The Great Escape - a New Spin

by CCNilesBabcock

EDIT - We have re written this story to make it even better than the first one! Please, do give it a try. ;) When C.C. receives the most terrible news, her fears will make her push everyone away and hide from friends and family. Will she face this ordeal alone? Or there will be a special someone that will help her through it? Co-written with TheCrownedLioness.

18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

It wouldn't have been possible to find three more self-satisfied men in the whole of Chicago than Niles, Noel, and Dr Wilson as they stayed quiet and listened carefully a little way away from C.C.'s door, exchanging congratulatory grins and giving each other the thumbs up for their hard work. She was on the phone and had been a couple of times before already now – they couldn't hear everything, of course, but they had heard her saying goodbye before and putting the phone down.

Getting closer to do a little bit of eavesdropping (not full-on eavesdropping, just close enough so that they'd know everything was going alright) had, naturally, been Niles' idea. But the doctor and the professor had gotten on board with it pretty much immediately. Wilson couldn't have looked smugger if he'd just found a winning lottery ticket stuck to the sole of his shoe!

"Congratulations Niles," he said quietly, even if the grin he was wearing was basically as loud as the bright green tie he'd chosen to wear that day. "Thanks to your stepping up to the plate, our little champ in there has taken a great first step towards emotional recovery."

Partially glad, partially relieved that Wilson's instinctive reaction hadn't been to say "I told you so", Niles nodded in agreement. He briefly smiled in the direction of the door. C.C.'s voice – occasionally louder, occasionally softer – was still floating from it. Standing just between the sitting area and the little stretch of corridor that went to her room had been just the right location to hear from.

"Do we have the next one yet, by any chance?" the butler asked.

"As a matter of fact, we do. Or I do, anyway," Wilson replied with a very light chuckle. "I think the best course of action is to get C.C. out of the clinic in between her infusions. Get her somewhere more homely and familiar, with a…a routine that will keep her active and entertained. She needs to feel like those little things – you know, like life – are still happening even now."

Niles blinked between him and Noel, and was a little upset to see that Noel appeared to be following the doctor's train of thought. He certainly wasn't.

"And what does that mean, exactly?"

"It means that, even though C.C. is still sick, she still needs to feel like she has things going on in her life," Wilson explained. "Things keeping her occupied. So it isn't just all waiting around until she gets her next chemo dosage, with nothing in between. I mean, doing that got us here in the first place! She needs to go back to living a little. She needs to understand that not everything has to revolve around her cancer – life still goes on and she can and should partake in it."

While the idea felt a little bit clearer in Niles' mind after hearing that, he hadn't been able to help getting stuck on the word "occupied". There was only one thing in the world he could imagine would keep the former producer occupied, and that was…well, her occupation. And there was only one way she could do that, and only one place she'd be able to do it from…

"So what your essentially saying is that she needs both a purpose-slash-pastime and a change of setting?" the butler asked. "So that she has something else to occupy her mind with apart from her cancer?"

Wilson nodded.

"That's exactly right! It can be anything from attending pottery lessons to, oh, I don't know, filling out paperwork. I'll be fine with anything that gives her purpose and gets her out of bed in the morning..."

Niles could feel his heart both skipping a beat and bursting with more hope and joy than he'd felt in months. Wilson wanted Babcock out of the hospital and back home! He actually was prescribing some much needed action in her life. At long last, she could be coming home!

Maybe not forever (she was still dreadfully ill and had a long way to go), but it was as good start as any. It would mean finally going back to the routine he'd come to enjoy and rely on throughout his years as the Sheffields' butler. He'd obviously take it down a notch – she wasn't well enough to partake in their usual games, but there was nothing stopping them from bantering. It might not be ideal, but it was the best news he'd heard in so long!

"Does that mean she's going back to New York?" Niles asked with a growing smile; he didn't know why his voice sounded quite so…uplifted. "Back to work for Mr Sheffield?"

"Oh God, no," Wilson said immediately. Then he pulled a face. "Sorry, that probably came out wrong. What I mean is, while C.C. is ready and most definitely needs to build herself a more active and entertaining routine, she's not ready to constantly fly back and forth between NYC and Chicago. Not only because she doesn't have the stamina to withstand that pace of life, but also because I want her close enough so that I and my team can step in in the event that, uh…that something goes wrong."

In practically an instant, Niles' previously light and happy mood took a sharp nosedive and the atmosphere thickened around them all like curdled milk.

"So she isn't going back home?" Niles managed to choke out. "It's more like a 'have a little something to do and spend the rest of your time away from the hospital' kind of thing?"

Wilson pointed a finger gun at him.

"Got it in one, smart guy," he said, before slipping his hand back into his pocket. He was probably fishing around for a lollipop in there. "In an ideal world, she'll stay with our good friend Professor Babcock over here. That way she'll be in a controlled and supportive environment, but will also have some much needed freedom to come and go as she pleases."

He turned to Noel, somewhat expectantly.

Sadly, the professor looked more like a deflating balloon than a man.

"I wish I could. My apartment has practically every comfort you could imagine or need, but there's hardly room for three people. Plus, Raymond – my partner – and I are away at work all day, so there wouldn't be anybody to watch after her," he said, shaking his head.

If people were supposed to be able to read faces, then Noel's expression was the children's book of reading them; it was quite simple to see how badly this was hurting him. He clearly wished he could do more for his sister, but if it wasn't possible then it wasn't possible.

Wilson reached out and lightly slapped his upper arm.

"Hey, don't be too hard on yourself! There's more than one option here. Plan B version of an ideal world, you could get her an apartment close to yours. That way she'll have her space while also being able to call on you or Raymond if she needs you."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Niles piped up, wanting to support and cheer up the professor. "It will probably do C.C. a world of good to be near you. And besides, we can always arrange for someone to be around her when you two are unavailable. Almost like we've been doing these past few weeks with us taking turns coming to visit her during the weekends and look after her needs..."

He didn't know what it was that he'd said that did it, but both Wilson and Noel froze instantly. They looked at him. And then at each other. Suddenly, Noel looked re-inflated and was sharing a widening conspiratorial smirk with Wilson.

"It's funny you should mention that, Niles," Noel remarked.

"It really is funny, isn't it?" Wilson agreed, beaming openly and turning to look at Niles. "The man of the hour really is on top of everything around here, isn't he?"

They stayed there, smiling at him in the way that certain religious communities often looked at the people who opened their front doors to find them stood there. It took a second for Niles' brain to realise what was happening – yet again – and for a flash of panic to burst bright as a bolt of lightning through his entire body.

"Wait. No. Wait a moment," he pointed between the two of them, an uncomfortable chuckle bubbling up in his throat. "You two…you two hold on there for just a second…!"

"What's the matter, Niles?" Noel asked, smirk set on his face like concrete.

The bubble of laughter burst out of Niles.

"You're going to suggest something…! Something…something…"

"Something genius, perhaps?" Wilson interjected smugly. "Something…brilliant? And that might just do the trick?"

Niles very nearly slipped up and said "yes" but caught himself just before the trap was sprung.

"I never said any of that," he said quickly, backing away from them slowly. To his dread, they stepped towards him as he did. "You're just…you're not going to suggest to me what I think you're going to suggest!"

Noel and Wilson looked at each other, faces unreadable, then back at him again.

"Well, we don't exactly know if we're going to suggest what you think we're going to suggest," Noel pointed out. "Why don't you tell us what you think we're going to say and we'll see if you're right?"

Niles laughed harder and twice as uncomfortably.

"Ohhhhhh, no, I'm not falling for that one! If I tell you what you want to suggest, then it'll sound like I've suggested it! Or that I'm agreeing to do it, or…or something that you two will have made up in your heads because you're both obviously insane!"

Wilson feigned offence, laying a hand over his heart dramatically and gaping at an equally "scandalised" Noel.

"He has the nerve to call us insane and he doesn't even know what we're going to say to him…!" the doctor gasped woefully.

Noel acted overcome in return, "I've never been so insulted about an idea in all my life! And I haven't even mentioned the idea yet!"

Niles felt irritation swelling, balloon-like, in his chest.

"And you're not going to, either, because I'm not doing it!" he declared. "You hear? This is my final word on the matter!"

The other two men looked at each other again. Eyebrows were silently raised. Niles started to suspect that they had some sort of telepathic communication going on and wondered if he should have been legging it out the door before they could rope him in any further.

"He still doesn't know what we're gonna say…" Wilson said in a quiet, sing-song voice.

That horrid little nursery rhyme tone was the final straw.

"I can have a damn good guess, even if I don't!" Niles snapped, pointing between the two of them. "You and you, two insane people, want me to be the one to stay with Miss Babcock when she's out of the hospital! Because somewhere in your twisted little minds you've somehow got the idea that I, a man she's known and hated for the past fifteen years, am somehow the perfect candidate for her to see and interact with on a daily basis!"

Noel's eyes brightened, and Wilson started to beam.

"And there it is!" he said delightedly, grinning directly at Niles. "Doesn't that feel better? You know, just to get it all out there in the open…"

Niles groaned. How had it come to this? How was it that, out of all the doctors in the world and all the brothers C.C. could possibly have been born with, she'd managed to get a combination of these two?!

He'd promised himself he'd never, ever be rude to a medical professional but Wilson was making that so fucking difficult…

"There isn't anything to 'feel better' about! All I've done is say what you've oh-so graciously got planned for me to do!" he shouted back. "Not that I could ever do it in the first place! Didn't either of you take into account the fact that I have a job back in New York?! I can't spend all my time here in Chicago!"

"I'm sure that Maxwell Sheffield will understand and be able to accommodate, once he knows what's going on," Noel said cheerfully. It was a far cry from how he'd looked when he'd said he couldn't take C.C. in himself. "And if it's a money worry based on you not working, we can always come to an arrangement…?"

Niles paused, suspicion creeping into his veins. It sounded an awful lot like Noel was trying to bribe him into doing this…

Well, that was the last tactic on the planet that was going to work! Who on Earth did Noel think he was, thinking he could just wave a little bit of money in front of Niles' face and that would be that? He'd have whatever he wanted? That just sounded like a typical spoiled rich person who thought that having a huge pile of cash to lord over everyone else gave them the right to do anything!

He'd thought better of Noel than that before now. And he wasn't going to let him win, either. Niles wasn't going to try and snatch the money and run; he still had his dignity, if nothing else. He wasn't going to lose it and rush off to do Noel's and Wilson's bidding just for the sake of some extra green in his hand.

He straightened his back, "Now, if you think that—"

"I was thinking perhaps double what you earn now?" Noel cut over him. "I want to make sure C.C.'s as comfortable as possible, you see, and you are the best man for the job…"

In what constituted a major affront and a kick in the teeth to his self-proclaimed integrity, Niles' insides all leapt about half an inch upwards in celebration at that one word, clamouring and preparing a party in his mind for what they could do with double the money he earned.

Twice as much money as he'd ever had in his life…!

His only consolation was that his feet stayed firmly on the ground and didn't start dancing or jumping up and clicking his heels together in front of the other two — he never would've lived that one down from either of them!

"Double…?" he tried hard not to sound hoarse but his mouth had gone dry and his lungs felt like they were folding in on themselves.

"Or perhaps triple would be better?" Noel suggested. "It's all for C.C.'s benefit and comfort, after all. And you'd be paid twenty four hours a day – there'd be no cut-off point at any time. I've got more than enough to pay you…well, pretty much indefinitely!"

The ever-present fear and resentment of his own poverty loomed large over Niles' shoulder. It was waiting to see what he would do, once his brain had started itself up again and fully registered that Noel had just offered him triple what he usually made! Everything in his body went into overdrive the moment it hit him fully, pulling and urging and screaming at him to say yes, to take the fall and damn the consequences of living with a woman who would probably, some days, just rather take the boredom between the chemo rounds than have a conversation with him…

But then he stopped and actually thought about it – that one major string attached to this once-in-a-lifetime offer. It didn't matter how much Noel said he'd get; it was still going to mean living with C.C. Babcock on a daily basis.

And everything inside him halted, as quiet as if no money had ever been offered in the first place.

"I'm sure you do, Noel, but that's hardly the point, is it?" he managed to get himself to say. Even after realising he couldn't take the money, it was still a struggle to get back on track. "If it's about your sister's comfort then you should be thinking about how she'd never, in a million years, want to live in the same apartment as me! Her even allowing me into this hospital as a visitor is nothing short of a miracle!"

Noel and Wilson shared another – weirdly disbelieving – look. Niles was starting to get the feeling that there was something very important that he was missing out on.

"I think you're vastly underestimating your own impact here, Niles," Noel told him. "Have you forgotten already that it's down to you, not to either of us fine gentlemen, that C.C. is as we speak actually on the phone and reaching out to people?"

"I've been telling him this right from the beginning!" Wilson concurred, folding his arms. He looked like a slightly let-down parent when he did that. "There's something about you that livens her up – it's like having two different people in one hospital bed and the only way to tell which one you'll get on any given day is whether or not you're around!"

"And it's not as though you've never done any of the things we're talking about before," Noel added. "It would be just like working at the Sheffield mansion – all the same chores, duties, et cetera. Only you'd only be working for C.C.. Nobody else."

Niles' insides started to tighten up. None of this felt right, and the way the pair of them kept jumping back in with point after point was starting to make him feel closed in…

He couldn't do this. It wouldn't be right of him to do it – they'd make each other miserable, he was practically having clairvoyant moments imagining how bad it would be…!

"I…I just don't think it would be right of me…" he muttered.

"Well, while we're on the subject of C.C.'s well-being, anybody close to her is going to be far better for her state of mind than a nurse hired to do the job," Wilson started up again. "Familiar faces are key to recovery, as we already discussed when getting her to reach out."

He smiled at Niles in a way which made the butler want to hit him. Just a little bit.

"And even if our parents do come, I'm not sure they'd know what to do to look after her. Or even if they'd be willing to move in to make sure that she's okay at all hours," Noel looked awkward and uncomfortable even as he said it. "They're, um…not exactly naturals at this sort of thing…"

"As opposed to me?" Niles countered. "The one man who, I once again remind you, she has openly and vocally despised for the better part of the last decade and a half?"

"For the love of God, Niles, don't insult my intelligence!" Noel quickly shot back, levity and good humour slowly ebbing away from his tone. "There is only one person that I know of who can cook, clean, and most importantly, handle my sister – wait, no, let me rephrase that. My life-threatingly ill baby sister. And that's you, buster!"

Wilson gave a low whistle.

"Bringing out the big guns, eh?" said the doctor.

"No he bloody isn't!" Niles snapped back, glaring at his two interlocutors. "Noel, I'm sorry, but you are going to have to listen to me when––"

"Oh, no, it's you who will listen!" Noel screamed back with such strength and boiling rage that the room immediately fell deathly silent.

Anger had transformed the usually gregarious and carefree professor. It wasn't an emotion he usually gave in to (that was more C.C.'s thing), but he was at the end of his tether. There was only so much a man could take, and this man had reached his breaking point.

"I don't know what the hell is going on between you two that means you're both incapable of seeing what's right under your noses, but frankly I'm at the end of my fucking rope!" he went off, towering over a now wide-eyed and open-mouthed butler. "In case you haven't noticed, out of all the assholes that have been through the revolving doors of my sister's convoluted life , you are the only man that hasn't left or been kicked to the metaphorical curb! For better or for worse, she's made you part of her world and has kept you in it for most of her adult life! Now, I have no doubts you have a complicated relationship – God knows she's seen enough crap from my own parents to mimic their mistakes – but your IQ would have to be in the negative numbers to miss the obvious fact that she doesn't actually hate you. And the last thing you strike me as, is an idiot. Even if you're currently acting like one!"

He turned on his heel, storming away from them. But he slowed after just a few paces, wiping under his glasses and down his face to clutch at his jaw, before taking a deep breath in and sighing it out.

Niles and Wilson hesitantly watched from behind him, barely daring to take a breath themselves. They chanced a glance at each other, mouths creeping open in disbelief. Obviously it was understandable that Noel might be upset and angry about everything that was going on, but they'd never thought he would have ever blown up like that! The man didn't look like he would yell at you if he were on fire!

And suddenly he was turning back and heading in their direction again. Pointing at Niles purposefully as he went.

"I really don't understand it, you know, Niles – how can a man like you just not see it?!" he all but demanded, as though there were some sort of secret the butler was deliberately keeping from him. "C.C. and I come from an elite family, a background of privilege—"

"And neither one of you has ever mentioned it once," Wilson stated.

The comment must've just slipped out, but he was immediately punished with a glare from Noel. Niles didn't ever think he'd seen the man look more like his sister, and it was more than enough to shut the doctor up.

"As I was saying," Noel continued. "C.C. and I come from a place in life where it just isn't appropriate to speak so much as a word to someone we consider our inferiors, or not worth the time of day! And yet, what does she do with you, hm?"

Niles opened his mouth to speak but Noel apparently wasn't interested in his answers.

"She engages with you! She plays when you offer a game; because that's what it all is, isn't it? The wordplay, the banter – it's all one big game! And that whole system has been working between the two of you for years!" he cried out. "You understand one another by now! It's obvious, even just from the fact that somehow, something you did got her to get her head out of the sand and make her pick up the phone to call other people and let them in! I'm her brother and I couldn't get her to do that! Wilson is a trained medical professional and he couldn't do it!"

Wilson tilted his head briefly to one side, muttering, "He does have a point, there…"

Noel ignored the interruption, "Now, I don't know what it is exactly that you two have going on here. I simply don't know what's going on! But you know something? I also don't give a shit! Whatever it is, no matter what it is, it clearly works! Whatever you're doing, it gets enough under C.C.'s skin that it forces her to make a change! So yes, Niles, when it comes to trusting someone to look after C.C. when she's out of the hospital and to see her through this all the way, you are my number one candidate."

He paused to take another calming breath, and he straightened his jacket lapels.

"I, of course, have my suspicions as to why you're the best man for the job," he said. "But I'm not going to insult both our intelligences by having to spell it out for you."

Niles' face screwed up instantly, "I really don't know what it is you're getting at whenever you say things like—"

"No! We're not doing it right now, either!" Noel cut over him. "You figure it out in your own time – right here and now, it isn't important! What is important is what it ultimately means. So, do you care about C.C.?"

Niles' reply was instant, in a way that absolutely didn't make him want to think more deeply about what had just been said.

"Of course I care!"

"Then doing as we ask and living with her when she's out of the hospital is what you have to do to help!" Noel yelled back. "No matter what it actually is that's going on with you two, just forget about it for a moment – if there's any doubts, just pretend they don't exist! They're probably not going anywhere, though some of them you might be better off if they did! Just…don't just stand there doing nothing when you're the only one around who can help my little sister!"

He ended up sighing into the mournfully silent space between them all again. It was like the last of the air had left his puncture, leaving him empty and broken on the floor. How he was still standing, Niles didn't know. He didn't look like he should have been, and there was a touch of ash growing about his complexion.

"I don't know, Niles. I just don't know anymore…!" there was a kind of desperation in his tone only ever used by the utterly defeated. "I can't tell you what to do – I know I can't. I could beg, I could threaten, I could offer you everything I have and more, but I know none of it will make a difference unless you want it to! Just…please. Please help my sister…!"

Niles stared back at him. Noel was basically on the verge of breaking down into tears at this point, and it tore at the butler to see it happening. He didn't want Noel to have to suffer like this, he didn't want the pressure to be crushing them all into a fine paste on a day-to-day basis, and – most of all – he didn't want C.C. to have the disease that was causing them all different versions of their own personal hells! But why did it have to be him taking on the full responsibility yet again? He was just as sick and tired of being put on the spot and told what to do without any say or regard for his own life as he was of everything else!

Couldn't someone else, for once – just once – take it instead?! These discussions had only ever worked out one way so far, and he honestly didn't believe that it could go that way again and turn out happy! Why would it? Everything Noel had said, in one way or another, was true. He and Miss Babcock did know each other. That was why he was so convinced it couldn't possibly work out as the sunshine and dewdrops and rainbows that Noel and Wilson seemed to be imagining!

It shouldn't have taken him having to explain it to them like this, but with a sigh of his own, he started to do it anyway.

"Look, I see what you're saying," he began as gently as possible. "I understand where you're coming from, and if I were in your position I would probably be trying to do the same thing you're doing. But, even if I were to say yes—"

He held out a halting hand, immediately pushing pause on both Noel and Wilson before they could break out into a wild celebration.

"Which I haven't done yet!" he cried out quickly, watching as they settled down in front of him before he thought about continuing. "What makes you so certain that C.C. would agree to any of this herself? Or that she'd even be alright with us having a conversation like this behind her back? Usually, our relationship is all over the place! Too all over the place for making a decision as big as living together! Yes, right now things might be fun…"

He trailed off, mind going blank as soon as the word left his lips and fear creeping up and taking hold of his insides like the talons of a hawk around a rabbit. Oh, God. Why had he said that? He hadn't meant to say anything like that – it'd come out entirely by accident! It had been the heat of the moment, and…and it had…oddly, helped to prove his point, he supposed…

Spending time together might have been…somewhat pleasant, recently, yes. But the moment you entered "fun" territory, you were playing a whole different ballgame and it wasn't a ballgame that Niles wanted or had been intending to play!

"As much as keeping a cancer patient out of her funk can be considered 'fun'," he added, before clearing his throat and trying again. "If that's what you, um…believe 'fun' to be. But anyway, my point still stands. What makes you think that…better times…will continue and that she'll say yes to being around me more permanently?"

Something minute but infinitely significant changed in Noel's expression then. The ash started to fade away from his face, replaced by a faint pinkish hue and a spark of what could either be determination or mania in his eyes.

"Oh, so you want C.C.'s input on this? You should've just said so in the first place!" he cried out, turning around and heading past Wilson in the direction of C.C.'s room. "Oh, Ceec…!"

He'd barely taken a step when what was happening landed in Niles' brain like a caught fish; that is, with a cold, wet, resounding slap.

Shit. Shit, he couldn't be about to tell her everything that they'd just been talking about! He couldn't!

Heart starting to race, Niles rushed after him.

"No, Noel! Come back! You come back here this instant!"

As an answer to that that was as good as a "fuck you", Noel sped up and dodged as Niles tried to reach out and grab him by the shoulder. He snatched at C.C.'s bedroom door handle just as the butler caught up and crashed into him, fighting back as Niles clutched at his fingers and painfully tried to prise them off. But the handle turned underneath the professor's better grip, and opened with a sliding shove from Noel's foot as he just managed to push Niles back.

Feeling triumphant, Noel stepped adamantly into the doorway. Directly in front of him was his sister, sat upright in her bed with the telephone in her lap. She'd obviously just finished another call.

Perfect timing.

"C.C.! There's—"

"Don't do it, Noel!"

A butler-shaped mass threw itself into the rest of the door, wedging them both there and sending both into fits of angry shouting as they struggled and fought to be the first one through, pushing and slapping and barging but not making it more than an inch.

"What the hell are you two doing over there?!"

Both men – deemed this by society because of their ages, notwithstanding the slap fight in the doorway – froze as C.C.'s demand reverberated around the room. Noel slipped and popped out of the doorframe, taking advantage of the temporary blip in Niles' attention.

"Sorry about that, dear sister," he said, sounding noticeably peppier than he'd been only moments ago. "We just got a little carried away."

"By…?" C.C. said, leaning back against the headboard. "I'm gonna need a little bit more than that, Noel. Babcocks – and especially you – don't do 'carried away' and, in my experience, neither does our Jeeves wannabe here."

"Funny that you mention Niles – he is precisely the man I wanted to talk to you a––"

"Oh, no you won't!" Niles cut in, his brain finally kickstarting and sending the order for his useless lump of a body to somehow stumble into the room and put an end to the madness that was unfolding right in front of him. "There is nothing we need to talk about here, least of all me!"

Niles turned to look – practically pleadingly – at the former producer.

"Please, Miss Babcock, you must ignore your brother here! He's gotten the most ridiculous idea into his head and won't see or listen to reason!"

"I won't listen to reason?" Noel cried out in a manner that would have put even the most melodramatic Victorian lady to shame. "It is you who refuses to even consider giving the best option we've got a fighting chance!"

"That's because it isn't the best option you've got!" Niles barked back. "If you and Wilson weren't two wilfully pig-headed arseholes, you'd actually see that your little plan is the saddest and worst thought-out idea in this entire bloody worl—"

"Will you two drama queens fucking shut up?!"

The screamed (albeit raspy and tired-sounding) command coming from the former producer made the two sparring men flinch and shut up. Slowly, they turned to look at her and, in almost record time, the anger that had been fuelling the two men until mere seconds ago was replaced by that special kind of gelid fear only an angry C.C. Babcock was capable of inspiring.

"Now, you listen and listen good! I've just gotten off the phone with my mother. It doesn't take a genius to know that that means I'm cranky, have a headache and, quite frankly, my ability and willingness to suffer fools is non-existent. So, I'm going to give you just the one chance to get whatever you need to say to me out in a coherent manner. And if either one of you even thinks about acting like an overgrown man-child again, I'll personally get out of this bed and use the last of my strength to kick your asses to the curb! Am I clear?!"

Niles and Noel shrank, the heat from C.C.'s glare melting them down until she could probably squash them under her heel. She'd do it, too; she did it to everyone who made her angry and what they'd just done had made her pissed.

Obviously, neither one of them had meant to do it – why would they? Who went around trying to put cancer patients, especially cancer patients famous for volatile tempers, in a bad mood? But them not meaning to do it didn't matter. It didn't matter in the long run and it certainly didn't matter to her. She wouldn't give a shit what their "actual intentions" were! They were out arguing on the middle of the ice and it was starting to crack, and C.C. Babcock could take as much as one look and not hesitate to pull out the sledgehammer.

It didn't matter that she'd have to get up from her hospital bed to do it. Hell, if anything, that would only make her more proud of her own accomplishments!

She didn't need to be at full strength to know how to kill a man. And she'd have any number of ways to do it.

"Crystal," Noel squeaked first, having to force his voice up and out of his throat like the words themselves were too scared to leave. His hands went to and fiddled with his tie. "S-sorry. What…what I was trying to say before was that we've, uh…been discussing you leaving the hospital."

C.C.'s hardened expression softened just enough for her brow to furrow.

"Leaving the hospital? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm glad you asked!"

The voice piping up from just outside the doorway made Niles and Noel start, heads snapping simultaneously to where Wilson had apparently been lurking silently behind them. If neither one of them knew any better, they'd almost definitely say he'd been waiting for his moment to spring that surprise on them and make his own bizarre, "grand" entrance!

"And exactly how long have you been there?!" Noel snapped.

Wilson edged his way around Niles and into the room.

"You say that like I didn't immediately follow you both to watch the action play out. It's not often we get some good, old-fashioned fisticuffs going on in here."

Ignoring the outraged gaping that followed, he continued what he was saying.

"Anyway. What the gentleman in the red corner," he gestured to Noel, "was saying is that we – him, myself, and the gentleman in the blue corner…"

He used his other hand to gesture to Niles.

"Have been hoping you'd be interested in hearing what it is we have to say."

C.C. looked irritated, "I'm getting less interested by the second, Wilson."

"We've been thinking about what to do now that you've actually started to reach out to people," Wilson finally cut to the chase. "And we thought the best next step that you could take would be to get you out there, living in a way and doing things that are a little more…normal."

"Normal?" C.C. echoed, watching as Wilson gave her a nod. "What does "normal" mean, here, exactly?"

That was a fair question, really. After so long of literally nothing being normal, hearing the word all of a sudden all over again had to be suspiciously too good to be true.

"It means going back to the real world and doing some real world living for a while. At least, in between your chemo sessions," Wilson explained. "So you're not just cooped up in here waiting for them to come around. We know you've got an obsessive compulsion about having plans and things to do, and the more productive those plans are the better, so we thought that letting you out to do them might be beneficial for your emotional recovery."

C.C. lightened inside instantly, her heart starting to pound harder. She'd been hooked hard from the moment he'd said "real world" and "real world living", but everything he'd said afterwards could only point in one direction! Straight back to New York, straight back to her old life, and straight back to work! The nightmare of being trapped in this place with nowhere to go was over!

Obviously, she knew she'd have to come back to Chicago every two weeks for the chemo, but who cared about that?! She'd gone farther in shorter spaces of time, and if it meant she got to do at least some of the things she used to be able to do then she'd happily get on a plane whenever she needed! She'd even sit in coach for it, as long as the rest of her comforts were waiting right where they belonged!

Beaming all over her face, she pushed away the phone and turned around in her bed.

"So you're saying I'm going back to New York? Back home, and back to work?"

The others looked at her. And then, slowly and hesitantly, at each other as well. It wasn't a good look; C.C. had seen that kind of look a lot before. Mostly when she'd been younger – too young to understand how badly life could and would let her down. It'd always come from Nanny Bobo, or one of the maids, or someone like that, and it always happened after she'd just asked if her Mommy or Daddy were coming to watch her in the school pageant, or if they were going to do something together for her birthday that year…

Even if she hadn't recognised the look, the fact that they'd all stopped screaming and bitching at each other would've let the cat out of the bag that something was up. Which it obviously was.

"What is it…?" she asked, insides that had been as light as air now slowly filling with lead. "What's the matter?"

Having apparently taken it upon himself to answer, Wilson took in a sharp breath and began.

"You, uh…kinda misunderstood what I was saying, there. You're not going back to New York just yet, I'm afraid."

The rest of the lead was dumped unceremoniously in C.C.'s stomach, and something like the terrifying producer she used to be flared up and roared to life underneath her skin.

"What do you mean, I—"

"Let me explain why!" Wilson held up a hand, stopping the explosion before it happened. "I know it's disappointing and I know that you were looking forward to going home—"

"You can say that again," C.C. muttered bitterly.

"But while you're definitely on your way to recovery, there's still a distance to cover in between now and you being alright enough to go back to New York," Wilson continued. "You can't expect to be all fine and dandy, flying back and forth from there to Chicago, only to immediately land and get pumped full of chemo the same day. It just isn't happening. You need to be somewhere a little closer by."

C.C. felt her insides give an unpleasantly tight twist, her mood souring even more than it had already. She couldn't believe this. She couldn't fucking believe it! Just when she'd thought she was finally blowing that joint and getting on the first possible flight back to something better, something that would actually let her feel like a living person instead of a prisoner existing in misery, she had the rug pulled out from under her feet!

So what really was going on here, if they weren't all about to surprise her and tell her to start packing her bags?

"Where, then, if not New York?" she gritted her teeth as she asked. "And try and be straight-talking about it this time – I want to know exactly what it is that you're supposed to be telling me."

"But of course! I wouldn't expect anything less from you," Wilson said and gave her a teasing wink. "See, while I know there is nothing quite like the Big Apple, I do believe there is a somewhat interesting metropolis practically a stone's throw away!"

"You mean Chicago?" C.C. asked.

"Smart cookie, aren't you? Yes, Chicago. It ticks all the boxes – it's near the hospital should you need medical attention, there's plenty to see and do and, most importantly, your brother will be close enough to make sure you are actually getting out of bed and partaking in what I like to call 'real life!" Wilson said, looking way smugger than he had any right to.

"So you'd have me move in with Noel? Is that's what this whole racket is about?" asked C.C.. "Because I hate to break it to you – wait, no, actually I'm looking forward to breaking it to you – but Noel and his partner have no room for me. Theirs is a three bedroom apartment and they are all taken. Both Noel and Raymond need their home studies to do their grading and planning, and I hardly think I'll be allowed to keep their master bedroom to myself!"

For one glorious instant, C.C. thought that Wilson's self-congratulatory expression was about to crumble into a defeated frown (God, how she loved to see it on the rare occasions it cropped up!) but once again, her doctor waited until the last possible second to pull the metaphorical rug from underneath her feet.

The bastard looked like he had the winning lottery numbers or some shit!

"You know, Babs, I may not look it, but I am a trained medical professional who is capable of drawing up a comprehensive treatment plan every once in a while. And that includes knowing whether or not it is viable for a patient to leave hospital."

"Then, by all means, enlighten me!" she snapped again, crossing her arms over her chest. "What grandiose plan of action has that cesspool of a brain devised now?"

Again, Wilson took a moment to enjoy having the upper hand. It didn't take a genius to know that very few things were sweeter to the oncologist than being right. The fact that he got to rub it in was the cherry on top, as it were.

"I'm aware that, for someone with your pedigree, my idea was never even a faint flicker of a possibility before, but it might surprise you to learn that we, lowly working-class mortals, tend to rent when we are in need of accommodation."

Oh. Well…that…uh…made sense, she supposed. Wilson kinda had a point about her not having considered the possibility before, but it would be a cold day in Hell before she ever openly conceded defeat to that asshole.

Renting did sound good though, and as Wilson had said, it would give her the chance to try having a normal-ish life, all while still having her medical team close by should things go South.

"You only say that because you're jealous," she quickly shot back. "But anyway, your idea has got some merit to it. I'd love to have some independence between infusions, and if New York is out of the picture, then Chicago will have to do. What's the soonest I could switch to a semi-outpatient basis?"

For the first time in their conversation, Wilson lost his smile. Much to C.C.'s dread, it was replaced by the sort of frown that often preceded bad (and infuriatingly frustrating) news.

"Whoa there, Nelly! You're getting a little bit ahead of yourself. I never said you'd be completely independent between infusions. You aren't anywhere near a place where I'd feel comfortable letting you go off and live on your own without any sort of assistance!"

C.C. scowled even more deeply.

"Then what are you talking about doing? You've stood here for an infinite amount of time telling me what you don't want me to do, beating around the bush, turning down everything I've suggested so far! Maybe you should stop doing that and start telling me the opposite! If I can't even go off on my own nearby, then what the hell is it that you actually want me to do?"

Wilson's eyebrows shot up and he held up a hand in a sarcastic show of surrender.

"Alright, alright! Excuse me for wanting to explain and give a little more context!" he exclaimed. "I was just getting to what we're hoping you'll do, if Her Majesty will grant me permission to finish what I was saying…?"

Annoyed by the taunt, but wanting to hear what it was that he actually had to say (even though she was thinking it had better be something good at the same time), C.C. caustically gestured for him to go ahead.

The doctor nodded formally, teetering on the edge of a mocking bow.

"Thank you ma'am," he said, putting on a fake English accent for good measure. Then he cleared his throat and returned to his usual voice. "So, we all know that you might not be taking a one-woman cross-country trip any time soon. What we do think you can take a stab at, however, is living with someone else for a little while. Someone who can give a helping hand with anything that you might need, and who can be around in case of, uh…emergencies. Not that we're expecting anything like that to happen, of course."

He paused for a moment, then shrugged and put his hands in his pockets.

"That's basically it. Under those conditions, it'll be viable for you to live on your own. With someone else," he said, before apparently thinking about how that sounded and trying again. "Living on your own, but with someone else. Living-on-your-own-adjacent, if you will. Dependent living."

Words probably couldn't express how much C.C. hated that last phrase. Or anything that what Wilson had just said implied! This was really what it was going to take for her to get some measly time out of the clinic? Some glorified babysitter coming in to take care of her as though she couldn't do it herself? Some…some nanny that they had approved and that would be doing everything for her like she wasn't an adult?!

The thought of it was almost too much to bear, but that didn't stop it from coming. Horrific visions flashed in her head of some Chicago-esque Nanny Fine showing up at her door, insisting on doing the cooking, the cleaning, 'hanging out' with her around the house to make sure she was alright at all times, and all the while laughing and talking and talking and not shutting up from talking…

Oh, God, it was going to be terrible – her skin was pre-emptively crawling, that's how sure she was!

But, if she didn't have any other choice apart from staying stuck in the clinic, she supposed she would just have to put up with it. The freedom was worth more than the price she'd end up paying to get it. Besides, she'd put up with Nanny Fine, the original New York model, every day for the past four years. It would take a far weaker C.C. Babcock to not be able to put up with Nanny Fine Two for a month!

Eventually, she huffed out a breath and closed her eyes.

"Fine. So you'll get this adult babysitter to come take care of me; what happens next?"

"They won't be an adult babysitter," Wilson almost sounded on the verge of telling her not to be stupid. "They don't have to cook for you, even though from what I've heard they probably should. They won't be putting you to bed, since I know you probably wouldn't go if anybody tried to make you. And, apart from both of those things, you're an adult and nobody involved would insult that by pretending you're not capable of looking after yourself."

"So what will they be doing, then?" C.C. asked irritably. "Because it doesn't sound like a whole host of things so far!"

"They'll be there for the days when you need someone around to help you," Wilson said firmly. "Those days when you're feeling particularly sick, or – like I said before – for emergencies. If you've fallen and need some help getting back up, or if you have some kind of accident and can't get to the phone. You're gonna need someone there for all of that."

C.C. wished she could sum up the strength to match the spite she had in her to prove him wrong. But she didn't have any, and if she didn't have that, then she couldn't prove him wrong. It killed her to admit it, but he did have a point.

"Alright," she felt her teeth starting to grit, but she held firm. "Who exactly did you have in mind for this live-in nurse of mine?"

She glanced over at her brother, and found his expression unreadable.

"Noel probably already knows we can cross both our parents off the list. They wouldn't nurse anybody back to health if their own lives depended on it…!"

Wilson looked unimpressed, "Not to take what is probably an important, almost therapeutic, venting moment from you, but neither me nor Noel even thought about using any of your delightful relatives for this. I'd say 'no offence' but honestly, they sound terrible, so all the offence is actually meant."

C.C. quirked an eyebrow, but chose not to comment on Wilson's observation about her family.

"Who are you getting, then?"

Wilson took on the air of a man who thought himself a genius.

"Someone who actually knows how to look after you," he replied. "Someone who's actually already been coming around; you don't have to pretend to come alive whenever they show up, and you have a lot of fun with them until they have to leave again. They've been crucial to your care, and you wouldn't have had the jumpstart you needed to start calling people without them."

With a dramatic whirl, he turned and gestured at Niles.

"I of course mean this nervous-looking gentleman over here."

Silence fell on the room like a ton of bricks. C.C. stared at where he was pointing, motors in her brain whirring in her head but not putting out any results, then did a double take, jarring herself back to the present.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say…? It sounded like you just said that I'd be living with—"

"Niles, that's right," Noel cut in cheerfully. "We both thought it would be perfect if you did! You've been so much more alive since he's been coming around; you're clearly having more fun, whenever that's been possible. You're even back on your wordplay more than you ever were before!"

His smile was probably supposed to be encouraging, but it looked too scared of whatever she had to say next to really achieve it.

"And hey, he's looked after you every day for years at the Sheffields'," he continued hastily. "So, why not? What do you think?"

There was a split second in which nothing happened. And then C.C. exploded into loud laughter that slammed into the walls and bounced off with the force of the reverberation.

Oh God, now that was a funny joke if ever she'd heard one! Her, living with Niles? How ridiculous was that?! Nobody in their right minds would ever suggest that she just march off merrily into Chicago, arm-in-arm with the Dust Buster, and live it out in some apartment like they were…they were in their own sitcom, or something!

She had to hand it to them, they'd almost had her there, for a fraction of a second! What a genius set-up!

"Oh, you two…! And here I was, starting to think that your senses of humour were getting worse!" she cried out, wiping a tear of mirth out of the corner of her eye as her laughter faded away to light, occasional chuckles. "Sure, you want me to move in with Niles! Of course you do…!"

Yeah, there was no way they'd actually even considered that as an option. They must've had something else up their sleeves that they were waiting to spring on her – they'd just been waiting to see what she'd do once they'd told her it was Niles! But she hadn't fallen for it too far, so that was that. Joke over.

She sniffed once, letting the last little giggles out of her body, and composed herself again.

"Real talk now, though, what were you actually thinking of doing?" she asked, straightening her back and looking between them expectantly. "You must've decided on somebody."

Looking between her and Noel, Wilson screwed up his face minutely, like he'd just heard her say the weirdest thing on the planet instead of the most sensible.

"We…have. We've just told you about him," he said plainly.

Noel chuckled, "Not that you need to be told too much – you know him better than we do, of course…!"

C.C.'s face, which had been alight again with the hope and expectation of finding out more about this "non-babysitter", suddenly dimmed again. But her smile remained fixed in place like a memorial to a mood that could've been.

"But…you were joking about that…"

They had been joking, hadn't they? They couldn't actually possibly have meant that she'd be going to an entirely new home with Tennessee Tuxedo in tow!

Noel's own smile wavered on his face, "As much as I like to have fun with you, Cee, I'm afraid it, uh…well, it isn't a joke this time."

"Well, I'm not afraid," Wilson cut in boldly, smiling even more than he had been before now.

He took a step in Niles' direction and slapped him on the back, all while looking at C.C. like a used car salesman trying to cut a deal with someone over a model he kept insisting was practically brand-new.

"Congratulations! You've met your new roomie, and you didn't even have to do any of the awkward 'getting-to-know-you' crap that makes first dates one of the worst human inventions to ever see the light of day."

C.C.'s face fell at last, her insides and her mood plummeting right along with it.

"You…you mean you really mean it?" she asked, eyes darting back and forth between an uneasy Noel, a beaming Wilson, and an embarrassed Niles. "You weren't joking when you said all of that just now?"

"Not so much as an expertly-placed pun," Wilson replied. "Niles is indeed the ideal candidate to take care of you right now."

That would've made C.C. laugh again, had it not hit her with all the gentleness and tranquillity of being killed by a falling air conditioning unit. Followed by the realisation that she'd ended up in Hell as a result.

"You've gotta be kidding me," she stated bluntly. "I really mean it, you've actually got to be kidding me! You can't be serious about this!"

Wilson didn't even so much as blink.

"Why would I not be serious about this? I've never been anything but serious about the most important parts of your treatment."

C.C.'s temper reared back up from its temporary slumber, breaths hitching over and over angrily in her throat and her body turning back and forth from her brother to her doctor.

"The most important parts…? What the hell do you mean, the most important parts?! Have you both completely lost your minds?!"

It was the only reasonable explanation left! Nobody sane would be this deep into deluding themselves into thinking that this was actually some sort of medical aid! Did they really actually think it was one of the most important things they could be doing?! Making her live with the butler full-time?! She'd told them both many, many times exactly how bad it was around him, and yet here they were, about to ship her off to God-only-knew-where, Chicago, Illinois, with him hanging on to her coattails!

"Of course not, C.C.!" Noel piped up, now obviously fretting about making her upset but doing nothing to relieve that fact. "Can't you see what it is we're trying to do, here? You want out—"

"You're damn right I want out!" C.C. bellowed over him. "I want out of whatever the hell this fucked up little arrangement is where you decide that I should be living with the Minute Maid over there!"

Niles let out a noise like he'd just been hauled out of the way of a firing squad.

"Thank you, Miss Babcock! I've been trying to tell them this whole time that—"

"You shut up right now!" C.C. pointed a warning finger in his direction. "I don't care if you've gotten down on your knees and begged them not to do it – this isn't about you! This is my turn!"

Cowed, mumbling something, and shuffling his feet, the butler did as he was told and shut his trap. He might've even taken a step or two away, over into a corner where he could continue shutting his trap in private. Good. C.C. didn't care what he'd tried to tell Noel and Wilson, and whatever it was it clearly hadn't made a difference anyway!

Turning her attention back where it was due, C.C. stuck another glare at her doctor and her brother.

"I can't believe this is what you want me to do! You're both insane if you think I'll just lie down and roll over for this!"

Instinct told her to pause for one of Niles' smart comments, but she fought it. This was her turn and she wasn't going to let anybody else take it away from her!

"Did either one of you actually stop and think about what it was you were suggesting? Hm? Because to me it sounds like you just got a load of bad ideas down on paper, stuck 'em all on a board, and threw darts at them blindly until one landed and hit something! Didn't either one of you stop to consider whether or not it would work?! Because I can tell you right now, this is not going to work!"

Letting one hand fly out of his pocket, Wilson shrugged at her again, apparently demonstrating the lack of evidence by gesturing at the empty air.

"How do you know that? It's worked every day Niles has been here, ever since you deigned accept him into your life and treatment plan like a divorced, upper middle class mother accepts Pilates and alcoholic brunches."

C.C. eased herself round angrily on the bed. God, what she wouldn't have given to have been able to get up and hit Wilson for that!

"It won't work because apartments don't have visiting hours!" she snarled. "We'll be around each other all the fucking time! Do you honestly believe that it'll be a walk in the park at every hour of the day? Have you somehow missed everything about our relationship and mistakenly thought that it was something good and to be encouraged?! You might keep on saying that we get along like a house on fire, Wilson, but – newsflash – most people regard a house fire as a horrible tragedy and something that has to be stopped as soon as possible!"

Noel reached out imploringly, "But Cee, it's clearly not like that—"

"Don't tell me what it is or isn't like, Noel!" C.C. cut him off sharply enough to draw blood. "I know about this better than anybody, including you, Professor! And even if I were to ignore the fact that our relationship has been worse than two cab drivers cutting each other off in Manhattan traffic and say I'll do it – which I am not doing, by the way! – then it still wouldn't mean I'd have final say in the matter! That'd be down to Maxwell – you know, the man who has total say over Niles' job?!"

That had to do it – if anyone or anything could stop this from happening, it was Maxwell thinking that he could soon be cut off from a clean house and easy access to three cooked meals a day! Even if they clearly didn't give a shit about how she felt about having Scrubbing Bubbles around, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, they had to pay attention to the logic! Niles had a job, and it wasn't one he was gonna get to keep if he ditched the mansion for some Chicago apartment the Sheffields weren't even living in!

"Did you ever even think about that?" she asked, turning back and forth between them. "Did it ever cross your minds once that Niles might have other obligations? How could you possibly go ahead and arrange something like this, taking somebody away from their work without asking them, and without knowing if their employer would be alright with it?! Are you both stu—"

"All right that's it!" Wilson's blast of a shout took the rest of the word out of her mouth. "That's enough! You are going to shut up and listen now! I've had enough of your—"

C.C. glowered at him, "Well that's a pity, because I'm not go—"

"Yes! Yes you are!" Wilson yelled back, somehow even louder than before and with twice as much rage. "I'm sick and tired of having to listen to you scrape the bottom of the barrel for every excuse under the sun not to make this happen! So you're going to stop talking for a while, and you're going to start listening. Like you should've been doing right from the start, because I'm your doctor! Have you got that?!"

C.C. gaped back at him, eyes wide, breath finally catching up with all the arguing she'd been doing. Wilson must've taken her silence for an answer, because he nodded as though she had.

"Good. And for the record, this has nothing whatsoever to do with my sense of humour, or with the things I consider jokes," he said heatedly, grabbing the nearest chair and all but throwing himself into it next to her bedside. "It has everything to do, however, with the fact that you're wilfully ignoring the obvious here! Before Niles found out about this crap and came along, you were a bigger wreck than a bombed-out firework factory! You were alone, and you were lonely, and you were bored out of your mind. And when did it all start to turn around…?"

C.C. thought she'd had the perfect retort, but Wilson didn't give her enough time to answer. He threw a hand over in the direction of Niles' corner.

"When he started coming around, of course! It all went away when Niles started showing up for visits – deciding to let him in on all of this changed everything for you! It meant that you had something to look forward to every day! Because, newsflash, you happen to actually enjoy his visits! You like having someone around to play those mental mind games you like so much; someone who can take an insult as much as they can toss one back!"

He pointed a finger directly at C.C., looking her in the eyes as he did.

"And you can't deny or pretend it with any of us, either, because we all saw it," he continued. "Niles cracked open that shell of yours! He got you to open up with the power of a good time and the strength required to not take your bullshit! That was what it took to get you agreeing to further treatment, and to reach out to the people who should have been here for you from day one! Whether you like it or not, he's been a better influence on you than anybody else in this room! Maybe in any room you've ever been in!"

"Oh, please!" C.C. scoffed immediately, rolling her eyes. "He hasn't been half as—"

"You can shove those words back in your mouth and keep them there. They don't matter in this conversation," Wilson told her firmly. He ran a hand through his hair and down his face, before sighing. "I don't care what the hell is supposed to be 'going on' between the two of you that's making you act like this. I don't care, I don't want to analyse it – take it up with a trained therapist if you want real answers, et cetera, et cetera. Right here and now, the only thing that matters is, regardless of whatever's going on behind the scenes, Niles makes life more interesting for you."

He couldn't not have seen C.C.'s face falling, but that probably only encouraged him.

"Yeah, that's right! You can't deny he livens the place up a little, doesn't he? And yeah, I'll admit that living together might usually be different when it doesn't come with compulsory visiting hours that keep you out of each other's hair for a lot of the time, but you're a frickin' millionaire! You could rent the biggest penthouse in Chicago, put Niles in one wing, stick yourself in the other, and never have to meet again unless there's an emergency! Separate lives under one roof!"

He threw both his hands out, as though to welcome his great idea with open arms. But the celebration didn't last long. He was clearly on a roll in his mind, and he didn't want anybody jumping in and stealing his thunder.

"But I know you won't do that. Any guesses why?" he didn't wait for her, nor anybody else, to guess. "I personally think it's because you actually enjoy having Niles around! You can't deny it, either; as much as you say you're not gonna get along in an apartment, you're currently managing it just fine right here! In front of everybody, too! So I don't get why you're insisting like some kind of stubborn child that it won't work! Hell, you're even going as far as to ignore all the pros so that you can stare, mesmerised, at the cons! But I don't get it! Why would you do that?!"

C.C. flinched, burning white-hot underneath her skin and aching in her bones to just get up and run. Why the fuck should she have to answer him when she'd already told them all – told everyone who needed to know – that she didn't want to do it?! What did they think would come of it? That she'd feel the walls behind her, know she was backed in, and just automatically jump to saying yes? Yes, she'd love to have Dust Buster around, both day and night? Because that just wasn't gonna happen!

It really wasn't. And alright, she might've been a little happier when he was around, but considering real, good, actual conversation was slim pickings around the clinic, she could hardly be blamed for finding the first port when the storm cropped up, now could she? And, even if Wilson might've…her mind thought 'might've' through gritted teeth…had a point about him 'making life interesting' for her and livening things up, that didn't mean anything! Technically, technically, being mugged counted as something interesting happening to you that livened up the day, but that didn't mean you wanted it at home with you!

"Obviously, I'm just being more realistic than you!" she argued back at Wilson. "And not one thing you've said here makes up for the fact that Niles has a job to do already! He couldn't be weighed down with the burden of watching out for me as well!"

"You wouldn't be a burden!"

Those blurted words were as unexpected as an explosion coming from the children's section of a local library. And they didn't surprise anybody more than the man who'd said them.

Niles had clamped his hand down over his mouth as soon as the words were out, but if he'd left the stable door unlocked any longer after the horse had bolted, the horse would've gone on to win three Grand Nationals, sired a dozen foals, and died of old age long before he'd even reached up to shut the damn thing!

Why had he said that? Why the hell had he said that?! Out loud, and to a room full of the last people on Earth he'd ever want to hear his thoughts on it! Why hadn't he been able to keep his mouth shut?! Politeness? Since when had he ever cared about being polite to C.C. Babcock?! What could possibly have compelled him to change his mind?! He'd managed to stay quiet just fine up until now – everything had been right on track and it wouldn't have even been his fault that they'd have to try something else! Miss Babcock saying no would've been the end of it! He would've been off the hook and someone else would've had to have volunteered!

So why had he just…not let that happen?! Why had he gone and ruined everything by saying something like that? Something so…so stupid and sentimental – insisting she wasn't a burden! He'd called her one in the heat of the banter just the other day and now here he was, telling her she wasn't one! And for what? So that they could do something he really didn't want to do? Where in his brain had it made sense to do that?!

All it made him come across was an embarrassing, sentimental old fool who didn't know how to talk to people!

It didn't help that everyone else in the room was looking at him now, Miss Babcock with her jaw hanging open like one of those fish you saw mounted on walls in log cabins next to lakes, and Wilson and Noel glancing back and forth between him and each other. The matching smirks were almost as obnoxious as matching Christmas sweaters.

And Niles was still in his corner, which he desperately wished would turn in on itself so he'd just end up absorbed into the walls!

"What was that again?" Wilson said with the same smugness Niles imagined Churchill or any of the other Allied leaders must have felt after D-day.

It was fitting, too – this whole conversation felt like a fucking war, with Miss Babcock and Wilson having a go at one another from opposite trenches. And, for some incomprehensible reason, he'd broken the stalemate by doing the equivalent of marching into no-man's land in broad, bloody daylight!

"Yes, Niles, what was that again?" Noel cut in – almost like the Americans after Pearl Harbour.

They were bringing out the big guns, the bastards.

"I don't know about you, Noel, but I believe we've just had an unintentional breakthrough!" the doctor said gleefully.

"I concur, Wilson! And this is, in my not-so-humble opinion, our cue to take a step back and allow the kids to have a little heart to heart, don't cha think?" the professor replied. "I could treat you to a nice cup of coffee while we wait, if you want."

"That sounds smashing in my book!" Wilson said, getting up from his chair and straightening his scruffy white coat. He then turned to the still-gaping producer and to an ashen-faced butler. "I'll get treats for you too, don't worry. But until we come back, remember to play nice and have a ball!"

Maybe it was Wilson's infuriating little wink or the fact that he and Noel were already making for the door, but Niles' body chose that exact moment to release some much needed, action-inducing adrenaline into his system. The cogs in his brain – which until then had been jammed into inaction by his sheer panic – suddenly started turning at an almost dizzying speed, and the only thought they seemed to be whirring into existence was that he absolutely, under no bloody circumstances wanted to be left alone in the room with Miss Babcock.

The woman might have been sick and bed-bound, but that didn't mean she wasn't a menace. He had too many years of Babcock experience under his belt to make that rookie mistake. Besides, he'd much rather face Cerberus with no other weapon apart from his fists than talk…feelings…with her! He was British, for God's sake – he didn't do feelings!

"Where the hell do you two think you're going?!" he cried out, dashing to put himself between the door and the other two men.

"We just told you – we are getting coffee," Wilson said, sounding and looking criminally relaxed.

"Oh, so you just opened Pandora's Box and I'm the one who has to deal with the fallout?!" Niles complained.

"Glad to see we are on the same page!" replied the oncologist, chipper as ever, before he practically shoved Niles out of the way and opened the door.

"Hey! Get off me!" Niles yelled, already too late to stop the doctor from manhandling him out of the way. "You're a doctor! You can't possibly think that this is appropriate!"

Wilson crinkled up his nose as he smiled at him, "Back soon!"

He patted Niles' arm, which was still stretched across the edge of the doorway from where he'd fallen to one side.

"Have a good talk and don't skimp out on any of the details – who knows? It might be better than therapy. It's almost definitely cheaper!"

Niles' jaw dropped, and he found himself moving away from the doorway to get a better angle to complain from as Wilson sauntered out of the room.

"But…but you can't…!"

Whatever he'd wanted to say – he'd wanted it to be something clever – had clearly been slapped out of him by the shock of Wilson's sheer audacity. Instead, his mouth just opened and closed uselessly as Noel made his own exit.

The professor at least had some decorum; his smile was half-apologetic as he passed by.

"We promise it's for your own good – for the both of you! You'll see," he said, stepping quickly over the threshold into the little stretch of corridor. "I'm sure you'll be thanking us for it later!"

Niles gave him a dirty look, "I'm sure I won't be—"

His words were cut off as Noel took hold of the door handle and shut the thing behind him. Niles' eyes bored holes into the wood. He thought he could almost imagine Noel and Wilson on the other side of it, cheering and high-fiving and just generally being the obnoxious pests he hadn't realised they were until now!

He could almost imagine it. Almost. Most of his mind was still busy trying to process how they'd managed to get that far in the first place!

He turned away, knowing he wouldn't find answers in Miss Babcock (not the ones he was looking for or wanted, anyway), but not knowing where else to turn.

How could they have possibly gone from her yelling at and berating Noel and Wilson for even suggesting that they set the two up to play house together, to him somehow inverting his own IQ to practically insist that they did just that…?! She'd been furious with them, which had been good, and she'd been shutting down their idea, which had been fantastic! So why had he decided to do something so bad and terrible and idiotic as to start shutting it all down?!

It didn't seem possible. He didn't know how he could've opened his big, stupid mouth like that! And now, he was about to be punished for it with the worst conversation in history! Being left to…to talk about feelings with Miss Babcock?! Who would ever wish such a thing on anybody?! God, how could he have been abandoned to something so awful by someone who was supposed to live by the Hippocratic oath?!

He wasn't going to survive this. He just knew it. The humiliation alone would kill him before they'd ever made it to anything else – whatever the "next stage" of this whole thing actually was! And he wasn't even going to get the chance to kill Noel or Wilson before he—

"Your Butler Mode doesn't work here, Dust Buster."

C.C.'s irritation snapped him out of the depression not getting to commit murder had brought on him. He spun away from where he'd been boring holes into the wood, embarrassingly meeting her unimpressed eyes.

"Staring at the door doesn't mean someone's gonna ring a doorbell you've gotta answer and nobody's gonna come through that you've got to announce," she said stonily. "Are we gonna talk about what the hell just happened here, or have old age and all my prayers finally caught up with you and taken away your power of speech?!"

Oh, God. She wanted to start right now? Here it went then, didn't it? He didn't have any other choice other than to get started. But start where? How could he possibly explain what had happened just then?! He didn't know how it had happened! It had just…come out!

He couldn't breathe. He actually couldn't breathe. And he couldn't think; there was a void in his head and another one in his lungs and he didn't know how to get rid of either! Nothing he could say could make it better, he knew he could tell anybody that for free; it was all too unstable right now!

Huffing from being unable to breathe disguised the fact that he nearly laughed. "Unstable" was putting it mildly! Saying their…whatever this was…was unstable was like saying the Himalayas were a little rocky! Either one of them could lose their footing and go tumbling straight over the edge of that mountain at any moment! They were…still in the building stages. Or something like that. And everyone knew how dangerous building sites were, not even taking into account whether or not they knew what was being built there! He had to stop talking about building sites, that wasn't getting him anywhere!

None of this was getting him anywhere. He had to get something out of what he'd been thinking about – there had to be something in there that wasn't complete bollocks!

"I, um…yes," he began. It wasn't the worst of starts.

"Yes, what?" C.C. asked snappily. ""Yes, we're gonna talk", or "yes, I've lost the power of speech"?"

Okay, perhaps it wasn't as good a start as he'd thought. Hoped, more like.

He tried taking a breath, which only half worked. It was just about enough to launch him into another sentence, even though he would much rather have been launched into the stratosphere.

"Talk. We'll talk. Or…or I will talk and you'll listen and then…and then we'll work something out. From there," he swallowed. Was he sweating? He felt like he was sweating. "Because what I said just then – well, it really boils down to the fact that what I said just then was—"

"Would you cut all the crap out and just say whatever it is that's trying to force its way out of that thick skull of yours?!" C.C. snarled.

Mumbled words and half-excuses stopped dead in Niles' mouth, terrified back into the past of unspoken existence by the ferocity. C.C. might have been sick in bed from chemotherapy, but she looked in that moment like she'd make him sorry he was ever born if he didn't start saying something useful.

"I'm looking for an explanation as to what the fuck just happened and I know damn well it's in there, so stop mumbling like an idiot and spit it out before I kick you out!"

"Alright!" Niles hoped that didn't sound like it meant he wanted her to kick him out. It was just the first word that came out that something in his brain clearly thought could win him the conversation back. "I…I said it because it's true!"

C.C. leaned back a little. She couldn't have been less impressed if she'd been watching that year's Paint Drying World Championships.

"What's true?"

"That thing that I said," it was starting to hurt in his middle, but he could feel more yelling coming if he didn't get it out. "About you not being a burden. It's true, you…you wouldn't be."

Time stood still for an instant, and then C.C.'s face folded in on itself with angry, almost disgusted, bewilderment.

"What?" she pointed between herself and him. "Did…did I really just hear you say that? 'Cause it sounded like you just said that I wouldn't be a burden to you!"

The hurting in Niles' middle was getting worse, making its way up through his chest and down deep into his abdomen. He knew for definite he was sweating now, it didn't matter how comfortably "room temperature" the room was supposed to be!

But it was out. Out, and it couldn't go back in. She knew it, he knew it, and he was almost completely certain that Wilson and Noel were listening on the other side of the door and they knew it too. That left him with no choice, no other options. "When you're going through Hell, keep going", as the phrase always said.

Whomever had come up with it had never quite grasped what Hell looked like, though.

"That's exactly what I said," the words nearly tripped over each other on their rush out of his mouth. "You…you wouldn't be a burden. I came here to help you and that's what I want to do, and that means you're not a burden, you're just, um…"

He started waving his hand around vaguely. Something had told him it was a "you know" sort of gesture, but he was only half certain that was the truth because he was also sure he'd disconnected from his brain, the only possible source of that information, at the start of this conversation.

"You're getting the best care possible. And I came here to help that," that was better. Starting over helped a little. Stopping the hand waving was probably a good idea as well. "So you wouldn't be a burden, because I don't mind helping to… help your care… uh… keep on happening."

Yeah, he had definitely lost all contact with whatever it was he supposedly kept in his head. And, somehow, he'd known it was only getting worse the longer he'd gone on! "Help your care keep on happening"? What the hell had that been? Had any man on the planet ever sounded so stupid?! There was life at the bottom of the Mariana Trench that could do this better than he could! They probably understood human feelings and emotions better than he did at this rate, too!

"So I'd love to keep on helping it happen!"

But was he stopping himself? Of course not, because he was a nervous wreck of a fool masquerading as a person and apparently now hated silences worse than the horrible, horrible attempts at saving this that were now coming out of his mouth. Love to keep on helping it happen? Where the fuck had that come from and who did he have to kick in the arse to make it go back there?!

"Or…or maybe not "love"," he was practically feverish now, the mortification was burning so hot. "I know that's not a word you're familiar with. In your species."

He was starting to wonder if he was familiar with the English language and how it should be applied when speaking to his species. Had the zinger saved it? Probably not. Whatever was piloting him at this point didn't care, either way. He was getting all of this out and it didn't matter if it killed him. Or if Miss Babcock killed him, which was also just as likely.

"But I'm here, and I'm going to keep on being here and I'll gladly throw my hat in the ring if it means making sure you've got someone around," he paused, a squirming sensation coming over his entire body at how it had sounded. "Preparing your meals, answering the door, cleaning out your cage. That sort of thing."

Zingers definitely weren't saving anything now, but anything had to be better than leaving it at what he'd said before then! Especially with what he knew had to come out of his mouth next, rounding it up.

"I just…I know I'm not your first choice for this," he was understating that dreadfully. He knew he should probably actually think of himself as dead last, behind the literal dead. "And I know you wouldn't want to put up with having me around for too long if you had literally any other choice, because you hardly ever do."

That hadn't come out very clearly, had it? Good thing he was so curled over in his own embarrassment that he was talking to the floor now, instead of the woman sat on the bed. Just imagine how awful that would have been!

"Put up with me, I mean," he continued lamely. "I mean, you put up with me long enough to get to the next time we're having fun together. It's like…like I'm your home entertainment system. Only I'm not very good at it because half the time nothing good is on, so you're just waiting for something good to arrive, and only having fun once it does."

The floor he was addressing, obviously, said nothing. But neither did C.C., and that sat even less well with him than spilling all of this out of him.

"What I mean is, even if some of the time it's good, it's easier to put up with someone and tolerate them in the long term if they're not there all the time! And I don't want to make things worse or stop you from getting better by forcing you to be around me."

Focusing on one particular patch of floor for too long was starting to make his eyes do odd things but it was far safer than looking up right then.

"Because it's what happens, isn't it? You put up with me and then you get tired of me, and it'll be too much if I'm there all the time."

He wanted to breathe after that, but again found that he couldn't. He desperately wished he could, it would fill up some of the silence that was taking over the room like a storm cloud took over a sunny day. It was starting to ring in his ears, it was enveloping everything else so much! He didn't know how much more of it he could take; the silence was ringing loud on the outside and the embarrassment was burning him alive from within and more and more he was finding himself on the brink of urging the floor to get on with it already and swallow him up…

"I never said I got tired of you."

Niles' entire body snapped upright, his eyes torn from the blurred patch where they'd unfocused themselves and refocused solely on C.C.. C.C., who had at some point in his self-deprecating ramble moved to the side of her bed and swung her legs around to the side, as if she were going to get up.

Was she going to try and get up? What for? To…to come over to him, so they could talk face-to-face? No, it couldn't be that, she wasn't strong enough to do that right now. And she wasn't angry anymore, either, which might make her forget that she wasn't strong enough. She didn't even look upset. She was just…looking at him. Brightly, and with a kind of earnestness that he didn't remember seeing in her for a long time. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure he'd ever seen her look so open and sincere about anything in either of their lives!

And she was looking that way at him.

The heat of humiliation had cooled off some, but it was only making way for a similarly warm and weird sensation in his torso that he couldn't quite place or name. It was lighter than the embarrassment had been, but it made him feel just as delicate inside, and it twisted and turned about strangely if he thought about it too much. He didn't know if he wanted it gone or if he wanted to feel it forever, but what he did know was that it was rather like the hope he'd had in his heart when C.C. had told him he could stay. That she hadn't wanted him to leave and never come back.

Even thinking about it was starting to make the other thoughts in his head run out like sand ran through an hourglass. It was running down to just now, all other thoughts disappearing as he clung onto the very last thing that she'd just said. She'd just told him that she never said she got tired of him! But what did that mean? What had she been thinking when she'd said that? He knew what he could mean by it, but they often meant completely different things between the two of them!

His mouth gave him a run-up at asking, twitching in the shape of W's as everything else caught up to speed.

"…W…Wh…What…?"

The former producer cracked a small half-smile. It somewhat resembled that infuriating, self-satisfied smirk she'd often sport whenever she got one over him but there was an undeniable softness to it as well.

"I said that I still haven't gotten sick of having your old carcass around," she said. "I mean, for all my bitching about it, I have to admit you've been a…uh…welcome distraction these past few months, and I do appreciate you taking time out of your surely not-busy butler schedule to come stick it out with me, even if I don't really say it…"

C.C.'s smile suddenly fell and she looked away from the butler, much like he'd done only moments before. Niles knew that expression – he'd seen it on the rare (sometimes unwitting) occasions when he'd been privy to her heartbreak. It wasn't a pleasant sight, and he could feel his previously warm chest tightening.

"I know for a fact it's no fun," she continued. "And considering all the crap I've given you over the years, it simply wouldn't be fair of me to ask you to uproot your entire life to come babysit me in Chicago. I'm…well… a lot sicker than I'd care or like to admit."

"So what?" Niles found himself piping back with a bravado that almost didn't feel his own. "I'm well aware of the severity of your diagnosis–"

"No you aren't!" she snapped, furious eyes back on his. "You've seen part of it. Little snippets of the miserable shitshow my life has turned into. But you've never had to deal with the worst of it – you've never had to wake up at, say, 2 a.m. to carry me to the toilet because I simply lack the strength to go fucking pee by myself. You've never had to see or hear me cry out every five fucking minutes because I'm so nauseous and weak that even reaching for a glass of water feels exhausting. You've never had the full responsibility of having to look after my fucking grown-up ass because I'm unable to do it anymore! It's torture, Niles – I'm no better than an infant sometimes!"

She paused for a moment to angrily wipe at her eyes; she hadn't wanted to cry, but she'd begrudgingly come to accept that, these days, it was a futile effort. Still, she had her dignity, and she'd rather die before allowing herself to become a blubbering mess. Especially in front of Niles.

"So I can't just expect you to drop everything in New York to come play nurse. It wouldn't be fair of me. You don't owe me anything, and while we don't have the best track record when it comes to caring about one another's feelings, I'd never ask you to do this when I know it would make you miserable. Zingers and wordplay are one thing, Niles, but we're talking real misery here. The kind you can't run away from…"

That last little comment might as well have been a slap in the face to Niles. It struck him just as hard and hurt him just as deeply, anyway! Did she really think she was so much of a burden that he'd take the first chance he got to take off and never come back? Was that why she was refusing to be helped, because she thought she was so much of an intolerable weight on other people's shoulders? Despite the fact that this was help she needed to stay alive…?!

Would she honestly have rather died than let other people decide that they wanted to try and help her? No, he didn't want an answer to that. He knew what she'd say, and he wasn't going to have it. The least she could do was listen to him – actually listen to him – before she made up her mind about anything!

Pushing through his own fears and doubts was less of a struggle, knowing that. Not much less of a struggle, and the fears and doubts kept fighting back with all the worst possible things that could happen if he opened his mouth and said anything remotely directed at talk of feelings, but it did make it a bit easier. Knowing that there was something he just couldn't tolerate on the other side of it all made him do it. She'd zing him good if she knew, but it was like trying to enjoy his morning coffee after seeing Mr Sheffield spilling his own and then leaving the puddle to stain.

And what was the worst that could happen? His fears were telling him "embarrassment, pain, death" but couldn't elaborate on the chain of events that led from one to another. So that must have meant it was all alright, really.

Even if something in him was still screaming about danger as he took his first few shuffling steps towards C.C.'s bed.

He lowered himself gently onto the mattress, ginger movements in case his clumsiness somehow sent her flying away. She'd watched him in a way he didn't want to describe as warily, but there wasn't anything else that could've been going through her head. If it'd been him, he would've been wondering what the hell he was doing, too…

That was especially true after one last minor hesitation, before he placed his hand over hers.

It was like she'd been zapped by a small jolt of electricity. Her hand twitched underneath his, and Niles immediately wanted to rip his own hand away, mouth full of apologies. Because really, what had he been thinking? Of course she'd jump away, wanting to know what the fuck he thought he was doing! The courage to say something had so quickly turned into bravado and he'd overstepped his mark!

But C.C. didn't do any of that, despite it playing out so logically and clearly in his mind. Her hand didn't move again. She didn't move away from him, or even comment on what he was doing.

So…so that really meant it was alright then, didn't it…? He could keep his hand there. For this, anyway. And if he could do that, then perhaps he could say what needed to be said without that killing him…?

He kept his hand where it was, tried not to think much harder about it, and took in a breath.

"The last thing that you are is some miserable chore I would ditch as soon as it got too difficult," he said. "Heck, the moment I found out what was going on with you, what you had, and what the treatment would involve, I knew it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows and walks in the park before it was time to go home for tea and cake!"

He'd hoped that might at least make her smile, but it didn't. He tried not to let it sink him too much.

"I knew it would mean seeing…things that were and are difficult. And having to see you when you feel like you're at your worst. It's already not easy most days, I know that – contrary to your own belief, you aren't very good at hiding when you are in real pain…"

Moments of it flashed in front of his eyes, and he blinked them away. A few tears welled up with them, but luckily stayed in their corners.

"But you having a bad day, or a bad week or more even, doesn't mean that I'll go off and leave you to it on your own. Not when I know you could really use my help."

He looked away very briefly, swallowing as he did, and then back up at her. The ever-tightening pain in his middle was getting worse and his fears were screaming at him that that was enough and to end it there, but he couldn't. It hadn't been enough yet.

"I was, um…actually afraid that you just didn't want me around. That you wouldn't put up with me for so long," he swallowed again. "But if it's you you're worried about, and the possibility of you being a burden, then don't be. I don't think of you as a burden, but if you insist on calling yourself one, then know you're one I'm willing to shoulder. It won't make me miserable, it's part of who I am to take care of others."

He would have left it there, but the atmosphere that he'd left behind was so thick he almost found it difficult to move. He couldn't leave it like that, it was almost too much for him to bear.

"And that includes household pets."

The fears and doubts breathed a sigh of relief. In their reckoning, he'd stuck that landing. But it was only a momentary relief as C.C.'s face started to screw up, slowly and disbelievingly, at what he had said.

"So…you're saying what I think you're saying, have I got that right? You're actually saying that we should do this?" she asked. "We should play at being roommates like nothing could go wrong?"

"I'm not saying that nothing could go wrong," Niles replied instantly. "But yes. I'll be there if you need someone to live with you. It might be the most new and unnatural arrangement since someone first decided that cats and dogs could live in homes together, but needs must when the alternative is…um…"

He wasn't going to go down that road. It had almost led there itself but he wouldn't take another step in that direction. And he definitely wouldn't move his thumb across her palm, like he had almost allowed himself to do…

"Needs must when the alternative is you being gone. I'd much rather you were here, with all of us, and alright."

Neither one had taken their eyes off the other for the entire last part of his little speech. Part of him had wanted to end it by telling her that he cared too much to have this end any other way, but the weight of the world around them made it all feel like it was closing in. And it might just collapse if he went any further than letting hang there, in the unspoken words that filled up the gap between them and spilled out into the rest of the room.

After a few more seconds, the unspoken words were starting to make the room feel rather crowded. Nobody had said anything. It was getting a little stifling. Could C.C. not feel it, or was it only him? She was still looking at him, just like he was still looking at her. Would she say anything if the discomfort was taking over? Was she waiting for him to speak first? Perhaps he should just say something, just to get it out there and over with. But what else was there to say?

He didn't know. But his brain would probably improvise if he forced it to. So, here went nothing…

"I—"

"You know, there's actually something I don't understand," C.C. interrupted.

Quietly thanking God because he really and truly didn't know what he'd been about to say, Niles shut his mouth again and made a face that indicated he was listening politely.

"Ever since you started visiting. Or, rather, ever since you entered this hospital under false pretences in order to gain access to a patient's room," C.C. smiled wryly, and it made Niles smile wryly too. "I haven't quite been able to work out what's been going on with you."

Niles hoped the polite smile hadn't suddenly gone away, but he wouldn't bet on it. That statement filled him with more dread than going back to complete silence!

His mouth trembled involuntarily as he asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean this," C.C. waved a hand up and down in front of his frame. "You're acting different, not at all like your usual pain-in-the-ass self. Don't get me wrong, you're still a pain in the ass. You're just not the kind of pain in the ass that you were back in New York."

Niles was definitely sure the smile had gone by then, but C.C. was so far into her explanation she luckily hadn't noticed.

"So yeah, I don't get it. What kind of switch that I didn't know about suddenly got flipped when I went away?" she was starting to muse. "Because you're being nice to me. Kind and thoughtful. And you're pushing me through the worst of this shitty situation and all my shitty moods that go along with it, when the old you would've just stopped at pushing me."

Oddly, Niles could feel the warm feeling back in his chest again. He'd thought it would've been scared off by talk like this, but there was something about her candidness and watching her think about things that made it happy to sit there and nestle deep within him. He didn't want to set a single foot in the direction of working out why it was there, though. If he thought too much about it, there was a chance it wouldn't last. Like a dream he was trying to remember but thinking about it made him remember less.

"Well, I'm not really sure what to tell you," he said. "I can't begin to say why I'm doing this. But, stranger things have happened."

He nearly considered slipping "Your birth, for instance." in at the end, but thought better of it at the last second.

"And it's probably for the best if we just keep our focus on the most important things, anyway," he added. It was better if they got off the topic entirely. "Your health being the priority, of course."

C.C. appeared to think about this for a moment, before nodding.

"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose you're right about that…"

Briefly, she paused again, before a strange smile appeared on her face. Then she leaned forward as best she could and planted a delicate kiss on his cheek.

"Just to say thank you. For everything that you're doing."

Resisting the urge to let his hand fly to his cheek had been the hardest thing Niles had ever done. He wasn't sure how he'd managed it – that tiny little brushed peck had hit him like a bolt of lightning! The heat from it hadn't left him, either. It had only cooled off to a warmer, even more pleasant feeling all over than the one that had just been confined to his chest before. It was soft, it was tender, it was…it was beautiful...

And it was made even lovelier in his mind by the knowledge that it'd sealed the deal; she was accepting his help. There was no going back now. Not that he wanted to go anywhere at all, let alone back.

"It's quite alright," he tried chuckling casually. He wasn't sure if he'd succeeded but for some reason, he didn't care. "I'm just glad to be of service…!"

C.C. snorted, "That must be the first time you've ever said that and meant it in your whole life, Butler Boy…!"

Both started to laugh at that, and they kept on laughing for probably too long, until eventually it died away to a small duet of cleared throats. Neither one knew what to say next, that much was painfully obvious, and Niles was about to let his brain take over the reins again when another miracle save from C.C. brought him back to the world of sensible ideas.

"Well, I guess it's about time that you went to tell those insufferable assholes I have the misfortune of calling my brother and my doctor the good news. We're going to give their insane idea a try."

"Yep!"

Niles didn't know when his entire body had become a tightly-coiled spring, but it certainly hadn't cared about making any movement look slow, relaxed, or even natural as he'd gone to stand up. It'd ended up as more of a leap off the edge of the bed, which he'd immediately regretted as he'd realised how instantly he'd gone back to being stood. What would C.C. be thinking about that? Would she think he'd been desperate to get back up, so that he could get away?

Why did he even care so much about that in the first place?

Again, probably best not explored in any great depth.

"And you need to rest, after all those phone calls you've made today," he was back to filling the silence. He grabbed the phone off her bed and went to put it on her bedside table. "Zoos have done a lot more research these days, and we now know that too much human contact isn't beneficial for your species."

Unimpressed, C.C. leaned over again to do her best to swat him on the arm. But it came as more of a lurch to one side, and Niles immediately had to stoop from standing in order to steady her.

"Woah, easy there! Easy does it now," he brought her back upright, and looked over her shoulder at where her pillows were. "I think this calls for a nice lie down for a while."

C.C. pursed her lips, "That's another thing that's odd about you recently."

Niles quirked an eyebrow in response, "What is?"

"How often you've been right."

A bubble of amusement burst in Niles' chest, and the smile spread back across his face without any hesitation.

"Let's get you comfortable."

And that was what he did; C.C. didn't so much as toss a half-hearted zinger in his direction as he got her to lie out flat, head on fluffy pillow and warm, soft sheets tucked around her for a sleep she so desperately needed. She just watched as he finished his work, and they shared one last look and a smile as he straightened back up.

That time, Niles wasn't about to let his brain ruin it by trying to say anything of its own accord. The air might've yet again been thick with things that could have been said, but he knew far better than to try and carve any of them out in order to say them. He'd probably only get it all wrong if he did, anyway, and then where would they be?

He didn't want to know. He just creased his smile a little more for her, and allowed her some peace and quiet by turning away and heading for the door.

His chest was still warm from earlier, like a radiator that had been on and the heat was still there. He didn't know why it was there. He didn't know what had caused it and he didn't know what the hell he'd just gotten himself into. But, as he reached for the door handle that would no doubt open a door straight on to Noel and Wilson listening at the cracks as best they could, he wasn't sure he cared.

He was going to live with C.C. Babcock, and for some reason that was perfectly fine by him.