Hey all! Thanks for the reviews on that last chapter. I'm glad you guys liked the twist involving Hunter's mom. I thought it'd make the story more interesting and I didn't want the kids or grandparents to serve as just filler. Usually in fics we see Stephanie's family being very much involved in the plot but not so much with Hunter's.

I love all the feedback! It was so awesome that I really tried to write this chapter as best I could, adding important details but keeping up with the lust and fluff you've all come to love in this story! Hopefully I did my job...let me know! More reviews = faster, better updates AND me not killing anyone off LOL.

Nearly two weeks had passed since the last time they'd directly seen or heard from Randy Orton. Though Stephanie had insisted that she'd be fine if Hunter went to attend Raw a few days prior, he refused to go. He wasn't comfortable with the idea of traveling from Kansas City, Missouri to Dallas, Texas without her in tow. So he'd waited until her headaches had subsided completely; that didn't happen until Thursday.

They'd decided not to even watch Raw because honestly neither one of them cared what happened. Orton couldn't harm anyone else in their family; he'd already gotten everyone that he could.

But Shane had dialed them up and told them what they missed. First of all, both he and Vince weren't cleared to get back in the ring. They'd both suffered from severe concussions and all of the side effects hadn't subsided yet.

Next, was that on live television Orton had admitted that all of this was to get to Hunter and that he'd faked the IED.

Stephanie knew that he was lying. She knew that she was at least partially the reason that he'd been doing all of this. Her thoughts were confirmed when Shane mentioned that Randy had gloated about kissing her.

Instead of keeping the information to herself, she'd shared it with Hunter. She'd shared everything with Hunter. And aside from nearly punching a hole into a wall, he'd taken it pretty well in her estimation. He wasn't blaming her or trying to make her feel guiltier than she already did; that was a relief.

In fact, the experience actually brought them closer together. She was basically showered with attention by him just so he was sure she was focused on their marriage and family.

Stephanie wasn't complaining. She enjoyed having him all to herself for a few days. It would've been akin to a mini vacation if it weren't for a few circumstances.

They'd sent Hunter's parents and the children back home on Thursday and had flown into Houston, Texas for Wrestlemania on Saturday afternoon.

When Hunter was preparing to leave for the arena earlier today, he made it clear that he wanted her to stay behind. Stephanie didn't outright refuse, but she did bring up their past.

They'd discussed this when they'd reconciled all those years ago. But she felt the need to point out that a large part of why their first marriage failed was because she didn't know when to let the decisions her husband made stand. She was always stubborn and intent on having her way, even if it meant fighting with him for weeks over something stupid she wanted to do. So in their fresh start, she'd decided to willfully submit.

By submission she didn't mean subservience. What she meant is that when they disagreed on a family decision, she'd go with whatever he decided after she voiced her opinion on the situation. It had worked wonderfully during this marriage; not that they often disagreed to start with. This time around she knew what made him happy and what made him angry and she didn't do unnecessary things to piss him off.

In short, she didn't interfere with his career very much, nor did she run around flirting with other guys in a misguided attempt to get him to pay attention to her. Neither one was necessary anyway; he didn't need her help in the ring and he had no problem with giving her all the love she could stand.

So, she'd made it clear to him that if he told her to stay at the hotel tonight, she absolutely would. But she also let him know that it would hurt her heart not to be able to be at the arena with him. Vickie Guerrero was a pushover when it came to certain superstars. She was giving the match stipulations that were putting Hunter at a disadvantage. If he was disqualified, he lost his title. That was unfair, given that anyone who wanted to see him stripped of the title might interfere just because.

Stephanie wanted to be there in person to make sure no one except her tried adding conditions at the last minute.

Because he saw how much this meant to her, Hunter had agreed to let her come tonight. His only requirement was that she stayed in the locker room most of the time. If she needed to leave, he was coming with her.

Stephanie and Hunter had been at the arena for a couple of hours already. Stephanie had made her presence known by shifting some details of the match.

Hunter didn't want an unfair advantage; that would cause people to say that he was only victorious because his wife shifted the odds in his favor.

Knowing how he felt about Stephanie flexing her power, she'd kept it minimal. She'd only made things fairer. If anyone interfered before or during the match, they were fired immediately.

She had to thank her father for passing on his creative genius on to her. She had recognized that the stipulation needed to apply to not just the actual match; she wouldn't put it past Legacy to attack her husband prior to the match, to diminish his chances of winning. Her stipulation greatly reduced that possibility.

After the match, her husband would be free to use weapons to defend himself if that was necessary.

Even Hunter had been impressed with her modifications. That was really saying something since he was usually present when she enacted some plan. He'd given her a congratulatory kiss.

And somehow that got her started up. She'd practically attacked him for goodness sakes. Not that he was in any way resistant to her; not really. But he knew that cameras were planted in locker rooms to catch crafty, dramatic moments. He'd be damned if the entire world saw what they were about to get up to.

So despite her protests for urgency he'd scooped her up and carried her into the bathroom. He'd intended to have her on the counter, but she had other ideas and they ended up against the wall instead. The first time, anyway. Then they moved over to the counter.

Hunter broke their languid kiss and smirked at her. "Woman, you're going to be the death of me." He shook his head while he tried to catch his breath. He relaxed, leaning his forearms against the counter.

"Never. You do a really, really great job at keeping up," Stephanie said, winking at him playfully.

Hunter laughed and buried his face into the side of her neck, inhaling the faint but sweet scent of the body splash she was wearing today. "Thanks," he murmured before pressing a light kiss to her skin. "But seriously, baby. You haven't been this impatient and insatiable about sex since you were pregnant with the boy."

At first, Stephanie returned the laugh. She loved her husband's deep, rich laughter and it delighted her when he was amused. After the hilarity died off and he fell silent, she blinked a few times, letting what her husband said soak in.

Stephanie thought about what she knew. Her hormones were well and truly out of whack. She felt the need to maul her husband at every available opportunity. This morning, she was at least patient enough to have them both get fully undressed. But this afternoon she had been too eager to shed more clothes than was absolutely necessary. She usually had more self-control than that. Not much; but some.

Her hearing had sharpened; she'd technically put that one to the test when Orton was about to DDT her from the second rope. She'd been able to hear Hunter breathing. But she knew that the oxygen deprivation might have had a say in that.

Which didn't explain why she was able to do the same thing at the hospital. That one she'd written off as simply being very familiar with her husband.

The biggest change was her sense of smell. In fact, it was one of the draw's to Orton…he was just a really great smelling guy, as weird as that sounded. Her husband smelled wonderfully also, but their scents were so distinct to her and she hadn't examined why that distinction had become so pronounced recently.

Then there was the fact that she'd been throwing up for a few days now, sometimes feeling awfully fatigued and experiencing dizziness and headaches. But the arrivals of those symptoms were in alignment with when she got her concussion and when she'd eaten the hospital food.

Everything had a reasonable explanation.

So why did she suddenly feel sick? Not nauseous sick but emotionally sick. She swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in her throat and whispered, "Oh my God."

Hunter pulled back from his comfortable position and eyed her. "What is it?"

Instead of answering, Stephanie pushed lightly against his chest until he backed up. Hunter watched her, completely confused as she jumped down from the counter, hastily put her clothes on and scurried back into the locker room.

He was shaking his head in confusion as he threw his jeans on and straightened out his t-shirt. But when he realized the shirt was mildly damp, he decided to whip it off over his head instead. He balled it up and used it to dab at the excess moisture on his chest and back before throwing it on the floor.

His brown eyes glanced in the mirror and saw that because of his wife, a good amount of his hair was sticking out from the ponytail. Rather than fixing it, he just removed the band and used his hand to tousle out the loose curls, making them cascade around his broad shoulders.

Following Stephanie's strange lead, he walked back into the locker room to see her hovering over her tote bag, rummaging through it.

She pulled out her day planner and sat down; flipping through it as he finally reached her. He sat next to her and with a sigh, reached over and smoothed down her messy hair.

He watched her carefully as her blue eyes scanned the pages, turning them agitatedly because she couldn't find what she was looking for. "Baby," be began cautiously. "Is everything okay?"

Underneath her anxiety Stephanie also felt somewhat relieved. She hadn't completely lost her mind by becoming attracted to Orton. Her sex drive was simply in overdrive just like it always was when she was pregnant. This time was different simply because she was around the business and in close proximity with Orton often. Stephanie shut the planner and tossed it to the floor before closing her eyes tightly and briefly. When she opened them again, she looked like she was on the verge of tears. But she still nodded. "I think so."

"Then why do you look like you're about to cry?" He asked point blank.

"Because…my senses are heightened, I get nauseous and dizzy and have headaches. My appetite has changed and my body is so sensitive that I can probably just think about you touching me and I'll have an orgasm."

As Hunter heard her rattle off symptoms, he caught on. But he was stunned. And slightly skeptical since some of those symptoms coincided with her concussion and assumed food poisoning. He jerked his head towards the planner she'd tossed on the floor. "What does that say?"

Stephanie pointed to it. "It says that Mother Nature is overdue."

Hunter arched an eyebrow and asked, "How overdue?"

Stephanie tilted her head from left to right, considering. "Umm maybe two or three months. It's hard to tell because sometimes I skip the placebo pills anyway. So I'm used to not having a period."

Hunter shook his head and turned away from her, leaning his forearms on his knees. Yes, he understood the situation that they were probably in. But he didn't get how this happened. And why was it happening now with so much crap going on?

They both knew that they wanted at least one more child. But they'd intended to plan its arrival. There was no way they'd intentionally get pregnant while she was coming to arenas regularly. Certainly not when they were in the middle of a war with someone who would have the audacity to physically harm her.

Hunter remained silent, his mind working overtime to scan their conversations over the last few months. He remembered that Stephanie had been reminding him to pick up her prescription for the birth control pills. He remembered her saying that she only had a couple days' worth left.

Ever the procrastinator, he'd put it off but told her he'd take care of it. And he didn't. Since there was no male birth control option really, getting her prescription filled was his contribution to making sure that baby number three was conceived when they were ready. And he'd dropped the ball.

"I take it you didn't go get the prescription yourself when you ran out?"

Stephanie shook her head. "With all the craziness going on with Chris Jericho at that time and with the New Year just starting, I totally forgot until the pharmacy called me."

Hunter vaguely remembered that conversation and her light, playful scolding. "When did they do that, again?"

"Shortly after Orton kicked my Dad in the head."

"That would've been almost three weeks later. You were probably already pregnant then," Hunter pointed out.

The silence was deafening to Stephanie. "Are you mad at me?" She asked.

"I'm mad at myself…that I'm continuously screwing something up where you're concerned. It was my responsibility to pick up the pills and I didn't. I'm not upset that we may be having another baby. I'm upset that because of my carelessness you and the baby have been put in danger repeatedly. I mean you continued taking the pills not knowing you were pregnant. Orton has attacked you twice and it's a miracle neither of them made you miscarry…the hospital specifically asked me if there was a chance you could be pregnant before they exposed you to radiation and I said no. If something is wrong…" he trailed off, sitting straight up again, but stubbornly setting his jaw and staring directly ahead.

Stephanie moved so that she was sitting on his lap rather than beside him. She grabbed his chin and said, "Hey, look at me." When he reluctantly obliged her, she continued. "You're anything but a screw up. You're the best husband and father to our kids that I could ever ask for. Nothing is going to be wrong with our baby. There's no evidence that taking the pill while pregnant causes problems. And obviously this kid is a fighter. So he or she will be perfectly fine. We both messed up for not suspecting this. But we've been under a good amount of stress. And truthfully, it seems like we never guess that I'm pregnant. I always end up in the hospital first. So kudos to us for figuring it out on our own," she laughed.

Truer words have never been spoken, Hunter thought. With Morgan, Stephanie had no idea she was pregnant until she went to her doctor for a routine physical. With Devin, he'd made her go to the hospital after the trial of Eric Bischoff because she had become seriously ill that night. Feeling some of his tension and guilt ease off, he smiled at her and placed a hand on her still flat stomach. "What do you think we've got in here?"

Stephanie twisted her lip while she considered and calculated. "Hmm. Because of the symptoms, I'm thinking a girl. With DJ I got sick around six weeks in. If we're right about when we made this one, that means I could be as much as 13 weeks along."

Hunter shook his head and was completely entertained. "How do you just walk around with another person living inside of you this long and not know it? That's just sad, Stephanie," he chuckled.

Stephanie shrugged. "See the pattern? Girls are peaceful and quiet longer. Only the boy wreaked havoc immediately."

"Whatever," Hunter dismissed of her gender bias and implications that baby boys were troublemakers. "We'll see about that when we find out the sex."

"Indeed," she agreed. Stephanie remained silent for a few moments before touching Hunter's cheek to grab his attention. "Does this mean you're happy about this?"

"Of course I'm happy!" He said with much enthusiasm. "You thought I wouldn't be?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "Just with the dramatic circumstances…"

Hunter put his index finger over her lips for one second. "Nonsense. Dramatic circumstances or not, nothing means more to me than the well-being of you and our kids – that includes this unborn one. I'm sorry that my shock and confusion seemed to overshadow the happy."

Stephanie smirked. "You're forgiven."

"Smart ass," he said with a grin. "Are you happy?"

Stephanie nodded her head eagerly before biting down on her lip, trying to keep her emotions under control. She felt like crying; another clear sign that her hormones were imbalanced. Definitely pregnant, she decided immediately.

Hunter placed a hand on the back of her head and gently pulled her forward for a kiss. When Stephanie moved to deepen the kiss, he allowed it and simply enjoyed the moment. But when she moaned and started lightly raking her nails down his bare chest, he knew he had to put the brakes on the situation. He broke the kiss and laughed at her. "Easy there, tiger." He stood up, still holding her before setting her feet on the ground.

Stephanie's lips were full and pouting. "What's wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing. But with your…bodily sensitivities we have to stop while we can. I'm taking you back to the hotel."

"You can't do that."

"We'll get you tested to confirm it…but now that we're both thinking clearly, it's so obvious that you're pregnant. This business is already dangerous and to top it off, Orton is just psychotic and probably obsessed with you. So why the hell shouldn't I take you back?"

Stephanie simply raised both of her eyebrows and pointed to the television behind Hunter. "Um, because they just announced your match."

Hunter spun around and his eyes went wide when he saw Randy Orton's titantron playing. Just exactly how long had they spent making love? They'd both completely lost themselves in each other; with neither of them noticing how much time was passing by. He wasn't complaining. He felt quite the opposite about their encounter. But now he wouldn't be able to get her to the hotel and back. She'd have to stay at the arena and that was frustrating because he didn't trust anyone else with her safety or the baby's.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it," he chanted, tugging at his blonde hair. "Okay you're right," he relented with a sigh. "But you have to stay back here."

"I will," she said instantly.

Hunter narrowed his eyes. She'd agreed to that far too quickly and he knew how stubborn she could be at times. He pointed a finger at her to convey that he was not kidding. "I'm serious, Stephanie. No matter what happens out there, promise me you will stay back here with the door locked until I come and get you."

Stephanie reached up and took his face in both of her hands. She pecked him on the lips and gave him a small smile. "I don't want to take any more chance's with the baby either. As hard as it's going to be for me if he starts really hurting you…I'll stay in here no matter what until you come back. I promise."

Hunter breathed out a sigh of relief before grabbing her in a brief hug. "Thank you," he said sincerely.

Their tender moment over for the time being, she watched as he scrambled all around the room to get ready for his match. It was fascinating to watch his transformation from Hunter, her husband to Triple H, The Game. To some, they were probably one and the same. But she knew differently. Because she got to see him as her husband far more often than she did as The Game, the changes were pronounced. His hazel eyes would become so focused, his muscles so tensed and ready for action. His entire demeanor would shift and his mood would become harsher and edgier.

When he was finished tying up his boots he looked at her one last time, not needing to verbally reiterate his request.

Stephanie grabbed his hands and tugged until he leaned down to her. She kissed his lips softly before releasing him. "I love you, baby. Good luck. I'll be rooting for you," she said.

"I love you, too. And thanks." Hunter grinned at her before he turned away. He grabbed his championship belt from the floor haphazardly and walked out of the room. He lingered in the hall right outside of the door until he heard the locks slide into place.

Now mostly convinced that Stephanie would be safe, he turned his mental focus to decimating one Randy Orton.