HAY GUISE. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

First off, thank you for being patient with me through the evils of the chapters of ANGST. As a reward, I give you a chapter of FLUFF! Yeaaah. I loved writing this chapter. Fluff is my favorite thing to write.

With that, I give you Chapter Fifteen. Three-fourths through the story, gang. Three-fourths.

Disclaimer: Ah. It appears I forgot that I did not own Code Lyoko for a while. Sorry bout dat.

Chapter 15
Honesty

"Uhm…"

Jeremie tripped over the last step, but caught himself against the wall. He eased out of the slight shock of the fall, and looked up at the second-story landing. Aelita, as one would predict, was there. She was standing outside her room, hand on the doorknob, but motionless, as though it were a major decision as to open the door or not. Her eyes were unfocused- she appeared to be deep in thought.

A shudder ran down Jeremie's spine as he looked at her. Cautiously, he got off of the stairway, and approached her. She did not respond.

"Um…hey."

Aelita turned her head, very slowly, in his direction. Her eyes widened a bit, but the rest of her body seemed to relax. "Hm?"

"Well…your dad…he said he wanted me up here, to…well…" His gaze trailed towards the ground.

To his surprise, Aelita followed him. She stepped a little closer, and looked towards his eyes. "Huh? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I-I'm-" He went a bit red, but Aelita didn't notice. Something caught his eye, and he looked down at her jacket. "You…there's blood…right there…" He pointed at the small splatters where Medea's blood had fallen.

"Oh…oh." She looked down at her jacket, and rubbed the spot gently. "I guess I should go change…"

"Yeah…maybe you should." He tried to smile through his nerves.

"Yeah…" She looked up at him, and an odd look crossed her face. "Um…well, you know, I'll kind of need some privacy, so…"

Jeremie didn't need anything else said. He opened the door, pushed her into the room, and then forced it shut behind her. He pressed his body against it to make sure it stayed shut, not necessarily because Aelita would open it again, or because it would help at all (the door swung the other way). It was mostly for his own mental security. He heard a small, metallic click that told him the door was locked. With that, he relaxed, and sat down against the door.

Why had he been so frantic? Had it been the thought of Aelita…no, no, he wasn't that kind of person. He wiped his brow with his forehead, and took some deep breaths. There. Now he could think.

Well, he had hardly expected this. Just when he'd actually gotten used to having his day set back at the end, to reintroducing himself to the same people, this had to go and happen. He supposed that now was the end of the revisions- with Medea dead, a Return to the Past would be useless. But, he still had to go home…if he could somehow get away…finish the reverse-engineering before anyone could find out, and then leave the past nice and clean…

But for some reason, he felt something else pulling at him. He was intertwined in this past now. It was going to happen today, he knew it would. The events that would set off the greatest passion of his entire life were about to take place. But…was he just going to sit and watch the person he cared about more than anyone place herself in danger…even as she sat completely unawares?

He knew what he had to do.

The door gave way behind him, and he fell backwards onto his head. He looked up to find Aelita staring down at him, fully dressed in another copy of the same outfit. She arched an eyebrow. "It's not a very good idea to sit against this door…"

"I can see that," Jeremie replied, standing up as though nothing had happened. "Well…um, may I come in?"

"I suppose." She turned around, and walked across the room. "Just…keep the door open, okay?"

"You don't trust me." He cast a sarcastic look, and then walked in, and sat against her bed, placing his laptop bag on his left side. Aelita walked across the room, picked a doll- Mr. Pück, far as he could tell- off a a shelf, and then sat down on one of the physics textbooks strewn across her floor. She stroked the doll's cheek tenderly.

"Are you alright?" Jeremie asked, raising his eyebrows.

Aelita turned her head, looking at him with a subdued curiosity. "Yes. Thank you." She turned back to Mr. Pück.

They sat in silence for a long, long time.

"I'm sorry."

"What?" Jeremie snapped out of his unfocused stupor and whirled his head towards Aelita. She hadn't moved at all, but he had clearly heard her voice. Then, he heard a sigh.

"I'm sorry…" She turned her head, and then looked at the ground. Mr Pück began to slip out of her hands. "For being so pathetic. You know…back there…in the woods."

"What? No, no, it's okay." He made a move as though to stand, but nerves stopped him at the last minute, and he sat down again, huddled in an awkward ball. "You're not pathetic. Not at all." His gaze trailed off. "I'm loads more pathetic than you are...and you really were a lot braver than a lot of people. Braver than the principal, anyway."

"That's a pretty shallow achievement." She dropped the doll, and then, to Jeremie's surprise, stood, walked across the room, and sat by the other side of the bed, only slightly more than a yard from him. "I…I'm confused."

"About what?" Jeremie said. "You can tell me…if you want to."

She sighed, and looked away. "Everything, really. Everything that's happened today. It's like I said before. It's all happening too fast. I mean, I woke up this morning, thought I'd go out in the sun, go to the movies, wash the neighbor's cat…and BANG." She threw her hands up in the air. "My English teacher is dead, my dad's on the run from the police…and now he's acting all strange. Like…like he doesn't care."

She paused for a moment. "But what confuses me the most, really…" She looked up, right at Jeremie. "Is you."

Jeremie stared at her, and then, tentatively, pointed to himself. "Me?"

"Yes, you. You really, really confuse me." Her stare was piercing, begging for information. "You come to the school, unanounced, out of absolute nowhere. You've never spoken to me in your life, and yet you quite clearly follow me every chance you get, and show no hesitation in hauling me around. You seem to know my father. How do I figure this, you say? When two people are at the scene of a situation like that of a death, action should be swift for the care of the body. But there was tension between you. An air of antagonism that shouldn't have been there, especially between an adult authority figure and a guest child."

Jeremie had to focus intensely to stop himself from showing surprise. He honestly did not expect Aelita to be so observant. But, he hoped he was showing an expression of outward coolness, enough to hide his nerves. He nodded, as though egging her on through her interesting theory.

"Don't ever think I'm any sort of airhead. You are clearly more intelligent than you let on, and you're not telling me something. Where did you come from? What do you have to do with everything that's happened? Because I know you're a part of it. I know."

This was the moment Jeremie was waiting for. The moment of truth. He laughed, just a little, for dramatic effect, and a wicked smile wormed across his face. "Maybe, maybe, maybe. If two impossible things have happened today, who knows, maybe we can make it a round third." He returned her steely glare. "You're right. I did come out of nowhere. I do know your father. And I do have quite the story to tell. Amazing things are about to happen, Aelita. Not all good, not all bad, but definitely amazing. Your life is about to change."

Aelita's eyes grew wider with every word. It looked as though she did not know what to make of him. Leaning in so close her hair almost tickled his face, she asked, in a voice that was almost a whisper, "Who are you?"

"My name is Jeremie Belpois. I'm from the future."

Jeremie would never know exactly what Aelita had expected him to reveal to her. Perhaps she had had no concrete idea. But whatever she had expected, it was not what he had said. On instinct, she pulled away from him, flinching as far back as she could with her top half, but her bottom stayed rooted to the spot. She kept a straight face, amazingly, but seemed to be having trouble holding it. "Oh…r-really." The voice was half calm, half surpressed laughter.

"Your father is a genius." He didn't answer her statement. "You know that old, abandoned Renault factory on the island in the Seine? Yeah. At this very moment, there is an enormous supercomputer sitting in its bowels, one more powerful than any built by any government, or any private maker. Your father, he built that supercomputer. He made it in secret, and works on it every afternoon after the teaching day. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he had planned to work on it today, or if he still will.

"I'm from the year 2006. Two years ago…well, two years before then…I discovered his supercomputer when I was looking around the factory for scrap metal. The old elevator worked…but I didn't know that wouldn't be my only surprise." He laughed, bitterly. "And one day, I just got sent back in time by accident. I've been here ever since."

"And…that just sort of randomly…happened?" Aelita's eye twitched. She was taking in every word, but he could not tell if she was believing any of it. "This is…erm…normal?"

"Not exactly. Like I said, the supercomputer is very powerful. It can hack the most secure databases, solve the most complex problems…and it is the only device, even here, in 1994, that can reverse time. Bring it forward, I don't know. But it can reverse it, that's for sure."

Silence. He kept talking. "Yep. But that's hardly the half of it. You see, I barely scratched the surface of all the technological wonders the supercomputer holds."

"That…that is…" She sounded like she really didn't want to know.

"An entire world. A world made up of five different sectors, accessible through full-body scanners, designed to be the ultimate paradise. They call it Lyoko. You enter there…and all weakness is removed from you. You should be safe from harm. It should be a world without danger. Should be."

Aelita sat in silence for a tense moment. "Have you…ever been there?" she asked, finally.

"Once. Just…once." He sighed. "Maybe I should go more often, but, no…I have other matters to attend to."

"I…I see." She seemed to have the notion that she was treading on thin ice, ice that she was afraid would crack at any moment. She was terrified out of her wits. Just as Jeremie wanted it. She sighed…and then, tentatively, crept slightly closer, a newfound curiosity in her eyes.

"Do you know, perhaps…where I am in your world? I'd be twenty-five, wouldn't I? Do you know me? Live near me? What do I do for a living?" Her words were questioning, but were laced with a sort of mild sarcasm.

Jeremie stared at her still longer, trying to fight down his amusement- and his embarassment. "That would really be awkward."

"Awkward?"

"I do know you in the future. But, not really in the way you'd expect." He smiled, a small smile. "When I found the supercomputer, it wasn't just that I found an immensely powerful object, or a time machine, or a deprived world of escape. I also found…you."

Aelita's calm pretenses fell immediately. Her eyes bugged out of her head, and her jaw dropped. "...me? I…I don't really get what you're saying…"

"Yeah. If I'd heard it all the day before it happened, I would have said much the same." He backed away from her slightly, perhaps to make her more comfortable. "You see, you were…will be, I guess…trapped in Lyoko. While you were trapped in there, the supercomputer was turned off, and you went into a sort of hibernation for ten years. You didn't age…and…and you lost all your memories." He felt his voice straining, and tried to ignore it. He turned away from Aelita- though he knew the effect this would have on her, he couldn't bear to watch.

"I'm…I'm not anyone important, really…I was just a student over there at the boarding school when I found you. And I…well…I wanted to help you. I wanted to bring you back to the real world…so you could live a normal life." He shivered.

There was a long silence…and then Aelita spoke, eerily calm. "Why? Why embark on the impossible for a complete stranger?"

"Because…it's what you do, you know? You see someone in trouble…and you help them." His voice trailed off.

"You have quite an elementary sense of duty." A hollow laugh…and a tense pause. "Perhaps you know why I was trapped?"

"Well…" His throat froze. He knew exactly what he had to say, but the words couldn't come out. "I…" He mopped his forehead. He opened his mouth again, but no sound came.

"I see." More silence. This unnerved Jeremie, but the quieter he was, the better it would be. He just had to wait for another question to inspire him…

"So is the future really all it's cracked up to be?"

"Wha-what?" His head jerked, and he finally chanced a look at Aelita. None of the surprise he had expected, if it had ever happened, remained- she had fixed him with the same steely, prodding glare. He gulped. "What do you mean?"

"Flying cars? Cities in the clouds? Robots doing everything for us? Perhaps…internet without dialup?" Her eyes narrowed.

"That's…not really, yet…that's just movies and stuff, you know…" He laughed nervously. "Except that last part…"

Her eyes still bored a hole in his flesh. "Nothing? Nothing's happened at all, hm? Sounds very…present day."

A muscle twisted in his stomach. He hadn't thought this part through. "Well, yes, many, many things have happened, of course…just not overly in the Hollywood fashion."

"I suppose that could be true," she said. "It's just…I guess you know that time travellers don't just drop in every day."

"Yeah. It isn't something that can just be supported with words. Tell you what-" He spied his laptop bag, still set against the bed. He crawled over to it, grabbed it, and then repositioned himself, holding it up. "See this? I brought it with me. It's full of stuff from the future. Want to see?"

Aelita's muscles relaxed slightly, and she backed away, but her eyes were still at the intensity of diamond cutters. "Is any of it…dangerous?"

"Oh, no. I left the spaceship and ray guns at home." She rolled her eyes- she had obviously gotten the sarcasm. "But, really, the most I could do with any of this is hit you over the head with it. Which…I'm not. But, look." He opened the bag, and pulled out his laptop.

If Jeremie was expecting enthusiastic belief at this, he must have been utterly dissapointed when Aelita did nothing but arch an eyebrow. "It's…a computer."

"Yep!" He tried to make up for her lack of enthusiasm. "In 2006, computers do almost everything. They're an information database, they're one of the main means of communication, they help immensely with word processing and accounting, and, of course, they can be used as toys by some people…want me to turn it on and show you?" He placed it on the ground, and flipped its cover up.

Aelita didn't answer. She just crawled around, facing the back of the computer, and poking its cover. "It's so…small."

"Oh, they can get smaller. Wanna see?" He abandoned the computer for the time being, and dug into his bag again. After a time, he fished out his cellphone, and held it up to her, smiling widely. She looked at it for a moment…

"A pager." She was again unimpressed. "So."

Jeremie looked down at the phone, and then back at her, in obvious disbelief. "Uh…no. This is a cellphone. What's a pager?"

The incredible look of disbelief that Jeremie had been waiting for finally came across Aelita's face. She surveyed the phone again…and then she snatched the phone out of his hands, and turned it over and over. "No way! This is a cellphone? It can't be…it's too…small. I mean, I've seen cellphones…and they're all…all…" She looked up at him, almost angrily. "How in…how did you get one?"

"Everyone has one. Usually, you get your first in sixth or seventh grade." He was enjoying this a lot. "And it does more than call. It has its own built in answering machine, it can send and receive text messages, take pictures, hold music…and I'm not even sure if mine can do all of that."

Aelita pressed a button. Several bars of music told him that she had turned the phone on. She pressed several buttons enthusiastically, eyes going wider with each press. "Awful confusing."

"Yeah. It's the fashion to have everything technologic do everything."

"I see." She pressed one more button, looked to the side at his bag…and then set the phone down. She crawled over to the bag, and picked up something that had spilled out of it- a one Euro coin. She exammined it with interest. "Is this…money?"

"Of course it's money! What'd you-" Just as suddenly as he was confused, he understood. "Oh, right, right! You guys still use Francs, don't you?"

Aelita turned her head towards him, confused. "Still?" she inquired.

"Yeah. A whole load of European countries switched to the Euro a few years back, because it's more convenient. France…Spain…Germany…not England, they still use pounds."

"Hm…" She looked it over again. "Interesting. Ah…"

She dropped the coin, which rolled around and fell over. She crouched down by the bag again, and seemed to have noticed something else- the small, colored corner of a photograph. Jeremie knew what this was, and didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before.

She pulled the photograph out of the bag, and looked at it with interest. Jeremie knew it was a picture of him and his friends. But to Aelita, the people were strangers. Three of them, at least. The shy, mild-looking boy with the mousy brown hair…the crazy blonde girl making bunny-ears over his head… the Chinese girl looking on at them in amusement…she didn't recognize any of them. Smushed in a corner were two others. One was, of course, the boy that sat right behind her. He was smiling, blushing, and holding the hand of another smiling, laughing girl. A girl with short, pink hair and a kind expression…one very familiar.

"Me," she mouthed.

"I forgot that photo was there." Jeremie crawled over to her, and looked over her shoulder at the picture, though still trying to keep at a comfortable distance. "Yep. That's me and my friends."

"I see…" She surveyed the portrait, trying to make sense out of it. She pointed at Odd. "Why does she wear her hair like that?"

"He." Jeremie snorted into his hand. "I don't really know. He just likes to be different, I guess." He tapped his head. "That's Odd, by the way. Odd Della Robbia. He's a little weird…and a little irritating…" He rolled his eyes. "But we like him all the same."

"Hm…I like him." She smiled at Odd's unmoving face. "He seems so full of life."

"That's Odd for you. He has enough life in him for about six people, and it'd be better off in them."

"Shut up." Her eyes scanned the picture again. "And the other guy and the Chinese girl?"

"'Yumi Ishiyama' would not be very happy if she heard you call her Chinese. But still, she's cool. More mature than any of us. And that guy is Ulrich Stern. Grouch if you ever saw one, but he's useful."

"Ulrich?" She giggled a little. "Very German name…" Inevitably, her eyes trailed towards the couple in the corner. She smiled at them. "And who's that ugly little boy?"

"Not in the picture." He laughed, and then recomposed himself. "Yeah, that's me. And the girl…"

"Is me. I know." She stroked the face of her future self, thinking. "I look so happy… and…I'm going to know all these people?"

"More than know them." Jeremie looked away from the picture and sat down. Aelita looked at him, anticipating another story. "They're your friends. My friends. They know about the supercomputer as well. They've been to Lyoko many more times than I have. We're all fighting for your freedom."

"Fighting?" Aelita was intrigued now. She kept hold of the photograph. "Fighting against who?"

"A program in the computer…an artificial intelligence, a virus of sorts…that doesn't want to let you go." His voice darkened with contempt. "But it's not just that he wants. He wants to take over the world, and he does have the means to do that. We're trying to make sure he doesn't…and that he doesn't hurt you at all. That's what we're most concerned about." He looked at the ground, nervous.

He felt a small pat on his shoulder, and he looked up. Aelita was sitting right beside him, almost touching him, looking at him with a new kind of curiosity- a kind, playful one. A shiver ran down his spine.

"Jeremie…" Her voice was nervous, strained. "I think I've seen enough that I can believe your little time-travel story…" She glanced back at the photograph, now lying on top of the bag. "But I just want to know one thing."

"Anything."

"Well…in this…future," she said, pausing to take a breath, "Are we in love?"

In a more convincing statement than anything he could have said, Jeremie blushed deep crimson and buried his head in his knees. "Well, I, uh…maybe, it's just…well… um…um…"

"Um?" She giggled.

"Um…" A sigh. "I'm not really sure, actually." He looked up, eyes glazed and unfocused. "Aelita is…you…she's kind, understanding, patient…and yet still human enough for it to be balanced, for her to have common sense. She's wonderful. Too wonderful for me." Tears formed at the edges of his eyes, and his voice cracked. "I'm just…I'm just a useless technophile. I failed her so much…deserves better." Finally, he looked up at her, breathing heavily, trying to hide his tears.

"You…you'd be happier here with Chris, right? He's nice…good-looking…he'd be able to give you anything you'd ever want. He likes you. A lot." He choked, and shuddered.

"Chris…" She looked to the side. A second later, he felt a soft flump- Aelita had placed her head on his shoulder. He shivered, but did not dare move.

"Chris is…nothing but a friend." Her voice was weary and tired now. "A good friend…but a friend nonetheless. I know he likes me. He makes it way too obvious. All males do. But to me…he's just a game I like to play. I see what little things I can do to get him going…to see him blush or stammer…and from that I get amusement."

"So…you egg him on, just because you're bored." He tried, still, not to look at her.

"Pretty much. No real feelings for him at all. Just another boy passing by…" Gently, she touched his chin, and turned his face towards hers. She gazed up into his eyes. He flushed crimson, and tried to hide his face again.

"I…forgive me, Aelita. I just…" He sighed, again. "Sometimes…in the forest, there…I forgot you weren't…"

"I wasn't the amnesiac princess you are accustomed to." She sighed as well, but somehow, with a bit of a lighter note. "Perhaps the only reason you are speaking to me at all, is because you know I will forget."

"You read into conversations very carefully. It's a…nice skill." He smiled down at her.

"My father does it all the time. I guess I just copy him." She stroked his shoulder lightly with her finger. "I've listened to everything you said…and I guess I can…appreciate it. Believe it, maybe, but appreciate it more. But, I'm scared. And still confused. I mean…why me? Why not someone more noble…more uncommon…"

"You're far from uncommon," Jeremie retorted. "And in a way…I'm scared. Scared for you. I don't…I mean…I've spent a long time trying to get her…you…away from suffering. So seeing this…being a part of it…it's…" He held his hand to his heart, and balled it into his fist. "Kind of painful."

He looked into her eyes, as she had looked into his. She did not hesitate, simply returned the calm glance. A spasm crossed his heart, and he felt his face flush anew, but he ignored it. He was too busy. "Ah…Aelita…"

"Jeremie…"

SLAM.

"Alright, come out of there!"

It took Jeremie about two seconds to register the noise. Aelita reacted more quickly than that- she leapt up, and gasped, her face going from a pale blush to chalk white in an instant.

"No…they can't…" She ran over to the window. Jeremie stood. From across the room, he could see what had troubled Aelita. A black car had pulled up to the Hermitage, and was parked sideways by a tree. In front of the house were two men in black suits, one bald, the other not. They looked, very, very angry.

Jeremie mumbled an expletive. "It's time. Call your father."

Aelita backed into a nearby dresser. She whirled to face him. "What? Now? But-"

"Those men. I'll bet anything they're after him. Call your father!" Hurriedly, Jeremie stuffed his computer, phone, and photograph back into his bag, and slung it over his shoulder.

"Uh…" Aelita shivered on the spot, and yelled with all her might. "Daddy!"

There was a crash from downstairs, followed by loud footsteps. The next moment, Franz Hopper ran into the bedroom though the open door. His expression still seemed resolutely calm, but, then again, his eyes could not be seen. He looked from Jeremie to Aelita in a milisecond. "Mm?"

"The…the men in black are here…" Her eyes were wide, blank, silently probing for an answer. Franz seemed to see this.

"I know. Do you remember where Mr. Pück is?"

"Y…yes."

"Good." He turned around. "Come. We have to leave."

"Oh…yes…" She made to move-and then twitched. "Oh, wait!" Aelita pointed to Jeremie. "He has to come…doesn't he?"

Franz looked back at Jeremie for an agonizing ten seconds. Then, he laughed, short and fast under his breath. "Yes. As long as he doesn't slow us down."

"Uh, no, no, if I'm going to-"

"I know you won't. Now come on! Sooner or later they're going to get in." He ran back down the steps. Jeremie took a deep breath.

"It's now or never, Aelita. Don't worry…everything's going to be fine." With that, he ran down the steps after Franz Hopper, taking Aelita's hand and dragging her behind.

AWWW so very cute.

Well, my favorite chapter, signed, sealed, delivered. Or perhaps my second favorite, depending on how the next turns out. Love you all,

-Carth