A/N: Well, I took a little longer for this one, but hopefully you'll all forgive me. TakerTakeMe, DCFanatic4life, LeavnonaJetPlane, and Alliegirl4life I want to thank you for the kind reviews! I hope that you're all sitting down for this one. I hope that it doesn't disappoint. As always, thank you for reading!
8:00-9:00PM
8:00 "Where is the closest place that Cody can do his work?" Bret asked Randy as they continued to drive.
"Barbie's house isn't far from here." Randy said, wincing a little bit as he turned to face him. He put a hand to his head. Bret glanced at him.
"Barbie?" Bret asked.
"Yeah," Randy said. "Y'know…Kelly Kelly?"
"Oh, that idiot?" Bret asked him in disbelief. "Do you really think she can be trusted?" Randy nodded.
"She can be trusted because everyone knows she's an idiot. No one believes a word she says." Randy told him. Bret seemed to consider this for a moment.
"All right, how far is it?" He asked Randy.
"Not very, take the street to the right up here." Randy started to tell him.
Chris felt like his head was going to explode as he laid in the back of the van. His face felt like it was on fire and everything ached. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and he was definitely starting to feel it. God, he hoped that Kurt had been able to get Stephanie and Ash out in time. He also hoped that Kurt had told Stephanie about Shawn so that if and when he did reach her, she would know better than to believe a word he said. He couldn't believe that sly bastard had managed to escape.
"I'm just worried about him, is all." Stephanie said to him as they pulled back the sheets on their bed. Chris nodded.
"I know what you mean. The guy lost his son, and Rebecca…" he trailed off. "I don't know what I would do if I lost you or Ash." He admitted. "I can't even imagine losing you both." Stephanie let her hair down from the bun it was in. She looked at his reflection in her mirror as she took her earrings out.
"I know what you mean." She said to him. "I can't imagine losing either of you the way he did. I almost want to recommend him to a counselor, because of the trauma that he's been through." Chris scoffed as he pulled his shoes off.
"He wouldn't go." Chris said. "He's too proud for that." Stephanie smiled and crawled across the bed to wrap her arms around him, kissing him on the cheek.
"Sounds like someone else I know." She said to him. He turned and kissed her on the lips.
"Well, he is my friend." He pointed out to her. She nodded.
"I know." She said, moving back across the bed to rummage through her dresser before disappearing into the bathroom. Chris let himself fall back against the bed with his arms stretched out above his head and sighed. He closed his eyes and found himself wondering what he could do to help his friend through this. He knew that it had been a little more than a year already, but Shawn seemed to be a little…off lately.
He heard Ash make some sounds through the baby monitor and he waited a few seconds before deciding that he was okay. He was just about to sit up when Stephanie sat on top of him, straddling his waist. He opened his eyes to look at her. His breath caught in his throat.
"Those are not your pajamas." He managed to say. She beamed at him, before shrugging.
"Thought you might like a little surprise." She said. He smirked.
"Well you thought right." He told her. She leaned over and put her hands on his wrists before kissing him.
"What brought this on?" He asked her when they broke apart. She let her face hover above his, their breath mingling.
"Do you really care?" She asked him, with a smile on her face. He smirked again.
"If it means I'm getting lucky, not really." He admitted, laughing as she smacked his chest. He ran his hands up and down her bare arms as she looked at him.
"I passed by your office today and just looked in at you, and you looked so frustrated that you might put your head through the nearest window." She said. "And I know that you're only putting up with this because I want to hang on to my father's business."
"Hey, I love that business too." Chris pointed out.
"Not enough to put up with all of this by yourself." She said to him and he nodded his agreement. She took one of his hands in hers and traced the scars that were there. He put his free hand up to her face.
"It's what you want." He said to her. "And if it's what you want, it's what I want." She moved his hand to where it was placed over her heart.
"Well, right now the only thing I want is to show you how much you mean to me." She said. "How much it means to me that you put up with all of that to make me happy."
"If that's what you want…" Chris said, trailing off with a smile on his face. Stephanie leaned in towards him once more and kissed him slowly.
Chris opened his eyes again, the memory gone from his mind as the pain of consciousness started to sink in again. He could feel the blood still running down his face from his nose and he swore that if he and Stephanie made it through today, he would try to work it out with her. If he could even feel half as good as he had in that moment, he could die with a smile on his face.
8:09 "Do you want me to bring him in?" He heard Kennedy ask Randy. Randy paused for a second.
"Yeah, bring him in." He said. Bret was already talking to Barbie on the front step and Cody was standing next to him. Kennedy opened the back door of the van and hopped out before pulling Chris into a sitting position. He helped him out and hauled him over to the front door where Barbie was still standing.
"Oh no!" Barbie exclaimed. "Are you guys all right, what happened?" She asked them.
"We're fine, Barbie, it's a long story." Randy reassured her as Kennedy took Chris into the house. Cody was already typing away furiously on Barbie's computer as Kennedy lowered Chris down on the couch. Ted was sitting next to Cody, offering his opinion on the fastest way to do whatever it was they were doing. Bret was pacing around the room, looking at everything and glancing at his watch periodically.
"We need to hurry if we're going to pull this off." Bret reminded them. Cody swatted him away.
"If you give me a few minutes, we'll know everything we need to and then some." He promised.
"In a few minutes, Shawn may have already contacted Stephanie and they could be getting ready to run." Bret said.
"What makes you think he's going to run?" Ted asked him. Bret stopped pacing momentarily to stare at a picture on Barbie's wall.
"Because that's what he does best." Bret said absently. "He makes a mess and then runs away." He turned to Chris, sitting on the couch.
"Wouldn't you agree, Chris?" Bret asked him, sitting down on the coffee table in front of him. Chris looked like he was on dream street rather than listening to anything that Bret was saying. Bret tapped him on the side of the face a few times to try and get his attention. Chris at least moved his eyes to focus on Bret.
"You and I are more alike than you think, Chris." Bret told him. "I mean, think about it: we're both Canadian, we're both legends in the wrestling business. At the moment, many people think that both of us are dead. But, we've got another thing in common, too." Bret said. "We've both been betrayed by Shawn Hickenbottom." Chris snorted, a small amount of blood coming out of his nose as he did so.
"I know what you're thinking. A wife and a world title are two very different things." Bret said. "Well, you're right, but there's another part to this story that you don't know yet."
"We're up!" Cody shouted. Bret turned to him.
"What do we have?"
"Everything. We have all of the emergency services frequencies as well as any cell phone frequency within about a 20 mile radius. If there's a phone call being placed dealing with Stephanie or Shawn's names we're going to know about it." Cody told him. Bret smiled.
"Good work." He said.
"Why do you need to know when Stephanie's name comes up with the police?" Barbie asked, entering the room and sitting down next to Chris. She turned to face him before getting an answer from Bret. "Did you know that if you tilt your head back it can help stop your nosebleed?"
"Barbie." Randy said.
"My mother told me that once." Barbie continued, not hearing Randy, or simply not caring. Chris found himself turning to face her just out of morbid curiosity. "See, this one time, I was riding my bike,"
"Barbie." Randy said again.
"And my mother always told me that I was supposed to wear a helmet if I was going to ride my bike. But one day, I decided that I wasn't going to wear it. I rode my bike down the street and there was this huge crack in the road where it was all uneven, y'know?" Chris felt like his brain was being sucked out of his skull at that very moment.
"Barbie," Randy said, a little louder.
"My tire got caught in the crack and I flipped over, smashing face first into the pavement. My nose was just gushing all of this blood. It was pretty gross." Chris heard stories about Barbie's intelligence level, but he hadn't actually met the girl until now. After listening to her for the past thirty seconds he could tell that every story he'd been told was true.
"Barbie!" Randy shouted. She turned to look at him.
"What?" She asked. He shook his head at her.
"We don't have time to listen to your stories." Randy said to her. "We're working pretty hard on something right now, okay?" Barbie nodded enthusiastically.
"Oh, do you want me to play some music?" She asked them. "I find that I always work a little better when there's music playing." Chris heard Kennedy begin to snicker on the other side of him.
"No, we don't want any music, Barbie. Look, do you have something else you can do while we're in here? Like a book to read or something?" Randy asked her.
"I don't really read too much. Well….I do have this scrapbook I could be working on…." She said. "I have these really cute pictures-"
"Great!" Randy said, cutting her off and pulling her to her feet. "Why don't you show me?" He asked her, shooting a look at Bret that, if anything, signaled for him to hurry. He walked her down the hallway, away from them.
Kennedy leaned forward and looked over to Ted, who had been hiding his face to keep her from seeing him laugh.
"Does anyone else feel that the average IQ in this room just made a significant jump?" Kennedy asked. Ted burst out laughing.
8:23 "I got something!" Cody shouted.
"Thank God," Bret muttered.
"She's still at the warehouse…" Cody said. Chris let out a shallow sigh of relief. Stephanie was alive at least - and Ash would be with her. "They're processing the information she gave them. Apparently there was someone else with her." Bret walked over to stand behind Cody.
"She was there with….Kurt Angle." He said. Bret turned slowly towards Chris. Everything fell into place for him - Chris could almost see the wheels turning in his eyes.
"You're better than I gave you credit for, Irvine." Bret said. "That's why you were so confident about their escape." He mused.
"They're going to get clearance to leave soon." Cody said.
"Any word on Shawn?" Bret asked him. Cody shook his head.
"Nothing yet." He said.
"What about on the cell frequencies?" Bret asked Ted. Ted shook his head.
"No calls made or received at all yet." He said. Bret nodded.
"Keep monitoring. If he doesn't surface in the next ten minutes, we're going to intercept Stephanie and Kurt and wait for him to come to us." He said. He turned back to Chris.
"You nearly killed yourself twice to let them get away." He said, starting to walk towards him, sitting down on the coffee table once more. "But I promise you this, after I'm done with Shawn, if Randy's not done with you yet, I will find Stephanie and Ash and I will murder them in front of you for interfering in my plans." Chris leveled his gaze with Bret.
"If you lay a hand on either of them, I'll rip your heart out of your chest." Chris promised him. Bret smiled.
"Sounds like we have ourselves a deal." He said.
8:38 Shawn stood awkwardly in the small kitchen as Hank, the man who had found him in the forest, hung his gun back above the door. He watched as the old man wound his way through the thin kitchen and pulled an old rotary style phone from under a huge stack of papers and books. He set it up on the counter and turned to Shawn.
"It looks like an antique, but it'll get the job done." Hank reassured him. Shawn nodded.
"Thank you." He said, before walking over to the phone and picked it up. He paused for a few moments as he held the phone, thinking of what number to dial. He knew that Stephanie didn't have her phone with her, and he wasn't sure how to call the police and ask for her without making himself look suspicious. He wrinkled his brow and thought for a moment. Then he started to dial.
Ash was sleeping on Stephanie's shoulder when Kurt's phone began to ring beside her. She looked over to where he was standing and then decided to just answer it herself.
"Hello?" She asked, as she flipped the phone open.
"Stephanie?" Shawn asked.
"Got 'em!" Ted shouted, pulling the headphones out of the computer so the feed could be heard by everyone.
"Shawn?" Stephanie's voice filled the room. Chris felt his stomach begin to sink.
"Stephanie, God, you don't know how good it is to hear your voice. Look, I know that you and I haven't been getting along today, but I really need-"
"Where's Chris?" She asked, cutting him off. Shawn was taken back for a second.
"What?" He asked her.
"I asked you where Chris was. Is he with you?" She asked him.
"No, no he's not." Shawn confessed. "Sweetheart, about Chris…"
"Look, Shawn, I know what you've been up to today." She said, cutting him off once more. "I know that you and Randy were in on this together to get rid of Chris." Chris closed his eyes. She knew. Thank God for small favors.
"What? What are you talking about?" Shawn asked her.
"Don't play dumb with me, Shawn!" She snapped at him.
"I'm not playing dumb, Stephanie! I don't know what the hell you're talking about." Shawn said to her.
"Damn it, Shawn! Stop! I know you're lying to me!" She screamed. Chris could tell that she was crying. "If you killed Chris, I swear to God that I will make you pay for it."
"We've got a lock on Shawn's position." Ted muttered to Bret. Bret nodded.
"Put it on the PDA and get ready to intercept him." He said.
"What about Stephanie?" Ted asked him. Bret looked over to Chris for a moment, who was glaring at him.
"I have other plans for Stephanie." He said.
"He killed himself!" Shawn shouted. "Damn it Stephanie, he killed himself to get you and Ash out of the warehouse." The line fell silent.
"Baby…I am so sorry." He whispered to her. "I am. But it's the truth. He hung himself to create the diversion for you to escape." Stephanie was silent for a little longer and then she started to laugh.
"You know something, Shawn, you are one hell of an actor." She said to him. "To think that I was actually contemplating marrying you!" She shook her head. "You are really good, I have to give you credit. You really had me fooled for a while, thinking that you actually cared about me."
"I do care about you." Shawn insisted.
"No, you don't. You want to know someone who does? Chris does. Chris loves me." She said to him. "He always has and I was just too stupid to realize it. He is ten times the man you will never be, and I can't believe that I left him for you! You are a lying, manipulative sack of shit and I hope to God that I never see you again, because if I do, so help me I will castrate you where you stand." Chris felt the corners of his mouth turn up as Ted whistled.
"Damn." Ted said, smiling slightly. "She is pissed."
"Stephanie…" Shawn started to plead with her.
8:46 "Go to hell Shawn." Stephanie spat and slammed the phone shut. There was so much anger coursing through her at the moment that she had to sit down. Kurt had only caught the last few minutes of her conversation, but he put two and two together pretty quickly.
"Are you all right?" He asked her, kneeling next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She nodded as tears began to stream down her face.
"What if he was right about Chris?" she asked him. "What if he really is dead?" Kurt gave her a look.
"Do you really believe that he is?" He asked her. She shook her head.
"No. I think that he's still out there. I have to." She said.
8:47 Shawn placed the phone back in its cradle slowly. Hank had long since wandered off, and Shawn was glad for it. He buried his head in his hands and sighed deeply. What in the hell was he going to do now? The whole point of him getting away was to get Stephanie and get out of the country to lay low for a while. Now he was going to have to try and get out of the country without any resources at all. Stephanie would have the cops combing everywhere for him and Bret was like a damn ghost.
"Thanks, Hank!" Shawn shouted to the empty house and walked back outside. He knew that the longer he stayed there, the more chance that Bret would have of catching him. He picked a direction in the darkness and started out.
8:52 Cody was loading the last of the equipment into the van when Randy emerged from the house. Ted and Cody both gave him a look.
"What's with you?" Cody asked him. Randy shook his head and climbed into the van. They were all in but Bret, who was taking an awfully long time considering how strict of a schedule the man normally kept.
After a few more minutes of waiting, Bret finally came walking out of the house, dragging Barbie behind him. Randy rolled the window down.
"I thought you said we would leave her out of this." Randy hissed at him. Bret ignored him and shoved her into the back of the van with Chris and Kennedy before climbing back into the driver's seat. Randy pulled a gun on him as he stuck the key in the ignition. Bret stopped moving as he heard the gun cock. He turned slowly to look at Randy.
8:58 "What are you doing, Randy?" He asked him.
"Something I should have done the instant you came into that warehouse." He said. "You listen to me. This is my operation, damn it. Mine. Not yours. I am the one calling the shots." Randy heard another gun cock behind him.
"Randy…" Barbie pleaded as Kennedy jabbed his pistol into her temple. Randy set his jaw, not breaking eye contact with Bret. "Randy…help me…" She pleaded again. Randy looked at Bret for a moment longer and then turned to the back of the van, pulling the trigger without a second thought.
Chris bit his tongue to keep from making a sound as her blood splattered across his face. She fell into his lap, her eyes wide and staring up at him, almost like they were blaming him for the hole that was now in her pretty little face. Randy turned back to Bret, who had an impressed look on his face.
"Drive." Randy said to him, putting the gun back in his lap and wiping his face with his hands.
9:00
