Author's note: Thanks to my brilliant super-beta UntilNeverDawns. Always fun exchanging emails and swapping story chapters with you. You're the best. I'm not just saying that. Seriously.

xsmokeandmirrors: I think it's rather the fact that Stuart is like an antidote to Natalie's gloom and doom phase, which is paradoxical because he's not exactly cheery himself. But maybe it's just that.

LivHardy: I've started reading 'Aria's Shield' maybe you've seen my review already. I very nearly didn't go to sleep at all last night. I'm glad you like my story as well :-)

On to our weekly dose of BNB. He needs to come back from his injury quickly.

She had chosen wine as their poison for that evening. Providing the music to her pity party was his duty. He had hooked up his phone to her sound system. Currently some record by The Smiths was playing in the background. "You've killed me," Morrissey crooned and it made her smirk, because somehow that was very fitting.

Tony had killed her in a way. He had killed the trusting, naive young woman she had once been who believed in the illusion of marriage, monogamy and being able to live with someone for the rest of your life. Where had that gotten her? Well, she had once been a pretty confident person, talkative, some of her friends had said the life of the party. And now? Now she was just the shell of the person she used to be. It seemed impossible to go back. Because there was nothing to go back to. She had to put herself back together again. Being reminded of that stupid nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty, she had to smile a bitter little smile. She pulled the wine bottle from Stuart's hands and filled up her glass again. He just made a displeased face and that was that.

"Sometimes I think...," she paused and looked sadly into the empty space for a while, "I think that someone should have taken aside my younger self and given her a nice long talking to about love, realistic expectations and all that shit. If someone would have spared the time to do that, I probably would have been less naive. But who warns you about those kinds of things, huh?"

He nodded, so she spoke on. "Maybe I should have taken all those silly love poems more seriously..." that sibilant, polysyllabic word came out somewhat slurry, "I mean take Romeo and Juliet for instance. No happy ending. The guy drinks poison and the girl stabs herself. Or was it the other way round? I always get that mixed up..."

Stuart shrugged his shoulders.

"At any rate after all that talk about love a bunch of people wind up dead. How anyone can find that romantic is totally beats me."

"Let me congratulate you...," he told her in his raucous voice and made her turn her head in his direction. Her facial expression clearly said something like 'Huh?', so he chose to clarify what he had wanted to say. "You've just accomplished what barely anyone managed before you. You're even more depressing than the ever cheerful Morrissey," he pointed his thumb at the stereo.

"I never said I was cheerful."

"Well, you certainly had me fooled. I thought you were, when we first met."

"Before or after I started crying about my dad's passing?"

"You know I didn't mean that," he told her. "Before. When we first met at the reception..."

"You thought I was cheerful back then, cause I smiled at you prettily?" Her voice rose an octave there, because that was just too hard to believe for her. "That's my job, sweetie. I smile at everyone. I smile and smile and smile..." She took another swallow from her glass, feeling depressed by the thought of her job. She managed to put it down on the table again thanks to a bit of luck, but definitely not her supreme hand-eye-coordination. That had gone to hell straight after they had killed the first bottle of wine.

"So is that why you want to be friends with me? Cause you're tired of smiling?"

No, that's not it. She frowned, wondering whether she had actually said those words out loud. She shifted in her seat. She was sitting there, leaned against the armrest of the couch, her legs tugged underneath her. They were actually starting to feel weird, like pins and needles, because she hadn't moved them for too long. He was sitting a few inches away from her, to her left. For a second there her inebriated mind actually made the effort of contemplating whether it was okay to stretch out her legs, but since they had already hugged tonight, she supposed he wouldn't be that appalled by further physical contact with her. She actually mumbled some apologetic words about her legs having fallen asleep, before she stretched them out over his. For a second there he looked uncomfortable about it, but then shrugged it off. Just like he did with almost everything.

"So we're friends because you know that I don't expect you to always be in a good mood...," he concluded. Apparently he was much more sober than her and still able to keep track of their conversation topic.

"That's not it," she said quickly, regretting the fact that she had failed to protest the first time around. "You got it all wrong." She pointed her index finger at him. Her hand hovered in the air for a couple of seconds, rising and falling unsteadily before she laid it down on her thighs. "I'm friends with you because you're not fake like most people. You don't prance around telling lies. And I hate, hate, hate lies. Have I mentioned that?" He shook his head, shooting her an odd look. "At any rate...," she could feel the weight of his hands on her shins now and was caught off guard by it for a second. Her eyes landed on his hands. They were simply resting there without moving and didn't present a threat. She looked back at his face. "At any rate," she reiterated, "I'm friends with you because I think that underneath it all you're a good guy, albeit a little rough around the edges. But that's okay. I kind of like that..."

"Thanks for the compliment, luv," he replied. "But I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm a lot of things, but surely not a decent guy." Having uttered those words, he emptied his glass of wine in one go and set it back down on the table.

"And who told you to believe that bullshit?"

He actually laughed softly when he heard her swear and shook his head. "Some things you don't have to be told. You just know 'em, luv."

"You don't know a lot about yourself obviously..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Are you kidding me? So you're saying you're not a decent guy? Well...," she made a face, clearly not agreeing with his evaluation of his own character, "if you were a douche, you would have tried to get in my pants by now, instead of listening to me go on and on about how shitty love is... I mean talk about ideal scenarios, you've got to admit desperate divorcee with too much wine in her is pretty far up there..."

She could tell her words had caught him of guard. Perhaps she had been too blunt. A circumstance for which partly the wine was to blame and partly his bad influence, she supposed.

"I might be an emotional cripple, Stuart, but I can tell you that you're not one of the bad guys."

"An emotional cripple? Don't you think you're being a tad bit over-dramatic there?" he leaned closer to her and inspected her face like a concerned parent would do when suspecting his child to have contracted a case of the measles. She pushed him back with her hand on his forehead and surprisingly he only swatted her hand away and didn't attempt to break it as a punishment.

"Yes, an emotional cripple. As in lacking in self-esteem and any sense of self-preservation. Why else would I be drinking with you? This wine isn't even good...," she reached for the bottle and inspected it with a frown before she put it back on the table again. "I'm going to be so hung over tomorrow," she complained.

"Stop whining," he told her simply. "You don't see me complaining, do you?"

"That's because you're probably used to drinking worse, like nail polish remover and stuff..."

He laughed softly. It was a nice sound, because it sounded genuine. "Well, I'm afraid I've got some... Oh, crud! For the love of God!"

"What's up?"

"I'm regressing into my wrestler persona." He was massaging his temples like he was coming down with a severe headache.

"See! The side effects of ingesting too much nail polish remover," she grinned smugly.

"Oh, just shut your pie-hole, hotel girl," he told her good-naturedly.

"And just to think I said you were a decent guy," she tutted. Her comment quite predictably made him frown.

"Oh, get over yourself already! It's not like a pronounced you a freaking saint or anything..."

Her vehemence made him laugh. "Careful, luv. Once you ingest enough alcohol, you actually start sounding like me."

"What is so wrong about that?" she asked reaching for the wine again. Her hand was unsteady, so he took a hold of the bottle.

"Are you sure 'bout that, Nat? You said it gave you a headache."

"But it also makes me forget. So I've got a weigh my options here. I'm really hoping for your sake you're not trying to cut me off..."

"I'm not cutting you off. I'm just pointing out to you that you're pretty pissed at this point..."

"Am not."

"Are too."

She glared at him childishly and he raised his hands in defense. Don't argue with the drunk lady. "I'm just saying... Maybe you want to stop drinking as long as you're in command of your own tongue... What if you start saying more embarrassing stuff? Proclaiming me to be a decent guy is already pretty bizarre in itself," he teased her, though in a good-natured way.

"Why are you like that?" she looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"Like what?"

"Defensive."

"Are you calling me defensive?!" he repeated incredulously.

She nodded vehemently. "It's funny how most of the time you're saying what you're thinking, but when it comes to yourself you're not being honest about who you really are..."

Again her comment made him frown. "I am being honest about who I am. I'm nothing but honest about it."

"OK... So maybe bad choice of words. Maybe you're not as self-aware as you think. Or it's just that you've got a distorted perception of yourself..."

"I wasn't aware that you're also a psychology major. Should I kick off my shoes before we start the counseling session?" he drawled sarcastically.

"Would it like physically hurt you to actually take this seriously?"

"Yes, actually it would. This is just your typical emotional, female dribble. Us blokes? We really aren't that complicated..."

His comment made her laugh. An actual laugh where she threw back her head and that came from the back of her throat. It pissed him off a tiny bit, but since she was his friend he sucked it up and just scowled at her instead of making any nasty remarks.

"Stu, honestly? Without meaning any offense, but if there had ever been an adjective invented to describe you, it would have been 'complicated'." Quite understandably that didn't particularly entertain him or lift up his spirits, so she quickly continued. "But that's okay. I like you that way. In fact I like you period." She grinned there and briefly patted his bearded cheek affectionately.

He actually needed a moment to recover from the fact that she had just touched his cheek and confessed that she liked him. After a couple of seconds he cleared his voice. "Erm... Right. Thank you, I guess."

It was the first time ever that he was at a loss for words around her and it had something utterly endearing about it. It encouraged her to go and say what was really on her mind.

"Seems like I need to say it again, since you're having such a hard time with this. I swear...," she actually covered her heart with her hand and raised her other one as if to speak an oath, which gave the whole affair something oddly festive, "this is not the Barolo taking... I'll gladly repeat that once I'm sober. You're a decent guy. In fact the most decent guy I've met in quite some time. " He was about to protest, but she only raised her index finger. "Nah-ah-ah! Unless you want to say 'Yes, thank you, Ma'am', you'd better suck it up."

He stayed silent for a few moments. She could see different emotions playing over his face, unfortunately her current state of inebriation didn't allow her to interpret them in any way. Eventually he nodded, though the expression on his face was wavering between self-disgust and defeat.

"Oh, don't go making that face, Stu!"

"What face?"

"Like you're trying to keep yourself from vomiting. It's not that bad."

"Oh, it's bad. You're obviously delusional and with you having such a high opinion of me, I'm bound to disappoint you eventually."

She sighed. "Congrats on that uplifting outlook on life... Unfortunately I've got a newsflash for you, Stu. That probably won't happen. Since Tony I've started to expect the worst from people, so disappointing me is pretty darn difficult..."

"I don't want you to expect the worst from me..."

"What do you want me to expect from you then?"

"Expect that I don't want to hurt you. At least not intentionally." Clearly that was the Barolo talking too. Under normal circumstances he would have never said that out loud.

She made face. "You suck, Stuart."

"I suck?" he echoed. "I'm bloody trying to be nice for once and I suck?!" He pointed at his own chest incredulously.

"Well, you've only got yourself to blame here. You're not supposed to say nice things right now. I'm trying to feel sorry for myself."

"Well, sunshine, I'm afraid that's not how this works. And by the way, I don't like you feeling sorry for yourself."

His words made her pout. Eventually she made some strange waving gestures with her arms.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm not sure. Something between 'Oh, get outta here!' and 'Hug me!' ?"

"You want me to hug you? Twice in one night? I'm sorry, but that's way above my annual quota," he grinned, trying to force a look of disgruntled disgust on his face, but failing.

"What's your annual quota?"

"I hug my mum for Christmas," he quipped.

She actually chuckled at that. It was a weird huffy sound, now that she didn't pay attention to how it sounded.

He found it to be quite charming and despite what he had witnessed earlier (namely the flower incident and her subsequent melt-down), he realized he was attracted to her. Simultaneously to becoming aware of his attraction to her, he noticed the weight of her legs that were still resting on his thighs. His hands hadn't moved and were lying on top of them. It would be so easy to make the next move from there, but something stopped him. Perhaps she was right and maybe he was a good guy after all...

"I think I'd better go now...," he said, slowly extricating himself from underneath her legs. "Before you want a peck on the cheek or something equally preposterous." He was turning this into a joke now on purpose. If he made it sound ridiculous enough, it would lower the chances of any of that actually happening.

He got to his feet with a groan after having sat around for too long. She actually had to crane back her neck to look at his face. She was worried, he noticed.

"You don't want to drive, do you?"

"I actually meant to walk. I live about a mile from here..."

"Why don't you sleep on the couch?" she suggested, getting up on wobbly legs.

"Early flight tomorrow."

"Good excuse," she said ironically.

"It's no bloody excuse," he said with slightly more vehemence then intended, throwing a look over his shoulder at her as they walked towards the front door. Actually it was, but she didn't need to know that.

"All right. Whatever," she replied. Her hand was resting on the door handle and keeping him from leaving for now.

"Why don't you open the door?" he asked impatiently.

"Cause you were right. I do want a peck on the cheek. Right there," she pointed at a spot on her right cheekbone.

He sighed. "You're drunk, Nat."

"I'm not drunk, not when I can still do this...," she told him stubbornly. She attempted to stand on one leg and managed to do just that for a full 10 seconds, which made her grin proudly and somewhat intoxicatedly. "See?"

"Yes, indeed, but only for about a couple of seconds, hotel girl," he smirked and quickly bent down to kiss her cheek. Her hands came to rest against his chest momentarily. He heard her suck in a breath or maybe that was just the alcohol taking its toll on his senses.

At any rate he still needed to leave. Now more than ever. He opened the door and the cool night air hit him, making him feel dazed for a second, though he was unsure if that feeling came from the wine. He was thinking about turning around and kissing her. And those thoughts were tempting. Very tempting.

"What about your car?" she asked calling him back to the present.

"I'll come and get it when I get back next week," he suggested.

"What if I don't want to see you next week?"

"Tough."

"I could just have it towed because it's blocking my driveway."

"Do you really want to find out what will happen then?" he threatened jokingly, stepping outside.

"I don't know. I guess I'll make up my mind in the next couple of days eventually," she smiled and slowly closed the door behind him.

Tony got home from working at his restaurant. It was around 10 at night. He had just emptied the mailbox downstairs, taken the elevator upstairs to the 6th floor where he lived. All fairly usual things. Where it got unusual though, was when he saw the tall, bearded stranger looming by his door. The guy didn't look particularly friendly with the disapproving expression on his face and his broad shoulders.

Upon spotting him, Tony had started preparing various sentences in his head like "Who are you?" or "Step away from the door!", thinking about whether he should go with a menacing or polite tone of voice.

The guy straightened up when he saw him. He was actually even taller than Tony had thought. "Are you Anthony York?" The man's voice sounded aggressive. That impression was probably enforced by the index finger pointed in his direction. Or perhaps the thick English accent. Or perhaps all of those things combined. Tony squared his shoulders.

"What if I was?" There was no use lying since he already had the keys to his apartment in his hands.

"Well," the other guy's eyes narrowed, "then I'd feel under the obligation of telling you a little something about how to treat a lady..." He took one step in his direction and Tony stood his ground, which he himself thought to be quite impressive, what with the massive, angry looking Brit right in front of him.

"How to treat a lady?" he inquired.

"In case you're just mentally rattling through a list of trollops you've shagged, let me save you the trouble. I said 'a lady'. So this is about none of them. It's about Natalie..."

A look of comprehension settled on Tony's face. "About Natalie, I see... So you are?"

"It doesn't matter who I am," the Englishman brushed the question off like a pesky little, buzzing fly with a determined hand gesture.

"It might not matter to you. But to me it does. See, if you're just a friend, this visit might turn out a harmless little chat," Tony wasn't counting on that though. Not with the persistent angry glint inside the other guy's eyes. So he continued. "But you're not just a friend, are you? 'Just friends' don't take it upon themselves to actually hunt down the ex-husband... So what you're going to do now? Knock me out or something?"

The other man's face settled into an angry sneer. He took a step closer to Tony, but didn't attack, though it was clear that he was tempted.

"I'd love to, but I have a feeling you'd call the police and though breaking your jaw would indeed be immensely satisfactory," there the guy actually smirked as if he was mentally imagining doing just that, "it would get me in a lot more trouble than it's worth. I just wanted to introduce myself and make you aware of my existence. Also I was going to point out to you that should you ever pester Natalie again, I won't give a damn anymore into how much trouble I'll get."

With that he brushed past him, ramming Tony's shoulder as he went. Tony turned around, still rubbing his shoulder as he watched the angry giant stomp down the corridor.

Stuart was on the bus to the next house show when he got her call. He had actually counted on her to phone him, just not that soon.

"I need to talk to you...," that much was already obvious judging by her clipped tone of voice.

So the little weasel had ratted him out. It had happened even sooner than he thought.

"Of course you do, hotel girl," he said ironically. Next to him Stephen's ears perked right up, thanks to him using that particular nickname. Judging by his mocking and also smiling face, the Irishman had already been able to connect the dots and worked out that he was talking to Natalie. Stuart scowled and gave him a shove, indicating that he should mind his own bloody business.

"I suppose you already know what this is about..."

"I do have an inkling, but please be so kind as to actually spell out for me what the problem is. I'm a wrestler, not a mind reader."

He heard her take a deep breath on the other end of the line. Perhaps he had laid it on a little bit too thick. "This would be about the fact that you paid a visit to my ex-husband and threatened him with physical violence. Ring any bell?"

"Yes," he answered simply and with a casualness to his voice as if he was just accepting glass of water at the dinner table.

"Yes?" she repeated incredulously. "Is that all you have to say for yourself? How did you even trace him down? I've never told you more than his name and that he's the chef and owner of a New York restaurant..."

"Please? You're honestly asking me that?" He let out a disdainful snort. "Welcome to the 21st century, luv. Try to keep track of progress, will you? We've got nice things like computers and the Internet. It's such a lovely ol' place, you can practically trace down anyone when you've got a name and some additional information."

He heard her groan. "Still doesn't explain why you did it though..."

He lowered his voice, because the next bit wasn't for the tour bus and the nosy buggers sitting around him. "Do you honestly want him to keep pestering you?"

"No, of course not."

"So tell me again how it what I did there was wrong..."

He heard her make a couple of more disgruntled sounds. "It just wasn't right. You shouldn't have. That's not how conflicts are resolved... You just don't hunt a guy down and threaten to beat him into a bloody pulp at his doorstep."

"Are those the actual words he used?" Stuart asked with a smirk. "I'm afraid he's gotten it all wrong. But I understand. The excitement and all. Actually I said I was going to break his jaw," he told her conversationally.

"Are you actually serious about that?" she inquired, her voice vibrating with suppressed anger.

"Yes... Yes I think I might be. If he won't stop showering you with unwanted attention, it's within the realm of possibility." He heard her inhale sharply, so he continued before she could lecture him again. "But I'm not a man without reason, only if he hasn't learned his lesson... And I gotta say things are looking up. I thought we had reached some sort of gentleman's agreement. At least that's what I chose to interpret the sight of him nearly soiling himself in front of me like..." She said nothing in response.

"Here's the part where you say 'Thank you, Stuart.'," he supplied.

"You don't actually expect me to thank you for that, do you? It was caveman-like behavior, unworthy of the man I thought you to be. Perhaps that was acceptable in the Stone Age, but not in the 21st century in which I'm pretty much aware of living, thank you..." He could hear her fast breath over the line. She had gone and worked herself into a little tantrum there. It was sort of cute.

"This is not so much about what kind of man I am, it's more about the scumbag you married. He's like some kind of viral disease you contract and can't get rid of..."

"You don't get to judge me for the mistakes I've made...," she fumed.

"No, but I do get to help you rectify them," he replied, equally incensed.

"And what, pray tell, do you think entitles you to do that?" she shot back.

"I'll tell you... It's because I care! All right?" His voice was harsh and stood in contrast to the words he had just said, or better more or less hissed into his cell phone.

For a moment there was silence. At least their conversation on the phone came to a halt, whereas he could hear whispering from behind his seat. Stuart looked over the headrest and shot Nemeth and Cardona a dark glance each that immediately silenced them.

"You think that you caring for me entitles you to this kind of behavior?" she finally asked, her surprised tone of voice still carrying some residual traces of aggression.

"Precisely," he replied, settling back in his seat.

"Let's hope it also entitles you to my forgiveness and my will to talk things over..."

"Wanna hear what I'm thinking, hotel girl?"

"As of right now? Not particularly... But I've got a feeling you're going to tell me anyway..."

"I think you're only enraged because you think it's what's expected of you. Some tiny part of you, deep down, is applauding me for what I did, because you would have liked to have done it yourself," he was aware he was pushing his luck there, but then again he had never been a particularly sensitive bloke. Why start with it now?

"You just keep telling yourself that. You know it was wrong."

"No, YOU know what I did there was exactly right. Guys like him don't understand any other language."

"Seems like we still have some talking to do about that...," she said regretfully.

"When? Tomorrow when I get my car?" he asked simply.

"If your car's still there tomorrow...," she said spitefully and hung up on him.

Despite her threat he wasn't particularly worried. She was too intrinsically nice to actually make good on that threat.

"Trouble with the missus?" Stephen decided to ask just then.

"What missus?" Stuart growled. "And keep your bloody nose out of my bloody business!"