Snakes and Ladders - Falice

Count On Me

When you're needing rest from the road, I will bring you in from the cold.

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Chic was thrown into the lives of Alice and Betty Cooper quickly and without warning. The heartbreak that came from seeing her son for the very first time and having him lash out at her and turn her away was even stronger than giving him up in the first place. Alice had never felt so hopeless than when she sat sobbing in the car with Betty's head resting on her shoulder in an attempt in vain to console her.

She'd made so many mistakes in her life, and they were all finally catching up to her. Alice should have known that she couldn't just go about her days pretending that everything was fine. Actually, pretending that everything was more than fine. Pretending that each and every aspect of her life and her family's lives was perfect. Better than everybody else's. It was an act, it had been for years, but few people knew that. And even those who knew that still would likely have a hard time forgiving her mistakes.

There were many things that she could have easily done differently that would have lead Alice Smith to a much different life than the one she leads today. It seemed that with every day, things looked more and more bleak. Everything about her relationship with Polly had been broken beyond the point of repair. Not only had her eldest daughter done the one thing that Alice had worked so hard to prevent – live out her supposed teenaged mistakes – she now was gone from her life, possibly forever.

Somewhere out there, she had two grandchildren that she'd never met. Her daughter was living with some cult raising her two children without her family. Hal was out of the picture. He walked out on them shortly after Chic came back, again forcing Alice to choose between Hal and her son. This time, she refused to make the same mistake twice. She wouldn't let Hal Cooper come between her and her son, not again. It didn't take but a day for him to wind up in the company of Penelope Blossom, who began offering him her services.

Quite honestly, Alice wished that she didn't know. She hated Penelope and Hal knew that; to cheat on Alice with her only rubbed salt in the wound. Alice despised the fact that, though she had undoubtedly been in love with FP Jones for decades, she'd never even stepped out on Hal with him or anyone else. But, mere hours after Hal decides to give his family their space, he cheats on his doting wife with Penelope Blossom.

When your wildest dreams wash away, I will rescue you from the waves.

But, the blissful period of peace that Alice received upon welcoming her estranged son back into her life after twenty-five years of unanswered questions came to a quick and startling end. When Alice answered the door that evening expecting it to be Hal, she certainly had no idea that she would be grabbed by a tall, lanky man and had a knife held to her throat as her son looked on. Because she had shut her eyes in fear, Alice really didn't know what exactly had happened. She remembered shouting, lots of it.

Before she could register what had happened, the man's hold on her was loosened as he fell to the floor. Blood began to gush from his head as he lay lifeless on the floor, he was dead within seconds. Alice – tears fearfully streaming down her cheeks – frantically looked up at Chic, who stood before her holding her living room lamp in his hands.

Chic was terrified, it wouldn't take a genius to see that, as he stood shaking out of fear of what he had just done. Alice immediately pulled him close before anything else, hugging her son to reassure him that he had done nothing wrong, he had acted to save her life. But, the man laying dead on their living room floor could only be forgotten about for so long. There was work to be done.