Always - Interlude One

Interlude One

Many years into the future…

I can feel him. Another Immortal. But he doesn't concern me. It's Connor. He knows how much this day affects me, and he came to her resting place, for me. Just like he's done the past thirty-five years. The first year it had been to watch my back. I had been in no state to defend myself had someone attacked me. But I hadn't cared. I had wanted to die. The second year, and every year afterwards, it had been to keep me company. Connor has learnt how large a part she will always play in my life, for as long as I live.

'Hello, Chris,' he greets me in his strange, unidentifiable accent.

'Connor.' I watch as he bends down to place a beautiful bouquet of white roses against the headstone. He straightens up, and for a long time we just stand in the serene peacefulness.

'It won't stop hurting.' I finally break the silence. 'I want it to stop, but at the same time I don't.'

'It will hurt for a very long time,' Conner tells me quietly. I know he's thinking of his first wife, Heather. 'You don't want it to go away because you fear you'll forget, but you never will.' He places a hand over his heart. 'If they're in here, they're always with you.'

I had to smile, but it was only small. 'You should become a sappy, romance writer.'

He also smiles, nodding slightly. 'I could.'

Again, the silence. I can't take my eyes away from her name, deeply engraved on the granite.

Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley.

The hyphenated last name no longer makes me bitter. Hunter had made her happy. For that I will always be grateful. My eyes shift to the plot beside hers.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley.

I don't dislike the man anymore. I know how much he had loved Stephanie as well. Possibly as much as I do. The week after she had passed away, Hunter had become depressed and alienated from everyone. In my grief I had managed to find words of some comfort for the man I had always viewed as my biggest rival. He still had their child. Her child. I had nothing.

'She's coming,' Conner warns me.

She. Caitlyn. Stephanie's daughter.

I linger a few minutes longer, and with some effort I finally turn away and walk in the opposite direction of the cemetery entrance. Because of her background, of her not knowing of my Immortal status, and, most importantly, my history with her parents, I can't let her see me.

'I remember the first time she ever told me she loved me,' I start as we walk away for another year. Although Connor has heard the story, and a thousand others, many times before, he keeps silent.

'It was on a Monday, right after RAW…'