Valerie wiped the tears from Adam's face as she tried to hold back her own. His pain and torment made her heart break. "Adam, where is the pain?"

"It's my ankle," he choked out. She could tell he was holding back, but what he was letting show was pain enough. She had the faux paramedics hand her the first aid kit. She helped try and remove his boot, but it was hurting too much to remove manually so they cut it off. Then she made a cut up to his knee and then looked at his ankle. It wasn't broken, but there was definitely something wrong. She could see the swelling on the back of his ankle directly on his Achilles tendon. She had a bad feeling that he had torn it.

"Get me a wrap, and an ice pack," she hollered as if she was in an ER. She turned back to Adam. "Babe, I am going to do something, and it might hurt but you have to trust me. Okay?" He shook his head that he understood. She put her hand down to his toes and pushed up on the ball of his foot while not allowing his ankle to move. Simulating walking around on his toes. "Does that hurt"

"Nope."

She then let go off his ankle and started to move it. Adam screamed. "I'm sorry, babe."

"What's wrong," asked Jason, aka Christian, who was standing beside Adam giving him moral support.

"Adam, I have a really bad feeling it is your Achilles. I don't know if it's ruptured or just a small tear, but you need to get to a hospital."

Adam whispered a derogative and lay back on the stretcher.

She put her hand on his as the real paramedics and the trainer came running up to look at him. They got Adam all ready to be transported to the hospital. They told Valerie that she wasn't allowed to go on the transport. Adam begged to let her go, but they said they weren't allowed to let riders on anymore. Val felt it was a crock, but let it slide. She had a feeling it had to with her being a nurse. She gave Adam a kiss and a squeeze on his hand as they put him in the ambulance. They told her where they were taking him and that she was welcome to meet him in the ER. She was about to look up a taxi service on her phone when she heard an all too familiar voice say, "So when were you going to tell us?"

She turned and saw Matt and Jeff standing behind her with their arms folded across their chests. This is not what she needed to deal with right now

"You've been seeing Adam Copeland, the man who ripped apart my family? How could you?" Matt scolded.

"Ripped apart. You used to say it brought your family closer together! And don't talk down to me. Maybe I should've told you, but I didn't do anything wrong!"

"When were you going to tell us? After he had an affair during your secret wedding?"

Jeff placed a hand on Matt's chest and told him to step back. Val was grateful at first because she knew there was no way that Jeff would say such hurtful things to her for he was her brother, savior, and best friend. Apparently though, even that didn't matter where Adam was concerned to him. "Val, Adam is a very difficult guy. He doesn't have a great track record with woman. He tends to wham, bam, thank you maim. I mean look at his last marriage. Now come on, are you telling me you really want to have something to do with this guy?" He paused and then said the worst thing she thought she had ever heard Jeff say. "I mean by all accounts he is just like, you know, and I don't want to see you go through that again."

Her jaw dropped and her anger boiled over. "Adam is NOT like Tyler, and I can't believe you would say that about him! He used to be your friend!" She paused as they closed the doors to the ambulance then finished, "I would love to stand here and get yelled at like a child being scolded, but right now Adam needs me." She shoved past Jeff and walked to the door. She started talking to one the show-medics who walked her outside.

Jeff had never felt so terrible. Years ago they promised to protect Valerie from scum, and now she was head over heels for a piece of it. And instead of trying to talk it out with her, he had let his anger get the best of him. Maybe Adam had changed, but Jeff would be damned before he let Val get hurt again. Beth put her head on his shoulder, "You should've waited, huh?"

"Yeah." He put his head down and walked to the locker room. "I'm going to go change, then we'll probably want to go see where they took Adam.

She had gotten the phony paramedic named Brett to give her a lift to the hospital. When they got there the ambulance that had brought Adam was still parked in front of the doors. She thanked Brett then bolted through the heavy glass doors. When she got into the emergency room at first she couldn't see Adam, but she could hear him talking. She looked around and saw stretcher wheels beneath a curtain. Triage, she realized. She waited outside the curtain until was pulled back. Adam had his hair pulled back into a bun and they had gotten a gown on him, but his wrestling tights were still on. He looked like he was in so much pain. He looked around and when he set eyes on her his face softened for just a second before the nurse began to mess with the back of his ankle. Val rushed over to Adam, she was at first stopped by security, but Adam waived them off. Val grabbed hold of his hand and squeezed letting him know that she was here.

She kissed him on the forehead and then turned her attention to the nurse. "How long until he is taken back to be examined?"

"Due to his celebrity status we are actually going to send him straight to a room."

"And how long should that take?"

"It shouldn't take too much longer. The orderlies will come retrieve him and take him to his room."

"Thank you."

They closed the curtain back around them. Adam's leg twitched and he hissed at the pain. "Can't they give me anything for the pain?"

"Not until they get x-rays and a doctor diagnoses what's wrong. If they give you meds it would relieve the swelling which could hide what is wrong."

"Man, this sucks," he sighed.

"I know," she wrapped her arm around his head and kissed the top of it. "You'll be okay. I'll make sure of it. Okay?"

"Ughh," he sighed blowing bangs out of his face.