Author's Note: It's been a year already, huh? Well, I am glad to inform you that this time I have more, much more content for you.

This is the first of the remaining four chapters. I will be updating sooner than in another year ;)

Merry Christmast to Remasa as this was originally her gift, and to you all!

Chapter 2. Pollen of Christmas Past

With a loud thump Hawkmoth landed in the middle of a street, directly in the way of a bus. The driver didn't even bother with honking, his bored eyes trained on something far behind the villain.

Long forgotten instincts took over and the moth wielder leaped onto the pavement in an impressive grand jete. He released a heavy breath and patted himself to check if all the important bits were still in place. He froze as his eyes fell on his suit. It was still purple, but with dark and light pattern of a broken eggshell covering the material. The cracks seemed to move when he wasn't watching because he could swear that they were different each time he looked. He inspected his reflection in a nearby window. His skull mask was still in place, though the same lines wove their way over the silver surface, making him squirm, as if they were crawling over his exposed skin.

He almost jumped again, as a honeyed voice whispered into his ear.

'Evening, Gabriel.'

Hawkmoth turned around and saw another kwami. A yellow blob with black paws was hovering at his eye level, totally unperturbed that someone might spot her.

'I'm Pollen,' she dipped her head in a slight bow. 'I've been waiting for you.'

His brows furrowed as he analysed the creature. She had very disturbing eyes, blue where the white would normally be, but maybe it was an insect thing. Black antennae stuck out of the bulbous head. Slightly darker fuzz adorned the neck and shoulders of the sprite and when she turned he saw a stinger at the back. There had been a bee miraculous and a bee hero in the Book, so he couldn't say he was surprised at the sight of a bee kwami.

'What is going on here?' he drawled. 'You want to get me killed? On Christmas Eve? You don't know who you're messing with.' He waved a warning finger.

The bee blinked, 'You're not Gabriel? Gabriel Agreste? Currently in the possession of the moth miraculous?'

Hawkmoth released a frustrated growl, 'Enough of this circus!' he yelled. 'I'm going home!'

'But…' the creature looked at him, perplexed, 'you already are home…'

Something in the kwami's tone made him finally look around, only to discover they were standing in front of a carpenter's workshop, its name announced in stylish bronze letters on the signboard above them.

'P. Agreste and Son'

Gabriel felt his head spinning and his heartbeat sped up to astronomical rate. He hadn't been in this place in years. It was hard to believe the signboard would still be here. He dared a peek inside and retracted immediately.

'It's impossible,' he whispered more to himself than to his yellow companion. His hands involuntarily went to his hair with an intent of grabbing a handful, but then he remembered his super suit prevented that. He wondered how his heart managed to beat even faster than before and what it meant when one suffered from tinnitus.

'I need you to calm down, honey,' the bee eyed him warily, noticing his state. 'And I might be able to provide you with some answers.'

The moth wielder opened his mouth but the kwami silenced him with a flick of her paw.

'Ah-ah-ah,' she chided. 'Only when you calm down and behave!'

Gabriel closed his eyes and calmed his breathing. He slowly started climbing down from his adrenaline rushed high. He simply must have been disoriented after his sudden abduction from the lair. Then the close encounter with the bus made his stomach clench even further. He should have thought of taking control of his emotions himself. Nothing good ever came from running around like a headless chicken.

With last deep breath he returned to himself. In more than one sense, as he looked at the occupant of the workshop again. A teenage boy with pale blonde, combed back hair and icy blue eyes sat at the table in the huge room. It was him all right, about three decades ago. This was his home and his father's workplace. This was where he grew up.

'I don't really need to ask,' the bee kwami said conversationally. 'I can see you've recognized the place and the person.'

Hawkmoth nodded, not taking his eyes off the teenager.

'Do you know the date?' the yellow sprite inquired.

Gabriel considered this. He stared at the boy for a long moment, analyzing his clothes and surroundings. His gaze swept over the furnishings and equipment too. His head started spinning again and he had to lean on his cane, as his knees buckled when the realization hit him.

'December 1987,' he finally said, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. 'Near Christmas, but I'm not sure about the exact date.'

'Christmas Eve,' his companion supplied. 'There are certain limits to when we can take you. The day is one of them.'

Gabriel's gaze swept again over the casual clothes his younger self was wearing, as well as the contents of the table. The food there was not really different from their everyday grub, humble cuisine of the working class, nothing special, luxurious or réveillon worthy.

'Why are we here?' he asked again, but this time his voice was hollow. Once he realized when he was, he didn't have it in him to fight this. Hawkmoth was one of a few people aware of the powers miraculouses held, and every sense including common sense told him that he really had returned to 1987. The air had a crisp bite to it. Unmistakable scents from a nearby bistro mixed with the smell of wood, varnish and grease. Cars rushing over the cobblestones sang a distant song that used to lull him to sleep. His childhood in a nutshell.

'You know this as well,' the yellow sprite's voice brought his reminiscence to an abrupt end. 'This is the last Christmas you spent with your father.'

'I know that. I was here!' Gabriel felt a painful tug in his chest at the reminder and sudden wetness appeared in his long dried eyes. He took another calming breath. 'I want to know why you took me here.'

Pollen hesitated, choosing her words with care, 'You could say I'm a Kwami of Christmas Past. At least for tonight. I was asked to take care of the first part your journey through time, so that you wouldn't get lost or…'

'Get into trouble?' the man asked but the kwami shook her head.

'That would be practically impossible. Getting lost though…' she gazed at him intently, 'getting lost in the past is much easier than it seems.'

Gabriel tried to keep the eye contact but faltered under the weight of her stare. He decided to pretend he wanted to take another look at his younger self. Mini Gabe was sketching furiously, not minding the food or the clattering coming from the next room, where, as he now recalled, his father was preparing the gifts.

'Shall we go inside?' Pollen suggested. 'Not that we can get cold, but I think it would be better if we were there.'

'Wait!' Hawkmoth tore his gaze from the boy. 'Won't they see us?'

'Remember that bus you encountered earlier? The driver didn't see you, did he?'

'He almost killed me!'

The bee giggled as if he said something really silly. 'The bus wouldn't have caused any harm,' she explained, seeing his bemused expression. 'Although it seems like you're really here, we occupy a different dimension, temporarily adjacent to this time.' To illustrate her point she put her paws together until they were a hair's width apart. 'No one can see us or hear us. We are less than ghosts to them. Barely a whisper in the wind.'

Hawkmoth turned to the window again and gulped heavily. He clenched his fists as if in this way he could secure himself some courage floating in the air. Pollen watched in silence as he stared at the inside of the workshop, jaw set in stone, eyes blinking away the tears, brow furrowed. Who would have thought that it would be this hard.

'Let's go,' he finally said and his hand hovered over the doorknob before passing right through. He made another grab for it with similar effects. 'How do we-?'

'Just go through the door, Gabriel,' the kwami chuckled as if it was the most obvious thing on earth.

Reluctantly, he put his palm over the door and pushed. The gloved hand disappeared behind the wood. Pollen smiled and flew inside. Hawkmoth followed her.

Adjacent dimension or not, he was home. He knew this place by heart. Even after all these years he still remembered the smells, the play of light on the windows, the cracks in the ceiling, the sounds the floorboards made.

He gasped when a tall, broad figure appeared at the door, towering not only over the skinny teen at the table, but also over the adult version of his son. Pascal Agreste was already on the northern side of 45, but he could easily pass for a man approaching retirement. Years of demanding, physical work showed in his ashen complexion, in dark bags under his eyes and deep wrinkles covering his face. A thick mane of pale blond hair surrounded his head, sticking up at odd angles and giving him the appearance of a lighting-strike survivor. Unlike the hair, the mustache adorning his upper lip was perfectly groomed, creating a very disturbing contrast.

Gabriel looked into the icy blue eyes, so similar to his own, and felt the pang of regret, that they couldn't see him. A ghost of smile danced on his lips as he watched a huge calloused hand gently touching mini Gabe's shoulder. The boy jumped, startled by the sudden contact and the man guffawed. The roar of laughter echoed in the spacious workshop, so cordial that it would be impossible not to join in. The teen snorted and did his best to suppress his amusement, but in vain. He cracked a lopsided grin at his father and playfully hit him on the shoulder.

'Daaaaad!' he whined. 'Don't laugh! You scared me!'

'Sorry! Sorry!' the older Agreste raised his hands in a universal gesture of surrendering. 'But I wasn't exactly stealthy. Not my fault you spaced out just now. What are you working on?'

The boy hesitated for a moment before passing the sketchbook. Hawkmoth glimpsed a slim silhouette with a half-finished suit before Pascal took it. He eyed the sketch appreciatively. 'You got really good with proportions and if you can save the world from those ridiculous broad shoulder jackets, Paris would probably found you a statue.' he chuckled goodnaturedly and started flipping through the sketchbook.

Gabriel just stood there, enchanted with the memory replayed just for his eyes. Soon father and son started on their dinner, still deep in discussion over art and fashion styles. And then it was time to exchange gifts. Teen Gabe presented Pascal with a framed portrait of the older man. As his father admired the painting Gabriel dared to step closer to take a peek too. The portrait was impressionistic - in Pascal's beloved style. Gabriel still remembered how long it took to get every detail right. How he had painstakingly applied every color, every beam of light. How he mused on the tones to keep the mood light. His fourteen years old self had poured all the love he had for his father into the canvas and he later found consolation in the fact that he'd managed to complete it before…

The moth wielder shook his head and stepped back.

Now it was time for Pascal to hand his gifts and Gabriel shivered at the thought. The last gifts he had ever received from his father were more than special. They changed his life forever.

Pascal placed a large box in the middle of the table and put a drawing next to it.

'That's my last year's gift for you,' young Gabriel pointed out, questioning gaze switching between the box and the picture. 'Why have you taken it from the wall?'

'Open the box, Gab,' the older man encouraged, curling his mustache with mischievous smirk.

The boy didn't need to be told twice. He made a quick work on the ribbons and the paper. He slowly pushed the lid aside and the walls of the cardboard container fell down to reveal the contents. Hawkmoth gasped in time with his younger self. He forgot how beautiful this was. The two Gabriels stared in silence at the wooden sculpture in the middle of the table.

It was a butterfly, seemingly taking flight from the cone-shaped pedestal. Its wings were stretched wide, like they would flutter any second. The wings themselves were not solid, but chiseled in intricate pattern, looking more like lace than wood. The butterfly was swaying slightly, balancing on its middle limbs - the only point of contact with the pedestal. It was a masterpiece of balance, of sculpture, of imitation. And it was the same butterfly as in the picture laying on the table.

'You like it?' Pascal asked after a while.

'Like it? Like it?' Younger Gabriel whispered, his attention still fully absorbed by this exquisite gift. 'This is beyond beautiful, dad! This is… I can't even think of any words that would do it justice! Thank you!' With that final cry the teen threw himself at his father and drowned in his embrace.

'That's a butterfly all right,' Pollen whistled appreciatively. 'Butterfly essence trapped in wood. Reminds me of how Nooroo came to being,' she added under her breath. 'Was that what your father did for a living?'

Hawkmoth shook his head. 'He was a carpenter. He made furniture, mostly kitchen cupboards, tables or chairs sometimes.'

Pollen's brow furrowed as she gawked and the butterfly sculpture again. Teen Gabe tapped a wing with his finger sending the shape into an excited dance.

'He should have been an artist,' Gabriel continued in a hollow voice. 'Those hands could work magic with anything they touched. And his creativity was astounding. To see the shape in a crude slab of wood, to imagine the complex form in simple, mundane ingredients,' he brushed away a stray tear that escaped to his cheek. 'He taught me that. He taught me how to look for treasures hidden from uninspired eyes.'

Father and son engaged in a heated discussion on the details of the sculpture and the boy's drawings. Pascal's hand never left the teen's shoulder. The man's eye shone as he stared proudly at their two creations, accepting praise from his son and replying in kind.

Hawkmoth decided he had seen as much as he could take. He turned to the window. The street fell quiet, warm light filtering through the curtains of neighboring houses. In each of them people were feasting, eating and cheering. Just like his younger self, oblivious to what was about to come.

'What happened?' Pollen asked, as if reading his mind.

'Life happened,' he barked back through clenched teeth. 'We needed to eat something other than praise. He worked his fingers to the bone, so that there would be roof over our heads, food on the table, paper and pencils on my desk. My father did everything he could so that I would have what I needed.'

'This is your last Christmas with your father?'

'Yes,' Gabriel confirmed, voice breathless. Finally he tore his eyes from the street and turned back to the pair at the table. 'This life, the amount of work he took, it was too much.'

Pollen buzzed silently in reply. She opened her mouth to say something but Hawkmoth stopped her with a raised hand. He stared at his father, as Pascal pulled the second, smaller box from his pocket and put it in front of the teen.

This box wasn't gift-wrapped nor decorated with a bow. But it wasn't simple either. Black octagonal shape had been engraved with strange red patterns. It was tied with a simple string and supplied with a small card.

'"To open in the darkest times to gain help",' the boy read. He reached for the knot, but his father stopped him before he could untie the string.

'Don't open it now, Gab. I'm serious,' Pascal's tone was surprisingly stern. 'This has been in our family for generations. It's apparently where our last name comes from.' He tapped the lid cautiously. 'But its contents are still a great mystery. My father told me one simply knows the right moment to use it, although I hope you never need to.'

'Is that…?' Pollen's eyes were fixed on the box.

'Yes,' Gabriel's breath hitched. 'When my father died I kept my promise not to open it. Although it didn't stop me from searching and combing every archive and library I could access for the symbols on the box. Still, I found nothing.'

The kwami nodded her head in understanding.

'I got lucky only once,' Hawkmoth's eyes glazed with an old memory as his younger self reached out. 'A man recognized some of the symbols on the sides as an archaic variation of tibetan alphabet,' he said shuddering as the boy's slender fingers closed over the box. 'I was on a plane to Tibet the next day. I-' he stopped feeling a gust of wind around his ankles.

He looked down only to see mist rising from the floor. 'What's happening?'

'I believe that's our cue,' Pollen cast a wistful look at the ornamental box.

Hawkmoth whipped his head to his father, the vision before him already blurring. Pascal's hand lay heavily on young Gab's shoulder. Gabriel's glove landed on the same spot on his arm, in an attempt to preserve the memory of that touch. He squeezed tight and blinked away the tears as the scene before him melted into nothingness.

'Where are we going now?' he asked in a strained tone, cursing his voice for betraying him.

'We started with a last time,' Pollen hummed, her face a mask of concentration as she navigated through the darkness. 'Now we're heading to a first.'

And before he even had time to inquire about that strange wording he was blinded by light so bright it hurt to keep his eyes open. He covered his face with his hands and drew a sharp breath that stung his lungs.

Snow.

He knew that scent, that sensation of needles piercing his skin. He knew where they landed even before he opened his eyes again.

'Welcome back to Tibet, Gabriel,' Pollen announced.

He blinked a few times to adjust to the brightness. They were on the outskirts of a town lit by fading sunlight. Sun sat low over the horizon drowning the landscape in liquid gold. Millions of sparks danced over the snowy hills and reflected off the distant mountain tops.

It took a moment of searching, but Hawkmoth soon located the lanky form of a young Gabriel, now fresh in his twenties, as he sat on a rolled sleeping bag and sketched furiously, not minding the cold thanks to gloves of his design. The moth wielder did a quick calculation in his head, pondering on Pollen's words. After a few seconds he was racing down the hill with the kwami chasing behind.

'She will be coming from this direction,' he muttered to himself. 'They reached the town not long before sunset. But-' he stopped so abruptly the bee sprite bumped into his back.

'Gabriel?' She asked, watching him warily. 'Are you okay?'

'If you took me here,' the man said slowly, as if trying to capture a thought that was slipping out of his reach, 'can you take me to when she's back and safe with us?' he asked, hope flickering in his eyes.

'Sorry,' Pollen shook her head. 'Kwami of Christmas Past, remember?'

'Okay, okay,' Hawkmoth nodded. 'Then… take me to the moment of her accident,' he snapped his fingers grasping the new idea. 'If I can find out what exactly happened, what she'd done, maybe I can reverse it!'

'Oh…,' Pollen bit her lower lip seemingly considering this request. 'Did it happen on Christmas Eve? Were you there?'

'No,' Gabriel frowned. 'If I had been, I would have saved her, or at the very least known what happened.'

The yellow kwami sighed. 'I can take you only to past Christmas Eves and only your past, so that wouldn't really work,' she hung her head sadly. 'I'm sorry.'

Hawkmoth pressed his lips into a thin line and clenched his fists. What was the use of this circus, if he couldn't fix things. How on earth was that bunch of kwami going to convince him to change his mind about the miraculous, if they weren't offering him any solutions? He felt the rage rising from the pit of his stomach, but then he heard voices down the path.

A party of people in mountaineer gear and local guides slowly made their way down to the valley. They were heading to the town in groups of three or four. Conversations in English, French and Dutch filled the air. Here and there a native muttered something in Tibetan and was rewarded with a burst of laughter from his peers.

Gabriel's anger subsided as he watched the crowd moving in front of his eyes. Finally he saw her. She already passed their position but there was no mistaking her tall lithe figure, clad in a comfy sand jacket and blue snow pants. She was the only person in the group to wear a hat with a fluffy pom-pom on top. A blonde braid, now covered in snow, wove its way down her collar and shoulder.

'Emilie!' Hawkmoth shouted before he could stop himself. Next to him Pollen huffed in discontent.

He knew he was less than a ghost in this time, but to his surprise the girl stopped and turned around. Her magnificent green eyes swept over her surroundings in search for something, but there was nothing for her to see.

Perplexed she resumed her stroll and immediately bumped into a tall foreigner.

'I'm sorry!' they both cried in English, throwing their hands in the air in the universal "I mean no harm" gesture. And paused as their cry echoed and boomed in the valley, a distant thunder in the white lands.

Emilie narrowed her eyes as she studied the man who crashed into her.

Hawkmoth didn't need to look to know the foreigner bore the same dumbstruck grimace. He remembered she had knocked all air out of him.

His younger self, because of course it was young Gabriel, finally came to his senses and crouched to pick up the item that fell out of her hands at the moment of their crash. Emilie had the same idea, so soon they were rubbing their foreheads and mumbling "sorry" for the second time.

'Allow me, Mademoiselle!' Younger Gabriel bowed respectfully and the girl flushed.

'Mon dieu, you're French!' she clapped her hands in delight, replying him in their native language. 'Me too!'

The man smiled and crouched back to retrieve the item. It was a book. He stiffened as he noticed the familiar patterns on the thick leather cover. His hand hovered over the grimoire for a moment.

'Was it the girl or the book?' Pollen asked as they watched young Gabriel's hesitation.

'Both,' Hawkmoth muttered under his breath. There was no point in lying to the kwami. He had been as intrigued by his future wife as by her book that contained the same symbols as his mysterious box.

'Is everything all right, Monsieur?' They heard Emilie's voice, that prompted Gabriel's younger version to grab the grimoire and spring to his feet. He brushed the book cleaning it off snow and passed it to the girl uttering a few words of polite interest.

Mist pooled over Hawkmoth's feet again, the scenery started to fade. Young Gabriel offered Emilie his arm and they marched to the town together, followed by long shadows of the last gleam of sunset.

'Where to now?' older Gabriel asked, eyes trained on the disappearing pair, voice barely above whisper. The sun sank below the horizon and the world drowned in darkness.

AN: I am anxiously awaiting your reviews. This story wasn't easy to write and I'm sure it is also not easy to read, so I appreciate your presence here greatly!

An enormous thank you goes to Freedom-Shamrock who beta-read this chapter and helped me make it better.

I will be coming back with the next chapter of this story during Christmas, so stay tuned!

Check out my other stories or visit me on perditaalottachocolate-blog . tumblr . com . Lately there's more art than stories, but you're always welcome!