Silence

It's a silence that presses in on your eardrums, it's so thick. The occasional noise punctuates it, but only gets so far before it tapers off and dies, like it was never there. If you don't hear it start, you might not catch the finish, and maybe it didn't even happen.

She coughs, and it does the same thing; tapers off and dies, stifled. A gentle touch, feather light, in the small of her back, an unspoken question.

"Yes."

He seems hesitant for a second, as if pondering what his question really was in the first place; indeed, what her answer means.

The rustle of his crisp shirt barely makes any noise, but even if it did it wouldn't be significant in this environment.

Her head tilts forward suddenly, as if all at once it got too heavy for her neck to hold up. Thick, dark tresses of hair obscure her face, eyes that are full of all the wrong things, and thoughts that aren't welcome appearing every now and then.

Still the silence presses, stoic and heavy, surrounding the pair of them.

Feather light fingertips turn into a full hand, finding it's place, it's own hollow and fitting like it was carved by a master; A Da Vinci, or a Michael Angelo.

Her world spins, like a dinghy caught in the middle of a winter storm at sea. Maybe that makes him her anchor, trying desperately to keep her grounded even though he can't find the bottom himself.

The silence that was once peaceful seems to have turned oppressing, air that was once easy to breathe gone stale and too thick. Her current chaos of thoughts and feelings is overwhelming and all-powerful, clawing and tearing until she loses where it all started and any semblance of where it will end.

-

All he can do is watch her fall apart at the seams. Every individual thread of the woman he knows – and loves? – seems to disappear before his eyes while he tries to ground her, even if everything in him says to hold onto himself.

It's out of the question really, because even to save himself he'll never let go of her.

Her well practiced, delicate looking hands scramble to rid her face of her tears, and he moves to do it for her, only by then, the air really is too hard to breathe in.

One fluid movement is all it takes for her to unfold her long, beautiful body and start to run.

He starts, terrified, calling for her.

Unlike anything else desperation breaks the veil of silence, and it's so present in his cry that it doesn't stop, not until after he starts running, following her and hoping nothing gets in the way.

-

Almost primal sobs try to tear from her body, even as she pushes the door open so hard it smashes against the outside wall.

With her vision clouded by tears and relying on muscle memory, she misses a step and starts to fall.

Start doesn't seem right though, because she started falling a while ago. Nothing so far has stopped her, and she waits for the ground to come up and meet her.

It's a miracle he makes it really; she seems to stumble so suddenly. And it's even more of a miracle; simply because of all the times he's picked her up, he's never actually caught her.

Until now.

One arm snakes around her middle, the other around her shoulders. For a second she tries to fight, continue the descent, until the sheer force of her sobs makes her seek comfort in his embrace.

"It's my fault." She sobs, over and over, until his thumb starts absently to stroke the bottom of her chin.

"It's not." He pushes everything he has behind two words, and tucks her into the spot underneath his chin, so he can breathe her in, and marvel at the fact that he still has her.

The pair of them sink down onto the cobblestones, the sun setting around the backdrop of the two of them and the church.