~3~

Archie rushed through the crowd, impatient. It had already taken too much out of him to resolve to tell Weatherbee about the gunshot, and then Jughead had started acting oddly, telling him to think over what he was going to say, to take his time constructing his story, flagging him in the hallway to talk to him about something ridiculous. Already he'd missed out on telling Weatherbee about the gunshot in the morning, now it was lunch and he had to get it out of himself before the thoughts choked him. He shook off Jughead who seemed to be following him, as if trying to make sure he didn't say anything to Weatherbee, which was just ridiculous. It was Jughead who'd been trying so hard to convince him to tell Weatherbee or the police, why would he be trying to stop Archie now?

No, it must have been something else bothering him. But Archie was resolved, and he strode up to Weatherbee's office, determined, only to find it closed and locked.

"Principal Weatherbee isn't here, he's been called out of the school," the office staff told him when he went to ask and morose, Archie went to the Student's lounge.

"Where have you been, man?" Jughead asked, anxious and Archie could only frown.

"I went to Weatherbee's office to tell him but he wasn't there-" The flash of relief on Jughead's face confused Archie but now he felt pretty damn sure Jughead was trying to keep him from going to Weatherbee, "What's going on?" He asked, angry.

Too angry, he had been too loud, and it was Kevin who answered, thinking the question was directed to him.

"Weatherbee's down at the police station, they're probably asking him if he knew about Ms Grundy."

Panic lanced through Archie. "Miss Grundy?"

"She was arrested early in the morning," Kevin said with utter glee at the piece of gossip, and suddenly Archie couldn't breathe.

"W-What do you mean?" He asked Kevin even as he looked at Jughead trying to ask him with his eyes if he had anything to do with this. But it couldn't be, Jughead had stayed over at his place, like old times and if he had gone to the police, Archie would have known. Until the very moment they reached school they'd been together and even after Jughead had been all but stalking him, there was no way he could have done this.

So, who?

"There she is, the woman of the hour!" Kevin cried out, looking at the door where the new girl, Abigail stood. "You sly minx, you, how long have you been spying on Grundy?"

"And just how do you know it was me who told the police about her?" Abigail asked and Archie's fists curled at his side at her casual tone. She'd destroyed Ms Grundy's life and was all but laughing about it?!

"Take a wild guess." Kevin grinned only for that grin to fall at her next words.

"So, are we going to keep a count of how many leaks have there been from your Dad's department, now?" She sneered, and as Kevin's jaw snapped shut, a muscle there ticking away with anger, Archie could only commiserate.

Abigail had a knack for pissing people off.

"How did you find out, anyway?" Betty asked, her hand over Kevin's shoulder, calming him down, and Archie wondered the same. He thought about how she and Jughead were always sitting together, talking quietly and realised that it wasn't just Jughead who'd seen him and Miss Grundy in the classroom. It was Abigail as well.

And now she was probably going to out him as Grundy's 'victim' in front of all his peers.

"I remembered reading the name Geraldine Grundy before in the obituary. I remembered the name because it was weird and had alliteration. Like Peter Parker or Wade Wilson or something. So, when we came across another one, I had my old PI neighbour check her out."

His head snapped up so fast he knew it would hurt later.

She'd lied... all to keep his name out of it. It was a kindness he hadn't expected from her.

"What is she being charged with anyway?" Veronica asked, coffee in hand, morbid curiosity in her voice and Archie braced himself for the answer. They were words he hadn't let himself think, let alone use for his relationship with Ms Grundy.

"Murder, aggravated assault of a police officer, identity theft, and four counts of statutory rape." Kevin announced and Archie reeled. He'd only expected the last one, and even then he was shocked. Four counts? Murder? Identity theft?

"She killed Jason?"

"What, no, haven't you heard?" It was Kevin's confusion that clued him into the fact that he shouldn't have said that, that maybe he was being a bit too panicked and worried for a person who knew so little of why Grundy had been arrested. He was saved from further questioning by an unexpected source.

"Her real name is Jennifer Gibson. A decade ago, when her husband caught her having an affair with her student, she killed him and told the police he'd gone missing." Abigail said in a surprisingly soft voice, even as the words she said rocked Archie's world to the very core. "The student she was having an affair with started suspecting something was wrong, went to the police, and that's when they found out. Once they began investigating, they found that he wasn't the first person she'd done this to, her husband was actually her first victim. She'd dated him as a college student while he was in high school. When they went to apprehend her, she injured a police officer, and escaped. The real Geraldine Grundy died seven years ago, and Jennifer stole her identity and went back to her old tricks."

"Maybe she did it in self-defence, maybe we have it wrong?" Archie asked, pleaded and by now he could tell that Betty, Veronica and Kevin were beginning to figure out what Jughead and Abigail already knew but he couldn't—

He'd slept with her. Lied for her. Written songs for her. Missed out on the fourth of July road trip Jughead and he'd been planning for years, for her.

And all this while he was just one of many. One of her many victims.

"Oh, Archie," Betty said and as his friends surrounded him, creating a wall to hide him from all the other students trickling in he thought there was at least this silver lining. That he had gotten back his friends over this.

It didn't make him feel that much better.

Reggie watched as Abigail left the little group that had formed. She didn't belong there, he knew, wasn't Archie's friend the way the others were.

A few years ago he would have been there. Him, and Ethel, and Midge, and Moose, the old gang. But they weren't those people anymore. He didn't understand them anymore.

"She was a cougar, like any other." He said out loud, perplexed, and Abigail answered.

"It's not just about him though, is it? She was doing for years before, she'd be doing it for years after."

"But the murder aside-"

"Ten years down the line it might have been Ollie." She said and he froze. "If she wasn't caught now, she wouldn't stop, she'd keep on at it once her flavour of the year graduated. This is a consistent pattern of behaviour. Didn't you notice how differently Archie behaved? How he wasn't friends with the same people he usually was, how he held himself apart from them, from you? Keeping secrets is normal but the sort of guilt he showed, he wasn't keeping secrets for himself. He was doing it for her, and she used it against him. They always do."

Reggie supposed he should have cared about all of it. Everything she said sounded horrible and he knew it but he was stuck on the very first thing she said.

'Ten years down the line it might have been Ollie.'

Reggie was a selfish person. So, when rumours began circulating that Grundy might be cutting a deal for information about the day of Jason's disappearance in exchange for a shortened sentence he knew what he had to do.

So, the next day the FBI agents had the 'Playbook' in their hands, with Jason Blossom's handwriting rating her a very high 8/10.

And if Chuck and his friends were kicked out of the football team that day, well, Reggie was a selfish person, he didn't care.