CHAPTER TEN: First Instincts

Betty has her first proper prenatal appointment and check-up just a few days after Jughead pieced together the truth, resulting in Betty divulging the whole story to him, no longer able to hide the truth.

At this stage, so far Jughead is still the only person who knows Betty's secrets. However, she has been trying to find a way to mentally prepare herself to find a way to tell her parents of their grandchild.

As an expansion of knowing about the existence of her unborn child, Jughead also knew that she was having her first prenatal appointment today. He'd offered to take her and go with the nervous teenager to be there for moral support.

Although she was grateful for both offer the and for his support, Betty politely declined. After all, there are just some things that your ex just shouldn't have to be subjected to hearing about both yourself and another man's child...

So, seeing as she had turned down the offer of the only person who knows that she is pregnant, Betty had her first, proper appointment on her own.

As she waits impatiently, her leg bounces up and down on the ball of her foot nervously, thinking about all the different ways that things could go wrong during her appointment as she waits for it.

Given the way it was conceived, what if there is something wrong with the baby?

What if she's too young, what if her body is not mature enough to be a safe, nurturing place for her baby to spend nine months growing and developing?

What if her doctor was wrong during her brief consultation at the hospital after passing out at school? What if her baby isn't okay?

Thankfully Betty's growing fears -as her hands clench into fists- are interrupted by her name being called out into the sterile, cold and near-empty corridor.

Betty quickly bounces up from her seat like a jack-in-the-box, powered on by nerves, rather than her depleting energy.

"Hi Elizabeth, my name's Mary. I'll be your nurse and sonographer for today. Now, there'll be two parts to your appointment. Firstly, I'll be conducting your ultrasound and you'll get to see your little bub. Then, your doctor will take over. He'll ask you some questions and translate the results of your tests and ultrasound for you. Now, before we get started, are we waiting for anyone? Will dad be coming today?"

In case her nervousness isn't enough, at the mention of her baby's father, Betty's stomach drops all over again and she feels dangerously close to needing to find the nearest bathroom, bucket or sink.

While the morning sickness will subside eventually, Betty knows that she's going to have to get ready for at least the next 18 years of dodging 'the dad' issue.

"No... It's just me. The father's not in the picture."

The nurse just nods politely. However, with the clarification, Betty notices the very small, slight change in the nurse's disposition; classing her as just another knocked-up, bed-hopping teenager. Betty takes a short breath of air, trying to hold her head up a little higher, her shoulders, straighter. She can't change the way other people see her and the way that other people choose to perceive her circumstances. But, she can control whether or not she lets them get to her.

The nurse goes over some routine information, before getting a few more details from the mum-to-be. Betty was then directed onto the uncomfortable bed in the small room, lifting her favourite sweater up to expose enough of her stomach for the ultrasound.

"And this is your first ultrasound?" the sonographer asks conversationally, preparing the equipment before squirting the icy, cold gel onto the sensitive skin of her abdomen. Betty nods nervously, taking a small gasp of air at the unexpectedly chilling sensation.

The room falls to a silence and fears race through Betty's mind, until she is interrupted with the best distraction possible.

"See this? We have the curve of its back, its head, two little legs..." the nurse says, pointing to a few different spots on the small screen.

Betty feels her breathe being swept away as she is left breathless at the sight before her as she studies all the tiny details of the tiny human that the nurse points out... All the details of her tiny human.

"That's my baby?" Betty asks obviously. At present, there's not too much thought going into her words and questions as her brain goes to jelly at the sight on the small screen.

The nurse just nods patiently. After almost fifteen years, she's used to the wide variety of reactions from overwhelmed expectant parents at the first ultrasound.

"Oh! Hi bubba. Hi..." Betty chokes, a few small tears trailing down her glowing face and radiant smile. She can't take her eyes off the screen.

"Developmentally, they're measuring in well for fourteen and a half weeks. If anything, the baby is on the slightly lower-end of the scale, but that's no cause for concern at this stage. Nice, strong heartbeat... Everything's looking good."

As the nurse zooms in on a few other things and takes a few other notes, Betty's absorbs every moment and every second of watching her unborn baby and all of its tiny little movements. She's sure that she can feel her heart expanding, swelling with an indescribable sense of love.

"Now, the little one's healthy, but the doctor will have a few more tests results and will be able to tell you a little more about how you are doing, too..."

#

After receiving good news and the all-clear on both her and her baby's health, Betty leaves her doctors office.

Walking out, her mind is completely absorbed with the relief of knowing that her baby is healthy. She's preoccupied with mentally reliving the moments of listening to her baby's heartbeat and watching her baby during the ultrasound.

So, walking down the corridor, Betty doesn't notice a familiar face further down the hallway...

She doesn't see Cheryl's sidekick, Ginger, who happens to see her, watching as Betty leaves one of Riverdale's only two obstetricians, with her ultrasound photo and prenatal tablets in-hand.

Then, after the oblivious blonde walks straight past her, continuing through the hospital, Ginger pulls her phone out, finding a familiar contact in her favourites.

"Cheryl? It's Ginger. I think I have the answer to why Betty Cooper fainted last week..."

#

Betty had scheduled her appointment for early that day, before school started. Later on that same day and after getting to school, Betty spots Jughead unsurprisingly entering the school cafeteria, so she catches up to him, keeping step with him and following him in.

"Thank you so much for the notes, Jug. You have no idea how much they helped."

Jughead shrugs coyly, his hands extending further into his jacket pockets; it's his nervous tell.

"It was nothing. I needed the notes anyway, so I thought you might as well get some use from them, too."

Betty just smiles appreciatively. She knows that he went to more effort than he typically would have with the notes that he handed on to her. But, she also knows that he would never admit that.

"Hey, by the way, don't let me forget, but I have something for you. Well, sort of. I'll give it to you after school."

A little smile upturns the corner of Betty's lips. "You do? What is it?"

He just wiggles his eyebrows up and down, a little smirk forming on his lips. "You'll find out soon enough. It's nothing big, it's just something small."

Betty just nods, knowing that Jughead has far too much experience in keeping things close to his chest to divulge any more details than what he wants to give her to feed her curiosity.

"By the way, I saw the-" Betty pauses, looking around to their surrounds before continuing to speak in a low whisper. "-I saw my little... project this morning."

Jughead chuckles lightly, finding humour in the first operative code-word that she had come up with on the spot, in case of other listening ears.

"Yeah...?"

He can see the smile in her eyes as her head nods up and down in response; her perfectly, neat ponytail bouncing around as a consequence.

However, before she has a chance to respond and before she has a chance to elaborate, as if out of nowhere Cheryl Blossom walks over and zeroes in on Betty and Jughead, her arms crossed and her head held high.

As the conniving red-head approaches them in the cafeteria, Cheryl reminds Jughead of a cowboy from a western waltzing into a saloon, guns at the ready, in the manner that she walks over to them.

"Well, well, well... Apparently good-girl Betty isn't as good as she looks. Wagging class to go to Pops really is just the tip of the iceberg..."

With the most pronounced smirk etched onto her face, Cheryl speaks loudly and at a much, much louder volume than if she really is just talking to the two of them. But, no, she speaks loud and clear, deliberately projecting her voice to ensure that Jughead and Betty aren't the only two people listening, and, it works...

Eventually, there's a whole crowd forming in the cafeteria, their fellow students hushing their own conversations, standing still and listening in to hear about how apparently Betty Cooper isn't as 'good' as her reputation that precedes her.

"Get lost, Cheryl" Jughead interjects.

The protest from Betty's ex-boyfriend only brings a smile to Cheryl's plump, liquid-lipstick smothered lips, spurring her on.

"You really are turning into Polly, aren't you? Talk about history repeating itself, much? How is your baby, Betty? I must say that even I didn't see that one coming... Who would have thought that the Cooper girls are a matching set of teen-mom Barbies?"

With her secret out in the open, being publicly announced and broadcast to half the school that has gathered in the cafeteria, she instantly begins to panic.

Betty struggles with getting sufficient air through her short, hyperventilated breaths. Her heart pounds and her eyes dart wildly, looking around the room to see who else has heard the public announcement of one of her biggest secrets.

Looking among the familiar faces in the crowd, Betty sees Veronica's pure shock, Archie's scrunched-up, furrowed eyebrows, Kevin's disbelieving eyes and then she locks eyes with one other person in that room...

Chuck.

Betty feels like she could be sick when she notices the African-American teenager, the father of her unborn child, further in the cafeteria. Chuck's eyes are squinted, his eyebrows serious, seeing as his attention has most definitely been caught by Cheryl's unauthorized announcement on Betty's behalf.

Looking to Betty standing beside him and following her line of sight, Jughead notices the exchange between the two people on either side of the cafeteria, noting how Betty trembles more with every passing second that the eye-lock lasts.

Spotting Chuck, Jughead is thankful that the scum of the earth is on the other side of the room, keeping them well apart and stopping him from throwing just as many punches that he knows Chuck deserves at him, in front of half the school.

Instead, Jughead uses that anger and rage and he protectively springs to action for his ex-girlfriend. He snakes a supportive arm around Betty's trembling waist.

Most of their fellow students would have assumed that Betty is pregnant with the couple's baby, no one knowing that they had broken up in the last few days...

Most of the people in that room would have simply just assumed that it is Jughead's baby as much as it is Betty's...

However, with his arm holding Betty close to him, Jughead looks through the crowd of people, looking straight at the one person in that crowd who might not have made that same assumption as everyone else.

Then, Jughead speaks up; making sure his own announcement is heard...

"Our baby, Cheryl... It's our baby."

Oooh, so Betty's secret's out. Well half of it, anyway. How will their friends and classmates react? Did Juggie do the right thing by stepping up to protect Betty and the baby from Chuck by claiming to be the father in the heat of the moment? Do Betty and Jughead continue to go along with it? Will it make things better or will it only make it worse? And, will Chuck see through it and grow suspicious?

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing this story, following along with this journey. It means the world to me! Thank you! I'd love to see what you thought of this one, too.

Next chapter: Archie and Veronica want answers and Betty struggles as people react to her news.