he's about to cry.
"Maya. Maya, I…"
"You lied to me."
"We did not," Mama says, "we just decided that you all would have an easier life if –"
"You lied to me!" She whirls angrily on Mama. She can't even look at Papa, who looks as tense and sad as he did when he came home from the hospital after his partner was shot. She definitely can't look at Odd, because if she does then she'll start crying, and she already is trying to avoid tearing up. She's not sad, she's angry and why won't her stupid tear ducts agree?
"Don't," Odd says quietly, "It was my decision. I just thought that you would have an easier life if you all called me your uncle. It was easier than a paternity test for each of you, and it would save you grief in school. I just wanted to be part of your lives in a way that wouldn't make you freaks to anyone."
He's crying, and that makes Maya start to tear up, too.
"It was the wrong choice, but how was I supposed to tell you?"
Papa reaches over and puts an arm around Odd's shoulders, "Don't feel guilty. It was all of our decisions."
He stands up, "Maya, come here."
As angry as she is, she can't even think of disobeying. She stands up slowly and walks around the table, and Papa leans down and hugs her tightly.
"I love you," he says, "You are my daughter whether or not we share the same blood. You are Odd's daughter not because he's your father, but because he raised you. Erika and Kimi are Odd's daughters just as much as they're mine, and Ken is Odd's son and mine too. We're a family, all of us, and it doesn't matter who's called 'Papa' or 'Uncle'. It would have been me, but Odd was adamant that it be him."
"You and Yumi are married," Odd says quietly, "I'm just the cool uncle."
"You know very well you aren't an uncle," Aelita says sharply, speaking for the first time since Maya dropped her bomb, "Their uncle lives in Japan and they barely know him. You're their father, Odd. How many years have we been trying to drill that into your brain?"
"I've never pretended to understand what kind of family you three have," Jeremie says quietly, "But I know it's a family."
Odd nudges between Papa and Maya, and Maya turns around to hug him tightly. He kisses her forehead and strokes her hair – the same color as his, why didn't she ever think about it before?
"I'm sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to make you upset."
Which is kind of stupid, now that she thinks about it. Because she was upset, and wasn't her entire goal to make them understand how upset she was, which would of course make them get upset, too?
There's a long silence, and then Ken breaks it with, "Does this mean Maya's only my half-sister?"
It makes Maya laugh, and she has a very embarrassing booger bubble because of it. Mama laughs, too, and she picks Ken up out of his seat and hugs him – to noisy protest.
"She's your sister, Ken," Mama says, "Just your sister."
Erika and Kimi get out of their seats to join the hugging as well, even though they decided years ago they were too old for hugs, and Maya's whole family is crowded around her, hugging her, and everything's more or less okay.
It's going to be weird, but for now, they all love her and she can deal with the rest later.
After all, life turns upside down for everyone at thirteen, why should she be an exception?
(1)-policeman. Ulrich seems the type, y'know?