Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or Empty Spaces by Fuel, though in sense I do own Empty Spaces by Fuel because I have their CD Something Like Human and the song is on there. It really is a great CD and it's even cooler because since I own their CD, I, in a sense, own their songs! In that case, this disclaimer wasn't really needed for the song, or was it? Dun, dun, dun.
Kangaroo: Your rambling.
Orange Smoke: Again?
K: Yes. I'm sorry.
OS: *sigh* So am I.
K: . . . ?
OS: Anyway, if you love Rock and Heavy Metal like I do, even if you just like alternative rock, Fuel is for you and I totally recommend buying their more recent CD Something Like Human. It's their best one yet. Especially considering they've only made two albums so far. :)
K: You do so much illegal promoting. I ought to turn you in.
OS: You love me too much.
K: No. No, I don't.
In Dark of Light, In Light of Dark
Chapter 2 - - This is the way I fill your spaces
The second Noin opened the door, she regretted it. She was assailed with doubts, memories, and a very strong urge to not leave at all. Pushing away the niggling thoughts, she walked into her bedroom and closed the door. She could barely hear Zechs in the shower over the CD player, which was currently blaring some intense and extremely loud Fuel. She loved their music and closed her eyes to sink into herself and let everything fade into the strains of the guitar and the steady pounding of the drums. "Mister could you maybe lend a hand,
To help a drowning, starving, soulless man,"
Shuddering at the coming conflict, she sat on the edge of her bed for a moment to collect herself. Opening her eyes, she looked around her room. Grinning wryly, Noin realized that she didn't even recognize the room as theirs, even though they shared it whenever he came home.
"Whose eyes are blind and feelings all but numb,
Whose ears are all so deaf and mouth is dumb."
Listening to the lyrics surrounding the room, she realized that she felt like she was drowning when she was with Zechs. His wounds from the war may never heal. He doesn't see me as his love yet, she said to herself, he sees me as a temporary balm to soothe his pain, but then, sometimes he doesn't see me at all. I am so blind.
"This is the way,
Is the way,
I fill your spaces now," She lay back and stared at her ceiling, a mosaic of black, smooth and shiny volcanic rocks that she and Zechs had picked up on vacation once. She remembered how she had painstakingly gathered hundreds of them and put them on her ceiling to resemble space. She and Zechs had even bought some cut glass to serve as the stars. She loved her room, but it really was her room, not theirs. It would never be Zech's. He had too many empty spaces. He didn't really own anything, didn't really belong anywhere.
"It's the way,
It's the way,
Cause all that's been left for me,
Is to fight to fill these spaces now."
She had been fighting her whole life for him to realize that he loves her and he can't live without her. Sometimes she had fought and prayed and she had tried, so hard, to fill his empty spaces. But she hadn't. She couldn't. She felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest. The truth was such a brutal thing. To realize that you'll never succeed in making someone understand that you love them and they love you, even though you know they love you, even though they know, deep down, that they love you, is a terrible thing.
"Night is day and day is night again,
And all that's eating bites with toothy grins," Every day was the same. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Wake up, go to work, go home, sleep. She had fallen in a rut, and the only way out was to leave. She would get her things and go back to her little hallucinations. She would let herself be swept away into her own mind and if she was going crazy, she didn't care. She was beginning to think that this was the only way to keep from going crazy. There really, just wasn't anything to stay here for anymore anyway, but still, maybe in her dreams he would love her. Maybe in her dreams he would see the light.
"The pages of my memory torn in twain,
Where reconstructing lies could not contain."
Getting up, she crossed to her antique armoire. She ran her hand across it and thought back to her birthday when Relena and Hilde had gotten it for her. Grinning, she thought about how they had struggled with it to get it up the stairs, thinking she wasn't home, only to have Noin attack them, thinking they were intruders. She opened a drawer and looked down at her lovely collection of various types of weapons and torture tools. Gifts from the Gundam Five. Her eyes began to fill with tears of memories as she took out her tools of destruction and thought back to when she received each one. She especially paused over the ones that had saved her life.
"This is the way,
Is the way,
I fill your spaces now,"
God, she loved fuel. It was like the words they sang were being pulled right from her heart. It was like they were singing about her life.
"It's the way,
It's the way,
Cause all that's been left for me,
Is to fight to fill these empty spaces now."
Turning back to her collection of things, she opened another drawer and looked at her collection of things from her girl-friends. She picked up each item, impressing their exact image into her mind. She lingered over her rose pendent from Lady Une. She hovered over her small clown collection from Catherine. She grinned at her lovely portraits from Dorothy, who had recently taken up painting. She sighed over her instructional book on her old Taurus suit from Sally Po. She laughed at her different odds and ends and she cried over her more sentimental gifts. She knew she may never see any of them again. Not her things, or her friends, who had given them to her. Not even Zechs.
"Now,"
She thought about Zechs and how she had tried to fill his empty spaces. Her love hadn't been enough. The holes in his heart were to vast for her mere love to fill, she said to herself bitterly.
Sighing once more, she closed up her drawers and got out two changes of her most comfortable combat clothes. She selected her favorite weapons and placed them inside, keeping her bag light. Rising, from her chair, she tip-toed quietly into the bathroom where Zechs was taking a shower. She removed a few necessary toiletries she couldn't live without and crept back out again.
"This is the way,
Is the way,
I fill your spaces now,"
Bending over, she picked up her travel bag and filled it with her things and a small supply of non-perishable foods. She even packed a small canister of water, just in case. Finally, she wrapped the light box in her clothes to keep it safe and places it at the bottom of her bag. When she was all packed, she threw her bag in her car and went back inside to say goodbye to Zechs.
"This is the way,
Is the way,
I fill your spaces now,"
He had just gotten out of the shower when she walked in.
"Noin? Is that you?" Spinning around, Zechs charged Noin and glomped her. "I thought you were gone forever! I'm usually the one to leave, not you leaving me, oh, I love you! I love you! I love you!"
"Zechs . . . !"
"Yes Noin, my love?"
"AIR . . . !"
"Oops," Climbing off her, Zechs helped Noin to her feet. Gazing into her eyes, he started, "Noin, I-"
"Zechs, I-"
Smiling, he said, "You go first."
"Towel."
"Huh? . . . Oh," looking down, Zechs Marquise blushed. "Heh, heh. I'd better go get dressed, right?"
"Yeah," turning, he began to walk away. "And Zechs?" she added.
"Yes Noin?"
Looking pointedly downward on his body, she said, "I'm happy to see you too."
Grinning, he walked back into the bathroom to get his clothes. Noin smiled and lay back down on her bed. Yawning, she closed her eyes, just for a minute, and fell asleep.
She awoke two hours later. She lay there, watching Zechs as he brushed his long platinum hair.
"Maybe I should braid it like Duo," he said to himself, thinking how convenient it would be to have it out of his face.
"I kinda like it better down," Noin said sleepily.
"Like your opinion matters," he joked softly, not turning around. Noin watched him through the mirror for a moment, then pulled herself upright.
"Zechs, I'm leaving."
"I already went to the grocery store. I got everything on the list."
"No Zechs, I'm leaving. And this time, I'm not coming back."
"What?"
It nearly broke her heart to see him standing there with a hairbrush in his hand, looking so confused. "I need to find my purpose in life, my destiny, and I can't if I stay here the rest of my life."
"What do you mean your destiny? Haven't you already fulfilled your destiny? Wasn't saving countless lives in the Eve wars and in the Marimeia incident enough? Can't you be content with saving the Universe?" he demanded, raising his voice higher with every sentence.
"Can't you?" she shot back.
Glowering at her in sudden anger, "What do you mean by that?"
"Oh, so you can run away to 'find yourself' and to 'heal' but I can't get away to save myself from the brink of insanity?"
"Dammit Noin, what the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about your empty spaces Zechs! I have tried and tried to fill them with my love and I have fought to keep you safe and to heal you with my love but obviously, I'm not enough. You need more than I can give you. I need more than you can give me. I'm not meant to sit around and wait for you to decide when the hell you want to come and visit your damned girlfriend! Or am I not even that? Am I even your lover anymore Zechs?" She screamed at him, rage blinding her. Then it hit her. It wasn't that he couldn't, or rather, hadn't realized his love for her, it was that he didn't love her at all. Even though she had vowed to never leave him, even though her heart would never leave him till the day she died, he really didn't love her. God, how could she have been so stupid. He loved her attention. He loved having someone to come home to. He loved having a mind all to his own to screw with, but he didn't love her.
"Oh, Zechs," she moaned, her voice barely above a whisper, "How could you?"
"This is the way,
Is the way,
I fill your spaces now,"
Fighting down the sob that rose in her throat, she turned heel and, for the second time that week, Noin fled her own house. By the time she reached the hallway, tears were stinging the backs of her eyes. By the time she reached the stairs, her hot tears overflowed onto her cheeks. By the time she reached the door, she was nearly overcome with doubts, and fears, and the wish that she didn't know. That everything would just go back to the way it was before she found the box and had all these terrible truths opened to her eyes. She wished for his love, knowing wishes never came true.
"It's the way,
It's the way,
I fill your spaces now,"
She glanced back once, right before she closed the front door, to see him standing at the top of the stairs. A look of confusion and hurt marring his beautiful features. The fool, she thought bitterly to herself.
"It's the way,
It's the way,
Cause all that's been left for me ,
Is to fight to fill these empty spaces now."
As she shut the door and climbed into her car, she heard his bare feet pounding down the wooden steps of their beautiful home. She didn't look back when he came out to the porch. She didn't look back until she was a good thirty miles down the road. Then she pulled her car to the shoulder of the road.
///Flashback
"Are you sure you want to come with me Noin?" Zechs asked, looking over to her.
"Zechs," she sighed, closing her eyes, "Don't make me repeat myself. Again."
End Flashback///
"Empty spaces,"
"Oh, Zechs . . ." Gripping the wheel of the car, she put her head on her hands and wept.
"Empty spaces."
***
OS: Man, I feel good!
K: God, that was so, sad!
OS: Are you okay?
K: Wahahahahahahahahaha!
OS: Did you like it that much?
K: You bastard! Wahahaha . . . Poor Noin. *sob*
OS: ///glowing with joy/// Awwwww, that's so nice! ///dancing off in her own world///
K: ///turns to readers/// Hey, in this family, you suck up, you eat.
OS: What was that Kangaroo?
K: Uh . . . Wahahaha?
OS: *grin*
K: ;-)