It was the next morning, and Natalie walked out of her guest room to find Stephen passed out on the couch in the living room with an empty bottle of wine, snoring very loudly. She looked at him, perplexed, trying to figure out if she should wake him up or quietly tiptoe around him to get to the kitchen. Peter had left early that morning for band rehearsal, so it was just the two of them in the house. As Natalie mapped out her route, she figured the kitchen noise would wake Stephen up anyway, so she walked toward the couch, took the bottle from his hand, and nudged him gently.

"Stephen…" she whispered. "Stephen, wake up."

"No…no…Judy…gimme five more minutes…" was the slurred reply Natalie received.

"It's not Judy, it's me, Natalie," she said, a little louder.

"N—Natalie?" moaned Stephen. He opened his eyes, finally, and saw the girl's blurry image floating above him like an angel. "Mornin' beautiful," he said.

Natalie raised her eyebrow. "Morning," she said. "Did you drink that whole bottle of wine yesterday?"

"Yup," said Stephen, sitting up. "Oral fixation." He saw Natalie trying not to grin at the out-of-context meaning of his phrase and quickly turned red. "Oops…I—uh—I didn't mean—"

"I know Stephen, you're fine," said Natalie. "You just woke up. Now come on, I was just going to figure out what I was going to have for breakfast." She walked into the kitchen and saw that Stephen still had his ass firmly set on the couch. "Stephen, aren't you going to get some breakfast? You haven't had anything but that wine since last night, I'm sure."

"It's cool, it's cool," said Stephen, clumsily getting up. He felt a little groggy, but overall, not terribly hung over. Probably because he passed out right away. "Why are people so obsessed with breakfast anyway?"

"It's the most important meal of the day!" said Natalie, making way for Stephen to enter the room. "Now come on, let's figure something out." She started rummaging through the cabinets. Stephen watched her and his overwhelming guilt about the day before crept up on him. Natalie looked over at him. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Man Nat, I'm so sorry about yesterday," said Stephen. "I set you off…Peter didn't tell me exactly what's going on with you, but I should know enough not to be patronizing when I see you just crash like that."

"It's okay Stephen," said Natalie. "I know that Peter never told you what was happening and I shouldn't have snapped. I spoke to Peter about it afterwards, and I still feel really bad. Although you were being quite an arse."

"That I was," said Stephen. He was fighting with the idea of telling Natalie about Peter's upcoming tour with The Monkees overseas, but he didn't want to upset her again…on the other hand, he knew Peter couldn't hold it off forever. His heart was pounding, and he was just about to draw a breath with Natalie spoke.

"I'm telling you, I don't know what I'm gonna do when Peter leaves me alone with you when he goes on tour," she said.

Stephen's mouth went slack for a moment but he regained control. "So…you knew?" he said.

Natalie looked over at him, pulling a face. "Uh…yeah," she said. "He told me the first day I got here."

Stephen wheezed out a laugh, clapped his hands over his mouth, and his eyes grew wide and sparkled mischievously. "Oh. My. God," he said. "He totally forgot!"

"He did!" said Natalie in disbelief.

"He was so worried about you!" said Stephen.

"Oh no!" squealed Natalie. The two were completely dissolved in laughter, and, by that time, they had completely forgotten about breakfast. "Om my God…should we tell him then? So he doesn't worry?"

"Are you kidding?" said Stephen. "I think we should milk this for as long as we can, this is hilarious!"

"Oh, come on Stephen, don't be so mean," said Natalie. "Peter's worried enough about me already, it's no wonder he forgot."

"Yeah…but still, you've gotta admit it is pretty damn funny," said Stephen. Natalie rolled her eyes and walked out to the living room to sit down on the couch. "Hey Natalie, whatever happened to the most important meal of the day?"

"Eh, not hungry so much anymore," said Natalie.

"Ok," said Stephen, sitting next to Natalie on the couch. He felt her soft hair brush slightly against his skin and goosebumps formed on his arm. He tried to shut out the memory of her sensually moaning his name yesterday; he didn't want to bring that back and embarrass either of them for it. Natalie looked up at Stephen, who was just staring straight forward, right passed their awkward silence. Naturally, Natalie was rather embarrassed about how she acted when Peter and Stephen found her yesterday, but she had no idea Stephen knew more. That—she thought—was still a secret that she would probably take to her grave. Although…Stephen was still a very attractive man.

Stephen turned to look at Natalie now, trying to snap out of it. "So…whatcha thinking?" he asked.

"N—nothing," said Natalie. She dared not tell him what was on her mind. She was starting to feel very strange around him. "Do—did you want to do something?"

"Well…I do have to post a letter," said Stephen. "Why don't you come with me?"

"Yeah, sure, that sounds fantastic," said Natalie, standing up, feeling rid of most of the tension. "Let's post that letter. Who's it for?"

"My girlfriend," said Stephen, feeling very strange calling Judy that title around Natalie.

"Oh, you mean Judy?" asked Natalie, her eyes brightening. Stephen felt a little down seeing the object of his budding affection get so excited about Judy, but he tried his best to mask it. If Judy made Natalie feel better, whatever was bothering her, he shouldn't do anything to ruin it.

"Yep," said Stephen. "Gonna see if I can get her to come around here. Peter thinks it's a good idea."

"Why would it be his idea?" asked Natalie.

Stephen nearly smacked himself. Why did he put his foot in his mouth like that? Shouldn't it be Stephen himself hat wanted his girl around? "Just—just cause she's done with her tour and stuff, it'd be good to see her," he finally said, holding his breath. He couldn't let Natalie know what he was starting to feel about her. Peter would kill him, Judy would be devastated, and Natalie…there was really no telling what would happen. She seemed happy enough now, but as he saw before, she could snap in an instant if something triggered her.

"Well that's good then," said Natalie. "Let me just get fixed up and we can go."

"Yeah, I should do that too," said Stephen. The two headed off their separate ways to get ready for the day.

At the rehearsal studio:

"No, no, no!" exclaimed Monkees guitarist Michael Nesmith in frustration. "I keep telling you Micky, don't fuck with the vocal harmony, it's perfectly fine the way it is! This damn close to the gig, unbelieveable…"

"Jesus Mike, who died and put you in charge?" asked Micky Dolenz from behind the drumset. Peter just sighed and sat down to tambourine-toting Davy Jones. This was going to be another long-winded rehearsal jerk-off session with Mike at the helm again.

"Chip, when he left the room and said, 'hey, Mike, why don't you lead the rehearsal why I go take a piss?'," said Mike. The four were rehearsing in a relatively small studio with a wet sound, so everyone's voices, no matter how raised, reverberated off the walls and straight into everyone else's' ears. It wasn't the ideal place to rehearse, but it was the only place they could get.

"For the love of God guys, will you stop your row and get on with the rehearsal, we need it," said Davy. "Tell 'em Peter, you're better at this than I am."

"Shut up and listen to Davy," said Peter, standing up and adjusting his bass guitar. "We have work to do."

"Geez Peter, what's on your mind?" asked Micky.

"Natalie's back in town," said Peter. Micky and Davy seemed pretty excited; they had really liked Natalie, but Mike didn't say much. Thanks to his tenseness, the two of them didn't really get along well. It was no fault of theirs though; their personalities just clashed.

"That's great Pete, it's been ages since we've seen her, how is she?" asked Davy.

"Not so good," said Peter. "She came cause she's…going through some stuff right now, and I'm just worried about her. I left her with Stephen today, I just hope she's not too down."

"I'm sure she's fine," said Micky. "Stephen's a likeable guy, I'm sure he's keeping her happy."

Hopefully not too happy, thought Peter. He knew how Stephen saw her, and he had an idea that Natalie was attracted to him to say the least…he knew in the end he couldn't do anything to stop it, but he was starting to feel pangs of jealousy whenever he thought of it. Not to mention either of them getting involved with anyone right now would be a terrible idea.

"She'll be okay," said Peter finally. "I'm sure she'd like to see you guys, that might cheer her up some too."

"I'm sure it would," said Mike, feeling tense. "But we really do need to practice guys. Sorry I was so tense before, but we need to be at it when Chip comes back."

"But Mike, we've been at it for hours, surely we can have a bit of a break?" whined Micky. Mike gave him a glare and Micky shrugged. "Can't win 'em all, I guess."

"No, ya can't," said Mike. "Come on, we've gotta get on with it. And Mick?"

"Yep?" said Micky.

"Leave the harmony alone buddy," said Mike, shaking his head. Micky sighed and silently agreed. Peter got closer to the rest of the band so he could better participate, and the practice started up again. He needed to tell Natalie he was leaving when he came back home. He just hoped she could take it.

At the post office:

"There we go," said Stephen, putting the finishing touches on his letter to Judy. "Lemme just get this in an envelope…I guess a stamp wouldn't hurt either, right Nat?"

"Well, how else would you send it?" asked Natalie, sipping on the coke Stephen had bought her on the way to the post office. He really was a sweet guy. Judy was sure lucky to have him.

"True…" said Stephen. He got his letter together and put it into the mailbox. "There we go…hopefully she'll get that soon and you can get a chance to meet her." Hopefully nothing would go wrong with that meeting…he might need to keep the pot away from Natalie for the time being.

"That would be lovely," said Natalie with a smile. She was genuinely excited about meeting her idol; she hoped she was as nice as she heard from everyone. "What next?"

"Peter's gonna be back home soon," said Stephen. "We should get back home before he does—don't want him to freak out. He's really protective of you, ya know."

"Yeah, he is," said Natalie, following Stephen out of the post office. "I reckon more protective of me than my parents could ever be!" She was trying to be cheerful, but the mention of her parents only reminded her that her family would never be the same again. She only hoped that when she found real love, it wouldn't have ended like that. She had to stop again, thinking about love—Freddie seemed so real. Why did it end like it did? Her sudden roller coaster of feelings seemed to knock her off her feet, and she felt a lump catch in her throat. Stephen took notice of her sudden change in demeanor.

"Natalie, are you ok?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

"I—I'll be fine," said Natalie. "A lot just hit me at once, you know? I reckon it'll be like that for a while."

"Natalie, if you want to talk about what happened—" said Stephen.

"Just…a lot," said Natalie as they got into Stephen's car. "Family, exes, a lot."

"It must've been a lot to make you come all the way here from London," said Stephen as they pulled out of the parking lot and into the street.

Natalie laughed bitterly. "It just all hit home," she said.

"Well," said Stephen, "I'm glad to see you open up to me." He really was; he didn't know all of what happened, but he did know that he wanted Natalie to be happy. He hadn't known her for long, but romantic intentions on her end or not, he felt like they were making a connection.

"I feel comfortable around you, Stephen," said Natalie, looking at him as he kept his eyes on the road. He had a rather nice profile; a pointed nose, in quite contrast to Freddie's round, stubby one. "You're a sweet man."

Stephen blushed. "Aw…well…I guess I can be," he stuttered, flustered by the girl's complement. "You ain't so bad yourself."

"Thank you," said Natalie.

"And Nat?" said Stephen.

"Yes?" answered Natalie.

"I know you don't know me that well, but if you ever want to talk more about what happened, I'm there for you," said Stephen.

"Of course," said Natalie. "I get the feeling I can trust you." They pulled into the driveway of the house, and saw that Peter's car was already in the driveway.

"Hm…I guess practice ran a little shorter than usual," said Stephen. "I hope nothing happened, I've heard the guys like to bicker now and again lately."

"I've been around them before too," said Natalie. "I've heard they have gotten a little tenser now though. Do you suppose we should give Peter a little time to cool down before we come barging in?"

"Nah," said Stephen, swatting his hand. "Peter would want to see you; he's probably going nuts at the thought of you and me alone. Let's go inside."

"If you say so," said Natalie, shrugging. Stephen took out his key and unlocked the door. Before Natalie could see inside, she heard the strumming of a guitar…or two? Stephen opened the door wider and she saw the players of said guitars. Other than the smiling, welcoming face of Peter, she saw the serious, somewhat smug, face of Mike Nesmith.

"Well hello Miss Marshall," said Mike, condescendingly.

"Well, well," said Natalie, crossing her arms, seeing Peter's grin disappear and Stephen's confused expression. "We meet again." This would be an interesting evening to say the very least.