Author's Note:

First off, I'm posting this chapter only five days after the last one, so make sure you read chapter 8 before starting here. Second, yes, this is the final chapter of Cometh the Rose. Immediately after my last update, I saw the end of August looming. As I also explained on Tumblr (where you can find me as forasecondtherewedwon), this is a summer story. It felt wrong to let it continue into September, which always feels like fall as soon as the calendar flips. I didn't alter or condense the plot in any way to meet this deadline; it was always going to end here.

As always, please enjoy.

XO ForASecondThereWe'dWon

IX

Going back to work was hard for Betty, even though she hadn't actually passed her 'time off' away from the premises. The challenge was in seeing the Hall once more as an office when she'd spent the last three days enjoying it as a private haven, shared with just one other person. She hadn't decided yet whether or not she'd tell Penelope that she'd been here. The task offered to her ("keep an eye on the gardener") had been too easy. It felt like taking money under false pretenses, and as much as Betty didn't care for her employer, she did want to honour her own ethics. After all, what had gotten her through these shifts, week after week, month after month? Integrity.

She wondered, idly flipping the pages of a magazine and listening to the soft scrape of a patron drawing a chair up to her little window and sliding it open, if she would be replaced when she went back to school in a week. It was unlikely that Penelope would pressure her to stay on, with the long trek to the Hall and the slim chance that she wouldn't be missed by her friends after class and on weekends, once they'd quit their own minimum wage stints. Working for Penelope was like belonging to a secret society (Betty imagined), except they actually let you leave. And there was a cute gardener.

While she'd learned to build up a tolerance for posing like a living statue―the perfect sculpture Penelope wanted her to be―today, Betty was feeling a bit too human to play the part as flawlessly as she had in the past. Her muscles were stiff, cramped in some places and aching from overextension in others. She had thought that work would be a good place to rest and recover from that soreness, but the longer she sat in silence, fingers brushing glossy pages, the more the pervasive tenderness irritated her. Eyes darting as she listened for any change in her hallway visitor, Betty moved, slowly and steadily, until she was sitting upright. Leaving the magazine where it was on the white field of cotton, she closed her eyes and gradually rolled her shoulders, then relaxed. Her back was fully facing the hatch.

There was a sudden scuffle.

Two noises: the chair and the watcher. Because Betty didn't know him, she was unable to confidently categorize the sound he'd made, but he was definitely leaving. She frowned, eyes roaming the opposite wall as she listened hard. He seemed to be… gone.

Betty glanced over her shoulder quickly and saw the little brass-edged window, still open. Thoughts about what the guy's problem was (late for something? Overwhelmed by sudden disgust at himself for staring at a naked girl? Left the stove on?) were suppressed by a greater question. Should she shut the hatch? That tiny space ruled her entire job, and the right to its management had never once been under her control. She snuck another look. The boy might come right back―maybe he'd just had to run to the bathroom―and if she was up when he returned, he would see her face, leading to innumerable repercussions. If Betty stayed put, one of Penelope's clients (an adult) could peer in at her, which was a consideration that truly made her skin crawl. Caught between her choices, she finally sat completely still.

Paralyzed.

No, Penelope thought. No.

It was her favourite word, always had been. She didn't believe any pleasure was perverse, though the immense enjoyment she felt when handing down a rejection or disappointment or forbiddance from up on her high horse was exactly the kind of self-indulgence other people loved to criticize. 'No' was power and immeasurable satisfaction.

Most of the time.

What the word was never supposed to do was to pass her lips in a tone of doubt, but the disbelief was growing in her mind, betrayal pushing at the limits of her thoughts like a rising soufflé. And the shame, the shame of hearing of such a thing from one of the Hall's clients. It was shocking. Clearly, she'd become complacent. Her loneliness had made her weak, more trusting than she should have been. Betty should never have been considered as anything more than an employee. Never a protégé.

With the utmost politeness, Penelope dismissed the unsettled young man―letting him think it was a warm goodbye instead. As soon as the front door had closed behind him, she strode to the staircase. Unacceptable, she ruled as she climbed. The youth was the second patron she'd had to eject today (after so many months of operation without a hiccup!), the first having been the client she was entertaining. Betty's patron had had the nerve, the pure self-entitled nerve, to interrupt Penelope's intimate session, so great had his disgruntlement been. Pathetic. The worst of it had been making herself decent after the young man's knock; what an awful lot of knots to untie. Literally.

And only her first day back! Penelope turned sharply down the upstairs hall. Visiting family was never a joy, which meant it had been three days pining for the calm, ornate serenity of the building that was finally beginning to look and function as home. Three days wanting to drink her own tea. Three days longing for both her beds, the public as well as the private. Three days envying Betty this refined, glorious, bedecked and bedraped sanctuary. And all the while… Hmph. To think, Penelope had expected the young Serpent to be the snake.

She clipped down hardwood so slick that clients were often beyond resisting trying to use the reflection to see up her skirt or robe. Holding her chin up, Penelope clasped her hands ponderously together, pushing at the spaces between the fingers of the glove she always wore. Keeping it snug. Perhaps the foolish boy had been mistaken. In that case, Betty would forgive the intrusion―be forced to forgive it. After all, this was Penelope's house and place of business. She could go where she liked, inspect where she felt she ought. Do what she saw fit.

Halting abruptly at the door to the room she'd assigned Betty Cooper months ago, Penelope glanced fleetingly back and forth (feeling, oddly, as though she was prying) before bending slightly to align her gaze with the hatch. It seemed incredibly taboo to be taking advantage of the peephole, to be putting herself on the other side of things, but her sense of the uncanny was almost immediately trampled by her anger.

"No," Penelope hissed aloud, releasing the word like an airborne toxin, teeth only clenching more firmly when she witnessed Betty's back go rigid. That perfect canvas, marred by scattered red scratches.

Sweet Pea wanted to take his tank off so fucking badly. Finally, after weeks and weeks of inconsistent sunscreen application that had left him with dorky dad-ish tan lines, he'd had three days of being able to go shirtless without worrying that he was breaking some kind of Thicket Hall dress code and even out that sun-kissed glow. What a goddamn pain it was trying to adjust back into fully-clothed life. What an even bigger pain it was that Betty wasn't out here to do it with him. Except that she didn't have to adjust to a damn thing. Naked outside, naked inside. Not a hell of a lot of difference, as far as Sweet Pea was concerned. Although, he was hoping she was missing being naked with him. He was about as convinced as a guy could be that Betty was as nuts for him as he was for her now―there just hadn't been a ton of time to discuss it, what with all the condoms he'd had burning holes in his pockets. And his wallet. And his backpack. He knew his fucking priorities.

The yard was full of hotspots now―corners, and dips, and places in the shade that jogged his memory. It was almost impossible to walk into the shed without starting to get hard; he'd left his backpack way out at the front, near the driveway, to reduce the number of potential trips into the shed. Sweet Pea wanted to hang around that area by the wall, instead of darting in and out of the building, carrying armfuls of whatever he thought he might need: bags of soil, rolls of twine, handheld spades. Self-preservation. If he let himself loiter at all within those wooden walls, he knew he'd need to be there for a while. Somehow, that stupid shed wasn't so crappy-looking to him anymore.

Betty had also offered him a newfound appreciation for Penelope Blossom's lawn furniture; an afternoon of eating their lunch above the grass for once had become far more interesting than playing house when Betty had moved from her bench to his and climbed into his lap. He'd been wanting to feel her like that from the first time they were together in her office. Forgetting all about trying to keep her under the shade of the oversized umbrella, Sweet Pea had welcomed her into his more exposed position, pushing up her shirt to bury his face in her chest, then pushing up her skirt to bury the rest of him. When he'd squeezed his eyes shut, fingers ruining her soft ponytail, the sun had lit up his eyelids. Bright red.

Having her yank him behind a tree to go at it again. Pressing her back among the roses as his fingers wiggled into her peach-coloured underwear. It was all magic to him. The safest and most dangerous summer Sweet Pea had ever had. The scent of Betty, her sweat like a drug―the only one he's ever tried (except for the time he'd bought really bad pot from Tall Boy), palette clear for that addiction. Man, he wasn't going to be the same after this. Couldn't be. Even now, it was tough to do his work as well as he had in the past. Sweet Pea had thought this place was his when he'd started. His private kingdom. Turned out, it was hers.

Some spots out here were just spots where he'd spent time with her. The way Betty loved the flowers made his heart sing in a disgusting Mary Poppins kind of way, but he hadn't tried to hide his smile from his girl. They were dying now, white roses turning brown and wilting all around him. It was actually kind of incredible how something that took so long to work itself up into blooming could fade so fast. Sweet Pea grabbed a couple really pristine (yes, dying, but pristine) ones as he worked, stuffing them in his pockets as carefully as he could. He didn't know what he was going to do with them. Luckily, act first, think later had worked for him like 95% of the time. Better just to grab some when the opportunity presented itself. Asking Penelope wasn't an option. She'd forbidden him (fucking forbidden him―Sweet Pea rolled his eyes as he recalled it) from picking her flowers while they bloomed. Taking the dead ones probably wouldn't be allowed either. Well, fuck her. He'd be out of here in a week anyway.

Over the drone of cicadas (that buzz that always made the heat feel more intense), Sweet Pea heard other noises, noises that didn't just entice him to eavesdrop, but to get up off his knees and listen harder. A door slamming… maybe? Something was going on today, beyond two cars driving off within minutes of each other, which Sweet Pea had vaguely been aware of a little earlier. A raised voice or voices? When the one got suddenly louder, he figured the front door must be open, and he began to walk slowly around the side of the house, curious. When the sharp voice said, "Elizabeth," well, he fucking ran.

Feeling so much in such a short span of time had Betty burning from the inside out―skin and face and pride on fire. Penelope's gasp and the way she'd slammed the hatch closed had made Betty race around her office redressing and collecting her things. It reminded her so much of how she'd used to react to her mother's car pulling into the driveway (having to speed-clean her room; a task she always neglected until the last second) that a Blossom blood connection between Penelope and Alice seemed much more likely than between Penelope and Hal.

Unfortunately for Penelope, Betty had no inducement to submit to her harsh words. This wasn't a woman she loved or needed to tolerate for another second. It had been a surprise exactly what Penelope was yelling at her about as she pushed past her into the hallway; Betty really hadn't had a clue about the marks her employer had found on her back though she, unlike Penelope, did know where they'd come from.

Being trailed down the staircase by an alternately livid rage and quiet radiation of fury gave Betty a glimpse into what Cheryl had lived with pre-emancipation. Betty had always managed to forgive the girl her little pointless cruelties, but now she could really understand the reason behind them. Apparently, the guy who'd been observing her had noticed the 'hideous scratches' (her boss's phrasing) and run straight to Penelope. From the severity of her so-called 'treachery,' Betty wondered what she could possibly have done to top this. Or maybe there was no limit to the hidden stores of Penelope's irritation, hoarded and admired like her art collection. That harried walk from the office to the front door made Betty realize she'd never had a 'darkness.' Anxiety, depression, repressed longings? Yes, yes, and yes. But nothing like what seemed to be propelling Penelope.

"My one relief is that I paid you before I left, Elizabeth. I owe you nothing," her employer snapped at her, though Betty had yet to say a single word. "Had there been a formal contract, I would be pursuing legal action against you."

"Except there wasn't," Betty said emphatically, turning on the front step to confront the woman. "It was a choice you made to protect yourself." She shrugged. "You really can't be anything less than satisfied."

"Satisfied?! You were supposed to be mine for another week!"

"Yours?" Betty stared at her incredulously until Sweet Pea came running around the corner.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked, not pushing in front of Betty, but standing at her side.

"Not you too." Penelope rolled her eyes. "Must all my staff give me trouble on the same day?" The pair ignored this. "It's none of your business," she informed Sweet Pea.

"We'll fucking see about that," he growled at her. Betty grabbed his wrist.

"Well, do you want to show him, Elizabeth?" Penelope taunted. "Let him in on the reason you're here… and why you're leaving with such a scene?"

"He already knows," she said, mouth shifting into an easy smile as she reached around and tugged the back of her tank top down. Sweet Pea leaned back to see and started laughing, causing Penelope to look her most affronted yet.

"I'm not surprised this is a joke to you, Serpent. She's just been fired for marring skin that could've made the both of us a great deal of money."

"First of all," Sweet Pea cut in with a frown, "I 'marred' that skin myself, thank you very much. Second of all…" He raised his hand and flipped her the middle finger. Betty's cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling. "Third of all―"

"Third of all," Betty picked up, "this is actually me quitting. Thank you," she added honestly, watching Penelope's face change in shock, "for this opportunity. I got a lot out of it and it's time for me to move on."

She looked at Sweet Pea who gave her a little ok then half-shrug and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they turned away from the Hall.

"Nobody puts Betty in a corner," he shouted back at Penelope. Betty didn't look, just heard the heavy door thud closed.

"Was that necessary?" she asked Sweet Pea.

"I don't know," he replied, looking up at the blue sky, "but it felt good."

"Do you have to go back and get your stuff?" She didn't bother insulting him by feeling guilty over the way her own exit had basically caused his. He'd clearly made his choice.

Sweet Pea pointed at the dark lump of his backpack alongside the driveway, swinging it onto his back when they reached it.

"Hey," he started, "maybe we could head to the Southside. Have lunch with my friends."

"That sounds great," she said, giving him an eager smile as an extremely pleased one graced his face.

"I don't know the bus schedule for this time of day," Sweet Pea commented as they turned onto the road, though there was quite a stretch ahead of them before they'd hit a bus stop.

"That's ok," Betty assured him, hitching her bag up on her shoulder before taking his hand. "I don't mind the walk."