It is said that grief has five stages.

It is said that these five stages are universal, that any person who has lost someone has come through these same five stages.

But can a feeling as complex be categorized? After all, it comprises a million of different emotions that crashing, overlapping and mixing together.

And how can every single person who has faced the decease of a loved one feel the same way when people are so different are relationships are not always similar one to another. How is it possible that they all go through the same states?

There are five stages of grief.

Grief…. Such a complex feeling, a sensation of lost empty roads that you can't escape of, it involves an emotion so consuming and devastating that let you stand on your feet only for a few seconds before you felt tired again.

That feeling had been categorized; someone had dared to categorize it and Adrien couldn't believe it; not when years ago a psychologist had explained to him every single one of those stages, trying to make him understand that what he was feeling, after losing his mother, was normal; and he didn't believe it now.

You couldn't put emotions in boxes and give them a label with a specific definition on it, not when what you were feeling was too big and abstract to fit in a box. It had been hard to understand when he was feeling sad and his heart was leaking pain through its cracks, he had denied the existence of those stages a million times, because all he could see was the red anger and the grey solitude of mourning; but when you watched if from afar, grief did have five stages.

As Adrien watched the people he loved he realized they went through them, at a different pace but all of them could fit in one, ones more than the others, but they were inside of them.

In the first stage, the stage of denial and isolation, his father reigned in a kingdom of silence and liquid poison.

The memory of his father had returned to him moments after watching Marinette. If she looked like a broken porcelain doll, sad eyes, a cracked smile, completely lifeless; he didn't want to know how his father was dealing with his death.

But his imagination was playing scenarios inside of his mind as a 24/7 circus ready to entertain whoever paid attention to it. So he chooses to go and see things as they were, only to have a real image of what his father was going through and not an imaginary world where things could be so much worse.

He remembered how his father had reacted after his mother's death, but had kept it together for him. He put on a façade and stepped away of personal life, drowning in work. He grew to be a cold version of the man Adrien loved, but a man who had put him first even when he wasn't aware of it.

Adrien left school and running, fastest that he had ever run when he was alive, in the direction to his father's headquarters. He had been sure that his father was going to be inside of his office, a thousand papers on top of his desk, fabrics on the floor and samples on the wall. Mannequins around him with needles and strap, ready to make another design, probably the fourth on that day. It had been like there years ago.

But his father wasn't there.

Adrien couldn't understand how his father could be at home, he barely let Adrien stay inside of the house when his mother passed away, they were traveling around the globe while Gabriel worked, staying far, far away from any place that could spark a memory. However, no matter how many theories Adrien tried to come up with for his father not to be at work, the simplest and the one he kept refusing had been the reality of Gabriel's situation.

He was at home and Adrien wished he hadn't been there.

When he stepped into the house, nothing looked different, things were at their place, the light entered through the windows at the right angle, the floors were clean and the smell of fresh lavender swirled around the front door as it always did, and yet Adrien knew something was wrong.

The house was always quiet, but it had never been a silent place. You could hear the steps of the staff who worked cleaning the house, the doors of the kitchen's shelves opening and closing, their personal chef chopping vegetables on the counter, Nathalie's tic-tac produced by her kitty heels and the sound of her phone as it vibrated against the fabric of her blazer.

Right now, no sound echoed through the big walls and the long corridors.

Adrien stood in the middle of the hall, wondering what to do next for about ten minutes but for him, they seemed to be just seconds. He couldn't perceive it yet, but the world seemed to move faster around him.

Finally, after thinking about it, he decided to go to his father's home office. He couldn't imagine any other place in the house where he could be.

This time he was right.

Gabriel Agreste, famous and renamed designer, the man who kept a cold façade and stood like he was a god on earth in front of the simple mortals who acclaimed him. The man who loved his son over all things, even if it was hard for him to demonstrate, that man, was lying in the middle of a dark room.

The curtains were closed and so were the windows, and that was the reason why the whole place reeked of strong expensive liquor. There were bottles of the finest alcohol brewages around the room, some of them were empty, others only half finished or dripping from the bottles to the carpets.

Bottle weren't the only things on the ground, there were also sketchbooks and pencils around, broken glass from what Adrien believed to be the expensive flower pot his father had in the room and that he had always taken care of.

The room was a mess just like the man who had caused the disaster on it.

Nathalie was nowhere to be found, but the plates of unfinished food around the main table and the fact that the entire mansion wasn't a wreck were enough proof, she was still around, managing the house and keeping his father's life together… but that was impossible.

The scene he had in front of his eyes could have been mistaken for photography more than a motion picture because the only move in the room was the ups and down of Gabriel's chest in an arrhythmic breathing tempo, this was also the only proof of his vital state.

Watching the scene in front of his eyes was painful, it made him cringe and thought he couldn't feel his body as he used to when he was alive, it was like nails and pointy objects were cutting through his skin, shiver crawled on his skin and he found himself pulling his hair.

The misery of his father made him want to die once again.

Instead of running away and escape from the unsettling and devastating feeling that was taking power over him, he stayed in the room. Besides, he had nowhere left to go, he wasn't supposed to be still on earth, right? He should be somewhere else, in one of the many other places religions spoke about, or to the beginning of a new circle, or just somewhere else that wasn't here where he could not only feel but see the pain of his death.

He sat on one of the corners of the room, away from his father but still with his sight on him, looking over him. He wouldn't be able to do anything to help him if something happened to Gabriel, but he felt better by looking at him. It wasn't a nice view, but maybe, just maybe his father could feel his presence and that would help him to move on.

xx

Adrien only realized that a week passed by because of Nathalie.

Her constant visits to his father's office, taking away the untouched food and placing new plates of hot and healthy food on the table. She ordered the staff to clean up the mess of the room and every time, just before leaving, she tried to talk to him, only to be rejected with awful screams from his barely conscious father.

Those were the only things that helped Adrien to have a track of time, because if it had been for his perception and the -non-existent- activity of his father, he could have sworn it had been only three days.

There she was again, picking up from the floor the flowers she had brought yesterday.

Adrien was waiting for her to say something so his eye followed across the room. He was still sitting in the same place where he sat one week ago. His body –or whatever he could call his form at this point- wasn't tired and he didn't felt uncomfortable after days of not moving. He was another object in the room, the only object Gabriel hadn't tried to destroy in the pass of the week.

"Gabriel" Nathalie called.

Adrien never, ever, ever had heard Nathalie call his father by his name, but apparently Nathalie had lost her patience two days ago because she didn't try to be nice anymore when she approached him, she didn't start with a nice tone of voice or sweet words –well, as sweet as Nathalie could be-. Not anymore, she was direct and the frown on her forehead didn't leave her face.

Gabriel didn't answer.

He was sitting on a chair at the head of the table, in his hand a half filled crystal glass of white wine was getting warm. Gabriel Agreste didn't like white wine, but Adrien had noticed yesterday that it had been the last bottle of alcohol in the house. He was hoping that once that bottle was empty, Gabriel would stop with the drinking and focus once again on his job. He didn't have to go back to the office, he could do it all from here, but Adrien just wanted him to stop drinking. Alcohol brought up the worst of Gabriel, Adrien wished he could erase the images he had seen this week, but they were imprinted in his mind and there was nothing left to do. He had memories of his father screaming, breaking things, pushing and kicking furniture. He had images of his father crying and screaming, asking for Adrien to come back home.

"Gabriel" Nathalie repeated, this time she managed to call his attention.

"Is he back, Nathalie?" Gabriel spoke for the first time in days. His voice was croaky and the words smashed into one and other.

"He won't be back, Gabriel" Nathalie answered. Her voice didn't have any signs of sadness on it, in fact, it didn't have any emotion attached. But everything that hadn't been expressed in those words was being portrayed on her eyes. Nathalie was about to cry.

"He will… I could—

"Adrien is gone" Nathalie interrupted sharply "I'm extremely sorry, and just as you I wish he was here with us, but that won't happen, Gabriel"

"He'll be back" Gabriel assured.

Trembling and using the table as support, Mr. Agreste stood up from the chair. It took him a few seconds to concentrate all his strength on his leg and start moving, walking in Nathalie's direction.

"He will be back!" Gabriel shouted in Nathalie's face.

Adrien couldn't take it anymore. Staying here watching his father suffer… it was pure masochism. Watching him scream to Nathalie with so much rage, fearing that he would hurt her wasn't what he wanted to remember from his father. He had to go.

xx

Adrien paced across the city, watching people walk by without seeing him. He had to admit it was nice to walk through crowded Paris without being recognized… if only the situation had been a little different, maybe he would really enjoy it.

With nowhere left to go, he headed back to school. He hadn't been there for a week now and he wanted to see how his friends were dealing.

After seeing them a week ago, he wasn't expecting to find them singing and dancing around in a field of flowers. One thing Adrien had realized after years of friendship was that he was loved, and it was only logical that those people who loved him to keep mourning him.

He expected them to be down, not depressed or on the border of tears, not like… not like Marinette a week ago.

He expected multiple scenarios, but deep in his heart, he wished for them to be trying.

That's not what he found. Right, when he entered his old classroom he stumbled with the second stage of grief: anger. And the person who was on that stage was the last person Adrien imagined could be stuck inside of it.

He could see Nino and Nathanaël looking at Marinette and Alya. Nino's arms were crossed in front of his chest, he was frowning and there was no sign of his loyal red cap, which made things look way worse for Adrien. Nathanaël, at his side, looked uncomfortable.

"Can you just not disappear like that?" Alya begged with a smooth voice. She took one piece of Marinette's hair and left it behind her ear.

"I'm sorry…" Marinette answered, her words trembling "I had something to do…"

"You always have something to do, Marinette" Nino spat out. "Just admit that you are running away"

"I'm not" Marinette gave a little jump, taking a step further to Nino.

"You are! We are all trying here except you!" Nino took a step forward too, making Marinette tense up.

"Don't talk to her like that, Nino" The way Alya said that, was so different from how Alya really was. Her voice was soft and fragile like she was afraid of hurting something. "We are all friends here, we just need to talk—

"TALK?!" Nino laughed ironically "Yeah, that's your strength right, Alya? Talk"

"Nino…" Nathanaël said under his breath. He placed one hand in front of his chest and pushed him back to his place.

"Do not!" Nino shook him off "The only reason she is talking to me is because of this fucked up situation that we are living! She wouldn't even look at me two weeks ago and now she pretends nothing happened!"

"She is not pretending, Nino" Marinette stepped up for her best friend "It's not the moment, things are hard… Adrien died and…

"YES! ADRIEN DIED!" Nino's fury couldn't be ignored. His face, oh, Adrien had never seen Nino's eyes injected with such heavy poison, he hadn't seen his body so tense, ready to hit the first thing that presented on his way.

Adrien, unconsciously, walked closer, trying to put himself in the middle of his best friend and Marinette.

"And you, Marinette!" Nino pointed a finger at the girl "You act like you are the only one who lost him! Oh, look at me I'm so sad my crush died!" He shouted at her face.

"Nino!" Nathanaël did what Adrien couldn't. He placed himself in front of Marinette, giving her his back "Enough, this isn't you!"

But Nino didn't listen. The pain was so consuming that he couldn't feel anything but it, he could only think of his own feelings because he couldn't share them with anyone. He couldn't talk to his family, his parents treated him like a lost case and the times his sister had tried to talk to him she looked nervous, making Nino not want to talk to her. He couldn't talk to Alya, things were still awkward because of their last fight, the reason for the breakup, still hanged in between them. He had tried to talk to Nathanaël but it didn't felt right. And when finally he had found a person whom Nino believed loved Adrien as much as him, she wasn't there for him. Marinette was a body without a soul, she went to class but it would have been the same if she had stayed home. Just like him, Marinette only could focus on her own pain.

"I was his best friend! We actually shared something!" Nino shouted, "You act like you are a widow, but you never even told him how you fell!"

"I…"

"You say you love him. You act like you lost the love of your life" Nino took a deep breath "YOU DIDN'T EVEN GO TO HIS FUNERAL, MARINETTE! YOU DIDN'T SAY GOODBYE TO HIM AND THEN YOU—

"Sit down, Lahiffe!" A new voice irrupted in the fight. It was strong and determinate, and it had been the only voice able to shut Nino.

Adrien stopped looking at Nino for the first time during the whole fight, just to look at the girl who had entered the classroom.

Chloé was in the middle of the corridor, looking at the four friends. She stood there, head high, perfect hair and makeup on point as always. Her hair was on a cascade braid that made her look older than she was, she seemed so mature in contrast to the fighting group of friends.

"Your angry, we are all angry," Chloé said between her teeth "But you don't get to scream to Marinette like that. She is dealing with this in her way, let her do it"

"Running away is dealing with it?" Nino crooked a brow. If he hadn't been hurting so much, he would have looked entertained by Chloé's behavior.

"We all mourn differently. Have you seen me cry?" She asked but didn't let him answer "No, you haven't but I bet you don't have the guts to tell me that I'm not hurting, that I don't miss my oldest friend"

"Chloé" Marinette arranged to say.

"Not now, Dupain-Cheng" Chloé lift a warning finger at her. "Put yourself together, Nino. This horrible person you are portraying right now, it isn't you, it's the pain speaking… Adrien wouldn't like to see you like this"

Nino pressed his lips together and his hands turned to fists. His eyes began to glitz with upcoming tears.

"Let's go, Nino" Nathanael passed one arm over his friend's shoulder, bringing him closer to him. Then he guided him outside the classroom.

The three girls were left behind.

Marinette, just like Nino, was on the border of tears. Chloé's face was impossible to figure it out, Adrien had never seen her face so… emotionless. At her side, Alya was all the opposite, her face was displaying and changing to every possible emotion.

"Thanks, Chloé" Marinette whispered.

"You owe me big" Chloe huffed "Next time do it yourself, I won't be around all the time. Maybe eat a little something a put energy on your system so you can shout back"

Marinette gave a little-amused smile that Chloé wasn't able to see because she was walking out of the room.

Adrien gave a big grin, looking at the blonde disappear. He was proud of her, he had been for a while. She had grown to be a better person these three years; she was still Chloé but the best version she could be. She had shown that now, especially those words to Marinette, it was her way to say that she cared.

Adrien followed Marinette and Alya closely. And while the reason why he was doing it was because of how skinny and sad Marinette looked, he kept his eyes on Alya, too afraid to come to false conclusions over Marinette's state.

The girls were in complete silence walking down the hallways, unusual behavior for those two who were always chitchatting and laughing around each other.

Adrien knew this was his fault, he wasn't being egocentric but sadly that was the truth.

"I'm sorry I couldn't defend you" Alya whispered, breaking the silence between them.

"Oh, 'Lya" Marinette stopped and turned to her best friend, wrapping her arms around her "It's fine"

"It's not!" Alya said in a drowned shout "Chloé had to step in and help you out. Of all people, Chloé defended you and I couldn't do it. I should have done something, anything"

"You tried and—

"That's not enough, Marinette" Alya gasped "It's not enough…"

Adrien shook his head in disappointment. He couldn't escape them, could he? Right in front of him, Alya was the living definition of the third stage of grief, bargain.

While he had never expected to find Nino in the stage of anger, it wasn't surprising that Alya was going through this stage, it went well with her personality.

Alya was the kind of person who liked to have things under control, the one who thought everything could be planned and analyzed. She was organized and a natural leader, she was charismatic and smart, which made things usually go in the ways she wanted them to go, and when they weren't she always knew how to turn the situation around to benefit her somehow.

Alya was freaking out, the conflicted look on her eyes didn't go away, no matter how many emotions crossed her face; her eyes didn't change.

Adrien imagined that inside of her mind she was asking herself a million questions and running a thousand theories, trying to solve the mysteries of death.

Furthermore, if Chloé becomes the voice of reason, it's only natural for your world to turn upside down.

Adrien was brought back to the conversation when he heard his name again.

"We lost Adrien, we can't lose you, Mari… I can't lose you, I will not be able to go through that"

"Y-you won't lose me, Alya," Marinette promised.

"Promise me"

"I promise, I'm not leaving you. I don't want to"

"Why does it feel like you are lying?"

"I'm not" It wasn't a defensive comeback

"You are…you..and, ugh." Alya rubbed her temples "Just look at you, you are a mess… your feelings for Adrien are destroying you, piece by piece you are falling apart. You are like a tree in mid-autumn, and one day winter will come and all your leaves are going to fall and this empty person it's gonna stand in front of me. No happiness, no love, no Marinette. I'm afraid, I fear for you… so please, please say it again; promise me, this time for real, that you won't leave me"

"I won't leave you, Alya Césaire, not ever" Marinette took Alya's face between her hands, making the redhead look straight to her eyes as she made the promise.

Alya nodded and gave a loud sob before throwing herself to Marinette's arms.

Adrien couldn't ignore Marinette anymore, it wasn't doing any good and after Alya's words, he was just as afraid as she was.

Marinette didn't look like herself, she hadn't looked like her a week ago when he first saw her after death, and she didn't look any better today, on the contrary, she looked worst.

Marinette had always been skinny, but she was lean and fit, she always had looked healthy… not anymore, Marinette was too skinny for her own good, it wasn't an abysmal change, but Adrien could tell that she wasn't eating well. That theory gained force if you looked at Marinette's skin; she was pale like a ghost.

Adrien stopped at that, though. He looked at his own hands and found a glass to see his reflection on. He could see himself –for what he was thankful- but he didn't look any different. Marinette looked more like he think a ghost would like that he, a real ghost, did.

A ghost… how did his life end up to be like this? Okay, bad pun, he recognized it, and the timing wasn't right, Ladybug was right when she said—

"Ladybug…" His heart stopped, in the lyrical sense of it, he didn't have a pumping heart anymore

How hadn't he think about Ladybug? How couldn't he think what she was feeling after his death?

Oh my, God, she knew who she was, she had had to find out like everybody else did. Ladybug, her partner, the girl he was in love with knew he was dead. She knew he had died in an akuma attack… he didn't want to think how she was feeling right now.

They may have kept their identities secret, it was the smart thing to do after all, but they have promised to reveal them when the timing was right, after defeating Papillon, after winning and celebrating. They had it planned. Well, Adrien had it planned, and it was going to be one of the best nights of their lives, they would talk and laugh and enjoy each other's company as civilians for the first time in his life. He could have invited her on a date, a real date! But no all of it was gone, just like all his loved ones thought he was.

Adrien wanted to cry, he felt like dropping every one of his awful feelings, the ones who were eating him from the inside out, but nothing happened. Adrien Agreste couldn't cry, and that made him want to cry more.

Adrien stood in the middle of the corridor, people passing by, and thought no one could see him none of them pass through him or felt cold like movies showed. It was like they knew he was there in the middle, and changed their routes a little bit to the left, a few steps to the right.

Adrien let his body hit the ground, with his hands in fits and all the rage pouring and burning like a supernova about to collapse, Adrien screamed Ladybug's name.

He wasn't gone, not completely, but she was. She had evaporated from his life as fast she had fallen into it.

"Ladybug, Ladybug, Ladybug… I'm so, so sorry" Adrien rubbed his tearless eyes and took a deep breath that he didn't need but that felt necessary to keep going.

He stood up and look to the horizon, his sight stumbling with Marinette.

Marinette was a few meters away from him, nailed to the floor with her mouth hanging open and tears running from her eyes like they were a broken sink. She was shaking and sobbing, trying to keep herself together, but failing miserably at it. Her hands were against her mouth, trying to muffle any sound and at the same time she was trying to maintain a steady breath, it wasn't a surprise that she wasn't succeeding.

What had happened? Adrien stopped looking at her for one minute and hell had turned loose in front of his eyes.

Alya was taking Marinette by her shoulders,

Marinette was out.

Adrien didn't know how to deal with this. What stage are you Marinette? How can I help?

Not the first one, Marinette was with Alya and she had acknowledged his death. Not anger, Marinette was calm in that sense. Maybe just like Alya she was barging? That made sense, Marinette could obsess over things in the same way that Alya did, but something inside of Adrien told him that this wasn't the case.

Marinette was destroyed… Could Marinette be in the fourth stage of grief? Was Marinette depressed? Could that happen in a week?

Adrien couldn't tell. But if Marinette was falling apart, he didn't want to think of how Ladybug was dealing with his death.

Yes, Marinette had a crush on him, which meant his feelings were quiet different from the others, but while they were close friends and they got along, Ladybug and he shared a different, and much stronger, bond.

It was essential for him to figure it out in where Marinette stood because that would help him to imagine where Ladybug could be.

But…why was it so hard to place Marinette into a category? Why was it so hard to recognize those details in her? Was because there wasn't any more of the Marinette that he knew shining on the surface? Was it because Marinette was no longer recognizable?

Why? Why? Why?

He couldn't check her into one, but she was sure in which one she wasn't.

The fifth stage of grief: acceptance.

The stage everyone hopes to reach in the near future, a stage everyone chases and wants to land hands on, the stage that would take the raw pain of mourning.

Marinette wasn't at that stage, no one reached that stage because that stage is a lie.

It shouldn't be a stage at all, more like a bonus point in the path of death, because not everyone reaches this point. Was it even possible? To accept that someone you loved with every cell of your being had just stopped breathing? It was no more smiles or tears, no more crazy stories or watching movies together, it was saying goodbye to routines and intern jokes. It wasn't just sat goodbye to a person; it was saying goodbye to the part of them who lived inside you.

You were trapped on four horrible stages that only opened more wounds that the ones that already existed, falling on a loop of pain, anger, and questions that you didn't want.

The fifth stage, the one who offered you liberation from the chains of mourning, it was a lie. You were inside grief forever, and they just used different names to categorize the pain.

The fifth stage was a lie; an unreachable goal for every one of the contestants on the race. The stage he wished all of his friends could be in was a lie.

The fifth stage is a cruel terrible fucking lie.

xx