The ninth chapter... it's almost over! Ack! Well, anyway, some of you expressed concerns about the fact that Jeremie seemed a little OOC for getting as mad as he did at Aelita. And you're absolutely right! Just read on and you shall see what's actually going on...

Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to dantheman7777... my 60th reviewer! Woot!

(Oh, and I'm not changing this to R.)


9

Ulrich's P.O.V.

As soon as the elevator doors slid open, Yumi rushed over to me.

"Are you alright? Let me see your hand…" she said. As if I had a choice. Taking my arm lightly, she brought my hand up so she could examine it.

"It's not so bad," I told her.

"Damn it Ulrich, this cut almost goes to your bone! Of course it's so bad… you might have to get stitches on it," she informed me, her eyebrows curving into a look of worry.

"I'm fine."

"No you're not. Come over and sit in the master chair and I'll wrap it up," she said, taking my unwounded hand and leading me over to the place Jeremie would usually sit when sending us to Lyoko on a mission. She then knelt on the floor, by my feet. Picking up her book bag, she reached inside and pulled out a first aid kit. "I've started keeping one with me just in case Xana does something crazy and someone gets hurt," she explained.

"You don't have to do this, Yumi," I said.

She looked at me with intense, caring eyes. "I'd rather do it than not," she said. Turning her gaze back to the items in her hands, she put some cleaning liquid on a cotton ball, and began to dab the wet glob on my bloodied hand.

"Ouch!" I exclaimed as it touched me.

"Sorry…"

"It's okay," I whispered.

I winced as she began to touch my hand again with the stinging fluid, but didn't jump like last time. "So… what's up?" I asked.

She took the cotton ball off of my hand and laughed.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"It's just…"

"What?"

"Well, your best friend just assaulted you with a pocketknife, and all you can say is 'what's up'?" she giggled, and began cleaning my wound again.

"Well, what do you want me to say?" I smiled.

"I dunno," she trailed off as she began wrapping my hand in gauze. She then looked up at me and said, "Maybe you'd want to know why I told Odd he was acting strangely because of Xana?"

"Oh yeah. That. I was getting to that," I half-joked.

She got onto her feet and hit the enter key in front of me. "This might take some time to explain, it's sort of complicated," she said, her eyes never leaving the screen in front of her.

"I'm listening," I said, getting up so she could take the chair.

She stole a quick glance in my direction. Then she began to type in Jeremie's passwords on the computer. "It's a good thing I had to learn to operate this, that time when Jeremie tried to virtualize himself," The side of her mouth was tugged into a half-grin.

"Yeah…"

Her face became serious. "If I hadn't, you could be dead by now."

-

Jeremie's P.O.V.

I couldn't have hated myself more at that moment… the moment when I finally opened my eyes and realized that all of this was my fault. Everything. Aelita and I… we had something that I could never have replaced. Something that I would probably never have had again, anyway. After all, I'm just some loser nerd, right?

At least, once upon a time, I was something to her.

"How could I have done this? How could I possibly have been so blind? Was I always this stupid?" I asked myself, sitting on the side of my bed, gripping my head in my hands.

Envisioning Aelita, pale, cold, and soulless, being shoved into a body bag by the hospital staff made me sick. I could see this quite plainly though, haunting my thoughts, reminding me that it would probably happen just like that any time soon. I stared blankly at the floor below me, tears gathering in my eyes, beginning to block my vision. Squeezing them shut, the large drops of warm water fell onto my glasses, and then rolled onto the floor below me.

Suddenly, I whipped my head up, balled my hand into a fist, and brought it down on my bed with and unsatisfying and muffled thunk. "So this is my only option… to cry about it. Damn it! I could be saving Aelita's life right now!"

I looked over at my computer. "Maybe there's still time."

-

Ulrich's P.O.V.

"See these blue lines on your profile? They represent your life force when in Lyoko. They're flat right now because you're on Earth. Whereas Aelita-" Yumi pulled up a new window with Aelita's profile on it. "-Aelita's lines are squiggly because she's bound to Lyoko no matter where she is. But there's something else here, it's red and connected to the lines," she pointed, and sure enough, the twisted blue lines belonging to Aelita faded into red.

"That's got something to do with her virus, right?" I assumed.

"Exactly. Xana is linked with her directly, and this is just one way of showing that," she said.

"Okay, but what does that have to do with Odd acting all weird and stuff?" I asked.

Yumi looked over at me quickly, and then back at the computer monitor. "I don't know how this is possible… but… somehow…" she pulled up Odd's profile.

My jaw dropped. His life force lines were identical to Aelita's. "But… then that means…"

"…That somehow Xana's gotten hold of him," Yumi told me, dead serious. "It gets worse."

I rubbed my forehead. "I'm not liking the sound of that."

Yumi said nothing, but only pulled up Jeremie's profile.

"What? Jeremie's got it too!" I yelled.

"…Sort of. I wouldn't have realized something's up with Jeremie unless I hadn't been thinking about all of this."

"All of what?"

"You know, this whole mess with Aelita… It's just felt weird. Jeremie rarely fights with anyone, and when he does, it has to be a much bigger deal then a tiny little issue of miscommunication…" she said, typing into the keyboard. "Anyway, I came here and did a little checking, and I found his profile on the computer."

"What's wrong with that?" I asked.

"Jeremie never goes to Lyoko. He's never even been successfully virtualized! He shouldn't have a profile, that's what's wrong."

"I don't get it… how did Xana get him to fight with Aelita by making him a profile on the computer?" I asked, almost completely confused.

"I don't know exactly how it works, but I think the one time Jeremie tried to scan himself, Xana got the data from the scan and saved it… somehow he took Jeremie's data and used it to attach a low-level virus to it. Then, when he was brought back into the real world, that virus data was materialized along with him."

"But… that was so long ago! Are you saying he's had a virus all this time?"

"I think so. It could have just recently been activated though. That would make sense," she explained.

"How could it have been activated?"

"I have no idea," she admitted, rubbing her eye with a finger.

"Great…" I trailed, looking away, trying to make sense of all this new information.

Suddenly, something dawned on me. "Wait. But if Odd and Jeremie have both been infected… why haven't we?"

"I…I don't know. I can only do so much," Yumi responded.

I nodded. "In any case, we have to go find Odd now. If he is infected… there may not be anything keeping him from trying to hurt other people as well."

"Yes," she said quickly, her eyes dropping to her hands in her lap.

"Something wrong?"

"It's just that…" she began.

"What?" I asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"The… the way he looked at me when I told him I loved him… I've seen him look at me that way so much lately… I don't know, maybe it's nothing… It was just strange, that's all."

I reached down and took her hand. "He loves you too. I know he wishes he could be with you, Yumi. Who wouldn't though, right?" I laughed.

Yumi smiled, but then her eyelids dropped, my invitation to close the distance between us, where we shared a soft, sweet kiss.

-

At the hospital…

The door to Aelita's room swung open silently, and a figure stepped inside. It made its way over to her bedside, sat down, and took her warm hand in its own. It sat there for a moment, studying the motionless girl.

Two large warm tears fell from the figure's face onto Aelita's bed sheets. It then bent over, and planted a soft kiss on the pink-haired girl's forehead.

"It's gonna be alright, sweetheart. If he is truly the one for you, then you don't need to worry," it whispered, giving her hand a squeeze, before standing and walking over to the door. It turned to take one last look at Aelita. Lowering its head, it quickly turned back around, opened the door, and slipped out into the hallway, just as silently as it had come.


I'm not telling who the person who just went to see Aelita is, but it's not one of the Lyoko gang.

The tenth chapter will be really awesome, I promise! This one was a little slow, yes, but I'm only human. XD Anyhoo, review! Thanks!