[A/N: My sincerest apologies for the slow update. Thanksgiving trip home! A sincere thank-you to all of the reviews...they motivate me to keep writing!]

Chapter Three

I'm not going home without you

I'll save your life

Not going home without you

I'll make this right and wait all night

If that's what it takes

"Getting a lot of money, Miss Babcock?" Fran asked.

CC cocked up an eyebrow. "Miss Babcock? You haven't called me that in years."

"Years?" Fran asked, her face scrunching in confusion.

CC thought for a moment. "All right. Several months."

Fran shrugged. "Old habits." She neglected to point out that the disintegration of CC's relationship with Niles had caused a huge resurgence of the much-feared Miss Babcock.

"Anyhow, yes, we're getting a lot of interest in our musical," CC said. "Nothing like a depressing charity event to make people give money away."

"Where's your ring?" Fran suddenly asked, yanking CC's left hand toward her, sloshing her martini over both of their hands.

"Excuse me!" CC exclaimed, grabbing a handful of napkins from the bar and mopping her hand up.

"No. CC, where's your ring?" Fran pressed.

"You big barbarian!" CC shot at her. She pulled her hand away and set her now-empty glass on the bar top. Spinning on her heel, CC stalked away with Fran hot on her heels. The blonde producer pushed into the bathroom and halted at the sink, lathering her hands and rinsing them off.

"CC," Fran said. "CC, where is your ring?"

"Why?" CC barked.

"You can't scare me away," Fran said, her voice unwavering. CC reluctantly acknowledged that the former nanny was correct; it was one of the things CC actually respected about her.

"It's back at my house," CC replied.

Fran eyed her shrewdly. "Your house? He isn't staying there anymore?"

"I…we…no," CC responded lamely. She pulled two paper towels from the dispenser and dried her hands.

"Oh, CC, I'm sorry," Fran said.

The sympathy in Fran's voice hit CC like a wave, washing away her Iron Woman disguise and revealing an aching vulnerability that pulsed in her throat. CC shrugged away quickly from the kind hand Fran attempted to place on CC's shoulder.

"It's fine," CC replied, the evenness of her voice unnerving her. How cold had she become? "It's a long time coming. It just wasn't a good fit."

Fran watched CC with a strange look on her face. "It's a relationship, CC, not a sweater."

"And yet both can be discarded when no longer sustainable," CC told her.

Fran's jaw dropped. "It's Niles you're talking about. How cold are you?"

The nanny's words jarred her not only because she'd just said that to herself but also because others had noticed it, too. She knew Niles had.

CC wasn't a person who could easily voice her thoughts, so discussing her feelings was complete alien terrain. Niles was usually the one who could help translate but the arduous job proved to be exhausting for him. So there was no way for her to explain how lost she felt, how unstable everything was when Niles wasn't her stability, or how terrified she was that Niles was slipping away. It seemed to happen so effortlessly. Faced with a life without Niles, her constant of nearly fifteen years, CC's resolve crumbled.

But when she opened her mouth to respond, all she said was, "Very, apparently."

"What do you think?" Niles asked apprehensively. CC walked in from the renovated kitchen, an inscrutable look on her face. She poked her head into the open, high-ceilinged living room before she spun around to face him with a large smile.

"I love it!" CC exclaimed.

"You do?" Niles said nervously.

"I love it, and I want it to be mine," CC declared.

"I know it's probably smaller than—" Niles began. CC silenced him with a tender kiss.

"Niles, I love it," she repeated. "I always wanted a townhouse with a hunky butler-turned-caterer."

Niles smiled, but CC could tell he was still nervous.

"Niles, relax. I love it. There's plenty of kitchen space for you to make me all of my favorite meals, and there are a lot of windows. Great storage space. Gorgeous hardwood floors. Close to work but far enough away that the Fine family won't be here everyday," CC said. CC grabbed his hand and hurried up the stairs, jogging down the length of the hall and stepping into the master bedroom. She stopped abruptly and spun around quickly; Niles stopped and just prevented himself from running into her.

"Do you want to know my favorite part?" CC asked.

Niles smiled at the almost childlike excitement that she never showed to anyone but him. "What's that?"

"It's ours," she said, sliding her hands into his. "Our own place. I'll get to fall asleep and wake up next to you without rushing back to my penthouse to get ready for work. Every night, I'll get to sleep next to you and every morning, I'll wake up next to you."

"Hmm. You're right. I should probably rethink this…" Niles said. CC playfully punched his shoulder and pouted.

"Well, if that's how you feel…"

"CC," Niles began. She felt her stomach squirm in a way that was both anxious and magnificent. "I have no idea how I became so lucky or what I did to earn you. So I need you to know how happy all of this makes me. If you don't like this townhouse, we can find another one. I will spend the rest of my life working to make you as happy as you make me."

CC felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, so she squeezed them shut and gave him a lingering kiss. "I love it. It's our home."

CC reentered the ballroom and suddenly felt suffocated at the thought of being there with Niles and Fran. Two people who knew of her utter failure to maintain a relationship with a man who'd loved her more than everyone else who had loved her before combined. She'd failed so seldom before and, as most people who rarely fail are wont to do, she'd come to fear failure. It was, therefore, poetic that she'd failed at the one thing she'd needed to succeed.

Holding the skirt of her dress up to avoid stepping on it, CC ventured to the bar to replace her spilled martini. As she leaned forward to place her drink order, she heard a silky British baritone say, "A dry martini for the lady, please."

CC turned to look at her fiancé, or former fiancé, or…Niles. She turned to look at Niles. "How generous of you. It's an open bar, you know."

Niles gestured widely, as if to display his magnanimous spirit. "Anything for you."

CC paused; she felt jarred, as though she were listening to a favorite song and it suddenly skipped a beat. She was saved from the onerous task of coming up with a reply, however, when one of Sheffield-Babcock's most reputable backers approached Niles and CC at the bar.

"My favorite couple!" he exclaimed, patting a hand on each of their shoulders.

Niles' face instantly transformed in one of polite interest. "Robert, how are you?"

"Fantastic, good man," Robert replied. "CC, you just look magnificent." He reached for her left hand and bent down to kiss it gallantly, but he paused. "Where's—"

"We had to get the ring cleaned," Niles inserted quickly, effortlessly sliding his arm around CC's waist. His hand automatically rested on her hip. "Since she spends so much time around sleazy backers like yourself," Niles finished with a playful twinkle in his eye.

Robert gave a booming laugh and handed his empty glass to the bartender to refill. "Niles, you ass. I had quite a scare there. You know how much I love you two."

CC remembered well. Robert had been the only person not surprised by Niles and CC's relationship, having seen the two interact throughout the years. He'd been particularly happy when they'd announced their engagement months ago.

CC watched as Robert and Niles continued playfully jabbing at one another, finding herself wishing that their conversation would never end. She found all of her attention, focus, and nerves centered where Niles' hand touched her hip and she refused to admit to herself how much she craved it.

The happy couple act had to continue throughout the entire exchange, of course, so CC played along as well as she could. She looked up at him and he glanced over at her, smiling cheerfully. The joy didn't spread to his eyes and CC felt her stomach drop as though a lead weight had dropped into it.

She remembered—so well that it hurt—how he used to look at her. It had happened even before he'd admitted any feelings for her, before any of their drunken exchanges, or before she'd started to wonder fleetingly about the strangely handsome butler. She would look up suddenly and find him staring at her; before he had the chance to wipe it from his eyes, CC would see it. He used to look at her so fondly, as though she were so unbelievably precious.

When they'd finally gotten together, she saw it more often but that never diminished its quality. And when he paired that look with softly pushing her hair behind her ears, she was gone. He'd won her over so completely that she hadn't had time to get scared. At first.

These uninvited thoughts stomped into her consciousness with the force of the Spanish Inquisition and her inner strength fell apart.

Niles glanced at her again, but she was smiling blankly at Robert. As Robert finished their conversation and walked off with his newly filled glass, CC felt tears glazing her eyes.

"Are you all right?" Niles asked, concerned.

"I…" CC let her sentence dangle. She couldn't lie to him. She didn't want to. But she didn't want to fall prey to his innocuous concern that he would show to any human being in pain, since he was a decent man. It wasn't as though she could turn to him and reply that she was upset because she was still in love with him but she had absolutely no idea how to fix things.

Instead, she ignored the martini sitting behind her and walked off quickly.

Niles made a move to follow her but decided against it, choosing instead to sit back at their table. Dessert had been served, so he began to eat the strawberry cheesecake.

"Good thing," Fran remarked. Two empty seats, Max and CC's, sat between them.

"Hmm?" Niles looked up from the cheesecake.

Fran motioned to his dessert. "I was about to eat it."

Niles smiled. "I don't blame you. It's delicious."

Fran pushed the remaining crumbs around her dessert plate with her fork. "Niles…about earlier."

"No need to apologize, Fran," Niles immediately defused.

"I wasn't going to apologize," Fran admitted. "I mean, ya know, I'm sorry I upset you. But I also wanted to say I understand. Sometimes things don't work out."

Niles thought back to how CC hadn't stepped away from his touch. He may have been imagining it, but maybe she'd even leaned into it. "Sometimes they do."

Fran nodded. "Sometimes they do," she granted. "But you're right. Remembering what you guys had isn't helpful. I talked to her in the restroom and she just seemed so…cold."

Niles' hand clasped his fork more tightly for a moment, but he refrained from replying. He loathed how people immediately disregarded everything about CC on the basis that she was cold, but he couldn't blame Fran. She didn't know CC as he did.

"She isn't even wearing her ring anymore. And I didn't know you weren't staying at the townhouse," Fran continued. "It just seems like things are piled against you, and it's hard to come back from that."

"It can be," Niles said noncommittally. When Fran put it like that…

"I don't blame you for giving up," Fran said, patting the table as though to simulate sympathetically touching his hand.

Niles nodded slowly. Two people now, in less than an hour, had told him to give up. He supposed they were right. It would be the smart thing to do.