Chapter 4

Jughead was sure he hadn't been at Pop's more than an hour… two hours at the absolute most. Sure, it had been unexpectedly great to bump into Betty after all these years. And sure, catching up and reliving old times made for a heady combination. But spending time with people… any people, really… tended to make minutes crawl by like hours, even on a good night.

So the fact that he felt like he'd been here only a scant few minutes just had to mean that he'd arrived within the past hour or two… didn't it?

The sun rising over the forest beyond Pop's parking lot, of course, put the lie to that particular piece of self-delusion. He'd pulled into the parking lot shortly before nine p.m. on December 22nd. And, given that the sun rose sullenly and reluctantly in upstate New York in the winter, the streaks of rose and gold that he was seeing above the pines now had to mean that it was well past 7:30 a.m. on December 23rd.

Jughead was no mathematician. He prided himself, in fact, on his less-than-rudimentary grasp on numbers. But all the evidence at hand seemed to suggest that he'd spent the past ten hours and more, utterly lost in the pleasure of Betty Cooper's company.

He didn't want to be that guy. He didn't want to lose all sense of chronology in the simple pleasure of a beautiful woman's smile or laugh… didn't want to let reality fade away, to be replaced by favourite memories of the past… didn't want to let comfort and ease and happiness lull him into a fantasy in which this was his life, rather than just a momentary interlude, a fantasy in which Betty was his constant companion and partner in all life had to throw at him.

But the increasingly dazzling sparkle of the rising sun on the fresh snow outside the window told him that was exactly who he'd become… and his own reluctance to break the spell, to walk out the door and return to reality told him he was going to remain that guy for as long as he possibly could.

As if mirroring his thoughts (again), Betty glanced at the rose and gold-hued sky and sighed. He knew what was coming next, of course… she'd say how great it had been to see him again, that they really should stay in touch (though they both knew they wouldn't), that she needed to get to her mother's house before her parents sent out a search party. He flailed for a moment, trying to think of something he could say to stop that chain of events, or at least defer it, but kept coming up blank.

And then Betty flipped the script entirely.

"I guess sunrise means it's time to switch from French fries to home fries," she said, with the oddest look of hesitation on her face. "How would you feel about breakfast?"

The grin on Jughead's lips told Betty she'd said exactly the right thing… or a right thing, at the very least, from his perspective. To be fair, it had been a bit of a gimme; she'd never known Jughead to turn down a suggestion of food, in all the years she'd known him.

Exactly the right thing to say, from her perspective, was a little harder to parse. Throwing herself to the floor and begging him to marry her – or at least consider a few dates, to see if he could ever even begin to match the feelings that these hours together had reignited in her – had its appeal, but was probably too much. Begging him to stay right here in this booth for another day or two, and shield her from the nightmare of a Christmas in her childhood home (Nightmare on Elm Street, her irreverent inner voice quipped) sounded good, too, but again risked sending him fleeing into the wintery dawn at her characteristic brand of "too much."

On the other hand, apologizing for almost a decade of silence felt important and necessary… but possibly both too little and too late. And she couldn't quite imagine how she could carry out that particular conversational manoeuvre without explaining the reasons she'd severed all contact, which could very effectively end all possibility of regaining their old friendship or ever having another long evening of easy, effortless conversation and laughter. Nothing like an uninvited declaration of love, tacked onto an overdue apology, to turn "too little, too late" into "way, way too much."

So she'd settled for suggesting breakfast, and now Jughead was grinning his agreement with that plan, and no one was running out the door. It was good enough, for the moment.

"Are you sure you have time?" Jughead asked, even as he looked over his shoulder to flag down Pop. "Won't Alice be going pretty nuclear by now?"

Betty chuckled at the aptness of that image. "She'll be fine," she replied. "I mean, she won't be fine… I don't think she's been fine within my lifetime. She'll be livid. But she's already livid anyway, and I texted her around 11 last night to say the storm was too bad and I had to get off the road. I told her I'd be in touch today to let her know when to expect me. So no one will be looking for me until they hear from me first."

"Seems reasonable," Jughead responded, his grin even wider now, although Betty wasn't sure why. "Even Alice can't find fault with that."

Betty stared at him incredulously. "Oh, my sweet, summer child," she said in her most pitying tone, "this is Alice Cooper we're talking about. There is literally nothing, in Heaven or on Earth, that she can't find fault with."

"Touché," Jughead acknowledged, still smiling at her. "So, you think she'll be mad about this?"

"Judging from the 4 texts she sent me before I turned off my phone," Betty replied ruefully, "she's already furious and is digging in to stay that way for a good, long while."

"I'm sorry," Jughead responded, suddenly serious, and Betty missed his smile even as she appreciated the sympathy.

She shrugged, though. "Honestly, it's kind of liberating. Once she hits this level of fury, there's nothing that can be done to appease or placate her, so there's no point turning myself inside out trying to make her happy. At this point, I might as well please myself… as much as I can possibly do while spending Christmas in Riverdale, that is."

Jughead laughed, as she'd expected him to, but it didn't dispel the seriousness in his eyes.

Before either of them could say more, Pop Tate arrived to take their orders, bringing them each a large mug of coffee at the same time. Betty ordered wheat toast, fruit salad, and a poached egg. Jughead ordered… virtually everything else on the menu, which surprised neither her nor Pop.

The interruption didn't break their conversation as Betty had expected, though. "Why don't you?" Jughead asked as soon as Pop had returned to the kitchen.

Betty, who'd been taking a sip of her coffee, wrinkled her brow at him in puzzlement. "Did I miss the rest of that sentence?" she asked, half expecting his response to come in the form of a punchline.

"Why don't you spend Christmas in Riverdale? Ever?" he asked. "You haven't been here for a Christmas since high school, have you?"

"Well, I hadn't been," Betty agreed, "until…" she trailed off meaningfully as she gestured around the diner.

"So?" he prompted. "I mean, I know your mom is… a lot. But you haven't cut her out of your life, you still see her."

"I do," Betty agreed, even as she searched for words to try to explain. "It's just… worse at Christmas. Part of it is that she's worse, for sure. She has so many expectations and rituals and any slight deviation drives her absolutely around the bend. She gets more controlling and more critical than even her default setting, and she's constantly in hyper-drive. The worst is when she's hosting. I avoided her completely at Christmas for years, but after Polly's twins were born she wouldn't tolerate that anymore. But being a guest of the Blossoms doesn't send her into quite the same spin as when she's hosting.

"And part of it is me. Alice is… well… she's Alice, all the time, in every situation. I've learned to live with that, without letting it turn me inside out. But it bothers me more at Christmas. People are singing about peace on earth and joy to the world and a holly jolly Christmas, and little kids are running around with rosy cheeks and runny noses and making lopsided snowmen and gluing glitter and macaroni to jam jars to make presents and being told what wonderful artists they are, and I love it. I love all of it.

"But the contrast between the peace and the joy and the happy, messy imperfection of every else's Christmas and the pristine scripts and expectations and the constant barrage of criticism from my mom…" Betty sighed, shaking her head. "It just bothers me more at Christmas," she concluded lamely. "That's true even when we spend Christmas in Vermont. But it's even worse being at my parents' house. It's like, everywhere I look in that overdecorated monstrosity, I can see an image of myself as a little kid, being yelled at or belittled for failing to measure up. It's… well, it's kind of my own, personal version of hell."

Pop brought them their orders, along with refills on their coffees, and Betty tried to shake off the heaviness that seemed to have settled over their table.

"I'm sorry," she said, forcing a laugh. "Way to remind you of why 'that Betty Cooper really is the life of the party' never caught on as a popular phrase."

"I'm the one who asked," Jughead answered, looking at her so compassionately, yet without any trace of pity, that she had to fight an urge to simply lean across the table and press her lips to his. "But do you have any good memories of Christmas in Riverdale? If you don't have to rush right to your mom's, maybe we could go do something else first… something that's a good memory for you. You know, something you haven't had a chance to do since you left?"

A dozen memories swirled in Betty's mind, and before she could second-guess herself or worry about how it might sound, she blurted out her honest answer. "Could we go to the trailer, Juggie?"

Jughead blinked, twice, trying to make sense of the last words to leave Betty's gorgeous mouth… the mouth he'd been trying (largely unsuccessfully) not to stare at for most of the night.

"The trailer?" he echoed stupidly. "My trailer?" And that was utterly bizarre. He always thought of it as his Dad's trailer now… had barely thought of it as his home, even when he'd lived there. And he honestly couldn't think of a stranger place to want to visit for happy Riverdale memories. It had been his home, and he could barely stand to look at the place. Why Betty would want to go there was an utter mystery.

But Betty was nodding enthusiastically. "Of course! Juggie, all of my best Christmas memories happened at your place!"

He blinked at her again in open-mouthed amazement. "Why?" he asked blankly, genuinely confused. Of course, his own best and brightest Christmas memories had always revolved around Betty and the light and laughter and colour she'd brought to the Jones' family's dingy, little home. But it had never even occurred to him that those memories might have been equally important to her.

"Are you kidding?" she asked, looking just as incredulous as he was. "I always had so much fun with you and Archie and Jellybean. We all laughed, and worked together, and there were no arguments and no criticism. There were no colour schemes and people telling me how tacky my ideas were. We could just look sideways at whatever we had on hand, and figure out a way to use it, and you and Jelly and your parents always acted like it was the best and most beautiful decorating you'd ever seen." It had been the most beautiful decorating he'd ever seen, so he'd always assumed his parents were equally and sincerely enthusiastic. But Betty wasn't done yet.

"Those days at the trailer were the only time in my life that I got to be creative without worrying about whether the results would look professional, until I moved away from home. They were the only time I could make things for Christmas that were crooked and crazy, and just have fun doing it instead of stressing about the final product. I never got to glue macaroni and glitter to a jam jar at my house and be called an artist… but at your house, that's what it felt like. It was the Christmas I always wanted, but never got anywhere else.

"We'd sing carols while we worked, and no one lamented that I hadn't kept up with my voice lessons. And we'd eat cookies, and no one told me I had to watch my weight. And we'd make messes and make noise and act goofy, and no one told us to pull ourselves together and do things properly. And whatever we did, whatever we made… you and your family always called it beautiful. Those were the best Christmases!"

If Betty had grabbed Pop Tate's frying pan from behind the counter, and smacked him in the face with it, Jughead couldn't have been any more flabbergasted. He'd spent his entire life being grateful for Betty's kindness and creativity in brightening Christmas for him and his little sister, and he still was. He'd never imagined, though, that those memories would be equally precious to her… that they'd mattered to her, as more than just acts of charity and goodness in the midst of her own, more conventional Christmas celebrations.

It was like those optical illusion drawings that had fascinated him as a child… the ones where the same picture was two very different things – both a vase and two faces in profile, both a duck and a rabbit. Suddenly, he found himself looking at those Christmas memories and seeing them entirely differently from the way he'd seen them all his life. He could still see the way they'd brightened his difficult life, of course. But he could see a different picture, too… and it felt like something was shifting inside him at the new perspective.

He put none of that into words, though. Instead, he shrugged one shoulder with a casualness he didn't even remotely feel and said, "Better eat up then. Looks like we're heading to the trailer."