hang out in your heart

but watching stars without you my soul cried

A/N: I decided I'm going to try something new - shorter chapters, updated more frequently. I think this will help keep me on track and hopefully keep that dopamine flowing. So that's my new plan, and I'm hoping that even if they're shorter, you will still enjoy each chapter. This one turned out a bit introspective, but is leading to more action in future chapters. As always I appreciate your comments - they are truly what keeps me motivated! Thank you all for continuing to go on this journey with me!

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Stevie is freezing.

She's half asleep, having been woken by a chill, and she shifts over to snuggle into Lindsey for warmth. He always radiates like a furnace in his sleep; it's kind of nice for Stevie, who tends to sleep cold.

She scoots herself over to the other side of the bed only to find it empty, and her eyes shoot open. Oh yeah. She remembers three things all at once: that she's alone, that she's in her house in Phoenix, and that Lindsey is in Los Angeles. Just as he had been for the past three weeks. Damn.

She sighs and tries to pull the comforter more tightly around herself, but is only successful in disturbing Sulamith. The pup lets out a low whine at being disturbed from her slumber, and shifts herself down to the foot of the bed with a glare. "Now you're leaving me alone too?" Sulamith seems unperturbed by Stevie's sense of rejection, turning around in a circle and settling down again, curling up next to a snoozing Sara Belladonna.

This solitude is Stevie's own fault - she had insisted that Lindsey go back to his own home now that the tour was officially over, and he had reluctantly agreed. He didn't like it any better than she did - and truly, the idea of sending him back to Kristen had made her nauseous - but they knew they had to try to do something to stop the younger woman and her outlandish request for full custody of Lindsey's children. Stevie had also insisted that she would be better off spending this time back home in Phoenix - although to this, Lindsey had not agreed as easily. Ultimately, though, what could he do? She had flown home. And while the blonde knows that he had seen it as her running away from a serious relationship with him, that's not why she had left. Well, not entirely why. Stevie being in Los Angeles would be a distraction for Lindsey, and she is determined not to have a part in anything that might affect the custody dispute.

What she hadn't wanted to admit to Lindsey is that the separation had come as a bit of a relief. She had thought it would be a good way to put a little space between them. The fight they had had after their final show had been jarring, to say the least - all that talk about moving in together. God, she can't even imagine. The thought of having someone else in her house every single day, always there, always wanting to spend time with her. Someone she would have to plan meals around, or ready an explanation for when she wanted to just sit and watch trashy tv all day. Someone her dogs would have to get used to, someone she would need to make room for in the closets. It feels suffocating to even think about.

She thinks back to the last time she'd seen Lindsey, in their hotel room on the morning after their final concert. Before the show, Stevie had thought that they would spend all night making love in that room, commemorating the end of the longest tour they'd done in decades, a tour that had, for better or for worse, overtaken their lives for a year and a half. She had called ahead to the hotel and made sure the minibar was stocked with the best champagne, had arranged for a late checkout, and had even brought along some of her best lingerie.

Of course, what had happened could not have been further from the romantic rendezvous Stevie had imagined. Not only had it started off with one of the heaviest fights she and Lindsey had had in years, but then in an absurd turn of events, it had ended with her standing next to him in the dim kitchen of the suite, rubbing his back as he'd called first his lawyer, then Kristen in the middle of the night, his hands shaking and his voice so close to breaking on every syllable that Stevie had barely been able to hold back her own tears. Such was their life - to go from being at one another's throats to being prepared to slit someone else's throat to protect the other person. It's just how they are.