Episode Five : Sticky Situations

Soundtrack: Supertramp's "Breakfast in America" (Odd's song, for so many reasons)

What was I thinking when I wrote this? Mostly I wanted Aelita to drag Jeremie into Lyoko because I thought it would be entertaining. Then I needed a plot, so it wound up being a kind of messy, cobbled-together episode. And the quickmud could have been way scarier then it is. Basically, too much time moving long-term plots along, too little of an episodic adventure, but it's necessary to the overall story arc.

Oh. And bear with me, William's not that fickle. Don't worry, it shall all, kind of, be explained in time.

Taidine

Chapter One: For Friendship's Sake

Fall: A crisp touch in the air. A chill wind. Colorful, fiery leaves tumbling from their branches in vivid drifts. The start of the school term. New teachers, new students, and new chances. Also, apparently, planting season.

"Autumn is the time when we plant seeds and bulbs for next spring!" The short, ebullient teacher speaking already had a smudge of dirt on one cheek and seemed to be trying to fuel the class on pure enthusiasm – her own, if none of the students were willing to volunteer. From that quality alone you could tell she was fairly new to Kadic, if her bowl-cut black hair and negligible height hadn't looked unfamiliar enough to tip you off. For the very hard of thinking, her bell-bottom jeans (complete with appliqué flowers) might have given it away. She stood in front of a long plot of newly turned earth, a green Tupperware tub in front of her, exclaiming to her less then enraptured audience, mostly students who weren't in tutoring and were willing to give up Saturday to earn a few community service hours. "We have different plants here, so if everyone takes a packet of seeds we can go over how to read them! Packets have important information like spacing or planting depth…"

One black-haired, black-clad girl with an incredibly bored expression joined the line waiting for seeds, muttering under her breath – if anyone were to lean very close, they could probably make out the phrase "community service hours" being repeated again and again, like a mantra. Yumi Ishiyama wasn't especially enamored with plants, dirt, or Joyce – any teacher who insisted on being called by her first name was trouble – but after a week of grueling physical labor at the end of last term to make up her community service quota she had vowed not to wait until the last minute this time.

"Hey, Yumi," said another person she wasn't too enamored with as he edged up next to her: a tall boy with tousled black hair and an air of casual sophistication.

"William. Didn't know you liked plants," Yumi responded flatly. Trying to match him for smoothness was a hopeless endeavor, so she fell back on her usual technique – thinly veiled sarcasm.

"There's only one flower here I'm interested in," he answered flirtatiously. Yumi wanted to hit him over the head with something heavy – he was as subtle as a sledgehammer and insufferably lame. It was unfair that someone of such character should look good too. "Yumi, the grapevine's buzzing. There's a winter dance coming up – could you be convinced to…"

"No," said Yumi decisively. She was already exasperated. The last thing she needed was authentic William tripe, even if it did come from a meltingly handsome authentic William. She kept her eyes carefully fixed on the ground and summoned a picture of Ulrich. He was irritating, incredibly thick, but cute, a comrade in arms, an impressive fighter, straightforward and willing to let her go at her own pace, so there. But it would be a lot easier to recall these good qualities if William wasn't standing right in front of her. "And if you ask again later, the answer will still be no." She had reached the front of the line, and was obliged to pick up a packet of seeds from the Tupperware. "Please leave me alone."

"Uh…" William was momentarily nonplussed. "Yumi, I never…" Her full glare skewered him, and he switched tactics. "All right. But if you change your mind, you know where to find me." He shrugged, looking so glum she almost said she'd think about it, or called him back. But she had made a choice at long last. Hopefully she wouldn't be called upon to make it again.

Looking away from William's retreating figure, Yumi turned over the packet of seeds in her hand – appropriately, the bright yellow flowers on the front went by the name of forget-me-nots.

- - - -

The school was mostly quiet that Saturday afternoon, students taking their leisure outside or working through homework in their dormitories. Only one classroom was occupied, and it was just Aelita's luck that she walked passed it.

The pink-haired girl was ghosting through the hallways, looking oddly forlorn as her fuzzy boots tread on the linoleum flooring, when a muffled racket caught her attention. Following the sound down the hallway, she came to the language classroom – now filled by a dozen or so students shouting to each other in a jovial fashion. "Hey, Milly, finish that filler column yet?" "What should I use for a headline?" "Theo, how long does it take to write a sports article?" The sole computer at the back of the room was staffed by one young, dark girl who was alternating between frantic typing, frantic formatting, and frantic stuffing-floppy-discs-in-disc-drive.

Out of the chaos, a familiar face resolved like a bubble rising from a marsh: choppy blonde hair, thin black choker, pen behind one ear. Kloe was wearing a crisp, white button-up shirt today, not her usual long-sleeved tee, but her jeans were still held by that awful two-inch belt and her arrogant self-confidence, here in her own domain, was worse then ever. "Aelita! A word?" She called from the doorway.

Startled to hear her name, the pink-haired girl toyed with the idea of pretending she hadn't heard, sadly rejected it as unfeasible since she was only four feet away, and turned around. "Yes?" She breathed.

"We need a filler column, and I was wondering if you would do a beauty piece. Hair-dyeing tips and tricks or whatever."

"Uh?" Aelita still couldn't see quite how this related to her.

"C'mon, everyone wants to know how you do it. There are never any roots showing or anything," Kloe continued.

Something clicked. "Oh," Aelita giggled, "I don't dye my hair – I'm a natural pink." Quite done with that conversation, she pivoted on her toe and resumed walking down the hall, leaving Kloe to stare after her and wonder whom the joke was on.

"All right," the reporter muttered, "I'll ask Odd…"

Traumatic encounters were not over for the natural pink, though. She padded down the hallway in silence, turned onto an echoing stairwell, descended to the ground floor, and angled towards the exit. She almost made it, too, when a smooth masculine voice greeted her and a tall boy sauntered up beside her. "Oh – hello, William. Is the tutoring session over, then?" That was the only class being taught today, math or physics or something. Odd and Ulrich had both opted to attend, but it was a subject Aelita was doing well in, so she had skipped it.

"No," William answered, "Just passing through."

"I see," said Aelita, and sped up her pace. He was standing a touch too close for comfort.

He matched her easily. "Actually… to be honest, I was kind of hoping to run into you." The exit was so very close… "You've heard there's a dance coming up, right?"

Aelita had to slow down at the implicit query. "I thought you wanted to go with Yumi!"

"Ah… Yumi. She's always putting herself out into the world, y'know? I should have met some other girls first. I… thought Yumi was something she's not." They had reached the exit. William held the door, but Aelita was hooked now.

"What's that?"

"Well… smart. Or… you know. Yumi has good grades, but she's really a jock. While you, Aelita –" He broke off. "I'm sorry. Would you consider going to the dance with me?"

The school gardens beckoned. Suddenly there was someone Aelita deeply, urgently needed to see. "I'll… think about it," she stammered, and ducked around the corner of the building. He didn't follow. After looking left and right to reassure herself of this, she darted into the woods.

- - - -

Not far from the school, deep under the dilapidated hulk of the ancient Factory, a blonde boy in too-short khakis sat at a computer screen, typing. Lines of fluorescent green code danced across the monitor and reflected on his glasses, incomprehensible numbers and symbols… except they must have been comprehensible to him, because he was changing them, cutting a line here, shifting another there, tinkering with a program of ludicrous complexity. Here was the last student in the school who needed tutoring, sitting in a cavernous underground room full of pipes and cables, communing with his computer.

Behind him, a pair of thick, weathered metal doors held shut with an intricate circular mechanism disengaged, clicking and hissing. A girl in pink stepped out and walked over to his chair. "Jeremie?"

He looked up at the sound of his name. "Hello, Aelita." His voice was less then chipper. "I'm working on a way to repair the return to the past program, but I think I've hit a dead end. If I didn't know better, I'd say this wasn't ghosts at all. It looks so… deliberate!"

Aelita shook her head. "Sabotage? But who would – and who could?"

"Exactly," said Jeremie, "It has to be just some accident. Just harder to fix then I thought."

Aelita took a deep breath. She had been planning to bring this up since her escape from William, but she wasn't quite sure how Jeremie would react. "Maybe it will make more sense if you look at it from the inside."

He was back to his typing. "What do you mean, Aelita?"

She was forced to take another deep breath. "Jeremie, I want you to come into Lyoko with me."

"Someone has to operate the computer, you know. But I can virtualize you, if you think it will help."

The deep breath turned into a sigh. For a genius, he certainly could be thick. "I don't think you understand, Jeremie. You showed me Earth, and it's beautiful. Now it's my turn. I want to show you Lyoko. You're going to shut down the supercomputer now – I don't know if I'll ever get another chance."

"Aelita, are you okay?" Jeremie looked up again; his friend nodded with a touch of melancholy. "I don't go into Lyoko! Besides, XANA could launch an attack at any time."

"But he's not attacking now. Please, Jeremie?" She rested both hands on his shoulders, and he found himself giving in.

"All right. I'll program the computer to pull me out after a half an hour." Aelita looked at him pleadingly. "An hour," he amended, minimizing the program he was working on and opening a new window.

"I'll set up a character template," Aelita said cheerily.

"I don't need a template, I'm not-"

"Yes, you do. Hurry up."

PS – Thanks to AussieUlrich, who's been kind enough to review every episode so far!

Taidine