Falice: From A to Z

Twist (2)

Summary: A grown-up Chic meets his kid sister, Betty, at the park. She has some questions about her parents' past and Chic is the only one willing to give her answers.

Rating: PG

Genre: Drama/Angst

~~Twist~~

~~The Little Chicken~~

"Betty! Hey, Sorry I'm late! Work was insane," Chic dropped into the empty swing next to his kid sister. She was fifteen, but she would always be the baby of the family. He glanced around the park. There was somebody missing. "Where's Polly? Did she bail again?"

"She's seeing Jason Blossom," Betty grinned. "Don't tell anyone. You know how Dad gets."

"Seriously? Again? She must really like him," Chic paused, and Betty ignored his mischievous grin "Say, how are things going with the other redheaded boy in town?"

"Can we not talk about Archie today?" Betty felt her cheeks flush as she kept her gaze fixed firmly on the sand. "I actually have other matters to discuss, Charles."

"Charles?" he raised an eyebrow. "Must be serious. What's on your mind?"

"My parents," Betty sighed dramatically. "It's been ten years since the divorce and I still don't know what happened."

Chic glanced at the ground. The divorce was finalized when Betty was 5 and Polly was 6, and Chic knew she didn't really remember a life that didn't involve every other weekend in the Southside.

Now a teenager, Betty wished for stability, for slight deviations from the custodial agreement that didn't have the potential to cause World War III. She longed for a cohesive family unit... One where she could meet her older half-brother at the park without having to deceive her father.

Hal insisted Chic was a bad influence and would corrupt his girls, even though Chic did well in school - Alice would never accept anything less- and now in his mid-20s, he was an upstanding cop working under Sheriff Keller.

"Betty...It's not my place."

"Please, Chic. I know that whatever happened between them is between them, but it affects all of us. I've tried talking to them and they just give me this Disneyfied version of the story. You're the only other person in the world that can help me make sense of it."

Chic had been there since the beginning of his mother's doomed relationship with Hal Cooper. While Betty and Polly couldn't read when their parents' marriage imploded, Chic was already a teenager.

"Okay. Fine,"Chic sighed. "What do you want to know?"

Betty's eyes lit up as she hopped off the swing to dig through the bookbag she had tossed on the ground. She pulled out a small notebook and couldn't help but the proud smile when her cop brother complimented her investigative vigour.

"How did they get together? Did they ever love each other? What made Mom kick him out?"

"Whoa. Slow down, Nancy Drew. One thing at a time," he chuckled. "When I was about 7, Mom handcuffed herself to the doors of Southside Elementary School to protest the school board's discriminatory funding policies. Hal was covering it for The Register... I guess one thing led to another and next thing I knew, I was being forced to go bond with him over milkshakes."

Betty nodded and scribbled something down in her trusty notebook.

"I don't know if they were ever in love," Chic continued, "but they didn't always used to hate each other. As for you last question... she kicked Hal out because of me."