Chat laid awake, his eyes fixed on Marinette's relaxed sleeping face. He knew he should try and get some rest in, considering Marinette was at least trying, but he didn't want to close his eyes and see something he didn't want to. He regained memories from Jumps with sleep, and a lot of the time, those memories weren't good. He also relieved past memories with sleep. Also not good.

So he stared at Marinette as she slept, watching the way her lips parted with every breath. Her hair was splayed against the pillow, and there would be no doubt that her hair would dry strangely on that side. Her cheek was smushed onto the pillow, and there was a little drool slipping out of her mouth. Her fingers twitched in his.

It was strange, to feel her skin directly. His suit had special capabilities that allowed him to feel different sensations, but it could never compare to the actual thing. Science could only go so far, he guessed.

Another strange thing: not wearing the suit in general.

He'd worn it almost continuously for so long in front of everyone. Except for Nino. But not wearing the suit in front of someone who wasn't Nino made Chat's heart beat a little faster.

Marinette had been so close to seeing his face. His face without the mask. Nerve-wracking.

He let his mind wander, never letting it stay too long on something for fear of letting the thought lull him to sleep.

Earlier, he had told Marinette about his mother. Not a lot, but still more than Chat had said to anyone in a long time. He thought about his mother for a bit, letting himself indulge in imagining the scent of her perfume, which always smelled like wildflowers, and the smile lines by her eyes.

The thought of his mother brought him to another, grimmer thought. Or rather, many grim thoughts, but one in particular. He stared at the face of the girl who came into his life not unlike a typhoon, and he wondered just how much she knew about the situation she was in.

A lot of things had happened before she came. A lot of things only Chat, Fu, and one other person knew the full details of. A lot of things that Chat wouldn't dare talk about.

He disentangled one of his hands from hers, lifting it up to trace a crescent on her cheekbone. Her eyes fluttered open, and she frowned at him, gripping the one hand still in her grasp.

"Don't tell me you've been awake the whole time," she muttered, her voice low and raspy from only just waking up.

"Hm." Her frown deepened. "It hasn't been that long. I promise."

"Go to sleep, Chat," she grumbled, closing her eyes once more.

"Hm."

She cracked one eye open. "What's keeping you awake?" she asked, her voice softening a little bit.

"Myself," Chat admitted.

"What about yourself?"

He thought about how much he should divulge. "Too many bad memories."

Marinette's face softened even more, and a sad look crossed her face. She pulled Chat closer, wrapping her arms around his head and holding him in a tight embrace. His nose tickled the small hairs by her neck, and he took a breath involuntarily. She smelled like cheap shampoo and wildflowers.

"That's when you try and think about the good memories," she whispered, and her voice was honey right by his ear.

Chat felt himself break a little. He relaxed into her embrace, burying his nose further in her hair. "Would if all the good memories are connected to bad ones?"

She held him a little tighter. "I'll give you some of mine."

There was a long pause, and tears gathered in his eyes. "Please," he whispered, and it was like he was begging for something unattainable.

"My parents," she started, and she blew out a breath, like it was difficult for her. "They owned a bakery. Each day, they'd wake me up at the crack of dawn blaring the same old CDs with the Chinese singer that I could never remember the name of. The first thing I smelled in the morning was baked bread."

He was suddenly reminded of when she ate the akuma candy and described all the flavors to him. All the sweet delights and pastries made sense to him now.

"After class I would come home to a snack my mother had made. When the bakery closed, I would play video games with my dad. I think he'd let me win, but I think that's okay."

She took in a shaking breath, and Chat wondered if she was crying. Why she was crying.

"I had a hideout on the roof of the bakery. It was also my house, you know? My hideout was right up against the stars, and my mom liked to buy flowers and plants for me to put up there. I would draw and dream there. Sometimes my parents would come up there with me, and we'd eat cookies and try and point out constellations that didn't exist."

"What would you dream about?" Chat asked, his voice low and husky. He was getting emotional hearing the sound of her voice breaking.

"Becoming a clothes designer." Her voice turned wistful. "I wanted to be famous, to have my clothes worn by everyone because they were just that good. I would dream up designs and collections and color schemes." He heard her swallow thickly, and he felt her hands shake as she stroked her fingers through his hair.

"Why are you crying?" he whispered, and at last a sob shook it's way out of her.

She pulled away from him, showing him her red eyes and tear-stained cheeks. She smiled sadly at him. "I'm only giving you good memories, kitty. Only good."

It seemed her good memories were tied with her bad ones as well. And yet she was the one trying to make Chat feel better about the same issue.

"If anyone's going to save the world, it's going to be you," Chat said, brushing her damp and frizzy behind her ear to wipe away her tears.

She let out a rather wet laugh. "I suppose that's a compliment."

"It is. You've got a good heart, and I know the SOUL inside you is good as well." His heart clenched. "You have all the power to make everyone fall to their knees."

"That's a little severe," she mumbled, smiling a little at him. "I just want everyone to get along."

"Too kind," Chat said, and he finally closed his eyes.

Marinette woke up from another dreamless sleep hours later, her hair all across her face. She was staring up at the ceiling, and she got the strange feeling that she was not laying in the position she felt asleep in.

She lifted her head.

No, she was not laying in the same position she fell asleep in.

Not at all.

Her body was splayed diagonally across Chat's, one of her arms cradling his face. Her other arm was trapped underneath Chat's arm around her waist. She wondered how this had happened and why Chat seemed to still be sleeping peacefully.

Either he was seriously dead tired, or he seriously didn't mind being slept on. She had a feeling it was a mix of both.

She didn't want to wake him up because although her memories were a little blurred from sleep, she still remembered what he had said. He couldn't sleep because he would remember too many bad memories.

Marinette knew what that felt like. It made sleeping not as relaxing as it was supposed to be. It made sleeping difficult.

Right now, he seemed to be sleeping without any sort of nightmare or bad dream of any kind. He was getting proper rest in who even knows how long.

After a while of trying to remain in the same position as when she woke up, her back started to hurt. And then her arm fell asleep. And her tiredness started to wear off, replaced with a burning hunger.

Chat still slept soundly.

She squirmed, trying to wiggle herself free of his arm, but he only seemed to grip her tighter. "At least let me change positions, asshole," she grumbled, not expecting any sort of response.

"No can do, bugaboo," mumbled Chat's very sleepy and husky sleep voice. Marinette almost shrieked. Almost.

"Since when have you been awake?" she demanded, trying her best to give him the stink eye from her position. She was sure she looked a bit silly, but she couldn't quite take him seriously with her arm still cradling his face at an odd angle.

"Since you have." She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, I've been asleep the whole time. I started to wake up when you started moving."

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" she asked, thinking about the minutes she spent trying to stay still for his sake.

"I thought it was funny."

"You're the worst."

"Yeah, I know."

He finally let go of her waist, and she sat up, stretching her back and ridding herself of the cricks in her neck. He did the same, sitting up to rest his chin on her shoulder. His arms went to wrap around her waist again, and Marinette found herself staring down at his bare hands once more. It was still a surprise, it seemed.

She tore her eyes away from his hands. She turned her head to look at him, looking deeply into his eyes. "I'm hungry."

"Grillby's?"

"Yes, please."

The cold air outside of the inn was a shock to Marinette's skin, what with her having just spent hours under warm blankets and in Chat's arms.

As they made the short walk over to Grillby's, Chat reached over and intertwined his hand with hers. He had put the suit back on before he left, so the leather of his gloves touched her skin instead of his skin. She missed the feel of it.

He looked over to her, and his lips quirked up in a small snort of laughter.

"What?" she asked, a small smile growing on her face. It was like his smile was infectious.

"I was right," he said, reaching over and smoothing down one side of her hair. She felt it spring up again as soon as his hand left her head. "You're hair dried weird because of how you slept."

Marinette blushed, slapping her free hand against the offending chunk of hair. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"It looks cute," was all that he replied.

They walked into Grillby's, and they sat at the same place that they had sat the last time they'd been there. The warmth of Grillby's flames slowly started to defrost Marinette, and she gave a contented sigh.

Grillby looked at Marinette, then pointedly looked at Chat before looking at her again.

"Listen," Marinette started to defend herself, but she found she wasn't able to find a proper excuse.

"The usual, please," Chat said, seemingly oblivious for once.

Giving one last look at Marinette, Grillby brought out a couple of lemonades and two plates of burgers and fries, one order significantly smaller than the other. Chat took the smaller portion, taking the big plate from Grillby to set in front of Marinette.

"I can't possibly eat all this," she said, raising her eyebrow at him. But as she stared at the food, perfectly greasy and smelling amazing, her stomach grumbled.

"Whatever you don't eat you can just give to me. It'll be fine."

Marinette ate all of it.

She wiped the plate clean, in fact. Downed the entirety of her lemonade.

She leaned back on the stool, her hands gripping the countertop. Chat and Grillby looked over at her appreciatively.

"That was a lot," she said, patting her stomach and looking over at Chat. "I can't believe I did that." Then, to Grillby. "Thank you very much. It was delicious." Grillby's flames burned a little brighter.

Grillby looked expectantly at Chat. They stuck out a hand. Chat barely glanced down as he high fived Grillby, flashing a shining grin. "Put it on my tab."

Marinette rolled her eyes, and she looked over at Grillby to see that they were doing the same.

When they left Grillby's, embracing the cold once more, Marinette worried at her thumb nail as they walked back to the dock. "Do you think Jalil will actually give us a ride back? He didn't seem too happy about it the first time."

Chat looked ahead, his jaw set as he gave Marinette's hand a squeeze. "Jalil may not like me so much, but he's not a bad guy. He said he'd take us back to Hotland, so he will."

Sure enough, when they got to the dock, Jalil was waiting in his small boat, reading a different book than before. It was another one about time travel.

When he saw Marinette and Chat, his face darkened, and he set his eyes on Marinette, almost as if he was refusing to look at Chat. The burning blue of his glowing eye still unsettled her, and so she tried to focus on the normal soft blue of his other eye.

"Are you ready to go back to Hotland?" he asked her.

She gave a nervous glance to Chat. "Yes," she answered, and Jalil snapped his book shut. She jumped.

Just like before, Chat helped her into the boat first, and then she helped him in, too. They sat down next to another stack of books about time travel. Chat looked at them sadly.

Jalil rowed the boat onto the flowing part of the river. The gentle rocking of the boat as they traveled and the food in her stomach made Marinette's eyes heavy, and she rested her head against Chat's shoulder, closing her eyes. She fell into an in between state of sleep – not entirely asleep, but not entirely awake either.

"You think she's dead," she heard Jalil say, his voice soft as it drifted into her almost-sleeping consciousness.

"I think she's in a place where she won't easily be able to come back," Chat replied, voice just as soft. "There's a difference."

"You don't want to find her," Jalil said. His tone wasn't accusatory, Marinette's didn't think. He was just stating facts. Marinette wondered who this person they were talking about was.

"It's not that I don't want to. I just think there's no point."

"Nothing has a point anymore, does it? Everything is meaningless to you."

There was a moment of silence. Chat hummed. "Not everything."

"Things that used to be important to you. You've just abandoned them."

"They abandoned me. I chose not to take part in that world anymore."

"That world is where my sister is," Jalil said, and Marinette felt Chat sigh heavily.

"There's more to this than your sister, Jalil. More than you can ever know."

"So tell me."

Again, Chat sighed. "I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

A long silence stretched out, and Marinette felt the boat hit something. The dock.

"Wake up the girl. And get off my boat, Chat."

Marinette was jostled into a fully awake state by Chat's gentle voice. "Hey, sweetheart," he whispered, shaking her a little, "it's time to go."

She opened her eyes and looked over at Jalil. He was leaning the oar, staring off into the distance at something Marinette didn't think she'd be able to see if she tried.

When they got off the boat and started to walk away, Marinette glanced back at Jalil. She watched as his head dropped, and his shoulders started to shake. She stopped walking altogether and felt Chat stop beside her. He didn't turn around, though.

Jalil stood there shaking for a moment, and then he lifted his face to the high cavern ceiling, and Marinette felt her heart break at the expression on his face. He near collapsed on a seat of the boat, and he slowly reached for another book on time travel.

"Let's go, Marinette," Chat said softly, gently turning Marinette around so that she couldn't see Jalil anymore. "We have to keep moving, right?"

She finally resigned herself to walk again, but she couldn't shake the image of Jalil out of her head. "What happened to you two?" she asked, just as Chat opened the door to the lab.

He turned back to her, raising an eyebrow. "I already told you." She gave him a look, but he didn't yield. "It's time to meet someone new. Someone that will probably be a bit more hospitable."

"Probably?" Marinette asked.

Chat pushed open the door with a heavy sigh. "Yeah. Probably."

The interior of the lab was cloaked in a heavy darkness, and as they advanced further in, Marinette could hear the soft drone of machinery. Ahead was a large viewing screen which was cutting light into the dark room, and Chat let out a soft whistle.

"Yeah," he whispered, stopping to stare at the image of the two of them projected on the viewing screen. "We're probably screwed."

Marinette looked away from the viewing screen, shivering a little. If she squinted, she could make out junk piled on a desk next to the screen, but it was far too dark to be sure. She walked forward slowly, looking for a light switch, her footsteps echoing softly in the large space.

"Is this really what I look like? Man, am I handsome," Chat called out from behind her. She looked back to see that he was holding his hand up to the viewing screen camera, blowing up the image of his leather clad hand. Marinette rolled her eyes.

"More like a handful," she deadpanned, letting her lips flicker up into a smile when Chat gasped.

A door slid open ahead and the lights suddenly flicked on, momentarily blinding Marinette. When she could see again, she saw a woman step out from behind the door, holding an open file and reading it carefully.

"Hello?" Marinette said, and the woman jumped back, dropping the file and giving a little shriek. Her glasses slipped off her nose and clattered to the floor, where the contents of the file were now scattered.

"Oh, gosh," the woman said, seeming to get a little flustered. She tucked a lock of short red hair behind her ear and dropped to her knees, fumbling for the papers and her glasses. "I really didn't expect you to get here so soon."

She only seemed to be making a larger mess, so Marinette kneeled down in front of her, picking up her glasses and handing them to her. "Here you go."

"Ah, thank you," the woman said, taking the glasses and putting them back on. They seemed to make her already rather large blue eyes even larger. Marinette glanced down at the scattering of papers, meaning to help pick up those too, but her eyes caught on the header of the paper on top.

SOUL Creation Test Subject #87 Results:

Before Marinette could read anymore, the woman had snatched the papers away, laughing nervously while stuffing them into the case file. "Sorry about that," she said. Marinette stared at her hand. It seemed to be turning invisible. "My name is Sabrina. I'm the Royal Scientist."

She stood up, tucking her hair behind her ear again with her invisible hand and then offering the invisible hand for Marinette to shake.

"Um." Marinette stared at the place where a hand should be.

Sabrina looked down, finally seeming to notice the absence of her hand and blushing furiously. With what seemed like a great effort, she made her hand visible again, and Marinette hesitantly shook it.

"But yes," Sabrina continued, smiling a little at Marinette. "I am the Royal Scientist."

"That means you're with the king, right?" Marinette asked, stepping back a little and glancing over at Chat, who was making faces at the viewing screen.

"Oh, well, I'm not with the king exactly. Well, I am. Er." She paused, seeming to think for a moment. "I'm not one of the bad guys who wants to kill you. Sort of like Chat."

Chat walked up to stand beside Marinette, crossing his arms. "You still work for Plagg. I don't." Sabrina shifted awkwardly. "But, yeah. Sure. Sort of like me." His tone was entirely light hearted, and Marinette shot him a pointed look to tell him to behave.

Sabrina looked between Chat and Marinette, looking as if she might run away. When Chat shrugged and looked away, she focused back on Marinette, one of her arms slowly turning invisible. "A-anyway, when my cameras picked up a human entering the Underground, I got a little excited."

"Cameras?" Marinette asked. She vaguely remembered passing by a few unsettling and poorly hidden cameras on her journey. Suddenly the viewing screen made sense as well.

"Um, yes. Cameras." Sabrina was blushing now, and half of her face had started turning invisible also, which looked a little strange, like her glasses were hanging on thin air. "I meant to watch over you for Plagg, but I started to root for you and follow your fights, your friendships, your relationships." She stopped there, and her eyes drifted over to Chat, who was picking at the grime on his gloves and looking around lazily. Marinette didn't miss the implication there.

"You've really cleaned out the place, haven't you?" Chat asked, seemingly unaware of the conversation at hand, his voice a little sad.

Sabrina dipped her head, looking a little ashamed. "I am the only scientist here. I manage the place all on my own."

Chat frowned. "Plagg didn't hire anyone else but you?"

If possible, Sabrina looked even further away, and more of her body was turning invisible until it really just looked like a lab coat and blue and green sweater vest was hovering in front of them. "No one really wanted to be hired after, um, the other scientists, you know."

Not for the first time, Marinette got the feeling she was missing more than few pieces of information.

For a moment, Chat seemed like he was about to say something else, but he only shut his mouth again, shaking his head a little. Marinette watched as he looked around the lab again, still with that same sad look on his face.

"I…" Sabrina looked between Chat and Marinette for a moment before fixing her gaze on Marinette, her wide smile extremely nervous. "I really wanted your journey to be peaceful, but now that you've come this far, I should inform you of a threat I myself have created."

"What do you mean?" Marinette asked, trying her best to keep her eyes away from Chat, who was now gazing at the files clutched in Sabrina's arms rather suspiciously.

"Back before you arrived, I helped a friend of mine develop a new body. Since I wasn't sure if Plagg would approve of me taking on a side project, I told him, and he suggested to make my friend a body that would fit that of a soldier."

At this, Chat's eyes visibly widened, and he whipped his head up, shock and fear twisting his features. Sabrina didn't miss Chat's sudden change, and she quickly hurried on.

"My friend, however, isn't much of the soldier type, so I took Plagg's suggestion with a grain of salt. I made her a new body capable of channeling her magic in sort of a weapon form, but she doesn't really fight anything." At this point, Marinette was wondering how this was a threat. "But, ah, it seems she hates humans. It's sort of her job, since the king himself was the one who suggested it."

"Do you understand what you've done?" Chat demanded, his tone harsher and sharper than anything Marinette had ever heard before.

"Whoa," she said, placing a hand on Chat's shoulder. "Slow down a little."

"No, I won't slow down!" Chat said, shaking free of Marinette's hand and advancing on Sabrina, who cowered under Chat's rage. "Giving that sort of scientific power to the wrong person has real life consequences. That can get to anyone's head, and it's never pretty when it does."

Sabrina's lip trembled, and Marinette was just about to intervene when she saw Sabrina's legs start to turn invisible, until her face hardened and she took a step back. Chat was no longer in her face, and she tucked her hair behind her ear. "This isn't the lab that you worked in, Chat Noir. My methods are very different from the ones that you used, and may I remind you that this is my friend that we're talking about." With each word that she spoke, her voice grew more fierce and powerful until she was just as in Chat's face as he had been in hers.

"It doesn't matter who we're talking about," Chat roared, obviously more upset from Sabrina's words rather than soothed by them. "Power is a disease, and you just handed it off to someone!"

"I'm a scientist, too, you know! I don't just experiment on whatever I please and 'hand off' anything to anyone without a proper cause! Quit acting like I'm less competent than you." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, seemingly trying to reign herself in. "And besides, this is Chloe we're talking about. She's more likely to care about her new products or the shows she stars in than Marinette."

Marinette finally felt as though she could contribute to the conversation without looking like an ignorant fool, so she carefully rested a hand on Chat once more. "Chat," she said softly, and he sighed deeply.

"I apologize," he said, sounding sincere. "I didn't mean to make light of your work, or your methods, but I wasn't aware you had given Chloe Bourgeois a new body. The phrasing of a 'body fit for a soldier'" – he seemed to say this bit carefully, as if the words themselves were dangerous – "made me extremely alarmed."

Sabrina examined his face for a moment, and then she sighed. "It's alright. You had fair reason to be alarmed, but I can assure you that I'll do my best to control Chloe the best that I can. Besides there's no guarantee you two will run into her right now anyway."

The tense feeling that had filled the room earlier was now relieved a little bit, and Marinette let a sigh of her own escape her mouth.

A loud thumping noise sounded from the wall next to them. Marinette looked at Sabrina. "What-?"

The noise sounded again, making the entire room shake. And then the wall fell in, revealing a terrifyingly beautiful robot that was wearing designer sunglasses on top of her perfectly styled metal blond hair.

"Is that…?" Marinette trailed off, looking over at Sabrina, who had backed away from the wall several steps, a nervous smile on her lips. Marinette looked back at the robot in front of her. "Oh, no."

"Oh, yes," Chloe Bourgeois said, her metal and painted pink lips curving up in a smile. "It's so nice to finally meet the notorious human in the Underground."