Bughead One-shots | Riverdale

Never had enough time

TW - major character death.

From the moment he'd started being friends with Betty, Jughead knew that she was his soulmate. There was no way that she couldn't be. The sweet Hufflepuff girl who had woven her way into his heart by the middle of their first year was his absolute favourite person; she meant the world to him. The way that Soulmates had been taught to them in class matched up with everything he felt with Betty. The adoration, the comfort, the longing to always be with her. It was a way that he had never imagined he could feel about someone before he had met her.

So when it was nearing his sixteenth birthday he knew his theory about them being soulmates would be proven with the timer that would appear on his wrist. He wasn't so fussed about the timer itself; the countdown to when his soulmate would die hadn't even crossed his mind as he couldn't ever imagine losing Betty. He could picture them somewhere away from Hogwarts married and living together; happy. She couldn't die before they were grey haired and had grandchildren and had lived an amazing life together. No, he wasn't worried about that. He was just excited to see the timer on his wrist, the timer that would only appear if he had met his soulmate.

He had been waiting for it the whole of September before his birthday, excitedly talking with Betty about how it could finally be confirmed that they were soulmates. He could picture her excited smile perfectly as he thought about it; the way her giant green eyes lit up as she looked up at him with her huge beautiful smile. She was perfect.

When he woke up on the morning of his birthday, after Sweet Pea had hit him with his pillow on his way out of the dormitories with a shout of "happy birthday, Jones", as soon as he was coherent enough to do so he sat up and looked down at his wrist.

And his heart fell into his stomach as the air was knocked out of his lungs.

Betty Cooper - 1 year, 238 days.

He didn't even realise he was shaking until his arm was moving so much that he could barely read the writing embedded into his wrist. It had to be wrong, there was no way that it could be true. Betty couldn't die, she just couldn't. It was impossible that someone so perfect and sweet and angelic could just die. There had to be a mistake with the timer, it had to be wrong.

With his eyes blurring with tears he lifted up his hand and harshly rubbed the skin of his wrist, as if he could rub away some sort of mistake. He rubbed the skin until it was red and sore, though nothing changed.

Betty had a year left of her life.

It took him almost an hour before he could show his face from his dorm and head down to the Great Hall. He'd managed to convince himself that the timer was wrong, and later on in the day he'd find a book about it in the library. But he had to show his face at some point, aside from Christmas his birthday was one of Betty's favourite days, and he had to see her. Especially since he might not have that much time left with her.

When she spotted him walking into the Great Hall she immediately sat up with a smile, and it caused his chest to ache to see her so happy now that he knew the time she had left.

Jughead had decided that Betty couldn't know. He didn't want her to live the last of her life in fear of when and how she would die. He wanted her to be happy and to enjoy herself. She only deserved to be happy from that moment onwards.

"Hey, what took you so long?" Betty asked as he walked towards the Hufflepuff table as usual, taking his normal seat beside her with a false smile so she wouldn't know something was wrong.

"Sorry, slept in." Jughead somehow managed to fake a smile as he put his arm around her once he was seated, dropping a kiss to her forehead which caused her to blush pink and smile bashfully at the action.