Title: The Dancing Bees

Author: Emeranne

This is a tale in which Betty and Daniel must deal with werewolves, leaky roofs and one wandering hand.

A/N: This is my first attempt an Ugly Betty story. Feedback is appreciated!

The Dancing Bees

Chapter One

Betty remembered once seeing a nature special on dancing bees. When they caught a scent they liked, the bees would swarm, each flying in seemingly random patterns. They would careen into each other, and then spiral off into another direction. From the human view, it looked like a very bizarre dance.

That's what the office reminded her of when she arrived on Monday morning. Everyone was moving about, buzzing with what she assumed was excitement. There were too many smiles on the normally severe and dour faces to be anything else. Of course, it could have been collective gas, Betty laughed to herself.

She watched in amazement as Amanda and Marc circled each other, speaking excitedly before the thin blond careened off towards Tifanee, one of the other assistants. There they both hopped from foot to foot, gesturing wildly.

Marc, while not hopping, was whooping and giving a very awkward high five to the startled UPS delivery man. He gave Betty a huge grin when he spotted her. She stepped back in fear.

"Betty! My darling fashion victim!" Marc crooned as he swung towards her. He took in her off the rack green suit. "This is a wonderful day. Even that…ensemble…can't dim my spirits. Not today!"

Betty just looked at him in confusion.

"Wow, Betty, you're looking a lot like the Jolly Green Giant, only shorter," Amanda cooed as she linked arms with Marc.

Betty ignored the jibe. "What in the world is going on here? Did someone spike the coffee again?"

Marc trilled out a laugh. "You're too funny! But, no." He shared a look with Amanda and they gave Betty a big smile. "This is only the most important day in Mode history!" Marc squealed as Amanda danced a little jig.

Their excitement was contagious and Betty couldn't help but feel a thrill of expectation. "Really? Why? What's going on? "

"Two words," Amanda chirped. "Arnost Gustav!" she and Marc said in unison.

There was a beat of silence. "Who?" Betty asked.

The pair gave her looks of disgust. It was times like this that Betty wished she were working for any other magazine, even Automotive Today. With so much going on in the world and her life, she just couldn't care that the new Jimmy Choos had a wedge rather than a kitten heel.

"Betty, Betty," Marc sighed. "Where have you been all these years? No, don't answer that. I'm sure I don't want to know. Arnost Gustav is a Very Important Designer."

Betty smiled inwardly. As shallow as Marc was, he amused her, especially when he spoke in capital letters.

"If he's so important then why haven't I heard of him?"

Marc and Amanda gasped in shock.

"Seriously," Betty continued. "I may not be a fashionista like the two of you, but I've heard all of all the big designers – Calvin Klein, Armani, Lauren." She shrugged. "You get my drift."

"We should give her a break," Amanda said a little too sweetly. "It was before her time after all."

Marc cleared his throat and straightened his tie as if he were a teacher who was about to give a lecture. Which was true, Betty supposed. She could already feel the condescension.

"Arnost Gustav was THE designer of his day. He practically revolutionized the entire industry. His designs were divine."

Amanda nodded enthusiastically. "They were amazing," she said dreamily. "As a little girl, I dreamed of wearing his fall collection of '91."

"So did I," Marc sighed.

Betty grinned at their reactions. "So what happened to him?"

Amanda got that look on her face, the maliciously gleeful one she wore when there was juicy gossip. She leaned in close, her voice a near whisper. "He completely lost it! He was supposed to show his fall collection, but he abruptly pulled out. He said he was fed up with the industry and how plastic it was."

"Imagine that," Betty said wryly.

They gave her a look, wondering if she was making fun of them. Betty sighed. "What happened next?"

"That's just it. Nothing happened," Marc told her. "He completely disappeared and became a recluse. Just like Greta Garbo!"

"I vant to be alone," Amanda said in a very bad accent.

"Ooh," Betty exclaimed. "Just like J.D. Salinger!"

"Who?" Marc and Amanda asked in unison.

"Just someone who also wanted to be left alone," she told them. "So why all the fuss now?"

"He's back!" They both shouted.

"Wow." Betty could finally understand some of their excitement. If J.D. Salinger came out of hiding, she knew she'd be excited. "Why's he coming back now?"

Marc shrugged. "No one knows, and who cares. But ooh, ooh, we forgot to tell you the best part! Get ready for this: He is allowing Mode to print the first look at his new collection!" Marc and Amanda started squealing again and jumping around in their odd bee dance.

She looked around her and now she could see it in all the faces around her. Pure jubilation, some of it from seeing the designer's new collection, but she imagined a lot of it was from knowing they had a huge coup over other fashion magazines.

"Betty!"

The buzzing quieted as the Daniel, the queen bee stepped into the room. Um, make that king bee, Betty thought with a cringe. Daniel would kill her if he ever got an inkling she'd just referred to him as a queen bee, even if it had only been in her mind.

She looked apologetically at Marc and Amanda. "Sorry guys, gotta go." She hurried towards Daniel's office.

Betty could see the satisfaction and excitement on his face. It was a good look for him, she thought. It made him look younger and less jaded.

"I suppose the Terrible Two told you what was going on?"

Betty smiled. One night, after a particularly aggravating day, while she and Daniel were working late, Betty couldn't hold her rant in any longer. She told him that Marc and Amanda were like children going through their terrible twos. Daniel had laughed so hard, and, eventually, so had Betty. That was one of the first nights when they had started bonding as friends.

Ever since, whenever Daniel was in a jovial mood, he would refer to them as the Terrible Two. It gave Betty a warm and fuzzy feeling to know that she and Daniel had an inside joke.

"Yeah, they told me. They compared him to Greta Garbo and Amanda did an appalling impression."

Daniel chuckled. "I'm almost sorry I missed that."

"Be glad that you did miss it!" Betty laughed. "How did this all happen? That seemed to be the one part they didn't know."

Daniel's eyes sparkled. "He called me. Me! Out of the blue and said he wanted Mode to show his new collection."

"That's great!" Betty told him earnestly. She knew how much things like this meant to Daniel. Beleaguered on all sides, with his judgment constantly in question, moments like this bolstered his confidence and his credibility. Every victory for him was also a victory for her since it always felt like it was the two of them against everyone else. They were the two misfits, although no one would ever call Daniel that to his face.

"Where is it? Do we have the copies yet?"

"No, that's just it. He won't come to Mode, and he won't mail them, so we'll have to go pick them up."

"We?" Betty asked. "As in you and me?"

"Pack your bags, Betty. We're taking a trip," Daniel said happily. "I don't trust anyone else to do this."

A trip, Betty mused. She was a girl from Queens who'd never been anywhere outside of New York and New Jersey. Now she was going to see a world famous designer. She wondered where a designer like Arnost Gustav lived. Maybe Paris or London. Or maybe Italy. She'd always wanted to go to Italy. She would need to get a passport and a new suitcase. She started drawing up a mental list of all the things she would need. Daniel was still talking in the background when one word caught her attention.

"What did you just say?" She asked him.

He gave her a quizzical look. "I said we're going to Schenectady."

Schenectady?

TBC…