Just like the three musketeers of old, Bailey Jones, Arlo Carter and Josh Hale had become inseparable friends with a bond and friendship that lasted far beyond their childhood.
Whenever the question of a 'best friend' was raised in small talk or get-to-know-you type questions and directed at Bailey, there was only ever one answer... It was Josh and Arlo. One name wasn't complete without the other in that title as Bailey's best friend. They were the three amigos who stuck together through thick, through thin and through everything in between.
After their very first day of kindergarten all those years ago when the three friends hit it off almost instantly, their friendship had only blossomed and grown over the days, the weeks, the months and the years that followed it.
The following year after the three of them met in kindergarten and during her first year of school marked another first for Bailey when she had her first kiss -courtesy of Josh- who decided to copy so many of their fellow students and join in with the schoolyard game that was currently most popular with and trending among the five-year-olds at the time, laying one on Bailey on the playground during their lunchtime. Then, just moments later, so as to even the score and ensure that Arlo didn't feel left out, Bailey leaned over and shared one with him too, as though they were sharing a pass-the-parcel.
Jughead almost died when Bailey came home from school that day and proudly shared the events of her day with her parents with complete innocence.
Then in contrast, one of the only true divides that had ever really threatened their close friendship was the introduction and awareness of 'boy germs' and 'girl germs', placing invisible boundaries between members of the opposite sex at age of eight. But, even that only lasted up until Bailey got fed up of being on the opposite side of the divide to her two best friends, setting them both straight and declaring that it was completely ridiculous given that they'd all been friends ever since they were four without catching any form of plague from each other.
As they grew and after beginning high school both Josh and Arlo thrived in the football team, while Bailey learnt that she had her father's athleticism, or complete lack thereof. However, despite that whenever it came to picking teams and choosing partners, either and both Josh and Arlo would never, ever turn down the option of picking Bailey first for their team, even in spite of the groans that would sound from their classmates.
#
Despite the closeness of their friendship, their connections to each other and their dynamic as a trio, each one of them was so completely different from the other two...
Bailey was as bright and bubbly as she was as a small child, bearing the kindest heart and concern for people, along with a penchant for fun. She lit up those two boys lives just as she did with everyone she met.
Arlo was undoubtedly the most shy and reserved of the three of them. Where Bailey and Josh were a little more willing to push the boundaries, Arlo was the cautious one who grounded the bunch. Arlo is always more than happy to take the backseat to his two best friends, just as he did with sports. After all, he loved sports but even in one of the most favourite things in the world, he was happy contributing in the background to a win.
However, deep down there was a young man who didn't know anything other than that. As a twin to his louder, funnier and more popular sister Ava, Arlo didn't know anything other than standing in the shadow that he didn't quite know how to break out from underneath of...
Then there's Josh. While Arlo was content in the shadows, Josh lived under the spotlight. Josh Hale was cocky, he was bold and a he was a bit of a playful flirt. But, he had always been the kind of a guy who got more of a kick out of making a girl smile than getting her number. After all, having been raised as an only child to a single mother, Josh had an immense respect for women. He enjoyed treating each as special, regardless of whether she was 8, 80, or anywhere in between.
But, beneath the surface and only to his two best friend's, there was a highly critical and afflicted boy hiding away beneath the surface, despite the facade of popularity and confidence that the rest of Riverdale saw...
Then, just as different as their individual personalities are, Bailey's connections with each of the two boys is quite different, too.
Bailey and Josh were the ones who had the highest highs together, always willing to push the boundaries for a bit of a laugh. If there was a fight or an argument within the group, nine times out of ten it was between them, though when the inevitable reconciliation came it only ever left them feeling closer to each other.
Meanwhile, the more cautious and steady Arlo was reliable, often times slipping into the role of mediator. He was just always there through the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, no matter what.
Josh got Bailey through her hard times by never failing to bring a smile to her face, reminding her of the bright-side if she wavered in remembering it and giving her to motivation to get back up and keep on going.
Then, on the other hand, Arlo was the one listened more than he spoke, being there as she talked through her feelings, then helping her to make sense of them.
Each of them and even their connections to each other was such a polar opposite to each other. Yet, together they were like three pieces that joined together to make an unbreakable unit.
#
Meanwhile, at almost eleven years old, Blake was also one third of her own trio of friends, too.
Blake was the youngest of the group of three that also consisted of her cousin Ellie -JB's daughter- and Archie and Veronica's only child, Cruz Andrews.
With just weeks separating Cruz and Ellie who were born just over a year before Blake, all three of them had grown up together.
While Blake was the shyer and quieter one of the group, Ellie was her mother's carbon copy undoubtedly making her the most effervescent in nature of the trio, with a wild streak that urged her to push the boundaries even when it meant getting herself in a little bit of trouble.
But, the two cousins have spent just about their whole lives swooning over and fighting for their best friend Cruz's affections who was in every way the heartthrob his father was, also inheriting with his mother's quick tongue.
However, forming a third of their own little trios was about where the similarities between Bailey and Blake both started and ended. After all, although they got along with each other well -despite the five years age gap between them- the two sisters couldn't be more different from each other.
Where Bailey was blonde, Blake was brunette. Where Bailey was bubbly and outgoing, Blake was quiet and reserved. Where Bailey loved being out with the boys, Blake kept to herself and preferred to play at home, even over playing with her friends.
But, the Jones family hadn't just stopped with the two girls. After all, over the years, the family of four had expanded just a little further.
While Jughead and Betty had been content with their girls, Bailey and Blake, their third daughter had been the piece of their family that they didn't even know that they were missing.
When it came to naming their youngest daughter, Jughead had won over his wife with his pick of Bronte Jones.
Betty had been adamant that while sure, 'Bailey and Blake' sounded sweet, she did not want another child of theirs name to begin with 'B'. However, Jughead had the complete opposite view, saying that especially if they'd had another daughter, it didn't feel right to him not to when he already has his three, 'B' girls.
Then, after covering every baby name starting with 'B' written on every list and found in every baby name book, he'd actually found inspiration from their very own bookshelf.
In the end, he'd won her over with the name Bronte, as much as she didn't want to admit it after he suggested it to her...
"Hey Betts, what do you think of Bronte for a girl? Pretty, hey? It matches with our girls having surnames as first names, too."
Jughead had seen the look on her face upon hearing his suggestion, resulting in a smirk that erupted on his.
"You like it, Betts... You so like it."
However, his wife just pouted, not conceding and admitting defeat and not allowing him to grow too smug.
"It's not bad..." she'd replied, sounding deliberately coy. "But, we'll keep looking."
They never looked too much further than that.
Then, from almost as soon as they'd brought her home from hospital, Betty couldn't believe how much their third daughter was the carbon copy of their first in her appearance, her manner and her little blossoming personality.
At four, little Bronte was her big sister Bailey's mirror image.
With her same big, blue eyes, her head-full of golden locks, her bright and sunny disposition and her friendliness towards everyone, even Bailey identified herself in her little sister.
It makes for both a little healing and a little heartbreak during all the moments of Bronte's short life so far when Jughead's wife leans over to him, whispering: "that was exactly like Bailey at that age".
#
On a typical Saturday night in the Jones family and following Betty's direction after she asked her husband to call the kids to the table for dinner, Jughead had jumped at the chance to go and inform Bailey and her visitors that their meal was ready, seizing the opportunity and excuse to cast an overprotective eye on the teenagers.
Coming face-to-face with the closed door of Bailey's bedroom, Jughead attaches his hand to the door handle with a deep breath, mustering up the strength to face whatever he'll find on the side of his daughter's door as he prepares to interrupt the three teenagers.
Despite the fact that they'd been in each other's lives since they were four, Jughead still always felt uneasy about his daughter's friends, a feeling that was only on the incline the older they get.
"What do I tell you about closed doors?" Jughead states sternly as he bursts open the door to Bailey's bedroom to find the three of them gathered around her floor with snacks and books between them.
"Sorry dad. Bronte was being noisy and we could barely hear each other speak. Then when she noticed the boys in here, she raced in, smothering them" Bailey replies being quick to apologise as she looks up with an apologetic wince that she hopes will be enough to get her out of any trouble.
Jughead considers reminding her of the house rules once more before he sees the look on his daughter's face; the look that has spent years deceiving him into believing that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. So, he just sighs, standing up a little straighter against the doorframe of his daughter's bedroom.
"Anyway, dinner's ready guys" Jughead advises, remembering the whole reason behind what had prompted his visit to his eldest daughter's bedroom as he intentionally wedges the door-stopper in Bailey's door.
Following his statement, Jughead hovers and lingers in the doorway, pretending to check the paintwork as the three teenagers groan from the spots they'd become quite comfortable on Bailey's bedroom floor. Meanwhile, taking their time, Arlo tidies up the bowls and the books they had sprawled out over Bailey's floor while Josh is the first to his feet, extending a hand down to Bailey to pull her up from her spot on the floor before then extending his open hand out to Arlo too with a grin as the brunette teenager just shakes his head, laughing his friend's offer off and standing up on his own accord.
As Bailey and the boys then finally trail downstairs to the rest of the family followed by Jughead, the youngest Joneses face lights up from the ground floor when she sees the lighter-haired boy in her sister's company.
"Joshy!" Bronte squeals with excitement as though she's just been presented with her second chance. After all, Bailey had allowed her to sit with her and her friends in her bedroom for a few minutes earlier that evening up until the little girl began smothering the two teenage boys and when Bailey stepped in, telling her sister to please leave.
"Bronte!" Josh exclaims equally as enthusiastically, carrying the 'E' in her name as he opens his arms out to catch the little girl as she comes racing over to him.
Deep-down, Josh was little Bronte's favourite of her sister's friends, given that the four-year-old harboured an innocent little crush on him, much to the teasing of her older sisters.
While Bronte did love both of her older sister's best friends, but Josh especially, Blake always hit it off better with Arlo. After all, the two of them were both the quieter and more reserved of them all when Bailey and her friends were together with her younger sisters, just as they are tonight as the Jones family are joined by Bailey's two best friends after Betty had offered if they wanted to stay around for dinner.
In fact, Bailey feels a little offended as she takes her seat at the table, with each one of her two best friend's sitting on either side of her but both looking over to either one of her two sisters distractedly as Josh answers Bronte's question about what his three favourite animals are while Arlo makes small talk with Blake, checking in on her and what's new in her life.
However, looking to her two best friends as they chatter away easily with her sisters, Bailey can't bring herself to stay too annoyed for too long, feeling her heart melt a little at the sight and the care between four people who all mean so much to her as they sit around her family's dining table together.
#
Arlo ended up leaving a little earlier that evening, after receiving a message from his twin sister Ava that she'd finished work and needed to be picked up given that Arlo had taken the car that the two of them share.
However, Josh hung around and rest the rest of the evening with the Joneses, despite it meaning that all of Jughead's focus being poured out on him rather than it being divided between himself and Arlo as it usually would.
Josh had hung around for the games that came after dessert and he'd hung around after Betty put Bronte to bed, followed by Blake's bedtime a little later on as he hung around until finally the two teenagers had a few moments respite from Jughead's eagle-eye as he went off to say goodnight to Blake.
Then, after Jughead returned as promptly as he could after just pressing a kiss to his middle child's head and offering to tuck her in which she was getting just a little old for, the overprotective father returned to the teenager's company just in time to catch them standing by the door, speaking in a whisper.
As he moves through the hallway and slowly towards them he is torn with partly wanting to make his presence known but also wanting to see and hear what he can in the moment before they realise that they're no longer on their own anymore. Then, in that moment, Jughead just hears one statement that is possibly the most effective reminder to himself that despite the monsters that his mind portrays them to be given his natural overprotection, Bailey really does have a good group of guys around her, guys that have her best interests at heart, caring for her and watching her back, something he is reminded of as Josh whispers:
"You should rest... Just make sure you're taking care of yourself, Bailes."
He witnesses the softness and warmth in the look on his daughter's face from his words and he watches on as one of Bailey's childhood best friend's reaches out to touch the side of her arm with a deep concern and care written on his face and evident in his eyes.
The touch evolves into a hug goodbye before Jughead steps out from the shadows where he'd been lurking and watching quietly, suddenly making his presence known which effectively shoos the teenage boy with a "Sir" in his direction, followed by a small wave and a "bye Bailey... I'll catch you tomorrow."
After waving Josh off and watching as he leaves, Bailey looks around to see her dad still standing there. So, she turns around on her heel, walking the short distance over to him as he lays a hand around her back affectionately.
Then, Bailey's blue eyes flicker up and over to her father with a lightness and amusement as a suppressed smirk fights for a spot on the corner of her lips as she speaks up to him.
"I think you terrify the boys, you know, dad? You totally just scared Josh off and he is pretty close to fearless."
Looking down to his eldest with a grin as they walk out of the hallway and through to the rest of the house together, Jughead just shrugs, speaking the truth to her.
"With you three girls, Bay, I have to be. Don't you forget it."
#
By the time that Jughead went to bed that night, Betty has beaten him in there where she is already trying to sleep. So as he slips inside their room, he quietly changes and slips into bed beside her, wrapping his arm around her waist.
While he tries to remain quiet and he tries not to disturb her, his mind is working overtime and bothering him as he replays the interaction that he just witnessed a few minutes ago over and over again in his mind.
Despite Jughead's resolution to remain silent and not interrupt her, without him saying a single word, Betty eventually rolls over to face him in the dark with a sigh.
"What's up, babe?"
After all, he hadn't had to say a word. She could feel the tension in him that was consuming him, so much so that it was enough for her to roll over and address it.
"Bailey and Josh... I was watching them as he was leaving. I interrupted them talking. I think they're getting too close."
"Relax..." Betty murmurs as she whispers in the dark, leaning over to press a kiss to his lips before she continues speaking in her efforts to reassure him.
"They're just like us and Arch; all three of us were incredibly close with each other."
While Betty's words are supposed to be reassuring and consoling, they are anything but as she just unintentionally escalates her husband's concerns as he looks to her in the darkness, wide-eyed.
"Exactly... That's what I'm worried about. I got you pregnant."
Jughead doesn't catch his wife's eye-roll in the dark, given his obvious statement. However, he does catch her sarcasm.
"Oh that's right. You did, didn't you? Huh, I almost forgot..." she responds, sarcasm dripping from her voice, largely due to her tiredness given that she's staying up to talk to him after he's joined her in bed, waking her up, before she goes on to explain what she had meant.
"I meant our three musketeer days, Jug. All three of us were incredibly close long before we happened, just like them. That's genuinely where I think they're all just at."
His wife's reassurances don't quite work on him, leaving Jughead feeling a little titchy that he's not getting the sympathy that he'd been after over his concerns over their eldest daughter as he pulls the covers up to his chin, clinging onto them, murmuring back to her in the darkness saying:
"I don't know, Betts... I'm not so sure."
"So, what about the other three then?" Betty questions teasingly as she mentions their second daughter, their niece and their best friend's son who form the younger trio of friends. "Let me guess, you think there's some raging love affair going on there?"
From where he's laying by her side, Jughead releases some kind of noise that is a blend between a groan and a squeak, leaving him visibly shivering in fear.
"Ugh... Don't even say that, Betts. Bailey and the boys are my trial run for them. After all, I've got two girls invested in that trio. So, if Cruz is even a pinch like his father, kid better watch out..."
Betty just giggles, leaning over to press a kiss to her dramatic husband's cheek.
"Night, babe... Maybe try not to think about murdering teenager boys or threatening any eleven-year-old's while you're going to sleep... Love you."
#
Having three daughters was going to send Jughead Jones to an early grave.
He has always been overprotective and paranoid.
He insists on open doors, curfews, hands where he can see them and always hanging out in no less than a group of three.
The frequent jokes along the lines of his girl's following in their parents' examples with the precursor of being teenage parents, too, didn't help matters either.
However, despite his years of fearing it and despite all of his diligent efforts to prevent it, absolutely nothing prepared Jughead for seeing the box in the bin of the bathroom between his two eldest daughter's bedrooms downstairs, along with the stick bearing a positive plus symbol that is shoved further in the bin.
It takes his breath away, punches him in the gut and makes his stomach plummet as it drops from within him, all in one foul movement.
"Bailey!" Jughead bellows out instantly, dropping the bin back down and flying out of the bathroom as he begins to pace around the empty rooms of his home.
No answer so he just called out again and again, repeating her name throughout the house. However, Jughead is quick to find that he has absolutely no success in his search for his eldest child before remembering that she'd mentioned that she was leaving with the boys about an hour ago.
So, pulling his phone out as swiftly as a switchblade, Jughead frantically finds Bailey's number, trying to call her, and call her again, and again, without luck. Jughead then reverts to sending a few texts that convey his urgency in her returning his call, followed by a few furious ones, along with a few more calls, leaving voicemails to his daughter along with each call.
Then, he waits; waiting as he feels his fears and concerns caving in on him, leaving him paranoid that -just like her parents, her grandparents and both her aunts- his daughter has been the cast under the same spell of teen parenthood.
As he paces around the house, climbing up and down the stairs and through the rooms as he fights off the urge to check his phone, Jughead tries to console himself with how overly stringent he knows that he has always managed to be...Until he remembers that, then again, he had managed to get Alice Cooper's daughter pregnant from right under her nose...
After all, if there's a will, there's a way, and like a twisted game of Snakes & Ladders, that thought sends Jughead right back to square one, pacing around all over again, hyperventilating through his short and shaky breaths, panicking over the idea of becoming a grandfather...
#
When Jughead finally heard the front door open after what felt like a millennium that he was left all alone with just his racing mind to keep him company, he suddenly felt completely unequipped and so far from prepared to brace the issue that he needed to after assuming it's his eldest daughter who has just returned home.
However, on his way downstairs, Jughead recognises the noise of his wife's keys being placed down on the kitchen bench, followed by the familiar sound of her footsteps as she places down her bags of groceries. He isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed that it's not Bailey and he can't confront her with the topic that is gnawing at him and eating him alive just yet.
Walking downstairs and into the kitchen, Jughead walks over and presses a kiss to his wife's cheek as she bustles around the room, putting everything away, while he raises a question to her with a slight crease to his forehead.
"Where are the girls?"
"JB messaged while I was out. Ellie was asking if Blake could go over and hang out with her so JB and Casey offered to have the girls for us this afternoon. As for Bailey, I think she was meeting up with the boys at Pop's."
All those years ago and much to her husband's initial apprehension, Betty had been right.
She'd been spot on in picking that JB and Casey would get engaged within the month after having placed her bet on it with her own husband, then being proven right when JB popped the question to Casey not even two weeks later.
While they'd experienced a rocky beginning following the initial flying start to their relationship all those years ago, it was something that Casey and JB worked through together, taking the time to work on their relationship -slowly- in order to build it up to be stronger than they even had been before. And, from there, they never looked back again.
Given that JB was still young, they'd decided on a longer engagement, eventually tying the knot once JB finished her studies in graphic design, three years after they first got engaged.
Then, even after their wedding, they'd waited almost another two years before deciding to expand their family.
So, not long after JB's daughter Ellie turned five, they welcomed FP's one and only grandson, Charley, who had been named as a posthumous honour to his aunt, Casey's younger sister, Charlotte.
The two families were close and Betty and Jughead's children had great, close relationships with their cousins with just a year between both Ellie and Blake as well as Bronte and Charley, while Bailey had basically always been the cool, big kid in both her younger sisters and her cousin's eyes.
Meanwhile, looking up from where she's putting the shopping away, loading up the fridge and restocking the pantry, Betty looks over to her husband with a small frown of concern creasing her eyebrows when she notes the expression on his face that she can read like a book.
"You okay, babe? What's up?"
In answer to his wife's question, Jughead just shakes his head solemnly, running a hand through his hair as he takes a deep breath, trying to muster up the courage to find a way to share the discovery that he'd made -the discovery that had been killing him all afternoon- with her.
Then, as Jughead puts a hand down on the bench to steady himself, Betty's face grows more fearful and concerned at whatever it is that he's trying to say with such great difficulty. So, she puts the lettuce she's holding down on the benchtop as she walks over to her husband, touching his arm as she rubs it consolingly, trying to make it easier for him to say whatever he's trying to tell her.
"I found a positive pregnancy test in the girl's bathroom downstairs... Bailey's pregnant."
Betty's response is instantaneous.
"Bailey's not pregnant."
With another heavy sigh as he shakes his head, Jughead counters his wife's response that was too fast; he knows she's kidding herself too. If the shoe was on the other foot and she was telling him, he wouldn't want to believe it either.
"I know... That's what I keep trying to tell myself, too. God, we're too young to be grandparents, Betts. She's too young to be a parent. Mind you, she's as old as we were when we got pregnant with her..."
As one hand runs up and down his arm, the other touches the side of his face, stroking his cheek soothingly as she bites her lip with a lightness in her eyes that he hadn't been expecting to see from her. Meanwhile, she is watching him crumble in his meltdown as he refuses to listen to what she's trying to telling him, before she attempts to say it once more.
"Bailey is not pregnant, Jug. You don't have to worry about being a grandfather just yet... Because, you're not quite done being a dad."
Each one of their pregnancies had been a little bit different.
With Bailey, obviously Jughead was oblivious to Betty's pregnancy whatsoever until he met their little girl at age three.
For their second, Betty spent the whole day trying to find the way that she wanted to share their unsurprising news with him after they'd been trying to conceive for a few months.
Then with Bronte, it had actually been Jughead who'd picked up on her pregnancy first after listening to Betty grumble to him about how she'd been feeling of late. After all, since meeting JB's second child they'd grown lax in terms of contraceptives and although they weren't consciously trying, they weren't doing much to prevent it either. Then, in the end it was Jughead who looked up at her with a crease to his eyebrows as he raised the question: "you're not pregnant, are you?"
Now, with number four, it was another unintentional -yet entirely new- way for her to break the news to him, proving to be the most relieving of them all after learning that it's his wife who is pregnant and not their daughter.
However, even after she comes clean, Jughead stands there looking at his wife in shock, saying the words that she had never been expecting to hear in response to what she has just told him.
"What were you doing using the girls bathroom?"
Betty just gawks at him in surprise over his reaction of their news. Sure, they're pretty well old hands at it now given it's the fourth time around. But, she still hadn't quite been expecting her announcement of their fourth baby to be an interrogation into why she'd used their daughter's bathroom.
"Um, it's our house? Bronte was playing downstairs at the time so I didn't want to go far from her and leave her unoccupied..."
Recovering from her surprise over his question, Betty becomes playful instead, returning his silly questions with one of her own.
"Now, what were you doing snooping through the bin when you used the girls' bathroom?"
Not quite catching onto her teasing manner, Jughead grows a little defensive as he explains himself while she just grins, watching him.
"Well, I was working downstairs and their bathroom was closest. The tip of the box was poking out. You should know what I'm like when it comes to a mystery..."
Betty doesn't come back with anything else, nor does she send anymore questions his way. Instead, she just stands there, chuckling to herself, shaking her head, as she takes a moment to stop and consider what they are actually arguing about.
In the silence of the pause, it seems to have a similar impact on her husband as he stops, and what she's just told him in a roundabout sort of way suddenly sinks in. In fact, she can just about see it on his face as he stops and processes what she's said and the impact of those words.
"You're...?"
Betty just nods, her face beginning to grow into a smile as she takes another step closer to him again, reaching out to touch the side of his face softly.
"Yeah, we're, Jug... Congratulations."
Opening his arms to her, Betty doesn't hesitate to sink into her husband as he holds her close to him, his head dropping between her shoulder and her neck as he chuckles in shock, trying to comprehend what she's just told him, pressing repeated kisses to her skin, still trying to wrap his head around it.
Then, after a few minutes he pulls away from her –just far enough to look her in the eye- and with the smile still on his face.
"So, just to confirm, it was definitely your test in Bailey and Blake's bathroom? And it was from today?"
Fighting back the urge to roll her eyes at her husband's paranoia that leaves him clinging to his fears of the worst case scenario that he needs to iron out and clarify, she just nods, laying a hand to his shoulder reassuringly as she looks him straight in the eye.
"Yes, Jug... My test, our baby. Bailey's all good. Bailey's not pregnant."
Then, finally, after hours of having been torn apart by his certain thoughts to the contrary racing through him, the point seems to eventually sink in as Jughead exhales an audible sigh of relief.
"Thank God... I tell you, it's a good thing that I saw you first. I was about ready to castrate Josh... Maybe Arlo too, just for good measure."
Standing there in front of him, Betty's head tilts as she thinks over what he's just said while her hand continues to run up and down his arm.
"Huh... My first guess would have been Arlo if we were guessing a baby daddy in that instance. You know, it's the quiet ones you've got to watch out for..."
Either way, Jughead just has one thought on his mind which he divulges to his wife with a smirk, his words making her laugh.
"Today I've come to realise that maybe it was a really, really good thing that I wasn't around when you were pregnant with Bailey..."
Now, they'd gotten to the point that it was something that they could just about laugh about.
After all, after everything, while Jughead had still missed out on a lot, they had come to appreciate that three years was a just drop in the bucket of theirs -and their family's- entire lives together, reaffirmed as Betty smiles up at her husband.
"But, too bad, you're stuck with me now."
#
Walking back over from ordering their patented 'food trinity' of fries, onion rings and fried chicken along with three dips and a milkshake each, Josh slings his arm around Bailey, bringing up the same concern to his best friend as he had last night.
"I hope you didn't stay up too late last night, Miss Jones... That candle that you're burning at both has ends has got to be running out of wax" Josh teases, making his concern playful as he looks to her.
However, Bailey just rolls her blue eyes that she'd inherited from her father, doing her very best to look unimpressed with -and aggravated by- his remark as she relaxes into the arm that he has slung around her, choosing just to play along.
"Don't you worry that pretty little head of yours, Joshy... Of course I'm looking after myself. How could you insinuate that I'd do anything other than that?" Bailey grins as they approach their booth.
As they return to their seats the three teenagers collapse into the booth at Pop's -their second homes- just as their predecessors would do years ago.
Having offered to pay for the order that the three of them had made, Arlo is the last to his seat, sinking into the seat across from Bailey and beside Josh. However, he is quick to catch onto and join the conversation from just hearing the tail-end of his friends exchange.
"Bailey..." Arlo adds, sounding like a disappointed parent, uttering their child's name. "Are you not looking after yourself again? We all know what your immune system is like... If you push yourself, you'll wind up getting run down and sick."
It's true. The boys know their best friend well.
After all, for almost as long as any of them could remember, Bailey had been susceptible to colds, flues, tonsillitis, and ear infections ever since she was little. Even after her operations on her ears as an infant, it had been something that she'd been prone to her whole life.
When she was young it would be from when she'd stay up too late from sleepovers. When she was just a little bit older Bailey would stay up all night with her nose in a book, reading, only to pay for it the next day. So, now that she was halfway through high school with the same drive to excel in school as her mother, coupled with her father's night owl tendencies, Bailey would often be up until all hours of the night, leaving her burning the candle at both ends. Really, whenever Bailey got too tired, didn't look after herself and got rundown, she'd be the first to catch a cold or anything like it.
However, while the boys tease her about it, they'd also be one of the first to be there for her when she's sick, doing whatever they can. They'd check if she needed tissues or chicken soup or medicine or blankets or comfort food as they drop past the Joneses place after school. They'd take turns writing notes in class to pass on to Bailey. They'd concede to whatever her pick of a movie was on their movie nights when she wasn't well. And, they'd ask her how she was enough to annoy her completely.
So, upon hearing their other best friend utter a very similar concern that he had just voiced, Josh sinks back into his seat with his arms crossed and a smug look on his face at the further ammunition that adds to his original concern.
"I rest my case, Bailes."
The boys concern for her health had been the very same thing that Josh had been expressing his worry over as he was leaving the Jones house last night, when Bailey's father caught them talking closely in the hallway. Then, knowing that she had been up late the night before messaging him, followed by an early start when she met up with a classmate to revise before school that day, Josh's concerns about overworking herself and getting rundown were sparked again.
So, with another eye roll, Bailey just claps her hands down on the table while she tries to fight back her smile from her two best friend's concern towards her.
"I thank you boys, but I am looking after myself..."
"Let us be the judge of that, thank you very much, Bailey Juliet."
Josh and Arlo look to each other from where they're sitting side-by-side and across from Bailey, sharing a grin and a mental high-five as they support each other's views and back each other's arguments up in their overprotection towards their best friend.
Then, a few moments later, Bailey is thankful when her phone begins vibrating and lighting up as though it's on steroids, as she glances to find out who it is and why they're so desperate to get a hold of her.
"Jeez, Bailes... Who's texting you?" Josh asks looking over to the illuminated screen on the table with a suspicious glance.
Looking down at her own phone, Bailey realises that at some point between leaving home and setting her phone down on the table when they took their seats a few minutes ago, she had managed to miss a combination of almost fifty text messages, calls and voicemails from her father.
Seeing the insane quantity of messages and calls on the screen of her phone that had gone unnoticed in the time between when she was picked up to go to the diner and as they walked there together while her phone was on silent in her bag, both boys can see the surprised look on Bailey's face and the confusion in her blue eyes.
"It's my dad... It looks like he's been trying to reach me for about the last hour."
Feeling her stomach drop as her heart begins to race, fearful of whatever he's trying to reach her for so urgently, Bailey scans through her messages before she holds her phone to her ear trying to return his call. However, her return call goes unanswered as she goes into her voicemails, hearing her father's anxious and panicky voice.
Both Josh and Arlo watch Bailey intently, scanning her face and trying to read her for any sign of what's wrong as she listens to the voicemails, before speaking up, giving them an update after listening to a few messages.
"By the sounds of it, I think I'm in trouble... I don't know what I did."
Josh looks like he's fighting back a few lines, which he holds in upon noting that Bailey had returned to listening to her voicemails, trying to determine the reason behind the urgency in her father's contact.
Then, as Arlo looks to Josh, the two boys look like they are both in a very similar situation, fighting back very similar lines and trying to stay silent for Bailey's sake. However, upon seeing the looks on each other's faces, knowing that they are thinking the same things, the two boys can't help but snicker at each other, just leaving their best friend on the other side of the table sending them an unimpressed –though amused- smirk as she just shakes her head.
After a few minutes and upon listening to one particular voice message that her father had left as he voiced his concerns in greater detail, essentially telling her off and telling her to call him back as soon as possible, Bailey's big blue eyes widen as she just looks up and over to the boys, divulging the news that had just come to light...
"I think that my dad thinks that I'm pregnant..."
While Bailey utters the statement, the two boys on the other side of the table to her hear a different version of those words and they hear a different form of her statement, leaving both boys looking as though they are ready to kill someone.
Listening to the remaining few voicemails before she hangs up, Bailey tries her father's number once more without success before looking up to the boys sitting across from her, seeing the horrified looks on their faces at their incorrect interpretation of what she'd just said, clarifying the detail for once and for all.
"For those of you sitting in the back, I'm not pregnant. Hell, you two are as bad as my dad is by the sounds of it... I can't believe any of you would think that."
While Josh and Arlo can suddenly breathe again, exhaling with relief as they sink a little deeper into their seats comfortably, Bailey just shakes her head at their reaction and the fact that they'd believed the misinterpretation for even just a moment, before she tips her head to the side reflectively, thinking back to what would have been sixteen years ago.
"Mind you, then again, it's not the craziest concept... I mean, my mum was my age when she had me. She was actually pretty incredible... She had me, raised me and did it all on her own for the first few years before I met my dad" Bailey explains.
Then, the teenager chuckles to herself as she continues to reflect on the thought, especially in connection with her father's frantic attempts to contact her.
"I wouldn't be surprised if that's why my dad was flipping out at the idea, though. Especially from what I've been told, my mum was hardly a wild child; she was basically just like me... No one picked her getting her pregnant when she did. But, where dad even plucked the idea of me being pregnant from, I don't think I'll ever know..."
While Arlo and Josh look like they are still recovering from their shock and subsequent recovery from the false news, Bailey continues to babble on, speaking enough for the three of them as she talks through one of the shockingly few moments when Josh Hale has ever been rendered speechless.
"But, the teen parent's thing was my parents and their story. Not mine... But, just think, if my mum and dad had never had me, then you never would have had someone to sit here and look after you boys! After all, I've still got two big babies of my own to look after..." Bailey says with a lighthearted tease in her words as she grins cheekily.
Then, clapping her hands out on the table to accompany her joke as she reaches out to both boys, Bailey Jones just grins; continuing to write her own story.
Thank you for joining myself and the Joneses on the little future glance beyond the ending of 'What You Left Behind'. I hope you all enjoyed the little coda to see where our favourite characters were at, to meet and get to know Bailey as a teenager and see the parallel between her and her parents lives. I thought this was a fun little idea to see some of the similarities and differences between the original trio and the next generation, all the while sending a few grey hairs Jughead's way!
I hope you all have had safe and happy breaks!
Thank you for reading it. It would mean the world if you let me know what you thought of this one.