Early April
More Bean Spilling
A few days later, Jeremy and Aelita were just finishing help Beatrix clean up a late breakfast when they heard knocking.
"I'll get it," called out Jeremy as he left the kitchen. He opened the front door to reveal William with his eyes tightly shut. "Hi, William. It's just me." The dark-haired man peeked with one eye hesitantly before opening both of them fully. He looked understandably nervous.
"Hi, Jeremy. You two... uhh... ready to go?"
"Uh huh, just give us a few minutes to say goodbye and get our stuff." William held his hand up in an easy-going manner.
"Not a problem, take your time!" Jeremy went back to the kitchen.
"Alright, it's about time to go," he announced, and Aelita gave her grandparents each a hug.
"We'll see you at the wedding," Beatrix said softly during her hug. Neville beamed happily at his granddaughter before turning to Jeremy to shake his hand. He'd seen it several times by now, but Jeremy always felt humbled by the warmth in the old man's eyes. Somehow they always seemed to communicate just as much as his long-lost voice ever would have been able to. After letting go of the hand shake, Neville put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder for a moment just before the young man found himself tightly wrapped up in Beatrix's embrace.
"You keep taking care of our darling Aelita, you hear?" She whispered to him.
"I will." The two pulled apart and grinned at each other and Jeremy spent a moment appreciating how much the elderly couple accepted him and his relationship with their granddaughter. From the day they had met he was treated like family, and he knew he would miss them tremendously when they inevitably passed. Shaking his bittersweet thoughts from his head, he bid his hosts goodbye and started taking luggage to the car.
"So, are you ready for this?" Aelita asked William when they had gotten on the road. He sighed deeply.
"As ready as I'll ever be... did you talk to the others?"
"Yes, we did," she replied.
"How did they take it?"
"Yumi and Ulrich weren't really happy, but they both knew that this would be coming sooner or later," answered Jeremy.
"Odd and Sissi were very supportive, but that's not surprising when you consider they had a similar situation," added Aelita, causing William to smile.
"Good." There was a pensive silence until Jeremy spoke several minutes later.
"So, what have you told her so far?"
"What do you mean, I haven't told her anything like we agreed!" William snapped. He sounded a little hurt when he answered.
"No, not about Lyoko, I mean about this trip. You had to have a least let her know that we're going for a long drive..." clarified Jeremy quickly.
"Oh, yeah... sorry. A while back I asked her not to make plans to today and tomorrow, and that's really about it." Jeremy and Aelita shot worried glances at each other.
"Let me make sure I understand correctly..." began Aelita, her agitation rising quickly, "we're going to be picking up your girlfriend, who doesn't know we're with you right now, who you've also said might be starting to resent us, to travel out of the country, overnight, and you've told her none of THAT!"
"Uhh... yeah... I thought we agreed that we weren't going to tell her anything..." replied William sheepishly, and Jeremy sighed.
"No William," he said, giving his fiancé a chance to calm down. "We said we weren't going to say anything incriminating, but she at least needs to know that we're going on a trip! At this time of day you're probably not going to make the ferry back to England after we're done at the factory so you're going to need to get a hotel room." William blushed severely. He clearly wasn't kidding when he said he intended on taking things slow!
"Which means she's going to need to pack at least an overnight bag and make sure she has her passport!" Added Aelita. She'd calmed down a little, but was clearly still frustrated, and William's cheeks went from flushed to pale in seconds.
"William, I'm normally pretty bad at social etiquette and norms and stuff like that, but even I know you screwed up. You need to call her... like now." Jeremy deadpanned.
"Ok, ok! Give me a second!" Clearly realizing his error, William looked like a deer in headlights as he pulled out his phone and called his girlfriend.
"Hey, Babe." He greeted when Lily must have answered.
"Umm, so you remember how I asked you to keep today and tomorrow open?" Jeremy and Aelita waited with baited breath at the storm that they knew was just about to happen. "Yeah, could you pack an overnight bag... and make sure to bring your passport...?"
'What, why?' Lily's voice over the phone was loud enough for both geniuses to hear, and her confusion could be heard clearly. William sighed as he pondered how to respond.
"Because I need to show you something... in France."
'What's in France!?' Lily asked incredulously.
"I... I promise you that it will be worth it."
'Oooooook... when are you going to be here?' Not knowing the exact answer to that he looked to Jeremy frantically! Thankfully, the genius had been paying attention to the time and already knew.
"About an hour and a half," he whispered, and William relayed the message.
'Alright, I'll see you then.' She understandably seemed a little upset at the short notice.
"Bye sweetie." With that, William hung up.
"Well, at least now she knows that she's in for a road trip," Aelita said, shaking her head. "William, what are we going to do with you...?"
"I guess I was just so worried about everything that I didn't think about the details..." He sighed and turned the radio on.
"Are you ready?" Aelita asked William when they finally made it to Lily's place and were standing in front of her door. He took a very deep breath.
"Yeah. I just hope that she is." William mumbled before knocking. A minute later the door opened to reveal a somewhat short, slightly heavier set young woman with bobbed mousy brown hair, and a pretty face that was lightly dusted with freckles. Currently, her mouth hung open slightly and her green eyes scrunched in confusion. "Hi Lily, I'd like you to meet Jeremy and Aelita. Jeremy and Aelita, this is my girlfriend Lily." William gestured first to the two geniuses, then back to the young woman standing in the door.
"Hello, it's nice to finally meet you," greeted Aelita, offering her hand and the brunette absently shook it. Her gaze swept between the three people standing in front of her a few times before settling on William.
"Blimey..." she said slowly in a thick English accent, then her expression soured. "Willy, step in here, I think we need to have a little chit chat..." William yelped as Lily yanked him inside by the wrist before turning back to the younger couple. "Excuse us." She shut the door and Jeremy and Aelita exchanges worried glances.
"It doesn't seem like we're off to a very good start, does it?" Jeremy asked Aelita quietly. She just shook her head as some muffled arguing was heard from inside. Several minutes later the door was opened again.
"I guess we're off to France..." said Lily flatly while scooping up a backpack that was sitting next to the door. She slung it on her shoulder walked right past the pair of geniuses with a scowl on her face. They shook their heads as William walked by, muttering an apology. The four of them got in the car and took off.
Aelita was sitting directly behind William to make it harder for him to see her, Jeremy was in the passenger's seat because he was the tallest and would have never fit in the back of William's tiny car. Aelita looked at Lily sitting next to her. She was watching England go by outside and through her faint reflection in the window, it was easy for Aelita to see that she was in a pretty foul mood. The pink-haired woman glanced down and noticed that Lily's legs happened pretty cramped from Jeremy's seat.
"Jeremy, do you think that you could scoot up a little?" She asked, getting a strange look from the angry woman.
"Sure, no problem." He moved his seat and Lily immediately looked more comfortable.
"Thank you." She muttered, now looking conflicted because of the other woman's consideration, as well as the kind smile she was receiving. Still, no one else seemed to want to further break the tense silence, and the car was quiet until they were driving off the ferry into France.
"So Lily," began Aelita when she'd had enough of the silence, "I know William hasn't told you much about what's going on, but what all has he told you?" The brunette resumed her earlier scowl.
"Almost nothing. Just that it would be worth it. After he called, I kinda thought it might be a romantic holiday, but then you two showed up!"
"William, I think you need to tell her what's going on," chimed in Jeremy, hoping they'd be able to quell Lily's frustration at least a little.
"Yeah, you're right." William took a deep breath, then glanced back at his girlfriend. "We're telling you everything, and we're going to where it all happened..." The anger drained from Lily's face and she gasped.
"And by everything, you mean the nightmares, your depression..."
"Yeah, everything that I know about what went on." Several seconds went by before she responded again.
"Ok... you couldn't have just told me at home? And why do they need to be here?" She asked, gesturing to Jeremy and Aelita.
"Because the truth is a bit... unbelievable," replied Aelita. If we were to just tell you about it, there's a good chance you'd think we were crazy, or just made it all up. That's why we're going to show you the proof of it. There's one other reason, but we'll tell you that one later."
"They're here because it's really their story. My involvement is just a small part of it," added William.
"We'll answer questions when we get there, ok?" Lily looked a lot less angry than before and now looked more nervous than anything else.
"Bloody hell," she muttered. "Is this dangerous... or illegal?"
"As far as legality goes, we're just doing a little bit of trespassing on a property that's been abandoned for years. It used to be dangerous but isn't anymore," said Aelita, placing her hand reassuringly on the other woman's shoulder, who sighed. "We've done things that are technically illegal in the past, but we had very good reasons for them."
"Alright then." No one else said anything else after that. William turned the radio on to try to break the tension, but it didn't work very well.
About an hour later, William pulled into a parking lot that bordered on the woods that the Hermitage was in.
"This it?" Asked Lily.
"We're close," replied Jeremy. "But we don't want to park too close so we're going on foot from here on out."
"I'm glad I wore my good trainers..." Lily muttered, looking down at her shoes.
The four walked quietly through the woods until they reached the ruined house that Aelita once called home.
"Now is this it?" Asked Lily, starting to get irritated.
"No, it's a little bit further," replied Jeremy, causing her to groan.
They led her to the secret passage to the sewer, and other than Lily's brief commentary on the smell the trip through the sewer was pretty uneventful.
"This is it, announced Jeremy when they finally stood before the massive entryway to the factory after climbing up out of the manhole. "How are you doing William?"
"I'll be fine, let's go."
"What is this place?" Asked Lily while they were approaching the elevators.
"It's an old car factory, but that's not the important part." Jeremy answered as he hit the button to go down. Despite the dim lighting, it was pretty easy to see Lily's apprehension, and William pulled her close from behind. She gasped when the door opened to reveal the three scanners.
"Whoa." She whispered as she pulled away from William and entered the room. "What the, this place is ace!"
"This is the scanner room." Jeremy gestured to the tall vertical cabinets. "These are what allowed us to go to Lyoko to combat the rogue AI called XANA. Lyoko is the virtual landscape within the supercomputer housed in this factory. We never did figure out exactly what XANA's end goal was, but it couldn't have been good," answered Jeremy. "There were five of us Lyoko Warriors."
"Lyoko Warriors, supercomputer?" Lily asked with eyebrows raised in skepticism. "Sounds like a bad Saturday morning cartoon..."
"Yeah... we were young when we named ourselves..." Jeremy said with a smirk before getting serious again. "Anyway, after a long while things started to get a bit rough, and we ended up recruiting another Warrior." Lily looked like she didn't believe a word he was saying, but must've thought the story was interesting enough to listen anyway.
"This new guy was a real hot-head though, and got himself possessed by XANA on his first mission," added William.
"And he spent the next several months being forced to fight against the rest of us as one of XANA's greatest weapons. Eventually we managed to free him, and delete XANA, but it took two years of hard fighting to do so." finished Aelita. The room was silent as everyone waited for Lily to respond. She rubbed her forehead with both hands for several minutes before she looked up with a chuckle.
"Ok, I get it, you're just having a laugh at my expense, right?" Looking around, she stopped laughing when she saw that the other three looked deathly serious. "Umm... you're not joking." William shook his head. "Then you're all barking mad." He placed his hand on her shoulder, but she brushed it off angrily. "And why'd you even bother telling me about that wazzock who got possessed anyway!?"
"No, we're not crazy, and this place is real. Everything we just told you is true... and that 'wazzock' was me." At William's admission, her anger faded substantially. "The nightmares I have about trying to kill my old friends aren't just things my mind made up... it really happened. That's what makes those dreams so painful..." he continued quietly. He tried putting his hand back on his girlfriend's shoulder and this time she let him, though she did flinch a little at his touch. Lily closed her eyes tightly and took several deep breaths and looked like she was trying to keep from crying.
"You know... I want to believe you, but I can't. It's just too unbelievable. I'm sorry, Willy." She turned around and started walking to the elevator.
"Wait!" Called out Aelita, causing the brunette woman to turn back around. "We've got one more thing to show you."
"What's that?"
"Lyoko..."
A/N: I originally wanted to get this Lily arc done in two chapters, but it just wasn't going to happen. That being said, I wasn't kidding when I said that this story was going to wander a bit, but this encounter does have a purpose in the whole story! Also, I'm back to work which means that I'm back to my bi-weekly posting schedule. Sorry.
Lost Lantean: I'm glad that you've been enjoying this story. I did know about the PhD/name-change stuff and I do want to fit that in somewhere, I just haven't figured out exactly how yet. I definitely appreciate you bringing it up though!
If anyone has any ideas that they'd like to see me try to tackle in this story, I would certainly be interested in hearing it, but please send them via PM and not in reviews. You wouldn't want to spoil it for the others if I end up using it now, would you!? :)