Archive of Our Own

Something About You/The Well

Nathalie drummed her fingers on the glass surface of the desk, the chime of her nails crisply splitting through the atelier's silence. A number of reports had been sent to her by the production coordinator detailing the meetings that had taken place throughout the day, and she was supposed to be taking note of anything particularly important. The problem was that her mind kept sailing away from her, and every sentence she read was immediately forgotten. When her attention snapped back she blinked rapidly at the computer screen, trying to make sense of the words that had, for several unproductive minutes, been nothing more but a meaningless mess of type.

She lifted her fingernails off the glass and rubbed her temples, as if the tight pressure around her eyes was going to help her focus more. But in a matter of seconds, her thoughts had once again thrown open the doors and risen to the top level of the house, only to pause at the threshold of a room where she knew she'd be of much less use – if only she could quit getting distracted from the job she was meant to be doing now.

A huff of annoyance stirred some of the dust on the screen. Summer sunshine surged brutally through the windows behind her, illuminating the veil of motes that she wiped away with the sleeve of her blouse. Nathalie took notice of her dim reflection, and the report faded into oblivion completely as she absorbed the sight of her affected countenance.

Had she looked this worried the whole time? Her thin brows hung low over her eyes. She could see the tension in her jaw and in her shoulders. She rolled them back, took a deep breath and tried to release her anxiety in the steady exhale.

Everything, she told herself, was fine.

She jolted in surprise as the atelier door swung open. A moment later, Gabriel had taken his place at the front of the room, activating his own computer. Assessing his appearance, she found it closely resembled her own, possessing the same rigidity of features and darkness of apprehension in his gaze. Nathalie found herself staring far too long, and pried her eyes away, back to her screen, back to her work, which she shook back to life with a jitter of her mouse.

It might have been polite to ask the question on her mind under different circumstances, and with the right tone of voice, it would have even been sympathetic, but she couldn't bring herself to speak. She could guess the answer, and he knew that, so she saved her breath and desperately set her mind on the task at hand, pinching her wrist if she ever caught her mind wandering again.

She'd made it through about a page when Gabriel, unprovoked, announced, "She used it again."

Nathalie glanced at him. Her pen dropped on the desk as she chose to give him her undivided attention. It wasn't her place to bring the topic up herself, but for the last several weeks, Gabriel had been confiding in her more than usual, and it seemed to help him, if even just a little bit.

After meeting her eyes across the room, he sighed and squinted into the sunlight. "Last night, apparently. You didn't notice anything suspicious, did you?"

Nathalie rolled her chair away from the computer. "No, sir," she responded. "At least by the time I'd left, she didn't seem to be thinking of doing anything you wouldn't like."

"She's awfully good at hiding things like that," Gabriel replied. He pressed his fingertips up under his glasses. "She can't keep it from me forever with her being nearly unable to stand half the time."

"It isn't half the time."

"Does feel like it. I just wish I could see through that innocent mask before she put on that ridiculous thing." Half to himself, Gabriel cursed and exclaimed, "Why doesn't she listen to me?"

Nathalie gazed at him in an understanding silence. They hadn't known at first that Emilie's magical brooch was somehow damaged, but after a couple weeks of troubling symptoms, Gabriel had traced her bouts of illness to her use of the miraculous's power. A month ago at this point, he had asked his wife to stop messing with it, but she'd defied him now enough times to count on two hands. Nathalie couldn't comprehend it. Mrs. Agreste's ambitions had led her this far, but what once seemed to Nathalie a bizarre and distant dream was growing darker with every instance she disregarded her own health and her husband's terrified admonishments.

"She can barely stay awake right now," Gabriel grumbled. "All that effort, and what for?"

Nathalie had asked Emilie the same thing about a year ago, albeit with much less anger. She'd tossed her blonde curls in response and said like it was obvious, "For magic, of course."

"Magic."

"Are you telling me that if you had miraculous power at your fingertips, you wouldn't use it?"

Feeling a little foolish, Nathalie had replied, "Well, unless I needed to."

"It's not about needing to. No one needs that power," Emilie told her. Her gaze had a way of making Nathalie feel scolded, even as it shimmered with gentleness. "But it exists for a reason, doesn't it? Why not for me?"

But it couldn't be for her, Nathalie thought, staring at her boss as he ran his hands anxiously through his hair. If it was for her, she wouldn't be sick. It was like the magic was trying to spit her out, and she wouldn't take the hint.

"Damn it!" Gabriel snapped, the pounding of his fist against his computer and bringing her back to the present. His flare of rage caught her off guard in the moment, but it was something she was beginning to get used to. A pang of sympathy pressed into her heart. "I wish we never found those damned jewels."

Nathalie remembered with crystalline clarity, the day that Gabriel had called her into the atelier following a lengthy discussion with Emilie, who, upon watching the assistant enter, folded her arms and glared wordlessly at the floor. Gabriel was the one that told her everything. Gabriel was the one who asked her to help them in their research to find the last known whereabouts of the miraculous. Gabriel was the one who, when Nathalie traced the location to the Tibetan mountains, gripped her firmly on the shoulder and thanked her with enough sincerity to warm her entire face. Gabriel was the one who trusted her, even though this was Emilie's pursuit.

Her stomach dropped. Quietly, Nathalie said, "I'm sorry, sir."

He glanced up, red in the face, but surprised by her response. "What? What for?"

"I'm sorry I –" She wrung her hands, lowering her head in guilt. "I wish I never led you to them."

At once, the anger ebbed from his eyes. His clenched fist relaxed and spread across his computer screen as he stared through the room with slightly parted lips, his response clearly hanging in his mind before he spoke it. "Nathalie, don't," he murmured softly.

"I should have asked more questions, maybe," she said, pivoting her chair towards the window, "or I should have trusted my instinct that this was something that just…shouldn't be messed with."

"Even if you'd trusted it, there was nothing you could have done." She saw him walking towards her out of the corner of her eye. "You know Emilie. She's a living flame. When she sets her mind to something, there's nothing anyone can do about it. As soon as I involved you, you were doing only what you could." He'd made it to her desk, looking down at her apologetically. "Nathalie, there is absolutely nothing to blame yourself for. I shouldn't have roped you into this in the first place. If I hadn't, maybe we'd still be getting nowhere, but at least Emilie wouldn't be –" His voice caught in his throat momentarily, "—sick."

She bravely met his eyes to find them gleaming brightly at her under the sunshine. Through the pale blue glow was something soft and earnest, and also sharp with pain. She remembered the look he gave her as he told her what he and Emilie had always been after, doubt swimming in their depths, nearly concealed, but closer to the surface, something genuine, something kind. Nathalie had been gripped by confusion then, unsure of what to make of this bewildering mission, this childish dream that, in the mind of an adult mother, felt a lot less childish and a lot more unsettling despite her otherwise amiable disposition. Magic – she'd narrowed her eyes. Miraculous. Superheroes. Order of Guardians. It had sounded ridiculous. And then it sounded gravely serious. Emilie finally got over her reluctance to let anybody else in on her little secret, and she had a way of making anything seem reasonable, seem imperative. This was huge, and somehow Nathalie had to find it in herself to believe she had a place in any of it?

Well, she found her place, and it seemed to only make things worse, but the sincerity with which he watched her now gave her the permission to free herself from the guilt.

Nathalie asked him a daring question, a question that stung the back of her throat. She rose from her chair and looked at him at eye-level, mirroring his stance. "Sir," she breathed, her shadow falling over his feet, "Why did you involve me? Why did you trust me with something like this?"

Her thoughts burned through a number of responses that would have made more sense than what he eventually said. Because you're a diligent employee. Because you've been working with me for eight years. Because you've demonstrated your loyalty to this family, and we know we can rely on you for anything.

But Gabriel's face changed, and he gazed at her like he was seeing her for the very first time, trying to get to know a stranger in the blink of an eye. She remembered what he told her after she'd agreed to help them, after Emilie had allowed her natural warmth to bleed through her cold exterior, shaken Nathalie's hand and quit the atelier, leaving her and Gabriel alone to continue their day of work: "That was the only time I've ever managed to change her mind."

Now, a curious half-smile appeared on his face, and he replied, "I don't know."

Nathalie was surprised by the non-answer, surprised that Gabriel Agreste had no logical explanation to justify himself, to her of all people, about her of all people.

He turned around and added, soft enough that she had to strain to hear, "There's just something about you."

///

"Do you feel well enough to eat with us tonight?"

"Oh, of course." She brought her hand up to his cheek, her touch gentle and reassuring. "Don't fret, love. You think I'm worse off than I am."

"I'm only making sure."

Emilie smiled at him. Her entire countenance, from the lift of her lips to the rose in her cheeks to the emerald gleam of her fine, slanted eyes, was radiant. Her blonde hair spilled delicately over her shoulders in a spill of pale gold. Even while sick, she was lovely. It made him wonder from time to time if he truly was overreacting.

That morning, however, Emilie had never risen out of bed. She woke up coughing, and Gabriel forbade her from leaving the room until she felt one hundred percent better. She had a tendency to ignore him and get up anyway, but what most worried him was that today, she had listened. Today, she didn't think to hide her symptoms. That was more telling than anything.

She seemed better now. She hadn't coughed once since he'd entered the room to check on her, but she laid propped up against her pillows, her lower half still tangled in the sheets. She hadn't gotten up. Gabriel tried to have faith in her words.

With his fingertip, he traced the stitching in the quilt folded at the foot of the bed. "Adrien asked how you were this morning," he said.

"Did he?"

"Yes, a couple times."

"And what did you tell him?"

"That there's nothing to worry about. You didn't sleep well. You're getting some extra rest." Gabriel peered at her over his glasses. "Seeing you at dinner should put his mind at ease, but…"

"But?"

"But Emilie, he's noticing something is wrong."

"Nothing is wrong," she replied matter-of-factly, and he cringed. "Gabriel, darling, don't give me that look. What do you expect? It's magic, isn't it? I'm sure it takes a lot of time for the body to get used to."

"My love, I'm pretty sure it's broken."

"No, it works." Emilie's eyes glittered. "It works fabulously. You've seen what it can do."

"There seem to be small abrasions in the—"

Her expression turned sharp. "Clearly, physical damage does nothing to hinder the usefulness of the magic, Gabriel, and I've told you many times already, I'd prefer to not keep having this conversation."

He clamped his mouth shut. It was in moments like this that Emilie revealed her concern for herself. He could only assume she was aware that whatever the brooch was doing to her, it wasn't normal. He figured it was best to avoid troubling her and drop the subject. If there was anything Emilie didn't want to admit, it was her fear. He returned to the prior subject. "I hope you accomplish what you need to very soon," he murmured, "Because I would hate for us to have to keep lying to Adrien. Even Nathalie has had to give some excuses for us. And I forget he isn't a little boy anymore."

"Oh, I do too," she said, the annoyance absent from the tone now. Emilie reached forward and clasped Gabriel's hand. "He's grown so quickly. I can hardly believe it."

He smiled at her gently. "Neither can I. He's just like you, my love, in so many ways."

Emilie beamed.

They turned their heads to the door as a firm but polite knock cracked through the room. Gabriel invited the newcomer to enter, and in walked Nathalie, carrying a small tray and two steaming tea cups on its porcelain surface.

"Thank you, Nathalie," Gabriel said. His assistant set the tray on the bedside table and handed each of them a cup. Emilie took a sip right away and smiled as she swallowed the hot drink, feeling the way it eased the persistent burn of her throat. Her eyes fluttered up to Nathalie before she gave a grateful dip of her head.

"You're welcome," Nathalie replied, hands gripped behind her back. Clinically, she added, "Feel better, Mrs. Agreste."

She spun on her heels and departed, closing the bedroom door softly behind her.

Emilie took another long sip as Gabriel blew on his own cup. After swallowing, she remarked, "I've always liked her."

"Nathalie?"

"Yes. She's a lifesaver."

Gabriel nodded in agreement. "She's a great assistant. I couldn't ask for a better one."

"I'm glad you managed to change my mind about trusting her with all of this," Emilie admitted. She combed a set of fingers through the ends of her curls.

"She works hard," Gabriel said. "She's reliable. Passionate about what she does. And she really cares about us." He looked into the dark surface of his drink, felt the warmth of it in his hands. "That means a lot."

"Yes, but even more than that…" Emilie lowered her voice just slightly, as if she was unconsciously worried that Nathalie, despite being halfway back to the atelier by now, could still somehow hear her. "She doesn't ask too many questions, and when she does, she doesn't press. Even when we first told her everything, she just stood there, took it all in. I remember the way she nodded her head, like you'd just asked her to write an email." Emilie demonstrated, her vivid features going flat as she crisply bobbed her chin one, two times. "I feel like I could tell her anything and she'd just…absorb it. She's like a sponge. It's nice to have someone like that around, someone who doesn't get phased by anything. Anybody else would have treated us like madmen, or lost their own damn mind trying to make sense of everything. But not Nathalie. Really, I don't think we could have gotten luckier."

Gabriel blinked at his wife, at a loss for words for several moments while she brought her cup back to her lips. He agreed that they were fortunate to have Nathalie, that there was nobody better to have at their side at a time like this, but something agitated him about Emilie's assessment. He found himself frowning at her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I think Nathalie's more sensitive than you believe," he answered.

Emilie seemed surprised by this. "Then, I'm impressed. She's good at hiding it."

"Well, she's not like you. You wear your heart on your sleeve," Gabriel said. He leaned over and set his cup on the tray. "So does Adrien. But Nathalie, she's a deep-feeling person. She processes things intensively, and she holds on to them. That's how she thinks too." He set a hand on Emilie's leg as his mind drifted back several years in time. "I remember when she first started working with us. Every time I told her to do something for the first time, even something complicated, she would listen and ask no questions. I felt at first that she wasn't hearing me, wasn't taking it in. But she does. And she applies it. She got the hang of everything very quickly, you remember, because she works through it deeply, internally."

Emilie, for some reason, seemed put off by his description. "Hm," she mumbled. "I didn't realize I had her so wrong."

Her eyes flicked across the room. On the dresser sat an antique jewelry box, and Gabriel knew that inside, she kept the two magic brooches in velvet pouches hidden beneath the removable compartments. A couple fingers brushed the space between her collarbones absent-mindedly.

One corner of her lips turned up and didn't reach her eyes. "I think I'd prefer if that wasn't the case."

"Emilie?"

"For the record, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being one who listens, you know. I think that's useful, particularly to us. And that doesn't take away from any of her other great qualifications does it? Tireless work ethic, eclectic skillset, high intelligence—"

"Profound interiority. Personal opinions."

"Now you're making me nervous," Emilie laughed. "What's your point? Are you telling me she might think we're crazy after all?"

"Any sane person should think that we're crazy," Gabriel replied.

His wife's eyes cooled. "Gabriel, would she think of telling anyone?"

"No." He was certain. "She wants to help us."

"Oh, this is why I like sentimonsters," grumbled Emilie, glaring at her reflection in her cup. "They can't think for themselves."

"Emilie."

"I'm joking," she warned. "This unsettles me, Gabriel. Don't you understand my concern?"

Gabriel turned away, unable to keep himself from scowling. He faced the bedroom door, listened to Emilie take another sip of her tea. Then, she sighed and dropped her head against her pillows. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hand reach over to place her cup on the tray beside his.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know we're in a precarious place. You only want to make sure everything is going to work out for us."

He heard the smile in her voice when she murmured, "Thank you." A moment later, she added, "I know I wasn't wrong to trust you, love. I hope I'm not wrong to trust her."

"You're not." Gabriel whirled back around to say it.

She nodded. "Good."

He left her to rest after that and returned to the atelier in time to phone-in to a meeting. Nathalie acknowledged him with a quick wave of her hand, not looking up from whatever it was she was briskly typing.

A sponge, Emilie had compared her to. Gabriel shook his head at that. She was more like a well. Deep, grounded, important…

Deal with the Intensity/See You Weak

She wondered how long it would take before she was the only thing left standing.

"Sir?"

Maybe it was best to banish all thoughts on the matter and continue floating through this empty space without a word of comment. Do her duty. Circle along the edges of this miserable microcosm and seal its weary walls. Keep the grief and the pain and the promises from bursting through the cracks and spilling into a world where there was matter, and there was life, and there was anything more than thin air and feeling.

Without waiting for any kind of welcome, Nathalie entered. She squinted her eyes to adjust to the darkness still shrouding the room. A brilliant late summer afternoon brightened the city and the rest of the Agreste mansion, but thick curtains still drawn across the windows blocked most of the warm white light from entering. Summer only glowed just faintly along the back wall, concealed from view, concealed from touch.

Nathalie uttered not a word as she crossed from the door to the bed. She'd paused once on the way there to readjust a rug with her foot that had been askew, and then proceeded. She set the plate of food she was holding on the bedside table, replacing the one she had left earlier for breakfast, which was completely untouched. Even the fork was angled in the exact same direction it had been when she set it down, towards the clock whose reading burned through the dark. It was 1 PM.

The only thing on the table that had been touched was the glass of water, half-drained. She filled it nearly to the rim in the bathroom sink and placed it next to the lunch.

He was on his side, facing away from her, but she knew he wasn't asleep, the pattern of his breathing told her that. He laid under the covers, but his shoulders were free, and he was wearing the same shirt from yesterday. And the day before. But he'd changed it before that. His glasses sat on the table, and Nathalie picked them up to wipe dust from the lenses with the sleeve of her sweater.

She almost urged him to eat, but it was no use. She kept her mouth shut.

Nathalie adjusted the rug again on her way out, moving it out of place just to move it back. That night, she would do the same thing. Tomorrow, she wouldn't bother with the rug. The next day, when she came to collect his breakfast, she would find it half-eaten, and him sitting up in bed, trying, failing to read the grimoire in the lamplight he'd bothered to turn on, because it would rain that day and he'd need the light. The next day, back to square one, and Nathalie would scold herself for having hope.

In the meantime, she practically lived in the atelier, becoming his voice and his mind and his fingers when she typed. She used to think of herself as an extension of his body, or his blurred, shadowy reflection, but for the last three weeks, she had become him.

She wrote more emails and took more phone calls. The apparel production coordinators wouldn't leave her alone, but she couldn't speak to Gabriel on their behalf, and she was near pulling her hair out trying to appease them. Eventually, she gathered all of Gabriel's recent designs, finished or not, ordered the production coordinators to seek out associate designers to look them over and hoped it was enough. Nathalie was used to feeling like she had to balance the world between her shoulder blades, but that world had gotten so much denser, and darker, and lonelier.

She monitored social media to make sure none of his employees were engaging with the news that had so fiercely rocked the household. Anyone else, be it a credible news source or a trashy pop culture hub that tried to reach out to Gabriel for a statement on his missing wife had to make it through her first, and none of them did. The ones that pressed more than twice forfeit their privilege to receive a polite response and instead were put down with a succinct lash of cold and bitter rage.

Sometimes she didn't have the energy to drive home at night. The first time she fell asleep at her desk, she woke at midnight with her cheek pressed to her keyboard. She slept on a couch for the rest of the night, and asked Gabriel the next day if she could take one of the guest rooms if ever she was too tired to make it back to her apartment. He answered her with, "Of course," blinking as if he had assumed she'd been staying there all along.

Adrien couldn't sleep. Six days without his mother, he opened the door to the atelier at midnight, wrapped in a blanket, to find Nathalie still seated at her desk with her fingers tangled in her hair. She'd been weeding through news stories for the last two hours and thought for a moment as the boy appeared in the door that it had been her boss that had finally left his room.

"What are you still doing here?" Adrien asked.

Nathalie closed her multiple browsers and leaned back, rubbing her eyes. She pulled her hands away to cringe at the makeup smeared across her fingertips, which had been there for almost eighteen hours at that point. "I don't know."

The boy let his blanket drag across the marble floor as he approached her desk. "You should go to bed."

"You should too."

"I can't."

Nathalie gazed at him tiredly. She couldn't argue with that.

Adrien sighed. Staring at his feet, he walked around her desk until he was standing right beside her. Nathalie stiffened with surprise as he sunk close to her, draping his arms around her shoulders in an exhausted, despondent hug. "I miss her," he sniffled.

Her breathing lurched. She supposed this might have been the first time Adrien had been able to voice his feelings since the day he found out his mother was missing. It's not like Gabriel was making himself available.

She didn't know what to do but run her fingers through his golden hair. He needed shampoo. She told him this. It was the only thing she could manage to say.

Adrien tried to visit the atelier more and more, gingerly poking his head through the door a couple times a day, half-hoping his father would be there to receive them, half-preferring Nathalie's company. But she was always in the middle of this task or that, threatening a tabloid, intercepting sympathy calls, blitzing through emails and not caring to proofread them. Adrien had to settle for seeing her only when she knocked on his door to remind him to practice his piano or let in his Chinese instructor. She hadn't bothered keeping up with his summer curricula for the first week and a half, but Gabriel, shaving at his bathroom mirror for once when she brought him his lunch, muttered something about keeping him distracted.

She took a break to make another pot of coffee and went to check on Adrien while she waited. He was supposed to be at the piano, but when she opened the door, she saw him seated behind his desk instead, teary-eyed and looking through photos of Emilie.

He'd started apologizing for not doing what was asked of him, nearly diving towards the piano, but the doorknob rattled as she released it from her iron grip, and Nathalie turned her back to return wearily to the kitchen. Adrien looked after her and said nothing.

Most of the time, she couldn't bring herself to stay there. She gathered her things and left her computer with half a dozen emails unanswered in her inbox as soon as she'd given Gabriel the dinner he would barely eat. She drove home in silence because her head pounded.

The doorman of her apartment building asked her if something was wrong one night, and she realized she was crying.

She'd left a window open in her bedroom on a stormy day and toweled up the rainwater on her floor. The curtains were soaked, but they dried overnight.

She went around with a cracked lens in her glasses for two days because she didn't have the time to replace them or dig around for her spare pair.

The first thing she saw when she entered the atelier every morning was Emilie's vivid green eyes, gazing at her from the portrait gilded in gold and glittering under the bright eastern sun. Her stare hung heavy over Nathalie's head all day, striking through her skull like a rod of steel when their eyes met.

I'm doing everything I can.

At the end of the third week, she brought Gabriel's breakfast to his room to find him sitting at the edge of the bed. His feet were half-stuck in his slippers, his hair a mess and falling over his eyes.

Nathalie paused at the door. She noticed the grimoire laying open by his pillow. The ceiling fan was on, and the corners of the book's pages fluttered with the slow rotation of the three angled blades. By the way the dim light was falling, she could see the wrinkled texture of the page.

Gabriel gripped a tablet in his hands, which were white as bone. Nathalie took a deep breath and crossed the room to set the food down in the same place she always did.

Close-up, she could see the sallowness of his cheeks, how the white t-shirt hung loose over his body. She stole a glance to the tablet's screen to see it decorated with paragraphs and paragraphs of notes. At the top of the page, he'd merely written Emilie. Italicized. Bolded. Underlined.

Nathalie swallowed and found her throat uncomfortably dry. "I hope you'll eat today, sir," she said.

Very, very slowly, he raised his head to look at her. Nathalie's skin went cold underneath her sweater as he raked his eyes up and down her body, and then to the breakfast she'd placed on the table. She waited for him to order her to leave him be. She needed to hear it; for some reason her legs weren't moving. Maybe it was because her entire body had lost its feeling in the last few seconds since she'd worked up the stupid courage to address him.

Then, his gaze dropped back down to the tablet. He ran a hand through his unkempt hair. "This doesn't make sense," he growled, scrolling through his notes.

She hesitated. "What, sir?"

"This," he barked. He reached for the grimoire and slammed it shut, making her flinch. "All of this. None of it makes any sense. What language is this?"

He thrust the book at her.. She'd looked at it a couple times before, but she knew that whatever was written inside was meant to be seen by few pairs of eyes. As she flipped through its slightly yellowed pages, her eyes scanned over the drawings – ladybug, cat, turtle, fox, bee, butterfly, peacock– and then caught a glimpse of the cryptic writing.

"Fuck!" Gabriel exclaimed. He locked the tablet and dropped it face down on the bed. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

His eyes were wild, raging gray storms that pierced through her soul like lightning in the sky. Nathalie winced, her throat tightened, and she said nothing.

When he dropped his head into his hands, Nathalie inched closer, and a little closer, until she stood right at his knee. She set the book gently on his pillow, careful not to disturb him with a detectable shift in weight. Then, she clasped her hands around his neck. She leaned over and hugged him feebly. He needed a shower. He needed a lot of things. She didn't know what else she could give.

After a moment, his head fell against her chest. She ducked her face into his hair and tried not to mind the smell. Her hands moved lower and felt the texture of his ribs. Just eat, she thought. Do that. Do that one thing for me.

"Nathalie," he rasped, and he was crying. She held him just a little tighter. Her eyes were dry. She was too weary now to cry.

"You will save her," she told him. "I'll help you. Any way that I can." Because I don't know what I'd do without you.

"Nathalie," he said again. He clutched her around the waist. The way his fingers dug desperately into her body made her grimace, but she didn't speak a word of complaint. "Thank you. For everything. You're my…" He trailed off and didn't ever finish his statement.

"Don't thank me, sir." I'm falling apart.

They withdrew minutes later, after he had finished crying, after he had surely made considerable divots in the skin below the fabric of her sweater. Nathalie pushed the hair off his forehead and tried, urgently, to offer him a delicate smile, but she couldn't know if it was successful. Her lips, her heart, were numb. Nathalie retrieved a box of tissues for Gabriel without a word and placed it in his open hand. As he began to blot his eyes, Nathalie made the choice to depart.

I've never been more tired. Her hand grasped the doorknob tightly. She was halfway out the room.

"Hey." His voice came small and gentle. When she turned back around to face him, a sharp inhale passed through her lips at the sight of his red-rimmed eyes watching her with concern. "Are you…okay?"

Nathalie's grip on the doorknob weakened. Her bones felt soft as chalk, and as she stared at Gabriel on the bed, she found herself unable to reply.

I feel like I'm dying.

She pressed her lips together and nodded. Dipped her chin, once, twice.

Gabriel didn't look like he believed her, but she swiftly left and shut the door.

But I'll stay alive for you.

///

He dove his hand into the drawer, searching for a suitable tie. He tossed several onto the floor without a thought and left them there once his grip had fastened over a clip-on with red and white stripes. The drawer would have shut with a booming slam if not for the ties draping over its face, muffling the sound. Gabriel grimaced. He would have preferred the cathartic release of the noise, but he had no more time to waste.

There was only one way to fix this.

Gabriel threw open his bedroom door and emerged into the brightly lit hallway. It was the evening, and all the stark white marble of the place was awash with the yellow gleam of sun on its descent towards the horizon. The grimoire was tucked under his arm. He'd decided the thing was utterly useless to him.

He wasted time. He wasted so much time. As he passed by Adrien's room, his thoughts drifted beyond the wall to the son he hadn't seen for more than a few minutes in the last several weeks. Shame could have stopped him in his tracks and sent him barging through the door if it wasn't already urging him desperately towards the atelier, to the solution, to the thing he should have taken in his palm the moment Emilie fell –

Anguish crashed over his head. Gabriel grabbed the banister to steady himself. The grimoire nearly slipped out from under his arm.

Fell asleep.

A shuddering breath escaped, and he forced his feet ahead, down the remaining steps until he landed in a solid piece on the floor of the foyer. Ignoring the weakness in his legs, he walked on to the atelier doors and pushed through.

Seeing Emilie's face in the form of that gorgeous portrait on the back wall sent a pang through his chest with every beat of his heart. Momentarily, he found it impossible to step any closer. The soft smile and beaming eyes mocked him in their likeness, a promise of her attainability that threatened to break before his eyes if he took a wrong step, if he waited too long. Gabriel stood in the doorway, terrified that hope would shatter if he set his foot down too quickly. Perhaps, even that picture was a mirage.

"Sir?" Nathalie's voice sounded quietly from the corner of the room. Gabriel tore his eyes away to catch her having risen from her desk, fingers splayed out on either side of the keyboard. She examined his appearance, his trousers, vest, and jacket, his glasses, and shoes, and his hair slicked back. She looked about to say more, but her mouth clamped shut behind pursed lips.

Gabriel remembered what he'd come there for, and he turned away from her. Through cement he pushed himself across the room until he was standing in front of the portrait, glaring through tears at the gold paint and blue accents. He blinked his vision clear and moved the image aside. Streaming from his lungs came a long exhale that reminded him he'd been holding his breath since he entered the room.

He opened the safe and placed the grimoire inside, trying not to raise his eyes to the blue and green brooch that rested against her photograph.

Instead, he gazed at the bottom shelf, and the larger miraculous that rested there. Its violet jewel glared at him like a challenging eye, and the thin protruding wings resembled razor-sharp blades.

There was only one way to fix this.

His hand trembled as he took the miraculous between his thumb and forefinger. A chill shot through his body.

I'm coming, my love.

He pinned the brooch beneath his tie. Suddenly, the jewel came to life, and Gabriel staggered back as one of those things materialized in the air before him, a lavender one with big, round eyes and a pair of butterfly wings on its back. It assessed its surroundings for a moment before floating an inch towards Gabriel.

"Hello, my name is—"

"Quiet!" Gabriel shouted, rage snapping through his body. It flinched back, bumping against the door of the safe.

Then it tried again, "You don't have to be afraid."

"Shut up," he warned again, his fingers outstretched at his sides, ready to snatch the pest out of the air if it tried to speak again. The other one – he'd only met it a few times – would never cease talking. Of course, that never bothered Emilie. "Speak when spoken to, do you understand?"

It nodded and said no more.

"Sir." Gabriel whirled around to face his assistant, who stood now halfway across the room. Her eyes were fixed on the creature, staring out from a pale and astonished countenance. "What are you…?"

"Nathalie, I'm figuring it out," he said shortly, holding out his hand to repress any more movement she could make in his direction. He adjusted the brooch, making sure it sat straight beneath his tie. "Just stay here and do as you've been doing."

He shut the safe and hid it behind the portrait, whose face he refused to look at. His fingers traced themselves along the details in the painting, trying to find the hidden buttons. Were his feet in the right position? The creature drifted cautiously near his shoulder, and he glared at it all the while.

Then, before he could press in his fingertips, he felt something. Something strange. Something pulsing within his own body, yet somehow foreign and unfamiliar. It was like a heartbeat, but by a heart that wasn't his own, rattling his ribcage.

His hand clasped the tie, feeling for the shape of the brooch. Even through the fabric, he could tell it seemed alive somehow, that there was a burn or an ache inside it. The feeling strengthened and strengthened, until Gabriel felt weak in the knees, suffocated by these heavy strokes of emotion, things like dread and anxiety and waves of exhaustion, one after the other until it felt like a continuous rush of misery, an ocean dropping from the sky.

It wasn't him. He thought at first that it had to be, but there was no way. Gabriel, panting, spun away from the portrait to gaze at Nathalie. She remained standing in the center or the room, her arms held behind her back, her expression tight and nearly unreadable. But Gabriel couldn't resist this powerful grief coursing through him, surrounding him. The room was submerged in it, and behind the screen of neutrality in her eyes, he could see where it was coming from.

"Nathalie," he gasped.

"Yes?" she said. Her voice was awfully quiet. She pursed her lips again, and he realized that she wouldn't risk speaking any further. He watched as tears gathered in her eyes, and when he didn't look away, she pivoted towards the window.

"Nathalie," he said again. He approached. Despair flowed from her.

"I'm fine," she choked out. She tried to make it back to her desk, but Gabriel grabbed her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. Nathalie wouldn't turn around. She didn't need to. Gabriel could imagine how she looked.

His grip tightened involuntarily as the surges of her emotions reached even farther corners of his mind. Something dull but deep joined the onslaught, something he recognized as guilt a moment later. Guilt for causing him to feel anything. Guilt for keeping him a moment longer at her side. He'd wasted so much time.

He realized Emilie wasn't the only one paying for it.

Gabriel released her and tore off the brooch. The little creature that had been bobbing at the corner of his eye vanished as he dropped the miraculous on the floor. At once, he felt like he could breathe again, the deluge of misery ceasing, the fatigue lifting from his bones. But he knew it had been there, and he knew it was there still, thundering in her own weary mind.

"Why didn't you say anything?" he asked. She didn't answer, nor did she budge. "Nathalie…"

"Don't worry—" She cleared her throat, trying to steady the quiver in her voice. "Don't worry about me, sir." A moment later, she bent at the waist and picked up the miraculous, which had spiraled between her feet. Gabriel's heart broke when she finally turned around and revealed that her face was dry. Even now, she wouldn't let herself give in. A few tears clung to her lashes, but they wouldn't spill.

Nathalie dropped the brooch into his palm. Right as she began to turn away again, Gabriel slipped it into his jacket pocket and took her by the shoulders. She blinked at him, and for a second, a single precious second, her surprise subdued every other heartbreaking thing in her gaze.

"I'm sorry," he told her, his voice barely above a whisper.

She shook her head. "Sir, you shouldn't apologize. I understand—"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does," she insisted. "Please, it's okay. You have to focus on…saving her." Her eyes fell from his face. She took a deep breath before forcing a smile on her face. "I'll take care of everything else."

Gabriel put a hand beneath her chin, and he felt her entire body go rigid under the delicacy of that simple touch. As he raised her head, her lips faltered. She gaped at him slightly. "Nathalie," he murmured. His thumb traced a line beneath her eyes, where deep, violet half-circles had formed, marks like the craters in the moon. He bet they'd been there for days, weeks, but he hadn't noticed. He'd spent all that time drowning, in air confused for oceans, in moments confused for infinity. That whole time, he'd been killing her too. "It's okay that you can't."

He pulled her into his embrace. A heartbeat passed, and Nathalie softened. She hugged his waist, sighed into his shoulder, and when they pulled away, he saw that she'd finally let those tears go.

I'm here for you too.

Gabriel asked her to take a break. After wiping her cheeks with her sleeves, she removed herself from the atelier to rest.

When he pinned the miraculous to his shirt once again, the waves came gentler now. They ebbed, and they ebbed, and they never went away, but now he could breathe, and he hoped she could too.

They would get through this together.

Help Me Break the Fever/Real Love

She stumbled back several paces.

The fan in her grip slipped free and disappeared in a cloud of blue light before it hit the floor. The same light traveled down her body from head to toe, stripping away that strange new skin, that sharp, vivid power she had felt pulsing through her veins like it was life itself. And she was alone in his lair, swaying on her unsteady feet, struggling to breathe.

She hadn't even said anything.

She just let go.

Nathalie choked on the fire in her throat. Every cough was rough and deep and sent a burn from her chest to the back of her mouth until her vision was glossy behind a screen of tears. The pain was so intense, so sudden, that she didn't even notice the weakness in her knees until they hit the floor. Nathalie gasped, catching herself on one hand, covering her lips with the other.

"Oh!" a little voice exclaimed above her head. She blinked through the water in her eyes to see the little blue creature descending to meet her on the floor. Its unsettling magenta gaze flitted nervously around the room. "Oh my! You too? First the Lady, and now you! She told me it was fine, but I knew something was wrong!"

Nathalie ignored the shrill thing. Its voice was a source of the sharp, cold agony shooting through her skull (or so she thought, for when it quit its anxious chattering a few minutes later, the ache in her head became only more unbearable). She shut her eyes against the afternoon's pale yellow light, its brilliant azure sky that seemed to stretch itself like broad wings around her body, blanketing her in this moment so it weighed on her shoulders or carried her away to more endless nothing. She continued to cough into her hand like she was trying to catch flames in the cup of her palm.

The darkness behind her eyelids swam like ink. She was dizzy. She couldn't begin to stand. The arm providing distance between herself and the floor trembled until it gave, and Nathalie's cheek met the cool surface of metal. The feeling of ice spread across her skin, while within, her blood was set ablaze, her heart racing between two burning lungs. The air she inhaled stung her throat, it tasted like poison. She felt like she was dying. Whatever Emilie had wanted, she wanted it bad. She knew that already, but it felt realer now, so real that it curled her fingers into fists, broke the skin on her palms, flooded the tiny abrasions with little dashes of blood as she tried to fight the pain flaring through her body.

It was more comforting to remember he was okay.

He had to be. And he was coming back now.

Several minutes passed before the coughing ceased. Nathalie found the strength in her body to roll on her back, eyes fluttering open to watch the ceiling above her rotate and waver, the shape of it becoming distorted through her dizzied vision. The kwami – Duusu, it had called itself – was merely a blot of indigo in the darkness. Nathalie couldn't tell whether or not it was moving.

She counted to ten as she tried to keep her breathing steady. Bringing a hand to her chest, her fingertip brushed against the jeweled brooch pinned to her blazer, and maybe it was the pain still lingering in her chest, but she flinched when she touched it.

It should have only gotten easier to watch him vanish beneath the floor of the mansion several times a week, leaving her alone with nothing to do but pretend he hadn't moved at all, pretend the city wasn't being flipped upside down around her. She should have gotten used to it the same way she'd gotten used to everything else.

Something changed.

As hard and as fast as he changed the moment her amok had found its host. That terrible dread in his heart had burst through her own chest the moment she transformed, and she followed it to his side. She found him cornered, weaponless, without any other ally but her, without any other power but the one she could give him. On the brink of losing everything – that kind of vivid, textured feeling, a sharp drop of the heart into the stomach, the madness of the mind trying to sort itself out, trying to find something to hold in empty air.

But as her feather reached him, as she absorbed his thoughts into her own, his despair transformed. It moved outward and went cold until she could feel the ice of his fear in her own bloodstream.

"No," he said, "don't." But she had to. It was the only way to help him. She smiled knowing he would be fine. She swallowed the venomous taste of his pain knowing it wasn't going to last.

She couldn't waste time on regretting the anguish she must have been causing him, on thinking about how many times he must have begged his wife to stop just like he was begging her now.

Nathalie shivered, chills running across her bones. Her chest and throat screamed at her as she turned her head into the floor and coughed again, weaker this time, but she was exhausted. She could hardly keep her eyes open anymore.

What was she thinking?

He was going to ask that question, when he got here. Nathalie should have been searching for an answer, but she didn't think there was one to be found.

Catalyst nearly tore the safe door off its hinges.

She threw her helmet so violently onto the floor that it cracked apart, and the akuma was freed.

She crushed the damn thing in her hands. Useless.

I am Mayura.

It came as naturally to her as her own name. She wondered if it had been given to her a long time ago. If this was meant to be. She didn't believe in fate, but she might make an exception just this once because it made too much sense. How long has she already been tearing herself apart for this? It was second nature at this point.

What was she thinking?

Nathalie felt her lips twitch into a small smile. That was exactly it. She wasn't thinking at all. She didn't need to. What was the difference between this and everything else she had been doing from the very beginning? It was her job. It was what he needed from her.

Maybe she would have stopped and asked herself what this was going to cost her if there was a price to be paid.

Maybe.

The miraculous on her chest throbbed. Like the rhythm of running steps. She could feel him getting closer. She liked having him here, right above her heart, she only wished he wasn't so afraid.

You don't have to be, she would tell him. It'll be okay.

In some deep and obscure corner of her mind, she could hear the echo of a thought that should have been terrifying, one that reverberated back from a future where the reality clung even tighter around her throat. I'm going to die.

Yes, she realized, sighing, she would. But she had time. It took Emilie almost a year. In a year, they could bring her back. Their chance was greater now that she was willing to bet on it. With her life. Her real, tangible life. She had to do something. Promising words and keeping his secrets hadn't been enough so far. She remembered the way he yielded to her embrace the day he nearly gave up, so passive, so tired. That and some time would heal him gradually, she let herself believe, but the illusion shattered in a matter of hours. It wasn't enough. Nothing was enough, nothing but Emilie.

She would bring back Emilie.

Duusu ran her head into Nathalie's cheek. "Stay awake. Stay awake, please."

Nathalie moaned and pushed the creature gently away with her hand. An attempt to rise to her feet proved her limbs still weak and numb.

Gabriel had seen something in her that made him trust her with everything. Whatever it was that convinced him she was strong enough to make it this far was going to push her even farther. It was going to push her to the end, to the places where the wind disappears at the limit of its surge, quiet and invisible places.

"Oh! Someone's coming!" Duusu announced. Nathalie pressed her ear to the floor and listened to the mechanical purr on the lift.

She would carry him there, and as long he landed on solid ground, there would be nothing to regret.

The lift clicked into place.

"Nathalie!"

///

Gabriel used to spend hours awake at Emilie's side. On the bad nights, he was afraid she would stop breathing. He'd sit up in the dark, listening to the ragged pattern of inhale and exhale, fingers trembling at his side and prepared to jerk her awake if it ever ceased. He hadn't slept well in over a year, now. The only thing more troubling than the fear of losing her was the cold and empty bed.

It was early in the afternoon. His hands sat tightly curled over the arm rests of his chair. He had gone a long time without hearing the coarse rise and fall of breath anywhere but in his fleeting dreams, until now. Bright, cool sunlight illuminated every surface in the dining room, including the family portrait hung over the fireplace. The paint was so bright from his angle that it obscured the faces of its happy subjects. He was glad. It was becoming too difficult to look at anyway.

The light also reached Nathalie's face, and it made her skin look white as bone. Even while she slept, head resting at the crook of her arm, her expression was ever so slightly screwed into a grimace of pain. Her brow twitched over fallen eyelids, pressed shut with just a touch more force than what looked natural. And her breathing, that rough and uneven breathing, more than anything was what made him still as stone in his chair. No restlessness would stir him now. He watched the little movement of her shoulders as they swelled and collapsed with the rhythm of her breath, fear roiling his insides.

Trusting Nathalie had always been easy, and Gabriel had spent the last nine years trying to understand why. Her competence and diligence were obvious answers, so obvious that they couldn't possibly encompass what he could only describe as some transcendent reliability. Maybe it was the look in her eyes when she listened to him, there being something so assuring in the earnest glimmer upon her iris, like a cloud set aglow by the sun. Maybe it was the way her cool visage would lift just a hint when she was watching Adrien from afar, creating such a small change that he doubted she was aware of it. Maybe it was everything building upon everything else, her encouraging words and gentle touches and waxing ambitions invigorating the woman who began as a near-perfect assistant. Whatever it was, trusting Nathalie, for so long, had been something he could do without question. It was the one sentiment that had quieted the dread in his heart when he caught a glimpse of that cursed brooch pinned to her chest. If she could tell him with certainty that this was the best way to help him, then he hadn't any reason to doubt it, not from her lips.

But the passing months had left them nearly fruitless, at least in comparison to what Nathalie was giving up in return. Gabriel clenched his jaw to think that they could have succeeded that morning. He was seconds away from cinching the allegiance of some of the most powerful akumas to date, spending weeks upon weeks fostering the resentment in Lila Rossi, the bitter little thing, for his son's close friend Marinette (a girl whose sense of justice he truthfully found admirable). But the months of strain on Nathalie's health were adding up. He felt the flood of her panic just before he could hear her coughing. Since Heroes' Day, he told himself that she was going to be alright, that if she thought Mayura was worth it, then he could believe it too. She made him stronger than he'd ever been, that was truer than anything. But as much as he'd grown to think he could win she was becoming sicker. And sicker. And Gabriel could no longer try to deny that she wasn't wearing that miraculous at a harmless cost.

Nathalie sighed in her sleep, her glasses going crooked as she shifted her head. She told him that she didn't need a room. She could spend a few minutes here resting, and then go back to work. Gabriel checked the time of his phone to find that she had been asleep for nearly an hour. His own eyelids were feeling heavy. He had been awake all night.

He had the inclination to disregard her preference to remain in the dining hall and bring Nathalie to her room, but he remained seated. He wasn't sure he could carry her without disturbing her slumber.

A moment later, he wondered the same about taking the glasses off her face, if the gentle graze of the temple tips behind her ears or his fingers clumsily brushing against her cheekbones would be enough to bring her back. He needed her to rest, but seeing her awake might settle the constant stir of a storm within his mind. After all, she had never been worse than she was today. It terrified him to think of how much further she could go; whether a mile or a pace, it didn't make a difference.

Breaking the silence, his kwami whispered beside his ear, "Master."

Gabriel's eyes had fallen closed, and he hadn't noticed, but they shot open to fire the creature a glare, warning him against speaking too loudly. "What is it, Nooroo?"

"Master, you are tired," he murmured. "Perhaps, you should rest as well."

He turned her head forward to gaze at Nathalie's troubled face. In the quiet supplied by his hesitation, her rough breathing struck him again. "No, Nooroo. I need to watch over her."

"I can watch over her, Master."

"I do not believe I trust you to do so."

Nooroo did not reply. There was not much else that could be done to convince his holder. But Gabriel continued to feel the weight of the kwami's shy stare on the side of his face.

He leaned back, tilting his head upward towards the ceiling and releasing a quivering exhale. "I shouldn't have waited this long."

"To what, Master?"

"To try to stop her." One hand felt for the interior pocket of his jacket and the miraculous that was inside. "I have underestimated how far she is willing to go for my family and overestimated how much she—" The light on the family portrait had shifted slightly, revealing most of Emilie's face, " – how much she worries about herself. I don't know how. I should have done something sooner."

Nooroo shook his head, a response that surprised Gabriel. "You wouldn't have been able to."

"What do you mean, Nooroo?"

"Only that which you know as well as I, if not better," he replied. "That she will stop at nothing until you are happy. Master, can't you sense how much it means to her to help you?"

Gabriel caressed his own miraculous.

"Her love runs deep," Nooroo added.

Like a well.

Gabriel closed his eyes. He felt Nooroo come to a rest upon his shoulder, his wings flickering against his ear.

"Rest, Master," urged the kwami again, and Gabriel found himself unwilling to protest, "She will be okay."

I'll make sure of it.

Because she didn't need to go to the ends of the earth when it wasn't even the world he wanted. She'd done more than he could ask. She'd done more than most were capable of. She beamed upon the surface of the planet, turning uncertain shadow to shine; she pierced through rock and magma to reach the other side, a well of light.

You're Like a Mirror/We've Been Lonely

Nathalie felt heavy. She could sense the rise of her mind out of the dark of sleep, a terribly slow and dull movement. It was like everything from her body to her spirit had become solid iron, fighting against the drag of gravity forcing her deeper into the mattress, into the darkness. For minutes, she wasn't even conscious enough to notice that she was alive.

Against nature, she was pulled high enough into the world to feel the movement of her eyes behind her tired lids. She may have shifted beneath the sheets, but with bones as dense as steel rods, she could not have been strong enough to drag anything more than her fingers against the pillow. Her throat was lined with sandpaper, and if she coughed, her lungs would be set ablaze, so she tried not to breathe, not to swallow.

It hit her a moment later, that she wasn't dead, nor just as good, and if she wasn't still fighting to pry open her eyes, it might have come as more of a shock.

She could hear something. The air conditioner, it was. Or it might have just been the memory of wind in her ear.

Her foot twitched. She was sure of it. Her toes fanned out under the covers. And then, she could feel the fabric of her sweater clutched around her neck. Hot and suffocating. If only she could lift her hand to her throat. If only she could tighten her fingers just enough to pinch the fabric. If only she could lift her hand again, to widen the neckline and wrench her esophagus free. She could bend back her wrist, but then it collapsed again, and the breath she was holding escaped through her lips and tore across the walls of her throat on the way out.

She nearly opened her eyes as she felt pressure on her hand. It wasn't the force of sleep descending upon her from above to swallow her again, but a set of fingers now sliding between her own. Encouraging her. To move. Curl them. Curl them.

They fluttered, and then they obeyed. Nathalie felt against her fingertips, smooth skin and the curve of knuckles. She heard the rustle of her hair as she turned her head, just far enough that gravity took hold and dropped it to the side. Her eyelids twitched. A strand of hair fell across her face and tickled the tip of her nose. The other hand squeezed hers, made brief divots in her skin and proved that she was made of flesh and not metal, that she wasn't about to sink into blackness again.

"Nathalie." A voice. A real voice. Not the memory of a voice.

She couldn't see at first, when at last her eyes blinked open. The room was dark. Slowly, slowly the dim light from outside landed on the wall, landed on his face, just illuminating the outline of his cheek and the surface of his eyes as he stared at her.

"Nathalie," he said again. Seeing her awake, he sighed. He was close enough for her to feel his breath on her cheek.

She dared to speak. "Sir?" A rasp that could hardly travel far past her lips, but he heard it.

He rose off the floor – he'd been kneeling at her side – and sat at the edge of the bed. "Can you sit up?" he asked.

She loosened her fingers from his and attempted to push herself up against the pillows. Her arms shook, but she managed to resurface from the sheets. She tugged at her turtleneck. Though her hair was loose and her blazer and shoes nowhere to be seen, she still wore her sweater and her slacks, and they were oppressive.

She kissed the rim of a glass that had been brought to her lips. Water. Nathalie almost took it in her hands but even as she tried to lift them from the mattress, she noticed how they weakly quivered in midair. Instead, she let him tip back her head and pour the drink down her throat. Each swallow burned. But by the time she'd finished the glass, she was just slightly soothed.

Gabriel set the empty glass on the bedside table. She could see just clearly enough by now to observe the grim expression on his face. He was without his jacket and without his tie; his vest was undone and his hair unruly. A few strands fell loose over his forehead, swaying as he leaned back to face her directly. She hadn't seen him like this since Emilie fell asleep.

"I'm able to fix it," he said.

She stared, not quite ready to give a full response. Her chest was tight, her airways stinging. Eventually, she decided to nod at him, encouraging him to go on.

"It took me hours to understand the instructions. Everything's a riddle," he grumbled. "I had to create this potion of sorts. Took a few tries. The miraculous is meant to be submerged in the concoction for a few days. But after that, it should be good as new."

Good as new. Nathalie couldn't imagine that. She'd never known what it was like to use a miraculous that wasn't broken. It was easier to think that nothing would change, that even if the brooch was fixed, it was still too damaged to do anything but weaken her further and further until she'd burned away by the pain. Eaten to the bone.

"I'm sorry," he said, when she failed once again to speak. "I know you tell me not to blame myself, but I don't care that you think I'm faultless. I know I am not. I know that despite your willingness to help me that I should not have let it go this far."

"Gabriel," she croaked, and then coughed into her fist, hard enough to dizzy herself in the process. Fire and thin air.

The fit didn't last long. He stroked her shoulder to comfort her as the coughs ebbed away. She saw out of the corner of her eye, the time displayed on the digital clock beside her. 3:32 AM.

"I'm relieved that we found a solution this time," he continued after a moment. "Beyond relieved. Nathalie, I was so…"

She blinked at him expectantly, waiting for him to finish his sentence. She saw him shake his head in the dark before he stood up, grabbed the glass on the table and filled it at the faucet in the adjoining bathroom. He turned the light on in there, and a yellow beam reached from the doorway onto her bed, his black shadow cutting through the fan of light. When he returned, she could better see the exhaustion in his face, how it cut deep beneath his eyes, how it weighed down the corners of his lips, reminding Nathalie of the iron gravity had made of her minutes before. He looked sick himself. She wondered how he hadn't already shattered.

He handed her the refilled glass and she swallowed half of it, before coughing some more and swallowing the rest. Her eyes flicked to him, to the exposed brooch on his chest. She murmured, "You were so…?"

"I was scared that—" He glanced at his feet, at the clock. "I was scared that you weren't going to wake up."

So was I. She didn't say it. She didn't say it because he didn't need to know. He didn't need to feel worse.

"You're awake," he whispered. "That's all that matters. And now…now, you'll get better. You have to."

"Yeah," she breathed. Twelve hours ago, she'd gotten her hands on the translated grimoire; twelve hours ago, she made it possible for her life to be spared from this awful fate. She'd been so relieved then, despite the pressure in her skull and the bramble in her chest. She could bear the burden with a smile. Now, the smile was gone. There was a pain on her face now that she couldn't replace.

I'll get better.

Nathalie leaned forward, and he caught her in his arms. Her head on his shoulder, she wrapped him in a hug, finding in herself enough strength to embrace tightly. She was tired, she was weak; as she held him, her arms were shaking, clinging desperately to what little power could keep him this close.

She could feel his miraculous. Ever so softly, ever so warmly, it pulsed between their chests. Again and again. Like a heartbeat they shared. And she wondered if he knew just how afraid she was to let go, if that pulse sent grief and sadness into his body like it sent love into hers. When the fabric of his wrinkled shirt slipped out from between her fingers now, would it be the last time? She couldn't bear to think it. She really had been terrified that when she sank into sleep, it was to be the last time she'd ever lay eyes on him, that she'd have nothing to take with her to the other side but the memory of his face as he watched her drift away.

But she woke up and now the worst thing on her mind was the thought of her leaving his embrace and never, ever coming back. Never needing to. Because everything was going to be fine. She'd get better. She had to. She wanted to. But she'd give anything for it to come at any other price.

"Nathalie," he said, and though she knew he could feel her heartbreak, she didn't want to voice it, so she kept her mouth shut in spite of the cry begging to spring free from the back of her throat. "Nathalie, my dear."

He rested his cheek against her hair. He held her tighter. Nathalie had never felt so imprisoned by her own clothes, yet so free in his arms. There was something wrong with her, to need him this badly, to half-want nothing to change at all. To fall asleep forever was probably what she deserved but being alive felt so good right now.

"I don't know what I would do without you."

It was a sentence either one of them could have spoken. For a moment, Nathalie could not even tell whose voice it was that filled the room, rattling the crystalline silence.

Gabriel began to withdraw, and Nathalie, feeling her strength leave her along with him, settled back onto her pillows, nearly numb.

But he didn't let go of her hand.

He watched himself, stroking her knuckles with his thumb, blinking slowly as his exhaustion deepened with every passing second.

She inhaled sharply, hesitating a moment to speak. Then, with a hollow voice and aching heart, she murmured, "You…you should go." As he looked up at her, she added, "You need rest too."

"Y-yes." But he chose not to release her hand. The caress softened until it felt like she was being brushed by the feather, by the tip of a butterfly's wing. Gabriel's guard, which was already feeble, crumbled completely, and he shook his head at her. "No. I don't think I can leave you."

Her heart lurched. "Gabriel…"

"Not like this. I need to make sure you'll be okay," he said. "Just for the rest of the night."

She did not argue. She wanted him there. The guilt in her stomach would have to stand it.

He sat up next to her in the bed, running his fingers through her hair as he waited for her to fall back asleep. Nathalie faced away from him, but she could still feel the warmth of his body laying just inches from her own. She started to sink. The blackness behind her eyelids deepened. She was becoming metal.

And then, faintly from over her shoulder: "Nathalie."

"Yes…?"

But she didn't hear his reply.

///

The curtains had never been closed that night. When he woke, he was wrapped in morning sun, face half-buried in his pillow. The brilliance was unfamiliar, as he tended to rise before daybreak. Movement now was unthinkable but for stretching out his legs beneath the sheets. His foot brushed against hers. Her toes twitched.

She was pressed against him, and he could feel her breathing. He counted the seconds between every exhale and inhale, lost track because his mind was still adrift, riding the wave of some dream that was slowly ebbing away.

He remembered being happy. Standing in some wide open space. Like a field, or an empty plaza. And it was him and the people he loved, and when they moved, it felt like they were flying.

He remembered feeling nothing but the wind at his back, not the pulse of a foreign emotion or the ever-present gravity of grief and longing pinning him to the earth. He felt free. And home.

He remembered a set of fingers slipping between his own, turning to see a familiar face, the beam of a pair of large eyes filled with love and promise. The passage of days into night back into days where the glint in those eyes was a star fading in and out of view, never truly leaving, always truly shining whether he saw it or not. If he pinched his eyes closed, he believed it would be bright enough to burn through that darkness and remain in view forever.

He remembered her lips pressed up against his ear, and her gentle whisper, some words that escaped him now, words that may have never meant anything, but still belonged to him.

He remembered having hope. Endless hope. With no limit. No goal.

A dull pang tolled through his chest now that he was awake, knowing that that dream was as far from reality as any other senseless imagining, nothing more than a mess his mind had made in the dark. It just happened to be lovely and kind.

Gabriel should have gotten out of bed, but he was warm and tired. Nathalie's hair was damp with sweat. Her fever had broken. A mild expression made her appear young, and like everything was going to be okay.

He should have gotten out of bed. He had work to do. He had to check on the miraculous. It was going to be a couple more days before it was fixed, but he needed to know the solution was working. He wasn't sure how much longer he could last lingering in a fog of uncertainty.

He should have gotten out of bed. He didn't want to admit how good it felt to hold someone in his arms again.

He didn't want to admit that it felt like she belonged, or that she was beginning to mean the world to him, or that she…

Nathalie stirred, a soft breath shivering between her lips. Her head fell against his shoulder. Gabriel smiled. He couldn't help it, and his heart was breaking.

There was something about her.

She changed everything.