For Marissa, of course. And for Misti for her excellent description of a
cabin I've never seen and for Erin who always makes really good points
about the characters and lets me put them in my stories.
Away From It All (part 2)
By Amy (amydekanter@yahoo.com)
They did not speak on the drive up, but as they sat side by side, something crackled between them like static. Like guilt.
No, he must not project. If he had any reason to feel guilty - and he did not, mind you; he loved his Mel - Daphne had none.
Yet there was that tension, that complete awareness of her and the unsettling feeling that her attention was just as keenly and uneasily focused on him. Neither of them acknowledged it, out loud or otherwise, they just sat there, him driving, her being driven. If he had been a clinical observer he might have interpreted their behaviour as two people who had silently agreed to an affair.
Mel, he reminded himself. Mel. It would do him well to remember that Daphne was neither interested nor free. And that he was even less . free than she was. Mel. Donny. Mel. Donny.
This would not do. They were about to spend a weekend together and would have to speak to one another sooner or later. Niles decided it was up to him to break the ice. Unfortunately that attempt resulted in something along the lines of:
"So, did you remember to bring your thyroid pills?"
Yes, that vaporised the ice, all right. If it had not meant that he would have had to take Daphne with him Niles would have driven off the nearest cliff and have done with his stupidity once and for all. He threw a quick apologetic glance in Daphne's direction and was horrified to see that she had undergone a sudden and violent colour change, suggesting that for once his perpetually-clueless goddess was on his same sexual wavelength.
As if in agreement, they both swiftly lowered their windows to the icy and neutralising mountain air. Eventually the cold did seep most of the red out of Daphne's face, but Niles found that no temperature in the world was low enough to douse his over-heated imagination. In the end he admitted defeat and put the window back up only to prevent his frozen fingers from coming off on the steering wheel.
In Frasier's absence, Niles was forced to ask himself the obvious question: What the hell was wrong with him? The one sentence he had said since they left the apartment and it had to remind them both of the night something had nearly happened between Daphne and himself. A night he would relive a million times, each with a different, happier ending, but a night Daphne saw only as a close call to a terrible mistake. Either way, it was a reference to something way out of the comfort zone for both of them and the reasons he had blurted it out could be a Freudian's Disney World.
Needless to say, both of them remained content to let the ice re-form and to leave it un-chipped. How in the world were they going to survive the rest of the weekend? How would he?
Driven to panic when Mel had told him she was leaving the state for a week, Niles had decided to hide out at the cabin. This trip was meant to keep his resolve intact, not to shake it. He could not believe he had asked Daphne to join him.
He could not believe she had accepted.
After years of finding excuses to be with Daphne, of saying everything except what he wanted to, a strange impulse was rewarded them with two whole days together. Alone. When it was too late.
Mel was away and Niles knew at a deep level that it was too soon for him to see Daphne and certainly it was too early for him to spend any kind of time alone with her. It was too risky. How could he forgive himself if his ridiculous infatuation led him to do or say something that would irreparably damage the future he and Mel had agreed to only yesterday?
Niles tried to summon up the courage, the nobility, to turn back. To tell Daphne what he had tried to tell her earlier in Frasier's apartment: that they could not do this. He could not do this. But every time he came close to opening his mouth he remembered how disappointed, how broken, she had looked when he had started the sentence. He had never been able to see Daphne hurt and watching her crumble like that nearly killed him. He repaired the damage at once, covering as if he had always meant to bring her along and was rewarded by hesitant hope that crept back into her eyes. He had had no idea this trip meant so much to her. How could he turn her away?
How could he not, Niles swung brutally back to the other extreme. There was Mel to think about. And Donny. Mel. Donny. Mel. Daphne. Daphne.
This could hurt Daphne.
Only if he let it, he reminded himself. He was the only one who had a problem with this. Donny would never see him as a threat, any more than Mel would ever see Daphne as a threat. Nor should she, Niles reminded himself. He belonged to Mel. And Daphne belonged to Donny.
God, he still could not say that, even to himself, without the soul- piercing pain. Daphne belonged to Donny. She was gone. And sitting next to him, close enough to touch. Dear god, give him strength. He thought he was past this. Not all the way, but surely his time with Mel had made some sort of an impact, provided some sort of armour against this terrible agony.
"Are you all right, Dr. Crane?" Her sweet voice, her worried eyes. He was breathing hard. He cracked the window a little.
"Fine," he said. "Hungry?"
They stopped for a bite to eat and for Niles to splash cold water across his face. They sat across from each other, studiously not making eye contact but still restlessly conscious of one another. For nearly twenty minutes food was prodded and rearranged on their plates but remained unconsumed until Daphne, to Niles' undying gratitude, was the first to say she was not very hungry and suggested they be back on their way.
And so they were.
When at last they reached the cabin, they hesitated at the door. Niles was glad that he was carrying all his things; it gave him an excuse for huffing like a locomotive. His physiology was in uproar and he tried hard to pretend it was only because he was doing the wrong thing by Mel though naturally he knew it was much more than that.
Daphne seemed freshly dazed and nervous as well, standing next to him, looking into the cabin as if crossing the threshold would signify some point of no return; a risk. A mistake. Of course he was projecting again. This moment, which he had wished for since he had first learned to love, was no more than a weekend escape for her.
And it should be no more than that for him, things being what they were. His divorce from Maris did not mean he had lost belief in the sanctity of marriage. Yesterday he and Mel had exchanged promises. Those promises did not become void merely because another woman made his heart race. A woman who had never shown the slightest interest in him and who, he might add, was engaged herself.
The cabin door yawned open. They should turn back. It was the only right and proper thing to do. Resolutely, Niles squared his shoulders and walked straight. into the cabin. Damn.
"Here we are," his id said brightly, his Id as usual having taken control away from his Superego. Classic Crane. His luggage dropped to the floor with a final and defiant thud.
Daphne gave a small smile and followed, stepping inside just as he switched on the light, as if her presence could bring a room to life just as it had done to him.
Niles slipped his hand into his pocket and momentarily clasped the ring. Give me strength, he prayed to it. To do what was right by Mel, by Donnie, by Daphne. perhaps by everyone but himself.
The cold, smooth gold of the wedding band did make him feel better. There was love in that ring. Love that would get them through the weekend safely if he could just remember to invoke its powers often.
He led her upstairs and showed her to her room. The view was incomparable from that window and Daphne apparently felt its pull, letting out a small gasp and moving towards it hypnotically.
Niles swallowed a gasp himself and forced himself to remain where he was. If there had ever been anything more beautiful than that view it had to be Daphne standing in front of it. If only he could commission an oil painting of this moment, the stunning scenery in the background, the lovely woman in the foreground, staring out with sad nostalgia, making the observer yearn to know what was in her heart. Niles clasped the ring again.
"I'll leave you to unpack," he said quietly.
The woman in the picture turned to look at him, her eyes soft. Burnt sienna, he thought. Warmed with red ochre and deepened with Prussian blue.
"Thank you," she said, her voice low and heartfelt.
She turned back to the window as Niles closed the door.
"Thank you," she said again, even as she heard the door close behind her. She had realised what a mistake it had been to come up here early in the drive. As soon as it had started to sink in that she was in love with a married man and about to spend a weekend alone with him.
Yet she could not ask him to drive her back. Not because of the inconvenience it would cause him, not even because he would think her insane. but because she wanted this mistake as much as she had wanted anything in her life.
The drive here had been agony, but it was an addictive agony. The guilt, the knowledge that she could never have him were only the nicotine -- the side effects -- of a wonderful rush. Daphne had discovered love. She could not have it, but she had found it. She knew now what it was like to be sure.
She could blame and punish herself for having missed out on something that had been staring her in the face for six years, but she would not punish him. She would only love him, inside, for this weekend. She had made that decision in the car as well. If she was to give herself this gift, she would force herself not to think about how this weekend would end except to remind herself that she could not have him. Not beyond two precious days.
Nor would she burden him with her feelings. If she truly loved him she could do this, and a right better job than she had done so far. He had been so uncomfortable on the ride up; it usually was she who did most of the talking, usually she who would not shut up. It would do her well to remember that. He had come up here to relax and the last thing she wanted was to ruin it for him with a sulky companion.
Daphne allowed herself to be held by the magnificent view: layers of mountains sparkling with cold, distantly framing the sun-shimmer lake; an entire world of glittering magic.
"Thank you," she whispered once more to the man who had given her this view as he had given her the music box, never knowing that he had provided a channel for her to open her heart, to focus her love for him onto something almost as beautiful but far more available.
During the trip up here she had had to sit, talk and walk carefully to make certain that not a drop of the love that filled her spilled over. It was part of the nicotine to have to keep it bound and secret, but she would gladly suffer for what she felt. Now her heart poured its contents forth over the lake and mountains, into the vast horizon, slowly bringing the dangerous levels within to something safer, something easier to control.
Daphne pulled away from the window and began to unpack.
It was a good thing she had not brought much with her; the right side of the dresser was filled with clothes. After six years, Daphne had no trouble recognising them, or at least recognising the taste of the person to whom they belonged. She smiled. Naturally it was an excessive amount of clothing for someone who only came up here only a few days a year. And this was just the guest room; probably overflow from whatever did not fit in the master bedroom closet.
Daphne ran her hand lightly over a pile of sweaters. When she had come the last time she only stayed long enough to talk Donny into coming away with her to the bed and breakfast down the road. Dr. Crane had been here too, with Roz; something about the two of them dating. She could barely remember much of anything, having then made the momentous decision to take her relationship with Donny to the next level. Now she wondered what exactly had happened between Dr. Crane and Roz. If his brother was right, Dr. Niles Crane may have still been in love with Daphne then, but perhaps it had been the beginning of the end.
She took the top sweater from the pile, soft navy wool, and held it to her face. How could someone who had been in love with her so long marry so soon and so easily?
Because of Donny, of course. Men occasionally did give up once the person they loved got engaged to someone else. They were fickle that way.
But when Donny had proposed Daphne had gone to the offices of Dr. Niles Crane and had practically begged him to support her decision not to marry Donny. Yet he had sided with his brother and father. Why, she wanted to ask him. Why?
She knew then he was doing it because he cared for her. Now she knew it was because he had loved her and wanted her happy. He loved her enough to push her into Donny's arms just as years earlier he had loved her enough to push her into Joe's.
If only he had loved her a little more selfishly.
With effort Daphne put the sweater back and closed the drawer. She would not wear the sweater. Not now and not tonight when she went to bed. She was making up rules as she went along, but she was determined to stay on the right side of pathetic.
Daphne again turned to the mountains. What if. What if she were to tell him how she felt? What if she were to prepare herself for the fact that he may have fallen out of love with her, just as she was forced to do now, but opened herself up to the possibility that he had not?
For years he had been in love with her but something had prevented him from speaking. What if that something was still keeping him quiet? What if he still loved her? What if her silence was not protecting him but hurting them both?
She would never know what made her kick off her shoes before going to him. It was almost as if she had known what she would see if he did not hear her coming.
Dr. Crane was sat in a chair in front of the cold fireplace, his still- packed bags on the floor next to him. He did not see Daphne and from the intent expression on his face, may not have seen her even if she had come in all the way and stood directly in front of him.
He was holding his wedding ring, turning it over and over in his fingers, staring at it as if searching for something on it or in it. He looked at the ring as she knew she was looking at him, with deep and unmasked love mixed with pain of wanting something he could not have.
He was missing his wife.
Dr. Crane brought the ring to his lips and kissed it, never noticing Daphne as she slipped back up the stairs and into her room. Her question had been answered.
Away From It All (part 2)
By Amy (amydekanter@yahoo.com)
They did not speak on the drive up, but as they sat side by side, something crackled between them like static. Like guilt.
No, he must not project. If he had any reason to feel guilty - and he did not, mind you; he loved his Mel - Daphne had none.
Yet there was that tension, that complete awareness of her and the unsettling feeling that her attention was just as keenly and uneasily focused on him. Neither of them acknowledged it, out loud or otherwise, they just sat there, him driving, her being driven. If he had been a clinical observer he might have interpreted their behaviour as two people who had silently agreed to an affair.
Mel, he reminded himself. Mel. It would do him well to remember that Daphne was neither interested nor free. And that he was even less . free than she was. Mel. Donny. Mel. Donny.
This would not do. They were about to spend a weekend together and would have to speak to one another sooner or later. Niles decided it was up to him to break the ice. Unfortunately that attempt resulted in something along the lines of:
"So, did you remember to bring your thyroid pills?"
Yes, that vaporised the ice, all right. If it had not meant that he would have had to take Daphne with him Niles would have driven off the nearest cliff and have done with his stupidity once and for all. He threw a quick apologetic glance in Daphne's direction and was horrified to see that she had undergone a sudden and violent colour change, suggesting that for once his perpetually-clueless goddess was on his same sexual wavelength.
As if in agreement, they both swiftly lowered their windows to the icy and neutralising mountain air. Eventually the cold did seep most of the red out of Daphne's face, but Niles found that no temperature in the world was low enough to douse his over-heated imagination. In the end he admitted defeat and put the window back up only to prevent his frozen fingers from coming off on the steering wheel.
In Frasier's absence, Niles was forced to ask himself the obvious question: What the hell was wrong with him? The one sentence he had said since they left the apartment and it had to remind them both of the night something had nearly happened between Daphne and himself. A night he would relive a million times, each with a different, happier ending, but a night Daphne saw only as a close call to a terrible mistake. Either way, it was a reference to something way out of the comfort zone for both of them and the reasons he had blurted it out could be a Freudian's Disney World.
Needless to say, both of them remained content to let the ice re-form and to leave it un-chipped. How in the world were they going to survive the rest of the weekend? How would he?
Driven to panic when Mel had told him she was leaving the state for a week, Niles had decided to hide out at the cabin. This trip was meant to keep his resolve intact, not to shake it. He could not believe he had asked Daphne to join him.
He could not believe she had accepted.
After years of finding excuses to be with Daphne, of saying everything except what he wanted to, a strange impulse was rewarded them with two whole days together. Alone. When it was too late.
Mel was away and Niles knew at a deep level that it was too soon for him to see Daphne and certainly it was too early for him to spend any kind of time alone with her. It was too risky. How could he forgive himself if his ridiculous infatuation led him to do or say something that would irreparably damage the future he and Mel had agreed to only yesterday?
Niles tried to summon up the courage, the nobility, to turn back. To tell Daphne what he had tried to tell her earlier in Frasier's apartment: that they could not do this. He could not do this. But every time he came close to opening his mouth he remembered how disappointed, how broken, she had looked when he had started the sentence. He had never been able to see Daphne hurt and watching her crumble like that nearly killed him. He repaired the damage at once, covering as if he had always meant to bring her along and was rewarded by hesitant hope that crept back into her eyes. He had had no idea this trip meant so much to her. How could he turn her away?
How could he not, Niles swung brutally back to the other extreme. There was Mel to think about. And Donny. Mel. Donny. Mel. Daphne. Daphne.
This could hurt Daphne.
Only if he let it, he reminded himself. He was the only one who had a problem with this. Donny would never see him as a threat, any more than Mel would ever see Daphne as a threat. Nor should she, Niles reminded himself. He belonged to Mel. And Daphne belonged to Donny.
God, he still could not say that, even to himself, without the soul- piercing pain. Daphne belonged to Donny. She was gone. And sitting next to him, close enough to touch. Dear god, give him strength. He thought he was past this. Not all the way, but surely his time with Mel had made some sort of an impact, provided some sort of armour against this terrible agony.
"Are you all right, Dr. Crane?" Her sweet voice, her worried eyes. He was breathing hard. He cracked the window a little.
"Fine," he said. "Hungry?"
They stopped for a bite to eat and for Niles to splash cold water across his face. They sat across from each other, studiously not making eye contact but still restlessly conscious of one another. For nearly twenty minutes food was prodded and rearranged on their plates but remained unconsumed until Daphne, to Niles' undying gratitude, was the first to say she was not very hungry and suggested they be back on their way.
And so they were.
When at last they reached the cabin, they hesitated at the door. Niles was glad that he was carrying all his things; it gave him an excuse for huffing like a locomotive. His physiology was in uproar and he tried hard to pretend it was only because he was doing the wrong thing by Mel though naturally he knew it was much more than that.
Daphne seemed freshly dazed and nervous as well, standing next to him, looking into the cabin as if crossing the threshold would signify some point of no return; a risk. A mistake. Of course he was projecting again. This moment, which he had wished for since he had first learned to love, was no more than a weekend escape for her.
And it should be no more than that for him, things being what they were. His divorce from Maris did not mean he had lost belief in the sanctity of marriage. Yesterday he and Mel had exchanged promises. Those promises did not become void merely because another woman made his heart race. A woman who had never shown the slightest interest in him and who, he might add, was engaged herself.
The cabin door yawned open. They should turn back. It was the only right and proper thing to do. Resolutely, Niles squared his shoulders and walked straight. into the cabin. Damn.
"Here we are," his id said brightly, his Id as usual having taken control away from his Superego. Classic Crane. His luggage dropped to the floor with a final and defiant thud.
Daphne gave a small smile and followed, stepping inside just as he switched on the light, as if her presence could bring a room to life just as it had done to him.
Niles slipped his hand into his pocket and momentarily clasped the ring. Give me strength, he prayed to it. To do what was right by Mel, by Donnie, by Daphne. perhaps by everyone but himself.
The cold, smooth gold of the wedding band did make him feel better. There was love in that ring. Love that would get them through the weekend safely if he could just remember to invoke its powers often.
He led her upstairs and showed her to her room. The view was incomparable from that window and Daphne apparently felt its pull, letting out a small gasp and moving towards it hypnotically.
Niles swallowed a gasp himself and forced himself to remain where he was. If there had ever been anything more beautiful than that view it had to be Daphne standing in front of it. If only he could commission an oil painting of this moment, the stunning scenery in the background, the lovely woman in the foreground, staring out with sad nostalgia, making the observer yearn to know what was in her heart. Niles clasped the ring again.
"I'll leave you to unpack," he said quietly.
The woman in the picture turned to look at him, her eyes soft. Burnt sienna, he thought. Warmed with red ochre and deepened with Prussian blue.
"Thank you," she said, her voice low and heartfelt.
She turned back to the window as Niles closed the door.
"Thank you," she said again, even as she heard the door close behind her. She had realised what a mistake it had been to come up here early in the drive. As soon as it had started to sink in that she was in love with a married man and about to spend a weekend alone with him.
Yet she could not ask him to drive her back. Not because of the inconvenience it would cause him, not even because he would think her insane. but because she wanted this mistake as much as she had wanted anything in her life.
The drive here had been agony, but it was an addictive agony. The guilt, the knowledge that she could never have him were only the nicotine -- the side effects -- of a wonderful rush. Daphne had discovered love. She could not have it, but she had found it. She knew now what it was like to be sure.
She could blame and punish herself for having missed out on something that had been staring her in the face for six years, but she would not punish him. She would only love him, inside, for this weekend. She had made that decision in the car as well. If she was to give herself this gift, she would force herself not to think about how this weekend would end except to remind herself that she could not have him. Not beyond two precious days.
Nor would she burden him with her feelings. If she truly loved him she could do this, and a right better job than she had done so far. He had been so uncomfortable on the ride up; it usually was she who did most of the talking, usually she who would not shut up. It would do her well to remember that. He had come up here to relax and the last thing she wanted was to ruin it for him with a sulky companion.
Daphne allowed herself to be held by the magnificent view: layers of mountains sparkling with cold, distantly framing the sun-shimmer lake; an entire world of glittering magic.
"Thank you," she whispered once more to the man who had given her this view as he had given her the music box, never knowing that he had provided a channel for her to open her heart, to focus her love for him onto something almost as beautiful but far more available.
During the trip up here she had had to sit, talk and walk carefully to make certain that not a drop of the love that filled her spilled over. It was part of the nicotine to have to keep it bound and secret, but she would gladly suffer for what she felt. Now her heart poured its contents forth over the lake and mountains, into the vast horizon, slowly bringing the dangerous levels within to something safer, something easier to control.
Daphne pulled away from the window and began to unpack.
It was a good thing she had not brought much with her; the right side of the dresser was filled with clothes. After six years, Daphne had no trouble recognising them, or at least recognising the taste of the person to whom they belonged. She smiled. Naturally it was an excessive amount of clothing for someone who only came up here only a few days a year. And this was just the guest room; probably overflow from whatever did not fit in the master bedroom closet.
Daphne ran her hand lightly over a pile of sweaters. When she had come the last time she only stayed long enough to talk Donny into coming away with her to the bed and breakfast down the road. Dr. Crane had been here too, with Roz; something about the two of them dating. She could barely remember much of anything, having then made the momentous decision to take her relationship with Donny to the next level. Now she wondered what exactly had happened between Dr. Crane and Roz. If his brother was right, Dr. Niles Crane may have still been in love with Daphne then, but perhaps it had been the beginning of the end.
She took the top sweater from the pile, soft navy wool, and held it to her face. How could someone who had been in love with her so long marry so soon and so easily?
Because of Donny, of course. Men occasionally did give up once the person they loved got engaged to someone else. They were fickle that way.
But when Donny had proposed Daphne had gone to the offices of Dr. Niles Crane and had practically begged him to support her decision not to marry Donny. Yet he had sided with his brother and father. Why, she wanted to ask him. Why?
She knew then he was doing it because he cared for her. Now she knew it was because he had loved her and wanted her happy. He loved her enough to push her into Donny's arms just as years earlier he had loved her enough to push her into Joe's.
If only he had loved her a little more selfishly.
With effort Daphne put the sweater back and closed the drawer. She would not wear the sweater. Not now and not tonight when she went to bed. She was making up rules as she went along, but she was determined to stay on the right side of pathetic.
Daphne again turned to the mountains. What if. What if she were to tell him how she felt? What if she were to prepare herself for the fact that he may have fallen out of love with her, just as she was forced to do now, but opened herself up to the possibility that he had not?
For years he had been in love with her but something had prevented him from speaking. What if that something was still keeping him quiet? What if he still loved her? What if her silence was not protecting him but hurting them both?
She would never know what made her kick off her shoes before going to him. It was almost as if she had known what she would see if he did not hear her coming.
Dr. Crane was sat in a chair in front of the cold fireplace, his still- packed bags on the floor next to him. He did not see Daphne and from the intent expression on his face, may not have seen her even if she had come in all the way and stood directly in front of him.
He was holding his wedding ring, turning it over and over in his fingers, staring at it as if searching for something on it or in it. He looked at the ring as she knew she was looking at him, with deep and unmasked love mixed with pain of wanting something he could not have.
He was missing his wife.
Dr. Crane brought the ring to his lips and kissed it, never noticing Daphne as she slipped back up the stairs and into her room. Her question had been answered.