Chapter 57:
Hunter Helmsley was practically trembling with rage as he stalked down the hallway to the trainer's room. He was seriously considering breaking his own rule and using his sledgehammer on several Divas. All it took was for someone to tell him Haley was seriously hurt and for him to watch the footage for his anger to rise to a dangerous level.
He shoved the door to the trainer's room without even bothering to knock. He heard it slam against the opposite wall. "Where's my baby?" He demanded, his voice holding a dangerous edge.
The crowd seemed to part in response so that he could see Haley seated on one of the medical tables, her left arm being supported in a black sling. There were dried tearstains on her cheeks and her expression looked broken. Dave Batista stood behind her, looking just as upset as he stroked her hair in a soothing motion. Randy Orton stood on her left, his hand on her knee, his thumb moving in circles while he talked to one of the trainers. Candice Michelle was on her right, holding her uninjured hand and looked guilty as though it were somehow her fault. Hunter felt his anger deflate in response.
"Hunter!" Haley's voice was relieved as she hopped off the table, pulling away from the others and half running across the room to him.
Mindful of her injured shoulder, the man known as the Game wrapped his arms around her waist and held her to him. "What's the verdict?" His blue eyes narrowed in on the Animal, who was looking at them with a helpless expression on his face.
"Dislocated shoulder." Batista answered, keeping his voice even as not to let the others in on his inner turmoil. "Jamison doesn't think she tore any tendons or but there might be some nerve damage so he's going to send her to the ER for further evaluation."
Peter Jamison looked up from where he was filling out a chart for Haley to take with her to the hospital. "The pain lessened a great deal as soon as I replaced the shoulder back into it's proper joint. There's only a slight chance, but it's better to be safe than sorry. My opinion is that she'll be out of action for about two months, so that she can heal and rehabilitate it properly. She's never dislocated it before, so she'll be back as good as new."
"Two months." Triple H murmured, stroking a hand through Haley's dark hair. "That's not so bad, Hales. It could have been a hell of a lot worse."
She sighed against him, her fingers gripping the cotton of his t-shirt. "I don't want to leave, Hunter." She whispered.
"I know, Haley." He soothed, looking back up at Dave. "Nobody ever wants to leave with an injury, but we'll fix this when you get back, I promise."
Dave shook his head angrily. "I'm fixing this now. There's no way in hell I'm having Eve as a valet. I didn't want her in the first place and there's no way I'm accepting her after that stunt!"
Randy Orton rolled his eyes. "Good luck convincing Adamle of that one. The man's a goddamn idiot! You'd think he wanted Haley out of action between Summerslam and now this crap."
Haley lifted her head off Hunter's chest and turned to stare at Randy wide-eyed. "Oh my God, maybe he really does have a grudge against me or something. That would explain why I keep getting royally screwed over."
"You know, I was going to take my sledgehammer and introduce myself to Paul Burchill, but maybe I should take it and go have a talk with Adamle instead." Hunter said thoughtfully. "I bet you he screams like a girl."
Candice giggled appreciatively at the joke. "Because that would help Haley's case oh so much, Hunter, if he does have a grudge against her."
Jamison coughed uncomfortably. "I doubt Mr. Adamle has any personal vendetta against Haley. He's just trying to make RAW more exciting with different types of matches."
"Jamison, he's not here, so you don't have to kiss that idiot's ass like that." Randy stretched his arms over his head. "All right, what do you say I get you to the hospital, Hales, so we can get you checked out?"
"Screw that, I'll take her!" Dave and Hunter both seemed to bellow in unison, before they exchanged astonished looks with one another.
"Neither of you can." Haley pointed out softly, her eyes looked nervous, but firm. "Both of you have Championship Scramble matches in about an hour. Hunter, if you fail to show, you lose your title and Dave will miss his chance to gain his. I won't be held responsible for either."
"Haley." Hunter's voice was serious and gentle. "Do you think my title belt means more to me than you do? You may have entered this company as the Rock's prodigy, but you're not his anymore. You're my legacy. I can win this belt over and over again, you're a once in a lifetime."
Tears welled in her eyes as she stared at him for a moment. "I love you too." She murmured, hugging him tightly with her good arm. "And because I love you, I want you to compete tonight. I want you to do the impossible and retain your title."
She looked over her shoulder back at Dave and offered him a smile. "I tell you I love you often enough that I hope you know it by now. I want you to go out and win the World Heavyweight Championship. This is your real shot Dave. This match favors you and I want to be able to know that by the end of the night, my baby is Champion. One of us has to be victorious."
"Baby," Batista's expression was pained as he approached, his hand coming to tangle in her hair. "I…"
"I know." She cut him off before he could continue. "I know that you love me. Right now, all I want you to think about is your title match. We know the bulk of my injury and I think we can all agree that Randy can be trusted with my safety."
She pulled away from him and took a step backwards in retreat. "As for our new Eve debacle. We'll figure it out later. We can talk tonight, after we celebrate."
"Haley, I love you." Batista let his hand drop to his side and hang there.
"I know." Her mouth curved upwards in just a hint of a smile. "I love you too."
Hunter came to stand beside his former Evolution enforcer and gave Randy one long warning glare before addressing Haley. "Be careful and call me as soon as you have a prognosis, okay Punkin?"
"Of course." Haley agreed, her gaze going back to her best friend, who had remained silent since Hunter's confession. "I'll call you too, Candy. Hopefully we can have breakfast in the morning?"
Candice nodded. "Absolutely. Just give me a ring as soon as you find anything out."
Saying final goodbyes, Haley fell instep beside Randy in the hallway as they headed for the parking garage. Only then did she let her expression fall and her fear creep in. "She's going to be here when I'm not."
Randy's head jolted sideways to look at her. "Hales, Eve is nothing but a desperate whore who will resort to any means necessary to be a home wrecker. I doubt even Dave would fall for her garbage."
"Would you?" Her voice was shy as she said the question, her eyes remaining downcast to hide her embarrassment and slight insecurity.
"Maybe for a one night stand." He said honestly, not wanting to lie to her. "Use her up and spit her back out at the end of it. She's not the kind of girl that bags the guy in the end, Hales. And when compared to you, she doesn't stand a chance."
"You're just saying that because you're my best friend." She rolled her eyes and looked dejected.
"No." He argued lightly and waited for her eyes to meet his again. "I'm saying that because I'm in love with you."
He watched her body jerk in response, while her eyes grew as big as saucers. "Randy…" Her voice was ghostly. "I don't even know what to say. I mean, I love…"
He shook his head. "It's okay, Hales. You don't need to tell me you're in love with Dave. I know that part. What you need to finally figure out; however, is that you're in love with me too. The option's always there, Hales, always."
He walked a few steps ahead of her then, letting the new information sink in. He would not regret telling her. She would be going home to Boston for a couple months to heal, and he wanted her to know that while she might worry about one man she was in love with, the other would be thinking of her the entire time she was away. And maybe, while she was rehabilitating, she'd come to realize what Randy already knew, they should be together.
Meanwhile, Haley's mind was reeling from the revelation. She knew Randy had some kind of feelings for her; she had to be blind not to see it, especially after she slept with him last year. But she had never dreamed that he was in love with her. Nor did she think that she was in love with him, not when her heart yearned for Dave, ached for him, even now. She didn't know how to respond to the information, and wasn't quite sure she was happy to know it at all.
A/N: So you can all thank Christal-R for this update. I've been lazy about fighting through my writer's block and she and I promised each other that our New Year's Resolutions would be to update our stories on a regular basis I'm going to try and alternate this with Survivor. So tomorrow's update will be Survivor's day.
And can I just say how devastated I am over Dave's injury? Plus, Randy kicked two of his teeth out?! I know he got his jaw grafted, but that's my favorite smile! And they're saying it's minimum of six to eight months before he returns. My Wrestlemania dreams just went out the window! Gah! Randy, I love you, but at the same time, I hate you…sigh. Kicking teeth out is not cool.
Also, I'd like to post a quick reminder because a couple of my reviewers have said that I need to do more research on wrestling, the part where it's all scripted. I know that, but I write my fics as though wrestling is the real deal because I use the in-ring characters for my story, not the wrestlers behind the scenes because I feel they are entitled to their privacy and the people we see onscreen are characters they play. I only use names like Dwayne and Mark for Rock and Undertaker, for obvious reasons haha. Otherwise I would be calling Hunter Paul and the whole dynamics of the story would be different. So while I appreciate the constructive criticism, I just wanted to defend that part. Thank you.
As for you Fail, well, I'm sorry you feel that way. But just because you believe my character is a Mary-sue, and she might be in other people's opinions, Mary-sue's aren't in violation of Fanfiction guidelines. I'm sorry you feel the need to review people's stories just insult them and their writing. You must lead a pretty drabby, unexciting life for you take the time just to go around and flame people. I'd like to see you have the balls to post your creativity on the Internet for anyone to access, read and make judgments on. But since you're an anonymous reviewer, I'll just assume you're jealous of the other writer's on here and you try and bring them down to make yourself feel better. Go on and continue being a coward. If you haven't noticed my list of shout outs below, there are people on here who do enjoy my writing and my character. And that doesn't include the people who read it, like it and don't review. I'm at 332 reviews now, not counting yours and before this fic got pulled, I had about 500. So if you think your crappy attitude is going to bring me down, think again. I steel myself against people like you. You want to give me some constructive criticism, go ahead, but your petty insults and obvious display of jealousy doesn't make me look bad, it makes you look like an immature ass. One final thing, so what if people also comment in their reviews about what happened on TV? If you're too narrow-minded to notice, I do review responses at the end of most chapters. I'm willing to talk wrestling with everyone because I don't just write about it, I'm a fan and I like to relate to my reviewers as fellow fans. So grow up, get over yourself and find a better way to pass the time.
I would do review responses for you, but I'm way too hungover at this point to coherently function, Tequila….bad, so I'll do shout-outs instead.
EHHH (thank you for your comments, and you were polite about it, so don't worry, I don't think it was an attack), Emma, 24hoursinaday, Alex, La Verdad aka the Truth, Ctar (btw thank you for standing up for me, I appreciate it!), Nicole, Somebody, Adrina, Maria-Mia, Jenny, Shiroi Moon, vjsimpact, FrequentlyDazzled619, Nic-002001, Rossi's Lil Devil, SBMFanatic, ThatGirl54, CenaCandiceFan4Life, iNdy MiLk, Aaron W, dreamin'BIG, Jewelgirl04, PsYcHoRoAcH and I luv drama and Jeff Hardy
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza or whichever holiday you celebrate. And HAPPY NEW YEAR!