Author's note: Thanks again for all of your reviews.

/

The weeks that follow seem to prove Adrien's initial fears to be relatively unfounded. The Agrestes are markedly quiet. They don't chase their son or even inquire after him. In fact, they must be waiting for the young to make a move as they don't make any attempt to contact him. It's more than their son could have hoped for.

He's back to sleeping on a couch, a far cry from his usual life of luxury yet the young man doesn't complain. There's a certain spring in his step as he walks. Every morning, he greets Nathalie with a smile. It's the mundane tasks that he seems to take a surprising amount of pleasure in carrying out. Just doing the dishes and trying his best to prepare a meal seem to entertain him. The woman he lives with certainly isn't about to complain about having a helper. His nightmares, whilst they haven't disappeared completely, he claims, aren't as severe as they once were.

"It's like I've started a new life!" He tells her and Marinette when the girl comes round for lunch one day. "I'm free!"

They want to believe him. He certainly doesn't appear to be lying. Nathalie remains cautious however, being naturally a little bit more cautious and pessimistic although some might argue also more worldly-wise. She doesn't want him to go back to how he was but the woman remains weary least he have a sudden relapse. The mind is a curious and somewhat fragile thing and Adrien's been forced to live through so much. All it would take was one little nightmare, not even related to any of his trauma and she fears that it would be enough to cause him to feel as if all of his perceived progress was for nothing. She doesn't want to see him break again…

He's had his ups and downs previously although this high period definitely seems to be lasting longer than she's accustomed to. So she dares to hope that this rupture with his previous life might have caused something to shift inside of that head of his, causing it to click back into place and to chase the darkness away. Either that or he's just fooling himself. She can't be entirely sure. Whatever the case, a few days in even Nathalie is growing relaxed and confident around him. He seems to generally be embracing this new chance that he's found himself offered.

After a week or so, the young man makes a request which both catches her off-guard and doesn't:

"Your boyfriend, Jacques… Would it be okay if I met him?"

She can't very well refuse. A few days ago, she might have had some reservations but at this point, she feels as if he's ready. She trusts his judgment. After all, it's just going to be a little discussion. Jacques is, for the most part, a calm man and he knows enough about the current situation – although far from everything – to know to tread lightly around the young man. It's not as if she can realistically keep those two parts of her life separate indefinitely. Sooner or later the two of them will have to meet. Either that or she'll have to give up one. Not something she particularly wants to do.

So the man is summoned for a lunch. It seems perfect. Not too long, not too short. There's no formality involved. She even takes the precaution of ensuring that it's a lunch at home. It makes this as relaxed as possible. There's nobody else to take into account. Just the three of them. She wants to take things slowly. There's a possibility, albeit a small one she feels, that the two might not get along all that well. If that happens it's best that they're someplace private.

He comes round on time for Tuesday lunch. The man had been working although he'd clearly made some effort to clean himself up. He seems to be relaxed enough, as does Adrien. That allows Nathalie who had perhaps been more nervous than both of them put together to breathe just that little bit easier. Instead on focusing on ensuring that everything goes swimmingly, she chooses to take a chance and allow things to flow, consequently to try and enjoy herself.

"Nathalie's told me a lot about you." The man tells Adrien upon shaking his hand.

"I dread to think." Was the teen's comparatively jovial reply.

"Nah. She says you're a good kid."

The two get chatting. It's very much a case of the two of them getting to know one another. Up until this point, Nathalie's only told the teen a little bit about the man. Not because there's anything she particularly wants to hide but simply because there was only so much that she could manage to say about him to give the young man an idea of what he was like. She's told him a few stories, tried to pain a vague picture for him. Adrien's never told her what exactly just what or how much he saw and she's never asked. Only that he was there one night on a neighboring rooftop watching when she had company. She knows that there's a possibility he could have witnessed a great deal but decides against questioning him about it and hopes that he had the sense of modesty to look away.

So this is very much new territory.

She focuses more reading on Adrien than she does on Jacques, simply because she's known him longer and finds it to be a considerably easier task. He seems to be relaxed. The smile he wears isn't the one that he forces himself to adopt when he's trapped with little other option. He seems to be fascinated by the man. It's the novelty of it, Nathalie supposes, this isn't something that he's ever encountered before: a new partner. She'd shied away from such things as Delphine. Gabriel's shadow had been an oppressive presence which she had struggled to rid herself of.

"So, you deal with all the stuff like limos?" Adrien questions the man, seemingly intrigued by his line of work.

"Not just but we do get a lot of the fancy cars given that it's sort of our specialty." He pauses a moment, glancing briefly towards Nathalie before continuing. "If you're interested in that sort of thing, maybe you'd like to come round and have a look?"

"I'd love to!" The teen pauses a moment before shifting so as to face Nathalie. "Is that okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" She replies with a gentle smile. "-and you don't need to ask for my permission. You're an adult now, remember?"

The joyful smile she gets might seem misplaced to some but to Nathalie, it's confirmation that she's doing something right.

Jacques is perhaps something of a throwback to the people whom Dylan and Delphine had socialized with as opposed to the adults whom Adrien Agreste typically found himself exposed to. Whilst he's well-mannered enough, he seems to be a bit worldly-wise, a far cry from Mayor Bourgeois. The teen tries his best to study how the stranger interacts with Nathalie. He's never known the woman to be fond of anyone in that way and he's curious to see just why this mechanic is different. If nothing else, Adrien notes that Nathalie tolerates him calling her "Nat", not a given.

He has to leave at quarter-to-one so as to get back to work but leaves Adrien the address of the garage and tells him to drop by whenever he feels like it. The teen promises to do so. When he does depart, the young man turns towards Nathalie. She smiles at him but quickly realizes that there's a question coming. Hardly unexpected.

"Man, can I ask you something?"

"You're going to." She replies with a gentle and encouraging smile.

"Why him?" The teen stutters a bit before adding a few words quickly. "I mean. I like him, he's nice but- Are you into that sort of thing again?"

"It's..." Her voice trails off as she thinks about the appropriate response. "I don't know exactly. Men had been asking me from time to time. Some I didn't dislike all of them or even most of them. Then, Jacques did and I don't know… Something just clicked. I said "yes"."

Adrien blinks a few times. She knows that he's hopelessly romantic.

She'd been aware that he tended to drift towards such sappiness even before the woman had known of his secret identity. Perhaps her attitude confuses him a little. He doesn't know about some of the follies that she's given way to in the past and the worst of all. The one which she's not sure she can ever tell him about. If he knew that secret, things would be different. Better or worse? She can't really say. It doesn't matter at any rate the woman reasons.

It's all in the past now.

The teen shifts once more as he tentatively asks her:

"And… He makes you happy?"

"Yes. He does."

Again, Adrien seems to need to think about the matter before he can give her any form of answer. She doesn't rush him, reasoning that it's quite a lot for him to take in. It isn't something minor that the teen is being asked to consider. At this point, he's more or less chosen to live with her. That happens to have coincided with a period where for the first time, she finds herself willing to share her life with another. He might very well be about to become a part of that. As far as she's concerned, he has all the time that he needs. Days and weeks if that's what's required.

He surprises her with a smile which she knows well enough. For a moment, she contemplates bracing herself but it proves to be unnecessary. The hug that she receives is a gentle one, not one of the back crushers that he's been known to deal out from time to time. She laughs gently slightly surprised by the sudden show of affection.

"If you're happy, I'm happy!" He proclaims quietly.

She smiles but says nothing.

They'll head down south soon, back to Provence, to the Cabanon. Perhaps she'll invite Jacques to come along. She hasn't quite decided yet. A few more meetings and dinners will be required before she can make her final decision. For the time being, Nathalie chooses to embrace the moment.

For whatever reason, Adrien seems to be recovering. It feels as if the last pieces of Dylan which he'd never truly been able to shake off are slowly but surely falling away and the young man that's taking his place is closer to the boy that she can remember is taking his place. She's not complaining.