~Back at Kadic~

Herve and Nicholas were genuinely confused as they walked into the cafeteria for breakfast. Odd Della Robbia was missing from Ulrich's table, and in his place was Sissi. The boys approached the table and just stood there at a loss for words. Sissi looked up at them with a look of irritation on her face.

"What do you two want?" She asked asked in her usual shrewd voice.

"Where's Della Robbia?" Nicholas asked absent-mindedly.

"His parents pulled him out of school this week for a vacation," Aelita said to them kindly. "He should be back here with us next week sometime," Jeremie took her hand beneath the table and squeezed it.

"And, uh, Sissi… I thought we'd eat together this morning," Herve said hoping she'd ditch Ulrich's table for him. He always hoped, he was always foolishly optimistic.

"No thank you, Herve," Sissi said abruptly. "I'm sitting with Ulrich, Jeremie, Yumi, and Aelita today. Go away now, you two."

"Yeah go do something productive," Yumi said, trying not to sound too harsh but coming off as such anyway.

"Sissi doesn't like you two following her around so why don't you go follow each other around," Ulrich added. Nicholas and Herve looked at each other for a moment unsure of what to make of this and walked off to get some food.

"Sissi is hanging out with Ulrich and his freak friends and I don't like it," Herve said when they were out of earshot of the group.

Nicholas got a tray for himself and handed one to Herve. "Maybe they're right. Maybe we should try to find something else to do. We've been trying to be friends with Sissi for years and it's not working."

Herve scowled at the selection of food in front of him as he thought about this. All he'd ever wanted was for Sissi to give him a chance, he thought he deserved that. He knew in his mind that the logical thing to do would be give up and focus on school and work, but in his heart all he wanted was to be with Sissi. Nothing else mattered.

And besides, what did Ulrich Stern have that was so great? He was a failure at school and hung out with freaks.

"So you want to play billiards after classes tonight? Delmas finally gave in and ordered a table!" Nicholas continued excitedly.

Herve nodded sadly, knowing that he should at least take a break; maybe if he stayed away from Sissi she would miss him and come find him!

Nicholas and Herve sat down at a table alone, far away from the warriors who were discussing what had just happened between them.

"It's not like I completely dislike the two of them, I just wish they weren't so…" Sissi tried to find the proper word. "How can I put this…"

"Clingy?" Aelita suggested.

"Overbearing?" Yumi offered.

"Pathetic?" Ulrich snorted.

"Yes! All three, actually… They are nice enough people but not really my type. Nicholas is too stupid and Herve is too in love with me to keep his head on straight so he acts stupider than Nicholas sometimes!" Sissi took a bite out of her croissant, chewed, swallowed, and continued talking, "I don't see Herve that way and I wish he'd accept that."

Ulrich raised an eyebrow, about to say something when Jeremie put his hand up to halt him. "Alright, that's enough talk about that…" Jeremie intervened; he thought Sissi was full of shit. She loved hanging, or should he say bossing those guys around before Yumi let her into their group. He was still curious about why Yumi did that. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and took a swig of his hot chocolate.

"You're right, Jeremie," Ulrich said. "What do you think Xana wants to do with Odd?"

"My honest opinion?" Jeremie asked. The whole table was watching him silently awaiting his thoughts. He hated when they did that, it's not like he would always be right… "No idea. He could want Odd to attack the core of Lyoko, he could want Odd to do much worse. We won't know until it happens, I'm afraid."

Ulrich balled his fist. "This is a nightmare."

"You don't think… we could try to make contact with Odd? Try to make him remember who his real allies are?" Aelita asked thoughtfully.

"It's possible… his true, unaltered memory must be in sector five, where Xana stores all of his data. We could try to access it and I can try to send bits of it to Odd's character. He won't realize them upfront but if someone can talk to him…" Jeremie drifted off, thinking of the scenarios that would play out.

"I thought you said you didn't have any control over Odd's character anymore?" Yumi asked.

"That's right," Jeremie nodded sadly, remembering. "So I don't know how we could do this…"

"I could go in and try to tak to him anyway," Aelita suggested hopefully. "He might still hold some memories as it is. I mean Xana probably kept memories that would give him the upper hand fighting Ulrich, Yumi, and me. He's got to have his memory… Xana just changed his perception of them."

"That would be risky though, sending you in to make contact," Jeremie said, shaking his head. "For now, let's just stay off of Lyoko… I will continue to work on Odd's program and if I need more information I'll send you into sector five, but only if. We aren't going to try anything else until we know we can bring him back."

Yumi, Ulrich, and Sissi nodded. Aelita hesitated, trying to think of an argument she could make to go to Lyoko sooner. She knew Jeremie was right. She nodded slowly. She stood up, taking her left over food to the trash and cleared her tray, leaving it on the tray table next to it. She left the cafeteria without a word.

"She's taking this really hard," Yumi speculated.

"Harder than the rest of us, I think. She must feel responsible or something," Jeremie added watching her through the window.

"I'm going to talk to her..." Sissi declared. "I think the two of us should bond a little, don't you think?"

"I'll take the rest of your food," Ulrich told her. "I'm actually really hungry this morning…"

"Odd isn't here but his stomach is living vicariously through you," Yumi smirked. Sissi left her tray for Ulrich and took off after Aelita.

~Author's Notes~

So I hope you like this… Can you see an Aelita x Odd theme emerging? Yes, I ship them so hard and hopefully I'll get a chance to show that in this fanfiction… It might be tricky. I know I gave a lot of chapters at once in the beginning but that's because I had a lot of chapters already written. Now I'm writing them as I go and the creative juices seem to be flowing slower…

Please review this! I'd love to hear suggestions and constructive criticism.

I know I say this in the description, but I'm going to be paranoid if I don't add this: I do not own Code Lyoko or the characters. I do own the plot.