I'm so glad that I found you

Silence never used to bother Tim.

He’d actually liked it, once. Liked the way quiet could feel like something he stepped into rather than something imposed on him. Back home, before Mozart, before everything, he’d sit alone for hours with nothing but his own thoughts and the distant creak of the house settling around him. Sometimes he’d fill the space with music, working out a melody, going over a phrase until it felt right, but sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes he’d just let his mind wander, unaccompanied, and that had felt safe. It had all been a choice.

After the trials, it stopped being one.