I: Caught Up in Circles
Marinette's breath comes in large huffs, trying to catch her breath when all she wants is to collapse –she doesn't want to take too long of a break, not when the akumatized villain is wrecking more damage than is usual.
But she also knows that she can't keep this up.
She's unsure where Chat Noir is. She can't get the others there either and so she's all alone, fighting tirelessly against this villain and ready to fall at any moment. She's terrified and alone and she just wants to stop for a moment –
Marinette's not sure what happens next. All she knows is she's blinded by bright, bright light and she's falling.
She falls and hits the ground hard, and it hurts but she mostly knows that her body aches and is in pain and she doesn't know what happened.
So she finally lets herself go and blacks out thereafter.
When she awakes again, it's to two beautiful eyes, like gemstones that glitter and shine prettily for her –one pair is as light and smooth as jade and the other reminds her all too much of blue diamonds.
She's fallen so, so far from the heavens that she thinks she might've been found by angels that had chased after her.
"Hello, mon mignon," she smiles at Marinette. "I'm Emilie and this is Gabriel. We will take care of you, little one."
Marinette could only blink and close her eyes, because the world is strange and her body is still in agony.
She feels herself get picked up and opens her eyes slightly, and her breath hitches as she recognizes the man who holds her.
Gabriel is Gabriel Agreste, and he's holding her like a princess.
"This is too much," she mutters and thinks it's a dream.
She closes her eyes once again and wills herself to sleep and hopefully wake up to reality.
II: Confusion Isn't New (But This Time Is)
Her angels with their perfect marble visage, gemstone eyes, and silky strands of hair are...
Adrien's parents.
Emilie Agreste, who is beautiful and kind and excited about Marinette, is here in the flesh and not a memory for a boy and his father. And there is Gabriel, who isn't distant but careful and sweet and thoughtful.
And without any questions, they take her in and take care of her, letting her rest enough to realize that after she'd hit the ground, she had devolve back into plain old Marinette –she's terrified at the thought that they know both of her identities, even though she knows that Ladybug isn't one they'd recognize.
The magic from her Miraculous has managed to heal her enough, but there are still leftover aches and pain, bruises and cuts that the two help mend. She wants to ask them what happened, why were they there, but she can't actually even speak for a few days. Instead, she's confined to a bed and being helped by them recover.
She has suspicions of where is...when she is because Emilie ("I insist, mon mignon! And Gabriel is Gabriel.") is still here and Gabriel looks younger, less lines and lighter eyes. She wears colorful clothes that spin around her in joyous movement, while Gabriel doesn't wear his classic outfit. He wears dark colors and not always suits, smiles more (that are tiny but there) and he speaks quietly but kindly.
Adrien hasn't even been born yet.
Marinette doesn't know these strangers and feels out of her depth (she lets slip that she's from the future before she silences herself). But Emilie is more than happy to have her around and Gabriel is a steady presence she has grown to depend on in the short time she has been there.
"Are you weary, Marinette?" he asks her one day, helping her stand from the bed. She's getting better and can move around now, and the pain has mostly gone.
"I feel better," she tells him honestly, but he gives her a quiet look that says more than he says aloud. She swallows slowly and looks away from him. "I just want to go home," she whispers.
He doesn't answer her, but silently pours her a glass of water and hands her two pills for whatever lingering pain and soreness she had.
Emilie comes in then, smiling brightly and happily.
"Ma choupinette! I've gotten you some new clothes!"
Marinette puts on a smile because she knows she's somehow in the past and Emilie Agreste adores her for some reason and Gabriel Agreste isn't a distant idol for her to worship from afar but just a man ready to be quietly supportive.
III: Suitcase Full of Memories
Marinette has spent a week in the Agreste Manor recovering and a total of two where she is trying to gather her bearings and coexist with these earthly angels. Emilie and Gabriel are devoted to and loving with each other, and she feels awed and sad.
She remembers how she felt for their son and for Luka, and wonders if she'll ever find love like these two have. She has always wished in her heart to have the kind of love that would bring her this kind of happiness and looking through the life she's had so far, she realizes how lonely she's been.
Even her partner Chat Noir, no matter how much he's flirted with her, has only ever brought her to feel nothing other than deep friendship and Marinette finds herself aching for the kind of companionship she witnesses with Gabriel and Emilie.
He looks at Emilie like she's the sun and she looks at Gabriel like he's the moon, and there's nothing more breathtaking than the way they gaze at each other.
Loneliness fills her more than ever each time and more and more she wants to go home.
"Mon soleil," she hears Gabriel whisper to Emilie (his sun, his love, his everything), "you're thinking long and hard about her."
"You always know what I'm thinking, Gabriel," Emilie murmurs. "But she is always so sad and homesick all the time. I want to make her happy."
"You do your best always," he says and there's silence and Marinette wonders if he's kissed her. "Time will past. We'll just try to make her happy in the meantime."
"Ah, mon coeur."
Marinette slips away then and heads back to her room.
~*~
Sometimes she thinks back to the others and wonders what're they doing. She wonders about the villain she'd been fighting and if one of or all of the others had managed to get their Miraculouses and defeat the villain, or if the villain has managed to continue to wreck havoc. She wonders about Chat Noir and where was he. She wonders about Hawk Moth and if he's won already, and for the first time she also wonders why he's been doing all this.
But then she almost always gets dragged into her memories, and thinks about her mother and father, and lazy Sundays where she and her dad bakes all morning long or days where she makes dumplings with her mother, especially for Chinese New Year. She starts craving it, to the point she distractedly mentions it wistfully to her caretakers one day. The rest of the morning has her hiding in her room and trying not to cry when she thinks she'll never see her parents ever again.
When lunch comes around however, a knock on her door has her reluctantly go to open it and she sees Gabriel standing there awkwardly, holding two cartons of Chinese takeout.
"It's probably not the same as what you wanted, but you said you were craving it?" He holds out a carton and she opens it to find Chinese dumplings inside. "I thought about ordering you some and Emilie thought it was a good idea and found a restaurant that's highly recommended."
She finds herself smiling, feeling fond of her two angels (she won't ever tell them her thoughts about them or what she has consistently called them in her mind, but it is what it is about them to her).
"Emilie?" she asks.
"She had to go to a photoshoot," he says, smiling faintly at her. She feels a blush come on, but inwardly shakes her head. Not that she is wrong from observing how handsome Gabriel is. He's as handsome as Emilie is utterly beautiful, and it's a wonder why Marinette is not a stuttering mess around these two like she is around their son in the future. "Do you want privacy?"
And she doesn't want to be alone because she knows if she is, she'll just go back to being depressed and remembering.
"Would you like to come in?" she invites awkwardly and he steps into the room he'd gifted her with all the grace of a supermodel, and she distantly thinks about the old photos she ran across of him in his youth, where he was a model and he's as handsome as ever.
They end up sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, eating Chinese dumplings and joking about his old modeling career and she thinks she's never felt more comfortable.
~*~
Fashion has always been Gabriel's calling, he tells her. He's been designing since he was young, like her, and quickly became recognized for his style. He'd also had photoshoots on the side, most of the time modeling his own designs. That is how he meets Emilie, who models his work like she is made for them and the two fell easily in love.
It makes Marinette sigh to herself and long for her own love story in that way, something so pretty and fateful, something that clicks just so and quickly with just the right person.
"Emilie and I," he says, voice ever soft and lips turned up in that strange kind way that she is unfamiliar with him, "have had years together. We married a few years ago and have been happy together."
She wants that sort of happiness.
"I know memories can be beautiful and sometimes they're nothing but pain," he says quietly while reaching out for her hands. "And you have many memories. Whatever they are, whenever they get too much...Emilie and I are here for you, mon bijou."
Her breath hitches and she watches Gabriel with wide eyes, breathless even as he stands up and plants a barely there kiss, lips fluttering like a butterfly on her forehead, before leaving her.
IV: The Clocks Ticks and Yet I Think of You
It is the first time Gabriel has called her any sort of endearment. Emilie is full of them –always bestowing Marinette with an endless litany of them. But Gabriel is a little more reserved, so she can't imagine why on earth he would call her his 'jewel'.
It's pretty and lovely and unique and...and she admits she likes it. Emilie is boundless with her affection, not that she understands why, and her seemingly constant endearments make Marinette swell with her own affection towards her. Gabriel though...he's never been unkind to her in this time, and he's even not as distant and aloof like Marinette is used to in her own time. In fact, he's been very caring and sweet towards her, and has even been supportive for everything.
He's never, though, called her anything but Marinette.
She wishes she has Tikki there to talk to, but ever since her fall into the past, she's been unable to activate her earrings or has seen Tikki. She feels worried and anxious about her little friend's disappearance and inability to appear to her, but she's unable to do much but stay with Emilie and Gabriel at their home.
She has no identity, no other friends and her family wouldn't know her (if they were even in the city). There is no money or any other resource to her name. Their kindness in taking her in is a blessing and she can't understand it, nor why they seem to care for her so much.
But it makes her warm all over and she finds that she has just as quickly come to care for them as well.
"You have such lovely hair," Emilie hums, brushing Marinette's dark strands fondly. They've grown in the time she's spent there with them, and she's wary of the fact she's spent too much time in the past.
"You haven't asked anything about me except my name," Marinette finally brings up.
Emilie pauses in her brushing, looking down at her with a strange look. The pretty woman is silent and Marinette starts to worry that she's upset her.
"I don't want to or need to know anything," Emilie then says simply, smiling gently at her then. "You are our Marinette. Right, Gabriel?"
The two of them turn towards the silent man, who's been in the background at his desk and hasn't said a word or brought attention to him. His blue gemstones for eyes look at Marinette, digging into her soul almost with the intensity of his gaze, and shakes his head.
"No, we don't need to know anything. You are our Marinette," he agrees with his wife and Marinette inwardly flounders and doesn't understand these beautiful people.
And Emilie embraces her from behind, her light strands of hair brushing against Marinette's cheeks and feeling like feathers.
~*~
She feels like time is running out and the clock is ticking on her. But she also admits that she loves this time with Emilie and Gabriel. Emilie who dances as she walks, who seems eternally happy. Gabriel with his quiet sort of happiness, his understated kindness, and unexpected sweetness that she remembers from Adrien.
She should be in the future, but she thinks that she's really, really happy in the past.
"What is your favorite color?" Gabriel asks and she smiles to herself.
"Red," she answers, remembers her Ladybug outfit and laughs freely.
He smiles at her and nods towards his wife, who is practicing the violin. "She likes white. Reminds her of gardenias, which are her favorite flowers."
"What about you?" she blurts out before blushing.
"I like shades of silver and gray," he admits to her.
"Gabriel! Let's perform a duet for our Marinette!"
Gabriel smiles slightly at her one last time before joining his wife, and Marinette listens to the sweet sounds of the violin and piano in concert with each other.
~*~
When she sees Gabriel's new suit later, she's torn between amusement, dismay and fear. Amusement because Gabriel still looks like a candy cane in that getup, and dismay and fear because it's like she's ticking ever closer towards the future –her present.
She realizes she's not keen on leaving her angels and she wants to stay in their presence just a little longer.
"You look like a candy cane, mon coeur," Emilie dares to say what everyone would never to his face, grinning as she teases her husband.
Gabriel just waves it off, smiling in his understated way. "I have all our favorite colors on, don't I?" he says blasé.
Marinette's breath leaves her and she stares at him, feeling her heart constrict while overwhelming joy, sadness and affection fill her. To know that his iconic outfit from the future was a combination of their favorite colors...that the red he wears was because of her...
"You look utterly silly," she chokes out, even when tears fill her eyes.
She doesn't see them on either side of her, and only knows they've come close when they kiss wet cheeks tenderly.
V: If You're Lost (Look and Find Me)
"Do you want to go home still?" Emilie asks her as they lie down on the grass and gaze at the blue sky.
Marinette wants to say yes. Opens her mouth to say yes. But she can't, even though she does still want to go home.
Before she can make up her mind, Emilie turns on her side and leans over Marinette.
"We can be home," she whispers and leans down.
Her lips feel soft and brush against Marinette's in a featherlight caress.
Marinette finds it harder to say she wants to go home.
~*~
When night comes, Marinette is still brooding over her situation. She sits lonely in the balcony by Gabriel's atelier and tries to sort out her emotions. Part of her also feels guilty because Emilie and Gabriel are the perfect couple and in love, and why and how is she coming in between them?
When Gabriel steps into his atelier and spots her, she thinks she might've chosen her place there because she wants to confess. So she does and she feels frantic and upset and she feels utterly helpless –until Gabriel's arms band around her and hold her carefully.
"Gabriel?" she blinks and feels lost.
But that's been a common feeling since she's gotten there.
Gabriel leans back and looks at her solemnly, but he never lets go. "You live in your past," he murmurs. "Maybe it is Emilie and I's future, but we don't know or don't care to know. Let the future come as is. What my wife and I do know is you fell from the skies for us and we adore you, our ciel étoilé."
Her heart skips beats and she doesn't know if she understands him right. His lips move just the slightest inch up and then he leans down to kiss her. Her eyes flutter close and she allows the truth in her mind to be heard.
Somehow she finds herself in love with human angels with eyes like jewels.
~*~
Emilie is cheerful and gracefully flies about on dancing feet, moving about the manor without reserve or care. She takes Marinette in hand and dances with her all along hallways and rooms, and she shares her day's goings with her.
Gabriel works furtively with his brand, and when he creates something new, he's excitedly sharing it with Marinette. They stay in his atelier and he pulls her into his work with her, sketching and designing and it's like Marinette's professional dreams come true.
And then there's Emilie's kisses which remind her of spring and the quicker brushes of her soft lips on Marinette's skin feel like feathers tickling her. When it comes to Gabriel, she feels she is reminded of autumn and in his more teasing moods, his brief fluttery kisses are like butterflies landing on her before flitting away.
Thoughts of home slowly slip away and she doesn't think on it too much anymore, not when she feels so at home with them.
She just knows that Emilie is the sun, Gabriel is the moon, and they think of her as their starry sky.