CHAPTER 34, Part a

CC entered her apartment quietly, checking that he was still asleep. She noticed the smell of stew immediately. Her tummy rumbled. She walked up to his side at the sofa and looked towards the kitchen. She smiled at the sight of the table he had set out. It was almost too hard for her to trick him. Almost.

She ran to her room and retrieved a red, lacey bra & thong from her drawer. She crept to the sofa and placed them in Niles's hands. The gentle touch made him stir a little and he moved his hand up nearer to his face. Perfect! She held in her giggle. She ran to the front door and, pretending she had just arrived, slammed it shut.

He jumped up and looked at her and almost popped his eyes out of their sockets when he saw what was clutched between his fingers.

"Niles!" She pointed at his hands with her mouth open.

"I didn't! I wasn't- I only looked in one closet! I never opened your drawers!"

She pulled her chin back in genuine shock and confusion. "What?!"

"I- Oh. You did this, didn't you?" He realized.

"You went into my room?!"

"I was looking for a blanket." He lied. "You should get a walking cane to help you hobble through your day faster. I was getting tired waiting for you. Thought I'd nap here, as you could see." It was such a convenient excuse.

He lifted his hands with her underwear in them. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her, holding the bra up between them as if picturing it on her. He knew it would make her uncomfortable and draw the attention away from what he'd done.

"Hey!" She shouted, and ran up to him to snatch it from his grasp. She held a hand across her chest as if covering herself. He wouldn't let her take it. He laughed as she scowled at him.

"You are wearing clothes. What are you covering?"

"I KNOWbut STOP picturing me in that!"

"You started it. You put this into my innocent, idle hands!" He teased.

She dropped her hands to her sides with a sigh. "How would you like it modeled for you if you give it back?"

He looked at her in surprise and then his face turned skeptical. "By you or by Sylvia? I'm not falling for that again."

She smiled and stepped closer to him. "Niles," she hummed suggestively. He watched as she looked down at his body and back up at his face. He was mesmerized. She snatched the underwear from him.

"You're weak," she grinned and walked to the kitchen to see the food.

"No, I have a weakness. It's entirely different."

He walked up behind her and peeled off her coat, placing it around the back of one of the chairs. She was stunned to the spot when he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. He pushed her against the slightly warm door of the oven he had used to roast the potatoes.

"What are you doing?" She asked and put her hands flat against the cupboard behind her legs.

He smiled and pushed her hair behind her ears on both sides. "Shhh..."

Her eyes widened. He placed his hands on her upper arms and slid them down to her wrists. He felt her hands tremble slightly.

He lifted her hands up and placed them on either side of her shoulders against the oven. He heard a sharp breath escape her lungs. He looked at her and she licked her lips in anticipation even though her eyes were still bulging in surprised confusion.

He smiled and it made her frown at him as if to remind him they shouldn't enjoy this. He stepped closer to her and released one of her hands to slide his own down to her hip. She kept her free hand suspended against the oven where he'd left it. She inhaled, feeling her ribs open and her chest rise. Her eyes fluttered as he moved his mouth to her ear and whispered, "Miss Babcock, You have a weakness too..." He knows?

He pulled back slightly, grinning at her as, next to her eye, he held up the underwear, which he had retrieved from her pants pocket.

"Ugh! You're an ass!" she pushed him away roughly and slapped his chest. "You're abominable!"

She pulled out her chair and sat at the table. "I want to eat my dinner NOW!"

He laughed and dished up her meal placed it before her and stood dishing up his own with the underwear clutched tightly in his hand.

He turned to sit across from her.

"Are you going to hold onto those all night now?" She said angrily.

"I'll save them for later." He smirked and stuffed them into his pocket

"Pig!"

He oinked in response.

She narrowed her eyes at him. She really was exhausted and not in the mood to argue. He was tired too. She could tell by his face. She'd get her underwear back.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

The meal had been delicious. She was glad he'd stayed to cook even though she hadn't been there. She enjoyed coming home to something and, dare she think it, to someone. She thanked him and got up to go to her room while he cleaned up.

She nervously opened a few closet doors to check that there was nothing he could have seen that he could hold against her. Nothing out of the ordinary.

She walked into her bathroom and saw the cordless phone had been returned to its base. Maybe he was just tidying up?

Did I leave this here? She wondered as she caught sight of the Chanel body lotion on the edge of the tub. She picked it up and opened the lid to smell it before returning it to her vanity table in her bedroom.

Everything else seemed to be the way she had left it.

"You're paranoid," she said to herself.

"Yes, and senile."

She spun around to see him standing at her door holding the vase of flowers that had been on the table at dinner. "Talking to yourself again, Babs?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "Leave me alone!"

"I'm not even touching you!" He smirked. "May I come in?"

"Nothing stopped you before." She spat. "If you laid your hands on any of my-"

"Oh, Babs, calm down. They're just things." He entered her room and walked around her bed to place the small bouquet on her nightstand.

"Very expensive things, which you have no business handling!"

"I handle you, don't I?"

She grimaced.

He turned to her underwear drawer and reached for the handle. She bolted to his side and he stuck his hand out against her tummy to stop her in her tracks.

"I'm just packing up," he said in a tone that could be considered soothing if he weren't so cheeky. He revealed the red bra and thong from his pocket, showed it to her and then placed them gently into her drawer. He watched her as he did so. He shut the drawer, which seemed to calm her down, and then she swatted his hand from her body.

"I don't find this funny, in case you hadn't noticed. You're annoying." She remained standing in front of him.

"When have you ever found me to be anything but an annoying domestic?" He said and sat on her bed to make it worse.

She grunted in frustration. "Do you mind?" She said in irritation.

"Nope, have a seat." He smirked.

She glared at him.

"This is my bedroom!"

"Yes, I can see how having a man in here could upset your delicate balance of things."

Her anger grew. "I've had men in here! I've dated! I've been in love!"

"You've been in love? With whom? And Chester doesn't count because he's a pet, firstly, and secondly, I've seen the way you treat him and that's not love!" He scoffed.

"It is too!"

"You hate Chester." He said with a straight face.

"So what? That doesn't mean I don't love him! The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference!"

He looked up at her. When he did, she realized what that comment had implied about their own relationship.

After a few seconds of silence, Niles said, "You don't love him or hate him."

"I do, too!" She jumped a little too quickly.

"You didn't even notice him enter the room."

She turned around to see the pooch sniffing her briefcase near the closet door.

"That's indifference." He said.

She looked back at him. She knew he was pointing out that she hadn't been indifferent about Niles entering her room and that could only mean she cared about what he did. Which meant she hated him... and / or loved him. It was hard to tell with such a fine line between the two.

"It's different. He's not a person. I'm comfortable with him walking around my apartment. It doesn't matter how we feel about each other."

Niles frowned.

"Me and Chester! How we feel about each other." She huffed.

"Which brings us back to the question at hand. You said you've been in love. With whom?"

"Why are you so concerned about me and my love life? You're always pointing out my flaws in the way I handle relationships! Everyone does things differently, that doesn't make the way you do things any less wrong than the way I do!"

"I never criticized the way you do things."

She raised her eyebrows in shock.

"I meant just now. All I asked now was whether you've really ever been in love. I don't understand why you're being so defensive."

"It's your tone! The way you asked me, idiot!" She ran her tongue over her teeth and sat on the bed as far as possible from where he sat. "Fine. Have you?"

"Have I what?" He asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Ever been in love?" The question came out a little shyly. She always felt uncomfortable just mentioning the word.

He looked down. "I've been infatuated." He spoke slowly. "I've been...totally absorbed. I... I've had days when I can't stop thinking about what I plan on saying or doing to... her."

CC was listening intently. She hadn't blinked. She was watching his face as it tried to hide from view. She noticed his change in posture as he played with a loose thread on her bedspread. His body language made him appear forlorn. The topic seemed to show him in a different light. She kept expecting a joke but none came. He was so... serious.

"Some days would feel incomplete if I didn't go... hadn't gone looking for her."

She blinked slowly and looked down at his hand on the bedspread.

"So that's you're idea of love?" She asked quietly, still watching his hand.

"Unrequited, yes." He said. "But it's not the only kind there is. It's only the worst kind."

She looked up at him and saw a sad smile on his lips. It faded quickly.

He expected her to crack a joke about how any love from him would always be unrequited. He expected her to emphasize that of course nobody would want poor, little bellboy.

"I like the other kind," her voice startled him from his reverie.

He looked up at her and she pulled her eyes from his gaze and rested her line of sight on the closet in front of her.

"The one where you can't get enough of each other. Where you think the both of you must be insane to pursue it and that only you two could be comfortable with the insanity."

Her gaze shifted to his hand once more and she continued, "But there's always that risk. The risk that you're the only crazy one. That it is all in your head."

She chuckled suddenly. "Or in your loins - that it's just your hormones." She smiled and reached for a chocolate slab from her nightstand. "Sex is always good too."

He chuckled softly. "Yes, if it's all you can get from someone, I suppose it's not that bad."

She smiled with a slab of chocolate in her cheek.

"Want some?"

"Chocolate?" He asked.

"No, sex." She said, rolling her eyes.

He knew she was being sarcastic but he said yes and smirked at her.

She continued chewing and narrowed her eyes, lifting the chocolate slab to him. He shook his hand in front of it to decline. She reached over to toss it onto her nightstand.

She wiped her hands against each other to get rid of any crumbs. "So, um. When last have you..." She scratched the back of her neck and laughed. "You know...?"

"Had a neck massage?" He asked, smirking.

She dropped her hand from her neck and grinned, "Nooo!"

He grinned back. "Had sex?"

She nodded and bit her lips together to stop grinning.

"Probably not as recently as you have," he said.

"I thought Nanny Fine said you were seeing some hot, young thing?"

He shook his head. "She was mistaken."

CC nodded. "I haven't either."

He looked up at her.

"I mean it's been a long time since I've been that serious with anyone."

So her and McMoron haven't been that serious yet? He mused. He didn't want to pry, mostly because he didn't want to drag that man's name into the conversation.

"It's just sex and yet there's so much pressure around it. You're damned if you're getting some and you're damned if you're not." He raised his hands and hunched his shoulders.

"Mmhmm. It shouldn't always have to be such a big deal," she agreed.

"It's not like a kiss. A kiss can mean you just want a kiss."

"No, it can't. Kisses can always mean something too!" She argued.

"Kisses can be intimate, yes, but they sometimes just happen because you feel like kissing. He said.

She lifted her legs onto the bed to face him head on. "That's not true! How you kiss can definitely reveal the intention behind it!"

"That's a double standard, Babcock! We just agreed that sex should sometimes be just sex and now you're saying kissing can't be just kissing?"

"Yes. A kiss can tell you a lot about the kind of sex you're about to have."

"Or not. Not all kissing leads to sex. A kiss can be completely friendly and chaste, like this-"

He leaned over and pecked her quickly on the mouth. She was taken-aback but didn't want to show it so she continued the conversation.

"It depends who's doing it. If I were seeing you, that innocent gesture could lead to something more," she said.

"Not if I were seeing you." He teased.

Oh, really?! She rested her hands on the bed and leaned over on her knees to peck him a little longer than he'd pecked her. Then she kept her face near to his when she parted from him.

She grinned when the kiss appeared to render him speechless. "Hmm. Maybe you're right. It's just a friendly kiss. There's nothing implied by it."

"Or maybe... Maybe you're right." He cleared his throat. "It could depend on who you're kissing and whether you're seeing the person... And perhaps the duration."

"Duration of the kiss?" She whispered.

"Yes, if I were to kiss..." he swallowed. "...you..."

Her head was still near his. "Mmhmm?" She looked at his lips.

"...for a little longer than absolutely necessary... Perhaps the prolonged contact could change your view of what the kiss implied."

"You're getting technical." She said. He could feel her breath against his lips.

"Shall I show you, Miss Babcock?"

"Show me, Niles."