Disclaimer - Aelita deactivated my tower so I couldn't take over the world. No, I don't own Code Lyoko.

This story is dedicated to my great-aunt, who suffered for 50 years and never let it bother her. You will be missed Aunt Myra.

Pain.

These four letters shape her existence. Twin plumes of blazing agony spiral around each other in their quest to destroy her. The physical flare in her bones competes with the endless smoldering of her heart. Seventy years have passed since the pain started; she doesn't know who she is anymore without the anguish. All that remains are the memories of two years of utter bliss. That's the problem with life; it loves to interrupt itself. The gifts of existing that lead to friends and love also lead to the flip side of the coin: despair and death.

A wry smile grows on Aelita's face as she wonders which Fate got out of bed on the wrong side that day when everything went wrong. She looks around at the small living room and sighs. As her breath exhales a sharp stab of pain blasts her chest and she gasps involuntarily. A slow and torturous ritual starts while Aelita tries to stand up. She catches herself in the mirror and studies the woman that is so familiar yet strange.

A creased and wrinkled face surrounding emerald eyes stares right back. The only sign of youth that Aelita retains is the vibrant pink hair on top of her head. She had never grayed. Often Aelita took the hair as a sign that if God did exist, he or she had a wicked sense of humor. The one who enjoys life the least received the most of it. Irony accompanies her constantly.

A creak of floorboards passes through the otherwise silent house as Aelita trudges towards the kitchen. Time for her usual cup of tea in the afternoon before sitting down and staring out the window. Long used to her physical deformity, Aelita deftly maneuvers the cup of water into the microwave and selects the hot water option while grabbing the tea bag in the meantime. The sound of shuffling feet precedes her back into the living room. Screams and shouts reach her ears from the kids playing in the street.

Aelita knew the people outside found her strange and detached. They whispered about the clawed woman of 134 Calicut Lane who never greets anyone and only steps outside for the monthly retirement check. Her heart remained protected in its icy shell against any human contact. The people she worked with; the students she taught; the men and women who tried to find love with her all felt the glacial touch of her regard. None of them knew her. The four people who met with the actual Aelita faded from this world long ago.

A litany of their demise flows through her head. Odd gone at 23; victim of an attempted robbery gone badly. He picked the wrong place to buy a snack that night. Yumi died the following year at the young age of 24 along with her son due to complications with childbirth. This blow utterly broke Ulrich. He struggled for another thirty years before succumbing to the alcohol that he battled with for that arduous span of time. His death at 54 was on the thirtieth anniversary of Yumi's passing. How many times could she recall a nostalgic and drunk Ulrich calling her in the night for some solace? He tried to find peace in conversation with Aelita but it never sufficed. It's hard to fix something that's broken when you're shattered into pieces yourself. Jeremie…he passed away seventy years ago thanks to sheer misfortune. She chuckles under her breath and ignores the emotional and physical pain beating in tune with her heart.

Aelita stares out the sun-lit window and wonders if there is a rule that gives virtual beings turned human only one shot at love. No second chances and no forgiveness. Once Jeremie left this world she never found it again. Every relationship she sprung up with someone quickly ended within days or weeks. Their murmured apologies or empty condolences that she would find love someday rained on uncaring ears. Once her physical affliction began to show she quit trying. She never stopped wishing for it.

The light blinds her for a second and Aelita looks down to escape the glare. There all she finds are the gnarled and twisted hands in her lap. These once nimble and flexible digits now were good for almost nothing. The doctors consider her a special case; the disease spread far faster than normal and no medicine or procedure could stand in its way. It was as if X.A.N.A. just had to have the last laugh. Two years of calm after his defeat gave way to the storm of grief. Just like a hurricane; the battle with X.A.N.A. gave way to two years of joy and now the endless surge of agony stands before me.

Jeremie's death came about from something so mundane… Aelita shakes her head at how the smallest of things leads to the biggest of changes. The one who wished so fervently and long for a human life on Earth found everything she was looking for before it all ripped away. She had sworn to herself that she would only attend five funerals in her lifespan. Four down; one remains. Then again her funeral wouldn't mean much to Aelita. She'd be the one beyond worldly cares, beyond pain.

Occasionally the thought of ending this existence early passed through her mind but it was always quashed immediately. To commit suicide would be a betrayal of the only gift from Jeremie that she still had. His slaving on the materialization program resulted in the impossible: a virtual being given human form. Rejecting that gift is akin to rejecting her love for him and rejecting her very self.

The creaking of the rocking chair becomes a low rhythm that backdrops her thoughts and feelings. With every exclamation of sound comes a fresh burst of the familiar pain along her nerves. The arthritis began when she turned 18; by 20 she lost the only thing that gave her a modicum of peace due to the deformity of her hands. For the next thirty years she taught scores of men and women in the art of programming but was denied any taste of coding herself. The streams of symbols and characters reminded her of Jeremie. In those simple letters Aelita lost herself and recalled the high times of her life.

But alas, her balm vanished once typing became too difficult. The company mourned the loss of their top programmer and offered a consolation job of teaching. To look over her pupils' shoulders but not touch. To point out mistakes but not create. To advise and watch them learn but not apply that knowledge herself. She became a legend in her time; the cold teacher who knew everything about programming but rebuffed any interaction. Whenever a student called her Ms. Stones a voice in her mind automatically whispered Mrs. Belpois instead.

She takes a sip of the warm tea and savors the flavor. Aelita looks at the steaming black liquid and sees two haunted eyes reflected in its murky depths. Enjoying the fleeting earthy sensation in her mouth, she runs a hand through her hair. Her frail frame reminds Aelita that most food tastes like ashes. Sleep provides some escape from the pain but that same agony prevents her from getting much more than three hours a night if that.

An hour crawls by; the tea steadily grows colder on the table next to the chair. The incessant rocking continues to make the only sound in the room besides breathing. An old woman gazes at the ceiling lost in memory. A subtle change wraps around her; the pink hair seems a touch more vibrant while the green eyes sparkle with a glint of youth. Today is the seventieth anniversary of his death.

-Flashback-

It all started with a cup of tea. The seemingly innocent concoction was a British blend, Jeremie's favorite. Aelita knocks on his door. "Jer, I have your tea. You there?" she asks.

"Yeah, one second." he calls. A clattering sound ensues before he flips open the door. "Thanks as always Aelita." His smile brightens her heart as it always does as she walks in and he swiftly grabs the tea.

"Ready to graduate?" she asks before sitting down next to him on the bed.

"You know it." Jeremie smiles and leans in for a quick kiss then continues with his thought. "Actually we really don't have any time. Rehearsal starts in a couple minutes. Then we have to celebrate our two years together, don't you think?"

"Definitely. Have something planned?" Aelita coos and winks.

"Of course. Now let's go." Aelita stands up to head out the door and hears a thumping sound followed by an "Ow!" She whirls around to see Jeremie standing up and holding a hand to his head. "You alright?" she asks. Aelita looks into his glacial eyes as he rubs his head.

A flicker bursts in those sapphire eyes and he stiffens without a word. Fear sparks in Aelita and she takes an involuntary step towards Jeremie with her hand outstretched. The light she cherishes with all her being dims into shadow as something leaves his body. Before her first step is completed Jeremie topples forward onto the ground with the crunch of a breaking nose. A scream erupts from Aelita's mouth and she rushes to the fallen boy. Bright tears drip off her face and mingle with the spreading pool of crimson liquid. The rush of footsteps and yells can't pierce her terror. Hands pull her away from Jeremie but she doesn't feel them. Only fear and anguish register in her mind as Yumi whispers comforts in her ear.

-End Flashback-

A tear slips down the wrinkled skin and into the cup of tea. That ambulance ride following his fall still remained hazy to Aelita. All she remembers is staring into those blank eyes while keening in grief. That moment marked the instant she realized life hid a dark side. The hours passed while the doctors performed all their tests. It all came down to a one in a million chance that Jeremie had the grave lack of luck to win.

A sad smile grows on Aelita's face as she recalls the meeting with the doctor. The kindly-looking man in the long white coat had to speak bad news for the countless time. She knew he hated it; that delivering a death sentence broke a little piece of his sanity away. He underwent a leave of absence two months later. An aneurysm was the cause. The light bang against the wall that Jeremie suffered blew the thing wide open. No higher brain function registered; his body was a mere shell that lived on autopilot.

He never opened his eyes or spoke again. The steady beat of the monitor registered that his heart and lungs functioned just fine but he remained in a coma. The first week passed by with incredible slowness; Aelita sat by his side and slept in the same chair every night. No amount of coaxing or command would pull her away. Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich tried their best but nothing could console their pink-haired friend.

Finally she had decided to live some semblance of a life. Aelita returned to school and underwent the whispers of sympathy. Everyone remarked on her change in personality. No longer did the innocent and sweet girl charm people. Her unofficial nickname among the people who liked her the least became "Ice Queen." Her friends still included her and she still laughed at their jokes and smiled when it was required. They all noticed how she turned away in grief.

The weeks stretched into months; Aelita begged Jeremie's parents to end it. He didn't exist anymore. She saw his soul fleeing herself. All this shell on the stark white hospital bed did was prolong the mourning. Aelita shakes her head and she sees out the window again at the kids playing in the street. I knew even then that I could never move on.

Aelita argued every chance she could for giving Jeremie some peace. Debates became arguments and arguments became shouting matches as the parents clung to hope that he would wake up. Aelita knew he wouldn't; hope fled her that fateful day. Six months after the aneurysm all his friends and family crowded that small room and watched. Aelita grabbed his still warm hand and gently kissed him for the final time as the heart rate monitor released the shrill scream of death. Relief had filled her as his chest depressed for the final time.

She thought the funeral would be one of the hardest things of her life but the ceremony turned out to be nothing compared to actually watching the life leave his eyes. The body lowered into the ground wasn't Jeremie after all. It was her. As she stood in her black dress and looked at the mahogany casket slip down Aelita couldn't help but feel that her soul joined the dead boy in the ground. Life moved on. She graduated, kept in touch with her three friends, and started a job as a programmer. Then the arthritis set in and the rest was history.

Aelita flicks the memories away for the thousandth time and stands up to gaze outside clearly. Her twisted hands rest lightly on the windowsill. Golden sunlight pours onto her face and for a blessed moment pain ceases. A split second where the emotional turmoil breaks the ice and the old love fills her at the same time that her arthritis rests. Life may have scarred her but at least she had a life to live. Two amazing years occupy one scale of her personal balance against sixty-eight of pain. Two beats sixty-eight hands down no questions asked. That time of love is worth any amount of pain. Aelita looks out at the splendor of Earth with tears of happiness flowing onto her hands.