Chapter Text
“C’mon, Niles, we know you’re in there!”
At first, they only received a muffled, aggravated groan in response. After another minute more of incessant knocking and pleading from Fran, the door opened just a crack in a reluctant invitation.
They found Niles already sitting down at the foot of his bed as they entered the room. He’d discarded his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves rather haphazardly. His loosened tie was crooked, his hair unruly. The reddish tint of his eyes hinted at recently shed tears.
She realized she rarely ever saw him so disheveled, nor could she recall a time he ever seemed this weary and dejected. He reminded her of an old, forgotten hound, overlooked too many times at an animal shelter and who now only expected everlasting disappointment.
Scanning the room, Fran noticed his luggage lined up in a neat row. With the exception of a few larger pieces of decor, his personal keepsakes were stripped from the room as well.
She frowned. Niles wasn’t just being melodramatic. He meant everything he said earlier about leaving.
He gestured toward his suitcases. “I’ll obviously need the rest of my belongings forwarded once I sort out a more permanent residence."
“About that, Old Man-” Max started.
Niles cut him off, his entire body tensing. “Mr. Sheffield, this isn’t open for discussion.”
“Niles, sweetie, don’t you think you’re overreacting just a bit?"
“No, no, no. I can’t do this anymore!” He closed his eyes. “I can’t act like this mess never happened. I don’t have it in me anymore to pretend like I’m not even more miserable than I already was. Not if I’m going to have to see her every day.”
“Actually…” Max stepped forward. “C.C. quit about thirty seconds after you left the room.”
His eyes snapped open at that. “What?!”
Fran sat down beside him on the bed. “Miss Babcock left right after you walked away. She said she’d hand in her resignation in the morning.”
His brow furrowed at the revelation, some of his despondency transforming into concern. “Why on earth would she do something as stupid as that?”
“Perhaps something you said hit a nerve?” Max took a seat to Niles’ left.
His expression soured again. “I very much doubt that.”
Max shook his head. “Don’t be so sure. She really did seem rather unsettled right after you left.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Miss Babcock so emotional. Except maybe that one time when she thought her daddy was dating me. And that other time she lost her horse to her brother ‘cuz I got on Jeopardy. Oh, oh! Or right after you had the heart attack!”
“Fran...”
Niles perked up. “Miss Babcock was upset over my heart attack?”
“Oh, honey, she wandered around in tears clutching your cleaning supplies. I even had to stop her from trying to use your can of Pledge like it was perfume,” Fran told him. “Of course, then you played that prank on her right after you woke up...”
“...and made her hate me even more.”
The brief spark within her friend extinguished and Fran wanted to kick herself for sticking her foot in her mouth.
“Oh, sweetie, she doesn't hate you."
"Obviously. She. Does."
“Really?” Max asked. “Because for a woman who supposedly couldn’t stand you, she still spent an awful lot of time with you even after that.”
“Only because I fed her,” he huffed.
“And when she slipped out of the office to watch soap operas with you?”
He shrugged. “You’re the only one in this household who doesn’t watch them, sir.”
“So I guess when we were in that accident a couple months ago, the fact that she was distraught over the belief she’d die without seeing you again...that was all an act?”
For a moment, Niles regarded him with something akin to wonder. But as with everything else they said that briefly distracted him, his despair overtook him.
“Any perceived distress was merely her competitive nature. I’m sure she was only annoyed because she thought she’d die without having the great pleasure of seeing me go first.”
Max shared a look of exasperation with Fran.
“And people complained that I was slow on the uptake?” he muttered to her only to earn twin scowls from both his distraught butler and his wife.
“You were!” Fran and Niles grumbled in unison.
“Was not!”
Both of them scoffed at his protest.
“Anyway. Never mind about that. Look, Niles, I don’t want her to leave either.”
Niles bolted up, ready to leave right then and there. “Then I definitely can’t stay.”
They both reached out, each grabbing an arm to yank him back down.
“Niles, please. We don’t want to lose either of you. You’re both too important to us,” Fran cried.
He gave Fran a pointed look. “I’m surprised you’re actually for the idea of not letting that over-bleached harridan go on her merry way.”
“Well...um...”
“Fran!”
At her husband’s frustrated glare, she hissed, “What?! What exactly am I supposed to say and still be honest!”
Under normal circumstances, Niles might have chuckled at that. An eye roll was all he managed to muster.
“Look, Niles,” she said as she took his hand in hers. “I’ll admit I hardly need one hand to count the number of times that Miss Babcock and I have seen eye to eye on anything, but I do realize how important she is. To both of you. Professionally and personally.”
“Exactly. And if it might help, perhaps I can find office space elsewhere. C.C. and I certainly don’t have to conduct all our business here. In fact, it might even be better for the company if we didn’t.” Max gave Fran a sidelong glance before muttering. “Hell, it’d probably be bloody wonderful for business without certain yentas always peeking around the corner.”
Fran reached around Niles to smack her husband on the shoulder. “Hey! I heard that, Mista!”
Niles sighed. “To be honest, I’m not sure I like the idea of her being somewhat out of the way any more than I do her still being under the same roof.”
Max blinked at that, confused by the contradiction. “Okay...”
“To be so close without seeing her will hurt as much, if not more.”
“Oh, sweetie...” Fran clasped her hands over her heart.
“I think I’d rather have a clean, complete break from her than anything like that.”
“Niles,” Max sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what else to say except that I need you both. You’ve been beside me since the day I was born. We grew up together, for heaven's sake. And C.C.’s been with the company almost from the beginning. Neither of you are just my employees.”
“That’s right! You’re both family. Well, in Miss Babcock’s case, she’s more like a distant meshugganah cousin to me...” She then poked at his arm to emphasize her point. “...but family all the same. And we love you. Both of you.”
“I’ll give it a little more thought. That’s the best I can offer at the moment.”
“We won’t take anything less than a promise you’ll stay,” Fran told him.
A soft knock on the door caught their attention before he could respond. A moment later, Grace opened the door and leaned in.
“Miss Babcock just came back,” she whispered. “I thought you might want to know.”
Fran and Max stared at her, dumbfounded. Neither had breathed a word to the kids about the most recent development in Niles and C.C.’s interpersonal saga.
She shrugged. “What? I learned to eavesdrop from the best.”
Fran preened but Grace gave her an apologetic look. “I meant Niles.”
Niles, for his part, appeared ready to burst into tears.
“I should go and try to talk to C.C. before she leaves again. Niles? Would you consider staying if I double your salary?”
Niles' jaw dropped. Nonplussed, he only managed to blink at him.
“Give it some serious consideration. Please.” Max stood up and crossed his arms as he approached his daughter. “We’ll discuss this later, young lady.”
Grace appeared unconcerned as he passed her. Once her father was gone, she turned back to Niles once more. “I’ll understand if you decide to leave…but I really hope you won’t.”
Taking a few short steps over to his bed, she gave him a quick hug before dashing out of the room.
“Fear not, Mrs. Sheffield, Miss Grace’s flair for espionage may be my influence, but that little display of emotional manipulation was alllll you, baby.”
It relieved her to hear a hint of humor from him. She took his hand.
“You really are in love with her, aren’t you?”
“Hopelessly, I’m afraid. Have been for a very, very long time.”
"Before I came around?"
He nodded. "Before the first Mrs. Sheffield if I’m honest with myself."
"Oh!” Fran’s eyes widened as she breathed out a stunned “Wow…"
"And you thought you had it bad waiting for Mr. Sheffield."
"Oy. Remind me not to complain about that. At least for a little while. That long, though? Really?"
"I'm afraid, when it comes to Miss Babcock and myself, you came in sometime after intermission. You missed all the drama that wrapped up the first act,” he said.
“What happened?”
“It would take too long to go into it right now, but years ago, it was...somewhat different between us. Then it fell apart. For a while, I thought we were finding our way back to it and maybe something much better, but it seems I thought wrong."
For as long as Fran knew Niles, he always remained relatively quiet about his own love life -- or rather his general lack thereof. He rarely mentioned his own romantic hopes. Not seriously anyway. On occasion, he joked about a celebrity crush. She knew of a handful of flings. But that’s all those ever were, brief but never lasting or fulfilling relationships, and they were few and far between as far as she could tell.
Granted, she wasn’t clueless. Sure, she paid little attention to the aggravating shiksa at first. Animosity practically vibrated off of Miss Babcock and she took her cues from Niles when it came to dealing with her. It became apparent over time, though, that something simmered underneath the surface between the two of them. Especially after that night when she and Max came home that one night to find them looking ready to do the horizontal hora, as Yetta would say, right in the middle of the living room.
It seemed kinda inevitable when she really thought about it and she’d said as much to Max at the time. The chill between them thawed considerably after that. Their mutual anger eased a bit and turned into something they seemed to find more amusing than aggravating. Nevermind the weird, kinda flirtatious undercurrent it developed.
She could understand and see the attraction, but she never suspected Niles carried this torch for Miss Babcock for literal decades.
“Is that why you hardly ever date anyone?”
He said nothing, but bowed his head slightly and sort of nodded.
“It’s kinda like being offered Hershey’s after having Godiva, huh?” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Ya know, you’ve been my biggest cheerleader all these years. I may not entirely understand whatever it is that’s going on between the two of you myself, but I hope you know that there’s nothing in the world I want more for you than to be able to enjoy the same happiness with her that I have now with Max.”
He graced her with a bittersweet smile. “I thank you for that. If only it were so simple.”
Fran placed her hand over his clasped knuckles. “Niles, for what it’s worth, I really do think she cares about you a lot in her own weird, stunted way. I know my advice to you hasn’t been very useful lately, but I think you might be able to get through to her now that she understands just how serious you really are. And even if she’s truly not interested then maybe you can at least find the closure you need.”
He nodded, though he didn’t look quite so convinced. “Maybe.”