Chapter Three: Taking Sides
Note: This is going to be AU (alternate universe) for the rest of the piece, so some events on WWF TV didn't happen in this fic, and I added some events so I can further the story.
(From Hunter's perspective)
I woke up this morning cheerful. That may sound strange, considering what I had done last night, but it's true.
I threw on a pair of jeans, my "I Am the Game" shirt, and hobbled downstairs. I grabbed a comb and put my dirt-blonde hair into a ponytail. I continued on to the kitchen, where I grabbed a box of cereal and chowed down. So, basically, it was a normal morning, minus my normal shower, and minus one other thing.
My wife.
Not that I cared, anyway. She got what she deserved, and I wasn't about to turn back then. There was no way I was going to defect to ECWCW, so she could stick that thought back where it came from. And it's not like she doesn't have a place to live – she always has Angle's bed. I can never be too sure, you see.
Right now, as far as I'm concerned, she can just go to hell.
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The morning passed quickly and normally. I didn't get a call from Stephanie, which I find surprising. She normally calls back the morning after we have a fight, apologizing for whatever she had done. I would have normally accepted the apology with open arms, the fool that I had been, and I would have trusted her completely.
Well, okay, the morning wasn't normal. Instead of continuing my exercise routines, I sat in front of the phone, staring at it. I was waiting, just waiting, for someone to call. I was thinking of Stephanie, of course, because as I said before it is her who normally calls me after we have had a fight. I was also thinking that someone else may call – someone like Shane, giving excuses.
No one called, though, so I had a boring morning, sitting in front of the phone. I knew she was at the Smackdown tapings, but I was really wondering why she wasn't calling. Didn't she care?
No, she didn't. Otherwise she would have never bought ECW and hurt me in the first place.
If she really cared, she wouldn't have slept with Kurt Angle.
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I ate lunch, a normal ham sandwich, in front of the phone. I made up my mind that I wasn't going to move away from the damn phone until somebody called. I didn't care who - it just had to ring, damn it.
Yes – I was starting to get angry at the phone for not ringing.
I finished my sandwich, and continued to glare at the phone.
The hours passed, and I sat on the chair, by the phone, waiting for it to ring. After a while, I found some magazines in a basket nearby. I read through them all. They weren't very interesting – I just found out a lot about the sex life of Gary Condit. Every current damn issue of every damn magazine had something about him. It made me wonder why none of the magazines had anything about me in them.
I also learned a lot about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's divorce. I found that helpful, since I would be soon be going through a messy divorce.
At around 3:00, I was just reading about the fifty most eligible bachelors and thinking that I would be in that list next year when the phone rang. I dropped the issue into the basket and picked up the phone quickly.
"Yeah?"
"Uh? Is this Hunter Hearst Helmsley?" asked a ratty little voice.
"Yeah, and who the hell are you?" I said, rolling my eyes, thinking that one of the neighborhood kids had found our number and was one of my fans.
"Uh, not important."
"If it's not important, then I'm hanging up." I said, more than a little irritated.
"My name isn't important – well, yes it is to Americans – by my call is important!" continued the voice, sounding very familiar to me. I just couldn't place a name to it.
"What in the hell are you talking about?" I asked.
"Uh, this has a point. Don't hang up!"
"Whatever." I mumbled, rolling my eyes.
"I just wanted to tell you that I saw your wife with Paul Heyman last night." The voice said, the rat-like quality of his voice nearly gone.
My normal sarcastic reply that I had in my mouth faded. ''What?" I croaked, my flashiness immediately gone.
"I, uh, happened to be, uh, going to the WCW locker room, and I saw Stephanie pressed against the door of a storage room, and Paul Heyman was – well –"
"You don't have to finish that sentence." I said quietly, my pride quickly going down the proverbial drain. He didn't.
"You do believe me?" it asked.
"I don't know why I should." I replied doubtfully. "But, I called her last night and Shane told me she was with him. I just never thought…that they did that." I swallowed throatily, reality hitting me straight in the face once again. I had assumed that she had done it with him, but I didn't have any proof. Now, I had proof from this guy, and I didn't want it.
It hurt too much.
"Trust me," the voice said softly and quietly, "because she's hurt me in the past too."
I blinked in surprise. Who could this caller be? He sounded pretty much sincere. I didn't think he was lying. "Who is this?" I asked.
(My question was met with the sound of a disconnected line. Whoever it was had hung up.
I put the phone back on the cradle, sighing. I shook my head, and kept thinking about the mysterious caller. Who would care enough about me to tell me about something my wife had done? Who would take time and do it?
Who would care, and who had been hurt by Stephanie in the past? The only logical answer I could come up with was Test, but I shot that down right away, since I had caused a great deal of his pain by marrying her in the first place.
I got off the chair, and started to pace. I was no longer thinking about the caller, but about Stephanie. I was really… in shock about her…with Heyman!
There was no guarantee she had sex with him, I reminded myself, they could have been kissing. Or maybe they were just hugging, happy that they had taken over the ECW.
That had to be it. Stephanie would never do something like that with Heyman.
Never.
I walked to the kitchen on my crutch, pleased with my explanation of things. Steph had hugged Heyman because she was happy. They hugged against a door.
I threw my plate that had contained my sandwich onto the floor in anger. People didn't hug against a door – they make out against a door! The caller was right; she was trying to hurt him.
She had succeeded in doing one thing – making me very pissed off.
I glared around at my surroundings, knowing that I couldn't do anything about anything, but wanting to make it change anyway. There was nothing I could do, except to throw things.
Which is what I did. I threw plates, glasses, forks, spatulas, hell, anything I could find. After I had cleaned out two drawers and one cabinet, I started stomping a mud-hole in each one with my good leg. Soon, however, I felt pain coming to my knee from standing and kicking for so long, so I stopped.
When I stopped, I had a great idea. I grabbed my crutch from where I had perched it against the stove, and ran as well as I could out of the house.
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I was still angry, but for a different reason.
I had a really crappy seat on the plane going to Birmingham, Alabama.
I had gotten onto the flight just before it was leaving, so there were only limited seats left. I chose the best one, which was in second class. I had to share a seat with somebody.
I tried to complain to the clerk at the desk, but all she could seem to say was, "I'm sorry, sir." We have really useful people in this country, you know?
The person who I will be sitting with isn't here yet. They must be getting a magazine or something.
Which brings me to my next point: They have really crappy magazines on airplanes.
I sighed, and sat in my seat, trying to be happy, because other people were starting to stare at me. I had only one reason to be happy, and even the reason I was going was bad: I was going to Smackdown in Alabama. And I was going to kill Paul Heyman. Maybe I'd have a little talk with Stephanie, too.
"Attention," said a man over the load speaker, "Flight 42 to Birmingham, Alabama about to take off."
"Good!" I shouted in the direction of the speaker; "I need to kill Paul Heyman!"
A few more people turned to stare at me, and I glared back at them.
I was so preoccupied with staring out the window and imagining ways to murder Heyman that I almost didn't notice a woman sit in the seat next to me. Whoever the hell she was, she wasn't very talkative. She looked out at the aisle as if it were the most interesting industrial-gray colored carpet she had ever seen.
I felt the plane starting to take off. I tore my eyes away from the window, and looked at the woman. She had short blonde hair, and was wearing a white business suit. I couldn't see her face at all, so I couldn't say hello directly to her, but I didn't really want to anyway.
She must have felt my gaze or something, because she turned around. I was taken aback with shock, and all I could do was stare at her. Finally, I slowly said, "Uh…Linda!" because, well, it was my mother-in-law!
She blinked and a little smile of amusement creeped into her face. "Hello, Hunter."
I blinked slowly, and replied, "Why are you here?"
"I'm going to Smackdown." She said.
"Oh. That's where I'm going, too." I said, nodding my head.
"What do you have to do? You're out of action." She observed, her eyes cast on my knee.
I shook my head. "I have to talk to your daughter. She did something that…I have to talk to her about."
"Buying ECW from Paul Heyman?" she asked.
"Well, that too."
"That's why I'm going. It has to do with my wonderful back stabbing children. I thought that I could finally trust Shane, that he had grown out of his father's manipulative genes. I don't know about Stephanie." She sighed, a weathered and sad look coming over her face.
"Stephanie…man, I thought I knew her and that I could trust her," I began, "then she goes and buys a company without telling me, and she expects me to defect! And then there's Paul Heyman…."
Linda hung her head, and rubbed her eyes. "I don't know what happened to them. Maybe it's their father. He's been corrupted with the power…ever since wrestling has become so popular and mainstream. He used to be such a loving father and a caring husband. Then…he inherited the WWF from his father. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, remember. That's what has happened to Shane and Stephanie. Even now, with Vince being the victim of this invasion, he's still the same – corrupt with power."
"I don't know, Linda," I replied, "but what I do know is that when I get to Smackdown, I'm going to confront her."
She didn't have a reply.
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The rest of the flight was pretty quiet, because Linda and I didn't have much else to say about anything. We don't really have that much in common - other than our agreeing about Shane and Stephanie. I'm still angry with her for making Foley the commissioner and for putting Austin in Rock's corner at last year's Backlash, which ended in me losing the championship. I think that I can safely assume that she's still angry with me for giving her the pedigree.
Oh well. At least I have her as an ally against everything I'm currently angry at.
It was about a three hour flight, and we arrived at the Birmingham airport at about 7:00. The annoying attendant guy announced that the plane had touched down, so I rose slowly from my seat, and so did Linda.
"Do you want me to call limo service to take us to the arena?" Linda asked as we started to the exit.
"No; I think that you have to make reservations ahead of when you're going to use them, and I didn't think of doing that," I said, "we'll have to take a taxi."
"I have a few dollars," Linda agreed.
We headed down the stairs together, and walked down the roadway to the airport doors. We entered, and made our way across the inside, avoiding the packs of people as we went. Near the exit, I caught sight of a few pay phones in a row. I told Linda I was going to call a taxi, and she told me she'd meet me outside. I agreed, found an extra quarter in my pocket, and then remembered that I would have to look up the number. I swore at myself, and tried to find a phone book.
I found one, and dialed the best sounding Cab Company I could find. I told them that I wanted a taxi at the Birmingham airport. They said fine and that was that.
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About twenty minutes later, I was paying the cab driver, a typical looking one, and heading into the arena with Linda.
"I'm going to find Stephanie." I said, as soon as I entered the front door of the arena.
"All right," Linda said, "I'll be going to Vince's office."
I nodded. "Listen…Linda," I began, "I know we're not the best friends or very close or anything, but we have to work together, right? I mean, well not work together, but…be allies?" I said, not sure what I was really saying.
"All right." She agreed.
"Okay." I said, and we walked into the backstage area together. She headed through a door leading right, and I watched her go. I looked around, and I realized that I had no clue where I was going. The WCW locker room could be anywhere, and I had to find out where.
I headed down the hallway going straight. I figured that, logically, the door leading to the center of the building would bring me to the locker rooms.
I soon reached a door, and I opened and closed it quietly. It was another hallway, but there were several doors branching off of it. I silently hobbled down the hallway with my crutch, careful not to make too much noise. For some reason, I didn't want anyone, be they WWF or WCW, to find me. I wanted to raise a little hell at Stephanie, and get the hell out. Maybe I would go talk to Vince later. I remembered what Linda said, but Vince is another one of my natural allies, even though Linda seems to be angry with him. But then, she's also angry with Shane and Stephanie.
I shrugged those confusing thoughts out of my head, and continued down the hallway. I looked inside each one of the doors, and saw nothing. They were empty. I reached the end of the hallway leading straight, and saw that it continued to go left. I rounded the corner, and saw a group of people standing just beyond me. They didn't look like wrestlers; they looked like some production assistants and make-up specialists.
I made my way towards them, and they just looked at me like I was some kind of ghost.
"Hey," I said as cheerfully as I could, not wanting to scare them away, "do you know where my wife would be?"
Most of them continued to look at me, but one answered, "She's in the WCW locker room with her brother. I don't know where that is, though."
I looked at her, and asked, "Just with her brother?"
"Yeah. The last I heard was that Paul Heyman was going around trying to recruit people to the ECW and WCW. The wrestlers are in the next room." She replied, more steadily this time.
"I heard that from my sources as well." Said another girl.
I frowned. "Do any of you know where the hell this place is?" I didn't want to scare them away; otherwise I would have been in their faces. They should be thankful.
"Uh, none of us are really sure, but we think it's down this corridor. You open the door on the very end, and then go to the second door on the left side. We're pretty sure that's it, because that's where they were celebrating last night." Another man volunteered.
I nodded vaguely. "Okay, thanks."
I headed down to the end of the hallway, letting my anger build up. I thought about Heyman, ways to maim him, about Shane, about Stephanie, and about how it sucked that I had to hobble around on a crutch yet. The doc had told me that when I was walking long distances, I should still use it. Since I want to get in the ring as soon as possible, I follow his advice, even if it makes no sense that I can work out and that I still have to use a crutch.
By the time I was finished thinking my angry thoughts, I was in the hallway where the door to the WCW locker room was. I left the door open behind me, and turned around to look at the hallway.
I immediately saw the second door on the left side, and headed there. I didn't get too far when I heard a voice from behind me.
"Ah, Triple H."
I turned around, and saw Paul Heyman standing in the door frame. He quickly stepped up to beside where I was standing, and said sleazily, "So, are you interested in joining ECW? Because if you are, I have some very interesting deals for you to consider."
I looked down at him, and gave him my very worst glare, which made normal peoples' toes curl. Heyman just smirked back at me.
I shook my head, and grinned, a murderous grin, and continued to look at him.
"What do you say?" he asked boldly.
"I say that you're lucky that I'm injured. Because if I weren't, I'd be kicking your ass right now." I snapped, and turned to face him.
"You're the kind of attitude we need," he continued, as if he hadn't heard me.
I grabbed him by the neck with my hand, letting my crutch fall to the floor. "I said that I'd kick your ass, and I will." I said, trying to ignore my nagging injury.
He was gasping for air, and said, in a barely audible whisper, "What? What did I do?"
I let go of his neck, and shoved him into a wall. "Oh, you know what." I growled, and I picked up my crutch. Instead of using it to stand, I cracked Heyman over the head with it. I heard a heart-stopping thump as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
"Good, that'll take care of him for awhile." I grumbled, and walked to the second door on the left. I peered through the tiny window on top of the door, and I saw a few cushioned chairs, and Stephanie and Shane were sitting in them. Shane appeared to going on and on about something, and Stephanie was staring blankly at the floor, a faraway look in her eyes.
I reached for the door handle, and burst the door open.
"…And then mom will…." I heard Shane say, and he quickly looked at the door where I was standing. He quickly got to his feet.
I saw Stephanie's mouth drop open.
"Hunter! What a surprise!" Shane said, a fake grin on his face and fake enthusiasm in his voice.
"Cut the crap, Shane." I said to him. His bright smile faded, and he pretended to look very interested at the carpet.
Stephanie slowly rose, and looked me straight in the eye, her mouth still slightly open.
"So, you were with Paul Heyman last night?" I asked, my voice eerily calm.
"I thought that Shane told you that I was…in a meeting with him." Stephanie said shakily.
"Yeah, but I can't take information seriously from that piece of crap." I replied, the anger in my voice slowly rising. I saw Shane look up, give me a little glare, and then look back down again.
"Well, you already accused me of 'fucking' him, in those exact words, if I do recall." Stephanie said, her tone a little angry.
"Well, now I know that you were at least in a room kissing him last night." I said, the anger in my voice now to a full level.
She threw up her hands. "Who told you that?" She shrieked both the anger and terror in her voice evident.
"So, it's true? You admit it?" I yelled back.
"Who told you?" she repeated.
"So you're admitting it's true?"
"No, I'm asking who told you!"
"Why would you care who told me if it weren't true?"
She threw her ECW hat to the floor, and said, "All right? You want the truth? I was with him last night. We didn't do anything."
I merely shook my head. "Then why do you care who told me?"
"Maybe she wants to know so there's no information leaking about the ECW. If a WWF spy eavesdropped on her business meeting with Paul, I'm sure she'd want to know who told you," said Shane, stepping up by Stephanie's side. Stephanie nodded in agreement; her mouth set in a determined line.
"Shut up, Shane." I snapped. "Stephanie…I don't know why I even came here. Your lies are just making me angrier. I'm going to see Vince."
I went back outside the door, leaving Shane and Stephanie to stare at my wake.
I stopped when I was just outside, and saw Heyman groaning, barely conscious. "Oh, yeah. Your 'business partner' is out here, and he may have a bit of a headache."
I slammed their door closed behind me, and I went to find Vince's office.
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It didn't take me very long to find Vince's office, and as soon as I knocked, Kurt Angle let me in almost right away. I gave him an angry glare as I hobbled past. He merely gave me a nervous look.
I walked in, and saw Vince talking frantically on the phone with somebody. He looked at me, and quickly hung up.
"Hunter," said Vince, "hello. I saw the argument you and Stephanie had before and –"
"You saw it?" I asked. "How?"
He looked at me like I was a little crazy. "Of course. They have cameras in there."
I sighed.
"And, I was wondering, you seem a little angry at ECW and Stephanie. I'm not sure why, exactly, but we certainly need all the help for Team WWF that we can get." Vince continued.
His statement made me think of something. "Hey, Vince…has Linda talked to you tonight?"
He gave me another weird look. "Linda? You mean, my wife Linda?"
"Yeah."
His face worked up into one of his world famous 'clueless' looks. "Uh…no. Has she talked to you about our divorce…settlement?"
"Uh, no, never mind." I said quickly. I wondered why Linda would lie, and say she was going to see Vince, when she really didn't. It made me wonder what she was really doing here….
"All right," he said, his face again cheerful, "then, what I've been meaning to ask is, are you on our side, or are you on Stephanie's?"
My immediate reaction was to say yes, but I thought of what Linda had told me about Vince: "Even now, with Vince being the victim of this invasion, he's still the same – corrupt with power." I decided that Stephanie betraying my trust was more important than that, and I replied, "Of course, Vince. I'm with the WWF all the way."
He grinned, and ushered me to the sofa. I sat. "Well, Triple H, World Wrestling Federation Superstar, sit here and watch the rest of Smackdown. I'd stay here with you, but I have to go and find Austin – I need the old Austin. Kurt here can keep you company."
Kurt grinned a little. I wasn't happy about having to sit with him, but I could survive. "All right." I agreed.
"I'm off then." Vince said, and gave me the thumbs up as he left the room.
Kurt came, sat on the couch, and watched the monitor intently. It dawned on me, that it was official now – I have officially taken sides.