Summary: Not everything is about Hunter. Even when it is.

Between The Lines 1/1 (A Christmas Fic, sort of)


He lit the long tapered candle, not noticing he was humming softly. He looked down at the table with satisfaction. Red tablecloth, green tapered candlesticks, gorgeous china just waiting for the meal he'd had the chef he'd hired especially for this occasion create in the kitchen.

Yes, this would all do rather nicely…nice, impressive…but not ostentatious.

Ostentatious would never work with this particular woman anyway.

But class would.

And God knew, he had more class in his little finger than did the rest of his entire payroll.

Still humming to himself he sauntered into the kitchen, gazing over the meal. Everything looked perfect…and everything was done. The table was set, the dinner was ready….and he looked damn good, even if he did say so himself.

All he was missing was…

The doorbell rung.

Ahhh. Yes.

He walked over to the speaker panel and listened to the doorman's crisp voice, announcing his guest.

"Miss McMahon to see you, sir."

"Thank you, Rob. Send her up." He ordered. Taking a moment to pause in front of the mirror in the hallway he was startled to see his hand shaking ever so slightly as he smoothed his shirt. He shook his head. He wasn't nervous. How ridiculous would that be, to be nervous about this? Nothing to be apprehensive about, nothing at all. It was just dinner. Christmas dinner. With….well, he couldn't call her a friend. Or a colleague for that matter. What exactly was she to him? He wondered suddenly.

Rap on the door.

No time to answer that question now. Maybe he'd find the answer tonight. With one last glance at the mirror, he walked to the door and slid it open smoothly.

"Stephanie." He greeted, gratified his voice wasn't acting up like his hands seemed to be. She inhaled delicately, held out a bottle of champagne.

"Eric." She greeted softly.

"I'm sorry, please, come in." He moved back a bit. "Let me get your coat."

"I—uh—thanks." She helped him by shrugging out of her coat and handed it to him. She kept her purse with her.

"It smells nice." Stephanie commented, as she shifted her feet.

"Yeah. Yeah, thanks. So, you brought champagne? You didn't have to, I have white wine chilling."

"Oh. Well, that's okay. I just wanted to bring something. I mean, you invited me for dinner. I—didn't want to be impolite."

He smirked at this. "Impolite." He murmured. "No, not you." His eyes moved to hers and caught the laughter in her blue orbs. He quickly looked away and headed for the kitchen.

Bewildered, Stephanie followed, looking the entire time at the home of her archrival Raw manager.

It wasn't at all what she had expected. It was….what was the word she was looking for? She wracked her brain and its $200,000 worth of college education.

…Homey. Comfortable.

Oddly enough, those were the only two words she could come up with appropriate to describe Eric Bischoff's home. Not at all what she was expecting, that was for sure. She looked at the knickknacks on his fireplace mantle. She brushed her palms against her skirt self-consciously.

"Making yourself at home?" His voice just behind her startled her.

"Oh…yes. Your apartment is very nice." She cringed. She had used the word 'nice' to describe something twice in the past two minutes. She needed a new adjective.

"Thank you. Here you go." He handed her a glass of wine.

"Thanks." She turned her back to him again, staring at the fire. "To tell you truth I wasn't sure I was going to come tonight." She said hastily.

"Oh?" He asked, ignoring the slight tightening of his fingers on his glass.

"Yes. I—my brother, he wanted me to go to dinner with my family."

"I'm sorry, you had said you didn't have any plans…"

"No! That's…that's not what I meant."

"What did you mean, Stephanie?" he asked casually, the complete opposite of what he felt inside.

"I just meant…well, my having dinner with my family…it just wasn't an option this year. It'd just be awkward. All we do is fight. And I know they'd just spend the whole night trashing—" She cut off abruptly.

He waited, hoping she'd continue. When she stayed silent, he prompted helpfully. "Trashing….?"

"Huh? Oh. Trashing….I—can we just eat, Eric?" She asked, her face flushing.

"Why did you come here tonight? Why did you accept my invitation?" He asked her quietly.

"I don't—I don't know."

"Of course you know. Why…if you could be with your family, if you had that option open to you, would you have Christmas dinner with a man you supposedly revile?"

"You know what? I don't know. I think…I think it would be best if I simply left. This was a bad idea. I shouldn't have come." She muttered, draining the last of her glass. Turning to leave, she was startled when Eric grabbed her arm.

"I asked you here tonight so we could talk." He said hurriedly. He sat down on the large sofa and pulled her down with him.

"Tonight's not a good time…it's Christmas. We don't exactly get along and...I don't even know why I said yes." She confessed awkwardly.

"But you did. You said yes when I asked you, and we may not 'get along'…but you've felt something between us, just like I have been….and that's why you're here, Stephanie." So quickly she didn't have time to register the movement, Eric moved in and began to kiss her. She, much to her own astonishment, found herself kissing him back with a fierceness that she hadn't felt since…

No! Not thinking about him, not tonight! She knew she startled Eric when she began running her hand down his arm lightly and broke their kiss. She started to caress his cheek with her right hand, smiling at him and he licked his lips and smiled back as he began to kiss her chin, her throat…Stephanie relaxed slightly into the feel of Eric's lips on her, decided to just let this happen. He smelled so good, and it had been so long since she'd felt anything like this….

The phone rang in the kitchen and they broke off abruptly.

"You—you should get that." She whispered. He wasn't going to leave, she saw. "It's okay. I'll—I'll still be here. Promise." He looked down at her for a moment and grinned, climbing off of the sofa. He padded over to the kitchen.

Stephanie decided to freshen up a bit, so she fumbled with her purse, looking for a pack of tic tacs. She frowned as she pulled a small beautifully wrapped package of gold and green. What the…someone had been in her purse, had put this in there! She snuck a quick glance toward the kitchen and saw Eric was still occupied on the phone, talking animatedly. She tore open the wrapping as quietly as she could and stared at the small book bound in forest green leather. Her fingers trembling she opened the small volume…it was a book of her favorite poetry, all in Latin…but there was only one person who knew of that particular little facet of her life….she numbly dropped the book and just as quickly pulled it off the floor, her eyes devouring the words on the page…there was an inscription on the first page, written in a silvery scrawl:

My Stephanie,

When you and I our love shall part
Shall leave a blot in both our hearts
I to a silent grave shall go, and
Sleep my last as others do.
All this, my love I want to say, but
Night doth call, and I obey.
With medication read these lines;
You will in them a question find.
Sweet is the question, mind it well;
Heart to heart, so fare thee well.

Always.

The inscription was of course unsigned. She realized her eyes were blinking furiously…was she crying? No, of course not. Angrily, she wiped the tear from her cheek and shoved the volume back in her purse. She tapped her fingers on the table, not realizing her nails were scratching the expensive wood. She picked up her wine glass and sipped slowly, then downed the whole thing and dove into her purse again, fumbling for the book. She reread the poem. It didn't quite make sense…. "You will in them a question find"….what question? What…what was he asking? Was he asking her something? Or was this some entirely new way to screw with her head? She fingered the words reverently, her eyes studying each and every word as if they were the most important words she would ever read.

Perhaps they were.

Stephanie heard Eric coming back and shoved the book in her purse again, sitting still on the sofa and even managing to nod at him.

"So…I think we were here?" Eric asked, his voice low near her ear as he began trailing a line of kisses down her neck. Stephanie kissed his cheek, and inhaled his cologne…and suddenly, the smell it just wasn't right dammit, it was all so wrong, so…

"Eric, get off of me." She said softly. He just bent lower and so she tried pushing gently at first and then harder when he just didn't seem to get a hint. "Eric, stop." He looked up at her, his eyes not comprehending. "This isn't…this…I don't want this to happen."

His eyes narrowed and he pulled off of her slowly as she quickly took the opportunity to stand. "So what?" he began slowly. "What, this was all a tease?"

"No. No, not at…not at first, Eric. I really…I really did want to spend this evening with you. But…now I don't." She finished dumbly.

"Now you 'don't'? What, so you can play me however you want, just because you're the McMahon princess, you can toy with people, mess with their heads? No, Stephanie, I don't think so! You are going to be so sorry for…." He trailed off as he saw the book which had fallen out of her purse after the little melee on the couch.

"Give me that!" She hissed, reaching for the book, but he simply held it out of her reach, reading the inscription and frowning darkly.

"Of course." He whispered. He handed back the volume to her wordlessly and sank into the couch.

"This—it was never about me in the first place, was it? I—I am just a way to get to him. I never had a chance with you….but then again, no one ever has a chance with you, now do they?" He asked, his voice carefully modulated, controlled.

"Because for you, there's really…it's only him, isn't it?" He asked, but the way he said it was more of a statement of fact than a question.

"I don't know anymore." She admitted and she sank to the seat beside him. "For what it's worth, Eric, I am sorry. When I came here tonight, I had every intention of going through with this and—"

"And that really says it all right there, doesn't it? 'Going through with this?' Stephanie, that implies that this is not something you even wanted in the first place. Just…just get out." He finished tiredly, not able to look at her.

Stephanie felt wretched but decided to do as Eric had asked. She took the book from his boneless grip on it, pulled on her coat and closed the door behind her, leaving Eric staring at the fireplace, not really seeing the fire in the hearth.

She shook violently as she leaned her back against the door. What was she doing? She'd been having a perfectly good dinner with a man who for the first time in ages made her feel something…and she had ruined it. For a gesture from a man that was probably meaningless, probably just some sick mind game. She swiveled around and raised her hand, determined to finally make herself get over these damn feelings, and start moving on again, finally. The best way to do this would obviously be to just knock, tell Eric she'd been wrong, ask his forgiveness. She could do that.

She would do that. But her hand froze mid-motion as the lines clicked in place from the poem. And she fell backward, but caught herself from falling. She took off for the elevator pushing the button one, two, three times and tapping her foot impatiently. She quickly located her car outside and broke all known speed records to her destination, not heeding the snowy conditions outside.

It was Christmas, and she knew where she was supposed to be now. She walked in the hotel corridors she knew so well, he always stayed here when he was in this town….

Always in the same room. She paused outside of a bathroom door and promptly threw up in the sink. She stared up at her reflection in the mirror. She was right about this, she was, she convinced herself. She looked at the blue eyes staring back at her, so much more serious now, no longer the spoiled little girl she had once been guilty of being.

She was strong enough for this man now. She smiled into the mirror and pulled out a tube of red lipstick, pressing her lips together as she popped a handful of tictacs. She walked down the hallway and knocked without letting herself think about it too hard.

Wow, her heart was beating so fast it hurt. Please, please don't let me be wrong about this she prayed silently as her feet brought her ever closer to the door. Please, I promise I will…I will do good deeds all the rest of my life, I will kiss babies, and I won't keep screwing over my family, and I won't ever lie to him, not ever again, just give me this, please! her heart begged in a voiceless scream.

The door opened and it was him.

At least she'd been right about that part. But shouldn't he at least be smiling or something, instead of looking at her with that damn blank expression of his?

Yet it was now or never… "You asked a question?" She hated how her voice shook.

His eyes never leaving her face, he nodded.

"My answer is…how about right now?" She asked breathlessly.

And her heart nearly stopped altogether as Hunter broke out into the most beautiful smile she'd ever seen, before or since and invited her in.

He whispered into her ear hours later as she lay asleep, sprawled across his chest and in his arms, where she would be for all Christmasses to come from that point on: "Quicquid Amor jussit non est contemnere tutum, Stephanie."

Hunter looked out the window, drinking in the sight of the snow falling even heavier, blanketing the city in white, and pulled Stephanie even tighter into his arms.


Liv's Notes: The poem is not by me, I don't know who it is from but it was written in the Victorian Era. I loved it and the secret message within the poem is the first word of every line: "When Will I Sleep All Night With You Sweet Heart?"

And the Latin Hunter quotes to Stephanie in the end is: "It is not safe to despise what Love commands." From Ovid.