This chapter was probably the most difficult for me to write because the headspace was so heavy. Hope you like it! Also, if you're a fan of Scandal (or the 100), there's an easter egg towards the end!
...
Once Veronica manages to pull herself together, she sits down again, crossing her arms over the table. The wood feels cold and clean against her skin. Betty sits across from her, patient. She can hear Archie getting out of the shower, the sound of life spinning on, and he joins them in the kitchen in a matter of minutes, toweling off his hair and giving a surprised greeting to Betty.
"There was something Jughead said this morning," Veronica begins, now that they're all together. "About how I'm not doing anything to stop the investors."
"Oh, V, that's not-" Betty begins, but Veronica interrupts.
"No, he was right. I mean, if this was anything else, I'd be doing everything I could to put an end to it. But since it's so close to my family," she pauses, collects her thoughts. Realization dawns like the sun. "It made me scared. And fear is paralyzing." She looks at Betty earnestly. "But not anymore. I'm done being afraid, and I know what I need to do."
Archie is watching her cautiously. "What's that, Ronnie?"
Veronica reaches out and takes his hand. "I'm going to New York. I'm part of Lodge Industries, and I have a right to be involved with the negotiations, which, at this point, are taking so long that it's clear my parents are refusing to sacrifice or make a trade-off. I need to be there to influence them at the very least." Betty and Archie both look like they're about to protest, but Veronica pushes ahead. "My mind is made up. I'm leaving in an hour, and I'll be back as soon as I can."
"You don't have to do this, V," Betty says. She doesn't smile. A breeze blows in from the half open window, and a strand of blonde hair flutters free from her ponytail. "Veronica."
Veronica sighs a bit. She knew they wouldn't choose the path of least resistance and just let her go, but she's still frustrated. "Yeah, I do."
"No, I mean. Not to like, hit you over the head with the fact that you're sixteen or anything, but" - Betty looks at her pointedly - "you really don't."
She laughs in spite of herself, a dark, hollow sound. "You think I haven't thought about that?" she asks her, dropping Archie's hand to prop her chin up on one elbow. "It's occurred to me. But it doesn't change anything, and the fact that we're sixteen didn't stop them from coming after us." She picks at a loose thread on the cuff of her sleeve, watching it unravel. "Anyway, that's not even really it."
"Okay," Betty tells her. She leans forward over the table, blue eyes sharp and curious. "Then what is it really?"
Veronica shrugs a little. Archie is watching her, waiting for the answer, and she's trying to think how to explain it - how to tell them that in some weird way she's already made the break between her old life and her new one. Like everything that's happened has pushed her over some boundary, some line of demarcation so clearly defined that once she breached it her life would always be divided into when she was a little kid and when she wasn't, neatly bisected into the then and the now. How to tell them that she just sort of feels it in her bones.
"Ronnie-"
"Archie, I just-"
He shakes his head. "I'm coming with you."
Well. She'd expected him to put up a fight, to ask her not to go - but she hadn't expected that he'd want to come.
"Me too," Betty pipes up. "And Jughead."
"Jughead isn't-"
"Jughead isn't going to be mad anymore," Betty says. "There's no stronger team than the four of us together. He knows that. And like I told you, V, we're all in this together."
Veronica shakes her head and feels like there are loose coins rattling around inside. "It's too dangerous for you three. You won't know these people, not like I do."
Archie slides his hand up her arm. "Well," he sighs. "Danger has never stopped us before. And anyways, it's obvious that Riverdale is no safer. Plus," he smiles a little, but it fails to reach his eyes, "I've always wanted to see Central Park."
Veronica tries to smile back and misses by roughly the distance between here and the other side of the world. "It's nice there," is all she says.
…
Betty was right. Jughead comes. The four of them drive for several hours in Hiram's five seater before they pull off to grab provisions and fuel up.
Veronica inhales deeply, then exhales. This is happening, she whispers under her breath as she drifts down an aisle.
The store smells cheap. It doesn't reek, but it has a sterile stench that's on par with the Riverdale Hospital and makes her want to pinch her nose. She lifts her chin up to look around. The aisle is a crowded affair, filled with strangers, and for the first time in her life she sees an extra layer of meaning in that word. Not that there's anything inherently strange about a man in a business suit drinking wine straight from the bottle, or about a group of elderly women looking at fish oil, or about a person with teardrops tattooed on his face, but when these unique individuals find themselves in close proximity to one another in aisle two of a random roadside convenience store… voilà. Strangers.
But who is she to judge? She's the token teen with a half baked plan, so she supposes she's only adding to the strange vibe. She grabs a bottle of water as a middle aged woman pushes past her to get to the Cheerios. She picks up peroxide, gauze, and a tube of Neosporin, bypasses the thirty-racks of Bud Light in the industrial fridge, and hopes no one says anything to her as she wishes she were at home with Hermione. Her mother believes in dinner parties and wine tasting at dusk, events that require invitations and drinks with stirs and a glass jug full of daisies on the table. "Veronica, sweetheart," she would say if she could see the way her daughter is spending her night. "This is not what we do."
She doesn't want to think about her mother in this store. She doesn't want to think about anything, actually, so she plays games to keep herself occupied as she waits in line: Count The Drunk People, or Things She Wishes She Were Doing Right Now. She doesn't want to go back out to the car. She can feel herself receding, going so far that no one can catch her, and she doesn't know how to stop it, just wants to get everyone out of this alive.
The cashier surveys her purchases and looks at her half-sympathetically and says, "Hope your day gets better."
"Thanks," she says, staring at the harsh fluorescent light.
Archie is pumping gas when she walks out, looking tired. His shoulders jut a little beneath his t-shirt, fiberglass or shale.
Actually, she thinks as she watches him: they look sort of oddly like wings.
She's still walking toward the car when he gets back in and turns the engine over, the taillights glowing like two red coals. She slides into the front seat and Archie pulls back onto the road, the convenience store fading in the rearview mirror like waking up from a dream.
…
It's early evening when they finally get to New York, the sun drifting toward the western sky behind them as they locate their hotel. It's not sketchy or cheap or even tucked away from the busiest streets - hiding in plain sight, as Veronica put it. After they get the keys to both their rooms, Archie and Jughead and Betty all look at Veronica.
"So," Jughead says, "we're in New York. What's the next step?" he asks, eyeing the doorman and keeping his voice low.
Veronica straightens. She's thought about coming back to New York so many times over the last six months that actually being here feels a little like a dream, too. She traveled back here, with Archie no less, which was something she wanted and wanted and wanted for so long that wanting it was almost a part of her chemical makeup, so badly that even now that they're here she's still on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It would be different, maybe, if the circumstances were something other than what they are. As it is, they're here to investigate, and everyone is still watching her, waiting for an answer.
"Now we go to Lodge Industries headquarters," she says, her tone cool and collected, like she knows what she's doing. She does know what she's doing, she tries to remind herself; the drive up here gave her plenty of time to formulate a plan, and she's smart, quick on her feet. Most importantly, she knows her way around New York and around her father's associates, so really, she has no reason to panic yet.
The drive to Lodge Industries' capital is uneventful, and unfortunately, so is their arrival. They sit on the street outside the shiny, looming building waiting for any sign of anyone Veronica knows - namely her parents - but all she sees is unfamiliar people in business suits going in and out of the revolving doors. She wonders what would happen if she walked in right now and started asking questions; "Hi, I'm the owner's daughter. Just here to see how things are going with the coup." It might be worth it just to see the looks on their faces.
She grows increasingly frustrated as the minutes go by with nothing to show. What they don't tell you about stakeouts is how long and often fruitless they are, and Veronica is having a hard time accepting that nothing is happening. Once the sky is full dark and Lodge Industries starts shutting off its lights, Archie finally says, "Maybe we should try again tomorrow, Ronnie."
She pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes, colors exploding like fireworks, like something detonating inside her head.
…
Betty and Jughead join Archie and Veronica in their room, probably to discuss tomorrow's plan. Archie stands and stares out the window while Veronica digs around in her overnight bag for a bottle of aspirin she knows she threw in there.
"So we didn't find anything today," Betty says, sounding logical. "Not the end of the world. What we need," she says, "is to relax. So what's happening tonight? Any plans?"
Well, sort of, if overthinking and being on edge counts. "Was thinking I'd jet down to Havana for the weekend, actually," Veronica tells her, figuring sarcasm is the safe way to go. Archie is still staring out the window. "Check out the nightlife."
"Oh, I see," Betty flops down onto the bed. "Well, if you think you could maybe blow off El Presidente just for tonight, I think we should all go out. Try to have one night of normalcy before we start hunting and negotiating with assassins tomorrow."
"What, at a club?" Veronica is a little disbelieving. "This, from Betty Cooper?"
Betty shrugs, arches an eyebrow. "It's not like we need to get drunk or do drugs," she says, "but dancing and having a good time? That sounds pretty tempting to me. We are in New York City, after all."
Veronica is remembering so clearly the way she was when she was thirteen, when she was fourteen, when she was fifteen. How she would have been the one to suggest going clubbing and getting spectacularly drunk, thank you very much. Back then, it would have been procedural. For one fleeting second Veronica almost says no, almost says she's too tired from the drive and needs to draw up a plan for when she comes into contact with the investors, but in the end that idea is too bleak to contemplate.
"Yeah, we are," she smiles and wills down the mass of anxiety she already feels forming in the pit of her stomach. "You know, it's sort of a bitch to get to Cuba, anyway, so."
"I mean, customs alone," Betty grins, sitting up, tightening her ponytail. "We should all get ready."
Jughead speaks then. "You're not serious, are you?" Veronica had almost forgotten he was there, but she looks at him now, his eyebrows knitted together and an expression on his face like Betty's broken his beating heart. "I mean- you can't be serious."
"I agree with Jughead." That was Archie, turning away from the window to stand at the end of the bed and shake his head a little. "With everything that's happening, it's-"
"Possibly the worst conceivable idea," Jughead interjects.
"-not the smartest move," Archie finishes.
Veronica shrugs a little. Betty gets to her feet to stand beside her. "I'm not going to sit in this hotel room and worry. If you two don't want to come, that's your decision, but I've flown solo at these clubs more times than I can count. Betty and I will be fine."
Archie laughs a little, empty and ingenuine. "Right, and I suppose Jughead and I will just sit in our respective rooms and watch Law and Order all night." He sighs. "Okay, Ronnie. You win," he says. "Let's get ready."
"Jug?" Betty asks quietly.
Jughead is still scowling. "I'm ready when you are," he says finally, and that's that.
...
New York is shiny like a carnival, all Art Deco buildings and neon storefronts, and the club where they end up looks like the bar at the Ritz compared to the one in Riverdale. They have to walk down a dark, garbage-strewn alley to get through the back door, though, and Archie wonders how Veronica knows where she's going.
She holds his hand as she expertly weaves through the crowd, pulling him along like deadweight. It seems to him that she likes crowds, big noisy crushes of people. It seems to him that she's good at them.
Back in Riverdale, it was easy to forget that Veronica lived an entire life into which Archie had no point of entry - that she used to hang out with friends he's never met, party in clubs he's never heard of.
She lets go when they get to the bar, peering through the smoke, and leans over it to order shots. She asks Archie what he wants and she has to raise her voice to be heard over the music, something thumping and loud that Archie doesn't recognize.
He gets close to ask, "Isn't the bartender going to card you?" in her ear.
She shakes her head. "Don't worry. This is the one night we're not worrying, remember?"
Archie thinks that might be impossible for him, but figures that she deserves this, some kind of escape, so ultimately he surrenders. "Okay," he says reluctantly. "I'll have whatever you're having, then."
When he says that, Veronica smiles, really smiles, like the fog burning off in the morning, her golden skin and her sharp, intelligent face lighting up for the first time in what feels like forever, and it makes Archie's heart swoop, a pinball machine on tilt.
The bartender looks at Veronica and says, "Been awhile since you swung by," before he slides the shots across the table and takes the stack of cash that she gives him in return.
"And it will be awhile before the next time," Veronica says. She turns back to Archie then, and they start losing themselves in liquor and lips and the beat of the bass pounding through them as they dance, his hands all over her and her body pressed up against his. He has a much easier time forgetting to worry after that.
…
Veronica feels like she's been dancing for hours, she and Archie snaking their way through the crowd, the tight knots of people moving around them, glass bottles sweating in their hands. Betty and Jughead have been making out every time she's glanced over at them.
She's glad they're having fun. Archie, though, her Archie Andrews, is who's really captivating her. He's wearing a plain white t-shirt, the kind you buy in packs of three for six dollars, but of course he looks amazing, all angles and muscles and his whole body relaxed, like he's finally free. It makes her so happy to watch him, and she's never been gladder to be his girlfriend. She wishes there was a way to capture him, to write him down.
He has both hands on her waist from behind and his lips pressed to the back of her neck when she blinks once and sees someone standing against the opposite wall staring at her, his gaze too intense to not be intentional. She sets her hands over Archie's and feels her heart jump into her throat, lights strobing and the music suddenly too loud for her to even hear her own thoughts. Archie's hands run up and down the sides of her body and he guides her around to face him in one swift movement, his lips moving to her jaw, her throat, her shoulders.
"Archie," she gasps out and careens her neck around, but when she looks back at the wall, the man is gone.
She feels him hum against her skin and rests her forehead against his shoulder - her head suddenly feels heavy enough to snap off her neck entirely. She looks up and sees the man again, on the other side of the room now, eyes locked on her in a way that makes her whole body shudder. She blinks, and he disappears. She blinks again, and now he's closer, and again, and he's gone completely, until he's not - there he is in the corner, there he is by the bar, there he is a few feet away. Veronica feels rigid, stuck in place. She grips onto Archie with all her strength and thinks her knees might give out if he wasn't already holding her up.
"Babe," he says, right next to her ear. "Ronnie."
When she blinks again, the man is inches away from her face, right behind Archie, and she cries out as she tries frantically to jump away, but Archie is holding her and there's nowhere for her to run anyway, and then the man is gone but she's still panicking, trying to twist away or curl up on the ground, like maybe if she's down there no one will be able to see her or touch her or hurt her. It feels like her entire body is liquefying. She can't get over the notion that the floor isn't quite even. Her blood is pounding in her ears.
"Ronnie," Archie is saying, over and over, alarm and confusion. He lifts her up until he's the only thing keeping her from falling. "What's wrong, baby?" he asks, and then that's what he's repeating. "What's wrong?"
Her arms are wrapped around his shoulders and her eyes are full of tears as she stares at the man, who's back against the wall now. "Him," she manages, and when Archie turns to look, his eyebrows only furrow.
"Who?"
"Him," Veronica says more insistently. "Him. Staring at me." She can barely hear herself over the music. No one else is paying attention to them.
"Ronnie," Archie says, and he's still holding her so tight. "There's no one there. It's okay. There's no one there."
When Veronica blinks, the man is gone.
…
Archie tells Jughead and Betty they're leaving and then gets Veronica out of there as fast as humanly possible, leads her into a cab and then into their hotel room. She stays silent the whole time, her knuckles blanched from curling so tightly into fists, her eyes still glassy from alcohol, despite the entire experience being more than sobering. The blood, she thinks vaguely, is having a hard time getting to where it needs to be.
She sits instinctively on the bed and Archie sets the key on the table, rubs hard at his eyes, and turns to look at her. His expression is sad and it makes her feel so much worse, so she looks away, down at her hands, anywhere but into the eyes of the person she loves so desperately and hurts so badly.
He sits next to her, reaches over and picks up her hand. His calluses scrape her palm as he pulls her across the bed until she's almost sitting in his lap.
"Ronnie," he says softly. She hasn't stopped trembling.
She tries to keep her mind studiously, fastidiously blank. It feels like she's wrapped in a thick swaddle of blankets, everything muffled and coming from some far-off place. She knows somewhere in the darkest corner of her brain that she's about to break; something powerful coming, better board up the glass. As the seconds tick by and Archie looks at her, some insane part of her begins to think that she made the whole thing up. Maybe she imagined they went to a club. Maybe there were never any investors at all - and the wave of relief she feels in that moment is tidal and huge. Then she remembers it's not true.
"Ronnie," Archie whispers again, and it's enough to completely undo her.
She looks at him, finally, eyes pooling, and says, "I'm sorry," but she nearly chokes on the words and then starts sobbing, like all of the terror and emotion she's been locking down deep inside has finally boiled over with those two words, and she can't stop.
"No, Ronnie," he says, and pulls her right into his lap. His hands are framing her face, pushing her hair back, wiping away her tears. "Don't apologize."
"There's something wrong with me," she tells him, gasping in shallow breaths that are few and far between as she tries to stop crying. "Archie," she says, "I'm broken. I'm not-" she starts shaking her head rapidly. She feels like her entire existence has been one big mistake. "This must be- is this my punishment for being a bad person? Am I just filled with some kind of sickness or darkness?" She's shaking harder now, losing control. "I deserve it, maybe," she tries to reason, and watches as Archie starts shaking his head, "I must deserve it. I do deserve it. But it hurts. So bad." It hurts worse to say it loud, actually, and she loses her ability to speak as the sobs come harder, wracking through her, and she thinks surely the human body was not designed to withstand this much pain. She finds a strange sort of comfort in the idea that maybe soon she'll shut down completely. She finds a strange sort of comfort in the idea that she's finally hit rock bottom, that after this she couldn't possibly feel any worse.
She feels like her lungs are collapsing, feels lonely and homesick and embarrassed by everything she's incapable of doing. She wants to hit rewind on this night and on this month, for this bizarre alternate universe to bend over on itself again and for everything to go back to the way it was before.
Archie hushes her softly. "Breathe, Ronnie," he whispers. He strokes her hair as she cries into his shirt, and he speaks softly, trying to calm her. "There's nothing wrong with you. Did you hear that?" He swallows. He can't stand seeing her in this much pain. "There's nothing wrong with you. You're going through something traumatic, and of course you're going to break down because of it." He laughs a little, quiet and a bit choked, and kisses her shoulder. "I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner," he murmurs against her skin. "But that's just who you are, isn't it? Always holding everything together. Always putting on a brave face." His voice is slow and the hand that isn't stroking through her hair is running up and down her back, smooth and steady. "But you don't have to be so strong all the time, Ronnie. If forgiveness is what you want, I'll give that to you, okay?" he says. "You're forgiven. But I don't ever want you to apologize to me for being human." He kisses her shoulder again, trails his lips to her collarbone, her neck, her jaw, her cheeks, leans back so he can look at her face. His thumbs brush away her rapidly falling tears, but she's stopped sobbing, and she's trying to take substantial breaths. "And you're not a bad person. You're the best person, you're my favorite person, and you don't deserve what's happening to you. You never deserve to be in pain, and it's never your fault. I know it hurts, and if I could take it away, Ronnie, I would do it in a heartbeat."
Her hands are balled into fists again, and he pries them open, rubs her flattened palms to get the blood flowing back into them, kisses her knuckles and lets her rest her head on his shoulder again. He holds her like that for a long time, rubbing her back and massaging the tension out of her until she's still and quiet. He knows she must be exhausted. "I love you," he whispers finally, like a promise, and he knows - he just knows, without a doubt - that he'll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.