"What was that." Marinette breathed, leaning against her arms.

"What was what?" Tikki yawned softly, widening her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of her room.

"I just had the weirdest dream." Marinette slumped back into her bed, staring at her ceiling.

She wasn't new to nightmares. In fact, her first experiences as Ladybug gave her nightmares. They were pretty strange, and stupid, when she thought about them consciously. But this one felt real.

It was so vivid and clear.

And terribly strange.

She's seen storm akumas, but nothing like that before.

"What about?" Tikki asked carefully, concerned.

"An akuma." Marinette sighed, pushing herself backwards against her wall.

"Which one?" Tikki asked, watching as Marinette twiddled her fingers nervously.

"No....this one hasn't happened in real life." She looked over to Tikki, who's eyes widened at her statement.

"Really?"

"Yeah...." Marinette bit her lip, furrowing her brows.

"Maybe it's your nerves." The small red creature placed her delicate paw over her owners hand.

She didn't feel like an owner.

It was too early to wake up, and too late to fall asleep. So Marinette just laid down with her eyes closed shut, brain twisting.

Usually a dream wouldn't bother her this much, and usually by now, she would've forgotten about it.

But it was still clear.

What wasn't clear however, was who the akuma was.

She knew it was a she, judging by the people that had been around her.

She drifted through the possibility that maybe she was seeing some sort of flashback from a past Ladybug, however she found it hard to think that one could be true. It took place in Paris, modern day Paris. And the miraculous hadn't been activated in modern Paris until Marinette became Ladybug, and whoever had become Chat Noir.

The mystery of his identity leaked into her mind for a moment, before she pushed it away. There was no need to know who he was.

So if this wasn't the past, wasn't just a made up story, was it the future? Where Marinette couldn't find Tikki?

That worried her the most.

If she couldn't find Tikki, that meant she couldn't transform. But more importantly it meant that Tikki was lost.

Of course, Tikki was right next to her, in the same faking-sleeping state she was in. But her dream had felt so much like reality, almost like a memory.

Except it hadn't happened.

Not....yet?

Eventually, Marinette sat up, examining her leg to give her something to do.

She traced her fingers over the drawing Adrien had sketched onto her cast. She thought it was beautiful. But she couldn't understand why he had looked the way he did when he went about it.

He seemed so mischievous.

But what was so mischievous about the picture?

That was another thing she couldn't figure out.

When she finally got up, her mind continued to create and destroy situations and reasons for many things. Her dream, Adrien and his drawing, even her own physical body.

She didn't feel ugly, no. She just felt.....there. Like she just existed, and that was all.

And these thoughts made her day go by in a blur.

And over and over again, she tried to recall things she had done just a few moments before, to find she could only think about those random questions in her head.

She felt misplaced, unfocused.

So when she went to go sit on her balcony alone, she hadn't noticed the black blur coming towards her.

"Hello."

Marinette nearly jumped from her seat. Of course, she couldn't with her unfortunate handicap.

She had been staring in the direction he came from, yet hadn't seen him at all.

It was like her eyes weren't working.

"Chat Noir?" She felt her eyebrows lower.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, looking around for any sign of an akuma.

"Oh I was just out, you know....." He glanced over to the side, scratching the back of his neck.

He couldn't tell her that he wanted to see her because he loved her. Marinette didn't know Chat.

He knew she was Ladybug, but she didn't know he knew that. So, he needed to act as a stranger.

It was complicated.

"You were out.... now you're on my balcony huh?" She joked, the ghost of a smile appearing for a moment.

He loved seeing her smile.

"Yeah, you seemed pretty chill." He met her joking manner, like they had been friends for years.

And they had.

"Something you need?" She asked, glancing around her to make sure there was nothing to give her away.

Tikki has already ducked out of sight, a skill she was sure all Kwamis had become masters of.

"Not quite, just wanted to talk to someone. Gets a little lonely out here all alone." He admitted casually.

"I agree." She nodded, staring off into the darkening sky.

"You look lost." He spoke quietly, almost in a whisper.

"What do you mean?" She didn't mean to sound so defensive, but her voice had come off that way.

"You just seem like there's something on your mind. I'm a great listener you know, two sets of ears and all." He smiled, one of the black cat ears on top of his golden hair twitching.

She pushed her body upwards, shooing away his hand when he tried to help her over to the edge of her balcony. She hated this feeling of helplessness her leg had given her.

"I just..... I don't know, really." She sighed, leaning against her railing.

What was she supposed to tell him? So much was bothering her, she didn't even know where to being with it all. It was like she knew exactly what she was upset about, but she was staring at it too close. She couldn't make out the bigger issue at hand.

"I get that feeling sometimes." He leaned on the railing next to her, meeting her gaze in the sky.

"What's the first thing that comes to mind, about what's bothering you?" He asked.

The first thing? The most recent thing, she guessed. Her dream. And so she spoke.

"I'm scared."

He looked at her. Like really looked at her. Marinette, scared? Those words didn't sound right together.

"Scared?" He repeated.

She simply nodded.

"Of?" He continued.

"That's what I don't know..." She leaned deeper into the railing, her arms feeling suddenly heavy, with the weight of whatever was bugging her.

"I just feel... worried... lost...anxious? I feel..." She tried, but her words fell short. Nothing seemed to match what she felt.

She felt so full, yet so empty. So lost, yet so aware.

"Do you know what caused it?" He asks.

Adrien.

It's the first thing that comes to her mind. But was it Adrien? Maybe she had always felt this way, she just hadn't noticed it before. It was too prominent now to ignore.

Not only did she question herself, but she questioned those around her. Did they actually care?

She knew for sure she cared for them.... but what about the other way around. Maybe she had gone silent for too long, maybe that's why he was staring at her so intently.

She couldn't read his mind, but she could think about what he could be thinking.

She must be crazy.

She agreed.

She wished her mind would simply stop for a moment, let her think about something worth thinking about, or at least something that made her happy.

"I don't know." She answered.

It was the truth, so why did it feel like a lie?

"Marinette?" His mask bent as his eyebrows creased, her gaze drifting between the buildings in the city.

"I think I-"

But her words were completely cut off by the shattering of glass, and the screech of a child.

There was no purple butterfly to blame this on, only the sick, twisted actions of a human. A purely hate-driven man and what appeared to be his wife.

The man held a small child by his neck, while the woman threatened the parents of the child.

It had all happened in front of a store, where a bullet was shot into the display window.

It was these kinds of things, that were the worst. Because no lucky charm could fix the damages done by a human without an akuma.

"Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm scared..." She whispered, as Chat dashed off and calmed the scene in the blink of an eye.

"Because that's what people can do, and they do that all on their own."