Chapter Text
The fair village of Riverdale was an idyllic English-small-village-type place. It had exquisite roses that flourished only when Alice Cooper tended to them, a nice church or two, and the folk were very friendly. A happy place, no doubt, the type where tourists wanted to go.
Until you got a little closer. Those people, who were so welcoming to tourists, were the same who would stop at nothing to get rid of their rivals.
Take the rose-tender, Alice. Her husband, Hal Cooper, had bad blood with Clifford Blossom, due to the main source of income for Riverdale, maple syrup. Neither party would tell you what happened, but this rivalry stopped at the next generation, when Jason Blossom, Clifford's son and twin brother of Cheryl, married Polly Cooper, Hal and Alice's daughter and older sister to Betty. After some opposition from the two families, the children all became friends. Polly and Jason were now married with twins and another one on the way.
Cheryl was dating Reggie Mantle, heir to the Mantle fortune. He acted like a douche, but he was actually nice and caring, at least only to Cheryl.
Betty was single, but she didn't mind. She had her best friends Archie, Veronica, Kevin, and Jughead.
She and Archie Andrews grew up as neighbors, and were probably destined to marry, but fate threw a wrench in the works and now Archie was dating Veronica, who had only moved to the village ten years ago (which, to the life-long residents, made her virtually a foreigner) after living in New York. Her parents, the wealthy Lodges, decided to live out their retirements in Riverdale, and she came along with them, eager for a vacation. She now vowed to stay here for life.
Kevin Keller was Betty and Veronica's good friend. He actually lived in Greendale, a neighboring village, but would pop by often. The gang had already met (and approved of) Kevin's boyfriend Joaquin, an ex-gang member-turned-cop.
Jughead Jones was a whole different story.
He had grown up with Archie and Betty, but he lived on the more dangerous side of the village, where Headman McCoy refused to interact with. The citizens there more or less ran their side, called the Southside.
Eventually, Jughead's mother and sister packed their bags and moved to Gloucester, leaving a fourteen-year-old Jughead and his alcoholic father behind.
Betty remembered him climbing up to her window and breaking down in her arms, while she soothed him and rubbed his back. Jughead wasn't one for physical contact, sure, but he lost control that night and eventually, Betty had to call Archie over for reinforcements.
Jughead was the brooding type, quiet and sarcastic, but around their aforementioned inner circle, he became more open and less guarded.
They'd already known the worse, and accepted him as he was, which was a huge relief to him. His biggest fear was that they'd known who he was, that his mother left him behind in the wee hours of the morning as a child, no older than fourteen, that he was abandoned.
Of course, when they found out, they were upset, but knowing things weren't so well at home, Betty let him stay at her house (under the consent of Alice and Hal, of course).
Now they had all grown up, got out of university, and came back to their village. Most people who lived in a small town were determined that they'd hightail it out of there, and make it big in the world. But they'd all made a pact, before leaving for their respective universities, that they'd stay in touch, and come back here and live their lives together.
There was no plot twist. They were all happy here, especially since now Jughead became a famous writer, Betty a well-known journalist, Veronica and Kevin owners of a fashion company, and Archie a rugby player. Sure, they had some things to do in major cities, but their homebase was here, and they wouldn't have it any other way.
Their parents weren't as well off.
FP, Jughead's father, stopped drinking, but he'd gotten more mixed-up with the darker side of town, and eventually, cut off all ties with his son. Of course, it broke his child's fragile heart, but he'd convinced himself that he didn't need his father back in his life, and went on.
Hiram Lodge was in jail for an embezzlement charge in London, and was incarcerated there. Hermione, his wife, and her daughter decided to have nothing to do with him, despite (or because of?) his threats to expose them. Expose them for what? They were as innocent as the child born yesterday.
Alice and Hal eventually divorced, due to "irreconcilable differences." Everyone knew, however, that it was because of Alice's controlling nature and Hal's seemingly patient exterior, the exterior that hid an equally aggressive mind.
Clifford Blossom was as corrupt as they came, being the maple syrup tyrant that he was. Penelope wasn't corrupt, but she was worse. She was almost insane, driving her daughter to near suicide and becoming the target of the village's hatred.
Headman McCoy appeared to have it all together for her humble little village, when in reality she hid all of the place's secrets under her desk drawer, under lock and key.
And that was Riverdale.
But for now, the villagers were content to leave their home as it was, a nice spot in the many villages of England.
"Juggie? I swear to God, if you don't come back with our food..."
"Trust me, Jones, you don't want the wrath of Betty Cooper focused on you."
"I know, right? Those took her four hours to make. Four hours!"
Betty, Veronica, and Kevin were calling out for Jughead, who had grabbed the basket for their afternoon picnic and headed straight for the woods. He knew these trees better than anyone else, except for Betty and Archie, the latter seeking a nice spot while the other three chased the raven-haired thief.
"Agh! My joints! Keep in mind, Jughead, that I'm not as young as I used to be. I don't crush on footballers anymore! I'm 25, for God's sake! How am I supposed to keep up with you?!" Kevin huffed out, stopping at a great oak tree.
"I'm in Jimmy Choo heels, Jughead, so unless you want their marks all over your corpse, come back with that picnic basket!" Veronica threatened, soon joining Kevin.
Betty ran for the treehouse they'd built when they were about eight, with help from Fred Andrews and Hal Cooper, and some assistance from FP. This was before Kevin and Veronica came in, and when they didn't have to worry about things that adults did. Just the mere A-word was frowned upon, quickly followed by sunny smiles as they held their orange-flavored creamsicles.
Before life got messy.
She climbed up the rope ladder, as agile as she was when she had to sneak up on them and scare them during their scheduled reading of the horror comics. She recalled one instance where Jughead got so scared, he fell out the window. She was unsure to this day of exactly how he managed that, but he thankfully seemed none the worse for injury, except for his loose tooth falling out.
His smile that day, with two absent front teeth, made her heart flutter.
She'd loved him for years, after Archie told her that he loved Veronica and he did love her, just not as Veronica.
She was surprisingly okay with it. Her theory was that she was more in love with the idea of being in love with Archie than she was actually in love with him.
But she remembered vividly stumbling to the small restaurant that they frequented then, and still did in their 20's, and collapsing into a seat and bursting into tears. She remembered Jughead slowly getting out of his chair, and giving her a gentle hug, massaging her back and whispering soothing words into her hair, his chin on her head.
That was when she realized.
She snapped herself out of her nostalgic mindanderings and focused on a beanie-clad thief, casually sitting cross-legged with the sought-after basket resting on his lap. The way his hair fell on his face...
Stop that, she thought, and snatched the precious basket out.
"You little-"
"Why Betty, don't go and swear on me," he smirked. "It wouldn't look nice at all on that beautiful face of yours."
Her face, already flushed from the running, turned even redder at his teasing. She'd realized that he'd become a big flirt - but only around her.
She must've been dreaming.
"Well, Mr. I-Just-Made-My-Friends-Chase-Me-Through-Fox-Forest," she rambled, "You really have no right to talk."
"Very long name I have there," he said, raising his eyebrows, "But it sounds so pretty coming from your lips."
After she smacked him across the chest, and he'd fake-swooned, pretending to be hurt ("you've wounded me, Cooper!") they started heading back to the edge of the forest where their friends were waiting for them. They soon passed the cemetery, a little place with a great number of headstones for the tiny plot of land. The majority of the people buried were founding families of Riverdale, like the Coopers, Kellers, Joneses, Andrewses, Lodges, etc. (the Kellers and Lodges' present generations were simply moving back to Riverdale). They always liked to stop by and look there. Like the Merediths in Rainbow Valley, they'd hung out there and used to theorize about what exactly the engravings on the headstones meant. As Betty glanced over, she noticed something odd.
"Hey," she whispered, catching Jughead's attention. "What's that over there?"
He turned and peered closer. "Let's go find out."
They huddled close to each other for safety (Betty did not miss the way his arm wrapped around hers, and the way her heart sped up when she felt his body heat) and moved into the graveyard. They came closer to the figure that was lying on a freshly covered grave.
Betty cautiously unwound her sweater from her waist, and used it to turn the body over. She gasped when the head fell off the corpse.
When they zeroed in on the severed head, their hearts stopped simultaneously.
Jughead choked out a "Dad?"