Speak To Me

A New Suspicion

Alice ran out of the trailer after her youngest, buttoning up her shirt as she ran down the stairs. "Betty! Betty, wait!"

"Why should I?" Betty shouted back, continuing to saunter away with tearful eyes.

"Just let me explain!" Alice sped up, bringing herself closer and closer to the teen.

"Explain what? What could you possibly explain about me finding you and my boyfriend's dad going at it?"

Alice finally caught up to Betty, grabbing both of her arms and violently spinning her around to face her, both stopping in their tracks. "Baby, just listen-"

"Don't you 'baby' me now, Mom! What the hell is going on?" Betty's falling tears broke Alice's heart. "Have you been cheating on Dad? This whole time?" She pointed back at the trailer. "And with Jughead's dad? Do you realize how twisted that is?"

"No, no. Betty, if you would just give me a chance to tell you-"

"I can't date my mom's married boy toy's son!"

"He's not a boy toy, Betty." Alice crossed her arms over her chest.

"That would almost make Jughead my stepbrother! How...how long has this been going on?"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Betty."

"Ridiculous, Mom?" Betty's nails suddenly began to dig into the palms of her hands once again. "Ridiculous? Oh, I'M the one who's being ridiculous here." She angrily nodded with sarcasm. "Now I see why you'd been visiting him in prison and trying so hard to find out when he'd be getting out. So you could figure out when you two could start things up again."

"No, Betty. That's not why-"

"And just screw Dad, right?....Or in this case, FP." Almost instantaneously, Betty was met with a hard slap to the face.

"Don't you ever talk to me like that again, Elizabeth." Alice pointed at her. "Do you understand me?" She watched Betty's tears continue to fall as she fought back her own. "Who do you think you're talking to?" Betty kept her hand over her red cheek. "I don't know when you started to think you're so high and mighty to speak to me like you're the parent here, but enough is enough! You are MY daughter and yes...I'm human and I make mistakes, but you're still just a 16 year old little girl who hasn't learned shit about the world yet. You think you know everything? Well, you just wait until you get into college. You'll realize that you've known nothing about it this entire time. And most of all, you know squat about discipline and knowing how to treat your superiors. Am I wrong a lot of the time? Yes. Does that give you the right to speak to me like some royal highness? No! When you get out into the real world, you'll realize that. You can't speak to your boss at work that way. You'll get fired at the drop of a hat. You cannot give this much attitude to a police officer that pulls you over for a speeding ticket or to the judge in court working on your case for said ticket. If you really think that once you move out of my house and go out on your own that all authority will vanish and you'll just be able to do whatever you want, you've got another thing coming, Elizabeth Cooper. You are still a child and you've still got a lot to learn about life. And if you had let me speak, you would've heard me tell you that I was not going to let anything go any further with FP in there. It was just supposed to be a kiss. That's all. A goodbye kiss. No, he and I have NOT been sleeping together and no, we were NOT planning on having an affair. Okay? We both agreed that it wouldn't be right to do that to you and Jughead. We just...we got caught up in a moment and that's all. Okay? Old feelings came rushing back and-"

"Old feelings?" Betty's hand slowly slid down and off her face. She made it into a soft fist and let it fall to her side as her tears finally stopped.

Alice looked down, biting her lip, realizing she had said too much. Her voice softened a bit. "You wanna know the reason I was always a little weird about you and Jughead being together?" She looked back up to see Betty's wide eyes before she slightly nodded. Her mother took hold of both of her hands, holding them in between them. "You two remind me so much of FP and I when we were in high school." She sighed, finally letting it out. Well...most of it. "You and Polly once asked me who my first love was. It wasn't your father." She and Betty both turned their heads to look back at the trailer. She sighed before continuing. "It was Forsythe Pendleton Jones the Second."

"Mom?" Betty's wide eyes looked back to her mother and her voice involuntarily changed into a pained whisper as a new suspicion surfaced and everything started to make sense. "He's Chic's dad, isn't he?"

The moment Elizabeth spoke, Alice's head quickly turned to her intelligent young daughter. "What?" She quickly let go of Betty's hands.

"He is, isn't he?"

"Why would you-"

"No wonder Dad has been super weird since Chic showed up. He knows he's not his, doesn't he?" Alice's lack of a response caused Betty to reach up and hold her own head with both hands. "Oh my God! How am I supposed to tell Jug all of thi-"

"You won't." Alice interrupted with a hint of panic in her tone. "No. Please don't say anything. FP's return is supposed to be a surprise for Jughead." She tried to smile to make it better. "Don't ruin that with this. Please? Just keep this a little secret for now."

"Secret? Why is everything about secrets with you? This is gonna crush him." Betty folded her hands on top of her head.

"I know. I know. So please...don't say a word until it's the right time. And don't tell Polly anything. She's been so happy since the babies were born and since Chic got here. She somehow thinks everything is gonna be a happy ending now." She paused before sadly continuing. "Betty, I can see it in her eyes that Jason's absence is actually really affecting her, but she's hidden it somewhere deep within. I don't want this to make her spiral downward. Okay? Please?"

Betty let her hands fall from her head and she looked back at FP's trailer, wondering what would be the right thing to do.

A/N: Okay. I am so glad I got to write Alice handing it to Betty here. Honestly, I had a similar relationship with my mother in high school where I thought that I was always right and I thought my mother was evil and controlling. But now I love my mom so so much and we're really close and I know that everything she ever did was for my benefit and she's just trying to be a good mother. I guess maybe that's why I love Alice so much. Because I know that her intentions are pure and as a human, yes, she makes some mistakes. And frankly...I don't get where the writers of this show think it's okay to keep writing Betty's snarky lines to her mother. They at least shouldn't have Alice let her get away with them. If I ever spoke to my mom the way 16 year old Betty does with Alice, or even the way Veronica talks to her parents, I would be slapped into the middle of the next decade. And I'm almost 21. (Sorry, I had to get that off my chest). I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. There will be a new one soon. MWAH!