Work Text:
i.
By the time lunch rolls around, Betty Cooper has fucking had it with the world.
First, she wakes up ten minutes late because her stupid alarm didn’t go off and then her mother barges into the room and berates Betty about punctuality and time management for ten minutes causing her to be even more late, then her first period teacher threatens to call her mother about her being late and, of course, the icing on the shit cake is just Cheryl being her usual self and demanding that cheerleading practice go on for an extra two hours because, in her words, ‘we are the face of this school and right now, our face is fucking pathetic’ and that alone cuts into her already limited time she has to work on the latest edition of the Blue and Gold.
So now, here she sits, with a giant fucking headache, a knot in her neck from being yelled at two different times along with her stress levels being through the roof and her laptop in front of her with literally nothing written.
In short, she’s frustrated, angry, annoyed, disgruntled and pretty much any other bad adjective she can think of.
“Betts?”
She looks up, a little slower that usual, and blinks at Veronica, who sits next to her, owlishly “What?”
“I asked if you are okay” Veronica’s voice is enough to help soothe the ache of the day but not enough to make it all better “Baby, you look worn”
Betty shakes her head “bad day” she mumbles “Just tired and--” she sighs, her hands go to her head and rub at her temples “I need to finish this before practice because I won’t be able to finish it afterwards”
Veronica’s concerned stare doesn’t lessen if anything, it gets worse “Betty, you’re spreading yourself too thin. Take a minute to just eat” she pushes Betty’s tray towards her but the blonde just shakes her head “What’s the last thing you ate?”
“Um--” the blonde sighs “Last night. Had to skip breakfast this morning”
“Nope” Veronica shakes her head “Okay, yeah, no” she grabs laptop, closes it and hands it to Kevin who sits on the other side of the table “Eat something”
“Ronnie--”
“Don’t ‘Ronnie’ me. You need to eat something” Veronica cups her face “Mi amor, you’re gonna pass out in practice in you don’t eat something and you have a headache” she gently grabs Betty’s wrist “You’ve been rubbing at your temples since I saw you an hour and half ago so eat”
Betty sighs “But the paper--”
“Can wait. I’m sure Juggie will understand” she picks up the apple off Betty’s tray and hands it to her “Now eat, please”
There’s a pause as Betty debates putting up a fight but between her mom, her teacher, Cheryl fucking Blossom, and the Blue and Gold, Betty feels kind of pooped out already so she grabs the apple and takes a bite without fuss “thank you” she mumbles as she leans into Veronica’s side, her perfume invading the blonde’s senses which usually aggravated her headache but with Veronica, it just soothes her.
Veronica wraps her arm around Betty’s shoulders and presses a kiss against the crown of her head “you know I got you, you big dork and I’ll always be around to make sure you don’t run yourself into the ground but don’t make my job any harder, okay?” she smiles against blonde hair “you’re kinda my world, you know”
Betty tilts her head up so she can look Veronica in the eyes “Mine too” both of them smile softly and lean towards each other to give one another a soft kiss. Veronica cups Betty’s face, her thumb gently stroking Betty’s face when Kevin scoffs loudly pulling them from their little love bubble.
“It’s like you both fucking forgot I was here”
They both did but they don’t tell him that.
ii.
Betty would really like to know she’s done in a past life to have Cheryl Blossom hate her so goddamn much like--she really would like to know because maybe then she would understand why the redhead lays into her so hard.
She wouldn’t but a reason would be nice. Period.
“It’s cause you’re Betty Cooper” Kevin says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Betty looks around at Jughead, Veronica and Archie, all of them piled into a booth at Pop’s with the boys on one side and Veronica sitting at the edge with Betty’s calves in her lap, the blonde’s feet hanging just out of the booth while she sits with her back pressed to the wall.
“So are you gonna elaborate on that or--?”
Kevin sighs “Betty, you’re Polly’s sister”
Betty’s hands curl in on themselves and the blonde doesn’t even notice
“And Jason dated Polly and, in some weird way, Cheryl still kind of might blame her for what happened to Jason”
Her nails break skin.
“Makes sense” Jughead chimes in “I mean you and Polly could be twins”
The tips of her finger are damp, just barely tinted red.
Archie opens his mouth like Betty already didn’t have enough with just gossip girl and Kevin “Maybe not twins but the eyes are the same. They’re your mom’s eyes”
Her fist is about to tighten when she feels another hand wrap around both of her curled fists. Veronica gently, and wordlessly, undoes Betty’s tight grip, she grabs a napkin off the table, causally and presses it against the crescent shape wounds on her hands under the table “So” Veronica’s voice nearly makes Betty jump “How’s Joaquin?” Everyone groans because you ask Kevin how his serpent Romeo is doing and he won’t shut up for an hour but Betty has to blink back tears as he starts talking.
No one has ever cared, or even noticed, when Betty’s fists get too tight that when she unclenches, her palm is stained red and her eyes are pooling with tears.
Kevin is about ten minutes into his spiel on Joaquin when Veronica takes the napkin away from Betty’s hand, tucks the napkin under her thigh so no one sees the red tinted paper and then brings Betty’s hand up to her mouth and very gently kisses the inside of her palm. She then brings her hand back down and laces their hands together, she grabs the other one and does the same and by the time Kevin is halfway through his love sick rant, Betty could probably cry on command if you asked her too.
She catches Veronica’s eye and smiles, softly, mouthing ‘i love you’.
Veronica just smiles her own personal ‘Betty Cooper is my whole life’ smile and mouths back ‘love you too’
iii.
Veronica isn’t really allowed at Betty’s house just because--well, just because Alice Cooper is Alice Cooper. She’s a control freak who is convinced that Veronica Lodge will be the undoing on her daughter and she just thinks they’re friends--Betty’s pretty sure if her mom found out her and Ronnie are a lot more than friends, she would actually just keel over and die.
So to keep that from happening, Betty just always stays the night at Veronica’s apartment. It’s easier that way as well with how loving and accepting Hermione is and also how often Hermione is gone due to work.
Veronica’s apartment just works best for them both and Betty doesn’t associate it with anything bad, in fact, all her memories at the apartment are more than good so she’s never had a reason to not want to fall asleep there.
Until her nightmares started.
Betty’s had nightmares ever since she could understand the words that her mom would fling at her with such carelessness that Betty sometimes swore she could feel them but it only got worse when Polly got sent away. And then she started dating Veronica and the number of times she would wake up in a cold sweat with her chest tightening, dropped dramatically. She had someone to help anchor her back down and keep her mind from wandering into dark corners of itself. She went from nightmares five times a week to two, at most.
And then her mom and dad tell her that Polly’s stay is going from ‘she’s going to come home within the year’ to indefinite.
“But they didn’t say why?” Veronica is currently running her fingers through Betty’s hair while they both lay in bed “I mean, they can’t just not tell you why”
“But they can” she feels numb, she barely registers Veronica’s fingers combing through her hair. All she can really think about is Polly, her big sister Polly who protected Betty from their parents as best she could, who was Betty’s first best friend, who always made sure to tell Betty that their mother’s words shouldn’t hold any weight because Betty is perfect the way she is.
Polly, who might not ever come home, who cracked the foundation of their home, who Betty couldn’t protect.
“And they did” she feels tears beginning to burn her eyes and part of her thinks that coming to Veronica wasn’t the best move because she hates falling apart in front of her girlfriend but a bigger part of her knows falling apart in front of Veronica is better than falling apart alone.
“Oh, baby” Veronica hugs her from behind, pressing soft kisses to Betty’s neck “I got you, I’m here”
But Polly isn’t, her mind screams.
Betty screws her eyes shut and turns around in Veronica’s arms and buries her face in her neck. She refuses to let her tears fall, refuses to sob and scream like she wants to and having Veronica surround her makes it easier to breathe, helps lessen that tight feeling in her chest.
“You’re not alone, Betty. I got you” Veronica’s hushed words are the last thing Betty hears clearly before her eyes slip shut and her tired mind lets go of consciousness.
-
“Betty” the word sounds so far away, crushed under the weight of her own dreams, desperately trying to pull her back “Betty, wake up. Baby--” the blonde’s eyes snap open and is immediately met face to face with Veronica’s worried dark eyes.
She looks around the dark room and feels a hot shame fill her--she’s never had a nightmare at the Lodge home before. Her skin is coated in a layer of sweat, her breathing is labored, her muscles are too tight and she feels like she could throw up.
“I--” her chest continues to fall up and down too quickly “I’m--sorry” tears burn her eyes again but this time she allows them to fall, allows the embarrassment she feels to take over. She’s about to pull the covers back and retreat to the bathroom where she can heave for a few minutes, pull herself together and then pretend it never happened but Veronica’s hug stops all of that.
Veronica tugs Betty into a hug, her arms wrapping tightly around the blonde while her hands rub her back gently “You don’t have to say sorry” she whispers fiercely “You don’t ever have to be sorry for having a nightmare, or for feeling bad, for anything you cannot control, Betty” she squeezes the blonde, her own eyes burning at the thought of the girl she loves, in pain “you don’t have to be sorry”
Betty opens her mouth to say something, anything but all that comes out is a strangled sob. Her hands fly up and clutch onto Veronica’s shoulders as her chest heaves--no one has held her after a nightmare since Polly, no one has known. Feeling Veronica’s words whispered into her skin, hearing the sincerity, feeling Veronica’s tight grip on her--it cracks Betty’s heart wide open and demolishes the wall she has up.
“I got you, baby” Veronica blinks causing two tears to roll down her face “it’s okay, you can fall apart”
And Betty does, she falls apart in her girlfriend’s arms knowing that she’ll still be there in the morning to help her pick up the pieces.
+ i
Veronica knows her father is, in the eyes of the judiciary system, a bad man, a crook, someone who doesn’t care for others.
But she doesn’t see that Hiram Lodge, the man everyone paints as the person who ruined both Veronica and her mother’s life, no, she doesn’t see the man who was dragged away from her before she could even blink.
She still sees the man who took off from work when she got sick to take care of her because ‘my love is sick, how could I work?’, she still sees the man who would play dress up with her with his best suits while he helped her raid her mami’s closest, she still sees the man who loved, loves, Veronica more than anything in his life.
But no one knows that man exists.
So when it comes out that Hiram Lodge has been found guilty of multiple awful, illegal things and he will spend the better part of both his and Veronica’s life in prison, no one expects her to feel like a piece of her has just been shattered.
No one except for her mami and her Betty.
She’s currently curled in on herself, a picture frame of her father on the day she was born locked in her grip while she cries “Baby girl?” she looks up at her mother’s voice “someone came to see you” she’s about to look past her mother but then a blur of blonde and pink are running towards her and wrapping her up in their embrace.
“I came as soon as I could” tears burn her eyes all over again “I’m here, Ronnie” Betty squeezes Veronica, softly and cups the back of her head while the other girl sobs into her shoulder, soaking her sweater.
“He’s g-gone” Veronica’s words are broken and filled with an ache that Betty feels in her stomach “He’s g-g-gone and he’s never c-coming home” and that was it; somewhere, deep in her soul, she thought Hiram Lodge would get off. She thought he would get off and while it wouldn’t be the happiest reunion on Earth, it would still be a reunion. He could still come home to Riverdale and his wife and his daughter.
But Veronica’s dream had been dashed with a phone call the night before.
Betty gently rocks Veronica has she runs her fingers through dark locks, gently scratching at Ronnie’s scalp “You’re not alone, Ron, I got you” Veronica’s fists curl into Betty’s sweater, the fabric keeping her nails from meeting, and breaking, skin “I’m here, Ronnie”
Veronica lets out a sob and buries her face in Veronica’s neck, her heart breaking and her world cracking but, through it all, she feels her love for Betty shine through.
Her world is currently broken and she feels like she may never be able to think of her father and not cry but she knows that she has Betty and her mom and she knows, with the two of them, she will smile tomorrow. She will get up, put her look together and and be able to face the world with Betty’s hand in her own and her love filling her chest.