He's disoriented when he wakes up, opening his eyes to see only darkness. But the smell of sizzling bacon floating through the bedroom door encourages him to swim his way out of the cavern of pillows and blankets he's piled over his head. He reaches out and feels the bed empty beside him. Not surprising, considering the smell and all.
When he makes it out to the kitchen, he smiles at Betty's back, where she shifts her hips back and forth and waves the spatula around, dancing to a melody in her head.
"Morning, babe." She turns, and her smile is Jughead's sun.
"Morning sleepy head! Breakfast's almost ready and there's still coffee in the pot." She gestures toward the table and turns back to flip a pancake.
He drops a kiss on her bare shoulder, still freckled from their vacation last month, before grabbing a mug out of the cupboard to her right.
When, he moves to the table, he catches sight of the paper, already folded open to the Crossword page with a black pen resting on top. Their Sunday tradition.
In the summer, doing the crossword over breakfast was their every day tradition, one Jughead woke especially early for, so they could share it, sitting on the porch and drinking coffee, before Betty had to leave for work. But, with the opening of a new semester and the resulting increase in Jughead's teaching load, it becomes a special Sunday-only ritual. Autumn weekends, when the fog lies heavy and presses against the windows, with Betty's leg slung over his lap and the black pen passed back and forth between them, are everything his teenage self used to dream about but could never put into words. A tranquility that reminds him they survived and they escaped and they built something between nothing and no one could take away.
But today, some of the squares already have round black letters filled in.
"Elizabeth Cooper." Betty turns her doe eyes on him. "You started without me." Recognition, then guilt flashes through those eyes before the green settles into defiance.
"I couldn't help seeing some of the clues when I was opening the page and I didn't want to forget my ideas. Besides, you're the one who slept so late."
"It's 8:30." He sets his coffee cup on the table and drops into a chair before picking up the paper and snapping it in front of his face to block her out. Doesn't matter, though. He saw her face fall when he spoke and he knows she's chewing on her bottom lip.
"You got 16-down wrong."
"What! No I didn't."
"Yes you did. It can't be 'green' because 14-across is 'Māori.' It has to be 'olive.'"
"Let me see." She snatches the paper away from him. "Crap. You're right."
"Admit it, Betts. I am the crossword king. You should know better than to attempt it without me." He spreads his arms wide before linking his hands behind his head.
She glares at him but he can see the smile playing at the corners of her lips. "You willing to bet on that?"
"I bet you Will Shortz's entire collection of puzzle books."
"That's treason. Add dishes for the next week and you're on."
"You're going down, Cooper."
"In your dreams, Jones."
"Well, yes. And last night too." It always surprises him that after so many years together, he can still make Betty Cooper blush. But she does.
She tosses the paper at him and turns back to the stove, moving the frying pan off the burner and the bowl with the remaining batter to the fridge.
"You can eat when we're done." Then, she turns the oven on and pops their plates inside. Jughead's stomach gurgles in protest but he knows better than to interrupt Betty on a mission. She's too damn cute. And a little bit scary.
He's still staring at her when she turns back to him, hands on her hips. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
"What?"
"Go make a copy of the paper for yourself. I'll even give you a handicap and let you keep the clues I've already filled in."
"You mean the clues you've filled in wrongly?"
"Buzz off."
He tries to protest that they can just do the puzzle on their laptops, but Betty goes off on a tangent about the death of print media and the possibility for cheating and the little red letters that tell you when you're wrong, and he realizes if he doesn't stop her he won't get his breakfast until lunchtime. So he heads to their shared office to complete her request.
When he returns, she's sitting primly on the couch with a pillow on her lap and the black pen behind her ear.
"Milady." He hands her the paper he's folded in half and keeps the printout for himself. Then he drops onto the cushion beside her and throws an arm behind her shoulders.
"Hey, nuh-uh. No cheating, buster. You're earning dish duty, fair and square."
"Fine." He shrugs and pulls his arm away.
"Fine." Betty shakes her head as if tossing her non-existent ponytail and angles her body away from his so he can't see the paper on her lap.
A freckle on her shoulder winks at him. He smiles.
