Snakes and Ladders - Falice

Use Somebody

I've been roaming around, always looking down at all I see.

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"Betty, ooh." If Archie Andrews meant Betty Cooper – which FP strongly believed that he did – then Alice would have his very head. The thought of her fuming at her uncontrollable daughter evoked amusement as FP sat next to Fred across from Jughead and Archie in Pop's. "Who is Betty, is that your girlfriend?" When Jughead deflected the question, it was answered.

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Painted faces fill the places I can't reach. You know that I could use somebody.

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Alice was furious. More furious than she had been when he'd done it the first time. Here she was, trying to give their daughters the best possible life that she never had at their age, trying her absolute hardest to prevent them from realizing her mistakes, and Hal just had to go and make sure that the past was perfectly recreated.

She had been unhappy when Polly started seeing Jason, Alice knew how detrimental young love could be. She was beyond unhappy when she found out that Polly was pregnant. Because, there it was, Alice Cooper's past now brought to the present in the form of her eldest daughter. She had contacted the sisters the very night that Polly announced her pregnancy, knowing that it may have been a horrible place in itself, but it would be the safest for her daughter.

As long as Hal was in the picture, that baby couldn't be. And if that were the case, then they could consider Polly out of their lives permanently as well. Alice wasn't willing to lose her children over the husband that she had married out of convenience in order to boost her social status. Once Hal found out about the pregnancy, he would never let Polly keep the baby. Alice knew that the Sisters of Quiet Mercy would be Polly's only safety from his wrath, so she booked her a room before he could try to force a sterilization on her daughter just as he had done to her.

Or so she thought.

Someone like you and all you, and how you speak.

Now, to find out months later that Hal had, in fact, tried to book that infamous appointment, Alice's cracked mask had shattered completely. She couldn't even contain her fear-based rage that boiled beneath her skin as she stormed into her beloved house after Polly's eye-opening baby shower.

Hal had been having a decent evening relaxing in front of the television with a glass of scotch in his hand until his wife slowly stepped into the living room like the embodiment of Lady Macbeth herself. She shut off the television and swiftly turned on the lights, standing there looking rather defeated but with death behind her eyes.

"Honey –" Hal started, moving his hands in a questioning manner.

But, Alice wasn't having any of it tonight. She threw the remote control across the room and it came apart against the wall. "What did you say to Polly when you found out she was pregnant?" Judging by Alice's classic hands-on-hips stance and the murderous tone behind her voice, Hal could tell that she already knew the answer to her question. "Did you make an appointment for her?" Hal now stood face to face with his furious wife. "With a doctor that you offered to pay for..." She took a step closer, daring him to fight back "...behind my back so that she could fix her..." Alice suddenly found herself choked up, but she fought on. "...her mistake?"

"Alice –" Hal began to explain himself. He didn't sound sorry for what he'd done, not in the slightest. He was sorry that Alice had found out. He looked at her the exact same way that he had looked at her twenty-five years ago. When she came to him with a problem that she trusted they could take on together or that he would at least be supportive. But he glared back at her with disappointment in his eyes, knowing that hormones had rendered her neurotic and unable to make a sane decision. As if it were up to him to take matters into his own hands, to force not only her, but now her daughter down a path that neither of them really wanted.