Oh man, I started a sequel. This just got real.

Here's what you may want to know up front: the prequel is my story "Beggars Can't Be Choosers," and this story maybe kinda sorta stands alone - but is so far A/U at this point that I do recommend you check out the prequel if you want it all to hang together and make good sense. In medias res is no joke, though I try to sketch in a lot of details and embed reminders here and there as the plot unfolds (please drop me a review if you want more of that and I'll do my best to oblige - I'm admittedly close enough to the trees to be blind to the forest!).

Also, in the spirit of Riverdale, the plot is just ever so slightly complicated. :)

This story is already taking me for a ride - please review if you're enjoying, and let me know your thoughts. It's great being back on here with you all!

-Button

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Jughead almost felt sorry for them; Brand was clearly losing patience, and he'd rejected clients for less. The teenager adjusted his position lithely and silently on his bed and turned a page in his book. He hoped the no-computers ban would be lifted soon, but in the meantime Brandon had been generous with a bookstore allowance and Jughead had enjoyed annotating the pages of physical books as a change from his habit of reading primarily digital text.

His stacks of paperbacks adorned the room on shelves Brand had taught him to make for himself after the third time he'd been called upon to build them for his ward, and Jughead had begun penning some of his favorite lines from the books onto the plain wallpaper. Owning their own place had its perks, and Brand had encouraged him to pursue his interests in creative ways while he missed the school year and they both kept their heads down for the time being. Jughead would need a GED at some point, and with his dream of double-majoring in mechanical engineering and English, he'd need a strong background to get into a program, let alone keep up with college classes. His math textbooks and workbooks were as worn as his favorite novels, something he'd never imagined becoming a reality - but Brand had been a surprisingly able tutor. The military liked their math, it seemed.

Sweeping his hair back from his eyes, Jughead set his book down for a moment to revisit an unrelated internal debate: haircut or replacement for his beanie. His hair was getting long enough that he was starting to be irritated by it curling around his neck in the back and obscuring his eyes if he didn't tie it back in a small ponytail that made him feel like Johnny Tremain.

Brand had offered to take him to get his hair buzzed off when they'd first left town, but Jughead had opted for temporary dye instead and gone dark blond for a month or two - and now his hair was back to its normal color, but long enough for him to become unrecognizable when he adopted some of the mannerisms Brand had taught him for becoming all but invisible, in case they did (miracle of miracles) run into anyone who knew them and might be traveling here in Toronto.

Mexico had been another lie. A 'precaution,' Jughead reminded himself, in case anything had gone wrong and they got separated.

If he hadn't fallen asleep almost immediately after they had reached the highway after his harrowing, near-fatal all-nighter the previous fall, Jughead would have known right away that they were heading in the wrong direction. He'd been kidnapped by thugs, though, and forced to stay awake all night in a barely successful attempt to escape being murdered when the kidnappers had ultimately realized he was more dangerous than valuable to them.

'A trend,' Jughead thought darkly. He didn't resist or try to get around the computer and phone ban because he knew it would be too tempting to check in on other people to whom he was more dangerous than valuable. All of the people he'd left behind.

Brand insisted that they had accidentally faked their deaths when the kidnappers burned down the trailer to cover their tracks, so Jughead tried to take comfort in the fact that everyone had a clean break and had no doubt begun to move on without him.

It was a cold, weak comfort. It did not help that he was not permitted to make friends in Toronto, but Jughead had always been a loner. He'd had time to rediscover those habits over the last four months.

"Jones?" Brand knocked on Jughead's door. "The meeting's over. You can come out. Want to order pizza?"

This had been a serious improvement since leaving Riverdale: Brand's clientele had become significantly more white collar, and his income had swelled to match. While Jughead continued to stay out of sight and silent during all in-person meetings, his modus operandi with Brand had become tenable since they'd fought side by side to get out of Riverdale in one piece. Their pact to work and live together until Jughead made it to college had somehow survived their violent, terrifying weeks of living together in Riverdale.

"I'll go pick it up," Jughead offered. "Croissants for tomorrow, too?"

Brand peeled fifty bucks out of his wallet and handed it to Jughead. "Only if you go to the bookstore first and don't come back for at least an hour. You've got a fresh graffiti look about you."

"That's not Shakespeare," Jughead gave the expected response to their inside joke with a smirk.

"How will you be sure if you don't go to the bookstore?" Brand nudged Jughead toward the door. "Don't come back for an hour or I'm grounding you."

"Ha," Jughead left their row house, wondering yet again how Brand managed to read his mood so accurately. FP had never bothered, and it had always been easy enough for Jughead to project what he wanted to anyone else in his life, at least for the most part. His claustrophobic mood had obviously not gone unnoticed, though.

He turned in the direction of the bookstore, which was just a few blocks from the best pizza restaurant. He'd get croissants in the morning with the change, he decided, so he could hit his favorite patisserie.

The brief, chilly walk in the March air perked Jughead up after a full day of reading in his room. He felt downright cheerful when he pushed the jingling door open to the large bookstore and made a beeline for the nonfiction. His eyes immediately caught a new title by a favorite author and he was reaching for it before he even made it fully into that section of the store.

"Whoa, good book much?"

Jughead opened the book and began hungrily skimming the description before he realized that someone had spoken to him.

"What?" Jughead looked up toward the voice, through the sheet of dark hair that had begun plaguing him. He pushed his hair back to get a better look at the teenaged girl holding a stack of books. "Uh, yeah."

"Better than Capote?" She was muscular and looked like she might have a chip on her shoulder based on the patches plastered on her backpack - but Jughead could tell in a glance that she was too clean-cut to be in a gang or into any real trouble. She had the air of someone who had it together. Someone who had a future.

"Nobody's better than Capote," Jughead smirked. He turned back to the bookshelf.

"You're American," the girl hadn't taken the hint and moved on. "New England?"

"No," Jughead figured that was debatable, so it wasn't really a lie, but his 'spidey senses' were going off hardcore all of a sudden. He didn't look up as he answered. "American, but more all around. Now I'm from here."

"I'm from upstate New York," she kept talking to him. "Divorce, and my dad's discovering his Canadian roots all over again. Lucky me, getting to spend breaks and long weekends in another country."

"Yep." Jughead hoped his tone discouraged her further. Something vaguely echoed in his mind about there being a type of girl who liked jerk guys, though. He found himself reassessing his own approach when she still didn't move away.

"I need American friends here to stay sane. And you can totally help me with this school project on crime writing. You obviously know what you're doing."

"Nope," Jughead considered what responses might make him seem more 'boring' than 'challenging' or 'complex' to this girl. "I have to study for a math competition."

"And you're smart!" She lit up still further. "I always have a sense about people. This is fate. So totally fate. Where do you live?"

Jughead put the book back on the shelf. He wanted it in the worst way, but he was suddenly getting spooked by this conversation. "Hey, I gotta go. Good luck with…"

Spinning on his heel and leaving his poorly thought out sentence unfinished, Jughead left the bookstore abruptly. He found himself breathing quickly and switched to breathing deeply and slowly through his nose. In the aftermath of leaving Riverdale he'd mastered a lot of techniques for stopping a panic attack before it really got started.

He stood in front of the bookstore, debating whether to get the pizza or just turn tail and head back to the house. When he realized the pizza was in the opposite direction from Brand, he made the decision to get food - and hopefully throw any watching, intrusive people off the trail if they had any ideas about tracking him down later.

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"That's it; you're grounded," Brand greeted Jughead when he returned with the pizza just forty minutes after leaving. "You need to get out more. You're going to get rickets."

"That does not come from a vitamin D deficiency," Jughead shot back.

"Au contraire, college wannabe," Brandon opened one of the pizza boxes. They were big believers in leftovers, and two large pizzas was their typical order. "You can't actually get it by staying indoors, though. Google it."

They both froze for a moment.

"Or... get the encyclopedias out and you'll see what I'm talking about," Brand amended. They might be the last household in Toronto with a full set in hard copy. "Give me two more months, okay?"

"Two more months?" Jughead had thought they were nearly done with the internet ban. "It's already been nearly four!"

"It's not easy staying dead if you have an online presence."

"I'm not going to… Instagram!" Jughead hadn't realized how frustrated he'd become with being cut off from the wider world until this moment. He eyed Brand's body language, though, and painful experience told him not to push the issue any further right now. They hadn't argued much since leaving Riverdale, and Jughead didn't want to find out if their new relationship included fighting fair or not. He was too afraid the answer would be 'or not.' "Maybe I will go to the bookstore," Jughead offered quickly. "I'm… not as hungry as I thought. There's a new book."

"Okay," Brand eyed him warily in return. "Be back within an hour this time, though. It's getting late."

"Yeah, okay," Jughead agreed absently. He pocketed the cash he'd set on the counter and left the row house a second time.

"Hey! This is where you live?"

The shock of hearing a familiar voice greeting him nearly sent Jughead back into a panic attack before he realized it was just the girl from the bookstore and not… not someone else, who had known him much longer.

Then he realized this was actually not that much better.

"I'm on my way out," Jughead moved past the girl and headed down the sidewalk in the direction she'd been coming from.

"My dad lives two blocks further down, but on this same street!" She had turned to follow Jughead. "See what I mean about fate?"

There were a lot of houses on this street. There were streets nearby with no homes, because they were all businesses. It seems more like urban planning than fate to Jughead. He kept his mouth shut, though, not wanting to encourage conversation and not sure what he could do to lose this girl now. He wasn't about to go back in the house with Brand so tense.

"I'm Alice," the girl had fallen into step next to Jughead.

"Alice?" Jughead looked at her in surprise.

"What's your name?" She seemed oblivious to Jughead's odd reaction to her name.

"Jonas," Jughead and Brand had drummed up a few basics that would make them more anonymous than his real first name allowed. Since Brand called him "Jones" most of the time, this had been a convenient pseudonym.

"Jonas what?"

"Stop asking me questions, okay?" Jughead shook his head in frustration. "You didn't tell me your last name, and you certainly don't need mine. You don't need to know where I live. You don't need to follow me."

"And yet, fate," Alice smiled sweetly, and suddenly Jughead caught the ghost of an impish look cross her face.

"Wait a minute... Do you do this often?" Jughead's tone turned knowing and slightly caustic as he realized he was being played. "Is this entertainment to you? Pick on some random person? Are you filming this or something?" Good lord, he hoped not. All he needed was a viral video of some prank.

Alice looked surprised now. "Should I be? I didn't think this was social media worthy." Her expression changed entirely over to a smirk, though, confirming his suspicions. "People usually don't realize I'm messing with them. I just like to liven things up. I get bored when I stay with my dad and like to see how strangers react to strange encounters of the random kind. Well played!" Alice turned to leave. "Enjoy the book!"

Jughead watched her walking away for a moment, before he was suddenly possessed by a demon. Or something similarly self-destructive. "Wait, that's it? I figure out you're performing a social experiment, and you're suddenly done with me?"

"Social experiment's over!" Alice didn't even spare a glance at him as she continued walking away. "Have a nice life, Jonas."

Jughead became increasingly convinced that he was possessed by a demon when his feet started taking him after her. "How did you figure out where I live?"

"That actually was a coincidence," Alice shrugged. She didn't seem to mind that she was now the one being followed, but she didn't encourage him either.

"Not fate anymore?" Jughead just couldn't stop. He wondered if these months without internet had caused permanent damage to his brain.

Alice laughed darkly. "Not fate, no."

"Do you really have a homework assignment about crime writing?" Jughead asked.

"Yep," Alice finally stopped to face him. "So I really am going home, and you really should get to the bookstore before it closes or someone else buys that book you were drooling over."

"I might actually be able to help," Jughead heard himself offer. Definitely permanent damage from internet withdrawal, he decided.

"I don't actually need help," Alice suddenly sounded proud and not a little snobby. She had the grace to look embarrassed when she quickly added "I'm a writer. Straight A's. This is a topic I picked out on my own."

Jughead felt like he'd been socked in the stomach as waves of memories of Betty rolled over him. He'd worked hard to get out of the habit of thinking about her. And now this.

"Okay," Jughead said, beginning a hasty retreat. He gave a quick salute and made his way back up the sidewalk, in the direction of the bookstore. "Good luck with the social experiments."

"Good luck with…." Alice didn't finish her sentence, but gave him a wide grin as she echoed his parting words in the bookstore. He couldn't help a small smile in response to her quick humor.

Jughead bought the book in a hurry, then stood for a while in the Thrillers section of the bookstore, browsing the less familiar titles. His mind was on Brand, though, and whether he should mention Alice or keep today's conversations a secret. This was the sort of thing he was supposed to avoid - he could be recognized, and she was even American - but it had been the first real conversation he'd had with anyone but his godfather in months.

His godfather, who still featured heavily in his nightmares.

Jughead stared blindly at titles written in creative fonts to resemble lightning, blood, and even outlines of weapons in some of the letters. It occurred to him that this was not the place to find answers, and he left the store.

Growing up apparently meant fewer and fewer answers with each passing day. With nothing resolved other than his book purchase, Jughead walked slowly back to the row house. It had been just under an hour, and Brand would be waiting but not anxious.

Everything was fine.

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Riverdale had been rocked by the murder of Jason Blossom. It had recoiled from Clifford Blossom's suicide and the revelation that he had so unnaturally turned on his own family and murdered Jason. The town had been exhausted by responses to the dangerous fires in two locations during the same night.

They really could not be blamed too harshly for their subsequent willingness to accept the facts in front of them, even when they did not quite add up. When it came to a missing person who had been witnessed inside a burning building - even when no remains were recovered from that fire. It was particularly understandable that the town wanted to move on for the most part when seven sets of remains that were too far gone to be identified, but were clearly human and male, were recovered from a house explosion that occurred the same night, just outside of town.

Even Sheriff Keller was struggling with his own sense of duty regarding devoting further resources to a search for Brandon and Jughead after what Archie had described witnessing. It sounded like Brandon had been mixed up in something bad, and the idea that Jughead would find his way, injured and incapacitated, to a base of operations for what appeared so far to be multiple schemes involving drugs and weapons, well - that no longer seemed as unlikely as it once had. His godfather must have returned to the trailer to retrieve Jughead before setting it on fire, even though Archie swore up and down that the time course didn't allow for that.

There were a few people pushing to devote more resources to the search. First among them was FP, who had just been released weeks earlier and was furious to discover that his son had been 'presumed dead' for even a moment when there was a chance he'd escaped or been taken out of the area. After the local searches had combed the region, 'out of the area' was the only option they reasonably had left.

Interestingly, Fred Andrews had been the most supportive of FP in mobilizing the FBI and making sure that Jughead's picture was circulated. Where FP could be public, loud, and sometimes drunk in his efforts to keep Jughead in the news, Fred was very quiet about his steadfast support for the cause. He didn't want to rub Archie's nose in how deeply involved he'd been in making sure every stone was turned over before they gave up on Jughead.

Archie was traumatized by what he'd witnessed, and by what he knew to be true. He more than anyone else was convinced that Jughead had died in the trailer, and that the fire had somehow become inexplicably hot enough to destroy any trace of his remains. Where most folks in Riverdale had shrugged at the trailer fire when Keller came up empty in his investigation, and they opted to blame the explosion and far more violent house fire for the loss of a citizen and local student, Archie defended what he had seen fiercely. It was important to him that people understand and acknowledge what had happened, and what had killed his best friend. He hated the idea that Jughead not only died alone, but also that his last moments were not understood - believed - by anyone.

The Serpents could be depended on to fall in line with FP, but Keller had quickly realized that there was a lack of enthusiasm there. Apparently there was some information circulating among them that suggested it was not unlikely that Jughead and Brand had dealings with Joe and the folks who had owned and used the house outside of town, so when FP insisted that Jughead not be counted among the unidentified dead from that disaster, well… the Serpents nodded along, but only when they had to.

The mayor had preferred that fewer resources go toward the search, even from the beginning, and she was only pushing harder for the budget to tighten down after three months and then four had passed with no credible leads coming to light.

And then there was Kevin.

Keller didn't weigh his son's preferences at all in most investigations, but at this point the whole foundation for the case had become so weak that even a small reason to keep searching or to give up the search could tip his internal scales. Kevin was convinced that Jughead was dead and Brand along with him, and there was something about his manner that suggested he regretted the deaths - but not necessarily all of the outcomes. After all, with Jughead gone, some of the most potent ties between Joaquin and Kevin's highschool life had evaporated overnight.

The sheriff knew that Kevin would be among the first to search if there had been more hope, but all the same Keller couldn't shake the feeling that it was a little too convenient to most people for them to accept that Jughead was dead though his body would never be identified.

Convenience never felt quite right to him when someone's safety was at stake.

Keller looked over the report on the budget and expenditures and made the unpopular decision - one more time - to extend the search in its fully funded form. After that could be the point of ramping down their efforts, at long last, but it would be satisfyingly inconvenient for Riverdale to have this last ditch search effort continue in full force. Jughead deserved at least that from the town that had failed him.

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"Betty," Veronica peeked into her friend's bedroom. "Your mom let me in."

Betty was lying on her bed with her textbooks unopened beside her. "I'm studying."

"I brought snacks," Veronica smiled tentatively, trying to warm up her friend to the fact of her arrival. "Do you want some light in here?"

The shades were drawn firmly over Betty's window facing the Andrews' home across the street.

"He's home right now," Betty stated matter-of-factly. After months, Veronica was familiar with all of the reasons why Betty was angry with both of the Andrews men, but she still could not tell which was the current offender without more information.

"Archie?" Veronica guessed, since the window was more of a problem with the younger Andrews man.

"No, his dad."

Betty had at first been reflexively furious with Archie, the bearer of the horrifying story of her boyfriend's unthinkable death and the one person who might have been able to intervene in time - and had not. As more details emerged and it became clear to Betty that Jughead had not been in the trailer fire after all, her anger became focused on Archie's refusal to believe all of the scientific reasons why a lack of remains meant that what he thought he'd seen could not be the truth. Betty had been a staunch supporter of the search for Jughead. At first.

After the remains from the house explosion had been recovered, Betty had begun to feel huge cracks open up in her fervent hope. As more details emerged about Brand, her anger had focused once again on Archie for excluding her from his speculations about Jughead's godfather - and her hope turned to despair when she finally learned through accosting Joaquin that there was evidence that Jughead and Brand had known the owner of the house that had been so violently destroyed.

That was when she'd turned on Fred for continuing to pursue the search for her dead boyfriend - the one who could not be laid to rest as long as the search was ongoing. It didn't help that FP had moved in there when he was released, and even a glimpse of his familiar posture from across the street gave Betty the jolt of recognition that should only have come from seeing Jughead.

Veronica had braced herself for weeks, knowing logically that Betty's anger should include her for at least one of these same reasons. She'd suspected things were not right with Brand, and she hadn't shared those concerns with Betty. She'd believed Archie's story and also had the initial response of disbelief that Archie had hesitated to get Jughead out of the trailer before the fire began. She even had a guilty, dark secret: Veronica was horrified at the loss of Jughead, yet at the same time guiltily relieved that Archie had not gone into the trailer and been endangered as well.

There were other reasons Betty could hate Veronica. She had begun dating Archie, though their relationship was deeply strained by his slow recovery from what he'd witnessed and gone through in the weeks after the fire, during the initial investigations. Veronica had also joined Fred's bandwagon quietly, but with determination, when the shocking news had become public that there had been no remains recovered from the trailer.

Basically, if Betty had been angry about something, Veronica had occupied ground zero for that cause for a time. Somehow, though, the irrationality of Betty's fury had allowed for an eye in the storm that focused directly on Veronica. Betty needed someone, and while their friendship was tense at best, it had remained firm throughout the long months of winter.

It was March, and arguably still winter in Riverdale, but Veronica knew that spring would be arriving in a few short weeks. She'd set a personal goal of having her friends moving forward by then, even if the progress was more microscopic than tortoise-like.

Snacks were always a good place to start.

"I have dark chocolate," Veronica sat down on the bed alongside Betty. "I also have news. There's a family moving to Riverdale with a daughter our age. Her mother is friends with my father - I know, I know -" Veronica waved off Betty's raised eyebrow, "it's nothing sordid or criminal, I promise. Anyway, apparently she's a writer and fair game for recruitment onto the Blue and Gold."

Betty had kept the paper limping along, but had not expressed enthusiasm for it since the previous fall.

Veronica decided to move in for the kill. "Her parents are divorced and she's been moving around a lot while her mother tries to find steady work. Her father is apparently loaded, some ex-pat somewhere, so she travels a lot because of the custody arrangement. But she's basically broke unless her mother can find steady work - she's going to be temping at your parents' newspaper, but my mother, being Hermione, wants to help them out so they don't have to move again once the hype dies down there."

Betty was also angry with her parents, whose joint efforts writing up local events had gotten The Register recognition and a huge boost in circulation since Blossom's suicide and the two fires.

Veronica was counting on that anger to help motivate Betty.

"There has to be other work she could do in Riverdale," Betty sounded irritated. Good. "When do they get here?"

"I think in a few weeks," Veronica broke off a square of very dark chocolate and passed it to her friend. "I'm thinking we might want to start by looking into Pop's, but there are a few other options that might be better."

They began to brainstorm together.

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I guess this is really happening. Sequel launched! I do love a review, even if it's just a few words letting me know you're reading (thanks! Hope you enjoyed as much as I enjoyed writing, and that you're having a lovely Easter/Passover/non-celebratory weekend!).

I'll see what I can do to get chapter two up within a week!

-Button