Disclaimer: I unfortunately don't own Rob Van Dam. But I do own Ella and to my knowledge, the plot as well.

Rating: PG-13. It might change once I start getting into this story more. Not sure yet.

Author's Note: Ok… so this is a story to go with another story I wrote, which is actually just two song fics. It's called Letting Go… Or Holding On? if any of you who haven't read it want to. Um… this is the story behind the song fics… but I just realized that they kind of ruin the story… Well if you are going to read Letting Go… Or Holding On? and haven't, read it after I finish this one, which I'm warning you, my take a while. I have the tendency to start things, including many stories, and not finish them. And I can never think of a good title until I'm like half way through the story… so it will probably change and I'll tell you when if you keep reading this story for that long. Well ok… that's enough rambling from me so here's the story.

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Chapter 1: Bad Day - June 15, 2003

'Finally,' thought Rob. He got out of his rental and pulled out his bag from the backseat. Tossing the keys to the valet, Rob wearily walked through the double doors to the hotel he was staying at. Thankfully he had checked in earlier and didn't have to deal with waiting in line behind that woman to check in and searching endlessly for his suite. He walked down a hallway; rooms passed blurrily. Finally he reached an elevator.

After pushing the up button and waiting impatiently for a few seconds, there was ding indicating an elevator ready to take him up to his room. He stepped in and pushed the button with the number 7 on it.

"Wait!" a female voice called out as the doors began to slide together.

Rob quickly stuck his hand out, pushing them apart and keeping the elevator open.

The woman hurriedly walked into the elevator and pushed the button with a 4 on it. "Thank you."

"No problem," Rob replied. Though he was feeling extremely fatigued, his senses whetted suddenly. He let his gaze roam her body subtly.

As Rob began taking in her features, the elevator lurched to a stop.

"Great," the woman muttered to herself.

She appeared to stand at about 5'10" with a lean build. Her light brown hair was straight until the end where it curled both inwards and outwards and reached her bust line. Her chest wasn't as ample as most of the divas, but gave her a sultry curve nonetheless. A briefcase and small suitcase were held in her perfectly French manicured hands. Her legs were revealed to be long and tan in a business skirt.

Rob quickly shook himself out of his trance and replied, "There must be a power shortage or something."

"Yeah," she murmured in return to his comment, not looking at him.

Not able to resist, he allowed his gaze to return to her body. He noticed that she was standing practically rigid. She kept her gaze forward.

Figuring that he had made her uncomfortable, he attempted to lighten the atmosphere. "Hi. I'm Rob," he said with a grin, extending his hand.

She briefly looked at his hand then up to his face warily with her hazel eyes. "Ella," she said with a faint questioning tone.

"Nice to meet you." He put his hand down when he realized that she wouldn't take it. "So what brings you to Houston?"

"Work," she answered coldly.

"Really? What do you do?"

"I'm a marketing consultant," she replied.

"Impressive."

"I'm not here to impress you."

"Never said you were."

She quickly looked him up and down. She looked him in the eyes then looked forward again. She began to tap the toe of her right foot anxiously.

"Excuse me," a male voice began through an unnoticed speaker in the corner, "the elevators are having some difficulties due to a wiring problem. We have our repairmen working on getting the elevators working again. They should be done shortly. We would like to apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your patience."

After a few awkward minutes of silence, the elevator still had not begun to move.

"Hope we're not in here for too long," Rob anticipated.

Ella gave curt nod in agreement.

"So your name's Ella. I've never met anyone with that name."

"It's short for Isabella," she said, getting irritated with him. Didn't he pick up the hints that she didn't want to talk to him and just wanted him to leave her alone? Obviously not since he began talking again.

"Beautiful name for a beautiful lady."

"If that's supposed to be a line, I wouldn't use it," she scoffed.

"It's a compliment."

"I don't want a compliment."

"You know, I'm just trying to be polite and make pleasant conversation, but if you're gonna be such a… well… pardon my language, but a bitch, then fine. Have it your way," Rob relinquished.

Ella sighed with guilt. "I'm sorry. I'm just having a bad day."

Rob stuck his nose in the air and turned his head away.

"I apologized. What more do you want?"

"How about you tell me what's wrong and let me take you out for lunch tomorrow," Rob requested, bringing his head back down and looking her in the eyes.

"I have a… meeting with a client tomorrow."

"A meeting? Look, if you don't wanna go out with me, then just say so."

Ella turned her body towards him. "Well, it's kind of a meeting."

"Kind of?"

"Yeah."

"Well, what made your day so bad?"

"Well, this morning when I got to work, late might I add, they told me that I had to fly here for my new client. So I had to go home and pack. I couldn't find a suitcase when I realized that I had let my best friend borrow it. So I put everything I wanted to pack into the backseat of my car. Then I drove over to her house and got my suitcase and pretty much packed in her driveway. Then I went to the office to pick up my ticket and they misplaced it so we spent 45 minutes looking for it. Then I went to the airport and that took forever because of traffic. Then it took me another forever to check my luggage in. Then I finally found my terminal and my flight left five minutes before I got there. So I had to go and get my ticket exchanged, which took about an hour. Then I spent another two hours waiting for my flight. I finally got on. But then the plane was having maintenance problems so the flight was delayed for about an hour and a half. We finally got in the air and I got nauseous because I don't usually fly. Then once I landed, some old lady and a few other people kept stealing my cabs that I had hailed. Then I finally get to the hotel and the person at the front desk says I have no reservation, which my office was supposed to take care of and pay for. So I had to pay for the hotel room myself with most of my money I brought, which was really only for food and in case of an emergency. It's actually a good thing that my meeting isn't today," Ella mused. "So now I'm this close," she illustrated, holding her thumb and index finger close together with a narrow gap between the two, "to ending the day and I get stuck in an elevator. So I'm sorry if I'm not in the best mood."

Rob had been listening patiently as she partially rambled about, partially narrated her day and its events. "Sorry," was all he had to offer her. He had had a pretty good night. He and Glen had retained the title of Tag Team Champions and the belts; his was currently hiding in his duffle bag.

"It's not your fault."

The elevator gave a lurch and resumed its original destination. Once it had reached the fourth floor, it opened the doors and Ella made her way out. "Looks like my luck's changing," Ella mused to herself, exiting the elevator. Rob followed.

"Are you staying on this floor too?" she asked, noticing Rob was walking next to her.

"Actually I'm a few floors up, but I figured I should at least walk you to your door."

"At least?" she questioned, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

"I figured we could talk on the way. Maybe even laugh a little. You know, all that wild and crazy stuff."

Ella grinned at him. "You know how to live on the wild side."

"It all comes with the territory."

"You have territory?"

"Yeah. You know… the… bad boy territory," he bluffed.

This earned a laugh from Ella. Rob noticed how stunning she looked when she laughed. 'So her name's not the only beautiful thing about her,' Rob thought to himself, inadvertently gawking at her.

"Does that mean that your day just got a little brighter?"

"Yes, it did. Thank you."

"Hey, what kind of knight in shining armor would I be if I didn't save a damsel in distress?"

"I'm not some helpless damsel," she corrected him.

"Of course you're not."

"Thank you. But you're not exactly my vision of a night in shining armor anyways."

"And why not?" Rob asked with mock offense.

"You just don't look… royal enough."

"Are you calling me a commoner?"

"Not exactly that word, but since you put it that way, it works."

Rob glared at her playfully.

"You may be the vision of a knight in shining armor to some other woman, but not mine," she teased.

"Why not?"

"My knight is darker, taller, and handsome."

"Are you calling me ugly."

"Not directly," she laughed.

"Well you're not all that yourself, Ms. Thang," Rob imitated a black person, snapping his fingers as he said "thang."

Ella shook her head at Rob, giggling at his childish antics.

"So what about lunch?"

"What about it?" Ella retorted.

"Does your meeting mean a 'no' on lunchr?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"What about some other time?"

"I'm leaving the day after tomorrow."

"That's ok, I don't live here either."

Ella gave him a bemused look. "Well, that would make sense as to why you're staying in a hotel," she thought aloud, suddenly feeling stupid.

"Yeah, it would."

"Well, I guess this is goodbye then."

"What?" Rob asked. He looked around and realized that they were at her room, and had been for a quite a while "We're already here. Well, yeah. I guess this goodbye then."

"Yeah."

The two stood there, neither making an attempt to part ways.

"I should get going," Rob began.

"Yeah," Ella agreed.

"Night."

"Good night," Ella said to Rob's retreating back. She pulled out her key card from her pocket and slid it into the slot. Once the little light bulb flashed green, she grabbed the knob and let herself in. Allowing the door to shut behind her she looked around the small room. She set her stuff down at the foot of the double size bed. Suddenly realizing how tired she was from her disastrous day, she flopped down onto her back on the bed. She bent her left leg over her right, putting it just within reach of her right hand. Resignedly, she pulled her high-heel off and tossed it on the floor. Doing the same thing with her other foot, it took her a good two minutes to take off her shoes. Gradually she unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off her shoulders. Needing a shirt, she sat up and grabbed her suitcase, rummaging through it for the t-shirt she had packed to sleep in. Finding it, she pulled it on over her head. Ella stood up and unzipped her skirt, letting it pool at her feet. Her thigh-high nylons were the last to go. After pulling on a pair of pajama pants, she collapsed back onto the bed.

Hearing her stomach grumble, Ella came to the conclusion that she couldn't sleep without eating something. She hadn't dared touch the airplane food earlier. Rolling over to the edge of the bed, she picked up the room service menu and scanned it for something that appealed to her taste. After a few minutes, she decided on chicken in some sort of sauce with some steamed vegetables. She called and was told her food would be arriving in about fifteen minutes.

Bored, Ella grabbed the remote to the television and began flipping through the channels. She found a menu for specially ordered channels: adult and pay-per-views. Ella passed on the porn and scanned the list of pay-per-views. She noticed that the WWE's Bad Blood was showing now. For a few moments, she contemplated on spending more money to buy the pay-per-view or wait. Finally, she reasoned she could start her research that night and ordered it.

About ten minutes after she began watching, her food arrived. She thanked the man who had delivered her food and took it to her bed, eating as she watched. She had finished most of her food in about twenty minutes and the rest of her uneaten food sat on a small table next to the television. To make herself more comfortable, Ella lay down on her stomach. However, not too much later, she had drifted into a peaceful slumber, just barely missing Rob's entrance for his match.

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Another Author's Note: Ok… so that was the first chapter. So now go and review it! I hope you guys liked it, and if you didn't, please don't be too mean. I can't believe that he lost the tag titles though! But I guess it's kind of ok because Rene Dupree is SO hot! Don't ya think? But ok… remember to review!!!