There's a loud crash from the living room. Nathalie dashes in from the kitchen to find herself faced with Adrien lying face down on the ground, struggling to pick himself up.

It isn't the first time that he's fallen. She's grown somewhat accustomed to having to help him up. There's a reason why they'd moved the coffee table back from the spot where he parks his wheelchair and that he spends so much time in. He's very much trying to find his feet. He's clumsy and fragile, a bad mix. This time, he has hurt himself. She can see that quite easily. He struggles to lift himself up off of the floor but can't quite manage to do so. He falls back down a second later, breathing deeply.

The woman is quick to rush to his side, she doesn't make any attempts to pick him up however, more concerned about whether or not he's hurt himself more severely. Seeing her seems to give him something of a second wind as he makes an obvious effort to right himself. He manages to get to his knees with a little bit of assistance. Nathalie leaves him there however, keen to ensure that he hasn't worsened some of the damage done to him. The teen smiles in what's obviously intended to be a reassuring gesture. In actual fact, whenever he looks at her like that, it had the opposite of the desired effect. She finds herself looking a little more keenly, convinced that something somewhere must be wrong and that he's trying to conceal it from her. Eventually, she helps him back into his chair. He sits there, still offering her the occasional reassuring smile.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine…" His voice grows stronger and firmer with every day although still has a slight huskiness to it, something she's not entirely sure he'll ever lose. "I overreached, that's all."

"It doesn't matter how it happened." She reminds him, frustrated at him dodging the question. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"No…" He lets out a sigh a moment later. "I mostly caught myself, it was my shoulder I hit."

He pulls down the neck of his tee-shirt just so that she can see for herself. Sure enough, it's red. No doubt he'll have a bruise tomorrow. She'll trust him for the time being but keep an eye on him to ensure that he isn't attempting to hide any more of his suffering from them.

She stays with him for a few moments. It had come as quite a shock the first few times he'd fallen. He's proud, despite everything and to suddenly find himself so vulnerable and fragile, more often that not requiring assistance for even some of the more mundane tasks that he finds himself faced with on a daily basis. It isn't easy for him to find himself so helpless. Plagg's there of course and there's always someone around to help should he need it but surrendering that responsibility to another is difficult for him. She can see that. Her presence is required only for a few moments for some comfort and reassurance which needs no words to be spoken, after that, she leaves him be, assuming that all will be well. There are other matters which need tending to after all, namely their dinner.

Still, for whatever reason, that day, the image of him on the floor lingers in her mind longer than it usually would.

She heads back outside about half-an-hour later, carrying with her a bowl of that night's stew. Adrien's already out there, having wheeled himself down the ramp and had joined her grandmother outside. They were chatting amicably whilst Macaroon and the old shepherd dog played in the evening sun. Finally the temperature was a little more easily bearable out here. She serves the meal whilst the teen begins downing the first of a long list of pills. At least his appetite is decent. He eats calmly, informing them about what Marintte's been up to and said today.

Nathalie remains quiet, pensive. There's curiously a lot on her mind tonight even thought there really shouldn't be. For whatever reason everything just seemed to be a little bit more real. She has a somewhat more acute sense of her reality and that of the young man whom she's been caring for. The woman still manages to force a smile and there's even the occasional laugh that makes it out of her mouth but otherwise she finds herself not to be in the mood. Perhaps she is missing Jacques, although the man is sure to call frequently asking after both her and Adrien. As such, the notion is relatively quickly dismissed. She feels tired but at the same time, the prospect of returning to her bed is an unappealing one.

At this point, Adrien finds that he can more or less get himself into bed and tend to his own needs in that respect. If his broken hip and the lingering effects of flail chest continue to cause him some difficulty in moving about and he certainly wouldn't like to try walking all that far right now, he is however capable of standing and moving around, in short, he's less helpless and dependent on others. If nothing else, he reasons, all of this will have improved his upper-body strength, albeit at the expense of his legs. He's already anticipating a shock as far as they're concerned.

Every night, Nathalie comes in, just to ensure that he's made it as far as his bed and doesn't need anything. He almost never does but the few minutes of sedate company are welcome. Just a little bit of comfort, a reminder that he isn't alone and that there's someone here seeing him through all of this.

He sleeps in the room with Plagg and Macaroon. The former contributes to ensuring that he's in a familiar environment if only through the lingering stench of Camembert and goat's cheese. The latter, well, he's always at the foot of the bed snoring loudly. The door is kept open, ensuring that should he need to shout for something, he will be heard. That and he keeps his phone next to the bed, ready to dial for assistance should he require it. Thankfully, to this day, he never has. He finds himself made tired by his current condition and no doubt the multitude of drugs they have him on to guard against secondary infections and ensure that he recovers. As such, he generally sleeps through the night only being awoken by the first rays on the sun come morning.

Not tonight however.

Adrien finds himself awoken around one in the morning. The moon is out and bright, shining in through the slits in the shutters. Initially, he assumes that's what's disturbed him. Some part of his body has mistaken it for morning. Perhaps he would have been more willing to dismiss matters if it weren't for the feeling of a slight draft. It was hardly unpleasant, not in the heat of the hills of Provence. In fact it's precisely because he ends up edging closer to the air current that he realizes that the door is open more than it usually is. Macaroon isn't in here with him either…

Outside, the air is a good deal cooler and lighter. The only slight issue are the mosquitoes but those are kept at bay mostly thanks to some strongly scented candles. For all that it's late or early, it most certainly isn't quiet. The air is alive with the sound of insects, frogs, bats and owls. All making their home in the rather more bearable night.

Nathalie Sancoeur sits out there in the moonlight. She's leaning back in the old rocking chair, face turned towards the pale moonlight. Initially, it would be possible to mistake her for sleeping. Upon closer examination however, someone would realize that she was very much awake. Sedate, certainly but not asleep. It's a strange spectacle for those who know her. They wouldn't necessarily equate the sensible woman with being the sort to be out this late, seemingly contemplating the stars above. Another sign that so something isn't quite right: Macaroon has got his big head resting on her thigh, presumably drooling, and she isn't protesting.

"Why aren't you in bed?"

She asks the question to the young man who is now in the doorway. The words are spoken gently, there isn't a reprimand behind them. Adrien takes her lack of anger as an invitation and rolls himself outside, joining the woman a moment later. The teen eyes her nervously, trying to work out what's going on. She strikes him as being exhausted but otherwise pretty clear headed. She seems to be relaxed. As such, he opts to start a relatively innocuous discussion which will allow him to test the waters:

"What do you say? I'm hoping to be able to walk before summer ends."

"The season or just the vacation?" She asks him quietly.

"I think the season's probably more realistic." Adrien responds with a shrug of the shoulders.

"You go for it. If anyone can do it Adrien, it's you."

There's a tenderness to her voice, an affection that causes him to smile. He wishes that his father had spoken to him and looked at him in the same way that Nathalie does. She sees him, understands him… So when she looks at him, he looks at her and if she's learned to see past his own barriers and to sense when something isn't quite right. He can do the same. She's a tricky person to read and it's taken him years to see past the myriad of walls and defenses that she raises around her to protect herself from a world which, at some point, he knows must have hurt her badly for her to be the way that she is.

Sitting there, tonight though he sees Nathalie Sancoeur. He loves the woman and knows that something is wrong.

He just doesn't know how to approach the issue. It's rare for the woman to lose her temper with him but not entirely unknown. Unsure how sensitive she is right now, his first inclination is to tiptoe. He tries to guess what could be troubling her. They're safe here or so it feels. He knows that he's vulnerable but Nathalie has a miraculous of her own to help protect them as says the pair of glasses she now wears and the sleeping kwami on the table. Maybe its him… He sees the worry and pain every time that he falls and finds himself with another bruise or when he feels so darn tired that he can't even bring himself to answer them. He knows that he's hurting her and hates himself for it.

The teen lets out an uncertain sigh. He wants to reach out to take the hand that he'd spent so much time holding in the hospital but holds off. For the first time, he finds himself wondering if perhaps he should adopt a slightly more direct approach. It's not always been a successful one. If Nathalie doesn't particularly want to address an issue, she doesn't. She's more delicate about it now than she once was but all the same, he's uneasy.

"Man… Something's wrong." He phrases it as a statement, not a question.

She doesn't deny it. Instead, she lets out a little sigh. She seems defeated as she sits there. Silence settles in between them once more. He wonders and perhaps assumes that this is just her way of letting him know that she'd rather not talk about it. For a moment, he considers letting things be. She has Macaroon, he reasons that the dog must have sensed that she needed some form of companionship and come out here for her, he's good like that. Perhaps it would be best to leave the woman in peace, she can have her melancholic episodes from time to time but tends to get over them.

"There's a question you've always asked me but I've never once answered." She pauses for a moment, a nostalgic smile on her lips.

"Why-" His mouth was a little dry, forcing him to pause. "Why did you risk so much for me?"

How many times had he asked that question? He's lost count over the years. First of all, it had been Dylan to question Delphine, unsure why the woman who had always been so distant had suddenly taken to caring for him enough to risk her life. The mystery had deepened when he'd learned that she was Mayura and therefore only too aware of just who his father was. Still, she'd remained silent. When she'd become "Man", her refusal to answer had been gentler and he'd been less insistent. It still crosses his mind from time to time but he no longer feels the need to articulate it.

Now, for the first time, it seems as if that tradition is about to be broken. He'll get his answers:

"I was so ashamed Adrien, of what I'd done..." She lets out under her breath, turning back towards the stars. "I knew you were suffering but I just turned a blind eye to it. Then… Your father he discovered who you were..."

She shakes her head. This isn't helping him all that much. What it is, is avoiding the main issue. That's something that she's been doing for too long now. A part of her wonders what it even matters at this point. It was all so long ago and the feelings have long since dissipated. A part of her just wants to spit it all out and be done with it. Shame however causes her to look away. She can't bear to see the young man that she's watched grow up and care for these past few years in his current state, feeling that some of it could have been prevented. Already, she could imagine the young man's shock and betrayal if the truth was ever to come to light.

Now, the weight of the secret is proving to be a bit too much. Maybe it's the few classes of wine she's consumed, the beauty of the night or the way that Adrien Agreste looks at her but it just slips out of her mouth:

"I loved your father..." She whispers under her breath.

The words have the effect of a bomb being dropped. She sees the color draining from Adrien's faces. His features become slack. The shock was such that his jaw hung open. Perhaps there were a few things that he would have wanted to say, assurances that whatever she had to tell him couldn't be all that terrible. That all meant nothing when he heard the truth. The ugly and selfish reality of just what had been motivating her for some months whilst she was under the guise of Mayura. She wouldn't tell him anything else, not how it had seemed justified and even noble at the time. Right now, all she knows is that at some point, her actions are in part to blame for what's befallen the two of them.

"Wh-what?" Adrien manages eventually.

"Your father… The reason I worked for him, I loved him."

She is expecting anger. Even in his current state, she knows that he can get emotional. Ironically, the accident seems to have dulled some of the other things which had been troubling him previously but resentment isn't one of them. He truly does hate his parents.

The woman wonders why she's telling him all this when he's fragile. A part of her reasons that he always has been on the sensitive side of things and that ultimately it wouldn't matter when she told him. She would probably have been better off waiting until he was less dependent on her. As it stands, he still needs her help for a good many parts of his day-to-day life, turning his back on that may prove to be challenging. Maybe it's just her being selfish again. Trying to ensure that he can't run away and leave her even after she's shown her true self to him.

"Do you still love him?" Adrien asks her in a hushed voice, barely anything above a whisper.

"No… That particular spell wore off a long time ago."

She lets out a sigh and leaves it at that. She's told him what she should have said from the very beginning and most certainly shouldn't have brought up at a time such as this. She lets him chew things over, aware that it's too late to do anything about it quite yet.

Nathalie Sancoeur knows that she's done a lot wrong in her life. She defies anyone to make it through their existence without making at least a couple of blunders. She seemed to have been especially prone to horrendous errors of judgment that have seen others, and on occasion herself pay the price. If only she could have been the sole person to suffer for it. She closes her eyes and tries to find some of the rest which seems to be eluding her tonight. She wishes that she could escape, more than that, she wants to take back all of the suffering that's happened because of her mistakes and inability to do what was right and ignore those troublesome feelings.

She doesn't know what all of this will mean for them. She wants to be forgiven, of course she does but a part of her thinks that to be selfish. She almost wishes that for once, Adrien would be hard-nosed and finally decide that enough is enough. She wouldn't blame him for it. So many people have hurt him and betrayed him in the past. Still, somehow, Nathalie finds herself breathing a little bit easier. It's the last great secret that she's kept from him which has just been spilled. At the very least, she isn't a liar.

"Man..." Adrien begins softly, stirring her from her thoughts. "I don't think I can quite get up yet but do you think you could give me a hug?"

She turns back to face him, having to do something of a double-take to ensure that she hasn't misheard or misunderstood something that he's said. He offers her a little smile. It doesn't say much but what it does speak of is forgiveness. There's a tenderness behind his gaze, an affection which she knows well. She's unsettled him but ultimately, that doesn't matter to him.

The woman gets up in silence. She approaches the young man, crouches down in front of his wheelchair and very carefully slips her arms around him. She'd been given some instructions about how best to approach him. What areas were safe enough to touch and those which were sensitive. He'd broken his ribs badly, to the extent that they had actually come away from his body: flail chest, as unpleasant an ailment as it was potentially dangerous. Whilst it's healing up now, the area remains horribly painful and requires the occasional consumption of painkillers to keep it in check. That's on her mind but not as much as it could have been as she gives him a hug. They've held off so far simply because of the fact that he's been injured… Now she's more willing to take a chance.

Adrien's grip is loose but none-the-less gives off a real feeling of affection. He isn't angry, nor is he quite as emotional as she had feared that he would be. If anything, he seems to be rather accepting. The woman neither understands nor questions it, accepting things for what they are. She closes her eyes, content to be reminded of what she has. She doesn't know if she's forgiven or if it's not the sort of thing that he would ever have held against her in the first place. It suddenly doesn't seem all that important.

In the scheme of things, it was quite a brief hug. Perhaps some of that is because, despite his best intentions, he is still injured. He gives her a gentle smile. They'll be alright. She realizes that much. Curiously however, she finds herself thinking about a discussion she'd had with Marinette some time ago, then finds herself back in that darned hospital room. There's three words on the tip of her tongue. They've always been there – at least for the past few years – but not once has she dared to utter them. Something else suddenly crosses her mind.

"Give me five seconds."

He seems confused but doesn't attempt to stop the woman as she returns back inside. Sure enough, she isn't gone all that long, coming back a moment later with a familiar old cardboard box. He recognizes it instantly. Even in the darkness of the night, she can see his face light up suddenly. She hands it to him all the same, there's less ceremony this time. All the same, as he opens up the packaging to find himself faced with a familiar watch. The dial and glass has been fixed. He wastes no time in putting it back on his wrist.

The teen looks back up to her, an expression of warmth and affection present on his face speaks volumes. Perhaps he had assumed it to be broken beyond repair. As soon as he'd been well enough to leave the hospital, Nathalie had taken it to a jewelers. It had arrived back a few days ago but she's been waiting for the right moment to return it.

Now that leaves the woman with one last thing which needs to be done. Just a few syllables. They should have been spoken long ago but fear and shame of her past actions have prevented her from uttering them. She takes a deep, if slightly shaky breath. She thought that she would need courage, what she'd told Adrien about her feelings still holds true today, even where he's concerned. They don't come to her easily and even when they do, she often struggles with articulating them. Even when its three little words. Three little words with a very big meaning.

"I love you..."

The next thing she knows Adrien's thrown his arms around her neck. Startled the woman has just enough time to brace herself. He's heavy against her and she knows that he just hurt his hip. His joy however drowns all of that out. Somehow, she's able to guide both of them down so that they're on their knees and that there's less far for them to fall. If he's suffering from the position, he doesn't let it show, refusing to let go of her.

The woman assumes that he's alright. She closes her eyes and forgets about her surroundings just for a few moments. Nathalie rubs his back gently, it's one of the few places that he's not been all that badly hurt. All the same, she's careful. It takes her a few moments to register a slight shuddering as he breathes. It's not something that's entirely unfamiliar to her. All the same, she finds herself smiling slightly, it isn't enjoyment or amusement so much as sympathy which causes the action:

"Are you crying again?"

"Maybe just a little..."

This isn't just her declaration. There's far more going on here. She can sense that. No doubt everything's just catching up with him. Up until this point, Nathalie has been impressed by how well Adrien's kept himself together emotionally. She'd been warned by the doctors - doctors who only knew half of the story, that there was every chance that he was going to have some rough patches and that she should keep an eye on him for that very reason. Whilst he hasn't been entirely capable of concealing the entirety of the pain, for the most part he's taken this far better than she could ever have hoped. Now though, the past few weeks, maybe even years, appear to finally have come home to roost.

She's just the catalyst. She's good at being that.

It doesn't quite matter how long he cries for. She's there for him throughout. Some of it's pain and some if it's relief. A lot of it just blends together. Nathalie can only do so much. Plagg is nearby. The kwami provides comfort simply through proximity. He's been with Adrien through much of this: a constant companion. As carefree and lazy as he might seem at time, she knows that the strange creature does love the boy he's been partnered with.

Eventually, he feels well enough to stand or rather to get back into his wheelchair. There's no longer the desperate urge to cling onto her. She's forced to help him. It's not easy for her to bear his weight and help him to stand so that he can slip back into the seat. Plagg and Kaalki's attempts to help him, tugging at his shirt are as feeble as they are amusing. Somehow though, they manage. Truth be told, he's stronger than she'd been expecting and is able to bear his weight on his good leg just long enough to allow them to settle him back down. Still, it proves to be something of an effort and leaves her needing to take a breather for a few seconds afterwards.

"Are you going back in?" The young man asks her after a while.

"No…" She sits back down in her chair, taking a deep breath. "I think I might spend just a little bit longer out here."

"I think I might join you."

Nathalie smiles softly before raising her head once more to see the stars above. She'll take the company.