(Niles' POV)
"Niles? Are you listening to me, Niles?"
Beside him, Mel was chattering on about this and that, but he wasn't listening at all. He as thinking about Daphne, as he'd always done.
She looked so beautiful standing beside him on Frasier's balcony in her sleeveless red dress. Although he'd made amends with Daphne, he still chided himself for letting her stand in the freezing cold; even for a moment before draping his jacket around her shoulders. The thought that he was wearing that jacket now; the one that had touched her silky soft skin made him shiver.
"Are you cold, Niles? Frasier's apartment has dreadful heating, don't you think?"
He opened his mouth to say something but she continued talking, almost as though he wasn't there. Absently, he turned up the heat in the car, hoping that would make her happy, if only for the moment. Meanwhile he was perfectly content with being alone…. in a sense.
He hated telling Daphne that he needed his gift back. The earrings he'd bought for Mel weren't meant for Daphne at all, but he panicked, when his 'brilliant' father had broken Daphne's gift. Still, Niles worried that Daphne would be hurt by the request. Strangely, she wasn't hurt at all and in fact seemed to understand.
His dad breaking the crystal picture frame that Niles had bought Daphne for Christmas was, perhaps a blessing. He admitted that he hadn't given much thought at all into choosing Daphne's gift in the first place and that if he were to be completely honest, he'd chosen it as a mere afterthought. How he could have done something like that made him feel even guiltier.
However when he reconsidered, the gift he'd chosen wasn't so bad after all. The moment he saw the etched glass picture frame, he'd purchased it. He'd taken great care in wrapping it, but after his dad had carelessly sent the wrapped picture frame crashing to the floor, Niles realized that he hadn't wrapped the gift well enough. It was obvious by the way the broken pieces of glass rattled when he picked up the box from the floor and shook it.
They drove on while Mel continued to chatter about the goings on in her life but once again he found his mind drifting. What had Daphne been trying to tell him on the balcony? Damn it, if only he hadn't jumped to conclusions and let her finish her statement, he would have known what she was trying to say. If his the guilt in breaking her gift was bad, it was nothing compared to the way he felt when he'd asked her to return the earrings; Mel's earrings.
He'd never forget the look on Daphne's face when she glanced at the box and read the name of the jeweler. The earrings were extravagant and he could only imagine what she must have thought. After all, they were only friends… good friends of course, but nothing more.
But suddenly, listening to Mel chide him about all the things he could do better (and there were many), he realized that Daphne's gift; the one that he would choose to replace the broken picture frame, had to be something so beautiful, so wonderful, so completely perfect that the minute she opened it, she would fall in love with it instantly.
Just as he had fallen in love with Daphne; who, in his eyes was beautiful, wonderful and so completely perfect.