My non-canon, yet plausible take on what happened after the events of Code Lyoko's 73rd episode, "Replika," which has arguably proven itself quite famous (or infamous, depending on who you are) for Odd and Aelita's kiss done to protect the secret of the factory.
I don't own Code Lyoko or any of its respective characters, they belong rightfully to MoonScoop.
It had been only a week since the group explored the first of possibly many of XANA's Replikas, and they still had no idea how to destroy them. Undeterred, Jeremy worked away at the lab's interface, looking for anything that could be done to destroy them as Aelita intently watched over his shoulder.
The memories of last week's events were still fresh in his mind: the group explored the exact copy of Lyoko's forest sector, fighting off XANA's monsters and William in the process. The operation had nearly come to a disaster, however, when Herve and Nicolas found their way into the factory, having seen Aelita and Odd enter.
Jeremy did what he could to keep them from finding out about the supercomputer, but without the benefit of a return to the past—to protect their new submarine, the Skidbladnir, Jeremy had to divert the supercomputer's power to the sub's shields, disabling the time reversion. Odd came up with an idea to solve the problem. He and Aelita devirtualized themselves, then kissed in front of Herve and Nicolas in order to make it look like the two were on a date.
Jeremy had to give Odd credit—the idea worked. But it also made him very jealous. And for what reason? It wasn't as if there was anything going on between Aelita and Odd. Heck, the entire school believed that they were cousins. The kiss had done its job—the secret of the factory was safe. Still...
What was going through Odd's head when he thought of that? Jeremy wondered to himself bitterly. Couldn't he have thought of something better?
That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the fact that Aelita followed along with the idea. Aelita—who he had worked so hard for to let her live a normal life, even when he thought she wasn't even human. And after all that, to think that she followed through with Odd's rash idea...
Jeremy shook those thoughts off. Odd and Aelita's kiss meant nothing. Nothing at all.
Didn't it?
An alerting series of beeps brought Jeremy back to reality. The image of a virtual representation of one of Lyoko's towers popped up on the interface's monitor screen. XANA had activated a tower.
Jeremy typed in a few commands, revealing the tower's location in Lyoko's desert sector.
"I'll call Odd and let him know," announced Aelita.
"No!" Jeremy blurted out, causing Aelita to jump. Immediately, Jeremy wished he hadn't said anything. "Um...I'll tell Odd," he said, embarrassed. "You call Yumi and Ulrich."
Greatly confused, Aelita cancelled the call and instead dialed Yumi's number. Meanwhile, true to his word, Jeremy called Odd from the interface.
"Hey, Einstein!" Odd's voice rang out from Jeremy's headset. Jeremy grimaced at the thought of having to put up with Odd.
"Odd, listen to me," Jeremy said, trying to sound as calm as possible. "Is Ulrich with you?"
"Of course he's with me," Odd responded. "We're planning a foosball tournament. Ulrich and Yumi want to take me on, and I was wondering if Aelita would like to help even things out."
Something inside Jeremy snapped. First the kiss, now this?
"Forget about it, Odd!" exclaimed Jeremy, harshly. "XANA's activated a tower. Tell Ulrich, and don't waste any time!"
"All right, all right," Odd replied in his trademark demeanor, seemingly unaffected by Jeremy's standoffish behavior. "Don't sweat it, we'll be over there." He hung up his phone.
Having called Yumi, Aelita waited for Jeremy to stop talking to Odd, but not before listening to their conversation. She noted Jeremy's unusual amount of animosity towards Odd, and wondered if it had anything to do with what happened last week.
"Yumi's on her way," Aelita said to Jeremy after he stopped talking to Odd, pretending not to notice his cold mood.
"Hmm," Jeremy acknowledged bluntly. As if trying to get his mind off of whatever he was thinking about, Jeremy began to scan the area around the tower for signs of William or any of XANA's monsters that might threaten the group once they reached Lyoko.
Aelita knew that it would be anywhere between five to ten minutes before the others arrived. Until then, she and Jeremy would be alone together in the lab.
In the silence between her and Jeremy, Aelita spent some of that time thinking about last week's incident. How she and Odd kissed in the elevator—it was nothing, really; just another one of Odd's classic plans. He was one of her best friends, but she thought of nothing romantic between them.
And yet—Aelita also recalled how Jeremy behaved that night and in the days that followed. Every time the Replikas or the events of that night were brought up, he would look clearly bothered. It didn't stop there; Jeremy would become very irritable towards Odd whenever he was around or talking to him or Aelita. Sometimes, it even got to the point to where he would deliberately place himself between them—such as offering to call Odd for her just a few moments ago.
The main reason Aelita agreed to follow along with Odd's plan was for the sake of the secret. And it worked perfectly—Herve and Nicolas were convinced that she and Odd were on a date (even though Sissi never believed them in turn), keeping the secret safe. Why was it, then, that Jeremy acted so jealous around Odd since the kiss?
Or—what if Jeremy actually was jealous? To Aelita, the idea of Jeremy being jealous over the kiss was too much for her to leave alone.
"Jeremy, is it all right if I ask you something about what happened last week?" she asked him.
"What, exactly?" he asked her back.
"About the kiss. Just between us, how did it make you feel?"
Jeremy hesitated for a second, trying to think of a response. Aelita saw him glance around nervously. "Well—" he began, unable to keep himself from pausing mid-sentence, "—it was good thinking on Odd's part, and it helped protect the secret."
"I see," Aelita said, seemingly satisfied. After a pause, she asked, "It didn't make you feel jealous at all?"
"W-Why should it have?" he replied, beginning to sound somewhat uncertain. "The kiss didn't mean anything. It was just to protect the secret, that's all."
"True," Aelita agreed. "But what if that wasn't the only reason?"
"Aelita...?"
"What if there really was something going on between me and Odd? Would you still not feel jealous?"
Jeremy tugged at the collar of his shirt. His mind raced to think of something that would satisfy her, but he could only let out a faltered response, "Well...I...um..."
"Jeremy," said Aelita, placing her hand on his shoulder, then looking into his eyes, "stop trying to make things up. Tell me the truth. Would you be jealous or not?"
Jeremy sighed again, this time in defeat. Then, gathering his courage, he answered, "Yes, Aelita. I would be jealous."
"Why?" Aelita asked again, anticipating what Jeremy would say next.
Jeremy, still unable to speak without pausing, spoke truthfully, "I would...also feel as though all that time and effort I put into freeing you from Lyoko...and letting you live a normal life...I would feel like all that was wasted."
Aelita nodded, then asked, "Anything else?"
At this point, Aelita noticed that Jeremy was sweating."W–What do you mean?"
"Do you remember why you put all that time and effort into bringing me here?" She moved closer and closer to him as the conversation progressed. She could tell Jeremy was getting more and more uncomfortable by the second.
"What do you think?" asked Jeremy, getting desperate to end the conversation.
"I think I know why," answered Aelita. "I want to know if I'm right, which is why I want to hear it from you."
Aelita saw Jeremy swallow hard. She wondered if Jeremy would be able to tell her. Mercifully, she distanced herself from Jeremy and patiently waited for Jeremy's reply.
That reply came. "From the moment I turned the supercomputer back on and saw your face for the first time," Jeremy began, "I couldn't help but like you. I found myself liking you more and more as we got to know each other, and I wanted you to live out a normal life with us—with me.
"That's why I wanted to materialize you. And when that day finally came, it tore me apart when we found out XANA had bonded you to the supercomputer, which is why I worked as hard as I did to let you live that normal life I wanted to give you."
Jeremy stopped talking short of breath, but with confidence he had never realized until now, he let loose the confession that he had held for nearly two years, "Aelita, I've loved you since the day we first met. That's why I couldn't help but feel jealous when you and Odd kissed, even though it was for the right reasons."
Aelita contemplated Jeremy's confession. Ever since she first met Jeremy, she had felt similar feelings of like for him that he had described as having for her. She remembered the anticipation of meeting the group for the first time in the real world—especially Jeremy, the first person she met since losing her memories, the person she trusted the most, and the only one out of them all who hardly dared to venture out to Lyoko. Like him, it depressed her when she found out that she was bonded to the supercomputer. But the fact that Jeremy had spent so much time and effort trying to free her and let her live a normal, human life stood out to Aelita as the biggest act of love and devotion to her that she had seen from him.
Before Aelita could let fly her confession, however, there was still one issue that remained unresolved.
"Jeremy," she asked, "why did you wait until now to tell me that you loved me?"
"Because I was afraid," Jeremy answered. "Afraid that you would reject me, because I didn't think I deserved you."
"After all that hard work?!" Aelita responded, baffled. "Why on earth for?"
"I often spent all that time that I could working to fight XANA when I could've—should've—spent some of that time with you. And—"
Aelita had heard enough. Before Jeremy could finish, she grabbed his hands and pulled at them so he stood up and faced her.
She smiled as she looked into his eyes again, she said, "I love you, too, Jeremy. And also from the day that we first met."
Aelita wrapped her arms around Jeremy's body and enveloped him into a firm embrace. "You spent that time trying to let me live a normal life," she continued, "and if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have made this much progress against XANA. And you thought that you didn't deserve me?"
At the last sentence, Aelita strengthened her hug into a tight squeeze. Jeremy, after taking a few moments to recover from the shock, wrapped his arms around her body and returned the hug almost just as tightly.
After what seemed like an eternity, they loosened their grip on each other and stood face-to-face, smiling.
"Do you have anything else to say, Jeremy?" asked Aelita.
"I certainly don't feel jealous towards Odd anymore," he replied.
"That's good to hear," she said, widening her smile. "I figured out that he's a really good kisser."
Jeremy looked confused. He didn't know where she was going with this—yet.
"But after we kissed," Aelita continued, "I thought back to when I kissed you that one time and you froze. Do you remember that?"
"Mmm-hmm," Jeremy answered, still not completely sure what Aelita was thinking.
"Well, I thought about who I enjoyed kissing more. Who do you think that was?"
"Hmm...I give up," Jeremy said, although Aelita could see the telltale smirk on his face as it finally dawned on him.
"Why, none other than Jeremy Belpois!" she exclaimed gleefully. Aelita moved her embrace up to the back of Jeremy's neck, pulling his lips into hers.
Unlike the previous time, Jeremy showed no sign of freezing, and kissed Aelita back. Aelita had found kissing Odd to be quite fun, but true to her word, she found kissing Jeremy to be much more enjoyable.
After many long seconds, unable to continue without breathing, Jeremy and Aelita broke off the kiss, but they immediately followed with another kiss that somehow turned out to be better than the first. After some time, their lips once again parted, however, the next kiss seemed to be even better than the last. This process had continued for a minute or two before Jeremy and Aelita heard the elevator doors open.
With one last, long kiss, Jeremy and Aelita looked towards the elevator to see the shocked faces of Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi. To Aelita, they were not unlike those of Herve and Nicolas the night that she and Odd kissed. How ironic, she thought.
"Well, there you are," she greeted the others before casually striding into the elevator to join them.
Jeremy walked back to his normal station at the interface. Noticing his friends' wide eyes, he said, "The activated tower is in the desert sector."
The statement was enough for Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi to snap out of their initial shock, although they still held looks of disbelief—particularly Odd. Seeing this, Aelita nudged him on the shoulder.
"You aren't jealous, are you?" she asked him.
Shooting her a surprised look, Odd replied, "What? Why would I be jealous?"
"Because for a moment there," Jeremy chimed in, "it didn't exactly look like you had an open mind."
The rest of the group erupted into laughter. "Real funny, Einstein," Odd retorted sarcastically, although he couldn't suppress a smirk.
Yes, I'm sure many of my fellow Jerlita fans aren't too fond of that scene, either. That's why I'm hoping this one-shot served as a nice little healing experience, as well as a refreshing source of fluff. :)
Thank you so much for reading, favorite if you'd like to, and leave a review!