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As his birthday approached, both Jughead and Betty had reached a point where what was between them had come to seem too real. They had come together so quickly, so naturally, and now they found themselves increasingly bound to one another, and that felt … terrifying. Could they trust each other with who they really were? Both Jughead and Betty had spent most of their lives hiding their true selves from even their nearest and dearest, knowing that most wouldn't understand, and not trusting that those who understood would like what they saw. Suddenly they were together, and contemplating a vulnerability that didn't come easily to either of them.

This came out on Jughead's side in a pulling away, a desire to distance himself before he got hurt, and on Betty's side in a desperate attempt to achieve the kind of perfection she had always been taught to aim for. To be the perfect girlfriend, to plan the perfect party.

And somehow the way they usually understood each other, the easy flow of conversation, was off-kilter, as both of them spoke on the surface and didn't say what was really in their thoughts.

The party was a flop in every way possible. Jughead retreated, Betty tried to pretend that normal was what she really wanted. Faced with Chuck, with the memory of whatever had come over her the night she got him to confess to what she'd done, she wanted to hide that darkness within her, to pull Jughead out of the dark where he lived so they could both be in the light, afraid that neither of them could handle each other's shadows. But he didn't want the light, and she was afraid to get too comfortable in the dark.

At last she found him in the garage, where he immediately attacked her for inviting his father to what had become a kegger. "You do know my dad has a drinking problem, right?"

"Of course I do! I didn't think people would be drinking tonight. I didn't plan on Chuck and Cheryl and the rest of the school crashing, okay? This was supposed to be just your friends."

"You and Archie are my friends. Okay? Everyone else—including Kevin, including Veronica—are people that two months ago I would have actively shunned."

"Why?"

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm weird. I'm a weirdo. I don't fit in, and I don't want to fit in. Have you ever seen me without this stupid hat on? That's weird."

"Why are you getting so upset?" she demanded. "It's just a party, Jug."

"It's not just a party. It's the fact that you don't know, or even care, that this is the last thing I would want."

That rocked her back. Because he was right; she hadn't wanted to know, or care.

"You did this for you," he told her. "To prove something."

"To prove what?"

"You're a great girlfriend? I don't know." He shifted, going on the attack instead of the defensive. "Doesn't it ever occur to you just how different we are? On a cellular DNA kind of level? You're a straight-A student, you're a cheerleader, for God sakes. You're the perfect girl next door!"

"I hate that word," she told him, but he couldn't stop.

"I'm the damaged loner outsider from the wrong side of the tracks. Betty, come on. Who are we kidding? We're on borrowed time."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

They looked at each other. He wanted her to deny it, to tell him that they were more alike than he knew. She wanted him to take it back, to tell her she didn't have to show him how damaged she was for them to be together. Both of them wanted nothing more than to be in each other's arms. But they had come too far for that.

"Betty, I'm not one of your projects! Okay? Like solving Jason's murder—"

"No! You're not a project!" Didn't he know how much she needed him? "You're my boyfriend!"

She reached for him, but he pulled away. "Until you're sick of slumming it with me? Or until Archie changes his mind and says he wants to be with you?" He knew as soon as the words had come out of his mouth that he had gone too far, but it was too late to take them back.

The mask came down over her face. Betty Cooper, perfect pink princess, was back. With a look of utter contempt that Jughead felt he deserved, she left the garage, and just like that, they were alone again.

It was hard to listen to Chuck publicly humiliate Betty, but listening to the story, Jughead thought maybe he understood better what had brought the two of them together, that there was a darkness, a well-hidden weirdness, in Betty that found something answering in him.

She hid that darkness well, though, fought it, was ashamed of it, whereas he wore his proudly on his sleeve, and that was never going to work.

Once he had punched Chuck and gotten punched in return for his trouble, Jughead tried to flee, but his father stopped him. "Where the hell are you going?"

"What?" Jughead snapped. "You want to give me some advice on my right hook?"

"I want you to go back inside and talk to your girl."

"I don't think it's going to work out. Irreconcilable differences."

His father stopped him again, getting in front of him. "Don't run away from it. Don't run away. You got something good here—with her, with your friends. Something that—something that we could never give you. Also, man up. After what I just saw in there? She needs you."

Maybe. Maybe she did. Maybe he needed her, too. Either way, his father wasn't about to let him walk away, so Jughead turned and went back inside the house.

She was standing there, forlorn, watching the door he had left through.

"Betty."

"Jug."

There were too many people here for this. "Let's go to Pop's."

"Yeah. All right." She ducked her head and pushed her way through the remaining people, walking quickly, and he didn't catch up to her until halfway to the diner.

"Betty, stop. Please."

She turned to look at him and he saw the gleam of tears in her eyes. Jughead held out his arms and she came into them. They held each other tight.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair. "I should never have said that about Archie."

"I'm sorry I threw you that stupid party. You were right, I was trying to show off, to be the perfect girlfriend. I don't—I don't ever want to be perfect again, Jug. Don't let me."

"I won't. I think I can safely promise that."

"You don't really think that, do you, about Archie? I haven't thought about him once, not since the first time you kissed me. You believe that, don't you, Jug?" She pulled away, looking up at him anxiously.

He hadn't even known he still resented all those years she had been in love with Archie—hadn't known at the time that he did resent it. Wherever that had come from, it had been buried deep. Looking at her now, her beautiful face turned up to him in the moonlight, he knew he wasn't done being jealous of Archie, not yet, but truly he didn't believe she was just waiting for Archie to notice her. Not anymore. "No," he told her. "I don't."

"Good." She tucked her head against his shoulder and they walked arm in arm the rest of the way to Pop's.

Sitting there in the familiar booth, Jughead felt the events of the day catching up to him.

Betty smiled at him. "And all this time, I thought you were a lover, not a fighter."

He folded his arms on the table and laid his head on them. "I'm both. I've got layers." After a moment, he said to her, "You were doing something nice. It's just that … sometimes, when people do nice things for me, I short-circuit. Maybe I'm not used to it. Maybe I'm scared." He couldn't look at her while he said it. Being scared was not part of the Jughead Jones persona—it cut too close to the truth. But he owed it to her to look at her while he told her who he was, so he turned so she could see him as he spoke. "Of getting hurt. Rejected. For being myself."

"I should have told you, about Chuck," Betty admitted. "But I lied. And instead I threw you this party that you didn't even want."

"Why did you?"

It was Betty's turn, and she found for the first time she really wanted to tell someone about what she felt, about who she was afraid she was—or could be. "Something is very, very wrong with me," she admitted. "There's this darkness in me that's overwhelming sometimes, and I don't know where it comes from. But I think that's what makes me do these crazy things like—" She broke off, looking at him, and then she opened her palms and showed him the twin lines of half-healed cuts where she had dug her fingernails into her skin.

Jughead took her hands in both of his, folding the fingers closed, and raised her hands to his lips, kissing her fingers. Accepting her for who she was.

Betty was so grateful, so relieved. She leaned over and kissed him, and then she laid her head on his shoulder and they sat there together. They had passed the first test; they had learned to trust more, to listen better. But dangerous waters lay ahead for both of them, and there were no promises.