Disclaimer: I don't own anyone, other than Lily and Madison.

Rated: M

Warning(s): Slash, Storyline Fanfic, Past Mpreg, etc.

Phil flinched, looking down at the still-bleeding gash on his tattooed bicep. The wound was fresh, dark red and angry, and throbbed with the beat of his heart. He'd snagged it on a corner of the windowsill when he'd made his escape ten minutes earlier, and he was just beginning to become concerned by the fact that it had yet to stop bleeding.

He stopped in the middle of the forest just beyond their cabin, sitting on one of the fallen tree trunks and closing his eyes. Calling it an 'escape' made it seem so horrible. He'd simply gone through the window because he hadn't felt like talking to Daniel - he was still streaming from their earlier conversation, and based off of how their other emotion-driven conversations had gone, he wasn't willing to risk that kind of potential damage to their relationship a second time.

After he'd been sitting a moment, he slid his shirt off over his head and tied it tightly just above the gash, pressing some of the extra material against the wound to try and stop the bleeding. The serene silence of the forest immediately had him at ease. He would often come out to the forest in the dead of night, sit on his log, and just take a moment to think away from the stress of day-to-day life. There was something about the marvelous beauty of nature that just made everything else fade off into oblivion…

Daniel wanted to go and fight Hunter at WrestleMania, wanted to prove himself to the Authority and to the WWE Universe. Phil could understand that. There was something inside of everyone that drove them to seek vindication and acceptance, and it was completely natural. But understanding and accepting were two different things. The truth remained that Kane and the Authority were handing out career-ending injuries like people hand out candy on Halloween, and no matter how it happened, Daniel would get hurt.

His phone began vibrating in his back pocket, but he ignored it. He never answered his phone when he was in his 'safe haven'. Instead, he looked at his wound again. It looked a little better, and if he wasn't mistaken, the flow of blood had slowed some. It hurt, but the pain kept him grounded in the present, reminded him that they were in the midst of a very real chess game against the Authority and Daniel was about to hand over the Queen. But it was like he was blindfolded, like he couldn't tell that it was really the Queen in his hand.

Like he couldn't tell that they were barreling toward check-mate.

"Shit, Phil!" Daniel cursed under his breath, ending the call as he once again heard Phil's witty and sarcastic outgoing message. Right now, he didn't want the recording - he wanted the real deal.

For a moment, he entertained the idea of heading out and looking for him. But the fact remained that he couldn't have gone far, because the car was still in the driveway and his suitcase was still in the closet. Of course, there was the blood. The blood that made his stomach turn and his heart lurch up into his throat. Because Phil was carrying his son and blood of any kind was not good. What if he'd miscarried? What if he was dead somewhere? The idea of going to look for him didn't seem like such a stretch anymore.

It was late at night and Phil was out there somewhere, hurting and bleeding, and Daniel was nothing less than terrified. He tried calling again, but there was a similar result. And why should he answer, if he were able to? They'd had quite the spat and Daniel, while he hadn't been angry, was still cooling down from it. If he was having such a hard time coming down from that fight-high, which was more like getting hit over the head with a glass bottle than euphoric bliss, than he could only imagine what it was like for Phil.

He walked back and forth on the first floor, walking between the main entrance and the kitchen. He had the keys in his hand. He was caught between two ideas - going out to find him and risking the chance that he'll come home while he's gone, or staying in and risking the chance that he's hurt or dead. Once, he made it all the way to the door, and was just about to step out onto the front porch when he hurriedly changed his mind. This back and forth was almost as painful as the fight that had transpired a few hours before.

And then the front door opened and Phil stepped inside, his blood-soaked shirt crumpled into a ball in his hand and his eyes downcast. The first thing that Daniel saw was the wound. "Holy shit, Phil!"

"Goodnight, Daniel." Obviously not ready to deal with his fiance, Phil side-stepped Daniel and entered the kitchen, taking the staircase up to the second floor.

But Daniel wasn't about to let him off that easily. "Phil! Phil, wait up!" He raced after him, starting on the bottom stair as Phil slammed the bathroom door closed behind him. "Phil, please, we need to talk about this."

"I don't want to talk about this." Phil said bluntly. Water started to run as he brushed his teeth.

"Do you know how much you scared me? I saw the blood and I… I…" he ran out of words to accurately express himself.

"And I really don't care." Phil said stiffly. Daniel could hear the sound of paper tearing, and could only imagine that Phil was dressing his wound. It sounded like his heart being ripped in two.

The door opened and Phil stepped out, shutting the light off behind him. Daniel watched, dumb-struck, as Phil merely pushed him aside and made his way down the hall to their bedroom, closing and locking the door behind him. He honestly couldn't fathom what he'd just heard. Phil didn't care that he'd scared him half to death, that he'd been worried that Phil had possibly miscarried or even died. Not for the first time in the last month, he found himself wondering if this would be the catalyst that would finally end them.

He knocked on the door once, desperately trying one more time to get through to Phil. "Phil, please…"

"Goodnight, Daniel." And then the light went out beneath the door, and Daniel realized he'd be sleeping in the guest room that night.

It wasn't difficult to find Mark's hotel room. After their conversation the previous night, Randy knew that it would be in everyone's best interest if he simply told Mark what had happened between Hunter and Brock. Randy had gotten the impression that he'd told a select few about what had happened, perhaps that he even felt that he deserved to be hurt in such a way. It disgusted Randy to think that Hunter was suffering like that inside and didn't feel as if he had anyone he could tell, anyone to share it with.

On top of this, something else that he'd said was bothering him as well. From what he'd been hearing about the Authority's 'side-jobs', Hunter was authorizing the other members of the Authority to literally make everyone else's lives Hell. And, judging by their previous conversation last night, Hunter was taking his own personal pain and transferring it onto others. How had he put it? Ah, yes - If I'm miserable, then everyone else is damn well going to suffer right along with me.

Randy raised a hand and knocked on the door. There was some shuffling inside, before Mark eventually answered. He looked like hell, and Randy said as much, "You look like shit, Mark."

"It's nice to see you too, Randy." Mark rolled his eyes. He looked like he was about to crack a joke about Randy interrupting his beauty sleep, but decided against it at the last minute. "What do you want?"

Looking around the hallway uncertainly, Randy asked, "Can I come in?"

"If you have to." Mark shrugged, moving aside to allow Randy inside.

Mark shut the door behind him, and Randy made his way over to the bed, sitting down on the edge. Mark looked at him uncomfortably, before he went back to packing his suitcase. It was at that moment that Randy realized how barren the room was. Mark was packing to leave - but where the hell did he think he would go? He was booked to make multiple appearances on RAW and SmackDown for the next few weeks leading up to WrestleMania. This couldn't be a good sign.

"So, what was it that was so important that you had to tell me about it at this hour in the morning?" Mark asked, his tone tight, clipped. He refused to meet Randy's eyes.

"I was with Hunter last night." This caught Mark's interest. He immediately met Randy's eyes, hands frozen on shirt that he'd been folding. "We talked... " he decided it was best to jump over the fact that he'd stayed the night. "And he'd told me he'd had a confrontation with Brock."

He slowly lowered the shirt to the dining table. "What exactly do you mean by 'confrontation'?"

"Brock confronted him and hit him, telling him to call you off. He's trying to brush it off, but he's clearly still shaken by it and is incredibly worried for the girls." Randy said.

"You've been watching the girls?" Randy nodded. "I don't want them at the arena any more. They're not safe if Brock is on a rampage, and if you ask me, the idiot has lost his damn mind."

"Already done." Randy nodded.

"That idiot should've fired Brock the second that he laid hands on him, or at the very least suspended him. Just keeping him around like this is dangerous and stupid."

"From what I understand, he's doing it for the money. The WWE will lose a considerable amount of money if he cancels the match… essentially, it just comes down to being bad for business."

Mark rolled his eyes. "He's even stupider than I thought."

Not that that had been the reaction that he'd expected, but it was something that showed that Mark still cared. Mark finished folding the shirt, before he tossed the shirt into the suitcase at Randy's feet. It landed on top of a translucent purple folder, and when Mark turned his back, Randy nudged the shirt aside with his foot. Although he'd never seen these particular papers before, he was able to identify them as legal papers. Upon closer inspection, they looked to be papers to file for custody of the kids.

Randy's heart sank in his chest. Perhaps this had been a mistake to come - wasn't it possible that Mark could go now and use this information against Hunter in a custody battle? If Hunter was suffering so badly from the break-up alone, Randy could only imagine how bad he would be if Mark took the kids from him. He had half a mind to bend down and yank the papers out of the suitcase, to tear them to shreds and throw them out the window. But he forced himself to remain stationary.

He got up off of the bed and started to make his way toward the door. Finally, "Thanks… for telling me. I'll take care of Brock." There was an ominous note in his voice, and Randy tried not to read too much into it.

"It's about time someone did." And with that, Randy left.