a/n: yeah, you know… Uh, I haven't watched wrestling in ages because my Foxtel has been disconnected and I'm now in Year 12 and I hate it… Look, I hope to be back and update more… I can't make promises because I might break them…

Following The Main Event;

By AliceJericho

Chapter 8: Back Again

"You never find yourself until you face the truth." – Pearl Bailey

Monday, February 1

"Hey, Doc." I smiled weakly at the physician sitting before him.

"How are you doing, Iva?" he asked and I cringed at the use of my first name.

"Sunday, please. And, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm better. Definitely better. But better isn't great."

"Let me take a look at your hand." I held it out to him and he began poking around my wrist. The pressure he was placing on it was barely bothering me. Until he tried to bend it.

"Yeah, ow!" I pulled my hand away as fast as I could. "I said it was better. I didn't say you could make me a contortionist."

"I needed to know the capabilities of the hand, Sunday." He told me but I shook my head.

"There's obviously something wrong. I can't even squeeze shampoo out of a bottle." I snapped at him angrily, "I just need you to figure out what's going on. I need to get back into a ring."

"Sunday, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Your arm should be healed enough to do physio by now. If the best case scenario had happened, I would have told you that in two weeks you would be back in the ring… I'm afraid that maybe the fracture was worse than the doctor's first thought. I suggest you go back home and get another x-ray to see how it's healed."

"I don't want to go back home." Sunday said with an exasperated sigh, "I just spent six weeks at home. I almost went stir crazy! Do you know what happens to people like us? We spend so much time on the road doing what we love that when you take it away for more than four days at a time… We go insane. I hate being this close to a ring without being allowed in it."

"I've heard it enough times from the other wrestlers. I know it's hard, Sunday… If you go back and get checked out once more, it'll be one step closer to wrestling again." The physician told me with a warm smile.

"Can I at least go out there?" I asked with an eager tone.

"I'm sorry. I don't feel that you're strong enough to be out there just yet."

"You do realise that my father is about to embark on the end of his career, right? That this is the end? And I should be there. The whole way. You do understand just how important this is, don't you?"

"You'll have to support him from the back." I gasped at him. He turned away on his wheeled chair and pushed himself over to his little desk. "I'll be informing everyone who has a say in booking that you are not to be included in anything on the floor, or any backstage altercations."

"I'm going to have absolutely no fun for the rest of forever."

"If you don't take care of that arm, that will be the truth." The physician told me seriously and I scoffed, shaking my head.

"I'm going to get you fired." I muttered bitterly, "You can't just tell me to spend more time away from the ring."

"I just have." He said back without hesitation. I huffed childishly at him, standing up and almost stomping my feet. I wasn't going to throw a tantrum in his presence.

"I'm going to sue him."

"Good luck with that." Victoria said with a small laugh.

"He can't tell me that! I've been away for longer than is humanly possible already!"

"You aren't the only person to ever be injured." I looked at her with a slight scowl, "I'm just saying!"

I said I wasn't going to throw a tantrum in his presence. I had since moved to the Divas' locker room and started to complain in there.

"Honestly, Sunday!" Beth scolded me, "Just go get it fixed. The longer you wait the worse it'll get and the harder it'll get to come back. I know it's hard, believe me. But you have to take the initiative. Do the smart thing."

I stared at my feet. Of course she was right. She'd been injured before, far worse than a fractured wrist, too… "Sorry."

"Go back home on the first flight you can get, go to the doctor and see what he can do." Beth patted me on the shoulder as she walked out of the room and I continued to stare at my feet, embarrassed by my actions.

"You've got all of us who you can talk to… And we're not even going to care because we'll probably fall asleep on the phone." Victoria smiled at me and I managed to smile back. "There you go." I pulled her into a tight hug that lasted a couple of minutes. "Go talk to Shawn, okay? He'll help you out. And then Cody can make you feel better." She winked at me as I pulled away and I winked back at her, showing her that I was in no way embarrassed by the connotations of her suggestion. I was sleeping with Cody Runnels, what's there to be embarrassed about?

I exited the room with more of a spring in my step but I still wasn't the happiest girl in the world. I stood outside the male locker room and banged on the door loudly. No one opened it. So did it again, even louder. Still no answer. I did it again and thought I was going to put a hole in the wood.

"What?" I took a step back as Kofi burst from the room. I looked him up and down with a furrowed brow.

"Angry much?"

"You're a pain in the ass!" he told me, "It's a wonder you didn't break the door."

"What the fuck's up your ass?" I asked him angrily, "You're winning tonight, aren't you? Going into the Chamber? I just got told I have to go back home. Laura Hart's around here somewhere. And Cody's losing tonight. Cody always ends up in a foul mood when he loses."

"That's why I'm in a shit mood." Kofi told me, opening the door more so I could see inside the room. I saw Matt Korklan throwing things around the locker room angrily.

"What the fuck's his problem?"

"Laura Hart." Kofi told me with a grim smile, "Dave was being Dave." I sighed at Kofi.

"He's a perve." I said simply. "Tell him to go get something to eat and rest a bit. He's going to get squats. Lots of them." Matt looked at me and I shrugged at him. "I'm not kidding." I cracked a smile. "Have you seen the boyfriend? I want to speak to him before his match."

Later that evening I was on the couch of DX's change room. I was sitting with Cody on the couch as he tickled my sides, making me laugh, talking to John Cena at the same time. Matt Korklan was in the room, using the large space to do squats – just as I had predicted. Paul was beside him, doing the exact same.

At around the two hundred squat mark, Laura Hart came into the room. She looked around and asked with a nervous laugh,

"Paul, why does it look like the Hart Dungeon in here?"

"Straight from the books of Chris Benoit." Paul answered, his voice not even slightly strained.

"Which is where he got it from." I watched the exchange with some jealously. How was it that she could come back after so long and fit in so well? Have things just fall back into place? "I need to speak to you Paul, please." She said after a slight pause. I stared at her with a blank face. I understand that what Dave did was probably deserving of Korklan's retaliation but Korklan should know better than to disrespect anyone in the company… He was at least somewhat deserving of the punishment.

"Is it important?" Paul asked and Laura nodded, smiling at Matt. "John, take over. Two hundred and thirty five." He didn't stop until John had started the squats. They left the room and closed the door behind them. I turned around to look at Cody's face but he was just as confused as I was.

"What did ya do man? You should know better than to say anything to Dave, you've always been a good kid." John was speaking to Matt and I tried my best to act like I wasn't listening, but the room was quite small and there wasn't much else to do.

"It doesn't matter. I did the wrong thing." I respected Matt for that. He was taking his punishment like a man; he wasn't trying to get out of it with petty excuses.

"Whatever it is, you better hope that Laura is getting you out of it, or you won't be moving for three days. But you'll have to do five hundred more tomorrow." I laughed involuntarily as Cody zapped my sides. Not that John and Matt don't already think I'm a bitch.

Paul and Laura came back into the room a little while later. Laura stayed in the door.

"How many have you done?" Paul asked, swapping places with John.

"Four seventy-five."

"Make it twenty five more." I stood up as Paul spoke, "I want to get back."

"Uh, no. He was disrespectful! One thousand!"

"Sunday! I'll give you a thousand if you keep talking." He shouted at me and I stared at him for thirty seconds before leaving the room in a rush. I sat on a crate around the corner and ran my good hand through my hair.

"What was that?" Cody sat down beside me, rubbing my thigh.

"What part? The running off or the saying that Short Stuff should do one thousand?" I asked him quietly.

"Both." He laughed quietly, "I know you've had a rough day, Sun…"

"But I shouldn't take it out on other people, I know." I looked at him and sighed, "I'm just sick of Laura coming back and acting like she never left. She still has everyone wrapped around her little finger and it just makes me angry. She gets her own way all of the time."

"Reminds me of someone else I know. She's blonde, got blue eyes and this cute little winged heart tattooed on the back of her neck…" he moved the hair from the back of my neck and ran his finger over the tattoo, "She's crazy patriotic and a hell of a wrestler, too."

"I don't get my own way." He laughed loudly. "Fine. Maybe I do. I just don't like it when she does."

"This is what happens when you were an only child for fourteen years." He poked my sides again.

"No," I shook my head, disagreeing with him. "That's what happens when for those fourteen years the only way to get your father's attention was to make him feel I was replacing him with everyone else backstage."