When Jughead woke up the next morning, he kept his eyes closed for as long as possible, savouring even the sensation of the semi-dilapidated couch under him. His muscles ached, his joints were sore, and today he had to go load up all his stuff from his old apartment and move it here.
The very last thing he wanted to do after yesterday. After this whole week, if he was being honest.
Eventually, he cracked his eyelids, unable to hold off the call of the bathroom for much longer. It still wasn't full bright outside. Instead, pale, dusty light fell in through the open curtains as Jughead pulled himself to his feet, his body moaning in vehement protest. The walk to the washroom was more a of stinted stagger, but once he emerged and stretched more, he felt his groove come back.
Jellybean shuffled out of her room a few minutes later as he was pulling on his sneakers to go get coffee.
"Coffee?" he asked, tying his laces.
"Decaf, please," she responded, still sleep-hushed. "I got stuff for eggs and bacon. Interested?"
"Hell yes. Be back in a few."
"Please, Kevin?" Betty begged.
"It's next weekend?" her chef friend asked from the other end of the line.
"Saturday." Betty nodded enthusiastically, though he couldn't see her.
Kevin was silent for a moment. "Okay, I have an idea. Let me figure out if it's doable... I'll call you back in a minute."
Betty gave an excited squeal, hopping up from her couch with a grin. That sounded promising. It was useless to think about what she would do if the answer was yes, because it may well not be in the end, but nonetheless, she was happy. She threw her stuff into her bag and started packing up from her work whirlwind.
Betty chose to work from home that morning, trying to scramble and get the caterers sorted for the one wedding, and then also solving a logistical problem involving marquee setup and takedown for another. Time marched on, and suddenly it was early afternoon.
She deposited her coffee mug into the sink, along with her breakfast dishes; she hated leaving stuff to wash later, but time was of the essence.
In a few minutes, Betty had changed and brushed her teeth, and just as she secured a hair tie around her pony, her phone rang again.
"Kev?" she answered, grabbing her recently-repaired tote bag and her purse, and shoving her sunglasses onto her head deftly. Getting out the door was a fiasco sometimes.
"Okay, so I can't get away from the restaurant on Saturday but my sous-chef is willing to help you out. She's a good friend outside of work as well, and I think she'll be just as good at the job," Kevin said.
Betty pushed open the emergency exit to the stairwell, and took the steps two at a time.
"Oh my god Kevin, you're a lifesaver!"
"Oh, I know. So, okay, get me the menu they approved before, and I'll try to figure out what we can do to make it happen."
"Okay, that's great, I'll bring it over later. What time - oomph." Betty walked right into something with all the force of her momentum.
"Betty?" Kevin asked from the phone in her hand.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" Betty stuck out a hand to stable herself and keep from toppling over.
It didn't hurt, the collision, because it was a mattress that she had run into.
"We're good, you good?" a familiar voice came from the other side of the padding. A second later, Jughead popped out from behind it, followed by a dark-haired woman that wasn't JB.
"Yeah, sorry, I was in a bit of a hurry," she explained, flushing.
"Here, Jug, help me shift this so she can get by," the raven-haired woman said, and Betty thanked them quickly.
"Nice seeing you again! Remember, 208!" Betty raised a hand and took the last flight of stairs at a run. "Sorry, Kev, I literally almost knocked some people over. I'll see you later tonight, text me when to come over!"
Every box, bag, sack, and basket of their stuff was finally relocated into the apartment. Archie and Veronica had come back the next day to help Jughead move all his stuff from their old apartment, and then Jughead had been able to return the rental and make his way back to their new home.
This was kind of a big deal for him. He hadn't lived under the same roof as JB since they were kids. Their mom had taken Jelly when she had left their dad - and Riverdale - years ago. By the time JB had decided she wanted to live with their dad again in her late teens, Jughead had already moved into the city and started at NYU.
He wasn't really sure what this new situation was going to bring.
He was taking on a lot of responsibility, he knew, but it felt right. He couldn't stand by and let his sister make do with the bare minimum, watch her scrape by emotionally and financially as she did the important job of raising her child.
They had briefly talked about what she would do once she was in the city. She maintained that she would look for some part time work and bank the cash for them. She was completely aware of what Jughead was taking on, the enormity of it, and she was damn determined not to let him think she took it for granted.
She would find some work where she could, and when she gave birth, she would take some time off before doing some part time night and weekend work so that she wouldn't have to pay a sitter to watch the baby - Jughead would likely be home from work at those times. Certainly not what he had planned his life looking like, but as he had said to his little sister before, that's what family does. They support each other. They form a team and make the best of it.
Jellybean had been bopping along to the radio in the Honda as Jughead drove them back from the rental dropoff place.
"You're alright, right?" she piped up, turning the music down, and he looked over. She was leaning against the passenger side window and gazing out at the city whipping by them. It was a second before she turned to meet his eyes. "With all this?"
"Yeah, Jelly," he responded with a small smile. "I'm good."
"I still don't really know how I'm gonna be able to pay you back," she mumbled, fiddling with the hem of her shirt before dropping it consciously.
"You don't need to," he answered, eyes back on the road. "Well, actually, you can. Just work really hard, and be a good mom, and get yourself through school. That'll be my payment."
She was quiet for the rest of the ride home, and Jughead could only guess that she was thinking over everything that was about to come their way.
She hadn't really elaborated on the situation, but his understanding was that Jelly had been unwilling to stay in Riverdale with the guy she'd been dating at the time of conception. He got the vague impression that the guy had been a Serpent, and a bad choice that she'd regretted almost instantly. He hadn't seen one shred of evidence that Jelly felt torn about leaving this guy behind, and he didn't get the sense that the guy had been overly upset about her going either.
That wasn't something he was going to push to find out just yet, though. He would let her offer it up if she felt like sharing.
They parked on their street and made their way back home in comfortable silence.
The neighbourhood was pretty nice, as JB had said. It was fairly clean, didn't have a lot of rundown buildings or homeless tents. It was a decent price for what it was, and it was within walking distance of transit for JB for when she needed it and couldn't use his car.
Hopefully, things were looking bright for the new trio.
"A new guy in the building? Is he cute?" Kevin popped the cork off the second bottle of wine, and Betty debated whether or not she really needed another glass.
"Oh my god, Kev, settle down." She rolled her eyes.
"I don't mean for me," he quipped. "I mean for you. Anything catch your eye?"
"I don't know," she hedged. "There were two guys. Both handsome in different ways, I suppose."
"Two, oh my god. Tell me more," he pressed, his face a mask of unadulterated delight.
They had sorted the menu. Betty needed to book a for-rent commercial kitchen in the morning, and redirect all the supplies for the banquet. Kevin had worked his magic and set her up with his Sous-Chef, Ethel, and a bunch of other employees of the restaurant that weren't scheduled, had volunteered to help the Head Chef's best friend, or were his personal industry acquaintances that could be counted upon for quality work. She had no idea how he'd been able to do it on such short notice, but that was why she had called him over anyone else.
They would all be well-compensated, of course, and Betty was just grateful that she wasn't completely screwed.
"There were girls there, too. Calm. Down. I'm sure they're both taken, considering."
"Seriously, Betty, you're not even going to indulge me?"
"No, Kev." She laughed. "It's not like I have time to date anyway, or have you conveniently forgotten the fiasco you just helped me avoid? Besides, not every guy looks at me and wants to date me, contrary to your belief."
He started to open his mouth to rebuke her, but she cut him off.
"And I'm not saying that in the self-deprecating, reassure-me-I'm-pretty way. I mean it in the same way that I mean not every guy who looks at you wants to rip your clothes off in the next second."
"Speak for yourself," he mumbled, filling his own glass anyway.
A week later found Betty in a small lull between her own weddings, and because she was on top of the two for the following week, she had seized the opportunity to take a few days off to run errands and do some relaxing before the end of August crunch at the wedding planning outfit she worked for. She was on call in case anything came up, but essentially, it was time to put her feet up and regain some sanity.
It had been six - eight, nine? - months since her breakup with Reggie, and the apartment felt too big without another person in there with her, but she still couldn't bring herself to look for a roommate. Having the privacy and the quiet of living alone had become fairly indispensable in the wake of the break up. During that time, she had thrown herself into work in order to keep herself busy for as much of her days as possible.
Currently, she was perched on the sofa, latest library loan open against her thighs, and a pint of cappuccino ice cream in her hand.
Dinner of champions.
When she was finished, she went to rinse the container and drop it in her recycling bin, only to discover that it needed to be emptied. Leaving the apartment, she trotted down to the main floor, dropped her recyclables off in the big bins for the building, and stopped to pick up her mail.
She lived a life of true excitement.
Upon arrival back in her apartment, Betty set her keys on the counter and leaned a hip against the dishwasher, flipping through her bills and mentally cataloguing them. There were two pieces of mail, though, that weren't hers. They were addressed for her apartment but there was no Forsythia Jones living here with her, of that she was sure. In fact, she didn't know a single person in the building named Forsythia.
Betty looked up at her ceiling.
The new people who had been moving in last week lived directly above her. The young woman who was expecting, Archie had called her Jellybean. That was surely a nickname. Maybe this was her mail?
Thinking of the pale purple hair and the bubbly personality, Betty found it hard to believe the woman's name was Forsythia, but maybe that was why she went by the name of a candy instead.
The theory made enough sense that Betty gathered up the mail and set off for the third floor. She came to a halt outside 308 and paused to listen. There were people inside, the sounds of their chatter reaching her ears.
Knock-knock-knock.
A moment later, the dark-haired man opened the door, and the sound level from inside rose.
"Hi," Betty started awkwardly. "I think maybe I got some of your mail?" She offered the envelopes to him. Betty felt like she was staring; his eyes were so blue. Dark, but so blue.
"Oh they're my sister's, sorry," he said, glancing down at the name printed on the labels. "She made a mistake on the mail forwarding thing. Jelly!" He called the last part over his shoulder, but got no response.
It sounded as if there were people over.
"Housewarming party, not my idea." He must have spotted her looking over his shoulder as well, because he gestured inside.
"Oh hi! Who's this, Jug?" The dark haired woman with the mattress she'd nearly bowled over last week was already making her way over to the pair at the door.
"This is Veronica, she was the one who organized it," he said to her before turning to answer the question the other woman had posed. "Uh, this is…" he petered off, unsure.
"It's Betty," she offered with a polite smile. "I just came to drop off some mail I got by mistake," she answered the question, before looking back to the man. "Don't worry, I forgot your name, too."
"It's Jughead."
She hadn't forgotten it; who could forget a name like Jughead?
"And I'm Veronica Lodge," she stuck a hand out for Betty to shake. "We didn't get a chance to meet the other day. You have to stay, we have so much pizza."
"Oh, well -" Betty was shocked by the sudden invitation.
"Did you not invite her in already, Jughead? How rude," Veronica declared, ushering Betty inside and leaving Jughead to close the front door.
A/N: GUYS guys you're all so great for supporting me. Thanks so much to everyone reading and reviewing. They make my days.