So many hits! I'm flabbergasted. Thanks to those who reviewed! Keep in mind that Jeremie is the narrator.

II.ii ; Standing Still

Ulrich watched Yumi until she disappeared from sight. Once she had gone from the cafeteria, he swallowed the rest of his meal and took off for the dorms. He hadn't been very hungry, anyway, and his classes for the day were over. That was one convenient thing about this inconvenient day.

The halls were deserted inside the building, so he took his time passing the endless doors. With each step he regretted this decision more and more, and eventually he stopped. Even in his own room he couldn't relax, for the notion of his silly, inconsiderate roommate, and, because peace was really the only thing he wanted, Ulrich pressed his back against the wall and slid to the floor right there in the hall. With one knee up and the other leg sprawled out in front of him, he watched the door before him with no particular interest. A few moments passed before the dark number on the grain of the door resurrected his memory, and at once he recognized it. It was my room.

An idea taunted Ulrich as he sat there, and finally he decided to acknowledge it. He stood and walked to the door, trying the handle. It was locked, but Ulrich slipped a few paperclips from his pocket with a sly grin. In little time at all, the door relinquished itself to him. Ulrich opened the door slowly, and my room presented itself with a thick wave of nostalgia. Everything was the same, preserved in this glued state since the day the world ended. There was Einstein peering down at Ulrich, warily following him as he fully entered the room, and there was my desk, organized chaos with a plethora of electronics and disks. Even my laptop was there, plugged into the wall. I was the only thing missing. Ulrich felt the weight of the room suffocate him—it was almost stuffy, but there was still a clarity in the air that made the heavy aura bearable. Ulrich ran his fingers along the keyboard, hovering them over the laptop next. Ulrich frowned. The laptop chirped loudly and blinked furiously. Ulrich removed the cord and carried the hardware to my bed, where he sat and reclined against the wall. He flipped open the cover and gazed at the screen.

Several windows popped up immediately, but Ulrich couldn't understand the messages they tried so desperately to convey. He glanced at them all hastily, but he knew it was no use trying to discern their implications. He shut the cover and pushed the computer to the side, and then he collapsed in the bed. This was the quiet he wanted—the stillness of my dorm room would never be disturbed, except by the frustrating murmurs of the laptop. It must be the battery or something, he told himself. Ulrich crushed the little computer under a pillow, and the muffled noise subsided. Ulrich smiled in smug satisfaction and closed his eyes. At last he'd found a sanctuary, a refuge from—

Ulrich frowned suddenly as a ruckus shattered the solitude. Voices—familiar voices, he thought dismally—leaked through the window above the desk. Ulrich rose slowly and tuned his ears to the noise, focusing his energy on distinguishing the words, but he could only identify (almost immediately) the whiny voice of Odd. Ulrich would have shrugged it off, but for the fact that he heard one particular voice...a voice that sounded so familiar and, at the same time, distant.

Curiosity prodded him to move to the window, and as he reached the frame and gazed down into the yard, he saw Odd—of course, he had expected that—Yumi, and... He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, just to make certain he was seeing it clearly. William! Ulrich blinked several times, but every time he opened his eyes, there William stood, a real, tangible ghost lighting on the grass beside his two friends.

"Oh...my God!" Ulrich muttered to himself, the excitement accelerating his pulse. "William's alive!" He staggered back and tore out of my still room, and his feet carried him fast through the halls, down the stairs, and ever forward to meet the phantom. Seeing William had shocked his body out if its state of wearied apathy, but as soon as Ulrich reached the glass door he froze.

On his side of the door, Ulrich pressed his hands against the glass, slowly touching his forehead to the cool panel. On the other side of the thin barricade, Yumi clung to William as if her life had depended on their contact, and William's arm seemed to be glued to Yumi's waist. Ulrich's excitement drowned suddenly, and he let his forehead leave the glass's surface. He watched with bleak resentment as they talked and laughed, and, though the world had come alive in their free bubble outside, Ulrich became locked inside his own world.

He realized with sudden misery that he had become the third wheel—no longer the object of Yumi's adoration, but the jealous boy for whom Yumi had little concern. This had been common knowledge for some time, but Ulrich had never really accepted it as truth until this instant. Ulrich let himself step away from the door, and he glanced back at their happy reunion once more before returning silently to my stagnant room.

Stepping once again into the time warp, Ulrich shut the door hard and fast behind him. In silent, forceful frustration, he threw the nearest chair askew, and tossed my laptop hard against the floor. Panting, Ulrich collapsed onto the ground beside the persistently beeping computer and looked at it with indifference. As he caught his breath, he caught his thoughts. William was standing in the yard below him, and here my laptop blipped at him, begging to be understood. This alerted Ulrich suddenly to a fact that hadn't concerned him before, and with newly-sparked interest he opened the lid of the laptop and maximized each message. Ulrich knew he understood little about this intricate technology, but, nevertheless, he carefully perused every last word.


How long had it been? Minutes? Hours?

Aelita propped herself up at length, slowly and carefully. As she left the warmth of the leaf pile, she felt a chill spread over her body. It was still early afternoon, but the sun was almost invisible through the overcast sky. Aelita was surprised it hadn't rained, but she didn't waste too much time considering the weather. Despite the fact that she had no obligation to return to school, she still felt compelled to return to her comfortable dorm room and sleep the day off in her warm bed. Reluctantly, Aelita bid the wild forest good-bye and began to trudge toward the buildings.

Actually, she would have gone toward them, if it hadn't been for me.

The movement behind her caused a pause, and when she turned to investigate she became so pale that my heart almost stopped. She looked at me long and hard, as if trying to tell if I were really there, and before long tears began to form in her eyes. My stomach dropped at the sight of her—for other reasons entirely—and Aelita walked forward slowly, testing each step as if the world would break beneath her. Was this real? Could it really be Jeremie?! She hesitated when she met me at arm's length, and I froze for fear of startling her. She seemed so fragile in that instant.

A second later, Aelita cried out and draped her arms around my neck (knocking my glasses askew), and through teary eyes she kissed me long and hard. I would have been glad, if it had been under any other circumstance. I held her for a while as she sobbed, though few tears crawled down her cheek because of the emotional strain that had taxed her an hour before. It was a lifetime before she regained part of her composure, and when she looked into my face I almost choked.

"J-Jeremie..." she hiccupped. "God...Jeremie..." My fingers stroked her pink hair, and she buried her face in my chest. "How are you alive?" she breathed into my shirt. "Is this real? God...Jeremie..."

I wanted to answer her; I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to look into her eyes and tell her how much I loved her and how much I'd missed her. I wanted so badly to answer her.

"It's your father," I felt myself speak instead. "Franz Hopper. Aelita, you've got to come to the factory with me!" I sounded so excited, so enthralled by the discovery, but Aelita was soaring on such a high that she couldn't recognize the coldness that had possessed my face. "Come on, right now! You have to see this."

I held out my hand to her, smiling with calculated precision. She took my hand blissfully, and followed me away from the boarding school.