A/N: Behold, a collection of side stories for my Jerlita Roleswap AU—an alternate universe where Jérémie and Aelita have swapped roles, if you need a refresher. These are the stories that didn't quite make the cut for the main story "The Boy in the Computer", but are still canon to the general AU.
Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko in any way, shape, or form.
Chapters of TBITC to Read Before Reading This One: 45 – Renaissance
Due to popular demand, this chapter had to be next. So enjoy the double feature!
!~~~J~E~R~L~I~T~A~~R~O~L~E~S~W~A~P~~A~U~~~!
"Aelita creates a clone to take over her schoolwork while she works on restoring the rest of Lyoko, but said clone has certain emerging qualities that affects a specific someone."
The Girl From the Outside
Episode 45.3: Clones and Brief Flirtations
He didn't enough sleep last night—this is the first thought that comes to Yumi, Odd, Ulrich, and William's minds as Jérémie sits down at their chosen table, his breakfast portion in hand. The blue-clad blonde is obviously tired, and looks it too, as he yawns after setting his tray down on the table, before taking his seat.
"Hey, Jer," Ulrich greets him. "Good to see you have emerged from the shadows."
The two Einsteins have been rather difficult to catch since Lyoko's recreation. Easy to track down—there were only so many places they would be—but hard to pin down for any activity other than recreating Lyoko's many other assets.
"For now," Jérémie offers a tired smile. "I've been working on upgrading our digital equipment."
"How's it going?" William asks.
"So far, so good. No bugs," the young blonde replies. "And I'm not done yet, but I need a break."
Probably for the best. "That's what I was going to say," Yumi agrees. Jérémie looks exhausted. "So what pulled you away from your work this time?"
"There's a math test today, and my grades have suffered enough."
Ulrich, Yumi, and William all smile at the genius, none of them disagreeing, while Odd looks around the cafeteria, searching for a head of familiar pink hair.
When he doesn't find it, he turns to young genius, "Where's Aelita?"
"No idea," Jérémie shrugs as he digs into his banana, "but if I had to guess, probably at the factory, restoring the surface sectors."
"Only one way to know for sure," William reminds Odd.
And Odd catches on real quick. "Right." He then pulls out his phone from his pocket and dials his cousin's number.
She surprisingly picks up on the second ring, and sighs before asking, "Yes, Odd?" Like Jérémie, Aelita sounds tired. It's obvious that she, too, needs a break.
"Hey, cuz," Odd decides to just go for it, "are you coming to breakfast?"
"No," she answers rather bluntly. "You can have my portion. I'm at the factory," like Jérémie suspected, "so I'd never make it in time." True. Breakfast hour ends in about twelve minutes.
"Noted," the crazy-haired blonde accepts. "What about classes?"
"What?" Aelita immediately protests. "No way! I can't! I have too much work to do!" Odd is not surprised.
But he's still concerned. "There's a math test today," he warns her.
"I can't, Odd," his cousin replies, with a hint of urgency laced in her voice. "I'm on a roll. I've already restored the Desert Sector, and I'm almost done with the Mountain. With the speed I'm moving at, all four sectors should be restored by this afternoon. I don't want to stop now."
"I get that your work is important, 'Lita," he tries his best to make her see reason here, "but you can't keep skipping classes. One more time and you'll likely be faced with academic probation."
She sighs, relenting, "Okay. I'll get back to you."
"What are you gonna do?"
"Improvise. As usual." She then hangs up.
Odd can only stare at his phone with confusion, as shown with his single raised eyebrow as he asks to no one in particular, "'Improvise'? What does that mean?"
Jérémie leans back in his chair, "Let's see. Being in class and at the factory at the same time: it's not easy. But I'm positive that Aelita will think of something."
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
It's about twenty-ish minutes later, and the group is hanging out by the vending machines waiting for classes to start. While Ulrich shares his latest superhero comic book with William, and Yumi shows Jérémie a meme on her phone, Odd approaches the hot chocolate machine.
He puts a coin in and orders his favorite drink, humming tunefully. He crouches down to wait for his drink to arrive, but the machine makes strange noises and nothing appears. His smile fading into a frown, Odd stops humming and presses the button several times, but no result. He then punches the machine—it makes a few more noises, but still, nothing happens.
"I don't believe it..." Odd mutters, upset, shaking his hurt hand.
He then walks outside, his hands in his pocket, knowing it was best to just give up on his hot chocolate in this case. The others are still outside, minding their own business.
Something approaching them catches his eye, "Wow! I don't believe it!"
The others follow his gaze, and quickly see what Odd sees. That pink hair gives it away.
"Well, it's about time," Yumi comments.
"Seems like she chose classes over restoring the sectors," William adds.
Aelita is walking towards them, fully dressed for the day and her bag slung over her shoulder, drinking a soda from a can. Once she finishes the drink, she tosses it over her head and kicks it. Her friends watch as the can arcs high into the air and lands perfectly in a garbage bin next to the machines.
Huh? What? She's never managed to do that before.
But she doesn't seem aware of it, instead ignoring and choosing to focus on the others, "Good morning, everybody."
"Hey, Aelita," Jérémie greets her. "You've already finished all you had to do?"
She points finger guns at him—which she's never done before either—before answering with a smile, "Piece of cake, sweetheart!" She's never called him that before. "So," she leans against the wall in front of him, "what's up, cutie pie?" Or that.
Jérémie mildly blushes at the pet names, but is overall calm and collected as he responds, "Um, the sky. What else would be up?"
Meanwhile, the other four share glances of unease and disbelief with each other.
Aelita reaches over and gently moves his glasses down the bridge of his nose. "Uhh..." Jérémie leans back slightly, feeling a bit uncomfortable, "w-what are you doing?"
"Looking at your eyes," the pink-ette answers, seemingly enamored by the blonde genius. "They're too beautiful to be kept behind glass."
"O-Oh," the flattery makes him stutter, "um, thank you. But, are you...are you okay?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" She doesn't ease up on the flirting, though.
"Because you suck at flirting," Yumi cuts in, being blunt. She knows this from personal experience, because she once tried to help the pink-ette with her flirting (back when she first discovered her crush on an elf boy trapped within a supercomputer) and the younger was rather bad at it.
Her cousin quickly agrees, "Yeah, go back to being 'Aelita', will you?" He knows from personal experience too, for the same reason as Yumi's.
"Really?" Aelita asks. "That's a shame. The vibes I'm feelin' right now..." She turns back to Jérémie, "It's just that...whenever I see you, I don't feel like I'm myself."
Jérémie quickly sends a slightly fearful glance in the others' direction. His friends share more glances, before Odd deduces, "XANA."
Of course. It makes sense. It's the only thing that does. That specialized clone is back. It's trying to catch Jérémie off-guard so it can kidnap him and send him to Lyoko, so XANA can throw him into the Digital Sea for whatever reason.
Odd lunges at 'Aelita', who reacts instantly: her smile vanishes before grabbing Odd by the front of his shirt and throwing him into the hot chocolate machine behind him. The impact causes a cup to finally fall into the dispensing area and fill up with Odd's chosen drink. He sits up, hair slightly messy, "Hey, cool!"
'Aelita' goes back to leaning casually against the wall, as Ulrich, William, and Odd all position themselves around her, ready to fight. Yumi is leading Jérémie away, cautiously and wisely putting herself between him and the threat, when her phone rings. Expecting the real Aelita, she quickly answers, "Yes?"
Sure enough, the real Aelita's face appears on video call, "Hey, Yumi." She's oddly cheerful for someone warning her friends that XANA is attacking. "What do you think?"
Surprised, Yumi glances down at her phone screen. "'What do I think' of what?"
"My double," the pink-ette on her screen answers. "A digital copy I created by activating a tower on Lyoko." The boys glance over at Yumi's phone in surprise. "This way, I can work on restoring the sectors, and be in classes at the same time."
So the 'Aelita' in front of them is indeed a clone, but not one powered by XANA. Instead, it's being powered by Aelita herself.
Ulrich, William, and Odd thereby stand down and join Yumi and Jérémie around her phone.
Odd rubs the back of his neck, "You could've warned us about it first, cuz..."
"Yeah," William agrees, "we thought it was you-know-what."
She quickly catches on to their concerns, "Oh, the special spectre." She becomes very sheepish as she apologizes, "Sorry, guys. I was in a hurry to beat the morning bell." AKA: the start of the day's classes.
Yumi offers the pink-ette a comforting smile, "We forgive you. It's okay. As long as you warn us when XANA is actually attacking."
"Of course I will," Aelita replies, and she means it. "Now, this is the first double I've created, so I don't know how much like me it will act like. It's up to you guys to make sure that it, at least, doesn't accidentally give anything away concerning our secret."
"Don't worry, we're on it," Ulrich reassures her. "But you should probably know, right off the bat, that your double has to be about the biggest flirt I've ever met."
To help him make his point, Yumi points her phone camera at clone-Aelita, who's leaning casually against the wall still, smiling with her hands behind her head. She snatches eyes with Jérémie again and winks, bringing his light blush back.
"Huh," is the real Aelita's response. "Interesting. Must be some kind of emerging quality that appeared unexpectedly." A brief pause, before she starts talking again, "Anyway, I promise I'll make it up to you guys. Hang in there, okay? It's just for a day."
"Got it," Yumi replies, before Aelita hangs up.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
The day trudges on like it normally does. The double matches Aelita's personality rather well—same bubbliness, same sweetness, same intellect—so no one else knows that there's a difference, that the Aelita they're interacting with is actually a computer-generated artificial intelligence. And that works well enough for the Lyokowarriors.
But she continues to flirt with Jérémie, who remains more confused than anything else. It doesn't make him uncomfortable really (quite the opposite, to be honest), but he doesn't understand what she's doing.
After the math test, gym class with Jim is up next. The double speeds through all of Aelita's schoolwork at a speed humans don't normally possess, so when Jim pits her and Odd together for a race, once around the track, Odd has to remind the double (under his breath) to run at a normal human pace so as to not give their secret away.
Odd and 'Aelita' take up their starting positions as Jim begins his classic pre-race lecture. Up on the bleachers, Ulrich takes this chance to talk to a bewildered Jérémie. Because he knows that look.
That's the boy's 'I have a question about human culture' expression.
So the brunette leans in and whispers, "What's on your mind, Jer?"
"All day, the double has been directing at me simple questions and statements in a strange tone of voice," Jérémie mutters back. "I've responded to them as best I can, but I don't quite understand their necessity."
A smile of realization breaks out onto Ulrich's face here, and Jérémie sees it.
"Am I not supposed to respond to them?"
Ulrich waves it off, "Nah, you're fine. How you respond, and whether or not you do, is entirely up to you." He sighs, deciding to just go for it, "How familiar are you, Jérémie, with the concept of flirting?"
A blink. "'Flirting'? Not at all."
That doesn't surprise Ulrich in the slightest, to be honest, remembering the blonde's cancer causing him to be trapped at home for six years. So he continues, "'Flirting' is a way of expressing your attraction to someone, to their face."
"I don't think I'd be able to pull that off," Jérémie softly confesses, and Ulrich doesn't doubt it. The blonde's too shy. "But you think that the double is...flirting? With me?"
"Well, if you've been paying attention," the brunette can barely maintain his amusement, "it's only you being asked those questions."
Jérémie's response is just barely above a whisper, "M-Me...?"
"You."
And it's the truth. No one else is being flirted with by the double. Not Ulrich. Not William. Not Hervé. Not Nicolas.
No one but Jérémie.
Said blonde has finally noticed this too, judging by the bright red blush that appears on his face.
Aelita's double catches his eye—having won the race—and winks at him, in a flirtatious manner. His face grows even redder.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Classes are over when Aelita (the real one) calls them next.
She's finished her work for the day, so she no longer needs the double to take her place. In that vein, she needs to know if it's safe to deactivate the tower, if there's no one else around, if it's a good time to do so.
In response, Yumi explains her plan to take the double to the park under the guise of talking about "girl stuff". Once alone, then Aelita can deactivate the tower and seamlessly take the double's place.
The plan goes off without a hitch. No one but the Lyokowarriors know that there was ever a difference.
But they still vow to be careful, to only use doubles when they have to. Knowing their luck, XANA will attack next time and find a way to take over the double—whoever it may be temporarily replacing.
Anyway, the Aelita double is gone for the time being, but her presence is still felt in the aftermath, when the real Aelita finally shows her face to her friends.
"Hey, guys," she greets them, still feeling the exhaustion that's plagued her since that morning.
She receives three similar responses. Since Yumi is at her side, having returned with her, the pink-ette isn't surprised that she's excluded from the cluster of replies. But she is surprised that Jérémie, of all people, doesn't greet her back either.
Not verbally, at least. He does manage a quick nod. But afterwards, he glances back down at his shoes.
Wait. Why is his face so red?
But she chooses to be casual, "So, what's up? Anything new with you guys?" It's her subtle way of asking how the double handled itself, and the others know that.
So Odd's response has a double meaning, "Pretty good. Math test went well. Nothing new, no surprises. All in all, a normal day."
Aelita smiles, "Good. Anyone need help with any homework?" It's a serious question, exactly what it sounds like.
"No, I think we're okay," Ulrich replies. "By the way, Jérémie took notes for you."
Of course he did. He's the only one she trusts to do so, given how his notes are the most detailed.
Jérémie finally speaks, but a mumble is all that comes out. His face is still red, and both of these things combined worries Aelita.
Odd leans in towards Jérémie, a hand up to his ear, and teases, "Sorry, we didn't catch that, Prince Charming. Say that again?"
A little louder this time. "...I-I-I said the n-notes are i-in my r-room..." But with a really bad stutter.
Aelita can't contain her concern any longer, "Jérémie, are you okay?"
She didn't think it was possible, but his face gets even redder, "Y-Yep, p-perfectly f-fine!"
"Are you sure there's nothing wrong?" she asks. "You're stuttering and blushing."
"N-No worries!" Jérémie replies. His (beautiful) blue eyes dart around frantically, seemingly wanting to look at anything but her. "I-I'm g-going to w-work on homework n-now. L-Later!"
Then, without another word, he darts off towards the dorms, leaving behind a very confused pink-ette.
She turns to the others. Judging by the amused expressions on their faces, they know what happened.
William relents first, and rather quickly, "Remember when we told you that your double was a big flirt?"
She raises a cautious eyebrow, "Yes."
"Well, it turns out," Ulrich explains, "that it only flirted with Jérémie."
What?! "O-Only with Jérémie?!" She can feel her own face turn red now.
"Only with Jérémie," Odd confirms. "It had some tact, though, only flirting when there was nothing else to do."
"But it was basically you," Yumi adds, "if you were good at flirting."
Aelita is hiding her reddening face in her hands in embarrassment. "More confident, you mean."
Yumi shrugs, "Well, that too. But I really do mean 'good'."
"As in smooth," William corrects her, "like a natural."
"Gee, thanks," Aelita mutters, half-heartedly.
No wonder Jérémie was stuttering and blushing wildly. He was flustered. And her presence wasn't helping him at all.
And she doesn't blame him.
!~~C~O~D~E~~L~Y~O~K~O~~!
Jérémie doesn't emerge from his room for a while. Pretty soon, it's time for dinner, and Yumi's gone home with her brother. William, Odd, and Ulrich head for the cafeteria, while Aelita heads in the opposite direction to fetch Jérémie.
She knocks on the door, and quietly sighs in relief when she hears him respond with, "It's open." Good. He's still safe. He's also seemed to have calmed down since earlier. She then opens the door.
He's sitting at his desk, working on his laptop. She can only see a sliver of the window that's open, but it appears to be Yumi's digital profile. He turns to see who just entered his room, and when he sees that it's Aelita, he immediately tenses up, becoming flustered once again.
"Oh, A-Aelita!" he greets with what seems to be a fake smile. "How's it going?!"
She's calm in her response, "It's going fine. It's, um, time for dinner."
He glances at the clock on his laptop, "Oh, is it that time already? Time flies when you're working on upgrading virtual avatars!" His cheerfulness and optimism here is still forced, and that worries her.
So she attempts to talk him down, "Jérémie, I think we should talk...about what happened...with my double."
His response is quick and blunt, "Nothing happened."
"Yes, something happened," she softly corrects him, causing him to go quiet. "The others told me everything." She sighs, "I'm sorry. Any double is self-aware, because it has to be, but I control all of its programming within the tower that powers it–"
He cuts her off, "It wasn't your fault, Aelita. The flirting was just the result of emerging qualities, yes?"
He's right. It was. "Well, yeah, and I wasn't aware that could even happen..."
"Exactly," he replies with another forced smile. "Not your fault. Therefore, it didn't mean anything."
The pink-ette is quiet, "It clearly meant something to you, given how flustered you were."
A pause. "I still am..." His voice is just barely above a whisper.
"And it's okay to admit that," she attempts.
But he cuts her off again, speaking as if she hadn't, "Because it was your face and your voice, but...it wasn't actually you..."
Interesting. "Did you–...did you wish it was me?"
Jérémie doesn't answer for a few seconds. "Yes and no..." He raises the volume of his voice from a whisper to a normal volume. "Truth be told, I'm relieved it was just a clone, because I know I wouldn't be able to handle you actually flirting with me like that." Of course not. He was that shy. "But part of me..." he blushes, "did enjoy it, and wished it was you." He's averting his eyes to the ground, probably out of embarrassment. "What's that called?"
"Guilty pleasure." And she understands it all now. What was going through his head as her double flirted with him, so boldly at that. "So it's probably a good thing that I suck at flirting."
He finally meets her eyes. "You do?" His expression is a curious one, mixed with a slight hint of amusement.
"According to the others, at least," she shrugs. In reality, she's just too shy to initiate anything. Besides, at the moment, she and Jérémie have a mutual agreement to focus on getting rid of XANA first. But one day, she hopes that she will gain the confidence, no matter how bad the pick-up lines are.
"I'm sure that's not true," he reassures her.
Challenge accepted. "Maybe it is," her smile turns into a gently teasing one, "or maybe it's because you're too much of a queue-tie pie."
Jérémie giggles (actually giggles), and to Aelita, it's the most beautiful sound in the world. "I thought I was your proxy pie."
Bingo. She loves computer lingo jokes, and he does too. It makes her feel great that he's able to pick up on her attempts at flirting here with no trouble.
"You can be both," she replies, with a smoothness that she's not aware she ever had. "As long as the only space between us is the space bar on my keyboard."
Jérémie giggles again, a mild blush on his face, but to Aelita, his smile matters more. Given how much trauma he's already gone through, and how much he'll likely be facing in the future due to the current precarious nature of his parents within the internet, he deserves to smile and laugh, to be happy, to be normal even if just for a moment.
As the two head to dinner together, she decides that her idea of flirting may be different and strange to others, but if it cheers Jérémie up, then she'll embrace it without any regrets.
!~~~J~E~R~L~I~T~A~~R~O~L~E~S~W~A~P~~A~U~~~!
A/N: If you have any ideas for side stories of this AU, please let me know in a review or a PM.
Chapter Notes: This chapter is (obviously) based on the plot of canon "Double Take", except there's no XANA attack. It's not a bad episode, quite the opposite actually, but I decided to omit it from TBITC because I think "Opening Act" could've been a better introduction to the new avatars, especially the way I wrote it in TBITC (see Chapter 46: Differing Paths). Nevertheless, as mentioned before, due to popular demand from readers who were interested in seeing how a clone-Aelita would act (not the specialized Clone), I had to write this.
As we see in the animated show, each clone has different 'emerging qualities'. The Jérémie clone is athletic and very flirty with the female population, the exact opposite of the real Jérémie, who sucks at sports and is very shy around girls. The William clone, on the other hand, is very literal-minded (I wouldn't say dumb or stupid, just naive), while the real William is a rebel, and this difference causes many issues on the show. I know we see a clone Aelita in Evolution, who is stoic and nonverbal, but I personally don't count it here (partly because it's not as fun and partly because Evolution excuses the stoic-ness as Jérémie "not having enough time to make a properly functioning clone"—which is dumb, imo).