A/N: Thanks for the reviews, I love them as always. Things are about to get a little bit more interesting in this chapter and a whole lot more complicated for Stephanie.
Disclaimer: Chris and Stephanie own themselves and a daughter or two, I believe they called them Aurora and Murphy.
Chapter 9
Sickness.
That was all she felt and all she had felt since the elevator had taken her on that fateful ride downwards, which was ironic really since even now she couldn't seem to stop falling. Yes, she was sickened to the stomach, except only now she was really feeling the literal meaning behind those words. Resting her head back against the tiled wall of the bathroom suite Stephanie wiped the dry sweat from her forehead. She felt awful, so awful that she crawled shakily out of the bathroom and over, onto her bed.
Flopping down on to it she groaned and wished death would just swoop in and take her now. This wasn't a life, this was some sad excuse of an existence. She knew life without Chris would be a feat in its own right, but she hadn't expected it too physically stall her daily on goings. Well, she had told herself that anyway, but maybe this was the after effect of her heart actually breaking into a million little shards because life without Chris proved to be nothing but listless, unimportant and irrelevant in the end.
She was effectively a lost soul roaming the dirt roads alone, because she let the other half of her soul slip from her grasp.
It wasn't any fun not having the person you loved beside you.
If she had calculated and foresaw how badly leaving Chris was, she was positive she would have held on tighter, told him that she had made a mistake and that they belonged together. But such as life, you never got your second chance to fix your mistakes, to right wrongs or set a course in motion to live that life again.
"Are you still throwing-up?"
Turning her head she looked at Paul and could do nothing but glare at him. "Does it look like I'm doing anything but? Oh, I know I'm having some secret fun without you and this is just a ruse to divert your attention!" She snapped at him, her gaze withering as her head dropped back onto her pillow.
She should have never gone to Shane's when Declan was sick, she had obviously caught the bug he had. It had started two weeks back, she had woken up one morning and ran straight to the bathroom. It had only got worse and here she was still as ill as she had been from the very first day it had began. She couldn't blame Declan though, she loved her nephew to much to ever be mad at him for something as stupid as a bug. Getting mad at Paul on the other hand, that was turning out to be a daily occurrence.
"Whoa Steph," Paul winced as if he had been burned. "It was only an observation."
"Well Paul, your observation is astounding." She sneered. She couldn't be doing with him, not now, not ever. She felt dreadful and here he was making her feel a million times worse, she didn't even want to look at him. His hair wasn't the right blonde, it was dirty when compared to Chris and when she looked into his eyes, when she could actually bring herself to look at him, and his eyes mocked her. They just weren't piercingly blue like Chris's were and she needed the gaze of his to feel alive. Paul's made her want to die, they reminded her of everything that she was missing and could never have again.
"I've made an appointment with the doctor for you." Paul told her, giving her a smile.
Stephanie frowned at that, he was looking after her? He was making sure she was okay? Why? He is your husband that might be a factor in this crazy thing called a marriage.
She had married the wrong man.
"Thanks?" she really didn't know what else to say to this action. Should she give him a kiss in thanks because he had thought about her first? She cringed at that thought she hadn't been intimate with him since before that night with Chris. Two months on and the last person who had touched her was a good couple of hundred miles away in Florida.
"We have to get you better," Paul told her, nodding like it was an action that needed his immediate attention. "After all, how am I meant to stay on top with my best girl ill?"
And there it was, she should have figured really, Paul Levesque care about anyone but his own self? Yeah, that wouldn't happen, not now, next year or the years that followed after that. No one mattered more to him, than himself and Stephanie certainly wasn't anywhere near his top priority, unless it involved her talking to her father to persuade him to give Paul another title shot. Then, she was number one and she couldn't do anything wrong in his eyes.
She would have laughed if she wasn't worried that she'd just throw-up again. This marriage was a business relationship and Paul was the only one who benefited. Oh, a loveless marriage was a marvellous thing.
"It's at two," he told her. "But I won't be with you, because I have to go to the gym and really, keeping up my appearance is more important and beneficial to our life."
Oh, how she wanted to slap him. She would gladly have reared back and swung for him if she had any energy. But if he was busy with more important things then she wouldn't have to be subjected to his boorish breathing the whole journey of the car ride, nor would she have to put up with his idiotic ramblings that she more often than not tuned out.
She really had no clue where this apparent hatred towards him had come from. It was as if there was something inside her that had come together and focused on everything bad about him and amplified it ten-fold. She loathed him. "Well if you feel that it's for the best." She answered him, barely holding back the disdain she felt towards him.
"I do," he agreed, Stephanie's inner musings totally lost on him. "In fact I should head off now." He figured, while walking up to her. He leaned down and kissed her and then headed to his closet to get his things.
In doing so he missed Stephanie furiously wiping her hand across her mouth to get rid of the foul taste. That kiss alone was enough to make he throw-up every minute of everyday. Yeah, something had snapped inside of her and broke her inner resolve when it came to all things Paul. If there was any way for her to hold onto this life she needed to tolerate him at least. She had already let the man she loved go and she doubted she could live alone right now. In his own way, Paul was a distraction and she hated to admit it but she was glad to have him if that was the only purpose he gave to her.
Paul used her for Championship title shots and she used him to forget. In their own way they were as bad as each other and maybe they deserved each other because of what they were doing.
Before her thoughts could get anymore depressing, Paul walked out with his gym back in hand. "I hope it's nothing serious," he tried for sympathetic, but his tone was nothing but indifferent. "If you need me I have my cell." He told her already distracted, to engrossed in a magazine he had picked up off of the table. "Bye."
She watched him walk out and sighed as she felt herself relax. He couldn't have left fast enough for her liking.
By the time two o'clock had come round, Stephanie had managed to pull herself out of bed, put clothes on so she looked the least bit respectable. Once she had stepped outside and sat in her car, breathing in the outside air she felt increasingly better. Her nausea had passed and when she walked the world didn't double.
Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as she thought it was.
As two o'clock had come and gone, she found herself patiently waiting for the doctor to come back and for him to tell her what the hell was wrong with her. She rubbed her arm where it still stung from where the needle had gone in so they could get a sample of her blood. Her legs kicked the open air in front of her, back and forth, in nothing but boredom. The stark white tiles that she faced didn't do anything for the imagination and the smell like any medical place was rank and was slowly making her nausea come back with an increasingly fast pace.
Looking around the room, she suppressed a yawn and sighed, only to jump in surprise as the door to the room she was in burst open and the doctor she had been seen by earlier reappeared.
"Miss. McMahon." He greeted in a mechanically cheerful voice that Stephanie had hated from the moment she had heard him speak earlier.
"Dr. Winchester." Stephanie greeted back, her anxiety rising as she waited on her results.
Taking a seat Dr. Winchester smiled at her and it unnerved her slightly, he was to god damn cheery, and no one should be like that all the time. "We did all the major tests and I'm happy to say you are perfectly healthy."
Relaxing Stephanie smiled back at him. "That's great, if that's all I'll be going now." She wasn't dying, physically anyway, she would live to see another day and that suited her just fine.
"We did find something though." The doctor continued.
"But you just sai-" Stephanie trailed off, her brow frowning as she looked at Dr. Winchester.
"Yes, I said you were healthy." He repeated his earlier statement.
"Then I don't understand." And she didn't, if she was healthy then what could possibly be wrong with her?
"You're pregnant Miss. McMahon."
She felt the air leave her whole body in a rush and the world slowed and for a moment she saw it go black. She tried to breath but it seemed her brain wasn't co-operating with her, apparently it was still trying to catch up on the bombshell that was dropped on her. Her stomach was nonexistent and her heart felt like it was being squeezed and all the blood in it was drowning her internally. She couldn't even see the surface.
"What?" she choked out.
"You're pregnant." The doctor repeated again.
"Oh." Stephanie replied dumbly, any and every thought was escaping her right now.
Looking down at his notes Dr. Winchester read parts of them before looking back up at her again. "From the looks of it, you're about two months along."
Two months? That made sense since Chris and her...oh God, Chris...Chris was the father. She was having a baby and Chris was the father. A smile covered her face at that though. Oh, she couldn't wait to tell him, he would be so happy. They were going to be so happy. They would be a family, she would be a mom and Chris would be a dad and their little baby would be the cutest thing to ever exist. She had their baby inside of her now. She needed to call him; she needed to tell him right now, this was too important to wait. Smiling some more she wanted to pinch herself, this was perfection.
Perfection crashed as reality being the cruel bitch that it was caught up with her and rational thought commenced. Chris already had a family with Jessica and Ash. This was a result of a night of weakness after weakness. She hadn't expected the ramifications of the aftermath of their night together to be this life changing. Yes, she had maybe given into a fantasy or two of her and Chris in the future and then having a child, but they ended happily and she really couldn't see that happening in reality.
"Pregnant?" It sounded foreign coming from her lips.
"Yes, Miss. McMahon," Dr. Winchester told her softly. "You're going to be a mother."
She was. She was going to have a baby and she was going to have a baby with a man who wasn't the father. What a tangled web she had weaved for herself. She couldn't tell Chris it was his, she couldn't ruin his life anymore than she already had and who knew maybe Paul would make a good father.
She would know the truth and now she would always have a part of him. Every time her kid ran up to her in the future and she'd catch a glimpse of their blue eyes or blond hair then she would know that only one other person other there had those characteristics.
She could do this, she could live with this secret. She could handle anything that belonged to her and Chris.
They had said goodbye and that was how it would stay.
"Okay." She nodded before looking up at the doctor. "Thank you very much."
"Do you need me to call someone?" The doctor wondered in concern.
"No I'm fine, really," Stephanie told him, standing. There was no one she could call, not anymore. "Just a shock to the system, I'm sure you can imagine why?"
"Yes," Dr. Winchester agreed with a chuckle. "I surely can."
Half an hour after walking out of the Doctor's office, Stephanie still found herself sitting in her car in the parking lot. You could have told her anything today: Up was down, Edge would make a good Champion one day, the Trish and Chris storyline was a huge success and everyone loved it, and she would have maybe believed you the slightest bit. But telling her that she was having a baby with Chris, she would have laughed in your face and then hid behind her office door, sat at her desk and wished that, that was true.
But it was true and no matter how much she tried to wake up from this realistic dream, she just couldn't.
Breathing in, she stared ahead looking at nothing. I'm having Chris's baby. Her hands dropped from the steering wheel and her eyes widened and she felt herself fall back into the car seat, the meaning of what she had just thought finally, fully, registering with her.
She was having Chris's baby and she couldn't even tell him. She wanted to, her hand itched to dial his number that she had etched into her mind and just tell him. If this had happened while they were still together, she had no doubt that she would have told him and that he would have been happy. But that was just it that was the elephant in the room. They weren't together, they had said goodbye and this time they had stuck to it.
There was no way she could turn up at his locker-room at the next show and just tell him.
It killed her that her baby would never know its father.
Her hand found her stomach and she just held it there. There was a baby in there, her baby. She was so happy and so dismayed all in one screwed up package. How could she not be happy to be having a child with Chris? But how could she have a child without Chris?
Looking down she marvelled at her stomach and what was behind it. In months to come that would grow and grow and then she would be a mother. Smiling down at it, she felt the excitement at that thought and even if she kept this from Chris she knew he would have loved the child like he loved Ash.
"You may have been an unexpected surprise," she whispered into the silence of the car. "But mommy already loves you so very much and daddy..." she paused, breathing in a shaky breath. "If daddy knew about you then he would be so ecstatic, daddy would love you just as much as mommy does, and that's a whole lot."
Starting the car she drove home, her thoughts bombarding her the closer she got. In the end she had switched on the radio and turned the music up just so she could get lost in something that wasn't the turmoil of her thoughts.
She pulled into her driveway and her house loomed over her. Could she get out of her car, walk into that house and carry on with this façade, pretending that everything was okay and that she wasn't two seconds away from turning around and leaving everything behind, where everyone else could deal with her aftermath.
Sighing, she had no other choice, she opened the car door, shut it with a bang behind her and made her way into her home. Except it wasn't her home, it was Paul's and she just lived there. It was pristine and clean, much like a hospital and she hated it, but it suited her, she wasn't living anyway.
Making her way into the bedroom she shared with Paul, she made her way into her walk in closet and pushed back some dresses and t-shirts before reaching in and pulling out a box. To the naked eye it looked nothing more than a hat box, that some fancy hat was kept in to protect it, but Stephanie knew better. Had kept her secret well hidden, away from prying eyes and enquiring minds.
Sitting the box on the floor, she knelt down beside it and opened the lid and bit her lip. She hadn't looked in here for so long. Reaching in she pulled out a black t-shirt and couldn't help but smile.
Chris had given her his Fozzy shirt one night, after they had been joking around in his locker-room and he had spilt his can of soda all down her. He had been wearing it at the time and after he had apologies endlessly to her he had pulled it off and gave it to her without question. She had wore it and loved the feel of it and how she could smell his aftershave all over it.
This box was her memories of Chris.
Movie stubs from when they had gone out to a movie, when they had fought over popcorn. She had insisted that butter popcorn was better and he had disagreed and told her salted was. She remembered how they had bought one of each and then ended up eating the others. She loved salted now and Chris loved buttered.
She pulled out a receipt and remembered the restaurant instantly. It was this small Italian restaurant that he had taken her to in down town New York and she had loved it immediately. The food was just right and the surrounding atmosphere was what she craved in her everyday life.
Some might call her sentimental with keeping things like that, but she knew she wouldn't be with Chris forever so she had held onto anything the reminded her of him and the things they had done together. She couldn't give them up and let them become some distant memory, not when they had made her so happy.
Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out her appointment card and put it into the box. The card would remind her of this day. The day when one of her dreams had come true. That sounded cheesy to her yes, but it was no less true. She placed the lid back over the box and shut away the memories - they were still too raw for her. Given time she would steel herself and be able to look at the book for more than a minute or two without falling apart.
Leaning back against one of the walls of the closet, she let her head rest back on it and let her thoughts wonder and it was no surprise that they circulated around Chris. It never was.
I don't want to do this without you Chris, but I know you have Ash to look after so me and the kid will look after each other and don't worry I'll make sure they know who their daddy is, even if I can only tell her or him about the most talented wrestler in the business and the Rock God who has the world at his feet...don't worry, we can do this. I'm a McMahon and you're an Irvine...what better genes can a child have?
Now she had a reason to live, she didn't have slowly die now.
And that felt good.
