25. Chapter 25

Adrien's consciousness was fighting between sleep and reality when he heard two faint voices.

"They still haven't figured it out yet, Plagg."

"We already told them last night, Tikki. Give them time and they'll work things out. I mean, they discovered each other's identity yesterday, and look what happened?"

"This is not a simple matter of secret identity - and you know that."

"Relax, Sweet Tooth. They're too exhausted with yesterday's events to have a sound mind. Just wait once your bug and my kit crack the puzzle."

A heavy sigh sounded. "I don't want to see her sad anymore."

"You think I don't feel the same way with my charge?"

"Huh. You're getting mellow now, Cheeseball."

"Shh, don't ever tell him that, else it'll go over his head."

He grunted, and when he slowly opened his eyes, a soft glow of dawn greeted him from the dewy glass window. Two blurry creatures - one was black and the other was red - must've noticed his awakening, so they floated towards his eye view.

It's been forever since he last felt this relaxed as if he slept for weeks even though it was less than six hours. Summer mornings have never been this warm for him, and when he gazed the bundle molded perfectly on his side, he got warmer.

This is not a dream, he mused. This is a reality.

Marinette was using his arm as a head pillow, with hands on his chest as she fisted his shirt. Their legs were intertwined together in a flawless fit, covered by a blanket that reached her bare shoulders. Her mouth was slightly opened, breathing evenly with the same rhythm as his.

He parted her loose raven hair from her face and tucked them gently behind her ear.

If only he could freeze the time just to watch on a sleeping beauty beside him forever he'd do it. He wanted to wake up next to her every morning and to sleep together with her every night.

Her lashes fluttered, followed by the world's most adorable groan and a breathtaking marble blue eyes.

Marinette thought she was in Heaven.

In front of her was a gorgeous angel with a sandy blond hair roused by sunlight, and his emerald green eyes lit up charmingly against it, which matched his cute dimpled smile.

"Good Morning, Beautiful." a deep, husky voice greeted.

She blinked slowly. Why would he say something so preposterous? He should've looked in the mirror to check himself.

She stretched and unconsciously nuzzled his neck. A bubbly laugh rumbled on his chest, nudging her closer so he could inhale her scent.

His kiss on her temples pulled her back to reality.

"EEEEEEPPPP!" she squeaked, almost hitting Adrien's jaw as she jolted and ended up falling on the bedside.

"Mari?!" he sat up immediately. "Princess, are you alright?!"

Her jaw slacked with mortification.

She was starting to recall everything, and with a flustered face, she whined, hiding her red face behind her hands out of embarrassment.

She couldn't believe that they shared a bed last night.

They were debating about their sleeping arrangements when he suddenly threw her a pun. So she threw him a pillow and bulls-eyed his face. He theatrically slumped on the bed and told her bleary how fluffy the bed was. Tempted, she tried and convinced that indeed, the bed was genuinely fluffy and cozy.

She swore she closed her eyes for just six seconds - and lo and behold, it became hours.

Adrien panicked at first, afraid that he did something that scared her, or that he hurt her, but when he saw her uncovered pink ears, he sighed with relief. Then laughed.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, Buginette." he teased while gently plucking her fingers. "You have my fur permission to check meow-t."

This earned him a disgruntling huff and an eye roll.

She finally removed her hands but still stayed on the floor. So instead of picking her up, he decided to slide down and fall on top of her.

"Chaton!" she scolded between giggles.

He hummed, rubbing his cheek on hers. She tried to wiggle out but his weight pinned her down.

"No~" he whimpered. "You're so warm...and comfy..."

"Stop it!"

"Don't wanna!"

A loud cough interrupted their cuddling session.

"Hope you two noticed that we're still here." Tikki chirped, making the teenagers scrambled out from their glued position.

"This frisky business suffocates me like a hairball." Plagg harrumphed. "Geez, such disgusting sight spoiled my appetite."

"Since when did your stomach got churned from cheese?"

While their kwamis were busy bantering with nonsensical things, their blushing chargers eyed each other. Then began to remember their Objectives for the Day

Ditch the school trip.

Go back to Paris.

Capture the Akuma, and if lucky enough, defeat Papillion.

But before anything else, they need to save their dignity first from Alya and Nino's wrath.

"You know...a day will come wherein we'll be both torn between two identities, and left without a choice but to choose the other." Adrien grimaced at the thought. "Because we ran out of ideas in inventing alibis."

"There's this saying that goes 'two heads are better than one', so I know we can manage it." she simply shrugged. "Let's hope it's not going to be a recurring issue."

He nodded, then jerked his thumb at the bathroom's doorway. "So, who's gonna go there first?"

"I had my first turn yesterday, so today's yours."

"Okay." he stood up, collecting his washed clothes placed near the entrance, probably by Celia before they retired last night.

Before he could enter inside, he poked his upper body out to taunt his girlfriend with wiggled brows. "Care to join me, My Lady?"

She responded him with a flying pillow, which he dodged successfully by slamming the door behind him. He even broke a silly laugh.

"That's my cue." Plagg excused himself and followed his charger.

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Marinette has never been this alone with Tikki since post-reveal for some pep-talk, she realized, so she looked at her kwami and squealed all of her bottled emotions.

"Oh my God, Tikki! Adrien is Chat Noir! And Chat Noir is Adrien!" she ranted while flailing her hands in the air. "My childhood crush is actually my heroic best friend! And - and he loves me, and I told him to love him!"

"Yeah, I'm so happy for you, Marinette."

"And - and...we kissed! And we danced last night! And we slept together - not that sleeping together, but sleeping beside each other!"

"Yeah."

"He's my boyfriend now, Tikki! And I'm his girlfriend! How miraculous is that?!"

"Yeah."

Despite her enthusiasms, she couldn't help but notice her kwami's enervated state. She dropped her hands and looked at Tikki with worry, leading her to their current issue.

"I'm sorry for being insensitive, Tikki." the designer bowed, with eyes trailing on the carpet's patterns. "I should've thought better than anyone else...that I should be more rational and sensible, especially now that we have an Akuma on the loose."

The red kwami was taken aback. "Oh no, that's not - Marinette, I'm so happy for you and Adrien. I've been rooting for him since the day you had a crush on him! I don't think he's a distraction for you. I'm just...I'm just concerned about the...the events."

"Yeah, you're right." she sighed. "We didn't know its name. The only clues that we have were its correlation with Twiddle Doom and the oddity of its destructive power - that unlike other attacks, this Akuma was affecting not only Paris but some regions in France. If its akumatization was simultaneous with Twiddle Doom, then that means both shared the same goal and power. So if Twiddle Doom was controlling the dimension, then this..."

Tikki observed how her charger's expression gradually paled and froze on the spot. She could hear the gears turning on her head, probably deciphering the critical factor of their current dilemma. She was proud that her Ladybug was wise enough to solve the puzzle, but couldn't express her happiness since the answer derived her to a painful truth.

"Tikki..." her charger's voice hitched. "Is this something similar with Timebreaker?"

Her silence answered her assumptions.

Marinette remembered the feeling how Chat vanished as she embraced him, and the exhilaration when she got dragged to the past and met her other self.

Both Ladybugs used their Miraculous Cure, and before she transported back to her timeline, she saw that Alix' watch was fixed. But on hers, it wasn't.

She wasn't sure if Marinette or Ladybug from the other side might remember the dilemma of seeing her partner disappeared, but when she asked Chat if he remembered seeing two Ladybugs, he just swooned and started to babble his dreams and fantasies about her until she forcibly shut him up.

Do people's memories from the other timestream can be transferred to their current one? She wasn't sure anymore.

"I think some people call that phenomena de ja vu," Tikki replied, unaware that she spoke her thoughts audibly. "Or epiphanies. But if there's a Miraculous involvement, then there might be a breakthrough - ."

"What if there isn't?" Marinette shoot up and began to pace around. "What if after Ladybug fixes everything, it also resets something?"

"This is not like Timebreaker - "

"Of course it isn't Timebreaker, or Pixelator, or an Akuma that shoots out energy beam to transport its enemy back to the past or future!" the girl halted, with fat tears on her eyes. "Our enemy has the power to twiddle Reality, Tikki."

The red kwami was silent again.

"You told us last night that multiple Champions has the same power. Plagg told us last night that Twiddle Doom has a runaway partner who can't control his powers." the girl continued her pacings. "Twiddle Doom freezes time. This unknown Akuma? If he's not changing it, then probably he's destroying it. And you know what that means?"

"Marinette?"

Both jolted upon hearing Adrien's voice.

He was wearing his yesterday's clothes, and the paleness on his face clearly showed that it was not due to the cold shower.

"My Lady, I - "

Marinette entered the bathroom without sparing him a glance, then shut the door locked.

Tikki hovered above him with empathy, then looked at the fellow kwami who was sitting on top of his charger's crown.

"You're bug is wise, Tikki. She cracked the puzzle." Plagg said.

"Same with your kitten, Plagg," she answered, then glanced at the boy. "Don't worry, Adrien. She needs time to compose herself."

The blond gave a short nod.

When Tikki entered the bathroom, she saw her charger crouching on the wet tiles with tears streaming like the water that showered on her naked back. It pained her to see her charger so hurt, and so broken. And the only way to console her was to stay with her and listen to her cries.

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Adrien felt that the kwamis planned to have a one-on-one pep talk with their chargers separately since a similar situation happened to him inside the bathroom.

Like Marinette, he figured out things immediately, and the possible price associated with it.

So what if this mysterious Akuma was destroying their timestream? Ladybug would fix that.

What if everything reset and returned to what it should've been yesterday? They could redo things, no problem.

What if the memories of their adventures disappeared? What if they'll be back to yesterday, a day wherein they haven't revealed their identities? A day in which their confessions never happened at all?

"We can restart all over again." the model muttered while clenching his fist. "We can make memories again, right? Me telling her that I'm Chat Noir and her telling me she's Ladybug...and then I will tell her again how much I loved her."

Plagg only eyed him while chewing a cheese.

"We might recreate everything...but it'll not be the same - OMPHFF!"

"Calm down and eat some Camembert, will you?" the black kwami snitted as he shoved a cube of cheese on his charger's mouth, much to the latter's chagrin. "I have no idea how human's mind works, and I don't have any desires to know them, but I've been living for several centuries with them to know the way they lived through success and downfall. Your problem and that bug's issues are nothing compared to other Miraculous bearers we handled. Repairing a damaged dimension? Easy peasy."

The boy reluctantly swallowed the smelly food. "But Plagg, we're talking about wiping our memories back to yesterday's events! It's as if this whole fiasco thing doesn't exist!"

"But you just mentioned you're cool with making memories again, right?"

Truth to be told, the words that Marinette uttered yesterday night as she revealed her insecurities haunted him.

'I am nothing but an illusion'

He'd do everything to deny that. Hell, he had told her that he would love the girl behind the mask, so he knew he would.

So if he was able to find her on this Akuma-corrupted dimension, then he'd definitely find her again on a fixed dimension.

No matter how long it'd take, or challenges they'd take, deep inside he believed they would discover each other. They were soulmates - a Yin to his Yang.

"Cheer up, kid. Your mopey face is far more disgusting than your dopey one." his kwami pawed him. "Go kiss the girl, and tell her everything. Privately. For the love of cheese, I don't wanna see some of your rituals, okay?"

A sudden thought entered his mind. "Plagg?"

"Yes?"

"The property damages that incurred outside Paris...is that something related to our out-of-town trip?"

"Probably," he answered while ruffling another wheel of cheese God knows where in the world he acquired it. "It's likely that this unknown Akuma doesn't know your identities, but because he can also manipulate Reality, he was sending out destructive forces near your locations subconsciously to catch your attention. He was seeking you guys out - if not for your Miraculous, then probably for his salvation."

"The way you told me these things feels like you've experienced these before."

Plagg looked at him with mild surprise, and with a slight frown, he turned his back to face the windows. "Long time ago, a certain Shogun possessed both the Butterfly and the Cat Miraculous. He would send out a swarm of butterflies to control his samurai warriors, and cataclysm those who revoked his rules. Those who pledged their loyalties couldn't oppose him at all, and for them to be freed from his control, they either be killed or do the kill. That's how Seppukku came from, and the legend about seeing a white butterfly related to a departed soul."

"I'm sorry to hear that." the boy murmured, saddened that he didn't know some things about his kwami's origins. "I didn't mean to - "

"It's okay, kid. Past is past." the black kwami interjected stoically as he flew back to his charger. "We have Tikki who can turn the tides unlike before. And as a god of destruction, we might be able to cancel the aftereffects of the Cure."

Adrien extended his index finger to rub his kwami's head, earning a mirthful purr.

"Plagg?"

"Mrrw?"

"Thanks."

When the bathroom door opened, they saw Marinette in her usual clothes and her usual pigtails. There were still traces of sadness lingered in her eyes, but not as blotched like before.

The blond patted a spot on his side, gesturing her to sit on the duvet. "Come here."

She walked towards him and hugged him tightly instead

"Two heads are better than one, right?" he reminded her as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "So I know we'll manage everything."

"Yeah."

The teenagers were done from their crying stage, so they decided to enjoy each other's warmth for a moment.

Adrien was the first who broke the contact, only to cup Marinette's face and plant a chaste kiss on her lips. She frowned.

"Did you eat a Camembert, Kitty?"

"Well, what can I say?" he shrugged his shoulders and eyed his pouting kwami. "That's my comfort food."

She sat beside him with intertwined fingers.

Looking at their kwamis, she said. "We have to go home now."

They agreed silently.

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Adrien and Marinette walked outside the chateau and saw Sean sitting near the patio. Spotting them, he waved his hand.

"Why don't you two join me for breakfast?" the man told them.

"Ah, no. It's okay. We'll grab some food along the way. We need to ride the first train back to Paris." Adrien answered, earning a raised brow.

"Paris? I thought you're going to Saint-Clair?"

"Uh...there's an emergency at home, so we have no choice but to go back," Marinette responded.

The man hummed. Whether he read their lies or accepted their words as truths, he didn't mention it.

"We would like to express our gratitude for your hospitality again, Sean." the blond smiled, then looked around the premise. "And perhaps, we could extend our thanks to Madame as well."

He waved his hand nonchalantly. "Ah, don't worry about my mother. She's with some folks today doing the Chiverie, and that notorious chamber pot."

The teenagers couldn't help but grimaced at the thought, and at the same time pitied the newlyweds. Poor Gwen and Rodney.

"Once you two get married, better to have your honeymoon be somewhere outside France, like Venice for example. That way you'll be able to escape from your friends and family's pranks."

Horror engulfed the girl's face, but before she could say anything, her boyfriend spoke. "We'll take your suggestion as a future reference."

She squeaked, especially when he wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

Are her childhood dreams of marrying Adrien and lived in a house with their three kids and a dog - no, a hamster - scratch that, a cat, will come true?

Alya might have a field day.

"I can get you a lift if you want." the man suggested, then called one of the helpers who was cleaning last night's affairs. "Hey, Jacques! C'mere!"

A stout man around mid-twenties jogged towards them. "Yes, Monsieur?"

"Why don't you take our pickup, then drive these kids off to the train station?"

"As much as we would like to take your offer..." Marinette interrupted. "...but we're planning to drop by somewhere first before we take the train."

"Oh, I see. A souvenir." Sean commented, then looked at his helper. "Jacques?"

"As long as it's along our way, I don't mind," Jacques said. "So, where do you want to go first?"

The two eyed each other, then looked at their assigned driver with mixed expressions.

"Camembert."