Hey! Long time no see, Silence fans!

I'm currently writing two books at once (the other one is Award btw, and is about Meredith's abdominal wall transplant, a trial that Derek starts, and both of the pair winning their own Harper Averys), so updates are going to be sparse. If you know me, you know that my favourite character is Derek so, of course, I feel more inclined to work on my currently Derek-centric book over this one. But I am determined to finish this so don't worry!

Derek didn't know sign language. It always intrigued him, and he would have taken it at school if it was an option instead of French, but it wasn't, annoyingly. Partly because he hated French, partly because he knew he wanted a job that helped people for a long time and he thought that signing was the perfect language for a health care professional.

It was possible that Meredith would have to sign. If she never regained her hearing, or only got a little back, she could need to learn. He was aware that some deaf people spoke, especially if they experienced the trauma after learning to speak, but she'd need to understand what he was talking about. And that also meant teaching the kids, or having to translate every single one of their conversations. He could learn faster than them, seeing as he'd gladly stay up all night for a week to learn than leave her feeling lonely in a silent world.

Just to complicate the matter, she still had one shattered arm. It was incased in a full length cast, and would be for a minimum of six weeks. She couldn't lift her arm through her shoulder, she couldn't bend her elbow, she couldn't move her wrist, and she could only just about flex her fingers. That's what he was working with, and that wasn't enough for American Sign Language.

Except Derek didn't need ASL when he was proficient in Derek Sign Language. And Meredith didn't need ASL when she was proficient in Meredith Sign Sign Language. Luckily, with them being husband and wife and all, there were many comorbidities between their made-up sign languages.

He snipped his first and second fingers open and close a couple times, then pointed at her casted arm.

She understood that. Well, she could make sense of it. Really, she supposed he just told her that he was going to snip her arm off but, seeing as Callie was there with a pair of shears, she could assume that it actually translated to Callie cutting her cast off.

Meredith wasn't quite sure how long she had been in the hospital, and hadn't made any attempt to ask. If she was honest, she was pretty sure she was afraid to ask. She didn't want to know how long she had lied half-conscious in a pool of drugs, nor how long she'd have to stay there. Although, she had noticed that her possible intake of analgesics through the pump was decreasing. Before Callie walked in, she guessed that she'd been in there for about two weeks, and she was clearly right. Most casts were removed two weeks after surgery, before being replaced again. She really wished that section part didn't exist. Although, at least now she knew what was wrong. She had spent a week a long time staring at her arm, wondering what was wrong with it before she finally managed to get Derek to show her her scans.

She nodded at the signal from her husband, and gripped his hand with her good one, looking away from the other. She didn't want to watch. Derek, apparently did, from the fact that his eyes flicked between her face and her arm every couple of seconds, but she could see the pain in his eyes everytime. Eventually, after resisting the urge to look at her hand every single time it throbbed, which was very often, she felt warmth. She finally turned to look at Callie, and found a roll of fibreglass in her hand. Callie smiled with the most reassurance she could manage, but no muscle in Meredith's face even twitched. It couldn't. She couldn't. She was just too exhausted to pretend that any of this was okay, because it was the complete opposite of okay.

Then her eyes left again. And she waited and waited and waited and waited.

Then they were done, and she was left with a new, ever so slightly more fashionable purple cast.

Derek didn't know what was happening. Or what to do. Or what to...say, kind of. He didn't know how he supposed to fix this. Any of this. But especially this. Especially what was happening right now.

One second she was fine. Staring off to the distance, mute, deaf, bed-bound with a severely broken arm but...fine. Then she was sobbing. Not just crying. Not just losing a few tears with no noise or sniffles. She wassobbing. Long, droning, noisy wails broke through the air all of a sudden, scaring him so much that he could feel his heart in his neck.

He sat up in his seat so his body wasn't quite so delapidated to brush the better side of her face with his thumb. He had no idea if it would help her or not, but touch was the closest he could get to communication with him when she was crying like that. He could hardly just write something soothing on the whiteboard and shove it in her face in the hope that it would help. Even if he tried, her eyes were too flooded with tears to read, and she was panicking too much anyway.

"Meredith." He sighed, affection drowning his tone. He didn't know why. She couldn't hear her.She. Couldn't. Hear. Her.

Not being able to communicate, nor hear was hell. Absolute hell. He couldn't talk to her, and she couldn't talk back. He couldn't sooth her, and she couldn't vent. He couldn't do anything. And neither could she.

So he came up with the best idea he could when no words could be exchanged.

"Hello."

"Uh- hi there." He greeted, placing his hands on the side of his chair and trying to shuffle himself a little, despite the fact that her weight was crushing him. She was a lot lighter now she wasn't pregnant, but she was still heavier than Zola or Bailey. Normally, he would have adjusted his position before she sat on him for his own comfort, but he didn't get the chance, seeing as she didn't actually ask. "You fancy finding your own seat?"

"I have a seat." She shrugged, unravelling a mass of silver foil in her hands as she shifted her legs a little on him. That helped her own positioning, but wasn't overly helpful for him.

"No. This is my seat Meredith." He said, smirking at her.

"Pretty sure I paid for it." She pointed out between chews of her sandwich.

"You paid for the first one. I was the one who got this one from Brody's shop, not you. On my card."

She sighed. "Well, I own you because you're my husband, so I own it too. Plus, everytime I see you I want to just come and sit on this lovely lap of yours but I didn't want to totally crush your legs with my belly. Now, I can sit on you as much as I want. All day, every day! I think you'd love that so much. I mean, I can see the delight in your face right now!"

He stuck his tongue out at her, leaving the rest of his face screaming that he was extremely unimpressed.

"See, so much delight!" She exclaimed through a giggle.

He smiled, wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her a little closer to him. "You are so annoying. You know that right?"

She smiled. "I know. I do it on purpose. Punishment."

"For?"

"Uh- payback for the future so there is less punishment later." She settled on after a few seconds.

"I don't intend on doing anything wrong though."

"Well I'm presuming you didn't set out one day planning to trash your extraordinarily expensive Porche, but you still did that, didn't you?"

"I was in a car accident, Meredith." He reminded her with a grin. It wasn't something to smile about normally; but they were having one of their joking sessions.

She raised her eyebrows. "No! Really? Are you serious?" She inquired, outraged by the very idea.

"Yeah. I know it's surprising. There's no way you would know that something horrible happened to me by just looking, would you?"

She thought for a second before shaking her head. "Nope. Hungry?" She asked abruptly, shifting all focus to her food.

He eyed her sandwich for a second. It was just cheese and butter, he made it for her this morning. "Eh."

"It's good." She pushed, shoving the food in his face so close that it touched his lips.

He took a tiny bite that barely got past the crust and onto the break itself. At least she kept hers on. Two out of the three sandwiches he had made were crustless. Their kids were picky.

"Oh, c'mon. You can have more than that." She insisted, pushing the bread at him again.

This time, he took it too seriously, biting half of the sandwich away and filing every square centimetre of his mouth with the food.

"Hey! What the hell! That was my sandwich!" She exclaimed, looking at him with an offended pout.

"And that is what you get for sitting on me without asking."

"It's not a big deal. I own you. You own the chair.

"Tell that to the patient I have waiting in surgery." He murmured, eyebrows raised.

"Seriously?"

"Hey. Sorry I'm late for your tumour removal, Mrs Williams, my wife was sitting on me."

"Crap!" She exclaimed, sliding off of him.

"Oh my god Mer, I'm kidding!" He replied after a snort. He slid to a position that would actually be comfortable for him. "Now you can sit on me."

"Maybe I don't want to sit in the lap of a lying liar. Maybe I'd rather-" She looked around the room. "-sit on that chair over their in the corner."

"That's the one that is stuck at a permanently tiny height. It's broken. I don't think you want to sit there."

"Well...Well maybe I'll sit on the floor then." She suggested, realising there weren't actually any other seats to claim in the room.

"Wow. So sanitary and clean. You sure you wanna eat your lunch on the floor?"

She sighed. "I thought you said you don't like it when I sit on you."

"When I don't have time to prepare, I don't like it, no."

"Well now I'm mad at you!"

"Hey, hey, hey- I've already had my punishment for my future wrongdoings, no shouting!"

She pouted, then sat on him once again. "So you get pre-punishment points for something you actually enjoy?"

"I'm hungry." He responded out of the blue.

"Seriously? You literally just ate like half of my sa-" She paused (or rather, stopped abruptly when she was interrupted) when he placed his lips on hers. Each time the kiss drew to a close, one of them would force another one on the other. Over and over and over and over. Derek was not hungry for food then, clearly, and, apparently, she wasn't either.

He wanted her to sit on his lap so he could hold her and rock her and kiss her and make the whole world okay again, and she could bury herself in him and sob into his chest to hide from the embarrassment of it all.

Unfortunately, she was bed-bound. Even if she was ambulatory for a little bit of the day, there was no way he was going to be able to move all her machines so no tubes or cannulas would be pulled out, and actually get her onto his lap in twenty minutes, and he sure hoped she would have stopped crying by then.

So, he tapped the bed with his hand, and, surprisingly, Meredith noticed it. Her eyes flickered between his face and his best attempt at sign language a few times before really registered what he was asking. She was still crying, but silently now. It was just tears, no sobs. Nevertheless, it still broke his heart to see his wife in so much pain. Physical pain. Psychological pain. He knew that neither were inferior to the other, and he also knew that one caused the other in a horrendous positive correlation. The more physical pain she was in, the more psychological pain she was in. He could see that written all over her face as tears dripped onto her gown and her chest swelled and collapsed at a slightly alarming speed. It wasn't a panic attack; but the tears were bad enough to make her heave for breaths.

Tears still dripping, he gave a look that asked her whether his idea was okay, and she seemed to agree. It was hard to tell with the despondency flowing out of her.

He removed his feet from the footrest, pulled himself on the bed and then picked up his legs with his standard forearm-under-the-knees technique. He kneed her when he moved to a lying position but she didn't bother groaning or frowning at him. It did how her, sent her into a spiral of thoughts. Well, another one. All she did was sit and think. Somewhen, she was going to be discharged from hospital, and she would be placed in the care of her next of kin: her husband. Her wheelchair-using husband. The one who she normally still helped out because, every once in a while, he'd be met with something he couldn't physically do and she'd have to take over. He was the best husband and the best dad and the best surgeon and the best person that he could be. But that was the problem. She hated anyone who dared to breathe a bad word about him, but some people were right. It was a hard truth, but his best would never be the best of an able-bodied person. Because that person would be able to help her to bed with supporting arms and bring her breakfast in bed (without spilling orange juice literally everywhere) and play with the kids in her absence and drive her to and from hospital appointments. As much as she loved him and his limitless attitude, he couldn't do those things...and now he had a wife that was in desperate need of all of those things.

He wrapped his hands around her the best he could without touching something that he knew she had greatly damaged and she smiled. Actually smiled. He rubbed slow, careful shapes across her in the hope it would be soothing and, from the look on her face, it was.

This is where they would talk. Where he'd joke to cheer her up. Where he'd say soothing things to make her smile.

He could talk. He could say things that would cheer her up. He could say soothing things to make her relax. He could make jokes to make her laugh. He could tell her about the kids to make her smile. And, although he knew she wouldn't hear any of it, he really couldn't help it.

"I'm so sorry Meredith. I just...I'm sorry that this happened to you. To us. To...god, the poor kids, they're-" He sighed. "Well, you know the kids. They're trying their best but...this is hard. At least...at least this time, you'll be fine. Eventually. You need to be okay. I know- I know it's a lot of pressure. But...I love you Meredith. Even if you did break our rule. What happened to that, huh? No accidents, illnesses, major surgeries...whatever else it was. What happened to that? Who's being an idiot now? Bet you wish you didn't tell me off for tennis now."

She smiled at the teasing.

"Not that it's you're fault but...well, the crash wasn't my fault either and you still like poking fun of me for it a year and half later because you're Meredith. But you..." He paused.

She had smiled.

At his joke.

She had...heard his joke.

Heard it.

She could hear?

She. Could. Hear.

"Wha- Meredith...Mer, you can hear me?"

Her smile dropped, but, for the first time in twelve days, it wasn't because she was sad or worried or in pain. Her smile dropped because she couldn't quite believe it.

She. Could. Hear. Him.