A/N: So I was driving the other day and I heard this song on the radio and it was just exactly what I wanted for Chris in this story and so I think it's a fantastic song because of that. It's Michael Bublé's "Home."

Thanks lots for the reviews, I hope you like this chapter and continue to review.

/Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home/

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He couldn't tell you how it was supposed to be, but he knew that it wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to look out at a bright world and see no color whatsoever. The world wasn't supposed to take on this grey color that it had for him, but it was only his own fault that everything was this way. It was only his own fault for walking away from the woman that he loved.

He wanted to just leave here, he wanted to run back to her, but she didn't want him. She had ordered him to leave and so he had. He knew that he had to leave anyway, but then when she had told him to go away, when she had used the definitive tone of voice that he knew meant business, he knew she didn't want him anymore and so he had left. And here he was, in a world without color because…well…

She always put the color into his life.

/Maybe surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone/

So he had gone on tour, he had surrounded himself with everything that he could think of that didn't involve wrestling. If he even thought about anything wrestling-related, he banished them from his mind and found the quickest fix he could find. Those quick fixes came with touring and with his radio show, and then subsequently a play and a television movie and any other thing that didn't remind him of the things that he had left behind. He kept himself so busy that he sometimes didn't even have time to think, but that was always better, it was always better when he didn't have time to let his mind settle on her silky, brunette hair, or her ever-changing blue-grey eyes, or her smooth, supple skin that he knew every curve to.

It was an amazing and yet lonely feeling when he thought about how he was surrounded by people at all times and yet without her there it was a lonely and isolating existence. He didn't like saying that she made his world go round, but sometimes it was just like he didn't really exist at all, that he was floating through this life. He shouldn't have left, he shouldn't have let her tell him to leave. He should've fought back.

He should've done a lot of things.


/I just wanna go home
Oh I miss you, you know/

He hadn't been home in weeks because it reminded him of her. Her clothes were probably still hanging in his closet, if she hadn't come by and picked them up. As much as he didn't want to see her clothes hanging there, he knew that it feel a million times worse to come home and find her half of the closet empty. He remembered a song he heard once, Luther Vandross or something, someone that he didn't normally listen to, but it was a song about a house not being a home or something of that nature. He didn't remember the exact saying or the exact lyrics, but he felt that way about his own house. It was just a house now that it wasn't filled with her laughter and her smiles and just her.

God, sometimes, he would stare out on his balcony and just think about her, and what she was doing, and hopefully not a who she was doing. He didn't want to think about her with another man, but honestly he had left so what could he do if she were with another guy? She was the one to break up with him, she was the one that had sent him packing and nary a word was spoken between the two since.

And yet he couldn't find it in his heart to hate her.

/And I've been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
"I'm fine baby, how are you?"/

It had become kind of nasty habit for him. He wanted to so much to just talk to Stephanie, to just tell her all the things that he was feeling and experiencing being away from her, but he didn't know how. Whenever he sat down to think about what he would say to her, to pen his thoughts, put them to paper, nothing came out. It was like his brain froze and the words, the pretty, lyrical words that he thought most of the time when thinking of Stephanie failed him. It was like the connection between his brain and his fingers was somehow severed and he couldn't get the words out even if he wanted to.

So they ended up being completely lame and completely pointless, but he kept every single "letter" that he wrote to her. They were never actual letters, just phrases or words, sometimes even a sentence. She'd never see them, they'd never see the light of day, but he still kept every single one, a small pile that grew whenever he had a moment to think of something he would like to say to her. They were never fancy words, a simple, Today I saw someone that looked like your dad…it was weird, or, I don't think I can ever eat pizza again, I've had it too much.

It was the mundane things that they could talk about that he missed the most.


/Well I would send them but I know that it's just not enough
My words were cold and flat

And you deserve more than that/

He knew it was probably silly to be writing these things down, but it gave him a kind of comfort. Hell, maybe the words reached her or something romantic like that. Or maybe he was just stupid and didn't want to send them to her when she would probably just throw them away anyways. He had left on bad terms with her, and she had sent him away, not wanting anything to do with him anymore. If that was the case, then sending stupid notes with stupid words would do nothing to rectify the situation. She probably deserved some sort of grand gesture that he couldn't think of at the moment, or any moment. He didn't know how to make it up to her, so he just…kept away from her.

He sat down at the desk in his hotel room and looked at the pile of notes sitting there, all in a pristine little pile, none sticking out or out of order, and he picked up the top one. He stared at it and knew that he could've elaborated, could've filled pages and pages with things to say about this one tiny subject, but he couldn't find the words and so it remained the same as all the others, but this one was a little more meaningful.

I miss you.

/Another aeroplane
Another sunny place

I'm lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I've got to go home/

Every place was starting to look like every other place, and they all appeared drab to him. He wasn't living and he was starting to realize that it was taking its toll on him. He looked in the mirror sometimes and the guy staring back at him wasn't the guy that had been staring back at him nearly a year ago. He couldn't quite place the eyes that stared back at him, or the nose or the mouth. Nothing of his seemed like its own anymore.

Maybe if he called Shane, just to see what she was up to. Maybe he could hear good things, like she was happy, because as long as she was happy, then he could be happy too, even if it was without her. If she was happy, then he'd be able to fall asleep knowing that she wasn't tossing and turning like he was, that she could actually go home and not fear what was on the other side.

/Let me go home
I'm just too far from where you are
I wanna come home/

But then he also feared calling Shane because he didn't want to hear that she was happy with another guy. Sure, Shane would lie because they were good friends, but Chris could always tell when Shane was lying, it was one of the benefits of being the guy's friend. It literally scared him that he was still in love with Stephanie after a year of being apart. It scared him that he saw no end to his misery.

It scared him even more to think she could move on when he couldn't.

/And I feel just like I'm living someone else's life
It's like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right/

What he wouldn't give just to see her again. Maybe he'd give his left arm to see her. He didn't need it, not really. He was right-handed, he was the singer in his bad, and if that one kid could wrestle without a leg, surely he could wrestle without an arm. He would give just about anything and everything to be able to go back in time and not fight with her. He couldn't even remember what it was over now, but it was probably something petty and stupid and something that should've blown over, but it didn't, and what he wouldn't give to just go back and do it over, do it all over. Maybe then they would still be together and he wouldn't be contemplating how best to separate his left arm from his body, if only it would mean that he would get her back.


/And I know just why you could not
Come along with me/

He opened up another e-mail that had been screened for him, another question for his website. It went through his webmaster first and then to him if the question was good enough, and then he would decide which ones he would answer. It was fun to know what people wanted to ask of him, but today was not his day, not his day at all.

The first one read, "What do you really think of Stephanie McMahon?"

The second one (a few e-mails later) said, "What was your favorite scene to do with Stephanie McMahon? I loved when you made fun of her implants, that was comedic gold!"

The third one (there could've been more, but by this time, he had stopped reading), "Do you have any regrets, like ones you could share?"


/This was not your dream
But you always believed in me/

"Stephanie McMahon is pretty awesome, she's always been one of my biggest supporters in everything I do."

"My favorite scene, I guess it would have to be our King of the Ring kiss. Nobody was expecting it and her face was hilarious, I don't know how I didn't start laughing."

"Yeah, I have one big regret, and I'll just give you this advice, don't let the person you love get away, just don't, it'll be the biggest regret you'll ever have."

/Another winter day has come
And gone away
And even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home/

After reading all those e-mails pertaining to Stephanie, he couldn't help but ruminate over her for the next several days. He missed her, that much he knew, but he missed being home. WWE was his home, he had even said it was like the mafia, that when you were in, you were in for life. He was in for life. He wanted to be in for life with Stephanie. He wanted to see her and he didn't want another day to go by without seeing her because it was starting to hurt. It was hurting every time someone brought her up unknowingly, it hurt to be around something she liked, and he was tired of being hurt.

He had to see her.

/Let me go home
I've had my run
Baby, I'm done/

He sat at his desk, looking at all those unsent notes. He was done with them, after today, they were going to be no more. He had to see her, consequences be damned. He loved her and he missed her and he needed her more than any words could say. Maybe someday he would give her the notes and she would laugh at them or cry over them, but he was done with them. He was done with living this half-life that wasn't really living. He picked up his pen and looked down at the paper in front of him, deciding he had one more thing he needed to write.

/It will all right
I'll be home tonight/

He started to write the next letter he wouldn't send, then paused, closed his eyes and wrote something down. Satisfied with what he had written he laid it on top of the pile of unwritten notes and messages he had accumulated these long months. It sat there, looking back at him, as if mocking him, daring him. He almost couldn't look away, but then got up and grabbed his coat, leaving it there. So it sat there, untouched, the ink sinking deeper and deeper into the paper.


/I'm coming back home/

Can I come home now?