COPING AND HOPING, Part One

a World Wrestling Federation fanfic by Clarice_Lecter

CHARACTERS

VINCE McMAHON, the owner of the WWF. In this story, he and his wife Linda have
just divorced, and he is beginning to crack under the strain of his day-to-day
duties. He is many years overdue for a vacation, and when he finally leaps at
the chance to get away for awhile, he finds love with the one person he never
dreamed would be his soulmate...

JOANIE LAURER, the WWF diva better known as CHYNA. At the same time Vince and
Linda McMahon have split up in this tale, Joanie's nearly 5-year relationship
with Paul LeVesque, aka Triple-H, has also ended. The need for a vacation has
found her on the same tropical island---and in the same beachfront bungalow---
as her equally depressed boss...

SHANE McMAHON, the son of Vince and Linda McMahon. He and his sister Stephanie
send both Vince and Joanie on a much-needed vacation...unaware that they have
booked them in the same lodgings...

STEPHANIE McMAHON, the daughter of Vince and Linda McMahon. Stephanie hatches
the plan for both her father and Joanie to take a break from their WWF duties...
and along with brother Shane, she unwittingly plays matchmaker for them in the
process.


supporting characters

PAUL "TRIPLE-H" LeVESQUE

TERRI RUNNELS

"STONE COLD" STEVE AUSTIN

JERRY BRISCO

PAT PATTERSON

EDDY GUERRERO

EARL HEBNER

"THE HEARTBREAK KID" SHAWN MICHAELS

DEBRA MARSHALL

SEAN "X-PAC" WALTMAN

DUANE "THE ROCK" JOHNSON

"THE BIG SHOW" PAUL WIGHT

JIM ROSS

JERRY LAWLER

STACY "THE KAT" CARTER


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DISCLAIMER: The characters of Vince McMahon, Joanie Laurer, Shane McMahon, Stephanie
McMahon, and all others mentioned here are real people, and the exclusive property of
the World Wrestling Federation, Incorporated. No infringement of any kind is intended.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On their way to a SMACKDOWN! taping in Charlotte, NC, Shane and Stephanie McMahon
were thinking the same thing. But it was Stephanie who spoke first.

"I'm worried about Dad," she admitted. "How long's it been...two, three months
since he and Mom got divorced?"

"Sis, they're adults, just like we are," Shane replied. "And they're still on
fairly good terms---!"

"That's not my point, Shane! You've seen how Dad's been acting since it happened
...how he's been going through the motions like a zombie. When we did the RAW in
Atlanta last night, he barely remembered his lines. And if I have to kiss fucking
Paul LeVesque one more time, I'm gonna PUKE!!!"

Shane knew exactly what she was talking about. "Yeah, Steph, I know what you mean.
Joanie's really not been herself since she caught him with Terri...four-and-a-half
years, down the drain. I thought she was joking in TALK Magazine when she said she
and Paul had been drifting apart..."

Stephanie reached into her purse for a cigarette. "When'd you take up Dad's habit?"
Shane asked quizzically.

Stephanie flashed him the pack. They were HoneyRose herbal smokes, not the Marlboro
Reds Vince favored. "Like I'm gonna put a cancer stick in my mouth," she grinned as
she lit up.

"Those are just as bad, y'know..."


Ten miles up the road, Joanie Laurer could barely concentrate as she made the lonely
trek to the Charlotte Coliseum. Where once Paul LeVesque had been by her side, easing
her nerves, now she was driving by herself.

"That sonofabitch!" she wept as she drove, the tears streaming hot down her beautiful
face. This wasn't "The Ninth Wonder of the World" talking, not now...

The images played back in her mind...the almost five years, wasted, hoping that she
and Paul would someday be married. It had been Terri Runnels, of all people, who had
fixed them up on the road...she had asked her, "Hey, Joanie, you really like him, don't
you?"

Oh, how she wished she hadn't laid eyes on him!

She had met him and Michael Hickenbottom backstage at a show, just before her own career
took off...back then she hadn't had her underbite corrected, nor did she have the bazooms
that had made Rena Mero so jealous she'd ego-tripped her way right out of the WWF. And
she was on the rebound from a broken romance with a personal trainer ...had Paul been
taking advantage of her weaknesses all along?

Michael, better known as "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels, had liked her right away.
So had Paul, or so she thought. She and Paul had both been trained by the legendary Killer
Kowalski, and by the time they had met Paul had been many years graduated from Kowalski's
school...

Vince McMahon had liked her right away, too, but worried that a female bodyguard angle
would be bad for business. Linda, his wife at the time, had planted that seed...she
wasn't as warm to Joanie as Vince had been. In fact, some would say that Linda didn't
like her.

Linda was warm and kind on the surface, a trait that she had parlayed in her oncamera
persona as "the good McMahon"...behind the scenes, however, she was anything but, especially
to the women in the company, aside from her daughter and daughter-in-law. Some blew it
off as Linda not trusting Vince with women, since he'd had affairs earlier in their marriage.

But Vince had kept his word about not ever cheating on her again. He had been remorseful
for hurting his family. Why did Linda still punish him, even now that they were divorced?

As Joanie was thinking these things, she almost crashed into the guardrail. She regained her
bearings, then pulled off into a BP convenience store to get a drink and calm down. As soon as
she parked, she leaned her head onto the steering wheel and cried...


Shane and Stephanie caught up with her half an hour later. "Hey, look, isn't that Joanie's
car?" Shane asked as they pulled in.

Stephanie peered out the window. "My God, it is her!" she exclaimed. "Listen, I'll go talk
to her while you gas it up, okay?"

Shane parked the the Trans Am rental car, then proceeded to fill it up with premium. Stephanie
went up to Joanie's Mustang and tapped on the glass.

"Joanie?" she asked. "Joanie, are you all right?"
Joanie looked up at her with tearful eyes, then opened the door. "Honey, what's wrong?" Stephanie
asked, taking Joanie's hand as she got out of the car.

"I almost wrecked," Joanie replied. "And that's not the half of it..."

Stephanie got her to go to the ladies' room with her, so she could wash her face. "Oh, Stephanie,
what's wrong with me?" the larger woman wept. "I feel like I'm going fuckin' crazy!"

"Joanie, you've had a tough time lately," Stephanie replied in a tender voice. "You know you've not
been yourself since you found out about Paul and Terri..."

"The last time I checked, Vince hasn't been doing all right, either. I don't mean any disrespect,
but he wasn't carrying himself too well in Atlanta last night..."

"And it's got you worried?"

Joanie bent down and rinsed her face with cool water, then dried it off before reapplying fresh
lipstick and eyeliner. "Listen, Joanie, maybe you need a vacation," Stephanie now suggested.
"Dad does, too, but does he listen to Shane and me when it comes to taking a rest?"

"But the shows---!"

"After SMACKDOWN! tonight, my brother and I'll talk to Dad about letting you take a break. If
anyone deserves one right now, it's you."


Stephanie smiled, coaxing a smile from Joanie. "Do you mean it?" Joanie now asked.

Stephanie nodded her approval as the women hugged.


"Hey, it's about time you two quit hogging the bathroom," Shane teased when Joanie and Stephanie
rejoined him at the counter. "Joansie, have you had anything to drink? If not, getcha something
---it's on me!"

Joanie kissed his cheek, then went to the cooler for a 1-liter bottle of Pepsi, while Stephanie
got a Mountain Dew---the same thing Shane was drinking.

"Listen, Joansie, are you okay?" Shane now asked, his tone soft and serious.

"I will be as soon as I get some of this down my throat," Joanie replied as they went outside.

"Joanie, I'm serious. What happened to you back there?"

Joanie relented. "I've had a lot of shit on my mind lately...between being upset about what Paul
did, and worrying about everything, I let it pile up. And I almost wrecked before I got here...
listen, guys, I'm really sorry I got so verklempt..."

Shane gently gripped Joanie's shoulders. "If you can't drive to the Coliseum, me or Stephanie can
drive you, if you want," he now offered. "No offense, but you're still a little shaky..."

"Shane, I'll be fine---!"

"No, Joansie. Now stop with the brave act and let us help you, capiche? Dad's just as depressed
as you are right now..."

"It's true, Joanie," Stephanie echoed. "Shane and I didn't trust Dad to drive himself, so we made
him ride with Jerry Brisco..."

Joanie began to cry again. "I had no idea," she wept. "I thought he was just tired..."

"Being depressed is wearing him out, just like it's wearing you down," Shane now said as he helped
her to the passenger side of her Mustang.

Joanie then gave Stephanie the keys. "I'll trust you," she whispered. "Right now I don't even trust
myself..."


As they drove into Charlotte, Stephanie noticed that Joanie was dabbing her tears away, but still had
a hard time trying to settle down. "Would it help if I popped in a CD? Maybe it'll cheer you up," she
offered.

Joanie smiled faintly. "Anything'll do," she replied.

At the red light, Stephanie reached into her CD wallet and retrieved a RuPaul CD. "Hope you don't mind
RuPaul," she said as she put the disc, titled "Foxy Lady," into the car's CD player. She fast-forwarded
to the third track on the album, "A Little Bit Of Love"...

Right now, nothing was more comforting for Joanie...


"...times can be tough...

bringin' you down

'til you're on the ground...

tears in your eyes...

the pain is so bad

that you wanna die..."


"He's not lying," Joanie thought to herself as she listened on.


"...looky here...

you've got a friend

to shelter you when

the storm clouds come in...

you'll always have me...

just wait and see

how love's gonna be..."


Almost as soon as the chorus kicked in, Joanie began to sing...


"a little bit of love

goes a long, long way...

lifting you up

to a brighter day

a little bit of love

goes a long, long way...

turn it around

and you're gonna say

EVERYBODY SAY LOVE...

LOVE...

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...

CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE?...

LOVE...

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..."

All the way to the SMACKDOWN! taping, Joanie and Stephanie sang along to the uplifting
music. Already she began to feel better...


Joanie made it through the SMACKDOWN! taping all right, but it was clear to everyone that
she wasn't her usual, happy-go-lucky self. Even "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and his new wife,
Debra Marshall, were concerned. The first chance they had, they went to Shane to mention it.

"Shane, what the Hell's wrong with Joanie?" Steve asked, having been gone for several months
due to his neck injury and not knowing the whole story. "I ain't never seen her like this!"

"You didn't know? She and Paul broke up," Shane replied.

"What the fuck---?!" Debra exclaimed.

"She caught him in bed with Terri one night...turned out they'd been seeing each other behind
Joanie's back for months."

Just then Eddy Guerrero, Joanie's oncamera "love slave" and another close friend, came running
up. "Guys, it's Joanie," he said, trying to catch his breath.

"Is she all right?" Debra now asked.

"We were comin' backstage, an' Paul an' Terri started smoochin' it up and laughin' at her---poor
Joanie's lost it!"

"Oh, my God," Shane groaned as he, Steve and Debra followed Eddy down the hall to Joanie's dressing
room.


Paul LeVesque and Terri Runnels were about to return to the hotel when they were met by Paul's D-Generation
X partner Sean Waltman, better known as X-Pac, and Michael Hickenbottom, aka Shawn Michaels.

"Paul, what the fuck are you doin'?" Sean raged, demanding an explanation from his onetime friend. "It's
bad enough you had to shack up with this slut, but to flaunt it in Joanie's face?!?"

"Bitch threw away the best thing that ever happened to her," Paul bragged, packing his and Terri's bags
in the back of their rented Ford Explorer. "I'm just showing her that it's her loss."

"You have no Goddamn right doing that!" Michael scolded. "You know how sensitive she is---God, man, why?"

Before Paul could answer that question, out came a furious Vince McMahon. "LeVesque!!!" he raged, cueing
Terri to get in the truck.

"Vince, you want us to leave?" Sean offered.

"No, guys, you can stay," Vince replied before whirling back on Paul. "This ain't gonna take long."

"Vince, it was a joke!" Paul begged off. "Joanie can't take a joke, that's all---!"

Vince angrily jerked Paul by the shirt collar and shoved him back against the truck. "That 'joke' was the
last fuckin' straw, you sonofabitch! Now, you and your little boob-jobbed cunt get your asses out of my
sight---YOU'RE BOTH FIRED!!!"

Paul shoved Vince's hands off of him. "You're forgettin' something, Vinnie Mac, YOU can't fire me," Paul
now said in a contemptuous tone. "My contract clearly states that it was your EX-WIFE who renewed my deal
with you, and only your EX-WIFE can fire me. And the last time I checked, she wasn't plannin' to get rid
of me anytime soon."

Vince was shaking with anger. "Maybe, but I can STILL fire your little bitch, even if I can't fire you! DO
YOU HEAR ME, TERRI?!?!?"

Vince then took out Terri's contract and tore it up in little pieces, then went to the passenger side of Paul's
truck and threw the pieces in Terri's face. "Stuff THAT in your fuckin' Wonderbra, bitch! Now both of you,
OUT OF MY SIGHT!!!"

Paul begged off with a smarmy grin, then he and Terri drove off.


By the time Michael, Vince and Sean were back inside, Joanie had calmed down somewhat, but was still in tears.
"How is she?" Vince asked, his tone much calmer now.

"She's quit throwin' things, an' now she's just cryin'," Jerry Brisco replied. "Stephanie an' Debra's talkin'
to her now, Vince..."

Vince brought out his Marlboros and silver Zippo lighter, then fired up a cigarette. "I just fired Terri Runnels,"
he now admitted. "I could have had Le-fucking-Vesque canned, too, if it weren't for his contract with Linda...oh,
that fucking BITCH!!!!!!"

"Yeah, Vin, I know," Michael now said. "They didn't have any right taunting her like that..."

Pat Patterson then remembered what Shane had mentioned. "Doesn't Joanie have a vacation coming up?" he now asked.

Vince puffed nervously on his cigarette as he sat down. "She sure does," he replied. "And it's damned overdue..."

Just then, Vince's cell phone rang. "Hello?" he asked. "Oh, Jesus H., LINDA!...You're damn right I fired Terri
Runnels, and I'm gonna make it stick!...Linda, the bitch was helpin' LeVesque cause trouble for Joanie---Linda, I am
NOT gonna fire Joanie!!!"

"Uh-oh," Pat groaned, "she's on the rag again."

"Tell me about it," Jerry replied, "she stays that way."

Vince and Linda's cell-phone argument became more and more furious. "Linda, for the last Goddamn time, LeVesque's gotta
go, NOT JOANIE!!! You know what? You KNOW WHAT?!? Since Joanie's contract is with me and NOT you, I've decided to send
her on vacation---no, Linda, you are NOT gonna block it! I've already made her reservations and everything...where's she
going? It's NONE OF YOUR FUCKIN' BUSINESS WHERE SHE'S GOING ON VACATION, YOU BITCH! SHE'S JUST GOING!!! Now GOODBYE,
LINDA!!!...yeah, FUCK YOU TOO!!!"

Vince then clicked off the cell phone, then ignored it when it began beeping again. The Caller ID screen said "Linda"...
that was more than enough reason to ignore it.

The argument brought out Shane and Jim Ross. "So much for an amicable divorce," J.R. half-joked. "Vince, are you okay?"

Vince discarded the used-up Marlboro and lit up a fresh one. "Let me put it this way, J.R.," he now said, "I wish I had a
fuckin' beer...Shane, did you call the airline for Joanie's plane ticket?"

"Just now," he replied. "She's due to fly out to the Caribbean at half past noon tomorrow. Stephanie's also got her a sweet
deal on a rental cottage, right on the beach..."

"God knows she's earned it," Vince whispered. "She's been through enough Hell..."

Michael reached into a nearby ice chest, then popped the top off a bottle of Icehouse beer and gave it to Vince. "Hey, thanks,"
Vince grinned, gratefully taking a few sips.

"From where I'm sittin', Vin-Man, Joanie's not the only one who needs a vacation," Michael now said. "Have you looked yourself
in the mirror lately?"

Vince was perplexed. "What the Hell does that mean?"

Shane grabbed a brewski and sat beside his father. "Dad, he's right," he said. "Ever since you and Mom split up, you've been
a nervous damn wreck..."

"So I miscued last night at RAW, and I miscued again tonight, so what?"

"'So what?' Dad, your blood pressure's sky-high! You're not getting enough sleep, and every time you and Mom have a fight, like
you did just now, your blood pressure goes up even higher! And let's face it, Dad, you've not had a vacation---a REAL vacation---
since 1982! All the trips you've taken, it's been 'business-business-business'!"

Vince knew his son was right. Knew they were all right. "If I go on vacation, you know how your mother is," he now said. "The
second my back is turned, she has this terrible tendency to fuck things up..."

"That's where Stephanie and me come in---we're gonna keep her from doing that. And my wife Marissa's gonna help us, too. Now come
on, Dad, how about it?"

Vince thought a minute, then smiled. "Book me on a flight to anywhere," he relented, "as long as it gets me away from Linda for a
few weeks..."


END OF PART ONE


Featuring lyrics from A LITTLE BIT OF LOVE, written by RuPaul Charles and Joe Corrano.
Copyright (c) 1996, from the Rhino Records release FOXY LADY.