Undiscovered Melody |COMPLETED|

Chapter 29

Cat Noir again examined the photo of the young woman he was almost certain was Calypso, trying to burn her features into his memory. He wanted to be able to pick her out in a crowd, no matter how hard she tried to hide. He then looked over at Marinette's rooftop and the surrounding area making sure no one was there taking photos. The group of photographers had finally left the bakery a few hours after the photo shoot finished.  He had heard them grumbling about the lack of photo opportunities as Marinette and Luka had manage to disappear after the shoot.

He knew Ladybug had told him that he wasn't supposed to be seen around Marinette's, but he just couldn't stop himself. He felt the need to be doing something- protect Marinette in some way- and this was the only way he could think of.  And since neither Ladybug or Marinette had contacted him after he left them messages that he had gotten a photo of Calypso, he had all of this weird energy that he didn't know what to do with. The longer he went without hearing from either of them, the more his brain kept fixating on the fact that maybe Marinette and Ladybug were in some kind of trouble. He wished that he could make them both be there, in the bakery, so he could protect them. It would be so much easier!

"Though, I'm not sure I've ever seen both of them in the same place at the same time before, either, which makes it even more complicated to protect them. They are both so busy running around and helping people all of the time, what am I supposed to do? I can't be in more than one place at a time," he said quietly to himself. Something about that thought briefly caught his attention, making him feel like he had just figured something out, but when he went back over it in his mind, he couldn't imagine what there was of importance about it.

He sighed. He knew he should get home. He'd been gone a long time that day and eventually someone was bound to notice and his father was already upset with him about being in the tabloids. How Nathalie had managed to calm his father down about the whole mess he had no idea. But, he probably shouldn't press his luck- he should go.

Cat Noir took one more look at Marinette's rooftop, hoping there was no bad reason why Marinette wasn't back yet, and took off toward home.

- - -

Calandra smiled as she pushed send, e-mailing off the photos she'd taken from the boat of Luka and Marinette on the bench at Square du Vert-Galant. She couldn't imagine that anyone else got those photos but her. She was keeping the photos of Marinette coming out of the alley for now. It couldn't be used to prove to anyone but her that Marinette was Ladybug. But, if I need to, I could make some money from it, especially if someone at the tabloid makes up an eye-catching and misleading headline or caption for it. I don't want to tip off Marinette that I'm on to her, yet, though. I want her to think she got away with it, that she outsmarted me, so she will let her guard down and make another mistake. And this time, I hope to be right there, capturing the transformation on video!

- - -

"Hello?" said Marinette groggily as she answered the phone without looking to see who it was. She and Luka had stayed out really late the night before, neither of them wanting to go home. But, now she was really tired and her eyes didn't want to open. She was half-amazed that she actually managed to grab her phone at all.

"Marinette?" said Adrien.

"Um, yes, that's me," she replied trying to roll over onto her back and open her eyes, but she was just so warm and comfortable where she was that it seemed like too much of an effort. She lay the phone on her pillow and put her ear near it. She gave out a big yawn. "Sorry, Adrien" she mumbled as part of her brain finally recognized the voice on the other end. "So tired."

"Marinette, there are more photos of you and Luka online," he said.

"I know. Smiled for what seemed like hours yesterday. I don't want to do that again.  I don't know how you do it.  You're pretty amazing," she said. She started to drift off to sleep, seeing Luka's face smiling at her, his hand coming to her waist, and then him leaning down, their lips meeting, and—