Two Pink Lines

10

Betty opens the front door with a smile, revealing Archie and Fred. "Hey Arch, hi Mr Andrews."

"Hi Betty," Fred smiles warmly. "Is your mom home?"

"She's in the kitchen." She and Archie walk into the living room to join Jughead and Veronica while Fred heads towards the kitchen, finding Alice making dinner.

"You need any help?" He asks her.

"Oh hey, I didn't know you were stopping by."

"Well Archie was on his way over, thought I'd come check up on you."

"Well since you're here, wanna stay for dinner so I'm not completely surrounded by teenagers?"

He chuckles. "Yeah, I'll stay. How are you feeling?"

She sighs. "Miserable? Happy? Hopeful? All of the above?" He smiles. "I miss him."

"I know you do, so do I. Did you tell him?"

She had told Fred when she found out she was in fact pregnant, and told him that she was thinking about going and telling FP, however she had yet to fill him in on the details of their last encounter.

"Yeah, I told him."

"And? How did he take it?"

"He was surprised at first, concerned. But he's happy," she smiles as she remembers the look of excitement on his face. "He's so happy."

Fred smiles and starts helping her with dinner. "I'm glad, Alice. Did you two talk about how he wound up in there?"

She nods. "He thinks it was Gladys too. He said it can't be a coincidence that he was arrested after she came to town. There's definitely more to the story."

"We'll get to the bottom of it, we'll get him out of there."

"I hope so, because I really don't want him to miss this." She let's her hand drift down to her stomach, there's nothing to show yet and she just hopes FP will be around when there is.

"He won't. We'll get him out of there."

•

"You guys have been hard at work today, what are you working on?" Alice asks the kids as they all eat dinner.

The kids share a look and Betty stammers out a response. "Oh just a history project."

Alice raises an eyebrow at her. "You don't have history this semester."

"I'm helping." She shrugs.

"What are you really doing? If it's something illegal-"

"It's not illegal." Veronica assures her. "Quite the opposite actually."

"V." Betty warns.

"Ok, seriously, what are you up to?" Fred questions them. "Archie?"

Three sets of eyes fall on the redhead boy, begging him not to say anything, but Alice's eyes feel like they're burning a hole into him and he knows he's going to crack. "We're trying to figure out how to get Mr Jones out of jail."

"Archie!" The kids yell in unison.

"Wait, that's what you've been doing?"

Betty sighs. "Well not anymore."

"Elizabeth, why do you always assume I'm going to disapprove?"

"Because you usually do, mom. And I figured you wouldn't be happy if you found out we were digging our noses into an actual police investigation."

"Well I understand why you'd want to, I mean surely Jughead misses his dad, I can't be upset when you're trying to help out your friend."

"Wait, so you're not going to make us stop?" Jughead smiles a little.

"No, but I am going to suggest you let me help."

"Mom-" Betty starts to protest but Jughead cuts her off.

"Wait Betts, maybe she has a point. I mean, working at the paper gets her inside scoop that could be really helpful. And it makes it less suspicious for her to be nosing around." He explains.

"I guess you're right. But mom, you can't get in the way, we have plans."

"I won't, I want to help."

"So do I." Fred pipes in. "Might as well, right?"

"Do you have any suspects?" Alice asks, wanting to know who exactly is on their radar so far.

"A few, we thought maybe Tallboy had something to do with it, it wouldn't be a huge surprise if he was in possession of jingle jangle." Jughead says.

"We also thought maybe my dad." Veronica adds. "I mean whenever there's a crime he's got to be somewhere on the suspect board."

"Well what about, and I don't mean to offend you Jug, but is it possible your mom has something to do with it?" Fred asks.

Jughead seems caught off guard by the thought. "No, no way. She couldn't."

"Jug, is it really so absurd to think that she might?" Betty questions softly. "I mean she comes back to town with no warning, wanting to reconcile with your dad, and then he's arrested a few weeks later? It's possible that she felt betrayed and retaliated."

"No, there's no way she did it. Her and Jellybean want to have our family back together, and so do I. She didn't have anything to do with this, she couldn't of. Where would she have even gotten jingle jangle?"

"We don't exactly know what she was doing in Toledo," Veronica says. "Maybe she was producing Jingle Jangle."

Jughead thinks on it for a moment before reluctantly  sighing. "Fine. We can put her on on the suspect list, but she didn't do it."

Alice frowns. "I know it's awful to have to put her on the list, but you can't rule anyone out."

"Hopefully we can rule her out though."

"We can snoop around the trailer next time I'm over." Betty suggests.

"Fine." Jughead sadly agrees, not wanting to believe that his mom really could have something to do with this.

Alice notices how upset he looks by the thought and changes the subject. "I made pie?"

The boy smiles. "Pie sounds good."

She smiles back at him and stands up from the table. "I'll go get it."

She takes a moment in the kitchen for herself. Praying that they can find out who framed FP so they can get their happily ever after.