Alex Suarez

Author's Note: Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last chapter. I just want to confirm that Wilhelmina did not know Nico was in the room until she started coughing in the last chapter. So, anything she said before that point was not said merely for the purpose of manipulating Nico.

Also, thank you to everybody who accurately guessed who Nico called. Your names will be at the end of the chapter. However, start reading to find the answer.

Chapter 27: You Can't Choose Your Family; You Can Only Choose to Love Them Unconditionally.

Alexis wondered how bad the situation was when Daniel's assistant, Nico, called her and asked her to pick up DJ and Justin from school. According to the text message, she just received from her boyfriend, Jamie predicted that police were involved. Alexis believed it's mostly because Jordan was on assignment in the Midwest somewhere and Jamie was trying not to strangle the head of Atlantic Apparel,who doesn't like the fact he has a 'friend' who just happens to be transgender.

Considering, she hasn't seen Baby Alex since the funeral, Alexis was pretty sure she lost her babysitting privileges. Okay, she was pretty sure she lost all babysitting privileges after Betty cursed her out and told her that she would never trust her with Alex again. According to Jamie, Alex had been at daycare ever since, even though Alex does not like it and spends most of his time with his Daddy Daniel or Grandma Faye. In the light of that, Alexis was shocked that Daniel put her on the list of people who could pick DJ up from school.

She and Daniel have yet to sit down and talk about DJ, without lawyers present and she wasn't expecting this at all. Honestly, she has spoken with her brother, maybe three or four times in the last month and two of those times involved lawyers and trying to figure out how the sign away the parental rights of somebody who was legally dead. Daniel's lawyers hated her right now and Alexis is certain Daniel was of the same mind. The fact that Daniel trusted her to pick up DJ in an emergency gave Alexis hope that maybe someday, he will forgive her for what happened.

Alexis was equally surprised that she was still on the list of people who could pick up Justin from school. Last school year, because she was Alex's main babysitter she picked up Justin a lot from his ultra-posh junior high, when his mother or Faye were too busy. He liked to help her with the graphics for her website and blog. She also put in a special appearance when close minded classmates called him a certain F word because Justin prefers fashion week to football. It was her mission to make sure that Justin did not have to struggle the way she did.

However, Alexis has not spoken to Hilda since her father's funeral and honestly, she was convinced that Betty managed to turn the whole family against her. But according to Nico, she was on the list for both and there weren't any other options. She was also less than ten blocks away and would not even need to take the subway.

DJ didn't even look at her when she walked into the classroom, which Alexis was completely expecting. Alexis had only spoken with her son/nephew twice since the young boy found out the unfortunate truth from Faye's big mouth daughter, and even then it was only for a mere minute or two. Daniel said that he wasn't ready to spend time with her and Alexis wasn't going to push the issue.

On the other hand, Justin hugged her, once they managed to convince the teacher in charge that she was DJ's Aunt Alexis and Justin's designated babysitter. It took a while, and Alexis would not be shocked if there's a big article on page 6 tomorrow about her being Bradford Meade's secret illegitimate daughter.

She's still not sure what to think of the fact that Bradford created a cover story that allowed her to keep up her identity as Alexis Summers and yet still allowed her to take her place as a Meade. Considering all the hateful things he said to her, she doesn't understand why he did this. Unfortunately, she never will, because he is not around to ask.

"I thought Uncle Daniel was coming to get us?" Justin asked as they waited for one of the Meade town cars to pick them up from outside the school. She rolled her eyes at the fact that Justin referred to Daniel as his uncle.

"According to Nico, her mom told the entire office that Alex was his kid and now they're talking it out." Alexis explained in an effort to be honest with DJ and Justin. Her 'nephew' was never going to trust her, if all she did was lie to him. Thankfully, the car arrived just at that moment, and they were too busy getting inside the car to ask too many questions.

"So that means we have time for ice cream? I don't think we want to arrive at MODE until they're done screaming at each other." Justin suggested.

"You don't eat ice cream." Alexis quipped, but maybe Justin had a point. When she was growing up Alexis hated to watch her mom and dad fight with each other. The fight before her mom stint in South Dakota rehab was the worst. And yes, she knew about the Cal Hartley indiscretion back then, but like everyone else, she had no clue whatsoever about Tyler.

"Yes, but I think DJ may need junk food." Justin whispered in her ear as he sat next to her considering that Justin was probably one of DJ's few friends at school, he probably knew everything.

"We can do ice cream." She said getting in the car.

XxxxXxxxXxxxXxxxX

Twenty minutes later in ridiculous New York City traffic, they arrived outside the ice cream place two blocks away from the MODE offices. This was her favorite place because all the ice cream was made in-house. Alexis had loved this place as a kid. She remembered Bradford taking her there after a horrible day in the office. She would always ordered the mint chocolate chip and he would get strawberry and Alexis would always take a spoon of his ice cream. It felt weird being here without Bradford. This was their place.

She sat down with her waffle cone trying not to think of the last time she was here with him. It was three years ago, when he was once again trying to convince her to marry Jordan and give him many grandchildren. Now it was more likely that Jordan would marry Jamie and Bradford already had a grandchild by her that he neglected to tell Alexis about.

DJ reluctantly sat down next to her as Justin was still searching for something that would not completely wreck his diet. DJ was eating a cone of the mint chocolate chip. The whole thing was surreal.

"So you like mint chocolate chip too? Alexis asked trying to find something to say to DJ. She wished that Justin would pick something and then come to the table because this was going to get awkward quickly.

"So you're my—"DJ trailed off not knowing what to say and Alexis can't blame him. She's been reading a lot of advice books for transgender parents, but this particular situation wasn't covered.

"Whatever you want me to be, but Aunt Alexis is my preference. Daniel is your father." Alexis echoed her words from that email she sent Daniel weeks ago.

"Because you didn't want to be my father?" DJ asked with tears practically shining in his eyes.

"It's not about that DJ," Alexis explained with a shaky breath. "It's not that I didn't want to be your father. It's that I didn't want to be Alex Meade. I never felt right in that body. I just felt like every time I looked in the mirror the person staring back at me was wrong. Being Alex was killing me and I couldn't take it anymore." She tried to explain, but she's not sure if this is something an almost 12-year-old can understand. Most adults have difficulties with it.

"So you pretended to die to become Alexis?" DJ asked.

"That's one way to put it," Alexis sighed. "I didn't know about you until afterwards. At that point, I felt it was better for everybody involved that Daniel became your adoptive father."

"Why? Because you didn't care about me?" DJ asked her in a broken voice.

"No, it was because I do care about you." DJ just gave her this look as if he did not believe a single word that she said.

"It was better that way. I'm not sure what the French courts would think of somebody who preferred faking her death then dealing with everything. Daniel was a better option and I wasn't willing to risk the French courts giving you to your grandparents. I care about you too much to let that happen." Alexis told him with tears in her eyes.

"They don't care about me." DJ made eye contact with his ice cream. "Father loves me."

"Of course he does. Daniel has always had such a big heart." Alexis told him with a sad smile.

"Yes he does." DJ still would not look at her as he spoke.

"I, on the other hand, am way too much like Bradford. Daniel is better for you. He is your real dad and I'm not going to take that away from you. DNA doesn't matter. If you want me to be your Aunt Alexis I will be. If I'm just your father's flaky sister that you occasionally have to deal with on family holidays, then that's what I will be. If you want me to be that woman who is dating her dad's friends, I will be. If you never want to see me again, then that's okay too." She closed her eyes as she spoke those words, hoping that DJ would not feel that way.

"I don't know what I want, except I don't want the last option." She smiled just a little bit at his words.

"I guess that's progress." Alexis said just as Justin sat down at the table with a scoop of reduced sugar chocolate sorbet. For the moment, Alexis was being ignored, which gave her time to send an SOS text message to her boyfriend.

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Thanks to a certain text message he just received from Jamie, Daniel pushed Alex's stroller as fast as possible to the ice cream parlor that he spent a good portion of his childhood at. Seriously, what was Nico thinking when she asked Alexis to pick up DJ and Justin? He was just thankful that Jamie sent him a text message about it.

He was expecting screaming, crying and the throwing of food when he arrived. When DJ was upset he had a tendency to lash out and anybody in the vicinity suffered the fallout. Instead, he walked in on the scene of his sister and son talking about his classes this semester as Justin sat there checking his phone for the latest entertainment news.

"I'm surprised you're here. I didn't think Nico was that desperate." Daniel took a seat next to his sister. However, Baby Alex was already reaching out for her. It was at that moment that Daniel realized that his youngest son was much more familiar with his sister than him. It made sense because Alex had spent so much time with Alexis.

"You were the one who put Aunt Alexis on the list of people who could pick me up from school." DJ said indifferently. Oddly enough, it was Hilda that convinced him to put Alexis on the list in case of an emergency. However, he wasn't expecting a last-minute deep and painful conversation to be classified as an actual emergency. Although the fight between Megan and fellow editor Divine that occurred immediately after may have. An actual desk was destroyed.

"Also, she got us ice cream." DJ said as he took the final bite of his cone.

"Well, you can never go wrong with ice cream." Daniel told his son. "Especially here. We used to go here all the time with your grandfather Bradford." Daniel explained.

"Usually, after he did something stupid," Alexis said sadly.

"When wasn't dad doing something stupid?" Daniel shot back.

"How did things go with Aunt Betty?" Justin asked after things got a little too quiet.

"I'm not having this conversation with my son's twelve-year-old cousin. So does this place have Mississippi mud pie ice cream?" Daniel said nervously. Coffee flavored ice cream was necessary at times like these.

"I don't know why you love coffee flavored ice cream so much." Alexis said shaking her head.

"Because it combines two of my favorite things together."

"Please tell me what happened. Mom needs to know in case she needs to yell at Aunt Betty for being an idiot again. Really she could've told you about baby Alex months ago." Justin told him with a sigh.

"Did everybody know that Alex was my son, but me?" Daniel asked putting his head down in his hands.

"I did not." DJ quipped.

"Technically, you did. It's fine. Justin, your aunt and I are having breakfast tomorrow to work out the specifics. Although don't mention that to your mom until tomorrow afternoon."

"Of course I won't say anything to her until later. I think you could also use some ice cream." Justin said, getting up from the seat and grabbing DJ's hand. "We will get you something with coffee in it and maybe, the vanilla ice cream or mango sorbet for Alex."

"Can Alex have ice cream now?" Daniel asked with concern, as the two boys left the table.

"Yes." Alexis answered quickly. "He's been drinking regular milk products for a couple of months now, so there's no risk of allergy. Technically, you're supposed to wait until the child is one-year-old. But this is close enough for a couple of bites."

"It's just slightly disconcerting that you know more about my son's allergy history than I do." Daniel grabbed his son back.

"I told you with lawyers present why I did what I did. I was just doing the best I could to protect DJ and Alex."

"I know. Considering what Wilhelmina most likely did to Jordan, you probably made the right call." Daniel admitted reluctantly.

"The right call would have been to tear out her still beating heart before she got her hooks into dad." Alexis mumbled under breath.

"I'm not sure that's possible because I'm not even sure she has a heart." Daniel quipped, and Alexis laughed. "On an intellectual level, I completely understand why you did what you did, but I'm still jealous. You were there for more of Alex's first year of life, than I was."

"Would it make you feel better to know that I made videos and told Alex all sorts of stories about us when we were kids?"

"Marginally, you do know that they're not going to come back for at least twenty minutes." Daniel told his sister. "I'm sure they're expecting us to talk things out."

"Probably," Alexis sighed. "I'm personally surprised they did not take Alex with them." That's when DJ came back to the table for the sole purpose of taking Alex with him. There went their buffer.

"So I saw you guys talking when I came in." Daniel said after the silent got uncomfortable.

"Yes, your son has a crush on his history teacher and about four girls. Justin, on the other hand, keeps talking about his friend Chris and his great sense of style." Alexis said with a roll of her eyes.

"Chris is a boy, right?" Alexis just gives him a weird look.

"Oh, come on Alex, I figured out you are bi or whatever by the time, I was twelve."

"I think that was because you saw me, going down on Billy or Bobby or whatever, that one time in high school."

"I figured it out before then. That was just confirmation." Daniel said with a shiver.

"I didn't even figure it out before then. Justin hasn't figured it out yet either, so just don't say anything. He'll get there when he's ready."

"I'm not going to." Daniel shook his head. "So did you and DJ talk about…?" Daniel wasn't even sure how to phrase this question. There was no very polite way to ask, 'Did you talk to my son about the fact that you're his biological father, sort of?'

"Our genetic family connection, a little," Alexis said playing with a napkin on the table. "He doesn't want me to disappear. That's more than I expected."

"I don't want you to disappear either." Daniel whispered.

"I'm not planning to." She said, taking a drink of her water. "So what is really going on with you and Betty?"

"We are going to need alcohol for that conversation. Honestly, I have no idea what's going on with us. I don't hate her, but…" Daniel trailed off, uncertain of how to articulate how he felt.

"You don't trust her." Alexis supplied for him.

"Exactly. Unfortunately, there's a lot of that going around."

"I'm sorry." Alexis actually sounded sincere.

"Let's not talk about it right now. That's another conversation that requires alcohol." Daniel groaned.

"Fair enough. It's going to take time for you to work things out with Betty. Just whatever happens, don't sleep with her yet." Daniel just rolled his eyes at that comment.

"I'm not planning on it." Alex just gave him the look.

"I'm not." Daniel told her defensively.

"What happened right before dad's funeral?" Really, Daniel should not be surprised that his sister knew about that. He told Jordan and of course, Jordan told her girlfriend.

"I was in a really bad place emotionally." Daniel defended his actions.

"Exactly. And you're still in a really bad place emotionally. You have a tendency to use sex when you're upset."

"Considering, I was celibate for most of my time in France, I resent that." Daniel told his sister, slightly annoyed. He was never that person, that everybody assumed him to be, and he was slightly upset that Alexis still saw him that way.

"That just proves your new sexual drug of choice is Betty and only Betty. I'm actually kind of proud of you." Alexis said with a broad smile.

"I really hope the kids cannot hear you right now." Daniel groaned. This is embarrassing. On the bright side, if he had any doubts that Alexis was still Alex on the inside, they were gone.

"They are twelve-year-old boys. Remember, what we were like when we were twelve?" Daniel remembered that all too well. Daniel is pretty sure he made it to second base by that age. He was 14 when he went all the way and in hindsight, he wasn't ready for it.

"I was hoping they would turn out better than us." Daniel said sadly.

"They are less spoiled than we ever were. DJ actually asked if he could have a waffle cone."

"Money was tight when Lucy was sick and she refused to use a single euro from DJ's trust account.

"I am sorry." Alexis said from out of nowhere.

"I thought we already said we were not going to have apologies until alcohol was around."

"I'm sorry for a lot of things, not just that. Actually, what I most sorry about is not trusting you." Alexis confessed.

"It's kind of the same thing. It would have been nice to know that my brother wasn't dead, she just decided to become my sister and decided to fuck with dad in the process. I blamed myself for your suicide." Daniel admitted.

"I know and am sorry for that as well, but I'm the most sorry for not trusting you with who I really was. I should have told you about being in love with Jamie and dating Jordan to make Bradford happy." Alexis told him sadly.

"I thought you loved her as well?" Daniel asked confused.

"I did, I still do. Otherwise, I think she would have left me a long time ago. But in the beginning I chose her because she was the type of woman dad wanted me to marry and have kids with. I'm sorry I didn't tell you this. Back then, I just…" Daniel cut her off.

"You thought that when I found out I would act like dad? You know I'm nothing like that."

"I know that now." Alexis sighed again. "I was just letting my fears and Wilhelmina screw with my head. I did miss you. I do miss you. I do love you, even when you're being an asshole."

"I think that applies more to you but I feel the same way. Daniel said squeezing his sister's hand. "Should we tell them it safe to bring the ice cream now? I'm going to have to go back to the office at some point to face Wilhelmina the Dragon. I hate the week before Fashion Week."

"Poor baby," Alexis said with a mock pout. "They should probably bring you a double. Oh look, there they are and apparently your son knows that you prefer ice cream with rainbow sprinkles." Daniel couldn't help but grin when Alexis referred to DJ as his son. It felt good.

"Shut up Alex." He threw a napkin at her.

"You know you're the only one who can get away with calling me that." Alexis pouted.

"I know." Daniel smirked at her. Maybe, things were not perfect with him and Alexis but they were getting better. And if he can get here with Alexis, figuring out everything with Betty should be easy, right?

To Be Continued

I need to apologize to everybody looking forward to the Betty and Daniel conversation. Alexis and Daniel took over this chapter, but it needed to happen. This is just as much an Alexis and Daniel story as it is a Betty and Daniel story.

The plan is for Betty & Daniel fluff in the next chapter. I'm also now taking guesses on how long Daniel and Betty will go without having sex. Right now where in early September. I'm tempted to make a poll.

The people who guessed that Alexis was the designated person to pick up Justin and DJ are as follow: SlytherinQueen020, summer121, ninarj, msmhawkins, and fraserschick.