Chloe (Well this is a first...)
Monday's sucked.
They were alway pretty awful, she had PE most Monday's and she hated having to play hockey on the playground, but this Monday, in particular, was worse.
Her dad had dropped her off at the breakfast club unlike usual and she'd been dropped off in such a hurry he'd forgotten to give her any money to actually pay for the breakfast club. They'd let her in, but it had been embarrassing. Having to explain to the teacher that Daddy had forgotten, once again.
That could have probably been ignored, but, to add insult to injury (which was a phrase she'd learned from the boys' downstairs babysitter), she'd forgotten her Pokémon cards and today was the day she was supposed to trade one of her many Psyduck cards for one of Toby's Venusaur cards. Toby wouldn't want to play with her at break time and she'd have no one to talk to and it was just not going her way.
Mondays sucked.
But the weekend hadn't sucked, not really.
It had been cool, meeting Liam's friends. They'd been funny and they had lots of interesting tattoos and one of them, Zayn, it was, had left with the promise of letting her paint in his studio sometime. He'd said that his studio had a whole wall left for finger painting and he had paints in every colour imaginable. And Harry...Harry was awesome. He'd told her he thought her top was pretty and it had been the one Jessica had bought for her especially. Not that her Daddy knew that. Like the gift of the fifth Harry Potter movie DVD that was hidden under her bed, the new t-shirt was her's and Jessica's little secret.
Jessica said Chloe was the same age as her sister would have been, looking at Chloe with the same sad smile her dad used to get when she asked him why, unlike every other person in her class, she only had one daddy and no one else, staring at Chloe with that sad look until she snapped out of it, ruffling Chloe's hair before letting her choose a DVD for them to watch.
But Harry had liked her top and let her join in with the tea party and he'd offered to braid her hair for her, like Elsa's, and...well, Harry was kind of like Jessica. In the sense that he was awesome.
And playing with Loki, that was always the good part of a trip to see Liam. The Husky was her dog, really. No matter what Daddy said, or what the tag on his collar said. After all, it was she that Loki would listen to, rolling over and playing dead and sitting on her command. And Loki was cute. And fluffy.
And...well...Liam had been all right. Better than all right, really. Even though he'd made Daddy cry. Again. Liam seemed to do that a lot. But he'd been right, he'd fixed it. And he'd let Chloe have dinner without any kind of vegetable whatsoever. He'd also watched Beauty and The Beast and the old episodes of Pokémon that Jessica had found for her without complaining.
She hated it, though, when Liam made her dad upset. It was horrible, listening to them fight. It had been a while, sure, since the last time, but then he'd done something a bit stupid and her dad was upset again.
Even if it was now fixed.
The weekend had gotten a bit less great, when Daddy and Liam told her why they'd been arguing. Liam was leaving. Maybe not for good, but he was leaving. Before her birthday. She was just getting used to him being there, joining them for dinner, and letting her play with Loki, and she'd been hoping that he'd maybe let her have the really big room that she'd stayed in at his flat as her own, and let her decorate it, and now he was leaving.
That part maybe did suck.
Just a little bit.
So, okay, she did like Liam. He wasn't completely awful, like she'd been expecting him to be at first, and he was funny and he always watched Disney films with her, but...but if he left, did that change things? He was supposed to be her dad, and he was just beginning to maybe seem like one, and he was leaving.
He had said that he loved her. And that he was coming back.
Daddy was the only one who really said that to her, that he loved her. Uncle Greg and Auntie Denise said it too, and Theo had been forced to say it last Christmas, and Grandma had once said it, though she'd pulled a face afterwards, but...but only important people said it and that meant that Liam was important too.
And maybe he was. Maybe.
She did like Liam, she did. He made Daddy happy too, even if he also upset him. And he was still around. She'd tried her hardest to push him away at first, being mean in the hopes he wouldn't want to stay, doing as Toby had suggested until she'd realised that it wouldn't work, and her dad wouldn't stand for it, and, most importantly, it didn't seem to be working on Liam.
Maybe...she liked Liam more than she'd thought. He was her dad, her other dad, and he cared. And he had Loki, which Chloe counted as a plus. Loki, she loved. The Husky was always happy to see her, and his fur was soft and he was everything she'd ever wanted in a dog since she'd been little and was able to ask for a pet. And maybe that extended to Liam. He was her dad and, as far as other dads went, he wasn't too bad. Unlike Toby, who's new dad didn't let him watch TV before dinner and had brought two new sisters for Toby with him when he'd moved in, Chloe seemed rather lucky to have Liam.
She was still thinking about that when Toby arrived at school, running into the classroom to find her and shoving his pile of Pokémon cards at her before he asked her how her weekend was, not waiting for an answer before he began to talk, telling her about his weekend and how he'd gone to the cinema and had gotten a pair of 3D glasses that he'd been allowed to take home, it taking the little boy a full five minutes to realise that Chloe hadn't brought her Pokémon cards with her. "Really? But Chlo, we were gonna trade today."
"I know. But I didn't have time this morning. Can't we trade tomorrow?" Sighing as Toby snatched his cards back, Chloe rolled her eyes at him as he shook his head emphatically at her. "Nope. I'm not even supposed to have brought them today, tomorrow Steve's bringing me to school, not my mum, and he won't let me for sure."
That left Chloe hating this Monday in particular even more, sighing again as Toby shrugged at her before running off, leaving her alone in the classroom.
It set the tone for the rest of the day, Chloe spending both break times and lunch and then PE by herself, ignored by Toby until, halfway through the last lesson of the day, he slid a Venusaur card across the table to her, waving away her frown as she whispered, "But I haven't got a card to give you back."
"Just take it, Chlo. It's one of the few you don't have." Shrugging, Toby smiled as Chloe pocketed the card, both of them sharing a look for a moment before their teacher, Mrs Evans, moved so she was stood by their desk, stopping them from talking further.
She didn't get a chance to properly thank Toby when the bell for home time rang and he ran off, having to collect one of his new sisters from the reception class, leaving Chloe left to struggle with her things, running outside to find Jessica waiting for her as usual. She gave Jessica their customary hug, letting her take the heaviest bag from her as they headed for the school gate.
The two of the caught their usual bus back home, getting off at the stop just past the community garden and heading towards Jessica's apartment building as they did most afternoons. Chloe had spent most afternoons there after school for as long as she could remember and, by now, she and Jessica had a routine that happened every afternoon like clockwork.
They'd take the stairs up to Jessica's flat and Chloe would count every one of them, a habit she'd first picked up when she was in Reception and had just learnt how to count past five, before they went inside, Chloe's bag being hung on her peg by the door as they went into the kitchen, sitting down to have tea and biscuits, or juice and biscuits in Chloe's case. Afterwards, she'd watch TV or get Jessica's help with her homework and then, a couple of hours later, they would catch the bus to Brixton High Street and Jessica would drop her off at the shop where her dad would be waiting.
It was a routine that worked and Chloe liked it.
She liked the shop where her dad worked, it was full of guitars and keyboards and other cool things Daddy could play, and, sometimes, after she'd been dropped off there, she would be allowed to help serve a customer or play with some of the instruments or, like the last time, she was allowed to help with the Christmassy displays her dad was putting up.
Today, though, her dad was nowhere to be found when she walked into the shop, and she spent a few minutes, wandering around with Jessica, looking for him until he walked in from the back room, carrying a massive pile of boxes that he almost dropped when Chloe ran up to him. It took him a second to recover, catching all but one of the boxes before it could fall and setting them down before he gave her a hug. "Is it that time already? Christ, Chlo. You scared me. Sorry...I hadn't realised how late it was getting."
Jessica waved aside the apology, giving Chloe a brief smile as she left, leaving the seven-year-old to wait for her dad as he resumed his struggle with the boxes, stumbling a few times as he struggled with the door to the store cupboard, eventually reappearing and giving her an apologetic look. "Sorry, Chlo. Give me one more minute, and then we'll go, I promise."
The wait didn't really bother her, Chloe had been waiting for her dad in the shop for years. Waiting for him to finish working and take her back home, waiting for him to find something for her to do on those rare days he took her to work with him during the school holidays, waiting for him to remember she had a swimming lesson or playdate or birthday party to get to. By now, she was used to it.
She slipped her hand into Niall's as they left, both waving goodbye to the girl behind the till, heading towards the bus stop like usual, Niall nodding and humming every so often as Chloe chattered on to him, mostly about her day, but occasionally slipping in the odd question about Liam. "...and then, Daddy, in hockey, she whacked me on the ankle with her hockey stick and lied about it when Toby told Mrs Evans. She's really mean. Toby was mean too, earlier. Like the boys from downstairs. Did Liam tell you what he told me? He said I should have apologised. Should I? Anyway, she was really mean and got away with it. She didn't even apologise, though I suppose I didn't apologise to the boys when I lost their footballs. Liam apologised to you, didn't he?"
Her chatter carried on during the bus ride home, trying to keep the Liam questions to a minimum once her dad had frowned at her, tilting his head and giving her a look he normally only gave her when he was trying to figure out if she was all right and had really eaten her vegetables at dinner or if something was wrong, the frown on his face fading slightly as Chloe brought up Disney films and asked if they could re-watch Cinderella later.
Her dad didn't have a problem with them watching Cinderella again, even though they both probably knew it off by heart by this point. It was a distraction, a mindless one, but it was nice, the two of them sitting there, watching as Cinderella's torn and damaged dress disappeared and was replaced by a sparkling gown of brilliant blue, both of them sharing a smile as Chloe copied the fairy godmother, mimicking her actions as she transferred the pumpkin into a carriage and sent Cinderella off to the ball in style.
The film was almost over, Cinderella's prince was moments away from finding out who she really was and the two of them getting to live happily ever after, when Chloe decided to speak, trying to sound uninterested, like it was something she'd thought of spur of the moment, not a question she'd been thinking of since Liam had first suggested they spend an early Christmas together. "Daddy, what do you think Liam would like for Christmas?"
It had taken a while for her to get a reply, her dad had been caught off guard by her question and had needed a moment to work through his surprise and answer her. "I don't know, poppet. What were you thinking of giving him?"
And that was the problem.
Chloe didn't know what to get Liam, she'd only just thought of something Daddy would like for Christmas, which Jessica had said she'd help with like she always did, and she had no idea what Liam would like. She'd just gotten out of the stage where she gave her dad pictures she'd drawn for Christmas and his birthday, now favouring socks that had funny cartoons on, chocolates and CDs for the battered CD player Jessica had given him for his last birthday; shopping for Liam seemed like a completely different problem.
It took a while, long enough for the prince to slide the remaining glass slipper onto Cinderella's foot and promise to take her away, for Chloe to think of something, tentatively looking up at her dad and watching to see his reaction as she asked, "Do you...do you think Liam would maybe like it...if I didn't call him Liam anymore?"
"I think he'd love that, Chlo. Really. If that's what you want and you're okay with that...I think he would love it." Squirming as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, Chloe looked up at her dad, thinking over his answer before she nodded slowly, an idea slowly forming that made her feel slightly better about Christmas.
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And she returns at last.
With a chapter from a point of view we've never had before.
And hints about future plot points.
I'm really sorry this took so long, but I like to have the next chapter prewritten before I update and I have been really busy the past few days. It;s not a real excuse, I know, but it will have to do.
Thoughts on the chapter?