A/N: I just read Monsters of Men and completely, totally, unabashedly loved it. (I MEAN THAT ENDING, JESUS CHRIST, REALLY. OH MY GOD.) I have no idea if Chaos Walking even has much of a fan following, but in my avid adoration of the series I've written a fic and figured there was no harm in uploading it. There are MAJOR spoilers for Monsters of Men in here, so be forewarned.
And, hey, question. I can't remember if physical descriptions of Todd or Viola are ever really given in the book (obviously we know Lee is, like, Barbie Blonde), and I've sort of created my own image of them in my head. Please let me know A) if you remember any descriptions about hair color, eye color, body type, etc. in the text, or B) how you personally imagine them. (For instance, I see Viola blonde and kind of short. I think Todd's got darker hair, and I figure he must be pretty tall and strong-looking and whatnot to be able to look like the Mayor, a grown man.) Also - what age do you see them as? For some reason I think other readers think they're pretty young (12, 13) but, after all, New World years are longer than ours and therefore by the end of the series they should be about 15. Just a thought.
WOW, sorry. Go ahead and read if you haven't already. Review, please! I love reviews! I love you! I love this series SO MUCH.
Disclaimer: Patrick Ness owns this brilliance, not me. I own what's written here except for (most of) the quotes from Todd's mother's diary, which were ripped from, you know, Todd's mother's diary. The title's from there too.
Paradise to this Place
I've been waiting.
I've been waiting so long.
Almost two months and he's not getting any better. No worse, either, but that's not the point. The point is we've been here, at what Ben says the Spackle call the Pathways' End, for seven weeks and five days and he's not getting any better. Seven weeks and five days of stasis and I've been here the whole time. Me and Ben, though he's had to periodically leave and deal with Spackle issues. Bradley and Lee and Wilf and Mistress Lawson have asked for me, but I won't leave.
I won't leave him.
I won't leave Todd.
"And oh it makes my heart sick, Todd, to see us split like this—" I break off and glance over at him, which I've been doing compulsively since four days ago, since the twelfth time his Noise has opened up, and that time it was for a whole minute. It wasn't very clear, but it was filled with simple, irrepressible satisfaction and it made Ben cry. Something about picking apples in Old Prentisstown with Ben and Cillian and oh God even Manchee and one of his fingers, the middle one on his right hand, even twitched a little. And then there was an almost-silent background hum, something that I'd never before noticed but Ben said it was ever-present, an amalgamation of misplaced thoughts that were usually overshadowed by louder, more current Noise—where am I? and help and get me out of here and boy colt, boy colt, boy colt and please someone HELP and even lower and quieter than that, a jumbled repetition of Viola? Viola? Viola? Viola Viola Viola Viola VIOLA VIOLA VIOLA VIOLA
And then it stopped.
But I kept going, reading passages from his mother's diary, from start to finish, over and over again, hoping by some chance of God a sentence or phrase or word will jog his memory and amplify his Noise and wake him up and he'll blink his eyes open just barely and his Noise will be shouting and finally he'll say, out loud, his voice cracked and hoarse and exhausted, "Viola—"
Except probably it won't be like that.
It might not even be at all.
Ben says I've got to have hope, and I do (oh, I do) but I've been raised as a realist. A pragmatist. And even Ben admits that if Todd comes back—when, when, when Todd comes back, it'll be different.
Like maybe he'll be like Ben. Changed.
I would never say it aloud—I even feel guilty thinking it, but I don't want Todd to be like Ben. I mean, practically half Spackle and whatnot. One with all. An individual but not. I don't think Todd would want that. Except maybe he would (how would I know, I haven't heard his Noise or really talked to him in months, even before 1017—) I'll take Todd any way I can get him but I want him whole.
I want him him.
Oh, God, I want him back so much and sitting here reading to him like one of the ship's storyteller babysitters, it isn't enough and it doesn't seem to be working and oh God please just give me this one please—
"Viola."
My heart bursts with hope for a picosecond before I realize it's not him. It's Lee.
"Oh," I say, and the lack of enthusiasm is palpable even to my out-of-experience ears. "Yeah, hi, Lee." He's standing at the entrance flap of the tent, hand gripping the tent pole. The skin covering his eye sockets actually looks okay. Mostly healed. Of course it's awful and terrifying to look at someone with mere skin where his eyes should be, but then I've been sitting next to a mostly dead person for two months and compared to him, Lee seems the picture of health.
"Come in," I tell Lee, half-rising out of my chair. "Do you need me to—"
"No, I've got it," he says as he enters the tent. He's holding a cane in his other hand. It's almost painful to watch him stumble his way through. He trips on a pebble and I wince.
"Sit here." I get up out of my rudimentary Spackle-made chair and help Lee into it, despite his protests. He bats my hand away impatiently, but he's smiling.
"It's good to see you," I say, carefully sitting myself on the stone bed next to Todd. There's another Spackle chair, but I'd rather sit here, where I'm meant to be. With Todd. Almost subconsciously I reach for his hand and hold it in my lap, squeezing with both hands. But his is deathly cold and unmoving, and so I just sigh.
"Yeah, you too," Lee jokes, and I give an obligatory chuckle, but inside I want to cringe. He leans back in the chair. "How's…" he starts out strong but falters and ends up merely saying, "he?" which sounds stilted. I don't begrudge him for it.
"Todd's…" I really just wanted to say his name, but now that I do I can't figure out how to finish the sentence. Figures. "Hasn't changed." I look down at his hand—he's got a freckle on the tip of his left thumb. I never noticed that before. "And you?"
Lee shrugs. His face is much more expressive since his eyes were burned away, as is his Noise. Right now it's almost peaceful—meeting Spackle Viola time Bradley better hurry up chicken kebob meeting Wilf who? Viola miss you politics, psh meeting Viola Viola—"Well, there's this Spackle meeting tonight," he says, "that's why I'm here. Bradley and the others are around too, or, well, they should be—but I wanted to see you."
His Noise provides me with images of myself, imagining me as I am right now, and he's remarkably accurate. He's seen the interior of the tent before, in Ben's Noise—he knows where the stone tablet is, where the chairs are, how everything is laid out, and right now he imagines me gripping onto Todd's shoulder, lying next to his inert body. As usual I'm very obviously prettier in his Noise than I am in real life, particularly because I haven't bathed in weeks. As always his cleaned-up version of me makes me feel uncomfortable, like the real me isn't good enough. It's always been like that with Lee, even before the eyes. He has always imagined me differently than the real thing.
Todd's always seen me just as I am.
"Oh yeah," I say, "Ben told me about that. The last Spackle-human gathering—"
"Before the convoy arrives," he finishes. "Yep."
I run my fingertips over Todd's white-as-bone nails. "So you're a regular leader now, it seems." I give him a genuine grin even though he can't see it. "Up there with Mistress Coyle and Jessica Elizabeth and maybe, maybe even the Mayor. Congratulations."
"Not funny, Vi," he says sternly, then cracks a smile. "If we manage not to kill anyone else I think it'll be safe to say we've even surpassed them."
"I think you already have." This is as candid as I've been in a long, long time, although I'm having a hard time articulating my thoughts aloud after not talking to anyone but motionless Todd for weeks. "Everyone's at peace, right? After the Mayor died… and the Spackle… well, thanks to you and Ben and everyone. And when the convoy lands you'll deal with that and maybe everything will be okay. More than okay. Ideal. Just like we all hoped."
Lee obviously has not had to cling to every last sliver of hope like I have. "Doubtful. I appreciate the thought, but…"
"Don't be a cynic. Listen, there's a passage in this book—" I flip through the diary, searching for one of the many beautiful thoughts Todd's mother has chronicled. "You can't be so jaded, Lee, otherwise—oh, here it is." I don't even have to pause to adopt the now-familiar Old Prentisstown accent. "Yer gonna have to be the one who makes it come right, you hear? Yer a native born New Worlder, so you don't have to repeat our mistakes. You can shake off the past and maybe, just maybe, you'll bring paradise to this place." I swallow, letting the words soak in, and then look up to gauge Lee's reaction. "That's Todd's ma, and she's right. She's always been right, Lee—you haven't read this, you don't know how much adversity the first settlers went through and they still had hope for the future. All of you have done a marvelous job so far. You've got to trust and just have faith that it'll all turn out okay."
I'm voicing everything I feel, trying to cast away inklings of fear and doubt and what if he never wakes? deep inside every bone of my body. Once I finally skid to a stop Lee's got a funny little smile on his lips.
"You're amazing, you know that?" is all he says.
And I feel a pang somewhere in my chest because Todd wouldn't say it like that, Todd'd say yer and I, I, I—
But Lee's Noise does seem a little brighter, so there's that.
"You should come to the meeting," he suggests, dashing the unadulterated hope.
"No," I say.
"Aw, come on, Vi. You can just stop by for ten minutes, can't you?"
"No," I say firmly. "I can't."
"He's not going to wake up yet anyway. Ben's always saying he needs more time to heal. Hell, maybe it's the anticipation that's keeping him under. Maybe once you leave for a minute—"
"Lee, no," I snap, appalled. "And what if he does come back, even a little, and nobody's here? What if his Noise starts and he can't feel anyone here with him? I won't let hm be alone like that. I can't."
I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt, I think. Not even in my head. I look down at him and touch his cold cheek, letting my fingertips graze a shallow, healing cut. He does not move.
For once I wish I had Noise so I could broadcast it to everyone, to the Spackle here at the Pathways' End, to the people of Haven, to the convoy still a week away, to the entirety of the ruined Old World, into Todd's skull so he comes back to me.
Instead I just tell it to Lee. "I'm not leaving him. I ain't. I refuse."
Lee sounds exasperated, and looks it too. "I'm not telling you to leave him, Vi. I just want you to take a break. Get some rest. Have a little food with us."
"Aren't you listening? I'm not leaving him! We made a promise to each other a long time ago and I'm not about to break it and swan off and have a chicken kebob with the you and the Spackle and leave him! I'm just—"
"Well God, Viola!" he yells suddenly, and I'm startled into silence. "You haven't left his side once since Prentiss's suicide. You've hardly eaten, barely slept—"
"I sleep!" I snap back, affronted.
"Yeah, on a big stone table curled up next to a dead man!"
I grip the edges of the diary. My hands are shaking.
"Fuck you, Lee."
He goes quiet, apologetic. "I'm sorry. Of course I understand."
"Like hell you understand. You don't, at all, so don't pretend."
"Viola."
Well he doesn't understand and he couldn't possibly. I can't even explain it to him, not really. What exists between me and Todd is something without words, something felt and experienced and just true. Not something dissectable.
"He'd do the same for me."
So would I, his Noise claims, and I find myself annoyed. Lee is great, by which I mean Lee is a person, complex and flawed and genuinely great like any other person, and Lee has obviously felt—something—for me for a while now. But whatever Lee is, Todd—is Todd. And Todd—Todd—
"We're just worried about you, okay? Everyone is. Even the Sky thinks that—"
The Sky. No. No. I'll never call him that. I never will.
"Oh don't you even talk to me about 1017. Don't even."
There is a faint murmur in the tent now. Maybe most would cast it off as the fire crackling or Lee's Noise buzzing in anger, but I recognize it and it's not, because it's Todd.
"Hey, Viola—" Lee says urgently, questioningly.
"I know. Shh." I hold tight onto Todd's hand and, fingers shaking not in anger but in desperate hope, pick at the diary, fishing for something good. "And Cillian's here now, Ben too and they both say hi. Ben tells me he saw little Davy Prentiss at the market today and Mr. Prentiss might just bring his son round so's you two can be friends, plus that Davy loves our apples—"
Todd's Noise jerks to life.
Much louder than clearer than we've ever heard it before. Lee's gotten out of the chair to stand behind me and he clasps my shoulder but I hardly notice. At first it's just an insistent mumble-jumble but then I hear the first Viola? and I squeeze his hand tighter and say, "I'm here, Todd, yes—I'm here—"
Viola louder.
And then a memory rises to the surface and plays itself out: us, back when I was still at the Healing House with Corinne and Todd had escaped from the tower and there's a burst of relentless, helpless joy on his part as he sees me through the window and I shout and pull him inside and he lands on top of me on top of the bed on top of the world—!
And I remember this moment too, the surprise and happiness and beauty of it, but I also remember what happened next, when I told him about the ocean to prove a stupid point and his Noise went OCEAN OCEAN OCEAN OCEAN and we realized what had happened, how the Mayor had manipulated us again and then Todd was gone again but it was even worse this time. Because we'd had that moment of glee and possibility and infinity and then it'd been ripped from us without hesitation, without remorse, without mercy and everything hurts more after it's been healed.
But Todd, right now, he doesn't remember any of this. For me that instant of happiness is overshadowed by what came after, but right now in his Noise that moment just glows with contentment and it stretches into forever, never-ending, just us gasping for breath and faces stretched into too-wide smile just at the sight of each other and it feels like an eternity in a nanosecond—
And at the base of this is a low, quiet hum that, if amplified and stretched out, would read Viola Viola Viola Viola Viola—
"Jesus," Lee mumbles in what sounds like awe.
I don't respond, just blink tears out of my eyes and bask in the familiar murmur of Noise that I've missed so so so much. Sure I hear Noise all the time, living with the Spackle, but Todd's has got this certain tone and, I don't know, quality—it's like hearing his voice.
I press a hand against his shoulder just like in Lee's Noise and trace his hairline, curling my fingers around the curve of his ear and (God help me, God help me) I sob—just once and then I rein it in but a tear seeps out and trails its way down my cheek and pauses at my chin and I find myself remembering those old fairy tales, Rapunzel and how her tears cured her prince—
(but Todd's no prince)
(but then I'm no fairy tale heroine)
(and anyway it was Rapunzel's blind boyfriend her tears cured, except what if she doesn't want to be with him or save him or love him, what if there's another hurt boy with dirty hair and crooked teeth and atrocious grammar and thoughts so loud and in-your-face she once couldn't even sleep in the same tent as him—)
(what if he needs saving too?)
That goddamn tear drops finally and lands on Todd's nose and nothing happens (stupid stupid stupid) so I wipe it off and his Noise is still barreling on, loud and gorgeous and a little inaccurate and a lot confused and all amazing. I think of just before 1017 shot him, just after the Mayor died, another moment overshadowed by the negative: when Todd opened his Noise for me again, all those thoughts and feelings formerly hidden coming back where I could understand them and there was that instant of perfection before anf after all the horror (I can read you, Todd Hewitt—)
(I ain't never leaving you)
(please come back to me)
(please—)
His whole body shudders
and I jump.
The only other time he's moved in seven weeks and five days was four days ago, when the middle finger on his right hand twitched so infinitesimally Ben's not even sure it happened at all (but I am, I am sure, I am so sure)
He's still again now but—
Holy shit
he just moved.
"I know," Lee says and I realize I spoke out loud.
His Noise is just beginning to fade now, but it almost doesn't matter.
This is almost enough.
Enough to last me.
I close my eyes, feeling the remnants of Todd's Noise and the beauty both of things that have once been and of the simple fact that he remembers them, awash in the hope of a new future and a reclaimed past—
And Todd's Noise goes Viola Viola VIOLA and glows pink in happiness—
And I sing.
...
...
...
...
oh don't deceive me;
oh never leave me—
...
...
...
...
(I won't)
...
...
...
...
...
...
(I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt.)
A/N: Thanks for reading.
(By the way, I'm thinking I should make a tally of how many times in the trilogy Todd says Viola and how many times Viola says Todd. I'm thinking their names are a good fraction of the actual text in the books. I mean, wow.