"Marinette!" Sabine called up the stairs to her daughter. "There's a letter here for you!" Marinette's immediate reaction was confusion. There were dozens of ways that people usually got in contact with her, but she wasn't certain that anyone had written her a letter since she and Alya used to pass notes during class years ago.

She bounded down the stairs to the kitchen where Sabine was holding the 'letter' if it could be described as that. Marinette was expecting a typed out, several page long letter that would be the length of one of Alya's Ladyblog posts, but the paper that Sabine held out to her was small. It was like it had been torn out of a notebook, barely bigger than the notes she would pass back and forth when she was younger.

"Merci, maman," she replied, looking over the sheet in her hand. It was folded in half and had her name written on the outside. Beyond that, there was nothing about it that was particularly distinct. She couldn't recognize the writing. She'd gotten pretty good at identifying writing over the past few years, at least the writing of her parents, friends, and the people who she'd regularly seen the writing of, including a few of Paris' biggest reporters (aside from Alya) who had interviewed Ladybug several times.

The way that 'Marinette' was written on the paper wasn't like she'd ever seen before, at least not as far as she'd remembered. It was clearly her name, but the letters were an odd combination of uppercase, lowercase, and cursive. The 'n' and 'e' near the middle were capitalized while the 'tte' was all in cursive. Those were the details that stood out to her the most.

"I have to get back downstairs," Sabine told her, politely excusing herself from being around Marinette's distracted state. Marinette bit her lip and opened the letter, wondering what it was going to contain- had someone discovered her identity? Did she have a secret admirer? Was she overthinking it and someone just decided to have the most strange party invitations she'd ever seen?

Only one way to find out.

'Princess,' with the first word on the page, Marinette felt her heart stop. She hadn't considered the idea of someone pranking her. Of course, she should've. It was printed in tabloid after tabloid that she'd gone to the movies with Chat Noir and wouldn't take someone as smart as Max to figure out who she was.

Granted, she didn't remember Chat calling her 'princess' in public, but that didn't necessarily mean that he hadn't. She supposed, possibly, that there was a non-zero chance of him writing to her, but no. No. He was on Monarch's side. He wouldn't risk putting a civilian in danger, even though he was now working with the supervillain.

She wondered, briefly, if she'd ever seen Chat's handwriting before- as Marinette or as Ladybug. She'd seen him sign his name, but she knew that signatures rarely looked like someone's natural handwriting, especially if Adrien's had been any indication.

'I know you probably weren't expecting to hear from me again. It's been a while since I've been around. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to Ladybug and to the rest of the ex-heroes and to Paris. I'm so, so sorry to you, too. I wish that I could explain what happened, but I can't. Not to you, not like this. I can't let you get caught up in hero my business.'

It felt like the letter was genuine, but it didn't feel like it was from him. Anyone could say anything in a note when there couldn't be any evidence to go along with it. She didn't know why she was… entertaining whoever had written it by actually reading the note, but she missed him. What harm was there in playing along?

'Ever since this all happened, I've had three apologetic suns in my heart. Okay, there are a lot more than three apologies in my heart, but I want you to know that it's me. I know I can't fully convince you that it is, but please. Keep an open mind, for me.' She was dreaming, she had to be dreaming, there was no way that whoever this was referenced her practice confession.

She was practically certain no one would've heard her practice confession, except for maybe their next-door neighbor, Mme. Bisharp, who was slowly approaching her 70s and was hard of hearing at that. She didn't want to believe that Chat was reaching out to Marinette, especially instead of Ladybug, but she supposed that he didn't have a way to reach out to the girl who had always insisted on keeping her secret identity a tightly guarded secret.

'Even if you don't believe I'm the one writing to you, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive Chat Noir because he's doing what he can for Paris, even though it doesn't look like it from the outside. If, somehow, you do trust me- please write back. I'll find a way to get whatever response you're willing to offer me.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get things back to normal soon.

-Your knight'

It was him. She knew it had to be him, but she couldn't believe it. She didn't necessarily want to believe it. How could he be doing anything for Paris when he had teamed up with the villain who had been terrorizing their city for years at that point? The man who had taken the Miraculouses. The person who was, apparently, in possession of all of the Miraculouses except for Ladybug's.

She closed the letter again and looked around it, trying to find any evidence of him. Or, any evidence that he wasn't the one who had written to her. She didn't know which she would prefer, but at that point, she was willing to take whatever she could get. When she flipped over the note, she saw something taped to the back. It was the logo of the bakery.

The logo wasn't from their usual boxes or bags, it was one that was stamped onto the inside of the paper crowns. The paper crowns that were found in the galette's from the day when the two of them had fought her family. So much of Paris was fixated on Ladybug that day, Marinette would've been surprised if anyone had even seen Chat in the crown.

She knew that the odds of the note being from Chat were getting higher and higher with every minute she'd spent looking at it, but part of her still wasn't willing to believe it. She felt a tear spill from her eye as she looked at the part of the crown, but she couldn't cry. She couldn't risk feeling so negative.

If it was Chat, she couldn't let herself get akumatized and risk Monarch finding out that he had reached out to her. She needed to act like everything was normal, as much as she dreaded whatever was going to come next.