Anika has finally delivered herself from the Lyons's den & found love with Malcolm DeVeaux. But a chance encounter with Lucious and Cookie changes everyone's life forever. Takes place roughly a year after episode 209 ("Sinned Against").
"Yes, ma'am." The students shuffled out the door, but one boy dared to speak up. "Mrs. Lyon? Tell Lucious that we're praying for him, okay? We just know he's going to make it."
Cookie nodded graciously. "Thank you for your prayers."
What would those boys think when Cookie announced that Lucious was already dead? "Have you eaten?" Anika asked as the students left the room. "They always send me way too much food." Anika held a set of plasticware in the air. "You're welcome to join me. It's Italian."
"Sure," Cookie said. "I'll have some."
Anika hadn't expected Cookie to say yes. It wasn't that Cookie wasn't welcome to the food - the portions were huge and Anika had no problems with Cookie eating with her. It was just that Lyon family dinners had never gone very well, and Anika didn't expect this sit-down to be any different.
For a while, the women ate in silence. "This is really good," Cookie commented. She didn't realize how hungry she was. She was enjoying her third bread stick, but Anika pecked at her salad and threw Cookie worried glances, as if she was just sure that Cookie had come to make her life miserable yet again.
"Did Lucious ever tell you that Andre wasn't his biological son?" Cookie asked out of the blue.
Anika nearly choked on a tomato. Was Cookie really saying that the firstborn Lyon son wasn't a Lyon at all? "Andre isn't Lucious's son?"
"Andre isn't Lucious's biological son," Cookie corrected. "You said you knew everything," she added in a slightly accusatory tone.
"I knew that you went to Catholic school and all of that stuff. I had no idea...I never would've guessed."
"You really didn't know, Anika? Why did you think I was so upset that night?"
"I thought it had to do with street cred, Cookie. The Lyon legacy and all of that. And even if I had known, I never would've told anybody. I swear that on my mother, Cookie. I never would've told."
Too bad I didn't know that then, Boo Boo Kitty, Cookie almost said, but she didn't. The time of laying blame and making threats was long over. "I was pregnant when I met Lucious at summer camp. We never slept together, so Lucious knew he was raising another man's son. Lucious could've left me and gone on to be a brilliant musician, but he gave up his future to take care of me and my son when he was just 16."
Cookie looked over Anika, who was surprised to see tears in Cookie's eyes. "Everybody always says 'Cookie gave up everything for Lucious, and Lucious didn't give up anything for her.' That's not true. Lucious gave up everything for me. And the only person who knows that right now is you." Cookie sighed wearily. "You know what the worst part is about this whole Lucious/Cookie love story? This whole story-with-a-capital-S?"
"No, what?"
"I hate how everybody romanticizes me and Lucious's struggle. I hear so many young girls say they want a love like me and Lucious and I feel like screaming. In the beginning, our marriage was horrible." Cookie chuckled at the look on Anika's face. "Think about it. You teach kids that were as old and me and Lucious when we got married. Can you imagine any of them married and raising a baby on top of it?"
Anika thought to the couples she'd taught - the ones who were so dramatic in their love, only to break up by third period. "No," she admitted with a laugh. "Half of them couldn't raise a plant together, let alone a baby."
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