Disclaimer, etc., in part 1.

Part Forty-One

They won their matches that weekend.

In the first match, Melina had managed to pin Michelle McCool, surprising the divas' champion by reversing her finisher and rolling her up and, in the second match, Eve had pinned Layla, landing a moonsault that hadn't been all that kind to her still-sore ribs while Melina had kept Michelle from interfering. Aside from that, Eve had spent some time at ringside during Jeff Hardy's matches, though thankfully, she hadn't gotten knocked down again during them... Probably because Jeff's opponent for the weekend, Dolph Ziggler, had been careful to be aware of where Eve was at all times. It was obvious the guy hadn't wanted a repeat of what had happened on SmackDown, which Eve was grateful for. She actually felt safer around him than she did around Jeff at the moment... Mostly because she knew that what had happened on SmackDown had been an accident, but what Jeff had done to her in the past was anything but.

"Just one more week," the diva muttered to herself as she sat in the hotel room she was sharing with Melina that night. The older diva was in the shower at the moment, leaving Eve alone with her thoughts as she stretched out on her bed and pretended to read a book.

To be honest, part of her was surprised that she'd made it this long. That she'd managed to pretend... That she'd managed to keep the looks of hate off of her face whenever she was out there and ringside for Jeff Hardy. She knew, of course, that a lot of people would probably think her weak for staying at all, but Eve didn't care what other people thought, not any longer. She was sticking with Jeff now not because she was weak, but because she was waiting for the perfect moment, a moment when her turning against him would actually *hurt* him. Just walking away from him wouldn't hurt him, it wouldn't do a damn thing to him. She had to make him pay. Cost him the title that he wanted so dearly... Then stand in that ring with CM Punk and make it clear that she'd played him for a fool. He thought he was smarter than her, that he had it all figured out, but he hadn't figured her out. Not yet. Maybe he knew that she didn't like him anymore, but he thought she had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do... He had no idea that she was involved with the man that was currently making his life miserable. He had no idea that she was going to manage CM Punk after this... That she was going to walk away from him and never look back. He thought she was too weak to leave, that she had nothing else.

"I'm wrestling more," Eve murmured then, wincing slightly at that. The lack of wrestling she'd done in the past was one of the reasons that Jeff thought she was stuck with him whether she wanted to be or not... She'd rarely stepped in the ring, so it wasn't like she could turn against him or walk away and be a wrestler full-time.

At least, it hadn't been like that before. But now? She'd just spent the weekend tagging with Melina, and she'd tagged with her not too long before that, not to mention her own match against Maria after what the woman had done to Kelly. Yeah, okay, it wasn't like she was suddenly having tons of matches or something, but those few matches were certainly more than she'd had before... And Jeff Hardy was bound to have noticed.

"Something wrong, chica?" Melina asked suddenly, and Eve jerked around to face the other woman, surprised to find her standing between the two beds in the room. She'd been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn't heard the other woman leaving the bathroom after her shower. Sitting up, Eve shook her head, shoving a hand through her hair.

"It's... nothing."

"Yeah, sure it is. 'Cause that's a 'nothing' face," the older woman said with a snort as she flopped backwards onto her own bed, then twisted around so that she was on her stomach and facing Eve over the gap between their beds. "What's wrong? Did you mess up your ribs more with that moonsault tonight?"

"My ribs are fine," Eve replied, waving away the other woman's concern in that area, and her words were actually true. She had a little bit of bruising, sure, but it wasn't even that sore, and she was fine. No worries on the injury front. "It's not that."

"Which means it's something else. So what is it?" Melina wanted to know, giving Eve a look that pretty much guaranteed that she wasn't going to leave the younger woman alone until she confessed what she'd been thinking about. After a moment, Eve shrugged.

"It's just... I've been wrestling more lately."

Melina nodded, watching as Eve rose to her feet and began pacing back and forth across the length of the room. "Yeah? Is that a problem? I thought you wanted to wrestle more."

"I do. I want to be a wrestler, I really do, but... What if Jeff notices?" she wanted to know. "I mean... He has to notice. There have been a couple of times lately when I haven't walked him out to his matches because I have one of my own," Eve reminded the older woman, and Melina frowned.

"I'm still not seeing a problem here, Eve. You're going to have to clue me in as to what is going on in that brain of yours," Melina told her, watching as Eve went to the little mini-refrigerator in the room and pulled out a bottle of water. She waited expectantly while the other woman opened the bottle and took a drink, Eve then turning to face her.

"One reason Jeff is so confident that I won't turn against him or leave him is because he thinks I have no one else. Nothing else. I tagged with you this weekend. I tagged with you not long ago on SmackDown. I faced Maria on SmackDown. I'm not as alone anymore. I'm rooming with you. Before Kelly got hurt, I was riding from town to town with her. I'm pretty sure he realizes that Kelly knows what really happened, and he's going to realize at some point that you do, too. So I have friends, and I'm starting to get a career... At least a little bit."

"You're afraid he's going to get suspicious," Melina said quietly, and Eve nodded her head, taking another drink of water, lifting the bottle and letting it rest against her forehead as she spoke.

"I am. He knows I don't like him any longer. He may have a really high opinion of himself, but Jeff Hardy is still smart enough to know that I feel nothing but contempt for him. He left me on the side of the damn road without even my shoes or my cell phone. He knocked me around when I flushed his drugs down the toilet. He yanked me around by the hair and tossed me into the wall when Maria attacked me and I turned the tables on her. He'd have to have smoked enough pot or snorted enough coke to have really destroyed all his brain cells if he doesn't realize I hate his guts. And if he starts to realize that I have more going for me than just being his manager... Who's to say he won't turn against me before I have a chance to turn against him?" she asked, and Melina arched a brow at her.

"He's all about the fan adoration, though, right? The people love him. Think he's wonderful. He acts like the nice guy on camera, so everyone believes he's the good guy."

Eve nodded, lowering the bottle of water from her forehead as she walked across the carpet and flopped down on her own bed, she and Melina facing each other across the gap between the beds. "He does. He feeds on it. Sometimes I think the cheers are as much of a drug to him as the stuff he takes. Well, maybe not as much. If the cheers were the same thing to him, then he wouldn't need the drugs. But it's close. He really does feed off the crowd. Hell, you've seen him out there. Sometimes he tries to start his own damn 'Hardy' chants," the woman said, and Melina snorted at that.

"True enough." She rolled her eyes. "I always thought that was kind of pathetic, you know? Having to lead the crowd to get them to chant for you. Cena may get rivaling 'Let's go Cena' and 'Cena sucks' chants, but at least he doesn't have to start them himself," she said, and Eve smirked, trying to imagine Cena doing that, and not really being able to. He didn't need to. But sometimes it seemed that Jeff did.

"Yeah, well, Jeff Hardy isn't John Cena. Cena's the face of the damn company, and Jeff's got two strikes and from what I've seen, should have already gotten a third, but instead he's got a title match in about a week," Eve said with a shake of her head, and Melina nodded, rolling off her bed to go and grab a drink of her own, shaking her head when Eve started to apologize for not offering her one earlier.

"No worries," she said, taking a long drink of water, then heading back toward her bed. "That match is the big moment, right?" Melina asked. "The moment of no return, when you cost him the title and make sure Punk keeps it?"

Eve nodded. "That's the plan."

"Okay... Well, that's next week, right? Seven days away," Melina stated, toying with the label on the bottle of water that she held, shifting around so that she was sitting cross-legged on her bed.

"Seven very long days," the younger diva said, closing her eyes and heaving out a sigh. "Sometimes I don't know how I made it this long. The plan was to end it weeks ago... But then Maria attacked Kelly and that took care of that. I mean, I don't regret going to the hospital with Kelly. Please don't get me wrong there. It was the right thing to do, and I wanted to do it. But if Maria hadn't hurt her..."

"You would have been out there for the match between Punk and Jeff, and you would have made sure that Punk won. I know. And it sucks that you had to pretend for the past few weeks, but at least you weren't always forced to be at ringside for the jerk. You got your match against Maria, and we've tagged with each other... And it's almost over. If you made it this far without a total meltdown, then you can make it a little longer. It's just seven days. Not a lot of time in the scheme of things. In fact, in exactly seven days from now, it will be over. You'll have turned against Jeff, aligned officially with Punk, and instead of hanging out in a hotel room with me, you'll be with him. And probably very, very happy about it," Melina said with a wicked smile, and Eve rolled her eyes. "What? I'm not right?"

"Okay, you are, but... It's still another week."

"But you aren't needed on RAW, right?"

"Right."

"Which means... You have to get through SmackDown on Friday and the live event on Saturday. Two shows. Two more shows of pretending, and then it ends on the third one. Sunday night. You walk out there, and you take him down and let him know that he does not mess with Eve Torres and get away with it." Melina smirked. "How does that sound?" she wanted to know, and Eve returned the smile.

"Sounds like it has the potential to be the best night of my life. Or at least the best night of my career so far," she said, and Melina nodded.

"And one of the worst nights for Jeff. Fight his way back, make people think he's the good guy when we both know he's just a druggie and an abusive loser... And then, when it's his time to shine..."

"Boom... I knock him down," Eve said, then smiled. "This is going to feel so good."

"Damn straight. And you know what's going to make it even better?"

"What's that?"

"When he realizes that you've been on Punk's side this whole time. And when he realizes that leaving you on the side of the road is what sealed his fate. He brought this on himself, Eve. With what he did to you," Melina stated, and Eve shook her head.

"He'll never see it like that. I'll just be some bitch that turned against him when he didn't deserve it. But I can live with that. I can live with what the fans think of me. I'll still have my friends. And I'll have Punk... And that's what matters."