1991

"This is a stupid idea." FP pokes Fred's side as they trudge down Spruce Street. "What if her folks are home? What if she has another guy over?"

"She's having a sleep over tonight." Fred hits FP's shoulder with the back of his hand. "And her parents are out of town. Just her and a pile of girls." He offers his best friend a goofy grin. "Hey, maybe one of them will keep you company while I -"

"While you get pelted with rotten tomatoes by the neighbors," FP huffs. The last thing in the world he wants is one of Hemione's snobby cheerleader friends making eyes at him while Fred goes off to do his thing. Whatever that thing may be. "This night is going to end badly."

They stop in front of the Gomez residence and Fred lays a hand on FP's cheek. His heart skips a beat or seven. "F, relax. Stop thinking the worst. Things always have a way of working out."

"For you maybe," FP mutters as Fred shoves a guitar in his hands. "Freddie, no way -"

"Well I can't focus on singing if I need to play too," he snorts. He gets on his knees and combs through the grass until he finds a small rock. "I'm not exactly Bruce yet."

"No shit."

Fred pulls back his arm and throws the stone against the sill of a second story window. It's a few seconds before the curtains part and Hermione sticks her head out.

"Fred?" She squints against the light from the lampost. "What are you doing here? I told you I was having a slumber party tonight. I am not leaving my friends to go on another crumby date with you."

There's a chorus of laughter and a few heads poke around Hermione. Mary's red hair stands out brightly amongst the others as she glares down at them.

"Fred Andrews!" She uses what Fred calls her 'teacher voice.' "You have two minutes to vacate the property or I'm getting the hose."

"Two minutes is all I need!" He turns to FP and waves him to play. "The one we practiced." FP rolls his eyes but tosses the strap around his shoulders and plays as best as he can remember. He's not exactly Bruce either.

" I pick you up with flowers when you get off of work
It's like you don't even care, it's like I'm some kind of jerk
I take you out on a date and then you won't even kiss me
Boy, when I ain't around I'll bet you don't even miss me"

Mary's head disappears from view and another girl slips into her place, smiling dreamily at Fred. Hermione's arms are crossed over her chest but her expression is soft.

" I don't know why, I love you like I do
I try and try, you treat me like a fool
It makes me wanna cry, it makes me feel so blue
But I just do, baby, I just do"

Mary comes from around the side of the house, garden hose trailing behind her and nozzle held out like a pistol. Fred pays her no mind; he only has eyes for the girl in the window. Mary nods to FP and he takes the cue to step back onto the sidewalk. Fred could handle getting a little wet but the guitar couldn't.

" I call you up just to pass the time
Soon as you hear my voice you disconnect the line
And when I call you back your mother says you ain't home
Hermione, I know -"

Fred takes a mouth full of hose water and the laughter of an entire slumber party fills the front lawn. He falls to the ground and tries to crawl away but Mary keeps the spray up until the rest of the girls come bursting from the front door. She finally lets the trigger go but keeps the hose pointed at him.

"What the hell!" Fred tries to wipe his face with his t-shirt but it's just as wet as the rest of him. "I was -"

"You were being a nuisance is what you were doing!" Mary shakes the hose and a few drops fall on Fred. "How many syllables does the name Cindy have?"

"What?" Fred turns to look at FP who finally dares to approach the group again. "Are you really trying to give me an English lesson right now?"

A few of the girls laugh but Mary doesn't ease up. "You replaced the name Cindy with the name Hermione." Fred's dumbfounded. "Hermione has four syllables, Cindy only has two!"

"Does not!" Fred reaches for FP's extended arm and jumps to his feet. "Cin-dee. Her-mione! Two and two!"

"Saying it quick doesn't make it two syllables!"

"It's called artistic license!"

"It's called -"

"Enough!" Hermione finally steps between the two, clearly enjoying herself. "Mary, put the hose down." She squeezes her friend's arm until the nozzle is lowered. "And Fred," she sighs, "take a hike. I told you this was girls' night." She pats his arm once before pulling Mary back towards the door.

"But I sung to you!" he yells after her. "I poured my heart into those lyrics!"

"That was a Bruce Springsteen song!" Mary yells back but Hermione gives her a shove through the doorway and winks over her shoulder at the boys. "The only thing you poured was your brains down the gutter!"

Fred pulls his wet t-shirt off his head and wrings it out. "There's an upside to this," Fred says as he starts down the sidewalk.

"Yeah, what's that?"

"I didn't see Sierra there. Let's go see if she appreciates being serenaded."

FP shoves the guitar into Fred's stomach and walks in the opposite direction.

1992

FP's watching wrestling on mute with his algebra textbook in his lap when he hears it.

A single chord from an acoustic guitar. Not just any guitar but a horribly out of tune one that Fred had hardly touched since saving up for the second hand electric one he got over the summer.

Eleanor, Fred had named her. After some Turtles or Beatles song or something.

Fred's guitar only meant one thing.

" Well I miss you honey, a little more every day. "

The book and remote fall to the threadbare carpet, but FP pays them no mind as he runs to the screen door. Fred's standing five feet away with said guitar around his body and his bicycle laying haphazardly not far behind.

" And I know if I kissed you, you'd be coming back home to stay ."

FP jumps down the three steps to the ground and places one hand over Fred's mouth and another on the back of his head, not bothering to be gentle. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Trying to get both our asses beat? If my dad was home -"

He feels Fred's hot breathe on his hand and loosens his grip. Fred takes the opportunity to start playing again. " Cause I know I was wrong, but how long do I have to pay ?"

FP grabs Fred by the strap of his guitar and pulls him up the small porch and into the trailer. He knocks his ass to the couch and pulls the guitar off of him.

"How can you show up over here," FP paces back and forth feeling a little too much like Fred's own mother, "this time of night - any time for that matter -"

" You know you belong here beside me -" Fred keeps singing even without the music to back him up.

"- playing this stupid guitar like -"

" I'm a fool for you anyway ." Fred stops singing and leans back into the couch. "I've said my peace."

"Oh?" FP tosses the guitar in his old man's recliner so he can put his hands on his hips. "Have you? Because all I heard was you ripping off some Foreigner song."

Fred fingers some stuffing coming out of a hole in the upholstery. "I thought you liked Foreigner."

FP gulps. "A sorry, Fred. A simple sorry would have been fine."

"Really?" His eyes roll. "Because I tried saying sorry when -"

"When you had your tongue in some girl's mouth after leaving me high and dry?" Fred blushes. "Yeah, I thought so." FP takes a seat next to him on the couch. "I'm not some skirt you're chasing. I don't want you showing up at my trailer singing your heart out to get my attention."

"Yeah?" Fred finally looks back up, a wry smile on his face. "Because you get pretty jealous every time I do it to someone else."

"I do not get jealous!"

"You're jealous right now!" Fred laughs and FP laughs and before either of them know it their lips are pressed together and no one's laughing anymore. The same old song and dance on a typical Friday night.

"You're the biggest thorn in my side, Freddie," FP mutters against his lips as they break apart. Their noses are still pressed against each other.

Fred's hand cups his face. "Yeah, but you love me."

FP's mouth falls slack and he pulls away before he can respond, before he can admit something he's not ready to say out loud. He reaches over and grabs the guitar, handing it lightly to Fred.

"Finish singing to me?" he asks. "I haven't really forgiven you yet."

Fred cocks an eyebrow. "I know some better ways to make it up to you."

FP shakes his head, knowing there's every chance his dad might come home or his neighbors might hear or his guilt might get to him.

"Not tonight, Freddie." He puts a hand on Fred's knee. "I just want to hear that voice right now."

Fred's smile almost blinds him. "Suit yourself." And he plays again.

" Well I cried for you so long
My river of tears ran dry
And I tried to be so strong
But grew weaker as time went by"

FP closes his eyes and leans as close as he can to Fred without getting in the way. He prays Gladys or Alice will call him if they see his dad leave the bar early.

" You know your love left a mark on me
I don't think it will fade away
I'll sit here and wait until you come home
Cause I'm a fool for you anyway"

1993

"Sign my yearbook?" Penelope is all teeth as she holds the leather bound book over the picnic table between them, but something in her eyes tells Fred she's feeling every bit as down as he is. "If you have time."

"Sure." Fred trades off yearbooks with the redhead and takes the pen from behind his ear. "Just sign by your picture. I think all the blank pages are done."

Her eyes widen as she flips through the book, every possible inch covered with scrawl from their classmates. Fred will be exactly the seventh signature in her book. Hal is next on her list and she spots him some twenty feet away, lying on the grass of the courtyard with Alice. She wonders if she can get him to sign without Alice touching her book.

Fred is still writing long after she's recapped her pen and tucked it into the pocket of her shirt. A smile plays on her lips as she sees he's filled up almost an entire page, although she can't imagine little old her of all people has left such an impression on him. FP approaches just as Fred's signing his name and holds out a beat up guitar.

"Found this in the music room." FP forces a smile and Fred's rolls his eyes. "Think you might have left it."

"Gee, thanks." Fred shoves Penelope's yearbook into FP's chest and takes the guitar. "Here, sign this."

"Oh, Foresythe, you don't -" Penelope tries to grab her yearbook but FP's already opened it and started scribbling something down. She purses her lips and turns back to Fred who's running his fingers over the strings like he's afraid he'll break them.

"It's strange," Penelope says softly. "I expected you of all people to be thrilled today." She swallows the lump in her throat. "Last day of school and all."

"Nah, that's not me." He tosses the strap around himself a plucks an odd chord. A few people walking past eye him strangely. "After today, everything changes. Everyone's going to leave. Everyone's going to forget each other. It sucks."

"Nothing's keeping you here." FP hands Penelope back her yearbook but his eyes are on Fred. "You can leave too."

Penelope forces a smile. "Come now, Fred. Isn't it time for you to go become a big rock star? Wasn't that the dream?"

"Yeah, a pipe dream," he scoffs. "I think I'm going to retire this girl. The band's broken up and I won't be the guy playing at Ace Bowling Alley on Friday nights all by myself." He holds his hand out for Penelope to give him his yearbook back but she keeps it clutched tightly in her hands.

"One more." She smiles sadly at him. "Just play one more song."

"Huh?" Fred takes a step towards her and she jumps back, tucking the book under her arm.

"You have a wonderful voice, Fred Andrews and I'll be very sad if I never hear it again." She nods pointly at FP. "Right?"

"Right." FP nudges him. "Play us out."

Fred stares down at grass. "I wouldn't even know what to play."

"Anything." Penelope smiles at him. "Please, Fred."

He sits on top of the picnic table and plays a few loose chords. "Okay, I think I got it. Sing along if you know the words."

" Almost heaven, Riverdale
Fox Forest, Sweetwater River
Life is old there, older than maple trees
Younger than the Chock-lit Shoppe, lovin that brainfreeze"

"You write that one yourself, Fred?" Alice heckles and Hal covers her mouth with his hand. Fred just smiles.

" Small town roads, take me home
To the place I belong
Riverdale, our only home
Take me home, small town roads"

Penelope drops the books on the table to start clapping in beat with FP. Before they know it, half the courtyard is doing the same.

" All my memories gather round school
My friends, we're all strangers to rules
Light and cheerful, clouds in the sky
Miss the taste of milkshakes, tears in my eyes"

He nods and they join his messy chorus with them.

" Small town roads, take me home
To the place I belong
Riverdale, our only home
Take me home, small town roads"

A circle forms around them and a good portion of the senior class sways together, laughing and clapping in the June sun.

" I hear my mom's voice in the morning hour it calls me
The radio reminds me that it isn't yesterday
And driving down the road I get a feeling
That I should have have skipped school today, today"

Everyone joins in at the end and a medley of Fred's and John Denever's lyrics fill the campus.

" Small town roads, take me home
To the place I belong
Riverdale, our only home
Take me home, small town roads
Small town roads, take me home"

It won't stop graduation from coming tomorrow, but at least Fred Andrews makes the entire senior class smile one last time.

2001

"Fred," Mary hisses, shaking him awake with one hand. Archie is squirming in her other arm, screaming his lungs out and she wonders, not for the first time, how Fred can sleep through it. "Fred, please. Wake up."

"Hmm?" he gets out before his eyes even open. His arms instinctively reach out for Archie but their son cries even harder at his father's touch, his tiny feet kicking out at him and face so red it nearly matches the peach fuzz on his head. "One of those nights?"

"He needs you to sing to him." Fred chuckles at her words and Mary clicks her teeth. "You have the better voice, Fred, you know that. And nothing's worked. He's not wet, he's not hungry, he doesn't have a fever. He doesn't even want to be held." She sits him on the bed and tries sticking a pacifier in his mouth but he turns his head so it ends up near his ear. "You need to pull out the big guns. Sing Bruce."

"Okay, okay." He picks up his son who starts wriggling in his arms. " The screen door slams, Mommy's dress waves ." He gives Archie a little turn so he faces Mary and he swears his cries slow. " Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays. Roy Orbison singing for the lonely ." He points to Mary for her line.

She rolls her eyes but compiles. " Hey, that's me and I want you only ."

" Don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone again ." He holds Archie above his head as the cries finally stop. His mouth opens in surprise at being lifted up. " Don't run back inside, Archie, you know just what I'm here for. So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore. Show a little faith, there's magic in the night. "

He points to Mary again and she pinches his cheek as she sings. " You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright ."

" Oh, and that's alright with me ." Fred brings Archie back down and lays him in the middle of the bed and Mary lays a blanket over his feet. " You can hide beneath your covers and study your pain. Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain ." A little smile plays on the baby's lips as his eyes close. " Waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets. Well now, I ain't no hero, that's -"

Mary places a hand on Fred and gestures down to Archie, his eyes closing and thumb going right back in his mouth. " Understood ," he whispers, bringing the blanket up just a little higher over his son. "Should we bring him back to his room?" he mouths but Mary is climbing back in bed, snuggling up beside them.

"You can finish singing to the both of us." Fred moves a strand of hair out of her face and starts again.

" All the redemption I can offer, Mare, is beneath this dirty hood. With a chance to make it good somehow. Hey what else -"

The phone beside the bed goes off and Fred grabs it before the first ring is even done. He holds his breath as Archie stirs, but his eyes stay closed. His tiny fist finds his mouth and he drools all over his little fingers in his sleep.

"Freddie?" a voice in his ear says. He jumps. "Mary? I'm sorry to -"

"FP?" Fred whispers, covering his mouth with his hand. In the distance he hears a woman's voice and a baby's cry. "Rough night?"

"I don't think any of us have slept since this little guy's come home from the hospital." FP lets out a sigh that Fred feels all too well. "Any advice to some new parents?"

"I've only been a dad four months."

"Well I've only been a dad two weeks." FP yawns. "I'll take anything. His diaper's clean. He's been fed twice. Temperature is normal."

Fred glances at his wife and son, both sound asleep on the bed. His two redheads. He hears Gladys join baby Foresythe's cries over the phone and offers the only advice he knows.

"You try signing to him yet?"

2019

"You kept it all these years?" Fred pulls a guitar out of the back of the closet. It's familiar in his hands, even more so when he plucks a cord and the out of tune note echoes off the trailer's metal walls.

"Of course I kept it." FP smiles at the note instead of cringing. He can still hear Jughead and Jellybean outside arguing near the moving truck. "It was my first guitar."

"No, it was my first guitar," Fred corrects, but he's wrong. It was FP's first guitar too. What was his was always FP's as well. Fred runs his hands over the dusty wood. "I'll toss it in the donation bin on my way home."

FP pauses halfway through taping a box shut. "You crazy? I'm keeping it."

"Keeping it?" Fred smiles sideways. "You think this piece of junk is going to go with your nice, new house on Elm Street?"

"I don't care if it does." FP drops the tape on the floor. "It's a relic and I'll never part with it." He rubs his chin. "Play something for us, Freddie. I already tossed the radio in a box and it's too damn quiet anyway."

JB's shriek from outside proves him wrong, but Fred tosses the strap around his shoulders anyway and plucks another cord.

"It's out of tune."

"It was always out of tune."

"I'm out of tune."

"Freddie." FP picks the tape up and waves it at him. "If you don't sing something, I will. And I know we don't want to punish the kids with that."

He plucks another chord and - maybe it's his imagination, maybe not - but it sounds better now. He forgets a few notes along the way, but it's been long enough that he's willing to forgive himself.

"Hey, where did we go?
Days when the rains came
Down in the hollow
Playing a new game
Laughing and a running hey hey
Skipping and a jumping
In the misty morning fog with
Our hearts a thumping and you
My brown-eyed boy"

Fred looked back up and meets FP's eyes and he looks like they're sixteen all over again. " You, my brown-eyed boy ."

"Those aren't the right words." Fred jumps at JB's voice and the strap around his neck is the only thing that stops the guitar from falling to the linoleum. "It's girl, not boy. You can't just change song lyrics like that." She crosses her arms over her chest and smiles in a way that makes her look every bit like Gladys' daughter. "Even if you are singing to my dad."

FP gapes but Fred just offers her a smile. "I'm sorry, Jellybean. I'll get it right next time."

"Right." She eyes them, grin not falling from her face. "Just don't spend all day goofing off and singing about the old days. I don't want to tell mom I packed this trailer on my own."

"Don't tell your mom anything!" FP finally gets out but his daughter is gone, running through the hallway laughing. "We were just - catching up."

Fred strumps the out-of-tune guitar again and he knows it's corny, but the next words out of Fred's mouth are music to his ears.

"Time for one more?"

FP nods and keeps packing as Fred's voice echoes through his old home.

" Whatever happened
To Tuesday and so slow?
Going down the old mine
With a transistor radio
Standing in the sunlight laughing
Hiding behind a rainbow's wall
Slipping and sliding
All along the waterfall with you"

today

"Standing room only, huh?" No one laughs but a few lips curl into polite smiles before falling flat again. FP clears his throat. "I don't feel like I'm the right person to be up here today. According to a few people, that's exactly what makes me the right person."

The body - it hurts to much to think of it as Fred - is just a few feet to his left and he still hasn't been able to look at it. To look at him.

"I could stand here and tell you a million stories. I'm sure we all have ones about Fred we want to share and if we let everyone who wanted to speak come up here, this would go on until next month." He lets out a breath. "Freddie and I, we went through everything together. Everything. Even those times we fell apart, the times there was distance between us, we still always managed to fall back into old times like it was nothing. Freddie gave everyone second chances. But me? Hell, I was probably on my hundredth chance." His voice finally cracks. He meets Gladys' eyes in the front - one of her hands clutches Mary's while the other is wrapped around JB's shoulder - and she nods for him to keep going. He wipes the tear from his eye and reaches under the podium.

"Archie was tuning this girl yesterday when he told me his first memory. A song Fred used to sing to him when he was a baby." He tosses the strap of the guitar around his shoulder - the very one Fred pulled out of the depths of his closet just a few months ago - and strums. "I called so many people these past few days and everyone just needed to talk about him, to get those stories out, and I'll be damned if almost everyone didn't bring up some instance of Fred serenading them or bursting into song when no one asked him to." He pulls a plays a few more chords until his fingers seem to fall back into place, remembering himself at fifteen with Fred's hands on his, teaching him how to play.

"My voice was never as good as his, but this - this felt like the only way to say goodbye. No, not goodbye." He finally looks to the casket. "It's just a see you later."

What to play? Some awful Fredheads original that came out of Fred's teenage mind some thirty years ago? Or one of the funny parodies Fred cooked up, always great for a laugh?

"Join in if you know the words."

Instead he settled on something simple. He starts playing the guitar Archie had painstakingly tuned yesterday after FP insisted he needed to play this one. Needed to play good old reliable Eleanor.

" Well I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah"

Voices join his scratchy singing during the chorus. Mary is first, her voice higher than he's ever heard it, followed by Gladys and Jellybean. After them some scattered ones from around the room.

" Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to her kitchen chair
And she broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah"

Archie's tucked in close to Mary on the couch in front, zoned out and hardly recognizing he's at his own father's funeral. He looks all too much like Fred in his too big suit jacket at Artie's funeral, blaming himself for a million things he couldn't control. Jughead's sitting on the armrest with his hand on Archie's shoulder and even he joins the singing.

"But baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah"

Betty and Veronica sit directly behind Archie and Mary, sandwiched between their mothers. Hermione cries into a handkerchief but Alice lets her tears call freely. Sierra and Tom are just a few seats down and it warms FP's heart to see them both singing.

" Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah"

Archie stands up and starts the last chorus of hallelujahs. FP juts his head towards the front but Archie's eyes are on Fred. Mary wraps an arm around her son's midsection and he pulls his mother close and the two of them sway there together.

The hallelujahs go on for a while and FP plays as long as they do. By the end, the word has lost all meaning and everyone is hoarse with crying and singing, but there are smiles on people's faces. There are hugs. Some laughter.

Fred Andrews went too soon, but it'll be a long time before anyone in this town ever forgets him.