Tw: mentions of period and blood.

Veronica

"Why does it have to be me?"

On her left, Heather Duke huffed. "Because I did it yesterday, and she almost bit my head off. That's not gonna happen to you."

"Please, do you not remember the Remington party?" Veronica cringed at the memory of the fight and the puking fiasco, and how she almost got herself kicked out of the group.

Veronica turned her head to face her friends. Next to Duke, Heather McNamara chewed on her lips, apprehensive. When her eyes met Veronica's pleading ones, she instantly shook her head no, her culrs (now wild and frizzier, without her fancy hair products) swaying with the movement. Veronica rolled her eyes.

"You guys are pussies," she mumbled. Veronica took careful steps towards the reason that made her friends cower in fear.

On a heap of old, moldy blankets serving as a makeshift bed, laid The Beast. With her ginger hair covering her face and a light snore coming out of her nose, Heather Chandler was the only one left to wake up.

"Heather," Veronica's whispers were unheard, or ignored, by the Rottweiler captain. Veronica sighed and spoke her name even louder, but to no avail. Heather was still asleep.

Veronica turned to look at McNamara and Duke, to ask for help, but they were nowhere to be seen.

"Traitors..." Veronica said under her breath. Annoyed, she nudged Heather with the tip of her boot. "Heatheeer."

On the ground, Heather groaned.
"What?" she mumbled, her voice barely audible with her face shoved on the pillow.

"Get up, everybody else is awake," Veronica said.

"Leave me alone, I'm in pain," Heather groaned again, turning to the other side as if that somehow would make Veronica go away.

"I know," Veronica said. As if things weren't bad enough, the team was also suffering from their synchronized periods, which meant that most of the girls, including Heather Chandler, was having to deal with menstruation without enough hygiene products or painkillers. Things were not fun at all. "But you're gonna miss breakfast."

"I don't care."

"Come on," Veronica tried again, kicking Heather on the leg slightly, not enough to hurt (the girl was in pain, after all. Veronica wasn't a monster) but enough to annoy her.

Heather screeched in irritation, finally sitting up. Her hair was a mess, akin to the rat's nest they found on the cabin, and she looked ready to kill. Heather Chandler is usually not a pleasant person, but Heather Chandler on her period...that is way worse.

Veronica craned her head and gave her a smile. "Good morning," she said cheerfully. Heather looked at her as if she was thinking of the most painful way to kill her.

"Shut up," she said, getting up from her 'bed' and heading towards the bathroom.

Veronica chuckled as she watched Heather kick a half dressedCourtney out of the bathroom.

With her task completed, Veronica left the dusty house and let herself be greeted by the warm sun and the breeze that made her hair swirl when she stepped outside.

The scene outside of the cabin was...quite something. Through the weeks that they had been stranded, the group fell into a routine of their own, collaborating with each other as much as they could to make their lives easier as they waited for rescue. They hunted, they cleaned and cooked their meat, along with the edible plants and feuites they found (thanks to Tracy's time as a girl scout, they knew how to differentiate mushrooms that could go into a stew from the mushrroms that could make them puke their guts out), fetched and boiled water from the lake, washed their clothes, gathered wood for fire... It felt very much like they were members of the Back to the Land movement, but it was what they had to do.

With the girls on their periods and the very limited number of tampons and pads they had available ending in just a few days, they had to make some adjustments. As in, using rags and cleaning them in boiling for a second round. It was utterly disgusting, but it was better than bleeding everywhere.

"Morning," came JDs greeting upon seeing Veronica. He was chopping logs of wood with an axe, the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up to his forearms and small beads of sweat gathering on this forehead. He looked extremely hot.

Just like him, everyone else was playing their parts, executing the roles they had subconsciously taken during their stay. Veronica saw McNamara collecting their dry clothes, while Kurt was selecting the leaves Courtney had picked the day before.

"Hey," Veronica gave JD a kiss.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. "Breakfast on the left, bloody soldiers on the right."

Veronica followed where his finger was pointing to see two pots on top of the fire. Veronica could see the pot on the left had some sort of soup, and the one on the right contained the dirty rags the girls had been using.

"Yeah, don't mess them up like Ram did," Heather Duke said, trying to hold back her laugh.

"You guys are disgusting," Ram huffed.

"I'll eat something really quick, and then I'll be ready to go, ok?" she said to her boyfriend. JD and Veronica's part on the whole scheme was leaving early in the morning, after breakfast, to go on the hunt for their next meal. There was barely anything left of the deer they had caught, so it was time to go back to the woods in search of another one.

"Get ready to lose," he said, with a defiant look on his face.

As a way to make their search (which had to be silent most times, to not scare off the animals) a tad less boring, JD and Veronica came up with a contest. Whoever got the most animals won. Neither of them knew what the prize was, probably just gloating privileges, but it was fun. A little amicable competition never hurt anyone.

"In your dreams," Veronica teased him back, mostly just to keep the spirit going. Even though she knew JD was miles ahead of her, given the experience with guns he had and she didn't, because unlike him, she had had a normal childhood. 

Veronica sat on one of the tree stumps and grabbed a handful of berries for her first meal of the day. As she ate, Chandler walked out of the house, looking a lot more put together than she had less than 10 minutes before.

Even stranded in the middle of the woods, Heather still made an effort to look hot. She was wearing high waisted jeans shorts, with a red t shirt and red sneakers; her hair was tied up with her signature silk scrunchie, and she even put makeup on.

Heather sat on the tree next to Veronica and stole a berry from her.

"There's soup," Veronica said. Heather just nodded her head negatively, barely regrestering what Veronica said.

"You're really not a morning person," Veronica chuckled.

"How are you in a good mood? There's nothing worse than having to wear these disgusting rags. I feel gross."

"I haven't gotten mine yet," Veronica raised her shoulder in a shrug.

Heather didn't respond, except for the raise of one eyebrow.

"It's not a big deal. It's probably just stress," Veronica said. "We were on a place crash, for God's sake."

"Hm. If I didn't know you better, I would be really worried right now."

Veronica knew exactly what she meant by that. Just because up until senior year, she didn't get wasted at parties or skipped class to get high in the bathroom. The Heathers saw her a nothing but a goody two shoes. A bluebird, a brownie, like Heather had once said. They probably thought Veronica was one of those girls who planned on staying a virgin until marriage.

Veronica didn't have a problem in being seen like that. She knew Betty was like that, and so was Martha before she died. Veronica saw herself as one of those girls too when she was younger, but then JD came into the picture and changed everything.

"Well, when you do get yours, just know that Tracy has some Advil left."

"Thanks," Veronica said. She got up and walked to where her boyfriend was.

"Ready to go?"