When she opens her eyes, the world is unchanged. No glass shards decorate the floor of her room. Not cuts sting and bead with blood on her arms. No akuma screams in anger as it sends feathers as sharp as knives to her.

She opens her eyes, lost in what is dream and what is real; she's in her bed, almost like she never got up in the first place.

But when Chloe moves to sit, there's the distinct sound of footsteps that reaches her ears, muffled by the carpet. Chat Noir enters her line of sight just a moment later, face pinched with worry that fades into relief.

Chloe takes a breath, and suddenly, the world throws itself into motion again, destroying the quiet peace in the room.

"Chloe!" Chat cries, rushing towards her, "Are you alright? How are you feeling?"

"What happened?" she asks, ignoring his worry and batting his hands away when they flit over her hesitantly, checking for injuries while being too scared to actually touch her. (Chloe wants to laugh at the thought: a superhero with the power of destruction, scared of touching her. It turns bitter when she thinks that she's cause more destruction than Chat Noir ever could.)

Chat steps back and looks away. He messes with the end of his leather tail. "You passed out." His voice is quiet and emotionless, stone-hard; it's a voice of detachment. She's heard it enough times when she disassociates, though it's usually her own voice sounding unnatural.

"Oh." Chloe blinks. Chat doesn't move. She picks at a stray thread in her blanket. "I must have pushed myself a little too hard. Did too much and my body couldn't keep up. It's nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to- Of course it's something to worry about!" Chat explodes, whipping his head around to stare at her incredulously, eyes sharp and piercing in their disbelief and anger. "You fell off a roof! You could have died!"

A pause. And then: "Okay."

"No. Not okay."

Chloe shrugs. "It doesn't matter. You saved me. Let's move on."

Chat narrows his eyes into a glare and steps forward, hands on his hips like a scolding mother. "We will not move on. This is serious! You almost died; you looked like you were going to jump but just happened to pass out instead. Those are not things we move on from. Those are not things we ignore. It's not something I will ignore. Got it?"

"Just leave it," Chloe hisses in sudden anger. Chat reels back, shocked, hurt flickering in his expression for a brief moment that reminded Chloe of Adrien at the gala, Adrien after she snapped at him, Adrien at her house in tears telling her how his father forgot his birthday and "I wish Maman was still here."

For a moment, all Chloe can see is the genuine parts of Adrien that he hides away from everyone; the pain, loneliness, longing. Her heart breaks for him, and seeing Chat like that has it shatter all over again.

She looks away, setting her jaw. Don't think of him, she scolds herself, Don't think of any of them. Chat doesn't even look like Adrien. Stop thinking about him.

"I left a bowl of fruit on my desk. Can you get it for me?" she asks as a way of changing the topic.

Chat looks around for a moment, then spots the bowl and crosses the room to grab it. "Is this really the time to be eating?" he asks, handing the bowl to her and hovering, worried, at her side.

"I've barely been eating. That's why I passed out."

"Oh."

The silence that follows would be horribly awkward for Chloe if she could bring herself to care, but she can't, so she leaves Chat to fidget at her side as she eats slowly, forcing the food down until she's eaten everything, despite how much she'd rather throw it up. She really doesn't want to eat. Logically, she knows she needs to if she's to keep living, but lately it's felt as though there's no point to it. She couldn't stomach much, and what she could swallow down barely had any taste. It wasn't devoid of taste, but it was so dull she might as well have been swallowing down cement.

When she sets the bowl down onto the bed, Chat watches her with sad eyes, foreign on his face.

"Chloe," he starts, gentle, laying a hand on her shoulder, "If there's something wrong, you can tell me you know. Or someone else, but I am here to help if you need it."

"There are better people to save."

"You're important too."

Chloe looks away, setting her jaw and stubbornly refusing to let the tears that gather in her eyes fall. "I don't see why you care. You have other things to worry about."

"I care because you're not okay, and I want you to be okay."

The words crawl up her throat; every truth she's been hiding begs to be spilled out into the open, to stop suffocating her, to relieve her of the burden of carrying them. Chat Noir is offering to help, to listen, to understand, but a large part of her is terrified of letting the truth come out. After years of hiding everything she is, all the things she felt, the sudden exposure scares her.

But her control is already weak. If Chat keeps pushing, she knows she'll tell him everything.

And that.

That can't happen. Chloe won't let it.

"You're my age, aren't you?" Chloe asks, startling Chat. He hesitates for a moment before nodding. "You're my age. You're barely a hero. What makes you think you can do anything to help me? You have the power of destruction; what help can you do? Ladybug is more suited to the whole 'saving people' thing but you, Chat, you have no place trying to act like a hero."

He flinches back at her harsh words, spit out like burning poison. "Chloe-" he starts, sounding broken and hurt and lost, but she cuts him off before she can mess things up even more.

"Get out."

"...What?"

Chloe turns on him, eyes flashing. "I said, get out. You've checked up on me, I'm fine. Stop wasting me time and leave." Her face twists into a snarl and she pushes him away. Chat doesn't even try to fight, and somehow that fact feels like a knife plunging into her chest. He stumbles away, still looking so sad and so worried, then mumbles something to the floor.

He leaps out the window before another word can be said.

The silence that follows rings in her ears.

First Adrien, now Chat Noir. Next it'll be Sabrina and won't that be great.

"Well done Chloe," she says to herself, grabbing a fistful of hair to pull on it, relishing the pain, "You've fucked it all up again. Well done."

After that, the most she can do is set the bowl onto her bedside table. Once she stumbles into bed again, Chloe pulls out her phone, turning it on, desperate for a distraction, to forget that horrible feeling that lingered after her conversation with Chat Noir.

Notifications for missed phone calls and text messages and emails pop up, but she ignores them all in favor of scrolling through her photo gallery.

Picture: two months before school ended, Chloe with her arm wrapped around Sabrina's shoulders, blowing a kiss at the camera.

Picture: Chloe twirling in a new dress, silver with gold stitched patterns, with Sabrina's reflection in the background mirror, holding the phone up to her face with a smile.

Picture: a public event from the beginning of the year. She and Adrien are bundled up for warmth, cheeks pressed together as they smiled at the cameras.

Everything she had that she's lost, documented in her phone's gallery. Everything she wishes she still had. Everything she wishes wouldn't change. But they've already changed so much. She's already changed so much.

She's already ruined it all too much.

Chloe stops on a silly picture Sabrina insisted on taking, claiming it would look good to have a few cute pictures on her social media accounts alongside her more serious photos. The Chloe in the picture has a hand squishing Sabrina's cheeks, pushing her mouth out until it resembles fish lips. Sabrina has two fingers behind Chloe's head, giving her fake bunny ears. Her eyes are crossed while Chloe has her face scrunched up.

She can't help but laugh at the picture, letting herself stare at Sabina without fear of anyone catching her. The hole in her heart aches at the sight of Sabrina, all too aware of the empty space besides her where Sabrina always is (was). Her laugh falters, cracks.

And if her broken laugh turns into sobs halfway through? Well, no one's around to mention it.

No one's around.

No one's there.

No one at all.