AN: There are going to be a small number of Interlude chapters in this story. Interludes are positioned to avoid breaking up events, not necessarily chronologically.

It was the cold that woke her up. Kagami had fallen asleep with her cheek nestled against Luka's bare chest, feeling his heartbeat against her skin, Juleka's and Rose's breathing soft and steady on the other side of the tent. Mira had considered sleeping on the floor in their tent to stay close to them after the chaos and stress and loss of the battle, but in the end she had decided instead to squeeze a third cot into the tent that Claire and Anarka were sharing, right next to theirs. Not that anyone had really felt like sleeping. Or eating, for that matter. They had brought a little food into the tent and passed it around without taking more than a few nibbles. The seven of them had sat up late into the night, long after the sun had set, just staring in silence. Anarka had hugged all of them tightly – to the point that Claire had had to pry her arms off of Juleka before she unintentionally choked her.

Kagami swallowed hard. Where was her mother? Since moving into the Liberty fulltime two months ago, she had only returned to her mother's house a couple times: once to pick up her stuff, and once for a dinner with her mother and Luka. Her mother had gone to Japan on a business trip at the end of last month to see to some of Uncle Eiji's affairs – Kagami's stomach clenched at the memory – but she had been scheduled to return to Paris before now. Had she fled to Angola with everyone else? Had she evacuated the city when the alert originally was issued? Or had she remained in Paris, despite the danger? And if she had stayed in Paris…

Kagami had already lost her uncle this year; how could she cope if she lost her mother, also?

With such thoughts running through her mind, Kagami had hugged Anarka a little longer than usual when they finally called it a night and split up to go to sleep. By then it had been well past midnight, and the stars had provided the only illumination for Claire, Anarka, and Mira to find their way to their tent. Left alone in their tent – alone with their Kwamis – Kagami, Luka, Juleka, and Rose had stared at each other in silence for a long minute before Kagami finally lay down on her cot, pulling Luka down with her. They didn't have toiletries. They didn't have a change of clothing. All they had was each other. Kagami had fallen asleep easily enough, though.

She couldn't quite tell how long she had slept before the cold air against her bare arm woke her. It was still night time: the starlight twinkling in the sky above and filtering through the top of the tent provided all the illumination. The sound of soft footfalls outside in the camp itself was all the ambient noise to be heard. Inside, the tent was silent. Reaching out with one hand, Kagami found the Kwamis curled up together on the footlocker between the two cots, nothing more than dark shapes. On the other cot, Juleka and Rose were still fast asleep, their chests rising and falling as they breathed. But Luka no longer lay beside Kagami.

She started to roll over to look for him on the other side of the tent but paused when she felt the extra weight near the middle of the cot on Luka's side. Careful not to make any noise and wake Juleka or Rose, she sat up, crossed her legs, and placed a gentle hand on Luka's shoulder. Luka started; his breathing hitched. The cot creaked slightly as he turned his head to look at her. His eyes were soft pinpricks in the dim reflected starlight.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as softly as she could. Luka was quiet, his shoulders sagging. "The fight?" His shoulders tensed. With a sigh, Kagami sat up behind him in the bed, her legs on either side of him, pushed him forward with firm but gentle pressure, and started rubbing his back, kneading the tension out of his muscles. Luka hummed, letting out a breath and dropping his head down onto his chest as she worked. It felt like an hour that she had massaged his back before he finally sighed and his shoulders fell. Kagami slid her arms around his waist and rested her cheek on his shoulder.

Luka leaned his head against hers, placing one of his hands on her arm. "Thanks," he whispered before pressing his lips to the side of her temple.

She hugged him tightly from behind and waited a moment before speaking. "It will help you to talk about it," she murmured.

He snorted humorlessly. "I doubt that." Drawing away from her slightly, he leaned forward and rested his head on his hands, shuddering.

With a sigh, Kagami placed one hand on his shoulder and drew him back to her. "Yes, it will," she insisted, meeting his gaze. "You don't have to hold onto it yourself."

He frowned and shook his head. Glancing over at the Kwamis, hoarsely he whispered, "This is my burden to bear."

"No. It is not." She gently but firmly pushed him down to lie on the cot. Luka didn't offer any resistance but allowed her to guide him down, shifting his legs back up onto the cot and off the ground. Rolling on top of him, she pinned him down with one elbow on either side of his head. In the scant light filtering through the tent, she could see the sheen of tears staining his cheeks, with more unshed in his eyes. Kissing his cheeks and the corners of his eyes, she rested her forehead against his, staring into his eyes. "What happened? Don't do this to yourself." Seeing him clench his jaws shut, she pleaded, "Luka, please let me in. I–I want to help. But I can't help unless you open up."

Luka sniffled, slumping down as all the tension in his body released at once. His limbs flopped limply down on the cot. "I set a new record for number of Second Chances," he finally told her wryly. Kagami swallowed hard, meeting his gaze. He clenched his jaw. "I was stuck in a loop… so long I lost track of the days." Her eyes widened. "I tried every possible combination or permutation, all in a vain attempt to finish the Tarasque fight right then and there. If you can think of it, I probably did it – a dozen times, maybe. But none of them worked. Even telling everyone just to throw their best attacks at it at once did nothing. The Tarasque broke free every time. I couldn't find a way to win – maybe I could have… but I was just so mentally exhausted." He squeezed his eyes shut, pushing ears out to run down his face. Taking a breath, he whispered, "In the end, all I could do was focus on getting everyone out alive… but I still failed even at that."

Kagami kissed his nose. "You didn't fail," she assured him.

He scoffed, turning away, and punched the cot beside him with one fist. "Are you sure about that? Julia would probably disagree… Sabrina would definitely disagree. Hell, Rose had to watch Tyran-X die in front of her!"

"But you got as many of us out as you could," she insisted, pulling his gaze back up to meet hers and reaching down to find one of his hands. "Everyone who's alive – we're only alive because of you."

He scoffed. "You almost weren't…" Kagami raised an eyebrow. Luka's shoulders slumped and he turned away from her.

Kagami turned his head back toward her. "How many?" He shook his head. "Luka, how many times?"

"I–I don't know!' he retorted. "I lost count! You died at least a hundred more times – many of them because you were incinerated while saving Ladybug from the Tarasque's vision. Several more it was Cat Noir who burned to death – on a few occasions it was both of you sacrificing yourselves for Ladybug… only for her to die right after because she couldn't react after Cat's death. Juleka and Rose were crushed a dozen times. Mira was slow to shield herself the first time the Taraque fired on her. Nino was trampled protecting Alya a few times." He let out a heavy breath. "The list goes on. And on. And on. Every bad thing you could imagine… it happened."

She stroked his cheek. "And all of them prevented by you."

"Not all…"

"Enough."

"Maybe…" he agreed dubiously. "But I still had to watch all of it happen. And that was bad enough."

She pursed her lips, staring down at him. With his proximity, she could feel the tension in all of his muscles, the tight clench to his stomach. For as calm and collected as he usually was, Luka had a tendency to wear his failures on his sleeve. When it came to his use of Second Chance, he put so much pressure on himself to find the solution. In part it was warranted – his power weighed so heavily on him, particularly when he was faced with a difficult decision or one where there was no perfect solution. But he didn't have to take responsibility for every bad thing that happened. Sometimes the problem just didn't have a solution. He was part of a team for a reason: the rest of them had to trust him and follow his instructions, just as much as he had to give the right instructions and trust them to be followed. And he had to allow himself to not be perfect, to not make the right decision, to fail and watch people get hurt. He had to trust them to pick up the pieces when he couldn't find a way through. For herself, Kagami trusted Luka implicitly – there was absolutely nothing she wouldn't do if he told her. And he had never abused or misused that trust.

But he wasn't ready to listen to any of that tonight.

With a resigned sigh, Kagami rolled off of him onto her back and firmly pulled him over onto her. Guiding his head down onto her shoulder, she hugged him tightly, burying her fingers in his hair and stroking his scalp. Slowly Luka started to cry, his tears running down onto her chest. Despite herself, Kagami felt tears start to form in her own eyes, squeezing them shut as she and Luka wept together, long into the night.

She couldn't take away the horrors that he had seen. She couldn't force him to forget those memories or make the memories affect him less.

But she could at least remind him that they were still alive.

Perhaps, at least for now, that could be enough.