Chapter Text
In the most surprising parallel to their teenage musings, they can see the Eiffel Tower from the bathroom window. Granted, they aren’t living in Paris and Betty doesn’t paint. Jughead writes, though, up until late hours of the night and Betty has to pull him out of his seat and lure him into bed with soft kisses to his neck and her sweet voice convincing him he needs to either sleep or kiss her. Both, most times. He won’t complain. In Paris, he isn’t writing though. They aren’t in a little apartment, they’re in a hotel, across the ocean from their actual home, celebrating the fact that Betty is officially a lawyer. And until lunch, like he said they would as a dopey and whipped seventeen-year-old, they don’t wonder how loud they were as he showed her just how proud he is of her. His seventeen-year-old self really had no clue of how their life would be like in the future.
They’re on the balcony having breakfast, overlooking the city and Betty’s smile makes it worth the money he saved up for the trip so he could surprise her. She had worked her ass off for the past three years and now she had passed the bar, a thousand breakdowns later, as she had put it. And he couldn’t be prouder of her.
Thinking back on the last three years, he thinks he’s never been more grateful for anything in his life. To think, as a teenager he thought they had an expiration date, that surely things would blow. And then college and all the hardships that came with it plus the distance. Nothing had been easy, not one thing had been handed to them and they’d worked hard and they had grown with each other to get to where they are now. Even in these three years, they’d had to still put in the work. Because nothing in life is easy, that’s just what life is. It isn’t supposed be sunshine and rainbows and for every fantasy he had ever had, he thinks the real feeling of happiness he gets when he comes home each day surpasses his imagination.
“What are you thinking about?” Betty smiles, reaching for his hand.
“Just how happy I am, with you. In Paris.”
She chuckles, leaning over the table to kiss his lips. “Thank you for this.”
He smiles, pecking her lips one more time. “Does it live up to the expectation?”
“We can see the Eiffel Tower from the toilet so it’s exactly as we once dreamed it up.” She smirks, but the look on her face sobers up. “I never imagined that we’d be the people we are now.” She confesses and he understands. He doesn’t either and as someone once terrified of change, he’s glad they’ve grown into themselves. “Who we are now and what we have far exceeds any expectations I might’ve had at seventeen.”
He’s with the love of his life, in Paris, she looks beautiful, smiling at him like maybe she’d actually say yes if he asked. This should be the perfect moment to pop out the ring and ask her, but the ring is hidden in his backpack inside the hotel room. It feels like the words could almost roll out of his tongue. And the moment passes, with them dying out as she smiles at him again before telling him she’s taking a shower.
Jughead sits with the knowledge that he’s had the ring for four months and has missed every opportunity to actually ask her. He thought he’d wait it out until she passed the bar but at the same time didn’t want to take away from that with an engagement. Either way, he had brought the ring to Paris. Maybe there will be a moment, it’ll feel right and he can get down on one knee and ask her to marry him. Evidently, it’s not this one.
His phone buzzes on the table.
Have you done it yet?
Of course Chuck would be questioning. He had told him that it wouldn’t pass him by. Paris seemed like a perfect place to propose to someone. Even if you think it’s a tired old cliche, it’s freaking Paris. City of love and all that jazz. And Chuck had witnessed every moment Jughead had second guessed his plans. Every doubt that crippled him in a way he doesn’t fully understand.
It’s marriage, he thinks. And maybe past trauma. But the very notion of it. Both their set of parents had royally failed at marriage. In his head, he argues, that the reason they failed is because they married for the wrong reasons, that they never loved each other. Betty loved him and he loved her. They were already one step ahead of them.
He wants to marry her. Finds that being able to call her his wife is something he longs for. It’s less about the institution and more about the promise. To spend his life making her happy, to commit his love to her for as long as he lived. And he knows, on a certain level, that it isn’t the end all be all, that they don’t need to have rings on their fingers to know they’re committed to each other. But still, he wants this. He wants the promise, he wants them to be married. Tied together.
They hadn’t exactly talked about it, not in detail. But they’ve been to other people’s weddings and Betty’s commented on things she doesn’t want in their own, half joking, half serious. His heart always picks up when she says anything about it. Her offhand comments are usually just that and they never discuss it further.
And now, with the ring in his backpack, he wonders if it’s the right time. Or if there ever will be a right moment for it. Maybe he’s been overthinking it, maybe he should’ve asked her the day he bought the ring and be done with it. But he feels like she deserves to have a decent proposal, something that’s thought out and meaningful. Not just the question. He’s a writer after all. He’s imagined and written the story and the speech in his head and it’s never quite what he wants it to be.
I can literally see that you read my message, Jones. Just put the ring on her finger. She’ll say yes. Stop overthinking it.
Chuck’s message drops and he rolls his eyes. Of course Chuck would be so nonchalant. He’s never had to propose to anyone because Nancy proposed to him and they eloped. Him and Betty had been witnesses. Chuck and Nancy are usually wildly spontaneous in a way he thinks his overthinking and insecurities will never allow him to be, when it comes to important things. Paris getaways excluded, obviously (and it’d been planned, just without her knowing about it). But this is something much larger than that.
That evening, they’re hand in hand, walking along the Seine and he thinks it’s something that’s out of a dream. Betty looks ethereal, in her yellow dress, cheeks flushed from the wine they drank and a soft smile as they walk in silence. There’s the faint sound of a violin, a street performer somewhere or maybe just a café in the distance and he thinks... maybe now is the right moment.
It feels the way he supposes it should feel. They’re in a beautiful place, having the best time and dropping down on one knee right now would be perfect.
And then there’s a group of very distinct and loud voices coming towards them and the moment passes.
Just another moment that’s slipped through his fingers. Betty must notice the look on his face, because she immediately frowns, tugging at his hand.
“You okay?” She asks.
“Yeah.” He nods, as they come to halt. “I was just enjoying the quiet.” He eyes the group and she laughs softly, hands reaching for his face.
“We can always go back to our hotel.” There’s a glint in her eyes that tells him exactly what he needs to know and his mood clears up and she smirks immediately. “I like you in this shirt.” Her hands drift to his chest and he pulls her in for a kiss.
They’re in Paris for two more days and he decides that he wants to enjoy his time with her. The decision to propose is left for later because now he just wants this to be a time for them and he doesn’t want to mess it up by being nervous. So, he tells himself, when they get back to New York, he will just get them home and pop the question. Clean and easy. And he won’t care about how perfect it is, he’ll ask her and she’ll say yes.
•
They had just gotten home when she gets the call.
Alice Cooper is on her deathbed.
Polly tells her she’d gotten a call from their father after he was contacted by Riverdale’s hospital alerting him that Alice, having been diagnosed with cancer two months ago, had a few days to live.
It doesn’t seem real. Alice is still young, she’d always been healthy. And from what he remembers, keeping Betty on a strict diet meant she was on one as well. But neither of them can truly know because they haven’t been in contact with her since college.
“I’m going to just...say goodbye. I think I...need to.” That’s what Polly tells Betty. “For closure.”
Polly asks her what she’ll do and he can clearly see how lost she is. The words she speaks couldn’t be truer. “I don’t know, Pol.”
Jughead watches her hang up the phone, approaching her gently, sitting next to her on the couch. She grabs his hand and looks at him, eyes filled to the brim with tears.
“You wanna go?” He questions softly and she breathes out.
“Does she deserve that?”
Jughead brushes a strand of hair out of her hand, caressing her cheek. “It’s not for her.”
She sits silently for a moment. “I need to take a moment.” She murmurs.
“I’ll start making dinner, yeah?” He places a kiss to her head and she nods. They both stand up, he squeezes her hand one more time before watching walk down the hall to the bedroom.
He doesn’t want to push her, so he’ll give her some time but he knows that Betty’s tendency to bottle things up can get her to explode and he doesn’t want that to happen. As he muses over the place she’s in, he thinks about his father. And if he would’ve gone had he known he was about to die.
He thinks he would’ve wanted to. If he’d known what was about to happen, he thinks he would’ve said goodbye one last time. Maybe back then, he’d be stubborn and regret it later. He never got to say goodbye, in the end, but he’d made peace with his father’s death, even if he hadn’t made peace with his father’s life.
Betty emerges from the bedroom when he calls out her name, summoning her so they could eat their dinner. He watches her and then holds her when she wraps her arms around him.
“I think I wanna go.” She tells him, pulling back to look at him.
He nods his head. “Eat first, then pack?”
Two hours later, they’re in the car, on the drive to Riverdale. It feels reminiscent of when she drove him, after his father died. But he’s behind the wheel tonight and Betty’s talking, which is the exact opposite of what he’d done. This is Betty trying to keep herself together and he knows her well enough that he’ll let her do this, for now. Later, when the time is right, he’ll tell her she can fall apart and that he’s here, like she’d been for him, holding him in her arms in his old bed, in the trailer.
They’re staying at the Five Seasons because there’s no home there for either of them. Jughead had sold the trailer and the Cooper house didn’t belong to the Coopers anymore. Jughead aches a little for the bubble of memories that exists in the physical spaces of before, the places where they fell for each other.
His father’s truck still belongs to him, but he hasn’t driven it in a long time. But these places, what used to be theirs now belongs to someone else and there’s a part of Jughead that mourns the loss and then a part of him is relieved they can let go of the past. He’s comforted by the fact that the memories come back every time he looks at her, always tied to her.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” He asks Betty as she stares at the door. Polly is still inside.
Betty shakes her head. “No.” Nodding, he places a kiss to her forehead.
“I’ll be out here waiting.” He murmurs and she offers him a small smile, as Polly exits her mother’s room with tears in her eyes. She hugs Betty and they both watch her walk into the room. “How bad?” He asks softly.
Polly takes a shaky breath. “Like she’s dying.” She answers simply and then looks at him, a sad smile playing on her lips. “For a moment, when I got the call from dad, I considered it could’ve all been a ploy to get us all to come back for her.”
Jughead places a hand on her shoulder. He’d gotten to know Betty’s sister well, after they began reconnecting. Polly and Hal had been present in their lives for a while and it meant a great deal to Betty. And if he was honest, it did to him too. He was comforted to know that Betty had family willing to right their wrongs.
His side had been harder. His mother was in jail after she was caught dealing. But Jellybean was his saving grace when it came to his blood. She was stubborn and headstrong and he wishes they were closer than they are but they’ll get there. Joneses seem to have a stupid amount of resistance to talking about their feelings or the difficult things in life. He’d gotten much better but Jellybean had a temper and when he tried getting her to open up, she blew up. He won’t stop trying, he promised himself that.
Jughead thinks of her, at this moment. And of their father. And thinks that he would’ve liked to say goodbye.
“She said she was sorry.” Polly tells him quietly.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” She sighs softly. “I can handle saying goodbye, letting it go, but I can’t forgive everything just because she’s dying. It’s not fair. It shouldn’t take dying for a mother to see she hurt her children. I said goodbye and that’s all I can give her.” Polly shakes her head, wiping her tears away. “I’m angry she gets the easy way out. That she doesn’t have to try. How fucked up is that?”
“It’s not. It’s okay to be angry, Polly.” He remembers Betty’s words once so he repeats it back to her sister. “Your feelings aren’t wrong. They’re just your truth.”
Inside the room, Betty’s sat on the chair by her mother’s bed, unsure of what to say.
“Elizabeth.” Alice rasps. She looks weak. Thinner than Betty remembers, her hair no longer the pristine blonde it once was, no longer there at all. Her skin looks pale, her eyes dull and Betty’s heart aches in her chest. The striking contrast between the woman she sees now and the one she’s held in her memory is difficult to believe.
“Hi, mom.” Betty murmurs and watches her mother’s hand reach for hers. And she holds it because there’s a part of her that still wishes she could feel warmth from her mother’s touch. “I don’t know what to say.” Hesitantly, she confesses. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to come or not.”
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.” Alice says weakly. And Betty thinks she might mean it. “I was blind.” The words surprise her. “I only saw what I thought was right and not what made you happy and...I’m sorry.”
Betty nods. She truly doesn’t know how to do it. Doesn’t know if she can mean the words that pop into her head, the forgiveness. It startles her, the automatic response to comfort someone in pain, to comfort someone who is sick and weak, with barely enough strength to speak out. But it’s still Alice and it still hurts. But she doesn’t want it to, not in this way. So she focuses on what Jughead had told her. It isn’t about Alice, it’s about her own peace. To let go, maybe. To rise above the ruins of the past, to leave this behind.
She doesn’t want to be angry. And she doesn’t want the guilt or the regret over her last words towards her mother being something bitter. She doesn’t have to forgive. But she can let go.
“Are you happy?” Alice asks and Betty realizes then she hasn’t said anything else.
“I am.”
“And Jughead?”
“He’s outside.” Betty says softly and then pauses for a second. “We’re both happy.”
“I was wrong.” Her mother admits.
“You were. About many things. Too many.” Betty tells her truthfully.
“I hope you have the life you want.” The words come out in a raspy voice, a tired voice. And Betty makes peace with that being her wish, in the end. Makes peace with the fact that she may never truly heal from what her mother put her through. She’s not glad it’s over. There’s no chance to make things right and she doesn’t know if she wants it to be either.
“I will.”
•
Alice Cooper dies on a Monday morning. Alone in her hospital room.
Alice’s death is wildly different than when his father died, even thought the situations are similar.
Alice had already made arrangements for herself, taken care of whatever needed to be taken care of and Betty isn’t the wreck he was that day. She had cried. And the day had been quiet as it always is when someone dies. It’s quiet but Betty still talks. About the past, like she’s running through memories. Trying to figure out if there’s any left that isn’t tainted.
They ask her to speak at the funeral and she says no. She doesn’t want to. She doesn’t have good enough things to say about her mother. And she doesn’t want that weight.
There’s very few people around. And he thinks Betty prefers it that way as they sit through it. Condolences offered aren’t long. It’s the ‘Sorry for your loss’ that gets her. She doesn’t truly know or is able to assess what exactly it is she lost. Or if that loss had happened years ago, with a slap across her face and a few insults for good measure.
Alice Cooper wasn’t a good person. Alice Cooper had hurt her and hadn’t been a loving mother to her, the things she does remember of ever feeling warmth from her mother are vague. She’d been controlling and manipulative and too stubborn to see that she was hurting others until it was too late. She had died alone. Because it was only when the darkness started rising around her that she realized she had wasted her chance at forgiveness and all she got was a goodbye, in the end.
He holds Betty’s hand tightly in his. Thinks of how far they had gone from kids falling in love until now. The strength he once thought he’d never be able to give her, standing steadily and proudly now with all he’s got. Partners. He once thought of himself as something different from her, another planet, a barrier. He knows better now. Betty is the one he chooses and he will continue to choose her for the rest of his life.
“Strange day.” Hal approaches him as he stands on the porch of the Cooper house. They were here to figure out what to keep and what to give away. Betty and Polly had been speaking quietly in the kitchen and Jughead had stepped outside for moment, not wanting to interrupt. “I’ve lived without her for a long time but it still feels...odd that she isn’t really here anymore.”
“Alice did have a presence to her. Even miles away.” Jughead notes.
“I’d reckon her presence will be long lasting.” Hal tells him, throwing a glance back at the house, where his daughters talk. There’s a mournful look in his eyes, more for his daughters than for Alice, he knows, feels it.
When Betty had decided to truly mend her relationship with her father, instead of calling him and visiting every once in a while, Jughead had been taken aback with how involved they had made him in the process. How he was so intertwined with Betty that as Betty rebuilt her relationship with her father, he built one with his father-in-almost law (he will propose, eventually, one way or the other). He was a part of her life and as such, he was a part of her family’s life too. Because he was family. And he had damn nearly cried at Christmas.
“How’s Betty?” Hal asks him.
Jughead shrugs. “She’ll be okay. It’s been a slow progress...Alice. This was unexpected so...”
“Right.” Hal nods. “I’m glad she has you, Jug.”
“Pledged for life.” He smirks and Hal raises his brows at him, a small knowing smile on his lips.
“A pledge, is that right?” Jughead smiles a bashful smile, is he supposed to ask for permission or some old fashioned bullshit like that? Not with Hal, he knows but still, he can’t help the spike in his heart rate.
“Crossed my mind.” He tries to be nonchalant, as if the ring isn’t in their apartment in New York. Hal laughs, shaking his head.
“Oh, don’t worry, I genuinely thought you bought the ring years ago.”
Jughead glances back to Betty and wonders if the feeling he gets will ever go away. Warm and calm, like Christmas morning before everyone’s awake.
He thinks it won’t. There’s too much to feel.
He’d be left empty in the cold if it disappeared. He’d be left without a home.
•
“We’re going to be late.” He hears Betty say as she pokes her head into the bathroom before returning to their bedroom. “Seriously, I told you we needed to be ready by 9, otherwise we’d never make it on time.”
“Relax.” Wrong word. “ I mean, we still have time.”
“Right.” He can hear the bite in her tone. He really should’ve hurried up in the shower. He hates it when Betty gets this annoyed. “We’re going to be running against the clock, Jughead. That’s what we’ll be doing.”
“Betts.” He sighs, checking himself in the mirror before exiting the bathroom. “I’m ready, see?”
“Jughead, there’s a stain on your shirt.” She groans, glaring at him.
He looks down and sure enough there it is. He’s pretty sure he picked out a clean shirt, but here he is. “I’ll be quick.” He presses a kiss to her head before walking over to the closet. “Do I go with the white button up or the baby blue one?” He asks, looking back at her.
“Baby blue.” She says and he hears the hint of warmth returning, because he knows that she likes that shirt on him. “I’ll be waiting downstairs.”
He sighs softly, shaking his head. She’ll get over the whole we’ll be late thing once they get there on time. But Betty likes being early, so it’d been go go go since they’d woken up. Or more like since she had woken up and he had groaned about it being too early, resulting in her hopping downstairs to make breakfast and then him falling asleep again.
Jughead really hates being up early. And it’s not as though it’s isn’t for a good reason. His friend Moose from college, who had recently moved into the city, is getting married. Moose is one of the three people he’s truly kept in touch from Iowa. They’d been a bit all over the country but Moose had just recently moved and so they’d been closer. And now he was getting married. Which was, for Jughead at least, amusing. Moose’s college years had been wild to say the least unless he was with his boyfriend at the time, anything goes suited him perfectly. Moose and his boyfriend were unstable, so to say, and when Moose had finally broken things off with the guy, Jughead had let out a sigh of relief.
In comes Midge, charming and upbeat and free and anything his previous partner hadn’t been. And now, all these years later, Jughead is going to their wedding.
“I’m here.” He calls out, as he comes into view. She’s leaning against the back of the couch, scrolling through her phone before looking up at him, battling the smile on her face and he inwardly breathes out a sigh of relief, knowing exactly how to deescalate the tension. He’s good at that, they’re good at that, he thinks. Talking. It’s one of the things that’s changed most about their relationship. Communication.
“Shall we?” Betty asks and he follows her out the door. They’re silent as they walk to the elevator. It’s only when they’re inside that Jughead smiles at her and it’s enough to make her roll her eyes in the way that tells him they’re in the clear. “You’re so lucky I love you.” She grumbles but his hands are already pulling her towards him.
He laughs softly, placing a kiss to her cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t hurry.”
“I’m glad you had a stain on the other shirt.” She smirks, hands traveling down his chest.
“Oh yeah? You should’ve said that before and then we’d actually be late.” He teases her and she shakes her head with a laugh. There’s a moment of silence, where the teasing vanished and smiles at her. “Hey.” He murmurs, making her really look at him. Green eyes still taking his breath away.
“What?”
“You look beautiful. And I love you.”
“I love you too.” His lips are on hers just as they reach the floor they’re supposed to leave on and their neighbor very awkwardly coughs to alert them he’s waiting to get in.
“There’s like hundreds of people.” Betty murmurs beside him when they walk into the venue. He laughs softly, but nods his head. In comparison to the weddings he’s seen, this might take the cake for the biggest wedding he’s ever seen. “Can you imagine getting married in front of so many people? I’d die. There’s no way they know this many people.”
“Midge’s dad is loaded. I’m already salivating at whatever food we’re having.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Jug. Rich people are fucked up when they go gourmet on us. Huge plate for a blob in the middle.”
“Betts...” He groans. “That’s so mean.”
“Push comes to shove, we’ll order a pizza and eat in the car.” She grins, placing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
Betty almost cries during the ceremony because a dog is the ring bearer. Jughead has been trying to convince her to get a dog for about two years now but she hasn’t been convinced yet. Maybe the idea of having their own dog as the ring bearer at their wedding will change her mind. He’ll have to propose first.
Or do they get the dog before then?
The dog is still on his mind when thankfully there’s a buffet. He stuffs his face with food with the occasional pause to make a joke about a rich person across the room. Betty leans closer to him when a slow song comes on and he grants her wish without her having to voice it.
“Hey, remember this song?” She smiles up at him, hand placed on his chest as they sway.
“What?” Furrows his brows.
“That violin player, on our first date ever in Greendale. It was this song.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He shakes his head in disbelief and she nods, grinning. “How do you even remember that?”
“It was romantic. Crazy love by Van Morrison. I asked the guy what song it was and then when I came home, I wrote it down.”
“Perhaps I was too distracted by you to remember that.” He tells her, winking and she rolls her eyes.
“That or the wine we both pretended to like.” With a laugh, he places his hand on top of hers on his chest, forehead on hers. “Maybe this can be our first dance song.”
“You mean...”
“When we get married.” She shrugs, but there’s a soft blush on her cheeks, he can see even in the dim lighting.
“You want to, for real? To get married?”
“Someday.” She nods.
He wants her to be his wife so badly.
•
(The next time he decides to propose, he plans for them to go on a walk near where her dorm room used to be, like when he visited in college.)
(He forgets the ring.)
•
A month after that, she’s leaving for work but saying something about tax benefits you get when you marry someone, he’s slightly distracted, because she’s also talking about divorce and something about how when they get married, they really ought to think their terms through because she’s assisting a case with a couple that came from hell. And then she says something like:
“We should get married.”
He’s distracted, writing on the computer, still half asleep but he says:
“Oh come on.”
He frowns without even thinking. He’s been in on that thought for so long, she can’t possibly beat him to it, it takes him off guard. And she’d already been halfway out the door when she threw that out there and he’s not even sure that that’s what she said, he can’t quite remember.
“Or not.” Her brow furrows, she huffs out a laugh. “You know what? I’m late. Love you.”
Did he royally fuck up? He texts that they should talk when she gets home and fully decided he’ll propose to her then, ring or no ring, speech or no speech.
She gets home, he’s cooked dinner because he usually does, she pours herself a glass of white wine, tells him about whatever hell she’d sat through today with the hellish couple and then they sit down at the dinner table. He blurts out:
“It’d be cool if you were my wife, you know?”
She laughs because she’s been rambling about divorce ever since she got home. “Are you asking me to marry you?” She asks, jokingly because maybe she isn’t understanding it’s actually a thing. It might actually be unreal how many times he’s almost said those words. But now, thrown in the middle of a conversation like that, the word vomiting isn’t cool.
He groans. “God, fuck no.” It comes out a little stronger than he’s intended because her teasing smile disappears and she’s left confused.
“I’m sorry?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I keep messing this up.” He’s slightly agitated and she places a hand on top of his to make him look at her, concerned.
“Messing what up, Jug?” She questions softly.
“This. Proposing.” He gestures between them.
“You’re proposing?”
“You just asked me if I was a second ago?”
“I was joking. Are you-?”
“Yes, will you marry me?”