Disclaimer: All WWE content is owned by Vincent Kennedy McMahon and any use here is purely for entertainment value only. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Jeff Hardy had made a successful comeback after years away from the WWE, and he should be on cloud nine but he finds himself lost with no direction. Can a person from his past come back and change him for the better or will he be lost forever?

Distribution: Due to the amount of theft lately with fictions, I am putting a direct list of who can host this fiction. It may be changed in the future but until that time, I am only allowing my own personal site, the Open Archive, and Fan fiction dot net to have access to these works. If you would like to host any of my work please email me with a request.

Series: Mended Hearts Series


I'm not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.

"You are running Jeff Hardy, thats what this is all about. You do not want to face what could happen here so you are choosing to leave."

She was right and he knew it. It was not because he needed the break, or because he was failing numerous drug tests and the company had finally had enough. His leaving had nothing to do with those reasons and everything to do with the woman that stood before him now. He was just damn sure he wasn't going to admit that to her now. She just had to accept his reasons and let him walk away, before this got any worse then it was.

He loved her, and he so desperately wanted to tell her. To tell her that he breaking things off with Beth so that he could finally let his heart do what it wanted. That he would never leave her again and wanted to spend the rest of his life showing her that.

But standing before her now, he knew his destiny was clear. He was not the man that she needed and he was sure that he would never be. She needed someone who was more stable. Someone who could give her the marriage and the feelings and the family that she deserved. She didn't need a wrestler that was slowly losing his love of the business and whose mind was going in so many different directions he didn't know which was was up anymore. She didn't need him, despite what she might think now.

"I am not running from you Trish, I just don't want to be here anymore and I want to spend more time making a life with Beth. At the very least she deserves that much from me after all of these years."

"Jeffrey Nero Hardy, you are not the marrying type, nor are you the settling down type so I don't believe a word you are spewing at me right now."

Neither did he and he was shocked that she could see that deeply through him. Just another reason he had to do what he was doing. He couldn't handle her reading him the way she was. It was just too much. He always hoped that a woman would be able to see through him this way and for years had hoped that Beth would be that woman but she wasn't. Trish was and that feeling alone was enough for him to want to put an end to all of this.

"Why can't you just take what i say and believe me for once Trish? Why does it always have to be something more with you? I don't want to do this anymore, not with you and not with anyone in the WWE. I want to go home and find Jeff Hardy again."

She was silent for a moment and Jeff watched as his words seemed to finally sink into her head. He saw her tears, the ones that cornered at the side of her eyes, refusing to fall and he felt himself get sick to his stomach. He had to do this, it was the best thing for both of them.

"Don't do this Jeff, not before we have had a chance to figure out what is going on between us. Please.."

He turned his back on her then, and he knew the tears were about to fall and there was nothing he could do to stop them. He was a heel and he knew it but in the end, she would realize this was the best thing for both of them.

"There is nothing going on and there never was other then I thought you were a friend."

He walked from the locker room and as soon as the door shut behind him he let his own tears fall. He was now officially done with the WWE and done what he needed to in order to move on with his life. He only wished he hadn't had to be such an asshole to do it.

Removing himself from the memory, he punched the wall of the locker room he was now standing in. His brother was to his left and preparing himself mentally for their tag match later that night. Ever since they had become tag champions Matt seemed to have a renewed focus on the business and his career and Jeff admired him for it. Too bad he couldn't do the same in that moment.

"Jeff let it go alright, you have both moved on."

If only it were that easy to do. Jeff thought to himself as he looked at his brother. He knew Matt was right and that it had been years since the feelings had been on the surface and this real between the two of them. But he found himself lost again, the same way he had been then, and he found that in those moments of loneliness, he remembered her and the way she had looked that day when he had walked away.

"What if I didn't move on Matt? What then?"

His brother looked at him then, a look of dead determination written all over his older features. If there was ever a time that Jeff needed a wake up call it was now. There could never be anything between him and Trish and the sooner his brother realized it, the sooner he could get his head back in the game and be the champion he was meant to be.

"Then I suggest you move on Jeff because she is coming back soon and the last thing either one of you needs is to go back in time and relive what might have been. You have both changed and it has to stay the way it's been all these years."

"It only turned out this way because I ran from her back then Matt. If I had admitted the truth to her that day so many years ago, we might still be together now. How can I walk away from that?"

The stagehand came into the locker room then, motioning at his watch without so much of a word to either man. That meant it was show time and they had better get their heads in the game. Matt wanted to say so much to his brother right now, to make him see what damage he was doing to himself but he knew there just wasn't enough time. So he went with the only thing he could say that would make any difference.

"You already did walk away from it, so stay away now."