"Honestly, Randy, if you don't put me down, I'm gonna be forced to scream. Have you HEARD me scream? We're talkin' SIREN volume here."

Trish didn't know what was going on. One second, she'd been standing on her own two feet. The next, she was over his shoulder, being carried out of the women's locker room. She was sure his tendency to walk in and do what he pleased had something to do with the rumors that he had supposedly done this or that to various women in the company. In all honesty, he probably shouldn't have walked so easily into the room, but usually, he at least knocked to ask if anyone was undressed… then proceeded to walk into the room anyway. It was a part of who he was, and anyone who didn't understand that either didn't get him or didn't get the joke in general. And what was the joke? How many girls can you make scream? The answer? One, because the rest will be chasing you with murderous intent.

This time, though, there had been no warning. Luckily, there was only Trish and Molly in the room and both were fully clothed. In the midst of a conversation over their growing dissatisfaction with the company that thought they should be grateful to have a job, Randy burst in and carried her out. Hitting him in the back didn't help, and neither did kicking her feet. She would have preferred to finish her conversation as opposed to being carried around like a cavewoman on Randy's back.

Trish was a little worried about what was going on. He hadn't said a word and his face had been neither excited or angry. She couldn't tell from his expression whether he had gotten good news or bad. All she knew was that he had to go to the Smackdown taping the next day and on tonight, he was going to RKO a legend. Of course, Trish was a little disappointed that the snake would never get out of the bag, but hey… an RKO on Jake "the Snake" Roberts was worth a little disappointment.

Randy veered off, went around a corner, then slid inside the partially open door of an empty room. He closed the door behind him and dropped Trish down on the desk. "Dammit, Randy!" She rubbed her hands over her butt, growling at him. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

He turned to her and his face was still just as blank. He gave her no sign of elation or ire. He was cold, still and she almost wished he'd never turned the light on when they walked into the room. She didn't want to see him that way. She didn't want to see him so far away from her that she couldn't reach him. And yet, he must have wanted her to reach him, otherwise he wouldn't have come to her. He wouldn't have dragged her off.

"You're freaking me out, Randy." Slowly, she slid from the desk and walked towards him. She felt as though she were walking across a bridge and every time she grew closer to the other side, it pushed farther away. She looked up at him and he seemed impossibly tall. "What's going on, Randy? Tell me something."

"I'm supposed to win the match."

And in an instant, the world snapped to normal proportions. She felt as though she'd been shoved forward and stopped with a jerk. Suddenly, she was close enough to touch him and though he'd always been nearly a foot taller than her, he didn't seem quite as much now. "Aren't we supposed to be excited over this?" She reached out and her hand landed lightly on his arm. "This is what we wanted, right? You're ending the Undertaker's winning streak at WrestleMania."

Randy looked down at her with heavy eyes. He should have been excited. He should have been jumping for joy. He should have picked her up, carried her off somewhere and had the best pre-show celebratory sex in his entire life. But instead of ripping clothes from their bodies and dropping to the floor like primates, they were staring at one another across a gap of silence and discomfort.

"He's not going to do it, Trish." His head tilted slightly to the side. The corner of his mouth twitched. Randy blinked, then swallowed hard, twice. He looked down at the hand on his arm, then followed the limb up to the shoulder, over her collar, up her neck. "I saw it in his eyes. This morning…"

"Randy, you're scaring me." She took a step back. "What are you talking about this morning?"

"That meeting… they made up their minds and had a teleconference when we got here. Not this morning. This afternoon." He shook his head. "It's all so fucked up I can barely thing."

Trish stepped back to him and grabbed his face. She forced him to look her in the eye. "Explain it to me, Randy."

"He's not… He's not going to do it. And I can't tell this to anybody but you, because no one's gonna believe me. I'm the asshole, remember? I'm the little shit that doesn't know his place. I'm the…"

"Randy!"

"He's not going to do it! They told him to do the job. They told him the streak was ending. Stephanie McMahon stood behind me and Vince McMahon came in on the speakerphone and said that at WrestleMania, the Undertaker's winning streak is over and I swear to God, Trish, I looked into his eyes and he didn't buy it. Oh, the agreement came out of his mouth, but beyond that…" He shook his head, and this time, his face wasn't blank. His eyes burned and the muscles in his cheeks twitched. "He's gonna do whatever the fuck he wants. He's gonna fuck the end of the match ten ways from Sunday, and the McMahons aren't going to do shit about it. He's gonna fuck me over and they're just going to say that he's the Undertaker. They might fine him, but they wouldn't dare do anything else. They'll just ship my ass over to Smackdown and try to make it up to me, but there is no making up to me when he ruins my goddamned career!"

Trish stared at him with wide eyes. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what he was saying. There was more to this than just his words. He was thinking of something. He wanted to do something. He wanted to make sure that if he got fucked over at WrestleMania, something would be done about it. If no one else would, then he would.

"I know I have to pay my dues. I get that. But I'm not going to be stepped on. Dave and Ric can stand there and be stepped all over by Hunter his love-blind wife, but I won't. All of these people can act like McMahon is fucking God, but I won't do it, Trish. They don't pay me enough and I don't get enough respect for this shit."

"What do you want to do, Randy?"

"Do you think you're safe?"

She blinked up at him. "What?"

"Do you think you're in the clear? Are you sure it's going to go the way you want it to? How sure are you that, when Lita's over her injury, they won't put it on her, try and turn Christy into the next Trish Stratus and send you to Heat with Molly and Victoria?"

"They wouldn't do that."

"They wouldn't?"

"No." But she wasn't sure. As easy as it was for them to make her, she knew that they could do it again. She didn't want to believe that hey would do it, but it was a possibility. Trish shook her head and took in a deep breath. Air fell slowly from her shaky lip. "What do you want to do, Randy?"

He put his hands on her hips and jerked her forward until their bodies bumped. Randy leaned down and buried his face in her neck. He shoved her hair back with his nose and raked his teeth across her skin. Trish took in an abrupt breath, then let it out in a hiss. Randy kissed his way up to her ear. He bit the lobe gently, tugging, then whispered in her ear. "I want to cover all of our bases, Trish. I want to be ready for whatever they throw at us. And I know you do, too."

"Yes," she hissed, wrapping her arms around his waist. She pushed herself closer to him, until her breasts were crushed against him and she could feel the curve of his diaphragm through his thin shirt.

"Yeah," he muttered, "all our bases covered. We'll show 'em just how much we're worth."