Cody slammed the door of the men's locker room shut and threw his elbow pad at the wall.
He had entered the Rumble at number fourteen and lasted well over twenty-four minutes, only to be eliminated by draw number twenty-nine, Triple H.
To Cody Runnels, Triple H was like the Bionic Man. No matter what injuries he sustained, he came back stronger. No matter what he did, everyone loved him.
In all honesty, he'd much rather have been tossed out of the ring by the returning John Cena, mainly because he was the eventual winner and was always nice to his girlfriend.
His girlfriend… his Rebecca.
As the somber Cody say down on the bench, the room now mostly cleared out as the pay-per-view had ended over two hours ago, his mind once again drifted back to her, as it had been doing all week.
In fact, they hadn't so much as spoken since the incident on Monday night. From what he'd heard from Mickie, she'd flown out to Wisconsin to visit some family and would be flying out to Philly tomorrow morning for RAW.
With a sigh, he began to unlace his boots.
That gave him less than twenty-four hours to figure out what he was going to say.
Becky threw herself backwards onto her bed, allowing her body to sink into the mattress.
If only she hadn't said those three words, those three little-big words that had changed everything.
She smacked herself in the head, "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"
But he had said them back to her.
With his sapphire eyes glinting in the moonlight, Cody Garrett Runnels told her that he loved her and it had been the happiest moment of her life to date.
Now, where was he? In New York City, with everyone on the roster except for her.
Maybe Cody just needed some time.
Maybe he just needed some space.
But he had said those three words back and that had to count for something…
Right?
Sympathy for the Devil.
The song title had never made much sense to him before, but now, as he stood outside of the dressing room of the woman he considered to be Satan in heels, it was perfectly clear.
He reached up for the door and knocked twice in hopes that she was there.
Sure enough, the door peeled back and revealed a woman in tight jeans and a pink camisole whose eyes widened as he stood before her in a pair of loose fitting jeans and a light blue polo, "Cody?"
"Can we talk?" he asked her, his eyes catching hers a little above eye level.
"Yeah," the blonde nodded and pulled back the door for him. "You know, I never expected you to come looking for me of all people," she added as she shut the door.
"Neither did I," he sighed and sat down on the couch, silently praying she didn't follow suit.
Sure enough, she did, "What can I do for you, Cody?"
"Whoa…" he held up his hands, "That's not what I'm here for."
"Oh no?" she arched an eyebrow and raked her nails up his bare arm.
Cody sprung to his feet, "Damn it, Charlie!"
Her blue eyes darted upwards innocently, "What?"
"I come to you for help and…" he placed both hands firmly on the back of his head, "You know what? This was stupid of me. I don't know what I was thinking."
"Cody…" Charlie called to him as he pulled open the door, "Wait!"
"No, Charlie!" he shook his head firmly at her. "I'm already in enough shit with my girlfriend as it is."
As the door slammed shut, Charlie was left to wince as the sound echoed through the empty room.
She knew exactly what he was implying.
He meant that she was a slut, a whore… every single derogatory name that a person could throw her way.
Maybe it was the fact that he was the only guy that didn't look at her as a sexpot that it stung her worse than ever before, even though he hadn't exactly let the words exit his mouth. Maybe it was the fact that Cody Runnels was the only guy who thought, for just a fleeting moment, she could change.
And deep down, Charlie West knew that she could change.
The only question was… did she really want to?
The sound of Becky's cell phone vibrating on her nightstand knocked her out of her deep thought process and she swiped it from the dark wood.
"Hello?" she answered it morosely.
"Hi, Becky," the unmistakable voice of the one and only Mickie James greeted her.
"Hey, Mick," Becky replied a little brighter than before. "What's going on?"
"Listen, I'm on my way to the hotel from the Rumble…" she trailed off. "And I uh… are you near anything fragile or of the glassy nature?"
"Uh…" Becky stumbled suspiciously, "No. Why?"
"Alright," the older woman sighed. "Well, I was just walking towards the exit of MSG and I saw Cody. Well, I wasn't the only one who saw him…
The muscular twenty-two year old trudged down the hallway of the Hilton to his hotel room and nearly ran right over Mickie on his way to his door.
"Oh, Mickie…" he rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at his sneakers. "Hey."
"What do you want, Runnels?" she hissed back at him, her hand on her hip.
"Jesus Christ, Mickie," Cody did a double take. "What the hell has gotten into you?"
Mickie rolled her eyes, "Like you don't know."
"Oh," he nodded in understanding, "You mean Becky. It's all just a big misunderstanding, really. Have you spoken to her lately?"
"Becky? Aren't you looking for the other West sister?"
"No," Cody shook his head, "Why would you think that?"
"Don't play coy with me, Cody," she jabbed a finger into his solid chest. "I saw you go into that Barbie doll bitch's locker room tonight. I just don't know how you can even BARE to look at yourself."
"Mickie," he reached up and pushed away her hand, "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know EXACTLY what I'm talking about," she folded her arms over her chest. "And now your girlfriend does too!"
Cody's eyes widened to the size of saucers, "Mickie? You spoke to her? What did you say?"
"I told her exactly what I saw, Cody," she stated simply with a hint of defiance in her voice.
He exhaled sharply, "I suppose you didn't see what happened about five seconds later then?"
"Well, no…"
"I left," Cody replied. "I went to Charlie for help with Becky, realized just how stupid of an idea that was when she made a pass at me, and then came back here."
Mickie clapped a hand to her mouth and winced, "Cody… I think I did something really bad."
"Mickie James," he used her full name, "What the hell did you do?"
The Wachovia Center was packed with people, overly anxious to witness the fallout of the Royal Rumble.
But not Cody Runnels.
The only fallout that he'd be experiencing was that from his girlfriend's ill-informed discovery that he had been cheating on her with her sister.
He'd been asking everyone if they had seen her all day, but unfortunately, no one, not even her best friend, Mickie James, had seen Becky.
Cody glanced at the clock… forty-five minutes until his match.
In the last two months, he'd grown accustomed to her being in his corner. Tonight, when he'd turn back to search for the green eyes of Rebecca West, he'd be met with the sight of Bob Holly.
What a disappointment.
"JR… let's take a look at that again," Jerry Lawler addressed his commentary partner, "I don't think our cameras saw it the first time."
"It looks like Holly went over to take care of Marella," he surmised, watching the reply, "And distracted Cody Runnels long enough to allow Carlito to land the backstabber…"
"Carlito… two. Runnels and Holly… zero."
"Becky, it's Mickie," the brunette sighed into her cell phone. "Listen, this is the eighth time you've ignored my call, so I'm going to leave you this voicemail. Please, I know that you want to just hang up the phone right now, but Becky… you need to keep listening… otherwise, you're going to make the biggest mistake of your life…"
"Get your head in the game, kid," Holly shook his head at the young man. "You can't let a girl wreck you like this."
"Watch me," Cody shot back.
"Hey," Bob pointed a finger at him, "Don't you snap at me like that. I'm just trying to help."
"Help?" Cody stood up sharply. "You mean like you did during my match?"
"I was trying to take out Santino. If your girlfriend was there…"
Almost instantly, Cody's blue eyes blazed and he shoved Bob up against the wall, "Go ahead. Finish that sentence. I DARE you."
"Boy," Bob held back his own temper, "You better get your hands off of me before I break you in places you didn't know could be broken."
Cody's grip on Bob's shirt loosened and then ceased altogether, "Only because you're my tag partner, I'll let you go, but NO ONE, not even YOU, gets to talk about my girlfriend like that."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better," the platinum blonde smoothed down his shirt, "She's not the one the whole roster is talking about."
"Great," the twenty-two year old cracked his knuckles, "Now everyone fucking thinks that I fucking cheated on my girlfriend with her fucking sister…"
"Not everyone."
Both Bob and Cody's heads turned in the direction of the feminine voice at the doorway.
"Becky," Cody breathed as he caught sight of her for the first time in days.
"Well, uh…" Bob grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. "That's my cue," he added heading for the door and pushing it open. "Ms. West."
"Mr. Holly," she replied as he disappeared behind the closed door.
Now, it was just down to them.
"I can change," the blonde woman repeated like a mantra as she walked towards the parking lot. "I can change, I can change, I can… Hardy."
"Hi, Charlie," the southerner stared at his well-painted shoes, in front of his rental car.
"Hi, Jeff," she smiled back at him genuinely and reached up to twirl her hair, but stopped herself and turned it into a wave. "How are you?"
"Good," Jeff nodded, his multi-colored hair moving with him, "Cold, but good."
"Yeah, I understand that," Charlie nodded with a chuckle, wrapping her pea coat tighter around her body. "You know, I never got to tell you how great your spot was on Raw a few weeks back. That Swanton Bomb…"
"Hurt like a bitch," he finished for her with a laugh of his own.
"I was going to say was horrifying to watch."
"Tell me about it," a female voice retorted from behind both Charlie and Jeff.
"Oh, hey," Jeff smiled and waved the young woman over. "Beth, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is Beth. She's my…"
"Girlfriend," the brunette finished for her boyfriend and extended a hand. "Jeff, come on… it's getting late. Can we go now?"
"Sure," he nodded and opened the door to the rental car.
Jeff got into the passenger's seat, still weak from wrestling the night before, and Beth slid into the driver's side.
As the car backed up, Jeff rolled down his window and smiled at her, "Bye, Charlie!"
"Bye…" she called out to him, but Beth floored the gas pedal and they tore out of the parking lot. "Jeff," she concluded with a sigh. "Yeah, Charlie. That went well."
Cody was the first to break the silence, "Listen, Becky…"
She held a hand up to silence him, "I know."
"But how?" he asked, intently studying her face.
"Mickie," she stated simply, fumbling with the hem of her emerald green sweater.
God, what a color.
"Oh," Cody nodded. "Right."
Once again, they delved into silence, with Becky staring at the floor and Cody staring at nothing but her, the green-sweatered, jeans-clad, emerald-eyed, raven-haired Rebecca West.
This time, it was Becky who broke the silence, "Kind of sucks when the result of your match is out of your control, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," he agreed. "I'm sorry."
"Me too," she added sincerely. "There was no reason for me to leave and not tell you where I was going."
"I guess we both fucked up royally, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Me, when I didn't trust you to stand on your own…"
"And me when I guilted you into telling me you loved me…"
"Whoa, wait a minute," Cody halted her. "You didn't guilt me into anything."
Becky sighed, "Yes, I did, Cody. If I hadn't said it, would you have?"
"Not then, no…" he admitted. "But only because I didn't want you to freak out."
"Really?" her green eyes brightened.
"Really," he nodded with a smile. "Come on, Becky. I'm just like you," he added, covering the distance between them. "I don't say shit that I don't mean."
"I…"
"No," he placed a finger on her lips. "Just don't say anything."
A moment later, Cody's lips pressed onto Becky's for the first time in nearly two weeks. After a few seconds, he pulled away.
"I love you."
A/N: So I know I've been quite a bit overdue on this story, but I'm just incredibly happy at the moment... for two reasons. Yay!
Oh, and Becky, I know you had a great time at ICW last night, so I hope this makes it a ton better.
And Charlie, you've been harassing me over this for days, so this is for you too!
And Julia, whose convinced that she harasses me about this story more than anyone else... for you too.
Danielle