A/N: No need to read this, but I just want to *warn* you that this is sort of experimental writing and also it's written in first person POV (shocking, I know). This is just me trying to find my writing groove again.

I ache for you, Daphne.

You're going on about some date you've been on. Do you even notice me here sitting with you and Roz at the table? Roz came first; she just strolled over a while ago. We'll never be friends, I can't imagine, but we're good enough company to drink coffee together. Which we did until you raced in. Your face reddened from walking too fast, your eyes glassy from thinking too much. I love that look on you. Granted, I love every look on you, Daphne. You could be wearing rags, your hair a mess and your face covered in dirt. To me you'll always be the most beautiful creature to have walked the earth.

Oh Daphne, I can't help but think as you keep talking, never minding me and my wandering eyes. I ache so much for you.

There are times when I don't even like you. Can you imagine that? I love you, yet sometimes I can't stand you. Part of me thinks it's a defense mechanism; get angry, get over you and just get on with my life. Yes, sometimes I don't like you. We have next to nothing in common. I can't stand it when you make fun of my love for the opera and classical music. Or when you roll your eyes at my exquisite taste. Yet, I love you. I love the compassion you have inside you. The warmth that could melt snow on a cold, dreary February day. Or your strength. Oh Daphne, how I love your strength. You'd defend those you love like a lioness would her cubs. That's why I love you. Among other things. There are so many, tiny things and they always, each and every time, outweigh the things why I don't like you. But sometimes, well, I just can't stand you.

"Roz, I trust you," you say and neither of you look at me; all you'd see is a slightly disgusted, slightly confused face anyway, "And I need your help. I need to date someone – someone!" You throw your arms in the air. Date me, I think. I'm right here. Instead I sip my coffee. You both don't pay attention to me. When do you ever, really? I'm not my brother. Unlike him, I can actually listen. Be quiet and observe. But oh Daphne, oh Daphne…

I ache for you. I ache so much for you.

If you'd ask Frasier- and why would you? You don't know about my feelings, do you? – he'd tell you this is the problem. My brilliant, stupid brother thinks all I feel is desire. Do I desire you? Oh Daphne, my dear. There are no words how much I long to touch you in the way a woman deserves to be touched. I'd leave gentle soft touches all over your body; feather-light moments like the wings of a butterfly. I can almost feel your warm skin under my fingertips. They twitch and I grab my coffee cup almost burning my skin. I'd burn myself touching you, too. This, however, is much safer. For both of us. But no, if it were only desire, I could deal with it. I am certain of that much. The simple truth is that I love you. I don't know how; it's illogical, I know, but it's the truth. The only truth I know.

Daphne, Daphne, Daphne. Is this my heartbeat? It might as well be.

There are days when all I feel is despair. Today is one of these days. You don't see me, do you? I've been looking at you for minutes now; maybe even hours. You said hello to me, politely and friendly as you are. But now… now I'm just a bystander in your life, in this story you so badly want to write. I'm a psychiatrist and I dare not analyze you and your romantic antics. You so desperately want to be loved; to love, too, I presume. I understand that. Oh, Daphne, I feel the same. If only you knew. But you don't even see me sitting here. You don't consider asking me any of this. No, you turn to Roz. A woman who has never been in a long-term relationship. You ask her instead of me. Maybe that should make me question my marriage and Maris and all of it. It doesn't. It makes me question everything else, though.

"Why don't you ask Niles?" Roz' voice cuts through me like a knife would through frozen butter. I choke on my coffee and I stare at her. Ask me what, I wonder. I turn to you and I think you can ask me anything. I might not be able to tell you the truth, not like this, but you can always ask me anything. I hope you know this, Daphne, even if there are so many things you don't know.

"Dr. Crane, what do you think?" So this is your question. If only I'd listened. My thoughts are running away, Daphne, can't you hear them? Catch them for me, why don't you.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat your… question?" If I seem aloof, if I seem like I only care on the periphery, then maybe my feelings can stay hidden forever. I'm in love with your voice, Daphne, but I don't always hear what you say. Please do forgive me.

"Roz and I were just wondering about something. Why do men have such a hard time talking about their feelings? Why can't they be honest?" Oh your eyes, Daphne, they almost do me in. You have no idea. If you knew that I've been lying to you all this time, too, what would you think of me then? But you don't. I glance at Roz and she knows. Of course she knows. She's not like you, Daphne. I wish you'd see her as what she is; a friend, yes, but please don't make her your role model.

"That's a very complex question and topic." I take a sip from my coffee. It's as bitter as my words.

"That's an excuse." Roz mumbles. I agree with her mentally, and I almost nod, but my secret stays with me as I catch myself quickly.

"Well, if you say so. I'm afraid I can't speak for all men, Daphne."

"Then hypothetically," oh no, Daphne, don't do this, I think, but I see the questions sparkle in your eyes even before you ask it, "would you-" I've never been so happy to see Frasier barge into the coffeehouse. He's ecstatic and let's be honest, he's the last one to care for anyone's feelings but his own.

"Roz! Niles! Oh, hello Daphne. You cannot believe the day I had!" Frasier takes a chair from the next table and the noise it makes as it scratches over the ground hurts my ears. I look at you, Daphne, and you chew your lip trying to decide if you should just go on talking. You don't. I will you to look over at me, but you don't. You don't listen to Frasier, either, I don't believe and oh, how I ache for you. I wish I could tell you that the right man is out there for you. In my dreams that man is me, of course. Looking at you looking at something in the distance, I wish I could just voice my feelings. Right now I'd tell you to get out of here. Let's go, I tell you mentally, and I imagine how I take your hand – oh sorry mine's sweaty; it's so warm this August and being near you, oh Daphne, if only you knew how nervous you make me sometimes – and we're running out of here like two children. But you don't even look at me. What do you think about right now, Daphne?

"Wow, Frasier, can you just shut up." Roz' harsh words get my attention. You chuckle and hide behind your hands. I never listened to begin with and so I am at a loss. All I know is that I want to leave and I want to leave with you, Daphne.

"Well thank you, Roz. Am I that boring?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Niles? Why are you so quiet?" Ah, my big brother needs reinforcement. Not today, Frasier. Not today.

"I was just going to leave." My eyes linger a moment too long on you and finally! Your eyes lift and they soften as they fall upon mine. Are my knees suddenly weak or did the ground start moving?

"Me, too. Your father needs his exercise." You sigh. I can imagine how exhausting working with dad is. Not to mention living with Frasier. Oh Daphne, if only I could take you away.

"We can walk together." I offer in an attempt to spend a few precious minutes alone with you. I almost extend my hand, but Roz and Frasier's expressions stop me.

"I'll call you." You tell Roz with a certain determination and she nods. Finally we leave and we're alone. Well, we're as alone as one is on a busy street in Seattle anyway.

"Your brother can be a bit much, Dr. Crane." I snort. There are no words. I'd refer to Frasier as my best friend, and he's my brother of course, but he's also one of the most exhausting people I know.

"Dr. Crane, can I ask you something?" Here we go again, I think.

"Of course, Daphne. Always." You stop and look at the ground. People rush by us and you don't pay them any attention. I can't wait to find out what's on your mind; what's been on your mind since before Frasier came and trampled on your first attempt to ask me for my opinion. I almost take your hand in mine, but figure it's too intimate.

"Do you think, uhm, in your professional opinion… is there someone out there, you know, for me?" Then you lift your eyes to me I see unshed tears shimmer there. Oh Daphne, how I long to tell you…

"Of course there is!" I finally say before you misinterpret my silence. You shake your head as if trying to get rid of something; maybe your own doubts and demons.

"No, Dr. Crane. Please think about it. I've only ever been in a long-term relationship once and that was forever ago. Hell, it wasn't even long. It was six months. So I need you to be honest with me, Dr. Crane. Do you think I will ever," you take a deep, shaky breath to compose yourself, "will I ever find this?" You make this large gesture with your arms. It reminds me of a yoga posture I saw once in a book laying in my house. I don't think the book belonged to Maris; her body doesn't bend well.

"By this you mean… marriage?" You nod your head at me. By the look in your eyes, I estimate that I don't have much time. You're pleading with me to make it all right. I wish I could. I want to tell you that I'm right here; I'm the right man for you and that one day you and I will fall in love, get married and have babies. I tell you none of it. Because this is my fantasy. Locked in my heart and locked in my mind. I take this fantasy out sometimes, many times, and play with it. Just to feel fine. This, however, is my fantasy. So I need to think quickly and come up with something to reassure you. When it comes to you, though, I never quite find the right words. None of them do you or my feelings justice.

"Dr. Crane?" You plead and I sigh deeply.

"Daphne, you're a wonderful, wonderful person. If you ask me, all I can tell you that some man is out there just waiting to meet and fall in love with you. Maybe he's standing on a street right now, too, wondering when he'll meet you." The tears in your eyes hurt me even though you're smiling; those are happy tears, I know, but they still hurt me. Any tear of you will always be a dagger through my heart.

"You don't think that maybe I'm… broken?" My eyes open wide and I lean closer to you. Oh Daphne, I ache so much to take you in my arms and make you feel whole again.

"Broken? Never, Daphne. You're not broken. Love will find you when you're ready. All these men," I don't want to think about all these other men; who knows how many there have been and will be before… before it all ends one way or another, "they just weren't right for you. I promise you one day a man will love you so much that everything else pales in comparison."

"Oh Dr. Crane, how do you always know the right thing to say!" You fling yourself at me. Your arms go behind my neck and I feel your body pressed against me. I hug you back, my eyes closing on their own volition.

"Well, I am a psychiatrist."

"Yes, you are. And so much better than your brother." You wink at me and I smile. How could I not? I wipe a stray tear from your face and there are no new ones. You look so young, Daphne, in this obscure rainy sunlight. So very, very young. There's love for you out there. Whether it's mine or someone else's, it is out there. But I can't help hope – and do forgive my presumptuousness – that this love will be mine.

"Thank you, Daphne." I tell you honestly. Any compliment from you is a gift; this one however feels so wonderful on so many levels.

"No, thank you, Dr. Crane. Are you coming with me to your dad's?" I want so much to spend more time with you, Daphne. Even if it entails watching you make dad bend and almost break. I can watch you read a recipe and be a happy man. But right now, right now I ache so much for you that my fingertips are burning with the need to touch you. I need to be by myself; prepare myself to go home and be alone with my wife. You want a marriage, Daphne, and I won't tell you that a marriage without love is worse than no love at all. And you are loved. By me, by dad and even by Frasier. I know that right now this is not what you want to hear. That this is not the kind of love you need right now.

"Sorry, no. I need to get home. There are still some patient files I need to work through before work tomorrow."

"Ah, that's too bad. I'll see you soon then?"

"Tomorrow, most likely." I nod. Before I can react, you lean over and kiss my cheek. Your smile could light up a whole continent, Daphne. You give me a cute little wave before you head off. There's so much energy in your step as you walk away from me. All I can do right now is stare. Oh, Daphne, I ache for you. I sigh. Someone runs past me, nudges my shoulder and apologizes. I rub the sore spot absent-mindedly until I don't see you anymore. You never turned around to me again, Daphne. But I keep looking into the distance trying to catch a sight of your hair, your coat or anything that's you. Because I'll always be looking just for you.

THE END