July 16th, 2019

There was an intense banging on the door of their house in the worst rain of the year, the sort of rain that Betty felt was more akin to a monsoon.

It had been pouring for days at this point, sludging up the fields and making the air muggy and moist. It was like stepping into a steam room, what with the hot air mixing with the rain to make every excursion outside feel like stumbling through a sauna.

"Wake up!" Betty shook Sweet Pea awake.

"It's trees," Sweets muttered, waving her away, mumbling.

"No, it sounds-," Betty started to say, but there was a sharp rapping on their door. Betty grasped a sweater to throw over her tank top and shorts to go to her door where Bree was standing, Jellybean behind her legs, eyes wild and terrified.

"There's someone at the door," Bree whispered, and though she was trying to be brave, Betty could see her hands shaking uncontrollably.

"Fuck, okay, okay," Sweets said, waving his hands as he rolled out of bed.

"Do you think they're coming to kill us?" Jellybean whimpered, but there was no need to ask who 'they' were in her eyes. She'd had many dreams of the Predators hunting them down and killing them in the same gruesome ways that Sweet Pea and his friends had killed them.

"And you think they'd politely knock?" Sweet Pea asked, halfway sarcastic, before ruffling her head, "Go downstairs, okay? Keep the rest of the girls feeling safe. They're probably a thousand times more scared than you are because you know the truth. That we're not gunna let anything happen to you," Sweet Pea said, his tone changing to one of gentleness.

A month and some spare change into taking in refugees, and they were up to eight girls. More had apparently been freed, not everyone electing to come here. Some had come and gone already, Kelsey one of them, leaving after resting up for three days. Of the original ones, Bree and Amanda were still here, having been granted 'top floor' access, or freedom to hang out with Betty and Sweets on the main level.

They weren't at the point of learning their 'real' names, still calling the trio 'Ari', 'Cadmus', and 'Hebe', but Betty and Sweet Pea often felt like the days where they trusted people with that secret was far behind them, and this is who they were now.

In some ways, it was true.

Cadmus; a 'family' man. Retired gang member. Someone who got his hands dirty not with blood but with dirt, caked under his fingernails from long hours tilling his land.

Hebe; a pre-teen girl in an apocalypse who still liked to write plays and have people act out the pantomimes with her.

Ari; a jack-of-all-trades handywoman. Not the daughter of a serial killer. A caretaker.

Betty liked their new faces.

"Yeah, you gotta be super brave, okay?" Bree agreed, nodding to Jelly, "Tell M to come up here." She added softly.

"Do we think it's unfriendlies?" Betty whispered.

"I don't know. I don't…" Sweet Pea went to the cabinets where they kept their guns locked away, "I don't know. Just…I can't…who would it be?"

"Not Walkers. They don't have the ability to knock like this, I don't think," Bree theorized.

"I guess we'll see," Betty said, grabbing a gun for herself and handing two more out to Bree and Amanda. Was it overkill?

Possibly.

Was it necessary?

Absolutely.

Sweet Pea took point, having the most experience with firearms (second to Betty, but they hadn't tried to pry why she was so gifted with one yet, as the answer as to why 'Cadmus' knew so much made sense), unlocking the door downstairs and using his foot to kick it open.

The first thing Betty saw was a figure with something swaddled close to its chest. The second thing she saw was Bree drop her stance, turn the safety of her gun back on, and blow past the people at the door.

"O!" She cried, throwing herself into the rain to embrace her friend.

As the person stumbled back a few feet their hood came off, revealing Octavia, with a few more cuts and healing bruises along her cheekbones and jaw.

"Bree, god, you are a sight for sore eyes. I'm glad to see you looking healthier."

"Tav!" Sweet Pea exclaimed, equally as overjoyed.

"Took you long enough, Cadmus!" Octavia huffed, "I've been pounding here forever."

"Okay, well, we didn't know you were coming, you know?" Sweet Pea said, pulling her inside, "Think of how we'd see it."

"I know, I know, but-."

Sweet Pea looked down and his eyes bugged, as did Betty's.

"Uh, Octavia? Some secret you been hiding?" Betty asked, her brain connecting the dots to make the leap to see that the thing in Octavia's arms was a baby.

A very young one at that. A month old, if even that long in this world. Probably weeks.

"Oh my god!" Amanda squealed, the most emotion that they'd seen out of her this entire time, "I love, love, love babies!" She exclaimed.

"Con..gradulations?" Sweet Pea asked slowly.

"Jasper's? Lincoln's? Finn?" Bree was babbling names, assumedly people they both knew, and from the tone of it, each name was more of a reach than the last.

Octavia looked down at the baby, asleep, and her lips curled into a hardened frown.

"I need to talk with the two of you in private," She said.

There was a moment of quietness.

"Amanda, why don't you make us all some tea? And Bree, get Hebe. She'll want to know that Octavia is back for…" She looked at her friend, unsure, "Back." She finally finished.

They brought Octavia into their bedroom where Octavia began unwrapping the baby.

"You have a towel? I tried to keep him warm and dry but this rain is no joke."

"Here," Sweet Pea said, grabbing a towel, "So how the heck did you hide a pregnancy?"

"It's not mine," Octavia said, giving a strange look to Sweet Pea, "Do I seem like I'd want a kid right now?"

"Sure, but there are not many options if you do get knocked up," Sweet Pea pointed out.

"Who is it then? Just a random baby you found along the way?" Betty would understand that. She surely would never leave a newborn like this left to fight for himself.

"No," Octavia handed the baby gently to Betty, who immediately felt the muscle memory of holding her niece and nephew when they were this small, which felt like so very long ago, "Meet Andy Grahn."

There was a pause, a moment of connection happening in both Betty and Sweet Pea's brains.

"Wait…this is Brad's kid?" Sweet Pea asked, examining the baby, "Doesn't look like a tool."

Octavia smiled at his joke, but Betty could tell there was still a lingering sadness, a pain in whatever story brought them here.

"Oh, god," Betty tried not to choke up, but her eyes filled with tears, "He's dead, isn't he?"

"No! But…" Octavia swallowed, "He wishes he were."

"Octavia, I'm tired as all hell. I think you need to start getting snappy with the storytelling," Sweet Pea said, "Please."

"We found his wife," Octavia whispered, picking at her nails, eyes trained on Andy, who was sleeping soundly, so innocent, "Or rather, we found where she was buried."

"Oh, fuck." Sweet Pea said, shoulders sagging, "I know we prepared, but…" He looked at Betty, as though trying to even imagine it. Which, of course, he knew the feeling, but then again…Betty had survived it.

There was a coldness in his eyes as he looked at her, as though he was placing himself in the mindset of what would have happened if he had just been a bit too late.

"Yeah. She had died three weeks ago. Three fucking weeks ago. And of course, he was inconsolable. That if we'd gone faster or done the raid earlier or stayed here shorter. His guilt was like molasses and even I was getting sucked in. It broke whatever part of him still felt human."

"Oh, god," Betty warbled, unable to whisper anything else. She couldn't think of what that guilt must feel like to him right now, knowing that any variation to their timeline could have ended so differently, so much better.

Inward, she felt guilty too, for maybe keeping them here longer, selfishly.

"Don't," Octavia said, sharply, noticing her expression, "Don't do that to yourself. Things happened as they happened. We don't know if she wouldn't have died some other way. You can't beat yourself up for this," She said.

"Childbirth?" Sweet Pea guessed, "Is that what…did her in?" This baby did seem about three weeks old, Betty agreed.

"Yes and no. She was beaten which caused early labor and her internal injuries were too bad, I guess. No one was a doctor, so it was hard to say. We freed the other girls there. One of them pulled me aside and brought me to the nursery and said she'd been caring for him since Zahira's death. That she named him while pregnant."

"I gotta ask," Sweet Pea sat down, "Is it…his?"

"It was Zahira's, so it's his," Octavia said firmly, which answered that question, even if they didn't want to say it out loud, "He spent time with him. But this was…" Octavia shook her head, "He was me. Lashing out. Unstable. He's deep in it, killing left and right. He's so militantly motivated and outpacing me. No sleep, no eating. Just revenge. On all of them. He's not in the right state to be a father right now. Maybe not…" She hesitated, but finished, "Ever."

"So you brought Andy somewhere safe." Betty finished.

"Well, Amanda seems really enticed by him, so, you know-," Sweet Pea began.

"No." Octavia's sharp and blunt statement startled both of them, "Sorry, no. It has to be you. You two have to be the ones caring for Andy. Don't…don't hand him off to someone else!"

"No offense, O, but I've never held a baby before." Sweet Pea said, laughing nervously, "And Betty has, okay, but she's never cared for one long-term."

"I always got to hand my nieces and nephews back," Betty agreed.

Octavia stared at them and plucked Andy from Betty's arms and put him in Sweet Pea's. After some initial coaching (support the head, tilt like that, close to your chest), she beamed, "Look. Now you've held a baby."

Sweet Pea wasn't amused.

"You know what we mean."

"You don't get it, do you?" Octavia asked, "Brad loved- loves- two things. His wife and his baby. He didn't know Andy existed until a few days ago, but fuck, you should see how he held Andy and sang to him and kissed his head. He loves this baby, no matter who got her pregnant because he loves his wife so much. And she's dead. So all his love is in this little guy. And the people he trusts?" Octavia was pacing now, furious. She snorted, holding up her hand, "You could count the number of people he trusts on one hand. Hell, you could cut off two fingers, and you could still count the few select it is. Me, you, Betty." She said, putting down three fingers, "That's it. Those are the only people he has any faith in this shitty world left, so it has to be you."

"God, if something goes wrong though, he's going to literally string us limb from limb," Sweet Pea said, moving impossibly slow, baby in his arms.

"I don't care. Andy's your ward now."

"Why not you?" Betty frowned, "You're not staying, are you?" She realized after a moment.

"No. I can't leave him alone out there like this. I gotta try to get him back down to earth. And there's still work to be done," Octavia said, "There's still so much." She echoed, quieter, the weight of her task on her shoulders.

"I still don't know how to raise a newborn." Sweet Pea said, not an argument, just a statement.

"You're good people. I think that counts for a lot. Just being raised with love. And you do love him, or you will." Octavia said, brushing his baby-soft hair, "I'll stay for a day or two. Help you get formula. A bassinet. All the baby stuff. Rest a bit."

"And you'll let Brad know Andy is safe with us," Betty said.

"Yeah. And he'll like that. It will make him feel like he can finish what he has to do."

"Do you think he'll be out of it in time for the wedding?" Sweet Pea asked.

"I don't know," Octavia said honestly, "I hope. But this sadness? This mission pushing him forward? I don't think we should try to stop it. It would be like trying to catch a bullet in your hands."

"Okay," Sweet Pea finally relented, "Okay. We have a baby now. Fuck." He gave a wry grin, "My mamma always told me I'd be a parent before I was twenty-one. Guess she was mildly psychic, though I sorta wish she would have warned me about..you know, the apocalypse and shit."

"Yeah," Betty said, staring at the baby, "If my mom saw me now…" She let a laugh, almost a sob, "No, you know what? I think she'd just be happy to see me."

Jellybean burst into the room before anyone could say anything else.

"I'm tired of waiting for this meeting to be done! You haven't said hi to me yet, Octavia. And-wait! Is that a baby?"

July 23rd, 2019

"He's so…small."

"Yeah, babies tend to be."

"But he's absolutely tiny."

"Probably premature, just a bit."

"And so…breakable."

Betty turned, frowning, tearing her gaze away from Andy, "What?"

Sweet Pea was still captured by the baby in front of them, placed on their bed, totally unaware of the conversation of his guardians, currently discovering that he had hands.

"Breakable," Sweet Pea mumbled, "Just so easily breakable. It's a goddamn fucking miracle that anyone survives infancy…apocalypse or not."

"Yeah," Betty sighed, swallowing thickly, "Really breakable. Which kicks in the maternal or paternal instincts. Must protect. Most keep…unbroken." She said, making a small joke.

Sweet Pea took this moment to look away, exhaustion lining his entire face.

In a single week, since Octavia unceremoniously dumped a baby on their laps, they hadn't gotten much sleep.

Very predictable, but still it shocked Betty how bone-tired they were.

Of course, they had help from Bree and Amanda, and Jellybean, but at the end of the day, they felt responsible for Andy, which meant he was with one of them most often.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Sweet Pea whispered quietly, but it wasn't too much of a surprise. Not only would it have been surprising for an eighteen-year-old to be a master at parenting, but he hadn't really much experience with babies.

"I don't either," Betty said, trying to be comforting.

"This book is actually…enlightening," Sweet Pea mumbled, rubbing his eyes as he tapped the cover of 'What to Expect When You're Expecting', a joke given by Octavia, along with formula, which was not a joke gift, but very helpful.

"I think I have a theory on all that," Betty said, sitting down, caressing Andy's little chubby cheeks and watching his face light up, "After thinking about how we were raised, and Veronica, and Jughead, and most of all…Archie."

"Yeah?"

"It doesn't matter if you have it all together or not. If you have love, real love, that's all a kid really needs." Betty whispered, "And I can certainly learn to love Little Man."

Sweet Pea gave a raw laugh, "That's nice, Betts, but realistically I think babies need a whole lot more."

"Literally speaking, yes. But if we mess up or don't have the perfect life to give him, if he just knows that he's so cared for, I think kids turn out alright. Archie is…" She swallowed, thinking of her friend, "He's the best example I know of that. Dad had next to nothing but loved Archie so much. I was always jealous. Always wanted Mr. Andrews to be my parent."

"I thought you loved your dad?"

"I did," Betty snorted, "I wanted my dad and Mr. Andrews to raise me and my mom to leave. Stupid, I know."

"Naw," Sweet Pea said, shaking his head, "You know, Toni's uncle also really loved her. She had no parents, and her trailer was full- she had four cousins, but he loved Toni like she was one of his own. And she was one of the kindest people I'd ever met."

"So, see, we'll do okay." Betty assured, reaching for Sweet Pea's hand, "You know, it reminds me of that movie. The 'Life as We Know It' one."

Sweet Pea frowned, "Don't think I know that one."

"It has Josh Dunham and Katherine H-something…Izzy from Grey's Anatomy?" She prompted.

"Ah, yeah, her. Okay, sure. Still probably haven't seen it."

"Well, in the movie, Josh and Katherin's characters went on a failed date years ago, set up by their best fitness, who are married to each other. They have a kid; a married couple, and when the kid is young, they die. Josh and Katherine are both named the legal guardians of the kid and raise it together. It's a romance, so, you know where it goes." She said, waving a hand and skipping the ending.

"Yeah, but I like to think we sort of like each other," Sweet Pea teased, "And aren't estranged ex-lovers like your movie."

"You make it sound so dramatic! I think the point is that some of the points match up. Being handed a baby with no experience or expectation that they'd have a baby together at this point? And, well, you know. I mean, they know that their friends are dead. And they choose not to let someone else raise the kid. It's their kid now, just theirs." She pressed her lips, "If Brad never comes back, it's just our kid. We're parents. And I think we gotta think of that as a possibility. Make choices like he won't."

"Betts…"

"It's not like babysitting for Juniper or Dagwood, where Polly would be back from the store or from viewing colleges for the weekend and I was charged with keeping them alive. This is different. I just think it would be good to start really considering that."

"Octavia might come back," Sweet Pea pointed out.

"Can you imagine Octavia as a parent? Seriously?"

Sweet Pea paused, "Okay, not really. But she might too."

"Or she won't." Betty said, "That's equally a possibility here. And then what?"

They could hand him off to someone much better with babies if their friends died for the cause, and no one would ever know. And Betty half-expected Sweet Pea to offer this, but he sighed.

"When I make a promise to a friend, I mean it," He said, laying down, careful not to disturb Andy, "Think I could be your dad, kid?" he asked, voice wavering, as though terrified that Andy would somehow reject him, though the baby couldn't make anything other than illegible gurgles right now.

As expected, Andy didn't have an answer.

He'd just discovered feet now, and this was the most interesting thing in the world to him.

"We'll be fine. And he'll be fine." Betty assured.

"Famous last words, Cooper," Sweet Pea said, yawning, "When he's sixteen and a total weirdo-,"

"We'll have maybe done our jobs," Betty finished for him, laughing, "Weirdness is a feature, not a bug. At least in my book."

"Hmm." Sweet Pea was almost asleep where he lay, shoes still on his feet, "We'll see."

July 24th, 2019

Betty keeps careful records in a leather-bound notebook. She'd picked it up a few raids ago in an old bookstore, and she would have never been able to afford it in her old life. Though her mother was not wanting for money very often, Alice would have called it 'frivolous' and 'a waste of money'.

"What's the big deal about a leather-bound journal anyway? Isn't a spiral just as good?"

That's what she would have said. That's what she had said when Betty had asked for a really cool looking one at the age of thirteen at Barnes and Noble.

Of course, theoretically, yes, they were the same. But it felt different to write in a leather-bound one. More final, that is.

Betty had started cataloging who came through at what times (the best they could with the calendar they had, hoping it was right and they weren't weeks and weeks off, though they had it on fairly good authority that it was more or less correct) and when they left. Some part of her needed to remind herself that what she and Sweets were doing was good for the sake of good. Just…pure.

They were helping these girls, girls that needed a place to rebuild their minds together and just live. Even if they looked like feral street cats upon arrival and only stayed a few nights, jumpy and muttering about their loved ones left somewhere flung across the United States or even off on faraway continents, Betty liked to think that they'd always remember the kindness of two kids that opened their home to them.

Sweet Pea had his own way of cataloging who came and went too, though Betty didn't realize it until she tried to help Sweet Pea plant his flowers for the front of their yard, and when she put a purple carnation plant down, he nearly had a conniption.

She already knew that the first few rows were her and Sweet Pea and Jelly's flowers, but past that, she thought it was just the optics.

"You can't just put that there! This one needs to go in that spot and that one probably won't pop up again and-," He'd sputtered, "I don't need help."

Then, he winced.

They were both tired lately. A newborn was no fucking joke.

"Sorry." He whispered.

"I didn't realize you had a method going." Betty said quietly, "I didn't mean to overstep."

Out here, everything touched by plants and dirt was his. Betty was a much better mechanic than a gardener, so she felt silly for even trying.

"No, fuck, I don't want to snap at you. But I do. Have a method." He said, rubbing his face.

"Is it…a picture? Something that I'll realize later?" Betty asked, turning her head, but couldn't figure out anything in the widely colorful front gardens he'd started. These were perfectly useless. Not veggies or herbs or even medicine. But it was pretty. And the fact that he was taking the time to make their lives prettier was touching to her. They certainly didn't need to and no one would tell Sweet Pea their curb appeal sucked if he didn't.

"It's the girls," He said softly, almost embarrassed, "Bree asked what her flower was. I don't think she really gets the Sweet Pea thing, but she knows that this one's mine and these two are yours and Hebe's. And it was a joke, but I guess…" He leaned on his shovel, shrugging, "I'm no artist. I'm not even a scholar. But I like it. It gives me a good sense of what plants to plant and when. And maybe next year we'll have to do it all over. Or maybe no one else will ever know. But I hope that the girls will see it and smile and maybe somewhere deep they'll know that a flower out there is for them."

"That's…beautiful," Betty said, "God, who knew?" She asked, wiping the edges of her eyes.

Sweet Pea's smile was a thousand miles wide, "Not me. But I don't mind this. I sort of like it." He held out the right flower as a peace offering, "Right there." He said, motioning to a newly dug little circle, "You can come out to help anytime you like. I enjoy the company."

July 25th, 2019

The anniversary of the apocalypse seemed like something that would be in poor taste to celebrate. She knew that she and Sweet Pea could throw around the morbid joke here or there, but this seemed far too dark for either of their tastes.

Besides, everyone had a different day when the world ended for them. Sure, the dates all were spattered somewhere in May, but some people in smaller towns heard about it later while bigger cities were hit first.

So there wasn't even a day it began. Not really. One day it was creeping under the surface, and the next day the world had ended. But there were so many days that it was.

Something worth celebrating, however, was the discovery of this house.

Without it, who knew where they'd be?

It took a lot of going back over the calendar and Betty attempting to backtrack through all the bull they'd had to put up with to find an estimate, and then they narrowed it down for weeks until they were satisfied.

July 25th was the day they'd found this parcel of land.

Betty remembered how warily they'd entered. How they'd kicked the door in and the dust had just flown up, and how she'd been so tired, so wanting to settle.

She remembered her brewing feelings for Sweet Pea too, just a tiny kindling. Nothing much at all, but steadily growing. Her partner, her travel companion, and someone she'd agreed to stay with. A choice; something Betty felt she so rarely got.

It seemed appropriate to celebrate this. Without them finding it, no one would have safe harbor. They might have never met Octavia and Brad and maybe the Predators would still be a danger. Yes, the good came with bad, but they survived and those assholes didn't, so it seemed as fair as the scales could be at the end of the world.

They also hadn't celebrated the 4th of July. More of an oversight on their part than an actual slight, but then again, was it right to celebrate the freedom of a country that didn't exist anymore? They were arguably far freer, but perhaps the bad kind of free. The lawless kind of free. The sort of free that begged for a sheriff.

Some of the other girls had noticed and asked about it. All in all, it seemed they were itching for a party of some sort.

Who could blame them? Those that were trying to move forward needed something lighthearted, Betty argued. And chances were that none had experienced a party of any sort for a long, long time.

And even though they'd promised the girls would stay downstairs, they figured…what would really be the harm of everyone congregating out in the grass of the backyard, just for one day? One day in the sun, with stupid party games from their plastic bin of raided Party City supplies (coming in handy right now) and all the board games they'd swiped from Target. Plus a few more that Jelly had helped Amanda make over a week or so; corn hole, mini golf, a non-alcoholic version of beer pong…and the prizes were cupcakes.

Quite the enticing prize in the middle of a wasteland.

It was times like this that Betty did wish for a phone or a camera. She wanted someone to know, even if they didn't make it much longer, that there were moments of joy. Moments of happiness. Moments like this; where there was a speaker and everyone was dancing and girls were laughing for the first time and the sun was so bright that Betty knew she'd burn, but fuck it, she didn't even care.

One day they'd be long dead. And one day, someone might come around and the world might figure out how to come back to itself, and it would be such a damn shame if no one knew that despite it all, there were moments people were living without fear.

They were here. They survived. And they were thriving.

The world had tried to beat them down, but the most satisfying revenge is that everyone was alive in a lodge in nowhere Wisconsin, jamming to the Jonas Brothers and playing children's carnival games with once-perfect strangers.

Here's to one year here , Betty thought as she watched Jellybean play mini golf with a real baseball bat, with varying degrees of success, And here's to the hope of a hundred more.

A hundred was a big ask, and possibly foolish.

But Betty Cooper would be perfectly happy to spend as much as the world was willing to give her just here with her little found family.

She hoped somewhere that the world was listening, and would be kind enough to grant her the kindness of growing old and gray, a hope she'd never had before, but something that now that she thought it, clutched her with such a violent need, such a deep desire, that anything else would feel like something cut short.

"What are you grinning about?" Sweet Pea asked, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

"You'll look handsome with gray hair. A silver fox," Betty said, ruffling his hair.

Sweet Pea chuckled, not even questioning it, "Damn right I will. And you'll look like a fallen star with your white hair," He said, tugging on her ponytail, speaking with such certainty that Betty had to wonder if he knew something, or if he'd prayed for it so much that he believed it to be true with all his heart. Or maybe his mama said something. She was, as he reminded her, mildly psychic. Apparently, she'd somehow predicted a slew of other non-important things, the biggest of which being Andy, currently strapped to Sweet Pea's chest in one of those baby-tie-scarf things. The rest were sort of stupid; like guessing that Sweet Pea's tattoo on his neck wouldn't be around very long (it wasn't, now marred by a scar), but of course, Sweets had just assumed she thought he'd find it stupid and tatt over it at a wiser age, like twenty-three or something, with something more tasteful.

Still, it was a bit impressive, and Betty would continue to stand by her opinion that thought his mum sounded like a shit person, she apparently had a few good guesses in her.

She never doubted that Sweet Pea was equally as invested as she was, she realized as she laughed. Somehow, she'd stumbled upon the nicest high school gang member, if that wasn't an oxymoron in itself.

Sometimes, she wondered what her life would have been if the apocalypse had never happened.

But not today. Today, those musings were as far away from her mind as they could possibly be.