AN: Hey there, darling readers. This is my first ever Next To Normal Fanfiction, a multi-chap, so check back for more (: Reviews are greatly appreciated, I need support to keep going (I'm a Huge self-critic), and perhaps a few ideas…? I pretty much know where it's going, but I'd love to hear what you think. The story is totally AU, but still pertains to the characters we all know and love. I hope you like it (:

Her eyes shut, violently. Her lips, caked with the dried and wrinkled skin of an arid night, did much the same, clutching one another as the stale oxygen they contained sat among yellowed baby teeth. She rocked with each quiet spasm of her protesting lungs, humming to herself a tune that had once lulled her to sleep.

We spun around a thousand stars, I dreamed a dance with you…

The now broken music box that had once shrieked the familiar tune now sat in all its waterlogged glory atop a lone bureau opposite her in the petite bedroom. It had fallen into the bath one night as she washed in rhythm to the music, and just as quickly as its hinges had rusted and its wood had been clogged with the soapy concoction, the lyrics had been forced to stand alone.

Her face puffed and reddened, her heart pounding in her chest. A warning. It wouldn't last long, though, the clarity, the purity of nothingness. Within the first minute, just as it seemed even widening her lids couldn't erase the darkness, the screaming in her ears, the taste of cotton on her tongue, she gasped for air, and her bloodshot eyes sought the brilliant glimmer of a simple blue nightlight in the corner.

Just as quickly as she had awoken from her vacancy, a shadow on the pale pink wall she scanned carefully trapped her mind once again. She fell into a pattern, repeating her dangerous game, counting this time.

One… Two… Three… Fo-

"Nat-lie?" She heard the voice. She knew the voice. She ignored the voice.

Seven… Eight…

"Nat." The cool voice didn't question, or consider. It didn't beg, or plead. It commanded. She resisted the instinct to open her eyes and respond. She merely listened.

The voice had awoken just moments ago, with a start, to the sounds of the girl's humming, just as he had each twilight for as long as he cared to remember. He'd checked the clock, nodding at the confirmation of the four hour sleep he'd had. Plenty. The red glowing numbers illuminated the darkness as he stumbled forward, running three thin pale fingers through thick hair the color of wheat. He delicately entered the hallway, glancing briefly at the snugly shut door of the master bedroom before turning to face the panels of the door before him. The hinges were slightly astray, and left him to carefully avoid the creaking they so often produced. He poked his nose in and whispered to the girl in the bed, her eyes shut so tight he wondered if she might escape from the world behind them.

He didn't bother to expect an invitation. He hadn't needed one before. Within moments he was beneath the covers beside her, watching as she struggled to ignore him. Her lids fluttered, but refused to release. Her lips trembled, as if forming words to fast and soft for any but the speaker to grasp.

"Nat," he repeated, pausing as he briefly, ever so briefly, questioned this futile routine, before shaking off his doubt, "he's back." It should have been a question. He shouldn't have known. But he did."

The girl shuddered, before returning to her inner monologue, numbers swirling in distinct and varying patterns, rows forming in the darkness of her mind. She began again, trapped on twenty one.

One… Two…

"Fine," The boy mumbled in her ear, "Stay silent, then. Stubborn, always so stubborn."

She froze momentarily, before whimpering and cowering further into his chest, another voice speaking softly to her from somewhere the boy would never see him. Her counting sped, and she sucked in another bout of oxygen.

"Shhh…" he murmured, ignoring the fear in the pit of his stomach for the sake of the girl whose hair he now stroked, "It's alright, Nat-lie. It's okay. I'm here. He's not. He's not here."

The numbers were replaced with the simple mantra.

He's not here… He's not here… he's not here…

The boy with small, smooth features reached his fingers down and laced them around the girl's ankles, pulling gently and bending her pencil-straight legs. She relaxed slightly in his embrace, and he allowed himself to envelop her, wishing that he could somehow pry the pain from her with his mere touch.

He waited, and deliberately the girl's eyes shot open. She looked at him, voicing so much with just a glance.

"Hey." He carefully arranged his features into a grin. He was glad to see her staring up at him, although it pained him to observe the lack of any light within them. They didn't sparkle as they once had; they were the eyes of a woman well past her years.

Her mouth contorted over the following seconds, contemplating what she might release from them, before choosing not to bother with introductions and only minding what needed to be said.

"I'm scared, Gay-bie. I'm so scared, Gabe…" She managed to spit out before pulling her chin to her throat, ducking her lips to the collar of his shirt, and crying out into his chest at the words of a young man she alone could hear. They terrified her past sanity.

The eight-year-old boy clutched the girl to her, cradling his meek and lovely sister.