The Mechanist

Aelita

She had never heard a doctor give such a confused and frustrated sigh. "Do I have a disease or something?" Sissi asked.

"No, no. It's just that... your bones have healed, your muscles, connective tissues, all of them are healed," The doctor replied.

"But?"

"Your leg isn't healing. The bone structure is fine but... it looks like the healing process has just completely stopped in that area."

"So I can't walk on it."

"You can, but it's going to periodically hurt. I've never seen this before. All of your cells seem fine and there isn't any trace of autoimmune disease. It's like the bone is... waiting to heal."

"What should I do?"

"I would be careful. The exercise you're doing seemed to help, although, I did notice that several of your nutrition markers are lower than average."

"Meaning?"

"You haven't been eating right."

"Oh," Sissi grinned nervously.

"Get some food in you, Sissi. The malnutrition might be a reason for your arrested healing." Sissi nodded.

***************************************************************

The bell rang, and the team walked into class. "So they don't know what's wrong?" Odd asked.

"They don't even know if anything is wrong," Sissi answered, "It's like my leg just stopped healing, and both legs were hurting at the start."

"And they don't think it's a disease?" Jeremie asked.

"No," Sissi sighed as she sat next to Odd; Jeremie and Aelita were in front.

"Don't worry about it, Your Majesty. I'm sure it's not that bad," Odd said.

"But on the bright side, you'll be able to keep the cane with you and your dad won't think twice about it," Ulrich said.

"Ulrich thinking about the bright side? Now that's something new," Sissi smirked then sighed. "But he's still going to worry. I practically had to beg him to let me do Judo lessons with my uncle. He'll probably think that that's the reason it's not healing."

"Alright, class settle down!" called the history professor. The class began. The scratching of pencil to paper and the professor's droning voice bored Sissi until she noticed Aelita drowsing off to sleep. "Aelita Stone!" The history professor woke her up and all the students laughed at her. Sissi quietly stared at the sleepy pink-haired girl. It wasn't like Aelita to fall asleep, not like that.

Later on, the group huddled around a school bench. "So you took a nap in class, I do it all the time," Odd reassured Aelita.

"A little too often," Yumi tittered.

"What's wrong, Aelita? Did you and Einstein stay up all night?" Sissi smirked.

"No, it's just... I was sleepy, that's all," Aelita sighed.

"You didn't really miss much. The lesson was so boring I might actually mess up the next test."

"You failing? I didn't know royalty could do that," Odd teased. "I thought the very ground your feet touch would be enlightened."

Standing, Sissi placed her hands on her hips with a long smile on her face, "It's better than the ground your feet touch, Odd."

"Wait, what's that supposed to mean? What about my feet?"