A/N: Hey guys! So someone suggested I write a fanfic about what happens when Byron goes to visit Ezra in 2x15 and I took it, but I kind of made it different. This is just Byron's POV about the whole Ezria coming out thing. I'm thinking of writing one in Ella's POV, too. Hope you enjoy :) Oh and btw, I know Aria's middle name is not really Elena, it's Marie. I just like the way Elena fits better so for all intents and purposes, I'm going to pretend that that is her real middle name. And I'm not intentionally hating on Ezra, I'm just trying to get inside Byron's head. Okay, I'm done. Read on!
-in denial-
Byron with hints of Ezria
Even after the revelation that his sixteen-year-old daughter is dating her former English teacher, he's in denial. He can't believe it, he doesn't want to believe it, and he is sure his wife doesn't either.
He's sure that this all has to be a simple mistake. It just has to.
Right?
Or is it true—really true—that his daughter, his little girl, his Aria Elena Montgomery, the one he used to rock to sleep as an infant and affectionately refer to as "pookie bear" for most of her childhood, is in love with a man, this man whom she should've only known as Mr. Fitz.
Not Ezra.
Not. Ezra. Byron sighs, repeating the words over and over again in his head as he takes another lazy sip of his glass of scotch. This was not Aria's responsibility to end. It was Ezra's.
It was his.
The moment he saw Aria walk into class that very first day, he should've known, should've cut the cord immediately. Should've established from the start that he was the adult and she was the child.
Child. She's just a child.
She's my child.
She's my little girl.
She is his daughter, his baby, his firstborn. She is his most precious joy, or at least she was, up until about an hour ago. How could she do this to him and her mother? How could she think that this is okay?
How could she…?
It doesn't take him another moment to realize how she could have ever thought about doing this, because he knows. He knows, because he was once guilty of it himself…with Meredith.
She was his student and he was her college professor. She was a child and he was an adult. She…
He sighs once more, a horrible sinking feeling lodging in the pit of his stomach. He's responsible for all of this, all of it.
This is all his fault.
This. Is. All. My. Fault. He shudders, running a tired hand through his patch of scraggly hair. He raises the glass of scotch to his lips, pressing them against the rim, taking a nice long swallow.
He swipes his hand across his mouth not even a second later, the glass resting back on the mahogany side table on his right. The numbing effects of the alcohol are slowly starting to wear off, he can just feel it.
Almost like how he can just feel that he is a bad parent.
No one can tell him otherwise, of that he is sure. He's a bad father, he's given a bad example, and his daughter of all people has chosen to follow it. His daughter has let him down, yet he's done the same to her.
If he would've never dated Meredith, if Aria and her friend, Alison would've never seen him kissing her in the car that day, if he was never forced to come clean to his wife after someone sent her that anonymous note, nothing would've ever happened.
This whole mess with Ezra would've never happened.
And now Byron wouldn't feel like punching him or watching his son, Mike knock him out for ever pursuing something with his daughter. Everything would be fine.
Except right now it wasn't. And no matter how badly Byron wished he could take back what he did, he couldn't.
He simply couldn't.
I can't. He says, absentmindedly drumming his fingers on the wooden table beside him. I. Can't. That was all he had to say.
I can't. I just can't.
Those five little words would've solved all their problems. They would've prevented everything.
They would've put all of Byron's guilty feelings for cheating on his wife to bed.
But they didn't. Because he said yes. Ezra said yes. To his daughter.
How could he?
How could he do that his own colleague? And to his wife, who was his colleague as well?
Was he that spineless?
Obviously. Byron chuckled bitterly as he quickly chugged down the rest of his beverage. It was obvious to him that Ezra Fitz had no trouble bypassing him to get to his daughter. And in what a ruthless way he did it.
In what a ruthless way he lied to him.
Well, Byron thought as he stood up to put his now empty glass in the sink, I guess I'm not so much in denial now.