Desideratum

Chapter 31

The moment Cadence stepped out of the bus, he made a beeline straight for his mother.

He had missed his father, too, there was no denying that, but it was different. He had hardly ever been away from his mother, and as much as people seemed to think of her as overprotective because of that, the truth was that he was just as attached to her as she was to him. There were simply more things out there for him to discover.

"Mom!" he exclaimed, throwing himself into her arms as she crouched down to return his embrace.

"My baby," she murmured, squeezing him back, pressing her lips into his hair.

The days she had spent with Luka had been amazing; they had been stressful and had consumed her more than she would have believed possible, but she didn't regret a single moment. Regardless, she had missed Cadence with every fiber of her being. She wasn't used to being away from him and that wasn't something she even wanted to learn, in the first place.

Clutching him even tighter to herself, she stood up, smiling at him when he pulled away.

It was in that moment that Luka stepped in, taking him from her arms and into his. "Hey, kiddo," he greeted, grinning. "Missed us?"

Cadence nodded. "Yeah."

"But it was nice, right?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "A bit boring, but it was alright."

"You can't tell me you didn't enjoy yourself when you insisted so much on going, Cadence," his mother complained, throwing him a bland look, and he grinned as he rested his head on his father's shoulder, hearing the soft rumble of his chest as he laughed.

Cadence had always been pleased and perfectly happy with his mother and with what they had. People had trouble believing that he had never felt as though something was missing from his life, that he had never wished to have the father figure every other child his age seemed to have, but the truth was exactly that—he hadn't. His mother was more than enough for him and he couldn't care less about what people thought or even said.

But right now… right now he would readily admit that maybe he could understand them. Because having both of them there gave him a sense of stability that his mother alone had never been able to offer him. And it felt good—so good that, for the first time ever, Cadence didn't even stop to try to analyze it. He just felt. And it felt amazing.

Spaceball was, of course, ecstatic with the return of his rightful owner. He had also been ecstatic with the return of Luka and Marinette the night before, but they weren't the ones that took him in their bed at night, so naturally, he had probably missed Cadence as much as Cadence had missed him.

The boy, too, was ridiculously happy to see him, but Marinette sent him upstairs to wash up the moment he stepped through the door, claiming that he had more than enough time to spend with his companion afterwards. Once Luka made his own way upstairs to make a couple of phone-calls, she was finally left alone with her newly recovered phone and her unanswered emails.

She started up the stairs when she was done and there was still no sign of any commotion whatsoever; hesitating for a brief moment, she opened the door to her child's bedroom, a smile immediately curving her lips upwards at the sight that met her: he was lying face-down on the bed, fast asleep, with his arms around his pillow and his dog curled up at his feet.

Knowing that he must have been tired out by the long trip, she made an effort to be as silent as possible as she moved out in the hallway, grabbed a spare blanket, and once again entered his bedroom to drape it over his small form. She only acknowledged the mild thumping of Spaceball's tail on the mattress with a roll of her eyes, as she bent down to brush the hair away from Cadence's face and to place a kiss on his forehead.

Luka met her outside the room as she exited, being extra-careful with closing the door behind her. There was a grin she knew all too well on his face, and amusement sparkled to life in her eyes as she glanced at him.

"He's sleeping," she announced, her voice a soft whisper.

"Yeah?" he asked, and with one step, closed the distance between them, grasping her waist and pulling her into his embrace.

"Mhmm," she hummed in agreement, resting her hands on his forearms. Although doubts still lingered in the back of her mind, doubts she had no control over, she found it hard to care when he was nearby—and it seemed even harder when she realized that he now always was.

"You feeling better now?" he murmured, bending his head so that he could rest his forehead against hers. "Now that he's home?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation, and his chest rumbled with a chuckle.

With a grin, he pressed his lips to hers in a kiss. "Want me to make you feel even better?" he suggested.

Marinette laughed as he began to pepper butterfly kisses over her jaw, making his way down her neck. "Stop it…" Smiling, she squirmed against the tickling sensation.

"You don't want me to stop," he murmured confidently, wrapping his arms fully around her waist and pulling her tight against him.

With his face buried in the crook of her neck, he was unable to see her smile as she snaked her own arms around his neck, but he could hear it in her voice as she teased, "You don't know what I want…"

Grinning, he pulled back to look at her, a spark in his eyes that, she realized, she hadn't seen in a long time.

"Oh, I think I might have an idea," he said, before bending down and pressing his lips to hers in a passionate kiss.

Cadence knew something was different about his parents from the moment they came to pick him up from school that day, and he saw their hands linked together before him in the car. But it was even more obvious now, as he sat at the kitchen table, stealthily watching them interact.

His mother was wearing a top that left part of her back exposed, and his father's hands were constantly on her skin, as though a wall had been broken down between them, as though he was finally allowed to be himself again.

Marinette also seemed different—lighter, somehow; as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She was pushing him away, constantly slapping his hands from touching her, constantly dodging his sneaky embraces, but occasionally, more often than usual, she would smile. She would smile as she told him to stop, and he would grin as he did the exact opposite.

At one point, after she put his food down on the table, she went back into the kitchen. Luka followed her relentlessly. Cadence picked up his fork and was ready to dig in when his eyes landed on his mother trying to come back into the room and his father blocking her way. Words were exchanged between them, and she laughed. His father bent down and captured her lips into a kiss.

He pretended not to see that. His mother let him walk her backwards into the kitchen, anyway, so he hid his grin behind a mouthful of food and waited until after dinner, when she took him in her arms to lead him upstairs to bed.

"Where's Dad?" he asked, twisting in her embrace, wondering why it was that he hadn't seen the man since they ate together. "He had a matter to solve," she answered. "He'll be back in a bit. But not before you go to sleep."

Climbing up the stairs, she placed him down on the floor once they reached his room, leaving him to walk to the bed by himself as she picked up the few objects he had managed to scatter around in the small amount of time he had been back home.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," she declared, her back to him, while he was clambering up onto the soft bed sheets.

He grinned. "As if I haven't noticed."

Marinette was smiling when she turned around, and she made her way towards him, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress. Spaceball came barreling into the room and leaped straight beside Cadence, which made her roll her eyes but not throw him out. Instead, she reached out to brush his hair away from his face, looking at him with a warm glint in her eyes.

"I just want you to know…" she started, her voice soft, "that I did this thinking about you, as well. That I accepted this because I trust him—because I trust your father and because I trust… ourselves and our future attempt to mend our relationship. I wouldn't jump headfirst into something that hasn't worked in the past without thinking of you."

With a groan, Cadence rolled his eyes. "Mom, you don't always have to think of me."

"Of course I do," she insisted.

"Mom—"

"I know," she interrupted him, nodding. "I know how you feel. I do."

"I don't want to see you sad because of me," he told her pointedly. "Like you were when we first moved here."

"I brought you into this world and I have to take care of you," his mother spoke firmly. "I want to take care of you. You are now the most important person in my life and you will always come first, no matter what happens. I will be happy only as long as you are happy." She shook her head. "But that's not even the point here. The point is that I love your father. And I want you to know that, this time, everything will be different."

Her words seemed to mellow him out a bit, and he allowed her to pull the covers over him as he lied down with his head on the pillow. "I knew that," he confessed after a moment of silence.

"You knew what?" she asked.

"That you love him," he answered simply. "It was obvious in the way you looked at him, even when you glared. And I knew things would be different when you finally admitted that you still loved each other because you never fought—not even once." He shrugged. "At least not when I was around. I don't even know if you did it because of me or because, secretly, you both wanted to get along."

Her eyes softened as his words sunk into her mind. She had failed to realize before, but ever since that day when they took a moment to talk about their relationship, Luka and her had never fought. Even on their impromptu trip, where all the elements that could have led to a heated fight were present, neither of them lost their cool—and they talked like normal human beings.

"I love you," she told him once she snapped out of her daze, gazing at him in awe.

Cadence grinned.

"I love you," she repeated, more forcefully, bending down to kiss the top of his head.

He laughed. "I love you, too, Mom," he told her.

He never called her out on the tears that glistened in her eyes—because he knew they were happy ones.