Chapter Text
“You idiot,” she cried. “get... off!”
He merely laughed, easily keeping her pinned beneath him. “You couldn’t push me off when you were three, you still can’t push me off now. Ask nicely.”
“Chic, please,”
“Please what, little sister?” Chic mocked, grinning. “Have you learned your lesson Betty? Maybe next time you’ll think twice about entering my room without permission.”
“You had my calculator,” Betty snapped. “You borrowed it last week, without asking. I needed it to study!”
“You are such a nerd,”
She was starting to feel suffocated. “Chic...”
“Charles,” a stern voice warned. “get off of your sister and go set the table.”
His grip on her arms faltered. “But mom, it’s Betty’s night to-”
“Now, Charles Edward,”
With a sigh, he stood, throwing a hand out to help her up too, ruining her perfect ponytail with an affectionate ruffle before sauntering off, mumbling obscenities under his breath that their mother chose to ignore.
Betty smiled at his defiance, wishing she could be just a little more like the brother she so openly idolized.
“My beautiful Elizabeth,” Alice carefully smoothed her hair back into formation. “it may have taken me three tries, but I finally got the perfect child.”
Her smile became a little less genuine. As much as she loved the woman, and she did love her as much as she possibly could, it always seemed that nothing was ever good enough for Alice Cooper. Her sister Polly was a junior at Harvard Law, consistently making the Dean’s list, Chic was the all American athlete with grades to match, and then there Betty, a dancer, never making below an A plus in school, ready to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a journalist, with dreams of attending NYU. While the rest of the world seemed to be impressed, Alice was not.
Polly could have made a stronger argument in her mock trial.
Chic could have scored another touch down Friday night if he had really wanted to.
Betty’s latest article needed something more, even after scouring the internet, the library and spending many hours that she could not get back interviewing the best sources she could find. She had spoken to the Mayor once, and he did not meet with anyone, but her mother still lectured her about the font she’d used.
Her words were also a reminder that in a completely honest world, Betty was not really hers, that Alice hadn’t come into the picture until she was almost four, just days before the big birthday party that had been promised to her. With two children of her own, she and Hal had made the picture perfect family. There were no evil step-parents or step-siblings; Betty’s father had adopted Polly and Chic, just as Alice had adopted Betty. Betty had been treated no differently from her siblings, raised under Alice Smith Cooper’s watchful eye. With every loving comment, a critiquing sentence had been quick to follow, making herself, Chic and Polly often second guess themselves, something Betty secretly believed her mother got some sort of pleasure or validation from, but no matter how condescending she could be at times, Alice was still her mother, and Betty had learned to love her. That didn’t stop her, however, from thinking about her real mother, her biological mother, the woman who had carried her, who had died when she was three.
Her father didn’t like to talk about her, leaving Betty to wonder if it hurt him too much, so she didn’t ask, deciding that Alice was right, maybe some things were just better left in the past.
Penny. It was the only thing she knew about her, and not because her father had told her, but because she remembered. She remembered running through the sprinklers, remembered climbing that old ladder to sit on their rickety roof to watch the stars in the middle of the night. She remembered the fights, harsh words thrown back and forth in front of her, and the hugs that had always come after them, the only thing that made her feel safe.
A sudden feeling of guilt flooded through her at the yearning for her biological mother. She had a home, two loving but hard to please parents and a brother and sister she loved with her whole heart. She was lucky, so lucky. She needed to count her blessings more often.
“Don’t worry Elizabeth,” Alice patted her arm. “Charles will also be doing the dishes for the way he treated you.”
“What the hell, mom? Are you kidding me?”
“Charles Edward Cooper, watch your language,”
Betty spoke against her better judgment. “He could have said worse... Crap.”
Alice’s cold stare returned to her.
“I was talking to your brother, Elizabeth Irene, but since you decided to insert yourself into the conversation, after dinner, you will go to your room and work on your American Literature essay. It’s due on Friday, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
“I finished it last week,”
“The paper you wrote is hardly worth an A.”
“...You read my essay?”
“Of course I did. I read all of your papers, I want to make sure you’re doing the absolute best you can, that you’re staying focused.”
“But how-”
“Oh honestly Elizabeth,” Alice sighed, starting towards the kitchen. “your computer password is your sister’s birthday. It wasn’t hard to figure it out.”
“Yeah Betty.” Chick set the last plate onto the dining room table. It was just the three of them tonight, with Hal working late and Polly away at school. “Be more original, gosh.”
“Says the person whose password is password.” Betty quipped.
His eyes narrowed. “Stop going in my room!”
She smiled, opening her mouth to reply, but a heavy knock at the front door cut her off.
“Get the door, Elizabeth!” Alice demanded. “I’m taking the ham out of the oven.”
“Yes mom,”
Betty reached for the knob, ready to twist it open, but a heavy kick by a firm black boot opened it instead, a hand reaching out to grab her by the wrist.
She screamed.
Alice drooped the ham, the plate shattering, several more men descending on her, twisting her arms behind her back.
Chic started forward, nostrils flaring. “Get the fuck off my sister!”
Another man pushed her brother forward, baton pressed to his back to keep him down. “Easy, kid.”
He was pushed forward, a baton pressed to his back to keep him down. “Easy kid.”
“Chic,” Betty cried, trying and failing to free herself from his grasp, frightened tears pricking her crystal eyes. “Stop, please! Don’t hurt my brother!”
“Honey, honey,” a gentler voice tried to soothe, and she was surprised to find that the person speaking was the same one keeping her hostage in the foyer. “everything’s going to be okay, I promise. No one is going to get hurt. Let the boy up Randall, you’re scaring the kids.”
He relented and Chic scrambled to his feet, pulling Betty after him. She gripped the soft fabric of his t-shirt as he stood in front of her, shielding her from their view, his fingers curling around her forearms.
“Are you okay?” He asked anxiously. When she nodded, he whipped his head around to scowl at the men. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Listen kid-”
“Who the fuck are you?” Chic demanded. “What are you doing in my house, and why the fuck did you grab my little sister?”
Betty frowned at the word little. She was barely two years younger than him, and because she’d skipped a grade, he was only a year ahead of her in school.
“Chic-”
“Quiet,” he warned, in a tone she didn’t dare argue with. “it’s okay Betty, I’ve got this.”
“What’s going on?” Alice wailed, as three men carried her past Chic and Betty. “What’s going to happen to my children? Where are you taking me? I want to speak to a lawyer! I want to talk to my husband!”
“Mom!” Betty tried to race after them, but Chic held her in place behind him.
“Where are you taking our mom?”
“It’s all right,” he said again. “My name is Earl Pineda, I’m a Lieutenant with the Manhattan’s Special Victim’s Unit.”
“Special Victim’s...” Chic trailed off. “What does that have to do with us?”
“It has to do with her,” Lieutenant Pineda tried to glance around her brother’s rigid form. “Are you Elizabeth?”
She opened her mouth to respond.
Chic’s grip tightened, making her wince.
“You don’t have to answer that,”
“I know you’re scared honey,” he muttered, stepping towards her. “but it’s okay. You’re not in trouble, neither of you are in trouble.”
“Keep your mouth shut,” her brother cautioned.
“Is your name Elizabeth?”
If there was one thing Alice had taught her, it was how to be honest.
Timidly, she nodded.
“You look just like your picture,” Lieutenant Pineda told her, almost smiling. “Everything is going to be okay Elizabeth, you’re not in trouble and neither is your... brother. I’m just here to bring you home.”
Chic turned her towards him, holding her head to his shoulder. “What the hell are you talking about, asshole? She is home.”