Disclaimer: Seriously, by this time you should know that I own nothing.
A/N: Sorry for the delay, I've been frantically trying to finish up last-minute summer homework (which I'm still not done with). So, it'll probably be a bit longer between updates, though the next chapter should come relatively soon. Also, as thanks to mcxhardyxgirl for her lovely reviews, I've included Orton in the list of suspects. :)
For the next week Jeff spent all of him free time trying to piece together an idea of what could have happened. His hotel rooms were covered with various pieces of paper ranging from the notes from their original interviews to his own theories that he had jotted down on whatever paper he could lay his hands on at the time. Whenever they changed locations he would simply throw everything into the top of his suitcase, though it only remained in there long enough for him to settle down again, before it was thrown out and spread over the new room.
Several of his coworkers had made the mistake of trying to get into his room early in the week to ask him something. Jeff hadn't moved from where he was sitting on the floor, completely surrounded by papers, when they had knocked; instead, he had reached over from where he was to grab the handle and open the door, though he nearly fell over as it swung open. The people standing out there had taken one look at the state of things in the room and hadn't even bothered entering- they had merely asked him what they needed to and fled.
No one had even tried to enter his hotel rooms after than except Matt, though sometimes Jeff wished his brother would leave him alone as well. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy Matt's company, but it was harder to concentrate when he was constantly trying to talk to him or cracking jokes about the situation. Usual the jokes wouldn't have bothered him too much, but there were only so many times he could stand to hear Matt making fun of him for 'channeling Sherlock Holmes' before he just snapped.
"Look, Matt, it's not that I don't like having you around, but can you please just let me try to work on this?" Jeff asked, glancing up from his notes for the first time in quite awhile. He stretched his back out, an action which, at this point, was almost instinctive.
"What exactly are you trying to do?" Matt asked, trying to avoid answering Jeff's question. He wasn't going to leave his brother alone to sit and obsess over the question of who had done this to him and, since his attempts and starting conversations before had failed and Jeff obviously didn't want to hear anymore of his admittedly lame jokes, he fell back on his last plan- trying to get Jeff to talk to him about what he was thinking in hopes that the two of them might be able to make more headway than just Jeff had.
"Trying to figure out who wants to end my career- what else would I be doing?" Jeff said as he bent over again to jot down another note. He chuckled slightly. "Sorry, that's not exactly what you were talking about, were you?"
"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," Matt said sarcastically. "Jeff, there's something wrong when you start to channel someone who technically doesn't exist!"
The faint smile on Jeff's face faded at his brother's words and was quickly replaced with a scowl. "I've already told you, I am not channeling Sherlock Holmes!" He snapped.
Now it was Matt's turn to laugh. "First off, you're working on solving a mystery right now. You're in the middle of your most recent attempt at figuring things out and you're barely eating and sleeping, since you don't want to stop to deal with that. Don't bother trying to deny it," Matt said, seeing that Jeff was about to protest. "Have you looked in a mirror recently? You look like you're about to collapse from exhaustion."
Jeff sighed, realizing defeat when he saw it. "Fine, I haven't been sleeping a lot, mainly just before we have to do a show," he said. "But, for the record, I have been eating. I'm not stupid enough to starve myself, even unintentionally, not when I know I need to stay healthy if I want to wrestle."
"You still need to sleep more," Matt told him. He thought he heard Jeff mutter something that sounded suspiciously like "mothering hen" before he started talking again, but he wasn't sure. "Anyway, it looks like every piece of paper you have with you right now has been spread out all over the room while you work- which is strangely similar to what 221B Baker Street would look like if Sherlock Holmes was working on a case, isn't it? Not to mention your particular way of trying to figure this out…"
"Alright, I guess you have a point," Jeff interrupted. "But that does not mean I'm doing this intentionally! I swear I'm just trying to make some sense of what's going on."
"Speaking of which, what have you figured out so far?" Matt asked. He glanced down at the floor, looking for a free spot where he could sit so he could look at his brother's notes easier, but it seemed like every square inch was covered. He sighed and scooped up a pile of papers next to his brother, dumping them on the other side of him, before sitting down in the now-clear area.
"Not much," he admitted with a small sigh. "I'm working with the theory that Hunter and Shawn had nothing to do with this- even unintentionally. Like I told you Monday before the show, they really don't seem like they're the type that would talk to someone about this. And the problem with Maria is that, even if she did tell someone that she was worried about my injury the chances of her remembering who is going to be very slim."
"I still think that talking to Maria about this will help," Matt said. "Maybe we could do that on Raw on Monday."
Jeff thought about it for a moment. "I think we should talk to her ahead of time, though, so she has a little bit of time to think it over. It's not fair to her to make her go out there without some idea of what's going to be going on."
"Now that you mention it, we should probably do that for everyone," Matt said. "Especially since they'll need to know when they're going to need to go out to the ring."
"That's true; I didn't think about that. Still, I'm not sure if she's going to have enough relevant information to tell us without simply rambling," Jeff said. "What about having her come out first, then bringing out Jericho afterwards? You know the crowd's not going to be too interested in us talking with Maria, but Jericho has always been great at promos; bringing him out will get the crowd going and it'll make it long enough to actually be worthwhile."
"But then, including this past week, we'll have five weeks of just us talking and only three where we bring other people out to interview," Matt pointed out. "So unless you know of someone else that it would be worthwhile to talk to, I think we're just going to have to hope that the segment with Maria will be long enough."
"Well, I'm thinking that Orton might have something to do with this, but I don't know why. Nearly everyone we've talked to has mentioned him, but it's usually just because of his reputation for doing nearly anything to get to- and stay- at the top. Maybe he saw me as a threat? I honestly have no idea at this point, but I think it would be a good idea to talk to him anyway," Jeff said.
"That's not a bad idea, actually," Matt admitted. "I don't know why we didn't think about him before. Back to Hunter and Shawn, though- are we still going to talk to them on Raw, now that we know that there's really no chance that they had anything to do with this, and if not is there anyone else we can interview instead so we won't have to deal with the five weeks of just us talking?"
Jeff thought about it for a little while before answering, "I think if we bring them out strictly to interview them for information and not because we think they're guilty we'll be alright," he said slowly. "It would be the same type of thing we're doing with Maria on Monday- we don't think that she's specifically behind it, but she may have information that could be extremely important to us. We're going to have to be more careful with Hunter and Shawn, though; they're huge favorites with the crowd and we don't want to imply that we think that they're guilty."
Matt chuckled. "You have everything figured out, don't you?" He asked.
Jeff shook his head. "If I did I would already know who did this." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I've worked on this long enough. Anymore thinking and I'm just going to give myself even more of a headache." He stood up and stretched again, his back cracking rather loudly.
"How can you stand that?" Matt asked. "Your back always getting so stiff all the time, I mean." It was a question he had been meaning to ask his brother for awhile, but he had never gotten around to actually getting an answer.
Jeff shrugged. "I don't know. It doesn't really bother me, at least, not anymore. I mean, at first it was annoying and I couldn't bend over for as long as I can now without it hurting, but I barely notice it now." He chuckled slightly. "It's gotten to the point where I just automatically stretch after sitting down or bending over for awhile."
"So, what are you going to do now, if you don't mind me asking?" Matt hoped his brother would get caught up on his sleep since, but he doubted that was what his brother had in mind.
"I was thinking about dying my hair for Raw," he said. "I need something slightly calming to do and, knowing my luck, I'm either going to forget or not have enough time to do it later."
Matt smothered a laugh, but a huge grin spread across his face anyway. "Only you would find dying hair something relaxing to do," he said. He shook his head. "Well, I think I'm going to go find something to do that can actually be considered fun."
Although he couldn't be sure, he thought he heard Jeff laughing again as he pulled the door shut behind him.
XXXXX
"Wait, you want to interview me during your segment tonight?" Maria, who had been so trusting and eager to help the week before, glared at Matt and Jeff, looking slightly hurt and more than a little suspicious.
"Well, we know that you tend to be very concerned about people's health and, no offense, but when you start talking you'll talk about anything that comes to mind. We just wanted to know if you could think of anyone you might have talked to recently who you may have told that you were worried about how Jeff's back would be," Matt explained.
"It's not that we think you came up with it- in fact we honestly don't think this was your idea at all. We just thought that maybe you talked to someone that might not have my best interests at heart and were hoping that you could remember it and help us out by filling up some of the time we have on the show tonight," Jeff added, smiling reassuringly at the Diva.
Maria thought about it for a moment. "Fine," she finally said. "I'll think about it and hopefully I'll be able to come up with some information for you- though I'm not making any promises. You might want to bring someone else out too, you know."
Matt laughed slightly, though it had a humorless sound to it. "Don't worry. We're bringing Jericho out after you."
Maria grimaced. "I feel so sorry for you," she muttered. Matt and Jeff just laughed as they walked off to find Jericho, though they weren't looking forward to it. Rumor had it that he was in a bad mood that night and they had a feeling that convincing him to come out so they could talk to him on Raw that night would be a fairly difficult task.
They found him all but storming down the hallway where the locker room was. "Hey, Chris! Can we talk?" Jeff yelled to him as soon as he saw him.
Jericho stopped and turned around, his eyes narrowing slightly as he saw who was there. "Matt and Jeff. I should've known," he said with poorly concealed annoyance. "Look, I think I know why you two are here, so let's cut the explanation and just get down to it. You two want me to come out during your little segment on the show so you can interview me and accuse me of trying to end Jeff's career?"
Matt nodded, trying to hide his anger at the way the other man was talking to them. "Yeah, that's basically it." He tried to keep his voice casual. "So, will you come out?"
"Sure, why not?" Matt and Jeff stared at him. They were slightly thrown off by his answer; they had been expecting to have to convince and all but bribe him to come out and talk. Jericho obviously saw their confusion because he grinned and said, "I found out something that I think you two should know."
"What did you find out?" Jeff asked He was eager to have something, anything to look into and that showed through in his question.
Jericho continued to grin as he said, "No, you're just going to have to wait until later tonight. By the way, how exactly is that working? When do I need to go out?"
"About forty five minutes into the show Maria's going to be going out," Matt told him.
Jericho nodded. "So I'll come out towards the end of that, make it seem like I'm interrupting things."
"Yeah, that should be fine."
"Good," Jericho said. "Now, if you two don't mind there's someone I need to talk to." With that he turned around and walked away.
Jeff watched him leave, silently wondering what Jericho had found out. Was it something important, something that would actually help them? Was it nothing more than a rumor he had heard backstage, or a theory of his own? He shook his head. There was no way of knowing; he was just going to have to wait until Jericho told them later that night. He sighed. And there was still an hour and a half until the show even started…