Author's note: Thank you to UntilNeverDawns, ghunter182003 and Britty and everyone else who's read and enjoyed the story so far! Here's the next chapter.


They focused their attention back on the screen. Soon enough Ziggler was counted out after having been pinned by Bryan. She motioned him to follow her with a nudge of her head. He sighed and trudged after her with moderate enthusiasm. After a few steps they were right in front of the men's.

"You check whether the coast is clear, I don't want to see anything that could make me go blind," she told him. He smirked and popped his head into the men's.

"Coast's clear," he informed her and held the door open to her, beckoning her inside.

She confidently walked up to the large mirror that covered the wall behind the washing basins, then turned around to look at him. "This will do," she announced. A woman on a mission, she had forgotten about being shy around him. She grabbed a hold of his shoulders and maneuvered him to stand with his back leaned against the counter.

"Why do you have to be so impossibly tall?" she muttered more to herself than to him.

He grinned and scooted lower, so that they were almost on eye level. She came closer, invading his personal space by positioning her feet left and right of his outstretched legs and taking off his cap again.

"Hold that!" She thrusted his hat at him. Nina was sort of bossy when she was focused. He smirked. He kind of like that.

"Yes, ma'am." His remark got him a smile. He grinned back at her, squaring his shoulders.

She produced the hair-gel from her bag and dipped her fingers into the sticky substance. The strong and sort of pungent smell of coconut hit his nostrils. He grimaced.

"Alright, let's get this done with. Lucky for you me ego's big enough, so I can live with smelling like a cabana boy all evenin'," he commented and watched her eyes narrow at him in disapproval. Despite the intense coconut smell, he also caught a whiff of her perfume. It was sweet and sort of reminded him of cotton candy. Under the artificial light her skin seemed rather pale, just like his. And that up close he could even see a few freckles dusting her nose.

At first she ran her fingers through his hair tentatively, trying to make it stick up in the right direction. A slight grin tugged at her mouth when she succeeded. She grew bolder, her touches turning from tentative to more self-assured.

He had to admit this was sort of nice, having her standing there, running her fingers through his hair. His eyes were still on her as she was busy fixing his hair. He took his time studying her. There was a little scar at the end of her left eyebrow. She wore three earrings on one side and only one on the other. Under the fluorescent light he could see her eyes were not completely brown as he had initially thought, but there were flecks of green in them where the irises met her pupils.

She must have felt his eyes on her because their gazes suddenly locked. Her fingers stopped running through his hair. A smile started spreading on her face. It was sort of exasperate like she was smiling at a naughty boy she had caught doing something he shouldn't have. She patted his cheek, using the back of her hand instead of her palm in order to avoid getting any of that hair-gel on him.

"All done now, you handsome Irish devil," she said and took a step back.

He turned around, inspecting himself in the mirror. His hair was spiked up and looked like he usually wore it; just that she had been quicker about styling it and had done a better job at it than him in general.

"Well, I'll be damned...," he turned his head left and right, continuing his inspection.

"We're not done yet," she said from behind him.

His eyes fell on her reflection in the mirror, taking in her maniacal grin with concern.

She produced a small can of hairspray from her bag. "Close your eyes and hold your breath," she instructed.

"What?" he chuckled nervously. He whipped around, retreating a bit from her and the can, "Are you going to kiss me?"

At that she lowered the can she was brandishing like a weapon. "Farrelly, if I wanted to kiss you, I certainly wouldn't be dragging you to the men's of all places..." She raised the can again and took one more step in his direction. His back collided with the counter behind him. There was no place to run. Who would have thought that he would be fleeing from a cheeky girl with a hairspray can in her hand come Wrestlemania 29? Certainly not him.

"Where would you be dragging me off to then?" He tried to distract her. Instead of an answer she raised the can to his head. The loud 'pfffff' sound of the hairspray being applied mixed with his coughs.

"You're good to go," she announced in a self-congratulatory and proud voice.

He waved his hand in front of his face and theatrically coughed some more.

"Now would be a good time to say thank you," Nina smirked.

"Thank you," he said and laid his arm around her shoulder to pull her into a brief hug against his chest. He was tempted to ruffle her hair, but she stopped him before he could set that plan into motion.

"Don't even think about it, Farrelly," she told him, looking at him through narrowed eyes.

He raised his hands, pleading innocence while backing away from her a little with a smile on his face.

"What about your cap?" she asked, spotting it lying on the counter behind them.

He shrugged. "I'm certainly not going to put it on anymore."

She walked over to pick it up and inspect it. It was a simple black flat cap. On a whim she decided to try it on. She gave herself a critical once over in the mirror. It didn't look that bad on her. Actually it looked rather nice.

He seemed to be thinking something along the same lines. "You keep it. Looks better on you anyway," he told her reflection with a smile.

"Don't you want it back?"

He gave the question some thought, then shook his head. "Nah! It suits you."

"Thanks, I guess," she smiled.

They exited the men's together. He inevitably stopped walking only seconds later, realizing that they would now part ways for tonight.

Apparently she had come to the same realization as well. "I'll be heading back to my other friends then...," she told him almost a bit regretfully.

The fact that she had said "other friends" and the implications of her unintentional slip of tongue didn't escape his notice. So she saw him as a friend. He grinned at her, feeling more invigorated now than he rightfully should, seeing as he had gone through a tough match earlier tonight.

"Yeah, Orton is probably going to send out a search and rescue team for me round about now... See you tomorrow then?" he asked, looking at her expectantly.

"If you text me where and when, I'll be there," she winked at him and left.

Stephen was still smiling by the time he returned to where he had last seen his friends. In the meantime Randy had gotten some company. There was Mizanin lounging comfortable on the couch and Alberto, but no trace of Mike.

Orton acknowledged his return with a sly grin. The others nodded at him. They exchanged compliments. "Good match!" Mizanin said. Stephen slapped him on the shoulder. "Yeah, you too, mate." "Hey Berto, did you kick Swagger's arse?" Stephen inquired with a grin. If the Mexican's million-dollar-smile was any indication, he had. "Sì, we gave them a good show."

There was a no match right now, the TV transmission had gone into a commercial break, and for that reason conversation was possible. "Hey, Orton," Stephen addressed the other man, "where's Mike?"

Randy's mouth curled into a crooked smile. "He left when you disappeared with that writer-chick. Nina or something?" he told him with a shrug.

"Jericho's daughter?" Mizanin asked. He could tell his interest was piqued by the way he was grinning like a Cheshire Cat. "Hey, do you two have something going on?"

Stephen fixed first Mizanin, then the other men with a stern gaze. "No, there's nothing going on between us. She just a friend," he said in a tone of voice that made clear he didn't want them to keep making comments like that.

"So what did you do with 'just a friend' in the men's?" Orton asked calmly. He wasn't scared of Stephen's wrath. He knew the Irishman had a temper, but so had he. In fact the grin on his face indicated that he took a considerable degree of pleasure in asking that particular question.

Mizanin's eyes grew round, Alberto looked at him expectantly.

"Nothing. She fixed me hair. See?" Stephen indicated his freshly styled red hair that still gave off a strong coconut smell.

"Yeah, dude, she fixed something alright," Mizanin laughed and his comment made Stephen briefly consider whether he wanted to lift him up and smash him through a bistro table or any other piece of furniture within in reach.

"There's nothing going on between us...," he repeated with a little more vehemence now. He was fuming. A slight pinkish hue was threatening to spread on his face.

The other men knew Stephen rather well by now, spending months on the road together would do that to you, therefore it was easy for them to read him correctly. One more smart-ass comment out of their mouths and he would explode. They had seen it before. It wasn't pretty.

Miz had always found it rather funny when the Irishman lost his cool, so he was already trying to come up with another clever comment. Randy was curious to see what would happen next. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his broad chest, ready to enjoy the show. Alberto, the most diplomatic among them, decided to take it upon himself to defuse the situation that Orton or Mizanin would only aggravate. He stood up and walked up next to Stephen. "Hey, buddy," the very American word sounded strange in his heavy Spanish accent, "wanna go and grab a nice, cold beer?"

Stephen regarded him for a moment, then nodded.


Apparently Wrestlemania was something like Christmas in the WWE universe. After the massive feat of having to put together Raw and Wrestlemania, most of the creative team had a day off for some much needed r&r.

Nina doubted that training with Stephen would even remotely resemble rest or relaxation. Her heart sped up a little and she couldn't help but feel ridiculous when she entered the testosterone laden environment of the gym. She saw a lot of famous faces when she entered and unfortunately they saw her too and she received some odd looks. She kept her head low when she scurried past those sweaty weightlifting superstars and accelerated her tempo even more when she whisked past cardio.

The gym was basically one big hall. There were no walls separating the different areas from each other, perhaps because it was easier to get to people that way in case they sustained an injury, Nina reasoned.

The ring was on the other side of it. Stephen was already waiting for her there, his forearms resting on the top rope casually. "Hey," he greeted her.

"Hey," she said, depositing her bag a few meters away from the ring. She looked up at him, surprised to see him sporting a pair of track pants and his trademark gray "Brogue Kick" T-Shirt, instead of his usual wrestling gear.

"I like your shirt. Very positive," he commented with a grin, as she approached the ring. Since she had already expected this situation to be uncomfortable she had chosen to put on clothes she felt comfortable in. She was wearing black track pants and a matching black T-Shirt that showed Johnny Cash flipping the bird.

His comment made her chuckle. "Phew! That old thing? Glad you like it. I dressed up for you." She had climbed the few steps to the ring now and was hovering outside on the apron.

"Come on in," he tried to encourage her.

"You're not going to perform the White Noise on me once I do?" she asked half-teasing, half-serious.

He shook his head and grinned. "Come on," he repeated again, beckoning her to come closer with his index finger.

She climbed through the ropes. It looked sort of clumsy and for a moment he feared she would get tangled up in them, but then she was standing next to him without ending up like a fly caught in a spider's net. Her nervousness was rolling off of her in waves and he grabbed her ice cold hands for a second.

"Relax," he told her, his warm palms enclosing her sweaty and cold ones gently. "You're going to like this. First exercise - bounce off the ropes."

He let go of her hands and showed her. His movements were self-assured, if not a little cocky. It was clear he had done that a thousand times.

"You always bounce off with your back first. That is unless you want to kiss the mat outside 'hello'," he told her as he walked up to her again. "Now you go!"

Nina more trotted than ran towards the ropes. She let herself fall back into them back first, they gave away a little, then propelled her forward. Nina grinned and sped up as she made her way across the ring to the other side. The sound she let out when she bounced off the ropes a second time sounded deceptively like an excited and very enthusiastic "weeehee!". He chuckled and shook his head as he watched her go. The way she catapulted herself across the ring, she oddly reminded him of a human racquetball.

After a while however, he had seen enough. They couldn't just be doing that all afternoon. After all she wanted to teach her a few moves. "Oiii!" he called out and she obediently traipsed up to him.

"That was fun!" she grinned at him, reminding him a bit of a little overeager and playful puppy. That was probably why he decided to ruffle her hair.

She elbowed him in the ribs, obviously not liking it very much. He smirked. "That's the spirit, lass."

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled in mock annoyance, trying to suppress a smile of her own. "So what now?"

"Before we start. One thing...," he wrung his hands, unsure how to come out and say it. "Well, wrestling is a very hands-on sport..."

"Yeah, I've kind of noticed that already," she smirked. She had never seen him embarrassed or flustered before. It was kind of cute.

"Okay, so if you're very, I don't know... Shy? Private? Adverse to being touched? You might want to take a rain check on that whole me-teaching-you-the-basics-of-wrestling-idea," he explained, scratching the back of his head.

"It's okay, I think."

"Yeah?" he asked, unsure whether she really meant it. "Sure this is not going to end in a sexual harassment suit?"

She actually laughed at that. "Highly unlikely."

"Phew!" he made a show out of wiping his completely non-sweaty forehead.

"So what now?" she asked, shifting her weight on her feet.

"I'll show you how to punch someone in the face," he said. "Stand in front of me," he instructed.

Nina hesitated. He inclined his head and just gave her a look. Of course she was hesitant, after all she was unaware of how much of those moves he performed on a daily basis were actually real. "If it helps any, I'm not really going to punch you," he reassured her.

"Sure?" Nina asked.

He rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. "Course I'm bloody sure... But what do I know? It's not like I do this every day or somethin'."

"Alright, alright. Relax, you little hothead," she smiled. Nina complied and placed herself in front of him.

"We're going to do this very, very slowly. Like snail pace, okay?" he said. "Left foot forward," he stomped his left foot in order to emphasize his point. "Now you look down. No, not like that. Like that," he took a step closer and gently placed one hand between her shoulder blades and the other on her back to bring her in the right position.

He assumed his place in front of her from before. "Again, left foot forward. You throw the punch with your right. The fist moves in," he moved his own fist closer to her face, then stopped. His hand hovered a few inches from her nose in midair. "But you don't hit your opponent's face with your fist. You use your forearm to hit his chest." He moved back again.

"I'm going to show you the whole sequence now, okay?"

She nodded. He placed his hand on the back of her neck and executed the punch in slow motion.

"Got it?" he asked afterward. His tone of voice was lacking the usual self-assurances.

"Yep," she answered. "Can you speed it up?"

"'Course I can, but I'd rather let you watch, so you can take your time to memorize the movements." She acknowledged his words with a nod.

He turned and walked to the side of the ring closest to the cardio section. "Hey, Jericho!" he hollered. "Move your arse over here!" Soon an answering yell reached their ears from that cardio section of the gym, paired with some profanities. Nina only rolled her eyes. What did she expect? This was a nearly all male environment after all.

Seconds later Chris showed up at ring side.

"Hey, Daddy-O!" she greeted him with a teasing smile.

The blonde man threw her a cheeky grin and gracefully climbed up into the ring. "Play date with little Stephen here?"

"Little? I resent being called little," Stephen stepped in Chris' way. The other man merely a raised a teasing eyebrow, that cocky grin of his still in place.

"Don't all men," Nina muttered. Two pairs of eyes landed inevitably on her. Nobody had expected her to make that sort of comment.

"What?" she asked. They were still staring at her incredulously. "I just thought we could speed things up a little. For a second it looked like you were going to be derailed by verbally comparing the size of your genitalia. Can we please skip ahead? I'd rather learn something useful like, for example, how to strike someone."

If their expressions had been surprised before, they were now positively flabbergast. Stephen was the first to come out of his daze. He blinked, his shoulders started shaking before he finally erupted in laughter.

"Well, I've got bad news for you, fella, your daughter has quite a mouth on her," he laughed, slapping the other man on the back. Perhaps the slap had been executed with a little too much enthusiasm. Chris did a little jump when Stephen's hand connected with his shoulder blades. Nevertheless he was smiling too.

"She's taking after Daddy," he announced with a proud smirk.

"Gentlemen, please," Nina admonished leaning back against the ring post with her arms crossed over her chest. "I'm here to learn something..."

"She's kind of pushy too," Stephen observed with smirk.

"We better get started then before we end up in more trouble, huh?" Chris said and without any further warning he threw what looked like a perfectly real punch at Stephen.

Stephen immediately reciprocated. Now that she knew were to look she noticed the way they performed the move. Their fists never connected with the other's face.

"That is so cool!" she praised them, actually bouncing up and down on the spot thanks to her excitement. The two men exchanged grins.

"Now you come on over here and hit me," Stephen told her and motioned her to come closer.

"Oooh, so you like getting your ass kicked by a girl?" Jericho asked with a grin. He was already sauntering over to the corner of the ring from where he would watch the two of them. He hoisted himself up on the ropes and stretched out on them like he was launching on a futon .

"Ignore him," Stephen said to Nina who was now standing in front of him.

"Kind of hard. He's like a human exclamation mark. Especially when he's wearing that jacket with those flashing lights during show time," she quipped back.

"Ha! I kind of like that... human exclamation mark," Chris rubbed his chin.

"Yeah, sure you do," Stephen threw him an ironic smirk before he focused his attention back on Nina. "Now, let's try to concentrate, luv. You try to hit me now."

"Okay," she nodded and brought herself into position.

"First we'll go slow, then we'll speed it up. Human exclamation mark over there will tell you when you get something wrong." Chris threw Nina a mock salute. The young woman smiled.

She rolled her shoulders before she slowly extended her right arm in a punch, bringing up her elbow shortly before her fist would connect with his face. Her forearm landed against his chest without doing any damage.

"Okay, now we repeat this a couple of times..."

"How many?" she asked.

He narrowed his eyes pretending to be thinking hard whilst stroking his beard. "I don't know. How about twenty?"

"What?!" she looked at him with her mouth hanging open.

"You want to get it right, don't you?"

She nodded.

"There you go. Twenty times it is."

She sighed. There was no use protesting. He was the pro-wrestler and she was just someone who wanted to have a little sneak-peak into his world.

They assumed their positions from before. Chris started to count along. "One... Two... Three..." By the time they had reached ten, Nina felt confident enough to speed things up a little. That way she actually executed strike number 20 at full speed.

Oh my Gosh, what had she done now? Something had gone wrong! Stephen threw back his head with a cry of pain and covered his nose. Her eyes grew round in surprise as he staggered back a little and collapsed in the middle of the ring. "Stephen?" she asked doubtfully.

"Playing possum," Chris informed her.

"Sure?" she asked, looking between the seemingly unconscious Irishman and the other wrestler.

"I could climb top robe and quickly jump on his belly to check, if you want," he suggested with a devilish grin.

Nina made a face. That sounded painful. She shook her head, already walking up to the still motionless Irishman. She nudged his arm with the tip of her left trainer.

"I think it's dead, Jim," she told Chris.

She let out a loud rather girlish scream when suddenly Stephen's hand wrapped around her left ankle.

"I must have misheard. Have you just called me 'it', lass?" Stephen was already getting up again. There was that mad and very playful sparkle in his eyes that had her backing away from him.

"I have? Must be your hearing acting up, Stevie...," she took one more step back.

"Stevie!" Chris repeated, cackling gleefully.

"My hearing, ey? Stevie, ey?" Stephen was now standing directly in front of her with that slightly insane look still in his eyes.

Without a warning he scooped her up in a fireman's carry. She let out a loud squeal of protest as he marched to the middle of the ring with her on his shoulders. "So how does John Cena do that move again?" he called out to Chris, despite the fact that he knew perfectly well how John executed his finisher.

"No idea. Just throw her on the ground. That should do it," Chris suggested with a nonchalant shrug.

"Nooooo!" Nina squeaked from her position up on Stephen's shoulders. She expected to be hurled to the ground any second now, but instead Stephen gently placed her back on her feet.

"Don't ever call me Stevie again," he admonished her with a smile and pinched her cheek for emphasis.

She was breathing hard, apparently she had really been a bit scared, but she was smiling too. "You're such an ass," she told him and judging by the way she said it, her voice filled with affection and exasperation equally, it was meant as an endearment.

"Thank you, I try," he winked at her. "Wanna see some more moves or is your curiosity sated already?"

"What about that special move you perform when your opponent is standing outside on the apron?" she asked him.

He raised his eyebrows in astonishment. "You've been watching me matches?"

She gave him a look of exasperation. "Well, d'uh! I'm kind of interested in how you deliver the lines I give you, seeing as I write them..."

"And? Are you satisfied with his performance?" Chris sauntered up to them with a grin. No doubt he had deliberately made that double entendre.

"Wrestling is a man's world, huh? Focus, you guys," Nina admonished with a smile.

"So the chest-slappy-thing...?" she asked.

At that Stephen made a noise that sounded very much like a scoff. "Please, a little more respect. It's called the Beats of Bodhran."

"Alright," she amended, rolling her eyes in mock exasperation. "So if I may kindly ask, how are those Beats of Bodhan administered, Mr Farrelly?"

"Better," he grinned. "I'd show you, but that would definitely end up in a sexual harassment suit, luv," he told her, rubbing the back of his neck in what seemed to be slight embarrassment.

"Why?" Nina asked in astonishment.

Chris, however, seemed to be immune to notions like embarrassment and shyness and took it upon himself to actually spell out loud what the problem was. "He slaps his opponents chest, sweetie. I never thought I'd say that, but apparently I have to. Your breasts are kind of in the way."

Nina grinned. That grin grew bigger and bigger until finally she broke out in laughter. "Okay, then I'll just sit here while you two show me the move... No biggie."

"As the lady wishes," Chris bowed his head and made an exalted gesture with his hand. The words he directed at Stephen were of a slightly more practical nature. "OK, let's do this..."

In the following half an hour Nina learned more about wrestling than she thought possible in such a short period of time. The guys showed her several moves and let her try them herself as well. She couldn't remember when she had last laughed that much. Dealing with Stephen and Chris was easy. They had a solid sense of humor and didn't take offense easily. Nina was oddly reminded of the time she had hung out with her brother and his friends when she was younger. The atmosphere had been just as easy-going and laid back then.

"So I guess that's it," Stephen announced eying the clock on the wall behind them with trepidation. Tonight's show was only hours away. He was starting to get antsy.

"Really? Already?" Nina pouted, looking at him with a puppy dog expression on her face. Her attempt at playing cute was foiled by Chris poking her in the side with his index finger. She swatted at his hands and mumbled some ill-humored words of reproach.

"What do you know? Works with my kids at home, too," Chris proclaimed triumphantly.

"You mean rest of the family..." Nina had to smile at the thought of Chris interacting with his real daughter.

"Yeah, the rest of the family. Who knows, I'll have to eventually adopt you the way things are going," he told her patting her shoulder with a smile before he climbed out of the ring.

"See you tonight, mate," Stephen called after him.

"Thanks, Chris," Nina called after the other man's retreating back. Chris raised his hand in salute before he headed off to the locker room.

Nina turned to face Stephen. "I guess I'd better leave now, too. I'm sure you've got some things to do before tonight's show... It's been great by the way. You and Chris were great."

"Yeah, it's been fun," Stephen told her as he held open the robes for her to climb through.

She did and waited for him outside on the apron. "No, it was craic."

"Right," he chuckled.

"Seriously, Stephen. Thank you," she told him, placing her hand on his shoulder to emphasize her words.

"You're welcome, luv," he told her meeting her eyes with a smile.

"You're leaving for the European tour in a couple of days right?" she asked as they both packed their bags and got ready to leave. He nodded.

"Any chance we could talk shop before that? I just wanted to run some ideas past you before you leave..."

"Sure," he smiled.