Trust
Alya did not have her phone. Alya was furious. She was angry. She was mad.
One morning, after the Lila interview, few days after Adrien and Marinette won over Hawk Moth, officer Roger Raincomprix was at her door. It was early, her parents and Nora were all at home, they even cancelled their obligations for the day once they faced the possible charges. Alya was sleep deprived over everything that had happened, too much to read, too much to watch, one particular interview over and over.
Her phone was seized and her computer too. Apparently you can't just sell photo's of minor's to the media (especially those who suddenly have a legal representative who works in the child's interest and not for a company) and careful inspection of image properties revealed they were previously stored and even modified on her phone.
"The photos were sold by Lila." Alya frowned. "She said so in her interview."
"We are also doing the investigation on Hawk Moth and we have the information that there might be incriminating evidence on your hardware." Sabrina's father stood proud and tall while he recited the reasons behind his visit. He was not spilling that he got information from an anonymous source, but the girl who ran Ladyblog would definitely be someone to question.
"Evidence? Against Hawk Moth? On my daughter's phone and computer?" Her father asked incredulously. He knew his girl was running the Ladyblog, but he was also certain she already published anything even remotely worth watching.
"Where did you get that information?" Marlena Cesaire insisted. She knew from running a restaurant, an anonymous tip, a detailed inspection, nothing found but many hours if not days of lost work. And she was loosing time as they spoke.
"I can't release that information to you." The officer replied solemnly. He was not obliged to.
"Is she incriminated?" Marlena insisted.
"That depends." Officer roger loved having the authority.
"On what?" Otis Cesaire practically snapped.
"Have you had the phone with you the whole time?" Officer Roger asked Alya in the presence of her parents (while Nora, Ella and Etta were eavesdropping behind a door, in vain, the twins were arguing, Nora could not understand what was said on the other side).
"I have, well except when Lila took it with her by accident, but she returned it within an hour." Alya replied with a shaky voice.
"Lila Rossi?" Officer Roger asked with raised eyebrows.
"Yes, she is the daughter of an Italian diplomat, Benigna Rossi." Alya confirmed.
"And exactly when and where that happened?" The police man asked as he took notes.
Alya explained the time frame and the place where she was with the twins.
"We have independent evidence that would support your claims. Unfortunately that is not sufficient to clear you young lady, nor your family." The police man told her with a less stern expression. The evidence was indeed the Lila Rossi interview where she admits selling the photos herself.
"What?" Marlena screamed. Her husband had a dark expression on his face. Alya sunk in her chair.
"It is a matter for computer experts if they can confirm my doubts. I will have to return later after we examine the retrieved items." The policeman greeted and left.
Nora appeared in the living room followed by Ella and Etta.
"What happened? What is going on? What is wrong with Alya? Why are all of you so angry?" Ella and Etta kept asking, but everyone kept making excuses that the two girls never bought. They were allowed to watch cartoons on TV while the two adults, Nora and Alya had a talk in Alya's room.
"Are we being investigated because of that Lila girl?" Nora snapped. Her parents were not happy with Alya and suspected the same, but they both frowned at their older daughter playing the role of a parent.
"You don't understand. Lila is so wonderful. She would never do anything like that." Alya protested. "She helped me so much." She was babysitting the twins while I escaped to the cinema with Nino. "She gave me an interview for my blog." It was well watched and there were a lot of comments.
"How wonderful she really is?" Her mother asked gently. Nora was steaming in the corner with her arms crossed. Her father was looking through the window.
"She organizes charities with Prince Ali, Jagged Stone made a song about her, she is the best friend with Ladybug..." Alya started counting on her fingers.
"That is a bunch of bullshit!" Nora snarled from her corner. She met the girl while she visited Alya, there was no way that little sly twig was cool, but nobody is a best friend with Ladybug and tells that to anyone.
"You can't say that, none of you had even seen the interview." Alya shouted. And that was the truth, her parents were working, Nora was babysitting and they all had something better to do than to watch an interview of some wannabe.
"Could you tell us what happened, from the start?" Her father was quiet but there was threat in his voice.
Alya sighed. Where was the start? The police left few minutes ago, they took her phone. They took her computer. They were about to take her complete statement. Her parents demanded to know the facts. She screamed she wanted to know the facts. But she could not believe what officer Roger Raincomprix was telling them. He apologized he could not tell all the facts, that the investigation was ongoing. The interview with Lila rolled in her head, over and over again, she could not throw the words out from her brain, those were Lila's words. She did not count how many times she replayed the interview last night. She had to pick a side, and she picked Lila's side, because she was Ladybug's best friend. Then she remembered what Sabrina's dad said.
"They took my phone and computer because Marinette worked with Hawk Moth." Alya stated simply. Nora groaned. Her mother rolled her eyes. Her father was waving his head. All three of them saw the video of the fight. Every Parisian did, it was a must. Marlena was sick to her stomach when she watched the kids and two monks stand up to two villains with superpowers. Otis was angry. Nora … Nora memorized each move.
"She fought Hawk Moth." Nora groaned. "She fought Hawk Moth and Mayura. She snatched the brooch off from Mayura." Her older sister stressed each word.
"They are doing an investigation on Hawk Moth and Mayura and they believe you have the information on them because you ran the Ladyblog." Her mother told her calmly. She tried to make it all sound like a compliment. She firmly believed that nobody present helped the villains.
"But they said ..." Alya protested.
"They also took your phone because someone sold photos of Adrien and Marinette to the media. But the owner stamp in the files was leading to your phone, Alya." Her father said flatly with his arms crossed while he looked through the window.
"Have you sold the photos to media?" Her mother repeated the question that the police had asked her before.
"No." Alya screamed. "I have my own blog, I would have published them myself if I wanted them published. Besides, Lila said in her interview … " Nora was rolling her eyes at that. "… that she sold them to the media."
"Well, then she stole the photos from your phone or your computer or something, that is an obvious explanation." Marlene sighed.
"No, she did not, she is too nice for that, she got the photos from Adrien." Alya whined, but she started to doubt her own words as soon as she spoke them.
"You are too much overwhelmed with everything to know the truth dear." Her mother told her.
"That Lila girl had only blinded you, if I could get my hands on her in a ring one day." Nora snarled with clenched fists.
"You will do no such thing, Nora." Her father said. "As much as we all wished you to." He added darkly. "It is important for you sister to come to terms with what just happened."
"Okay, now, from the start?" Nora repeated her father's request.
"She is our daughter Nora." Their mother scolded her oldest daughter.
"Yes, Nora, you can stay, but keep to yourself, okay?" Their father said quietly with a look of a serial killer aimed at the window. "Now, from the start!"
"Marinette was jealous of Lila from the moment Lila first stepped into the classroom because Adrien liked her." Alya blurted out. "She made Lila akumatized on her first day of school."
Nora stiffened her crossed arms. She remembered very well how she got akumatized, because Marinette helped Nino win arm wrestling match against her. And she knew Marinette loved Adrien because the girl had no ability to hide that. And if Adrien really liked Lila … well it was plausible.
"How do you know that?" Their father asked bluntly.
"Lila told me how Adrien had eyes for her from the first day she started school." Alya replied. "Then Marinette suspected Lila told lies about saving Jagged Stone's kitten and ..." The girl continued.
"Jagged stone never had a kitten. That should be easy to verify." Nora said eagerly, both their parents glared at her for a moment while Nora did the search on her phone and showed the results to her mother.
"The only source of that information is your blog Alya." Marlena said calmly. The older girl kept quiet not to draw the wrath of their parents. Otis determinedly stared through the window.
"Lila was Adrien's secret girlfriend, they had to keep it a secret because of the fans and because of Marinette. That is why it had to be kept a secret and she told me only recently." Alya continued undeterred, she heard all those arguments from Marinette before, but Lila knew batter, Lila knew Jagged, she saved his kitten for god's sake.
"But you were helping Marinette to get together with Adrien … how recently?" Nora blurted. Their parents allowed the intrusion. There was more information with Nora than both of them knew.
"Yesterday … " Alya replied honestly.
"Did anyone else know about that relationship?" Her mother asked with a raised eyebrow.
"His father let Lila visit Adrien on daily basis." Alya replied swiftly.
"His father never let Nino in the house. How do you know that and since when?" Nora was getting good at this.
"Lila told me, yesterday." Alya replied quietly.
"That is the same source." Her father stated simply.
"What about Nino? He is Adrien's best bro and he could know about the relationship without telling Marinette." Marlene was getting more brave to join in in this.
"He says Lila lied." Alya spoke barely above a whisper. "He thinks Lila stole the photos he sent me from my phone."
"These photos?" Nora held her phone with a website opened but it was their mother who asked.
Alya browsed the photos.
"These are the photos Nino got from Adrien or I got from Marinette." Alya confirmed. "Nino had more photos on his phone, but he sent me only these few."
"So all these photos have been on your phone. Is there any photo that you have not seen before?" Her father demanded.
"No." Alya waved her head.
"Have you given your phone to anyone?" Nora asked quietly, but there was an undertone in her words that sent shivers down the spines of her parents and her sister.
"Lila took it by mistake yesterday. And she had it in her hands the day before when she visited." Alya whispered.
"And she was sitting in front of your computer?" Her mother asked incredulously.
"Maman, officer Raincomprix is back." Ella said from the door to the room.
"Well you know what you will tell him Alya." Nora replied and walked out from the room, while her parents stayed for the interview.
It was hours later, after she answered all the questions to Sabrina's father, after her parents made a short interview with Nadia Chamack, after she apologized and claimed she never sold those photos, after she talked with Nino and had yet another argument with the boy, after her parents grounded her because Ella and Etta overheard yet another conversation about Lila and blurted out how Lila was babysitting them in place of Alya who went out to the cinema with Nino. It was late in the evening, after the twins were already asleep, or at least stopped causing havoc around the flat, her father was helping her mother in the kitchen, Alya sat at their breakfast table and Nora returned home from another match she won (Nora was considerably inspired for the boxing match by the days events and a face of a certain daughter of an Italian diplomat).
"Alya, what do you know that Lila had not tell you?" Nora asked quietly after she bragged about her match.
"You do not understand, I can't just disregard everything she ever told me. She is Ladybug's best friend. I have published an interview with her on the Ladyblog. More than one actually." Alya protested.
Both their parents left the dishes alone and turned towards their daughter.
"Sometimes you have to accept that you were wrong, dear." Her mother told her gently.
"You should learn from this experience and correct your errors." Her father added quietly.
Both of her parents knew they had to learn from their own errors in their own time. But they had to let their child grow and make errors of her own. They could not impose total control over her and prevent her from making errors. They could only teach her how to accept and correct them and then let her manage the next round herself. The hardest thing was to trust Alya again, therefore they grounded her, because the next day they had to go back to work and leave Alya with the twins again, because their lives had to go on.
Alya said nothing. She was tired and she went to bed, but she was not sleeping. Her mind was overwhelmed with everything. Finally, when the morning arrived, she sat at her desk, she took a notebook and drawn a vertical line over the page. On the left she marked the column 'Lila' and wrote whatever the girl told her about the subject. On the right she wrote whatever she knew from other sources and marked the source. She begged Nora to google a few things for her on her phone while she was home and her sister relented once she saw what Alya was doing.
It was hard. Pages after pages, subject after subject, she started to get a pattern, whatever Lila told her or in fact anybody else was a lie, a fluke or twisted truth at best.
Alya was mad. Alya was angry. Alya was furious. But now she knew what she had to do.
The rest of the class was busy exchanging messages.
They all saw the fight either as a live stream or moments later when the news about the defeat of Hawk Moth spread around the world. Nathaniel was making a comic book about it without stopping for food or sleep to the utter desperation of his grandmother. Kim was bragging how he was faster and stronger than Marinette and Adrien in gym class. Alix watched it together with Jalil. The pink haired girl spent most of the time cheerleading and waving her fists, while her older brother spent most of his time evading her blows.
They watched it again and again, until they memorized each word, until they knew each move, until it was engrained in their memories as if they were there.
But none of them learned about the interview with Lila before they got a message from Nino. The news site was famous for gossip and trivia about anything, but nobody was looking for a piece of serious news there. Besides, why would they be looking for a gossip about Adrien and Marinette, they knew all the juicy parts first hand.
Nino: Lila stole pictures of Adrien and Marinette they sent to Alya and sold them to the press. The interview is a pile of bullshit.
After that warning, anything that was said in the interview was looked at in totally different light.