Author's Note: Before we begin, I'd like to thank everyone who has sent me a story idea either in a review or a private message. Even though I haven't used any of them yet, I appreciate them, and I probably will use some of them when I run out of my own ideas. Just one thing; I've seen two recurring themes I would like to address. 1) While they may be used to develop the relationship side of the story, Ladybug and Chat Noir will not be getting in on the baby-making action. I write on the assumption that the only way for them to take off their suits is to detransform, so it has to be Adrien and Marinette to conceive. Maybe I can work something out where they disguise themselves as their alter egos in a setting where they don't know each other's identity - but for now it's a no. 2) More than one person has expressed interest in having Marinette be asleep for the conception - and in the case of one suggestion, the entire pregnancy. This surprises me, but I'm okay with it. I would have to come up with a solid medical reason for Marinette to sleep for such a long time - I'm not going to rewrite 'Sleeping Beauty' just with the names changed, so I don't know if I can make that work. I'm sure I can come up with one where she's asleep for just the conception - I just need to figure out how to set it up without turning Adrien into a self-centered jerk. For now, here's an idea I've held for quite a while that involves them being asleep.

Marinette knew she was dreaming. Nowhere in Paris was there a vast landscape like this - devoid of any building or anybody. She was dreaming and she knew it. Wait a second - that meant this was a lucid dream; she could have whatever or whomever she wanted without consequence. To test her theory, she wished for a small cozy cottage, filled with her favorite things, and watched as it materialized before her eyes.

Adrien was confused. One moment he'd been on a fanciful vacation with both his parents, and the next he was indoors in a neat but crowded living space. At first he seemed to be alone, but then the door opened and in walked Marinette. "Adrien," she declared abruptly, "I love you and I want to be with you."

He was dreaming, he had to be. That explained why his mother had been able to be there in the the last segment, and it also explained Marinette's passionate statement. It just confused him why he would dream of her. She was an attractive girl, no doubt, but his heart belonged to Ladybug. Why couldn't he dream of her? Because he didn't need to, he decided. Why dream about Ladybug when he was sure he would get to have her in real life? In real life, he was going to be faithful to her, but why not use the dream world as a safe place to acknowledge that he was in fact attracted to multiple girls, not just his true love? In his waking hours he would never be allowed to admit that he did in fact have a crush on Marinette, just not to the same degree he felt for his crime fighting partner. This was perfect - he could indulge those feelings and hopefully get them out of his system. He closed the distance between them in a few steps and thrust her against the wall. He felt no need to be gentle with her, this wasn't Marinette, this was a figment of his imagination who merely took the form of Marinette - she couldn't feel pain. "Good. Because I want you."

She whimpered, he ground his pelvis into hers and dominated her mouth with his own. When he grew bored of that, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom of the house, where he threw her onto the bed. They were both suddenly naked - because that's how dreams work. She regarded him with a deep gaze that he felt could see anything he tried to hide from her, and spread her legs for him.

"We need protection," he mumbled, making a wrapped condom appear in his hand.

"Why?" she grabbed his wrist. "This is a dream, remember? Zero consequences. Can't we have the full experience, please?"

Adrien stopped to consider. He thought he wanted to save some of his firsts for Ladybug, but really, he was saving all his firsts for her. Imagining what it would be like to lose your virginity doesn't make you no longer a virgin. This was all in his imagination anyway, why deny himself any sort of pleasure? He tossed the condom over his shoulder.

"Class, I have some bad news. Marinette's family called the school this morning and let us know she's in the hospital."

"What happened to her?"

"We've been given permission to tell you, but you have to promise to be mature about it." After the class agreed, the teacher continued. "She has a prolapsed uterus. She went into labor in the middle of the night, and contractions didn't stop until her uterus was pushed all the way out of her body."

"Hold on, so Marinette was pregnant?!"

"No, she wasn't, but she experienced a false pregnancy. Due to a hormone imbalance, her body tried to give birth to a baby that wasn't there. A woman's contradictions are naturally triggered to stop when the baby and the afterbirth have exited the body, if neither of those are there, the contractions won't stop on their own. She's fine now, but the doctors told her family that if they hadn't found her soon enough she could have hemorrhaged and bled to death.

Adrien shuddered, a vivid image washing over his mind. Marinette, with her legs locked around his waist as he inseminated her. He hadn't thought about that dream in months but it was at the forefront of his mind now. He had a bad hunch. If a baby were to have been conceived around the time of that dream, the timing would be just right for it to be due. He'd thought it weird at the time that the Marinette in his dream kept talking about it being a dream. He would have thought that a figment of his imagination wouldn't know she was imaginary, maybe he shouldn't have brushed that off; but was what he was thinking now even possible? Could he have shared that dream with the real Marinette? He couldn't rest until he knew if he was responsible for putting her in the hospital.

He tried to visit her at lunch time, but it wasn't allowed in. They were restricting how many visitors she could have, and the limit had already been met. He went away, glad that she had that many people who cared to come see her in the hospital, but disappointed he wouldn't be getting an answer to his burning question. He tried again after school, and apparently all her other guests had come and gone at that point, because he got her all to himself. "How are you doing?" he asked her.

"Remarkably well considering what's happened to me," she mused. "They had to open me up to put everything back where it's supposed to be. Right now my whole body is numb, but it's probably going to be hard to handle when the anesthesia wears off."

"Did you at least give birth to the baby in your dream?" He tried to make his question sound like a joke, he could handle being wrong if she thought he was teasing her.

"Actually," Marinette blushed, "I did. A healthy baby boy."

"Did you name him?" Adrien asked, increasingly interested in her dream.

"I didn't get the chance. I barely got a look at him before the pain woke me up."

"I bet he was cute. Well, what did he look like?"

"Like a perfect blend of me and -" Marinette looked away from Adrien and whispered "his father."

"Who is his father?" Adrien didn't see a way to beat around the question any longer.

"... it doesn't matter"

"Yes it does!" Marinette looked startled by Adrien's outburst, and he felt he had to explain himself. "I'm going to sound like a creep for this, but I have to get it off my chest. I had a sexual dream about you months ago, and I know this sounds stupid, but I can't help wondering if I'm guilty for putting you in this situation."

"Was it a white stone cottage?" Marinette asked. "With empty fields around it in every direction?"

"I never went outside, but when you came in the door, yes, out the door behind you it was just grass as far as I could see. There was a cuckoo clock opposite the front door and a kitchen area along the right hand side of the main room. On the left hand side there was a door -"

" to the bedroom where we thought we could get away with anything. I guess some experiences are better left to the real world."

"I'm so sorry, Marinette!" He broke down. "They told us at school that if your parents hadn't found you soon enough you would have died. It would have been murder, and I would have gotten away with it!" He was moved to tears at her bedside, hoping she could forgive what he'd done.

"Adrien, I'm in the hospital because I shot myself. All you did was supply the gun."

He took a moment to decode her analogy. She mostly blamed herself for her situation. In her mind, he was just an accomplice.

"Remember whose idea it was to not use a condom? Things work differently in the dream world, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant if I didn't will it to happen. I wanted that experience in an environment that I thought was risk free. All I needed was for you to release inside to trigger my imagination. Now I know, no more babies in the dream world."

Adrien was relieved, but he still felt responsible. To think he'd actually shared that intimate moment with her, it blurred the line between what was real and what wasn't. He felt that he should be there for her and be a father to this baby, if only in his dreams. "Do you think that if we both concentrated on it when we go to sleep tonight, that I'd be able to come back to the cottage and see him?"

"I don't see why not. If we connected our dreams once, we should be able to do it again."

Marinette knew Chat would be expecting to see Ladybug for patrol. She wasn't supposed to leave her hospital room for the night, but she also couldn't leave him without him knowing where she was. She waited until the night nurse was just past her room and snuck into the bathroom to transform. "Tikki! Spots on!" She opened the phone on her yo-yo and dialed Chat's number.

"Hello?" He answered. "Is everything all right? I was beginning to wonder why you hadn't shown up."

"I won't be coming to patrol for a few nights Chat - personal emergency. I think I should be able to make it if there's an akuma, though." She hoped that promise wouldn't be tested, fighting an akuma would certainly violate her post surgery orders to take it easy.

"Are you all right?" After being assured by his partner that he didn't need to worry about her, he decided he needed to confide something in her. "LB? I hate to tell you, but I can't hide it from you - I've been unfaithful to you."

Ladybug laughed. "Oh, Chaton, how could you be unfaithful to me when we're not together?"

Her comment stung his heart, but he had to admit it was true. "I made a promise to myself that there was no other girl for me. Even if it doesn't mean anything to you, it does to me, and I broke it." He went on to explain how he'd had an intimate dream with another girl only to discover he'd shared the experience with her. She'd almost died for real birthing his child in the dream, and now he didn't know what to do because he still loved Ladybug but felt a sense of responsibility to the other girl.

Ladybug was unusually quiet after his account, then slowly said, "Are you sure she isn't your soulmate? I know you have feelings for me, but it could be just a crush. On the other hand, I don't think you can share your dreams with just anyone."

Adrien even worse didn't know what he should do. Ladybug practically told him he should pursue Marinette. Did the degree to which he looked up to Ladybug extend to whom she believed he should be romantically involved with in favor of herself? He'd be lying if he said he didn't want Marinette, but it would be hard to let Ladybug go.

Marinette, on the other hand, knew exactly what she had done. She'd given into Chat's desires without letting him know that he had won. Adrien would surely be coming after her now, and if what he liked was truly her and not the mask, he would forget about Ladybug soon enough as he became more involved in their relationship. She smiled as she went to sleep, intent on seeing her baby and her baby's father.

"I wonder if this is the only baby I'm ever going to have," Marinette whispered quietly. She and Adrien stood over the bassinet where the baby slept.

"Why would you think that?"

"My uterus really isn't built to be on the outside of my body, it got infected while exposed to the open air. I asked my doctors if I would be able to have kids in the future, and they couldn't guarantee me anything. It all depends on how well my body can repair the damage that was done. I thought of this as practice for the real thing - hopefully I'll still be able to do it."

Months passed and the trauma from the experience began to fade. Marinette was actually glad to see the return of her menstrual cycle because, though annoying, it suggested her reproductive organs were back in some sort of working order. That was good, she would probably want to use them some day.

In waking hours, she and Adrien weren't acting largely different around each other, but in their dreams, they discovered the rythm of how they worked as a family. Together, they watched their baby grow, and could hardly believe it was all their imagination. It felt so real and so right.

One day, while they were at school, Adrien pulled Marinette asside. It was unusual, they hardly ever spent time one on one in their waking hours. It usually felt like they didn't need to, as they saw each other exclusively in their dreams. Something serious must be going on if Adrien felt it couldn't wait until they were asleep. "Mari, I think we should end our dream."

The way those words felt to Marinette, he might as well have said he was breaking up with her. It completely blindsided her as well. It had appeared to her that he had a great time in their dreams. "You're getting tired of us?"

"No," Adrien shook his head vehemently. "I love you both very much, but, I think I love him too much. He's not staying an infant, Marinette. The other night he smiled when he saw me, like he recognized me and was happy I was there. I've been reading a lot about babies recently, do you know what object permanence is?"

Marinette shook her head.

"It's a stage of development when a baby comes to the understanding that something they can't currently see still exists. He's going to reach that stage soon, and then he'll know that he's not like us. He'll realize that when neither of us are actively thinking about him, he ceases to be. We're only asleep a third of our time, and he doesn't need to sleep at all, so he's spending two thirds of his time in a void of nothingness. I don't know about you, but if I were imaginary, I'd rather be obliviously to that fact. I don't want to be responsible for bringing him that emotional pain."

Marinette shook her head slowly. "How am I supposed to go back? I've had a switch flipped inside of me. I'm a mother now, don't make me a mother without a child. I would be willing to start the dream over again, but you know why we can't do that."

"It's not fair to him to let him continue the way he is, but maybe we could start over, with him as a real boy. I'd be happy to give you a baby in real life, if you would want that, just say the word."

"Adrien, can't you do that any harder?" Marinette complained. She'd allowed him to convince her why keeping him trapped in the dream world wasn't fair to their son, but she'd told him that despite their feelings, they should wait to do it for real. It wouldn't be socially acceptable when she got pregnant, and she wanted to put off getting in trouble as long as she could stand it. She held out just over two weeks before she told him he better not have been joking when he said he would give her a baby.

"I don't want to hurt you." He very slowly and carefully withdrew himself from her, just to inch his way back in. Marinette knew that his motive was just what he said it was, but it felt like teasing to her.

"You were rough with me last time," she referred to their love making from their dream.

"I know," Adrien cringed, "I wouldn't have if I'd known you could feel it."

"I want you to do that to me now, just like you did back then."

"You like it rough?" he asked in surprise, subconsciously picking up the pace a little.

"Rougher than your doing now, at least. I'll tell you if you hurt me. Until then, come on, let's make a baby."