Rebuilding Our Empire

Season Finale: Protect Your Heart

The Next Day
Empire

Cookie bounced throught the hallways of Empire, listening to the playback of the song she just recorded. She felt relieved, ready to take on anything, but right now, she wanted to play with her daughter. She saw Jamal standing in front of the elevator, sending a text. "Mal! Where's my child?" Cookie asked. Jamal looked at her from the corner of his eye. "I'm right here. But if you're talking about Haven, she's giving Aden a tour of the building for some reason," he told her.

Cookie pursed her lips and sighed. "So she could be anywhere. My littlw busy body," she said with a smile on her face. "The last I heard she was saying something about showing Aden the best thing about dad," Jamal said, walking into the elevator. "So they're playing with Lucious' leg. Thanks boo!" She pinched his cheek and gave him a kiss on the cheek, letting the elevator close. "I hate when they finally make up," Jamal mumbled to himself.

She heard him, but waved it off. She turned the corner heading into studio 6. The site before her was too funny that she had to take a picture. Lucious sat on the couch, head tossed back, snoring the paint off the walls, while Haven was trying to take his prosthetic leg off. Aden tried helping her, but their efforts did not prevail. "What are you two doing?" Cookie whispered to them as she knelt down. Haven pushed her hair out of her face and pouted.

"We can't get it off. I wanted to play with daddy's leg," she whined. "And what if daddy were to wake up and see his leg missing? Do you want the whooping he is going to give you for playing around while he's at work?" Cookie asked. "But he's sleeping!" Haven's tone got louder. Cookie raised an eyebrow and Haven backed down. "Sorry mommy," Haven apologized. "I accept your apology. Now come on. Let's head upstairs," Cookie grabbed both of their hands, leading them out of the studio, kicking the door on the way out to wake her sleeping husband up.

He sat up straight, waking up confused as if he didn't know where he was. He washed his hands over his face and stood up, only to feel unstable. He sat back down and rolled his pants leg up, seeing his prosthetic turned 45 degrees. "Haven! Always playing around," he chuckled. He adjusted the leg, then looked on the bae that sat in front of him. Cookie had laid down a USB on accident when talking to her child.

He grabbed the USB then plugged it into the laptop, revealing two songs that Cookie had recorded. One she recorded with Jamal, and the other she was by herself. Lucious pressed play on the song that she did with Jamal, ready to shut them down. The more he listened, the more he realized where the song came from. He stopped playing the song, then deleted Jamal's vocals. "He shouldn't be on this song with her. He doesn't know what it's even about," he mumbled to himself.

He locked the studio door and replayed the song, heading into the booth, something he hadn't done in a while. Cookie's smooth vocals echoed in ears as he put the headphones on. He flashed back to the day they wrote the song together. It just flew out of them when he was creating a beat. The only ones who heard it was Carol and Andre.

Flashback

It had been two weeks since Cookie had been back home. She took Andre and Jamal with her to Carol's house. She missed her man, but she refused to deal with his nonchalant attitude when it came to bitches in his face. After seeing Rochelle push up on him while he standing outside the car, talking to Vernon, and he let her, Cookie lost it. She beat Rochelle's ass and gave Lucious a black eye before taking their 6 and 3 year old sons away from him.

She sat on the couch, combing through Jamal's hair, the misery coming through thick around her. "Cook, I can't keep looking at you like this. Go talk to Lucious please. Bunky said he hasn't left the house since you left. I know he shouldn't have been letting that roach get all comfortable in him, but it's been two weeks and I love my nephews, but they don't make it easy for me to get some. Please go make up with that man," Carol begged.