DISCLAIMER: Definitely still don't own any of them, though I wouldn't object to cutting some sort of deal with Mr. Horta...

Chapter Two

Something Creepy This Way Comes

There was an ear-splitting screech of rubber as Daniel's Maserati skidded to the curb. The ignition was barely off before he was out of the driver's seat and at the main door of Betty's apartment building. He tried the knob.

The door wasn't even locked.

If the goddamn apartment manager had ensured the building was secured, like it was supposed to be, then none of this would have happened.

He'd tried calling Betty at least ten times during the fifteen minutes it took him to navigate to her apartment, desperately clutching the cell to his ear while careening around New York City blocks at roughly the speed of a jet-powered aircraft. Each time, he'd fervently prayed that she would answer and let him know she was alright. And each time, his call had gone straight to voicemail.

Now, as he hurtled up the stairs two and three at a time, blind panic took complete control. He could barely think, which was probably a good thing, since the few scattered thoughts he could muster were all about the horrific ways that Betty could be being murdered at that very moment. Or maybe already had been.

Damn it, why had it taken him so long to get there?

He rocketed out of the stairwell onto her floor and practically threw himself at her front door. Unlike the main entrance, Betty's apartment door was bolted from the inside. He banged on it with the ferocity of a grizzly bear.

"Betty?!" he shouted. "Can you hear me? I'm going to break down the--"

With the clunk of a deadbolt, the door swung inward.

And there she was. Pale and wide-eyed, but still breathing.

"--door," Daniel finished, his voice now little more than a whispered rasp. "Oh my God. Are you OK?"

Two or three other doors along the hallway opened just enough to allow their inhabitants to peer at the man who had just woken the entire floor. More than aware that they had an exhausted and probably cranky audience, Betty bit her lower lip, grabbed Daniel by the arm and yanked him into her apartment.

She closed the door and turned to face him.

"There's a rat in my bedroom," she said.

Daniel stared at her.

"…what?"

"A rat," Betty repeated.

A rat.

He couldn't decide whether to throw up, burst into hysterical laughter or wring her neck.

Instead, he pulled her into a crushing hug.

"Jesus Christ," he managed. "Don't ever do that to me again."

"Do what?" Betty asked, her voice muffled against the cotton of his t-shirt.

"Why the hell didn't you answer your phone?" he demanded.

"Oh," Betty squirmed nervously in his arms. "I… it was running towards me… so I threw my phone at it."

"You threw your phone… at a rat?"

"I panicked," she whimpered, mortified. "I think it broke."

For a long moment Daniel just held her, silently reassuring himself that she was still alive while trying to slow the terrified pounding of his heart. His entire body was shaking from all the adrenaline pumping through his system. It was like an instant replay of the night he had sped back to his loft to stop Renee from hurting her. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. He didn't even know what to do with himself now that the save-Betty's-life need was past.

"Next time, before you scream and destroy your phone, could you maybe say something like, 'Oh, but don't worry, Daniel, no one's killing me?'" his voice was gravelly. "I thought you were…"

But he couldn't finish around the sudden lump in his throat. He swallowed hard. After a second, Betty placed her hands on his chest and pushed away from him a bit to look up into his face.

"And it took you that long to get here?" she smiled tentatively, hoping a little humor would keep him from killing her himself. "I would have been cut into a thousand pieces by now."

He glared, simultaneously adoring and hating her.

"Gee, that's reassuring," he muttered, letting her go and moving to the other side of the room. He leaned both hands against the far wall and let out a ragged breath, taking a moment to fight back the threatening post-almost-catastrophe tears before turning back to face her.

Mercifully, she had remained where she was, allowing him to get a hold of himself and maintain his Daniel-Meade-doesn't-cry façade. They looked at each other in silence from across the room, him gradually growing calmer and her fidgeting uncertainly with the drawstring of her pajama bottoms.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

Ironically, her pajamas were covered with fluffy, doe-eyed mice. A smile twitched at the corners of Daniel's mouth.

"You realize I ran up seven flights of stairs," he said, at last.

"Wow. That new workout routine must really be doing its job," Betty smiled, starting to feel more confident that he'd forgiven her after all. "Want some water?"

"Please," he sat on the couch, no longer trusting his legs to hold him. She walked past him towards the kitchen, gently touching his shoulder as she went by. The contact was brief, just the barest brush of fingertips, but it was enough. She appreciated his borderline-insane concern, even if no words had passed between them.

He turned and watched her as she vanished into the kitchen.

"Oh crap," she said after a moment. "I still haven't found the cups. Do you mind drinking out of a bowl?" Daniel laughed, the tightness in his chest finally releasing.

"Sure, why not," he said.

Betty emerged from the kitchen carrying a soup bowl filled with water. Grinning, Daniel took it and awkwardly tilted it to his lips, sloshing water all over his t-shirt and jeans. They both dissolved into exhausted, stressed out giggles.

A sudden skittering of claws on the hardwood and a muffled squeak from the other side of the apartment reminded them of what had caused the situation in the first place. They both looked towards the noise and, for the first time, Daniel realized that she had barricaded the doorway to her bedroom with boxes.

"So, about that rat…" Betty said.

"You know those little bastards can chew through cardboard, right?" Daniel said, eyeing the moving boxes blocking the doorway. "He's probably making a nest in your lingerie."

When he glanced back Betty's eyes were wide as saucers, though whether it was because of the idea of a rat in her clothes or the fact that he had mentioned her intimate apparel he couldn't tell.

"OK," he said, setting the bowl of water aside and getting to his feet. "Do you have any traps or poison or anything?"

Betty shook her head.

"Then we'll have to improvise," Daniel said, glancing around until his eyes landed on a solid-looking broom leaning in one corner. He went and picked it up. It felt heavy in his hands. "This'll work."

Instantly, Betty was at his side, hands clutching his arm.

"You're not going to kill it?!" she asked, big brown eyes imploring him. Confused, he held out the broom like the object of swift death he had intended it to be.

"Well, yeah," he said.

"Oh, don't hurt it, Daniel!" she begged, and Daniel could feel his manly protector status being slowly sucked away from him. "Just… get rid of it. Can't we put it outside or something?"

Daniel stared at her, amazed.

"Wait, so let me get this straight," he said. "You want me to go in there… pick up the rat… carry him down seven flights of stairs… and send him on his merry way?"

Ignoring the dripping incredulity in his voice, Betty nodded.

"And how do you know it's a 'him,' anyway?" she asked. "Maybe she's a girl rat with baby rats somewhere that need her." Daniel laughed. Only Betty would use an argument like that.

"Even more reason to bump her off now," he said. "Do you really want dozens of little baby rats living in your walls? C'mon, Betty, they're called 'pests' for a reason." He strengthened his grip on the broom handle and turned towards the bedroom barricade like a general preparing for battle.

Betty grabbed his t-shirt, holding him back. With an annoyed sigh, he glanced down to find her scowling up at him.

"What?"

"Don't you dare," she said.

"Betty, I'm not picking that thing up," he said. "It'll give me rabies."

"Aren't there humane traps or something?" Betty asked. Daniel groaned. She wasn't going to let this go.

"Sure," he said. "But I can't exactly go get one of those right now. In case you haven't noticed, it's three in the morning."

"Fine, then we'll get one tomorrow," she said stubbornly.

"You're just going to spend the night with the rat?" he stared at her like she'd completely lost her mind. "After calling me over here and freaking out so bad I thought someone was slitting your throat?"

"Well, she startled me!" Betty exclaimed. "I didn't know you were going to murder her."

"Oh, for God's sake…" Daniel threw the broom irritably at the pile of boxes. The terrified squeak and scrabbling noises retreating from the resulting crash made Betty stiffen, but she mulishly refused to relent. "Fine, then, you and Mrs. Rat have your little slumber party. I'm going back to bed."

Women. He would never understand them. And, at three in the morning, he didn't even want to bother trying. Let her spend the night being nibbled on by a disease-ridden rodent if that was what she wanted. See if he cared.

She grabbed his hand.

"Daniel--"

"What now?" he snapped, frustration and sheer fatigue getting the better of him. Betty shrank back, letting his hand slip from her grasp, and he felt instantly sorry.

"I was going to say you could just sleep here," she said. "But if you're going to stay in pissed-off land, maybe I'll change my mind."

That hospitable offer had a clear ulterior motive, even if she wasn't going to admit it to him. Daniel glanced at the barricaded bedroom door and had to fight down the urge to laugh triumphantly. Betty was scared to spend the night alone with the rat.

"Need me to protect you from the big, bad mama rat?" he grinned.

"Shut up," she said. But she didn't deny it.

"I dunno, Betty," he put on his best doubtful face. "I mean, so far tonight you've scared the crap out of me, made me spill water on myself and yelled at me for trying to help you… I don't think I'd last the night." Her face fell.

"But I didn't…" she stammered. "I didn't mean to do any of that!"

"Sure," he said. "A likely story."

Her eyes narrowed as she realized he was teasing her. She gave him a little shove that made him stumble backwards only because she'd caught him off guard. She was surprisingly cute when she was frustrated with him, her brow all furrowed like that and her hands exerting endearingly wimpy force against his chest.

"And now you're pushing me?" he said. "Yeah, that'll really get me to come to your rescue."

"Quiet, you," she said, shoving him again, harder this time. Startled, Daniel stumbled backwards and landed awkwardly on the couch.

Betty stood over him, one foot on either side of his legs, glaring down. The position was downright suggestive. For a split second, Daniel's brain conjured up a potential scenario with his assistant that he had never considered. His gaze trailed from head to hips and back again before he caught himself and refocused on her eyes. Her mouth dropped open.

Dear God. Awkward.

Thrown off balance by his brief but unexpected appraisal, Betty stepped back.

"I'll get a blanket," she said, ducking behind a pile of boxes.

Slowly, Daniel sat forward, running his hands over his face and back behind his neck while he tried to sort out what the hell that had been. Admittedly, he was anything but a pillar of self-control when it came to sexual attraction… but Betty? Clearly the stress and lack of sleep was having an altogether unexpected effect on his thoughts. The sooner he got to sleep the better.

"Here," Betty said, emerging from the boxes with a colorful quilt in hand. At least it wasn't the Little Mermaid. He reached for it but, to his great surprise, she sat down on the couch beside him.

"Uh…"

"Well, I can't sleep in there!" Betty said, glancing towards her barricaded bedroom and looking flustered. As though for emphasis, the rat beyond the barrier let out a string of high-pitched little squeals.

"Oh. Right."

Much to Daniel's dismay, all of the thoughts that had surfaced a few moments ago flared up again in full force.

"Don't look at me like that," Betty said. Daniel stiffened, suddenly terrified that she had developed the power to read his inappropriate thoughts.

"Huh? What? Look at you like what?"

"Like you're afraid I'll molest you or something," she said. "You lie that way and I'll lie this way." She lay back with her head at one end of the sofa and, slowly getting the idea, Daniel stretched out with his at the other end. Betty flung the quilt over both of them. She stretched out a hand and fumbled for the light switch on the nearby wall.

The room plunged into darkness.

"Well… goodnight," Betty murmured from her end of the couch.

"Sleep tight," he said. "Don't let the rat bite."

She aimed a kick at him and he laughed. Then silence fell over them, broken only by the occasional scufflings of the resident vermin in the next room.

Daniel stared at the ceiling, hands behind his head, acutely aware of Betty's legs resting against his side. Studiously, he tried to turn his thoughts to something else. The upcoming layout he was working on for Player, for example. They were going to do a sort of trial theme, with the "lawyers" in apparel that would never pass muster in a court of law. Betty had helped with a lot of the particulars despite her overall disgust with the concept, even assisting with picking out the pink lingerie for the…

…OK, maybe that wasn't the best train of thought to distract himself.

This was going to be a long night.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Originally this was going to to include the inevitable arrival of the Suarez family in the morning, but it was getting longer than I'd intended so I figured I'd just save that bit for the next chapter. I love all of you unspeakably awesome reviewers! Talk about a self-esteem boost. Leave many, many more for me to squeal over with childish glee. Pleeeease...! :-D