Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or real people in this story. The characters are owned by WWE and the real people own themselves. This story contains swearing and some adult situations, but nothing explicit.
A/N: So this is a new story, and it's a little bit different from my other stuff. It's a little bit AU, not at first, but it will be, I guess. Anyways, I really hope that you like it, and if you do, please leave a review, and if you want to be brutal with me, I totally welcome brutal, so go right ahead, just review and let me know if I should continue. :)
On this night, everything made sense.
Stephanie's life was good on this night. She couldn't complain, and she wouldn't complain. She was at a chic cocktail party held by her parents for the executives of the company and of the advertisers and other media market people that dealt with her father and WWE. She was here to play the perfect princess of Vince McMahon, to charm everyone here with her rapier's wit. Bat a few eyelashes and you had them eating out of the palm of your hand.
Stephanie was pretty, and she knew it, and while that's usually a lethal combination, in this case it wasn't. Stephanie had grown up very grounded, and she was rather down-to-Earth when you knew her. Tonight wasn't a good example of this, though, because she was playing a part. Wearing a deep blue cocktail dress, with her hair magnificently curled and styled, her makeup impeccable, it wasn't her, not in the slightest.
But Stephanie had always been good at playing the part.
She laughed at some stupid joke someone said as she grabbed a new flute of champagne of the tray of a passing waiter. She took a sip, glancing at Paul, who was speaking with someone about something. He smirked at her and raised an eyebrow and she laughed against her glass bringing it down from her lips, licking them seductively. Paul's hazel eyes turned a little bit darker as he observed her and it was her turn to raise an eyebrow.
She flipped her newly dyed blonde hair over her shoulder and gave him her own version of a seductive look. Paul was on the verge of taking her to the coat check closet and having his way with her, but he refrained, knowing that she wouldn't agree to go with him. She understood her place was here, to charm and please her father's associates so that the business would flourish. She finished off her conversation and Paul came over and kissed her softly on the forehead.
"How're you feeling?" he asked.
"I'm a little tired," she confessed, "ready to go home, but I don't want to skip out of here early. I'm rather enjoying the champagne."
"I bet you are," he teased gently, wrapping his free arm around her waist and pulling her closer until her head was resting against his chest. "Are you sure you don't want to go though? I don't think your parents would mind if you tell them that you're tired. You have been working hard all week."
"I know, but this is important to them," she said with a shrug. "And what's important to them is important to me. We don't have anything better to do tonight anyways, we might as well enjoy a party while we're here."
"Can we at least sit down?" he asked.
"Yeah, we can sit down," she agreed as he grabbed her hand and led her over to an empty table. She sat down and watched the dance floor. A disco ball hung down and made the lights dance across the room in a mesmerizing way.
She set her glass down and leaned her chin on her hand as she felt Paul rub her back slowly, as if trying to lull her to sleep, which couldn't be the case. She was just content to watch the people having a good time at her father's insistence. Paul watched as the lights danced off her blue eyes and leaned over to kiss her temple. She smiled slightly at the contact, glancing over at him while turning her head slightly and giving him that same smile.
She was happy in this moment, happy in a moment that was neither chaotic nor completely calm. Sometimes she wondered how she had gotten to be so happy…well, she wasn't happy all the time, she could admit that, but nobody was happy all the time. It just wasn't possible to never have any adversity in her life. But for this moment, she was happy with where her life had taken her.
"Come on babe, let's go," Hunter whispered in her ear.
"Huh?" she asked, turning towards him.
"You fell asleep just now," he explained to her. "I told your parents that you were exhausted and they said that we could go home. I got our coats, so why don't we just get the hell out of here?"
"Okay," she nodded sleepily, standing up. Paul slipped her coat over her shoulders and she gratefully leaned into his side as they walked out of the elegant ballroom and into the black darkness. She gazed up at the sky, and marveled at what she saw. "Hey Paul…"
"What?"
"Look up at the sky," she ordered and he looked up.
"What are we looking at, babe?" he asked.
"Nothing, just the stars, they're bright tonight."
"That's because we're out of the big city so there aren't as many lights around," he told her as he led them to their car, but she paused and stopped him.
"You know, they're only flaming balls of gas, but from down here, they look really pretty, almost like diamonds in the sky. It's kind of like…you know, someone's little gift to us…that we get to see these stars as diamonds."
Paul chuckled, "Look at you, waxing all poetic. Do I need to start thinking of you as a tortured artist? Has being the head of creative finally got to you?"
"No," she said, bringing her gaze back down to Earth. "I just…I used to watch the stars you know, back when everything was a whole lot simpler, and sometimes when I look up at them…they haven't changed and I feel like that girl again. I don't know why I'm thinking these things, it might be the champagne or the fact that my life makes me have to go to cocktail parties, but sometimes I wish I were looking up at the stars again."
"They'll always be right there," he told her kindly.
She nodded, "Yeah, they'll always be right there. That's comforting, huh?"
"I'll always be right here too, unless I get in the car, and you decide to stand there all night. I won't hate you if that's what you decide you want to do…"
Stephanie gave one last long look to the sky. She then turned and got into the car. The stars would have to wait for another day. Somewhere along the car trip, she had fallen asleep because the next thing she knew, she was being jostled as Paul tried to lift her out of the car. She opened her eyes slowly, looking up at her husband. He smiled down at her as her eyes opened.
"Hey there, sleepyhead. How much champagne did you drink?" he asked her teasingly. She laughed as he set her down, but still keeping in contact with her body.
"Not that much, I think everything is just catching up with me," she explained. "You know how it is, you're a wrestler, you're exhausted a lot of the time."
"True," he nodded as he unlocked the door and turned on the light. "I'm going to make sure things are cleaned up around here, why don't you go upstairs?"
"Yeah, I'll be in getting ready for bed."
"Good, you need it."
She stuck her tongue out at him as she ascended the staircase and went upstairs. It was mercifully quiet and the silence comforted her ears. She went into their bedroom and went into her large walk-in closet. She stripped down to her underwear, rooting around for some pajamas or something. She found an old t-shirt that she had loved once upon a time and in her hazy, slightly tipsy state, she grabbed it and slipped it on before going to was her makeup off and brush her teeth before bed.
By the time Paul came back upstairs and to their bedroom, she was curled up on her side, her eyes drooping slowly. She had wanted to wait for him to get to bed too. He did so quickly and climbed into the bed, coming behind her and cradling her body against his. She smiled sleeping as he kissed her neck.
"I've never seen you wear this shirt before," he whispered.
"Just found it, it's comfortable," she told him.
"Interesting," he said, looking at the ratty, old t-shirt.
Stephanie was already asleep though. So Paul fell asleep as well. Stephanie woke up a couple of hours later though, and she was surprisingly not tired. Or at least she wasn't as tired, but a good couple hours sleep gives you the impression that you've been refreshed and replenished. Hunter had turned over onto the other side of the bed and was snoring lightly, well, not so lightly, but lightly for him.
She got out of bed and pulled on her robe as she went downstairs, thinking about what she had been thinking earlier. She went out into the backyard, the dark not so intimidating that it made her want to go inside. The moon was still high in the sky and lit her way over to the deck chairs they had by their pool. She settled down into one, pulling her robe over her uncovered legs. It was the end of summer and the beginning of fall, so it was cold, but not obscenely so. She was comfortable as she leaned her head back to look at the stars, the same ones from before, the same ones from a long time ago.
When she was little, she used to think that the moon followed her wherever she went. She would tell her mother to tell the moon to stop following her because she didn't like it. Her mother had gently explained that the moon wasn't following her, and though she wasn't quite satisfied with the explanation, she had accepted it and moved on. She hadn't taken the time to look at the sky for a long time after that. And then something had changed and it seemed like she had all the time in the world to look at the sky, even when she didn't.
It had been a long time ago now, and she had still been in college when she had the time, and even though it was her last year in college and she should've been studying or writing or planning her future, she would look at the stars and just…well, she'd think about what she had, and what she thought she was going to have, beyond WWE, beyond her career, but just in her life. She'd think about the relationship she was in at the time.
"You know, the stars never change…"
"They don't?" she asked.
"No, they don't, they're always going to be the same, wherever you go…I mean, you know, in the Northern Hemisphere, the stars in the Southern Hemisphere are different."
"I get your meaning," she laughed lazily, a drawn out laugh like molasses, but just as sweet.
"But when you look up at the sky, today, tomorrow, whenever, it's never going to change, not to your mind, it'll just always be the same."
"So what are you saying?" she asked.
"I'm just saying that whenever you miss me, whenever you want to think of me, just look at the stars and know that wherever I'm looking, they're exactly the same and if we ever get separated, by time, distance, whatever, if there's any moment where we're not together and you miss me…look at the stars, because they're exactly the same as this moment."
This was the first time she'd looked at the stars in a long time, but they were always there, every night, they showed up, as if on cue, knowing that they were going to be there, regardless of whether or not she tipped her chin back to look at them. Either way, they'd be there, waiting for her to look up at them again, maybe not with the same wonder, or sense of awe, but just to remember that they were still there, and they were always going to be there as a reminder. She hadn't looked in a long time though, had no occasion to look in what seemed forever. But as she gazed at the night sky that lay before her like a large, dark blanket of twinkling diamonds, she remembered and she found herself comforted by one fact…
They were exactly the same.
