Sign of the Times
Bughead + FP x Alice parallels
Synopsis: After the fight with Chuck on his birthday party, Jughead left behind an alone Betty Cooper inside Archie’s house. Alice and FP Jones talk to them, trying to make them understand what they were abandoning and without realising they drift down memory lane. After secrets are revealed and old papers are found, Betty and Jughead discover some odd information about their parents younger years.
Chapter 1: Parallels
Outside, FP Jones was talking to his son, while Betty Cooper was waiting, sat on the couch of Archie’s house. She was tightening her fists the harder she could, feeling the flesh underneath her nails burning. She dreaded that Jughead wouldn’t come back and everything they had build would have an end right there, all because of Chuck Clayton. Time didn’t seem to pass, then, she heard a noise on the front door and got up immediately.
“I’m so sorry, Betty.” - She heard FP saying, entering the house, alone. Betty tried to wipe her tears and nodded her head, accepting she had lost.
“Betty, you can stay here if-…” - Archie tried to comfort her, but she interrupted him before he could finish his sentence.
“It’s okay, Arch. I think it’s better I go home, see you tomorrow.” - Betty hugged him briefly and walked with FP towards the porch.
“Betty…” - FP called her as soon as she started heading home. She crossed her arms and turned around to face him. He looked uncomfortable, his hands deep inside his pocket jeans, his jaw was clenched, his feet unstable. He sighed before continuing to speak. “Please, don’t give up… don’t give up on Jughead. Even if right now it seems there’s no coming back. You guys are young, but youth drains fast and time pass quickly in this age. - his tone was nostalgic as he was hurting from his own words. The girl snuff before asking confused - “What do you mean?” - she took a step forward.
“Just… just take this piece of advice from this old man; Jughead is a good boy and he cares about you. Love isn’t an easy feeling, but if you feel like that about my son, don’t give up. I did it once.” - He answered, leaving his words blowing on the wind without saying anything else. And Betty just stood there, on the porch, noticing how his voice was full of remorse, dazed, trying to make sense out of everything it had happened that night and how fast things can change. Had she lost Jughead forever? Was it now the time she would withdrawn?
[...]
Far away from there, inside his trailer, FP Jones tried to drown his memories on alcohol, all those memories which wouldn’t stop haunting him that night. Betty Cooper was the copy of a once young Alice: beautiful, intelligent and determined. He still remembered how was Alice's smile when she was seventeen years old, when the two of them still dreamed about their futures. He remembered her on her yellow uniform from Pop’s, her hair loose in a ponytail and the pen she would write down quick orders laying behind her ear. She was quite the view, and even twenty years after, he was still able to remember the strawberry scent from her hair, mixed with the nicotine of his cigarettes and both of them leaving Pop’s on his old pickup truck he had inherited from his grandfather. That night FP had to drink two bottles so the image of Alice Cooper could leave his mind.
At the empty Cooper’s residency, Alice stared at her bedroom’s ceiling she once used to share with Hal. She was trying to come up with a way to help her daughter. But how could she? Twenty years ago she was the one running away from the love of her life. That must be something running on their family genes.
So long had passed and now history was repeating itself. Twenty years later and FP Jones still tormented her, and he was even more present on her mind nowadays that he was once upon a time.
She cried herself to sleep that night. She cried because she felt overwhelmed. She cried because she had so many mixed emotions on her mind. She cried because her life was falling apart. She cried because she knew things could have been different - but that was a selfish thought - and at last, she cried because she couldn't believe, after all that time and everything she was still in love with Forsythe Pendleton.
[...]
It was monday morning, third period, when Alice Cooper strutted inside the room of the Blue and Gold and found a Jughead Jones deepened in a chair, his computer in front of him. The page white blanc, he couldn't write, all of his thoughts were directed only towards Betty Cooper and a bit towards the disastrous weekend he had experienced.
“Betty didn't come today.” - he told Alice, watching her sit in front of him and put her bag on the table. Alice stared at him and gave the boy a weak smile.
“I came to talk to you.” - her tone wasn’t threatening, but that didn’t keep Jughead for going full defensive. Everything he wanted less right now was to quarrel with his former mother-in-law.
“Mrs. Cooper, I…” - he didn’t finish his sentence, Alice motioned her hand shushing him.
“Jughead, have you ever asked yourself why nowadays I haven’t been easy on accepting Archie or Veronica, but had no problem liking you?” - she asked, folding her arms on the table and facing the boy with a friendly expression. Jughead sighed.
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘like’...” - Jughead said it back sarcastically, making Alice roll her eyes.
“I like you because I’ve been you, Jughead. It may not seem now, but I was also from the South Side and I know what it’s like to grow on one of those trailers, being surrounded by the South Side Serpentes and crave that life was more than that filthy trailer park. - Alice said each word with an embittered expression, as if it was painful to remember the past. Jughead stared at her petrified. The Alice Cooper was from the wrong side of the tracks?
“I saw my mother leave too.” - she continued to speak, her voice lowering word by word. - “and I was smart just like you are, I had bigger dreams than that place, that’s why I know that you are good, Jughead, and that you don’t need to follow your father’s path, but I also know what it's like to run away from a great love. Betty truly likes you. Learn from my mistakes, Jughead. Please, don’t run away from it. Don’t run away from Betty.” - with a choked voice, Alice begged. Silence prevailed between the two of them, until she decided was time to leave.
Jughead didn’t dare to answer anything, he just standed still, frozen, lost on his thoughts, watching Alice Cooper leave. What the hell had just happened?
