Betty was pulled from a tenuous sleep by the sun turning the black behind her eyelids to red, the rowdy drum beats of what must have been a hundred vigorous songs that had played over the radio the night before still rattling around in her head.

The sky was clear and blue, the sun glaring directly through the windshield. The top to the car was up now, and Cheryl was taking them off an exit.

"You're awake."

Betty could only hum in response, rubbing her eyes, cracking her back, and trying to get an awful kink from her neck. "When did I fall asleep?" Betty could remember the previous night vividly, and at no point had she felt even remotely sleepy.

Once they were on the highway, the night was all racing, all music resonating in their chests, all cars passing by, all lights in suspended lines as they sped farther and farther from the town of Riverdale.

Betty had turned the radio on and switched it and switched it until it landed on a station that played classic rock and modern rock and other such songs for running away. She and Cheryl had scream-sung the songs, punctuated by local commercials, chocolate bars, and warm cherry cola, until their voices were hoarse. Above their heads, the moon rode with them, milk-light turning the inside of the car silver and white.

Perhaps they'd been a bit too cavalier, Betty thought hesitantly; her mother had texted again and again asking where Betty was and what she was doing and for the love of God, why wasn't she home yet? To which, Betty had texted something vague about being with Cheryl Blossom and not coming home that night or the night after or, possibly, the night after or… Betty really had no idea how long it would take to drive to California.

Betty dug in her sweatshirt pocket for her phone which, she realized with dread, was entirely out of battery.

Realistically, they should have aimed for the east coast, but there was something less glamourous about it than the west coast, which was more romanticized, more sentimental, more of a place they might be able to find answers. To say nothing of the fact that is was so damn far away that, probably, no one there had so much as heard of Jason Blossom or the Black Hood.

"Hey, Cheryl, can I borrow your phone charger?"

"Didn't bring one." They were pulling into another gas station, the third that Betty could recall.

"We need gas again?"

"This car is from 1961, Betty. It drinks gas like my family drinks maple syrup. And I'm going to level with you: trying to bring it across the country is really stupid and I'm shocked it can go as fast as it does on the highways, but whatever."

"A lot about this is really stupid," Betty mumbled. "Like, for starters, what do you mean you don't have a phone charger."

"Exactly what I said. I didn't even bring my phone."

"You didn't bring a phone?"

"Nope."

"Won't people be worried about you?"

"In theory," Cheryl sighed, an edge in her voice, as she got out of the car.

Betty folded her hands and leaned back in her seat. She was trying to figure a way to ask if she could buy a phone charger in the gas station, but she felt bad asking for Cheryl's money, even if she had come across it dishonestly. Plus, Betty figured eventually, the car more than likely didn't have a phone jack, so she kept her mouth shut while Cheryl went inside to pay in cash.

"Are we going to get breakfast?" By the time Cheryl reemerged, Betty was very aware that the only sustenance inside of her was either chocolate-covered or otherwise entirely saturated with sugar. "Because I kind of want, you know, real food."

"Yeah, that sounds good," Cheryl agreed. She looked different, Betty decided, than the last time she had really taken a good look at her. Maybe that had been last night, or after Jason's death, or maybe it had been way back in middle school when Cheryl was too good to even glance at Betty. Cheryl's eyes were down and her jaw was taut, scowling at the ground as the car sucked in gasoline. She had sad eyes now; Betty had once thought they were strictly beautiful.

The pump started and Cheryl sheathed the nozzle and reentered the car. She wrinkled her nose, like she was trying to remember something, and her hands were shaking against the steering wheel. "Breakfast," she remembered. "Where do you want to go?"

"Are you okay? You don't look well."

"I'm fine."

"Wait, hold on, what time is it?" Betty realized, disturbed. "When was the last time you slept?"

"The last time I slept? Late September, early October. Why?"

Betty checked the clock. "Good lord, have you been driving for twelve hours? Seriously, when was the last time you slept?"

"Oh, seriously? Late September or early October, Betty. I don't sleep anymore; I just can't."

"Okay, let's check into a hotel or at least let me drive for a little while."

"Fine," Cheryl grumbled, pushing the car door open once again. "We'll get breakfast and then get at least a few more miles away and then we can check into a hotel."

"Good. I want to take a shower," Betty said. "By the way, where are we?"

"Pennsylvania," Cheryl said simply. She gave no indication as to how deep into the state they were or which city they were near or whether they were making good time. In truth, Cheryl probably didn't even know.

They drifted through the streets of the truck-stop Pennsylvania town until finding a suitable eatery: a café with a French name that wasn't very creative.

"Lieu de Nourriture?" Cheryl snorted. "I only just started taking French last semester, but I'm pretty sure that just means 'Place of Food'."

"Simple and to-the-point, I guess," Betty shrugged. It looked nice enough, all tan walls and chocolate countertops, the kind of place the town's hipster students probably went on Sunday mornings. "I just hope they have good food."

They did not.

As Betty choked down a generous serving of almost unbearably soggy waffles, Cheryl struggled with overdone eggs and charred toast. The one upside was the waiter, not much older than them and excessively friendly, who had been unable to contain his smile as he shared the morning's specials.

"He's chipper," Betty commented.

"Yeah, well, this town probably didn't have a filicide and serial killer both in one semester."

"Or gangs and wealth borders that tear the town apart. Okay, fair point. Speaking of which, um, what is the point of this expedition? Are we, like, running away forever?"

"God, no."

"Why not? It may be better for us."

"For starters, I have no idea how to budget this money. We will be completely broke by the end of the week. And second… nothing good ever happens to runaways. They always end up homeless or in a gang or otherwise screwed."

"Like in a home for troubled youth or tied to a chair in the basement of a sketchy bar. Okay, I get it. When are we coming home?"

"Okay, well it's Saturday. School starts up again in nine days, Monday. It should take us four or five days to get out to the ocean and then four or five days to get back. With any luck, we'll be back in Riverdale before school starts again."

Betty bit her lip. Her mother would be furious. "As long as we're back by that Monday, because Dr. Phylum has been on my case about missing."

"Sucks to be you," Cheryl chirped. "Turns out when your father kills your brother you pretty much get all A's regardless of whether you bother to show up or not."

"Sure." Betty took another bite of waffle, the bread falling apart in her mouth almost immediately and sliding down her throat without prompt, leaving a sickly-sweet trail to her stomach. "Ugh, do you want any of this?"

"God, no. I can't take maple syrup since… everything," Cheryl said with a vague gesture. She stopped cutting her food and set her cutlery down.

Can't eat, can't sleep. Fair trades for the trauma she'd endured. Betty wondered how she'd be coping a few long months from now. She wanted to say something, to find a question to ask or to answer, but she couldn't come up with anything so the two sat in silence, the silence louder than the buzz of the café or the metallic scrape of Betty's fork and knife, until the bill came.

Cheryl hissed through her teeth upon reading the amount; "Pretty pricey for such God-awful food," she explained.

It had been bad food, but now that there was something of substance in her, Betty felt more awake, like the night before she'd gotten more than a few wobbly hours of in-and-out sleep. "How far are we going until we go to the hotel?"

"However many miles it takes for us to get hungry again," Cheryl said as she laid out the money for the meal.

"You should tip the guy more," Betty blurted out.

"What?"

"He was nice and he works at a crappy place in a small town and you should tip him more because he deserves it."

Cheryl glared. "I'm going to let that go because you're Betty and it's the first day and you're just that oblivious," she snapped, "but don't forget that we have a limited amount of funds and this breakfast is way too much without a tip. If you want to pay—if you stuck your neck out far enough to get us the cash for this trip like I did— please be my guest. And it's not your place to decide what people deserve."

"Okay, sorry."

"Good."

Cheryl's bitterness didn't fester and Betty couldn't decide if that was good or bad; Cheryl was the type to either let something go within the minute or carry a grudge to her grave. But who could be mad, a half-hour later, moving freely on the open road?

In the passenger seat, Cheryl was sitting back with her head tilted up, eyes closed. Betty thought she had been asleep for the past twenty minutes, at least—she hadn't moved since getting in the car— but, Cheryl spoke suddenly without moving. "Ms. Burble, the guidance counselor, says that if I really hadn't slept since October, I'd be dead. And that's probably true, but I haven't gotten more than a couple of hours in at once."

"You see the guidance counselor?"

"Principal Wetherbee kind of made me, but it's not very helpful and I don't think Ms. Burble has any idea how to approach everything that happened. I'd prefer an actual therapist, but Mommy won't shell out the money and besides, apparently there are absolutely no therapists or grief counselors or psychiatrists in Riverdale."

"I figure she won't be too pleased to hear about this stress-relief trip."

"Who? The counselor or my mother? Because both would be correct."

"The counselor."

"Oh, yeah. She'll use it to point out exactly how unhinged I am later when she wants me to do something differently or overshare or stay longer when I should be getting to class or to Vixen practice, but that's a problem for the future." Cheryl rolled her head slightly right, away from Betty, and she took that to mean that the conversation was over.

The radio was playing bright and familiar songs about love and devotion that flowed out and met her ears like honey touching lips, the sun holding steady overhead. Indeed, there were no problems now.

Betty even felt confident driving on the highway, although she had just recently been given the honor of a driver's license and probably wasn't skilled enough to be going 70 on an interstate. But to Betty, it didn't matter, because even if they got in a wreck, they'd crash with a cheerful soundtrack and the sun on their faces, thick as butter.

Cheryl looked like a lizard sunning, her head all the way back and her eyes closed, red hair in warm wisps in the wind. She looked peaceful, was humming along to the radio, playing a jingly song Betty knew well enough to chirp out a few lyrics but not well enough to have any preexisting memory with it. This—the world rushing by without a qualm and her skin buzzing with ecstasy— this would be the memory it drew forward every time after.

The sheer volume of songs they burned through was the only indication of the passage of time—Betty figured that this was the closest to flying anyone could ever get, that she was experiencing something supernatural, and she could have just as easily been on that interstate for five minutes as five hours. But time, like most things, didn't care if Betty noticed or knew about it and kept marching on.

"Okay. Lunch," Cheryl said at last. "Or dinner." They were in that odd midsection between the two meals, between afternoon and evening.

"Oh, I'm hungry," Betty realized. "Next exit, here we come."

The next exit spat the car out in a crumbling Ohio suburb, the closest hotels a four-story place called the Noble Grove and a sketchy two-story motel called only "Motel".

After circling the place and deciding that those were their only two options, Betty let Cheryl make the call.

"Let's treat ourselves. Noble Grove."

"Noble Grove!"

The Noble Grove was nicer than its outside would have you believe; it was well-decorated and had that still hotel smell that created the illusion of a fancier place.

"They have room service!" Cheryl called excitedly as Betty flopped on the queen bed by the window.

Room service, Betty thought in that moment, was, for reasons beyond her knowledge, the best possible thing the universe had to offer. "I am going to shower," she said, making no move to do so because the hotel blanket was pulling her into a congenial embrace, "because I haven't showered since Thursday morning."

"Disgusting," Cheryl remarked as though it was her duty to do so. "You probably stink."

How long had Betty been away from home for? Almost twenty-four hours. It had been longer since she'd seen any of her family. That thought compelled her to pull herself off the bed and shuffle over to the side table where—hallelujah! —the Noble Grove had provided a docking station that would fit her phone.

She plugged it in, let the black screen stare her down for a second before admitting that it needed a few moments before it could display probably hundreds of missed texts and calls and frantic questions.

Too much to face at that exact moment. "Okay, I'm going to hit the shower."

"Cool, I'm going to order us a giant pizza. But a veggie pizza because I don't want to be too fat when we have to go back to school."

"Good call."

Betty stripped off her clothes, which were really the only things she had for this trip. The clothes on her back: some favored pale pink undergarments, a white blouse and lively pink jacket, a navy pair of jeans, and ancient white socks under low-cut tan boots.

And then she was entirely naked while in the other room, Cheryl ran through their order to the hotel operator over the white courtesy telephone.

Despite its amenities, the Noble Grove had subpar water pressure, and Betty had to stand under the water for too long for all the shampoo to wash out of her hair. They'd been parsimonious on the shampoo, too, and Betty had used a minimal amount to ensure Cheryl would be able to have clean hair by the end of the night, too. Still, the water was clean and hot and Betty could feel grime and dirt from the dirty highway wind vanishing from her skin. She was squeaky and clear, except for her blonde hair, which was still sudsy as she sang the chorus of that cheerful, swinging song again and again.

She pictured the past twenty-four hours as a montage in a film, the last scene of the movie, the good-hearted teen girl finally breaking free from the suffocating, poisonous town where far too much had happened. Never mind the fact that Riverdale was still out there, never mind everything lurking in its streets that were still breathing back east…

Never mind the fact that last time she'd showered, for a split second, she'd seen all the water go red.

Never mind post-traumatic stress or whatever deep-rooted anger issue she'd been grappling with for the longest time, never mind everything except the last scene of the movie where she's happy for a fleeting moment.

The only place worth being, she hummed as a wave of bubbly shampoo sloshed from her head to the shower floor.

She was still humming when she whirled out of the steam-filled bathroom wrapped in a pristine hotel robe.

"My turn," Cheryl chirped. "Food's on the way and money's on the table. Also, you should take our clothes down to the laundry room."

"And do the laundry?"

"Well only if you want clean clothes tomorrow," Cheryl quipped as she closed the bathroom door. "I'm leaving my garments on the floor."

To put off looking at her phone, Betty waited for the sound of the shower to start before slinking into the bathroom and adding Cheryl's clothes, save for her red leather jacket, to the laundry bag.

The laundry room was empty and dark and the song had left Betty's head, but the repetitive thunk of the one other running machine was rhythmic enough to keep her going as she got quarters from the metallic change machine on the wall.

Cheryl's clothes were fancy and expensive, clothes fit to be worn by a member of the Blossom family. They probably had to be treated with special care and consideration, but since Betty was in the basement of a mostly anonymous hotel on an odd end of Ohio, she just threw the clothes in the machine with everything else, taking only enough care to separate whites from colors.

The machine would be done in fifty minutes, and Betty didn't want to wait in the dark in nothing but a robe, plus the food was on its way, so she returned to the room, resolving to finally face her phone as she eased up the stairs.

49 missed texts, 5 missed calls.

Not too bad, considering she'd been gone so long and considering her mother had a cow any time Betty was out past ten.

There was a flurry of where in the name of God are you's and if this is a joke I am going to kill you's and answer your phone, young lady's from her mother before a smattering of stranger texts, Cooper-specific texts that were trying not to sound too shady.

Elizabeth Cooper you can't just do this to me and you know exactly why.

It seemed everyone was suddenly extensively curious as to how Betty Cooper was and what she was up to, a rarity on most other days. Classmates asked if Betty was actually with Cheryl, as the rumor mill had accurately conjectured probably just by chance; nobody had actually seen them leave town together, except for, possibly, Gary the cashier from the gas station.

Veronica, Archie, Kevin, and (her heart ached at) Jughead had sent significantly fewer of the messages than Betty had hoped for, generic where have you been and why didn't you show up to Kevin's thing?

She listened to her voice mails, all early-stage pleas for answers with questions for her well-being sprinkled in stingily, though a couple of voices did break worriedly.

Betty felt awful leaving them with so many questions, but she couldn't bear to call, to hear her family's voices, the voices that embodied Riverdale begging her to come back, come back to Riverdale, that town...

She responded to the texts slowly and more deliberately than she had the night before: "I'm with Cheryl. We're hanging out over break, which is weird but kind of what I need right now." She wanted to assuage everyone's fears by sharing her location—see, I'm cozy in a nice hotel called the Noble Grove—but Cheryl's paranoia that someone would come out and take them right back to Riverdale stopped her from sharing that much information. So, she simply said: "We're on the road."

Cheryl stepped out of the bathroom in another white robe just as Betty pressed send.

/

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! Are you at home, alone, drowning your loneliness in chocolates and fanfiction? It's cool. I am, too. Send me reviews instead of valentines? Pretty please?