DIALOGUE

Since the beginning of time, it's been known that a woman will inevitably have at least 3 great loves in her life. Those are as follows: Her father, of course, he's the primary male in her life, he's the keeper of all worldy knowledge, he's the checker of monsters under the bed, he's the first person she sees when she wakes and the last person she kisses before bed.

Sometimes, her father is the only man in her life she can really and truly count on, if the girl's mother was anything like my own.

The other two loves, of course, are the man she eventually falls in love with, and her children, however many she winds up having.

I'm going to start off this story by saying that there's a lot of misconceptions surrounding my father, people see his onscreen persona, and they equate him with being a cold and unfeeling kind of man when really, he's not, I've seen it time and time again with my half siblings, with my new stepmother, Michelle, and I've seen it over and over, most importantly with me..

Undertaker is NOTHING like the man you see on your tv screens every monday and friday night, and if it weren't for my father, well..

I probably wouldn't even be alive right now.

My name is Mariah Myers-Calloway and this is my story, all of it, the good, the bad and the completely and totally messed up. I warn you now, it's not a happy tale as it begins, in fact, it sort of pains me to even talk about the events that lead me to where I am right now, as I sit here and tell you this story.

But hey, I'll tell my story and you people can be the judge.

END DIALOGUE

PROLOGUE

'Daddy, where am I?" the raven haired 6 year old asked her father as she sat up and noticed she was confined to a small hospital bed. She rubbed her eyes and waited on an answer from her father who sighed and looked at her sadly.

"How much do you remember, Volt?" Undertaker asked his 6 year old daughter as she thought a moment. When she'd remembered what happened to her the night before, he knew it, because her light brown eyes went wide and she started to cry, her tears soaking the front of his t shirt as she held onto him and let him hold her.

"What happened to mommy?"

"She's.. She's gone, Volt.. But it's okay, daddy's here and he's gonna take you back home with him. Do you wanna go home with Daddy?"

Mariah thought it over a moment, and she bit her lip. In the past, her time with her father had been limited to just weekends here and there, maybe a Christmas or two, her mother and her father weren't together, you see, and they couldn't agree on anything except of course for the fact that they loved their little girl and it'd been a mistake to get married at such young ages, especially with Mark's career really starting to take off as it had.

"O-okay.. Daddy? Mommy's not ever comin back, is she?"

"Yeah, Volt." the man said as he sighed bitterly, held his daughter in his arms. This night was the beginning of their father daughter bond, and it was when the man realized that he was all Mariah had now, and Mariah was probably all he had left good in his own life currently.

It was because of this night that the two person family learned to love and trust, Mariah began to heal from the life she'd had before coming to live with her father, which while not really some tragic horror story, well it hadn't exactly been a rose garden either, and her father learned that he could be a father all the time and not just every other weekend.

He helped her through her scraped knees, because his baby girl was a bit of a daredevil, apparently, and as she got older, he helped her through bullies at school, and the first time a boy broke her heart, he was right there waiting to comfort her in the best way he knew how, - working all night on an antique muscle car in the garage while the two of them drank beer and soda quietly, not really talking much-.

He watched her grow, he watched her life changing, watched her become more and more of her own person, a beautiful person, with each day and month, year that passed.

And when she needed him most, he was there again, of course. And that is where the story begins at...

END PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

He'd known something wasn't right all day and finally, around 7 pm, he got a call through to his daughter's cell phone.

"Where the hell were you, Volt?"

"I'm driving, Dad. Where are you right now?"

"I'm at the arena, actually.. I have that segment tonight. Why?"

"I know, daddy.. What I mean is where is the arena?"

"What's going on, Volt.. You know how dad feels about surprises..."

"Damn it, Dad, I'd rather not tell you over the phone. I wanna be face to face when I tell you what's been going on today.. By the way, daddy, thanks for earlier.. If you hadn't.. You saved my life." Mariah muttered as she bit her lower lip, sighed and fumbled around on the seat of the 67 Camaro for her 'emergency' smokes.

"You better not be smokin, Volt."

"Okay, dad. Alright."

"Where are you right now?" He asked a few moments later as she replied quietly, "Just coming into Jacksonville."

"Okay, you're gonna want to get on the interstate and take the third left. I'll go to the parking lot, wait on you there." Undertaker said as he added quietly, "Love you, Volt."

"Love you too, dad." Mariah said as she pulled onto the interstate and began to merge with the traffic, her mind going back to the events of the past few hours as she looked over at the little raven haired girl sleeping in the seat beside her.

"I shoulda killed the son of a bitch." she muttered matter of factly as she got lost in thought while she completed the drive to the arena, the music ( black sabbath, paranoid) serving as a silence breaker in the cab of the restored muscle car she drove..

- Earlier That Night -

As soon as Mariah walked in the door and saw him leaning in the doorway, the bottle of Southern Comfort in his hand, she knew tonight was going to be one of those nights. There had been a lot of those nights lately, since she'd walked away from her husband and started looking into filing divorce.

Lately, Jed just seemed so crazy and out of control, she really didn't know what he'd do from one minute to the next. And she really wished lately that she hadn't ever even considered getting herself and her daughter mixed up with the man.

"Get the fuck out of here." Mariah snarled as she pointed to the doorway, her hand going to the drawer she kept her handgun in, just in case.

Jed smirked and dangled the gun from the table between his fingertips as he asked, "Lookin for this, Mariah?"

She bit her lower lip as she looked at him and said calmly, "Go ahead, Jed.. Pull that trigger." and held her arms out, just thankful that her daughter was still over at the neighbors for now, praying to God that Stella stayed at the neighbors.

Jed had been following her for weeks, and he'd been calling, hanging up, threatening her, he'd even shown up at Stella's daycare and tried to take her, pretending to be her father.

He wasn't.

Mariah was getting more than a little sick of his shit, personally, and she really hated that just because he was friends with half of the cops in their small town, he thought that a restraining order and a night in jail was just a damn suggestion.

"Well?"

Jed stared at her then said with an evil grin, "Get your panties outta a twist, doll. I'm not gonna shoot you. Just came by to tell you in person, I'm not givin you a divorce. And to give you back these." as he took out the manila envelope that the divorce papers were delivered to him in, ripped them up and lit the envelope and the papers on fire in the nearby waste basket.

"Jed, god damn it, it doesn't matter if you sign or not. I can still file for divorce. This might come as a shock to you, you fucking idiot, but I can go over your head to make this happen."

The fist connected with her nose quickly and brutally as he growled, "Always were a mouthy little bitch, weren't you? Go ahead.. Divorce me.. But you ain't gettin rid of me. You belong to me, and I'll just keep showing up and making your life hell until you finally realize that."

By now, Mariah had edged into the living room, her hand was resting on the barrel of the shotgun her father passed down to her, the one she used for hunting when she went to visit him and her godfather, Steve Austin, hunted on Steve's ranch in Texas, where her father lived.

She knew it was loaded, she knew she could have it aimed and her finger on the trigger before he even drunkenly figured out how to pull the clip in her handgun and see if it were loaded or not. She wasn't an idiot, she knew exactly how his mind worked, just like he knew how her mind worked.

Which is probably how she wound up tied to the ladderback chair at their white wooden kitchen table, a dishrag stuffed into her mouth.

She groaned internally as the landline phone began to ring, and her father's voice filled the room. This would make the 4th time he'd tried to call her by this point, in the space of 2 hours.

Jed yanked the phone out of the wall right about the time Mariah wiggled free from the restraint to her wrist and got her hands on the shotgun, prodded him in the back of the head with it. He growled and she said with a smirk, "Now here's how this is gonna go you dumb shit.. You're gonna get down on your knees, Jed."

He knelt down, muttered quietly, "I love ya.. I just.. I don't want ya to leave me, babe.. I don't want ya movin all the way to Texas.. Hell, I.."

"Shut the fuck up."

The man went quiet, and Mariah continued, "Now you're gonna give me back my handgun, Jed."

He hesitated and her finger moved to switch the gun off safety as she said "I'm not playin around, Jed."

He turned unexpectedly, a smirk on his face as he got the gun out of her hands with one hand, and held her down on the table with his hips as his other hand went to her throat, choking.

When the front door was kicked in by cops a few moments later, that's how they found , there'd been a fight between Jed and Mariah, Mariah had actually fared pretty well against the drunken man, despite being scared to death while fighting him, constantly worried that her daughter would sneak away from their neighbors, come over and find out why Mariah left her there, what was going on..

After giving her statement, going to pick up Stella from the neighbors, thanking the elderly lady for keeping Stella inside and away from the house when she'd gotten a bad feeling and dropped her off there as they turned down their road..

After doing all that, Mariah hadn't thought, she'd packed some clothes, she'd grabbed her phone, grabbed a few more things they might need until she could figure things out, and she'd hauled ass out of town.

That had been about 4 hours ago, and now she was almost to the town in Florida that the WWE, where her father was on the roster as a character known to the Universe as Undertaker.

She didn't know what she was going to do next, she didn't know what might actually happen next, but she did know that she was getting the hell away from her soon to be ex husband Jed as quickly and as far as she could.

Mariah pulled into the parking lot and sat there a few moments, her eyes scanning the rows of cars looking for her father's black and chrome bike. When she spotted it, she spotted him, pacing, a worried look on his face.

She reached over and unfastened her little daughter from the car seat she was strapped into, and got out, carrying her sleeping daughter.

The first thing Undertaker noticed was that his daughter had been in some kind of a physical altercation. He growled to himself, kicked at his bike as he swore under his breath.. He knew he should have loaded her and Stella up and hauled them both to Texas as soon as she'd called him and told him she was filing for divorce.

But she'd insisted, no she'd demanded, really, that she handle this on her own. Clearly, from the looks of things, she needed her daddy to step in and handle things this time, because clearly, she was in over her head.

He hugged them against him right as the thunder rolled in the skies above and then he asked, "What the hell happened? You forget how the hell to answer a phone, Volt?"

"No, daddy.. Long story short, I was kinda tied up when you called.. And by the time I could call ya back, I decided to hell with it and packed, started makin the drive here."

"Whoa, wait.. You show up here all beaten to hell and back, you talk about being tied up.. Do I need to go kill that little shit?"

"Oh trust me daddy.. Thanks to you calling the state police, not the parish police, he's on his way to jail.. And he's probably gonna be there a really, really long time."

"Lemme guess.. He looked worse when you two got done fightin."

"Mmm.. You could say that." Mariah said as she sighed and then muttered, "I shoulda listened to you, daddy, when he hit me that one time before we ever got married.."

"It's okay, Volt. Everybody makes mistakes."

"No, daddy, it's not.. I have a little girl who's gonna pay for my mistakes if I keep making them."

"Let's get inside. It looks like it's gonna rain." Undertaker said as he lead his daughter indoors, and to the medics office so she could get looked at and patched up. As they walked out into the hallway, Mariah nudged her father and then said quietly, "So.. How'd your segment go?"

"I came, I saw, I kicked ass.. The usual. Wanna go to the sky box, watch the show?"

"Dad.. You know what'll happen if I watch."

"What? Afraid you might start to miss fighting?"

"Dad."

"Mariah.. You don't even have to answer that, dad knows all."

Mariah groaned but let him lead her up to the skybox, and she sat down, holding her little girl in her lap. And as she watched the show, she started to realize that he was right.

She did miss being on the active roster, and in some ways, she wished she'd never let Jed brainwash her into giving it up.

Her daughter tugged at her sleeve and asked, "Mama.. We go see aunty Kaitlyn?"

"Maybe, sugar bean.. If she's not too busy." Mariah said as she hugged her daughter tightly then asked, "If mommy came back to work.. How would you feel?"

"Would you, mama? I misses it."

"I'd have to talk to my boss.." Mariah muttered as she bit her lip.. Was she even really considering doing this? Especially considering how she'd left things when she walked away from it all?

She'd burned a lot of bridges but being at the show tonight, feeling the electric energy in the air, she knew that this was another thing she was born to do.

She'd been happier when she'd been fighting, she'd had friends who'd helped her with Stella, she'd had good times backstage.

Would McMahon even allow her to come back? She hadn't been one of the main event divas back then.. So maybe he'd tell her no, that they didn't need another diva.

She knew this was not going to leave her alone though, so halfway through the show, she looked at her dad and said "I'm gonna talk to Vince."

"I knew it." her father said as he took his granddaughter into his lap and then said "Mama's gonna be right back, Stel. She's gonna go talk to someone."

"Go, mama." Stella demanded as she pointed to the door. She missed her family, she wanted to be able to see them again.