Within twelve hours, Cathy was out on the road with Brian, having packed a bag and said her farewells. The next few weeks passed in a flurry of new experiences and almost ceaseless travelling. Brian's friends got used to seeing her around backstage and helped her get into the way of things in the WWE. Brian was extraordinarily attentive, buying her new clothes everywhere they went, making sure she wanted for nothing, even affection at the end of a long day. He even began taking her to ringside with him, "for luck", as he put it, but Cathy secretly felt as if she was being put on display. Part of her felt ill at ease with being paraded backwards and forwards every week, but it was overridden by the warm delight inside that Brian wanted to show her off to the world. Maybe he encouraged her into tighter outfits and higher heels than she'd ever felt comfortable with before, but he was always there, blond hair swept back, looking achingly self-confident and desirable, and she wanted to please him.
She mulled on these thoughts as they waited backstage that night. Brian had insisted that she tried wearing a pair of stilettos to the show, and although she'd been able to adjust to the tension in her feet, she was still having trouble balancing herself on those tiny points. She lifted one foot to examine them as they were waiting to go out into the arena.
"I don't know why I let you talk me into this…" she mused out loud, twisting her foot this way and that. Brian stopped peering out towards the capacity crowd and glanced over her.
"It makes you look sexy," he told her matter-of-factly, checking out his appearance in a thin mirror strip on the wall. "And taller. Remember, you're standing next to Zeke – you don't want to be mistaken for a midget."
"I'm gonna break my ankle in these shoes!" Cathy insisted. "Or my neck."
"You'll get used to them," he assured her, his attention still half on the crowd outside. "Besides, you want to look good for me, don't you?"
Cathy thought about making a cutting reply, but just then, Brian's music started up and he swaggered out into the main arena, leaving Cathy to totter out carefully behind him with Ezekiel to those still magical words: "Being accompanied to the ring by Cathy Kaye and Ezekiel Jackson…"
The walk to the ring was still the one part of the proceedings Cathy didn't quite get. Brian sashayed his way to the ring in time with the music, happy as a clam, while she and Ezekiel followed behind, not smiling at the fans, not making eye contact, firmly focussed on the ring – by order. Of course, looking sexy was encouraged, but on this particular occasion, Cathy reckoned a sexy walk and making it down the surprisingly steep ramp in stiletto heels were probably mutually exclusive. But somehow she made it to ringside and took up her place next to the steel steps as Brian eyed Chavo Guererro, waiting in the other corner. As Ezekiel left the ring and passed Brian's jacket to her, he kept his eye firmly fixed on the large figure of the Big Show, who was glowering across the ring from the far side.
The bell rang and Brian and Chavo began circling slowly, weighing the other up, waiting to see who would reveal their hand first. Then Brian leapt forward and landed a quick volley of kicks on his opponent, knocking him to the mat with a dropkick. He pulled Chavo up, backed him into the corner and slammed him into the ring post, but it was the wrong corner and Big Show appeared at the top of the steps and Brian quickly backed off. Chavo recovered in an instant and fetched Brian a hefty blow to the ribs, knocking the wind out of him, and dropped him to the mat with another strike. He quickly went to the ropes for an aerial attack, but Ezekiel was waiting there for him and he quickly changed his mind. The back and forth continued for several minutes with neither man gaining an obvious advantage and the figures of Big Show and Ezekiel never far from their attention. Then Brian managed a strong hit to knock Chavo down and, with lightning quickness, sent him flying out of the ring and almost on to Cathy. He backed up, ready to make a flying leap after Chavo, but the arm of the Big Show wrapped itself round his foot and he fell flat on his face. In an instant, Ezekiel was there, glaring eyeball to eyeball with the other big man, while Brian protested loudly to the referee. Cathy swore loudly at Chavo as she rubbed her shoulder, which he had struck on his way out of the ring. He pulled himself to his feet and glared at her, and then advanced menacingly. Cathy backed up nervously, not watching where she was going, and half-tripped over the steel steps, lost balance on the precarious stiletto heels and turned her ankle. That was the last damn straw. Her feet hurt, her ankle was in horrible pain, it was still hours before she could go back to the hotel and change her shoes, and now, on top of that, she had to be intimidated by an inconsiderate jerk. She wrenched the hated shoe off her foot and, heel first, lashed out with it at the approaching Chavo. There was a sick crack and Chavo dropped to the floor, all but unconscious.
Cathy's head immediately turned towards the referee, horrified at her moment of anger, but he was still trying to placate Brian and had seen nothing. Brian's eyes, however, were firmly fixed on her, and as she hurriedly pulled the shoe back on, she could see a look of wicked glee spreading from them across his face. In the blink of an eye, Ezekiel was beside her, rolling Chavo back into the ring. Brian dived across to make the pin and Chavo was in no condition to kick out. Brian's music began blaring out of the sound system and the referee raised his hand in victory. After a moment, he turned and signalled to Ezekiel and Cathy, and the big man gently helped Cathy and her sore ankle into the ring. She limped into the centre of the ring and Brian gathered her up in his arms.
"Are you okay, babe?" he asked, and not even waiting for a reply and in front of the entire arena, he kissed her hard.
* * *
It took them two hours to get from their room to the hotel bar that night. Brian had carried Cathy out of the ring, barely letting her feet touch the ground the entire distance from the arena to the hotel room. After two hours with her feet definitely off the ground, and wearing a more sensible pair of shoes, Cathy felt able to go to the bar with Brian and celebrate their success at the show. Despite the long day, Brian now seemed more animated, more interested – for the first time that day, maybe the first time in several days, Cathy really felt like she had his undivided attention. So the next week, when Brian was facing Helms, and Helms happened to fall out of the ring near Cathy, with barely a moment's hesitation, she slammed her foot down on the back of his knee, and although she wasn't wearing the sharp stiletto heels it still sufficed to keep him limping for the rest of the match. And the week after that, when she was standing on the ring apron and MVP had fallen at the edge of the ring, she ground the heel of her shoe into his hand.
And so it would have gone on, week after week, were it not for something that happened a short while later. Brian was scheduled to face Evan Bourne which, in bluster and bravado, he declared would be just as easy as facing an empty ring. But before they left for the arena that afternoon, and any time he was sure they were alone, he caressed and cajoled Cathy, urging her to take "any opportunity that might arise" during the match. He'd insisted she wore the stilettos again and kept reminding her that if Bourne had a sore ankle he would be effectively grounded for the rest of the match.
"What are you so edgy about?" she asked brusquely, after he'd reminded her for at least the tenth time about Bourne's reliance on speed. "He's no bigger than you, and he's not long back from injury – you can take him."
Brian stopped pacing and caressed her hand and gently pushed her hair back from her face. "He can't beat me," he replied, confidence appearing to have returned to his voice. "But I need to know that you're on my side, that you'd do what I asked you to, if you had to." He kissed her softly, then whispered in her ear, "You do want me to win, don't you?"
"Of course," Cathy told him hesitantly, "but…"
"I knew you'd understand." He cut her off, all swagger returned. "Now come on, we don't want to be late." And with that, he dragged her off, and the lingering doubts in Cathy's mind remained on her lips, but still entirely unspoken.
* * *
The thing that struck Cathy most as Evan Bourne made his way down to the ring that night was how young he looked. He was in his mid-twenties, only a few years younger than Brian, but the clean shaven, bright-eyed eagerness with which he approached the ring, all hope and smiles, made Cathy squirm inside – he looked like just a kid. As the referee signalled for the bell, Brian turned towards her and Ezekiel.
"Remember what you have to do," he told her, stamping one foot down on the ring for extra emphasis. Cathy bit on her lip and gave a very slight nod. He turned to face the centre of the ring and immediately ate a spinning sole kick from Bourne. Brian leapt to his feet again quickly, his face twisted in a scowl, and rushed towards Bourne, who dropkicked him back onto the mat, following it quickly with an elbow drop. Cathy could see the frustration already building up behind Brian's eyes – this was a weak start to his match and he knew it. He wasn't concentrating on the match; he was just lashing out instead of picking his spots and hitting them hard. It was a prophecy fulfilled – he'd been so obsessed with the prospect of doing badly that now he'd started, he didn't seem to be able to stop. With a sense of foreboding, Cathy knew she would be obliged to keep her promise.
The moment finally came a few agonisingly endless minutes later. Brian had just about hauled himself back to parity with Bourne, but there seemed no prospect of his actually taking the upper hand. But then, in a single moment of power, Brian knocked him to the floor of the ring, in Cathy and Ezekiel's corner, with his right ankle hanging out at the edge of the apron. As he kept the referee's attention away from Bourne, she could feel Brian's eyes piercing her, asking, demanding that she take action. The rest of the arena seemed to fade away, her stomach churned and her heart beat rapidly like drum and bass, and for the sake of those powerful hazel eyes she took hold of his ankle and twisted it sharply with as much force as she could muster.
The agonised scream woke her, as if from a trance, and she dropped it like a hot coal, but the damage was already done. Bourne tried to pull himself to his feet, but the moment he shifted weight onto his right ankle he yelped at the pain and his leg collapsed beneath him. That was all the opening Brian needed. Cathy watched, almost frozen, as Brian, his confidence restored, kicked the immobilised young man round the ring before forcing him onto his feet for a Sliced Bread #2 and the inevitable three count. He leapt up to celebrate, but Cathy's eyes were fixed on the body lying helpless near the edge of the ring. His body was hunched up, his flesh palest white where his fingers were digging into it, trying to distract from the pain in his ankle. His eyes were screwed shut, but when he opened them Cathy could see the distorted grimace on his face as he tried so hard to stop the tears that were threatening to escape. She had done that. For the sake of a handsome man's ego, for his smile and his good opinion she had done that. To an eager, hard-working, dedicated kid, from a distorted sense of the duty she owed she had done that. For a man who had not deserved to win she had done that. As she watched him struggle to contain the pain, the bile rose in the back of her throat and she fled backstage.
* * *
Cathy felt a hand on her shoulder, and she raised her head from her hands to look at the figure in front of her seat. He pulled her up and his hands drifted languidly up and down her sides.
"You sure left in a hurry," he remarked, his lips softly grazing her cheek. "Don't you want to celebrate another majestic victory with me?"
He tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away. "You didn't deserve to win tonight."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, laughing it off. "Of course I deserved to win – I'm The Brian Kendrick!"
"You were being the shittiest coward before that match," she retorted, the anger and disgust rising in her voice. "You were getting your ass handed to you, and you only got the win because I crippled that poor kid!"
"Oh, he's not crippled," Brian insisted, still trying to take hold of her again. "Besides, I was doing great out there." He grasped her hand and tried to look into her eyes. "Now I'm not saying that what you did didn't help, but that was your decision, not mine."
"You forced me into it," Cathy pouted, but she could see the moral high ground slipping out from underneath her, at least for tonight. She grudgingly acquiesced as Brian caressed her hair and gently pushed it out of her face.
"Babe, you don't have to do anything you don't want to," he told her, a gentle attitude returned now that the danger had passed. "And I think it's really sweet that you want to help me win. But now, let's just forget about who sent who to hospital and go have some fun, ok?" He grinned and kissed her gently on the nose. "I bet you'd like a drink." Cathy nodded gently, still not quite meeting his eyes, and allowed herself to be led off back towards the locker room.
* * *
Brian prised Cathy out of her sulk that night, but she still couldn't forget the sight of Evan Bourne laid out in the ring. Every time she saw the ring that week, she remembered. She tried to talk about it with Brian, but every time she started to mention it, he'd just change the subject. She felt a niggling suspicion that even if they did talk about it he wouldn't understand. He was a wild spirit – that was one of the things she'd liked about him that first week. His mind was wrapped up in the present and the future, and the past was irrelevant – except, of course, for the past triumphs of The Brian Kendrick.
Then the list of matches for the next Smackdown show was given out, and Brian was scheduled to fight Mr. Kennedy for the chance of a shot at the US Championship belt. Suddenly the nervous focus was back, the need to have Cathy on side once again reared up and she was being less than co-operative about the subject.
"You said you don't need me to help you out," she pointed out icily. "What's so special about Mr. Kennedy when you're The Brian Kendrick?"
She could see the look in his eyes – trying to twist out an answer to the question he wanted her not to have asked.
"It's not that I don't need you," he began slowly, picking his words very carefully. "I mean, I don't need you in the ring, but I do need you to be there with me," he tried, changing tack to smooth talk, "I want you to be involved in what I do – after all, what's the fun in just walking to the ring and back again? Don't you want to be involved in my triumph?"
"It's nice when you win," Cathy conceded. "But if I have to hurt someone for it to happen, I don't feel good about that."
Brian grabbed the opening and gently wrapped his arm around her. "Babe, I know you're a gentle flower. But wrestling is a rough business and sometimes you've just got to roll with it." He tilted her head so she was looking up at his face. "These guys, they go out into the ring all the time and get bumped much worse than anything you've ever done. You shouldn't worry about it – nobody else does."
"But it's not about what everybody else thinks," she persisted. "It's about what I think, and I don't like it."
Brian rested her head on his shoulder, holding her close to him and stroking her hair. "You don't have to like it," he told her softly. "You just have to do it."
* * *
Mr. Kennedy was waiting in the ring as Brian and his entourage approached the ring. The problem, Cathy mused as they walked down, was that if ever someone needed to be thumped for no particular reason, it was Mr. Kennedy, with his spiky, teenage-boy white-blond hair and egotistical, square-jawed fondness for his own name. The man seemed to exude annoying from every pore of his body, and the closer they came to the ring, the more she really wanted to slap him.
"Of all the nights to have a conscience…" she muttered as Brian slid into the ring. She watched him as he strutted around, his appearance the very epitome of confidence and success. He wore it like a mask, perhaps in the hope that if he did so enough, people would mistake it for his real face. And it was true – there was some resemblance between them, but the mask made light and shallow what was really opaque and complex. Cathy could see traces of the man she thought she'd met in his face, but the invisible mask cast a deep shadow over it.
The bell rang and Brian got straight to work. He had learned the lesson of the previous week and was not going to be blindsided this time. A succession of kicks won him an early advantage, but Kennedy was not going to be easily cowed and the match was far from over. Size and power were on his side, but Brian was faster and more agile and he used it to his advantage – there was no point risking prolonged mat wrestling with Kennedy before he was tired and beaten.
When the denouement came, both men were feeling the burn. But Brian pulled at every ounce of power his muscles could give and kicked Kennedy hard, head first, into the ring post. He pulled the referee round, ostensibly to complain about something Kennedy had done a moment before, but motioning urgently to Cathy, who was up on the steel steps, to do something to really keep Kennedy down. Cathy looked down at the man at her feet, holding his head in his hands, muttering profanities under his breath, twisting and turning, and thought of how much satisfaction she would get from slamming her foot down on his fat muscled neck. And at that moment, making sure Brian's eyes were firmly fixed on her, she descended the steps and turned away. As she walked towards the entrance she could just hear Brian over the roar of the crowd, stamping his feet and screaming at her to get back and do her duty. Cathy turned at the top of the ramp, just in time to see Brian take one last hit from Kennedy before eating a Mic Check and the three count. Satisfied that she had done the right thing, she turned back towards the entrance and left.
* * *
She heard the running feet from half way down the corridor, but it still came as a slight surprise to be grabbed roughly by the arm and hauled round to look a furious Brian Kendrick in the eye.
"What the hell do you think you're playing at?" he shouted, glaring at her. "What happened to my glorious triumph?"
"Playing all your dirty tricks isn't a triumph," she spat back at him. "I said I didn't want to help you cheat to win, and I didn't. I don't have a problem with what happened out there tonight and neither should you." She tried to pull herself out of Brian's grip to leave, but he only held her tighter and pushed her against the wall.
"You think there isn't a problem?" he snarled. "That I can't trust you? That every time I go into that ring I have to worry about whether you're just going to leave me out to dry because you've got some sissy hang-up about helping me?"
"Hey, this isn't about me!" Cathy interrupted him. "If you can't win, then maybe you should spend more time training and less time checking yourself out in the mirror!"
The slap not only stung, it sent her tumbling to the floor. Brian bent down and grabbed her roughly by the chin, forcing her to look into his face as the tears welled up in her eyes.
"Don't you ever talk to me like that again," he growled. "Just remember – I brought you here, and I can put you back just as easily." With that, he let go and stormed off noisily towards the locker room, sparing her not even a single backwards glance.
* * *
Jeff Hardy was making his way through the backstage area when he heard the sound of muffled sobs coming from behind a stack of crates. Pushing an errant strand of purple hair away from his face, he stopped to see what the matter was. Behind the crates, he saw a small brunette in a short black dress with her head buried deep in her hands. He reached out and cautiously touched her on the shoulder.
"Hey, are you okay?" She looked up and he recognised the tear-stained little face. "It's Cathy, right?" She nodded. "Did you hurt yourself? Do you want me to go find Brian?"
"No!" The emphatic declaration was followed by a tear-choked cough. "I mean, I'm fine, I'm really fine…"
Jeff sat down beside her. "To be honest, you don't look fine," he told her gently. "You look like you could use a friend."
Cathy made a half-hearted attempt to wave him away, her head still turned to the wall. But when Jeff stayed firmly where he was seated, she gave in and they sat there in silence. Jeff kept his eyes firmly fixed on the opposite wall. He could just see Cathy out of the corner of his eye. She was making a pretty good attempt at pretending she hadn't been crying – trying to breathe deeply and pressing cold fingertips to her eyes, but something was eating her up inside because every so often, another tear would escape and she would brush it away with a sharp, angry movement.
Eventually, he broke the silence. "Are you sure you don't want one of the paramedics to have a look at you, or something?"
She tried unconvincingly to laugh it off. "No, I'm okay, really." That seemed to be as much as she would say, but after a small pause, she continued, "Brian got really angry because I didn't help him in his match tonight and afterwards…" She trailed off slightly. "I just fell over… tripped, that's all." The euphemism was so obvious it wasn't even worth challenging.
Jeff put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a very gentle hug, whispering the words "It's okay," and let her rest her head on his shoulder. They sat there, not moving, not speaking, for quite some time. Eventually, when it seemed to Jeff like Cathy had calmed down, he slowly stood up and offered her his hand.
"Come on, I'll give you a ride back to the hotel."
* * *
Cathy hadn't intended to talk as they drove back to the hotel, but in the gentle silence she found herself giving vent to feelings and frustrations that had been so well suppressed she'd barely noticed them accumulate. Jeff listened, not questioning, not judging, just driving. By the time they reached the hotel, Cathy was feeling, if not happy, at least somewhat more settled than earlier in the evening. Jeff smiled at her, gave her a brief hug and then left without saying a word.
However, the atmosphere with Brian was cold as ice. He was still seething from earlier, on top of which, he'd discovered that she'd taken a lift from someone else – never mind that he was the one who'd left without her… Cathy didn't manage to get a single word out of him for the rest of the night, which was somewhat exasperating, although she did slightly admire his determination to make his petulant point. He had to break his silence in the morning, as it was either that or have to order his own breakfast, but the chilly atmosphere remained. The tension was palpable, simmering and rumbling under the surface of everything they did together, yet never quite boiling over into a scene. It was a situation that, sooner or later, was going to explode.
* * *
Somehow they made it to the next show without confrontation. Cathy came to the show, but hovered around nervously, not really sure what was going to happen. The atmosphere was tense and she really wished she could just disappear somewhere else for a while. She quite wanted to go and find out what Jeff was up to, as she hadn't had much of an opportunity to talk to him during the week since they were in North Carolina and he'd taken the opportunity to stay with his family. But she was walking on eggshells with Brian and didn't dare leave his sights for a moment. A part of her was telling her quite clearly that she was being silly, that travelling with Brian wasn't worth being reduced to a spineless, quivering wreck for, and Cathy knew that was true. Nevertheless, she did like it, and it was best not to pick a fight over nothing if some peace could be salvaged.
She followed Brian and Ezekiel cautiously as they headed towards the entrance to the ring. She wasn't sure what was expected, whether Brian even wanted her there, but he strode on in silence and so she went along too. As they stood just behind the entrance, waiting for Carlito's music to finish, he finally turned to her.
"Listen," he told her shortly. "You can come with me and do what you're told. But if you're not going to help, then don't bother coming to the ring at all." With that, his music started, and he and Ezekiel made their way out. Cathy was half way out the entrance before she really registered what had been said. The words "do what you're told" hammered at her pride and going down to the ring would be nothing short of sacrificing her dignity as an independent human being. She had really enjoyed the last couple of months, but if she didn't put her foot down now, the person she knew as Cathy Kaye would be long dead by the time it was over. She stopped in the entrance way and whispered to herself, "This far and no further."
Brian didn't even notice she wasn't following him until he climbed into the ring and saw her still at the entrance. Cathy could tell it hadn't even crossed his mind that she might not come with him. The moment he realised what was going on, Brian was at the ropes screaming blue murder towards her, but Carlito was already in the ring and the bell was rung. Carlito tried to grab him and at least get him to face the right direction to fight, but Brian lashed out and hit him in the face. He signalled to Ezekiel, who climbed in to deal with Carlito, drawing a DQ, and slid out of the ring and raced up towards the entrance.
* * *
Cathy got barely ten feet inside the backstage area before Brian grabbed her.
"What did I just say?" he growled. "What the hell was that?"
Cathy shoved him back, 'do what you're told' still ringing in her ears. "You said if I come to the ring, I have to play it your way. But I didn't, and that means I am not obliged to put up with your shit!"
"You're defying my wishes!" he screamed angrily. "I brought you here to be a part of my success – why the hell do you have to be so fucking awkward?"
"And what are you going to do about it?" she challenged him. "Hit me again? You can't come up with a good reason for being a bastard, so you'll just hit me until I break – is that it?"
"I made you," he snarled. "You were nothing before you met me, and now you have the ingratitude…"
"Before I met you," Cathy cut in, "I had self-respect. Maybe I didn't have a job, or anything other than thirty thousand dollars of student loan repayments to make, but at least I didn't beat people up just because some self-absorbed pretty boy didn't want to look bad in front of his friends!"
"Don't you dare talk about me like that!"
"I'll talk about you any way I want – if you don't want me to call you a vainglorious little coward, then maybe you shouldn't be one!"
Brian straightened up and changed tack. "I wanted you because I thought you'd be different from all the other women round here," he snapped spitefully. "But I guess I shouldn't have bothered, because you've got all the ego of a diva and none of the skill."
"So that's what you want, is it?" she demanded. "Some girl to flash her ass when you want it, and kick everyone else's ass when you can't be bothered? And what The Brian Kendrick wants, he always gets, right?" She heard someone moving behind her, spun round to see Natalya, and grabbed her by the arm.
"Hey you, you're a bitch, aren't you?" she asked sharply. Without waiting for a response, she pulled the surprised diva out towards the ring.
* * *
The ring was empty as Cathy stormed towards it, dragging Natalya behind her. The surprisingly quick end to the last match had left them unprepared, and the referee was still waiting in the ring when Cathy pushed Natalya towards the ring before climbing in herself. She signalled agitatedly towards the referee, demanding that he ring the bell which, with a look of abject confusion and disorientation, he did. Natalya stood there, completely confused as to what was going on. Cathy lunged forward and hit her in the jaw before trying to bring her down by kicking her in the back of the knee. That was all the provocation Natalya needed. With one strike she knocked Cathy to the mat before lifting her up and slamming her back down with a suplex. She rained down blow after blow on the helpless Cathy, then grabbed her legs and locked in a Sharpshooter. Cathy, her initial glow of blind rage utterly spent, squealed in pain but the moment to seek compassion from her opponent was long past. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the blinding agony, but all it did was help her focus on the pain as it tortured her back and threatened to choke her brain into unconsciousness.
And then suddenly the hold was broken and Cathy collapsed flat on the mat, thankful tears streaming down her face. Insofar as she was capable of stringing together a thought process, she was relieved that Brian had finally realised she ought to be taken seriously and put a stop to what she now easily recognised as a moment of utter lunacy. She felt a hand on her arm and forced her eyes open – and saw Jeff Hardy. Jeff had broken the hold, Jeff had forced Natalya from the ring, and Brian was nowhere to be seen. She reached out her arms and Jeff came to her, helping her to sit up and holding her gently as she hugged him with shaky emotional sobs.
"It's okay," he told her softly. "The danger's over now."
And that was when Brian finally made his appearance.
He came out with his music blaring, of course, but he strode purposefully towards the ring, his arm raised, pointing at the small figure of Cathy in the corner.
"That's mine!" he shouted as soon as he was certain of being within hearing range. "You can't have her!"
Jeff stood up slowly and turned to face the man outside the ring. "She's not yours," Jeff told him in a level, measured tone. "And you can't have her either."
"You stay out of this, Jeff," Brian snapped, circling his way round towards Cathy. He signalled to her. "Come on, babe, let's go."
Jeff mirrored his movements, keeping himself always between Brian and Cathy. "I said you can't have her."
Brian slid into the ring and tried to get closer to Cathy, but Jeff blocked him at every attempt. "Look, Jeff," Brian sneered, "She's coming with me. You got your fifteen seconds in the spotlight to play the hero, now why don't you just run off backstage and go write some poetry or whatever it is you do, and leave this to a real man?"
Jeff stepped up and glared straight into Brian's eyes. "I'm not leaving her alone with you," he growled, a trace of menace invading his voice. "I know what you did to her last week."
For a brief second there was a flicker of uncertainty in Brian's eyes. But he shrugged it off and replaced it with steel. "That's none of your business, Hardy. She's mine, and what we do together is nothing to do with you."
"You don't deserve her." Jeff spotted his brother Matt appearing at the top of the ramp. When he saw the confrontation going on in the ring, he hurried towards them and went to help Cathy, who was still sitting painfully behind them. "You've done nothing but treat her like crap ever since she got here, and until a few weeks ago she did nothing but take it because she thought your better side was worth waiting for!" The emotion was rising in his voice and he advanced on Brian, stretching up to make the most of his extra five inches of height. "All she wanted was for some of the respect she gave you to be given back, and you couldn't even do that for her! She can't wrestle but she came down here tonight to try and force you to respect her – and the only reason you're here now is because I got here first!" He glanced behind and saw that Matt had helped Cathy out of the ring, and in her place had put a folded steel chair. He stepped back and looked at Brian disdainfully. "You don't have one shred of feeling in your miserable little soul worthy of a human being," he told him contemptuously, "And if you dare to come within a hundred feet of Cathy without apologising for the nasty, shallow way you've been treating her, then I will not rest until I've done everything in my power to make you truly sorry."
With that, he leapt back, grabbed the steel chair and in one fluid movement, brought it crashing down against the skull of Brian Kendrick. Then, dropping the chair, he rolled out of the ring and, together with his brother, helped the still shaken Cathy back up the ramp, as Brian lay completely unconscious in the ring.
