Chapter Six: Battle Scars

"I wish I couldn't feel. I wished I couldn't love.. I wish that I could stop 'cause it hurts so much. Am I'm the only one trying to keep us together, when all the signs say I should forget it. I wish you weren't the best, the best I ever had. I wish that the good outweighed the bad. 'Cause it'll never be over. Until you tell me it's over." - Lupe Fiasco

"You seem troubled today, Randy." Dr. Joy Kane set her notepad against her right thigh, which was crossed demurely over her left leg. Her favored blue ballpoint pen lightly drummed against top of the page, while her quiet hazel eyes assessed her patient with open curiosity.

Randy Orton had been referred to her nearly six months before, and their Doctor/Patient relationship had gotten off to a very rocky start since Randy resented the idea of therapy rather violently. He had broken several chairs in their first meeting, had cursed at her, raged at her and finally gave her no alternative but to have him sedated.

Slowly, very slowly, Randy had grown less angry and less guarded in their sessions. Joy had taken a special interest in I.E.D. when more and more people were being diagnosed with the disorder and she had found a balance of medication that currently seemed to help Randy work through it. She had also recommended Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which a very close colleague specialized in and Randy attended once a month and for the first three months he had been seeing her, she had enrolled him anger management courses.

These days, Randy seemed like a completely different person compared to the furious and overly aggressive man she had first started treating. Normally they talked about his week, how he was handling the pressures at work, how he was assuring his family and what he was working on to better himself. He usually started the sessions by discussing his career first, but he had been oddly quiet so far.

"It's been a confusing week." The Viper admitted with a one shouldered shrug. "I'm still trying to sort through it."

"Well perhaps I can help you." Joy suggested, gesturing for him to continue. "What has happened this week that troubles you?"

He looked directly at her, green eyes full of guilt, regret and anguish. "Haley is back on our tour schedule."

Joy shifted slightly at the mention of that particular name. Only in his fifth month of coming to see her, did Randy finally open up about what had triggered his I.E.D. or in his case, whom. He had confessed how much he loved her, how she had changed him, how he felt like he had the world at his fingertips if she would choose him.

But she hadn't chosen him. She had chosen someone else and the heartbreak had been Randy's undoing. Randy had barely gotten through talking about what he done to her in his I.E.D. driven rage, almost completely falling apart when he finished.

"Oh." She nodded in response. She would have to broach this subject carefully. Randy had come a long way from where he started, but he was still quite volatile. "Have you seen her? Spoken with her?"

"Seen her, spoken with her, defended her from her douchebag of an ex-fiance." Randy snorted. "Then yelled at her for letting him treat her like shit and tear her down."

"I wasn't aware her engagement had fallen through." Joy hastily scribbled down this development in her notes. "You must take some satisfaction from that?" She eyed him curiously.

"Not really." He frowned. "I honestly want to kill the bastard. He royally fucked her over. Cheated on her, cost her the title, got her fired from our other brand and apparently sold their house out from under her."

"So you're feeling protective?"

"I don't know what I'm feeling, besides a need to kick his ass and the urge to shake her out of this funk she's in. She wrestled like shit at Survivor Series." He grumbled. "And when he was tearing into her, she didn't stand up for herself, which is not her. She just kind of stood there and took it, looking ready to fall to pieces."

"That bothered you?"

"It pissed me the fuck off!" He snapped. "I did everything in my power to destroy that girl. Everything! And nothing worked, she literally spit in my face and fought back. She kicked my ass! So why does this undeserving douchebag get to break her? She's always been too good for him and she's too good to let him be her undoing."

"Hmm…"

"She has a right to be sad. They were supposed to get married this month." Randy continued, shaking his head in disgust. "But damn it, she should be so pissed that she should be making regret it, all of it. She should be kicking that bimbo Layla's ass all over the ring and spitting in his face for a change. Instead she just looked like this kicked puppy. I told her as much."

"And what did she say to you in reply?"

"She basically told me I had no right to judge her and tell her how to live her life. Which granted, I don't. Not after everything I've done. But I couldn't just stand there and watch her keep sinking into herself." He sighed. "I want to pull her out."

"So why don't you?"

Randy gaped at his therapist as though she were the one who had lost her mind. "Uh...cause she hates my guts."

"Have you apologized? Explained why you did what you did and what you're doing now to get back on track?"

"No. She won't hear it." Randy laughed at the absurdity of the thought. "I have no right to inject myself in her life. I burned that bridge a long time ago. The most I can do is go after Dave and kill him."

"That will only make you feel better, Randy." Joy told him sagely. "It won't help Haley. I think what will help her is if you give her an apology. She won't be expecting it. And even if she doesn't forgive you, she knows you regret what you've done. And that will matter to her."

"How am I supposed to do that? First, she wants nothing to do with me." He argued. "Secondly, her main protector, Triple H would kill me for being within ten feet of her."

"I'm sure you can figure it out, Randy." Joy reassured him, scribbling more notes down. "I think you owe it yourself and to her to at least apologize. You'll be surprised at how much better that will simply make you feel."

Randy shrugged in resignation. "Whatever you say, Doc."


"Haley, are you sure?"

"Yeah." Haley glanced up from the multifaceted, princess cut diamond solitaire ring with an open curved diamond band that rested in her palm, up into Kelly's nervous blue eyes.

"You can still keep it." Kelly added hastily. "I mean considering how he ended things, you should at least get to keep the engagement ring."

"For what?" Haley said sadly, her throat feeling unbearably thick all of a sudden. "We're not getting married anymore, so there's no point in me keeping this. He should have it back. An empty promise, that's all it is now. His empty promise."

"I'm sorry, Haley." Kelly slipped her arm around her friend's waist. "Want me to bring it to him?"

"No." Haley shook her head. "I'm going to ask a more neutral party to do me a favor. He owes me."

"Okay." Kelly looked confused, until Haley pulled away from her and crossed the hotel lobby to where Chris Jericho stood, checking out.

"Chris?" Haley stepped into his line of sight when he turned away from the front desk.

An annoyed expression at the interruption crossed Haley's former friend's face. "Haley." He said in her name in a slightly snide voice. "What do you want?"

"A favor." She said simply, summoning her resolve to keep from crying...again.

"Since when do we do each other favors?" Chris sneered. "That ended a long time ago."

"Because you owe me this much, Chris." Haley said quietly. "Think of it as making up for throwing me on a bunch of broken glass."

A small grimace pinched the first Undisputed Champion's face at her comment. "What's the favor?"

Haley held out her engagement ring and saw the surprise flicker in Jericho's eyes. "Will you give this to Dave for me when you get back on the SmackDown tour. I don't want it, but I don't want to go anywhere near him right now."

Chris reluctantly took the ring from her fingertips. "I can't say as I blame you." He dropped his snide pretense and a flash of her old friend appeared with his sympathetic smile. "This sucks, Mariano."

"Yeah." She nodded shakily, retracting her hand. "It does. If you could just give that to him I'd be really grateful."

"Don't worry about it." Chris waved it off, recognizing her pain. "I'll see that he gets it."

"Thanks." She took a step back. "See you around, Chris." She spun on her heel and headed back to Kelly as fast as he dignity would allow her.

"Dave's a fucking assclown." Chris tucked the ring safely in his pocket. "A fucking stupid monkey of an assclown."

Kelly immediately pulled Haley into her side and led her to the elevators. "You okay?"

Eyes wet with tears, Haley took a shuddering breath. "I'm not going to lose it here."

"We'll get you to your hotel room, Sweetie." Kelly promised. "Then you can let it all out, for as long as you need to."


"You better not be oogling my future wife, Morrison." Evan Bourne jokingly warned his friend as they returned to the hotel from the gym. They had just caught of glimpse of Kelly and Haley disappearing inside the elevator, the latter looking a little worse for wear.

"I'm not checking out, Kelly." John Morrison chuckled lightly at Evan's comment, but there was concern on his handsome face. "I was looking at Haley. She's so sad."

"Well yeah. Dave the douche crushed her." Evan glowered at the mere thought of SmackDown's Animal. "Kelly's worried sick about her. Hell, even I want to kick Dave's ass, though I understand there's a pretty long line."

"I'm not even thinking about Dave." John admitted with a shrug. "She was so positive before. I wish there was a way to make her smile again."

Evan eyed his friend in surprise. "You hot for her or something?"

"Yeah? So? She's attractive." John replied a tad defensively. "I mean, I know she's nowhere near ready to think about dating again. But, I still want to help her somehow."

"You could start by being her friend." Evan suggested. "I think she could use plenty of those right now. Then maybe when she's ready, you could see what happens."

"You might have to help initiate that." John laughed. "We've never really talked before and I don't want to come off as some creepy guy trying to be the rebound, you know?"

"I gotcha Man," Evan grinned. "Lucky for you, I have an in, since my girlfriend is one of her best friends. We'll get you two talking. But you have make me one promise?"

"What's that?" John looked at Evan curiously.

"Don't push her into something more, Man. Let it happen when she's ready. She really loved Dave, and she's really broken up about this whole thing." Evan reminded him. "It might take several months, or even a year before she's ready."

"I can be patient." John promised. "I don't want to hurt her any more than she has been."

"Then we're cool." Evan replied.


"Yours and Haley's break up made the cover of Star magazine!" Layla screeched in horror. "What the fuck?!"

Dave's fingers clenched around the handle of his fork as he continued to shovel more scrambled eggs into his mouth. "Haley and I were planning a high profile wedding." He reminded her after swallowing. "We were having that famous wedding planner, David Tutera set up the whole thing."

"You were having David Tutera plan your wedding?!" Layla gaped at him. "Holy Shit! Dave!"

"What?" He eyed in her annoyance. "At the time, Haley wanted a wedding planner and I wanted what she wanted. So I let her hire whoever she wanted."

"Dave! David Tutera is very selective about his celebrity clients!" Layla bemoaned. "And he always goes by the Bride first, so he must have really like Haley!"

"Who gives a crap if he liked her or not?" Dave was completely confused now. "The wedding is off. No more David Tutera."

"Well Haley is going to get a mammoth support of sympathy now." The current Women's Champion sounded completely disgusted. "She'll get title shots and everything just because of it."

"She's wrestling like shit." The Animal shook his head. "No one in their right mind is going to give her a title shot right now. No matter how much sympathy she's getting. You won, Layla. Calm down and ignore the press."

"We're supposed to crush her Dave." Layla half snarled.

"I took away her title, her home and her dream wedding." Dave turned back to his plate. "I'd say she's well and truly crushed now. Let it go, Layla. You're giving me a damn headache."

"Fine!"


A/N: So, Randy's therapist is pushing him to apologize to Haley. Haley did the heartbreaking thing by letting go of her beautiful engagement ring. John Morrison is showing some small interest in our heroine, which we'll dive into more later. Don't freak out Randy fans. Haley is going to need an acceptable rebound guy before she can sort her shit out with Randy. There's a lot to be worked through there before they can even think about romance, so give Morrison his shot. And of course, Layla's being an annoying twit and Dave will probably go more batshit crazy than he already is :P