Chapter 6
Sitting on the nearly empty plane, Marinette gets lost in thought stroking the kittens in her lap. Excited as she is that there is hope for her kittens, the reality of how close she is to losing them hits her hard. The emotions bubbling inside her are overwhelming and she sheds a few silent tears.
"Are you okay?" a stewardess sees the distressed Marinette and goes over to see what's wrong.
"Oh! Yes, thank you ma'am, I'm just thinking"
"Call me Myléne. Your kittens are absolutely precious, can I hold one?" Marinette invites Myléne to sit down and hands her Plagg. Marinette goes on to explain the situation and trip to try an experimental cure for them.
"Now I understand why you were upset… losing one of them, I couldn't even imagine the pain."
They chatted for the remainder of the flight, parting in a hug as Myléne wishes Marinette good luck as she walks away.
Plagg and Tikki snug in her bag, Marinette climbs into the cab she hailed. Sleepy, she rests her eyes as he drives her to the hotel. Settling in, Marinette gives the kittens some food and decides to group Skype her friends.
"Yo Mari! What's up?" Nino exclaims as him, Adrien and Alya appear on the screen.
Alya starts chattering about how she's loving her trip to Cuba and talks about how the sun is high and the Ocean is sparkling and warm while Nino and Adrien update the girls about their trip to Adrien's ski resort in Northern California.
"Well kittens and I have to go to sleep, early morning. Goodnight guys!"
Marinette bids goodnight to her friends and heads to bed, with Tikki and Plagg curled up on the pillow beside her.
Waking up the next morning, Marinette goes to feed the kittens, and then stops herself. Dr. Akin warned her not to feed them before their visit, as it would mess up the Leukemia pre-test they needed to perform. "Sorry guys, no food this morning" Marinette apologizes, receiving only mewls of protest. She scooped them up and headed out the door.
At the veterinary clinic, Marinette meets with Dr. Akin in the laboratory
"Hello Mrs. Akin" Marinette says cheerfully
"Please, call me Ashley" she responds with a smile. "Now, lets get started. I'm going to need a drop of blood from each kitten to do a Leukemia test. This is so I can have a rough estimate as to how many cancerous cells there are. Then we shall start them on the pills, and in about a week come back and re-test to see if the cells have decreased. Sound like a plan?" Ashley explained the process as well as she could to Marinette.
"Sounds good!" Marinette excitedly exclaimed.
After the testing, Ashley showed Marinette the Leukemia results; the kittens were flooded with the cancerous cells. They were running out of time to save them.
"Now remember, give them 3 pills each every night and make sure they don't just eat the food around them." Ashley reminded Marinette.
"I will. Thank you so much for this chance Ashley!" Marinette hugs the veterinarian goodbye.
Marinette heads back to the hotel with the kittens. Feeding the kittens their food, she puts the medicine into each bowl and has no struggle with getting them to eat it. After they've finished and she's gotten into her pj's, Marinette climbs into bed with Plagg and Tikki and drifts off into dreamland.
In the morning, the sun shines through the window, waking Marinette from a lovely dream. Stretching, she gets up to get ready for a packed day of touring Anchorage. "Hey Tikki, you ready for the day?" Marinette picks up Tikki and pets the red kittens fuzzy fur. Plagg is still asleep on her pillow as he is very lazy.
Marinette puts Tikki and Plagg into her bag and heads on out to tour around Anchorage. She had seen multiple fliers advertising the Fur Rondy festival Ice Sculpture Park and thought it would be interesting to see it; and with it being a gorgeous day it was the perfect opportunity. While walking along through the sculptures, Marinette bumps into a large wall, falling down into the snow. Getting her wits about her, she inspects what she just bumped into, only to find out it wasn't a wall, but a man.
"Well hello there pretty girl, what are you doing out here all by yourself?" the strange man questions her as he helps her off the ground.
"Just here visiting. Thank you for helping me up" Marinette gratefully accepts his help up and starts dusting the snow off of her jeans.
"No problem. I'm Kim. If you want to pay me back you could come watch some Netflix with me" Kim suggests, with an odd tone to his voice that worries Marinette.
"No thank you Kim, I don't feel comfortable going anywhere alone with a stranger. Thank you for your help but I need to go" she replies while backing away to make an escape.
"Kim are you being creepy again?" an accusing voice shouts from nearby. "Miss, is this oaf bothering you?"
"No I was just about to head on my way" Marinette sheepishly responds, not wanting to get Kim in trouble with the angry looking girl heading toward them.
"I'm Juleka, a friend of Kim's. Don't worry he is harmless. Are you here alone? Want to come hang out with Rose and us?"
Juleka seemed kind and Marinette was lonely without her group, so she accepted the offer and went to meet Rose, a shy girlish young lady. The entire group seemed about her age. Turns out they were college students from UAA. The group invited Marinette to a really cool coffee shop down the street from the park.
"Oh my gosh! Are those kittens?" Rose shrieks seeing Plagg poke his head out from the bag.
"Yes, that's Plagg and Tikki, they are why I'm visiting" Marinette explains the entirety of her time with the kittens, including the vet trip here to the group as she lets Juleka and rose hold them.
"I'm so sorry about your loss Mari, I hope these guys make it" Kim says.
"Me too. Well its getting late, thank you for the coffee, it was so nice to meet you guys!" Marinette leaves parting with hugs to each other them and heads to the hotel. In the room, she lets Tikki and Plagg out of the bag, feeds and medicates them then heads to bed exhausted.
A soft buzzing noise wakes Marinette from her sleep. Turning over and opening just one eye, she grabs her phone to check what was so important to text her before the sun was up. The name flashing on the screen was Adrien. Marinette shot up in bed, just about throwing her phone across the room in a panic.
'Hey Mari, hope you are doing well. I haven't heard from you so I wanted to check up on you'
"Awe, that's so sweet of him!" Marinette absentmindedly said to herself. Amazed at her bravery, she decided to call him instead of text back and give an update on the events that occurred the last few days.
It's officially been a week so Marinette gets the kittens packed up and brings them over to Ashley's office for the check up.
"Hello Marinette, how are the little angels doing?" Ashley asks as she picks up Plagg and Tikki to inspect them.
"They are doing okay I think. They still aren't as active as most kittens." Marinette confesses.
Ashley takes blood from them and runs the leukemia test once again in the back room. "Marinette I'm so sorry. Their leukemia levels haven't decreased at all." Ashley regrettably told Marinette the news.
Marinette goes to the hotel sadly after parting ways with Ashley, and starts to pack up for her trip home. Ashley felt terrible at the failure so she paid for Marinette's trip and hotel bill as an apology.
At the dorm, Alya, Nino and Adrien are excitedly waiting for Marinette's arrival. She opens the door and looks at the group with tears in her eyes; they know exactly what must have happened, and grab her into a group hug.
"It's okay Mari, you did everything you could" Alya says to her best friend.
"If it's alright with you guys I'm just going to go to sleep. Do you guys mind staying? I don't want to be alone right now." Marinette quietly asks them.
"Of course! I'm offended you would assume we would leave" Nino jokes.
Marinette sits down on her bed with Tikki, as Nino an Alya take Plagg and go to sleep. Adrien sits over by Marinette and strokes Tikki. "Are you going to be okay?"
"Yeah, just… can I lay next to you? I don't want to be alone right now" Marinette hesitantly asks.
"Sure." He scoots over and Marinette lies down, using his arm as a pillow, with Tikki sleeping soundly between them. "Goodnight Mari."
"Goodnight."