Chibi: Hmm. Having one of those grab-a-bit-of-inspiration-from-absolutely-anything-and-everything kind of periods at the moment.

Enjoy!

"I don't paint any more. I used to paint all the time. I really loved it." - Allie, The Notebook

Girl Unobserved

The house, far too large for her liking, is as quiet and hollow as it always is. When she wakes up she can feel it, lingering over her skin like dust – a shallow, barely there emptiness that has always haunted this place. It was Roxas' choice, she thinks to herself, as she sits up in the bed, and her fingers close loosely around the cardigan that always lies at the end of the bed. She pulls it on, wrapping it around her tightly because the emptiness of this large, unnecessary house always gives her a chill. He chose it, because he wanted a big family.

She leans back, against the headboard, and closes her arms around herself, distractedly blowing the strands of hair that have fallen into her eyes up and out of the way. Their bedroom is big – so much bigger than she needs – and nothing feels like home. The small, poky flat they'd lived in before, before he'd graduated and started earning so much money that he could afford this large, airy, family house, had felt much more like home to her. But that was because she'd had a free reign in that tiny, one bedroom apartment. She'd done the decorating, as he bent over his books at the kitchen table, the back of his neck tense and his hair standing on end from his fingers running through it, as he studied for his exams. She'd picked the light blue paint on the walls, the soft cream of the sofa in the living room, the dark crimson of the muslin curtains in their bedrooms. She'd hung up their pictures, positioned their photographs, arranged their ornaments. By the time she'd finished, he was studying for his final exam, but still managed to pull himself away from his books, and marvel over her work. It wasn't as though now, in this empty house that makes her feel so lonely when he goes out to work every day and leaves her sleeping in bed, that she didn't have any control or reign in their new living quarters, but it is the fact that the place was pre-decorated, ready for their arrival, that annoys her. She'd have at least liked to try and make the new house her home, but she hadn't really been given a chance. You worked so hard though, on the flat, he told her as he guided her around, showing her their new bedroom that stretched out to French windows and a balcony she would probably never use. I wanted to give you a chance to relax and enjoy the move.

She is twenty one, but she feels thirty five sometimes, when she sits upright like this in her vast bed wrapped in a cardigan because his warmth left her hours ago. When she feels like that, it is because she feels middle-aged and unsatisfied, and she knows that is because she does not have a job, does not have children to look after, and has a housekeeper to retain cleanliness and order in their house every day. There is nothing for her to do, if she really thinks about it. She normally spends the morning eating a slow, leisurely breakfast that she does not even have to prepare herself, because Mrs Potts has always made it whilst she has been upstairs dozing in the light, drifting mid-morning light that lilts lazily through the open curtains – a forest green colour that makes her uneasy – that Roxas opened when he got up hours before. After her drawn out breakfast and her perusal of the newspapers already laid out on the dining room table for her, she sometimes wanders through the gardens, nodding a good morning to Squall, the quiet, stoic gardener who only speaks to her to ask her opinion on flower beds and trimmed hedges. Her wanders never take her far and never take her long, though, because she knows the garden path better than she knows the interior of the house that she has ambled through in her satin pyjamas every day for nearly a year now.

Afternoons are the hardest. Lunch is easy, because Mrs Potts again prepares that and she does not even have to talk because the plump, cheerful housekeeper does all the work for her, providing idle chatter about supper and a dinner party Mr Strife wants to hold next week, and what does Madam think of salmon puff appetizers? She always nods, absently, picking at her sandwich and staring at the only photograph hanging on the dining room wall, which she herself hung there because she felt so lonely at breakfast, sitting on her own eating her food in her pyjamas in a drifting, empty house. The photo is a family one – her, Roxas and his brother, Cloud – and she notes, with some sadness as she stares at their faces as she has a thousand times, so many times that she has memorised every freckle and every bending of light, that they are her only family, now. Her husband, and her brother-in-law. She doesn't like to dwell on that for long, though, because she has caught so many people – Mrs Potts, Aerith the secretary, Cloud's wife Tifa, and even Squall the gardener – regarding her with looks of detached sympathy because they couldn't possibly understand how she, that poor girl, could possibly feel, being an orphan. But she has always dealt with it, ever since she was seventeen and met Roxas in a coffee shop around a year after the fire that killed them, her parents, and so she deals with it now, pointedly ignoring the silence the housekeeper has lapsed into because she is watching her with a tilted head and sad, knowing eyes.

Afternoons are the hardest because she is alone, which is strange, really – she is very used to being alone. Mrs Potts busies herself with preparing dinner, Squall is finished for the day and leaves in a silence that rivals the light emptiness of her house, and Roxas doesn't finish work until six o'clock and won't be home until half past. Afternoons mean endless hours sat watching outside the window, pointless ambles into town and buying meaningless, expensive clothes that he encourages her to buy with his money, because he knows that growing up she never had much, and especially after her parents died she was living on the bare minimum, and so he wants to treat her with his hard, plastic credit card and overflowing bank account. She buys silk, cashmere, wool, linen – all soft, delicate fabrics that smooth over her skin in creams and whites and cost more than she has ever known.

She should be happy. But she doesn't know how to find it in herself to be happy, to take what she has been handed with a smile and thanks, to show some gratefulness. She is grateful, because for far too long she and her parents lived in a small, dingy house with electricity that came in short, random bursts, provided the bills had been paid, and she didn't have the grades at school or the means to earn her own money. That is why she has to spend her days lonely and ambling, because she is not clever like Roxas – she was not encouraged to work hard in school and she was not sent to college by her parents – and she doesn't have the right qualifications to find her own work. Sometimes Roxas lightly encourages her to take up classes at night school, and offers to help her study towards exams, but the thought of trying to learn, of trying to be like him and like everybody else who has finished high school with top grades and was valedictorian at graduation, and finished college with a degree that stood out above the rest, makes her feel sick and depressed and he sees that, and always drops the subject so hurriedly that she wonders if it hurts him like it hurts her. Instead, he buys books for her, leaving them scattered around the house in places to surprise her and when she finds them, they do surprise her – they make her smile, but the smile is small, and as bright and brief as the setting sun, and when she has read the book and stacked it on the shelf amongst her growing collection of classics, she is idle again and can only sit on the window seat on the landing, near the stairs, and watch the birds in the trees outside.

When he comes home is the best time of day for her. She listens out eagerly for the crunch of gravel on the drive that signifies his arrival, hears the engine cut out and the car door slam – she has never learnt how to drive, because she couldn't afford the lessons, and she wonders if he feels as much power behind the wheel as she thinks she would – and then he calls through the hallway and up the stairs, her name soft and inviting out of his mouth, and she finds herself scrambling out of the window seat and clambering down the stairs with the excitement of a puppy greeting its master at the end of the day, and his arms are always open and waiting as she throws herself into them, pressing her cheek close against his chest and feeling the warmth of his arms around her back and the sharp but familiar point of his chin resting on the top of her head.

After dinner, they normally watch the television or a film, and he tells her about his day. He doesn't ask about hers, anymore – not after that time about nine months ago when she suddenly burst into tears and locked herself in the bathroom all night, and he had sat outside it on the floor, knocking weakly on the door and apologising constantly until she let herself out and into his embrace in the dark light of night and refused to say what had upset her. Instead, after he has told her about the clients he dealt with, and the funny conversation he had with Aerith the secretary, he lies his head down in her lap and stretches out on the sofa beside her, and she runs her hands through the soft peaks of his hair, which is so warm and comforting to her that she doesn't think she could bear it if she couldn't do that to him every night. Sometimes he talks about what he wants for the future – a happy, smiling family – and though it excites her, thinking about holding a child in her arms with her eyes and his smile, she can't help but think about how young they are – she is only twenty one, and he is twenty two, nearly twenty three, and fresh out of college, with an admirable degree and a high-paying job that makes his family smile (her included, because, unlike in her case, his family does not just stretch to her and Cloud, but to his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins), and he has great prospects. That is why they live in this house – she cannot bring herself to refer to it as her home, not yet – because he wants children with her hair and his freckles, and he wants to fill this house with them in the years to come. She wants it, too – she wants a life with him, has done ever since she met him when she was seventeen in the coffee shop, and he asked her out to dinner and paid for her coffee in one, swift motion. He is, always has been and always will be, stable, her Earth.

When they lie in bed, he likes to lie on his back with her held closely to his chest, his fingers soft on her shoulders, and she likes that too – loves it – but when he drifts off to sleep, gathering his energy for the early, six o'clock start the next morning, he always rolls onto his side, away from her, and she watches him as he sleeps, knowing that he doesn't know, and she always thinks about how when he changes his position, he is changing her.

"Madam, Mr Strife is on the phone for you."

It is morning, she is sat at the table in the dining room in her satin pyjamas with her cardigan tight around her, and she is staring at the photograph of her two closest people, and Mrs Potts is holding the cordless phone out to her with an expression of bobbing anxiety.

"Thank you," she mumbles, taking it from the housekeeper who is already returning to the kitchen to leave her in peace to talk to her husband. "What is it, Roxas?"

"You sound bored," he chuckles, and she can hear the shuffle of papers that he is no doubt organising on his desk. "Which is exactly why I rang."

"To see if I was bored?"

"Well," he sighs, and she hears the creak of leather and she knows that he is leaning back in his office chair, stretching out and his smooth, milky chest pressing against his shirt. "I was thinking."

"A dangerous past time," she murmurs, and he laughs, because this is their own, private, personal joke that they share.

"What did you do when you were younger? Before the fire, I mean ..."

"I ... I don't think I understand the question."

"When you were bored. What did you do to pass the time when you were bored, and you were young?"

She sits motionless for a moment, her eyes still locked with her own staring out of the picture on the wall, and her gaze changes first to hold Roxas', and then Cloud's before she draws it back to her own.

"I ... I'm not sure I remember."

"Well ... let me know when you do, okay?"

"Yes," she says. He tells her he loves her, and she tells him that she loves him, and then he ends the call, saying he has to ring a client. She places the phone down on the table beside her breakfast bowl, and she rests her chin on her right hand as she begins to scoop the porridge in the bowl up into her mouth with the spoon in the other hand.

Aren't left handed people supposed to be very creative?

He'd asked her that, when he'd noticed her holding her water glass in her left hand that first night they had dinner together, and she had shrugged absently, because she'd heard that before – her mother had always said it to her when she'd look around her small, matchbox bedroom at the walls ...

In that moment, she remembers.

She gives it some time, first, before she rings Aerith. She finishes her breakfast, has a long, hot bath and spends a half hour or so teasing her hair into a soft, loose bun. Then, she picks out her outfit for the day – a white cashmere shell tucked into a knee length, pale pink chiffon skirt, and a light, sky blue cardigan. She watches the birds from her window seat for another hour, holds a stilting, awkwardly familiar and comforting conversation with Squall as they observe the peonies, and then she finally rings Aerith after she has had her lunch.

"Mr Strife's office." Her voice is a soft as always, trickling like water through the speaker.

"It's me ... Naminé. Does he have any free time this afternoon?"

"For you, he does," Aerith says, and she knows that the woman is smiling gently.

"Thank you ... I'll be around an hour."

It takes around half an hour to get into central Radiant Garden, if going by car, and though she knows that she can take a taxi she wants to cycle, so she has to ask Squall to help her get her bike out of the garage. He firmly presses the helmet onto her head before she can protest, but she manages to return the small, rarely determined smile he is giving her as he buckles it for her beneath her chin. She drops her handbag into the wicker basket on the bike's front and then, she is cycling down the drive and through the open gates, her skirt billowing out beside her as she travels along the hedge lined roads in the light afternoon sun.

She cycles slowly, knowing that there is no rush because he always makes time for her if she wants to come in to see him, and in just over an hour she is locking the bike up down the road from his office, and, with her helmet dangling like a lucky charm from her loosely gripped fingers, she enters the familiar building, and rides the familiar elevator up to the familiar floor. Aerith is sat behind her desk, her phone tucked in the crook of her neck as she bats away the playful hands of Zack, a big-shot from the floor above who has developed a crush on the woman from the floor below and never seems to work, only lingering around on her husband's floor and bothering his secretary. Aerith looks up as she enters, gives her a smile, and waves her on towards the big wooden doors that separate her office from his.

He is sat at the desk, his glasses on and a stack of papers in his hand that only loosely hold his attention. When she walks in, unannounced, he looks up eagerly, pushing his glasses up on top of his head, but when she doesn't immediately cross the office to kiss him, he stays sat in the high backed chair, looking at her with curiosity. There is a silence, a hovering, brooding one that covers them as light as a summer sheet, until she looks up at the ceiling, breaking their gaze.

"I used to draw," she tells him softly, her eyes picking out the decorative swirls and loops of plaster above them. "I used to draw all the time. The walls of my bedroom were covered in paper. I really loved it."

The silence continues, and he gives her a small, encouraging smile that means more to her than he can ever know. He reaches his hands above his head, holding them tightly and stretching out his arms and shoulders. She watches the muscles of his biceps and his chest flex with the action, drawn to the movement, and she decides that tonight she will initiate it – she will make love to him tonight.

"So draw," he says simply.

The ride home is quiet, despite the fact that it is after three o'clock and school has finished for the day. Plenty of cars shoot past her on the road but she is unwavering on her bike, and the ride is quiet because there are no thoughts bouncing around her head. Thinking doesn't seem coherent to her, at this moment – a dangerous pastime floats into her head in his voice, and she can't help but agree – and so she just concentrates on the approaching, always open gates, and helps Squall put her bike back in the garage.

Mrs Potts is smiling widely when she lets herself back into the house, but the woman says nothing, choosing to silence herself with dusting the dresser that holds their china collection that they break out for dinner parties. So, she climbs the stairs, and is about to drop herself down onto the window seat to watch the birds and think about what she has told him, and what she remembers, when she decides to put her bag back into her bedroom, and maybe pick out a change of clothes.

She is glad she did. On the bed, beside a pair of denim shorts and an old t-shirt of his – her favourite outfit to wear when she was painting the walls of their flat, and her favourite outfit to wear in the warm sun of summer, which she knew that he knew all too well – is a sketchpad, a pencil and sharpener, and a box of soft, wax crayons that have clearly just been bought from the art shop in town. The French windows that lead out onto the balcony are open, and she is surprised that she didn't notice that as she cycled down the drive, because she never opens them – they are always resolutely closed. No note has been left beside the gifts, and she guesses that is because he would have preferred to have written a note in his own hand, and to accomplish this surprise he most likely had to ring Mrs Potts and get her or Squall to do it in a hurry in the hour as she cycled home. She is thankful, for that – is thankful for all of his presents, which from someone else may have appeared patronising but from him always appear carefully thought out and tender.

She changes swiftly, leaving her skirt, vest and cardigan spread out on the bed rather than putting them immediately away, and she scoops up the gift and settles herself at the chair and table on the balcony, where she can see right out over the drive and down the road. From here, she can keep an eye out for his car.

The pencil is firm and familiar in her fingers, nestling like an old friend against the bump on her ring finger that has been there ever since she has learnt to hold a pencil. You're holding the pencil with the wrong fingers; it should rest on your middle finger. That was what her teacher in school had always told her, when she was learning to write. But she remembered that her father had a matching bump on his ring finger of his right hand, and that always made her feel attached and like she was home. The tips of her fingers on her right hand absently turn the silver wedding band around the ring finger, which she has always worn on her right hand, despite what people say, because she cannot hold a pencil in her left hand with a ring on the correct finger.

When his car is coasting gradually down the drive, pulling to a stop and the engine dying, she has still only sketched his outline, but it doesn't matter. She doesn't need to look down, to see him climb out of the car and look up at her with a pleased, broad smile, but she does anyway, because what he has given her is exactly what she needed and she feels that she should return the smile. He doesn't come inside immediately – instead, he stands in the evening light, looking up at her on the balcony with a look that tells her he knows, he understands, and he is happy, and she knows then that the sketch can wait, can lie on the pad on the table until tomorrow because he is here.

I have seen the rest of my drawing, she thinks to herself. I have had my vision.

Chibi: well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed it. Please review! Reviews make me happy heehee. Thanks for reading x