Archive of Our Own ^beta

Aelita opened her eyes and looked around. She really wished she had never regained consciousness as her body was wracked with pain. She tried to move, even to just wiggle but couldn't. Her head and limbs were restrained though it wouldn't have mattered. As she tried to move her leg the pain became intolerable, sending flashes so intense that her vision tinted white and her tears flowed freely. She tried to clench her teeth and found her mouth stuck open, something hard and cold preventing it from closing. Suddenly she could feel the tube stuck down her throat, the cursed thing causing shots of pain as it forced her chest to expand and contract with life giving oxygen. Memory came back to her, distorted by the trauma of whatever had happened to her. Her oldest memories were clearest and she remembered, hoping to distract herself from her injuries.

She recalled the conversation that started this mess, it was only a week after Jeremy had managed to defeat XANA. She recalled the hidden pain she could see in his eyes as she told them they were friends, nothing more. She began dating Odd that week, excited and joyful at the possibilities he allowed her. If she had known...

The ambulance, she recognized now, jolted and sent fresh spikes of terrible pain coursing through her body. She couldn't scream out, couldn't move. She focused on her memories, trying to block out the physical pain she felt.

Jeremy had been devastated but hid it for a while. At first he tried desperately to hold on to whatever affection she would spare him. He tried to remain a friend, tried hiding his growing bitterness and depression while retaining some form of connection with her. It worked for a while, but time went on and any hope he had faded into nothingness. Jeremy withdrew from the world, from the mixture of pain and happiness that his love for her caused him. At one point Odd told her Jeremy felt betrayed then proceeded to make fun of him over his sense of entitlement. But she had betrayed him, at least in a manner of speaking. It was easy enough to argue that she led him on, playing on his need for companionship to keep him focused on his job. Odd never did figure out how much he was hurting her even after she fought with him over treating Jeremy better. Odd had simply not cared what he did to Jeremy or how it hurt her.

Another round of pain from her leg jolted her from her thoughts. She could feel the ambulance taking a corner and felt her legs pull against the restraints as a result. Back in the here and now and with her mind hazed by pain she was only vaguely aware of the medic explaining her condition and treatments to the other side of a radio link. She silently wished the paramedic would stop. She had squandered her second chance at life, had wrecked the life of the one who truly loved her, had repaid his almost infinite patience and limitless sacrifice with pain. She didn't deserve a third chance.

Her relationship with Odd was almost entirely about cheap thrills. He took her to exotic restaurants, showed her everything she had the stomach to take and even a few things she didn't. He gave her more freedom that Jeremy ever did. But it came at a cost, maintaining her good grades was a lonely affair because Jeremy was no longer around to help her and Odd found it too boring to participate. The same was true when she wanted to find and solve a technical challenge. Odd allowed and encouraged her but always left her alone for such things. And he tended to lack the emotional maturity to fully support her that way.

Another sharp jolt blasted her already battered body and mind. This time the medic noticed she was awake and tried to speak to her. He injected something that dulled the pain after a few minutes but also made her feel even more lightheaded and cloudy. The next bump didn't hurt as much but splashed some her blood, at least that's what it looked like, onto the paramedics face. Inwardly she cringed, wondering if the disease she carried could be transferred to the paramedic who was so valiantly trying to keep her alive. The thought was worse than the agony she was already in.

The sexually transmitted disease came from one of Odd's affairs, another stupid girl who couldn't resist his charms. He had been using the time she spent working on homework or indulging her genius level intelligence to cheat. Based on how he behaved before they had started dating she should have expected it. But he promised her, told her that dating her was the greatest thing he could imagine and he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize it. Now he simply justified his cheating by saying that the indulgence of her interests in computers and science were like her cheating with Jeremy's memory. She had been furious. Her vision began to darken. Slowly her mind faded until the blackness was complete.

The paramedic watched with growing alarm the fading heartbeat and the growing volume of blood on the floor. He could see the fading light in the girls eyes and called for her to remain awake and to stay with him. He handed her off to the waiting doctors at the hospital with only minimal vitals. He watched the doctors pull out paddles while others connected her to a breathing machine. "Clear!" Was heard over the ominous monotone of the heart monitor. Her body convulsed as the charge from a defibrillator emptied across her heart.

Aelita opened her weary eyes and looked around as much as her restrained neck would allow. All around her were doctors and nurses, wasting precious time and blood on her worthless life, didn't they know she was already dead? They were calling her name with a care and determination that reminded her of Jeremy. But they were trained and paid to care, Jeremy wasn't. She wished she knew then what she knew now. She would have given Jeremy a chance, found out who he was without the awful weight of XANA on his shoulders.

But Odd had seen her inability to cope with the reality of her situation and took advantage. Thinking only of himself while he made her forget that she lived her life at the expense of everyone else's. Convincing her that Jeremy trying to keep her safe was selfish and mean rather than an understanding that if she died there would be no way to fight XANA and therefore everyone else would too. She couldn't just blame Odd for that, Yumi and Ulrich were just as willing to ignore rather than face that fact.

She felt weaker than she ever had before. Everything began to fade away again, and this time it felt like she was sinking into water. The frantic yelling of doctors, the nurses calling her name, the machines trying in vain to keep her alive, all sounds that seemed to get muffled and farther away with each passing second. Light began to fade out, replaced by a murky blackness that sacred her even as she considered embracing it against her hard coded instinct to remain alive. Still her memories played out before her, still she found the presence of mind to continue the case against herself.

Jeremy had good reason to try and keep her close to the supercomputer, knowing that she would never have been able to live with herself if she had failed to end one of XANA's incursions into the real world before anyone had died. And that exact same reasoning was what compelled Jeremy to ignore some of her needs and wants in favor of working. XANA would have won be default, it would eventually get powerful or smart enough to win without so much as a fight if all they did was shutdown towers. Both she and Jeremy knew this but while he did everything possible to stop it she buried her head in the sand with Odd, and to a slightly lesser extent, Yumi and Ulrich. She hid from her responsibility while Jeremy faced it for all of them. And he never demanded anything in return, all he wanted was to see her in some balance of happy and safe. Even after she left him he tried to remain friends.

A blinding flash of light hit her eyes as everything snapped into clarity. Whatever the doctors had done, they had stabilized her condition for the moment. She wished she could have held on to the moments she and Jeremy shared. The times she cried into his arms while she told him about her family. How he had tried to make her feel welcome and like she belonged despite her situation. The brief times when he managed to get out from under all the worry and responsibility he carried on his shoulders. The enjoyment of her concert, running and chasing her around campus, walking through the woods with her. All the crazy stunts he pulled while trying to save them when it came down to him and him alone. If she had considered that before saying yes to Odd...

She felt the 'water' again and somehow knew that this was it. She closed her eyes and bathed in the darkness, letting go of hope, memories of happiness, thoughts of true love that she would never know. She wanted to hear Jeremy's voice one last time. Wanted to apologize for not being worth the effort he put into saving her, to apologize for pretending to be happy, to apologize for pushing him away when he finally confronted her about her life. She wanted to see Odd one last time. Wanted to look into eyes that she no longer saw as filled with life and possibility and demand an apology, however insufficient that would be. She couldn't have any of her last wishes, maybe she deserved it.

She settled for a prayer to who or whatever may be out there. She prayed that Jeremy would find in someone else the happiness that he so hoped to find in her. The darkness finally became complete, the silence deafening. She spent only a moment in the void that lie between life and death then was gone forever.

The doctor pronounced her dead after five shocks failed to restart her heart. Officially her death was accidental. A hospital inquiry was unable to find fault with any of the doctors, nurses or paramedics but also found no real reason that would explain why they had been unable to save the life of Aelita Stones or her doomed child.

Yumi, Ulrich and Jeremy came up with their own theory. Aelita caused the accident upon learning that not only was Odd going to leave her because he didn't want to be a father but that the medicine she was on for her STD had all but guaranteed that her pregnancy would end in a miscarriage. But it was senseless to be mad at Odd, Aelita had made certain that he would never do this to another girl. Odd had been pronounced dead at the scene.