A/N - Something I wanna write for funsies and the ability write whatever I want to. I have a soft spot for Gabe/Nath and Emilie and Chloe so they play heavily into these elements of the story. That, and I'm really not that great or onboard with writing fight scenes or anything. But I do wanna see what I do with this idea even if it might not be the best...

In fact I'm going to change the context instead of Nathalie wishing for the timeline.

Word of God from now on: This is an alternate timeline where Gabriel and Nathalie got together and had Adrien and not Emilie.

January 1st

Fashion Designer Gabriel Agreste has recently awoken from his three week medically induced coma

"Father," Adrien says, quietly.

"Yes, Adrien…" Gabriel's voice is thick from disuse.

He imagines after five days later he can finally speak without too much difficulty breathing. He steals a glance from the nearby window. As his son Adrien had already explained it was gloomy weather. It was a dark, overcast day and held no chance of the skies parting and revealing a warm, bright sun. It was the kind of weather you would avoid by staying indoors.

"...They were afraid…" Nathalie says, in a fearful voice. "...you might never wake up."

"A coma," Gabriel says, and grunts out what sounds a lot like the word "hn." "It felt more like a nap. I thought after the accident I was-" he coughs out. "It was only a few hours..." admittedly it was hard trying to volley a conversation with numerous replies. A lot of times it felt like words would keep dying on the tip of his tongue when he wanted to form more articulated sentences rather than just a few observations. Most if not all of the time when he spoke to either Nathalie or Adrien his words would come out more of a verbal stumble. He felt much too tired to speak and conserved most of his energies to bed rest instead.

He was rendered mute for most of the day unless he bothered to respond through written notes when speech had failed him. Most of the time he'd entertain his son Adrien with stories of his other life he dreamt about.

You were still my son but both you and I had our differences. Your friend Marinette was named Ladybug and you, my son were called Chat Noir.

"We were superheroes?" Adrien would say with a smile.

Yes.

Gabriel would take the pen he was holding and wrote some more dialogue he remembered and Nathalie, his wife, was surprised what her husband committed to paper.

Envole-toi, petit akuma, et va noircir son cœur

"What are you trying to say?" Nathalie asks.

I was named Monarch. My wife was really named Emilie and she fell into a coma with no hope of resuscitating her and I would have given anything to bring her back. I had taken the Monarch miraculous to try and capture the miraculous of creation and destruction to grant my wish.

"It was only a dream." Nathalie says, softly. "...just a dream."

"And yet…" Gabriel says, in a rushed breath. "None of this feels real." his eyes shimmering with tears.

"Give it a few months," Nathalie says. She lays a hand upon Gabriel's pale wrist that was clutching his pen. The blank writing paper underneath his wrist was much too bright and empty and he was eager to write more of those exploits. "Those feelings will pass. And soon you'll have nothing else to worry about."

Back into the dreamless sleep again and forget about what had transpired? Whenever he closed his eyes the butterflies flashed inside of his skull like a rod of lightning.

It was the coma dream speaking again.

His mind had nothing better to do than let those dreams circle back into his memories.

It looks like it's going to rain.

Gabriel remarks, and he glances back at the window again. Watching the dark cumulus clouds gather over the hospital. For that brief hour he listened in silence to the raindrops pelting the windows and was far more fatigued than he realized when he laid back down to stare at the ceiling.

It was a remarkable world he built for himself but there was nothing good about the dream that ever made him want to return to it. A world where he pushed Adrien, his only son away. A world where Gabriel had also abused and neglected him him shortly after the disappearance of his mother.

A world where Adrien had been kept in the dark.

Those dreams where time had stretched and in those lucid moments before Nathalie would be forced to beg medical staff to handcuff him to his hospital bed. When he begged for them to stop. Even if it meant his own heart had stopped beating.

This fantasy would finally end and so would the butterflies.