Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first chapter or added this story to alert.
This is part two of the prologue. I want to balance out Marc's epiphany in the first part. I hope to have chapter one up by Monday.
Summary: Everything is changing.
Can Betty and Daniel deal with going from friends to lovers? Can they survive working for competing publishers in a brand new city? Can Amanda and Matt handle becoming parents? Can Marc really change his commitment phobic ways? Can he get back what he once loss? Can he adjust to life at Mode without Wilhelmina? Can Wilhelmina really be happy without making other people miserable? Can Monique function without playing matchmaker? Can they all really survive Betty being in London?
This chapter takes place around episode 3.1
Disclaimer: I do not own Ugly Betty or any international reincarnation of the show. No copyright infringement is intended. This is meant to be a placebo until we have all come to terms that there will not be a season five.
Prologue Part II: Daniel Meade's
August 10, 2008 11:33 PM Eastern standard Time
He could think of a million reasons why he did not call her. He could not bring himself to tell her that his own sister stabbed him in the back and took away one of the few things he cared about besides her. He was now the failure that everyone always said he was everyone but her. He put his heart and soul into Mode and Alexis took it all away.(He did now anyway). Worst of all, he just let his sister and her evil accomplice do it.
He did not fight Alexis's decision, because in his heart he believed he was the constant screw up that everyone saw him as. Maybe that is why after over a month he could not bring himself to tell her that the two of them have been "reassigned" to Player magazine.
Actually, it was just he that was reassigned to Player. If she wanted to, she could stay at Mode. The thought of her not being with him scare the hell out of him. This last month was torture. He couldn't imagine not being able to brainstorm with her in the middle of the day or console her on a project ideal. He wasn't sure he could be an editor without her.
Before he met her, he made being a moron and a screw up an art form. At that time, being the editor of Mode was about pleasing his father and having a different model in his bed every night. Mode was just something handed to him on a silver platter like everything else in life. It was not something he earned and therefore he did not see the need to put any effort into it.
He realizes now that without her, he would only last a month as editor of Mode, not nearly two years. What would he do without her? He was not sure.
Now he loved his job. She gave him that. She was the one that showed him he was more than the playboy of New York and definitely more than his last name. She made him learn about the magazine industry. He now understood every aspect of the publishing process from the magazine's theme to the letter to editor.
Because of her, now he saw this job as doing something that he was passion about and making a difference in the world. The proudest day of his career was the Alternative Fashion show. Not only did that show make Mode the star of Fashion Week 2008, it also showed the magazine's readership that being fashionable had nothing to do with being a "skinny hanger".
This did not matter anymore because Alexis and Satan the Diva took that away from him. His two years of hard work meant nothing and now he was back to being the screw up and "player" everybody, including himself, saw him as. She never saw him as this and that thought made him feel warm and fuzzy in a way that he couldn't comprehend at the moment.
Before he met her, everything he did in this life centered on pleasing "them" and living up to "their" image of who he was supposed to be. If he was truly honest with himself, at a certain point she became his only motivation for doing anything good in his life. He is not sure when this happened, but he knows it has. Instead of making his father and later his sister happy, he only cares about pleasing her. Her smile literally makes his day.
Maybe that is the real reason he could not tell her that he was no longer editor in chief of Mode magazine. His heart could not take the sound of disappointment in her voice. He would shatter into a million pieces once he realized he could not make her happy. Lately he is only happy when she is happy.
For over a month, he tried to tell her what happened. Every night phone in hand he would dial her number. Every night he would panic and never complete the call. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to her.
He needed to talk to her. He was just starting to realize that not speaking to her every day made him feel empty. He missed the sound of her voice and actually speaking to someone who just understood what he was thinking instantly.
Now on the night before her return to work, he sat in his new apartment with his cell phone in hand, trying to get up the nerve to tell the most important person in his life that he was no longer the EIC of Mode. He wondered when she became the most important person in his life. He could not pinpoint the moment when she took that place.
He tried to call her 20 times that first night. But every time he tried he could not bring himself to press the green button to send the call. At first, he told himself he did not want to ruin her trip to Rome or her first night back with the supposed love of her life. (Although what type of "love of your life" would knock someone else up while they were in love with you. He would never do that to her any one.)
The real reason he did not call her that day is that if he finds out that she is leaving him for good, to be with Henry, it may just kill him. He realized the thought of her leaving would be devastating. Especially if she was leaving him for someone who didn't really love her. That first night he came to the conclusion that he couldn't live without her.
If he would have checked his messages like any same person he would know that Betty didn't choose Henry over him. He means that Betty did not choose Henry over Gio. No, he was right the first time. Even if he was in complete denial about it, he knew that he saw Betty leaving for any reason as a personal rejection of him.
Three days after the baseball game from hell, he finally brings himself to check his blackberry. There are hundreds of messages in his account for him to go through without her there to filter the most important ones out for him. They include several inquiries of why he is leaving Mode and a few emails from employees that will miss him. He only cares about the messages from Betty. If she did not label it, "I'm not going with Henry to Arizona," he probably would have never opened the e-mail.
At that moment, it would be easy for him to send her a message about everything that has happened. After a 20-minute argument with himself, he decides that this is not the type of news you give your best friend in an e-mail. Instead, he tells her about playing video games with DJ the night before and breaking her previous high score on her favorite dancing videogame.
That night he tries to call her, but after five failed attempts, he gives up. He ends up watching The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast in French in a desperate attempt to pick up the language so that he can communicate with DJ. Even though he has seen each film with her 100 times during the great Henry debacle, he still does not understand anything being said. It makes him feel better because they remind him of her. He realizes that even things that remind him of her bring in peace.
Two days later, she starts sending him photographs of her travels. He misses her so much after a week; he is halfway ready to take DJ on a tour of America just so he can accidentally bump into her at the Grand Canyon. Instead, he saves every single one of her emails and uses a picture of her as the wallpaper on his cell phone.
He chooses to reply to her by e-mail because it is easier that way. If he talks to her, she will be able to pick up on his uneasiness instantly. No one else can read him like her. He tries not to think about how he scans every message from her from mentions of casual hook ups or her having sex with strangers. He tries not to think about how happy he was to know she stayed single all summer.
Tomorrow she will be back, but he still could not bring himself to talk to her on the phone. He felt like a 15-year-old boy trying to get up the courage to call the head cheerleader and ask her out on a date. Except he didn't think of Betty that way contrary to what the rumor mill believe. The fact that he has been having the occasional wet dream involving making love to Betty on top of his desk is completely irrelevant. He blames Renee for pudding that particular idea in his head.
He tells himself that because Betty is a beautiful woman he is having these types of dreams about her. He tells himself it is perfectly normal for him to have those types of fantasies about a very beautiful woman, it does not mean anything. He tries not to think about how he uses the term "make love" in relationship to Betty instead of the term "fuck". He also tries not to think about how the thought of Betty having sex with anybody else makes him want to throw up. Instead of focusing on that, he focuses on trying to call her for the 522nd time this summer.
As he has for the last month, he puts the phone down and gives up on calling Betty. He will see her tomorrow and everything will be okay. She will not leave him. She can't leave him."
15 days later
He cannot bear to watch her pack her things to take back upstairs. He cannot bear to watch her leave. He cannot say goodbye to her. He tries to tell himself that she is leaving Player not him. His mind knows that, but his heart doesn't. He loves her too much to watch her leave him.
Oh fuck, did he just say the L word? She is his best friend. Of course, he loves her. However, he loves her just as a friend. Except he's pretty sure you're not supposed to be having now daily sex dreams about your best friend. You are not supposed to wonder how your best friend would look dressed up in the lingerie set that all the other models are wearing for the photo shoot she feels is beneath your dignity.
If he loved her as just a friend, then why does it feel like she is ripping his heart in two as she walks to the elevator? If he only loves her as a friend, then why does he feel like his entire world is falling apart right now? If he only loves her as a friend, why is she the most important person in his life? The answer is obvious.
He is in love with his best friend. He is in love with her in the "happily ever after, want to raise a family with her" way. He is in love with her in the "I want to see her become the greatest EIC ever" way. He is in love with her in the "I can't live without her," way. He is completely in love with Betty Suarez.
Oh, fuck!
