A/N1: The playlist for Chapter 15.3 (please remove spaces, sorry about that):

www . mediafire . com / ?99l25xbnpw8fv

A/N2: Thank you, so much. Your reviews made me cry. I'm flattered most of you were amazed I'm 17.

This segment is dedicated to Naya Marie Rivera and Heather Elizabeth Morris. Thanks for taking the plunge and giving us that peck. It meant to world to so many people.

Chapter Sixteen: Secret Languages

Brittany: The Language of Silence

There's a language Santana and I have mastered over the years.

It was a language I think neither of us really realized we were speaking; just like the depth of our love for each other, it slipped quietly into our lives, unannounced and unexpected, but welcome nonetheless.

It was a language that allowed us to say the things words failed to express, the feelings that always eluded their fanciful description. After all, what are words? Representations, signifiers, letters with their corresponding sounds strung together. In many ways, words are nothing more than the bridge through which we communicate our emotions.

Of course, this makes words – no matter from what spoken language – vital for any relationship to work out.

But when you give yourself completely and irrevocably to the person you love, when you commit yourself to living life for, with, and through them, you begin to build your own language together, a system of communication that doesn't need to go through the mind by the process of words, a system that instead goes directly to the heart. An unspoken – but rarely misunderstood – language.

Between the two of us, I called it the language of silence. The language that went beyond the words and highlighted the meanings behind them.

That's the language we're using right now, the morning after one of the most beautifully intimate nights we've ever shared together. There are no words that need to be spoken. There are no words that can be spoken. We both seem to understand the need for slowness, for softness, for silence. Words do not exist in this temporary sanctuary we've built for the moment, a refuge from the world and all its complications and questions and uncertainties. Wrapped securely by the arms of the woman I love, everything external to me seems to have lost meaning, as though the world simply slipped out of view when we were in the process of refocusing our lives on each other.

Right now there's just us, basking in the silence filled with tender kisses, soft caresses, fingers tracing gently on bare skin.

Somehow, we both instinctually seem to understand that we don't even need to voice how we feel about - and with - each other. There isn't any need to. Declarations of love and affection are meant to reassure people of the existence of that love and affection. But there just doesn't seem to be any need to reassure each other anymore about how we feel. We just know. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Sometime last night , I remember thinking to myself that we were finally breaking down the final barrier dividing us both. I remember thinking, now things will be back to the way they were. Now, things would be back to normal – or as normal as they could possible get.

But when I was laying there, moments after, watching this lovely creature falling asleep in my arms, it hit me like a flash of lightning: there was no going back to the way we used to be. The past six months had changed us both so much, and inevitably our relationship had come along and altered with us.

It brought tears to my eyes to realize that, because what we used to have was so beautiful and amazing and innocent and carefree. Saying goodbye to that broke my heart just a little, since that would be a chapter of our story – that was a version of ourselves – I was going to miss so much.

But the heartbreak of that goodbye faded quickly, as a rush of pride over how far we'd come swept through my entire being. Somehow, everything felt deeper now, as though in the past our love was still in the process of completely maturing, and now it finally managed to. It is true, what people say. As time goes by, love grows and gets wiser and fuller. It grows steadily until it isn't just something bursting freely from your heart – it becomes something deeply ingrained in your soul.

Santana smiles up at me, almost shyly, as though she knows exactly what's going on in my mind. Her index finger lightly traces the outline of my nose. She leans forward and lays a gentle kiss on the corner of my mouth, that small action shooting parts of my soul past the confines of our bedroom and up into the heavens.

I grin down at her and cup her cheeks in my nags, before leaning in softly for a deeper kiss.

We learned to survive the most painful of human circumstances – and right now, we're learning, although slowly, how to live again.