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“Does Gracie feel any better yet?“ Mrs. Sheffield’s voice was full of concern as she sat in the back of the car. “She slept a lot this morning. Catherine took very good care of her. When I checked on Ms. Grace before I left she seemed to feel a little better“ Niles answered in his typical dutifull-butler-voice. The car started to move again as the traffic lights switched to green. “Oh, thank goodness, you know I was worried-“ CRASH. Another car hit the limo at full speed.
Niles woke up. He was covered in sweat from the nightmare that had not been a dream but cruel reality just mere weeks ago. The next thing he could remember was waking up in a hospital room, all on his own. He was confused at first and it took him a few minutes to remember what had happened. After his realization he had been worried sick about Mrs. Sheffield, but with his injuries he couldn’t stand up and there was noone in his room whom he could have asked about her. The doctor had been no help either; he had insisted that he was not allowed to talk about other patients.
Hours later Catherine had come to visit him. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re awake“ she had sighed as she had sat down by his side. She had taken his hand, but he had withdrawn it and met her eyes with concern. He had really wanted to know about Mrs. Sheffield but at the same time he had been afraid of the answer. She had seemed to understand him wordlessly and had looked away. That had been enough to confirm his worries.
“No…“ he had whispered. Tears had formed in his eyes when Catherine had started to nod slightly, still not looking at him. “It’s all my fault“ he had rasped, hot tears falling down his cheeks. Finally, Catherine had looked at him. “No!“ she had exclaimed, and then, continuing in a more silent voice “No. It wasn’t your fault. It was that other man. He shouldn’t have been there. It was not your fault. Mr. Sheffield knows that. We all do.“ Her words had done little to convince him.
“How is he?“ Niles had asked, even though it had been a stupid question. “He locks himself in the office all day, busying himself with work. At night he sleeps in one of the guest rooms. He hasn’t been inside their bedroom since… Sometimes, I can hear him crying in there. He never does when anyone’s around him, though. And he barely eats anymore.“ Niles had expected this, knowing Mr. Sheffield since birth, but it had still hurt hearing his apprehensions confirmed. Catherine had tried to grab his hands once again after this, and once again Niles had withdrawn it. “Leave me alone, please.“ He hadn‘t looked after her when she had left the room.
Now he was lying in his bed, back at the Sheffields‘ mansion, wide awake and full of guilt. Of course he knew that it was technically not his fault but that didn’t change the fact that he was driving and therefore feeling responsible. It was 4.00 am and since he didn’t see a chance to go back to sleep he stood up to prepare breakfast instead. Mr. Sheffield ate a little more now then in the days after the accident, but still not as much as he used to and as would have been healthy. Niles did his best to make the most delicious food he was capable of, in hopes it would help to get back to normal eating habits, even though he knew it didn’t and most of it having to be thrown away. He chose to ignore the fact that he, too, had not been eating properly for all this weeks.
When he was almost finished with the meal preperations, Catherine came down the back stairs to join him. There was a short nod from both sides as a greeting and Catherine started to put the dishes on the table in the dining room. Their relationship had drastically changed since he had told her to leave him alone in the hospital. Where there had once been looks, winks and shared laughs was now only heavy silence and distancing formality.
The lack of laughters, depressed faces and distance between not only Niles and Catherine, but all the family members as well, became more and more normal and one day Catherine couldn’t stand it anymore. She looked around the house for Niles and found him dusting off the bookshelves in the library.
“We need to talk.“ He gave no sign that he had heared her and kept cleaning the bookshelves. “Niles, I’m serious.“ She took his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. Now unable to keep pretending she wasn’t there he questioningly raised an eyebrow. He still didn’t want to talk. She took a deep breath. “Don’t you realize what is happening to this household? Everyone is suffering on their own, unwilling to talk to anyone, isolating themselves when right now, what we need more than anything is to be together.“ He still didn’t answer her. She felt her eyes filling with tears. “Don’t look at me like that! That cold, icy look, as if you don’t know who I am, as if you don’t know what I am talking about, as if you are dead inside, it’s killing me!“
A sudden burst of anger came over him and he allowed himself to give into it, for it was the first time in weeks that he didn’t feel sad. “Well, what do you expect me to look like? I should have died in that accident, I was the one that was driving, my death would not have caused three little children to lose their mother! It should have been me, not her!“ At this last words his voice cracked and he didn’t even realize that he had started crying until then. “Niles…“ she reached out to wipe away his tears but he backed away. She turned around and left him without another word.
The next morning, she was gone. Mr. Sheffield informed Niles that she had resigned and that he would have to take over her duties. Noding and accepting this without a further word Niles left the office. Of course caring for the children, which had been part of Catherines job, was now Niles‘ most important duty, and doing so left little spare time to cook, let alone to clean the entire mansion.
Being unable to forget Catherine’s last words to him, he tried his best to cheer the children up with witty remarks, putting jokes on Maxwell’s business partner, C.C. Babcock, and serving food in funny forms and smiley faces. It didn’t really help though.
That’s why he suggested to Mr. Sheffield to hire a nanny. “Well, the house is rather dusty lately…“ he thought out loud “Maybe you’re right. Go ahead, call an agency and arrage it, would you?“ Even though he always phrased such things as questions, Niles knew that it was an order and left the room to do as he was told. He swore to himself, he would find a nanny that would finally bring back laughter and joy to this house. He owed them this much…
However, for two more years he was unable to fulfill his vow to make the family happy again. All the nannies that had been sent from the agencies were strict and somehow distant and unattached to the children. Even though they did their best, Miss Margaret kept isolating herself from the world, Master Brighton kept behaving poorly in an attempt to get his father’s attention and Miss Grace spiraled deeper and deeper into depression. It broke his heart to look at what had become of the once so happy family, knowing there was nothing he could do about it.
Then, one day, when just another nanny had quit, tired of her fruitless attempts with the Sheffield children, the door rang. The woman he spotted outside was not quite what he had expected, her high heels, short skirt, overdone make-up and volumtous hair being remarkably different from all the nannies that the agency had sent before. He figured that she couldn’t possibly be a professional nanny, but maybe that was just what they needed.
“Hi, I’m Fran Fine.“ He managed to keep the smile on his face despite her awful, nasal voice. “Yes, come in, we’ve been expecting you“ he cut her off, opening the door as far as he could in hopes the luxurious living room would be enough to reconsider her answer to his next words, which he was sure would actually be no, if she’d be honest. “You are here for the nanny position?“ “I could be…“ Well enough. When she said that she would do the resume presenting herself, he knew that she would be a breath of fresh air indeed. He only hoped that Mr. Sheffield wouldn’t send her away…
In the months to come normality returned to the Sheffield house hold. Or actually, it didn’t. The laughter did. And the family bonds strengthened again. But it was all different still. Sarah was gone and everyone could still feel the hole she left, but it didn’t hurt as much anymore and that was all Ms. Fine’s work. And for the first time in three years Niles allowed himself to think about anything else but this family, which had become his family as well.
He hadn’t really noticed what he had missed out, especially by letting Catherine go without any protest, until Mr. Sheffield’s old nanny, Ms. Mueller, showed up and he suddenly had a private life again. Of course this didn’t stop his mission to finally, finally, get Mr. Sheffield to open his heart again and to get the children a new mother-figure. A mission still driven by guilt. A mission that made him do anything in his powers to strengthen the relationship between Maxwell and the nanny while at the same time sabotaging his relationship with Ms. Babcock. It took another five years to see this mission fullfilled with Mr. Sheffield’s and Ms. Fine’s wedding.
After that, he finally allowed himself to focus on his own life again. Not that there hadn’t been moments of doing so in the past five years, but he had always regretted them afterwise, because he thought it selfish to be happy when happiness had not yet fully returned to this family. He had had a really joyfull evening with Ms. Babcock that day, only to find out that the newly-weds had gone missing on the first day of their honeymoon. And even though it wasn’t his fault, he felt guilt come over him once more. When the two returned home he relaxed again, but it wasn’t the same as it had been in their wedding night. He was afraid that if he’d let go like this again, something bad would surely happen again as well. It took him very long to let go again, and when he finally did, he found himself madly in love with Ms. Babcock. He had been so involved with the Sheffield‘s lives, that he hadn’t even noticed he’d started to develop feelings for her and then they hit him all at once.
And when he finally found the strength to admit it, to be with her, it was his first guilt-free choice in years.