Title: Breath of Life

Prompt: Kiss and make it better

Characters: Chat Noir, Ladybug

Pairings: none

Disclaimer: Only the grammar mistakes are mine.

Dedication: For my Chaton

He wasn't breathing. The world seemed to slow around her as her brain fought to take in those three little words. Fought to take in the limp way his body just sprawled across the pavers of the walk way, fought to absorbed the stillness of his face and the blueness of his lips. It was like a horrible dream, the kind that usually ends with the person waking up to realize that none of it had been real. The kind that could be fixed with her father's chocolate chip cookies and a couple hours of mindless video game playing until she felt relaxed enough to slip back into sleep.

Except this wasn't a dream. She could feel the cold slap of the wind against her wet skin, could taste the blood in her mouth from her split lip, could hear the distant wailing of police sirens, and worst of all, she could see that he still. Wasn't. Breathing!

Like a light bulb being suddenly switched on her brain jerked back into action and she stumbled as fast as she could to her partner's side, ignoring the stinging burn on her knees when her legs suddenly decided to give out and she slid the last few feet to him. She grabbed his shoulder, shaking him urgently.

"Chat! Chat wake up!"

Shaking fingers probed at his throat, searching for even the tiniest flutter that would keep her world from falling apart. That would prove that her best friend and partner was not lying dead at her feet. A sob clawed its way up her throat as her fingers found nothing, and she shook her head hard enough that her pigtails lashed against her cheeks.

"Don't do this to me Chat. Please don't do this to me. Wake up!"

Desperate she held her breath and prayed to whoever might listen as she dug her fingers deeper into his throat, hard enough to leave gouges in the tender flesh with her finger nails. And her prayers were rewarded as she felt a sluggish and hesitant thump of a heart beat against her fingertips.

"Chat!"

Deserted by her usual grace she yanked him on to his back, hastily rearranging his tangled limbs as her brain raced trying to` remember the basics of CPR she had taught herself at the beginning of this business of being a super hero. First thing was first, she had to make sure his airways were clear. Two fingers tilted up his chin to open the wind pipe while another two pinched his nose closed. Pulling his mouth open with perhaps a little more force than was necessary, she sealed her lips over his and puffed out a quick breath, watching from the corner of her eye to see if it made it through to her partners starving lungs.

Again luck was on her side, and she let out a choked laugh of relief as his chest momentarily ballooned upwards before falling still and silent once more. Bringing herself up onto her knees, she folded her hands over top of one another on his chest and started the required compressions.

"Come on Chat, breath!"

Time seemed to slow once again. She didn't notice the cold wind or the mob of reporters trying to push their way past hastily erected police barricades. She paid no mind to the mystified Akuma victim begging to know what was going on. She didn't see the dark skinned girl with the tear splattered glasses crouched in the bushes, phone left forgotten but recording on her knee. All she felt was the snapping of his sternum under her compressing hands and how cold his lips still felt as she gave him another two sets of rescue breaths.

"Please don't go. I-I can't do this without you!" She fought to keep her breathing steady even as tears sluiced down her cheeks, falling in pattering drops like rain against the leather of his suit. Another round of compression's, words flowing from her mouth in an incomprehensible tide. She had no idea what she was saying anymore, but she held on to the insane hope that maybe if she kept talking, he'd wake up and respond with one of his impish smiles and some quip about having nine lives to help calm the terror that was clawing away at her gut.

"You have always been the brave one….I was going to give up that day at the Eiffel tower! I was so sure that destiny had made a mistake, because how could someone as pathetic and clumsy as me hope to save all of Paris! I couldn't even stand up to the class bully!"

Another round of breaths, pushing her own life giving air into his lungs, begging him to take the offering.

"But you…you with your stupid grin and your stupid puns…you believed in me! You kept fighting because you had faith that I would come. You helped me stand up to Hawk Moth and save Ivan because you told me I could!"

Another round of breaths, these ones as tremulous as the hope that was struggling to stay alive inside her.

"You keep me strong when things fall apart! You keep me sane when the pressure gets to be too much! I- I don't want to do this without you!" She pressed her mouth back to his, forcing every ounce of strength she had left into two more breaths. Barley managing to hold herself up, she murmured her next words against his lips.

"Please don't leave me alone…"

She pushed away to start another round of compression's, but had only managed to get half way through the required number when his body convulsed beneath hers, hacking coughs pushing bursts of water from his saturated lungs.

"Oh my God!"

Calling on hidden reserves of strength she hadn't known she had she pulled her partner into her arms, propping him up against her chest so that dirty river water cascaded down her back as her tears trickled down his. The world gradually came back into focus as her senses expanded one by one to take in details besides him, but she couldn't bring herself to care about any of it. She was physically and emotionally spent and all she could do was sit on the pavers of the river walk and rock them both back and forth while she sobbed his name like a prayer.

"M'ldy?"

"It's okay Chat…..It's okay now…" She whispered, tangling her fingers into the messy blond hair at the nape of his neck in an attempt to pull him closer and shield him from the world that only moments ago had threatened to take him from her forever. "I've got you."

"y'always do…."

She trembled as his breath tickled the side of her neck, and the smile she could hear in his voice was her undoing. Burying her face in his shoulder she let her tears wash away her previous terror as her heart joined beating in time with his.