"Welcome back Plagg. I asked the kitchen for the finest wheel of camembert they had. You look starved." Master Fu scooted the plate closer to the famished kwami.

"Thank you, Master." Plagg tried to say with his mouth filled with cheese.

"And you Adrien, it has been a long time. The last time I saw you you were but a child, bright eyed and carefree."

"A lot has happened since then, Master."

"Yes, it has." He then turned sullen. He was far off in the past, remembering the day his one of his best students disappeared, the tragedy that followed, and the heartbreak that Marinette's faced when she realized that he was really gone. "She did not take your disappearance well."

"She's forgotten about me."

"She has never forgotten about you. She is still grieving."

"She hates me."

"She hates the man in front of the beast that Hawkmoth controls."

"We're the same."

"No you are not. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about."

"This is a dump!" The room used to be an old storage room. Every wall was stacked halfway to the ceiling with junk. Most of the junk was covered with a plastic sheet, and what wasn't was stuffed into large garbage bags. It looked to have been abandoned a long time; everything was covered with a thin layer of dust.

Plagg flew circles around the room, kicking an old tomato can and retching in disgust when a family of roaches scurried out from inside of it. He flew back over to Plague's shoulder. "Well, have fun cleaning this pigsty up."

"Actually Plagg, I believe there is someone you'd want to see." There was a teasing smile curled on Fu's face.

"Oh yeah." The biggest smile Plaguehas seen him have in 4 years slid on his face. He had forgotten Plagg knew how to smile. All he does now is smirk and frown. "Good luck kid." And he was gone.

"Do I really have to clean all of this up my myself?"

"Think of this as punishment for that prank you pulled 5 years ago." Fu patted him on the back and said this before departing: "I will leave you to your work. No one will know you sleep here unless you reveal it to them yourself." The door shut with a click behind him.

Plague sighed as he knew took in the messy room. He had a lot of work to do.

It was nighttime and past everyone's curfew, but Marinette was wide awake. With every twist and turn she grew more annoyed and antsy until she just flopped on her back. She groaned in frustration.

"Marinette?" It was dark inside the room but she could hear the quiet buzzing of Tikki's wings. She still sounded sleepy.

"Go back to sleep, Tikki."

"Are you having trouble sleeping?" Tikki ignored her and flew over to sit on her pillow beside her head. "Is it the nightmares again?"

"No, Tikki. They haven't bothered me in months."

"You still call out his name in your sleep."

"You still call out your other half's name too, Tikki."

The little bug kwami's cheeks turned even redder at the mention of her other half. He was Adrien's kwami. When Adrien disappeared, so did he.

Because they were meant to be a pair, there's a magical bond between them that each other feel their magical essence. She could still feel his so she knew he wasn't dead.

But his side of the bond grows dimmer every passing second, and that isn't a good thing for kwamis. If their magical essence flits out, they die. She can't help but worry if she would ever see her lover again. Seeing the crestfallen look of Tikki's, Marinette felt guilty. "I'm sorry, Tikki. I shouldn't have brought him up."

"It's okay. We both lost people that day." Marinette rubbed small circles on Tikki's head. It brought a small smile to her as the rubbing became therapeutic. There was a knock on the door. A grumpy groan startled the two.

"Who would be knocking at this hour?" Alya had a bad case of bedhead and blurry vision. She reached for her glasses on the nightstand but ended up knocking them on the ground.

"Don't worry Alya." Marinette pulled their covers back and her socks covered feet hit the chilly floor. She crouched down and picked up Alya's glasses off the ground. Tikki's eyes followed her from her pillow. "I'll open the door."

Alya mumbled a sleepy 'mkay' before curling back under her covers.

Marinette padded over to the door and peeked through the tiny peephole. The tell-tale ying-yang Miraculous symbol on his chest proved his loyalty. The guard was standing away from the door. He was still on duty and in full armor. HIs head guard was missing, and he was carrying a letter in his hand. She twisted the lock and opened the door.

"Letter for Rena Rouge from the Master." Following his learned protocol, he didn't meet her eyes, instead focusing on the wall behind her.

"Thank you. You are dismissed." He nodded and he marched back down the halls and Marinette shut the door, holding the letter up to the small source of light the lamp in their room provided. The ying-yang Miraculous stamp held the rolled up letter together.

"What does it say?" Alya had sat back up in her bed. Her sleeping mask was pushed up on her forehead and she had smoothed down her bedhead. She was still sleepy though, her eyes were half-massed.

When she unrolled the parchment, intrigant cursive lettering flooded down to the bottom of the paper. "It's a mission request." There has been akuma sightings in Marne-la-Vallee. The people there think that they may have established a base there." She handed the parchment to Alya. She started reading it herself.

"It says I can bring a partner. Do you want to come?" Her enthusiastic grin fell when she saw the pointed look Marinette was giving her. "Oh, right."

"You know Master Fu doesn't let me leave the base anymore." A few days after Plagueand his kwami disappeared, Master FU banned her from going on missions and leaving the base. He said that being without Adrien, her partner, for so long would make her powers frits out. Without him her powers were incomplete and would quit on her when she would need them the most and would take more energy from her.

So Master FU keeps her in the base. He gives her jobs to do such as training the troops when their trainer would go into one of his many rages or healing the soldiers injuries when they would come back from their missions.

It was irritating. Marinette had always been on the front line ever since she was little. She had been trained to start the front lines. Now to be stuck at the base, she felt pretty useless.

"Sorry Marinette. Maybe I can talk Master FU into letting you come on this one."

"It;s okay, Alya. You can take Carapace."

"Are you sure?" She still looked skeptical.

"I'm sure."

"If you're sure then. Hey, where's Tikki?"

When Marinette turned around and sure enough the spot on her pillow where Tikki was was empty. "I don't know. She was just laying there a minute ago."

"Plagg!" Tikki clung to the cat kwami's leather jacket as she sobbed on his chest. Plagg rubbed small circles on her back and gently shushed her sobs. "Don't cry. I'm here. I'm finally here."

"B-But, w-where have you been. H-how are you here?" They were standing on top of the dormitories in their human forms. A full moon was out and was the one and only light between them that let him see her beautiful but tear-stained face. He wiped away a runaway tear. "It's a long story."

"We have time."

His lips curled into something that was meant to be a smile, but didn't quite make it. Whatever it was, it was laced with saddeness, matching the deep emotion in his eyes.

"Not as much time as you think, sugar cube.""