Chapter Text
Betty and Jughead spend a lot more time together after his birthday weekend. Neither wants to be alone or away from the other, so more nights than not, Jughead will arrive at her apartment after work. He brings takeout or ingredients and extra cat treats for Caramel, who has graciously accepted his presence.
Their early relationship desire for one another does not subside, even after months have passed since their fateful meeting at the airport. The honeymoon phase, as Veronica so graciously reminds them, won’t last forever, yet it feels like it will. Betty can imagine them together, years down the line, living together. Maybe here, or maybe in a townhouse further out of the city. With Caramel and a puppy of their own. Maybe it’s too soon or maybe it’s real.
So in the two weeks after his birthday and before their trip, their lives become intertwined. She’d thought her friends would have more to say about it, but in reality, they’re both incredibly supportive. Of course, Toni teases him relentlessly at work and often turns up at her apartment with him. Betty doesn’t mind, and neither does Jughead, both too happy to care.
The weeks fly by, and without either of them realizing, it’s just two days before they’re due to fly to Vancouver. They’re at her apartment, cuddled up under a blanket, when it comes up in conversation.
“Jug?”
He hums absentmindedly.
“Are you going home tomorrow?”
He looks over at her now, eyes moving off the TV, brows furrowing in confusion. “Uh, not unless you want me to?”
“No!” she reassures him quickly. “Of course not.” She stretches over, leaning up to kiss him just to ensure he knows she’s certain. Feeling him smile into it, she almost forgets what she was going to say.
When they part, he looks up at her with adoration in his eyes. “I’m glad you don’t want me to go,” he says with a slight giggle.
“I definitely don’t,” she smirks, running her fingertips down the front of his shirt. “But, uh, what about packing?”
“Oh. Fuck.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I guess I’ll pop home after work to grab a few things.”
She nods, noticing his reluctance to go back to his own apartment. It’s become more apparent over the past couple of weeks, since he’s been spending more time at hers. She doesn’t mind at all, enjoying seeing items of his pop up in her space. A toothbrush, his shower gel, more ‘S’ shirts. But she does wonder if there’s a reason she’s missing.
“Will you come with me?” he says, voice small, eyes looking down.
She takes his hand in hers. “Of course, Jug, but… what’s wrong?”
He sighs. “Nothing, really. My apartment is just lonely and going back there reminds me of how I felt when I first moved here.”
Her heart breaks for him. Hell, she experienced something similar when she first moved here, something she’s not sure she would’ve gotten through if it weren’t for Toni.
She’s tentative when she asks him about the early days. And he’s tentative when he answers. But he does, telling her the truth about what happened. He explained how college wasn’t really his thing. He never fit in properly and thought that moving to Seattle would change that. It didn’t, not at first. He landed the job with Toni, though, and things started to turn around.
That day at the airport, he’d just been back to Riverdale for the first time since he’d left. He told her that he’d gone back to see if he’d made a mistake leaving, but it made him realize that moving away was the best thing for him. So he headed to the airport and back to his new home. That day changed everything for him, more than she’d realized before.
When tears start forming in his eyes, she hugs him tightly, telling him that she loves him more than anything. He tells her that she’s the best thing that ever happened to him and he presses his lips against her in a kiss full of intent.
–
The following day, Betty meets Jughead outside his office after work. He walks out with Toni, who throws her arms around Betty.
“Don’t enjoy Vancouver too much,” she says to Jughead. “I don’t want you dragging my best friend away.”
Betty laughs. “Don’t worry, Toni. Seattle is home for both of us.”
Jughead smiles fondly at her, nodding his agreement.
“As it will for Veronica soon, so I hear?” Toni says, casually leaning against the wall.
“Yes!” Betty grins. “She says she’ll be here before the end of the year.”
The trio chat for a few minutes about the imminent arrival of Veronica, as well as the ins and outs of each of their current projects at work. Toni promises Jughead that she won’t make too much progress while he’s gone, to which he replies with a sarcastic comment about being a post-grad journalist.
Toni leaves after that, heading off in the opposite direction to meet with Cheryl.
“You ready to do this?” Betty asks as if they’re about to enter a dragon’s lair. She offers her hand, which he takes with a smile.
“With the risk of being too much, anything feels possible with you by my side.”
She blushes at that, leaning up to kiss him quickly in response, while all of her words escape her.
They walk to his apartment in relative silence, hands clasped together as they both end up lost in thought. The journey is about 20 minutes, yet in reality, it seems to fly by and they’re soon arriving at the building she’s only seen in the darkness of the middle of the night.
He fishes his keys out of his pocket, and leads her into the lobby. Still no words are said out loud as they wait for the elevator. Once it comes, they walk inside and he presses for floor four. Then, she takes it upon herself to try and create some happier memories for him in this building, starting with here.
Letting go of his hand, she cups his face, pulling him down into a meaningful kiss. He reciprocates straight away, his hands finding their way to rest on her waist.
“What’s this all about?” he mumbles, leaning back as the elevator signals floor one. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
“Better memories,” she says by way of an explanation, quickly reconnecting their lips when the doors stay closed.
Pressing her weight into him, she distracts him enough that they barely notice when they reach his floor. She carries on kissing him, doing that thing with her tongue she knows he loves, when the doors open. A noise from the corridor splits them up just before Jughead’s neighbor comes into view.
Taking her hand, he leads her past his neighbor, nodding a hello so they don’t have to stop for conversation. Once at his door, she distracts him again as he tries to unlock it. He drops his keys with a frustrated groan and it takes him another two tries until they finally make it inside.
He’d barely closed the front door when she starts unbuttoning his smart work shirt, lips making their way across his jaw. “Fuck, Betty,” he mutters.
She freezes, looking up at him with lustful eyes. “Do you want to stop?”
He shakes his head almost aggressively. “No. God, no.” Usually, she’d take that as a sign to go ahead, but this time she thinks he sounds hesitant. She removes her hand from its frozen position on his button and takes his hand in hers. “What’s wrong, Jug?”
“Nothing.” His face softens and he squeezes her hand. “I just don’t want you missing the grand tour.”
She giggles at that. “I only care about the bedroom,” she tells him with a wiggle of her eyebrows.
He points behind her. “That door,” he says, voice low and breathy. “Please don’t stop.”
Nodding her acceptance, she presses her lips back against his in a hungry kiss. Her hands get back to her distraction tactic, unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. His hands snake their way around to her back, pulling her even closer against his body.
She groans against his lips in response, kissing him with everything she’s got.
A moment later, he pulls back for air. “Betty,” he says, panting. “Bedroom.”
As she steps back, they both whine at the loss of contact, but she uses the opportunity to compose herself slightly. New surroundings would usually bother her, yet right now, she’s so full of want that she can’t even take them in. She wants to take them in, she wants to remember everything about this moment but then Jughead grabs her hand and pulls her through the door he pointed out just minutes earlier. The door she can’t even remember the color of. Not that it matters, she realizes, as he pushes her up against it.
He begins trailing kisses down her jaw and down her neck and she thinks fuck composure.
She’s not sure how it happens, but they end up on his bed with far less clothes on. They must be scattered around the room, and something in the back of her mind stupidly hopes her dress doesn’t get crumpled. Really, she doesn’t care what happens to her dress. All she cares about is getting to have her way with him.
And she does. Climbing on top of him, she kisses down the length of his body until the noises he makes suggest he’s forgotten the reason he didn’t want to return here.
(They make better memories. Lots of them.)
–
Later, she lays covered only by the duvet she heart heartedly pulled over herself, watching as he stuffs various items of clothing into an overnight bag. He grabs three t-shirts - ‘S’ ones, of course - including her favorite burgundy colored one that disappeared from her apartment a few days previous, a handful of underwear, and a few pairs of socks.
“That’s all I need, right?” he asks with a shrug.
They’re only going for three nights and four days - Friday to Monday - so really, yes, that’s probably enough. He’s just forgetting toiletries, plus his camera equipment. Oh, and a jacket. So she laughs.
“Are you taking a jacket?”
He nods.
“Toiletries?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll grab my washbag.” He darts out of the room, and noises of fumbling around make their way through his apartment. He comes back, small black bag in hand. “Got ‘em.”
“Camera equipment?”
He points to a bag on the floor.
“I think you’re good.” She sits up, holding the duvet against her. “Are you coming to mine tonight?”
Stepping towards her, his hand coming up to caress her chin as he presses a soft kiss to her lips. “Yeah. Early start, huh?”
“Oh yeah.” She smiles, leaning into his touch, before leaning over to pick up her underwear. “Pass me my dress?”
He does, without question. It isn’t crumpled, but it definitely looks worn. Not that she really minds - she only has to wear it for the short journey from his apartment to hers. She dresses in front of him, not caring about his gaze. They’ve passed the point of shyness now. She just feels comfortable with him and that’s it. No need for anything else.
“Do you think we succeeded in making better memories?” she asks, running her fingers through her knotted hair.
“Definitely,” he grins. “But it might have backfired.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Why’s that?”
“Because now I never want to leave you.”
“And you did before?”
He laughs. “Well, no.”
“Come here.”
With no hesitation, he strides towards her, still sitting on the bed, and joins her. He kisses her firmly and she smiles into it.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you, too,” he replies, standing up and holding his hand out. “Now let’s get you home and packed.”
–
The aggressive beeping of her alarm wakes them up in the middle of the night. Well, not quite the middle of the night. It’s 4 am. Okay, that is the middle of the night.
Betty fumbles around to silence it while Jughead groans loudly. His arm is flung across her waist, his grip tightening around her when she tries to move.
“Jug,” she mumbles, voice thick with sleep. “We need to get up.”
“Five more minutes,” he whines in a child-like manner.
She wriggles out of his grip, dragging herself out of bed. She pulls the curtains, allowing for the few lights of the city still on at this time to flow into the room. It doesn’t make much difference, but it makes enough difference to be too bright for Jughead, who buries his head under the duvet, groaning again.
A two-step plan to make Jughead get up pops into her mind.
Step one. She pulls the duvet off of him. She has to tug slightly to get it out of his death grip, but succeeds with only a small amount of effort.
That makes him stir, clumsily rolling over onto his back and rubbing his eyes harshly. He doesn’t make any effort to get up, though, so she puts step two into action.
“Hey, Jug?” she calls in a voice she knows is far too cheery and loud for this time.
All she gets in response is another groan and half-open eyes blinking rapidly to try and stay open.
“If you get up now, we have enough time to shower together.” She wanders out the room and towards the bathroom. “You know where to find me!” she calls through the door.
The noise of him stumbling out of bed and practically running through her apartment gives her great satisfaction. (But not as much as he gives her.)
–
Betty drives to the airport because that’s what she prefers to do. It’s one of the only times she actually uses her 10 year old Ford. She should sell it, really, but she’s attached. So it stays for airport trips.
Jughead sits in the passenger seat as he did all those months ago. It was a similar time then, too. Except she was taking him home before going back to hers alone. A lot has changed since then. A lot of change, all definitely for the better.
Stopped at a red light, she glances over at Jughead. Her boyfriend. He’s fast asleep, blissfully unaware of everything around him. He looks adorable. So peaceful and content. She smiles to herself, turning her attention back to the road.
She pulls into the airport parking lot with two and a quarter hours left before their flight. She learned from the last time, making sure she left plenty of time to get to the airport, even if it is just 5:30 am and there’s practically no traffic on the roads.
Parking the car, she takes a deep breath, feeling almost giddy with excitement. She gently shakes Jughead awake, telling him they’ve arrived.
“Hey,” he whispers, running his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry for sleeping again.”
She smiles softly. “It’s okay. You ready for this?”
He nods, as she stifles a yawn. “Let’s get you coffee,” he giggles.
The check-in process is quick and easy, as expected for this time of the morning. They wander through security, with only a slight problem when Jughead leaves his belt on and sets off the metal detector. It’s quickly rectified, leaving Betty laughing at him from the sidelines.
No arrests and no more problems later, they end up in the main part of the terminal with just over an hour to kill before their flight boards. And of course, Jughead decides he’s hungry.
They end up at a diner-style restaurant tucked away in a quiet corner. Being the only two in there, the service is super fast and in no time at all, they’re served delicious looking food. Jughead has a stack of pancakes - his favorite - and Betty has waffles - something different for a change.
“Being at an airport made me realize something,” he says between mouthfuls of food.
She’s in the middle of a gulp of overpriced but completely worth it coffee, so her reply is slightly delayed. “What’s that?”
“You never asked for my full name.”
His answer brings a smile to her face, memories of the moment he’s talking about flashing through her mind. A constant reminder lives on her phone, his name still as Jughead (Forsythe). He’s right, though. She never did ask him for the whole thing. If she’s being honest, she forgot about it until now. It’s not like it’d change anything, but maybe it’d be nice to know.
“Do I get it yet?” she asks, smile turning into a slight smirk.
With his fingers, he picks up a piece of crispy bacon from the side of his plate and bites off the end. His eyes glisten under the airport spotlights as he says, “I think so.”
She rolls her eyes fondly. “Hit me.”
He smirks and she leans across the table to actually hit him. Gently, of course, and with a giggle. He manages to catch her hand, so he brings it up to his lips, kissing it instead.
“Drumroll, please,” he says, letting go of her hand.
Her hands clap against the table, drawing the attention of a waiter, who is quick to look away when he notices them laughing.
“Okay, okay.” He signals for her to stop and takes a deep breath. “Forsythe Pendleton Jones the Third.”
“Wait, what?” She blinks in surprise, letting out a disbelieving laugh. “The third?”
He nods, grinning at her reaction. “Is it a deal-breaker?”
She tilts her head in contemplation. “Yes,” she says in complete seriousness.
“Betty Cooper,” he gasps. “Here I was thinking what we had was real.”
“I’m only with you for your name.”
He’s the one to roll his eyes this time. “Eat up, Cooper. We’ve got a game to play.”
Twenty minutes later, Betty finds herself wandering around Seattle airport’s main terminal in an attempt to find a coffee shop that neither of them have been to before. She walks with her fingers interlocked with Jughead’s and a smile plastered on her face, tiredness of the early hours forgotten and replaced with excitement.
It’s significantly easier to find somewhere new in Seattle airport than it is at New York’s JFK. She’s traveled less since being settled here, yet in NYC, travel was her ticket, quite literally, out of the area for a week or so. Now, Seattle feels more like home than Riverdale or NYC ever did, so leaving is not at the top of her priorities.
After the stroke of serendipity at JFK airport led to such amazing changes, Betty feels lucky to be here today. It doesn’t matter where she goes, she realizes, as long as she has Jughead and as long as her two best friends stay by her side.
She’s led into an unfamiliar coffee shop by Jughead. She orders a flat white, mainly because that’s what she’d been drinking that day when he’d said her name from behind. They sit side by side overlooking the runway and she watches as a plane takes off. She looks around, a smile on her face. Her eyes fall on him, her heart bursting with affection.
“I love you,” she says with more certainty than ever before.
“I love you, too,” he replies, a distinct softness in his eyes. He bumps her shoulder with his, grin on his face as he points to her cup. “Look.”
She does, surprised to see a single word written in his scrawly handwriting.
Fate.
~fin