Disclaimer: I don't own Daniel or Betty

He's had a bit too much to drink. Daniel Meade. Her boss, and of the late, her friend. Staggering into his apartment, Daniel leaned on Betty, and nearly toppled over her petite frame.

"Daniel," Betty said, as she caught her breath. "Come on, just a few steps more into your bedroom."

He never made it there. Instead, he collapsed onto his living room sofa.

"Well, it's as good a place as ever," said his assistant, releasing a loud sigh. "What possessed you to have drunk so much? I couldn't believe it when the bartender had called me to come and get you. Sorry, ma'am, he told me. Just because my phone number is listed in your cell phone several hundred times on the call log, does not give him the right to have called me. Who does he think I am to you?" Betty glanced at her drunken boss. "Never mind. Who else could the bartender have called? Who else would have come down in the middle of the night in your time of need? Me, that's who. No one else."

She pushed him slightly, and sat down beside him, and had begun to unbutton his shirt. "No," he said, pulling on to his shirt tightly.

"Daniel, you wreak of liquor! Let's get your shirt off."

"No," he replied, sounding like a child.

She walked into his bedroom and out again with a fresh tee-shirt. "Oh, I forgot".

"Okay, Daniel, here we go," she called out from the bathroom. "Well, thank you," she said, when she found him sprawled shirtless.

"It's cold!" He grumbled, as Betty ran a cold wash cloth over his face and bare chest. "I'm not a child! I don't need a babysitter." He crumbled, but, allowed her to tend to him.

"There," she said. "Don't you feel much better, now?"

"Um, better. Better."

"Okay, lift your head up, help me, Daniel. You'll catch your death of cold. Let's just put this on now."

"You worry too much about me, Betty," he said with his eyes closed. "You take good care of me. Not even my mother would have taken care...taken care...of you...of me...the way I do...no, the way you do," he slurred. "Sorry, not making sense right now."

"It's understandable, Mr. Meade! You're drunk," she exclaimed.

He gazed at her with his blood shot eyes. "You're not like my many other assistants...you...you care about me. You're a good girl, Betty. It's a blunder...I mean, a wonder, you stick by me. Anyone...anyone...I feel sick."

"Shhh," Betty stroked his forehead. "Just go to sleep, Daniel. I can't say you'll feel better in the morning, I know you won't, you'll have a mean hangover, but, keep quiet now and just go to sleep."

"I know you, Betty. If I were blind I'd know you. I'm always dream...dream...dreaming of you even when I'm...ah...awake."

"What?" Her eyes glistened.

"Promise you'll be...there...here...in the morning."

"Oh, Daniel, it's not like you've never been drunk before. You don't need me here."

Reaching out for her hand, he squeezed it tightly, and brought it to his chest, as if it was possessively his. "Promise? Promise, Betty?"

"I-I promise," she stuttered, although she hadn't taken a drink at all.

A smile claimed Daniel's face from ear to ear. "Te amo, Betty. Te amo."

TBC - Chapter 2