Author's Note:I don't normally do AU stories, which I'm sure you've noticed if you've read most of my stories. But I do enjoy reading them, if they're done well. And Aria (crazysockmonkeys) writes them extremely well. I would never have thought to turn Niles and Daphne into spies! When the story ended, I found that I missed it, and something was sparked. Since it's the season of giving, I thought I'd do this as a 'thank you' for all of her amazing love and support! :D

Daphne looked at herself in the mirror. She could still see them if she looked hard enough, the places where the bruises had been and even the few scars she had from her ordeal so many years ago. Most of the time, she rarely thought back on those experiences, when she'd been kidnapped while undercover for a mysterious company called Crimsontree. By a quirk of fate, she had been paired with one of the organization's psychiatrists. He'd just been transferred to the field as an agent. Niles had been nervous at first. Who wouldn't be, when dealing with international criminals? But Daphne had been doing this sort of work for awhile, and she was able to handle herself in dangerous situations.

The one thing she hadn't been able to handle was her growing feelings for her partner. When an assignment went wrong, she found herself kidnapped by the people she and Niles had been spying on. For several days, she was kept in a secluded cabin, until the agency could locate her and bring her to safety. Niles was there for her as she recovered from her injuries, both physical and emotional. By the time they were ready to marry and start a family, there wasn't a single doubt that Niles loved her.

Now they had two grown children. Their son, David, was a well-respected psychiatrist like his father. David admired the work that Crimsontree did, but he never had a desire to work there himself. He felt much safer helping people from a comfortable office. His parents couldn't be prouder.

A few years after David, Daphne found herself pregnant a second time. They had a girl. Her name was Denise Hester Crane. She'd been named for two people who'd been important in her parents' lives. Hester, of course, was Niles' departed mother. And Denise was the agent at Crisontree who'd been instrumental in bringing Niles and Daphne together. Perhaps because of this connection, Denise became the next member of the family to take a job at Crimsontree. She'd only been working as an agent for a couple of years now, but already people were noticing that she took after her mother.

"Daphne? What are you doing?" Niles' voice snapped Daphne back to the present.

She knew immediately that he was probably concerned by the way she was staring into the mirror. From time to time, she would worry about her appearance changing, just as most women did. But Niles was always there to reassure her that she looked beautiful, no matter what. "Oh, nothing," she replied with a smile. "I was just thinking back a bit."

Niles smiled, knowing what she was referring to. "Do you ever wish it had been different? That we could've met like a normal couple?"

"Of course not, Niles. What matters is that we met, not how it happened."

"I know that, my love," Niles said, walking toward her. He took her in his arms. "I'm merely asking if you wouldn't rather we'd met out there in the world, rather than inside Crimsontree?" As he spoke, he could almost picture it. Him and Daphne, having casual conversations at Cafe Nervosa, instead of spending all their time studying their cover stories for whatever mission they would go on next. It would've been so nice. Far less complicated than what they'd gone through. He knew people met and fell in love this way every day. Sometimes, he longed for that life.

Daphne kissed him gently. "No, darling, I wouldn't change any of it. Not for the world."

Niles looked at her skeptically. He couldn't help feeling like she was telling him what she thought he wanted to hear.

"Niles, I love our story. Before I met you, I had me share of boyfriends, 'out in the world,' as you put it. It's so difficult to know if a man can really be trusted. And, half the time, I couldn't even talk about me work. It wasn't really worth it, and I was about to give up on ever finding love. I loved working at Crimsontree. I still do." She no longer went on undercover missions, but she worked hard to help train new agents and make sure that they were given appropriate assignments. "What we went through together would've been enough to break most couples up. A lot of men wouldn't have been so patient with me." She smiled and kissed him. At first, Daphne had insisted that her kidnapping hadn't affected her, but it became clear that she was shaken by it a great deal. Each time she got scared, Niles held her and assured her that she was safe. "I got to see how wonderful you are more than I ever could have any other way."

"Oh, Daphne," Niles whispered. He'd never thought about it like this before. For most of his life, Niles had relied on hard science to explain things in the world that he didn't understand. Psychology made sense of human behavior. Being able to understand how the mind worked gave him a sense of control. But since he'd met Daphne, he'd come to believe that not all things could be broken down into black and white. For example, his time as a field agent. It was never what he was meant to do. Niles Crane belonged to the world of books and knowledge. But somehow his path had veered into another direction. Some might've called him a failure as a spy. But Niles didn't care about what people thought. If he'd gained nothing else from the time he'd spent out in the field, he'd gotten the most important thing of all: true love.

Which, when Niles thought about it, was pretty extraordinary in itself.

The End