Hello again everyone! I hope you had an alright July. Thank you so much for your patience with the delayed chapter. For those of you who have this story favorited or followed and pms open, then you know the reason for that is a slight family emergency. I just wanted to let you know that everything is going to be okay - there was an unfortunate, life-long, but not life-threatening diagnosis that I was doing my best to research as much as possible and trying to comfort the family member in question through a very rough month.
Last time on A Mother's Love: Marinette discusses her frustration over having let Gabriel slip through her fingers with Tikki, then Adrien and Marinette meet up during their lunch break to address the revealed identities and begin working through the items Adrien uncovered while searching the mansion.
Please enjoy Chapter 8, "Laying the Foundation."
*** There's been a bit of a formatting issue, I plan to upload the rest of the chapter when I've gotten everything sorted. Sorry, and thanks for being patient!
Adrien's hands felt heavier than his heart as he sat there, sifting through page after page of medical notes - summarized conversations with various doctors, attempted treatment plans and their results (or rather, lack thereof), examinations, his father's own observations of his mother's deteriorating condition, so on and so forth.
"Adrien?" Marinette said, halfway through her own stack of papers. "I think you might want to take a look at this one."
Grabbing the page she handed to him, Adrien noted the more frantic style of writing. It was still clearly Gabriel's - the flawless letters still shaped as if by a printer - but this page was full of crossed out words and half-finished sentences and perfect letters crammed in to fit on the paper. They were theories, it seemed. Theories regarding the cause of his mother's illness. They ranged from blatant conspiracies to wonderings of freak coincidences to the potential for undiscovered diseases.
One idea in particular was starred, though scribbled into the margin of the page: bursts of sickness line up w/use of miraculous → cracked, unlike butterfly, broken? → permanent after largest exertion of power → magical illness → *perhaps cannot be healed by modern medical technology → must find magical solution
An arrow from that thought pointed to one circled, familiar image.
"It's the peacock miraculous," Marinette said. She then turned to show him a page she'd opened in a book near her sewing box. "In dormant form, apparently. This has to be it! We knew he had it, we just didn't realize there was a holder before Mayura."
"No . . ." Adrien breathed. "No, it can't be . . ."
"Uh, can't it? I'm sorry, Adrien, I know this isn't easy, but the resemblance is uncanny. And he and Mayura have both created sentimonsters before, so he definitely has it."
"No, it isn't that . . . I've seen this before. In our house, when I found this," he said, pointing to the book. "The grimoire. Plagg?" he called, waiting as his friend floated down to them, Tikki in tow.
"I . . . I'm sorry, Adrien. I clearly wasn't enough paying attention that day - I do remember seeing it in the safe, and you're right, it does look like the peacock miraculous now that I think about it. I can't believe I didn't see it that day," Plagg said.
"I didn't notice it either, buddy."
"I'm the only one who'd seen it up close before."
"And I'm the one Marinette confided in with her suspicions that father was Hawk Moth, as well as the one who brushed her off," Adrien said, trailing off to a whisper as he buried his head in one hand. "And if this is right," he continued, jabbing a finger at the starred idea, "and if it was Nathalie under Mayura's disguise, then her sickness is the early signs that using the broken miraculous has already begun to affect her. My letting this continue has effectively sentenced her to death, too."
"And both of you," Tikki cut in, "had good reason not to want to consider that your father was Hawk Moth. Not to mention what we then considered irrefutable proof that them being one and the same was simply impossible. You made mistakes, an inevitability of life. Plagg can testify to that I've made many of my own."
"I suppose that's true. You two should be glad you weren't there the day she discovered chocol-"
"We agreed not to talk about that!" Tikki hissed. "Anyway," she continued, voice back to her usual sugary sweet, "the point is that you are both inherently good. You are heroes, and you did not do this intentionally. Nathalie made her own bed. And if any one person is to blame, it's your father, and the only thing we can do is to keep working at this and make sure he gets put to justice."
Adrien wilted further at that.
"Hey, Tikki? Did you want to show Plagg those new plants we've been growing?" Marinette asked after a beat.
"Oh, okay, if that's what you want, Marinette," Tikki said before nudging Plagg and zipping off to the balcony.
"Adrien?" Marinette asked.
"Tikki's wrong. This is all my fault, Marinette. I lived with him during his reign of terror for how many years without noticing anything? Even when you waved the truth in front of my face, I just shut my eyes and turned away. That's on me."
"You know, Tikki and I had a very similar conversation last night, and it didn't exactly sit right with me either. But I do think she was partially right: this is not either of our faults. What it is, is our responsibility and our burden to carry. We royally screwed up, it's true, but when we first went down this path, we were what, 13? 14? We were kids. We still are kids. At the end of the day, Shadow Moth is the one who chose to continue to threaten the city. The parts we played, we are making up for now. But we won't be able to if we allow that burden to bury us."
"Okay," Adrien said, his voice small. "One step at a time, then. Let's keep going."
I hope you liked that chapter! Thank you very much for reading. Have a nice August, and I'll hopefully see you on the 26th for chapter 9, "A New Normal."
Chapter Word Count: 862.
Published: Sunday, July 31st, 2022.
