Hunter was full of anxious thoughts as he walked from the ring where he had been working out up to the hallway that would lead to the backstage locker rooms. Looking around the arena, he contemplated what it was about his current situation that left him feeling so empty inside. He wasn't happy, and it was starting to effect his match performance. He had no burning desire for revenge or the title at this point. He just felt numb.
He had thought that getting the title would mean that all his problems would go away. And at that moment, they did. He was finally free of Jericho's attentions and his wife was banished from the company. But the appearance of the nWo and Hulk Hogan had complicated all of that. He lost his title, and was finding that life really was hard in the company when he was all alone. Over the past month, he had found that taking care of himself was getting harder on his own than he remembered. He felt resentful of Stephanie above all else, though. Why was he feeling this way? It wasn't fair. She shouldn't have had this kind of impact on him.
He regretted the way their last meeting had gone, when he had basically screamed at her and kicked her off of his property. He really wished that he could talk to her again, maybe just to get some sense of closure, but she had basically vanished. It was the middle of May, and she had been out of the company for over a month with nobody having any idea about where she was. He was guessing that Shane McMahon might know, but the only times he had even seen Shane, the guy looked like he wanted to murder him.
The only thing that complicated things for him professionally was whether or not Shawn was coming back. He had yet to hear a straight answer, and maybe it is possible that this could give him some purpose outside of the title, but he was still trying to adjust to Stephanie being out of his life.
As he walked down the hallway towards the locker room, he caught the tail end of a heated conversation between Kurt Angle and Kevin Nash from behind the corner.
"What are you talking about, man? I am not joining the nWo, I am an Olympic Gold Medalist!"
"I would have thought that you would know better, seeing as how you are constantly getting your ass kicked, and how you are basically only noticed because people like to tell you that you suck!"
"I don't need you, or Hogan, so back off!"
"You're going to come to regret that, just like Triple H will. He's been a pain in the ass since he finished that business with Jericho and his ex, and when Michaels comes back, he'll be taken care of. By the way, what happened with his ex? She still gone and buried?"
"You have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to Steph, and as for your grudge against Hunter, I could care less about that. You guys are dinosaurs. Later."
"It would've been great to have someone on Smackdown with the brand extension, Angle. You missed out."
Hunter perked up when he heard Angle talking about Steph. He figured that he had to confront him about this, as obviously, the Olympic Jackass knew something. As Kurt rounded the corner, Hunter struck quickly, pushing him up against the wall and said, "What do you know about Stephanie?" in a dark, low voice.
Kurt was shocked, and it was showing on his face. "I don't know what you are talking about" he said, throatily and with little confidence. He tried to keep his composure, and his panic gave it away.
"That's bullshit. From what I just heard, you might know something about her, and I want to know too. Have you been fucking her?"
"No! What is your problem? I said I don't know. And why are you so curious about her? I thought you hated her." Kurt was seriously confused by what was going on with Hunter, but he couldn't tell him or anyone else where Stephanie was. She was clear about that, and he intended to honor his promise.
"You don't know shit. And as for why, that is none of your business. " Hunter figured he wasn't getting anything out of this situation, so he dropped Kurt to the floor and sulked off towards his changing room. He was beyond pissed, and it was making him act crazy. As he crossed through the brown doors and threw down his bag with anger, he thought about where Steph would have gone.
Probably just living with her mother or something like that, he thought. She was so needy and spoiled that there is no way she is doing anything on her own. He couldn't claim any moral high ground on that as he had taken to having his mother take care of his house once every few weeks, but at least he could say that he had accomplished something on his own when he won that title. Oh, fuck it, he was helpless.
New York, NY
Shane and his wife lived in a very upscale part of New York City, and Stephanie felt somewhat odd being in the world of luxury for the first time in months. She had lived relatively modestly since getting kicked out of the company, trying to avoid attention or scandal. As she approached the front doorstep of Shane's Manhattan penthouse, she looked around at the bright lights of the city sky and started to feel nervous. She didn't know how she would be received, basically anywhere she went, and while the stares and slights at work were getting less noticeable, she really did not have a single friend at the office.
She decided to finally take up Shane on his offer to have her over for dinner. She had no plans anyways, other than working out in the gym and watching a movie at home like usual. It was a Friday night, but she unfortunately had no basis of a social life, so she was content to just go visit her brother. Shane was becoming her only link to the outside world besides watching RAW and going to work.
She rang the doorbell and waited for a few moments. The door flew open, and Shane McMahon had a wide grin on his face as he came out to hug his sister.
"Hey, Steph. Come on in. Dinner's ready." Stephanie came in through the foyer towards the table where Marissa was sitting. She noticed that Marissa had an awkward and uncomfortable look on her face.
"Hi Marissa, what's for dinner?"
"Oh, hi Stephanie. Um, we are having Chicken tonight. Excuse me." Marissa left the kitchen and went upstairs without as much as a look at Stephanie or Shane. Stephanie felt confused as to why Marissa had bailed on them, not even really acknowledging her.
"Shane, is there something I should know about?" She wondered if Marissa was still angry at her for how she had behaved after Hunter left her. They had not talked in months, and Stephanie felt that there might be some resentment on Marissa's part.
"Look, we talked about this. I thought Marissa was going to be friendly towards you, and I am sorry that you had to see that. Do you want me to go talk to her?" Shane looked extremely uncomfortable. He wanted his sister and his wife to get along again, and he didn't think that things were off to a very good start. He picked up the wine bottle that he had recently gotten out from the cellar and put it on the table and started towards the steps.
"No, Shane, stop. I will go talk to her." Stephanie knew she had to make things right between them on her own. She walked back to the foyer and headed up the steps towards Marissa and Shane's bedroom. Knocking on the door, she said, "Marissa, are you in there? It's Stephanie. Can I talk to you?"
Not hearing anything, Stephanie opened the door and saw Marissa staring out the window, not even acknowledging her presence. "What is it that you want?" Marissa said, with an angry tone in her voice.
"I just thought maybe we should clear the air before dinner. Are still mad at me? I thought that Shane would have told you that I am trying to be a better person now."
Marissa turned around with a nasty look on her face. "What is there to say at this point? I watched someone who I thought was my friend act like a conniving bitch on television for 4 months without so much as a single explanation from you. You tried to pin all of that WCW stuff on Shane last year, and almost ruined what reconciliation my husband could achieve with his father, but luckily Vince was able to forgive you two and reestablish the trust that you helped to break. And you go and jeopardize that by LYING about a pregnancy? Do you know how much I want children and have had no signs of success? How do you think that made me feel? You make me sick. And to top it all off, you acted needlessly cruel to an innocent dog because of whatever stupid argument you and Hunter were having at the time. So yeah, I would say that I am still fucking mad at you!" Marissa's face was red and swollen with intensity, and looked absolutely furious.
"What?" Stephanie could hardly believe her ears. She knew that maybe Marissa was a bit resentful of her, but she didn't have any idea that she was this mad.
"I said I am still mad at you! What don't you understand?"
"Look, I am sorry about all of that." Stephanie knew it sounded weak, but she could hardly come up with anything else to say. She was still in shock.
"Sorry doesn't cut it! How do I know that you are any different now than you were just a few months ago?"
"B-but, I have changed. I have a new job, I have a new house, I am making improvement, and I don't know what else to do! I just want to be part of the family again." Stephanie was extremely dejected. She probably should have seen this coming, but once again, she underestimated just how much people did not like her.
"You seriously think that I am going to forget everything I saw you do less than 2 months to this day? You made me regret ever knowing you."
Stephanie had tears in her eyes. She had no idea that Marissa felt that way, but more than that, she was confronted with the base appearance of her self-serving actions from afar. She had known that she became a bad person before getting kicked out of the company, but she didn't know that it made everyone view her in a way that was so repulsive. She started to feel physically sick. The air around her was becoming thick and awful. She tried to compose herself and respond. "I am so sorry about that. You are my friend, and I want you to know that I never did any of that other than to try to save my marriage."
"Look, I get that Shane thinks that you are serious about this whole being a new person thing, so maybe what you are saying is true, but it doesn't change the fact that we all told you Hunter was bad news, and you ignored all of us. Look what you have become!"
Stephanie was full-fledged crying at this point. She couldn't think about anything other than trying to one day get Hunter back, but here she was, hearing him badmouthed by Marissa, and knowing she couldn't say anything else about it. "We used to be such great friends. What can I do to show you that I really am changing for the better?"
"Well, you could start by promising to stay away from Hunter."
"I-I can't do that. I am going to return to the company one day, and he will be there."
"You know what I mean." Marissa had heard what Stephanie had said about him the day after she was kicked from the company from Shane. She knew that Stephanie, for some ungodly reason, still had feelings for the asshole, and that she was still extremely vulnerable to any mentions of him.
Stephanie was at this point sobbing into one of the pillows on the bed. She knew that Shane might come up at any point, but she couldn't help it. Why couldn't anyone understand what she was going through? Couldn't they just accept her at her word that she intended on changing for the better, and leaving her old bad habits behind that weren't named Hunter?
Marissa actually started to feel bad for her, looking at her lose it on the bed. She may have come across too harsh, but she was resentful of a lot of things, and Stephanie didn't help matters by trying to reconcile immediately. "Look, I don't really care about Hunter, what I care about is you. You changed in a really bad way as of late, and you're not the same person that I knew for years. I am willing to forgive you, but please, for the sake of yourself and everyone else around you, just do not speak to Hunter again."
Stephanie decided to cut her losses and accept Marissa's open hand to her. She stood up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and gave Marissa a hug. "Thank you, Rissa. I am sorry about everything."
The two of them walked down the stairs to see Shane asleep on the couch. He got up with a start, and said, "Oh, there you are. Can we finally eat dinner now?" Stephanie and Marissa laughed, and it seemed like they had gotten back on the same page once again.
The dinner passed relatively quickly, without much event outside of some small talk, until the end when Shane started to wonder about the rumors of Stephanie getting into negotiations with the Hart family at work. He said, "Is there any truth to that, or better yet, what does Dad think he is going to accomplish with that?"
"Well, he wants to make a Hart family DVD, and he put me in charge of that, presumably because I am the only McMahon who Bret Hart has never met. So yeah, it is true, and I actually have a big meeting tomorrow with their lawyer nearby in Manhattan."
"Sounds nuts to me. I don't know much about what you have gotten into, but personally I think it is just Dad trying to give you an impossible task to keep you busy. He did the same with me when I came back after the Invasion. He told me that I had to get broadcasting rights in the Middle East for Monday night Raw. I got absolutely nowhere with that."
"I mean, I have just sent some emails to the lawyer about the basic nature of what we want, and I am thinking if it goes well tomorrow, I might just have a chance at getting this done."
"Good luck with that, Steph."
The three of them continued on to eating dessert, before Stephanie felt ready to go. She gave Marissa and Shane a hug before leaving in her car and heading home to Greenwich.
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