Chapter 5
"Where are you going, Chris?" Stephanie asked. He looked up, surprised she was up. She was pretty much in and out of awareness the whole day. He smiled half-heartedly, knowing he would have to lie.
"Oh, just on an errand. Christian's gonna watch you, OK?" she smiled and nodded. Poor naive girl. If only she knew Chris was walking out to face Hunter in an alleyway. If she only knew Lita had been captured.
But she didn't know.
And Chris wasn't going to tell her. But he did have to tell her one thing..
"Hey Steph?"
"Hm?"
"Steph..I just want you to know..well, I'm really glad you're OK. I've never been worried about anyone in my entire life. I don't think I should go into the protection agency any more, because I keep losing sleep." he said, watching her. She smiled, lightly.
"I'm sorry I worried you." she said, softly.
"Don't be. I don't know, it felt..good to worry about someone else besides myself. I'm usually alone so that's all I think about. It makes me feel..better. More like I actually do care about other people unlike what everyone says, because all I know was that every thought I had last night was about you, and if you were OK."
"Do you really mean that?"
"Yeah, I do."
Christian suddenly walked in, and Chris felt like cursing him for coming at such a time where he was so close to telling her..so close..
"Hey man."
"Thanks for coming." Chris said calmly, nodding in return.
"No problem. I'll make sure she's taken care of." he promised. "Good luck out there, today."
"Good luck?" Stephanie asked, confused. Christian made a 'oops' face when he realized Chris didn't tell her.
"Yeah, good luck finding the..item Chris is out to get." he covered quickly, and Chris gave him a secret grin.
"Yeah. I'll see you later, Steph."
"Bye." Chris hesitated, then turned and walked out of the room.
***
"So what's Chris looking for?"
"Umm..heh, good..question. He's looking for.." Christian looked all around the room, then spotted Stephanie's necklace. "A special necklace. For his mom."
"That's sweet." she smiled. Christian grinned proudly.
"Hey Christian!" Edge swaggered in, grinning. "Did Chris get his ass kicked yet?" Stephanie blinked while Christian shook his head. Edge looked at Stephanie.
"Er..whoops."
"You two have explaining to do and you're going to do it right now." she said, sitting up.
"Well you see, Steph, Chris went downstairs to the alley and he's going to fight Hunter to get er..Lita back.."
"WHAT?!"
"Chris didn't want to upset you so he did--"
"I'm going after him--"
"You can't!" Christian protested as Stephanie grabbed her crutches and began to limp out.
"Watch me." Stephanie turned around to see Christian advancing. "You're my friend and all, but take one step closer and this crutch is going to be embedded in your head." He hesitated. "That's what I thought." She made her way out and neither men were going to try her because she had a very bad weapon and they didn't.
She didn't get far.
***
"Hunter? Hunter, where the fuck are you?" Chris cried out, pushing some trash cans out of the way.
"You came, wow, I didn't think you had the balls." Chris squinted, seeing the faint outline of Hunter.
"Where's Lita?"
"Lita? Lita who?" he paused. "Oh, this one?" he emerged from the shadows, his arm around Lita's throat, a knife in his hand. "This trashbag hoe's life means nothing to me." he grinned evilly, throwing her battered but alive body down, along with the knife that barely missed peircing her. "If you didn't get involved, she wouldn't be like that."
Chris tried hard not to attack him right there. Kill him. He had to stay cool about this.
"Oh man, you're going to fucking pay for all the pain you caused her..you caused Steph.." he glared at him as Hunter smiled.
"Steph, ah yes, how is the little princess? I sure hope X-Pac and Dogg don't hurt her that much." Chris's eyes widened. "You're so stupid and gullible, Jericho. Even I would have known this was a trap. And now you have a choice..save her.." he motioned to Lita. "Or save Stephanie. Either way, one of the bitches are going to die."
And at that point, Lita came to life, grabbing the knife and plunging it into Hunter's leg. Chris silently thanked god and quickly speared Hunter, punching him hard until he was out, his blood spilling out onto the ground. He was still alive, and Chris wasn't going to kill him, because that would be wrong even after what Hunter did.
Chris quickly ran to Lita and helped her up. She could barely stand.
"Get on my back." he said.
"Chris.."
"Hurry up!" Lita sighed, getting on, and Chris quickly got out the alleyway, giving Lita a piggy-back ride.
***
"Oh shit.."
"Ha ha, nice to see you again too Steph. May I just say that kick to my gentials hurt, and because of this, I'm going to make sure what I'm about to do hurt even more." X-Pac grinned, Edge and Christian tried to help her but found themselves getting an eye full of pepper spray. They fell to the ground. Great help they were.
Stephanie backed away, gulping as the two men advanced. Not good. Not good at all.
"HIII--YAAHH!" suddenly Road Dogg, who was behind X, crumpled to the ground. In back of him stood Matt, a broomstick in his hand. X-Pac smirked, unafraid.
"Psh, too afraid to fight hand to hand punk?" Matt dropped the stick, which was a big mistake when X pulled out the spray and got him too. Matt fell to the ground, wincing in pain.
X just turned around and kept advancing. Someone suddenly tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to find a fist flying at him. It crashed into his face. He staggered back but stood his ground. Jeff stood there, smirking. X took out the pepper spray but found it knocked out of his hands by a kick from Jeff.
"I might not be a black belt but atleast I know how to fight fair." he said. "Come on, bring it on." They went at it like wolves.
Jeff kept punching as hard as he could, damaging X's face badly as it smashed into it. But X-Pac, never the one to give up easily, quickly kicked him off and procedded to punch back with ease, his quickness too amazing for Jeff to keep up with.
In the end Jeff was lying there, bloodied. He was alive, but he wasn't concious. And X-Pac finally reached her. He leaned her against the railing of the balcony, smiling evilly.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't throw you down right now you little bitch." She took as deep a breath as possible and spit in his face.
"I fucking dare you to kill me. You can join your buddies in hell when Chris gets to you."
X-Pac growled, already pushing her off more. Chris suddenly struck, pulling X-Pac off her. But the sudden attack made X-Pac push her once more, and she flew off the balcony.
"NO!" Chris cried out, seeing her flip over it. He had no time to react to her falling before X-Pac came charging at him. He stepped aside and for once X's speed failed him as he flew over the balcony guards and fell to his doom.
***
Chris quickly ran to the place Stephanie fell and saw nothing. It was too dark, but no one could have survived it. Chris sank downs, feeling tears splash down his face to the ground.
"No.." he whispered. He felt an arm on his shoulder and saw Lita standing there, concerned.
"I'm so sorry Chris..this is all my fault..if I hadn't..if you hadn't..she would have been able to.." she couldn't even finish her sentance. "Dogg is gone. He ran off."
"I never got to tell her I loved her, Lita..she never knew.." he stood up, only to be hugged by Lita.
"She knew, us girls know these things." she smiled. He mustered up a small smile back, but it was replaced by more tears.
A knock at the door sounded and Chris walked over, trying no to cry any longer. He had to report this all to the police soon, hell, it could have been them now. He opened it to see Rikishi.
"This yours?" he grumbled. Chris almost fainted as he saw Stephanie lying, alive, in his arms. "I found her hanging onto my balcony. Thought you might want her back. She kinda fainted or something though." he handed her over and walked away, still annoyed.
If Chris wasn't holding her, he would have fainted right then and there. He put her on a bed and shook her lightly. She twitched. He shook her again. She yawned, slowly opening her eyes. At that moment Lita smiled, sneaking out, Dragging both Matt and Jeff along with her, because they were now alive enough to move. Edge and Christian had already retreated to safer grounds.
"Is it morning already?" she mumbled, grinning. Chris gave her the hugest hug imaginable. "Oww! Oww! Chris, watch the foot, watch the ribs!" she groaned.
"You're alive! I can't believe you're alive! I thought I lost you.."
"Well you're going to lose me if you keep hurting my ribs." she said.
"But how did you..?"
"Simply gripped the nearest thing around. I'm lucky Rikishi's so big. He just picked me up and I fainted from shock. Heh, pretty cool, huh? I guess X-Pac's gone. I saw him fall. He wasn't so lucky."
"Don't you ever freak me out like that again young lady." he said, suddenly stern. "God, I come in, go after X, and I see you fall. I almost had a heart attack." She studied his face and noticed tear stains. she followed one of the trails with a finger.
"You've been crying."
"Yeah."
"Why? Over me?"
"I think so, as weird as that sound." he paused. "What's weirder is that it doesn't sound weird to me at all."
"You make no sense sometimes." she giggled. He shrugged, smiling.
"It's worked for years, I ain't gonna stop now." he replied.
"I can tell." she smiled. Chris realized how close he was and quickly scooted over, a bit embarrassed. Stephanie blinked, easily sitting beside him.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "You never voice your feelings, Chris. It's like you alienate everyone sometimes."
"I'm just thinking." he said, shifting uncomfortably.
"About what?" she pressed. He paused. God, why couldn't he just blurt it out?
"Well, if I tell you, you've got to promise not to say anything until I finish, alright?" he asked, carefully. She nodded. "OK, uh..god, how do I begin? Steph, when I helped you the first time, I was angry with myself. I didn't want you around, especially after what you did to me. After you made that huge speech I still didn't trust you, but I just knew I had to atleast help you out, because that's how I was raised. When I saw the car coming at you, I can't not admit I thought about letting you get hit by it, but when I saw you I just..couldn't." he sighed. This was such a long speech for three words.
"I have no idea when I started warming up to you, but I know I did. It was especially so when I saw you in that dress. I was stunned. I guess it was because I just never looked at you in any way besides the fact that you were some hated enemy. But the real turning point of this whole speech was when you were taken, and I just saw you and I knew I couldn't do a thing. That was the exact moment..I just knew. I knew I had something for you, because all I thought of was your safety. Nothing else. I didn't care if he stabbed me, all I knew was that if he stabbed you I wouldn't have been able to live with myself. That whole night, like I said, I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to even think about what Hunter could do to you. So what I'm basically really trying to say.."
"You love me?" she questioned. He smirked. "Sorry, but the speech was getting a bit too long, hun. I got your point 5 minutes ago."
"I wanted to..approach it right." he said, a bit embarrassed to say the least.
"Well, Chris, I always figured you for a jerk but, as crazy as it is, you somehow made yourself attractive enough for me to like you." she teased, kissing him on the cheek. He looked utterly shocked. "Don't be so shocked."
"Guess I don't have too much self-esteem."
"You? Why am I doubting this?" she giggled. He pulled her into a bear hug and she laughed, her ribs not hurting so much as before.
"Uncle! Uncle!" she giggled and he let her go.
"Gees, just gotta use me and my heart.." he said, feigning hurt. "I'm surprised at you Stephy." She kissed him then, on the lips, their real first kiss.
"Am I using you any more?"
"Ask me when my heart starts beating again..." he said, a bit dazed.
And in the back of her head, she heard Nat telling her how the ones who fight the most cared about each other the most. And she smiled, finally understanding what he meant.
"Where are you going, Chris?" Stephanie asked. He looked up, surprised she was up. She was pretty much in and out of awareness the whole day. He smiled half-heartedly, knowing he would have to lie.
"Oh, just on an errand. Christian's gonna watch you, OK?" she smiled and nodded. Poor naive girl. If only she knew Chris was walking out to face Hunter in an alleyway. If she only knew Lita had been captured.
But she didn't know.
And Chris wasn't going to tell her. But he did have to tell her one thing..
"Hey Steph?"
"Hm?"
"Steph..I just want you to know..well, I'm really glad you're OK. I've never been worried about anyone in my entire life. I don't think I should go into the protection agency any more, because I keep losing sleep." he said, watching her. She smiled, lightly.
"I'm sorry I worried you." she said, softly.
"Don't be. I don't know, it felt..good to worry about someone else besides myself. I'm usually alone so that's all I think about. It makes me feel..better. More like I actually do care about other people unlike what everyone says, because all I know was that every thought I had last night was about you, and if you were OK."
"Do you really mean that?"
"Yeah, I do."
Christian suddenly walked in, and Chris felt like cursing him for coming at such a time where he was so close to telling her..so close..
"Hey man."
"Thanks for coming." Chris said calmly, nodding in return.
"No problem. I'll make sure she's taken care of." he promised. "Good luck out there, today."
"Good luck?" Stephanie asked, confused. Christian made a 'oops' face when he realized Chris didn't tell her.
"Yeah, good luck finding the..item Chris is out to get." he covered quickly, and Chris gave him a secret grin.
"Yeah. I'll see you later, Steph."
"Bye." Chris hesitated, then turned and walked out of the room.
***
"So what's Chris looking for?"
"Umm..heh, good..question. He's looking for.." Christian looked all around the room, then spotted Stephanie's necklace. "A special necklace. For his mom."
"That's sweet." she smiled. Christian grinned proudly.
"Hey Christian!" Edge swaggered in, grinning. "Did Chris get his ass kicked yet?" Stephanie blinked while Christian shook his head. Edge looked at Stephanie.
"Er..whoops."
"You two have explaining to do and you're going to do it right now." she said, sitting up.
"Well you see, Steph, Chris went downstairs to the alley and he's going to fight Hunter to get er..Lita back.."
"WHAT?!"
"Chris didn't want to upset you so he did--"
"I'm going after him--"
"You can't!" Christian protested as Stephanie grabbed her crutches and began to limp out.
"Watch me." Stephanie turned around to see Christian advancing. "You're my friend and all, but take one step closer and this crutch is going to be embedded in your head." He hesitated. "That's what I thought." She made her way out and neither men were going to try her because she had a very bad weapon and they didn't.
She didn't get far.
***
"Hunter? Hunter, where the fuck are you?" Chris cried out, pushing some trash cans out of the way.
"You came, wow, I didn't think you had the balls." Chris squinted, seeing the faint outline of Hunter.
"Where's Lita?"
"Lita? Lita who?" he paused. "Oh, this one?" he emerged from the shadows, his arm around Lita's throat, a knife in his hand. "This trashbag hoe's life means nothing to me." he grinned evilly, throwing her battered but alive body down, along with the knife that barely missed peircing her. "If you didn't get involved, she wouldn't be like that."
Chris tried hard not to attack him right there. Kill him. He had to stay cool about this.
"Oh man, you're going to fucking pay for all the pain you caused her..you caused Steph.." he glared at him as Hunter smiled.
"Steph, ah yes, how is the little princess? I sure hope X-Pac and Dogg don't hurt her that much." Chris's eyes widened. "You're so stupid and gullible, Jericho. Even I would have known this was a trap. And now you have a choice..save her.." he motioned to Lita. "Or save Stephanie. Either way, one of the bitches are going to die."
And at that point, Lita came to life, grabbing the knife and plunging it into Hunter's leg. Chris silently thanked god and quickly speared Hunter, punching him hard until he was out, his blood spilling out onto the ground. He was still alive, and Chris wasn't going to kill him, because that would be wrong even after what Hunter did.
Chris quickly ran to Lita and helped her up. She could barely stand.
"Get on my back." he said.
"Chris.."
"Hurry up!" Lita sighed, getting on, and Chris quickly got out the alleyway, giving Lita a piggy-back ride.
***
"Oh shit.."
"Ha ha, nice to see you again too Steph. May I just say that kick to my gentials hurt, and because of this, I'm going to make sure what I'm about to do hurt even more." X-Pac grinned, Edge and Christian tried to help her but found themselves getting an eye full of pepper spray. They fell to the ground. Great help they were.
Stephanie backed away, gulping as the two men advanced. Not good. Not good at all.
"HIII--YAAHH!" suddenly Road Dogg, who was behind X, crumpled to the ground. In back of him stood Matt, a broomstick in his hand. X-Pac smirked, unafraid.
"Psh, too afraid to fight hand to hand punk?" Matt dropped the stick, which was a big mistake when X pulled out the spray and got him too. Matt fell to the ground, wincing in pain.
X just turned around and kept advancing. Someone suddenly tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to find a fist flying at him. It crashed into his face. He staggered back but stood his ground. Jeff stood there, smirking. X took out the pepper spray but found it knocked out of his hands by a kick from Jeff.
"I might not be a black belt but atleast I know how to fight fair." he said. "Come on, bring it on." They went at it like wolves.
Jeff kept punching as hard as he could, damaging X's face badly as it smashed into it. But X-Pac, never the one to give up easily, quickly kicked him off and procedded to punch back with ease, his quickness too amazing for Jeff to keep up with.
In the end Jeff was lying there, bloodied. He was alive, but he wasn't concious. And X-Pac finally reached her. He leaned her against the railing of the balcony, smiling evilly.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't throw you down right now you little bitch." She took as deep a breath as possible and spit in his face.
"I fucking dare you to kill me. You can join your buddies in hell when Chris gets to you."
X-Pac growled, already pushing her off more. Chris suddenly struck, pulling X-Pac off her. But the sudden attack made X-Pac push her once more, and she flew off the balcony.
"NO!" Chris cried out, seeing her flip over it. He had no time to react to her falling before X-Pac came charging at him. He stepped aside and for once X's speed failed him as he flew over the balcony guards and fell to his doom.
***
Chris quickly ran to the place Stephanie fell and saw nothing. It was too dark, but no one could have survived it. Chris sank downs, feeling tears splash down his face to the ground.
"No.." he whispered. He felt an arm on his shoulder and saw Lita standing there, concerned.
"I'm so sorry Chris..this is all my fault..if I hadn't..if you hadn't..she would have been able to.." she couldn't even finish her sentance. "Dogg is gone. He ran off."
"I never got to tell her I loved her, Lita..she never knew.." he stood up, only to be hugged by Lita.
"She knew, us girls know these things." she smiled. He mustered up a small smile back, but it was replaced by more tears.
A knock at the door sounded and Chris walked over, trying no to cry any longer. He had to report this all to the police soon, hell, it could have been them now. He opened it to see Rikishi.
"This yours?" he grumbled. Chris almost fainted as he saw Stephanie lying, alive, in his arms. "I found her hanging onto my balcony. Thought you might want her back. She kinda fainted or something though." he handed her over and walked away, still annoyed.
If Chris wasn't holding her, he would have fainted right then and there. He put her on a bed and shook her lightly. She twitched. He shook her again. She yawned, slowly opening her eyes. At that moment Lita smiled, sneaking out, Dragging both Matt and Jeff along with her, because they were now alive enough to move. Edge and Christian had already retreated to safer grounds.
"Is it morning already?" she mumbled, grinning. Chris gave her the hugest hug imaginable. "Oww! Oww! Chris, watch the foot, watch the ribs!" she groaned.
"You're alive! I can't believe you're alive! I thought I lost you.."
"Well you're going to lose me if you keep hurting my ribs." she said.
"But how did you..?"
"Simply gripped the nearest thing around. I'm lucky Rikishi's so big. He just picked me up and I fainted from shock. Heh, pretty cool, huh? I guess X-Pac's gone. I saw him fall. He wasn't so lucky."
"Don't you ever freak me out like that again young lady." he said, suddenly stern. "God, I come in, go after X, and I see you fall. I almost had a heart attack." She studied his face and noticed tear stains. she followed one of the trails with a finger.
"You've been crying."
"Yeah."
"Why? Over me?"
"I think so, as weird as that sound." he paused. "What's weirder is that it doesn't sound weird to me at all."
"You make no sense sometimes." she giggled. He shrugged, smiling.
"It's worked for years, I ain't gonna stop now." he replied.
"I can tell." she smiled. Chris realized how close he was and quickly scooted over, a bit embarrassed. Stephanie blinked, easily sitting beside him.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "You never voice your feelings, Chris. It's like you alienate everyone sometimes."
"I'm just thinking." he said, shifting uncomfortably.
"About what?" she pressed. He paused. God, why couldn't he just blurt it out?
"Well, if I tell you, you've got to promise not to say anything until I finish, alright?" he asked, carefully. She nodded. "OK, uh..god, how do I begin? Steph, when I helped you the first time, I was angry with myself. I didn't want you around, especially after what you did to me. After you made that huge speech I still didn't trust you, but I just knew I had to atleast help you out, because that's how I was raised. When I saw the car coming at you, I can't not admit I thought about letting you get hit by it, but when I saw you I just..couldn't." he sighed. This was such a long speech for three words.
"I have no idea when I started warming up to you, but I know I did. It was especially so when I saw you in that dress. I was stunned. I guess it was because I just never looked at you in any way besides the fact that you were some hated enemy. But the real turning point of this whole speech was when you were taken, and I just saw you and I knew I couldn't do a thing. That was the exact moment..I just knew. I knew I had something for you, because all I thought of was your safety. Nothing else. I didn't care if he stabbed me, all I knew was that if he stabbed you I wouldn't have been able to live with myself. That whole night, like I said, I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to even think about what Hunter could do to you. So what I'm basically really trying to say.."
"You love me?" she questioned. He smirked. "Sorry, but the speech was getting a bit too long, hun. I got your point 5 minutes ago."
"I wanted to..approach it right." he said, a bit embarrassed to say the least.
"Well, Chris, I always figured you for a jerk but, as crazy as it is, you somehow made yourself attractive enough for me to like you." she teased, kissing him on the cheek. He looked utterly shocked. "Don't be so shocked."
"Guess I don't have too much self-esteem."
"You? Why am I doubting this?" she giggled. He pulled her into a bear hug and she laughed, her ribs not hurting so much as before.
"Uncle! Uncle!" she giggled and he let her go.
"Gees, just gotta use me and my heart.." he said, feigning hurt. "I'm surprised at you Stephy." She kissed him then, on the lips, their real first kiss.
"Am I using you any more?"
"Ask me when my heart starts beating again..." he said, a bit dazed.
And in the back of her head, she heard Nat telling her how the ones who fight the most cared about each other the most. And she smiled, finally understanding what he meant.