Standing outside the apartment door, Thierry's stomach churned nervously, looking in either direction and waiting for one of the other tenants to step out as ask what he was doing on this floor; after all, every other time he had come to this apartment building, it had been to visit M. Damocles, one floor above. But M. Damocles had invited him for dinner with some of his friends, and apparently, they were supposed to eat in someone else's apartment. But why? Not that Thierry was opposed to having dinner – his stomach growled insistently. But still, everything about this felt weird. M. Damocles had said that he was a former student, but that could include half of Paris! So, who was this former student, and why were they inviting their former principal for dinner? Finally sighed. He wouldn't get any answers just standing out in the hallway. Finally, Thierry knocked sharply on the door and stepped back, glancing up and down the hallway one last time.

The door opened almost immediately, and all of his questions vanished.

"Hey, Thierry!" Sacha greeted him with a grin, waving him inside eagerly. "We were just getting the food on the table; you're just in time!"

"I definitely wouldn't want to miss dinner!" Thierry's stomach rumbled as he followed Sacha down the hallway to the kitchen, where they had crammed five chairs in around the modest table set between the kitchen and the couch indicating their living room area. "I take it this is where you've been living?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Sacha pointedly.

Sacha nodded. "Ever since we met. Kim and Ondine have been so nice and welcoming about it all," he confirmed. "It's been good, even if I do wish I could move back with my parents. Actually, that day is coming quickly!" Leaning his head back, he gestured to his neck. "Thanks in part to Kim and Ondine, I haven't really needed to wear the collar since Lyon. Guardian Emilie says that I might be safe to go back to my parents in a few weeks. And I'll even be able to attend school in the fall!"

Grinning, Thierry clapped him on the shoulder. "You know, I would have thought that was a bonus," he joked.

"Maybe it would have been." Sacha frowned. "But not if it was because I needed a collar to control my terrifyingly-out-of-control powers."

Thierry raised an eyebrow at him. "Hey, I'm pretty sure the only reason you needed it was because of yourself and your own nervousness. I think the reason you don't need it now is because you've got your confidence!"

"I suppose." Sacha hummed. "Still, it's thanks to Kim and Ondine that I have the confidence now to actually use these powers, instead of trying to hide from them."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"Well, it wasn't just them," he amended, giving Thierry a look. "It was them, and you, and M. Damocles, and Guardian Emilie, and all the others…"

"Dinner's all set!" called a familiar-looking red-haired woman, smiling at them warmly as she placed a dish in the middle of the table.

Thierry's eyes widened on spotting her. "Wait, I recognize you – I saw you at M. Damocles apartment a couple months ago, didn't I?"

Ondine cocked her head to one side, her brows furrowed, but only for a moment before her eyes lit up with recognition. "Yes… I think I remember that," she agreed, giving Thierry a warm smile. "I'm sorry we've only seen each other in passing before now. It's good to formally meet you!" She held a hand out to Thierry, who shook it nervously. "Welcome to my home!"

"Don't you mean our home?" called Kim, as he and M. Damocles followed Ondine from the kitchen and placed another couple dishes on the table. Kim slipped an arm around Ondine's waist and kissed her jaw before giving Thierry a grin and holding out a fist. "What's up, dude?"

Thierry shrugged, returning the fist-bump. "Nothing much. Another day closer to the school year starting." So this was King Monkey as a civilian.

Kim made a face. "Don't remind me. I thought I would be done with that after lycée, but no…"

"What kind of job were you planning to get without university?" Ondine demanded, arching an eyebrow.

He shrugged. "I was thinking, skateboarding-god trophy husband!"

She gave him a deadpan look. "In your dreams."

"Or in yours…" He wagged his eyebrows, grinning.

"Excellent!" Returning from the kitchen with a pitcher of water, M. Damocles clapped his hands together eagerly. "I see the gang's all here! Shall we… dig in, my dear?" he asked Ondine expectantly.

"Absolutely!" she agreed, extricating herself from Kim and gesturing them toward the table. "Just to warn you, this is my take on a recipe that Kim's mom gave me, and I've never actually tried making it before, so…"

"It'll be fine, babe," Kim assured her, piling a massive helping of the rice, meat, and vegetables on his plate before doing the same for the others.

Accepting his own plate, Thierry immediately dug in, shoveling the food into his mouth steadily, trying to sate the growl in his stomach. He'd had lunch, but it had just been a sandwich and half an apple, and he'd spent half the afternoon helping Mme Poussin clean her apartment. As he finished his first helping, he finally forced himself to slow down, taking a long gulp of water. "This is very good," he told Ondine, helping himself to a second, smaller portion.

She smiled. "Just a few extra seasonings," she explained. "And chicken instead of beef, since that's all they had at the store."

"See, I told you it would be fine!" Kim interjected, giving her a teasing grin.

M. Damocles glanced across the table at Thierry and asked, "So, my boy, are you ready for school to begin yet?"

Thierry paled. "Honestly, I've been trying to pretend that it's never going to start again!"

Kim burst out laughing, leaning back and smacking the table. "Preach!"

Sacha hummed, nodding slowly. "I'm glad they were able to get me into Lycée Pasteur – and that I'll even be able to attend school in person. But I'm still not sure if I'm ready for that many people and that much pressure, especially when it's at a science and technology lycée. I was just planning to go to the general lycée, before all of this happened!"

"Nerd." Kim rolled his eyes. "The most important things I learned in lycée were all outside of classes."

"It's a wonder you ever managed to graduate," Ondine muttered, elbowing him affectionately.

M. Damocles gave Kim a pointed look. "If you had only applied yourself more, you could have done anywhere you wanted, gone to any university you wanted."

Kim shrugged. "I'm right where I want to be," he replied, draping an arm over Ondine's shoulders. "I don't need to attend the best university. I'm perfectly content with where and what I am right now. And lycée had nothing to do with it."

Thierry hummed humorlessly, quirking an eyebrow. "I wouldn't mind not having to go to school anymore."

"Come now," M. Damocles chided Thierry. "It's not so bad as all that, I'm sure. Lycée Georges-Eugène Haussmann is a fine school – the principal was in fact one of my protégés during my first years as principal at François Dupont. I know you will leave there with an excellent education."

Grimacing, Thierry insisted, "It's not that I don't like school… but I'm just so busy lately…"

Ondine nodded in understanding. "When I was in lycée, it seemed like I never had enough time in the day for everything I needed to do – between school, homework, swim team, work…"

"Are you concerned that you will not have enough time for the Heroes of Paris?" M. Damocles asked Thierry, raising an eyebrow knowingly. "As I recall, some of the older Heroes of Paris also struggled to balance that with their schoolwork. Though a couple of them had far more to do than just be heroes and attend lycée!"

Thierry's eyes bulged out nervously, and his eyes darted across the table to Ondine. "Um… I–I don't–"

Kim and Ondine shared a laugh. "It's okay to say that you're under a lot of stress," Kim told Thierry. "Do you have any idea how many times I've gotten back way too late after patrol?"

"Half the time I'm long since in bed," Ondine added, raising an eyebrow at him. "Not that it's ever stopped you from waking me up…"

Thierry cocked his head to one side, blinking in surprise. "Wait, you know?"

"That Kim is King Monkey? Of course." Ondine nodded. "And I could guess that you were the new Owl – what with all the time you spend with Gilbert."

"Is it that obvious?" asked Thierry, his eyes widening.

Ondine smiled kindly. "Only to me – if I didn't know what to look for, I don't think I'd have any idea."

Thierry nodded in relief, taking another couple bites of food. He cocked his head to one side and glanced back up at her, furrowing his brows. "So… how long have you known that you were, um, with a hero?"

Ondine quirked an eyebrow at him in amusement. "That's rather personal… I assume there's a reason for the question?"

Thierry sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I went on a date the other weekend," he explained. "A girl from my class."

Ondine leaned forward eagerly, her eyes widening. "Really? That's great! You have to tell me all about it! Where did you go? What did you do?"

Thierry grimaced. "We went to the fair down at the Champ de Mars. Had some snacks, ate lunch, played some games, she got some face paint; I ran off to stop a lunatic who could control magnetism…"

"That son of a bitch?" asked Kim, scoffing.

"You met him?"

"No, but I read the story." Kim smirked, glancing sidelong at Ondine. "Did you give him an extra punch for interrupting your date?"

"I thought about it," Thierry grumbled. "But the thing is, I didn't know what to tell Amalia when I had to leave. I didn't think I should tell her what I was really doing, but I also didn't really like lying to her…"

Ondine hummed, raising an eyebrow at Kim and stifling a laugh. "I'm sure Kim has no idea what that's like…"

"So, yeah." Thierry let out a breath. "How do you handle it?"

Kim winced. "Truthfully… not well," he admitted. "It only happened a couple times that I had to ditch Ondine because of that kind of thing – at least before she knew – but I never really liked that feeling. There was one time… do you remember that jellyfish monster?" he asked, glancing at Ondine.

"When you came back all covered in slime and ended up diving into the Seine to wash it all off?" She shuddered. "How could I forget? You had goop in your hair for a week!"

"In all honesty, I probably should have told you then," Kim told her, frowning. "I think I was just worried."

"So how did you find you?" asked Thierry.

Ondine sighed. "When we were in Berlin on a class trip last winter," she explained. "The same time the Heroes of Paris first met the Teutonic Knight. The two of us were almost incinerated in a fireball that nearly burned down the museum, and Kim transformed to save me." She paused, looking away pensively. Kim took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. She blinked a couple times and let out a breath. "Actually, that was the first indication I really had that he was a hero – the big thing I just couldn't ignore. I was glad to finally know why he'd been running off like that, why he had to postpone dates a couple times, all those little things I'd never really thought about before."

Kim looked at her for a long minute. "At the same time, that probably wasn't the right time for her to find out," he admitted. "We didn't have a chance to talk about it at all, because I had to… go and figure out what was happening. But I just didn't know when the right time would be. So I just… kept putting it off."

"So when would the right moment have been?" Thierry asked Ondine.

She shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not sure. But at a time when you can actually talk about it – not when you have to just… spring it on her and then run off to 'save the world' or something."

Thierry nodded slowly. "So you're saying I should tell her sooner, rather than later?"

"That's what I would have wanted," Ondine replied. "That doesn't mean it's the same for her. I was ready to know. And I think I handled it okay. Sure, it worried me, knowing that Kim was out there putting his life on the line to keep people safe, but that's something my father had been doing all my life. If she isn't ready to accept that, then you might just end up worrying her. And that wouldn't be good, either."

"So you're saying I shouldn't tell her." Thierry furrowed his brows.

"Well, if you want this relationship to work out, you'll need to tell her eventually," Kim pointed out wryly. "It would be a little awkward if you had to run out and stop an alien invasion on your wedding day and she just… thought you'd jilted her or something."

Thierry blinked. "Could that actually happen?"

Kim quirked an eyebrow at him. "Ask Pegasus how possible it is for an alien invasion to happen," he suggested wryly. "But… do it on a day that you don't have anything else planned!"

Patting Kim's arm, Ondine stifled a laugh. "Tell me, how serious are you about this girl? Are you going to go on another date with her? Do you think you'll date for a week? A month? A year? Go out a couple times, then go your separate ways, only to reconnect in your last year of lycée? Will you move in together? Marry her? What?"

Thierry's eyes widened, his cheeks turning a bright shade of pink. "Wait, what? We've only been on one date so far! I'm… not sure where it will go from here!" he admitted. "I… really hadn't thought that far ahead, to be honest."

"Well," Ondine replied, arching an eyebrow at him, "I think you need to answer that question first."