Title: Shifting Oceans
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Bleach
Characters: Lila, Lila's father

Chapter: 16
Word Count:
Warnings: nothing

Beta: ToxicAngel13 on AO3

AN: *mutters softly about things going assup but working my way through said things*


Lila stared at the ball that she held in her hand as she rolled it around. She could remember the day that her father had handed her the ball when she had been so very young. It was heavy, glass, and had never once broken no matter how often it had been dropped or thrown by someone. By her.

It had turned a deep dark red the moment it had settled into her hands and he had told her that as long as she held onto the hurt that resided in her heart, it would stay red.

And it had.

At the very until she had returned from the trip to Tibet that she had taken with her class. Now, after the trip and Ichigo telling her that she had a spirit followed her, the ball had a streak of gold from the very middle of it. She had found the little card that had come with it, and read about what the Emotional Stone was and how it connected to her. It was connected to her in the way that nothing else would ever be connected to her. It would show how her emotions worked and how they held onto others.

Red had always been for hurt and anger. Pink was for love and there had been hints of it. Love for her father and her grandfather.

Various shades of blue covered the broad spectrum of sadness and depression. Purples would cover happiness and contentment.

But Gold? Gold meant a need to heal. That she had started that path towards a true healing. If she kept on the journey that she had started on in Tibet, she would see more and more gold over take the red as what had broken in her all those years ago as a small child started to heal. She had only seen that streak of Gold only once when she had been healing with a mix of therapy and medication.

She had been getting better back then, but then one day...it had just seemed to stop. She hadn't known why back then. She still didn't remember those two days before she had stopped taking her medications and going to therapy.

All she knew was that she had been in a hospital for those two days after something happened.

That was it. And from that time forward, she had found it easier to be a liar, finding pleasure in the fact that she could hurt others with her words. She had never thought that all of those times that she had felt something, someone, touch her neck or her shoulder, or playing with her hair, had been the spirit of the girl who she had driven into running away.

Who had run into the path of a truck that had killed her.

She hadn't remembered the week after that accident either. Her father had told her that she had disassociated pretty badly, and that they had put her under constant watch by a home nurse at the time. Her mother had moved them soon after. The move wasn't out of the normal for her mother, since running away instead of trying to fix the problems was her normal tactic. Her father had allowed it though, knowing that it if he tried to keep them, eventually it would push them to a point where they could ignore him and leave him anyways.

But the day that they had left, he had taken her out for breakfast and told her that whenever she was ready to fix things, to have some real help again, she was free to call him and he would help her. He would never let her flounder and drown if he could help it. Not like her mother.

Lila took a deep breath, settling herself, before she put the ball down and pulled out her cell phone. She scrolled through all of the numbers that she had relabeled to the actual names of her classmates before pressing her father's name. She pressed the call button and held her phone up to her ear.

"Lila? Sweetheart? Are you alright? Did something happen? You usually don't call during a school day," her father said. He sounded surprised but mostly worried, which made her smile.

"Papa...I think I need that help you offered," Lila said. "My class is off for a few days since we just got back from Tibet, but...Papa, some things came out. You know about Papillion and all of his workings right?"

"Yes, you told me. What happened, Lila?" her father asked. She took a slow, deep breath and started to tell him everything, laying it all out. By the time she was done, she was crying.

"Ichigo, that is the guy that came with Marinette and Adrien and them, told me that I had a spirit who had attached to me. That it was Marianna, the girl who got hit by that truck that day. His words...they really made me think about things and how I've been acting," she sniffed. "I think that I need a lot of help, daddy."

Her father took a deep breath, the push of it sighing over the line. "Oh, my little star. Yes, I will find someone who can help you figure things out. I will see if your old therapist would know someone who can help you in Paris and we will get through all of this," he promised. Lila smiled as she wiped at her eyes. "I am moving to Paris next month anyways. My job is transferring me since they are opening a new branch over there and I am sure that I can get a bigger apartment if you want to move in with me."

"I think that would be the best option for me right now. I hate to say it but mama is still denying that I have a lying issue that needed to be fixed and that I have done some horrible things," Lila told him. "I really love her, but I think her willful blindness to my issues will not help me in healing. My original therapist was right that she is not good for me."

"I have to agree with you on that," her father sighed. "For now, I will call around and find some of the best doctors for you, send your medical files to them to get their thoughts. You will have to go in for a full check up though."

"I will once you give me the appointment. You can tell them that Ladybug and Chat Noir personally cleansed me of any lingering magic on me. They said that I do have a Miraculous out there. One from the ancient Italian box that isn't used because it was a more healers box then a fighters box. That was why the magic from Papillion's akumazation and my own willingness to be used lingered," Lila explained. "I do not think I want to meet my Kwami though after all that I did. Even if I was offered, I don't feel as if I'm worthy of them."

"And that will be a part of your healing process, Lila. To get better and do better so that you can be worthy of the forgiveness that you hope to one day achieve. To show that you are truly working to change. And that should you ever get the chance to meet with your Kwami partner, that you would be worthy of using their Miraculous," her father told her. The words made her smile softly. "I know that you will do your very best from this day forward, darling. I will call you tomorrow with what I know. What I need from you though is for you to start up your journals again. Write it on your laptop this time. Send me a copy of the file, send yourself a copy on that secret e-mail of yours, and then print out a copy each time you write an entry. Then hide them."

Lila blew out a deep breath, running her fingers through her hair. She knew why her father was telling her to do such a thing. The last time that her mother had found her therapy journal that detailed all of the things that she had felt and done, she had denied everything and burnt it. "I will," she promised before she shifted. "I need to call someone and see if they will hide it for me though. Someone I did not manipulate. I might have to wait until after I apologize and even then I might have to beg since it will be most likely Marinette. And she was my target this time."

Her father sighed. "Do what you feel you need to do, sweetheart. And if need be, feel free to give her my number to call so that I can explain things to her," he said. Lila agreed before she said her goodbyes. She called Marinette, knowing the girl was using her old phone again to speak with her friends, taking a deep breath as she listened to the ringing.

"Marinette, can we speak for just a moment?" Lila asked, staring out of the window and taking slow breaths to keep herself grounded. She could hear the deep rumble of Sado's voice in the background. The male's voicec was very noticeable along with Adrien's complain about his flower not turning out right as Ichigo patiently explained something.

The sounds of Marinette's friends faded slightly as a door was closed. "What is it you need, Lila?" Marinette was understandably wary sounding, making Lila take another deep breath.

"I first need to apologize to you for everything that I've done. There's...history. Before I came here, before...Marianne's death, I used to go to therapy to help me with some issues that I have due to some history that I'm not going to go into here. Just...know it was enough to change me and how I acted," Lila said. "I'm not just calling to apologize either. I know you probably won't forgive me but I'm not asking for you to do that. I'm kind of hoping that you will do something for me while I return to therapy. My mother...Well she's been in denial about all that I've done since I was eight and she will destroy my therapy journal. I need somewhere to hide the printed version of it," she explained.

Marinette asked a few questions before agreeing to it. She told her where to drop off her pages each morning when she was on her way to school outside of the bakery. Apparently Marinette had her own mailbox that was for her fashion work and school information. Lila agreed to use it. Ichigo joined in and agreeed to hide the pages during the weekends since his apartment was currently closer then the bakery to where Lila lived.

He told her where he would be during lunch between noon and three every Saturday and Sunday, working well with Lila's own plans for her school work and lunches.

Lila smiled at her phone after the call had finished and moved to start on her newest journal, unknowing about what the future held for her.