Between You, Me, and a Coffee Cup.

These characters may be based on people, but this is a work of fiction, not an attempt at slander or to claim that any of this is even in the realm of happening.

They seem to constantly miss each other. Of course, in this business that can be said about pretty much everyone, in the haze of roles turned down, screwed up auditions, scheduling troubles, endless parties and premieres and awards galas, it's tailor made for playing Six Degrees, and usually you don't have to look further than two or three.

The closest they came to actually meeting would be when she was auditioning for Little Women. She wanted to be Jo, of course, but she was too young then, and she'd take any part but Amy, of course. She reads for Beth, and doesn't get it, and much later she'll sit with Claire in one of the New York cafes and they'll laugh about this, and about Juliet and Leo, and how they should do a film together some time, but never get around to it.

She's in London when she gets the call about the third Batman, title yet to be determined. She's in London because she's filming that historic nightmare with Ewan, and if it wasn't Ewan, she'd never take it on, because she promised herself after Anne Boleyn, no more corsets for the next ten years, when the Hollywood deems her too old for romantic historicals anyways and she gets to play the interesting parts of broken women and fucked up psychopaths. But it is Ewan, and he asks her personally, calls her at four am, just a little bit drunk and says that she simply has to do it, or he will shoot someone on the third day of filming, and would she want that?

She laughs, and tells him to send her the script and that he'll owe her, lots. The script is surprisingly good.

When she gets the call about the third Batman she's on the set, getting slightly drunk with Ewan and Jude, and listening to the story of How Jude Saved Downey Jr's Crotch for the fifth time. It gets more outrageous every time Jude tells it, as do the things that Jude claims Downey Jr was doing later to repay him for Saving His Crotch. You can hear the capital letters plainly, even more so when Jude gets really drunk.

"You should take it," Ewan tells her, clinking his glass against hers. It's scotch, she doesn't think Ewan drinks anything else.

"I hadn't even seen any of the Bat movies," she says, shrugging, and downs her tumbler, grimacing only slightly.

"You haven't seen any Star Wars before you took the part either," Ewan points out, and his grimace around the title is even more pronounced than hers around the alcohol. That was the main difference between them, she recalls of the long weeks of promotion circus. He loved Star Wars and hated the fanboys, and she didn't care for the movies and liked the fans. They were much better than the ones who asked her about her strip show, post-Closer.

"It's Batman," she drawls, and it gets a snort from Jude.

"You're such a snob, Nats. Don't worry, we love you anyway."

She tells her agent to get the script and tell them she'll think about it, and then she doesn't think about it at all, the script stays on her coffee table for a week, and she mostly uses it as a coaster for her coffee cup.

After a week and a day, Chris Nolan calls her cell, and she grumbles for the first half of the conversation about how she's going to fire her agent for giving it out, but agrees to lunch. And regrets it two days later, when the lunch turns out to be a much bigger affair than just her and Chris. Christian Bale is there, and so is Gary, and so is Michael fucking Caine, and it's really incredibly unfair.

She took psychology in college, she does know what they're trying to do, making her feel like a part of the team already, and she should be flattered because this means they really want her for the part, but it's low and dirty, and for god's sake, they brought Gary. She worked her first big job with him, the movie that started it all, and she would love to work with him again, and there's really no way she can say no right now, is there? Damnit.

"I just don't think I want another geek franchise," she says weakly, and then catches herself, thinking of Harry Potters and Terminators, but no one says anything, they just nod politely, although she is pretty sure that Michael fucking Caine is smirking behind the politeness.

"So, who am I playing, again?" she asks, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and Gary pretends not to be laughing at her, and Chris explains patiently, and she admits, it does sound interesting. Damnit all to hell.

And the fact that Bale is watching her with no expression, just some detached interest is, to say the least, disconcerting.

She supposes she'll have to read the script now.

"Told you so," Ewan tells her three months later, once they started shooting, and he's in Chicago visiting her, sprawled on her couch, wearing a rather too smug expression for her liking.

"How's Jude?" she asks uncharitably, and gets a long look, the one that tells you plainly that Ewan used to be a wise Jedi Master, so don't fuck with him.

But what else is she supposed to tell him? Granted, it's Ewan, so pretty much anything she could ever come up with would just cause him to smirk and tell her that that's nothing, because someone he knows... and so on, but she's still not telling him anyway.

She doesn't have any complaints, after all. The movie is fun to shoot, she doesn't have to do any jumping off the rooftops but she does get to slap people for being idiots, which is always entertaining, and she doesn't have to wear a corset, or any dresses that weigh more than she does, which is always a plus in her book.

The thing it... the thing is, the last time she was crushing on her co-star was when she was fourteen, and the last time she dated her co-star was when she was nineteen, and she really thought she grew up and out of that.

And hey, did she mention he's married? No, she didn't, because she didn't tell anyone anything about it, and in all honesty, she's trying not to think about it too loud.

"Jude's fine," Ewan says, his accent slipping into more of a dialect. "Jude's always fine."

She doesn't make a joke this time, doesn't get snippy, just waves her glass vaguely at him, and he gets a hint and gets her a refill. Getting drunk with Ewan is never particularly fun, but always serves the point.

"Let's do a movie sometime," she tells him thoughtfully, gesturing widely, the liquid swirling in her glass, splashing against the sides. "It'll be fucking depressing and we'll get a shitload of awards."

"Oh, can I play a drug addict?" he asks in mock-excitement, and she nods seriously, and launches into a long rant about her imaginary character, considering making her a pathologically lying nymphomaniac. True, falls close to Closer, but she did get the Oscar nod for that, and she doesn't think a Holocaust movie would be much better, and definitely less helpful.

Next day on the set, Bale gets her a cup of coffee, not the one from the craft services, but the good one, from the coffee shop Gary discovered two weeks ago. He even remembers to make sure the cup is completely recyclable, and she really hates thoughtful people, really, really hates them.

"I love you," she tells him, her eyes shining at the thought of blissful caffeine, and he laughs, and it's alright, because she had practically proposed to one of the lighting guys when he brought her an espresso two days ago.

They finish shooting the movie on a cold February morning, and the last scene they film is one of the firsts in the script, a party at the manor, and she has a flimsy dress and the wind is playing havoc with her hair when she runs down the stairs.

"Nicely done," Christian tells her later, when she's wrapped in a wool coat, and still shivering. She shakes her head, hair falling all around her and doesn't say anything. For a movie she didn't even want to play in, it's over too fast.

Then there's the few months of post-production, and she doesn't see anyone from the cast at all, save for Morgan, who's at the same movie premiere once, and who tells her she looks lovely, and doesn't add whatever is on the tip of his tongue, for which she is grateful.

And then they're all back for the promotion, and she does about dozens interviews, and tells Jimmy Kimmel how she once slapped Batman for real, and tells Letterman all about her tragic coffee addiction, and somehow no one notices she keeps herself back from talking about her co-stars too much. Well, she talks about Gary, but that's Gary, and it's a nice bookend, her first movie and her recent movie and he's there, everyone likes a story like that.

Gary takes one look at her at the premiere and shakes his head, and somehow between Leon and Batman he had became way too good in being a concerned father (having sons, one of them almost her age apparently helps), and tells her pointedly that he's not telling her anything, but that she should take care.

Which isn't exactly not saying anything, but still.

She had spent way too much time in front of the mirror, trying on a dress after dress after dress, and she never does that, which just go to show how bad it got her. She settled on a Marcheesa dress, light and demure, and it feels like such a colossal fraud, as it tumbles around her when Christian twirls her on the red carpet. Sibi is not there, and that makes it worse, because if she was, Natalie might have felt more guilty, might have felt something else than the forbidden joy of putting her hand in Christian's.

Some role model, she thinks.

Not quite the good girl she built herself to be, the vegan, the good student, the girl with her head firm on her shoulders. She's smart, she's always been smart, smart as all hell, but smart girls don't do that sort of things, so she doesn't know anymore.

She's almost grateful when the promotion circus dies down, when they don't have to see each other almost every other day, and when she doesn't get the daily panic attacks about what to wear. She cuts her hair again and does a movie in the freakin' India, and no, she's not running, it's a good script and that's all there is to it.

She goes to Sundance after filming, and she's always liked Sundance, it's a s far from being Hollywood as Hollywood can manage. It's peaceful and almost quiet, and somehow she's not surprised at all that he's there, on the doorstep of her hotel room, confused and fearful and hopeful and there.

"Know where one can get a cup of good coffee?" he asks, and she closes her eyes and exhales, long and slow, letting go of everything she's feeling right now.

Not quite everything though, because a moment later, she catches his wrist and pulls him inside.