A Composition of Love... and Flour

A/N: Just a short, fluffy piece that came to me one night and begged to be written down. Set sometime in season 11 with reference to "Flour Child" from the second season.

Sleep eluded Daphne. Her pregnant body felt different and the bigger she became, the less comfortable she was. Given Niles' narrow bone structure, she never would have guessed to carry such a huge baby. Her hand easily found a spot on her swollen belly, only to find Niles' already there. Sometimes they seemed to fight an invisible, unspoken battle about who was looking forward to parenthood the most. Daphne couldn't help but smile, knowing this child – whether boy, or girl – would be loved immensely. A moment later her stomach growled. True, she was eating for two, but Daphne still remembered the dark days of her overweight. Eating at night, even if she was pregnant, seemed wrong.

"Is everything alright?" Niles, his hair messy and cute, stared up at her with tired eyes. Softly, she smiled at him.

"Yes, don't worry. Go back to sleep."

"The baby kicked." Niles said still trying to wake up properly.

"That was my stomach growling, silly. I'm hungry." Daphne clarified.

"Oh. Wait a moment, I'll go downstairs and –"

"Niles, it's the middle of the night!"

"So? Our child is hungry." Slowly, he got up and into his slippers. Daphne felt loved as he walked past their bed, smiling at her as if it was common to get up at 2am just because she was hungry. For Niles, it seemed, no time was the wrong time. At least not when it came to her or their unborn baby.

"Your daddy takes such good care of us." Daphne whispered to her belly, then she got up herself. These days it took longer than she cared to admit.

When she entered the kitchen, Niles was already making two sandwiches. Her stomach growled again; this time in anticipation. Despite her heaviness and weariness, she felt happy. Gently, she hugged Niles from behind only to realize she was almost too big to do so. Niles turned and smiled at her comfortingly, but she was pouting.

"Do you want anything strange on your sandwich?" Niles tried to make her smile, or at least distract her with food. Lately, she seemed to enjoy mixing the most outlandish things together. According to their books, she should have been over this phase by now, but his Daphne wasn't like other women. And that was just one of the many reasons why he loved her so much. Moments like these, when she accidentally woke him in the middle of the night, made him realize how lucky he was. Maris used to wake him in the middle of the night and for the strangest reasons, too. Once he had to remove a book from her bedroom because she had insisted it had told her she was fat and old. Niles shuddered mentally, realizing how he should have ended it with her much sooner.

"Just some honey." Daphne mused. "And maybe some cookies."

"On a sandwich?"

"Yes." Daphne rummaged through the cupboards, looking for the cookies she had hidden there a few days ago. She had done so to stop herself from eating all of them at once. Suddenly she couldn't imagine not having cookie crumbles on the pastrami sandwich Niles had prepared.

Eventually Daphne found the pack of cookies next to a bag of flour. The sight made her stop a moment, but she couldn't quite figure out why.

"Did you find the cookies?" Niles asked and she closed the cupboard. The bag of flour forgotten for the moment.

Ten minutes later, Daphne was finished with her sandwich as well as half of Niles'. At least she felt sated. Niles looked tired, so she took his hand and led him back upstairs. She felt somewhat guilty because he had to go to work in the morning and she was keeping him awake.

"I don't understand how you can eat pastrami and cookies." Niles said, his eyes already closing.

"You should have tried it." She answered softly, watching him. She was overcome with love for him. The pregnancy hormones were worse than a rollercoaster ride; at times she wanted to yell at Niles, and sometimes she did, too. Then times like these she couldn't believe how much she loved him and how glad she was to be with him. To know he was going to be the father of her child.

"Nah. As long as you're happy and the baby of course. I do hope he, or she, has a more exquisite taste though. I can't wait to teach the baby all about gourmet food." Niles sighed happily while something in Daphne finally put the pieces together, made her remember. The flour, Niles, and a dream – the flour baby he had carried around for a while. How could she have forgotten about that? She chuckled to herself. Back then she never would have thought that when Niles finally got to be a father she would be the mother. Her hand went back to her stomach.

"What's so funny?" Mirroring the earlier scene, Niles put his own hand over Daphne's on her stomach, over their baby.

"Nothing."

"Hm." He was almost asleep again. Daphne couldn't blame him, but neither could she stop smiling.

"I can feel you smile." Niles mumbled against the pillow.

"I just thought of something... the flour child? Do you remember that?"

"What?" He lifted his head to look at her. His expression was clueless.

"You carried that bag of flour around as if it were a baby. I just remembered that. You looked so stupid. But the sentiment behind it was cute." Daphne explained to him, trying not to laugh when she remembered how Eddie had eventually "killed" the bag. Or how she had pretended to be a mother with a bag of flour herself.

"You're right," Niles remembered, grimacing, "I had forgotten about that."

"You weren't ready for a baby then."

"A child with Maris," he shuddered, "No one would have been ready for that. Do you think..." He trailed off, unsure if he wanted to finish the sentence or even his own thought. As if on cue the baby kicked and Niles stared at Daphne as if she had just performed a magic trick. No matter how often the baby kicked, to Niles it was one of the most astonishing things; he would never get used to the beauty of it, or the emotions that ran through him whenever it happened.

"You're ready now. You're going to be a great daddy." She assured him.

"Not as great as you're going to be." He sounded sleepy again, "I love you so much, Daphne." He mumbled before Daphne knew that he had fallen asleep. His hand was still on her stomach, keeping her and the baby safe.

"I love you, too." She whispered and kissed his forehead. Finally, she felt the restlessness inside of her come to a standstill. Her thoughts were filled with a little baby, covered in flour. Smiling, she fell asleep.