Glory- A Riverdale Sequel (Sweet Pea)

2. The Freshmen

We made it to Riverdale in about an hour thanks to Sweet Pea's inability to obey even basic traffic laws on his motorcycle. To be fair, we'd been taking the car he traded his truck for since we moved to Seaside just about everywhere, and I know we both missed taking his bike everywhere the way we did before I got pregnant and then we had Isabella. Sweets is nothing if not protective, so his bike became a date night and "mommy and daddy weekend" only vehicle. As we cruised into town, I looked around in shock. Even in the year it had been since I'd been to Riverdale, everything had changed.

Sweets sighed as we pulled into the house that once belonged to Alice Cooper but was now the home of Jughead and Betty Jones and looked back at me, "It doesn't look the same at all anymore, huh?"

I frowned and shook my head sadly. The change had been very gradual, but now even Pop's was gone and had been replaced by a bar. Everything wholesome about my adopted hometown had been taken away. I took off his helmet and strapped it to my backpack as we walked up and knocked on the door.

Betty answered it seconds later with a two-year-old boy that was the spitting image of my cousin on her hip. Her eyes were red, and her hair wasn't in its usual tidy ponytail. She stepped aside, and Sweets took my backpack off my shoulder and headed up the stairs to the guest room while I immediately enveloped her in a tight hug.

"Hey, it's ok. We're here now," I whispered as she quietly cried into my shoulder and John- John played with my hair. When she pulled away after regaining her composure, I looked at her and said, "Maybe little guy can go down for nap, so we can catch up?"

Betty nodded and smiled at John- John as he held up his toy motorcycle and made engine noises. As she made her way upstairs to tuck in her son, I walked into the living room and froze when I saw Veronica Lodge- who was now Veronica Andrews-Lodge, sitting on the couch with Archie. They both looked up and when Ronnie saw me, she ran over and hugged me tight.

"It's good to see you, Ally," my cousin smiled, "My mom has been asking about you and I show her all the pictures you send. I just wish circumstances were better. Where's my little Belle at?"

"We decided considering what we're up against to leave her at home with the part timers who run the shop and have babysat for us before. Speaking of which, what the fuck happened?"

I sat next to Ronnie and Archie and smiled up at Sweet Pea as he shook Archie's hand and sat beside me on the couch, putting his arm around my shoulder as we listened. "Well," Veronica started, "The version that Sheriff Minetta gave us is that a fight started between some Serpents and Ghoulies, because Ghoulies were at the bar that the Serpents claimed after they lost the Wyrm. FP caught wind of it and went out to stop it and wound up beating one of their leaders to death because he saw Jughead on the ground, bleeding from a stab wound."

I rolled my eyes, "Conveniently that sounds like Serpent fault. What really happened?"

Archie spoke up, "The Ghoulies came in, started taunting FP and Jug- even brought you and Isabella into it, saying stuff about trying to figure out where Sweet Pea managed to hide you and how you and Malachai still have unfinished business."

Sweets tightened his grip on me and Archie's eyes met his with the same ferocity I know he had in his, "FP told them to get the hell out, and Jug got up to peacefully remove them when the guy started stabbing the shit out of him. He got five hits before FP got to him, and then FP beat him to the point of unconsciousness before we pulled him off. That Ghoulie wasn't injured enough to have died, and he was breathing when he left."

"Please tell me you were there, Arch," I whispered, letting a tear fall as I thought about my favorite uncle being in a Ghoulie run prison for defending Jughead and me.

Archie nodded, "I saw the whole thing. According to the sheriff, I'm 'too close to the issue to be an objective witness'," he scoffed and rolled his eyes as he dropped his air quotes, "Either way, they're trying to put FP away for life and Jug is getting blood transfusions that should save him, but he won't be fighting any time soon."

I bit my lip and nodded, and Sweet Pea pulled me closer to him in time for me to break down. This wasn't just a brave new world. This was the absolute worst case scenario, and I couldn't help but feel like we had walked right back into Hiram Lodge's spider web.