Lose the Walter

(A happy-ending rewrite of Lose the Boss and Fake Plastic Snow)

Life had been crazy for Betty lately. Between her job and her family obligations, Betty felt like she hadn't had any time for Walter at all. She was sure that he was feeling it too. But she was going to make it up to him.

She asked him what he was doing on Saturday in the hopes that they could spend a completely uninterrupted romantic day together. She had been disappointed, of course, when he informed her that he was going to have to work all morning.

Then she had the idea: one of her best ideas, if she did say so herself. She would go to his apartment and make a romantic meal for the two of them, surprising him when he came home from work.

She arrived at his apartment and let herself in. Even though she had decided a few weeks earlier not to move in with him, they had decided that she should keep the key, just in case she needed it. Shifting the bag of groceries she had purchased she headed toward the kitchen to begin preparing his surprise. She stopped in her tracks, however, when she heard voices coming from the bedroom.

Placing the bag on the counter, she walked toward the sound of the voices. One voice was Walter's nasally tones, while the other was a distinctly female but unfamiliar voice. She took a deep breath to steel herself then slowly opened the door.

Walter was lying in bed, naked from the waist up and covered from the waist down by a sheet. Beside him lay a strange woman, who bore a striking resemblance to Gina Gambarro.

"Betty!" Walter exclaimed, scrambling to pull the sheet over the woman in some vain attempt to keep Betty from realizing that the woman was in his bed. "What are you doing here?"

"No, Walter, I believe the question is what are you doing here?" Betty said. "When I asked you today what you were doing so that we could spend the day together, you told me that you had to work. So I came here to surprise you after work. Imagine my surprise when you were already here, enjoying a lovely day off with another woman.

"Betty, this is not what it looks like," Walter started.

"Oh, really. Explain it to me then," she said. "Because it looks like you're in bed with another woman. But please, tell me how it could possibly be anything other than what it looks like?"

"I…"

"Goodbye, Walter," Betty said. "This time it's for good. I don't ever want to see you again."

Betty turned and walked with a steady gait toward the door, hoping that she would make it home before she had a total meltdown.

"Betty, what are you doing home?" Hilda asked as her sister walked through the front door to their row house. Hilda was sitting on the couch painting her fingernails. "I thought you had a romantic dinner planned with Walter?"

"Yeah, well, Walter had a little romance of his own planned, but it wasn't with me."

Hilda looked up in surprise. "Oh, Betty," Hilda immediately felt guilt overcome her. She had encouraged Betty to get back together with Walter, had assured her that what had happened had only been an aberration and that he truly loved her. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Betty said. "It's not like it's your fault. I thought that what happened with Gina was a one-time thing: a single mistake in a span of four years. Now I have to wonder if this wasn't going on all along, right under my nose."

"You going to be okay?" Hilda asked.

"Yeah," Betty answered. "It actually doesn't hurt as much this time as it did before. I'm almost relieved. Walter didn't understand about the things I want in life. He didn't understand how much the job at MODE means to me."

"Well, there are other fish in the sea," Hilda said. "You'll find someone new, Betty, who can appreciate all the wonderful things about you."

"I hope you're right."

About a week later, Betty found herself spending a lot of time with Henry from accounting planning a Christmas party. She was a little disconcerted, given her dream from a few days before of kissing him in that very office. However, she enjoyed spending time with him.

"I like the claymation Rudolph best," she said with a smile. He had come by her desk to deliver some party supplies to her and talk about the budget, and somehow they had ended up talking about their favorite parts of Christmas instead.

"You know they did that with puppets?" Henry said. "They called it 'Animagic.'"

Betty smiled as Henry completed a gesture that Justin would describe as "jazz hands." "Just something you know?" she asked.

Afraid that she thought his random bits of trivia were geeky and annoying, he laughed self-consciously. "Yeah," he said. "I have this weird talent for remembering useless facts."

"Oh, no, it's not useless," she assured him. "It's…cute."

"Thanks," he said, sighing silently in relief. He leaned slightly closer to her and lowered his voice to a whisper. "I've been meaning to ask, is this mistletoe?"

Betty gasped silently. He had just uttered the same question asked in her dream. "No, it's just holly," she said.

As she uttered this last word, Henry began leaning in even closer. Betty's heart raced. Henry was about to kiss her.

His lips brushed softly against hers, a mere feather of a kiss.

"Gosh, I'm sorry, that was really inappropriate," Henry said. "I shouldn't have done that. You have a boyfriend, and we're at work, and I just shouldn't have done that."

"No, it's okay," Betty interrupted. "I don't have a boyfriend anymore." She paused. "And it wasn't unwelcome."

"Oh," Henry said. "In that case, I was wondering if you'd be my date to the Christmas party?"

"I would love to," Betty said.

A/N: Yes, I am adding more chapters, and now it's more than ten. New ideas just came to me. And I'm bored.