Kate rested her back against the headboard of the bed and pulled her knees to her chest. "When am I going to meet her?"

"Meet who?" John replied, not entirely paying attention to her as he refolded his gym shorts and place them in his suitcase.

"Liz," she answered him nonchalantly, causing him to drop the top half of the suitcase immediately.

His eyes avoided hers as he responded, "I didn't know you wanted to."

Her hazel orbs bore into his suspiciously. "I do, John. She's going to be your wife soon and I've heard a lot about her, but I haven't met her."

"You can meet her at the wedding," John muttered, zipping up the sides of his luggage.

"John," Kate rolled her eyes at him and let her legs relax on the bed. "Stop being ridiculous."

"I'm not being ridiculous, Kate," he countered with a shake of his head and opened up his laptop.

As the muscular Massachusetts native sat down on the edge of the bed, she peered over his shoulder. "Did she send you that email?

John nodded and quickly minimized it. "Yes."

The blonde pushed herself forward until she sat beside him. "Can I read it?"

He shook his head and continued surfing on the web.

"Is it that inappropriate?"

"No."

"You won't let me meet her until the wedding, so can I at least read it?"

"No."

The young woman quickly grew frustrated and folded her arms over her chest. "Look, Cena. I've told you practically everything about me and I trust you more than I trust my own boyfriend. I know that we've only been friends for about six months, but I do."

"Kate," John sighed heavily and then turned to face her. "It has nothing to do with trust. For that matter, it has nothing to do with you."

"Then what does it have to do with?"

Dear John,

I wanted to write you this email so that the first thing you did when you got up was check your inbox and think of me. I was going to call, but I had an appointment at the salon early this morning and figured that at nine in the morning, the best present I could give you was sleep. Well, for now, anyway.

I cannot believe that all these years have passed already, yet I am so excited for the day that we are married and can cement the fact that we will officially spend the rest of your birthdays together.

If you wake up after two, please call me. I should be home from shopping by then.

I love you… and Happy Birthday, baby.

Love always,

Liz

"You must hate her now, too."

"I never said that…"

"But you were thinking it," John cut her off abruptly.

She shook her head, her blonde locks flying with it. "Why didn't you tell me it was your birthday?"

"Oh." His gaze dropped again, this time to his sneakers planted firmly on the carpeted floor of the hotel room. "That."

Kate smiled at him. "Yes, that! I'm sure Randy knows it's your birthday. How come I didn't?"

John shrugged. "Getting older stopped being cool when I turned the big 3-0."

Suddenly, Kate backed away from him, her face falling. "I make you feel old, don't I?"

"It's not about you…"

"Yes, it is. This is my fault. You didn't expect me to be here today." she trailed off, sliding off the opposite side of the bed.

As she began to pass him, John reached out and caught her arm in his much larger hand. "Stop that."

"I'm going home," Kate stated simply, almost coldly as she tried to wrench her arm away.

He stood up suddenly, catching her off-guard. "Then I'm going with you." As she was about to protest, he spoke before she could. "I'm not handing you to your father on a silver platter, Kate. Let me come with you."

She studied him for a moment and then her resolute attitude began to subside. "Fine, but on one condition."

"Name it," John nodded, her resistance slacking off.

"Randy comes with us."

Begrudgingly, John agreed to Kate's caveat and it was mainly because of his guilt.

He felt awful that he hadn't told her it was his birthday and even worse that she was convinced he hadn't said anything because their age difference bothered him.

Moreover, he wouldn't even bring her to see Liz.

Liz. His fiancée. The future Mrs. John Cena.

The more he thought about both women, the worse he began to feel. While he wasn't exactly certain as to why he didn't want introduce Kate to Liz, John knew the real reason he didn't want Liz to meet his friend.

He was ashamed of the woman he'd introduce as his future wife.

"Of all the conditions you could have given him, why in the hell did you pick me?"

"Because between the two of you," Kate began to reply, a hint of a smile on her glossy lips. "Your egos would take up so much space in the house, my father wouldn't be able to get past the doorway."

Randy rolled his blue eyes. "Very nice, Miss Jackson."

"Thanks so much, Mr. Orton," she returned his sarcasm. "I'm glad you enjoy my wit."

The Missouri-born wrestler turned his eyes towards the slightly moist glass window on his right "Yeah, yeah…"

For another twenty minutes, they were silent. Kate's focus remained on the highway and Randy's stayed fixated on the landscape passing him by, occasionally disrupted by the change of radio station over the speakers.

It was as though they were playing the quiet game.

And if they had been, it was Randy who would have lost.

His muscular arm extended towards this console and turned off the radio.

"Kate," his gravelly voice cut through the deafening silence. "Can I talk to you about something?"

She rolled her eyes, but kept them focused on the road, her hands gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. "What is it now, Randy?"

"Look," Randy began with a deep breath, twisting his body around and pressing his back against the window so that he could face her. "I know that when it comes to sharing your inner most thoughts with someone, you talk to John. And when John has a problem with Liz or with me, even, he comes to you. I was hoping that I could talk to you about a problem I'm having with John."

Kate tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear after stopping at the light. "Okay, what do you want to talk about, Randy?"

"I'm worried about him, Kate," Randy admitted with a sigh. "He barely speaks to his fiancée anymore."

The young woman scrunched up her nose in confusion. "I thought you didn't like her."

The muscular man chuckled beside her, "You're right, I don't. But John is one of my best friends and I want him to be happy. And when he got back with her, I wasn't thrilled because I knew how she had acted around him in the past."

"You've known him that long?" she asked him, almost incredulously.

"No." He shook his head. "I haven't known him long enough to know it first hand, but I have known John long enough to have him confide in me many aspects of his life that he wouldn't tell most people," the Missouri-born wrestler added.

Kate nodded in understanding. "So why do you want him to speak to her more often?"

"Because, whether or not I like Liz, she makes John happy," Randy answered honestly, slightly defeated. "And you don't know how lonely he was, Kate. In the beginning, he had his fun on his road just like the rest of us, yet slowly, but surely, we all started to move on. Paul married Stephanie, Dave got back together with Angie, Ric married Tiffany, and then Samantha and I got married. And John was left out in the cold…" he trailed off, rubbing a hand over his shorn hair. "But then, he proposed to Liz and we were all finally at the same place in our lives…"

"And he wasn't so lonely anymore," Kate finished for him, her eyes still locked ahead on the straightaway.

Randy nodded and then continued, looking down at his hands. "The funny thing about life is that everything is temporary in one way or another. Whether it's life itself, the people who are present in your own, or feelings that were once so strong you could feel them on your fingertips. But those feelings…" Randy trailed off and then shook his head sadly. "They fade."

Her right foot switched to the brake pedal as they approached a traffic light. "You think John's not in love with her anymore?"

"I'm not certain, but there is a part of me that's really starting to think so."

She shrugged. "Maybe their relationship is somewhat of a vicious circle."

The older of the pair contemplated the notion for a moment, then decided against it. "No, I don't think that's it. I think that she came back into his life at the right time. Their relationship is one of convenience. Liz gets the rich husband and lavish life she always wanted, the one she had originally left him in search of in the first place."

The young woman began chewing on the inside of her cheek. "And what does John get?"

Randy glanced up at her for a moment, his deep sapphire eyes a little lighter than normal. It was almost as though he felt guilty for the path his friend was on.

Then his gaze flicked back to his hands as he played with the ring on his left hand. "The feeling that he's no longer on the outside looking in."

Immediately, she picked up on his uncertainty. "And you think something has happened to make him feel differently?"

"Steph and Paul are working on baby number two and Sam and I are waiting on our own baby…" he finally looked up at her as they pulled into her driveway, with John nowhere in sight. "So where does that leave him?"

Her hazel eyes fluttered shut, blonde hair pressed up against the headrest, as everything hit her all at once.

In high school and college, Liz was his sun and everything revolved around her. When John decided to pursue something that didn't fit into her seven year plan, she left and he was heartbroken. His first and only love had dumped him because he wanted to follow his dreams. What kind of human being does that to the person who is the love of their life?

He probably was wounded for a long time after that, damaged to the extent that he thought he was beyond repair. So he figured he'd just settle for whatever rolled his way. As long as he was safe, what did it matter? He was never going to find the love of his life again, so he might as well enjoy himself. It wasn't like he was the only one.

But then, he was. And suddenly, he was older… and everyone around him was settling down. So for the first time since he was starting out, he felt the familiar burn of emptiness in his heart…

Emptiness that could only be filled by one person.

So when he went to a bar by himself after a show in Florida and saw her again, he thought it was fate. And they reconnected again…

And John wasn't pressed up against the glass anymore.

But John didn't really love Liz the way he had the first time around. He would never outright admit it to himself, but deep down, he knew it wasn't the same. It'd never be the same again, no matter how much he tried to convince himself.

The hole in his heart was no smaller, if anything, it was bigger, and he'd only been temporarily distracted from the burn.

Even if he did manage to fully believe that he no longer loved his fiancée, he would never tell his friends out of fear he'd be right back where he started.

And the further they moved on, the further he'd fall behind.

Perhaps that was why he was postponing the wedding, never really setting a date. He'd be taking a step forward and only one more level of catch up was ahead: children.

John would be bringing children into the world with a woman he didn't love for his own selfish purposes. And what kind of man would that make him?

In his mind, he was running out of time. He was running out of roads to travel and the exit doors were rapidly closing in on him, as were the walls.

It all came down to time, didn't it?

And it was while she was contemplating the value of time itself that Kate made sense of why he was being so reserved and hesitant around her that morning.

John didn't want to acknowledge the fact that it was his birthday because if he did, it meant that he was another year older and in his mind, the inevitable was coming closer…

Some day soon, John Cena would have to marry the woman he had long since fallen out of love with… and the woman who wasn't his soulmate after all.

A/N: This chapter was going to go somewhere completely different once Randy got into the car with Kate and had their talk. But it was as I was listening to Joshua Radin that I was inspired to go beyond the surface and try to pick away at John's psyche. I guess I've been in a psychoanalytical mood lately.

I know it has been a very long time since I updated, but I was faced with a mental block concerning this story. I wasn't really sure how I wanted the story to get to the ending. I have no intention of making a sequel to this story as of this moment in time. Perhaps, somewhere down the road, we'll check back in with all of the characters, but the end will most likely be the end.

As a result, I'm trying to give Kate and John the time that they deserve and make it all just right, if that makes any sense.

I'm in the right direction, I know it. But there are various loose ends concerning both characters that need to be tied up. This may be shorter than my She's a Rebel trilogy in terms of chapter length. It may be longer than the 21 chapters I seem to have made a habit of in each.

Either way, I'm going to do everything in my power to keep this story the story you fell in love with from the very beginning.

I have big plans for everyone. Some bigger than others.

But I have a feeling that you're going to be happy with how it turns out.

Danielle