so much for our happy ending

by Ffxo

oneshot. “We were meant to be together, written in the stars, our fate, our destiny” only it didn’t happen, by chance. or the Riverdale parents’ flashback everyone needs.

Hey people!! So i got this idea from watching some riverdale parents version edits on youtube, they're magical I tell you, and is what inspired this tragic love story. This turned out way way way longer than I expected, wow... now I'd appreciate if you read it and reviewed! I hope you enjoy everyone

"Ali! Wait up for me!"

Hermione yells the loudest she can from across the field without bringing too much unwanted attention; good girls should be seen not heard, and picks the long skirt of her dress up to run after her best friend.

The burning blue eyes that pierce from so many miles away, when the best friend turns around and smiles at her are no short of their usual dancing delicacy. Alice always has to wait on Hermione, who walked slower and took longer to get ready, to get to places in her town car instead of just leaving early on her bike like Alice does. But she doesn't mind, in fact, she'd wait forever on her. Just like now when Alice simply smiles until Hermione has made her way across Pickens Park with her chocolate curls slightly disarrayed and still lovely.

"Can you believe it? Junior year tomorrow. Time is flying us by, my phoenix bird" they lock their arms together and Alice sticks her nose in the air to smell the sweet summer air, like a maple syrup scone and the river water.

"And I'm still bemused you've yet to let me show you a more scenic last night of summer than dressing up and dancing and your bedroom? Can't I convince you tonight to go for a party I know is happening?" Hermione wonders

"What would you know about parties anyway? And how is it you're the one who partakes in all the disco delights when your parents won't let you leave the house without a coordinated outfit or miss Seminary even once?"

"Well, it's human nature to be free. No matter how long you try and be good, you can't keep a bad girl down" she winked a warm chocolate brown eye her lashes curling doll like.

Alice just laughed at her friend's sentimental fantasies. They walked the rest of the way to the little hub she called home to spend the night in girlish innocence.

Fred woke into the dusting grey of the evening, feeling that way when your head could explode if you didn't take some air in. He took advantage of not needing to check his appearance, running down the staircase - he will always remember falling down them a year ago when he suddenly grew six inches and couldn't control his limbs - and headed out the door.

"Fred! You going out again tonight?"

He stopped short and backed to the living room doorway. "Yeah, dad just for a jog or something"

Artie Andrews looked his son up and down from the ruffled bed head to his clothes that he was wondering if he could lecture him for not showering, but then they didn't exactly look like pyjamas either. He's not sure. It could be both. Fred has the beginnings of stubble on his jaw, and he's not oblivious to all the stares girls give when they walk into Pop's either, or how Fred half smiles at them looking like the luckiest guy in the world at every admirer. He can't help but worry, if he's being a good man out there on the late nights and days out.

"Isn't it the first day of school tomorrow?" He raised a strict brow

Fred bit the inside of his lip visibly "Yes, maybe I'll sleepover at FP's and we'll go together tomorrow. He has a ride"

"I know about that motorcycle son!" Artie raises his voice just as Fred turns to leave the room. He stops short.

"I'll be careful, I promise"

It's just an excuse to stay out another night and not have to show face before school tomorrow, but he will sleep at FP's.

"You better. Your life's important, you remember that?"

"Yes, dad" he sighs "When's mom coming back home?"

"She's having too much fun visiting Oscar at her old college. But most likely tomorrow evening"

He does that boyish half smile again "See you dad"

Like always, he skips the last three steps off his porch and jumps into the sidewalk, giving his dark hair a run through with his eyes on the wide road ahead of him. Maybe it's sentimental thinking, maybe he's slept too many days away and spent nights awake all summer that he's gone fairly loopy. But Fred can't help but view the wide, open road ahead of him as the rest of his life. Riverdale is, and always will be home. But for now at sixteen there's too many things to dream about, too many places to travel, too many somethings to check off his bucket list. Who cares about settling at home?

It doesn't scare him either. Maybe a little wary, questionable. But Fred Andrews knows he wasn't born to just stay in this small town and conform. He's gotta dive into the deep end sometime, right? And now that's all he wants to do.

Walking to FP's house is more than enough cardiovascular exercise having to walk from one of the big old houses he lives in to the Southside of town where houses don't even have porches nor bright vibrant colours, that when he gets there he's out of breath and craving to eat one of Pop's burgers.

Too bad they're too far off the wrong side of the track to get there now.

"FP!" Fred lets himself into the unlocked door, facing a beaten up couch and beer bottles littering the entire tiny living room. He steps over it all and heads to the kitchen.

"There you are Freddy boy" FP popped his head out of the fridge, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

"Stop calling me that. And I want a soda"

He pops it with a satisfying fizzle sound, the icy cold can against the hot skin of his hand is refreshing.

"You down for the party tonight?" FP raises a brow, talking a sip of his own Coke. FP Jones had darker eyes than even Fred did, albeit they were lighter in colour. Something about his disheveled appearance and brash mannerisms never brought good light to a first impression.

Fred nodded, telling his friend he was excited to meet Hermione Apollonia at the party. He got instant goo goo eyes when talking about their sometimes acquaintance, occasional tormenter whenever she'd pick on them from the lunch table with her girls. But that was in middle school, long gone - though FP couldn't really see why Fred was getting excited talking about her anyway.

"Hermione? Isn't she like, the daughter of the most heartless symbolic paradox of a man in Riverdale?" FP throws his gum out the window while they shrug their jackets on. He doesn't think anything of it, but Fred's little frown when he turns and sees his face might mean something more.

"Malcom Apollonia isn't the most heartless man in Riverdale. Maybe - the Blossoms?"

The party FP ends up taking them to isn't all its made up to be, just a bunch of boys and girls in one of the Southside bars that doesn't mind serving to minors. Fred knows how much his father would be disappointed in him if he saw him here, wasting away youth on cheap thrills and simple pleasures. He wouldn't exactly describe this as pleasure or a thrill, in fact it might just have been misery in disguise to Fred. But then the music is so loud he can't help dance a little, and there's too many people crowding the exit to leave by now.

So he wouldn't say he's having the best time. FP is making the same jokes and laughing over the alcohol with some boys that aren't from school. He meets some of the girls, a curly haired brunette and some other blondes. He dances around for a while, first with them, then around them. The bar is so filled right now that everybody's vision is slowly blurring - you can't really make out who is who unless you get close enough.

"What's your name?" He asks the brunette, his eyes running up and down the long pale panes of her slender legs in the little red skirt.

She can see that look all the boys do when they're appreciating something, something like lust. But when this man does it his eyes run wildly, not only that he's way too hot in that leather jacket that just needs to go. Finally she's gotten that look from a boy she wants.

"Gladys" she says over her shoulder, watching him bite his lips and walk after her like a stalking predator. They dance together some more, she likes how his strong arms feel around her and the jumping she can feel in her gut when they go lower and lower - but then they get separated in the crowd and maybe she'll see him later.

What has to positively be the last hour of the night is when FP sees Fred again sitting by the bar with a drink and his head in his hands.

"There you are" FP fell into the seat next to his friend's "Hmm.. safe to say the poster child princess didn't show?"

Fred's cheek hit the counter of the bar tiredly. He was completely out of sorts "No" the word comes out a mumble "I'll just see her in school tomorrow"

Alice Smith and Hermione Apollonia are immediately bombarded by some of the cheerleaders, Mary Hamilton and Melinda Blanc being some of them. Mary links her arm with Hermione's instantly, not caring that she's pulled her away from Alice but starts telling her all about her family's amazing trip to Switzerland this summer.

It feels nice to be tossed right back into the friendships and stories all over again, although Alice thinks Mary is just bragging about her trip since she missed all their friends' parties this summer while she was away. Hermione smiles at her and they start talking about something that happened at The Lodge's Black Tie party though, which Alice has nothing to say about since she wasn't there.

They look really good together, Mary and Hermione. Both have their hair in what Hermione calls a 'casual french twist' even though it's just a french twist, and they both wear tops from LÉdures. They're walking at the same pace, arm in arm, heels clicking in perfect synchronisation with their conversation. But then Vera Zamora says something that pulls her attention instead - though it's not what she's saying.

"Is that a bellybutton ring?" Alice looks down at her friend's pierced navel bared with low rise jeans and the tiny piece of jewellery shining on it is hypnotising.

"Sure is" Vera says proudly "I got it done at my dad's over the weekend, he can't say no to me"

"You'll get dress coded and called to the principal's office" Melinda tells her. The olive skinned girl looked like she couldn't care less.

"Well I like it" Alice realises, more to herself than anything.

"Wooo look who got hot over the summer!" The sudden whistles from Ricky Mantle and his goon squad pass all of the girls by. They roll their eyes and bite down the little smiles in their lips, making sure to pay them no mind just like mummy says.

Riverdale High is about thirty years old or so, she hears someone say to the other.

FP slams his locker shut and is about to walk away when the most beautiful girl he's ever seen walked in and lit up the room, Alice Smith.

God, if she hasn't gotten lovelier over the summer

Her hair is vanilla blonde, styled out of her face and she's taller than most of the other girls she's around which makes her stand out. FP swears he feels his heart stop. The fullness of her lips, the crinkle of her starry eyes when she giggles at something, how silky soft her skin looks from even far away.. he can see it all so up close.

Something's changed, no she hasn't changed. Alice has always been pretty, right? Well of course, but why hasn't he ever noticed just how angelic she looked until now?

He can't even tear his eyes away, there's just something so precise about her. Angular and sharp in the places that made her look fierce and striking, an unforgiving, never unnoticeable kind of beauty that's so wicked it could driving you insane.

Something's changed, maybe it's me that's changed. She looks unreal, she looks like the most ardently beautiful creature in the entire world.

"Put your tongue back in your mouth FP" Fred comes up and puts a hand around his shoulders, eyes following where FP still seemed to linger although he's trying to argue something back. "Dude, are you checking out Alice?"

He's so shocked by the accusation that he visibly recoils from Fred's arm around him, trying to lean back comfortably against the lockers when his heart rate picks up because they're getting closer "What are you talking about? Dude, it's Alice"

Neither of them are sure what that means but then Hermione and the girls pass them by, and she gives Fred the most flirtatious of smiles with a wink that could mean everything and anything. Maybe they're both screwed.

x:x

Soon enough the whole school has erupted in whispers and passing of notes that, according to one man's eye witness, Hermione Apollonia and Fred Andrews had kissed against the lockers between fifth and sixth period.

"What, you don't think we're a good match?" She asks Mary when they're redressing after cheer tryouts. She's standing there in her socks and underwear pulling the high pony out of her brown hair, Mary watches not so easily.

"Well, it's just that Hiram Lodge has been flirting with you all summer and he totally chatted you up before tryouts just now"

The reaction she got was a laugh. Gleeful, jovial, with life reaching her eyes. It makes her friend slightly confused. "Hiram Lodge? He's dangerous, and a player... He'll probably move on to some other girl next week anyway"

"Oh, and Fred Andrews isn't?" She counters the player thing.

"Well played. But after all, who cares about a match? I'm only sixteen! I'm just killing time trying to find the handsomest, wealthy, passionately head over heels crazy about me, gentleman. Who my parents approve, of course"

"Sounds like Hiram Lodge to me" Mary ducked the cheer top Hermione threw over her head when she said that, laughing into her palms "okay, joke. But if anyone were to find that man, it would be you"

Hermione smiles in the mirror. Partly because what Mary's saying is right, partly because maybe she does want something more out of that clandestine kiss Fred and her shared - which quickened her heartbeat even faster than it spread around school. Maybe also a tiny bit because Hiram Lodge, the most dashing boy in school has been showing interest in her.

So it's all exciting, and exactly where she wants to be. With her best friends, the boys all crazy about her, a more than well off family and getting her dolled up efforts their deserved praises. My life is perfect, how many people wish to be me? And, the entire world is mine.

x:x

Suddenly FP is starting to feel a little like a third wheel because everyday after school Fred and Hermione will have to talk for at least half an hour before her parents will get suspicious of her not being home yet. Sometime FP throws in a word or two and tries to understand what his friend sees in the society princess, he does get it, she's quick witted and funny and flirtatious, she for some reason has a million and one things to discuss with Fred, and she for some reason always kisses him on the cheek at the end of their meeting leaving a bright pink or red lip stain there.

It compliments his blush and Fred doesn't wipe it off either.

While most days FP will go and talk to the boys or kick rocks after Fred had a discussion with him one night before bed, leave us alone for at least fifteen minutes, please? Until one day the hitchcock blonde Alice Smith shows up by Hermione's side walking to her and Fred's usual spot. FP's eyes light up. He threw whatever dried up leaf or rock he was playing with back to the ground and his feet brought him over to them, where the trio stood.

"I swear that's what happened, I swear it"

"Okay, okay Ali - we get it!" Hermione slapped her friend's shoulder playfully taking a step closer to Fred, silently indicating for her to leave now. She nods curtly at Fred and just about turns around when she sees FP Jones standing there.

"Hey" she says

Hey. Hey. It's not a cool first thing he wants to say to this girl, neither is it memorable. So maybe he needs to jog his memory a little bit or blame it on the nerves and trying to make this moment perfect, why this isn't the first time they talked, how intense it is to see her piercing blue eyes and how much more colourful they are up close, curly blonde hair such a fluorescent gold, pink pink cheeks and -

"They're good together, aren't they?" He asks stupidly

"What?" Alice isn't too sure what to say. She knows he's referring to Fred and Hermione, but it's not like she hasn't seen him staring at her before and she's just so warped in how delicious he looks in his leather jacket, god is it even cold enough out to wear that? But she spares a glance at their brown eyed friends who have gotten closer under the trees, smiles matching one another.

"Yes. Yes they are" she has to agree "does he really like her?"

"He doesn't seem to care what people think about them" FP raises his brows

She nods. "So... if they're gonna be a couple, which I highly doubt -"

"Why's that?"

"My friend doesn't do relationships. She says not until she finds the one. But if they do, I guess that means we'll be seeing a lot more of each other, huh?" Her little smirk and the full bottom lip of hers being bit seductively, playfully, makes him suddenly feel like he's lost in outer space.

"Y- yeah" he barely stutters. It takes a long moment before either of them can say anything, she's expectantly waiting for him to make a move and he thinks she will - but then realises it's his game "Uh, so.. you should come see me today. At football practice. You can watch"

He thinks it'll do the trick but Alice merely rolls her eyes and slings her backpack over her shoulder, turning away from him. "I'll see about that"

"What? You got something against football?"

She looks around at the emptying front of their school, almost cautionary before stepping closer into his space. So close in fact that he can smell something on her - perfume, but it's familiar and probably something common and cheap. There's that underlying sweetness to it though, something special simmering beneath her skin. "Let's just say... I'm not the cheerleader type"

The close proximity and how deep her eyes bear into his own quickly throw him back into that dazed galaxy state, but this time FP knows better and he doesn't back away. "Good. I like something different"

Again, she doesn't know what to say. Just smiles at him with her face mere inches away from his, not awkward in the least. She should probably stop biting her lip but at this point it's such a nervous habit, something she doesn't know drives him insane. So she tousles her bright blonde hair instead, backing away slowly.

"I'm something different all right"

x:x

Alice ends up going to his football practice, heart against mind. It's so stupid to walk all the way back to school to see him goof around and play, smiling to herself like a little idiot only to sneak away before he can see her. It's not like she's going to give him that benefit.

Alice's parents don't ask where she's went either. Probably Vera's a few blocks away or Hermione's if her parents are out of town, maybe she has some extra curricular, they assume. They don't have much time to think through where little Alice is when they're not spiralling on a bender or trying to get their shit together the next second, working all extra shifts just to make up for the two weeks they spent in a downfall. Not when they're juggling shitty house rent and keep sending Ali to Riverdale High, don't let her get as bad as us.

I'm a little bit of an enigma, she thinks. Sitting on the doorstep in this far run down neighbourhood where she's sure she can smell something bad brewing from next door. Looking a little like a fallen angel, hair like a halo and wide innocent eyes just begging to be found.

So FP sees her around a lot of times. His house is only two roads down, and purposely walks by her house in case she's on the steps. His dad yells at him a lot, something about never being home and not bringing back good grades or things to be proud of. You should've raised a better son then! He'll yell back and run off the scrappy property before his father can throw something, then their fight for the day is settled. He knows dad is stressed, he doesn't know why, work I guess. But Artie Andrews is more than welcoming to FP hanging over whenever he needs, so he does go there a lot. When the Southside gets too noisy at night with quarrels and gun shots and his room's been broken into three times before - so he's still traumatised by it happening again.

He'd rather face the danger of running in the road to The Andrews' home in the good part of town than have to relive "how cute, he thinks we think he's asleep" a scary man's voice hovering over his bed while the unmistakable noise of his cupboards being rummaged through fills the room.

Sometimes it still scares him to the bone, shaking once he reaches The Andrews' porch, Nora will fix him a hot coco and Fred will talk sleepily at him. But all the time he wonders if Alice feels scared in her house too.

Before she knows it Hermione is becoming one of the busiest girls in town, she has school all week and cheerleading and piano lessons after, the weekends crammed with tea parties and house gatherings and charity galas. Malcolm Apollonia has created quite the name for himself so Olivia takes their daughter out every spare second she's got to get a new dress, new diamonds, hair pins. It's all so much that she loves the splurging spenditure but it's overwhelming. She sees less and less of Alice, the weekends to sneak away to Pickens Park where Alice will meet her halfway and they run away together are numbered. But she sees more of Mary and Melinda, specifically Mary. They get dragged by their parents to all the same events, and it's fun.

Drinking wine, an explosive new thing their parents will suddenly allow, while laughing by the pool side in their cocktail dresses and making comments about the rich old people. Sixteen makes her feel like a woman, the whole world of socialising and adulthood coming at her spectacularly.

Fred sees his life change day by day. Last year, Oscar left for college. So life being an only child has him adjust, more helping out and chores but he's fine with it. Takes up the space between football and stalling homework after all. The house is big enough for him to feel like a king without having to fight over the hot water with Oscar on early school mornings, but homey enough that it never feels eerily empty. There's their dog barking and mom cooking and dad working and they have dinner together, and many nights he sees FP too. At school, he won't lie and say his world hasn't changed forever.

Ever since the first kiss, the first brush of her lips, he's fallen helplessly. I mean, how could you not? It's so utterly addictive that he can't start imagining what life without Hermione would ever be like anymore, and he knows he's thinking things too deep and far ahead. But that's how real it feels. He feels like he's running when he's with her, fast beating heart and adrenaline pulsing in his legs. Breathless, amazing, just conversations they have.. but it feels endless.

They all feel they don't see enough of each other but they all go to school together, so when there's a party they all have to go.

Clifford Blossom is the hot, popular, influential senior boy everybody has a little crush on. Even the boys. Homecoming, and the all the junior-seniors have gathered into Thornhill. This barbaric styled mansion that nobody knows how they got brave enough to enter but who could turn this down? You'd be insane.

It feels like there's waterfalls nearby. Thornhill has a fucking pool, FP and Fred discover while they poke around the entire home and find it. They play the whole dancing around the girls game the whole night, too much of inexperienced boys to notice that the girls they're looking for are missing. Alice had been reluctant to come, but Hermione, who's parents allowed her to attend because it's The Blossoms, richest family in town told her she needs to get out of her shell.

And it could be a mistake or a blessing but she sticks by Hermione's side the whole night, practically hiding behind her arm even when something so ludicrous happens.

Hiram Lodge comes up to them, well her and invites her to go in the hot tub. They've danced a few times tonight and Alice stood by awkwardly (why are there so many people here?) and she'd be lying if she said she's surprised Hermione agreed. They made it to the hot tub and how fucking stupid, all the girls are taking their dresses off first so the boys can sit back and watch. Her friend does it with ease, removing the cashmere headband and dress to reveal the last bathing suit she bought. And Alice is just thanking god she wore matching sets tonight.

It ends up feeling not as dirty when the boys jump into, tidal waves happening, everybody finds a seat. Alice actually smiles that time. It actually feels fun. They talk and drink hard stuff and Hiram Lodge pushes one of the boys next to Hermione away to sit beside her. Something about that boy upsets Alice, not falling for his charming dark eyes and dashing looks for a second.

Pretty much everyone here is groping underwater, that doesn't surprise her. But she knows then how maybe Hermione's a little fucked up too because when the dangerous boy takes a bottle and tips it down her lips until she's had too much and laughs off guard he leans in and kisses her, let's share the champagne, she squeezes his arm and leans into it. It doesn't go unnoticed how blatantly he's staring at her boobs the whole time and Alice gets so angry that she storms out of the hot tub, water burning her skin all of a sudden.

There's so many eyes on her as she storms away for no apparent reason, thank god Hermione wrestles out of his arms and goes after her. "Ali! Where are you going? What happened?"

"What are you doing?" She turned around in her two piece still soaking wet.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you like Fred? Why are you doing that with other guys?"

"Okay, you don't understand it" Hermione says

Sure I don't.

"You're losing control because you're drinking, acting like some wild party animal and quite frankly I don't like you like this. Since when did you become like this?"

"Oh shut up Alice you don't understand anything! Fred, me, any of it!"

She storms away and there's her town car waiting outside so she leaves. But Alice doesn't have a ride like that, too embarrassed to go back and grab her dress, so she walks the long distance in her bikini back to a cold home.

x:x

"Busted, I saw you trying to blend in the bleachers while I was practicing yesterday. So how long have you been watching me really? I'm starting to feel a little scared"

She rolls her eyes and bites her lip, that habit. But okay, so maybe she's been a little bad at hiding after a while at his practices. "Fine then, since I always see you in your element. It's time you see me in mine"

His brows shoot up suggestively. "Your element? What do you mean?"

"My house" Alice nods "You can come over after school to..."

"Help you study" he provides

Oh, she loves this already. The idea is tantalising, as are the way his eyes leave hers for other places when he thinks she doesn't notice. "Yeah" she nods "help me study"

No one hears anything else about the party at Thornhill that night. Even Hermione has gone back to being her usual chirpy self with Alice, she doesn't apologise for leaving her there in the freezing night air. Alice doesn't apologise for tearing her a new one. She talks to Fred under the trees in front of school like always, and he's never less than a ball of sunshine. She's never seen somebody so cool be so animated, somebody so passionate. But it's beginning to get worrisome. Her mother always asks about college and SATs, she presses her about how she spends her time and with whom. The gaps start to appear when Olivia sees Hermione come home without her fur jacket.

"Where is it?" She asked

"I lent it to Alice, the car is warm enough so I don't need it and she has to walk home"

Not even expecting the cold case her mother gives her. Alice is a bad girl, she has bad parents and they don't take care of her. I don't want you spending time with her or giving her your things alright? You can't be friends with bad girls like her. Who else are your friends at school?

Bad girl? Hermione thinks, Alice has always been one of the good girls. She's the furthest thing from a bad girl.

x:x

How can one person make you so excited? Dancing around the room, singing to yourself, dressing up because you want to.. because you're so excited? There's a knock at the door just after five and he's standing there in fresh clothes after practice with tired eyes and a big grin.

"Hi!" There's so much enthusiasm in her voice, can't help it, can't help it. She's dressed up in the best little floral dress she's got, barely long enough anymore but it's okay. Usually Alice would admit she takes her good looks for granted, but tonight she is fervently grateful she's pretty because FP is looking at her with the most appreciative eyes.

"Hey" he's now convinced she's the most beautiful girl in the entire world, ever. For all she is brought up in the darkness, she is light. And she is life, glowing and shining ethereally. Her golden hair fans around her when she twirls and he's just mesmerised by it all.

"So, were you really gonna help me with the big English essay due next week?" She puts her hands on the table and leans forward at him, their books sprawled out on the coffee table.

"Hell no, I can barely scrap together a few sentences" they laugh before she walks around the couch he's sitting in, hands going over his arms sending goosebumps on his skin. "Well then.. I guess you'll just have to help me some other way"

FP doesn't think he can believe it, her breathy whisper just inches from his face. "I'd be glad to"

He kisses her in a frenzied state, all too passionate and eager and wanting in a crush to her lips. It's long weeks of anticipation, dreaming, wondering.. staring at her in class and imagining the softness of her full lips on his neck, their skin pressed together.

It starts to feel like a whirlwind of pretty perfection when she pulls him by the neck closer to her and she leans her back against the couch, inviting him all over her. This is her first kiss, the first boy she's ever kissed, and it's nothing short of all the fireworks exploding inside her. Her heart feels full in a dream, if this is what all kisses feel like I should've done it a long time ago. There's so much, so exciting, so far into the sky. Nothing has ever felt more wonderful than sitting here kissing her, holding her.

He brings his hands to her hips, holding them tightly while his lips keep exploring hers. He almost feels like he's doing too much, but then Alice let's a little noise escape from her mouth that she has no idea where it came from, not even able to recognise it as her own, and she pulls him even closer so their chests are brushing against each other.

Alice pulls away first away first after a minute and giggles like she's ten again, lips still stinging in sparks and seismic pleasure. He can't get enough so he leans in again, and she thinks good, because I can't get enough either.

x:x

"Wait, don't tell me you had your first kiss with him?" Hermione asks one late pinkish evening, eyes suddenly growing bigger at her friend's story. She's still wearing her cheerleader uniform and twirls one of the long brown tendrils still in its high ponytail on her finger.

Her blonde friend smiles sneakily, not wanting to meet her eyes.

"Oh my god! You must totally smitten by him! What else did you guys do?"

"Hush, my parents are home they could hear you" Alice sits down on the creaky bed next to her Hermione. "Nothing else, just... studying" her blue eyes gleamed meaningfully.

The two friends stared at each other, one of them a little daring and the other a little amused. "Yeah right. It's never just studying"

"Ugh, whatever. He's amazing though, I think I like him" Alice throws her head down on the pillows and sighs "So how's things with Fred? Are you going to finally call him your boyfriend yet?"

"Hardly, Alice..." She can see the distress on Hermione's face staring up at her bedroom ceiling, eyes so blank they could appear lifeless "There's nothing going on between us"

x:x

The first away game on Friday night of the season happens and Fred and FP both walk back to school from The Andrews' home together. They'll take the bus, with all their teammates and the cheerleaders. Where they usually ramble and rave about how nervous they are for the game, tonight Fred seems to be on edge about something and won't add in more than a few words here and there.

"Hey, what's wrong with you dude? You seem all gloomy"

Fred kicks at the sidewalk. It really looks like a dark cloud has taken place on his handsome face, swallowing profusely and his forehead creasing. "What is it? You can tell me anything"

"It's just.. my dad is sick. They say it's just a regular fever, but I can't help and think there's something more going on. I- I heard my parents arguing in their room this morning. Something about the bills"

FP stays quiet because he doesn't know how to solve it, or what to say. But he's shocked and scared and hopes Artie will be okay, even though Fred keeps telling him his parents say it's just a fever. I just have a really bad feeling about it, do you believe me?

"Course I do" FP pats his back "You're my brother. But I do think you're overthinking it, there could be nothing wrong. Either way you and your family are going to be okay, just take it one day at a time alright?"

Fred doesn't believe him. He can't meet FP's eyes, instead they're sad and mournful looking at the road beneath them. Like there's something more wrong. Like his mind is worrying so many different things at once. "Hey, don't be all negative on game night alright? It's bad luck"

Fred knows FP is trying to cheer him up and smiles reluctantly, the school bus and all the cheerleaders coming into view. "Yeah, I'm fine"

The entire bus ride to Greendale is jittery and hyperbolic since nobody can crack a joke because they're all terrified for the game ahead. The football and cheerleading captain both have their noses buried in their notebooks, rereading plays and routine notes. Fred stares out the window sitting next to FP and every three minutes he turns and looks at the back of a flippy brown ponytail, sitting still next to Mary Hamilton. She never turns around for even a second.

At the game, they win by a close margin and it sends all the Riverdale residents into a big celebratory cheer. The boys hug each other and the girls squeal and scream and jump excitedly. Clifford Blossom has kissed one of the River Vixens, his arms wrapping around her waist after he did a really good play and the entire crowd loved it - really gaining them all the attention and fan support. FP looks at them and shakes his head, the senior boy always showing off. But it works for their team and the crowd enjoys it and they end up winning, so it's all good. But then an empty feeling grows in his stomach when all the boys have rallied together and he's looking to ruffle Fred's hair but he's not there, and he looks into the crowd - then back at Cliff Blossom kissing the girl - and realises he's missing her. Alice. She's not there, she's not waiting in the bleachers cheering him on waiting to kiss him even in all sweaty and gross.

It's only then that FP stands on the wet grass amidst a hundred different people and he feels alone.

Ricky Mantle is causing a blizzard out there, rough housing and all. Many of his teammates are going to meet their families in the crowd too, a luxury FP could never be given. Between all of that the hallways inside Baxton High are only filled with the noise from outdoors. Some marching band music and people yelling happily.

Only when FP's gone to change and look for Fred - he comes to a realisation that he's probably moping in the locker room right this second. So he decides to call out his name like a kid trick or treating when he's very happy he didn't, because the sight before him just about stops the life in him.

Fred and Hermione are kissing, their left hands intertwined together while the other hold each other's faces. She's close to the lockers and they're standing up, his head bent down to meet her lips. It surprises him not because he didn't know, but more because they've never kissed before. Or even held hands, and even their after school talks have left Fred a lot more thoughtful than giddy recently. But he guesses they're still in love with each other, the soft tenderness coming from both of then pouring into the kiss proves that. And for a moment, FP remembers what he said to Alice that day. They're good together, aren't they?

And Alice's reply, yeah. yeah they are

Yes, from the moment he walked back out of the locker room he did start to feel they were a little perfect.

The bus ride back to Riverdale is completely different, everyone's laughing and switching seats so much and leaning over the back to talk to each other but even the bus driver doesn't mind. They're happy, smell of their strong soap after showers filling the vehicle. FP wants to sit next to Fred just like they did before, But confusingly enough Hermione and him are occupying the seats looking out the window together while they talk about something. They don't let go of each other's hands the whole way home, and his face has lit up like the sun is on it. She's taken her hair out of its tight ponytail and she looks happy and loose and carefree, not remembering all the reasons they were upset on the way here.

Again, FP realises he misses his girl.

x:x

"Hermione" Olivia Apollonia speaks her daughter's name steadily, fingers in between her daughter's hair while she looks down at her sitting on the vanity stool. They're getting Hermione dressed for yet another big night, The Blossoms' exclusive dinner preceding Pickens Day. Tonight they would be driving out of town, to a vineyard on the outskirts to dine and dance with only a selected amount of influentials. "You know who Hiram Lodge is, don't you?"

"Yes mummy" Hermione looks up at her in the mirror before them, Olivia pulling long pieces of her hair into a chignon with strands framing her face. The nature of her mother's question has her in curiosity. "Why do you ask?"

"What say you? Can you see yourself with that kind of man?"

"Mum, Hiram Lodge is a teenager pretending to be a man at best. I mean he's nice to look at, but no more deeper than my young eye. Besides, I think I like somebody else right now"

The knuckles in her hair pulled hard into a stop making her suffer sharp pain. She tilted her head back to ease it, but only resulted in an uncomfortable crane on her neck now too. "If you're talking about anyone beneath your own birth status, forget about it my beloved daughter. Understand me? Your father's fingers would not miss to itch any boy who tries to get away with you, and anything less of whom we'll meet tonight is just a stain to your affluence"

"Mummy" Her face hardens in a cold rage. How dare she talk like they're something superior just because they live in one of the mansions in town and don't take out their own trash? Sure, I joke about it but she's being serious. "You're being harsh on my hair, for gods sake"

Olivia's hand loosens at once, the aftershocks of pain still coursing through. She looks at her daughter very seriously and stern. "Tonight you will meet him at the feast. Decide wether or not you like the unbound man, and I can assure you'll find delight in him"

"I'll look just to look, but don't hold your breath"

"Make a good impression, Hermione. Remember that the golden clasp locks the golden story"

That night he does try and woo her, and she does have a good time. Her and Mary sit next to each other at the dinner table and they talk about everything but she can't tell Mary everything. She wants to - but it stops in her throat when the image of Mary mindlessly telling her parents a story and then The Hamiltons telling her parents that their daughter is feeling all sorts of crazy things for the small town boy next door.

beneath your birth status

Her father introduces her to the Lodge men and his wondering eyes on her body makes her feel kind of naked, her face faltering in its picture perfect smile. I don't know how to act, or how to tell him I don't want him. Their fathers shoo them away to talk about business and Hiram asks her to dance. She agrees but only because Olivia and her flighty friends are watching them from nearby. Yes, they laugh and he's charming and has the right kind of money for her expensive taste. If you think of it that way, he sure does seem perfect.

x:x

On Saturday nights when football season has passed, FP and Fred go to those same kind of parties that they did right before school started. They get drunk and messed up and don't stumble home to FP's beaten down house until three in the morning without their bearings.

Tonight Hermione really wants to go out, she's itching to, but currently sits on Alice's creaky bed again while her parents have taken off on a trip for business. She's supposed to be with her nanny, but Jane knows and loves her well enough to let her spend the night at The Smiths. "Come on Alice, it'll be just as awesome as that night at Thornhill was, minus the last drama. It was fun remember?"

"I don't recall it being fun at all, no. And we're supposed to be studying? For mid terms? Weren't you the one who was whining about your parents stressing you over the SATs? "

"Oh who cares!" Hermione throws one of the little pillows at Alice who doesn't try to catch it. "We have tomorrow to study. And - Fred told me, FP is gonna be there"

Her blue eyes sparkle out of her control at that. Now she's considering it, especially with Hermione staring at her with big puppy dog eyes. A party could be fun with FP there wouldn't it? Oh, most definitely... She's just resisting and pinching herself and debating it in her head, but eventually her teenage rebellion gets the best of her. Is it really rebellion when nobody is stopping you? "Okay, fine. This one night"

"Yes!!" She claps her hand and insists they get dolled up, but they don't have time to go back to The Apollonia's so she rummages through Alice's little drawers and cuts shirts and wraps them around into little trendy two pieces, the whole time dancing with excitement because Alice finally caved and it feels like a one time opportunity to go wild with her best friend. "It's gonna be fun Big A, as long as I'm there"

When they go into the Whyte Wyrm their hearts are beating so loudly in their ears, and Alice's big blue eyes feast on all that is the magical nightlife her friends have been telling her about for so long. This is it, oh it feels surely thrilling tonight. At that point both girls are so caught up in the dancing pole women and wild colourful lights that they don't search for the boys at all, Hermione goes to get a drink at the bar and Alice surprisingly decides to join her.

They do a shot, a big one, and it burns in her throat electrifyingly. They laugh and join the mass of dancing bodies, not realising that with every natural sway of their hips more and more people have cast their eyes to the pretty pretty girls. Alice doesn't care, she feels so free and liberated and alive, tossing her head back and letting the wild blonde hair bounce up and down her shoulders. With her eyes closed and her lips parted, it starts to feel like the seduction into something glamorous.

FP has his jaw on the ground the minute he sees Alice dancing in the club. He's giving her one of those day dreamy I can't believe you exist looks. "Hey handsome!" She calls him over

"Hey baby doll! You look gorgeous" and he can't resist to lean in and kiss her, so thankful that the fruitful smell of her hair and skin is still eminent when everything around them smells like alcohol and sweet sweat. He's lost in her underneath the flashing lights, holds her by the arms while he feels hers circling around his neck. They don't leave each other for the rest of the night. It's a series of some dancing and grinding and sometimes she laughs when he does it but other times she's totally into it, letting her carnal ways act out so she dances with him naturally. And it's a lot of kissing too, while they're dancing, at the bar, all that matters is his hands always get lost in that perfect halo and she can never feel less hungry every time she kisses him.

They spend an eternity on the dance floor, unintentionally bumping into Fred and Hermione who become a lot more sober around each other. Something about awareness for the other person, for wanting to appreciate them with every stable bearing. But they all jump and hold hands and FP can't believe he's actually dancing with one of the stuck up mean girls from school, but it doesn't matter when Alice is moving her body down his and gazing every part of him. The four of them in the middle of the club with the widest smiles it's almost sad how happy they are, but every one of them can feel like they're flying from a different height and being all together seems good somehow. The four of them unbreakable by anybody else dancing around them.

Fred and Hermione are standing near the bathrooms with a bottle of beer in their right hand, saying sweet nothings between each gulp to each other. Still, both of them can feel their feet planted firmly on the ground. "Funny isn't it?"

"What is?" He looks at her standing not near enough, not as far as she should be.

"Our two resident bad kid friends have decided to be all wild and crazy in love, together. They've got it together better than us"

They're supposed to be the 'bad kids'. The not raised well, precious darlings marred too soon but they've found each other and it's fucking perfect how they manage to actually still be pure in their corrupted world. Tonight would be one of the best nights of their lives, one they'd never forget.

x:x

On the coldest day of winter FP faces his family shatter into complete tragedy. He's caught his father with the drugs, drugs all over his 'office' and drugs hidden in his car. He wants to hit something and scream but he's worried if dad ever did any of it. He hasn't felt this mad in so long, honestly, it feels like he could tear a tiger apart.

Forsythe Pendleton Jones has been arrested in the middle of the dark cold night. Blue and red lights bring him away and FP cries when he sees the scene happen before him. He actually really cries. Tears and sobs and rocking on his heels right in the middle of a chaos where mom is trying to leave - she doesn't stop and look for him. The whole house is being turned upside down and he can't see anymore - he can't see anything with the tears fogging his eyesight.

That's the night his terrifying nightmare only becomes a distant story, a scary memory one day he might tell that could send creeps to somebody else. Because tonight, a new benevolent demon has planted itself inside his head in the form of pigs in uniforms and his strong father shouting like a little child, pulled away into a car and silence with a colourful hurricane happening around him.

Yes, he knew dad's work wasn't probably always safe or legal. Not that he knew what it was, but just never anticipated it to be this bad. Maybe he has been living with a criminal his whole life and maybe his mother is a careless cold hearted woman who got away to take care of herself, he doesn't know anymore. He also doesn't know how his legs end up taking him to The Smiths little house where Alice's window is shut and he crumbles to tears again on the driveway.

Climbing up a drain pipe in tears, do you know how depressing yet pathetic that is? He's so out of breath from a heavy heart dripping down his cheeks and barely swallowed in his throat. He knocks on her window three times before she opens, clad in a big t shirt and shocked blue eyes. "FP? What are you doing here? Why are you crying - my god is everything alright?"

He can't answer her, he can't answer when he's a wreck like this. So he lets her pull him into her room and she hugs him while he cries into her shoulder bone chilling sounds unable to be held back. He lets her stroke his hair and worry over him, kisses the back of his neck every few seconds to comfort him and never letting go of the tight embrace. I'm with you FP, it's okay, I'm with you. I'm with you.

He doesn't know how long it is before he blacks out but when he wakes up to her warm body and a slender arm thrown around his chest, his eyes are sore and there's golden sunshine bleeding into the same window he climbed in last night. Just hold onto her, just hold onto her and everything will be alright. It'll feel better. So he does.

In the end Alice settles with his answer that something really bad went down at home and he had to get away, like one of his dad's anger fits, after she's pressed and prodded him about it over scrambled eggs and milk for breakfast. FP can't risk Ali knowing what his dad did, what he has been doing. It's too much too fast and too dangerous even to tell the person he's beginning to trust most. He thanks god she was asleep last night and didn't hear the police sirens to put two and two together. She scrapes the sticky part of the eggs onto his plate and sets the frying pan down, sitting comfortably in his lap to give him a giant meaningful kiss. "I hate seeing you so upset like you were last night"

Things only get worse. FP finds out from the police officer himself, sitting in a cold questioning room that his father is a part of a brutal gang that has been dealing drugs and setting crime for ages. His heart breaks. He doesn't know what to say, how to defend his dad. Or if he should. And suddenly the weight of an empty home that still has to be paid for lets itself be known.

x:x

"Alice, I'm sorry"

"About what?" She drops her backpack on the floor. It's an odd sight to see both her parents sitting there at the tiny dinner table looking solemn after school. She's almost worried.

"We don't know what else to do. Your father, the firm had to let go many people and he's one of them. Honey, I don't know how long you can keep going to school"

She feels a lump in her throat. There's always been that knowledge that her parents were not only absentees but they also had nowhere near a heft saving or solid plan on providing for the family. She knew they always loved her, but it was shown more in words and embraces instead of presence and alertness.

She cries and cries snuggling into FP that night. It's the only way she knows how to fall apart knowing someone will still pick her back up, so she's run to his house and poured her heart out to him. The trouble is that he feels all tense and even though he hugs her back, smoothing her hair and cradling her so her long legs are curled on his lap, it feels like his eyes never fully look into hers. They're running across the room out each window and to the door, he's flickering gaze from one end of the house to another.

Alice swears she might be overreacting but FP consoles her, holding her so close until she can't help peppering kisses on his jaw.

"Are my problems laughable compared to yours? Where's your mom and dad?" She asks after noticing him get distracted again.

"Don't say that Alice, don't downplay what you're going through. I'm here for you. And my parents are just.. out y'know? Like always" he huffs

She bites the inside of her mouth then. Her skin is shining in the moonlight and her cerulean blue eyes have got to be the deepest thing he's ever seen. A blue to drown in and a blue that brings the sunshine in. Her perfect little face, and how perfectly their hands fit together atop her bare leg. He holds her tighter then, realising how lucky he is to have fallen in and found the love of his life, laying in his arms, at so young.

She leans up and kisses him, needing all that comfort and love only he could give her. It's long and drawn out and beautiful, and maybe she gets drunk on kissing him and it's worth it just sitting here together on his half gone couch.

"You're going to be okay" he whispers huskily between the kisses, finding himself laying above her "We're going to be okay as long as we're together"

She believes him, oh god she believes him. There's a kind of love you can only feel once in your life, and Alice believes she feels it that night. With her hands intertwined in his above her head, their hearts beating together, bodies moving together. All the oceans and seas in the world have nothing on how deeply they feel into each other's souls. If the dark night and fear in his heart at that time could retell her the story of the first night she ever felt herself attached to somebody one day in just a few months she could definitely cry.

x:x

FP tells Fred all about the night with him and Alice before. Well, as much as he could without Fred slapping him on the head and still enough to dreamily portray how perfect she is. He grins and tosses the pancake, setting it on a plate just a second before FP snatches it and starts to pour maple syrup all over. The boy never seemed to satisfy his appetite.

"Delicious" he sighs "You're becoming a great cook, Freddy. Please don't get all domestic on me"

Fred laughed and put in batter for the next pancake, one for himself now. "I figured it out once mom's been busy you know - helping out with dad and stuff"

They're quiet for a while, FP takes a big bite of his pancake "How's he been?"

"Not better" Fred's voice drops so quiet so his parents won't hear "Mom has been helping get work done and in between sitting together and getting medicine at the doctors and all - she's been missing some of the usual stuff I guess. But it's fine, I don't mind helping out. Just worries me that they won't tell me anything you know?"

Fred pulled his chair out and sits down with creases in his forehead. "It's suspicious I guess" FP agrees. "But until they say something you shouldn't stress over it, right?"

"I guess so."

"So"

"What?" Fred looked at FP, eyebrows raised and smirking mischievously

"Have you and Hermione.. you know. Done it yet?"

"Yeah" Fred snorts, taking a drink of water. "We did it months ago in the summertime"

"What?" Fred sat up straighter with shocked wide eyes. Why didn't his friend tell him this?! "But you weren't even an item then!"

"So?" Fred shrugged "It's kind of how we got to really know each other. Anyway, does your dad still have that old motorcycle? I'm thinking of fixing it up and getting it to run. Would he let me have it?"

FP swallowed. Still unable to tell Fred, his best friend about all the gruesome details of him and his father's last encounter. Or where he stands now.

"Yeah, you can have it"

x:x

"We both know the truth and it makes me scared for us"

"The truth which is what?" Hermione stands, not wanting to have this conversation with her boyfriend right now. They're sitting in his bedroom when she told her mom she'd be at Melinda's for a history assignment, the only way she knows to slip away and spend time with him (not covered by tree branches and sneaking out of class to the deserted hallway) and it's not going as planned.

"That we're on borrowed time!" He says it louder than he intended to, but really can't help it.

The look she gives him looking up into his frustrated face while she's sitting there to figure it the hell out, why is it so hard but it is.

"Why can't we be together? Like in public and have dates and go to the school dances together and I have to pretend, like a jackass that you mean nothing to me when all I want is to go across the room and kiss you!"

"Oh so that's all I am to you I'm just a pda opportunity?"

He kicks the side of his study table so hard she flinches at him.

"You're my girlfriend, and all the guys do is talk about you and I can't say that I love you! What the hell are we doing, Hermione? Where does this end what do you think is going to happen?"

"I don't know!" She finally yells "And you don't think I feel that way? I have to listen to all your fucking groupies in the locker room including my best friend, Mary who actually thinks she wants to ask you to the dance"

"Mary Hamilton?" Fred stops and looks at her.

"God you know my parents would kill us and that's why Fred, that's the only reason we have to keep it this way"

She tells him she's sorry and he feels utterly weak, the silence grows louder until it could burst but they don't know where it ends. He has no idea. Like walking through a dark cave and not knowing what the end looks like, like kissing her and pretending he was nowhere to anyone who asks. He kisses her forehead, softly, tenderly, and most of all lovingly. Because the reason it's getting so hard to contain is that she's the girl for him, and he's beginning to love her too.

"I love you Hermione"

x:x

The four of them blow off last period a very cold Friday when Hermione sees how miserable Alice looks, and she goes to find FP not caring in the slightest that he's having a bad day and really doesn't want to be bothered.

"What do you want, Hermione. I don't know where Fred is"

"Well luckily I do, but it's not about that. It's Alice, she's been a puddle of sad tears all day and at first I thought it's just a blood moon thing, or regular grumpiness but by now it's safe to say she's ... dragging her feet everywhere she walks and frowning at everyone that is happy?"

"What?" His blue eyes flash in concern for her. What's wrong with Alice?

So the unlikely pair go and find her and try to console her, but when she won't budge about whatever it is - FP learns that she hasn't told Hermione about her school situation. Why hasn't she told her? Don't they share everything? But even he knows that embarrassing feeling creeping up his back if he were to be in her situation... and out of anybody Hermione would be the snobby one about it. So he doesn't say anything in front of the brunette and instead just agrees when she pulls Alice's hand and tells her let's get out of here, willing to try anything to make her happy.

They get Fred from Chem class, and they go to the mall and get ice cream cones when it's almost snowing outside and sit on opposite sides of the booth with their partners. It's so strange, how life put them this way. You would've never expected the stuck up rich girl and the goofy bad news boy to be on a double date with their loved ones together, but they know in their heart... clutching onto Alice's waist and nuzzling her bright blonde hair and dabbing ice cream on Fred's freckled nose and somehow they laugh endlessly together, they feel it.

It's meant to be this way.

Walking in the mall and holding his hand, looking in their reflection every time that she can. Alice never knew she'd feel so happy doing nothing with someone who means everything, who kisses her cheek out of nowhere and smiles down at her when he thinks she can't see. It's everything she'll ever want even if the rest of the world fades away.

"Let's go to the bijou and watch a movie!" Alice suggested gleefully

"No, no no" the other couple groaned in response. They all know Alice has to be the most annoying person to watch a movie with because she'll ask questions and make commentary every five seconds.

"You guys come on!"

"Hey uh, do you hear some voice? I wonder where it's coming from hmm.." Hermione twirled her hair and looked at Fred all confused like.

"Yeah I don't know lets just ignore it" he nods at her, hugging her closer until she squeals and jumps away because Alice reached between them and tickled her hard.

"I hate you guys" she yelled in a fit of laughter.

They walked along some more, circling the new instalment of the mall where a big water fountain displayed right in the middle of it. Some were pointing, and admiring, and Fred thinks he can't have anything else because he's already contented with the life right next to him. Alice jumps on FP's back and they laugh so carelessly, free, able to be together in the open. They love each other, and it's like they somehow belong together. There's no way they're not it for each other.

Fred stares a little wistfully, seeing how happy his best friend is and there isn't a part of him that wishes for him the torture the he is going through. It's okay, he decides. That's their happiness, mine will he different, and they deserve it. When he walks through all the self assurance and accepting his happiness will never be the open kind, but then she's there by his side whispering into his ear just for him to her.

"I love you"

And it's the loveliest thing he's ever heard.

x:x

The rest of junior year moves like a bullet train, the oddly foursome growing closer together and distinctive in pairs. Alice and Hermione, earning their reputation as one of the prettiest girls in all of Riverdale and dealing with their other girlish friendships and striving hard in studies and holding onto each other in between. Fred and FP spend all day at school and the afternoons sweating on the football field, and then FP laughs at his friend who tries to sing and play a guitar in his garage and taking himself way too seriously. What's sick or jailed fathers and worrisome futures they try to forget.

Alice and FP spend all their weekends together riding FP's motorcycle to secret hideouts to kiss and drink cheap alcohol, and they embrace each other while looking for their names in the stars. Sometimes they find themselves sitting at his dining table with books they don't understand any of it, they look at each other confused and just kind of pause. She'll lend him her notes but he can't get a word of it, they make it through each class and hold hands walking through the hallways. They're always touching in some way, never losing the feeling of getting drunk on each other's lips. They look like a teenage daydream with fishnets and leather and cut up denim. The bad kids really are better together.

The good kids, they slowly become more and more problematic. Hermione can't talk to him about a single thing and Fred feels like he's disappearing in a part of her life, only when they're together he forgets about all the pain and only sees her. They hook up at parties and she tells him to wait five minutes before walking back out, and he flirts with the other cheerleaders when she's not there. Or when she is, because it sucks but why not. Some of them might feel he's leading them on, and when Hermione rolls her eyes at her friends panting over him he feels a sick satisfaction. There's that point where maybe she's only herself when she's with him, and he smokes and works out way too much when things are so rough between them. She promises him when they're kissing, lost in the moonlight on his boyish bed, and then she's gone in the morning and there's always other girls to look at.

They go to Pop's on Fridays after school and the four of them will sit there smiling at each other, talking forever and just being. The four of them, stuck in a booth at Pop's with four milkshakes and two plates of fries that Hermione or Fred will pay for. The four of them belong there, double best friends and double dates. The four of them together. That's perfect.

x:x

The beguiling fact amuses Hermione more than she can say when she sees Alice start to smoke in her bedroom while they're pinning up their hair for a party that Alice, can you believe it, suggested they go to. She isn't oblivious to how thrilled and fantastically driven her best friend has become over time, painting dark eyeshadow on her lids and lips a seductive red even on school days. It suits her, Hermione won't deny that. She looks like the sexy bombshell she always knew she was, but it's just... different. Alice used to wear butterfly clips and glitter her golden hair and sunny yellow.

But she doesn't really have the space to think about it, not now.

When Malcolm and Olivia are invited to an Opera out of the country, it's the first time Hermione will ever be leaving America. Of course some of these kids have barely left the state, so she feels excited and important and misses school for a whole of five days. There, it's the first time she drinks wine with her parents at a restaurant next to the water fountain, and they talk to her about how splendid people here are. She listens, but prefers the sweetness of her mini ice cream cone, and sitting there in a golden dress she stares at the water fountain remembering what she told him.

No amount of city lights could ever add up to that, or can it?

She gets a brand new purse and her mother shops for designer dresses and her father gets her jewels, and she sneaks in an encrusted hair comb for Alice saying its for Mary and a vintage Rolex for the man of her dreams. Every night, sleeping in white expensive sheets recalling all the hot boys she saw and compares them to the ones back at home. But even the golden sky out there cannot compare to her light that is him, the only person who can make her fall in love with him all over again even when she's at the peak of her glamorous life.

When Hermione comes home, she's radiating of exotic oils and brand new perfumes with a custom made dress on the first day back that makes all the girls jealous, insanely so. They tell her Alice is absent and she gives Fred his vintage watch in the classroom after everyone has left.

"I missed you" he tells her. Hands on the low of her back and smelling that sultry shampoo in her hair.

"You have no idea how much more I realised I'm in love you than I thought I was while I was away"

He smiles and once more, when it's just them, everything else fades away.

Hermione shows up to The Smith's late after cheer practice with another white lie to her parents, only to see the light in Alice's room lit up and music coming from it and she runs up the stairs with her chest bursting in excitement to see her. Only when the door opens, Alice squeals and jumps into each other's arms too, it's like Hermione has frozen for a minute.

"Your... hair" she says slowly while picking up a piece of it still perfect and untamed on her back while Alice is hugging her. The beautiful blonde locks that Hermione always envied are gone, the ones she used to hold between her fingers in the mirror and sigh longingly because that's Alice personified and it's angel like. Just like her, signifying her perfectly. A diamond in the rough.

"I know. Don't you like it? It makes feel totally bad" Alice moves in front of the mirror and tosses her long rich brown hair proudly. It's dark and contrasting her pale skin and doesn't match the invisible blonde hairs that grow on her hands and legs, but she does look breathtakingly gorgeous.

"It's very you" Hermione words carefully. Yes, it's very her. She thinks confusedly, yes.. it does fit this new darker yet brighter Alice.

x:x

They'll never get tired of this, never ever ever. Her hair sweeping across his chest while she moves on top of him, eyes rolling into her head and the burning feeling between them growing alive too strong to burn out. He's breathing hard and one hand grips her hips tightly, the other goes up to feel her breasts and watch them move as she does.

It's their new favourite thing, in the moonlight where her body shines like something no one else can attain, and the slight coldness just enough to bask in after when their skin overheats later. She keeps trying to keep her eyes open so she can admire him, the hard muscles in his arms and stomach and his sinfully sexy face when they're going. But Alice can barely hold herself together, so she comes apart for whatever the number is tonight - FP following suit behind her.

They hug each other close and catch their breath, skin shining with a sheen of sweat and very tired legs. Soon after when he's slipped out of her, they make sure to wrap all the blankets around them and Alice giggles that it's like they're burritos because his house is too cold to be naked in at night. When her head is finally nuzzles on his chest and all they can feel is soft blankets and smooth skinned limbs, her freshly died chocolate hair splayed across his torso. She speaks quietly

"If we ever had a baby, what would it be like?"

"What?" FP immediately freezes up and pushes her to look at him "Are you trying to tell me something?"

"No you silly!" Alice laughed, knowing the sparkle in her eyes only calmed him down. "I'm just saying... maybe one day"

FP sighed in relief. "Well in that case, I don't know Ali. But I know she'll be beautiful just like you. Like the stars"

"What if it's a boy?" She leans on her elbow and looks at him, dark hair curtaining the side of her face. "Are we gonna have a baby boy with muscles on the outside and a total softy on the inside... like you?"

"I am not a softy" he insists and resists the urge to laugh at her tickling. He can't resist jumping a little though.

"Sure, you bad boy"

"And what should we name him?" He rubs her arm, suddenly quite absorbed in the sudden what - if.

"Doesn't it have to be FP Jones The Third?" She deadpans

"Screw you, I hate that name" he laughs

"I think you just did"

"Okay seriously" FP told her "Definitely not name him after my father, so maybe yours?"

Alice made a face worth a million guffaws had it not been a little too real and sad. "That careless man? Hell no, we'll name him something beautiful. Like.. Charles"

The crazed smile he gives her then makes Alice beam like a lightbulb, hugging him closer lovingly and excitedly. They're warm in the cold night air with the moonlight singing to them, bringing momentary light into their lives of darkness. She can see it now. He believes it. Their names are written in the stars.

"Charles Jones... I love it"

x:x

It might be a dream but junior year has some problems too, brushed aside but unable to hide any longer when they take their toll. FP has a confrontation with the Serpents, the gang his father was in, and there's little to no option of his but to find a place there. A Serpent by blood. They can't get the first Forsythe Pendleton out of prison, maybe he'll die there, but they take the other in and that young boy slowly realises how fucked up this gang is. There's too much contention, so much hate and desperation, anger, that people will do anything for a taste of what they interpret as worthy.

He looks away from the leggy dancers on the poles at the Wyrm and the old men laughing boisterously into beer bottles, and realises he has to do something about this somehow. He'll learn and grow and help control their ruthless streak, but it'll only result in pushing Ali further away because she can never know he's doing this.

When she finds out, it's a tornado and a raging tsunami all at once. Drugs everywhere, her little sleep shorts and t shirt showing up to cuddle him goodnight, and the most furious blue eyes he'll ever see. She's so mad, and hurt. And that level of broken in her just has to be a little bit crazy.

"Alice please listen to me!" He shouts it at her, not pleading or hopeful but a demand she turns around on.

"Listen to you?" She repeats it twice "I have done nothing but listen to you, every single word and every single thing in your heart. And you never told me - I can't trust you anymore you.. you criminal!"

She runs off the street with her wild burnt brown hair flying behind her. He screams so loud falling on his knees like a sword thrust through his chest. Exactly what he knew would happen. Exactly why he's so damned, and bloody knees and salty tears and shouting curses to the gravel beneath him. That's what it felt like to lose her the first time. He didn't know then he'll be feeling it more times than one should be able to.

Alice knows he must have a good reason for this, but her broken heart can't handle the betrayal and she's crying so much just to not think properly. There was supposed to be a place for us, it was always supposed to be us. He looks like the man he promised to never become, the same ruined fuck up that every South Sider around them turns to be. How could it be, how could it be. She cries that very first time feeling a special kind of sorrow.

x:x

Her days move like a slow motion tape, sight blurry and noises an incoherent buzz. Her whole world feels like its shattered and she's walking on the glass shreds, bleeding away every last drop until she's pale as the lifeless soul inside her and every colour fades to a shade of baby blue or grey. Her eyes scream their anger and her words cut sharper than any knife. She realises that maybe I was a little too in love with him, because she finds herself thinking..

If I can't have him, I don't want to live anymore.

Things don't go better when Scott and Leia officially can't pay the bills anymore, so she's forced to put a waitress uniform on and crunch hours in their favourite diner. Everyday her eyes glance over the table they used to sit at. FP never comes in here, he's probably too busy getting fucked up with all those gangsters and slowly killing himself. Fred and Hermione don't come in here anymore either, it's like all of a sudden their perfect destiny faded into nothing.

An empty booth, the taste of a strawberry milkshake on her lips tasting like bitter medicine.

Even if they never come back, no one could forget how it felt to be in love in the booth at Pop's.

No one will forget.

x:x

There's something about junior year, something unforgettable. College applications, FP tosses the papers in the trash, Fred thinks hard and long about the decision and Hermione applies for an Ivy without second thought. Joining Varsity, Fred makes the quarterback position and FP decides to opt out, he's too busy after school with initiation and trying to carve himself around the new people in his life and Hermione stands tall and proud at the top of the Vixens' Varsity pyramid. It's kind of that perfect dichotomy of youth and adulthood, allowed to make mistakes and expected to make the right choices.

Alice stares at the applications like they did something to her, reminding her of the untouched homework in her backpack and the flunked papers from tests. She wishes she could be as ambitious and brilliantly smart as Hermione, she really does. But the rising feeling of taking notes and knowing he'll ask her to go over them with her later has sunk so deep far down it's empty and non existent. She doesn't really care about school anymore, and Hermione always gives her concerned looks when they get their tests back so Alice stays away from her too.

She actually adores working in Pop's, well, as much as she could adore anything right now. It's taking her mind off FP to put cheese on fries and cherries on milkshakes and take orders and serve with a smile. She actually makes light banter with Pop Tate sometimes but only to distract him so she can steal some bites of food.

It's only depressing when she sees a group of four kids younger than herself everyday come into Pop's spread out their homework on the table and do it together, because she hates the social aspect and studying point of it, where all she can do is curse under her breath and wish she wasn't so far behind everyone else, feeling like she's drowning with all the things she can't understand. And just like that it's back again, the washes and waves of nauseous pain - nothing is going right, at all, at all, she cries repeatedly. I'll get held back a year by this point! Otherwise mom and dad should just take me out so they can save their pennies.

Her eyes feel like big puffy spice balls when she's done bawling in the Pop's bathroom. You could call it an attack, I guess. She doesn't know what she has.

There's still bits of mascara left on her cheeks and her hair is untidy as it is, pulled up in a ponytail but she still looks gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gor ... geous.

Oh.

There's somebody saying that, calling her. Not like in a sleazy catcall way, but a soft, convincing and maybe even shy tone.

"Alice, I've been meaning to ask you.. I saw Miss Kerr's achievement board and it looked like you slipped down the numbers. Do you need any help?"

She blinks. Stops wiping the counter and stares at his bulky body, strong from what she knows isn't football, because she used to watch all the games and never saw him. He's not that tall for basketball. Maybe wrestling. She actually considers it, and her heart feels a peal of light when someone brightly asks about her wellbeing, like maybe he actually cares. And the dark world around her brightened at the edges from his kind gesture. That's so nice of him. So she smiles, breaking into it animatedly like she hasn't smiled in months.

It's Hal Cooper.

x:x

They sit in the rep room and he explains how cells divide to her, Alice holds her notebook close to her chest with one knee and a pen between her teeth. The unexpected thing is that Hal is neither dorkily intelligent that it overwhelms and pisses her off, or super blank in how he gets this smart and bad at explaining. He's a good middle, knows the answers and formulas to everything they've learned but explains it a few different ways if she doesn't understand but he's chill and has messy handwriting and sometimes shows up late with soda and crisps.

She crosses her legs and bends down to write, the routine of theirs everyday settling quite nicely, but one day when she does so her hair spills to one side and she catches him staring at her exposed neck.

"I can't study tomorrow, I have a wrestling match"

"You wrestle?!" She laughs big and boldly, the image of it she finds crazy funny and a tad bit embarrassing.

"What?" He chuckles nervously at her reaction. "It's a sport!"

"Sure, for guys in tight singlets who want to feel up each other" she knows she's being crude and ignorant to the strenuous sport but she doesn't care, and his shifting position is kind of funny to look at. "It's okay anyhow. I'll be working at Pop's tomorrow"

She walks away without a goodbye and he's kind of obsessed with how pretty she is.

x:x

"What's going on with you?"

"What?"

"We used to best friends, you barely talk to me in school anymore"

"First world problems, some of us have other harder stuff to worry about other than the social hierarchy"

"What the hell is going on with you?"

"Nothing! Nothing you, or any of your stuck up cheerleader possy could understand anyway. Just go have another dinner at Belmonts of those sparkly spa trips your freaking parents pay for you"

"Alice... Come on I'll sleepover your house this weekend. We can catch up and do our hair and make new clothes?"

"Don't bother. You wouldn't want to step foot in the trailer I live in now"

Now it's Alice's turn to feel enviable of Hermione's hair, adorned with a golden headband and curled professionally, smelling like lavish shampoo and not the tap water they have running. She spares her one last glance before getting the hell away.

x:x

She feels the distant grow from herself and everyone else, only few interactions of the day being with Pop Tate and Hal Cooper. He sees her for their study sessions after school and by now she's clearly better at everything, she was always a smart girl, just left behind in studies by the downfall of doomed boy drama. Her parents are mostly out to pick up scraps where they can, coming home with a food basket and sometimes she picks at it. She holds up in her little corner of the trailer living room, when her parents are in their room or when they're out. She finds herself reading books from the library and finishing extra math sheets or folding fresh laundry anytime they have enough quarters to wash, all things she usually wouldn't do.

With FP it was driving out to the hill and the stars and drinking cold beer and kissing him senseless, talking about their dreams and school incidents and all the in between. Getting dressed up for parties, dancing, getting a taste of that Southside danger she never liked to embrace but in a bar where it's shading lights and good music, some of it feels thrilling. That is until she actually sees the ugly truth of their 'danger', and that he is just as wrapped up in it as all the other gang bangers. Then she doesn't want to stay in that muddy danger any longer. It's strange how that was all just a month ago, and now she's getting to a place where she might actually be getting better.

The first time Hal asks her if she wants to head to Pop's after their studying, his blond hair looking brighter than ever in the brisk evening, she laughs and says she doesn't have work today. But then he clarifies that he actually wants them to eat there, like, for fun.

And it's the first time in so long Alice ever had anybody bring her to the diner and let her order whatever, it distinctively reminds her off the times Fred and Hermione would do that. But this feels different, now he's paying for her, Fred and Hermione were on a date and doubled it for FP and Alice's as well. So she eats pancakes and waffles with the Blossom maple syrup to her heart's content, cheeks gaining its colour again when he makes conversation about stuff outside school, and when she sips her strawberry milkshake it has a brand new, nice flavour to it.

Alice goes to the bathroom after and tosses her dark hair in the mirror on the way out, looking over the shoulder at herself in vain. She knows she's pretty. Her parents always said it, the girls at school used to glance fretfully between their reflections wishing they could achiever her effortless leggy blonde model look, and FP made sure to tell her repeatedly that she's the most gorgeous woman in the whole world.

Hal thinks I'm pretty too, she adds to herself belatedly, still watching how her blue eyes sparkle in the mirror like a dresden doll.

"Hey! Ready to get out of here?" She puts her hands on the table and asks cheerfully, only to hear the tinkle of Pop's doorbell and Hal's green eyes following the bodies of some perky girls that just made their way in.

Well. Maybe he doesn't like me that much.

x:x

Before FP knows it his life is falling to hell. The switch from Riverdale's main town high school to the off set dull Southside High is barely story to any of the students. Sure, some of the football team noticed when he left and asked Fred about it, but his living circumstance was enough to cover why he left. Other than that nobody really bothered, even Alice, whom FP asked about one week after leaving the epitomised school.

"I don't know dude.. she's been off lately. You know I don't talk to her much, but I can tell she's upset about something. Like slumping in class and causing a lot of arguments and stuff, I don't know.. she must be really torn up about your breakup"

"Since when has it been like that?" FP sounds almost angry, that Fred puts his ice cream spoon down and looks up to him.

"Been like what?"

"You don't talk to her much? We used to all hang out together, go the mall and parties and Pop's together and -" he stops and wipes the invisible sweat off his forehead in frustration "How are things so different? What does Hermione say about her?"

Fred frowned plainly. His eyes sadder and looking more tired than any seventeen year old boy should, really. "That she's working at Pop's and always schmucks around with that Cooper guy. But.. I don't think any of us really talk to each anymore"

FP knows the tears in his eyes. We're falling down, we're spiralling, getting lost in the dark. All of us.

x:x

The summer before senior year comes flying in relief and desolation for some of them, the hot prickly air and swooshing sound of Sweetwater River all in company of kids clad in tank tops and short shorts and some are whisked away for summer vacations, mostly kids like Cliff Blossom and Ricky Mantle, but others are stuck here with slow passing days and an affinity to escape the boringness.

Summer before junior year and summer before senior year is two completely different things in some ways, but almost exactly identical. Alice didn't have FP, Fred and Hermione meet on occasion between her cruise trip and his visit to Oscar in college, but not much and there's a distance pulling at them.

Hermione went to junior prom with Hiram Lodge because their parents set them up to, with her smiling forcefully and him only thinking about groping the girl he's with. Clifford Blossom ends up winning prom king and it's no surprise, Hermione looking up at the crowned seniors while Hiram's arms wrapped around her waist and they danced slowly. She looks over the auditorium at Fred, who opted to go alone even though a bunch of girls asked him. Or maybe he just went with all of them, because he seems to have danced with a dozen that night.

But she doesn't ask and he never locks eyes with her because they're too sensitive to not crack, but every part of her wishes she could look back in fifteen years and tell their kids how she danced with their father all night long at their junior and senior prom.

He seems worn out, he really does. Almost running the household at this point with mom worrying more over dad, like she should, as he's missing remarkable days of work and Fred feels a little bit depressed.

Hal asks Alice to go with her, when she asks 'as friends?' he never clarifies though, so not even they know if it's a date or not. She stays for an hour before anything good happens though, and doesn't see Cliff being crowned king.

There isn't a prom at Southside High.

With nothing to do and lots of money to waste Ricky Mantle throws the first kegger of summer pretty late in July, all of school shows up too since who has anything better to do. Alice finds herself cuddled under a blanket with Hal and he's talking to Hiram, an arm thrown around her like they're together or something.

He cares about her, she knows that much. And she's well thought enough to return the care, if just by agreeing to attend these social scenes together even if all he wants is someone on his arm. It's cool enough.

There's a bonfire and the graduated seniors spend their last summer party at the only cool junior's place, a lot of rough housing and fun times going around. Clifford Blossom is the main star tonight, since he just newly proposed to his girlfriend Penelope.

Alice goes up to the red headed beauty, cold and suppressed in her body language. "Congratulations, I heard you and Clifford are engaged" she says it cordially.

The older girl doesn't reply, strangely, and only rolls her eyes and keeps drinking out out of her cup. That's the first time Alice starts to kind of dislike these Blossoms.

She only bites her tongue when Hiram leaves off to grab Hermione by the waist from behind, her old friend squealing surprisedly and she kicks her legs and asks him to put her down.

"Everything alright, Alice?" Hal turns to her.

"Yeah" Alice doesn't face him. Her peripheral shows her that his pale skin is lit red by the fire and his fair hair looks dirtier like he hasn't showered in a bit or something, and she doesn't need to see anymore. "Just, are they a couple or something?"

Hal always spoke with Hiram but he isn't *friends* with him, at least not really. They're kind of cool kids but Hal is more soft spoken and token mama's boy than the rest of the bunch, so.

"I bet. He talks about her all the time, it's honestly a little much" he admits nervously. Alice narrows her eyes from them still in embrace to him, all but kindly.

"Oh. So they're like... boyfriend, girlfriend" she always knew Hermione loved Fred. Why are they playing these stupid games? She doesn't have to date a rich jerk like her parents always want to.

"Do you want us to be like that?" He brings her out of the angry stupor she's in.

"What?"

"I'm asking... do you, want to be my girlfriend Alice?"

The question itself begs a definition. The only type of girlfriend she's ever knows in crazy madly deeply in love one, herself and FP, even her parents. But there's so much casual dating go around.. her eyes flicker back to them. Hermione can't be seriously feeling it with the Lodge boy, right? And so far Hal has been like the only person who makes her feel a dull ache instead of a burning stab, with meals at Pop's and acing her tests and all. It seems only natural.

"Sure" she smiles, a little gingerly. "Yeah, we could be"

x:x

Life becomes simple. Simply not the way they want it to go. It's confirmed that Artie Andrews has a kidney disease, and when he needs happiness more than anything he picks up after his dad's workload and finally allows himself to check on him, getting thinner and frailer by the day. There's so much pain and sickness in the house that Oscar comes home for two weeks to be there, and he talks to Fred about how much he's changed. Life will do it to you, he tells his brother like he's the older one. Hermione becomes more and more bitter by the day, stuffing herself and her parents with their idealistic dreams but there's nothing more to it then a sick rich people tendency. All she wants is to go out there and be herself, but her parents steel her in and doll her up creating a monster. Alice and Hal go to The Cooper's home which is nice and well kept and she brings him to the mall once or twice, to get some better clothes since his parents probably wouldn't agree with her ripped fishnets and and overly cropped tight shirts. She only does it because she happens to agree, and kisses him on the way home for paying for the tiny haul. FP spends day and night at the Wyrm, making friends, alliances, surely enough he brings the light and camaraderie that inspires them to not be so ruthless and keep things together a little bit.

x:x

She doesn't know why she showed up there. Really, truly. When the word of a Southside party happening reminds her too much of the one she and Hermione showed up to many months prior, it urges her to go. And she feels a little naked back in the fishnets and a tube top but like always she only likes this part of the danger.

"What are you doing here?" FP yells coming into her view, loud over the music. He looks so much like a man now... like a full grown, mature adult and it makes her heart so sad she missed all of it. She missed being there for him when he probably needed her really badly, when he turned behind her back to the dark side but won't tell her why. And he still loves her, she can tell.

"Why not? I live on the Southside too, this is my home"

"Not like you've been acting like it"

"WHAT?" She shouts because it's so freaking loud.

He pretends to not hear and just pulls her in to kiss her. Kissing her. Feels like honey, and passion, and everything he'll ever want for the rest of his life. His hands cup her jaw on either side and not for a second he hesitates when their lips lock, wanting to just scream how much he misses her. This reunion feels like it should happen, she knows they're meant to be, they're names were written in the stars for gods sakes.

Or was that just a figment of imagination, she asks herself when she's stumbling back to the room behind the Wyrm, one they've been to before. FP cradles her so preciously it's like they've never left, like the promise they made to fight for each other until the end is still in tact.

"Do you still love me, Ali?" He brushes the dark hair out of her face, sweaty foreheads leaning together. There's a sadness in his tone that doesn't reek of lust or desire, just... sadness.

"Of course I do" she assures fiercely. Grabbing his face, holding him close, staring at the tears in his little boy eyes that she wants to kiss away. "Of course I do, I always will. FP Jones, I will always love you. I could never forget, all the ways you make me feel and the first boy I've ever loved will always be my love. You're the only one for me, FP... I love you"

She doesn't launch himself at him or kiss him any harder, but they press their noses into each other's necks and holds onto whatever's left of this perfection, painful in choking back cries and desperate for each other again.

That night they make love, for the lost count of time, but it feels different when he slips inside her and she breathes all raggedly how much she loves him, needs him. FP feels wounded, the path of being alone always leads to the worst of destruction - which is where he's been this past month. But here with Alice everything can feel beautiful again, like he and her we're always meant to be together. His beautiful, perfect angel, and then he knows he will never stop loving her.

"Are you still mad at me, about the Serpents?"

"What now?" She drawls lazily, drawing patterns on his bare skin. Their bodies fold together and the only light comes from her blue eyes.

"The.. gang in this place. The Serpents."

"Oh" she licks her lips before facing him "I am. Because you never told me. I would've supported you FP through anything, because I know you're a good person. But - you lied to me, I couldn't stand with you like that"

He tells her how his dad got arrested. And the revelation of it all, taking toll in his life left and right. How mom's left town, and he's trying to keep the Serpents from ransacking the town from inside because he's so sick of all the evil and illegalities.

"I'm sorry I lied to you Ali. I should have told you everything"

She finds it hard to take so she gets up to the bathroom and he kicks himself for being a fuck up again, so damned just like his father. When the noises outside get louder and there's one sound he can barely hear but it stands out the most - fuck. The sirens.

FP pulls on all his clothes and rushes out to the front of the Wyrm like a siphoned object, only focusing on what the hell is happening. The cop cars have to be all over the perimeter of their bar. The drugs. The alcohol, the kids under age and the guns those guys have still not gotten rid off! All his flashbacks of FP Jones his father getting hauled after this many cop cars pulled up start filling in and -

no, no, no. He can't let that happen again.

FP quickly screams at everybody to get the hell out of the back door and don't bring anything with them, terrified in his chest and frantic movements. He's so scared, insanely so. The uniformed pigs have walked in and he sees just a flash of older men getting hand cuffed and brought away, the teenage boy in him bolting off and pushing as many people as he can to leave as well.

"Go! Go - get out everyone!" His eyes blare in fear. The dozens of Southsiders carry themselves unstably back to the woodworks and FP makes sure most of them still teenagers have escaped, sweating like bloodshed on a war field. They run across the back fields when he can still hear the sirens and commotion - all those guilty being set away. And FP suddenly stops, eyes wide, chest heaving, turns back around to walk back into the fire -

"Alice! Alice! Alice where are you?!"

"Get back here Jones they're gonna arrest you!" His new friends scream and some of them pull him but no restraint can hold him down, he'll run back to her.

He runs straight back to the room and bangs the door open to pull up a scared and shaking Alice off the messed up sheets, one police officer stalking their way as he pushes her with him. "We have to leave the cops are coming. Everyone's left"

"You came back for me?" She stops and asks him, drolly and not urgent.

"Of course I did, Ali. I had to come for you"

She looks up at him and there's an intensity in her eyes that's impalpable to everything else. Her nervous heart almost shatters and for a moment she thought she'd actually be taken away, even though she didn't do anything.

"Don't ever let me go" she pleads, begs, never wants to lose him again.

"Never"

And then their luck betrays them because cold metal clinks around his wrists, hers follow. At least they're going down together.

x:x

In the end it's Fred Andrews who shows up in the late hours of the night with his dad's credit card and very uncertain eyes, shocked and bemused to have a call from FP saying they're in trouble. He bails them out, the two of them, and swallows very hardly since there's barely anything left in that bank account. He'll have to do something about it. He'll have to work somehow. But now Fred just runs his hand through his bed hair and crushes FP into a hug when they're released, not so happy with what happened but more than relieved to see him free.

"Thanks for bailing us out, Freddy boy. I couldn't ever make it up to you" FP says as they're driving away in Fred's junkyard car, Alice quiet in the backseat.

"You're in some deep shit" Fred blinks out of his sleepiness. Little did they know, Fred would always be saving him in years to come.

x:x

When FP asks if Alice will go home with him she silently says no, and the boys drop her off at her trailer instead. She says a faint thank you to Fred, running her hand over his window sill before disappearing inside.

Next morning the papers show Southsiders getting arrested, and her mugshot smacked in the middle. All she feels is happy she got her hair retouched when the blonde roots grew out, it looks good in the photo.

Hal finds out about it and he tells her it's okay, as she cries, and rubs her knee, and she never speaks to FP again that summer. When the official letter saying she needs to leave school comes her parents are devastated, and it makes her even more sick. She throws up, over and over, and cries until her chest is sore because all she was studying for nothing and she'll never get to be a senior.

"We have the most amazing news" her parents smiled one day, vaguely suspicious. "The Coopers, they - they offered to keep you schooling in Riverdale High! And they welcome you to their home at any given moment until dad and I are back on track, to keep comfortable. Isn't this, isn't this a miracle, Ali?"

There's tears in her father's eyes and they hug each other, Alice stills like the world around her has. It only makes her feel more guilty.

But yes, a miracle. And all the more reason to stick by The Cooper's light for good.

x:x

She knows it before she can even wonder. She feels it in her throat and the soreness in her chest that isn't just from crying, it's from growing. She slides down the wall after puking one morning and the bathroom turns a pale pale grey, her life slipping out of reach before she could try and attain it. She knows this is over, this will be their breaking point, even without a little pee stick the inevitable train wreck coming looms near.

Senior year Homecoming should be the time of her life, really. She has a good boyfriend and amazing grades and gains bits of popularity, looking ethereally beautiful at the price of youth. She starts to sound like Hermione. But one the evening comes not a moment can she look into her boyfriend's eyes without shaking and shivering away, eaten up from guilt and fear because - they can't just erase this.

Hal has been so good to her, for the most part. He offered her the best opportunity to stay in school and helps her and kisses her on the cheek kind of chastely, but he does stare at other girls in front of her sometimes and forgets the dates they planned - or looks bored when she starts rambling passionately. This though, this will be the last straw. How could a milquetoast boy like Hal Cooper be smitten by a wrong side of the tracks delinquent like Alice Smith? It's because he's not, at all.

"Hey Alice I'm pretty sure you'll win tonight, I saw a bunch of girls stuffing your name in the ballad!" Hermione pipes excitedly, glittering in her party dress. She's excited because her former best friend is finally on the Homecoming court like she is, even with the off chance Alice might beat her... she doesn't care. Hermione doesn't have to win everything, after all, she doesn't want to win on the arm of Hiram Lodge - to look back at it in years to come.

"Not now, Hermione" Alice rushed past her, pulling Hal along and not paying mind to the many rumours that might run of them sneaking away to hook up right before being crowned. She doesn't care - she just

"What is going on, Alice? They were going to announce it anytime soon!"

"I have to tell you something"

She runs her hands down her brand new blue dress and breathes nervously, watching Hal go from bothered to curious and skirt on the edge. "I - I'm pregnant"

He stops and stares at her, doing the one thing that makes her so sad but feels the need to protect herself. His eyes train from her face to her belly, flat and carrying one life made purely of love, almost able to hear it's heartbeat.

"We can't have it" he says simply.

We - she planned to tell him, really. But it's too much too fast and her legs feel like breaking so she can't tell him now, not when he could get even madder at her.

"But it's a baby! A - I know it's a mistake, but this is our baby and we're seniors so we're practically graduating soon, and so many of our parents had us young -"

"We're not married Alice!" He yells it out like ice. "And we're Seniors in high school for god sakes, not college! Are you really ready to become a mother? You were just getting arrested a month ago!"

"Stop yelling at me!" She screams around a sob.

"You'll ruin both of our lives -"

"How could you be such a monster?"

"Fuck Alice how do you want me to react?!" He kicked one of the chairs over and pulls his hair in frustration, letting out the most strangled yell she's ever heard.

She watches him and the tears pool in her eyes. No perfection, no happy ending, no written in the stars. That's for sure and she sees it for the first time right here.

"I'm sorry" her voice dribbles softly

"Don't say you're sorry" Hal turns back around, he keeps her up from collapsing on the ground and they cry together for what feels like eternity. "We'll work this out together"

She doesn't know it that FP had come by to surprise her tonight, or is standing by the door where Hermione said she left to. She hugs tighter to his suit jacket and makes herself believe this is what's best for her, being with FP made the mistake - not Hal.

So they smile sadly at each other and enter the auditorium with all of student body grinning at their faces, 'Harold Cooper and Alice Smith' being announced in the loudspeaker from Homecoming King and Queen. At least she'll have one good thing to tell her baby about Senior Homecoming one day.

x:x

There's more and more instances where Fred and Hermione just keep meeting in the mix, from football - cheerleader to almost all the same classes and a narrowly similar crowd they run in, even their friend groups get intertwined by the grape vine. She feels the hot pressure of her mother's wrath on the back of her neck at every turning point - until it gets where she's doing stuff only to please them and never for herself.

When Fred Andrews doesn't show up to Senior Homecoming a part of her feels relieved, but at the Homecoming football game she almost loses her shit seeing Mary, who's supposed to be her friend, laughing up into Fred's face sitting together like he just made the best joke in the world. How rich, Fred.

"Oh, so you're dating her now?" She asks him blatantly, finally alone in the hallway of school. Fred rolled his eyes. This is so typical of her. "You fucking my best friend now? That sounds so classy and respectable"

"Like hell she's your best friend Hermione, you two've got more hidden from each other than a closed book. And you know what? Maybe you're just a professional at ruining relationships. I mean you ruined us, you're basically lying to all the girls on the cheer squad, you're starting a half assed romance with the big shot rich kid just to sucker up to your devilish parents and you even ruined Alice"

He doesn't bite his tongue back, and she's shocked but doesn't deny any of it. There's a heartbreaking truth to all that he said even though he's never been so bold about it, but it hurts. Really really bad. And takes all of her to turn around and walk away.

x:x

When he says they'll work it out together, she did not in a million years expect this. The morning after Senior Homecoming, went home to The Coopers to sleep next to him - his parents don't mind it - with their sashes and tiara and crown hanging by his lounge chair. Her hair is wet and stringy from the late shower last night, makeup scrubbed off and a growling stomach. She still doesn't know how far along this baby is, I mean she can guess, but she's not so sure how conception works and how long after the night with FP it should develop inside her; but Alice is already feeling dreadfully hungry every one hundred and eighty minutes.

They go downstairs, The Coopers have a souped up conservatory inside their home, with French doors and always ready egg platters and such. When their feet patter down the stairs Hal is visibly stiff, holding her small back like he's nervous or something.

And then, moments before her life officially gets snatched from he begins.

"Mom? Dad? What are you guys doing here?" She turns then to Hal skeptically, his square face filled with worry and a solemn nod. "Mr and Mrs Cooper ? -"

"Darling, Hal talked to us" Leia Smith said sadly. She wiped a tear out of those blue eyes of hers, and Scott Smith looked more mad than anything. He comforted his wife by wrapping an arm around her, and Alice's eyes flamed. "We have to"

"Don't worry dear, they will help you. You can move on from this, and be healthy, happy, have a normal life" Mr Cooper's calm tone sounds a lot like the one Hal used with her last night, telling her not to worry.

She still glances confusedly between all of them and doesn't understand any of it, when women in white bombard the quiet living room and suddenly her lungs fill with fear.

What the hell is this.

"No, No!" She screams so loud surely the neighbours could hear, and her chest feels like its sinking down and down to rock bottom. Her crying mother touches her arm one last time and Hal holds her hands tenderly until they take her away, screaming like a banshee wailing like a child. Everything blacks out, her brain peels into some new conjunction - finally, laying in a bed staring into a box blank wall, Alice knows she's finally snapped.

x:x

Safe to say Senior year doesn't go well at all. Hermione is fully dating Hiram Lodge now, and it frustrates her even more that Fred doesn't seem to care. He hangs around and smiles like its all good, she knows he's slept with some of the girls on her squad - because they can't shut up about it. Is she okay? Generally, over the span of time, yes - Hiram escorts her to school and back, they sit in his or her dining room and do homework together, then have dinner together with each family. She cheers until her legs are sore and still stares out at every football game to her favourite player.

A part of her will always be looking for him.

Their lives into a flurry, a mess, with him stringing into every girl that's attractive and her getting tied in deeper and deeper with her own family and The Lodge's everyday. It's so much that she can't see herself anymore, and true to fault, one day she loses it.

"Where is she?!" She screams a demand at Harold Cooper, the boy who's Alice's little golden ticket shortly she disappeared into thin air. Her hands slam on the lunch table and he, despite her witnessing him pummel boys in wrestling, shrinks back waiting for her to burn him.

"She's sick!" He yells pretty pathetically.

"Tell me where! Why can't you tell me?!"

And the argument doesn't follow when Hiram comes gushing down like some controlling father of hers, whispering stupid shit into her ear and pulls her away. She lets him bury her head in his shoulder and pretends to cover her face from the world, but really she's crying so much it hurts. Her shoulders shake, her faces scrunches up kind of cry.

They miss school the rest of the day.

Hiram takes her out to a restaurant and she moves her food around before he finally gives up on talking to her and they leave, he goes to buy her some roses or shit - and she waits in the car with dead eyes staring into the road. When one very familiar junkyard car pulls up, just outside the florist.

This peaks her interest. Hermione intently watches Fred search for scrap dollar bills and buy the cheapest colourful flower bouquet on the racks, pays, and her heart sinks because she wonders who he's buying flowers for. On the way out, Fred who's squinting in the sunlight and his hair is standing up straight so gorgeously soft and fluffy she wants to run her fingers in it, stops at Hiram. They say something, unheard by her ears in the sleek car, and they chuckle about something before each individual heads off to their car.

"Baby, could you get me the salad to go actually? I'm starving now on second thought"

Hiram frowns at her, the roses tipping downwards to the pavement. He sighs and moves back to said restaurant.

Then Hermione books it out of his car, running not so steadily to Fred's little vehicle. Her hands smack on the side jumpily.

"Wha - Hermione! My god, what is it?"

Their eyes run over each other. "Who are you buying flowers for?" She doesn't have time, Hiram will be back soon.

"Mary" He answers slowly. The mourning look in his eyes makes them both soften together. "I was going to ask her to the dance"

"Right. So what, you and he are friends now?"

"It's not exactly like I can hold a grudge on him. And you're friends with Mary" Fred sighs.

Her throat bobs, controlling herself from screeching on the sidewalk and begging him, please, please please come back to me.

Please come back to me.

"So there isn't a chance for us anymore, then?"

Fred reminds himself, one last time, that he can't control a girl like her. Can't mold a girl like her, to in love with all the glamour and gore to stay simply with a man like himself.

"I guess not"

She walks back to her car and jumps in the seat to see him drive away, then Hermione buries her head in her knees and cries for the second time that day.

x:x

Hal visits her twice her entire seven months, eight days stay there. The first time he apologises profusely, and her head is so numbed from medicine that she lays it on his shoulder and lets him ramble and talk. The second time he asks how their baby is, and she asks what's gonna happen when she gets out of here.

He promises her life will be better. It'll get back to normal.

Her whole life dries up the day she gives birth to him, her beautiful, healthy baby boy - with a tuft of dark brown hair like his father (she's so grateful Hal isn't there to see the big gaping hole in 'their' child's blonde genetics) but she isn't really thinking about Hal at that point. She's thinking of her baby, the perfect warm skin and his tiny red face, she falls utterly in love with this boy the moment she lays eyes on him.

For so long Alice has focused on the danger surrounding him, and not on experiencing all the first momma things, like the first heartbeat hearing and first kick or getting little sleepsuits. So maybe Hal was right, maybe her first time experiencing childbirth shouldn't be like this, bearing the weight of world on her bony shoulders. But now she's in love with her baby, oh I'm so in love with you!

They spend time alone after the birth and that's all she tells him, all she repeats to him, how much she loves him. So now she holds his hand, feel his strong heart beating, and admires how brown his eyes and hair already are. Just like your father, my love. You look just like him. He loves you, you know? I love you. I'm your momma and I will always love you. I'll always protect you, I'll never let you get hurt, ever my sweet baby boy. I love you...

The bundle of blue sitting in her hands eyes her very straightly, almost like he doesn't want to miss her too. It's the first time Alice has ever felt something so enthralling in her life, and she cries without end while kissing him till her lips will never forget the feeling.

She's sure of one thing only - and that's that this baby in her arms is the most precious one in the whole world and she will do absolutely anything to never let him become polluted by her same demons or worse, turned into them. She's already attached to him.

"Charles Jones..." she whispers painfully, softly, into his little shell ear "I love you"

And then, like another sparking nightmare, they scoop him out of her arms while they were sleeping together.

"No, no, no" her cries are softer than the first time. Weak and tired, helpless and sedated. "No! Don't take my baby... please, my baby.. I love him. Please don't!"

It's the hardest goodbye she's ever had to make.

x:x

The end of Senior year doesn't go well either. Right after they graduate, Hermione gets married. It's this grandeur extravagant thing, and every prestigious family The Lodge's know show up, all swishing in the giant mansion home. She wears a spiralling white gown that's fit for a princess and her neck and wrists adorned in pearls, the finest kind, looking so beautiful you'd have to touch her to make sure she's real.

There's poise in dancing and good live music and even better food, the company all those she will one day host cocktail parties and brunches to, feeling like the absolute most important person in the whole wide world that evening. If there's anything that her mother wants most, it's to see her little girl wed off to this perfect young man and to be safe with each other.

People all flew in and the town paper writes all about it, truly, Hermione Apollonia was made for this. Married in vain and retired young, if that's what some would think.

That night she becomes Hermione Lodge, Fred Andrews doesn't get out of bed and he doesn't let FP, who's been such a drunken problem magnet lately, come up and see him either. His mother kisses him and brings him tea and he never stops staring out the window, only thinking back to a time when they were by the water fountain at the mall and she told him she loved him.

The newlywed Lodges head to Spain for a honeymoon but before all that, they do have to spend one night in their mansion to rest before far travelling. Her body is tired from the long party tonight, and her hair is let down already. He pulls her by the hand and leads her into the one room that Hermione has never been able to enter since dating the family's only son and heir. The swan room.

"This is it, Hermione. Where all the business happens" What he means is where all the evil happens, her doe eyes struggle to take it all in and she feels even more scared than she ever has in her whole life. I made a mistake. I really, really made a mistake. Like her mother practiced with her though she stands tall but doesn't meet his eyes, and her breath shakes giving it all away. How big a mistake this was. Marrying him. "Are you scared, Hermione? Of the danger?"

His voice is coercing then, leaning in closer to her and speaking into the side of her neck. She wants to push him off and run away but it's too late now, it's too late now, god and nothing can save her. The monsters she thought she knew grow to demons in her presence and she already feels violated.

"No. Of course not"

"Good" he whispered into her neck, arms going around her. The two consummated their marriage that night in the swan room.

Amidst his throes of passion, he never lets go of her, always touching her and groping her in some place that makes her breathless. "Tell me what you want Hermione Lodge" he growls in her ear "I'll give you anything"

"Just one thing" she struggles to get it out of her throat. Gripping the bedspread.

"Anything" he promises

"Get me the hell out of this town"

x:x

FP never finishes high school and instead fully runs the Serpents, after getting news his father is never making it out of prison. He finds the most dysfunctional of homes where the Serpents are, with some scrawny guys and rebellious fuckers who can't catch a break, and pretty girls who want his attention cos he's young and attractive.

One girl in particular, the one that always stood out to him, Gladys. She makes a mark on him. She accompanies him till late hours of the night working and conversing, and making him realise how alike they are. Broken, innocent, just like him.

She sticks around even after all this time. Of course gangsters don't just stay in high school and the shit they do starts getting you charged as an adult - so his actions become hastier. Riskier. And yet she sticks through him with it all. She never left me, he muses. She never once hated me. Never once tried to be something she isn't, never turned around and left him alone.

He tries to get back on track, he really does. To quit the drinking habit that developed out of nowhere, and to stop coming home late from jobs that worry her and spend actual time with her. Fred saves him along the way, always. He's too caught up in the chase to rethink ethics and consequences so his childhood best friend does it for him.

So suddenly he wakes up and watches his kids grow up. Two of them, strikingly pretty as children with big angelic blue eyes of their mother and dark mousy hair. Their names are similar, Gladys laughs when he suggests them and holds them closer to her bosom, agreeing again. So content. He's not sure it's the best decision to start a family, but it's the least he could give her after loyally standing by him all this time.

They're the smartest kids he'll ever know.

And maybe he's a little bit of a hypocrite, maybe he never fully understood why Alice - but he sends his son to Riverdale High too, instead of settling for Southside High.

x:x

When Fred finishes high school Artie Andrews dies slowly, his farewell leaving a very scared and scorned family behind. There's much to worry for and college feels distant but still possible - he still has many things really, but he's lost many too.

He knew what had to be done. Always be a man with initiative, his father had told him. And now, he has to be that. A local university outside Riverdale suffices as the pot of his knowledge and Oscar stays with mom as much as he can until Fred is on breaks. He misses the town but it glad to leave all his high school years in it. Not that he'll leave forever at all, always comes back. Unlike some people.

Andrews Construction becomes something when he's the ripe age of twenty, still young and dumb but able and willing. Just bricks and building things, he's always liked that. He needs to do it and Mary supports him by, even attending a college in some further city getting her law degree.

He thinks it's admirable, how ambitious and unstoppable she is. He must like ambitious women. The thing about Mary though, she doesn't settle, not in the least. She stays in Riverdale with him because she wants to, and stands with him to pour concrete being the best girlfriend he could ever ask for. And she's charismatic, optimistic, opportunistic. That's exactly what Fred needs right now. He needs her in his life, every single part of her.

The first time Fred is aware of how painstakingly in love with his wife he is, she's bearing their new born son against her bare chest in Riverdale Hospital with the nurses going wild and his eyes start to water. Married straight of college, to the woman who is always proud to introduce him as her husband. And maybe they're a little stupidly in love and stumbling about adulting together, getting that white brick house, but it's all set in.

They name him Archibald. Archie, Andrews. The adorable thing has his mother's red hair and wide grin and every single time Fred lays eyes on him, it reminds him of how much he loves Archie's mother. Perfect, bubbly, stocky baby boy.

The family of three look in the mirror at each other, Fred waving Archie's little hand, and they see the happiest part of themselves.

x:x

Alice Smith ends up finishing high school with a private tutor, too emotional to go back to school and she doesn't really want everyone speculating on why she left. She slowly learns again and becomes stable again, but not without many pill bottles and doctor visits and grief counselling. All the while Hal, who will never stop believing what he did was right, holds her hand all through the darkness.

She's practically moved in with The Coopers and doesn't hear squat about FP Jones, long lost in the Southside scheme of things.

There's a part of her that always believed she has a destiny. A fate. So maybe this is just it.

On her wedding day, which she isn't in the least bit anticipating or excited for, there's a wedding party in the garden and sandwiches and iced tea. Old high school friends show up but she never speaks to them at all, still as bitter and acidic as the junior year. Maybe she'll never change.

Alice doesn't even want to go out to the reception, she's stuck in the guest room all dressed up and staring at herself. Her hair is freshly blonde again now, the natural way it is, all dark roots washed away.

It's all 'darling' and 'we're so happy for you' and she slowly dances until her heartache fades out.

They have their first doll - like daughter, Polly, when they're finally ready. She's shy yet fiesty and a little bit stubborn and only wants mommy to hold her, which Alice likes. She enjoys that her baby daughter wants her more. So she experiences all the first times then. The first heartbeat hearing, the first little outfit they buy her, the first time holding her tiny hand.

She is blonde, and angelic and special, and Alice has to pretend like this is her first time. Only it isn't.

When she sees her second daughter - the one who contradictorily likes being with daddy more, and is even sweeter and but rougher than Polly is. She's Elizabeth, she's lovely and decadent sweet and meant to become either a ballerina or something else dreamily girly, she loves them both so much. Her daughters are her entire world, nothing comes before them.

So when her perfect daughter blushes while playing with Fred Andrews' son, red headed and freckled Archie, she glares at Fred but is relieved for Elizabeth. At least she won't make the same mistakes I did, and fall for the screwed up boy never made to do good. At least she's getting giddy about the wide eyed boy next door and is well raised.

But she thought that well raised preppy Northsider boys like Archie Andrews are harmless, unable to ruin, however it rings untrue. When she witnesses her first daughter fall in love with Clifford and Penelope Blossom's eldest twin son, she suddenly feels like that same angry high school girl. She yells, and controls, and defences, and says things that will make Polly change sides and listen to her mother instead.

It doesn't work, it doesn't fucking work. She cries so much the day she finds out, and just like that, history has repeated itself. Then she doesn't know how else to help the perfect Elizabeth, protect her from what? If she was doomed and now Polly is, dear dear Polly, what will happen? Elizabeth will not go down that path.

Never in a million years.

x:x

Hermione feels much more at home in the city. She feels good to have left the hick town, and realises that this is the place it is for her. New York has called her name since she was a child. She does host those cocktail parties and brunches, and runs the most glorious household in the Upper East Side. She likes big city drama way better than small town gossip. She prefers her own home and taking the college classes she wants and dinners at french vegan restaurants.

She frets a million times about having a baby, excuse being losing her figure. But really, she's rethinking it all. Raising a child in this scary concrete jungle seems like releasing him or her into this great big challenge and hoping it'll come out alive, but she was raised in a small town and that wasn't easy at all either. Hermione keeps putting it behind but Hiram really wants an heir to the business, which she now understands is important, and finally one day feels ready.

Veronica Cecelia Lodge. Remarkable. The instantly well known Lodge daughter, only child, gaining all her trust fund and spoiled wellbeing by birth right. Her eyes are even more cunning than they are trusting, and she is already cooed over by all the New York socialites at a baby party and is living inside one big house with no end to her fortune. It doesn't help that she's unmistakably beautiful, and doesn't know scrap of small towns because her parents never want to visit Riverdale, therefore she remains oblivious in a bubble of pretty perfection.

So Hermione watches her daughter grow up, being the biggest brat and spoiled little daddy's girl, Hiram only able to calm her down. She gets her ears pierced at two years old and makes a huge scene about her bun not being tight enough backstage at her ballet recital at four years old. As she grows she learns manners though, and devotes energy to smart manipulation rather than outright demands. Hermione watches her daughter start high school, the envy of all peers, and party all her nights away, scandals written about her at only fourteen. Then Hermione wonders what if she's made a bigger monster than she was herself.

But Veronica proofs to have the thick skin made for this city.

That's why when her father is ripped from them, and they have to crawl back to Hermione's beginning as a means to survival, she knows Veronica can make it. She knows she can.

x:x

Returning in Riverdale feels like a dream. Good or bad, she's not sure. But suddenly it's eighteen years since she left this place and she still knows exactly what it's like back. Warm air in summer, Sweetwater River, maple trees. The stars still dance the same way they do.

Too much has changed to put into words, and their lives no longer intertwine like they used to. They have their own battles to fight in the forties, they can't keep thinking about each other or the past left unspoken. So much happened in between, too too much. It cannot be said, cannot bear to be spoken. And now all of them have bigger horrors than what's happened in highschool.

Alice's daughter got impregnated and sent to a group home, her boyfriend found murdered. Hermione's husband got arrested and she's still not out of the waters for him. Fred got shot, his wife left him, and FP is sitting in prison. All too many years later.

Too many years to be saved, to be cherished again. This must be what a lifetime feels like, stepping into Pop's that night with so much happening around them. We were written in the stars, a silly young girl said one time. I love you, one had whispered at the water fountain. That's washed away, sure it is. But when 'saving Pop's' is a concept, both girls are there to see it. What hurts their hearts the most. To see that.

A raven haired girl and the muscular ginger jock, leaning in closely to each other. The blonde girl and her beanie wearing boyfriend are even more tangled together, on opposite sides of the booth. Both couples are content but one radiates passion and the other energy. Alice and Hermione can't help recall it, all of it. We were meant to end up together, yes. It was perfection. It was our fate, our destiny. So maybe history is just meant to repeat itself, they don't want it to, know how much it hurts, but a part of them whispers... they, have to have the happy ending we never could.