All That Remains » Marichat

3: a jean jacket

"I call this one 'I nearly died'!" Marinette showed the sketch of the gray gown she had been working on to her two best friends. The past few weeks she had been having trouble sleeping. During the late hours of the night—or early hours of the morning, depending on how you looked at it—she stayed up and worked on her designs. The tiny bruise left from the gun pressed against her temple had faded away but vivid nightmares had taken its place. She'd almost rather the annoying reminder of the whole ordeal. The nightmares were haunting.

The dreams showed her visions of what may have transpired had Chat Noir never shown up, where the robber was more violent, where she hadn't used her phone to warn Chloé of the danger, where Alya walked back into the diner. She involuntarily shivered. She thought of the images of the failed prophecies playing out behind her eyelids. She could see her friend being shot. Marinette could hear Chat Noir's weak gasps as he bled out on the floor. She felt a scream climb her throat as she imagined the robber pulling the trigger with the gun still pressed to her head.

She wasn't sleeping much.

No amount of chamomile tea or exercise stopped the nightmares from plaguing her sleep. Instead, she designed, and cleaned, and did other things that kept her mind off her awful dreams. Marinette was sleep deprived and she hated it. Though, the designs that came to her in the odd hours were beautiful.

Chloé squealed, "I love it!" She snatched the sketchbook from the table to get a closer look at the details that decorated the shoulder of the dress. The flowery design began at the shoulder and travelled down the drawing's side. She was pretty pleased with how it came out.

"You didn't nearly die," Alya rolled her eyes but there was a certain edge to the hazel color. She had been worried about her friend. Alya wanted to push but didn't want to say anything that might upset Marinette. Alya had a front row seat to the mess that was Marinette.

"Fine. Just a technicality. How about..." she paused, hand against her cheek. She had to think. Her thoughts were more often a jumbled mess than tangle free. "Is 'I was held at gun point' cooler?" she mused aloud.

"Gun point kinda sounds kickass," Chloé glanced up to find Alya's disapproving gaze and instantly went back to flipping through Marinette's book. There was a few other designs that Chloé was supposed to look at. "I mean, it's not healthy to make jokes about what happened," she sent a subtle wink Marinette's way. She was at least able to find the humor in the situation.

"Not the point and you know it," Alya added. Despite the supposed seriousness of it all she got was a stern look. That barely worked on her anymore. After years of conditioning and being around Alya, she knew that look meant nothing but concern.

Marinette watched as Alya leaned forward to pick up her mug that sat on their coffee table. The tea was probably cold but Alya didn't seem to mind. She kept drinking the sweetened mixture.

"How about 'Chat Noir nearly beat the guy, who held me at gun point, into a coma'." Marinette walked to their comfy chair and collapsed into it. Alya hummed in approval which made her think that the other woman could find a bit of humor in the precarious situation that they found themselves in. The thought made her grin a bit to herself. There was something so human about the nature of dark humor. Things could be deflected and repressed.

"Hey," Chloé set the sketchbook down on her lap. "You know they don't tell you that if a person passes out when they've been hit it's likely something serious in the movies or shows. Maybe he didn't know. Chat beat that guy up because he held you hostage. Not his fault that the guy started hemorrhaging." It was stated so matter of factly that it was nearly funny to Marinette. She wasn't sure how Chloé knew about fighting but still found it interesting.