Dear Donor Family ID#59293.
That wasn't a good start. Adrien drew a line through it. They had given him a false name to write to, because he needed to start the letter SOMEhow, but he didn't know what to say. Honestly, he didn't think that it was his to say - the thank you. It was a very idealistic thing to think, so he didn't know if it was, like, just himself being Typical Angsty Chat Noir, but it felt really strange to be writing to this family when they were missing such a whole big part of theirs. It wasn't his thank you to give. He would have liked his father to write this letter, or better, his mum - he would have liked someone who loved him and knew him to write it. Because if there were someone who loved him, someone who would know what it was like to be afraid of losing that whole part of their family - if there was someone who had been afraid, in the same way this family must have been… and they had still had him? And they could write about that?
It seemed more fitting that someone who loved him took up the only letter that Adrien got to send, at all. He was limited to one A4 page, 12pt font, no more, no less. That gave him about 500 words. He was writing it by hand because it was impersonal to type.
If someone who loved him got to write this letter, then the family would know that their daughter's lungs went somewhere where they were loved, and they gave life to someone who was wanted, and they had spared some family the heartache of grief and worry and nights-spent-up sick, and…
Well, he sat on top of the tower, because his father had still not been home since the transplant, and Nathalie had only come to drop off another set of clothes for a shoot, and the only person he could think of in the whole wide world who might have any qualification to write about loving him was Ladybug. Not romantic love, but she cared. Definitely. He believed that.
They were meant to be meeting today, anyway. She'd texted back a little while ago - she'd said, I want to see you, which he'd read as an I love you, and he'd told her to meet him at the top of the tower. He was looking out over the city. Paris was beautiful.
Paris - his city - she was amazing. And she shone, at night, and the cars crept along the roads like blood through veins, and here some family arrived home, laughing, and a child swung on that swingset in the playground down below and just for a second it looked like he was flying, soaring across the tanbark, free in the low halo of light that warmed the metal bones of the swings and the monkeybars. Paris was alive, below him, sprawled out and intimate and mysterious, at once, and he loved her. It always took his breath away, this view. He had missed it.
The paper fluttered in his hand - it was windy up here, no buildings to block out the rush of air as it leapt across the city - and he looked down at it, again, the piece of paper torn from his notebook, with Dear Family ID scrawled across the top of it.
"Chat Noir," Ladybug said, behind him. She must have just landed. She was breathless. He stood up, and turned around, and there was some urgency to it - he didn't know what he wanted to say but she hadn't texted back and -
And she came into him, at once. At once, she was flat against him, and her arms caught up all of him that they could reach - her hands fisted in the leather of his suit -
He had thought that maybe she wouldn't know how close it had been, but he choked out, "LB," and there was no way she could have missed the shock of fright in him. The sliver of fear which eased out, now that he was being held by someone who loved him, and she was real and warm and he found her, again. There had been a day - several long hours - where he had believed he never would. Where he believed the last thing they'd have ever said to each other was, I'll see you, Bugaboo, and, You're the worst, Chat Noir!, and he had spent many of those hours worrying what those last words would do to her. Because Ladybug would remember them, and stress about them, and worry that he didn't know -
"Oh, Chaton," she worried, and she was coming down from something terrible that had frightened her, as well. Her hands released their grip on his suit so that they could explore more freely, now, and she must have done her research because her fingertips traced the entire length of the scar on his chest, from top to bottom, even beneath the suit. "Oh," she repeated, and hugged him again.
It was funny, because in as long as it had been since he'd had the transplant, Adrien had never once thought to cry, and now Ladybug had him in her arms and the tears sprang into his eyes and something hard to swallow leapt into his throat, and…
"Chaton, you can never do that again, you have to tell me. I would have brought you. We promised." She was so angry, and scared, and wanting, because he had promised her he would tell her, and she hated that he had not been here, on this tower where they'd…
Chat Noir cried. With very little reservation, in great heaving sobs he had never been capable of before the transplant - Ladybug had been warned to listen for Chat Noir's laughter and what she got instead was the ache in him as he cried out all of the fear and loneliness and how much he had wanted her, and he cried like he hadn't since his mum had died, and it was awful. Chat Noir had cried on her shoulder, before, but never like this. She did not know what to do with him, so she patted his hair, and trailed her fingers down his arms, and stayed. One day, years ago, she had asked if there was anything she could do for him - you know, about the… about how sick he was - and he had said, "Stay," like nobody had thought to try it before.
So she stayed, while he cried, and she hoped that he appreciated it. (He cried harder, because of it.)
Honestly, really, neither one of them was really prone to tears, but even Ladybug's eyes were wet when Chat Noir had finally finished, and her voice was hoarse when she whispered, "This city, huh?"
Chat laughed. It was breathless, and not the laughter he had promised, because he'd just finished crying so his voice was all snotty and thick with tears and his breath still shook - but he laughed, and sniffed, and came away so that he could cross his arm past hers, over the railing. Their arms formed an X. They stood, shoulder to shoulder. She was right: he loved this view. That had been one of the very first things he'd said to her, how beautiful this city was, from up at the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was grounding, for him.
He breathed, and caught his breath, and Paris kept right on living, below them, indifferent to his breakdown, or how lost Ladybug sometimes felt, not knowing what to do with him.
Silence, for a while.
Marinette ventured, "I made a new friend, who had a transplant, and he says -"
Chat said, "I love you."
It was entirely by mistake. He didn't mean to say it out loud. It had just been sitting in his head, you know, for so long, and then here he was with a new set of lungs, and all of Paris beneath him, and Ladybug shoulder-to-shoulder, his partner, and his teammate, and his, and there wasn't any reason to hide it from her anymore. He was in love with her. Everything she did was just … the most incredible… she was amazing. She was just amazing, and kind, and brilliant, and everything. Ladybug was everything.
He did not know if she understood what he meant. He didn't know if she understood that it was more than friends, or if she thought he was saying it generally, like one might say to a family member. He didn't know. Later, he would have to ask her. For now, Ladybug removed her hand - the one crossing past his - from the railing, and offered it to him, palm-up. He took it. She laced her fingers through his.
"Sometimes," she said, "I felt so scared I couldn't breathe, Chat Noir. And it felt stupid." Because he had been the one who couldn't breathe, she couldn't just Steal His Thing, but really she had been so frightened for him, and she hadn't been able to talk about it because how do you even TALK about something like that?
Chat Noir peered over at her.
She peered very shyly back at him, because it STILL felt stupid.
Chat Noir threw his head back, and laughed, with real tears of mirth, and Ladybug shoved him, "Chat Noir!" (play nice!), and he laughed more, and freely, and against the lights of Paris, he was beautiful. Against the lights of the city he was in love with, up here on this tower where he breathed real lungfuls of air, and he ducked away from her when she shoved him, and he was beautiful and alive and his hair was messy because two seconds ago he'd been sobbing, and she'd been running her hands through it -
Here, where he laughed, he was beautiful. Ladybug had never considered anything of her partner before - he was sick, it wouldn't have been fair to think he might even be possibly wasting time on something as silly as a teenage romance. It hadn't even crossed her mind, and up until now, here, tonight, while he was laughing, it still hadn't. But here, she felt the stirrings of something fluttery and warm in her chest, because she was so happy for him, so happy that he was happy, and still alive, and hers. And it really took her breath away, which made her laugh, too, because that really still was sort of his thing.
Dear Family Verdun,
This was the fake name that they had been handed, for this letter.
I am writing as the partner of one of your daughter's donation recipients. He can breathe whole lungfuls of air now, and when he laughs it makes me want to cry, because he doesn't choke on it. He just laughs. And it's beautiful, you should see him.
My partner asked me to write this letter because he thought that anything that might help you would come from someone who loved him. That's the sort of person that he is. That's who you've kept in this world because you made a hard decision, and one that means he gets to laugh, still, when there was a time we thought we would never reach each other again. I don't want to be crass, or to say thank you for something that was so terrible, because it feels like the wrong thing to say. All of this letter feels like the wrong thing to say.
But we - both of us - are so happy. He sat here next to me laughing about making plans for the rest of his life, tonight, because suddenly he has one. A rest of his life. That's what you gave to him.
The person your daughter saved is very loved, and I am sorry that these two never got to meet, because I am certain that she would have liked him. He's impossible to not like.
Please, if you are ever worried about the choice your daughter made, think about him laughing. Because he is only seventeen, and he is beautiful, and I had never heard him laugh like he could breathe before. She was very brave. We have tremendous respect for her, and I promise we will make sure we honour her memory with every breath her lungs take.
Thank you. For whatever it means, and if it means anything: thank you.
- L.D.B.
A/N: Whahey! Become an organ donor today, it's worth the effort of signing onto the donor list & having a chat with your family about it.
But hey guys! Good to be back. I am just getting started on doing the research for my honours dissertation (which is almost 20k words I need to write!), so this maaaaay have been a bad time to start a fic, but here we are! These two are so cute together. I'm going to have to find a way to keep them a bit further apart; I forgot that Adrien has a terrible tendency to blurt how much he is in love with this girl whenever he thinks of it. Darn troublesome kid.
Leave a review if you're interested in me continuing - it definitely helps me get a shift on!
