It's always nice when two people who don't got no one else find each other as friends.

Ah, well, then you've never stood on a beach as the waves came crashing in, the water stretching out from you until it's beyond sight, moving and blue and alive and so much bigger than even the black beyond seems because the ocean hides what it contains.

I was just trying to stay alive, looking for ways to find you, hoping you hadn't left me behind." "Never," I say. "Not never." He looks back up at me. "I'd never leave you neither." "You promise?" "Cross my heart, hope to die," he says, grinning shyly. "I promise, too," I say and I smile at him. "I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt, not never again.

Noise ain't Truth, Noise is what men want to be true, and there's a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don't watch out.

And you," he says, "you need to talk to your boy." He lifts my chin. "And if he needs saving, then you save him. Isn't that what you told me you did for each other?" I let go a few more tears but then I nod. "Over and over again.

You love him," he says. Not an asking, just a fact. "I do," I say. Also a fact.

The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.