Shadows of Your Dreams

Chapter 1

Hey guys! This was the 26th fanfiction that I wrote. I like to believe I've developed and learned new things throughout writing all those stories, so the newer they are, the better grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary they have. Thanks for being with me! xx, Lotta.

Fingers flying over the keyboard, eyes hurting, deep in the headspace of a finishing degree student, she sighed to herself, nuzzling deeper into the couch. Sipping a glass full of cola didn't help Betty stay awake enough, so instead of trying, she shook her head and thanked the holiness for online school, knowing she still had two days to hand in the last essay of her university career.

The kids in the small private Spanish school in New York had been so hyper and excited to work with her that when she reached her front door, she was already almost dead. Deciding to take a nap instead of writing, Betty lay on the couch, pulled the comforter from her bed over her exhausted body, and closed her eyes.

There were small bubbles flying around in front of her eyes in the darkness, drooped close, brain starting to shut off slowly when the phone call came. Huffing to herself, the blonde reached out her hand and grabbed it from the small coffee table, next to her laptop. "Hello?" she mumbled.

"Betty?" Jughead's panicking voice sounded through the speaker. The woman frowned, slowly blinking open her eyes, and kept listening to what the guy on the other side was rambling about. "Betty, she just came here and gave me the baby, and I don't know if it's mine, but she said I had to go to court... and... I... what if it's not mine and what if it's robbed from someone or if it is, why did she keep it or why didn't she simply tell me or—"

"Juggie," Betty cut him off with a sharp voice. "What are you on about? Who? What baby? Take a deep breath, I don't understand anything."

Jughead took a shaky breath as she had insisted on, and only then let a sob escape. "Betty, I need your help. Please come."

"I'm on my way," she promised, pulling on the jeans from the floor—she hated pants and always took them off whenever there was a possibility. "Calm down, alright? Is there a baby with you?" She tugged the ponytail holder out of her hair.

"Yes," he breathed. "A woman... who I slept with a while ago. She just showed up and gave me some court invitation and told me the baby was mine. And now I don't know what to do, because how the fuck am I supposed to know it's mine? Am I a father?"

Wide awake now, she pulled on her boots on and shrugged on a coat. "Jughead, keep the baby safe, alright? Did she leave you something to feed it with?"

"I think so..."

"Okay. Just in case. I'll be right there. Stay calm." She wasn't going to tell him she herself was freaking out. Jughead had a baby? At first, she weighed the option of taking the subway to Brooklyn where he lived, but then just grabbed the first taxi she saw. While sitting on the backseat of the car, she imagined a little boy with hair and eyes just like Jughead's.

Jughead was pacing back and forth in the apartment when Betty got there. She gently closed the door behind herself and hugged the shaking man in front of her. "Hey," she whispered when they had both calmed a bit down. "Where's the baby?"

Jughead looked towards his bed, and Betty followed his eyes, frowning for a moment at the loss of pillows on the couch. They slowly walked up to his bed, and Betty smiled softly at the cuteness. Jughead had surrounded the baby with pillows. "So that she wouldn't fall off," Jughead explained quietly.

It was a girl. A tiny girl with an adorable dark set of hair on her head, cute chubby cheeks, and a weirdly photogenic face. She had a pink onesie on, and eyes closed, breathing while sleeping calmly. There was a quality about her that Betty noticed immediately though: she only had one arm. "She's a newborn," she told Jughead quietly. "And they can't roll over, so I think you're safe without the pillows for now." She leaned up to kiss his cheek, eyes staying on the little girl.