[A/N: Another short chapter, I'm afraid. But things start picking up after this. I hope you're enjoying.]

Chapter 4

And a glass cage heart and invited me in
And now I'm just a basket case without him

After that day in the kitchen, they went back to the beginning. Not back to normal (which in their case was decidedly un-normal). Back to the very beginning, when she first started working for Maxwell. Niles had teased her in an offhanded kind of way back then. He was first a butler, second a playmate. Now he was a butler who happened to play with her if, it seemed to CC, he remembered she was there. So she turned her nose up at him and tried to remember how she used to act around him.

It wasn't easy. She learned how much of life was driven by pure habit when she had to stop her feet from following Niles out of the office after he dropped off Maxwell's tea. Same thing when Maxwell said something that could easily turn into an insult for Niles. And apparently jokes about Niles's girlfriend only received stern looks from Maxwell while Niles just shifted uncomfortably and often left the room—again, without CC in tow.

She tried to look on the bright side. She worked more efficiently, her coffee finally tasted normal, and her nerves very seldom felt frayed at the end of a work day.

But CC was not a bright-side woman and she was bored. Maxwell was so painfully boring. She'd even taken to gabbing a little with Nanny Fine when the woman came into the office, grateful for the distraction from how humdrum Broadway producing turned out to be.

At the very least, the nanny seemed to feel a little put-out at Niles's time being taken up by another woman too. She was nicer than CC, though—or at least a better friend—because CC hadn't yet heard her saying anything too negative about Molly.

This wouldn't do. Her whole life, she strayed very easily into boredom, and it turned out that Niles was an integral part of her day being not boring.

With a sigh, she stood and tossed the contracts onto Maxwell's desk. He jumped slightly. "These look fine. Have Niles send them off."

"Will do," Max said, making a note to himself on his small notepad.

"I'm going to the theater," CC told him, shoving her well-worn script into her leather bag.

"Oh?" he asked, peering at her over his gold-rimmed glasses.

"Nothing else going on here," CC replied. "See you later, Maxwell."

She had a feeling he said something to her as she shut the office door but truth be told, she didn't care.

"Off to meet your coven?" she heard Niles's voice ask her as she ambled through the living room.

She smiled. Were she a more emotionally aware woman, she might have recognized that she missed him. It was all rendered moot, though, because even if she had recognized it, she never would have said it. "Yes, in fact. Want to be the virgin for our sacrifice?"

He caught up to her as she crossed into the foyer and smirked at her. "I'd love to, but—"

"But you have a date with your girlfriend, the only other virgin in Manhattan?" CC guessed, her smile becoming a little more grim. Why, oh why did she always bring that woman up? Masochist.

Niles ignored her as he opened the front closet and pulled out her light spring jacket. After a second's pause, Niles reached in and pulled out a black umbrella. "Be careful, Wicked Witch. It looks like rain."

"Thanks, Broomhilda," CC said, slipping on her jacket and taking the umbrella from him. She hitched her bag further up on her shoulder and paused. "That one didn't make much sense, did it?"

Niles smirked and shook his head. "No."

"Well, you can't blame me for being a little rusty," she reasoned, stepping up to the front door and pulling it open.

"Age?" Niles guessed.

CC snorted and pat his cheek a few times. "No, because you've been ignoring me for a week." With that, she stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind her.

After the boredom of the office and the confused mix that occluded her now whenever she interacted with Niles, driving her Mercedes through the familiar streets of Manhattan felt right. The soft hum of the engine, the sweet breeze through the cracked window: here, she was in control. She understood things.

The feeling only intensified as she entered the theater, finding the expected mishmash of people, sets, and costumes. She even spotted a script rolling down the aisle toward the stage. Anticipation coursed through her. Let's go.

Within twenty minutes, she had settled disputes, set schedules, and coordinated everything so that the theater now resembled a well-oiled machine. She smiled to herself. Who needed a silly butler and his stupid girlfriend?

"Miss Babcock, excuse me," one of the stagehands said nervously, fiddling with a long electrical cord.

CC looked at him, her face frowning slightly when he didn't continue. "Well?"

"Oh! Right," he said. "Uh, anyhow, we need to fix one of the lights on the stage. It seems loose."

CC continued staring at him and then said slowly, "That doesn't seem like something I need to hear about."

"No, well, not normally, no," he stammered, his nervousness increasing with every millimeter that CC's eyes narrowed. "It's just—the lighting contractor told us not to mess with the lights after last week, and—"

"Right," CC said, stepping past the sweating young man and heading towards the stage. "Which light?"

She stepped onstage, watching as the stagehand motioned to the third row of lights. She told the young man to just fix it and she'd sort it out with the contractor later. Were contractors worse than choreographers? No, CC decided, seeing the man she'd feuded with last week walk into the theater and avoid her gaze. Choreographers were worse.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something swooping towards her from the ceiling. She found herself wondering what Niles was doing that evening before everything went black.