Jughead realized he never really got a text message before that was not "get me sum beer boy!" or "wer are u, u son of a bitch?" He never got invited anywhere and had zero social interactions so it never actually bothered him. Sure, he pursued girls before, however dismal their actual count was – kissed them, fucked a few even, Southside girls were not exactly prim and proper – but he never had a real conversation with anyone before.

Do you know how to drive a stick shift? :P

Jughead read and reread Betty's text message, fingertips tracing the smiley at the end. It felt almost surreal even that Betty Cooper was texting him – emojis and all. He sighed and started typing:

Yes.

Jughead rolled his eyes. What a goddamn conversation genius he was, really. He didn't know what to say. It wasn't like he could tell her that the reason he knew how to drive a stick shift was because his Dad and his buddies would sometimes steal cars. It wasn't hard to pick up a thing or two if you were always around them. Yes, Betty Cooper – good, pure Betty Cooper – didn't need to know that he had the makings of someone who could probably pull of a grand theft auto someday.

Great! I was afraid you didn't. I certainly don't. lol. My dad would only let me borrow his old truck. It's sucky. I'm soooorrrryyyy…

Jughead's eyes followed the message again, smirking slightly as he imagined Betty whining and pouting at the end. His fingers hovered over his phone, debating if he should reply and what he should say. But before he could reply, another text message from her appeared.

Thanks again, Juggie! I owe you bigtime. I'm making your cookies right now ;)

Jughead felt weird to be smiling. But there he was in the tiny cot squished between the wall and a shelf of film rolls, smiling like an idiot. His stomach rumbled at the thought of cookies.

Cookies? Make sure you got extra chocolate chips if you want me there bright and early. Haha.

'Look at you. Are you fucking flirting with her, Jones?' he thought to himself. Jughead sighed sharply and rubbed his eyes. This was Betty Cooper – golden girl extraordinaire – he shouldn't be even thinking about it. Jughead dropped his phone and turned over, not bothering to look if she replied back. She probably wouldn't anyway. He was Jughead, after all. Southside trash. The unusual outburst of cheeriness from her earlier messages disappeared and Jughead found that the return of his anger was almost comforting. He tugged at the thin blanket, and for the first time didn't curse the cold.

At least the cold reminded him of reality – reminded him of who he really was.

His mood hadn't really changed that much come morning. In fact, Jughead thought he felt worse. He didn't even want to get out of bed let alone trudge all the way to Betty's house. The weather reflected his mood perfectly. It did look like it was going to rain. The sky outside was dark and ominous and the wind was damp and chilly – a total opposite from the bright sunny day yesterday. Jughead curled up and groaned. Maybe Betty would think twice about driving out to Greenvale if the weather was so bad. But just as soon as he thought of it, the shrill ring of his phone reverberated from below his cot like a scream that filled the tiny room.

"What?" Jughead snapped when he picked up. Betty's tiny gasp answered back.

"Oh, good. You're awake!" She said and Jughead groaned again. "Can you be here at fifteen minutes? I want to drive out before the rain starts." It looks like nothing can hamper Betty Cooper's mood.

She was already standing in their driveway when Jughead arrived, sunshine yellow sweater like a burst of color in the dreary weather. Betty ditched her signature high ponytail today and wore her curly blonde hair down, the sides pinned up by two white barrettes. She had a Tupperware in her hands and practically beamed at the sight of Jughead.

"Great," she said, almost sagging in relief, "I almost thought you were going to ditch me." Jughead wanted to say he almost did but bit it back down. "You didn't reply to my message last night so I thought –," Betty trailed off and flushed a deep pink. She cleared her throat and held the container in her hands up.

"Chocolate chip cookies, just like the old times!" she declared and Jughead allowed a smile to break through. He didn't have too many happy memories of his childhood. Betty's cookies were one of the few, if he ever had one.

"Man, delicious!" Jughead finally said as he crammed one cookie after another inside his mouth. Betty flushed again and beamed back at him, practically proud of herself.

"Thanks," she said, chin jutting out, "didn't need my mom's help this time," she jokingly added and Jughead chuckled. He gulped down and felt a little less moody. He didn't know what it was, really. Maybe Betty's chocolate chips cookies were indeed magic. He carefully selected another one – the one that had the most chocolate chips – and jammed it gracelessly into his mouth. Betty didn't seem to mind. She was still beaming at Jughead as though she could believe he was here. He couldn't blame her – he almost couldn't believe it too.

"Lose the ponytail?" Jughead teased and felt almost smug as Betty blushed, the pink creeping down her slender neck. "Oh, um – yeah – I wanted to look better for when we meet Miss Grundy," she said, refusing to meet his eyes, instead choosing to focus on the tips of her cream-colored soles. Jughead looked down on his own outfit: a dark blue hoodie under his denim jacket, faded and fraying jeans, scuffed combat boots, and that crown beanie he never parts with – hardly something presentable but it wasn't like he had anything better to wear.

"You look good," Jughead said looking back up at her, surprising the both of them. They stood around awkwardly, just as they had last night, before Jughead cleared his throat and motioned towards the truck. "Shall we?"

Betty had everything planned out, of course. It takes about three hours to drive to Greenvale from Riverdale at the very most and when traffic is real bad. Jughead felt uneasy knowing they'd be driving around most of the day but Betty assured him they'd make it back to Riverdale before dinnertime. The truck was an old thing and they didn't have a GPS they can rely on. Betty thought about that, too, and told Jughead that the Maps in her phone was fine. Everything should be well and in accordance with her plan, Betty was so sure. But the thing about life, which something Jughead could attest to, was that things rarely go your way especially if you were particularly rooting for it to. Traffic was exceptionally bad and cellular reception was even worse. What's more, it turns out that while Betty may be good at everything else in life, her navigation skills were ghastly. By mid morning, they had barely covered one-fourth of their travel and had gotten lost a good three times. By lunchtime, stomachs were rumbling and tempers were running high.

"Turn left! Turn Left!"

"Betty, we're running around in circles," Jughead said with barely controlled anger. "Check the map again – and get it right this time." Betty paused, brows furrowed before she yelped. "Hey! We should have taken a right just then!"

Jughead groaned and Betty swatted his arms. "Shut it, will you? I'm trying here. Apparently maps are really hard to read!" Jughead rolled his eyes at her. Betty just had to be the worst map-reader ever. He was surprised she can even tell left from right.

"Not as hard as driving around with you giving wrong directions all of the goddamn time!" Jughead said. Betty rolled her eyes and checked her phone again. Jughead glanced down at the empty Tupperware and wished they hadn't gone through the cookies as quickly as they had. His throat felt sore now, though, because they hadn't thought of bringing water to wash it down, and it added to his irritation. A red Prius was in front of them, driving too slow for jughead's liking and he beeped on the horn angrily, cursing wildly.

"You're a fucking menace!" Jughead snarled as they passed the Prius. Betty gave him an incredulous look. "Jughead Jones III," she said, "calm down!" Jughead would have laughed out loud at the use of his full name if he weren't already fuming. He sped up, engine whining, and took comfort in the fact that Betty was clinging to her seatbelt like her life depended on it.

"Could you maybe – I don't know – stop driving like a maniac on the loose?"

"Sorry babe, I only drive at one speed."

Betty reddened and Jughead felt smug seeing her so flustered. She always seemed so composed and flawless – Jughead thought a flushed, ruffled Betty Cooper made him feel a lot better about himself.

"Well, there's a diner somewhere here, I think," Betty looked down on her phone again, "Yes, there's one to the right. Let's get lunch first. I'm hungry."

The diner looked exactly like Pop's, with red faux leather booths and plastic chairs, but the food was terrible. They didn't mind though – food was food and it looked like there was no other stop on the way. Betty daintily ate her egg sandwich while Jughead hastily poked at his burger. Betty insisted she pay for lunch, since Jughead did all the driving and she did get them lost a couple of times. It didn't sit well with him, her paying for his lunch. The tips of his ears felt warm. Betty paid for his fries last night but this was different. Last night, she had dragged him to Pop's almost against his will and the fries were in exchange for the favor. She already baked him cookies, for crying out loud – something his own mother never even did – so she didn't need to pay for him today. It made him feel uneasy and vulnerable.

"I'll pay you back for the burger," Jughead said for about the tenth time since their food arrived. Betty rolled her eyes, "I know, Juggie. I wanted to pay for it. I feel bad for getting us lost," she reasoned. Jughead opened his mouth to retort but Betty cut him off with an irritated sigh, "you know what, you go ahead and pay for dinner tonight, okay? Geez, Jones, this is the 21st century. Women pay for their own stuff now," she ended this with another roll of her eyes.

"It's not that and you know it,"

"I know. Just – shut up and eat you burger, please. Before we kill each other."

Jughead looked down at his burger and sighed. Oh well, he was starving. The dumpy waitress sauntered back to their table, bottle-dyed orange curls escaping her hairnet. She gave them both a pleasant smile and refilled their empty glasses with cool water.

"Where ya headed, huns?" she asked, chewing on a pink piece of bubble gum. Jughead and Betty looked up from their food. "News said weather's bound to be horrible. A storm, they said. Nasty,"

"Oh, um – Greenvale," Betty answered carefully. Jughead looked out the window. The sky looked like it was churning. It wasn't raining yet, but soon it will be.

"Greenvale," the waitress repeated slowly, looking up as though she was in deep thought. "Still some ways from here. Again – they said it's bound to be nasty. And you young ones should stay clear of the road," she clucked like a hen and placed her hands on her hips. "Get going real quick or else you gunna be stuck here," she clucked again and moved on to the next table.

They wasted no more time after that, driving in silence until they reached the bustling town of Greenvale. It was much bigger than Riverdale, Jughead noted, and busier, too. Shops lined the streets but it looks like most of them were closing up for the day. "I think the storm's going to be really bad," he said to Betty, who just offered him a worried glance. It hadn't started raining but the wind has definitely picked up. Outside, people huddled in to their jackets and coats, hurrying away from the wind. Betty yelped suddenly and Jughead jumped and hit his head on the truck's ceiling.

"Don't do that!"

"I forgot my coat at the diner!" Betty said, eyes wide as plates. She groaned and sagged into her seat. "That's my favorite pea coat!" Jughead remembered – it was a pretty little thing, pink like most of her things were and definitely brand-new. Jughead looked down at his only denim jacket and sighed, contemplating driving back to get it. He hated wasting things because he can rarely afford anything and felt uneasy not doing anything to get Betty's coat. He signaled to turn and Betty laid a hand on his arm to stop him.

"No, don't turn around now," she said, "it's too far away anyway. And we're almost at Ms. Grundy's house. We'll just get it back on the way back or something." Jughead almost argued that with something as pretty as that, she would surely never get it back but had to agree with her – the earlier they arrived at Miss Grundy's house, the better. He wanted to be back in Riverdale by tonight. He could no longer afford to delay his plans to jump off from the cliffs in Sweetwater River. If he didn't do it soon he's afraid he might never get around to doing it. That's what they said, right? Jughead didn't want to stick around to find out if it was true. And if Betty – or anyone else, for that matter – would find a way to delay him further then, God help him, he's going to take her with him down to the river. He cast her a quick glance and felt kind of bad for the last thought.

'But I'm still going to be fucking pissed,' Jughead thought.

Geraldine Grundy's house was not at all what they expected. In Jughead's mind, her house would be a quaint Victorian with honey-colored furnishings and a handful of cats. Miss Grundy's house was a modern piece of art – all glass and wide windows and an Asian-inspired garden adjacent to it. The inside only matched the outside's grandiose with abstract artworks in a spectrum of colors peppering the otherwise stark white walls. A sleek sofa took up most of the living room – something that Jughead expected to see in a twenty-something's apartment rather than in an old lady's house. If fact, if Betty hadn't told him that Geraldine Grundy was Riverdale High's oldest living alumni, he would have easily mistaken her personal nurse as her. The nurse opened the door when they knocked, smile so bright it almost shamed Betty's. Jennifer, as she had introduced herself, was a pretty little thing – barely even thirty – that boys at Riverdale High would've gladly ogled at.

"Come inside. Geraldine's doing yoga out back," she said sweetly. Jughead gave Betty an ill-disguised look of amusement, which Betty shot down with a warning look. Jughead pictured a granny in her floral print dress and rollers doing sun salutations and almost burst out snickering.

"You must be Elizabeth. Oh, what a darling!"

Geraldine Grundy was no granny in rollers and frumpy dresses. She was a small woman with a shock of white hair cut into a stylish pixie cut. She made her way to them, both arms extended, surprisingly steady for her age. Jughead remembered his own grandmother – his mother's mother – and how at fifty she had a plethora of illnesses he could barely even pronounce. Geraldine Grundy would've looked like a hip young thing if not for her hair, her wrinkles, and her age spot-covered hands.

"Oh, it's nice to meet you, Miss Grundy," Betty got over her shock and blinked, extending a professional hand towards the old lady but she was not having any of it. Instead she gave Betty kisses on both cheeks.

"Geraldine, please, sweetheart! Miss Grundy makes me feel so old!" the eighty-nine-year-old said. Jughead and Betty shared a look.

"This is, um – this is – Jughead Jones. We work on the school paper together," Betty said awkwardly, pulling at Jughead's arm. Jughead gave a small uneasy bow, praying that Miss Grundy wouldn't kiss him the way she did with Betty. She did anyway and Jughead had to swallow the urge to scream.

"Jones, you say?" Miss Grundy said thoughtfully, "as in Forsythe Pendleton Jones?"

"Uh – yeah, I guess. You'd have to be more specific though. I'm already the third Forsythe Pendleton Jones," Jughed blushed, scratching the back of his neck and shuffling his feet. Miss Grundy gave an amused laugh.

"I knew both of them, of course. Your grandfather, I suppose. Well, we used to date. And your father – such a troublemaker when I had him in my class, than one," she shook her head and grasped his face, turning it this way and that. Jughead debated telling her that FP had graduated from being a troublemaker into a full-fledged criminal, but Miss Grundy seemed to be so glad to talk about his father and his estranged late grandfather that he said nothing. "Hmm, yes – you look just like him!" she declared with delight. "Your grandfather and your father had always been exceptionally good looking," she patted his cheek with fondness, "what a handsome man you are, Forsythe!"

"You're one lucky gal, Elizabeth!" She gave another delighted laugh and before a blushing Betty could correct her, she had swept them into the dining room where she said cakes and tea was waiting. The dining room looked a lot like what you'd expect an old lady's dining room would look like, so much so that Jughead felt relieved to have a break from the absurdity that was Geraldine Grundy and her house that looked like a millennial art collector's pad more than anything. There was a delicate pastel colored tea set on top of a dark mahogany table. The ceiling-to-floor window gave a wonderful view of the garden and bathed the room in the dull afternoon sunlight.

"I hope you don't mind doing the interview here, Elizabeth – Forsythe," Miss Grundy said, "I do love my tea. Too bad I wasn't born British!" Miss Grundy had an airy laugh, one that made Jughead quite uneasy. She was pleasant – much too pleasant than he was used to.

"Oh - um, okay, anytime you're ready, Geraldine," Betty said, fumbling around inside her purse for her notebook. Geraldine Grundy filled three cups with hot tea and took a seat, as if this was something she did everyday.

"Fire away, Elizabeth my dear,"

Betty was all business after that, doing most of the talking. Jughead stalked around them, snapping pictures of the two women and of the house. He tried taking as much pictures of Geraldine as he can – it was after all, the reason why he was here – but he found that he didn't find the accomplished lively octogenarian all that riveting, even if she did found a flourishing furniture company after twenty years teaching in Riverdale High and appeared as healthy as bull despite her age. Jughead found that his gaze kept flittering back to Betty, who was so in her element she seemed to glow from within, back ramrod straight, slender legs tucked one behind the other, and blue eyes alight as she spoke. Jughead watched as her brows furrowed in concentration whenever Geraldine Grundy answered a question and how she would absently bite her bottom lip as she jotted down notes. He noticed that her face came alive with a full spectrum of expressions – from thoughtful, to sympathetic, to excited – and he found it absolutely mesmerizing. Jughead never felt anything other than the stagnant broodiness of his life – he was never excited, or happy, or impassioned, at least not in the way Betty Cooper was. In this moment, Jughead had to say she was pretty, with her golden hair cascading over her shoulders and the muted daylight pouring in from the windows giving her creamy skin a soft glow. It didn't mean anything though, Jughead was sure. It was a passing fancy – a curiosity, he supposed – because Betty was just so different from who he was.

Jughead jumped when Betty looked up, blushing slightly because she caught him studying her. Jughead brought the camera in front of his face and snapped a quick snapshot of her. He took one again when she looked away and she looked back up at him, nose scrunched up slightly in a way (and he would never admit this out loud) that he found quite adorable, giving him an amused smile.

"Stop that," she mouthed at him.

"Focus," Jughead mouthed back, eyes flittering towards the still oblivious Miss Grundy. Betty rolled her eyes and bit her lips, trying to keep from grinning, before looking back at the octogenarian, who had not stopped her anecdote on Principal Weatherbee and the time he almost flunked her English class.

Jughead felt quite like a fool too, to be honest, but right now he couldn't care less. He was grinning so wide his jaw hurt. It was such an odd feeling, smiling so much, because Jughead Jones had never really cared to do it before. People like him, who had it rough, had no reason to smile – but there was, grinning like an idiot who had won the lottery or something. This caused him such trepidation because he felt that this exhilaration, this bubbling in his gut, was a disaster waiting to happen. Even right now – with Betty giving him small smiles from across the room – Jughead was waiting for the rug to be pulled from underneath him. This feeling cannot be trusted because it was so foreign to him. It made him feel a little nauseous as if his body was physically rejecting this alien sensation. Jughead took a deep breath and waited for his coldness and gloom to claim his insides once more. He waited for his resentment and rage to boil again. Anger was safe. Sadness was safe. He'd rather have that – any of that if it means he was sure.

From her seat, Betty pulled a funny face before giving him a bright smile that warmed him to the tips of his toes and fingers.

He waited for the hopelessness – the raging storm inside him – to come back, but this time it didn't.

A/N: Yeah... I might have really used "My Heart and Other Black Holes" as inspiration for that last part. But I just couldn't help it! Anyway, thank you so much for all your kind words (and all your favorites and follows, too!) Hope you can keep the love pouring! Hihi. I'm a little busy right now as I try - and fail - to become a social butterfly so I might not be able to update the next one this week (it's halfway done, though). Oh, and maybe I'll write something for Harry Potter, too. Soon, I hope. Well, I'll see you next chapter! Cheers!