Betty's sitting next to him in the projection booth at the Twilight hours after they'd gone through her mom's office. Not knowing what to say isn't something he often experiences with Betty but this time, he's at a loss for words. She's got her head laying on his shoulder, staring blankly at the movie playing, looking sadder than he's ever seen her. If he could go back and stop her from finding what she did, he might. Wanting to know the truth and knowing the truth are two very separate and distinctive things and he wishes he could fix this one.
He can't. Not this time.
"So, I thought we'd start in my mom's office. If we find nothing there, there might be papers at the Register, I can probably come up with an excuse to get into her office there," Betty tells him, handing him a plate full of pancakes.
"Were you stress cooking again, Betty?"
"Don't act like you're not grateful, Jug, it doesn't suit you," she says with a roll of her eyes.
Pouring syrup over the stack he's about to eat he responds, "Never let it be said I'm ungrateful about food. I am the most grateful. The greatest of gratefuls. I bow down to the possible annihilation of Betty Cooper's psyche so as long as there is food involved."
"You know, I'd bet your first words were sarcastic. For your information though, I really just wanted pancakes. Mom can't judge my choices if she can't see them."
"Betts-"
"And also, the stress baking was for the banana bread I made for you. It's in the kitchen," she says with a shrug. "Don't look so smug or I won't give it to you."
"Does it have blueberries and the cinnamon sugar topping?"
"Of course, is there any other kind?"
"Then consider my smugness gone. Who is smug? I don't know her," Jughead replies, eyes drifting over to the kitchen where he can see his prize sitting on the counter.
He's trying to let her talk in her own time while he sits there, not knowing what to do other than let her be. As much as he's used to parents letting you down, especially with his mom leaving and taking Jellybean over the summer, he didn't think Betty's would be even worse than his own mom and dad.
"I'll start with the desk, can you look through the filing cabinet?" she asks him, "Try to keep everything where it goes, because my mom will notice if we don't."
"Sure thing," he tells her as he heads to the cabinet. At least it's organized he thinks, starting with the files marked A.
They spend at least twenty minutes in silence, reading over every paper they can find, making sure to keep everything in order. So far he's found banking information, tax information, mortgage information, but nothing Polly related aside from her birth certificate.
"Hey, did you know you have a college fund? I bet even if I had one it'd be a broken piggy bank with, like, five IOU's in it from my dad," Jughead jokes as he turns around and sees her sitting still with an open locked box and a devastated look on her face."Betty?"
"She wrote me letters, Jug. They're from some place called Sisters of Quiet Mercy. They sent her away, lied to me, then hid the letters she's been writing! What if she thinks I'm glad she's gone? Why would they send her away?" Betty rants at him. "She's been there since the beginning of summer! They've been lying to me for months. Months, Jughead!"
"Are you going to read the letters?" he asks her, walking around to the desk to look at what's in her hands.
"I can't. If I open them my parents will know for sure so I don't know what to do, I don't want to tip them off before I know everything."
"What's the postmark on the last letter?"
"A few weeks ago, they stop after that."
The movie is almost over by the time she speaks again.
"We need to go visit this Sisters of Quiet Mercy place. It looks awful, Jug. Like a prison-convent-haunted horror house combination. Home for troubled youths? What could Polly have even done to make them send her there?"
"So, if Polly was sent away by your parents, where is Jason Blossom?" Jughead questions, not knowing where or how all of the pieces connect.
"We need to talk to Polly," Betty answers, "I need to see her, Juggie."
"Then that's what we'll do."
She's made so many muffins and breads and cupcakes she's glad she's not a stress eater on top of all the baking she's doing to calm down. She ended up at Archie's front door the next day with more muffins than is probably socially acceptable. According to Jughead, who was there at the time, there are no social limits on the amounts of muffins one can receive, Betty. Not that his opinion on food should be trusted. She's almost certain she's seen him put sugar on top of ice cream once.
They haven't told anyone their plans to find Polly yet. The buses don't run on Sundays so they need to skip school to get there and hope no one finds out. She's not sure how they're going to do that but they'll figure it out, they always do.
Currently she's got a bigger problem she's upset she didn't catch on to before. Sitting next to Jughead at their lunch table she scoots as close as she can get and whispers, "When were you going to tell me you're staying at the Twilight?" She hadn't said anything but she had seen some of his things she knows he usually keeps at home in the projection booth the day she found Polly's letters.
Jughead pales and leans away from her but she catches his hand and pulls him back. He's looking between her and Archie, clearly panicking.
"I'm not going to tell him, Jug, you didn't even want me to know, but Juggie, it's going to get cold soon and that room has no insulation."
"Things are...not good at home with my dad. You know how my mom took Jellybean to Ohio over the summer?" he asks her in a low voice.
"Yeah, they're not back yet? I thought Jellybean was in school at Riverdale Elementary."
"It wasn't a visit, Betty. She moved and took Jellybean with her," he says, the hurt in his voice clear.
"Oh my god, Jug, I'm sorry. Your dad drinking again?"
"Yeah. Enough for me to not want to go home so I haven't been home since the beginning of the summer. I don't know what he's up to but I know it's not good-"
"What are you guys talking about?" Archie interrupts, still eating his lunch and looking morose next to a quiet Val.
"Security clearance level Blue and Gold, Arch. No can share at the moment," Jughead responds quickly.
"Hey, don't you have the variety show coming up?" Betty asks, distracting Archie, seeing Veronica and Kevin approach.
"Yes, he does," Veronica interjects, sitting next to Archie. "Kevin was nicely reminded he's heard you sing-"
"Numerous times," Kevin starts.
"So you have a spot open if you want it," Veronica continues with a glare at Kevin.
"Who needs artistic integrity?" Kevin complains to himself, starting to eat his lunch.
Betty is watching the by-play of Veronica offering to sing with Archie while Kevin looks disgruntled and Val looking sad and she doesn't think she has the energy to get into the middle of all of it. She turns back to Jughead and says, "I think we should go on Friday, if we leave at lunch we can catch the afternoon bus."
"Sounds good to me. You're sure the school isn't going to call your mom?"
"Not if I tell Principal Weatherbee I need to spend that afternoon working on the Homecoming dance committee in the Blue and Gold office," she tells him.
"Look at you sneaking around using people's expectations of you against them. I like it," he declares with a smile.
"What are you two looking so shifty about over there?" Veronica wants to know. She's got her eyebrow raised and is staring at Jughead like he'll fold and confess his deepest secrets by her willpower alone. If she weren't so worried about Polly and Jughead's living situation she'd be incredibly amused. They're both so stubborn if they ever end up butting heads she thinks both their skulls will end up cracked before either give in.
"They're playing Nancy Drew and keeping it to themselves, Ronnie," Archie pipes up.
"That's right, Veronica. Very important, very hush hush, on a need to know basis and since even I barely need to know I'm going to have to go ahead and ignore your question," Jughead tells her, getting up and grabbing the rest of his lunch while waiting for Betty to do the same.
"Hmm, detectives you say? I'm intrigued, B. I want to know more later," Veronica remarks with a smile at her.
As they're walking away she can swear she hears Kevin say, "If only they were playing Doctor instead."
Betty thinks she heard that wrong but by the choking sound Jughead lets out she thinks she heard it right.This year is shaping up to be an odd one, she thinks as they head into the school.
If he can think of one person who doesn't deserve the punches they keep getting, he would pick Betty. Every time she thinks she's got something figured out, it blows up in her face through no fault of her own.
Their trip to Sisters of Quiet Mercy had been a bust. They spent so much time planning and getting there that in the end when it didn't even matter, Betty spent the whole bus ride back crying into his shoulder. Again.
"Are you ready?" Betty asks, adjusting her bag with a determined look on her face as they snuck off of the school's campus to make their way to the bus station.
"I am, let's do this."
The bus ride there had been tedious and anxiety ridden as she fidgeted and curled her hands into herself, letting him stop her before she broke skin each time. He had caught her doing it their Freshman year when the pressure of being in high school with a new set of expectations and harder classes had finally caused her to need an outlet. It was also the time her mom started pushing ADHD meds on her. Meds she's refused to take so far, she's said she gets rid of them in a different way each week so her mom doesn't catch on.
They had been in the library and she had been staring straight ahead looking angry and when he finally caught her attention she'd put her hand on the paper she was working on and he had seen blood smeared on it.
"Betty? Are you okay?"
"What?" she replies, grabbing the paper and pulling it off the table. "I'm fine, Jug."
"You're bleeding, did you cut yourself?"
"It's fine."
He grabs her hand expecting some sort of morbid paper cut but he sees four nail punctures and he's horrified she's done something like that to herself. The amount of pressure alone it would take to pierce your own skin is immense. "This is probably the very definition of not fine, Betty. What's going on?"
She pulls her hand back, looking ashamed. "I don't even know, sometimes I don't even know I've done it until it's happened."
"Have you told your parents? Or Archie? Kevin, maybe?"
"Of course not, you're the first person to know. Or see it, probably. If my mom's seen it she's ignoring it which is what I would expect from her."
"Come on, let's get them cleaned up," he tells her, leading her out of the library while making sure she's not curling her hands back up.
He doesn't bring it up after, he knows she'd just make more of an effort to pretend it's not a problem so he just slips whatever's available into her hand when he sees her start to do it. Pens, pencils, a chapstick, even a gummy worm once. That one had made her laugh at least. If nothing else is available he'll use his own hand to make her stop. She never says anything but she always squeezes his hand and he knows it's gratitude.
He's standing there, not knowing what to do while knowing doing nothing isn't an option. They hit another dead end but neither are ready to give up. A new plan, a new direction. It's not one either want to take but they can't think of anyone else that might have any information and the adults in their lives aren't doing much else besides lying.
They're in the lobby of the freaky prison like hospital. Home for troubled youths or terrifying asylum of evil? He knows which description he'd pick. Betty had tightened her ponytail, stood with steel in her spine and marched up to the desk asking for Polly Cooper.
"And who are you?" the woman at the desk asks with disapproval on her face.
"Elizabeth Cooper, I'm her sister."
"Well, Elizabeth Cooper, I'd think you'd know better where Polly is than we do. She disappeared weeks ago in the middle of the night."
"What?!" Betty cries out, looking at him with disbelieving eyes.
"We informed your parents, dear. It's not our problem if they don't inform you. So sorry I couldn't help you," she tells them, a clear dismissal.
"Come on, Betts, let's make sure we don't miss the bus back, okay?" Jughead murmurs to her, leading her out by her elbow. Her face is pale and her eyes are watering. She looks so broken again, the way she did after she found a pile of letters she couldn't even read without being found out.
She had been mostly silent between crying the whole way back. He tried to offer her platitudes he knew weren't going to work. He kept telling her they'd find the answer, that a set back wasn't failure. Jughead isn't sure she heard any of it but the minute they stepped off the bus, back at Riverdale, she looked at him and said, "We need to talk to Cheryl."
Part of him knew that was coming. He's hoping it'll be painless but it's also Cheryl so his hopes for not needing to partake in some sort of ritual sacrifice are lower than one would expect. He thinks they have too much going on for being in high school. At this rate they're going to be leading revolutions by college.
He's exhausted just thinking about it.
Worried about Betty, he's standing there thinking the best way to approach this, Alice Cooper had been one pissed off woman when they had gotten back.
He's walking her home and she's got her hand in the crook of his elbow, talking about strategy to approach Cheryl when she sees her mom standing at the top of the stairs outside of the front of their house, looking furious.
"Mom?" Betty says apprehensively, coming to a stop, tightening her hold on him.
"Elizabeth Cooper, I want you in this house now!" her mom demands, turning and going through the front door.
"Oh god, Jug. This is not going to be good," Betty utters forlornly.
"No it's not. Just remember that they've been lying to you, okay? She can yell at you but she's not going to kill you over this. Most likely," he tells her, putting a hand on her neck to keep her steady. "The worst she can do is ground you and give you the silent treatment with looks of disappointment."
"That's true. Alright, I'm going in. If you don't see or hear from me within twenty-four hours, assume that fire breathing dragon theory you've had since fifth grade to be confirmed and wipe my hard drive, okay?"
"You got it, Betts."
And he hasn't heard from her in twenty three hours so he's not taking any chances. He's a little more worried than he's letting on, he almost asked Archie if he'd seen her but he can't ask without giving Archie some of the info he's not sure she wants shared right now.
Betty's sitting at her vanity, thinking about her parents lies, her missing sister, her plans with Jughead and confronting Cheryl as soon as possible when she hears a knock on her window.
When she looks over she sees Jughead outside and smiles in confusion. She had been joking about the twenty four hour thing she told him the day before. Mostly. Her mom had yelled at her for what felt like hours but in the end she ended up with the exact same information she had started with.
As she shoves the window up her smile gets bigger as he looks up and says, "Hey there, Juliet."