Sorry about how long it's taken me to get this up. Finals were hectic and
awful and crazy and terrible.
There'll probably be one more chapter, but this is the big one, folks.
Chapter 15
She didn't want to make the decision so quickly. Or, rather, she didn't want to admit it had been made so quickly. Really, her own volition seemed to have nothing to do with it. At a certain point the answer had presented itself. There had been no choice made. Perhaps it was that against which she rebelled, which made her take the extra day, thinking it through carefully and completely unnecessarily.
Three days after he had come to her apartment, she called him, at nine in the morning precisely. Standard waking hours as designated by the business world, she thought with only a slight coloring of humor. He was an early riser anyway. The opportunity to caress her sleeping form, in fact, was the only thing which could ever coax him to stay in bed later than -
He picked up on the first ring.
(He couldn't have been waiting by the phone for three days. That would be ridiculous.)
She heard herself asking him to come over, heard herself falling back on the tried-and-true cliché of "we need to talk." Heard him agreeing rapidly, eagerly, and a little fearfully. He dropped the phone without even saying goodbye, too anxious to be on his way. She replaced the receiver slowly.
They were nervous with one another when he arrived, circling one another warily, like boxers in a prize fight. Looking for openings, not for attack but for appeal. Each hoped fiercely that the other could understand. That they would be together in this, the most wrenching decision of their lives.
"So," Daphne said finally, clearing her throat. "I suppose you guessed I've spent these past few days doing a lot of thinking. About us." Of course. She cursed herself for her inanity.
"Understood," Niles said, seating himself gingerly in an armchair. She realized she was pacing and sat down as well, across from him.
"There's a lot to think about," she said, wondering why she couldn't move through this any faster. "It's not simple, you know - I mean, I know you know that. One thing I do know -" she said, deciding to get to some sort of point, anyway, "is that -" She fumbled for words. "I told you I loved you. Before," she said, and he nodded, his expression one of agonized hope. "I want you to know that that. that hasn't changed," she said.
He jumped. Tears leapt to his eyes, and he made as if to cross the room towards her. She waved him down. "No, please," she said, "let me just get through this, please." He nodded, sinking back down into the chair, still looking jubilant but also a little puzzled.
"It hasn't changed," she said, clearing her throat again, "I don't think it could. You know I've told you I loved you so long before I ever realized it. now I have realized it, I don't think it could go away just like that. Well, it could go away, of course it could, but you'd have to - well, you'd have to do a lot worse, I'll just say that," she said, and smiled. He almost laughed, caught himself. "Who you are - that hasn't changed, Niles. All the things about you that I fell in love with - they're still there. Impossible for me to change over that quick, you know?"
He looked as if he wanted to cut a caper. She hated to ruin this for him.
"But."
He caught the tone of her voice. The fear reentered his eyes.
"All that. all that's still there," she went on. "But. but it's not all that's there."
Blue eyes, still a little tearstained, wide and puzzled - how could she do this to him?
I'm not doing a thing to him, she reminded herself. This is the way it has to be.
"You hurt me," she said bluntly, too upset herself now to put it delicately, and his brow darkened for a second and then went flat. "You walked out on me, and I know you had your reasons, I know you were hurting, too. I know the last thing you would ever want to do is hurt me, and that's mostly why I can still love you." A flurry of quick, confused emotion flitted across his face and then subsided. "But you're. you're weak, Niles."
His brow creased a little. He opened his mouth a little, as if to speak. She would have let him. But he stopped. She read in his silence his tacit agreement.
She went on, though. Fumbling, but feeling as though she had to explain. Besides, she'd thought it through so thoroughly, it would be a shame to waste all of that. "Walking out like that was the worst thing you ever did to me out of weakness, Niles, but of course I knew about it long before. I never imagined it would - I never imagined it would affect our relationship, because I was giddy, in love, I thought nothing could go wrong, but looking back, I was a fool to think you could be strong just for me when you -" She noticed the exceedingly firm set the line of his jaw had taken and stopped a moment, confused. But this needed to be said. "The way you let yourself be walked on by Maris all those years, the way you let her hurt you just because you couldn't stand up to her -"
"I loved her, Daphne," he said, and she could see he was getting angry. She supposed there had been no way to avoid that. "I wanted to make it work."
"Did you?" She shook her head. "Maybe at first, but eight years is a long time to love someone who treats you that way. I think for a long, long time you just couldn't stand up to her and tell her you were leaving."
He had no answer to that.
"And then how you couldn't tell me how you felt about me -" She saw the shocked betrayal in his eyes, and she bit her lip. This wasn't quite as bad as she had feared, but experiencing the reality was so much worse than the imaginings that it seemed to make no difference. "God, Niles, that was another seven years - even if you take Maris into account, you could have asked me when you were separated, or even early on when I was with Donny - God, anything would have been better than what we ended up doing to Donny and Mel -" He winced automatically. "And I know part of that was my fault, but Niles, you waited seven years to tell me. Out of fear."
"This isn't fair," he said, and his voice was low. "Daphne, I did stand up for you, I conquered that -"
"Yes, and left a wife of three days brokenhearted behind you," Daphne snapped, and he started, taken aback. She smiled a little. "Sorry about that. Mel and I've formed a bit of a friendship."
"Yes, Frasier told me," Niles said, still looking a little startled. "He also told me, if I recall, that she's much happier now and things have ultimately worked out better for her."
Daphne shook her head. "Yes, she is, but then why were you even dating her in the first place, Niles? You were using her to forget me - it was unfair to both of us, and you did it out of fear. You don't see anything wrong with that?"
He looked down. "I don't know what you want me to say. Nothing I say will be the right answer anyway."
She softened a little. "I'm sorry, Niles. I never meant to be this harsh -"
"No, let's be honest, all right?" he said, looking up at her. "You had an agenda when you invited me over here today, and I think - or I hope, anyway - that you've just about covered it. Please don't try to pretend this was an accident. You've been brooding over this for a long time."
She nodded. "Yes."
"So that's it, then," he said, looking up at her. "You're in love with me, but I'm weak. You're dumping me. End of story, shall I get my coat and hat and find my way to the door?"
She shook her head. "No, no, Niles, I'm not. oh, God, Niles, the last thing I want to do is "dump" you, the way you put it, but." She groped for words, found none. He stared at her helplessly.
"Please, Daphne," he said at last, voice low and gravelly. She looked up.
"I'm sorry," she said. "This is hard for me."
He gave a short, barking laugh. She followed it with a more genuine one.
"Not half as hard as it is for you, you're thinking."
"Yes."
"Well, don't bet on it. Oh, Niles, I -"
"Enough with the 'oh, Niles,' bit," he said, his voice low and excruciatingly controlled. "Just - tell me what you're going to do. Please."
She nodded. "Fair enough."
Deep breath.
"I don't want to break up with you, Niles. it's just. things are bad without you," she said, surprising herself. "But." Another deep breath. "There are some very bad times coming for us, and. it's why I was talking about the weakness thing, Niles. How can I trust that you'll be here for me? I mean, what happens if my disease - what if it progresses first?"
He looked up in some surprise. Neither of them had so much as thought about AIDS for the duration of the conversation thus far. It had been about the two of them, and the important things they shared, in their minds, did not include HIV.
"Could you watch me die, Niles?" she asked, deliberately blunt. "Could you stay with me through that?" A pause. "Or would you have to leave?"
"I." He struggled. "I don't know," he said finally.
She nodded, thankful for his honesty. "Niles, if I were to take you back, I'd have to know you'd be there for me, completely. And I don't know that. You're the person I fell in love with, but that only makes it worse if you walk out on me. I can't hurt like that again. I have enough to deal with."
Silence.
Finally he nodded, clearly with an effort. "Very wise," he said, standing up.
She rose as well. "Are you going to be okay?"
He shook his head, abstracted. "I don't know," he said. "It's." He looked at her and laughed, a tiny burst of hysteria. It was gone almost immediately. He reached out to touch her shoulder gently.
"Can I still see you?" he asked suddenly.
She nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes. Please. I didn't mean - maybe you misunderstood. I still want to see you, Niles, I still want to be around you, I just don't want - the depth of commitment we had. A trial period, maybe."
"Dating?" he said warily.
She smiled. "I suppose. You know, we never really did that. One kiss and we'd thrown our spouses by the wayside. Maybe all we ever needed was to take things more slowly."
"Maybe." He smiled, a tender smile that turned inward. He bent forward and kissed her on the cheek gently. "Goodbye, Daphne."
"I'll see you soon," she said, seeing him out the door. Watching the door fall shut behind him.
She leaned back against the wall with a long, exhausted sigh.
There'll probably be one more chapter, but this is the big one, folks.
Chapter 15
She didn't want to make the decision so quickly. Or, rather, she didn't want to admit it had been made so quickly. Really, her own volition seemed to have nothing to do with it. At a certain point the answer had presented itself. There had been no choice made. Perhaps it was that against which she rebelled, which made her take the extra day, thinking it through carefully and completely unnecessarily.
Three days after he had come to her apartment, she called him, at nine in the morning precisely. Standard waking hours as designated by the business world, she thought with only a slight coloring of humor. He was an early riser anyway. The opportunity to caress her sleeping form, in fact, was the only thing which could ever coax him to stay in bed later than -
He picked up on the first ring.
(He couldn't have been waiting by the phone for three days. That would be ridiculous.)
She heard herself asking him to come over, heard herself falling back on the tried-and-true cliché of "we need to talk." Heard him agreeing rapidly, eagerly, and a little fearfully. He dropped the phone without even saying goodbye, too anxious to be on his way. She replaced the receiver slowly.
They were nervous with one another when he arrived, circling one another warily, like boxers in a prize fight. Looking for openings, not for attack but for appeal. Each hoped fiercely that the other could understand. That they would be together in this, the most wrenching decision of their lives.
"So," Daphne said finally, clearing her throat. "I suppose you guessed I've spent these past few days doing a lot of thinking. About us." Of course. She cursed herself for her inanity.
"Understood," Niles said, seating himself gingerly in an armchair. She realized she was pacing and sat down as well, across from him.
"There's a lot to think about," she said, wondering why she couldn't move through this any faster. "It's not simple, you know - I mean, I know you know that. One thing I do know -" she said, deciding to get to some sort of point, anyway, "is that -" She fumbled for words. "I told you I loved you. Before," she said, and he nodded, his expression one of agonized hope. "I want you to know that that. that hasn't changed," she said.
He jumped. Tears leapt to his eyes, and he made as if to cross the room towards her. She waved him down. "No, please," she said, "let me just get through this, please." He nodded, sinking back down into the chair, still looking jubilant but also a little puzzled.
"It hasn't changed," she said, clearing her throat again, "I don't think it could. You know I've told you I loved you so long before I ever realized it. now I have realized it, I don't think it could go away just like that. Well, it could go away, of course it could, but you'd have to - well, you'd have to do a lot worse, I'll just say that," she said, and smiled. He almost laughed, caught himself. "Who you are - that hasn't changed, Niles. All the things about you that I fell in love with - they're still there. Impossible for me to change over that quick, you know?"
He looked as if he wanted to cut a caper. She hated to ruin this for him.
"But."
He caught the tone of her voice. The fear reentered his eyes.
"All that. all that's still there," she went on. "But. but it's not all that's there."
Blue eyes, still a little tearstained, wide and puzzled - how could she do this to him?
I'm not doing a thing to him, she reminded herself. This is the way it has to be.
"You hurt me," she said bluntly, too upset herself now to put it delicately, and his brow darkened for a second and then went flat. "You walked out on me, and I know you had your reasons, I know you were hurting, too. I know the last thing you would ever want to do is hurt me, and that's mostly why I can still love you." A flurry of quick, confused emotion flitted across his face and then subsided. "But you're. you're weak, Niles."
His brow creased a little. He opened his mouth a little, as if to speak. She would have let him. But he stopped. She read in his silence his tacit agreement.
She went on, though. Fumbling, but feeling as though she had to explain. Besides, she'd thought it through so thoroughly, it would be a shame to waste all of that. "Walking out like that was the worst thing you ever did to me out of weakness, Niles, but of course I knew about it long before. I never imagined it would - I never imagined it would affect our relationship, because I was giddy, in love, I thought nothing could go wrong, but looking back, I was a fool to think you could be strong just for me when you -" She noticed the exceedingly firm set the line of his jaw had taken and stopped a moment, confused. But this needed to be said. "The way you let yourself be walked on by Maris all those years, the way you let her hurt you just because you couldn't stand up to her -"
"I loved her, Daphne," he said, and she could see he was getting angry. She supposed there had been no way to avoid that. "I wanted to make it work."
"Did you?" She shook her head. "Maybe at first, but eight years is a long time to love someone who treats you that way. I think for a long, long time you just couldn't stand up to her and tell her you were leaving."
He had no answer to that.
"And then how you couldn't tell me how you felt about me -" She saw the shocked betrayal in his eyes, and she bit her lip. This wasn't quite as bad as she had feared, but experiencing the reality was so much worse than the imaginings that it seemed to make no difference. "God, Niles, that was another seven years - even if you take Maris into account, you could have asked me when you were separated, or even early on when I was with Donny - God, anything would have been better than what we ended up doing to Donny and Mel -" He winced automatically. "And I know part of that was my fault, but Niles, you waited seven years to tell me. Out of fear."
"This isn't fair," he said, and his voice was low. "Daphne, I did stand up for you, I conquered that -"
"Yes, and left a wife of three days brokenhearted behind you," Daphne snapped, and he started, taken aback. She smiled a little. "Sorry about that. Mel and I've formed a bit of a friendship."
"Yes, Frasier told me," Niles said, still looking a little startled. "He also told me, if I recall, that she's much happier now and things have ultimately worked out better for her."
Daphne shook her head. "Yes, she is, but then why were you even dating her in the first place, Niles? You were using her to forget me - it was unfair to both of us, and you did it out of fear. You don't see anything wrong with that?"
He looked down. "I don't know what you want me to say. Nothing I say will be the right answer anyway."
She softened a little. "I'm sorry, Niles. I never meant to be this harsh -"
"No, let's be honest, all right?" he said, looking up at her. "You had an agenda when you invited me over here today, and I think - or I hope, anyway - that you've just about covered it. Please don't try to pretend this was an accident. You've been brooding over this for a long time."
She nodded. "Yes."
"So that's it, then," he said, looking up at her. "You're in love with me, but I'm weak. You're dumping me. End of story, shall I get my coat and hat and find my way to the door?"
She shook her head. "No, no, Niles, I'm not. oh, God, Niles, the last thing I want to do is "dump" you, the way you put it, but." She groped for words, found none. He stared at her helplessly.
"Please, Daphne," he said at last, voice low and gravelly. She looked up.
"I'm sorry," she said. "This is hard for me."
He gave a short, barking laugh. She followed it with a more genuine one.
"Not half as hard as it is for you, you're thinking."
"Yes."
"Well, don't bet on it. Oh, Niles, I -"
"Enough with the 'oh, Niles,' bit," he said, his voice low and excruciatingly controlled. "Just - tell me what you're going to do. Please."
She nodded. "Fair enough."
Deep breath.
"I don't want to break up with you, Niles. it's just. things are bad without you," she said, surprising herself. "But." Another deep breath. "There are some very bad times coming for us, and. it's why I was talking about the weakness thing, Niles. How can I trust that you'll be here for me? I mean, what happens if my disease - what if it progresses first?"
He looked up in some surprise. Neither of them had so much as thought about AIDS for the duration of the conversation thus far. It had been about the two of them, and the important things they shared, in their minds, did not include HIV.
"Could you watch me die, Niles?" she asked, deliberately blunt. "Could you stay with me through that?" A pause. "Or would you have to leave?"
"I." He struggled. "I don't know," he said finally.
She nodded, thankful for his honesty. "Niles, if I were to take you back, I'd have to know you'd be there for me, completely. And I don't know that. You're the person I fell in love with, but that only makes it worse if you walk out on me. I can't hurt like that again. I have enough to deal with."
Silence.
Finally he nodded, clearly with an effort. "Very wise," he said, standing up.
She rose as well. "Are you going to be okay?"
He shook his head, abstracted. "I don't know," he said. "It's." He looked at her and laughed, a tiny burst of hysteria. It was gone almost immediately. He reached out to touch her shoulder gently.
"Can I still see you?" he asked suddenly.
She nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes. Please. I didn't mean - maybe you misunderstood. I still want to see you, Niles, I still want to be around you, I just don't want - the depth of commitment we had. A trial period, maybe."
"Dating?" he said warily.
She smiled. "I suppose. You know, we never really did that. One kiss and we'd thrown our spouses by the wayside. Maybe all we ever needed was to take things more slowly."
"Maybe." He smiled, a tender smile that turned inward. He bent forward and kissed her on the cheek gently. "Goodbye, Daphne."
"I'll see you soon," she said, seeing him out the door. Watching the door fall shut behind him.
She leaned back against the wall with a long, exhausted sigh.