Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own "Ugly Betty" or any of the characters or brand names mentioned; I asked Silvio Horta to give me Daniel as a stocking stuffer, but it was a no-go.

A/N: This is a sequel to "An Awkward Position"; it takes place a year or so afterwards, actually. You know how I loves me some flashbacks. My reviewers really are the greatest, thank you all for sharing your thoughts with me. I'm on Christmas break from college and have been lounging around in my pajamas writing fanfic...pure bliss, in other words. It's really the result of serious "Ugly Betty" withdrawal. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Betty Suarez-Meade tested the bath water with a finger and squirted in yet more bubble bath, much to Daniel's amusement.

"I'll never be used to random people strolling up and putting their hands on my belly," she huffed.

Daniel inwardly laughed. Only Betty would refer to New York's social elite as "random people," but come to think of it, Laegerfield had been getting kind of handsy. They had just made their triumphant return from the Meade family's annual Black and White Ball benefit dinner.

It was pretty typical, all in all. Claire drank. Alexis was charmingly passive-aggressive. Amanda flashed everyone. Nausea, heartburn, indigestion… Marc macked on Cliff. Wili bitched. Betty spent at least fifteen minutes at dinner warding of the footsie attempts of a skeazy old fart who most definitely was not Daniel. Upset stomach, diarrhea. Daniel gleefully handed out big checks.

Daniel had been practically foaming at the mouth for weeks now at the chance to hand out huge pieces of poster-board. Betty chalked it up to being a man thing. "You know what they say about guys with big checks…" Betty had teased on the limo ride over, looking at him through a raven curtain of hair, and it was all Daniel could do not to prove then and there, for the umpteenth time, that that particular rumor was true. Despite Betty's estimation that she looked like a haggard manatee and moved like a beached whale, to Daniel she was as gloriously, uniquely, remarkably Betty-beautiful as ever, maybe even more so now that she was with child.

Daniel felt the benefit dinner, the first since his father's death and the first of what was being dubbed the "Daniel Meade Era" was a success overall. Wilhelmina had only made four kids cry as opposed to last year's six. The best part was his wife's slinky black low-cut dress, which made Daniel even more territorial than usual, her whispered insistence that she needed a hot bath, Naked!Daniel, and a bottle of kaopectade, and the fact that said dress was now puddled on the floor.

"God, this is divine," Betty sighed, sinking down into the Olympic-sized swimming pool, er, bathtub, settling in between her husband's knees and leaning back into him.

His tongue touched the spot beneath her earlobe, and then he whispered concernedly, "Is the water too hot?"

"It's perfect," she murmured, gently mouthing the strong line of his jaw, one of the few gifts, biological or otherwise, that Bradford had given his younger son. She mentally grinned. She'd spent the first month of her pregnancy trying to work up the nerve to tell Daniel How-Come-This-Goldfish-Is-Dead? Meade that he was going to be a daddy (only to find out that he already sort of knew) and the next three trying to convince him that she wouldn't shatter like spun glass.

She was still working on that last one.

Daniel, playing with the wet black tendrils of her hair, now longer than it had ever been, tugged her head back, and Betty thrilled because she knew what was coming. He bit the back of her neck as tenderly as a mama cat with her kitten, but the explosion of sensation went off like TNT, made her whimper, then tense and relax her shoulders.

She could feel more than hear his deep rumble-laugh against her neck; he knew it was her most sensitive area. "But, really, though" he said, "we can't let this get too far here in this slippery-ass bathtub." He was only half-joking.

"Neck tease," Betty pouted.

She put her hands on his knees and hoisted herself up until she stood naked and dripping above him. "Bed. NOW. You asked for it, Meade."

"Sit your ass back down," Daniel protested shortly. "You'll fall." His words were clipped, the way he spoke when he was really freaked out. He put his big hands on either side of the underside of her belly, caressing gently with his thumbs, a stark contrast to his sharp words. His blue doe eyes were wide and frightened and earnest, not just of this moment but moments to come, and Betty noticed, not for the first time, that looking into Daniel Meade's eyes was like looking up at the dome of the midday sky—it was also twice as dizzying and exhilarating, because one was never sure when gazing up into the eyes of a Meade what one would find flying around in there.

He got to his feet, his steadying hands traveling up to her shoulders, and there they both stood, wet and dripping and shivering and exhilarated just with the nearness of each other.

Betty finally broke the charged silence. "I won't break, baby," she said seriously, for the gazillionth time this pregnancy. She smiled suddenly, going for a lighter tone. "Besides, you're one to lecture me on safety protocol," she said primly, stepping out of the tub. "Mister I-Can't-Take-My-Heart-Meds-Because-I-Can't-Swallow-Pills-and-They-Taste-Like-Ass and blah, blah, blah, Lame-Excuse-Cakes."

Daniel wasn't the only one that was fiercely protective of his significant other. Betty had not-so-secretly been spun ever since the doctor had informed Daniel that he'd inherited Bradford's heart condition. Daniel was, as always, stubborn as hell, but none the wiser when she'd started grinding up his meds and putting them in his morning coffee.

It had been a tip from Claire, followed by the advice that it was always fun and beneficial to let Meade males think they were getting away with something.

Well, what do you think? I'd love to know, so please review! This is multi-chapter, by the way, so more to come. :)