Title: Curiosities

Rating: K

Description: Gio ponders over several curiosities surrounding the famed "hug" at the end of 2.12. In response to the first G/B forum challenge, I chose to write solely about Gio's reaction, being the Gio-centric fan that I am. In addition, I took it back to just before the little champagne gathering, finding it odd that Gio was there to begin with. Without further ado, then…

Disclaimer: Of course I'm unaffiliated with UB and its team. No money is made, I don't claim any ownership of these characters or the words that were originally published on television. I'm just a fan with a little excess creativity.

Gio Rossi was hard at work, wrist-deep in shredded mixed greens when the shop phone chirped its familiar ring. He was the only one in the deli at the time, so let the phone ring a few times before he could tear himself away to answer it.

"Gio's Sandwiches…" He hadn't meant to sound impatient, but his hands and now his phone were covered in lettuce and he couldn't imagine why the window guys would need to confirm his estimate appointment again. When Daniel Meade's voice greeted him on the other end of the phone, however, Gio's tone turned from impatience to curiosity.

"Of course, Mr. Meade. How can I help?"

"Gio, please, it's Daniel. I'm calling to invite you up to my office. It's nothing formal…Betty just did her magic, cleared my mom of all charges…anyway, we're having some champagne in maybe forty-five minutes and I thought she'd like to see you there."

Gio was almost too busy to truly hear Daniel, but he heard his last sentence clearly. "You thought she'd want me?"

"She talks about you a lot, I assumed you were friends." There was an unspoken question in his voice.

"No, no, we are…" Gio cocked an eyebrow. It was strange, Daniel personally calling Gio to invite him to his office on a non-business call. There would be champagne, though, and who was he to turn down a glass of mid-afternoon Dom in a temperature-controlled office with all of its windows in tact? "I'll be there, Daniel. Where should I meet you?"

A few minutes later, Gio found himself walking into the odd quiet, the white, orange, and electric blue of the Mode offices. His leather jacket, comfortable jeans, and burgundy shirt were entirely out of place within the almost antiseptic sleekness, but he paid no attention as he walked casually to the only corner he knew. He pulled Betty's chair out gingerly and sat down to wait as per Daniel's instruction. The building was an eerie quiet without the static hum of staff and models and to occupy the silence, Gio ran his eyes over the top of Betty's desk. His thin lips smirked at her little personal effects, his warm brown eyes rolled at the injured pink bunny and its mortarboard, his nostrils flared at the ridiculous picture of an overly-stiff Egg Salad. As if he needed a reminder. He quietly flipped the picture toward the desk, face-down as Daniel's loafers clicked their way toward him with a purposeful tap.

"Gio! Thanks for coming, man," Daniel welcomed Gio with his greeting and a clap on the back. "We only have a minute, Mom and Alexis are only a few cars behind me, but if you wouldn't mind helping me with the champagne…"

As the two men walked toward the signature circle desk and then back again with a case of champagne each, Daniel apologized for their first meeting and for the job that Gio lost that day. "I was really busy getting ready for the ball," Daniel began, "plus Betty was really upset and I needed her to be on her game, so I did what I thought would make her happy."

Gio's initial annoyance at the Mode way of life flared again in his bloodstream. "Wow, sacrificing another guy's job for the sake of making your life a little easier. Classy." Gio let a silent beat go by, somewhat embarrassed by his mild assault on Daniel. "I'm sorry, man. Howis Betty?"

Daniel smiled ruefully. "She's okay, she's great. She just burst into the court room this afternoon with my mom's perfume and Fey's old diary and this blood test and saved the day like she always does. She's pretty amazing."

Gio eyes narrowed just a little bit as the side of his mouth tugged upward. He stayed silent though and just a second later as they began setting the champagne on ice, Daniel began his reverie anew. "She is, though, she's amazing. She's saved my ass so many different times and she's such a good kid. She works so hard and I think she really cares about people plus now she's saved my mom and she is, she's just amazing."

Gio listened with rapt attention, but found Daniel's sudden display of affection toward Betty a little awkward. "Yeah," he managed in his throatiest of tones, "yeah, she seems like it."

The men chose to forego their conversation in favor of setting up Daniel's office as an impromptu party room and as they did, Gio's mind turned to their latest topic. He knew her to be cute and fun to annoy, he understood her as a curiosity with a sweet demeanor and lately, he'd been toying with the idea that he might have the tiniest of crushes on her, but in hearing Daniel's words, Gio started to understand that in truth, Betty was actually quite…something.

When multiple pairs of footsteps started toward Daniel's office, Gio quickly asked why Daniel really asked him up. Daniel looked across the room toward Gio and with a grin suited to a toothpaste commercial, said simply "I wanted you to see that."

Gio raised one eyebrow in consideration and keeping his head level, looked up at Daniel from under his brow bone. He understood Daniel meant that he wanted Gio to see Betty just as he'd described her and at the recognition, Gio turned his head from view and smiled openly. He grabbed a full flute, his promised Dom Pérignon, and slinked toward the far corner of the office, trying as best as he could to disappear and let the Meades and Betty have their celebratory moment.

When Betty walked in, all smiles, Gio was out of her line of sight and free to focus on her singularly. He breathed more easily as he watched her eyes sparkle from behind her glasses, smiled widely, so relieved that the color was back in her cheeks. As she moved from person to person, offering casual conversation and easy embraces, he couldn't help but take notice at how out of place she also looked, but how easily she fit in wherever genuine human interaction was needed.

He watched her for a long while, unconscious of the actual watching and absorbed more in the ease with which she moved. Once it looked like she had been offered a brief respite from the general love and gratitude that had been showered over her, Gio swirled the flute in his hand and watched as the bubbles shook their way toward the top. He took a slow breath and a long sip of the champagne and side-stepped his way into her path.

"So," Gio began easily. "Everyone's calling you a hero." He let his voice betray the pride he felt in her, but chose to forego the words for now.

"Oh, look, Gio, I…I want to pay you back for that window I broke." She was genuinely embarrassed at her actions, he could tell.

"Nah, forget it. Just buy a couple of extra sandwiches and we'll call it even." He raised his glass to her to make sure she understood that he meant this. Neither of them could really afford the extra window or labor to install it, but Gio had a couple of friends and a cousin or two who could help him out if the estimates came back too high and regardless, he could never accept that kind of money from Betty.

She accepted his toast automatically, but as he took his requisite sip, she looked at him like she couldn't drop the subject. "Oh, and about that note I left you?..."

This allowed Gio the much-needed chance to get back to his comfort zone, to tease her, to ruffle just a feather or two. "The one where you called me…" He pulled the orange note from his pocket and began to recite with a wry smile: "uh, 'an annoying jerk?', 'obnoxious?', and 'arrogant?'" He almost let a true laugh escape as she tried to tug the note from his hand. This was exactly the kind of interaction with Betty he'd grown to love.

"Okay, okay, I was strung out on that perfume." She was serious, always so serious. He made a mental note to try to help her loosen up those boundaries a little. She continued, "It wasn't me…I wasn't in my right mind. But nobody ever has to see this again." With a flourish, she crinkled the note in her left hand and looked at him expectantly.

Being somewhat alone with her, even in the crowded room, and being so relieved at her being back to her usual self had caused his throat to swell. "Okay," was all he could offer in a voice clouded over with emotion. He was out of words, but still had things to say so he opened his arms to her, a natural reaction.

She didn't respond immediately and he could tell that she looked a little awkward at his invitation, but he wanted dearly to envelop her in a hug, to transfer some of the warmth of his feelings and of the champagne to her. He needed her to know that even though he wouldn't know what to say if he were asked, that she was indeed important to him. He understood himself as a guy much more physical than verbal and a hug was the best way he could think of to tell her how proud he was of her.

Immediately upon feeling her against him, his body relaxed, his eyes closed as he tried to transfer emotion through simple contact. He felt her pat his back with her open palm, though, and felt her awkward movements and realized that his transfer wasn't going through quite as smoothly as he had hoped. In one final sweep, he pressed his hand firmly but gently on her back, holding her to him, but her pats didn't stop and he let her go, watching her comfort and familiarity as she glided in and out of this world he was still so surprised he was seeing first-hand.

Whatever happens will happen, but he'll have to find more occasions to hug that girl, for those five seconds were a deliciously intoxicating glimpse of the kind of sustained comfort and peace he knows she could bring him.