Everything
Disclaimer: Ugly Betty does not belong to me. It belongs to whoever it belongs to . . .
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Daniel/Betty
Summary: And then she hugged him. Warm, tight and safe. And he let himself fall into her embrace, because in all honesty, he had nothing else to lose.
Author's Note: This is my first try at writing something for Ugly Betty - inspired entirely by watching way too many videos on youtube and reading a deluge of fanfiction. I really hope you like it.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
He had never expected it to feel like this.
Anger, resentment, self pity and loathing all floated overhead, slowly dissipating to leave nothing but a sense of ghostly hollowness.
He felt nothing. Nothing at all.
Standing there in the dark, staring out onto the Manhattan skyline, the night light, the starlight, the moonlight; he felt nothing.
He felt no compulsion to torment himself over his own stupidity. He had fallen for her hard. He had trusted her. He had loved her. And he had been so recklessly stupid.
He wanted to feel nothing. Nothing at all.
Nine months and it amounted to this.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
He would have thought he had learned his lesson by now. Sofia, his father, his mother and now her . . . They all left him in the end; with nothing but his heart bleeding in his hands.
He didn't know how long he had stood there alone, in the dark.
So still, so dark, so alone.
"Daniel."
It was a whisper. Small and afraid.
He knew who it was the moment he had heard her light footsteps tread across his threshold. His eyelids fluttered shut at the sound of her voice. The only person who could help him. The only person who could dig him out of this hole – make him feel again. Anything at all.
She came closer.
"Daniel," she said again, and still he did not move.
Her hand reached out, gently grasping the soft fabric of his shirt. Her hold on him tightening as she gently forced him to turn around.
He moved with her tug. Perhaps because he had nothing else to lose or maybe she just didn't give him a choice.
Her eyes were wide in the dark, and he could clearly see the chocolate brown of her irises as the moonlight bounced off her face. They were a moist red, almost as if she had been crying. And she had been crying. Her heart cried for him, because no one deserved this. Especially not her Daniel.
"Why Betty?" he whispered, his voice hoarse and catching on his final question, "Why did she do it?"
And with just as much emotion, a tear finally spilling over her lashes, she answered him, "I don't know Daniel. I don't know."
And then she hugged him. Warm, tight and safe. And he let himself fall into her embrace, because in all honesty, he had nothing else to lose.
They stayed like that for who knew how long until she finally pulled away from him. With her hand still on his arms and a shaky smile, braces and all, she said, "Let's get you home."
And he had followed her as she led him by the hand. Warm, tight and safe.
He had nothing left to lose.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
She had fumbled with his keys for a good five minutes, muttering along the way that it had to be one of these keys.
He smiled a little as he finally spoke up for the first time since their silent journey sat in the back of the car. "Those are your keys," he had said.
And she gave him her nervous little laugh, "Of course they are. I knew that!" before sending him another one of her smiles. The ones that told him everything was going to be okay.
But they weren't.
Her eyes gave her away.
Afraid, unsure and sad.
He said nothing, silently following her into his own apartment.
He heard Betty shut his front door behind him but he made no attempt to move from where he was stood. This wasn't his apartment anymore; it had become theirs. And he was frozen in place as the memories assaulted him.
Every corner of the room, every piece of furniture, every piece of clothes scattered across their bedroom, everything, reminded him of her. Lost to a history best left forgotten; it no longer felt like home.
She had moved behind him, her presence a small comfort and entirely trusted; and the only person to whom he could speak the following words without fear of being judged and mocked, "I don't think I can do this Betty."
And so she had simply taken a hold of his hand, squeezed tight and whispered, "Ok."
And then, just like that, he found himself stumbling through the front door of the Suarez's home.
Though dark and next to impossible to see, the smell of the house was familiar and safe. The invisible, suffocating buckles held tight across his chest loosened their grip and Daniel felt he could breathe once more.
Her hand still held his; warm, tight and safe as she pulled him along in an unknown direction. It wasn't until she whispered, "Watch the step," he realised where she was leading him.
He held back, "I can sleep on the couch Betty."
"It's freezing."
"I'll be fine."
"It's not up for argument Daniel," she whispered back fiercely. He heard a dangerous spark of frustration underlying the words, but it was the "please," that made him relent. Softly spoken with a barely detectable hint of the fear he had seen in her eyes earlier that night.
She was scared.
She was scared for him. And truth be told – he had frightened himself; his emotions bottled up to a terrifyingly silent mixture of anger, hurt and unbearable despair – volatile and unyielding.
He said nothing else, letting himself be pulled up the stairs, one foot at a time, one after another. The motions separating in his head, mirroring the words he repeated silently like a mantra to simply stay alive; 'breathe Daniel, breathe.'
She switched on the little bedside lamp; the light casting a gentle warm glow around the room.
The first thing he noticed with some relief was the startling absence of her Little Mermaid duvet. But it was only to be replaced with an impersonal pink and yellow flowered print that was only just marginally more bearable.
He stood watching as she fussed with the pillows; fluffing them up, speaking a mile a minute so that nothing she said was quite comprehensible. She had mentioned something about her father, Hilda and Justin being asleep only a few bedroom doors away, but he wasn't really listening. One question continued to hammer inside his head, leaving him without peace until he voiced it aloud;
"Where are you going to sleep?" he asked.
Betty simply shrugged before gently pushing him down to sit on the bed, "Don't worry about me. I'll bunk with Hilda, she won't mind."
He didn't even notice as she tugged on the laces of his shoes, and then removed them from his socked feet.
"Get into bed," she ordered, a small smile playing on her lips as he listened to her command.
Lying back, bringing the duvet cover up and over him, his head fell back onto her pillow.
"Night Daniel," she said giving his hand one last gentle squeeze, before throwing the room into darkness once again as she turned off the small lamp and closed the door behind her as she left.
Sleep came to him surprisingly fast. Covered in the warmth of her bed, Betty's scent around him almost like a comforting presence, and the unfathomable but perfect feeling that her two chocolate brown eyes were watching over him; Daniel fell easily into a dreamless sleep where she could no longer taunt him. And where he had nothing left to lose.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Morning light filtered through the net curtains, haphazardly scattering rays across his sleeping face. He woke to a strange feeling of peace and safety, and the unshakeable feeling that Betty's eyes had never once left him.
And whilst his gut instinct when it came to every other woman in his life always failed him – when it came to Betty, the idea of failure was mercifully never entertained or fulfilled.
And just as he had known all along, even in sleep and half awake, there she was – sat in a chair in the corner, her head tilted back, mouth slightly open and her red glasses skewered on her face. She had slept there the entire night, he guessed. She had walked out that door but had never really left him; her physical being only slipping back in some hours past midnight whilst he wondered the realms of deep sleep.
From the emotional barren of last night, he suddenly felt himself overwhelmed with feeling. Gratitude featured strongly, but what really threw him off kilter was the affection that seemed dangerously close to tipping into that elusive category 'love.'
And then it hit him - like the proverbial rock in the head or perhaps even something akin to an arrow fired by Cupid's bow as the proverbial cringe-inducing eloquence of a romanticist would describe it.
He had finally realised.
But as luck would have it, the moment that Daniel Meade at last found clarity, he would be prevented from mulling it over and revelling in its simplicity by the instigator of the revelation herself.
She had woken; her eyes blinking open to find his quite instantaneously. Seconds was all it took for recognition and the small smile and blush that spread across her face like the rarest flower in bloom.
"Hi," she said; quiet, heavy still and thick with sleep.
"Hi," he countered, a smile gracing his lips without inhibition.
And it was all it took for him to realise that yet again he had been wrong. He had wasted his time in the melancholy of the last few days. He might have said the last nine months had been a pitiful waste but that would have been certifiably wrong. He had learned so much in those nine months. In truth, he had been learning ever since the day he had first met her.
Sat there now, smiling at her beautiful face, he finally realised he had been wrong:
He still had everything left to lose.
End.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
A/N 2: I hope this wasn't too confusing, but who she was, isn't really important. The fundamentals of this story were really Daniel and Betty and their relationship. I hope you enjoyed it and I would love to know what you thought since I was really unsure about posting this. Feedback is craved and cherished. Thanks for reading,
SmilinStar
xxx