A/N - I think I can say with certainty that I will actually finish this story! I'm determined and have the next 2 chapters planned out already. It should end at 10 but it might go to 11. Anyway, the conclusion ain't going to be pretty but here it is, the final push...into the abyss lol. Enjoy...

"I wish you would stop fidgeting."

Stephanie glanced at her father and tried not to grimace. She was making it way too obvious something was bothering her. They had arrived at the arena for Raw over an hour ago and still no sign of Paul. She loosely overheard her father talking to his assistant about him but she couldn't ask questions. She had to pretend that she was fully aware of her husband's whereabouts because that's what would happen under normal circumstances. Only this was anything but. "I'm sorry, dad, I'm just….I don't feel too great today."

At this Vince raised his eyebrow. His daughter was never one to make excuses. He had hammered that habit out of both her and Shane when they were kids. So he was surprised to hear her say it. "You don't feel good?"

"No, I don't ok?"

Stephanie didn't mean to be short with him but she swore her head would explode if she didn't receive some form of contact from her husband in the next ten seconds. She just couldn't do it anymore, she needed to see him.

"Stephanie." His tone was stern as he reprimanded her and Vince couldn't shake the feeling that there was something she wasn't telling him. Maybe Paul could sort her out. He always seemed to have a calming effect on her, hell, on the both of them if he was being honest. "Where the hell is your husband? First he misses the ride over and now he's late. I need him here, God dammit."

"He's….coming," she blurted out and tried not to get angry. She wished she knew where the fuck he was but he had apparently gone AWOL since last week. And whatever daddy dearest had planned would just have to wait. Her marriage was more important than anything he had to say and if it caused a fight between them then so what. She was already fighting with the most important man in her life, what was throwing number two into the mix.

"Finally!"

At his ecstatic bellow Stephanie felt her whole body tense.

He was here.

She felt her father brush past her and instantly felt the urge to cry. With a deep breath she slowly turned around and plastered a fake smile on her face. It immediately died when she saw the horrible bruise around his right eye. "Paul! What happened to your face?" She automatically reached out to touch him, her arm faltering in mid air when he took a very visible step backwards.

Vince's brow furrowed in confusion. He watched them with great concern. They couldn't even look at each other. Well, his son-in-law couldn't. His eyes were trying to find focus anywhere but on his daughter.

"I'd like to…request that I don't have any segments tonight. I don't…I'm not feeling great."

This time Vince almost blew a gasket. First Stephanie and now Paul? This was such extreme behavior that for a moment he didn't know what to do. He glanced around and was thankful to see that nobody was in the vicinity. He stared at them with sharp eyes and pointed down the hallway to his office. "Both of you, my office, NOW."

Stephanie's shoulders sunk as she prepared herself for the mortification that was about to take place but she was stunned into a stop.

"No."

She stared at her husband and tried reaching for him again, her heart aching when he pulled away and finally looked at her. The disgust and anger in his gaze shook her to the bone but it was the distraught hurt that did it most of all. She felt her own eyes begin to well up.

"What do you mean, no?" Vince barked.

Stephanie watched her father square up to her husband and her heart caught in her throat. "Dad…."

"I said no. You don't get to march me to your office like some fucking child. I said I'm not doing any segments tonight so I'm not…"

"Have you been drinking?" Vince could feel the anger beginning to surge through his veins. Who the fuck did he think he was turning up to work fucking drunk back talking him like this? His rage almost blinded him until he noticed the bags under the other man's eyes, his defeated posture and the fact that he couldn't even look at his daughter. This time his voice dropped as he looked between the pair. "What the hell is going on?"

"Why don't you ask her," Paul spat with such venom it surprised him. He thought he had this under control. He thought he could come to work and pretend that nothing had happened but the second he saw his wife that urge to fucking strangle her returned and all he could see was red.

"Paul, please…" For the third time Stephanie tried reaching for her husband but she stumbled back in shock at the force of him practically pushing her off.

"I don't know what this is but you better watch it."

Paul was sick of Vince dressing him down. The old McMahon self-defense mechanism was kicking in. When this all came out he knew what would happen. They'd gather together and try to take on the world like they always did. Only difference would be this time he'd be on the outside looking in instead of part of the family.

"Won't you even look at me?" Stephanie didn't want to do this in front of her fucking father but this was clearly all she was getting right now. "I can't take this anymore, we need to…""

"You can't take it anymore?" Paul scoffed, insulted at the audacity of her to even say that to him. "Maybe you should have thought about that before you…"

Fuck.

He couldn't say it.

Stephanie felt her heart break as his bottom lip began to tremble and his eyes started to water. She simply refused to admit that she had done this to him. He looked broken.

"I'm leaving."

"Paul, the show…" Vince tried to reason. His previous anger had dissipated because something was very clearly wrong and it was killing him having to bear witness. His son-in-law was unrecognizable in this state and as he looked into his daughter's guilty eyes he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach what this was all about.

"No, Vince. I can't stay here. I can't be around her right now," Paul rubbed at his eyes and gathered himself. "I'm going home. I don't care about the show. I haven't seen my kids in days. I can't….I can't fucking be here." He didn't even care that he was seconds away from breaking down and crying in front of a man he respected too much to ever let him see him like this. It just hurt too fucking much to hide.

The only thing Vince could do was watch him walk away and pray to God nobody saw him or overheard any of this conversation. If this got out it would catch like wildfire. Jesus, what a fucking mess. It only got worse as his daughter burst into tears at his side and took off for his office. He took slow measured steps as he followed her in, mentally preparing himself for what he was certain was to come.

Stephanie was in pieces. Her whole body was shaking with her sobs. She had imagined what it would be like to finally see him after all this time but she had never in her wildest dreams imagined that the man she loved more than life itself could ever talk to her the way he did. Even during their worst fights at home he had never treated her like a piece of shit on his shoe. It only drove home how deeply she had hurt him. Paul was always so calm and collected. Nothing ever got to him or if it did he took it in stride and never let it affect him. He was her stoic knight in shining armor, always there with the right words to say and a look of pure love in his eyes that he made her feel at ease no matter what.

The man she saw tonight was lashing out. He was absolutely disgusted with her and she felt like a dirty rotten bitch for driving him to this. She was responsible for all that. She was responsible for turning him into the cruel heartless man she had just encountered. It was almost too much to bear.

"I don't even know if I want to hear this but, Steph…you need to tell me what the hell is going on here."

Her father's words and grave tone rang through her ears soberly. Somehow she had tricked herself into believing her husband would contain his outrage for when they were alone and she wouldn't have to deal with her dad tonight. She looked into his eyes and was instantly ashamed at the disappointed gaze staring back. "I've ruined everything."

"What did you do?"

Stephanie almost choked on the words. Her tongue felt bitter as they slipped from her mouth. "I cheated on him."

With a slow intake of breath, Vince closed his eyes. When he let it out again he tried to imagine a scenario where everything didn't go up in flames. This was a disaster of the most epic proportions. It would fuck up everything, the company plans for the future, his grandchildren… He stopped himself from going off the rails and looked at the wall above her head to hide his disgust. "Why? How could you do this, Stephanie? What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking and please, don't stand there and berate me because I've already told myself everything you're going to say and I already feel like absolute shit so please save your breath."

"I don't understand….it's you….and Paul. You are the….you guys truly love each other, Stephanie….I don't fucking understand this….and he came to work on Thursday and Friday…I had a meeting with him….Jesus Christ…" he trailed off in misplaced yet deep admiration. His son-in-law was clearly falling apart and he still came to work the day after finding out his wife had cheated on him. With every other emotion swimming through his veins right now, he slowly started to realize what this could potentially mean and it hurt like hell for him too. He loved Paul like his own flesh and blood. They were more than just in-laws or even colleagues; they were friends and had such a great relationship. He adored him just as much as Stephanie and Shane. "My God, Stephanie."

"Dad, please…" This time Stephanie trailed off as she simply broke down and crumpled to the sofa in a desperate heap.

Vince could only stand there, his own eyes growing watery as the severity of the situation his family was now buried in fully started to dawn on him. "What have you done?"

It was well into the early hours of the morning when Paul arrived at his house. He stood outside in the dark and stared aimlessly. It looked different now. It was no longer somewhere he considered safe. Now it just stood there, mocking the perfect life he thought he had. Inside three little girls were sleeping like their world wasn't about to come crashing down around them. Because the more he thought about this, the more he realized that he didn't think he was capable of forgiving his wife for what she had done.

He wiped his eyes and thanked the driver while grabbing his keys. Getting here had been quite the adventure. He hadn't had to book a flight for himself in years and he didn't want to alert his assistant even further by asking her to get him a flight home during Raw. Really he shouldn't give a fuck about appearances but he did. He worked with these people. What would they think of him when this got out?

With heavy feet he stepped inside his pitch black home and flicked the lock after entering the security code. His head was so busted he didn't even know who the fuck was looking after his own children tonight; his parents, the nanny…Linda? "Please don't be fucking, Linda" he muttered under his breath as he headed for the stairs. There was no conceivable way he could explain this to her without her knowing something had happened. As quietly as he could, he tiptoed past the guest bedrooms at the far end of the hall and made for his daughters rooms.

When he stepped inside Vaughn's room the onslaught of tears couldn't be stopped. He wanted nothing more than to wake her up and squeeze her so close. He had missed her so much. He had missed all of them. Now more than ever they were the most important thing in his life. Next was Murphy and he had to suppress a chuckle at the way her tiny frame was sprawled across her bed. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and headed for Aurora's room. Out of the three of them she most resembled her mother. Paul felt his heart begin to thump in his chest. He was fucking exhausted, both physically and mentally. Without a second thought he kicked off his shoes, pulled off his tie and dropped his suit jacket to the floor. Her little body was warm as he cuddled in behind her and inhaled the strawberry scent of her hair. His arm wrapped around her, pulling her close and feeling the tiniest bit of contentment slowly filter through his veins for the first time in almost a week. It didn't take long for the gentle rise and fall of her chest to send him into a much needed sleep.

He woke to the feel of consistent pushing against his shoulder.

"Daddy wake up! Wake up, wake up!"

Paul opened his bleary eyes and groaned. His mouth felt disgusting and his head heavy. Even still he couldn't help but break into a smile at the sound of his daughter's excited voice.

She gave him one final solid thump, her voice belying the fact that she wouldn't do it again. "Daddy, wake up!"

"I'm up! Stop hitting me, you're gonna leave a bruise. Ow!" He faux cried, sniffling into the pillow.

"I can't give you a bruise. I'm only nine and you're like a rock. What happened to your eye?"

At this he started laughing and sat up, absently scratching at his head while she fired a million questions at him all at once.

"Where were you, daddy? Mommy said you got called for work and we didn't see you all weekend."

It was a question he had been anticipating. He cleared his throat and was just about to give the speech he had prepared when the words caught in his mouth.

"Is that right?" Linda McMahon asked curiously, her arms folded as she stood in the doorway of her granddaughter's room. She had intended to wake the young girl up in preparation for school and to her surprise had found her son-in-law sitting on the bed looking very disheveled and still in his suit. Which only begged the question of what the hell he was doing here in the first place. Given Aurora's little speech she was already getting a very bad feeling about this. "Good morning, Paul."

Paul saw her visibly wince when he looked up, her gaze immediately drawn to his bruised eye. She rushed towards him and he held up his hand. "I'm fine….I'm fine. I….."

The in-laws shared a long glance. Somewhere in the unspoken communication Linda knew that this wasn't going to be good. "Aurora, go down to your sisters, they're already up. I need to speak to your dad for a minute. We'll be down in a minute, ok?"

"Ok. They're gonna flip when they find out you're here! Bye daddy!" She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and zoomed out the door, the sound of her bounding down the stairs grew steadily distant until it stopped.

"What is going on? And don't you dare lie to me. You look terrible, you have a black eye, you're still in your suit and you turn up in the middle of the night….Monday night…and from what I hear you haven't been home all weekend?" Linda furiously admonished herself for not noticing that he hadn't been here when she arrived yesterday morning. Although why would she? Stephanie told her he was in the shower and she had absolutely no reason to believe otherwise.

Paul felt like he was about to lose it again but surprisingly, no tears came. Instead a steely strength consumed him and he let out a slow breath. He looked at his mother-in-law and found an almost comical irony in the fact that now they both had something very much in common. "First of all I'm sorry for turning up like this. I didn't mean to….." He cleared his throat and tried to think of the best way to say this. But there was no easy way to say it. So he just did.

"Stephanie cheated on me." Saying it loud made it seem too real. But it was real no matter how many times he tried to tell himself that it wasn't. "She slept with Randy Orton…yesterday I went to Raw because I thought I could…go to work but I just couldn't do it. I can't look at her without…"

Linda's heart sank to her feet and through the ground. She couldn't believe this. The man before her looked completely and utterly heartbroken. He was struggling to find the words and no doubt fighting to keep himself from breaking down. She knew all too well what he was going through and it absolutely broke her heart to discover that Stephanie could do this knowing how badly she had felt after Vince had done the same.

"I didn't know what to do so I just…came home." His resolve had finally started to shatter. Paul wiped his eyes harshly. He was a grown fucking man and apparently had no control over his emotions. "And now I can't stop fucking crying. Jesus."

His voice cracked and Linda did the only thing she thought she should, she grabbed him and pulled him close, her own eyes starting to tear up as he broke down in her arms.

Please don't hate me :)