Sorry it's been a tad longer than usual between updates. I've been working on a bio for Mary so that everyone can get a slightly deeper look into her. It's not 100% finished, but I think that it tells more about her than what this story has so far. You can check it out at the link found in my profile since it doesn't want to work here.

For what seemed like a half hour, Mary laid across the hood of her rental car, just looking up at the night sky. She felt bad for leaving Cody hanging like that, but for some reason kissing him set off a spark inside of her mind that she couldn't quite explain. She knew that she wasn't finding herself attracted to her long time friend. It was more of the fact that she could sense that she was on the brink of an actual emotional breakdown, and she didn't know how to deal with it. She eventually pulled out her phone and responded to a few tweets and texts. The last text she came across was from Randy, asking where she was. She sighed as she hit reply, shaking her head.

"Still here. Sitting outside in the parking lot."

Not but two minutes after she had hit send and went back to looking through her Twitter mentions, she heard someone approaching her. She turned her head, only seeing the figure of the person walking up to her. She knew a few of her co-workers by body type, and she knew this silhouette at first glance. She didn't say anything as she looked up at the sky once more.

"Damn girl," he chuckled, shaking his head. He took out his phone with a grin, "don't move."

"Gonna take a picture and send it to John?" she smirked.

"Fuck yeah," he snapped the picture, the flash momentarily lighting up the section of the parking lot they were in. "You looking like that almost makes me want to forget Sam." He sent the picture to John, along with a text, "someone is star gazing after kissing another man."

She propped herself up on her elbow, shaking her head. "You'd never do that to John. I mean, if we followed storyline and Cody and I had actually gotten together, I could see you stealing me from him and cheating on your wife with me in heartbeat."

"No comment," he laughed softly as he reached the car and leaned against the hood. "I'm actually almost surprised that hasn't happened."

"What? You cheating on Sam with me?" Mary frowned.

"Mare?" he raised an eyebrow.

"You have, Randy. I just..." She took a deep breath, sighing heavily. "I had a feeling you didn't remember because you were so wasted. So I just never said anything. It stopped maybe a few months before she got pregnant with Alanna," she shrugged.

"I must have really been out of it if I don't remember fucking you while I was married," Randy shook his head, wiping his face.

"I did it to protect you from the ring rats," she sighed, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her best friend from behind. Her mother was a ring rat, so she knew exactly what they could be like. The last thing she wanted for Randy was to get tangled up in the web of some slut.

"I'm so sorry, Maryanne. You know I would never use you like that had my head been on straight." He paused, biting his lip, "at the same time, better you than them. Who knows what would have happened if I had hooked up with a random fan."

"Sam would have left you, you may have never had Al, you may be paying child support to some gold digging bitch, and John would probably still be in a miserable marriage," she shrugged, laying her head on his shoulder.

"Wait... why would John still be with Liz?" he turned his head to look at her.

"Because if you had fucked up your marriage five years ago, you and I would probably be together right now. So I wouldn't have given John a push to leave her, because he and I would have never dated in the first place," she shrugged as she looked over to a dark corner. "Oh shit..." she whispered, knowing that she saw someone in the distance. "Who's there?" she called out, her face going pale.

Randy's eyes went wide as he immediately got up and ran into the direction that Mary was just looking in. His temper had flared up, and there was no way Mary could handle him. She pulled up her text message editor and quickly sent a message to Cody, Ted, Stephen, Rey, Zack, Alex, AJ, and Celeste.

"911 in the parking lot."

She ran her fingers through her hair after hitting send. The show was over, so it was just a matter of who was showered and ready to go. The guys, minus Alex, came out together in less than a minute. Not having time to explain, she just simply said Randy's name and pointed into the direction he had ran off into. They all had known Randy long enough to have experienced his temper, and knew they would have to find him as soon as possible. Moments later her brother and the girls came out to see the rest of the guys running off in search of Randy.

AJ immediately wrapped her arms around the older girl, Celeste following suit. "What happened?," the tiny brunette frowned.

Mary swallowed visibly, "Randy and I were having a very private conversation and I saw someone in the distance, obviously listening in."

"How private?" Celeste winced.

"Well, let's see..." Mary bit her lip as she saw the guys returning in the distance. "I admitted to him that he cheated on his wife with me when he was so wasted that he had absolutely no clue what he was doing so that he wouldn't hook up with some ring rats. Then I told him that had I not stepped in, and if he had screwed up his marriage that I believed that we may be together now." She got everything in before the other guys were close enough to hear, which was a good thing, because she really didn't want all of them knowing that.

"We got him," Ted announced, holding onto one of Randy's arms as they lead him back to Mary.

"Which wasn't an easy thing, lemme tell ya lass," Stephen continued from his other side.

"Thanks guys," Mary sighed. "So did you find anyone?"

Randy shook his head, "whoever it was is going to be in a world of hurt if we ever do find them."

"Maybe I was just seeing things. Maybe no one was there, and no one heard what I said," Mary bit her lip.

"And if there was someone, and they recorded it?" Randy sneered.

Mary looked down for a moment, "then I suggest you get on the next plane to St. Louis to tell Sam everything before someone else may get the chance to. Everyone else do us like the hugest favor and keep your ears and eyes open for someone who is acting like they may know something they shouldn't. This is well... it's sort of life ruining big," she bit her lip.

Zack, Stephen, and Rey nodded. They didn't even appear in the least bit curious as to what it was. They knew that they weren't extremely close to Randy nor Mary, so there were boundaries that they knew to not cross. They hugged each of the girls and shook the guys hands before wishing them luck and leaving to go to their hotels for the night.

Once they were gone, tears began to spill down Mary's face, which caused AJ to hug her close. "Fuck, fuck, FUCK! What about John? What am I going to tell him?"

"You're in the same boat I am right now, Maryanne," Randy sighed. "Honesty is the best route."

Mary nodded as Phil walked up, "ah, there's my girl... hey... what's going on here?" He asked, genuinely concerned for the woman he considered a friend.

"We were just about to ask the same thing," Ted stated as he and Cody both crossed their arms over their chests.

Mary took a deep breath, "I saw someone in the shadows as Randy and I were having a extremely personal conversation that could be easily be taken horribly out of context and the fact that we were looking questionably cozy while doing so didn't really help matters."

Phil nodded, "well if you need anything, you know that you can count on me."

Mary smiled through her tears, "thanks Phil."

"Any time. Now could I possibly have our girlfriend, or do you need her?" Phil smirked.

Mary laughed, shaking her head, "I'm going to be leaving with Cody, and after we take care of some business, he'll be delivering me to John."

The WWE Champion grinned as he took AJ's hand, pulling her away from Mary and into a deep kiss. Which got some playful heckling from the group. Punk just laughed, waving them off as he and AJ left for the night.

Once they were gone, Randy took a deep breath. "Well, I should get going."

"Maybe Ted should go with you?" Mary bit her lip.

"I know how to book a flight on my own, Maryanne," her ex rolled his eyes.

"That may be true Randy, but we know you. You're likely to assault someone if they can't give you something within the hour," Mary tilted her head with one of the most serious looks any of them had seen on her face.

Randy nodded, "you know me too well."

Ted nodded, patting Randy's shoulder. "Come on, I'll make sure both of our schedules are cleared for a couple of days."

After they both hugged Mary tightly and said good bye to Cody, Alex, and Celeste. Alex then turned to his older sister, "and what sort of business do you have to attend to after hours with your on-screen ex?"

Mary smirked at Cody, who had started blushing, turning away. "Just before they decided it may be funny to put us back together, someone started seeing our little sister." Once the words escaped her mouth, Mary sensed her brother started to go toward her friend, which caused her to get up and place a hand on her brother's chest. "It's okay, Alex. Remember when he said that he's afraid of me? He's not going to do anything to hurt Chelsea."

Alex nodded, standing down. "I'm still going to keep my eye on you."

Cody swallowed hard, "understandable."

"So we should probably get going, Cody." She turned to look at Celeste and Alex, "I expect the two of you to behave."

…

Two hours and five ignored calls later Mary finally showed up at the hotel room that she and John were sharing for the night. Before she got a chance to slip her keycard into the slot, the door opened. She bit her lip, looking up at John. "Hey babe..."

"Don't you 'hey babe' me," John sneered. "Did you forget how to answer your phone, Maryanne? Do you have something that you need to be telling me?" He showed her his phone, which had the picture of her that Randy had taken earlier on screen.

Mary shook her head with a soft smile, "Cody is dating my sister and creative thinks that they're funny." She pushed past him, unfortunately on the side of her injured shoulder, which caused her to wince a bit as she made her way into the room.

John sighed, "haven't they put you through enough with him?" He closed the door, tilting his head a bit at his girlfriend, who had a very pained look on her face as she put her bag down and went to find her pajamas to change into. "Baby, are you sure you're alright?"

"Can I lie to you?" she sighed as she slipped into the bathroom, leaving the door partially opened.

John took the opening and pushed his way into the rather small room just as Mary pulled her shirt off carefully. He saw the bruise on her stomach, which caused him to wince. "Is it really smart to be putting your body through all of this?"

She traced around the bruise, "and if I told you that I turned that into a hardcore match so I wouldn't do worse to you?"

He blinked, "you know what I would have said. We could have kept that between us."

"Please," she scoffed. "If I would have started beating on you, our clothes would have been off in a matter of minutes." She shook her head as she attempted to get her jeans off with one hand, not caring horribly much if he saw her in the white cotton bra and panties with pink trim she was wearing. "I forgot how solid you are," she sighed.

He frowned, knowing that he had caused her physical pain when she had pushed passed him moments earlier. "No," he picked her up by her waist, carefully hoisting her onto the counter. "I would have let you get it all out. You know I have more respect for you than that," he said softly as he pulled her jeans down her legs carefully. He saw the bruise on her thigh and closed his eyes. "Anything else?"

"Physically? No," she shrugged.

He nodded, picking up her pajama pants and helped her into them then back onto her feet. "You want your bra off?"

"You don't get to play with them," she smirked.

"I won't even look," he shook his head, blushing a little. "I just want to help you."

She took a deep breath, nodding.

With the go ahead, he reached behind her back, unhooking the double hook with one swift movement. He looked into her eyes as he carefully pulled the straps down her arms so she wouldn't have to move her shoulder much. Once the constricting item of clothing had been removed, he picked up her camisole, his eyes not leaving her's as he helped her put it on. "Ready to go lay down?"

She sighed, fresh tears filling her eyes as she slipped her good arm around his waist. "You are too good to be true."

"No, I just love you enough to go at your pace," he shrugged as he lead her out of the bathroom, turning off the light before making their way to the bed where he gently laid her down. He crawled into the bed next to her, pulling the covers around them.

"Really? Because if um you had just made a move, I probably would have been all over it," she pouted playfully as she brought her arms around him.

He shrugged, kissing the top of her head. "Maryanne, just because you're not a virgin, that doesn't mean you're automatically ready for all comers, nor does the fact that I'm not either mean that we need to jump right into it. We don't have that type of relationship, anyway."

She nodded then bit her lip, knowing it was best to get things out straight away. "John..."

"Yeah, Mare?"

"Do you remember how Randy was before Alanna was born?"

"Yeah, of course."

"He cheated on Sam a few times. He was so wasted that he didn't even remember it the next day."

"Okay... so how do you know..." he pulled away from her a bit, looking into her eyes. "No..."

"John... it was either me or gold digging ring rats. It was before you and I tried anything."

"But you're his best friend. You were in his wedding. I know that you consider Sam a friend, as well."

"Baby, I know that I should have stopped him, but when he came at me like that it just brought all of the memories of how good we once had it physically. I got lost in the moment when he'd sp-" she blinked, shaking her head. "You asked me not to talk about that stuff last night. So I'll stop."

"Did he spear you onto beds?" John chuckled.

Mary nodded with a smirk. "Fast and rough. Some times all night."

"I'm not like that, Mary," he sighed.

"Good," she leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. "I got that out of my system years ago. I don't want something like that again. I want this, John."

"What if I can't satisfy you in the way that he did?"

"I hope that you don't," she stated matter of factly.

"What do you mean?" he blinked.

"Does this stay between us?"

"Of course, Maryanne. I wouldn't dream of breaking your confidence."

"He didn't always get the job done when we were doing the fun stuff," she shrugged. "Sure, it excited me, but it really just lacked something. Orgasms aren't all physical, you know."

He nodded with a smile, "I think that I get it now. You want something real."

"Something that I know that I won't eventually get bored with. Something that I can hold onto for the rest of my life."

"I love you, Maryanne Alexis Williams. With all of my heart and soul. I never plan on letting you go this time."

"I know, John. I..." she bit her lip, looking away.

"You don't have to say it, Mary," he gently cupped her chin and turned her head to face him again.

"It's just another thing I'm letting you down on, though," she pouted.

He shook his head and kissed her passionately. "You are not letting me down. Not in any way."

"So you really don't mind waiting?"

"I don't need sex, Maryanne. Just holding you at night is more than enough for me."

"It will happen, though," she smiled.

"When it's supposed to," he nodded, reaching up to turn off the lights.

"Life is good," she hugged him close to her body.

"Life is wonderful. Especially now that we're together." He kissed her once more before they began drifting off into sleep.

She hadn't told him about the fact that she admitted that she felt that if things were different for Randy that she'd be with him now instead of John. She didn't feel like it was important enough, and she had a feeling that Randy would be leaving that out of his confession to Sam, as well. She was happy with the way things had turned out, and she wasn't about to do nor say anything to possibly screw that up.

Bomb, meet shell. And yes, a villain. Or well, possibly ;) Who will it be? Stay tuned to find out!