Mine (a Riverdale fanfiction)

The Wrong Movie

He should have known that a night that started out so normally—having dinner at his girlfriend's house before the homecoming dance—would turn out so badly. Apparently he was never going to learn that normal and the Jones family just didn't mix. When Jughead found out that the only reason he and his father had been invited to dinner was so that his best friend could toss his dad's trailer, and that Betty had known what was happening—or known enough to be suspicious, at least—it was as though the bottom had dropped out of his world. The two people in his life he had trusted, and both of them had been lying to him. Both of them had decided his father was a murderer, and had gone behind his back to prove it.

To think he had been considering staying in Riverdale, not going to live with his mom and his sister, whom he missed every day, because of Betty. Because of what they shared. What he had believed they shared.

Well, not now. He turned on his heel, prepared to leave them all behind, for good—only to be stopped by Betty's mom and Archie's parents and told that his father had been arrested for the murder of Jason Blossom.

This was what came of trying to be normal, of pretending to be something he wasn't.

Never again.

*****

The pain and betrayal in Jughead's face broke Betty's heart. She should have told him what she suspected her mother was up to the moment the idea became clear to her. She wished with all her heart that she had.

At home, she faced off against her mother.

Her mom claimed not to be the anonymous source who had tipped off Sheriff Keller about Jughead's dad. "As much as I like Jughead, I am so glad that you are done with that family," she added firmly.

"Done? I love Jughead." The moment the words were out Betty felt how true they were. She had never used that word, not even to herself, but it was there. She loved him. She was glad she had said so. "He's as much my family as you are. More so, right now." She loved him, and she had broken his heart. Somehow she had to fix this.

Betty tried to push past her mom, who stepped in front of her. "You are not going anywhere, young lady."

"I'm going to look for Jughead. Do not push me tonight, Mom. Because I will push back."

This time, her mom let her pass.

*****

With his dad in jail, and his friends' betrayal, Jughead did the only thing there was left to do. He bought a bus ticket to Toledo and called his mom to let her know he was coming to her.

And she told him not to.

He had withstood all the other blows tonight with his trademark stoicism, but this was one too many. He hadn't known until right now just how much he desperately missed his mom and his little sister, how much he wanted to be with them, but listening to his mom's calm, matter-of-fact voice detailing all the reasons why he couldn't come to them he felt small and unwanted. Abandoned. Tears burned in his eyes and he fought them. He refused to be such a cliché that he'd stand in a phone booth and cry.

But he really wanted to. He kept seeing Betty and his dad and Archie and Jellybean—all the people he loved, all of whom were lost to him.

He changed his bus ticket to one for the next bus out, to anywhere, leaving in the morning, and intended to stay overnight in the lobby, but it was about to close, leaving him with no refuge.

A man without a country.

It seemed there was only one place left to go.

*****

Betty and Archie had been all over town hunting Jughead and hadn't found him. The bus depot was the last idea either of them had, and Betty was losing heart. She felt awful about what had happened, and the way he had left—she was terribly afraid she had lost him forever.

Veronica convinced them to go back to Pop's. Betty thought that was too obvious, that Jughead wouldn't go there because he knew that was where they'd look for him, but when they came in, there he was, in the corner of a booth with an untouched cup of black coffee in front of him.

He ignored them as they came in and called his name.

Betty sank down into the seat next to him. "Jug. We're so sorry. About everything."

"Juggy, we screwed up. We all did," Archie admitted. "And breaking into your dad's trailer was wrong, but at least some good came out of it."

He didn't even look at them. "Pretty sure my dad was just arrested for murder."

"That gun wasn't there when we searched his trailer. Someone put it there after we left," Veronica told him.

That got his attention, and he turned to look at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Your dad's being set up, Jug."

Talking over each other, trying to tell the story coherently, at last they got through to him and they all rushed together to the jail, only to find that FP had just confessed.

Jughead was interrogated by the sheriff for what seemed like forever, but they stayed, all three of them.

When he came out of the interrogation room to see them waiting for him the last of whatever had been holding Jughead together fell apart, and it took everything the rest of them had to get him back to Archie's house before he completely lost control. Betty left him to Archie—Jughead didn't seem to care about any of them right now, and she didn't want to intrude her terrible fear that she had lost him onto his deep grief.

*****

Jughead didn't care what happened to him. No parents, no sister, no girlfriend, no best friend ... And his father was a murderer. His father, Jason Blossom's killer, had sat at the table and pretended to be interested in the story Jughead was writing and had known all the time that he was the killer his son sought.

The layers of betrayal went deep.

He hadn't intended to go to school, but what else was there to do? Hang out at Archie's house? The drive-in was gone, the trailer had been tossed by the police ... there was nowhere else to go.

Jughead stood in the cafeteria and let Cheryl Blossom beat him in place of his father, because what did it matter, really? And he went willingly enough with the principal, and answered all the questions with as much interest as he had answered the sheriff's the night before. That was, none at all.

Betty was waiting for him when he came out, and he deflected her barrage of questions in a monotone.

"Your dad's innocent," she insisted. "We just need to prove it, Jug."

She really was the perky girl detective. But she was in the wrong movie. He stopped, and she turned to face him. "Who killed him, then, Betty? Tell me. If it wasn't my dad, who killed Jason Blossom?"

Betty didn't have an answer for that, because there was no answer.

"He said he did it, and you know what? I've been waiting my whole life for that man to do the right thing. And I'm done. You should be, too."

He pushed past her, ignoring her as she called his name. There was nothing left to be said.

Hearing Archie and his dad argue over him, knowing Mr. Andrews was right about the Jones family and the trouble they brought, knowing he was driving a wedge between his best friend and his family, made Jughead feel even more adrift.

He wanted to just sleep, to wake up somewhere else; someone else. He wished he had just taken the damn bus to Florida and gotten the hell away from all of this.