A/N: Thanks for checking out the story! I hope you enjoy it! In case you haven't read anything recent by me, there is a forum where we are discussing Kelley's new online Chloe novella. It is currently on the third chapter. You can find the forum in the DP forum section under 'Atoning - Chloe novella' or use the link in my profile.

As always, reviews are welcomed!

Disclaimer: I don't own The Darkest Powers.

She didn't drink much these days, save for special occasions. It was a precautionary measure. A drunken necromancer opened up a whole lot of bad opportunities.

Tonight ... well, it was technically a special occasion. It was something that she had had nightmares about. She hoped she never would have to face it. Selfishly she hoped that she would have been the one to go first, even knowing that it would utterly destroy him.

What good is being able to communicate with the dead when she couldn't see the ones she most desperately missed?

Her mom was the perfect example. Years of internalized anguish of knowing she was out of reach, nightmares when she was younger and dreamed that her mother was alive but only to have the dream end and return to a motherless life. Finding out after the fact that she had seen her and that she had a botched conversation only added fuel to the fire. She wasn't supposed to be able to contact loved ones from the other side. Her mom had managed somehow to find a way around it. She never did again.

And now ... this was different form of anguish.

She wasn't even sure why they went into the woods that night. He wasn't due for a Change. Wait - no, they had used it as a shortcut. He or she often found reasons to take a long short cut in the wooded section of the park when they had guests at the house.

It was a long weekend and his family was here visiting, as they were prone to do since Derek hated travelling and she was always on call to some producer to help ensure that they didn't make production costs skyrocket due to an insane idea they had at one thirty in the morning.

A long short cut was needed by both of them.

But no - it didn't happen in the woods. It would make more sense if it had, a hunter's stray bullet (well, not really since it was a park and they were in the city), a poisonous snake bite, a wild animal attack, the Pack.

She had feared it would happen. It had lessened some, now that they had accepted Sean Nast's offer of employment. There wouldn't be any looming threats of the St. Clouds, Edison Group or Pack. They were safe. Cabals didn't go after other cabals' employees - well, it was less frequent than they originally thought.

They were supposed to be safe, she darkly thought as she stood outside their front door. She supposed it was now hers, not theirs, not anymore.

She clutched the brown paper bag. She had resisted doing this – but how she had wanted too – somehow, even in the early days. Back when nothing else sounded better than curling up with something to take her mind elsewhere, anywhere but dealing with the finality of it all.

It seemed odd that even now, death involved so much paperwork. There were the Nasts to notify, the handling of all of their personal accounts – gas, electricity, cable, the bank – and there then was the issue of declaring him officially dead. But under which name? The name that he was born under? All of their aliases?

She stuck with Derek. She foolishly let herself believe that by letting the aliases live on, that somehow, someday he would return and they would begin a new life, again. He wasn't dead; he simply had to disappear for a while.

Despite all of this, despite all of the final notices, the condolences, the cards, the flowers, it never quite hit her until she arrived home at night. When there wouldn't be any wonder if she beat him home or if she would have to call his office to see how holed up he was.

It was a year today. A year of grief, of numbness, of wondering not wondering what was next but if there could be at next.

She knew that she should move. Sell the house, everything inside and start anew. She knew that she needed to let go of the past so it wouldn't suffocate her future.

Right now she just didn't fucking care.

She let herself in and threw her bag on the table. Derek always hated that. It was an act of rebellion at first, daring him to make his presence known somehow, to let her know that he was pissed at her carelessness. Now it was routine born out of bitterness.

She set her groceries in the kitchen and changed. She no longer had his clothes. She had been consumed with agony when she realized that there wouldn't be any more of his 'smell' around. They had done laundry earlier that afternoon and everything was waiting to be folded or put away. She donated them; she knew that at least he would have wanted that.

Pictures had also slowly started coming down. There were far more still hanging than put away, but the ones remaining were older, ones from when they were first starting out. They had been so optimistic then, even knowing the odds were against them.

Her eyes caught one of the older pictures, one from Badger Lake. They were there, they were all there, Genesis II and Phoenix combined. Maya and Daniel and their goofy grins, Ash's scowl, Corey's flirtatious smile, Sam, Rafe, and Annie on the outer edges, barely peeking around the frame. Tori and Simon were pushing against the others, Rae was giving Rafe a sidelong glance, and … then there was her and Derek, quietly sitting, holding hands, her leaning against his shoulder.

It was easier to revisit those memories. They were more detached. That had been a different life. Back when they thought they could "fight the man" and come out on top.

They had the option of fighting but they would be well on their way to rapid decomposition by now if they had taken that route.

Not that it really mattered now in Derek's case. Bits and pieces of him were taken to be studied by the Nasts. She had signed off on it. She would have signed anything in those early days. She could barely make anything out through the tears.

She wasn't sure if she had any strong feelings about it, one way or another. Perhaps it would help other werewolves. Derek would have wanted that. Perhaps it would be used against werewolves. He … would have wanted that if it was against specific types.

He was always logical about things like that.

The doorbell rang and she frowned. She was quite sure she had left tonight's social activities vacant. She had plans to indulge herself, something that she had been waiting to do for a year now.

Kit had called earlier. Their relationship had changed. He had once been a surrogate father to her. Now she knew that every time he looked at her, he felt the pang of Derek's loss. She let herself slowly fade away from him and he let her. They had made small talk on the phone, tedious, both dancing around why he called on this day and not another.

Was it a messenger from work? The film didn't have any pressing deadlines but sometimes producers became overly involved and some seemed to thrive on micromanaging. She was going to have to make sure that on Monday her displeasure would be widely known. Had this occurred any other night, she would have welcomed the distraction. But not tonight, tonight was special.

A yell was muffled through the door. She was really going to have to address this, maybe sooner than Monday. It all depended on how hung-over she would be this weekend, assuming she had time to become hung-over. She already had her weekend planned out. A weekend spent in a blissful state of complete nothingness that comes as the result of getting completely shitfaced.

Derek never liked to see her drink heavily. He worried too much. She was going to sure show him that she could drink heavily whenever she wanted too.

A perfect exclamation of how angry she was that he left.

Well, it wasn't as though he had a choice. It could have as easily been her.

She really needed to move somewhere where cars weren't the automatic mode of transportation. Her life had been ruined twice now by the stupid fucking things.

The yell sounded again. She yanked the door hard, sure to have her own look of complete displeasure to match the volume.

"You didn't seriously think I would leave you alone today, right?"

Fuck.

Chloe threw back her head and stepped away from the door. She wanted to slam it in his face but that wouldn't achieve anything other than having him yell or use magic to get in. Stupid sorcerers and their stupid magic. Just keep making their lives easier and everyone else's more difficult.

Simon breezed in as if she had a welcoming smile and plate of cookies ready for him. He caught an eye of the brown bag on the table and shook his head.

"Plans for tonight?"

"What do you think," she hurled back. Simon, despite all of this, was still too fucking cheery.

"You know you're never supposed to drink alone."

"It's better for me to be alone. I want to be sad and mad and drunk. You get thrown out of bars when you're that, so it seems appropriate to just stay home."

"Right," Simon said, ignoring her and taking out his phone. She rolled her eyes when he placed an order for pizza and salad (her fridge was pathetically bare).

She hardly said two words to him until after she had eaten. That wasn't the plan. The plan was to get obliterated as soon as she got home. It was easier to achieve that on an empty stomach.

"So besides being a completely lovely person tonight, what is going on with you?"

Chloe looked at him over her wine glass. She wasn't drinking wine but she could get away with having a larger portion in that glass than a tumbler.

"Work," she grunted.

"Ah, you have inherited the one word answer crown like a champ," he replied.

She glared at him and finished off her glass. She went to the kitchen to refill her glass. She stumbled slightly coming back but Simon didn't notice, or at least didn't say anything about it.

"I miss him too," Simon said quietly. "I knew him longer than you, loved him longer."

"This isn't a contest."

"Oh? So all of this isn't some sort of big act to show how you're hurting the most out of all of us?"

Chloe glared at him. She wished she could do … something to him. Zap him. Summon Liz and let her empty his glass over his head. That would show him.

"It's a different hurt."

"You don't think I don't know that? You think that I've sat just nodding my head at the cancelled dinners? You barely speak to Kit. Hell, I'm not sure when you last talked to Tori."

Chloe drank.

"It's better this way," she said bitterly. "Kit can't look me in the eye. We all … I need space to move on."

Simon smirked. How in the world did she think it was cute at some point? She wanted to rip it from him so he could see how stupid it looked.

"And what a great job, you've done. I see … well, you can't summon plants right? That fern has palms that are just lying on the floor, disconnected from the rest of the plant, just for the record."

"I'm busy. Work tends to be that way. Projects are always in pre-production, production, post, they all need attention."

"Right, we're all busy, but we have to make time. We're not going anywhere."

Chloe had curled up on the couch. She moved to where she was sitting on her knees. The room slightly blurred but that was what she wanted. She wasn't sure what drink number she was on but it wasn't enough.

"You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take off this stupid pendent and I'm going to summon Derek here and get his opinion on how I should be living my life."

"You can't do that, you know that."

"Oh really?" She was halfway through removing her necklace. Simon tried stop her but she won the struggle and set him staggering into the floor. She threw her necklace at him. "Watch me."

She closed her eyes and visualized Derek as he once was. A sly smile, a slight hunching of the shoulders, how he would bring her in close to him and she could feel his muscles relax at the contact.

She pulled. She pulled harder than she had when the paramedics had declared him dead. He was a victim that was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. No one had seen the car barrel through the intersection. No one had anticipated that it would jump the curb and hit the sidewalk.

The last thing he did when he was alive was to shove her out of the way. She was angry at him, suddenly shoving her into the crowd? But then she saw it in the corner of her eye and it grew ever increasingly larger and louder and then he was gone.

No, she wouldn't be shoved this time. She would be embraced.

"Chloe," Simon yelled, shaking her. She heard her drink clatter to the ground but she didn't care. "Chloe!"

His cries didn't reach her. She was too far inside herself and also too far outside of everything in this realm. She was searching high and low for her other half. She would find him, she was determined that she would.

"Shit," Simon muttered and left her there. He returned after a few moments and Chloe felt her search abruptly come to an end. She felt the heavy weight of the necklace around her neck. It was heavier than it had been that night. It was silly but she had added Derek's ring to it. It wasn't as the Egyptian myths said, he would still have it in the afterlife even if it wasn't on his buried body.

"Why did you do that? I was going to find him," she hissed. Her eyes were teary and full of rage.

"Just. Stop."

Chloe's eyes found Simon's but they weren't his. They weren't full of mischief or had hint of a gleam that something was around the corner. They were hard, a fury to match her own.

She pushed him aside and made her way back to the kitchen. She stumbled and bumped into more than a few things but she didn't care. She needed more. She drank from the bottle this time. She didn't care if Simon saw that it wasn't wine.

"Get. Out."

Simon grabbed the bottle from her and drank deeply. She scowled. If he was trying to match her drink for drink, there would be no getting him out of here tonight.

"Whatever," she said, snatching it back.

"Do you feel anything? Or are you just dried up and bitter inside?"

She stopped her drink and lowered the bottle. It was almost empty anyway. But that wasn't what made her stop.

"Do I feel," she slurred. "No and that is the exact problem. I am now drinking to feel."

"You don't have to do that, you have us. We are always here for you."

Chloe looked at him and sighed. This wasn't how her night had been planned.

"We can help you. We want to help you," Simon said quietly.

Chloe closed the gap between them, staring up at chest. It was heaving. He must have been yelling before but she hadn't registered it. Her chest was heaving too. Had she been yelling? Probably.

She turned around to finish the bottle and she looked up at Simon. He was studying her, eyes darting wildly, following her actions.

She made contact but it wasn't the way she expected. Instead of fist landing on his face, her lips crashed into his and she dug her hands into the front of his shirt. She felt him try to push her away but she clung to him tighter. His lips responded to her insistence.

The phone was ringing. She could hear it off in the distance. She must have left it in her purse downstairs. She opened one eye and immediately regretted it. The room was spinning and she was quite certain that logic dictated that it wasn't.

The phone stopped and she let out a sigh. She could go back to sleep, sleep away the hangover, sleep away the day, sleep away her life.

She rolled over and felt a hard lump in the middle of the bed. She went through – the best that she could – of possible things she had left on the bed last night. Had she been cleaning or taking more things down?

No, that wasn't the plan for last night.

She opened one eye ever so slightly and recoiled at the light. It was far too bright in here. Had she left the light on or was it close to noon?

She shaded her face with her hand and opened her eye again.

Blond hair.

She tried to put the pieces together. She didn't typically bring prop pieces home, too much of a liability.

Her eyes drifted downwards and she saw the face.

Simon's face.

Her mind was in a whirlwind trying to process it and keeping the room from spinning too much. She tried to recall last night. She had a vague memory of Simon showing up. Now it looked like he never left.

She noticed that he was shirtless. She felt through the sheet and … she wasn't wearing anything.

She gave him a rough shake. He let out a groan.

Shit.

It hit her then. He needed to eat something. Diabetes. Fuck.

"Simon?"

"What," he grumbled out, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"I … blood sugar. You fine?"

He paused a moment and sleepily felt around the bed for something. He seemed to have found something near his hip and stopped.

"Fine, I have the pump on. Wait, Chloe?" He sat up and looked around. "Shit."

She wasn't sure what to do. Breakfast? No, she didn't have anything to make for breakfast. Go out for some? No, that seemed too … date like.

Simon had made himself scarce after she woke him. He showered in the guest bathroom and came out dressed in last night's clothes. She had cleaned up as well but it was awkward when they met out in the hallway.

He broke the pause first, heading into the kitchen and starting a pot of coffee.

She didn't say anything as he handed her a mug. He was drinking out of Derek's old mug but she didn't say anything.

"About last night," he said as he set the mug on the counter, "I … I don't know where to begin."

Chloe stared in the abyss that was her own cup.

"I don't want … well; I do want things between us to change. I want them how they were a few years ago. I miss that Chloe."

"That Chloe is dead and gone."

Simon frowned and crossed his arms. It was a Derek mannerism. Had Derek started it and Simon copied it or the other way around? Or had the origin been Kit and they both picked up on it as they had with the rubbing of the neck and running their fingers through their hair?

Simon left shortly afterwards. He didn't slam the door, he shut is quietly. It was louder that way.

Grief is a mysterious thing. It can sneak up behind someone when they aren't looking. It can consume a person whole. It can make them do unspeakable things, things that they thought that they would never do. It can turn a person inside out and let them remain there for minutes, days, hours, years, or months. Grief has no timeline. Grief has no end game. Grief has no ultimate plan. It cannot be tricked or deceived. It cannot be willed or lured away.

Grief is uncontrollable.