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He was sick.
It was leukemia. The doctors were all kind eyes and reassuring smiles, but he could see in their concerned eyes and anxious whispers that they were more worried than they wanted him to know.
It wasn’t as if they hadn’t told him there was a chance he wouldn’t survive- obviously they explained that to him. But he had a feeling it was worse than they originally thought, and they weren’t sure if he could handle the news.
He wasn’t a little kid. He was fifteen years old. He could handle it.
And yeah, he knew that fifteen wasn’t very old and if he died now he would be missing out on basically an entire lifetime, but he could handle it.
She was hurt.
She was moved to the room next to his when he had been there for a little over a month. He was bored of sitting in bed watching TV, so he was up pacing around his room while reading a book. Movement past the window into the hall caught his attention, and he looked up from his book to see a nurse pushing a bed that held an unconscious girl who looked to be about his age. Her name was Marinette and she was in a car accident that left her in a coma, the nurse told him when he asked about her. She was healing up nicely, and the doctors had hope that she would wake up soon.
He went into her room that evening after the doctors and nurses left. He wasn’t sure why- he just felt as if he was supposed to be there. As if he was supposed to be with her.
Tentatively, he sat down in a chair next to her bed, not taking his eyes off her face. She had black hair with blue highlights, and freckles danced across her nose. She looked so peaceful as she slept.
“Um. Hi,” he said softly and awkwardly, not sure how to go about this. “I’m Adrien. I’m in the room next door. I, uh, I read somewhere online that coma patients can hear people when they talk to them, and I guess I just wanted to give it a try? I mean, they say the voices of loved ones telling familiar stories helps, and I know we don’t exactly know each other, but… I don’t know. I guess I just thought this might be nice somehow? I don’t… never mind. I’ll just… go back to my room.”
He stood and turned to the door to leave, and his heart jolted when he saw a doctor standing in the doorway watching him.
“Doctor Fu,” he said to the elderly doctor in surprise. “Sorry, I just- I don’t actually know what I’m doing in here, I just wanted-“
“Mr. Agreste,” Dr. Fu said, “I think you should talk to her.”
Adrien paused for a moment, processing what the doctor had said. “What? Why?”
With a twinkle in his eye, Dr. Fu gave Adrien a look that made him think the doctor might know something about him and this girl that he doesn’t. “I think it would be good for both of you.”
***
So he talked to her. He talked to her every night after her parents left- they sat with her for a few hours every day, but Adrien could never work up the nerve to talk to them. Another visitor she often got was a girl about the same age as them who wore glasses and had reddish-brown shoulder-length hair. He figured she was her friend, and as much as he wanted to talk to her, as much as he yearned for human contact with someone his own age who wasn’t comatose, he didn’t know how to explain why he had been talking to her unconscious friend every night.
He would tell Marinette about his family, his books, stories, politics, or whatever else was on his mind. He told her how worried he was when he could feel his health growing steadily worse with every passing day.
A few weeks after he first started talking to her, he was sitting in the chair next to her bed when her friend suddenly walked through the door.
She froze, surprised to see him. “Um, hi,” she said slowly, “I think I left something in here earlier.”
Adrien nodded. “Oh, okay. Uh, I’m Adrien, by the way.”
The girl nodded, watching him carefully. “I’m Alya.” Alya then started to move about the room in search of her missing possession, giving him the occasional distrustful glance.
“Are you a friend of Marinette’s?” Adrien asked awkwardly after a long silence.
“Yes,” Alya told him. “I’m her best friend, in fact. Are you a friend of Marinette’s?”
“Well, not exactly,” he admitted sheepishly. “I’m a patient here- my room is next door- and one of the doctors told me I should talk to her. He said it could be good for both of us, whatever that meant. So I usually come here at night and talk to her- I mean, it’s not like I really have anyone else to talk to.”
Alya turned slightly to look at him for a moment, her brow furrowed. “What about your friends and family?”
“Well,” Adrien said slowly, trying to figure out how to explain the situation. “My dad is super protective and really doesn’t even want me leaving the house, so I’ve been homeschooled my whole life and I’ve never really had many friends. Now that I’m in here, he comes to see me every weekend, but he always just seems… detached. Cold. I think he’s… I think he’s afraid. I don’t know. It’s just hard to talk to him when he’s like that.”
Suddenly Alya makes a triumphant noise and holds up a keychain with a ladybug charm dangling from it. “Found it!” She turns to face him. “Uh, sorry. That sucks.”
Adrien doesn’t say anything.
“What do you talk to her about?”
“Whatever’s on my mind. Sometimes I tell her stories.”
Alya nods. “Well, thank you. It’s nice of you to keep her company.”
Adrien nods and gives her a small smile.
“I’m gonna go,” she said eventually, “So you can get back to talking to her. Thanks again.”
Adrien nodded and turned to look at Marinette as Alya left the room.
“Adrien?”
He turned to the door to see her paused in the doorway. “Yeah?”
“I think I understand why that doctor thought talking to Marinette would be good for you.”
***
He continued to talk to Marinette, and sometimes Alya as well. Every now and then Alya would stop by his room to talk to him for a bit on the days she went to see Marinette.
One day someone else came with her: a teenage boy about their age who wore glasses and a red hat and had headphones hanging around his neck.
“Hey Adrien,” Alya greeted him, standing in the doorway. “This is Nino, a friend from school. Nino, this is Adrien.”
“Hey, dude,” Nino said.
The two talked for a while and became fast friends. Adrien had a sneaking suspicion Alya brought him along for Adrien to make a new friend, and he was grateful.
One day about two weeks later, Adrien was sitting in Marinette’s room chatting with Alya and Nino when he suddenly became overwhelmed by the thundering pain in his head. He doubled over in his chair, breathing hard with his eyes squeezed shut, and waited for the spots to clear and the pain to dissipate.
After a minute or so, he became aware of a hand on his back and Alya’s voice saying his name over and over again.
“Adrien? Adrien, are you okay?”
He nodded and slowly forced himself back into a sitting position. “Just a headache,” he said softly after a moment.
“That was not ‘just a headache,’” Alya said. “Nino went to get a nurse.”
“It really is just a headache,” he insisted, trying to ignore the persistent throbbing in his temples. “The headaches are frequent, but sometimes they’re just… really sudden and strong. I’m fine.”
He heard footsteps coming down the hall toward the room, and Nino entered with a nurse right behind him.
“Dude, are you okay?” Nino asked.
“I’m fine,” Adrien said, but the nurse made him go back to his own room and let her check his vitals anyway.
***
His health was getting worse. He was getting weaker.
The nurse forbade him from leaving his bed more than two hours a day, and when he did leave, he had to be sitting down as much as possible. She even brought him a wheelchair so he wouldn’t have to stand and walk to make his trips next door.
Nino and Alya visited him and Marinette every day. She had been in her coma for a little over two months by the time Adrien was in a wheelchair, and he could tell everyone seemed a little less hopeful.
Soon enough, Nino and Alya were Adrien’s best friends. He could hardly even remember life before them, and he was immensely glad to finally have some friends to talk to.
They would often talk about Marinette and what she was like. He would ask about her interests, personality, likes, dislikes, and everything else. They told him everything they knew about her, and the more he heard about her, the more he liked her.
He could only hope that one day soon she would wake up so that he could finally meet her for real.
One day while he was talking to them, he heard someone calling his name from next door. Nino went to see who it was, and Adrien could hear him telling the person that he was next door. After a moment, Nino reappeared in the doorway, followed by Adrien’s father.
“Hello, Father,” Adrien said, surprised to see him on a Tuesday.
“Adrien,” his father said sternly. “What are you doing in here?”
“I’m talking to Nino and Alya,” Adrien told him. “They’re my friends.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Alya said. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but my friend here- the one in the coma- she’s a huge fan of your work. You’re the person who inspired her to start designing clothes, actually. She would flip if she found out you were in the same room as her and she didn’t get a picture, even if she was unconscious through the whole thing. So, could I please get a picture of you with her?”
Hesitantly, the man nodded.
Adrien moved his wheelchair to the edge of the room to sit next to Nino while Alya took the picture of his father sitting next to the unconscious Marinette.
“I didn’t know Marinette was a fan of my father’s work,” he said to his friend.
“Well, I didn’t even recognize him. What’s your dad’s name?”
“Gabriel Agreste.”
“Oh, yeah, she worships the guy.”
Adrien smiled. “Small world, huh? And hey, all those times I asked about her, you guys never even told me she liked fashion.”
Nino merely shrugged.
“Adrien, you get in the picture too,” Alya instructed him.
So he did. Nino pushed his wheelchair into the shot for him and helped position it for the picture. After a minute, a nurse passing by asked if they wanted her to take the picture for them. Alya and Nino joined, and Gabriel left the shot so they could get one of just the four kids together. Adrien made a mental note to ask Alya for a copy of that picture.
***
Gabriel didn’t approve of Adrien’s new friends, but Adrien didn’t mind, because he didn’t expect him to approve.
His father rarely came to visit more than once a week, but these people came every day, so he didn’t care what his father thought about them.
***
Adrien got the news about three months after Marinette came to the hospital.
His doctor walked into his room carrying a folder full of papers with a grim look on his face.
He explained to him that the treatment wasn’t working and that he didn’t think there was much more they could do.
He told him they would continue to do their best to help him, but that at the moment, they saw no way he would survive this.
Adrien told Marinette before he told Alya and Nino. Somehow, he thought, she deserved to be the first to know.
He sat next to her bed, hesitantly held her hand in his, and softly told her that he was going to die.
He begged her to please wake up so he could meet her.
He begged her to wake up, even if it happened after he was gone.
***
In his final weeks, Adrien became weak and frail. He could hardly get himself out of bed, and he always had to wait to go to Marinette’s room until someone could help him into his wheelchair and push him there.
He was bruising and bleeding a lot more easily. His headaches were nearly constant. He was always tired. But he made himself go talk to Nino, Alya, and Marinette every day.
He continued to talk to them until his very last day on Earth.
***
Adrien passed away a month after the doctor told him the treatment wasn’t working.
It was peaceful; he went in his sleep.
Alya and Nino cried and comforted each other in Marinette’s room.
“What’s going on?” a soft voice suddenly asked them after a while.
Their heads snapped up to see a groggy Marinette staring at them.
She woke up mere hours after Adrien passed.
“Mari,” Alya sobbed, “You’re awake. You’re awake. I can’t- you’re awake.”
Nino went to get the doctor while Alya began to sob uncontrollably.
After a while, Alya calmed down and got to sit and talk with Marinette after the doctors left them alone.
“Alya,” Marinette said quietly at one point. “Where is he?”
Alya furrowed her brow. “Who? Your dad? Nino?”
Marinette shook her head and concentrated hard. “I can’t- I can’t remember who, but I think there was someone here. Someone I wanted to meet. He talked to me and told me stories. I can’t… I can’t remember his name.”
Alya’s breath hitched in her throat. “Was it… Adrien?”
Marinette’s eyes lit up, and she nodded. “Yes! Where’s Adrien?”
Alya felt tears start to well up in her eyes as she tried to swallow down the lump in her throat. “Mari… Adrien passed away this morning.”
Marinette stared at her for a moment in disbelief. “No, he… he can’t be…”
“I’m sorry, Marinette. I’m sorry you never got to really meet him.”
***
The next day, Alya brought Marinette a copy of the picture the nurse took of the four of them, and she got to see Adrien’s face for the first time.
She kept it with her, stored away in her wallet, in a desperate attempt to cling to those cloudy memories she had of the boy talking to her every day for months.
Although she never spoke to him and never really met him, she felt as if they had really been friends.
She felt as if they could have been something more.
***
She went to his funeral.
It was a simple, quiet, open-casket funeral. She was able to see him in person for the first time.
He looked so peaceful.
She wasn’t sure how she could cry for and mourn the loss of someone she had never met, but she did it anyway.