Song Credit: "You Promised Me" by VELVETEARS
Timeset: 3x07
TW: mentions of drugs
Jughead's POV
"Hey, this is Betty. Leave a message."
Another missed call. I was starting to get worried since this was the fifth time her phone had gone straight to voicemail, but knowing my little Nancy Drew, she was probably investigating; most likely something with The Farm or G&G.
"Maybe you should go back. I'll be okay," Archie suggested. I scoffed comically and replied, "Might I remind you that Betty literally took down a serial killer last year. You can't go five minutes without being kidnapped or someone beating the hell out of you."
He shrugged in agreement before I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Hoping it to be Betty, I grabbed it quickly. The caller ID read, "The Sisters of Quiet Mercy," which didn't make any sense. How did the Sisters have my number and why would they be calling me. I showed my screen to Archie before answering with a simple, "Hello?"
"J-Jug? Jug, c-can you h-hear me?" I'd recognize that voice anywhere-- that was my Betty. "Betts. Betty, I hear you. Tell me what's going on," I instructed, concerned with my eyebrows furrowed. "My mom-- she sent me to the Sisters. They're drugging the girls, they drugged me. I--" she brought her voice to a whisper. "I met the King."
"'King'? What king?"
"The Gargoyle King," she answered. In the back of the call, I could hear a door open and a voice of an older woman, most likely Sister Woodhouse, saying, "Elizabeth, you shouldn't be in here. Restrain her!" before Betty started shouting for help and yelling "No, stop! Get off of me!"
And then the line went dead.
"Was that Betty?" Archie asked, puzzled. "Yeah, and we have to go back to save her. She's at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, where the staff is drugging the patients. She was talking about how they introduced her to the Gargoyle King and now the guards have her restrained while who knows what Sister Woodhouse is doing with her!" I explained.
"Come on, let's go, Jug!" Archie said, darting in the direction we came from. I started to run to catch up with him, saying, "You think we can just run five hours back to Riverdale?" "No, bro, there was a bus station a few miles back. Maybe we can catch one and get there faster," Archie said.
---
We waited five minutes for a bus that took us to Riverdale in an hour. "The Sisters is up North," I remarked, pulling Archie's arm in the right direction. We might've walked for twenty minutes before we finally saw the concrete fortress that Betty was trapped inside.
I started approaching the building before Archie pulled me back. "Yo, dude, you can't just strut into a nunnery and liberate your girl, you need a plan," Archie warned me. I looked him dead in the eyes and said, "Okay, how about this, you get me the biggest and heaviest rock you can find, I'll 'strut into this nunnery,' 'liberate my girl,' and bash in the skulls of any goddamn person who tries to keep me from getting Betty out of there!"
Archie must've known better than to refute me because immediately he started looking for rocks.
I looked up at the building and saw a far too familiar girl in one of the windows. "Betty," I said softly. I walked over to the wall and saw how some of the jagged bricks fell out of shape with the building. "Archie, give me a boost," I ordered. The ginger stallion laced his fingers together and put his hands down for me to step on. "Careful, Jug," he warned as I started to use the out-of-place bricks as steps.
I climbed up, almost falling occasionally until I reached the window I saw Betty in. "Yo, bro, there's a ladder out here!" Archie called up to me. Of course, he had to notice the ladder after I climbed up a wall like Spiderman.
I moved over a bit so Archie could position the ladder correctly. "Throw me up the rock," I told Archie. Archie launched the rock he found up, and surprisingly I caught it without losing my balance. I gripped it tightly before smashing it straight through the window. I heard a scream and quickly looked in the window to assure my Juliet that it was just me and not a vicious intruder.
I cleared out all the broken glass in the window frame as Betty came over to it. "Well, hey there Juliet," I said slyly. Her blonde hair was dishelved, her skin was decorated with various bruises, scratches, and burns while purple bags resided beneath her eyes. "Just like old times," Betts replied tiredly with a worn smile.
"Come on, baby, let's get you out of here," I said, taking her hand and stepping down the ladder to give her room. Once the two of us were down, my first instinct was to kick the ladder down so the Sisters couldn't follow us, but Betty told me to leave it so the other girls could escape.
Archie, Betty, and I all ran to Betty's house, and again, it was just like old times. We finally reached her house and hustled inside. We all engaged in a group hug as Betty started to sob. "Please, please be real, please," she begged and pleaded in a whisper. "Baby, baby, Betts, what do you mean? What are you talking about," I asked as the three of us disbanded and I raised Betty's head to look at me.
"The drug makes me hallucinate and I need you to be real. Please, Juggie, I need this to be real, I don't want to go back there!" She sobbed. I embraced her tightly and quickly, letting her sob on my shoulder.
"This is real, babygirl. I promise you, this is all real. I'm here, Betts. I'm here."