Niles was away visiting Frasier, who was in desperate need of relationship counseling with Charlotte. He left behind his wife Daphne and a three month old David. Daphne had never been alone with David before, not for this length of time, and to be honest, she wasn't quite sure she was up to the task.

She listened to him sleeping carefully via the baby monitor she kept by her bedside, but without her husband occupying his side of the bed, she decided she needed some company.

Carefully cradling her infant son by her chest, she laid him down so gently on the bed in order not to disturb him. Tears filled her eyes as she realized that she felt something she had never felt before...this was unconditional love.

True, she loved and was loved by Niles, but this was a new kind of love. For all of her life she'd been surrounding by boys and men, but she had to share Niles with his family and his patients. For once she had someone to call her own, her very own. Words failed to describe the way she felt just looking at David, let alone the magic she had felt when he had smiled at her for the first time.

He was three months old, now old enough to recognize his family. She remembered how a week earlier she and Niles and Martin had taken David to get his photos taken. David was laughing and smiling so much at Martin that the photographer had to ask Martin to move to the other side of Daphne in order to get the shot. How smart was David, at three months old, to love his grandfather that much that he needed to be distracted from his pure joy at the sight of Martin?The resulting picture was Daphne's favorite photo ever of David. She swore she could see the reflection of Martin in her son's eyes in that photo.

But what she had right now was even better than a photo. She was a mother, to an absolutely beautiful baby boy. Every parent said their child was perfect, Daphne realized. Even Gertrude had showed unconditional love to Daphne and her brothers, even when say, Simon was incarcerated for one reason or the other. Gertrude would always smile and say boys will be boys, and would take Simon back into her home, no questions asked. Before that, Daphne would always wonder why her mother would take on such a burden, but now she understood full well why she did it...it was love.

Her brothers hadn't always been the most well behaved, or the most loveable, but somehow Gertrude always managed to speak up (sometimes before a judge!) or defend her boys to their harshest critics. There was no question that Gertrude loved her boys. And now, for the first time in her life, Daphne could appreciate all of the sacrifices that her mum had made in order to provide a happy home for her kids.

Daphne knew what she had to do. She picked up the phone, even though it was eleven at night. "Hello, Mum? I don't want anything. I just wanted to tell you...I love you. And thank you."

Without another word, Daphne hung up the phone and went to sleep, her son blissfully sleeping through the night by her side. Yes, motherhood suited Daphne Crane just fine.

The end

A/N: This story was very personal for me. The incident with the photographer and the baby and the grandpa really happened with my own firstborn child. It is my favorite memory of my daughter and father. This started out to be a Niles/Daphne story but I decided to honor both of my parents in writing this. I hope you enjoyed this. Kristen most of all thank you for planting the seed in my mind to write this.