By the time he'd reached the center of town, Niles was exhausted. His feet, arms and legs were aching beyond belief, but he was determined to spend as little time as possible in the town of Ritzville, Washington.

After what felt like hours, the brick building came into view and the bold sign was like an answered prayer.

RITZVILLE BUS DEPOT

Ironically the sight made him cringe. Just the thought of public transportation was disturbing. He was all but certain that busses weren't regularly subjected to a thorough sterilization process to rid them of germs at each stop. Oh, how he wished they were. And they would be, if he had anything at all to say about the matter. But now he tried not to think about it. Instead he focused on the fact that a bus would get him closer to where he longed to be; home. Sitting on a filthy, germy bus was a chance that he was more than willing to take.

Despite his aching body, he made his way into the train station. As he feared the place was filthy and he was sure that bugs were crawling everywhere. But he took a deep breath and walked up to the counter. The woman behind that counter barely acknowledge his existence as he approached, bringing a rather disturbing memory of his experience at the car rental company in Spokane. However, he saw yet another ray of light when the woman smiled.

"Hi, what can I do for ya?" Her deep southern accent caught him off-guard and he paused before speaking.

"Oh… I don't know... I-."

"Lemme guess. You're tryin' to get somewhere."

"Of course, but-."

"Where ya' headed?"

"Seattle." The words was direct and clear, not tentative like his previous attempt at speaking. And he wondered how he could possibly feel any sort of unease around this woman.

"See-attle, huh?"

"That's right." He said, more confidently, this time. "You see, I've had a long journey already and I miss my wife and son terribly, so-."

"Two-twenty."

He blinked, thoroughly confused. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Two-twenty." She repeated.

He looked at his watch, aghast when he saw the time. It was much later than he expected it to be. But two-twenty in the morning was still hours away and he wasn't about to spend his time in such an atrocious place. Who knew what kind of people lurked about in the Ritzville Bus Depot? Certainty not the type of people that neither he nor Frasier would associate with.

"Um, don't you have anything sooner? I really need to get home." Niles pleaded, as politely as possible.

But to his horror, the woman began to laugh... loudly.

"Why is that funny?" he demanded. "I certainly don't find anything humorous about a man wanting to go home to his wife and child!"

"No, honey. Two twenty ain't the time it leaves. Two twenty is the price!"

Niles' jaw dropped. "Two hundred and twenty dollars?"

The woman nodded. "Yep."

"Why… that's outrageous! Who in their right mind would pay two hundred and twenty dollars to ride a filthy bus to-."

"Hey!" The woman shouted. "Them buses ain't filthy!" The word was accompanied by her fingers making imaginary quotation marks in the air. "And plenty of people would pay that price. Ain't no other way to get to Sea-attle from here."

"But there has to be!" Niles pleaded. "There must!"

She shook her head. "Nope. But leaves soon and it takes seven hours, so I'd say you'd be in Sea-attle, oh… I don't know, about…." She turned and glanced at the cheap wall clock that hung behind her on the wall.

But Niles refused to let her finish. "Seven hours? You must be ludicrous if you think I'm going to spend seven hours on a bus!"

"Look, if you're gonna stand there and call me names, I'll have William over there throw you out on the street, you got that?"

Niles' flinched. "Wh-who's William?"

She motioned to a burly man sitting in the corner wearing what resembled a policeman's uniform. Just a glimpse of him made Niles shudder.

"I wasn't calling you na- Look, I apologize if I offended you in any way, but I really need to get home quickly. So do you have any other buses that leave earlier? Cheaper buses? Ones that won't take seven hours to get home?"

"Nope. Not to Seattle."

"All right fine. But anywhere closer-."

"We-ll, let's see here." She said, drawing the words out as she looked on her computer screen. "Bus for Ephrata leaves in the morning."

"Um, where?"

"Ephrata." She repeated.

"I'm sorry; I don't…"

She sighed irritably. "Ephrata. Where are you from anyway? Ain't you ever heard of it? Home of Soap Lake?"

He hadn't. And frankly he didn't want to know.