A/N: I really do not own Ugly Betty. But I really love and appreciate reviews. I also am willing to consider people's suggestions for episodes I could do. I've done a bit of that here but I'll try to do more if I get more requests. Also, someone asked why William called Christina "the clothes lady." He was two years old and he couldn't Christina; I do intend for the Meade kids to call her Aunt Christina or Miss Christina. But I know a girl named Christina who couldn't say her own name until she was about five.
Also, Daniel Jr. doesn't exist in the universe of this particular story.
27.
"I'm getting married today," Betty Suarez told herself as she stared in the mirror. She was in the church bride's room with Claire and Alexis Meade, Christina, and Hilda. Christina was her bridesmaid and Hilda was her maid of honor. Beckett Scott was Daniel's best man and Alexis wore a suit and was Daniel's "groom's-person."
"Are you ready for this?" Hilda asked her, squeezing her arm. "Papi is so proud of you and so am I."
Betty smiled and adjusted her necklace. "I'm about to become Mrs. Daniel Meade."
"You really love him, don't you?" Alexis asked.
The bride nodded. "I feel like I'm going to explode from happiness. I get to marry Daniel Meade."
Claire kissed her son's fiancée's cheek. "He is an unbelievably lucky young man and we're so glad you're joining our family."
"Even though you've basically been a part since you moved into Daniel's apartment two years ago," Alexis remarked.
"She's just jealous," Claire whispered in Betty's ear.
"I wish my mom could be here today," Betty said. She looked at her sister. "I think Mom would like Daniel."
"She would love him," Hilda told her younger sister.
Christina laughed. "How could anyone not love a man like him?"
"But I win. I get to marry him and spend forever with him."
There was a knock on the door and Justin stuck his head in. "Are you ladies ready?"
"Are you ready, Betty?" Christina asked as she picked up the bride's bouquet.
"Are you kidding?" Hilda asked. "All she's wanted to do for the past year is marry him. She wanted Daniel-colored bridesmaids' dresses and Daniel-flowers. She was threatening to elope for the past month and half."
"I just want to marry Daniel," Betty laughed. "I'm ready."
Justin walked into the room and hugged his aunt. "It's show time, Aunt Betty. You're going to marry Daniel."
"Finally," the bride sighed.
Betty walked out of the room to see Ignacio waiting for her. There were tears in his eyes as he took his younger daughter's arm. "I'm so proud of you," he told her.
"I'm going to marry Daniel Meade," she told him. "And I was hired to not sleep with him."
Her father laughed and a tear rolled down Betty's cheek. As Pachelbel's Canon in D started playing, he squeezed his daughter's hand. "Are you ready?"
She nodded as she looked down the aisle and saw Daniel waiting for her at the end. He was smiling eagerly and his blue eyes were brighter than ever. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."
With that they stepped into the church and Betty began her last walk as Betty Suarez. She was about to become Betty Suarez-Meade. Oh sure she'd been living with Daniel for the past two years but now she was agreeing to "until death do us part." They were getting married and they were going to make this marriage last forever. Her engagement ring and both of their wedding rings, she had learned, were made from Bradford's wedding ring and Claire's wedding and engagement rings. "My parents' marriage failed and I want this ring to symbolize the fact that ours will not," Daniel had told her. "As corny as it sounds, our live is like this circle; it will not end."
When Ignacio handed Betty over to Daniel, he shook his hand and said, "She's your responsibility. Love her and protect her more than anything else in the world."
Daniel had nodded seriously. "I'll protect her with my life."
Betty and Daniel had decided to get married in a Catholic church out of respect for their families. As Daniel began reciting his vows, Betty started crying. He was promising his life to her. And she was making the same promise, the same offering of self. Love really was the greatest thing in the world. It really did conquer all. It had brought Betty from the Bronx together with Daniel "Born with a Silver Spoon in His Mouth" Meade together. The humble secretary and the poor little rich boy had fallen in love and had saved each other from themselves. And now they were getting married. Daniel squeezed her hand as he saw tears on her cheeks. And she managed to make it through the rest of the wedding without completely losing it.
28.
"We're married," Daniel said as they sat in the limo after the wedding on their way to the reception.
Betty smiled and leaned against his chest. "I'm Mrs. Daniel Meade."
"Isn't it an amazing name?"
"I love you, Daniel."
He kissed the top of her head. "I love you, Ms. Suarez-Meade."
"Mrs. Meade," she replied. "I'm only using Suarez-Meade in my professional life."
"I love you, Mrs. Betty Meade."
"That sounds wonderful."
"I'm so glad I married you," he said. "You're really the best thing that's ever happened to me. I don't know how I ever lived without you."
She smiled up at him. "You really are a wonderful man."
"I still think you're a better person that me."
Betty sighed. "Daniel, you have one weird ego. You might be one of the most conceited men I know but you think that I'm a better person than you are."
29.
For their honeymoon, the newlyweds went to Italy for two weeks. Daniel had visited so many big cities in Europe on Mode business but he had only really ever seen the parts of these cities directly related to the fashion industry. Betty had once been offered the chance to Rome and turned it down and therefore wanted to see that famous city. And she, like Daniel, had seen Milan and Paris and Madrid for fashion shows. But she wanted to see the real parts of these cities, not just the parts that were accentuated during fashion shows or for tourists. She wanted to go to Rome and do everything that Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck had done in Roman Holiday. Daniel wanted to spend time with his new wife and find an adventure with her. "I want to see the world," Betty told her husband as they were flying across the Atlantic.
"Well, I'm going to show you Italy," he replied. "Does that help?"
She smiled and leaned against his chest. "It's a good beginning. Rome, Venice, Verona, Milan, Florence," she sighed. "It all sounds so glamorous and beautiful. You know most girls want to marry rich men. I never wanted that but I'm glad I got it."
Daniel laughed. "So you did marry me for my money."
"And your amazing body," she added. "Don't forget that; I'm a fan of your body."
He shook his head. "You are ridiculous, Betty Suarez-Meade. I'm just glad I somehow got you to marry me. Now I can keep you forever and love you and protect you and take care of you. It's going to be an amazing life."
30.
Betty and Daniel had two amazing and perfect weeks in Italy. They saw museums, churches, parks, hotels, and restaurants. They spent time together and just enjoyed being together. Betty even convinced Daniel to take three days to go to Southern France. "We're in Europe," she told him. "Let's see it. I know we planned on just Italy but I want to see France; I've only ever seen Paris when we go there for fashion shows and other work business."
"My parents used to have a house in the south of France," he told her.
"Then what happened?"
He shrugged. "When I was about nine or ten, they sold it. They never really explained why. They were probably having money issues or something. I know that's why Mode is in my mom's name rather than my dad's."
"But we could stay at a hotel or a resort. You're a Meade."
"Oh, now you want to use the family name to get places. You're turning into a fancy spoiled brat, Mrs. Meade."
"No, I just want to go to France; and if all else fails, we can use the family name."
He laughed and kissed his wife. "We'll go to France and drink wine and have a wildly beautiful time."
31.
"Do you realize that I'm old enough to be my half-sister's father," Daniel announced walking into his wife's office one day a few months after their wedding.
"You've known that since she was born; you were in your thirties when she was born."
He sighed and sat down on her desk. "Yes, I know that. But it's weird when Wili brings Talia to visit and remind her that one day all of this will be hers. We need to have lots of children so she can't inherit as much."
Betty smiled at her husband. "I'll keep that in mind. But we don't have any children so we might want to get going on that."
"I'm not quite ready for children," he replied. "But soon, I promise. And then we'll have enough kids to cut Talia out of Meade Publications."
"I think you want to cut her mother out. I think you sort of like your younger sister."
He shrugged. "She's really cute and pretty sweet."
"I knew you liked her. You give her candy when she comes to visit."
"But only when Wili isn't looking," he replied with a smile. "She doesn't want her daughter to have any sweets."
"She can get over herself."
Betty smiled. "Don't say that in front of Talia. It's not something a supportive older brother would say."
"You're so bossy and particular, Mrs. Meade."
"That's my job," she replied.
"Why did I marry you?"
She grabbed his tie and pulled his face closer to hers. "Because you love me and you never want to let me go, and you know that you can't live without me."
Daniel hopped off the desk and onto his wife's lap. Then he kissed her. "You are my world," he said. "Now let's go out to lunch. I'm starving and I have a meeting at one-thirty."
"You're sitting on top of me."
He jumped up. "Now I'm not. Please stand up, Mrs. Meade."
"Only if you help me up," she told him. Daniel held out his hand and Betty took her husband's extended hand and he pulled her to her feet. Then he handed her coat to her.
"Are you ready, dear?" he asked.
She smiled. "I am. Where are you taking me?"
"Give me your hand," he said. "First we're going downstairs to get in the car and then we're going someplace with amazing food."
"All right but I have a one-fifteen meeting."
"We have an hour; we need to get going."
"Or we could just eat here in the cafeteria and go out another day," she suggested.
Daniel sighed. "But I had plans. We were going to go to Central Park for a picnic. It was going to be a romantic surprise for you."
"It looks like it's going to rain and I have a meeting in an hour. You can put the food in the fridge and we'll have the picnic another time."
"But there are so many people in the cafeteria and I just want some quiet time with my wife."
"You'll see me at home tonight."
"You'll be editing articles," he replied, sitting down in her chair. "I miss being in Italy and just spending hours on end with you. I loved that; we talked all the time. I just spent time with you and loved you and it was perfect. But now we're back at work and you're always busy and I'm busy and we don't have time for each other. We're both busy and I don't like that. I want time with my wife."
"I can't cancel this meeting today," Betty said as she took off her coat. "It's with an advertiser and you know how important those meetings are."
He nodded. "I'm not asking you to cancel this meeting. I have meetings with a couple of editors this afternoon. What I want is this; I want time with my wife. When do I get that?"
She shrugged. "I'm booked every day this week. I have lunch meetings for the rest of the week and most of the months."
"What do your weekends look like?'
Betty took out her BlackBerry and started flipping through it. "Two weeks from this Friday, I'm completely free after eleven-thirty. And then the whole weekend after that is open."
"We're going away for the weekend," he said.
"Where are we going?"
Daniel shrugged. "I'll figure it out and get back to you when I'm sure. Maybe we'll go to my mom's cottage in Martha's Vineyard."
"Daniel, it is November; that's the weekend before Thanksgiving. That will be cold."
"We could go to Florida or South Carolina," he suggested.
"But that's too far for one weekend. We'd spend too much time in transit."
Daniel stared intently at his wife's desk. "Maybe we'll just go to New Jersey or Boston."
"We just need to go somewhere with a hotel and restaurants," Betty told him. "Daniel, we could go on vacation here in the city. We just need to get away from work and spend some time together."
"Do you want to me to get us a hotel room at the Plaza?"
Betty shrugged. "Sure, now I have a meeting in about half an hour, so I'm going to run and eat before I completely miss lunch."
"I'll come with you," he told her, jumping up from her chair. "And we're going to spend a weekend together without any work or outside stress."
32.
After that, Betty and Daniel started making sure to go out on dates every few weeks. And every three or four months, they went away for the weekend. Sometimes it was just going to a hotel in New York and spending a weekend alone. Other times, they actually went someplace. Memorial Day weekend they went to Martha's Vineyard. Fourth of July weekend they both took a week off from work and they went to upstate New York. Sarah Claire Meade was born about nine months after that. And then Betty stopped working to focus more on raising her daughter. "I'll write freelance articles if editors want but I'm not going to work a job that demands forty or more hours a week when I could be raising my daughter," she told Daniel shortly before Sarah was born. "There are enough problems in your family. I don't want this baby to end up in therapy like the rest of you."
"I just don't want you to feel like you have to do this. If we wanted, we could afford nannies galore."
"I don't want my children raised by a nanny," she replied. "My mom raised her children and I'm going to raise mine."
He nodded. "If that's what you want, then that's what we'll do."
She kissed his cheek. "I want this."
Daniel put his hands on his wife's pregnant belly. "I want this baby to have the best I can give her. If you think that this is the best, then that's what we'll do."
She stroked her belly and then put her small hands on top of his. "I really think that this is best. And I know that this little girl is going to have an amazing life."
33.
When Sarah was a little over a year old, her parents started discussing the possibilities of having another child. "I'm up for it if you are," Daniel said. "I always said I wanted three children."
"I want more," Betty replied. "And I'm the one who has to be pregnant."
He laughed. "I'm the one who turned forty this year. I think we should take that into account."
"You'll be fine," she told him, kissing his ear. "You're young at heart and you'll be fine even if we have a baby when you're fifty. I'm the one who has to get up in the middle of the night and feed the kid."
"So we want to have another baby," Daniel said. "Are you sure Sarah is ready for this?"
Betty nodded. "She won't try to sell the baby the way Hilda tried to sell me."
"Hilda tried to sell you? I bet you were a good, sweet baby who was on a schedule two minutes after birth. Alexis, oh my gosh, don't ask what she tried to do with me. But that was back when she was a he and he was a violent little boy. He liked power and control. And he didn't want a younger sibling."
"Well, you're here and we're going to give Sarah a younger sibling."
34.
Little did they know that she was already pregnant with William Ignacio Meade. But it was what they wanted. They wanted another baby and they were going to have one in January. And words couldn't explain the look on Daniel's face when he found out he was going to have a son. "I'm going to be a better father to him than my father was. I know I'm trying to be a better father to Sarah yes, but I'm going to be the best father ever. Having a son is my chance to prove myself against my father's standards."
"Daniel, you're a great father. Sarah adores you. And you are a good, responsible, caring father."
He smiled and leaned his head against his wife's shoulder. "I'm just nervous about all of this. I didn't really have a good role model growing up. What are we going to do if I screw our kids up?"
Betty laughed and stroked her worried husband's head. "You're not going to screw our kids up. You have a good head on your shoulders and I'm here to pick up the pieces. I know you're worried but I worry every day. What if I screw up? That's my biggest fear. Daniel, I'm home alone with our daughter for hours every day. I used to worry about dropping her or hurting her or feeding her something that she shouldn't eat."
"How did you stop worrying?"
She shrugged. "It took time. And I still worry about her. But I talked to your mom and she reminded me that we all occasionally stick bad stuff in our mouths. She told me that the best thing I could do for Sarah was to just relax and trust my maternal instincts."
"You're an amazing mother," he told her. "I really don't know how you do it."
Betty smiled. "Daniel, Sarah is a good baby."
"Yeah, but now she's learning how to walk."
"Which is why I made you baby-proof the house," she replied.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "That was my idea. I didn't want her to fall down the stairs to the basement and split her head open."
"And I was worried about her eating dishwasher detergent or something," his wife told him. "That was why I wanted childproof locks on the cupboard doors."
"We need to childproof our cars," he said. "She's going to start playing with the handles pretty soon."
"That's simple though. You just have to flip a switch."
"Most of parenting is not that simple. I remember when Sarah was born my mom told us that parenting wasn't just flipping a switch."
"It's rewarding though," Betty replied, running her fingers through Daniel's hair. "I wouldn't trade Sarah for the world."
"What about this baby?" Daniel asked, putting his hand on her slightly swollen belly.
"He's a good baby so far. But we'll see what he's really like after he's born."
35.
"He needs a name that has character and isn't very common," Betty Meade told her husband as they looked at their newborn baby boy.
"Ignacio," he replied, stroking his son's soft brown hair.
She shook her head. "That's fine as a middle name. But think about going to kindergarten with that name."
Daniel smiled. "Okay, so we need a first name. What about William? I had a great-uncle named William and it's a good name. It's not terribly common but it's a strong name. And you can nickname it easily. There's Will, Bill, Willie, Liam, and I'm sure there are more."
His wife looked down at the baby in her arms. "What do you think, little man?" she asked him. "Do you like that name? Can you be William Ignacio Meade?"
He opened his eyes and looked up at his mother before sighing and going back to sleep again. "I think he likes it," Daniel said. "Now may I please hold my son?"
Betty handed little William over to his father. "Be gentle with him."
He rolled his eyes. "Betty, I've held a baby before."
"I know. I'm just nervous. I carried him inside of me for nine months; I'm emotionally attached to this little guy."
She watched as her husband held their son in his arms and whispered to him. "I'm going to teach you how to be a man and how to play baseball and basketball and everything you ever needed to know. And I'm going to listen to you. I'm going to let you make your own decisions when you're old enough." He brushed his lips against his son's forehead. "I love you, little guy. And I'm going to show you the world."
When she was sure that her husband wasn't looking, Betty wiped a tear from her eyes. Daniel had no idea how good of a father he really was.
36.
"Sarah, can you bring me William's blanket?" Betty asked her daughter one afternoon. She was trying to get her children ready to go spend an afternoon with their grandfather. She liked taking the kids over to Ignacio's house every now and then when he wasn't working.
"Why?"
"We're going to see Grandpa."
"Will he make pandas?" the two-year-old asked as she climbed up on the couch where her mother was dressing her little brother.
Betty smiled at her daughter's mispronunciation of empanadas. "I'm sure he will."
"Will Daddy come too?"
"Only if you get me William's blanket," Betty replied, knowing that her husband was planning on meeting them at her father's house.
Sarah jumped off the couch and ran to the rocking chair where her baby brother's blanket was resting. Just then, the front door opened and Daniel came inside. His daughter took the blanket over to her mother and then ran to her father's arms. "Daddy, I got Will yam's blankie and then you come!"
Daniel picked his daughter up and kissed her forehead. "That's my good girl. Are you being a big girl and helping Mommy?"
"We're going to eat pandas with Grandpa!"
"That sounds fun. Can I come too?"
"Ask Mamma."
"Mrs. Meade, may I please come with you and our children to your father's house to eat empanadas?" Daniel asked walking over to his waiting wife.
Betty smiled. "Of course, but what are you doing here? I thought you were just going to meet us there."
"I didn't have anything else that couldn't wait until Monday and I would rather spend time with my family than killing my eyes by staring at my computer screen."
"Well, then help me get the kids into my car and we can go eat pandas."
"I like that plan." He looked back at his daughter. "Sarah, I have something in my car that Miss Christina sent you. Should we go get it or do you want to wait until tomorrow?"
"Can we please get it now?"
"May we please, Mommy?" Daniel asked his wife. "I'll let her open it and then put her in your car."
Betty nodded. "I'll meet you out there in a few minutes."
A/N: Please review! Last night, I made a list and came up with at least like 16 more episodes I could do. And I can always use more ideas.
