Betty:

Betty breathed a puff of steam as she stepped out of the warm sanctuary of her house, into the freezing outside air of the morning. She adjusted the shoulder strap of her bag as she descended the outside stairs and onto the path, walking to the end before turning towards the Andrew's place next door. As she continued her way, she looked cautiously through the windows of her own house to see if her mother was watching. Seeing no one there she strode confidently up to the front door of the Andrews residence and knocked. A few moments later the door swung open to reveal a very tired looking Fred Andrews. "Good morning Mr Andrews. I was wondering if Archie wanted to walk to school with me today?" Betty greeted and asked cheerfully. Mr Andrews offered her a small smile in greeting before saying "I'm sorry Betty. Archie's not coming to school today, he was up most of the night with a fever." Running his hand through his hair, he watched as Betty's expression dropped and she sighed. "Oh… All right then. I'll just be on my way" She exclaimed at a loss for words. "Do you need me to get you anything?" She asked as an afterthought. "No, we'll be fine, thank you." Mr Andrews assured her. "I'll tell him you stopped by" he finished closing the door.

The walk to school was lonely for Betty. Although her and Archie weren't dating they were just friends… or whatever they were. She still missed his company, how he talked about his music and let her have a rant about her parents while they walked. The trip without him seemed longer, and left her time to think about a lot more than she wanted to without him as a distraction. Eventually she made it into the school building, feeling the heat of the air warm her up. Still early, as per usual, she went into the Blue and Gold room to kill some time. As she was filing through her notes about possible articles she heard footsteps enter the room behind her. She turned around to see Jughead putting his bag on a table. "Morning, I didn't expect to see you in here so early" she said to him. "Why wouldn't I be in here? It's one of the few places I can escape from my life" Jughead said dully in his façade. "Well you have five minutes left to your escape" Betty joked looking at her watch. Jughead snickered walking toward her. "What do you think about an article about Gender in equality?" she asked looking through her ideas. "Nah, too cliché" Jughead dismissed "do something that no one's done before, no one's even thought of." "Like if the President was gay, would his husband be called the first Man?" Betty joked. "Yes" Jughead confirmed completely serious, a deadpan expression on his face. "I was kidding" Betty scoffed. "I'm not" Jughead confirmed. Before Betty could try and convince him that it was a bad idea, the bell interrupted her as it signalled for them to get to class. "I'll do some thinking" Jughead told her, grabbing his bag before walking out the door and disappearing into the crowd.

The rest of the school day wasn't memorable for Betty. Nothing new happened, she didn't learn much from any of her classes and Archie wasn't there to show the group any new music. Just a normal, boring, mundane school day. After school, she and Veronica had River Vixen practice for about an hour, thoroughly enjoying Cheryl yelling at everyone constantly. Afterward Veronica suggested that they go to Pop's or hit the town for a bit of fun, but Betty told her that she was going to go home and write the article for the school paper. "Okay, good luck. I'll see you tomorrow." Veronica said seeming unfased despite being blown off.

When Betty arrived home, she found her mum making dinner in the kitchen. "You're home late" she said seemingly unimpressed. "Sorry, I had River Vixen practice" Betty said taking off her bag and hanging it on a hook by the door. "Being in that Cheerleading squad is taking up a lot of your time. A lot of time that you could be putting into other things- ""But looks great on a College application" Betty interrupted her. "That may be, but being around that Blossom girl can't be good for your mental wellbeing." Betty rolled her eyes but remained quiet. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour, go take a shower now" her mum suggested.

After dinner Betty sat on her bed planning and writing the new article. She had called Jughead and tried to convince him that this was a bad idea but he refused to give in. Through the expression of some good points that the article would command attention, raise important questions and awareness, Betty had no choice but to accept on the condition that her parents would never find out. She wrote and she wrote until it was dark outside and her parents had gone to bed, finding the article surprisingly easy to write as the thoughts that she couldn't share with her family poured out of her. It wasn't until she heard an unusual sound that she stopped. Thinking nothing of it for the moment she continued writing. After another half of a paragraph she heard the sound again, a deep uneven sound produced in short succession. For a moment she panicked, thinking that someone was clambering around her house trying to break in, until she realised that it sounded like coughing. She sighed in relief as she remembered that Archie was sick and she would be hearing him cough through both of their windows. She closed the lid of her laptop and picked up her phone to text him.

Hey, are you all right? I can hear you coughing from here.

It was a few moments until she got a reply.

Hey, yeah, sorry. I don't mean to keep you up.

Archie wrote. Feeling horrible that he was being an annoyance.

No no. I'm writing an article right now, you're not keeping me up.

Betty quickly wrote back.

Oh, that's good. What's the article about?

Archie asked, desperate for a conversation after a day of being bedridden.

Betty sent him a reasonably long text explaining how Jughead roped her into this situation after her making a distasteful joke. Making sure to included that she has actually ended up enjoying it.

Haha, typical Jug

Archie replied after a reasonably long coughing spell.

Through and through

Betty agreed.

You should get some rest

She added, putting her laptop on the floor and getting into bed herself.

Yeah, probably both should aye. It's pretty late. Night Betty

Good night Archie

Betty texted before shutting off her phone and placing it on the table next to her, rolling back onto her bed and drifting off to sleep.