A/N: This fic is inspired by the Elizabeth Olsen, Facebook Watch drama Sorry For Your Loss. It's great, check it out.

Also, this is my first Choni story so please be kind! :)

Chapter song: Trypophobic - Clare Follett.

Trypophobia - an aversion to the sight of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes.

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine!

Part I – Trypophobic

Friday, I woke up and you didn't
And Monday, I needed you more than I ever did

There's a hole where my heart once was, there's a hole 'cause my spirit's gone
There are holes in my memories of the good days that always ended too quickly
There's a big hole where you belong

Toni rolled over with a groan and pressed her face into the pillow beneath her. She was doing her very best to ignore the determined, incessant pounding on her trailer door, but even she couldn't sleep through this racket. She groaned, louder and with much irritation, as she sat up and threw all of the bed clothes off of her petite body. She practically stomped to the living room and yanked on the screen door with more force than necessary.

"What?" She barked.

She was certainly proud of herself that even at her small stature, with her hair dishevelled and in just an oversized t-shirt, she was able to sound and look intimidating.

Jughead Jones, her best friend, didn't recoil at her tone or snap back. He just stared back at her with a slight frown and appraised her appearance in a way that was more caring than judgemental.

He had to be used to her new normal by now.

He held up a white paper bag from Pop's and that was enough to admit him entry. He followed her into the small home slowly, cautiously, and she appreciated that he did not verbally acknowledge the mess – dirty dishes had piled up on the counter, items of clothing were tossed haphazardly across the living room furniture, and there were enough empty liquor bottles scattered around to put Jughead's father and her uncle to shame. He pushed a few things off of the coffee table to create some space and tossed one of her old hoodies aside so that he could sit on the sofa.

After she turned on her coffee pot, she looked over her shoulder to watch Jughead take two burgers out of the takeout bag. It wasn't even ten o'clock in the morning; she couldn't remember the last time that she actually ate a meal, and Jughead was an insomniac so she wasn't about to complain about the interesting choice in breakfast foods.

She didn't ask if he wanted a coffee, she knew what the answer would be. She took two mugs down from the cupboard and prepared two coffees, black for Jughead and one milk and one sugar for herself.

She carried the coffees into the living room and sat down beside him. He accepted the mug with a smile and she dug into the burger without a word.

For Jughead, food, especially from Pop's, was comfort and childhood happiness, so she knew that bringing her two burgers meant a hell of a lot more than just making sure that she was fed.

"Thanks Jug," she finally murmured.

"Don't mention it."

They ate in silence, and it was comfortable. People just kept asking her how she was doing, like the answer wasn't obvious, and she just needed a minute to not think about it. Jughead got that. They had always had an easy, low maintenance friendship. Since his Serpent initiation, their foundation was built more on pointed glances and short, meaningful sentences rather than long, rambling conversations with forced niceties. She knew how to calm him when he was feeling particularly riled up, and he knew when she needed someone and when she needed space.

Jughead was good with words but he always knew when they weren't needed.

She finished her burger as the morning sun pierced through the blinds and painted shadows along the walls.

Toni had always loved mornings. As a teenager she would sneak out of the trailer, careful not to wake her uncle, and take long rides on her motorcycle. She would often end up at Sweetwater River where she would watch the sun come up and take pictures of the way the early morning sun moved through the trees and along the water. Riverdale was beautiful like that – silent and lonely in the early mornings.

A few years later, her mornings were just as beautiful, but far from lonely.

"Hey, sleepy head," Toni chuckled as she tickled the feet poking out through the layers of bedclothes. "It's time to get out of bed."

"No," her girlfriend giggled. She threw the sheets over her head and tried to squirm out of the firm grasp around her ankles. "You promised," she whined.

Toni laughed as she slid into the bed and wrapped herself around her petulant girlfriend. She pressed her mouth against her ear and murmured, "I lied. You need to get up and get ready. We have plans to go to brunch with Jughead and Betty, remember? You love brunch," she added, trying to coax her sleeping beauty out of bed.

The girl, taller, with paler skin and darker eyes, tossed the blankets aside dramatically and turned her head so that she could look up at Toni with a grin and a playfully arched eyebrow. "What exactly do you mean by get ready?"

Toni's eyes widened and she hesitated for just a moment before she responded. "I mean that you are already so beautiful that all you really need is five minutes to put on clothes."

The redhead smiled, big and bright, and wrapped her arms around the smaller girl's neck. "That's better. Now give me my good morning kiss."

Jughead broke the silence after he deposited all of the greasy wrappers in the trash. "Do you work tonight?"

Toni shifted on the couch and tucked her legs up underneath her as she cradled her mug with both hands. "Yup, ten 'til close."

He just nodded as he began to clean up the kitchen, not so much that it was entirely obvious but enough that Toni recognized exactly what he was doing. But she didn't stop him.

"I started writing again," he stated as he filled the sink with soap and water.

Her eyebrow arched in interest. "Yeah?" Jughead's writer's block was a well-known, unspoken fact amongst their friend group. As a published novelist it was a sore subject for him, and one that they only broached when he did.

He nodded again before he explained. "Yeah, I've just been writing nonstop lately. Barely sleeping. It's driving Betty nuts," he chuckled. "But I can't let this clarity pass. It's like these past couple months, with everything so dark and senseless and gut-wrenching, I've needed to write in order to process everything."

Toni gnashed her teeth together before she responded slowly. "So what you're saying is that my wife dying really inspired you?"

Jughead turned to her with wide, deeply apologetic eyes. "Toni…I, shit…that's not what I meant."

She rolled her eyes as she got to her feet. "Except it kinda is." She passed him and headed for the solitude of her bedroom. "Thanks for the food, Jug," she murmured as she closed the door.

She flopped onto the lumpy mattress and stared at the ceiling. It was several minutes before she heard him leave, he probably finished doing the stupid dishes.

She was angry at Jughead, obviously; what a stupid, inconsiderate thing to say, but she was also a little envious. She couldn't even remember the last photograph that she had taken. She knew that she had unreturned messages from the gallery on her phone, but she just couldn't bring herself to care all that much. And before…before, she had actually been making good money off of her pictures. She had finally reached a point where she was doing what she loved and getting paid for it, and now she was just back to depending on her bartending gig at the Whyte Wyrm.

She was definitely not inspired.

She just hurt, all the time.

Her boys – Jughead, Sweet Pea, Fangs, Joaquin – had all been so good to her in their own unique ways. But she was used to taking care of them, not being the one who needed to be cared for. She was used to spending time with Jughead when he was brooding about writing or Betty. She cleaned up Sweet Pea and Joaquin's cuts and bruises when their impulses got the better of them. She had stood by Fangs' side and supported him when he had been struggling with his sexuality, and now she was his confidant when it came to boys. She had always been strong and stable, and now she wasn't.

People expected her to be that person again. That same old Toni who was brash, honest, fearless, unwaveringly loyal, and even-tempered. Except she wasn't that person anymore, and she couldn't be just because everyone around her wanted her to pull herself up by her bootstraps and move on. She couldn't be "over it" just because everyone else was.

That's not how deep, all-consuming love works.

If anyone really understood that then they would leave her the hell alone.

She went back to bed, and then she tossed and turned until it was time to get ready for her shift. She showered and dried her hair. She put on her favourite black leather pants, because she used to borrow them, and a black tank top with a grey flannel. A dusting of makeup made her feel less like a zombie, and she grabbed her Serpent jacket to complete the look as she walked out the door. Even though most of the customers would have known her since she was a baby, she still wanted to look reasonably presentable for the tips from out-of-towners.

That night at the Whyte Wyrm was just like any other. She served Serpents, a few Northsiders that didn't want to be seen away from their wives by anyone they knew, and a some frat boys that liked the thought of going to a biker gang's bar. Tending bar was monotonous and predictable, but last call came surprisingly quickly. At closing time, she wiped down the bar and took a seat on a stool on the other side, like a patron. The last few customers, young Serpents that Toni didn't know all that well, left without a fuss and then it was just her and a bottle of whiskey.

"Drinking isn't gonna make you feel better, kid."

Toni recognized that voice, and that comment coming from that voice was incredibly ironic. "Funny coming for you," she chuckled humorlessly.

She spun on her stool to see F.P. Jones emerging from the shadows of the back of the bar. He must have come through the backdoor by the dumpster, she often forgot just how many people had keys to this place. The older Jones sat on the stool next to her and grabbed the bottle in front of her. She thought that he was going to push it away from her, or smash it, or something, but instead he refilled her empty glass and stared at her with an expression of challenge.

"Go ahead," he spoke slowly, "if it's really going to make you feel better, if it's really what you need."

Toni stared back at him and then at the glass in front of her. She didn't say anything for a long time, but she couldn't bring herself to down the alcohol in front of her either.

"Nothing makes me feel better," she finally whispered.

"And feeling nothing is better than feeling something," F.P. supplied understandingly.

She nodded in confirmation as she felt tears sting the back of her eyes. "Everyone thinks I should be getting over it. I can see it in the way they look at me. The same people that were offering condolences and willing to bring food and flowers to my house after the funeral, now look at me like they expect everything to just go back to normal. Like they're just waiting for me to catch up."

She hadn't said any of these things out loud, to anyone, and maybe F.P. was the perfect person to hear them. He hadn't exactly experienced the same thing that she was going through, but he knew loss and grief, and feeling lost. She remembered when Jughead's mom left, and how F.P. had almost drowned himself in booze. She knew that he hadn't always been the best father to her best friend, and yet, strangely enough, he was one of the few good paternal figures that she had in her life.

"Because everything has gone back to normal for them."

She nodded again. "Their world didn't end. Mine did."

F.P. placed a gentle hand on the middle of her back. She covered her face with both of her hands and cried like she hadn't since she had realized that this wasn't all a nightmare, it was her life.

She sobbed over the bar top of the Whyte Wyrm and the leader of the Southside Serpents held her. He gradually wrapped an arm around her small shoulders and she pressed her face against the cool leather of his jacket. She hadn't been held like this in far too long and she needed it – the comfort, the contact. He didn't say a single word, he just let her cry.

She eventually pulled back and wiped the remaining tears on her cheeks with a huff. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"Don't apologize, kid," he replied quickly. He kept a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it in a show of support. "You are allowed to feel whatever you need to feel, but you need to allow yourself to really feel it first."

She looked down at the glistening bar top with a grin, she had never imagined that she would receive coping advice from Forsythe Pendleton Jones Jr. "Are you trying to tell me that sitting in my trailer and drinking is not a good way to manage my feelings?" She joked.

He seemed to find the dark humor in her question as well because they were able to laugh about it, genuine, throaty chuckles. And laughing definitely felt better than crying.

"Yeah," he spoke, still chuckling. "That's exactly what I'm trying to say." He paused before he added, "And you're allowed to talk about her, ya know?"

Toni's shoulders tensed and she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from saying something that she didn't really mean. She thought that she had been doing a great job of hiding just how destroyed she really was, but apparently at least one person had noticed that she had been avoiding saying her very name. Talking about her just made everything hurt that much more.

She opened her mouth to speak, and when nothing came out she was glad that F.P. filled the silence.

"In A.A.," he began tentatively, "even when we don't want to go to a meeting, it's drilled into our heads that we get up and go. We go because we know that it's good for us and that we need to. Suit up and show up," he stated firmly. "But you have to suit up and show up for yourself. No one can do it for you, and I know a handful of boys that could do it for you if they could."

Toni smiled at the mere mention of her boys.

"You have to do it for yourself first," he finished softly.

She felt tears in her eyes again, but her throat was still raw from her earlier breakdown. She wanted to be all cried out for one evening. She took a slow, deep breath and flexed her fingers in front of her. "I keep wearing her clothes," she confessed. "Sometimes it makes me feel closer to her, but now it mostly makes me feel so much farther away because they don't even smell like her anymore."

F.P. frowned and squeezed her shoulder again. "It's not fair, Topaz. Nothing about this is fair. But you still deserve to live your life."

She bit down on her bottom lip, hard. "I just never got this far. I never imagined this part."

"What part?" He asked curiously.

"The part where I have to live without her."

"Cheryl," she growled in annoyance. "Pick up your goddamn phone."

She had called six times, and she had gotten the answering machine six times.

She was really trying not to overreact, and not be that clingy, needy girlfriend, but it was two o'clock in the morning and her girl hadn't come home and she wasn't picking up her phone.

Cheryl had told her that she was just going out to a late dinner with her brother and then she would be right home. So why wasn't she home? And why wasn't she answering her phone? Something didn't add up. Something wasn't right.

Toni tried her number one more time, heard her girl's sassy answering machine message one more time, before she threw her cellphone on the bed and tugged at the roots of her hair in frustration.

Toni had no idea what to do. What was she supposed to do? She felt like her heart was beating a million beats per minute, and her palms were sweaty, and she could barely string two consecutive, coherent thoughts together. She had never felt like this before. She had never felt like her heart was out there, outside of her chest just walking around in seven hundred dollar heels.

She had never felt so out of control, and yet so singularly devoted.

Her head snapped up when she heard the telltale crack of the front door opening and closing. She raced out of the bedroom and into the living room just in time to see her girlfriend sheepishly hanging her coat and placing her keys in the little ceramic bowl that they kept on a table by the door.

"Where were you?" Toni bellowed before her brain had even given her permission to ask such a question in such a demanding tone.

Cheryl turned to her with a guilty expression. "I'm sorry, TT. I went out to dinner with JJ and then we went back to the office, and then, when he left I fell asleep on my sofa." She toed off her shoes and approached her girlfriend with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"Why didn't you call?" Toni asked angrily.

The redhead's brow furrowed in confusion. "I fell asleep," she reiterated.

"You should have called, or you should have texted when you went to the office, or something. A little common courtesy so that I would know where you were and I wouldn't have had to stay up, and leave so many fucking messages on your phone. You could have at least—"

She abruptly stopped talking when Cheryl cupped her face with both hands and softly stroked her cheeks with her thumbs. Toni hadn't even realized that she had started crying.

"Baby," Cheryl cooed. "What's wrong?"

"I was so worried," Toni spoke through shaky breaths. "I was…" Her words turned into tears and Cheryl quickly pulled her into a tight embrace. "I panicked. I just felt…"

Cheryl ran her hands through pink-streaked hair and kissed her on the temple. "It's okay," she smiled knowingly. "I love you too."

Her morning began a lot like the previous one. She heard banging on her trailer door. She groaned. She reluctantly got out of her bed. Jughead Jones stood on the rickety steps with a bag from Pop's.

This time she greeted him with the faintest of smiles. "Hey Jug."

She pushed open the door for him and he followed her into the trailer. He sat on the couch and unloaded their food while she made the coffee.

They ate in silence until she asked a loaded question. "I'm thinking of going to my apartment soon. Will you come with me?"

Jughead slowly raised his head and looked at her carefully. Toni hadn't set foot in the New York City apartment that she had shared with Cheryl since that day and everyone knew it. He swallowed the burger in his mouth before he responded eagerly, "Yes, of course."

Toni nodded and turned her eyes back to her food. "Cool," she murmured.

A/N: Please review! Let me know how I'm doing. :)