Snowy streets in Paris

Pain and Blood

She walked into her room and another fit of coughing made her shrug, she wanted to reach for the desk but her vision blurred, she fell herself fall on the cold floor, she closed her eyes, tears scalding down her face and she tried unable to breathe. She held her hand in front of her mouth in pain. She coughed even harder and felt a sharp pain in her lungs, worse than before. She opened her eyes, "Blood...?" she whispered. She heard someone scream something, she felt someone grab her and tried to help her. Nathalie could not notice everything around her, she only felt the unbearable pain and finally tried to catch her breath. "Why...?" she wondered, not understanding. She wished she would just can lost her consciousness like usual and eventually wake up and everything would be fine, but that didn't happen. At some point she didn't have the power to cough anymore, she gasped and tried to get up, sit down or somehow get air, but she can not move. She closed her eyes again, her body twitches over and over again, the pain and the blood. At first she listened, she only heard a muffled voice, her heartbeat and her gasp as she tried to breathe, but very slowly she felt her senses coming back, she opened her eyes again, she finally had to breathe again. Once again she tried to breath. "Nathalie..." she heard Gabriel's voice, it was quiet and almost a whisper. She looked at Gabriel with slightly opened eyes, very slowly she could see clearly again.

Gabriel didn't know what to do. After Nathalie yelled at they, he asked Adrien to go to his fencing class and the boy left. He followed Nathalie, he wanted to talk to her, but as he opened the door he was frozen. She was lying in the middle of the room, coughing up blood and constantly shrug in pain. He then ran towards her and at first he called her loudly but no matter how loud he called her name, she didn't notice him. He did not know what to do. He was in shock and kept calling her name. At some point she stopped coughing and instead gasped. "Mon Dieu, she will not survive this, she is too weak." he thought and ran into the bathroom down the hall and opened the medicine cabinet, his hands were shaking, "something against pain" he mumbled and discovered a small bottle and grabbed it, he immediately ran to her again and took her in his arms, he had let her drink from it, but even that she didn't seem to notice. She lay in his arms with her eyes closed and at some point she stopped wincing in pain, "Nathalie...?" he whispered her name again. They can think that she was dead, her breathing was a faint gasp, her eyes were closed and she was impossibly white, blood was on her mouth, hands and where he had found her. Only now did he notice tears running down his face, he was so scared. They had almost made it, the Miraculous can finally be repaired, she can't just die now. He hugged her and whispered "Nathalie...please...I don't want to lose you" He picked her up and laid her on the bed, he sat down next to her and held her hand "Please..." he saw how she had opened her eyes very slightly "Nathalie..." he leaned closer to her and looked at her, he noticed how her pupils changed and she was now looking directly at him. "...Gabriel..." she said and her voice was barely more than a whisper. "Rest, please" he said softly, she raised her hand and stroked his cheek, "you... cried..." "please, rest, you shouldn't talk" he replied and smiled at her "The medicine helped, she'll feel better," he thought, but was still afraid that something would happen to her. He watched her. She drop her hand and close her eyes. A little time later her chest move regularly. He sat next to her that evening and all night and did not dare to sleep, he was too scared that she would suddenly stop breathing. Instead, he wiped away the blood and sat next to her, watching about her. He thought about it all the time, he had to think of Emilie, the consequences hadn't been that bad for her, although she also had dizzy spells and coughed, but not as badly. He knew his son was right, he was to blame for Nathalie's condition and he hadn't done anything about it, but his son didn't know that he couldn't do anything about it. At some point he had started reading the translated version of the magic book. 

A soft noise woke him up, "Did I fall asleep?" he thought irritated and sat up wearily, the tablet lay next to him. "I guess I just fell asleep..." Nathalie wasn't in the room, it was still dark outside, he shook his head, "Why is she awake now?" he got up, he heard a soft tapping in front of the room and the door opened and Nathalie came in and looked surprised at him "Uh... good morning" she said and blushed, he looked at her. She was probably just taking a shower and now only had a towel wrapped around her, her hair was wet and there was now a small puddle on the floor as they stared at each other "I didn't want to wake you up..." she broke the silence and left now away from his look, she was clearly uncomfortable, "I must have fallen asleep, I'm sorry," Gabriel said and left the room with quick steps. He leaned against the now closed door and sighed, seeing Nathalie like this had made him nervous, he knew he couldn't deny that he really liked her.