Aelita understood death. She understood the permanence, she understood the gravity of the situation. It wasn't like being devirtualized on Lyoko, it wasn't even like falling into the digital sea. While both had a speck of hope tied to them, a small promise that she might or would see her friends again, death took that bit of hope and destroyed it. What she didn't understand, was why someone would want to die.
Aelita spent so much time fighting just to live, why would one of her best friends fight so hard to die? The day Ulrich found Odd, she had gone to Jeremy. Jeremy was her confidant, the one person who understood her and helped her understand every piece of this world she just couldn't grasp. She had asked him why, if there was something they had done wrong.
"Hadn't Odd loved Ulrich? Hadn't he loved us?" Aelita asked, tears streaming silently down her face.
"Odd only loved Odd." Aelita's heart had shattered then. He was wrong, and she knew that from the start. He was lost in his mind, trying to piece their friend together like a poorly presented math problem. If 2 and 2 couldn't fit together to make 4, then it was useless to try and solve. Jeremy couldn't fit the pieces together, so he merely gave up on trying.
No, he misread the first 2 as a 22, and got 24. Aelita had thought as she ran full speed out of the blonde's room. Jeremy didn't shout for her to stay, didn't try to get her to come back, didn't even care that she had left. Her heart ached not only for the lifeless body she saw lying limp in Ulrich's arms, but the lost friend she once considered the love of her life.
Aelita remembered how she ran straight to that familiar door, not even knocking as she barreled into Odd and Ulrich's room. She wasn't surprised when she found Ulrich sobbing over Odd's discarded clothes, the purple jacket held tight to his chest. The pink haired girl sat next to her friend, tears still falling freely down her face. The German boy, sensing her presence, looked up at her sadly. Aelita wrapped her arms around him tightly.
"I loved him." Ulrich choked, and Aelita hugged him that much tighter.
"I did too." The two sat wrapped in each other's arms for hours, well beyond the time Aelita should have returned to her own room for bed. If the two had paid a bit more attention, they would've seen the looming shadow of Jim standing outside the still open door. His face pained and sad, a single tear rolling down his own cheek as he watched the two break down in each other's arms. He walked away without a word, knowing there was no need to interrupt such a moment. He could make an exception or two once in awhile.