Hi, people!
I've been wanting to write this story for a while.
Sincerely, I hope you enjoy.
More than a woman
Chapter 1: For whom the bell tolls
Niles sat on his bed, his hands on his face.
He had been in frantic activity since he entered his room, after that absurd fight with Babcock.
The fight was not absurd because he had said anything wrong or misguided, but because his timing and motivation had been wrong and misguided.
He didn't regret saying it was time for Miss Babcock to move on and do something different of her life. That was a good part of the reason why he had made those marriage proposals – he knew she could be immensely happier than she currently was – but pointing out her difficulties in front of Mister Sheffield and Nanny Fine had been a stupid move.
It could easily turn his words into a way of hurting her, not the pleading for her well being it was meant to be.
(The irony was that, even if she was the witch, he was the one cursing her in that scene…
Wasn't it a pity he would have no opportunity to use that zinger...)
And it was exactly what had happened – she felt hurt to the point she closed herself in her shell and didn't even answer to him anymore.
Of course, Niles knew it was not entirely his fault that he had lost control. Babcock had pushed him to his limits.
She answered horribly to his idea of a compromise, not even treating his propositions as offensive, what would have been coherent to their history together; no, she had acted as if his intentions were simply absurd.
He had been distraught over the fact she had pretended she hadn't heard him the first times, and then he was miserable when she gave him an icy 'Stop it. I won't marry you' in the restaurant, and acted as if that was final.
And then, seemingly not satisfied at confusing him and silencing him, she decided to mock him through a recorded proposition, exposing him in front of the people he considered friends.
And he ended up doing the same to her.
What a pair they made…
Well, not anymore, Niles thought, rubbing his eyes tiredly.
After years fighting his feelings for that woman and trying to convince himself it was just twisted desire, after months trying to find a way to show her he cared even if he was dead scared she would reject him, after weeks of a sick hopeful game, Niles blurted out the propositions because he was sure they were in the same page, somehow.
Yes, they fought and bickered and demeaned each other, but when he decided to come closer, he was sure she would recognize his motivations.
He had been sure she had realized their chemistry, synchrony and alike minds, and would act accordingly.
When she threw on his face that no, that she couldn't even consider seriously the idea of entering any kind of relationship with him, that she was totally against anything different from their usual way to interact, CC Babcock had left Niles lost.
So, he threw back at her everything he thought and never told her clearly before, because he thought it would really hurt her – that she would end up as a bitter, drunk, old and lonely millionaire if she insisted on wanting for her what she thought was right, not what she felt was right.
Of course, he had been so out of himself he didn't know if he had said exactly that.
What he knew was that he had leashed out the worst at her, in hopes she would react and open herself to discuss things with him, and the result was him feeling empty and her, frozen.
And then he had said he would go away first thing in the morning and made his exit, because he would be dead before he cried in front of her, from sadness at her lack of reaction and regret over how hateful himself had been.
Niles was in a frenzy when he reached his room: he slammed the door, opened his big travel bag and threw it on the bed, just stopping for a moment to wipe away the tears, then entered his closet in a hurry.
The moment he turned on the lights, he realized he would not be able to take everything with him.
He would have to choose.
He walked to the rack with his suits, raised his hand and touched one of them.
It was the one he was wearing the day he managed to paint Miss Babcock's face when she slept at the sofa waiting for Mister Sheffield to come home from an event with Miss Fine.
He let go of that and touched the next.
The one he bought just to escort Miss Babcock to the awards when she had finally won.
He moved the rack to find another one.
The one he was wearing when they kissed in the living room.
And here he had the suspenders she seemed to enjoy using as a bow against him.
And here was the waistcoat she…
Damn.
Maybe he shouldn't take any clothes.
Maybe they were the symbol of his old life, and he would be better without any of them.
Even if the notion was amusing, Niles was a practical person, and he soon reminded himself that he would be unemployed the next day, and that it would be unwise to buy a brand new wardrobe under the circumstances.
He decided to leave that choice for later, and went back to the main room.
It would probably be easier to gather his other personal belongings.
The things he really couldn't leave behind, not just because they were highly personal, but because they were too revealing.
He decided to start from his bedside table: he unlocked and opened the first drawer, where he kept the things he cherished most.
The ones that made him proud and a bit ashamed of himself.
First thing was the final draft of his play – Love, Valet, Compassion.
He was proud of it, obviously, because the dialogue was witty, the characters were very well defined and the play was not boring at all – something he couldn't forgive in a musical, and that Mister Sheffield was not exactly able to accomplish in every one of his production choices.
However, it was the story of a servant who cared about his socialite boss and spent his days around her, helping her and trying to make her see him as a man, and not as a menial.
He had all the reasons in the world to be ashamed of that version of the play, and to never show it to anyone.
He turned the pages: the servant and the socialite got steadily closer, he realized his caring was more than just, well, caring,she finally realized her similar feelings, and they ended together.
Maybe he should burn it, in a cleansing ritual.
Niles closed the manuscript, misty eyed.
He breathed deeply to calm down and not to cry. It was useless, anyway. He never stood a chance, and he should have known better than trying.
The notion that something was lost even before he had a chance resonated with so many things in his life that it made him feel worse.
Niles breathed deeply, dried his eyes and put the papers aside, deciding to move on to the other things in the drawer.
There they were, resting on the bottom of it, his shots of Miss Babcock.
Every shot he had managed to keep of her in the last years.
Many of them were with him, taken in family gatherings she was forced to be a part of; others were in parties where she had been forced to be escorted by him.
He liked to look at them, sometimes. The both of them looked good together, and the images made it easy to wonder how his life would be if they were a couple.
He had fought his feelings for her for years. He even started writing Love, Valet, Compassion to get rid of them, pouring out his best witty remarks into the dialogues of the central characters. He believed he would be able to exorcise some of his most disturbing fantasies through writing if he let his imagination wander.
He still didn't know how the story ended, when he started; he just wrote it, but he expected the servant would say some truths to the socialite and she would realize her misconceptions and change, turning into a better person. He wanted the main point of the play to be how everybody deserves to be listened to, and how it didn't matter if you're born rich or poor, you must always be open to listen to other people.
He wasn't prepared to the urge to write them being romantically involved as the center of everything, but he did, and then he re-read the play and realized he had been hinting at it all the time.
His little gestures towards her, her ambiguous answers to him, how both had been slowly changing to make it possible to reach an agreement, in the end.
The center of it all was their synchronicity: they fitted so well together because they thought alike and every step one of them took found echo in the other, effortlessly.
Well, good luck believing fiction, Niles: now you know what happens when a servant says some truths to the socialite he…
No, he was not thinking of it.
Niles looked at the shots, already knowing he would not be able to leave those behind, or burn them.
He went through every one of the photographs, feeling his heart get small and his throat, constricted, at the thought that he had lost all he could have ever had from CC Babcock – her presence, her company, her rare displays of affection.
It was little, but sometimes a man must resign himself to live with crumbs.
He couldn't.
With trembling hands, he organized the shots and put it on the bed, by his side.
And then he put his hands on his face, feeling drained, tired and lost.
He had feared that his feelings for Babcock were something definitive, so he had fought them; when they proved to be too strong (damn Hanukkah car accident!), he started looking for ways of telling her how he felt without saying too much.
He didn't manage, obviously. It seemed his big mouth knew how to throw zingers and how to blurt marriage proposals, and nothing different from that could be told when he was taken by his feelings for her.
He just had told her he loved her once, and while passing by, because he didn't really want her to hear him. He didn't feel prepared to face the consequences
And then, the worst scenario turned to be real: he found the braveness to put his heart on the line, and she crunched it to the point where he lost everything.
He lost his faith in himself, because he had been sure he was reading things right. When she made clear how little she cared, it had been a shock – so, she didn't feel the same belonging when they kissed, traded zingers, or just stood side by side?
He lost his dignity, not just because he had told her how he felt and received despise, back, but mainly because he had lowered himself to her level and tried to hurt her in front of their... well, friends. Niles still loved CC Babcock deeply, but her way of acting put him on the edge, and he failed himself, degrading his feelings for her in a tirade that just served to humiliate her.
And he lost his life as he knew it, because now he realized he had built it entirely not just inside this house and for the people who lived here, but around Babcock. Every thing he possessed reminded him of her; every corner of his room – a room where she never even entered – had her presence.
His heart hurt, quite similarly to the day of his heart attack, but not that way.
Niles didn't actually regret quitting. He knew it was the right thing to do, once he had told her she had to learn when to move on, and he would be an hypocrite if he didn't move on, himself. However, it was easier said than done.
He was too tired of everything, and the prospect of a new start just made him think of how empty he would feel without her – of how impossible it would be to start it all over without his muse.
He wondered if she had wished to make a change in her life and didn't get to, because she really loved Mister Sheffield. What if what Niles had seen in her eyes towards himself – the flirting and the sparks when they teased – were just the signs that, if he was not so stupid and daring and… well, stupid, they could have been good friends, once her heart had already been taken for a man who didn't love her back?
Maybe he had asked from her something she couldn't give him.
Maybe he should have settled for friendship.
He shook his head – as if he could be just friends with Babcock.
He had tried to.
When he stayed close without letting the intensity of his real feelings show.
When he paid attention to the things she said and masked it with zingers.
When he tried to give her advice while throwing jabs.
When he took care of her without her knowing and kept a façade of despise.
He had really tried to act as a disinterested friend, keeping his fantasies of sex and romance to himself as long as he could.
But then he was forced to admit he cared too much to keep the role, and she cared too little to even acknowledge his efforts.
Sometimes she enchanted him, and he had to suppress an urge to hold her hand and say how impressive she was.
Sometimes she was so stupid he had to suppress an urge to shake her and yell When will you really look at me?!
Every time he ended up more and more fascinated by her and conscious of the distance between them.
Niles lowered his hands from his face and took a look around.
What would he do now?
What do you do when you loose everything you ever cared about?
The only place he felt belonging was her side, and she wouldn't let him be there.
It meant he had nowhere to go, in fact.
He felt quiet, his hands over his face, again, trying to calm down.
When the silence was getting too oppressive, Niles heard a soft knock on his door.
His heart skipped a bit.
Yes, it could be Fran, finally managing to escape from Maxwell's prohibition and coming to coax him into staying.
Yes, it could be Maxwell, finally accepting Fran's pleadings and coming to talk to him and try to coax him into staying.
But he had the absurd hope that it was Babcock.
That, for some incredible reason, she had decided to come and speak to him.
A new knock was heard.
Convinced that Maxwell and Fran wouldn't be so shy, Niles got up from his bed, took the shots hurriedly to put them inside the drawer and closed it.
Then, he went to the door and opened it.
And, well, it was her on the other side.