Disclaimer: I don't own Code Lyoko.

Last Time:

'Yumi' caused Ulrich to believe that he was at fault for his friends' death, and he believed her! But when she tried to convince him that the real Yumi wasn't a good friend, he lost it. Ulrich tried as hard as he could to stop 'Yumi', but when she was only a mere 10 life points away from being destroyed, he lost his new powers. While all this was going on, Aelita found out the information she needed and set her new plan into action. She also discovered that 'Yumi' had indeed lied and life points weren't active. Back with 'Yumi' and Ulrich, 'Yumi' had stolen Ulrich's sword and knocked him down to 20 life points. Then, with one final move, she drove the sword into Ulrich draining the last of his life points. As he devirtualized, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

Ulrich was lying in a place that was quite strange to him. It wasn't the factory, it wasn't his room, it wasn't even Lyoko. It was nowhere, or so it seemed. He awoke in a fright and scrambled to his feet. "Huh? What, where am I?" He stuck his left hand on his brow and squinted his eyes to get a better view of the area. "Man, it's pretty dark here." He shivered. "Brrr, and cold." Ulrich wrapped his arms around himself to try and keep warm. He wandered around, trying to find something, anything in this desolate place. "Where the heck am I?"

Then something caught his eye. Off in the distance was a person, but who it was he couldn't quite determine. Ulrich walked closer to try and get a better view of the person. When he got close enough, he suddenly realized who it was. "Yumi? Yumi is that you?" he asked the person as he reached to put his hand on her shoulder. Before his hand made it, she disappeared. "That was... weird."

Ulrich kept on walking. Not too long after, he saw someone else in the distance. Whoever it was, they were jogging. Ulrich ran to catch up with the person. As he got closer he figured out who the person was. "Odd? Slow down, man." When Ulrich had finally approached him, Odd, too, disappeared. "Odd? This isn't funny, man. What's going on here?"

"You don't know where you are, do you," came a voice from behind that Ulrich knew quite well.

"Jeremie?" Ulrich turned around to get a better look at the person. Who he saw was not only Jeremie, but two other people knew. "Odd? Yumi? What is this place?"

"This is your heart, everything that is you is here," Jeremie informed him.

"But how can that be, it's so dark and cold here."

"You've pushed everything and everybody else away, locking yourself inside and clinging to thoughts of vengeance. You never let us go," Odd said.

"How could I forget about you guys? You were my friends."

That's when Yumi decided to join the conversation. "You don't need to forget us, you just need to move on in your life. Just remember us, but don't get like you have been and push everybody away. Make some new friends; have some fun. Life isn't full of pain and suffering. If you let it, it can be wonderful." Jeremie and Odd then disappeared leaving just Yumi and Ulrich together. "It was wonderful for me, Ulrich, but there are still some things that I regret not doing."

"Like what? You always seemed to be happy to me."

"Well... I never got the chance to tell someone how I really felt about them. I was always afraid that he didn't think of me in the same way, I was afraid he'd reject me."

"Yumi, I," Ulrich spoke with concern.

"Shhh." She put a finger on his mouth. "Don't worry about it now. I know now that he felt the same for me but was afraid of the very same thing."

"Yumi" Ulrich was interrupted when he felt something he had never felt before, Yumi's lips. He was surprised to say the least. To him it felt both good and weird at the same time. It was weird because he never thought that he would get the chance to share a kiss with her, but now he did and it was better than he had imagined. Ulrich never wanted this moment to end, but sadly Yumi pulled away.

"I always wondered what it would be like to kiss you, Ulrich, and it was good. It was the best feeling I've ever had. But now you need to go."

"Yumi, I... I want to stay with you."

"I want to stay with you too. I'm sorry, but you need to move on now. I'm sure Emily would make a perfect girlfriend for you." Yumi winked. "Now you need to go and finish life."

"I'll see you again one day, right?"

"One day." She disappeared.

Ulrich woke up on the floor of the scanner. He stood up and then remembered what had just happened. "A dream; it was nothing more than a dream." He put two fingers on his lips and felt them. "No, it was more of a dream. They were reaching out to me, telling me what to do. And now I know what to do. It's time to get my life back on track."

Ulrich walked into the elevator and headed up to the computer room, his thoughts still on the kiss that he had received from Yumi. When the elevator finally came to a stop and the doors opened, Ulrich thought he heard something. He walked further into the room.

"Did you get the new coordinates set Aelita?" said the voice of someone that was sitting at the computer. Ulrich couldn't quite see who it was, but he thought he knew who it was based on his voice.

"Yes, Jeremie. The new coordinates have been set and everything is ready."

"Great, now just input the code."

"Alright." There was a long silence before Ulrich heard something he hadn't heard in two years.

"Return to the past now."

Ulrich woke up in his dorm. It was dark since it was the middle of the night. Ulrich stayed in the position that he was in so that he could think about what had just happened and why he suddenly felt different. After nothing could come to him, he decided to get up and go to the window to think. "What happened to me? Was that really Jeremie that Aelita was talking to? Why do I feel so different, yet at the same time comfortable?" Over the past two years Ulrich had grown accustomed to talking to himself in the middle of the night since he didn't have to worry about waking anybody up. Tonight, however, was different.

"Maybe you're just not used to traveling so far into the past."

Ulrich's eyes shot open when he heard that. He spun around to come face to face with his supposed to be dead roommate standing right in front of him in his pajamas.

"You don't look so good, Ulrich. In fact, you look like you've just seen a ghost."

"O-O-Odd. But you're, you're supposed to be"

"Dead, yeah, but the trouble was we we're never really dead, and thanks to you and Aelita we're back from the hell we were put in."

"But... hold on. I remember now. Aelita did say something about you guys still being alive. So she really did bring you guys back?"

"I'm standing here in front of you aren't I? Now come on, Jeremie and Yumi are waiting for us in Jeremie's dorm."

"What's Yumi doing here, shouldn't she be home?"

"She was, but she snuck in. You've been out longer than you think."

Ulrich and Odd walked into Jeremie's dorm where Yumi and Jeremie were talking to each other. They were sitting across from each other on the bed.

"Jeremie, Yumi? Is that really you guys? Is this really happening?" Ulrich asked, almost ready to break down.

"Of course it's us, who else would we be?" Yumi questioned.

"It's just, it's been so long since I've seen you guys. We all thought that you were dead. But here you are."

Yumi and Jeremie gave Ulrich a look of concern when Odd came over to them. "Don't worry about him, he's been sappy like this since he woke up." The two snickered a little.

"So what happened to you guys after Aelita deactivated that tower? I mean, I thought you were supposed to die." Jeremie got up and walked over to his computer and turned it on while Odd and Ulrich took his seat on the bed.

"We all thought it was the end for us. Everything around us was disappearing until it was just us three." Yumi said.

"It was pretty cool at first. An endless area where we could do whatever we wanted. We were even able to fly."

Jeremie stopped the conversation when he started talking to his computer. "Aelita, you there?"

"Yes, Jeremie, I'm here," she replied as her face appeared on the screen.

"We were just telling Ulrich what happened to us and I thought that you might want to listen in."

"Yes; I've been wondering what happened too."

"Well, as I was saying before Einstein over there interrupted me, after everything disappeared we were able to freely move around."

"Jeremie," Yumi continued, "tried his hardest to figure a way out of there, but he wasn't able to."

"After awhile, it got really boring there."

"After I'm not sure how long, we were suddenly put into a comatose state, probably because of XANA. We were just stuck asleep ever since," Jeremie stated.

"That was probably when XANA was able to make clones of you," Ulrich informed them.

"Right, well, after who knows how long we were out for, Aelita was able to bring us back. Yumi and Odd were sent to Lyoko and I, of course, manned the super calculator. When Aelita informed me that we had been gone for two years, I had her change the coordinates of the return to the past program so that we would be sent back to the night that this all happened, the night that XANA had sent me into his virtual world."

"So that explains why I've felt so strange since I woke up. My body had changed over the two years and since I had to go back to that age it felt weird."

"That right."

"Hey, don't forget to tell him about the part where we saved his butt."

"I'll let you and Yumi tell him that."

"Alright, well it happened like this..."

----Flashback-----

Ulrich was on the ground with his sword sticking out of his stomach. He was slowly devirtualizing. 'Yumi' was walking away from Ulrich's body when she turned around because she heard a small shuffle in the trees and didn't want to take any chances. What she saw when she turned around was an arrow flying right at her. She quickly jumped backward and the arrow just missed her. When she had jumped back, she hit something with her back. She turned her head around to see the real Yumi standing behind her looking as pissed as ever.

'Yumi' turned herself fully around and spoke, "Yumi, so good of you to drop by. I could have sworn that you'd be dead, but here you are in the virtual flesh. On top of that it looks like you're ready for a fight. Now this isn't too far, with only ten life points left I'll be more than a match for you."

"Is that what you think?"

"Well, I was able to take out Ulrich and, let's face it, he was much more of a challenge than you are."

"And what about me?" Odd asked as he jumped down from the tree he was in. "Two on one, I think we can take you." Odd got ready to fire another arrow.

"Heh heh, bye," 'Yumi' said, and then she ran.

Matching her speed, Yumi stuck out her arm and close lined the imposter sending her crashing to the ground. "Let's see... How did you put it?" Yumi stuck her finger to her brow to give the appearance that she was thinking. "Oh, yes, 'no, you stay on the ground,'" she said in an angry tone.

"So what should we do with her?" Odd asked cracking his knuckles.

"We kill her, of course. Would you like to do the honors?"

"It would be my pleasure." Odd held his arm straight down at the clone. "Laser Arrow!" he shouted. An arrow flew from his glove and right into 'Yumi's' stomach, causing her to devirtualize into nothing but pixels.

While all this was happening, Aelita had made her way to the activated tower, which was left unguarded because XANA was to preoccupied with 'Yumi'. When she arrived at the tower, she entered and walked to the middle platform. When she reached the center, she slowly rose to the upper platform. Aelita walked over to the center of the platform. "Alright. Jeremie, I'm here. Now what?" Aelita was so ecstatic to be able talk with Jeremie again, she almost couldn't believe it.

"Now you need to reset the return to the past coordinates so that we will return to the night that XANA abducted me. Then you just simply put in the code and we return to the past."

"Alright Jeremie." Aelita got to work on setting the new coordinates.

"Did you get the new coordinates set Aelita?"

"Yes Jeremie. The new coordinates have been set and everything is ready."

"Great, now just input the code."

"Alright." Aelita stuck her hand on the screen and her name appeared. Then her name disappeared and it asked for the code. Aelita put in the code, L-Y-O-K-O. The screens in the tower descended and after a moment rose back up.

"Return to the past now," Jeremie said as he hit the enter key. A white light engulfed the planet sending it and it's people two years into the past.

-----End flashback------

"And the rest, as they say, is history."

"Odd, you are aware that we have gone into the past and now none of that has actually happened."

"Yeah, but I've just always wanted to say that." Jeremie smacked his hand on his forehead.

"So now that we've told our side of the story, how about you tell us what you've done for those couple of years," Yumi asked Ulrich.

For the next hour or two, Ulrich and Aelita informed their three friends everything that they had done up to Ulrich getting devirtualized by Yumi's clone. Ulrich made sure that he left out the part about him talking to them after the battle.

"Wow, you've been through a lot. All the pain and suffering you've been through, I can't imagine what it must have been like for you," Yumi said feeling sorry for Ulrich.

"And hopefully you won't have to. I'll make sure that XANA is never able to do this to any of you."

"And now thanks to you, we have the anti-virus 70 percent done. All Einstein has to do now is finish that last 30 percent and we'll be XANA free."

"Actually Odd, while I was looking around in the towers I was able to find out the missing part of the anti-virus. It was pretty clever of XANA actually. It copied the code onto Ulrich so now all we have to do is scan Ulrich and copy the code and we'll finally have it and I'll be able to come to your world for good."

"I'd say we do it now, but it's pretty late right now so tomorrow we can go ahead and do it. That way we also have the entire weekend to get Aelita the right certifications to be considered human."

"Well then, I'm off to bed. I'll see you all in the morning." Odd got off the bed and stretched. "Ulrich, don't be too loud when you come in; I want to get my shut eye."

"Well I'll have to be pretty loud to be louder than your snoring," Ulrich mused.

"Very funny. A guy gets back from being in nothingness for two years and then saves your butt and this is the thanks he gets." Odd walked out of the room.

"Well I better get going too, I don't want my parents to realize that I snuck out." Yumi got up and headed to the door. "Goodnight guys."

"Goodnight Yumi," Jeremie said.

"Hold on Yumi." Ulrich jumped up and walked over to her. "You don't mind if I, if I walk you home." He began to blush.

"I don't mind at all," she replied blushing a little.

"See you tomorrow Jeremie." Ulrich closed the door leaving Jeremie and his princess alone.

The walk out of the school and off the school grounds had been a quiet one quite simply because Ulrich and Yumi didn't want to get caught being out after curfew. After they made it out of the school, it was completely different.

"It's good to have you back Yumi."

"It's good to be back. I've missed everybody and everything so much."

"Even Sissi?"

"Even Sissi." The two shared a laugh.

'God, I never knew how much I really missed her laugh.'

"Yumi, there's something that I purposely forgot to mention back there, and I think now is the perfect time to mention it."

"What is it, Ulrich?"

"Well, after I was devirtualized I kind of had this dream, see. And in it you were all there and things were said." Even though it couldn't be seen in the dark of night, Ulrich was starting to blush madly. "I believe everything that was said was true. After I woke up, I knew that it was more than a dream, you and Jeremie and Odd were reaching out to me. So what it is that I want to ask is" Ulrich stopped mid sentence when he realized that he and Yumi had both stopped walking and were now looking into each others eyes. 'Her eyes, they're so... beautiful. I only wish that I could see them better.'

'I never realized how brown his eyes were before. They're so, so alluring.' Unknown to both of them was that they were slowly moving there heads together. Lost in each others eyes, they were surprised when they felt the other's lips on their own. Ulrich and Yumi both closed their eyes to enjoy the feeling more. The kiss deepened. Moments later, they had to regrettably part.

"That was...unexpected," Yumi said.

"Yumi, will you... would you like to go out sometime?"

"Like on a date?"

'She hates me now, I know it. I knew I should have stopped that kiss when I had the chance, but I just couldn't.' "Uh-huh."

"Ulrich, I'd, I'd love to."

Ulrich gave her a smile that was almost as big as Odd's and she smiled back. They walked the rest of the way to Yumi's house hand in hand. They didn't say another word; they just enjoyed each other's company.

The rest of that night was pretty peaceful. Ulrich was able to sneak back into the school without getting caught or waking Odd. Jeremie stayed up for about another hour talking to Aelita until she forced him to get some sleep. All was well and finally somewhat normal for our heroes. That is, until the next morning.

"Can we please hurry this up, I'm getting hungry." Odd and Yumi were standing on either side of Jeremie as he sat in his chair at the super calculator. Jeremie had pulled them all out of bed at the crack of dawn and then pulled them all to the factory. He wanted to get everything done as quickly as he could so that they wouldn't have to worry about XANA anymore.

"Odd, you're always hungry," Yumi replied.

"Well, yeah, but usually I've eaten by now."

"Alright Ulrich, you can exit the scanner now," Jeremie said into the microphone. "Aelita, have you set up the firewall yet?"

Aelita's face appeared on the screen. "Yes, but you need to hurry. It's no telling how long it will last against XANA."

"If you can, put up a couple extra just to be safe."

"Alright Jeremie, I'll try." Aelita's face disappeared from the screen.

Ulrich walked out of the elevator and joined the rest of the group. "What do you have left to do Jeremie?"

"I just need to fix the code with the rest of the anti-virus, then do a test run, and then we should be all ready."

Aelita's face appeared on the screen. This time she looked really worried. "Jeremie, XANA's attacking the tower."

"Hold on Aelita, help is on the way."

Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi were already on their way to the elevator.

"Just stay in the tower, Aelita, the others will be there soon."

Author's Note:

I apologize for how late this was. I actually had up to this point done like last week, but I ended up going further on thinking that it'd be done soon. It wasn't. So, with the advice of a friend, I split it up into two chapters. Who knows, with how long the next one's getting I may have to split it up too. But anyways, I really liked this chapter. What do you think? Now this was my first attempt at some fluff, so please let me know how I did. There's defiantly more of that to come, especially for my personal favorite couple. And again I'd like to say a big thank you to my great proofreaders, Doggiegal and Nikana.

Review Reply:

top20fan13: Thanks again for the awesome review. Yep, you're right.

snakealien: Here you go, and thanks for the review.

Question:

What's waiting for the gang in Lyoko? (Make sure you're specific with you're guess)