Seeing butterflies

Waking

Adrien slowly blinked at the ceiling. It was much closer than normal. He quietly wondered where he was. As his brain caught up with the events of yesterday, Ladybug, Hawkmoth, Mayura, Chloe, the Guardian and then his Father's accident. He shot up quickly and regretted it immediately. "Ah." He grabbed his head as a wave of vertigo hit him.

"Easy." Luka's gentle voice broke him out of his spiralling thoughts.

"Luka.. my father.." Adrien croaked softly.

"Is in the hospital." Luka steadied Adrien by placing a hand on his arm.

"He's not dead?" Adrien looked up at the older boy with wide hope-filled eyes.

"No. Your father is going to be fine. It will however take a couple of months for him to recover." Luka smiled softly. " He has a couple of broken ribs, a broken leg, a broken arm and a concussion. But he will live." Luka tried to assure him.

Tears of pure relief rolled over Adrien's cheeks. "Thank god." He let himself fall back into the pillow. His father would be fine. "Can I see him?" Adrien asked softly.

Luka nodded. "I'll take you to the hospital after breakfast."

Adrien hugged the blue haired musician gratefully. Luka helped him get ready as Adrien didn't think he could dress himself properly at the moment. His thoughts went out to his girlfriend. He wondered how Kagami was doing. She was no doubt worried about him. A wave of guilt hit Adrien in the chest. He must have worried a lot of people by pulling a disappearing act.

"Kagami apologized for not being able to accompany you to the hospital later today." Luka spoke up as they sat down at the makeshift dinner table.

Adrien frowned slightly. "It's ok." He mumbled.

"She said her mother is forcing her to pick up her training." Luka explained as Juleka set the table for the three of them. Their mother was still asleep as she got up later than her children.

Adrien nodded. "I understand." He sighed softly. It still hurt however. He understood why Kagami couldn't be here for him when he needed her to. Adrien wished she would come to comfort him. Breakfast tasted like sand that day.

-----

Chloe shot up in her king sized bed. In her huge room with all it's expensive furniture. She swallowed as she repeated the nightmare in her mind. Ladybug had shown up in her dream. She had torn into Chloe with a vigor normally reserved for the worst of the Akumas. Ladybug... and Chat Noir and a lot of faceless parisians. They had attacked her unrelentlessly.

Chloe shook and rushed to her desk. She grabbed a clean sheet of paper and ripped her most expensive pen out of its holder. Another gift from her daddy. One to placate her for whatever fit she had thrown that day. Chloe felt bile rise up in her throat.

"I can do this." She whispered and placed the pen on the paper.

"Dear Marinette Dupain-Cheng. " she stopped wondering if there wasn't an easier way to do this, but then quickly stopped herself. "No. I need to do this." She gritted her teeth and continued.

"I am sorry... for all the things I've done to you. For all the years I have bullied you. I don't know why I picked you as my victim.

"No... that's wrong. I do know why I picked you. You were... still are. Beautiful. I thought you were pretty back in kindergarten..." Chloe's hands trembled. Could she do this? Chloe's hand tightened around her pen. Maybe not. But she should for Marinette.

"I had the biggest crush on you Marinette. I've never known how to deal well with my emotions. And these feelings were... troublesome and annoying. I wanted them to go away. So I lashed out at you. Remember that time I cut your pigtails off? Your parents were so supportive of you. They helped you accept your new haircut. You wore it with pride after that. The way your parents treated you, was so different from what I was used to. I didn't understand why my mother didn't visit. My father was never any real support, he still just throws money at his problems until they go away. I got so jealous of you I forgot about my crush and convinced myself what I felt was hatred." Chloe took a breath before she continued. "Everyone always took such an easy liking to you. I wanted that for myself. I wanted the other children to adore me as much as they adored you. Neither did I want to let anyone else get close to you. I was jealous for the attention you gave them, I would do anything to take that attention from them. To have you look my way instead. I claim to be popular, I claim to be adored. Yet people clearly flock to you. When they look at me, it's like they see a chore. Like I'm the equivalent of cleaning the toilets. It bothers me."