Hello fellow FF readers.. I know Christmas is over, but the holiday season isn't! Please enjoy this story and leave comments to fuel this writers inspiration! :)

Unexpected Holiday

Chapter 1

Holidays were approaching fast and there was no better time for Niles on this particular year. He walked briskly through the cold, sharp air, vents from underneath his feet created a swirly fog. New York streets were packed as he passed by store shops decorated with holly and garland. Even people in the busiest city in the world stopped to take part in the simple joys of Christmas. He normally spent them schlepping Maxwell and Fran to buy Christmas presents for the children, but this year they had decided to something different for a change. Sylvia, Morty, and Yetta had gone to Boca for Christmas which meant two things: Fran had a higher chance of spending her holiday depressed and moping around the mansion, and Niles wouldn't have to plan on cooking ten times more food for the family than usual.

Maxwell, sensing the nanny's forthcoming holiday depression, planned for the family and nanny to go on a winter Mediterranean cruise for ten days. They'd fly to England and stay one night with his mother, Elizabeth Sheffield, before leaving the next morning. This would give Niles the opportunity to help the family to their cruise destination, and then spend the Christmas and New Years with his family.

Maxwell invited C.C. to join them, to Niles appreciation.

Niles dashed from store to store looking for gifts for his parents, brother, and sister. He couldn't contain his excitement at seeing them in just a day. They would fly out of JFK at 10pm and arrive in England 8 hours later, just in time to start the evening roaming the country side on the back of his father's stud horse.

Niles turned down an aisle of silky smooth cashmere scarves, "Should I get Babcock a gift?" He thought to himself. He ran his hand down an aqua blue scarf thinking about it against her skin. He immediately felt his ears become warm. He checked the price and dropped it at once. It was an expensive scarf, but Babcock's taste was indeed posh. He picked the frilly end of the scarf up and thumbed it through his fingers before heading to the cash register with it.

The entire group boarded the plane and started shuffling through the cramped airplane. Mr. Sheffield and Fran had mysteriously ended up next to each other in the front of first class. Niles checked his ticket again and saw his section was toward the back of the plane in coach. Before passing the barrier between first class and coach he spotted a blonde woman arguing with an apparently flustered flight attendant.

"C.C. Babcock does NOT sit in coach!" Niles heard her say to the woman. He noticed C.C.'s knuckles were clenched tightly around her Prada bag, making them an angry white. Her red lipstick matched the bright red patches of anger on her cheeks and ears. Her bright golden hair that curved along her shoulders and down her back made her look much more angelic than she truly was. Niles glanced down at the very chic soft, aqua blue straight line slacks and blazer she had worn for the transatlantic flight. He looked at a man watching him as he eyed C.C.'s backside, and the man gave him a toothy grin. Niles burrowed his eyebrows in confusion and distaste. Focusing back to the situation at hand, Niles listened as C.C. threatened to unboard the flight.

Knowing it would anger her even more he patted a hand on her back and leaned over her shoulder to speak to the attendant, "Problems dear? Come along to your seat.." He smiled sympathetically at the stewardess before whispering "Anger management problems!" , behind his hand. C.C. turned around slowly with an evil glare upon her face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing budding your little butler nose in where it doesn't belong?"

He pushed her along to avoid blocking the aisle any more than they already were, "I don't see what the big issue is with sitting in a seat that is twenty yards away from where you want to sit to begin with! Don't be such a lush, Babcock, join the working crew for once!"

She sat in the seat next to Niles for the entire 8-hour flight while a large man on the other side of her had snored loudly and talked about his 6 children and 3 ex wives for three hours. Niles had politely listened while C.C. had kept a steady look of disdain through the whole one-sided conversation. Six hours in, a baby behind Niles had started crying. This was about the time C.C. started ordering a steady line of mini Svedka bottles from the flight attendant. As they arrived at Heathrow, C.C. was thoroughly sloshed. Niles held onto her elbow to steady her through the aisle of bustling, antsy passengers. Needless to say, when the family arrived at Elizabeth Sheffield's residence and received a locked door and no answer C.C. was about to bust.

"Why would Elizabeth just leave us to fend for ourselves if she knew we were coming, Maxwell?" She asked shrilly.

"Well, I didn't exactly talk to her.."

Now it was Fran's turn to be annoyed, "Whaa? Why would you let us come here without talking ta heh first? Where we s'posta go?"

Out of nowhere Niles chimed in from behind the group, "We can all go to my parents, they just live down the road. It might be a little cramped, but they have a lovely house.. it'll do; and I'm sure mum would be pleased to see you ."

Maxwell looked around at the group and decision crossed his face, "Okay crew, lets get back in the limo and head to the Brightmore's!"

"Oh joy." C.C. said apathetically.

An hour later, C.C.'s buzz had worn off, and as the tired crew walked into the house she felt an overcoming sense of warmth. Niles' mother had met them at the door with arms wide-open and swooped Niles into the house to his father. She had shouted back for all of them to come in and make themselves warm by the fire. "Sure is cold as hell out here, but I think I'd rather die of frostbite than drown in all the warmth and love in here.."

The house was sickeningly homey and not at all what she had pictured in her mind. She had figured that two servant retirees would be living in a small shack with boarded floors and cracked ceilings. The Brightmore home was two stories, had a large back porch, and wide spaces surrounding it with a barn and horses. C.C. thought to herself that if there wasn't Ma, Pa and the Brady bunch here she might actually enjoy herself.

Once had sufficiently fussed over Niles she came and stood in front of the tired, confused group of strangers. She recognized Maxwell and perhaps the tall blonde woman from pictures in the media and pictures that Niles had sent. He wrote home often, though not often enough for her liking, and she saw this C.C. creep up subtly in his letters between the lines. Niles would tell of a particularly good joke that he had played on her that week or of a trip that they had taken together with the family. He was good about including pictures, and she was in most of them.

"C.C., it is so nice to meet you.. I've heard a lot about you from my son."

C.C. looked strangely at the old woman in front of her before unsteadily answering her, "Oh really, I can't imagine what good he would have told you of me; he does like his pranks." She gave him a sideways glance.

Niles embarrassedly watched C.C. and his mother. He hadn't planned on the fact that his mother might tell C.C. that he had written about her in his letters home. Normally C.C. was a spitfire, but he could tell she was trying to remain demure for the elderly woman. His maman was also acting a bit peculiar. He sensed a mischievous glimmer in her eye.

The Sheffield family, nanny included, decided to go horseback riding in the snow for the day to help ease into the new time change. C.C. decided to stay back and look over contracts that really didn't call for her attention until well after the New Year. She figured she had nothing better to do, and slipped on her glasses to start working in her room upstairs. She had been working not ten minutes when she felt eyes on her. Looking up she found Mrs. Brightmore at the door.

"Mrs. Brightmore," C.C. said, not really knowing how to respond to her curious gaze.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you, but I just was wondering if you would like to have tea with me downstairs. Niles and his father are in the parlor chatting about Manchester football and I can't help but doze at that kind of conversation. I haven't had a girl besides my daughter in the house in months.."

C.C. looked at her papers and realized she couldn't refuse the woman's request, "Oh, of course, let me just put this up and I'll be right down."

When C.C. arrived downstairs Mrs. Brightmore had tea set up at the breakfast nook. She sat next to the woman and picked up her cup, careful to blow on the steaming water.

Annette Brightmore was very curious indeed about this beautiful woman sitting next to her. She wasn't sure how she wanted to approach the subject, and being the blunt woman she was she just went for it, "So, C.C., do you have any intentions with my son? That is… do you see each other...romantically?"

C.C. almost spit out her tea, "Oh, I'm sorry.."

Annette waved away C.C.'s shyness, "No need to be shy, girlie, I was just curious. You see, I know how my son responds to women he likes, but I've never seen him truly in love… until today I suppose."

C.C. was at a loss for words and felt that all she could do was sit, dumbfounded.

"You don't have to explain if you don't want to, I was just hoping maybe something was there, that maybe…" The woman cast her eyes down, obviously disappointed in C.C.'s reaction. Maybe she was wrong, maybe she was only seeing what she wanted to see: her son happy and settled down with a woman that was willing to give him what he always wanted.. a family. "Nevermind, forget I mentioned it." Annette said quietly, patting C.C.'s hand and giving her a gentle smile.

Niles walked down the hallway and started for the kitchen when he spotted his mother and C.C. drinking tea together at the nook. He stopped at the doorway leading into the room to listen to what they were talking about.

The women had their tea in almost complete silence for a minute until C.C. decided to put the woman's mind at ease, "You know, Mrs. Brightmore, at one point I thought maybe there was something there.. but I suppose I was wrong, I think Niles likes teasing and pranking me more than anything. And that's okay, it's a game that we both like to play."

His mother smiled and somehow understood what C.C. was trying to say. Sometimes love wasn't right or wrong, sometimes the line between love, hate, and friendship was just impossible to find.

That evening, the Sheffield's went to bed almost immediately after dinner. The jet-lag had taken its toll, and they would have to get up very early the next morning to catch their cruise.

Annette had made a roast with carrots and mashed potatoes. She cleaned the dishes in the kitchen, humming a song as she went. C.C. paused for a minute as she walked to the parlor to listen to the lovely tune. It was a Christmas tune, that she knew, but she couldn't pin down the song. She was so intent on listening that she didn't even notice Niles come up behind her and poke her sides in with his fingers. C.C. jumped two feet in the air and let out a little scream. The singing in the kitchen immediately stopped.

"Niles, you leave that poor girl alone and take her in the parlor to look at the tree lights!"

C.C. slapped him hard on the shoulder, "Yeah!"

Niles rolled his eyes, "Now look what you did, you got me in trouble, Babcock!"

"What are you, ten?"

Niles grabbed her hand and led her into the parlor. C.C. couldn't even think, her heart was too busy pounding out of her chest at the contact between their hands.

When they walked into the parlor, she felt like there was no other place she would rather be. The fire in the wood-burning hearth made the room glow in a warm light. She sat down onto the soft, plushy couch and stared forward at the lights gleaming from the Christmas tree in front of the big window that looked out over the fields in front of the Brightmore estate.

"You know, normally I hate Christmas." C.C. said casually.

"Normally I hate Christmas, too." He responded back, looking at her face that held a slight glow.

"We always end up celebrating together, don't we?" She said, looking at him in the eyes. They were clear, and glittery, and shiny with a hope that she hadn't ever seen there before.

"That's because we're both always alone." And just like that Niles realized he might have killed the moment that had started that was so hard to come by with this icy woman.

"I don't think you can be alone if you're alone with someone else, unless you just hate that person… I guess maybe you might." C.C. said, with a hint of sadness in her voice.

Niles quickly responded, "I don't hate you." He looked down into his hands ashamed. How could she possibly think he might possibly hate her?

C.C. stared at the lights, pretending to not care. Niles family was something to be envied, especially with her family's history of internal affairs. "Ha. Affairs, isn't that the truth." C.C. thought to herself. Her mother and father had never been loyal in their marriage to each other, which resulted in their divorce shortly after she was born.

Niles kept staring at her hands trying to think of what to say. He looked over to her and she had a gleamy, almost sentimental look in her eyes as she stared at the brightly decorated tree. Before he knew what he was doing he grabbed her hand.

She seemed surprised by his move, but didn't seem to mind. And so, the couple that time had unfortunately forgotten sat in comfortable silence, each admiring the feel of the other's hand in theirs.

Its a fluffy end to the first chapter, but problems will arise in the second for the main part of the plot! RR and stay tuned!