Author's Note: Please excuse whatever portions may be OOC or unrealistic. It's only a fictional story, after all.
Disclaimer: I am not associated with the BBC or anyone at Top Gear, including Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, James May, or the Stig. This story is completely fictional and I gain no monetary value from it.
Jeremy Clarkson rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he watched Richard Hammond working tirelessly underneath his favorite car, only his legs available for viewing as the rest of his body was hidden beneath the engine. He had just heard the most interesting news regarding a certain faceless masked driver and Hammond and he very well couldn't wait to share the news with Hammond.
Finally, after about fifteen more minutes of fiddling beneath the car, Richard rolled out from under the car and stood to his feet. He greeted Jeremy with a smile as he walked over to his tool chest and grabbed the dishrag he'd tossed aside earlier to wipe the excess oil from his hands.
"What are you doing here?" Richard inquired of Jeremy, who didn't make a habit of stopping by his coworkers' houses.
"Can't an old work colleague visit another colleague without having an agenda?"
Jeremy replied innocently.
"'Old' being the operative word." Richard finished with the rag, tossed it back onto the tool chest, and braced his hands on his hips. "What 'is' your agenda, Jeremy?"
"Okay." Jeremy rubbed his palms together in delight. "I have just heard the greatest, most fantastic news."
Richard waited patiently, but Jeremy didn't elaborate. "Well? What is this 'great news?' And why should I care?"
Jeremy smirked. "I have heard from an extremely reliable source that..."
Richard's eyes widened impatiently. "That?"
"The Stig is in love with you."
Richard blinked silently at Jeremy's announcement.
"Well?" Jeremy prompted. "What have you got to say to that?"
Richard shook his head. "I don't have time for this absurdity." He pushed past Jeremy to head into his house.
"I'm not lying!" Jeremy called after him.
"I'll see you at work tomorrow," Richard yelled back before a resounding slamming of a door echoed through the garage.
Richard was in a rather testy mood the next day when he walked into the BBC offices, a mug of coffee in one hand and a film schedule in the other. He was striding purposely down the hall with his head facing the floor because he didn't feel up to talking to anyone at that present point in time. He'd had one of those odd dreams that had involved a horsewhip, a chandelier, and the Stig, thanks to Jeremy's visit the night before.
Richard reached his desk at last and set his items down on the flat wood surface before he fell into his black rolling chair. He sighed as he leaned back and sat still for several long seconds, staring blankly ahead. When he leaned forward once more, one of the younger secretaries or assistants stopped next to his desk to drop off a note from the director.
"Thank you," Richard said absently as he grappled for the note, barely taking notice when the young woman walked away.
Richard groaned when the note he read had the director requesting his presence, along with his co-presenters Jeremy and James May. But he stood to his feet, picked up his mug of caramel-colored coffee drenched in sugar and creamer, and strolled to the other side of the building.
Richard was the last to reach the conference room and everybody stared at him as he made his way to the empty chair between Jeremy and James. He grumbled something to Jeremy beneath his breath that Jeremy didn't catch and then the meeting began.
The meeting lasted all of ten minutes before everyone was dismissed. Richard was the first to shoot to his feet and was out of the room before anyone could question him.
James glanced over at Jeremy. "What was that about?"
Jeremy shrugged. "You got me."
"Did you tell him about the Stig?"
"In part."
"In part?"
"After I told him the Stig's in love with him, he simply walked into his house and shut the door."
"So you didn't tell him that we have two Stigs?"
Jeremy shook his head. "He didn't give me a chance."
"When we're not filming, he always seems to be in a bit of a mood, I've noticed."
"Yes. He's been that way since Mindy left him."
"Been about a year, hasn't it?"
"It has been exactly a year today, I believe."
"Well, that explains his crabby mood then."
It was nearing the end of the work day and Richard's mood hadn't improved one iota. He'd snapped at everyone who'd approached him and to make matters worse, he'd stubbed his right foot on the bottom of his desk when he'd rolled forward to get started on his paperwork. He couldn't bloody wait for this damned blasted day to be over with!
"Excuse me, Mr. Hammond..."
Richard slammed his hand down against his desktop in frustration. "Damn it! Can no one sense that I don't want to be bothered today?!"
The young woman -the same young woman who had dropped by earlier in the day- flushed brightly. "I'm sorry," she apologized in a soft voice. She didn't say more as she dropped off his paycheck and quickly strolled away.
Richard sighed, immediately feeling terrible. He picked up the check and decided to go ahead and head home. He didn't want to go snapping at any more people undeserving of his wrath and he certainly didn't want to be asked to do any menial tasks for anyone else.
Miraculously, Richard managed to leave work without anyone asking to see him or trying to engage him in conversation. Even the parking lot was empty of employees as he climbed into his Mustang. Surprisingly, he hit no traffic on the way home and he found his sour mood was slowly dissipating.
When he reached his four-bedroom farmhouse, about ninety percent of the dark clouds that had darkened his mind were gone and he was whistling almost merrily as he strode into his house. He rifled through his mail that rested on the inside table near the front door, decided there wasn't anything of immediate importance, and moved off into the kitchen. He pulled open the fridge door and retrieved an ice cold bottle of lager. He was just about to twist the cap off when he decided he'd much rather go out to his favorite pub instead of sitting at home dwelling on the past.
Richard set the lager back into the fridge, grabbed his jacket off the hook on the way back to the garage, and proceeded to take leave.
As his favorite pub was just around the corner, it took Richard only five minutes to reach it. He found a parking spot near the front and was inside the pub sitting at a back table with a pint of his favorite beer within three minutes.
As Richard settled back into the booth, his eyes scanned the semi-crowded room and instantly fell on the pretty young woman he'd lashed out at at work. She was surrounded by a few other people that he recognized from the BBC offices and she looked slightly bored and out of place.
Richard swallowed the small remainder of liquid in his frosty mug and stood to his feet. The least he could do for the woman was apologize to her and try to get her out of what looked to be a dull situation.
Thankfully, the woman was alone when he reached out and tapped her on the shoulder.
To say that Katherine Oliphant was surprised to see one of Top Gear's three presenters standing in front of her, one that she actually had a crush on, would be an understatement. Her pulse rate accelerated and she gulped back a tidal wave of anxiety, nervous as the last time she had seen him, she'd been yelled at.
"Hi," Richard greeted her in that adorably accented voice of his, lifting his hand in an almost self-conscious salute.
"Hi," Kat replied, her right hand gripping her glass of rum and coke tightly. He didn't come over here just to yell at her again, did he? No. Richard was a nice man; he wouldn't do that to anyone.
"Um..." Richard scratched the back of his neck nervously. "I want to apologize for the way I lashed out at you today at work. I just...it's been a hard day for me. Emotionally."
Kat waved off his apology nonchalantly. "It's okay. Everyone has those days sometimes." She noticed that he was absent a drink and offered to buy him another one.
"Let me buy you one," Richard suggested after thanking her for her offer. "To make up for being such a cock."
Kat opened her mouth to politely decline, but Richard interrupted her before she could speak.
"I won't take no for an answer," he insisted as he sat down on the stool next to Kat and ordered her another drink of whatever she was drinking and then ordered himself another pint as well.
Richard turned back to Kat. "I know you've probably told me before, but I can't recall..."
"Kat," she replied with a quirked smile. She hadn't actually ever told Richard her name because she hadn't spent enough time with him to do so.
"Kat," Richard repeated, rolling her name around on his tongue experimentally.
Kat's palms grew unexpectedly sweaty when Richard murmured her name and she discretely wiped them on the soft black silk of her skirt. Richard was saying something, she could see his lips moving, but she was too focused on his broad masculine shoulders to really hear him.
Kat mentally shook her head. "I'm sorry; I didn't hear what you said."
Richard chuckled as the bartender set their drinks down in front of them. He had trouble believing that he hadn't taken much notice of the woman before him, but he'd been too wrapped up in his own emotions and snarled thoughts to notice much of anything in the past year. He could probably blame all that on Mindy.
"I was just asking how you wound up in England and at the BBC," Richard muttered. "You're from the States, right?"
Kat nodded as she sipped from her beverage.
"What made you come out here?"
Kat shrugged. "It's not something I can really explain. I wanted a new change of scenery, a new life."
"You running from something?"
"Yes and no. But the BBC was where I headed first to look for a job because...well, I love your show. I didn't think I'd get hired, but they called me back only a couple of days after my interview."
"They're very picky," Richard commented. "You must have really nailed your interview or impressed them somehow."
Kat blushed and brought her glass back up to her lips. Richard found the pink tinting in her pale cheeks endearing and enjoyed the sparkle in her blue-gray eyes.
"Would you like to sit at a table instead of the bar?" Richard asked, pointing with the hand that held his mug to the table in the back corner that he had vacated.
"Okay."
Kat followed Richard to the round table situated below a dimly flickering lightbulb. She was taken a bit aback when Richard pulled one of the wooden chairs out for her. She wasn't accustomed to men being so chivalrous. She thanked him and slid into the chair; across from her, Richard did the same.
"How long, exactly, have you been working at the BBC?" Richard inquired as he leaned forward to rest his arms on the tabletop.
"Um..." Kat's eyes drifted up to the ceiling in thought. "Almost four years now."
"Four years? Wow! I can't believe I haven't gotten to know you better, then."
"Well, we had one brief back-and-forth about two weeks after I started, but I don't remember what it was about."
Well, that wasn't quite true. She'd been thrilled to find herself face-to-face with Richard Hammond and become even more thrilled when he'd actually started talking to her. They'd been waiting for the elevator together and had somehow gotten onto a conversation about American products. That day, her crush on Richard had grown immensely.
"Huh; I'm sorry, but I don't remember that," Richard apologized.
"I wouldn't expect you to. It was years ago and me having a conversation with you is far more memorable than you having a conversation with me."
"That can't be right." Richard rubbed his bottom lip thoughtfully as he struggled to recall having met Kat years before.
"You don't need to worry about it, Mr. Hammond. It was years ago."
"We're not at the office, Kat. You can call me Richard. Or Rich, if you prefer."
"Okay. Richard."
Richard rather liked hearing Kat use his first name and he couldn't determine why.
"You know, another reason I opted to work at the BBC is because my mother and my sister love your show and I was hoping to one day get them out here to watch it live."
Richard nodded in response, but his eyes were now drawn to her fully plump, scarlet red lips. He hadn't been out with too many girls in his life -there'd only been about five girls he'd dated for any period of time longer than a day before he'd married Mindy- but none of them had had the same lushness to their lips as Kat's did. He found himself wanting to lean across the table and test the ripe softness of her lips by pressing his own to them. It had been over a year -Blimey! Almost two years now!- since he'd seen any action.
"Richard?" Kat's soft voice drew Richard back to the moment and he shook his head to clear it.
"I'm sorry," he said, a wee bit embarrassed. "My mind may have wandered a bit."
"It 'may' have?" Kat sounded amused, as well she should. "Don't worry; it happens to me a lot, especially at work. Just please do me a favor and don't tell my boss."
Richard chuckled. "I won't."
They stayed at the pub chatting well into the wee hours of the morning, much to their surprise. Richard had decided to pay for both their drinks of the evening, with Kat arguing the entire way. In the end, Richard had had to distract her while he slipped his credit card to the bartender.
They exited the pub together and Richard gentlemanly walked Kat to her car, his eyes lighting up in appreciation.
"You have a Mustang!" he cheered as he admired her powder blue model.
"I do."
"Oh, it's much better than mine. And in much better condition." He turned to her. "I'll buy it from you."
Kat laughed and shook her head. "No way. I've grown too attached and put in too much sweat and blood to sell it to anyone, even you."
Richard laughed. "Is it a manual or an automatic?"
"Automatic; I'm not very good at driving a stick."
"Really?"
"Yes. I know it's hard to believe, what with most cars in America being automatic..."
Richard laughed again. Once he was calmed down, he grew solemnly silent. For about one minute.
"Thank you," he muttered in a soft, quiet voice.
"For what?"
"For lifting my black mood. I haven't been able to relax and just enjoy myself in...quite a long time."
Kat smiled and Richard's pulse dropped a little southerly of his belt. It had been a long time indeed.
"Oh; well, any time you need an emotional lift, you kind of know where to find me."
Richard smiled gratefully and this time Kat's pulse began to race. "I'll keep that in mind."
Richard stepped off to the side as Kat climbed into her car and drove away. When he walked to his own car, he barely acknowledged the fact that he was whistling a merry tune. If one listened closely, one would call the tune 'I'm Walking On Sunshine.'
