A/N: Thank Jodi for this chapter because she blackmailed me into it. :P
Some say dreams are what you want in your life, but you can't have. And others say dreams are the last thing you think about before you go to sleep. And still others say many different things, for many different reasons. Dreams can be nonsensical, or they can make perfect sense, and for the privileged few, those images that seep into your mind while your eyes are closed, they come true. But sometimes dreams turn to nightmares and those nightmares cause you jerk up from your beds in sheer terror, or you are forced to sleep through them to the finish.
Chris was one of those unlucky few.
She was standing there, beautiful, but that was a given. It might not be true that she was always beautiful, but in that moment, in that second, she was beautiful. Her hair seemed to glow in the twilight and it was like spun silk flowing down behind her back. She laughed as she looked at him, and he found it odd that she was in a long nightgown. But he didn't call out to question her, instead just observing her.
Ferris was there too, and for the first time, she looked completely his daughter. He didn't know why it was like that, but she definitely looked like his daughter. He just stared at her, enraptured that he could've had this kid, this living, breathing half of him that he hadn't gotten to see for so long. She was so pretty, like Stephanie, they were just a sight to behold. They were giggling and laughing and he wanted to join in. But the more that he walked, the less he could get to them as they seemed to pull farther and farther away from him with each passing second. He started running, but it was to no avail, he couldn't get any closer to them.
"Stephanie!"
Stephanie stopped and she looked at him. "Chris, is that you?"
"I couldn't reach you," he told her.
"Of course you couldn't, you left us…you left us and we moved on."
Chris opened his eyes to the morning light. It wasn't abrupt, he wasn't sweating, he just woke up like it was any other day. But it wasn't any other day. He wasn't with Stephanie in their bed in their house. He was in Florida with nobody next to him. In fact, he was in Christian and Denise's house. And he was nowhere near anywhere that Stephanie was. He turned on his back and put his hands behind his heads to stare up at the ceiling.
He needed to resolve this situation, for better or for worse. He just knew that he couldn't keep living like this. He felt bad that he was encroaching on Christian and Denise's life as it was. He felt like the third wheel, or the unwanted visitor. That was never a good feeling and he didn't want to take advantage of their hospitality. He sat up and stretched, knowing that he had to talk to his manager today and get things squared away and then he had to go back and get that test done.
But first, he'd go down and get a cup of coffee.
Later that day, he was sitting in a small restaurant, nothing flashy or anything like that. He wasn't in the mood to get recognized and with the bevy of paparazzi that followed him at almost all times, he just wanted a moment's peace. He had gotten used to them for the most part, and he had never had the kind of run-in where they literally chased him down in cars, so he just lived with it. But right now, the less cameras the better.
"Chris, my main man, what's wrong?"
"I need damage control, like I said."
"I know," Brad said as he sat down. "So tell me, what is this huge thing that you did, and if it's drugs man, we can check you into rehab immediately and under anonymity. I know this great place that some of my other clients have gone to and it's--"
"I'm not on drugs," Chris said, rolling his eyes. "I'm not into that shit. The worst I ever did was steroids for like two months. But no way, nothing like that."
"So what the hell is it?" Brad hissed.
Chris looked around, and seeing that there wasn't anyone in the immediate area, he leaned in closer to his manager. "I may be a father."
"Wait, so Stephanie's pregnant? What's wrong with that? Oh man, we can play that up. You're finally going to have a kid and oh, your female fans are going to love that. They wanted to connect with you in some way. Sure, some will be disappointed you're off the market, but we can work around that."
"Dude, if you think that I got Stephanie pregnant now that I'd be upset about it and thinking that there needs to be some damage control?"
"Oh…man, you cheated on her! This is not good, man. So you got a mistress pregnant? Okay, this will be a little harder to spin."
"It is Stephanie, if you'd let me finish my damn story. And Ferris, you know her, you've met her, well, Stephanie told me the other night that Ferris might be mine. Apparently we had this one night stand and her oldest daughter might be mine. I don't remember the night, but I know Stephanie wouldn't lie to me about something like this."
"And you're sure? I mean, you're worth a lot of money."
"She's worth way more than me, Brad. I mean, we're talking hundreds of millions more than me," Chris told him. "There's no way this is for money or anything. She's telling the truth. I wish I could remember, but she would never lie to me like this."
"Okay, so you might have a seven-year old daughter?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying…she was separated from her husband at the time, but you know how the media types are, they find out that she was still married at the time and suddenly I'm looking like a home-wrecker. Then everyone's going to hate me."
"Well, if we can try and curb that when this comes out, we can play up the family angle if she's yours. I'll come up with something. This won't ruin you, people have done a lot worse and haven't been ruined."
"I just kind of liked having the nice guy image," Chris said soberly. "I liked that you couldn't pin a lot of shit on me. Now though, that's all down the drain."
"It'll be okay, you know, now you finally kind of have that 'bad boy' image, and you'll drawn in a whole other type of fan, this could really work," Brad told him, hoping that he sound optimistic. He knew that Chris was fiercely protective of both his private life and the way that other people perceived him. He didn't like people thinking that he was some sort of bad guy who had come from wrestling. Professional wrestling didn't exactly come with a positive stigma, and though Chris would not change his past for anything in the world, some people found it distasteful.
"That's not helping," Chris said, but he cracked a smile.
"First things first though, before we go crazy and go overboard with thinking about how to salvage your reputation, though I don't think it's really going to suffer, we need to find out if you are Ferris's father. Before then, we can't jump to conclusions. You said that she and her husband were separated, but is there a chance he's the father?"
"Yeah, there is."
"Okay, then we both need to not freak out, you especially since I'm not freaking out. This is easy compared to some of the stuff I've had to deal with, but I know that you're freaking out, so stop that," Brad laughed, which earned him a glare. "We'll set up an anonymous test, so nobody will know it's you, and then when we get that done, we assess from there. Is Stephanie willing to get the test?"
"I haven't talked to her since I left Connecticut," he admitted.
"Well, that's gong to have to change, especially if Ferris is yours. And if she is yours, how are you prepared to handle that?"
"I'm going to be her dad, that's not up for question, I love her," Chris shrugged. "I loved her before this, I'll love her after this, that's not a problem."
"Good, because if you were prepared to abandon her and not take care of her, I'd say don't take the test in the first place. But since I know you, I had to make sure that's what you'd say. I'm going to arrange for a test in the Connecticut area. It's more low-key, but I need you to talk to Stephanie. I can get the test done for tomorrow and get you set up on a plane tonight. The sooner we get this done, the better."
"That soon?" Chris asked with a cringe.
"Chris, we need to get this done, I'm on the phone right now, I'll call with you with details," Brad said, standing up. "Don't worry, it'll be great, everything will be handled."
Chris wasn't sure he believed that, but what more could he do? He had to trust what Brad said. He had to go back to Connecticut and talk to Stephanie. It wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to, but he needed to get this weight off his shoulders. He couldn't go the rest of his life not knowing if Ferris was his. If she was his daughter, he was going to spoil the hell out of her to make up for the years that he couldn't be there. He was going to do everything and anything to make sure she forgot that Hunter was ever her father. He knew that was nearly impossible, but he was going to try anyways.
Later that evening, Stephanie was just cleaning from dinner. Ferris was sitting at the table doing her homework and Keagan was in the playroom watching a video. Chris hadn't called today, but she was sure that he would call later. He wouldn't let the girls down like that, even if he did have someone new in his life. After reading that magazine she had promptly thrown it away and had practically sequestered herself in her house. She didn't want to go out for the risk that she'd see more of those pictures, or new ones, maybe them making out somewhere.
She didn't expect Chris to never go on without her, she just didn't want him to go without her. She wanted a fairytale ending, and she knew that it was beyond unreasonable to hope for such things, but sometimes, you had to hang on to the little girl that was inside you. Sometimes you had to keep that vision alive, the one that said you were going to have a perfect life and everything you ever hoped for. And even when it was slipping out of your grasp at a rate that you couldn't keep holding on, you had to try.
Chris opened the door silently, setting his bad next to the door. He didn't think he'd stay here tonight, maybe he would because of the girls, but he kept his bag there in case he made a hasty exit and then walked a little more into the house. He could hear the television in the playroom playing and then the sound of water from the kitchen. He decided to head to the playroom first because he was too afraid to go into the kitchen. He turned at the first hallway and stood in the doorway.
"Hey, can anybody watch?"
"Chris!" Keagan yelled in delight as she stood up on the couch. "You're home!"
Chris came over and lifted her up. "Yeah, I missed you too much. I had to come home."
"I missed you too," she said, hugging him around the neck with her arms as her legs wrapped around his torso. "Mommy and Ferris missed you too."
"Well aren't I loved?" he asked playfully.
Stephanie turned off the water, thinking she heard something, but then turned it back on when it was quiet. She went back to staring off into space as she went about her mundane business. This was her life, working then coming home and doing anything to take her mind off Chris. She knew that getting over someone was a process, but this process hurt and she wasn't sure she could take much more without breaking down completely. But she couldn't do that to the girls. She couldn't shut down with them in her life. She couldn't…
"Chris!" Ferris cried out and pierced through her thoughts.
"Hey there Bueller," Chris said affectionately as Ferris rose quickly from her chair and charged at him until she was hugging him tightly. "Wow, someone missed me."
"Yeah, I did," she told him. "You were gone for too long."
"I'm sorry," he said, kneeling down to her level as she hugged him around the neck. "I missed you too, so much that I could barely sleep."
"You're so silly, Chris," Ferris said, but the happiness in her voice was so evident.
Chris looked over the girl's shoulders to see the stunned Stephanie standing by the sink. Her hands were at her sides, but her jaw was dropping slowly. He was like a mirage to her. Maybe she was in her daydream. Yes, that had to be it; she had to be daydreaming because there was no way Chris would be back here. Not with his new girlfriend.
"Hey Steph," he said and that made it all real.
"Chris?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Hey girls, why don't you go in the playroom so that I can talk to your mom," Chris suggested.
Ferris nodded and had to pull Keagan away from Chris before they headed off, but before they were gone, Chris heard Ferris mumble, "They're going to kiss," to Keagan and he laughed under his breath. He walked over to where Stephanie was, and leaned against the counter. The water was still running though and he reached over to turn it off.
"Hey," he told her.
"Oh, um, hi," she stammered back, feeling like a teenager with her first crush.
"So, I'm back because my manager told me that we can get the test done tomorrow, if that's okay with you. We can do it after Ferris gets out of school, or before, whenever, the doctor is open all day. But we need to get this squared away and off our chests before we do anything else. The place we're getting tested, they can have the results in like, two days or something, so that's not a long time to wait."
"Okay," she nodded numbly, still shocked to see him here.
"Great," he nodded. "I just really want to get this off our chests, you know."
"Yeah, I can understand that," she told him. "You probably just want to know and then move on from there, right?" She was trying to be subtle, trying to get him to admit that he was seeing someone, but she wasn't sure if she was coming off that way, or just sounding desperate. It was probably desperate.
"Yeah, we can move on from there," he said, not picking up on her implication. "I just want to know if she's my daughter, Stephanie. I want to know if that little girl in there is mine, because if she is, I want to be the best dad I can be for her. That's all I want in this. I just want the chance. And if she's not mine, well, I'll still love her and then you know, someday, I'll get that first, or if it never happens, I can deal with that too, I just need to know now."
"Yes, I get that."
"And I'm sorry for overreacting the way that I did, I mean, I shouldn't have thought all about me and not that much about Ferris. If she's mine, that's going to be a huge change for her."
"Are you going to stay here tonight?" she asked. "Or…you know, do you have someplace else that you can go?" Again, she was trying to root information from Chris regarding his future plans, but again, he appeared clueless.
"I'm just going to stay in the guest room tonight, I don't think the girls would understand if I got home and just left," he told her. "I think everything between us, that conversation, I think it can wait until later."
"Okay, yeah, later," she echoed, but she wanted to know now. But then again, she didn't want to hear how Chris was going to leave her and he already had a girlfriend, or girlfriends and she was just going to be left in the past.
"I'm going to go see the girls." He wandered out of the room, leaving her there alone again. She watched his back disappear around the corner and turned back to the dishes.
He was right within her reach and yet a million miles away.