Cherry (Blossom) On Top

28

Cheryl Pov:

The next morning seemed like a blur. I woke up with a major headache and pain in my back and neck, considering the position I was sleeping in.

When I looked around the room, I noticed that I wasn't in my bed nor room - nor even house - and that it was nine o'clock on a school day, clearly having overslept, but they didn't bother waking me up - and Jughead, who was still sleeping on the other end of the couch.

I sat up and stretched, still being tired from last night's events.
I knew what had happened and I knew that I'm probably have to be interrogated again, but at least we found the one who tried to shoot me and the one who shot Toni that day.

As I looked around, the light lit up the room just nicely and everything seemed peaceful, normal.

I got up and headed to the open kitchen, seeing a note on the kitchen isle saying:

Hey Kids,
Betty already headed to school and Fp and I are headed to work, so that leaves you two alone for the day.
Food is in the fridge and I left some money for you to get lunch at Pops later if you want (I'm sure Jughead does ;) )
- love, Alice

P.S.: I left some clothes of Toni in the bathroom for Cheryl to wear if she wants to take a shower <3

I smiled as I read the note, knowing she cared about us a lot.
When I turned around, Jughead was still sleeping, so I decided to check out the food Alice had left for us and I opened the fridge.

The cold air made the hairs on my arms rise up, sending shivers through my body, as I eyed the different things in the refrigerator.

„Pancake batter, eggs and some fruits...Sounds good for breakfast!" I mumbled to myself, reaching out for the food and placing it on the kitchen isle.

I pulled off the clear wrapping on the bowl with the batter and threw it away. After that, I prepared two pans and heated them up to a nice middle temperature, letting them warm up before pouring some pancake batter in the one, and cracking eggs into the other one.

After some time, the food was ready and I garnished everything on two plates, putting some cut up fruits into a separate bowl.

I placed the plates im the kitchen table and laid out two napkins, two forks and two butter knives, before turning in the coffee machine and making two cups of coffee.
In one of the cups, I put milk and just a tiny bit of sugar, while I left the other untouched.
Then, I went to wake up Jughead.

He opened his eyes and looked at me with a confused expression, then he looked around and back at me.

„Hello there Cheryl." He said, his voice still raspy from just having woken up.
„Good morning Jughead, I made breakfast!" I said to him, a small smile lingering on my lips as I tilted my head towards the kitchen.

He picked up on the smell of fresh pancakes and got up, directly sitting down after he saw that everything's been done already.

„Thank you."

I sat down as well and we started eating the breakfast, silence filling the air.

„So...thanks for last night. If it weren't for you, I'd probably be dead by now" I murmured with a slight smile that disappeared almost directly.

„Don't thank me, it's just natural to help, Cheryl. I'm glad we got you out of there in time. Your intuition is really good by the way." He chuckled lightly as he took a sip of his coffee.
„Without that we probably wouldn't have caught Caleb in time."

Caleb. Tonis brother. He tried to shoot me, but shot his own sister instead.
Would he have felt guilt if he had killed me right from the start?

My mind started wandering off to Caleb and then to Toni.

„I still have to do that interrogation thing, don't I?" I asked and he nodded in response.

„Let's just get this over and then go visit Toni, maybe she has woken up."

____

Some time later, we drove to the police station with Jug's motorcycle and headed inside.
Jughead and I directly went to his father's office, waited on the chairs in front of it as we found the room empty.

„Oh, Cheryl. Good morning. How are you feeling?"

His caring voice was soothing to hear.

„I'm good, thanks for letting me stay at your house, Mr Jones." I assured and thanked him with a smile.

„Come on, if you're ready, we can do the interrogation now. I suppose that's why you're here in the first place."
He said and I nodded, following in the interrogation room.

__

The interrogation was actually finished pretty quickly, comparing it to the time when I had to do this after Jason was murdered.

Jughead and I made out way to the hospital, silently sitting next to Toni's hospital bed as even beeps came from the monitoring.

I looked at my girlfriend, hand holding hers tightly while Jughead was working on his book (I suppose).

That's when I felt some movement beneath my hand, shortly following by ear murdering beeps from the computer.

Jughead and I were shooed outside when nurses came running into the room, leaving us confused.

Was she waking up? Was she getting worse?

No one knew.

We had to wait a full ten minutes until we were allowed to head back in.

Toni had indeed woken up and she was sitting up on the bed, looking out of the window when we came back into the room.

„Toni!" A wave of relief washed over me as I jogged over to her and hugged her tightly, gently pressing a kiss on her lips.

„Hey Cher." He voice was hoarse and low, but she was okay. A small smile appeared on her lips as he looked at me and then at Jughead.

„Well, hello there Jughead." She chuckled as he let himself be pulled into a hug by her.
„Hey Toni, I'm glad you're okay now. The doctor said you're stable after you had another surgery."

Toni just hummed.

„Have you caught the shooter yet?"

The question came sudden, but we knew better than to keep it a secret from her.

„Yes, we did yesterday. You won't be happy about it though..." Jughead paused as he waited for her permission to go on."

„The shooter was Caleb. Caleb Topaz."