A complete crush.
A/N: This fic ignores all episodes that come after Burning Questions.
Disclaimer: Come on. Do I really need one? Oh fine, none of the characters/ familiar storylines are mine.
Thanks so much to those who reviewed! It is really, really encouraging. :)
"Daniel!"
"Huh?"
Betty gave him one of her looks, the one that said you look weird. "Nothing. Except you've fallen asleep at work again."
He sighed and messed his hair up. Maybe he could have an early night today, go home early and...do something. Well, he was dateless for sure, Renee being...he wasn't sure whether he really cared about her. He probably had, because it was love. She had actually been nice, and if it wasn't for her illness...
But if it was love he felt for Renee, what was this emotion that threatened to declare itself when he was with Betty?
Just a crush?
He laughed to himself.
"Er...Daniel," Betty said again.
"Oh, sorry," he said. "Um. Well. Continue."
She looked at him carefully before speaking. "I wasn't saying anything."
He felt stupid. "Right."
He held her chocolatey gaze for a while, mouth falling open unconsciously, which caused genuine concern to enter those dark brown depths. He broke eye contact quickly.
"Are you okay, Daniel?" Betty asked, sitting down on one of his couches.
"Not really," he said. "Just kind of...a bit below average..." He gave one of his I don't know shrugs, bringing his shoulders up and in.
"You must be exhausted," she said, rising and walking about his office. "And really...disappointed. You could really use some rest, you know."
He hmmed noncomittally.
"You know what? You should rest," Betty said. "In fact, good thing I didn't have the blinds taken out."
She began to draw the blinds again, and Daniel felt rather tense, but this time he merely lay back on the couch. God, he was exhausted. And besides, there wasn't a chance of Betty liking him. There was no hope, at all...
"Daniel?"
Her voice penetrated his dream world like that of an angel...
"Daniel!"
An angel with a very angry face, that was.
"You look..."
He stared groggily up at her from his position on the couch. He looked...? Beautiful? Handsome? Good enough to be her boyfriend? He smiled hopefully.
"...really strange," Betty finished. "I guess I'll just leave you." She left his office and shut the door.
Daniel groaned and shut his eyes. Never, never, ever, would she ever - this was terrible. He would have to say something. And for the first time, he, Daniel Meade, shameless flirt, was scared to tell someone that he loved them.
Although wait...he hadn't exactly told anyone that he loved them, really. So it was different.
He dozed off into an unpleasant dream, in which he declared his passionate love for Betty and she laughed and said, You? Daniel Meade? Ha, ha, ha! I would NEVER love you! and he cried by himself in his burnt-down apartment, which in his dream he still lived in, eating out of a tin for supper -
"Daaaannnniiieel," Betty said, in a bored voice. She shook him by the shoulder. "Time to go home."
"What?" He sat up, looking about wildly, and indeed his office was shaded with the dark dusk of 6 p.m. "My God, Betty, you just let me sleep?"
"Yeah, well, you looked so peaceful I could hardly interrupt," she said, smiling.
He snorted. Him. Peaceful. With his tin of peas in that scarred, peeling apartment.
Betty
It was true. He looked peaceful, but if you looked closely, like me, you could see that melancholy. I hate how life is always so screwed up for him. How come he never gets the right girl? It's ironic, really. I'm supposed to be the ugly one, and I have two guys who could possibly be interested in me; Henry, and Gio. And Daniel - he's the handsome, rich, successful one - and the one girl he's met recently who could have been The One is mentally ill.
Sometimes I wonder if I should invite him home to dinner. It can't be very pleasant, dining by yourself. In fact, why shouldn't I start...tonight?
"Daniel, do you want to have dinner with me?"
His head snapped around to stare at her, hard. "What?"
Betty laughed and shook her head, realising what that must have sounded like. "Whoops, sorry, that came out wrong. I meant, dyou want to come home and, you know, eat with my family?"
Daniel's heart sank back down to rest in its little old tin, but he considered and it was really a very nice offer. So it wasn't a date she'd been talking about, but...he was lonely...
"Won't it be inc-"
"Nonsense," Betty said, knowing what he would have said. She smiled at him.
"I would be delighted," Daniel said, sitting up straight on the lounger.
Betty
His eyes shine such a pretty blue when he's happy. Oh, God, did I just think that?
Well, it's true.