A/N: This story's reference point is from various points in the timeline, and it's all in Jeremie's point of view, second person.
Now, here are five secrets Jeremie keeps from the others, plus the one that forced its way out.
Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko in any way, shape, or form.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
"Everyone has problems, and learning to share them is essential. Hiding pain requires an enormous amount of energy; sharing it is liberating." ― Carly Simon
Behind Closed Doors
Secret #1: Sometimes, he (almost) wishes he never turned the supercomputer on.
It first comes up after Yumi falls into the Digital Sea. When she sacrifices herself to knock a Megatank off the edge just so its laser doesn't hit Aelita as the pink-ette runs to the tower.
It's one thing for an innocent bystander to get caught in the crossfire, but it's another thing entirely when the casualty is one of you. Even now, it's very hard for you to stomach that. After all, the Return to the Past cannot restart a heart that stops beating.
Even with Odd's Future Flash and Ulrich's Super Sprint, with Aelita deactivating the tower and you launching the Return to the Past, Yumi still fell in. Thankfully, the completed materialization program brought her back, and she's safe now. But still.
She still died.
It's all your fault. You guys are only in this position because of you.
Your curiosity and your desire to have even a single friend. That's what caused all of this. Even after knowing of the risks posed by XANA, you chose to keep the supercomputer on. Why?
Why did you make that choice? Why are you making that same choice now?!
Your fault. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.
All of this was your fault! You killed Yumi, not XANA!
You're brought out of your train of thought when the others join you in the sewers, as you're slowly riding your scooter back to the school. Thank goodness, too, because you're convinced that train was just about to crash.
Odd stops in front of you, forcing you to stop your scooter, "Hey, Jeremie, want some candy?"
Your purple-loving friend is holding your bag of candy. Where did he get that? "Hey, what are you doing with that?" you ask. "It's mine."
"Oh yeah, I guess it is," Odd shrugs it off. "Okay, no problemo!" Odd holds up a piece of candy. "Here you go!"
You feel yourself pouting as Yumi, the one who died, places a hand on your shoulder. "Come on, have one," she says, as she readjusts your glasses. "Candy can fix anything. Even a broken heart."
You're confused until you realize that they think you're sulking because a chance to materialize Aelita to Earth slipped through your fingers. They're wrong.
You're sulking out of guilt. You placed them all in this position. Aelita even told you it would've been wisest to turn the supercomputer off, willing to make that sacrifice just so the world would be safe from XANA. But you couldn't. You made the choice you did because you couldn't abandon Aelita.
Aelita...
Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi were just as insistent as you in saving Aelita from XANA's clutches. It was Aelita you are all making so many sacrifices for. And if you are successful, then Aelita will be free, and you can shut the supercomputer down and XANA along with it.
As long as Aelita was with you all in the end, it would all be worth it.
So you smile, "Heh, if you say so," and open your mouth to accept the candy.
The thought comes up again after Aelita is reformatted after deactivating a tower. It comes up again and again whenever Aelita, Yumi, Ulrich, or Odd have a near-death experience.
(But not yourself. You asked for this; they didn't.)
But then you remember Aelita and the pact you all made to help her fight XANA, and later your promise to help her find her father. And when you do, the regret immediately goes away.
!~~~B~E~H~I~N~D~~C~L~O~S~E~D~~D~O~O~R~S~~~!
Secret #2: Part of him is secretly jealous of Odd.
It starts with that dreaded necklace, the one XANA gives to Aelita to place her under its control.
It was foolish of you to turn on Odd so quickly, and he's right. Aelita is her own person, and she deserves to sort out her own feelings. You have no say in how she feels.
But on the other hand, in the end, him outright admitting that he didn't give Aelita the necklace instead of dancing around the question probably would've made you realize that it was a XANA trap a lot sooner.
Odd and Aelita have always been close, ever since he first met her on Lyoko, like brother and sister. You can always trust him with her well-being. In fact, it was this sibling-like relationship that made you all think of the cousins act in the first place. And you never minded it.
At least, until the deal with that necklace.
It was then that the possibility of Odd and Aelita becoming more than 'cousins' kept cropping up in your mind.
Aelita acts differently with Odd as compared with you. He brings out her sassy side, her playfulness, her laugh, her smile. She just seems happier when she's with him. Because what do you have to offer?
Sleepless nights working on some program for Lyoko, a busy schedule that never has time to fit in some free time, sometimes you're curt and snippy because you're too tired to deal with any foolish antics.
Odd is friendly, sometimes his jokes are genuinely funny, and he has a magnetic personality. He lives to make people laugh, make them happy, bring out their playful sides. When he ran for class president, the votes for him were overwhelming from the start. He didn't mean to, but when he presented his platform to the class, for a moment, he made you feel like you weren't good enough.
(Fortunately, that call from Yumi lets you take your mind off of the election for a while.)
You, on the other hand, are bad at social interactions, you can be mean sometimes, and you don't always have the time or interest to just hang out with the others. You want to, really you do, but it doesn't always work out that way.
After all, you're the one who chose to keep the supercomputer on, so it rests on you to keep the others safe from XANA, and if that means one more sleepless night just so the superscan won't bug up, so the Skid doesn't implode on itself during a mission, so none of them fall into the digital sea by accident, then so be it.
No, you don't envy Odd over his relationship with Aelita alone. You envy him because he gets to have fun, to be sociable, to joke around and be who he is, to be athletic and eat all he wants, and... you don't. You have too much work to do, nor are you an extravert like him.
He doesn't have to wake up every morning and wonder if he slept through an alert from the superscan. You do.
He never seems to hurt Aelita's feelings. You, for some unlucky reason, always seem to.
Your heart will break beyond repair if Aelita ever chooses Odd over you, but you will never blame either of them. Because you understand. You're the obvious lesser choice. Anyone with a brain would choose Odd over you.
In reality, though, you're being ridiculous. You know you are. No matter what happens, Aelita always comes back to you. She loves you, and you love her, even if you two don't have the time to talk out your feelings and make it official. In the end, the others are still your friends, trying to stop you from overworking yourself because they worry about you.
But your insecurities always tell you that it's only a matter of time...
!~~~B~E~H~I~N~D~~C~L~O~S~E~D~~D~O~O~R~S~~~!
Secret #3: Whenever he's stressed, the itch to don that headset returns.
You were a hypocrite, kicking Ulrich out of the group for unleashing an unnecessary Return to the Past when a few weeks later, you did the same thing multiple times.
But you were addicted to the damn thing.
You got the information from Franz Hopper's diary, and you know a good idea when you see one. Hopper was a genius. An insane one, yes, but a genius nonetheless. But he's years ahead of you, and always will be. You strongly suspect that the headset did booster his intelligence, despite the damage it did to his body.
It worked for him, but not for you.
All it ended up doing was nearly kill you. Both mentally and by XANA. Like Odd said, you were destroying your health without actually improving your brain power.
You destroyed it and deleted its blueprints from your computer. You will never wear that headset again for as long as you live, and you mean it. You mean too much to your friends, and they asked you not to, to remain yourself, and you promised them you wouldn't.
But whenever you're stressed out over a program or even homework, and you can't seem to understand where you're going wrong, that familiar, irritating itch to put that headset back on returns.
Because who else is going to finish that program if not you. And sometimes you're not good enough, not smart enough, or you need an extra set of hands.
You hate it. You hate how it only ever destroyed you then, and how it still tends to destroy you now. You hate how you even thought about trying it out in the first place.
But most of all, you hate how it still has a hold on you in some ways.
You were addicted to it, and you hate how you still tend to have relapses even now.
!~~~B~E~H~I~N~D~~C~L~O~S~E~D~~D~O~O~R~S~~~!
Secret #4: Aelita and Odd sneaking to Lyoko behind his back actually really hurt.
They never apologized for doing so. You ended having to be the bigger person.
Of course, you were going to let Aelita search for data on her father. There was never any doubt. It was your way of apologizing for that ugly fight you had. And if that was the whole story, you wouldn't be feeling this way now.
But it's not the whole story. You and Ulrich were stuck in Study Hall by Jim's orders, and Ulrich reassured you that Aelita was probably on her way to you, so you two could kiss and make-up like you always did. But he was wrong.
While you and Ulrich were in the library, Aelita and Odd were in the process of sneaking off to Lyoko without telling anyone. Maybe if they had left a note or a text, then you wouldn't be so hurt about it, even now.
But you were wasting so much time calling both of them, pleading with Odd to pick up, hoping that Aelita would answer you despite your argument. You were filled with so much anxiety and worry because neither would pick up. There was an activated tower. XANA was on the prowl and neither of them would answer you. It made you think XANA had gotten to them already. You were out of your mind with worry.
And then you got the alert that someone had pressed a key in Sector Five. That was when you realized where they were.
They were already on Lyoko, going to retrieve data on Franz Hopper, the thing you were going to let Aelita do once the tower in the Mountain Sector was deactivated.
And your worry immediately turned into anger. Anger that they made you worry so much when they could've waited. Or left a note. Or anything besides disappearing without telling anyone.
But you weren't just angry. No. You were also hurt.
Because Aelita sneaking off with Odd behind your back, and Odd going along with her, both without telling you, Ulrich, or Yumi? Clearly, they didn't trust you.
They didn't trust you to change your mind and apologize by scheduling a mission to Sector Five once classes were done. They didn't trust you to understand if they had stayed behind and chose to instead stage an intervention to explain Aelita's side. You would've much preferred that instead of them choosing to worry you by sneaking off.
You guys were friends, right? So why would they choose to stab you in the back?
You were going to rip them both a new one once they got back to Earth, lecture them both about going off on their own because he was worried XANA had already gotten to them, and you weren't going to let Ulrich or Yumi interrupt you.
But you were instead forced to keep your emotions, all the hurt and betrayal you felt, when the two pointed out the trio of Mantas guarding the entrance to the Core. Your lecture was selfish when compared to stopping XANA from destroying Lyoko. Everyone got their way in the end (besides XANA), so why be angry at them?
But they never apologized to you. Yet again, you never brought it up, even now.
It was only ever your fault, right?
!~~~B~E~H~I~N~D~~C~L~O~S~E~D~~D~O~O~R~S~~~!
Secret #5: Part of him feels like Franz Hopper's death is his fault.
It was your program Hopper was trying to provide the energy for, after all.
He sacrificed himself to send you the data that would finish the Multi-Agent Program you were working on, and you were glad that he managed to escape from the Kolossus. Once you completed it, you could see yourself having all the time in the world to bring Hopper back to Earth once you destroyed XANA, and you knew Aelita had the same hopes.
But when Aelita got to the Sector Five interface and tried to run the program, it didn't work. You didn't have enough energy. That was bad.
You were in the midst of figuring out what to do, where to lend energy from, when Hopper re-appeared on your screen. He was in front of Aelita, just staying where he was and letting the Mantas hit him. He couldn't speak, but he didn't have to for you to understand what he was doing.
He was sacrificing himself to supply the energy you needed to run your program, to destroy XANA.
You were the one who urged Aelita to run the program, otherwise her father's sacrifice would've been for nothing. It was your fault.
You wish you sent William to Lyoko before XANA could possess him. You wish you would've made the choice to deactivate the tower first. You wish your program didn't require so much energy. You wish Aelita didn't have to trade a loved one's life for XANA's destruction.
But in the end, you know it had to be Hopper. He had shown himself to be willing to die just so Aelita could live before. He had shown himself to be willing to do whatever it took to stop XANA, his own creation, even at the price of his own safety.
But you wish it wasn't him for Aelita's sake. You turned the supercomputer on so she wouldn't have to be alone or to suffer, but that's what you ended up doing in the end.
Part of you actually wishes it was you instead, but you would never tell anyone that.
!~~~B~E~H~I~N~D~~C~L~O~S~E~D~~D~O~O~R~S~~~!
The Outlier: The Return to the Past didn't always heal his scars.
You were used to taking action whenever there was a crisis. Granted, that was mostly because it was usually a XANA attack and you knew what to do whenever that happened. But you also knew what to do whether it was XANA or not, because you were resourceful and reliable. People trusted you to take action because you always kept a level head (except when Aelita was concerned, but that's a different story).
You were also used to being beaten up by XANA while the others were on Lyoko, mostly after Aelita first came to Earth. XANA would always target you because you were the genius who managed to achieve the unthinkable: be an actual threat to XANA. You materialized Aelita, developed the Super Scan, recreated Lyoko after XANA destroyed it, updated the group's digital avatars, created the Skid, and found a way to destroy replicas. As such, it was only natural that XANA focused so much of its energy on getting rid of you.
Most of the scars you got were physical, from people possessed by XANA or from a spectre. Most of the time, a Return to the Past was launched, so those injuries never really lasted long. But there was one incident in particular that still affected you long after XANA's defeat.
The Fake Hopper incident gave you nightmares and panic attacks. You managed to overcome the nightmares and eventually the panic attacks as well. Or so you thought.
You knew that keeping busy was a self-defense mechanism you used against unwanted, lingering emotions that had worked many times in the past. Working kept you from dwelling on feelings you couldn't stand, like jealousy, hurt, anger, and betrayal. It didn't always work, but it worked for you after the Fake Hopper incident. Which you found ironic.
That incident stands out to you because XANA was targeting you specifically, succeeding in turning all of your friends against you for something you had no knowledge of. Something that wasn't even real in the first place.
You thought that working would stop those panic attacks, but it actually only delayed them. Now that XANA was gone forever, you didn't have that 'I'm busy' excuse all the time. Now, you actually have the time and energy to hang out with the others, like friends always did. You have the chance to be social and carefree like you always wanted to be.
You're in the rec room with the others when it happens.
Odd, Aelita, Yumi, and Ulrich are playing that Mario Kart game that just released on the television, and they seem to be having fun. There are only four controllers, so you're forced to watch, but that's okay. You don't mind watching. You're just happy to be included.
You're in the middle of making a quip in response to a joke Odd just made when the lights go out, the television screen goes black, and everyone goes quiet. Jim reassures everyone that the power just went out thanks to today's storm, and that nobody should worry because they're working on restoring the power right now.
But you can't hear him. At all.
It's just a power outage, you tell yourself. XANA's gone. You made sure of that. But you can't stop your brain from going back to that day.
You've just typed in 'SCIPIO', and XANA's returned, but it's gone straight for your throat this time. It's blocking your airways, and you feel yourself start to blackout as you gasp for a breath that your greatest enemy refuses let you take.
You can't breathe, but you can feel Ulrich kneel beside you.
You can't breathe, but you can hear him ask if there's anything he can do.
You can't breathe, but you can hear him tell Aelita to hurry up and deactivate the tower.
You can't breathe, but you can feel XANA closing in, taking your insecurities and feeding them back to you. The others don't need you. You're useless. Remember, they blame you for Yumi's impending death. Franz Hopper is better than you. Every injury they sustain, every time they feel pain, it's all your fault. You're not good enough. You can't breathe.
You can't breathe, and you're blacking out.
You can't breathe, and you can't even think straight anymore.
You can't breathe, you can't breathe, you can't breathe, but maybe you deserve this, you think to yourself, as your life begins to fade away.
You can't breathe, but suddenly, you open your eyes and you're back in the rec room.
You can't breathe, but you can hear Herve poking fun at you at panicking over a stupid power outage, and Sissi (surprisingly) sternly ordering him to 'shut up'.
You can't breathe, but you can hear Ulrich pleading with you to do so, to calm down because you-know-who is gone and can't hurt you guys anymore.
You can breathe now, but you don't feel any better. You feel tears, both wet and dry, on your cheeks. You feel your body curled up into a ball, as if you're trying to hide yourself from the sea of uncertainty your panic has created. You feel cold, despite Ulrich and Aelita, both on either side of you, trying to warm you up.
You sense Jim come up to you guys and ask, "You okay, Belpois?"
You don't answer. You can't. Your voice is gone. But you feel yourself shake your head.
Fortunately, Yumi answers for you, "No, he's not. Can we take him to his dorm? Away from everyone's eyes?"
"Sure thing. He can stay there as long as he needs," Jim replies, and you're grateful that he gives his permission.
You barely feel Ulrich and Aelita help you to your feet. You barely register them, Odd, and Yumi leading you to your room, glaring at everyone who gives you a look as if they'd like to make fun of you. You barely pay attention to where you're going until Odd closes your door, giving you five privacy.
You're sitting on your bed now, and Aelita is sitting next to you, her voice soft as she pleads with you, "Breathe, Jeremie."
You can breathe now, you can breathe now, you can breathe now. XANA is gone. You made sure of that. It was just a simple power outage.
"Yes, Einstein, listen to yourself," Odd says. "XANA's gone, thanks to you. We're all safe."
You feel your face turn red. You didn't realize you had spoken that out loud. "S-Sorry," you manage to grind out.
"Don't apologize," Yumi tells you, her voice also soft. "We understand."
They know, you realize. They know you panicked over XANA, despite it being gone for three weeks now.
But you still feel the need to explain, so you do, "Sorry. Everything went dark, and all of a sudden, it was right there. Clogging my windpipes, and I couldn't do anything." You were about to die that day. If Aelita had been any slower...
You feel Aelita herself snuggle you closer, "But you're still here. XANA tried then and failed."
"And we're glad it did," Odd adds. "That day, we gave you so much hell, and yet you still came back and saved us."
Because they're your friends, your mind says. "I couldn't stay away," you admit, your throat tight with emotion, as if you're about to cry, "knowing you were all XANA's mercy." And even if it was the real Hopper, he'd still feel the need to go back and see how the mission was going, for moral support if nothig else.
Ulrich sits down on your other side and slings an arm around your shoulder. "We know you said you weren't mad, but we're still sorry for treating you like that."
Your eyes wander to that picture, the one Odd drew, and you smile once you find it. It's on your desk, where it always is. And you say, "I said I wasn't mad, and I meant it, because our friendship deserves to be protected as well as we protect Lyoko."
You don't need to look at them to know that they're also looking at that drawing too, and in the same way you are. Fondly. Gratefully. Because what it represents has saved you all so many times.
The others know why you panicked, and you don't have to explain. They understand, because they feel the same way you do. XANA's gone now, yes, but some scars can't be healed, even with a Return to the Past. Some scars last forever, because they're mental, emotional.
But you guys will be okay. As long as you all stick together. You know you will.
!~~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~~!
A/N: Jeremie's line about protecting friendship is actually a line that was cut from "Kadic Bombshell".