A/N: My first fic of 25 for Sylvia's Gift-Giving Extravaganza thingy.

For the fabulous Middy, who is the only other Chaos Walking fan I know on FFN and so is automatically perfect. I hope you like it, dear.

Thanks to Sam for betaing even though she didn't know what the hell was going on.

"Todd," she whispers, "Todd Todd Todd Todd..."

He is still. His body crumples with the weight of his bones and the promise in them, the things that should have happened but didn't, and Viola wants to trace his edges and know that he is real.

His Noise whispers to her, bare and light as breath of wind, ghosting her mind like eyelashes blinking slowly against skin.

VIOLA it says. And then smaller, quieter: viola?

It tingles with burning energy and buzzes in Viola's head like a broken radio, and she wants so badly to turn the dials on his voice. She wants to hear him again - she needs to.

"Todd," she murmurs, palms fanned out like a shield across his heart, counting the beats like each one is a promise.

And viola? viola? Viola?

"Todd?"

VIOLA? VIOLA?

"Todd!" she mutters, his name hinging on her lips because she can't remember what breathing is and now his eyelashes are flickering just the tiniest bit and she says, "Can you hear me?"

His lips say nothing.

But his Noise...

His noise says

VIOLA

and she knows that he can.

He's wrapped in a blanket but he's still shivering, always shivering.

"Cold?" she asks, and he nods dumbly. His Noise goes sort of white and says cold so cold and Viola shifts closer to his trembling form.

"Better?" she asks and he nods again, smiling that Todd smile (but weaker, more timid) and she reaches for his hand.

"I was so scared," she whispers. There are tears forming in her eyes and her voice is catching like a hangnail on wool. "We thought you wouldn't wake up."

Love

she sees in his Noise, just

Love

and he is so quick to cover it up with more cold so very cold but she's already felt it, red and dark and intruding.

"Oh, Todd," she says and grabs him by the shoulders, kisses him hard, feels the burn of his lips against hers, his hands on her skin and no one is cold, not now.

"Viola," he croaks, his voice broken and rusty. "I ain't ever gonna leave you, do you hear me, Viola Eade? Never never never..."

And his clumsy fingers are stroking her face, warm and calloused and Todd's, and she is crying.

"No more crying," Todd says, and pulls her close.

But his Noise says

crying is GOODviola eade Love (shut up) crying is okay

and Viola is kissing him again, her chest pressed close to his and her tears smeared across both of their faces and she can feel his Noise sing around her, and, oh,she loves him, she does.

The blanket falls from his shoulders and crumples on the floor, but Todd is no longer shivering.

Neither of them is.

She reads to him from his mother's journal, tells him everything he should hear. She says it quietly, but she means it loudly.

She says my beautiful son and I'm so proud of you and you're going to be a great man someday and Todd's Noise buzzes somewhere in the background, pale and muted colours swirling strangely, and Viola reads and reads and just keeps reading.

Because he can hear her. She's sure of it.

His hands are clumsy and rough as he skims her hips with his fingertips, his lips warm and desperate where he bleeds kisses onto her shoulder, his Noise calm and frantic and overjoyed and terrified all at once.

Sometimes he says, "I'm sorry. I'm not a good man, I'm not. You should go."

Tonight he says, "Stay. Don't you ever go, Viola Eade. Don't you ever leave."

She sinks further into his arms, tastes the sweat on his skin and listens to his mind, splayed before her like an open book, and she says, "Shhh," and kisses him quiet.

His Noise sings around them, joyous and free, and she wonders if this is where she should be.

"I love you," he mutters, fire and brimstone and passion alight and she knows that this, this is her forever, this is her happy ever after.

There are days when the weight of the journal is just too heavy in her pale hands. She closes it gently, like a priest would a bible, tucking her hope between the pages and softly sighing. Her voice pulls to the back of her throat, wrapping around sobs and cries and she just cannot speak for him, not now.

She watches him breathe, the rise and fall of his chest building up like a city but crashing like tragedy, the air in his lungs fighting their way back out despite his broken body, his closed eyes, and I love him, she thinks.

"Wake up, Todd," she whispers. "For me."

VIOLA?

VIOLA! his Noise says.

VIOLA?

But he does not move.

He does not move.