A/N: So, I'm going back to Ye Old University and will resume the task of being an English major, writing stuff less fun than B/D fanfic. I'm seriously overwhelmed and extremely thankful to each and every person who reviewed my monstrosities. Thanks and bear hugs (even some kisses) all around :D I will be completing my other fics and starting some new ones, but it's time to wrap this particular fic up. So without further ado…
Lounging propped up on pillows in Daniel's bed, Betty decided, was the place to recuperate if one had to get capped on the e-train, what with the Egyptian cotton sheets and the plasma TV and one very sweet, hunky, silk boxers-clad boyfriend.
She was a very happy Betty Suarez.
Granted, the loft had been like Grand Central Station for most of the day, with friends and family (both Daniel's and hers and those of the mutual variety) trouping in. Her father, naturally, had brought enough authentic Mexican cuisine to feed a third world country. When she had shot him an exasperated yet adoring look, he'd huffed, "It was a crisis, I cooked!" Justin had crawled on the bed, nuzzled against her, and had fallen asleep for a while like the little boy he had never really been.
A few visitors were unexpected. Becks had helpfully and earnestly put his dubious knowledge of gunshot wounds ("MAN, I was shot in the ASS on safari once") to good use by trying to calculate the exact number of healing days left until Betty and Daniel could resume having sex.
Even Amanda and Marc had deigned to make an appearance, telling her it was sort of okay that she didn't, you know, die, but this didn't mean they liked her or anything. Um.
Daniel himself had been almost literally wrapped around her ever since she'd been released from Pine Crest Memorial and, if her friends, family, and the entire hospital staff's reports were to be believed, way before then.
In fact, Daniel had said very little that day, packing a look that was both fervently adoring and kind of frightening and a quiet, flinty, forceful refusal to let her get more than three feet away from him. Betty'd thought they were going to have an issue on their hands of the "Somebody call security!" variety when the doctor had taken her back for a final examination and fresh bandaging of the wound. The poor, hapless doc had said "Family only," apparently new to the way things worked around an injured Betty, and for Daniel, them was fightin' words.
Needless to say, not only did Daniel accompany Betty into examining room 202, but she was practically on his lap the whole time, his chin resting on the top of her head, her two small olive-complexioned hands fitting into one of his.
Now, both of them in bed and bathed in the flicker of the TV, he was silent, almost eerily so, one hand under her hip cradling her little frame to him; the other hand was gripping the headboard, the knuckles turning progressively whiter even as Pat Sajak instructed the contestant to spin the wheel in the background.
Betty sensed that, for all his loving gentleness, something was deeply wrong with him. She'd seen Daniel through endless drama—his dead brother Alex emerging as the tragically beautiful, vindictive, brilliant Alexis and the rise to power of same, Claire's arrest, escape, and arrest again, Bradford's death, his own various addictions.
But never had Betty felt in her bones the unrest in Daniel Meade as she did now, like his soul had been ripped out, haphazardly stuffed back in the gaping hole, and duct taped shut.
He finally kissed her shoulder and left the bed, paced around like a thwarted jaguar for a few seconds, then finally came to rest his forehead on the door frame leading to the bathroom.
Looking back on it, Betty guessed her mistake was trying humor, which always worked like a charm on Broody!Daniel before. She suspected that he had always found her to be the single most amusing thing on the planet, next to a Slinky and a beer bong. At first, the sheer novelty of her was probably what did it, in a business where no one smiled, much less laughed, due to its wrinkle-making potential. He'd almost done a spit-take with his coffee the other day when she'd informed him that he could run a fashion magazine better than Gandhi but not Jesus. She was sure he got his own dry sense of humor and appreciation of same from Claire—Bradford hadn't exactly seemed like the family crack-up.
"So I was thinking," she tentatively started, "maybe I can get them to put the bullet back in, only not have it, you know, a millimeter away from my heart. Fifty Cent has at least nine bullets in his teeth alone, for Pete's sake, the least mine could do is earn me some street cred around Queens. Suck that, Gina Gambaro," she chirped.
And…crickets.
"Or, I could make it into a Pet Bullet. Instead of a pet rock, get it? It could have its own terrarium. Hell, it's already cost me more than any real pet ever could…"
"Stop it." The words were barely audible, so raspy and thin were their quality.
"I'm just making lemonade here, Daniel," she said in her best reasonable tone. "I'm fine now, really," she asserted sweetly. She painstakingly stood to go to him, one hand wrapped around the bedpost for support.
Daniel gave her a stink-eye that would've been funny had it not been so desperate, fearful, angry, loving.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Here we go…
"Showing you how not-dead I am."
Daniel let loose, finally. Betty was relieved. They both needed this. "No, you're not dead, no fucking thanks to the rat-bastards who did this to you! They won't get away with it, I don't care who I have to bribe, threaten or choke out, and get back in the goddamned bed before you fall and…" He was shaking and yelling and, Jesus, she'd never seen her normally sweet, passive, goofy, devil-may-care love like this before. She needed to get closer to him, but she was weakening, standing there, her bare feet feeling cold and clammy on the floor.
"You'll do no such thing…" she managed, her face ashen, finally sitting on the bed untidily. She held out her arms. "Come here, baby."
He moved like a sleepwalker and they melded together with a groan from Daniel. "Nobody breaks the woman I love, nobody. Betty, I love you so much I can't breathe most of the time and I need to protect you, always, so I can keep on living, too…"
"Shhh…" Betty murmured, stroking his deep brunette locks. "Daniel, as long as there is breath in my body, heck, even if there isn't, depending on how fast I can get back to haunt you, we will never be apart. Never, ever. You're stuck with my annoyingly perky butt. Deal with it."
Having exhausted most of her energy on her thoroughly exhausting, thoroughly worshipped guy, Betty lay back onto the pillows with a sigh.
Concerned, Daniel propped himself up on one elbow and gazed down at her, his expression inscrutable. He placed a finger under her chin and she opened her eyes, all the more inky dark for the lack-of-sunlight induced paleness of her skin.
"Marry me."
"Okay, if you want me to recover sometime within the next decade, stop slinging phrases like that around." Betty was unconsciously stalling for time with banter, giving him an opportunity to retract his obviously stress-induced proposal of matrimony, trying to ignore her heart, which with every hammering contraction screamed Dear God, YES.
She closed her eyes and opened them, and there he still was, the Daniel-Smirk blessedly back in place for the first time since she'd awoken. Damn his smug hide, she thought lovingly.
"Will I marry you someday when we're both remotely ready for it? Yes, Daniel Meade. I'll be yours, don't worry."
"Oh, you're already mine," Daniel said haughtily with a wave of his hand, his aristocratic features running over her delicious curves. "I just want to officially bind you to me…" He kissed her eyelids. "All nice and legal…" He proceeded by trailing kisses down her chin, neck, chest, stomach. Despite the mischievous glint in his eyes, Betty knew he was as sure of his assertion as the sun rising and setting.
Betty smiled, trying to contain her breathless trembling. She held out her hand with an adorably grave expression. "So it's settled then."
Daniel laughed and sat back up on his knees, clapped his hand to hers, and they shook on it. He placed a kiss in the center of her palm afterwards, his eyes downcast, like they always did when he was thinking. Betty prepared herself for one of his unexpectedly wise Daniel-isms that would emerge with the intensity of a supernova and recede just as quickly, leaving one stunned and gaping and half-blinded.
He spoke finally, his voice low and gruff and all-together serious. "So how long did Becks say that we had to wait to have sex?"
Betty snorted. So much for the deep n' wise theory. "Like you didn't go log it into your Blackberry when you thought I wasn't looking."
They both watched the digital clock click to midnight.
Betty sighed and handed him the Blackberry. Daniel grinned and marked off a day.
One down…
So the last part was all goofy and sappy and angsty. As always, reviews are adored and read and reread because they make me squee. Hope you all enjoyed this thingamabob! You're all amazing, once again, for taking the time to review, so here's a big, resounding THANK YOU!!! Over and out.
