„All by myself"

A (slightly alternative universe) C.C. fanfiction by moun-chan

Disclaimer: The characters and (some of these) situations of the television program "The Nanny" are not my creations nor property. No copyright infringement is intended. It's just some fanfiction.

Part 1 – The past

She'd always been alone.

In her childhood, her parents hadn't been there for her. So she'd become distant to them and to all others.

She'd been the only one in her form who hadn't got a best friend and many other friends to play with. There'd been a little girl she liked, but this girl never wanted to be with her.

She'd closed herself even more because this loneliness had hurt her a lot. In course of time she'd become mean. She had started to tease other children, she hadn't known why. A way of letting out frustrations? Maybe. However, her marks had always been good.

Her situation hadn't changed at highschool and not at college. She'd had a few dates in that time, but she never wanted anything more and the guys either. It just hadn't worked.

For a time she'd worked here and there, had her relationships, but she'd never found a guy with whom she could be longer than a few weeks or maximum two or three months.

Then she'd met Maxwell Sheffield, the musical producer and she'd joined him. Soon she'd recognised that she loved him and she'd adored him hopelessly. As his wife had died, she'd seen her chance, but Maxwell had made clear that he didn't want another woman in his life yet.

Three years after that, a little spark had appeared. Maxwell's new nanny. Nanny Fine. Fran. But C.C. quickly had quenched it.

The first time she'd seen Miss Fine, she'd been stunned by the beauty this woman seemed to radiate. As they'd shook hands, she'd felt something strange, but strong there. She'd suppressed it.

In the following three years so many things had happened between them. She could remember all of them.

On their first common Christmas there was a lot of decoration in Maxwell's house. She'd stood under a mistletoe, trying to get Maxwell to kiss her. She'd said something like 'come on, just one little kiss for the tradition'. In that moment Ms Fine had come around to see Maxwell and in her way she had kissed C.C. on her cheek. Her reaction had been an annoyed sigh, though now she wasn't so sure about that 'annoyed'.

Once she had been caught in Maxwell's wine-cellar. Then Miss Fine had appeared and C.C. had rushed to her and called out loud "Miss Fine, I love you!", but the door was closed again before she could reach it and she added "You fool!". They'd had to stay there for hours and Fran had talked the whole time. C.C. had liked it somehow although, but she hadn't let anything show, acted horribly annoyed.

At one of her birthdays C.C. had wanted to surprise Maxwell with a breakfast to his bed, but as she bowed over the bed and turned on the lights, Fran had lied beside him. C.C. had been utterly shocked. She had felt something had to be going on between them, even if it were only some hidden feelings, but seeing this scene was harder. She'd left then and later Maxwell had explained to her what had happened. Nothing, he'd said, but C.C. had been distrustful, she'd been hurt. In one of the following nights when she'd been alone at home, drunk, she'd asked herself if she was hurt thinking of Maxwell or thinking of Fran.

There had also been the kiss with Niles. That had really been something strange. They both had been very drunk and suddenly.. it had happened. In almost the same moment Fran and Maxwell had entered the house and saw them. C.C. had quickly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and felt embarrassed of being seen by Fran like that.

But the final thing had happened at the Tony-awards, when Fran had kissed her. The surroundings were not clear in C.C.'s memories, but it had happened as the speaker had announced Maxwell Sheffield was this year's winner and after Fran had kissed Maxwell. In that very moment, Fran's soft lips on her own, C.C. had recognised what she'd been feeling all the time: She was in love with Fran.

That evening she hadn't spent much time at the after-show-party, she'd gone home very early. There she'd drunk. She'd been very desperate. As she'd been drunk enough, she'd started crying. How had this happened? She, C.C. Babcock, in love with Fran Fine? The lesbian thing hadn't mattered to her that moment. Maybe this was the answer why she'd never found a man for herself, but Fran? Fran Fine? She was so.. yeah, what? Beautiful, charming and sweet? Or loud, annoying and obsessed of men, especially Maxwell?

Part 2 – The present

This thought brought C.C. back to the thing between Maxwell and Fran, and hot tears flew out of her eyes. Crying was very unusual for her, but this also was an unusual moment. She was sure Maxwell and Fran were in love. Secretly, but obviously. Sooner or later they'd find each other. She couldn't imagine anything worse. In this moment, Niles held a mirror or some silver plate in front of her face and said "look at this" in her thoughts, like he'd done some time ago. She sobbed again. Niles had always hurt her with his mean comments about her. She always tried to counter, but she'd always been very hurt of his permanent way to slander her. What had she done to him that made him hate her like he did? What had she done to life? She was successful and rich, but the most important thing in life was missing in hers- love.

No-one knew that she was desperately longing for love. Her behaviour was very cool all the time and she never mentioned anything. But inside she was terribly lonely.

In the following days she avoided Fran as much as she could, for the rest her behaviour was just as usual.

It kept being like that for a very long time.

Until the affair between Maxwell and Fran began. As C.C. came to know that, she was shocked in the first moment. Niles made some mean comment, but she didn't listen. She couldn't believe it. It had been obvious, but now, as it was really true, it was much harder than she'd thought.

Late at night after that day she was still awake. She'd drunk a lot, was almost losing consciousness. Soon she wouldn't have to think about it anymore. The fact that she was the loneliest person on earth. The fact that the woman she loved was straight and also in a relationship. With Maxwell, the man she'd loved years ago. After those thoughts she fell asleep.

Next morning she had a huge hangover. Her head hurt like hell and she just didn't want to move at all. At least it was weekend, so she didn't have to see Maxwell and Fran.

"Fuck them.", she murmured to herself before she turned around in her bed. She noticed she was crying again. She knew that the C.C. she'd shown to everyone for almost her complete life was just a lie. Truly she was weak and she loved. She'd always done so. Her heart wasn't made of stone, it had never been.

In following months no-one noticed any changes in her personality or her behaviour.

But then a message made her give up. The announcing of Fran's and Maxwell's wedding. Niles obviously had a great pleasure to be the one to tell her. She couldn't believe it. It was over. Fran would soon be a married woman. Maxwell's wife! It couldn't have been any worse. Together with Maxwell. Of course C.C. had known Fran was straight, but maybe she'd just had a last spark of hope, a very last. Now amounts of ice-cold water had splashed over it.

2 AM. C.C. was at home, in the living room, before she decided to take a bath. She placed a pad and a pen on the white edge of the bathtub, which was as white and noble as the rest of the bathroom, before she turned on the water and undressed herself. She touched the water with the toes of her right foot first, noticed it was warm, then she stepped into it and sat down. It felt good how the warm water surrounded her body, there were not many things left in her life she found feeling good. She let her thoughts drift away, and after a moment she imagined Fran being with her right now. It was a painful dream, but not a unknown one.

As she reached out for the pad and the pen, her eyes crossed her underarms. She looked away again. The scars were not nice to see. They were reminders of her miserable situation, her desperation. Of course she'd made them herself. Just taken a knife and then watching the blood running down her arm. It was something she'd done often the last months. Very often.

She took the pen in her right hand an placed the pad on the edge right to her. She started writing.

After about half an hour she was finished. One was her last will, in which she inherited all her money – which was a lot- to charity. This would show her true side. She fold the paper, put it into a envelope with the right three words. There were some more papers, which she put into another envelope, and wrote only two words on it.

Then she leant back in the water, her hand searching behind her. She quickly found what she was looking for- a razorblade. She felt it lying in her hand for an moment, before she ended up with all. She thought of Fran. Her eyes, her smile, her laughter. The feeling of her lips, her hand. Finally CC rose the razorblade and finished her empty life.

As her eyes were darkening with unconsciousness and her blood was colouring the water, she rose one finger and tiredly drew a heart of bloody red onto the white wall over the bathtub, a symbol for what she'd been missing in her life. She raised her hand as if to add something else, but it was too late.

Part 3 – The future

It's the next day when Maxwell notices C.C. is missing at work. Fran steps into his office.

"Where's C.C.? Is she sick today?" she asks.

"I don't know, darling. But I'm about to call her."

Fran stays by him as he does so, but nobody answers the call.

"I should go and see if everything is ok. C.C. never forgot to inform me when she couldn't come."

"Oh, I'm not so sure. I don't think she can handle our wedding plans so well." Maxwell looks at her confused. "She loves you, don't tell me you didn't know!"

"Well..."

"Oh dear, it was so obvious! Seeing such things is really not your greatest talent. It would surely be very hard for her to see you right now, I should go and see what's up."

"Alright. See you."

"See you," Fran says as she's leaving.

As she rings the doorbell in front of the house, nobody answers. Luckily a man steps out of the door a moment later and so Fran sneaks through that door.

In front of the door of C.C.'s flat a surprise is waiting. First Fran tries it again with ringing, but again this doesn't work. She leans lightly against the door and it opens. It wasn't closed correctly. Fran wonders. C.C.'s so tidy, how did that happen? Her distrust wakens. She steps in a little unsure.

"Ms Babcock?" she calls.

No answer. Fran looks around in the living room, then in the kitchen. Nobody. She calls again, stepping in the direction of the bedroom. Maybe C.C. is just still sleeping? Fran knocks, then after a silence opens the door, but the room is empty.

Then, after knocking, she opens the door of the bathroom and stops as if frozen to ice. The scene in front of her is too shocking. So much blood, with C.C. in the middle of all. A scream escapes Fran's lips and she has to grab for the door-frame to not fall in the shock, then she slowly recognises more in the room. The bloody razorblade. The envelopes. The heart.

"Oh my God!" she gasps, looking at C.C.'s arms. Under all the blood the scars are still visible.

She stumbles backwards and looks for a telephone. She calls Maxwell then and he tells her to call the police and a doctor, although it was probably too late to help, and that he'd come at once.

As he's arrived, the police and the doctor are there, too, but they can only say it was suicide and she was dead since hours.

As they carry C.C.'s dead body away, Fran picks up the envelopes. Maxwell stands close beside her.

My last will is the title of one, the other one, which feels much more filled, wears the words: To Fran

Fran opens this second one, her fingers trembling.

Dear Miss Fine.

Fran. I hope you didn't get this letter by yourself. I hope this for your sake. But if you did, Maxwell is surely with you by now and I beg you to go on reading later. Alone.

Fran stops reading and puts the papers back into their envelope.

"What's up?"

"I want to read it later," Fran answers.

Later, Fran sits on her bed in her room. It is just after dinner and she wants to be alone. CC wants her to be when she reads the letter. So she is now. Fran opens the envelope again and with a strange feeling in her stomach, she reads the complete letter.

Dear Miss Fine.

Fran. I hope you didn't get this letter by yourself. I hope this for your sake. But if you did, Maxwell is surely with you by now and I beg you to go on reading later. Alone.

If you are alone, it's good. I've got to tell you a lot. I'm sure you wonder why I killed myself. Everyone thought my life was nice. I was rich, smart and had a great job. So why? I'll tell you. I was lonely. Terribly lonely. I've always been. I never had somebody, who liked me, let alone loved me. Never.

When I met you, Fran, my complete way of thinking changed. I was feeling again. Of course you think I was in love with Maxwell, and I can partly agree with that thought, but only partly. I was something like in love with him a long time ago. But when I met you, that was forgotten. Yes, this is what I could never tell you.

I love you, Fran. At least I did.

Of course I knew you're straight, I soon recognised how you flirted with Maxwell. And you didn't like me a lot, I felt that. You didn't slander me like Niles always did, but you laughed with him and you were always on Maxwell's side. You left me alone.

Of course I wasn't nice to you, and I want to tell you know how complicated all that was.

Like I said, I loved you. I didn't know it the whole time. Not, when I first saw you in that stunning dress, walking down Maxwell's stairs. Not when you kissed me on my cheek as I was under the mistletoe, at the first Christmas you were with us. Not when we were locked in Maxwell's wine-cellar together. Not in the morning on my birthday when I found you with Maxwell in his bed. Not when you saw me kissing Niles, as I was so drunk.

But then, at the Tony-Awards last year, as you kissed me, I suddenly saw clear. It was you I wanted, you and no-one else in the world. But I couldn't tell you. I started drinking more, but it didn't become serious. I still pretended to want Maxwell, acted as if nothing had happened. I could hold it out.

Then you and Maxwell started to have this affair. It became harder to me with every day, knowing you and Maxwell...

In that time it became so hard that I started to cut myself. Maybe, I don't hope so, you've even seen the scars on my arms. This way I could stand it. At least I could see you almost every day and be with you some time. It was yesterday, when it got too far for me. Niles told me you and Maxwell were going to marry. First I didn't believe it. But then I had to.

At home, I first wanted to drink as much as I could, just to forget it all. Maybe I'd have, but I recognised that I had drunk too much in the past months yet and so I was just crying. Yes, the cold, icy, calm and chill Miss Babcock was crying. And it wasn't the first time. Since I'd opened the Pandora's box of my feelings for you, I've cried a lot, but you didn't notice any changes. Nobody did. I hid everything like the scars under my sleeves.

Today everything was too much. I thought about going on like before, but I knew I couldn't. So I started writing this letter to you. And here it is. Everything black on white.

Surely all this sounds very strange to you, but please try to understand me. I just want you to know who I was under the surface. And I don't want to make you worry too much about all this, you have no reason to. You and Maxwell will be happy, for sure. And I only was in your way. I was in my own way with that feelings for you. So I'm going to cut myself one very last time as soon as I've finished writing.

So I hope you're not too disappointed by me and my behaviour. Of course I'm a coward. I could have told you, or at least put up with the facts, but I had to run away.

I hope you don't think too bad of me and remember our good times.

I always loved you.

Yours forever,

Chastity Claire Babcock

The end