DISCLAIMER: I do not own Chris Jericho, Shelton Benjamin, or other wrestlers that appear in the following story. They are the property of the actors and actresses that portray them, as well as the WWE.

SPOILERS: Mention of events from 08-30-04 Raw.

Flowers Can't Keep Secrets

CHAPTER SIX

When one is the King of the World, it can get pretty lonely at the top.

Chris hadn't talked to Shelton in over two weeks now; if he were being truthful to himself, he would (begrudgingly) admit that the young man had become his best friend. Sure, Nidia called a few times, and chatting with her on the phone was amusing, but there was only so much friendship a heterosexual guy could derive from a female. At the time being, Nidia and him were close enough for his comfort, and he liked that way; the only veritable solution to his close friend problem was to mend the fences between him and Benji.

Problem was, he wasn't sure what Shelton was mad about. He was pretty sure they were on good terms before the Stephanie dismissal… so it had to be about him getting drunk with Nidia. And if that was the case, Shelton was overreacting about something completely stupid; the young man knew that the blond Canadian held a torch for Stephanie alone.

Thus, as Chris stomped through the arena on Monday night, he mentally formulated how he would set Shelton straight. First he would demand to know why he was acting like a little bitch, then Chris would calmly explain what happened last week, and then finally Chris would hold out on his forgiveness, just to make Benji sweat a little.

After all, the King of the World, despite being lonely, just doesn't give out his royal pardons.

Knowing that it would be a waste of time to look anywhere else, Jericho turned towards his dressing room. A few steps away, he caught the sounds of people yelling; a foot closer and he determined that the voices were indeed coming from the door marked 'Y2J Chris Jericho'. With a groan, Chris readjusted his gym bag and reached for the handle.

"Just tell us what happened last week!" Shelton's voice floated through the door.

"I already told you what happened…"

"I know what you told us; what I want to know is what you said to Chris," Stephanie interrupted Nidia.

Jericho's hand froze in its spot as he recognized the angry voices coming from within. What they were so angry about was beyond him, but he decided to stay put in the hallway, hoping for some inkling as to the issue at hand (especially since it involved him).

"Steph, trust me, I know what I said up until I passed out!"

"'Up until I passed out'," Stephanie mocked. "That's a credible statement if I ever heard one."

"Even if I would have said something, I wouldn't have said it in front of Randy," Nidia defended, sounding close to tears. Chris's hand itched to open the door; part of him felt bad for the verbal abuse she was receiving from the other two occupants. But the other part of him was dying to know what the 'something' they were hinting at was.

"I still don't get why Orton was hanging out with you guys anyway," Shelton commented, his voice laced with jealously. "It's not like you are all friends."

"Chris and I were buzzed when he showed up, and well… the more the merrier." Nidia's voice was getting scratchier and louder by the second. "It's not a big deal."

"This is a big deal Nidia; we're talking about…"

"I know, we're talking about the god damn plan!" Nidia finished for Stephanie. "For the last time, I didn't say anything about you and your flowers, so would you just BACK OFF!!!" she shouted.

Chris blinked. You and the flowers…Stephanie and the flowers?! His gym bag hit the floor, but he didn't even notice. Pulling his rampant thoughts together, Chris barged into the locker room, nearly colliding with Shelton. His eyes immediately locked on the two women in the center of the room: a red-faced Stephanie and a watery-eyed Nidia. "What did you just say?" he asked quietly.

Her mouth alternately opening and closing, Stephanie did her best impression of a small-mouth bass. Or large-mouth, depending on your personal feelings for the youngest McMahon. "Jericho! You're early!" she managed to stutter out.

Nidia, sensing a sort of reprieve, rushed over to the newly-arrived blond and threw herself in his arms. Chris awkwardly patted her on the back as she buried her face in his t-shirt. "Please don't hate me," she whispered.

"Nidia," Shelton hissed. Chris immediately sent him a warning glare, and the young man shut up; his dark eyes, however, were swirling with anger and hurt.

Tipping up her chin, Chris gave her the best smile he could muster in his confused-yet-pondering-anger state. "Now why would I go and hate you, doll face?" he questioned.

The brunette in his arms took a deep breath, snuck a quick peek at Stephanie (whose mouth had shut into a thin line), and then stared into Jericho's sky blue eyes. "Chris….. there is something you should know about the flowers."

"Nidia, don't!" Stephanie cried, but the other woman paid her no attention.

"I only sent you the first three bouquets."

Chris let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding. She stopped with the marigolds? The ones Stephanie found? His eyes flicked to her at that thought; and he was surprised to see the guilty look spreading across her face. "Oh," he said.

Oh.

OH.

OH!

It was so simple; he couldn't believe that the truth had eluded him for so long. The change in note styles, the numbers and different types of flowers, even the delay in the first meeting – someone else had taken over the admirer job.

Someone else who had easy access to the backstage. Someone else who knew about the previous bouquets and their affect on him. Someone else who would always refuse to help in schemes to bring out the admirer. Someone else who gave him a flower dictionary.

Stephanie.

Without really knowing what to think, or what to say, Chris gently pushed Nidia away from him. His gaze remained on Stephanie and her guilty eyes. "Why?" he asked, his voice trembling.

A one-syllable question never carried so much weight. His whole reaction depended on what Stephanie would say next.

The youngest McMahon, however, was having a hell of a time trying to breathe. Never in her wildest dreams did she believe that Chris Jericho would ever find out the truth about his secret admirer (now admirers, since it was out in the open). She briefly contemplated sticking it to Shelton, but knew that the easiest route would be for her to come clean. "It made you happy," she stated.

Chris gave her a crazed look; had she forgotten the trauma he went through, trying to figure out why and how and who was doing this? "No it didn't," he bit out.

"Yeah it did," Shelton piped up behind him.

Stephanie nodded. "When I saw you cradle those marigolds, I knew that the flowers meant more to you than you let on. So we decided to fill in, until we could find out who the original admirer was."

"We." Chris looked over his shoulder at Shelton, the man he had called his best friend. "You were in on this?"

The young man didn't know how to respond to the hurt in Chris's eyes, so he merely shrugged. "I made sure the bouquets got in, yeah."

"Did you ever plan on telling me?"

Nobody would meet his eyes after that question. Chris felt his blood start to boil. This wasn't a betrayal, per se; it was the destruction of trust. He had trusted Shelton to be his friend, and found out that the young man had distracted him at times in order for Stephanie to sneak in filler bouquets and cards until they could find the real thing.

Stephanie… he had fallen for Stephanie while she was executing one of her infamous plans.

It was sick, to say the least. But there were still questions to ask, and he didn't want an audience to influence her answers. "Nidia, Shelton, could you leave us alone for a second please?"

Unbeknownst to him, the young man flinched at the sound of his real name coming from Jericho's lips. The coldness of the blond man's voice weighed heavily on his heart as Shelton held the door open for Nidia, both of them exiting the tense locker room.

Once outside, Nidia wound her arm through Shelton's, giving him a half-assed smile when he looked at her in surprise. "It was time," she stated simply, trying to convince herself of that very fact.

"She better come all the way clean," was all Shelton could think to say.

Inside the locker room, Chris moved to stand before Stephanie. "Was caring about me part of the plan?" he demanded to know.

She furrowed her brow at his words. "You're kidding, right?"

"Oh right, I'm kidding, this is all just shits and giggles for me," he retorted sarcastically. "I'm talking about last week."

"Last week…" Her eyes cleared as she remembered her off-handed revelation. "Oh. You remember that?" she asked stupidly, honestly surprised that after all that whiskey, he was still coherent enough to remember their conversation.

"Of course I remember that. I bloody passed out from shock." He ran a hand through his blond hair in frustration. "I can't tell if you were genuine or if you were faking concern for me."

That irked her a bit. "My feelings for you were never part of some plan," she spit out.

"Don't get all high and mighty with me, McMahon. You're the one who was puppeteering behind the scenes."

"I did it to make you happy!" she argued. "And somehow along the line, I fell for you, believe me though, I did everything possible to try and get rid of it."

"Like dating Edge?" Chris pressed. She flushed, and he had the urge to ring her neck. "If you liked me, then why the hell did you date him?"

"I didn't date him. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't falling for you for the wrong reasons."

Stephanie knew this was pretty weak, but she'd never delve into her real reasons.

"Oh really? So you used Edge so that you wouldn't pity me." The blond man shook his head. "Not very convincing. I think you were screwing us both."

Stephanie's eyes narrowed into a glare. "Excuse me?"

"Edge got all the perks," he retorted, glaring back.

"You're unbelievable," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "I told you repeatedly…"

"It doesn't matter what you said," Chris interrupted, utterly revolted that he stole the Rock's catchphrase. "Anything you've said, anything you say now; it's all garbage. You lied to me."

She shook her head vehemently. "I didn't lie to you; I hid the truth."

"And how is that any better?" he shouted, weary of the convoluted logic to come. Women, as he had come to learn, were full of this backward way of thinking.

"Because you would only get hurt if you found out!" she responded weakly, not willing to change her stance on the subject.

Unable to look into her guilty blue eyes any longer, Chris turned his back on her. "That's where you failed, Steph. I found out," he sighed, gesturing towards the door. "Go back to your precious job."

He could feel her stare boring holes into his back, but he refused to turn around. "That's it? After all this, you're going to send me away like a child?" Pissed as all hell, she picked up her clipboard, threw it at the wall, and stomped towards the exit. "I don't know why I even bothered," she mumbled loudly before leaving.

Neither do I, Chris thought sadly. He turned his gaze towards the closed door for a few seconds, ensuring that the brunette would not come back in, before ambling over towards the mess by the wall.

After smashing into the concrete bricks, the clipboard had snapped in two, letting sheets of paperwork scatter onto the floor. Bending at the waist, he picked up the two pieces and immediately brushed an indentation in the wood with his thumb. Bringing the clipboard closer to his face, Chris found a heart carved into the bottom right corner, with three letters inside.

"F four j," he read aloud.

F 4 J…

Flowers for Jericho.

END CHAPTER SIX

Author's notes: I'm so very sorry for the length; I tried my hardest to add another page but it didn't feel right. Work has been so incredibly draining these days, and I wanted to get out that last chapter of Façade before I started this. So I apologize for how long it took to post, all the grammar/spelling errors that I am too tired to check for, and how short it ended up being; hopefully though, the content makes up for my shortcomings. Please review and let me know what you think – I'd appreciate a positive boost this week. Until next chapter, take care.