"TODD!" I yell again and I reach him and his Noise opens even farther and wraps around me like a blanket and I'm grabbing him to me, grabbing him to me like I'll never let him go and he calls out in pain but his other arm is grabbing me back -
"I thought you were dead," he's saying, his breath on my neck. "I thought you were dead."
"Todd," I say and I'm crying and the only thing I can say is his name. "Todd."

Who will remember Todd?
Who will remember what he did?
Todd -
Todd -
And my heart breaks even more -

Breaks forever -

And I fall to my knees in the snow and sand -
And I yell out, wordless and empty -

And I drop the weapon.

He begins to die, that quits his desires.

He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound..

"Tom opened his eyes, and looked upon his master. "Ye poor miserable critter!" he said, "there ain't no more ye can do! I forgive ye, with all my soul!" and he fainted entirely away."

He gave a cry. At the last, falling backward, his face appearing to us for a second upside down before he was smothered on the floor by a pile of white uniforms, he let himself cry out: A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and defiance, that if you ever trailed coon or cougar or lynx is like the last sound the treed and shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesn't care any more about anything but himself and his dying.

"He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss, that I'm about to fall down into him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.
"Todd," I say again, a catch in my voice. "On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?"
He's shaking his head slowly. "I've done terrible things, Viola. Terrible things-"
"We all fall, you said." I'm gripping his hand now. "We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again.

"Son," he said, "one day he caught himself on one of his own traps and no one would assist him to get free. Hist own people scorned him, and turned their backs on him. He grew weaker and weaker, and finally toppled over to die upon the land which he had marred with such blood. The birds came and extracted their revenge by picking his eyes out, and the larks sang like they never sang before."

A moment more, and all was over. The cloud had passed as suddenly as it rose. Far and wide, over the vanquished throngs of His enemies, with a loud voice, as if uttering His shout of eternal victory before entering into His glory, He cried, " IT is FINISHED! " Then, more gently, came the words, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." A moment more, and there arose a great cry, as of mortal agony; the head fell. He was dead.

Il dort. Quoique le sort fut pour lui bien étrange,
Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n’eut plus son ange.
La choise simplement d’elle-même arriva.
Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s’en va.

He is asleep. Though his mettle was sorely tried,
He lived, and when he lost his angel, died.
It happened calmly, on its own.
The way night comes when day is done.

He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.

We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped.

He is gone now. His shop is gone. Weld Square is gone.
His life has been wiped clean off the board.
But I wake in the night and I see his face and I hear his voice.

"Who told you that?" I say. "Davy Prentiss?"
He blinks. "What?"
"What do you mean what?" My voice is harder now. "Your new best friend. The man who shot me, Todd, and who you ride to work with laughing every morning."
He clenches his hands into fists.
"You've been spying on me?" he says. "Three months I don't see you, three months I don't hear nothing from you and you been spying? Is that what yer doing in your spare time when yer not blowing people up?"
"Yeah," I yell, my voice getting louder to match his. "Three months of defending you to people who'd only be too happy to call you enemy, Todd. Three months of wondering why the hell you're working so hard for the Mayor and how he knew to go right for the ocean the day after we spoke." He winces, but I keep going, thrusting out my arm and pulling up on the sleeve. "Three months wondering why you put these on women!"
His face changes in an instant. He actually calls out as if he felt the pain himself. He puts a hand to his mouth to stifle it but his Noise is suddenly washed with blackness. He moves his fingertips of his other hand within reach of the band, hovering over my skin, over the band that'll never be removed unless I lose my arm. The skin is still red, and band 1391 still trobs, despite the healing of three mistresses.
"Oh, no," he says. "Oh, no."
The side door opens and the man who let me in leans out. "Everything all right out there, Lieutenant?"
"Lieutenant?" I say.
"We're fine," Todd chokes a little. "We're fine."
The man waits for a second, then goes back inside.
"Lieutenant?" I say again, lowering my voice.
Todd's leant down, his hands on his knees, staring at the floor. "It wasn't me, was it?" he says, his voice quiet, too. "I didn't-" He gestures again at the band without looking up. "I didn't do it without knowing it was you, did I?"