Sydney was the one to rouse Peter the morning everything changed.
That was an inaccurate phrase, and one that was being used all too often these days. It had lost all meaning. Everything in his life had changed so many times in the last week, he couldn't even keep track.
But she woke him the morning the results came in. It had taken much less time than the last round of testing. The police were probably putting a rush on the results.
Det. Quinn was in the living room when he padded downstairs, still wearing his pajama bottoms and too-big tee-shirt. She had a cup of coffee in her hands and he caught Mr. Johnson's eye, both sharing a secret giggle about it. He was glad there were still some normal, somewhat sane moments in his life.
Sydney disappeared when Laura arrived, probably at her mother's insistence. On the one hand, he would've liked to have her at his side. On the other, he was getting really tired of all these meetings with all these people. Maybe Syd knew that and that's why she'd gone to her room.
"Honey," Laura began, and he knew it wasn't because they had a special bond, but because he had no name and she didn't know what to call him. "I want to be totally honest with you right now. No one in this room has any idea what is going on. We're all confused and scared, and I bet you are too. I've never had to do this before, and it certainly wasn't covered in training. But – well, the DNA tests just came back and confirmed that you are Blaine Anderson."
His stomach somersaulted at that.
It sounded foreign, but at the same time... he knew that name.
"Det. Quinn's colleague is reaching out to the Andersons and we expect that they'll be coming out here soon. But we're not just going to put you in a car with strangers and turn our backs. Paul and Heather have said that they are more than happy to have you stay here for as long as you need. We support that at the Department. But we need you to communicate with us, tell us what you're comfortable with, okay?"
Cooper was ready to rent a car and drive to Sacramento the second he hung up the call with Len. Luckily, Pam and James knew how his mind worked and called him back before he could begin moving to explain that they would all go together and that he just had to wait.
That meant 24 hours, at least.
24 hours of knowing Blaine was out there, for real, and doing nothing.
24 more hours until he could hug his baby brother for the first time in nearly 12 years.
Cooper wanted to cry and laugh and scream, and somehow the confused message was relayed from his brain to his mouth because suddenly he could hear himself making a noise that sounded more like a braying donkey than anything else.
He couldn't believe it was real. And then Cooper remembered the other person who had been so dedicated to finding Blaine, who'd never even met his baby brother.
Cooper pulled out his phone and dialed Gus.
No answer.
He tried again. And again. And again. And again. Until finally -
"You better be dying in a hospital, Anderson, because it's really not cool when the teacher's phone goes off a hundred times in a row in the middle of class, even if it's summer school."
Hearing his friend's voice broke Cooper, and instead of his donkey bray, he let out a real sob.
"Wait, you're not actually dying in a hospital, are you?" Gus asked, worry suddenly coloring his tone.
"No," Cooper said, shaking his head though Gus couldn't see. "No – I just... I ... we..."
"Dude, you're not going to get much work as an actor if you can't string together a sentence," Gus teased, but Cooper could still hear the worry in his voice.
"It's Blaine," Cooper said, and he heard Gus' sharp intake of breath. "He's alive. They found him. He's coming home ."
"Are you fucking ... it's ... for real?"
"Yeah," Cooper said. "For real. DNA proves it and all."
Gus literally whooped, Cooper could hear the echo in the grand halls of Dalton. "Shit," he swore. "What – what's next?"
"I don't even know. My parents are flying out here and we're going to get together to pick him up I guess, but I just – you and the website have been so helpful over the years. I just thought that you should be the first person to know. Shit, I hope mom and dad called their parents. They'd be so pissed if you knew before all the grandparents. Fuck, whatever."
Gus laughed at Cooper's monologue, used to the way his friend's brain worked. "Hey, gimme a minute, okay? I'm gonna make these kids' day!"
Cooper could hear muffled noises as Gus reentered the classroom with his hand held over the phone's speaker. "Class is canceled today, everyone gets an A on the next test!" he announced.
There was a general hubbub and cheers among the students, and Cooper thought he could hear one voice saying, "I wish teachers always got calls in the middle of class if this is the result!"
Once the class had cleared out, Gus was back on the phone. "Okay," he said. "I'm guessing this is going to be a pretty big story. So we need to get ahead, put a statement on the website that any newscasters can use, and then beg for privacy. I doubt many people will respect it, but some will and that'll be better than nothing."
"This is why I keep you around," Cooper commented. "Always thinking about the big picture."
He and Gus spent the next hour crafting it. Cooper sent copies to his parents and Len for approval, and it went live on the website and social channels that evening.
BREAKING NEWS:
Earlier this summer, a team composed of our close friend Len, who has been the private investigator on this case since 2003, and police detectives in Philadelphia and Sacramento began working together on a new lead in Blaine's case. We are happy to report today that DNA has confirmed that Blaine is alive and well, and will soon be reunited with his family. We would like to thank everyone for their support over the years and request that you please give our family the space and distance we need as we once again become whole. It has been a difficult 12-year journey and we would appreciate peace as we begin to heal as a family.
- James, Pam and Cooper Anderson
He followed Laura up the stairs numbly. Outside, the sun was shining brightly in a cloudless blue sky. There was a slight breeze, just enough to keep the heat from being too much. It couldn't have been more different inside. The walls were gray. The floors were an ugly beige linoleum. The fluorescent lights were unforgiving. And the air smelled, and tasted, artificial. He hadn't expected much else from a jail, though.
That Laura had managed to get this meeting, even after there was solid proof that Marilyn wasn't his mom, that she had kidnapped him, was surprising. He wouldn't be surprised if she told him she'd had to call in favors to make this happen. But he was happy that he could see mom again.
Not mom. Marilyn. The woman who had kidnapped him.
Was he happy? No, but he still knew that he needed this. He needed to see her face, hear her voice, maybe even feel one of those too-tight hugs again. Otherwise he might never know if this was real.
A guard was reviewing Laura's paperwork before directing them to booth nine. They walked through a heavy metal door that had to be buzzed open, then past eight identical doors before they reached their booth.
This was both similar and dissimilar to the visitation booths on TV. On the visitor's side, they had a private cinderblock room. Two chairs were squeezed in front of a counter, and they had to take turns sitting down because there wasn't enough room to maneuver. There was a pane of thick plexiglass between them, and a phone to communicate. TV had never really conveyed how punishing this felt to the visitor, too.
And then he heard a door open, and shuffling footsteps. Soon, his mom was sitting down on the other side of the plexiglass and was picking up the phone.
"Petey," she said.
Peter felt emotions he couldn't identify rush through his body at just that one word. He was angry about the lies, and scared about the future, and happy to see her, and confused about what was happening, and…
"Mom," he sighed.
"Peter, don't listen to these people. You know you're my boy," she said.
Peter shook his head. "No, mom, I'm not. We know the truth now. I'm - I'm not - I don't hate you."
Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.
"But I need you to tell me the truth. If you really love me, you'll tell me the truth."
She shook her head, unable to form the words.
"Please, mom. For me."
At that, Marilyn looked up.
Cooper knew that he sometimes let his ego get a little big. He knew that he wasn't really that famous at all, that no one really wanted to get his picture for a magazine. Sure, once or twice there had been paparazzi hanging around, usually just after a guest stint on a show or when he'd been invited to swanky events.
But he was not exaggerating this.
He was trying to flag down a cab outside his apartment and there was a literal sea of paparazzi and reporters around him, preventing him from reaching the street.
Cooper had always dreamed of fame and fortune, and while he was glad it came because his little brother was finally coming home, instead of the far worse alternative, he didn't want it in the moment.
It was only when a car pulled up to the sidewalk and a big guy got out that the crowd started to break up. Cooper stared at the guy like he was an angel from heaven, until the guy said, "Get in."
"Um, excuse me?"
"I'm Josh. Mickie sent me."
Ah. Mickie was Cooper's agent, and he had sent her a quick email last night saying that he was going out of town and would be unavailable for a few weeks. She must've put two and two together when the news about Blaine broke and thought ahead. At least someone had.
He got into the backseat of the car and looked around. This was far nicer than anything he could afford.
"Mickie hired us for a week."
Cooper's musings were interrupted. "What?"
"Me, Dan up front, the car. The whole shebang. She said your family's gonna need some crowd control. So we'll take you up to Sacramento and make sure everything's good up there before coming back down."
Cooper gaped in silence. "She – she did?" Mickie was a godsend. Cooper needed to send her a nice fruit basket STAT. "My parents are going to freak when they see me with a bodyguard and driver. They already think I have too much of an ego."
Josh chuckled and Cooper could see Dan shaking his head in the rearview mirror.
The drive to Sacramento was tense, to say the least. Dan and Josh were nice, made good conversation, and tried to calm everyone down. But the nerves were too high. They kept everyone's heads on straight.
They arrived at the hotel in the late evening, and checked in. Dan and Josh had their own room, and left the family on their own for the evening, planning to meet them at 8:45 the next morning so they could all arrive at the DSS office when it opened at 9.
Cooper, Mary, and James ordered room service and sat in awkward silence until it was late enough to justify going to sleep. The next morning, they were all awake unreasonably early and whiled away the hours in the continental breakfast room until Dan and Josh pulled up to the front of the hotel in the SUV and brought them to the DSS building. Thankfully, there was no crowd there. The reporters were probably all at the police station.
Almost as soon as they entered the building, heads turned. Everyone in the department knew about this case.
Howard and Laura came quickly to whisk the family into a private meeting room. The social workers explained everything that had occurred in the last few weeks. That following that woman's arrest, Blaine had been placed in a foster home – "we call it a kinship placement, it's with his best friend's family because they're what we consider fictive kin, he's well taken care of there" – and had been dealing with the child welfare system since.
"Now, we're not suggesting that you're not capable of caring for Blaine, but after consulting with the agency director and our county attorney, we've decided that the best course to ensure Blaine's success, is to treat this like we would any out-of-state reunification case. We've already contacted Ohio's ICPC office and they're willing to expedite the process as much as we are. We'll make exceptions to some of the regulations, but overall, we're going to keep doing what we always do to ensure Blaine's best interests."
Cooper could almost see his mother speak up, to set them straight that they were Blaine's best interests. A gentle hand from his father held her back.
"We know how much you love Blaine and how hard you've worked to get him back to your family," Howard said, "but you need to understand that he is not the boy you remember. He has grown up and moved through a different world than you have, and he has forgotten most or all of the first four years of his life. Things are not going to be easy from the get-go. You'll all struggle. And that's why we're treating this like a reunification case. We want to be here for you when it gets tough."
The Andersons nodded somberly.
"He spent most of his life going by the name Peter," Laura said. "It's possible that he'll ask you to call him Peter, or that he will have trouble adjusting to the name Blaine. I know that will be hard for you, but you have to make sure that you are following his lead. He'll find a way to let you know what feels most comfortable to him."
"From our investigation, there are no signs of abuse or neglect. But that doesn't mean that there's no trauma. Even if he doesn't remember the abduction, it was a formative moment in his young life."
"Additionally, any time a child is removed from their home, we consider that to be a trauma. He's going to have a long healing process ahead of him, and we need you to be prepared for that. I spoke with the ICPC coordinator in Franklin County, and they have a series of training classes specifically focused on kinship placements. We're writing that into your service plan as a requirement, as we think it would be really valuable in learning how to navigate this situation."
All three Andersons seemed frozen in shock. They'd all spent years dreaming of their reunification with Blaine. No version went anything like this. In their fantasies and daydreams, Blaine eagerly rejoined the family, immediately reintegrating into the Anderson family life. There was no struggle, no trauma, no red tape.
Laura's phone buzzed on the table and she quickly excused herself.
The Andersons took in one collective breath. They hadn't seen the phone, but they knew. They knew exactly what that message said.
And sure enough, the next time the door opened, a teenage boy with dark, curly hair followed Laura in.
The room was frozen. Time seemed to stand still. It was a cliché that Cooper had never understood until this very moment.
And then the boy lifted his eyes and they flickered from face to face to face, until they landed on Cooper and recognition dawned.
"You?" he gasped out.
"Surprise," Cooper said, shrugging and smiling.
Blaine's foster family followed him into the room, and Cooper could feel his mother tense up. He knew that she wanted Blaine all to herself, and immediately, but this was what they were going to have to deal with.
Peter felt uncomfortable. He was sitting in the middle of a large conference table, an island to himself. The social workers sat across from him, while the Andersons sat on one side and the Johnsons sat on the other.
He had no idea what he was supposed to do here.
Thankfully, Laura, for all her talk about this being something she's never done before, was able to bridge the gap. She began asking questions, encouraging everyone to chime in and answer and get to know each other.
She was the one who also noticed that he flinched whenever anyone called him by any name. The Andersons called him Blaine – perhaps more often than necessary, as if to reassure themselves that he was really there. Syd and her family tried. But they would start talking to Peter, then correct themselves to Blaine, and with each time someone addressed him, he grew more and more reserved.
After a little over an hour, everyone was exhausted. Howard escorted the two families out of the room, to exchange contact information, and Laura sat down next to him.
"So how was that?"
He gave her a long look.
"Fun? Torturous? Funny? Sad? Awkward?"
He perked up when she said awkward.
"Yeah, I can imagine it would be pretty awkward if everyone is calling you by a name that you don't even think fits."
He looked at her in surprise.
"I get it. If you told me right now that I'm no longer Laura and instead I'm Michelle... That would be tough. But the nice thing about this is that everyone in this room cares so freaking much about you. So you get to be the one to set the rules. If you want to be Blaine, you're Blaine. If you want to be Peter, you're Peter. If you want to tell everyone to call you something completely ridiculous, guess what, you have the power here and you can."
"I don't know," he finally whispered. "You told me I'm not Peter, and I guess I'm not. You told me I am Blaine, so I guess I am. But right now I don't know who either of them are. I don't know who I am anymore."
"Well, that's a relief. If you told me that everything was hunky-dory with this crazy situation, then I'd be worried. How about this – I can talk to the Andersons and to the Johnsons and just suggest that they all go light on the name-calling until you tell them otherwise or unless it's absolutely necessary. Okay?"
"Yeah, that – that works."
In the hallway, he noticed the large man, who he'd assumed to be a security guard for the department, hovering near the Andersons. Cooper was talking to him quietly before turning to the assembled group. "So Josh told me that some reporters got wind of our meeting going down here instead of at the police department."
Howard went to the reception desk and called on some of the building security officers for additional support.
"They're going to want to talk to you, all of you," Josh said. Even though it was obvious he wasn't with DSS, everyone could tell that he was in his element and that they should heed his word. "Don't even bother with 'no comment' or anything. Just bow your head and focus on the person in front of you. That's the only way to deal with crowds like these without getting sucked in. The Andersons already prepared a statement, and Cooper's agent has been sending that out, so we don't have to worry about them."
Peter was momentarily star-struck, seeing Cooper's personal security guard, and hearing about his agent and his PR plan – but then he realized that all eyes were on him because, even if Cooper was the celebrity, he was the lost boy returned home.
He made a note to go back to Peter Pan and reread it the first chance he got. Suddenly it felt a lot more concrete and real. Did he want to stay in Neverland and never grow up, or go with the Darlings and learn about the real world?
That was his choice, wasn't it? His mom – Marilyn – had tried to hide him from the world, keep him as her little boy forever. But there were hidden terrors even in Neverland, and the ticking clock of time had caught up to Captain Hook eventually.
"Josh," Cooper said, obviously continuing a conversation that had gone on while he was in his head. "Can you stick with Bl - I mean, with my brother? He's the one they all want a picture of, he's gonna need your help the most."
"Sure," Josh said, then looked at him. "Whattaya say, kid, ready to face the wolves?"
'Wolves' was putting it mildly. If this was only some of the press, as Josh had reported, he didn't want to see what it was like when the rest figured out where he was. As soon as he, Syd, and her parents had returned to their home, all window shades had been drawn and everyone huddled together like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie.
Mrs. Johnson had the foresight to call the director of his play and explain the situation, though the director admitted that he'd been following the news and knew exactly what was going on. Rehearsals had already been rescheduled for the next week to accommodate his impending isolation from the rest of the world, and hopefully the news cycle would move on in time for him to rejoin in a week or so.
Peter was just sitting around the home, listlessly staring at the bookshelves, when Syd approached him.
"You know, I googled you. Him. You know, your birth name," she said, and Peter had never heard Syd sound so unsure of herself. "Those people, the Andersons? They really, really loved you. Here." She turned her laptop around and handed it to him before walking out of the room.
Before him was a website entitled Hope for Blaine . He looked at the posts and saw that it had been around since 2003 - nearly as long as he'd been missing. There was a smattering of posts, a few every year, along with photos that looked vaguely like him, and a message board where people left well-wishes and comments about how they thought they'd seen him (though none of them actually had).
He began to click through the archive, selecting blog posts here and there to read. On July 20, 2005, Pam had written a heartfelt 'Happy 10th Birthday' message to him. By that point, he'd already been living in the double digits for nearly six months and was on a spur-of-the-moment summer road trip with his mom. They'd whiled away the hours in the car listening to Harry Potter books on tape and had driven to Reno for his mom to try her luck at the slots. Looking back on that memory now, he realized that was one his earliest memories of one of mom's states.
September 2009 was filled with posts every day, as Cooper, Pam, James, and others shared stories about his first four years, their lives for the last ten years, and wishes to see him again soon. In September 2009, he'd been a freshman in high school, preparing to tell the world that he was gay and hoping to go on his first date any time before going off to college. He hadn't even realized it had been ten years since he and his mom had moved to Sacramento.
He tried to rack his brain, to pull up any memories that might corroborate the truth, that he had been kidnapped. Did the Andersons' anecdote about his fourth birthday party being safari themed sound familiar, or was he just trying to make something in this crazy situation make sense?
He felt like an imposter reading this. This was obviously some other, more remarkable person that everyone was talking about and wishing for. He felt ashamed when he grabbed a notebook from the desk next to him and began to take notes, to study up on his past.
When he met up with the Andersons the next day at the hotel restaurant, Laura in tow (he hoped she was getting paid overtime for all the extra work she'd put in on him in the last few weeks), he'd brought the notebook with him. Laura had assured him that it was okay to have questions, but he couldn't help worrying that if the Andersons – his parents – realized that he didn't know anything about himself or them, they might leave.
Laura shook Pam, James, and Cooper's hands, but he kept his own firmly stuffed in his jeans pockets. A handshake seemed too formal a greeting for the people who were supposed to be his family, but a hug far too intimate. He settled for nodding his head and trying to smile. Pam had squeezed his shoulder, which should have been uncomfortable or awkward or something coming from a near-stranger, but instead eased some of the tension roiling inside him.
They all ordered food, and then an uncomfortable silence fell over the table. After a series of meaningful glances shared between the parents and brother that he couldn't even begin to comprehend, he finally broke the silence.
"So," he cleared his throat and looked down at his notebook. "I'm still 15?"
It had seemed like a simple question, one of the first things you ask a person when getting to know them. But Pam nearly choked on her sip of water.
"What do you mean?" Cooper asked, quickly trying to cover for his – their – mother.
"Um, well, I found that website. I mean, Syd did. And she showed it to me. And you mentioned that my birthday is in July?" He hadn't meant it to sound like a question, even if it was one.
"July 20, 1995," James said quietly.
He wrote that down, ignoring their stares.
"Did you, I mean, what was your birthday before?" Cooper asked awkwardly.
"Mo - she told me it was February 8, so I thought I was already 16," he said. "I guess that was the real Peter," he added quietly. No one quite knew how to respond to that.
Finally Pam jumped in. "Yes, like Cooper said, your birthday is the 20th. Maybe we can have a celebration, with the Johnsons and whoever else you'd want to attend."
He looked down. "I mean, are you guys going to still be here then? Am I?"
Glances were shared all around, and finally they found Laura at the next table. She'd been listening in, but obviously was not there to be a part of the conversation.
"That all depends on the Ohio ICPC process and how these visits go," she said. It was evasive, but the best answer she could give. "It's also up to you."
He tried to stay away from notebook topics after that, but still found himself jotting down notes as they came up. Pam mentioned a sister, his aunt. Cooper mentioned a girlfriend.
"Well, not really. It's more of a no-strings kind of relationship," Cooper said, with a wink thrown to him.
"Oh Cooper, that's not the sort of thing you tell your mother!" Pam scolded lovingly.
"Yeah, but it is the sort of thing I tell a brother, right squirt?" Cooper looked at him as if he should agree, and should share stories of his conquests of the opposite sex as well. His stomach dropped.
He grew more and more despondent as the lunch progressed, and thankfully Laura was soon wrapping the visit up, promising another one tomorrow.
Back in Syd's bedroom, they laid head to head on her floor talking about nothing and everything while music played in the background. It was the most normal he'd felt in ages, until an ad in her Pandora popped up and the Free Credit Rating Today jingle started playing.
"Oh my God ," she said, laughing. "I can't believe he's your brother. I can't believe you had a crush on your brother!"
He threw a pillow at her. "It wasn't a crush. I just appreciated his looks."
"Sure," Syd said, drawing the word into two long syllables.
Both teens were quiet for a few minutes, letting the music wash over them.
"So, what's it like?" Syd asked. "Y'know, meeting your family and stuff."
He drew in a deep breath. "It's weird. Like there's some stuff that just feels really familiar and comfortable, and I guess that's like muscle memory from when I was a kid or whatever. But mostly I just feel like I can't do anything right with them."
"What are you talking about, Pe- I mean… sorry. It's just, it's obvious that they basically worship the ground you walk on. Did you see the way they were looking at you at that meeting? It's like you turned on the sun or something."
"I don't think that's how the saying goes," he said, trying to avoid the other part of what she'd said.
"Ugh. That doesn't matter. Why would you think you're screwing this up?"
"It's just – everything I say makes them sad," he finally admitted. "You should have seen Pam's face when I asked about my birthday. Did you know I'm not even 16 yet?"
Syd paused. "Oh. That stuff. Well they can't expect you to remember, can they?"
"But they do. And then there's another problem. What am I even supposed to call them? I get it, they're my bio parents or whatever. But when I say mom, I still think of her , not of Pam. And calling James 'dad' just doesn't feel right yet, either."
Sydney was quiet, just letting her friend vent his frustrations.
"But if I tried to call them Pam or James or something I know they would just – break. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here."
Syd finally rolled over and pulled him into a hug. "No one does, kid. You're trying your hardest. Maybe just don't call them anything for now? Just avoid names altogether?"
He nodded and sniffled a bit, then looked up into Syd's eyes. "'Kid?'" he asked. "Really? Just because I'm a couple of months younger than we thought?"
"Ah youth, I remember it well," Sydney said, adopting a fake posh affectation before devolving into giggles.
He joined her, and soon they were laid down again, listening to music, and things felt normal.
James and Pam left a few days before July 20th. He could tell that they had wanted to stay, to celebrate his "birthday," and maybe some kids would have jumped at the chance for a second birthday, a second set of gifts. But he still didn't feel quite right in his new skin, in his new identity, and he didn't want to push that.
Laura and the Johnsons had been such great advocates for him about that. When Syd explained the problem to her parents, they rallied around him and assured him that there was nothing he needed to do. They encouraged him to talk to Laura. Then Laura was willing to have the uncomfortable conversation with James, Pam, and Cooper so that he didn't have to see their faces when the news was delivered.
Cooper had stuck around, as he didn't live with his parents anymore and didn't need to be present for the home study. He had shyly invited the older man to his play, which would be opening at the end of the month and playing through mid-August. Cooper was more than thrilled to attend, and even offered acting tips, which he had refused.
July 20th passed without fanfare or notice.
With Laura and the Department's okay, Heather and Paul were approved to supervise visits with his family, so Cooper had come to dinner twice. Something clicked with Cooper and Syd; maybe it was because Syd had always been like a sister to him and Cooper was biologically his brother. Regardless of the reason, the two had teamed up against him to share only the most embarrassing stories.
One night, he went up to his room after dinner, too exhausted from rehearsal to stick around. As he descended the stairs to get a glass of water before bed, he overheard a conversation between Cooper and Syd.
"I've known Peter for - well, forever," Sydney said quietly. "We became best friends almost right away when I came here in second grade. We were even each others' first kiss.
"And his mom, too. I mean, she was always a bit overprotective, never letting Pete go anywhere unless she knew exactly where he was and not letting him drive or anything, but I always assumed it was because of the fire. That's what she told us. That there was a fire that killed the rest of their family back in Philadelphia and that's why they moved here. She didn't want to lose Pete, too, and it made sense.
"I guess, what I'm just trying to say is...well, I can't believe it. I mean, I know the facts. I know you guys really are his family and he really is Blaine. But - you just never expect this sort of thing to happen to people you know, you know?"
Cooper nodded slowly. "I get it. And I know what you're feeling, at least a little bit. But Blaine - we've never given up on him, and even though he's grown up already, we're not going to let him get away just because he doesn't remember us anymore. He's still my baby brother. I still remember holding him to stop him crying when mom and dad first brought him home from the hospital. We're not trying to take him away from you, and we'll never keep him from seeing you, but we want our time with him, too. You've had him for twelve years. We want our turn now."
He had to turn away, forgetting the water entirely. He knew that everyone only wanted what was best, but it felt like he was being pulled in too many directions. It felt like he was playing a game where he was the only one who didn't know the rules.
Like Syd calling him "kid," Cooper had also easily adapted to the "avoid the name" mandate and called him "squirt." There was something almost familiar about it, like a long forgotten memory. It took him longer than he'd hoped to build up the courage to ask about it.
"Why do you call me that?" he asked one day, seemingly out of the blue.
Cooper and Syd were busy kicking his ass in MarioKart, and he had drifted off while driving his cart into a wall. Not his fault that mo – she had never allowed him video games while growing up.
"Huh?" Cooper asked, only half listening.
"Squirt. You keep calling me Squirt."
"Um, I don't know," he said. "Habit, I guess. I called you that as a kid a lot because you were tiny. Not that you've grown much since then."
"Hey, I'm average height!" he said. He was sometimes surprised at how easily banter like this flowed, especially when compared to the long, awkward conversations when Pam and James had also been present.
When moments like this happened, he often noticed Syd watching them with a sad smile on her face. That night, he snuck into her room after her parents had gone to bed to see why.
"Why do you always look sad when Cooper and I talk?" he asked, resting his head on the pillow next to hers. Their faces were so close their noses were nearly touching. It was intimate, in the way that two people who love each other very much can be without touching.
"I'm not sad," she protested.
"You can't lie to me. I know you too well."
"I'm not sad, not really. I mean it. I just – whenever I see you like that I think about how I wouldn't have ever met you if this awful thing hadn't happened, and I feel guilty for being thankful about that. And then I think about how you really do talk like brothers, and I remember that you're going to leave soon."
He'd never thought of that. He'd spent so much time in his own head, thinking about his own problem, that he'd never stopped to think about how it impacted the people around him. Sure, he had more reason than most to be self-centered, all things considered. But still.
"I don't want to leave you. But I couldn't imagine trying to tell them that either," he said truthfully. There was no other answer, nothing else he could say to make this better and magically fix the situation. They were living in a royally fucked up story, and there was no changing that.
"What's going to happen, when you move?"
"I don't know."
"I heard my parents saying that the social worker wants you to leave before the end of the summer."
"Yeah," he said. "She told me that too. She said that Ohio is finishing the home study and Pam and James are taking their kinship classes or whatever. They want me to start the new school year there so I don't have too many transitions at once."
"What am I gonna do without you, kid?"
"Oh come on, Miss Popularity. You'll be fine without me. What am I gonna do without you ?" He really meant it. He'd never been as good at making friends, and especially now with everyone knowing who he was and wasn't. How would he know who was really on his side without Sydney there to reassure him?
"I'm gonna miss you so much."
Cooper went back to LA after another week. He'd stayed to see him in the play, to take him out to dinner to celebrate, but seemed to intuitively know that he needed some alone time to recalibrate before everything changed even more.
"Mom and dad and I will be back in a couple of weeks. We're all going to go back to Ohio together to get you settled in," Cooper had said before hugging him goodbye and heading to the airport.
After that, summer almost became normal again. Sure, he got more stares than normal when he went out, but despite the earth shattering changes in his own personal world, the rest of the world had kept going. He spent his days hanging out with Syd, and sometimes their other friends, too. They would go to the mall, or to a local park. They'd get dinner and see movies. The normalcy felt almost wrong.
Other than the night when Syd had showed him the website, he stayed away from the internet. Sure, he and Syd still spent plenty of time watching videos on YouTube and pirating episodes of their favorite TV shows, but he stayed away from anything informative.
While Syd was out at a club meeting, planning their activities for the coming school year, and her parents were at work, he finally pulled out her laptop and opened up Facebook. He hadn't logged in since before everything, and he was overwhelmed to find hundreds of messages, notifications, and friend requests. Rather than trying to sift through it, he simply deleted the account. His Twitter went the same way.
Then he pulled up Google. He stared at the empty search bar for a while, not sure what to type in. Who was he looking for, Blaine or Peter? Finally, he settled on both names, and pressed enter.
It took less than a second to bring up videos, articles, pictures – anything and everything the reporters had found in the last month was on display for the whole world to see.
He saw a picture from a field trip in the third grade, a big red circle around his head. There was a video from the school musical. There were interviews with teachers, the police, mom-Marilyn's old coworkers, even his friends.
He was disgusted. All of these people talking about him, as if he was merely some interesting movie and not a real person that they had all interacted with.
When Mrs. Johnson returned home, he was on the sixth page of results and seemed not to be slowing down. She took one look at the boy and quietly closed the laptop in front of him.
"None of that matters. People will say things, but you're the only one who knows your truth. Got it?" she said.
He nodded and gladly fell into her outstretched arms for a hug.
When the Andersons returned, they had another long meeting at the DSS office. He was mostly zoning out throughout it, because it seemed to have more to do with what the Andersons had to do rather than anything he needed to do. But he still appreciated being included and given a voice, even if he had no idea what to do with it or say.
Pam had looked pained when he asked about "his stuff" going back to Ohio with them, as if she couldn't bear the thought of anything that Marilyn had touched remaining. In fact, he was sure of that, if the clothes, shoes, and phone she had bought for him were anything to go by.
But if she didn't want any reminders of Marilyn, then she'd have to get rid of most of what remained that made him who he was today.
Cooper spoke up, even before Laura, to insist that they hire a truck to drive the boxes to Ohio. He found himself smiling at his brother.
His brother.
It was the first time he'd thought of Cooper with those words, as anything more than another person who had dropped into his life this past summer.
He smiled a little, liking how it sounded. Growing up, he'd always wanted a sibling. Syd was great, but she wasn't always there, and she hadn't had to deal with mom's weird rules. A sibling, especially a brother, would have changed everything.
And now he had one.
He looked over at Cooper, reverence in his eyes.
Pam had been watching her two boys throughout the meeting, loving the easy way they interacted, even if it broke her heart to know that Blaine couldn't be that easy and open with her yet. When she saw the look Blaine gave Cooper, it was like her heart stopped.
That look.
She'd seen that look countless times in those precious few years they had Blaine before . Blaine, the toddler who had adored his big brother more than anything.
That Blaine was back.
And if that Blaine was coming back, she was sure her Blaine could survive, too.
Amusingly, I'd named him Peter and written the Peter Pan references (more coming in future chapters) long before WendyPeters became my beta. The happiest coincidence!