Gwuh. People keep asking me if this fic is dead. It isn't. I'm just a lazy ass. :P Anyhoo, there's only two more (or maybe three, I haven't decided yet) chapters after this. So… I'll be doing my best to update more often from now on.
This chapter is dedicated to all of my wonderful friends, both here on and off. Katie, Lee, Chibi, CB (my wonderful beta chapter tester), Sarah, Sam, Hayley, Nathan, and everyone else. :D
-11-
-I Need You-
Aelita's P.O.V.
It was so peaceful there. It was so quiet, that I could hear myself thinking. There was no room for interruption. It really was all I wanted. After all, it was the product of my own mind. I had created it. I was living inside myself.
But this wasn't the place for me. I didn't want to stay here forever. I wanted to be on Earth… where I wasn't trapped in an endless moment.
But I could never leave. I knew Xana was right. I would be here forever…
Forever. What did that mean? An immeasurable amount of time. That's it. Of course.
But it wasn't enough. I could define "forever", yes. But what did it really mean? What did forever feel like?
I didn't know…
Odd's P.O.V.
"…And so that was when Mrs. Hertz walked into the girls' bathroom ready to pounce! I was hiding in one of the stalls, but she was too stupid to see me… of all the obvious hiding places! I mean, come ON, that was pretty uncreative of me, and she still didn't find me!" Rhiné giggled out her story, her dark blue eyes glittering with happiness.
"I know what you mean, she's so clueless sometimes," I commented. Despite my previous feelings about this girl, I was sort of having a good time.
A cold wind swept past both of us, blowing some leaves in our faces. It was just then that I noticed how dark it was. If it wasn't past curfew already, it was sure to be soon. We had been walking around the school campus for so long just talking that we had lost track of the time.
I began to think about getting back to my dorm. "No, I can't do that… Ulrich will be there…" I thought to myself uneasily. I didn't know what I was going to do that night; there was no way in hell I'd go back to the dorm to sleep.
"Wow, it's really late…" Rhiné said softly, as if she had been reading my mind. "We should probably…"
A noise from behind us that sounded like walking made my heart jump.
Cutting her off with a swift hand to her mouth, we both froze, listening for the sound again.
Shuffle, shuffle. There it was.
I pulled Rhiné with me behind a corner of the school, and together, we stood as still as possible up against the brick wall.
"Do you think it's Jim?" Rhiné whispered.
"Shh…" I hushed, nodding. Taking a chance, I looked over the side of the building. Sure enough, Jim was strolling towards us with a flashlight and a less-than happy look on his face.
"We have to go NOW," I whispered, grabbing Rhiné by the arm and yanking her with me, and we broke into a run together.
"Where should we go?" she asked.
"Here. Quick!" I responded, dragging her into the garden shed and closing the doors behind us.
"Get down!" I ordered. I held my breath as I heard footsteps near our location.
A light shined into the tiny room we were crouched in. After thoroughly scanning the area, a deep, muffled curse sounded, and the footsteps retreated.
I let my breath out, and Rhiné giggled. "Wow, I thought for sure we'd be caught," she said with a small grin that shined under a bar of moonlight streaming in from the windows of the garden shed.
"Yeah…" I was suddenly aware of something. Looking down, I saw that my hand was still clasped with Rhiné's. We both blushed and unhooked our fingers.
Ulrich's P.O.V.
"HEY! STOP!" I shouted, Yumi running just as fast as me as we chased Dr. Bachelder down the hall.
Suddenly everyone knew the chase was over, and that Yumi and I had captured the doctor. It was the end of the hallway, and there was nothing the young woman could do but turn and face us.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Yumi demanded, grabbing the doctor and threatening to punch her.
"Please, don't hurt me," she said weakly.
"Why the hell shouldn't I? After all the pain you've caused the world…"
Dr. Bachelder looked confused. "But I…"
"SHUT UP! You're gonna tell us EVERYTHING you know about Aelita and Lyoko, RIGHT NOW," Yumi yelled.
I couldn't help but feel my jaw drop. I had never seen Yumi this aggressive before. I made a mental note to myself to try to stay on Yumi's good side.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the woman explained calmly.
Yumi threw her against a wall. "Don't fuck with my intelligence. We all know damn well who you are and what you're doing, Xana."
The woman's eyes widened at the name.
"Don't play surprised with us… how dare you try to play doctor on Aelita! You may not have emotions, Xana, but this has got to end now. Your madness is done." Yumi whispered angrily, her eyes fiery.
"Stop it. I'm not Xana… can we please talk about this somewhere else? People will get suspicious," Dr. Bachelder said quietly, a clump of reddish hair falling in her eyes.
Yumi took a deep breath to calm her rage, and let go of the doctor's coat. She took a step back, and ran a hand through her hair.
Without another word, the doctor straightened her clothes, and motioned for us to follow her down the hallway to a private room.
"You coming, Ulrich?" Yumi asked.
I realized then that I was still rooted into the same spot in the floor that I had been since Yumi had begun her little 'interrogation' of the young woman doctor we suspected had involvement in Xana's activities.
I blinked a few times, as if to shake myself loose. It worked. Quickly, I caught up to Yumi, and followed her and Dr. Bachelder into the private room. Once inside, the young woman shut the door behind us.
"Have a seat," she offered, and Yumi and I sank into two comfortable chairs. Dr. Bachelder took the identical one across from it.
"Okay, spill. Who are you? And what do you know about Aelita?" I asked.
"She's my daughter," Dr. Bachelder said plainly.
I felt my jaw drop.
"…WHAT!" Yumi and I both exclaimed in unison.
The doctor sighed. "It's… kind of painful for me… it's also a long story… are you ready?"
I nodded slowly, almost afraid to hear what she had to say.
"Back when I was your age, maybe a little older… that was about… fifteen years ago… I was in your position. I had friends like you who were battling an evil super computer virus of some sort. Of course, computers were still fairly new back then, and we really didn't know much about what we were dealing with…"
"Wait. How do you know about us and how we fight Xana?" Yumi interrupted.
"Would you please just listen? I'm getting to that…" Dr. Bachelder sighed. "Anyway, as I was saying, we were fighting a different virus back then… not Xana, but a less complex version we called Ana. We HATED Ana… but we didn't know how to kill her completely until one of my teammates constructed the off switch. We pulled it, and killed Ana, and we were certain that she would be gone forever after that…"
"Well, what happened?" Yumi asked anxiously.
"For years, she was gone. We grew up, and I married one of my former teammates, David. We were very happy, and a year later we had twins… Aelita and Rhiné. But then I got a phone call from my friend Sumitra… who had startling news. Ana… came back… somehow… we don't know exactly what happened, but she had started poisoning the water supply here, and people were getting sick. We knew if we didn't do something, people would start to die, so we had to act fast. We tried to just delete the whole system again… but it didn't work like that. Ana, who we referred to as "extreme" Ana, or Xana, said that the only way she, or rather, he, would stop… would be… a human sacrifice… one of our daughters, to be exact," Dr Bachelder said, whispering the last part as if she were any louder she'd start to cry.
"So what did you do?" I asked.
"Well, we didn't know what would be right, until David pointed out that the right thing to do would be to give it what it wanted so it would stop hurting people. Of course, Sumitra and my other teammate were with me when they disagreed, both wanting to be the sacrifice instead. But Xana wouldn't have it… and we were going to just not do anything until we saw on the news that a little girl had died. That was when I knew that it had to be done… so, I asked my husband which one should go… and he couldn't choose. But then, Aelita looked at me as if to say that she was the one willing to go, and not to send her sister. I couldn't bear it, but I knew it was the right thing to do. Someone had already died… and couldn't be brought back to life… ever. So I took Aelita into the scanner with me, and the two of us were virtualized inside one of the towers. Xana accepted the offering, and we were sent back to the past… But all of us were so depressed that we couldn't talk to each other any more from that day on. David and I got a divorce, and I kept Rhiné with me. None of us knew that this was possible… that Aelita could have grown up in Lyoko and lived to this day. I can barely believe it myself…"
"But… that's impossible! You can't age in Lyoko! So Aelita would still be just a little baby girl right now if your story was legit," Yumi pointed out.
"Ana, I mean, Xana, I'm fairly certain he tried to change her to a complete computer program, so that she could never be materialized. In the process he probably made her appear a little older. It didn't work all the way, though, and that's why it was possible for her to be materialized at all. I don't know what else he did to her, actually, but she's lived as an AI all this time without my knowledge. Not until I was told about you, of course. Xana recently created a new program to infect humans with that takes advantage of a person's mental instability to get them to do whatever he wants. He told me about you when he tried to transfer the virus to me. But I wouldn't let him."
Yumi and I exchanged glances. "Odd and Jeremie!" she whispered in realization.
"He's infected your friends?" Dr. Bachelder asked.
We nodded.
"Well, I don't know what all you can do about it, the person has to choose to be happier to recover from the virus he's implanted in them. Under the circumstances, that would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible," she explained.
I sighed. "There's nothing we can do?"
"I don't think so…I'm sorry," said the doctor.
A thick, awkward silence hung over the room, before I remembered something else that I wanted to ask the woman.
"Yumi and I… noticed something on your forehead the other day…"
Her eyes dropped. Sighing, and she brushed away her bangs to reveal the scar shaped like the eye of Xana. "I got it from that bastard when the time reversal program did its job. I guess, not only did Xana want to make me give up my daughter, but he also wanted me to remember EXACTLY what happened that day. He wanted to make me suffer. And…" she began to choke up. "…And even though…I know he's just gotten the best of me… he has made me suffer… every single day! I wake up and I think about how he ruined my life. He stole my family and friends and then left a physical mark to make me remember what happened those years ago…"
I felt a tinge of sympathy for the woman. She had lost everything to Xana, and kept quiet about it all these years for the protection of the world.
"Thank you for listening, but I've got to go, I'm sorry," she said quickly, obviously making sure she left before she actually started to cry. She opened the door to the room we were in and exited without another word.
For a long time, the two of us just sat there, processing all of this new information. It was too much… Aelita… was once a real girl… and… but…
I sighed.
"Well… what do you think? Is she full of shit?" Yumi asked me quietly.
"I don't know…" I said thoughtfully. "But somehow I think she's telling the truth."
Jeremie's P.O.V.
There she was.
Bed sheets white and matching walls; she was the only color in the room. But even her color seemed to be draining from her, abandoning her to find its own freedom.
I was sure I was crying. But I couldn't tell. It was like a dream. Everything felt blurry and unreal.
I walked over to her, unsure of what to do. Should I take her hand? Should I get a chair and pull it over to her so I could sit?
I didn't know. So I just did what I felt was right. Taking her cool fingers lightly in my own, I gulped a few times, and then began.
"I'm so…sorry Aelita… I'm sorry for everything. I…can't even begin to tell you how much I hate myself for what I've done to you. Everything was just… for nothing. I've killed you, Aelita. You're here because of me. And … I should be the one in your place. I deserve to die the most horrible death possible. Not you. You haven't done…anything, Aelita. I know you know that. And I know I can't expect you to forgive me but I…"
I stopped a moment to wipe away some of the tears flowing out of my eyes, and to sit down on the bed with Aelita.
"I don't even know if you can hear me anymore… or if you even care… but I just wish you could know… what you mean to me… you're everything to me. I wouldn't care if I lost every last thing I owned, just as long as I could spend one more… second with you," I sobbed.
I watched the pale girl's chest rise and fall slowly for a while. Sometimes I'd get scared that her next breath would be her last, and that would be that. But a new breath always came. Calmly, slowly, unfaltering, but still barely present, she held on. And I knew it was just a matter of time.
But I'd be there from now until the second it happened, just… hoping that by some small miracle…
Slowly, I put my head down next to the comatose girl's, and silently, the fabric became damp with my tears.
"Aelita," I breathed into her hair.
"Wake up… please… I… I need you…"
