A/N: Sorry about the lengthy wait between chapters, but I could not for the life of me figure out how I wanted to transition between last chapter and what I have written for the next chapter. The update for this should be a lot quicker considering I already have it written. So enjoy. :)


Chris was thinking. It seemed to be the only thing he was good at doing lately. He just thought and thought and thought some more. It was almost like he was stagnant in a way. It was like he couldn't move forward and yet he didn't move backwards. He felt like the energy had been sapped right out of his body. It was a strange feeling to say the least, but he didn't know how to break free of it.

Everything was confusing him at the moment. It was like he wasn't in his own body sometimes. He got the sensation that he was just floating through his life, like events and people were blurs to him, and he couldn't really sense anything. The only thing that he could see clearly, for some inexplicable reason, was Stephanie. She was clear…or at least he thought she was clear.

But things would never work out between the two of them and he couldn't believe he was even contemplating the idea of them together. But then when he looked at it, it just seemed…right somehow. But then there was Trish, and she was great too, and they had a good time together. And then yet again, his mother was telling him to go to Stephanie and his mother had always had good judgment. They were always saying that you should listen to your mother.

So there he lay, in his childhood bed, staring up at the ceiling he stared up at when he was younger and dreaming of becoming a big wrestler someday. But now he was just a confused grown-up, who had gotten one dream, but seemed mired in another. He didn't know how long he lay there, staring at his ceiling, but eventually he nodded off to sleep and the maddening dreams came again.

"Chris, honey, you wouldn't ever leave me would you?"

"Leave you?" he asked, like it was the silliest question in the universe. "I would NEVER leave you, I mean, why would I leave you? I love you and I don't even find other women attract--"

"No, not like that, don't die on me Chris," she pleaded in a whisper.

Chris looked over at his wife, and saw that she was being serious right now. There was no teasing or playfulness in her eyes. "Steph, where is this coming from?"

"I just don't want you to die," she told him. "I was watching this show last night, and there was this woman with five kids and her husband had died, and she was raising them all by herself, and it made me scared. I don't want you to die Chris."

"Steph, I'm right here. I'm in perfect health, you know that. I just had my physical last month, and I'm perfect, as usual."

"But anything could happen," Stephanie told him. "Freak accidents happen all the time, you slip in the tub or something and you hit your head and then it's lights out."

"Steph, we don't take showers in the tub, we have a shower and we have a tub, two totally separate things."

"Chris, you're not getting me here," she said, frustrated that he was taking this so lightly. "I'm just scared that one day I'm going to wake up and you're not going to be there next to me. That one day I'm going to wake up, and you're not."

"Steph, that's not going to happen," Chris told her. "I would never leave you and the boys, I will do everything in my power to make sure that I'm here for years and years to come. I will even live longer than you so that you never have to live without me okay?"

"You'd do that for me?"

"I am damn sure going to try."

"I want to go together," she confessed. "I don't think I could bear any place that didn't have you in it, even if it is heaven."

"You think of weird things when I'm not around, you know that," he told her with a soft chuckle. "That's the last time that I go to sleep before you do and let you watch things that make you think that I'm suddenly going to spontaneously combust into thin air."

"It's a viable concern!" she protested. "I mean, that's the reason that we both have wills right?"

"Yeah, but that's just a precaution, it doesn't mean that I have my tombstone picked out or anything. You have a will too and you don't see me worrying that you're going to take the long journey."

"You're not worried?"

"Why should I worry unless I have reason to worry?" Chris asked her.

"I don't know, because it's the right thing to do, to worry about your wife."

"I do worry about you, but I'm not going to worry needlessly. I mean, sure, I'll worry that one day you'll meet some guy and realize that he's a million times better than me and then you'll have an affair and leave me humiliated, but no, I'm not going to worry about you dying."

"YOU worry about me having an affair?"

"Well sure, in the general sense, yeah. Like, it could happen I suppose. It's a base concern."

"If anyone should worry about that, I should worry about YOU."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's that supposed to mean?" Chris inquired. "You can't seriously think that I would cheat on you."

"I didn't say that," she explained.

"Then what did you say because I'm thinking that I heard you wrong."

"All I'm saying is that you're the one who travels all the time and is surrounded by ring rats, and you know, you are hot."

"Well that's a given."

"Exactly, and you must have women throwing themselves at you when I'm not around. I understand the nature of the business, I grew up in it after all, and I know it. I'm just saying that if anyone had a more clear-cut opportunity to cheat it would be you, because the only boys that I see are our sons."

"I wouldn't cheat on you, you know that."

"I DO know that, I'm just talking about the opportunity to do it."

"Even if I had the opportunity, I wouldn't take it. I would never do anything like that to you or the boys."

"Chris, I know, I'm just saying."

"How did this turn into a discussion about cheating?"

Stephanie shrugged and looked at him from across the bed. In between the two of them were two little boys laying haphazardly across the bed. Stephanie currently had a little foot slung over her hip and Chris had a hand resting against his neck. The rain was pounding against the window, and the boys had been too frightened to stay in their rooms, instead ganging up on him and Stephanie and asking to sleep with them for the evening.

The pounding was getting louder and louder…

Chris woke up with a start, his body jerking awake. He sat up quickly and heard rain pattering against the window loudly. It must've woken him up, and the weather outside matched his mood right now. It had been raining in his dream, just like this. It was like he was reliving his dreams, and he almost expected to look over and see Stephanie next to him. In fact, he did take a quick peek over and found that he was indeed alone.

"I just don't get it," he muttered to himself. "She seems so real."

"Who seems real?"

He looked up and saw Stephanie leaning in the doorway. "Stephanie!"

"Who seems real?" she asked.

"How did you get here?" he asked her.

"I have my ways," she told him cryptically. "I should be asking what you're doing…"

"I thought I told you that I needed some space," he said, trying not to sound testy. It wasn't that he didn't want to see her, but it was just that he didn't know what he wanted yet. He didn't know if Stephanie was the one for him.

"I don't think you do."

"Stephanie, what's up with you?"

"I'm tired Chris, I'm tired of this!" she said exasperated.

"I'm sorry that I'm putting you through this. I know that it's not fair to you, but I don't know what to do."

She shook her head. "You have to choose Chris. You have to choose what you want. You have to choose between these two worlds. Do you want Trish, or do you want me? It's not that difficult to choose you know."

"I know it shouldn't be, but this is my life!"

Stephanie stalked over to him and stood over him. He looked up at her and suddenly she pushed him back on the bed. Chris was stunned by her prowess and could do nothing but continue to stare up at her. She mounted him, crawling lithely up his body, her eyes never leaving his. She smiled menacingly down at him.

"Steph…um, maybe you should get off of me, this is…I still have a girlfriend."

"Whatever Chris," she said, her voice lowering to almost a growl.

"Stephanie, stop," he said, trying to push her off.

"No," she asserted, pushing him back down. She was incredibly strong and he was feeling weaker and weaker.

"Come on Stephanie, this is wrong."

"No," she said again, lower now.

He looked up at her and it was like her eyes were glowing, they were actually scaring him. He was getting scared by her, this wasn't Stephanie, this wasn't her at all. "It's like you're not even real."

"Finally!" Stephanie said, getting off of him. Then everything started to fade. "Finally…"

"What are you talking about? What's going on," Chris said, looking around as it seemed everything was fading. Was he still dreaming?

He must still be dreaming because his world was fading away and all that was left was Stephanie standing there. She was just standing there like nothing, her arms and legs not moving. She was changing too; she wasn't so scary anymore. Her face softened and he couldn't focus on anything but her. Her hair fell gently over her shoulders, but there seemed to be a slight breeze. He walked towards her.

"Am I dreaming?"

She shrugged. "I can't tell you what you're doing Chris, I'm just a figment of your imagination."

"You seem so real."

"I know. But I'm not."

"Oh," he said, not the witty response he was hoping for, but what could he do? "And Trish, this entire thing, I'm going to wake up and I'm going to be with her aren't I?"

"Possibly," Stephanie answered, grabbing his hands. "Depends on what's your own reality is."

"So we're not together."

"Me and you? ME and you? No, we're not," she said, emphasizing and weighing her words carefully. "I AM a dream, if that's what you were thinking. Well, I'm kind of a dream, kind of a…sign, I guess you can say."

"Are you my guardian angel?" he joked.

She laughed, lilting and airy. "Not really."

"So why you?" he asked her.

"When you open your eyes, you'll see why you see me," she explained. "Everything will be explained, I swear. I'm just a dream to you, I'm just saying the things that you need to hear, need to think, but you're too stubborn to think them for yourself."

"Don't tell me that you're my conscience."

"No, I'm not your conscience," she reassured him. "I'm…nothing really. I'm not your reality, and a dream is nothing, not really. So I'm nothing."

"Why do I keep dreaming about you?" he asked her.

"You're projecting is all," she explained. "I swear, once you really open your eyes, everything is going to be so clear. And everything will make sense and I swear you won't be confused and your life will make sense."

"Okay, so let me ask the million dollar question then," he said. "When do I get to open my eyes?"

"That's all up to you," Stephanie answered. "Because I can't do it for you, Lord knows that. You just have to open them, to stop dreaming. But it's up to you when you do so."

"I see, you're kind of a bitch aren't you?"

She shook her head. "I'm only the way that you imagine me to be, if I'm a bitch to you, then I'm a bitch. But I think we both know that you don't think of me as a bitch, do you?"

"No," he said. "So when I open my eyes, Trish is going to be there, and everything will be good with her, right?"

Stephanie sighed and brought her hand up to his face. She ran it down his cheek gently. "You still haven't figured everything out, and that's okay, but you're going to have to figure everything out before you open your eyes. You have to remember everything and you have to know who you're in love with."

He looked at her for a long moment. "I think I'm in love with you Stephanie."

"You think or you know?"

"Huh?

"You think you're in love with me, or you know you're in love with me, there's a big difference there Chris."

"I'm in love with you Stephanie. I'm so in love with you. I don't know how and I don't know when, but it happened, and I'd be kidding myself in thinking that things will ever be the same with Trish, they'll never be the same and I know that now."

She closed her eyes. "That's all I needed to hear. I'll see you on the other side Chris."

She faded away then and Chris was starting to panic. Now he was completely and utterly alone. He looked down and saw that he appeared to be fading as well. Everything was getting cloudy and dark, like he was being sucked somewhere. He got a foreboding feeling and didn't know where he would end up next.