Alya paced back and forth around her office.

She was one of those people who thought better when she was moving. Things always seemed to sort out when she was taking a walk, riding a bike or doing a workout at the gym, that's why when she wasn't able to do that kind of things because they were required to do outdoors, she relayed on walking in circles around a room.

Today that wasn't working.

Not only she had a thousand things to worry about with the next editorial number of the new magazine they were coming out with, but she also had personal problems and the Marinette problem, which wasn't doing anything but turning more and more complicated every day. And now, she had to add the Adrien problem to her list.

The crazy boy wanted to reveal his identity! He hadn't learned anything by hanging out with Marinette every night.

Alya was grateful that he had asked her first, if not who knows the mess he could have created by letting the reveal jump out of his mouth.

Wanting to leave those thoughts behind for only a couple of minutes so she wouldn't stress over at work, she went over the papers Charlene had left on her desk that morning.

It was a well-written article she had written about a new construction close to the Centre Pompidou and how it would affect in the infrastructure of the city. It was really well written –nothing surprising coming from Charlene- but there were a few technical errors she would have to change.

"Charlene?" Alya asked, rose a brow and looking around the office for the girl, but she was nowhere to be found.

Why wasn't she there?

Alya hadn't been walking around in circles around ten minutes, that wasn't more than the usual time, but this time the girl had disappeared. Where was she and when had she left the office?

She ignored her a few times during the work time, Charlene tested out her patience most of the time. She loved the girl, she really did, she had the potential to become a great journalist, but sometimes she was just annoying.

Nonetheless, she needed the girl, so she went out of the office to look for the girl.

To her luck, it wasn't hard to find her; Charlene was practically shaking in the middle of the hallway as she spoke with one of the other interns in the department.

"Charlene," Alya called approaching to her. She smiled at the guy who made a reverence at seeing her. If she wasn't mad at Charlene she would have laughed at the guy.

"M. Lahiffe is here," Oh, so that's why she was a wreck of nerves. "Luca texted, he knows I'm a fan… I was going to go tell you"

"Where's he?" Alya crooked a brow. Why was he here, but not at her office?

"I ran into him on my way here, he asked for you but before I could answer we ran into Liam, he had finished his interview and was guiding with his guest to the reception, but M. Lahiffe stopped and started talking to them,"

"Uh?" Liam was known for his good interviews, he always had someone from the medical area walking around the floor. Lately, he had been praising himself, saying that he had gotten an interview with an expert in mother-cell experiments. That was cool, but not of Alya's interest so she hadn't paid much attention.

And there was no way it was of Nino's attention.

He hated biology! Alya had to drag him and practically tie him to a chair every time they had a project or an upcoming exam so he could do what he had to. So, why would he be interested in one of Liam's interview guests?

"He is the coffee room," Charlene pointed in the direction of the room.

"Let me know if someone calls," Alya ran down the hallway to find the room

The coffee room was a little area at the end of the hallway with big windows that made it look wider than it was. It counted with two bending machines and three coffee machines, and it was Alya's least favorite place in the building so she never went there, but today she was making an exception.

The door was open when she got there, so she went inside half-running. Nino was in front of her, sitting in one of the plastic chairs and smiling at the girl sitting in front of him.

She was sitting but Alya could tell the girl was tall and super skinny. Her hair was in a long ponytail, falling like a dark cascade on top of her shoulders. She was wearing a military green shirt and black skinny jeans. She hadn't seen her face but Alya knew she was stunning and that was making her blood boil. Nino and she hadn't spoken much about their relationship but she was beginning to consider Nino hers again, and her jealousy was taking over her.

"Lya!" Nino noticed her and waved, giving one of those tooth-paste-commercial-smiles.

Alya crossed her arms in front of her chest. She hated to be jealous but after all those fake girlfriends Nino had had, she couldn't control it.

She was about to speak when the girl turned around, and all the anger inside of Alya evaporated, making her smile from ear to ear.

"Juleka!" Alya shouted happily.

"Hi, Alya," The girl gave a crooked smile to her old friend. She looked just the same and completely different all at the same time.

She was still super skinny, tall and pale. She didn't have her hair in front of her face as she used to when she was a teen, and you could appreciate her beautiful and odd eyes like that, and the deep black eyeliner made them pop even more. She looks more amicable than she had ever looked and more confident, but there was still that shadow over her that made Juleka, well, Juleka.

"I feel like I haven't seen you in forever," Alya said excited "What are you doing here?"

"I had an interview," Right, Charlene had said that. "Then I met Nino in the hallway and we started catching up"

"Yeah and talking about zombies!" Nino laughed.

"Of course, zombies too, zombies are awesome"

"Okay?" Alya sat in the chair next to Juleka "So how long are you staying in Paris?"

"I'm going back to Berlin Sunday night, I just had a seminary and your college has been calling me for months now so I decide to give him the interview,"

"Ugh Liam is tiresome isn't he?" Alya rolled her eyes. That made Nino smile. "You're staying for so little, have known before I would invite you to dinner or something, but my nights are full"

"It's okay, this is fine" Juleka went quiet for a minute. The look on her face was strange, what made Nino and Alya share a worried glance. "To be honest, I came here to talk to you, Alya"

"Me?" Alya crooked a brow.

"Yes. I've wanted to call you for a while," Juleka said, after giving a sip to her coffee "But I couldn't do it, not just yet,"

"Should I leave you two alone?" Nino asked, feeling the weight of the situation starting to appear in the room.

"No, I think you'll be interested in it too" Juleka sighed "It's about Marinette"

Of course, it was about Marinette, everything always happened to be about Marinette. But what could Juleka know that was so important to put that look on her face?

Juleka and Rose had visited Marinette a few times when she was in the hospital and thought they weren't as close as they used to be when they were in high school, Alya knew Marinette and Juleka spoke over the phone a few times a year.

"About Marinette?"

"About her accident," Juleka opened her purse and pulled out her phone. "Marinette's case is not normal, you know that you saw all the doctors and investigators around her. You don't know that I was one of them, I mean if you had known you would have called already" Nino laughed at that.

"You were in Marinette's case?" Alya ignored the joke, her pride wasn't important in this moment.

"Her parents gave permission to an investigation I was part of. It was a dead end, just like the other investigations, none of our experiments answered the many questions Marinette's case had."

"How many people tried to make an investigation out of Marinette?" Nino asked concerned.

"Too many," Alya rubbed her temples "It was a company after another, even after Marinette woke up, scientist and doctors still knocked at her door. Marinette's coma didn't enter in any medical category, her vital signs were over the roof but she wasn't dead, her reactions weren't the ones a coma patient had. She was an interesting subject"

"She was indeed" Juleka nodded "But after Marinette woke up there was no much to study, and people were frustrated by the lack of answers they found in the multiple studies they made. It's understandable, I mean, I'm not a doctor and Marinette is the oddest case I've ever stumbled on, I was attracted to it too. But after a year or so it stopped being relevant and we all forgot about it, well, until a few months ago."

"Someone started studying Marinette's case again?!" Alya screamed, making Nino cover her mouth with his hand.

"Yes, not really," Juleka opened an archive on her phone and showed it to Alya "This are images of tissue"

Alya saw the picture, circles and weird forms in purples and pinks. She knew it was a picture from a microscope but that was about it.

"Okay, to be honest, I have no idea at what I'm looking at,"

"It's a piece of Marinette's skin, I took it out of her chest were she had that weird looking purple scar," The scientist explained "Back then it looked weird to me so I took a sample but it was never part of the study so I never made a deep study of it.

Last year I started studying how radiation makes the cells mute, it's not a unique study but it is an interesting one. I had a good study in mother-cells so I thought that I could relate them. I went through my files and found Marinette's; out of curiosity I opened, and this time I saw something strange. When Marinette's skin and blood sample first came I did not find anything that would suggest her having any particular or special thing- but I think that's because I didn't have the expertise that I have today- but now I saw something different from anything I've ever seen before"

"What?!" Alya took Juleka by her shoulders and leaned into her

"Let her talk, 'Lya" Nino shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I'm nervous,"

"It's okay," Juleka nodded and did not waste more time "Look at this part of the sample," Juleka pointed a part of the picture, mostly pink in the picture "This is Marinette's tissue, it's normal conjunctive tissue, but, this part" Juleka pointed at small purplish section of the picture, it was almost invisible to Alya's eyes but focusing she could see it "These are not Marinette's cells"

"What?!" Nino screamed this time.

"What it is?" Alya said almost immediately.

"They're cells but they are not human or vegetal cells. These cells are different, and I'm calling them cells because they enter in some criteria but they could not be" Juleka changed the picture, another sample "This is a sample of Marinette's shoulder and it's normal, so there's something about that scar that it's unique. If it had been any other person I would think I was crazy or that I made a mistake, but it's freaking Ladybug that we are talking about,"

"You know?!" Nino and Alya shouted at the unison.

"She wasn't exactly, uh… subtle," Juleka laughed.

No, she was not but Alya wasn't going to let Juleka known.

"Well, yeah," Alya fake giggled "So you studied this having that in mind?"

"Yes, if I didn't, nothing would make any sense. It still doesn't make much but I'm one step closer to the truth if I have that fact in mind, right?" The friends nodded, "Marinette gained physical strength, elasticity, and other abilities when she became Ladybug. I don't know how she did it but I believe it interfered with her cells or, something went inside her cells, I've been calling it a gnome"

Was Juleka saying what Alya thought she was saying? How had she figured it out that there was a tiny little fairy giving Marinette powers? How of all the conclusions could she come with she had ended up choosing the right one? How did she know so much? This was scary. Juleka was smart, almost a genius but this wasn't biology or math, this was an unknown science if you could call magic that.

"What do you mean with a "gnome"?" Nino's tone of voice was skeptical but mostly because it was hiding all the fear he was holding inside. Juleka didn't notice, but Alya knew him too well and did notice.

"She must have transformed into Ladybug with some sort of magic, right? And since I found different cells on her body I'm assuming it was a living creature, that's what I mean, you can call it fairy if you want but I thought gnome was cooler"

"And you came to this conclusion just with the cells you found?" Alya asked.

"Yeah," She nodded but stopped abruptly "Well, I also looked information of the place you found Marinette. I had a variety of articles related to old traditions and beliefs on my living room, one of them called Rose's attention so she called Kim who was doing a part of his show close to the location, and he provided information that made me come to that conclusion" Juleka giggled, the ex-couple face expressions were just hilarious "By the look on your faces I assume I'm right,"

"Sort of," Nino cleared his throat "So, Juleka -I'm sorry for asking again but I need to get this clear- you're saying that Marinette has remaining cells of a strange being in her skin?"

"Yes," She nodded.

"So that means she was in contact with this strange fairy?" Alya stood by Nino, crossed her arms in front of her chest and narrowed her eyes "You're saying the scar she has is the creature's fault?"

"Yes and yes. But I think it goes beyond it," Juleka also stood up "The x-rays the doctors took of Marinette had strange spots around the scar's area, they couldn't make a biopsy of the tissue because the needles kept breaking in a half –I was lucky to get a piece of her skin to analyze, still don't know how I did it- and her vital signs, specifically make me believe that this weird gnome is in fact fused with Marinette"

Something clicked inside Alya's head.

If Marinette had the creature that gave her power inside of her, her transformations into Ladybug would make sense!

"Juleka I love you so much!" Alya threw herself at the girl and wrapped her in a big hug.

Juleka went stiff but didn't push back Alya, she didn't give the hug back either, but Alya didn't take it in a bad way. Juleka was so much sociable that she had been years ago, but she was still Juleka.

"Same here, Jules, " Nino said, patting the girl's shoulder "You have no idea how much you have helped us,"

"It was nothing," Juleka gently pushed Alya, the hug was taking forever to end. "I assume you two are going to fly out, as you always did" Nino laughed "You have to let me know if I was rig because this is only a theory.

"We will" Alya winked.

Nino and Alya said goodbye to Juleka with the biggest smiles on their faces, a pair of smiles they didn't think they would be wearing today. The meeting with the Agrestes had been informative but also disappointing, it had felt like they were inside a labyrinth and that every new exit they found, throw them to a new and more complicated stage of the maze. But now they had a new theory and one that had a solid base, one that they could start to study immediately.

And that's exactly what they did.

Leaving behind their work compromises, the couple went to Adrien's apartment, where the board still hanged in the living room and started working immediately.

Alya updated the board, tied some loose ends with the information she had and started her own notebook with questions and answers.

Nino drowned himself in books while Wayzz guided him through the pages, trying to find an explanation to Juleka's words.

It wasn't easy, they knew that, but for the first time in a long time, it felt like the sun was shining above them.

xx

Marinette washed her face with the cold water streaming down the shower head. She had been in the bathtub for hours now, so there was no more hot water left, but that didn't seem to bother her, she had to get used to the water temperature already.

After an intense crying season, a bath was always good, it helped you relax and wash away all the problems. Marinette was scared of leaving the bathtub and have all those problems coming back to her and had stayed immobile, hugging her legs and her head on top of her knees the whole time. And she would have stayed like that longer if it hadn't been for the knocks on the door.

"Come in," Marinette fixed her sight on the door and watched it open slowly until a tall skinny man with red locks was in front of her.

"You're gonna catch a cold, Mari, thought," He said sitting on the bathroom floor, close to the bathtub.

"I don't catch colds, you know that" She smiled softly at him "Is that cup of coffee for me?"

"I don't drink coffee, you know that" He answered, passing the cup to her.

"Thank you," Marinette pressed the cup against her cheek, feeling the warm sensation on her skin. "I'm not sure if I'm ready to talk yet,"

"Are you ever going to be?"

"I don't think so," She sighed. "You know why I'm here, don't you?"

"Not really, 'Nette. I didn't expect to see you in a long, long time, and now you're here at my bath, tough thinking it well, you love that bathtub" Marinette giggled. That was true. "But if I had to guess I'll say that you remembered something and want some sort of explanation"

"Is not that I remembered it," Marinette begun, if she didn't jump fast she was never going to get into the subject. "My head has been a mess lately, different emotions have surfaced and I get blurry flashbacks, that make me dizzy… my mind is spinning around all the time and seems like it doesn't want to stop anytime soon, so I thought that maybe it was time to look for answers"

"For the tone of your voice and the gallons of tears of three hours ago, I assume it was a bad idea," Nathanael extended his arm to be able to touch Marinette's hair. She didn't say anything, she let him play with the wet pieces of her hair, it was relaxing and familiar and Marinette needed that calm to continue.

"I read one of my diaries," She stuttered at the end. Taking a big gasp of air she continued "I find answers to question I had been asking myself for a very long time, but…. I don't feel relieved"

"Because you can't find a tie to connect you with the words you read," Nathanael said; his voice as soft as his caresses. "You read words that shock you but if they don't spar anything they just turn to be more weight on your shoulders. I thought that was the reason why you never read them"

"I didn't read them because I was scared of what I could find," Marinette admitted the truth to someone else for the first time. "I think a deep part of me knows everything and it's too damaged and scared to let the truth come out, I think that part of me is screaming warnings and making me avoid the truth"

"And you've been listening"

"Exactly"

"Then why did you stop listening?"

The answer was clear: Adrien, but she couldn't tell him that.

"I don't know, Nath. I was tired of being in the dark" Marinette drink a sip of her coffee "It has cinnamon on it!"

"Yeah, from the cream mix you buy, I still have a bit of it, I've discovered that it tastes delicious when you mix it with cocoa. I was out of tea the other day and find the box of the cream mix in my kitchen shelves so I had to improvise" He smiled, and Marinette did too. "Want one? I can teach you my special recipe".

The situation could have been awkward, the breakup had been so Marinette didn't expect for Nathanael to let her in so easily, but he did.

When Marinette knocked at his door he opened and welcomed her with a smile, he wasn't the same as always but he didn't act mean towards her and Marinette was thankful for that because she wasn't able to hold the tears for long.

She started crying in the middle of the living room and Nathanael wrapped her in a big warm hug. She didn't say a word and neither did he, but it calmed Marinette down, he had that effect on her and she had finally figured it out why.

Nathanael didn't spark any strong memories. Nathanael was safe.

She loved him very much but lately, she had been thinking that her love might not be as genuine as she thought it was and Nathanael didn't deserve that. She had stuttered on her way here, stopping in the middle of the street a few times until she convinced herself that this was the best place to be at. Also, she still wanted to keep him as a friend, he was important and she cared about him.

She loved him for the memories they had created together, for his personality, for those little quirky habits and for what he was doing now, his amazing ability to change subjects and distract her when she was showing signs of breaking down.

"Can you prepare me one as I dress up?" Marinette asked.

Nathanael nodded. He stood up and opened one of the doors under his sink, taking one towel and handing it to Marinette before leaving the bathroom.

Marinette did the whole process of getting out of the tub as fast as she could, if she didn't dress immediately she was going to stay in the water forever.

She untied her hair from the bun she had made to avoid getting it wet and took Nath's brush to untie the knots. She opened the cabinet and was happy to find that Nath hadn't throw away her little bag with makeup. She didn't do much, she just covered her under eyes circles with concealer and curled her lashes to look more awake than she did right now, that always made her feel better.

Looking her reflection in the mirror, she realized that the little trick hadn't been enough. Nothing was going to be enough, was it?

She had come to Nathanael because she knew she was going to be able to calm down with him around, it was always like that. Also, if she asked difficult questions he was going to answer straight up with the truth. She wasn't sure how much Nathanael knew but he had to know something and that was going to be the best place to start. If she went to Chat Noir right now she wasn't sure she could be able to handle it.

Oh, Chat.

He held all the answers, Marinette was sure of that, but she wasn't feeling in the mood to see him. For what she had read, she had known Chat Noir's secret identity before losing her memory. In the way she wrote it, he didn't seem to know that she knew, but the various conversations they have had where Chat offered to take the mask and show her who he was made her doubt.

And if she had figured it out, then Chat probably had figured it out her identity too –well, if she wasn't lying in her diary- and if he knew who she was that meant he had been lying this whole time, and Marinette didn't know how to feel about that.

Chat Noir was someone with who she needed to speak, but she was going to take slow and little steps before getting to him. And for getting there she had to take the first step, and she was going to do it now.

Marinette rampaged out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, finding Nathanael stirring a spoon into a mug.

"Mar—

"I'm I Ladybug?" No time to hesitate, she asked at the moment she put a foot in the kitchen.

Nathanael sighed and rubbed his temples with his fingertips.

"Let's sit down, okay? I feel like this is going to take a long time"