Content Warning: This chapter contains references to suicide, alcoholism, and sexual themes.

Chapter X

"You've definitely done that before."

Giana was lying with her back to him. She was facing the wall, looking at one of his posters. He leaned over and ran kisses along her shoulder.

William smirked. "I could say the same thing about you."

"Who was your first?"

The question caught him off guard. He propped himself up on his elbow. "Heidi."

"Not Heidi Klinger," she inquired. It wasn't a question.

He nodded. "Yeah."

She let out a single laugh.

"What about you?"

She stiffened, adjusting herself to lay on her back. He looked down at her.

"Xander," she said in a hollow voice.

He frowned.

"He was my boyfriend at the time," she continued. "He…"

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," he said.

"No, no… It's fine." She took a deep breath. "He killed himself."

That definitely wasn't the answer William had expected. "What happened?"

"Everything was going fine at first," she started, shifting again to face the wall. "We were together for about a year in total. The problem was, out of nowhere, he changed – like, he did a complete one-eighty. He was all of a sudden incredibly controlling; he didn't want me to go off with my friends unless I invited him too. We did have a group of friends that we hung out with, but I also had my own, and he wouldn't accept that." She paused. "He wanted constant communication, twenty-four-seven. He didn't like that I was heavily involved in an advocacy organization for people who are blind and visually impaired. Stuff like that." She made a face bordering on disgust. "After the first time, he always wanted to have sex." She exhaled. "So, I broke up with him."

"Did he hurt you?"

She bit her lower lip, not that he could really tell from his angle as she was still facing the wall. Again, she tried to focus on the poster, the wall, anywhere else, to avoid turning around and looking William in the eye.

He placed a tentative hand on her upper arm. All he got in response was the faintest nod. And that made him angry.

But she had more to her story, so she continued. "He tried to get me back. Multiple times, in fact. Of course, every time he asked, I said no. I had to block his number from calling. When that happened, he would show up at my house unannounced. He'd wait outside the gate to our school and follow me home – and I stayed late for theater rehearsal. He even tried to get my brother involved, like that would've benefitted him. He was obsessively stalking me." She paused. "It got so bad at one point, that we had to take out a restraining order on him."

William didn't realize that he was moving his hand in a circular motion on her shoulder, until she once again moved to lay on her back. She looked up at the ceiling. He settled back down next to her.

"Then, one day, about a month after the court order, I get a call from my best friend, Tori. She lives next door to them." Her breath hitched. "One of Xander's brothers came home and found him in their car, in the garage. He was already dead."

"Was he, uh…" He didn't know how to make it sound tactful. "Did he have–"

"Did he have low vision?" she interjected. "It's alright, you can say it." She turned her head, facing the wall again. "No."

He didn't know what else to say. He mustered up an "I'm sorry."

"Everyone told me it wasn't my fault," she continued. "My parents, my brother, Tori… Literally, everyone told me not to blame myself. But even now, I still do."

"Don't," he said quietly.

She finally turned to look at him, tears welling in her eyes. "I can't help it." Her breath hitched. "Despite everything, I loved him."

"He obviously had some mental health issues that no one was aware of," he offered. "Maybe, if he had just gotten the right help…"

She didn't answer. William decided it was best to not prod any further.

He couldn't pinpoint exactly when she fell asleep, but she did. He gave her one of his Subdigitals T-shirts to wear. It was the one from when Aelita had been their opening act – they had given it to him after he had been devirtualized, having gotten an extra, as he was already part of the group at that point.

He envied Giana for being able to drift off into a seemingly sound sleep.

They agreed it was too risky for her to walk back upstairs to her room; Jim might be patrolling. It was better to wait until the morning, when everyone started waking up and Jim was still asleep.

They also didn't want the rest of the group to know they had been seeing each other just yet, as he'd told Sissi when they were practicing the waltz. Let them think he was still sulking over Yumi's rejection or whatever. There was something fun and rebellious about a secret romance anyway. And William was all about being rebellious.

He lay next to her, staring up at the ceiling, wide awake. He thought about the handle of vodka stashed away at the back of his closet, half empty, behind his longboard and some laundry. Practically every night since the term had started, he'd drink some – just enough to dull the pain – and then he'd eventually succumb to sleep. He expected it to be tempting him tonight, but it wasn't.

He was seventeen, he could have alcohol. Jim and the teachers just couldn't know about it, as it was considered contraband even though he was of the legal age.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw what he did to Ulrich, Yumi, Odd, and Aelita on Lyoko. And he remembered everything his specter did on earth. Just as he'd told Jeremie and Aelita, he was aware the entire time, unable to stop XANA from controlling him. It was like everything had been a horribly surreal out-of-body experience, a nightmare, some already terrible movie gone bad. Except it had happened in real life, and he had hurt real people, his real friends.

And yet, here he was: Physically healthy, but otherwise tipping precariously towards insanity. The ghosts of his past kept eating away at him. He couldn't go to the school psychologist, Dr. Simone or Klotz or whatever his name was; he couldn't go to an actual psychologist either. Any attempt at that would mean divulging everything: Lyoko, the supercomputer, XANA. And that was way too dangerous, especially with those damn fragments still out there.

It was like a blip on the radar that none of them had noticed until a few weeks ago, when that first attack happened. Jeremie theorized that it was because XANA might not have been strong enough up until that point to actually facilitate activating a tower; however, William still blamed him for turning the supercomputer back on in the first place. He knew Aelita wanted to find her mom, and they wanted to delve more into the whole deal with Project Carthage and how Franz Hopper actually created Lyoko and all that. But none of those things were as important as his suffering mental health. He didn't want to keep fighting an AI, not when he was constantly still waging internal battles with himself.

He let out an agitated breath through his nose. He turned to look up at his alarm clock on the edge of his desk. It was just about two in the morning. It was Toussaint; the dorms were practically empty save for the two of them, Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, and Sissi.

He looked over at Giana, still sleeping, seemingly without a care in the world.

"You're not the only one with a tragic past," he whispered.

Before he realized, he eventually drifted off into his own personal Hell called sleep.

"Sissi, we're worried about you."

"Go to bed, Hervé," she droned, tired. "It's two in the morning."

"You're spending all your time hanging out with Jeremie and his group," he continued. She could feel his agitation through the phone. "And you're becoming just like them, too – always going off campus, always hiding things and keeping secrets. What the hell is going on that's so important, you can't tell Nicholas and I?"

She groaned, flopping back on to her bed. "It's complicated. You wouldn't understand."

"But I–"

"Look, Hervé," she cut him off, sitting up. "I'm getting the same questions from my father, okay? I don't need you and Nicholas to start interrogating me, too. Good night."

She ended the call without so much as letting him get another word in edgewise. Taking a deep breath, she stood from her bed and put on her slippers. Maybe Aelita was still awake.

She knocked on the pink-haired girl's door, but there was no answer. She tried jiggling the handle, but it was locked. So, she went next door and tried Giana's room.

Immediately, a blur of black fluff launched at her as she quietly opened the door. She stifled a yelp as she got herself under control, and realized it was only Vega.

"Hey, girl," she said quietly, bending down to pet the dog, who had nicely sat for her. "Where's your owner?"

Vega tilted her head to the side and looked at Sissi expectantly. The girl looked up into the vacant room, the lights off and shades drawn.

"Weird," she said aloud, mainly to the dog. "Aelita might actually be in her room asleep, but Giana's blatantly not here." She looked back to the black lab and cracked a smile. "Did she go downstairs to see William?"

Vega yawned and licked Sissi's hand.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Are you sure you don't want to come to Disneyland Paris with us?" Giana asked, dressing in her clothes from the previous day.

"Nah," William answered, pulling on a T-shirt. "I told Jeremie I'd work with him on the XANA thing." He ran a comb through his hair. "Say hi to Mickey for me."

She smiled, and they kissed. "See you later."

Stepping out into the hall, she checked her watch: It was early, almost seven. They figured Jim would still be asleep at this hour, considering the dorms were pretty much empty. She quietly walked to the double doors leading to the stairwell, checking around the corner to make sure she was alone.

As luck would have it, Jim came barreling out of the stairwell at the exact moment she opened the door. He stopped short, crossing his arms and scrutinizing her.

"De Luca!" he exclaimed. "Care to tell me what you're doing on the boys' floor at this hour?"

She went rigid, but flashed a fake grin nonetheless. "Well, Jim," she started, the smile still pasted on her face, "I got a little turned around. You see, my grandmother stopped by to drop off this sweater." She lifted her arm slightly to show the blue cardigan draped over it. "It was so quick that I figured I didn't need Vega, although it is a little disorienting without her."

He arched an eyebrow. "Don't you have a cane or something?"

"I have a backup somewhere, but I can't seem to find it," she lied.

"Well." His expression softened. "Alright, then. Carry on." He held the door open for her so she could escape into the stairwell. Once it was closed, she ran up the steps as fast as she could manage, not stopping until she was in front of the door to her room. She let out a breath as she stuck the key in the lock.

"I thought I locked this," she said to herself as the key wouldn't budge.

"You didn't."

She jumped, turning around to come face-to-face with Sissi. The girl stood in the doorway to her own room, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Of course, Giana couldn't really see that – to her, Sissi's face just looked like a pale blob with long black hair.

"How did you know?" the brunette asked.

"I was up at around two this morning, talking to Hervé – you know him, the geeky kid who's always competing with Jeremie when we're in class. Anyway, he was giving me the third-degree about why I'd been going off campus so often, and after hanging up with him, I wanted to talk to you or Aelita. But Aelita was asleep, and you weren't here. I did have a nice bonding moment with your dog, though."

Giana opened the door to her room, immediately assaulted by the sixty-pound Labrador, tail wagging full-force.

"Do you want to go to Disneyland Paris with us today?" she asked, changing the topic and wrangling her dog. "My grandparents are getting us at eight."

"I can't," she said, dismayed. "My father wants to spend the day with me. But I can let Vega out this afternoon if you're not back in time."

"I'd appreciate that." She entered her room, ushering the dog back in with her, and shut the door. I really need to keep this thing locked, she told herself.