"Chloe?" Adrien pockets his keys as he looks around the foyer of his house. "Chloe, I know you're home. Please don't make this harder than it already is."

Chloe appears at the top of the stairs, staring down at him, "Adrikins, home so soon?" She coos.

His eyes narrow, "We need to talk. You need to listen to me."

"Oh, I heard you loud and clear, Adrikins. When you said we were through. That you were leaving me for some slut you just met." She seethes, her teeth clenched at the end.

"I never said-"

"You didn't have to." She begins her descent down the staircase, pulling out the folded piece of paper, "I gave her a proper talking to, nonetheless."

"Chloe, I never cheated on you. Nothing happened before I called off the wedding, I swear." Adrien defends, standing his ground.

She stops a few steps from the floor, "You can't call off our wedding, Adrikins, don't you understand?" She holds up the paper as if examining it, "One of the great things about technology, really," a devilish smirk crosses her previously cold face, "everything is traceable." She flicks the paper at him, it slowly drifts to the floor between them.

His eyes follow the paper on the ground, then back up to her twisted face. "What did you do?" He accuses.

"Nothing you can prove." She starts her way back up the stairs, "I warned her, Adrikins. I did. It's too bad you had to bring her back into this." She turns back and leers at him, "I guess we'll just have to find a new wedding planner."

Adrien's breath catches in his throat. He runs up the stairs and cuts her off, "What did you do?!" He demands, all the while trying to keep himself from trembling with fear for Marinette.

She raises an eyebrow, "Say the wedding is back on. Tell me that we will be wed, and then maybe I'll think about stopping what's been set in motion."

He shakes his head, "No." He starts to back down off the stairs, "I will never marry you. You're not the person I thought you were." He crosses the foyer and opens the front door.

"Then you haven't been paying attention." He hears her say as he shuts the door behind him.

He runs around the side of his house, "Plagg! Transform me!"

In a flash of green, he shoots out over the streets of Paris, making a bee line for Marinette's boutique.

He opens his communicator, "Please, please, please," he prays, but she doesn't pick up.

Chat forces himself to keep his head clear, battling all the horrible things that could be happening to Marinette. His eyes blur over with tears. He wipes them away without missing a step.

His heart stops when he spots a cloud of billowing smoke rising ahead of him. He pushes himself faster.

The sound of fire engines ring in his ears. He touches down in the street as firefighters form a barrier around the inflamed boutique. The heat radiating off the building singes his face.

"It's too dangerous", "Stay back!", "Is there anyone inside?", "It's Chat Noir!"

The voices of the firefighters and onlookers penetrate his dazed state.

He scans the crowd of staff huddled by the ambulances, with no sight of her. "I'm coming, Marinette." Chat whispers to himself. He takes a step back before getting a running start, throwing himself through the already shattered front windows.

He keeps his head down, his eyes squinting through the smoke. He covers his mouth and nose with one arm and feels his way through the smoke with the other. He tries to take a deep breath but feels the smoke sting his throat, "Mar-cough-Marinette!?" He calls out blindly, trying to yell above the crackling roar of the fire.

Chat blinks hard, his eyes watering from the heat and smoke.

A small red blob comes into his vision, "Chat Noir! Over here!" A tiny voice squeaks out, "Hurry!"

He pushes his way past desks and tables already blackened with soot, avoiding the areas where the ceiling has caved in, following the floating red blob.

He coughs hard as he reaches the doorway to Marinette's office, he leans against the frame, trying to catch his breath.

Unable to see through the smoke, he gets down on the floor and squints, spying the vague shape of a body on the floor opposite him. "M-marinette, can you hear me?" He calls out as he crawls towards her. He tries to blink away the soot in his eyes as he nears her. As his eyes focus, he realizes that she's not moving.

His heart drops as he tries to check her breathing, not picking up anything.

"Chat!" Tikki cries, directing his attention to Mari's ankle, handcuffed to her desk.

He crawls over, fighting back real tears, "Ca-cataclysm!" He croaks, disintegrating the pair of handcuffs.

Coughing, he moves to a kneeling position, smoldering papers and sketches surround him. He scoops up Marinette, holding her motionless body close to his chest.

He gets to his feet, still crouching to avoid the worst of it. Tikki flies out in front of him, guiding him through the now almost unnavigable first floor.

"This way!" She cries, leading him to a backdoor.

Chat's heart pounds as he dodges his way across the floor, fighting his way through the smoke and debris.

In one final push, he bursts through the backdoor, the smoke pouring out behind him. He struggles for a clean breath, gasping, coughing.

Once he catches his breath, as best as he can, he leaps up onto a rooftop a few buildings down from the remains of the boutique. He stumbles on the landing but regains his footing.

He looks down at Marinette, her head cradled against his chest; eyes closed, lips slightly parted. Her normally pale complexion taking on a slight blue-ish hue behind the soot.

He lays her down on the roof, checking her breathing again. Nothing.

Not giving into panic, he starts performing CPR. "Please, please, please..." he murmurs as he starts compressions. He tilts her chin up and breathes deeply into her lungs. Her chest rises but falls on its own volition.

He repeats...

And repeats...

And repeats...

He smooths back her charred hair as he breathes into her again. "Please..." he whispers, as their lips part, the light draining from his eyes, "Don't leave me...I've just found you,"

He repeats.

One last set of compressions. He leans down and attempts to breathe life back into her, giving her every last bit of air that he has.

He watches her chest fall in dismay.

No longer able to hold back the sobs, his body shakes from their release. He pulls her head onto his lap, holding her hand. "I'm sorry" he wails, "I shouldn't have come back to Paris, I was stupid to think that I could," he kisses her hand softly, trying to memorize everything about this feeling, "I love you."

Suddenly, he feels her finger move against his palm.

He inhales sharply, then noticing her chest rise and fall, struggling for shallow breaths.

"Mari, can you hear me?" He begs, "Squeeze my hand, squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

Her fingers weakly grasp at his hand, but it's enough to make Chat the happiest man in Paris. "You're going to make it, you're gonna be just fine, Bugaboo." He picks her up in his arms and kisses her forehead.

The firefighters douse the last of the flames as Chat leaps down from above with Marinette in his arms. "She's alive" He says gratefully, handing her off to a paramedic.

A few onlookers clap and try to get Chat's attention as he watches Marinette get loaded onto an ambulance and drive away.

~~

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come back..."

A familiar voice fades in and out of the fog clogging Marinette's mind.

"I love you..."

'Adrien?' She feels a sharp sting in her chest, burning from the smoke. Her hand twitches from the sensation.

"Mari, can you hear me...squeeze my hand..."

She struggles to gain control over her own limbs, easing her muscles into moving, feeling the weight of a hand against hers.

She feels a kiss on her forehead. The weightlessness of flying through the air.

"She's alive..."

Her body shifts to a solid surface. The sound of ambulance doors closing, and a heart monitor, which lulls her back into a fog.

~~