Daphne waited patiently in the patio booth at the Hook & Plow for Annie and Clare, while she nursed her first drink of the night. They were going to have a fun night painting the waterfront, that is, if they would ever get here.
Not that Daphne normally minded the wait; her girlfriends had always had a habit of being fashionably late whenever they met up. But right now, she could really use an ear or two to yammer off, if for nothing but to get her mind off of the day's developments. Maybe the chatter would loosen her up to the point where she could enjoy herself without feeling so distracted. Lord knew it would be hopeless until then.
Damn that soulless shrew Maris Crane. Of all the bloody rotten things!
Wasn't it enough that she had made poor Dr. Crane suffer endlessly over the past year just to get her spiteful jollies off? Now she had to callously throw Daphne's name into this case, like a horseshoe at a stake? Just to score cheap points in the courtroom?
For heavens' sakes, to even insinuate that Dr. Crane could have some sort of... secret feelings for her? Because of one date? One night in which they set out to do nothing more than show off to those dreadful sharks that she called friends, to show her what she was missing?
It was ludicrous. Preposterous, even!
And so, so typically hypocritical of her. All he had ever done was bend over backwards to please her, to make all of her wishes come true, without her ever showing one damned ounce of appreciation, and would never even think of running around on her behind her back.
My god, she was the one who had been unfaithful! With Schenkman (or whatever the blaggard's name was), probably with that fencing instructor, and probably countless others that they didn't even know about!
She was nothing but spiteful. And petty. And so unworthy of Niles Crane.
He was such a good man. Warm, caring, sensitive, sophisticated; a man like him deserved so much better. If only he would just come to his senses and realize it.
Why, if he actually WAS in love with her, and she was actually in love with him (not that she was), she would show him all the happiness in the world.
She would comfort him after a lousy day with a particularly unruly patient, or when he lost his squash game. And he would comfort her after another insufferable demand from his brother, or another round of his father refusing to do his exercises.
She would help him cook many meals, and they would have many romantic candlelight dinners together.
They would go to a million Snow Balls, and they would tango passionately and relentlessly at every single one. They would clear the floor, they would cry out aloud how they adored each other, and they would share that same passionate kiss. Over and over again.
IF he was in love with her. And IF she was in love with him.
But he wasn't. And she wasn't. It was ludicrous. Impossible.
Just because she 'sometimes' thought about him, 'sometimes' caught her mind drifting to those smooth blonde locks, 'sometimes' caught herself getting lost in those blue eyes... and just because she ALMOST pitched her knickers and jumped in the sack with him that ONE time after fighting with that insufferable woman Mr. Crane was seeing... none of that meant they were in love with each other!
No, they weren't. Not even a little bit! Whatsoever.
And yet...
Okay, so it wasn't exactly an abhorrent idea to think about. Niles Crane was not usually the kind of man that Daphne would go for, but then he was never the easiest man to figure out. That had always made Daphne curious. His brother and father had been much easier to peg from the beginning: the egotistical, demanding snob and the crusty, reserved old man, but both with hearts bigger than Puget Sound. But with the younger Dr. Crane, there was.. more.
And for one glorious night in that ballroom, she had seen it. The layers underneath his outer shell that only Daphne had been allowed to see. Behind the stuffy, pretentious exterior was a fiery, excitingly passionate man. And the fact that she was the one whom he allowed to peel back those layers said an awful lot about what he thought of her. It was a level of trust and admiration that she knew all of the Crane men possessed, but that only one of them had truly shown her.
"Why is it so easy to love our families, yet so hard to like them?" she had once asked her employer. She loved them all (platonically), but she actually liked Dr. Niles Crane. Not loved (romantically), mind you, but liked. They had fun together. They had drowned their sorrows together. And he had always been there for her when she needed a friend. And for a man so unsure of himself, he always seemed to know the right thing to say.
And let's face it... he wasn't bad to look at. Daphne couldn't deny that. More boyish than manly, but in a good way. Hell, if a shallow airhead like Annie could swoon over him, why should it be so hard for a grounded girl like Daphne to seem him in that way?
Perhaps the issue though, was whether a high-class doctor like Niles Crane could ever see HER that way. Daphne had her doubts. She'd always had doubts about herself, but especially when it came to the Crane men. She had to admit she found them intimidating at times. Not because of their demanding personalities, mind you, but because of their status. She was not in their league, and she never dared to dream that she ever would be.
It was that status, she knew, that he would never be willing to cast aside very easily. It was among the biggest reasons, she suspected, why he found it so hard to finally end such an otherwise hopeless marriage. No, the thought that she and Niles Crane could ever be together simply wasn't possible.
But what if they could? Was it really that far-fetched? And...would it really have been such a bad thing?
Oh, stop it, Daphne! Now you're letting that wench put thoughts in your head! Don't give her the satisfaction! Niles Crane is NOT in love with you, and you are NOT in love with him!
And with that, she did her best to brush aside the strange thoughts that were consuming her, as she took another sip of her bloody mary. And before she knew it, she saw both Annie & Clare waving to her and making their way to her booth.