Scar Tissue

A/N: So, this is it, Kiddies. The final chapter of Scar Tissue. I left it open on purpose. Maybe I'll do a sequel someday, who knows? But I hope you've enjoyed it half as much as I've enjoyed writing it for you, and getting your kick-ass reviews. Thanks for stickin' with me, and I promise to have something new for you soon. I don't own Randy or Trish. I own Carter, but I'm thinking about returning him for store-credit. Enjoy!


She could still remember the day Carter brought home the platinum and chrome-plated Harley Davidson. Pride emanated from his angular features as he held the keys to her and waited for a response.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" she screeched, staring at the silver machine before her. "You don't have that kind of money, Carter." His smile faded and his shoulders drooped, but she just crossed her arms and gave him a firm glare. "I don't even know how to ride one those things."

The smile returned, the kind that lit up his whole face. "You can learn. Trish, baby, you can learn anything you put your mind to. And this way – we can take weekend trips, ya know? It's way more gas efficient than your Caddy, and we can just pack a bag and take off." With his hands on her shoulders, he gave her the puppy dog eyes. "Come on, Baby. It's gonna be so great. You'll see."

She had huffed, and tried to stay mad, but the look on his face was priceless. So childlike and eager to give her something bigger than she expected, a gift like the ones she so often gave him. So she had taken the keys from him and determined to learn how to ride one.

Two years later, she couldn't imagine how she had ever lived without it. They had never really taken one of those weekend trips. But she had found other ways to make use of the bike, letting out her aggression and clearing her mind as she zipped effortlessly through the Connecticut countryside.

Birds were singing in the trees as she zoomed along, completely intent on forgetting everyone and everything. There picturesque sky was filled with fluffy, white clouds, shaped like dolphins and princesses. Spring had just arrived, and it was evident all around her. She barely noticed, though, as she focused on the road and avoided gravel and fallen branches.

More than a month ago, she had left Randy's room, never to look back. At least, that's what she hoped they believed. Truthfully, that morning was in her dreams every night as she drifted off, and again in her mind when she faced another day. Seeing him at every arena, every signing, every press conference, wasn't helping. Neither was that look of confusion and hurt that he kept shooting her.

She assumed that he had moved on, but decided against asking anyone, for fear that it would make her look like she cared. He was no longer in her bed, but he was soundly in her brain, no matter how hard she tried to expel him. The sex was good, but it couldn't have been that good. And if she told herself enough, she would believe it.

Not that she believed much of anything anymore. Every time she thought she had her life figured it out, something unreasonably ridiculous happened and she found herself spiraling toward the ground again. If it wasn't the unexpectedness of perfect sex with Randy, then it was the unexpectedness of Carter's latest visit, two weeks earlier.

Pulling her car into the driveway, Trish breathed a sigh of relief. She had been to a lot of exotic locations in her lifetime, but nothing seemed like a better vacation in that moment than sleeping in her own bed and tuning out the rest of the world.

Until she saw him, sitting on the front steps, his head in his hands, waiting. Waiting for her. He watched as she pulled her suitcase out of the car, and stood to meet her on the sidewalk. "Hey."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, brushing past him on her way to the door. "What do you want?" Her entire body tensed up at his presence.

"I thought your flight got in an hour ago," Carter's eyebrow raised in obvious interest as she stood a few feet from him, looking anything but amused.

Shifting her weight from one leg to the other, she shrugged. "It's not exactly easy to get through the airport these days, Carter," was her only answer. "Now, what the hell do you want?"

Throwing his arms up, Carter looks exasperated. "Jesus, Trish. Is this how it's gonna be with us?" He took one step forward, watching as she took one back. "I thought we were good."

Her resolve weakened. They had been good together. For a long time. But if she let herself remember that, she would do something stupid. "Look, I'm really tired and I've been up since four, okay? I just need to take a shower and sleep."

But Carter stepped into her path. "I just wanna talk to you. Please?"

And she folded, just like always. "Fine. You got twenty minutes," she warned, unlocking the front door and leading him inside. She stopped inside the foyer and turned, hands on her hips. If she gave him more than an inch, he would turn it into a lasso, and rope her right back into his web of confusion and pointlessness. "What?"

Carter seemed bewildered by her change of attitude. Three weeks ago, he had been on the verge of a job with the company, and they had talked about getting back together. The sex had even been good. Everything felt like it was clicking. And now she was cold again. The woman he had known better than any other for most of his life had become a mystery. And if he couldn't be sure of Trish, he couldn't be sure of anything.

"Alright, so clearly, I've fucked some shit up in our relationship," he laughed slightly, running a hand through his spikey hair. "But I love you, Trish. And I know I keep saying it, but it's true."

Trish rolled her eyes. Here we go again. The same bull shit. All the time. "I don't doubt that you love me, Carter. That was never the problem."

He sagged against the wall, and Trish realized he wasn't wearing the same dickies and punk-rock tee shirt. His hair wasn't the shaggy, tossled mop. He was sporting jeans and polo shirt. With Dr. Martins, instead of his old, beat up Vans. Something was different about Carter. And it wasn't just his attire.

The look he gave her almost knocked Trish over. "What happened to you?" she asked, more to herself than him.

He gave her a half-smile. She could see it. There was a glimmer there – something that said she could see the change. "I got a job," he smiled wider. "With a marketing firm in New York."

New York? What the hell? "You what?"

Carter shook his head and moved toward her again, partially to be near her, but more to keep her from falling over. With a hand on her elbow, he brushed her hair away from her face. "It's nothin' fancy. Yet. I'm just an assistant. But they're gonna pay for me to go to this design school part time and work part time." He was almost laughing with excitement as he finished delivering the news. "And when I graduate? They're gonna promote me and everything."

She knew that he was waiting for her to throw her arms around his neck and leap for joy. But she wasn't feeling joy. She really wasn't feeling anything. Her mind, body, and soul all felt numb. "Um," was all she managed to choke out.

Taking a step back, Carter stuffed his hands into the pocket of his fitted jacket. "Look, I know this is a lot for you to process right now, but," he looked straight into her beautiful eyes. "But this is for real, Trish. I know that you can see it." She just nodded. "And I'm gonna be the man that you have always wanted me to be. The man that you need to be with."

The urge to kick him in the face came and went quickly. He had put her through so much pain and confusion. He had been everything she wanted, and didn't want, all at the same time. But before she could say anything, he dropped to one knee and pulled a small velvet box. "Trish?"

She blinked her eyes as he opened the box. It wasn't fancy, probably no more than a quarter carat. And the band and setting were equally as simple. But he had gone to the trouble of looking for, and picking out, a ring. It was more initiative than she had ever seen from him. "Carter," she whispered.

"I totally should have done this years ago, Trish, and I know that now. But maybe later is better than never?" He took her hand from his shoulder and kissed her knuckles. "Will you marry me?"

Her breath hitched in her throat, her mind racing in all directions. Without paying attention to any of the thoughts, she turned on her heel and ran for the door. She didn't know where she was going, just that she had to get out. She had to think. She had to figure out what the hell was going on.

Two weeks later, she hadn't stopped running. By the time she had gone home that night, Carter had been gone. The ring, and a note about giving her all the time she needed, had been placed in the middle of her bed. And now, with it tucked safely in her pocket, she wasn't sure if she could stop the running. There was a slight possibility, Trish knew, that if she slowed down, the world would just fold in on top of her.

Parking her bike in front of Titan Towers for the second time that day, she swung her leg over the back end and rested her helmet on the handle bars before gathering her long, blonde locks into a fat ponytail. She had smiled sweetly and pretending to be interested in all the morning meetings, just like the good Trish Stratus always did. But now it was time to get in the gym and kick some ass, and she was more than ready to let Trish the Fighter out to play.

She walked through the halls of the training facility, headed toward the gym with an almost giddy feeling in her chest. Well, as giddy as she had been in more than a month. The weather was nice. She was home again, for the second time in a month. Her body, aside from normal bumps and bruises, felt good. And she got to spend the afternoon working with Victoria. It was shaping up to be a pretty great day.

"I told you, Ma. I am fine," his voice echoed through the concrete walls of the basement as Trish turned the corner and stopped. Randy's back was to her as he paced the far end of the hall. He held his cell phone to one ear and cringed as he tried to move the other arm in a small, circular motion. "I know. . . Ma, I know. . . Listen. . . Would you just fuckin' listen," he shouted. Her eyes grew wide. Who talked to their own mother like that? "I'm sorry, Ma. . . No, I didn't mean it like that. . . I know, I'm sorry. . . I'm just sore, okay? . . . No, the shoulder's fine."

He was lying, and Trish knew it. Not only because he flinched every time he tried to move it, but because he wasn't a very experienced liar. Sure, he was manipulative, maybe deceptive, but he didn't lie. Of all the guys in the locker room, Orton was the only one who was straightforward and honest about what he wanted and who he was.

So to hear him lie to his mother knocked her back a bit. When he finally snapped the phone shut and grabbed the inflamed limb with his free hand, Trish took a step toward him. "Thought you said it didn't hurt much," she smirked.

He turned, and tried to mask his every emotion, good and bad. He tried to remember that she was the one who had walked away from him. He tried to tell himself that he had gotten what he wanted, what he had set out to get, and he should be done with her. But she stood there, hand on her hip, a daring look of concern in her eyes, and he could barely remember his own name. "I lied," he tried to smile.

Trish nodded and moved closer, dropping her duffle bag. It hit the floor in the secluded hall with a whispered "thud." She stood inches from him and raised her hands, gently taking his muscle-bound shoulder in her grasp and kneading it carefully. "Does this hurt?"

He nodded and threw his head back, willing the pain away. Shooting, blinding pain coursed through his arm, but he refused to admit it. He wouldn't tell anyone how bad it really was. "Damn," he finally spat through gritted teeth, pulling away.

Trish took a step back. "Sorry," she mumbled, starting to turn.

But Randy grabbed her arm and pulled her to his chest. A thousand unasked, unanswerable questions passed between them before he crushed his lips to hers. He didn't know what Trish was doing to his head, but he was damn sure about what she did to his body. And three weeks without it was making him insane.

Trish started to reach for his neck, but then pulled back and stepped away from him. "I can't fuckin' believe this," she stomped her foot and tried to shake the stupidity she was feeling. "No, ya know what? I can believe this. Fine." Stalking toward him she checked to make sure they were alone, and reached her hand for his waistband.

Randy caught her tiny fingers in his considerably larger ones, though, and held her hand out to the side. He couldn't believe he was about to tell her no, but the time wasn't right, and he didn't want her pity. For once in his life, he didn't want to fuck her just to fuck her. He didn't want her using the sex as a way to get him out of her system. He could see the game all over her face – he had played it for far too long to be fooled by the mask she was trying to keep in place.

"If we're not gonna fuck, then just let me go," she insisted, trying to wrench her arm from his grasp. But when he wouldn't release her, she met his eye with piqued curiosity. He wasn't smirking like a cocky frat boy. He looked . . . sincere. Almost. "What do you want from me?"

None of it made sense. He knew that it didn't. And he didn't know how to make her, or himself, understand. The stabbing pain in his scarred shoulder did the talking for him. "So, I told you the scars didn't hurt, right?" She nodded. "Clearly, I lied," he tried to laugh it off, but it wasn't a time for laughing and they both knew it. "They hurt like fuck, Trish. Sometimes the tissue's so tight, it's all I can do to get out of bed and get dressed. I'd really, honestly, rather cut it off completely than deal with how it feels right now."

Trish leaned against the wall for support when he closed his eyes and lowered his head toward his chest, wiggling his fingers for circulation. He didn't talk. And he certainly didn't talk about anything other than sex. At least not to her. But hearing him open up, even partially, in that deep, soothing baritone, made her knees feel weak.

He smiled a little and raised his eyebrow, meeting her eye again. "I don't like the pain, but I go through it anyway. And do you know why?" She shook her head, her eyes trained on him with an intensity that nearly stole his breath. "I do it because, if I don't, I might never get back in the ring again. And as much as it hurts, the thought of giving up my dream hurts worse." Rolling his eyes at himself, he went on. "I'm not an optimist or anything. But I tell myself that a ninety percent range of motion is better than eighty-five. It's better than nothing at all. It's better than sitting at home and watching RAW on TV."

She sighed and sank to the floor, her knees hugged tightly to her chest. How did he do that? How did he turn from cocky son of a bitch to thoughtful poet seemingly on a dime? And how much of the façade was real? "I don't know what this has to do with us." Putting up a wall was the only thing she felt capable of anymore, and Trish wasn't about to crumble because he showed some interest in his career.

Randy was frustrated. It made perfect sense in his head. Everything always made sense in his head. She doesn't even want you to say anything, so who the fuck cares if you say the wrong thing, man? What does it matter? Just fuckin' say it. "I know you had your heart broken or whatever," he sighed, moving closer to where she huddled on the floor. "But if you just stop feeling anything, Trish? You may never be able to feel again, ya know?"

She shook her head sadly. "Maybe it's better that way."

But Randy shook his head, sat on the floor in front of her, stretched out his legs, and pulled her closer. "It's not. Trust me," he put a finger under her chin and met her eyes, a look of tender understanding there. "You think you can control it, that you can decide who you're going to love and who you're not." Licking his lips, he tried to look away.

Trish felt paralyzed as she sat motionless, staring at him. She had known two kinds of men in the last few months – the kind that promised her the world, but delivered nothing. And the kind that promised her nothing, but delivered something far out of this world. Confusion sank in as she realized the man holding her now was neither.

"You shut everybody out eventually," Randy admitted, the words flowing over his lips without permission. "You use people, and then you throw 'em out like they were fuckin' trash. You start to think that nobody means anything, that life is empty. You start doin' shit you never thought you'd do, just so you can fuckin' feel something again.

"You think it's makin' you feel better, that maybe you're getting some feeling back, but it's Novocain, ya know? You're just numbing yourself for whatever's around the next corner," his gaze drifted away over her head and then down to the floor.

He hadn't planned on saying anything of this, to anyone, EVER, but the moment that the words started flowing, they wouldn't stop. "The next thing you know, you've met this beautiful woman, one that you might actually want to love at some point down the road, and you just can't.

"You can't give her what she needs, because you're completely emotionally incapable. And all of the rules that you set in place to make sure this didn't happen have flown out the window, and you're not even thinkin' about a fall back." He shook his head and slid across the hall, resting against the opposite wall. With his knees up, he half-chuckled, a bitter, empty laugh, and continued. "You're fuckin' the chick in your house, wakin' up next to her, forgetting the condoms when things get too heated.

"You realize you don't know shit one about the woman, but you miss her when she's gone. And it's changing everything that you've come to know in your easy world of emotionless one-night stands."

In that vulnerable, unplanned moment, Trish was sure he spilled more than he ever thought possible. It was the kind of speech that they would both normally mock, had they seen it in a movie or on television. But it was so uncharacteristic of him, so bone-chillingly honest, that she couldn't deny the impact.

So she didn't try. On her knees, Trish crawled to Randy, between his slightly-bent knees, and she kissed him. It wasn't the slow, tender embrace of lovers. They weren't in love, and maybe they never could be. Hell, they barely knew each other. It had the ability to end tragically. Catastrophically.

But fuck the consequences. Fuck Carter's proposal. Fuck anything that happened tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. Maybe her heart only had ninety percent range of motion. But that was enough. She didn't need to feel loved, or needed, or even wanted. She just needed to feel alive.