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The world was a little different during night shift. It often ushered in intoxicated demons; shadows stretched their gnarled fingers across the little hospital garden; and on the worst nights, when sleep had failed him completely, strange shapes danced along the edges of Jughead’s vision making it hard to be sure what was real.
So, it didn’t worry him quite as it perhaps should when he saw an angel in the ER waiting reception. He was rushing through, a car accident to attend to, so an impression of white gown, blonde waves and radiance was all he had a chance to capture.
Still, it stayed with him throughout the night.
*****
A few hours later, Jughead was in the middle of trying to calm down a shrieking five-year-old with a very painful ear infection, when his best friend Archie walked over.
“Jug, would you mind swapping and taking over the aftercare for my patient? She keeps asking for you”, Archie asked in a surprisingly sulky tone for someone asking a favour.
Archie was a good nurse, but sometimes Jughead couldn’t help but feel there was more than a little truth in his friend’s jokes about going into the profession because of its high female to male ratio.
“Asking for me?” he asked suspiciously. “It’s not Mrs. Wyndham again, is it?” The elderly and somewhat hypochondriac librarian had taken a shine to Jughead and would barely allow anyone else to tell her that there was really nothing wrong.
“No, a cute blonde. Solid 8.5. She’s said I was hot but then started insisting on speaking to, and I quote, ‘the glarey dark haired boy’. No idea why she wants you, but I think the anaesthetic has messed with her head a bit.”
“Gee thanks Arch, when you sweet talk me like that, how can I possibly say no?” Jughead handed Archie Timmy’s notes and headed over to the bed his friend had just come from, where an angel was sitting, waving at him.
The angel turned out to be Betty Cooper, a beautiful blonde girl, who looked about the same age as Jughead and Archie. Big green eyes looked up at him from a heart shaped face that wore ever so slightly smudged lipstick. She must have tried to tidy her hair one-handed – it had been flowing in gold waves over her shoulder earlier but now was in a very lopsided ponytail. She was wearing a white lacy dress, pale blue ballet shoes and a large cast on her left arm.
“Hooray, it’s you!” she beamed. She looked a little drunk, but any alcohol she’d consumed would surely have all but worn off by now.
“Hi Betty. Err, do we know each other?”
“Not yet, but we will. We’re meant to, I can tell”, she smiled up at him.
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he concentrated on her notes.
“So, you broke your arm huh?”
“Yes, my best friend insisted I join her at this stupid fancy nightclub that makes me feel like a total hick, so I drank a few too many glasses of the champagne she ordered – I don’t even really like Champagne! – but then Ronnie disappeared, I think with this very boring man she spent way too long talking to, while I just got to know the champagne.”
Throughout her ramble, Betty pulled a series of increasingly animated facial expressions – it was hard not to be charmed.
“But then I was a bit worried and I wanted to go home so I went to find her and I guess I tripped on the stairs and this happened”, she raised her arm, “ouch!”
Jughead quickly helped her resettle her broken limb into the best position for her to hold it.
“Theeeeeeeeeeeen”, she took a deep breath, “I looked a bit more but I still couldn’t find Ronnie, so I walked home but she wasn’t there either and my arm was still hurting so I figured I’d better come to hospital.”
“You did all that with a broken arm?” Jughead asked, concern mixing with admiration. Who was this adorable but formidable young woman?
She shrugged. “Owww. Yeah, I figured it’s an arm not a leg and I don’t usually walk on my hands too much, so I might as well just wander in.”
He double-checked the very decent job the doctor had done and gave her the usual fracture after-care spiel, combined with the finer points of her own case, though it was clear she was struggling to maintain attention. He’d look up from the notes to find her gazing at his lips, before suddenly whipping her head around to stare in seeming wonderment at some of the more mundane equipment, then looking up and giggling, inexplicably, at the fluorescent overhead lighting.
She had an air of innocence and preppiness that would usually make Jughead bored or sceptical, or both, but her open demeanour, obvious intelligence despite the adorable anaesthesia dizziness, and kind, classically pretty face were utterly disarming.
“You really care about my health don’t you – ” she squinted at the hateful name tag Dr. Masters insisted all the nursing team wore, “Dr. Forceps?”
He couldn’t help but laugh, “It’s my job to care about your health, plus you’ve not called me emo or goth as yet, not racially abused anyone or spat in my face, so you’re officially on my nice list. But I’m a nurse, not a doctor I’m afraid, and it’s Forsythe, not Forceps.”
For a moment ‘normal’ Betty – or what Jughead imagined she must be like – seemed to resurface. She shook her head and blushed. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry Forsythe – I can read, honest! I’m actually an English teacher, would you believe.” She buried her face in her hands, wincing as she lifted her left arm.
She was even cuter when she was embarrassed and Jughead had the sudden stupid urge to run away. Instead he gently corrected the position of her arm again.
“Short of risking my job by failing to wear it, I’ve done everything I can to ruin the integrity of this stupid badge – it’s been through the washing machine more times than my actual laundry, I’ve tried scratching the letters off, I even got Archie to run over it once – so it’s no wonder you found it hard to read. Anyway, Forsythe is not really my name. It’s Jughead.”
“Jughead. Juggie Jug Jug Jughead”, she mused. “Ooooh and Archie! Was he the cute ginger boy who was in here earlier?”
Of course she was attracted to Archie really. Jughead was ashamed by how deflated he felt.
“Yup, Archie is our resident hottie.”
“He was cute but you’re beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful”, she slurred, gazing at him lovingly. “And he kept staring. Stupid dress. Staring at me, then getting distracted by all the other girls around. And he says he’s a musician really. I don’t want a musician, I want a nurse. Like you. You want to make me better. And your eyes are the best, Juggie. And you look like you like books. Good books. Not Dan Brown and Marian Keyes like Polly reads. And I want to touch your hair, very badly.”
She grabbed his hand, “Jughead … er… Nurse, will you marry me?” Her earnest, slightly tearful face was the loveliest thing he’d seen. Her ‘proposal’ should have been funny, and he knew it was just the drugs talking, but his heart was pounding.
“Hey, of course I will”, he replied in what he hoped was a light & breezy tone. It was hard to tell as he’d never felt light and breezy in his life. “Let’s get you all better and clear away this anaesthesia fog and then we can start planning.”
“How do you feel about kilts?” she asked.
There was little left to do now, and, even on quiet nights like this, the hospital was stringent about maintaining bed availability. It was time to discharge Betty, but he hated the idea of turning her out while the weird effects of the anaesthesia clearly hadn’t lifted.
And there was something else. Jughead loved his job, loved feeling like he was doing some small measure of good in the world, but he didn’t always love spending so much time with other people. They exhausted him, sometimes depressed him, and almost always compounded his sense of not-quite belonging. Yet right now he desperately wanted the world to just stop for a while, so he could simply sit here with this strange and wonderful girl for the rest of the night, without responsibilities pressing in on them.
“How are you going to get home Betty? Do you have someone that can pick you up?
“Oh, I’ll walk. I walked here, I can walk back no problemo.” She began saying “o, o, o” repeatedly, mouth like a fish’s.
“No way I’m letting you walk home at this time of night with only one arm.”
“Do you think I might be attacked by wolves?”
“Wolves or worse. Archie could catch up with you and ask your opinion on his new songs. I’d love to offer you a ride, but I’m on my bike and I don’t think you could hold on with that arm. What about your friend – Ronnie was it? – could she come and pick you up?”
“Phone is –” she blew a raspberry.
“Ok, well my shift is almost over, so if you don’t mind waiting just a little while for me, I can call you a cab and then sit with you until it’s here.”
She was still quite wobbly when he walked her to the car park, so he let her lean on him with his arm wrapped around her waist. They were almost at the bench when she suddenly wheeled around and up into him and clumsily crashed her lips onto his. He tried not to notice the softness of her lips and the crush of her breasts against his chest, tried not to notice that she tasted like strawberries, tried to concentrate only on the fact that this was his patient and she was only marginally in control of her own body and mind right now.
“Hey there Betts, you don’t want to do yourself anymore harm”, he said, very gently nudging her away from him and sitting her down on the bench.
It wasn’t a cold night, but in her flimsy dress, Betty was soon shivering.
“Here, take my jacket”, Jughead helped her into the soft fuzzy-lined denim. He’d never lost his teenaged tendency to hide himself in over-sized clothes, and the coat swamped her. She still looked cold so he leaned over and retrieved his beloved crown beanie out of one of the denim pockets. He pulled it down over her scruffy golden ponytail, and stroked the hair out of her eyes.
The image of her cuddled into his over-sized jacket, beanie almost falling down over one of her eyes made his chest ache. He hoped, suspected, he’d never forget it.
She slipped her hand into his, their fingers interlaced. Holding her hand felt so right somehow, the perfect fit, but she still wasn’t in a fully lucid state and he had a duty of care to her. Her wellbeing and his dedication to his profession were a lot more important than any pathetic feelings he might be having over someone who likely wouldn’t remember his name in an hour.
Squeezing his hand tighter before he could pull it away, she gazed up at him.
“Jughead? I love you.”
His heart stopped; he knew she was still in the anaesthetic fog, but he’d never before had those words spoken to him by anyone but family or Archie, had almost given up on it ever happening. The world felt suddenly wide open and vast and yet simultaneously shrunk down to the size of a hospital car park. The stars pressed in around them and glittered from her beautiful angel’s eyes.
Her taxi was approaching. He squeezed her hand softly before gently disentangling their fingers, “I’m pretty sure I could love you too, Betty Cooper.”