The Way the Fairy Tale Goes
By Cybra

A/N: Reappearance of angsty!Jeremy. I don't know why I do this to the poor boy, but some day I will write him happy if I close my eyes and clap my hands and believe. Maybe. ¬.¬

Disclaimer: Code Lyoko is Antefilm's. Hail the French.

Ulrich knew. Yumi knew. Odd knew. It seemed that even Kiwi knew about the unspoken romance that went on between Aelita and Jeremy.

Only Aelita and Jeremy didn't seem to know. Or didn't seem to want to say anything about it.

So Yumi had ordered the two boys to corner Jeremy about it since Aelita wasn't going to pressure Jeremy into saying anything he didn't want to any time soon. (Assuming that she saw what was so obvious to another human.) And Ulrich and Odd had played Paper, Rock, Scissors, loser got the dubious honor of talking to the young genius.

Odd cheated. Ulrich swore that Odd cheated. Somehow.

But Ulrich had lost and, as per the deal, had to talk to Jeremy about it. And he'd caught the young genius as Jeremy had been absent mindedly walking back to the dorms after gym.

"Hey, Jeremy, can we…um…talk?"

Jeremy glanced up at him, his distracted, vacant eyes taking on a wary look. Ulrich winced for he knew that Jeremy knew that he never wanted to just "talk."

"It's about Aelita. You know, Odd's cousin?"

"What about her?" Jeremy fell into step beside him, and Ulrich could feel Jeremy studying him out of the corner of his eye.

Once he figured out how Odd cheated, he'd kill him. Who was doing the interrogation here: him or Jeremy?

"Why haven't you, y'know, said anything?"

"About what?" Jeremy asked coolly.

Ulrich glanced casually around, noticing that nobody was paying them any mind (nor within earshot), before pouncing, "About the fact that you like her. C'mon, Jeremy, I was there when you were talking in your sleep, remember?"

Jeremy's cheeks burned with embarrassment and anger. He stepped away from Ulrich, glaring.

Ulrich winced. Okay, that had been the wrong thing to say.

"I thought we agreed never to bring that up again," Jeremy snapped.

"Sorry. But still, just tell her. I think she'd really like it."

The brunette flashed his younger friend a smile, hoping to smooth over any hurt feelings.

The blond's scowl told him that, no, Jeremy was not going to be soothed that easily. "I'm not."

"Why not? She—"

"—isn't my type" was the flat response.

Ulrich narrowed his eyes at the young genius. Jeremy was noticeably not looking at him.

"Like hell she's not." Jeremy snapped his head around to look at him as he continued, "Wanna go for excuse number two?"

Jeremy glanced about before grabbing Ulrich's arm and leading him to the park. Once they were in the safety of the trees, the blond genius sat down in front of one of the oaks. "You want to know why? Fine. It's because then it won't hurt as much when she tells me she doesn't like me."

Ulrich took a surprised step backwards. "What!"

"We call her 'Princess' all the time. Think hard, Ulrich. What story do you know of had the fair princess's hand won by an intellectual?"

Ulrich opened his mouth, prepared to answer.

But nothing came out. All of the stories he'd heard had the princess's hand won by a hero who had slain a mighty beast, a wicked fairy, or an evil wizard. He couldn't think of a single hero who had won by simply outthinking his opponent. If there was such a story, he either didn't know it or had forgotten it.

"I'm a thinker, not a fighter. XANA was right when he said I wouldn't set foot inside the scanners because I was too scared.1 I'm terrified of the scanners, but apparently I'm not too scared to send others through virtualization." Jeremy toyed with a blade of grass, gazing at nothing but the grass blade.

"But you can, Jeremy. You've done it before."

"Only if the situation is dire enough. Otherwise, I can't bring myself to do it." He gazed up at Ulrich. "I can't win her, Ulrich. I can help her, get her away from XANA and Lyoko by finding the anti-virus, but I can't have her heart. It's not the way the fairy tale goes."

Ulrich crouched down in front of his friend and reached out to grasp the genius's shoulders, partially to reassure him and partially for balance. "Jeremy, how'd you get that idea into your head? Aelita would be more than happy to be with you. She likes you a lot."

Rather than be reassured, the blond shook his head and growled with frustration. "Yes, as a friend. Ulrich, she might want to be with me at first, but, as time wears on, she'll get sick of me. She'll have a big wide world out here to explore. Staying with me would be holding her back."

And for a brief second, Ulrich saw what Jeremy was thinking:

"I'm not worthy of a princess."

The brunette fought down a growl of frustration of his own along with a wave of anger at whoever had planted such ideas into the blond's mind. 'I guess even geniuses can get mixed up.'

"Let me up. We need to get back before the others think that Jim's got us running laps," Jeremy muttered.

Ulrich rolled back onto his heels and stood. He gave Jeremy a hand standing. "Gonna work on the anti-virus?"

A nod from his companion. "I have a few ideas…"

He let the blond genius ramble on about various lines of code, aforementioned genius sometimes actually speaking in whatever coding language he was using. (Ulrich had learned a while ago that the best way to deal with Jeremy in one of his coding manias was to just nod your head and look properly attentive, and, eventually, Jeremy would realize that he was speaking something akin to Greek to you.)

Yumi and Odd were sitting in Jeremy's room, chatting with Aelita. Jeremy greeted the pair sitting on his bed and walked briskly to his usual seat, greeting the virtual girl and becoming quite oblivious to the world around him.

Ulrich mouthed to his other two human friends, "We need to talk."

1 Reference to "Ghost Channel." (Shocking, I know.)