Chapter IV: A Forgotten Vow?
Dave Batista was starting to worry about his wife. Yeah, they always had issues saying 'goodbye' at the airport. In other words, they didn't want to say goodbye. After almost two years of being on separate shows, it was still tough to leave for the weekend of shows.
The wrestler embraced his wife to kiss her and she clung to him tightly, her arms circling his back and her hands barely touching. She laid her head on his chest and could hear his heart beating. How could she leave without telling him? He deserved to know before anyone else but she still didn't know how to tell him. When they had gotten married, they had discussed children and, with Cheryl's tenure on RAW being only three and a half years, they agreed it wasn't fair for her to have children soon. It was career first. But there was also another selfish reason—Dave wanted to watch his kids grow up rather than hear about it while he was on the road. He didn't want to miss his baby's first step because he was squashing some unknown in a houseshow. He had every intention of retiring from wrestling with his firstborn and was very adamant about that. The time would be right, they were sure of that, when they were both ready to walk away from the company full-time. What made that decision hard was that they both enjoyed wrestling too much to quit any time soon.
Cheryl didn't know if that vow to retire was something he was still going to hold himself to two years later. He wasn't ready to quit and she knew it. She wasn't exactly ready either but having a baby was important enough to do so. It wasn't worth taking time off only to come back for a couple of years, dragging the poor kid around on the road, and then quitting again when it was time to start school or when they had another baby. No, it was going to end this weekend no matter what. Either last RAW or this pay-per-view was her last match.
Would seven and a half months from now be Dave's last match as well? Hey, honey, guess what? We're having a baby and you have to retire! Hope you're ready for both. She couldn't say it but she was going to have to. She couldn't put it off any longer than this weekend.
But Cheryl also knew that if she told him she was pregnant, he'd yank her out of the championship match faster than she could blink. Hell, WWE's doctors would do that but he'd beat them to it. She had to be sure she was going through with the match herself before she said a word to anyone in the company and to Dave.
"You sure you okay?" Dave asked again, pulling away from her and fingering her red curls.
"Yeah," she lied and gestured to the airport around them. "I'm just so tired of doing this."
"Almost over but I'll be there Sunday morning," he replied, holding back the threat on his tongue about making her tell the truth. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was going to leave him, as if this hug was her last goodbye, or she was being overly affectionate because she was cheating on him. But the sex from this morning said otherwise—damn, his body was still tingling from that. But then maybe, that was her way of saying 'sayonara,' give him some of the best sex of his life to throw him off, and then walk away. No, it was more than that. Maybe she was just still upset over Creative's plans for her character, the debut of the younger diva Cherry, and the fact that she had indeed hurt her knee and would have to admit it.
Whatever it was, he wished she'd tell him. He hated it when she was quiet and kept things to herself. After five years of being together, he still had to pry things out of her that she didn't 'want to burden' him with. She frustrated him to no end in that department and he'd rile her up to the point where she got fed up with him asking and let it all out. He'd start on her on Tuesday morning. He'd have it out of her before it was time to leave for next weekend.
Since Dave didn't know what exactly was bothering her, he had only one way to comfort her. "I'll talk to you tonight," he softly said, tucking several locks of hair behind her ear at one time. He then leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Can't wait to see that gold around your waist again."
Cheryl shivered and sighed against him before he brushed his lips across hers. He never failed to make her weak in the knees. "I'll pick you up at the airport Sunday," she said, stepping back and hitching her shoulder bag higher. With Unforgiven in Houston and RAW in Dallas, the couple was going to be able to spend both shows together. But first, she was off to an autograph signing to kick off ticket sales for Cyber Sunday, and Dave would be leaving tomorrow for a SmackDown houseshow, the draft to bring him to RAW not occurring until Monday night.
"That ain't a kiss," Dave stated and jerked her hard against him. When he finally released her, she felt dizzy and lightheaded and wandered off through security with a dazed smile on her face.
The flight was a little over two hours, giving Cheryl way too much time to think. With the kiss still lingering on her lips and a hint of Dave's cologne on her shirt, she couldn't stop thinking about her predicament. The match was going to have to be reworked—not all of it but a good bit. Both women had moves that would require her to land flat on her back, hard enough to make the mat shake. Those were going to have to go. It wasn't like she hadn't already wrestled pregnant anyhow. There was last week and the matches for three weeks leading up to Summerslam and that's not counting their kickass championship bout at that pay-per-view. One more match was not going to hurt, especially if they reworked it to be safer for her condition.
Over the past two years, the two divas had had numerous matches together given the small number of women wrestlers on RAW. This was their first feud however and it was barely underway before it had to end. It was a terrible shame because Sam was a skilled wrestler, training long before spending time in OVW. Cheryl enjoyed working with her given the woman's experience and work ethic and their trust in each other. Sam had been wrestling for about as long as Cheryl but the older diva had started training in her twenties rather than her teens. Sam would easily be able to change up the match on the spur of the moment. It would be convincing her to go through with the match and defy Creative's scripted plans for it. Plus, she wanted to redo the ending completely. The diva wanted to go out with a bang and make her last match memorable. Sam had a tendency to play by the rules when it came to work. Not that Cheryl didn't but she had learned in the past that taking chances could very much be worth it, even if that chance meant breaking the rules.
Cheryl had once taken a chance in accepting employment offered by some bartender/manager in her hometown despite have no experience on the club scene. She took a chance in accepting that man's invitation to lunch, which one day led to them marrying and her becoming Mrs. Pierce Elllis. While the cost was her husband to a drunken idiot with a gun, she was blessed by a three year marriage. It was at Pierce's insistence that she take a chance and train that led to the opportunity of a try-out with the WWE. She didn't feel she stood a chance at getting a contract but Pierce pushed her to try anyway. He never lived to know she had gotten the contract but that chance led to full-time employment with the WWE, a solid role on RAW as Triple H's half-sister, a second shot at love, and the amazing experience of winning the women's championship belt.
No words can even begin to describe the experience of winning the women's belt for the first time. Like a first kiss or first orgasm, the moment held its own in a wrestler's life. Of course, it's not like a diva didn't know when she would win but the actual moment, when that belt was placed in her hands officially for the first time, is impossible to convey through mere words.
Cheryl Leigh Ellis came into the RAW brand fully aware that she was not up for a bid for the women's championship. She was a warm body needed to fill space. It was the luck of the draw, her physical appearance that gotten her the role of Triple H's half sister. It wasn't a big deal initially, just a way to get her over with the fans. A stint with Evolution was not in the cards for her storylines when she was brought up. Being in the highly popular stable, which was well respected backstage, Cheryl then expected to compete for the belt and even win. Didn't Evolution need to add more gold to the faction? Sadly no. She was reduced to an ornament for Hunter and for Batista.
It was halfway into her second full year with the company before her first title reign. Once she turned her back on Batista and Triple H, she sunk to another one of the interchangeable divas. It was almost like they drew lots to see who was lucky enough to have a match on RAW. The focus on Cheryl had been dropped to give the limelight to more divas than the women's champion, Melina. It wasn't like the redhead could stay on top forever.
Cheryl worked mainly houseshows, competed in diva battle royals, showed up for composite photoshoots, and competed in bikini contests. Then out of nowhere, she was told that she would become the number one contender to the belt, eventually succeeding at New Year's Revolution against Melina.
It was virtually impossible to bill Melina as anything but a heel. She played a bitch like nobody's business and was rather unconvincing as a face, through no fault of her own. So, Cherry was back to being a face, if you could say she was one when she was first brought up to the big leagues. It was during this feud that she finally learned to play the good girl and enjoy it.
Maybe she had been overexposed as part of Evolution but suddenly the cheers were back and she was the 'it' girl with the fans. And, god, it felt good. While her character definitely did not command the same kind of reaction that her half-brother or former boyfriend did, Cherry still brought the fans to their feet, signs waving. Despite the ridiculous elation that buoyed her to the ring with shouts from the crowd, the euphoria of actually winning the belt made the almost orgasmic experience of making such an entrance seem like nothing.
Melina was a bit of a real diva and not exactly the positive aspects either but she was one of the experienced wrestlers who wasn't simply eyecandy turned wrestler in a matter of months. She was a solid opponent, one who Cheryl could trust to hold her own in a match.
To date, it was her best match. The more pressure she was under, the better she performed. It helped tremendously that the agents took the extra time to lay out the match as customary for championship bouts. The two women worked well together with no major slip-ups, just minor ones that only the agents would have noticed.
A facebreaker, the Cherry Stem, the pin. She felt like Shawn Michaels, falling to her knees and gripping the belt to her chest. It was not an act, she simply reacted. It was everything she had wanted for the past five years. It was Pierce's last wish for her career and what she and Dave had been working towards in her personal training. Her physical skills warranted the title reign but even more the company thought she could carry the women's division, that her skills and conduct were good enough for her to be at the forefront of the divas for the fans and in the lockerroom.
For as long as the ref would let her, she held the belt above her head in the ring, celebrating to the cheers of the fans in each corner. Unlike some wrestlers who wouldn't let fans touch them ringside, she carried the gold around the outside mat, slapping hands as she went. Seeing a little girl of about four or five years old holding a sign for her, Cheryl stopped and let the girl 'hold' the belt—obviously with Cheryl's support—while the child's father took a picture of them. It couldn't get any better, she thought.
On the other side of the entrance, Batista waited for her. Her eyes lit up and she dashed the several steps to jump into his arms, her legs around his waist and the belt squashed between their chests. She giggled and he smiled that panty-dropping smile before his mouth descended on hers.
"Get a room," Edge sarcastically interrupted. A deep blush spread through Cheryl's cheeks and she immediately disentangled herself. "Hug?" he asked and she grinned broadly and accepted Edge's embrace before receiving congratulatory hugs from several of her other friends.
Cheryl slipped in the earbuds connected to her mp3 player and leaned back in the airplane seat, pushing her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose to peruse the open magazine on her lap. Winning the belt for the fifth time was going to come close to feeling as good. She and Sam could be safe enough and still pull off a spectacular match. Now, how to decline the congratulatory drinks at the nightclub afterward without raising suspicion and then how to tell Dave the news he was going to be father without him realizing that she knew prior to the pay-per-view match?
TBC…
