Yeah, another one of these. I've got a couple CMTBF chapters floating around that I need to clean up, and a couple SotL oneshots that also need to be checked over. And I guess I'll get some images done for all my stories... Also need to draw a picture for a friend's birthday, to accompany another friend's fic gift for it. And I need to watch/read like thirty-billion different series... But I'm a high school graduate now... Means I need to get my butt in gear and finish this beast before college... Yeah.

The Code Lyoko peeps and various stories referenced in this are not my property, obvs.

Chapter Eight

Edge of Glory

What is love? That's the question that the literature class was writing an essay on, one day. They had just wrapped up a unit that included Romeo & Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Pride and Prejudice, and (rather absurdly) Grease.

In the fourth row, window side, a slender girl with pink eyes and blonde hair stared out the window, paper untouched. Things other than Juliet's soliloquys and Beatrice and Benedick's stychomythia were running through her mind, and frankly, they were rather more important. She'd been in a haze since Lucky, a week ago, had informed her that her friend Jolie was dead. She needed to speak with Fade about...well, about a lot of things. Not that she'd had a chance to, for quite a while. He didn't even know Jolie was dead, that's how little contact they'd had lately.

She tore her eyes from the window, suppressing a sigh. Whatever had possessed Gwen to dump her in a school on Earth, she still didn't know. It was so stupid, when she might have been accomplishing something besides a three page essay on love. Like she understood it that well, when she was only a week from sixteen. Still, she might as well write the stupid thing, since she couldn't leave till the class was done.

What is love? To Shakespeare and Austen, it was either instant (and sometimes fatal) attraction, a bartering chip to further oneself, while to the writer of Grease, it was instant attraction that required someone to change themselves. She frowned down at the paper, wondering what to put next, before deciding that since her actual grade didn't matter, she might as well write whatever she thought, whether or not it made sense. I have known many people who were in love in my life. Most often, they are not brought together by some instant, shallow attraction based on the physical shell. They are not usually rivals. They do not change themselves, or change the object of their affection. They are friends before they are lovers. Where Beatrice and Benedick snipe at each other over his bravery or lack thereof, Lucky and Koru (two of my friends), wrestle each other for the last slice of pizza, and complain about work. Love is not an extraordinary, pre-destined thing that cannot be stopped. Love is trust. Love is the knowledge you can run into a fight and someone has your back, the choice to believe what someone tells you, and the hope and will for a change. She scowled slightly at the requirement to cite portions of the texts and movie, and moved onto the body. Stupid teachers. The last thing she wanted to do was write about love.

Twenty minutes before the end of class, time was called, essays were collected, and the teacher perched on the edge of the desk, grinning. "Now," he said, "let's hear your theses."

People went, reluctantly, as he called them. One girl said, "Love is the instant attraction that binds two people together for life, the feeling that nothing and no one else is necessary for happiness, and the need for someone that overcomes all obstacles."

Ina bit back a groan when it was her turn, and rattled hers off. "Love is the knowledge you can run into a fight and someone has your back, the choice to believe what someone tells you, and the hope and will for a change." She ignored a few scandalized looks from other girls over how 'un-romantic' it was, instead turning to look out the window again. As the teacher talked about something that seemed to be about arguments for and against predestination, she watched Yumi Ishiyama and Ulrich Stern talking beneath a tree. They were like Lucky and Koru, she'd noticed. Always arguing, never giving in to the obvious chemistry between them (except when they did, by 'accident'), and always together. As she watched, Ulrich checked to see if anyone was watching in the courtyard, obviously forgetting people could see through the windows, and leaned down to kiss Yumi before grabbing his bag and walking off to the cafeteria. The older girl stayed in place for a moment, then grinned, grabbed her own bag, and headed out of the courtyard towards the gate.

She sighed slightly, returning her attention to the teacher, who was assigning homework now, wishing she still had some classes with Fade, or at least someone who wasn't insufferably clueless. Mihi, Goss, and Jolie had been incredibly silly and disinterested in schoolwork, but they were still intelligent, and she missed them more than ever now that Fade was in some stupid 'advanced' classes. She'd admit she missed him, smartass that he was, if only because he was the only person she actually knew. Herve, Syth, and Nagi were okay, but mostly, she couldn't hang out with them. Nor did she really want to. Though Fade had started to hang out around Ulrich Stern relatively recently, she'd noticed, as she watched the courtyard any time she was in class. Usually, they didn't seem to talk, just sitting together.

When class let out for lunch, she went alone, as was now usual, to the cafeteria. For the first time in a while, Fade was actually there when she was, so she skipped the line and sat next to him. "Hey."

"Hey," he said, looking up from his books at her. "Where've you been?"

"The same classes you used to be in," she replied. "Have you heard from Lucky or Koru recently?"

"How recently is recently?" he asked.

"In the past week."

"No. What happened?"

"They raided Dis and fended off Gluttony's army. Pride and Envy are dead, but so are Jolie, Chaud, and quite a few other people." Her lips twitched downwards. "Lucky told me about it last week, but I haven't seen you since before I saw her."

"What wonderful stuff we're missing," he muttered. "Our schedules do conflict a lot now, don't they?"

"Too much," she sighed.

"You seriously haven't made any friends here?"

"Fade, think real hard about what's been going on. I've got a dead grandfather and a dead best friend. Think I'm great company right now?" If she was a bit sharper than she intended, she didn't care. "I'm not like you or like Lindhal or Envy. I can't bottle up everything I feel and pretend I don't care and move on with my life." She tugged at her hair. "I figured you should know, anyhow," she muttered, and went to stand in line.

He, to his surprise, stood and went after her. "What's your next class again?" he asked her.

"History. Why?"

"Anything you actually care about there?" he asked.

"No..."

"Skip it. I'll mess with the nurse's memory later."

"Don't you have a class next?" she asked.

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter." Okay, he was definitely acting weird, he decided, but the slight grin he got from her was worth it.

"Fine."

They went up on the roof again, because no one ever really looked there. The silence was surprisingly comfortable, as he sat staring at the sky, and she lay staring at the ground, her paper still churning in her mind, Jolie in her thoughts.

Eventually, one of them spoke. Comfort and surety were overrated. Ina rolled over to her stomach. "We're almost as bad as Lucky and Koru," she sighed.

"...what?"

"I lied, back at the infirmary at the Academy," she told him. "I heard everything from when Slade came in."

"Oh." He was frustratingly impossible to read.

She looked down at the oh-so-fascinating concrete, wondering what else she could say to express what she meant.

"Why did you lie?"

"Because I didn't know how to say anything without it being awkward. Or having you like, attack me."

"I wouldn't have."

"You did practically growl at me. And you had been begging to fight me earlier, so it seemed logical. Plus, we were there because of a fight." She pulled on her hair, craning her head back, training her eyes on the sky.

"So you think we're like Lucky and Koru."

"Yes. Except...hopefully we're not that frightened of..." She wasn't sure how to finish that.

"Of admitting things," he said for her. She nodded, noticing how he'd come closer.

"This is hardly a great time to say anything about it," he said.

"I know."

"If we're like Lucky and Koru, that implies something on both sides." He seemed to be having trouble with controlling his voice, not that she was in a state to notice.

"Well, there is. Unless you've changed a lot since then." She bit her lip as she sat up to look at him for the first time.

"I haven't." He was literally next to her.

"Then..." she trailed off. He didn't try to finish it for her. She extended her hand. He took it, rose to his feet, pulled her with him, surprisingly gentle. They stood there for what seemed like an eternity, hands locked to each other.

"We're going to get pulled all the way into the fight eventually," he warned. "We'll run the risk of going the way of Jolie and Chaud."

"I know." She didn't look away from him. "Things are going to get complicated if we win."

"I know." Their eyes were still locked, and they'd probably both forgotten how to blink. "Teenage relationships have an average lifespan of three months."

"That's longer than adult marriages," she said. "This will make you an even bigger target for Slade."

He looked like a wolf when he grinned. "Bring it on." He extended his other hand, and she took it. "We're not exactly Lucky and Koru any longer."

"Then who are we?"

"Us. I hope." And he pulled her to him and kissed her.

Now how many people can say they got their first kiss on a rooftop on another world?