Hello Fellow Mirauclousers!
OMG I'VE BEEN DYING TO GET THIS UP HERE. It feels so strange not posting every week, and I know it's so soon after I've finished Love and War, but I reallllyyyyy wanted to get something going and out there.
Just a head up: This one will NOT be switching POV's but the "…" will indicate a time splice.
…
Chapter One: March
There's a fine line between what we call war and what we call hope. Hope is something we admire, something we cherish. War is something we detest and avoid. The two can easily get mixed up in the heat of battle when the flame is strong enough to melt the meanings together. When hope suddenly burns to ash and becomes unreachable, whereas war becomes the river of water that's easy to see and even easier to touch.
Alderam came back two years after the War of the Miraculouses. Marinette had woken up in the early hours of the morning with blue eyes wide and a dark shadow over her face.
I sat up after her, immediately attuned to her movements. She looked at me and I swore it almost looked as though she were once again on the brink of death, and although she wasn't, it almost would've been better if she were.
"A-A-Adrien…"
Reaching over for her hand in the dark of the room, I squeezed it tightly to let her know I was there. A habit that I've had since forever, but one that had increased ten-fold after the War of the Miraculouses.
"Marinette, you haven't stuttered like that around me since we were teenagers," I grumbled sleepily, half-teasing to lighten her mood.
Her fist found my arm in the dark swiftly but before I could even get a word of complaint out, Marinette breathed out a single word, "Alderam."
Reaching beside me I clicked on our little lamp and looked at the time on the digital clock that rested on the bedside table. The bright red light indicated that it was 9:00 am in the morning, yet outside our windows, it was pitch black as though it were still nighttime.
Returning my attention to Marinette, I could see that she still had that look, that we-are-going-to-die look. I grabbed her shoulder and asked quickly, "What do you mean Alderam? Is he back? How do you know?"
Long ago I had learned to trust Marinette's instincts, especially when it came to bad guys. She was right about my father, and the War of the Miraculouses, it took me so long to trust her that way that now, anything she said I believed to be true.
Marinette swallowed thickly and ran her hand through her thick, dark hair, which now fell well past her shoulders, "Do you remember, after the War and Gabriel's funeral how I had that nightmare?"
I did remember. It was one of the worst nights we had had after the War. But, after that dream, things went back to normal so easily it would've been easy to forget about that dream. Nevertheless, I remembered. We remembered.
I nodded my head slowly and she continued hoarsely, "It was about him. It was more like a vision than a dream though, I saw-I… I saw…"
"What did you see, bugaboo?" I rubbed the spot between Marinette's shoulder blades gently. Her hand dropped to her lap making her hair fall over her face, shadowing her features darkly in the limited lighting. With her shoulders hunched and her mouth parted she answered in words that made my blood freeze.
"I think," Marinette started darkly, "I saw Alderam murder someone…"
Sucking in a breath I clasped my hand, the one that usually had the Chat Noir ring on it, and immediately felt unguarded, unprotected. That feeling hadn't occurred to me once since giving the ring up for its own safety, but now, it was as if the rug had been pulled out from underneath me. I wasn't prepared, and I had no means to protect my family if a threat were immediate. Suddenly, getting the ring, getting Marinette's earrings, those were top priority to me now.
However, I shoved the instinct down. We didn't have enough information, and it would be stupid of us to pull our Miraculouses out of safety on a dream that may or may not be true.
Instead, I looked at Marinette, who was now looking at me with tears in her eyes, and I asked, "Did you see who he killed?"
Silence.
A silence strong enough to stiffen my bones and chill my skin, creating goosebumps over the surface of my bare arms.
Marinette dropped another tear from her left eye and opened her mouth to finally respond only, a younger voice came out, the small voice of two-year-old Hugo who stood in the now open doorway, flooding our room with light.
"Dada, cup," Hugo whined, waddling over to my side of the bed. Worriedly, I glanced at Marinette, but she used our blanket to wipe away her tears and slap on her motherly smile.
With a small giggle she said, "Hugo, you're getting so smart."
I leaned over the side of our bed and picked up Hugo from the ground, placing him on my lap in one swift motion.
Hugo's hair had gotten long again, long enough to tickle his nose in the front, and brush the nape of his neck in the back. But his brilliant blue eyes and splattering of freckled over his nose still managed to stand out behind his black mop of hair. The older he got, the more we started to see the features he had that he got from me. Like his nose, and his chin. They were more like me than Marinette, which made me proud, to say the least.
Hugo tapped my chest with his fist and once again said, "Cup!" with the sign for "please" in sign language followed soon after.
Laughing, I mussed up his hair and said, "Yes Hugo, I'll get you a cup. D'ya want juice or milk?"
"Juisssse," Hugo tried, losing interest in me and crawling over onto Marinette's lap. Marinette helped pull him over and gave him a small "boop" on the nose.
Getting out of bed, I walked over to the door and slid my hand over the door handle, just before I left I heard Marinette say, "Do you want to go stay at Grandma and Grandpas for a bit, Hugo?"
And I got Hugo's juice, in his favorite green sippy cup.
And I got a sudden empty feeling inside, almost like, this would be the last time, for a long time, that we would get to spend the day as a family.
Because when one war ends, another one begins. One with a whole new set of problems, a whole new set of dangers, and a whole new set of scars.
And briefly, I wondered, what kind of scars would we receive with Alderam?
One like the distorted circle in Marinette's side?
Or one that perhaps, we wouldn't be able to see on the outside?
…
We decided to spend one last week with each other as a family before we sent Hugo off to Sabine and Tom's. Alya and Nino joined us too with their set of newborn twins, Mia and Eli. After the war Alya, Nino, Marinette and I decided that we should sell the house we lived in and buy a bigger house together with the four of us and Hugo. Lucky we did, because the twins were a surprise that none of us saw coming, and the new five-bedroom house fit perfectly for our ever-growing family.
In fact, after the twins came along Marinette and I had talked about the possibility of having another child, but, with her dreams and the creepily ascending storm clouds outside, I didn't think another kid was going to happen anytime soon.
Alya came out of the kitchen with two giant plates full of food and set them down on the coffee table neatly, Nino came out behind her with the twins asleep in each arm, placing them one after the other into the playpen we had set up in the living room. I got off the couch and entered the kitchen to grab paper plates and a stack of red solo cups for drinks, then returned to the living room and set them out neatly around the food plates.
Alya started to head back towards the kitchen to grab the giant 2-liter soda bottles and on her way back I called out, "Alya, could you grab the napkins while you're in there too?"
"Sure," she replied.
Nino plopped down on the couch with a short sigh. The bags under his eyes were worse than mine and Marinette's after Hugo was born. The twins were a handful and they weren't even mobile yet.
Taking a seat next to Nino I looked at the sleeping twins, then at him.
"I don't know how you and Marinette did it," Nino started. "I mean, gosh I never knew kids were so much work."
I laughed gently and leaned forward to grab a sandwich off one of the dinner platters, "We had a lot of help. Besides, Hugo is just one baby, Mia and Eli are two. You were set up for double trouble right from the beginning my friend." Taking a large bite of the sandwich, I sat back into the couch and turned on the television to start flipping through movies.
Alya came back out from the kitchen with soda and napkins, and shortly after, Marinette came downstairs from giving Hugo a bath and took a seat next to me. After finishing my sandwich and placing the remote on the couch, Mari handed Hugo over to me, indicating that it was my turn to put him to sleep.
Hugo was in his ladybug spotted onesie pajama's and wrapped up in a soft yellow blanket. He was holding a sippy cup of warm milk and sleep was evitable in his eyes. Putting him to sleep, especially with a movie night, would be a piece of cake.
"How was his bath?" I asked Marinette.
Mari smiled at me as I laid Hugo into the crook of my arm and snuggled him to my chest, "It was good. He had fun playing with some of the new toys mom and dad got him."
Hugo beamed up at me, baby teeth and all. I flicked his hair out of his face and returned the smile gently.
"Good. He's getting so big already, it seems like he was born just yesterday."
Marinette leaned over my shoulder, scooting closer to my side to get a better look at Hugo. My heart raced from the proximity. Even after all these years.
"Yeah," she replied with a fond expression, "I wish things would stay settled down, so we could have another one."
Nino interrupted us with a quick, "Are you two insane?! Watch the twins for a weekend and you'll probably change your minds."
Alya laughed, taking a seat sideways and laying her legs over Nino's lap, "Come on babe, you know you love them. I mean, just look at them," Silence while Nino glanced at the playpen.
His expression softened, and a small grin spread over his cheeks, "Yeah, I love them."
Alya kissed Nino's cheek and grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch to wrap herself in. When Nino could finally get himself to look away from the twins, I slid the remote control into his hand and he clicked on a family movie for us to watch, The Incredibles 2.
"Man, this one's supposed to be amazing," I commented.
"We waited far too long for this sequel." Nino agreed.
"You two are nerds," Marinette and Alya said in unison.
Finishing off my sandwich I countered, "But you love us anyway."
Marinette hummed for a moment, a teasing smile on her lips as she pretended to "think about it", then she swooped in and gave me a quick, warm kiss on the lips.
"Nerds," Alya mumbled under her breath.
We all laughed gleefully.
…
Nights like that followed almost all week. Nights where we played board games while the kids slept, or days where we went to the park for a lunch picnic while Hugo played on the jungle gym and the twins hung out in their stroller, or days where we just sat together and enjoyed the little things. The things like reading a book to the kids, or coloring, or waking up in the dead of the night to help Nino and Alya with the twins.
I wish that week could have lasted longer, but everything had to come to an end. Especially as the dark storm cloud that seemed to have made its home over Paris was getting darker and deadlier, brewing thunder and lightning almost every night at the same time. 3 am. And 3 am on the last night was exactly when Marinette had woken up from yet another bad dream, this one not nearly as bad as the last, but still, it acted as almost a warning.
When Marinette recovered enough to speak about it, she told me it was about the Ladybug earrings. She had what she decided, "was more like a vision than a dream" about the earrings being swept away by a set of dark raven wings made of smoke. After waking Nino and Alya to discuss the dream, we had figured that the Alderam must have the earrings. The wings in Marinette's dream resembled that of a Ravens, which is what we had nicknamed Alderam before we knew who he really was. And the fact that he could have the earrings, wasn't a good sign.
"We need to go see Master Fu," Marinette demanded. Her face had gone sheet pale and her skin had started to coat itself with sweat.
Touching her shoulder gently I asked, "What do you mean?"
"He has the earrings, Adrien. We have to go see him. Now." Marinette got up and started sliding a black coat over her shoulders.
"Hold up girl," Alya said. "We don't know if it's safe."
"It's safe," Marinette said immediately, looking at the ground. "I think… But we have to go." Her gaze snapped back up to me. "Please, Adrien, just trust me."
Alya and Nino looked at me for an answer, but my mind was drawing a blank.
"Marinette, I think we should wait until we're sure this wasn't just some horrible dream-"
"And the only way to do that is to go see Master Fu." Marinette threw on a pair of shoes and walked over to me, gripping my shoulder tightly. "Listen, that dream I had before the storm clouds hit? Do you want to know who I saw Alderam murder?"
I gulped, unsure whether my answer was actually relevant at this point.
It wasn't.
"Master Fu. I saw him murder Master Fu. Now, if Alderam has the earrings, that means that Master Fu could be…" she hesitated a moment, dropping her arm. "Dead. And I want to make sure that isn't the case."
Alya walked over to Marinette and put a hand on her shoulder, "Okay. I'm with you."
Tucking Marinette's loose hair behind her hair I agreed saying, "Me too, but first, the kids. Let's pack Hugo's' bag and let Sabine and Tom know were coming. Then, drop the twins off with their grandparents. Okay?"
Marinette nodded slowly, relaxing just slightly. "Okay."
Nino and Alya headed downstairs to their part of the house and started to get the twins together to leave. I sat Marinette down with a glass of water and ran upstairs to Hugo's room to pack his bag.
I took out the largest suitcase I could find and slowly opened it up, trying to be careful not to make too much noise and wake Hugo. Sabine and Tom already knew that something like this would happen, but they didn't need a lull in Hugo's sleep schedule to add stress to the situation.
Packing the suitcase was fast and easy. Sabine and Tom had already transformed Marinette's old room into a fun nursery for Hugo a long time ago, for when he slept over or came over to visit. It was full of toys and blankets, even some clothes.
Which meant, that all I really needed to pack, was extra clothes, pacifiers, bottles and spoons, food, and diapers. Then, he would be set.
A tinge of sadness touched my heart as I threw the last of Hugo's things into his bag, zipping it shut. Who knew how long Hugo would have to stay with his grandparents, and who knew how long it would be until we saw him in person again.
Sure, there were phones and pictures, but looking at your own child with your own two eyes was much more precious than over a screen.
I walked over to Hugo's toddler bed and carefully picked him up, trying my hardest not to move him too much and wake him.
We tediously descended the stairs together where Marinette still sat with her glass of water.
"Mari," I whispered. "Run upstairs and grab his suitcase. We'll meet you in the car."
Marinette nodded and disappeared, I grabbed the car keys and stepped outside into the cold air, ignoring the thunder rumbling in the distance from the storm.
Hugo remained still until I slid him into his car seat. He stirred, rubbing his eyes with the back of his fist roughly.
"Shhh," I whispered gently, tugging his blanket around him, "Shh, it's okay Hugo. Go back to sleep, son."
Luckily, Hugo immediately settled back down and remained cozy and asleep in his car seat. I sighed a breath of relief.
Marinette came out with the suitcase and put it into the trunk of the car before jumping into the passenger seat.
Alya and Nino stumbled out the front door behind her, juggling suitcases and babies around until they got everything into their car beside us. I waited until they pulled out of the driveway first before leaving, then turned the wheel quickly and stepped on the gas, leaving our home behind.
I didn't watch the large building get smaller in the distance through the rearview mirror.
I didn't watch the mailbox out front with all our handprints on it in different colors get swallowed by the dark storm cloud that resided over Paris.
And finally, I didn't turn back, because if I did, I would never leave again.
Once we were out of the driveway, we were gone. All of us. And coming home would become something of a dream in the back of our minds.
Something that hope would shine on and war would trample.
Or, maybe something that war would make us miss, and hope would make us envy.
These things do get mixed in the ashes after all.
…
Okay, soooo there was just no way I was going to write this book without making it super dark and twisted. Love and War was dark, but not as dark as I had wanted to go, and since you guys are asking for a sequel the best way to make it good is to make it darker than the last one, so I hope you guys are good with that.
Also, I have plans for Marinette that are going to be amazingggg (hopefully) and I hope you guys enjoy the sequel.
I'll try to update this one once a week like with Love and War, but no promises of course :D
The outline for this story isn't completely done, I'm just too excited to start getting chapters out there to wait any longer. This just means that I might make changes to early chapters the further I go on, but I will try to let you guys know if I do :) Here's to me wingin' it. (Although, if I'm being honest, I winged Love and War as it was meant to be a one-shot that ended after chapter 3, so maybe wingin' this one will work too).
Love you guys! Hope you enjoy the sequel as much as you enjoyed Love and War!
Also: Title is a work in progress. Maybe we should vote? Light and Dark or Serenity and Battle. Let's see which one wins :))