Disclaimer: I don't own them, nor do I make money. Frankly, this upsets me.

Notes: 'Decoys' was one of my favourite ever episodes - one I truly didn't want to end. Here's what happened when Daphne, Donny, Frasier and Martin left Niles and Roz alone together at the end of this episode. It's not a romance, as such - just a series of scenes between (in my opinion) the two most fascinating Frasier characters. Lots of N/D overtones, some bad language, and Roz-thoughts in italics. Oh, and this is my first Frasier fic - first fic of any sort, actually - so feedback would be appreciated.

Enigma

by dorianblue

Tonight it'd just be us: love's losers licking our wounds, laughing at our pain.

- Niles to Roz, 'Decoys'

Frasier's spiteful duck call still resounded in Roz's head. It was maybe half a minute since they'd been left alone in the cottage, and neither she nor Niles had moved. She could see his shoulders moving up and down steadily as he tried to calm himself, deliberately facing away from her. Poor guy's devastated. She wasn't feeling too hot herself, but she'd get over it. She always did.

She waited until his shoulders stopped heaving. "So - how 'bout that wine?" she ventured, with her own brand of stand off-ish empathy.

Niles wheeled around, fists clenched. "You know, Roz, I'd rather not -" His eyes met hers, and he stopped, recognising her offer as being rather kind, considering it was he who'd got them into this mess in the first. "Actually, that sounds wonderful," he amended.

"I'll say." She scooped two glasses from the sideboard and filled them generously, handing him one. She didn't bother to toast anything - it seemed too trite, too pointless. Instead she took a long, deep drink, as Niles swallowed the contents of his glass whole.

Yup, it'll be a night of drunkenness for love's losers, she thought ruefully. How interesting. She'd never seen Niles drunk, but Frasier had once described the spectacle to her: "An odd conglomeration of a dusty psychiatrist, a lost little boy and a character from a David Mamet film," she seemed to recall him saying.

He was already refilling his glass.

-

"I can't believe she's going to sleep with him," he grumbled, sometime into the third bottle. "Actually, she's probably slept with him already, hasn't she? Fuck."

Roz winced, curling up on the opposite end of the couch from him. "You're not the only one who lost out here, cowboy."

"Yeah, but at least you had Donny," he whined. "I've never had Daphne, and I never will, either. Fuck."

"Stop punctuating your sentences with 'fuck'!" she burst out. It wasn't that she was a prude - it was just disconcerting to hear such words coming from Niles Crane's mouth. Like a sign of the apocalypse.

"Sorry," he murmured, looking genuinely contrite. "I just ... want her."

Roz softened, despite herself. She patted his hand absently. "I know, Niles, I know. Hey, we were both rejected tonight, you know."

"You think enrolling in the Rejection Club - of which you are president - is going to make me feel better?" he snapped, and she shrank back, bewildered.

She would never figure this man out - not ever. As Frasier had once observed, Niles was a complex little pirate. An enigma. For all his jibes and taunts about her love life, he had a disarming sweetness about him sometimes that made him difficult to dislike. The way his face lit up when she'd agreed to join him for the weekend. His pleasant, easy chatter on the drive to the cottage. Still, at any moment he could turn around with a scathing remark, and for that reason she had never been able to fully relax around him.

She became hazily aware that he was suddenly kneeling next to her, looking up into her face, his lower lip quivering slightly. "I'm so sorry, Roz. I am such a fuckwit."

She waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it."

"No, I'm sorry." He grasped her hand earnestly. "If you ask me, Donny was an idiot not to succumb to your feminine wiles tonight."

She rolled her eyes. "That's sweet, Niles, but a little insincere coming from you. Remember, he rejected me for Daphne."

He bowed his head. "Well, yes, I suppose I'd have done the same thing," he admitted, earning a smack on the arm. "But ... Roz" he persisted earnestly, determined to make things right.

She was growing impatient. "What?"

"I - I never told you this, but ... you're gorgeous, Roz."

Now she was downright incredulous. "What?"

"Since Alice," he said, knowingly. "You're happy. And that makes you radiant. Absolutely."

A glow spread through her and, much to her annoyance, she wasn't able to restrain a smile. "Go get more wine, you big doily," she commanded, shoving him unceremoniously in the direction of the wine cellar.

-

"I don't care, I am fucking better-looking than him."

Roz raised her eyebrows. In the past few hours, Niles had consumed enough alcohol to fill a small vat. He sprawled across the couch, having become considerably more arrogant, more extroverted and more foul-mouthed than his sober self.

More like Frasier, actually, she thought, smiling a little from her perch on the armchair.

"I have a strong jaw and a swimmer's build! And look at my eyes."

Roz looked and smiled faintly. She'd always been charmed by Frasier and Martin's clear blue eyes, and she now saw that Niles had inherited that same gene. She wondered why she'd never noticed before.

"Am I not more attractive than Donny?" hepleaded beseechingly.

She shrugged diplomatically. "Depends on what Daphne classes as attractive."

Worry creased his brow. "Whadd'ya mean?"

"Well now, Niles," she began soothingly, "- attraction is a subjective thing - you know that, Mr 'Shrink' Licence Plate."

"No, I don't know that," he said stubbornly. His little-boy antics were half-irritating, half-adorable. "I'm better-looking than Donny and that's that." He folded his arms.

Roz sighed. Maybe it's more sixty-forty.

"Look, you know I'm right. Take me and you for example."

He looked slightly guarded. "What about me and you?"

"Well, while I realise that you're ... well, aesthetically pleasing, I don't find you particularly attractive."

He snorted. "I should hope not." Then he paused. "Aesthetically pleasing how?"

She rolled her eyes. "Well, you know. You're well-formed in an Aryan kind of way. But not every woman goes for that."

He stared at her. "So what you're saying is, though Daphne may never love me, at least I'll have the League of German Maidens to fall back on?"

"If that's the way you want to look at it?" she shrugged, exasperated.

He cursed. She sighed.

Silence.

"Is Donny good in bed?"

Roz flinched. She hadn't been expecting that, and so elected to take the sly approach. "Why, you interested?"

"Answer the question, Roz!"

"I'm not answering that! It's not any of your business! Why do you even want to know, anyway? You men, torturing yourselves with all the sordid details."

"I'll take that as a yes, then," he muttered gloomily.

"Fine." She was impatient now. "He's good in bed! Happy?"

"Not really," he said mournfully. He began worrying his lower lip absently with his teeth, staring into his glass.

Roz exhaled. Annoying as he was, at times like this he sent her maternal instincts into overdrive. Better throw the poor guy a bone.

"I've had better," she offered wanly.

"I should hope so! You've had everyone!" He knocked back the last of his wine. "Well, thank you, Roz. This has all been most helpful."

And within minutes, he was snoring.

-

Roz woke sometime around eight. She clambered sleepily out of bed, already feeling the crushing haze of a hangover somewhere in her cranium. Coffee, she thought. Coffee will cut right through it.

She dressed and checked on her daughter, who was still sleeping peacefully. Roz leaned on the edge of the crib and gazed down, awe-struck. What she saw was so beautiful.

And I'm radiant. I'm happy, and I'm radiant.

The phrase rang around her head agreeably.

She padded lightly down the stairs, passing Niles on the sofa where he'd fallen asleep. At least he's stopped snoring.

In the kitchen, she prepared a quick breakfast, and tipped the warm coffee down her throat, savouring it. Hearing noises from the next room, she prepared a cup for Niles, and put it on a tray along with a jug of juice and two glasses.

He was experimentally rubbing his temples in a half-sitting position when she set the tray down on the coffee table. "Morning, sunshine," she said cheerily, instantly regretting it. Had she and Niles become cute banter buddies now? Has the world really gone insane?

But he just thanked her and grasped the cup gratefully. Apparently he was too hungover for smart comments.

Either that, or he's thinking, she thought, glancing at him.

After a while he spoke. "You know what was funny about last night?"

"Um ... nothing?"

"Frasier's reaction to our little charade. Do you think he was jealous? I mean, Dad seemed pretty gleeful about the idea of you and me together, but Frasier was horrified."

"It's a horrifying idea," Roz said easily.

He actually looked a little hurt. "You think so? I've always thought there was a wonderful element of Beatrice and Benedick-esque tit-for-tat in our rapport."

She laughed. "You just combined an obtuse reference with French words and some sort of Cockney rhyming slang in a single sentence, and you sit around wondering why Daphne doesn't have the hots for you?"

He sighed heavily. "I know, I know - I'm hopeless."

Roz's heart sank. His clothes were all rumpled, his chin fuzzy, his hair mussed up. His vulnerability was too much to bear sometimes. "Don't say that."

"Oh, come on. Six years and she's never shown anything other than platonic interest in me."

A memory jolted back to her suddenly. "That's not true."

"Hmmm?" He looked up with vague, distracted hope. The sadness centred mostly around his eyes. Roz swallowed, hit by an irrational desire to fix all this man's problems.

So she launched into her story. "Well, it was one night last year when Daphne stayed over at my house for the night. We watched movies, ate cookies, that sort of thing. And in the end we got to talking - and you came up."

His eyes gleamed with interest. He didn't interrupt her.

"She started going on about how lovely she thought you were" - he blushed at this point - "but how, try as she would, she could never figure you out. 'Enigma' was the word she used, I think. But anyway, she got to reminiscing about the times you two've had. Like that time of the storm she was at your mansion - oh, and the Snow Ball."

He sat up straighter, alert now.

"She kept saying it was one of the most magical nights of her life. And how at the end, even though it wasn't very appropriate, she felt she just had to kiss you. You know, just to round off the night."

Niles gasped. "She said she was acting"

"Oh, yeah, that was her excuse. She figured you two'd already made enough of a spectacle with the tango and you'd realise that the kiss was purely gratuitous. So she kind of overcompensated with the whole 'acting' story."

He leapt to his feet, almost knocking over the coffee table. The juice glasses rattled ominously. "Oh my God! I had no idea she had real feelings for me! I mean, I replayed the scene in my head afterwards -"

"I'll bet."

"- and it occurred to me, maybe she was sounding me out! Maybe when she said 'I had no idea you were such a good actor' she was trying to gauge my reaction! But I never dared hope -"

Roz extended a hand and patted his leg. "Relax, Niles. It wasn't that either. Sorry to disappoint," she added, noticing the look on his face. "It was just - oh come on, you know Daphne. She just got caught up in the evening. She's playful that way."

He nodded sheepishly, and sat down again. He leaned forward, elbows resting on knees and hands clasped loosely. "Well, she certainly toyed with me that night at the Montana," he observed wryly.

Roz laughed throatily. "Oh yeah, the heatwave. She talked about that too. What is it with you two and extreme weather?"

"What did she say?" His tone was eager, urgent.

"Oh, just that she'd never seen you look so" - she made airquotes -"'scrumptious' as you did that night." She said it casually, smiling as he visibly glowed. "Something about your forearms, and your hair clinging to your forehead, and some other details I'd rather not go into for my own sanity. It was bad enough hearing them the first time, believe me."

"Hey," he rebuked mildly, but he was practically squirming in delight.

She watched him for a while, silently recalling the end of the conversation she and Daphne had had that night.

"So, do you regret not sleeping with him?" I'd asked, revelling in the juiciness of the discussion.

She'd shaken her head. Her tone had been quiet. "No. I'm relieved, actually. I could never sleep with Dr Crane. The whole thing is too ... fragile. I'd ruin it."

Roz glanced over at said Dr Crane, still grinning boyishly, and tactfully decided to omit this detail. Instead she said: "You really love her, don't you?"

His heavy sigh was her confirmation. "You know, that night, I really didn't think it would happen. Even when she was flirting with me outright - even when we were on the brink, I just couldn't get my head around the prospect that I might have her." This last part was whispered, and Roz smiled her sympathy. "'Course, then I didn't," he added ruefully.

"You will," she said suddenly, with a conviction that seemed to come from nowhere. "I mean, I dunno about her and Donny or Donny and me, but - you and her? It ... fits." She meant it.

He gazed at her steadily. Then he leaned over, grasped her face lightly, and kissed her on the forehead.

"Bless you, Roz," he mumbled.

She blinked furiously. "Alright, alright, if we're quite through with the love-in ..." She grimaced, gently pushing him back to his seat.

He smiled faintly, getting that faraway look again. "It's funny, what she called me."

"What?"

"I always wanted to be an enigma, ever since I was young."

She looked at him. "Well, it's a far cry from fireman or astronaut, but okay."

He smiled shyly. "I just wanted to be - you know - interesting. Intriguing. Like Hamlet or Heathcliff or Maxim de Winter."

"Maybe you just had a subconscious crush on Laurence Olivier," she suggested, and he laughed from somewhere deep inside him.

She laughed too. She felt good, better than she had in ages. And, she suspected, better than if she'd ended up in bed with Donny Douglas. No, it hadn't been right, any of it. In fact, it had been downright despicable. But when you're being egged on by a madman in love ...

She glanced over at him. He was watching her curiously, as though trying to read her thoughts. She looked down and diligently filled both their glasses - with grapefruit juice this time - then raised hers.

"To better days?"

He smiled his trademark, close-mouthed smile. "Better days."

And she clinked glasses with her friend.

The End