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Rebound Love	By : sandyl666 Category: Comics > Archie & Co. Views: 13319 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The comics Archie and Co, with its plot, characters, setting, etc does not belong to me. I guess they belong to John L. Goldwater, and a few others but I'm unsure. I make nothing by writing this fiction, and I don't plan to.

Chapter List
- 24
- 25
- 26
Chapter 25

Love. Betty kicked off the floor idly, pushing the swing to move but in a lazy, unconscious manner. She used to be so sure as to what love was, what it entailed. But now she wasn't so sure.
If she had to doubt such a thing, though, then maybe it didn't exist between Reggie and her. Her eyes glazed over as the thought about it. She was going to spend the rest of her life with someone she didn't even know if she loved. As it often did in those days, she put a hand to her thickened midriff, cradling it lovingly.
This is all for you. She told her unborn baby. She questioned herself about love often even though she knew that ultimately, it didn't matter. She was going to be Reggie's wife, because that's what was best for their baby.
Someone on the second floor of the mansion in front of her opened a window. “Betty. It's cold. Get in here,” Reggie told her from where he was, in the nursery they were still in the middle of making.
“Okay,” she said, even though it was a lovely warm Spring day, with a soft breeze that smelled of lavender and sweet roses. She rose from the iron cast swing she had been sitting in. She walked up the pebble-ridden pathway back to Reggie's mansion.
During the car-ride home, he had told her that they would be stopping by her place temporarily, for her to pack up her necessary items. She was going to stay in his house. He'd called it a house, but he really meant a mansion. She'd protested this, of course.
“We're not even married yet!” She sputtered.
“I don't want you by yourself,” He argued firmly. “Not while you're pregnant like this,” He placed a hand on her swollen bulge protectively. As she was about to continue to dispute the matter further, he continued. “We're going to be married soon anyway. Please, Betty. Let me take care of you,”
All her arguments died in her throat. “...Okay,” She was silent as they were driven back to her place, the address of which she had to give to his chauffeur, despite striving to keep it from Reggie for ages.
It was a moot point when she was going to start living with him, though.
She half-expected Jason to be waiting for her in her doorway, but he wasn't. She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't ready for a face-to-face meeting yet.
He waited for her in her living room as she packed things up into the same suitcase she had brought to Lake Tahoe, the same one she'd stuffed with her items when she was trying to get away from him. How ironic that she was now going to live with him. Possibly permanently.
When she'd finished, she looked around, saying goodbye to the bedroom of her beloved apartment. She doubted she would ever leave there again.
Unless everything went to shit, as it often did between them.
Shaking pessimistic thoughts out of her head, she left the room, shutting the lights off quickly. She dragged her suitcase to the living room, thinking she'd find him on one of her couches, where he'd been last, but he wasn't there.
The lights in her study, which she had been in the midst of converting to a nursery, was on. It lit up the messy room and ever the perfect host, she felt embarrassed to have her messes exposed. She left her heavy suitcase by her dining table and went to find him. He was standing in the room, looking up at the low ceiling where Jason had helped her stick glow-in-the-dark stars on.
“It's nice,” he commented.
“Yeah,” She said. She'd had such great plans for this room. The crib she'd purchased was still in its box against the wall. His eyes followed hers and landed on the unassembled crib as well. He knelt down and studied it.
“Can we take this with us?” He asked.
“Of course. I bought it for the baby after all,” He nodded, then lifted the handles attached to the box effortlessly. “Shall we go?” She nodded and left the room.
She headed straight for her suitcase, intending to lift it, when he took that too. “Wait. Reggie, no!”
He grunted as he balanced the crib box in one hand, and her suitcase with the other. “Could you help me open the door, Blondie?”
“Just give me the-”
“Open the door,”
Pouting slightly, she did as he said and watched him struggled to the car.
The drive to his house was brief. It was one of the many mansions at Weverley Hills, where many celebrities lived as well. It was almost like the Lodge mansion, except smaller. The path into the compound that led all the way to his front door definitely reminded her of the Lodge mansion though. Lucky for Reggie, his butler rushed out and helped him take the suitcase as well as the crib box from the car.
He led her into the mansion. She definitely felt like she was in the Lodge mansion.
“Home sweet home,” He said.
“How many people even live here?” She asked.
He shrugged. “Just me. The help have their own place in the back. Except John. He's the butler. And Jacques, the chef,” he said.
“How much help do you have?”
“Just enough to take care of the house,” He said. “Come on, I'll take you to your room,”
He offered her a hand and again she hesitated to take it.
“I promise I'd take care of you, Blondie,” He said quietly. She took his hand.
And take care of her he did. He was worse that Jason. He'd ordered his butler to take care of her every whim, given her the second biggest room in his Weverley Hills Estate, just after his own. He'd also shown her the room they would be converting to a nursery.
He was attentive, and the satisfied smile on his face as he viewed their baby when he accompanied her to her ultrasound told her that he was settling into the idea of being a father, permanently, and that he had given up on any ideas of making her abort her child.
Nevertheless, things remained really awkward between them. Like there was an issue they had not yet settled. She was wary of him, and he was wary of her. Perhaps because they'd hurt each other so much, they didn't whether they should get too close to each other or something. She wasn't sure. All she knew was that being around Reggie was sort of uncomfortable.
Unlike the good ol' days. She reflected as she walked up the stairs. She passed by the nursery and hesitated. After he'd called her in, concerned about her health as he had been, she didn't have the heart to bypass him without so much as a greeting. She peered in through the semi-open door, and saw him frowning at two pieces of wood.
She watched him for a moment, wondering what he was going to do with the pieces of wood. But all he did was stare at them. Finally, she got impatient.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He jumped, having not expected or even sensed her presence. “Oh... Uh. I'm trying to set up the crib,”
She looked at the box they had brought from her house, it had been ravaged and practically torn open, its components all over the floor. She stared at him, the way he tried to mash two pieces together. “Using telepathy?” She asked, confused.
She didn't know if she imagined the slight coloring in his cheeks. “Of course not,” he muttered. “I just can't figure out how to fix it up,”
Her eyes went to the manual, which had been tossed to the side carelessly. “...Maybe check the manual?”
Reggie glanced at the leaflet of papers over to the side, near the wall, then shrugged. “I don't need it,” he said confidently.
She rolled her eyes and entered the room, gazing over at the wallpaper. “Did you put that up?” she didn't recall that having been there when she'd first seen this room three days ago.
“...Yeah,” He paused. “Does it look bad?” he asked in a moment of vulnerability for the Great Mantle.
“No. I think it's great,” It did look great. The only empty wall there was had some kind of hedge maze. This extended to a garden-themed wallpaper that went across the rest of the room, with a canopy of leaves and berries right above where she assumed he was going to put the crib. The floor itself was a lush green that almost seemed like neatly-trimmed grass. She could almost smell the freshly mown lawn. “It's perfect,”
“Thanks,” He said. “Now if I could only put this stupid crib together,”
She retrieved the booklet with some difficulty, unable to bend down properly. “Let's consult the manual, shall we?”
“I don't need no manual,” he said sulkily. She ignored him and began reading it as he struggled to fit the pieces together, the same way a child did over two jigsaw puzzle pieces that looked like they would match but didn't fit together. As she began reading it out, they solved the puzzle together.
“Like this?”
“No, here,”
“Ohhh. So that's where that piece goes,”
“Geez, you,”
It took almost an hour, but when they were done, the crib was set up against the wall. It was just the wooden frame, its bars made of pale green, with a darker green painted on it to make it seem like ivy was growing up them.
“I ordered the bedding. It's on the way,” She nodded to let him know she was listening, but she stared straight at the crib, trying to imagine her baby lying in it, just begging to be lifted into her arms and cradled there. “And I ordered a mosquito netting as well as some of those toys to hang above her. I was thinking of maybe ponies or something,”
“It might be a he, Reggie,” she said.
“I know,” He stood awkwardly beside her, hands in his pockets. “But guys like ponies too,” Betty found herself smiling at him, and he grinned back. For a moment, all was swell.
Then her smile faded. She started heading to the door. “I feel sleepy. I'm going to take a nap,”
“Betty, wait,” he said, following her, taking one step for every two that she took. He caught her wrist, and gently pulled her into his arms. He embraced her, holding her close to him, but in a gentle manner. As if he didn't want to hurt the child sandwiched between them. “I feel like you're avoiding me,”
“I'm not,” She denied, even though she knew she was.
“You are. I know. I have been too,” She was silent. He released her arm and took a seat on the carpet. “We're never going to heal, are we?” He asked, staring at the wall with a hollow gaze.
The way he said it made her hurt, and she labored to sit beside him. He helped her not to topple over, and kept a hand around her back as she sat beside him. “It'll take a lot of effort. But I'm sure we will,”
“Are you? Are you really sure?”
“We got to this point, didn't we?” She said, managing to smile at him. He nodded, and small smile touched his lips as well. “Besides, we have this little one. I think he or she'll be able to heal whatever wounds we have,”
“That's true,” He lowered his hand to her huge belly, caressing it lovingly.
“So you really don't want me to have an abortion anymore?” She needed to hear it from his mouth. Repeatedly.
“...You want to know the truth?”
“Always,”
“I don't think I ever really wanted you to get an abortion,” She frowned, but didn't comment. She didn't think she was meant to. “I panicked when you told me. It was all bad timing,” He scratched his head, making a frustrated sound, as if it was hard to get the words out of him. “I did some thinking after I'd lost you and I realized that almost everything I knew about myself was just me deceiving myself. I didn't love Ron any more by that point. I didn't resent your baby. And I always thought that my career was the most important thing to me. But it wasn't.”
A long silence passed between them as she waited for him to continue. But he didn't. “So what's the most important thing to you now?” She asked, her voice so quiet she wasn't sure she'd voiced it out.
He raised his head from the ground, then fixed his brown gaze on her. She felt the air whoosh out of her at the seriousness in his eyes. A tense moment passed between them. He opened his mouth to speak.
“Sir-” Their eyes flew to John, startled. They sprang apart, even though they hadn't been doing anything. John looked sheepish, sure that he'd interrupted something. “Dinner is ready, sir,” he said timidly.
Reggie growled. “Fine,”
John excused himself, and made himself scarce. Reggie got to his feet. Betty fell over, staring at the ceiling, stunned. “I'm too big,” She laughed. She couldn't even pull herself up with the protrusion at her midriff.
He took her hands and helped to pull her to her feet. “Better?” He asked, pulling her flush against him.
“Yes,” she said, in a breathless voice.
Reggie smiled, in a teasing, knowing way, then held her hand and guided her to the dining room. He didn't say much as he led her there. He held her hand tightly as they walked down the stairs.
She hated stairs. She could barely seem them beyond her stomach. She always thought she might slip and fall, because she couldn't see it.
As she was thinking that, she missed her step and fell.
The world tilted on its side and became a blur. She felt Reggie's hand still on hers as her world fell with her. And then, he released her. She tried to yell out. “No!” but the word stuck in her throat.
Then abruptly, everything stopped. A hand was clamped beneath her breasts and above her stomach, she was lying on top of a hard body, her back against his chest.
“Betty. Bets, talk to me,” Reggie said, his voice reflecting his deep panic. “Bets?”
“I'm fine,” She muttered. She looked up at him, notice him gripping one of the railings so that they didn't roll further. She blinked as her gaze shifted further upward. “Reggie, you're bleeding,”
He looked down at her, and his face paled in horror. “So are you,”
Shocked, she followed his gaze and looked down between her legs, where she could feel wetness. She'd thought that she'd maybe peed herself, but now she could see red liquid soaking into her white skirt, tainting the pristine fabric.
“Oh God,” her voice escaped her in a terrified squeak.
And then Reggie was yelling things. She didn't know what. She was in a daze as she stared at the blood. She couldn't move, she couldn't even do anything to save herself, to stem the flow of her blood. All she could think about was not her baby. Not her baby, no.
Not her little Graham. Not her little Kierra.
No. No. No No No No.
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Rebound Love