Martha was good about silence. She'd gotten very good at accepting it around her, at knowing how not to break it; at knowing that while there was silence there wasn't something else being said. Despite that the silence as he thought seemed very long to her. Morbidly, it felt very much like the silence that permeated intensive care wings when people wondered if their loved ones were going to live or if they were going to die.

Yes, that thought was shoved away, and she was going to decide that it had come as a side effect of being married to him.

However, in the silence she didn't pull away; there was no retreating from his chest or his embrace. Once she would have pulled away so that the decision would be made without her interference, because she knew how her touching him could be. Once she would have maintained a respectful distance as if her feelings didn't count in the matter. The relationship between the two of them had pushed that out of her; never again would she not fight for what she wanted.

His words made her smile; she knew that she probably shouldn't but that didn't stop the sharp upturn of her lips and the crinkling around her eyes. A very small part of her, tiny even, had expected that the decision would go the other way. There wasn't a verbal response; instead Martha just leaned over and kissed him soundly.