"How are you feeling Stacy?" Melina asked her mockingly the moment they stepped behind the curtain. Stacy reacted on impulse and pulled Melina's hair and slapped her hard that the latter fell to the floor.
"That's the last time you're going to lay your hands on me Stacy!" Melina screamed angrily.
"Yes. Miss Keibler that's the last time you are going to lay your hands on the lovely Melina." Theodore Long suddenly appeared out of nowhere and said to her.
"What do you mean now Mr. Long?" Stacy asked, her voice was a mix of exasperation, desperation and anger.
"If you ever lay a finger on Melina Stacy, I'm going to strip John Cena and Randy Orton their Tag Team belts." Theodore threatened.
"You wouldn't!" Stacy stopped dead and glared at Theodore Long.
"You might have forgotten about one thing Stacy." Theodore said and leaned close to Stacy.
"I'm the General Manager. I can do anything." He whispered at her. Stacy felt cold fury wash over her as she studied Theodore Long's features.
"See. I told you not to mess with us Keibler." Melina said and walked away with Nitro and Mercury who were guffawing stupidly. Mark Henry was looking at her like some hungry predator ready to pounce on his next prey.
"Oh and by the way Stacy, tell your friend John Cena that he's facing Mark Henry for the WWE Championship next SmackDown." Theodore Long added with a nasty smile.
"Assholes!" Stacy muttered under her breath as she walked towards their locker room. She was pretty sure that Randy and John are waiting for her there. She hastened her pace, her heart was beating furiously inside her chest.
The moment she reached the door, she took a deep breath and opened the door.
"Stacy!" Randy and John exclaimed worriedly when they saw Stacy on the doorway.
"Are you alright?" Randy asked her in slight panic as he hugged her close.
"Yeah, I'm okay. Unfortunately, you two aren't." Stacy said. She's been battling with herself if she should tell them about Theodore Long's threat.
"Why?" John asked.
"I'm stuck with Mark Henry and I can't do anything about it." Stacy felt like crying.
"Don't worry babe. We're not asking you to do something about this. We're doing something for this to stop." Randy tried assuring her.
"But Randy… as much as I want to slap Melina's mouth off her face I can't! Teddy told me that he's going to strip your titles if I do." Stacy told them.
"He's a bastard…" John said through gritted teeth.
"John, you're facing Mark Henry next week for the WWE Championship." Stacy said slowly.
"No other stipulations?" John asked calmly. He's been expecting something like this to happen the minute he saw Mark Henry walked down the ramp earlier that evening. He's been eyeing his belt since then. Stacy was a bit shock when she saw his expression. She has been expecting that John would burst with anger.
"I'm a soldier Stace. And a soldier never backs down. He fights, he fights for the people and win." John told her when he saw her confused look. He took it that Stacy was surprise with his answer.
"John…" Stacy couldn't find anything else to say.
"Don't worry John can handle this." Randy said as he gave Stacy's hand a soft squeeze.
"I… I know." She just answered and hoped that John would overcome Mark Henry next week.
"I'm just grateful that someone was there on the match to help us." Stacy said out of the blues as she remembered that someone came to help them.
"Yeah… but I guess the help went to waste. We did loose the match. And we lost you." Randy answered.
"At least the person managed to whacked them with a sledge." Stacy said. She turned her head towards John who was being quiet all the time.
"If I wasn't smart enough I would have thought it was Triple H who came to help us." Randy chuckled a bit when he remembered his former mentor's signature object.
"Yeah, but H would never come to SmackDown and just do that. Who could it be?" Stacy answered. She's been racking her brain to find the answer of the question.
"Yeah, it's not Triple H. Me too… I just don't know who it is. What about you John? Who do you think it was?" Randy asked his mate.
"Huh? I don't know…" John said never looking into Randy the whole time.
"Are you sure? I mean, he did whisper something in your ear?" Stacy pushed.
"Are you sure that it's a he?" Randy asked suspiciously.
"Well, what do you mean? A she?" Stacy asked raising an eyebrow.
"Uh guys… I'll talk to you later, I… I just need to see… err... someone." John said and walked out of the room.
Stacy just shrugged her shoulders at Randy when he cast her an inquiring look after John closed the door.
"Don't worry Stace, everything will be okay… soon." Randy said at Stacy and he took his cellphone from his bag and dialed a number.
"Yo! Hunter!" Randy said after a few rings.
"Randy? That you?" Hunter Hearst Helmsley asked, he was mildly surprised to hear from Randy.
"Yeah, it's me man." Randy replied and sighed.
"I thought you'd be in your hotel room by now laying in bed in pain." Hunter said and laughed a bit.
"Huh?" Randy asked confusedly.
"I mean I saw your match with MNM and that ugly giant Mark Henry and I expect that you're moaning in pain by now." Hunter answered.
"You mean you saw the match? Where?" Randy questioned.
"On the TV of course! Where'd you expect me to watch it." Hunter said dismissively as if he were stating the obvious.
"So it wasn't you who ran down the ramp to help us?" Randy asked his old mentor.
"No way! Why should I fly two hundred miles just to save your neck from a match? And besides I have to take care of my wife and my son to be." Hunter said, his eyes twinkling like a kid.
"Oh! Yeah, congratulations to you and Stef." Randy said, his voice loosing a bit of enthusiasm.
"What gave you the idea that it was me?" Hunter suddenly asked.
"Believe it or not, the sledgehammer." Randy answered and laughed a bit and Hunter couldn't stop himself but laughed with Randy.
"You punk!" he answered and a hearty laughter was heard over the line.
"So tell me about what's going on with SD right now?" Hunter shifted the topic.
"Well, you've seen SmackDown tonight right. That will tell you the whole story." He answered exasperatedly.
"Tell me." Triple H said.
"You know you can be a girl with this gossiping you know." Randy commented.
"Haha. Funny. You telling me or not? I might be able to help you…" Triple H said and Stef's voice from somewhere. Randy got the idea and started…
"Well, as you know, Long's gone psycho and has ordered Stacy to manage Mark Henry. He said he's going to strip the Tag Team titles from us if Stacy ever lay a hand on that slut Melina. John's going to face Henry next week." Randy told him.
"That's tough man. Don't worry, I'll talk to Vince about this. He'd might be able to shed some light on this. He's the mighty Vincent Kennedy Macmahon after all." Hunter said. "Ouch! Stef!" Hunter suddenly said when Stephanie pinched him.
"Oooh, you're telling daddy Vince." Randy mocked him.
"Hey stop it or I'm not going to help you." Triple H said and smiled.
"Yeah, whatever. Thanks Hunter." Randy said.
"Anytime man." Hunter replied.
"And man, I'm getting married." Randy informed the older man.
"To Stacy? That's great!" Hunter said.
"Thanks man. I'd better go." Randy just said.
"Yeah. Bye." Hunter answered and hung up.
"It wasn't Hunter." Randy said to Stacy. And Stacy just gave him this I-told-you-it-wasn't-him look.
John looked at the name hanging on the door. He drew a deep breath and knocked.
"Who's there?" a voice asked.
"It's me…" John just replied and the door slowly creaked open. John offered a smile to the person in front of him, which was returned doubtfully.
"Can I come in?" John asked and the person opened the door to let him in.
"What are you doing here?" the person asked him.
"I just wanna say thank you for helping us out tonight." John said without any further ado.
"It… it was nothing." The stranger answered.
"It was a big thing! You saved my neck! And that's not nothing! Just like what I'm feeling for you, it's not nothing!" John raised his voice a bit.
"John…" the person pleaded.
"So you know Torrie, it's not easy to say yes to forget about you. You shouldn't go whispering to people to forget you. You're an extraordinary person and you're hard to forget." John said with pleading eyes.
"It isn't that simple John. I'm stuck in a complicated life." Torrie said.
"Then make me part of it so that I can take you out from being stuck." John told her.
But suddenly, Torrie's cellphone rang. She picked it up to see who it was, but it was unlisted. She answered it…
"I know what you did this evening… and I know about your secret." A voice said. "Meet me… or I'm gonna tell the whole world about it." Torrie looked at John and dropped her cellphone to the floor.
a/n: oh so sorry it took me a long time to update this fic... it's just that i'm waiting for my creative juices to start pouring once again. i'm just so empty and brain drained lately. so i hope y'all like this chap... r&r, thanks guys!