Ceiling. Expensive, textured beige ceiling with an ornate chandelier hanging just over the head of Dr. Niles Crane.
It was late, and he found himself unable to sleep. Normally he would have thought nothing of it -- he could usually hear Maris snoring away across the hall, oblivious to the fact that she was making noises reminiscent of bulldozers -- but tonight he feared his isnomnia was not noise-related.
He was thinking.
Of course, this was not unnatural, either. He thought every night, whether concerning his practice or his selfish, prig of a brother. But as he tossed and turned under his blankets, getting various views of his surroundings, he could not make himself focus on his work. He couldn't even focus on his joy that his father was no longer teetering on the brink of becoming his -- Niles's -- responsibility...
Instead, his brain whirred with thoughts of a woman. A woman he had barely met, but had made him feel completely... who had filled him with such...
A woman who had skin fair as cream and eyes warm as sunrise. A graceful, kind, pure and virtuous woman... It brought a smile to his face if he even thought her name...
Daphne...
He was grinning like a giddy fool.
"This is interesting," he said to himself. But it's hard to focus on the interesting when you have the name of a goddess echoing in your head, when you have her image permanently imprinted in your memory and wishful thoughts distracting you from the fact that you're married.
But who needs marriage when one has the heavenly masterpiece that is Daphne Moon?
"I have no idea..."
Niles sighed and closed his eyes, once again hit with the vision of a woman folding laundry, peacefully smiling as she fluffed his brother's underwear. She was completely unaware of her own perfection, standing there in her baggy shirt and stretch pants as though she were another of the everyday people from everyday places. But she was so obviously extraordinary... All at once he wished he had taken her in his arms and --
Hear those noises across the hall, Niles?
"...Yes..."
That's your wife, Maris. Remember her? You only married her, keep all your things in her house and spend her money...
"Oh. Yes,"
Well, do you remember that part of the wedding ceremony where you promised your infinite love and fidelity?
"Yes..."
Adulterous thoughts count.
He sighed for the seven-hundredth time that night, and rolled onto his side.
"Damn."
Wait -- where had that come from? When had he ever had that thought converning the fact that he was married? He had always thought that he and Maris were very comfortable together... He had never cursed her before.
...Her name had never made him smile before, either.
"Oh, this is too confusing," he muttered.
No it's not. You like Daphne, but you're married. Daphne (he smiled) is obviously too good for such a thing as a love affair, and Maris hardly deserves to be abandon because you were bewitched by your father's physical therapist...
"It's not as though I'm headed off to ravage her," he said, his tone one of immense annoyance. "And besides, every other husband out there looks at another woman at least once -- I don't see why I should be forbidden..."
You're better than every other husband.
He liked to think so, but then Daphne would creep back into his head, pulling him further into something he had never experienced before. There was, strangely enough, a sort of warm feeling settled in his chest that he hadn't felt in a very, very long time.
Odd. Maris had always made him feel somewhat tired.
"What do you say to that?" he asked himself triumphantly, sure that there was nothing he could convince himself of that would trump the fact that Daphne made him feel different.
I say you have a long road ahead of you.
"At least I won't get cold,"
Across the hall, Maris gave a small cough in her sleep and Niles, jumping up to make sure she wasn't having that Thanksgiving nightmare again, was temporarily knocked from his self-examination.
But only temporarily. It resumed the next night, and then the night after that... and eventually in every inch of spare time that he had. It lasted for a very long time -- even after he and Maris went their separate ways.