The world collapses in the snap of a breath, and then it's back, but it's not. A wink of profound nothing and the street re-shapes around her and nothing is the same.

No-one else seems to notice, though.

She thinks it is a weird sort of lucid dream until she finds the bee sting from this morning still itching on her arm. But everything else is different in a lot of little ways, and Chloé goes through the rest of the day in a world that is subtly out of whack. The billboard ads are new, the headlines in the newspaper stands are different, that one song sounding everywhere is Rihanna, not Clara Nightingale. An akuma, probably, but Ladybug and her dumb little buddies are taking the sweet time showing up. Not that Chloé ever could stand her stupid face, but the feeling of life being off-beat is so annoying that she finds herself impatiently refreshing Cesaire's simping blog by supper.

Her mother doesn't show. Zoé barely makes it, and slumps more pathetic than usual in her seat; she's not even pretending to listen to Daddy's prattle, and barely touches her food. Maybe there's finally someone else who cares about Ladybug ignoring her superhero duties. Chloé's about to voice her complaints about that when Zoé suddenly perks up at something Daddy said.

"I'm sorry, who are you talking about?"

"Emilie, dear, that they want to ask her to hold the opening speech."

"Emilie who?"

"Emilie Agreste - Gabriel's wife. Aren't you friends with Adrien?"

"What are you talking about?" Chloé interrupts as the weirdness of the afternoon finally topples into something that's almost scary, "Adrien's mum died like a year ago, remember?"

"Don't be silly," says Daddy, "I wouldn't forget something like that."

"Well clearly you did!"

"Chloé -" but he is interrupted by that ringtone and is out of his seat and on the other side of the room within a second.

"I hope it's not contagious," she complains to her sister, who is finally looking somewhat alive.

"Adrien's mum died?"

Chloé rolls her eyes and leaves, belly churning too hard for food to fit there.

Even though Ladybug had mostly sorted everything between herself and Cat Noir back when she was Queen Bee, those few times she'd gotten to come along had lingered under her skin for weeks after. The power in Pollen's miraculous, to make impossible leaps without fearing the fall, the strength to stop any danger coming, knowing that she could defeat the villain, she could be the one making a change for the city.

With Pollen she could've gone out and help look for whatever it is that is messing up the world today. She could fix what was wrong instead of just sitting around and wait.

Twenty minutes later she's staring at the cut-off power cord of her old bee signal. Not that she really thinks Ladybug has come to her senses and realised how useless Vesperia is, but maybe it could be like a reminder, sortof. Maybe Ladybug just didn't get the memo, she could drop by and Chloé could tell her to get on with it.

If this stupid day couldn't be any worse, when a superhero does drop by it's stupid Vesperia herself. At least her replacement also seems to have had a cruddy afternoon.

"Finally," she crosses her arms, "please tell me that Ladybug's about to do something about this."

Vesperia's head is hanging, and she cradles an arm to her chest in a gesture that sends a disconcerting spike down Chloé's spine. When she speaks, her eyes are set on the tiles somewhere between the two of them.

"So you noticed something is off."

"What do you take me for? I'm not a superhero for nothing, you know. Too bad Ladybug got jealous about my talents - if I had my miraculous, I would've taken out that akuma hours ago."

"It's not an akuma."

"Puh-lease, even an amateur like you should at least be able to tell that this isn't natural."

"No-one else is noticing," says Vesperia, and the vein of nerves strummed under her flat voice is an eerie harmony with the one in Chloé's blood, "no-one else seems to realise something happened. Maybe it's because of Pollen that you did - you did have a miraculous, after all. Maybe that's why you can tell."

She doesn't elaborate until Chloé groans. "Well, if it's not an akuma, what is she going to do about it?"

"She can't do anything about it. Hawkmoth got to her miraculous, and Cat Noir's. And he used them to re-write the world."

"Yeah, right. That's what he wanted them for, because he just couldn't stand all the ads with Adrien on them?"

Vesperia's mouth makes a funny twitch at that, and then she shakes her head. "Emilie Agreste. He wanted Emilie Agreste alive, and now she is. I saw her, and no-one seems to know that she ever was dead. But you remember it."

"Don't be stupid," says Chloé, "this is ridiculous, she died last summer -"

"Check her Wikipedia page."

The buzz drumming against Chloé's eardrums ever since that weird moment this afternoon swells into a roar as she does so, and then looks up said woman's insta for good measure. Her phone is shaking in her hands; her breathing is quick and shallow.

"I'm sorry," says Vesperia, "I know it's hard to believe. But Chloé, I've got a real big favour to ask you."

"What, you're gonna give me back my miraculous?" Chloé presses out, but it sounds tense and thin and nothing like herself.

"You're friends with Adrien, right?"

"Of course, I've been his best friend since we were little kids, everyone knows that."

"I'm going to tell you something," Vesperia starts, "and you can't tell anyone else, ever. You'll have to keep it secret, for Adrien's sake."

Chloé doesn't want to hear whatever it is Vesperia is talking about, and a part of her wonders why she'd tell her, who is mean and who thinks of no-one but herself and who's not even friends with Ladybug any longer.

"Can you promise me that, Chloé? That for Adrien, and for Ladybug, you'll keep this secret?"

"I don't keep secrets," Chloé frankly tells her, and Vesperia smiles, and it there is something strangely affectionate to it.

"But you do," she says simply, "I know that you do, Chloé. You can keep your own secrets - and I know you can keep Adrien's too. Because you're his friend, and he's really going to need a friend now."

"Why," Chloé says, tongue dry in her mouth, "did something happen to him when his mum came back?"

Vesperia draws a breath and straightens her posture as if trying to find some courage in her body. "I don't know for sure, but I think something happened to him a while back. That he died, or maybe got really sick and almost did. His parents made a sentimonster that looked just like him. When Emilie Agreste came back, the sentimonster-Adrien was destroyed. But Adrien, he came back."

"That's ridiculous."

"Yeah, I know. But I wouldn't lie to you, Chloé, and I saw it happen. I think the other Adrien must have been around since sometime before his mum died."

"Mardi-gras, last year," says Chloé, mindless, "he wasn't allowed to our party. After that, his parents kept him inside all the time and he was always too busy for me to visit him. And then his mum got sick."

"A year and a half," says Vesperia, quiet, "that's how long he was here. Well," she runs her hands over her face and through her bangs, "ever since then, the Adrien you knew was a different boy, literally. And the thing is, all his friends - they met the sentimonster boy, and he's gone now. And Adrien, he doesn't know anything. He doesn't know any of them, and I think it's going to be hard for some of them that he's… different."

She trails off. Chloé can think of absolutely nothing to say, mind still reeling from what the superhero is telling her.

"You're the only person who was friends with Adrien, with the real one - no, the first one, I mean. I know you care a lot about him, so I'm asking you to particularly be his friend now, even if he does things you don't agree with. He's going to have a hard time. His dad's gone."

"That's all?" Chloé almost startles at the shaking pitch of her own voice, "you're telling me Hawkmoth won and that's all he did? Bring Adrien's mum back? No world domination? No making everyone his eternal slaves?"

"And Adrien," says Vesperia, "Adrien, too."

"This is ridiculous! He can't have been doing all that just because some lady died, oh my god!"

"I know!"

Vesperia's voice breaks as tears spill down her cheeks, "all of that fighting, all of that violence, all of that suffering, just for two people!"

Even if Vesperia is a useless idiot, the pathetic crying doesn't lie. The girl wearing Pollen's miraculous really believes what she's saying.

"But if Ladybug lost…" the sentence is wronger than the rest of this day combined, "but she doesn't, Ladybug never loses…"

"She had to," Vesperia says, sniffling inelegantly and wiping tears as more keep coming, "she had to lose to give all of us a chance. But when we went to save her, that wasn't enough. Without her, we couldn't do it, and Hawkmoth, he got what he wanted. And that's what he used them for. And now he's gone, and Ladybug's gone, too, and Adrien… Adrien is really gonna need for you to never, ever tell him or anyone that there was someone else who was just like him, for more than a year."

Chloé's nerves are thawing, and in the place of the prickling numbness creeps something heavy and aching, and there's no salve that can soothe the bone-deep hurt of a truth that she finds no way to deny. Stupid Vesperia and her stupid crying, and the stupid photo on her phone of Adrien's mum having coffee, and everything suddenly going all wrong and Ladybug not fixing it, because Ladybug -

And Adrien, he's been -

(and what Vesperia hasn't been saying, about who was dead and who came back and Hawkmoth is gone and Adrien's dad is gone - )

"I just thought - " Vesperia hiccups, and Chloé hates that watching the other girl cry is making her own eyes burn, "that you should know that there's nothing wrong with you. Even if no-one else realises it, the world really has changed, and there's nothing to be done about it anymore. But please be Adrien's friend."

"Adrien didn't want to be my friend."

She hates how thin her voice is, but tonight seems to be the night for being pathetic anyway. Maybe Vesperia doesn't notice.

"He'll be your friend even if he's friends with other people. You were the one who thought it was more important to be mean to others than to be his friend. Adrien - the other Adrien - he wanted to keep you around. He knew the things you keep secret, right?"

Stupid, pathetic, childish things that Chloé doesn't do, that Chloé stopped being upset about years ago, that she's way better than, that's what mum always said when Chloé told her about it, but Adrien was always nice even when she was being ridiculous, and Chloé has never, ever felt that Adrien was stupid, either.

And stupid Vesperia is clinging to Chloé's hand. "Pollen has told me about you. And I saw videos of Queen Bee. This, this can't be helped with a miraculous, but you're a part of it because of it and you can fix at least a little bit of it. Without Ladybug there's no setting this right again, but please help fix this for Adrien. Because you're the only one who - "

"Girls?"

Daddy peeks around one of the potted palm trees by the door, and there's a different kind of frantic to him.

"What?" Chloé numbly replies.

"I thought I heard Zoé. Where did she go?"

"No, it's - " but when she turns around, the superhero is gone. Chloé feels very alone. "It was Vesperia."

"Oh," says Daddy, shoulders coming down a bit. "Did she tell you about Hawkmoth?"

Chloé nods.

"That was very nice of her," says Daddy, and then he pulls Chloé into his arms and holds her tighter than she has let him for years.

"Adrien's mum really didn't die?"

"Emilie is fine. I saw her just last week."

"And Hawkmoth is gone?"

"Yes, he is. It's not entirely clear what happened, but there's reports of memory issues from a considerable number of medical professionals. People remembering things wrong from the entire time he was here. The thing with Emilie was probably just that."

"Right," Chloé lies, and knows that she's going to spend the rest of her life lying.

She doesn't get the car, and when she stands in front of the looming gates of the Agreste mansion, it strikes her that she can't remember ever being here alone. She's never before had to ring the doorbell like any of the losers in school, or felt that sting of doubt if she'll be let in until the gate clicks open.

It's the bodyguard who let her in, but sure enough: on the stairs in foyer stands Adrien's mum, phone at her ear, turned away from the painting that had showed up between Chloé's last visit before her sickness got bad, and the Christmas after. Adrien's dad in widower's black, staring morosely at whoever dared enter his home. And Adrien, motionless and grieving. Emilie lowers the phone and beams at her.

Do you know? Chloé thinks. "Good evening," she says out loud.

"Adrien's in his room," Emilie whispers before she disappears into her husband's office with a little wave.

Chloé climbs the stairs, and stops to meet Gabriel Agreste's cold eyes.

Memory issues and all that fighting and Adrien too and breathe out breathe in and nobody remembers but you do and finally trying out the best café in Saint-Germaine and she had to lose and this stupid, stupid, stupid day where nothing important has changed, just meaningless details.

She almost longs for the deranged release that came with an akuma piercing your soul to drain it until nothing but purpose remained.

"Was that really worth all the mess?"

There's no answer from the frozen image.

She continues staring at him for several long seconds. Then she raises a hand with great intention, and gives him a one-fingered salute before leaving him behind.

Adrien is at his piano, plunking out a listless, left-handed melody. Chloé feels the shudder going through her body when he turns around and she sees his wrists thinner, his hair falling across his brows some fatal millimetres longer than it was yesterday, the slouch of his shoulders sickeningly nostalgic.

She can't remember the last time she saw that smile, but she can't return the exuberance.

"Hi!"

"Hi," she replies, and he instantly catches on to her misery.

"What's up?" he scoots over, and Chloé hates the way she can't find it in herself to sit down.

"Weird day," she replies, and carefully calculates her movements so that she won't touch him when she pushes down the revulsion.

"Yeah," he mutters, putting a hand to the keyboard but not playing, "apparently everyone's memories are messed up about it, but I can't remember anything. Two years or something, poof! Gone. Superheroes in Paris and I forgot all about it. Talk about bad luck."

"You remember nothing?"

"Not one bit. Just a big hole until mum woke me up this afternoon. I've got a new phone and it's full of people I can't remember meeting."

"It's just the losers in school."

"I go to school?"

"Yeah, since this year. You're in my class, of course."

"Huh. Guess that explains why that Nino guy was asking me about maths."

"He's an idiot."

"But we're friends, right? I'm really glad to know I've finally been going out and meeting people."

"They're all idiots."

"Hey - "

The nudge of his shoulder has her jerking back so far that she almost falls off the piano bench, and Adrien looks as startled as Chloé herself is. She feels her breath heaving once again, and when Adrien stretches a hand out she fumbles backwards and her own hand finds only empty air and she hits the floor back-first.

"Chloé!"

But Adrien's hands are just hands, and Adrien is just a boy - even if he is a boy who something really crazy and unthinkably horrible must have happened to.

"You really remember nothing at all?"

"I really don't. Sometime after Christmas last winter, I think, everything after that is gone."

It is a regretful announcement, and Chloé suddenly wonders what kind of person she was after Christmas last winter. Before Adrien finally came to school, before Ladybug and Hawkmoth, before Pollen and Zoé and stupid Vesperia and Adrikins' stupid friends, who had Chloé been then?

"I was a superhero too."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Until Ladybug -"

And here's where the two stories split apart, the one she keeps telling herself and the one that is true, and she knows - oh, she knows, as true as Vesperia's tears - which one is the one other people are telling, which Adrien will sooner or later hear, because it was Adrien's rotten dad who didn't want him to go to school. Chloé hates so many things, but right now, in this horrible evening, she hates Gabriel Agreste more than she has ever hated anything. Something happened to Adrien, and something happened to Adrien's mum, and maybe Chloé would have lived in a world where none of them were there but everything else wasn't wrong and there wasn't nearly a year of supervillains attacking the city daily.

Adrien is soft and golden against the sun-warmed buildings outside, and in a violent moment, Chloé imagines a funeral and the seat next to Nino never getting to see that brilliant smile, and for all that she hates Gabriel Agreste, her belly stings with a hateful, selfish gratitude.

"Everyone knew, that I was Queen Bee. So I had to quit, because Hawkmoth could attack me or my family."

"That's too bad," says Adrien. His hand is bonier than she remembers, but his grip is firm and he still has the strength to pull her along as she finally climbs to her feet and finds her seat next to him again.

"He did it anyway," say Chloé, staring at the black and white bars of lacquered wood. The bee sting itches.

"Was it - did it turn out alright?"

She swallows, and shakes her head. "Ladybug saved them," she says, and she doesn't say I chose it or I think I really messed up or because I didn't keep that secret then, I have to keep this secret for the rest of my life. Hawkmoth must've known exactly what he was doing, that day Ladybug never came - he must've waited, he must've known, maybe he even gave her parents that stupid robe because he knew what her mother is like. It had gone exactly like Ladybug had said.

"She must be amazing."

She feels her eyes water at his use of present tense.

"She saved you a couple of times," she tells him.

"Huh. Guess that explains why I had so many pictures of her on my phone."

"Oh my god!" Chloé groans, and lets her body wilt against his in a way she hasn't in very, very long, "don't tell me that you had some dumb celebrity crush on her all along and that was the reason Tsurugi dumped you!"

"I had a girlfriend?!"

"For like a week," she mutters into his shoulder. She doesn't actually remember how long it was, but what she does remember is that Adrien had no such thing as girlfriends or celebrity crushes, because that was all a different boy, with a different heart and with shorter hair and bulkier wrists and the boy who Tsurugi had gotten herself akumatised over like ten times or whatever isn't the boy who's getting excited about this now.

"Better than nothing," he says, and starts playing a line of melancholy chords. Chloé rests against him and breathes and remembers, and Adrikins has been a part of her life since before she remembers.

"You know," Adrien eventually says, "we can't get a hold of my father. Mum doesn't remember where he's supposed to be, but he's not home and it's been hours and he hasn't tried calling, and he's not answering his phone."

"You think something happened to him?"

"I don't know. It's just been a little while, and I'm sure he'll show up. But this is so unlike him, and I can't help but worry."

She buries her face further into the fabric of his shirt and prays he'll continue playing and won't turn to look at her and see the expression she is desperately trying to wipe away.

"My mum moved back to Paris," she tells him eventually, carefully keeping her voice so soft that it can't be betrayed by her emotions.

"That's great!"

"She's still mean to me."

"I'm sure she'll get better if you just give her time."

She presses a hand to the bee sting and feels it ache, and misses Daddy's hug, and she can't remember the last time her mother hugged her. Adrien's dad probably wouldn't have gotten better with time; he was always such a sourpuss, and now she knows that he was mean and evil and used people, all the time, and he tricked her, and he did something to Ladybug, and for a year and a half the Adrien she met every day wasn't Adrien at all, but that boy is gone because of what Adrien's dad did, and she can never, ever tell Adrien any of that. It's been half a year and her mum hasn't been getting better at all, and maybe that was why Ladybug was so much better.

She climbs to her feet to sit on his couch instead, and buries her face in her hands to try and keep everything inside as Adrien continues playing and she realises that she loved Ladybug more than she loves her own mother, and there's nothing to be done about any of it but to follow the world as it turns.

There's a bouquet of fresh cut flowers on his table. Adrien's mum always used to have some around in all rooms - maybe that was why the house had always felt so lifeless without her. A lonely bee is basking in it, bumbling from flower to flower to snuggle into their petals to the sound of Adrien's improvised harmonies.

The third time she swats it away from its flower it finally attacks, and she fights every instinct as she keeps her arm in place and feels the tiny, tiny weight of the insect landing the second before the sting buries into her skin. She can't help the whimper at the pain, and that tears Adrien away from the piano.

"It's fine," she says, but doesn't pull her arm away as he gently cradles it.

"Lucky it's not dangerous," he says, and run a thumb along the blister starting to form.

"Yeah," Chloé agrees, and doesn't tell him that she did it on purpose just to feel the pain. She doesn't tell him that she used to have the power of the bee, and she can't tell him that the girl who got those powers after her told her to look after him because everything is a mess and the worst is clearly not come yet. But there is one fact that anyone can attest, and that he can know and maybe it'll help some, somewhere down the line.

"Adrikins, I'm gonna say something now that I don't think you'll like hearing."

"Chloé - "

"No. I know you like to see the best in people and all, but sometimes people do the wrong thing and you have to be angry with them. And since you don't remember this, then I'm going to tell you so that you know. Even if it'll hurt to hear it."

"I don't wanna be angry with people for things I don't remember them doing."

"Yeah, and that's why I'm going to tell you. Because it wasn't just you, it was a lot of other people, and I know you'll be angry for them even if you should be for you, too."

"Chlo - "

But Chloé is done following useless adults, and the secrets Adrien has kept for her are suddenly no longer shameful, but a whispering anger curling around the edges of her heart.

"I gave my mum time and she didn't get better, and you shouldn't waste your time waiting around for your dad. I remember him these last couple of years, and he's been a real cunt."