Forgotten

Chapter 13

"Hi!" The first person to meet them was a girl with a box in her hands stamped with the logo of a bakery. She must be Marinette; Chloe remembered Adrien talking about Marinette bringing him food from her bakery. She smiled at the thought that there were other people looking out for Adrien, as well.

Chloe watched as Adrien's face lit up when he saw Marinette. For a second, Adrien's joy at seeing his 'friend' was enough to make Chloe forget how nervous she was. This was the first time she had truly been outside rather than the very short trip from the hospital doors to the car and from the car to the house. She hadn't even had the chance to explore the gardens yet. But this would be a good chance to meet everyone again, even without her memories.

"Can you introduce me to everyone, please?" While Chloe didn't want to interrupt whatever moment was happening between Adrien and Marinette, she also didn't want to just stand there, not knowing anyone.

Adrien and Marinette both seemed to startle out of their romantic trance with Adrien remembering she didn't know anyone first. "Sure! This is Marinette, she's one of my best friends and she lives at the best bakery in Paris."

When Adrien called Marinette his 'best friend', Chloe noticed she looked away from everyone. Did she have a crush on Adrien? While Chloe was contemplating the possibility of setting Adrien and Marinette up, the other two people in the group moved over to them.

"This is Nino; he makes super cool music," Adrien gestured to a boy with headphones around his neck, "and this is Alya, the founder of the Ladyblog."

"It's nice to meet you all. Thank you for inviting me." Nino, Alya, and Marinette all looked shocked that Chloe was speaking like that. Maybe she sounded too formal to be speaking with friends. Hopefully, that would go away the more time she spent with them.

"Now that you're both here let's get going!" Marinette had handed the bakery box to Adrien and was already leading the way through the park. Adrien was following close behind her and wanting to give them some privacy, Chloe stayed a few steps back. That meant she had inadvertently fallen into step with Alya and Nino, who were talking about Adrien and Marinette.

"There's no way he still thinks she's just a friend, especially not after everything that's happened since the building collapse! He has to have some idea about her feelings for him!" That was all the confirmation of Marinette's feelings that Chloe needed.

"He talks about her a lot, even if he hasn't worked out why. I think he has a crush on her, too." Alya turned to Chloe so quickly she worried that she shouldn't have said anything, but the grin on Alya's face said otherwise.

"I knew it! They're totally into each other!" Alya let go of Nino's hand to link her arm with Chloe's. "Does this mean you'd help set them up?"

"You can't meddle, Alya. If they're going to get together, they'll get together eventually."

"We might all be retired by then. Adrien really thinks speaking about someone and getting a weird dreamy look in his eye is normal 'friend' behaviour." Chloe's joke made Alya burst into laughter loud enough to make Adrien and Marinette look at them. There was a smile on Adrien's face, while Marinette looked slightly more worried. "Is Marinette alright?"

"She's probably worried I'm convincing you that she and Adrien are soulmates and that you should be convincing him to date her at everyone possible chance."

"Are you trying to convince me?"

"You already know that Marinette and Adrien have crushes on each other and I'm sure you were already planning to help Adrien realise his feelings after I saw you watching them when you first arrived. Marinette's worried about the wrong person being the mastermind here." Alya's voice had dropped to a whisper, even though Marinette and Adrien were caught up in their own conversation again. "It'll be good to have another ally working on the other side."