Author's note :

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen !

Please read my little warning before you proceed :

As I'm one of the rare (if not the only) fan shipping the unconventional UlrichxAelita pairing, this fanfiction is an Ulrich centric story, with an established UlrichxYumi, very small hints of JérémiexAelita and implied one-sided UlrichxAelita. If any of the aforementioned pairings irks you, please proceed reading at your own risk.

As the cartoon is over, I do not believe the story warrants a 'Spoiler Alert' but anyone not having seen episode 58 might want to before reading as it mainly refers to it (and a bit to other episodes from season 1 to 4 though not necessarily in that order).

Also, as English is not my mother tongue, I may have made mistakes. If you spot any, please do not hesitate to point it out so that I may correct them and improve :-)

And again, sorry about the format. I don't think I'll ever be able to present my stories as I wish… :'-(

And, of course, constructive criticisms and other feedbacks are welcomed.

Other than that, enjoy~!

Disclaimer :

Code Lyoko belongs to Moonscoop.

The story itself belongs to Pitite-Liline.

Illusory Happiness

Ulrich Stern had everything to be happy. After many hardships, his life was finally taking the direction of a proper happy ending.

The secret he had shared with six other students – his friends – was no longer. For after many fights, Xana had finally been defeated for good, the supercomputer's main pieces destroyed and the factory definitively abandoned. As a consequence of his spending more time in Kadic, he could focus more on his studies and, with the help of Jérémie Belpois – the little Einstein of their group – and Aeltia Stones – his pink-haired friend whom he still called 'princess' from time to time as a reminder of the times on Lyoko –, Ulrich eventually caught up with whatever academic delay he had and his grades were now a very acceptable average mark of 13 that allowed him to finally start meeting his father's expectations.

Adding to that, the young brown-haired boy could also count on a new valuable strength. And that strength was in the form of the support his girlfriend, Ishiyama Yumi, provided him with. For they had made a promise, both of them, and now that all the conditions had been met – no more fights on Lyoko, no more threats from Xana, no more pressure, no more secrets –, they would no longer postpone expressing their feelings for each other. Therefore, as soon as the supercomputer had been definitively shut off, they officially started dating – and made up for all the lost time when they'd been so close yet never so far.

But Ulrich was aware of something – something weird and illogical and that shouldn't exist. And the worst part was that paradoxically, it was what made him aware of his luck.

For, every time he took Yumi in his arms, he couldn't help but feel like the most fortunate person on Earth – and he knew he was. But he also couldn't help but remember...

That day, on Lyoko, Aelita had been controlled by Xana, for he had been too slow to free her from the Scyphozoa's tentacles. His katana had been destroyed by Hornets a short while earlier, a Manta was bringing the possessed pink-haired humanoid to the tower in order to erase the desert territory while Odd was doing his best to try to recreate a new weapon for him. So, until he could have a katana again, Ulrich had to think fast about a way to stop Aelita – well, Xana actually – from reaching the tower without devirtualizing her. And as a master of Pentchak-Silat, the samurai had resorted to using his fighting skills to get rid of the Hornets and slow Xana down.

And then, it came to that point – besides the moment he had to catch Aelita as she fell from the Manta. The moment when, in order to protect himself from her energy fields and the Manta's blows while hindering her, Ulrich had snuck up behind her and trapped her in an iron grip. It was by no means romantic or tender – quite the opposite actually – yet, for some reason, it got deeply etched onto his memories.

There had been other occurrences of theirs touching – whenever she held onto him on his overbike, whenever he shielded her from the blows or held her back as they were hiding – before and after that moment. But nothing was as intensely burned in his mind as this very instant. Never had they been closer, the awkwardness of intimacy ignored and forgotten with the adrenaline of the moment. And a consequence of it was the hyper awareness he felt whenever they were near to each other, whether on Earth or on Lyoko. Even as it faded away, slowly but surely, he didn't feel the same ease and comfort around her... to the point he eventually came to miss it. Though there was another emotion to replace it, this feeling was what would come back to taunt him and nag at the back of his mind whenever he least wanted or expected it.

He often sighed, wondering why he was tormenting himself so much about an instant Aelita herself had no recollection of whatsoever. Maybe because even now, as he was embracing Yumi, he couldn't help but remember how right it felt to have Aelita in his arms, like it was where she belonged.

Maybe because, in the end, Yumi was not Aelita.

- THE END