Chat Noir (present day)

As I arced over the fence, I made a last-minute decision to scoot to the side and slide through the also open bathroom window. I couldn't have put a claw on it, exactly, but it felt like a safer move to drop in there first.

I landed on the sill and waited for a moment, listening, then dropped down to the marble with a gentle rubbery thunk from my boots. The space was pretty much as I had left it a few days earlier; the wrapper for the corsage I'd bought for Marinette was still on the sideboard by the sink, and the various bottles of hair product and cologne haphazardly sitting in front of the mirror. On a hunch, I opened the closet and hunted for my favorite suit and was saddened to see that it was now among the missing, along with the tie from my mother.

Then again, it wasn't truly missing; it was back, with me, at some past point. I wondered idly if that meant I'd introduced a change to the timeline inadvertently and fervently hoped that wasn't the case.

I slid the door to the closet closed and then pressed my feline ear to the connecting door with the bedroom. The space was empty as well, so I slid the door open and stepped out into my room. Everything was where it was supposed to be; even the homework that was due this week was still on my desk, partially completed. I flipped a few pages with my claw, suddenly seeing the physics work in a completely new light.

I've learned more about science since becoming Chat than anything I'd seen at school.

I moved through the room, slowly taking in what had always been uniquely my space. For so long, I'd railed against being essentially locked up in it that I'd never really thought about it as "home." Now, I was feeling very differently. It may never be a sanctuary for me, but it had become a touchstone to my place in time. I'd not forget that.

I leapt to the top of the couch and balanced, cat style, on the back, and watched life as it went past my massive windows. Master Fu had said we might remember echoes of what our past selves had done during this little adventure. I was finding that they were becoming blended in with the original memories, augmenting them in a way that made them more powerful.

The missing bedroom past me had seen was there, front and center. As I replayed that night with Ladybug, a chill ran down my feline spine at the realization it had happened. Someone, likely Hawkmoth, had wiped Adrien from the face of time itself. And I had seen the evidence with my own eyes. It was sobering how easily all of it had gone away.

A feline ear swiveled, and I knew someone was headed toward the bedroom.

"Plagg – claws in."

Chat Noir (in the past)

"…pick on someone your own temperature?" I was saying as I perched on top of the fencepost outside the park.

I paused, blinking back a sudden wave of vertigo, and then looked down into the street.

Stormy Weather was down on the cobblestones, not looking overly pleased by my monologue (or would that be a cat-a-logue, I wondered?).

I blinked again.

It worked!

I looked over my shoulder and the set for the photo shoot was exactly as I had left it; in the far distance, I could see the ice cube that had been the carousel, and knew instinctively Ayla and that minion of hers were under it, waiting to be rescued.

I looked back to Stormy, who clearly was waiting on me. I couldn't help but smile as I swung off the fence post and slid down the rails one handed, repeating the lines I knew by heart now. "Listen," I said twirling my tail and barely repressing my full Chat Noir charisma, "I'm feline more generous than usual today. So, cool down and we'll call it quits, 'kay?"

I didn't even brace for the gust that blew me away, trusting in Mistress Time that I'd ping-pong correctly through the parked vehicles and land, flattened, exactly where Ladybug would soon find me. I know I was supposed to be frowning, having been so easily overwhelmed by an akumatized villain, but I was so happy to be where I was supposed to be, I couldn't stop grinning.

As I waited for the ziiing! of the yo-yo, I realized I still knew everything. I wasn't entirely certain why I could remember Stormy, since I (technically) hadn't fought her before getting scooped up and sent into the future. I assumed that my crossover with future me in the Entropic Transformation bubble might have imparted a bit more knowledge than we'd anticipated. However it happened, I knew all of the details for Stormy and at least the next two akumas we were going to face.

I decided to call it a parting gift from future me. Maybe he was trying to make it a bit smoother this time around. Lord knows I could use the help.

I had been to the future, and also knew every villain we were going to be fighting over the next year. Future Ladybug had been circumspect enough not to have filled me in on the exact details, of course, so other than the ones I'd already fought in the past, and the events I was part of in the future, I didn't exactly know how we took them all down. Or, for that matter, when each of them would appear specifically.

But it was enough to know that we would get to that future, more or less unscathed.

I'm even going to die, I found myself laughing. Well, I've been dead before…

I heard the yo-yo, and then the feather light steps of Ladybug as she approached. She leaned over and helped me up. "Do you really want me to say it?" she asked, winking.

I dusted myself off, still smiling. "How much do you remember?"

"Enough," she said. "I know how this turns out, and that we have two more oddly named villains in our immediate future." She leaned closer. "And I still remember who you are, kitty," she said as she wickedly grazed a finger across my lips. "But I also know that we don't officially know that for some months."

I frowned, not at all liking what she was implying. "What are you saying, milady?"

"I'm afraid you are going to be in something of a purrgatory, Chat," Ladybug said as she stepped back and readied her yo-yo. "I'm not sure how you're going to deal with all of the unrequited love you're about to deal with."

My green eyes narrowed. "Oh," I said devilishly. "It's going to be like that, is it?" I trailed a claw along her shoulder as I wandered around her in a circle and felt her breath catch slightly. "I don't think you understand just how purrsuasive I can be when I want to be…" I rubbed my head against hers, purring loudly as I did so.

Game on, Ladybug, I thought. Game on.

Ladybug tried to disentangle herself from me and cleared her throat. "What did future you say to get you so worked up?" she croaked.

"Enough," I repeated her line back to her. "Now, shall we go defeat Stormy again, bugaboo?"

She sighed, resigned at what the next several months were going to bring. "Yes, kitty," she smiled. "Let's start moving toward the future."

Adrien (present day)

The glow had barely faded when there was a knock and Father came striding into my space. I was still perched on the couch, and rolled off to the floor, realizing as I did so I was still in my PE attire… from the past. I tried not to smile.

"Adrien?" he said. For Father, it was borderline emotional. "Are you okay?"

I quirked an eyebrow. "Of course, Father," I said, standing there.

I mean, I've been backwards and forwards in time, repaired the damage to the timeline and met myself in the process. No biggie. I'm totally fine.

He seemed to breath a bit easier. "Good." He then surprised me by striding over and pulling me into a giant hug – something he'd not done for months. The shock of the action was overwhelming, but I managed to wrap my arms around him, as well, and tried to savor the moment.

Father let me go and stood back. "I, uh…" He looked vaguely uncomfortable. If I'd been Chat Noir, I would have read his expression as being almost apologetic. For Adrien, it was tough to understand.

As he took another step back and straightened his jacket, the moment faded completely. His eyes fell on my hand, and I followed them to the ladybug ring I was wearing.

"I'd never noticed that ring before," he said, ice droplets appearing in his voice.

"It was a gift," I said simply, trying to go for nonchalant and hoping he was unable to see the ladybug motif that had been woven into the Celtic love knot. "From someone I care about."

"It clashes with the other ring, Adrien. I'd recommend wearing one, or the other, but not both." He paused again, eyes strangely reappraising me. "Try not to wear either during your next shoot."

"Yes, Father."

"And the photoshoot we'd scheduled for Sunday will be tomorrow afternoon instead. I've already spoken to your school to ensure you'd be released on time."

He'd shifted so quickly back to Business Mogul mode that the emotional whiplash was painful. "Yes, Father," I repeated.

"Good." He turned on heel and left me alone in the room, again.

As usual.

Gabriel (present day)

He closed the door and started down the staircase, thoughts spinning out of control. Adrien was back, he'd seen it with his own eyes; he wasn't entirely sure how Ladybug and Chat Noir had corrected his mistake, and he had to begrudgingly admit he owed the troublemaking duo a huge debt.

Despite seeing Adrien in his bedroom, and how it had lifted his heart in a way that he hadn't felt in some time, the Celtic love ring on Adrien's hand had given him pause. It wasn't so much that Adrien had it, but more that the fact it was clearly from someone he did not want Gabriel to know about.

Adrien was still hiding something from him. And he was pretty sure it had more to do with the other more nondescript ring he'd noted some time ago. At the time he'd pointed it out, Adrien hadn't given him a very solid explanation for that one, either.

Gabriel went into his den, where Nathalie was quietly working at her desk, and strode over to the wall painting of his wife. Having that reappear had been a harbinger that Ladybug had been successful well in advance of seeing Adrien presented to him at the stadium.

The stadium.

He turned back to his workstation and accessed the subsystems where the servers that supported Hawkmoth were running, and queued up the video from earlier in the afternoon. He sped through most of it, then paused it on one camera angle that showed Adrien, Chat Noir and Ladybug, all conveniently facing the lens. Gabriel pinched the image and zoomed in on Adrien.

Both rings were there.

He shifted the angle, and zoomed in on Chat Noir; his image was a bit fuzzy, but he could clearly see the Miraculous jewel on the correct hand. He shifted the view slightly.

There, on the other hand, Chat Noir was clearly wearing the same Celtic love ring.

He backed the video up again, watching them enter the stadium, and reviewed the entire sequence in real time. It dawned on him that the normally loquacious Chat Noir hadn't uttered single word. And that Ladybug had been to the point, almost as if she needed to be somewhere else.

"Nathalie," he said, not looking up. "Do we have access to the exterior cameras from the Stade de France…?"

"I think so," she said, working for a moment. "I've sent them to your workstation."

He popped up the imagery, watched it, and smiled a dark smile. "Rena Rouge," he said quietly. "Clever."

Did that confirm his earlier suspicion? He shook his head; he'd seen Adrien falling from a building months ago – if he were also Chat Noir, that would have been a Hell of a risk to assume Ladybug would rescue him in time.

But the ring… did it mean something else?

Seeing Rena meant that she may have been there to use her power of illusion, but what illusion would she have created? He came back to the image of Chat Noir on his monitor.

Gabriel looked up this time. "Nathalie, I think it's time we put a shorter leash on my son…"

Adrien (present day)

Plagg was the only one who'd eaten anything at dinner; I'd nibbled a bit but felt guilty for leaving most of what Chef had prepared untouched. By 2113 I'd had enough of being Adrien and said as much to my kwami.

He was flat on his back on the coffee table, still eating. "Fine," he said without his usual churlishness about being pressed into work after eating. He popped a slice of cheese and then rotated. "Whenever you're ready, Adrien."

"Plagg – claws out!"

Chat Noir (present day)

I held out the ring and Plagg became part of it, and the transformation sequence washed over me once more. Once the glow faded, I turned the lights off in the bedroom and vaulted out into the early Paris evening. It was a weeknight and after-hours activity buzzed below me as I sailed through the sky.

Somewhat unusually, Ladybug was waiting for me when I arrived on my favorite rooftop, holding two cups of coffee from the Bakery. I'd smelled them some ways out and eagerly accepted the one she proffered when I dropped in next to her. "Thank you, milady," I said graciously, deciding not to tease her about the insane quantity of sugar I could smell in hers.

It also struck me as odd that she'd laid out a few of our pillows in the space, but none of the candles. The tablecloth was also missing, meaning she'd not brought the grub and had apparently expected me to. It wouldn't have been an unusual assumption – I wound up catering for our hangouts more often than she did – but it was a non sequitur that, in hindsight, I probably should have picked up on.

We turned against the rail and watched the lights come on against the cathedral, sipping quietly. There was a strange undertone in my coffee that I couldn't place. "Did your dad change up his roasting?" I asked, taking another tentative sip. It was almost metallic.

"No," she said. "Why?"

I turned toward her. "Just a flav…" I started, before my vision swam and a wave of vertigo overtook me.

The cup fell from my hand as I reached for the rail, but nothing was working properly; I pitched forward and Ladybug gently caught me and laid me flat on the roof.

"It's okay, kitty," she said calmly. "This will only take a minute."

"Wha- what—" I couldn't get my mouth to work right, but I did manage to lock my eyes onto hers.

They were rimmed in red, and as I tried to blink, I thought I saw her tearing up. Gently, she lifted my head and placed one of our pillows below it, then came around so she could face me properly. I tried to sit up but was totally incapable of any motor control – aside from breathing, I felt paralyzed.

"I talked it over with Master Fu this afternoon, and he helped me make a tough decision." She moved out of my line of sight and came back with two small flasks of amber liquid. "If there is a chance that Hawkmoth thinks he knows our identities, it could be dangerous – to us, to our friends, to our families."

She was uncorking one of the flasks as she spoke. "This is a very targeted memory potion," she explained. "It will block, for a while, any personal memories you have of us. Your knowledge of my identity, our relationship, who the other Miraculous holders are, the location of the Keeper of the Miraculouses."

I felt my eyes widen. "Don't—don't-"

"This is the only way to protect all of us," she said, tears now falling freely. "I've already taken care of Nino, Ayla and Chloe. Once you're done, I'll take the remaining dose to complete the process with me."

She leaned down and kissed me. "It's not meant to be permanent," she said between sobs, "and it will wear off with time. But in the immediate future we will again just be professional strangers."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing and was more than incensed she would make such an important decision without even discussing it with me. Not to mention she'd ruined a perfectly good cup of coffee.

Angry enough that I managed to bark out: "Can't-believe-don't—trust-me!"

"It's not about trust," she said quietly as she started to tip my head up. "This way, if Hawkmoth does wind up getting the drop on any one of us, we'll be able to protect the wider secrets." With her free hand, she started to try and pry my mouth open.

I wasn't going to make it easy for her and with what little control I still had, clamped my jaw shut. She anticipated that action and immediately went for my nose, blocking my airflow in an attempt to get me compliant.

I knew I could go a bit before blacking out and stared menacingly at her, hoping she'd blink before I did. I also wondered what the timing was on the paralyzing agent – I'd not had much, given I'd only taken a few sips of coffee, but it had to have been pretty strong to have affected me so quickly. It was clear Ladybug had expected me to fight, but had also assumed I'd down more coffee than I had.

If she'd been thinking clearly, she'd have remembered my enhanced sense of taste would have alerted me fairly quickly to the unusual flavor, though the coffee had successfully masked the smell.

Yet… it was possible I could feel a toe moving in my boot. And maybe, just maybe, I'd slid an arm fractionally closer to my baton, which was wedged uncomfortably below me.

"Come on, Chat," Ladybug said, crying harder. "Don't make this any more difficult than it already is! It's for the best."

I managed to convey my disagreement with that assessment with a narrowing of my eyes and a deep throated growl I hadn't thought possible. I was starting to get light headed, and blackness was creeping in, so whatever move I wanted to make would have to come soon.

My fingers grazed the baton. If I was angled just right… but I couldn't tell. I'd have to hope.

I triggered the extension mode and held on with everything I had. The baton extended and crashed into the brick of the wall we were next to, shoving me forcibly out from beneath Ladybug. She'd been caught off guard and rolled away awkwardly; I heard the flask crash against the tile. I came to rest a few meters away, gasping to get air back into my lungs.

My limbs were rubbery still, but responding, and I used the baton to push myself up into a standing crouch. "What… what… the… Hell!" I yelled as best as I could.

Ladybug was in the corner of the space, sobbing wildly now. "I have to protect you! I have to protect everyone!"

I was breathing hard. "You're not… in this… alone, dammit…" I growled. "Not the... answer...! We're… partners!"

She turned and looked at me. "And we have to stay that way," she said, simply, and downed the last flask herself.

Noooo!

Ladybug had moved so quickly, I'd no time to react; with the paralyzing agent still in my system, my leap to her side was shorter than I expected, and I had to made another to reach her just as she slumped backwards against the wall.

"Ladybug!" I wrapped an arm around her and gently brought her to my chest. Her eyes had rolled back and she'd passed out under the effects of the potion.

I had no idea how long I sat there, arms snugly wrapped around her, before she finally came out of it.

"Chat?" she said, voice muffled from being pressed against me. "Where are we?"

I blinked back a tear. "What's the last thing you remember, milady?" I asked, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice.

"Uh," she said, groggily. "We were having coffee, right?"

"Yes," I said, my heart surging a bit.

Maybe it didn't work!

"What else?"

"It's a bit fuzzy."

I decided to press. "Do you remember the Ball?"

She tensed. "No," she said carefully. "Why? Should I?"

I stifled my immediate response. Ladybug would be right – she hadn't been there. But her alter-ego had.

With me.

"No," I said finally, "I suppose you shouldn't." My voice caught despite my best efforts. "I had a great time, though. It would've been nice if you'd been there with me."

"Sorry I missed it," she said. I could hear multiple levels in her voice, and knew that she was recalling what Marinette had experienced at the Ball, to a point.

Ladybug pulled out of my embrace and sat away from me, all traces of our once-common romantic tension wiped away completely. She was all business, almost as if we had turned the clock back a full year and were just beginning to work with each other. A moue of distaste that I'd been holding her crossed her face briefly before she recomposed it to a fairly genial expression.

My heart broke into tiny, tiny little pieces.

She saw my expression. "Chat, what's wrong?"

I found myself looking down at the ring she'd given me before I answered. The Miraculous magic seemed to allow it to remain in place, whether I was Adrien or Chat Noir. It occurred to me I might need to be more careful about it, since unlike the Cat Miraculous, it looked the same in both circumstances. But right then, I didn't give a damn.

I looked back at Ladybug, and for the first time, noticed she wasn't wearing the pendant I'd given her. That would have been another sign, had I been looking for it. Something inside me went dead.

"I've lost a lot today, milady. More than you can possibly understand."

"Chat, what are you talking about?" She sounded genuinely concerned, which made it hurt even more.

I stood up abruptly. "Not now," I said curtly. "I'll have to find some way to explain it to you, later."

"All right," she said, not completely on the same page but going along with the flow.

The safe play for me, now, was to be the last keeper of the secrets, and hope that I could fool Master Fu into thinking I'd been correctly dosed.

But there was going to be Hell to pay. I pitied the first set of akumas we were going to be facing; I had a lot of anger to get out, and ran the real risk of becoming akumatized myself.

I plastered a Chat-like grin on my face and turned to Ladybug, extending my arm as I always did. "Ready for patrol, bugaboo?" I asked.

She quirked an eyebrow. "I thought I told you I liked 'milady' better?"

"Did you?" I replied icily. "I must have forgotten."

AN: Desperate times requiring desperate measures? Ladybug clearly thought so, for better or for worse. Do you agree with her actions? While Chat certainly doesn't (and there will be fallout from this) let me know what you think - although I feel like I am hearing you yell at the screen.

With Gabriel also making some threatening moves, Chat seems to have a full plate to deal with. You might almost suspect there is too much going on here to wrap up in the final Epilogue... and you'd be right.

Stay tuned...