Empty Inside

Title: Empty Inside
By: Bree (virtualjag@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: If I owned them do you think I'd be living with my parents, going to school, and be up to my pretty little eyes in student loans. I didn't think so. You know the drill from here on out.
Notes: I was stuck with part of this and had no place to go. Went to pick up my life (I keep it in a big plastic purple portfolio) and, lo and behold, EvE6 was on the radio. "Inside Out" belongs EvE6 and whoever owns them. In my world Mac listens to good, hard alternative rock. It's so cathartic. (She cusses too but I'm trying to be genteel.)

Hell, he was gone. She shut the office door and sat down in the chair facing her desk. She thought she had prepared for this. She was the tough one and she had cried like a leaky faucet. Then she had embarrassed herself by asking to water his plants. Damn his lack of a green thumb, or even a yellowed one. She wanted to able to go into his apartment and feel his spirit. Maybe she should have bought him a fern as a going away gift.

She got up and closed the blinds. She flipped on the CD player, sat down and threw her feet up on the desk.

"I would swallow my pride
I would choke on the rise
But the lack thereof would leave me empty inside"

Now she would get e-mails regaling her with his adventures. Adventures she didn't experience first hand. She had always been present for his escapades and had even been forced to participate more times than she could count. Who would keep him out of trouble?

"I would swallow my doubt
turn it inside out
find nothing but faith in nothing
Want to put my tender heart in a blender
Watch it spin round to a beautiful oblivion
Rendezvous then I'm through with you"

She reached over and cranked the volume a little more.

"I burn burn like a wicker cabinet
chalk white and oh so frail
I see our time had gotten stale"

Everyone in the office tried to ignore the pounding music coming from the major's office. It was impossible.

"The tick tock of the clock is painful
All sane and logical
I want to tear it off the wall
I hear words and clips and phrases
I think sick like ginger ale
My stomach turns and I exhale"

The whole office came to a stand still as everyone listened to the song pulsing through the walls of her office. No one commented when they noticed Lt. Roberts violently mouthing the words to himself.

"I would swallow my pride
I would choke on the rise
But the lack thereof would leave me empty inside
I would swallow my doubt
turn it inside out
find nothing but faith in nothing
Want to put my tender heart in a blender
Watch it spin round to a beautiful oblivion
Rendezvous then I'm through with you"

They were all upset by his deserting them. They also knew that none of them were as hurt as she. There was nothing they could do.

"So Cal is where my mind states
but it's not my state of mind
I'm not as ugly sad as you
Or am I origami
Folded up and just pretend
demented as the motives in your head"

She seized on that last line. Yeah, she thought, that's Harm demented. Where had he gotten this idea that going back to flying would make all right with the world. His motives were unclear. He had never bothered to really try and articulate them. She got up and started pacing the room as the song continued.

"I alone am the one you don't know you need take heed feed your ego
Make me blind when your eyes close sink when you get close tie me to the bedpost."

She picked up a glass off the desk and hurled it at the wall. As it shattered into a million pieces she sank into the nearest chair. Everyone outside heard the explosion of glass. No one moved. The admiral came out and looked around. He heard the music coming from Mac's office, turned around, and went back into his office slamming the door.

In the distance, over the music, she heard a door slam. Peeking through her blinds she saw everyone swiveling their heads between her office and the admiral's. The slamming door must have been him. She reached over and turned the volume down.

While Harm was off to feed his ego she was left standing with nothing but doubt in her own feelings.

Back to the fanfic.