Simpatico by Patrick Councilor

Daphne Moon had made a bold move. She never thought she might be living with someone before marriage, but it felt so right and to be so in love with someone she had built such a close friendship with… it just felt so right. He had left for work before she had gotten up, but she could still feel the warmth of his arms around her and somehow… for some unspoken… for some wonderfully fantastic reason… she felt certain… no, no, she felt positive that he had kissed her on the lips… gently… wonderfully gentle before sneaking off to work. She loved him so and it wasn't often that he would sneak off like that. Somedays he would gently wake her with a dozen roses. How he had gotten them so early in the morning before Pike Market had open, she never knew. She had asked him once, but she doesn't remember him ever giving her a direct answer. He was wonderfully romantic in a mystic kind of way and it seemed beyond love with Niles. She so loved being in love with that man.

Other times he would surprise her with breakfast in bed. How he slipped out of bed, as gently as he could with his arms wrapped around her all night… breath-taking. The freshly cut strawberries and the freshly squeezed orange juice.

Posh, the man didn't have to do any of it. He didn't need to win her over but look into her eyes with his heavenly stare to send her stomach into butterflies. She started to tear up. God, how she nearly embarrassed herself, lying there as she did, crying over her happiness of being so much in love. Yet there she was. She wasn't even fully awake and she was already rolling over into his spot… feeling his warmth that really wasn't there… but she could feel it. She laid there on his pillow, smelling it like she had caught him smelling her hair in the past.

"In love", she spoke aloud as if she wanted to hear the words herself. "With all capital letters." She smiled. She almost sounded crazy to herself, but if she needed a shrink… no, she definitely needed a shrink and she would never let him forget that she needed him… always. She sleepily smiled. Almost expecting him to come back to the apartment and catch her sleeping in his spot, she lay there, directly wanting him to find her there. Desperately needing him to find her there.

She wiped the tears from her face and lay there in his spot as if she would lay there until he returned after work. But she knew she wouldn't dare. She would clean the apartment from top to bottom and cook him a wonderful meal and have his sherry waiting for him when he came home. He loved his sherry. Did he visit Frasa's apartment so often to sip sherry, hoping to spend more time with her? He definitely wasn't spending as much time over there now. She smiled and wrapped her arms around his pillow. Their love for each other must have made other people sick to their stomachs, but she didn't care at all, she was in love. She was madly and deeply in love.

And they were so simpatico.

She laughed out loud. Niles used to slap on his aftershave aggressively in the morning. When she asked if he was upset, his eyes would just lock in on hers. There would be tears forming in his eyes as he sat on the edge of the bed, not too far where she was laying now and she would smile a silly smile and he would tell her, "Well, no… It's just…"

"What," she would pry it out of him, like she loved to do as if there was any secret that he would hold from her.

"It's just…"

"Yes?"

"It's silly."

"Go on."

"It's was just to make certain that I wasn't dreaming this up… finally being with you."

Oh, damn you Niles Crane. How could she love him more? She hugged his pillow tighter as if she was holding him. Oh, Doctor Niles Crane.

She sat up, almost having to force herself to release his pillow. And she lay a hand there where his warm body was laying a short time ago.

Putting her legs underneath herself, she sleep-ishly made her way into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and went over to the mirror. Her hair was a mess. It was fluffier than she was used to. And she smiled. The steam came from the shower. She didn't used to take showers as hot, but Niles takes showers like that. Probably making up for all the cold showers that he had to take being involved with the women of his past that would withhold sex from him for one reason or another. Now Daphne was taking hot showers, like he was. Their lives were melding together in such a wonderful and brilliant way.

She retrieved the first thing she ever left in this apartment: her toothbrush. It was an incredible toothbrush because it was the first proof that she belonged here. Her toothbrush. Most men might fuss at such a thing, but Niles… not Niles. He was a gentleman.

She started to brush her teeth when the butterflies returned. This time, they were going wild inside her stomach. For, as she started to brush her teeth, the steam from the shower started to set into the room and there were words forming on the mirror. Niles had left a secret message for her. She rinsed and set her toothbrush aside. She quickly turned the sink's water to hot to help the message come in that much quicker. He had written something with his finger on the mirror knowing that the steam would be the only thing to bring it to a visible state.

The words came in as if to magically appear, "D, I adore you. This is our day. L, ~N". She put a hand up to the mirror as if she were going to touch it, so much like the last time he had told her that he loved her, how she put her fingertips up to his lips almost as if to touch those wonderful words from his lips.

His words on the mirror made those butterflies take flight as if he had whispered them into her ear with his hot baited breath. Simpatico… oh yes, they were.