A/N: We'd just like to say a huge THANK YOU to all the readers who stuck it out with us this long. :) Well, the third installment of Chloe and Derek's lives after their escape from the Edison Group is complete, but I don't dare say that it's actually finished for good...Briee and I have way too many ideas that we're much too excited about to let this go for good, but we're both entering some pretty difficult phases of our lives. We'll do our best to continue our series, but I can't make any promises. Anyways, thanks for reading, we wouldn't write if people weren't reading our stuff! :)

Disclaimer: We are not Kelley Armstrong, we don't own Darkest Powers, we don't own the characters and we don't make any profit from this.

I quite literally fell into my bed that night. My body had been under so much stress for such a long time that once that resounding silence penetrated my mind, I shut down for a while. Fortunately, Derek is more of a silent type, so he didn't go apeshit on me and ask me every four seconds if I was alright. Instead, he smuggled me back into the condo, helped me out of my clothes, handed over my pyjamas, herded me into bed and hopped in behind me, his bigger body surrounding mine.

"Sleep," he ordered when I started to open my mouth. "I'm here to keep watch, and it's time you finally got a good night's sleep."

"Thank you," I whispered, feeling tears of relief slowly build and was rewarded with the weight of his arm as it curled around my waist, cupping one of my breasts in his usual sleeping position. Then the exhaustion pulled me under and I slept like one of the corpses I'm able to raise.

Only when I woke up the next morning did I feel able to deal with everything that had gone on the night before. Derek was gone, but his place next to me was still warm, so he had probably waited until the last possible second to sneak out.

I rolled over into his warm spot and curled up, inhaling his scent off of his pillow, my body instantly relaxing. Now was the time to think. So…my mother. My dead mother…Wow. She had broken through whatever rules governed the dead once before, getting me to safety in the woods outside Andrew's house. I had mistaken her for Aunt Lauren at first, which I thought was an understandable mistake to make. Jaime had been teaching me about some of the rules that souls had to abide by once they passed, and she had also explained how the afterlife worked.

My mom wasn't supposed to contact me. That's why souls had to seek out necromancers in the first place; communication with others after death was a big no-no. The rules were doubled for the family members of necromancers. Just because you could communicate with them doesn't give Great-Uncle Andrew the right to harangue you for the next thirty years because he didn't like that Aunty Esther ended up with his antique outhouse collection or something.

Also, one of the more important points that Jaime had explained was that the deceased and their family members needed the separation so that both could heal and gain some perspective. A necromancer had the power to remain in constant contact with a deceased loved one; in essence, they could postpone the grieving process indefinitely. Not healthy whatsoever.

In my case it was particularly important; my mother had died when I was so young that I knew very little about her in a woman-to-woman sense, or even a mother-and-daughter sense. If I was able to contact her whenever I wanted, I knew that there was no way that I would be able to keep it to a reasonable amount of visitation. There was just so much that I wanted to know, that I wanted to ask her, that I wanted to share with her. So although it killed me inside to know that she was accessible to me, I also understood the necessity of keeping my distance.

"Chloe?" My dad knocked on my door. "I'm leaving for the airport in an hour. Feel like spending a few minutes with me before I go?"

"Coming," I called, pushing myself up and reaching for my robe. The doorbell rang and I smiled. Trust Derek to sneak out, dash home for a shower and a change of clothes and come right back, probably with breakfast. My heart speeded up when I realized we'd have the place to ourselves as soon as my dad had gone.

"Derek's here!" Dad called, and I heard the muted crinkling of a paper bag. Sweet…he had brought bagels. Mouth watering, I realized I actually had an appetite and I shoved my feet into my slippers and opened my door. So many people had died, but right now it was time to be with the living.