"Thinks I'm actually getting married to you for court purposes!"

"Stephanie…"

"What? He thinks that we're going to get some quickie wedding in front of a judge before our court cases so we can show off our rings? Is that what he honestly thinks is going to happen here?"

"I don't know, maybe," Chris said. "I'm not marrying you in a courthouse though, I want something really great for our wedding."

"Me too," Stephanie said. "I want a beautiful wedding. I want this to be the only wedding that you ever have, so I want it to be perfect, how dare he think that this is for something other than because we love each other!"

"It's just Hunter, that's how he thinks, you know that."

"I know, but that's sinking so low."

"This is the guy who cheated on you multiple times, you thought that he couldn't sink to very low depths."

"No, I knew he could, he has, I just…I don't know, he's an asshole. I don't know what I ever saw in him in the first place or why I stayed with him for so long. Why didn't I just not get drunk and sleep with you and have your child and divorce him and marry you and have children with you and be happy and everything would be wonderful?"

"Because life doesn't work that way."

"Now my little girl is out with him for an entire weekend and I don't know what they're doing. He has a DUI…what if he gets drunk and takes her out? Oh God, what if he gets in an accident with her?"

Chris stood up and put his hands on Stephanie's shoulders, trying to calm her down. "She'll be fine, okay, Hunter wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his case. Not now anyways, he doesn't know that he's pretty much already blown it."

"But…"

"She'll be okay, it's only for two days and then she'll be back and we'll shower her with love and kisses and whatever she wants."

"Well, not whatever she wants," Stephanie laughed. "You really think that she's going to be okay?"

"I really think she'll be okay," Chris told her.

"I hate to say it, I really do, but well…Ferris said that Shayna isn't that bad, so maybe she can make sure that everything goes okay with Keagan, right?"

"See, that's right."

"Of course, I'm putting my trust into a woman who willingly slept with a married man."

Chris chuckled. "We make our mistakes sometimes. That doesn't mean we're necessarily horrible people."

"Yeah, Keagan will be fine," she said resolutely, "she'll be fine."

Keagan raced around, trying to elude her father. They were playing tag, but it wasn't as much fun with just the two of them. Shayna was watching from the blanket they had put on the ground in the middle of the park. She wished that Ferris could be here so that she could play too. That would be more fun than just being chased around by her daddy. Hunter caught up to her and scooped her into his arms.

"Daddy!" she squealed as he lifted her up over his head and then brought her over to their blanket, setting her down on the blanket next to Shayna.

"Did you want to get ice cream?" Hunter said.

"Do they have candy apples?" Keagan asked, "Those are yummy."

"I don't think so," Hunter said, "when did you ever get to like candy apples?"

"When I went to DisneyWorld with Mommy and Ferris, we got candy apples with Chris and he said they were apples dipped in candy and Daddy, they are yummy."

"Oh," Hunter said. "You got them with Chris."

"Uh huh, I was going to get cotton candy, but it's not as good, but if they have cotton candy, I'll get it. Chris takes me and Ferris out for ice cream after school sometimes, 'specially if we go to the library."

"Do you go to the library a lot?"

"Mmhmm, because Ferris likes to read and Chris says that reading is good because it makes you smarter and I want to be smarter because Ferris skipped a grade and I want to too," Keagan said, wanting to prove she was just as good as her sister was. Ferris was really smart, even smarter than the people in her old class and Keagan wanted to be that smart too.

"Do you do a lot of things with Chris?" Shayna asked, her curiosity piqued. She knew that Hunter didn't like the guy, but this was Chris freaking Jericho and he was so famous and so hot she couldn't help herself. She thought she was going to swoon when she met him the first time and it took everything in her not to squeal like a little girl on Christmas. It was Chris Jericho!

"Uh huh, we do things all the time," Keagan explained. "Chris is the best."

Hunter scowled, "Well, he might not be around forever, I'm going to be around forever because I'm your daddy."

"Chris'll be here forever," Keagan said casually. "Mommy is going to marry him, they told us."

"Yeah, but he's not your daddy and I am."

"Hunter," Shayna warned. She didn't want to confuse the little girl and Hunter was trying too hard to force this when they were having a nice enough time already.

"I know you're Daddy," Keagan said, like she wasn't stupid. "But Mommy's going to marry Chris and Ferris asked and he said that meant he was there forever. So, Daddy, he's going to be there too."

"Do you like Chris?"

"I love him," Keagan said, not understanding why she was being questioned so much or why her father wanted to know these things. It should be common knowledge that she loved Chris, he lived with her and he was with her mommy. Of course she loved him.

"Oh," Hunter said. "I'm going to go get that ice cream."

"Hunter, baby, wait," Shayna said, starting to get up, but Hunter was stomping away quickly. She sat back down heavily and gave a weak smile to Keagan, who had no idea what was going on. She guessed she could go for some ice cream though, if that was all they had.

"Is Daddy mad?" Keagan asked, finally gleaning onto something not being right about all of this.

"No, he's not mad…"

"He acted like he was."

"He's just…well, I think he misses you a lot is all. He doesn't get to see you a lot, does he?"

"No, but he could if he wanted to."

"Well, he lives far away."

"I know, that's okay," Keagan said to her.

Shayna smiled, "He loves you, you know."

"I know, he's my daddy, I know," she said, shaking her head.

"Just making sure," Shayna said. "That doesn't mean you can't love Chris or anything, just you know…"

"No, I don't know."

"Oh, well, let's just try and not talk about Chris for the next couple of days, okay?" Shayna asked.

"Why?"

"Because, this should be about your Daddy and you."

"Oh."

Shayna could tell that if Keagan didn't stop talking about Chris Hunter was going to completely blow his top. He was trying to establish something with his daughter here, something that they could build on, but she didn't know how committed Hunter was to this venture. She had never brought it up with him, but a part of her thought that Hunter was just doing this to get back at his ex-wife.

That bothered her a lot because she was the woman in Hunter's life and to see him so upset over something dealing with his ex-wife was a little hurtful towards her. She had given up things to be with Hunter too and she knew she had made a mistake, dozens of mistakes, with him, but she was trying to make it right. She was trying to be a better person than she had been when she had let herself fall for Hunter. Now they were together and she had thought they were happy and then his ex-wife gets someone in her life and suddenly it's all about her again.

"Here," Hunter said, handing his daughter an ice cream.

"Thank you," Keagan said.

"Hey," Shayna said, patting the spot next to her. "Thanks for the ice cream."

"You're welcome," he said gruffly.

"Hunter, come on, don't do this," Shayna whispered to him. "She loves you and she wants to be with you."

"Not as much as with him."

"Come here," Shayna said, pulling Hunter up. "Keagan, we'll be right back, sit there and eat your ice cream, okay?"

"Sure."

Shayna pulled Hunter a few feet away and then kind of shoved him, "Hunter, you can't do this."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You are interrogating her. Just let her be a little girl," Shayna said. "You don't want her going back home and telling her mother that she didn't have a good time, do you?"

"No, I don't."

"Then you need to calm down and just be yourself, just love her and stop worrying about what she does with Chris. She obviously loves him--"

"I don't get why!" he said angrily. "I don't see what's so great about him. He's a jackass, I just know he is and I don't know why she likes him so much."

"Well, don't worry about it."

"She's my daughter, I'm going to worry," he said through gritted teeth.

"I know, but stop this, please, for me, will you just stop this."

She looked at him pleadingly and he relented, "Fine, I'll try."

"Thank you."

Stephanie sat by the front door almost the entire day Sunday, waiting for Keagan to come home. She kept pushing the drapes back to see if the car passing was the one coming to bring Keagan home to her. After what felt like the hundredth time, the car pulled into the driveway and she jumped up from her perch, giddy with excitement at seeing her daughter again. Two days without her was pure torture. She'd been away longer, sure, but this was different. She had left her in the care of someone she didn't trust and that he given her goosebumps.

Stephanie threw open the door and Keagan came running, "Mommy, hi Mommy."

"Hey there, Keags," Stephanie said, kneeling so she could get a real, big hug from her daughter. She turned to the house, "Chris, Fer, Keagan is back!"

"Keagan!" Ferris yelled from the upstairs playroom and came dashing out as Chris peeked his head out of his office and then headed down as well.

"Where's your daddy?" Stephanie asked Keagan.

"He wanted to just drop me off, he didn't want to talk to you even though he kept asking about you all the time," Keagan said with exasperation. It hadn't been that enjoyable a weekend for her because it seemed every time Shayna was out of the room, her father had asked her about Chris. Some things she didn't know, but she tried her best to tell him, letting him know all the time that Chris loved her very much and she loved him as well. This sickened the already green Hunter. It would've gotten a chuckle out of Stephanie to see his face right then, when he realized just how absent he had been in this girl's life and how easily it was for her to love someone else.

"He was?" Keagan nodded. "What did you say?"

"That I love Chris a lot, which I do, where is he?"

"Right here, you," Chris said, scooping her up into his arms. "You look good, did you have fun with your dad and Shayna?"

"It was okay, she's nice, I like her," Keagan said. "Daddy didn't seem very nice though, I don't want to go back to him, like Ferris doesn't have to go, I want to do that, Mommy, okay, is that okay?"

"Well, for now it's okay and I'm working on forever."

"Okay, I'm going to go play with Ferris now."

"You go do that."

Stephanie was going to make sure that she never had to go back again.