William opened his room's window again and let the air cleaned by the rain in. He had enjoyed it once already that day, but nothing stopped him from enjoying it again. Ulrich and Odd now knew that he was fine, so they did not stop by to check in on him. Instead, Alex stared at him again when he returned from the shower, albeit this time worried. Nevertheless, William still remembered his previous stare clearly and did not say a thing to him.

The Scyphozoa brought things he wanted to talk about now that he had revealed that he remembered everything of his Xanafication to his mind. After the bad feeling had gone away, it was easier to open up about what he remembered and thought about it. But with whom could he talk? That he had to find out.

Right at the beginning of the first lesson, William decided to find out.
"Yumi, do you have time to go on a walk in the forest after school?" he asked.
"With you?" Yumi asked.
"No, with Odd." William gave a laugh. "With me, yeah."
"Why?" Yumi asked, frowning slightly.
"I'd like to talk. Just talk, no ulterior motives," William reassured. "If you're fine with it."
"Why don't you ask, for instance, Odd or Aelita to talk with you? I'm sure they could talk with you," Yumi remarked. "And they're in better terms with you than me."
"I don't know. It's just a feeling that I'd preferably speak with you," William replied. "I... I can't really explain it here but... it's something I'd like to talk with exactly you, no one else."

Yumi guessed that it had something to do with the boy's feelings towards her. Nevertheless, William sincerely seemed to want to just talk with her, so a walk couldn't hurt.
"It's fine by me, then," she said. "Right after the last lesson?"
William smiled, delighted by the positive answer. "If you're fine with it, then yes."
"Got it," Yumi said and smiled. Admittedly, after X.A.N.A.'s destruction William's positivity had had the habit of getting her on a good mood even though she had been quite cold towards him and had not trusted. Perhaps it was partly because even though William had gone through a rough series of events after joining them, he still could be himself despite of everything, and it cheered up and perhaps even relieved her. No one could ask about William's strangeness when it was not there. Before the previous night, she had even thought that he was completely unchanged, but the previous night had proved otherwise when William had told that he actually remembered the events which had happened when he had been under X.A.N.A.'s possession. It had surely changed something, and apparently it had.

The day went by. When the suitable moment came, Yumi told Ulrich face to face about what was going on.
"What does he want to talk about?" Ulrich wondered. Even though he and William were friends now and his relationship with Yumi was stronger than before, he could not stop the jealousy raising its head from the depths of his mind coming in grumpiness.
"He didn't tell, but apparently he wants to just talk. At least he assured that he had no ulterior motives," Yumi told.

Ulrich glanced at William, who focused on getting amused by Odd's predicament with the vending machine, over his shoulder. Could William try to cram himself between them now that he had earned his place in the group? He could not know what was going on inside that black-haired boy's head. Therefore, he could do nothing but trust Yumi.

Perhaps William truly wanted to just talk with Yumi. Even though he was in good terms with Odd and him, they did not tend to talk about anything very deep between the guys, because there was no need for it. Perhaps telling about remembering Xanafication had opened William a chance to talk about it, and he felt like he could talk about the matter with Yumi.

Ulrich could not know.
"Has he talked about anything that's bothered him before?" he asked.
"No. Although, I think those things weren't there when we were on better terms," Yumi noted. "Our friendship went to a bad state when he ended up under X.A.N.A.'s possession. Perhaps he wants to fix the situation."
"Maybe," Ulrich said. "I don't feel safe while thinking about you alone with him in the forest, but I trust you."
"Thank you, Ulrich," Yumi said, pleased by the last three words. She gave Ulrich a kiss on the cheek, and then they moved to the others to enjoy Odd's fight against the vending machine.

After school:

William and Yumi walked in the forest leisurely. William did not show a sign of attempting to leave the trail, which made Yumi feel calmer. Many things from the times of X.A.N.A. had stayed in the subconsciousness, ready to rise to trouble normal life even on the level of thoughts when the opportunity arose.
"I've tended to walk here when I've wanted to think about things myself," William told. "You rarely meet anyone here, so I've been able to be in peace with my thoughts."
"And this time you wanted someone to talk with?" Yumi asked.
"Yes. I want to talk about this case to someone and not just mill around it in my head endlessly. Nothing comes out of it," William said. He pondered how to start. "Do you remember when I came here, to Kadic? Very soon after it was the whole school's forest expedition on which we drew plants, and we were a pair."
"Yeah, I remember that."
"How would you have reacted if back then someone had told you what would happen? Like, me joining you, the Xanafication and so on."
"I don't know." Yumi reminisced the distant past. "I don't think I would've believed. Back then, X.A.N.A. couldn't possess people on Earth, so we couldn't even imagine that it could do something like that, nor did we know about the Scyphozoa or Sector Five. And now that I think about it, the thought about some new student at school being one of us and then X.A.N.A.'s forced servant someday would have been very impossible anyway when we didn't even know that it could happen yet."
"Yeah," William said. "I wouldn't have believed it either back then. It sounded so absurd and scifi. Of course, back then I thought that we were all just normal teens at Kadic, never anything else." William looked at Yumi and reminisced her from his early days at Kadic. The secret fight had not shown in her on the outside, nor did it now. Just like it did not in him. "I couldn't have been more wrong."
"Yeah. We could hide it well," Yumi noted.

William nodded and sought out words. How would he talk about it?
"I could've never even imagined that I'd get possessed by some AI. It sounds too fictive to happen in real life," he started. "But here I am, many months under X.A.N.A.'s possession behind me. It's almost ironic."
"Ironic?"
"Yeah. I came to help you in the fight, but instead I went to the enemy's side right away and caused drawbacks when I was supposed to be useful." William knew that he was approaching the matter slowly, but he now felt that he still needed time to prepare for talking about it. Suddenly, thinking about those things vexed him. But he had to speak now, or they would bother him forever.
"Well, I guess it's ironic. I'd rather think about the word unfair or sad," Yumi remarked. "How much do you remember from the time you were under X.A.N.A.'s possession?"
"Everything. Probably," William answered. He took a deep breath and told, "I felt like I was chained into a tight packet in the darkness, where I watched a live video about what my body did to you. X.A.N.A.'s grip had squeezed me into such a tight stack that I couldn't even breathe." William noticed that he had wrapped his arms around himself tightly while talking about his sensations.
"Were you conscious all that time?" Yumi asked, horrified. The thought about not being able to breathe for a long time terrified her.
"Yeah, as far as I know I was. At least I could keep count of the days at first. Then, sometime around the sixth week, I think, I lost my sense of time and could no longer keep count. Weeks faded into a mere empty eternity which just went on and on," William told. "I couldn't move or close my eyes. I had to watch and listen to everything. The worst may have been when you called me by name. I wanted to answer, cry for help, say even something, but I couldn't get a sound out without breathing."

Yumi flinched. Calling XanaWilliam merely William had turned into a habit, because they had thought that the real William was unconscious. They could not have even imagined that he would have been conscious, a prisoner of his own body, and heard and seen everything.
"Everything I heard... It was a bit like I would've been watching a video. But then one day... one day, a voice which shook X.A.N.A.'s grip on me cut into the darkness and I managed to struggle myself free," William told. Now they were at the point of this conversation. He looked at Yumi. "It was your voice, which said, 'No, William. You're a Lyoko Warrior, you swore to it.' Something in your voice got through and cut those invisible chains from around me, digging out my memories of the night I was scanned. I guess they were some kind of flashbacks, but they helped. You called me and I managed to tear myself free. For a while, the view wasn't a video, but I was really the master of my own body. I saw everything, I felt everything. I saw you, you were right there, by my side."
"I remember that time," Yumi said, looking at the ground, silent. She could hear the emotion in William's voice. "For a small while, you were yourself."
"It felt bad, everything I had done. It felt so bad that I couldn't say anything even though I would've wanted to apologize for all of it," William said, looking at Yumi. "If I could've said even something, I would've apologized. It was my fault that I didn't listen to Jeremy but got caught out of my own stupidity."

Yumi turned her head, meeting the gaze of the sad eyes. They had not talked about those times between the two of them, but Aelita had told that William had apologized for all of it extremely sincerely as if he had desperately wanted to fix the mistake he had made at least somehow.
"Maybe that's why I wanted to talk with just you. I remember how your voice gave me strength to break free from X.A.N.A.'s chains. I could never do anything similar so successfully after that, as I didn't have the strength or a clear reason to fight and potentially break myself under the pressure. I did manage to get free so much that it showed and felt in me a few times, but X.A.N.A. dragged me back under the surface right away," William told. His feelings towards Yumi were now particularly strongly audible in his voice. Love made William's eyes nearly glow. "I did everything I could to reach that same power, but without a reason... without you, I couldn't escape X.A.N.A."

Yumi understood that her coldness towards William had not extinguished the boy's feelings. This conversation seemed to only incite them. Something had to be done or on the relationship level they would return back to the starting point. She did not want to return there.
"William, I want you to listen to me closely now," Yumi said, stopping at a crossroads, grave. "I have to say this now."
"Of course," William said, stopping as well. "I'll listen."
"You deserve someone you get a positive response from, seriously. I don't feel the same way towards you as you do towards me. You deserve someone else than me, someone who wants to be with you just as much as you want to be with her. William, please understand this fact. I'm not the right one for you," Yumi told.

William felt his heart sink. The hurtful words that Yumi had said to him after he had been freed from X.A.N.A. returned to his mind. Yumi had communicated this stand for some time already. Before, he had not wanted to accept it; he had just believed that fixing the friendship would restore his chances. But now he saw and heard Yumi's assertiveness and self-confidence. She was completely certain of her case. Nothing would make her stand change. It was very clear.
"I understand," William said and meant it. Yumi had made her stand very clear and he did not have the right to oppose it. "Can we still be friends?"
"Friends, yes," Yumi said. "But never anything more."
"Got it," William said. He looked around himself, wondering if he had anything to say anymore. Getting the things out of his system had made him feel better, and he noticed that he regretted that he had not told about his memories before. "Thank you for listening to me. I feel easier for real now that I got to speak about this to someone who knows about all this."
"No problem," Yumi said. She glanced around herself. "Do you have something more to tell?"
"I don't," William answered.
"Then I'll head home. See you tomorrow," Yumi said.
"See you," William said. He watched Yumi walking away from him, and he could do nothing.

Now that Yumi had finally said how things were, he understood that he might have never had true chances with her. But if Yumi had never reciprocated his feelings, it was better for him to keep going and not stay to be stuck at the spot. Somewhere out there was the one, William was sure of it.

He turned to a different direction to head to Kadic through the sewers. He walked away from Yumi towards new possibilities. One door closed, but another one opened and William walked in through it instead of trying to open the closed door. When nothing else worked, it was for the best to just keep going.

He had always done so; kept going. And he had survived well that way and knew that he would always survive despite of what life would throw in front of him to trip him.

And if he fell, he would always get up.

/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/