Monday morning back at work, Nina was walking over the parking lot towards the main entrance of the building. She greeted the security guards at the entrance with a huge smile. She felt invigorated and more happy than usual. It was silly really and childish. She should stop this, after all she had work to do.

On the elevator ride up to her office she forced down her grin. As always she was up to an early start. She usually was among the first to arrive and do things like starting a pot of coffee in the break-room and switching on the photocopying machines on her floor. Today they would have another one of those meetings where they would discuss the upcoming storylines. They would also have to talk about Sheamus and Mark Henry. She had already come up with an idea for their encounter, but she still felt nervous about that.

She entered her office. Luke's and Maria's tables were still empty. She sat down at her desk and picked up the little Sheamus action figure. Luke had given it to her as a office warming present a couple of months ago. She looked at it with a smile. It bore a certain resemblance to him, but the face was kind of wrong.

"Hey," a voice startled her out of her reverie. It was Luke.

"Hey yourself!" she smiled at him and put down the action figure.

"Did you catch Doctor Who last night?" he asked putting down his bag on the floor next to his desk.

"No, I missed it. But I TiVoed it," she admitted hesitantly.

Luke gaped at her. "You missed it? It had Vastra, Jenny and Strax. How could you miss that?"

Nina gave him an apologetic look. She had been on the phone with Stephen yesterday night. It hadn't been a long call. Just a quick check-in to tell her that he was okay and that rehearsal had gone well. Afterward, however, she didn't feel like watching TV anymore. But she wouldn't tell Luke that even if he was a friend. In fact after what had happened after Wrestlemania she wouldn't tell anyone what was going on with her and Stephen.

"What could be more important than Doctor Who?" he asked incredulously.

She smirked. "I was putting together my costume for the next Star Wars convention."

"Ooooh! That was low," Luke covered his heart with his hands and sank down on his chair in a theatrical and exaggerated gesture. "Just out of curiosity, what are you going as?"

"I'll be Princess Leila. Tell Daniel Bryan aka Goat Boy to call me. I still need an Ewok to accompany me," she winked at her colleague.

"You're in a good mood today...," he observed.

"Am I?" she grinned. "Maybe because I had a rather relaxing weekend." Quite inevitably her eyes landed on the discarded Sheamus action figure that was lying in front of her on her desktop.

She gush of cool air hit the back of her neck as Maria breezed in through the door behind her. The Latina picked up on her last couple of words as she walked in.

"Relaxing weekend? Did you finally get laid?" her colleague teased her with a smirk.

Luke let out a cackle and high-fived Maria as she sat down next to him.

"Possible. Did you?" Nina asked back, propping her head up on her hands as she threw Maria a complete innocent look. "You know that sex goes down after you get married. How are those wedding preparations getting along by the way?" she asked conversationally.

"Meow!" Luke commented Nina's remark.

"You're going to go shopping for a wedding dress this week with me as a punishment for that comment," Maria told her, sternly pointing her index finger at her friend. She knew her well enough by now to be aware that she wasn't the type of girl who would rejoice at the thought of diving head first into a world consisting of frilly dresses, flower bouquets and pink icing on cakes. To her great surprise Nina's reaction was different than she would have imagined.

"Really?" her colleague smiled at her. "I'd love to."

"You're pulling my leg," Maria gave her an incredulous look.

"No, no, really. I think it's going to be fun. Us two hunting for your wedding dress? Those shop assistants should better watch out and hide away those free glasses of champagne," Nina smiled and spun around in her chair once before she jumped to her feet, ready to get her second cup of coffee this morning. She usually had one at home and a second one just before she delved into her workload.

"You are really seeing someone, aren't you?" Maria asked her, leaning forward in her chair curiously. Luke was on the edge of his seat too, waiting for Nina's answer.

She just smirked at her two colleagues. "Who else wants a cup of coffee?"

Luke let out a groan and Maria just smiled. They both knew now that they wouldn't get the desired information out of her this way. She was quite stubborn.

They would have to draw their conclusions from watching her and content themselves with whatever little morsel of information she was ready to throw their way.

Nina's high spirits lasted precisely until the group meeting. Her smiles were toothy and bright and her mood disgustingly positive, but then she laid eyes on Mike again that good mood disappeared. As always when entering the conference room, she squared her shoulders and became rather alert.

Luke, Maria and Nina sat down at their usual places in the corner of the room and watched the rest of the team file in. Nina eyes remained fixed on Mike. She didn't like the way he was looking at her. It was like he was plotting something.

With Dickson's arrival the meeting rolled off. They were talking about the show in one weeks from now. The most basic things about it had been settled already, but some details still needed sorting out.

"Barrett, Sheamus, Henry," Dickson called out eventually.

Nina raised her hand with a grin and gave her Mark Henry's writer, the guy was called Vince and was in his fifties, a friendly nod.

"Tell us about what you've got planned for the match next Monday. We've got Barrett vs Sheamus with a little bit of Henry in the mix, right?" Dickson summed up the situation.

"Exactly. Sheamus vs Henry is one of the main events of Extreme Rules, so we can't have the Celtic Warrior lose against Barrett. But it needs to be a tough fight because Wade needs to go on to fight against the Miz and Fandango eventually. We need to make them both look good."

"We'll bring Mark out after the fight and let him kick Sheamus' butt all over the place," Vince explained. For once Nina didn't quite know how to feel about that particular piece of information though it was something both Vince and her had discussed before the weekend. Some of those hits Steve would be at the receiving end of would probably hurt.

She shook those doubts off and regarded Dickson. He had said nothing yet.

"Saying that Henry will be kicking his ass is perhaps a bit imprecise. Could you elaborate? We need to spice things up before Extreme Rules," Dickson gave to think.

"Mark could bring out one of those straps for the Strap Match we've got planned for Extreme Rules and whip him with it. It would look great and those straps are pretty well padded so the risk of injury would be minimal...," Nina supplied.

Dickson nodded. She could tell he liked the idea. Unfortunately it was precisely that moment that Mike chose to open his mouth.

"Sorry, guys. But it's not called Extreme Rules for nothing. How about we replace that strap with a leather belt?"

Nina could have sworn there was the ghost of a triumphant smirk on Mike's face. She, however, had trouble keeping her facial expression neutral. She would not allow Stephen to be whipped with a belt just because it would look better on TV.

She got out of her chair. "Mike," the way she said his name made a bit of the dislike she felt towards him shine through, "I'm not sure we should risk the health of one of our main-eventers at this point of time. Extreme Rules is only a couple of weeks away. Besides I don't think he'll be up for it." The last sentence was a lie. Unfortunately Stephen was always up for anything extreme. That's probably what had landed him the job with the WWE.

Mike seemed to know that as well. "It looks like you don't know Steve all that well. Luckily I do. He'll do it. I'm sure of it. And as for those risks you are so afraid of? He's a wrestler. Guys like him are bound to sustain multiple fractured bones in their careers. The worst that can happen to him are a few welts. Those will not keep him from competing at Extreme Rules."

Nina's eyes sparkled at Mike across the table dangerously. She eventually turned her head to look at Dickson, awaiting his final verdict.

"Sorry, Nina, I gotta go with Mike this time. You get on the phone with Stephen after this and try to convince him to do it."

She nodded slowly, suddenly feeling sort of numb. Talk about repercussions on her work! About a month ago this phone call wouldn't have been that much of a problem. Alright, who was she kidding? That was a lie. She often tended to forget that sports entertainment was a bit different from the job she had worked in before. When actors had to film a scene where they got into a car crash, they didn't really have to get into a car crash. When a Wrestler received a beating with a belt, he would receive a beating with a belt. She would have been worried even before she had gotten emotionally compromised.

This would turn out to be one of the hardest phone calls of her life, because now her personal interests were conflicting with what was best for her professional future. She didn't even pay attention to what was said the rest of the meeting. She was busy working out what she was supposed to tell Stephen when she got on the phone with him later.

The meeting closed with Dickson's usual salute. "Thank you, guys! See you all on Thursday."

She got up from her chair and fought through the stream of colleagues wanting to leave the conference room. Someone bumped against her shoulder with quite a lot of force. "Ow!" she cried out and rubbed it, looking around to find out whoever had rammed her. She saw Mike throw her an evil smirk over his shoulder as he walked away. Of course...

She continued to make her way over to Dickson who was busy collecting his paperwork.

"Erm, boss...?" she tried to get his attention.

The older man looked up at her. "How can I help you?"

"I know this is kind of short notice, but I wanted to ask whether I could get Monday and Tuesday off next week. I haven't taken any vacation yet and I clocked in quite a bit of extra hours over the last couple of weeks..."

He shot her an appraising look. It took a couple of seconds before he answered. "You know we've got a PPV event coming up and there's lots of work to be done..."

"Yeah, I know. I wouldn't be dropping off the face of the earth. I'd have my computer and cellphone with me..."

Another long pause. "Alright," he begrudgingly agreed.

"Thank you," she forced a smile at him, her mind already occupied with that phone call she would have to make now.

She made a little detour to her office and stuck her head in to tell Luke and Maria she was off for her lunch-break. She needed somewhere away from curious ears to talk to Steve, so she headed down to her car.

Nina closed the door behind her and took a deep breath, mentally going over what she was going to tell him once he picked up the phone. "Shit!" she swore in desperation and lightly bumped her head against the steering wheel. With a deep sigh she eventually dialed his number. One ring, two rings, three... He picked up.

Even before he said "hello" she could tell where he was. His breathing was quick, in the background there was the sound of a heavy metallic weight being placed on another metallic object. The gym.

"Hey," he greeted her slightly out of breath.

"Hey," she said back, her voice sounding somewhat clipped and forced. "I need to talk with you about something business related," Nina pressed out quickly before he got the chance to say something that would make it harder for her to go through with what she needed to do.

"Okay," he said, sounding a bit uncomfortable. The noises of the gym in the background had faded now. Wherever he was now made his voice sort of echoey over the line.

"Where are you?" she asked curiously.

"The locker room, in case I need to sit down," he said.

She paused, trying to find the right words to be able to say what needed to be said while he was waiting. She could hear the rustle of fabric over the line. Perhaps he was drying himself off with a towel.

"You still there?" he asked eventually.

"Yeah," she said in a small voice.

"Listen if it helps any... The audience went nuts about that prank from last night. When Ziggler walked out with that Diva's championship belt around his hips, everyone was laughing their arses off..."

She smiled despite herself. "Did you talk to Kaitlyn first? She seems like a nice girl, I don't want her to feel bad for switching her belt against Ziggler's."

"All settled," he told her. "Now out with it! What did you want to tell me?"

"I don't think there is a right way to tell you..."

"Well, then just say it. You're making me start to worry I'm fired..."

"You're not fired. It would be McMahon calling you, not me," she said evenly.

"Nice. Feeling better already. Now spill..."

"Alright, keep in mind that I'm talking to you now solely as your writer and not in any other... capacity."

"Hmmm. What's that other capacity again? I think we haven't talked about that yet...," he was joking despite the seriousness of the situation. That was so typically him. She felt a wave of affection for him.

"Not now, Steve," she admonished him gently.

It was difficult enough to have this conversation with him as it was. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but they just wouldn't come out. There was really no easy way of asking someone whether he would agree to being whipped with a belt on a worldwide TV-show. "Aaaaargh!" she groaned in frustration. "Get yourself together, Nina!" She muttered under her breath. He didn't make a sound. No chuckle, no comment, no nothing. He just waited, which was just the right thing to do to finally get her talking.

"Okay, listen," she managed finally. "After your match with Stu they want to bring Mark Henry out. His appearance is supposed to spice up things for Extreme Rules. I wanted to have him carry one of those straps you are going to be using for the Strap Match and start whipping you with that. They are all padded and stuff, so I figured there was a minimal risk of injury..." She heard him hum his approval over the line. "The problem's just that the rest of the team thought my idea wasn't extreme enough. They want to replace that strap with a leather belt. Now I'm supposed to get your approval for that idea..."

Silence. She waited for him to say something. She wanted him so badly to say "no" to this that she lost her patience after the first couple of seconds had passed.

"As your writer I say "Go for it, if you think you can pull it off without too much of a risk." In my other capacity I say "Tell them to go fuck themselves!"," a little of the irritation and anger she had felt during the meeting shone through in those last words and gave her voice a certain vehemence.

"I get that," he said finally, sounding somewhat tired.

"So what do you want to do?"

"Me job, of course," he sighed. He seemed to be aware that his answer had the potential to make her even angrier, but her next words made clear that there was no danger of that.

"You know what? I kind of already saw that coming," her voice was filled with resignation and a bit of extra reproach added in the mixed. He waited for her to start nagging him about how he could be so daft as to agree to being whipped with a belt on live TV by the World's Strongest Man. To his surprise she refrained from lecturing him about that. The line was completely silent for a while.

"Hello? Are you still there?" he asked eventually.

"You know how other woman would kick your ass for being an unreasonable idiot?" He noticed that she had been swearing a lot in the last couple of minutes, he wrote it off to her being extremely irritated.

"Yeah...," he said cautiously.

"I've just asked Dickson to give me Monday and Tuesday off, so I can be waiting for you backstage to help you rub your stupid back with some aloe lotion after Henry's whipped you into oblivion." Now she really sounded pissed off.

He smirked and that smirk even transported into his voice. "Maybe I should agree to stuff like that more often."

Her voice was so loud when she replied, he actually had to hold away the phone from his ear in order not to go deaf. "Don't you fucking dare! If you think I'll watch you turn into a second Mike Foley, you have another thing coming, mister!" She was positively fuming with anger now.

"Calm down!" he told her.

"Maybe later," she said grumpily. "I'll definitely need some ice cream and Scotch when I'm home tonight..."

"You're angry," he observed.

"I'm livid," she corrected.

"At me?" Stephen asked cautiously.

"Only some very, very small irrational part of me. I kind of have a rather precise idea of what it is you're doing for a living, Steve. The person I'm mostly angry at is me actually...," she sighed.

"Why?"

"Cause I shouldn't allow my feelings for you to interfere with my job..." Nina spoke those words very cautiously and deliberately.

"What kind of feelings?" he asked leaning back against the locker behind him. This conversation was becoming more and more interesting.

"The kind of feelings that make me feel sick to the stomach when I see you get hurt, okay?" The "okay" at the end and the sentence was very sharp and an admonition to leave that subject alone for now.

"Okay," he said softly.

"Okay," she agreed. A couple of seconds passed without them saying anything.

"Are you sure you want me to come? I've just waltzed all over you and told you that I would. Do you even want me there?"

"Luv...," now his voice sounded rather exasperated. "You've got to be completely off your nut to be thinking I don't want you there. The day that will happen, pigs will fly..." His Irish accent had grown proportionately thicker with his rising level of agitation.

"Alright. Thanks, I guess. Then I'd better head back to work and get myself a plane ticket to Virginia, huh? When do you get there?"

"Around Sunday morning," he said.

"When's a good time for me to be arriving there as well?"

"Anything in the early afternoon should be fine. Give me a call later," he grinned.

"Count on it," she replied and hung up.

As she got off the plane she could help but wonder whether airports would become a recurring theme in their relationship. As Nina stood next to the baggage claim conveyor belt, her right foot tapping a nervous rhythm on the floor, she looked around to see who was waiting with her. She saw small families, businessmen and college students. Next to her a fashionably dressed woman picked up her Louis Vuitton suitcase from the conveyor belt. She was wearing high heels and a skirt and looking so good that Nina inevitably started tugging at her own clothes.

Nina had a loose fitting black shirt on that slipped down one of her shoulders and revealed the straps of a black camisole. Her tight jeans were faded and ripped in a couple of places. When she reached for her own suitcase, the multiple silver bracelets she wore on her right wrist made a soft metallic noise. This was one of her most comfortable outfits. Something she would never wear to work because it was more fit for a rock concert than the office. She lowered her shades to her nose. Today she felt rather vulnerable. Better not let anyone see her eyes.

Anyone who knew her a little, would have been able to tell that something was off, because the tougher her facade, the more fragile she felt on the inside. In that respect she was like one of those tiny rat-like dogs which always bark extra loud, because they want to compensate for their lack of strength.

Nina walked down the customs corridor and finally through those sliding doors that separated the arriving travelers from the rest of the airport. She looked around for her one-man-welcoming-committee. After the first couple of steps through the door she spotted him. He was dressed like a chauffeur, sporting a black suit, a white shirt, a black tie, a black flat cap and dark sunglasses. When her eyes fell on the sign he was holding, she had to laugh for the first time in hours. It read: "Driving Ms Stewart".

Her steps quickened since she was rather eager to get past that metallic railing that still separated her from him. Thanks to her own flat shoes she managed to overtake the fashionable woman she had stood next to at the baggage claim conveyor belt. Out of the corner of her eyes she watched her approach an equally fashionable man in a two-piece-suit. They hugged and kissed, which seemed sort of odd because they looked so immaculate it seemed like they had jumped straight off the pages of some fashion magazine. She was ripped out of those thoughts rather painfully when someone rolled a suitcase over her foot and she jumped out of the way as three children, who were screaming "Daddy! Daddy!", were barreling towards the man, walking next to her.

At the end of the railing she turned right, looking for Stephen among the crowd of people. She found him in no time. He was standing right in front of her now, grinning at her as she nearly collided with his massive chest.

"Miss Stewart...," he said. "I'll be driving you today." She saw a flash of his blue eyes as he looked at her over the edge of those sunglasses. To finally see him again after one week of phone calls and countless texts was exciting and wonderful and somewhat strange. There were butterfly in her stomach. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, not able to do more because they were in a public place.

He pulled her closer by positioning his hand on the small of her back. The gesture of intimacy sort of belied his formal attire. The heat of his palm radiated through her top or perhaps that was only her imagination playing up. Anyway she couldn't help but wonder why her senses always seemed to be so hypersensitive whenever he was involved. The simplest of touches was enough to cause her a pleasant shudder.

Her nostrils quivered as she inhaled his cologne and she almost sighed. There was no denying that she was rather into this man and that she had missed him.

"You look really nice in a suit," she whispered to him when she slowly pulled back. "Playing dress up to blend in?"

"Aren't you a clever one? You don't look too bad yourself," he complimented her, smirking as he picked up her suitcase. "Come on," he took her by the hand and tugged her towards the exit. She complied with a smile on her face.

He had gotten a rental car; some black SUV that looked like one of the guys from Criminal Minds or CSI would have loved to get his hands on. Without further ado he put her suitcase in the trunk and they got inside the car.

He was about to turn the key in the ignition, but her fingers closed around his wrist and stopped him. He looked at her. She had pushed her own sunglasses up into her hair and now her face came closer as she leaned over to gently remove the shades from his nose as well. "There you are," she said with a smile.

She saw the expression change on his face. It happened slowly and subtly. His features shifted from neutral and sort of aloof to gentle and smiling as he moved closer to her. His advance stopped at a very short distance from her. His eyes were wandering over her face. She could feel his breath on her skin when he exhaled. The color of his eyes was especially bright today. Had they always been like this?

"I've missed you," he finally admitted.

Instead of an answer she closed the distance between them. Her lips met his in a soft caress that was short, but memorable thanks to its tenderness. "I've missed you too," she clarified when she pulled back.

He shook his head as if to get himself out of daze. "Be a love and remind me, who was I again and what did I want in life except for kissing you?" he threw her a smile that made her insides melt, nevertheless it didn't manage to make her forget why she was here. If anything it only made her recall the reason for her being here more clearly.

"Gladly. You're Stephen. You are a crazy Irish dude who likes to clobber people and takes unnecessary risks. I'm Nina. And right now I'm kind of worried for you and your mental health because you think getting your ass whooped by some big, angry Texan sounds like a fun idea," she summed up the situation with a healthy does of irony. Irony was her last refuge in a situation like this.

"Ah, now I remember. You're that contrary girl who always talks back and has a nag for destroying the mood, right?" he joked.

"Yeah, that's me alright. The bossy bitch who just flew a couple of hundred miles to see you. How about a little thankfulness now?" Her tone was light, but there was a subtle tension in it as well.

"I am glad to see you," he told her in all honesty.

"As I am to see you. I just would have like it to be under different circumstances..."

"Anything I can do to make you less irritable?" he sighed.

"I don't know...," she gave him a speculative look. "Food usually helps. Lunch... How 'bout you buy me lunch?"

He nodded and started the car.