Chapter 4 - Worries

"Don't be bemused, it's just the news. I'm Nadja Chamack, reporting from Hôpital Necker, the hospital where Ladybug has just brought Chat Noir, in critical condition after the latest Akuma attack."

Pictures passed on the screen, showing Chat Noir falling off the tower and crashing at the top of the information kiosk, knocking it to the ground, and Ladybug taking him out of the collapsed building, and then yoyo-ing away.

"The hospital is treating the emergency with the utmost secrecy and we're not allowed in, but we have spoken to some of the people who witnessed what happened before Chat Noir was taken inside the PU."

The picture on the screen changed from Nadja's face to the face of a woman with a child in arms. "She said that she was fifteen. And that Chat Noir is probably the same age. Can you believe that? We're putting the safety of our city in the hands of children!"

The camera changed frame to another woman. "I was in the room when her transformation fell. She's only a child… I felt so sorry for her. And for Chat Noir."

"Did you take a picture of her?" asked Nadja, but the woman shook her head.

"No, it didn't feel respectful. She's a child and is fighting to protect us. I didn't want to intrude."

"No," said another person, this time a man, "but she's a really pretty girl. Asian, I think. It didn't seem right to take a picture."

Sabine held her breath as she heard the words coming from the last person interviewed. Fifteen. Asian. It couldn't be. She looked at the clock perched on the wall and breathed more easily. It was only half past one… Marinette was still supposed to be in school, working on a project.

When she looked at the TV screen again, she saw a picture of Chat Noir laying on a gurney, unconscious, blood spotting the side of his face and the left side of his suit. She winced at the thought that he was a child the same age as Marinette. Her heart went to his mother and father…

They must be so proud of him, she thought, but so worried.

If they even knew… She still had that nagging feeling in her gut. There had been quite a few times that she had looked at pictures of Ladybug on the paper and had noticed how much she looked like Marinette. The same hairstyle. The same build, the same shape to her face… and now she was also revealed to be the same age. And Asian…

"Any news about Chat Noir?" came Tom's voice from the kitchen.

"No, he's still in the PU. He must have gotten really badly injured." Sabine sighed. She didn't feel right sharing her worries with Tom; it was too easy for him to panic, and she would only tell him if she was sure.

Tom appeared from the back of the kitchen, his face, hair and clothes covered in flour. He cleaned his hands on his apron and shot a quick look at the screen. "Mon Dieu, 'badly injured' is an understatement. Poor kid. I do like him, even if he broke Marinette's heart."

Sabine gave him a soft look. "Oh, Tom… you're not still holding a grudge for what happened that time? You can't blame the poor kid for loving his partner. Ladybug is a really amazing person."

"My little girl is an amazing person too, and nobody will change my mind," said Tom, folding his arms on his chest and curling his lips into a pout.

Sabine wanted to reply, but the sound of the telephone ringing blocked the words from coming out of her mouth. Her heart started racing in her chest.

"What's happening, honey? Have you seen a ghost?" Tom asked, but she barely heard him. She picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" she whispered.

"Hello, am I speaking to Mme Dupain-Cheng?" a female voice said from the phone.

"Yes, Sabine Cheng speaking."

The voice on the phone continued. "Good afternoon Mme Cheng. I'm Anaïs Labonne. I'm calling from Hôpital Necker." All remaining blood drained from Sabine's face. Her eyes went wide as her heart started pounding madly. "It's about your daughter."

"Is… is she hurt?" she asked breathlessly. Maybe she had gotten caught in the attack. After all her friend Alya ran the Ladyblog, maybe she had involved Marinette and they had got minor injuries?

"No, ma'am. She's only fainted. We need your consent to admit her to the day hospital and keep an eye on her. I… I don't know what or how much you know, Mme Cheng. They are telling me here that she's very secretive about her identity, so I suppose you may not know yet. I don't think I'm the right person to give you the news. Could you and your husband come here as quickly as possible?"

Sabine held the receiver with all her strength. "We're on our way," she said and she hung up the phone.

"What's going on?" Tom asked, and he probably would have wanted to say something more, but he stopped when the first tears fell from her eyes. "Honey, what's going on?" She felt his strong arms wrapping her into a hug and she turned towards him and started sobbing.

"Marinette is at Hôpital Necker, Tom. She… she's Ladybug." She deepened the hug as she heard Tom gasping loudly.

"What..? Did she tell you on the phone?" he muttered.

"No. That was a nurse. She only said that Marinette fainted and they had to admit her. They wanted our consent. But I… Tom, Ladybug looks like our daughter. She has the same hair, the same frame, the same age… and the people on the telly said that she's Asian. Marinette is Ladybug."

Tom's hold on her shoulders grew stronger as he sniffed loudly. "Okay. I'll wash my face and hands quickly and we go. We close the boulangerie for the day."

oOo

Marinette opened her eyes and blinked at the white ceiling. The place was too light to be her bedroom, and her bedroom didn't have a white ceiling, anyway. In fact, the regular beeping sounds around her and the smell of disinfectant that reached her nostrils confirmed that she wasn't in her room. She darted her eyes around and her hand was almost immediately met by the warm hand of her mother.

"Marinette! I'm so relieved!" whispered Sabine. Then she turned her head and said a bit louder, "Tom! She's awake!" Marinette couldn't help but smile at the sight of her father rushing quickly close to her bed and picking her other hand from her lap.

"How are you, ma baguette?" he asked softly. He smiled but Marinette could see clearly that his eyes were full of tears.

"I'm okay, maman, papa. I…" she said, her voice hoarse and grubby as if she had screamed for a long time. That felt weird to her—she cleared her throat and attempted to stand up. She felt the resistance of a few cables and widened her eyes. Her head was spinning badly. "What…" she started to say, but the moment she said so, Tikki rushed in front of her and Marinette's eyes went even wider, in shock.

Tikki hugged her cheek and smiled. "I'm so happy you're well, Marinette!"

As she said that, the blue curtain that was giving her and her family privacy moved, revealing Luka, Kagami and Alya, who hurried inside and let the curtain fall again. When she saw them, Marinette felt her heart race in her chest and widened her eyes, which immediately filled with tears.

"Adrien?" she asked.

Sabine gave her a soft pat on the head. "He's still not back, sweetheart. The doctors are performing a lot of checks on him. They took him away shortly after we arrived. They needed your authorisation to proceed, but you were unconscious."

Panic filled Marinette's heart as soon as she heard her mother say that Adrien had been taken away. Her heart skipped a beat and she felt all blood draining from her face.

"No! Adr—" she started, but when she tried to stand up, her head spun again quite badly and she had to lie down again. Her mother picked her hand in hers and looked at her with a serious gleam in her eyes.

"Marinette, the doctors have to do their job. If they can't perform the necessary checks on Adrien, he could have a complication and die. He's in a very bad condition. That's why we have given the authorisation for him to be taken away." Sabine wiped the copious tears flowing down her cheeks. "It's for his good, darling."

"I know, maman," said Marinette in between sniffles, "but it hurts so much." She darted her gaze between the worried faces of her mother and father. "I'm sorry papa. Maman. I didn't want to lie to you. You know I would never have lied to you. But we had to keep our identities a secret. I didn't even know that he was Chat Noir until his transformation fell here at the hospital."

"Yes, I thought that was the case." Sabine smiled softly and stroked her cheek with her index finger. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart. Sometime later we'll need to sit down and have a chat about all this, but it's not important at the moment. The main thing is that you're now safe. And that Adrien will be safe, too, hopefully."

But as Sabine said that, the same doctor who had sat down with Marinette earlier on and had spoken to Tikki appeared in the cubicle, right behind Luka. The boy saw Marinette widening her eyes and trying to get up and turned around, saw the doctor and moved a little, to give him space.

"Good afternoon, M. Dupain, Mme Cheng. I'm Dr Richter," the man started but Marinette interrupted him, her eyes wide in panic,

"How is Adrien?"

The man looked at her and his expression became grave. Marinette felt her soul leaving her body at the sight. "We've performed a few checks on him. There's some good news and some bad news."

Marinette made an effort and managed to sit up, and then grabbed the doctor's hand. "What's wrong, doctor, please? Is he all right?"

The doctor sighed. "As your little… bug had told me, we haven't been able to find any sign of poison in his blood. He has a punctured lung and a couple of broken ribs, plus a cut on the side of his head and a hit on his back. It took us a long time to stop the blood flow from the wound at his back, but it seems to be getting better now." Marinette breathed a little better, but the doctor's expression was still one of concern and this didn't allow her to relax.

"But…?" she asked then. "Because there's a but, right?"

The doctor sighed. "Yes. We performed an MRI to check the status of his lungs. Unfortunately, he appears to have lung cancer." Marinette sucked her breath in, immediately imitated by everyone else in the cubicle. "It's at quite a late stage, too. I'm sorry, I don't think—" but the doctor fell quiet when Tikki flew to his nose.

"I told you you wouldn't be able to detect the poison, doctor," she said softly.

The doctor nodded. "Yes, and you were right, little Bug."

"As of that cancer you're talking about," started Tikki, "I don't think it's what it looks like. Adrien has always been a very healthy boy and such a dangerous disease would have affected him way before now."

"Yes," admitted the doctor, "he would have been out of breath, often coughing and maybe would have lost weight and look sick."

"None of which was the case, doctor." Tikki closed her eyes and seemed to be deep in thought for a moment. "I think that what you have seen in his lungs is the poison."

The doctor seemed to be thinking about it carefully. "Maybe you could have a point, little Bug. Cancer seems to be spreading right across where the blade had hit him. But magically induced or not, there are minimal chances of him surviving longer than a few weeks."

Tikki frowned. "I did tell you that the poison was very dangerous. That's why I need to intervene."

"What would you be ab—" he started to say, but as he said that, one of the nurses broke into the cubicle, calling for his attention. She whispered something into his ear and the eyes of the doctor widened. He moved his gaze back to Tikki. "I don't know what you can do, little Bug, but you will have to do it sooner than expected. His condition has deteriorated."

To be Continued…

Author's Note:

Hi!

I know, I hear you: it's been ages. In reality, I've had this chapter ready for a long time but I've never come around to posting it because it hurt my heart… Eventually, I decided that it was pointless to have written something and not share it with you all, especially because Rose's amazing artwork would have gone to waste. And I have also received a recent comment on this story and I felt bad for keeping you all hanging. So here it is…hope you won't book the next flight to Ireland to look for me and kill me ^^

The next chapter's not written yet, so I hope to post it soon. Sooner than what it took to post this one. I hope. Keep following, please! This is a heartbreaking story but it's very dear to my heart. I also like to think it's quite original, so I won't stop writing it any time soon. It just will take a little time. But keep commenting and I'll keep writing. What makes me feel down is the lack of comments, so keep following me and letting me know what you think! Any kind of feedback is highly appreciated (except flames. If at any time I'll get any flames, they will get promptly deleted).

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