A/N: If you've read any sneak peeks I've posted on my Tumblr (vaarchie, btw, if you're feeling chatty) then some of this will be familiar to you, but most of it is new. Because I am a horrible mean person, there's going to be a lot of angst in this fic, but I'll ask you to trust me and hope that you enjoy it.

Veronica is confident her parents are in bed when she slips through the front door and finds them standing in front of the windows, gazing out at the downpour like they're expecting the mysteries of the universe to be revealed to them from outside.

Come to think of it, maybe they are.

She stops. She stares. She could try to tiptoe past them or try for plausible deniability, could claim she lost track of time, but already she knows she's going to be walking out of this room with some kind of punishment for coming home so late. Water from the storm outside drips from her hair and onto the pristine rug; a tiny puddle forms around her feet.

"Hey, Ronnie." Just like that, just like always, she's caught. He's straightening his tie, careful, but no one has ever sneaked up on Hiram Lodge in his entire life, and when he turns to face his daughter, he doesn't look a bit surprised, or even angry.

"Hey, Daddy," she says slowly, a sound like waves and roaring in her head. Something is wrong. She slips her index finger through her key ring and squeezes, the cold metal biting into the flesh of her palm, but before she has time to feel properly unsettled, her parents are bypassing the 'Where have you been?'s and hugging her tight. Like it's something they do a lot.

She blinks. "I didn't realize," she begins, not entirely sure of which particular ignorance she's about to confess: all of them, maybe, sixteen years' worth of universal truths everyone was smart enough to figure out except for her.

"We need to tell you something, Veronica," her mother says, stepping back but keeping one manicured hand set lightly on her daughter's shoulder. She clears her throat, clearly apprehensive, and it makes Veronica's own nerves skyrocket. "Come with us."

They lead her to the kitchen; on the table is a small wooden box, and on the counter is a half chopped carrot and a gritty-skinned tomato, abandoned and slightly wrinkled.

"What's going on?" Veronica asks, trying to keep her voice steady. The anticipation of bad news is starting to slowly kill her now. "Just rip the band-aid off and tell me."

Her father sighs like the end of the world is at hand, and pulls several envelopes out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Your mother and I have been receiving threatening letters for a few weeks now."

Veronica swallows as a few pieces click into place. They've been fighting, her parents - raging at each other like they're in the throes of a truly spectacular screaming match, and on top of that, they've all but turned the Pembrooke into a military encampment that Veronica is seldom allowed to leave, especially not without a set curfew, and, more often than not, an escort, whether that be Andre or Archie or one of her parents themselves. "And you didn't tell me?"

"No," he says, and looks at her evenly. Outside, thunder claps and wind rushes by like God is sending a flood for forty days.

"Why not?" She asks, staring right back at him. His hair is going gray at the temples.

"We didn't tell you," her father says, and he is the very theology of calm, "because we were hoping they weren't serious."

Well.

Both of them are staring at Veronica, waiting. "Did something else happen?" She asks warily.

Her mother picks up the wooden box on the table and holds it carefully, like it's a grenade that's going to explode at any given moment. Slowly, she slides the cover off, and when Veronica peers inside, she feels a chill run down her spine.

There's a picture of her with her face scribbled out in permanent marker. There's a knife - a machete, Veronica notes with a wave of nausea - covered in what appears to be dry blood and wrapped in a string of pearls. Jesus Christ, there's even voodoo dolls of the three of them, nooses wrapped tight around their fabricated necks. There's a typed letter that Veronica doesn't want to read.

"What the hell does this mean?" She takes a deep breath and tries to contain the overflow. "Someone's putting a hit on us?"

Her father takes the box, shuts it tight. "For now, it just means that we're going to have to take extra precautions and up our security. Okay?"

Veronica shuts her eyes as lightning cracks overhead. She barely sleeps that night, finally falling into a fitful sort of rest an hour before her alarm is blaring in her ear and telling her to get ready for school.

She half expects someone to shoot her in the head the second she steps out of the Pembrooke, some sniper on a rooftop or a hitman in the bushes, and she laughs out loud, hysteria more than anything else. Andre drives her to school and she feels a host of emotions as she sits through each banal class, fear and anger and avoidance. At lunch, she eats at a table with Archie and Jughead and Betty - just one more thing they've always done together, world without end. She almost laughs again at the cruel irony of it all. Clifford Blossom had threatened to kill Jughead. The Black Hood had psychologically tormented Betty and then attempted to have Archie buried alive, so now, it seems, it's Veronica's turn to face off against some sick minded lunatic.

"V?" Betty looks at her, her delicate chin angled with curiosity and an open, comforting expression on her face. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Veronica says, and even as she tries to tamp it down she can feel the edge creeping into her voice. Archie looks at her curiously. "I just-" she pushes her food around with her fork, fidgeting. All of a sudden she feels alarmingly close to tears. "I'm fine."

"Ronnie," Archie says, setting his hand over hers, and now he really does look concerned, all his boyfriend instincts coming online at once. "What's wrong?"

For a second she almost tells them everything: her mom and dad and how lonely she feels lately, how she needs to get out of Riverdale, how someone out there wants her and her family dead. The way they're looking at her, their faces open and caring, makes her think they'll listen and be able to help. Still, spilling her guts right here at the lunch table? That's pathetic. That's absurd.

"Nothing," she tells him, smiling as hard and as brightly as she can manage. She probably looks deranged. "I'm great."

She gets an A on the Biology quiz next period. In English, she starts working her way through Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems, but that makes Betty really nervous, so she switches to Jane Austen so she can sleep without worrying Veronica is going to put her head in an oven or something.

Which she isn't.

Probably.

She feels so incredibly, unforgivably afraid, is the worst part, like no where she goes will ever be safe again. She's never been scared of much of anything before, and then a wooden box appears on her kitchen table and she's done, game over, thanks for playing. It's wrong. It's terrifying.

It hurts like nothing else in her life.

The final bell rings and she squints at the sun, wondering where on Earth she might go without feeling like prey about to be pounced on. Very clearly, she thinks of Archie, and right on cue, like one shining moment in the horror movie of her recent life, he appears at her side and wraps an arm around her waist.

"I have to go to football practice," he says, "and I know you have cheer. But can I take you on a drive afterwards?"

Veronica feels her pulse like a ticking bomb in her throat, but the way he looks at her makes her stop shaking, at least. "Yeah," she murmurs, and he kisses her.

Archie holds the door open and Veronica follows him across the school's parking lot to his dad's old truck. He doesn't talk, and she has no idea where they're going, but at this point it feels a little late to ask; she opens her mouth, hesitates, shuts it again. Archie doesn't seem bothered at all. The middle of winter means the sun went out an hour ago.

She glances around the truck as surreptitiously as she can manage, beginning a list in her head as he hits the gas. Floor of the Andrews' truck, a complete inventory: empty Snapple bottle - peach iced tea - check. Duke Ellington Live at Newport 1956, check. Dashboard: sunglasses, check. Tree shaped air freshener still in the package, check. Mix CD with Betty Cooper's handwriting on the label, check.

She closes her eyes for a second. Her best friend in New York used to make her mixes all the time, songs for her birthday and Christmas and springtime and Tuesdays. Her favorite was called "The Bad Behavior Mix," sixty minutes of ridiculous club music presented to her on the occasion of their first high school dance at Smith. They'd ended up back at Veronica's house by 9:30 that night, abandoning after party plans in favor of making brownies with Hermione and shouting along to the music doubled over in hysterical giggles.

She doesn't mean to sigh, never even hears herself do it, but she must, because Archie glances over at her as he turns a corner, sharp features lit reddish by the neon lights on the dash. "Long day?" he asks.

"Yeah," she replies, letting him think it's the monotony of school getting her down and not the absolute hopelessness of her life at present. "Kind of."

His eyes glitter a hundred thousand adjectives beyond bright as he nods. "Want milkshakes?"

She blinks. "Milkshakes?" she repeats. She doesn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't… that. Though it probably should have been.

"Yeah, princess, milkshakes," he laughs as he pulls into Pop's, not bothering to wait for her answer. "Were you hoping I'd just drive us out of the state or something?"

"No!" she says, although to be honest, Archie is probably closer to the truth than not. She unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out of the car. "No."

"There's something else bothering you," he bumps her shoulder with his as they cross the parking lot, so lightly she thinks it was probably an accident. "Other than school stuff."

She shakes her head and looks away. "There really isn't."

"Okay," he says, his voice like he thinks she's full of shit but doesn't particularly mind. "I'll wait until you're ready to tell me."

They order at the counter and she digs in her purse for her wallet, pulling out a set of house keys and her map of NYC to get to the bottom. Archie pushes her hand away. "I got it," he tells her and hands a wrinkled twenty to Pop, looking at Veronica like she's a little out of her mind because he always pays when they're together. He nods at the map. "Planning a trip back home?"

"Yes," she says. "I mean, no." It suddenly feels enormously stupid, this game she plays with herself, like hopscotch or Barbie. "Just a reminder of my old life." She balls up the map in her fists and tosses it into the trash can.

Archie raises his eyebrows as he guides her over to a table. After living in Riverdale for nearly six months, the old-fashioned chock'lit shop is as familiar to Veronica as breathing, with its wood paneling and glowing lights, the antique cash register that springs open with a loud ring. She smells sugar and cold air.

"Ronnie?" He says cautiously. "If you won't tell me what's wrong, just please - promise me you're not in danger or anything."

Pop chooses that very moment to slide their milkshakes onto their table and then depart with a few pleasantries, and Veronica busies herself with wrapping her red lips around the straw, her mouth full of ice cream instead of conversation. Archie is still staring at her when she looks up though, waiting her out, and she suddenly feels too big for these walls. "Pop?" She calls. "We're going to take these to go."

Two minutes later, she herds Archie back toward the door, and he holds it open with one foot as she slips through. They don't speak as they cross the lot toward the truck, navigating a teeming crowd of noisy, restless kids about their age, shouts and laughter. Once there, Archie climbs up onto the hood with his milkshake and tilts his head to the empty space beside him until Veronica gets the message and pulls her heeled boots up onto the bumper along with him.

"My dad," she says, "has a lot of enemies." Archie keeps staring at her. "And as nice as it would be if this weren't the case, I sometimes get caught in the backdraft." The words sound wooden and unfamiliar; this isn't something she tells anyone, really. "People he's made angry… they've been sending our family… messages… recently." She feels vaguely sick, remembering the bloody knife wrapped in pearls, remembering the dolls, remembering the way it's driving her parents apart, the catalyst for their fights. "Baseless threats, mostly," she says, trying to convince herself as much as Archie, "but it's making my parents fight. That's it." She finally looks back at him. "I'm not in any danger," she says, trying to sound sincere, and she thinks she must do a pretty good job of it, because when she leans toward him, Archie slides his free hand into her hair and kisses her, and she tastes chocolate and rainbow sprinkles and closes her eyes.

He pulls back a little bit. "Is this okay?" he asks after a second or two.

She nods.

"Not making things worse, am I?"

She shakes her head. "No," she says, recovering slightly. When Archie kisses her, her fears skitter like moths at the panicky edges of her brain, and she feels… calm. "Better, actually."

Archie tosses his milkshake into a nearby trash can and cups both of his hands around her face. "Good."

He's still kissing her when her phone rings inside her pocket a minute later, and he makes to pull away but her grip tightens, a gentle fist in his hair. "Ignore it. Ignore it," she mutters, and he does for a minute, but then it rings again.

"Archie," she says breathlessly, reaching for her phone even as the rest of her is still otherwise engaged. "Archie, it's my house. I have to pick it up. Hello?" she says, while - oh God, oh hell, they're in the middle of a parking lot and her dad is on the phone - Archie moves his mouth down to her neck. "Hi. What's up?"

"Veronica," her father says, and there's a sound in his voice she's never heard before, panic and anger. "Oh, thank God. Where in the hell are you?"

She jumps off the hood of the truck so fast that she just about takes Archie's head off, squeezing her eyes shut as she tries to figure out what to say.

She's still trying to come up with an answer when he pushes forward; "Are you with Betty?" he demands.

She curls her free hand into a fist. Archie watches her carefully. She fumbles around for something plausible, finally has to settle for the truth. "No," she admits. "No, I'm not."

"Thank God," he says again, then, to whomever is in the room with him, Hermione, probably: "She's okay. I've got her."

"What?" Veronica says sharply. Suddenly she's very, very afraid. "What's going on?"

"Ronnie," he says, and she knows she'll never forget this as long as she lives, the neon lights of Pop's glowing over her, the curious expression on Archie Andrews' pretty face, and the tiny shards of glass embedded in the asphalt, like something fragile and bright had only just exploded there. "I have to tell you something bad."