she hasn’t seen him in over seven years, but he’s seen her.
jughead doesn’t usually watch the news, but in the middle of turning on the tv and taking some medicine to ease the killing hangover he had, he didn’t have time to change it before the news story caught his eye.
fbi trainee saved after weeks of captivity.
holy shit, he thinks to himself as he turns up the volume and leans forwards a little on the couch. the newsreader’s face is grim as she looks at him through the tv, sipping his coffee. as the story has already caught his eye he doesn’t turn it off. not even an agent being captured but a trainee? he’d expect they would be stepping away from the job by then.
“after just over two weeks of being held captive by the serial killer some are now nicknaming ‘the trash bag killer’, the agent is now safely recovering in hospital with no fatal injuries,” the newsreader continues as jughead leans back with another sip of coffee. “ms. betty cooper, a woman barely in her twenties, yet subject to such violence and terror...”
he chokes on his coffee. he sits and splutters on the bitter drink halfway down his throat and lets the mug sit back down on the coffee table, causing more to slop onto the surface. coffee is down his shirt and his chest hurts from coughing but he still turns up the tv to pay more attention.
“ms. cooper was found late sunday evening shaking and with some injuries, though luckily she was found before anything permanent could happen to her. she is recovering with friends and family and should be okay.”
jughead had to turn the tv off when pictures of the crime scene started flashing on the screen, suddenly feeling violently sick.
the apartment was too silent as his head fell into his hands as he tried to process what he had just heard. betty had been held captive? god knows what could have even happened to her. was she hurt badly? was she starved? was she tortured? the thought was enough for his breakfast to make it’s way up his throat and jughead barely made it to the kitchen sink before the contents of his stomach were emptied into the sink.
he debated on grabbing his phone and calling her, but he couldn’t do that. she had just been through probably the most traumatic experience of her life (although she had been through a lot of those) and he doubted she wanted her ex high school boyfriend calling her.
as he still felt nauseous jughead settled with sitting on the kitchen floor as he still tried to process the fact that betty had been kidnapped and held by some psycho. before he knew it there were tears in his eyes and he squeezed them shut as his head fell against his knees, memories of betty, his betty, that he had pushed to the back of his mind for years suddenly swarmed around his mind.
when he saw her again in person he really didn’t know what to expect. how much could that event had changed her? he knew that she was resilient but christ she had been through so much. he was nervous the whole journey to riverdale, sick to his stomach even.
but when he saw her she seemed exactly like the same person he’d been with seven years ago. she was smiling and laughing and looked like she was enjoying herself. maybe he had been wrong. there had to be more than one betty cooper out there, right? maybe this betty wasn’t the one.
he met her eyes with an awkward hello before he sat next to her in the booth, trying not to look at her too much. conversation flowed and after mention of archie’s enrolment in the army and his book, betty brought up that she was training with the fbi.
and he felt sick again. it had happened to her.
he decided to go against telling her that he knew, he decided with a glance at her again. she seemed happy to not be thinking about it and he didn’t want to upset her.
he just hoped she really was okay, even though he knew she couldn’t be after that.
