SPOILERS -- a reference to the 3/25/02 episode of RAW
DISTRIBUTION -- The list archives, my Web site and the Smoochy Dreamers site (if
they want it). Anyone else, please ask first.
DISCLAIMER -- The wrestling characters used (even if they have the names of real
people, or variations thereof) are copyrighted by World Wrestling Federation
Entertainment, Inc. The people who portray those characters own themselves. No
copyright infringement is intended. By writing this story, I am not implying
that the situations depicted ever have, could or would take place. This is a
work of fiction. No profit is being made from this story -- it is for
entertainment purposes ONLY.
NOTES -- This is a sequel to Reflections.
Stephanie McMahon hummed along to the song on the radio as she washed the few remaining crystal glasses. She had been out of the WWF for a month, and had been using the time to get her house back into some semblance of order.
She laughed as she remembered the afternoon she had gone to the recycling center. The back of her SUV was stacked floor-to-ceiling with two years’ worth of unread issues of the Greenwich Time. She thought the poor attendant was going to have a heart attack when he saw them. She gave him a few days to recover before she went back with all of Hunter’s magazines.
And the clothes. She still felt guilty about that one. What was the Salvation Army going to do with two dozen garbage bags stuffed full of leather and spandex? She hated to do it, but she wanted the last remnants of her old life out of the house, and she had no idea what else to do with them.
She sighed as she held a glass up to the window and watched the light reflect off of it. This was the last of it -- her grandmother’s crystal. Everything else in the house had been scrubbed, polished and rearranged.
“I’m going to have to find another project tomorrow,” she mused as she turned the last glass upside-down on the counter to dry. “Maybe I can teach myself how to knit.”
She knew eventually she would have to return to the workforce, but there was really no hurry -- she had plenty of money in the bank. For the time being, it was more important for her to concentrate on getting her life in order. Then she’d think about re-entering society.
The sound of the doorbell echoing down the hallway snapped her out of her thoughts. “Who could that be?” she asked herself as she pushed away from the counter and walked toward the hall. She hadn’t seen her parents since she got home, and she was sure that Shane and Marissa were still at the office. They never bothered with the doorbell, anyway.
When she pulled the door open, she was surprised to see a familiar figure standing on her front step. Chris Jericho.
“Hi,” he said, his lips curving into a sheepish grin.
Stephanie was too shocked to respond. He was the last person she
expected to see. Well, actually, Hunter was the last, but Jericho was right up there.
“Steph? You okay?”
“Huh?” she said, coming out of her temporary daze.
“Are you okay, Steph?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m just a little surprised to see you.”
“Oh.”
They stood in silence for a few minutes, staring at each other.
“Um, Steph, can I come in?”
“I guess so,” she replied with a shrug, moving out of the doorway so he could get past her.
After she closed the door, she turned around and found him looking nervously around the foyer.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I wanted to see how you were holding up.”
Before she realized what she was doing, she walked over to him and, with as much force as she could muster, slapped him across the face. “You bastard!” she screeched.
“I deserved that,” he replied calmly, turning his head back around to face her. “But it wasn’t exactly the welcome I had hoped for.”
“How could you let him do that? How could you let Hunter pin me?” She swung her arm back, prepared to hit him again, but he caught her wrist before she was able to make contact.
Looking from Jericho’s hand up to his face, Stephanie could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.
As he watched the first few tears slide down her face, Jericho relaxed his grip on her wrist and cautiously pulled her into his arms.
She attempted to get away from him, but when she realized that he wasn’t going to let her go, she stopped struggling and gave in to her tears.
He stood there, with her tears rolling down his neck, trying to think of something to say to her. But, for one of the few times in his life, he found himself speechless. So instead, he began rubbing her back, hoping she would find some comfort in the gesture.
Some time later, when her crying still hadn’t subsided, he was able to find his voice. “I didn’t think you wanted my help, Steph,” he said quietly. “I thought, after you tried to pin me, that you wanted to end the match on your own -- win or lose.”
The only response was her steady stream of tears.
“Was I wrong?”
Stephanie forced herself to calm down enough to speak. “N-no ...
b-b-but ...”
“But what?”
“That ... company was ... was my whole ... l-life.”
Jericho sighed and tightened his grip on her. “But look at what it did to you. Can you honestly say that you were happy with the person you had become?”
“N-no.” She sniffed a couple of times, still trying to stop crying.
“Well, then, it was probably best that you left.”
“But I don’t know anything other than the WWF. What do I do now?”
“Now you take some time to get yourself together and let the wounds heal.”
“Then what?”
“Decide what you want to do with the rest of your life.”
“What if I want to go back to the WWF?”
“Then I’ll help you get back in.”
Stephanie pulled away from him slightly and looked at his face, trying to figure out if there was an ulterior motive behind the offer. All she saw in his eyes was sincerity. “You will?”
“Of course I will, Princess,” he said, pulling her back to him and hugging her tightly. “I’d do anything for you.”
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