"You came to the right person for this, you know."

But not the right place, Stephanie felt as she looked around the seedy hotel room, making faces at the stains in the carpeted floor. Typically, it wouldn't be a place she would choose to step a single foot in. But she wasn't in a usual situation, was she?

"No one else could possibly be of any assistance to you in this," the man before her was going on as he stood there, towering over her in the shitty lighting that consisted of the sun trying in vain to get through the dust covered blinds and soft, blue glow of the television that was playing some news station. With the smug grin of his (perhaps the only kind he had), he added, "They'd have too much of a conscious."

"Yeah, well," Stephanie began with a roll of her eyes, "when I think of who could possibly hate Daddy as much as me, Triple H was without a doubt the first name to pop into my head."

"Still," Hunter went on as he continued to eye her a bit, "this is a tall order to fill, this…alliance between the two of us."

"How so?" she retorted back. "I want Vince to be taken out, you want him to be taken out. What more-"

"How can I trust this though?" He looked passed her then, to the door. "How do I know that someone won't bust in here, right now, and this wasn't all just a setup?"

Frowning, Stephanie glared up at him without fear. He stared right back.

"I thought that was why you made me drive all the way out here?" she asked. "And actually step foot in this...this...place."

"Maybe that was to get you out here too, huh?" He raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I'm planning on kidnappin' ya. Huh? How would ya feel about that?"

"Probably not good, Trip-"

"Hunter."

"Hunter," she complied. "But so long as my father didn't put you up to it, a bit better than the last time it happened."

"Hn." That time, as his arms came to fold across his chest, he said, "There's a lot worst of things that could happen to you, you know, than what did before."

"What do you know about what I went through?"

"I know what I could do to you," he retorted. "And even in a short amount of time, I could make it far more excruciating."

For a moment, Steph's stomach sank and she thought about how she was off, in a place no one would ever think to look for her, with a man no one would ever think she could possibly have been with.

The idea alone was enough to almost make her regret coming.

Almost.

Finding some strength rooted in the deep resentment she was currently holding in, she said, "It's worth it."

"Worth it?" Hunter repeated as this response had more than a little taken him off guard. "What do you mean?"

"The idea of destroying Vince, of taking his company from him, of being sure that he feels at least half of what I feel everyday, knowing what he allowed to happen to me," she began bitterly before, with a slight smile finishing, "makes it all more than worth it."

Hunter was silent for a moment before saying, "You're fucking psycho, you know that?"

And she didn't say anything because that was not the response she was hoping to get out of him, but just as quickly, he was grinning a bit.

"But," he added with a slight shrug, "that seems to be the resounding theme up at the company these days. Probably good to have some of that on my side. Fight fire with fire."

"Then," she asked with relief, "you do trust me?"

"Fuck no. Dumbass."

"Hey-"

"Look," he said as a darker tone took hold of his voice once more. Angling his neck downward, he looked her dead in the eyes as he said, "There's no fucking way I trust you."

"But I just went over how Vince and I-"

"Whether or not you hate your 'daddy' isn't in question, princess," he said with a shake of his head. "Whether or not you'll hate him tomorrow though or next week, however, is. And it always will be."

"But-"

"Look, Steph, until I can figure out someway to trust you, we're just wasting time here, yeah?" Then he threw down a shrug. "And I have a lot on my plate, on my own, with your father. Right now adding you to that wouldn't be a benefit for me. That's the real question, Steph; how would teaming up with you benefit me in anyway? Huh? You haven't come with a plan, an idea, with anything. You expect me to somehow figure you into something? Fuck that; anything I could do with you, I could do alone. Or with someone I actually have faith in."

Stephanie couldn't believe what she was hearing. At all. Because the last thing she ever thought would happen was happening. Of all the people she thought she could go to, Triple H seemed liked the best option. The most conniving, devious of all the superstars on the roster. So how was it then that she was so far off?

Because she wasn't. Hunter wasn't rejecting her off any sort of gratitude towards her father, any sort of loyalty. She was being rejected based purely on the basis of her not being a detriment to the cause.

In a last ditch effort, she asked, "What about me, Hunter? Huh?" When he only stared, she added, "I came here, didn't I? I trusted that you wouldn't screw me over or-"

"You don't trust me, dumbass." He even shook his head. "We just went over this; your psychotic. Which would make our alliance even more volatile. As things stand right now, you'd only be a liability. And I don't take charity cases."

When she opened her mouth to respond though, he spoke again before she had the chance.

"Although," he said slowly, "I'll tell you what. If I do ever end up in charge of this whole kingdom, I'll spare ya when I slaughter the McMahons, huh? But only if you put out."

His laugh was deep too as she scurried off, the sound reverberating in her head while her stomach filled something that tasted of fear, but was mostly comprised of failure.

She'd failed.

At getting even one person on her side.

How was she ever going to take down her father if she couldn't even get his most embittered enemy to join her side?

The problem plagued her for over two weeks. She considered both dropping Triple H from the plan and just dropping the whole thing completely.

Then it hit her.

And boy, when it hit her, did it hit her.

"Let's get married."

And it hit Hunter too, a bit more harshly, when she said this to him some time after she spent a deep amount of time contemplating it.

"Now I know you got a screw loose," he grumbled as, once more, he'd shelled out some money for a cheap motel room four towns over from where the arena was that night, all so he could, apparently, hear the ramblings of a mad woman. "Look, princess, I get it; you see a guy like me and you think, wow, I should tie that down immediately, but-"

"Shut up." Rolling her eyes, she said, "This is serious."

"Aren't you getting married already? Or some shit? I thought? Is this what that whole thing as been?" Frowning, he looked around. "Setting me up against your lame boyfriend, are you?"

Steph's recollection was actually more than a bit fuzzy on that, but still she knew it certainly had nothing to do with Test. And, shaking her head, she said, "No. Don't you understand? What bigger trust is there than marriage?"

"Tandem skydiving."

"What?"

"You asked what involves more trust than-"

"Hunter-"

"Why the fuck would we get married, Stephanie?" And she wasn't sure if that was the first time he'd addressed her by name or not, but she knew it certainly was the first in their last two encounters. That had to mean he was at least taking her more seriously. Or growing bored of her… "What possible benefit-"

"I'm not entirely sure how we'd use it yet," she said quickly, as if fearful he'd cut her off, "but if we got together, like were legally together, and then somehow figured out how to overthrow Vince, wouldn't that be an agreement? To not stab one another in the back?"

"Who stabs one another in the back more than married couples?"

"But we won't really be married though," she complained, growing exasperated with him. "Or at least not in the mental sense. Just in the physical, on paper sense. That's all. And...and… I just know that if we at least did that, there would be someway to formulate a plan in which Daddy gets-"

"Shut up, I'm thinking." Suddenly, Hunter turned from her a bit and began to pace around the room. He did so with his head down, long hair falling all about as he appeared in deep consideration. Steph wasn't sure how long he made her stand there, silently watching, but it felt like for too long.

Out of nowhere though, his head suddenly shot up and, staring across the room at her, he said, "You gotta go."

"Go?"

"Leave." And he came over to shove her out. When she protested, he only said, "I need to be alone. I think I'm onto something."

"But I'm the one who-"

"Go." Giving her a look, he added, "Once I get something solid, we can meet up again and work out any kinks."

It would be another three days or so of Stephanie fretting over just what the man was doing behind her back. She was almost worried he was going to try something with out her. That perhaps her idea had sparked a bigger and better one for him and he had no intentions at all in making sure she was included.

But then he got in touch with her after a show and told her where they were to meet.

"I...didn't expect all this."

Hunter only shrugged a bit as Stephanie sat at the desk in the hotel room, glancing over a notebook he'd filled with three pages of concepts for just how they could use the marriage angle to their advantage. He'd crossed out some things, written a bit incoherently at times even, but overall she felt like she had a pretty good grasp on what he was thinking up.

"Is this what you do?" she asked, turning the pages of the notebook back then, to get to the ones before the first he'd shown her. "You write down your plans? Are there other- Hey!"

He'd snatched up the notebook then, giving her a bit of a glare while doing so.

"I said you could see what I had planned for us," he told her. "Not anything else."

"Well, fine." Pushing up from the desk then, she asked, "So when do we get started?"

"On the plan?"

"On my revisions," she corrected which brought a frown to the man's face. "Because I have a lot."

Things weren't as stiff that time as, each seated on opposite beds in the hotel room, they began to discuss just what Steph had in mind after reading through what he did. He gave her a pen and allowed her to make notes and annotations as well, in his journal, and, even though neither felt an ounce of camaraderie towards the other, they began to plan their marriage.

The night only got later and, eventually Hunter suggested that she take off.

"We can finish this later," he yawned as she stifled her own. "We just gotta get it all settled before you, you know, get hitched for real or whatever."

"You have no idea how glad I am to finally have a reliable way out of that."

"I have some idea," he assured her as he walked her to the door. "I've been around the guy, at least."

"He's so in Daddy's pocket that it's disgusting."

"Yeah, well, let him keep digging around in it while we rob his other pocket blind, right?"

There was more that went into Stephanie and Hunter's plan, of course, than just taking out her father. All of his plans ended with him gaining, retaining, and never losing the WWF title and any other title of his choosing (though he promised her not to get too greedy, cased in a laugh) while she was meant to somehow figure her way into being the sole shareholder of the company. The last McMahon standing.

What they'd both always dreamed of.

And that's where the trust lied, Hunter remarked one of the final days they sat together, finalizing the plans. They both needed one another now. He could get the title on his own, he guaranteed that, no question about it, but retaining it? From now until eternity? Also possible, he stated once more in certainty. But...what if he wasn't feeling well tonight? And if someone else beat him for it, they were surely cheating somehow. Right?

Steph wouldn't be too bad of on her own either. She could probably finagle a way into being the head of the McMahon family somehow. Vince and Shane were rarely truly popular with the superstars at mass. Make her way through the horde, form steady alliances here an there, eventually you got control.

But together, with him as the brute force and her as the behind the scenes controller, they could be unstoppable. They could usher in a new era.

Everything they wanted, they could get.

And just from signing a silly little paper?

"That's all it is, really, right?" Stephanie was trying hard not to sound nervous as she road with Hunter down to the courthouse one afternoon to get that pesky part of the plan out of the way. "Signing a paper?"

"Yeah, pretty much," he agreed. "Pay fee, show your identification, probably, and bam; you're married."

Glancing over at him, she watched him drive for a moment before asking, "Your family… Are you gonna tell them? Have you told them, I mean?"

"Well, I don't exactly want them finding out through a television, princess."

"What did you tell them?"

"That the money I send home to our one room shake is gonna be increasing once I get my paws on the McMahon family fortune."

Widening her eyes, she focused more on the first part of the sentence as she asked, "You support your family? Like, who in it? Your parents? Or-"

"No, dumb shit. It was a joke." Then he beamed over at her for a brief second. "Well, that part anyways."

"You're an ass," she said with a shake of her head, looking once more out the window. "You know that?"

His only response was to turn up the stereo and, for a while, they rode in silence.

It wasn't until they pulled up to the courthouse that either spoke again, honestly, and even then it was rather tersely. In fact, only after they were sitting in the waiting area o the courthouse did either truly speak to the other.

Stephanie had been trying to think of happy things in her mind to keep her from feeling an immense sense of dread over what was about to happen when, out of nowhere, she felt Hunter's hand on her thigh. Glancing up at him with a bit of a frown, she saw he wasn't even looking at her.

Still, he spoke.

"You're not gonna get all weird on me, are ya?" he asked. "All freaked by this? I'm not ruinin', you know, your first weddin' or some shit, am I? Not gonna have to hear about how, when you were a little girl, you always dreamed up your husband and I ain't it, am I? You always thought your wedding would be special, or some shit, and now it's not?"

For a moment she only stared at him. Then, with a frown, she shoved his hand off her thigh before saying, "You're not doing anything to me. I want this. I went and got you and brought you on. Not the other way around. And will have my beautiful wedding with a husband I love, one day. Because this is just a formality. Legally only. Outside of WWF, you do what you want, and I'll do what I want."

And with a laugh, he turned to grin at her finally. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear."

The courthouse took forever, but when it was finally all said and done, Stephanie found herself adding hyphenating Helmsley onto her name and Hunter was filled with all sorts of new jokes to make at her expense.

He sprang the first on her the second they were back in the car, driving away, marriage license in hand.

"So," he asked as they pulled out of the place, "when you thinking of consummating this? Tonight, right now, after we film the stuff in Vegas-"

"Try never, creep," she said with an accompanied tone of annoyance. "Maybe in your dreams."

"It's part of the deal, dumbass. Shouldda read the fine prin-"

"Stop calling me that," she complained with a frown. "Dumbass. I don't like it and if we're going to be teamed up for awhile, we should at least get along."

Annoyed now, Hunter sat there for a moment, glaring out at passing cars. Then, slowly, he asked, "What do you wanna be called then?"

"Stephanie. My name. What else?"

"Well, I don't fucking know, princess, but you're the one making such a big-"

"That. Call me that."

"That? Fine, that. How's it going, that?"

"Hunter-"

"You want me to call you princess? Huh?"

She nodded, making a noise of agreement in the back off her throat before saying, "Until we get rid of Vince and I become the queen, sure. Since Stephanie is so hard for you."

He glanced at her then, for a longer moment than he should of, before glancing back at the road with a frown. "We're not getting too cozy, you know, princess."

"What do you mean?"

"We're business partners in this, yeah?" Shrugging a bit, he focused most his attention back on the road as he said, "Can't have you, you know, falling in love with me."

"Excuse me?"

"You are a woman, after all."

She wanted to lash out at him for that, complain or gripe, something, but instead, realized that's what he wanted. That's what he always wanted. Every time he teased her, getting a rise out of her was the main goal.

Sitting up straighter, she said simply, "Try keeping it in your pants and we'll call it even."

With a snort, he shook his head a bit before saying, "Doubt I'll have a problem with that...Stephanie."

And she bit her lip, to stop herself from barking back while he only watched her out of the corner of his eye.

It was a start of an era, just in time to finish out the decade. The millennium was upon them as well and the only way Hunter could picture it was with that title belt wrapped around his waist and his 'wife' manning things behind the scenes.

Shaking his head to himself silently, he concluded in what he knew the first day she asked to speak with him alone.

She'd definitely come to the right person. The exactly right person.

Some Hunter and Steph for those who have been asking. And to Shanynde, I'm not too big a fan of Archive's format and upload process, so I doubt I'll be uploading any of this stuff from here to there.