Wind of Change / I Found
By Jean-theGuardian
Summary: Post Smackdown, 9-4-2020. Sasha lays broken, scared and alone after Bayley's violent betrayal. But an old friend from the past shows her that perhaps she's not as alone as she thinks. One-shot, will not be a full story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
I'll use you as a warning sign
That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind
And I'll use you as a focal point
So I don't lose sight of what I want
And I've moved further than I thought I could
But I missed you more than I thought I would
And I'll use you as a warning sign
That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind
And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be
Right in front of me
Talk some sense to me
And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be
Right in front of me
Talk some sense to me
"I Found", Amber Run
Friday Night Smackdown
Orlando, Florida, Sept. 4,
The Thunderdome
I can't...breathe.
That was the first terrified, confused thought that rang in Sasha Banks' mind as she briefly emerged from the glaze of unconsciousness, an oxygen mask clamped onto her mouth and nose as the sirens of the ambulance echoed in her ears, the EMTs frantically hovering over her.
For a moment in the haze of bewilderment, fear and unbelievably excruciating pain, she wondered if this was some sort of nightmare.
Some bad, late-night taco-induced dream that she was going to wake up from at any moment. That the electronic pings and sounds of the medical instruments inside the ambulance would be replaced with the sound of an alarm clock ringing in her ears. That she would be waking up in her hotel bed and all would be right with the world...or as well as it could be in a world where a raging pandemic made it so that one couldn't go to a grocery store without a mask attached to one's face. That it would be Friday morning and Bayley...Bayley, the name echoed in her mind like a painful funeral gong...would still be her best friend. That they would still have a tag team title rematch with Shayna Baszler and that clumsy oaf Nia Jax. That what had just...happened...was only a bad dream.
But as the mind-shattering pain flared through her injured neck and numbness stung at her fingertips and her all-but-crushed left knee, Sasha, whose eyelids kept fluttering open and closed like a wounded butterfly, knew that what had happened to her was all too real…
She remembered the helpful, trusting look on Bayley's face, a look she had seen so many times over the years, as she helped Sasha try to leave the ring under her own power. Her left knee was throbbing, and Sasha knew immediately something wasn't right with it. It hurt to put any pressure on it, and she could barely walk thanks to that damned Shayna Baszler. But hell would freeze over before Sasha would allow herself to be carried out on a stretcher at Shayna's expense, yet another victim to add to the collection of broken women that the former MMA star had maimed since coming into the company. Nobody made Sasha Banks a notch on their belt, that much the proud multi-time champion was determined to see to.
The physical pain she was in paled only to the emotional, competitive pain she felt throbbing in her psyche. Yet another loss. Another missed chance at a championship. In what had been the worst two week stretch of her entire career, she went from being the Raw Women's Champion for the fifth time and half of the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions, from being The Boss, 2 Beltz Banks, back to being...nothing. The same nothing that she had been since the last time she briefly held tag titles last year only to lose it at Wrestlemania while her fellow Horsewomen Becky Lynch and Charlotte were making history headlining Wrestlemania while Sasha was forced to watch someone else live one of her dream matches. She thought that time away, a new hair color and a more vicious attitude would be enough to change her fortunes and for a little while, it was working. Three weeks ago, she and her best friend were living the dream. They had all the gold, and Sasha finally felt like she had regained her stride, got her swagger back. That she was "The Legit Boss" once more…
...and just like that, it had all disappeared. Again. Losing, submitting to Asuka twice. Bye-bye, Raw Women's Championship. Then losing to Shayna and Nia, NIA, of all people. Twice. The humiliation of those losses was overwhelming and Sasha could barely hold back the tears as she slowly rolled towards the ring mat to leave. She had bet the bank on this 'new look, new me' attitude that she could come up with a winning hand for once...but if she couldn't win even with changing herself, then could she win at all? Where could she go from here? What was she missing? Why did this keep happening to her?
Sasha felt the tears forming in her eyes again, and she blinked them back furiously. She wouldn't give the haters and her enemies in the back the pleasure of seeing her cry on camera again. She had her pride. And, allowing herself a sigh of relief, at least she still had Bayley. Sure, they had been feeling a little...volatile, unstable...as of late, and deep down, Sasha was wondering if she was getting the raw end of the deal in this friendship/partnership with her fellow Golden Role Model, but Sasha knew that she was lucky to have a friend like Bayley in her life. They had always been there for each other since Day 1 at the Performance Center when they were just a couple of girls with some indy cred to their name looking to make a name for themselves. Someone she could alway count on. Someone whose shoulder she could always lean on and whose eyes would always watch her back. Sure, they had fought and bickered...a lot...through the last few months and years, but sisters fight all the time, is what Sasha told herself. It was because they cared so much about one another and they were so alike in their passionate emotions, wearing their hearts on their sleeve, that Sasha felt Bayley was the one who understood her the most. Even with Bayley's friendship with Carmella and the tight bond Sasha had with Becky, it always came back to those two. Sasha and Bayley. It was them versus the world, and Sasha knew that as long as Bayley was by her side, it was all going to be okay…
WHAM!
So lost in her thoughts was Sasha that she had no time to see the boot that savagely struck her in the side of the head so hard it sent her down to the mat again, coughing violently. But it wasn't just any boot.
It was a boot that belonged to Bayley. Her best friend.
What happened next would be seared like a burn wound into Sasha's memory forever.
She would remember being thrown out of the ring and onto the outside floor by Bayley. She would remember Bayley throwing her violently against the steel steps, her exhausted and pain-wracked body screaming in pain. She would remember Bayley using those steel steps against her wounded leg, stomping on the injured appendage with hard, remorseless stomps, trying to make sure her leg was broken if it already wasn't.
And then, as Sasha desperately crawled to the ring barrier for support, she saw Bayley's eyes.
Those same brown, dark eyes that were always so full of warmth and love, of kindness, that would light up whenever Sasha told her a joke, would fill with sympathy whenever Sasha felt lonely or sad and needed a hug.
Now...they scared the hell out of Sasha.
Where there was once warmth, a cold, empty void resided in them. No trace of empathy, nor warmth or kindness. All there was now was...rage. Disdain. And something vicious, violent...something downright evil. Never in a million years did Sasha dream she would ever see that kind of malevolent gaze in the eyes of sweet, kind Bayley, even with all the changes she had undergone...and certainly not gazing Sasha's way.
But she was. And as she saw the chilling, murderous look in the eyes of her "best friend", for the first time in a long time, Sasha was truly afraid.
"B...Bayley?" Sasha could barely recognize the small, weak, timid voice in her ears, as her own. She said that name with almost a childlike innocence, as if she couldn't understand why her best friend...someone she loved like a sister...was doing this to her. Hurting her. Causing her pain.
But Bayley stared at her silently, remorselessly, like a hunter eying its wounded prey after taking it down with a perfect paralyzing rifle shot. Closing in for the kill.
Wounded, hurting and bewildered, Sasha pathetically tried to cover up, but Bayley would have none of it, grabbing Sasha and launching her back into the ring barriers, slamming her head on the mat and throwing her back in the ring. Sasha tried to get up, to stand, to do something, but her leg was too wounded. She could barely move, and an icy wave of fear and helplessness washed over her. She was completely at Bayley's mercy, and there was nothing that she could do about it...never in a million years did Sasha ever think she would be able to put those words into a sentence.
Before Sasha knew it, a strong hand clamped around her throat, squeezing tight around her windpipe and making it terrifyingly hard to breath for a moment before she felt herself being thrown into the turnbuckle, Bayley viciously stomping and kicking her face, ribs, chest, hip and her damaged left knee.
"Bayley, please stop...please!" a dazed, pain-wracked Sasha uttered somewhere in the middle of those blows, but to no avail. Bayley was on a mission, and that mission was to hurt her.
The last stomp on her knee was so hard Sasha cried out in agony, feeling the tears begin welling up again as she slapped the mat in pain.
She remembered being dragged helplessly towards the other side of the ring, Bayley viciously slamming her head repeatedly against the unforgiving mat once, twice, three times, straddling the small of her back and reigning down fists on the back of her head while shouting tauntingly to Michael Cole, "Is it Boss Time NOW, Michael? Huh? IS IT BOSS TIME NOW?"
Sasha felt her scalp burn as Bayley snatched her up with a fist full of hair and roughly grabbed Sasha's beautiful face, pulling her up just enough so she could see the furious, yet icy look in the eyes of her surrogate little sister.
Through her clenched eyes and the sting and burning sensations screaming all over her body, Sasha felt the tears finally fall as she tried to make sense of this madness, this horrific nightmare.
"...Why?...Please...why, Bayley?" Sasha cried softly, the agony she felt extending from her body all the way down into her heart and soul as she begged the woman she had considered closer than family, someone she loved so much, for a reason, an explanation for betraying her. Wounding her. Sending her into this abysmal pit of nightmarish hell.
Bayley's cruel, loud words offered Sasha no explanation or solace. "You deserve all of this! ALL OF THIS!"
She felt Bayley grab her wounded leg and snap into it again, and Sasha heard a loud 'POP' inside her knee, feeling uncomfortably warm before she shrieked in pain and grabbed it, clutched at it. Sasha was certain something had torn or snapped or something, and she knew almost immediately that whatever it was would likely end up causing her to miss time on injured reserve. Again. After all that work to come back stronger than ever last year...it was all gone now. And of all people, it was Bayley, BAYLEY, who had done this to her. Her own best friend.
But as she rolled in pain on the mat, she didn't have time to come to grips with that awful realization before Bayley slid back into the ring with a steel chair in hand and a menacing gleam in her eyes. Sasha's eyes widened and she panicked before Bayley forced her wounded left leg in between the chair, the blue-haired beauty flailing wildly to try and stop her but to no avail as Bayley kept her foot pressed hard on the chair, trapping Sasha's leg inside it.
"Say goodbye to that ACL, Sash! You always said you wanted more vacation time, right? Isn't that what you wanted?" Bayley taunted her, that awful look in her eyes again, smiling sadistically.
"NO!" a fearful Sasha shouted back, shaking her head.
"No? Too bad, Sash...because you're going on vacation anyway," Bayley sneered. "The kind you don't come back fr-OOPH!"
But Sasha was determined not to go out like this. Taking advantage of Bayley's long-winded taunting and a surge of adrenaline that shot through her, Sasha's one healthy, shapely leg shot out and caught a surprised Bayley right in the stomach, doubling her over in pain. Then shot out again, the next kick even harder and knocking Bayley away and sprawling to her knees.
Gasping in relief, Sasha kicked the chair off her wounded leg and tried to stand, only for her leg to flare wildly in pain, grounding her effectively. She couldn't fight Bayley, she knew that. She didn't have the energy after carrying the last half of the match battling Nia and Shayna mostly herself, and she couldn't even stand up. Her only hope was to try and crawl out of the ring, to get as much space between her and Bayley as possible. Live to fight another day….
POW!
And then she felt Bayley's knee come screaming out of nowhere across the side of her head, and suddenly, Sasha felt all of her senses leave her body. She lay sprawled on the mat, completely helpless, her head spinning and her vision fading in and out. The world was spinning out of control around her, and for more reasons than one. She wanted to move, to run, to something, ANYTHING, but she couldn't. Physically, her body was beginning to shut down. And mentally, any part of her that wasn't drifting in and out of consciousness was wracked in shock. Shock that of all the people who was doing this to her wasn't Shayna, or Nia, or Alexa or Charlotte or some NXT girl looking to make a name for herself...it was her best friend.
It was Bayley.
The thought of it caused a few stray tears to silently fall from her eyes, even as the rest of her body lay prone and useless.
Sasha prayed, hoped beyond hope that Bayley was done. She couldn't take any more. Her battered body was spent, her energy depleted.
But Bayley wasn't done. She walked over to Sasha and tried to drag her up, only for Sasha to collapse like so much dead weight, the Boston-born Superstar basically senseless. Through the mess of blue hair in her eyes and the wave of pain that threatened to tug her back into the undercurrent of unconsciousness, she could see the look of disgust in Bayley's eyes as she wiped the sole of her boot across Sasha's delicate cheek bone, nudging Sasha's head to the right, as if she was some door mat. The humiliation of the gesture was not lost on Sasha, who winced in pain.
Suddenly, Sasha felt a rough hand grab a fistful of her electric blue hair and drag her to her knees. She couldn't support her own body weight, but Bayley's grip on her head held her upright. And with frightening clarity, Sasha realized what was on the champion's twisted mind.
"No...Bayley...don't…" Sasha pleaded weakly, the words slurring out of her mouth.
BAM!
Sasha's head was driven down with ruthless force into the ground, the beauty from Boston eating a Rose Plant, Bayley's patented headlock driver, with full force. All the life left Sasha's body and her limbs went slack. The world went black.
Somehow, Sasha became dimly aware of her body being limply dragged along the floor, though where she didn't know. It wasn't until she felt something cold and hard pressing and wrapping against her throat that she sensed what was around her neck...a steel chair.
Bayley's voice cruelly snarled into her ears in a harsh whisper laced with bitterness and a touch of manic-laced spite. "You always did like jewelry, right, Sash? Huh? You like your bling-bling? Well, I've got a necklace special, just for you. Because I'm always thinking about you. It's the last necklace you're ever going to wear in this ring. I hope you choke on it, you stupid little bitch!"
Life briefly flaring back into her, Sasha weakly tried to push Bayley away, but Bayley batted her hands away and cruelly squeezed the blades of the chair together briefly around Sasha's throat, constricting the airflow to her windpipe. Sasha coughed weakly, then felt another wave of black wash over her eyes and she went limp again, motionless and senseless.
Somebody please...help me...Sasha wanted to say, but the words couldn't leave her head and make it to her throat. Some part of her mind absently realized that no one was coming. Why would they? Sasha had made too many enemies over the last year. She had betrayed all the allies and friends she once had in a bid to gain the respect and championship prestige that had eluded her for so long. The one person, the one friend she had on this show, in this entire stinking company...was the same woman who had spent the last five minutes beating her down until she could no longer stand.
Her eyes weakly fluttering open, Sasha could see the looks of horror and shock on the faces of the fans on the LED screens around the "ThunderDome." Something bad was happening, but she couldn't see it…but she was certain she was about to feel it. And there was nothing she could do to stop it...
CRACK!
The sound of the chair legs being pushed together by Bayley's body weight echoed around her, and the most excruciating agony Sasha had ever felt in her life erupted around her neck. Her body reflexively kicked upwards, her neck was flooded with unbearable heat instantly, leaving her body to shiver in shock.
Her hand briefly came to her now-crushed throat, but breathing became impossible. Sasha's eyes drifted shut one last time.
She surrendered to the wave of black that pulled her under and drowned her.
Darkness.
And yet more darkness.
Sasha had no idea how long she had spent here.
But she knew she hated it.
It was cold. And dark. And scary. And lonely.
So lonely.
She swam in a sea of inky black, all around her. Her body was weightless. She drifted.
Drifting aimlessly like a candle in black water, dim and fading in the dark.
"Sasha?"
That voice.
For a moment, Sasha wondered if she was hallucinating. She knew that voice. It belonged to someone she hadn't spoken to in a long time.
One of the last people she'd ever have expected to be here.
"Sasha."
Weakly, Sasha opened her eyes.
Becky Lynch.
The Man herself.
An old friend -turned foe-turned friend-turned foe again. Looking at her from above with a look of sympathy.
Sasha's eyes darted around to take notice of her surroundings. A hospital room.
She was laying prone on a bed. There were tubes in her nose, she could feel them. A heavy brace was around her neck, preventing her from turning her head. Her stylish, sultry ring gear was gone, replaced by a plain white hospital gown. There were machines beeping all around her. Whirring and beeping. Beeping and whirring. She never needed help from anyone. And now...now these machines were helping to keep her alive. Keep her stable.
And through the pain and aches of her body, Sasha felt like she wanted to die. Surely that would be better than Becky seeing her like this.
Straining, Sasha tried to speak, but found only a raspy, scratching sound coming from her mouth. She began coughing immediately, an automatic reflex as her throat was parched, dry as a desert.
And all of a sudden, she remembered it. She remembered all of it. Giving her all in that tag team title rematch. Shayna torturing her knees. Nia's girth squashing the wind out of her. And then Bayley...Bayley...her betrayal. Every blow. Every taunting word. Every flash of pain. And that evil look in her eyes as she dropped down from above and stomped on that chair that she wrapped around Sasha's throat...and the pain, the awful pain...
"Woah, woah...easy, babe, shhh," Becky said in soothing tones, placing a steady, yet gentle hand on Sasha's forehead, urging her to keep calm and cease her brief struggles. "Don't strain yerself. Ye've been out for a spell, lass. Just relax. Everything's okay now."
Sasha's breath exhaled heavily from her nostrils, blinking furiously. She felt like she was a prisoner in her own body. And she hated it. Hated all of it.
"O...kay?" Sasha blinked again. Was that scratchy, weak little voice her own? A brief flare of panic rose up in her for a moment. What if this was what her voice would always sound like now? Swallowing down that panic, she looked at Becky again. "Is...that...wh-what...this...is?"
Becky gave her a look of sympathy—Pity, a part of Sasha's mind angrily and defensively hissed—and Sasha hated that, too. Hated looking so weak, so pathetic, in front of someone who, deep down, she had the most respect for out of anyone in the women's locker room. Aside from Bayley...well, before what happened...Becky was the closest friend she had on the roster. Someone Sasha had also loved like a sister once...before last year. Before Sasha turned her back on her and everyone else for another shot at gold and glory. And she did it so gleefully. Felt perfectly justified, having grown tired of giving her heart, her soul, her passion and sweat and blood and tears in every match only for Becky to emerge out of nowhere and snatch everything that Sasha had coveted. She held the brass ring, while Sasha had continuously seen it slip from her fingers. Sasha had to make that change. She would not spend her prime years in this business being second-best. Not even for her friends.
And now, how the tables had turned, Sasha mused bitterly. Becky was glowing, healthy and pregnant—the visible small bump in her belly where her child lay nestled was showing proudly—and still popular and revered as ever even while she had taken a leave of absence. And Sasha? Was laying in this damned hospital bed, broken in body, heart, and soul.
The Legit Boss. The Blueprint. The standard of the women's division...left a bruised, crippled mess. Alone in a hospital bed. Not a single friend in the world...
"A damaged larynx. Three cracked ribs, grade-3 concussion. Severely strained ACL and torn MCL. A shit ton of contusions. And internal bleeding that they managed to cease. All things considered? Yeah, this is about as okay as it gets, sweetheart," Becky replied simply, her hand gently resting on Sasha's sweat-matted forehead.
The way she described those injuries shocked Sasha to the core. That couldn't be her body that Becky was talking about. That was somebody who had been involved in a bad car accident. That couldn't be her. It can't be. It just can't...
"How...how...long...was...I...out?" Sasha croaked weakly.
Becky's response was a sad, solemn expression. "Three days. You came in listed as critical, it took them a full day to get you back into stable condition. That damned chair to the throat...the doctors said if that assclown friend of yours Bayley had stomped a little harder or decided to come down from the top rope...you might not have been able to walk again. All in all, you dodged a little bit of a bullet." She gave the wounded Sasha a sad smile. "Well...mostly."
Sasha could barely understand it. Of all people, of all the ones that could've been here...why was it Becky?
"Why...why are...you...here?" Sasha struggled to form the words in her damaged throat. "Shouldn't you...be...in...L.A? Picking...out...nursery...colors?"
Becky frowned. And Sasha could see that the flame-haired beauty wasn't pleased with the sarcasm, no matter how weak and that response. But damn it all, Sasha couldn't help it. She couldn't let anyone see her so weak, so vulnerable. Even through all of this, even though her body felt like it had been in a car wreck...she was still Sasha Fucking Banks. Still The Boss. But are you really, though? A cruel voice in the back of her head taunted her. What kind of Boss lets her best friend stab her in the back and take her out?
Becky's mouth formed into a thin line, clearly thinking out her words and holding back her famous fiery temper. "Now, I'm going to chalk that one up to the meds they've been putting in yer IV. Because I know I didn't fly nonstop on a redeye with a bun in the oven to check on you the very second I saw what Bayley did to you just to hear your ungrateful, spoiled ass talking rude to me. Nah, that's not what's happening. It's the meds."
Sasha could only grunt softly, but winced as she did, the disks in her neck flaring in pain as they punished her for trying to move. Becky's face softened again, taking pity on her.
"No, sweetheart, just lay back. Don't hurt yourself further," Becky said softly, pressing her hand back over Sasha's forehead. "Sorry about that snap. Pregnant hormones, ya know how that goes."
That apology, that a pregnant Becky apologized to her, made Sasha feel about two inches tall. And again, she hated it. Sasha felt helpless again, and the feeling made her want to scream, made her want to cry. Why was this happening to her? God, why did you do this to me? Why?
Becky must have sensed her vulnerability. She got back on the subject. "I, uh...was watching Smackdown. Wanted to check out the title match." She gave Sasha a faint smile. "You really put on a show out there. Even on one leg, ye were giving that lummox Nia and that daft plank Shayna the business. Ye have nothing to be ashamed of, darlin', ye were amazing."
Sasha could tell that Becky meant it. Really meant it. And somehow...she hated that, too.
"Amazing?" Sasha scoffed, bitterly. Her eyes were glassy, but she willed herself not to cry. She had cried enough on that awful night. "What's...amazing about...losing? Again?"
"Okay, so you had a few bad nights," Becky shrugged. "It happens to the best of us. We just shrug it off, get back in that ring and keep—"
"Back in...the ring?"
Sasha's sudden question made Becky stop. Now Sasha could feel the tears begin to well up in her eyes. "Becky...look at me." Sasha's breathing hitched, became more erratic. "Look at me!"
Off Becky's surprised flinch, Sasha paused. Her lower lip trembled. "Look at...what...what she did to me." The tears began to fall down her cheeks. "She...she ruined me..."
Those words began to sink into Sasha's mind, and it terrified her. She hadn't even seen a doctor yet, and she could already feel that recovering from this would be difficult, maybe even impossible. And even if she could recover, would she be the same? Could she still be the same extraordinary athlete that she was known to be? Would she still be able to fly through the air, to be the graceful, agile whirlwind that took the women's division by storm? Would she still be able to be the best at a job she wanted since she had been a little girl idolizing her hero Eddie Guerrero? Was this how her career ends? "The Legit Boss" Sasha Banks, the record-setting 5-time Raw women's champion...broken and thrown to the wayside like a broken doll that nobody wanted to play with anymore?
What happened next surprised her to no end. Becky, leaning over her, lightly brushing the hair back from her forehead. Tenderly. Sweetly...lovingly. The same Becky who was always there for her at the beginning. The same Becky who was like a big sister to her. The same one who she had stabbed in the back last year, who she abandoned, who she insulted, called out, who she came to vicious blows with last year inside Hell in a Cell over a championship…
...the only one who was here for her now. At the lowest, scariest, most frightening time of her life.
"I am. I'm looking right at ye, darlin'." Becky's smile was warm. Inviting. Soothing. "Trust me...I know you. This isn't the end of you. If Bayley thinks she's finished you for good...she doesn't know the Sasha Banks I know."
Sasha felt the tears come again. Her heart moved. She didn't deserve Becky's kindness, she knew that...yet here she was. "Why...why are you...here, Bex?"
The soft, understanding smile never left Becky's face. "You're here...where else would I be?"
All traces of "The Man", the brash, hard-nosed, tough-as-nails badass with the nasty right hook were gone...and all there was was just Becky.
And off that subtle gesture, all traces of "The Legit Boss", the cocky, hustling, too-hot-to-handle stunner with the scorching body and the ice-cold roundhouse kick faded away...and all there was left was just Sasha.
Sasha and Becky. Becky and Sasha. Team B.A.E...two friends. Two sisters.
It hurt to talk, but Sasha couldn't stop the words that bubbled out of her mouth...out of her soul. "I...I...missed...you."
Now it was Becky's turn to get misty-eyed. "Yeah...I missed you, too."
Becky slowly reached out one hand, gently squeezing Sasha's soft hand in hers. The gesture, so simple, yet so loving, so kind...undid Sasha completely. She felt her walls crumble, her guard let down, and the tears flowed from her eyes like rain.
And as sobs of grief, of fear and loneliness left her, shaking her small, perfect little body, Becky wordlessly threw an arm over her, holding her in comfort.
That's what families did for each other.
Through the thick, the thin, the good, the bad.
They would always be there for one another.