Chapter 14

"Will you two tell me where you're dragging me?" Grandmére asked as the three trekked up the hill as snow fell. Three flashlights danced against the snow as dusk came upon them. "We've got to get ready to go to Midnight mass soon, you know."

"We've got a couple more hours before that," Jérémie said, gripping his free gloved hand in a fist as he led the way.

Aélita glanced over her shoulder to see the white haired woman keeping pace up the forest path. "Come on, Grandmére, I know this little ol' hill an't got nothing on you," Aélita encouraged, remembering the woman's battle against the Xanafied trees.

Grandmére gave her a glance, the slang not normal coming from Aélita. Aélita gave her a shrug, smiling at the woman.

"You did tell Jérémie what we talked about, didn't you?" Grandmére asked.

"Yes, that's why we're coming up here," Jérémie admitted, swinging his flashlight to and thro before shining it on the tree ahead of them. He stopped next to the tree and took a deep breath. "I hate that hill."

"You think with all the running we do," Aélita said only to remember his body wouldn't advantage from something happening in a differed timeline. She stopped next to Jérémie and turned around to face Grandmére.

"Okay, what's with the tree?" Grandmére asked, flashing her light up at it.

Aélita pushed her shoulders back to stand straight. "Grandmére, my name is Aélita Rosa Hopper. I was born in his house on April 22, 1982." She smiled, glad she finally had a date of birth.

Grandmére's mouth moved, as if she wanted to interrupt, only to close it.

Aélita felt like she was repeating herself now, saying a similar version of what she and Jérémie had told the woman on the plane. "My memory's not all there yet but my father was commissioned by the government to create a program that would replace human surveillance called Xanadu Artificial Neotype of Analysis, or XANA for short. He built Xana a world to learn in and created a way for people to go to that world. In September of '94, Daddy and I got stuck in that world, the government locking us inside to be forgotten. Lyoko, the world built for Xana, started dumping memory, leaving me memoryless."

"I found her October 9th, 2004," Jérémie said, picking up the story. "She had no memory at the time and we all assumed she was an AI. It took a little over a year to learn how she could be brought to Earth, the digital envelop her molecular data had been stored in for the past ten years had been damaged to the point that if she had been devirtualized like anyone else, it would've killed her. When I had asked you to help fund her, we still thought she was an AI, so I gave you the same story we gave Mr. Delmas and the school board."

"It wasn't until last summer we even learned the truth," Aélita admitted, running her mitted hand through the nettles of the fir tree. She looked over at Grandmére and said, "My father is still stuck in Lyoko."

"His digital envelop was damaged to the point that even on Lyoko he doesn't have a form," Jérémie offered. "Sometimes he can construct himself as a ball of energy, but that's the best he's been able to get."

Aélita looked at the woman as she digested all the new information she was being given, worry building up in her for a reason she wasn't sure of.

Grandmére looked over at the tree before looking back at them. "What's with the tree then?"

"It was my Christmas tree," Aélita admitted, taking a look at the tree. "Proof that my memories are slowly returning."

The woman nodded her head before squinting her eyes in thought. "Franz Hopper, why does that name sound so familiar?" Grandmére asked more to herself.

Expecting the question, Aélita reached into her scarf and pulled out the locket, carefully unclipping it from around her neck. She opened it up, looking at the pictures inside as she said, "Here's a picture of him. Sadly we just found out my mother passed away."

Grandmére took the offered locket and looked at the pictures inside, silent for a moment. "Right!" Grandmére exclaimed, a smile on her face. "He got the job replacing Richard the year I left Kadic."

"You taught at Kadic?" Aélita asked.

"How else do you think I convinced Michel and Béa to send Jérémie there?" Grandmére said, looking at the girl as she handed back the locket. "I taught there from '79 to '88, year nine history."

"Did you ever see my mother?" Aélita asked, looking at the locket as she remembered the government report of her being a test subject.

Grandmére shook her head. "No, I never saw any of his family. Just him when he came to apply for a teaching job. I was still on the hiring board though that was also the spring I was ready to quit. I do remember his application being strange. He had never taught anywhere before but had a background that convinced Raphaël, the head master before Jean-Pierre took it over, to hire him on the spot for the '88-'89 school year."

"What do you remember of him?" Aélita asked, craving more about her father. She closed her mittened hands around the locket, protecting their faces from the snow.

"Mostly that he was easy to talk to. I remember one of the teachers commenting that he would be the oldest one, besides Raphaël, which was strange for Kadic at the time. They were trying to be different by having a mostly younger staff. I think they forgot I was about the same age as he," Grandmére said, a sly smile on her face. Her smile faded as she continued, "But sadly, I didn't talk to him that much. What I did get to talk to him about was mostly him wanting to know about the area. I took that as he had just moved to town."

"We found out they moved to Sceaux in '88," Jérémie added.

"Do you know what happened to your mother?" Grandmére asked, looking softly at Aélita.

Aélita looked at Jérémie, hoping he would explain.

"She died of cardio arrest in August, '92," Jérémie said. "Or so the death certificate said. Right before, she signed a release to be used as a test subject for Franz Hopper's virtualization process."

"Why would he risk his wife?" Grandmére asked.

"That didn't make since to us, either," Jérémie admitted. "I want to ask him, but he hasn't been able to response to my contacting him."

"So he is cognitive?" Grandmére checked.

Jérémie nodded his head. "He's tried to help us a few times, though we've only been able to talk once. I believe it's hard for him to do so with how his mental consciousness is scattered."

"I think the government forced her to be the guinea pig," Aélita said, voicing the thought that had been in her head since she read the reports. She put the locket back around her neck, tucking it under her scarf and added, "I don't know if it was a memory Xana made or not, but right before break I saw my mother being taken away by government agents here, at the mountain home. I don't remember her at all in the Hermitage, the house in Sceaux."

"We also found a letter Aélita wrote right before they moved from this house, saying she believed her mom had already left for a new job. But there's no record of her for those six years," Jérémie offered. "With Franz, there's at least a job history. Anthea's job history ends in '88."

Aélita took a look at Jérémie, surprised he didn't show her those.

"Sorry, it wasn't easy to save like the documents were," Jérémie admitted. "I'll pull it back up when you can read through it."

"Okay."

"You're going to have to show me Lyoko and all its hardware," Grandmére said, shoving her hands in her coat pockets.

"When you can remember it this time," Jérémie said, a smile on his face.

Grandmére gave him a face that got a giggle out of Aélita. "What do you mean by that?"

Aélita and Jérémie told the woman what had happened earlier that day in another time line, Grandmére taking it all in.

"So only those who've gone to Lyoko are taken back in time?" Grandmére asked, looking at her grandson. "I can't see you fighting on Lyoko though."

"I've only truly been once," Jérémie admitted. His smile disappeared as he admitted, "Ulrich and Odd put me up against a mega-tank."

"It's true, they should've found you a kankrelat or a bloc," Aélita offered.

"I prefer to be at the keyboard," Jérémie said.

Grandmére gave him a smile.

Jérémie's phone went off, distracting the three as he pulled out his phone. He bit off his glove so he could answer the call, quickly taking the glove in his bare hand as he put the phone to his ear. "Hello."

Grandmére looked at her watch, having to lift up her sleeve to do so, saying low enough as to not distract Jérémie, "It's probably his mom. She likes everyone to get to church at ten: thirty."

"We're coming," Jérémie said before putting his phone back in his pocket. He put his glove back on as he said, "Mom wants us to get ready for church."

Grandmére gave Aélita a look as if to say 'I told you' before saying, "Alright, back down the hill."

Jérémie led the way down, Aélita and Grandmére following close behind until Aélita felt a hand tap her shoulder. She slowed down to walk next to the woman, curious as to what she didn't want Jérémie to hear.

"Thank you," Grandmére said, her voice hushed. "For telling me, that is."

"You deserve to know," Aélita said, just stating what she believed to be true.

"I was proud of him before, I guess all my smarts went along Michel's line, but to know he saved you, has helped save the world," Grandmére's voice left her as a smile pulled at her cheeks. "You know, Jérémie looks at you the same way Michel looks at Béa. And he's been given her the same loving look for the past twenty years."

"And I love that look," Aélita said, remembering the few times she had caught it.

"Then?"

"Maybe after Xana's defeated," Aélita admitted.

"Maybe before," Grandmére offered. Aélita looked at her in surprise. "I hope you all defeat him as soon as possible, but don't keep pushing each other away. I've got no qualms of a lady asking the boy out."

Aélita looked ahead, Jérémie's blonde hair being speckled with the falling snow. Her heart ached for him. How many times had she longed to place her arms around his neck as he worked on the computer, just to watch him work?

AN: Ok, so part of my head cannon for the group is that Jérémie is catholic, since France is last I checked. In my past stories, he convinced Aélita to go with him to mass one Sunday morning and she, as an AI at the time, liked the idea of somewhere to go after death but was confused about being a creation of God when she was a creation of man. I might try to dig that story back up again… But along with that, I had placed Ulrich as being Christian, that being most popular in Germany, Yumi being atheist with Shinto traditions that she didn't really follow, and Odd never staying constant. Sadly I'm not catholic, so I don't go into midnight mass, I was just lucky enough to have a few catholic friends during high school. The only service I even know much about is a catholic funeral, which smells of Christmas. If any of you are curious, your writer here is Christian, part of the nondenominational group. Some days it feels like I go to the church of Paul, with how much they seem to worship him more than God and Jesus, but my church is going under anyway. Old building and, as one of the Elders said, "The average age of the church is dead", it's not going to last much longer. The YMCA across the street has already made an offer, since we have a plot of land that is on a main street and a corner plot at that.

ODD: You're Christian?

AN: I thought you knew that. I mean, shoot, I have a whole folder on DA called Church Art.

ODD: I've seen what you have in Ulrich's flash drive.

AN: We don't talk about everything in that flash drive.