Hi all! So I plan on updating once a week...but I'm not sure what day of the week that'll be yet XD So, hopefully next week, things get a little more settled? It will probably end up being once a week between Fri-Sun.

Thank you to my two reviewers! Seeing even any support for this fic means a lot: Guest and badryla

Guest: Yes! I remember having the same thoughts, which is probably what led me to this crackship! They didn't do a whole lot with it, sadly. Maybe next season?

February 2019

It's been eight months since Betty and her travel companion have seen an humans.

No, that's not quite right. It's been eight months since Betty and her travel companion have seen any living humans; as compared to the multitude of corpses scattered on the ground like leaves, as compared to something even worse- the walking undead. It's been eight whole months since she's talked to someone else, sans her companion, and nearly nine months since 'this' (whatever 'this' is) started.

It's been nine months and Betty has just begun to realize the whole world is fucked and it's never going back to the way it was before.

And isn't that something?

That's at least what Sweet Pea would say.

May 11th, 2018

The end of world did not end with a bang. I did not end with a whimper. The end of the world ended as normally as ends of the words can be.

One day it was, one day it wasn't.

Of course, Betty is sure that it's much more complicated than that. She knows if she still had internet to look over things, she'd be able to chart the ways it was all leading up to it and no one knew. She's sure that someone had to guess it somewhere, even if it was those previously-thought-to-be-crazy survivalists, who she thinks are somewhere out there, but in all likelihood doing much better than she is. She bets those people in their tin bunkers are laughing it up right now, alive and well, while the rest of the world burns above them.

But to Betty and to everyone in Riverdale, it simply ceased to be their world anymore in the span of 24 hours.

In the chaos of their town, what with her father being revealed as the Black Hood and Archie's arrest, they were all to preoccupied with their own minimal problems to look at what was happening outside of their city limits. But, even if they had, would any of them have ever been prepared? At least right now, Betty can pretend like if she'd known she'd been better off, instead of the reality that nothing could have ever made this situation okay. No amount of color-coded notes or carefully stocked supplies would have made the end of the world easier for Betty Cooper.

It's in moments like this, when she reflects, that she thinks of Jughead. She thinks that she cannot even accurately begin to describe the change of those hours in any real way, she's only able to look at it from a journalist's logical and detached mindset. She can report hour to hour the happenings, but she would have fumbled if someone asked her to vividly tell them about her fear, her hunger, or the rush of adrenaline as she fought for her life. She thinks that if the world ever does end up righting itself and if Jughead is somewhere still alive out there, the novel he writes about this happening will be a bestseller.

The truth of the matter, whenever Betty thinks hard back to it, is that they were all worrying about Archie and nothing seemed more pressing than the fact that her best friend was being accused of a murder Betty is pretty damn sure he didn't do. One Betty hopes he didn't; they'd all seen him run after the buglar, but when he'd come back, he didn't have the eyes of a killer. Maybe he's a better actor than she cares to admit. Maybe being trained under Hiram all that time, even as a way to get the better of him, darkened his soul in ways that was inevitiable. Maybe he did kill that boy, Betty wonders, and she won't say it outloud but she wonders how they'll go on after that? She remembers sleeping over at Veronica's house, consoling her.

"It's my father, I just know it. I just know it and I feel so helpless," Veronica paced around her room, throwing anything and everything at the wall. Her clothes, balls of socks, jewelry, and finally a bottle of perfume that shattered, leaving a little puddle on the ground and the aromatic scent that Veronica once wore everyday hanging in the air.

Veronica always has a plan; this is something Betty can depend on. She's gotten herself out of bigger things, so to hear Veronica has no ideas scares Betty a bit. She still tries to be helpful.

"Veronica, Vee…" Betty's voice is soft. Veronica is trying to clear away the broken glass, and she cuts herself, "Hey, leave it for now. Mayor McCoy is going to do all she can for him, right? And his mom is coming down tomorrow, so there's that. He can't go through this. There's nothing, okay?" Betty wants so much to believe it. Veronica is a mess, her makeup running and her shoulders shaking. Betty will never tell Veronica her fears because that's not what Veronica needs to hear right now. She needs to hear the certainty in Betty's voice when Betty tells her that Archie is not a killer and her father won't get away with it. Veronica literally melts into Betty's arms, looking smaller and more childlike than Betty has ever seen her. She pats Veronica's head softly, encouraging her into the white and fluffy bed, tucking her in. She curls up next to her friend, clicking the light off and finding Veronica's hands, holding them. She's shaking still.

"Let's go to bed; in the morning, it will all be better." Betty whispers, easing her friend into what she hopes is a sleep filled with happy thoughts, "I swear."

God. If Veronica ever found her again, Betty expects she'll have to pay dearly for that lie. She didn't know, which is a fair point.

No one knew.

May 12th, 2018

Betty wonders if she'd started this new world out with Jughead and FP if it would be different. She had plans to spend the night with Jughead before the pep rally, but cancelled them in favor of her friend and Jughead agreed, as he was preparing to spend a night in the sheriff's office to be around Archie. She's glad they've mended whatever problems they had with each other, since their friendship is something Betty never wants to see either of them loose. And, if Betty could, she may have been camping out with Archie too. But, Veronica needs her.

It's strange to to think, because she muses that if she didn't't have Veronica as a friend, she would be with Archie. However, if Veronica never came, Archie wouldn't be in prison to begin with. Maybe he'd be planning gigs for a garageband for the summer months, in between working at his dad's crew. Maybe Betty would be half-way on her way to another internship. Maybe Jughead would be sending out his manuscript to publishing houses. And, in a very impossible way, Betty wonders if maybe the apocalypse wouldn't have come at all.

She tries not to think about that too much, but in those first few months, it's fairly inevitable.

She didn't know what was creeping on their town. What she did know is that when she woke up the next morning, Veronica wasn't there. There was a note left on the vanity with Veronica's impeccable handwriting announcing she would be at the prison and that Betty should come whenever she wakes. It seems peppier than the night before, but from the way the pen presses hard, Betty knows Veronica is still reeling. Betty snatches the note off the vanity. Later, she'll be glad to have a memento of one of her best friends.

Betty checks her phone to text Jughead, wondering if he's still at the prison with Archie like he has been all night. She should have thought it strange she had no service, no internet. However, with the stress and exhaustion of everything else going on, brushing aside technology acting up is simple to do.

Hermione and Hiram aren't home either. No one is home in the large apartment, not even downstairs at the door, where there's always someone guarding them.

After everything, this does send shivers up her spine.

Betty makes an executive decision; she ransaks the apartment until she finds one of the many guns she knows Hiram has hidden away. She can apologize later, hopefully, when she's still alive. She just has to make it to that point, she tells herself.

She recalls the attempt on Veronica's life with Small Fry. How would someone not know, if they'd never seen Veronica, that she was not Hiram's daughter, if someone else was lurking around, waiting for revenge. The blonde hair may be a giveaway, but if she's learned anything, these thugs aren't ones to check facts first.

The internet router says it's a problem with the service. The Lodge's still have a phone hooked into the wall, probably for nefarious purposes, but when Betty picks it up, there's no dial tone. Betty waffles in the living room of Veronica's apartment for a couple hours, fighting with herself. She's been in more dangerous situations before, even if she does not exactly what the danger is. However, those situations have always escalated quickly, and she usually has someone else- be it Archie, Jughead, or even her mother. She has scouted the whole apartment and not found a single soul, so staying here would be the safest.

Betty likes to think that it was mainly her worry for her loved ones that drew her out, but in all honesty, it was her curiosity. Betty can't help it; throwing herself into situations like this.

Outside looks like the world just stopped existing. Cars are abandoned halfway in the street, windows are broken, and things- couches, money, personal items- are sprawled across the road. Most terrifyingly, there's just silence.

There's a pair of people in the street. Since Betty's phone is acting like she's in the middle of Antarctica and is glitching out, refusing to connect to service or wifi, Betty sighs, approaching them.

Ignoring the drug use, the Ghoulies, her own father, and Hiram Lodge, Riverdale is relatively safe (or, was) and Betty knows pretty much everyone in town, which is why she feels okay taking a couple steps forward. She thinks that one of the people might be the college drop-out who bags her food at the grochery store; his name is Chad or Chet or something. However, he seems unresponsive in the usual way. His body is bent forward in a position that looks highly painful, however he makes no moves to amend his stance. Her confusion about everything causes her to keep a hand on the gun.

"Uh, hey, hi...Do you happen to know what's going…"

She pauses, lips parted, frowning. She's just come around one of the abandoned cars and for the first time, she has a full view of the situation before her.

One of the people is laying on the ground, and they're undeniably dead. Their head looks like it was run over by a truck, and that should have been the worse thing Betty's ever seen. It isn't, but it's a close second. What is hands down the most vile thing Betty's ever seen is that the second person- Brett, yes, that's his name- seems to be eating the first, fingers digging into their innards like it's spaghetti. She's known Brett to be high on occasion, but weed doesn't make someone do that.

Brett- the cannibal, Betty at first thinks, wondering if this is meth gone really wrong- turns around.

"You're not a person," The words slip out before she can fully think it through. Brett is a person. This is not Brett, she realizes with a horrified intake. It's hardly human. A person would not have a bite ripped from their shoulder and look okay. A person wouldn't have their jaw hanging and still be eating flesh. A person wouldn't be whatever this thing is.

Betty think it used to be Brett, which is equally terrifying, but she cannot know what it is now.

Her instincts give her two choices; run or fight. Both alert her to the fact that this thing is no friend and she should be very, very afraid.

She raises the gun, stumbling back a step or two.

The thing stumbles toward her, making a low keening sound in the back of a throat she's not sure it still has, dragging toward her at no quick speed. It's not the speed that makes Betty's blood freeze, it's the whole thing and the feeling that she could be next on this thing's meal list.

She shoots it in the chest, but it does not stop. She shoots it again, and though it slices through the thing like butter, the creature continues to advance. Betty stumbles back, falling hard on the concrete, over a car.

The creature is at her feet and Betty raises the gun once more, aiming for it's head.

She doesn't register the hit, not at first, not until she's bathed in sticky, nearly black blood and the body falls beside her, unmoving.

Betty is shaking hard and it's really all she can do to drag herself into one of the empty back seats of the abandoned cards, slamming the doors around her.

Inside the vehicle, her fingers are numb and she drops the gun to the carpeted floor, wiping away her cheek and seeing it come back covered in something that she would compare to molasses, if molasses had the smell of decay accomping it.

It's all she can do at this point to scream into her hand, holding back the tears.

She wants to find Jughead. She wants her mother. She wants Archie and Veronica. She wants to find Brett alive somewhere else, because that would mean that she didn't just kill him. She wants her sister. She might even take her father now, because having him hold her in this moment would feel more normal than what's going on outside.

Betty is a logical person and literally nothing about this is making a lick of sense.

Betty also has rarely felt fear, not when she's gone through so much. She recognizes that fear would have been appropriate, after the fact, but when chasing the fake Black Hood or answering her phone, she's too aware of every other sense. Today, however, right now...this fear overwhelms her in a way that she's never felt before. It suffocates her, creeping into her darkness and strangling it.

Betty cannot imagine herself stepping a moment further. She hates herself for feeling like such a coward, but she can still see the the supine outline of Brett that she just killed, or thing- she is, once again, not sure it's a person- and that really puts something into perspective for her.

Her arm is hurting like nothing else. She peels back her sweater to see that it's bright red and matted. Somehow, when she fell, she must have sliced her arm open and just not even noticed. She wraps it as well as she can, wishing she had some advil or something, because now that she has only this to focus on, it really stings. She contemplates her options; she can venture out to find some pain meds, she can ventur even furthur to find people she cares about, she might run into more of those. She checks the gun and sees she used the last bullet into the brain of that thing. This pretty much cements her choice.

Betty stays in the car.

May 12th, 2018 (Later)

Betty hadn't meant to fall asleep. It was wildly irresponsible, given the climate. However, the mixture of the adrenaline with the dizziness she was feeling from the loss of blood leave her far more tired than she thought, and sleep overcomes her. Plus, last night, she was worried equally about Veronica and Archie and sleep eluded her most of the night.

She awakes to hand prints being shoved against the windows of the car and those same rasping moans.

Betty instinctively rolls to the ground, out of sight as much as she can be. She tries not to gag, but the smell of death is really overwhelming everything else, so much that she throws up in her mouth just a little.

She wonders how Jughead felt, going in to face Penny that night not too long ago. Knowing he might die. His was a choice, though. A stupid choice, but his choice all the same. He had a chance to call Betty. Betty would very much like to live in this moment, but feels like it might be out of her hands. She only comes up with a ice scraper as a weapon and she will go down fighting if she has to, but she counts six separate pounding bodies, so she knows she's outnumbered.

"I'm sorry," She whispers, unsure who she's apologzing to. Her mother, for never coming home? To Jug, for being scared? To Veronica, for not waking up with her this morning? To everyone?

She prepares herself to fend them off until her dying breath, until she begins to hear bodies thumping. She also hears...whistling? She is almost sure she's going absolutely batty because it almost sounds like it's to the tune of Another One Bites the Dust. She presses a hand to her forehead, first to see if she's got a fever. She wonders if maybe she's actually dead. She hears the sickening sound of bones cracking and figures- dead or alive- she's going to be ready. Her fingers curl around the blue plastic ice scraper, preparing herself to open the door.

Nothing prepares her for the door opening suddenly, at least, not the door opening by someone other than herself. She nearly hits her head on the concrete as she slides out of the car, head facing toward the sky. The sun is setting and reflects off the car, shining right in her eyes. She raises an arm to shield her eyes without thinking about the danger that might be around, and blood dribbles onto her cheek.

"Damn it," She mutters, noticing she's dripping blood from her arm again. She might need stitches.

"Are you human?"

The question is careful, but stupid Betty decides. If she wasn't, she'd be attacking him right now. She probably wouldn't be hiding out in someone's rusted SAAB, that's for sure. She has a biting reply on her lips, but tells herself that this person just saved her life, so she should be gracious. And, at that, she realizes she's still not sure who it is. The sun is still in her eyes, so Betty squirms all the way onto the ground, and then pulls herself to sit.

Betty looks up to see her savior; Sweet Pea. She only knows him by association- that he's part of Jughead's serpents, but he's been an aggravator at many points in Jugheads attempts to take the reins. He's covered in blood like she is, but she thinks his is from the six people he just felled. He has a baseball bat clenched in his fist, heaving like he just ran a marathon, and looks strong as hell.

"Sweet Pea, hi," Her voice is raspy, "Yeah, I'm human. If you mean, not one of them…" She blinds, unable to think harder than that. Her witty responses go right out the door when she sees the carnage behind Sweet Pea and sees a pool of black blood that is inching closer to her, "Thank you."

They've only ever had a few talks, and most of them spats at that, so to thank Sweet Pea is unexpected. However, he's never been outright mean to Betty and she knows Jughead doesn't hate him, so there's a count there. He did just save her life, albeit he didn't know it was her in the car, but still. She knows Serpents would die for each other. It seems wildly out of character that he would stop to save someone that likely wasn't a serpent. Or, Sweet Pea is more of an enigma than Betty knows and he might actually be a half-decent guy.

"Fucking apocalypse," Sweet Pea gives an aggravated sigh, more so to the world than to Betty, and she thinks he might have muttered something else (but all she catches are the words 'unprepared' and 'playlist') but she finds the strength to shakily stand. She grabs the empty gun from the car, but when she turns she stumbles.

"Woah," Sweet Pea grabs her arm; her bad arm, and she hisses. He pulls it back to see it's covered in blood, and he stares at his palm with a darkened look.

"That looks bad."

"I just need some gauze," Betty insists, "Tis but a scratch." She says before she can stop herself. It's a joke she would make with Jughead. However, this probably isn't a time to be making light of the situation, and two, does Sweet Pea even know what she's talking about? From his almost smirk, she gleans he's at least seen Monty Python, "Really. I'm okay." She insist after a second. She turns and what she sees on the ground breaks her heart. It's a student, her age.

She didn't know his name, nor much about him, other than that he came from Southside High but was not a part of the Serpents. And now he's laying on the concrete, his cheeks and eye sockets sunken in and his skull bashed in. She looks up at Sweet Pea, and Sweet Pea bites the inside of his cheek. "I had to."

"I know," Betty's own foot nudges what's left of Brett, trying to show that she understands that he had to kill this thing, even if it was once his schoolmate. She turns back around, but her gaze falls on the kid again. He looks a ghastly gray and one of his arms is torn up, but not elegantly like some animal, but like something with duller teeth decided to take a bite.

"He just wouldn't stop trying to get into the car. Joshua, I think was his name. A freshman." Sweet Pea is following her gaze, "Did you come from the Lodge's?" He asks, pointing to the white fortress just ahead. Betty nods. She's glad he switched topics. Talking about Joshua, who was fourteen or fifteen at most, is not on her list of things she wants to do.

"It's empty, though."

"Shame," Sweet Pea sighs, "I figured the apocalypse would be the best time to off old Hiram, you know. Revenge for everything."

"Yeah, well," Betty isn't sure she wants Hiram dead. As much as Veronica said she wishes that her father would die last night, and Betty agreed, Betty is unsure that's how either of them truly feel. Betty despises her father but she doesn't want him dead, however, Sweet Pea's life has been ruined a whole lot more than hers has by Hiram.

"We're going there."

"Uhm, no." Betty tightens her ponytail, "I need to find Jughead and my mom."

"You've lost a shit ton of blood. You're not going to get three steps." Sweet Pea slings the bat across his shoulders, "But go ahead, go on," He says, raising an eyebrow. He's challenging her and he looks so smug that it infuriates Betty.

Betty defiantly takes a step forward, which doesn't seem bad. The second is fine too. So is the third. It's the fourth that'd disastrous, that leaves her crumpling in a ball, her legs buckling.

Sweet Pea picks her up off the ground, slinging her arm over his.

"It was four steps," She argues quietly and Sweet Pea snorts, but he almost smiles. She will not admit defeat, but he knows that she realizes her weakness in this moment too.

Inside, they go back to the Lodge's main living room. Sweet Pea makes a mess of their bathrooms, searching for medical supplies while Betty gingerly works her sweater off. She still has a shirt underneath, so she's not stripping naked for a boy she hardly knows. She bites her lip hard when she unwraps the fabric she'd patted over her wound, tears pricking her eyes as it lifts up from where it has stuck itself to her cut. It's like pulling off a band-aid, but with none of the healing properties a band-aid has.

"Rich people have great meds," Sweet Pea rattles a bottle of vicodin, "Bottoms up."

"I don't know," Betty gnaws her lip, "Maybe we shouldn't be doing that. We should have our wits and all."

"Well, it's here if you need it." He sets it in front of her, "Now...your arm."

Neither of them know what they're doing, but they manage to slather on a whole lot of antiseptic and bandage it pretty tightly. It's not as bad as it looks after all the blood is cleaned away, and luckily will not need stitches, Betty decides. It's going to leave a nasty scar, but Betty can live with that. She's surprised how methodical, how careful Sweet Pea is as he uses a rag to clear away the excess blood.

"Why did you help me?" She asks as Sweet Pea is tying off the ends of the gauze.

"Too tight?" He checks. Betty shakes her head. He's not medically trained, but the Serpents get bashed up often, so it's not wholly unheard of that he'd know a basic thing or two, "Serpents are all about survival instincts...except Jughead, who seems to run right toward certain death. All that aside, you've got some balls, Betty Cooper. Don't think I ever told you that."

"Erm, thanks?" Betty has hung around boys enough to know this is a compliment. She never thought Sweet Pea thought so highly of her. It seemed that whenever they were in a room together, they ended up fighting over something.

"Plus, seeing you bleed over the Lodge's thousand dollar furniture is almost satisfying my revenge," He says, nodding to a throw pillow that's been irreparably ruined and stained with Betty's blood.

"Right," Betty agrees dryly, "So do you know what's going on out there?"

Sweet Pea takes a set next to her, "Not a damn thing. I woke up and the world was burning. At the riverside where we're camping, I mean that fucking literally. Someone thought that maybe burning these demons would work…" He frowned hard, "Far as I've seen, only way to stop them is to get a headshot in. I tailed it to the baseball diamond and managed to pick this bad boy up. It's done me well so far." Sweet Pea taps the bloodied baseball bat against Betty's leg. His fingers clench and unclench around the handle, as though reliving his morning.

Betty has a thousand questions. Two spring up as the most important. One is emotionally driven, one is logically driven. She fights between two, finally asking the second.

"What are these things?"

"Ask what you really want to know," Sweet Pea doesn't command it, but offers it. Betty is almost warmed by the gentleness in his tone, and this along with her question that she does truly want to ask nearly makes her cry.

"Is Jughead okay?" Her voice shakes much more than she wants. After being told she has lady balls, she would hate to seem weepy, but Sweet Pea doesn't seem to hold it against her.

"I'm sorry, I don't know," Sweet Pea whispers, "He-, along with Fangs and Toni and Cheryl- were gone when I woke up. I figured he came to you, that Toni and Cheryl were together and Fangs?" Sweet Pea looks so angry, "I don't know where he is."

"I'm sure he's okay."

"He's a cripple in a world of psychotic undead things eating people's flesh, Cooper. Don't coddle me." Sweet Pea snaps, "And if all this was for nothing, if our death was having to move to that freaking river bed, if we all could have been safe in the trailers," Betty notices his lack of a swear word and figures he's really upset, "Well, I figured Hiram could pay for it in his blood, then."

"Oh."

"And I dunno, to your other question. I don't know what these are, but it's nothing good."

"Yeah," Betty nods. She gets up, "Hungry?" On one hand, after seeing all this, it should be impossible to eat. However, she also realizes it's been nearly all day since eating, and that's not healthy.

"I guess if someone put food in front of me…" Sweet Pea looks at his hands, more red than flesh toned, and is thinking the same lines that Betty is. He makes a face, wiping it across the back of the Lodge's sofa, settling his muddy boots over their coffee table. He does not look calmed, but Betty wouldn't call her current self 'calm' either. She recognizes that one of them needs to take some sort of motherly initiative. She doubts it's going to be Sweet Pea.

"Okay. I'll see what we have."

It's getting dark now and Betty is smart enough to know that Jughead is smart too. He is, arguably, smarter when it comes to street logic. His father is smart too in that same way. Wherever he is, he's found somewhere safe, and going out now would just endanger her and she wouldn't get a block out, not when the walk between the kitchen and the living room (albeit that it may be a larger distance than most kitchens and living rooms are) makes her still feel nauseous.

She will search in the morning.

May 13th, 2018

"Most people left town." Sweet Pea informs her at first daylight, "I saw people just pouring out of the city limits."

The morning came earlier than Betty thought. She had been up all night, running through the names of people and wondering how they were faring. Cheryl and Toni were okay; Cheryl was terrifying in the best of ways, plus, she had to have loads of hidden places all over Riverdale. Jughead and his father would be fine. Archie would be okay because Veronica would be okay. Kevin and his father had a whole slew of guns at the police station. She was worried about her mom, her sister, and Fred Andrews specifically. Sweet Pea woke looking miraculously well-rested and wasted no time going through the Lodge's fridge. He informed her of the town's status as he was ransaking their fruit drawer. The day before, Betty had only gone as far as finding leftovers that looked like some fancy mac 'n cheese and reheated it, too tired and too ill to cook anything else.

"Well," Betty locked her jaw, "Whatever. I'm going to stay here. I won't leave until I find my friends. Until I find Jughead." She crossed her arms, staring Sweet Pea down, raising an eyebrow, "I get if if you-,"

"Hey, now. I was just letting you know what I saw." Sweet Pea slammed the doors shut to the fridge, "You think I would just up and leave? Without finding the Serpents?"

Betty hadn't thought of this, not in that moment.

"Then," She bit the inside of her cheek, "I guess we'll go out when you're done eating, huh?" She muttered, feeling her cheeks redden. She hadn't expected that response from him. She knew Serpents were a little self-serving- self-preservation- so she was honestly expecting Sweet Pea to be booking it out of town like the rest. Sweet Pea was shoving a banana in his cheeks, shoving two apples into his jacket pockets.

"I'm good now. Here." he slid the knife block her way, "Pick your poison, Betty Cooper."

"And you?" Betty raised an eye. His trusty bat was strapped across his back, but knives did seem more effective and it didn't make sense for him to ignore a whole collection of them, even if the weathered wood had served him well yesterday.

"Found this laying around," Sweet Pea twirled a gun around far too casually, "I'm sure we could find more. However, you seem so anxious to get back to your bae that I figured you'd want to get on the road."

Betty rolled her eyes, refusing an answer other than walking toward the door.

"If you had a girlfriend I'm sure you'd want to get back to her too," Betty said pointedly and Sweet Pea just shrugged.

"You might want to change." Sweet Pea said, looking Betty up and down, "I mean, it's not the blood, it's the fact it's a skirt. I'll be waiting downstairs." Betty paused. She'd almost forgotten that she had been wearing a mini skirt the day of Archie's arrest. She hadn't changed since then.

"You're not going to leave me?" Betty asked suspiciously.

"Cooper," Sweet Pea sighed in frustration, "Do you really think so low of me? Plus, Jughead would skin me alive if he found out I left you here. Go. Change." It was an order. Usually, she'd fight back, since no one could order her around, but since the reasoning was sound, she agreed.

Betty sprinted to Veronica's room and found a pair of jeans- jeans that probably cost more than five hundred bucks, but jeans- with a jacket and a t-shirt. She found Sweet Pea pacing in the living room, not in the lobby like she'd thought. She knew there was a problem from the look on his face.

Silently, he lead her to a window that overlooked the front street. Pressing themselves against the front door were at least thirty of those half-human things, all ravenous to get inside. A flash of fear struck Betty.

"We just clear them, yeah?" She whispered, "We have a gun."

Sweet Pea shook his head, aiming at one out the window. He was a good shoot, and did manage to fell a single one. Betty saw the problem immediately. The remaining creatures stumbled over to that one and from up the street, Betty saw some that had just been milling around turn and start toward the Lodge's.

"They're attracted to noise. It's why I was on foot instead of my motorcycle." Sweet Pea grumbled.

"So we just have to wait until they leave?" Betty whispered, shaking her head frantically, "Sweet Pea, I have to leave, now."

"You'll be dead if you do." Sweet Pea left the window, "But be my guest."

Betty stood at the window for ten minutes more, watching them swarm like bees before she angrily shut it down and stomped back into the living room.

"The walkers will move on eventually," Sweet Pea dragged a hand over his face, "Logically."

"Walkers?"

"I don't like calling them 'it' forever. They walk."

That was acceptable enough for Betty.

"We'll just wait it out." Betty agreed, and checked her phone again. Still no signal.

This couldn't last more than a couple hours, she figured.

She should have figured out by this point that she was going to be wrong.

It took around 2 days for the group to pass on. She wasn't sure why they were so preoccupied with the Lodges of all places, but it was infuriating.

Betty found things to do with her time.

First things first; she made a list about what she did know about her situation. It could really be boiled down into two points.

It was the apocalypse and there were things out there that used to be humans that were now dead-looking and liked eating other humans.

She made very elaborate notes about her senses during this time, but that's what it truly came down to. And she could work with this. She could prepare for this by the way that she figured she'd become prepared for literally anything. She wasn't going to be caught off guard again.

Between her and Sweet Pea, they scoured the entire Lodge property and came up with quite the arsenal of weapons, mostly guns. It wasn't great, since guns brought more walkers, but she wasn't upset with it either. In a pinch or if they weren't in highly busy areas, guns could be useful. She did wish, however, that Hiram had been obsessed with collecting swords or antique torture devices or something. That would have been more useful.

She was sure by the amount of guns she'd found that Hiram was indeed gang based. She hated to admit it, but in the face of disaster like this, Hiram was going to be able to deal with it. She kept waiting for the Lodgers to return, but they never did. By the middle of that first day, Betty decided that the Lodges were probably far gone, perhaps even out of the country. That thought infuriated Betty, except when she realized that Hermione would never leave without her daughter and Veronica would not leave without Archie, which meant that if she believed that the Lodges had fled, two of her friends were okay.

Betty also began taking out food, medical supplies, backpacks...anything else that could help them. If Riverdale was as overrun as the Lodge's street, Betty had a sick feeling that they couldn't stay here either, once they found people, of course.

Sweet Pea, on the other hand, was interesting to watch.

Betty had never known Sweet Pea all too well, but this gave her a chance to observe the person Jughead would consider his second in command, if he had to pick someone. Sweet Pea had a natural persona that Betty could understand as almost being sly or charismatic, but it just bothered her most of the time. He made a big show of seeming okay, seeming almost gleeful to be parading around Hiram's house. He sang under his breath a lot, a variety of songs, many that Betty didn't even know. At one point he'd started up the good 'ole 'this is a song that gets on everybody's nerves', that is until Betty threatened to kill him in his sleep after the twelfth or so round of it. After that, Sweet Pea began singing 'It's Not Unusual', which wasn't much better, but Betty accepted it. She was sure he did that just to piss her off, though, and the songs he hummed, sang, or whistled to himself were much better choices.

If she wasn't watching him, she would have thought he might have not been as affected as she was. He seemed all too happy to go through every square inch of the Lodge's house, tearing through Hiram's clothes in an elaborate fashion show, reading top secret documents he certainly should have have been perusing, and spent a good amount of the time unlocking the three safes in the Lodge's house. He managed to get all three open by the time they left. He used everything in the house with zero guilt. Betty used things too, but with some yucky feelings. She knew Vee would likely want her to use things, if she were here, she told herself. She needed to eat. She needed to shower. She needed to sleep.

If Betty only saw these activities, she may be miffed about his nonchalance about the whole situation. It was only when he thought Betty wasn't looking that Sweet Pea let himself be nervous; times when Betty had said she would be showering, after dark, or when Sweet Pea was by himself.

He'd be doing something, and then it would be like anxiety would overwhelm him. He'd pace back and forth for minutes on end, sometimes even a whole hour, biting at his nails and looking outside the window. Betty caught him doing this two or three times, enough to tell her that this was seriously rattling him too. A part of her was equally relieved and disappointed; relieved because it made her feel like less of a wimp, but disappointed because she had sort of hoped he had a plan or truly was as brave as he seemed.

They didn't talk much. They did sit down to watch a couple movies on low volume, but it was less a partnership as so much as one turning something on and the other meandering over to the wide couches to join them.

Everyone in the apocalypse, and I get stuck with him.

That wasn't fair, Betty realized if she thought about it. Conversation was a small price in comparison to everything else. She could be with someone who didn't respect her, who didn't know her at all, or who was cruel. She could be with someone useless. She could be with someone much younger or older.

Truth being told, she was fairly well matched with Sweet Pea, at least in this moment. Of course, they'd hopefully find their own groups and maybe they'd just split apart after that. She'd be fine if that happened. She was just grateful she wasn't alone right now.

Some part of her was sure he was happy to have another live human with him too.

May 15th, 2018 (Approx 11 pm)

"The herd has moved on." Sweet Pea said in the dead of night, waking Betty with a start.

"Where?"

Sweet Pea shrugged, shoving his hands into his jean pockets. Betty supposed as long as it wasn't around the Lodge's house anymore, she truly didn't care.

"Are you ready to go?" She asked, jumping out of Veronica's bed and throwing her hair in a ponytail. She'd taken to sleeping in some form of read-to-go clothes so that she could leave like this, at a moment's notice.

"You have no idea."

"What? Has burglarizing the Lodge's house lost its appeal when there's no one to fight about it?" Betty asked dryly. She knew half of Sweet Pea's attitude was with the hope Hiram would reappear and he could get his 'revenge' in. He must have come to the same conclusion that she had.

"No, I'm ready to find my friends. Plus, you would not believe the info that Hiram has just lying around in safes. I mean, I got into them, so how secure can they really be? I was going to tell you about the folder he has on Area 51, but with that tone, I don't think I am anymore." Sweet Pea said.

"Har-har," Betty rolled her eyes. She realized after a second she couldn't be sure that Sweet Pea was joking; that is, that Hiram did have some info about UFOs or aliens locked away.

Betty threw him a backpack filled with non-perishables, a couple guns, and lots of knives- along with other necessities. They'd agreed that right now, a car would be loud and draw attention to themselves, especially when they'd be searching for people, so they'd be stopping and starting a lot. They'd loaded most of the supplies into one of the Lodge's cars to return to once groups were found and leaving would be more of an option. Betty had shoved as much as she could into the back of one of the vans the Lodge's used.

She didn't think about the getaway car right now. In this moment, all she could think was that she might get to see Jughead soon. That was one of the few things that kept her sane these past two days. That and having someone to moan about the apocalypse with, even if Sweet Pea wasn't her first, second, or even tenth pick of a person.

The herd was absent at the front doors, but Betty's feet still froze on the tile.

"You okay, Cooper?" Sweet Pea's voice was low, quiet, and surprisingly concerned.

"I...yeah," Betty tried to play it off, laughing, but her voice came out cracked. They'd seen through the window that the street was empty, but that didn't make it better. She was safe here. Out there was decidedly unsafe. She'd been outside and she'd gotten a gash on her arm and nearly died. One might say going out was just asking to tempt fate. Then again, staying in the ghost of the Lodge's apartment wasn't an option either.

"I have your back." Sweet Pea assured, nudging her shoulder, "C'mon, let's find our friends."

Betty nodded and the pair slipped into the moonlight.

There were some key spots they agreed that people might be hiding out. Neither took out a flashlight, and neither spoke; both concerned about keeping their wits and being on the lookout for walkers. Only the moon lit their way.

Together they started walking through a Riverdale that Betty felt like she knew, but altogether, was now hauntingly different.

May 16th, 2018 (Early Morning)

Most places were a bust. From places on the North Side- the school, the station, town hall, hospital- to the Southside- the trailer park, the Wyrm, Southside high...no life anywhere. Sweet Pea had kept a more hopeful demeanor as compared to Betty, but after seeing the dead bodies stacked up in the Wyrm, that just broke Sweet Pea. Betty hadn't known all the members of the Serpents, since there were many, but most of the bodies that lay there had those signature leather jackets on.

Sweet Pea just went a little catatonic after that. Betty had been lucky enough to see only a few recognizable people she knew, the rest of the town that she could name either too disfigured, hopefully safe, or off roaming as a walker now. Sweet Pea, in this moment? Well, it was undeniable that at least twelve of his family were gone forever, if not more.

"At least the Ghoulies will be killed too, look at this," Betty offered after a long time, nuding the foot of their former leader, Malachi.

"Good riddance," Sweet Pea whispered, the first words he'd spoken since he'd walked into this graveyard.

As fars as Betty could tell, none of them were Juggie, FP, Toni, Cheryl, or Fangs...the rest, she didn't really care about, and it wasn't to be rude. She just didn't know any of them that well. She had a horrible thought that if she hadn't met up with Sweet Pea, and Fangs or another Serpent were to have rescued her, to walk into this, she may not have cared if Sweet Pea was a body on the ground.

The thought made her feel sick. They'd been together for around three days or so now, which wasn't a long time. But, it had been a very long three days and Betty knew Sweet Pea on a different level than before.

Sweet Pea was behind the bar, pouring straight up vodka.

"Woah, hold on." Betty jumped over bodies.

"It's customary to take a shot for every fallen member," He said, raising the glass, "Calm down, I'm not stupid enough to take twelve shots now. I do have a brain somewhere," His voice was toneless, "But you gotta let me have this."

Betty gave a ternse nod of understanding. She hopped up onto the bar, reaching over him to grab a second shot glass. He blinked in surprise as she tilted it toward him, asking him to pour her a shot too. Usually, she wouldn't have done that. But these people deserved a send-off, even if it was two high-schoolers taking a double shot each. It might be the only recognition these serpents would ever get.

"Thank you," Sweet Pea's voice was grainy, "To those that have fallen. Rest quietly, my friends." He clinked the glass to Bettys.

"Rest quietly," She whispered as a soft echo, rubbing her stomach as she downed it. After that, she watched Sweet Pea go around and find any IDs or wallets he could of his deceased family. His mood did not improve as, on the bar table before him, spread out was pictures of happy families, driver's licenses, and cell phones.

"It's only the first day." She whispered, "We've only been searching a day. We can just keep looking tomorrow. People have to be around. Our people."

"No serpent left for dead," Sweet Pea agreed, as though a reminder to himself. Though, as he looked out across the bar, Betty could help but see the doubt crawling into his stomach. If she were in his shoes, she'd be thinking the same thing too. She didn't say a word as he took a picture of each, stuffing it into his pockets. When he left the Wyrm, Sweet Pea did not look back.

They took up residence in a minivan for the night, taking turns to keep watch, readying themselves for another day of searching.

And another, and another, and another.

So, the day of the start of this is Day 131 of the Wildfire virus, or if you watch the walking dead, is the day that Rick wakes up from his coma.

I forgot to mention in the preface, but I do something special where if you review ten times, you get a drabble written for you! If you follow me on my writing tumblr, youngbloodlex22, you can see some of the ones I've done for other reviewers. If you're a guest who does not have an account, you can still get one, just find some way to show yourself other than just a guest when you review! It's a little incentive to leave a note, but also a thank you for those that do :)

Also worth mentioning, I am actually a huge Bughead fan! So, I'm going to try to handle her end of her relationship with Jughead as carefully as I can, so there will be no Jughead bashing or quick switches to Sweet Pea. This is a slow, slow burn baby!

The track for this 'Holding Out for a Hero', and specifically I like the cover by Frou Frou! I did consider putting 'Another One Bites the Dust', since Sweet Pea was singing that, but I thought that the lyrics of HOFAO more fit Sweet Pea's heroic entrance, plus Another Bites the Dust is a good zombie playlist song, but theoretically these tracks are from a playlist Sweet Pea made and he couldn't have known it would be zombies that would be the end of the world.

Please review! It really means the world to me!