Archive of Our Own ^beta

one

“Fuck.”

Sixteen second-graders – and almost as many parents – swivel their heads towards Jughead as he drops his so-called “safety” scissors onto the desk with a hiss.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

The teacher, Mrs. Grundy, is at his side in an instant. She grabs his wrist and pulls his thumb out of his mouth as though he’s one of her students, and not a visitor there to help make paper chains of autumn leaves as part of Parents Day. “You sliced your thumb open.”

“Yeah, no sh – kidding.” Jughead jerks his hand away with a scowl. “Do you have a bandaid?”

“You need to go to the school nurse.”

When Jughead follows her pointed gaze to his thumb, he realizes she’s right: blood is dripping onto his jeans. A wave of dizziness washes over him.

He’s not great with bodily fluids.

“Yeah, okay,” he says faintly.

“Jellybean, will you take your brother to see Miss Cooper?”

Jellybean, for her part, seems unmoved by his suffering. With a sigh, she sets down her own paper and scissors. “Okay.”

The nurse’s office is only down the hallway, but the strange, kid-sized proportions of everything they pass along the way only adds to his sense of vertigo. When they finally make it to the door labeled School Nurse – the letters bordered with smiley face stickers – Jellybean stops short. “Here it is.”

Jughead hesitates. “Okay, are you going to show me in?”

She frowns, looking so much like their father for a moment that his heart clenches with a familiar twinge of equal parts anger and sorrow. FP should be here, not Jughead. Not Jughead, who’s at least a decade younger than any other adult visiting Riverdale Elementary School today, and apparently so inept he couldn’t help but cut himself with a pair of scissors specifically designed to be safe enough for children to use.

“Why?”

“So your nurse doesn’t think I’m some strange man who just wandered into an elementary school seeking medical care.”

Jellybean snorts. “That would be funny.” But she pushes open the door anyway.

Inside the office there is a desk, and behind the desk is a woman. Jughead’s not completely sure, since he’s clearly suffering from blood loss, but he thinks she might be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

Her striking green eyes turn towards Jellybean first, then gaze up at him, inquisitive and maybe a little bit amused. “Hi Jellybean. Who’s this?”

“This is my brother. He cut his thumb.”

“Oh, no. We’d better take a look at that.”

“Can I go back to class?” Jellybean seems restless. Or maybe just embarrassed by him. He can’t really blame her for that.

Miss Cooper looks at Jughead. “Don’t you want to offer your brother some moral support?”

“It’s fine,” Jughead says quickly. “You can go back.”

She’s out the door in an instant.

“Sit.” Miss Cooper gestures towards the cot on the other side of the room, and Jughead settles onto it obediently. “What happened?”

“I challenged the safety scissors to a duel, and the scissors won.”

It’s an incredibly lame answer – not even a joke, really – but she laughs at it, and his heart swells a little in response. “Let me see.”

She holds his thumb between two of her fingers, while her other hand grasps his wrist to hold it steady. Her touch is so soft, it sends a shiver racing through him.

“That’s a pretty deep cut. You challenged the wrong pair of scissors today.”

Jughead laughs. “Am I gonna make it?”

“Jellybean got you here just in time. The odds are in your favor.” She places his hand back on his thigh and steps away to one of the cabinets. “First we’re gonna apply a little pressure to stop the bleeding. Then you can go ahead and wash it in the sink with some antibacterial soap, and then we’ll put a bandage on it.”

“That’s it? No stitches?”

“No stitches. Trust me, I’m a doctor.” She makes a face, wrinkling her nose. It’s hopelessly cute. “Well, kind of, not really. I have Hello Kitty bandaids, though.”

“If you didn’t, I’d have some questions about the legitimacy of this place.”

She’s smiling when she returns to his side with some gauze, which she presses against the pad of his thumb. “I’m Betty, by the way.”

“I’m Jughead. The weird names run in the family.”

“And you’re here for Parents Day?” When he nods, she adds, “That’s sweet of you. We don’t see a lot of siblings come in.”

In truth, they’re half-siblings, and he’s also her legal guardian, with their dad behind bars for drug running and her mother out of the picture entirely. But that all feels like a lot to explain to his little sister’s school nurse, whom he met about five minutes ago.

“It’s fun.” Jughead shrugs. “And it’s a nice excuse to take a day off.”

Betty pulls the gauze away and, seeming satisfied, points him towards the sink. “What do you do?”

“I’m a writer. Freelance, mostly, but I’m working on a novel.”

Jughead’s heart races while he dries his hands. This is usually the point in the conversation where the other person either expresses interest, or writes him off as unbearably pretentious.

Thankfully, Betty is one of the former. “That’s so cool! What’s it about?”

When he turns around, his heart beats even faster: she’s right behind him, Hello Kitty bandaid in hand, as promised.

“A murder mystery.”

“I love mysteries.”

I love you, Jughead almost says as she places the bandaid around his thumb, the thought entering his head out of nowhere. Jesus Christ.

It’s definitely the blood loss.

Betty runs a gentle finger over the bandaid before stepping back. “Well, I officially pronounce you cured.”

“Thank you, doc.”

Jughead briefly considers claiming a headache, or nausea, or any other malady that might keep him in her presence for a little bit longer. But he tamps down the urge. He can’t hit on Jellybean’s school nurse; what if she rejects him, and he has to pick up his sister when she comes down with a fever in the middle of the day? Best to leave things where they are: a brief, flirtatious bright spot in his day, a pleasant memory to revisit until it fades from his mind a few weeks from now.

But as he reaches for the doorknob, he feels a gentle hand at his elbow.

Betty’s cheeks are flushed, but she meets his eyes when she hands him a piece of paper and says, “Here’s my number. In case you need any follow-up.”

Jughead’s smile is so wide it hurts. He nods, folding up the paper carefully before he tucks it into his pocket.

“Do you make house calls?”

two

Jughead hits send on the text to Betty before he can second-guess himself. Doing great, it reads, followed by a photo of a thumbs up, his finger still encased in the Hello Kitty bandaid she’d wrapped around it just yesterday.

Heart pounding, he sets his phone aside and tries to focus on the Getflix show playing on the tv. She gave you her number, he reminds himself. She wants to hear from you.

Still, he nearly jumps out of his armchair when his phone buzzes with her reply a few minutes later.

I’m glad! Hard to say how it’s healing without taking a closer look, though.

Jughead smiles, thankful Jellybean isn’t around to see him grinning like an idiot at his phone. Unless Betty’s got a kink for photos of mild flesh wounds, he’s pretty confident he knows what she wants him to say.

Maybe you could check it out in person on Saturday, around 7 pm?

They agree to keep it casual, but when Betty suggests they meet at Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe for dinner, he knows he’s a goner.

“You’ve been here?”

“Betty, I practically grew up here.” Jughead twists around in his seat. “That booth in the corner is where I wrote my first short story. I had my first kiss in the parking lot.” He points towards a row of framed photos behind the counter. “There’s a picture of me on the wall because once I ate ten double-decker burgers in one sitting.”

Her eyes widen. “Wow. That is…”

“Impressive?”

“Well, you must have quite the appetite.”

Betty puckers her lips around the straw of her vanilla milkshake, raising one eyebrow, and Jughead thinks that of all the of evenings he’s ever spent inside of Pop’s, this is already shaping up to be one of the best.

It turns out they have a lot of shared touchpoints from their childhoods growing up on opposite sides of Riverdale. Late-night shakes at Pop’s, study sessions at the library, double features at the Bijou. But thanks to the invisible boundary between them – Jughead in the south, Betty in the north – they’d never actually crossed paths until now.

When Betty excuses herself to the restroom, Jughead checks his phone for the time. He’s shocked to see it’s nearly already ten o’clock. That’s when he’d told Toni he would be home. He knows she doesn’t mind watching Jellybean every now and then, but she’d also mentioned making plans with her girlfriend Cheryl later in the evening, and he knows better than to risk the wrath of a Blossom.

Betty returns to their booth looking flushed and happy. As she slips back into her seat, he sees there’s something different in her expression – like she’s keeping a secret, but wants him to draw it out of her. Like maybe she’s been psyching herself up for something in the bathroom mirror.

Jughead realizes with a sinking feeling that this is the part of the date where a normal, single, twenty-something guy would invite her back to his place, or at least downstairs to the speakeasy-themed bar in Pop’s basement for a drink.

He drums his fingers against the tabletop, and clears his throat.

“There’s something I should tell you.”

Her face falls so quickly that he wonders if she’s been burned this way before. “It’s not bad,” he adds hastily. “Well – maybe you’ll think it is. I hope not.”

Betty’s face remains neutral. “Okay.”

“I’m not just Jellybean’s brother. I mean, I am. I’m her half-brother. We have the same dad.” He presses his palms against the table. “But I’m also her legal guardian, because our dad is in jail, and her mom skipped town when she was a baby.”

“Oh.” Betty doesn’t say the word so much as exhale it. “Is that all?”

Before he can answer, she cringes. “Oh, I don’t mean – it’s not a minor thing, obviously. It’s a huge deal for you.” Betty presses her lips together for a moment, then shakes her head, almost like she’s scolding herself.

Jughead forges on. “He’s a little over a year into a ten-year sentence. His lawyer doesn’t think he’ll actually serve that long, but he’s probably not going to be in the best shape to raise a teenager when he gets out, so…I kind of went into this knowing it’s for the long run.”

And so should you, is the unspoken coda.

Betty nods slowly. “Can I ask why he’s in prison?”

“Drug running. Mostly weed and jingle jangle – not hard stuff.” Jughead shrugs. “Still extremely illegal, though.”

It feels good to have the weight of it off his chest, but he’s still so tense that he flinches when she reaches for his hand across the table. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “That must have been difficult. It’s amazing that you stepped up for your sister like that.”

Jughead swallows down the sudden lump in his throat. FP had no other family left, and Jellybean’s mother had abandoned her before she’d even spoken her first word. He hadn’t really had a choice – though he knows that if he had, he’d make the same one every time.

“It was the right thing to do. But I’m sorry to dump all of this on you on a first date.”

“No, I’m glad you told me.” She pauses, glancing down at the table. “I’m not technically forbidden from dating a parent at school, but –”

The knot in his stomach tightens, even as Betty’s hand lays warm and steady over his own. Maybe she means it as her way of softening the blow, but right now it’s only making the rejection feel more acute.

Jughead slips his hand out from under hers. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.”

Half of him wishes he’d just told her all of it when they first met; he could’ve avoided this disappointment altogether. He should’ve known the night would end like this. Deep down, he did know.

But the other half of him wishes he hadn’t said a thing. That he could’ve spent at least a few more hours deluding himself that this lovely, lively woman might actually have the potential to be someone in his life.

Betty frowns. “I…what?”

“I know it’s a dealbreaker.” He can’t meet her eyes. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

She says it so firmly that her words send a little jolt through him. “It’s not?”

“No.” More than anything else, Betty sounds confused. “I was just going to say that I’m glad you told me so I don’t go blabbing to all my friends at work about how I went out with a student’s cute older brother this weekend.”

Jughead feels the tension melt away from his body. “Oh.”

“I understand that Jellybean comes first. But…I’m interested in seeing where this goes.” She pauses. “If that’s what you want.”

God, he wants that, too. “I do. Yes.”

Betty smiles, teeth digging into her lower lip in a manner he finds unbearably attractive. “Good.”

He kisses her in the parking lot, their faces awash in the glow of the neon lights.

She stays close, the tip of her nose bumping his cheek, her fingertips resting lightly against his shoulder. He can feel the curve of her mouth against his lips when she says, “Is this your signature move? First kiss in the parking lot?”

“Is it working?”

It must be, because she answers him with another.

three

Two months in, Jughead decides he wants to ask Betty to be exclusive. But unlike the last time he found himself falling for a girl – many years ago, with far fewer life experiences under his belt – asking her is not actually the hard part.

This time, there’s Jellybean to consider.

They’re lying in Betty’s bed together, both a little breathless from celebrating the fact that they’re now officially boyfriend and girlfriend, when she says, “I don’t think Jellybean likes me.”

They still haven’t told her about their relationship. But for a seven-year-old, Jellybean was pretty shrewd – and she was starting to get suspicious of her brother’s uncharacteristically busy social life. His outings with Betty had become frequent enough that he’d even hired a high schooler who lived down the hall to watch her some evenings, rather than burn through Toni’s goodwill by constantly asking for free babysitting.

When Jellybean asked where he was going, he’d kept his answers vague – to see a friend, to get some writing done uninterrupted, to see a movie she was too young for. But the slight narrowing of her eyes in response told him she wasn’t buying it. And he was getting sick of lying to her, anyway.

Jughead traces a finger along the soft skin of her arm.  “What makes you think that?”

“Just…a vibe.” Betty shrugs.

“Oh, I know that vibe. I’ve got that same vibe. It’s for everyone, not just you.”

“No, I know the hopelessly antisocial vibe –”

“Hey.”

Betty giggles. “It’s not that. It’s more like…she always seems to think I’m talking down to her. And maybe I am? A lot of kids respond well to that when they’re sick or they’re hurt. It’s hard to turn it off sometimes.”

Laying back down, Jughead curls his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in closer to his chest. “My sister does not like to be condescended to,” he admits. “But I do think if we’re really going to be, y’know, a couple…we should tell her soon.”

Betty presses her nose to his shoulder, breathing in deep. “I know. It’s just scary.”

“Don’t be scared.” He kisses her temple. “Every kid in that school would probably kill to have you as their –”

Jughead hesitates, unsure what word he’s going for. Stepmom is definitely, one hundred percent not it. Nor is sister-in-law. They haven’t even said I love you yet.

“Their sibling’s girlfriend,” he finishes lamely.

“You’re sweet.” Betty stretches up for a kiss, letting her fingers trail down his chest, and then further.

After that, there’s not much talking.

They decide to tell her at Pop’s.

Sort of. Betty points out that it’s probably a bad idea to bring Jellybean to her favorite place on Earth and then spring the news on her out of nowhere, a concern Jughead quickly corroborates with an article from DadsDivorce.com. (It’s a pretty useful resource, despite the fact that he is neither a dad nor divorced.)

So, one Friday afternoon, Jughead casually asks Jellybean if she would like to go to Pop’s for lunch the next day.

She’s so caught up in her Zbox game that he has to ask her three times before she answers in the affirmative. (Archie had insisted on gifting his old console to Jellybean when he’d upgraded to a newer system. Nearly a year later, Jughead’s still not sure whether he regrets allowing it. Either way, they both clearly inherited an ability to play video games for hours without stopping to eat, drink, or pee from the same man.)

“Can you pause that for a sec?”

Jellybean makes a face, but pauses the game after kickboxing her way past a throng of angry mushrooms. “What?”

Jughead debates asking her to sit on the sofa with him, but she seems annoyed enough already, so he plops onto the floor beside her. “When we go to lunch tomorrow, we’re going to be meeting up with someone.”

Jellybean fiddles with her controller in her lap, glancing back at the screen with the sort of longing Jughead has only seen expressed by characters in a war movie, or that time Archie gave up eating meat for Lent while he dated a girl from Riverdale Catholic. “Who?”

“It’s someone you know. And like. It’s Miss Cooper, from school.”

Her gaze flicks back to him immediately. If nothing else, he’s succeeded in getting her attention. “Why? Am I in trouble?”

“No! Nothing like that. Miss Cooper and I have been…seeing one another.” Jughead swallows. “She’s my girlfriend.”

“Miss Cooper is your girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Is she why you’ve been leaving me with a stupid babysitter all the time?”

Jughead’s pulse picks up. He hadn’t necessarily expected this conversation to go well, but he hadn’t expected it to head south this quickly, either. “I don’t think once or twice a week counts as all the time – and I thought you liked Ethel –”

“Miss Cooper sucks,” Jellybean declares, and turns her back to him as she restarts her game.

Well, shit.

“Yeah, it didn’t go so well.” Laying spread-eagle on his bed, phone pressed to his ear, Jughead stretches one arm up over his shoulder and sighs.

Betty makes a soft noise of sympathy. “What happened?”

Jughead gives her a quick recap, leaving out the part where Jellybean confirmed all of Betty’s worst fears. There’s a pause on the other end.

“Do you think we should wait?” She sounds hesitant – sad. He wishes she could be here with him. “Maybe we should give her more time to process everything.”

“I don’t know. I think she’d just stew over it until things are even worse in her head. And you’ll probably see her at school next week. I’d rather be there when that happens.”

“True.” Betty sighs, her breath a harsh whoosh into the phone. “Well, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

That’s what Jughead keeps telling himself all throughout the next morning, while Jellybean behaves exactly like the grumpy, whiny little brat he’s always been grateful she isn’t. He tries to be empathetic. He tries to remember that Jellybean is acting out because she’s jealous, and she’s hurt by his divided attention, and she’s seven, which means she doesn’t know how to express any of those entirely understandable feelings in a productive, appropriate way.

But it’s tough. Especially when she almost kicks him in the face as he bends down to tie the sneakers she’s spent the last ten minutes refusing to put on her feet.

They finally make it to Pop’s at half past noon, thirty minutes after they were supposed to meet Betty. Jughead half-drags his sister through the door, and even though he feels like he himself is on the verge of a hissy-fit-meltdown to rival Jellybean’s, his mind quiets for one brief, blissful, calming moment when he spots Betty waiting for them in a booth by the windows.

“Hi guys!” Betty hops up from her seat to greet them, but Jellybean ignores her, practically throwing herself into the opposite side of the booth. Betty widens her eyes as she leans in to press a chaste kiss to Jughead’s cheek.

“Jellybean, Miss Cooper said hi to you.”

Jellybean ignores them both, leaning on her elbows to peer closely at the songs listed on the old-fashioned tabletop jukebox that sits at the end of every booth.

“It’s nice to see you outside of school.” Betty smooths her hand over her ponytail, a move he knows to be one of her nervous tics. “I heard this is your favorite restaurant.”

Jellybean spins around to look at Jughead. “Can I have a quarter?”

He rolls his eyes. “No. Jellybean, Miss Cooper said –”

“You can call me Betty,” she interjects.

Jughead locks eyes with her across the table. They’d discussed the issue of names, and decided they would stick to Miss Cooper at first, since it was more familiar to Jellybean. Betty looks apologetic, mouthing the word oops.

Jellybean pauses, shifting her gaze to Betty with suspicion. “Even at school?”

“Well –”

“Not at school.” Jughead shakes his head. “Miss Cooper is still a teacher when you’re at school.”

“She’s not a teacher,” Jellybean shoots back.

“Jelly –”

“She’s right,” Betty cuts in mildly. “I’m not a teacher. But I’m still a grown-up, and when you’re at school, you’re not allowed to call grown-ups by their first name. So while we’re there, you can call me Miss Cooper, but when we see each other like this, I hope you’ll call me Betty. How does that sound?”

There’s a long, long pause. “Okay,” Jellybean says, turning her attention back to the jukebox.

As Betty gives him a hesitant smile, he feels her foot brush against his ankle.

He’ll chalk it up as a win.

four

“Jug.”

Betty shifts from where she’s laying against his chest so that they’re both sitting upright on the sofa, a throw blanket draped over their laps while Vertigo plays on the television.

Movie nights at the Jones apartment have become a regular thing now that Jellybean knows about them. Her attitude towards Betty has neutralized over the last few weeks, if not exactly warmed up, but Jughead is grateful for any progress that means he can stop paying an arm and a leg to Ethel the babysitter every time he wants to see his girlfriend.

“Mm?” Sensing they’re about to have a real conversation, he pauses the movie. “What’s up?”

“I know we haven’t really talked about this much, but…what are you and Jellybean going to do for Thanksgiving?”

Jughead scratches his chin. He hasn’t given the holiday much thought yet. Last year they’d both been welcomed into the Andrews’ home for Thanksgiving, just as Jughead had been every year since the beginning of high school. But this year both Archie and his dad were flying to Chicago to spend a few days with Archie’s mom, whose divorce from Fred was one of the rare splits that was so amicable they still spent most of the holidays together.

“First we have to go see my dad.”

In truth, he’s dreading the visit, as he dreads all visits to Shankshaw Prison. FP had been a crummy, absentee dad with a serious alcohol problem for all of Jughead’s childhood. Though he’d only moved as far as Greendale after divorcing Jughead’s mom, months and months would go by without a word to his only son.

But years later – when his second wife had skipped town in the dead of night, leaving him with a toddler to care for – FP had stepped up. He’d gotten sober, and kept his daughter fed, clothed, and sheltered for the first six years of her life. (Of course, the means by which he’d done so had been dangerous and illegal – but still. The end result was a healthy, relatively well-adjusted kid.)

Jughead was grateful that his father had pulled it together enough to care for Jellybean the way he had. He knew, logically, that alcoholism was a disease, and that poverty was cyclical: a trap that few families on the southside of Riverdale had ever escaped by toeing the right side of the law.

None of that made it hurt any less that FP was a real father to Jellybean in a way he never had been to Jughead.

“Right. What about after?” Betty prompts him.

“After…I’ll probably make dinner.”

Jughead’s a decent cook. He’s never made a full Thanksgiving dinner before, but if the meal’s not quite as decadent as Fred Andrews’ deep-fried turkey and cheesy mashed potato casserole, that’s okay.

“I want you to come to my family’s Thanksgiving this year.” Betty says the words in a rush, clasping his hand between both of hers as though he might otherwise run away. “I already asked my mom and she’s excited to meet you.”

After all he’s heard from Betty, the prospect of meeting Alice Cooper face-to-face sets him on edge. Maybe she was wise to grab his hands, after all. “Betts, I don’t know.”

Her face falls, lips pulling into the slightest pout while her green eyes grow even wider – a deadly combination, if you ask Jughead. “It’s important to me. You’re important to me. Both of you.”

Jughead’s heart warms in his chest even as his gut screams in protest. “You’re important to me, too.”

“So come spend Thanksgiving with me.” Betty pulls his arm over her shoulder, snuggling into his side. “It’ll be fun.” She presses play on the movie again, as though that settles it.

He supposes it does.

Jellybean presses her nose to the back window as Betty slows the car to a stop in front of her parents’ home. “That’s a really big house.”

Betty nods, unbuckling her seatbelt. “That’s where my parents live.”

It’s also the house where Betty grew up, but Jughead doesn’t point that out. He knows that she’s self-conscious about the fact that her parents are wealthy, the third generation of Coopers to own and operate the improbably successful Riverdale Register. Her own decision to attend a nursing program and then work in a public school had been a shock and disappointment to her family – but her ability to now live alone in a nice northside apartment on a school nurse’s salary is largely thanks to the fact that she’d never had to pay back any student loans.

Her father, Hal, answers the door, with a hug for Betty, a handshake for Jughead, and an awkward pat on the head for Jellybean, who turns to Jughead with such a murderous glare that he almost laughs out loud.

“Is that Betty?” A woman’s voice calls from somewhere in the house.

“Hi, Mom!” Betty calls back.

Alice Cooper appears, looking every inch like the Norman-Rockwell-esque matriarch Betty had warned she’d be. Jughead recognizes traces of Betty in her appearance – the nose, especially – but where Betty is soft and approachable, her mother seems sharp. Stiff. Her ashy blonde hair is neatly curled just above her shoulders, and the lacy yellow trim on her spotlessly clean apron matches the shade of her high-heeled shoes. Even with Betty standing beside him in jeans, Jughead feels underdressed.

“You must be Jug Head.” She strides forward with her hand extended, and Jughead feels distinctly as though he is treading water while a shark glides straight towards him, mouth open wide.

He accepts Hal’s offer of a Heineken, and at Alice’s insistence they all retire to the sitting room. Jughead notes with dismay that it’s separate from the living room, where there’s at least a tv mounted on the wall. Before he can take his seat next to Betty on the sofa, Jellybean tugs on his sleeve.

“Can I play my GameGuy now?” she whispers.

“Not yet.” She huffs as she hops up onto the cushion beside him.

“So. Tell us how you two met.” Alice keeps her eyes on Jughead as she takes a sip of white wine.

“I already told you, Mom.” Only a hint of impatience breaks through in Betty’s voice. “We met at school.”

Alice lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I wanted to hear Jug Head’s version.”

Aka, you didn’t believe her, Jughead thinks darkly. “It’s the same,” he says. “I had a mishap with some scissors when I was visiting Jellybean’s class for Parents Day, and Betty patched me right up.”

“I remember Parents Day,” Hal says fondly, stretching back in his recliner. “Remember that, Betty?”

“Sure do, Dad,” she sing-songs in a tone that says this is a conversation they’ve had before, and she remembers nothing.

“And how long have you been parenting Jellybean?”

On the face of it there’s nothing wrong with Alice’s question, but the way she says it – as well as the implication that she knows about, and disapproves of, his father – sets him on edge. “About a year and a half.”

Sensing his discomfort, Betty jumps in. “When is Polly supposed to get here?”

It’s a successful redirect, as Alice rolls her eyes and takes a swig of wine in response. “You know your sister. She’ll show up three days from now claiming it’s the real Thanksgiving based on the moon cycle.”

But the elusive Polly Cooper breezes into the house right in time for dinner. Just like their mother, Polly is exactly as Betty had described, from the fluttery bell sleeves on her peasant top down to the seasonally inappropriate Birkenstocks on her feet.

“Jellybean would absolutely love it at the Farm,” she insists through a mouthful of green beans, which are the only food she’ll eat now that she is, apparently, vegan. “Every Saturday we get the kids together for a big bonfire –”

“We’re not getting Jellybean involved in any human sacrifice, Pol,” Betty interrupts with a snort.

Polly’s fork clatters against her plate. “You can make ignorant jokes all you want, Betty, but until you actually visit the Farm you have no right to pass judgment.”

Betty fixes her sister with a smile so unnaturally placid it sends a shiver down Jughead’s spine. “Actually, I can. Because it’s a cult.”

“Did you girls know your grandpa used to work on a chicken farm?” Hal asks.

“Yes, Dad,” his daughters say in unison.

“Jug Head, you look like you’re almost done with your seconds.” Alice holds the turkey platter aloft in her neatly-manicured hands. “Would you like thirds?”

Despite the smile on her face, Jughead senses that the question is meant to be an insult of some sort. The food is so good that he doesn’t really care. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Can I have more?” Jellybean pipes up.

“Oh no, dear,” Alice says pleasantly, even as she piles more dark meat onto Jughead’s plate. “Little girls should have little appetites.”

It takes all of Jughead’s willpower not to snap openly at his girlfriend’s mother, though based on the daggers said girlfriend is shooting across the table with her eyes, he doesn’t think she would hold it against him. Instead he merely passes half of the turkey on his plate over to Jellybean’s. “Here you go, Jelly. Have as much as you want.”

Under the table, Betty squeezes his hand.

Betty excuses herself to the bathroom as dessert is served, and after a quick, clandestine text exchange with his phone held beneath the table, Jughead agrees she should feign a migraine so they can get out of there immediately.

The moment they make it inside her car, Betty exhales a long, shaky breath. “I am so sorry. I’m sorry to both of you.”

“It’s okay.” He rubs her shoulder, wishing he could pull her closer for a kiss, but they try to avoid any overt PDA when Jellybean is around. “I can see why you’d want us there, for some moral support.”

“I really thought they’d be different this time. I don’t know why.” She shakes her head. “I just thought – they know how much you matter to me, and that would be the difference.”

His chest aches with sympathy, but he doesn’t really know what to do about it – especially with Jellybean listening from the back seat. “Do you want me to drive?”

Betty sighs, turning the key in the ignition. “No, I’ve got it. Thank you, though.”

By the time they pull up to his building, Jellybean is zonked out, her GameGuy discarded on the seat beside her. Jughead carries her up to the apartment and tucks her into bed, then rejoins Betty in the kitchen, where she’s sipping on a mug of the chamomile tea he’d bought just for her. The sight of her so at home in the middle of his and Jellybean’s space makes something flutter in his stomach.

“D’you wanna go for a walk before you head home?” he suggests. “We might be able to see some stars.”

Hand in hand, they meander in the direction of Pickens Park, where fewer lights means there’s a better shot at seeing a constellation or two. The silence between them is comfortable until Betty takes a deep breath and says, “I really am sorry, Jug. You didn’t even want to come, and I pressured you into it, and –”

“Hey. I wanted to come. And I had to meet your family eventually.”

Betty wrinkles her nose. “They mean well, I think. They’re just…mmph. I’m so angry. I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be.” Jughead leans over and plants a kiss on the side of her head. “You’re not the one who had to visit their dad in jail today.”

Her free hand flies to her mouth. “Oh my god. We didn’t even talk about that, I was so wrapped up in my family’s bullshit...how did it go?”

“It went okay. It was better than last year. Last year was really hard.” He shrugs. “Jellybean seemed happy to see him, and that’s what’s important.”

“Your feelings are important, too,” Betty says. “But I’m glad it went okay.”

“Thanks.” Jughead swings their hands a little, feeling nervous as a thought enters his mind. “Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Do you ever think about having kids?”

A tiny crease appears in the center of Betty’s forehead, but she nods. “Sure. I’m almost thirty and unmarried, so…pretty much every day I encounter someone who thinks it’s their duty to remind me my ovaries are slowly dying.”

Jughead cracks a smile, and she nudges him in the arm. “Why? Did my mother say something?”

“No, she didn’t.” He shrugs. “I just…I don’t know if I want them. Other than Jellybean, obviously. I’ve got a lot of baggage with my dad, and the whole alcoholism thing…I don’t know.” He glances at her. “After seeing him today, I thought I should put that on the table.”

There is the other thing, too, the thing he doesn’t think he’s ready to confess to Betty yet: that he fears he’s really, really bad at the whole parenting thing, and just doesn’t know it yet.

“Okay,” Betty says. “I’m not sure, either.”

That catches him by surprise. “Really?”

“I like kids, of course, I work with them every day. Sometimes I think that’s enough. Sometimes I wonder if eventually it won’t be. Maybe I’ve got some mom baggage, too.” She threads her fingers in between his. “But there are a lot of different ways to build a family, Jughead. It doesn’t all have to be two-point-five kids and a picket fence.”

The nervous feeling doesn’t entirely go away, but it settles into something that’s a little more pleasant – a little more like excitement than fear. Maybe that’s as good as you can hope for when neither of you knows the answer.

“Can I ask you something?”

Jughead smiles. “Always.”

Betty stops in the middle of the sidewalk, wrapping her arms around his neck, rising up on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his. “What are you doing for Christmas this year?”

five

“Well, that’s the end of the wine.”

Jughead pours the last few drops into Betty’s glass before collapsing back onto the sofa beside her with a contented sigh. He’s been looking forward to this night for a while – ever since Jellybean had arrived home from school last month with an invitation to “Mia’s Mega Slumber Party Extravaganza” tucked into her backpack.

An entire night without Jellybean means an entire night with Betty – something that still hasn’t happened yet, nearly five months into their relationship. All of the articles on DadsDivorce.com had agreed: no sleepovers with a new partner until you know – for sure – that she’s sticking around, on a permanent basis.

No matter how great things are going with Betty – and they are great, maybe even better than he could have imagined – it’s still too early for them to have that conversation.

So for now, he’s determined to make the most of their night together. To finally fall asleep in the same bed, and wake up tangled together. To make her breakfast. To have slow, lazy morning sex, and slippery, hot shower sex, and maybe some regular old sex on the sofa, too. (On top of a blanket, of course. They’re not animals.)

Betty seems to be on the same page. She throws back what little remains of her wine and then hops to her feet, bending forward to grab his hands and give him a peek down the v-neck of her sweater.

“Let’s go to bed,” she announces, pulling him up out of his seat. Jughead can’t stop the dopey smile that spreads across his face. She’s loose and happy and relaxed, all of which he might have blamed on the wine if not for the fact she’s been like this since the moment she showed up at his door, overnight bag in hand.

“Is this your seduction technique?” he teases, dragging his feet as she tugs him across the room.

“Maybe. Why?”

“It’s a little rough around the edges.”

Dropping his hands, Betty turns away, tucking her chin over her shoulder to look at him as her eyes go dark. “I’ll show you rough, Jughead Jones.”

Boy, does she.

Breathing heavily, Jughead flops onto his back. Every cell in his body is screaming at him to shut down and surrender to sleep in this post-orgasmic haze, but it’s barely even ten o’clock yet. Their night is only beginning.

“Mmmm.” Betty slides her palm across his chest, her fingernails tickling his skin. “That felt so good.”

Jughead rolls towards her in answer, wrapping her up in his arms, mouthing at her collarbone while she squeals in protest. “Juggie!”

He pulls his head back far enough to look her in the eyes, but tightens his hold on her body. Betty gazes back, her smile slowly fading into something more serious.

Neither of them has said it out loud, though Jughead’s felt those three words trembling on the tip of his tongue more than once. He’s known for weeks, maybe months, that he’s in love with her.

But he doesn’t know that she feels – for sure – the same way.

So he holds it back, swallows the words down every time they threaten to spill over. He doesn’t even know what he’s waiting for – if it’s something on her end, or his. He just hopes that he knows it when he sees it.

They have sex again, slower, softer. Jughead links their fingers together and moves their hands up over her head, fucking her into the mattress, groaning against the side of her neck while her legs curl up around him, pulling him in deeper.

He could do this forever, if she’d let him.

After, Jughead is fetching them both a glass of water from the kitchen when Betty’s voice carries down the hallway from his room. “Jug, your phone is ringing.”

“Probably spam.”

There’s a pause. “No, I think it’s Mia’s mom.”

Jughead’s stomach drops as his mind balloons with possibilities, none of them good.  “Okay, just – hang on –”

He manages to hand Betty both glasses of water without spilling either one, and answers the phone just before the call is sent to voicemail. He paces up and down the hallway, pulse slowing as the woman on the other end explains the situation.

Clicking out of the call, he stops in the doorway and takes a moment to just soak in the sight of Betty in his bed. Every bone in his body aches to climb right back in beside her, and stay there until the sun comes up.

Betty sits up, worry in her eyes, letting the bedsheets pool around her waist. “Is everything okay?”

Jughead exhales a deep sigh. “Jellybean wants to come home.”

He decides to take a quick shower before heading over to Mia’s house. He may not know much about slumber party pick-up etiquette, but he knows enough to suspect that collecting your kid while reeking of sex is probably frowned upon. When he emerges from his bedroom freshly washed and clothed, he’s surprised to see Betty waiting for him on the sofa in her coat and earmuffs.

“You don’t have to come,” he says, grabbing his shoes from the rack by the door.

“I want to.”

“I don’t even want to.” He yanks his shoelaces taut, maybe a little too tightly. “We don’t have to. I’m sure there’s some theory of parenting out there that says you should make them suck it up and deal.”

They both know he doesn’t really mean it, but Betty rests her hand on his thigh, squeezing it gently so he’ll look at her. “I think we should go get her,” she says, voice quiet. “You’re right that we don’t have to. It’s your choice. But either way, don’t make it on account of me.”

He stares at her for a beat, then cups her face in his hands, pressing his mouth to hers in a warm, firm kiss. “You’re wonderful.”

Betty scrunches her mouth up – she’s not very good at taking compliments, a quirk that makes him want to shower her with them – but the flush on her cheeks is answer enough.

Jughead takes her hand as they walk through the parking lot of his building to the sidewalk; Mia’s house is only a few blocks away, and they’re both still a touch too tipsy to feel comfortable driving. “You look very cute in your earmuffs,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to her cold, flushed cheek.

Patting the earmuffs with her free hand, Betty flashes him a coquettish smile. “Thank you.”

After a few solid knocks, Mia’s mother opens the front door dressed in a long, fuzzy bathrobe. She looks exhausted.

“Long time no see,” Jughead jokes.

“Ha.” She does a visible double-take when she registers Betty standing next to Jughead on the front stoop. “Miss Cooper?”

“Yes, it’s me, hi.” Betty waves.

Jughead hadn’t even considered the possibility that Mia’s mother would recognize Betty as the school nurse, though in retrospect it seems obvious. “We’re seeing one another,” he explains. “I didn’t call in the emergency medics.”

“You can call me Betty,” she adds.

“Of course. Call me Midge.” She steps aside to let them in. “She said the name Betty and I didn’t realize…anyway. I’ll go get Jellybean.”

Betty waits until she’s turned the corner before leaning over to whisper in his ear. “We’re going to be the number one topic of gossip at next month’s PTA meeting.”

Jughead is mid-groan when his sister shuffles around the corner, dragging her bright red sleeping bag on the floor behind her. If her bloodshot eyes weren’t enough to give away the fact that she’s been crying, the snotty mess on the front of her Spongebob pajamas would be.

His heart softens the moment he sees her. “Hey, Jellybelly. What’samatter?”

“My throat hurts,” she croaks.

There’s obviously more to it – he’s never seen her have such an emotional reaction to feeling sick before – but the foyer of this tired woman’s house at eleven o’clock at night is neither the time nor the place to get into it. “Okay. Let’s get you home.”

Pulling the thermometer from the bathroom cabinet, Jughead pauses. “Do you want Betty to do this? She’s the expert.”

Seated on the side of the tub, feet dangling a few inches from the floor, Jellybean shakes her head adamantly. “No.”

“But –”

“Jug, it’s fine.” Betty steps forward from where she’s been standing in the doorway to squeeze his bicep. “You’re just taking her temperature, not suturing stitches.” She leans in a little closer, tells him in her soft, encouraging voice, “She wants you to do it.”

As he’d expected, Jellybean’s temperature is normal, and her throat looks normal too. Jughead gives her a chewable Tylenol and a cup of water, and nudges her in the direction of her bedroom with a gentle pat between the shoulders.

He finds Betty leaning against the kitchen counter, scrolling through something on her phone. Wrapping his arms around her, he sighs against her neck.

“I think she’s fine,” he mumbles. “But she’s upset about something.”

Betty runs her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at the back of his scalp, and tells him what he already knows. “You should go talk to her.”

Jughead knocks before entering Jellybean’s room; she’s tucked into her bed already, a book open on the mattress beside her, bathed in the soft yellow light of the bumblebee lamp on her bedside table. He climbs onto the bed, leaning back against the headboard. “Hey. Scootch over.”

Jellybean wriggles to the side to make room, but keeps her attention on the book, flipping to the next page.

“Can we talk for a sec?”

She flips the page again, then closes the book, turning over onto her side to face him. “Okay.”

“Did something happen at Mia’s? That made you want to come home?” When she says nothing, he adds, “You can tell me. I’m not mad.”

Jellybean tugs something soft out from under Jughead’s shoulder – her favorite stuffed animal, Hot Dog – and holds it close to her chest. “I got scared.”

“Scared about what?”

She presses her face against Hot Dog and mumbles something he can’t hear.

Jughead nudges the toy away from her mouth gently. “What?”

“I got scared that when it was time for me to go home tomorrow morning, you wouldn’t come get me. You’d disappear.”

Jesus. Jughead feels the abrupt, prickling heat of tears forming behind his eyes. What did I do to make her think that?

“Jellybean, listen to me.” He swallows down the lump in his throat. “That is never going to happen. I’m always going to be here for you. No matter what. I swear.”

Her voice sounds very small – and very, heartbreakingly, uncertain – when she says, “Okay.”

Jughead tucks her in a few minutes later, still feeling unsettled as he pulls the bedroom door shut behind him. Here he was, congratulating himself for being the first stable, responsible adult in his sister’s entire young life, and all along she was afraid he’d leave her, too.

Betty is waiting for him on the living room sofa. He collapses beside her, rubbing his face with both hands. “So it turns out I’m a complete failure of a brother.”

Her hand finds the center of his back, rubbing in gentle circles. “What happened?”

He recaps the conversation for her while Betty murmurs soft sounds of sympathy, her other hand coming to rest on his knee. “I feel terrible,” he finishes. “Clearly I’m doing something wrong, if she thinks I’d just abandon her like that.”

Betty squeezes his knee. “I don’t know, Jug. I’ve never seen you do anything without considering how it would impact Jellybean first. I think…I think she’s just a little kid who’s already been let down by two of the most important people in her life. At some point it becomes pattern recognition.”

“But I should be breaking the pattern.”

“And you are.” Betty moves her hand to cup his cheek. “It just takes time.”

Jughead frowns, realizing for the first time that Betty is wearing her coat again. “Are you cold?”

“No.” Betty gestures towards her overnight bag, which has migrated from the top of his bedroom dresser to the floor by the front door. “I thought since Jellybean’s home now, I should get going.” She shrugs. “You know the rules.”

But what Jughead really knows, with bone-deep certainty, is that the last thing on Earth he wants right now is for Betty to walk out the door. “I want you to stay,” he says, not caring if he sounds desperate. “Please stay.”

She looks conflicted. “I don’t want to confuse her…”

“I’m obviously not an expert, but I think at this point it would be more confusing if you weren’t here in the morning.” Jughead takes both of her hands in his. “She knows I – how much I care about you.”

Betty blinks a few times, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I really do care about her, too.”

“I know.” He tugs her closer, pressing his lips to her temple. “So you should stay.”

After they’ve changed into pajamas and climbed into bed, turned off the light and shared a chaste kiss goodnight, Jughead makes a decision. He holds it in his chest, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He wants to see her face, soft and sleepy in the dim glow of the moonlight peeking through the curtains.

“Betts?” He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trail over her temple.

“Mm?”

“I love you.”

“Oh, Jug.” Her smile is a brilliant star in the darkness. “I love you, too.”

Jughead wakes up to the soft buzz of his phone alarm beneath his pillow, and slips silently out of bed, careful not to wake Betty.

Whether it’s the smell of pancakes or just her usual wakeup time that rouses her, he doesn’t know, but about a half hour later she shuffles into the kitchen, pressing her face against his back as she wraps her arms around his middle.

“Those smell good,” she mumbles, the last word stretching into a yawn. Jughead smiles to himself as he flips a pancake. Apparently Betty’s not a morning person.

Neither is Jellybean, who emerges from her bedroom right around nine-thirty, just as he’d expected. She stops short in the doorway when she sees Betty at the kitchen table, nursing a mug of coffee. “Oh. Hi.”

“Good morning.” Betty smiles, and nudges back the chair next to her with her foot. “You want some orange juice?”

“Yes, please.”

Betty runs her hand over his back as she passes him on the way to the fridge. He looks over his shoulder at Jellybean, who is watching them both with an expression he can’t quite read. Not a bad one, though, he thinks. “Do you want chocolate chips or blueberries in your pancakes?”

“Both,” Jellybean says easily.

He makes a face. “Really? In the same pancake?”

“Uh huh.”

“She said what she said, Jug.” Betty raises her eyebrows at him as she places a glass of juice in front of Jellybean. “The girl knows what she wants.”

“Yeah. I know what I want,” Jellybean echoes.

Jughead snorts. “Okay, but don’t complain to me when they’re inedible.”

(She eats five of them.)

a little over a year later

“Betts, the babysitter’s going to be here any minute.”

Betty steps halfway through the bathroom door, her hands at her ear. “I dropped the back of my earring, give me a minute. We have a reservation. I don’t know why you’re in such a rush.”

Jughead waves her off. “No, you’re right. Take your time.”

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he paces into the living room. Jellybean glances up at him from the floor, where she’s sitting cross-legged before the tv, Zbox controller in hand as usual.

“You look like you’re going to throw up,” she says.

He stops. “Gee, thanks.”

Jellybean has known that he’s going to propose for about three weeks. He’d debated whether or not to tell her first – eight-year-olds weren’t exactly known for their ability to keep secrets – but ultimately decided that making his little sister feel comfortable with a pretty big change in their lives was more important than whether or not Betty was surprised.

Besides, they’d talked about marriage before; Betty knew it was coming at some point. She just didn’t know when. (A part of him suspects she knows it’s coming tonight – she doesn’t normally take this long to get ready for dinner.)

Bringing it up with Jellybean hadn’t been quite as nerve-wracking as he may have once thought. While she’d only begrudgingly admit it, he knew that she liked Betty – felt cared for by Betty. Still, when he’d shown her the little diamond ring, she’d peppered him with questions.

“Is she going to live with us?”

“Yes. Would that bother you?”

Jellybean had shrugged. “Not really. She makes better bacon than you. Will I get to be in a wedding?”

Neither of them was particularly interested in anything bigger than a courthouse wedding, but Betty had warned him that her parents might have a strong opinion on the matter, since their other daughter had been “married to her Farm brothers and sisters” in a surprise group ceremony last summer.

“If we have a wedding, yes. Definitely.”

“Are you going to have a baby?”

His face had grown warm. “Um…I don’t know. Not anytime soon.”

“Is she going to call herself my sister?”

Jughead couldn’t tell whether she considered that possibility a good or a bad thing. “Only if you want her to.”

Jellybean had cradled the little jewelry box in her lap for a moment, studying it intently. He could only imagine what she was thinking – every time he thought he had a handle on her thoughts and emotions, she said or did something that surprised him. He supposed that was what it meant to watch someone grow up.

“Okay,” she’d said eventually, handing the ring back to him. “You can ask Betty to marry you.”

Now, Jellybean grins up at him impishly from her spot on the floor. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it,” she sing-songs.

“Wow.” Jughead bends down to ruffle her hair in just the way she hates. “What did I ever do to deserve such a supportive sibling?”

There’s a knock at the door. As if on cue, Betty rushes out of the bathroom. “I’ll get it! I’m almost ready, I just need to get my shoes on.”

A minor flurry of activity ensues: Jughead fills Ethel in on where they’ll be and when they expect to get home; Betty enlists Jellybean in the hunt for her left pump, which has gone missing from the shoe rack. By the time they’re ready to leave, he can tell Betty is flustered, so he takes a deep, calming breath to center himself. They can’t both be nervous wrecks tonight.

“We’ll see you two later,” Betty says as they head for the door.

“Hey.” Jellybean hops up suddenly, her video game momentarily forgotten. “You’re wearing my necklace.”

Betty’s hand touches the base of her throat, and Jughead notices for the first time the little silver heart that hangs there on a chain. After much consideration, Jellybean had picked it out from the school holiday shop as her Christmas gift to Betty. “You don’t really have to wear it,” he’d told her that night, after Jellybean was asleep in bed. “It was twelve dollars, it’ll probably turn your skin green.”

“It’s my favorite,” Betty says now, smiling warmly.

Jellybean smiles back. “It’s pretty.”

“Alright.” Jughead steps out into the hall. “We better get going or they’re going to give our table away.”

Betty rolls her eyes, but lets him tug her through the doorway. “No they’re not. Bye, guys!”

Jughead squeezes her hand as they wait for the elevator. He only feels a tiny bit guilty for interrupting their moment.

He just can’t wait any longer to take this big, scary, wonderful step into the future.