"What a night!" Exhaled Adrien as he flopped on to his bed. Plagg was engrossed in a chunk of Camembert, too famished to even acknowledge what Adrien had said.

The breeze of the warm Parisian air gently flowed into his room through the window he had left ajar after coming in moments earlier donning his Cat Noir persona. The digital clock on his night stand said 19:30, but it seemed much later as the sun had disappeared beyond the horizon much earlier on this mild winter's evening.

'I can't get her out of my head, she was focused almost determined today.'

"Adrien, Ladybug is always determined." Plagg answered his chosen's thoughts which had escaped his mouth.

*ding*

Adrien checked his phone and discarded it as quick as he had picked it up.

"Kagami?" Plagg enquired. "Have you still not spoken to her?" He asked lazily, already knowing the answer.

"There's not much left to say," he answered nonchalantly. "I never wanted to hurt her, but it was never really her...one hundred percent." He hesitated at the end while rubbing his nape absentmindedly.

Plagg rolled his small bright green eyes. "'Oh Kagami, I'm sorry but I can't give myself to you fully'," he was very theatrical while imitating Adrien. "'I love you as a friend but I can't love you any other way'-"

"It wasn't like that Plagg!" Adrien chastised his Kwami's teasing of the matter as he snapped back.

Plagg refrained from continuing his torment of the blonde model, focusing back on his cheese stash.

"She is a lovely person, but it's not fair on her if I was to lead her on." Adrien rolled onto his side with his hands under his head. "There's only one person I can imagine being with-"

"Oh, is that so?" Plagg said with obvious sarcasm, a smirk playing on his tiny face. "I saw how you were looking at Marinette today-" he snickered "-you looked very cosy in that closet." He finished rolling in the air with a chuckle, shoving a wedge of smelly deliciousness into his mouth.

"Please Plagg, I really don't want to be reminded of how much of a close call that was. I'm sure Marinette seen a flicker of you..." He trailed off in thought.

'Marinette seemed determined today, she wasn't the normal Marinette in that closet with me. I've never seen her like that, almost unaware that I was in there- but she didn't seem afraid, concerned maybe-'

"Who was concerned?"

It was obvious that Adrien wasn't going to keep his thoughts to himself this evening. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep on top of his covers, the sounds of the Parisian nightlife coming in through the open window.

Where am I, what am I doing?

Looking around, Adrien could see he was in that same closet from earlier in the day, Plagg in front of him, his words were muffled. His vision was slightly distorted, sepia almost.

"Plagg, what's going on?"

No answer.

The door flung open- it was Marinette!

He heard a muffled exchange then saw himself and Marinette turn towards the door. He stepped back out of his body, and watched the events unfold in front of him. Stepping in front of Marinette he was able to examined her face. She looked straight through him, at the closed door behind him. It was all in slow motion, the encounter in the closet. She looked determined, her eyes, those eyes-

"She is so focused." He wondered aloud to himself, tilting his head as if the angle would expose something he missed earlier.

Adrien was nose to nose with this vision of Marinette, he glanced up and remembered his thoughts distracting him from the issue at hand, he had a soft smile, a genuine smile on his face- then and now- he hadn't realised. Following his own eye line, Adrien noticed a red flash in Marinette's bag.

"What was that?" His brow furrowed, unable to believe what it was.

Marinette's muffled voice sounded out followed by his own.

His earlier self had darted out of the closet leaving Marinette behind, a glimmer of longing appeared on her face as she stared after him, in slow motion it seemed to linger. His heart skipped in his chest.

"Why did her expression change"

He heard her muffled voice and with a pink flash-

Adrien awoke, a sheen of sweat graced his forehead and his heart beating slightly faster than usual.