AN: A few things:

1. This chapter takes place before my other Peanuts fic, Für Lucy. If you've read that one, you'll notice I made a few minor changes to the events that occurred off-screen in that story, and I changed Todd's name to Roger. I felt like it was more period-appropriate. I might go back into Für Lucy later and edit it to match this fic, but it's not anything important, so oh well. (It's mostly just the setting where Lucy tells her friends about their breakup)

2. Peppermint Patty has started going by Pat now that she's a bit older. It helps to differentiate her from the original Patty, and it's a very vintage butch lesbian name.

3. I'm not sure how credible this is, but I saw someone on Reddit claim that Schroeder was given the last name Felton in one of the storyboards for the 2015 movie. Even if it's not true, I still think Schroeder Felton sounds good, so I'm keeping it and using it here.

September 1962

During the summer of 1962, Lucy began to force herself to accept that Schroeder didn't love her and never would.

She knew she was his friend, of course. He wouldn't continue to tolerate her presence if he didn't harbor some friendly affection for her. She knew him well enough to know that as a fact.

But he'd never reciprocate her crush on him. If he had feelings for her, he surely would have made a move by now. It was only logical, and he was a logical kind of guy.

Plus, she was getting a bit tired of waiting around for him. If she stayed caught up on him much longer, high school would be over, and he'd be attending some fancy music college, and he'd meet someone just as talented as him, and she'd see him with that lady or gentleman on his arm and her heart would break into a million pieces (if she didn't clobber him first).

Therefore, she'd decided to try and move on from him entirely. She knew when to give up the ghost. If Schroeder hadn't given her a signal by now, forget him.

It hurt, yes, but she was a big girl now. It was time to expand her horizons.

And, as fate would have it, a boy named Roger showed up on Lucy's horizon during the first week of 10th grade.

She met him at a tutoring group she was volunteering in to beef up her high school résumé. He'd failed two classes last year, English and Biology, and she'd been assigned to help him with his literature assignment that Monday after school.

She'd seen him on the football team last year and thought he was cute, but hadn't ever talked to him – until now. And not only was he handsome, he was a charmer, too.

They had flirted with each other during that session and hadn't got much studying done. At the end, he offered to make Lucy a deal: for every five chapters of Wuthering Heights he read, she would go on one date with him. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her. Anyone who was willing to read that stupid book for her must really like her.

With a wink, she upped the chapter count to ten, and he grinned cheekily as he agreed and they shook on it.

After a couple dates, they began officially going steady, and Lucy hesitated to tell Schroeder. She didn't know why.

It's not like she had to worry about him becoming jealous. She just didn't want to make things awkward. Despite everything, she wouldn't know what she'd do if she couldn't go to his house almost every day. And she knew he'd miss her, too; Schroeder didn't know that she knew, but Charlie Brown had told her how distraught Schroeder been when her family moved away for that brief time.

When she brought up that she was seeing Roger, she decided to make light of it by telling Schroeder he was officially relieved of his duties as her future husband. He responded with a dry "Free at last." She'd slammed his locker closed in fake anger.

For them, it was normal. It was a good sign.

October 1962

It was the second annual Roger Copeland Halloween party, and Schroeder had never been more miserable.

He and the rest of the gang had been invited by virtue of being Lucy's friends. She hadn't left Roger's side the entire evening, and Schroeder was trying to avoid Roger as much as possible, so he hadn't seen much of her.

Instead, he stuck with Charlie Brown and Linus for the first part of the night. They made an odd trio: Schroeder had gone as Dracula, Linus was a bank robber (complete with a loot bag fashioned from his blanket), and Charlie Brown was a bedsheet ghost for the tenth year in a row.

But it was after eleven o'clock now, and Linus had left for the pumpkin patch, while Charlie Brown was now engaged in an excited conversation with Franklin. They weren't excluding Schroeder by any means, but he had a hard time engaging with his friends when they were talking about sports.

For a few minutes, he had wandered Roger's first floor aimlessly, looking for someone in his circle to follow around as he sipped his (extremely, almost undrinkably-so) spiked punch.

He saw Violet and Patty in the living room, giggling and whispering gossip to each other in their Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble costumes. They had abandoned their dates, Shermy and Pig Pen, who were their respective Fred and Barney. It was just as well; the boys were playing foosball in the garage and guffawing at each other's jokes.

Despite the fact that Schroeder's friends had all dressed up with him, he still felt overwhelmingly awkward and out of place. None of Roger's crowd had dressed up. Who on Earth doesn't dress up for a Halloween party? Football players, that's who. And on top of that, the clip on his cape was irritating, and he had long since discarded his novelty fangs. But more than anything, he just wanted to be anywhere but this particular house.

He meandered into the dining room, and saw Pat and Marcie seated at one end of the table. The former had put on some green face paint and an ill-fitting black suit jacket, and the latter had swimming goggles on her forehead and a lab coat. Dr. Frankenstein and his monster.

Pat saw Schroeder as soon as he walked in, and grinned. "Hey, von Count! Fancy a game of quarters?"

Marcie's expression stayed deadpan as ever. "Don't do it, Schroeder. You won't win."

"Marcie!" Pat nudged her girlfriend. "Stop scaring away my competition!"

Schroeder smiled. He could work with this for the rest of the night. He liked Pat and Marcie. "Sure. I'm game."

Marcie smiled faintly as Schroeder took the seat on Pat's other side. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Pat took the first shot almost immediately and got a hole in one. "Alright, drink."

He blinked at the suddenness, but obliged. "You don't mess around, do you?"

"When have I ever messed around with anything I do?"

He kept his mouth shut.

"Besides, you look like you need it. You had such a frown on your face a minute ago."

"I did?"

Marcie nodded. "It was grim."

"Aren't you having fun, Schroeder?"

He shrugged. "Truthfully, Patricia, I'd kinda like to go home."

She handed him a quarter. "Well, I'm glad you stopped by to see us before you headed out."

"I don't think I would have left until more people did, anyway." He lined up his shot. "I don't really wanna be the first one out. Besides Linus, of course."

Marcie watched him miss. "Is that the only reason you were upset?"

"I guess."

"You don't like Roger, do you?"

Schroeder shut his eyes and shook off the gulp he just took from his punch. "What do you mean?"

"Well, at Homecoming, you had such a nasty look the whole game. You didn't even look up when Roger scored the winning touchdown." Pat took another quick turn and made it again. "Drink."

He drank. "I don't like watching football. I was bored."

"And you never look at him when he's around," Marcie added.

"Why are you two paying so much attention to how I act?" He bounced the quarter and missed again.

"Because we have nothing better to do." Pat smiled. "Drink."

"And we don't like him, either."

"Marcie!"

Schroeder groaned. "Look, I just don't want Lucy to get screwed over."

"Of course not," Marcie said. "We don't either. It just looks like it's affecting you more than it is us. Even being in his house is dampening your mood."

They were right. He couldn't place it, but something about Roger made Schroeder feel uneasy. Every time he saw the guy, he started to feel a little bit sick to his stomach, and he never had an exchange with him without walking away in a sour mood. It was even worse when Lucy was nearby.

Lucy was Schroeder's friend, despite their arguments, and Roger could be a little bit of a dismissive jerk sometimes. He just got on his nerves and he hated seeing his friend waste her time with someone he thought was an asshole. That was all. He'd probably feel the same way if Charlie Brown or Linus dated someone like that.

At least, he thought he would have. Right?

He grimaced as Pat won another round and pointed at him. He continued, "Don't tell her I said this, but she's one of my best friends. And I don't like seeing my friends dating jerks."

Pat cocked an eyebrow. "You sure you aren't jealous?"

Schroeder nearly spat his drink out. "Yes, I'm sure," he lied.

He wasn't sure. And that's part of why he felt so awful.

Always the master of bad timing, Lucy picked that moment to open the door from the kitchen and enter the room.

All three of them turned to look at her. She looked annoyed, but once she saw her friends, she smiled. Her metallic gold crown gleamed obnoxiously and luminously from the light over the table.

Pat nodded her way. "Hey, Lucille. We were just talking about you."

Her Wonder Woman costume's boots squeaked as she walked over and breezily took the spot next to Schroeder. "Oh, you were? Nothing bad, I hope."

"No, of course not."

Marcie added, "Just that we like your costume."

Lucy did a little pose in her seat. "Thanks. I tried to get Roger to be Superman with me, but he wouldn't do it."

Schroeder coughed as he took another drink after another failed round. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, but whatever. Let them wear their stupid jerseys if that's what they really want." She chuckled and leaned forward on the table. "You guys look like you're having fun."

"Pat certainly is." He shook his head. "Do you ever miss?"

"Nope." She beamed in pride. "And even if I did, I could still drink you under the table, Felton."

Lucy grabbed his arm. "You just need a cute girl around to be your good luck charm, Schroeder. Aside from Pat and Marcie, of course."

Schroeder aimed and missed. "That's the last thing I need right now."

She laughed and squeezed his shoulder as the quarter rolled off the table. When she laughed, it was loud and impossible to ignore and it lingered in your ears, especially if you were the target of its ridicule. Tonight was no different.

All too conscious of her hand on his shoulder, he imagined for a brief moment that Lucy had been his date to this party. Just as an experiment. He imagined that they had been playing drinking games and losing for the entire night. He imagined that her laugh had been rattling in his head for the past few hours. He imagined her voice referring to him as her boyfriend.

Just as an experiment.

His entire face flushed, and he looked to Pat miserably as she indicated he had to drink again. She made pointed eye contact with him, and his gaze dropped as he downed his entire glass. "I give up."

November 1962 Part 1

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane was shaping up to be one of Lucy's new favorite movies.

At least, she thought it was. She was enjoying whatever parts she saw when Roger wasn't sneaking her kisses and arm rubs, and obviously trying to turn her attention away from the film and towards him.

It was a Saturday, the first Saturday after the football season had ended, and they had elected to go on a date to the drive-in theater. Lucy had chosen the movie. Roger wanted to see some dumb Western, but she had fluttered her eyelashes at him, pouted her lip, and got her way with the new thriller flick.

She was genuinely invested in the plot at this point, and was honestly getting a little annoyed that her boyfriend wasn't paying attention.

A lot of things her boyfriend did lately made her a little annoyed.

Lucy laid her head on his shoulder. Better to humor him a little and try and talk during a dull part than ignore him completely, as tempting as it was to be petty. It'd keep distractions to a minimum.

As she watched the projected image of Joan Crawford, Lucy patted Roger's knee. "Hey, me and my friends are gonna play some pickup baseball tomorrow. You wanna come?"

He took her hand. "Huh?"

She tried to refrain from rolling her eyes. "Baseball. Tomorrow. You should come."

"It's the middle of November."

"It won't be snowy. I don't even think it'll be that cold. It wasn't cold today."

Roger hummed apprehensively. "Ah, I don't really like playing baseball all that much. You know I'm a football guy."

"You can come and watch." She leaned her head backwards so she was looking at him upside-down and gave him a smirk. "You can be a cheerleader for a day."

He very poorly hid a grimace at her suggesting he could do something commonly associated with women. Lucy glared.

Roger asked, "Who all will be there?"

"I don't know. Charlie Brown for sure, and his sister Sally. Linus will go if I'm going. Pat and Marcie. And Schroeder's always our catcher. Sally and Marcie usually just watch, too."

"I don't know, Luce." There's that stupid nickname she hated. "I just don't think I get along very well with your gang."

"You also haven't spent that much quality time around them. Every time you're around them, you don't make much of an effort to talk."

"As if they do."

"Charlie Brown's on the football team, isn't he? Why don't you ever invite him when you and your football friends hang out?"

Roger got that frown he got when he was getting peeved. "Don't turn this into a thing."

Lucy sat up and pulled away from him. "It's not a thing. I just don't know why you don't want to hang around my friends."

"You're making it a thing."

"Do you not like them?"

"I don't dislike them."

She scoffed. "What's wrong with my friends?"

"Nothing's wrong, they're just…"

All-too-familiar rage began bubbling up at the pit of her stomach. "They're just what?"

"Boring!" He threw his hands in the air. "They're boring."

"Boring!?"

"For starters, Charlie's favorite athlete is Joe Shlabotnik. And he once told me his favorite food is buttered toast. He's a walking wet blanket. Plus, he's the worst pitcher I've ever seen. I don't know why you guys keep letting him play baseball with you."

"Jesus, we just play for fun." She couldn't believe she was making excuses for Charlie Brown, but she could worry about that later. "Not everything is about winning, you know."

He mumbled, "Clearly."

"Excuse me?"

"And that Schroeder kid? I can't have a single conversation with him where he doesn't mention at least one dead guy."

It all felt like a slap to the face. She was irate now. "If Schroeder was talking to you about composers, that's a compliment! Have you even heard him play?"

"I just don't get along with them, Lucy."

"So that means you can't even show up and be polite?!" She turned her body so she was facing him, one of her legs tucked up under her on the car seat. "I spent every tailgate party we went to listening to your pigheaded teammates trying to string their collective three brain cells together to form a coherent, misogynistic thought!"

"So you don't get along with my friends, either. We're even!" He yelled.

"You know what? I don't think you've ever given a damn about anything I care about."

Roger chuckled in disbelief. "Jesus Christ."

She pushed herself up in her seat to try and make her short body reach above his large frame. "When's the last time you even asked me how my day went? Huh?"

"When's the last time you asked me?"

"And when's the last time you went to one of my debate team meetings? I stayed for football practice whenever I could!"

"Congratulations, do you want an award or something?" He glared at her. "Sit down. You look crazy. People are staring."

Lucy's expression darkened. "Oh, crazy? You don't want crazy, Roger. I can do crazy."

Roger's jaw hardened. "Sit. Down." If he was with any girl but Lucy, she might have been intimidated by his tone paired with his size.

"No, I don't think I will." She grabbed her purse and flung the car door open. "In fact, we're over. I'm breaking up with you."

"You're breaking up with me? Seriously?"

"I am."

"Because I wouldn't come to the stupid ball game?!"

"No, Roger!" Lucy leaned down to meet his eye after she had stepped out of his car. "I've thought about it the past week or so, actually, but tonight was the nail in the coffin. The first time I thought about it was when you didn't dress up for the Halloween party, but I thought I was just being silly."

"Are you serious?"

"The second time I thought about it was when you made a smartass comment about Linus leaving said party before midnight. You should count your lucky stars that you were smart enough not to bring my brother up tonight!"

"You can't be serious. That Great Pumpkin bullshit?"

"It's a tradition, you dickhead!"

"So you're just gonna walk home?"

"Yep! Now I am!"

"Fine!" He stuck the keys in the ignition and turned them. "Have a nice life!"

Roger peeled out of the drive-in recklessly and several people yelled at him to watch where he was going.

Lucy didn't even register the audience they had garnered as she waved goodbye with one hand and flipped the bird with the other. "Toodle-oo!"

November 1962 Part 2

Schroeder wasn't a huge sports fan, but he liked baseball. At least, he liked being a catcher with his friends. He probably wouldn't still be playing baseball at all if it wasn't with them.

Normally, he looked forward to the gang's pickup games. It was a nice chance to get some fresh air without the pressure to be good at what he was doing.

However, about a week ago, Lucy had mentioned she'd ask Roger to come along next time they played. Schroeder suspected none of the others were looking forward to that, but he especially dreaded it.

Ever since the Halloween party, Schroeder had been plagued by ghoulish visions of him being sweet on Lucy, and Lucy being sweet on him. Holding hands while walking to school. Her snuggled up beside him on the bench as he played piano for her. Her kissing his nose and him not recoiling in exaggerated disgust.

It was unthinkable. It was distracting him from his piano playing. It was nice and sickening and comfortable and hopeless all at once.

The point is, it was making it very hard for Schroeder to be excited for this round of baseball.

He arrived at the park early (the empty lot they used to play on tragically had a building built on top of it a couple years ago) and met Charlie Brown. His old friend's easygoing personality was comforting. They discussed signals as the others trickled in.

It was a sunny day, perfect for an afternoon at the park. Schroeder loved sunny weather. Normally, a lack of clouds in the sky meant a lack of clouds in his brain, but the longer Lucy and Roger took to arrive, the more of an exception this day became to that rule.

She and Linus were the last ones to appear about twenty minutes later. They were by themselves. No boyfriends to speak of.

Schroeder almost scoffed. Maybe they had finally broken up.

Charlie Brown called to her. "Hey, guys! Roger couldn't make it?"

Lucy blinked at him. "Huh? Oh." She put her hands on her hips. "I dumped him yesterday."

Linus gave the others a "what can you do?" look as he slung his cap on. Schroeder blinked. Had he heard that correctly?

"Wait, really?" Charlie Brown. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I'm not. He was being a dick."

Pat lowered her bat from her spot in front of Schroeder. She played baseball on the school's team, but still showed up for their casual games. "You're better off without him, Lucille."

"That reminds me!" Lucy gave everyone her trademark glare as she put on her mitt. "Last night, Linus told me that none of you could stand Roger. Is that true?"

Schroeder was still stunned from the development. He didn't think they'd actually break up. Well, at some point in the future, maybe, but not immediately after he'd thought about it out of spite.

Marcie called from her seat next to Sally on the sidelines. "I didn't like him."

Sally concurred, "Me, neither!"

Charlie Brown sighed. "You only met him once."

"Yeah, but from what you told me–"

Her big brother gave her a "drop it" gesture.

Lucy's jaw dropped in indignation. "I can't believe you guys!"

Patty tilted her head. "But you just said he was a dick."

She ignored her. "Who are you blockheads to decide who I can and can't date?! You've got a lot of nerve!"

Charlie Brown added, "We never said–"

Lucy growled, "Shut up and pitch, Charlie Brown, before you say something you regret!"

"Oh, good grief."

And just like that, the game started.

Schroeder smiled behind his catcher's mask as Pat hit the ball and began running the bases. Lucy got distracted by something Violet said, and the ball dropped to her feet. Charlie Brown groaned even louder than before.

Nothing had felt this normal in months. It was nice. Hopefully, it would stay that way.