In which: Sara is attacked and doesn't completely recover mentally. It's quite sad but give it a shot? :) Thank you! Reviews are appreciated. I'm only 14, so I'd like some feedback :)

Deep breaths.

In, out.

He pulls her close, buries his face in her hair but she doesn't react. She's cold despite the blankets he's wrapped her in. She's still and unmoving and oh, he can feel panic sinking in.

Say something, oh please, look at me, let me know you're there.

The doctors say to give her time. To let her heal. Sleep and quiet are the best things for her.

Except he can't stand the silence.

He wants to scream and shake her and force her to be okay, to come back to him so he can fix her and her hurt.

But she's so far gone and she hasn't spoken to him since it happened.

…

It had all started when she'd left work two weeks before. In the parking lot near their crime scene, she'd been unlocking her car when a hand grabbed her neck and a rag was pressed over her mouth.

She'd woken up in an unfamiliar room, naked and alone.

She couldn't remember anything.

But they all had a pretty clear idea what had happened.

And through the interviews and the court trials and the hospital trips and had withdrawn further and further into herself and away from him and eventually she'd stopped talking altogether.

…

The silence is killing him.

She knows it, but when she can't even force herself to look into his eyes, how can she manage to loose her tongue, to tell him her thoughts? Her thoughts of everything and nothing all at once. Something in her has snapped and she doesn't know how to fix it or how to let him him in to fix it. She's a prisoner to her own body. She's trapped inside her mind and she's lost the key.

So she holds her silence and she sits and let's the thoughts take over her, take her to a place where it's not safe, but it's the closest illusion she can find.

…

In time, the pain is numbed, but not gone. She never says anything much, but she starts to eat again. They've accepted that she isn't going to talk again. Whether her voice is lost inside of her or gone altogether, neither of them know. It becomes their norm, the quiet and the only thing keeping them alive is the unwavering presence of the other.