AN: Welcome back to the Not Alone series! (You should probably read Not Alone first, but I'm not the boss of you. Live your life.) Also, don't be alarmed. Yes, this is ML, just some new characters. Keep reading. It will be okay ;)

"Jo!" She heard Pete's voice call her for the tenth time, but she barely listened. She was focused on exploring a newly discovered offshoot of the catacombs they had been excavating for 4 months. They had expected from the apparent age and location of this burial site to find Etruscan artifacts, but most of the tools and art were more reminiscent of Hellenistic times. Intrigued, and insatiable to know more, Josephine disregarded the warning of an ancient curse at the entrance of what should befall any who dare disturb the eternal rest of the deceased and waded through the dirt and debris down the passage.

Pete was much more superstitious than she, so she'd left him behind. There was a time when she'd been more in tune with the spiritual world...but that time was tinged with memories she'd rather leave forgotten and she'd moved on. She was a scientist now, and curses and magic were historical relics of a less educated time. Ever since she passed through the northern Mediterranean coast when she was young, she'd been fascinated with mythologies of this region. But she reminded herself that they was just myths, stories to distract scared and lonely little girls like her. There wasn't actually truth in them.

Still, every time she accidentally stepped on a bone or kicked a dislodged skull, she cringed, waiting for Zeus or Jupiter or whoever to strike her dead with lightning. She prided herself on being logical, but being surrounded by superstitions and religions of an ancient era day in and day out had her slipping more and more back into the beliefs of the village where she had grown up. She couldn't help but make the ancient symbol to ward off evil. It couldn't hurt. There was definitely something ominous about this passage, but her curiosity got the better of her and she continued on.

"Josephine!" Pete called again, and she paused. He suddenly sounded much farther away than he had a moment ago. How far in was she? She began to turn around when she noticed a small inset in the wall. She tentatively moved some plant matter and stray bones out of the way to reveal a chest. Her hand touched the decaying wood top of its own accord-despite all her artifact preservation training screaming at her to stop-and she lifted the rusted hatch. It had been locked at one point, but it snapped open easily enough, creaking eerily and echoing through the long and narrow tunnel. Inside was a polished stone. There were no breaks or lines of where the two pieces might have been spliced together, but somehow the ovular pebble was split almost perfectly down the middle, one site a gleaming ebony and the other a sparkling white. Maybe marble? She thought, immediately starting to analyze the artifact, but two such varied colors, separated as they were was...unnatural. Nevertheless, her hand reached forward, as the mysterious object called to her.

Her fingers made contact with its cool surface, and it seemed to heat immediately under her skin. She took it completely into her hands and a flash of light ricocheted menacingly off the skull-studded walls surrounding her, somehow leaving the tunnel impossibly darker than before. A rush of power infused her body like a shot of liqueur, burning its way through her veins. Without consciously choosing to, she slipped the stone into her pocket, closed the chest and recovered the alcove.

"JO." Pete's voice sounded aggravated now,

"Coming!" she finally responded and turned to go. He hand reached down to fiddle with the stone, and the feeling surged through her again with...pleasure. It was as if suddenly she had been reunited with a long lost friend and she was now only realizing how alone she'd been without it. Her friend smiled, and she followed in suit.

Reemerging from the entrance, Pete looked relieved but angry.

"Jo," he wiped a hand over his face in exhaustion. "You just took ten years off my life. You are slowly killing me. See this white hair?" He pointed to his his completely silver mop. "All. You."

"Sorry, professor," she smirked at him. They were technically colleagues now, but he had been her dissertation advisor. Old habits die hard.

"Did you at least find anything?" He looked at her expectantly. He knew enough by now that her hunches, dangerous as they might be, usually did at least bear fruit in the end.

She opened her mouth to answer him, but found that no words came out. She wanted to tell him, but she couldn't. Actually, the longer that she deliberated, she found her feelings changing. She didn't want to tell him. That was odd. She had never been an indecisive person until now. Still, a niggling voice in the back of her head was growing stronger. Nothing. You found nothing.

"Nothing. I didn't find anything," she gasped out at last, repeating the voice. Pete looked at her strangely, but accepted her answer.

"Let's get out of here then. This place it giving me the creeps. Something...just doesn't feel right here." He shivered as if to dislodge some bad juju.

Josephine pulled the pebble from her pocket when he turned away. She was going to throw it away. Something was off. Something wasn't...No, it was fine, she changed her mind as a burst of power and knowledge coursed through her. She placed the rock back in her pocket. Smiling, she followed Pete up the ladder and back into the Tuscan sunlight.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. He did every time. Sitting on a ledge, overlooking the Eiffel Tower, her brunette hair shone almost blue in the moonlight and the taut muscles of her back bunched and coiled as she rocked back and forth absentmindedly, lost in the lights of Paris.

There had been some disturbances in Paris recently and Fu had said he felt as if a storm was approaching. Chat had no idea what that meant, but he and Ladybug had doubled their patrols and usually split up to cover more ground. They ran a parallel route, so they were never too far from the other should something happen, but they hadn't patrolled side by side in months.

Like a cat burglar in the night, he snuck over and plopped down next to her. She wasn't startled in the slightest and instead looked over at him, eyebrow raised.

"Hey beautiful, it seem's like fur-ever since I've seen your meow-velous smile." He waggled his eyes seductively at her, but she simply cocked her head at him.

"Do I know you?"

"Ah, Purr-incess," he clasped a hand to his heart in pain. "Paw-lease. You wound me."

She let a smile slip.

"How claw-ful of me." She looked over and he smiled back at her.

"I love it when you talk punny to me." He leaned towards her and she grabbed his bell, pulling him until their lips were a hair's breadth away. "Paw-sitively sexy, M'lady." he leaned in to close the gap, but she held him steady.

"You know what would be even sexier," she whispered, her voice low and throaty, and he could practically feel her lips move they were so close.

He hummed, not able to quite form words.

"If you did the dishes," she leaned in and playfully nipped at his nose. Then she was up and racing along the rooftop in an instant. "Last one home is on clean-up duty for a week!"She turned around and ran backward, teasing him. He was up and moving faster than light, and she squeaked in surprise as he started to gain on her before she turned and raced in earnest.

He chased her home, coming in second, but he couldn't find it in himself to mind. He'd gotten to chase her laughter through the streets of Paris and he would happily follow this woman for the rest of his life.

Home. He chased her home. To their home.