The next two weeks of job searching proved to be fruitless.

Here's what Betty hadn't considered…small town, even fewer jobs than normal. And while she was sure that jobs were popping up into existence, they weren't being advertised here. If you wanted to scoff at nepotism, alive and well in big cities like L.A. or New York…hell, you'd never been to a small town. The only way to get into a business was to have your family already own it.

Betty hadn't considered the stoniness to newcomers. Everything here was family-owned for decades if not centuries. She saw the way Archie's eyes lit up when he talked about Andrews Construction, something handed down with care and respect. And he wanted to do right by it.

Most of the town felt the same way. The pharmacy, hunting store, the morgue, police force, restaurants, maple factor, bookstore, and even clock stores were all employed by sons and daughters and cousins, nothing more, no room for redundancy. Logic said that if your parents were good at something, you were probably good at it too, and add in a sprinkle of family expectations in a sleepy town that hadn't all the way figured out that you could do whatever you wanted to, and well, there you go.

People were also used to the status quo. That's probably why the newspaper hadn't ever been touched again after it went defunct, the sad storefront left as a memorial for one family business that hadn't made it. People didn't like talking much about it, grumping that they had a newspaper now to fill the void, but from what Betty gathered, the one and only son of the former journalists had left abruptly after graduating and never, ever looked back.

When his parents had died, the newspaper had died with both of them.

It was recent. She figured out it had happened within the last generation; Fred's. He seemed to have some familiarity with the son, though not a totally great one. Betty wasn't sure if they just hadn't been in the same class or if they simply weren't friends. Betty imagined it was the latter…Fred seemed the type to hate everything this boy desired, and vice-versa. Fred had done what most did in this town…settled down and took over his family right.

The son of the journalists had not.

He'd had bigger sights than Riverdale, and from his lack of a presence later, Betty assumed he found it. After a while, she just stopped asking about it, feeling like she'd pressed all she could from the town.

Still, Betty toiled away, applying to any job that she found. Most led to nothing. A few led to interviews, though she didn't feel overly hopeful about the outcome, and the radio silence proved her right.

It wasn't all bad. She had prepared for this, and she told herself that it might be a rough start. She had funds, though they wouldn't last forever. The unexpected vacation gave her time to relax and enjoy the town, fully explore it, as well as do what she could with a little extra to make her apartment feel like home. Still, though, she existed in worry all the time, that without health insurance, the other foot could drop at any moment.

She needed it more than most right now, obviously.

She would have been happy to hang out with Archie, but his new project started, taking him away each day for long hours. They still kept up a steadfast friendship, talking on the phone each night for hours, like old pals. They talked about nearly everything, though Betty was always careful to circumvent her circumstances at the present.

If you didn't know better, you may mistake their kinship for something deeper. Betty wouldn't fault you for thinking so. With how many hours they dominated of each other's time, it was half a wonder that they weren't just…together.

Sometimes, Betty tried to force herself into liking him, thinking she'd be all the better for it. He wasn't ugly, he was kind to a fault, and his father was the best person Betty had met in all her life. It would be easy if she just could muster enough affection to let it bloom later, down the line.

There were, of course, some glaring issues with said plan.

One, Betty was a moral person, and liking him due to her situation felt…scummy. Underhanded.

Two, she did not have a lick of a crush on him, not even a passing fancy.

Three, he had a girlfriend he was head over heels for.

Her name was Ree, and she was studying business. From the way Archie talked about her, his voice going soft, she could tell he had a big, stupid grin on his face.

Her family was originally from here, he said, but had also moved away long ago. Ree had come back one summer in his youth, sent back to her grandmother's as a 'straighten out, young lady' sort of stichk, and she'd seen Archie riding his bike around.

Apparently, everything had just fallen into place from there.

He knew she had big, loud aspirations that were too much for this small town. Whenever Betty tried to ask how this would work - Archie tied here with the company and Ree off doing whatever she could to climb corporate ladders and break glass ceilings - Archie would get quiet.

"I don't know," He finally admitted one day, late at night, as though the admission had been worn out of him, "But I just know I love her and she loves me, so…" He shuffled on the other end, "It'll work itself out."

God, Betty wished she had even an inch of the sureness he had or the affection he kept.

She was pretty sure she would have gone bat-shit crazy with Archie. Small towns sure were…small. She'd met a splattering of others around her age- Midge, Reggie, Moose, Ginger - but none had clicked with her and became friends the way Archie had.

It made her long for the two of her friends she'd left behind.

The biggest regret in all of this was leaving her oldest friend, her sister Polly.

She'd really fought with herself whether to tell her older sister, who she wouldn't necessarily call 'wise', but was always there for her nonetheless. They'd grown up under the strict thumb of their parents, weathering it together, finding solace in knowing they were the only other ones who would ever understand. But somewhere along the way, when Betty had gone to college and Polly had graduated already, she'd changed. She'd been brainwashed, for lack of a better word, pressing her lips together and shaking her head.

"Oh, Betty," She'd say, "When are you going to realize Mom and Dad aren't our enemy? They just want what's best for us…"

Betty couldn't blame her. After so much pressing, pressing, pressing…they were bound to get what they wanted, a perfectly molded daughter. Their unrelenting presence had done the opposite for Betty. It had hardened her. She'd turned into a diamond; beautiful, but sharp and cold.

When she'd been making her schemes, Betty had almost told her. One day, when Polly came to visit her like she knew something, Betty nearly broke down.

Maybe she would have. Maybe she would have seen a glimmer of her oldest partner in crime and thought that surely, Poilly could be protected with such a secret, but then, Polly had tried to convince Betty to meet her mother for a 'harmless lunch'.

And that had clammed Betty right up.

Polly may not know what was going on, but her mother was shrewd enough that she'd clock Betty immediately.

She thought about it sometimes…what would have happened if her mother had known? She'd be dragged back. No way would her mother let her go through with having the baby. If she did, it would be adopted out the moment it was born. She'd be cut off of all her freedom, enough though she was a goddamn adult that could make her own choices. Her mom would probably lock her in a room and force her to take online courses under their watchful eye. Probably a few sessions of good old Catholic guilt in the form of manded therapy or confessionals against her will.

So while it hurt her that Polly would always just…wonder what happened to her, any feelings of sympathy were from an old Polly, not the one that existed now.

She imagined, maybe one day when Betty was settled and it was years down the line, she may feel ready to reach back out…

Other than Polly, Betty only had one other really close friend who, to be honest, was the cause of this situation.

Well, not entirely. It was Betty who had gotten drunk and made the bad choices she did, but it was Veronica who had told Betty that maybe her hatred of a particularly insufferable classmate was just sexual tension, and maybe it could be fixed if they just slept together.

Let's be clear…Betty still hated the man with every fiber of her being, but the lay had been good, even with both of them inebriated and making hasty choices.

Veronica had been there while Betty had waited the agonizing five minutes to see if the line would turn up on the pregnancy test. Veronica had also bought her ten different brands, just to be really sure. And, after, when it had come up as true, Veronica had post-mated in anything Betty wanted to eat and rubbed her head and let her cry.

It was also Veronica who had helped her hatch this crazy plan.

Veronica thought it was maddening that Betty was keeping the kid, and to be honest, Betty didn't even fully understand it. All she knew was that from the day after that stick had come up with that plus sign, Betty knew that she couldn't do anything to harm it. She'd never considered herself maternal, but she supposed it was just deeply repressed. Her theory was that it had been so suffocated that once it was let out with the tiniest bit of oxygen, it went wild.

They'd planned this together. Not Riverdale specifically, but Veronica had been a sounding board through those late nights of Betty pacing back and forth, knowing if she waited much longer her mother would find out.

She had offered money, but Betty was far too proud to take it. Veronica had blinked.

"Betty, I'm drowning in it. Please, just take a stack of hundreds. Daddy won't even know it's gone."

As tempting as it had been, if Betty couldn't do this herself, how could she raise a child as a single mother?

Faulty logic? Maybe.

It was times like these, faced with no job calls, she wished maybe she'd just let Veronica shove a few Benjamins in her pockets.

She had no contact with Veronica since she'd left, leaving Veronica with one very important task; throw suspicion off as long as she could.

They had a built-in excuse for the summer. An internship all the way across the country in Seattle. She had allowed Veronica to pay off the company to never mention that Betty Cooper hadn't shown up, and to forget about contacting her or her parents.

Betty had threaded the lie early; about how the hours would be awful, about how grueling the work would be, about how tired she'd be. Making reasons not to call her mother. She'd pre-recorded some voicemails for her mom, and she'd given Veronica her sim card, so whenever her mother would call her, they'd let it go to voicemail and Betty would 'call back' and leave a message at times she knew her mother wouldn't answer.

From there?

Well, it would get trickier when school was meant to be starting up again. Betty guessed that she could maybe pretend that the internship had offered her an extension, and most of her senior classes were online anyway, and get away with it until December.

She knew she wouldn't be able to disappear quietly forever. She just needed until the baby was born, and here, and well…after that was all blurry.

So she and Veronica had six months to figure out an excuse for maybe another month, perhaps a month and a half.

When she'd figured out her plans, she'd tried to tell Veronica, but her best friend had put up a hand.

"The less I know the better," She had said carefully, "So I unequivocally can tell whoever comes asking I have no idea where you are."

"You think you'll be held to a court of law?" Betty had snorted.

Veronica had affixed her with such a careful gaze, "If I vanished, it's what my parents would do. You never know."

Sure, Betty's mom was insane, but…not like that, right?

As a last ditch, she had a note she'd written, to send to her mother if it seemed like hell was going to break loose. Short, to the point, no information. Just a simple: I'm safe, I'm fine, don't come looking.

If they managed to keep this charade up until the baby was born, in some versions of her future, she thought the most likely one was that she'd send that. She may not like her parents, but she did love them (sometimes), and the thought they'd always wonder, assuming the worst settled uncomfortably on her soul.

There were many times her fingers itched to call Veronica, pour out all the things she'd learned here, all the people she'd met, and vent about her lack of job prospects, but Betty stayed strong. She hadn't been close with anyone in high school, so to find someone so different yet someone who understood Betty so well, and would do anything for a friend, made the distance from her hurt all the more.

Having a friend like Archie made the ache less, though.

Fred had her over for dinner a few more times, and with Archie working long hours, they were able to talk more freely about her incoming due date. He was very paternal, asking all the questions Betty didn't know she needed to ask and never overstepped, but gave her any advice she asked for.

And he never pried why she would run away. He never indicated she couldn't take this on. He never acted like it was strange. He was who she wished her parents had been because she felt like she could trust Fred Andrews with her deepest secrets.

Dinner was always delicious. He pulled out all the stops and never accepted the five-dollar bills that Betty tried to poke into his wallet.

One of the days that Betty arrived, Fred was in the garage. The door was open and something was smoking under the hood.

It was a beauty; a vintage classic, something that made Betty's heart sing. She loved anything with gears and bolts, something her mother had tried hard to coax out of her. But the fire, the excitement remained even now, Alice Cooper unable to extinguish the thrill she got when her hands were grubby with oil.

"Goddamint!" Fred swore, the only time she'd ever heard him do so, coming up from underneath the car, grabbing a rag, "Oh, Betty. Sorry you had to hear that."

"It's fine, Fred. Car troubles?" Old things like that needed a lot of maintenance, Betty was well aware. Even a slight breeze could cause them to seize up. It wasn't a lack of knowledge, they just ran on fumes from decades ago.

Fred sighed, throwing the rag on a work table, "Yeah, yeah. It's fine," He said, "Come on in, dinner's nearly done."

Betty, despite her piqued interest, left the car in the garage. But she couldn't stay away.

When she excused herself for the bathroom, she had to pass the garage door. And there the car lay, just waiting for her to riddle out what was wrong with it.

Like she was possessed, Betty's feet moved towards it, the gleaming red paint so shiny she could see her reflection perfectly. She dug around under the hood for a bit, getting acquainted with the car, like it was a stranger just waiting to be a friend. After some rudimentary tests, she tilted her head, grabbing a wrench from the workspace.

Under the car she went.

Her absence must have been too long. She heard the footsteps, faintly, like she was in another realm, but didn't slide herself back out of the car.

"Betty, what in God's name are you doing?" Fred asked, not upset, just surprised. Betty ignored him, tightening a valve. She examined her handiwork for a moment, grasping the underside of the metal and pulling herself back into the light.

"Sorry, Fred. Couldn't help myself."

Fred had a peculiar look on his face. Wordlessly, he took the keys from a hook near the garage door, closing the hood. He got in, halfway, turning the car on. It purred like a kitten, running as smoothly as a seal sliding through the water.

"Well, I'll be…" He said, turning to Betty. She was using the rag to dig between her fingers, to get the oil off, "Where'd you learn that?"

"My dad liked old cars, too. Used to teach 'em to me, before my mom decided it was 'unwomanly'. I guess I never lost the spark," She shrugged, "I like puzzles." She finished after a moment, feeling the need to explain herself more.

Fred rubbed his chin, "You don't say?"

Betty ran her hand over the hood, "She's a real beauty. I would kill to have something like her," Betty admitted, "Old cars are just…I dunno, they hold a place in my heart. I mean, new cars can be fun too, but there's nothing like just…throwing yourself into the fix."

"Yeah, Arch and I renovate old cars…" Fred said, "But this one's been a long time coming, just needed to finish the last bits of it, which you diagnosed right away…" He seemed deep in a musing of sorts, mumbling more to himself than speaking.

Betty shrugged again, "Sorry if I ruined some bonding between you and Archie," She said, cheeks flushing.

Fred laughed out loud, "Oh, Betty, we've been toiling at a fix for months! Archie will be thrilled to hear this thing can actually be driven! We were about to throw in the towel…" He had that look on him.

"What?" She asked, worried.

"No, I just…you know," He waggled a finger, "I'm close friends with Leo Lopez; we play poker on weekends together. He runs the Riveralde Auto Shop, and he won't admit it, but he's getting on in his years. Back isn't bending right, getting all the usual aches and pains. Has a daughter your age, but no mechanical skill at all," He laughed, "Talks about it all the time. He's not explicitly looking for an employee, but I'm sure I could persuade him to interview you. Someone to take on on his bad days."

Betty vibrated with excitement, "Really?" She asked, beaming. While she knew others would turn their nose up at the idea of hard labor and working in hot conditions on cars all day, Betty was excited at the prospect of a riddle to unweave every single day.

"I don't think I've ever seen someone so excited at the thought of being a grease monkey," Fred laughed, "But I think he'd be glad for someone like you."

"Fred, oh!" Betty couldn't contain it. She threw her arms around him, "Thank you, thank you!"

Fred laughed, "Awe, don't thank me yet. I still need to convince him. And then you'll need to do a technical interview, though from what I've seen, you'll pass with flying colors. Let's not get our hopes up." But even he was grinning ear to ear, and she realized that he'd taken on the stress of her job hunt too, without asking.

Betty took a step back, nodding somberly.

But internally? She was jumping for joy.

XXX

She got the call from Leo three days later.

"Fred says you're some sort of mechanical savant," He said over the static of the phone, "Said I'd be dumb to not hire you on."

Betty blushed, "He's far too kind."

"Ah, well, I'll be the judge of that. We don't get a lot of business, but you know with my back…" He trailed off, "Well, maybe it wouldn't be awful to have someone young around."

She found herself in the humid garage the next afternoon. He started by giving her a few theoretical scenarios; a man comes in with this car, it has these problems, and so on and so forth.

Betty thought about each answer carefully, before describing possible issues as well as what fixes she could offer.

Then, he'd kept three cars back, handed her a tool kit, and told her to get to work. There was something amusing in the way he had gotten himself a root beer and settled into a lawn chair as an omnipresent judge, drinking it through a twirly straw. It was so picturesque; sure, the auto mechanic drank sasparilla through a curly blue-striped straw. Why not?

He pulled out a timer, and though she didn't know what her limit was, she intended to come away from it with time to spare.

It wasn't easy. Leo was no idiot, not when it came to cars. He likely knew them inside and out, and she was eager to soak up any knowledge he could give her. He also knew how to make this test difficult for her. It tested every inch of her knowledge, but she was eager to please.

When she scrambled out from under the last car, she wiped her brow with the back of her hand, the cloying smell of gasoline a familiar scent that wrapped around her. Her forehead beaded with sweat and she made a mental reminder to get a few good handkerchiefs again.

"Done!" She announced, throwing her hands up.

Leo clicked the timer and looked at it apprasingly, but hid the time from her, shoving it back in his pocket. He got up leisurely, taking his time to appreciate her handiwork, trying to poke holes in every inch of fixes she'd made. He drilled her, asking her to go through in painstaking detail of everything she did. And he never let an answer go without making her prove her methods; why this size over that size, why would you not do this over this, why would you suggest this oil to that oil…it felt like she was in front of a board examination for a doctorate, not to fix cars, but Betty took it with the same seriousness she would the former.

Finally, when he reached the last car, he looked it all over, turning his head.

"And this one?"

Betty hid a smirk, "It was a trick question. There's nothing wrong with that car."

Leo raised an eyebrow, "You sure?"

For a moment, Betty was gripped with doubt. Maybe she'd missed something, maybe it had been small and nearly non-existent? Maybe the trick had been making her think there was nothing, and she was wrong.

Betty inhaled, steadying herself. She smiled at Mr. Lopez with a placid smile.

"Absolutely, sir," She added. Not even a cosmetic fix to be suggested. This car was in mint condition, as though it had been popped from the assembly line yesterday.

Leo fixed her in a hard gaze, and for a wild second, she was sure she'd just ruined everything.

Then, he slapped the hood of the car, wildly joyful, "Damn, Fred was right. Then again, he's rarely wrong. You surprised me, little lady. Certainly have more grit to you than one would think."

Betty took this as a complement of the highest order and beamed.

"Work'll be tough," Leo continued, crossing his arms, "Tardiness won't be excused, nor will slacking. Hours are steady, though, and standard. I'll give you a fair break; a couple of vacation days, some sick ones, and make sure your medical is in order. I think I could spare…" He squinted, "$18 an hour?"

Betty felt glee filling her, "I won't let you down, sir!" She said, going over to enthusiastically shake his hand.

Leo allowed a grin, "I don't doubt you. Now, Fred alluded to some…" He swallowed, unable to articulate, "He made it clear that you may not want to give a real name, and I'm fine payin' in cash. I don't need to know what you're runnin' from," Though, as he spoke, his eyes softened, perhaps thinking of his own daughter, "But I ought to know what to call you, fully."

Betty hesitated. No one had pried for her last name yet. The landlady had just been glad to get a handful of cash and probably preferred it, and Fred certainly hadn't asked when she didn't give it. She had known that this bridge required crossing, but was still unsure how to respond. She'd hoped that the right reply would reveal itself.

She didn't want to use her real last name. She didn't want to use her mother's maiden one either, wanting zero association with either parent right now.

"Betty, erm, Elizabeth…" She held the pause for a long moment, "Elizabeth Heather."

She used the only person she could rely on as inspiration for her last name; herself. Heather was her middle name. It swam easily off her tongue like it was always meant to be.

Leo held out a greasy hand.

"Welcome to the team, Elizabeth Heather."