by IronRaven
edited by Cybra (I know, I know, there are still comma splices here, but it is how I hear people talk, dangit!)
I don't own Lyoko. I don't own anything. I am owned by the financial aid folks.
---
It was barely lunch time by the time everyone had calmed down. Yumi was still subdued, but it had been an hour since she had apologized last. The only penance people were willing to let her serve was going on a grocery trip with Ulrich. They got back as Aelita woke up from where she had curled up under one of the blankets Yumi and Ulrich had brought with them. She had restored herself in towers, hundreds of times, but nothing like this. Sleep was... interesting.
"Do you do that every night?"
"Sleep?" Yumi passed over a sprout sandwich and a bag of vanilla-yogurt dipped pretzels. The young lady without parents didn't object to her friends eating meat, but it wasn't something she could bring herself to do. "Well, most of us."
Jeremie looked up from the screens showing the code of his virtualization template and Aelita's when he felt everyone's eyes on him. "What?" He was equally oblivious to the reason why three of his friends found his question funny.
"It was strange. I was in Lyoko, but like I am now, we were all there. And there was a clown." Aelita frowned at the memory as she took a crunching bite from the sandwich. "Is that normal?"
Jermie nodded as he opened the bottle of cola that he hadn't noticed had been left on the desk along with an eggplant parmesan sandwich, so engrossed he was in his research. The others had noticed that since Aelita first came over he was slowly turning into a vegetarian as well, but they hadn't teased him about it. "It was a dream. Everyone has them."
"Does it mean anything?"
Mumbling around a mouthful of corned beef, mustard and rye, Ulrich shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. Lots of people think they do."
"Was it a good clown or a bad clown?"
"It was wearing Xana's mark on his face and carrying a club."
Odd smirked at the obviousness of his next statement. "It was defiantly a bad clown."
"Was that the only dream you had?" Yumi dug into her bag of chips as quietly as she could.
"There were two others. One was about a way to get extra system storage into Lyoko. We won't be able to use it all at once, but we will have extra storage capacity to hold everyone's templates at one time."
Taking a giant swallow of food, Jeremie jumped into the conversation. "How many of us?"
"If we have a large enough storage module, we can put everyone's virtualization templates into the system at the same time, even if you can't all be in Lyoko at the same time." She smiled slightly, the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks. "But we won't have to move the templates about like this morning." Aelita grabbed her pretzels and moved to the main console, calling up a schematic on the display. "Right here. We could have it ready by tonight."
Jeremie craned his neck to look around her before he reached out to hold her by the shoulders and pulled her back and down to sit on his lap. Only after he had read over the specifications, his chin resting on her shoulder as he held her, did he realize what he had done. Blushing crimson, he tried to babble out an apology as most of his friends could only stare, gape-mouthed.
Aelita for her part did nothing other than smile shyly at him, but she didn't move away.
---
Jeremie had consulted the inventory of spares that he had made shortly after their adventure began and located a couple of spare high speed storage units that would be large enough. But he knew he didn't have the tools needed to splice a new unit into the optical-based data lines at the factory. Ulrich and Odd had volunteered to go to back the dorm and get Jeremie's tools, while he dug into the physical core of Lyoko. That left the girls to find the storage unit, something that Aelita was actually glad for.
"Yumi? Can I ask you something?"
Going though the shelves, a note of the part number in her hand, the Japanese girl looked over at her friend. "Sure. I'll answer it as best as I can; what's up."
"It's about Jeremie. I think I scare him sometimes."
Yumi laughed out loud. "Aelita, Ulrich is scared of me sometimes, and he's pretty normal."
"Jeremie isn't normal? How?"
"He is a great guy, I trust him like he was my own brother. More; I wouldn't trust my brother with my life. But he is shy; he's never been very comfortable around people." Yumi continued working her way down the shelf. "And he might be the most organized person I know, but he doesn't think like the rest of us."
Aelita peeked over Yumi's shoulder, reading the number as she thought about what Yumi had said. "That isn't it. He has times when I think he likes what we are doing, but he's afraid."
"You almost died this morning, both of you. That would scare anyone. In case he hasn't said anything, he loves you, if he had to die to protect you, he would." Yumi's eyes were closed as her fists curled around the frame work of the shelves.
Aelita had correctly guessed, had known, where the unit was located by its number, and was lifting the heavy, solid matrix of silicon and copper from the shelf when she realized that Yumi had gone quiet. Sighing, she set the box down, rested her hand on her friend's shoulder. "It is ok. We are going fix the problem before I have to go back. No one was permanently hurt." She reached down and lifted Yumi's chin. "Look at me. Jeremie and I don't blame you. I should thank you- if we hadn't had to do that, we wouldn't have kissed today." Aelita blushed.
"You hadn't kissed before?" Yumi looked up, surprised.
"Not like that. So thank you." She hugged Yumi tightly. "What happened this morning was the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me."
"You mean that?"
"I do, Yumi." The pink haired girl reached down and picked up the drive in both hands.
"You found it?"
"It was right were it should be. We also need an optical to digital converter and mounting brackets for both."
Yumi laughed a little, even though she was still tense. "Maybe you two really are meant to be together no matter what." Her eyebrow quirked up a little. "You think you scared him at lunch, when you sat on him." It was a statement of fact, not a question.
"Did I? Isn't that something a girlfriend should do?"
"It depends on the couple. I don't think Ulrich would mind if I did that, but I'm not sure I could do it in front of other people."
"Is that where the mark on your neck came from?" Aelita had noticed the bruise the first night Yumi had stood a watch at the computer and the tooth mark pattern at it's core. "Did it hurt?"
Yumi turned a shade of crimson that nearly matched Aelita's jacket, saying nothing for a few seconds. "It didn't hurt, not really." She squirmed. Since she came to Kadic's, Yumi really didn't have any female friends. Other than the three guys and Aelita, she really didn't have any friends, period, and Aelita wasn't human more than 14 hours or so before she had to go back to Lyoko. "You want to know the truth? It actually fells good, in a funny kind of way."
Moving down the storage racks for the other items, Aelita had to ask. "Did you bite him back?"
---
Ulrich set the first of the hardshelled tool cases down with a thump next to the access panel. The matching thump of the case Odd carried mixed with the bang of Jeremie's head hitting the aluminum dust cover that surrounded the main assembly. "Owww. Thanks, guys."
Odd chuckled. "No problem, man. Any time."
"Are these the right tools?" Ulrich snapped open the second case while Jeremie went through the first. "What was up with Aelita?"
"Yeah, this is what I need." Jeremie plucked tools from each case. He had already isolated the memory module and just had to wait for the others to get back with the new one.
"You didn't answer my second question."
"Nothing was up with her, guys. It's just Aelita."
Odd and Ulrich looked at each other, not believing him, but the sound of the elevator cut off the conversation. They thought that maybe Yumi and Aelita would help change the subject, but the former was a shade of red remincent of ripe tomatos while the latter just looked thoughtful.
Jeremie was already back inside the case when Aelita set the storage module next to his knee, his hand reaching blindly for one of the tool at his side. She picked up one she knew he needed as her other hand closed around his, lifting it to her lips, kissing his palm, letting her teeth scrape heel of his hand, before giving him the fiber cleaver. Jeremie stayed like that, frozen, for nearly a minute, along with everyone else. The first person to finally move was Aelita, who bolted from the room.
Odd and Ulrich weren't entirely sure what to do. Aelita had run deeper into the access tunnels in the machinery level, but they led to dead ends. Jeremy, his head still inside the guts of the computer, might have been hyperventilating.
"Aelita!" Yumi followed her, knowing now what was concerning her friend and scaring Jeremie. "Aelita, stop, we need to talk."
"What's wrong, I've done everything I'm supposed to do, I think. I didn't think it was the right place to do anything more." Aelita's eyes were wide, almost hysterical. "What did I do wrong?"
Yumi held Aelita gently by the shoulders. "What do you mean? What do you think you are supposed to be doing?"
"I... I... I started doing research into human emotions a long time ago. There is so much out there- it was easy to learn about what people in love do." Aelita's breathing was rapid now as she blurted out everything that she had learned, and where she had learned it. She didn't have a terribly happy expression on her face when Yumi started to laugh.
"Aelita, Aelita, you were studying things meant for people who don't have someone to love. No wonder Jeremie is scared of you sometimes, he must have been wondering if you were going to bite his neck and carry him back to Lyoko." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she blushed. "Ulrich didn't carry me any place afterwards."
"You mean that isn't what people in love do?"
"It is, eventually, but it takes time. And there is a lot more to it than that. How do you feel about Jeremie? Don't tell me you love him, tell me why you love him." Yumi swung her hand towards the floor, inviting Aelita to join her.
"He makes me feel... I think it is happy, safe, cared for. I am comfortable around him, even when I make a mistake about human behavior in the real world. I trust him totally. He was my first friend and still my best friend." She shook her head, unsure of how to describe these feelings. She started as a computer program, she was taught her emotions, rather than just having them. "I feel complete when I'm with him, Yumi. What do I do?"
"We talk." In the dim light of the corridor, two ovals reflected the shine of hundreds of LEDs and the tiny fluorescents set into the ceiling.
---
"Yumi? What is wrong with Aelita?"
Yumi knelt at the access hatch, looking into the heart of Lyoko. "It's complicated. Did Jeremie do anything?"
"Other than panic? Nope." Odd shook his head. "He was shaking too much to be able to make the cut. He put the tool down and just sat there staring at his hand for a while before he followed you two."
Ulrich looked down the passage, able to make out the faint silhouettes of his friends, their voices covered by the whirling of scores of cooling fans. "Will they be ok?"
"Yeah, they just need some time." She closed the panel, knowing that the upgrade had to wait. She carefully slipped the tools into the cases and closed them. Ulrich set the first in the corner, out of the way, as Odd recoiled a tangled power cord from the second. Their silence was interrupted by a cry from Jeremy, then a scream of fear from Aelita. Without a word, the three dashed down the passage, not expecting what awaited them.
Jeremie moaned softly, holding himself in pain. Aelita was holding his head in her lap, stroking his hair, as she talked to him. "Jeremie? What's wrong?"
"I don't know." He slowly, painfully uncurled, flinching at each movement. "My joints hurt."
Yumi's fingers pressed to his forehead, then to his pulse. "You aren't hot."
"No, he isn't sick." Aelita took his hands in both of hers. "It is a slow, hot throb, isn't it? Your muscles feel tired, don't they. And you had no warning."
"Yeah." It wasn't a word, more of a gasp of pain as his body grew tighter and tighter around his skeleton.
"Yumi, set up the scanners for us." Aelita stood, gently bringing him to his feet, and helping him towards the elevator. "He needs to go back to Lyoko."
Odd took Jeremie under the other arm, confused. "What's wrong with him?"
Jeremie's voice was tight when he spoke, barely audible over the hiss of equipment. "Xana's virus. It's in me now, isn't it. When I saved you, it crossed between us."
Aelita nodded as the the elevator closed. "I was afraid it..."
"It was better than the other choice." Jeremie raised his head to look at her, his breathing hard. "Much better."
---
Deep in the darkest bowels of Lyoko, at it's very core, a bloated, wicked shape writhed in amusement. If it had been human, the blackness would have been chortling in utter glee. Xana had waited a long time for the virus to reach it's true target. "I have you now, user. You won't risk her, or yourself, to stop me. I will win."
---
Pain. Black-red-white-gold and firey-cold, it bore into his body, tearing at his soul. Jeremie cluthed at his memories, his past, as he felt the pain slashing and searing his flesh, tearing him apart atom by atom, trying to shatter him. Then it stopped.
He could feel sunlight on his skin, and a soft breeze. Buzzbirds chirped at each other in the background. His head was cradled on something soft, warm, with one hand holding his hand, the other stroking his face tenderly. He peeled open his eyes, half expecting pain to pierce his mind at the light. He looked up, into the fearful eyes of Aelita. Aelita, that was the memory he had clung to, the memory that preserved him though the pain. He had lasted about eight hours. Aelita had built up a tolerance, and so would he.
"Jeremie? Say something." Please, Jeremie, don't leave me.
He tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come to his lips. The only thing in his throat was the a gift from the virus: its very essence. The thing he needed to destroy it. He swallowed hard, afraid to speak, lest it escape. He could feel the information flooding through his body as he parted his lips, the words cut off by a soft kiss, the world haloed in pink as her hair drooped around their faces. He kissed back, firmly, but gently. I'm not going anyplace without you.
A soft cough next to them made the two elves jump. Ulrich was standing there, inventing new shades to blush in. "I... uh, I guess you are feeling better, Jeremie."
"Much better." He sat up, his legs crossed, his head back, looking up at the sky. "Better than I've been in a long time."
"Huh?" The universal grunt of confusion rang from the sky. They were beside a transfer tower, deep in the forest, and the disturber of the peace was Yumi. "Jeremie, are you sure? You were in really bad shape before you crossed over? You passed out in the elevator."
"Positive." He lowered his head, finding Aelita's eyes easily. "I have what we need to defeat Xana. In me. He isn't going to win. It might take a day, it might take ten years, but I will destroy this virus. I will be back to visit, we both will, and to finish the update. And then we will finish this."
"And until then?"
"Until then, I think I'm home." A buzzbird landed on his shoulder for a moment before its silvery-clear wings snapped softly into the sky, carrying a faint streamer in its delicately clawed feet, a length of copied code. He watched as it skirted the face of a completely oblivious Ulrich, before disappearing over the edge of the island. "Aelita, you never told us your other dream."
"This was it, Jeremie."
---
Author's notes:
I dated a vegetarian, very briefly. She wouldn't get on my case about my eating meat, but she wouldn't kiss "beef breath". Jeremie might not know it, but he isn't dumb. :P
In this case a cleaver is a tool used for making a clean cut in fiber optic line. For cinematic reasons, I've made this one a little smaller a real one would be. When you splice fiber, you need the cleanest, purest cut you can get, other wise you will have too much noise. With what they are doing, mechanical splices don't cut it. Even a fused splice would make me nervous, but there really is no other way, and that requires a cut every bit as good despite the optical gel.
Poor Aelita. She's been reading smut looking for how-to's about human emotions. I'd run to if a lady was doing that. She was taught some of her emotions, but her programming has gone well beyond her original parameters and she really has no other resources. The question that people who are working around AIs, either as programmers or people playing a detailed game, might want to think about is this: were did your emotions come from? The basic reactions are there in all animals, they are simple mate, flee or fight reactions. You had to learn how to display them in a social acceptable manner. You learned from your family, your friends, your culture. Aelita's culture in the internet. shudder
As for the kiss, I'm liberated. I think it is completely acceptable for the beautiful princess to break the evil wizard's spell upon the sleeping knight with a kiss. :P
And about the buzzbirds and breeze that I introduce. At a high enough resolution, you can see things that you were completely oblivous to earlier. I see the buzzbirds as a carriers of big chunks of data, mostly programs that have changed, to whatever Lyoko has for internal back up information. The breeze, and running water, is smaller packets of data flowing through the virtual world, and/or acting as sensors. Like the breeze that made Jeremie shiver, if it was Xana's eyes.