This chapter s in Aelita's POV, enjoy!
And suddenly we were back in the Supercomputer room. The lights were off, but the Supercomputer was on. The state of the Supercomputer was one of the things it kept constant in a return to the past, as well as our memories. I glanced over at Ulrich. He was stretching his arm out, the one that had gotten shot. It was just fine now. I was glad.
"Huh. Ya know, I was gonna try to fix that with the Scanner, but this is probably better." Taelia's voice came from above. She jumped down from her hiding spot on the bars above the Supercomputer monitor and stuck her hand out to shake. "Damage undone. Let's start from the beginning again, huh? Hi, I'm Taelia, Franz Hopper's former assistant and co-developer of all you see here."
Nobody reached out to take her hand.
Taelia looked dirtier, her hair was all messed up and matter, and she was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. Her face was smudged. The contrast was staggering. There was an awkward silence.
"Oh. So that isn't enough?" Taelia said with a frown. More silence. It was like nobody was sure what to do. I was the same. Taelia sighed. "Listen, I would just leave you all be, and believe me, I tried, but Morgan is not letting me leave. I tried to leave already and she knocked me out and put me back here. I'm certain the same thing would happen if any of us tried to leave the area. Morgan's gonna make us play her game until she gets bored and kills us." Taelia explained.
"How do you know that?" I asked. I was...skeptical. Taelia paused, like she wasn't entirely sure herself why she had said that. Finally, she came up with the only answer she had.
"Because that's what I would do if I were her..."
That seemed like...an awfully fishy statement.
"And you think that's the case just because that's what you would do? Talk about a lame explanation." Ulrich said.
"I don't know about you guys, but I'm going back to my room and catching some Zs." Odd exclaimed suddenly, trying to break some of the tension. "Come on guys, let's go." He motioned for the rest of us to follow him.
"What about me?" Taelia asked.
"What about you? Just because Morgan won't let you leave the area doesn't mean you have to stay with us. Go find some abandoned building to sleep in." Yumi said, glaring. Yumi was really upset with Taelia for shooting Ulrich. Not so much because it was Ulrich, but because she had threatened a member of the group she felt like she had to protect. We all felt the same way.
"I thought you guys were Xana! Or the Men in Black! The guys that hurt me pretty bad! If you were in the same situation, wouldn't you do the same?!" Taelia paused, and then added. "I could be really useful to you guys. And Jeremie owes me an explanation of what exactly is going on here."
My friends glanced toward me expectantly. I sighed internally. I knew what they wanted. I was with them long enough to know exactly what they wanted.
"You can stay in my room..." I said.
"Really?" Taelia said cautiously. "I don't want to be trouble for you." Now she didn't want to be trouble? She was doing just such a great job of it. You know, I understood with William. He hadn't been acting under his own free will. From her perspective she had been shooting at Xana. But...she still seemed unbalanced. Especially at that moment.
"Really. You'll just have to sneak in." I explained. "And you'll have to sleep on the floor."
"That's fine, that's fine! Thank you!"
"No problem."
I wasn't sure I really wanted Taelia staying in my room, but I guess this was an opportunity to ask her some questions I had about her. Yumi had given us a quick breakdown of what Taelia explained to her, but...it wasn't enough. If Taelia had been a part of my life...and I couldn't really remember it...I needed an explanation.
As we walked out of the factory, Jeremie called.
"Hello?" I asked, picking up the phone.
"Hi, Aelita. Just checking in with you. William just came back from the party. Morgan's playing DJ and didn't show any signs of leaving. We're both fine over here. What about on your end."
"Everyone's a bit shaken up, but otherwise unharmed. Ulrich's arm is better. Taelia's staying with me tonight." I explained. Jeremie paused for a second.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"I'm fine Jeremie. Thanks for your concern, though." I hung up the phone and put it back in my pocket. I know he only wanted best for me, but sometimes it felt like people didn't think I could make decisions by myself or do things on my own. I wasn't the same little princess who constantly needed protecting I used to be.
We walked in silence back to Kadic. Everyone was very very tired. Everyone thought it was over. We thought we could finally rest. We thought everything had been settled. But now we couldn't afford to turn off the Supercomputer. Morgan was very clearly a threat even without the Supercomputer. Everyone was still at the party, so there was no problem sneaking Taelia into my room. Hopefully Jim wouldn't decide to have a surprise inspection of the rooms to make sure nothing sketchy was happening the night of the dance.
I said goodnight to everyone and opened the door. Immediately I flopped down on my bed and let out a groan. Taelia closed the door gently and put her old worn backpack in the corner of the room. She sat down on the floor. I took some advil. My head hurt.
"Thank you again for letting me stay here." Taelia said. "I know you don't remember me, but it really is so good to see you again." Taelia started to go sit down on the bed, then looked down at her clothing and thought better of it. "Um, I'm going shopping tomorrow, but you wouldn't mind if I borrowed a clean shirt or something?"
"Yeah sure. I'll take out the clothes. You should got take a shower, there's a towel right inside the closet. I could use some time alone, anyways."
"Yeah, ok." I couldn't tell what her tone was, she was so masked in everything she did. She opened the closet, grabbed the towel and left the room. I fell forward. This had been SUCH a long day, and I had to go through it twice. I just wanted to sleep, but honestly I couldn't. I reached under my bed and grabbed my laptop and opened it up to social media. I looked at some pictures. Normal people living normal lives. I thought I would finally be able to have that, finally pick up where my life left off.
Who was I kidding? My life was never normal. My father was a madman, my mother was kidnapped when I was too young to understand what was happening, and I lost ten years of my life suspended in a virtual world. And now some...third person that I maybe remembered...maybe...? Who had been missing for years and was insane and dangerous. And this person was supposedly my god mother. And she knew my mother better than I did. How messed up was that? How messed up was all of this?
All the pressure was on me. If something happened to me the towers couldn't be deactivated. If I allowed myself to be weak or unprotected, if I messed up it meant the world would fall. Everyday was literally a life and death scenario, and I was tired of it. I was so tired...I just sat in silence, going through pictures of other people's normal lives. It felt so foreign. All of them felt surreal, like they were in a completely different world than mine. And I guess they were.
I dragged myself out of bed and rifled through my closet, looking for something I'd be ok with Taelia wearing. I came up with an older light blue shirt and black stretchy shorts. I never wore either of these anymore, Taelia could have it if she wanted.
Speaking of Taelia, here she came. Her hair was longer than it looked before, and cleaner too. It was more black than pink. Was that her natural hair color? And more importantly...there were scars littering her arms and chest. I stared at them. I knew that probably wasn't the most polite thing to do, but I couldn't help myself. Where did they come from? Why were there do many? And yet there were no marks on her face. She saw me staring, looked down, and gave a sad little smile.
"Yeah...some of them are self-inflicted, some aren't." Taelia shrugged, and her eyes shifted to the bed. "Oh. You put out some clothes for me. Thanks." She whipped off her towel...I looked away. "Huh, Aelita?" Taelia asked. "Oh, right. One sec." I heard rustling for a few seconds. "I'm clothed, you can look now." I looked at her. She was my size, which was surprising since she was supposedly so much older. "Sorry, I forget."
"What do you forget?" I asked.
"Uh...social norms, some things I haven't had to worry about because I haven't exactly been a part of society." Taelia was feeling the cloth of the clothes I gave her. "This is really soft. Thank you, again." She stretched out on the floor. I stared at her. Those scars were all over the place, where clothing had covered it. This person worked with...with...
"Where did you get those scars?" I asked, carefully. Taelia rolled back over and looked me in the eye. Did I say the wrong thing here? Was she mad?
"I was captured by the Men in Black and tortured for information about Xana and Lyoko. The woman who interrogated me was pretty loose with a knife. There are some extraneous ones from the wear and tear of life and from myself."
"Wait, from yourself? Why?" I had caught that the first time but didn't say anything. Taelia paused for a long time. It seemed like she was trying to find the right words. I let her think as long as she needed.
"Because...I deserve it...because...it's better than feeling nothing at all." She held onto her arms subconsciously. "I've seen a lot and been through a lot and done a lot. I'm a bad person. I was a coward and I was trying to run and now I can't. Now I can't run and I don't know what to do, Aelita. I'm just so glad your alive and I would give my life to keep it that way."
This was all...a little overwhelming. I really didn't know what to say to her. All these things she felt toward me, I didn't remember it. Yumi said it was possible dad just didn't give me those memories back but...if that was the case, why?
"It's ok if you don't know what to say. It's ok if you don't remember..." Taelia murmured. She was falling asleep. "Hey Aelita...what happened to Franz? Xana took him as prisoner, but then what happened?"
Something caught in my throat, and once again I saw the death of my father over and over in my mind's eye. It was an innocent enough question, but the wound was still so fresh.
"Aelita. What happened?" Taelia was standing up now, all traces of sleepiness gone, her eyes dead serious.
"He died." I managed to choke out. "He sacrificed himself to defeat Xana."
"Oh...my god." She was in shock. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. "Wait, wait a second." She went to her backpack and rummaged through the pockets, coming out with an old poloroid photo. It was...us. It was me and dad and mom and another girl. Was THAT Taelia? We were in a cabin, the one in the mountains. The picture was old and worn. We all looked so happy. "Christmas day, 1987. I've kept this picture with me since then. This is what kept me going through everything, through all of it, through everything. You need it more than I do right now. Take it. Remember, there were good times, and there will be good times for you. I'll make sure of it, ok? You'll be ok."
She handed me the picture. When I looked at it, it was almost like I could remember. It was almost like things were ok. It was almost like I could believe I had a normal happy family. It looked so happy. I looked so happy. Even if I didn't remember, she was family. She was the only family left. She was troubled, and so were all of them. She was just troubled for a far longer time. I still didn't know how I felt about her...but we could move forward.
We hugged, and cried, and talked. And when we finally fell asleep it was the best sleep either of us had gotten in years.
Time elapsed: It's the night of the party again, a lot of plot seems to revolve around this one night, huh?
Please leave a like, fave, and review if you enjoyed. Your words mean so much to me, and as always guys, have an awesome day.