To The Keeper of Worlds: Considering that they are all still just 16 or so, they have a long time before they need to worry about that! I am not planning to write any teen pregnancy stories…

To geekqueen2010 (if you've gotten this far): Thanks for reading and reviewing so much of what I read yesterday. It was amazing to follow the review notifications!

Two hours later, Marinette and Ana made their way back to the stairwell down to the metro station. Looking from this direction, the path they had followed to the surface was completely invisible; Marinette couldn't tell anyone had been to the abandoned station in a decade.

"I love your earrings!" Marinette commented, studying them more closely. One was shaped like a horseshoe, and the other a butterfly.

"These? I actually made them myself, a couple weeks ago to honor Uncle Max and Aunt Sabrina," Ana told her, fingering the earrings. "There isn't much to do, but we've got tons of garbage lying around and nothing to do with it, so I work it into jewelry."

"Did you make your charm bracelet, too?" Marinette pointed at the now-violet bracelet.

"I found the chain when I was really little," she answered, nodding. "Then, as I found scraps I could use, I worked them into the shapes I wanted. See?" She held the bracelet up, pointing to each charm as she described them. "Fox and turtle for my parents, bee for Mom, ladybug for… well, you. When I found this little piece of black metal, Mom suggested that I should finish the set by working it into a cat. This way, it feels like I'm always carrying a piece of them – the way things should have been – with me."

"That's quite a talent you have," Marinette observed as she followed Ana along the path. "So how did you get to be part of your Mom's group?"

"I guess I was raised into it," Ana replied with a shrug. "Mom found all the heroes who survived, along with a few people who wanted a chance to stop Cat Bug Noir, and brought them all down here. I remember there being more at one point, but Mom had a few missions go badly, so now we're all that's left. In a sense, this is all I've ever known. Mom didn't want me to be involved any more than I had to be, but Aunt Sabrina has helped me find ways to be part of things – hunting for supplies, going out on patrols, and the like. She's even been training me. I was only 2 when he took over, so he doesn't know what I look like today. That gives me an edge.

"I want to do more, but Mom still thinks of me as a child to protect."

"You're lucky you have someone who loves you," Marinette told her. "When Adrien was growing up, he had nobody after his mother died."

"He had you and my parents. He had my Mom," Ana objected.

"Well, yes, but it's not the same as a loving parent. I'm glad Chloe has been caring for you."

"I guess." Ana frowned. "I just wish she wouldn't treat me like I'm a child."

Marinette giggled. "You are a child. But it's okay," she quickly added, seeing the hurt in Ana's eyes. "We were all children when we started. I was your age when Master Fu made me the new Ladybug. I know your parents would want you to be safe, even though they would be proud of you."

"I just – I want to help," Ana said, running a hand through her hair. "I want to help put what's left of my world back in balance."

At that moment they arrived in the main room, and the butterfly detached from Ana's charm bracelet, changed back to white, and returned to Impératrice Pourpre, who immediately detransformed. Marinette looked around and saw that the whole group had gathered around the tables with the camp stoves and were eating a meager meal. Sabrina went over and nudged Chloe, who looked up and waved the two of them over. Marinette released Ana's hand and helped herself to the rice dish simmering on one stove before taking the empty seat next to Adrien. Ana sat opposite Marinette, between Chloe and Max.

"Did the two of you have a good chat?" Chloe asked, passing a bowl of wilted vegetables to Marinette.

"I had no idea that's what you were like at my age!" Ana told her, grabbing a handful of carrots.

"Were you telling her stories about me?" Chloe demanded. She smirked. "Do I have to even the score with some stories about you? Perhaps that time you stepped in a pie while trying to kiss Adrien?"

"Oh, please, no," Marinette groaned, burying her head in her hands to hide her flushed face.

"Hmm, perhaps after you're back home," Chloe said pensively. "But then the gloves are off!"

"So why did you say this is your mistake before we left?" Adrien asked, taking a bite of his dinner. "I mean, you're not the one who made future-me do all of this. It's not your fault."

"Isn't it?" Chloe replied, looking him in the eye intently. "If I had done any of a number of things differently, perhaps this would never have happened. If Kim and I hadn't gotten in each other's way at the funeral, we might have disrupted his powers, paralyzed him, and taken his miraculous before anyone else got hurt. If we had acted in Portugal after Mar's death, same thing – he certainly wasn't in a position to stop us! I was even hugging him before the others arrived, and the earrings were right there… I was just too wrapped up in my grief to realize how close to the edge he really was.

"But all of that pales in comparison to my greatest mistake: the one I interrupted earlier today."

Marinette looked over at Adrien, uneasy. "You mean…"

Chloe's face fell and she put her arm around Ana's shoulders. She explained, "I mean what I finally realized after all of this happened, while I was consoling Ana and trying to keep her quiet so Adrien wouldn't find us the night after the funeral. I should not have pushed you back together before you were really ready to talk about the why. Why did you react the way you did when Adrien nearly beat three bad guys to death? Why did Adrien react to you getting shot the way that he did? That was an important discussion for you to have, and if you'd actually had that conversation when you were finally ready for it and not when I thought you should be… I don't know, maybe you would have worked it all out in the end and everything would be sunshine and roses right now.

"Instead, I forced you back together at the worst possible time. The initial shock had worn off so you weren't ready to just pick up and move forward to confront this later. But you hadn't gotten to the point of being ready to really dive into it. Instead, you were ready to do absolutely anything to get back what you had before. Adrien was ready to just accede to your request and promise to be a good boy, just so you would talk to him again, Mar."

"I wasn't–" Adrien began, before Chloe cut him off.

"You did, or at least in this timeline you did," she told him. She scoffed. "I was there, remember? I saw it in your eyes before I walked out of the coffee shop, even though I wasn't willing to admit it. I saw it in your eyes again after your 'talk.' You came out and met me and Alya and told us that everything was fine, you'd learned your lesson, and you were going to find a better way to respond if Marinette ever got hurt. Only you didn't. You probably meant it at the time, but you didn't have any reason to follow through. Mar was just as desperate to have you back as you were to have her, so it's not like she wanted to revisit this issue later!"

"Even if all of that is true, it's still not your fault," Adrien insisted. "You can't take responsibility for his actions."

"Oh, I know," Chloe answered, chuckling ruefully. "This guilt is a never-ending cycle: I throw the blame at myself for the fact that we're hiding down here scavenging for scraps, I realize it was Adrien who actually did this, I remember my part in causing it… and the cycle continues. I may have planted some of the seeds 20 years ago, but it was Adrien who watered them. My therapist will have a field day with me if we ever get back to having those again! But that's a discussion for another day, when we've fixed all of this and restored balance to the universe."

The group finished their meal and cleaned up the eating area in silence after that. Chloe showed Marinette and Adrien the small storage closet they had emptied out and converted into a pantry for their scavenged food supplies. "There's not much in here," she told them, "but you can help yourselves if you get hungry later. For now, however, you'd better rest up, sweeties. Tomorrow's going to be a big day."

Marinette nodded and went over to the pile of sleeping bags, followed by Adrien. She pulled a Ladybug-patterned one out of the pile and dragged it to the far corner of the station. Adrien set the plain black sleeping bag he had chosen a meter away from hers, pulled off his shoes, and slid inside. Marinette got into her own sleeping bag and lay down, staring at the cracked tiling of the ceiling. A light on the other side of the station buzzed and flickered intermittently. Someone nearby let out a snort, and Marinette jumped. Tikki had already curled up next to Marinette's head and fallen asleep, her breathing relaxed and even, but Marinette couldn't sleep. She looked over at Adrien's sleeping bag. He had fallen asleep on his side, facing her. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open.

Marinette closed her eyes, but sleep eluded her. Everything was so new and confusing. In this world she and Adrien had gotten married and she'd been pregnant with a baby. And then, before they could enjoy their "happily ever after," she had been killed and Adrien had gone mad with grief. And now she was expected to fix this world again!? After future-Marinette's love for future-Adrien was the thing that threw it so far out of balance in the first place? She rolled over and stared at the tiled wall, following the cracks with her eyes. Each crack spider-webbed out into its own tiny pattern of cracks, each of which led to its own series of cracks. As she examined the wall more closely, she realized that each and every tile had a crack in it; if someone wanted to restore just this one wall, he would have to replace every single tile. That would be the work of many lifetimes! She buried her face in the pillow and groaned. How could she defeat Cat Bug Noir and restore balance to an entire universe?

She should have stayed in her own universe with Adrien.

Adrien.

She was not alone. She was not alone here, and she was not alone in this mission.

Marinette quietly slipped out of her sleeping bag and tiptoed over to Adrien's. He didn't wake up as she unzipped the sleeping bag, slid inside, and turned to rest her back against his warm chest. She wrapped his arm around her chest, leaned back against him, and fell asleep to the rhythm of his breathing and steady beating of his heart against her back.