Old Habits Die Hard
By Misha

Disclaimer and Notes in Part One.

Chapter Seven: The Bed She Made

February 16th, 2009

Stephanie woke up and blinked at the dark room, realizing it had to be early as it was still dark outside.

Randy was still fast asleep beside her, which was nice, and she spent a moment admiring his sleeping form, but it was also unusual. In the over a year that she and Randy had been together, this may have only been the third or fourth time she'd woken up to him sleeping next to her, because even on the mornings where he hadn't had to sneak away, he'd usually been awake and in the shower by the time she roused, simply because he was a much earlier riser than she was.

A look at the bedside clock showed her it wasn't even six a.m yet, which would explain why Randy was still asleep, though Stephanie suspected he would wake up soon--he was usually up by six thirty at the latest and without the aid of an alarm, just his well-tuned internal clock, which was nice since that meant she was never awoken early by a shrieking alarm.

Stephanie dragged herself out of bed and reached for her cell phone, unsurprised to see that her voice box was full.

With a sigh she dialled in and prepared to listen to them. As she expected, the messages were almost all from her family, with one or two from a few curious and outraged Raw superstars, and none of the messages were pleasant.

Her mother, her father, Shane and Marissa, they'd each called multiple times, demanding an explanation for her behaviour. There were also some terse orders about a family meeting that morning, no doubt her father would be present via speaker phone, but Stephanie had no intentions of showing up for said meeting.

She'd face Shane at Raw that night since she had no doubt that her brother would drag himself out of his hospital bed to confront her and until then, she planned on laying low and figuring out exactly what she would say--to her family and the world.

She was sure that her family would get a hold of Hunter and that he would inform them of her marriage, so at least they wouldn't be totally blind-sided, though she doubted they'd thank for that, but she had to make the announcement to the rest of the world.

At the same time she announced her new role as Mrs. Randy Orton, she also intended to announce that she would be taking her rightful place as a member of Legacy. A place that she deserved not because she was Randy Orton's wife, but because like him, she was a third generation WWE superstar.

The business was in her blood, no matter how often her father or Shane tried to deny her her rightful place and it was time she forced the rest of the world to see that.

Stephanie wasn't an idiot, she knew that a lot of the talent would turn against her, holding her accountable for her treacherous talent. To the all the holier-than-thou saints on the Raw roster, she'd now be the enemy, but that didn't bother her.

Though it was strange to think that people like John, whom she'd always had a good relationship with, would no doubt be against her, where as people she'd always clashed with would now be on her side.

For proof of that, she had to look no further than Edge and Vickie, who had offered her and Randy their support the night before. Of course, Edge and Randy were old friends, so it wasn't that surprising, but it was still weird for Stephanie, since she'd clashed with them both in the recent past, though more Vickie than Edge.

It was just one example of how much things had changed in a short period of time. She was grateful to Vickie though, Hunter was a Smackdown star, not a Raw one thank god, and Vickie had agreed to keep him away from the arena that night on threat of being fired.

The two women had made the deal the night before, that if VIckie kept Hunter under control in the weeks until Wrestlemania, then Stephanie would allow Edge to take Kofi Kingston's place in the Elimination Chamber.

Stephanie hadn't been crazy about the deal, it hadn't felt right to her, since Kofi had never done anything to her, but she'd been in a tough spot and it was the only solution available to her. She really wasn't up to having to deal with Hunter again so soon. After all, facing Shane would be hard enough without adding her furious ex-husband into the mix, though she knew that it would happen soon enough.

Her deal with Vickie left Raw without a champion, but it was Wrestlemania season and the two shows would be doing a lot of inter-promotion, so it wasn't a huge deal for the time being and she and Vickie had agreed that, after Wrestlemania, Stephanie could claim ownership to one of the belts and it's current holder, even if it was a Smackdown superstar.

Though, hopefully it wouldn't even have to come to that, because by then Randy would, hopefully, hold one of the world titles. He had the right, as winner of the Royal Rumble, to face either Edge or Hunter at Wrestlemania for their title and as much as Stephanie would prefer that he put friendship aside and choose Edge, she had no such illusions that he would actually do so. Randy hated Hunter and he'd wanted to punish him, to make him suffer for all his sins.

The only reason that bothered Stephanie was because Hunter was still Aurora's father and for their daughter's sake, Stephanie didn't want them to be enemies, though realistically, she was sure it was too late for that.

At the thought of her daughter, Stephanie picked up the phone and called Kate to check in, after all it was after nine in Connecticut and not to early to make the call.

"Stephanie?" Kate said, answering on the second ring.

Stephanie was sure that she'd probably been studiously checking caller ID and she didn't blame her at all.

"It's me." Stephanie assured her. "How have you been holding up?"

"Your phone's been ringing off the hook." Kate confessed. "There have been several messages, all very angry."

Stephanie winced, she'd expected that. "Kate, I'm going to call the airport and arrange for you and Aurora to fly out today instead of tomorrow." Stephanie told her, making a quick decision. It was definitely better to get her daughter out fo the way of all this mess as soon as possible.

"Ok." The nanny agreed instantly.

Stephanie had warned her a bit of what was happening and she didn't seem to have any questions, so Stephanie ended the call quickly and then called the airport to book a flight, then called and booked a hotel room for the two.

Once that was done, she called Kate back and passed on the details and also spoke to Aurora for a moment and just the sound of her darling girl's voice made her feel better.

"I love you, baby." Stephanie said, before ending the call.

As always, just the thought of her daughter made her smile. Aurora was her entire world. Whatever decisions she made about her own life, good or bad, she wasn't going to let them affect Aurora, even if that meant making hard decisions.

Like keeping her daughter away from Hunter until he calmed down. Stephanie knew it wasn't going to be easy, that Aurora wasn't going to understand why she couldn't see her Daddy or her Uncle Shane or her grandparents, but she'd have Mommy and...

Stephanie's train of thought quickly got derailed as she realized that they'd have to come up with a new title for Aurora to call Randy. Up until this point, Stephanie had encourage the little girl to call him Uncle Randy, but that didn't feel right, not when Randy was going to be a permeant part of Aurora's life and the father of her future siblings.

Stephanie liked "Daddy Randy" to differentiate him from Hunter, but she knew her ex-husband would have a fit at the very thought of his daughter calling Randy any form of the word "Daddy".

To be honest, Stephanie thought Hunter would object to Aurora calling anyone but him Daddy and she didn't entirely blame him, after all it would be hard for her to hear Aurora call another woman "Mommy", but... It wasn't up to Hunter and he was just going to have to live with that.

Stephanie laughed at the very thought, knowing that Hunter was going to put up a fight, if nothing else because he and Randy hated each other's guts, something that went way beyond anything that had to do with her and she knew that they'd have a hard, if not impossible time, peacefully coexisting.

Sometimes Stephanie wondered what kind of mistake she'd made when she'd gotten involved with Randy. Here she was, estranged from her family, about to make her young daughter's life very difficult, all for a man.

After her divorce, Stephanie had sworn that she'd never be in that position in that again, that there'd never be a time when she let a man influence her decision and control the way she lived her life.

But maybe that was the point, because it wasn't like that with Randy. He guided her, but he never controlled her, never told her what to do. Her decision to turn on her family hadn't just been about her relationship with Randy, it'd been about herself as well.

The truth was, the last few months, since Stephanie had become the General Manager of Raw... Well, she'd felt better, happier, freer than she had in years, since her father had outsted her from Smackdown so long ago.

Between her relationship with Randy and being General Manger again, Stephanie had found a part of herself that she'd lost years before. A part that she'd thought was a lost years ago.

Her family would never let her talk about her McMahon-Helmsley days and neither would Hunter, who considered those days the biggest mistake that either of them had ever made and while Stephanie couldn't defend all of her behaviour back then, especially at the end, not all of the memories were bad ones. In some ways, they were still amongst her most precious memories, not the ones of her marriage to Hunter, but of the fact that it was the only time in her entire life that she'd felt in control of her own destiny.

In the years since then, she'd never really thought for herself, but instead concentrated on doing what everyone else thought that she should, trying to make up for all the mistakes she'd made in the past.

Stephanie had once again found herself forced into the role of the good little girl, but the difference was this time she'd known what it was like to have tasted freedom. Still, she'd tried not to let herself think like that and had concentrated on doing whatever her family asked as a way to atone for her sins and accepted that was how things had to be.

Randy had changed that, had made her see that things didn't have to be that way. He'd come into her life and had gotten her to stop being afraid of being human, had helped her realize that she shouldn't still punish herself for her past mistakes, especially when her biggest mistake, the one her family kept punishing for, was thinking for herself.

Randy had shown her a new way of looking at things and had convinced her that she deserved so much more than her family was ever going to give her, and had offered to give her everything she had ever dreamed of and more. He'd come into her life like some knight in shining armour and just made it better, most of all he'd helped her find herself again.

"Steph?" She turned to see Randy sitting up in bed, watching her.

"Hey baby." She greeted him, crawling back in bed next to him.

"What time is it?" Randy asked, pulling her into his arms.

"Almost 6:30." Stephanie told him, resting her head on his shoulder. "Are you going to the gym with Ted and Cody this morning?"

She knew the answer would be yes, because Randy was very much a creature of habit, but she asked nonetheless, simply because it was part of their morning routine and she enjoyed talking about their days. Even about the parts that never changed.

"Yeah, we're meeting at eight." Randy told her with a smile. "But I can always call and cancel and spend the morning in bed, making love to my beautiful wife instead."

Stephanie couldn't help the smile that spread over her entire face at Randy's words. It was little things like that that she loved so much about Randy; she loved the way he always made her feel like she was the most precious thing in his entire world. Hunter had never made her feel like that. Oh, she was sure he'd loved her, but very much in his own way and he'd never made impulsive, romantic offers like the one Randy had just made.

To Hunter, nothing was more important than his career and he could never tolerate any break in his routine. Sex was great and all, but even that would always come in a distant second to his career and he'd never seriously consider skipping the gym to spend the morning in bed, at least not unless there was some special occasion or he'd gone a while without sex. Impulsive romantic gestures just weren't her ex-husband's style, which might be why she valued them so much when Randy did them.

"Tempting, but I'm going to need to get some work done today anyway." Stephanie told him. "I imagine that there will be a lot of fallout from last night for me to deal with, from several parties, plus I have to start thinking about Wrestlemania matches. In fact, Vickie and I have a match at eleven to discuss that very thing."

Randy just nodded, accepting her refusal without protest. That was another difference from Hunter. If by some miracle, Hunter did suggest that they spend the morning in bed, then he'd have expected her to drop all of her plans to do just that.

Stephanie shook her head, she had to stop comparing Randy and Hunter in her head. The past was the past and this was the present.

Yes, her marriage to Hunter had failed, yes, she still had a lot of anger over it, but she needed to let it go. Randy wasn't Hunter, he proved that to her every day and this marriage wasn't going to fail, she honestly believe that.

However, she also knew that she had to work at it and that she had to let go of the pain and anger of her divorce and truly move on and just savour the second chance at love she'd been given.

Randy grinned at her, obviously unaware of the silent lecture she was giving herself. "We do have over an hour until I have to be at the gym." He pointed out lazily, allowing his hands to wander up an down her bodies.

"Do we now?" Stephanie asked, licking her lips seductively. "Whatever should we do with that time?"

Randy didn't bother answering with words, instead he just rolled his muscular body on top of hers, capturing her lips in a passionate kiss as he did so.

Stephanie willingly surrendered herself to her husband's kiss, to the comfortable feel of his body against her and let herself be carried away once more by the intense passion that existed between her and Randy...