Playlist for the Apocalypse (Sweet Pea/Betty)

Track 13: Apocalypse Dreams

Song is by Tame Impala. I highly encourage you to go look at the lyrics ;) I think you'll like what it implies if you look at 'em before you read

Updating a little early 'cuz you all deserve it and I'm so excited for this chapter lalala

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November 21st, 2018

After Betty kissed Sweet Pea, she told Veronica and Archie and Jughead first. She heard their responses. She was glad she told them.

But.. she didn't tell them, not really.

It was a weird moment, Betty sitting by the tree, speaking mostly to herself. She felt like she was telling them. She imagined that somehow if they were still alive, they heard her.

It had been a couple of weeks ago that she realized she was starting to forget Archie's voice. She couldn't bring forth the timbre of it, the way that he laughed, they way he tripped over his words when he was excited. This horrified Betty.

She had some voicemails on her phone, still saved. One from her mom, one even from her dad. None from Polly, and yes, she'd always be upset about this. She had one from Veronica, Archie, and Jughead. She even had one from Cheryl. She didn't have one from Kevin either, and that perhaps depressed her more than Polly. She would have rejoiced over a voicemail from Ethel or Moose if they had any occasion to call her, just because it would have felt like a part of her old classmates still existed. Just so that their voice was still somewhere, even if their bodies and mind were not.

She charged up her phone and laid under the tree, despite the growing cold, and just played them on repeat on speaker. She let the way they spoke invade her mind. She listened to the recordings of her loved ones so many times that she could repeat back the messages, word for word, syllable by syllable. She had played until her phone had died and needed to be recharged until she had no more tears.

But that wasn't enough.

So, lately, she'd taken to speaking to their stones. She, at the start, had just imagined their silent responses in her mind. Or, even just their emotions to it. How when she was telling them about the new electronic she was working on, Archie would be confused, Veronica would probably find it a little boring, and Jughead would act like he knew what she was talking about just to encourage her to say more.

Now, in an effort to keep them alive, Betty went a step farther. She made herself be their voices, or their best approximation of what they might respond to, if she were telling them in real life. Sweet Pea didn't bother her by the tree, which was probably good. She would probably seem half-mad. Maybe she was half-mad, speaking for people that weren't there, making herself believe very strongly that in that moment, it wasn't her words, it was their words in her voice.

She would close her eyes, forcing herself to see them in front of her.

They were always at Riverdale High. It was inescapable. Betty had attempted to put them all in a different location, but when she wasn't thinking too hard about it, her imagination always drifted them back there. The four of them, on the couches, like they'd been so many times before. Betty, sitting next to Jughead. Archie and Veronica, across the way.

In recent times, Jughead's arm was not around her like it once was. Perhaps, all things considered, for the best. Especially, after yesterday's events.

They'd heard about it all leading up to this; about how she was sure he'd rejected her on her birthday celebration. About her growing affections. Not about the incident with the underwear. Well, only Veronica knew that, since that's something she'd absolutely tell Veronica. About...all of it.