A/N: I decided to do cut this into three parts instead of two as the second part was nearing 1,5k words. The third part will follow soon.

Quiet which speaks

Part 2 out of 3

It was our one year anniversary and I was walking her home from a movie when she suddenly yanked me to a stop and kissed me. Then she smiled at my baffled expression and asked me a question that left me opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish.

"Why don't we get married?"

We weren't even living together and she asked me to marry her. When my brain started working again I told her yes.

In the end we moved in before the wedding. As I saw her in all times of the day I felt like I was witnessing something really private. I saw her tired, surprised and annoyed yet I loved her all the more for it. I learned that she enjoyed watching soap opera from TV, playing Assassin's Creed and that she dreaded being alone in quiet darkness. She never said anything but if I sometimes came home late I found all the lights blazing and music on. It was amusing in a way, because in company she always preferred quiet over a pointless chatter. But we were happy, or at least I was, but I want to believe she was too.

Then, a little after the wedding, she announced she was pregnant. I almost chocked to my breakfast and she just laughed. That morning is one of the rare good things I can still recall vividly. I remember she was sitting her back to the window, which had its curtains closed, wearing her red morning gown. Her hair was damp from the shower and in her hands she was holding a teacup. Most of my other memories, which are so sharp they still cut like a knife, are moments that came after that morning. Moments when I really feared for her sanity, and for mine as well.

"Did you leave the TV on?"

We were laying on the bed and I was already half asleep. I murmured something resembling a denial, but she slipped out of the bed nonetheless.

"I'm sure I heard some quiet speech. I'll go and check."

I woke up when she snuggled against me her hands and legs cold as ice. I searched for her eyes, for she usually wasn't one for such a proximity, and found her frowning.

"Was it on?"

"No."

She buried her head into my shoulder and I fell back to sleep. Her screams woke me up before the dawn.

I think she remembered her nightmares but all she told me when I asked was that she heard voices. When I inquired why she found them scary she smiled wryly, shrugged and said she didn't know. I watched her waking up more often and often and kept quiet, but when she finally woke up two times in the same night I forced her to go and see a doctor. She certainly wasn't happy with me, saying that it was just the hormones. The doctor agreed, but suggested that she should maybe start her maternity leave early. She did.

At first I thought the nightmares had ended, for she didn't wake me up in the middle of the night anymore. During the days there was always some music on and she busied herself with learning Spanish, Once I asked her to turn the music off.

"Why?" she asked tilting her head to the side.

"Because I'm tired and could use some quiet."

She watched me thoughtfully and turned the volume down, but didn't turn it off.

"I couldn't. And haven't you heard that listening to a music is good for unborn babies? Supposedly makes them more clever."

I raised an eyebrow and she smiled.

I had been wrong about the nightmares. They hadn't ended, she was simply sleeping during the day when I wasn't home. I'm ashamed to say that it took me ages to notice that she slipped out of the bed after I had fallen asleep, but when I one night woke up and found her gone it didn't take me long to put the puzzle together. Quietly I got up and tiptoed to the kitchen door. She was sitting there, listening to her iPod, eyes closed. I thought going to her but then she spoke so quietly that I could barely make the words out:

"Leave me alone."

First I thought she was talking to me, but her eyes were still closed and soon she continued:

"You're not real."

Shaken and afraid I stole back to the bed, but sleep eluded me that night and in many nights after.