Hey guys. So I wrote this in about an hour and I haven't really gotten around to fully correcting it but I really wanted to put it up. I have no idea where this came from, I just had to write it down. Hope it's alright!
Warnings: A tiny bit of swearing and mentions of sex kind of.
Disclaimers: I do not own Code Lyoko. I thought that was obvious.
Plot: Ulrich taught Elizabeth three things; How to be strong, how quickly situations can change, and how unfair the world is. He just doesn't know he's done it when an unlikely encounter happens on a cloudy day, and Elizabeth, for once in her life, listens. (Not a love story or anything of the like; just friendship!)
Tears for the Strong
The day is bleak; the normally bright, clear skies of August are shrouded in looming grey clouds. The entire city knows it's only a matter of time before they open up on the busy streets to drown anyone unfortunate enough to be out and about.
A line of cars stretch all the way back to the freeway entrance and the sounds of furious honking breaks the vibrant chatter of all those making their way to work along the sidewalks. Walking threatens getting soaked, driving jeopardizes their punctuality.
Among the rush of people power-walking to their next destination is a young black haired girl. Her skin is pale, and her dark hair long and silky, a jade headband keeping the stubborn strands out of her face as she jogs along to keep up with the crowds.
A simple flowery dress of green and black and pink reaches down to her knees, and a fashionable raincoat is pulled tight around her waist. Pristine white jogging runners shuffle along, looking ridiculous with her more fancy attire, but she's tucked a pair of black flats into her bag for when she reaches work.
Elizabeth slips through a gap between two of her fellow commuters and plows on. Her favorite green bag thumps at her waist with every step and she has to balance two cups of coffee in her hands without spilling which isn't an easy feat when you're being battered left and right by people in a rush.
In fifteen minute's she'll be officially late, and tardiness is not something she wants to get into a habit of. Her boss is a laid-back kind of guy, and he understands shit happens, but Elizabeth won't let herself fail.
She's made enough mistakes in her life that there's not enough room for any more.
She decides to take the shortcut through the park because it isn't well known unless you grew up in this area like she has and it will definitely take off an extra five minutes of her journey time. Instead of slowing down once she reaches its entrance, she speeds up. There's only a few wanderer's roaming around the park; mostly children accompanied by their parents and elders.
The tree's reach high and block out the sun as she rounds the winding path and the foliage opens up to a great big, emerald field. There's several paved paths going through it, and she takes the one going down the middle. She can almost see the exit on the other end of the expanse of grass.
A few kids are screaming and laughing from a playground close to the exit, not many because it's way too early in the morning for most children and it's a school day. Elizabeth can remember that playground well. Her daddy use to take her there.
She remembers falling off the slide during a game of Lava-monster, and a brown haired boy crouching before her on the bark floor because her daddy didn't see her tumble as he gets enthralled in a conversation with another parent. The boy's skinny, and there are purple smudges under his pretty hazel eyes. His clothes are ripped along the knees and his elbows skinned red. His eyebrows contort as if he's confused by her tears.
"Why you crying?" He mumbles out in a badly strung sentence of french.
Elizabeth is so shock by the question her eyes dry momentarily. She looks up at the small boy with the baggy clothes and thinks. But then she notices the blood well up on her right elbow, and the splinter's imbedded in her palm, and the waterworks start up again.
"Cause I got hurt!" She sobs, flinging her bleeding arm out to the boy to show him her war-injury.
The boy's now a blurry blob of brown and green. but as the big tears spill out he slips in and out of focus. She see's him tilt his head in uncertainty again. A minute later, when her tears do nothing to damper, he begins to role up his pants to the knee.
"Look." He demands and Elizabeth manages to sniffle her tears back enough to do as told. His knee-cap is a big cut, looking fresh as there's still dirt and gravel in it and a fresh stream of blood is trickling down his calf. Along his shin is a large flesh wound, little black stitches pulling skin together tight. It's puffy and red, and looks very painful. "I didn't tear." He says, and she thinks he means he didn't cry.
Elizabeth nods, because if he didn't cry then she shouldn't either. The boy looks younger than her, after all, so she has to be tougher than a baby.
She doesn't cry again about falling until she's nine years old and looses a tooth when she slips and her face smacks into a curb.
Elizabeth smiles. It was so long ago that she was that young. She can barely stand who she was as a teenager and she's glad she's matured. If she was still that spoiled, rotten girl from her academy days, she would hate herself. College helped a lot, and so did heart-break. She knows how lucky she is to have been offered a job not a week after graduating college, when she was considering going back for a master's degree.
She hurries on past the playground, but can't help as her eyes drift over to it again in longing. Being an innocent child was such a pure feeling; she misses it.
She's about to tell herself to suck it up; she's not a baby, when her eyes catch on a mop of light brown hair leaning against a bench, facing away from her into the playground. She feels her heart stop; literally stop, and it pains her deep in her chest. After so many years, still when she sees hair styled off to the left, her heart aches.
She realizes she's stopped, and must look idiotic staring wide-eyed at some guy's back. She wants to keep going; want to forget this even happened, but she's drawn to the bench. The guy's dressed in a forest green jacket that looks a bit too thin to really keep the morning's icy bite away and it only makes her ache even stronger that it be him.
She cautiously rounds the bench, and as she stops to gape his beautiful hazel eyes reach up curiously to see who's approached him.
There's no doubt in her mind. It's him.
He looks just as shocked as she, and stands to his feet like a rocket. "Sissy." He speaks quietly. Always hushed, he was. Humble, and shy too.
Elizabeth draws closer, notices the dark bruises under his eyes that speak of countless sleepless nights, and the way the jacket is baggy around his slim frame. He looks so young, still, like instead of being… Elizabeth quickly recalls his birthday and adds up the math; instead of being twenty-one, he looks nineteen, maybe.
"Actually," Elizabeth corrects. "It's Elizabeth now. I go by Elizabeth. Sissy was a stupid child's name."
Ulrich lets out a small huff of almost laughter, and a tired but honest smile crosses his lips. He looks exhausted.
He glances to his right quickly, before his eyes lock on her again and says, "That's good. I always preferred Elizabeth to Sissy anyways."
Elizabeth smiles back, but she hates how bad he looks. His hands shake remotely, and she can tell how utterly weary his is from his words and the almost numb way he speaks them. Like he's too worn out to really feel.
Time's pushing by, and her perfect attendance is sure to be thrown in the bin, but she would trade it all away for ten more minutes in this boy's beautiful presence. She's been dreaming of this moment for so long; so long that she actually dismissed the idea from ever happening. Now that it is, she has things to say; things she must get across to him.
"I've grown up." Elizabeth pushes, needs him to see this. "I'm now working in the hospital down the road, in med school. I like helping people." After four years of intense, constant work, she finally got a place in the hospital as a student and employe along with other nurses in training.
"That's nice." He tells her, smiles in a way that his perfect white teeth gleam. She hates how polite he's acting, as if they're mere acquaintances. He then flops back into the bench, as if he's too tired to stand. He doesn't offer up anything about his own life, and she knows he doesn't care about hers. She had hoped he would have been happy for her. She hates herself for being so wrong.
Elizabeth slides down beside him, but where he has sunk into the seat, totally relaxed and looking towards the playground, she sits rigid with her knees turned so they're brushing against his right thigh and she's facing him.
"I miss you." She says, and she knows she has no right to say such things because they were barely even friends, if that, and he had never liked her like she did him. She wants to say 'I love you still', but that's way out of line so she holds it in and settles for missing him.
He tenses but then she sees him visible fighting the strain, and he obviously wins because then he's sitting just as bonelessly as before.
He doesn't answer, so she shoves forward again. "We should go out some time. Catch up." She tries not to sound too desperate.
He sees through her, though, just as he always has. "I'm sorry, Si-Elizabeth." She likes that he cares enough to try, despite how foreboding his words are. "I'm not looking to date someone right now."
Elizabeth nods; understands. She's grown up, after all. She can take this. "I know." She admits. "I just wanted you to see I'm not the same childish, pushy girl I use to be that you hated. I wanted to make things up to you for how I acted."
His eyes drift to her, watching her from the corner of his eye, and then he breaths out like he just released the weight of the world from his shoulders, and seems to deflate. "I didn't hate you, first of all. And I didn't find you annoying because you were pushy and childish. You were a kid; you couldn't help that. I was annoyed by your behavior towards my friends, and your own friends, and all the other students in the school. You had no respect for them, and I wasn't about to fall for a girl who only cared about herself."
"I've changed now, though!" She assures him.
He shrugs. Nods his head. His eyes never leave the playground. "I'm sure you have, but I don't know you all that well Elizabeth, so it doesn't make a difference to me who you are now. You have nothing to prove to someone who doesn't matter, like me."
"But I just wanted you to know." She informs him. "And I wanted to know what you've-"
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" A blur of brown and pink charges over, screeching at the top of her lungs and leaps into Ulrich's arms, open and awaiting despite how short-notice the attack was.
The little girl curls her arms around Ulrich's neck and turns to look at the stranger beside her Daddy.
Elizabeth can only stare in shock at the child, no younger than four years old clutched in her old crushes arms. "Daddy?" She manages to gasp out, meeting Ulrich's now lively hazel eyes.
"Elizabeth, this is my daughter, Ava. Sweetie, this is my old friend Elizabeth." The little girl has a head full a thick, bouncy brown curls and the most beautiful, bright emerald eyes. Her skin is flawless and pale, and she's dressed in cute white leggings with a long, glittering purple T-shirt under a puffy white and pink jacket. She's absolutely adorable, and Elizabeth thinks she might just have fallen in love.
Ava looks exactly like her father, save for the deep green eyes, but as she smiles up to Elizabeth boisterously, she realizes she has nothing of her father's timid, brooding personality. The girl wiggles her way out of her fathers grip, and stands before Elizabeth on the bench.
"Hiya!" She greets in a joyful voice. "Did you see me on the swing? I was goin' up and down really, really fast? Did you see me? Oh! Let's go again! You can push me!" She takes off, vaulting from the bench and charging towards the swing set. She turns confusedly when she doesn't hear Elizabeth following.
"I'll push you in a minute, baby!" Ulrich calls. "The grown-ups need to talk." The darling little girl pouts, before being distracted by another boy and the two go off towards the slide.
"How old?" Elizabeth manages to get out, shocked.
Ulrich looks a little bashful. "She's just turned four. I was seventeen when her mother had her."
"Yumi?"
Ulrich laughs at that. "No," He says when he's settled. "She was a girl I met in a coffee shop. She was eighteen, almost nineteen and in college living with her mother. We hit it off, and before we knew it we were in bed together. I was only sixteen. We used protection, but shit happens."
"What about college? Do you go?"
Ulrich sighs again. It feels like that's all he does. "I graduated high-school at seventeen; I was the youngest in our year, and I ended up deciding to take a year off to help with the baby. I take night classes now, some online courses and work during the day."
"What about Ava's mother. Didn't you say she was in college too. Who watches Ava?" Elizabeth doesn't know why she's so curious, and she doesn't know why Ulrich is telling her all of this anyways when it's obviously so personal.
"We weren't in love. We both agreed on that. We decided we would live together in an apartment. Her mother would pick up Ava some mornings to look after her for the day when we couldn't, and my parents disowned me. We became great friends, and despite the fact that we weren't in love we knew this would work." Ulrich pauses, his eyes glaze over a bit in a way Elizabeth has never seen on him. "She died a month after Ava was born; a drunk driver hit her on her way home from school one night. Her mother stopped helping me, too torn up in her grieving. I nearly lost the apartment, would have if I didn't have such great friends. I got back on track in my life. Now I juggling all three things with the help of the gang."
Elizabeth feels hollow. She turns to look at Ava swinging around on the monkey-bars. This little girl who will never know a mother's warmth, just like Elizabeth never felt it. She glances at Ulrich, tired and weary and crippled, but so devoted and loving to his child. Ulrich, so pure and kind, and so broken.
Ava falls from the monkey bars; lands on her bum. She looks over at her Daddy and his new friend, smiles and jumps to her feet to clamber up the stairs and back on the bars.
Elizabeth smiles faintly, thinks maybe she was wrong about Ava not having a smidgen of Ulrich's personality in her.
"I'm sorry." Elizabeth whispers, eyes locked on the little girl laughing with such freedom and joy, and then to Ulrich, barely twenty-one, tied down with such responsibility and pain.
"Why are you sorry?" Ulrich laughs, but it's dry and hard and she can hear the agony and deep-rooted longing in it. "Ava is my everything, and I love her. She makes my life worth living. Without her, I don't know what I'd do. If Ava wasn't here, than her mother would have left nothing behind as a token of her existence."
Elizabeth nods, but can't help the hatred towards herself she feels. To think she was pitying herself earlier, about how she lost the love of her life when Ulrich suffers everyday. Money must be scarce, with two mouths to feed, clothes to buy and school, and it's obvious in the age of his jacket and how thin it is that he doesn't have the money to buy himself much, and instead makes sure his daughter is well cared for.
She glances down at her phone, realizes she's been here for nearly and hour, and is astonished that she doesn't even give a shit about being late for work. She stands anyways, because despite how futile and tiny her responsibilities are compared to Ulrich's, she still has to do them.
"I've got to go." She announces, pushing her hair out of her face against the brutal wind which shudders through and plays with her dress tails. "But how about coffee tomorrow morning? My treat." Ulrich looks about to protest, but she plows on. "Bring Ava, if you could. And don't worry, I'm not interested in dating you right now, either. Let's go as friends."
Ulrich relents, smiles. "Okay."
Elizabeth fishes through her bag for her pen, scribbles her number on the second cup of coffee that was for her friend at work, and pushes it into Ulrich's hand. "It Brazilnut Coffee, and it's really good. It might be a bit cold, by now, but you look like you could use it." She rounds the bench, and Ulrich turns to watch her. "Text me later, and we'll talk about where we'll meet up tomorrow." Ulrich nods, so Elizabeth waves to Ava who vigorously waves back, and returns to heading on her way towards the exit.
She's almost out, when she hears Ava squeal and turns to look. A tall man with dark hair is making his way towards Ulrich on the bench, Ava in his arms.
Elizabeth is fixed; couldn't look away even if she wanted to. The guy looks kind of like William, who she remembers use to sort-of hang out with Ulrich's gang in Kadic. William smiles gently as he gets closer, and Ava is giggling and bouncing on his hip.
Ulrich, sweet Ulrich, rises to his feet as the dark haired guy gets closer, and steps onto his tippy-toes as William leans down to accept the short kiss William lands on his lips. William sets Ava down, who runs around their legs as William draws Ulrich in for a hug, and the brown haired boy rests his head on Williams shoulder, sagging exhaustedly into the strong hold and depending on the other not to let him fall.
Elizabeth is shocked. Her heart lets out a slight pang at the sight of Ulrich so obviously happy with someone else, and remembers him tell her how he couldn't have done it without his friends.
She smiles, and it's slightly bitter-sweet no matter how much she tells herself she has no right to be. She turns, and walks away, looking forward to seeing the boy who's like butter spread sparsely over bread. She's happy for him, despite how it hurts, and only hopes she can love someone like that some day and have the feelings returned.
She doesn't cry, though, because if he's strong enough to suffer on, than she will too until she's faced with something so devastating, and once that happens, she can only pray she has friends as good as his to help her though it.
She thinks tomorrow, she just might have one.