The Emancipation of Trish Stratus

A/N: Our sweet little love story turns a little violent here - just thought I'd give you a word of warning. It's Unforgiven, and it's a No Disqual match between two men who have proven they're not afraid to shed a little blood over a fuckin' belt,so what else would you really expect? Anyway,this is almost the end, kiddies. One more chapter after this and I put Trish's Emancipation to bed. By Saturday, you'll all know how it ends.Send your reviews - you know I love hearing them. And you know Idon't own these charactes, I just enjoy torturing them and fucking with their lives on paper. Enjoy!

Blood stains covered more than half of the white canvas. More had been spilt on the Spanish announce table, the barricades, and the floor around the outside of the ring. JR and King would, no doubt, call it "carnage," but the mess that Orton and Triple H had made at Unforgiven was more than flesh wounds and bruises. It was more than some fluids and concussions.

Randy had dreamt about this day for weeks. He had focused on it, visualized it, and played it out a million different ways in his head. He had talked about with Cena and Batista, strategizing and scheming off a thousand different scenarios. He had lain awake at night, with Trish in his arms, discussing how they would celebrate when it was over. Together, they had all come up with every possible situation and circumstance that Hunter could throw his way, and he was ready for all of them.

When he had walked to the ring, earlier that night, he felt like the Champ. He and Trish had, at least, started healing their relationship. They had discussed, at great length, his reasons for wanting to leave RAW, and her reasons for wanting him to stay. And they had reached a compromise together.

He had calmly explained that he wanted to be a true legend, someone who was undoubtedly and completely respected for what he had done inside that ring. He wanted to be a man who was remembered by business insiders, and fans, as someone who worked hard and deserved what he had. But with behind-the-scenes politics being what they were, he knew he didn't stand a chance of getting the Triple H/Evolution monkey off his back as long as he worked for the Monday night brand of the company. He had explained that both he and Dave were planning on jumping ship as soon as contractual limits allowed, if for no other reason than to get the hell away from Hunter for awhile.

It had been hard for Trish, but the conviction in his eyes left her no choice but to agree with what he had said. She promised him that she would support whatever decision he made, but she wanted him to know that she was not in favor of spending months at a time apart from him. She made it clear that she didn't like the plan, or the fact that he had kept it from her, but that she would be right by his side when the final decision was made, one way or the other.

Laying on the sweat-soaked mat of his championship match, Randy blinked his eyes and tried to remember where he was. His head was throbbing and his legs felt numb. Every time he thought about rolling over to stand, the shooting pains in his back held him down like invisible chords. Finally, he managed to flop an arm toward the ropes, but his hand connected with something cold – no doubt the steel chair Hunter had hit him with several times already.

Sounds faded in and out as snippets of the last forty-five minutes flashed through his mind. Hunter hitting him over the head with the chair. Randy pushing Hunter into the ring post, shoulder first. Hunter suplexing him onto the Spanish announce table. Hunter driving an elbow through his chest, and the table. Randy wrapping a fistful of television cable around Hunter's throat. Hunter hitting him with a lead pipe, wrapped in barbed wire. Randy using the brass knuckles Cena had loaned him to gash Hunter's head open.

Most of all, he saw flashes of her. Trish, dressed in her little black and white stripes and black pants, sauntering to the ring. Trish warning them both that she wasn't going to put up with their shit. Trish screaming for Hunter to stop hurting Randy. Trish screaming for Randy not to kill Hunter. Her face twisted in horror as they each went to the top rope and then fell together to the ground outside the ring, causing a heinous sound as their bodies bounced off the corner of the steel steps.

He struggled to sit and attempted to clear his head. Why hadn't Hunter pinned him yet? He had been lying there for what felt like an eternity – it was plenty of time for someone with The Game's experience to regroup and get the cover. And why wasn't the crowd screaming anymore? It seemed as though everything in the arena had stopped, though there were a few mutterings as he blinked the blood out of his eyes and propped his body into the corner.

EMT's were running to the ring, followed by trainers, and guys in suits. There were stretchers and medical bags. They weren't supposed to come out until this was all over. They weren't supposed to stop the action. Randy shook his head in confusion as a referee he recognized, but whose name he couldn't remember, slid into the ring and stood over Hunter, who was struggling to his knees. His eyes followed the trainers to the opposite corner, and they rested on her.

In all of his preparation, imagination, and planning – this was the one thing he would have never, if he had trained for years, been ready to see. Trish, flat on her back, blood pouring from her temple. The lead pipe was near her tiny body, her blood mixed with his on the barbed wire prongs. He blinked several times in an attempt to remember how that had happened. He remembered Hunter coming at him, and he remembered ducking out of the way.

His heart felt like it stopped. He had tried to duck, but his knees had buckled, and he fell on his face. That's when the ring had started to blur and things stopped making sense. That had to have been when Hunter, in attempt to permanently disfigure Randy's face, inadvertently knocked Trish out cold. That was the moment that changed everything, for Randy Orton, forever.

Adrenaline hit him in the gut with a rush and he found himself walking on legs under some control other than his own. He made it to her as the trainer was strapping her to the board and prepping her for the stretcher. Her face was blank, her eyes closed. He couldn't even tell if she was breathing. "Is she still," he couldn't even ask the whole question.

"She's breathing," one of the EMT's assured him, shooing him away.

Turning, Randy realized that Hunter had made it to his feet and was now standing just inches behind him. The crowd watched with baited breath to see who finally won the World Heavyweight Title. Randy knew he could hit the RKO – with the blood pumping through his veins, and the look of concern in Triple H's eyes, he knew that he could do him in. "Let's finish this," he growled through gritted teeth.

Hunter turned his eyes from Trish to her boyfriend and nodded. It was their job, after all. No matter what happened, no matter who got hurt, the show went on. This is what they did – that was why the fans came back. They were the immortals, impenetrable by weakness and pain. They thrived where mere men cowered in paralyzing fear.

But before Triple H could stuff Orton for the Pedigree, the young man fell to the ground. To the crowd, it looked like a collapse, but Triple H knew better. He knew the young Legend Killer well enough to know that the kid was full of adrenaline and nowhere near falling down. "What are you doing?" he asked, standing over Randy and kicking his sides. He was sure that the audience thought he was just toying with his prey.

"Pin me," Orton finally answered when Triple H knelt over his body and punched him in the head.

"You're a fuckin' idiot, Orton," he taunted, wrapping his arms around the young man's neck in a somewhat modified rear naked choke. "You could have beaten me a minute ago," he admitted.

But as Randy felt the world starting to darken and Hunter's hold stealing his oxygen, he mustered his strength to whisper four final words to his opponent. "It's not worth it."

He lost the World Heavyweight Title at Unforgiven, for the second year in a row, but he had done it on his own terms this time. He hadn't been pinned and he hadn't tapped. But, as the world disappeared and he slipped into unconsciousness, even that victory seemed hollow. The title didn't really matter. Nor did the respect of his peers or the recognition of the fans. Not in that moment between life and death.

Trish mattered. The love of a woman he knew he didn't deserve mattered. And, he vowed to himself, if either of them ever woke up from this night, he would make sure she knew that.