Author's note: Thanks for the reviews!

/

The teen just gawks at them. It's been five years since he last spoke to his mother. She's been gone for a very long time. Now, just like that, it seems as if she could be returned to him.

He can't speak and so just stands there. He's spent months, years waiting for these few words to be spoken and now that they have been. He can't quite believe his ears. His brain refuses to cooperate, to process what's being said to him. This is a dream. It has to be. He's close to pinching himself in order to ensure that he'd not imagining it but can't even manage that much.

Very slowly, the teen's eyes drift up to the portrait of the woman in question. At first, she'd been the only thing on his mind. As time passes however, he finds that certain things about her are beginning to fade from his mind. Her voice is an ever distant echo as opposed to a guiding light. That isn't to say that he doesn't miss her. He does so terribly but she's no longer on his mind at every moment of the day. Right now however, he feels the acuteness of her loss once more as if he's just been told once again that she's vanished.

His legs shake and his mouth is dry. A single word is all that he's capable of uttering:

"What?"

Perhaps fearing that the shock might be too much for him, Nathalie coaxes the teen over to a chair and convinces him to sit down. He's still trying to make sense of everything. His head continues to spin. So they give him some time. Both adults also sit down, so as to be on the same level.

He wants to feel excited. To be bouncing off of the walls but right now, he feels numb. Maybe he is in shock.

Those with him give him a few moments of peace to recover. His mother… Back. He'd all but given up hope. True, Master Fu had come and gone periodically but he seldom gave any news of his progress for fear of getting their hopes up. As such, this development had caught him completely off guard. He'd assumed that no news meant that there was no progress. He's not too sure whether he's grateful for the surprise or would have preferred a little longer to brace himself. Eventually, he manages to pull himself together somewhat and asks:

"How?"

Master Fu pulls something out of his pocket and places it down on the table. It's a broach. One which he'd handed back years ago and had prayed to never lay eyes on once more. The peacock miraculous. A jewel which had cost him his mother and almost taken Nathalie. He recoils instinctively. Every cough and gasp he'd witnessed comes back to him. For a moment, he almost feels like he's sitting next to that bed in the grotty old apartment, wondering if the woman who's been caring for him these past few weeks is going to pull through or if that next wheeze is going to be her last.

After a few moments however, he notices something different about it. The jewel is no longer cracked. It's intact. The damage has vanished. Blinking a few times, Adrien still refuses to touch it. He can see the clear difference but his question is: what will this change?

"The miraculous is restored. In theory, it should return what was taken from them."

"Why didn't Gabriel try that?" Adrien is puzzled, he dislikes thinking back to the man but knew that he wasn't entirely stupid. If there was a simpler solution than magical terrorism, he would have used it. "He was convinced that he needed the Ladybug and Cat miraculouses."

"I don't think he knew how." Nathalie informs the teen.

"It's a very complicated procedure almost as difficult as damaging the miraculous in the first place."

There's something behind Master Fu's tone which he can't quite place.

It unsettles him. He turns to Nathalie. She is both there for him and somewhat distant. Again, it's not entirely comforting. No doubt she knows the full details. They'll have talked about all of this before he had come home. Which is in part what worries him. He wants things to be simple. It should all be good news. Feeling a mixture of confused and lost, the teen waits as patiently as he can for further explanations. Perhaps sensing his partner's anxiousness, Plagg settles on his shoulder.

"When can you bring her back?"

"In theory it should take a few days for the miraculous to restore someone as far gone as she is." Master Fu hesitates a moment before adding. "Her actual recovery will likely take far longer."

"Because she's been sleeping so long?" The teen guesses, he gets a nod as confirmation.

Adrien's no doctor but he knows that coma patients who have been sleeping for years such as his mother could take years to recover. Of course, Emilie's coma was hardly a natural one. There was the possibility therefore that she wouldn't respond to being taken out of it the same way as a 'regular' patient would. Even if she was fine physically, it would be a more than a moderate shock for her to awaken five years later. So much had happened. It wasn't the same world, the same family, the same son…

Even with that taken into account, the boy gradually found himself growing increasingly excited about the prospect. His mother… Back. The enthusiasm is still lacking.

"She'll have a lot to get her head around." Nathalie mutters pensively. "It'll take weeks just to come up with a convincing cover story."

"Can you do it?" Adrien looks to her hopefully. "Like you did for Dylan and Delphine?"

"Of course." She speaks softly, reassuringly. "-but you'll have to stay quiet in the meantime."

"There's something else Adrien..." Master Fu seems hesitant, he might even look to Nathalie before being given the go-ahead or maybe the teen imagines it. "Your mother, there must have been a reason why she used the miraculous. Even after it started to make her sick."

The teen frowns. It's a question he's asked himself many a time. He's seen first had what using a broken miraculous can do to a person. Nathalie still feels some of the aftereffects even three years later. The damage done to the person's body is severe. His mother must have realized that it was killing her. Even if she hadn't been able to understand why or how. She should have been capable of associating using the jewel with her sudden illness. It was something he'd never been able to understand…

It takes him a few moments. He thinks over what Master Fu said. Something doesn't quite seem right. It's only after a while that it finally clicks. It wasn't just a statement or even a question. There's mistrust there.

It's all it requires for Adrien to get defensive. It's rare for anyone to criticize Emile Agreste. Probably because the majority of the population assumes that she's dead and therefore refrain from speaking ill of her. Only Gabriel had from time to time made the occasional comment and even that had been rather discrete. Her son instinctively remains unfaltering in his loyalty. Whilst the old man might not have a direct accusation, there's enough there for the teen to read through the lines and it infuriates the teen:

"Mom wasn't like Hawk Moth!"

"Nobody's saying that she was." Nathalie assures him, speaking softly keen to appease his temper.

"We must be cautious Adrien…" Master Fu continues on, calmly. "There's no reason to assume that your mother would use the Miraculous for evil but it's still best not to take any risks."

"Mom would never-"

"Of course not!" The woman steps in shooting the older man a discrete look. "What Master Fu means is that we'll have to take certain precautions to ensure that your mother's safe. It's going to be quite a shock for her. I doubt she ever thought that it would be five years..."

Nathalie has always claimed to know little about the events leading up to Emilie's slumber. Gabriel had only brought her up to date afterwards and inquiring about them had been fruitless: A mistake had been made. That's all he'd ever said. She can offer little insight into just what Emilie thought that she was trying to achieve.

It's something of a good cop/bad cop dynamic which they seem to have going. Master Fu tells him what he doesn't want to hear and Nathalie tries her best to make it easier to bear. In truth, Adrien just wants it over and done with. He'd been hoping (although known that it would be unlikely) that they could just go downstairs to the repository and wake her up. No questions, no planning… When he's cooled down a bit, no doubt he'll realize that it's necessary. They can ill-afford another Hawk Moth… Not after what the last one cost them and the rest of Paris.

"There are other things we need to take into account to..." Nathalie actually sounds regretful as she speaks. "Namely your father."

Over the past three years, Adrien has accepted who his father is. That's not to say that he's happy about what the man's done or that he's even come close to forgiving him but at least he doesn't shudder every time the man is mentioned. Does he hate him? He's not entirely sure. Right now, the teen can't say if he could face his parent without flying off of the handle. He rubs his shoulder slowly. It's something of a reflex whenever the conversation changes to focus on him once more. To Nathalie, it's a clear sign that he's uncomfortable.

Still, the woman continues.

Gabriel will hear about his wife's awakening and nothing will stop him from coming back. Adrien has to be prepared. Decisions will need to be made about whether or not they let him back into their lives. Will they inform Emilie about her husband's actions or attempt to bury them? A thousand questions need to be asked. As more and more are raised and the teen struggles to answer many of them, he finds himself becoming increasingly disheartened. It must show as his guardian pauses, contemplating him in silence before declaring:

"I suppose a lot of this we can figure out whilst she's recovering..."

Adrien nods slowly. He's still struggling to get his head around all of this. It seems somewhat unreal. He can't even begin to imagine life with his mother back in the picture. She had been everything to him. Then, she had vanished and her shadow had loomed over the household. These past three years, he's paid her many a visit. Sometimes, he talks to her. Emilie has left a hole which is impossible to fill. At least that's what he's always thought… So why can't he envision a world where she is back with them?

He sits there for a little while, toying with his ring, mulling over everything that's been said and the implications.

"How long until we can wake her up?"

"In theory, we can begin tonight." Master Fu informs the teen, his expression still grave. "The process will be a slow one. It could easily take over a week before she's well enough to leave stasis."

Another way of saying that they had might as well start now. Every day she spends in her magical sleep is another that she slips further and further away. It would be cruel to keep her waiting because of her son's inability to process what was going on.

His world is changing and it's only just beginning to dawn on him.