Matchmaker, Matchmaker
by: Mylinda Antoinette
Summary: Mylinda notices that Nathan has developed a crush on Aelita, but he's too shy to do anything about it. Mylinda, a great fan of romance, decides to play matchmaker, and bring her best friend Aelita together with the boy she considers a brother.
Author's note: This piece was written in honor of a dear friend of mine, Snakealien. He is the closest thing I've ever had to a real brother, and he's drawn so many gift art pictures for me that I felt the least I could do was return the favor with a story about his favorite pairing: his character, Nathan, with Aelita. Thank you for being my brother, Nat!
It was a cool afternoon in September when she first noticed it.
Mylinda Antoinette had met Nathan Hernandez before, on the plane when the two of them first came to Kadic Academy. Within the month or two that they had known each other, they had become the closest of friends, feeling as though they were brother and sister, though they were from different parts of the world.
Now, observing the boy she considered to be her brother, she noticed that look he got on his face every time he glanced at her pink-haired roommate. His cheeks were dusted over with a slight shade of pink, and his eyes got a look of longing, as though he wanted to talk to her, but could barely even bring himself to say hello to her.
Nathan was shy by nature, especially around girls. He never knew what to say or do around them, and so he stayed mostly quiet. In fact, Nathan had only met a very small number of girls in his lifetime that he truly considered to be his friends, and Mylinda was among those. And as his honorary sister, Mylinda couldn't just stand by and watch Nathan struggle to make contact with this girl whom he clearly wanted to get to know better. It was time, she decided, to dig out her matchmaking kit, and help her honorary brother get to know Aelita better!
The next day, Mylinda was walking to one of her classes with Nathan. The two had several classes together and usually met up with each other to walk to those classes. However, this walk was different from usual, because this time, Mylinda had something else on her agenda. She was going to arrange a date with Aelita and Nathan.
"Hey, Nat, Aelita and I were planning to go out and grab a bite to eat later. You wanna come with us? It'll be fun," Mylinda coaxed him.
"Eh, I don't know..." Nathan replied hesitantly. He really did want to go, but he didn't want to intrude if Aelita didn't want him to be there.
"Don't worry, Nat, I spoke to Aelita about the idea this morning and she's fine with you coming along with us," she assured him, reading his mind perfectly.
"Well... I guess it'll be fine then. I'd be happy to join you," he agreed, seeming a little pleased at the idea of spending the afternoon with his honorary sister and the girl he had a crush on.
"All right, then, it's settled! We'll meet up around 6 PM in front of the school, at the bench. We'll be going to that little cafe around the corner from the school," she instructed as she and Nathan entered their classroom, heading to their separate desks for a few hours of learning.
At six o'clock on the nose, Nathan arrived at the designated spot. The girls were a little late, and Nathan settled on the bench to wait for them. He straightened his jacket. He had changed into something just a little nicer than what he usually wore for classes, something more suited for going out to dinner with his sister and Aelita.
A moment later, Aelita and Mylinda appeared, both dressed up. Each of them wore a spaghetti strap dress and heels in their respective colors, Aelita wearing pink and Mylinda in purple. Each of them had a short, white sweater on over their dresses. Aelita had just a bit of makeup on, and each of them wore jewelry, Aelita wearing jewelry with clear stones and Mylinda with a light blue.
Nathan's eyes widened as he caught sight of the girls. Aelita looked more beautiful than he'd ever seen her, and he was surprised to see Mylinda in a dress, as he knew she hated them more than almost anything in the world. "Wow," he stuttered in shock as he stood to greet them, "you two... you look so... different!"
Aelita looked confused at first, but she correctly determined that he meant it as a compliment and thanked him, Mylinda following suit a moment later. "So," the pink-haired girl began, "shall we be going?"
"Yeah, I'm starving!" Mylinda laughed as she began walking toward the restaurant, followed by Nathan and Aelita a few moments later. Nathan was right, Mylinda absolutely hated wearing dresses, but she had done so because she knew that Aelita, her roommate and honorary sister, wouldn't dress up if she didn't, and she wanted tonight to be perfect. So far, it appeared to have worked, and Mylinda was hopeful that by the end of the day, Aelita and Nathan would be arranging their next date, but this time, without her along!
The night went rather smoothly. Conversation between the three was interesting and, though Mylinda lead most of the conversation, it continued without a hitch. That is, until the bill came and Mylinda was ready to carry out the next phase of Operation "Natlita".
"Oh man, this is bad..." Mylinda exclaimed as she pretended to realize she hadn't brought her wallet with her. "I left my wallet in the dorm. You guys stay right here; I'll run back and get it. I should be back in about ten to fifteen minutes." She stood up from the table and hurried out the door, but as soon as she was out of sight of the diner, she slowed to a walk, to give them more time alone. A small smirk crossed her face as she thought of how wonderfully her plan seemed to be going so far.
It ended up taking Mylinda thirty minutes to get back, claiming that she'd forgotten where she'd put her purse. But to her dismay, both Nathan and Aelita looked incredibly uncomfortable, and she had the feeling she'd have to have a discussion with Aelita later, to ask her exactly what had happened that night. She sighed quietly as she paid for their food, and no one spoke on the walk back to the school.
They parted at the bench, Nathan heading for the boys' dorms while Mylinda and Aelita made their way up to the dorm room they shared. Once the girls had changed into their pajamas and snuggled under their covers to read for an hour or so before bed, Aelita found she just couldn't concentrate on her book and closed it, laying it on her lap before turning to look at Mylinda, who had her nose buried deep into a Star Wars novel, but from the looks of it, she wasn't really concentrating on her reading, either.
"Mylinda..." she began, feeling worried about earlier.
"Hmm? What is it, Aelita?" Mylinda said, withdrawing from her book without much of a fight, indicating to Aelita that she was indeed preoccupied with other matters, since Mylinda usually got so caught up in her reading that she couldn't hear anything around her.
"Did... did I do something wrong tonight?" the pink-haired girl inquired, looking worried.
"Oh, no, Aelita... at least, not while I was there. What happened after I left?"
"Nothing, and that's why I'm worried. I tried to talk to him, but he either ignored me or gave a brief, one-word reply. He made it very clear that he was uncomfortable with me. It was rather disappointing... I'd have liked to talk to him more," she confessed, blushing slightly. Mylinda noticed the slight dusting of pink crossing Aelita's fair cheeks, and this caused her to perk up a bit. If Aelita was even remotely interested in Nathan, then maybe it wasn't all hopeless... maybe she shouldn't give up just yet.
"Don't worry, Aelita," the brunette heard herself saying in reply to her roommate's concerns. "Nathan's like that with most people, especially girls!"
"But he's not like that with you," Aelita protested. "I've seen the way you interact with him... he seems very comfortable when you're around!"
"Hehehe, you should have seen him when we first met! I happened to have the seat next to him, and when he realized he was going to be sitting next to a girl, I swear I thought that boy was going to pass out!" Mylinda replied, giggling a little and eliciting a giggle from her roommate in response. "It took him some time, but he warmed up to me. Now he's like a brother to me, more than any person I've ever met." Mylinda slid out of her covers and went to sit by Aelita, sliding one arm around her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her friend. "Just give him some time, Aelita. He'll come around. I know he will. Just give him some time to get used to you and he'll open up to you the same way he opened up with me!"
Aelita sighed. "Well, you know him better than I do, so I guess I'll just have to take your word for it. Thanks for talking to me about this, Mylinda," she said gratefully, hugging her.
"You're welcome, Aelita," Mylinda replied happily, hugging her honorary sister back.
"Well, I'd better get back to my book," the pink-haired girl said, pulling away from Mylinda.
"Yeah, same here," Mylinda agreed. 'Maybe I can actually concentrate on it now...' she thought to herself.
The next few weeks heralded many more attempts to get Nathan to open up with Aelita, none of which seemed to succeed. Each time, Aelita grew depressed with the fact that Nathan just didn't seem to trust her. Her friendships with the other members of the Lyoko Gang seemed to suffer, as she withdrew into herself more, searching for the fault within her that made Nathan uncomfortable around her. After one particular failure, Mylinda realized that if she continued any further, it might permanently damage her honorary sister's feelings, and she made up her mind that, as much as she wanted them to get together, and as happy as she knew it would make them, it wasn't worth hurting Aelita. It was time to stop.
A few days after this decision, the group settled into the bleachers at the track outside, wearing clothes appropriate for the slight chill outside.
"All right, Antoinette, Klinger, and Fiquet, get out here and show us what ya got!" he bellowed, pointing to the track. Nathan watched from where he sat as the three girls clambered out of the bleachers and took their places on the track. "Ready... GO!" Jim shouted, signaling the students to start running. The girls took off like rockets, but after only about 10 meters, Mylinda gave out a loud shout of pain and collapsed to the ground. Nathan shot up to his feet, leapt out of the bleachers, and sprinted as fast as he could to where Mylinda lay curled up by the track, followed a split second later by Aelita.
"Mylinda, are you okay? What happened?" he asked her in as calm a voice as he could muster, feeling concern for his friend.
"My... my ankle..." she managed to squeak out. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut, and tears of pain squeezed out wherever they could between her eyelids. She was whimpering in pain and grasping her right ankle.
"Mylinda, let me look at it," he coaxed, trying to get her to let go of her ankle that he was sure was throbbing in pain. He had seen his share of similar injuries in the past, and he wanted to get an idea of what they were looking at. Mylinda reluctantly released her grip on her ankle, and Nathan pulled up the leg of her sweats a bit to look at it, drawing in a sharp breath of sympathy when he got a good look at it. Her foot was twisted in an odd angle from her leg, and the ankle was already beginning to swell. "Let's get you to the infirmary," he said, turning and signaling to Jim. "Can I go with Mylinda to the infirmary?" he asked.
"Me too," Aelita added. She wanted to know if her friend and roommate was going to be okay, and she also didn't want to leave her alone.
"All right," Jim agreed. Nathan bent closer to Mylinda, carefully gathering her into his arms before standing and beginning to walk briskly toward the door of the school, followed by Aelita.
"I wonder what happened to her..." Aelita whispered as they walked along the corridors of the school.
"It looks like she twisted her ankle. The nurse will have to bandage it up and she'll have to be on crutches for a while as bad as this is. She probably landed on her foot wrong while she was running," he said, venturing a guess as to his friend's condition. He looked at Mylinda and noticed that she seemed to have passed out from the pain.
"Wow... how did you know all that?" Aelita asked, impressed.
"I've seen my share of injuries... my stepbrothers and I used to wrestle to help us build muscle, and there were quite a few times one of us would get hurt," he explained, not even noticing that he suddenly didn't feel nervous around Aelita anymore.
"That's pretty impressive," Aelita said softly, suddenly realizing that Nathan had just told her something about himself. Never in the months since his arrival at the school had he ever revealed anything about his life before Kadic.
"Well... I've always been kind of interested in stuff like that," he admitted. The trio arrived at the door of the nurse's office and Aelita knocked on the door. Yolanda answered and her eyes widened when she caught sight of Mylinda.
"Come in, come in," she urged them. "Just lay her on the bed. What happened to her?"
"We think she landed on her foot wrong in gym class," Nathan explained. "She was running around the track and we heard her cry out and she collapsed."
Upon examining her ankle, Yolanda straightened up. "Well, it looks like she twisted that ankle pretty badly. Will you two wait outside so I can have more room to work?"
"Of course," Aelita agreed, and Nathan nodded in unison with Aelita's comment before heading out the door and taking a seat in a chair outside the room. Aelita sat in the chair next to him.
"Oh, I hope she'll be all right," she exclaimed worriedly.
"She'll be fine," Nathan assured her. "She's a very strong girl."
Aelita looked at him curiously. "You seem to like her an awful lot," she noted.
"Well, yeah... she's one of the nicest girls I've ever met," he replied, confused.
"Oh... I see," she replied, sounding somewhat sad. "I... I agree with you."
"Yeah... Mylinda's the closest thing to a sister I've ever had," he admitted.
Aelita's head shot up in surprise, realizing she had misunderstood him, and she smiled. "Same here." She turned to look back at the door, hearing a cry from Mylinda. A worried look crossed her face again.
Nathan grew uncomfortable. He didn't like seeing a look like that on Aelita's face, and he knew he wanted to do something to make her feel better. But what? Without even thinking about it, he held out his hand to her. Aelita saw this and was surprised again. She glanced from his face to his hand, and then back to his face before reaching out her own hand and gripping his tightly. "Thanks," she whispered, suddenly feeling more comfortable with the situation and knowing that Mylinda would be all right.
"You're welcome," Nathan responded, feeling a bit shy, but not wanting to allow that to ruin this moment with Aelita. "You know, Aelita... there's a carnival in town this weekend... I thought maybe you and I could go together after school on Saturday." Upon seeing the surprised look on her face, he quickly added, "Of course, only if you want to!"
"Why, I'd love to!" Aelita exclaimed, smiling brightly. She finally had a date with him!
A little while later, the nurse released Mylinda from her office. Gym class had ended already, and it was time for lunch, so Nathan and Aelita helped Mylinda down to the locker rooms to change, and then they escorted her to the lunchroom, where they joined their friends at their usual table. Then they looked at each other, smiling. It was time to tell the others.
"Guys, I have something to tell you," Aelita said happily, attracting the attention of the others at their table. Yumi looked up at her.
"Well, what is it, Aelita?" she asked, curious as to the bit of news Aelita wanted to dispense.
"Nathan and I are going out!" she exclaimed excitedly, grabbing the Latino boy's hand as he blushed brightly, not used to that kind of attention.
The table grew silent, as everyone there turned to Jeremy, who seemed very upset. A moment later he choked out, "I'm very happy for you both," and stood up from the table, running off.
"I'll go after him," Mylinda said quickly, grabbing her crutches and standing to hurry off after him. "By the way, congratulations to the both of you!" She slid her crutches under her arms and swiftly moved after Jeremy. The remaining three members chimed in with their congratulations, but Aelita suddenly looked worried.
"Don't worry, Aelita," Nathan whispered to her. "Jeremy will be okay. He couldn't be in better hands right now." Aelita turned to him with a soft smile on her face, feeling that if Nathan said it would be okay, it was sure to be so. They turned back to their remaining friends and the five talked about their plans for the weekend for the remainder of the lunch period. Even though they knew that Jeremy was upset, they knew that he would come around eventually. They didn't know if they would last as a couple, but neither of them cared. All they knew was that at this moment, they were both happier than they'd ever been in their entire lives, and that made it all worthwhile.