Chapter 5
It was early morning by the color of the sky. Nathalie woke up with a slight headache. She remembered returning to her apartment after the akuma attack. She hadn't told Gabriel where she was, so she thought he might be looking for her.
She carefully rose from her bed and sat on it. She took her cellphone from her pocket. She saw some messages from Gabriel from a few hours ago.
Gabriel _ 18:40
Nathalie call me please
Gabriel _18: 59
Where are you? Are you in trouble? Please answer.
Gabriel _18: 59
Nathalie, Are you okay?
Gabriel_17: 00
Nathalie, why didn't you came back?
She heard knocks on the door of the apartment in which she lived. The person behind it was knocking insistently, so she got out of bed in a hurry. She turned the lights on and went to open it and, in those moments, she felt a pair of arms surrounding her in a hug. She recognized that person only by the smell of her cologne: It was Gabriel.
"Why didn't you go back to the mansion?"
She wrapped her arms around him as best she could, reciprocating the hug.
"Because my apartment was closer" she said, coughing a little.
He pulled back from her, taking her by her shoulders and looking directly into her eyes.
"Don't do that again, you could have passed out anywhere and something would have happened to you. It was lucky that Duusu came looking for me."
He took her hands and gently massaged the back of them.
"From now on you will live with me and Adrien in the mansion."
Nathalie looked at him in surprise.
"I don't think it's necessary…
"I need to keep an eye on you when using the Miraculous. I don't want the same thing to happen to you like… Emilie."
Nathalie shook her head and looked up.
"When we bring back Emilie, I'll come back here." Nathalie looked around her apartment.
"It's fair" Gabriel said. "The measure will apply right now. Start packing your things because we're leaving."
"Yes sir."
She went to her room to pick up her suitcase and get a couple of Clothes changes. She took only what was necessary for her stay at the mansion. She also took her laptop and packed it into her suitcase.
He took the keys from the dining room table. Gabriel picked up her suitcase.
"Be careful, my computer is there too."
When they left, Nathalie locked her apartment. They both went down the elevator and headed straight for the car. Before leaving, Nathalie asked her doorman to keep an eye on her apartment. Gabriel opened the car's trunk and left the suitcase there as Nathalie got into the car.
Gabriel got behind the wheel. He drove until they got into the mansion. It was three in the morning, so they were stealthy when entering. That gave them the advantage that the press would not make a fuss about this.
They both went up to the guest room Nathalie had used in the days before. It was a fairly spacious room like the rest of the house. It had quite a few decorations, which made it quite elegant. Gabriel put his suitcase by the door.
"This is your bedroom from now on, if you need anything I'll be in my room."
Nathalie decided that she would rest the rest of the morning, after all she no longer had to worry about moving to her work place now. She would unpack her things when she had time.
She woke up a few hours later. It was Sunday so the number of tasks for the day were less than those between the week. It was almost the only day when they took a little break. She unpacked her changes of clothes in the bedroom drawers. She took the laptop from her suitcase and set it on the desk at the end of the room.
She got ready as usual and ordered breakfast to be made.
What she did not expected, was that Adrien was already in the dining room.
"Nathalie? What are you doing here so early?"
"Didn't your dad tell you?"
He denied confused and interested.
"I'll live here with you for a while."
The boy's gaze lit up, that made the woman smile too.
"Really? That is fantastic. But for how long?"
"I don't know just the necessary time. I'm going back to my apartment as soon as I can, I don't want to bother you both."
"It doesn't bother me, Nathalie, and I don't think it bothers my father neither."
Nathalie smiled at his response.
"By the way, Adrien, are you okay? I know you didn't have a good week."
"Well, I did feel a little overwhelmed, but I'm better already. A friend helped me a bit" with this Adrien was referring to Ladybug. But Nathalie thought that maybe he was referring to Marinette.
That night they all dined at the same table, with the peculiarity that the three sat very close to each other. All at Adrien's request. They ordered Chinese food from one of the best restaurants. They brought them Peking duck and some spring rolls
Adrien was surprised that Nathalie could use chopsticks so well. Her travels had made her learn it. He asked her more about that. She told her about all the trips she had made for Gabriel's brand. Adrien listened attentively to everything she said, with a special sparkle in his eyes. She could tell that he was very happy that the three of them were at the table with him.
When they finished Gabriel excused himself and went to bed, not before making sure that Nathalie took her medicine. She can hardly take it because she had a coughing fit at the time of taking it. Gabriel made circles with his hand on her back as she coughed. When the attack finally stopped, he took the glass with the aspirin and drank it. With that, he was able to retire calmly to his room.
Meanwhile Adrien went to put on his pajamas and brush his teeth to go to sleep. But first, he wanted to wish Nathalie good night.
"Where are you going? Isn't it time to sleep now?" Plagg said as he ate a piece of cheese on top of one of the pillows.
"I'm going to see Nathalie for a moment and then I'll be back, just make sure that no one sees you."
Adrien went to the guest room and knocked on the door.
"Come in" Nathalie closed the lid of her laptop before turning to look at the person who entered. "Oh, Adrien is you."
He watched her from head to toe. She was wearing black pajamas, quite elegant, which matched his professional image of her. Her hair was loose, falling over her shoulders.
"I've never seen you dressed that way Nathalie" he exclaimed. For Adrien it was something strange, but he liked the change.
Nathalie noticed that Adrien was also ready to sleep. He was wearing black shirt and green pants for pajamas. She knew that he had more shirts and that sometimes he only slept in pants.
But that the two of them would find themselves in the same situation was strange and familiar at the same time.
"Do you want a drink?" Nathalie offered.
"Chocolate would be nice. With marshmallows?" Adrien said, putting the best puppy face that he could make.
Nathalie thought about it for a moment.
"Don't let your father find out about this."
They went to the kitchen to make two cups of chocolate in the coffee pot. They put the cups of chocolate on a tray and went upstairs. They both went to Nathalie's room, as if it were a celebration of for her being there in the mansion.
They sat on the edge of the bed where they started talking.
"When did you start to work for my father?"
"It was a few months before you were born."
"How I was like when I was born?"
"You were very small." The doctors said you were born underweight so you were in the incubator for a few days. I had to help your mother for a while because she felt very weak and many times, I accompanied her to visit you in the hospital nursery.
Nathalie puffed on her cup before taking some of the chocolate from her.
"I had to take care of you once. Emilie had to go because of a movie." Adrien took a sip of her chocolate as she listened. "She never wanted to leave you, but they left her no choice. Although I knew this was not among my duties as an assistant, I could not refuse. You were very young and your parents didn't want a stranger to come to take care of you. That's when I finished earning your parents' trust. They realized I could be trusted. The testing time had passed.
"And that's why you're still here, right?"
She put the cup on the nightstand.
"Not quite. Because of my abilities, I soon received various offers from many places, even from competitors of Gabriel's offering me even more than what your father ever promised me.
Adrien stared at the contents of her cup for a moment.
"But I didn't feel comfortable with leaving. Because you guys became my new family. Besides your father improved my pay over the years."
That made Adrien smile. But then a question he had wanted to ask her for many years arose.
"But what happened to your family?"
Nathalie was going to answer him, but she saw the clock on the bedside table and realized that it was past Adrien's bedtime.
"It will be another day Adrien, you have to go to rest, it's late."
She made a pouty face. She looked at him sternly.
"Okay, I'll go to rest, but you're going to tell me more about yourself later, right?" Adrien said as he picked up the cups to take them to the kitchen.
"Of course."
"Good night, Nathalie" Adrien whispered as he walked out the door.
"Good night, Adrien."
Nathalie watched the boy leave. She put down her glasses and pulled the covers off the bed and wrapped herself up. She turned off the light on her nightstand.
What Adrien and Nathalie didn't know was that Gabriel was listening to a great part of the conversation.
That week when Nathalie arrived at the mansion, she knew something had changed. Gabriel didn't behave like he always did. Even when Nathalie made some mistakes with some important documents, he was quite sympathetic to her and gave her more time to fix it. That was not common since Gabriel was very strict with everything they did in his company. He also offered to make her coffee, since she was the one who usually made it. That night he went looking for her.
"I'd like to talk with you. Alone" Gabriel said when she left her room, already arranged and ready to go to sleep, for the third consecutive night of her stay at the mansion.
"Can't we discuss it here?" Nathalie asked.
"It's something personal."
He led her into his bedroom and they sat in the middle of the sofa
"I heard some things when you were talking to my son the other night."
This statement worried her a little. She was afraid that Adrien would be reprimanded for that.
"Well, he just wanted to chat with me for a bit, nothing more."
Gabriel narrowed his eyes a little, as if he was thinking what he was going to say next.
"I've never bothered to ask, more about you, Nathalie" he cleared his throat. "But I'd like to know why you've had the same red streak of hair color after all these years."
That made her feel a little strange. Why did he suddenly change the subject like this out of nowhere? And more importantly, with that question. Nobody asked her such personal questions.
"As I told you years ago, it is something very personal."
She thought that with this her boss would desist from the question. But she was wrong.
"You could you tell me, after all, you've been in my service for so many years and I still don't know you very well."
She thought about it for a moment, finally telling him her full story to someone might help her to take everything out.
"It was around my teenage years, when I was about 14 years old."
She closed her eyes wondering where to start because telling that story was not easy to tell.
"When I was going to the Collège, my mother and father divorced. They said they no longer loved each other. My mother got someone else and my father stayed with me, because I couldn't stand my mother's boyfriend. They found out about this at school. And that's when they started teasing me about my last name. Sancoeur, the heartless one."
Gabriel frowned. He didn't like where all this was going.
"It all started small, but then turned into jostling, insults and everything else you can imagine."
One day they forcibly took me to a secluded place and… they started beating me.
Gabriel felt his blood boil. He couldn't believe they were capable of doing something like that to her.
"Luckily, dad came in his car to pick me up early that day and realized what was happening. He got out of the car and I faced them, I was behind him all the time. He almost hit those guys, but I stopped him because I didn't want him to get in trouble. We went to report them and the authorities took over. And in the end, I changed schools, for my own safety.
"Didn't you think of having private lessons?" Gabriel asked in the calmest voice Nathalie had ever heard from her.
"Dad suggested it, but I didn't like the idea. She hugged her legs on the couch. "I couldn't imagine a life locked away from the world. Because even though I was hiding from it, I couldn't bear the feeling of being caged.
Gabriel rubbed his neck, uncomfortable and somewhat embarrassed. He was sure that it was just what his son was going through at the time when he and Emilie did not allow him to go to school. Maybe that's why Nathalie convinced him to let him go, that time his son ran away from home.
"It was just around that time that I went to the hairdresser to have my hair streak dyed" she continued. "It was dad's favorite color. I did it in his honor when I changed schools. It was symbolic because it was the first time in my life that something changed in my destiny, and in my life. It was also around this time that I started practicing martial arts."
Those words left Gabriel thoughtful. In a way, he was glad he hadn't insisted that she remove the red streak. Actually, she looked really good with it.
"I also left that color to remember my father and all the lessons that he left me. After my father died, I had a fight with the rest of my family, because they refused to go to his funeral. They only wanted the money from my father's inheritance, money that was for me only. In the end they didn't get a single franc from me, because my dad made sure I received my share of the inheritance as his daughter. It was there I decided to move away. I never heard from my family ever again."
A few minutes of silence passed between the two. Gabriel decided to break it and took Nathalie's hands in his, carefully.
"I want you to forgive me, Nath, I don't think talking about that was easy for you."
"Don't worry, it's been many years since it happened. I'd rather not cling to the past so much." Nathalie blinked rapidly for a moment, seeing her hands between his.
Gabriel stood up, separating her hands from hers, glancing at the clock on the bedside table. An hour had passed. They still had a few weeks to prepare for the event in Vienna, so they had to be well rested.
"Rest Nathalie. And if you need to talk to me, no matter what time it is, just tell me, okay?"
"Thank you, Gabriel."
Gabriel noticed that she had said his name and not his honorary. It didn't bother him at all.
When he lay down on his bed, he thought about everything his assistant had told him. And he regretted the times he had yelled at her for making some mistakes in her work or in taking care of Adrien. Undoubtedly that woman who hired many years ago had a temper of steel, so much so that she seemed unshakable.
That night, Emilie appeared again in Nathalie in dreams. She told her about what happened that day with Gabriel.
"Umm, I see Gabriel took you home, it's something very strange about him."
Nathalie only denied for what Emilie had said.
"He only cares about me."
"Come on Nathalie, don't think I don't hear him every time he talks to me. It is clear that he is very fond of you. In addition, it is not normal to bring your personal assistant to your own home, especially given the reputation of the Agreste firm."
It was true. Gabriel always made sure his family life didn't get mixed up with work. It was practically rule number 1 of him.
"Besides, if I ever have a successor within the company, I would like it to be you."
Nathalie made a face.
"Please tell me you didn't say that. Doesn't it bother you?"
"Not at all."
"But we're going to bring you back, you know that" Nathalie said hopefully.
"I haven't been able to convince you, have I?" Said Emilie crossing her arms.
"Gabriel still loves you."
Emilie sighed.
"I guess it's still too early for him to get over me." But I'm going to keep coming back until I change your minds, that goes for both of you.
And in those moments Emilie disappeared.