Heron Lake Plateau [expletive deleted]

he held her there for a minute, his big dumb green eyes watering more and more by the second. but only babies cry, and bat had no idea how big a baby tegan had been the last few weeks. so. keep that shit under wraps, okay? 

as she pushed away from him, tegan expected to hear words. he looked down at her expectantly, his ears cupping forwards... but all she did was sign. tegan stared at her, ears falling back. he tried to tease her, "tegan can see that," but it didn't really feel right. why wasn't she talking? why was she signing? what the fuck? "why are you signing?" he asked, voice hoarse as he strained to keep down the anger that was bubbling up in his chest. someone was gonna get their own fucking throat ripped out. "did someone hurt you?"