Normalcy had returned to Kadic after the events of that fateful night. For the rest of the school, nothing had changed. Days still transitioned into night. Classes had begun and ended on time. Homework and other school projects were the bane of all of the students except those who got thrills from any and all academic activity. While everyone else was unaffected, the lives of three students had changed almost overnight.

Jeremie had been more attentive to Aelita now more than ever. After the impressions that he gave in the past where it seemed like the work was the thing, he made it known to her that people would always come first for him. He did miss his chance to continue the program at MIT and, while he was truthful in saying that he knew far more than what the program had been teaching him, he would have loved to see if there was anything still worth picking up from the experience. Still, he would give it all up if it meant that Aelita could be safe and not go through anything like that alone again.

Aelita became closer with Jeremie than before thanks to the incident. Knowing that his mind wasn't just focused solely on work, she learned that keeping information away from him so he could concentrate on work was a bad idea. She learned that being careful, no matter what the situation, helps tremendously in terms of preventing problems from happening. She also learned that while most secrets aren't worth keeping from your significant other, some of them are. The lone incident between her and Odd was a good example of a secret that should remain buried and unspoken.

Odd came away from this chain of events relieved. Jeremie didn't have to go through the struggle of being a father too early and having to support a family. That alone made him happy. Aelita didn't have to face ridicule from the rest of the campus and face the possibility of having to become a single young mother. That also made him happy. The fact that both of them still remained happily in love conflicted him. While he was glad that his friends found true love in each other, he was saddened that the girl he fell in love with a long time ago never returned that love. Throughout his life, while he had learned to move on and seek the one who loved him back, he still held out a little piece of his heart to the one girl who was, for him, unattainable.

Author's Notes

Story #12 is done. I wanted to do a romantic fic with a big twist to it. I also wanted to do a tragic story since I haven't done any of those yet. The best way to kill those two birds with one stone was to write this fic. Despite the tragic nature of it all and the bittersweet ending, I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As per tradition, here are some notes:

-Inspiration: My inspirations for my fics come from unusual sources at times. For example, "Wits" was done because I remembered just how fascinating it was to watch Prof. Xavier and Magneto play a round of chess in the X-Men movies. My last fic, "Maps", was done because of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song featured in Rock Band and my first fic, "Writer's Block", was done because I had no real idea what kind of fic I wanted to write the first time out. For this fic, part of it was inspired by the movie Juno. Highly recommended movie to watch and if you have seen it already, you can already pick out which parts were inspired by certain scenes and events from the movie.

-The Love Triangle: As far as fanfics for Code Lyoko are concerned, there are two major love triangles that are often the subject of stories people write. The first triangle deals with Ulrich, Yumi and William. More often than not, William ends up being snubbed while Ulrich and Yumi get a 'happily ever after' ending. The other triangle deals with Jeremie, Aelita and Odd. Unlike the other triangle, it isn't so clear cut as to who people want Aelita to hook up with. Half of the time its Odd while the other half of the time its Jeremie. For the record, I'm a JxA person but that doesn't mean that I won't flip things in the future.

-The Event: Bet you didn't see that one coming. I chose to go this route not because of the unexpected nature of it all but because I didn't want to go through with the consequence. Most of the time you see a fic deal with pregnancy you get to read about the baby. I didn't want the baby in the end but I didn't want to abort it either. It's a sad thing to do to a character but, again, I wanted to try my chops at going for some tragedy.

-The Experiment: Longtime readers will know that I like to post a story when it's complete instead of posting it in pieces. This was an experiment to see if constant updating would provide more hits and, in turn, more exposure for the fic. It seemed to work, though I'm not sure if I want to make this a constant practice just yet. I'll probably end up doing this one more time with a story from The Reset Arc before giving a final verdict. I will say, though, that it was exciting to see feedback happen during every step of the story. For that, I'm grateful for the readers that put their two cents in via reviews. It has been an honor writing for you all.

Till next time.