Moving on
Chapter 1
Once again she was here; casting her gaze across the city she loved. The warm glow of amber light a halo around her but the heat of L.A couldn't keep the chill that seeped from her bones. It had been two months since that terrible night. Two months of wishing he would return, knowing he wouldn't. It was in her worst moments that she returned, when she missed him most. Today was no different, her world had condensed into work and Trixie. Her life spent going through the motions, every day having become the same until something happened and she would look to the side, waiting for the usual bad pun or innuendo. Recoiling inwardly when she saw empty space. Realising it would never be filled with his presence again. The small smile slipping from her face like water over a stone.
The suspect in her latest case had made a callus remark about her bum and Chloe had waited for that posh smug voice to chime in with a comment then a well placed threat. If she closed her eyes she could see him so clearly, those hauntingly beautiful mahogany eyes; rakish smile and chiselled features. Contorting into indignation and thinly masked menace. Walking back towards the bar trailing a hand on the satin lacquer of the baby grand, that sat unused, unloved. She poured herself a shot of his favourite whiskey and drank it in one. It had become a tradition on these nights. She had stripped all the dust sheets on her second visit unable to see the room once more covered. Clinging on to false hope.
Most of all she missed how they were together the easy rhythm they had. Each time these moments happened she would find herself here. His home the one she had helped him keep all those years ago. She looked around her from the eclectic collections to the stained glass window everything here sang with him. She would lay on his bed and breath him in. His scent lingered. Whiskey, smoke, expensive cologne and something else entirely his own. Everything had been left exactly as it had on that night, even to the half drunk glass of whiskey on the balcony. This is how it happened each and every time she would come look around sometimes she would lay down others she would wear his white button down. Others she would just sit at the piano playing heart and soul for hours. There was just so much of him left behind. Till she was spent then after collecting her strewn things she would venture home, on auto pilot. Trixie had become sombre and distance and not even Maze could bring her out of her shell. She missed Lucifer and missed how happy her mum had been while he was around.
"Here again Decker?" came Maze's voice from the dark. The demon appeared from the lower stairwell. Maze had settled into fury with the news of Lucifer's return to the underworld. Thinking that he had abandoned her, it wasn't until Chloe had fully explained all the reasons for his leaving, that Maze had even begun to calm to a simmer. Chloe's and Maze's relationship had grown much closer in these past months. Bonding over the shared grief of losing him, they could open up to each other, for they had both loved him. The grief however had taken its toll on both Maze looked tired, dark circles marked her eyes; lines formed around the creases of her mouth and there was a permeant sadness in her deep brown eyes.
"I almost heard his voice today Maze, I swear it." Tears sprang to Chloe's eyes,
"The exact words he would have used" a long lost memory brimmed to the surface. Of happier times, of blissful ignorance.
"Whilst I don't disagree, that is incredibly disrespectful perhaps I should teach you some manners." She repeated in her best imitation of his voice.
"In that stupid smug voice of his, am I going crazy Maze? Am I finally losing it?" her head lolled downward.
"Sounds like it" Maze's usual blunt approach in full force made Chloe look up scowl and then giggle.
"Thanks" Chloe smiled, "I can't keep doing this. Waiting, it's time to move on" squaring her shoulders Chloe straightened, determination shone from her eyes.
"Good... By the way your being evicted. I popped by on the way here to the landlord posting the notice. He is selling up and moving to Las Vegas."
Chloe felt like a anvil had slammed into her chest. She would be homeless in few weeks. There was no way she would be able to find a new home in such a short amount of time. Tears silently started falling down her face.
"Get you shit together Decker, you can't keep falling apart. Your going to grow your spine back and carry on. I even have a idea. Move in here it's empty, an if that arse ever decides to show up, you get the pleasure of kicking him out of his own home. One of my spare blades is under the couch, you can make use of it." With that Maze left. Her silent movement more cat like than human. Chloe stood shocked and worried for several long moments.
Could she, could she move in here. With a small smile lighting her face for the first time in two months she felt a small flame of hope flare in her chest.