Disclaimer: I only own the OC's. I do not own Matt, Jeff, or any other wrestler, announcer, etc.
A/N: So here it is- the last chapter of Time Withers All. Thank you to everyone who has read and/or reviewed my story. The first chapter of the sequel is already posted. The title is Breaking Both My Wings, in case you wanted to read it.
"C'mon, let's move him over to the other bed." To Jeff's still-sleepy mind, the words weren't making any sense, but then again, nothing really was. At first he couldn't even remember where he was. It wasn't until he realized that the pain in his back felt different than usual- it was a sharper pain and didn't radiate down his legs like it was before- that he remembered that he had just had surgery and was, most likely, still in the hospital.
As soon as he remembered that, the words that he had woken up and initially heard made a little bit more sense. Someone must be seriously injured or just had surgery and they were being moved into Jeff's temporary room in ICU. Jeff blinked a couple of times and tried to see what was going on. The blinds on the window were tightly closed and it was hard to see in the semi-darkness, but he could still see who was being placed on the other bed.
"Matt!" Jeff tried to yell to his brother but his parched mouth made it hard to talk at all. "Matt!"
One of the nurses turned around. "It's alright, Jeff, he's fine," she said soothingly. "He's just tired, that's all. He didn't sleep at all before your surgery and then stayed up through that and for several hours after we brought you back here. He's just getting some much needed sleep." She smiled at him. "You need to sleep as well." He didn't see her slip a sedative into his IV, but it wasn't long before he felt its effect.
The last thing he saw before he fell asleep again was the nurse's smiling face and, just beyond her, the sleeping form of his brother.
XXXXX
The next time Jeff woke up, that he could remember, he was back in the room he had before surgery. Matt was asleep in the chair next to him, slouched over in what looked like a rather uncomfortable position. He chuckled and shifted slightly to get a better look at him, but didn't get very far before he had to stop because of the pain in his back. He groaned and stopped moving in hopes that the pain in his back would lessen slightly.
"You okay?" Matt mumbled as he sat up and stretched.
"Yeah, you?" Jeff's voice cracked slightly from dryness.
Matt chuckled and picked up a cup on the table next to Jeff's bed, bringing it up to his mouth so he could suck on an ice chip.
"Thanks," he said once his mouth wasn't quite so dry anymore. "But you never answered my question."
"I'm fine," Matt said. "A bit sore, but I'm fine." It was true. He had been worried about his brother when they initially brought him out of surgery and he had stayed awake for awhile watching over him, but now that he was actually awake he just felt relieved and happy again.
"How long was I out?" Jeff asked.
Matt shrugged. "I don't know. You kept waking up and dozing off again, though they did need to sedate you once."
"I remember that. I woke up and saw them carrying you over to the other bed in my room in ICU and started panicking." He chuckled. "Matt, I understand you were concerned about me, but please make sure you remember to sleep next time."
"Hey, you try watching your brother go through surgery and then just decide to go to sleep before he wakes up," Matt said, but he laughed quietly as well. "Are you hungry or anything? Should I call in your nurse?"
Jeff shook his head. "No, I don't think I could keep food down right now," he said.
Matt grimaced. "Feeling nauseous?" He asked. He thought he remembered Dr. Carleson mentioning that Jeff could feel slightly sick to his stomach after the surgery.
"A little," Jeff admitted. "Nothing too bad, though. I just don't want to try eating anything right now unless they make me." He sighed. "I'm just glad that everything's nearly over. No more worrying whether the days going to come when I can't walk anymore- that's already happened- and no more worrying about me not being able to wrestle. Just some physical therapy for a few months and then I can make my grand return."
Matt just smiled and didn't say anything. He didn't want to ruin his brother's good mood by pointing out the fact that there were still a million things that could go wrong following his surgery or that he still had a minimum of six months before he could even start to think about returning to the ring. It was nice to see Jeff in a good mood for the first time in nearly a month and a half; he didn't want to ruin it by bringing up what-if's.
It wasn't long before Jeff's nurse came in with more pain medication and, despite Jeff insisting that he was fine, gave it to him. Whether due to the medication or simply because he was still exhausted it wasn't long after the nurse left that Jeff began to doze off again and eventually fell asleep.
Not long after Jeff had fallen asleep again his door opened quietly and the person standing there softly asked, "Can we come in?"
Matt jumped up from his seat and ran over to the door, pulling it all the way open. "Shawn! Hunter!" He was surprised to see his coworkers standing there. "Yeah, come in, come in," he said, standing aside to let them walk in.
"Actually, we have some things we need to bring up first," Hunter said. "We were wondering if you would help us carry them up, but if Jeff's asleep we'd understand if you wanted to stay here…"
Matt did want to stay and watch over his brother, but he knew that he would be fine in the hospital, especially if he was only going to be gone for a little while. "No, I'll help you carry things up," he told them.
As they walked down to Hunter's and Shawn's car Matt filled them in on what had been going on recently, from Jeff's ill-fated Swanton nearly five weeks earlier through to the surgery he just had.
"Are you sure it's a good idea for him to wrestle, though?" Shawn asked as they walked outside. "It's not that I don't want him to return, I'm just wondering if that's a smart thing to do."
"I think, and the doctor agrees with me, that it would be fine as long as he didn't Swanton someone from 30 feet in the air and as long as people made sure not to use certain submission moves," Matt said.
"I don't think you're going to have any problems getting the roster to go a bit easier on his back, but are you sure Jeff's going to go along with this plan?" Hunter asked with a small chuckle. "You know how he can be."
"Yeah I do, and I am worried about how well he's going to go along with the 'guidelines', but he knows that if he wants to keep wrestling for any length of time he'll have to… follow… them…" His voice trailed off as they stopped by a car. "This is your car?" It wasn't that the car looked special or different. It was just the usual, normal type of rental car that the WWE employees used whenever they needed to drive to the next town. Granted, they were driving a minivan, but that wasn't what made Matt stare. No, what made Matt stop was the fact that it was completely packed with various balloons, plants, and bears, all obviously intended for Jeff.
"What were you expecting?" Shawn asked, grinning madly at the look of shock on Matt's face.
"Not this," he muttered. "Not this much stuff for Jeff."
"Well when we mentioned we were going to go visit you two today nearly everyone gave us something," Hunter explained. "They had that triple-brand house show on Wednesday too, so we collected things from people on ECW and Smackdown as well as Raw."
"Oh," Matt said, still staring at the piles of gifts in the car. "But is all of that even going to fit into the room?"
Hunter and Shawn burst out laughing. "Only one way to find out," Shawn said, grinning madly as he opened the door.
Even with all three of them carrying things up to Jeff's room they still needed to go back down for a second and third trip before everything had been brought up. They were as quiet as possible as they tried to put the many gifts in some semblance of order. The plants were set over by the windows and the balloons were put as far away from the wires and equipment around Jeff's bed as possible, with the various cards, stuffed animals, and other assorted gifts stuck wherever they could fit. By the time they finished the room looked like it was about to open as a hospital gift shop.
"So how many of the guys bought Jeff stuffed bears?" Matt asked quietly once they had finished.
Hunter shrugged. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I know that none of the divas got him rainbow bears, but I couldn't tell you who bought what."
"I don't think too many of them got Jeff balloons either," Shawn added. "I think they stuck mostly to plants, cards, and various scripts and plot outlines. I gave him that one." He pointed to a large packet of papers that was sitting on top of the pile of scripts. "It's the rough outline of my feud with Randy through to when you two return. They're thinking about bringing Jericho back in to keep it going."
Hunter shook his head. "Only in our business would you get wrestling scripts as a 'Get well soon' present."
"Yeah, but when you were last out with an injury you were practically begging people to give you scripts and outlines, not to mention the fact that you were tormenting your poor wife about what the plan for everything was," Shawn reminded with a laugh.
"True," Hunter admitted. "But that's a bit different than just assuming Jeff's going to want to have fifty different outlines of all of about twelve plots."
Matt laughed. "Yeah, but Jeff's feeling a bit wrestling-deprived, since he doesn't know any of the specifics about the feuds beyond what's seen on TV. As soon as he wakes up he's going to start reading through-" He cut off as Jeff sighed and shifted slightly, looking over to make sure that they hadn't woken him up. Luckily they hadn't. "Keep your voice down," he said, his own voice barely above a whisper.
Shawn chuckled quietly. "You're like a mothering hen," he said softly. "Always watching over him, making sure he keeps out of trouble and doesn't hurt himself."
"I don't mother him!" Matt snapped. "I just worry about him."
"All the time," Hunter said with a small snort. "And you do have to make sure he's alright or else you blame yourself."
Matt scowled, but didn't argue; he knew they were right. He did mother Jeff, to a certain degree, but he was his older brother and all brothers- and sisters- worried about their siblings to a certain extent. Besides, it wasn't like he suffocated Jeff or stopped him from doing things, provided he didn't want to do anything extremely stupid or dangerous. "How long are you two here?" He asked, changing the subject.
"Dunno," Hunter said. "As long as we make it to the pay-per-view tomorrow we're fine."
"We did want to wait to talk to Jeff, if he wakes up anytime soon," Shawn added. "I don't know how long you want us to stay around, though…"
"Stay around as long as you want," Matt interrupted. "I'm not going to be doing anything really until Jeff can leave the hospital.
"Mothering hen," Hunter muttered.
"When do they think he will be able to leave?" Shawn said quickly before Matt could respond to the 'mothering hen' comment.
"Dr. Carleson said that people can usually leave after a couple of days, which is usually how long it takes for them to start walking again, but Jeff's back was really screwed up. He could be here longer than that because they won't let anyone leave until they walk."
"You aren't talking about me, are you?" The three heads turned around at the sound of the fourth voice. Jeff was finally awake. He was staring at the trio, still looking half-asleep, with a slightly puzzled look on his face. Finally, he grinned and said, "Hunter, Shawn! I thought I recognized you two!"
Hunter laughed. "Who else would drive down here on their day off to bring you all your get well gifts?"
Jeff looked around the room and for the first time noticed all of the gifts piled in the room. His eyes widened as they scanned the room, finally stopping on the scripts that were haphazardly stacked on the small table next to his bed. "Please tell me those are the plot outlines," he said.
"Yeah, for Raw, Smackdown, and ECW," Shawn said. "Including an exclusive look at what they're planning for our feud with Orton."
"'Our feud'?" Jeff smirked slightly. "Shawn, I'm not even wrestling right now. How can it be my feud as well?"
"I'm fighting for you, therefore it's your feud too," Shawn clarified. "Besides, they're going to draw you into it soon enough. They're thinking about bringing cryptic messages into it to draw Jericho back."
"Isn't cryptic messages a bit too 'Taker-ish, though?" Jeff asked. "I mean, granted that was how he made his return, but how am I going to fit into all of this."
"Well, they're hoping to have it play out where no one will know if they're from you to Randy, Jericho to me, or Undertaker to Edge, but they aren't sure how it would work with two brands. I think they're going to do a combination of 'Takers usual 'I will return' message and the code that Jericho used, but I don't know how they're fitting you into it," Shawn explained.
"Look, I don't know about Shawn here, but I didn't drive down here to talk wrestling the whole time," Hunter interrupted, though the huge smile on his face made it was obvious he wasn't annoyed. "How're you doing, Jeff?"
Jeff groaned. "If I tell you the truth can we go back to talking about wrestling?" He asked innocently.
The trio burst out laughing. "What did I tell you? The poor guy's deprived," Matt said once he had calmed down a bit. "Humor us both and let's talk wrestling for a bit, if you don't mind. God knows we both want to hear what's going on."
XXXXX
"I am so happy to be back home," Jeff said as he opened the door to Matt's house. Although he technically could walk well enough to take care of himself, Dr. Carleson wanted him to continue to stay with Matt until he was completely healed. just in case there were other complications during his recovery. "And I'm happy to be able to walk without any help!"
"I'm happy you can walk in by yourself too. You've gotten heavy, did you know that?" Matt joked.
Jeff leaned over and smacked him across the back of the head. "I had surgery, was in the hospital for over a week, am just now coming home and you're picking on me?"
"Yes, I do believe I am," Matt said. The two brothers stared at each other, completely straight faced for all of about three seconds before bursting out laughing.
The atmosphere in the house was completely different than it had been when they left it when Jeff had to go to the hospital nearly two weeks before. When they left everything had been tense, stressed, and depressed, but their return was marked with jokes and smiles. They were both, for the most part, optimistic that Jeff would make a complete recovery by the end of the year and that thought put them both in an unbelievably good mood. Jeff forgot his frustration and fear that his many problems before had brought and Matt could finally let go of a bit of his guilt. The entire ordeal had taken its toll on them, but things were, for the first time in ages, they were both beginning to heal.
Ironically, Jeff was released from the hospital on a Monday. Their first night back in Matt's house was celebrated by their first good food in two weeks, laughter, and, of course, Monday Night Raw. Jeff dug out the Raw scripts he had gotten from one of the many boxes that were piled next to the front door and, after passing half of them off to Matt, tried to follow the show using them. Unfortunately too many changes had been made since he had gotten the scripts for them to be of much use beyond the basic outline, but they did their best, until finally they had to admit defeat and just watched the episode.
Shawn hadn't been lying; that night the first of the cryptic messages appeared. They had brought Edge over from Smackdown to talk about how some people though the Undertaker would be returning to the WWE and appear on Raw when Orton came out to tell him that no one cares about what he did to the Undertaker when he recently destroyed Jeff's career. Once Randy had come out it was only logical that Shawn would come out as well.
That was when the lights suddenly went out and a single bell tolled. The crowd went wild and started chanting for the Undertaker, at which point "Don't act like you know what you're talking about…" echoed in the arena. It was one of the last things Jeff had said to Orton over a month ago and, from the "Hardy! Hardy!" chants that had now started up, it seemed like the crowd recognized the line. That was when the Titantron lit up, displaying a code very much like the one Jericho had used. The words "We've cracked the code for you…" flashed on the screen, before "Beware of the Undertaker", "His career still lives", and "Jericho's not done" appeared on the screen one at a time, before fading out and being replaced with "…but which answer is the right one?"
Matt and Jeff continued to just stare at the TV long after Raw had gone to a commercial break. "I don't know whether that was brilliant or just stupid," Jeff finally said.
Matt laughed. "I don't know either," he said. "It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, though."
After watching the WWE hint at his possible return Jeff wanted nothing more than to actually return to the ring, but his physical therapy was slow and painful process. As the weeks passed and it became obvious that it would be quite awhile before he made his return Jeff began, once again, to try to convince his brother to return before him, but Matt refused. He insisted that Jeff needed him more than the company did at that point and when Jeff was so sore from therapy that he didn't want to do anything when he got him, he privately agreed.
The months passed by without anything out of the ordinary happening. Matt and Jeff fell into a comfortable routine with the high points of each week being watching wrestling and the low points being Jeff's physical therapy. When Jeff reached the point where he no longer needed to go to physical therapy he was ecstatic, hoping that that meant that he would be able to wrestle again soon, but Dr. Carleson told him that that wouldn't be the case. Although he wouldn't have physical therapy anymore he still needed to do a serious of exercises everyday to strengthen his back muscles and he would have to report back to Dr. Carleson every two weeks to see how that was progressing.
Jeff was not in a good mood after getting that news. He hadn't realized that even after his physical therapy ended he wouldn't be able to wrestle again right away. He hated feeling like he was able to make his grand return but constantly being told that he couldn't, that he wasn't ready. He worked harder than he had before to strengthen his muscles, hoping and praying that his doctor would finally tell him that he could make his return, but that day had yet to come.
He watched as on Raw Jericho announced that he had slipped his own message in among the others, hinting that it was still possible that Jeff and/or the Undertaker could still return. He watched as the Shawn and Orton feud expanded to encompass Jericho as well while on both brands the cryptic messages continued. Finally, the day came when the Undertaker made his return and the messages played for the last time. Jeff would've gone completely crazy at that point, but he had been expecting the messages to stop soon, since the day before he had gotten possibly the best news of his life.
"Jeff, your back has healed completely," Dr. Carleson told him during one of his routine check-ups. "I can't see any reason why you can't return to the WWE, beyond my concerns that your back could be injured again."
Jeff stared at him, completely shocked. He had been waiting for this day for months but now that it had finally come he didn't know what to say. He had finally been given permission to return to the ring when, at one point, he didn't even think he would ever walk again. How was he supposed to react to that? What was he supposed to say?
"I can think of one reason why he can't return," Matt said, a small smirk on his face. Jeff turned to stare at his brother, completely confused as to what he was talking about. Matt saw the confusion on his face and laughed. "Jeff, you haven't wrestled in over nine months. Were you honestly expecting to just waltz down to the ring on Monday and go back like nothing had changed?"
And so phase two of his recovery began. He had gotten medical clearance to return but now he needed Matt clearance; he needed to convince his brother that he could still wrestle after a back surgery and nine months without doing anything. They worked in the ring Matt had set up in his back yard, running through the basics at first just to get Jeff used to everything again, before moving on to more complex moves. Matt may have been overprotective of his brother but in the ring he was strictly business. He knew that people were only going to go easy on Jeff's back, but were otherwise going to go all out on him so he did the same.
They also worked on Jeff's signature moves, especially making sure that his back could stand up to a Swanton or two in a match without him being in too much pain. It had been a Swanton that had caused all of his problems; neither of them wanted to find out in an actual match that his back couldn't handle a Swanton anymore. They had Dr. Carleson check out his back again after a day of practicing his Swanton, Whisper in the Wind, and Twist of Fate. Luckily the doctor didn't find anything wrong with his back, even after the stress that had been put on it.
One day after they were done running through things Matt handed his cell phone to Jeff.
"What's this for?" He asked as he took it.
"So you can call headquarters and let them know you're ready to return," Matt said, grinning madly at his brother. As much as he hated the thought of Jeff risking possible paralysis in order to wrestle again, he knew that he couldn't keep him away from the ring anymore. He had gotten used to wrestling again and his back could handle it. It was time for the Hardyz to make their return.
XXXXX
"Jericho, you and I seem to have a bit of a problem right now," Orton said, pacing slightly in the ring. "You seem to think that you're supposed to be fighting Shawn and not me. This wouldn't bother me too much, but when you continuously interrupt my matches in order to attack Shawn... well, I have a problem with that."
"Break the walls down!" echoed in the arena as Jericho walked out, unfazed by the boos he was getting from the crowd. He walked calmly down to the ring, pausing only to grab a microphone. "Orton, see, the thing is I have a couple of things I still need to settle with Shawn," he began. "You may have won the right to fight him before, but that was nearly nine months ago. I was fighting Shawn for a good reason, to prove to the world that Shawn was nothing. You? You're fighting him because he's defending Jeff Hardy, the loser whose career has been over for months!"
The opening lines of "Sexy Boy" began to play as Shawn walked out. Unlike the other two, though, he didn't go down to the ring; he stayed at the top of the ramp as he began to talk. "See, its bad enough I need to tell this to Randy down there every week, so please, Chris, don't make a habit out of bringing this up. Jeff Hardy-"
"No one gives a damn about Jeff Hardy!" Orton yelled. "You come out here every week insisting that Jeff's career isn't over, but we haven't seen or heard from him since I put him on the shelf months ago! So unless you have proof that he's returning, why don't you shut up and-"
The lights went out in the arena, causing the crowd to go wild. It was the start of the cryptic messages that had appeared months ago, though after Undertaker's return they had stopped playing. Everyone knew what was coming next and they couldn't wait.
"Don't act like you know what you're talking about…" The Titantron lit up, showing the words "Figure it out yet?" The Jericho message and the Undertaker message appeared on the screen, only to be replaced with "…they were all the correct answer". That message disappeared from the screen with "His career still lives" displayed on the Titantron as a massive amount of pyros went off and Jeff's music started playing.
Orton and Jericho stared in shock as both Matt and Jeff Hardy came out and stood on either side of Shawn, talking quietly with him for a moment before all three men looked down at the ring. As if on cue they ran down to the ring, with Jeff reaching it just ahead of the others. He dove in and began attacking Orton, with Matt soon joining him and Shawn taking care of Jericho, quickly throwing him over the top rope.
Matt and Jeff threw Orton into a corner with Matt then setting up for a Poetry in Motion. Jeff landed the move and Orton stumbled forward, only to get hit with a Twist of Fate by Matt. As Orton was lying in the ring, Jeff climbed up to the top turn buckle. He paused only for a moment to look around, a wild grin on his face, before he jumped off and landed it perfectly.
The Hardyz were finally back and nothing could stop them now.
