A/N: Thanks for the review guys, hope I'm doing Trish/Christian justice. Let me know how I'm doing, enjoy. :)

He watched as she daintily dipped her French fry into the ketchup on her plate. He had never realized before her that you could be dainty while doing something so…mundane, but Trish had always managed to do that. She defied everything he knew when she had waltzed right into his life. He remembered when he first saw her and thought she was the cutest girl he had ever seen. It had set his teenage hormones on high, and if you asked him now, he would tell you that was the pinnacle his puberty. From then on out, it had been her, and it had always been her.

"So why did you really bring me out, Jay?" Trish asked. "I know you said it was to get me away from Sofia, but there had to be more."

"How do you know that?" he asked defensively.

"Because I know you," she answered, tilting her head just the tiniest bit, and he had always found that endearing and now was no exception. "So what is it?"

"Well, I mean, we're…like not together right now," he said to her, "and it's weird, don't you think that it's weird after being together for so long?"

"It's an adjustment," she said noncommittally, not taking a side in all of this. If she was honest, yeah, it was hard being without Jay. He had always been there for her, and she would never forget how supportive he was during her pregnancy. Other guys would've just run, but not Jay, he had done the noble thing, even if it had cost him so much.

"Well, I figured that maybe, slowly, we can get back together, maybe…if we take it slow," he said, emphasizing the pace at which they could find each other again. He didn't want to scare her away, but maybe if the continued to spend time together, things would mend themselves.

She sighed though, and looked at him, "Jay, I'm just not sure about all of this, and it's not just the wrestling, but it's about us too. We've never gotten to live, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, that we were together or whatever, but I'm just saying that right now, I think we both want different things out of our lives, and we might not…fit."

"How can you say that? After everything we've been through, you think we don't fit?" he asked incredulously.

"I've had a lot of time to think," she rationalized. "Being away from you, away from the situation has given me a new way to think about it. What I found was that…we were kids when we had Sofia, but we've grown up…a lot, and maybe grown-up Trish and grown-up Jay just aren't as good as kid Trish and kid Jay."

"People marry their childhood sweethearts all the time."

"Yeah, I know," she said, "Jay, I'm not saying we're bad together, I'm really not, please don't misunderstand me, I'm just saying that maybe time apart will give us what we're looking for, whether it be us or some other people."

"You…you're saying that you want to date…other people?"

"I don't know, I'm not really looking or anything," she said. "I think I want to take a break from guys actually, for a while at least."

He had never been more relieved to hear anything in his life. The thought of Trish with another guy was just too unbearable for him. She was the only girl he had ever slept with, and he just couldn't imagine letting another girl into his bed, ring-rat or not. Trish was the only woman that he had ever wanted to be with and he just couldn't fathom there being some other woman would come close to her.

"I don't want this to be over," Jay told her sadly.

"I love you, Jay," she said, reaching her hand across the table and taking his. Her hand always seemed so small in his, like he could engulf her or something. "Never doubt that, you gave me Sofia, and you gave me the courage to do a lot of things I never would've otherwise done, but we're twenty years old, we have so much ahead of us and I think we're both at the point where we want different things that have seemed out of our reach, but now seem real. You have your wrestling and I'm thinking about going pre-med."

"Pre-med?"

"I've always wanted to," she said.

"I just don't see how we can't go after what we want together," he said. "I've met a lot of great people in my training over the last month."

"I'm happy for you," she said genuinely. "It's good to branch out, I've met some great people at school, I really feel like I'm fitting in."

"That's great," he said, and he was happy for her too, because she deserved to talk to someone who wasn't two years old and obsessed with Sesame Street. "What I'm saying though is, well, my friend, he has a girlfriend, she's in college, in Boston of all places, and she's so supportive of him."

"What does that have to do with anything?" she wondered.

"She's supportive of him," he repeated. "They make it work, even long distance, even with all the traveling. I'm actually going to a show that he's performing in tomorrow night and I was wondering if you would go with me, maybe talk to her…"

"You want me to talk to a stranger?" Trish asked, her eyes widening as she pulled her hand away from his and brought it to her lap.

"She's not a stranger, her name is Stephanie, she's really nice, and she's really smart and she knows what she's talking about. She and Chris have been together for a year and they've made it work this entire time. They even met at a wrestling show, and maybe if you talk to her--"

"What, Jay? She's going to convince me to give you another chance?"

"I just thought that she might help you as a wrestler's wife, you know, how it's not so bad. She brought up a good point about every guy having a sounding board, and well, I was hoping that we'd be together, and you could be mine."

"So you want me to talk to a woman that I don't know at all about how to live my life?" Now she was starting to get testy and it wasn't quite going the way that he planned.

"Trish, no, I just wanted her to talk to you, as a friendly thing, I wasn't trying to make you like her or anything," he said, running a hand through the hair that had come loose from his ponytail. "But obviously you don't even want to give it a chance."

"Jay, tell me this, does this Stephanie woman have a child?"

"No…"

"Yeah, so she knows nothing of what I'm going through right now. What kind of income are you making right now, Jay?"

"Not a lot."

"Enough to?"

"Live cheap and go to wrestling school," he told her sheepishly, sinking down in his chair a little bit.

"And what about Sofia?"

"She's included in the living part, you know that I give money to her whenever I can," he snapped at her. "You know if I had to choose, everything I had would go to Sofia, but I'm trying to do all this for her anyways."

"But we're barely getting by right now, who cares about the future when you're living from paycheck to paycheck," she responded exasperatedly. "You don't get it, Jay. I have to worry about Sofia right now, not two years from now, four years from now. She needs new clothes now, or shoes now, winter is right around the corner, and she'll need a new coat, and food and all the necessities. My parents aren't going to let me stay at their house forever, they said they would like to have me out by the end of the year, so I'm scraping by barely too, trying to save enough to find somewhere to live."

"Come back with me."

"Don't you get that I can't? I don't know what I want right now, Jay, I'm sorry, but I don't. You've chosen this path and I can't support it because it's not supporting our daughter," she said, then took a deep breath. "Thank you for dinner, Jay, I'm going to head out now, here's enough for the tip. Come by and see Sofia." She took out a few bills and set it on the table. It wasn't until she had left did he notice that she had left enough to cover her meal too.

He didn't know why this gesture got to him, but it did. She had heard what he said, even if she didn't agree, and by secretly paying for her own meal, it was almost a little bit of support that he needed. She at least pitied him, or cared about him and so she had covered her part of the bill. He wished that she would just go and talk to Stephanie. Stephanie was a wrestler's girlfriend and though Trish was so much more, Stephanie had the same ideas.

What he didn't know was that Stephanie had a much, much different view of wrestling given the fact that she was practically a part of its living history, or she would be once she graduated from college. Jay was convinced that if someone could talk to Trish about wrestling and how it wasn't as bad as she thought that maybe she would come around on the whole idea.

Stephanie had both her hands on Chris's shoulders and she was jumping up and down in excitement, "I love to watch you wrestle!"

"I know this," Chris chuckled as he reached up to put his hands on hers, "but you need to stop jumping around, because seriously, I don't want the guys to think that I'm the one with the crazy girlfriend."

"I'm not crazy," she pouted as she stopped being jumpy. He turned in her arms and hugged her to him, "I'm not…"

"I know this," he said, kissing her forehead. "But I still don't want to be known as the guy with the crazy girlfriend. Are you going to enjoy it tonight?"

"Are you winning?"

"Can't tell you," he teased.

"Well then I don't know if I'm going to enjoy it. I'll be too busy filming it anyways," she said, patting the camera bag that he was holding right now, being the gentleman that he was and not letting his girlfriend hold anything.

"Well, if it's a good match, I want to add it to the list."

"Uh huh," she said knowingly.

"And you're not sending it to your dad," he chastised gently.

"And just why not?" she asked defiantly, sticking her chin up as she looked at him.

"Because I've told you a million times that when I feel like I'm ready to go into your dad's company, I will go to your dad's company, it was an open-ended offer, wasn't it?" he asked rhetorically.

"Unless you break up with me, then your career is over," she joked, "because my dad will have you blacklisted."

"Thanks," he said sarcastically, "but there are no plans for that because…"

"You're going to marry me, yeah, yeah, I get it," she told him, kissing his chin. "You say all these things and yet…"

"Steph…"

"You're not marrying me until after I graduate, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, I don't think it's going to happen."

"You have no faith in me, Stephanie McMahon."

"I guess I'm just not convinced," she said coyly and he nodded as he got closer and closer to her, pressing his lips against hers. She licked his bottom lip a little before deepening the kiss. When she pulled away she whispered, "I just don't see the harm in sending my father a tape to keep him updated on your work."

Chris groaned, "You never let up, do you?"

"Not if I can help it."

Chris looked over his shoulder and saw Jay and Adam walking up to him, "Hey guys, what took you so long?"

"Something's got him in the dumps," Adam said, jerking a finger towards Jay, who was walking a little hunched over and with his hands in his pockets. "He won't talk."

"What's up, man?"

"Nothing," Jay mumbled. He didn't want to discuss Trish. He had become good friends with these three people over the course of the last month or so, but he still had yet to tell any of them about his marital situation and his paternal situation. He just didn't feel the need to talk to them about when it was his problem and not theirs.

"Yeah, right," Chris said, rolling his eyes at Stephanie. They walked over to the stage entrance as Chris showed his pass and let the other three in. "So, you'll finally get to see what it's really all about."

"Thanks for inviting us, man," Adam said. "You didn't have to."

"It's nice to get some field experience," Chris said as Stephanie held onto his hand. Some of the people there knew who she was and gave her a nod and a hopeful look, like she was going to go running back to Daddy and tell him everything. She really didn't have as much say as people thought she did, but she hesitated to tell anyone that because then it would just get around that she was here.

"Yeah, so how many shows are you doing with this promotion?"

"I'm contracted for five," he said. "All until the end of training with you guys. Once I'm finished with that, it's off to Mexico for me for a couple months, and then I've got this thing lined up in Japan with my friend Lance."

"And as my graduation gift, right, Chris?"

"Yes, Steph, you're coming too," he groaned, rolling his eyes playfully as she slugged him in the stomach. "Hey, I've got a match, don't beat me up before I get beat up."

"Sorry," she said, rubbing his stomach comfortingly.

"Well, look around guys while I get ready," Chris said, "Everyone is pretty nice, sure you've got some asses, but for the most part, everyone is really cool."

"Thanks," Adam said, slugging Jay in the arm, "Come on, man, get out of this slump that you're in."

"Maybe he doesn't want to," Stephanie said as she stood there. Some workers came up and said hello to her and she was polite and said her greetings.

"You sure seem to know a lot of people, Steph," Adam said.

She shrugged nonchalantly, "I come with Chris to all of his shows, well, most of them, when I have the time to, I'm lucky right now that I can come. He likes me to film his matches. He adds them to tapes that he sometimes sends out."

"I don't get why a guy who has an offer from the WWF would settle for dinky promotions like this," Adam said.

"I don't get it either," Stephanie sighed, though she did get his reasons. "Jay, you okay?"

"Yeah, why don't we…find our seats, I mean, if you're filming Chris, then you must want to be close."

"We've got time," Stephanie said, checking her watch.

"This isn't exactly the biggest venue," he argued. He just wasn't in the mood to socialize right now, not after that disastrous meeting with Trish earlier. He was still licking his wounds from that one.

"You go ahead, Adam and I are just going to walk around," Stephanie told him. "You can save the seats maybe?"

"Yeah, sure."

Jay went out to the empty community center where the show was being held and grabbed some up close seats since it was a first-come, first-serve situation for the show. He sat there, staring at the ring and wondering if this was what he truly wanted. If he went back to school, worked part-time, Trish would probably come back to him because they'd have a steady income. Was all of this worth breaking up his marriage and potentially losing his little girl?

He really wanted this though, but at the sacrifice of them, he wasn't so sure. And he had nobody to talk to about it. He was embarrassed by the situation he was in. He shouldn't be a married father, he knew that, but that was what he was, and sometimes, especially when he saw his new friends so carefree, he was ashamed of what he had let happen to him, but not ashamed enough to abandon his family. Maybe he should quit, maybe that was for the best.

But he still couldn't understand why Trish wouldn't give him a little support. It struck him even more later as he watched Stephanie cheer madly for Chris, all the while holding a camera up to her eye to film him. Here she was, helping Chris out with making tapes of his matches, and cheering for him at the same time like this was a WWF championship match and he was going to win the title. He was so envious in that moment. He wished he had that so much, and it seemed so close. He had Trish, he had her, he just had to make her see that this was worth the risk and the sacrifice, that he would make all of this worth it.

That he was worth it.