IMPORTANT A/N: Sorry I didn't update last week, but this chapter's gonna be twice as long! I hope you like it! One problem I do want to address in this story is Christian. I hate him. I mean, I really really hate him. I'll try not to let that get in the way of the story, though. Promise.
Chapter 4: The Problem Down Low
(After last week's RAW 8/23/04)
Edge tucked Kiki into her bed and lightly kissed her on the forehead. He reached up and pulled on the string above them, turning off the light.
"Daddy, why are you so mad?"
Edge looked down at the sleepy kid in surprise. He was still really pissed off about the ref's decision. It was an accident! Anyway, how can you take back a pin count? That's ridiculous. Still, he didn't want to worry Kiki about it. Poor kid wouldn't understand anyway. She was only three. He reached up and turned the light back on and sat down next to her on her bed.
"Nothing sweetie. Just a little tired."
She nodded and smiled sleepily. "Daddy," she yawned, "I'm not tired. Can I stay up with you?"
"No, Kiki," Edge replied sternly, "It's time for you to go to sleep."
"But daddy," Kiki whined, "I'm not tired! How come you get to stay up?"
"Because I'm older," Edge explained and Kiki huffed.
"I thought you said I was a big girl now. That's why I can't use my sippy cup."
"That's right," Edge replied, a little annoyed by the whole argument, "but you're not old enough to stay up past 11:00. Now it's time for you to go to sleep."
"Story time!"
"Fine," Edge replied, going for a stern tone, but coming out defeated, "but that's it, do you understand?"
Kiki smiled and nodded enthusiastically, snuggling into her bed covers.
"Once upon a time there was a wrestler named Edge," Edge began.
Kiki giggled. "That's you daddy!"
"That's right. Now, this wrestler was the Intercontinental champion. He was the best champion ever. Plus he was the handsomest champion ever. Now, there was this ugly ex-friend of his, Chris Jericho."
"Daddy," Kiki interrupted, "I've met Chris Jericho. He's not ugly."
"I think he is. But that's not the point. The point is that Chris Jericho's the bad guy."
"But he's really nice!" Kiki protested.
"Okay, okay, fine. How about Kane?"
"Eww," Kiki replied, shuddering.
"Exactly. Okay, so Kane was going up against the invincible Edge--"
"What does 'inminciable' mean?"
"Um... it doesn't matter. Anyway, Edge beat him, Lita married Matt Hardy, and everyone lived happily ever after!"
"But that's not what happened!" Kiki protested, her bottom lip quivering as she remembered what really happened on RAW.
"Yeah, I know." Edge replied, as he glanced up at the clock to see it read 11:30. "Okay, sleep time."
"What about my milk? My night light? What if I need to go use the potty?"
"Kiki," Edge cried out, exasperated, "That is enough, young lady. Now, if you want to go to the park with Lita and Stacy on Saturday, you're going to behave! Sleep. Now."
Kiki's eyes began to water and Edge shook his head and got up to get her milk and a night light. How was he going to raise her right if he could never make himself say 'no'?
He gave her milk, they took an extra trip to the rest room, and she fell asleep before he even plugged in her night light. Edge jumped on his bed, his entire body relaxing, and stiffening suddenly.
He couldn't say no to Kiki right now, and luckily, she wasn't spoiled—yet. But what was going to happen when she got older? What about her teenage years, when he couldn't save her from the bad guys—her peers and her changing body? And with that thought, Edge got up to sit in front of the TV.
He wasn't going to be able to sleep any time soon.
(Tuesday Morning)
Kiki smiled broadly down at Edge from on top of his chest.
"Wake up daddy! Time to go to the park."
"Ugh, Kiki," Edge muttered rubbing his eyes, awkwardly turning his head to see his alarm clock so Kiki wouldn't fall off, "5:00 in the morning! Go back to sleep!"
Edge closed his eyes and began to snore softly again. Kiki frowned and climbed off him and the bed. She brightened as she got an idea. Daddy liked coffee, it always maked him wake up, right? She would go get Lita because Lita always had lots of coffee. She grinned and ran to the door after she picked up the door card off his side table. Dragging a chair and a stool, she placed the chair in front of the chair and the stool on top of it. Stepping on it, she slid it in and pushed it open, but fell at the same time. Luckily, she grabbed the handle in time and jumped down before getting hurt. She ran towards Lita's room. It was always Room 51, Lita's lucky number. She couldn't read yet, but remembered what the number five looked like.
She banged on a door with and took two steps back, falling on her butt to look up at a sleepy man with multi-colored hair look down at her.
"Where's Lita," she cried, "what did you do with her?"
Jeff Hardy stared at the little kid in front of him in shock. "Um... Lita's in a different room now. Do you know Matt?" he kindly asked and smiled when she nodded apprehensively, "he's supposed to stay here, but he had to go somewhere else."
Jeff had considered telling the kid Matt was in the hospital, but figured she didn't need to know it.
"Umm, do you want me to take you back to your room?"
She nodded and smiled.
"Where is your room?"
Her smile quickly disappeared and she frowned. She looked around the hall and realized that she had no clue where she was.
"I'm lost!" she wailed and Jeff Hardy freaked. He was the youngest in his family, he didn't know how to act around children, and this kid was wailing louder and longer every second. People were starting to yell from their rooms and Jeff did the only think he could think of doing. He clamped his hand on her mouth and dragged her into his room.
Which wasn't very smart when he thought about it. The second he let go of her mouth and arm was the second she let loose a scream from her very depth.
Oh, crap.
(Back in Edge's room)
Edge sleepily got up and yawned. He walked over to the bathroom, tripping over one of Kiki's Barbie convertibles. "Kiki," he cried out, picking himself up off the floor, "I told you to pick up your stuff! Kiki?"
Edge frowned and looked around him. Kiki would normally be on the couch watching the Wiggles or Spongebob Squarepants, but the TV wasn't even on. It was then that he noticed the door slightly ajar, his key card on the floor, and a knocked over chair and stool.
Oh, crap.
(Back in Matt's Room)
Kiki's face was red and she was still howling while Jeff was almost crying with fear and apprehension. "Um, calm down! I'll figure something out! Just stop crying!"
She ignored him and Jeff was jumping up and down freaking out. "Please," he pleaded, "I'll get you back to your room. Please stop crying. Please stop crying!"
Kiki seemed to have finally heard him and quieted down to soft sobs, and Jeff could've sworn he heard someone yelling in the hallway. Probably someone complaining about the noise.
"Umm, my name's Jeff Hardy. What's yours?"
Kiki's eyes widened. She'd heard that name before, but where? "My name's Kiki," she replied, sniffling. "My daddy's name is Edge."
Jeff let out a sigh of relief. At least he knew where to take her. Since when did Edge have a kid though?
"Kiki! Kiki!"
Jeff's eyes widened and Kiki must have heard it too, because she got up and starting screaming, "Daddy!" Jeff opened the door and Kiki ran into the arms of a frenzied Edge. He looked sheepishly at Edge.
"So... you're a dad?"
Edge nodded and hugged Kiki closer, sighing in relief. He smiled at Jeff in thanks and picked Kiki up, walking towards their hotel room.
It was that moment that Jeff Hardy decided he wasn't going to have kids for a long time.
A long long time.
(Saturday Morning)
It had been four days since the incident in the hotel, but Edge was even more protective than before, if possible.
"Now, let's go over the rules again. What's rule number one?"
"Umm," Kiki looked at Edge uncertainly, "I forgot."
"Don't run away from me, Lita, or Stacy."
"Oh, yeah."
"Don't talk to strangers. Stay here in the playground. If you're scared, yell my name a lot. If you get hurt, yell my name. If someone's bothering you, yell my name. If—actually, I think I'll just stay with you."
Kiki shrugged and took out her crayons from her little pink bag and started to draw on some construction paper. After a few seconds, she picked the drawing up and proudly showed it to Edge. Edge grinned.
"That's nice," he said cautiously, not wanting to unintentionally scar her for life or anything, "What is it?"
Kiki looked at him like he was crazy. She pointed at a large yellow scribble, "That's you," and pointed at a smaller yellow scribble, "That's Chris Jericho."
"Why did you draw Chris Jericho?" Edge questioned, his nose wrinkled in disgust.
"Because he's pretty."
"But you know daddy doesn't like him, so why are we standing next to each other?"
"Because you're pretty too."
"Sweetie, men aren't 'pretty', they're handsome," Edge explained, and hesitated, "Who do you think is handsomer? Daddy or Chris Jericho?" he asked, knowing, of course, that it would be daddy.
"What a weird question to ask your kid."
Both Edge and Kiki turned around surprised to see Stacy and Lita trying to hold back laughter and failing miserably. Lita picked up Kiki and hugged her. "Let's check out the swings!" she said, and took Kiki towards the swing set. Stacy sat down next to Edge and smiled shyly at him.
"So..."
"So..."
They both laughed at their own nervousness. Edge grinned when he saw Kiki run around in a circle pretending to be a shark and Lita rocked back and forth, pretending to be a boat.
"I can tell you and Lita really love her," Stacy said, breaking Edge out of his thoughts. Edge smiled and nodded. Stacy fidgeted a little.
"You don't have to answer the question if you think I'm prying, but where's her mother?"
Edge looked surprised. None of the other wrestlers had ever bothered to ask him and he wasn't expecting the question.
"I don't know. She left Kiki in the locker room about a month ago. I'm glad she did. I don't know what I'd do without her."
Kiki waved at her dad and Lita walked back to the bench exhausted. Edge left the two to talk and stood besides the seesaw Kiki was on.
"Kiki, I weigh a lot more than you. You would be stuck in the air."
Kiki nodded and got off, leaving the seesaw hovering midway. Edge stood above it and Kiki jumped on the other side, ramming the board straight up into Edge's... well, you know.
Edge gasped in pain, grabbing himself. "Guys," he squeaked in an extremely dry voice, "hospital."
With that, he keeled over.
(After this past RAW 8/30/04)
Edge sat on his bed, looking through an old photo album. There were his parents, both of whom he wasn't talking to, and Christian, his brother. Christian had come out of nowhere, but why? Why did he beat up Jericho? What was his message? "You're next?" or "Let's become friends again?" If it was the second one, Christian had another thing coming. After what happened between them, Edge would never trust him. That asshole. He thought about the Highlight Reel again and how the crowd was booing at him.
Of course, the crowd liked Jericho better. This was no surprise. But after Toronto... well, Edge seemed to have lost all sympathy with the audience. They were all assholes.
He lay down on his bed thinking about past events and found himself, surprisingly, thinking of Stacy. She was pretty, sweet, and such a good person. Would she be offended if she asked him out? Was it too soon to be going out? Would she say yes?
Probably not. Yeah, why would she want to go out with a guy with a kid? She could have any man she wanted, she wouldn't want one with emotional baggage.
Maybe he should ask Lita about it. No, that'd be insensitive. Although she was fighting back Kane, his expression was priceless when he heard about his match against HBK, she was still mourning. It would be wrong to ask her anything like that. It would just remind her of how Matt was in the hospital and how she wasn't with him.
He was just going to have to wait awhile. And pray that Stacy didn't find someone new soon.
A/N: What did you guys think? My sister said that it was weird I didn't have some of the wrestler's kids interact with Kiki or anything, and she brought up the fact that Mick Foley brought his kid to the arena. I figured that the wrestler's kids would be with their mothers at home, not on the road. As for Foley, he's not here. Yet.
Well, I've decided to start responding to the reviews. Better late than never, right? So here's Chapter 3 Responses (In the order they were received)!
huntersgirl- Thanks! I definitely want there to be a close father-daughter relationship in this story. Lita's also a main character. She wasn't going to be, but it was like, fate. It just forced itself to be written. I'm glad it did too!
Tdot- Oh. My. God. You totally influenced this whole chapter with that 'spoils his kid' remark. I hadn't thought of that! I mean, Kiki's just a kid, I don't want her to be like a saint. Edge isn't going to be the perfect dad either. There's no such thing. Thanks for the inspiration!
Aussiewrestlingfan- Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Pheonix-Satori10- Thanks! Umm... you knew I was going to be late, didn't you? Looks guiltily at the floor I'm sorry you had to wait even more! Really really sorry.
ThE-PuNk-GuRl-4-LiFe- Thank you! I like where I'm going too! I'm just a little stuck now. Any suggestions? If not, I guess I'll just have to wait until next RAW for my inspiration... I wish I could watch RAW every other day. (Not every day, college just started and I have to study for BIO 101! Blech.)
KazzaXTreme- Thanks! I hope you liked this chapter as well! I'm just guessing because of the name, but you like the Hardy's, right? (I'm sure you're reading this, going, 'duh, you dork'.) Well, the Hardyz are going to be in the story a lot more (hopefully) and I'm not talking about the 'Hardy boys' that came out on this RAW! That was just weird... I love Matt and Jeff Hardy!
Well, I hope you guys liked it!