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Jerk of Hearts, Queen of Spades	By : xyggimartak Category: Comics > Archie & Co. Views: 4306 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: All characters and related concepts copyright Archie Comic Publications, Inc. This is a not-for-profit work of fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
________________________________Chapter 12

He should have stayed.

It was all he could think about as he stumbled through his morning routine, and all day at school when Midge was curiously absent. He should have stayed behind and watched over her, even if only from outside their property. But what was done was done. Somehow, however, that thought didn't quell his budding worries.

"Hey, turkey," Jughead said at lunch when he spotted Reggie sitting alone in the corner, moving around the food on his plate. "Where's the salt to your pepper?"

"Huh? Oh... no, wait, what are you talking about?"

"She took your sense of humor with her, too, eh?" He felt himself actually cringe when Jughead sat down, forcing him to keep someone company instead of stewing in his loneliness. "What happened, one too many bad puns? You tried to pull a rabbit out of her-"

"Would you be serious, dipwad?"

"Listen to who's talking." The scrawny lad took a ludicrously-large bite out of his sandwich before saying, through it, "So what's the deal? She skipping to pick out china patterns?"

"I have no idea," Reggie sighed. "As far as I know, she's not sick or anything."

"Mayhaps it would interest you to know her mother was here in school today, even though she wasn't?"

Instantly, Reggie went from disinterested to alert. "What? When did you see this?"

"About an hour ago." Thankfully, he at last decided to swallow - but then he took another bite before continuing. "Talking to the Bee. Looked pretty intense, but I didn't catch any of it, I was late for my mid-morning snack."

"Food," he growled. "The world is going to Hell in a handbasket, and all you ever think about is food. I've gotta go find out what's going on."

"Hey."

Reggie looked down to find Jughead's hand clamped around his wrist. When he looked up at him, dangerous flames leaping in his eyes, Jughead did not flinch or release him; he was amazingly resilient to intimidation like that. "What now?"

"Something's going down," he went on, no longer chewing or caring about his lunch, for once. "And you know whatever it is, Arch and the rest of the gang are probably oblivious... but they'll help if you just ask. Double for me."

He didn't have time to process it, but Reggie was truly touched. Since when did Jughead care about... well, anything? "Thanks, man. You can have the rest of my lunch. I gotta go see a Bee about a girl."

Only then, after a brief pause, did Jughead let him go as he pulled the second tray toward him. "G'luck, Rico Suave."

Reggie raced through the halls to Waldo Weatherbee's office, ignoring the startled shouts and the tweet of the hall monitor's whistle. When he banged open the man's door without paying heed to Ms. Phlips's warning, the principal immediately shouted, "MR. ANDREWS!"

"Sorry, sir, it's not Red this time!" he wheezed.

"Oh." The man smoothed his near-bald head, then cleared his throat. "I apologize for my outburst, Mr. Mantle. However, it is most inappropriate for you to barge in on-"

"What was Midge's mother here for?"

An eyebrow went up. "I wasn't aware it's your responsibility to keep tabs on my meetings."

"Jug says he saw her talking to you," Reggie went on as he closed the door behind him and sank down into the visitor's seat. "Please tell me anything."

"Unfortunately, son, it seems our young Miss Klump may be relocat-"

"Anything but that," he bit out angrily. "Tell me anything - ANYTHING else!"

The man sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, my boy, but it is not my policy to lie to my students."

"Isn't there something you can do? Refuse to forward her school records - give her mandatory detentions where skipping them is punishable by law!"

"Really!" he blustered. "What on earth do you think this is, the Third Reich?! We can't hold students against their will!"

"But what if their will IS to stay here, and their parents could give a rat's-"

"KEISTER?" the man said loudly to cut off the colorful euphemism he anticipated. "Now, come on, young man. What's this really all about?"

Reggie realized all at once that his hands were tied. If he divulged the true reason for her mother's sudden vicious actions, it would likely mean expulsion, anyway. On the other hand, what other ammunition did he really have? Not much, but he decided to try anyway. "Look. The fact is... Midge and I are in love."

"Congratulations," the man said with no real enthusiasm. "But I don't see-"

"That's what's going on here," he went on. "She seems to think that... I don't know, I'm not good enough for her daughter. And to be honest, she's got a point, but- dangit, isn't that up to Midge to decide?"

The man's eyes narrowed over his tiny spectacles. "So what you mean to imply is... the entire motivation for the family's change of scene is to seperate the two of you? That seems highly-"

"Stupid!"

"-impractical. But, alas, it's out of my hands. Miss Little is her legal guardian, by birth and by law; if she decides to whisk her daughter off to Timbuktu, I have no authority to stop them."

"But- but... oh, forget it," he sighed. "I know. I just... there has to be something."

"You have a wide, lush circle of friends, Mr. Mantle," Mr. Weatherbee said kindly. "Which, unfortunately for us all, includes one Archibald Andrews. Nevertheless, if you all were to take up the cause, try and reason with this woman... well. Never say I guaranteed you there would be results, but perhaps a good showing and a firm dialogue may change her mind."

"You really think that will work?"

"I think it's about the only choice you've got." He shuffled a stack of papers. "Now, you'd better run along to class before I give you a detention for prying into another student's affairs, no matter how chivalrous your intentions were."

Once outside the offices, he slid down the wall, head in his hands. This was getting out of control - more specifically, out of HIS control. It seemed to him he had the least say out of anyone, when he was most invested in the outcome. This would not do at all.

________________________________

"So... what should we do?"

"You got me. I'm just a blonde with no money."

Reggie sighed, picking up his piece of pizza and slapping it back down on the plate. Nobody would notice them in the pizzeria; mostly junior high kids hung out there after school. The restaurant only managed to stay afloat because a good deal of blue-collar workers dropped in there on their lunch breaks. It seemed a lot safer than trying to hold a private meeting in Pop's, where most of the kids he knew would be loitering. "She can't go. I won't let this happen."

"Then don't!" Betty hissed. "Fight for her - march right in there and say, 'I will not be ignored!' Or, um, something like that."

"But that's not going to do anything - anything at all! I'll just get laughed at, scorned, and tossed out on my ear. No, I need a real plan, a sure-fire way to change her mind... or keep her from going through with it."

"You could always give her a hot foot," Betty said half-heartedly.

"Come on!"

"I'm sorry, Reggie!" she wailed. "I mean it, I really am, I feel terrible! But I just can't think of anything we can do! That's what happens when you're a minor, you have to go where your guardians go, end of story!"

"Your idea was to go down fighting for my dame, sword slashing and hat doffed to the side," he grumbled. "And I will do just that - go DOWN, hard. You saw her in there, she's scary, and determined. And so am I, except..."

"She has all the power. Even worse than that, she thinks she's justified in her actions. It's hard to change a mind that's so locked down on one course of action, isn't it?"

Reggie threw his soda can at a trash can and missed, bouncing onto the floor. "ARGH! I can't even aim straight anymore, I'm going nuts!"

"We're here for you, you know," she repeated. "You... might have to go through losing her. But none of us are going to let you suffer alone."

"Wait," he said, staring down at the soda can. His memory was jogging, faster than he had that morning. Things Betty had said, things he had said... that Mr. Weatherbee had said. He was selling everything way short; there was still time, still options. Not for long, though; he had to act, and soon. And he would need all the help he could get.

"What's wrong?"

"Hold onto your hat, Elizabeth," he said in a low, fluid voice he hadn't used in a while. "Reggie Mantle's got a scheme hatching."

________________________________

The sun was just sinking below the treeline in Riverdale as Reggie drew in a deep, cleansing breath. Righteousness was on his side, and that meant everything. This was going to work; it had to work. Nothing would be worth it if it didn't, so he had to believe.

The rusted-out old relic rounded the corner at last. Here they came. Now or never. It slowed to a dramatic crawl as it began to pull into the driveway, and he was quite satisfied to see the shocked expression in the woman's sharp features as she got an eyeful of what had been waiting for their return. Midge, for her part, looked cowed and bleak, but he couldn't think about that right now - not much. He took it in and let it add fuel to his fire. It was time for action.

"What is the meaning of this?" she began shouting as soon as her car door was open. "What are you all doing here?"

"We're here to talk," Betty said firmly, arms folded. "And you're here to listen."

"I've listened enough to you and your peanut gallery," the woman said, directed at Reggie instead of Betty, which he thought was impolite of her. "There's nothing more to say."

"There's PLENTY left to say," Veronica told her with a slight haughty laugh. "Where do you get off playing with your daughter's fate like this? She's got a right to stay in a good school with good friends as much as any other red-blooded citizen of this country!"

Miss Little let out a bark of laughter as she shouldered her purse. "Again, with the talk of this country. It's not as perfect as you make it out to be."

"Better here than the People's Republic of China," Dilton piped up, pushing his glasses farther up his nose. "Are you aware they probably would have pressured you into euthanizing Midge if you'd had another child before her? Oh, and perish the thought of you relocating across the border to Juárez - I'm sure she'd be murdered within weeks."

"And it's not just that we'll hella miss our homegirl," said Nancy. "You know she's going to be at a huge disadvantage when she starts applying to universities, right? She'll still be getting used to her new school when she's supposed to be concentrating on the next one - and Riverdale's got a stunning track record with colleges, they love our students. Highest overall student body GPA in the state, I think?"

"The cheer squad will be short a vital member," Betty put in. "And we'll all feel her loss on the softball team."

"Besides," Reggie said with confidence, "she will have to find a new job to save up for, ahh, her future." He enjoyed watching the cranky woman's face become more pinched at his dancing around the true earmarking of that money. "Odds are it will take at least a month after you get to wherever you think you're going - which will be hundreds in wages lost."

"Come on," Archie said at last, hands shoved deep in his pockets. To the freckle-faced moron's credit, he somehow looked more genuinely depressed than the rest of them. "So Reggie's probably not the guy you'd pick for your daughter, and I bet half the parents in Riverdale would sympathize. But... Midge is one of the gang. Why would you break us all up just to break them up? That's way overboard."

They stopped speaking when they noticed Miss Little was chuckling to herself. A few moments later, she recovered her breath and said, "This is all quite... cute. Thanks all of you, really, I've enjoyed the levity. Now, if you'll excuse-"

But the moment she began to move toward her house, they all fell into a straight line barring her from entry. "Hmm, so this is your game - Hands Across Riverdale? Wow, I didn't think any of you were old enough to remember that."

"You should be ashamed of yourself," Betty admonished. "If they've really found true love, why would you even WANT to stand in their way?"

"Because they don't know what love IS," she barked. "And it is impossible between them at this juncture in their short lives. What my daughter needs is to concentrate on her studies and her FUTURE," she aimed at Reggie, "no matter how low the GPA of her new school is," she flung toward Nancy, causing the latter to let out a "hmph!" "Not to have her head filled with technicolor dreams and pretty butterflies. Which is exactly the kind of whirlwind romance this is shaping up to be - the kind that brings about the destruction of all parties involved. And I really don't know why I'm trying to discuss this with a bunch of teenagers when it's none of their business! Now move aside!"

"Not gonna happen," Ethel said, jaw set.

"Then the police will move you aside."

"This is a peaceful protest!" Archie cried, puffing out his chest - which only looked comical. "We shall not be moved!"

Miss Little sighed. "It's a peaceful protest on private property, Peter Piper. I can have you hauled off to the hoosegow for that."

"And I'm sure you'd do that," Reggie continued swiftly. "Cause a huge scene... get the authorities involved. They tend to ask a lot of questions when you do things like that... look very carefully at the records of all parties involved."

That was the moment when Reggie felt the slightest hint of the tables turning. Her eyes flicked to Midge, who had never quite left the car - she was sitting there with the door open, feet on the concrete but refusing to pull her to a standing position. Reggie forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand, because otherwise he'd probably do something even more rash than he was already doing. "Just what are you insinuating?"

"Ask a typewriter if you want it spelled out. The point is, I know an empty threat when I hear one. So, the faster you quit making all this noise about skipping town, the faster your lawn will be empty."

A stalemate began to settle in as they all waited for someone to break. At long last, she turned to Reggie and said in venemous tones, "You really do follow through on your threats, though, don't you?"

"You can see that I do."

"What about that other threat I recall you making?" she went on, folding her arms over her suit jacket. "Did you follow through on that, as well?"

His heart sank. This was going to end up looking bad, no matter how he handled it. So he figured he'd roll forward with the brave face he already had. "Maybe I have, maybe I haven't."

"Which means you haven't. Very well." She reached into her purse and extracted her wallet, producing a folded sheet of paper. "Here," she said, calmly unfolding it as she strode straight over to Jughead and put it in his hands. She then pointed. "Read."

"Hmm... hmm?" For once, the boy's half-open eyes were all the way open. "Huh."

"What, 'huh'?" Nancy said.

Jughead was looking between Midge and the piece of paper. "That's... unprecedented."

"Let me see that," Veronica snapped impatiently. "What is it, pictures of Reggie in his... wait a minute, this is Midge's birth certificate. What is this supposed to- OH!"

"You think I won't play hardball to ensure my daughter's future isn't destroyed in its infancy?" Miss Little growled at Reggie. "Your obstinance has just forced this out into the open. If you had left well enough alone when I asked, none of this would be happening."

"This has got to be a fake!" Veronica was sputtering, eyes wide, jaw unhinged. "You can't seriously be trying to- but there's no WAY!"

"Yeesh," Betty said under her breath. "This isn't going well."

Reggie's blood was boiling. "It's going just fine! Look, you old crone - I don't care if you tell every man, woman and child you meet on the streets of Riverdale today! But maybe you should remember that the only person you're really hurting here is your own flesh and blood!"

"For Pete's sake," Archie hissed, "what's the hubbub?"

"Midge is a MAN!"

Of course Veronica would put it that way. She really had no verbal filter at all. "Nice one, Ron," Betty snapped. "Consider yourself taken off my Christmas list!"

"You're kidding," Nancy laughed, eyes moving between all the individuals gathered. But when she took in the look on Reggie and Miss Little's faces, the smile slid right off without trace. "Say what? Come on, you don't really expect us to-"

"And none of you knew," her mother said triumphantly. "You're supposedly such good friends of hers, but incredibly, you can't see through to her true gender? Pathetic. Fairweather friends are no friends at all, in my book!"

"Um... I knew." Heads craned to look at Ethel, but she was mostly nonplussed. "What? I'm not stupid, I figured it out."

"Really?"

That was the first time Midge had spoken since this all began. Now she was standing, hands clamped to the frame of the car door, tears clinging to her chin. "You... how? How could you know, Ethel, I- I tried so hard to hide it, I thought-"

"Sweetie," the taller girl replied, a pitying smile on her face. "We've had so many slumber parties over the past few years. You seriously think I never noticed all that unnecessary padding in your pantaloons? Of course, I guess it could have just been that your periods are really, REALLY heavy, but I somehow figured that wasn't the case."

"But why didn't you say anything?"

An easy shrug. "Not my style to dole out accusations. I figured you'd tell me when you were ready. Or, y'know, when you were outed by a close family member in front of a group of your peers."

"Now I think I understand the true nature of a certain theoretical debate I participated in," Dilton said mostly to himself.

"So... so this is for real," Chuck said, eyebrows knitted as he ran a hand over his hair. "All this time..."

"Okay, you can all go home now," Midge blubbered, waving her hands at them. "Shoo! Go on, there- there's no point in any of you still putting up a fight, since now I have to move anyway! And please don't plan some kind of goodbye party, because I don't think I'll be coming!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Nancy said - and Reggie had to grin when he noticed there was only a slight shake in her voice. "So you're a... whatever you call that. Doesn't mean you have to be banished or anything."

"How am I supposed to keep going there when I know you're all looking at me and going, 'Where is she going to go to the bathroom? What if that GUY is looking at me in the showers?'"

"But you don't take showers with us," Veronica said - and then her eyes opened wider. "Ohh... see, I always thought that was kind of unusual..."

"Proud of yourself, young man?" her mother fumed, snatching the certificate right out of Veronica's hands and startling her speechless. "You have single-handedly ensured that there is no longer a place for her in Riverdale High School - because mark my words, this will get back to the school board, who will make sure there are repercussions - all for my daughter, not for you, not for them. Because this is the great nation we live in! Where my daughter can't get the education she should be entitled to because they're too busy debating whether or not she's even human! Forgive me if I don't pity YOU for losing HER!"

"And we wouldn't be here right now if you didn't NEED her to get away from me!" Reggie threw right back at her. No way was he going to roll over and let her treat him like a doormat. "YOU tried to break us up! Then, when I said I wasn't gonna cut my losses, YOU tried to take her away from me! And when I brought all her friends here to show you that we're a community that doesn't just wimp out when the going gets tough, that we really got a glue holding us together, YOU outed her to a crowd! So I don't think that 'single hand' you were talking about belongs to me!"

The woman staggered backward, staring around at all of them. "How dare you! How dare you say this - it has always been I who ensured that she was taken care of, that her hormone prescriptions were seen to! I arranged to meet with plastic surgeons, to rewrite history so she wouldn't be scorned everywhere she went! And now you- you stand there-"

"I stand here in judgment of YOU!" he shouted. "Because you spent so much time controlling her life and shielding her from the evils of the world that you stopped LISTENING to her! All of us have so much love for her, and you want to rip her away from us because she likes a boy?! You're a pretty poor excuse for a maternal figure!"

"ONE of you loved her - that girl!" When her finger was leveled in Ethel's direction, Ethel sighed, as if sure this would somehow come back to bite her at a later date. "But none of the rest of you had the ability to see what was right in front of you!"

But then a voice no one had been expecting rang out, "That ain't true."

________________________________To Be Continued...
-
- 11
- 12
- 13
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Jerk of Hearts, Queen of Spades