There are no words.

There is nothing to say, to share, to feel, anymore.

Even as they lie here in the darkness of the firehouse, staring at the same spot on the ceiling and trying desperately to see each other reflected back, there is nothing except the ceiling and the rain outside, hammering its way through the windows and the room and their minds so that even if there were once words there, they have been washed far away.

They don't talk now, or whisper, or cry. They don't even try, although actually all they are doing is trying, and failing, and trying again, over and over. The silence between them grows every minute, thriving on echoes of things they once said and shared and felt: the words they once had, before the rain and his eyes and all those other words they said, and didn't say, banished them forever.

They don't breathe together anymore. Maybe it's this unpredictable cycle of heart-racing fear, regret and anger followed by the relative calm of sadness and self-conviction that knocks them out of sync.

You knew I never wanted a child/You denied me a marriage.

They don't sync, now. They don't fit.

They don't anything.

He functions on good coffee and bad food, on catnaps and paperwork. And denial. And rage. And sometimes, on memories of happier days.

One lazy Sunday they made pancakes, except 'they' isn't quite right because it was all him, and it turned into a flour fight because she gets crafty when she's bored. By the time the war was over her hair was more gray than black and he pictured them growing old together - their children and grandchildren weren't there in the image but he knew they existed because in every dream of his future with her, they always did.

He kissed her then against the countertop, overwhelmed by her spirit and the joy it brought him. In the shower it took three doses of shampoo to wash out the mess in her hair, and afterwards she lay down on the bathroom floor and opened herself to him, her curls flooding the tiles around her. As they made love he was overwhelmed by her youth, her radiance, and he thought about a day in the future when they would recreate this moment without birth control and with a not entirely different and yet staggeringly ulterior aim: of creating a life amidst their passion and play; of making something together, with the most fundamental pieces of themselves; of pooling their genes and being overjoyed no matter what combination came up.

Would it be on the bathroom floor, on a tired Seattle Sunday after a disastrous breakfast? Would she, as now, take down her legs from his shoulders and pull herself up onto his lap, so close that the gap between them was no more than a single breath; that they came like dominos with their mouths together and just one thing on both their minds?

I love you more than anything.

They are still dominos, he thinks now, despite the distance between them where it seems they can no longer make contact. They have toppled each other and he can't say who pushed whom, who fell first and furthest and hardest to the ground. Maybe they fell together and a long time ago, like when he held her hand or when she chose a red dress or when she was the only person in the whole world who could see him.

Maybe dominos aren't the best analogy because they're far too black and white when in fact the real world is every miserable shade of gray imaginable.

II

The rain is still gray.

Another night, another sleepless, silent nightmare.

There are no words to say to him, or about him, or even about herself. I feel... I think... I am...

There are no words for either of them now.

There are just no words.

And there is no fight left in her. She was pissed before, with Teddy and in Meredith's kitchen, until he got pissed too and yelled the nine words that stopped the world.

You killed our baby. You don't ever forget that.

The last, truly meaningful nine words either of them ever really said - would ever say? - to one another.

He had killed her too then, actually: killed the Cristina she thought she had been for the last... The Cristina who was married to the Owen who said Okay and then squeezed her hand so tightly; the Cristina who made him weak at the knees, who could and did have him any way she liked; the Cristina who got whatever she wanted, all the time.

The Cristina who broke his heart and didn't even notice. How did that happen?

And now all she wants is for him to hold her again, to touch her like he used to, like she's precious and small and his whole damn world. She wants to go back in time and... And what?

Start the conversation they should have had months ago. Apologize. Treat him as her equal. Never get pregnant. Talk about their life's dreams before accepting his ring and his hand and his life being tied to hers.

Love him more. Tell him more.

Beg him to forgive her.

Beg him to stay, even though she knows he can't - not for much longer. But she also knows he can't just leave because he's not that man and because he loves her, somewhere in the before.

A very great deal.

But enough? Enough to overcome this limbo, this stalemate? Enough to take the gray out of the sky and put all the words back in all the poems and books and dictionaries in all the world?

She longs for the old words, the I think your beautifuls and the I can't breathe without yous and of course, the I love you more than anythings that he would always say when he was busy loving her most tenderly of all.

What will happen if it's not enough; if the words never return? What if she never gets to make him laugh again when she nibbles his ear, that throaty kind of laugh which is always an invitation to continue? What if she has to start ordering takeout for one, or if the spring rolls are bad again and she has to curl up on the bathroom floor all alone? What if she loses a patient or misses her dad and there is no one to hold her until she can breathe again?

What if she has to live without him, the man she loves more than anything?

What if are the only two words in her head right now, thundering around in all that empty space, and they seem to evoke some sort of reaction in her: starting in her skin, making it shiver, and quickly sweeping her body faster than any drug. It pushes her heart into overdrive, steals the air from her chest and nudges her tear ducts sharply into action.

Adrenaline. Terror. Desperation. Courage.

She turns to him in the dark, in the middle of their nightmare, her face wet and her lips trembling. When she reaches for his hand, the sudden connection sends a thousand volts of electricity straight down her spine and into her soul.

There are no words except: I'm sorry. I love you.

Where do we go from here?

But even though he turns towards her and his fingers twitch into something resembling acknowledgement, a beginning, hope - there are no answers, either.