What Happens In...

...Stays In...

"Crap!" The assistant hissed, as she enlarged a picture of them, signing their marriage certificate. "Have a look around, if you can find that document somewhere. Without it we won't be able to undo what we did!" She shouted, almost panicking.

But Gabriel shook his head and objected.

"No! First I need to know what happened after that! It doesn't matter when we look for it. If it's here, it's here and if not, we'll have to figure out where to find it. Right now I need to know everything. So, let me see."

He swiped to the next image that showed them looking at each other. They didn't look drunk on this one, just head over heels in love.

Nathalie took a deep breath before she let out the air audibly.

"This one looks kinda..."

"Yes, I agree! It's beautiful. Would you mind sending it to me?"

"Excuse me? I thought as soon as we could retrace our steps and undo all of this, I would delete those pictures!" The young woman was in shock as she yelled at him.

Her 'husband' was just about to give her a snide reply, when he noticed that they were both lying on their stomachs and looked at the photos on her phone and started to laugh.

Nathalie raised her eyebrows asking.

"What's so funny about that? Please stop making fun of me and help me get this puzzle solved!"

He shook his head while he was still laughing.

"Look at us! Most people in our actual situation would have searched for anything to cover their naked bodies with, before they had tried to find out what happened to them. We, on the other hand..." He smirked and laid an arm around her bare back. "...we barely gave that a thought and instead started to investigate. Wouldn't you agree with me, that it's a rather strange reaction?"

His touch had sent a shiver down her spine and of course he had noticed that. As she now turned her head to look at him, she saw his playful grin and couldn't help but reciprocate it.

"Well... uhm... that didn't seem so important at the moment... so we... I... we... I don't know, Gabriel! This whole situation is confusing me. I am used to acting logically not emotionally. Maybe this is more your territory!" Nathalie mocked him, referring to the times, when he was so desperately missing his wife, that he hadn't cared about any consequences when he had akumatised his victims.

He simply ignored her remark and scooted a little bit closer to pull her taut and try to soothe her.

"Don't get yourself all worked up, dear. I promise, we will find a solution to this dilemma. Though we seem to have made it a little more difficult to get out of this affair as we obviously... well..."

He looked down to his naked self and sighed, then went on.

"...consummated this marriage. If only we could remember!" With a whisper he added those last words.

Nathalie though, had understood him well and immediately held her breath.

"Gabriel... you... that's totally inappropriate to say... I... please, don't give me that look. It took me so long to get over you. I won't let myself get hurt again. I just can't. We should get dressed and try to find the right hotel with our things and after that we need to find someone who can advise us, how to annul this..."

"Stop it!" He yelled at her. "There is nothing we can do at this moment anyway. It takes a couple of days to get all the documents and then it could be weeks until we even get a date for an annulment. So stop freaking out about things you can't change."

"Why would you know all of this?" The assistant asked him suspiciously, her whole figure still trembling in his embrace.

He laughed as he told her.

"Audrey Bourgeois got married here twice while she already was André's wife. I helped her both times to get herself out of this mess. Still, there were consequences she never thought of back then."

"Zoé!" Nathalie said emotionlessly.

"Exactly. And there may have been another incident but she had a different solution for that. I think at some point that was what destroyed our friendship. Emilie and I were struggling to have a child and she... she just..."

He covered his eyes with one hand, not able to speak any further when he thought back to how desperately his former wife had wished for a child while Audrey just decided that her two daughters were enough and had at least two abortions after the younger girl's birth.

"Emilie and I would have wanted another one, but as her health started to deteriorate we gave up on that thought and focused on the one little miracle we had been gifted. Did you know the meaning behind Adrien's names?" The now old looking man questioned and was surprised to see her nod.

"Yeah, I figured it out ages ago, when I was curious about the meaning of each of his names. Basically you called your son: Adrien, an eternal gift for Emilie and Gabriel. It's really sweet, you know. Especially for someone like me, being named 'born heartless'." Nathalie Sancoeur shook her head wearily. "If only my parents had given it that much thought, to not make my life worse with my given name when I wouldn't be able to change my last. I can tell you one thing. High school wasn't very nice. Most people think that children are cruel, while they're mostly just honest or curious. Teenagers are the ones who are cruel to everyone, especially other teenagers. But we're drifting away from the real issue, Gabriel. What are we going to do about 'our' actual situation?"

Her boss and new husband shrugged as he nonchalantly asked her.

"Would it really be that bad, to wait a few more days? To enjoy the remaining time of this business trip instead of trying to get legal support and fill out forms and all those things? As I said, it takes time anyway. I promise you to call my lawyer, the very same who took care of Audrey's cases back then, and hire him to take care of our issue as soon as we're back in Paris. You were once willing to sacrifice everything, even your health and your life for my happiness. At least grant me the chance to make you happy for a few days. Alright?"