So much for a relaxing reunion

Chloe had been sitting on the couch, reading. It was harder for her to think about dark magic these days - she kept thinking back to how it almost consumed her. She'd put her books back away to do something that didn't make her feel fucking awful about herself.

Now she was almost a week behind in this class, and god damn it, she was going to get caught up today if it killed her. There was nobody else home, and the girls were still at school. Nothing could distract her from -

>"Heeeey?"

Chloe jumped to her feet, staring at the source of the voice. Her face was full of surprise. She didn't say anything, she thought it: 'Is that you, Malara? I thought you were getting back on the weekend!'

As soon as she heard Malara's voice in her head again, she wanted to hug her. She was so ready for this all to be over with.

Chloe laughed, hugging her, spinning with her. "They didn't? On your ship? That's fucked up."

'And I know just how to help you with that last thing,' Chloe thought at Malara. A lot of things were running through her mind right now - such as the specific kinds of sex she was planning to have with Malara as soon as she could take her back to that bed she missed. But she was also thinking about how much she wanted to hear Malara's voice ringing in her head again. Ever since escaping from Andramaxas in hell, she'd been craving that - the intimacy of sharing thoughts with someone directly.

"God, I've missed you so much! What do you want to do first, now that you're back?" Forget school, this was more important right now.

"Alright!"

Chloe felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, accompanied by a 'fuck, I hope she won't be too mad.' But at least she had the chance to tell Malara herself, if she didn't already know. And... she probably had to say something about it now, with that thought having gone through her head.

"Well... Alright, I'll start by getting the shitty thing out of the way. You know that deal I made before you left?" She sighed, and leaned against the back of the couch. "Lemme... start by saying, the kids always had at least three people watching them other than me, and at the end of it all I showed that fucker who was boss, so it's not going to be a problem anymore. But, he bent the rules of our contract and dragged me to hell for a couple days."

Hopefully, they could get this out of the way, and they could move on to talking about happier things, and everything would be fine and normal again.

Chloe flinched. She could barely bring herself to look at Malara.

"I-I know. But two of those people I was thinking of were... Nona and Ozzy, you know, because they didn't have jobs to do other than watch the kids, and I didn't think this would happen. But I dealt with it! It's... It's fine! Other than that, everything was fine."

She didn't expect Malara to be this mad. She wanted Malara coming back to be a happy thing. She was counting on it being happy, actually. Why did it have to happen like this? Why couldn't they have saved this for later, or something?

Here Chloe thought Malara might have been having a good time out there. That was what had kept Chloe up some nights, wondering if this month would just be the first of the rest of her life as a single mom. Chloe felt bad for feeling this way, but the idea that it sucked for Malara to be out there was a relief.

"You know, that fucker tried to brainwash me. So he could keep me. He had direct control over my thoughts at one point, but I fought it, and I beat him, because... I felt like I would rather die than let our family lose someone again."

Her voice cracked. Their family had been through too much bullshit. Chloe had been through too much, too, and she needed Malara to know that. This all sucked, and she needed it to stop.