A/N – So I realized that there is a bit of a contradiction back in chapter 3 (Unexpected Feelings) when Ladybug checked to see if the room was empty before grabbing Chat and kissing him, so I figured I better use the opportunity here to explain why she thought it was empty when it rather obviously wasn't.

Also, sorry for the delay, I'd offer explanations (excuses?), but I really don't think that's what any of you came here to read. :) Enjoy! Updates should be more frequent again now.

Marinette was panting as she raced down the stairs towards Mlle Bustier's classroom. She skidded to a halt by her desk and collapsed on her side of the bench, thankful to see that she wasn't the last to return. She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes, gradually letting it out in an attempt to slow her heart rate and bury the memories that kept drifting through her mind of kissing Adrien and Chat Noir. She was so focused on trying to calm herself that she jumped in surprise and had to flail her arms to prevent herself from falling out onto the floor when Alya joined her and starting talking.

"Girl you are not going to believe this!" Marinette slowly opened her eyes one at a time, blushing deeply and expecting to be interrogated, but Alya wasn't even looking at her. Relaxing slightly, Marinette clasped her trembling hands tightly together in her lap and waited for Alya to look up from her phone. After a few seconds of silence, Marinette opened her mouth to ask what Alya was talking about, but she turned towards her with outstretched phone before Marinette could form the words. "Ladybug and Chat Noir are in love!"

Startled, it took a moment for Marinette to understand what Alya had said. When she did, she immediately felt her entire face flush bright red, "Wh-what makes you say that?" Calm down, calm down, CALM DOWN!

"Look!" said Alya, holding out the phone insistently.

Wary, Marinette carefully reached out to take the phone while watching Alya's face. Her grin was so wide that Marinette was sure Alya's cheeks were going to be aching within seconds. When Alya gestured impatiently at the phone she now held, Marinette finally dropped her own gaze to see what Alya wanted to show her. She blinked a couple of times, then all the blood that had rushed to her face moments before drained away, leaving her feeling light headed. There, on Alya's screen, was a video of her kissing (oh who was she kidding? They were making out!) with Chat Noir as ice gradually melted off their suits. She hesitated, trying to hide the shaking in her hands, then tapped the screen to see how long the video was. Three minutes?! How were we kissing for three minutes?! Marinette could feel herself starting to hyperventilate.

"Isn't this amazing?" said Alya, waving her hands around in excitement, "They just burst into the classroom where we were hiding and before anyone could even come out from behind the desks Ladybug grabbed Chat Noir by the bell and started kissing him!" She groaned, "I wish I'd caught that part on video! It was so sudden and unexpected that it took me a good thirty seconds to realize I should turn my camera on! And then I had to stop filming so I could interrupt them. I mean, it was kind of intense, and there was an akuma for them to deal with." She shrugged slightly, "It's too bad I didn't catch all of it."

It lasted longer than three minutes?! The edges of her vision were starting to go fuzzy and Marinette was sure she was going to pass out at any moment. Instead, the one thing that could make the whole situation worse happened: Adrien walked in.

Ever his polite, well-mannered self, (why? Why can't his obliviousness stretch just a little further?) Adrien immediately noticed her distress and came up to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder and crouching down so they were at the same level. "Marinette? Are you okay?"

Marinette forced her eyes away from the phone, noticing that her knuckles had turned white with her death grip and making a deliberate effort to relax them only to quickly retighten her grip when her hands began shaking uncontrollably. She tried to smile at him, but judging by the concerned look on his face, he wasn't convinced. "I'm f-fine. Just surprised." Adrien raised an eyebrow in silent question and she forged onward, "I was– I mean, Ladybug was kissing y– CHAT! Ladybug was kissing Chat Noir!"

To her surprise, Adrien flushed slightly and looked away from her. "Oh–" As his gaze fell on the phone in her hands, his mouth popped open, and his hand dropped away from her shoulder to steady himself on the seat of the bench.

Marinette looked back to Alya's phone where Ladybug and Chat Noir were obviously completely oblivious to the fact that they were being recorded. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, fighting back tears. What did I do? Adrien's going to hate me!

"Hey girl, what's wrong?"

Marinette blinked rapidly a few times and turned to meet Alya's worried look with a smile that she hoped looked less manic than the one she'd given Adrien, "Nothing's wrong. I'm just really surprised. Didn't Ladybug always say they weren't together?"

Alya didn't look convinced, but thankfully dropped the subject. "They don't have to be together to be in love. And that's obviously how Exposure's mistletoe worked, you had to act according to your feelings for the person with whom you were caught, otherwise ZAP! You turned into a statue." Alya narrowed her eyes and smiled tightly, glaring past Marinette. "Chloe froze before she made it halfway down the hallway after her stunt with Nath." Her face relaxed as she looked back to Marinette, "Poor Nath did too." Scrunching her eyebrows together, Alya tipped her head to the side, "But you had already disappeared. How did you get out of the room without getting caught by the mistletoe? And where did you end up?"

Marinette's mind went temporarily blank, "Uh… well… I went through the door by myself after Chloe left, so there was no one to kiss?" She realized she was still holding Alya's phone and quickly held it out to her. "I didn't know why the mistletoe was freezing people, but I went and hid in the bathroom because I figured I couldn't get caught under the mistletoe with anyone there." Adrien shifted slightly beside her and she turned towards him to see that despite now only being able to see the case, he was still staring fixedly at Alya's phone. She felt a twinge of worry for him, but just as she was about to check if he was okay, a new, falsely sweet voice, interrupted.

"Then how did you end up with Chat Noir?"

Marinette twisted to see Lila standing behind Adrien with a perfect mask of innocent confusion on her face. "I'm sorry, what?"

Lila blinked and widened her eyes, "How did you end up with Chat Noir?" she repeated, stepping around Adrien and stopping one step down from them while holding out her phone. The screen displayed a picture of Chat Noir carrying Marinette bridal style while tendrils of mistletoe and ice reached from the tips of his fingers to his shoulders. Thankfully, between her face being turned in towards Chat's shoulder and the angle of the picture, it was impossible to be sure whether or not the ice was directly on Marinette as well.

She was momentarily saved from answering by Alya. "No way! When was that?" Alya stood to reach across the desk towards Lila's phone who surrendered it easily. "Aw man! I must have missed that part! Lahiffe! I blame you!"

Nino, who had previously watching the lot of them in silent amusement, now turned to gape at his girlfriend. "What? How do you figure that?"

Alya rolled her eyes and handed back Lila's phone, "Obviously if you hadn't tried to stop me from following Ladybug I wouldn't have turned into a statue!"

Lila temporarily forgotten, Marinette rounded on Alya, "Wait, only people who didn't act according to their feelings got turned into ice from the mistletoe, how did you manage that?"

Alya looked slightly flustered, "Well… when I followed Ladybug out of the classroom Nino tried to stop me we and ended up under the mistletoe." She shrugged without meeting anyone's eyes, "But I was in a hurry to catch up to them to get some footage for the Ladyblog so…"

Nino was giving her a fond, yet exasperated look, "Yep. She ran off, turned into a statue and left me to freeze too. Some girlfriend."

"I'm sorry!" Alya reached out to Nino and he raised his hand to clasp hers, "Freezing does prove that I really do love you though!"

Nino just laughed, "I know babe."

"That's too bad." Stiffening at the reminder of Lila's continued presence, Marinette slowly turned back towards her. While she'd been distracted by Alya and Nino, Adrien had straightened up beside her. Lila was giving Alya a sympathetic smile, "Here, let me send you a copy for your blog." She tapped her phone a couple of times and Alya's dinged with an incoming text.

"That's awesome, thanks!" Alya grinned, then turned to Marinette, "You never did say, how did you end up with Chat Noir?"

Think Marinette, THINK! "Uh well… everything had gone really quiet, so I came out of the bathroom to see whether Ladybug and Chat Noir had managed to defeat the akuma," she grimaced slightly, "It turned out they hadn't. Chat had to rescue me."

"Poor Ladybug though! To have Chat Noir leave her for you right after showing she loved him! How could you do that to her?" Lila asked.

Marinette shot to her feet, "What?!" Behind her, she felt Adrien shift and rest his hand on her shoulder. Perhaps he meant it as a warning or a sign of support, but his grip was too tight to feel like anything other than panic. Why would Adrien be panicking? she wondered.

"Well," said Lila, eyes still wide with feigned innocence, "You just said it, the mistletoe only froze people that didn't act according to their feelings, and you and Chat Noir are obviously freezing the in the picture. That must have really hurt Ladybug."

Adrien's grip on her shoulder tightened but Marinette barely noticed as she felt a wave of Ladybug confidence sweep over her, "Obviously nothing. First of all, Ladybug hadn't chosen to show him anything. Sure, the mistletoe proves she loves him, but she didn't really have a choice about kissing him, not if she wanted to save Paris, so that doesn't mean that they've made some kind of commitment to each other. Second, you can be in love with more than one person without that making you a bad person. What matters is what you do about it." Marinette gradually became aware that her right arm was going numb. What the– How tightly is he squeezing me? She rolled her shoulder back in an effort to get Adrien to loosen his grip, but he didn't respond.

Lila's eyes narrowed fractionally and Marinette was sure she could detect the traces of a smirk on her face, "Of course. But that's just it. Chat Noir came back and cataclysmed the snow for Ladybug. Which means he didn't freeze. Which means he did kiss you."

A blush was threatening to rise back into her face and Adrien's grip tightened further. Marinette swallowed back a hiss of pain and struggled not to glare at Lila knowning that it would only make herself appear defensive. "Assuming you're right, that still wouldn't mean anything. Chat Noir is needed to help protect Paris. He could have easily kissed me simply so he would be there for Ladybug. Though if you've ever paid any attention to him, you'd know that he would never do that. Besides, how exactly could Chat Noir or I possibly be in love with each other? We've barely even met! The only thing that picture proves is that Chat Noir took the time to save me despite the fact that he was quickly being turned into a cat-sicle." Adrien jumped slightly at her pun and thankfully loosened his grip just enough to restore blood flow to her arm. She couldn't quite contain her gasp as the sensation of pins and needles raced from shoulder to fingertips and saw Alya giving her a quizzical look in her peripheral vision. "And just in case you missed it, Exposure had the ability to target separate people with her berries so that they didn't even have pass her mistletoe together to be affected!" With a deep breath, Marinette lowered her voice in an effort to sound reasonable, "So wouldn't you agree that it makes far more sense that Ladybug and Chat Noir had been separately tagged with Exposure's berries yet again? Chat is enough of a hero that he risked being frozen to save me before dealing with the threat to himself."

"Wow. That is an awesome story!" said Alya, "Do you mind if I quote you when I post the pic on my blog?" She was tapping rapidly on her phone making notes, "I mean, I usually focus on Ladybug, but it wouldn't hurt to do a Chat Noir feature for some variety." She looked up at Marinette with shining eyes, "Please girl?"

"Uh… sure." Adrien's hand finally slipped off Marinette's shoulder and she reached over with her opposite hand to massage her now throbbing shoulder.

Lila's face had relaxed into an expression of relief, but Marinette was sure she could detect annoyance in her green eyes. "I'm glad. I mean, I didn't want to hurt you Marinette, but Ladybug is my friend, I couldn't let someone else hurt her."

Inwardly seething, Marinette forced a smile on her face, "Of course not, I understand."

With a wave, Lila walked back up the stairs to her seat.

"I'm sorry." Marinette turned in surprise to see Adrien rubbing the back of his neck and looking at the ground sheepishly. "Is your arm okay?"

"Oh yeah, fine. It's fine." Marinette studied Adrien's face and she couldn't help noticing that he still looked like something was bothering him, "Are you okay?"

Adrien snapped his arm down, adopting a casual smile, "Of course. I better go sit down before Mlle. Bustier is ready to start." Marinette watched with a slight frown on her face as Adrien slipped past her and back down to his seat before sliding back into her own.

Alya slid closer and nudged Marinette with her elbow, "So… what's up with you and Sunshine? First the kiss, now he's being all chummy? Come on girl, spill the beans!"

Marinette opened her mouth without having any idea what she going to say. Thankfully, Mlle Bustier chose that moment to call the class to order and start the lesson. With an inaudible sigh of relief and an apologetic shrug of her shoulders, Marinette turned to the front of the class without answering. Alya raised an eyebrow and tipped her head slightly forward mouthing the word later. Marinette tried not to let her feelings of foreboding show.