Butterfly Delivery - Adrinette

Greetings From Overseas

Twenty-three years after Certified Baby

"She's still not picking up her phone!" Felix panicked.

"Have you tried talking to her neighbors?" Bridgette asked him.

"No, I've... I'm going to go now!" Felix ran out of the house.

--

"How'd it go?"

"None of them have seen her in three days. Several of them said they're used to seeing her all the time; this behavior is unusual."

"If no one else has seen her either, then you can quit thinking you did something to upset her. Have you thought about making a missing person's report? Just to be on the safe side."

"I did, they told me she's allowed to disappear if she wants to. She's not obligated to let me know where she is at all times... but that's not the point! This just isn't like her!"

--

Eight days after Mariposa disappeared

Felix's phone rang. He didn't know the number, but his service provider was warning him it was an international call; would he accept the charge? "I wonder if that could be..." he pushed "Accept".

"Hello? ... Where are you? I've been worried sick about you! ... Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you! ... Okay, but if I knew, at least I wouldn't have to be worrying about you. You've been there for a week already? Why didn't you contact me sooner? ... I wouldn't give up on you that easily, I've been turning this place upside down looking for you. I'm hopping on the next plane I can get over there. ... I am too going to, be ready to give me directions to your place from the airport. We're going to get this straight. I love you."

When Felix hung up, the curious faces of his family told him he was going to have to explain. "Apparently she was here on a student visa that expired a year ago. She since got a work visa and two extensions without telling me. She tried to do it again, but her application was denied. She kept trying to file up until the last day. She was worried what would happen if she told me she was going to be sent home. She stayed up until the very last day of her visa trying to get it extended, but the people at the Uruguayan consulate told her she would have to leave or be subject to deportation, and that would make it harder for her to ever come back. She spent her first week home working on her papers, too; she only called me when she realized there was nothing else she could do."

"I heard you say you were getting the next plane. You agreed to go see her in Uruguay?"

"I'm - not sure we agreed," Felix laughed. "She didn't want me to get involved in 'her problems', but I told her I'm coming. She's got a job, and a clean record, and all of her papers are up to date. I'm not sure what else she could need, except maybe a sponsor."

--

"Here, don't be shy, have more!" Mariposa's mother piled food onto Felix's plate.

"No thanks, I've had enough, really," Felix declined. His Spanish practice was paying off. He'd learned some as a boy, from his occasional trips to Spain, and in the couple of years since he'd started dating Mariposa he'd taken special interest in the Latin American variety. Some dialectical phrases had required Mariposa to translate, but over all their communication had gone very well.

"Nonsense, Miho," her father told him. "We've never had a butterfly child in our home before. It's an honor to have such a rare being as yourself."

"Please, Papá, stop," Mariposa cut in. "I asked you not to make a deal of that. I love him for him; would you just treat him like a normal person?"

"That's okay," Felix told her. "I am a butterfly child. It doesn't offend me to be called one, but really, it doesn't entitle me to any special privileges."

--

"Your family seems nice," Felix told Mariposa later.

"Because they keep fussing over you, it's so embarrassing! How can you stand always being called out as different?"

"I'm just glad they like me. If they like me, they'll approve of us! Speaking of which, I have something I need to ask you."

I think they'd like their privacy right now.

--

"Felix! You're back!" Emma bounded up to her big brother.

"What about your girlfriend?" Louis asked. "Is she going to be able to come back?"

"Let's go inside." Felix herded his siblings back to the front door. "I'll tell everyone once we're inside."

--

"So, Mariposa and I got engaged! In theory she should be allowed back into the country as my fiancée, but her application was denied. Getting engaged to a French citizen right after her visa extension was denied looks bad. It makes it look like we got engaged for the wrong reason."

"But you didn't. You got engaged for the right reason, right?" Emma asked. "What's the wrong reason to get engaged?"

"When someone wants to move from one country to another, say, from Uruguay to France, they have to ask the government's permission if they can come live there. Unless there's some reason the country they're going to really wants them, they might say no. However, if the citizens of two different countries get married, most countries agree that they will let the couple live in whichever country where either one of them is a citizen. Some people misuse this and marry someone they don't love in order to gain access to that person's country."

"Why wouldn't they want Mariposa?"

"Because she doesn't have an abnormally large amount of money. It's not fair, but rich people get first pick where they want to go."

"What's wrong, Bridgette?" Marinette asked suddenly. Bridgette didn't look like she was paying much attention to the rest of the family and was just sort of pushing at her food.

"Jaques and I have been together longer than Felix and Mariposa."

"Oh, honey, you know he's shy."

"He can be shy somewhere else! I mean, with other people! He can be with other people. Shy! I don't want him to be with other people, he doesn't have to be shy with me!" Bridgette calmed herself down, blushing from her outburst. "I'm going to tell him that my brother got engaged, and remind him that Felix didn't even meet his girlfriend for almost five years after we started dating."

"Cool," Felix said. "Then we could have a double wedding."

Bridgette glared at him, then sighed. "Was I that obvious? I didn't mean to be."

Felix stuck out his tongue at his sister.