Wrestling 1. Chapter 1

This could **not** be happening. She looked around the arena and saw her absolute worst fears of the last hellacious month coming true before her very eyes. Someone needed to stop this. She hadn't wanted it to go this far. The obligatory Slut! Chants rained down as she was dragged (once again) kicking and screaming from the ring.

The fans were taking delight in the collapse of her entire life. _Those bastards_. How had it come to this?

Hunter had won, and honestly, it was foolish of her to expect another result. She had never really been all that good in the ring, and he was a perennial world champion. And it's not like Jericho really cared about her. He just saw her as another stepping stone to the top. As all men in her life seemed to, at one point or another. She had come to learn this the hard way. The only person who still cared about her, Shane, was probably so disgusted with her admittedly horrible behavior over the last few months that he would never speak to her again. Marissa had stopped talking to her weeks ago as she plunged off of the deep end.

In retrospect, as she saw the last vestiges of her career and life collapse with Hunter holding up the title, she thought that he finally would get the happiness that apparently she couldn't give him. It's not like she didn't want to be pregnant. It's just that he paid no attention to her as he became obsessed with reclaiming the belt. He chose a belt over her. It was that simple.

"Noooo!" she cried, again and again, as she hoped in vain that the security guards would finally unhand her. She could just imagine JR once again be taking delight in her misfortunes and would brand her a jezebel. How that man was still employed by her father was a mystery to her. And of course the eternally perverted Lawler would once again objectify her to the world. She wryly thought that the fact that he was the only public voice of support for her was a poor mark on her character.

The last thing she saw in the arena was Hunter triumphant as his music blared over the speakers, and the bright lights of the arena shone down on her tears, blinding her to the frenzy of the satisfied fans. Fuck them.

She eventually gave up the fight as she was escorted backstage. What was the use? The delightful howls of the fans taunted her as she was dragged by the two brutes to her unceremonious exit. As she was pulled through the hallways of the arena, she saw almost the entire roster lining the walls. The men were mostly laughing at her, satisfied that she was finally getting what was coming to her for so long. They didn't know that she hid the pain of their rejection of her behind this horrible façade of a person that she had carried on for the last two years.

"Hey Stephanie, you realized that we all got a sight of those tits that Daddy paid for when Hunter pedigreed you, right?" said Chris Benoit. He and the Dudley Boyz had a camera out and tried to take a picture of her. She just put her head down in shame, allowing the humiliation to wash over her lifeless spirit.

"Since your ass is fired, you should put your talents to use where they could best be served. On the pole!" exclaimed Edge. The dim hallway felt like hell on earth to her. She wished that she had died in the ring. Maybe that would have made someone care about her.

"Screw that, the corner sounds a lot better!" Benoit replied. At this point, the pain was just numb to her. She thought that maybe, just maybe, she could escape this prison of shame and humiliation, but the security guards dragging her were taking their sweet time now. Like an adulterer being taken to the stocks in Puritan New England, this was not supposed to be quick.

"Serves you right, bitch!" exclaimed Molly Holly, as the women turned out to see the abject spectacle that was her departure from the company. Molly's sentiments were shared by the women of the company, and like usual, Stephanie was ostracized by members of her gender and held up as a figure of scorn.

She noticed that Trish Stratus, her one time enemy, was not joining in the group condemnation of her. Her blond hair outlined the shape of a face that had nothing but pity on it. Stephanie wondered what had made Trish seem sympathetic to her. They had not spoken in a long time, and Stephanie thought that maybe Trish could understand her pain as she was utterly humiliated by Vince in the previous year. But pity was just as bad as hatred and scorn.

The guards finally opened the back door of the arena near one of the loading docks and threw her to the hard, cold ground. She had no more tears to shed. The chilly night air bit her to the bone, but she did not care. The last thing on her mind before drifting off to sleep was the thought of the last time Hunter had been intimate with her. She had been as happy as she had ever been that night. Despite all of the bullshit that she put up with, and all of the lack of respect that defined the locker room and the general public's opinion of her, at that moment, she was happy. He was tender and loving and warm, all of the things that were consistently denied to her.

When she woke up, in the early morning, the sun attacked her eyes, and her blurry vision cleared to reveal that she had slept on the asphalt of the loading dock behind the arena. How dignified. After composing herself and walk over to the congested street. Getting back to her hotel room was a challenge, but she managed to take a taxi to the Hyatt. The driver must have thought she was some kind of freak, dressed in ring attire with wild hair and dried tears covering her face, but nonetheless, she got back to her room before most of the company that she was no longer a part of would wake up to face the day.

What was wrong with the world, that it drove her to this low state? She just wanted to be happy. She just wanted Hunter to love her again. This might just be the end for her. Why should she continue? He was really, besides Test and one of Shane's oafish friends, the first man to take a real interest in her, and for the longest time, he had been her only friend other than Kurt Angle.

God bless Kurt, he was always there for her when she was down. His puppy dog crush on her had been very flattering, even if she could not reciprocate the feelings. She wished she could talk to him now, but she knew that nobody would want to talk to her now. He may have turned on her in the past, but at least he didn't physically attack her. Men in the WWF had a serious violence against women problem, as she herself could attest to, having been the victim of too many Rock Bottoms, Stunners, Chair Shots, Pedigrees, and Punches to count.

As she stared into the mirror of her bathroom and took in her disheveled appearance, from the blurred mascara on her cheeks to the ratty, unkempt brown hair in tatters around her face, she saw what was shouted at her for nearly two years. A worthless piece of trash. Her life was ruined beyond repair, and she contemplated whether ending it all would be a good idea. But she couldn't do that to her mother and her brother, even if they may not have wanted to speak to her for weeks. Linda _did _ruin her marriage, but Stephanie knew that her mother couldn't be blamed for doing the right thing. It was in her nature.

And for whatever reason, she held out hope that maybe one day, being with Hunter, her soul mate, could happen. She knew it was ridiculous, but she felt that she couldn't just give up hope. Last night, she had felt as weak as she had at any point in her life. She couldn't go back to that dark place, that place where she confronted her place in the world for real. She had to keep up hope.

But for now, she had to take the realities of her situation into account. She was hurting, physically, and emotionally, and needed to dull the pain. In essence, she needed to get rip roaring drunk and fast.

It was only 8 in the morning, March 26, 2002, and Stephanie was about to get as wasted as she had ever been in her life. She started off with the available liquor in her room, which was surprisingly substantial. The hotel kept her mini fridge well stocked with Red Stripe and Bacardi's. She downed each of the bottles, as if they were symbolizing her feelings of inadequacy and defeat, without registering taste or feeling.

Eventually, she got what she wanted and passed out. Her toiletry bag was knocked over as she collapsed onto her bed, and her pill bottles spilled out, with one of them with a loose top opening and spewing the medication she had taken for her insomnia on the floor. She had never slept well since Hunter had humiliated her one month prior to kicking her out of the company, and it seemed that being drunk was one way to get some rest.

Shane McMahon walked through the halls of the Hyatt hotel with deliberate purpose and urgency. Somehow, he knew that his little sister needed his presence right now. He briskly passed the red carpeted halls in the proximity of the 6th floor elevator, but he felt his heart rate accelerate as he passed room 6250 and headed towards the 6300 hall.

Despite the fact that his father shrugged and said that she was a big girl, as Shane had walked in on him receiving oral sex from one of the developmental divas (a not at all uncommon behavior on the road for Vince), Shane had his doubts. The fact that her entire life collapsed on national TV the night before had seemingly been treated as a natural outcome was deeply disturbing to him. She had been acting horribly for a while, but he knew why she was doing it and it made him eager to try to talk her into sense after she had finally hit bottom. His wife had told him that he should wait until Stephanie started acting like the person they knew and loved, but he felt differently.

He passed Jazz in the hall, who was walking with Molly Holly and Stacy Keibler. He asked Jazz, "Have you seen Stephanie since last night? Do you know if she is in her room?"

Jazz looked at him with undisguised annoyance. "No I have not seen her. She was carried out of the building by security, as basically everyone witnessed, and I didn't care to investigate where she went afterwards."

Shane felt furious that once again, his efforts to help his sister were being hindered by unabated pettiness and apathy. He felt that maybe he could pull some strings to give Trish Stratus another chance at Jazz's title soon as punishment, but honestly, he just needed to find Stephanie and quickly.

Shane ran around the corner to the 6300 hall, where he ran smack into Stone Cold. Austin glared at him and kept moving. Shane was losing his mind over whether or not Stephanie would actually be in her room. He just knew that something was off.

As he got to room 6312, he looked around and knocked on the door, and to his surprise he found it open. His blood ran cold as he saw his sister sprawled out on her bed with a bottle of rum in her hand and some pills scattered on the floor.

Please review! I hope you enjoy this as I have never done this before and I hope it works out!


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh my god, Stephanie, wake up. Wake up!" said Shane as he ran over to her unconscious body. He was freaking out as he saw her pill bottle on the floor and the atypical amount of alcohol she consumed. He just knew there was something wrong. Last night had been the most horrible night of her life, and he wasn't able to comfort her. It shouldn't have surprised him that she had taken drastic measures. He understood how much Hunter had meant to her, and being Pedigreed must've been the final straw for her in realizing that it was over.

"Just wake up, oh god, this is bad. This is really bad." He knew he had to do something, so he decided to drag her over to the sink in the bathroom from the bed. Her body was gangly, uncooperative, and she hit the nightstand hard on the way down, leaving a bruise on her back.

"Fuck!" said Shane. He was able to get her over to the bathroom after a laborious effort, and he pushed her face down into the sink before turning on the water and splashing it all around her face.

Stephanie woke up with a start and felt the sensation of water being forced down her throat and into her nostrils. She coughed and sputtered into the water and tried to understand what was going on.

"_Let's see, I was humiliated on national television, and decided to try to drink myself into unconsciousness, and now I am face down in a hotel sink full of water. Things are going swimmingly for you, aren't they, Stephanie?"_

"Oh my god, you're alive! Don't you dare scare me like that ever again, Stephanie!" exclaimed Shane. He gave his sister a massive hug as she was still getting the water out of her senses. He didn't know what she was thinking, but he was glad that he wasn't too late.

"Shane? Is that you?" asked Stephanie. What would her brother want to do with her? Everyone had abandoned her recently, and she didn't think that someone like Shane would ever want to talk to her again. She had basically declared her hatred for Hunter's puppy on television. It was so comically evil that looking back on it, she really had no idea what was going through her mind at the time.

"Yes, of course it's me. What were you thinking, Stephanie, mixing pills with alcohol like that? And why were you drinking so much to start with?"

"I- I didn't take any pills." Stephanie looked around the bomb crater of a room she was in and understood what conclusions he had come to. Her pills were on the floor, and the rum bottles were all over the bed. Her vision was blurry, with the sunlight filtering through the window disorienting her.

"Tell me the truth. Were you trying to hurt yourself?" said Shane. His face was as severe as she had ever seen it before, and she realized that he really did care about her. It was nice to know, but it didn't change her situation.

"No, I was just trying to dull the pain of last night. You must've seen what happened. The entire country knows what a failure I am, both personally and professionally. How can I claim to be a McMahon when I can't even wrestle?"

"Stephanie, there are a lot of people who care about you, and you don't need to turn to alcohol to get relief from traumatic experiences like that. From what Jazz told me, your post match experience wasn't any better than what I expected, and I am here to help you recover from that. Your whole family is here for you. And as for losing the match? Nobody thought you could win that match, you disappointed absolutely no one."

Stephanie looked at him with soft, pleading eyes. She had to know what she could do to fix her shattered life. She thought about the one issue that hadn't come up yet, the one that she could never avoid for as long as she lived. "What do I do about Hunter? I still love him, and he is never going to talk to me again. I realized over this past month that I can't live without him. I can't sleep, I am always sick, and I never have felt so lonely before."

"Steph, you are an amazing person, and you do not need Hunter to live. As for getting him back, you kind of went too far with the whole fake pregnancy business, so you have to give it time. Don't speak to him for a while, and you may find that he can't live without you either. He's on top of the world right now, but this business has a way of pulling everyone back down." Shane honestly wished she would never speak to him again after all of the pain and misery he had caused her for the past two years, but he knew that bringing that up would do her no good at this moment.

"I have nothing left in my life, though. I am out of the WWF, I have only as much money as Daddy allows for basic needs after we kind of tried to run him out of business, and I have no friends. How can I redeem myself? I am tired of being shit on by the world all of the time, I want to do something!" Stephanie didn't know where that last bit of courage came from, but for the first time in a few weeks, she felt motivated. Maybe everything wasn't dark and bleak.

Shane was surprised by that outburst, but as he looked at Stephanie's face, warped by intensity and emotion, he knew that she had gotten a bit of her swagger back. Her rebellious and angry nature brought out the best and worst in her, but in this case, it was for the best. He smiled and said, "You are a McMahon. No matter what any contract says, if you want to be in the WWF, you can do so. Our family is so messed up that after only 5 months, Dad has me back in his good graces and he can do the same for you. It may be a few months before you really return to the company, but you need to get better, and come back with a clear intention."

"What should I do when I return?" Stephanie asked. Her time in the WWF had always been shaped by the men in her life, and she wanted something different. Getting back together with Hunter was her ultimate goal, but she had to face the facts and realize that it would be hard to make any progress on that front for a while.

"I remember that one of the happiest looks on your face in your entire life came from 'winning' the women's championship. Try to do it again. For now, work in the corporate offices, but when you come back for real, make an impression." Shane knew that he had a way for his sister to get out of this slump. She just had to be motivated to make something of herself again.

Stephanie thought to herself, _"He is right. I didn't earn that championship, but it felt like I had. Maybe if I did it for real, it will make all of this worth it. And I can shove it in that bitch Molly's face!" _A grin broke out on her face, and she just knew what she had to do now. "Shane, I am going to go talk to Daddy about working in accounts again for a few months. But you are right. I am getting that belt when I come back."

Shane smiled at her and said, "I just want you to be happy. If that's what will do it for you, than go for it. And after you move back to your house in Greenwich, come by every now and then to visit me in New York. Marissa would love to see you, she just has been terrified by …events… that have occurred recently." Stephanie winced the way he said events. Her behavior over the last month had really been something else, and she would always have to live with that.

"I forgot about her membership in the Humane Society and the Dog Lover's Association."

"Marissa still loves you, she just needs a little time to understand what happened to you and how you are going to change. And so do I. Good luck with Dad, and call me if you need anything." Shane gave her a hug before leaving the room, and Stephanie thought about their conversation on a deeper level after he left.

"I can do this, I have Shane on my side. I just need to go face Dad."

Stephanie cleaned herself up, and got changed with the last remaining outfit in her suitcase. After eating breakfast alone in her room, she decided it was time to go face Vince. She approached his room on the 7th floor and knocked on the door, saying, "Daddy, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Some commotion unfolded on the other side of the door, and Stephanie was shocked to see a young woman yank open the door and run down the hall at full speed with no clothes on, leaving a flustered and sheepish Vince facing his daughter. "Stephanie, you have the absolute best timing. Sorry about your match last night, I know it must've been hard to have all those people calling you a slut again, but, um, what can I, um, do for you?"

"Daddy, I know I may have been forced out of the company, but it only specified televised events for the next few months in the contract. Is there any way I can have my old accounts job back?" Stephanie felt awkward standing in front of her half-naked father begging for a job, but she knew better to call him out on his dalliances when she was in her current dire state.

"Of course you can have a job in accounts, anything for my baby girl, but, um, I don't know about you returning to the shows. I can't upset my champion, and you, well, you upset him more than anyone in the locker room." Stephanie couldn't believe that he was going to take Hunter's side in this. Then again, he had tried to sacrifice her to the Undertaker, so she figured that anything was fair game when it came to Vince and his precious business.

"Daddy, I know I messed up, but I want to come back and become Women's Champion. I need to make up for my mistakes." Stephanie hoped he would cave to her request, and she was disappointed to find his face impassive and blank.

"Stephanie, I admire your, um, optimism after last night, but I think it's best if you stayed at the Corporate Offices for longer than just a few months." Stephanie could tell he just wanted her to go away, and it was really starting to bug her. This was her career, her future at stake! He didn't seem to care at all, and he was clearly just waiting for her to leave so he could get back to whatever, or whoever, he was doing.

"I really need your support on this, Daddy. I don't want to tell Mom about what's her name hiding around the corner, but I might just have to if she asks me." The anger she felt at being ignored by her father and taken advantage of by the entire world became too much for her. She was bringing out the big guns. Screw family loyalty, she thought, this is business.

"Now, there is no need to do anything drastic Stephanie-"

"Are you sure about that, Dad?"

"Stephanie, that would be a very bad road to take. Now I am willing to let you run Smackdown as GM, as I have very confidence in your ability to do exactly what I say, seeing as you have no allies left in this company. It's the same reason that I am letting Bischoff take over RAW in a few months, as he is the only person in this business hated more than me. But any notions of you having any independence in MY company should be put out of your head immediately."

"Dad, I don't want to be your stooge. I want to be a legitimate competitor, and if you can't accept that, I have to call Mom about your proclivities on the road" said Stephanie, as she turned towards the young blond girl hiding behind a plant nearby, who looked back at her with nothing but pure embarrassment on her face.

"Oh fine, you have my word, you can come back to the shows in 4-5 months from now on your terms. I hope you are happy. Just please, can you come back another time? I have, er, some business to attend to."

Stephanie was satisfied, and walked away with her head held high. She was going to do what she needed to. But she still needed to get some of her belongings from Hunter's home in Greenwich. That would come next. She suddenly felt extremely nervous about returning there. There were so many memories in that place. After gathering her possessions, Stephanie left the hotel, ignoring all pointed stares from members of the company on her way out. They would get theirs, it was only a matter of time, she thought.

She did not, however see Hunter Hearst Helmsley on the balcony two floors up talking with Edge as they spotted her on her way out. Edge said, "You must be glad to see that particular problem on its way out, right?

Hunter didn't know what to say. Something just felt off about the way he felt. Last night was the pinnacle of his career, the peak of his success, and he just felt empty. Stephanie was always on his mind, and most of the time he was able to push thoughts of her to the violent impulses inside of him. When he Pedigreed her last night, he felt like he had finally killed whatever feeling the stupid bitch had imparted on him, and he was glad of it, but there was still something off.

"Yeah, man, I'm just glad that Jericho doesn't have the title and _that _chapter of my life is done." He pushed his long hair to the side as he witnessed Shane McMahon walk by, giving him a death glare as he passed. _Well that's a problem I anticipated, but not a pleasant one,_ Hunter thought. He could easily take the Boy Wonder, but he didn't want to risk anything against a guy who did not care about his own wellbeing. Anybody who jumped 50 feet to drop an elbow on the Big Show and put him out of commission for a month was nobody to make an enemy of without serious thought.

"Thanks for the view you gave us last night with that Pedigree. I can totally see you have taste. But tell me, do you have any plans for the future with your title reign? Anyone in particular you want to send a message to?"

That comment annoyed Hunter, but he didn't speak on it. The leftover jealousy he had of people taking an interest in Steph unfortunately still flared inside of him. "I'm not sure yet, I have heard the same rumors as everyone else about Shawn coming back, and I don't know what to make of it. But why do you want to know? I'm not attacking Christian, before you ask. I really don't care about whatever went on with you guys."

"Hey, I am just curious. But seriously, how was she in the sack?" Hunter was getting pissed at this point. He considered Edge a minor acquaintance, nothing more, and didn't feel like talking about this with him.

"Look man, I am just going to get some food. But don't ask about Stephanie. Just don't. I really do not want to talk about that woman ever again." Edge looked at him strangely as he walked away. Maybe he was a bit short with people, but they really didn't know what they were talking about when it came to Steph. He hated her for taking away his joy at being a father. He didn't hate her as a person. Nobody understood this, and they could never understand what he was going through. Hunter decided that after he got lunch, he was leaving the hotel, and going home for a few days. He was exhausted, and needed some alone time.

As he got into the taxi that would take him to the airport, he looked outside and saw Stephanie struggling with her bag as she boarded the bus. That was a new development, he thought, as she hated public transportation. He didn't like how it sat with him, that she was alone in this city. Thinking such thoughts were ridiculous, he suppressed them.

But when his plane touched down in Stamford three hours later, he couldn't dispel the feeling that something was missing in his life. He had the title, the respect of his peers, the fans, and the ring rats were paying him special attention ever since his VERY public separation, something that he didn't have the spirit to indulge in. He had told himself it was because he had business as his first priority, but he was starting to think that it was something else holding him back.

Note: Thanks for the reviews! I can't update this that often because of school and work, but I'll try to do it every week or so.


	3. Chapter 3

She touched down in Greenwich after a quick flight from State College in the family jet that allowed her to get a head start on retrieving her things from Hunter's house. She wanted to get this over with and with as little attention as possible. As she passed through the neighborhood where she had lived for the past two years, she couldn't help but wonder if anyone would notice she was gone. Maybe it was better that way, at least for a while. The anonymity of toiling away in the accounting department and living in her own apartment, the one that she had been given by Vince a month ago, might be good for her.

As the taxi pulled up to Hunter's house, she looked at the cab driver and said, "Just stay here for 15 minutes, please. I'll be back out soon."

Stephanie pulled the key out from under the mat as she arrived on the doorstep. _Hunter never changes his habits_, she wryly thought. Entering the house, she looked around and saw with a small amount of satisfaction that it looked like a disaster area. Clothes and food wrappers were strewn out across the living room, and she winced as she saw the old painting that they had bought together last year from that art gallery in New York laying on the floor with a cracked frame. A somewhat odd odor permeated the place. It obviously had not been taken care of since he had dumped her on national television, but she figured this made sense as he had never really done his share of the household chores.

Maybe Hunter might come to miss her for more than the obvious, she thought. She went up the main stairway to go search in the bedroom for what she needed to find. _Bingo_, she thought, as she was able to find the clothes she needed in the upstairs bedroom, but the sentimental items she was looking for, her photo albums, her slightly-embarrassing-for-a-25-year-old Babysitter's Club novels, and her favorite relics from high school and college, were nowhere to be found.

After searching the house and finding nothing, she went out into the garage and saw what she was looking for in a bin with her name on it. Reaching into the bin to put what she needed in her bag, she was shocked to hear the garage door open and car approaching. Hunter had arrived, shocking her as she figured he would still be in Pennsylvania. She saw him get out of his car and approach her with seemingly malicious intent.

"What the hell are you doing in MY house?!" he said, with furious anger dripping from every word. She was terrified and distraught at the same time. It was too soon, she couldn't talk to him yet as she had no idea what to do in this situation. He had confronted her before she could plan out how she would approach him again.

"I-I'm just getting some of, um, my things and, um, yeah" she said sheepishly, feeling like an idiot but at the same time seriously scared that he would do something violent.

"Oh really? Why didn't you do this at all in the last month of you not living here, or better yet, not come at all?" he said. She thought that it should have been obvious that with them fighting a messy proxy war against each other, it may have been a bad idea at that point and now that he had gotten his way, like he always did, and won, she could remove what she needed to in peace.

"How did you get in?" he said, wanting to know so that this would not be repeated.

"I used the key that you, um, keep under the mat." She didn't know what it was about him that was making her act like she was a stuttering moron, but she didn't like it at all. She needed to get out of there. She was finding breathing to be difficult as her sense of fear and rejection popped up once more.

"I guess you thought you could just come in and not have to deal with me, huh? Well maybe you are starting to learn, or at least for your sake, I hope you are starting to learn, that your rich background isn't going to keep you from having to deal with people that have legitimate grievances with you" he yelled. Hunter was furious that she was trying to once again put something over on him dishonestly, and while he may have regretted the terrified look on her face, it didn't stop all of his anger from coming forth. "I have been waiting for a while to get a real answer out of you, so I will do so now while you obviously don't have Jericho to hide behind, but what was your endgame? Did you really think faking a pregnancy would work? Why did you do that to me?"

She wanted to leave, but he was obviously not backing down and had cornered her. She said, slowly and as calmly as she could manage, "I thought that with the attention that I got you to pay me, I could maybe become pregnant for real, and everything would be fine and you would actually care about me again." Her entire demeanor was falling to pieces, and the emotional walls she was able to rebuild this morning were once again coming down.

He started laughing at her, and said, "That is ridiculous. You were the reason our marriage was failing, and it was because you were being a clingy power obsessed bitch." He felt deep down that his unflinching pursuit of the title may give validity to what she had just said, but he refused to look weak and let her know any of it.

"Look, I am sorry, I don't know how else to say it. What I did was wrong, I get that, and I am sorry that I hurt you. I just want to go home and take my stuff with me" she said. She was trying to keep it together for just a little while longer, but the look on her face was giving it away. She was a mess.

"That would have been nice to hear a little while ago" he snorted sarcastically.

"I don't know what else to say. I can't change what I did." Her face was pleading, hoping for something from him that would allow her to hold onto hope of some kind. He still looked quite pissed and impassive.

Her admission had caught Hunter off guard. He thought maybe she was being honest with him, but as he saw her looking vulnerable again, the way she had that night when he had finally dumped her, it infuriated him for some reason that he couldn't put his finger on. He had to say something firm and come out on top. "Well that is a bit of an understatement. And I really don't care about you enough to argue with you on this, so fine, go ahead, take your slutty clothes and juvenile preteen novels, and go away."

His words were a like a final dagger to her heart as she had to come to terms with Hunter resenting her with little hope for reconciliation. She quickly picked up her bag and walked out of the garage down to the street, entering the taxi and telling the driver to take her back to her apartment. As the cab left, she started to cry. This was horrible, it was like everything that had happened in the last month unfolded again in Hunter's garage. In her grief, she didn't look back towards her old house.

If she had done so, she would have seen Hunter throwing his championship belt at the wall in anger with tears on his face as well.

When she got back to her apartment, she quickly unloaded all of her belongings and locked all of the doors, as well as shuttering the windows. She didn't want anyone to recognize her or try to interact with her. That last confrontation with Hunter had deprived her of any desire to interact with people. Almost nobody in her apartment complex knew who she was as she was hardly there for the last few years.

It had been her father's gift to her after graduating from Boston U, and she had lived there for a while before selling it last year when she needed more money to help Hunter in rehab that issues with her father made unavailable at the time. While her father had gotten it back for her, it still didn't feel like home yet. The one time she was recognized was when someone up on the second floor called her a whore as she walked down to a limo to take her to the airport a few weeks ago and said some nasty things about Jericho as well.

She pretended to ignore it, but it really bothered her, as comments like that had always bothered her. She really never felt that she acted whorish in the slightest, except when the Invasion had gone wrong late last year, and all of her attempts to seduce men backstage had been laughable failures, so she really had never cheated on Hunter, making the common perception of her so infuriating. She didn't want anyone else knowing who she was or anything about her past. She went to sleep that night knowing that things were going to get a lot worse before they would get better.

She withered the majority of the next month or so mostly cooped up in her apartment, with the first week devoted to eating ice cream and watching sappy movies just like the stereotype went, she thought ironically. Going to the grocery store every few days was about the only exercise or sunlight she was getting, besides the shopping she was doing to make her apartment more comfortable and the daily jogs she was taking to try to get in top shape for her eventual return. Nobody except Shane had called or texted her, and she was grateful that he still cared, but being alone had allowed her to take stock of her life and what she was eventually going to do.

Watching WWF programming on her television gave her a little insight into what was going on in the organization that she would return to one day, but she couldn't bear to watch anything relating to Hunter and whatever beef he was getting himself into with that insufferable Hulk Hogan and the nWo. It was just too painful. Remembering the way Trish had been one of the only ones to not twist the knife in her back as she was led on the walk of shame, she began to root for her as she was engaged with an ongoing feud with Jazz. Stephanie would have liked nothing more than to return as soon as possible and take Jazz's title from her, but she realized that in the end, she was going to get her chance, and she had to be ready to take it. She would be starting her accounting job on the last Tuesday of April, and that would be the beginning of a long road to getting back on top.

On her first day of work, Stephanie woke up extra early and ate a quick breakfast before getting in her car and getting on the freeway. Dressed in professional attire for the first time in nearly 3 years as she was rejoining the accounting department, she felt extremely nervous about the reaction that she would get as she started her new job. She was aware that most of the employees at the Corporate Offices did not watch the shows and did not care about who held what title or why, but she was sure that the ones who did would not take kindly to her presence, regardless of her last name. She arrived in Stamford at around 7:30 am and took the elevator up to her father's office on the Fifth floor. Passing by his secretary, she entered into his office and found him asleep at his desk. She needed her exact assignment and needed it quickly as she wanted to get back into the routine of office work as soon as possible, so she opened the blinds and allowed sunlight to shine in on the room and walked over to the doorway with an impatient look on her face.

Vince awoke quickly, muttering something about eternal death to Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin, before seeing through blurred eyes his daughter dressed in professional attire and looking at him expectantly. _Oh great_, he thought, _I forgot about dealing with her today._

"Hello princess, I see you are here for your first day back. Erm, what can I do for you?" he said.

"Daddy, I am going down to the third floor soon to report in to accounting. Is there anything you want me to be doing specifically for the next few months?"

"Um, I'm sorry, what is it that you wanted to do again?"

"I need an assignment for my job in the accounting department" she said impatiently.

"Well, if you insist on an assignment, I guess I can have you deal with contract negotiations with some of our Ohio Valley wrestlers, as well as some of those on the independent circuit that are on our watch list, as long as you promise to be as cheap and ruthless as possible. That means avoid mentioning certain labor laws when dealing with foreigners, of course. They do not need to know about athletic commission protections or workers comp or any other ridiculous things of the like. Go talk to Gillisley about an office for yourself."

"Of course, daddy" she replied, rolling her eyes. He really was a greedy bastard, but it was what made him who he was and she didn't think she could change that.

"Now that should take up most of your time, but if there is one more thing I could ask of you, it would be that you look into maybe negotiating something with the Hart family." She wasn't sure if she had heard him right.

"Um, dad, I thought they kind of hated you, and that you hated them too." Stephanie wasn't sure if her father was just giving her an impossible task to mess with her or because he thought she could do something beneficial.

"Well, yeah, but with the huge explosion of the DVD market lately, I want to do business with them. A lot of, well, misguided, people hold Bret Hart in particular in reverence, despite that idiot's allegiance to Bischoff and all of that, so I just want to be able to make a DVD or two and make money off of those morons in Canada."

"I'll see what I can do.

Stephanie thought that her father might have overestimated her abilities. They didn't call it a screwjob for nothing, but still, she was determined to turn things for herself around. If she could get two obstinate old men to do business, maybe it meant something for her potential to patch things up with Hunter at some point.

She spent the next few minutes discussing with him logistical topics such as hours, pay, and whether she would have access to the gym for training for her return in a few months. He caved to all of her demands, probably just to make her go away. _Some things never do change,_ she thought.

When she went to speak to the director of the accounting department about what her father had told her, she sadly noticed walking down the dimly lit third floor hallway that there **were **people staring at her with disdain and derision on their faces. She had expected this, but it hurt her to actually see it.

She approached John Gillisley, the man her father told her talk to. He was balding, in his late forties, and not at all pleased to be disturbed by the boss's daughter, she thought, as he looked over her papers.

"Yes, very well, you can start in the office down the hall, the second one from the right. Make sure that you look at the department's quarterly balance before making a high profile offer. Please do not make me have to get involved with this kind of thing."

She was a little miffed at the disrespect she was getting, but decided to just go with it and get to work. These people didn't matter, anyways.

Adjusting to work was difficult for her, but she managed. She tried to get back into the swing of things quickly, settling into a routine where she would work eight hours a day, work out in the gym, and get home to watch whatever was on television.

By the end of the week, she had successfully renegotiated two contracts with OVW and had worked on a quarterly statement for the marketing department, who were freaking out about the possibility of those hippies forcing legal action to take her father's company's name away. Her challenge, to work on the Hart case, was weighing on her heavily. She had sent an email to the family's attorney, hoping to set up a meeting, but had gotten no answer yet.

As she went down to the gym in the basement of headquarters, she thought to herself that today she was going to start running the ropes again and attempting to get back in match shape. She had been trying to improve her fitness for most of the week, and had succeeded to some level, but she needed to be able to accustom herself with the ring again in order to make her comeback in a few months.

When she got to the basement, she changed into her preferred match attire, just a white shirt and black track pants, and got into the ring. She started off by running the ropes for a few minutes, alternating her patterns of movement and shuffling to improve her agility. She then climbed the turnbuckles before practicing jumping down and back up a few times. Things weren't going that badly, she thought, as she was finding moving around the ring was not difficult when she motivated to do something.

After a few hours of this, she went back to the weights where she was startled by the appearance of Kurt Angle on the bench press.

"Stephanie? Is that you? What are you doing here?" he said.

She suddenly felt nervous. This was really the first time in the last month that she had seen someone from her time in the company besides Hunter and her father. "Kurt? I'm sorry to bug you, I was just here to work out. I work in the accounting department now." she said. She had no idea what he was doing her, but she was glad that the one person she had run into was the person that she was friends with earlier from her time in the company.

"Really? That's so great. Nobody has really heard from you since, you know, you…. had to leave and all of that. I had a house show in Stamford today, and I figured I'd come here to work out a bit too."

"Oh, that makes sense. Listen, would you mind not telling anyone that you saw me here?"

"Um, okay. Can I ask why?"

"Well, you may or may not be aware of the fact that I can return to action in a few months once my contract runs out and I am re-signed by my father. I really don't want to deal with anyone from the shows for a while, and I kind of wanted to make a surprise return at that point, so I would appreciate it if everyone sort of thought I had just vanished, which I am sure that they already have."

Kurt had a perplexed look on his face. He figured he would go along with it just because she asked him to, but he wondered if maybe she was becoming too distant from people. "I understand Steph, and I will make sure not to tell anyone if that's what you want. Although, I am not really sure if this is a good idea for you to come back. I mean, Hunter is still in the title picture, even if Hogan just took the title from him last week, and, well, I think he probably still would have an issue with you being there."

She winced at that statement. She had figured as much, but it wasn't good to hear what she feared inside. While being Women's Champ was her ultimate goal, having at least Hunter's friendship was her top personal priority. "I hope that it will not be a problem. When I do return, would you mind maybe watching out for anyone who has a problem with me? I know it's a lot to ask, but you've always been a friend to me, Kurt, and I am going to need help."

"Of course, Steph. I'd be happy to do that for you." He had a recurring thought come across his mind about her situation and how he had always had a thing for her. She looked beautiful to him, even in her workout clothes, and her poignant and radiant face, framed by her soft brown hair, had not lost any of its appeal even after all of the beatings she had suffered. He may not still be interested in her, as he had moved on, but he understood that when she came back, there would be guys in the locker room who would be interested.

She may be naïve to that, as Hunter had always suppressed that kind of talk when they were married, but he knew for a fact that Edge and Benoit were both talking about getting into her pants lately, even though she was gone, which was ironic as they had always been so resolute in insulting her. "There may be some creeps or people with vendettas that you would have to watch out for, but I'll keep you filled in."

She smiled and said, "Thanks Kurt. I'm glad that I saw you today. I'll see you around."

She left the locker room and went back upstairs to check her email before she left, and saw one new message, from the Law Offices of Peter Grace.

"It seems that Bret Hart might want to hear what I have to say. Interesting."

**Thanks for the reviews and follows, guys! Please review this chapter too, as it is a long one, and some input on what you are liking and wanting to see would be appreciated. **


	4. Chapter 4

Hunter was full of anxious thoughts as he walked from the ring where he had been working out up to the hallway that would lead to the backstage locker rooms. Looking around the arena, he contemplated what it was about his current situation that left him feeling so empty inside. He wasn't happy, and it was starting to effect his match performance. He had no burning desire for revenge or the title at this point. He just felt numb.

He had thought that getting the title would mean that all his problems would go away. And at that moment, they did. He was finally free of Jericho's attentions and his wife was banished from the company. But the appearance of the nWo and Hulk Hogan had complicated all of that. He lost his title, and was finding that life really was hard in the company when he was all alone. Over the past month, he had found that taking care of himself was getting harder on his own than he remembered. He felt resentful of Stephanie above all else, though. Why was he feeling this way? It wasn't fair. She shouldn't have had this kind of impact on him.

He regretted the way their last meeting had gone, when he had basically screamed at her and kicked her off of his property. He really wished that he could talk to her again, maybe just to get some sense of closure, but she had basically vanished. It was the middle of May, and she had been out of the company for over a month with nobody having any idea about where she was. He was guessing that Shane McMahon might know, but the only times he had even seen Shane, the guy looked like he wanted to murder him.

The only thing that complicated things for him professionally was whether or not Shawn was coming back. He had yet to hear a straight answer, and maybe it is possible that this could give him some purpose outside of the title, but he was still trying to adjust to Stephanie being out of his life.

As he walked down the hallway towards the locker room, he caught the tail end of a heated conversation between Kurt Angle and Kevin Nash from behind the corner.

"What are you talking about, man? I am not joining the nWo, I am an Olympic Gold Medalist!"

"I would have thought that you would know better, seeing as how you are constantly getting your ass kicked, and how you are basically only noticed because people like to tell you that you suck!"

"I don't need you, or Hogan, so back off!"

"You're going to come to regret that, just like Triple H will. He's been a pain in the ass since he finished that business with Jericho and his ex, and when Michaels comes back, he'll be taken care of. By the way, what happened with his ex? She still gone and buried?"

"You have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to Steph, and as for your grudge against Hunter, I could care less about that. You guys are dinosaurs. Later."

"It would've been great to have someone on Smackdown with the brand extension, Angle. You missed out."

Hunter perked up when he heard Angle talking about Steph. He figured that he had to confront him about this, as obviously, the Olympic Jackass knew something. As Kurt rounded the corner, Hunter struck quickly, pushing him up against the wall and said, "What do you know about Stephanie?" in a dark, low voice.

Kurt was shocked, and it was showing on his face. "I don't know what you are talking about" he said, throatily and with little confidence. He tried to keep his composure, and his panic gave it away.

"That's bullshit. From what I just heard, you might know something about her, and I want to know too. Have you been fucking her?"

"No! What is your problem? I said I don't know. And why are you so curious about her? I thought you hated her." Kurt was seriously confused by what was going on with Hunter, but he couldn't tell him or anyone else where Stephanie was. She was clear about that, and he intended to honor his promise.

"You don't know shit. And as for why, that is none of your business. " Hunter figured he wasn't getting anything out of this situation, so he dropped Kurt to the floor and sulked off towards his changing room. He was beyond pissed, and it was making him act crazy. As he crossed through the brown doors and threw down his bag with anger, he thought about where Steph would have gone.

_Probably just living with her mother or something like that_, he thought. She was so needy and spoiled that there is no way she is doing anything on her own. He couldn't claim any moral high ground on that as he had taken to having his mother take care of his house once every few weeks, but at least he could say that he had accomplished something on his own when he won that title. Oh, fuck it, he was helpless.

New York, NY

Shane and his wife lived in a very upscale part of New York City, and Stephanie felt somewhat odd being in the world of luxury for the first time in months. She had lived relatively modestly since getting kicked out of the company, trying to avoid attention or scandal. As she approached the front doorstep of Shane's Manhattan penthouse, she looked around at the bright lights of the city sky and started to feel nervous. She didn't know how she would be received, basically anywhere she went, and while the stares and slights at work were getting less noticeable, she really did not have a single friend at the office.

She decided to finally take up Shane on his offer to have her over for dinner. She had no plans anyways, other than working out in the gym and watching a movie at home like usual. It was a Friday night, but she unfortunately had no basis of a social life, so she was content to just go visit her brother. Shane was becoming her only link to the outside world besides watching RAW and going to work.

She rang the doorbell and waited for a few moments. The door flew open, and Shane McMahon had a wide grin on his face as he came out to hug his sister.

"Hey, Steph. Come on in. Dinner's ready." Stephanie came in through the foyer towards the table where Marissa was sitting. She noticed that Marissa had an awkward and uncomfortable look on her face.

"Hi Marissa, what's for dinner?"

"Oh, hi Stephanie. Um, we are having Chicken tonight. Excuse me." Marissa left the kitchen and went upstairs without as much as a look at Stephanie or Shane. Stephanie felt confused as to why Marissa had bailed on them, not even really acknowledging her.

"Shane, is there something I should know about?" She wondered if Marissa was still angry at her for how she had behaved after Hunter left her. They had not talked in months, and Stephanie felt that there might be some resentment on Marissa's part.

"Look, we talked about this. I thought Marissa was going to be friendly towards you, and I am sorry that you had to see that. Do you want me to go talk to her?" Shane looked extremely uncomfortable. He wanted his sister and his wife to get along again, and he didn't think that things were off to a very good start. He picked up the wine bottle that he had recently gotten out from the cellar and put it on the table and started towards the steps.

"No, Shane, stop. I will go talk to her." Stephanie knew she had to make things right between them on her own. She walked back to the foyer and headed up the steps towards Marissa and Shane's bedroom. Knocking on the door, she said, "Marissa, are you in there? It's Stephanie. Can I talk to you?"

Not hearing anything, Stephanie opened the door and saw Marissa staring out the window, not even acknowledging her presence. "What is it that you want?" Marissa said, with an angry tone in her voice.

"I just thought maybe we should clear the air before dinner. Are still mad at me? I thought that Shane would have told you that I am trying to be a better person now."

Marissa turned around with a nasty look on her face. "What is there to say at this point? I watched someone who I thought was my friend act like a conniving bitch on television for 4 months without so much as a single explanation from you. You tried to pin all of that WCW stuff on Shane last year, and almost ruined what reconciliation my husband could achieve with his father, but luckily Vince was able to forgive you two and reestablish the trust that you helped to break. And you go and jeopardize that by LYING about a pregnancy? Do you know how much I want children and have had no signs of success? How do you think that made me feel? You make me sick. And to top it all off, you acted needlessly cruel to an innocent dog because of whatever stupid argument you and Hunter were having at the time. So yeah, I would say that I am still fucking mad at you!" Marissa's face was red and swollen with intensity, and looked absolutely furious.

"What?" Stephanie could hardly believe her ears. She knew that maybe Marissa was a bit resentful of her, but she didn't have any idea that she was this mad.

"I said I am still mad at you! What don't you understand?"

"Look, I am sorry about all of that." Stephanie knew it sounded weak, but she could hardly come up with anything else to say. She was still in shock.

"Sorry doesn't cut it! How do I know that you are any different now than you were just a few months ago?"

"B-but, I have changed. I have a new job, I have a new house, I am making improvement, and I don't know what else to do! I just want to be part of the family again." Stephanie was extremely dejected. She probably should have seen this coming, but once again, she underestimated just how much people did not like her.

"You seriously think that I am going to forget everything I saw you do less than 2 months to this day? You made me regret ever knowing you."

Stephanie had tears in her eyes. She had no idea that Marissa felt that way, but more than that, she was confronted with the base appearance of her self-serving actions from afar. She had known that she became a bad person before getting kicked out of the company, but she didn't know that it made everyone view her in a way that was so repulsive. She started to feel physically sick. The air around her was becoming thick and awful. She tried to compose herself and respond. "I am so sorry about that. You are my friend, and I want you to know that I never did any of that other than to try to save my marriage."

"Look, I get that Shane thinks that you are serious about this whole being a new person thing, so maybe what you are saying is true, but it doesn't change the fact that we all told you Hunter was bad news, and you ignored all of us. Look what you have become!"

Stephanie was full-fledged crying at this point. She couldn't think about anything other than trying to one day get Hunter back, but here she was, hearing him badmouthed by Marissa, and knowing she couldn't say anything else about it. "We used to be such great friends. What can I do to show you that I really am changing for the better?"

"Well, you could start by promising to stay away from Hunter."

"I-I can't do that. I am going to return to the company one day, and he will be there."

"You know what I mean." Marissa had heard what Stephanie had said about him the day after she was kicked from the company from Shane. She knew that Stephanie, for some ungodly reason, still had feelings for the asshole, and that she was still extremely vulnerable to any mentions of him.

Stephanie was at this point sobbing into one of the pillows on the bed. She knew that Shane might come up at any point, but she couldn't help it. Why couldn't anyone understand what she was going through? Couldn't they just accept her at her word that she intended on changing for the better, and leaving her old bad habits behind that weren't named Hunter?

Marissa actually started to feel bad for her, looking at her lose it on the bed. She may have come across too harsh, but she was resentful of a lot of things, and Stephanie didn't help matters by trying to reconcile immediately. "Look, I don't really care about Hunter, what I care about is you. You changed in a really bad way as of late, and you're not the same person that I knew for years. I am willing to forgive you, but please, for the sake of yourself and everyone else around you, just do not speak to Hunter again."

Stephanie decided to cut her losses and accept Marissa's open hand to her. She stood up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and gave Marissa a hug. "Thank you, Rissa. I am sorry about everything."

The two of them walked down the stairs to see Shane asleep on the couch. He got up with a start, and said, "Oh, there you are. Can we finally eat dinner now?" Stephanie and Marissa laughed, and it seemed like they had gotten back on the same page once again.

The dinner passed relatively quickly, without much event outside of some small talk, until the end when Shane started to wonder about the rumors of Stephanie getting into negotiations with the Hart family at work. He said, "Is there any truth to that, or better yet, what does Dad think he is going to accomplish with that?"

"Well, he wants to make a Hart family DVD, and he put me in charge of that, presumably because I am the only McMahon who Bret Hart has never met. So yeah, it is true, and I actually have a big meeting tomorrow with their lawyer nearby in Manhattan."

"Sounds nuts to me. I don't know much about what you have gotten into, but personally I think it is just Dad trying to give you an impossible task to keep you busy. He did the same with me when I came back after the Invasion. He told me that I had to get broadcasting rights in the Middle East for Monday night Raw. I got absolutely nowhere with that."

"I mean, I have just sent some emails to the lawyer about the basic nature of what we want, and I am thinking if it goes well tomorrow, I might just have a chance at getting this done."

"Good luck with that, Steph."

The three of them continued on to eating dessert, before Stephanie felt ready to go. She gave Marissa and Shane a hug before leaving in her car and heading home to Greenwich.

**Please rate and review! I love getting feedback on where you want this to go!**


	5. Chapter 5

She strolled down the crowded street with no small amount of anxiety but with quite a bit of pace and purpose, approaching the Italian restaurant that she was supposed to be at. This was it, the big meeting with the attorney for Bret Hart. She really wanted to nail down this contract, it would show her dad that she was capable of doing anything set before her. Opening the door, she approached the hostess and said, "I am looking for a Mr. Grace? We had planned on a lunch meeting and I am running a little late."

The hostess pointed her over to a booth in the corner. She saw to her surprise that there were two men in the booth, not merely one. She wondered what was going on, but walking across the blue patterned floor with what she thought would appear as confidence, she decided to just go with it. An older looking man in a standard business suit turned towards her and seemed to recognize who she was, and to her surprise, the man staring out the window impassively was none other than the Hitman himself. Maybe her offer was more seriously taken than she thought.

"Ah, yes, Ms. McMahon, you have arrived. My client and I have been eagerly awaiting your arrival. I ordered for you, if that's okay." Stephanie felt a sharp pain hit her stomach at that moment_. Hunter used to order for me_, she thought. She couldn't lose it now, though, so she steeled her nerves and faced him head on, determined not to look weak, and extended her hand for a firm handshake.

"Yes, Mr. Grace, I apologize, I got stuck in a bit of traffic on my way down from Greenwich."

"That's perfectly fine. So, what we want to know is why exactly your company has any interest in my client. You mentioned something about DVD rights, and while that is an enticing offer, what I am getting at, is-

"What the hell does Vince want?" Stephanie heard Bret Hart speak for the first time. He looked a bit annoyed, and she was nervous that this was all going downhill way too quickly.

"Well, we are interested in perhaps making a DVD about your career, you know, the highlights and some of the stuff people might not know about, and-

"You realize that your father screwed me out of my title, right? So tell me, seriously, why are YOU here?"

"I am trying to get you to agree to this proposal. There is a lot of money to be made."

"No, that's not what I asked. The only reason I took this interview is because I heard that YOU specifically were involved. Now, as much as I hate that bastard father of yours, I never had the displeasure of knowing you, but I will say that I am familiar with you as I do not live under a rock. And honestly, this is the first time I have ever seen you not wearing a leather skirt and shrieking about your ridiculous personal issues with that bastard Helmsley, who is just as guilty as the rest of them."

Stephanie was starting to get annoyed. _How dare he talk to her like that!_ For the first time in a while, she started to feel that angry monster grow inside of he, and she started to see red. _No, fight it, it never went well for you last time, _she thought. Taking a moment to compose herself, she responded, "Look, I am simply here to do business. That person was the old me, I am working in the corporate offices now, and I am trying to be a better person." She could tell that Mr. Grace was mortified at what was occurring. It was likely that he thought this was going to go a lot smoother.

"Okay, whatever you say. Look, I have no interest in accepting any offer that will bring money to Vince, so it's a no." Stephanie was starting to lose it inside, again. How could it go this badly for her this quickly?

"I really think you should reconsider and-

"No. You disappointed me. I thought you had something serious to ask me outside of making some DVD. Come on, Peter, let's go." He got up from his seat and started to walk out. Stephanie was at this point desperate. She had to get his attention somehow. Her face was swelling up red and she started to feel herself giving in to her old commanding urges.

"Wait, STOP! You are going to listen to me, DAMMIT! I am going to do business with you one way or another!" She was making a scene, but she figured it was the only way. Bret turned around with a small smile on his face.

"Ok, fine, what do you have to say? There has to be something that we can do for each other that doesn't enrich your daddy." He walked back to the booth and looked at her expectantly.

She was furious that she had lost control again, and had to think on her feet, but before she could even contemplate a response she blurted out, "I want you to train me."

Bret looked at her with confusion on his face. "What did you say?"

"I said I want you to train me. As a wrestler." When she thought about it, it made sense. She needed to become a good wrestler for when she returned, and she needed something to take her mind of the pain of not having Hunter in her life. She had in the last month or so become relatively fit, physically at least, but her in-ring skills were no better than before. This could work out, she thought.

"Yeah, last I saw, you were sort of banished from that company. But then again, what are you doing here if that's the case?"

"I am a McMahon, and I will return to the road sooner rather than later. But I want to make my own mark on things. I am sick and tired of having everything I do defined by others. I need someone good to train me to kick some ass. And everyone at that company either hates me or is too busy to help out. So I am asking the proverbial 'best there ever will be' for help. Are you satisfied?"

He started to laugh, and said, "No, you won't want to be trained by me. You couldn't handle it. I wouldn't charge you anything for it, but I don't think you're up to it."

"Yes, I am. I have lost everything in my life, and I need this."

"What about your swell corporate gig?" He was at this point laughing pretty hard at her. She was starting to get seriously pissed off.

"Come on, be serious. Do you want to do this, or not?" She was looking him straight in the eye, and showing no signs of backing down. By this point, his lawyer had made some comment about using the bathroom and left the clearly uncomfortable scene.

He chuckled, and said, "Fine. I will train you, and try to make something out of you. But you are going to do everything I say."

Stephanie felt bright inside, and said with a large smile, "Thank you. You won't regret this."

It was at this point that the food arrived. The two of them nailed down the details of how they were going to train her to be a decent wrestler over the meal. She needed to keep working at Corporate HQ for at least another month, so Bret agreed to train her at a local New England promotion's facilities in Hartford, where he had a house and had a good relationship with the promoter.

She was going to start in mid-June, and hopefully finish up within the month. This meant that she was going to have to go to work, drive 2 hours to Hartford, train for 4 hours per day, and get back home by midnight before doing it all again the next day, but she was determined to do this. Bret had told her that it would only take two weeks to get her where she needed to go if she worked hard at it.

When she left the restaurant, she felt invigorated for the first time since taking the accounting job. Sure, Vince might be mad that she wasn't able to make him any money from this, but she knew that he expected her to fail and wouldn't really care. It was a new day for Stephanie.

Backstage, 4 Weeks Later

As the company had gradually gotten the "F" out, Hunter had realized that change wasn't always ideal. The status quo had been upended by the nWo, and he still didn't have a title. The brand expansion had made things difficult for him, as many of his old contacts were on the other show. He looked around backstage and figured that it was time that he finally get to the bottom of what had been on his mind for weeks. June had brought him the ire of the Undertaker, and he still hadn't gotten to talk to his old friend Shawn. Oh sure, he had beaten Hogan to become the number one contender, but he still had to deal with the Olympic Jackass who he was still convinced was hiding something about Stephanie from him.

Hunter knew that getting the title back was his only objective at this point, as he really didn't have anything left in his life. He lived for the chase, and it was starting to wear on him. Stephanie had been there for him, but she got in the way of the chase, and revealed herself to be a manipulative shrew after he ruined their vow renewal ceremony. He knew what she was really like, and that wasn't it, but it didn't change the fact that she had damn near vanished and avoided contact with him.

He walked down the hallway towards his locker room to see Stacy Keibler leaving Vince's office with a smug look on her face and her clothes looking askew. Well, that was nothing new, he thought. Stephanie probably would have slapped the shit out of her had she been here. Fuck, why was he still think about her! It was annoying. This had to stop. He was going to find out once and for all.

He banged on the door and came face to face with the Genetic Jackhammer himself, who still seemed to be satisfied from his extracurricular activities. Vince took a darker turn of appearance when he saw who came into his office.

"What the HELL do you want?" Hunter sighed. It was a bit annoying that Vince had it out for him and was causing his title chase to be that much harder. Screw Kurt Angle for sucking up to the boss and screwing him out of a fair title shot.

"Relax, Vince. I just got a question to ask you."

"Really? Well as long as I am serving as temporary GM of Smackdown, you aren't getting a title shot that you don't deserve. You will have your chance at the next PPV, but you better not think that I am giving you anything more than you deserve."

"Yeah, I don't care about that. I want to know where the hell your daughter is."

"What did you just say?"

"You realize that we are technically married still, right?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? What is it that you want me to tell you? You Pedigreed me and threw her out of the ring. That ended your marriage. Don't play that card with me."

He realized that maybe he was coming on a bit strong. "Look, I just want to know if she is okay. The last time I saw her, she was trying to sneak her stuff out of my house. It didn't go well, and let's just leave it at that."

Vince looked beyond irate at this point. "I don't have to tell you shit, but I will anyways just so you don't go off causing problems of your own. She is working in the accounting department at the corporate office. She recently almost got a big DVD deal, but it apparently fell through. Her contract runs out in a month, and I have every intention of re-signing her to come back on the road. And you will do NOTHING to stop that."

"What is she planning on doing when you resign her?" He started getting worried. As much as he'd like to get some closure, or at least something out of her, he didn't want to deal with another vendetta of hers. Having Jericho attack him all the time was not much fun, and he had enough problems as it was already.

"How the hell should I know?"

Hunter left the room after that. He didn't want to deal with the old bastard any more than he had to. He shrugged off the thoughts that were coming to mind about Stephanie. Likely, she wasn't even in his brand, and maybe that was for the best. He decided, screw it, she's out of his head. Not going to think about her anymore.

It wasn't working.

**Please review this if you like it! I thrive on feedback!**


	6. Chapter 6

Stephanie was approaching her car with her workout bag in hand and a dour look on her face. Her job dealing with OVW contracts was getting really difficult as 2002 was proving quite the year when it came to signing new competitors from OVW to the main roster, and she ended up having to work a lot harder on this job than she thought she would initially. But the events that she was following on television were giving her quite a bit more unease. Her father had apparently taken Stacy Keibler as his newest concubine, and it annoyed Stephanie to have to see that. Her mother had called her quite a few times to complain about it, but there wasn't much she could do. She figured she would wipe that smile off of Stacy's face in due time, which brought her to where she was going now.

Leaving work for her first workout with the Hitman made her excited, but also extremely nervous. She had heard stories about Stu Hart's training methods, and she figured that Bret wasn't much nicer to his students. She had gotten into really good shape over the past few months, going down into the basement after work to get some cardio in for an hour per day before hitting the weights.

The people in her department had become accustomed to see her emerge from the gym, late at night, covered in sweat, and figured that she was just another crazy McMahon. They were friendly to her face, but she knew they said nasty things behind her back. It was the same way everyone in the locker room had treated her, and their true feelings came to the surface once they thought she wasn't coming back.

On the drive up to Hartford, Stephanie started to think of what was going on with Hunter on Smackdown. He hadn't tried to contact her at all, and she really only had contact with Kurt Angle and her brother at this point, but Kurt had called and told her that Hunter wanted to know where she was and had basically tried to bully him into giving up her whereabouts.

It was terrifying at first for her, as she knew that as much as she loved him, he still hated her, and she couldn't think about what he could possibly want from her except to just bury her in his fury some more. She also considered that he would want a formal divorce from her, and she had no idea how to handle that. But he hadn't talked to her yet, and she was grateful that she had some time to figure out how to deal with him without further alienating her family. Marissa had come around, and they had had lunch together a few times since airing their grievances, but it was clear that things were still tenuous with her and with her father.

She pulled into the parking lot of the gym where Bret had told her to meet him, and walked into the building where she saw a standard ring and Bret Hart standing inside of it with a smug look on his face. "So you actually showed up."

"Of course. I want to be the best. I want to shove it in my dad's face and everyone else in the locker room."

Bret smiled, and said, "That is all well and good. We'll see if you have what it takes. Go get changed and ready to work."

Stephanie went into the locker room and changed before coming out and entering the ring. She looked around and found that the place was entirely empty, which seemed odd as there were bleachers that seated a couple hundred around the ring, and there was no staff there whatsoever. She guessed that Bret really had an in with the owner of the place for them to be able to work in total isolation. "So, what is it that you want me to do first?"

Bret replied, "I need to know what you are capable of. I watched some of your old matches and I see that you're a fighter."

"Yeah, what of it?" She thought he was patronizing her. Everybody seemed to these days, even her own father. He could hardly keep himself from laughing at her when she talked to him about her return date on RAW or Smackdown.

"That's good, you'll need that."

Stephanie thought about what he said, and figured he was talking about that time where she had spanked Trish around the ring and ended up beating her. It was probably the highlight of her in-ring career, and it was only a notable match because Lawler basically had an orgasm on commentary. "I'm okay at this when I get really mad."

"What moves are you most comfortable with?"

Stephanie thought to herself, this is an awkward question. _I really know nothing about wrestling despite being a former Women's champion_. "Um, I can do a DDT, and I slap people pretty hard. I can also do a hair toss. That's about it."

Bret looked at her with an ever smugger look on his face, and said, "That's not a lot to work with. Tell you what, today we'll go over some basics about positioning and basic moves. In time, I'll help you develop a move set."

"Should I warm up or something?"

"Just run the ropes until I tell you to stop."

Bret spent most of the next hour making her run the ropes until she could do it with her eyes closed. It was exhausting, and she found that she wasn't quite in as good shape as she thought. After about 45 minutes, she asked him if she could take a break. "I'm really tired. Can I just have a break?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? Keep going, I will tell you when to stop!" he yelled. _Drill sergeant wannabe_, she thought. She sulked back to the middle of the ring but kept going. Finally, she was brought to a very abrupt stop by Bret sticking his foot out and tripping her. She landed head first into the canvas and saw stars. "Get Up!" he yelled. She slowly got to her feet, and he proceeded to suplex her straight into the turnbuckle. She hit her head once again, and by now, she was pissed.

"What the fuck?!" she yelled, legitimately mad that he was cheap shotting her like this. She charged him, trying to spear him down to the mat. He side stepped her charge, and gave her a prompt kick in the gut. She fell to the canvas with the wind knocked out of her. It was like the match that ended her career all over again, being thrown around the ring like a toy.

"You have no sense of direction in the ring. You open yourself to attack too easily."

"You just hit me out of nowhere!"

"What do you think your opponent is going to do? Now we are going to practice some moves. I want to show you how to escape a hammerlock-

"NO!" That particular bit of instruction brought back some bad memories for her. She thought of walking in on Hunter and Trish in a compromising position and knew that she had to change to something else before she lost it from the flood of memories. "I mean, um, can I just learn how to do a basic clothesline first?"

"Fine, we will start with that." For the next 20 minutes or so, Stephanie practiced bouncing off of the ropes and clotheslining Bret, who would deflect the blow or avoid it, but she seemed to grasp the concept.

After that, they moved on to things like armbars and countering basic holds, and she made sure to imagine herself in a real match situation while doing this. By the end of their session, she had grasped all of the basics, and had even practiced doing a DDT on the dummy that Bret brought out of his bag with decent results. As she was walking over to her water bottle, she said "I actually got a lot out of that once you stopped attacking me randomly."

"Huh, I guess so. Still, I enjoyed doing that, and it might happen again." He looked as smug as ever.

She took that in stride and asked him, "Do you think you could show me how to do the Pedigree?" It was something that gnawed at her for a while, and she wanted to do Hunter's move in the future to show that she wasn't going to be fazed by history. It might even get his attention if things came to that.

"What? You want to do the Pedigree? Um, why?"

"I just think it's a good move, you know, and I-

"You mean Helmsley's move, right? I thought you weren't going to bring your drama bullshit into this."

"I-I think it's a good move, and-

"Whatever. Next week, once you actually understand basic ring placement and the moves you need to succeed, yeah, we'll get to that. It's a basic double underhook facebuster, but to do it as well as Helmsley does, you need to time your jump right."

"I have to ask, um, why is it that you wanted to work with me in the first place?"

Bret just laughed and looked up at the ceiling for a second before saying, "Seems like everything that could have gone wrong for you has. It interested me that you haven't just decided to quite everything. That, and the fact that I wanted to meet the most hated person in wrestling over the past few months."

"I wasn't the most hated-

"Yeah, you were."

She looked up at his shit eating grin and said, "Well one day, everyone in that locker room is going to regret how they treated me." She had that classic angry smirk on her face, the one that had made her a running joke to so many in the past.

He broke down laughing and walked out the door as she followed, heading towards his car, and said, "Sure, sure, but for now, you're going to learn the basics. Next week we'll get into your plot for revenge and all of that, but don't get ahead of yourself." He left the parking lot, leaving her feeling a strange mixture of inadequacy and hope for the future.

_I suppose this could have gone worse_, she thought. She got in her car and left, knowing that she still had a lot of work to do. She wished that she could talk to someone about what was going on, but that was certainly out of the question. Nobody could know what she was doing and who she was speaking to, not even Shane.

1 Week Later, Locker Room

Hunter was seeing red at the moment. He was sick of all the shit that was happening on Smackdown recently and how he knew he wasn't getting his title shot. He had come on RAW this week to try to get some answers out of Shawn about what was going on, and he had been blown off yet again. He threw his bag at the wall, and screamed at the first person he saw to get out of his way as he stormed out towards the bathroom.

"Well, someone is a little frustrated." Trish Stratus has walked in and figured that she could cool off after her match, which straight up had devastated her. She had just lost her Women's Title to Molly Holly, the Prude Queen of the WWE, and she had no patience for the typical moody bullshit that Hunter had inflicted on everybody in his path for the last few months.

"What did you just say?" Hunter heard Trish Stratus's voice and was not pleased. What the hell did she want?

"Nothing. I just came in here to get my water bottle and you just yelled at me to get out of your way."

"Whatever, I am leaving now anyways-

"Seriously, what the hell is your problem? You really are frustrated, and so am I, as I have to watch the Celibacy Advocate for the company parade around with the Women's Title now, but I am not yelling at everyone I see." Trish was pissed, and she felt he owed her an explanation. Apparently he had attacked Kurt Angle backstage for some stupid unknown reason a few weeks ago, and she wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"I am **not** sexually frustrated!"

Oh shit. What did he just say?

"Who said anything about sexual frustration?" Trish was starting to crack up. Maybe that wasn't all that was bothering him, but it was sure as hell funny to hear him say it.

He heard what just slipped out and wanted to collapse into a puddle right there. He just prayed that Trish was the only one who was hearing what he said, and decided to hightail it out of there. "Dammit, I- shut the fuck up! I am leaving-

"That guy Freud sure knows a thing or two. I get it now. But don't worry, I am sure the ring rats waiting outside the arena can help you get some, erm, _relief._" He wasn't going to stand for this. Trish's mirth at his embarrassment was just too much, and he felt his pride being reduced to nothing as her eyes bore into him.

"You didn't hear anything. I am leaving. Fuck this, and fuck you too." He walked out the door after picking up his bag, and decided that he had enough. As the dimly lit hallway revealed the door to the outside of the arena and the parking lot, he heard Trish's mocking voice call out.

"Must be great for you to not have Stephanie around anymore, huh?" He stopped dead in his tracks.

He snapped. That was it. The always present angry monster inside of him commanded him to lash out, and he did. His face swelled up to the most red it had been in a long time, and the full force of his fury broke out in his mind with all sorts of devious intentions towards Trish. He couldn't keep his anger down anymore, and he gave in to the monster and lost control.

He dropped his bag, ran full force back at the locker room, picked Trish up by her neck, and slammed her into the wall. "SHUT THE FUCK UP! YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT! NOBODY HERE KNOWS SHIT! DON'T YOU DARE MENTION HER NAME IN FRONT OF ME EVER AGAIN!"

He was out of breath, and had tears streaming down his face. Nobody could see him like this. It was too much. Why did that bitch still have such an impact on him? He couldn't get her out of his head. It was maddening, and nauseating. The air in the room was stale and compressing. He was not seeing straight. The blurred vision he saw through started to clear, and he was thrust back into reality with a painful vengeance.

He felt guilty as he saw her gasping for breath on the floor with terror in her eyes. He started to regain control, but he was still heated to a dangerous level. She had tears in her eyes. He didn't consider himself a violent person, although everybody else did with relatively good reason, but he still knew that hitting Trish, no matter what she said, was still wrong.

"Look, I am sorry." He helped her up, but she was in a protective posture and backed behind the nearest table.

"Trish, are you OK? Look, I lost it. I am sorry. Please tell me you are OK."

"No, I am not OK! You just slammed me into the wall. That really fucking hurt!"

"My bad. Do you need an ice pack or something? I don't know what came over me."

She tried to compose herself. "No, and I will be fine. Just back off. Maybe I went too far, but you clearly have some issues regarding your ex that you need to fucking deal with. I'll forget about this if you will."

"Yeah, OK." Fuck, he felt like shit once again. Nothing he could do went right.

Trish left the room as quickly as she could. Obviously she had pushed a button that Hunter was not comfortable with being pushed. He hadn't actually really hurt her, she was physically fine, but the scariest part was the way he stood over her and screamed. She had to talk to someone about this, and what she was planning on doing was something that had bugged her ever since that night at the end of March.

She needed to talk to Stephanie.

**Alright, I am hitting a point in this where I might take it any number of directions, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Reviews are like cookies, can't go wrong with them.**


	7. Chapter 7

Stephanie once again hit her head down on the mat as Bret shoved her attack aside. "No, for the last time, that is not going to work! You cannot spear me when you have done nothing to soften me up first!" he yelled.

Stephanie and Bret had been at this for hours, and there were only two days left in her training. She had come really far, and had learned a lot in the last week, but she was still struggling in their practice fights. She had come to understand that there was a lot more to actually being in a match than just being angry at her opponent, but she still wasn't sure how to translate her acquired basic knowledge into a move that could win a match for her.

"Well, what I am supposed to try? I have gotten down all the basics, I can grapple with confidence now, and I am in shape. But I have no way to finish anyone off!" She was a little miffed at how he had been treating her today. His kicks to her gut were starting to pile up, and she basically had to ice her entire body for the entire weekend where they practiced top rope maneuvers, so the bruises were not getting any better.

"You aren't listening to me. Yeah, you need those kinds of moves, but first, stop attacking recklessly and allowing me to dominate you." Bret had not lost a touch of the arrogance that had defined him to Stephanie since they first met. He still had not even taken off his sunglasses once, and had not even looked like he was breaking a sweat as he countered her moves.

"Well, I can't just keep trying to-

Stephanie was abruptly cut off as Bret swung his fist into her gut, and grabbed her sides before lifting her up and performing an Atomic Drop. Her back flared up in pain, and she yelled out for the first time. Her eyes watered with tears, as Bret stood over her with a sickly smile on his face.

"Never lose your-

"Focus. I know" she said, with a grunt on her face and swearing in her mind that she was going to get him back for that. She couldn't help but let out a few tears as she got back to her feet and retreated to the turnbuckle.

The pain was really becoming unbearable in this training, as they had to practice on 12 consecutive days due to the time constraints she was working under. The bruises on her face and arms were commented on by her supervisor, Gillisley, who asked her what she was doing outside of work to show up that way. She had told him something vague about being in car accident, but more than a few people had given her strange looks at work. Nobody else had tried to contact her, but she was starting to become more and more nervous as she knew she would be returning to the road soon.

She strode into the middle of the ring and locked up with Bret before delivering two kicks to his gut and pushing him back. She went in for a body press pin attempt, but he knocked her back. She bounced back against the ropes, something that she had become quite good at even before starting training with Bret through her workouts at the corporate gym, and launched into a clothesline that connected with Bret's neck. He popped right back up and threw a haymaker, which she dodged. She tried to grab him into a headlock, but he countered and did a snap mare takedown.

She was woozy on the ground after her head had smashed into the canvas, but as she tried to get back up, he grabbed her shoulder and turned her around so she was parallel to his body before he did his signature Russian Legsweep and her back screamed out in even more pain. Knowing what was coming next, Stephanie scrambled towards the ropes, but it was too late. Bret had her cut off, and turned her around onto her back before sliding his leg in between hers and pulled her legs into a pretzel around his own and turning over to lock in the Sharpshooter.

He had done this move to her in yesterday's session, and it felt no less pleasant then. Her entire body locked up in a horrible stretching sensation and she yelled out in agony, and she tried her best to move, but he had her locked in. She had no choice but to say, "Stop, I give up!"

He let her go, and then looked down at her as she could hardly move. "Yeah, I got a little ahead of myself there."

She muttered shakily, "You think? That really fucking hurt, worse than yesterday." He smiled at her admission and looked off towards the darkened window.

He said, "You looked better, and had a decent sequence going."

She slowly got to her feet and said, "Can you show me how to do the Sharpshooter, too?" She has been persistent in trying to get him to show her the Pedigree, but he hadn't done so yet. She had tried it on her own to the dummy while he was in the locker room, and he had caught her doing it while walking out and laughed out loud. It wasn't a very good attempt as the dummy slipped out from her legs as she tried to do a jump and landed on its back somehow.

"Oh, so I suppose this is you acknowledging that the Sharpshooter isn't just 'that submission move that the Rock does'?" She turned bright red and looked away. The first time he had done it to her, she asked him why he was using the Rock's submission move. Apparently her knowledge of wrestling history was much weaker than she initially thought, as the Rock had taken the move from Bret rather than the other way around.

"I told you that I didn't watch many matches growing up. I didn't travel with my dad all that much and never really had an interest."

"Really? You thought that _I _was copying The Rock?"

"Look, I am sorry."

"Yeah, I will show you. The fucking Rock must have shown me a lot, huh?"

"For what it's worth, I don't like the guy much either. He gave me a Rock Bottom on a weekly basis for a while last year and kept calling me-

"A filthy, disgusting, brutal-

"No! That was Jericho. And that is in the past now. Can you just show me?" Bret looked at her for a second somewhat seriously. She wondered why he was doing that before he opened his mouth.

"I gather that you have been keeping our little meetings secret. If you ever use one of my moves, people might ask questions. Questions that might make both of our lives uncomfortable." Stephanie got the gist of what he meant. Her dad would really hate it if he ever found out where she was being trained.

"Look, I can just say I was copying the Rock, right? And if I am ever in the position to actually use the move, I must have done something good, right?"

"So you finally understand that you can't just jump into a finishing move, then? Good. Maybe you have learned something."

She just looked at him with a pissed off expression. He was really trying her patience.

He said, "Okay, we can do this." She looked at his weary face and decided that she was determined to do this as well. Having Bret's move on her side might just be what she needed to give her an edge.

For the next hour, Bret schooled her on the precise techniques of locking in the Sharpshooter and the situations to use it in. She took a little while to actually get the turnover part right on the dummy, but she was able to grasp it. She had tried it out on him a few times towards the end and he broke the hold each time, but it was obvious form his feedback that she got the concept.

It was past midnight, and she was running late getting home, but the session was really productive. On the way out, while he was in the locker room, she snuck back into the ring and tried to Pedigree the dummy, pretending to be in a match scenario and imagining the crowd all around her. She focused as hard as she could and jumped with the dummy's head between her legs before allowing gravity to slam them both to the ground.

"Well, that was a little bit better."

She turned around to see Bret had seen her do it, again.

"Look, I am trying my best."

"Yeah, here's the thing. You know that move pretty well from watching that douchebag Helmsley for years, so I don't think I even need to teach you. Just do it on your own until you make it look damn good. The truth is that it isn't hard to do, but it is hard to do well. Just keep practicing it on your own. Keep that dummy, I have many more."

Bret picked up his bag, and with a wave, left the building. She picked up the dummy and walked over to her car with the dummy in hand after collecting her own bag.

Driving home that night, she had really started to think about what her goals really were. It sounded so much better when she was first trying to pick herself up from nothing, but the fact of the matter was that getting the Women's championship wasn't going to be a very plausible goal for quite some time as the women's division had almost doubled in size since she had left because of the WCW influx and due to the explosion in developmental wrestlers coming up through the ranks, something she had seen firsthand while having to handle some of the contract negotiations.

Speaking of her recent signings, one of her very first, a musclebound monster named Brock Lesnar, had entered into the title picture relatively quickly and had allied himself with Paul Heyman, who she knew from her Invasion days. She had heard that Vince was thinking about putting Heyman in charge of Smackdown as GM since she and Shane were not interested in the job. That might be interesting, she thought. Her dad clearly had a twisted sense of revenge, as he wanted to put his two top former business rivals in positions of power under him.

And one of the others, John Cena, had gone to Smackdown and tried to start something with Kurt Angle, who had texted her about it with a note of displeasure about the rookie. She made sure that she did not tell him that she had signed the new guy, who was another musclebound freak.

As she pulled into the parking lot, she almost collapsed from exhaustion as she walked up the steps to her room with all of her gear in tow. It had been like this every night for her, but she was able to get in and immediately plopped down on the couch to go to sleep. She was glad that she had asked for the next day off, her first work day off since coming to the office, and had gotten it.

As the sun shone through her window and rested on her face the next morning, she rose from the couch and walked over to the kitchen to eat some breakfast. After having a bowl of cereal, she drifted over to her computer to check her email. As usual, she saw nothing but ads, except for one message.

It was from Trish Stratus and simply listed her cell phone number and told her to call her as soon as possible. This was certainly going to be interesting, Stephanie thought to herself.

What the hell did Trish want from her?

She went over to her phone and dialed the number in the message. The other end was picked up almost instantly and she heard Trish say, "Stephanie, is that you?"

She was surprised by the urgency that Trish seemed to be in to talk to her. This came basically out of nowhere and she hoped that Trish hadn't figured out her plans somehow. Maybe she just wanted to talk to someone in accounting about her merch sales, but that couldn't be it, as Kurt was the only one who should know what she was doing. Stephanie replied with tangible unease and worry.

"Um, yes, it is Stephanie. Is there a reason why you wanted me to call you?"

"What? No. I need to talk to you about Hunter."

Stephanie dropped the phone from her hand and turned white. What was happening? Why would Trish need to speak to her about Hunter? Her mind was racing a thousand miles per hour, and she was starting to get that old nervous feeling that shortened her breath. She was brought back into reality by hearing from the phone, "Stephanie, you still there? Are you okay?"

She picked up the phone and said, "Yeah, I am. What is it that you want to tell me precisely?"

"Look, has he come into contact with you recently? This might sound awkward, because you guys are, um, not together anymore, but it is kind of important."

"No, Trish, I haven't seen him besides on TV since March. And I am pretty sure that is how he wants it" she reflected sadly.

"Well, maybe you have that wrong. The talk backstage from what I have heard is that he has been asking about you a lot recently. He cornered Kurt a few weeks ago and demanded to know if you two were together, and he stormed into your dad's office at Smackdown and wanted to know where you were."

Stephanie was shocked to hear this. She had no idea that Hunter still even thought of her, which had been comforting as she felt she could make a new impression on him, but at the same time, it was depressing. She was feeling so many different things at one time that she just wanted to hide in a corner and stay there for hours. She composed herself the best that she could and said to Trish, "That is surprising to me. I haven't talked with anyone in the company since I was forced out, except my brother and dad."

"Yeah, well apparently you are a very touchy subject around Hunter, as I found out." That comment sounded sort of sad and cryptic to Stephanie, and she wondered what had occurred. It didn't sound good at all.

"What happened?"

"I made a comment regarding Hunter's, um, sexual frustrations-

"What? Why would you say that?"

"Let me finish. Okay, it was ill-advised, but sort of funny nonetheless, and as you may have found out last night, I lost the Women's Title to Molly Holly, so I wasn't in the best of moods, and so I decided to rib him in the locker room after we crossed paths. He stormed out and then I said something about, um, you, and he freaked out."

"What did you say about me?" Stephanie wasn't trying to sound hostile, but it surprised her that anyone in the WWE still talked about her.

"It's not important, it was about Hunter's lack of a relationship with you as of now, but he absolutely flipped shit and became terrifying."

"What ended up happening?"

"He ran back into the room and picked me up by the throat before throwing me into the wall."

"Oh my god, are you okay?"

"Yes, I am fine, it didn't hurt, but it clearly isn't doing anyone any good that he still has issues with you, and maybe you should talk to him."

"Um, Trish, you probably know that I had to leave the company. I don't think that can be arranged."

"Then why is your email address in the WWE Corporate Ledger that we all have?"

Fuck, Stephanie thought to herself. How could she have been so clueless and sloppy? She decided to come clean, as she had no other option, really.

"I work in the accounting office for WWE as of now. That is why my email is there. But I did have to leave the shows, as you well know. In fact, I recall seeing you there that night when I was getting dragged away by security."

"Um, yes. I witnessed that, and it made me feel like crap what they did to you. It was as bad as what Regal and your dad did to me last year. I am sorry you had to go through that." Stephanie was a little surprised to hear Trish acknowledge what happened and why it was wrong. It meant a lot to her, as it seemed that the whole world was fine with it and willing to erase her from history. The fact that Trish still remembered her and what happened meant that she was someone Stephanie could put trust in.

"Well, I appreciate that Trish. But I can't get in contact with Hunter. It won't go well."

"You don't know that. All I know is that he has become a miserable bastard since you were kicked out. And I am tired of his shit, as is most of the locker room, so I am just asking if you can do something about it." Stephanie thought that maybe Trish was someone who could help her on her return, and sounded genuine about her feelings, so she decided to throw caution to the wind and come out with it.

"Trish, can I trust you to keep a secret?"

"Um, I suppose so."

"I am coming back on the road in a few weeks. My contract will be up, and my dad is going to re-sign me."

"Really? That is great for you."

"Yeah. You can't tell anyone. The only other person who knows is Kurt, and he knows not to tell anyone either."

"Okay, that is fine. Most people around here have sort of forgotten about you, so I am sure that you won't have much of a problem until you get here."

"Yeah, that was kind of what I thought. I will probably have to face Hunter in the future, if only to get some closure. I am sure that he will get off your back when that happens." Stephanie didn't reveal that she was secretly terrified of that moment when it came. She still didn't have a clue what she was going to say to him, or how he would react to her presence.

"Well good luck with your return and everything. If you need anything before coming onto the road, let me know."

"All right, bye Trish."

"Bye, Stephanie."

Stephanie hung up the phone with quite a bit of anxiety. It wasn't how she thought her return would be, but having a friend among the women might be something that could help her. It certainly could have been worse, with Trish deciding to plan locker room ambushes or something like that on her. Trish might be as close as a friend she would ever find from women in the company. Even when she was with Test, they all hated her.

But before she could return, she still had to finish her training. She decided that the dummy she had brought home needed to be Pedigreed some more. There was enough space in the living room to practice. Maybe she could actually figure something out and wipe the smirk from Bret's face for a change. The thought made her smile slightly to herself.

**Please Review, guys! I am really starting to think about taking this into a pretty long story, longer than I planned, and if anyone has any feedback they would like to share, it would be appreciated quite a bit. **

**On a side note, we need to see more of a push for Cesaro on RAW! No more Bella and Mini Gator nonsense, and let's see some wrestling like on NXT! Just my opinion.**


	8. Chapter 8

The last two days of training went without incident for Stephanie. Bret seemed hopeful that she would make an impact on the Women's Division in time, and she felt that she had come really far. As much as an asshole as Bret had been, he knew his stuff, and had really helped her out. He told her that he would be in touch to offer help if she needed it, and they left each other that Friday evening on good terms.

She had a meeting with Shane down in New York City that later on that night, a midnight outing that would help to maintain secrecy regarding her new contract. As she drove down the highway towards New York, she thought about how it might be awkward to just show up at RAW on Monday and reclaim her spot. Nobody knew she was coming back aside from Kurt and Trish, and she would have to lean on them heavily for support.

Stephanie at the table across from her brother, who had a concerned and weary look on his face. She stared out the window from the well-lit and tacky diner they were in, a small establishment in the Lower East Side of New York City, and the business at hand was something that they both knew was coming for months, but Shane seemed reluctant to go through with. "Are you sure you want to go through with this? Dad asked me to handle your contract, and all you have to do is sign, but is this really something that you want to do?"

Stephanie stated with no hesitation, "Of course, Shane. I need to do this. I can't stand to work in that office anymore, with all of the whispers behind my back and the monotony of it all. This is what I am meant to do."

Shane's face looked pained and anxious, but he got out a folder after a few seconds with a pen inside and said, "Alright, here you go" and passed the folder to Stephanie, who promptly read it over and signed it. "I have to ask, have you done any training since deciding to come back? I know Dad has kept you busy, but-

"Yes, I worked with a professional and I have gotten a lot better in the ring." She said this abruptly, in an effort to keep Shane from asking any questions that might reveal Bret's involvement. She had a guilty look on her face, but Shane chose to ignore it. He didn't think that it was too important where she got help as long as she could protect herself. It had killed him to see his sister taking beatings from huge wrestlers over the past few years. He was going to protect her when she came back, whether she knew it or not.

He thought about it for a second before taking a sip of his coffee and saying, "That's great to hear. If you need anything, when you get to the arena on Monday, give me a call. You probably won't be on the card for your first night back anyways, and being a McMahon, you are going to be able to move between shows, but it is important that you keep your head down at first."

"Don't be silly, Shane. I can watch over myself." Despite her outward show of confidence, she felt as anxious as ever. The fact that her coffee was shaking in her hand gave this away quite clearly to Shane.

With a knowing look, Shane said, "I am sure you can." Stephanie could tell that he wasn't convinced, but she was tired of being the victim and was determined to show him otherwise. She steeled her nerves the best she could, and looked out the window to avoid her facial expression giving her away.

Shane said," Look, I have to get back home soon, but just remember, I am here for you. And if Hunter in particular gives you any trouble, let me know." He got up from the table and left some money to pay the bill.

Stephanie left not long after, on her way home to rest and pack for RAW.

The next day, after a quick flight to RAW's location this week, which was in Baltimore, she quickly checked into a motel where she planned to stay for the duration of the week. It was not going to be easy to keep her return under wraps if she got into the company hotel and her presence caused a major issue. She spent most of Saturday and Sunday just watching TV in her room, and couldn't seem to focus on anything except her return.

Waking up bright and early on Monday, she went down to the lobby to eat some breakfast. Stephanie was thinking the entire time about having to go into the arena that day and see everyone who had taken such glee in her humiliation. That old anger started to flare up yet again, but she knew that she had to be different and more serious this time. Coming back to the road was a big step for her, but it wasn't a step she took lightly in the slightest. She thought about what it would mean if she saw Hunter again. That was an inevitable confrontation, and she thought that by maybe just being polite yet distant with him, she could at least start to rebuild a relationship with him. It would really be up to him, though. He was going to have to make the first move. She just couldn't put herself out there again, it would be too painful.

She walked out of the lobby with her bag in hand and entered the parking lot. The sun shone down on her face with blinding intensity as she walked to her car, and she imagined what it would be like to feel the lights of the arena beating down on her once again. Entering her car, she got on the freeway and within 15 minutes, arrived at her destination. It was only 9 AM, and she figured nobody would be there yet, except the road crew guys. She needed to check in with production first, even if she likely would not be competing that night, and the sad part is that they had no idea it was her coming.

Stephanie parked her car and strode confidently across the parking lot towards the production truck, where she opened the door and saw Kevin Dunn sitting half sleepily inside. He was jolted awake by the sight of her and stuttered out "What the fu..

"Hi Mr. Dunn. It's a pleasure to see you again. Anyways, here is the contract I signed a few days ago, and I just came by for my check in." Stephanie could tell he was shocked to see her there still. She never got good vibes from him anyways, even if he was a friend of her father's.

"Didn't you, um, get fired?" It looked like he firmly wanted this to be true and did not want to deal with her in the slightest. He shiftily looked over the papers she had placed in front of him and seemed to groan silently as he realized they were the real thing.

"Yes, but I signed a new contract this week, as per the agreement that allowed me to do so, and I am ready to be on the road again" she answered tersely. Stephanie was really sick of people doubting her, and it was starting to show.

"We had heard that a diva would be checking in today, but, um, we didn't know that it was going to be you of all people."

"Yes, well I am sure you won't be the last person surprised by me being here tonight."

Dunn seemed to look over her papers a bit more before sighing and saying, "Alright, I think you know what we are going to need to go through."

"I have a solid idea, yes."

For the next fifteen minutes, the two of them went over the details of her employment, with her stating that her ring attire would be a simple white t-shirt and black track pants, just like in the past at times. She also made sure to keep her old entrance music. She figured it would allow her to embrace her past and some of what made her who she was with that small gesture, but really, it was because her old music just made her feel like a badass, with its rebellious lyrics, synth, and chords, as well as its connection to some of her finer moments.

They were just hammering out the final details of her status on the road when Kevin asked her, "So, um, why exactly are you here?"

"I need to get this meeting done before starting to train today."

"No, I meant, why are you back in the company?" He said this somewhat rudely, and with obvious reservation, as she determined that if he wasn't Vince's daughter, he would tell her off quite a bit more. He had an angry scowl on his face and a look of general petulance. She was dumbfounded by this line of questioning, but decided to play along nonetheless.

"I want to be a wrestler again. What is so bad about that?" She was of course only partially telling the truth, but he didn't need to know that.

"Well, I don't speak for everyone, but, er, a lot of people might not like the fact that you are working here again."

Stephanie winced at that, she expected it, but it didn't make it any better for her to feel unwanted. She tried to internalize it, rationalize that Trish and Kurt were there for her, but the truth of the matter was that no matter where she went, the office, or the shows, she was just not wanted.

She started to see red again, and spouted off before she even knew it. She was pretty angry that he told this to her face, and while she didn't blame him, she still couldn't really control what she said next.

"Well Kevin, the truth is that I just don't care that much!" And with that, she left the truck and started walking briskly towards the arena, bag in hand.

"Stephanie, I didn't mean to-

She wasn't listening anymore and decided she would try to work out for a while before the show that night. Screw them, she thought. They were going to have to get used to her one way or another.

Arriving inside the arena, Stephanie changed and made her way out to the ring. She saw the thousands of empty seats and pondered on how the crowd would take to seeing her, if not tonight, than at least somewhat soon. She saw Kurt Angle in the ring, alone, and with nobody else in sight. He was running the ropes. She called out to him, "Hey Kurt! Over here!"

Kurt Angle looked down to see Stephanie grinning at him. He was brimming with excitement that she had decided to come back, and greeted her, "Hey Steph! How are you doing?!"

She climbed up into the ring and said "Fine, but I kind of wanted to train here too." She was smiling, and relatively happy that her first meeting with someone from the company in the arena was with Kurt. She started walking around on the canvas with a gleeful look on her face, as she realizes that she was finally getting her life back.

"That's fine, you can train with me. I'm Smackdown through and through at this point anyways, so I don't have any matches until tomorrow."

Stephanie started running back and forth on the canvas and gliding into the ropes with nimble ease. Bret's drills had really done her well. Kurt looked somewhat impressed to see her moving with that kind of pace, but didn't say anything and continued to stretch out of her way. She stopped after a few minutes and asked, "So what's going on between you and that new guy, Cena?"

"Oh, don't even get me started on that. He just strolls up in here and decides to answer my challenge to the locker room and tried to pull a fast one on me. But he right now seems to have moved on to getting involved with that weasel Jericho, so I guess best of luck to him anyways. Why?"

"I actually had to review his contract as part of my office job a few months back and I was curious to see how a lot of the guys I looked over are doing now." She continued to run the ropes, and Kurt was starting to look seriously impressed, as he had never really seen her show any sort of in ring competence before, but once again held his tongue.

"So, Steph, before anyone gets here, do you want to practice some moves and sequences?"

"Sounds great Kurt, let's do it."

For the next hour or so, Stephanie and Kurt practiced reversal situations as well as running strikes, and she was surprised at how easy it seemed now to her, due to Bret's crazy training up in Connecticut for the last half month or so. They both left the ring when lunch time rolled around, and some others started to trickle into the arena. Stephanie had no interest talking to any of them and sort of ducked out into the cafeteria through the lower bowl stands before anyone saw her. Kurt caught up to her as she sat in a corner near the end of the row table under the television.

"What was all that about?" He had a concerned look on his face and seemed genuinely shocked that she tried to avoid the incoming group.

"Oh you know, I just, um, don't really want to deal with anyone yet."

"You do know that you are going to have to face them all at some point, right?"

She grew sick to her stomach at that thought. Most of those people had turned up out of their locker rooms to mock her and humiliate her when she got fired last time, and she really didn't have much to say to most of them, and figured the feeling was mutual. "Yeah, I guess." Stephanie continued to pick at her salad and didn't look Kurt in the face.

"Look, I know what's going on for you is hard, but I promise, nobody's going to mess with you. Trish talked to me this weekend about you, and we agreed that we would look out for you for a few weeks so you can get back into things." Stephanie smiled at that statement. It was great to know that at least two people were going to be nice to her, even if they were on different shows.

"Thanks Kurt. I really appreciate that. For what it's worth, you don't suck that much, no matter what the crowd says" she said with an empty laugh.

"I am going to get Edge back for that, mark my words. I am an Olympic Gold Medalist, not a toy for the crowd to play with."

"Whatever you say, Kurt" she said with a chuckle. Stephanie finished her lunch soon after and parted ways with Kurt. At this point, she went into the assigned locker room and stayed there for hours until the show started, just reading a book and stressing out at the same time. She had taken a look at the card and noticed that she was not on it for tonight, which was fine. It was likely that nobody on the roster even knew she was hired except for a select few.

She stayed in her dressing room as the show kicked off, and sat glued in front of the monitor in the room that showed the events of RAW. Other than a quick Brock Lesnar squash match against one of the lower tier former WCW guys, in which he was not challenged at all and won with an F-5 after only 2 minutes, the first half of the show went off without much notice or fanfare.

It was at this moment that Stacy Keibler went down to the ring with a microphone in hand. She was incensed by the appearance of Stacy, who was carrying on an affair with her father openly and without any shame. Stacy came into the ring with the worst look of smugness and stated, "I heard that my sugar daddy was thinking about putting that miserable toad in charge of Smackdown. I think he should reconsider. I have certain persuasive, erm, qualities, which would make me an excellent general manager."

Stephanie may not have liked Paul Heyman much more, but she was downright pissed hearing this. Stacy continued "Yeah, I would have to say that as Mr. McMahon's personal assistant and very good friend, I think the job should be mine. You see, I have shown a willingness to do anything that it takes to get to the top." She laughed for a second, and continued on to say, "And I mean **anything**." Stacy concluded this point by pushing up her breasts and making a provocative pose towards the audience. She had them in the palms of her hand.

"I mean, it's not like there are any women in that locker room who vie for the same affection as I do, but then again, if they did, there would be no competition." She then pretended to look scared for a second before saying, "The point is simple. On Smackdown, I am going to make a full business proposal to our fearless leader and my _**very**_ good friend, Mr. McMahon." She crouched down for a second, and that is when it hit Stephanie. This was the girl who she caught with Vince all those months back. She saw that same bitch hiding behind a plant while Stephanie had her world end the previous night, and she was the reason that her father was not there for her that night.

At this point, Stephanie had stormed out of her dressing room and practically ran straight to Gorilla. She saw Bischoff there, who she had talked to earlier that week, and decided that he was a slime ball of the worst variant, but at this point, she needed a favor. He was the GM of Raw, and she wanted to punish Stacy right then and there. She wasn't going to allow her to make a mockery out of her family, and

He saw her and opened his mouth, but she cut him off and said, "Give me a match with Stacy. Now."

People in Gorilla were shocked to see her, and had no idea what to say, but Bischoff was looking at her like she had five heads.

"Erm, everyone, this is Stephanie McMahon, who you may know. And she is demanding a match."

More stunned silence followed. A scared looking young girl, likely an intern, said, "Mr. Bischoff, um, Hulk Hogan passed out drunk in his limo on the way to the arena, so his match is a no-go. We have an open slot."

Bischoff thought for a second, and said, "Alright, fine, go have your match. If this is how you want your debut, so be it."

Stephanie thanked him and stepped up to the entrance way with a microphone in hand, still behind the curtain. It was now or never, she was going to expose herself to the crowd again. The arena lights shone through and she felt her eyes water up, while her breath became short once more. She heard the roar of the crowd on the other side, booing Stacy lustily as she continued to deride the audience for not being worthy of her like Mr. McMahon was. While she was angry, she was also nervous.

She heard the first few hard synth beats of "My Time" hit and she stepped through the curtain to the utter shock of everyone in attendance. Stacy herself looked over and had a confused look on her face. She strode down to the ring, expecting those unfortunate "Slut!" chants, yet people seemed so shocked by her presence that she didn't know what she was hearing.

As she stepped into the ring, Stacy said, "What the hell are you doin-

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!", and the crowd actually cheered. Stephanie had no clue where that came from, but she was pissed off and going to let her hear about it. "I just came back to this company today and the first thing I hear about is you continuing this ridiculous affair with my father!" She was beyond furious, and Stacy was not going to escape what was coming to her.

"You, you, you got fired! Why are here?" Stacy looked seriously unnerved at the moment. She didn't expect to be accosted by Vince's nutty daughter.

"I am here for the same reason everyone else is, and that is to compete. But you have made things personal. I am going to take you down!" The crowd popped for that.

Stacy looked at her with disgust and said, "You aren't daddy's little girl, you are nothing. I don't know what you are playing at, but I am far more powerful than you ever were." Her voice was shaking, but she tried to look and sound strong.

"Really? Well Bischoff has given me permission to have a match with you, right here and right now. Let's see about that." Stephanie was starting to feel confident. She was going to be able to get her hands on someone who really deserved it, and nothing was going to hold her back. Her training was going to come into effect here.

"A match? Really? No, no, no, that's not how this works." Stacy looked furious.

"Bischoff said so. It's happening. My dad can't help you now."

"You stupid bitch! Why do you have to ruin everything!"

"Shut up, this is happening now. Nothing you can do about it."

Stacy grunted and shrieked loudly, and the crowd was loving every second of it. The camera flashes of the arena where growing in intensity as the two stared each other down. A referee came out and told the time keeper to ring the bell. Stephanie could hear Lawler over on commentary screaming about puppies while JR tried to keep his cool.

"Just because the man in my life desires me, and I don't need to fake a pregnancy to keep him around, doesn't mean you have to take out your shit on me!"

Stephanie snapped at that comment. It was too much, and made her lose control. She threw down her mic and charged Stacy. Stacy was arguably as green in the ring as Stephanie was, as her WCW days were marked by her dancing around on screen, but they were still going to go at it.

Stephanie tripped before reaching Stacy, and the crowd chuckled loudly. She gathered herself while Stacy looked at her perplexed and retreated to her corner. _Stay in control, and do this the way you were taught,_ she thought.

Stephanie advanced a second time on Stacy and quickly hit her with a forearm strike to the face. Stacy fell down in a huff and cried out. She tried to stand back up, but Stephanie was ready for it and stomped her head into the canvas really hard. Stacy collided with stiff impact and quickly rolled towards her own corner. The reality of the moment hit her too. They were in a wrestling match and pride was at stake. The crows was going nuts.

She looked like a woman possessed, and she stood up and charged Stephanie, knocking her over and jumping on top of her and delivering slaps to Stephanie's temple. Stephanie absorbed the blows and kept a mind for openings. She slid under Stacy's grasp and pulled her leg back before dropping it into the ropes, eliciting a howl of pain from Stacy. Stephanie picked her up by the hair and then showing she was in control, dropped her down into an atomic drop before covering for the pin. Stacy kicked out at one, not fazed easily, as she was fighting for her own sense of womanly pride and esteem in the eyes of Mr. McMahon. Stacy locked up with Stephanie after getting up, and they exchanged gut kicks before Stephanie dropped her to one knee with a really stiff one. She retreated back off the ropes, and then came in for a flying dropkick, which connected with a sickening crunch to Stacy's nose. She was in firm control now; it was time for her special sequence. She waited for Stacy, who was quite dazed, to get up, and then delivered a hard DDT after grasping her head. She went over to the ropes and climbed up. Stephanie jumped down and hit a flying senton on a prone Stacy, who was starting to wince in pain.

Stephanie knew it was time. She picked up Stacy, and drove her knee into Stacy's skull, and pushed her head in between her legs before linking her arms in through Stacy's and connecting her hands. The crowd was in a frenzy, knowing what was coming next and the significance of the moment.

Stephanie jumped and released Stacy at the perfect point, driving her head into the ground. She quickly turned her over and pinned her and waited for the three count as the crowd went nuts. Hearing her music come on, it had hit her. She had just won, put that bitch in her place, and looked damn good doing it. Walking back to the locker room, with a thrilled look on her face, she walked through the curtain.

She quickly ran to her locker room, not bothering to acknowledge anyone on the way. It was a time where she needed to reflect on what had just happened and what she was going to do in the future about it.

What she didn't know was that a very confused and shocked Hunter Hearst Helmsley was still staring at a monitor in the main locker room with his mind going a thousand miles per hour.

**Okay guys, reviews would be great here! My updates are going to become a bit better than once a month, after my finals end, so it won't take this long again. Hope you enjoyed this!**


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