Everyone is in search of someone else. It's always been that way, as far back as history could remember. People would be born with the memories of people long dead, and they would search for the one person that their previous self loved with every fibre of their being, with every shiver of their soul-the person who resonated throughout the ages, the unforgettable.
There wasn't much lead of who those people were, though. Sometimes, it could just be a flicker of a smile, a name so common it could belong to millions, an echo of a laugh. For Marinette, lucky, lucky Marinette, it was a complete memory. One scene. A scene her previous self left to her.
Marinette wished she hadn't.
It wasn't a very good memory.
Red. All she could see was red.
Red from her suit, red from his blood.
"My Lady," he gasped, clutching her hand with the last of his strength, "my lady, my lady..."
She didn't speak.
She just held him, and cried.
And he just smiled, and died.
Alya, keeper of all of Marinette's secrets, had launched a full-on search through the internet for the dying boy in Marinette's memory in a misguided attempt to help out her friend. What Alya didn't know, however, what Marinette hadn't told her, was that she already knew who he was.
Chat Noir.
That was his name.
Her partner. From years back to this, when they could meet once more under the cover of night.
It hurt to look at him, sometimes, when they were on patrol. It hurt Ladybug's heart, and her mind. Because when she looked at Chat, her Chat, all she could see was that final moment in their past lives. That one last warm breath of air, that one last word, that one last beat of his heart under her palm. All that blood.
Red.
Sometimes, it hurt to look at her suit, too.
And what was worse was that he hadn't found his person, at least as far as he knew. During one of their patrols, when they were both exhausted from the akuma attack and their other lives beyond the masks, sitting on top of the Eiffel Tower with the city they were sworn to protect spreading below their feet, he had told her his memory.
"All I can remember is blue," he had said quietly, leaning against a steel beam, his eyes far away, shadows dancing across the tired planes of his face. "Blue, and laughter. Sunshine. Bare feet. A palm against my chest as I died." He huffed out a mirthless laugh. "Awful memory, I know."
And Ladybug had frozen, and her heart had skipped, and her eyes-blue, his last memory-had watered.
"Chat..." She took a trembling gulp of air. "Oh, Chat."
And he had smiled a smile that reminded her of the one he gave her before he had died, the first time.
But she hadn't told him. Not that time, not ever.
Because, forgive me, past self, she was in love with someone else.
And she was going to follow her own heart, her own memories, thank you very much.
She just wished it didn't feel like such a betrayal. To herself, to her past self, to the Chat Noir that was still looking for his lady. And to Adrien Agreste, holder of her heart, because he wasn't the last thought of her last life but she still loved him with the life she had now.
Ah. What a trick it was to be in love, and what a trick it was to hold on to love.