A/N: Hello everyone!

Okay, new story time. This one isn't very long, my apologies, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding time to write recently. I've just started University and trying to find a balance. Don't panic, I'm still continuing with 'Rebuilding Stuart Pot' because I love it too much. This is just a little oneshot to help inspire myself and to keep you guys a little bit entertained.

It was my intention to make this a standalone fic, but the more I kept writing, the more it seemed like a fitting prequel to both 'The Substitute' and 'Rebuilding Stuart Pot' so it can be read as either. Basically it deals with how 2D handles the grief after Noodle's apparent death, because I'm morbid like that…:D If you do read this as a continuation, I changed the order that the characters leave Kong. In RSP, 2D was the first to leave.

Please note that I started writing this as a spur of the moment thing, so I haven't really planned it through as much as my other stories. So sorry if my writing isn't up to standard.

I just want to thank everyone who has gotten involved with Slowboat To Hades, it's really shaping up, brilliant contributions everyone!

I'm gonna dedicate this to you Wordwryhta! So ya better read it!

Also want to thank those of you who have constantly supported me!

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Gorillaz belong to Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett" :D

xX

The Sojourn Of A Ghost

For everyone else a new day provides the opportunity for changes, chances and righting wrongs. But for him, the day was the harshest of punishments, a cruel agonising wait until nightfall. He should have spent his days living life, loving life, grabbing every opportunity to fulfil his dreams and ambitions. Yet he drifted through various states of consciousness, gradually loosing himself to a new distorted state in which the lines between reality and dreams have blurred into an unrecognisable mess. However escape was never an option, he had fallen too far.

The memory of her had twisted and distorted into an unrecognisable monster that fed on his weakness. The image of her innocence was now an addictive poison which ran through his body. She was slowly killing him, every night she would drain him further, causing the next day to become slightly shorter. Each time she drew him in, she demanded more. And he was willing to give in to her.

Her name was Noodle; she had been ripped away from her family when she was a teenager. The famous young Japanese guitarist who had been gunned down for her innocence.

Time had inevitably passed by since her death, yet her essence still lingered in the lonely corridors of Kong. The ghost of everything she ever was still roamed the isolated building messing with the mind of Stuart '2D' Pot. Every now and then she would creep up on him. If he ever found himself wondering into her abandoned room, he was often caught off guard by the sweet, light fragrance of her still contained with the bare walls of her abode. It teased the singer by giving him a slight moment of peace before the inevitable thud of reality would return.

The halls of Kong began to degenerate into nothingness, as the building itself seemed to be dying without the presence of Noodle. The structure fashioned a bare look after Russel Hobbs moved away, the whole place becoming something of a ghost town. 2D seemed to suffer a strange bout of insecurity due to the drummer's untimely departure. The American man had offered his younger friend a comforting shoulder, a subtle guidance through the grief. Russel kept his sudden exit a secret from 2D and Murdoc. Nobody could really blame him, Noodle had meant a great deal to the drummer.

It was then that the hauntings became more frequent.

It started in his sleep. It was always in his sleep. The inevitable time of day where he had no control and was extremely vulnerable. She could take him so easily in his sleep. Her first contact with him was so vivid, he was almost certain that it was real. As soon as his heavy eyelids closed and released him from the cruelty of the world, she would use the opportunity to drag him into unconsciousness. An altered state of reality without boundaries or limitations. She would often beg him to stay there with her, in a vegetated state where his mind was free and his guilt was lifted. But he knew the consequences of such a choice. Death.

It was a decision he wasn't ready to make. It was a decision he would never be ready to make. He would much rather stay in his present state of ignorant bliss. 2D fully knew that his new lifestyle choice wasn't wise; he knew that he was slowly driving himself to insanity. But, in his moments of serenity the selfish desires to adopt this absurd norm were too tempting. He lived for the night. He lived for his dreams, where he and Noodle were reunited. He constantly craved the vivid feeling of slipping into unconsciousness, when he was sure that he could feel her delicate hands brush the teal strands from his face and the safety of her ghostly embrace as she pulled him into the frighteningly realistic world that they had created together.

Often, she would ask him to follow her, deeper into the unstable reassesses of his mind. She would innocently coax him to fall. But she then hesitated, she would plead with him, beg him not to get lost. She urged him to move on, asked him to forget her. However, he couldn't, he would never be able to grant himself the privilege of being freed from her hold. Sometimes the singer wondered if he gained some twisted sort of kick out of being in a constant state of misery.

It was getting worse.

2D found that gradually, his nights were getting longer. He was physically shutting his body down for longer periods. When she first started visiting him, his nights lasted roughly a healthy eight hours. But now, in the deepest depths of his obsession, he was sleeping at least twelve hours a day, and craving more. Soon, the nights were becoming the days; still, he couldn't seem to satisfy the urges. His body was taking a beating for overcompensating. His limbs had grown weak, his eyes had been left dull and tired and his mind was always elsewhere.

The shallow building of Kong didn't help either. The place was his catalyst, constantly reminding him of all he had lost and the little he had left in the world. 2D was getting so distracted in his dream realm that he even failed to fully comprehend the damage taken by the building. It was slowly decaying around him. The plaster hung limply off the walls and the roof was caving in under its own weight. Hardly any of the appliances worked due to the electrical connection which was prone to short circuit every five minutes. Still, Murdoc had his treasured Winnebago, so as far as the stubborn bassist was concerned, that was all that he would ever need. Kong was just a desolate obstruction to him, and Noodle? She was merely a distant memory somewhere in the midst of his intoxicated haze.

But for Stuart Pot, the image of Noodle was never far from him. She had changed since she had first made her appearance in his dreams. She had developed in a way which the singer had imagined she would if she had been granted the privilege to grow up.

However it soon began to dawn on the singer that fantasy was not enough. As dim witted and vacant he may appear, he still had the cognitive ability to realise that he was in trouble. Noodle was clouding his judgement; he let her interfere with his everyday decisions, using her as the pivotal point for everything. He had to stop, he needed to.

It seemed that distraction could provide him with an escape route. After all, if he didn't think of Noodle, maybe he wouldn't dream of Noodle. The first outlet for his anguish seemed obvious in the form of music. But it failed. He couldn't write, he didn't want to write. Every time he searched for inspiration, she popped back into his head, luring him into another self-destructive bout of delusional fantasy. His distractions soon turned more and more sinister.

Sex was his next preoccupation, nameless girls walked in and out of the doors of Kong on a daily basis. The singer used their bodies for a quick release of momentary, shallow ecstasy. He pondered whether this pseudo feeling of enjoyment was worth the backlash. Still, he continued to hunt and entice more and more women. After a while, all of their faces seemed to turn into one blur, names were useless, he never bothered to learn them.

However the guilt soon filtered back into his head whenever he would find himself alone. The ghost in his dreams was saddened by his careless antics and false feelings of fulfilment. She would cry at his betrayal and scold him for his selfishness causing the older man to deluge in sessions of self-loathing and depression. That is when the third and final of his distractions arose, drugs. He found that he had subconsciously almost doubled his dose of painkillers in recent weeks. He enjoyed the feeling which the medication granted him, it slightly resembled nostalgia and offered a short wave of euphoria. Yet nothing could compare to the sojourn of a ghost.

The distractions only temporarily dulled the grief though. 2D was finding it increasingly hard to keep track of reality and dreams. He was getting lost in the labyrinth he had created. With the added effects of painkillers, he was finding even harder to distinguish the two worlds.

London's Leicester Square is passed by tens of thousands of people each and every day. Some are tourists, others are commuters. The chances of you running into someone you know in this particular spot, at this particular time are practically non-existent. Yet it took one fleeing glance in this crowded, chaotic frenzy of people to change everything for Stuart Pot.

He wasn't even looking when he saw her.

Noodle, he saw her interwoven in the sea of public. It was only a mere second, yet he was certain that it was her. The frantic and bewildering urge to follow was overpowered by the uneasy nagging at the back of his mind. He imagined it. It was the only explanation. She was dead, he saw her die. He had to snap out of this destructive routine, he had to come back to reality. Ironically, this one pivotal occurrence of actual truth provided the wakeup call that 2D had been searching for.

He needed to leave Kong; it was the first step to letting go. He didn't pack, why carry the memories around with him? Everything 2D owned held some sort of sentimental value and would only stir the ghost inside his head.

He had always wanted to live in Beirut.

It was a surreal feeling to experience actual dreams again. To let his subconscious ponder freely and create vivid and misinterpreted scenarios in his sleep. An unfortunate freedom which he wouldn't be granted in reality. The ghost hardly ever visited him anymore. She became more and more distant every time he saw her. 2D was forgetting Noodle. She was merely a shoddy shadow of the beautifully complex woman she used to represent. It wouldn't be long until she faded from his subconscious completely.

All it took was a convenient gassing from Murdoc Niccals to rip Stuart Pot's world apart again.

But unknown to 2D, all it took was a convenient gassing from Murdoc Niccals to bring his Noodle back from the dead and restore the hope that he had once thought was gone forever.

A/N: Kind of a pointless story i know... Hey, at least i ended this on a sort of positive note!

Thanks so much for reading, now...back to writing chapter 10!

Please review.

xX