Veronica's all day spa session had been changed to an early morning to mid afternoon 'soak-and-go' because Hiram Lodge just couldn't handle the fact that he wasn't in control of everything and was forcing Veronica to spend the evening at home 'as a family' even going so far as threatening to cancel all her cards if she didn't acquiesce to his demands.
Even though Veronica enjoyed her time away from home she knew she couldn't keep it up for much longer, sooner or later she would be forced to interact with her dad….. but until then she would delayed the inevitable by having Smithers stop off at Pop for a chocolate milkshake before they made their way out of back to the Pembrooke.
"These burgers have tomatoes in them I am allergic can you please take it back and make me a new one, actually can I have some la-sag-na" Izzy stated snobbishly pushing the plate away.
"You are not allergic to tomatoes Izzy" Jug huffed. "Now eat the damn burger."
Izzy gasped with such unnecessary exaggeration that Jug wonder how she wasn't passing out from being light headed. "You don't know what I am allergic to and is that how you speak to a customer, how dare you, I demand to speak to your manager such an atrocious service"
"I swear, you are going to be wearing your meal if you don't stop this" Jughead growled, this was the third time she had called him over complaining of a non-existent problem; the first time she complained that her water was too 'bubbly' to be still water, then the milkshake tasted like it had too much milk and not enough 'shake' and now her burger had tomatoes in them.
"I say, I say, such a repulsive attitude, well I never" Izzy gasped in horror.
"Okay I am going to walk away now" Jughead rolled his eyes and making a valiant effort to ignore the way Izzy was cackling behind him.
"Hey Veronica" Izzy greeted cheerily having turned around when the bell above the door went off. "You wanna join in on the fun, it's Juggy's first day."
"This is not fun, ignore her" Jughead called out before turning back to finish serving a mother and daughter duo.
"But it really really is" Izzy replied grinning like the cat who not only got the cream but was bathing in it.
"You work here?" Veronica asked directing the question to the boy behind the counter proudly wearing the all white uniform of the male staff including the tiny red bowtie.
"Yep as of this afternoon he does" Izzy grinned getting the stink eye from Jug as he walked back over.
"Yeah I wanted to show Betty the new job but she replied saying she was busy with Archie so what can I get you?" Jug asked ready to ignore Izzy if he had to.
"Just came in for a chocolate milkshake" Veronica sighed. "Milkshake to go and can I please have a pasta alfredo to eat in with just a bottle of water" she quickly added having come to to the conclusion that while she may have to go home this evening it didn't mean she had to have dinner with.
"It's 'What can I get you Ma'am' and what happened to service with a smile?" Izzy asked watching as Jug left eye started to twitch in annoyance.
"I swear to God Isabelle I am going to-"
"Okay, okay sheesh, no more harassing the staff" Izzy promised "…. But I would like that lasagna." she finished quickly ducking as Jug threw a dish towel at her head.
"Izzy stop harassing the boy. Jughead there are customers waiting to be served." Joe scolded having come out of the kitchen to deliver three burgers and a chicken salad to the table in the corner. "And stop letting her get to you and go place the order."
"You wanna sit while you wait?" Izzy asked offering the stool next to her at the counter.
"Yeah thanks" Veronica replied taking the seat watching Jughead head to the little window between the diner and the kitchen to place her order and coming back over. "So how are you finding working here" Veronica asked Jughead after sending of a quick text to both Betty and Archie about his new job and wondering if either of them knew anything about it.
"Okay, I just have this one really annoying customer that I would like to strangle but he's the boss's grand-daughter so I can't do anything about it"
"Oh please you think I'm being annoying, wait till you have to do a late shift on Fridays after the bars are closed and you have twenty alcoholics in here demanding more beer, more food or harassing you then you'll see what annoying is." Izzy stated finish grabbing a bite out of the burger. "Oh and now that you are wearing the uniform people are going to behave like you are their own personal servant when you are working."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, still glad I got you this job?" Izzy questioned.
"Yeah I'm still glad" Jughead grinned back, sure Izzy was being super annoying but she was thoughtful and considerate as well.
"Good now let's get make sure you have a tougher skin cause there is no way you can handle the Christmas mayhem if you can't deal with a few incidents of heckling from me"
"I've never seen anyone harassing you." Veronica pointed out, well apart from the time Cheryl harassed her mum Veronica had never seen anyone being rude to the people that worked at Pop's.
"To be fair it rarely happens, this is Pop's not Hooters so those types of customers are usually few and fair between and in all honesty it's usually the dicks on the school's sport team that try their luck but I am sure the word has spread not to mess with the girls working here by now." Izzy stated, the raise of Veronica's left eyebrow clearly indicated that she wanted more details so Izzy went on to explain how she had locked a senior on the basketball team in the diner's female changing room last month as she got tired of him harassing her and the other girls.
"That's… that was amazing, but how didn't you get in trouble?" Veronica wondered, she was pretty sure the rumour mill hadn't even mentioned this incident.
"Joe covered for me, said he had his eyes on me the entire shift plus there was the whole issue of him being in the female changing room in the first place all I had to do was point out the fact that he had a history of harassing me and the other girls and seeing as I am considered to be a minor at sixteen and he is technically an adult having just turned eighteen if he wanted to keep talking about false imprisonment and kidnapping I could start mentioning all the things he's been saying and texting to me also there's very real fact that where as I could prove he was in the girls changing room, he couldn't exactly prove that I locked him in there so in exchange of him never coming back here again, Pop agree to 'fix' the changing room door and I got grounded for a week cause Pop didn't buy my bullshit and wanted to teach about not getting revenge or something." Izzy finished shrugging her shoulder.
"Remind me to never get on your bad side." Veronica stated softly only for Jughead's chastising to drown what she had just said.
"My God, you can't just do that." Jug chastised, while he loved and appreciated everything about her he still worried about the lengths she would go to once she felt someone had crossed a line.
"What Jughead, it's not like I went through with it, he not a registered sex offender just an arsehole who had to spend like three hours -max- stuck in a room and Pop grounded me for that any ways. It was worth it now I don't have to see his face plus it was self defence" Izzy shrugged, what she did was classified as self defence.
"Locking someone in a room isn't self defence; anything could have happened, what if he got hurt?"
"First of all it is the female changing room so unless the tampon machine was going to attack him he was going to be fine for a few hours, he wasn't locked in an underground bunker in the middle of nowhere.
Secondly, I don't understand why you are defending him, he's the one that needed learn no means no and not try harder to get the girl and lastly you get the point where he harassed us so much that everyone here turned a blind eye to having him locked in the changing room for a few hours."
This wasn't some sort of the ends justifies the means process, this was more your actions have consequences. Izzy didn't care that Daryl had stopped coming to Pop, it was an added bonus but she was more interested in the fact that the dickhead knew not to come near her again.
x.x
Veronica and Izzy had moved from the counter once Jughead brought over her food into a booth and got to talking, spending time with Izzy outside of h singing with the Pussycats was really an eyeopening event.
From the stories she and Jug shared Veronica was learning a lot; all in all Veronica got the sense that the girl had a mean streak -which explained how she was friends with Cheryl- but her actions were more subtle than Veronica's own when it came to revenge.
Where Veronica had no problem in letting the world know it was her getting her revenge -like with chuck and printing out his exploits in the Blue and Gold- Izzy took a more subtle approach to her revenge or at least an approach where there was no evidence left behind to prove that she had been the one behind the attack.
Another thing that Veronica learnt was that Izzy was one of the most active and caring member of the community; the Pussycats had recently organised a bake sales to raise awareness about domestic abuse and to top it off she volunteered at the local homeless shelter on the Southside or was in the old people's home volunteering and not just in the 'once a month I have to do something nice for someone' it was a weekly thing for her.
Izzy actively cared about Riverdale and Veronica could see why people were so enamoured with her.
It had been strange to notice people worrying about her after Fred and going to her after Moose but Veronica got it, as much as she complained or roll her eyes at people she still stayed and listened to everyone, with all the nice things Izzy did around town people couldn't help but have a positive image about her and they may have unjustly assume that she could fix all their problems.
While watching yet another little argument erupt between Jug and Izzy, Veronica wondered if she should interrupt since they had obviously forgotten about her in favour of glaring at each other, they had obviously reached an impasse but neither one of them were willing to concede to the others point of view.
"Well thanks for the food and the milkshake, I'll see you guys later" Veronica called out while sliding out of the booth pretty confident she was talking to thin air as neither teen even turned to acknowledge the fact that she had spoken and was actually surprised when Izzy made a move to leave as well.
"Okay I got to get going now, need to start dinner and probably catch up on some sleep." Izzy stated she had spent the last three hours generally hanging out and pointing out a few things to Jug but it had gotten boring since she was just sitting there while he worked, no wonder Jug always brought his laptop with him on Saturdays, there was no way she could have survived the eight hours shift with him without something else to do.
"I'm pretty sure we decided that you shouldn't go anywhere alone" Jughead called out reminding Izzy of the whole 'Shady guy might be the killer who may or may not be stalking the diner' so take care rule, not that she really forgot about it sitting there in the diner.
"I'll be walking straight home Jug, less than twenty minutes." Izzy replied brushing off his concerns and wearing her coat. "I'll call you and stay on the line till I reach home."
"Or you could wait till my break I can take you home and come back."
"Jug it's fine, he hasn't come in today." Izzy pointed out.
"Just be careful." Jughead relented, he wasn't comfortable with the idea of Izzy going anywhere by herself and to be honest the fear of 'Shady man' someone being the shooter or stalking Izzy was damn near paralysing.
Jughead was seconds away from ignoring all common sense and following Izzy home.
"See you Tuesday night, hopefully Shady man comes in and we can follow him" Izzy whispered softly before following Veronica out. "Tell Joe to text me if he wants me to babysit tomorrow"
x.x.x.x
Ever since the shooting Izzy still felt like she had been holding there were times where everything seemed alright when she felt like she could finally breathe but other times- most of the time- she felt like she was still waiting for something else to happen and the truth was that she was unless they found the shooter Izzy felt like she would always be waiting for another shooting.
She was waiting to hear news of another tragedy.
She was waiting to hear the sound of a gun going off.
She was waiting and holding her breathe day in and day out while the shooter roamed around town.
Admittedly she knew it was crazy to go looking for a man who might be the shooter with only Jughead as back up and sure they had no plans on what to do if Shady man was the shooter and yeah they were putting themselves in danger by roaming the street with a shooter on the loose but Izzy was determined to find the shooter because she needed to know who did it.
She was tired of waiting for something to happen, she was tired of being scared.
If she knew who to confront she would feel better, it was always better knowing who your enemy was than standing in a room full of friends afraid and untrusting of their motives.
Izzy needed to know who the shooter was so at the very least she would stop being scared that every man above the age of twenty could be after her.
She just knew that once she found out who it was she could breathe, she could stop holding her breathe, stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She just needed to know who did it, get rid of her fears.
Hearing Veronica speak pulled Izzy out of her thoughts. "That was nice of you, keeping Jug company." Veronica explained smiling.
Izzy wasn't sure if Veronica was fishing for something or just being friendly like she had been for the past hour or so but she didn't care, she was more focused on how dark it had gotten since they were inside, sure it was winter and the nights came around much quicker but Izzy couldn't remember it being this dark, and the snow wasn't helping it was coming down really quickly, getting in her eyes obscuring her view.
She wouldn't be able to see anything if someone was following her and what would calling Jug really going to do, if Shady man or someone was to shoot her she might be dead before anyone got to her.
Maybe she should call Pop to pick her up instead or maybe she should go back inside just until the snow stopped and get Jughead to give her a ride back home.
If only she had taken Pop's taser yesterday but then what good was that against a stalker.
Was there a stalker?
They hadn't proven that Shady man was a stalker Izzy thought trying to rationalise her fear away just for the other part of her brain to betray by pointing out that they hadn't actually disproven anything, they knew nothing about the man who frequented the diner.
In her panic and her limited vision Izzy wasn't sure if she was imagining seeing things but just over Veronica's shoulder she saw someone huddled up approaching the diner before stopping, they were just stood there in the parking lot obviously staring at her and Veronica, it could just be someone who stopped to answer their phone or respond to a text message or he could be trying to find his cigarette to smoke.
Or it could just be a figment of her panicked mind; once you think someone is out to get you then every thing they did just proved your point.
Izzy tried taking a deep breath to calm down and only just about stopped herself from flinching back at Veronica's out stretched hands
"Izzy are you okay?" Veronica asked in such a way that Izzy was a hundred percent certain that the girl had been trying to get her attention for the last few seconds while she got herself worked up.
"Yeah, yeah…" she said swallowing down the panic. She was outside the diner in Palin view of everyone inside, Veronica was here, she wasn't by herself the maybe man was all the way across the parking lot, they could run back inside if anything was to happen. "Just thinking about having to walk in this snow my hands already feel frozen" Izzy joked.
Veronica had stood watching as Izzy went from fumbling to put on her gloves to freezing mid-action and glancing around.
Veronica hadn't spent enough time with Izzy to really judge her but she didn't think Izzy was the type of girl to be so terrified, she looked panicked and the way her hands were trembling had nothing to do with the sub-zero weather. "Yeah, I was asking if you wanted Smithers and I to drop you off at home instead of walking, it only take five minutes" she murmured lamely maybe she should go get Jughead instead of offering Izzy a lift home.
"Er .. yes, thanks" Izzy mumbled quickly getting into the back of the car before Veronica could speak.
x.x
Izzy wouldn't be able to tell anyone anything about the ride back home or even if she remembered to thank Veronica before she stumbled out of the car.
She did remember the feeling of relief once she got home and triple locked all the doors, she was still shaking but the panic was slowly fading away so that was good.
Maybe she should talk to Pop about keeping the taser, something less gun shaped but a taser would help… and a pepper spray… and maybe a rape whistle or was that taking it too far.
Was there really such a thing as too far when it came to personal safety?
What a difference twenty-four hours made because right now she understood where Pop was coming from, having something to protect herself won't be so bad.
Or was that a really bad idea, maybe she should tell Pop about the panic attacks instead, there weren't that bad but there weren't going anywhere, they just kept happening.
She never had them before Fred got shot and there were people who could help and there were ways to manage it.
She should say something. She would say something… if it happens again, if she had another panic attack she would tell Pop Izzy silently promised before going through every room downstairs drawing the curtains closed and switching on all the lights.
x.x.x.x
Writer's Note
I can't believe Luke Perry is Dead. Fred is by far the best parent on Riverdale and he will be missed. I really hope the rest of the season does him justice.
I will keep writing the character of Fred Andrews being alive because it is just too sad to have him ever die in my story as well, i'll try to do my best to make him the kick ass father that he portrayed for so many season in my story.