"He's… he's opening his eyes! HE'S OPENING HIS EYES! NURSE!"

The light pierced the center of Jeremie's weary eyes that had grown accustomed to darkness as he struggled to bring his eyelids to a complete open stance. The blurred image of a black haired woman hovered above him, her bright smile beaming down at him and making it even more challenging to expose his sensitive eyeballs.

"I… uh…" he groaned, wincing at the slight pain from all of the sudden and excruciating brightness. "Yumi?"

"Jeremie! OH MY GOD!" Yumi cried with such bliss, as if she hadn't seen him in years. All of the loud noises bothered him as much as the light, the constant chatter from the people around him, the excited squeals of delight, the sound of his heart monitor, all clashing together against his eardrums.

"Did you… uh… did you bring me here? After the… car…"

"The car? What car, Jeremie?"

The doctor eagerly scuttled into the room after hearing the announcement from the nurse. He shined a flashlight into his eyes, tracking the motions of his pupils. Jeremie squinted and looked away. The room around him spun, and he was both disordered and slightly nauseous.

"This is remarkable," the doctor responded.

"Huh?" Jeremie groggily moaned. "What happened to the… the guy… in the truck?"

"Truck? What is he talking about, a truck?" The nurse and doctor mumbled something to each other under their breaths, but they spoke far too softly for Jeremie's ears to pick up their words. He wasn't even alert enough to understand their dialect either way. Jeremie observed their emotions; they expressed both confusion and astonishment. He couldn't understand what the big deal was, was the accident that bad?

"I'm not sure. Mr. Belpois, do you know where you are?" The nurse gently asked.

"I'm in a hospital… I got hit by a car."

"Well, he's got the first part right," the nurse affirmed as he turned her heard towards the doctor.

Jeremie slowly brought himself up in his bed, with nurse quickly running over to him and assisting him as if he were going to break his back with one simple movement. He heavily rubbed his eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust. For some reason, it was so hard for him to keep his eyes open, as if they had been staring at darkness for several months. He looked around him, the room still somewhat spinning, and noticed something unusual about Yumi compared to the last time he had seen her.

She was still a teenager.

"Y…Yumi? You're not… You're not old…."

"Uh… no. You haven't been out that long, Jeremie."

"JEREMIE!" Ulrich screamed as he dropped the smoldering cup of coffee onto the tiled floor, staring in awe at the blond boy who had finally awoken. "He's… he's awake!" Odd quickly followed behind Ulrich, having expected a quick snack and instead his eyes met the shock of a lifetime. He spat out his mouthful of potato chips at the outrageous sight.

"Our sleeping beauty is finally awake! No way!"

Ulrich and Odd sprinted to Jeremie's bed side, awing in happiness. Jeremie couldn't understand why all of his friends acted like they had never seen him before. The disoriented boy sat in bed, raising an eyebrow as he watched Ulrich and Yumi pull each other into a loving hug and Odd jumped up and down with glee. Why was Odd even here? Yumi said they weren't friends anymore. He was so confused. Pain throbbed throughout his aching head, and he rubbed his temples to relieve the compression. At this sight, the nurse shooed the others away from him.

"Don't crowd him; he's going to be very delirious."

"The nurse is right; we should give him some space. Three people at once is probably too much," Yumi calmly agreed, although it was clear she was still on the verge of jumping out of her pants with joy.

"Three people for sure… but I bet one person would be okay…" Odd gleamed at Yumi and Ulrich, who immediately nodded their heads in response.

"Quick! Let's go get her! She's going to be so overjoyed! This is amazing!"

Jeremie gaped at the doorframe as the solid flap swung back and forth between the entrance after his three friends had raced outside. He held his head in agony as he tried to adjust to the situation, the last thing Jeremie remembered was having a child, being married to Andrea, and then suddenly rekindling with an old friend before being hit by a truck. With the amount of force from that oversized vehicle, Jeremie wouldn't be alive right now if that had actually happened. Judging by the looks on the nurse, doctor, and all of his friends… it hadn't happened.

Jeremie took a better look at himself and realized he was still inside his scrawny, thirteen year old body. If he was still thirteen, he sure as hell didn't have a kid, or a wife. He began to tremble with distress as the recollection of events coursed throughout his nervous system.

"Jeremie, will you tell me what love is?"

"This must be snow! Oh it's so wonderful, Jeremie!"

"Pistachio is my favorite flavor!"

"Why is there water coming from the sky?"

"Have you loved someone before, Jeremie?"

"I never want this to end."

"I love you, Jeremie!"

Jeremie's heart pounded against his ribs. Was… was Aelita… alive?

"…Jeremie?"

The pink haired girl cautiously stood in the frame of the door, staring at the tired young boy who sat upright in his hospital bed. The cup of hot chocolate she had gone to retrieve slid right out of her hand, toppling onto the floor as the steady stream mixed with the puddle of coffee. Her heart, too, began to thump inside her chest. Her cheeks grew warm and flushed a pink brighter than her hair as she became stunned with a sensation of happiness and completeness. It was if she had become whole again; as if she had finally found her missing puzzle piece.

Jeremie's eyes varnished over with anticipation and enchantment. The woman that just a minute ago he believed he would never see in flesh and blood again was standing just across from him.

"Aelita…" he gasped. Waiting not one second, she screamed with joy and ran over to his bedside, tightly wrapping her arms around him. The tears began gushing down her face as she happily sobbed against him.

"Oh, Jeremie! You're awake! I was beginning to lose hope!"

Jeremie loosened his grip on her, perplexed by her statements. "What do you mean I'm awake? You… you were the one asleep!" Aelita backed away from Jeremie and observed his baffled look. She could tell he had no idea what was going on.

"Jeremie… do you have any idea what happened?"

"Well, after I injected you with your anti-virus, XANA managed to trap you inside Lyoko and you're your physical body here on Earth, empty… and after another failed attempt at trying to save you, he managed to shut the computer off long enough to… to ki… kill you."

"Jeremie," she started as she dabbed away the tears from her sparkling pink cheeks. "You were the one in a coma."

Jeremie's posture in his bed stiffened, his eyes flaring to the size of watermelons as he tried to take in the words Aelita had just spoken. "I… what?"

"You were working on my anti-virus… and as usual, refusing to let yourself get proper sleep. You started running on an hour or two a night, or sometimes, nothing at all… eventually, your body just… it just gave out. I walked into your room to get you up for school… and I couldn't wake you up. The doctors couldn't really figure anything out, they just assumed you had burnt yourself out, taken your body too far… they said you would probably never wake up." Aelita sighed and rubbed her right hand up and down her left arm as she kept her sorrowful eyes glued to the floor. "But… I never left your side. I found time to visit you every single day. I was just so afraid I'd never see you again."

"So… so, everything that I thought happened… it was just a dream?"

"I guess so…"

"How long was I in a coma?"

"Oh, I don't really know… I tried to avoid counting. It's been at least six months."

Jeremie spat. "Six months!? Oh my God! How have you guys been battling XANA? I've missed so much!"

"The same way we always did. Ulrich and Yumi learned how to operate the supercomputer, well, decently enough anyways. And I still deactivate towers the same way I always did. You didn't miss much, but, I sure missed you…"

"No, Aelita. I missed you. I may have been the one in a coma, but to me, it still felt as if I had lost you for good. And it felt so incredibly real. I could never bear losing you, Aelita."

Tears began to flow aplenty from her green eyes. She threw herself into Jeremie, never wanting to leave the comforting warmth of his embrace ever again. Jeremie, too, began to cry along with her. The woman he had thought he had lost forever was in actuality still around, and would be for a very long time. After a long, tear filled moment; Aelita reluctantly pushed herself out of Jeremie's arms.

"Jeremie?"

"Yes, Aelita?"

"I know you told me that water flows from your eyes when you are sad. But, if that's the case, why is there water coming from my eyes right now? I'm certainly not sad."

Jeremie purely chuckled at her inquiry. She was still just as naïve as he pictured in his dreams. He gently tilted her chin towards him with his index finger and thumb, gazing into her iridescent emerald eyes that had become cultured with jubilant desire.

"I love you, Aelita."

The multiple shades of green in Aelita's irises twinkled among hearing Jeremie confidently utter those three words. Her trembling smile erupted into a full-blown grin, and she wiped away her tears onto her sleeves as she repeated the words.

"I love you, too. You know, Jeremie, I talked to you every single day. I would just sit here and reminisce about the wonderful moments I got to share with you while you were still awake, and the beautiful things you introduced me to… and sometimes, I would sit here and whisper into your ears, pleading for you to wake up. But… who knows if it actually got through."

All of the gaps in Jeremie's memory filled up like a mountain of sand pouring into a hole. He peered at Aelita with a modest smile on his face before taking her back into his arms once again, holding her as tightly as he possibly could. She nuzzled herself against his chest, inhaling and exhaling deeply as the luxury of his cuddle thoroughly relaxed her body.

"It got through, Aelita. It got through."

The End