Witch | Veronica Lodge

13 | windmere

thirteen
windmere.

VALERIE ENDS UP getting her spot on the Pussycats back, but that doesn't stop Josie and Veronica from singing with them. And all of their voices blend together to make a beautiful harmony.

After the show, Josie gets a cup of coffee and pours some sugar into it. Once she's mixed it, she heads to the hallway and finds Toni waiting for her.

"Hey, Jo."

"Hey, Toni," Josie smiles, leaning forward and hugging her with her free hand. "Thank you for coming."

"It's no big deal," Toni insists as she pulls away from the witch, a smile on her face. "You did amazing out there."

"Thank you, really," Josie whispers before leaning forward and kissing Toni gently on the lips. She's completely unaware that Veronica is merely a few feet away, and when she sees them, she pushes through the crowd and hurries to the bathroom where she cries silently, fearful that she had been the one to screw up any chance of them becoming more than friends at one point. If only she had been more open to a serious relationship, or she had even been willing to go on a date with Josie. But Veronica doesn't want anything serious right now, and that's not what Josie needs.

Josie needs somebody who will challenge her, but somebody that she can still rely on. And Veronica isn't that person. Not right now, anyway. Sure, her and Toni hadn't made anything official, but Toni had been hinting at it. And every time, Josie has changed the subject. She wants to figure out her feelings for Toni and her feelings for Veronica before she dates anybody.

And as Josie stands here and kisses Toni, she can't help but fear what the future will hold. Will she end up falling in love with Toni? Will things change between her and Veronica? Or will she end up alone?
--

The next day, the Cooper family informs everybody that Polly broke out of the Sister's of Quiet Mercy. Everybody immediately goes on a manhunt in search of her. Josie finds herself walking alongside Archie, neither of them being too keen to make small talk. She had apologized the night before about how she acted about the Variety Show, but things are still odd between them.

So when Kevin waves her over to where him and Veronica are walking, she's relived. He has a mischievous look in his eyes, and it's obvious he's excited about something. "You, me, Veronica, the other Josie, and Reggie. We're going clubbing tomorrow night."

"I'm in," the Scratch girl declares, in desperate to blow off some steam. For her, a party is a perfect way to do so. She throws her arms around both of them giddily. "I love you both so much right now. This is exactly what I need."
--

Later that day, Josie hears a knock on her front door. Her brother and father aren't ones to drop by without calling ahead, and her mother is in Europe right now visiting her sister. So Josie is puzzled when she opens the door to find a frazzled Betty.

"I didn't know where else to go," Betty exclaims as Josie leads her up to her room. "I found Polly, but I don't know what to do. My parents want to put her baby up for adoption, and I don't know what kind of horrible thing the Blossom's want to do to her. Cheryl came to me earlier, and she said she wants to help. But I don't know if I can trust her. And I don't want her to run away, but if she can't live at home, then... I don't know, I can rent her an apartment."

Josie doesn't even have to think about what she's gonna say next. She's always liked Polly, and she's never one to not help a person in need. "She can stay here."

"No, you have your own stuff you're dealing with right now, Jo-"

"Betts, I always have time to help my friends," Josie insists, taking a seat on her bed. "Besides, Polly being pregnant changes everything. She needs doctors, vitamins, a nice place to stay. It sounds like your parents won't give her any of that, and we both know the Blossom's wouldn't. So at least think about letting her stay here. My mom won't be back for a couple of weeks."

"She's out of town?" Betty asks, her eyes widening. "Again?"

"She feels better when she's with my aunt," Josie shrugs, knowing for a fact that her mother isn't kidding when she says her sister is her remedy. When she's with her Aunt Ria, she's like a completely different person, one that isn't afraid to be who she is, and one that doesn't suffer from migraines that put her in bed for days. She's a happier person. And Josie's okay with her mother being absent sometimes if it means that she's okay. "Besides, this house is really big. Polly will have plenty of space, and I have plenty of money to get her good doctors."

That much is a bit of an understatement. Josie's house is the second nicest house in Riverdale, right behind Thornhill. But unlike Thornhill, Windmere is right on the Sweetwater River, and is bright and airy. It has twelve bedrooms, high ceilings, more windows than Josie can count, and it lays on twelve acres of land. It's beautiful, to say the least.

And Josie comes from one of the founding families of the Church of Night, so she was born into wealth. But unlike the Blossom's, her and her mother don't flaunt it. They don't want to stand out, because if people were to look close enough, they would realize that her mother, Audrey didn't come into existence in a legal situation until she was twenty nine. That's when she decided to leave the coven behind and move to Riverdale to live a mundane life.

But they don't want anybody to know that, because if people dug far enough, they could figure out about them being witches.

UNEDITED