Not a City of Angels

Chapter Twelve

"Coop, I want mama," Lily said quietly one day in her brother's CCPD office, hazel-amber eyes fixated on her hands. "I want mama back."

To Officer Cooper Anderson, the child's seemingly innocent request had come out of nowhere. Little did he know, however, that Lily had been thinking about this for a long time.

"Lily..." Cooper said dumbly, feeling entirely lost for words. He didn't know what to say. "Li, I..." so he repeated her name.

"I hope you know that mommy wasn't like how she was to Blaine like she was to me," Lily's eyes were calculated, as if she had been gathering up the courage to say this for a long time. "She loved me."

"Lily, you don't remember that," Cooper found his voice, too. "Please. You don't remember that. You weren't old enough. I want you to stop doing this."

Lily's lower lip trembled.

"You think that I don't still dream about them?" she said, "I don't just have nightmares about the last thing that happened, Coop, please. I want to talk about them."

Cooper said nothing. He didn't know that Lily getting older and smarter would be this hard. She was too clever to hide from, now.

"I want to stop pretending they never existed," suddenly, Lily changed directions. "I want you to stop assuming things as they were."

"And I want you to start believing in this reality!" Cooper yelled.

❦

"Why didn't you tell me Lily was asking about mom?" Cooper slammed his hands on the table that Blaine was standing by in front of the bar.

Blaine appeared taken aback. He shook himself before responding.

"I meant to tell you," sighed Blaine. "She just...asked, one day; when I took her to Les Mis that one time Kurt got tickets for her birthday."

Cooper stared at his younger brother for a moment. No, Blaine wouldn't lieto him. And he hadn't. But it had been a very stressful conversation with their little girl. Too hard to try and figure out what to tell her.

"Carole and Burt were there. It was before Finn passed, so he was there, too, I guess. They had hugged us all at the end, everyone was a mess after Jean val Jean died in the epilogue."

Cooper nodded along; he knew the story.

"Carole said she loved all four of her kids. I...don't think what she said resonated with Lily until we were back at the loft and she suddenly was wanting meto kiss her goodnight instead of how Carole had been doing it for months. I didn't think much of it, she was nine...she could have had that weird kind of kid particular-ness, you know...it was their last night there, maybe Lily would miss me-"