"She is in love with him."
Hearing Kane's comment, Lita's eyes widened and a small smile came to her face. She quickly walked over to stand beside him, Tazz following close behind. Moments later, Matt and Jeff joined them and they formed a loose circle.
Lita spoke up first, "You're right, Kane. Stephanie is in love with Chris, and he's in love with her. In fact, they're one of the reasons this whole thing got started in the first place."
"Lita!" Matt warned, "Do you really think we should be doing this? Telling them all our secrets like it's nothing?"
She glared at him, "Matt! Stephanie promised she'd tell them. Besides, what choice do we have? They've not only seen Stephanie McMahon-Helmsly in a panic to get to Chris Jericho after he'd been injured, but they've seen the three of us worry about her, and Tazz and Raven come in and announce they were working for the WWF. If we don't explain what we're doing, they'll tell everyone and this whole damn plan, that we've worked for months on, is down the drain in a few hours!"
The elder Hardy was about to throw back a comment, when his brother stepped in diplomatically, "Matt, come on. Calm down. Lita's right. We don't really have a choice, and Steph did say she would explain. We'll keep it to the facts. Take a breather, bro."
Reluctantly, Matt did as his brother instructed and took a deep breath to calm down. After glaring at the Brothers of Destruction and Sara warily, he turned back to Lita and apologized, "I'm sorry, Li. I guess I've been holding that in for awhile, I didn't mean to take it out on you like that."
After a moment, Lita smiled at him, "It's okay. I understand. We're all really stressed right now."
Tazz interrupted, "If we're gonna tell these punks what's goin' on, can we get on with it? It's not like we got all the time in the world. Alliance is gonna miss us soon enough."
The redhead made a face at the mention of the Alliance, but turned to Kane, 'Taker and Sara, "Listen, what we have going on here is big. Way bigger than you guys think, I bet."
Matt stopped her with a gesture and asked, "Before we tell all here, what exactly happened with Stephanie? What do you know?"
Glancing at her husband and brother-in-law for only a moment, Sara answered, "We were going down one of the corridors by the ramp entrance. We were talking one minute, the next minute Stephanie came bolting around a corner and slammed straight into 'Taker. She would have fallen if he hadn't reached out and steadied her. At first, we were kind of mean to her, I mean she is the owner of ECW. We dragged her into an adjacent hallway, dark and out of the way. I think she started to try and talk her self out of it, but then she just broke."
Jeff's eyes widened in concern, "Broke? What do you mean? What happened?"
"She just burst in to tears right there. She would have hit the concrete if we hadn't held her up. The three of us were kind of at a loss. Here was the Billion-Dollar Princess, owner of ECW, and she just breaks down in front of us. I took her from 'Taker and tried to calm her down. She mumbled something, begged us to let her go. She said she had to see if 'he' was okay. Of course, we had no idea who she was talking about. We could barely understand her. She finally managed to get out that she wanted to see if Jericho was all right, and that we could do whatever we wanted to do to her after she made sure he was fine. I didn't think I could be anymore surprised until she said that. We asked her what in the hell was going on and she said if we let her go she would explain it to us. That's when she led us here," Sara finished explaining, finally taking a breath.
Lita, the Hardyz and Tazz exchanged glances before Lita began, "Well, I guess we should start with the basics. Stephanie and Chris are in love, have been for about a year and half or so, I think. Maybe longer. We've never been too clear on that."
"If they love each other, why do they pretend to hate each other? Why in the hell is she with the Alliance? Or better yet, why's he with the WWF? And why the fuck does she get him beat the shit out of practically every show?" 'Taker demanded.
"They pretend to hate each other, and hurt each other, so no one realizes they *are* in love with each other. If anyone did, we'd be in a whole lot of shit," Tazz informed him.
"Ahh... too soft a description of what would befall us all," Raven corrected calmly as he slid gracefully between Lita and Tazz.
Tazz glared at him, "Don't do that! Damn! How many times do I have ta tell ya? Make noise, bird boy!"
Raven only smiled at him before cocking his head towards the bench where Stephanie lay curled around Chris and saying, "I convinced her to rest. She'll be out until Christopher wakes up."
Sara sighed, "Thank God for small favors. Poor thing. I may not know what's going on exactly, but after watching her with him... there's gotta be a damn good reason they do what they do to each other, and it's not because they enjoy it."
Before anyone could comment further, a knock came at the locker room door. They glanced toward it, Raven smirking as he took Lita's arm and led her over. She furrowed her eyebrows, giving him a suspicious look. He nodded to the door and left her to return to the others. After a moment's hesitation, she unlocked the door and opened it just a crack so she could peak out. Once she did, a large grin came to her face and she threw the door open.
"Trish! Oh my God!" Lita quickly reached out, pulling the blonde woman into her arms for a hug.
Trish returned her friend's embrace for a minute before pulling away. She smiled and replied, "Good to see you, too, Li. I'm glad I'm back. Just in time for the fireworks, too."
From behind her, Edge asked indignantly, "Hey! What about me? I'm here, too, you know."
Lita smiled at him, "Sorry, I've already seen you tonight. Trish, on the other hand, I haven't seen in weeks." She refocused on her, "God, I'm so glad you're back!"
"Thanks. What's going on, Li? You've got that look in your eyes. Something bad has happened, hasn't it?" Trish asked.
That brought Lita back to her senses enough to realize they were standing at the door having this conversation, and anyone could walk by. Her eyes widened, and she grabbed Trish's arm, pulling her inside. She did the same with Edge before slamming the door and locking it again. Turning back to them, she found two pairs of concerned blue eyes watching her.
"Come on. There's a lot going on right now, and you guys need to get caught up," Lita informed them, leading them back to the others.
When Trish and Edge saw the assemblage of wrestlers in the room, they stopped dead. After a moment, Edge said the first thing that came to mind, "Everyone's looking for you three."
He was looking at Undertaker, Kane and Sara, who looked to him for an explanation. After he realized what he had said he continued, "Um, I mean, your match. It was supposed to start about five minutes ago. Everyone is frantic out there trying to find you."
"Damn!" 'Taker swore. "We were on our way there when Stephanie ran into us. We have to go. Now."
He began making his way for the door, Kane following silently behind him. Sara turned to Lita, "We still want to know what's going on. Maybe... maybe help if we can..."
Lita smiled at her, "Yeah. I think maybe you can. How 'bout you three come talk to us tonight after the show? We've got a suite in a hotel across town. None of the other wrestlers are staying there, so we can all meet up."
"Sounds good," Sara responded.
"Okay. The hotel's the Armande, pretty hard to miss, and it's Suite 2. Be there at midnight, and we'll see if we can work everything out," Lita explained quickly as she walked Sara to join the brothers at the door.
Sara leaned over and gave Lita a quick hug before saying, "Got it."
Then, the Undertaker, Sara and Kane left, heading out for the match they were getting later for by the minute. When Lita returned to the main area of the locker room again, she found a scene different, but still strange, as the first time. Jericho and Stephanie lay wrapped around each other on a bench fast asleep while Raven stood hovering over them protectively. Jeff crossed the room to join Trish, pulling her into a hug, both smiling. Edge stood beside Matt and Tazz watching the couple reunite, but as Lita came back he turned to send a grin her way, and her breath caught in her throat for a moment, before she gave him a small smile and walked over to him.
*I hope everything turns out okay,* she thought to herself, glancing around the room at her friends, thinking of the others missing from this impromptu gathering. She also thought of the Brothers of Destruction and Sara, startled to realize she was already on the verge of thinking of them as friends. Her gaze wondered back to Stephanie and Jericho, who were really the essence, the main characters, in the drama that was the lives of her and her friends. *I hope everything turns out okay, for everyone's sake... but especially for them.*
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