A/N: I was wondering if I'm making Sweet Pea too nice, but then I remembered how he initially tries to be nice to Jughead but is really only a little rude once Jughead rejects the Serpents' help otherwise. So, for me, SP is nice - until the Serpents aren't been treated as nicely and then he is quick to anger. I hope my interpretation is okay. Jughead makes an appearance. He's weird. A total weirdo, Betty. A weird guy.

chapter four: empathy

Her name is Helena, this new social-worker. She sips delicately at the tea which Ruth has placed before her and smiles frequently, often with a lot more warmth than any of my other social-workers who came before her. I perch upon an armchair, hands clasped. Although I maintain a cool, blank stare, my heart thumps in sporadic flutters against a ribcage which seems as if it curls inward like melted candle-wax, dripping onto organs which already slip around between swirls of anxiety because I am not sure just what she knows. I hear a faint patter and realise that it is raining. Some distant part of me worries that Sweet Pea is still out there, running through streets with skin soaked, blurred figures chasing right behind him, clutching batons and hatred for the Southside pushing each pounding footstep. I swallow uncomfortably, looking away from Helena and toward a fluffy teddy slumped against the coffee-table instead, its stitched smile and coal eyeballs. I think of Rosie upstairs and what Ruth might tell her if I am taken away – it could be tonight, for all I know.

Helena smooths out her dowdy skirt, a dull green blend of coarse material, all dense folds which just about brush her pinkly ankles, her large feet contained in brown-leather loafers. Her hair, straw-like and blonde, is so light in colour that it seems like white fluff, clotted around her puffy face like clouds, draining her skin of colour. She is not that old, but her clothes seem to swallow her, skin etched in gentle lines which pool from her nostrils and crinkle around her smile. She speaks in low, breathy tones, a little hoarse like me, but it fills the living-room with muted authority. She asks about school, about friends – I do not tell her that my newest friends are in cells, somewhere, probably. Serpent blood, Sweet Pea had said. Not you.

"I think monthly visits might be best," she continues. I let out a slow sigh, realising she is not here because of what happened. Just pure chance. Pure, unlucky chance. "Perhaps fortnightly if necessary, but Ruth hasn't reported any difficulties. Anything you might like to add, Mila?"

Drawn from distant thoughts of Sweet Pea bathed in the acid colours of the laundromat, his scrunched shoulders, hands contorted into fists, I look directly at Helena and smile. I bite the fleshy inner-part of my lips until it stings; there is a swell of copper, a tangy spread of blood against the tongue, but I smile and smile through it. "No, nothing at all."

ii

Slumped against my armchair, scrubbing tiredly at my face while I hear Ruth and Helena murmuring in the hall, I mull over the last couple of hours and think about contacting Toni somehow. I am still without a phone, mostly because I had never gotten one before in the other homes and I had not thought about asking for one until now. There had never really been anybody to contact and, in this last year, I have tried to follow each curfew with such strictness that I was never out late, never in such a position that my foster-parents could not find me if they needed me suddenly.

Now, I want to hear Sweet Pea speak, hear him to ensure that he can still speak, that he still has Serpent blood in him, that he is not collapsed in an alleyway somewhere, injured – that he is not scared. I had seen fear seep through the other boys' faces once that car had pulled into the alleyway, seen it splashed against them in flashes of red-and-blue, seen it bleed into the concrete beneath them once pressed against it, held there, contained.

I hear a thump in the kitchen and jump in fright. I stand, wondering if Rosie has awoken and heard us speaking, if she might be curious and creeping around with that usual nosiness – only a shadowy silhouette pools against the wallpaper and I let out a muffled shriek, hands clamping against my mouth to hold it in, but then a hand lands on my shoulder and I spin around to find Ruth there, looking weirdly remorseful.

"Ruth?" I ask warily.

She sighs and looks behind me. "You can come out now, Jug."

Hunched shoulders, a lopsided beanie – the kid comes out with hands stuffed into his pockets, awkward, one corner of his mouth falling just a little too much to achieve more than a muscle-spasm of a smile while he takes out a hand to allow a quick wave. "Uh, hey, Mila. I'm Jughead. Ruth is letting me stay…"

I narrow in on his nervous swallow, the quick flicker of his eyes toward the wallpaper. "For how long?" I ask.

"Uh, well, the thing is-…" he mumbles.

"I let him forge my signature on some files," Ruth states suddenly. I spin toward her, eyes wide. Hastily, she adds, "Jug is in a little bit of trouble, Mila – or a lot of it, and he could be taken in the system permanently, but if he has some documents under the table…Well, the Serpents take care of the rest, and we can-…"

"Are you crazy?" I hiss. "He's pretending to live here? What if they-…You know, check-…I mean, how are you supposed to get away with that?"

"All Jughead needs is an address and a temporary placement," Ruth replies carefully, eyeing my response. "Just a couple of documents-…"

"Forged," I interrupt. "Not real. Is that why he was hiding in the kitchen from Helena?"

"I told you, the Serpents take care of it. He has another person listed as his social-worker, he just needed a family to-…"

"And if he gets caught – if you get caught – then Rosie and I don't have a family," I state, my voice cracking in its usual hoarseness. Ruth flounders, mouth still moving as if there is sound, but nothing more ever comes, a silent film of sorts. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the awkward scuff of Jughead's boots.

Quietly, he speaks up and says, "I could find somewhere else, Ruth, really-…"

"No. No, you can't. You need somewhere safe, Jug, and you're safe here. I'll get you some blankets, you can take my bed if you need-…"

"Or mine. Hell, have Rosie's, too," I tell him bitterly. "Take the whole damn place, Jughead. I won't need it once Helena comes around and catches you here next time." I move toward the hall, shrugging off Ruth's hand on my wrist. "I better get packing."

Storming into my bedroom, I flop onto the bed and scrunch my hair in my hands, pulling just a little to alleviate the stress. After that, I feel like a child, scolded and ashamed. I sit at the end of my bed, deathly still. I hear Jughead and Ruth shuffling around downstairs, their quiet whispers, and then I look at the dent in my wall, put there by Sweet Pea, sometime long ago, before I had ever even come here and met him, met Toni. Met Ruth and Rosie. It is hard not to punch and kick and scream, like I used to do, sometime long ago. Then the tears peel from me in hot, prickly droplets, just from staring at that dent, made sometime long ago.

iii

Tuesday comes in a trickle of greyish sunlight slipping through little dots in the clouds and coating the parking lot of Southside High in its drab colour. Jughead stands with me, a leather jacket around him, still clutching at a backpack with a loose grip. He had tried to talk at breakfast, much like Ruth had. I had been silent and only responded if it was Rosie asking something, but her curious gaze had darted between all of us, her mouth fixed in a confused pout. I look around for Sweet Pea, pushing away from Jughead and letting him trail behind me. I hear him let out a long sigh and mumble, "Ruth said this would be a little hard, but I thought-…"

"Because you must know Ruth so well," I mutter, standing on my tippy-toes to look across the sea of chains and black leather for just a glimpse of Sweet Pea – although he is pretty tall, so I suppose he would be easy enough to spot.

"Look, Mila, it was my Dad who suggested this, all right, he brought me over from the Northside and told me-…"

"Oh, Northside? Even better."

He draws in a sharp breath and blows out his lips in a raspberry, rolling his eyes. "Right. Evil Northsider. I was just about to tell you how I strangle cute little bunny-rabbits in my spare time, and I just love to kick over kids' sandcastles at the beach, and I always push old ladies over for the fun of it-…"

"You're annoying."

"Ah, yes, my worst crime of all - being annoying. May I be punished for this cruel, unforgiveable-…"

"Really, really annoying," I contend, pushing through the crowd of students toward the front and quickly ripping off my belt, backpack, earrings, tossing them into a tray. I glance behind, noting the surprise on Jughead's face once he drinks in the metal-detectors and dumbly fumbles with his bag. Toni appears, sidling between us and pulling out her phone, snapping a shot of Jughead. I continue forward without them, because Toni approaches him and seems a little familiar with him, somehow.

Good, I think, you can deal with him.

I march toward our makeshift homeroom, because it is really just a bunch of the Serpents and Ghoulies scattered around in chairs and sitting on tables, with a teacher collapsed in a chair and tearing out tufts of hair in frustration. I spot the door of the homeroom and almost make it before a hand latches around my arm and swings me toward a small, adjacent hallway. I stumble and bump against the lockers, looking up at Sweet Pea. I blink at him, looking for bruises or cuts, but he seems – well, fine.

"You're all right," I blurt out.

He shrugs. "Yeah. I'm all right. What about you?"

"What about me?" I repeat, a little dazed. "I'm all right because of you, Sweet Pea, you risked yourself for me and-…"

"I just run faster," he interrupts lightly, his smile widening. "Longer striders. You're pretty short, you know."

"You're joking about this? Sweet Pea, I thought you were hurt-…" I slap at his chest and his expression scrunches into a tight wince. Startled, I pull my hand away instantly, but step closer to him, lifting my hand toward him. "Sweet Pea – are you hurt?"

"It's nothing," he mumbles, but his mouth is still held in a tight grimace, his body hunched forward to curl around his ribcage. I don't think he realises his posture, how much it reveals, nor does he realise the pain which swallows his expression. "Bad fall after one of them caught me, threw me down a little. Nothing I never got before, Mila."

"They can't do that," I babble frantically. "You're hurt, we gotta take you to a hospital and report this, you-…"

"You never seem to remember that this is the Southside," he interrupts, again. "You think I want to sit all night in a hospital – which is on the Northside, by the way – on a damn gurney, watching every other Northsider with a paper-cut get checked ahead of me? No, thanks. Give it a couple of days, and I'll be fine. You should see Birdie. Guy got a real punch for talking smack to an officer."

"But we never did anything," I reply hotly. I become aware of his hand around my wrist, all of sudden, my skin flushing in warmth. He had grabbed it when I reached out to check his ribcage, and he holds it now, as if he has forgotten about it. I stress, "You never did anything, Sweet Pea."

He stares at me for a moment and then swallows, looking down the hall at all of the other students passing by in flits of colour, blues and blacks and murky purples, the dark colours of Southside High. "There was a car robbed on the Northside. Found crashed out by the bridge. It wasn't any of us, and from what I can tell, the Ghoulies didn't even do it, for once. Might have been some kids from Northside High having their own little fun, but what does it matter anyway, when you can kick around some Southside kids and close the case, huh?"

"They can't do that," I repeat weakly, quietly. It echoes between us, lost in the thump of shoes and that tinny bell warbling its old song. Sweet Pea looms over me and releases my wrist. I add, "They shouldn't be able to do that."

"I know," he says.

"It's wrong."

"I know," he says.

"I thought you were really hurt."

Surprise flits through him, lost in the swirl of his stare which melts into the soft regret of his smile. "Yeah. I'm sorry. Couldn't really do anything to tell you I was okay – short of sending smoke signals or a pigeon to you, you know. You gotta get a phone, Mila."

"I'll put it on the Christmas list," I snort.

He smiles, too, but it falls too soon. Instead, he straightens up despite the pain, filling with rage. "I'm gonna find the Northsiders who stole the car in the first place."

"And do what?" I ask warily.

"Have you seen Birdie's face after last night, the guy can barely blink-…"

"And do what, Sweet Pea?" I repeat.

"What has to be done," he replies in a burst of anger, glaring down at me. "You said it yourself, Mila, we didn't do anything-…"

There is a sudden cough from beside us. We look away from one another and I find Jughead there, awkward as always.. "Uh, sorry. I just-…I thought I had to talk to the principal or the receptionist, maybe-…"

Sweet Pea looks down at me, raising an eyebrow. Our argument has seemingly been forgotten, because he smirks and looks back at Jughead. "No receptionist here."

"And the principal got arrested last week," I add, smiling.

Jughead is understandably confused, not only because of what we have told him, but because of the fact that I am smiling at him instead of ripping his head off – but the smile is more for Sweet Pea, who pushes my shoulder lightly to nudge me toward Jughead and the homeroom.

Once I walk alongside them both, I look at Jughead and say, "I was kidding about you getting my bed, by the way. You're sticking with that couch."

"My already-bad posture thanks you more than ever for that, Mila," he mutters, slipping into his seat. "Oh, scoliosis, my new friend-…"

I watch him pull out a notepad and look at Sweet Pea who sits on the table in front of mine, turned toward us. He returns my look but says nothing. I don't write anything and try to soak in everything that Mr Phillips tells us instead, but I am distracted by Sweet Pea, distracted by Ruth, distracted by all of it. I imagine Helena knocking one night, finding Jughead with us – I could pass him off as a friend, just visiting, but she might investigate further. I think of Rosie, torn from me, wailing. She has a soft heart, she cries when she thinks Spot and Sunny, her little fishes, are sad. She cries over the mice in Cinderella for some reason. The only problem is that, sometimes, I think my heart is just as soft because I catch myself wanting to cry along with her over all this silly stuff.

I cried over Sweet Pea, and he sits here now, right in front of me. Then his phone buzzes. He looks at it, flushing in a familiar rush of anger. I watch him curse and leap from his seat, storming out. I turn toward Toni, who shrugs and turns away. I wonder just what she knows, because her eyes glance at the door every couple of seconds, and she chews at her pencil, unaware of how she taps her fingertips against the table in a slow rhythm, a little dance which tells me she knows a lot more.

Nervously, I think about what he had said about finding those Northsiders; an anxious knot blooms in my stomach, and Toni taps even faster at the table, the sound drowned out in the whine of the bell.

iv

At lunch, Toni is oddly quiet. She nods along while I tell her about last night, the scramble from the police and then finding Sweet Pea this morning. She only briefly explains the importance of Jughead – or rather, Jughead's lineage, because his father was the kingpin of the Serpents for quite some time, apparently, and the boy himself is nowhere to be found. Neither is Sweet Pea and Fangs, Birdie and Max. All out there, somewhere.

Absently, looking at the doors of the cafeteria behind me, Toni mutters, "Go easy on Ruth, Mila. There's more history in this than you know, all right? So – just try to understand that Ruth didn't do anything to hurt you. Like I said – you're not the first stray."

Looking down at my lunchbox, a little frustrated, I flick open its lock and loosen my scowl at the sight of a pink sticky-note unfurling from between my packed sandwiches and a chocolate bar. In Ruth's familiar scrawl, I find the words: I'm sorry.

"Yeah," I mumble. "I know."

v

Shuffling into the house with Jughead just behind me, I hear Ruth in the kitchen, the clink of cutlery and bowls. She appears in the doorway, glancing between us with a wary expression. I smile at her and nod my head, a silent acceptance. She looks surprised, but it soon shifts into a grateful smile. She mouths, thank you. Before I can do anything more, Rosie bursts from the living-room and latches her small arms around my waist. Behind us, Jughead watches, his eyes filled with a sudden emotion which is hastily stifled. I raise an eyebrow at him, and he mutters, "I have a little sister, so-…I just thought about her, that's all."

I soften a little toward him and peel Rosie from me. "Hey, Rosie-Posie. Jughead might be hanging around for a couple more days. So, why don't you introduce him to Spot and Sunny? You might need to add Jughead to our list of friends soon, so maybe he ought to meet the big guys first."

Jughead looks at me, his mouth falling open, stupefied by this change. Rosie observes him carefully, as if assessing his worth for her fishes, then nods, seemingly satisfied. "Okay, Jughead. You can meet our friends."

"Oh-…Sure, thanks." He follows behind Rosie, dumbstruck by her enthusiasm as she babbles away, taking his hand and pulling him when she finds he is much too slow for her liking. Jughead glances behind at me, seemingly unsure of how to handle this. I grin at him and that just makes him even more confused.

I suppose I just realised that Toni really was right. I'm not the only stray in the Southside. I just have to make sure Helena never finds that out.