Emma and Adrienne

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Backdated like WHOA.

A sibling reunion after some twenty-five years of estrangement. Chilly, patient sophistication meets petulant, arrogant fear. Emma makes Adrienne an offer of assistance. Adrienne tells Emma where to stick it. is less than grateful.

It was unfair. Completely unfair. Didn't women do it all the time? Pop culture encouraged it! How many songs and movies were out there condoning what she'd done? No one in the songs and movies had to suffer the way she was being made to suffer. Your husband hit you, you got rid of him. That was the way it was supposed to work! You weren't supposed to be investigated for it. Investigations had the possibility of leading to charges being made! Where was the justice? Why couldn't a tax-paying, (mostly) law-abiding, philanthropic woman arrange the death of a wife-beating son-of-a-bitch without fear of recrimination? It was utterly unfair.

Possibly even more unfair than the fact that Adrienne was being investigated was the fact that apparently she was supposed to stay in New York while the investigation was being conducted. She hated New York. It would only be a few days, the authorities assured her, but even a few days was enough to alter her life irrevocably. The school in London where she'd been teaching had dismissed her, quietly, last week, when they'd learned of the accusation her business rival had made to the NYPD about how Adrienne Frost had arranged for the murder of her husband. She had enjoyed teaching. And now it was only a matter of time before the entire fashion world would know that she was being investigated by the police, so she would have to disassociate herself publicly with her company to save damaging it in any way, which meant she couldn't occupy her time running her business, which she loved even more than teaching. Even worse, her first interview was scheduled first thing Monday. What an awful way to spend one's birthday.

Adrienne kicked at an unoccupied desk in the police station bullpen, furious at the sense of anxiety she was feeling over having lost her teaching job and her company, however temporary her absence might be from both. And to add to her foul mood, random images of the history of the clutch bag she was holding kept flashing through her mind. Her powers had gone haywire again, the gloves she wore to keep herself from reading everything she touched proving useless. She stormed over to her driver, who was waiting patiently in the reception area to pick her up, but stopped short when she saw he was engaged in conversation with someone.

Upon seeing her, the middle-aged chauffeur stood and hurried over. "I've been speaking with a representative of a Ms. Frost of Frost Enterprises. You've been requested at her office," he informed her smoothly, eyebrow raised in an unasked question.

What the hell? "You're dismissed for the rest of the day," Adrienne said curtly to the driver, who nodded and disappeared out of the station immediately. She approached the representative as if they might be an assassin, thoroughly confused as to why Emma would request her presence at Frost Enterprises when neither sibling had had anything to do with the other for nearly twenty-five years. Pride kept her from asking the lackey what was going on, however, and instead she stewed in her own confusion and assumptions during the short ride over to the New York office of the company that should have been hers.

There wasn't even much of a chance to look around as Emma's minion took Adrienne swiftly to Emma's personal domain and knocked on the door to summon their boss. Adrienne felt her throat constricting in fear of facing her sister for the first time in two decades.


"Come in," said Emma, strengthening her shields as Adrienne's confused thoughts lashed randomly at her mind, a welter of half-thoughts and images dominated by fear. The door opened and Emma had to admit that her sister's photo barely did her justice - the exquisite beauty that was their mother's genetic gift looked as good in brunette colouring as it did in blonde. "It's been a long time, Adrienne," she continued coolly, gesturing for her to sit down. "Would you care for a tea or coffee?"


I'd care to know what the fuck I'm doing here, Adrienne thought to herself, hesitating before taking a seat in Emma's office. She gave Emma the once-over with a eye well-trained for scrutinizing appearances, wondering vaguely whether different circumstances in the past might have led Emma to have become a model like herself. Not one to dwell on 'what ifs', however, Adrienne put the thought out of her mind. "What I'd really care for is a cigarette," she admitted to Emma in a mirror of her sister's cool tone, "but I'll settle for a tea. And an explanation." She kept her gloved hands folded in her lap, resisting the urge to put a finger on Emma's desk and use her malfunctioning powers to her advantage by gleaning some idea of why Emma might have called a meeting.


Neatly, Emma took Adrienne's tea preferences out of her confused thoughts and placed it in the mind of her personal assistant, along with a request for her own. "An explanation," repeated Emma softly. "The explanation, Adrienne, is that I'm offering you an option to assist you in your current difficulties. A position in a school in New York. Where you can stay in contact with the people you need to be in contact with and also have the opportunity to use your talents." She looked at the Adrienne's confused face and added, "Or do you mean something tedious about why daddy isn't coming home from the hospital and mummy only talks to the gin bottle these days?"


Adrienne's first reaction was to laugh at her sister's suggestion of a 'tedious' explanation; to toss her head and chuckle in disbelief at the almost ludicrous thought that she would be wanting an explanation that had anything to do with their parents. As if she gave a second of thought to either of them any more! "Why would I expect you to give me an explanation about those pathetic excuses for human beings? And why would you expect that I'd want one?" she asked Emma with one last disbelieving chuckle.


Once she'd put her parents properly out of her head again, however, the rest of Emma's words began to sink in and a thread of fear wound its way back into Adrienne's consciousness. Your current difficulties, Emma had said. Stay in contact with the people you need to be in contact with... Use your talents... "What the hell do you know about my 'difficulties' and the people I need to be in contact with? And what do you know about my 'talents'?" she demanded, self-preservation putting a steely edge in her voice as anger battled with confusion.


"You're a Frost," said Emma, bluntly. "I know everything there is to know about your talents. And your business, your qualifications, your role as a teacher, your personal life including your ill-advised marriage and its results. I have an extensive file available to me on anything you have done that could have repercussions on my business pursuits. Your current difficulties fall into that category. I am simply offering some assistance that may prevent the Frost name being associated with - unfortunate consequences." She considered her next words carefully, knowing from Adrienne's thoughts that her younger sister had forgotten (if she had ever known) a fairly vital piece of information. She decided to go ahead with her next statement - if Adrienne proved unrepentantly indiscreet she could always erase the knowledge. "There is also the fact that you are shouting at the top of your thoughts. I think I could only fail to know about your current difficulties if I was in the next state."


Falling back into her chair as if she'd been struck, Adrienne sat with wide eyes as she digested everything Emma said. So Emma knew everything. Of course she did. Emma was a fucking telepath! How could she have forgotten that?! Because it never mattered, she told herself, pained, it never affected me, so I never bothered to remember. Adrienne now recalled the first time she'd learned of her sister's mutation, shortly after she'd manifested herself. She had gone into Emma's vacant room to steal some piece of jewelry or a book- she couldn't even remember what it had been now- and had gone around the room touching everything in it, still excited by her newfound ability. She remembered being afraid, then, by what she'd found out about Emma, but after a brief moment the fear had been quashed by jealousy and her fierce competitive nature. Emma was already gone; Adrienne didn't need telepathy to win Frost Enterprises and the admiration of their father. She could get everything she wanted without having to read peoples' minds. As the years had passed, whenever a snippet of news regarding Emma's mutation had crossed Adrienne's path, she'd had the same jealous, competitive reaction of forced disinterest towards it. When it became apparent, after Winston had given Frost Enterprises to Emma, that the two sisters would never cross paths, Emma's mutation had slipped Adrienne's mind entirely. And now she would pay for the oversight.


Or maybe not? Maybe Emma hadn't called her in to let her know she knew the truth about Steven's death and was going to rat her out to the police... she had said she wanted to offer assistance, hadn't she? Attempting to keep Emma out of her head as she went back over what exactly the woman had said, Adrienne found herself thinking the words of the song 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' very loudly (and off key) in her head. When she recalled Emma's earlier words, however, she found herself reacting to the last thing she expected to be bothered with given the circumstances. "How could my marriage have been ill-advised?" she snapped, usual post-Steven feelings of self-pity and intense sadness welling up within her. "I never had anyone to advise me, did I? No one told me what he was." She sang even louder in her head, this time to keep the memories of beatings out of the forefront of her mind, and Emma's. "I made the decision to marry him on my own, the way I make all my decisions, and if the results of my ill-advised marriage fuck up your 'business pursuits' then why don't you just offer your assistance before I shove your 'extensive repercussions file' up your ass?"


"I see you've inherited the family charm," said Emma dryly. "You made your choices long ago, Adrienne. Some bad, some - very good in the circumstances. My concern is simply that the consequences of your choices don't affect Frost Enterprises. As such, I am offering you a position with a school in New York. A school for gifted children who are currently in need of a maths teacher and also a place where people can learn to hone their talents." She considered how to word her next sentence. "Stephen DuClos was a blight on your life and the face of the earth and his removal is something that can only be applauded. I only wish to ensure that his malign influence ended along with his life - the more discreetly this occurs, the better for my company and yours." She sighed. "And will you please stop singing "La la la" so loudly in your head. It doesn't stop me reading your thoughts and it's simply irritating. If you want to learn about psychic shielding, Charles will be perfectly happy to teach you."


"It's not 'la la la', Adrienne replied, because she was still trying to swallow everything else Emma had said, "it's 'the lion sleeps tonight'." Once that piece had been said, however, she lapsed into silent thought, the bulk of her contemplation devoted to the fact that Emma applauded her for having Steven killed. It signified that Emma understood her actions, which was something Adrienne found strange, having long-since accepted that what she'd done, while making perfect sense to herself, wasn't the sort of thing the law, or the public on the whole, understood. It was refreshing.


Not that she cared about, or needed, Emma's understanding. Emma had always been the one to offer understanding and affection as a child, and Adrienne had always avoided her attentions because Emma wasn't the one she wanted to be understood by. And even though Emma was now the head of the company and Adrienne had no father to impress anymore, she still couldn't bring herself to accept Emma's 'applause.' There were too many bridges burned there.

"Why did you find me a teaching position?" she asked, irritated by the fact that she'd almost considered thanking Emma for her comment about Steven. "I've already got a job, as you already know. I lost the family business to you, so I had to build my own from nothing, and while it may not be as prosperous as Father's company is, it still takes plenty of time and energy to run." She tried to keep the afterthought out of her head, but no chorus of 'the lion sleeps tonight' could keep her from mentally adding not that I can really conduct business while being investigated by the police. "Shit. Okay." So no point in pretending, then. "Still, though, why a teaching position? You want to keep me under your thumb, but you don't trust me enough to put me at Frost Enterprises?"


Emma smiled at her personal assistant as he knocked and then brought in two teas and discreetly withdrew from the room. Emma sipped her tea, enjoying its perfection. Carefully she placed the cup down and said icily, "Frost Enterprises is my company. Not Father's. Not the family's. Mine. Bought and paid for." She smiled, chill and almost terrible. "And I don't play well with others." She caught at her own anger, tamed it with an effort. "You are very successful at what you do, Adrienne, but Frost Enterprises and 64Square don't exactly operate in the same spheres. I also thought you may wish to take a more low-profile role until your difficulties are resolved. You are too - driven - to sit around in New York doing nothing and Charles' school is - entertaining, to say the least."


Adrienne gave Emma an incredulous look. "You didn't buy and pay for it, Father gave it to you." Bitch, she added in her head. She chewed angrily over Emma's comment about their two companies operating in different spheres, feeling an assault to her intelligence and competency. "Damn right I'm fucking successful. But don't you dare imply that I'm not capable of working at Frost Enterprises," she seethed. "I worked for more than half my life to make myself capable of running that fucking company. It was supposed to be mine. I was ready for it. Just biding my time. Until you had to come out of the fucking nuthouse." After brooding over the issue of losing the company for nearly fifteen years, if felt surprisingly good to let some things out into the open.


"If you would like to see the accounts, I can provide records of all of my payments to the guardians of Winston Frost wherein I did buy and pay for Frost Enterprises. Money I'm sure you'll inherit when the time comes," said Emma coolly. "And I didn't imply that you're not capable of working at Frost Enterprises. What you don't have is a background in avionics, software and electronics and useful contacts in government Defence Departments. What you do have is a teaching degree and a powers problem. And some Daddy issues that it's really time you got over." She leaned forward as Adrienne opened her mouth to say something. "Daddy was a sick fuck, Adrienne, before I reamed out his mind and meant he couldn't hurt us any more. You were too old for Daddy, Adrienne. He was going to give Frost Enterprises to Cordelia before I "came out of the nuthouse" as you so eloquently describe it. And wouldn't that have been fun? What was Cordelia doing last? Swapping boyfriends with Paris Hilton? Or husbands with Britney Spears?"

Despite her abhorrence to physical violence, Adrienne's gloved hands curled into fists and she was nearly out of her chair and at Emma's throat after hearing her sister belittle her teaching degree and berate her for her powers problem and her daddy issues. She attempted a curse to begin her attack but held back and sat with her mouth open as Emma continued speaking.

She'd always known, somewhere in the back of her mind, that her father's mental breakdown hadn't been natural. That he hadn't given the company to Emma of his own free will. But dwelling on it would have left her wasted, lost in suspicion, anger, blame. Thinking too deeply about it would have been completely useless, and it would have destroyed her, so she'd forced herself to let it go and move on, build her own company instead of dwelling on what she couldn't control. She'd even convinced herself that what had happened had been Winston's fault, not Emma's, because it was easier to hate the broken shell of a man than it was to hate someone who was so powerful and dangerous. "You... 'reamed out his mind' so he couldn't hurt 'us' anymore?" she found herself asking, quiet but fuming inside. "You're a self-righteous bitch, Emma." Her tone stayed casual, but she battled with anger that had been building for years. "You didn't destroy him for 'us.' You weren't even there when he started on Cordelia and I! He'd already broken you, sent you to the madhouse. You were too weak to stick around and stick it out like the rest of us." God, that felt good to say. "You did it for yourself. So you could take what you wanted. I'm not criticizing you for that- Christ knows I even admire you for it. It's what I would have done. But did you ever even stop to wonder what might have happened if you'd left us all alone and let Father choose who to give the company to? Maybe he would have chosen Cordelia, but hell, maybe her life would have turned out better if he had." Her own words surprised her- it wasn't often she dwelt on 'what ifs', and she didn't think she'd ever actually defended Cordelia before. Where had that come from? "And yeah, maybe I've still got my daddy issues," she added, winding down now, "but maybe that's because I never got the chance to confront him, because by the time I was ready you'd already decided to save 'us' by destroying his mind." Mildly satisfied, the psychometrist sipped at her lukewarm tea.


"Actually," said Emma, very, very quietly, "I did it for Christian." She sighed, closed her shields utterly to the jumble of emotions Adrienne was broadcasting at the top of her mental lungs. "If it makes you feel better, then yes, I am your evil older sister, yes I destroyed your life and that of everyone else in the family, I am constantly belittling your achievements to all and sundry, it's all my fault, I'm weak and had all the fun while you suffered a life a woe. I have made you an offer of assistance. You will find the details in your e-mail when you return. You have a week to contact the Professor or the offer is withdrawn." Emma didn't add that, if Adrienne didn't contact the Professor within a week, all memory of this meeting would be erased from her mind. "You'll also find the details of Winston's asylum. If you wish to confront him about what he did to the family, go ahead. Believe me, he remembers all of it. In fact, I can safely say that he thinks of nothing else. " She nodded at her assistant, who appeared in the door at that moment, summoned by her mental call. "Please organise someone to escort Ms Frost from the building." Her assistant nodded and withdrew. "If there's nothing else you wish to say, I'm sure we both have things to do."


"I never said I had nothing else to say," Adrienne replied with a shake of her head. "I'm far from finished." She was beginning to feel that they'd both had enough for one day, though. "It's been nearly twenty-five years, Emma," she scoffed. "You can't expect me to get through twenty-five years of shit in one meeting. We haven't even begun." She rose from her chair, setting her teacup on Emma's desk and again resisting the urge to read it. "Don't flatter yourself into thinking you destroyed my life," she said with a laugh. "I never said you did. Far from it, actually. I'd never let you destroy my life. I merely implied that you might have destroyed Cordelia's, but honestly, if she isn't strong enough to get past that, then she should turn in her Frost Sister Club pin." She pondered Emma's offer of contacting Winston, shook her head wryly. "I had no idea he remembered everything," she murmured, suddenly all-too-aware that she was in no way ready to do as she'd bluffed to Emma: confront the man. "I bet being in his head was a real picnic for you." She wrinkled her nose and felt a sudden stab of something that seemed uncomfortably akin to empathy towards her older sibling. After all, Emma, Cordelia, and herself were the only three people on earth who understood exactly what each other had been through. "I know you didn't have fun, Emma," she said in a whisper. "And I will consider your offer of assistance." She owed Emma that much, at least, for what she'd said about Steven being a blight and applauding his removal.


"Then we have nothing more to discuss," said Emma and nodded at the security man who had appeared in her doorway. "Please ensure Ms Frost makes it safely home. There is a driver waiting for her downstairs." Emma kept her shields at maximum until Adrienne was far enough away for her to relax them slightly, safe from the blasts of unrestrained emotion. Deliberately separating herself from her family had been one of the best plans in a very well-planned life, but it meant Emma's knowledge had been restricted to second-hand information. She had thought that Adrienne's success was indicative of someone changed from the desperately lonely and attention-seeking little girl she had last known so many years before. Today's meeting had shown that was all a cover, however, and that the same little girl still lived behind Adrienne's exquisite features, shouting in outraged pain at the world.

Emma sighed. For a short moment, she considered triggering the failsafe she'd placed in Adrienne's mind early, erasing the meeting and any mention of the School from her mind before she had a chance to consider it. She had to accept, though, that the risks of leaving Adrienne alone, drawn back into the dangerous emotions that surrounded any mention of her husband and with ever-decreasing control over her powers, would inevitably lead to more problems than placing her with the X-Men. Charles, at least, had some chance of working to resolve Adrienne's power problems, in a way Adrienne simply would not accept from Emma. She would just have to make sure that Adrienne had very little to do with Snow Valley.

It was definitely going to be an interesting time.