Half-past midnight, Bella had fled the Welsh village she'd agreed to meet Mr. Gladstone at, having shared little more than a few minutes and a kiss—(oh Merlin, that kiss!)— with him before uncertainty wore her to madness. The realization that she had no idea what she wanted out of life was a crushing defeat, and one that would remain firmly at the forefront of her mind for months to come.

Her only sensible action of the night had been waiting until she returned to her room at the MacFusty home to pull out the flask of whiskey she'd stuffed in her dress pocket before making her escape. Over a two hour period, Bella sucked down as much of it as she could. She coughed and spluttered, saliva and whiskey mixing with tears (and much to her dismay, snot) as her memories were overwhelmed by a sea of emotions. Bella felt a sudden urge to crawl into bed with another person, if only to wrap her arms around their warmth, but even she knew that was an impossibility... unless it wasn't a human body. Yes, she thought. She'd go to Jamie's and see the wolves! Yes, it was an infallible plan.

Minutes later, once she'd dressed herself to the best of her ability and fumbled to put her hair into a half-assed braid, Bella left the MacFusty house and made a solid trek through the darkness of the island before realizing she had a wand. Magic. With a cackling laugh, Bella withdrew her wand, and with a crack, apparated to the place she'd grown familiar with: Jamie's shack.

She made it there with (fortunately) no injuries apart from the missing finger she belatedly realized had already been missing. She approached the shack, noting that it looked far eerier in the darkness of the night. She'd seen Jamie locked it up before, so it took only a minute to unlock it. Satisfied, Bella went indoors, brain too hazy to realize just how loud the floorboards creaked under her steps.

---

Jamie was a relatively hard sleeper, always had been. Especially since he'd been the sole resident of his shack for several years. It was well enough off the beaten path and very few knew exactly where it was. Mainly family. But even they rarely felt the need to visit him at his shack. He went by the family mansion enough that there was usually very little reason for them to actual go and see him. But despite such a sound sleep, Jamie was also a bit of a hyper vigilant so any unknown sounds certainly set him off in an instant. Or at least, rouse him enough to defend his home.

The shack had plenty of noises to it in the dead of the night. Whimpers of the pups and howling of the wind had become well known to him in the past weeks. But the sound of the creaking floorboards was not something that happened often. No, it indicated that there was someone in his home. And, if he knew any better, it was not a time of night or even early morning that visitors should be there. Of that much he was certain as he slowly and quietly slipped from his own bed. Naked. Without a stitch of clothing to his bare skin in sight. He lived alone, after all, so what was the point in sleeping in night clothes?

Groggy but on high alert, Jamie all but barreled from his bedroom and collided bodily with the intruder of his home. In a matter of moments, he had the other body pinned up against the wall across from his room. One arm was pressed against the chest of the intruder with the other pressed firmly against the wall to prevent a move to either side. "You've made an awful stupid decision breakin' in 'ere," he snarled through gritted teeth, entirely oblivious just to who it was he had pinned against his wall in all his bare glory.

---

Upon entering the quiet shack, the realization struck that she hadn't exactly planned what she would do after she arrived. Blindly search the house for the sleeping pups? What if they were sleeping with Jamie!? It wasn't as if she could enter his bedroom and lure them out with childish cooing—she could only imagine what he might think! Tears welled up in the corner of her eyes; she was exhausted and sad and angry and a little drunk, and had no desire to be bothered with the logistics of this poorly thought-out plan.

Fortunately, she wasn't given much time to wallow in her own despair. Bella was suddenly slammed up the nearest wall by an unseen force. She let out a loud yelp, both in surprise and pain, and instinctively pushed her hands against his chest. She couldn't process his words, but she recognized the voice as Jamie's, and slumped back against the wall with a sigh of relief. Only then did she realize that something was wrong: Jamie was naked.

Eyes blurred with tears, there wasn't any... distinct features that she could distinguish, but she was suddenly all too aware of his nudity. Her eyes flickered up and down his body, her gaze always searching for—but never finding—his own. Her cheeks burned bright red, and she was suddenly thankful for the darkness.

"I... I... I..." she stammered, her palms moving from his chest to the wall behind her.

---

Still oblivious and with a bit of a foggy mind thanks to deep sleep, Jamie still had no clue who it was he had pinned against the wall. Small bits of information began to trickle into his brain at the feel of the intruder. Definitely a woman by the arm pressed against their chest and the slender almost delicate sort of hands being pressed against his chest. His bare.

Realization that he was as naked as the day he was born seemed to dawn on his slightly but still not enough to truly react. At least, not until he heard the voice. It hit him then, like a damned freight train.

He felt Bella's hands leave his chest. Well, he felt the cold rush of air hit him fully as she stuttered the single word and seemed to press herself as far back against the wall as she could. By now, the wolf pups were yowling and howling with all the commotion from their pen in the sitting room.

His arm moved from against her chest as he quickly took a step back away from her, stumbling over his own feet but managed to catch himself on a nearby chair so that he didn't tumble to the ground fully. "What the bloody'ell are ye doin' here!?" he all but shouted, totally taken aback by the fact he'd just had her pinned against his wall. Naked. His eyes widened at that thought, still standing there as the realization of his own nudity hit him once again. "Dammit all to hell!" he yelled against as he snatched at the closest bit of fabric he could. The kitchen towel barely covered the main parts of him needed to be kept from her eyes as he backed up against the wall to further distance himself from her.

---

His sudden outburst sent Bella into a sudden panic. She opened her mouth, hoping to say anything—an apology, an excuse, an explanation—but only a loud sob left her throat. The tears followed shortly, and before she could collect herself, Bella had sunk to the floor in a hysteric mess. "I - I - I'm sorry," she hiccuped, her eyes glued shut by the sting of salty tears. "I just - all I wanted to do was - I wanted Frideswide!" It came out whiny and childlike and was all wrong. Frustrated by her lack of eloquence, she grabbed the nearest object (which happened to be her own, long-abused wand) and chucked it across the room.

Trying a different (yet similarly ill-advised) approach, she cast an accusatory glance in his direction. "Why are you wandering around in the nude?" she huffed, pulling her knees against her chest.

---

Well then. Whatever Jamie had expected through a hazy and sleep heavy mind, what came from the woman on the ground sobbing wasn't it. He was also, unsurprisingly, feeling rather exposed standing there with just a towel to cover himself. Even so, he couldn't help but to shake his head and even chuckle at the absurdity of the whole situation.

"I live alone, Bella," he said a bit bluntly, "There aren't even servants here. No reason to sleep with pesky clothing on. Because I was sleeping until I heard someone in my home." He gave her a pointed look to say she was clearly the one in the wrong here, not him.

With another shake of his head and a wave of his hand, he sidestepped toward his room so as not to reveal his naked rear end to her. "Lemme get some pants on," he added, watching her cautiously for a moment, "Then I'll put some coffee or something on. Sounds like you need it." He moved to slip into his room then but not before adding, "The pups are in the pen in the sitting room. You can let'em out of you'd like."

---

Bella scowled at him in the dark, but it wasn't personal. She was upset with the situation, upset that Jamie had stopped her on her quest to find the pups. If she hadn't been so drunk, she might have even felt embarrassed.

"Mm, I didn't mean to wake you; I was coming to see them," she said, with a waving motion towards the general direction of the sitting room. She gave another uncaring wave in his direction as if to say "Whatever you want". Once he'd disappeared from sight, Bella clumsily pushed herself off the ground and stumbled through the dark, only the lights from the heavens above pouring through the windows to light her path.

It didn't take too long to discover the pups, their yowls and their howls growing louder as she neared. She slumped to the floor, feeling their little paws trampling her toes, and let out a teary-eyed giggle as one of them—she couldn't tell which—found its way onto her lap. Then, through the clattering of claws against the floors, she heard louder footsteps approaching.

---

To say Jamie was exhausted would be a bit of an understatement. He'd been sleeping so good before he'd been abruptly awoken by the sound of Bella trampling through his shack like an erumpent in a small room. Well, that was probably exaggerating things but he wasn't about to say any of that out loud as it was.

Once back in his room, he'd pulled on yesterday's trousers and nothing else. Hopefully she wouldn't stay long so he wouldn't have to feel out of sorts not being fully clothed in her presence. Not that it would be the first time and Merlin only knew how much she'd seen prior to that. Or felt. He shook his head at that thought. He didn't need such thoughts on that moment.

He stopped off in the kitchen to put a kettle of water on and light a lantern before he wandered slowly into the sitting room. "C'mon," he said once within the room, "You need to drink something other than whiskey. Just leave the gate open. They'll follow." And they did. Or at least the black pup did, his white sister seemed content in Bella's lap but Jamie didn't bother looking back as he went into the kitchen.

---

Bella grumbled something under her breath as Jamie appeared in the room and demanded she follow him to the kitchen. She carefully stood up, gently tucking the pup against her chest, and followed the glowing lantern, her feet brushing against whatever miscellaneous junk Jamie hadn't put away the night before.

"How do you know what I've been drinking?" she asked with a hmph as she entered the lit kitchen. She pushed a chair out from under the table with her foot and took a seat, Frideswide in her lap.

---

Jamie had begun pouring two cups of rather stout coffee once he'd gotten back into the kitchen so was ready to set it on front of her as she pouted. He raised a brow with a light chuckle as he settled in his own chair across from her. His loyal pup settled at his feet comfortable.

"Have you already forgotten I had you pinned against a wall?" he asked before taking a drink of his coffee, watching her over the rim of his cup as he did so, "I may not have been fully awake but the smell of whiskey was undeniable."

---

Bella mumbled an inaudible complaint before lifting her head to meet her gaze.

"As if I could forget that," she replied, lips pursued as she pointedly scanned her eyes up and down his shirtless body. Fortunately her tears had arrived before the image of his nude form had been burned into her mind permanently, but that didn't mean she couldn't remember it clearly now. "I didn't mean to invade your privacy." It was an automatic response, one she'd learned at St. Mungo's. There were times when patients were exposed when they ought not to be, but Jamie seemed far less embarrassed—emphasis on the "seemed"—by it. (Maybe because there hadn't been anything for him to be embarrassed about, she thought with a blush.)

---

Jamie couldn't help but to snort at get initial response. He imagined it was a common thought by any of the women that saw him naked. Or, at least, he hoped it was. He was far from modest and was definitely a confident sort after all.

"Not entirely sure what you expected showing up to a bachelor's home before sunrise," he answered with a continued eye focused on her, "Which is another clear indication you've been drinking." Why else would she have shown up there? Clearly she wasn't in her right mind.

---

Bella rolled her eyes. "Seeing as I've never shown up in a bachelor's home before sunrise, I don't suppose I was expecting anything in particular," she argued, finding it difficult to maintain eye contact with the conversation topic as it was. "And—well, maybe I have been drinking," she thought aloud, "but I would have come even if I hadn't been." It wouldn't help her case, but she'd never been good at lying (or withholding the truth, for that matter).

She glanced down at Frideswide, stroking her fingers her fur. "Creatures are the only thing that bring me comfort when I'm... upset. They don't get angry. They don't ask questions. They just... listen," she rambled, a smile finding its way to her face for the first time since she'd returned to the Hebrides.

---

A brow arched high over one of Jamie's eyes as he gave her a rather incredulous sort of look. She certainly wasn't helping her case any by saying she'd still have come, drunk or not. She was quick to add to it though and make it known she was there for the wolves. Not him. Why did that bother him?

"You've not talked to the right people then," he said simply with a shrug before he drained the remainder of his coffee. "Want more?" he asked with a nod to her cup, not bothering to even ask what it was that had caused her to be in such a state. She'd start crying again, he was sure, and that was something he didn't know how to deal with.

---

Bella eyed her coffee cup, mindlessly picking it up to take another gulp. Her throat was dry and it felt nice, but its strong taste combined with the aftertaste of her whiskey made her grimace.

"No thank you," she murmured, her mind stuck on his question. Of course she'd never talked to the right people; the only people she'd had to talk to most of her adolescence was her family, wealthy friends who couldn't relate to her struggles, and her coworkers (and more specifically, her bosses).

Bella propped her elbow on the kitchen table and rested her cheek against her palm. "Jamie, do you ever... talk to people? Have friends? Feel... emotions?" she asked, eyeing him from across the table.

---

Jamie wasn't phased in the slightest of her turning down the coffee. He knew it wasn't something everyone liked so he poured himself another mug before asking, "Do you want something else to drink?" Water preferably. He wasn't about to get her anymore alcohol.

But then she was looking at him again, more closely than before, and asking rather straight forward and even personal questions. "Not really much time for any of that," he answered though he did have a handful of friends. One of which had been presumed dead into recent months but he wasn't about to go into detail there.

---