"No!"

Gabriel snapped around at her anguished cry, watching in horror as the proud, masked visage of the blonde woman in iridescent blue spandex vanished in a flash light, leaving in her place his very defenseless, very much civilian wife.

"No!" she repeated, sinking to the ground, speaking to a stirring blue and turquoise creature cradled in her hands. "You can't give up now! People need us! Just a little longer—"

"I-I'm … sorry …." The peacock kwami groaned, lifting his plumage-crested head. "Out of energy … need … broccoli …."

"There's no time!" she protested, urgency ringing in her tone. "We have to stop the fire now or else—"

She was cut off by another explosion, the deafening sound offset by the shattering of glass, the burst of heat hitting Gabriel's back like a wall of flame. He spun around, saw the flames spouting from the broken windows of yet another building, the structure consumed in an inferno of blistering gold.

Then he heard the screaming.

"Someone's still inside," he heard her whisper behind him, her somehow voice audible over the roaring flames surrounding them both.

Tightening his grip on the sceptre, Gabriel cast her a look over his shoulder. "Stay here! I'll go get them out."

"What? No! Don't even think about it!"

She'd darted forward and grabbed hold of his ankle just as he stepped forward, and Gabriel had to plant his sceptre on the ground to prevent a fall on his face.

"What do you mean, 'no'? You said it yourself, those people need help—"

"As if I'm letting you go in there alone!"

Gabriel gaped at his wife, who glared back at him while still holding onto the stirring blue kwami. "You're Hawk Moth, aside from your champions you don't have any combat abilities! If you go in there … if you …."

"People are dying in that building!" Gabriel yelled, pointing at the burning, crumbling architecture. As if on cue, another window shattered. Another scream. "And until you can transform again, I'm the only one who can do anything! They need me! This suit is indestructible, I'll be fine—"

"No, I'm not taking that chance. I won't let you take that chance," she said, laying her kwami gently on the ground before rising to her feet, staring defiantly into his eyes. "It's not only Paris who needs you. Don't forget; Adrien needs you too. I need you."

Gabriel sighed, shoulders sagging. "Then what do you suggest? We're out of options."

"No, we're not," she said, lifting her head higher ever so slightly. "Make me your champion."

Gabriel froze, his knuckles around the sceptre turning white under his gloves. "No."

"Gabriel, please, there's no time."

"You're the peacock Miraculous Holder! You have a kwami! Would that even be possible?"

"We have to try!"

"If you seriously think, for one second—"

"Gabriel!"

Before his eyes, the entire frontage of the shophouse collapsed in a thunderous rumble of concrete and brick, the red tongues of flame shooting towards the sky. Hysterical sobs now accompanied the shrieks, the desperate cries for help coming from a closed bathroom door just visible on the top floor. A fiery beam from the ceiling fell with a resounding crash that shook the street, obscuring his view.

Somehow, miraculously, still alive.

"Gabriel, please," he heard her beg. "We can't just stand here and let someonedie!"

His heart screamed at him to stay his hand, but he had always been powerless to her pleas. The sceptre waved through the air, his lips forming the words to summon a white butterfly that disappeared in burst of sparks over her chest.

"Let's go!" she said, disappearing past him in a blur of blue, wasting no time in leaping up three stories and into the blazing room. He gritted his teeth, cursing his inability to turn down any of her requests as he dashed after her.

It was something he'd regret for the rest of his life.

"You have to go!" he heard her scream, her voice lost in the scorching flames that singed his hair even under the suit and threatened to set him ablaze. "It's too dangerous!"

"Not without you!" he roared, trying to pushed aside the burning debris trapping her in the corner of the room.

"Don't be stupid!" she yelled back at him, shrinking away from the flames and pressing herself as flat against the walls as she could. "I … I can't … I won't be getting out of here alive. You have to go back! Leave me! Our son needs you!Adrien needs you!"

"So do I!"

He saw her pause, eyes wide, the tears brimming over and running down her cheeks. He saw the panic slip from her face, replaced by something frighteningly like acceptance as she smiled for him. And somewhere deep inside, he knew it was for the last time.

"No …." He made another effort to pull away the flaming beams and slabs of concrete. The fire scorched him through the suit, but he didn't care. "No! You're not leaving me here! You're not! You can't!"

No use, the ruined bits of the flaming building were too heavy to lift, and Nooroo was running too low on energy to help him.

"Adrien needs you too! He needs his mother! Don't you dare!"

He couldn't save her. He couldn't save her. She said something, her tone soothing, but he brushed it aside.

"No! No, no, no! You're not going to die! I won't let you!"

Still smiling, she shook her head, mouthing the words that his memory of her voice gave sound to even though hers was lost in the fire surrounding them.

Remember that I love you both.

Then his entire world was stolen away in a breath of flame, consumed and reduced to ashes.

Nooroo still remembered the exact moment Gabriel's heart was plunged in darkness, his soul lost to despair.

Nooroo remembered it each time he was forcibly called, each time he transformed Gabriel into a tainted shadow of what he once was.

He remembered it each time Gabriel, in a rare moment of tenderness, would gaze longingly at her visage in the locket of his pendant, still as beautiful as the day she'd been lost.

Each time Gabriel traced his fingertip over her face and whispered, "I won't let you."

And Nooroo, in his heart of hearts, would say, "I won't let you, either."

Disillusioned as he was, his Holder could still be saved.

A/N: So I got this idea after watching the season finale and starting cooking up half-baked theories until I got this. We know that Hawk Moth's power is to create champions to fight for him. What if Mama Agreste isn't around any more because he made her a champion and something went horribly wrong?

Just a thought.

And also, poor, dear Nooroo. :(