Chloé and her mom take morning walks to the Dupain-Cheng bakery and the girls become best friends. Marinette begs her father to teach her how to make Chloé's favorite pastry (lemon bars) and Chloé starts to pick flowers to bring to her everyday, new ones, trying to find her new favorites. They play in a nearby park for about an hour or so every day as Chloé's mom takes a seat on a bench and snacks on her morning croissant.
They are around 8 years old when Marinette's great uncle becomes very ill and the family has to move to China because they are the only ones left able to take care of him. It's all very sudden; they move before they can even sell the bakery. The night before they catch their redeye flight, Marinette rushes over to the Bourgeois house, hair flying out of her pigtails, a crushed little pastry box full of jostled lemon bars, but she doesn't care. She needs to hurry to get there before it's too far past bedtime. Attached to the box is a letter written by her parents explaining the situation, with a postscript written in shaky, still unpracticed writing asking for mail to be sent to her uncle's house so they can stay in contact. (Marinette doesn't know Chloé's address; her papa is an up and coming politician and their home address is not public information for their safety.) Tucked sneakily inside the box, unknown to her father, is a recipe for Dupain-Cheng lemon bars, written in red crayon on a pastel pink, floral stationery. Chloé's butler answers the door and little Mari shoves the box into his hands and begs him to give it to her best friend and then runs back home to get sleep before their early flight the next day.
They arrive to China only to find that her great uncle's place is far too small for all of them and he's already being forced out because he can't afford the payments on top of all the medical bills he has-and they have to move. Marinette is very concerned. "But Maman, Chloé only has this address! How will she send me letters?" And Sabine just pets her little head and tells her, "Don't worry, ānān; we'll leave a forwarding address so the people who move here will know where to send her letters when they come. Then you can tell Chloé yourself where your new address is." Mari is still a little worried, but mostly placated.
Meanwhile, in France, Chloé wakes up and runs to her parent's room, so eager to bring her little friend some marigolds. It had been nearly a week since she was able to see her, the family having been gone on a politics talk of some sort for her papa's new job; her and her maman went to a local park late last night and Chloé was excited. "Mari-golds, Mari-nette! Don't you think she'll love them, Maman?!" she cried. "Oui, mon abeille," Mme. Bourgeois told her affectionately as she watched the girl pick flowers. Her excitement is quickly killed when her maman tells her that they can't go... the Dupain-Chengs have moved. She leads Chloé down stairs to where there's a jumbled, crumbled pastry box with squished lemon bars and a plate of fine chinaware with freshly made pastries made to the letter of the recipe. (Chloé obviously goes for the ones from the bakery instead of the ones made by her staff.) Mme. Bourgeois lets her have her treats early as she tells her about how Marinette's uncle got very sick and they had to leave. But they left an address so Chloé can send her letters and they can become pen pals! They're still friends, she told Chloé; just because you're far away doesn't mean you have to stop loving each other.
It turns into a daily project for months. Chloé is warned about how the mail system is slow between different continents, especially when going into rural locations in China. She's told she should number her letters, and date them, so she does, too eager to tell Marinette about everything and not even remotely worried about how long it may take for a reply. Now that she's unable to give Marinette flowers on a daily basis, her butler teaches her how to press and dry flowers to send with her letters telling her about everything! About the new boy she's made friends with; he's kinda cute, but really silly, and already has a job! His papa makes clothes that he wears and then people take pictures of him. And she tells how her maman is letting her decorate her maman's new room since she has her own now and doesn't share with her papa anymore. What school is like-she doesn't quite like anyone as much as she likes Marinette, but they're okay, she supposes.
Except the letters are never replied to. She used to come rushing home from school every day to lemon bars made by her staff (they aren't as good as the ones Marinette used to make, although they swear they follow the recipe, but they will do until she returns), but after a few months, she refuses to eat them-even throws a fit one day and shoves the plate onto the tile floor, shattering the chinaware before screaming that she doesn't want to see another lemon bar again in her life. She then proceeds to run crying to her room. (It has only been a couple days since she stopped writing and sending letters, and she's pretty bitter about it.) Andre doesn't understand what's going on and wants to punish her for her tantrum, but her mother calms him down. She tells him sometimes little girls go through hard times and have to let off steam. (Andre grew up with an aristocratic, apathetic mother, no sisters, no aunts, no female cousins, so he doesn't question when his wife tells him this.) Chloé's mother is her rock for the next couple weeks.
Then, on Saturday morning, Chloé (just a year or so shy of collège) wakes to go fetch her mother-they have since long abandoned their daily walks in the garden (among lemon bars, bakeries, and pigtails, Chloé has also come to hate flowers), and have instead settled on weekly brunches on late Saturday mornings. Instead of being able to go in and wake up her maman with hugs, kisses, and some of the few smiles that she wears, Chloé is stopped by police tape, police officers milling inside her mom's room; a soft faced, red-haired officer guarding the door. A gentle, sad smile comes to his face when she comes into view.
"What's going on?" Chloé asks him stiffly, trying to peer into the room, but the man-Officer Raincomprix-blocks her. "Sorry, little girl," he says, "that's something for your papa to tell you." This doesn't work on her; look, she's already an angry girl; she feels abandoned by her best friend and she doesn't quite get along with the kids she goes to school with, her father is almost always busy, and this is her day to be with her mom. "This is my mother's room," she says louder, trying to walk towards the tape, but he holds her back by his arm. "Say, don't you go to school with my little girl Sabrina?" he asks; she supposes he must be trying to distract her, but she really doesn't care about who she goes to school with. "Maman!" she cries out, leaning against his arm, peering around the door frame. "Maman!"
Chloé doesn't see her mother. She just sees police officers, a half bottle of white wine, an empty glass, and the container of her mother's sleeping pills knocked over onto the table.
She's quickly dragged away by her butler and locked into her bedroom until further notice. No one will answer her questions about where her mother is-not the maids, not her butler, not the passing officers when she is able to poke her head out into the hallway.
It isn't until nearly dusk that her father comes in, eyes red and a distraught look on his face. She's still young, doesn't read faces well enough yet. She flies off her bed and starts yelling at her father for keeping her locked up, demanding to see her mother. "Oh, Chloé," he says sadly, "you can't." Chloé thinks he's still keeping her inside her room. "What do you mean I can't?" she demands. And he hands her a letter that smells like her mom's perfume and is labeled with her handwriting, "Mon chérie abeille." Andre tells her that her mom is gone-dead, gone. Of her own choice.
Her world has just crumbled.
Marinette waits for letters every day for a few months. Her maman tells her that the mail can be slow sometimes and to be patient. She has already amassed a box of letters just waiting to be sent off to Paris, little drawings on pages, small Chinese writings-she figures she can teach Chloé how to write Chinese while they write letters. About six months into living in China, she stops waiting by the mailbox for the mailman every day. She stops writing letters, but she keeps them. She's not... mad. A little hurt, but not mad. She did leave quite suddenly so she can kind of understand why Chloé has chosen not to reply to her.
The box of letters lives on the top shelf of her closet.
It's a few days before Chloé goes back to school. She... she's angry, bitter, upset. Her best friend has abandoned her, her mother left her on purpose, and she is officially all alone. She's been acting out at home, yelling more often, snapping at the staff. "Sometimes little girls are emotional and need to let off steam," Andre remembers, so he lets her. It was keeping all the emotions in that led her mother to her decision. If letting her express her emotions kept her from having the same thoughts, then Andre would have people deal with it.
Sabrina has just heard from her father that Chloé's mother has died, and he urged her to make friends with the girl. And she tried, was sweet, likely, if things weren't so hard for Chloé already, if she wasn't so angry and hateful, she would have bent to her kindness. The way it stood now, her body was filled with malice, fury a constant blue flame in her eyes. Chloé didn't want any friends-friends moved and abandoned you, left you alone, with nothing, aren't there when you need them to be. They're long gone when your mother chooses to leave you alone, to be so selfish and just leave you, when you so clearly still need her.
Chloé was never one that got along with the kids in her class, but she wasn't completely unpleasant. Until the week after her mother dies. She becomes a tiny, spiteful monster, tongue like razors, eyes like a jury, so upset and hateful, so angry and desperate to do anything, anything, to make herself feel something, anything other than this pain that is drilling into her heart and making her want to rip herself apart. And Sabrina-it's almost like Sabrina knows, can feel the pain and self-hate radiating off of her, and she stays, a constant pillar that Chloé despises until her hate and anger has become so tiring and exhausting she needs the support from her.
Come lycee, the two are alienated from the rest of their class. Chloé has hesitantly started calling Sabrina a friend, telling her stories about a girl who was in love with another, who left her all alone. Being a little more open about her mother's death, the letter from her mother on her vanity, unopened. Every morning, Chloé looks at it and wonders if it will give her some sort of explanation, will tell her something to soothe her pain. But she just lays it at its place near her makeup. Sabrina has offered to help her, to be there as she reads, or to read it first, but Chloé knows it's not going to be right, that it's for her eyes only, and she refuses.
It's near the beginning of their first year of lycee that the boy she used to be good friends with before her mother's death joins public schooling. His mother is also gone, missing, probably dead though. She doesn't say this to him, but she suspects it; it's been almost a year and a half and they haven't found her, despite the money tumbling from his father's pockets. With the disappearance of his mother, they drew closer again, wanting the comfort of someone who understands. Maybe they aren't quite friends again, in her mind, but she's pleasant enough to him, nicer than she is to Sabrina, who she envies somewhat, for having two loving, alive, present parents.
Halfway through the second year of lycee, she walks into homeroom to find a ghost of her past. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, smiling, hair in pigtails, holding a bakery box, older, taller, but somehow still the same beauty that shone in her life. There's a look of obvious surprise when Marinette sees her. "Chloé?" she exclaims excitedly, a bright, beautiful smile overtaking her face. "Chloé!" Marinette drops the bakery box onto a desk and rushes to her, throwing her arms around her shoulders, talking fast, tongue tripping, about how much she's missed her.
And Chloé just stands there, aware of all the eyes watching them, senses heightened, seeing everyone in shock, smelling fresh bread and sweet sugar on her, feeling her warmth and weight and feeling her heart beat erratically, her voice loud and happy.
She can't take it.
With a solid shove, Marinette goes tumbling back, falling onto her ass and looking up at Chloé, mouth gaping. "Don't touch me," Chloé spats, eyes filling with tears, hands curled into fists. "Don't ever touch me again! I hate you!" She stands over her, watching her shrink in on herself at the anger in her voice, small and meek on the ground under her. "I hate you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng."
She doesn't understand, even as Chloé walks away and a couple girls from the class rush to her aid, kids she had only just met, Alya, Alix, Rose, Juleka, fussing over her. Hearing Alya and Alix make remarks about how much of a brat Chloé is, a bully, how she is always like this, has been for years. Questions of why she ran to her, hugged her, seemed like she knew her were ignored for checking her for injuries and trying to keep her from crying.
Because this is not how she has ever imagined seeing Chloé again, never thought she'd be able to come to Paris again before she became an adult. Her great uncle has passed though, finally succumbing to his sickness, even though they lived still in China for a couple years, before her parent's approached her and spoke about Paris again. She's been here for a total of three days, her french far rustier than she thought it would be, considering it was her first language. They moved into a flat near a bakery that hired her father, her mother finding work in a fabric and seamstress store. She missed their bakery, but she knew it had to have been given up.
As soon as they arrived, Marinette had learned Chloé's father was the mayor and felt a small sense of pride for her friend's family. Then came news of her mother's passing; websites had little information, but apparently it wasn't too many years after they had moved. It wasn't specific but it was an accident that happened in the home. Marinette had assumed that, being the mayor's daughter, Chloé would go to a local private school, or one not far from Paris.
She never expected to have her walk into her homeroom class. To shove her, yell at her.
Did she really hate her that much for leaving?
Days rolled by, Chloé avoiding her or being so unbelievably cruel. If she didn't remember days holding hands, hugging, kissing cheeks in the sunlight at the park, lemon bars and flowers smelling so sweet around them, Marinette would never have thought that Chloé had ever been kind in her life. She was no honey bee anymore, more like a wasp, stinging, hurting, words like knives, glare like fire.
Even through it, she tried to smile, despite the hurt.
Marinette became quick friends with almost everyone in her homeroom class, closet with Alya and her friends Nino and Adrien-the latter of whom spoke Chinese and they bonded over the language, Marinette's tongue having become so much more comfortable with it over the last eight or so years. If anything, that angered Chloé even more. She didn't know why, how to make it better.
Near the end of the year, before summer, Marinette's close group of friends finally got the courage to ask her how she knew Chloé. She told a tale of sunny days at the park, rainy mornings in her room, crayons, cheek kisses, hugging, flowers, lemon bars, and how bright sun could shine inside a tiny bakery. It triggered memories for Adrien, who apparently had heard tales of the bakery girl who moved to China. Who had abandoned Chloé. It was when they were alone that Adrien told Marinette that the death of Chloé's mother was not an accident, but suicide.
It was a moment of clarity that made all the spite and hate inside of her old sweet Chloé understandable.
Chloé had never wanted to see Marinette Dupain-Cheng again, had planned her whole life around never seeing the girl that haunted her heart and past. It felt like her world was crashing down around her again, like everything was falling apart, like everything she had ever known was being torn from beneath her feet. She felt such unadulterated hate again, the heat and intensity of the likes of what she went through shortly after her mother's death. She didn't want Marinette here, to be happy-how dare she just come back and pretend she had never wronged her, to make friends and smile, despite the hate she threw her way.
She hated Marinette. She hated her the same way she couldn't deny that she still loved her, could still taste sweet lemon bars and smell flowers and feel the sun on her skin as they played outside, like a fucking nightmare of a memory that played on a broken record that was ceaseless since the moment she saw her again. It wasn't fair-this isn't fair. It hurts so much, to know that she left and never wanted to speak to her again, never answered any letter, never knew what happened to her mother, who was such an integral part of every memory she was forced to relive since seeing those godforsaken pigtails again.
It's been a little more than eight years since she has last seen her, but she remembers everything like it was yesterday, can still taste the scent of bread and sugar on her cheeks, can still feel the worn, floury hands in hers, can still remember the beginning of something special and sweet and beautiful that was starting to blossom like a rose between them, something a little more than friendship.
All abandoned and forgotten, left to rot and decompose when they were eight.
Hate falls from her lips whenever she speaks to her, cruel words she never imagined actually saying to her, despite how many times she has thought them. Her eyes cannot stop wandering to her, even if her gaze is heavy with a glare. All the while, to her utter fucking frustration, Marinette just smiles at her, still greets her with grace and gentleness, which just pisses her off more. She makes friends and she hates her for it-Chloé may never have liked many of her classmates, but Marinette only hurts people she is friends with. Marinette-Marinette is a demon from her past and she is trying to fight her off desperately.
She is thankful for summer, to be able to escape Marinette.
Escape is not an option though. Marinette may not be there physically, but she haunted her dreams, her mind, and her memories. Laughter like sunshine, smiles like morning rains, kisses like sugar-twisting into a nightmare of loneliness and abandonment. She has little to do during the days, refuses to be a part of her father's politics, not this summer, when she can't sleep all night, she stays up late texting Sabrina, sometimes if she's desperate enough to try to stay up, she'll video call, anything to keep her eyes open until the morning light. Sun rises around 7am, somehow the daylight makes the nightmares less vivid. Without fail, she'll still wake at noon in a cold sweat.
Chloé is not stupid; days when she visits her mother's grave, there are flowers and rice left there, sticks of unburnt incense and a handful of euros placed in the bowl. A practice so very Chinese, she learned after looking it up, with just a hint of western tradition, that it couldn't be anyone but Marinette. Part of her wanted to toss the garbage, especially the flowers, but she remembered how her mother adored their garden walks, called Chloé her little bee, knew that this was Marinette's respect to her mother. So it stayed, even if she found her eyes constantly drifting to it, her anger seething and simmering in her chest.
It continues like that for a little more than a month, Chloé and Marinette somehow, thankfully, just missing each other in their paths, like parallel lines, going the same journey, just never meeting. She sees small indications of her, from what's left on her mother's grave, to the glowing smile on Adrien's face in the days after they hang out, to seeing bakery boxes on Sabrina's countertops from the local bakery that had hired Tom Dupain after they had returned to Paris. Chloé was content living her life like this, knowing there was no escaping her past and memories, the nightmares would hopefully pass one day, but she was growing better, getting to sleep before the sun rose, waking up a little earlier, even making an appearance or two for her father.
There were two ways Chloé celebrated her birthday; the day of, she stayed in her hotel, invited over only Adrien and Sabrina, in the early mornings before they arrived, she would look through an old album she usually hid inside of her closet except for that day. With her hair down, in pajamas, no make up, sleepy, sad-but not sad sad, more melancholy, sitting on her bed, she would flip through photos of her and her mother, sometimes her father was there too, but he was always a busy man. These days, she would stare at the letter on her vanity for almost an hour, clutching onto a blanket she's had since she was a child, the one her mother used to wrap her in and tickle her through, kissing her cheeks and laughing, their blond hair fanning across the big bed in her mother's room, flowers across all the surfaces, her perfume sweet like honey and wildflowers, gentle kisses and lovely words.
Chloé wonders if her mother is disappointed in her.
The weekend after her birthday, or the next day if her day was already on the weekend, would be a party she would throw for her classmates, socialites throughout Paris, and her father.
She had barely just put away the album and gotten dressed that August morning when she was rung that she had a guest coming up to her room. It's a little early, but she thinks that maybe Sabrina was coming earlier to keep her company since this year had been especially hard. Or maybe Adrien didn't want to be alone in his big empty house either and had come.
(Later, Chloé would wonder if her butler had remembered the face of that out-of-breath, desperate little girl with a box full of lemon bars.)
Because when she opens the door to her bedroom suite, there stands Marinette Dupain-Cheng, arms full with stacked bakery boxes and a bouquet of flowers. "Bon anniversaire, Chloé!" she cheers happily, a lovely smile on her face, so wide her eyes crinkles in the corners, made Chloé's heart clench and twist. Kindness even in the face of hatred, so Marinette it hurt, but also confused her to the core because Marinette was the one who left her.
To her Chloé's bittersweet delight, Marinette looks a little awkward and put-out by her lack of response and refusal to let her into her room. The girl licks her lips nervously and laughs a little, nodding down to the boxes. "I don't know if you still like yellow roses, but I remember how much you loved the gardens-and there's lemon bars and honey cakes too! The honey cakes are a new recipe my mama and I made over in China, but the lemon bars are the same ones from when we were little-I know those were your favorite and I-"
"What are you doing here, Marinette?" Words sharpened to knives by her tone, even if she hadn't meant it that way. Marinette just made her feel so much that everything sounded like anger and hate.
Marinette pouts and cocks her hip a little, narrowing her eyes. "Look, I know you don't like me very much anymore-that we're hardly friends, but come on Chloé. It's your birthday. I invited you to mine, and you even came!" She pauses and shrugs a little. "Yeah, I know Adrien kind of forced you but your gift was still nice. I know you didn't invite me, but I just... wanted to wish you a happy birthday, you know?" Her voice trails off and Marinette looks at her, waiting for a response.
Chloé hesitates, feeling a little guilty because she, indeed, didn't invite Marinette, despite going to her birthday a few months beforehand. She looks at her, pleading blue eyes and little pout and all, and sighs, adjusting her grip on the door to start to swing it close. "Come back on Saturday-3pm." Then she moves to close the door, only to have a little pink shoe stick out and block the frame.
"Uh, wait, Saturday?" Marinette squeaks out, trying to hold the door open while juggling flowers and boxes. "Saturday? Chloé, I get you don't like me but why-"
Chloé sighs and peers from the edge of the door. "I throw parties for my birthday on weekends. Today is just for me, Adrien, and Sabrina-so if you would kindly leave, I would really appreciate it."
Marinette is confused, she can tell by the look on her face, and the way she still holds the door open when Chloé tries to shut it again. "I don't understand," Marinette says, "You used to demand that parties were on your birthday-why is it on Saturday? You used to-"
Chloé can't help hurt and anger the flies through her like lightning. She yanks open the door and rounds on Marinette, stepping up to her, leaning in her face, making the girl stumble back a little in surprise. "Don't you dare talk about what I used to be like-you don't get that right, Marinette! You don't get to talk about how I used to be after what you did!" Her voice is high and tight, she can feel hot tears gathering at the edge of her eyes and she hates it, hates that Marinette can still make her crumble like this, even after all these years.
And Marinette, in all her dumb fucking beauty, bright blue eyes, pink lips, freckled cheeks, sleek black hair, smelling of honey, lemons, roses, and sugar, like a walking day dream of their past, she just fucking blinks at her, like she doesn't know, like she doesn't remember what made Chloé's life hell for years.
Finally Marinette lets out a disbelieving sigh and shakes her head. "I don't- Chloé, I don't know what you wanted from me. I know it wasn't fair and it couldn't have been easy, but my uncle was sick. He was sick and we had to go and I don't understand what you could have wanted from me. We were eight-what was I supposed to do?" If tears hadn't already began to blur her vision, if she wasn't already so angry and done with her, maybe Chloé would have heard the desperation, sadness, need for answers in his voice, seen the distraught look in her eyes. But she didn't.
"What I wanted from you was what you promised!" Chloé yells, voice trembling. "Just one fucking letter, Marinette-you should have answered me at least once. You can't possibly understand how long I waited for you. Even when I stopped hoping, part of me still wished, still remembered how I loved you and you-you just forgot me and left me all alone and... And I hate you, Marinette!" She is thankful her tears didn't fall until after the door slammed. Hands slapping over her mouth too keep herself silent as she slides to the floor and sobs.
She just stares at the door that was just slammed in her face, listening to the sounds of muffled crying, paralyzed, confused, not understanding what is happening. It doesn't take long for words, actions, and feelings to align to make sense for her. Marinette leaves the stack of boxes and the bouquet of flowers on the floor just outside the door and heads home.
When she is alone in her room, she takes down the shoebox from the top shelf of her closet.
Seeing Marinette was like a relapsing after being sober.
After finally dragging herself to her bed, Chloé wraps herself in her old, worn blanket that she wishes still smelled of her mother and texts Adrien and Sabrina to tell them not to come over. After a few minutes, she turns off her phone because she doesn't want to answer any of the questions they are throwing her way.
She doesn't want to exist today.
She doesn't want to exist for several days after, too. She shies out of her bedroom a little later that first day to go have her birthday dinner with her father when she sees the boxes and flowers. She hates them-hates them and loves them all the same.
Chloé puts the flowers in a vase on her mother's vanity. No one lives in the room, but it's cleaned on a daily basis still. She doesn't know how long the flowers will stay, but they are there. It creates a juxtaposed feeling of discomfort and rightness she hates. Lemon bars are like ropes tugging her back into the bittersweet memories of her childhood, but they taste like heaven has kissed her tongue, just like she remembers. Honey cakes, sticky with old love and days she can't shake, feels like soft cheeks on her lips, small hands in hers.
Marinette is a drug she never asked to get addicted to.
By the time Saturday rolled around, Chloé is sure that Adrien and Sabrina are going to conduct a secret mission to break into her hotel-she has left them on read the whole week and hasn't been seen around Paris since the day Marinette came to visit. She knows she'll get an earful and a half during her party that afternoon but she doesn't care. Yellow dress, pale pink sash, topaz jewelry. Her makeup in minimal-she just doesn't have the effort inside of her this summer to do more than what is necessary. She doesn't have many close friends and they will be the only ones who notice something is wrong anyways.
It's a little more than two hours before early guests arrive that her butler comes in and delivers a package. Her father had to leave on business and she just assumes it's a secondary, apology gift from him as she sets it on her bed and begins to open it.
She doesn't know what to think when she sees a painted shoe box, black with little bees and yellow flowers around, her name written large in cursive on the lid.
Only one person knows of bees and flowers and honey, but Chloé opens it anyways.
Marinette always had been her weakness.
She sinks heavily onto her bed, brows drawn together, heart squeezing in her chest, breath caught, stuck, choking her.
The box is full of sealed letters. Her name written in childish handwriting, next to Chinese characters she doesn't understand. She doesn't understand. Her hands are shaking and she's hyperventilating when she starts digging through the box; how does something so small holds so many letters, dozens, worn and old, ink almost fading in some (or maybe it's the tears blurring her vision). Chloé dumps the box and tosses it to the head of her bed, hands trembling as she spreads the cards out on her bed, trying to understand how many there are.
Then she's tearing them open, trying to be delicate with the decorated envelopes, but failing, breath hiccuping and shuddering in her lungs when she accidentally tears some. Then unfurling letters, little handwriting, tales of China and how much she misses Paris sunshine and flowers, how much she misses Chloé, small Chinese characters in the corners to teach her the language. One after another, envelopes falling to the ground in desperate abandon as she tries to consume all the content she has hungered and thirsted for-for years.
There's a knock on her door to let her know guests have begun to arrive. But Chloé-Chloé is frozen. Stuck not understanding, not knowing what this means, but knowing that it, at the very least, means Marinette never forgot. Months' worth of letters, saved, waiting to be sent to Paris.
Maybe she doesn't understand why or how, but she knows that Marinette hasn't changed.
So she's running, shoes not even on, down the stairs because the elevator is being used and is too slow and she can't wait any longer. Chloé doesn't remember what letter she is holding onto, but she clutches to it like it's her anchor to the ground. It likely is.
Chloé doesn't see who is in the ballroom when she arrives, just finds dark hair in a pink dress and she's still running. Part of her knows that Marinette is never far from her friends and likely Nino, Alya, and Adrien are all nearby, if not next to her for all she knows in her tunnel vision. But she doesn't care because she's panting and shaking and her knuckles aching from the grip on her letter. There must be a resounding noise of her feet slapping the ground because Marinette looks up at her before she stands in front of her, a surprised look on her face, but Chloé can't hear anything but the pounding of her blood in her head.
She doesn't know how she comes to a stop in from of Marinette without knocking her over or falling. But suddenly she is face to face with the only thing she has ever really wanted since the death of her mother and she's breathing heavily and can barely see her through the mist in her eyes. Chloé roughly shoves the letter into Marinette's chest and breathes in shakily. "What is that?" she asks, voice trembling.
Marinette just glances at it for a moment before biting her lip. "It's one of your letters. They've been waiting a long time for you, Chloé," she tells her, stepping closer to her, hand touching her arm so tenderly, eyes shining up at her. "I promised, right?"
"I wrote you every day," Chloé tells her brokenly, not caring when the heat of her tears streak across her make up. "For months. I waited every day for you." Her voice is tight and trembling and Marinette-god, Marinette just gives her a gentle, understanding smile.
"I did too," she said lowly. "I'm sorry-I don't know what happened-Chloé I never forgot you. I was waiting on your letters." Marinette becomes blurry again as Chloé laughs a little, watery and bitter, but a laugh.
She doesn't know how she ends up with her hands cupping Marinette's face, just feels the rough clank of their teeth against each other before their lips ease back together.
Marinette tastes like bread, sugar, honey, and something more.
Later, Alya would profusely apologize for sending a video of what happened to everyone in their class.
Chloé would never admit it, but she's a little thankful for it. News of her mother's suicide, along with the fucked up misunderstanding between her and Marinette, how abandoned she felt-maybe it didn't make up for her behavior, but having an explanation, she felt, made it easier for her to work towards stepping off of her classmates.
Things are still shaky, imperfect. Neither of them understand why it happened, although Marinette has told her she suspects that the people never used the forwarding address and Chloé's letters were lost among the trash. Neither of them talk about their kiss, or what it means for them now, but they are close, always touching, holding hands.
The first day back at school that fall, Chloé arrives with a handful of marigolds, almost nine years late. But there is also a lemon bar sitting at her desk and she has to go to the bathroom before she cries in the middle of class. Because as right as it feels to just slide into what they used to be, it still hurts, to have gone 8 years feeling like Marinette had abandoned her. Every night, before she falls asleep, she reads the letters again, falls asleep holding onto them like they are her every reason to breathe.
She now has Marinette's number, and there are nights were the letters are not enough. She calls, tears in her eyes, lungs seizing up, just for the assurance that Marinette really is there, that she didn't forget about her. Marinette always answers, sleepy soft voice calling her something foreign she refuses to explain come daylight (when Chloé asks Adrien, he just laughs, cheeks pinking, and tells her it would be best if Marinette told her, but that he's happy for them). The days that Chloé falls asleep clutching to her phone are the worst, and the next day Marinette acts as a salve for the way her words and eyes burn. Soft fingers tangled between hers, gentle lips soothing the crease in her brow, words like honey, sugar covered words that pulls her back to the ground.
Chloé knows that it isn't healthy to be so angry all the time-to rely on a drug like Marinette to come back down. She doesn't know how to live any other way.
Two months into the new year at school, Marinette asks her to go to a therapist. "Not that I think there's anything wrong with you, of course!" she quickly back pedals. "I just-I know it still hurts you. I know it does and I wish I could fix it, but I can't. I don't know how and I just want you happy." She reaches out and kisses Chloé on the corner of her mouth. "That's all I've ever wanted..." And their lips touch again, steadier than their first kiss, gentler, shy tongues meeting and retreating, walking purposefully into a love that has been waiting almost a decade for its chance to grow.
The next night her father is home, Chloé asks to see someone. She can't meet his eyes, just tells him she's so tired of being angry all the time. She doesn't want to feel like she's alone anymore.
He cries at the table and tells her he's been waiting for her for so long to tell him this. Chloé cries too when she realizes how afraid he must have been all these years that she would walk in her mother's shadow.
Food is forgotten on the table as they hold onto each other and cry.
Therapy is hard. So much harder than anyone ever told her it was and she wasn't prepared for it. Stories and media always made it seem like therapists were always helpful and easy to get along with, but it takes her almost five therapists to find one that doesn't make her snap and grind her teeth. Her therapist after almost a month and a half is a petite brunette named Sylvie. She diagnoses Chloé with depression and gives her a prescription.
At first, Chloé is confused. She's not sad, she's angry. How does this woman figure she's depressed? It takes almost a whole session for Sylvie to explain to her that depression comes in many forms. And one of those forms is uncontrollable anger and a short temper.
Medication is surprisingly difficult to remember to take. Chloé has to set alarms and Marinette checks every morning to see if she's taken it. Small incentives being lemon bars and kisses for when she doesn't have to be reminded. It's even harder to open up about everything in her life. She thought that since she knew what was expected of her during therapy, that she would be prepared to tell Sylvie what had happened.
It doesn't happen like that.
They don't talk about the past until almost three months into their therapy sessions. Her mother's death is the first thing she is ready to tell-speaks of how much she didn't understand, how she felt so alone and abandoned by her. In light of her fears and feelings of being alone, Sylvie calls her father in for a quick check up with them one day and suggests that they carry on the tradition of a weekly outing of some sort that she used to do with her mother. "Chloé feels alone, even if it's only just sometimes. Considering her mother, I understand where these feelings come from and her fears of being abandoned. I think it will help her feel like you are there for her if you make sure you spend quality time with her," Sylvie says to them, looking down at her notes. She gives a little smile when she looks up. "I know you're a busy man, but I truly believe that this is the best thing for your daughter's mental health."
Starting that Saturday, they go out to brunch-or on days where it's too busy, either of them are sick, or something has come up, they will eat on the balcony of her mother's old room-whose garden has been faithfully kept up by the hotel staff. They sometimes go through albums together-her father has even started telling her stories of memories from when Chloé was too young to remember or before she was born. She has never felt closer to her father before in her life.
It takes longer before she is ready to talk about her past with Marinette. She doesn't quite know what they are yet. They hold hands and kiss, have days were they go back to each other's places and cuddle with doing homework or watching movies. They've never gone out though and, although Chloé is sure all of their parents know what they've been doing, they haven't really done the whole "hey we're dating" meeting with them yet and she's too afraid to bring it up.
Then, the day she finally brings it up, Sylvie is surprised, open shock on her face. "Ah, wait a moment, Marinette? Like your girlfriend, Marinette?" she asks, sitting up more in her chair and furrowing her brows. Chloé blushes but nods a little.
"Yeah..." she laughs a little, flat and a tad bitter. "Same Marinette... We... were best friends as children..." And she tells her story, watching Sylvie's face as she doesn't write, just listens and watches her. She tries to hold back the absolute betrayal and anger in her voice when she talks about the past, but she can tell by the look on her therapist's face that she isn't doing a very good job of it.
There's a lot of talk about her fears with abandonment. About how to move on and accept the past while being able to live in the present and plan for the future.
She leaves feeling like she can finally be more than her past.
The next day, Chloé asks Marinette out on a date that weekend; when they are there, she asks her to be her girlfriend. Marinette just smiles and grabs her hand, bringing it to her mouth to kiss.
Chloé is 19, six months since her last therapy appointment, a year off her medication, when she decides to read the letter from her mother for the first time. Marinette is with her, sitting across from her on the bed when she shakily opens the envelope. She's there to catch her when Chloé starts falling with her tears, sobbing into her chest.
They are 22 when they move into a one bedroom flat together. Marinette is going to art school to become a fashion designer, having taken off time between lycee and university to help her parents get their own bakery again. Chloé is in her last year of law school, studying day and night for the exams she will have to go through. Honey, sugared kisses help pull her into bed when the days get too late.
It's four years later, when Marinette gets hired as a full time worker at a fashion company, that Chloé proposes to her. The ring is simple with a flower engraving along the side.
It's just barely a year after that when they wed. Chloé's father long retired, a consultant for other politicians, pays for the simple Chinese inspired French wedding. It is small, Chloé never really expanding her friend group far beyond that of her graduating class of lycee and a few kids from university. The Dupain-Cheng bakery caters the desserts and Alya's mother caters the food. Chloé wears her mother's wedding dress, one that was modernized and altered by Marinette's coworker, and close friend, Anais. Marinette designs her own, of course, traditional Chinese wedding dress with small western influences.
Red, gold, and white are the colors. A celebration of their two worlds and heritages coming together as they do.