So this "10 songs challenge" is going on at Live Journal, and I'm trying to get myself back in the fic groove here, so I decided to give it a whirl:

1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.

2. Turn your music player on and turn it on random/shuffle.

3. Write a drabblet/ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!

4. Do ten of these, then post them.

1.  Home -- Daughtry

Every now and then she drives past her own house and up the hill to the once broken-down house that Thomas put back together.  The man who bought it is doctor, a pediatrician, and his wife is a shrink who set up her practice in the back bedroom that Parker had told him would make a perfect office, so Thomas had staged it as one.

They have three kids--two boys and a baby girl who is just learning to walk, Parker learns, as she glances out the window at the family playing in the yard.

She smiles -- she always smiles -- thinking about how much he'd have loved to see this home so full of live, of love.  Then she moves past and returns to her own empty house.

2.  Send One Your Love -- Vanessa Williams

Sydney has learned to hide his reactions to the gifts that Jarod has delivered to Miss Parker's desk from all over the world.  He knows some of them do little more than annoy her, and some... some dredge up the worst parts of her past, and she hates the Pretender a little more every time it's one of those.

Sometimes, though, sometimes the packages are things that no one else on Earth would know the dark-haired woman would covet... and yet Sydney can tell from the way her eyes brighten on those occasions that the gifts are heartfelt and designed to accomplish the Herculean feat of making her smile.

3.  Oh, Mother -- Christina Aguilera

Jarod knew that his desire to find his mother was real, that he wanted more than anything to see her and hear her voice again and to make sure that she was safe.  It had been the driving force behind his escape, and it kept him running the globe in what seemed to be the never-ending search for his family, for the missing pieces to the puzzle of who he really was.

But there are times when he hates her... times when he wonders why the hell she and Catherine Parker didn't just grab him and Parker and run and never look back. And he knows it's insane and selfish and... wrong.  But he still has those moments, and he wonders what she'd say to him if he ever told her.

4.  Nighttime Is (The Right Time) -- Ray Charles

He's pretty sure it was a dream.  He's 99.9% sure it was a dream.  It had to be a dream.

Broots knows that if he'd really had a hot weekend in Las Vegas with Miss Parker, she'd have probably killed him in his sleep long ago to make sure the secret went to his grave with him.

But damn... that was, by far, the best dream he had ever had in his entire life.

5.  Since U Been Gone -- Kelly Clarkson

She knew her freedom before had been an illusion.  Still, it had been a better life than this.  And she wondered sometimes if he ever thought about the fact that he'd trapped her here by running away... that for all his pleas for her to walk away from the Centre, he'd made that impossible.

She told herself he did think about it, that he wanted it that way, and it let her stay angry at him, helped feed her need to drag him back kicking and screaming.

But she had a feeling he hated it as much as she did.  And she wasn't sure what to think about that.

6.  Neither One of Us -- Gladys Knight

"You run, I chase."

It was the very definition of their existence, a fate set in motion by others that they had seemingly no choice in.

You could stop contacting her, he thought.  But he didn't.

You could stop wanting him to get away, she told herself.  But she didn't.

"You run, I chase."

You could let her catch you, he thought.  But he didn't.

You could disappear, she told herself.  But she didn't.

"You run, I chase."

7.  Fastlove, Pt. 1 -- George Michael

The bar is one of those places she'd loved in her 20s and hated now--too many people trying too hard, the music that she'd once danced all night too just loud noise now.

But she needs a drink too badly to try to find someplace less awful.  So she sits at the trendy glass bar and orders a scotch.

She can feel him before she sees him, and he slides onto the barstool beside her without so much as looking over his shoulder.  And she knows he knows she came here alone... that she left her gun at the hotel because she knew it was too risky to bring it here, that her cell will never work, and even if it could, it's too noisy for anyone to hear her say she's caught him.

He orders a vodka and downs it a minute after the bartender puts it in front of him.  And she downs her scotch a beat later.  And then she feels his hand in hers, and she turns into one of the anonymous bodies on the dance floor, the music pounding in her ears, his body pressed against hers, and she forgets who they are.

8.  Little of Your Time -- Maroon 5

The black Mercedes is exactly the kind of car that he knows the women on this strip of clubs will notice.  They'll eye him and try to figure out what he does for a living and guess what he'd be like in bed, and once he passes all their mental tests, they'll smile at him and hope they're the one he saunters up to once he hands the overpriced piece of machinery over to the valet.

Lyle smiles, thinking how wrong they'll all be about him.  He enjoys that part most of all.

9.  A Nu Day -- Nuttin' But Stringz

It looks like a war was fought, and the truth is, no one but the group of people standing in the ruins will ever know how brutal a fight it was or how many lives were lost in the victory.  The fire that's crumbling the once stout stone building will cover up the history of what happened here, erasing them, erasing the horrors and the past.

But they'll remember... and after everything, they know that even though they've won, this place will be a part of them forever.

10.  Breathe Me -- Sia

He has his family now.  They talk on the phone, visit, have dinners together.  It's good.  It's everything he had always hoped it would be.

But they know that he's not fully there, that they lost a part of him when she died.  And nothing, not even the son she died saving, fills up the hole inside of him.