Hey, it's been a while. Code Lyoko belongs to MoonScoop. This is from William's POV. Enjoy.

I could hear him.

I could still hear him.

I couldn't remember anything else, but still...

Once he got into your head, he never left.

Xana...

It was gym class, Wednesday morning. Two weeks until finals, nobody's heart was really in the class anymore. Three weeks until summer break. We defeated Xana just in time. If the fight went into summer break...my parents woulda been asking questions. Everyone would have started asking questions. Could the rest have even stayed here to fight? Could they have kept the secret?

It didn't matter, we defeated him. Well...they defeated him. I let myself become his puppet. Twice.

And they wouldn't let me forget it. I guess they were fighting me for so long that they still saw me kind of negatively. It was okay, though. We would ride out the next three weeks, ace the finals, and celebrate Xana's defeat at the party this Friday.

Ace finals...for classes I only attended for the first month...

Oh well, if my folks asked, I was distracted by love.

Speaking of love, there was Yumi, stretching her legs a few feet away. it was so good just to spend time with her again. She still didn't give off that same vibe that she gave me last year. Maybe I came on too strong? It was fine, I knew we were still destined to be together. I would lay off for now, but she would come back to me eventually. For now, I was just happy to be in the real world and acting under my own free will.

You think you're acting under your own free will? That's funny. Last I checked, you took your orders from me.

"William? You ok?" Yumi asked. I looked up, she seemed concerned. "You flinched, and you were shivering."

"Oh? It's...It's nothing." I answered. Yumi raised an eyebrow at me, and for a second she looked like she was going to push for a better answer, but she let it drop.

"Xanthos? Xanthos?!" Jim called out. "Where is that girl? Late the first day and now this? Just because it's the end of the year doesn't mean you can just duck out! Are you all listening to me?! Back in the tropics, you were late you got bitten by a viper!"

"With all due respect, Jim, we're not in the tropics." I said. "And we all have about a thousand papers and projects to get done, so if you could just get on with it...?"

"How would you like two hours of detention, Dunbar?!"

"BETTER MAKE IT FOUR!"

"DEAL! Now...all of you run a mile. Dunbar, see me after class."

And so we started running. Morgan Xanthos, she sort of came out of nowhere, didn't she? She didn't really seem to care about school. Why did she come a month before school ended? And why did she keep looking at me? Every so often I'd see her looking at me from the corner of my eye. Something about it would feel...weird. I couldn't think of the word for it. Like...nostalgic...but in a bad way...?

It was harder to run than it was before all this, before Xana took me prisoner, that is. I didn't remember anything from those months, but I was mentally and physically exhausted. The first few days it was hard to move. Now I could do things, but I was still really tired. I guess trying to put up some form of resistance for months on end without sleep would do that to a person.

But, somehow, I did what he wanted us to do. I finished the mile, and all the other exercises he had us do during class, and I made it until the end of the class. I was out of breath, but I did it. I needed a nap.

"I'm going ahead to the meeting, ok?" Yumi said under her breath as she passed me.

"Right...I'll be right there after I talk to G.I. Jim." The students left, leaving only Jim and me.

"Dunbar, what's wrong? Over the past week you've changed. You're a lot weaker and a lot more sarcastic than you've been in a long time. I thought you were past all that. And you look like you haven't been feeling well. If there's anything wrong you can tell a teacher, you know that, right?"

"It's nothing, Jim. Can I go now?" I dismissed him...but he wouldn't let me leave.

"Now you and I both know that isn't true." There was an awkward pause, I wasn't about to tell him and he wasn't moving. It was a stalemate. "Listen, you don't have to talk to me, but I want you to promise you'll talk to somebody about whatever it is that's going on. Ok?"

"It's not a big deal, Jim. Just a broken heart, is all."

"All the same..."

"Thanks, Jim. I'll...I have to do homework. Can I just?" I made a move to leave.

"Of course...see you tomorrow."

I walked away, into the dorm building, and into Jeremie's room. Everyone was gone except Jeremie and Aelita.

"Just a little late, huh?" I asked.

"Yeah, sorry. We didn't know how long you were going to take with Jim, so we had to start without you." Aelita said. "You didn't miss much, though. It's obviously a specter...but Jeremie took a look at the footage from the security cameras in the factory around the time of the crime. Nothing."

"I'm really at a loss here." Jeremie leaned back and rubbed his temples.

"Maybe...someone did something that makes it look like a specter, but it's not actually a specter?" I suggested, flopping down on the bed next to Aelita.

"No, impossible." Jeremie turned toward us in his swivel chair. "The guy looked right at the camera. The eye of Xana was there. It's like he was mocking us."

"We're going to try checking the factory in person tonight. There might be something the cameras didn't see." Aelita said.

"Meanwhile, I'll keep looking for Replikas. It's always possible one or two survived somehow...and that's where Xana would most likely be hiding." He turned back to his computer and kept scrolling through this screen...I didn't know what it was. Well, I mean obviously it was a search program for Xana, but I couldn't make sense of it. How did Jeremie ever keep up with all this?

"Right...well, keep me posted about the trip to the factory, huh?" I waved and left the room.

They had a meeting without me.

I sighed. The wounds were still too fresh.

I wasn't their enemy though...

How could I prove that?

Um...huh.

I found myself in front of Morgan Xanthos's room. I guess I wanted to know something about her? Something...didn't seem right about her. I knocked on the door.

"Uh...um...it's open." I heard from inside. I opened the door. It was dark inside, and the shades were down. There was some rustling from the bed.

"Hey, it's William. William Dunbar, from lunch the other day."

"Yeah, I remember you. Did you need something?" she asked from the bed.

"...Jim wanted me to check on you, you know, since you skipped out on class." Crap, I was completely making this up as I went.

"I see." She said it completely neutral. Did that mean anything, or? "Well, I have a fever. The nurse can account for that. She told me to stay in bed. I guess Jim just didn't hear about it."

"Huh? Ok." I looked around the room, avoiding eye contact. I saw a closed laptop on her desk. It looked really fancy and vaguely familiar. Where had I seen it?

Oh! The news! This was the same kind of laptop as the one that had been stolen.

"Looks fancy. Where'd you get it?" I asked.

"America. I got some inheritance money and decided to spend it on this." Morgan explained.

Well...there wasn't any way to prove she was lying. Not without digging into some stuff illegally. I could probably get Jeremie to do that...

Or maybe she was just a normal person and I was being paranoid?

"Why'd you come here with only a month left to go in the year?" I asked.

"What is this, 20 Questions?" Morgan smirked.

"Just curious."

"Fair enough. I needed a place to stay."

"No family to take you in?"

"No."

"So you're gonna stay here during the summer?"

"It's either that or find a cheap hotel. I haven't talked to the principal about that yet. Anything else you want to know?"

"No...I guess not. I hope you feel better soon." I turned to leave.

"William." she called after me.

"Yes?" I turned back toward her.

"Thank you...for checking up on me." she smiled at me. I walked out and closed the door.

Something was wrong here...

I could feel it.

I'll edit in the time elapsed tomorrow but it's like 3 days and like an hour.

Also, I'm advertising my let's play channel here, right now I'm playing a pretty neat rpg, the code lyoko game, and undertale

you tube / user / AwesomeFanFicAuthor