A\N: Okay here it is! The final chapter! Thank you to everyone who has been so consistent reading and reviewing and faving and whatnot. I really appreciate it! So, please enjoy and look out for my other fics! :)

The lecture was boring and William was thankful that every so often Yumi would elbow him to make sure that he was still awake. Multiple times, though, he wasn't and the elbowing woke him up. He hoped the teacher wouldn't notice how much he was struggling to focus on the lesson, but she never called on him. Before he knew it (probably because he fell asleep), the bell rang signifying the end of their class. He hoped Yumi was able to take some notes that he could later borrow because he had not been able to keep his eyes open and, even if he had been able to, he was sure that he would not have been able to concentrate on it anyway. All thoughts seemed to have escaped his mind for the time being, and he was okay with that.

"Well, that was fun," Yumi whispered sarcastically to William as they both stood up from their chairs. William's muscles were already stiff and his knees popped as he stretched out. A nice, hot shower would be in order before bed…that was, if he could make it that long.

"Oh! Yumi!" a voice called behind them. William and Yumi both turned to see Anais Fiquet looking in their direction. "Hey, can I ask you a couple of questions about the history exam coming up?"

"Sure," Yumi said back to the girl and turned back to William. "Shouldn't take long. Why don't you get out of here and get some sleep? Looks like you could use it."

William shrugged. "Sure." He grabbed his book and assorted school supplies and stuffed them in his backpack as he watched Yumi walk over toward the blonde haired girl. He was hoping to have a couple of moments to talk about what had happened on Lyoko, but that would have to wait it seemed. But still, the idea of sleep did seem inviting and perhaps some time alone would be good for him. Things might have gotten sorted out on Lyoko, but that didn't mean it was all cleared up in his mind. Yes, it was definitely better but not clear.

He walked out of the classroom and out of the door, turning down the corridor. The events of the mission began to filter into his mind. He was still angry that he allowed himself to be manipulated by XANA once more. Yumi and Jeremie were understanding, yes, but they didn't understand what it was like to be a puppet to XANA with no control over which string was pulled and what action resulted from it. He hated that feeling so much and it had happened again.

William's face was hard as the thoughts came into his mind. The voice was gone, yes, but that didn't necessarily mean the thoughts were all happy rainbows and butterflies either. He still had so much to learn and deal with.

"William!" Yumi's voice startled him as he heard her run up to him. That had been quick. He stopped walking and turned toward her. She caught up to him and stopped running, panting slightly from the added exertion of the day's events. "I forgot…I wanted to thank you. Without you, we were goners."

He was sleepy and some of that self doubt had already seeped back into his head. Her words took a few moments to register in his mind. William looked at her for a moment, nodding his head slightly before she spoke again.

"Don't you think we're a good team?"

Team. He liked hearing her say that. He felt a smirk play on his face. "A pretty good one," came his response. It was true, he and Yumi did well together, but if they were going to be a great team, they still had much to learn. William was confident, though, that they would.

He heard a commotion coming from the hallway on his left. He glanced inside to see Jeremie, Aelita, and Ulrich standing outside a door. As William glanced over, he saw Odd come from the other side, the principal's office of course, looking dejected. William saw Yumi walk over toward the group and he followed suit. Something Odd had done, probably during the specter attack, had gotten him into trouble. William couldn't wait to hear what he had done.

"So?" Aelita asked as Odd closed the door.

"Six hours of detention and some community service," Odd replied.

"That's bad." Ulrich added in. William was definitely curious as to what Odd did to have resulted in such a harsh punishment, but he knew he'd find out sooner rather than later.

"That bunker will cost me a lot after all," Odd said, his voice still low.

"Maybe, but without you, Aelita and Ulrich would have lost all their remaining codes." Yumi added from beside William. Though neither really knew the story, Odd would have had to have done something to help. In all that time XANA was getting inside William's head, the specter would have been able to get to Aelita and Ulrich had it not been for whatever Odd had done.

"This whole idea of 'codeless' and bunker was lame." Odd added in. William still couldn't disagree with that statement. It was pretty silly, but if it worked this time around well, then that was all that mattered.

"That's right," Aelita affirmed but continued on. "But you only did what everyone should always do: protect the others, no matter what."

William glanced over at Yumi and saw her nod. A small smile tugged at his face. He had done that; he had protected her when she needed it. Judging by Aelita's statement, he realized that the others would do the same for him. There were no more doubts in his mind. They would protect him just like he would protect them.

"So, if I got you correctly, you're all going to help me with my community work?" Odd said, his face flashing with a bit of the oddness that William had grown to know, but not necessarily love.

"Well, it depends." William interjected. "What is it?"

They would protect one another, they never agreed to help each other with community service.

Odd closed his eyes and began rattling off his list of things he would have to do for his community service. "Cleaning the graffiti in the toilets…"

Jeremie and Aelita began to walk away as soon as Odd closed his eyes and opened his mouth. Yumi and William shook their heads and began to follow suit. William didn't need to hear that especially since it was obvious no one was going to be willing to help.

"…Helping in the canteen for a week…"

William heard Ulrich shuffle and move away from Odd as well.

"…removing the chewing gum from the physics classroom…running around the stadium ten times…"

William wasn't sure whether or not Odd stopped listing off his responsibilities because they were done, or because he realized that the rest of the group had walked away from him. The next thing William heard as he began walking down the corridor was Odd shouting after them.

"Hey, my friends! Come back! Come back my friends!" Odd ran back into the group and joined back with them. "Not cool guys!"

A laughter echoed across the remaining members of the group – William included – as the small boy pouted. He'd get over it. Eventually.

"So, who's hungry?"

Yup. He was already over it. The group let out a collective groan and looked at Odd. "What?" he asked. "Hey, while the three of you," he motioned to Yumi, William, and Jeremie, "…were having fun on Lyoko, we were working out butts off trying to stay away from that crazy specter."

"It wasn't all fun and games on Lyoko either, Odd," Jeremie replied.

"Anything but," Yumi muttered under her breath. William could only nod. No doubt Odd was going to be curious as to what transpired on Lyoko, but William really didn't want to explain it to him. In fact, he only really wanted to talk to Yumi, and maybe Jeremie, about what happened. He wasn't ready to let the others in just yet.

"Well, let's talk about over some food. I'm starving!" Odd insisted.

"Hey, you guys go ahead. I need to talk to William about some things," Yumi said to the group. Everyone looked shocked but probably no one more so than William himself. Out of the corner of his eye, Odd made a kissy face at them which Ulrich quickly stopped him with an elbow jab to the boy's ribs. William moved his attention away from them and onto Yumi.

"Alright," Aelita said. "Meet us back here if you're not too late."

"We will," Yumi replied as she glanced at William and motioned him to follow her. He obliged as the two of them walked away from the group and into the courtyard. William said nothing as he followed her, but knew that she was going to talk about what happened on Lyoko. He had a couple of things he wanted to say to her as well. And to Jeremie, but he could catch Einstein later.

She moved toward their bench and sat down, motioning him to join her. He sat down opposite her, giving her space in between them. Then he waited. He wanted to know what she had to say yet at the same time he felt a certain amount of dread coming with it. Couldn't he just go to sleep instead?

"You know, that XANA clone said a lot of things…" Yumi started off. It was a weird way to start a conversation, but he wasn't going to say anything about it. Their situation wasn't exactly "normal" by any stretch of the imagination.

"Yeah," it was the only word he could think of to reply to her.

"And, when he was speaking to you, I couldn't help but wonder something. How did he get to you so quickly and so easily? Then I realized it. He was telling you things you already knew yourself…the things you were already thinking, wasn't he?"

William thought about that question for a moment before nodding slightly. "Kind of. I mean some of the thoughts were mine, but he twisted them."

"He's good at that." Yumi added under her breath. She paused another moment as if searching for the right thing to say next. "You know, none of what he said was true."

"Well, yeah, kind of," William stammered. The situation wasn't as cut and dried as Yumi was trying to make it seem. It was complicated; he was complicated and so were his thoughts and feelings. "It's…well it's hard to explain without knowing what happened to me when I was being controlled by XANA."

There was a shocked look on her face, a look that reminded William that no one knew about his experiences under XANA's control. Well, no one but Aelita who herself had been possessed by XANA a couple of times to destroy Lyoko. And, aside from Aelita whom he had confided in a time or two, no one else knew that he remembered what XANA forced him to do while he was possessed.

"You…remember?" she asked, confirming his thoughts.

William nodded slightly, letting his gaze travel from Yumi to the ground underneath his feet. He shuffled them a little not really wanting to talk about it and hoping that she wouldn't ask him to go into detail about it.

"But I thought you said you couldn't remember anything?"

"Not at first," he replied. "But piece by piece the memories came back. Sometimes it was in the form of a nightmare, other times something I saw or heard triggered a memory to surface. It hasn't been pleasant."

"I guess not…"

William sighed and shuffled his foot along the dirt-covered concrete at his feet, trying to figure out the best way to tell her what had happened a few hours ago on Lyoko without going into detail about what happened to him during his possession. He wasn't ready to delve that information to her just yet and would have much rather talk about it with Aelita, whom he knew could understand.

"You see…XANA let me see and hear everything he made me do," he struggled to explain to her. He rubbed the back of his head as he spoke knowing full well that he was beginning to divulge some of his deepest, darkest secrets to the woman he loved. "And…whenever he wasn't attacking you guys…um…well he liked to use my own voice to tell me awful things."

He never realized just how hard it would be to tell her all of this. His voice quivered and often faltered as he spoke. He just wanted to end the conversation then and there, but he owed her an explanation about what happened on Lyoko. That didn't mean he had to divulge every little bit of detail of what happened to him, William realized, and no one expected him to.

Yumi didn't press him to continue and for that he was grateful. Perhaps she saw just how difficult it was for him to talk about his experience. He glanced up at her for only a brief second to see that she was watching him, her face almost unreadable. His eyes darted back to the ground below him but they remained unfocused.

"He'd tell me things about how foolish I was to get caught. Perhaps he was right. But then it got worse. He'd point out things you guys said or did – like how you referred to me as if I were the one trying to hurt you instead of XANA." He paused a moment when he heard Yumi's breath catch.

"We never meant it like…"

"I know," William didn't want her to feel guilty about what had happened back then. That wasn't the goal of him speaking with her. "But it hurt none-the-less. He used that against me. It was his favorite weapon. Then XANA started telling me that I would never be wanted, and you guys would never understand….he started ripping away any and all shreds of hope I had left. And he said it all using my own voice."

He glanced back up at Yumi for a moment and he could see that she was beginning to understand more about what had happened to him with XANA on both occasions. He watched as she moved her hand up before hesitating a second. It was as if she were debating whether or not she should do whatever it was that she was about to do. Seconds later, she decided what it was that she was going to do and William felt her hand on his shoulder. Unlike on Lyoko, he didn't fling it off of him or even pull away. He moved his head so that he turned and faced her.

"William, I'm so sorry…"

He nodded. "That voice still haunts me. It sounds kind of crazy, I know, but sometimes I can't tell if it's my own voice or still XANA's. I just don't know. So, when XANA's William clone kept saying those things, even though I could see him, I couldn't tell if it were my voice again or XANA's." William sighed and shook his head as Yumi's hand fell away. "I know it sounds crazy. Maybe I am crazy. I don't know."

"You're not."

William sat back against the bench and looked out at the school all around him. When he stepped foot inside Kadic Academy for the first time, he never expected his life to ever end up the way it had. In some regards he was glad, but in others…not so much. If nothing else good came out of the entire ordeal, William knew that, at least, he had gained friends that he would have for the rest of his life. Even if they all went their separate ways, they would forever be connected. And for that, he was grateful.

"I'm so sorry Yumi," he said after remaining quiet for a few moments. "I shouldn't have let him get into my head like that. I didn't mean for it to go that far." William quickly moved his head to face her. "And, well, you know how I feel about you. So I want you to know that I would never ever do anything to you that would put you in harm's way. I'm your friend and I will always be there to help you."

He watched as Yumi's hand moved once more, this time not going to his shoulder, but rather to his hands which were clasped tightly together in his lap. She didn't reach down to hold them, but rather, put her hand on his. A small smile rested on her face. "I know. And what Jeremie said was true as well. You're our friend, my friend, and I'm sorry it took so long for all of us to realize how important you are to us." She paused a moment before continuing on. "And what I said on Lyoko was true too. You are strong enough to resist him. I know it."

Strong. The word had played in his mind in multiple different fashions and for many reasons. He wanted to be strong, to help the group. Wasn't that why his virtual avatar had that huge sword? And then Yumi's words echoed in the back of his mind: "And you're not like us. You're not…strong enough." Yumi had said that to him, after they had rescued him from XANA. He had wanted so desperately to go back to Lyoko and show them that he was capable of fighting with them instead of against them. He even allowed them to "bench" him in the factory with Jeremie to show that he wasn't just trying to play the hero again. Of course, then XANA possessed me again anyway…

But now, despite everything that had happened, Yumi was telling him that he was strong. It was as though she were recanting her original statement and that pleased William beyond words. A smirk played on his face.

"You're right, I am." Though he wasn't sure he completely believed it, he couldn't help but say it. He felt some of his old spark coming back to him and it felt great.

He watched as Yumi shook her head. "Oh great, you're starting to sound like your old self."

"Well that's good," Odd's voice traveled through the courtyard causing both Yumi and William to turn to face the small group walking in their direction. "You were sulking worse than Ulrich, and I didn't even think that was possible!"

He saw Ulrich jab at Odd once more. "Hey, not cool."

A collective laugh erupted in the group in which quickly Yumi and William himself joined in with. You know, Yumi's right. These are my friends and, though there will still be many obstacles ahead of me, I know that they've got my back. The voice would be back, that much he was certain, but he could handle it. He was strong enough; he was strong enough not to fall back into XANA's control. That voice would always be there, William realized as he glanced around the group. It would probably never go away, but at least he could fight against it. They had come so far together in only a few short months. Now he had the support of those around him. Their voices would drown out XANA's inside his mind, and that would get him through.