Disclaimer: I don't own any part or character from The Nanny…
A/N: It's a small world after all.
Chapter 7
And what do you do, CC?
This was to be the last part of the evening. Niles had confirmed with one of the waiters that they would be back at the station in about an hour, making their arrival for shortly after ten pm. He called David to let him know.
"So could you pick us up at eleven, David?"
"I'll be there sir. Enjoy the rest of the trip."
"Eleven?" CC asked.
"I wanted to give you time if you met someone you wanted to talk to, or if you just wanted to look over the slide show again."
"That's so thoughtful of you Niles." She kissed him, chastely at first, but quickly it became more passionate. They had forgotten where they were, and by the way their hands were roaming, didn't much care about that fact that others were there with them, when they heard someone clearing his throat.
"Oh my" CC exhaled. "Sorry about that. We do tend to get carried away!" She let out a low chuckle. It rocked Niles to the core, as her sultry laugh always had, so he just put on his best innocent face and looked up at the couple in front of him.
"Martin?!" he cried and jumped up from his seat to hug the man.
"Hello Niles! How are you?"
"How long has it been? At least six years I'd say. What are you doing here?" Niles was so excited, he just kept asking question after question, not waiting for the answer. CC found this quite funny, and she was very curious to find out who this Martin fellow was.
"Hey Niles, give me a second will ya?"
"Sorry old man. Have a seat. This is CC by the way. The love of my life and the best…"
"Hi, Martin is it?" CC spoke up, before Niles could finish that sentence. "And this is Zoe Carmichael, if my memory is good to me?"
"That's right" Martin answered, shaking CC's hand. Zoe smiled shyly at CC and took a seat in front of her.
"I'm surprised you remember me, CC. We didn't exactly hit it off ." Zoe said.
"You're right, we didn't hit it off…we did hit though, didn't we?"
"I did, you mostly took the hits. I'm sorry about that." Zoe looked quite embarrassed by the whole thing.
"Don't worry about it. I've used words as my weapons for years. I'm sure the scars I've left have hurt others as much if not more than the ones I got from you. After all, I'm pretty sure it's my mouth that got me beat up all those times."
Niles just looked at CC. Was she actually saying that this woman in front of her used to beat her up? Martin too looked confused.
"Ok guys, it's like this. When I was in school with Zoe, I thought I was better than everyone else. Hell, I still do!" she laughed and Niles joined her, "but Zoe here, well, she was in pretty good shape and she didn't take any of my crap. She was the school bully…well my bully anyways, and on the days when I got particularly mouthy, she would make me eat my words."
The atmosphere was pretty heavy, and it could have meant a really awkward rest of train ride, so CC pushed on.
"I don't condone what you did to me, it hurt a lot. But I know that I'm not the little victim in that story. I acted like a bitch, in more ways than one, and you did what you thought you had to do. I'm not going to hold it against you, all these years later, and am totally willing to put it aside." She struck out her hand to Zoe "What do you say? Especially since I would love to hear the story as to how Niles and Martin know each other? Don't you?" CC gushed.
"Yes. Yes and Yes!" Zoe said, shaking CC's hand. Looking at Martin she asked "So, are you going to tell us, or is he?"
Niles actually answered "Oh Martin should tell it, he's a much better raconteur than I am.".
CC had tears rolling down her cheeks and Zoe was doubled over laughing as they listened to Martin tell his tale.
"So there is Niles, covered in meatballs and gravy, trying desperately to keep his calm, and I can't stop apologizing. I'm sorry sir was what I wanted to say, but I could only get to "I'm sorry" and then I would giggle. He looked so funny with the meatball stuck to the side of his ear."
"It wasn't that funny that I had to give the Butler of the Year acceptance speech in my now grey and Brown suit. I had planned this whole serious speech about the profession, but everyone just started giggling because that damn meatball wouldn't come lose."
"Yes, and then after the supper, Niles came looking for me in the kitchen. I was telling the other waiters how I had tripped during my service and completely covered this man…"
"And I walked in just as he was explaining it. He didn't sound sorry enough to me, so I just took the pan of dirty dishwater and dumped it on Martin's head." Niles added.
"And since that was on purpose and what I had done had really been an accident, I turned around and slugged him in the gut." Martin continued.
"So I fought back and soon we were rolling around on the floor. When we both realized how silly we looked, we finally introduced ourselves and decided to go out and get smashed!"
"And for the next ten days, Niles and I hung out almost every night at the Tavern, throwing darts and just having a great time. I went back to England for a while then, family stuff, and I've been coming back to New York regularly. Whenever I could, I'd always call Niles and we'd go do something."
"It has been a while though. We've actually not seen each other in a long time. Time just zips by so fast some times. Has it really been six years?"
"I'm afraid so, Niles. I've only called you 3 or 4 times since then though, been really busy with the ranch house, and getting to know Zoe better here" Martin smiled at the lady beside him. "And you were the one who always turned me down for a visit all those times. Something about having to work, but it never seemed like you were working. What did you tell me…oh yeah There was your boss's engagement, his wedding…valid reasons, but not really work. But the lamest was the time you told me that you had to escort your boss's partner to an awards banquet. I mean…your bosses partner? Give me a break Niles…it would have been ok to tell me that you had a lady you wanted to be with, or something like that…no? Anyways, it's not important. Now that you know how I know Niles, why don't you tell me what you do CC?"
It was too easy. She put on the Babcock charm and said "I'm Niles' bosses partner."
"No? Really?" Martin looked shocked. "Well, Niles, now I understand. Hell, I would have stood myself up to go out with this lovely lady."
CC smiled, Niles smiled, and Zoe punched Martin in the arm. They all laughed.
All too soon, they had arrived back at the station and we heading back into the main lobby.
Martin and Zoe had to catch an early plane in the morning, so they bid their farewells after promising to come back for a visit. Everyone else around them seemed to have somewhere to go or some sort of transportation home that required them to leave rather quickly. It was soon obvious to Niles as he stood in the middle of the now empty station that he could have told David to be there much sooner than eleven.
Looking around the room, he walked over to the bulletin board where they had tacked up all the school pictures of the girls at the reunion. He was looking through them when CC came up and wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder.
"So, did you find me yet?" she asked.
"Did I lose you? Oh, you mean your picture? Of course!"
"Which one do you think it is?"
"That's easy. It's right here." He pointed to rather chubby, curly haired brunette.
CC knew he was joking. She had expected it, so she just smiled and rolled her eyes.
"Ok, ok. Seriously, it wasn't that hard. First, the eyes. There are only 4 girls on here whose eye color is even close to yours, so that narrows it down quickly. Then, the nose, so we're down to 2. Finally, it's the smile. On this picture" he pointed to the right one "you're smiling the exact smile you have when we're throwing really good zingers at each other."
"Am I? I think the camera man was sort of like you. He was cute, brazen and he insulted me that day. Said that I should go last that way when I broke the lens, it wouldn't bother the other girls as they would have already had their picture taken."
Niles laughed. "Sounds like something I would have said"
"Well, you would have said something more along the lines "Ok, now what will we do when the picture won't develop because we know your kind doesn't show up on film""
"Or I might have said "You do know that there won't be a real birdie coming out of here right?""
"Or what about…" she didn't get to finish as his lips descended on hers. They only pulled apart when they both needed air.
"Wow! This is way better than all those cold showers I've taken in the past." CC let slip. Niles looked at her with shock in his eyes.
"What?" she said, not realizing what he was shocked about.
"You mean that you would go home and take cold showers after all our verbal sparring sessions?"
"Well…not always." She hesitated, then she thought, it's Niles after all, why not have some fun. She locked her eyes to his, and gently rubbed his chest under his tie. She leaned right up and half whispered, her breath tickling at his ear "Sometimes, sometimes I would go home and finish what we had started."
