Chapter Text
The first call comes just before eleven. Betty sits alone in the big, silent house with one hand curled around a vodka on the rocks and the closed computer balanced on her thighs. There’s an envelope addressed to Forsythe Jones on the table, and she nearly uses it as a makeshift coaster before she sees the expensive engraving in the return corner: thirty-seven next to an ornate H. A strange mark, one she doesn’t recognize, but she doesn’t recognize much in this new and echoing life.
Even though her heart is breaking, Betty is still determined to be organized. She files the envelope with the rest of Jughead’s mail and puts her frosting glass of vodka on a scrap of paper. It’s marked with a few words smudged by his haste to get out of the house and away from her:
Be back late. Don’t wait up.
At this point she both hopes for and dreads Jughead’s return. Betty knows their marriage has avalanched into a full-blown disaster, but her stubborn nature won’t let her give up. If she waits until he comes home and tries to talk to him, would that help? What if she suggests couples therapy along with a list of reasons to support her point?
Maybe then Jughead will tell her why his anger – at her, at their parents, at everything – has become toxic.
What can I do for you?
What do you need from me?
Why have we ended in this cold and dreadful void?
She's going to lose her shit if she sits there much longer. Betty sighs, toasts her image in the window, and opens her laptop. She researches local therapists, reads the reviews, and marks the names of a few who look promising.
Just as she pastes Dr. Yee’s address into her contact list, Facetime pops up with a notification from her husband. A side window opens with a blare of pulsing techno, voices, and loud laughter. Over the hilarity she hears Jughead’s voice and sees a shaky image of him talking to some unknown female with pink hair. The pulsing lights make it look as though there are several Jugheads – one red, one green, one dark as a night shadow.
“Don’t worry about her,” he’s saying. “We don’t even sleep in the same room anymore.” The pink-haired woman opens her mouth to respond, but Jughead pulls her into a long kiss.
Betty gasps, and her stomach flips with horrified shock.
She can guess what has happened. Jughead is drinking, has dropped Jangle in the men’s room, and in the middle of a club pick-up he’s butt-dialed his wife. The image of the kiss on the Facetime screen – when was the last time he kissed Betty with such hunger and passion? – blurs before she slams the laptop shut.
Betty tosses back the rest of her drink, gets up, and pads to the kitchen. The oak floors are cold underfoot, her flowering herbs in the window smell like sage and mint. Blown air from the forced heat stirs the hem of her white silk nightgown, a clinging piece with a high slit on one side. When she put it on earlier, Betty hoped the slinky lingerie would lead to conversation and intimacy. Now it’s obvious that just isn’t going to happen.
One more glass of vodka.
Feel your way up the stairs.
Go to the bedroom.
Avoiding the sight of her pale images in the triple mirror – a trinity of despair - Betty climbs into bed. Knowing sleep will avoid her like a willful child in a supermarket, she picks up the receiver of the old classic phone Jughead insisted they install in their room: “This old fellow’s a noir staple, Betts. We must have one in our new-old house.”
That was before everything went south. He had just sold his first novel, she had nailed a major editing job. They bought Thistlehouse when the matriarch owner died and spent months rebuilding the place.
The dining room is her favorite. Jughead made love to her there one night, thrusting into her on a pile of pillows below a starry sky visible through the glass ceiling. When they collapsed on top of each other, Jughead whispered she was the one for him, he was the luckiest man in the world, that he’d fallen totally and completely in love.
To banish that ghost, Betty picks up her glass and discovers it's already empty. She fumbles for the tiny flask in her side drawer and takes a healthy slug. Then she lies down and stares at the ceiling, feeling as though she’s riding through wind and darkness towards an unknown destination.
#
The second call comes in after midnight.
#
Hours pass like ribbon candy in the Neurotrama unit. There are short bursts of fevered activity layered with long stretches of silence and waiting.
Jughead’s motionless figure in the bed sees nothing. His eyes are closed, chest barely rises with shallow breath. He looks younger under the bandages and blankets, only a moving line on the vitals screen as proof that he’s alive.
Betty waits by his bedside. She texts her mom, F.P., and Veronica to tell them the little she knows from the police report. A set of tire marks on the forgotten highway show that Jughead swerved for something on the road, but there’s no way to tell what it was.
A dog?
Perhaps a herd of deer?
The girl from the club?
Betty tells Sheriff Keller the facts as she knows them when he visits. She gives him the time of Jughead’s Facetime and a description of the club that she saw in the background. It’s a new place in Greendale, a spot for loud music and quick hook-ups.
When the sheriff asks if there might have been drugs involved, she nods. It’s nothing more than the truth, and there’s no use in hiding from it. Blood tests will reveal all their sordid secrets to the world.
Her mother never responds to Betty’s text.
After that, there’s nothing else to do except wait. She watches Jughead’s face, finally free of the scowl he’s worn for the past year. His brow is as smooth as if he lies in the sweetest sleep that’s untroubled by any dreams, either good or bad.
Betty isn’t so lucky. Several times she drops off in the uncomfortable hospital chair only to wake from horrifying visions of shades who circle her and whisper words in an unknown language. At one point she shrieks, starts upright, and looks at Jughead.
He sleeps on, completely unaware.
#
At 8 AM she sneaks downstairs for a cup of lukewarm tea and a stale muffin.
#
After noon comes and goes, Betty finds she’s fallen asleep for a few hours on the corner of Jughead’s pillow. It’s difficult to remember the last time they slept close together.
#
“We can’t classify it as a coma,” Dr. Masters says. “He’s not exhibiting the brain patterns particular to a comatose patient. At the same time, the usual stimulants don’t seem to work. I don’t want to get too invasive, but if he doesn’t wake up in a few days we might need to consider explorative surgery.”
“The CATscan results didn’t tell you anything?” Betty fidgets with the sleeve of Jughead’s hospital gown. The scratchy material anchors her to the fact that he’s still alive, this husband of hers who broke her heart.
“Everything looks completely fine.” The doctor slaps Jughead’s file shut and hands it to a nurse lurking behind the screen. “That’s what makes this case so perplexing – it’s as if nothing happened, but we can’t wake him up. According to these tests, he should be talking to us right now.”
He should be turning away in disgust as I break down yet again, Betty thinks. He should be smashing plates when I ask him for a divorce. He should be packing a bag, calling a Lyft, driving out of my life.
Sudden tears prick her eyelids. How strange that she can remain strong while discussing a possible coma, but the thought of Jughead’s departure makes her break down.
As Dr. Masters leaves with the promise to return later, Betty massages her neck with one hand and considers the man in the hospital bed. They’ve known each other since they were kids.
At some point she’ll have to confront the unthinkable: life without Jughead.
#
The next time she snores herself awake, FP is in the room. His black glance pierces her with his usual concentration that zeroes in on his current target and ignores everything else.
Betty blinks, sits up, and scrubs back her hair, longing for a shower and real coffee. “Sorry,” she rasps. “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”
He ignores her apology. “What’s this horseshit about Sleeping Beauty over there? Doc says it isn’t a coma, but that boy hasn’t moved the entire time I’ve been here.”
“He’s my husband, FP. Hardly a boy.”
“Not what I heard. Word on the street says he’s been acting like a spoiled little shit.”
Betty’s eyelids seem to be filled with sand, her mind moving like a salted slug. Images from the past few years float past like discarded photos:
The news that Jellybean had disappeared on her way home from school.
Discarded straws in their garbage bucket, bright as poison.
Growing silence between them like a new ghost at Thornhill.
Blood on Betty’s thigh and the sheets.
Jughead’s despair when she tells him she’s lost the baby.
Betty rubs her neck. “Think you could sit with him while I go and shower? I can pick up some real caffeine for us, too.”
“G'wan.” Like a hooded cobra, FP never blinks. “Get the hell out of here.”
#
Veronica comes by later, closely followed by Archie. She fusses over Betty while he watches, his brown gaze warm on Veronica’s beautiful face. He’s obviously determined to stay as close to V as he can.
When Nick starts blowing up Veronica’s phone, Archie stumbles forward to give Betty a quick hug and says he’s got to go.
#
The day burns itself out in a confused jumble of whispered consults with the doctors, hypodermics, the smell of hospital bleach. FP leaves for an hour and returns, skin flushed and gilded with sweat.
“How many?” Betty demands.
“How many what?”
“Beers, FP. How many did you drink?” Betty crosses her arms and raises one eyebrow. “Could you just keep halfway sober while Jug’s in here? Can you do that for me, FP?”
“Yeah.” He has the grace to look ashamed. “I guess I can do that.”
#
Night in a hospital is endless, an eternal fall down a hushed well. Veronica texts several times and says Nick’s being uber-demanding and they have to talk when Betty’s up to it. Archie sends baffling emojis: a smiley, three lightbulbs, a dog’s face. When the nurse comes to take more blood, FP says he’ll be back in the morning and for Betty to take care of herself.
After that, there’s no one in the hospital room except for her and Jughead. Cautiously she touches his wrist, feels the warm skin and solid muscle that shields his slow and steady heartbeat, counting the questions she wants to ask and cannot.
Why did you pick up another woman?
Were you really going to cheat on me?
Do you hate me that much?
“Jug,” she whispers. “It’s me, Betty. I’m here. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but - I am here. I was going to ask you for a divorce, but the truth is … Remember I told you once I didn’t think I could ever stop loving you? If you’d give us another chance, I’d take it. I’d work so hard for us, you have no idea. If you just told me you’d give it a try, just once, I’d do whatever it takes." Her voice breaks, and she hunts in her purse for a tissue. When she emerges from its folds, Betty shrieks.
Jughead Jones is awake, his North Sea stare trained on her face. “Oh,” she says, breathless. “Jughead! I – wow. Oh, my goodness. We’ve been wondering when you would wake up.”
On the tilted plane of hospital pillows, he frowns. “Jughead?” he repeats. “Who is that?”
She feels her jaw drop. “What? What did you just ask me?”
“Jughead. Is that a name or a disease?”
Betty feels the room begin to spin around her. “Do you really not know…”
He interrupts and reaches out to touch her hand. “And I feel like I should remember such a pretty face, but who are you?”