Summary:

Every autumn, Betty feels compelled to start knitting.

Bughead Appreciation Week 2021

Day 4 – Clothing/Fashion

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Author's Note:

In Season Four, we found out that Betty learned how to knit to help deal with the stress of pretending Jughead was dead. Subsequently, I developed a headcanon that Betty still knits to help her deal with the anxiety in her life. And, there's a certain project she keeps going back to time and time again. I thought I might share this headcanon in story format and since it sort of fits with today's prompt, I'd give it a go.

This turned out to be a bit of throwing Season Five out the window while keeping a loose framework of the season. I'm not exactly sure where this story would fit in the timeline, but since timelines appear largely irrelevant to the show itself, I figure my slight timeline problems don't matter all that much.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

Patterns of their Love

Every year when September rolled around, Betty approached the passage of summer into autumn with a mixed bag trepidation and excitement. Betty used to love the fall. Part of her still loved it. The cooling weather. Leaves changing colors. There was an invigorating crispness in the air. The changing seasons reminded her of apple cider and pumpkin pies. As the sun started to set earlier and the the nights grew cool, she dug out her carefully packed away sweaters. There was something magical about this time of year.

Settling on the couch, Betty tucked her legs up under the afghan and turned on Netflix. As the next episode of 'The Great British Baking Show' began to play she reached for her tea. At that moment, in the way of cats, Toffee who had been hiding since dinner, hopped up on the couch and settled in the cozy spot between the crook of Betty's knees and the back of the couch. Grateful for the company, Betty scratched her cat between the ears. Indulging Betty's display of affection for a moment, Toffee purred contentedly, then, when she had enough, flicked her tail in irritation.

"Okay, okay," Betty muttered as she returned her hand to the mug. Heat infused the ceramic and seeped into her fingers. She pressed harder against the surface, trying to take in more warmth. Cupping her hands around her mug of tea, Betty inhaled the warm scent of chamomile before sipping at the steaming liquid. Though her hands were half tucked into the sleeves of her sweater, she tapped a rhythmically against the ceramic mug. It was no good. Her hands were restless. Returning the mug to the end table, Betty reached for the bag propped alongside the couch. Out came the project she felt compelled to start like clockwork every September.

Fall also reminded her of other things. Of people she'd rather not think about. No. Not people. A person. One very specific person. Fall was the time of first kisses and first investigations. Of discreet celebrations and new beginnings. No matter how many times she tried to disassociate him from the season, she couldn't. Autumn and her Juggie were indelibly entangled in her brain.

Most of the year, she could push him to the back of her thoughts. The ache, the longing was always there, but it she didn't push the bruise, she could pretend it didn't still hurt. In a strange turn of events, the calls and texts between them had been more balm to soothe her aching heart, than the daggers she'd thought they'd be. Though now, even that minimum contact had ended. It was her mistakes, her fears, and bad decisions that broke them apart. Even though his words—his cutting her off—hurt, if he wanted to move on with his life…well, he deserved it. She had no right to dwell. To hold him back. So, she'd hardened her heart. Added new layers of protection, crafted new masks to disguise the bleeding within.

And, she was good.

Really.

She almost believed herself.

Betty slipped the right needle into the front of the loop, yarned over, and slipped the stitch from the left of right needle. Her hands worked mechanically, adjusting the tension on the worsted weight yarn and following the pattern she'd long since memorized. This year she'd chosen a heathered charcoal color for the project. About two inches into the project, she'd realized the color was probably a bad choice if she didn't want poignant reminders of their shared past to pierce her heart with each stitch. Without dropping a stitch, she closed her eyes and swore she could still feel the heat from the conflagration—the acrid burn of smoke clinging to their clothes and hair, the soot smudged across their faces and hands, and the the taste of soda and ash on their lips as the kissed in the light of the burning trailer.

Toffee meowed, pulling Betty out of her memories. The mischievous cat swatted at the tail of yarn. Betty laughed and lifted the project out of reach. "Not for you, Tof."

Tilting her head to the side, Toffee blinked in a way which seemed to ask, If not for me, then who?

It was a good question.

The first time Betty had felt the annual compulsion to start knitting this particular project was her freshman year of college. Classes had just started a couple of weeks previous and the homework was already piling up. She was keeping up, barely. Her roommate was rarely in the room. The other girl always seemed to be flitting from activity to activity, friend to friend. Betty tried, but couldn't find a place to belong. As much as she hated to admit it, she was lonely. And nothing she tried made the weight in her chest any better. At night, when she closed her eyes, she dreamed of spending afternoons studying in the library with him, nights curled up in bed together, and the weekends spent exploring all the best pizza places in Connecticut. Her anxiety was spiking and she struggled to resist the urge to curl her fingers into her palms.

It was then she remembered her knitting. She'd learned how to knit to deal with stress. It kept her from unraveling once, maybe it would help again.

So, on a mid-September weekend, she found the nearest craft store. Some needles and a ball of yarn later, Betty was knitting. At that point, she only knew one pattern, so that's what she cast on. The handicraft kept her hands busy. If she was knitting, she couldn't add to the collection of pale, crescent scars littering her palms. The repetition of knits and purls became a familiar pattern. The click of needles and the loft of the yarn passing over her fingers, eased the edge off of her anxiety.

The project only took her a couple of weeks to complete. If she'd dedicated the time to it, she could have finished sooner. But, as she sewed in the loose ends on October second, she realized there really was no other time to finish this project. She held the product of her labor in her hands—a woolen beanie with a familiar crown shaped cuff.

Setting the beanie aside, Betty decided to give the hat to Jughead when they met at Pop's the following summer. Maybe he wouldn't want it anymore, after all Juggie had cast the last beanie she had made for him into the time capsule. But, she knew this hat belonged to no one but Jughead.

Between being lost in thought and adding a good inch to the hat, the next episode of show had begun. Toffee had abandoned her perch on Betty's legs. Stretching her legs, Betty cringed at the pins and needles dancing along her muscles. While she had been sitting too long in the same position, after her encounter with TBK, she found that her muscles got tighter more quickly, the ever present tension pulling them taut. Immediately after her rescue, when the nightmares haunted her every time she closed her eyes asleep or not, she'd replay the scenes of her torture on repeat. She'd open her eyes and scream. Eventually she stopped sleeping, stopped closing her eyes. On the nights she was alone, she knitted instead of sleeping. She knitted long into the early hours of the morning until complete and utter exhaustion won out and she fell into an uneasy, restless, and dreamless sleep. In scarcely no time at all, she'd managed an entire blanket. In comparison, the beanie was simplicity itself. Despite the time and effort put into the blanket, she wasted no time removing it from her house once she finished. The beanies, they stayed. With every inch of the yarn passing through her fingers, each repeated stitch, every row added to the beanie, she knitted in her love, her hope, her longing.

Betty stood and stretched, her joints popped and cracked. Though her fingers were slightly stiff from her grip on the needles, she didn't feel the compulsion to curl her hands into fists. Pinning the ball of yarn against her side with her elbow, Betty continued to knit while she paced the length of the room. It no longer surprised her that no matter how proficient she became at knitting, she'd always finish the beanie on the same day. His birthday. She had seven of them now, neatly tucked away in a box under her bed. The hats were his. They could never belong to anyone else. But, it had been a long time since she felt she had the right to give him something so personal.

After freshman year, Betty discovered their was a flaw in Archie's plan to meet up at Pop's. The four of them had drifted apart. Though they hadn't spoken over the course of their freshman year, Betty had hoped in the back of her mind, that their reunion would offer more than a chance to catch up. She craved the opportunity to mend the friendships she'd helped torn asunder.

On the evening after she returned home from college, she sat alone in their booth at Pop's. As she waited, she watched the condensation drip down the side of the glass of her melting strawberry milkshake. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the memory of his arm wrapped around her shoulders, the brush of his thigh against hers. Fidgeting with the teal tissue paper popping up over the edge of the gift bag, Betty wondered if maybe the gift bag was too much. She'd dithered over the wrapping (or not wrapping) of the beanie for hours, only settling on this conclusion since this was the state of wrapping as she hurried from the house.

Standing at the end of the table, Pop exchanged the glass of milkshake soup for a plate of burgers and fries. A sad smile tugged at his lips and a sympathetic shadow filled in his eyes. "Are you waiting for the others?"

"Yeah." Betty nodded. Though grateful for Pop's kindness, her stomach churned in unease. "They aren't coming, are they?"

Pop shook his head. "Probably not. A week ago tonight, Jughead sat here, just like you're doing now."

"Oh," Betty managed to utter before the ability to speak left her.

"He stopped in yesterday on his way out of town. Apparently he plans to spend the rest of the summer with his family in Toledo," Pop informed her in solemn tone.

She nodded—her acknowledgement of the information or her thanks, maybe both, she wasn't certain what she was trying to express. Seeming to understand what she meant even when she didn't understand herself, Pop headed back to the counter with a "Just give me a shout if you need anything else," left in his wake.

And that was the flaw in Archie's plan. 'One year from today,' he'd said—except that didn't taking into account those bits of life which couldn't be rescheduled. Betty herself was a week late. On the scheduled day, she'd still been in class, wrangling her final exams. Only Jughead had finished his school year to be 'on time' for their scheduled meet up. The date had slipped Veronica's mind and she'd started a summer internship the day after classes let out. A month later, Veronica had sent Betty an apology laden text and little more after that. And as for Archie, he wasn't granted leave from army for a whirlwind trip home.

That's when she realized that she and Jughead were a misconnection. Their lives were no longer in sync. They weren't a team anymore. They were a long way from the investigative duo they used to be. They were no longer two halves of a whole. Instead they were just two broken pieces. Life wasn't a movie offering you unlimited opportunities to get it right. You didn't randomly meet up with your one true love simply because you wished hard enough.

Crushing the gift bag to her chest, she hurried out of Pop's. The bright tissue paper and the cheesy cartoon on the bag felt out of place. Belonging to a different era, to the part of a life which she no longer belonged. When she arrived home, she threw the crumpled bag in the trash and lovingly wrapped the hand knit beanie in the crumpled tissue paper. She hid the gift in a box beneath her bed. She didn't want to explain to Alice why she had Jughead's beanie in her possession.

Betty paused in her knitting to stretch the knitted material and set the stitches. Running her fingers along the ribbing, which gave the beaning its familiar texture and lines, Betty recalled the countless times she'd done that while he wore his. The hat had offered Juggie a sense of security over the years. Sometimes, she wondered, if her annual knitting of a new beanie offered her a sense of security as well. A reminder of a point in her life when things didn't feel so hopeless. In so many ways, high school had been a hellscape—serial killers and killer cults, lethal games and murderous classmates—but she hadn't faced it alone. Once upon a time, nothing seemed impossible, now nearly everything did.

She sighed with whole body. The hat was almost done and tomorrow was October second. She was right on schedule. This crown would join the others in the box, each infused with her love and the memory of what once was and wrapped in tissue paper. To discover their fate, they would wait out the seemingly endless years in a state of perpetual hope. If she saw him again, maybe then she would know what to do….

Betty had lost track of how long she's been back in Riverdale. The days and weeks blended into each other until she'd lost months of time. Afraid that if she let anyone too close, her brittle heart might shatter into a million pieces, she'd held everyone at arm's length. She didn't dare let anyone come too close—especially him. There was never any doubt he would see through her masks and all would be exposed to the world. If they saw how broken she was, surely they would leave her to her demons. And though she wanted to be alone, she didn't want to be left. And so she wrapped her herself in ice and steel and spikes. On the outside she appeared strong, when she was falling apart inside.

Eventually, it all came crashing down. She knew full well that it was simply a matter of time. When juggling dynamite, it would inevitably come to an explosive end. Walls came crashing down and she was left unmasked and vulnerable. And, strangely enough, not alone. He was there, nearby, waiting. Sine returning, they'd been cordial. A little more than acquaintances, a little less than good friends. Occasionally she thought she felt the spark, saw the light in his eyes, felt the weight of his friendship with the hand on her shoulder. It frightened and thrilled her and she didn't know which way to move. And, under her bed, the crown-beanies still waited.

In the end, it had been an ordinary day. It wasn't his birthday. It wasn't an anniversary of their getting together or breaking apart. It wasn't a holiday—official or greeting card. It was just a day. Special, she supposed, only in the fact that they were together. She'd gone to Pop's to pick up dinner, he was finishing his shift. He offered to walk home with her. They were going in the same direction. Talking as they walked, the conversation shifted from stilted small talk to catching up about their lost years. They talked until they reached Elm Street, standing between the place where he was staying and the place where she was staying. Neither of them having a place to truly call home since the day they stopped sharing a roof and a room.

She could say goodnight and pass through the red door, leaving him behind. Or, she could take a risk—trade her guarded heart for a box of memories. Betty took Jughead's hand and gave it a gentle tug as she took a step towards the house. "Come in."

He followed, entering for the first time in over seven years, the house they once shared. Even though she'd been living here since her return, every time she came back, it was like entering a stranger's home uninvited. Everything about it now was so different and they were the trespassers on someone else's life.

"Wait here," she said, leaving him in the living room as she took the stairs two at a time. Less than a minute later she returned, thundering down the steps with the box in hand. A self-conscious flush flooded her cheeks as she thrust the box at him. "For you."

"What's this?" A smile quirked at Jughead's lips. As he fiddled with lid, there's the teasing gleam in his eyes which she missed. "Love letters?"

"No," she replied immediately, sharp and brash. The syllable barely out of her mouth before she knew she was to look at his face, she kept her gaze on his hands instead. She licked her lips and inhaled a stuttering breath. When she spoke it was a quavering, honest, whisper, "Yes."

He lifted the lid and peeled back the tissue paper, revealing the set of hand knit crown-beanies inside. His hands trembled as he reached for the one made of heathered charcoal yarn. Running his hand along the peaks of the crown, he smiled like he's just been reacquainted with an old, often missed friend. "Betts….you made these? For me?"

"Yes."

"Thank you." He slipped the hat on. It sat at the same angle as his beanie did all those years ago. The style of his hair was different now, it didn't sneak around the edge of the beanie in the same way it used to. His face was different as well—more tired, rougher around the edges, his eyes had seen more pain. Yet, the beanie still fit. It still belonged. He can't stop touching it. Running his fingers over the ribbing, minutely adjusting the angle it sat on his head, and tugging on the cuff.

He pulled another hat from the box. One she'd made in a rebellious green, the others were in various shades of grey. It was the green of the Serpents, the green of her eyes. He smiled at the mismatched hat and slipped it over her hair like he did the night of the bonfire. "This one looks good on you."

It was her turn to run her fingers over the familiar knitting. In all the years she'd been making these hats, she'd never tried them on. And yet, in this moment, it felt right. A connection between them which time and distance hadn't been able to sever.

She held out her hands, offering them to him palms up. His hands are warm and calloused as he cradled hers in his. He ran his thumbs over her palms and she knew exactly what he was looking for. The scars were faded and hard to see unless you knew what to look for. It's been years since she added to the collection marring her skin.

"The knitting helps," she said in way of explanation.

"Good. I'm glad you found something." He pulled her close and wrapped her in a hug. She melted into his embrace. She missed this. Missed this sense of belonging. Of acceptance. Of love.

When they break apart, they settled on the couch. They had so much to talk about, so much to work through. But, they also needed a moment just to be. To breathe in each other's presence, to find the old rhythms, to relax the barriers time had constructed.

They curled next to each other, no longer caring to have space between them. They'd been separated for too long. Jughead pulled the afghan off the back of the couch and covered them with it, while Betty turned on the tv, the house too quiet. She turned on 'The Great British Baking Show' and let it play quietly in the background.

"I'm sorry," Betty said, breaking the silence between them.

"I forgive you," Jughead said the words she'd been longing to hear for seven years. He pressed a kiss to her temple. "I forgave you long ago, Betts. I just…I wanted to say it in person, but I didn't know how."

Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. A weight she didn't realize she was carrying lifted from her shoulders.

He caught her chin between his thumb and finger and lifted her face, so they could look eye to eye. His blue eyes were glassy with his own unshed tears and gleamed like sapphires. "I'm sorry too. I'm sorry for keeping things bottled up for so long. I sorry for that voicemail. I took my anger and frustration out on you and that wasn't fair. I'm sorry I didn't do a better job at reaching out to you. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me."

Betty blinked in confusion. Why was he apologizing to her? For all these years, she'd been carrying around the guilt, taking all the blame on herself. And, now, he was apologizing to her. Her brain was stalled on the cognitive dissonance between what she believed and what he was saying.

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "If you let me….if you let me back in…I'll do better. I've still got a lot of demons haunting me. Some of them, they're always going to be there. But, I want…I want to try again. If you want…"

"Yes." The affirmation escaped her lips in a rushed whisper before she could second guess herself. She cleared her throat and when she spoke again, there was a certainty to her words. "I forgive you Juggie. And, I want that too. I want to find us again."

Tugging off the beanie, he flipped it over in his hands like he was refamiliarizing himself with all the quirks that made up his favorite piece of clothing. "I've missed this."

"Why did you put it in the time capsule?" The thought had nagged at her since the day he tossed it into the chest.

"You know the old saying about leaving childish things behind. I guess, at the time, I thought I was so grown up. We were facing adulthood and I thought I didn't need it anymore. That I was putting that phase of my life behind me….but that wasn't the case." He shrugged and ran his hand through his hair. An inky curl escaped and fell softly across his forehead. "I regretted it afterwards. Maybe my beanie wasn't such a childish thing after all, instead maybe it's a part of who I am. You made me that one too. After…after we left for school…" he gave a dry, sardonic laugh, "I guess we never broke up, did we? Not really. Just drifted apart. I'm sorry about that too."

"Me too." Betty agreed, another weight lifting from her shoulders. This one she hadn't realized she'd been carrying.

His touch along the hat became reverent, as continued his story. "So, at school, I was missing you and missing home. I can't count the number of times I'd wished I hadn't tossed the beanie aside—if nothing else, I should have kept it as a reminder of home and a piece of you. In the end, I never found a place where I fit—not in Iowa, not in New York. No matter where I went, I was still an outsider, a weirdo. I tried to reinvent myself and it didn't work. I used to close my eyes and imagine, afternoons in the library with you, nights snuggled into bed together, weekends discovering the best pizza places, just like we planned. There was a void in my life that I couldn't fill. Betts, I'm not made that way, I can't just give my love away. I tried, but I alway came back to you."

"It was the same for me Juggie. No one could fill the void your love—your friendship, your presence—had left. I tried to fill it. Heck, it's why I joined the FBI, because I was happiest when I was investigating. What I didn't understand at the time, it wasn't the investigation alone which I found fulfilling, it was having a partner I implicitly trusted and loved help me along the way. There's no one who can fill your place." She slipped the beanie out of his hands and returned it to his head.

He smiled and leaned into her touch. "I probably won't wear it all the time."

"That's okay," she said. "They're yours to do with as you please. When I made them, I didn't know if you would even want them. I just knew that they weren't meant for anyone else."

"I appreciate the thought. The gift." His fingers ran along the edge of the hat again. When he caught her staring, he gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry, it's just been so long…."

"Sorry. You don't—" She reached up to remove the hat. An embarrassed flush flared across her cheeks. The rhythm between them was so familiar, it was easier than she thought to fall back into the old patterns, but they were out of practice and their tempo still struggled to align.

"No. Leave it." He caught her hand and intertwined their fingers. He leaned in close so his breath whispered warm across her lips. "May I?"

"Yes." She leaned in the rest of the way and brushed her lips against his. It was almost like the first time again. All the yearning, the longing, all the hopes and love which sustained them, pouring out as they connected. The initial pluck of courage which overcame the burgeoning fear that the first kiss might also be their last, was followed by the swell relief as the realization hit. This was only the beginning. The beginning of something new and exciting and so much greater than what they had before. But, this time, their kiss was layered with a depth which could only come with time and the knowledge of pain, of separation, of loss.

They were finding their way back together again. Her hand cupped the back of his head, fingers curling around his beanie and into his hear. He pulled her closer, maneuvering until she straddled his lap. They were making up for lost time; they were starting something new. The kiss was a promise, a seal to a vow. The recognition that love was something fragile, yet strong. It could weather the greatest storms, yet break with the slightest breeze. That their love was worth fighting for, and this time, that was what they'd do.