A story about a journey
Betty & Veronica at the request of @paper--elly
~1475 words long road trip fanfic, enjoy
[link to archive]
“Turn here, Ronnie, Ronnie you missed the turn…” Betty trailed off as they passed the only turn shown on her map that lead back to the highway for the next gazillion miles. She leaned back in her seat and groaned. “We’re never getting back to the highway.”
“It was your idea to take the back road Bets.” Veronica waved a hand like she wasn’t bothered at all by this turn of events. “Just take this side road, we’ll avoid traffic you said. It’ll be faster you said.”
“It would have been faster!” She protested staring down at the map.
“It hasn’t been.”
“You keep missing the turns!”
“Ah well, win some lose some!” Veronica tossed a now empty drink container into the back seat of her car before pointing ahead of them. “That looks like a turn up ahead, see you’re worried for nothing again Bets.”
“That’s…” Betty looked down at her map and then up again at the incoming road. “It’s not on the map…”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” She practically sang the words as she twisted the wheel and shot them around the corner and onto the even smaller gravel road.
“Famous last words.” Her hand tightened on the map as they shot, arguably far above acceptable speeds, down the tiny gravel road.
Nearly an hour later as the sun with setting somewhere behind them and them still on the tiny gravel road Veronica sighed and glanced over at where Betty was staring out the window. “Okay maaaaybe this wasn’t a fantastic idea.”
“We’re going to be lost in the country forever.” Betty mumbled. “We’ll have to start raising bees and going to farmers markets and constantly need to fix up our tiny farmhouse.”
“We’re hardy that lost Bets and besides that sounds more like your ideal than a worst case scenario.”
“I’m trying to think positive.” She stuck her tongue out at her, then her eyes lit up and she pointed out Veronica’s side window. “Look!”
“Awe that’s adorable!” Veronica cooed as she looked over, coming up nearby was a little B n’ B designed to look like an old fashioned wooden cottage. “It’s so Rustic!”
“Well it’s certainly better than driving all night.” Betty nodded as Veronica turned off the tiny gravel road and pulled up in front of the building.
Up close the bed and breakfast looked even more welcoming than it had from afar, warm light streaming out the windows, boxes of flowers lined the windows, and hanging of berries and tomatoes hung around the wrap around porch. As soon as they stepped through the doors a little old lady who looked like someone’s kindly grandmother came around the edge of the desk making a tuting noise. “You two lovely girls have dust all over your pretty hair, I can’t even imagine the shape your poor carriage is in.”
“Our car you mean?” Betty glanced back out the door at the car they’d left haphazardly parked near the little set of stairs up to the porch.
“Yes, all this slang you young folks come up with goes straight through my head.” The lady nodded and gestured for them to follow her as she picked up a set of keys and headed off down the hall. Betty and Veronica exchanged laughter filled smiles as they followed her up a little staircase at the end of the hall. “Now this room is perfect for you two, lovely view of the back garden, lots of sun in the morning, two beds but either is big enough to share if you’d like.”
Before they hand a chance to answer she’d pressed the key into Betty’s hand with a wink and headed back down the stairs.
“I guess we can pay her in the morning?” Veronica raised an eyebrow as she watched the lady disappear down the stairs.
“She seems nice!” Betty spoke at the same time and laughed as she opened the door to their room.
The room itself was nothing spectacular except for how warm and welcoming it felt, much like the rest of the b n’ b. The two beds were in the far corners of the room from the door with a wide window in between them. A desk was right under the window so that sitting at it you’d have a perfect view of the back garden. To one side of the door was a closet and to the other was a second door that led to a small bathroom.
“A little rougher than I’m used to but I do like it.” Veronica smiled as she looked around, dropping her purse on the desk before dropping onto one of the beds.
“Right, remind me never to take you camping.” Betty laughed as she stepped into the room and closed the door. “This is so much nicer than some of the places I’ve stayed.”
“I only camp if I get to stay in a cabin with running water.” Veronica sniffed but she didn’t manage to hold the look of disdain as she ended up smiling up at Betty.
“Yeah yeah spoiled princess.” Betty’s smile was soft as she walked over, then she sat on the bed next to Veronica and let out an annoyed noise. “Shoot, we weren’t supposed to be out overnight, I didn’t even think to pack pajamas.”
“Guess we’ll just have to do without then, pity.” Veronica didn’t manage to look even a little upset about that.
As nice as ‘lots of sunlight in the mornings’ had sounded the night before in reality it just meant that their room got extremely bright extremely early. So by about eight am they were both dressed and heading downstairs. A quite girl who couldn’t have been much younger than the two of them pointed them towards the dining room where they found a lovely breakfast bar laid out that included, but was not limited to, fresh fruit, fresh veggies, a dozen different egg dishes, and slices of tomato.
After breakfast they found the lady back at her post at the counter by the doors. Veronica walked towards her pulling her wallet out of her purse. “Ah good, how much do we owe you for all of this? It’s been lovely!”
“No no no, just take this and feed it to the birds.” The lady handed a bag of bird seed to Veronica and gestured towards the doors. “It’s on the way out to your carriage, car pardon me, and poor Penny isn’t feeling quite up to leaving the house today.”
“We can’t possibly not-”
“Nonsense little one.” The lady patted Betty’s cheek as she protested. “I invited you in, you don’t owe me a thing. Just feed the birds for me, they’ve been waiting all morning.”
“Well if you insist…” Betty trailed off as she looked around at the place, if the lady was in the business of not charging customers she had no idea how they managed to survive.
Veronica took Betty’s hand and tugged her towards the door. “Thank you very much ma’am, we’ll be sure to feed the birds.”
“You’re most welcome girls, enjoy your travels.”
Sure enough once they left the house there were dozens of birds perched around the porch, seemingly waiting for the birdseed Veronica was carrying. They tossed handfuls of it around the area in front of the porch and filled up a bird feeder that hung between a berry vine and a tomato. Once the bag was out of seed they both climbed into the car and drove off, Betty pulled out her journal in the passenger seat to write down everything that had happened.
It wasn’t much further down the little gravel road that they drove into a town where the guy at the gas station quite happily gave them directions to the high way.
“You must have gotten super lost last night, you came up through that old logging road, ain’t been nothing down that way in years.” He gestured down towards the road they’d come up. “They don’t even mark it on the maps anymore.”
“A bit yeah, there was a lovely Bread and Breakfast though, we stayed there last night.” Betty glanced back following the direction he was pointing. “Little old lady and her granddaughter I think.”
“It was sweet, if a little rustic.” Veronica nodded.
The guy behind the counter laughed. “Ah, you two nearly had me going for a second there. There ain’t been a b n’ b down that way since before the highway way built to bypass our town, my granddad barely remembers the place.”
“But…” Betty frowned glancing at Veronica.
“Whatever you say pal but we stayed there last night.” Veronica rolled her eyes as she finished paying.
“Imagine, old Fran’s mum’s place still around like it didn’t burn down before any of us were born.” He was still chuckling as they left.
