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Emilie Agreste smiles in triumph as she opens her eyes and finds a photo of Adrien opposite her on her bedroom wall.
She smiles because the blonde teenager posing professionally in the picture has to be her dear Adrien. He looks too much like him and is projecting too much of her own charisma to be anyone else.
The Adrien she’d put to bed, barely an hour ago, had only been eight.
She lets her transformation drop. This will show Gabriel. He’d been so uncharacteristically reticent about her using the Rabbit Miraculous but now she’s done it successfully he’ll have to concede that she was right, and she’ll get back the supportive determined man she fell in love with.
Not that she hadn’t always known Gabriel was protective. Others might call it paranoia but with the secrets she keeps she’s always found it quite suited her, and of course it made her much more confident when it came to the matter of Adrien’s safety that she and her husband were on exactly the same page.
But still, his holding back when, and she can admit this, usually he has a tendency to barrel ahead with things without thinking, and his trying to convince her to wait when usually he goes along with everything she wants had made her wonder if she didn’t know everything about the man she’d married and had a child with after all.
She looks around the room. It all looks normal enough. Oddly unchanged save for the photos of Adrien.
Emilie’s almost surprised the two of them have never redecorated given how much Gabriel worries about image and keeping up to date. Perhaps she’s won on this one. Her childhood home has barely changed in decades.
On the bedside table on Gabriel’s side, there’s another photo she doesn't recognise of herself and her son. Adrien looks younger in this than in the photo on the wall but still older than the son she knows. She can’t help but look over her older self in the photo looking for signs of ageing, and pulls away satisfied. Though she won’t truly know what she looks like until she meets her future self
Which. She does wonder if that could be dangerous. Fluff had been so against the whole venture Emilie doesn’t know if she can trust her warnings on that or if it was just another attempt to stop her from doing what she'd wanted.
Really though she had listened. She hasn’t gone too far into the future and besides she's only in her own house. There's no dangers to her here.
For a moment she's tempted to go to her son and see what he’s grown up to be, but she doesn't know how much she'll have told Adrien, so instead she goes in search of her husband.
The portrait on the stairs is odd and for the first time Emilie does feel slightly nervous. It’s not right that she’s missing from it, and both Gabriel and Adrien’s expressions are morose. Gabriel’s she might excuse given he can be stiff around strangers but Adrien’s is concerning.
There’s nothing she can do about it until she finds her husband to ask him what’s going on though so she presses on and pushes open the door of the Atelier, because whatever business Gabriel might be up to is nothing to this.
Her husband’s assistant looks up at her, and for a moment shock flashes across her face, which makes Emilie wonder if she does look so very different to her future self after all, before her features settle back into their usual faux-accommodating robot impersonation.
Only that’s not what she usually grants Emilie. This is the face Nathalie Sancoeur presents to their guests, to Gabriel’s clients and business partners, not to his wife.
Then the woman says, “Mme. Graham de Vanily. I’m afraid M.Agreste isn’t available at the moment.”
Something has gone very wrong here, and there should only be one way to interpret this but she refuses to countenance that. She wouldn’t let that happen and Gabriel would never do that, and besides he’d kept a photo of her by his bed. That's hardly a sign of a failed marriage.
But, whispers something dark deep in her mind, Gabriel had been doing plenty of things she never thought he would do.
And, another part points out, she had been missing from the portrait, and it was exactly the sort of nonsense Gabriel would commission if she’d left him.
That’s ridiculous though because it wouldn’t happen; there’s no reason for it to happen.
“He’s always available to me,” she says, still unable to consider the possibility that she and Gabriel aren’t married in the future.
Gabriel’s assistant stands up, “How did you get in this house?”
“It’s my house.”
Nathalie shakes her head, “M.Agreste bought this house. Whatever your sister might have contributed this isn’t a Graham de Vanily property.”
Her sister?
Realisation and then relief flood through her, “You think I’m Amélie, don’t you?”
Emilie’s never seen someone go as literally white as Gabriel’s assistant goes just now.
The poor thing scowls. “This isn’t funny.”
She does feel slightly sorry for her. Future-Emilie must be out somewhere with Gabriel. No wonder she’s confused. At least it’s flattering that Nathalie hasn’t noticed the signs of her comparative youth. She must be ageing well.
“I’m not joking,” she smiles, and leans forward. “Look at me again, look at my eyes and tell me which sister I am.”
Nathalie’s does focus on her eyes just as ordered but that crease between her brows doesn’t leave, as she goes, “Emilie?”
“Yes.” Emilie confirms somewhat amused at the situation.
Oddly the other woman doesn’t relax, and then through gritted teeth she says, “I will make your life hell if you are Amélie and this is some trick you’re playing on M. Agreste.”
Emilie blinks in surprise. She’s known Nathalie was understandably loyal to Gabriel given their past, and she’s seen her stonewall people he doesn’t want to deal with but to think she’d threaten Emilie’s sister like that is surprise.
Still off balance from that reaction she says, “This isn’t a joke.”
“Then,” Nathalie is looking up her and down like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing is real, “How?”
She hesitates but she doubts they can have kept it a secret from Nathalie, “Tell me, have you ever heard of the Miraculous Jewels?”
At first it sounds like Nathalie is laughing but then it resolves into coughing. It seems quite bad actually and Emilie winces in sympathy. Finally Nathalie wheezes out, “You could say that.”
That made sense, though she could tell there was a deeper meaning to her response that Emilie wasn’t privy to.
“Well then,” Emilie smiles still proud of her triumph, “I used the Rabbit Miraculous didn’t I?”
“So,” Nathalie inexplicably glances at the portrait of Emile on the wall, “You’re from the future?”
She shakes her head, “The past obviously. This is my first use of it.”
Nathalie takes a step back, “Emilie never had the Rabbit Miraculous.”
“What?” Now she was really lost, “Of course I do. Did. You said you knew about the Miraculous.”
“I do. All too well. And Emilie Agreste never wielded the Rabbit Miraculous. Who are you?”
“I’m Emilie Agreste. I just told you that.” She repeats even as that trepidation from earlier comes back in full force. Something has gone terribly wrong.
Nathalie presses a button on her desk and steel shutters come down over the windows to the Atelier and, from the echoes Emilie can hear, the rest of the house as the security system engages.
Then Nathalie says, “If you’re one of Rena Rouge’s tricks I’m not falling for it.”
Emilie doesn’t have to fake her confusion. “Who on earth is Rena Rouge?”
Then Nathalie comes closer and pokes her.
Emilie barely manages not to shriek, and instead asks “What on earth are you doing?”
“Not an illusion then. Though perhaps,” again she glances at the portrait, “Is this Hawk Moth’s latest akuma? I think I like getting caught in this less than Sandboy.”
“Who on earth is Hawk Moth?”
At that point her husband appears somehow from the floor in front of her portrait, and it’s not as surprising as it might to someone else because Emilie herself uses a similar entrance elsewhere in the house but it’s not from Gabriel’s Atelier.
He scowls on seeing her, and ignores her to address his assistant, “Nathalie. Why didn’t you inform me Amélie was here?”
Emilie tries not to be insulted. She supposes his reaction is reasonable if he thinks she’s her sister.
Nathalie’s eyes flicker back to Emilie before responding, “Sir, I didn’t let her in, she just appeared, she,” she looks uncertain, “she says she’s Emilie.”
“That’s impossible,” her husband says, and walks over to them, “I don’t know what sort of trick you’re trying to play Amélie but I’m tired of them. Get out of my house.”
He’s never spoken to her like that, never acted like he despised her even in one of his rages, “Gabriel?”
He’s stopped right by Nathalie and looks as if he has no intention of coming closer. The two of them look like a united front and she’s on the other side of it and she keeps telling herself that her future self must just be out but it’s hard to keep thinking that when her husband is looking at her like he despises her.
“Get out.” He says again, louder this time, and it enrages her.
“For god’s sake Gabriel. Can’t you recognise which sister you married?”
It’s a mistake. She knows it when his hands drop from behind his back to form fists at his side. She’s pricked right through his composure with that.
“You might have tricked me once, but I’m not falling for it again. I wasn’t impressed when Felix tried to impersonate Adrien. It’s repulsive when you try to imitate Emilie.”
It had been one time. She’d known Gabriel had still carried a grudge but this is a bit much. Especially when he clearly can’t recognise which sister he’s talking to.
“I am Emilie.” She tries again. “I’m,”
He doesn’t let her explain, “Emilie’s dead.” He yells,
Her shock feels like it could knock her over. That portrait suddenly makes a horrifying sort of sense but that’s impossible. She has a Miraculous now, she doesn’t understand, “How?”
Gabriel stiffens, and Nathalie ,who strangely had seemed almost as startled as Emilie by his outburst from how her eyes had widened, reaches up and puts a hand on his arm, “Sir,”
He relaxes at her touch, and then Emilie’s stuck watching a silent conversation she doesn’t understand as he meets Nathalie’s eyes before shaking his head
Then he says, “I’m sorry Amélie. I haven’t heard anything. It’s just,” he sighs, “it’s been so long since her disappearance; I think I’m starting to give up hope.”
To get distracted from it she thinks from how Nathalie’s hand is still lying on his arm and he’s yet to shake it off. She’d never felt threatened by him working so closely with another woman, not when it was so clear he never noticed Nathalie as a woman, but somehow in Emilie’s absence she’s managed to slither into Gabriel’s affections.
It’s fine though. It’s fine. Emilie will just find out how she disappeared and then not disappear and it will be fine. None of this will have happened.
And she’s not waiting any longer to start fixing things.
“I told you, I’m not Amélie,” she pulls out the pocket watch, “Fluff, clockwise”
They’re both staring at her, and she’s both annoyed at how their stares aren’t impressed the way Gabriel’s had been the first time he saw her transformed before, and unsettled by how shocked they both look.
Gabriel should recognise this, and he’s looking at her like she’s a stranger.
She tries again holding up the Pocket Watch, “This is,”
“The Rabbit Miraculous,” he says, and then he echoes Nathalie, but his voice has wonder in it, and he takes a step forward, and Nathalie’s hand finally falls from his arm, “You’re from the future. We won.”
He’s smiling and she hates to ruin that but, “Won what? And how did I disappear?”
The smile drops on his face. “What are you talking about? You of all people know exactly what happened.”
“No I don’t,” she points out quite obviously, “I’m from the past. This is my future.”
He shifts so he’s blocking Nathalie from her view; as if he’s trying to defend Nathalie from her
“Who are you? I have to say I never expected a trick like this from Ladybug. A little under the belt for the self-proclaimed heroes isn’t it?”
“I’m Emilie Agreste.” Emilie tries again, but if Gabriel decides to not accept that she’s not sure how she can convince him, short of narrating their entire life and secrets to him.
His face doesn’t soften, but there’s something less flint-like in his eyes and she thinks he’s got it but then he says, “Are you my granddaughter?”
“What?” she shrieks, completely lost as to how he’d come up with that, her husband’s imagination has clearly gotten out of hand in her absence.
He does look somewhat awkward as he says, “You do look very like Emilie. I’ll give you that. I thought, perhaps Adrien’s daughter if he’d married someone similar looking. I don’t think there any Graham de Vanily cousins of the right gender.”
“I look like Emilie because I am Emilie. I’m your wife Gabriel.”
Gabriel still doesn’t betray any of the joy you’d expect to see from a man whose missing wife has suddenly appeared before his eyes. Instead he says tightly, “From the past you say?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t understand why that’s so hard for him to understand. “Adrien’s eight.”
“But Emilie,” his mouth twists, “you never had the Rabbit Miraculous. Or at least you never told me you did.”
But, “I did.” This is all going wrong, she doesn’t understand, “You knew all about it. You were scared of it going wrong, you wanted me not to use it.”
He might have been right because right now Emilie Agreste thinks things have gone very very wrong.
“No.” Gabriel says, “No I didn’t. Perhaps you are Emilie Agreste but I think you’re not my Emilie Agreste.”
She detransforms, “Fluff?”
“Told you time was tricky.”
She glares at the Kwami but it doesn’t offer anything more.
Then she’s hit by a sudden wave of weakness and has to grasp to Nathalie’s desk.
A moment later everything goes black.
She wakes up on the sofa in the sitting room, to her husband’s assistant looking down at her in what looks like concern.
Emilie’s no longer transformed. The Miraculous isn't in her hand, and when she frantically checks herself it isn’t in her pocket her pocket either.
“It’s alright.” Nathalie says, “You're going to be ok. M. Agreste has your Miraculous.”
The idea she wouldn't be ok has never crossed Emilie’s mind but as for the other part of that, “Where is Gabriel?”
She’d have expected him to be here. Gabriel’s always been given to sinking into his work and never re-surfacing, and much as Emilie understands obsession sometimes he makes her want to scream with how sometimes she thinks he’d forget she and Adrien existed if she didn’t remind him, but she knows he never would because whenever she’s unwell or she needs him he’s there.
Except this future Gabriel she doesn’t recognise isn’t.
Nathalie answers her, “He's gone to inspect your Miraculous. He hasn’t the tools here.”
That does worry her and she has to check, “but he's still,”
“He's in the house.” Nathalie confirms.
Emile relaxes at the reassurance, but there’s still that flicker of annoyance, “He can't have been that worried about me then.”
“I wouldn't say that,” it's tamped down but there's something there in Nathalie’s voice, resentment perhaps, “It's just, if this is what we think it might be, then you should be alright if this is the first time, and we need to know if it is that, to give us the chance to save you. Gabriel couldn’t risk delaying.”
Emilie tries to swallow her concern, but she feels nauseous and she doesn’t know it it’s a side effect of what just happened to her, or of her present shock, “What do you think it is?”
The other woman shakes her head, “It's not my place to tell you that.”
“It's Gabriel’s.” Emilie guesses.
Nathalie nods, “and this, seeing you like this, it's hard for him.”
There’s a clear implication there, which she tries to make sense of despite how fuzzy her brain feels because, “you said I didn't have the Rabbit Miraculous.”
“You didn’t.”
Emilie pushes herself up to seated to try to regain some position in this conversation. “What happened to me?”
Disappeared. Gabriel had claimed to her when he thought she was Amélie. Dead. Gabriel had accidentally admitted before that.
What's the truth? And why is it a secret?
There's an obvious answer to that.
This Gabriel, this Nathalie, they know about the Miraculous. Assumedly that’s what’s at the root of whatever happened to her. Except it doesn't make sense because they keep saying she doesn't have her Miraculous here.
Or.
They keep saying she doesn't have the Rabbit Miraculous here.
Perhaps this is a different timeline she's tumbled into, and this isn’t her future, and she had a different Miraculous here.
Emile doesn’t want this to be her future.
Nathalie hasn't responded to her, so she tests her theory, “Did I have a different Miraculous in your past?”
She’s right from the minute change in Nathalie’s expression as her face becomes even more fixed in position.
“You always were clever.” Her husband’s assistant says, but that’s all she says.
“All right I’ll wait for Gabriel then,” Emilie concedes given she can see doing anything else is a battle not worth fighting, “Why am I here though? Why not upstairs? Aren’t we in danger of Adrien finding me here?”
If she’s gone it’ll traumatise Adrien for her to randomly be here. She’d have to pretend to be Amélie.
“I’m not sure why he didn’t bring you to your room,” Nathalie pulls out her phone and glances at it, “Adrien won’t be home for another three hours though.”
From the light outside it’s too early for basketball or fencing so, “A photoshoot? That seems long. Gabriel isn’t overworking him is he?”
“He’s been trying to keep him busy to distract him from everything.”
At that point Gabriel walks in the door and Emilie can see Nathalie relax. That’s just not right. He’s supposed to rely on her not the other way around. Something’s definitely shifted between them in her counterpart’s absence.
He looks past her to his assistant and Nathalie sags at whatever she sees on his face. “It's what we thought then?”
He nods, “It is.”
“What exactly is it?” and she sounds snippy she’s aware, but she's needs to know, and she doesn’t like being shut out of things like this.
Gabriel kneels down by the seat she's on and takes her hands in his, and finally looks something like the husband she expects, “Emilie, your Miraculous is broken.”
“No.” It can’t be. Not after everything she’s gone through to get it. To have magic like this in her grasp and then not be able to use it is just not fair.
He continues, apparently uncaring of her turmoil even though he must know how she feels, “There's cracks in the watch. I can show you if you like.”
“But it worked, it brought me here.”
“It will work.” He makes a chagrined face, “or at least our experience with it suggests that. Though your appearance here raises questions as I can't see how we’re your future. But that doesn’t matter.”
Emilie doesn’t understand that at all. “How can it not matter?”
His grip on her tightens, and his tone is beseeching, “because what matters is that you have to stop using it.”
“But,” She’s spent years chasing this, he can’t just tell her to stop.
“No,” he snaps, and there’s a mania in his eyes and it scares her, “It’ll kill you. Emilie if you keep using it it'll kill you, and you'll leave me and Adrien alone and we'll all fall to pieces. I don’t know what to do with him without you.”
She stares at this looking-glass version of her husband, and can’t help but feel sorry for him, “That's what happened to you wasn’t it? That's what happened to me here.”
She’s dead.
Gabriel lets go of her hands. “It is.”
Emilie feels lost. For once in her life she doesn’t immediately know what she wants to do, what she should do. She has so many questions. She needs more information.
So, she asks them, “Then, what Miraculous did I have? Why does my sister think I’ve disappeared? What does Adrien know?”
“The Peacock Miraculous. And everybody thinks you've disappeared. Including Adrien.”
There’s only one possible response to that. “Why?”
He stands up, as if trying to assert himself as if his looming affects her. “I’m bringing you back. With Nathalie’s help. Before it happened you and I found a way to keep your body in frozen at that point, on the brink of death.”
The rest of it is all too easy to imagine. “The attic or the basement?”
“The latter. It was easier for electricity.”
“I see.” She does, much as she wishes she didn’t. “Can I see me?”
It might settle something of the confusion she’s feeling. It might make her have to accept that this whole mad story is true.
He looks at Nathalie as if for permission, which is ridiculous, and she says, “I can't see that it could make things worse.”
“If it’ll stop you from using that Miraculous then I'm happy to.” He focuses on her, “Please, Emilie. You have to stop. Use this to go back to you own timeline and then put it away and never touch it again.”
“I,” there's a trickle in her throat, and she can't swallow it down and she starts coughing.
“I'll go get some ginger tea,” Nathalie says, standing up.
Gabriel turns to look at her and not a bit of his concern drops out of his eyes, “Good idea. Get some for yourself too. I can't have both of you like this.”
“Sir,” Nathalie acknowledges and leaves the room.
Gabriel catches her questioning glance, “We've found it soothes the throat.”
That was not what she was questioning. “Why does Nathalie need tea?”
“Ah,” Gabriel looks sheepish as his hand goes to the back of his neck in a tic she thought he’d trained himself out of by this point and says, “She's helping me. To get you back.”
Her husband’s assistant is right. Emilie’s never been stupid. She puts together what he’s not saying. “You're letting her use my Miraculous.”
How much more of my things and my place are you letting her have?
“It’s not ideal.” He admits, “I should stop her, I should do more but she's made it very clear she’ll use it by herself if I don't include her, and at this point she needs that cure too. It's her fight too.”
“What is the cure then?”
If she knows that then she doesn’t have to stop. She can go back to her own time and get this cure herself and everything will be fine. She tries to tell herself that to calm her heart which is beating…well, like a rabbit’s.
“The Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous. You can,”
“Make a wish,” she interrupts, “Yes, that would work,” for one of them, unless his wish is somewhat more complex but she's not going to point that out yet, “But how are you going to get them? They haven't been seen for years.”
Emilie had looked.
“They have been here,” he doesn’t meet her eyes, “I've drawn them out, I just can’t get the damned things off them.”
Now that’s interesting, “You’ve drawn them out? How?”
“Nooroo, Dark Wings Rise.”
In front of her stands a Miraculous holder. She looks him up and down. First in appreciation, the suit is exactly as flatteringly cut as she’d expect from Gabriel, and then with her knowledge of the Miraculous she looks again, and from the look of it she thinks, “The Butterfly?”
“Yes.” His voice comes out deeper than usual and it makes her shiver
“You send your champions out after them then?”
“And to cause chaos and get their attention.”
She stands up, wanting to close the distance between them. “You terrorise Paris for me.”
“It's all fixed afterwards. There's no permanent damage.”
Her husband, a Miraculous Wielder instead of hesitating about it and devoted to her after all, it's what she thought she wanted. “Thank you.”
She reaches up to his face tracing the cowl, and is he taller transformed, that seems unnecessary but then for all Gabriel calls her dramatic he has a long streak of it too, “A pity I can't see your face though.”
“I am trying to keep my identity secret.”
“The magic in the Miraculous does that without something like this.’
“Yes, well, I didn’t know that at the time,” he grumbled. It's cute seeing her husband in this, she thinks Nathalie had said Hawk Moth or something like that, and she feels a swell of affection for him.
She rises to her tip toes but Gabriel didn't meet her halfway like he usually does.
“I don’t think,” He doesn't meet her eyes, “You’re not my Emilie, it wouldn’t be right.”
Disappointed she takes a step back, “I see.” Hiding her embarrassment she asks, “How's it going?”
“Dark Wings Fall,” the confident man in front of her is replaced by a defeated looking version of her husband, “Not well.”
“Oh.”
“Quite.” He agrees with her, “We will succeed. We have to succeed but sometimes,” he sighs, “sometime it feels like it it’s falling out of my reach.”
She should comfort him, and she wants to but she finds herself unsure how. She doesn’t know this version of Gabriel.
She tries anyway. “You’ll do it, I know you will. You always manage to succeed at what you put your mind to.”
“So did you.”
She gives up and tries to distract him instead, “And how are things with Adrien? This photoshoot seems excessive.”
“Photoshoot?”
“That he's at now?” Does Gabriel not know where their son is? Where is Adrien?
Nathalie, she realises now, hadn’t actually said Adrien was at a photoshoot. She’d let her assume that but that raises the question of why she’d dissemble like that.
Meanwhile Gabriel’s brows have knit in clear confusion, “Adrien’s not at a photoshoot, Adrien’s at,” then he catches himself and he cuts himself off which only worries her more.
At that point Nathalie returns with two cups of tea on a tray that she places on the table in front of them.
Emilie takes her chance, “Where’s my son Nathalie?”
She freezes. “M. Agreste?”
Emilie raises her eyebrows but that’s not unprecedented. She’d always been Gabriel’s assistant, but still it is odd for her to make that so explicit when she’d always deferred to Emilie with the respect she deserved as his wife and, “That was an order.”
“Technically I only work for M. Agreste.” Nathalie responds blankly, and a fixed non-expression on her face.
Gabriel comes to her defence and answers, “She's just trying to defend me Emilie. Adrien’s at school.”
“School?” That hadn't even been something she considered in her explanations for where Adrien might be because they never have seriously considered that for him, “What? Did I change my mind about that?”
“I did.” Gabriel says, “It's good for him; he needs the practise interacting with his peer group.”
She stares at him. “He needs the best education we can give him.”
She’d thought Gabriel knew that. They’d discussed this. They were in agreement, and if anything Gabriel should know the importance of a good education more than she does.
“It's a good school.” Nathalie tries to justify, “I did due diligence on that. Adrien’s education isn't suffering, and we've kept up his Chinese at home. And Chloé Bourgeois goes there too.”
She doesn’t even attempt not to roll her eyes. “Audrey barely remembers she has a daughter, and André wouldn’t want to send her private politically so that doesn’t reassure me. Though I suppose he'd at least be careful at least where he sent her. What's the rest of the class like? Safe for Adrien to interact with?”
Emilie supposes it’s a little bit pointless to be concerned about the fact she’s no longer in control of Adrien’s development and education and that other influences now have free reign on her son when the whole issue is that she’s not here.
Nathalie nods. “Yes, I checked. There’s a lot of emerging talent in his class actually. Good networking opportunities.”
There’s a ring of rehearsal to her defences.
“What this your idea?” She asks the woman who’s only Emilie’s son’s father’s assistant.
“It was Adrien’s. He wanted this.” Nathalie says, “I only ensured it was feasible.”
Emilie ignores her, “You’re letting her make decisions about our son?”
Gabriel pinches at the bridge of his nose, “I made the final decision Emilie. I took Adrien’s wishes, and Nathalie’s advice into account-I trust her, and she sees enough of Adrien to know his needs better than I do, but I allowed it. It was the best option in the circumstances.”
That doesn’t make sense. It’s supposed to be Gabriel who enforces the rules they set together and Emilie who listens to Adrien’s grievances. That’s how they work. Gabriel letting Adrien go to school doesn’t make sense.
Unless.
“You’ve been neglecting him,” Emilie realises, “That’s why you sent him to school, because you’re trying to outsource raising your own son. Yes, I’m sure Nathalie does know him better than you do.”
She’s being unfair. She knows that. The balance she and Gabriel had between them and their staff regards Adrien worked. It’s no surprise that losing her would throw that out especially if Gabriel’s off being Hawk Moth or whoever as well as everything else but at the same time it’s their son.
“We’ll get you back, and we’ll fix it.” Gabriel says, “Our family will be back together again.”
“But what about the meantime Gabriel?”
But he’s not looking at her, he’s looking out the window, and then his hand hovers by his throat.
Nathalie clearly recognises this behaviour and asks, “A possible akuma sir?”
“Yes, but,” he looks uncertain.
“Go.” Emilie tells him, “I don’t want to be the one delaying my own revival.”
He turns on his heel to go.
“Sir?” Nathalie calls after him and he stops turning back to them.
“No, you stay behind.” He says, “Both of you. Don’t either of you let the other come after me, it’s too soon after you last used those damned things for you both.”
He walks to the door then stops. “And Nathalie I mean it. I can’t be running between your beds looking after you.”
They watch him leave together.
“Well that’s a laden sentence isn’t it?” Emilie says eventually.
Nathalie looks at her blankly and Emilie wonders hysterically if the two of them have no idea how they come off. No doubt it’s been a slow gradual thing, and Gabriel might never notice, but she wonders if his assistant still pretends their relationship is professional.
“I should put the television on.” Nathalie says instead and sits down by her using the remote to turn it to the news channel.
While they wait for what Gabriel’s doing to hit the news, Emilie asks, “How is Adrien? Is he happy?”
Nathalie sighs, “He’s happy at school, and with his friends if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s half of what I’m asking.”
“He misses his father.” She must realise what’s she’s said because she corrects herself, “He misses you too, obviously, but he’s dealt with your disappearance well. Too well maybe. I worry he’s accepted that you’re gone. But it’s hard for him knowing Gabriel is still here, and yet he’s not here for Adrien.”
Emilie’s troubled by the picture she’s painting, and touched by Nathalie’s concern for her son, but there’s another bit of that draws her attention, “Gabriel?”
Nathalie reddens, “I’m sorry. M. Agreste.”
“Given he just tried to banish us like a set of naughty children so we don’t kill ourselves I think in the circumstances it seems a bit silly to demand formality.”
She waits for the other woman to admit to, she’s not sure what, but something about her and Emilie’s husband’s relationship but Nathalie doesn’t take the proffered offer of camaraderie.
“I prefer to adhere to it if I can. It’s more appropriate”
Emilie pities her a little. She would more if it wasn’t her husband Nathalie’s getting inappropriately close to.
She reminds herself that this isn’t, that it can’t be her timeline, and this isn’t her problem. Instead she asks, “Why didn’t I stop using it before it got too far? Do you know?”
“No. I don’t know.” Nathalie turns to face her more fully, “Will you stop?”
“I don’t know.” Emilie admits, “It frightens me, what he said but I keep thinking, surely there’s a way around it? If it’s broken then can’t I fix it?”
“Putting your efforts into that is more than our Mme. Agreste did. Though of course she didn’t know what was happening until it was too late really. Maybe she didn’t think it was worth stopping at that point.”
“But to abandon Adrien and Gabriel?”
She’s not completely unware of her own flaws. People have called her self-centred before, but she loves her husband and her son. She wouldn’t have wanted to leave them to this.
Nathalie looks down at her lap. “She must have thought it’s worth it.”
“Do you think it’s worth it?”
“I think it’s necessary.” Her hands grip onto the sofa, “That first time I transformed M. Agreste was defeated, he was almost caught. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“I see.” That does shed a light on some things, and that Emilie can understand perhaps, “But you’ve kept doing it.”
Her voice is steady, as if she’s said this before, “I want him to get you back.”
Emilie stares at Nathalie as if she could make sense of her, and of what she feels, and of what’s happening between her and Emilie’s husband, “It’s guilt then is it”?
“What? I want him and Adrien to be happy. Oh” Nathalie’s attention is distracted by the television. “They’ve found the akuma.”
Emilie finds herself enraptured by it despite herself. The villain Gabriel’s created is ridiculous. It reminds her a little of the sort of outlandish characters in the stories he used to make up for Adrien when their son was little complete with a ridiculous pun name.
“Is it always like this?”
“Mostly.”
Unfortunately the heroes, though Emilie doesn’t personally consider them that, seem to be getting the upper hand.
Nathalie isn’t fidgeting by her side but Emilie can see her pent up energy anyway. “He said he didn’t want you out there.”
“He’s not winning.”
“That’s true. Would you change that?”
“Probably not,” Nathalie admits, “But, there’s always that hope. It’s hard to ignore that.”
“Hard for Gabriel too it seems.”
That catches Gabriel’s assistant’s attention. “What do you mean?”
Emilie has to point out the obvious. “It doesn’t sound like you’re getting close to saving me.”
Nathalie’s face doesn’t react, but anger flashes through her eyes, “We’re trying Emilie. It’s not easy.”
“I know.” She can. “I can tell. It just, it worries me. It’s barely been here and I’m already worried for Gabriel. He seems exhausted.”
“I know.” Nathalie exhales, “That’s part of why I do it.”
Emilie doesn’t have a better question than, “What?”
Some of Nathalie’s usual mask slips. “You asked why I’d do it. Well, seeing the lengths he’ll go to for you, his devotion to you, it feels like he deserves to get you back. I’d like to live in a world where that sort of effort and love is rewarded.”
She believes what she’s saying. Emilie can tell that, and she doesn’t know how she herself feels about it apart from the fact it’s certainly not making her feel any better or less nauseous like it maybe should do.
Perhaps that because part of her has to ask, “And what about you?”
She blinks, and then her professional expression re-asserts itself, “What about me?”
“What about your effort? What do you get out of this?”
Nathalie doesn’t blink. “Satisfaction I suppose.”
Either she’s an extraordinarily good actress or there’s just something wrong with her and the other woman is missing some vital part of herself and honestly does want to make Gabriel happy even if it’s not with her. Emilie’s always gone out and taken what she wanted and much as she’s glad Nathalie’s not like her for the sake of her marriage, she doesn’t understand it at all.
They watch the television as Gabriel loses again.
“Does he even try planning things?” Emilie asks in desperation as she watches the victory celebration of a pair of teenagers.
“Sometimes,” Nathalie shrugs, “It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.”
Gabriel’s like a statue when he returns. All closed off. Though he makes a move as if to sit down next to Nathalie, then looks at Emilie and seems stuck, as if his brain isn’t sure which of them to address.
“You could take Mme Agreste to see our version of her, sir.” Nathalie suggests.
He grabs onto her suggestion. “Yes, of course. That’s a good idea.”
Emilie isn’t sure it is. Isn’t sure she wants to anymore and get confirmation of a world without her, but she doesn’t want to upset him either.
She follows him down, and notes how professionally he ignores any contact between them in the lift. She wonders if he’s so studiously careful with Nathalie or it they’re past that the way they touch each other.
It’s uncanny seeing herself in the casket in suspended animation.
All the magic she knows of and had studied for years hadn’t prepared her for that.
“I’m not really alive am I?”
“I suppose it’s a bit late to claim otherwise now.”
She walks around herself inspecting. There’s no waxy cast to her skin or stiffness to the body like she’s expect of a corpse but then she isn’t a corpse or not exactly one from what he’s said. She’s not sure there’s much difference when she’ll never be truly alive again without two jewels Gabriel might not get.
It might be vain but she does make a beautiful image lying there like that. Snow White waiting for her prince to save her. Even if her hair and lips are the wrong colour for that, and the man that should be saving her seems to be getting lost along the way.
There’s one thing spoiling the picture though.
“Where’s my wedding ring?” She asks, in confusion. Gabriel’s wearing his. Confused as he might be it makes no sense to take off hers while still wearing his own, “Does the metal interfere with the machine or something?”
“It’s here.” He holds his hand out to show the ring on his finger.
The single ring on his finger.
Emilie’s annoyance rises, “Where’s yours? Did you lose it? Gabriel.”
That feels like some sorry metaphor for this whole mess she’s found herself in.
He scowls. “The hellion of a nephew of yours stole it.”
What. “Felix?”
“I wasn’t aware you had another. Thank god.”
Emilie stares at him. “But why?”
Félix is more given to pushing at boundaries than Adrien was but she’d not thought of him as a particularly disobedient child. Amélie’s husband has a firm hand when it comes to their son. Félix should know better than to think that would be a funny joke.
Gabriel’s clear annoyance matches her own, and she feels comforted by that. “Amélie came around demanding them. I turned her down but he took it upon himself to ignore that.”
Now this she can be angry about with no conflicting feelings. It’s almost nice to feel the heat on her face and not feel like this has to hide it while she works out the situation.
“My sister tried to steal our wedding rings because I disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“That utter cow.”
“Quite.” He says, and he hasn’t quite managed to get the amusement out of his voice.
“She’s always been jealous of me you know.”
Gabriel makes various acknowledging noises while she lets herself rant about her twin. This feels like home. It’s grounding.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” She finishes, “We have always stolen each other’s stuff.”
Clothes. Jewellery. Boyfriends. These things happen. Though at least the inanimate objects had an excuse for not realising they were being stolen.
Then she tenses wondering if Gabriel’s reaction earlier had been more than lingering resentment from her and Amélie’s old trick, “She hasn’t tried to steal you has she?”
Gabriel chokes, “No. No. God Emilie. No. Why would you put that thought into my head?”
“Oh good,” she says and on realising that Gabriel is still staring into the middle distance in horror, “Calm down Gabriel she probably wouldn’t. She’s happily settled in London and she knows you’d never leave Paris. And she is married.”
Gabriel winces, “Hugh’s dead too.”
Emilie blinks as she processes the revelation of her sister’s husband’s death. She’d liked him. Apparently it’s not just her this future has fallen out wrong for. “Anyone else dead in this future?”
“No one we’re particularly close to.”
“Right.” She exhales, “That’s something. And anyway I can see it’s not my sister you’d go looking for comfort in.”
“No of course not, Amélie could never be a replacement for you.”
“That’s so reassuring.”
“Emilie?” He tilts his head, “Are you doing that thing where you imply things again? You know I’m not good guessing when you do that. I wish you’d just tell me what you want.”
Something about being stuck next to her own still body makes her reckless. “I’m just pointing out that if you were particularly upset I’m fairly sure it would be Nathalie you’d seek out,”
“Obviously.” Gabriel says clearly missing her point, “She knows the situation and I know I can rely on her and,” He stops. “Are you trying to say,” the poor man grasps for words, “Me and Nathalie? Like That?”
“Yes.” She says dryly. Honestly it’s almost amusing.
“That. No. That’s. You take that back that’s insulting to Nathalie. She’s doing so much for us. I’ve never ask that of her. I don’t even think of her like that. She’s my assistant. I’m married. To you.”
She can’t help but pout, “I thought you’d decided I wasn’t your Emilie.”
He seemed certain on that when he’d refused to kiss her up there. Unless that wasn’t actually the reason of course.
He gestures wildly. “To a version of you then. Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t know,” it’s the truth, she’d been angry earlier but now, now she’s doesn’t know what she is, “I suppose I kept thinking maybe there’s a reason I’m here. That maybe landing in your timeline wasn’t an accident. That something stopped me reaching my own.”
Hope dawns on Gabriel’s face, “Maybe there is. Maybe you’re here so you know you have to stop. So we can save you.”
“Even if you don’t save her?”
He stares at the version of her here in despair but says, “Even if we don’t save her, yes, it would be worth it to know I was saving you somewhere.”
And she could. Save herself that is. This whole mess could be warning for all that the different Miraculous her counterpart has tells her this isn’t, that this can’t be, her future.
“Is this supposed to be some quid pro quo thing then? I get my happy healthy future by coming here and seeing how using my Miraculous could all go wrong and in return I’m supposed to give you my blessing that in your world you can give up on me and move on with assistant of all people like some stereotype, and maybe hopefully manage to bother to make some time for our son?”
“Emilie,” he tries but she’s in full force, and she’s not going to stop now.
“Because I don’t know if I want to Gabriel, I want you to be happy, I want Adrien to be happy, I’m even glad that woman seems to honestly care for both of you rather than being after your money,” some of which is actually her money she could point out, “but I don’t want to have to give permission for you to displace me. I’m your wife.”
“I know.” Gabriel finally touches her laying a hand on shoulder to calm her down. “I know. And I’m not asking you to do that. I’m doing all of this to save you.”
Emilie can’t help but pity him, she does love him and that means she wants the best for him, she’s just always thought that was her.
She reaches up to take place her hand over his, “And how’s that going for you?”
“What?”
“Gabriel you’ve exhausted, and it sounds like Adrien’s slipping away from you, and now I’m here you don’t even look like you’re sure what to do with me.”
“How can I in the circumstances, it’s not like you’re her, Miraculously returned to me? And Adrien will be fine. Once I get you back.”
“And you’re going to know what to do if you do? I think the only reason I’m not screaming at the situation I’ve found here is because this can’t be my timeline. Not with that different Miraculous. Do you think your me is going to be happy at what she’s come back to?”
“She’d be alive.” He pushes off her hand to put his onto the casket instead, right above the hand of her counterpart, “What else can I do?”
“You could make more time for Adrien. Ensure that he still cares what he thinks of us. As to the rest,” she really does feel like she might throw up now, but apparently she really does want the best for this bizzaro copy of her family, “I think you need to make a decision.”
He looks back up from the casket at her, “Are you saying I should give up?
“I don’t know Gabriel. As you keep saying she’s not me,” she has to keep telling herself that, “I can’t absolve you.”
“Emilie,”
“Look. It doesn’t matter. You’ve won. I’ll stop using this,” a brilliant idea occurs to her, “I’ll do better than stop using it. I’ll ensure I never did.”
“Emilie,”
“Your world is your world but I’m fixing mine. Give me my miraculous.”
He sighs, but he gestures for her to follow him.
Emilie figures she’s owed some fun so she gives him a kiss on her check in front of his assistant, before she opens the portal. This time he doesn’t flinch away. Perhaps her transformation makes it easier for him.
She’s not sure if she cares. She’s going to fix things and this is never going to be her future.
This time she’s exceedingly careful looking at the options in the burrow. She makes sure she has the right one instead of just assuming something looks right.
Eventually she stops at one and watches her younger self about to find the lead that would send her down into looking for a Miraculous from Asia in amongst Egyptian antiquities.
Then she makes sure she won’t find it.
It seems like such a temporary fix but it must work because slowly Emilie starts to disappear. It’s odd. There’s no pain as she watches her limbs disappear from existence. Just a sense of satisfaction.
The both watch the blank space where Emilie’s portal had been, as if it will give them some clue as to what she was doing, as to if anything would change.
Eventually Gabriel’s the one to speak. “Do you think she saved herself?”
It's nice to think that somewhere out there in the multiverse there’s a Gabriel and Emilie where all of this didn't happen, where they put away any idea of using a Miraculous and lived happily ever after.
Knowing him, knowing her, it sounds more like a fairy tale than anything that world actually happen but then they live in a world of magic don't they, why shouldn't one set of them get a fairy tale?
He ignores the whisper at the back of his head saying that he'd already had his fairy tale with his rise to fame and fortune and marriage to Emilie. That now he was no longer the questing prince but the dark enchanter in his tower that this generation of heroes fought.
All he wants to is to save his wife. That shouldn't be such a bad thing.
And it would be a nice thing to think that maybe he has, once, even if he doesn’t get to reap the benefit.
Nathalie turns her head to look at him, “I don't know Gabriel.”
He looks down at her, knowing she has more to say even if she’s not given voice to it, “What do you mean?”
It's more than just that their world hasn’t changed. That much is clear to them. Paris looks the same as ever outside their windows, and there’s no Emilie here Miraculously unhurt.
She looks uncertain, and he gets the urge to reassure her but before he can she says. “It’s just a thought. I don't know that you’d want to hear it.”
“I probably don’t, that doesn't mean I shouldn’t.”
Nathalie sighs but doesn’t say anything.
“Nathalie,” he prompts her.
“It's just, Emilie never had the Rabbit Miraculous did she?”
“No, you know that.”
“And that Emilie, the Emilie we just met, she said she'd go back and stop her younger self finding it. But if she does she’ll disappear out of existence because her timeline never exists right?”
This all seems obvious, and he doesn’t quite get the point she was making. “That seems correct from what we know if the Miraculous yes,”
“Then, if that Emilie makes sure her younger self doesn’t get the idea to go after the Rabbit but doesn't manage to put herself off the Miraculous completely; then how do we do we know that that younger Emilie, the Emilie that she's saved, isn’t our Emilie. That she didn’t miss her chance to get the Rabbit but still kept looking and then we found the Butterfly and the Peacock.”
“My God.”
He has no other words. He sits there horrified. To think that might have been Emilie after all. To think that was his Emilie and his heart hadn’t leapt to see her. To think that was his Emilie that said all of that.
To think that he can never save any version of Emilie at all.
Nathalie is looking up at him in clear concern, and she rushes out, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it.”
“No,” he says at first, and she crumples in on herself and he regrets it because none of this is her fault, she shouldn’t be involved in this at all, so he changes it, “No, I think I needed to know that was a possibility. Better than me trying to go after the Rabbit and save Emilie in every timeline.”
“I am sorry sir.” She much judge it safe because she takes a hesitant step forward and reaches out to him.
He responds to her invitation by pulling her into his arms automatically to reassure himself that she at least is here. That she hasn’t died yet from a Miraculous. That he still has a chance to save her.
Emilie hadn’t been wrong. He does go to Nathalie for comfort. But it’s always stopped here, and now Emilie’s put the damned image in his head, and now Nathalie’s pressed up against him warm and alive and loving, he can’t help but imagine going further in his attempt to lose himself in her.
Why had Emilie had to say that?
Had she been warning him more than he’s realised? Telling him he’d lose more than he knew if he lost Nathalie?
He doesn’t know.
She’d told him to make a decision.
“You know,” he realises, as he grapples with whether or not that Emilie being his Emilie makes a difference, “There’s a flaw in your theory.”
Nathalie’s voice comes out muffled against his chest, “Is there?”
“We’re never seen any sign of the Rabbit Miraculous being broken here.”
“That’s true. Maybe her timeline was entirely separate.”
Or maybe they just haven’t noticed it. Or maybe it had got broken in the process of Emilie’s acquisition. Or maybe Emilie had accidentally broken it.
“I guess we’ll never know.”
All he can do is work with the version of existence he’s already in.