He meets Betty Cooper when he's five years old. His desk is next to hers in their kindergarten class, name tags taped at the top with big bold lettering spelling their names. Jughead can read some words but he doesn't know the one on the desk next to his. He does know, though, that his spells Forsythe and he is not happy about it. As he's sulking in his chair a little girl in a pink dress with white ruffles and hair that looks nothing like his runs up to him and says, "Hi, I'm Betty, I'm going to sit next to you!" And Jughead thinks that the name on the tag looks nothing like what she just said.

"I don't think so," he says with a serious expression, "That doesn't sound right." He points to the name tag and looks back up at her. He notices then she has big green eyes and and a nice smile and she smells like cookies and there's nothing Jughead likes more than cookies.

"No that's me, I'm Elizabeth but I like to be called Betty," she says with a lift of her shoulders like it's not a big deal. "I like your hat! What's your name?"

"Jughead," he tells her, still sulking over the Forsythe written on his desk.

"That doesn't look like what's on your tag, is it a nickname like mine?" Betty asks him shuffling into the small plastic chair next to him.

"Yeah, I hate that name. I told them to call me Jughead but they didn't listen."

"Let's fix it," Betty says with a smile as she leans towards him. "My mom gave me paper and crayons before we came here, do you think we can get some tape?"

He doesn't know if anyone will give them some but he does think they can get it themselves if they try. He sees his best friend, Archie Andrews, walk through the door and an idea comes to him.

"Archie!" he calls out, waving his hand at his friend.

"You know Archie too?" Betty asks excitedly.

"He's my best friend," Jughead tells her seriously.

"Mine too!" she tells him with an even bigger smile than before. "I met him after we moved in next door to him."

Archie reaches them with a bright red backpack and blue lunch box and says, "Betty! Jughead! I didn't know we were all gonna be in the same class. This is awesome."

"Yeah it is," Jughead responds, "Archie, we need you to go ask the teacher a question before everyone is here, okay?"

"Okay, but why?"

"We need tape to fix our names on the desks."

"Alright," Archie agrees without question and walks back over to teacher and once they see her attention is on Archie, Jughead slips past her on quiet feet to gingerly grab the tape dispenser on her desk. By the time he gets back to where he and Betty are sitting, she's got two strips of paper out and an array of crayons out to write with.

"What color do you want?" Betty asks him, sliding over a piece of paper to his desk.

"Green," he says quickly, grabbing the crayon off her desk.

"I like green," she tells him, "I think I'm going to pick purple."

They both carefully and slowly make their new name tags with large colorful letters using more tape than necessary to cover up the other ones. Once finished, Betty looks for the teacher, seeing she's distracted by another grown up, she quickly takes the tape and sets it back on the desk where it belongs. Betty skips back to their desks and jumps into her chair happily just as the teacher turns her attention to the class.

Archie is three desks over so he doesn't know how often he will get to talk to him during class but he decides then and there that Betty may be the best girl he's ever met. As he looks at his new name tag taped slightly crooked to his desk he smiles at the green lettering.

It stays there for the whole year.

As Betty walks on the sidewalk headed toward the Twilight she thinks about the last few hours and Veronica's words keep repeating in her head.

First love isn't always the right love, Betty, sometimes you can only find what you need when you let yourself feel heartbreak. A broken heart isn't failure, it's life telling you to go in a different direction.

She knows, realistically, Archie was never going to return her feelings. He's not shy about asking girls out, he's not shy about dating them. If he was interested, she would have known by now. The sting of rejection is still there though, that bit of hurt that makes you want to know why you're not enough for them. Logically she knows you can't control the way people feel but hurt feelings are almost never logical.

The start of Veronica's party had been fun, she had let Veronica dress her up, there was good music and her friends, sans Jughead of course, but she was having a better time than she usually has at most parties. Until Cheryl Blossom showed up with her minions.

"The party can start now!" Cheryl announced, followed by the rest of the River Vixens. It's not that she dislikes Cheryl, it's that Cheryl dislikes her. She thinks it has something to do with Cheryl's brother, Jason, and her sister, Polly. Betty doesn't know what it's about yet but she's promised herself she'll find out.

"Well, well, Veronica Lodge, not inviting a Blossom to your new in town party? Are you already trying to commit social suicide?" Cheryl questions Veronica with a defiant look on her face.

"Oh Cheryl, if you think you're going to come into my house and intimidate me let me tell you, your small town mean girl act is actually embarrassing, you wouldn't last a week in the city."

Cheryl stands with her arms crossed, a smirk on her face and contemplation in her eyes before she finally says, "You pass, Veronica Lodge. I expect you at Vixen tryouts on Monday. Leave the baggage at home," she adds with a contemptuous look at Betty.

"No B, no V, Cheryl. And if you try and fat shame Betty like you did last year we're going to see how well you can cheer with my heel prints on your face," Veronica tells her with hard eyes that promise retribution.

"We'll see."

It had been nice to have someone defend her to Cheryl. Though she loves him, Kevin is often entertained first and concerned second when drama happens. Archie will stick up for her as well but only if he hears it and Cheryl is very good at getting her alone to tear her down. Jughead always tells Cheryl to stop when she catches them together but then again she's just as likely to go after Jughead as well so it's easier for both of them to walk away.

She's only about five minutes away from the drive-in when her mind inevitably goes back to the reason she ran away in the first place.

"Now that everyone relevant is here, as well as you, Betty-"

"Cheryl!" Veronica yells from her place next to Betty on the couch.

"Fine. Now that everyone is here, let the games begin."

She grabbed an empty bottle and set it on the floor, the implication of the game clear.

"Spin the Bottle? Really? Are we thirteen again?" Veronica questions with a roll of her eyes.

"No, it's Spin the Bottle with the added bonus of 7 Minutes in Heaven."

"Very mature, Cheryl."

"Maturity has little room in games of entertainment, Veronica. Okay, who wants to go first?" Cheryl asks with eyes wandering and flitting between Archie and Betty. "I think we'll go alphabetical. Andrews, you're up."

Archie just shrugs and spins the bottle watching where it could potentially land. Whether it was fate or just a terrible sequence of events, the unthinkable happens.

It lands directly pointing at Betty.

Betty stiffens with apprehension and Archie looks uncomfortable. Betty hears Kevin whisper, "I can't breathe!" to Veronica and Veronica is looking at Betty with sympathy trying to figure out a way to salvage this for her. She doesn't have to, though, Archie does it just fine for her in a way that proves his intentions with Betty are always going to be pure.

It's not said with malice, it's intent is to protect their friendship and keep the status quo between them and Betty can't even pretend to be surprised when she hears him say, "No way, Betty is like my sister."

Veronica is holding her hand tightly and she can feel numerous pairs of eyes on her and she maintains that Cooper passivity that's been drilled into her since she could walk. She's taking even breaths, she's willing her hands not to curl into themselves which is easier with the comfort Veronica is giving her.

Betty thinks it takes less than a minute total but by the time the world stops spinning Archie's got Val in the closet and she's kept her composure. Alice Cooper would be so proud.

It's a half hour later when Veronica is giving her words to think over when she says she just wants to leave, she'll walk, she's fine, thanks for everything, V.

Betty climbs the steps to the projection booth at the Twilight, skipping the squeaky one, and finally opening the door with a light knock and sees Jughead look at her with surprised eyes.

"Hi, Juggie."

"Hey. I thought you were at Veronica's party?" he asks her looking at the dress she's wearing. "You look nice."

"Thanks. I was, I felt like leaving. So, what are you playing?" Betty wonders, going over to sit next to him on the cot up against the wall.

"We both know I was going to put your suggestion on, Betts. Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, a good story? It's perfect," he tells her with a soft smile and nudge to her shoulder. "So, what really happened?"

"How come you always know?"

"One of my many talents, Cooper. Now fess up."

"Cheryl showed up-"

"That would do it," Jughead interrupts.

"And of course she wants to play Spin the Bottle. Which leads into 7 Minutes in Heaven."

"Lame."

"True, but then she makes Archie go first and of course it lands on me just so I can hear him tell everyone in the room he doesn't want to because I'm like his sister."

"I'm sorry, Betty."

"Yeah, me too. It's not even that he rejected me, I knew that was coming-"

"What? Why would you think that?"

"Boys who are interested in someone usually go after them," she tells him, noticing his eyes widen for a fraction of a second. She slumps further against the wall and looks down at her hands in her lap. "So, it's not even that he rejected me, I could have told you that, it's just so much easier to focus on Archie than it is to admit I'm lonely."

"Lonely? You have a lot of friends, Betty."

"Yeah, but, I'd like to date before college at some point. Friends, sure, but also it's nice to know someone wants to kiss you, you know?"

"If it helps, I totally would have taken you in the closet," Jughead says to her with a sideways smile.

"Is that so?"

"Sure. We could have made over-under bets on the odds of Moose leaving with Midge or Kevin and go through all the pockets of the coats for Pop's money."

"Thanks, Jug," she tells him finally wearing a genuine smile.

They sit quietly side by side watching the rest of the movie and when he walks her home, before she climbs the steps to her front door he declares, "Betty, you don't want Archie cast as your Romeo anyhow, I heard that story has a terrible ending."

She laughs and sighs as she says, "Goodnight Jughead."

"'Night, Betty."

The next morning Jughead is staring silently at the person sitting across from him in Pop's. He huffs out a breath, not willing to believe what he was about to do, it goes against everything he's ever stood for. The chance it could blow up in his face is very real and very nerve-wracking to the delicate balance he's been trying to maintain.

"Thanks for meeting me," he says to his companion.

"No problem, want to tell me what this is about?"

"First let me say that I am against this. This is a substantially bad idea. I want that made clear, okay?"

"It's clear."

"Whatever you and Kevin have planned and we both know that you have something brewing involving me and Betty, don't deny it, I want in."

Across from him, Veronica leans back into the vinyl of her seat and smiles.