The week that follows FP's funeral proves to be the longest of both Betty and Jughead's lives. With Jughead's refusal to stay in his father's trailer, he's taken to whining at the door every night. Betty has come to expect him and lets him in, leading him up to her room where he shifts from a wounded beast to a heartbroken boy before her eyes. He doesn't cry anymore, but his silence is so much worse to bear.

Things get worse before they get better. As he begins to gain his wits about him, he grows paranoid that something might happen to Betty. She understands, the whole pack does; the heartache of losing a parent is nothing compared to that of losing a mate. To ease his worries, the pack has taken to rotations, many of the older wolves keeping watch around her house during the night while Jughead sleeps with one eye open beside her. The younger wolves keep up their watch during school hours, one of them always by her side when Jughead can't be. She's used to it by now, always having a set of eyes on her, and she tries in her own ways to ease Jughead's mind, casting various protection spells, but she's yet to master a spell with the longevity of more than a few hours. The best she can do is ease Jughead's anxiety with gemstones and herbal teas that he's not particularly keen on drinking.

By the third week, Jughead has eased up a bit, his anguish lessened slightly with the passing of time. At the very least, he's talking again.

"You're sure I can't come with you," Betty questions for the third time this morning as they stand outside the school doors.

Jughead shakes his head. "I want you here, where I know you'll be safe with Pea."

"You know he's pissed he can't go," she smirks.

"He has more important things to do," Jughead says flatly.

"And the meeting with packs from all over the country discussing Penny's whereabouts over the past forty five years isn't important," she challenges as she rings her arms around his neck.

He nuzzles his face into the crook of her neck, breathing her in with long slow inhale, sighing upon his exhale.

"You are the most important thing to me," he says with a fondness that brings a smile to her lips. "If that means Pea has to miss out on drooling over werewolf chicks, so be it."

"You're a cruel leader," she teases with a peck to his lips. "I love you."

"I love you more," he whispers softly. "You stay with Pea and you go straight home after school."

Betty nods.

"Promise me," he demands, his hold on her tightening, unwilling to let her go without hearing her say the words.

"I promise Juggy."

With a final kiss to her lips, he passes her off to Sweet Pea with the instruction that she doesn't leave his sight for even a second before taking his leave.

From the moment Betty is handed off to Pea, she senses something is off with him. She doesn't know if he's just nervous to be the only one keeping an eye on her today, but he's terribly restless, watching her every move as if she were a ticking time bomb. All day, he's incredibly over helpful, more so than appropriate, holding every door, guiding her through the halls with his hand low on her back. He spends every chance he gets sniffing at her and he's not the least bit discrete about it. He's even gone as far as to put himself between her and anyone who tries to strike up a conversation. By the end of the day Betty is fed up. She can take the overprotective watchful eyes, but he's pushing boundaries.

All the way home, Betty puts up with Sweet Pea's anxiety riddled glances, his not so subtle sniffs of every body part he can get to as they walk. By the time they get up to her room she's ready to snap.

"What is with you," she clips, urging him to take a step back.

Without a word he backs her to the bed and urges her down with a heavy hand on her shoulder.

"Sweet Pea," she warns, ready to shove him off, only to pause in shock when he falls to his knees and sniffs wildly at her abdomen. She watches in confusion as he sits back, his face going pale as his eyes widen with worry.

"No way," he whispers to himself as he rises to his feet. His hands rake back into his hair as he begins to pace the floor before her. He pauses momentarily to stare at her in shock before pacing once more.

"Pea," she says in question, her tone conveying her intensifying worry.

He stops mid stride, staring her straight in the eye as his jaw quivers with the words on the tip of his tongue.

"You're pregnant."

"What," she laughs, entirely perplexed by the combination of his insane declaration and the horrified look on his face.

"This isn't a joke," he snaps.

"Ok," she nods. "Let's say I believe you. How are you so sure?"

"I can smell her," he whispers guiltily, his gaze dropping to his feet. "She's mine."

"Excuse me?"

"Shit," he worries, his hands finding their way back into his hair as he drops to his knees on the floor. "Please don't tell Jughead. Oh god he's gonna kill me."

Betty mulls over what he's just said. She couldn't possibly be pregnant with Sweet Pea's baby. The math doesn't add up and he hadn't even... Oh. It all clicks into place and she's both relieved and horribly confused.

"Ok. Pea, relax," she tells him gently, lifting him by the elbow to settle him beside her at the edge of the bed. "First of all, Jughead doesn't even know I'm pregnant. Hell, I didn't even know. Secondly, he's not going to kill you. I would never let that happen."

Sweet Pea nods, clearly wracked with guilt for a matter he has no control over and it breaks her heart.

"How can she be your mate," Betty asks with uncertainty. "I mean, by the time she's eighteen you'll be like, what, thirty-five?"

Sweet Pea nods. "Thirty-four actually, but that doesn't matter."

"How can that not matter?"

"Because wolves live for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years," he shrugs. "After a wolf's eighteenth birthday, the aging process slows to near nothing, so essentially I'll still be eighteen-ish, when she is."

Betty looks to him with an unreadable expression. "This is already such a mess," she sighs, palming her forehead.

Sweet Pea sits quietly at her side, his shoulders dropped and his head hung low. If he were in his wolf form she's almost certain he'd have his tail between his legs. She offers a gentle smile before wrapping him up in a tight hug.

"Your secret's safe with me for now, but we are going to have to tell him eventually."

"I know," he sighs.

Later that evening Jughead arrives at the Cooper household, looking utterly exhausted, just in time for Alice to walk through the door with pizza. She pauses in the living room, taking in the sight of two very large boys, only one of which she knows, beside her petite daughter on the couch, all looking a little worse for wear.

"There's plenty if you boys want to eat," she offers kindly as she continues her stride into the kitchen.

Jughead groans, his head dropping to the back of the couch as he swipes his hands down over his tired features.

"Should we tell her," he questions under his breath.

"No," Betty says with a shake of her head.

Jughead nods in understanding. "I don't want her to be blindsided if I can't protect you."

"You can't protect me if she doesn't let you in anymore," Betty argues.

"Fine," he sighs, "but as soon as Penny is dealt with, we tell her."

Betty nods and urges the boys to follow her to the kitchen.

Alice stands at the counter, a single slice of pizza folded in half in her hand as she flips through the mail.

"Mm, eat, eat," she encourages through a mouthful. "Who's your friend?"

"Oh, uhm, this is Sweet Pea, Jug's friend," Betty tells her.

Alice nods, making the connection between the boys with a quick glance at the serpent on his neck.

"Southside Serpents huh," she comments indifferently.

"Yes ma'am," Sweet Pea nods politely, glancing between Betty and Jughead for assurance.

Alice only nods, her eyes lingering just a moment too long on Jughead before she leaves them to enjoy their pizza.

"That was weird," Sweet Pea comments under his breath.

"Too weird," Betty remarks with a glance over her shoulder in the direction her mother went off in.

"You think she knows," Jughead questions through a mouthful of cheese.

"No way." Betty shakes her head. "She hardly has anything on werewolves. Most of her collection is made up of things her grandmother passed down and great gran was a bit of a shut in. Everything I know I've found out on my own and I was never even sure it was even a real thing until you gave me my necklace. Even then I wasn't sure. I always thought it was more of a legend like giants."

"You know giants were real right," Sweet Pea mumbles as he chews his crust.

"They were not," she scoffs.

"Were too," he argues. "They found bones and shit."

"And where did you hear that, the internet?"

Sweet Pea only shrugs, biting off another bit of crust as Betty playfully sticks her tongue out at him.

"Well, if she knows, she didn't seem too worried about it," Jughead shrugs.

Betty only nods and bites into her slice of pizza, trying not to think too much of it with other concerns on her mind.

After devouring an entire pizza and enjoying some much needed down time relaxing on the couch, Sweet Pea heads outside to replace Fangs on watch until one of the elders arrives for the night. Betty and Jughead retire to her bedroom with Alice warning that Jughead has to go in an hour.

Uptairs, Jughead gets comfortable on the bed and hauls Betty into his lap. She giggles as she nearly falls forward against him, steadying herself on her knees at his sides.

"God I missed you," he sighs, brushing away a stray hair to tuck it behind her ear.

"I missed you too," she smiles. "How did it go?"

"Ok I guess," he shrugs. "Penny's been seen all over the place. There's no pattern about it, no particular reason she's been in any specific place, and she never sticks around long." He sighs heavily. "The only thing useful we got is that she's been spotted in Salem more often than anywhere else in the past few years with some underground coven. A couple of the elders say they're harmless, just a bunch of old witches that evaded the trials, but there's a few of them convinced Penny might be drawing power from them."

"Should we be worried," she wonders carefully.

"I'm always worried," he sighs, pulling her down to rest against his chest. He kisses her head and just holds her.

Betty can feel his tension, not only the rigidness of his body, but the sheer amount of stress he's been carrying for so long seems to flow freely between them. It pains her to know that he bears the weight of the world on his shoulders and she's about to shovel lead into his already full hands.

"Juggy," she murmurs.

"Hmm," he hums sleepily.

Betty sits up straight, removing herself from his lap to curl her knees against her chest on the bed.

"Betty," he says in question, taking in the worry on her brow as he sits up as well.

A single tear rolls down her cheek. She can't bring herself to tell him, she just can't.

"Baby, what's wrong," he worries. "Did something happen today? Do I need to kick Pea's ass?"

He's almost angry now, his brow heavy as he awaits her response. He has to know.

"I," she sniffles, "Juggy, I-"

"Bett's, you're scaring me."

"I'm pregnant," she blurts out.

Jughead's eyes go wide with shock, his breath catching in his throat as he backs away from the bed. His hands are in his hair, his beanie knocked to the floor as tears well up in his eyes. Betty reaches out for him, but he's down the stairs and out the front door before she can even grasp what just happened.