Laying in bed, John couldn't help but allow his mind to race.

After talking to Kate an hour ago, and hearing about what Justin had done for their three month anniversary, he couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy in his heart.

They were both eighteen years old, with so much on their plates, between work and school, not to mention family issues, yet they still found time for each other.

In another few weeks, it would be his thirty-first birthday, but unlike most of his friends, he wasn't married with children.

Sure, a few of his buddies would be bachelors for life. And that was fine.

But he wanted to get married. And maybe even have a family someday.

Yet all that Liz could talk about was her extravagant ideas for their wedding... the one she refused to set a date for.

"Let's just enjoy our engagement for a while," she'd say like a wind-up doll every time he brought it up. "We'll wait until your schedule is a little lighter."

But the truth was that his schedule would never be any lighter.

True, she had gotten spoiled because he had been out with an injury, but Liz was still holding a grudge because he had gone back to work early and doubled his work load in the process.

And if he wasn't filming "12 Rounds," sooner or later, it'd be another movie.

With a sigh, John tossed over once more.

Maybe Liz was enjoying their engagement...

But he sure as hell wasn't.


"Kate," her mother's voice called to her through the door after a knock. "You're not sleeping, are you? I need to speak to you."

"No, I'm awake," the younger Jackson replied warily as the door opened. "Mom, is something wrong?"

"Katherine," Natalie eased herself onto her daughter's bed as she sat at the computer. "The lawyer just called... he finally managed to get a court date set."

The blonde teenager straightened up in her chair, "When is it?"

"A week from tomorrow," her mother informed her. "The lawyers are preparing for it, so they told me to come and talk to you..."

"Because they wanted me to brace myself for my testimony," Kate finished for her mother. "Right?"

The older of the two nodded. "You don't have to testify if you don't want to..."

"How can I not, Mom? If I don't, his smarmy-ass lawyers will concoct some convoluted picture of your life and your marriage. I won't let him do that to you, Mom. I won't."

The natural brunette in her late forties wrapped her arms around her daughter. "When did you get to be so grown up?"

"I learned from the best."


John turned over once again, still unable to sleep that Wednesday morning.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to lay in bed at night, contemplating how he was going to salvage his relationship.

No, he was supposed to stress over work, over his money... over something other than her.

But as the clock hit three-thirty a.m., John knew he couldn't, yet there was one person who could help him stop.

He rolled out of bed carefully as to not awake the woman he had deemed the 'sleeping beast' beside him, more for his own sake than for hers. Creeping quietly, he grabbed his charging cellular phone off of his dresser and continued his journey downstairs.

Finally dropping down on the brown leather couch near the large aquarium, John's fingers slid over the keypad and dialed the familiar number.

After three rings, a voice answered groggily, "Hello?"

"I know it's late," the Massachusetts native replied with an apologetic sigh, "But I couldn't sleep."

"It's alright, John," Kate yawned, sitting up, her pink blanket scattering around her waist. "I know you can't help it. Are you okay?"

"Mhmm," he nodded, for his own benefit more than anything else. "I just don't know how long I can live like this anymore."

Kate contemplated his statement, then replied, "For as long as you love her."

He wiped a hand over his face and sighed once more, "I do love her. It's just that..."

"She drives you crazy?" the teenager offered with a chuckle.

On the other end of the phone, he rolled his eyes. "Something like that."

"Look, John..." Kate offered compassionately, "I know that sometimes, people just fall out of love. My parents, your parents... it happens, but you can't hesitate to take that leap just because you're afraid of what could happen. Look what happened with our families. Out of your parents' 'failed' marriage came five wonderful boys, one of whom happens to be a world-famous superstar in the WWE. Out of my parents, came me. Granted, I'm not much now, but someday, I'll be something, I'll be someone."

"You're wrong," John quickly corrected her, leaning backwards to lie down, still clutching the phone to his ear.

"Excuse me?" she asked rather quickly, taken aback by his brash response.

"You are someone, Kate," he assured her with a soft smile on his side of the conversation, silently wishing she could she his face. "If it wasn't for you, I might have fallen apart by now."

The blonde couldn't help but be flattered. "John, you did fine for thirty years of your life before you even met me. You would have done just fine if we'd never spoken."

"I wouldn't have fought so hard on my way back from surgery," he explained. "Sometimes I think that the best thing that I ever did was open that letter. Maybe my surgery was a blessing in disguise. If I hadn't gotten hurt, I never would have met you, Kate."

Kate Jackson was absolutely speechless. In fact, it was the single nicest thing that anyone had ever said to her.

But then she stopped.

If the best thing that ever happened to John was opening that letter...

Then where did that leave Liz?


"So what time do you need me to be at the Izod Center tonight?"

John glanced at the schedule on his cell phone for a moment and the responded, "If you could get here at three this afternoon, that'd be great."

"Uhh... Katherine?" her mother's voice traveled up the stairs. "Someone's here to see you."

"John, hold on a second," she halted him mid-sentence and pulled the phone away from her ear as she yelled back to her mother, "Who is it?"

Her hazel eyes glanced at the clock, which read 5:15 am.

It was 5:15 am on a Saturday and Justin had work at 7 am.

So who could possibly be at her door, this early in the morning?

Natalie hesitated and then replied, "Your father."

"Kate?" the phone on the floor echoed. "Kate? Blondie, you there?!"

Her blonde mane shook as she tried to knock herself back into reality, "What? Huh?"

"I can hear you breathing... I can hear you talking..."

"Oh shit," Kate reached for the phone on the floor and placed it to her ear. "Sorry, John. I just dropped by phone."

"I could tell," the wrestler laughed. "So who is at the door, Kate?"

"Um..." she rubbed her hand over her mouth. "It's my father."


Descending down the hallway, the blonde caught sight of her father, sitting on the mocha-colored sofa for the first time in what seemed like a year, at the least.

With graying temples adorning his jet black hair, he rose to his feet, plastering a smile on his face, "Katherine."

Her face immediately soured, "Don't you 'Katherine' me. What do you want?"

"Tsk, tsk," he clicked his tongue at her with a stern stare. "Is that any way to speak to your father?"

"That's the way I speak to the man who all but deserted my mother and I," she seethed back at him in disgust. "I'm surprised you had the audacity to come around at all. Then again, you had the audacity to do things ten times worse to us than this, so why should I be surprised?"

"After all this time, you can't even say hello?"

"And you can't even find the time to call," she retorted bitterly. "What was so important that you decided to show up here at seven 'o clock in the morning."

"Katie, it's 7:15," Matthew corrected her.

"Considering you want something, and don't try to tell me that you don't because it's quite apparent that you do, I would NOT be correcting me right now," Kate closed her eyes to try and compose herself.

"Katie... I don't want anything from you."

"Oh, really?" she countered with an arched eyebrow.

"No..." he trailed off and then locked his blue eyes on hers. "I need something from you."

"I KNEW IT!" Kate screamed shrilly. "God, I don't hope you need an organ or something because I could never, in good conscious, turn you down."

"Katherine Jackson!" her father bellowed. "How dare you!"

"How dare I what? How dare I assume that you came here for the ACTUAL reason you came here?" she countered in disgust. "You need me not to come to the hearing, don't you?"

He nodded slowly, but never took his eyes off of his daughter, "I'd prefer you didn't."

She pursed her lips and shook her head in disbelief, "You know, I can't remember a single birthday card in which Mom didn't have to sign it from both of you... or a day when you took me out for a Daddy/Daughter date. Hell, in the last five years, I can't recall a single night in which you came home at the time you said you would, in the last three years, a single week in which there wasn't a night you didn't come home at all." Kate continued her advance towards her father, an icy stare emanating from her eyes, a flush of anger in her cheeks. "I don't have a single happy memory of you since the time I scored the winning goal on my middle school soccer game when I was thirteen and you were clapping in the stands, but had only attended because Mom had forced you to go... and then you didn't come to a single game after that, including the New Jersey state finals that I won in the last fifteen seconds of the game. And when I looked into the stands after that goal, I didn't see you there. And the whole ride home, all she could say was how sorry she was that you didn't show up like you had promised," She added, biting down on her lip slightly as tears stung at the corners of her eyes. "In the six months that have passed since you 'officially' walked out, and I use that term rather loosely, I haven't received a single phone call from you. Not on Chanukah, not on New Years, not on Valentine's Day... nothing. Not when I got accepted to my first college or when I got accepted to the last, or even when I finally got my first boyfriend. You didn't even so much as call to see how I was doing after my surgery. You simply left all of your baggage at the front door when you last walked out it. And I will never forgive you for that... EVER." Her voice was beginning to crack from the tears threatening to fall. "And you want me not to testify so that I can prevent my father from losing half of everything he owns. Well, guess what? As far as I'm concerned, half isn't enough to compensate for the hell you've put me, that you've put my mother through all of these years. You are NOT my father. My father walked out on me so long ago that I was too young to remember. And you know what? I'll be more than happy to tell the judge that. Now... GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE."

"It's still my..."

"Not if I have anything to say about it in court," she cut him off fiercely, gritting her teeth. "Leave before I call the cops and say you were threatening me. Get out."

Matthew's face went blank for the first time she could remember and Kate stared at him as he walked down the hallway and out the door, the white wood finally shutting behind him.

Immediately, she raced up the stairs and into her room, dragging her backpack out of her closet.

Hastily, she threw her books and notebooks onto her bed, shaking out any remaining school supplies from inside.

She forcefully pulled her drawers opening, tossing whatever makeup she could find in her frazzled state into the main pocket, followed by the outfit she had planned on wearing to Raw that night.

From her still-open closet, Kate pulled a navy hooded sweatshirt and a pair of jeans off their hangers, sliding them over her body after she had stripped off her pajama pants and shirt.

She slipped on a pair of socks and then her sneakers before grabbing her pocketbook off of her chair and running down the stairs. A few minute later, she found herself in the driver's seat of her Honda Element, heading down Route 9 towards the Izod Center.


About forty minutes later, the car pulled into the parking lot of the Hilton across the street from the arena.

After parking it in a slip, she reached into her bag and pulled out some roll-on perfume and a stick of gum, so that she didn't smell horrible in addition to being a mess.

By the time she approached the front desk, at 6:45 in the morning, she first realized that she didn't even know what room John was staying in.

"Good morning and welcome to the Hilton," the blonde gentleman at the front desk, who didn't look a day over forty, greeted her. "How can I help you."

"I need to know what room John Cena is staying in," she informed him, then realized the words that had come out of her mouth. "Okay, I know you can't give me that information. For all you know, I could be a crazy stalker."

And now I'm sounding like an idiot to boot.

"Can you call his room and tell him that Kate Jackson is here to see him? And ask him if it's okay for you to tell me his room number?" she rubbed a hand over her face. "It's incredibly urgent."

"I'll try his room now, miss," the gentleman nodded and typed a few words into the computer then picked up the phone. As he spoke on the line, she could hardly even focus enough to pay attention to what he was saying. "Sure, I'll send her up. Have a good day."

"Did you speak with him?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes, I did..." he trailed off and produced a piece of paper on the counter, then scribbled a few numbers on it and showed it to her. "This is his room number."

614.

Kate nodded and the man crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the trash.

"Thank you so much," she exhaled deeply and made her way to the elevators.


She knocked fervently at the door, impatiently waiting for him to answer.

Kate leaned her head against the door and whispered, "Please, John. Open the door."

Again, she took to knocking... and mid-motion, the door finally peeled open and a blue jeans clad John Cena appeared behind it. Immediately, she paced inside.

"Kate? Are you al..." he could barely get the words out after closing the door as she flung herself into his bare chest and broke down into tears.

"I-I'm so sorry for sh-sh-showing up like this," she managed to squeak out between sniffles. "But I n-needed to get out of th-there and I had n-nowhere else to g-go."

"Shhh," John soothed her softly, stroking her long blonde hair. "It's okay, Kate... you don't have to say anything."

He knew what it was like to experience parents divorcing, as he had gone through it himself. But his parents' divorce had been amicable and much cleaner than Kate's parents' divorce had been thus far.

And way back when, he had needed someone to be there for him... yet all he found was a distraction in Liz.

But he hadn't needed a distraction, he needed someone to tell him that everything would be okay.

"I know it may not seem like it now," he began, pulling her closer to his chest with his strong arms as the tears began coming harder, "But I promise you, Kate... everything's going to be alright. I'm here for you... and I'm not going anywhere."


A/N: So I know it has been a while, but with my first semester of college looming, and my move-in day on Saturday morning, I've been a little pre-occupied and frazzled as of late.

My goal is to update SAR III and Only One before the end of the weekend, maybe make a little boredom project out of it. Lucky for me, I don't have any early morning classes, with three days starting at 2:50pm or later, one starting at 11am, and Fridays off, so I should be able to fit in some updates.

I think that this chapter shows just how strong Kate can be, yet how vulnerable she can be at the same time. And I think there's something about that which John finds incredibly endearing and sees a lot of himself in.

Speaking of Cena... another four month wait on the horizon. But I have faith he'll be back sooner. And I hope so... I have a show on December 27th to attend!

Anyway... that's all for now. I appreciate EVERYONE's reviews, especially...

Fighter37, xXBXx, JCJF.lover, PiNk SugaR LipS, Queen Chaos-Hardy, Westfan, Cena-holic8, Enigmatic Lotus Leaf, PunkRocDivaxX, Fozzy-Floozy, goddessofthenite, CenaFan1395, StarSixtyNine, dj-ssdd, w8ing4rain, Mrs Bass-Malfoy, xtobelovedx, mcena99, OryonUK, giftiebee, Hayley Jean, and jada951.

Thanks for your support... please read and review!

Danielle