Beth watched from where she was sitting next to the sleeping Cena, looking over at the other bed, where Eddie and Rey were leaning against the headboard and Batista was sitting on the end of the bed, holding the files in his hand and shuffling through them. Batista and Eddie had been using the information in them and their own knowledge to try and help Rey understand what had happened to him, but after half an hour, they weren't having much luck.

"You never actually died, Rey," Batista said, voice still patient despite what had to be a hair-pulling level of frustration. "They faked all of that by kidnapping you and using the hotel fire to hide that the body they found wasn't actually your's."

"Kane showed me my funeral..." Rey said softly, hugging his knees to his chest, his eyes cast down to the sheets of paper in front of him, his having read them himself not doing a thing for his level of belief.

"Because we all thought it had been you," Eddie said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We thought you had been killed, but we were wrong. We were all wrong."

"But he showed me Angie...and Matt Hardy, with the kids...it's been so little time and they're together already, it must have been to hurt me, or..." Rey shook his head slightly, not able or willing to quite keep up with that thought.

"They told you it was 2007, part of the way to keep you off-balance," Batista said. "It's early 2010 right now. Those videos are from late in 2008 and through 2009, stolen from Matt and Angie or taken from some government surveillance of your family. Angie and Matt never even gave each other a second look until they ran into each other at a show almost three years after we thought you were gone."

Rey shook his head again. "But Kane was able to do so many things...he could just appear in the room from out of thin air..."

"There were trapdoor panels in the walls of those rooms. The instant you weren't looking, he'd slip through them."

"Rooms?"

"The basements. There were a few different ones; the one with the TV, the one with the ghost noises, the drugged room..."

"But he paralyzed me! He just...gestured at me and then I couldn't move!"

"It's another thing they designed for use...they had these little..." Batista picked up one sheet of paper, frowning at it. "I don't know how to describe them, they were able to practically tattoo these tiny little pellets just under your skin that would dissolve in a very particular amount of time. It would soak into your skin and muscles like LSD, worked real fast and burned like hell. Kane probably went through a hell of a lot of effort to get his timing with those things down perfectly."

"But he knew what I was thinking, he answered me, he-,"

"They programmed that into you. Lots of sessions of that scenario until they could get you reacting how they wanted you to."

"They did that more than once?" Eddie asked.

Batista winced, nodding. "They did a lot of things that they erased from his memory...to get him to do what they needed for their scenarios. Implanting the pellets probably had to be done so quickly and was painful enough that they had to erase it or else Rey would have know something weird was going on."

"Even though each time they ran that...drug through his system, it made his mental...made his mind...degrade?"

"Even though. They were desperate to test psychological reactions and the durability of their brainwashing, so they banged on the programs as hard as they could to try and knock it loose-,"

"But I saw Hell, Dave!" Rey suddenly burst out. "I saw it, I heard it, I felt the heat of the fire!"

"You saw a room covered floor-to-ceiling with LCD screens, a set of speakers the length of the entire doorframe to simulate the sound, and felt heat pumped into a clear glass chamber the length of the door so the screens weren't damaged. If you'd tried to run through the door, you'd have shattered the illusion...literally."

Rey shook his head. "No, no...Dave, it can't be all that. I know Eddie died, I remember that day, it happened, I remember it all."

"No, Rey," Eddie said, touching his arm. "No, it didn't happen. You were ki-um, taken in April of 2005, right after our Wrestlemania event. By November, Dave and I had been going back and forth over the title for three months. I was fine."

"No! We lost the titles to MNM, we started fighting, you tried to take Dominik and we had just started to work on patching things up when you-,"

Eddie clasped Rey's shoulders. "Rey, think about that. You said that I said Dom was mine, Rey, but he couldn't be, you know that. He looks exactly like you, he couldn't possibly be anyone else's."

"But we fought at Summerslam..."

Beth raised a hand to get their attention. "Rey, okay. I have a thought. You say you remember fighting Eddie at Summerslam. But do you remember any of the other matches from that night?"

All three of them looked at Rey, who started to open his mouth as though to answer, but stopped, blinking and eyes going wide as he just stared at her in mute surprise.

"See, Rey, I figure...if you had actually been through all this, you'd at least remember, say, who you walked past on your way out to the ring or your way back afterwards, and knew their match...but if they just programmed you to recall your events, they might not have thought it through well enough to program the entirety of pay-per-view events or what would have been dozens of wrestling events in. That was my thought."

Batista nodded. "Good thought."

"Or for that matter, forget any individual matches," Eddie said. "Just tells us who, say, Dave there was fighting with during the time you were fighting with me. Or Randy Orton, or Jericho, or anybody. Just tell us anything else that was happening in WWE at the time."

Rey stared at them, blinking slowly, shaking his head a little. "I...we fought, we fought for months..."

"Okay, but what about anyone else? While we were fighting each other, who was the champion? Any champion, WWE, women, tag team, whatever you can remember."

Rey winced, whimpering softly and holding onto his temples, closing his eyes. "I...I don't know...I...can't remember..."

"Because none of it actually happened, Rey," Batista said, reaching out to take his hands away from his temples. "They programmed memories into you, but it wasn't perfect. They didn't put in the details beyond your own personal life."

"But I don't understand," Rey murmured. "I was...what Kane put me through...if that wasn't Hell..."

"It was horrific, and it should never have happened to you. And it's probably some of the worst trauma a person can get put through, but...it wasn't Hell. They just wanted to see..." Batista flipped through the pages, frowning, until he found what he was looking for. "That test was to figure out if the brainwashing could be broken by an enemy using a faked supernatural occurrence to break through by sheer force of fear, and how you would respond."

"It doesn't make sense..." Rey whined softly. "How could anyone do that to another person? They'd have to be demons. People aren't like that, they...Kane wouldn't have, he would of...it doesn't make sense..."

Batista sighed, looking to Eddie. "I think even if it weren't brainwashed into him, it'd be easier for him to believe they were demons from Hell than to accept that other human beings could do stuff like this."

"It would be nice if that were the case," Eddie said evenly, pulling Rey over to hug him as he whimpered softly, starting to cry.

"I'm sorry...I just...I don't know what I did wrong, why it happened, I'm sorry I dragged you all into this..."

"Hey, hey, come on," Eddie said, rubbing his back. "You didn't drag us into anything. We wanted to come. Soon as we knew we could come to get you, we were frantic to come. You couldn't have stopped us, no one could have stopped us. Nothing has stopped us yet."

"But things...you got hurt and Cena's hurt and we're running from the devils and that fire and all those people and, and...it was just terrible and it shouldn't have happened, I should've been better, I should've..."

"Shhhhh, Rey..." Eddie started to rock him back and forth. "It's okay. Calm down. You don't have to think about that right now. We aren't going to talk about it anymore." He gestured at Batista, who silently gathered up the papers, shaking his head and starting to tuck them back into the small travel safe. "There, see? We're just gonna put that stuff away. Just relax a little bit, huh? Don't gotta worry about it no more."

"But if it's wrong, then I don't...I..." Rey winced, hiding his face against Eddie's shoulder, as Eddie continued to rock him and rub his back, working on soothing him.

Beth sighed and looked over to Batista, then down at Cena, reaching down to touch the side of his neck, checking his pulse. "What about John, Dave? Shouldn't he be awake by now? It's nearly four in the afternoon, he's been out for hours."

"Depends on how much they gave him. The fact that he's not spewing like Old Faithful anymore is a good sign, though. Once that and the flailing and screaming settles down, it's basically just a really, really deep sleep. We could probably wake him up right now if we really worked at it, but it'll be better to just let him sleep and come out of it himself so he's not so...drugged up. He'd probably just be a walking zombie at this point."

Beth looked down, stroking the top of Cena's head as though to move back his hair. "Well, even Superman had kryptonite," she said glumly. "When not even John Cena can risk being on his own around these people, just...shit. It is a miracle we didn't all get-,"

"Hush. Remember little ears," Batista said, tilting his head vaguely in Rey's direction, as he was finally calming down, wiping at his eyes and looking back and forth between them.

"Sorry," Beth said, looking back down and continuing to stroke Cena's hair.

There was a knock at the door, and Chavo and Josh came in after a second, carrying boxes of pizza as they did. "Delivery guy finally came," Chavo said, as he and Josh set the boxes on the empty space on top of the room's dressing table. He glanced around slightly. "Where are Jeff and Morrison?"

Beth gestured vaguely towards the outside wall, in the direction of their vehicle. "If the van's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'," she said.

"Oh. Is that why the windows were all..." Chavo stopped, considering, then made a face. "Ew. I don't want to think about that. Remind me to put a towel down to sit on when we leave."

Josh snorted, getting himself a couple of slices and going to settle into the small chair. "I doubt they're actually 'rocking the van.' Hell, we don't even know for sure they're anything but friends."

"Are you kidding?" Eddie asked, standing and going to get a couple of the boxes and bring them back for himself, Batista, and Rey, then handing one over to Beth. "Any time the last five or six months that Skittles isn't following Matt and Angie around, he's following Johnny around. And wearing Johnny's coats like some cheerleader girl with her boyfriend's football jacket. It's nearly sickening." He chuckled a bit, though, apparently amused at the memory of the pair's antics.

"Well, I'm not going to go peep in the windows to tell them food's on," Chavo said, making a face. "Don't need to see that."

Josh rolled his eyes, getting to his feet and going towards the door, polishing off the slice as he did. "I'll get them. You weenie."

Beth chuckled a little, watching him step outside, then she glanced back down at Cena, startling slightly when she saw his eyes were open, and he was blinking back at her, seeming a little confused. "John?"

The others looked up, figured out what was happening, and crowded over, looking on. Cena turned his head, looking over at them, then yawned and stretched out with a faint growl. "Uh, hi, guys," he said groggily, rubbing at his eyes. "Man, I must be really pretty in the morning."

"Are you okay?" Beth asked, reaching down to put a hand to the back of his forehead. "How do you feel?"

"Like I finally had a good night's sleep and now a bunch of people are looking at me funny." Cena scooted a little and sat up, stretching and yawning again. "Did I fall asleep at the table or..." He glanced around, paused, surveying the room, frowning slightly, even as Jeff and Morrison followed Josh in, the three of them looking as surprised as the others to see him. "This isn't the same hotel room. This is much uglier. Where are we?"

"You don't remember what happened?" Eddie asked.

"The last thing I remember is sitting at the table and de-tagging all our clothes and things while you guys were asleep. Sorry, guess I passed out on the table. I was kinda tired."

"That's to be expected," Batista said. "Like I said, that drug erases a few hours of memory from before they give it to you."

Cena looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Drug? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Will it have any lasting effects?" Beth asked, putting a hand on Cena's shoulder.

"One dose, I don't think so...aside from maybe...Cena, do you feel like any of us might be out to get you?" Batista asked.

Cena snorted. "We're professional wrestlers. I always think you might be out to get me. I just hope you can keep it under control till we get back to the ring."

"No spiders or snakes or anything coming out of the walls, right?"

"Jesus, I'm never falling asleep around you people again if this is what I'm gonna wake up to." Cena tossed back the blankets and moved to get to his feet, grunting a little. "God, I'm sore. Too much fleeing. Anyway, I'm starving, save me some of that pizza...what time is it? Did you really let me sleep that long? Anyway, first things first. Excuse me." He headed for the bathroom, stepping in and pulling the door shut behind him.

"He really, seriously has no idea, does he?" Jeff started to ask, but they heard Cena yell from the bathroom.

"Hey, why the hell do I have a huge burn on my ribs??"

"Well, he probably does now." Beth called back to him. "Just hurry up and then get dressed and come eat! We'll fill you in on all the details!"

"What the fuck did we do last night?"

Batista rolled his eyes slightly, then opened the small safe again, taking out the papers and starting to shuffle to the page containing the information about the drug. "We'll tell you when you get out."