Darkest Minds || Archie Andrews & Jughead Jones [3]

Five Weeks

FIVE WEEKS

It's been five weeks. Five painful weeks since Riverdale was cut off from the rest of the world. Ellie still remembers that siren echoing through the whole town, right by the time she was suffering at the hands of Malachai. Five long weeks.

"Do I really need to be here?" Ellie doesn't step much further than the entrance, so it's Betty who approaches her. But she still tries to peek into the teenagers living in their living room.

"I could really use your help with them, they have nightmares in the middle of the night." Betty tells her, and leaves a dream of hers slip out. "I really want you to come home, E. It's been five weeks, we miss you."

"That we includes our mother? The woman who sent you the Sisters and tried to sent me there too? That chased me out of the house? Sure," She replies in anger, and questions her sister's sanity. "I don't even know how you can sleep under the same roof as her, honestly."

"It's Mom, Ellie. She was just –."

"Trying to protect us, yes. Same old excuse." Ellie scoffs.

"She really feels sorry." Betty tries to start what might be a conciliation between the two of them. "And you saved me. I need you with me."

"Well, I'm here."

"It's not the same thing." Betty argues, but her voice is still soft.

Eleanor sure misses her sister, she still remembers when they saw each other after Betty escaped the Sisters, and Alice picked her up. It was right after what happened with Malachai and the Ghoulies, so that hug saved her from the dark place she was in. Alice though? Ellie couldn't even look her Mom in the eye, her chest still ripped open from her betrayal.

"I'll think about it." Ellie promises, and decides to move on with their conversation. "Anyway, why did you call me here?"

"Right, last night I found some Fizzle Rocks in their game board. From what they told me, there is a Serpent dealing those."

"An unnamed Serpent?" She frowns. "Are you sure they weren't lying, Betty?"

Betty replies with a pretty good argument. "If it was a lie, Tyler came up with it pretty quickly."

"A Serpent dealing Hiram Lodge's drugs? Like we are one of his gangs." Ellie scoffs, but by the end of her words all Betty sees his self-blame. "This was my fault. I was too busy trying to come up with a plan to save you, and fighting the patriarchy, that I neglected the Serpents."

"No, you were doing the best you could." Betty reassures her.

"Well, it wasn't good enough."

. . .

"A Serpent dealing Fizzle Rocks? God." Jughead shakes his head at the thought, and she can't believe she's once again the carrier of bad news. "I left the Serpents high and dry, this is my fault." He looks up at her then, sitting across from him at Pop's. And he sees it, he sees all of it. Well, not all. "I left you high and dry."

She looks up from her milkshake, Jughead's eyes staring right back at her. She doesn't deny it, but it's not like she's blaming him from what happened to her. The reality of it is she's blaming herself. "You were protecting, Archie."

There is a small silence, but dreadful. It's not usually like this between them, but Eleanor's heavy soul is crushing both of them down, and everyone that finds themselves around her.

"One penny for your thoughts?" He tries to light up the mood, but this is just how it's been since they found each other at the end of the road. Ellie's been distant. It feels like she's stuck in her head, relieving something. Over and over again. "What happened? While I was gone?"