A Detty fic

By loboscuro.

She woke slowly, the shade-slotted light filtering red through her eyelids. Opening her eyes, looking around her, everything was vaguely warm and familiar yet foreign at the same time. The bright wall of yellows, oranges and reds, the carpet, the couch and the TV –

There was a warmth around her, an extremely comfortable one, and she sighed contentedly and snuggled into the embrace, still lost in that dreamy half-woken consciousness.

Then she opened her eyes, and turned onto her back to stare up at the ceiling.

A very unfamiliar ceiling.

Suddenly, she froze, not daring to move the slightest bit – whose was that arm around her? This was not Henry's apartment. She could feel his – whoever it was – breath on the side of her face, her neck, soft and heated.

Slowly, slowly, she turned her head to the side.

Oh.

Daniel was sleeping still, eyes shut, the same familiar napping expression over his features.

Betty became acutely conscious of his arm around her, and suddenly the warmth was a scorching heat, and she swallowed.

"Oh," she said, her voice cracking in the dry whisper.

She sat up, shifting his arm as she moved, and he stirred; she stopped moving abruptly, frozen in a painful half-sitting position. But it was too late; Daniel's blue eyes met hers hazily.

"Betty," he said, huskily. He reached up to her uncoordinatedly, touching her shoulder.

She recoiled slightly from his reach, and since he was awake already anyway she slipped quickly out of the bed, standing on the cool floorboards and staring at Daniel.

He moved quickly, strange for somebody so drowsy, slipping off his side of the bed and coming towards her slightly. He stopped a couple of steps away. She felt a sharp sweet relief at seeing his attire, a full set of pajamas.

It only occurred to her now to wonder what she was wearing, and turning, she caught her reflection in a conveniently placed full-length mirror. She wore the clothes she faintly remembered wearing yesterday, except minus her blue coat and purple vest. Well, obviously she wouldn't want to sleep in those…she wriggled her bare toes on the floor.

"Good morning," Daniel said, approaching a few more steps, encouraged by her much clearer and happier expression.

"How…?"

Betty was beginning to remember. Wandering around lost in her thoughts after leaving the house, telling Hilda she was putting out the garbage. The pain of Henry's departure still caught somewhere between her heart and her eyes, making her throat ache. But she couldn't cry, not yet, because she hadn't yet accepted that he really was gone for good.

For some reason she didn't want to go back into her house, and started walking. Just walking, seeking comfort at some distant place in her mind, a place that exuded warmth and help. But where was this place she imagined?

She'd looked up and there it was, Daniel's apartment building. He would understand. How many times had he, wandering the night, turned up at her house?

Somebody was knocking at his door. Daniel frowned; he hadn't invited anybody over tonight. Exhausted, he'd decided to heed Betty's half-hearted advice to get some more sleep. Half-hearted because of Henry, no doubt. Daniel felt an angry twist of emotion. Why hadn't he gotten rid of that man?

He strode through the living room to the door, seeing as he drew closer the blurred light blue form through the translucent part of his door. He smiled. Only one person he knew had a coat like that.

"Betty." He stepped aside to let her in. "Are you okay?"

"Hi, Daniel." She turned to him as he shut the door. "Can I just…"

"Of course," Daniel said. He followed her onto the couch, she knowing the way because of the countless times she'd had to deliver something here, or just felt the need to freshen things up. Like when he'd been in Rio.

So Betty was in her Rio right now.

They talked through it all, and when they finally broke their attention from each other, the clock read 2 a.m.

"Oh God," Betty said. "I really have to go now –"

"No, you mustn't," Daniel said, firmly, taking her wrist as she stood up from the couch. "It's far too late. Stay here, Betty."

"No, I've been out later before," Betty said, and they both remembered their all-night 'business dinner,' smiling at the memory.

"But you don't have to go back there," Daniel said. "Sometimes your family can make you regret so many things; just stay."

True. Whenever Betty saw Hilda's pitying face, Justin offering her another cup of chamomile, Papi trying to tempt her out of her dry (for now) misery with her favourite foods, it drove the pain closer to her heart rather than her eyes where it could get out.

"Good," Daniel said, and Betty had to smile at his expression.

"Here's the bedroom," Daniel said, courteously, directing the way with an arm. Betty rolled her eyes. "I know, I've been here before, remember?"

"Fine." Daniel said, almost sulkily. "There goes my chance of being a perfect host."

Betty laughed.

"Okay, good night," Daniel said. "Wait - do you want to change?"

Betty hesitated. There was something that would be strangely intimate if she were to accept his offer and wear his clothes. "Thanks, but I'm fine."

They held eye contact for a while, and her heart gave a strange sideways lurch at the expression in those baby blues.

He looked away. "Okay."

The tears he heard a while later. It wasn't loud sobbing, nothing like it, but he could hear the unevenly drawn breaths. It tore little strands of his heart to hear the sadness of his dearest friend.

Daniel knocked softly on the door and stepped just within the bedroom, not wanting to intrude upon her privacy. "Betty," he said, his voice low.

She bit her lip, swept her gaze over him once, but did not make eye contact.

He walked slowly to the bed and sat down on the edge.

When she did meet his eyes, he was struck by such a sense of vulnerability he had not seen in his bright assistant before, and again he felt a sharp anger at Henry, the man who had caused this.

Daniel reached, and she came; a hug, comfort, and the warmth of feeling loved.

Outside, the night was still.

Betty looked at the pajama-clad Daniel, and saw in his eyes a flicker of the same expression she remembered from last night. Again the same lurch of her heart, but he didn't look away, and neither did she.

She must be imagining it.

But she knew the same expression must have been in her eyes the other night too, or why else had Daniel looked away?

She smiled, trying to joke. "So we didn't."

Daniel seemed to have trouble conjuring a smile. "We didn't...?"

Betty rolled her eyes, looking away now from his eyes in which the expression had not faded but instead had intensified. The piercing blueness followed her face. "You don't need me to say it, Daniel."

"No really," Daniel said, and Betty looked at him again. A swift change in his tone, levity, playfulness but with a strange twist of seriousness...that expression again. "We didn't...do what..." He was approaching her.

She didn't move, but she didn't feel stuck, either, and she had to admit afterwards it was probably because she didn't want to move.

He was so close, so close, and she only had to close a small gap, her heart wondering just briefly where on earth Henry had gone.

Their lips touched, the wings of butterflies brushing, coming apart, touching again. The tiniest of gaps between their mouths, Betty whispered, "This?"

His hands rose to her face and he kissed her, less lightly than before. She felt his tongue trace the seam of her lips.

She stepped back. "Ah."

She smiled, and reached, and it was reflected in him.