Chapter Text
Betty is running with Archie a week after his birthday, when she first notices it. Something is up. His shoulders look tight, his jaw is set. She doesn’t know what to say. That night as Betty washes the dishes and Jughead’s scrubbing the counters. He tops and asks “What’s wrong with Archie?”
“I don’t know.” Betty says turning off the tap and walking over to Jug. “He hasn’t told me anything, but something is off.”
“Do you think he’s developing feelings for someone?” Jughead asks. He puts a hand gently on her hip as he asks it, his tea towel abandoned.
“No. It’s been a while, but I think I still remember the signs. I think it’s something else.”
“What?” Jughead asks. His expression is so open, she knows that he’s thinking about how they can make whatever Archie’s going through better. But that’s not how life works, always.
“I think he’s ready for something more. He just doesn’t know how to get there.”
A smile seizes Jughead’s face, “Fucking finally.” Betty can’t help but laugh.
Betty’s life is full of good things, lazy Sunday mornings where the kids watch TV and they get to cuddle in bed with coffee. Date nights with bottles of wine and long conversations about Chandler. Work evenings where they are on the verge of solving something, they’re just not sure what. Long walks with the kids through mud puddles. Hide and Seek with Fred and Archie.
Most of those things she shares with Jughead. Lots of those things they share with their children, and only some of those things does Archie get to be a part of.
Their friendship is one of the best things in all of their lives, but it can’t replace a romantic relationship, or the one of a parent with a child. The more Betty thinks about that fact, the more she wants to fix it.
Betty can’t remember meeting Jughead. They became friends in a time before memory exists. She can remember kissing him for the first time in the woods behind her house, but she can’t remember falling in love with him then, because love is something that already existed between them. Never in her life has she looked for a partner, because she always had one.
Now she finds herself in supermarkets, at the school pick up line, and at work, looking for a partner for Archie.
She rather embarrassingly makes and shares a Google doc with Jughead of all the qualities Archie’s ideal partner should have. At the top of the list, underlined and in bold is the sentence, “They must like us”.
Jughead laughs when he reads that. “Are you implying that Sabrina was the right partner for Archie, or would have been if she just liked us?”
“No.” Betty snaps, and then more honestly adds “Maybe.”
“He wouldn’t have let her go that easily if that was the case.” Jughead says, resting a hand on her shoulder. “So please, if you’re still feeling guilty about it, stop.”. Betty does, but it doesn’t help her find anyone who might work for Archie.
The only potential candidate Jughead finds ends up being a lesbian in a committed relationship. Betty thinks he’s not taking it seriously enough. Not that she’s doing any better. She doesn’t want to lose Archie to apathy or angst. Every time they run, his shoulders appear tighter.
Still she teaches him how to roast the perfect chicken, and he teaches Thea how to play row row row your boat on the piano, and they all go camping and Archie somehow manages to catch a fish.
Some moments, particularly with the kids, or after a good meal, he seems like the Archie she’s known her whole life. Easy going, funny without always meaning to be, dependable to a fault, but other times, he seems withdrawn, full of something he isn’t putting into words.
She notices him drinking a little too much, being quicker to anger than he ever was before. It worries her.
When she and Jughead come back from a week away working a high priority case, they find him fighting with the nanny they’d hired in their absence about video games. There is no humor in their argument.
Archie shuts up as soon as he sees them, but that night before they go to bed, Jughead says, “You’re right. We need to find him someone to share his life with.”
“Why couldn’t you have said that a month ago?”
“Sometimes I’m a slow learner.” Jughead says lightly, pressing his hand against her stomach. It’s so cold she screams and retaliates with tickles.
Still it’s hard. It seems like most smart, funny, beautiful women are already taken or not interested.
Then, about two months into the search for Archie’s partner, Betty is cheering on Elliot from the sidelines as he kicks the ball. She loves being a soccer mom.
If someone told the fifteen year old version of herself that being a mom was one of her callings, she would have politely shaken her head while thinking something snarky.
Fred was the only reason she was brave enough to attempt becoming a parent in the first place. She told him her doubts and fears once when he was visiting them, he told her that she was as far from Alice as the north pole was from the south.
It was far from the first (or last) time he reassured her. Whenever Betty complains about their lack of role models for parenting, Jughead is quick to remind her of Fred. He’d adopted them both in his own way.
Betty knows she isn’t a terrible mother because of how Elliot and Thea confide in her. The amount of time they spent snuggled into her side. The way that their bodies didn’t tense when she got angry.
Elliot scores a goal and Betty screams with joy. If Jughead were here right now he’d be making so much fun of her. If Archie were here, he’d be screaming twice as loudly as she was. But it’s early in the season still, so it’s just her.
The game restarts and Elliot kicks the ball to his team mate Max, a small boy who looks more dignified than any five year old Betty has ever met, even in a stained soccer jersey and cleats.
A woman walks over to Betty. She’s short but strikingly beautiful, with dark brown hair and piercing eyes, but what Betty notices most about her is that she’s wearing a string of pearls. Betty’s never met anyone under 60 that wears pearls like that, and certainly not to a kiddie league soccer game.
“Is that your son?” the woman asks, pointing at Elliot.
“Yes.” Betty says. “Are you Max’s mom?”
“Yes, I’m Veronica.” As Veronica introduces herself, someone on the opposing team tackles Max like it’s football not soccer. Veronica charges onto the field high heels and all, yelling.
The parent of the other child comes onto the field as well, to defend him of all things, and the coach isn’t intervening at all, and even though they are only halfway through the game, Betty feels strongly that kid’s sports should not be like this.
So she marches out onto the field, grabs Elliot’s hand and turns to Veronica and says “Why don’t we just get out of here?”
Suddenly, the coach is very much involved. While Max isn’t much of a player, Elliot is their top scorer, but Betty’s no longer interested in hearing the coach’s opinion. She waves him off with her hand and the expression she usually reserves for hardened criminals.
Neither boy seems to mind, and Betty frankly feels invigorated by the time they make it to the parking lot.
Veronica turns to her and says, “Do you want to go get burgers at Joe’s, my treat?”. In that moment Betty is struck with love at first sight. It’s not romantic love, her heart had been taken in that regards a long time ago, but she feels the love that comes with friendship.
She’s not used to that. Betty made her two best friends before her memory started, so this sort of thing is new for her.
“As long as you let me pay for the milkshakes.” Betty says.
Veronica’s smile is bright and in that second a memory shifts into place, like a key into a lock. Betty realizes that while this is her first time meeting Veronica, it’s not her first time seeing her.
She remembers looking at Veronica four years ago across a crowded courtroom. They were both witnesses for the prosecution. Veronica was testifying against her husband, a mob boss Betty and Jughead had helped catch.
“You’re Veronica Grade.” Betty says, her hand still in Elliot’s.
“Not anymore. I’m Veronica Lodge once again.” Veronica says, looking shocked. “How did you know?” But before Betty can even answer the question, Veronica figures it out “You’re Betty fucking Jones.”
“The one and only.” Betty smiles back. She’s used to struggling to explain exactly what she does for a living, but Veronica, having seen her give her testimony knows all that already.
She also realizes that Veronica isn’t going to hold that against her, this is another point in her favor.
Betty’s never had a close female friend before, and Veronica quickly fits into that role in a way Betty could have never anticipated. It helps that they’re both mothers with limited time, but somewhat flexible schedules.
They start going out for coffee once a week and end up spending most afternoons at the park with their kids. Betty realizes pretty quickly how Veronica might fit into her life in a greater and more permanent way. How she might have finally found the right partner for Archie. She has to run Veronica by Jughead first.
Veronica comes over one night to pick up Max and Betty offers dinner. Jughead already has plenty of burgers on the grill and Veronica agrees.
When they first sit down to eat, Jughead and Veronica are both a little cold to each other. They’ve both heard a lot about the other from Betty, but outside of exchanging children quickly, they’ve never really talked.
Plus Jughead’s naturally wary of strangers. He’s never been as social as Betty. No one ever trained him to be polite, and frankly he’s never seen the point.
Halfway through dinner, Veronica calls him Smughead when his mouth is fully occupied by a burger and he has no hope of replying.
Betty can tell that he likes being put in his place. He’s always appreciated honesty, and now he knows that Veronica’s honest. That aside from the pearls and designer shoes, there stands a fighter. Someone fierce and willing to stand up for themselves, much like him. After dinner he offers her a cigarette and she accepts.
All three of them sit on the back porch talking after the kids fall asleep. Betty sits away from the smoke and watches as the two of them have a lively debate about Audrey Hepburn.
That night in bed, while they are lying in spoons Jughead says “I think you’re right about Veronica and Archie.”
“Of course I’m right, I’m the wife. The wife is always right.”
“That’s not a thing you know?” Jughead says raising an eyebrow. “You’re not right because you’re my wife, you’re right because you’re you.”
When she turns to face him, he kisses her on her forehead and then the tip of her nose, and then on her mouth, where her lips push back against his.
“You’re such a softie.” Betty says when he pulls away, although his face stays close to hers.
“I’ll have you know that I have a reputation as quite the opposite in some circles.”
“I’m glad I’m not in those circles.” Betty says. “Although Veronica told me the nickname the FBI gave us and it’s not exactly bad ass.”
Jughead raises both eyebrows questioningly. “So what is it?”
“The lovebirds.”
“Really?” Betty knows how to read Jughead’s expressions well, that’s how she knows he’s torn between exasperation and delight. “Even after we took down that one serial killer in Wyoming?”
Betty nods and Jughead kisses her again. It’s a different kind of kiss, his lips pressing into her collarbone.
“Are you trying to prove them wrong?” Betty asks.
“Hell no.”
Still, even though she knows Archie will love Veronica, and Veronica will love Archie, Betty wants to set this whole thing up right. She doesn’t rush into anything. Instead she’s very careful about what she says to Veronica about Archie and vice versa. She sets the stage so to speak, and then before she knows it it’s Elliot’s sixth birthday party and it’s time for her plan to be put into action.
***
Veronica loves Betty, she really, really does. In a way that goes beyond friendship and is more like what family should be.
But sometimes on days like this, where Jughead is there, his arm almost permanently looped around Betty’s side, and the house they live in is decorated to look like something out of Martha Stewart Living: Booklovers Special Edition, and everything seeming so nuclear family idyllic, Veronica could scream.
But it’s Elliot’s birthday party, and she loves Elliot, and more to the point Max loves Elliot, (and cake), so Veronica is there, in her best casual sundress, with a smile pasted on her face she knows Betty can see through.
Still she greets the other parents, all paired off with partners, as if she is genuinely happy to see them. When one woman she knows from soccer pulls out her phone to show her pictures of this “perfect couples retreat” it grows to be too much, and Veronica goes to the kitchen to hide out.
Jughead’s already there, mixing drinks and entertaining Thea who declares herself “Too big to enjoy little kid parties”.
Jughead must be able to read Veronica’s expression pretty well because he hands her an extra strong mojito and says, “If you want to go outside for a second and clear your head, I hid some cigarettes in the base of the sundial.”
When Veronica first met Jughead she wasn’t sure if she liked him. His guarded nature and combat boot aesthetic was a little off putting to her. But he’d changed her mind pretty quickly, with his sharp and careful wit, by the way he took to Max, the way he loved Betty.
“I’ll take you up on that offer.” she says, unlatching their back door and going out into the garden. The sundial, also known as Jughead’s not so secret smoking spot, was in a grove of trees in the back of the Jones’s very large backyard.
Veronica lifts up the base of the dial to reveal a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She takes one out of the packaging and is just lighting up when she hears a man say, “Hey Jug, are you back here?”
“No.” Veronica responds just as the man comes into view. He’s tall with orange hair and broad shoulders. He’s probably Jughead and Betty’s age but he seems younger. As cliché as it seems, she’ll admit her first thought about him is he’s handsome.
“Oh, hey.” he says, a look of surprise crosses his face and then an even bigger smile “You must be Veronica.”
“And you must be the above garage uncle.”
Archie laughs. It’s a good laugh. Deep and low. “I go by Archie, but yes.”
“Max loves you.” Veronica says. She finds it strange that Max has met this man before but she has not. She has certainly heard a lot about him. Betty and Jughead’s best friend since birth, the lovable, laid back music teacher.
“It’s good to finally meet you.” Archie says, and she knows then that he’s been as curious about her as she has been about him. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I don’t usually. It’s just an occasional bad habit. It was getting a little Stepford-y in there for me. Do you smoke?”
“No.” Archie says with a shake of his head. “But I get what you mean about Stepford. Sometimes I feel like the odd man out in family suburbia.”
Veronica notices how his eyes gleam with mischief.
Then Archie says, “You know they’re not actually perfect right?”
“The lovebirds fight?” Veronica says, arching an eyebrow. She’s shocked to hear that. It’s not like she’s known them for more than six months, but sometimes those two are so sympatico it’s scary. She’s seen them have an entire conversation without a single word, or even an exaggerated expression.
She had to fake a happy marriage with Elio for years, and she thinks she’s gotten pretty good at seeing through any masks people may be wearing.
Archie looks shocked, then laughs. “If they do fight, it’s not much. I meant you must know Betty and Jughead aren't all bake sales and PTA.”
“Oh, I know.” Veronica says, although sometimes she forgets. They are good parents as well as good consultants. “I was married to one of the mob bosses they brought down.”
“One of….” Archie doesn’t finish that sentence. “I try not to pry into their work too much.”
Veronica feels a smile play on her lips, but instead of giving into it she takes another puff of her cigarette. “I understand completely.”
They’re the only two single people at the party, but that’s probably not the only reason they gravitate to each other.
She likes watching how good Archie is with Max first hand. With Betty and Jughead, Archie acts a bit like the little brother. Close to both of them, and a little adoring.
Over lunch Archie tells her all about what goes into writing a song and Veronica actually finds it interesting.
At the end of the afternoon, after sneaking a kiss instead of a smoke, Veronica returns to the kitchen to see Betty elbow deep in suds, cleaning the dishes. Only then, when she sees the smug smile on Betty’s face does she realize that this was a set up.
She doesn’t give Betty the satisfaction of knowing how it worked out then, although she’s sure Archie spills the beans after she leaves.
Veronica always swore up and down if she ever got involved with anyone ever again it would be slow and steady. She wouldn’t do overnights for a year and she would wait six months before introducing Max. With Archie everything was turned on its head.
Archie already knew Max well before he met Veronica, and overnights were so easy with Max sleeping over all the time anyways at the Jones’s. She meets Fred in the first month that they are officially dating. Fred is welcoming, soft spoken and quick to embrace Max.
Somehow within six months of their first date (a jazz concert in a nearby town), Archie moves in with Veronica. Thea and Elliot cry and Max looks like he’s won the lottery. It’s all short lived because three months after that the house next door to Betty and Jughead’s goes on the market.
They buy it right away. Before they even move in, they get rid of the fence. It just makes sense to move in next to Betty and Jughead. Everyone is so close that they eat dinner there three times a week already.
Even though Archie, Jughead, and Betty have known each other forever, Veronica always feels included. Sometimes they have to get her up to speed on inside jokes, but mostly she just fits in seamlessly. She wonders sometimes what it would have been like to grow up with them in Riverdale. To have such strong friendships when she was young would have done her good.
Veronica’s never been in love before. What she had with Elio was arranged by both their parents. She feels happier than she’s ever thought possible, giddy with everything she’s experiencing for the first time.
The first evening in their new house, half their stuff is still in cardboard boxes around them and they’re in bed. Veronica is lying on Archie’s chest, his hand wrapped around her waist. Both their names are on the deed and she finally feels brave enough to say “You’re the only person I’ve ever loved.”
“Really?” Archie asks. She can’t see his face, but she can hear his skepticism.
“Really.”
“Me too.”
“What?” Veronica’s shocked. She sits upright. She knows that Archie’s been with a lot of women. They’ve had enough awkward encounters with girls around town to prove that point. He’d never really mentioned anyone special, but she’d always assumed. She’d even tried to get him to talk about it a few times.
“You’re the love of my life.” Archie says softly sitting up beside her, putting his arms around her again. “Before you, I hadn’t been in a real relationship since college and even that wasn’t particularly real.”
“Oh.” Veronica exhales.
Archie stands up and goes over to his newly moved in set of drawers. In just his boxers, he shuffles through the top drawer and then pulls out a small turquoise box. “I know this is a little soon, and you’d probably appreciate something more planned out…”
He’s down on one knee and he doesn’t even finish the sentence, she doesn’t even let him ask the question because she’s shouting yes and kissing him, and only once she has the ring on does she notice how beautiful it is.
She cries a little and they kiss a lot, and then she flops back down on the bed and looks at the ring again. It’s perfect in every way. It suits her in the way the one she wore before never did.
“Did Betty help you pick it out?” she asks.
“Yes. Is that a problem?” Archie’s blushing now.
“No. She just has better taste than you.” Veronica notices that Archie’s gone quiet. “Wait, did you think it would be a problem?”
“Yes.” Archie says with a shrug. “Other girlfriends were not that fond of her, or Jug to be honest.”
Veronica laughs. “It probably helps that I fell for them first. Platonically speaking.”
“Yeah. I figured that much out.” Archie says.
“I love you.” she says, feeling the weight of each word as she says it. “I love you so much.”
***
Jughead groans “How many selfies is V going to send you of that damn ring?”
“As many as she wants.” Betty says. She’s curled into his side. They’ve got the back window open, so it’s not too stuffy in the room. There is a nice breeze, and the lights are off. Betty’s face is illuminated by the light of her cell phone. Betty turns it off.
“It is a big deal.” Jughead says. He’s not really thinking about Archie marrying Veronica, but of Veronica officially being part of their lives for as long as they all shall live, presumably. He likes Veronica a lot more than pretty much anyone else who isn’t in his de facto family already.
“It is. But you know how you always say that the three musketeers actually involved four people?”
“Yes.” Jughead says, a little surprised by the change in topic.
“Veronica’s our fourth person. She makes us the three musketeers.”
When Betty phrases it like that, he gets it a little better. “So what you’re saying is that we’re finally complete?”
“Exactly.” Betty adds after a pause, “Besides I don’t know how much longer the kids were going to buy the lie we told them about Archie’s string of women.”
“You mean that they were overnight music students? I don’t think Thea bought that ever.”
“Really?” Betty says propping herself up on one arm.
“I think they both inherited their investigative skills from us.” Jughead says.
“Not Elliot, he spent a whole day trying to solve the mystery of his missing chocolate bar and finally gave up, even though Thea had chocolate on her face when he asked her about it.”
Jughead laughs and shakes his head, “I hope Max and Elliot get to keep the friendship they have, the way we’ve kept ours with Archie.”
A bittersweet look crosses Betty’s face for a moment, although Jughead can’t make it out. It’s pretty dark in their room. “It won’t ever be the same for them, they will never need each other like we did, at least I hope not.”
“Why not?”
“Because you and I were born without real families, it just took us a while to figure that out. We needed Archie, Fred, and each other to feel sane. Our children don’t need that the same way.”
Jughead sighs. Sometimes because of how wonderful their life has turned out to be, with dream jobs, a nice house, and goofy children, - he forgets what came before, what forged Betty and he together, into the strongest of structures.
But the Betty and Jughead who grew up hiding in back rooms and sneaking meals for completely different reasons, couldn’t even imagine what their futures would hold. They might not have made it there, but for Archie and Fred.
Over the next month Jughead discovers that he had every reason to be leery of Archie and Veronica getting engaged. Not because it makes Veronica more involved in their lives, but because of the wedding itself. It turns out that Veronica wants this wedding to be even more fabulous than her first, which involved no fewer than three different live bands.
Now of course she’s operating on less of a budget, but that doesn’t stop Veronica from buying a dress that costs more than Jughead’s car. But that doesn’t bother Jughead, how other people spend their money is none of his damn business.
It’s the amount of help and time she is taking from Betty as part of this whole wedding ordeal that is his business. He moans about it, both to Betty and to the Bridezilla herself, but neither take him too seriously. Jughead thinks the whole thing is silly. Betty is too old to be the maid of honor. He is smart enough not to voice this particular thought out loud.
Which leads Jughead to his second complaint. He has no desire to be the best man. More importantly he has less than zero interest in throwing a bachelor party. Thankfully, Jughead has a personal assistant at work and he makes her put together the actual plans for the event, but Jughead still has to show up for the event itself.
It’s a pub crawl, with no strippers, but way too many dude bros and an increasingly drunk Archie. Jughead has locked everyone’s phones away for the festivities, including his own. He’s also not drinking, so he’s beyond bored and a little grumpy by the end of the night when he loads a completely sloshed Archie into the passenger’s seat of his car, and heads towards home. The other guys making their way home in an uber.
“Jug! Jug! Jug!” Archie slurs.
“Yeah Arch?” Jughead’s at a stop light so he glances over to look at Archie. He’s slumped against the door, his seat belt still on, his eyes red rimmed.
“I’m scared!”
“Of what?”
“Spending the rest of my life with one person. Commitment is scary.”
Jughead laughs “I’m the wrong person to ask.”
“Why?” Archie slurs and Jughead wonders how drunk he really is, but then Archie clarifies “Is it because you’ve been together with Betty since middle school?”
“Kind of.” And then because Jughead sees no reason not to tell Archie this, he adds. “We took a break once. When we first went to college. Alice was being such a bitch and Betty felt like she needed space to figure things out, and we both thought that that was the right thing to do. Give each other space to figure things out on our own.”
Even decades later Jughead remembers this as a dark time. He and Betty were still friends, they were still living together, just as roommates, but there was this whole part of his soul he felt cut off from. He felt like he was pretending to be single, pretending to be someone he was not.
Since at that point Archie didn’t acknowledge their relationship in the first place, neither of them talked to him about it. Back then they felt so mature, like they were doing the right thing, the adult thing, because who ends up with their middle school sweetheart?
“So what, you just got back together when I started dating Sabrina?”
“No. We didn’t even last that long without each other. About two weeks before that we got back together.”
“Oh. I’m actually a little relieved that you’ve kissed someone that isn’t Betty.” Archie’s sitting up now, like the conversation is reviving him a little.
Jughead chuckles, “Oh no, don’t go that far. I tried dating, Betty tried dating, but outside of a few awkward cups of coffee that was that.”
“Oh.” Archie says, he sounds a little disappointed by the lack of scandal. “How come you’re not like, super bored?” When Jughead doesn’t answer the question, Archie clarifies. “In bed. Doesn’t it get really, really boring?”
Jughead feels his face turn bright red. Of all the words to describe his sex life, that was definitely not one that came to mind, even remotely. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Drunk Archie is asking a question that sober Archie really doesn’t want to know the answer to. So as sober Arche’s best friend, I’m not going to answer it.”
“Noooo!”Archie whines.
Sober Archie never asks Jughead the question.
The wedding itself is awful from Jughead’s perspective, full of stiff collars and formal words, but he got married in a court house with a drunk outside the room, so who is he to judge? Besides, Archie and Veronica are happy, beyond that even.
Thea, Elliot, and Max all seem equally as thrilled. Each of them has a role in the wedding itself. Thea is a bridesmaid, and Max is the ring bearer, and Elliot is assistant to the ring bearer (a position Jughead’s pretty sure Veronica has cooked up out of the kindness of her heart).
It goes late and Betty and Jughead bring all three kids home with them. After loading them into bed, Jughead and Betty share a slice of wedding cake in the kitchen.
“I’m so glad we skipped all that.” Betty says. Jughead clinks his fork against hers, in his own version of cheers.
It turns out that the old adage is true. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a very expensive, hand-made in the USA baby carriage. Veronica and Archie welcome Paris Andrews to the world a year later and Jughead’s baby gift is keeping his mouth shut about the name they chose.
“Jug, it’s Paris as in France. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.” Betty says.
“Then why do I keep thinking Paris as is Hilton?”
But as much as Jughead loathes the name, he loves the baby. He steals any opportunity he has to cuddle it and Veronica affectionately calls him a “baby slut.” Still he doesn’t try to talk Betty into having another one, because it’s much easier to just borrow one.
It turns out that generally having Veronica around is a huge bonus, once they’re past the wedding stage. She makes Archie so happy and she helps curb Betty’s perfectionist tendency, she even encourages Jughead to make pretentious literary references.
Only in retrospect does Jughead fully realize how much Archie needed Veronica. He doesn’t know why it took him so long to figure it out. After all, Jughead was a sane and legitimate member of society because of his partner.
Instead of three friends that share everything from child care to drunken song writing sessions (ok, that only happened once, but it was memorable), they’ve become four friends, who swap children and chores and meals, and share a whole lot of time and more than a few vacations.
Twenty years down the line, when it’s impossible to not think of Veronica as one of the three musketeers, when Elliot and Max kiss in their parents shared backyard and walk to a beautifully restored old mustang under sprinkles of confetti and cheering, Jughead and Archie hug each other. They may not share a last name, but their sons do now.
Family is made by choice, Jughead thinks. When they officially sell the consulting business in their early sixties instead of writing another true crime book, he and Betty sit down together in the above garage suite turned studio and craft a book of fairy-tales and friendship for their first grandchild. Archie records a companion CD with Veronica providing vocals.