Elle: I don't know what made me think this up but I think it's really powerful even though it's kind of short.
I was listening to "Untitled" by Simple Plan while I was writing this
They said a car accident killed Ulrich Stern but only his four closest friends knew what really happened. How it was XANA attack that caused the car he was driving to fly off the bridge trapping the young man inside the metal trap. How they had been too late. How Aelita had entered the code in the tower the split second after Ulrich's heart stopped beating.
And even the return to the past couldn't fix it. They all felt horrible about it.
The entire school seemed to have traveled to Germany for the funeral. It was strange to see them all wearing the uniform black instead of the vast array of colors they usually sported.
Odd was silent, as if his sense of humor had dies along with his best friend. Guilt washed over the blonde as he sat in the church pew. He could have saved his best friend if he had only been faster, if he had only taken out the megatank sooner letting Aelita enter the tower more quickly.
Jeremy was mentally berating himself. If he had only discovered the activated tower sooner then this entire thing would not have happened.
Aelita was crying silently. She should have made a run for the tower sooner but she waited until the coast was clear and this was the result.
Yumi was crying hard into William's shoulder thinking of all the things she would give, she would do just to have the brown haired German boy sitting next to her.
Slowly the rows of people stood up and formed a line in front of the open casket. One by one everyone from Kadic students to local families paid their respects.
Mr. Stern was at the end of the line and waited as the line thinned. Once the church was empty, he was left alone with his only son. He walked up to the casket and placed his hand over Ulrich's. Everything he had never said came flooding through them. How much he had pushed his son to the limit, even coming down to the school in France himself to tell his own boy off. Mr. Stern was always so quick to jump on his only son's imperfections, his bad grades and everything else. He had never taken the time to fully appreciate what he had and now that it was gone he could never get it back.
"I love you son," he muttered closing the casket lid silently. It was those four words he should have said more often but he never did. Those for words his son would have probably killed to hear would never hear them again.