…This…was a really hard chapter to write.

First, there was ANGST. Then, there was FLUFF. Now…there is FLANGST. The crazy combination of both fluff and angst, which I hope you will like!

And I'd love to thank you all for your very enthusiastic reviews! I appreciate them muchly. Oh, just remembered something. As you may know, there's that new feature where you can put polls on userpages. Well, I have one up. As you may have guessed, I don't plan to stop writing after RTTP is over. Thing is, I have four ideas I like. I have a good idea of what I'm going to do next, but I want to know what you think of my ideas. Just cause…cause. There's a link on my userpage, and summaries further down. You can vote if you want to.

Enjoy the show. There may be a slight delay in the next- I have exams very, very soon.

Disclaimer: Je n'ai pas Code Lyoko. D'accord? Bien.

Chapter 16
Un Monde Sans Danger

"Hey! Come back!"

They came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. The men in black were there inside, tall, terrifying. They could not afford to be frozen in fear- after a split second's glance, they hurried down another set of stairs, leading to a sort of basement.

"Freeze or we'll shoot! Yes, the children too!"

The basement was dark, claustrophobic, and foreboding in such a situation. At the end, there was a door that seemed to lead outside. Franz pushed Jeremie and Aelita through first, and then shut the door behind them. He grabbed a wooden board and jammed it against the handle. "It won't help," he said under his breath, "But it's a start."

He ran to an opposite wall, and felt around for something. Eventually, he found it- a small, steel door, almost unnoticable unless one was looking for it. He pulled its handle, and it swung open to reveal a long, thin, earthen tunnel of sorts. Jeremie's breath caught in his throat- he knew where it lead.

"Through here." Franz disappeared down the tunnel. Having no forseeable or sensible alternative, Jeremie and Aelita ran through after him, still keeping a firm grip on each other's hands. He heard a loud bang as the door swung shut behind them.

Just as he had known it would, the tunnel soon ended, leading out to a wider space, all chrome and steel. The sewers. When they reached the end, they jumped out of the passage, and followed Franz's lead on the hauntingly familiar path.

Aelita let out a frightened squeak behind him. He looked back at her, and gave her a comforting smile. "I told you, it'll be okay." He turned his eyes back on the path. He might miss a turn if he didn't pay attention. And then he and Aelita would be drenched in sewer water. Not pleasant.

All too soon, they reached the grate, the end of the sewer passage. Nothing was there except a ladder and a manhole entrance. Franz got to it before they did- he climbed up the ladder, removed the manhole cover, and disappeared through the resulting hole. Taking the hint, Jeremie began climbing, and beckoned Aelita to follow.

The sudden sunlight was harsh on his face. He was on the all-too-familiar bridge to the factory. In the distance, he could hear the sirens at the school. A thought occurred to him as he climbed out. He straightened, shouting towards Franz, who was running across to the factory entrance. "Uh, hey- won't people be able to see us here?"

If Franz had heard, he showed no signs as such. He simply ran to the edge, grabbed hold of a rope, and shimmyed down. Jeremie couldn't waste any time thinking about it any longer- he helped Aelita out of the manhole, ran with her across the bridge, and swung down from the ledge. She followed after him, sliding down her rope fearfully.

They reached the elevator just as Franz was punching in the code to unlock it. The party was still silent. Aelita looked around the area wildly, as if searching for something that could resemble a supercomputer of sorts. She let out another squeak as the elevator opened, but that was it, at least, until they had stepped inside the elevator and it was moving.

"Okay…this elevator is really old…the cables are probably worn through…" She laughed, nervously. Jeremie tried as hard as he could to resist rolling his eyes. Franz remained motionless.

The elevator, whose cables were not as worn through as one might think, stopped where it should have, and opened smoothly out into the interface room. Aelita gasped once, and then was still, except for her eyes, which had widened considerably. Jeremie shuddered. Franz didn't waste any time. He ran across to his chair, swung around into it, and booted up the interface with several loud beeps, followed by the clacking of keys as he typed with fervor.

"Sholy hit," Aelita whispered beind him, barely audible, even to herself. "The crazy kid's right again…there really is this…this supercomputer thing…it's, this is…interesting…" Jeremie tried to ignore her. He merely gripped her hand tighter, looking the other way, nerves strung tight. "Ah…"

"Jeremie." Franz's voice split the tension in the air. "Come here." Jeremie gulped, and, rather reluctantly, he left his spot at Aelita's side and walked over to the terminal. Franz stared at him the whole way, though still typing without looking. As he approached, he leaned towards him, and spoke, his voice a harsh whisper.

"I don't know your plans," he said, "and personally, I do not care. However, I do know my plans, and seeing as I am the one in control of this shiny plastic box and you are not, my plans generally tend to take priority over yours. I'll finish this. I'll take my daughter, go through that elevator, and magically disappear. You wait here until you think it's safe, and then you go. I don't know if they saw your face or not, but you never know with those damned sunglasses…"

"You're hardly one to talk." He heard a soft noise behind him. What was Aelita doing?

Franz's eyebrows narrowed. "I don't have time for this, boy. Here's your job. Stay there with Aelita. Keep her quiet. Don't answer any of her questions, and don't let her move from that spot. Tell her that I'll explain everything in due time." He shuddered, turned his head- and then jumped.

"I…I don't think I need much of an explanation."

Jeremie whirled around. Aelita was standing right by the chair, looking confident about something. Her eyes trailed towards the activity on the screen, and then snapped right back to her father.

"I know what's going on," she said, a bit shakily. "You built this. It's got a time-reverse thingy, and a virtual world, Loko or something or other. And…I'm going to be trapped there, or something. Is this true? I mean…" She shook in her spot. "It all seems so far-fetched…but with all this…"

Jeremie bit his knuckles to keep from commenting. He couldn't look at her, not without reacting somehow. Instead, he looked at Franz, who, obviously, was shocked beyond definition. He had stopped typing, and was sitting on the edge of his seat, mouthing soundlessly at his daughter. Hand shaking, he reached up, removed his opaque spectacles, and made a show of rubbing them on his coat. Their identical green eyes met, for one tense moment.

"How…in all blasted hell…did you know that?"

Aelita sighed. "He told me," she said, pointing at Jeremie without hesitation. He squeaked, and popped his hand out of his mouth. "And he told me a lot more, too."

Franz, blind as a bat, just kept staring in the same direction, eyes widening. "Wha-"

"You told him to tell me, right? I mean, there was no other reason he'd tell me." She cast a sideways glance at him. "He says that he's from the future. Do you know him?"

Franz's eyes snapped towards Jeremie, or, perhaps, the blur he thought was Jeremie. Slowly, he repositioned his glasses, and his gaze became more intense. He stood, and his eyebrows narrowed. "A ha…well, well. So that's what you are." He laughed. "It's all clear now…"

Jeremie arched an eyebrow. "You believe me?" he replied, cool and smooth. "It took a bit of proof to convince Aelita…"

"I believe in many things, the least of which is proven occurences. Yes…" His voice lost a bit of its power- he seemed to be talking to himself now. "It could explain how you were able to enter my time loop…your unknown origins…your advanced opinions…" He rolled his eyes.

"But you remember the Returns to the Past, an ability only obtainable through the scanners…because you make consious changes in the timestream each day." He twitched, and now focused himself entirely on Jeremie. "When are you from?"

"2006. March 10, specifically, sometime in the evening."

"The new millenium. Hm." He fingered his beard. "Are the-"

"No. Y2K is a myth."

"Thought so." Jeremie couldn't help but notice that his eyebrows had flown up in shock for a split second. "And the supercomputer…"

"Safe as ever."

"Very well." He laughed again. "Fancied a little game with obsolete technology, I suppose…wanted to take it apart and see how it works…"

"If I took it apart, I'd be destroying the most advanced computer as of yet." Jeremie smiled, amused. "It isn't common what this hunk of metal can do. Time reversal? Unheard of."

There was a small cough. "Time…reversal." Aelita finally spoke up from her spot by the chair, quietly, but still with confidence. "You…Jeremie… mentioned that…that the computer could do that…what do you mean, 'remember' the Returns to the Past?"

Franz glared at her. She whimpered. "Just…wondering…"

Jeremie gazed at her forlornly, and then back at Franz. "She has the right to know."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"I thought so." Franz reached for his glasses again. "I was going to tell her everything…but time…is so short…" He grabbed the rims of his lenses, but before taking them off, he looked at his daughter. She glowered back at him, as if willing him to speak. It should have been tense, had he not faltered immediately. He sighed, removed his glasses, and turned in the other direction.

"I don't know exactly what Jeremie told you, or what he knows. But he is right. It's already old news that this computer has the ability to reverse time. I did not invent it myself. It was a sort of side effect of its creation, too complicated to explain to a child. Convenient, however…it gave me all the time I needed. I could reverse a day, make progress on the supercomputer, and no one would know. This day alone I've reversed 2,546 times."

"2,546 times?" Aelita looked a mix of confusion and mild horror. "And you said you can remember them…because of…scanners…?" She looked towards Jeremie, curious. "And you, you too…"

"It's happened six times already since I got here." He tried to offset his statement with a smile. "You kinda get used to it after a while."

"I guess that's an explanation." Her voice and face again assumed an air of quiet disbelief and deep thought. "So you are saying, that everything, everything that's happened today…has already happened about three thousand times."

"You're half right. Each revision has been identical, up until about 3:15 this afternoon. What happened then?" Franz replaced his glasses, and began to meander his way back to the supercomputer chair. "Medea Delmas died."

Aelita gasped. "You mean, she didn't die in the other day thingies?"

"Of course not! Do you think I'd want to experience anything like that more than once?" He slipped into the chair, and started typing again, pounding the keys rapidly. "Her death was proof of what I have suspected all along…something else has broken into my little bubble of time…something malevolent and dangerous. Something that can remember the Returns to the Past as we do."

Jeremie opened his mouth, as if to interrupt, but Aelita got there first. "But if you can just do the day over, can't we just do that, and somehow try and get Medea away from her house? Then she wouldn't have died, and everything would be okay! Wouldn't it?" She smiled.

Franz gulped, but attempted to keep focused on his typing. "You only seem to have absorbed about half of what I said. Whatever killed her is as independent of the time revisions as you are dependent on them. Reversing time would only give this malevolence another chance to act, and endanger us further.

"And even if that were taken out of the equation…" He hesitated. "The Returns to the Past do not affect the dead. I don't know why…but if I were to press these few little buttons right now, and reverse time just once more, she would simply drop dead at the point of revision." He laughed darkly. "How do I know this? I have used rats to test the scanners. Many have died. None have come back to life.

"In any case, it is now or never. Time is no longer infinite, and we cannot afford to waste a single second. No more questions." He focused himself intently on the supercomputer, blocking out all else.

"But- but-" She reached a hand out to him, as if that would help. "There's still so much to know…" Looking defeated, she stepped away, toward Jeremie. She gazed at her father for a moment, and then spoke, in a whisper. "Jeremie. What else do you know about the supercomputer? Like…why exactly was it created?"

He was taken aback for a moment, but composed himself, and laughed. "You're just endlessly curious, aren't you? Well, I'm not sure I know more than your father…" He shrugged. "But I do know some things. It's got something to do with this thing…Project Carthage or something or other…some government thing that disrupted enemy communications or something…" His voice lowered to a mumble as he spoke.

"Disrupted enemy communications." Jeremie did a double take. Franz didn't appear to have talked, but he had definitely heard his voice. "That's about as general as definitions can get." He groaned. "I told you not to answer any of her questions."

"Enemies…" Aelita's curiosity truly was endless. "What enemies? Daddy, what did you do? Are the men in black-"

"Nobody, nothing." He banged on the keys still harder. "It's not necessary anymore…" he began to mumble to himself. "They don't realize what they're doing…I'm the only one that knows the truth. I must defend this as long as I can…this and the others I care about…"

"How-" Aelita began to say, but was interrupted. Franz banged his fist on the keyboard, and growled.

"Questions, questions, questions! You're only delaying your own salvation, interrupting me, preventing me from finishing what will well save our lives…"

Aelita squeaked, and took a step back. Jeremie watched her, eyes wide. He felt a surge of anger towards Franz for the force of his words. But, this was quickly surpressed by the memory that he, himself had said nearly the same thing to Aelita many times before. He didn't like to see himself in this man. He didn't like to see Aelita suffer for no reason any longer. He had to try again to make things right.

He took a deep breath, and took a few steps toward the chair. "Save your lives, hm? You really believe that, don't you? You really don't think you're going to suffer."

Franz didn't move an inch. Perhaps his eyes had moved, but he didn't take off his glasses again. "Do you have any…opinions to the contrary?"

"I don't have opinions, I have facts," he retorted. "Remember, I'm from the future. I know exactly what's going to happen to you." Franz opened his mouth as if to cut him off, but Jeremie kept talking. "Okay, sure, you're going to escape, and get to Lyoko. But you're going to be trapped there for ten years, by a virus in the computer, named XANA. He-"

"XANA?" Franz covered his hand with his mouth to keep from laughing. "You, you can't mean…" He swung around in his chair, facing Jeremie, as though he had to see him to take him seriously. "XANA is merely a harmless computer program, whose sole purpose is to keep Project Carthage under wraps. He has nothing to do with Lyoko, and Aelita and I-"

"You're convincing yourself more than you're convincing me," Jeremie retorted. "With every revision of time, every second that goes by, XANA gets stronger. Maybe that was your intention, but it's gone too far. He's developed a mind of his own, and he's aware of himself. He wants to destroy you…destroy everything." He clenched his fists.

"It was XANA that sent me back in time. I guess he was trying to get rid of me, since I was the only one who knew how to work the supercomputer. It's just a stroke of sheer luck I landed here. Who knows? I could be partying it up with the cavemen right now!" He waved his arm in the air to demonstrate his point. "Aelita, you…you're all in a lot of danger, and you'll just get into even more if you enter Lyoko!"

There was no sound from the area where Aelita stood. Franz's face twitched. "Are…are you trying to-"

"I've already tried to discourage Aelita by telling her everything I could. I don't know if it worked, but listen to me now. If you really want to live, you'll destroy the supercomputer, and book it out of here. Go anywhere. Just stay safe…okay?"

He forced a large, nervous smile. Franz's expression was blank. With some creaks from the metallic seat, he stood. He glared in Jeremie's general direction, grey slates revealing nothing. When he finally spoke, his words were laced with sarcastic poison. "And I assume by 'you'…you mean Aelita."

Jeremie didn't respond. Franz snickered.

"Now," he continued, "I am going to go ahead and go by the assumption that you truly are from the future, which I am completely willing to accept, based on my own experiences with time travel. I am also willing to believe everything you have said about XANA. However, if you are still under the impression that you are going to be an amazing hero by convincing me to change your own past, I'm afraid I'll have to give you some very sad news. You may have almost made a very, very, very stupid mistake."

"Oh, really? What kind of mistake?" His hand clenched into a fist by his side.

The grey-haired man laughed darkly. "In science, the independent variable controls the entire outcome of an experiment. If the independent variable is changed, the outcome changes as well. Your variable is your actions, and your outcome is your future. What your experiment is missing, however, is a hypothesis." He leaned against the chair. "What do you predict will happen, exactly, if I am to make this-" He gestured towards the supercomputer- "-cease to exist?"

Jeremie cringed. Franz sighed. "I am not for or against you. If anything, I'd want another option…any other option." He cringed. "I simply want you to think this through. Changing the past requires a bit more thought than ordering one's lunch."

"Haha." Jeremie's face remained cold. "But isn't that what you've been doing? Changing the past without a thought? I bet you've been having a lot of fun, testing your own little hypotheses and outcomes…"

"Maybe." His hands twitched. "But you have the materials for only one experiment. Answer my question."

"I…" His other hand tightened. He was a bit stuck. "I think that the world will be better. XANA won't be trying to take it over, and Aelita would be free to do whatever she wanted…she…she'd be free." He smiled, but it was hard. Too hard.

Franz smiled, too, but his was less forced, and more antagonistic. "Is that what you think will happen, or what you really want?"

"Um…" A bead of sweat formed on his forehead.

"As much fun as this might be for you, it's not really getting anything done."

Franz made a small nose of surprise. Jeremie whirled around- he had nearly forgotten that Aelita was there. She had walked a bit closer to him, and was twisting her hands in her lap, though her face was cold and serious. She took a deep breath.

"It's time that you should stop wasting time trying to outwit each other and start thinking logically. Jeremie, you want to destroy the supercomputer?"

"Uh…" He cupped his hand to his mouth in a pathetic attempt to hide his nervousness. "Yes? No…?"

She ignored him. "And if I'm right, the supercomputer generated the time reversal that sent you here?"

Jeremie nodded weakly. Aelita continued. "If my father was to destroy the supercomputer, and we were to run away somewhere, then you never would have found it in your future. That, I think you knew. But, you also would have never been sent back in time by it, and you never would have caused its destruction. So, it wouldn't have been destroyed, and you would have found it, meaning that you would have been sent back in time, and you would have convinced us to destroy it- no, wait-" She groaned. "Long story short, you'd be trapped in a bottomless paradox. It's almost as bad as if you had prevented your own existence."

"Ah…" He blushed deeper. "Well…you don't have to destroy it…just abandon it, and I'd still…"

"You mentioned that the only reason you were still fighting XANA was to free me," she continued. "If you'd found an empty supercomputer and found out there was a malevolent virus in it- and nothing else- you'd probably turn it off and report it to the police, right? They'd destroy it, or send it to a lab for study. And then, the paradox returns." (Franz, noticing that the current conversation did not need any of his input, snuck back to the computer and continued working.)

Jeremie twitched. "You…you're right." His eyes widened. "But, how did you figure all of that out?"

"I get bored sometimes." Her face was unsettlingly calm. "And I'm not done. You said that I would have a better life without the events that have happened in your future. I'm not too sure about that." She sighed. "You told my dad and I to run. Well, we would run. We'd be running for the rest of our lives from the police, changing our names, hiding from anyone that might recognize us… And then, if Daddy was caught, as he most likely would be, there would be an amazing amount of trials and legal procedures, aside from all the terrible stuff that those men in black might do to him. On top of it all, he'd probably lose his parental rights. I would probably be taken away, shunted around foster homes for the rest of my childhood, abandoned at some bus stop at age eighteen, and found dead in a cornfield five years later."

Jeremie's blush disappeared abruptly, the hot feeling assembling somewhere around his throat. He had never, ever thought exactly of what Aelita would do with the rest of her life. He had almost forgotten about Franz's murder charge. He couldn't find any words to express any of this to her.

"Besides…and, well, stop me if I'm being selfish…" Her voice had a nervous tone now- she sounded a bit like Jeremie. "In your future, even if I do have amnesia, I suppose that I'm mostly safe…and I'm happy. I seem to have friends…and, you, I guess." She smiled. "And you're all so brave and willing to help. I should be happy for that. And you're going to succeed. I'm sure."

The hot feeling exploded, coursing through Jeremie's body like sugar. He blushed again. "I-I'm sorry…I just wanted things to be better for you…better than I could ever make them…"

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, and met Aelita's eyes.

"You've been very brave, Jeremie. As much as you try to hide it, you're going against some of your greater desires right now. You want me to be in your life…unless that's a little too bold to say…" Jeremie shook his head. She continued. "I'm not afraid to enter Lyoko, not at all. I want to meet you again. I want you to have another chance."

She relaxed her grip on his arm, and took a few deep breaths. "Phew…that was a bit awkward…I just hope I made some sense. Jeremie? Jeremie?"

Jeremie didn't respond. His blood felt like fireworks bouncing through his system, and he was shaking, almost vibrating. His face, though shocked for a moment, broke into a wide smile. Aelita stood back a bit, looking apprehensive. "Um…are you okay?" she asked.

"I…well…" He didn't get any farther than that. An odd feeling came over him. Before Aelita could react, before he had a chance to think about what he was doing, he wound his arms around her, and pulled her up to his chest, close to his face. His face relaxed, and his smile grew warmer. His gaze lingered on her eyes for a long moment. She clenched her teeth, frozen in place by shock.

"Well…" he stammered, "If that's what you…what you really want…then I won't have to worry about you remembering this." He closed his eyes, leaned forward, and then, slowly, pressed his lips to hers. He felt her gasp, and then relax, melting into the moment with him. He didn't know how long he stood there with her, but to him, it was all too short.

Finally, more slowly, he released her. After catching his breath, something he had forgotten to do, he looked back at her face, unsure of what he would see. She did not look entirely as thrilled as he was- in fact, a bit more shocked and flustered. But, however faint, her smile was still there. "You're an awful kisser."

"Oh, really? Compared to whom?" It wasn't the best comeback, but it was the best he could do. He laughed, and kept smiling at her, stroking her cheek absentmindedly. Then, when he thought he was ready, he let her go on one side, and swung around in the other direction, facing her father.

For a man that had just seen his only daughter kissed by a near stranger, Franz's reaction was dead quintessential- he was rigid as a board, mouth open, eyes probably straining out of their sockets. As Jeremie watched, he raised his arm, an accusing finger pointing right at him.

Jeremie's smile grew so wide, it was straining his face. "A…haha…hahaha…ha…yeah."

Franz didn't move a muscle.

"Okay, okay, sorry…look, see, I'm stepping away from her…" He took his arm off Aelita's other shoulder and stepped away, leaving her standing by herself and looking very confused. Slowly but surely, Franz relaxed his hand and mouth, sighed, and then grimaced. "You could have warned me…"

"I'll keep that in mind." He promptly forgot. "Well, then…" He arched an eyebrow. "Are we ready or not?"

"I was about to tell you-" There was now a tangible note of dislike in his voice- "-that I've finished with all necessary adjustments to the system. Lyoko is ready." He spoke now to Aelita. "Are you?"

"Absolutely." She gave him a thumbs-up, and then froze, as if remembering something. She looked back at Jeremie, a bit shyly. "But what about you? What's going to happen to you?"

"Well…" He rested his chin on his hand- he hadn't thought this far. "I suppose I could supervise the virtualization process…make sure everything goes well…" He nodded. "Yeah, I could do that." He meandered towards the computer chair, and towards Franz. "Of course, if that's okay with you…"

Franz raised an eyebrow at him, but gave him what was unmistakably a nod. Jeremie smiled back at him. "Good. And you?" He looked back at Aelita.

"I suppose, but…that wasn't really what I meant." She looked at the ground, biting her fingernails. "It's just…how are you going to get back to your own time? You weren't sure if you could bring time forward…"

"Uh…" He racked his brain for an excuse that would pacify her. "Once you're safe, I'll try and set up a program to reverse-engineer the Return To The Past…try to replicate what XANA did to me, but in reverse."

"And…you're sure you can do this."

"Yeah." Of course, he thought to himself, he had attempted this before, with known results. But, he didn't want to burden her with such trifles. He hopped into the chair.

As he did, another train of thought struck his current one dead- these moments were Aelita's final ones in her own mind. He tried to keep this in his head and away from his mouth.

"Everything's going to be alright, okay? Trust me." He smiled, reassuringly. "I know."

Aelita smiled back, blushed, and backed towards the elevator door. Franz groaned. Not leaving him out, Jeremie swiveled the chair his way, his smile evolving into a sneer. "Well…seeya."

"Hmph," he grunted. He walked over the elevator door and entered its code. It opened with a flourish and lots of metallic noises. He sighed. "Ah…thank you. I think."

"Don' mention it." He smiled again, smugly, and waved at them. Aelita waved back enthusiastically, while Franz ushered her into the elevator. He followed behind her, and pressed the button that closed the elevator. As it shut, over the noise, Jeremie thought he could hear Franz speaking.

"Don't listen to him, Aelita…I'll take care of it. After today, you're going to be in a world without danger. Without any danger. We won't have to run anymore."

The doors sealed themselves. A popup on Jeremie's screen showed the elevator moving down one floor…and then stopping. He sighed, swung around, and strapped on the communication microphone he knew was there. He was home now, as close to home as he could get.

"Okay, you see one of those big cylinder things, Aelita? You step inside, and then I virtualize you. Understand?"

There was a small, frightened noise on the other end. "Um…I guess so."

"Don't worry, Aelita, it's perfectly safe. The new calculations I made should stabilize them enough to accept human virtualization." There was a metallic thud- Franz had stepped into a scanner.

"I…I guess." There was another metallic thud.

"Okay, Jeremie, we're ready." These were the words Jeremie had been waiting to hear. He typed frantically onto his keyboard. "Got it. Beginning virtualization programs …closing scanners…"

"Okay. I…I'll see you in a minute, Aelita." There was a loud clang.

"Alright, Daddy." Another clang. Two cards showed up on Jeremie's screen, two people ready to be virtualized. Now, came the easy part. He began to type out the very familiar sequence-

"Transfer, Franz. Transfer, Aelita. Scanner, Franz. Scanner, Aelita."

"…Virtualization."

Well, look at this.

I fail in my strength, and here they come, to give themselves over to me in my weakness.

…

Oh, happy day.

Phew.

Well, that wraps it up for this chapter. Biya, seeya soons.

- Carth