CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Cooper Curse
Three of the four Cooper's are sat around the table, joined by their guest for the evening, Jughead.
After the truth about Jason's murder had been revealed and after Clifford Blossom was revealed to have killed his son before killing himself, Polly had decided to move away from Riverdale. As much as she would have loved to stay living close to her family -Betty especially- and as much as she would have liked to have had their support as she prepares to welcome her twins into the world, Polly had decided that she needed to move.
Polly needed a fresh start, a clean slate and she felt that she needed to welcome her children into the world in a town where they wouldn't be judged for their background, their last name and their parentage as they would be in Riverdale.
She needed to move on in her life; away from Jason, away from his family and away from the small town judgement. So, she had moved away to live with Alice's sister –Polly's aunt and cousins- in Maine, providing her with the fresh start and support that she needed.
"Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Cooper. It's the first meal I've had without a Pop's logo in quite a while " Jughead says courteously.
"You're welcome, Jughead..." Alice says in response, answering the visitor equally as politely, yet lacking any warmth.
With everyone finished their meals, Betty begins to collect everyone's plates off the table, routinely. It had been one of her and Polly's responsibilities when they were growing up. However, after the many nights of clearing the dinner table, this particular night is a little different as Jughead stands up and wordlessly takes over for her, gesturing for her to stay in her seat.
By taking the dishes over to the kitchen for her, Jughead hopes he's giving Betty a window of opportunity to raise the topic that she knows she needs to discuss with her parents. So far, the entire meal had passed by in awkward silence.
Betty had resolved she would her parents of her pregnancy tonight... But, she didn't say when. Technically, until they had all disbanded from the dinner table, Betty hadn't chickened out completely yet.
The Coopers stay sitting in silence, sharing glances, for the entire time that Jughead is clearing off the table. Then, when he finally returns to his seat beside Betty, Alice is triggered to speak up.
"So, you said that you had something that you want to tell us, Elizabeth?"
Her mother's tone of voice almost seems as though she's daring Betty to tell her, or, she's daring her not to. Either way, it's terrifying.
Betty takes the deepest breath of air as she feels Jughead's hand clutch hers under the table, along with his squeeze of reassurance.
"Mum... Dad... I'm having a baby."
If looks could kill, Hal would have been charged with Jughead's murder.
Meanwhile, in response to her daughter's news, Alice begins to laugh hysterically, her eyes wrenched shut. It's as though Betty's announcement has just brought on a sudden migraine and she's laughing the pain away.
"Of course you are. That damned Cooper curse strikes again..."
Under the table, Jughead can feel Betty's hand tense up tightly as she sits there and witnesses her parent's reactions. He's glad that her own hand is within his, now knowing that if this had not been the case her tension would have been pressed into her own hands, scarring further fresh, red crescents into her skin.
"No... No. You might be pregnant, but you are not having a baby" Hal says, standing up from his seat at the head of the dining table in protest.
The tables turn as her father grows more than vocal about the issue, while Alice grows surprisingly quiet after her initial manic laughter.
The grandmother-to-be is disappointed. She's ashamed that yet another of her daughters has fallen pregnant in high school. But, while she doesn't like the situation, unlike Hal, Alice doesn't push Betty to abortion, nor does she prepare to send her off to the Sisters of Quite Mercy as she had with Polly. In fact, that thought barely even crosses her mind, because, a fact that Alice learnt to face with her eldest daughter's teen pregnancy is a fact that deep down, she always knew...
Alice Cooper knows that as soon as you're pregnant, you're pregnant; there is no ideal or simple 'solution'.
"No, dad. I'm fifteen weeks... I'm in the second trimester."
While Betty is preoccupied with talking to her dad, Jughead's darting eyes could have sworn that he had noticed her mother exhaling a deep breath, a sigh of relief at her daughter's comment. Surely not...
"Please don't send me away, dad, please."
Betty's father sighs loudly, swiping his forehead hastily as he takes a deep breath, clearly feeling agitated.
Hal knows how badly his eldest daughter's pregnancy and the way it was handled had impacted on his family. Termination had been his preference, hoping that the whole thing would go away, just like that. But, sending Polly away had been anything but. The result of sending Polly to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy had broken his family, leaving them crumbling and falling apart. So, as much as he might want the same for his youngest daughter, his baby, Hal knows all too well what the repercussions and ramifications that trying to make a pregnancy 'disappear' have.
"You are sixteen, Betty. You're just a child yourself! Not only will this baby sabotage your life, your career and your future, but you are hardly in any state to be a fit mother. That's not fair on you or your child."
Betty takes a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. She lets go of Jughead's hand as hers sling across her stomach protectively. She knows that keeping her baby is the right thing to do and it's what she wants to do, but her father had just tapped into one of her biggest fears... That she won't be enough.
Realising that he has weakened his daughter's determination a little, Hal's focus shifts slightly, moving to the boy beside her.
"So what do you have to say, Jughead?!" Hal asks, his voice barely lower than a shout as he enunciates Jughead's name to sound like something you'd expect to find on the bottom of your shoe.
Hal's question is a taunt, a challenge, a trap. There is no right answer that the teenage boy could try and give him.
"I think that it's a shame that this has happened when Betty's so young, but it doesn't change the fact that it has happened. And, consequently, I'm going to support her in every way that I can to help her with the baby. I'm going to do my damned best to make sure this doesn't hinder any of her opportunities that she may have had normally."
"Well, I think that you have a damn lot to answer for, kid" Hal snarls as he gets up from his seat at the table, moving over to the other side where Jughead is sitting beside Betty. The protective father roughly snatches up the teenager, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and pulling him into standing up from his seat and shoving him away from the table, his daughter and closer towards the door.
"Get the hell out of my house and don't you dare think about coming back."
As soon as her boyfriend has been shoved, Betty is up and out of her own seat to be by his side, furious with her father.
"STOP IT! Just stop it! Don't you dare give Jughead a hard time for supporting me and standing by me! There is not a single reason that he needs to be here apart from the fact that he wants to be... It's not his baby."
With Betty's final four words, the intensity of the room comes to a grinding halt as everyone stops on the spot, freezing as they process what she is saying.
Then, as if the curse of silence is lifted, each other person in the room speaks once again, talking over top of each other to raise their own questions to Betty.
"What?"
"Who the hell is the father, then?!"
"Betty... Wait. Are you sure you want to do this?"
As she looks between Jughead's frantic expression to her parent's dumbfounded ones, Betty takes a deep breath and prepares to come clean with the whole story. It's just like ripping off a bandaid. But, no matter how many times you do it, it doesn't get any easier...
"One night, a few months back, I was upset and I went out for a walk on my own... I was approached by a man who attacked me and that night, he raped me" Betty sighs, her voice barely louder than a whisper as fresh tears fill her eyes simply at the mention of her horrific experience. "... he's the father of my baby. And, Jughead has been so incredible to be willing to support me with my pregnancy, with a baby that he knows is not his."
Once again, the room falls to a sudden, eerie silence seeing as just minutes ago, her father had been shoving and shouting at her boyfriend haphazardously.
Waiting for a reaction, any reaction, Betty uncomfortably returns to her seat, followed by Jughead who sits beside her and wraps an arm around her supportively, stroking her fallen tears off her cheek.
After a few moments, Betty brings herself to look up to her parents, to see the two reactions that she is terrified of seeing.
Hal's face has twisted and contorted into a vicious scowl. His eyebrows are furrowed tightly, his hands curling into clenched fists and his breaths are shallow, yet heavy. He looks furious, and rightly so, as he tries to process his daughter's horrific ordeal.
Meanwhile, Alice's expression is blank, emotionless. The only giveaway to what she's thinking and how she's feeling is the clue in the way her body trembles, just a little. After moments of silence and relative stillness, she suddenly and abruptly leaves her seat, bursting into tears as she collapses beside where Betty is sitting at the table, hugging her.
"Oh, my baby... My poor baby... My baby..." her mom repeats over and over, in tears.
Jughead withdraws his arm that had been supportively slung around his girlfriend, permitting the mother and daughter to hold each other and hug each other as they cry together.
Both men in the room remain silent as they watch the women, painfully. This lasts until Hal suddenly springs to action for the first time since Betty confessed to her attack as he grabs his jacket off the coat rack, preparing for the cold Riverdale air outside.
"That's it. Who did it?! Tell me who the hell did it and I'll make sure he ends up in jail, if I don't kill the guy first. I'll do whatever it takes, there's no way he's getting out of this unscathed. Not after what he did to you!"
Pulling away from her embrace with her upset mother, Betty quickly swipes the freshest tears off of her cheeks as she gets up and rushes over to her dad, gently taking his jacket out of his hands, returning it to the hook that it had been on.
"No, dad... No... Thank you, but no. I can't tell you who it was. I know that you just want to protect your baby, but I need to protect my baby."
Hal looks unhappy at what his daughter has just told him so she wraps her arms around him in a hug, whispering into his ear. "Please dad... Just let it go."
When the father and daughter finally pull away from each other, Hal Cooper walks in the most unexpected direction. He walks over to his daughter's boyfriend, holding a hand out to Jughead.
"I apologise for lashing out at you. Thank you, for supporting Betty."
Jughead takes his girlfriend's father's hand into his own with a nod as the two exchange a firm handshake. However, during the gesture, Jughead notices how Hal's eyes have glazed over, how they're on the verge of tearing up and are beginning to water.
As the handshake draws to an end, Hal moves across the room, back over to his daughter as he presses a kiss to the top of her head before leaving the room sheepishly. He knows that he is unable to uphold his strength and composure in front of his family for much longer as the toll of Betty's secret comes crashing down on her irate, devastated, father.
After Hal leaves the room, Alice too leaves not long after, giving her daughter another hug before she follows after her husband, leaving the two remaining teenagers to be alone together in the living area of the Cooper family home.
"Are you alright?" Jughead checks as he wraps his arms around Betty in a big, protective bear-hug, pressing a kiss to her golden locks.
Betty sighs, resting against his collarbone tiredly. "I'm okay... Pretty exhausted, but I don't if I've got my parents or the baby that I've got to thank for that. How are you? I'm so sorry for how my dad reacted... Are you feeling ready to bolt now?"
"Absolutely not... I'm here for you through it all, remember? The good, the bad and the crazy... But, I better head off and let you get some rest."
As much as she wants to, Betty is too tired to protest or to offer for him to stay a little longer, especially after the day that she's had.
It had started off with her pregnancy being announced at school to her teaches and classmates; including the unknowing father of her child. Then, after school she had reconciled with Jughead before finally telling her parent's of her pregnancy and rape. Consequently, Betty wants nothing more than to jump into bed and just start with a fresh day tomorrow.
"Thank you, Juggie... Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for everything" Betty smiles tiredly, but leans in to press a kiss goodnight to her boyfriend's lips.
"I love you, Betts... I love you so much."
Thanks to everyone for hanging in there after the update chapter. Also, thanks to N, CaitCatCaitCat, WyldClaw and sammygirl for reviewing the past couple of chapters and an especially big thank you to Nicole and As-Long-As-I'm-Around for reviewing both the last chapter and my little update!
Oh my goodness. I thought that writing this chapter was going to be the end of me! Betty's parents are SO complex (Alice especially!). I feel like in most ways, Alice is just a fiercely protective mother who carries her own regrets so this was the way I have chosen to write her. The only thing that I can't understand is why she just sat there when Polly was hauled out that morning to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, forcing that upon her daughter when we found out later that it was her biggest regret. I'd be interested in your take on the Coopers.
Ultimately, I decided to perceive them and how they reacted the way that they did not because Polly was pregnant, but rather because she was having Jason's babies. So, I feel like they wouldn't detest Betty's pregnancy so much as Polly's and I just felt like Betty revealing the truth behind her pregnancy would bring out a softer side.
Next chapter: Alice is forced to acknowledge Betty's pregnancy. Also, Jughead can't understand why he feels like Betty's pushing him away again.