Code Lyoko Evolution: 11.5

She just sat there, gazing at her laptop screen- its light being the main source that lit her small room, countering the darkness that threatened to engulf it. The gale blowing outside reflected her current mood; it had changed so much since this morning, it was like pathetic fallacy had been following her all day.
The day had started like any other- except the usual XANA attack had been declared in the early hours of the morning and she, like the rest of her friends, had been contacted by Jeremie, calling to inform them of it and that they would meet in the computer lab soon. Daily routine, nothing out of the ordinary.
Until she got that email.

Aelita continued to stare at her screen, gazing harshly at the simple words that had caused so much damage to the world’s current safety… and to her. That one little sentence had made her so naïve, that one little mistake in turn had managed to eventually trick her completely and aid the enemy in his quest for world domination. His minion had drained her codes whilst she was in a –thought to be- nostalgic and loving embrace, only to disappear, disintegrate even, along with an ounce of her trust in human beings and good mood.

In reality, Aelita wanted so much to reply to the sent email, to reveal to XANA or whoever sent the spectre posing as her mother just how much they’d damaged her, how much heartbreak they’d caused and how much stronger and alert she’d be if they’d ever try any of that again.
But no, she knew she couldn’t. If she did, that would be boasting of how much they’d hurt her, how successful the latest spectre had been. Plus, she was afraid of the possibility of there being a possible virus connected to the email that she could set off if she did try to reply and thus cause damage to her laptop, like last time…
After much staring, all the hate, rage, sorrow and heartbreak swirling around inside of her, she decided to click the delete button, erasing the original message for good.

Eventually shutting the laptop down and closing the top so that the screen met keyboard, she turned to her bed and met the brief outline of Mr Puck against her pillow. She lay down on top of her covers after turning on her bedside lamp, sandwiching one hand between her head and her pillow as the other clutched Mr Puck to her side. Gazing at her ceiling, she tried her best to forget about this morning’s evens, but to no avail. The email was deleted from her computer, but it would never be deleted from her mind.

She had received the email as she was getting up to go to the factory- it was marked ‘Confidential’ and had basically instructed her to go to the nearby chapel immediately if she wished to learn more of her parents. Aelita, lacking both of her parents and memories of her childhood spent with them, was very tempted to follow the email’s instructions, despite how shady it all seemed. She finally gave into that temptation however after a brief encounter with Laura, sending her to the factory to help the others in her place. Upon entering the chapel, she was greeted by a woman who seemed keen to speak about Aelita’s childhood and her own memories of that. Memories that only Aelita’s parents should’ve remembered.

She could recall the woman speaking of how she would go everywhere with Mr Puck when she was younger and whether she could remember times spent with the doll-
‘No, of course I don’t’ Aelita thought wistfully. One of the main reasons it all seemed so real to her in the first place was because she wasn’t able to contradict the claims of memories of her childhood with true memories of her own- she just couldn’t remember. ‘Well played, XANA…’

Still lying on the bed, she thought of Jeremie and how mean she’d been to him. He’d tried so very hard to reach her and even put Laura in charge of the supercomputer and the others on Lyoko to try and find her and even when he had and tried to convince her that this was all just a mirage, an illusion… she just wouldn’t take it and accused him of lying to her. Looking back on that moment, all she could do was cringe a little; ever since Jeremie turned the supercomputer on he’d been there for her, always working on programs and code that would help set her free. Even after he’d managed to bring her back to Earth, he continued with his programs- still working late and losing so many hours of sleep so that he could set her free from her ties with the supercomputer.

‘No’, she thought to herself; Jeremie was her best friend and after all they’d been through together, he’d never lie to her about something like this. Because all-in-all he knew. He knew how much her parents meant to her, especially her mother. There were times where she’d be upset about not having parents, not being able to see them again or even communicate- in some cases this was possible with her father, but her mother… she wasn’t even certain that she was still alive. In any case, Jeremie was there for her when she needed him. He would be programming and she’d just walk in, sit on his bed and try to act natural- but he could always tell that something was wrong. In that instance, he’d just stop working and talk to her- try and make her feel better by talking and if that didn’t work, well, they’d just sit together hand-in-hand. Just sitting, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.

Being reminded of this broke her heart a little more, especially when she thought of how she’d gone a step further from accusing him of lying to her but telling him that she hated him. Sure, she’d apologised later and he’d forgiven her without a care but… the fact that she’d said it at all troubled her quite a lot. XANA had managed to make her feel so resentful that she’d taken it all out on Jeremie, the one person who was willing to go out of his way and comfort zone knowing that someone else was at the controls of the supercomputer and in charge of the fates of his friends on Lyoko… just for her.

In all honesty, right now she wasn’t sure who she hated more- XANA or herself for being so nasty to Jeremie and putting the whole world in danger. She knew she wouldn’t dwell on the whole thing this badly had her mean words originally been directed at any of her other friends- like Ulrich or Odd. Though she’d still feel really bad about it, she knew it could never compare to what she felt like for having talked to Jeremie in such a manner and she knew why.
She loved him.
She knew it.
And what’s more, she knew that he loved her back.

Her original sadness directed at the whole situation including her ‘mother’ had been forgotten and was now directed at her previous attitude towards Jeremie. Sure, her parents would always be a big part of her life, a big missing part… but Jeremie was the big part that was there, that was always there. Not forgetting the rest of her friends, they together were the biggest part of her life and she loved them all so much- she owed Jeremie so much for enabling her to have all of this in the first place for switching the supercomputer back on those few years ago, though he would never take more than a simple ‘thank you’. Next time she saw him she knew she’d behave awkwardly, even though she wouldn’t mean to, sheerly for the fact that she’d been so awful to him. But then again, she also knew that his calm demeanour would help her settle down back into her normal self once more. It always worked; just like him.

She knew ever since XANA had returned he’d been working his socks off trying to recreate the Skid –she herself was there for that part and knew what a task it had been-, program the Megapod, fix it, create the transwatches, program the little devices that would be input into the Cortex’s interface to receive data, decode that data, program the eye-piece that would indicate a wall of blocks’ weak point and on top of all that- create a virus that would destroy XANA, this time for good. Thinking about all of that made her a little dizzy- he’d been through so much in just a matter of a few months- it’d probably take her years to successfully program those things.

Either way, he’d been working hard lately, like, really hard; no wonder he was tired all the time. She knew she would have to make Jeremie take a break from his heavy workload sometime- or at least try contributing to it so that he didn’t have to think as much and be as tired as he was every morning when they met up for breakfast, or as of lately, first XANA attack of the day.
The clock across from Aelita shone ’11:32’ with its pale green light, reminding her of how late it was and in turn, how tired she was. There was no doubt that Jeremie was in his room, typing away at line after line of endless code- preparing for the day ahead, a day in which XANA might strike again. Finally deciding to just stop thinking about everything, Aelita slid under her covers, turned off her bedside lamp and closed her eyes, soon drifting off into a dreamless sleep.

And sure enough, at that moment -11:39- Jeremie was still typing at his keyboard, thoughts of Aelita and how his programming could do so much to help her swirling through his mind and keeping him awake as they always did. Then came a moment where his eyelids began to droop shut, but upon another thought of Aelita, they sprang back open and continued to witness the heavy typing of code onto his monitor.
‘Come on, Belpois’ Jeremie thought to himself, ‘You can rest when she’s safe... when they’re all safe’