Chapter Text
To understand the situation Cordelia Goode finds herself in, you have to first understand her relationship with her mother, Fiona.
For a long time, her mom was the only parent she had. She’d been close to her father as a child, but she was young when her father had died, and the older she got, the further her memories faded, graying on the edges. It was hard to remember anything other than a feeling, other than warmth.
Her mother had become her only parent left when she was only five, and from there, things had been… complex. As a child, she’d had no qualms with her mom, other than those typical for a parent-child relationship, but when she’d started to grow up, that’s when their issues had begun. Cordelia had started to form her own thoughts, her own ideas, her own personality beyond the cookie-cutter mold she was meant to be made from, and her mother hadn’t liked that. The more they disagreed, the worse the arguments got. And the closer to eighteen she got, the more Cordelia begin to stand up for herself, refused to give in just because her mother demanded it so. Fiona had the ability to be cold, and manipulative, and Cordelia didn’t realize until she was almost fifteen that her mother had been using underhanded tactics to win any disagreement, whether it be guilt or sharp-laced words.
After that, the house begin to get explosive. Cordelia would refuse to give in, and arguments could stretch out for days, tension filling the house. She begin to try and find reasons to stay out of her home for hours after school, studying at the library, tutoring after school, or hanging out with friends (not that she had an over-abundance, but she did have her best friend Vivien, Kit and Grace were good company, and Hank was nice.)
Everything between them only seemed to get worse and worse. Fiona also seemed to tire of the fighting, but as she was a woman who stuck to her words, she opted to take a route similar to her daughter: avoiding the house. Cordelia never asked where she went, feigning apathy, and her mother never told her, but she would come home late every now and again, sweeping into the house and straight up to her bedroom without a word. It started to reach a point between them where, with so many issues bubbling under the surface, unresolved, that every interaction between them was loaded.
In the end, the saving grace in their relationship was Zoe.
Cordelia was only a month past sixteen when she found out that her mother was pregnant, almost four months in and soon to be showing. When Fiona had told her, Cordelia had stared like the woman had grown another head, like she was waiting for the ‘gotcha!’ at the end.
When it didn’t come, she’d shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “The father?” She’d asked, but her voice came out curious, and a little small.
Fiona had waved the question away with the flick of her hand. “Don’t worry about that,” she’d replied. “He doesn’t matter. But, there is going to be a baby around here, and that means things have to change in this house, got it?”
It was the closest thing to polite her mother ever seemed to get, but it was a peace offering, which Cordelia had taken, and together, they started prepping for a baby in the house.
There was a sort of uncertainty that Cordelia felt about it, the entire time, and she carried that up with her all the way to Zoe’s birth. It wasn’t until her sister was wiped clean, swaddled, and placed in her arms that she felt it: this wide, consuming love. She loved her friends, she loved her now-boyfriend Hank, and even if they fought all the time, she did love her mother.
This, though, was different. This was her family, her blood, and unlike Fiona, Zoe has never done anything to spite her, anything to wrong her.
She loved Zoe from the first moment she held her, and nothing ever changed that.
Admittedly, while her sister did some to help the tension at home, she didn’t get rid of it. Fiona and Cordelia’s relationship was still tenuous, if you were to put it mildly. Cordelia spent more time at the house, but she and her mother never really got over the frostiness between them. When it came time to go to college, Cordelia (along with Hank) fled to Massachusetts, leaving New Orleans in favor of New England. She’d fled up north upon receiving her acceptance to Amherst, on account of both the school itself, but also the distance. She’d long ached to see somewhere else, if even just for a while.
(And the truth was, she’d loved Massachusetts, everything about it. Amherst’s campus was perfect for her, and she’d loved it all; the town, the people, the school. In another life, she would have stayed there forever.)
She’d graduated a semester early, twenty-one years old with a double major in pre-law and business, while Hank studied nearby at UMass. Like her, he also came from money, meaning that the two of them were able to get a shared apartment without having to worry about jobs, even if Cordelia wasn’t the biggest fan of taking advantage of her family’s wealth, as if it were just another string of control her mother could hold over her, even from several states away.
Being several states away from her family, however, didn’t last. Hank wanted to move back to New Orleans in order to take a good position high-up in his father’s company, and Cordelia knew well enough that she had several prospects of her own back in Louisiana. She also happened to miss her sister quite fiercely, and even if she was in love with Massachusetts, a part of her did miss New Orleans. Any indecision about it has already gone out the window since Hank proposed at her college graduation, and the two of them had agreed that, wherever they went, they went together.
So, despite her tumultuous relationship with her mother, Cordelia moved back to her Louisiana, maybe only a fifteen minute drive from her childhood home.
(Admittedly, though, she still doesn’t see Zoe as much as she should. Between her issues with her mother, her job, and just the fact that she was still in her twenties and trying to figure herself out, it’s hard to make time for her younger sister. Any spare hours she has laying around usually either get funneled into winding down, or, more often, Hank.)
(She doesn’t realize it then, and she won’t realize it later, either, but most of her relationships, whether with her friends or with Zoe, all start to fall to the wayside to make room for Hank.
It’s not healthy, and everyone else around her had started to notice.
Except her.)
-
To also understand the situation, you should also understand where Cordelia was at the time of her mother’s death, and why it took so long for the authorities to call her. In a sense, that also has to do with where she was one particular night eight months ago, and where her fiance was supposed to be.
Where she happened to be was at her apartment, the one she shared with her fiancé, Hank. It was where she was most nights after getting off work, and usually, Hank was there with her. That night, though, he’d said he had a conference with his father over the weekend, so he’d kissed her goodbye, climbed in his car, and drove to the next state over.
At least, that’s what he told her.
The lie began to unravel when, the night of Hank’s departure, his father rang the apartment to speak to him, due to the fact that his son had chosen to ignore his cell. Confused, Cordelia had asked the man about the conference that he and Hank were attending, and he told her that there was no conference at all.
It didn’t take long for Cordelia to go snooping, or to find the evidence she was seeking: Hank’s briefcase was still by the dining room table, and when she unlocked it, she saw them. Among the files and papers were two empty condom wrappers, and another one still sealed.
She knows they’re not for her. Cordelia takes birth control to keep her period in check, and she learned years ago that her body will never be able to make a baby.
From there, she starts packing. Not her own stuff, but his. There’s still a stack of folded down boxes in the closet from when they moved in, and she fills several to the brim with his clothes and other things of his. His movies, his books, his work things all get moved into boxes and stacked in the living room.
From there, she starts to go back over the apartment, tearing away traces of their life and trying to replace it with things that are just her. She pulls the photos of them off the fridge and throws them in with Hank’s shit, clips him out of photos on the fridge she wants to keep, and then puts those same ones back up, sans her cheating fiancé. Then, she strips the bed of the sheets, and after second consideration, she pulls the mattress off, too. She can afford a new one.
(They don’t really talk about it, but Fiona keeps a separate bank account under not only her own name, but her daughter’s, and the balance stays at a cool 15 grand. Cordelia doesn’t like to take from her mother’s money too often, trying to stake out her own life, but she’s dipped into the money once or twice. It never takes more than a few days for the balance to come right back up to 15,000 again, Fiona refilling the funds as easily as pouring water into a glass.
She can use Goode family money to replenish her apartment. Fiona never liked Hank anyway.)
Saturday dictates a shopping trip. She buys a new mattress, softer than their old one, the way she prefers it. The new sheets she puts on top are pale blue and a foamy white. On top of that, she buys new throw pillows for the couch, a new rug for the living room, a new painting to hang on the wall. She stops at a home improvement store and buys several plants as well, intent on adding more green to the space. By the time she gets home and redecorates, it may not look brand new, but it is markedly different than before.
Finally, Sunday morning brings Hank back. His key turns in the lock, and Cordelia barely glances up from the book she’s reading before he steps inside.
“Hey, I’m- woah,” he’d said, glancing around the apartment to see the changes. When his eyes landed on the boxes, clearly labeled ‘Hank’, they’d gone wide.
Cordelia set her book to the side with a soft noise, and proceeded to inform him that, today, he was going to be giving her his key, taking his name of the lease, and getting the hell out of her apartment.
There’d been a fight, but he’d lost his ground to stand on, and he knew it. He’d begged, pleaded, had quite literally gotten down on both knees, but Cordelia was iron in her will, refusing to bend. After much protest, Hank began to move his boxes out of the apartment, taking what he could fit in his truck and offering to come back for the rest. With what used to be his key in her hand, she’d delighted in telling him that there would be no need, she’d be dropping everything else off at his father’s within the week, before slamming the door in his face.
In a perfect world, that would be the end, but it isn’t. Hank doesn’t simply disappear from there, even after she dumps away the rest of his stuff. Even after his name was taken off the lease, he continued to pop up at the apartment, trying to get her attention, to get her to talk to him, anything. When she got him banned from the property, his impromptu visits became drunk calls, him blowing up her phone after an evening at the bar, or another night spent drinking himself to death. She blocked him, of course, but he didn’t go away as easy as she had hoped. Soon, the calls started coming from his friend’s number, payphones, the phone of a stranger if he could borrow it. No matter how many numbers she blocked, how many voicemails she ignored, they still came in at least once a week, often more.
And even if she was done with Hank, never wanted to see him again, there was still a certain amount of getting over him that needed to done. And getting over somebody is hard when they’re calling every five minutes because ‘they miss you’.
It takes two months and some change, but eventually, when it becomes clear that he won’t stop, Cordelia changes her number. That also meant she had to go down her phone list and actually let people know about the number change, and that’s what it takes for her to realize just how long it’s been since she talked to most of her friends. For some of them, it’s been months, even longer. Hank had never really gotten along with any of them, and even if she hadn’t realized it, she’d pulled away, put distance between them. It’d been weeks since she’d had a conversation with Vivien, her best friend, that went beyond pleasantries, let alone any of her other friends.
It’s weird to try and play catch-up, especially from so far away. Vivien’s daughter, Violet, had begun to sprout up like a weed, and despite the fact that she originally had no plans for kids, Alex had just given birth to and fallen in love with her son. Beyond that, the rest of her friends had started to take to their own lives, and Cordelia had been missing it.
That’s what gets her to agree to the trip Vivien plans. At her friend’s insistence, she packs a suitcase full of clothes and drives up to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
So, really, this was just a roundabout way of saying that a few months ago, Cordelia had changed her number to avoid drunk calls from her ex, and she was out of state in order to spend time and make amends with friends she neglected during her relationship. It is also, though, a testament to her determination: she decided she wanted Hank out of her life, and she made it happen, no going back or changing her mind.
(But mostly, it’s just an explanation for the beginning of the story.
And that starts with her speeding over the border into Louisiana on a Sunday afternoon.)