4. After Ulrich showed him how to get to the school roof he spent his sleepless nights up there mapping the stars.
The thing about shutting down Lyoko, about finally defeating X.A.N.A., is that things don't just go back to normal afterwards. Jeremie can't remember what normal is anymore. He tries, he really does, but his sleep schedule is ruined. Too many nights spent staring at coding and working out complex physics theories have left him, well, not drained exactly. He isn't sure what. Itchy is the closest word he can think of. Unfulfilled. Bored.
He lies in bed, watching the numbers click over on his alarm clock, and realizes how much time is just wasted. If the past few years had taught him anything, it was that so much could be accomplished while the rest of the world slept.
He groans, rolls over and stares at his wall instead. His brain is going at full speed and he feels a nervous, twitchy energy in his body. There's no rampant computer virus trying to take over the world to defeat, but maybe his physics homework could offer some type of distraction. He sits up, pulls on a sweater, and sits down at his desk.
The glow of the computer booting up is strangely soothing.
/
"Up late?" Ulrich asks.
Jeremie shrugs and drinks deeply from the coffee Yumi brought him. "No later than usual," he replies.
Yumi frowns at him. "Pre-defeat usual or post-defeat usual?"
"Is there a difference?" Odd asks. He keeps his attention on the paper airplane he's creating. "You know how Einstein is."
"Hey!" Jeremie protests.
"You have a point," Yumi agrees, disregarding Jeremie's protestations. "It still isn't healthy."
"And how are you sleeping?"
"My sleep schedule is not being discussed right now, Ulrich." She highlights something in her notebook. "Jeremie, we all know how hard you worked. You've earned your rest."
"Geeze, Yumers, you make it sound like he's dying!"
"I am not-"
Jeremie turns away from the brewing argument. If they want to fight over his non-existent sleep issues…well, he isn't going to get involved. Aelita is staring at him and he meets her eyes evenly, only feeling a twinge of guilt at the concern he sees residing there. "You know you can take a break, right?" she asks quietly.
"It was one sleepless night, Aelita," he replies. He gives her a tired smile and the corner of her mouth twitches into a small smile. "Don't pay them attention."
"It's hard not to when they're being so loud," she replies. He smiles for real at that and she reaches over, squeezing his hand. He can feel the tingles left behind from her cold skin after she lets go. "You can always talk to me, you know?"
"I know." Odd's paper airplane hits him in the side of the head and he groans. "Odd!"
"Look alive, Einstein!" Odd replies, laughing. "No daydreaming."
Jeremie rolls his eyes. He picks up the paper airplane, refolds some of the lines on it and then sends it soaring smoothly back at Odd. "Aerodynamics," he says at Odd's surprised look. Odd grins brightly and bounces over to his side of the courtyard table, fresh paper in hand.
"Teach me your ways, oh masterful Einstein."
"You're ridiculous," Jeremie says just as Ulrich mutters, "Stop acting like an idiot."
Yumi frowns at him from around Odd's back. "We aren't done discussing this, Jeremie," she warns.
. . … . .
Jeremie is stretched out on the cold bleachers, staring up at the light-polluted sky. The moon is a sliver just barely visible over the tops of the trees. He watches a plane pass by overhead, lights blinking. He shivers and adjusts his glasses.
"Hey, Jer."
Jeremie startles, sliding off the bleacher and hitting the lower riser with a clang. He groans, sitting up and peering over the bench at Ulrich. The other boy is dressed in some kind of athletic wear and muddied sneakers.
"Did I startle you?" he asks. The light isn't that great this far from the school, one of the reasons Jeremie chose this spot for late-night stargazing, but he's pretty sure Ulrich's grinning at him.
"No, not at all," he replies drily. Ulrich is definitely grinning now and he reaches out a hand to help him up. Jeremie takes it, letting himself be pulled to his feet. "What are you doing?" He checks his phone quickly. "It's almost midnight."
"Is it?" he asks. He shrugs, rolling his shoulders. "Wanted to get a run in." He looks around the deserted football field. "What are you doing out here?"
"Just stargazing," Jeremie replies. He waits for laughter or teasing, but Ulrich just tilts his head and studies him. Jeremie frowns, crosses his arms. "What?"
"You like space?"
"It's interesting," Jeremie says. Ulrich considers him for a long moment. "I'm learning the constellations."
Ulrich looks away finally, tilts his head back to study the sky. "Kind of hard to study anything down here," he says. "The school lights are pretty bright."
"They'll go off soon," Jeremie comments. He winces when Ulrich looks back at him, eyebrows raised. "Midnight," he says. "They turn off the outer lights at midnight." Ulrich's eyebrows raise another centimeter or so, but he doesn't say anything.
"Come on," Ulrich says after a moment.
"I'm not ready to go in yet, there's some meteor shower starting in an hour or so…"
"Yeah, I know," Ulrich replies. "Come on," he repeats, "there's a better place to watch."
/
"If we get caught…"
"We won't get caught."
"But if we get caught…"
The lock clicks open and Ulrich puts his lock picks away before pushing the heavy metal door open. They step out of the stairwell and onto the flat rooftop of the sciences and mathematics building. Jeremie glances around curiously while Ulrich closes the door quietly behind them.
"Honestly, we snuck around for years fighting a killer computer virus and you're worried about sneaking onto a roof." Jeremie ignores him, walking off across the rooftop. Ulrich grabs his arm though. "Not too close to the edge or you might be seen. Then you would get caught."
"See?" He crosses his arms over his chest and looks around again. He imagines the view would be pretty good, but it's gotten darker. They're definitely past midnight now, with only the entrance and courtyard lights burning dimly. "So, why the roof?"
"It's better than the bleachers." Jeremie turns, confused, and sees that Ulrich has sprawled out on his back. He points up at the sky. "Lay down, the half walls block some of the light and no one turns the lights on up here. Better view."
Carefully, Jeremie lays down on the roof. He feels the rough grit and pebbles dig into his back and shoulders. Ulrich is right though. The stars are brighter, clearer in the dark blue sky above. "Cool," he says. "Definitely better than the field."
Ulrich snorts and thumps him in the shoulder.
. . … . .
It's not that it becomes a habit, more a ritual, but it's a comfort knowing the rooftop is just a lock pick away. Ulrich spends one night teaching him how to unlock the heavy roof door, twisting the pins this way and that, listening for the quiet pop as the tumblers fell into place. They don't mention it after and Jeremie is glad. He isn't sure what he'd say if Yumi or Odd or Aelita ask him about it.
It doesn't take long for his nightly ritual to shift. He leaves the computer behind and instead takes to studying the stars he can see. He wonders if he'd be able to smuggle a decent telescope onto the roof so he could get a better view of the planets that occasionally pass over Kadic.
/
"Yo, Einstein, you with us?" Odd asks. He pokes Jeremie with the handle of his spoon. "Earth to Einstein, come in Einstein."
Jeremie blinks, feeling sluggish. "Yes, sorry, I'm here." He looks around the cafeteria table and feels his face warm under the stares of his friends. "What were you saying?"
"You, Ulrich, and me this Saturday night. There's a new Deadborne game coming out that has our names all over it, yeah?"
"Oh, uh…"
"Don't try to use Princess as an excuse, she and Yumi have some girls' night plan, right?"
"That's right," Yumi agrees. She smiles at Aelita. "We're seeing the new Marion Cotillard film."
"It's supposed to be really good," Aelita agrees. "Emily said she saw it last week and enjoyed it immensely."
"So, it's blood, gore, and junk food for us," Odd chirps.
Jeremie shakes his head and stirs the food on his tray absently. "I can't. I have a robotics meeting."
"I thought those were on Friday," Aelita says, frowning.
Jeremie shrugs and adjusts his glasses from where they slipped down his nose. "Normally, yeah. But Monsieur Bisset has a staff meeting Friday so it was pushed to Saturday."
"Well, you can just join us afterwards," Odd says, shrugging. He frowns at Jeremie's tray. "You going to eat the trifle?"
"Help yourself."
"Awesome." Odd swipes the trifle and digs into it enthusiastically. Jeremie ignores Aelita's stare and digs into his meal before Odd takes anymore of it.
/
The meeting ends early when Herve's robot accidentally catches fire and they have to evacuate the meeting room. Jeremie is still coughing from the acrid smoke when he reaches Ulrich and Odd's dorm. He pushes the door open and spies Ulrich and Odd stretched out on Ulrich's bed, playing the newest video game. They both jump when he closes the door loudly and Odd falls off the bed with a thump. Kiwi immediately pads over to investigate whether his owner is alright.
"Hey, Jer."
"Einstein!" Odd exclaims. "Down, Kiwi, down!" Odd bats ineffectively at Kiwi's nose. "Didn't expect you until later!"
"Herve set the lab on fire again so we got out early."
"Awesome," Ulrich says. He pauses the game and sits up. "We'll have plenty of time for a real game then."
"Don't hover, Einstein, come on in. Kiwi, down. Geeze."
Jeremie drops his robotics bag by the door and sprawls out on the floor in front of the small TV screen. Kiwi gives up on Odd and wanders over to Jeremie instead. "What is this game?" Jeremie asks. He scratches Kiwi behind the ears automatically and the dog huffs a breath, settling down next to him.
"You're gonna love it, Einstein!"
/
He spends three hours in Ulrich and Odd's room, until they start yawning in earnest and Kiwi is upside down on Odd's bed snoring loudly. The game is better than he expected, and he enjoys that they actually need to use strategy and it isn't just point-and-shoot. It's a welcome change from Odd's usual picks and he isn't surprised when he learns Ulrich picked it out.
The downside to game night is that he feels wired. He tries going back to his room, drops his robotics bag off at his desk and scrolls across the internet for another hour, but nothing keeps his attention. He debates on texting Yumi or Aelita, but he knows Girls' Night is sacred, so he lets his phone close without dialing either of them.
He isn't all that surprised to find that he makes his way to the science and math building. Jim still hasn't repaired the back stairwell door, and he takes the steps up to the top of the building. He's gotten better at picking locks in the year since Ulrich first showed him the rooftop hideaway and it takes him less than five minutes to get the door open.
It's a full moon tonight, the stars obscured by the bright orb in the sky. He grabs the blanket he's stowed in a crate by the door and crosses the roof to his favorite spot. He spreads the blanket out and lays down, stares up at the stars and moon. It's peaceful and quiet, only the sound of insects and night birds keeping him company. Occasionally he hears a car pass.
His eyes are drawn to the constellation Cygnus, the swan. It's his mother's favorite constellation and the first one she taught him when he was a child. "Let me guess, Swan Lake?" he'd asked after one of the times she'd pointed it out to him.
She had laughed at him. "No, mon petit étoile," she replied. "Cygnus has many origins, not all of them nice." She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her lap as they sat in the field and stared up at the night sky. "The thing to remember though is that Cygnus is saved by being turned into a swan and immortalized in the sky."
Her fingers traced out the cross of stars above them. "See the way the wings open? Cygnus isn't static, he's always moving, always flying. You can see the way he soars."
Now, Jeremie finds himself tracing those same stars with his eyes. The way the wings fan out from the body. He's never understood his mother's love of swans, but he does find comfort staring at the familiar constellation. He can almost smell the burnt-sugar scent of the distant sugar beet factories or the earthy smell of the wheat fields being harvested.
Without trying, Jeremie drifts off, lulled by the memory of late summer fields and the glow of far-away stars.
. . … . .
"Jeremie?"
There's the soft crunch of gravel under sneakers. Jeremie stares up at the summer stars above, eyes traveling over the lines of ursa minor. The footsteps stop and he sees a flash of bright yellow sneakers out of the corner of his eye. A moment later Aelita folds herself down onto the blanket he's spread out over the rooftop.
"How'd you find me?" he asks.
"Ulrich," she replies. She's wearing an oversized pink sweatshirt and her hair is sleep-mussed. She looks around before laying back next to him. He can feel the warmth of her shoulder pressing against his. "You want to talk?"
"Not much to say," he replies. He moves on to draco and then the stars making up lyra.
"What are you looking at?"
"Lyra," he replies. He extends his hand, pointing out each of the main stars in the constellation. "The brightest star is vega, there." He hesitates. "In Greek mythology, lyra is the lyre of Orpheus. He was renowned for his music, and even charmed Hades when he went to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice, his wife."
Aelita shifts next to him. "That sounds like a good story," she says, voice soft.
"That part is," he agrees. "Hades was charmed, but not a pushover. He told them they could leave, but Orpheus wasn't allowed to look back at Eurydice until they were free from the Underworld." He lets his arm fall back to the rooftop and Aelita's hand finds his.
"Orpheus let doubt come in and looked back when they were almost at the end of the journey," he continues. "Eurydice was sentenced to live in the Underworld forever as a result and Orpheus spent the rest of his days wandering around and strumming his lyre. In the end Orpheus's bones were buried by the muses and his lyre placed in the sky by Zeus." He takes a breath. "I always thought it was a silly story," he comments. "My mother loved Greek mythology, who knows why? But if you love someone, why would you doubt them, especially at the end of everything?"
Aelita shifts next to him, propping herself up on an elbow to stare down at him. "Jeremie…"
"I know this is something you need to do." He looks up at her and gives her a small smile. "I'm not going to fight with you. It's okay."
A breeze picks up, bringing the smell of the fresh cut grass from earlier, and blowing strands of hair into her face. She brushes them back automatically and studies him. "Do you doubt me?" she asks.
"No," he replies immediately, seriously. She gives him one of those dazzling smiles of hers and he feels his breath catch. "I've never doubted you."
"It's just a story," she tells him, "you don't even like mythology – it's too abstract, remember?" She leans in, presses her lips to his forehead. "We'll be okay." Her voice trembles and he reaches up, brushes his fingers over her cheek, studies her face.
"I know," he replies. "We always have been." She's still smiling when he pulls her in for a proper kiss.