A/N: I don't really have anything to say, except...fail. I'm sorry I'm such a fail, haha. Buuuuut, at long last, here's an update! I'm sorry I can't get these out in a reasonable amount of time, haha. I haven't forgotten about this story, I'm just a lousy writerrrr.

Also also - thank you so much to the wonderful MOONLITXANGEL! Best fan ever :) Thanks, love, for keeping me on track.

I don't own CL or the characters.

Choices

A OoZolaoO Production

Chapter 10: Things Fall Apart

"Tower…deactivated," Aelita panted, closing her eyes.

Jeremie leaned back in his chair and sighed, clasping his hands over his forehead. "Nice job, you guys, way to stick with it," he remarked over the intercom as he tapped the key sequence to devirtualize the warriors. "I'm bringing you in."

Silence crackled over the headset. Jeremie's mouth crooked in a bemused half-smile – it wasn't like Odd to keep his one-liners to himself. He tapped his fingers absently against his leg as he watched the Lyoko warriors devirtualize and reappear on Earth. A deft keystroke pulled up the security camera mounted in the scanner room, and Jeremie searched the grainy image for his teammates.

There was Ulrich, curled up in the bottom of his scanner like a sleeping Kiwi. Odd was half-in and half-out, lying against the floor with his legs still in the cylinder. Aelita staggered to her feet, faltered, and fell to her knees again. Jeremie bit his lip worriedly and removed his earpiece, dashing to the elevator as soon as he was clear of the supercomputer's mainframe.

The elevator doors slid open with a dull clank, and Jeremie hurtled into the scanner room, going first to Aelita.

"Hey, Aelita, are you okay?" He dropped to his knees next to her, speaking softly.

"Yeah, just give me a moment," she replied, squeezing her eyes shut. Jeremie glanced over as Ulrich pulled himself to a seated position.

"Did we do it?" Ulrich leaned back against the scanner wall, crossing his legs under him.

"Yes, you guys deactivated the tower," Jeremie replied, sliding across the floor to check on Odd as the blond warrior lifted his head.

"I feel a lot better than I thought I would," Odd managed. He rolled over, turning to face the ceiling. "I only feel like I got hit by a four-wheeler."

"Last time was à la steamroller," Ulrich cracked a smile. "Thankfully we're downgrading."

Jeremie began to relax. "Well, I'm glad to hear it. I didn't know how many more days of class you all could miss," he joked.

"No worries, Einstein, you won't have to be alone in physics again tomorrow." Odd stretched widely, making a semblance of a snow angel in the dust on the scanner room floor. Aelita chuckled softly as she drew her finger through the debris.

"Lovely. We need to clean in here more often."

"We clean in here?" Ulrich quipped, also stretching as he got slowly to his feet.

Jeremie smiled. "All right, you guys, let's get back to the dorms before curfew."

Odd made a soft sound not unlike a purr and curled tightly in on himself. "Do we haaaaaave to? I'm so comfortable here."

"Up and at 'em, roomie, we've got a Spanish test we need to study for." Ulrich nudged him gently with his toe. "Vamanos, muchacho."

"Mmpf," Odd protested. He held out his arms. "Carry me?"

Ulrich kicked him again, a little harder, and turned to help Aelita to her feet.

"Good morning!" Yumi slid into the chair beside Ulrich, making him jump and almost spill his orange juice.

"Good morning to you too," he replied, chancing a smile as he read her mood. "What are you doing here? You don't normally show up until first period."

"I told my parents I had to meet with a teacher, and they let me skip breakfast. I wanted to see how the mission went." She glanced at Jeremie, who froze in the process of lifting a fork to his mouth.

"Um, great!" he stammered after a moment's pause, letting the eggs spill back to his plate. "Yeah, we got the, um, tower down and everything. You know, nothing exciting." He seemed to realize he was babbling, and quickly stuck his fork back in his mouth.

"So it wasn't too bad?" Yumi looked at Odd and Aelita.

Aelita shook her head. "No, it was pretty straight-forward. Ice sector, Hornets and a couple of Tarantulas for a welcoming committee. Odd and Ulrich took care of them pretty quickly." Aelita paused, trying to read Yumi's mood like Ulrich had before her. Odd ignored the conversation flitting around him as he concentrating wholeheartedly on the mountain of bacon piled before him.

"Ahh, good. I mean, I figured since there wasn't a return-to-the-past or anything, it had gone okay, but…" Yumi trailed off, a blush staining her cheeks.

"No, it went wonderfully - thanks, Yumi," Aelita covered for her gracefully, a warm smile growing on her face. "We…we missed you."

Yumi had opened her mouth to respond when the warning bell for first period rang, prodding the cafeteria of sleepy students into motion. The Lyoko warriors slowly began gathering their things, save for Yumi.

"I have first period free today," she answered in response to their questioning glances.

"And…you came in to see us instead of sleeping in?" Jeremie cocked an eyebrow. Yumi blushed again.

"I'll see you guys at lunch," she commented before turning on her heel and striding quickly away, ducking around the throng of students filtering out the door.

"Well…that went well," Aelita started, gazing after Yumi in surprise.

Ulrich let out a short laugh. "Better than expected." But he still watched after her.

"So she didn't get mad?" Odd blinked. "Wow. Are we sure that was Yumi?"

"She was surprisingly cool with it," Aelita replied. "What, were you too busy with your breakfast to pay attention?"

"I didn't even know Yumi was there until the bell rang." Odd shrugged. Ulrich snorted.

"What are we going to do when we get another alert?" Aelita whispered to Jeremie as Odd and Ulrich peeled away with a wave. "Are we going to let Yumi go back to Lyoko?"

"I mean, we have to, eventually. Maybe we can take her on a training mission, see if we can figure out what's going on," Jeremie hissed back. "We can say we need some information from the network or something, it's not like any of them pay attention to that anyways."

Aelita cracked a grin. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. But, until then…"

Jeremie sighed. "It's better if we don't take her on missions, I guess. Let's go for the training mission tomorrow at lunch, since we can't go tonight."

"Oh yeah, Odd's skateboarding competition." Aelita bit her lip. "All right, we can pass the word onto the others."

"Sounds like a plan."

"I hate missing lunch even more than usual today," Odd grumbled, kicking at leaves on the forest floor as the Lyoko warriors headed to the manhole cover.

"It's not like you're going to starve," Aelita laughed, tossing Odd another apple from the grocery bag hanging from her arm. He caught it and took a bite, chewing morosely.

"Man cannot live on fruit alone," he remarked through a mouthful of apple. Ulrich ducked away as a shower of apple fragments sprayed from Odd's mouth.

"We wanted the news, Odd, not the weather," he quipped, ducking quickly out of the way as Odd aimed a kick in his direction.

"Cut it out, you two," Yumi protested as Odd brushed by her, but she was smiling. "You'd think the wounded warriors would have a little less energy."

"Ehh, we've been off Lyoko for almost two days now, we're okay!" Odd called back to her from his pursuit of Ulrich. His roommate stuck out his tongue and reversed direction, leaving Odd skidding in the fallen leaves.

"They sure seem okay," Aelita commented more quietly, watching her friends with a smile. "I don't think we have to worry."

The shrill alarm of Jeremie's laptop shattered the serenity of the woods, and Aelita and Yumi stopped as he fished it from his bag.

"Ahh, no, no, no!" Jeremie muttered to himself, balancing his laptop on a knee as he typed in a series of codes. "X.A.N.A's got a group of monsters attacking the Skid!"

"I thought we put up shields to keep that from happening." Jeremie glanced over as Odd and Ulrich returned to the group. Ulrich carefully positioned himself with Aelita in between them, though his attention was on Jeremie.

"We did." Jeremie clicked a few keys.

"The shields require maintenance at least once a month to make sure they're still functional," Aelita explained. "It looks like X.A.N.A. got through them right when they were starting to weaken."

"Well, at least we're almost to the factory anyway," Yumi tried. Aelita and Jeremie exchanged a glance.

"Yumi…" Aelita started. "The purpose of today's mission was to work with you, to make sure X.A.N.A. hadn't infected you with some sort of virus that is affecting your ability to fight."

"You mean to make sure I'm not just all of a sudden bad?" Yumi shot back, her eyes darkening. "Is that what this is all about? You're afraid that I've lost my edge or something?"

"No, Yumi, it's-"

"I've always been the weakest of our group, even after Aelita got her powers!" Yumi's voice rose in pitch as the frustration that had been building for days began to break loose. "I'm always the one falling into the digital sea, always the one who needs rescuing! Of course it was me that X.A.N.A. captured and cloned. I'm always the target, because I'm the weakest, and I don't belong with you guys." Tears were glittering in her eyes now. Ulrich moved forward impulsively.

"Yumi, that's not true at all!" he argued, desperation coloring his tone. "You're just as much a valued member of this group as anyone – we couldn't do it at all without you!"

"Why do you think we pulled you into it to begin with?" Odd chipped in. "You're an awesome fighter, Yumi, and not just on Lyoko! I mean, seriously, you're one of the few people who can whip Ulrich in a fight." Ulrich shot a glare at him.

"Yumi, please, listen to us," Aelita begged. "I know you're angry and upset right now-"

"No, Aelita, you have no idea what I'm feeling!" Yumi was crying now, but she didn't seem to notice the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Just…stop trying to be so perfect, okay, because you're not! Stop pretending that you aren't as pissed off at me as I am at myself."

"Yumi-" Aelita put her hand on Yumi's shoulder. Yumi shoved her hand away and broke into a run, heading back towards Kadic.

Silence lay heavily on the warriors as the echo of Yumi's footsteps faded away. Ulrich was clenching his fists tightly, looking like he was in pain. Jeremie had stopped typing on his laptop and was gazing into the distance in shock. Aelita closed her eyes tightly as tears began to squeeze through her lids.

It was Odd who broke the silence. He crossed the gap to Aelita and put his arm around her, rubbing her thin shoulders. "C'mon, Princess," he said gently. "We should probably go rescue the Skid." He glanced up at Jeremie, his gaze imploring.

Jeremie blinked, dazed. "Yeah…we should. Let's go, guys." He waited as Ulrich remained stationary, staring after Yumi. Jeremie gently touched Ulrich's shoulder. "Come on, Ulrich. We can go after her as soon as we're finished here."

Ulrich shrugged off his hand and stormed ahead, leaving Jeremie to close the manhole cover behind them. Before the metal disc slid into place, he glanced once more in the direction Yumi had gone, hoping against hope that maybe she would reappear.

A/n2: Revieeeeew! It helps me remember that I'm writing fanfics :D