Under Fire and Undercover

Did You Tell Her?

"Where the hell were you?" Charles barks as he opens the door to the motel room. "You were supposed to be here yesterday. You had me worried out of my mind and we couldn't get a signal on your phone. I nearly blew this whole thing wide open. I was just hours away from reporting you missing and having all of law enforcement looking for you."

Alice walked in as he spoke and took her spot on the edge of the chair in the corner, ignoring her sons agitated concern at her tardiness. She stared down at her hands until Charles made his way to sit on the bed in front of her.

"She kidnapped me." Alice said devoid of all emotion. Her voice only sounded tired. Exhausted really.

"What? Who?" Charles asked, his eyes going wide and thinking the worst. He had half the mind to check and make sure she had all her organs.

"Betty. She brought me to a cemetery, showed me a grave with your name on it, and then she put a chloroform soaked rag over my face, and I woke up in an underground bunker." Alice explained, still looking down at the floor, still not expressing any emotion through her voice besides fatigue.

Charles couldn't say anything. He knew that Betty was a badass, and he knew that she was hellbent on getting Alice out of the Farm, but this was extreme.

"Well, are you okay?" He finally asked, and for the first time since she got there, she looked up at him.

"She faked your gravestone. When I woke up in the bunker, she had me handcuffed to a bed and she started going through all of our old photo albums. Trying to remind me of who I am or was, in her mind." Tears welled up in Alice's eyes, but didn't fall. Charles sighed and looked down at his hands, not wanting to ask his next question.

"Mom, did you tell her?" Charles finally said, meeting her eyes.

"No, I didn't. But I think I finally pushed her far enough away, that she might just give up already." Alice let out a genuine laugh, an inappropriate sound considering their conversation. "You know, last year, Hal was driving her to do crazy things. Forcing her hand, unbeknownst to any of us that it was him inflicting torture on her and the town. But now it's me. She paid someone to make you a gravestone. In case you didn't know, you've been dead for five years, maybe I can take you out and we can lay some flowers down. I wouldn't want anyone thinking that you had no one to lay flowers down. And maybe afterwards we can ask Betty where she bought the chloroform and how she got me into that damned bunker anyway. I assume someone had to have helped her get me down there because I don't--,"

"Mom stop." Charles raised his voice, so she could hear him over her own hysteric babbling and gripped her shoulders. "You're spiraling."

Finally snapped out of whatever shocked state she was in, Alice started to cry. It wasn't a world shaking, lung wracking, sob. She just lowered her face into her hands and cried silently, shoulders shaking ever so slightly, but stabilized by Charles' hands.

"Look, maybe we should just come clean to her. I mean, if she's going to be a risk to you and herself, maybe it's safer to tell her." Charles said quietly, causing Alice's face to snap up to look him in the eye.

"No. Absolutely not. If we tell her, she will insist on getting involved and there will be no keeping her out of this. And I have no doubt that she would tell Jughead, who could easily tell FP or the Serpents, blowing our entire investigation. It's safer for her and everybody else if I just get over myself and think of the greater good." Alice's eyes and voice steeled as she spoke, and she was reminded of why she was doing all of this in the first place.

"Okay." Charles nodded, not wanting to argue with her or push the issue. She was right, anyway.

"Look, I don't think I'll be able to keep meeting with you. Evelyn has started to ask more questions about my whereabouts, and she seems less believing of my excuses having to do with work." Alice said, looking down at her hands once more.