Making Excuses

By Amy (amydekanter@yahoo.com)



Daphne looked hot enough for three truckloads of fire fighters. And if she did say so herself, so did Roz. Two hours with Ash and Mona had done wonders for both of them.

"It's too bad that only my daughter gets to see me like this."

"It's too bad only Dr. Crane gets to see me like this."

"I'll trade you," Roz said, only half joking. She doubted her self- absorbed boss would notice anything different about her but, as much as she loved Alice, she was fixed up for more adult company. The male kind. And since beggars couldn't be choosers, even Frasier would do.

They were at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, well away from Café Nervosa. Daphne had insisted that she wasn't avoiding Niles, she just didn't want to run into him.

"Well?" Daphne asked. After seeing how depressed Daphne looked Roz had decided they would postpone wedding reception updates until after the makeover. Roz sighed. Even all dolled up Daphne did not look like someone who could take a whole lot more of bad news. "Roz, you promised."

"I know, it's just that it was really terrible. I was stone drunk and even then it was hard to take. It must have been worse for Frasier and Marty." she hesitated before saying the name Daphne really wanted to hear. "And Niles..."

"Niles..." Daphne repeated the name as if prompting Roz to go on, but Roz could tell that she also wanted to say his name out loud, as if it gave her something to hold onto. It did not make things easier.

"He did well, considering," Roz confessed. "It was disgusting -- the way Mel insisted they play happy couple -- but there is no way she could fault him. He played a believable role."

Daphne looked down at her cup. Who knew what she was thinking.

"Daphne, it was bad for him. He hid it so well even I believed it in the beginning but then Frasier made me look harder and I saw that all that smiling and pretending was eating him alive." Devouring, more likely. Last night Niles had looked as miserable as... as Daphne looked right now.

"Hey, but you know what was really cool?" Roz asked, trying to lighted the mood. "You got a toast. Mel put Frasier on the spot and made him say a few words. He avoided saying Mel's name and went on to say how happy he was for his brother, now that he'd found the love of his life. All of us knew we were drinking to you and Niles. Especially Mel. It was great."

Daphne didn't smile. For all Roz knew, she was not even listening any more.

"Why would he put himself through this?" Daphne asked.

"For you." Daphne looked pained and Roz could guess why. It was something Daphne had needed yet didn't want to hear.

"Oh, Roz," Daphne hid her face in her hands and Roz was afraid she would start crying again, but then Daphne's head jerked up and she stared at Roz with startled, dry eyes.

"There is something you're not telling me, isn't there?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. You're psychic" Roz played for time. Actually there was quite a bit she wasn't telling her. Including things she would never tell, like how the play-acting carried on the extent of deep throat kissing. As for the other...

"Roz, I'm counting on you to be honest." Daphne's normally gentle dark eyes were piercing. Suddenly, they widened. "It's Mel, isn't it? She intends to make Niles pay for what he did."

Roz shuddered as someone walked over her grave. Maybe Daphne really was psychic after all.

"I don't know, but I do have a bad feeling about it." She might as well admit it. "I think Mel plans to drag this on for as long as possible, just to make the two of you suffer."

"And he's just going to let her." Daphne sounded angry. Roz remembered what Frasier had told her about Mel's condition that Niles and Daphne not be seen together in public. If Daphne had not guessed on her own, Roz would have never given her such a disturbing prognosis to their future. "He's just going to let her hurt him."

It did not escape Roz that the second time the words were spoken in a voice that was more upset than furious. Nor that Daphne had given no thought to her own suffering - only to Niles.'

"What do you want to do?" Roz asked.

"I don't know." Daphne stared at her helplessly. From furious to sad to defeated. This did not bode well.

"Hey, you're not thinking of breaking up with the little guy, are you?"

"Of course I'm not." Daphne looked dumbfounded that Roz would even suggest such a thing. Roz had suspected the answer to the question but she figured it wouldn't hurt to shake Daphne up a bit. You don't work side by side with a shrink for seven years without picking up a trick or two.

"I mean," Roz hammed it up with wide-eyed innocence. "People break up with men for a lot less."

"Not me, not with Niles." Daphne's response was quick and fierce. "I've never been sure about anyone in my life and I got engaged because I started to think I never would be. With Niles I'm sure, Roz, I love him with all my heart. He's the one."

"So, you're going to forgive him?" Roz tried to keep the relief out of her voice. And the incredulity. He's the one? Did anyone still say that?

"Roz." Not only was Daphne herself convinced, it seemed important that she convince Roz as well. "Have you ever had something happen, something so wonderful that you feel every choice you've ever made led up to that one moment? That you wouldn't change a thing about your life up to that point because it could affect that single perfect gift?"

"Alice." Roz did not even have to think about that one.

"Niles." Daphne said in exactly the same tone. "I love him. Nothing anyone does can change that, not even Niles himself. And especially not Mel."

"Hello ladies." Frasier arrived just in time. Roz was naturally cynical about men and love, but Daphne had nearly had her believing in both. "Why, Daphne, don't you look lovely?"

"Hey, what am I, chopped liver?"

"Not bad," Frasier acknowledged, but Roz noticed his eyes lingered on her for a tad bit longer - and a tad bit lower -- than 'not bad' warranted. She was an expert at noticing such things.

"Dr. Crane, what are you doing here?" The poor kid was not looking at him as much as through him, around him, her eyes searching nervously for his usual companion. But of course Niles was nowhere near. Roz and Frasier had planned it that way.

"His car wouldn't start so I gave him a ride to work. I also offered to give him a ride home." Roz rescued Frasier from answering. He might not get nosebleeds but he was a terrible liar.

"Oh." Daphne lowered her eyes and sagged back into the chair. Roz and Frasier exchanged glances. It was impossible to tell whether not seeing Niles had brought about relief of disappointment, but either way, Daphne made a sad, sad sight.

"Won't you join us?" Daphne read their concern and forced herself to remember she was not the only person in the universe.

"Thank you, I think I will." Dr. Crane did not sit down. "What's good here?"

"I'll show you; I could use another latte myself." Roz offered. "Daphne, do you want anything?"

"No, thank you." A latte her hind foot, Daphne knew Roz was off to exchange updates with Dr. Crane. Thick as thieves those two were, but Daphne did not mind if it meant she would get a few minutes alone. Besides, she trusted that Roz would use her head and be discreet where necessary. More importantly, there was the chance that Roz might pick up some new news on Niles, something Daphne wanted desperately.

Even in the unlikely event that Daphne could force Niles out of her mind she knew she could not budge him from her heart. She ached for him but forced herself to appreciate the feeling - at least it was honest. So many times over the past years she felt the same way but had disguised it as something else, making it unrecognisable even to herself.

Daphne touched her fingers to her lips. It was over six years ago that she first wondered what it would be like to be kissed by Niles Crane. That evening had started innocently enough, in fact she had gone to his home specifically to help him prepare a reconciliation dinner for his wife. But Mrs. Crane had not returned and Daphne and Niles had their first real evening alone together.

She had known him less than a year then, but Daphne had always quite liked the younger Dr. Crane, in the same sisterly way she liked his brother. He was sweet and attentive to her, a real gentleman, as there were so few these days, but not at all her type. Or so she thought until the night at his mansion. Eric had just broken up with her and - for reasons no longer remembered - she had been heartbroken. Niles had comforted her, consoled her, let her talk, let her cry and something in Daphne began to stir.

As the evening progressed she had felt closer and closer to him, not even realising the intensity of her attraction until she stretched out on the floor unable to answer for herself whether it was innocent or whether she hoped it would serve as an invitation. All she knew was that he was sitting next to her and her entire body was tingling with awareness of him.

She remembered him hovering over her and the strong, strange and wonderful feeling that told her he was about to kiss her. Acting purely on what felt right, Daphne had closed her eyes and lifted her lips.

Of course he had not kissed her. Instead, and almost as if he had read Daphne's intentions, he had started talking about how much he loved his wife. If he had not been so kind about it, Daphne would have been mortified. She might have been naturally impulsive, but she did not date married men and she especially did not show interest in happily married men who loved their wives as much as Niles loved Mrs. Crane.

For the first time in her life Daphne used reason to out-explain her sixth sense. She blamed her actions on her break-up with Eric, on the rain, on the piano music, on soft, expensive fabric of the nightie she had borrowed, on the firelight, on the candlelight, on the thunder, on the lightning...on everything. Rationalising, it was called, as she had learned from Dr. Crane's radio show. The one thing she could not blame was Dr. Crane himself. It was not his fault.

Grateful for knowing at least one good and honourable man, Daphne had kissed him on the cheek, feeling the kind of sadness one got when one was saying farewell. She might have been attracted to him, but the idea that he might return that feeling was nothing but a wishful illusion. She promised herself to be more careful in the future.

That was the first time in her life and the beginning of countless times she would come up with ways to make herself believe that any signals from Niles - and even from herself - could not possibly be what she thought they were.

It was so long before she would find out the truth. Niles in love with her for six years, Mr. Crane had said. Now seven. That had to be a mistake, because otherwise it would have meant that Niles had been in love with her even longer than she had been in love with him. That it was just possible that the silenced voices inside her had been right. That he had been about to kiss her that evening. That he had constantly made excuses just to come see her. That he was especially kind and considerate to her out of more than either kindness or consideration. That his eyes did hold a look for her that they had never held for anyone else. That he had not been acting when he said he adored her.

When she had kissed Niles the night before her wedding she had been driven by a force that had been pushed down for five years but could no longer keep silent. Those few seconds had told her what on some deeper level she had known forever.

She and Niles had kissed before, but it was all in fun and games (or was it? How could she possibly think back and re-examine every moment they had shared over the past six years?); he pretending to be her husband for an ex- boyfriend, she pretending to be his date for a group of his snooty friends. Hindsight -- another psycho-babble term she had picked up from the Dr. Frasier Crane Show -- reminded her that on both occasions she had felt something, something so uncomfortably strong it had sent her scurrying to cover it up immediately.

They had kissed before and -- if she allowed herself to admit it -- it had been more than an act to her. But nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared her for the sweetness of that kiss three nights ago, when her love, then his, had poured out uninhibited, clashing like a force between them, electric then magnetic, pulling and holding them together so tightly it felt permanent. And right.

It was permanent, in a way. Daphne had managed to push away, but when she did she felt she had left the larger part of herself behind. The real part. Only the lies pulled away, insisting that what was true could never be. She had not felt whole again until she had somehow realised that she was doing everything wrong, and that she had been doing everything wrong for years. The realisation had given her wings to fly, to find him without having to ask, look or wonder, in the most unlikely place: his father's Winnebago.

Daphne was back in the present, hugging herself tightly. Roz and Dr. Crane were standing by the bar, staring at her with maddeningly smug and knowing smiles.

She had always thought of herself as a happy person, but that morning she had discovered a new level of happiness. 'Deliriously happy' were the words Niles had used. Deliriously light with the freedom of casting off the lies, of finally being able to call him Niles, of telling him she loved him and actually hearing it when he told her, she had felt herself soaring ever higher, unaffected by gravity, tied only to him.

Daphne stood up. For years she herself had been the biggest obstacle to their getting together. She could never do that to him again.

"May I borrow your cell phone, please?" she asked Dr. Crane. He pulled it out.

"Sure. Why?"

"I need to call Niles." He glanced at it and immediately snapped it shut.

"Well, would you look at that; the battery has run down. Sorry, Daphne."

"Then I need to get home. I have to talk to him."

"Okay. Er, you aren't going to do anything rash, are you?"

"Yes, I am. Your brother means more to me than anything in the world and I'm going to tell him so."

"Oh. Well, I'm delighted to hear it." He did look relieved and Daphne felt a rush of affection for both him and Roz. She and Niles were not alone. "We had better get you home then."