Plagg, detransform!" Adrien muttered as he hid in a dark alley concealed from wandering eyes. He kept his eyes trained at his feet as he felt his kwami study him.

"What was that ?" Plagg asked amused. He had had thousands of Chat Noir in his care before, but Chat Noir's and Ladybug's love square issues still amused him. Although he had to admit, this Ladybug was pretty stubborn on the whole identity thing and he knew if frustrated Adrien. Plagg, already knew her identity, but he couldn't tell him obviously, that would make it too easy. Plus, if he was being completely honest, he did respect Marinette's privacy decision. There was obviously a reason for her to keep her identity a secret. Over the many long years he had learned that there was always a reason. So he kept quiet. Although, he still thinks Tikki got off easy with Marinette; at least she didn't get the drama queen with an inferior complex and daddy issues. Oh course, Tikki has had to deal with pretty difficult Ladybugs' in the past just as he had to deal with Chat Noirs'. He just hoped that this time Ladybug and Chat Noir would have a happy ending.

"I-I don't know," Adrien muttered, interrupting Plagg's musings, "Why do you think she was crying?"

"That wasn't exactly what I was asking, but if I had to take a guess, I'd say she was probably in some pain." Plagg said quietly, serious for once.  He continued on softly;

"Although, you know, I wouldn't say that all of that was just pain from falling off a roof and not taking her pain meds..."Adrien jerked as he looked up at his uncharacteristically serious kwami, Plagg held his gaze before breaking away slightly to tease the boy and lighten the mood.

"I was going to ask about the whole cuddling thing? Or maybe you could explain why you stayed for nearly 45 minutes when you told me we were just going to drop in and check on her, that it would take five minutes tops? Or what about the whole "adorable smile that I love"? Or maybe you could explain the disgustingly sweet forehead kiss when you promised her that you would be back later?" Plagg's smug smile getting cockier with each new question that he asked.

Adrien sputtered.

"T-that is...that was... you have got to be kitten me...I wasn't...look, I'm just worried about Mari is all. I mean she fell, er, jumped off a roof. "

"Since when do you call Marinette "Mari "?" Plagg chuckled.

"It's just a nickname!" He replied indignantly as he glared at Plagg.

"More like a name of endearment."

Adrien sputtered again while his disloyal Kwami laughed at his obvious discomfort. Calming down, Plagg asked the one question Adrien had been trying to push to the back of his mind;

"What about Ladybug?"

There.

There it was.

His lovely, black-spotted, partner who had stolen his heart. His kind, caring, brave, selfless partner. His partner who saved Paris without a thought about her own safety or happiness. His partner that made mistakes, but always tried to correct them. The partner that was only human but at the same time was the best that she could be. The partner with eyes that seemed to convey the different hues of blue of the skies at the same time they seemed to convey the depths of the blues of the oceans. His beautiful partner.The partner that he loved.

Adrien took a deep breath and told his Kwami the only thing he could; the truth.

"I don't know, Plagg. I just really don't." He felt Plagg scrutinize him as he avoided Plagg's narrowed eyes by looking up.

"Well, we better be getting you to school, you've already missed two periods. Besides if anyone saw you in this dark alley, talking to yourself,  they'd probably would think you're crazy. You have cheese in your bag, right?"

Plagg squealed with glee as Adrien answered his question with a hmm and a nod. He dived into Adrien's bag excitedly, leaving the befuddled boy alone with his thoughts. Unfortunately, the walk to school ended too abruptly for Adrien to truly organize his thoughts, and before he knew it he was standing at the door of his classroom. He sighed and took a breath before entering. He inattentively apologized to his teacher, giving her a dazzling smile before taking his seat. To his great relief, she didn't say anymore about his tardiness, instead turning back to teach her lesson. He muttered an excuse about a photo-shoot to Nino's questioning look and pretended to pay attention to the lesson.  This was physics, and the material the teacher was introducing was stuff he could do in his sleep. Instead, he let his thoughts wander to questions his kwami posed earlier, questions that had been swirling around in his head since he had made his little visit.

Why had Mari been crying, no, sobbing? He agreed with Plagg, the pain that was laced through her eyes wasn't just from her broken and bruised body. Thinking back onto it, he had never expected to find Mari bawling. He had seen a wide array of emotions from Marinette, mostly gleaned knowledge from observing from afar, but he had never seen her in such a raw or... vulnerable state of mind. He had never expected to find her so...hurt, so destroyed.  Seeing her in such a desolate state, wrenched his heart out; And how could he not give it to her, when her tortured eyes begged for some salvation, salvation that her pride would never let her lips ask for? His actions had seemed right at the time.  One look at her and his body moved before the logical side of his brain could react. And once he was beside her, once he was holding her, everything just seemed to fit together. She was so soft and warm and...right. The frantic beating of her heart, slowly calming down to meet his. Her choked breathing changing from shaking to calm. Heart beats and breathing one...their indefinite, transcendentally spaces within the universe, criss-crossing and weaving together to become one.   Everything about her just seemed... right,  Adrien didn't know how to properly explain it.

And why had she been so embarrassed?He remembered how she wouldn't look at him, how she kept avoiding his gaze and hiding. Almost as if she was ashamed...ashamed to show any weakness, to show vulnerability, to showing a part of herself that she didn't dare show the world, to show that she wasn't' okay.  Adrien drew in a sharp breath, and Nino, startled, put his hand on Adrien's shoulder in concern. Adrien gave Nino a small smile and a thumbs up to show that he was fine and they both turned back to the lecture. Adrien turned back to his thoughts. It shook him to realize that Marinette was living behind a mask just as he was.  Perhaps everyone was.

There was also the small detail that he had hugged her and comforted her and cuddled her and held her. And there was the other small detail that he had stroked her hands and her face and her hair. Oh and he had kissed her and connected with her on a highly personal and intimate level, a connection that he has never ever experienced before and it confused him greatly. But all just small details. Yup, just small details that totally didn't make him blush so hard that he had to pretend to grab something from his bag to cool down. Small, insignificant details.

And he still wanted to know why she had been crying. He was going to ask her as he was heading out but her eyes had still held so much torment and fear, silently begging him not to ask... so he hadn't. In fact the entire time, she had been silently begging for him to not ask her questions. He understood. So often had he avoided questions that he didn't want to answer or couldn't answer with a fake smile, begging anyone who could see through it to just continue on their way. The misery, the pain, the suffering. He understood it all; the silent screams for escape and the steady whispers for hope. He understood but he didn't like it. He didn't like to think about Marinette going through the same pain he puts himself through every day. He didn't like it. And goddammit, he didn't ever want to see her in such pain ever again. 

Suddenly, a girl in red and black crossed his mind, but he pushed that to the back of his mind, that caused confusion too. 

Adrien's thoughts ran around and around in his mind throughout the day; much too aware of the absence of the blue-eyed, pig-tailed cutie who normally occupied the seat behind him,who was now, instead, occupying his thoughts.

Author's note: So this chapter didn't go as planned.

Yeah. It just didn't. I guess that's what I get for trying to actually plan a plot for a chapter. Psht.

However on a better note, I plan on trying to write three chapters this weekend, in honor of Valentine's Day. The next chapter will be pure MariChat fluff ( I think, I hope) and I will upload that one as soon as I can. I also wanted to thank everyone who reads this story. I've gotten such positive and encouraging feedback and I love all of you guys' comments! I read every one and fangirl and just oh my goodness. I really love you all, I never thought much about my writing until now. :) Honestly, I don't know how to respond other than saying "Thank you soooo much." or some variation. And I know it probably seems impersonal or repetitive but I just don't have the vocabulary to properly express my gratitude. But thank you, thank you, thank you, for reading this little story, for liking it, for commenting on it, for voting on it, or even just acknowledging its existence. Thank you so much.

So have a good whatever (morning, night, evening, afternoon, whatever. I don't discriminate :) )

Love,

Cutesylittledemon

P.S. Have a good Valentine's Day!

P.P.S. I have noticed that the parallelism in my chapters is like so consistent its bad.  I re-read my entire story and I'm like yup, parallelism. My running parallelisms might as well be a running gag by now, like this is ridiculous.