A/N. Hey there! So i'm fairly new to this fandom, so the characters might be a bit meehyeh - but i'm really passionate about them and I hope that shows :)

This is basically just me trying to get back into writing, because I took a break from fanfiction for ages, had writers block and lost all my inspiration to write too. So this is just going to be a small series of ficlets and one shots based on a song from my ipod.

They may be solely based on the song, or only loosely based with only the title relating to the story.

They aren't going to be very long but i'm still new to these characters, like I said, so I don't really want to be writing a 30-chapter-fic any time soon. I am merely dipping my toes into the water, as it were.

IPod shuffle challenge

Here without you – Boyce Avenue

Curled into her fading sofa, Nellie clasps her fingers around her mug of steaming tea and stares blankly into the hearth. A day of cooking, serving and attempting small talk with the little amount of customers she gets, spending hours down in a smouldering bake house - the tiredness of a day's work finally getting to her. She drags a small hand through her tangled curls and takes a sip of tea. Business has hardly picked up after Albert's death a month ago, what with having to close the shop for a week or so to plan his funeral. Nellie had kept the shop shut for a further three weeks after that, out of public expectancy that a widow should mourn the death of her late husband. While she loved the man dearly, in her own twisted way, those feelings of sadness and remorse that Nellie had read about so many times in her outdated romance novels just didn't come. Albert's passing had left her with a feeling of indifference, and the guilt hit her like a stone when she realised she only felt those feelings when Benjamin Barker was taken.

Benjamin Barker.

That man ruined her life when he was living in the flat just above her head, and he continues to do so even on the other side of the world. The man's perfect face has haunted her dreams for the past 2 years, each and every dream his image becoming more clear and detailed instead of fading away. It is why she spends most nights, squashed into her sofa, imagining him sitting across from her, his dark curls framing his beautiful, smiling face. Unable and not wanting to shake the façade, Nellie can only smile back into the air, and imagine his strong body crawl across from his side of the sofa to hers and take her small body into his arms, grinning down at her with chocolate brown eyes. And each time he bends his neck to kiss her, she wants to ask about Lucy, about Johanna, about his life above the crumbling ceiling of her living room - but she doesn't. She wants a chance at a normal life; a life which she knows can only have in her dreams. She chases an impossible dream, and sometimes - if she dreams hard enough - the dream almost seems real.

Sorry it isn't long, but reviews are love :3