Title: Turn Back Time
Disclaimer: I own nothing yada, yada.
Summary: Set in "Something Borrowed, Someone Blue" right after the balcony scene. Niles considers his missed chances to tell Daphne how he felt.
A/N: This is just the prologue, so it's very short. It kind of works as a stand-alone as well, but it is supposed to be part of a multi-chaptered story. Please read and review! Thank you.
Her scent – all she'd left him – had extinguished any other; suddenly, he didn't smell the orange blossoms, or the night blooming jasmine, anymore. It no longer mattered which one it was, because all that was left was Daphne's scent. Around, and inside of him. Niles feared that if he'd only take a deep breath, he'd faint. For if he did, he'd use her scent up. Until it was gone. Gone, probably forever. All alone Niles stood there left alone on the balcony. Just moments ago she'd been with him, telling him that she loved him, too. Words he had longed to hear for so long, and so many times. Then she'd taken all of it back. Daphne couldn't leave Donny, because she couldn't just leap without knowing where she'd land in the end. She couldn't leave what she knew for a chance. Even if she did love him. Had she been any other woman, had it been any other moment Niles would have felt the same.
In his mind, he retraced her steps since she left him. She would run into her family, running away from him. He didn't think she'd stay and talk with them, just passing by. They wouldn't see her confused expression, or the doubt and guilt in her eyes. Maybe they would want to keep her with them after all, to celebrate. Daphne, he knew, would decline. Saying she wanted to be with Donny. Someone reminding her how it was bad luck to spend the last night before the wedding together. Niles couldn't imagine what her reply would be to that. All of a sudden, he couldn't see her eyes anymore. Like a movie, the scene just ended and her scent was leaving him, too.
Every fiber in his body cried out for her. So many times he had almost told her. So many stories untold, unshared. They were all inside of him; like the last whiff of her scent in the air. A book composed of 'what ifs'. This particular story, the only real one, he had never meant to include. Niles couldn't help but wonder: if he'd told her sooner, had he not been the coward all those times before, would he still be standing here? On the eve of Daphne's wedding to another man? Or would this be their night; the night before their own wedding. There'd be no Donny. No Mel. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. All of this was his own fault, his own doing. If only it were possible to turn back time. To reach inside the eternal clock of life and turn its hands. Just a little bit. Niles didn't want anything else, but to be given the chance again. To tell her he loved her. To have her say it back without compromise or guilt.
Niles closed his eyes, surrendered to the impossibility. Abruptly, he opened his eyes again, trying to focus. If it were possible to go back in time, where would he even go? What moment in the past would he choose to tell her? Niles sighed. So many moments. So many missed chances and yet nothing tangible. And then he lost himself in the memories he never made. All that was left now without her. The wind having taken all of her, even her scent, replaced by the orange blossoms again, or was it night-blooming jasmine after all? Niles was certain of only one thing; his own voice rang in his ears, reminded him of what he'd told Daphne earlier: 'You don't want to spend half your life thinking about a chance you didn't take.' Niles hadn't just missed one chance, but one too many. And he wondered, and he wondered... what if, oh what if...
TBC