A/N: My secret santa gift for codesecretsanta at tumblr for a-queenoffairys! This is also cross-posted to ao3 as amorekay. Happy holidays everyone!
It snows on their free afternoon. Aelita's set for an afternoon of catching up on schoolwork and maybe joining Jeremie later to work out the problems with their newest code, but something about the softly falling snow and the glittering white of the ground outside her window makes her feel like taking the afternoon off.
Snow is a time for having fun, so she goes looking for Odd.
"Shut the door!" Odd says, grinning, as soon as Aelita steps into his and Ulrich's dorm room. Ulrich is settled on his bed, phone in hand, looking bemused, and Odd is ... baking? He has a bowl full of batter, a messy clutter of ingredients, and a little electrical contraption sitting on his desk, as a very intently focused Kiwi drools at his feet.
"What are you doing?" Aelita asks, after a quick hello to Ulrich and a moment of bewilderment.
"Making waffles!" Odd declares. "I had this brilliant idea last week and now I have a waffle maker and an afternoon we don't have class and Jim is busy, it's perfect!"
He holds the boxed waffle mix aloft triumphantly. "With this and a little cajoling of Yumi and her outside connections—"
"He means her parents' refrigerator," Ulrich adds, wryly.
"—I'm all set for making delicious waffles right here, right now, when I'm starving before dinner time. Besides! It's a snowy day outside, it's the perfect time. How many do you want? Five? Ten?"
"Um," Aelita says. Odd's made it a goal to introduce her to food she's never had before, especially early on when they thought she was part of Lyoko, but she hasn't had this yet. She's also never had something that Odd cooked by himself, before, and she doesn't want to discount Odd, but…
"Don't worry, I'm a great chef! My sisters and I used to cook and bake all the time—one of the few times we all got along! Well…" he grimaces, "sometimes."
"Well," Ulrich says, looking down at his phone. "I need to get to pencak silat practice. Yumi and I have the gym today. Don't burn our room down, Odd, and don't get us busted either."
"Jim'll be busy with practice, and no one else is nuts enough to check the dorms at this time of day, we'll be fine!" Odd replies breezily, waving the spoon. A little bit of waffle mix splatters onto the floor and Kiwi eagerly licks it up.
Ulrich makes a face. "Don't destroy the room, either."
"Nothing to worry about!"
"And," he breaks into a grin, "save me some waffles, okay."
"Of course, good buddy." Odd winks. Ulrich gives Aelita a wave at the door and shuts it behind him. Aelita tucks herself up on to Odd's bed and watches in interest as Odd does his best to remove the first batch of waffles with a cafeteria fork.
"Hey," Odd starts, his tone speculative, "Do you think XANA could take over this waffle maker?"
He and Aelita stare at each for a moment as the question hangs in the air. She shakes her head. "Maybe you shouldn't tell Jeremie about it."
"He'd probably make me throw it out…" Odd muses. "But even Jeremie can't resist the temptation of freshly made waffles! This next batch is going to be for him! Well, for him and Kiwi."
"He might be at the factory, since we have the afternoon off." Aelita says, hugging her legs and tucking her chin onto her knees. "He's been working hard on a way to get directly to Sector 5."
Odd frowns. "Einstein works too hard. These waffles will do him a world of good!"
Aelita smiles. "You know how important it is, Odd—" he makes a noise that probably means 'yeah, sure, sure,' "—but I don't think he'd say to no to waffles either. I'll send him a text to see where he is."
"While you're waiting!" Odd exclaims, brandishing a fresh waffle on a napkin with a flourish. "I present to you… the perfect waffle made by the greatest dorm room food artist, Odd Della Robbia. Now remember to add the syrup and butter, it might get a little messy—"
He watches with anticipation as Aelita accepts the offering and takes a bite. It's delicious. Her fingers get sticky sweet with syrup and butter from the little pockets of the waffle, and it's light and fluffy on her tongue. Kiwi whines softly and Odd scoops him up, saying, "don't worry, my little diggity-dog, you're next! Oh—after Jeremie."
"He isn't answering my text…" Aelita finishes one final, delightful bite and wipes her fingers off on the napkin, hopping off the bed. "I'll go check in his room."
She's just out the door when she sees someone coming around the corner, and at the first glimpse of pink shoes her heart sinks—it's unmistakable. She freezes and starts backing up, trying to shush Odd when he cheerfully exclaims that his skills must be that good, if she's already back for another waffle. "Odd, shh! It's Sissi!"
A voice rings out in the hall. "If it isn't Aelita Stones sneaking around the boys' dorm again."
Odd groans. "Trust Sissi to ruin our great afternoon," he mutters. Aelita closes the door as much as she can, hiding the rest of the room from view. Sissi is moving toward her with purpose, grinning like she's just caught on to a great secret.
"I know you're hiding something, Della Robbia, and you've been real fishy since the moment you set foot on school grounds, Aelita Stones… if that is your real name. I wonder what my father would think about a girl in the boys' dorms during restricted hours."
"It's a miracle you can think at all, with all the hot air in your head," Odd taunts, pushing in front of Aelita to get nose to nose with Sissi.
"Why you—!"
There's footsteps on the stairs again, and Mr. Delmas' slightly disgruntled voice carries across the hall. "Sissi? Are you up here? You know you're supposed to be in your room, after Ms. Hertz told me about that terrible result on your last assignment."
Sissi freezes, mid-sentence, and Odd grins. "You flunked that? Even I—"
"Quiet!" Sissi hisses, and shoves them both further into Odd's room, pulling the door shut behind her. "If my father catches me, he's going to make me study, and it's finally a free afternoon, and I was going to go—" she pauses, and suddenly points triumphantly. "I knew you were up to something."
Kiwi looks up from chewing through the pile of waffles he's commandeered from the desk. "Aw, Kiwi," Odd says, "we were supposed to share those."
"Not only is your stinky dog here, but you have food and an electrical appliance in your room, I know that isn't allowed!"
"You would know, you have plenty of contraband stuff in your own room!"
"My hair curler is a necessity, unlike your—!"
Kiwi starts growling, backing up and bumping into Aelita's shins. She looks down at him, and then up at what he's looking at.
"Um, Odd," Aelita starts, nervously. "Is it supposed to be doing that?"
Odd turns from bickering with Sissi and looks at the waffle maker, which is suddenly releasing wisps of grey smoke and opening and closing itself like one large, square-tooth filled mouth. "Uh, nope," he says, and then the waffle maker lunges.
They narrowly dodge out of the way, Odd pulling Sissi with him and Aelita diving in the other direction towards the desks with Kiwi. "What's going on—what is that?!" Sissi starts yelling, pointing frantically at the waffle maker as it skitters across the floor. Aelita immediately grabs for her phone, sharing a look with Odd as she opens up a new unread text from Jeremie: XANA.
"Odd," she says quietly. "I need to get to Lyoko."
She stands up and the waffle maker hisses angrily, hot batter bubbling along its sides and leaving puddles on the floor, next to the angry burn mark where it first fell. "Ulrich is going to kill me," Odd bemoans, holding up a hand sticky from syrup that had spilled in the chaos. "Look, Sissi, it'll take too long to explain—"
"—Is it possessed?! I always knew this school was haunted, there's Leon Corbet in the boiler room and now this!"
"Um, sure," Aelita says. "Really possessed! A ghost! And Odd and I… have been following this ghost for a long time, and now I really need to …"
She trails off, looking helplessly at Odd. Sissi frowns. "Start a seance to make contact with the angry spirit?"
"Yes!" Aelita exclaims, relieved. "But I need to get… things … in my room."
Sissi nods, her expression suddenly turning resolute. She gets to her feet and puts her hands on her hips, staring down the hissing waffle maker. "No one believed me when I said there were ghosts in this school, but I'll show everyone. You're not going anywhere until we get an answer out of you, ghost man!"
"I prefer 'waffle monster' myself," Odd says, brandishing his recently borrowed cafeteria cutlery. "Aelita, we'll try to distract it."
She creeps closer to the door and the newly christened waffle monster turns toward her, hissing and steaming. Odd tries to get its attention with a barrage of forks and knives, but they clatter uselessly off its sides. Its metal mouth opens wide and it suddenly lunges again in Aelita's direction.
"Take this!" Sissi yells, heaving the desk chair in its direction. The leg catches the waffle monster in its open mouth as it leaps, knocking it off balance and sending it clattering to the ground on its side. Aelita takes the opportunity to hurry to the door before it can right itself, rushing into the hall and slamming the door shut behind her.
"Miss Stones? What are you doing on this floor?" Mr. Delmas is standing at the end of the hall, turned around like he was about to go down the stairs before Aelita burst out of the door. Oh no, she thinks, and tries to think quickly. Before she can say anything, Mr. Delmas lets out a long sigh and rubs his forehead. "Nevermind," he says, "have you seen Sissi? I need to talk to her."
"Um. No sir! I—was going to bring Odd something he forgot at lunch, but—he wasn't in there." She hurries towards the stairs, and then pauses and adds, carefully, "maybe she went to the cafeteria?"
"Thank you, Miss Stones," Mr. Delmas says, tiredly. "Please stay out of places you aren't supposed to be, so I don't have to see you in my office any time soon."
"Yes Mr. Delmas!"
On the way to the factory she calls Ulrich, who doesn't pick up, and Yumi, who does, and tells them to get to the factory as soon as possible. Yumi says they'll think of an excuse, and hangs up just as Aelita's pulling the cover off the forest opening into the sewers.
It turns out the waffle maker isn't the only thing that's possessed. There's a small army of animated wind-up toys waiting for her at the bottom. In any other circumstances, she thinks wistfully, they'd be cute, but they're sparking with electricity as they advance towards the sewer ladder. She shivers, regretting not dressing warmer, and then looks at the snow covered ground at her feet.
It's an idea, she thinks, and bends over to pack snow between her hands, shaping a compact snowball.
"You can do this," she says, steeling herself, and takes aim.
"Where's Odd?" Jeremie asks, when the elevator opens into the lab.
"Fighting… waffles… Sissi thinks… a ghost…" Aelita pants. The sparking arm of a little animated elf is still clinging to her sock, moving jerkily as it malfunctions and dies. Her hands feel frozen solid from packing snowballs and her legs ache from running after she earned herself an opening, but she's finally made it.
"Huh, what, Sissi?" Jeremie repeats, turning away from the monitors. He takes one look at Aelita and jumps down from his chair. "Aelita! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Jeremie," she says, with a smile, finally catching her breath. "Just got in a little snowball fight on my way here. Tell Yumi and Ulrich to watch out for XANA's minions in the sewers."
"Right," Jeremie says, still looking worried, but he turns back towards the monitors and starts dialing up a number. "There's no time—who knows what XANA will try on Lyoko this time if we leave him alone for too long."
"I'll get to the scanner room."
It ends up being a quick and seamless mission—as soon as she's on Lyoko all of her exhaustion from the sewer fades away. Ulrich and Yumi fend off their own small army of toys and join her soon after, ready to protect her on both sides. Jeremie's able to send them in not far from the activated tower, so it's a straight run through the Ice Sector from where they're virtualized. Three Krabs head them off at the tower, but Yumi gets a quick headshot on one with her fan and then she and Ulrich spread out, squaring off with the remaining two.
"We'll distract them, piece of cake," Ulrich says. "You go ahead."
Aelita nods, and waits for an opening during the fight to rush forward. "I'm here, Jeremie," she says, as she pauses outside the tower to collect herself, letting her mind fall back into the rhythm of this routine.
The hum of Lyoko washes over her as she breaches the wall, the heavy energy of the activated tower pulsing, almost overwhelming, through it and through her. Instinct takes over as she ascends to the controls and presses her hand against the screen. "Tower, deactivated," she says, as the heavy energy powers down around her, and breathes a sigh of relief.
"Good work, everyone. Return to the past, now."
Ulrich pauses at the door and says, "I don't even want to imagine what happened to the room when XANA attacked, but since you can't blame it on a XANA attack this time around—I'm serious about not making a mess, Odd."
Odd cheerfully waves him off again. "Yes, Ulrich, good buddy. Go spend quality time," he punctuates this with a wiggle of his eyebrows, getting a blush from Ulrich, "with Yumi, and I'll make the best waffles ever, like I was before XANA so rudely interrupted."
Aelita smiles from the bed and waves sweetly, "I'll keep an eye on him. Bye now."
After Ulrich's gone, Odd holds up the batter and grins at Aelita, "Ready for round two? We need to enjoy this while it lasts, before Jeremie really does make me throw this waffle maker out for being XANA bait."
"Jeremie is right, XANA did try to kill you with it," Aelita says, contemplatively, holding her grin back until Odd throws a dismayed expression her way.
He waves a fork at her and grins back. "Hey, we had some fun! You even had the snowball fight to end all snowball fights, I'm a little jealous, honestly. Besides, what's life without a little danger?"
Her response is interrupted by an explosion of loud, insistent voices right outside the door.
"Sissi? Young lady, get back here this instant, we need to talk—"
"But Daddy—!"
"Hmm, speaking of life without danger," Odd hums. He winks at Aelita. "I was going to keep the final batch to share with Kiwi, but I think I know someone who might need them even more…"
When Sissi opens her door after the most boring afternoon in existence, trapped in her room and forced to study for what felt like hours—honestly, what was her father thinking, punishing her like this?!—she nearly steps on the plate in front of her room.
"What—!" She yelps, stepping back, and then cautiously crouches down to get a closer look, wary of what could, she assumes, be some kind of a nasty prank. There's a stack of ...waffles? And a note next to it, with a little doodle of an angry looking waffle maker with a face on it. "From a secret admirer," she reads out loud. "Hmph! Well, I should be admired!"
She glances around the hall. There's no one around, and she clutches the note a little closer to her chest, her face breaking into a genuine smile.