Give You The Moon

If I Fix You, Will You Hate Me?

Home. Betty couldn't tear her eyes away from the window on the drive back home. She lived there now, permanently. That was her home. Nowhere else.

"I already miss it there," she said as she met Jughead in the living room that night. "I know it's really no different here, but it was different there, you know?"

"Yeah, I get what you're saying," he responded, opening two beers and passing her one. "It was a good weekend, a good break. We needed it."

"I don't want to go back to work and be an adult. That's so... boring," she mumbled, scrunching up her nose. "I suppose I can handle it though." He chuckled, sitting down on the other end of the couch. "Can I ask a, uh, personal question?"

"Depends on how personal."

"It's not, like, anything about your..." She pressed her lips into a thin line, waving her hand. "You know-"

"You can ask," he assured, and she chuckled, tucking hair behind her ear.

"How long has it been since you've been in a relationship?" she asked carefully, slowly. She sipped her beer to distract herself.

He sighed and cleared his throat. "About three years," he answered, clenching his jaw.

"What happened?"

He shrugged, saying, "We just wanted different things. I was with her before I moved, and we were... serious. I was on the verge of proposing, honestly. But we just started talking one night and she told me she hated the thought of being married and she hated kids, she hated settling down. I don't... I don't resent her for it and I don't blame her. I mean, it hurt hearing it because we had been together for a while and I thought she was it. But I couldn't deny what I wanted because neither of us would ever be happy."

"So you want kids?" she asked, tucking her legs underneath herself.

"Yeah. I want a few. I don't know when, I kind of figured I would have one by now so... I guess I'll try to be ready when it happens. I don't want to have a kid when I'm, like, fifty, but..." He shrugged and she chuckled, nodding. "You?"

"Yeah, definitely. I was going to be a school teacher, Jughead."

"A little bit of a dumb question," he laughed, groaning. "I'm glad you had a good birthday."

"Thank you," she whispered, clinking their bottles together.

"Um, before we left," he started, standing up. "I got you something..." He walked out of the living room and she sat up straight, brows furrowed. He came back out, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. "You mentioned it, like, once, so I'm sorry if it's weird that I remembered."

She furrowed her brows and took the small box from him, opening it and gasping softly. It was a vintage gold necklace with two angels imprinted on it. She had seen it in the window of an antique shop while running and was captivated by it, but didn't have her wallet on her to buy it. When she went back two days later, it was gone.

"You bought it," she breathed, fingering it gently.

"You seemed to really like it. You literally went on about it for ten minutes," he chuckled, but not in a way to ridicule her. It was more in a 'it was adorable' sense.

"God, thank you," she breathed, throwing her arms around him without thinking. It took him a moment to hug her back, his hands smoothing over her shoulders before she sunk down to her haunches in front of him. "Thank you, a lot."

"Of course," he breathed, tension suddenly between the two of them.

She inhaled deeply and pulled it from the case, asking, "Could you put it on for me, please?"