Jughead and Betty walked slowly toward FP's trailer when Jughead noticed someone sat on his top step. He stopped Betty and made his way up to the person and cleared his throat. The person looked up and he noticed it was a woman. She had black rimmed glasses that had neon green sides. Her hair was up in a bun and the back of her head was shaved. He saw her look behind him and he automatically reached back to feel that Betty was right there. The woman smirked. Her eyes were lined with make-up and her lips were blood red.

She stood up and he saw she wore a leather jacket, tight black jeans and a black v neck shirt. There was a snake pendant that hung from a silver chain on her neck. Her hair was a dark color. It looked almost black in the dim light of the porch light.

"You must be Jughead. FP said I'd find you here." She said as Jughead nodded mutely.

"Look boy, you and I can go round for round later. Right now though, I gotta pee. So you gonna open the door or not?" She asked as Jughead nodded again and maneuvered around her with Betty right behind him.

He opened the door and she ran into the house past him to the bathroom. Three minutes later she was out and standing before him.

"Who are you?" He asked as the woman smiled genuinely.

"Aryann Jones, your Aunt." She said smoothly.

"What? I don't have an aunt." He said in disbelief.

"Yeah, ya do. Look, Kid, I got a call from FP saying that he needed someone to take you in. This is a big favor seeing as I dropped everything to come back to this Podunk town. You need someone to take you in so you don't get saddle with idiotic foster parents like your dad and I did. He and I agreed that you'd be better off with me than with anyone else. I promised your dad that if he ever needed one big favor I'd drop what I was doing to help out. After all family is family and once a serpent, always a serpent. Now I haven't been back here in twenty years. So this is all strange to me, just as it is to you." She explained as everything Jughead knew rolled over in his head. "Now you can ride with me or not, but I've got to talk to Fred Andrews."

"We'll go. I've got to get home anyways and I live next door to the Andrews." Betty answered for both of them.

"What do I call you?" Jughead asked randomly.

"Ant. Everyone does. Everyone here at least." She said wistfully.

The three were about to head to the door when three distinct knocks sounded. Aryann went to the door and threw it open. "Do you dickheads have any idea what fuckin' time it is? I could've been sleepin assholes!" She said with a smirk.

Gasps sounded out as all three of them filed out. "Ant? What are you doing here?" The one in front asked as Aryann shook her head. "You were never supposed to come back. FP said you left for good."

"I'm here to take care of the kid. My brother called and said he needed someone to take care of him. So until he gets out, I'm here." She explained as the one in front nodded in agreement.

"I came to bring this by. It's FP's jacket." He said as he handed it to her. She took it and handed it to Jughead.

"Put that up. He'll want it when he gets out." She said as Jughead took the jacket back inside. "We're going to go see Fred. So you all can skedaddle now."

"Snakes don't shed their skin so easily." The man said as she rolled up her sleeve to reveal her serpent tattoo.

"Or sometimes at all." She said as the others all nodded. "Now we gotta go, so head on."

The rest of the serpents turned around and left the three of them. She turned to the two teenagers and nodded to a nice dodge truck. They piled in and she drove off.

They drove for a ways in silence until she kicked on the radio and an old song came on. The teens just looked to one another before they finally came up to the Andrews' home. "Well, here's our stop." She said as they all got out. She walked ahead of them and up the steps. She knocked on the door and Fred opened it. The look on his face was as if he was seeing a ghost.

"Ant?" Fred asked as he noticed the drop dead gorgeous woman that she had turned in to.

"Hey Freddie. It's good to see you." She said as she hugged him and he hugged her just as tight.

"Archie's upstairs kids." Fred said as Jughead and Betty started for the stairs, but listened as the two started to speak. "So you back for good or…?"

"Just until my idiot brother's out." She said casually. Jughead felt protective of his dad. "What's going on? He was vague on the details of his imprisonment."

Fred explained about the blossom murder and the evidence against her brother. She shook her head and sighed. "I told him not to do anything stupid. He fucking knew better. Alright, Thanks Fred. I'll come by some other time to really catch up."

"That's good. It's been a long time, Ant. I've missed ya." Fred said as Aryann smiled to him. Betty and Jughead made their way up the stairs and opened up Archie's door.

Archie looked surprised to see them, but smiled anyway. "What brings you two here at this hour? I thought you were supposed to meet that new foster family?" Archie asked as Betty and Jughead moved to sit down in his room.

"My Aunt Aryann came to stay with me till my dad gets out." Jughead said sourly.

"I'm sorry, Jug." Archie said genuinely. Jughead nodded and looked to his oldest friend.

"Yeah, no worries, Arch." Jughead said with a small smile.

"I didn't know you had an aunt." Archie said confused.

"Neither did I, but apparently everyone else knew. She left town before I was even born. She's been gone from here for twenty years." Jughead said with the limited information on his aunt.

"That's crazy." Archie said as Jughead scoffed.

The three of them talked for a while before Fred and Aryann came up the stairs. "You ready, Jug? We've got to get going back home." She said as Jughead nodded and stood up.

"I've got to get home too." Betty said as she kissed Jughead on the cheek and gave him a tight squeeze.

"Bye guys." Archie said as he looked to his friends' backs. They both said bye to him. Aryann smiled to Archie and gave him a wink. She then turned to Fred and hugged him one more time. "I'll show myself out, Fred. I'll come by soon to talk." She said as Fred nodded.

The moment the three made it out of the house a voice that Aryann hadn't heard in so long yelled from next door. "Elizabeth Cooper! Get in the house now."

The three looked over to see Alice Cooper stood before them. She looked at Jughead with disdain before her eyes roamed to meet a pair of dark brown eyes that she hadn't seen in so long. "Ant?"

"Hey, Alice. See the snobbish northside did wonders for ya." Aryann said with a smirk at how uncomfortable Alice looked.

"Ant, we don't need the likes of you on our street." She said haughtily.

"Yeah, well babe, look in the mirror and say that. Remember snakes don't shed their skin so easily, Alice." Aryann said with a sneer that would rival FP's. "Get in, Jug. The farther we are from posers the better I'll be."

Alice's eyes widened in shock before she clenched her teeth and turned red. Betty had been present through the whole exchange before her mother rounded on her. "And what were you thinking going off with him?"

Betty rolled her eyes and turned around to head to her room for the night.

"Look, I know you like the girl and all that, and I'm sorry if that put a damper on your relationship, but that woman seriously knows how to piss me off. She always has." Aryann said as Jughead let a small smile come to his face at Alice Cooper having her ass handed to her.

"It's alright, Aunt Aryann." Jughead said as he watched his newfound aunt smiled and reach over to squeeze his shoulder. It amazed him that she acted like his dad did sometimes. "How close were you?"

"Very close. He and I were always together. We did a lot of things I'm not proud of, but it was fun." She said as she reminisced with her nephew. "You know when you were born it was the happiest I had ever heard him. When he called to tell me about you I told him I wanted pictures. You dad would never let me come back, no matter how much I wanted to. Told me I had a gift and to make something for myself. Serpent life wasn't meant for me. I was hurt, but now I'm older and I see the wisdom he had at the time. I was sixteen when I left here. Hitched a ride to New York City and used the money I had to make my way. Eventually, I landed a good job and stuck to it before I entered college. Went to NYU to study English Lit and a bunch of other courses on writing. Got published when I was twenty-one.
I used that money for my first big purchase."

"What did you buy?" He asked engrossed in her story.

"The White Wyrm." She said cheekily.

"You own the Wyrm?" He asked in disbelief.

"Yep. I own it, but FP runs it. I know it's in good hands." She said as he nodded slowly.

They pulled up to the trailer and got out. "We can finish story time later. Right now, I think we both need to hit the sack. You got school and I gotta check on my building." She said as Jughead nodded and they both yawned at the same time. She smiled and nodded for toward the trailer.