I am so sorry for keeping you waiting so long for an update. I was a little side tracked with a new project and I wanted to add some parts to this chapter before publishing it. I did that just now and it is finally ready. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 40

About 7.45 am we were finally en route to the airport. Traffic was heavy this Monday Morning but the drive wouldn't take longer than 20 minutes.

My phone rang and I looked on the car screen. Jon pressed the button to take the call via speaker before I could.

"COLBY!" he said in a fake enthusiastic voice. You could definitely hear Colby thinking.

"JON!" he finally said. "Where is your wife?" he asked. "What would you do if I told you that she..." "is right beside that ass driving to the airport." I interrupted Jon knowing full well that his comeback would have involved something sexual.

"We are going to Tahoe for a couple of days." "Oh that's nice. I just wanted to know how it is going." "At 8 in the morning?" Jon asked skeptical. "What? Oh right it's 10 am here. Damn sorry guys. Well I take it you are okay then?"

Jon exchanged a look with me not knowing that Colby would know from the gap between my answer that something was not right. Or so I thought.

"Got a bit of a problem with the pills and did something really stupid last night which got me into the doghouse with Sam. We will figure it and me out now. So thanks for checking in on me and we will let you know how it goes Colby, k?"

"Sure, take care both of you. Sam? Call me when you need me, love you, bye!" Colby hung up before Jon could question the pleasantries.

"Let's get this party started, shall we?" Jon said as we arrived at the airport. Guess my husband knew me better than I thought. He was paying attention to stuff after all.

The flight was uneventful and the short drive to our little house at Lake Tahoe was nice and quiet.

Before we had boarded the plane Jon had taken one last pain killer and we wanted to look how it went without pills out here.

"You know Jon, we have no prenup and all and everything we have is half mine anyways, but if we ever break up all I want is this house." I said as we settled in.

"I am aware of that and it is yours already."

Smiling I walked up to him. "Thank you Jon. Are you ready?"

He shrugged. "For pain, withdrawal and probably bitching at you the next couple of days hurting you in the process? Yes, yes and hell no. But here you go." He put the bottle of pills in my hand enclosing my hand and the pill bottle with his.

"I apologize for everything I will say to you, for every name I call you. I will make this up to you Sam, and never forget that I love you and my heart belongs to you even though my mind will hate you for a little while."

"I know, don't worry about it. I know that your bark is worth than your bite."

"Is that so?" he asked smirking. "Yep. Come on we need to stock the fridge."

We spent about two hours in the little town walking around, having a coffee and buying some groceries, completely uninterrupted which was nice. It was one of the things I loved about Tahoe and I knew Jon liked it as well.

After these two uninterrupted, nice hours I noticed Jon's face straining more and more so we went home.

I put him on the couch preparing a late lunch for us and joined him.

His appetite wasn't big and he looked white as a sheet of paper.

"Take at least one more bite." I urged him. His look said it all so I brought the food away, bringing him a waste bin and a wet washcloth as well.

When I returned he was laying on his good side so I put my head on his hip just to be close to him without getting too close to his injured arm.

I stroked his lower leg which was bare in his shorts and closed my eyes.

One of the most wondrous things between us was the way we could spend hours without talking. If Jon would have his left arm free he would gently message my scalp right now.

Sometime I must have dozed off, needing to recharge my batteries a bit because the last 10 days had ben stressful.

Some time later I woke up when I heard Jon retching in the bathroom.

At one point he must have left me on the couch.

I was never one who could see or hear people throw up but he was my husband and I would stick with him through this.

Jon sat in front of the toilet looking miserable.

"Hey, can I do something for you?" I asked softly crouching in front of him and shoving his curly hair out of his eyes.

"Nope." he replied, trying a smile and failing miserably.

Taking another wet washcloth I cleaned up his face a little and wetted his hair.

"I love tousling your hair." I told him and he put his face in my hand when I cuddled his cheek.

Sitting down beside him on the hard floor I pulled his head on my shoulder, embracing him with the arm closest to him.

"I used to tell you stupid stories about my work when we first went through this. And we only had Skype back then. I remember one time where you ran to the bathroom and all I could see was the hotel room for about two hours. And I stared at the screen the whole time. At one point I felt positively stupid for still talking to you."

"I could hear you, you know? I was just too damn sick to reply or get up."

Sam giggled. "Yeah, and when you crawled out of the bathroom you called me names and I was so glad that you were okay enough to call me names that I nearly peed my pants laughing. You were really creative."

Jon didn't even try to smile but mumbled: "Let's find out how creative I get this time." He looked at his hands which started to shake. Another sign of withdrawal.

He balled his hands to fists to stop the shaking, embarrassed probably to look so weak to me.

"We have to keep you hydrated. I will get you some water."

I put some fresh ginger juice in his water and put the bottle in his hand. "Drink. Most will probably come back up, but some will stick. I put ginger in there. Come on."

He drank, only to throw most of it up after 10 minutes.

"Stop putting stuff in me. It won't stay in right now." he complained and got up on shaking legs to walk to the bedroom and fall on the bed face first.

I tried to get him comfortable there which wasn't easy because he was like dead weight, not moving and not helping me and he weighted over 220 pounds!

"Come on asshole, crawl at least up." He did it and didn't move after that.

"Try to sleep Jon. I will grab a quick snack for me, clean the bath and be back, alright? If you need anything, call."

He didn't reply and I left to do what I said I would do.

Returning half an hour later he was asleep but shaking like a leaf. I put another blanket over him and was glad he didn't wake up.

I used the time to get some shut eye as well and that was smart.

In the middle of the night I woke up to find Jon going through our stuff. His shoulder brace was off and he held his left arm to his body going through the suitcase.

"What are you looking for?" I asked him, getting up from the bed. "You know damn well what I am looking for. The shoulder is killing me." I walked over and examined his stitches. They looked fine and healed well.

"You are good Jon. It's in your head." I tried to tell him and he spun around and got in my face. "What the hell are you trying to tell me? That I go crazy? Is this my body or yours? The shoulder is killing me Sam!"

"Because you probably spent half an hour trying to get the brace off." "NO! I took it off because it was hurting me, making me crazy!"

"Jon, no. Believe me, it is in your head. Sit down on the bed and I will massage you gently, you are muscles are a sore and I will try to make it better."

He stormed past me into the living room.

"I just need a pill. Give me one Sam, come on, don't be a bitch about this."

Oh, now we were in the pleading stage after the anger didn't work. Pleading was harder for me to deal with, but I would stay strong.

"No. Sit down and I work on your shoulders and we but the brace back on. Or we put the brace back on and you can walk off your irritation outside."

"I am hurting not irritated. Give me the pills." He went through every cupboard not having any luck. "WHERE ARE THEY?" Oh, pleading was over quickly.

He was getting in my face again. "Jon, calm down or I will kick you in the balls and you are really hurting. SIT DOWN!" I raised my voice for the first time and it seemed to work.

He sat his ass on a chair and I went to work on his shoulders, being really gentle with the hurt one.

"We could watch an episode or two of Botchamania." I offered when he calmed more and more. I finished with his shoulders and moved to his neck and head. I really loved running my finger through his hair, that's why I liked it long and unruly. My husband relaxed even more. "We could watch porn…" he suggested and I slapped the back of his head.

"It's Botchamania or nothing." "Fine. Can we watch in the bedroom? I want to try and sleep some more."

We did that and he was out like a little light in under 10 minutes.

Like this or similar to this we spent the next two days.

Jon was whiny, bitchy, hilarious or really quiet during these two days but when he woke up at the third day he was almost back to his old self.

I checked his stitches which looked fine and I helped him take a bath.

Around noon he was presentable again with clear eyes and a clear mind, just a little shaky still. His shoulder pain was bearable and I felt like I could leave him alone for an hour to restock the fridge. He wouldn't find the pills, they were in the car, where the emergency tire was located. My husband was a resourceful man but I was pretty sure he wouldn't look there.

So I drove into town and called Colby on the way.

"Hey Sam, how is it going?" "We are fine. He is clean and sober and holding up." "Good. But you sound tired. Did you get any sleep at all?" "Yeah a couple hours here and there. I will survive."

Colby was quiet for a moment. "He owes you Sam but Joe and I do as well. Thank you for taking care of him. We will try to drop in when you are back in Vegas. Leigh and I would like to spend a day or two and Joe is still checking with Jessie but he will be there as well sometime. When does his shoulder rehab start?"

"The stitches come out this weekend, he will start rehab on Monday I guess. How did Raw go? We totally missed it."

"Oh we raised some hell on 3MB it was good but our brother was missed."

"He will be back in no time. I need to go now. Greetings to Leigh and Joe and whoever you talk to."

Later that day Jon walked up to me on our sun deck.

"Sam? Can you put on something nice and be ready in an hour?"

I looked up at him. "Just do it, please." He didn't give me a chance to question his request so I got dressed in a long black dress and when I got out of the bathroom I found Jon in a pair of black slacks but without a shirt and without his shoulder brace.

"I need your help with the arm. I want that blue polo shirt please."

I helped him put it on, put his fixator back on and we were ready.

"You drive and I will give you instructions."

We arrived at a little restaurant on the shore of Lake Tahoe just as the sun began to set.

"Wow, beautiful." I murmured and Jon smiled.

He obviously had reserved a table at the restaurant in a secluded alcove with a three sided view at the lake.

"This is just a small gesture to say thank you Sam especially when you have to cut my food for me." He grinned like a little boy, carefree at that but got serious again quickly.

"I love you more every day and when I think that this thing between us couldn't be any more perfect and my admiration for you and all you go through for me couldn't be any bigger you do something new that leaves my mouth hanging wide open again. You are amazing and I hope I can make up to you everything that I lack and give back to you one day all the effort you put into this relationship. I...gosh what a puss I am."

He had to rub his eyes.

"I will never forget any sacrifice you made for me and my dream..."

"OUR dream." I interrupted him.

"Our dream. You coming here for me, leaving your home behind. You living in the desert with me, you having no pets of your own when I know how much you like the little rat (Kevin). You risking a job at WWE to be with me here. I will never forget anything you've done to be here tonight with me. For better or for worse, I will stick by your side, I promise you that." He took my left hand and kissed my wedding ring.

"There are three things that mean a lot to me Sam. The first one is wrestling. The second one is you and this marriage, and the third are the guys. You all saved my life at some point. And that is what makes me forever loyal to all of you."

Now it was my turn to wipe my eyes. "You know I love you Jon. I always will. When you talk about sacrifices I think about them as opportunities. I think about them a challenges. You opened my eyes to a whole new world and a life that I would have never lived without you. A potential that I would have never met without you. I always thought: Sam, what is your place in life? Well, I found it right by your side. You respect me, even when you run your mouth at me. You respect that I will tolerate it when we are in private and you would never do that to me in public, something I would not tolerate. So, we are fine because behind closed doors..." I waited a heartbeat. "I can take you Mox." Smirking I kissed his hand in turn.

"Mox is pudding in your hands Samantha." He told me with all his heart. I was nearly crying now and needed to change the subject badly.

"I like this restaurant, it is beautiful. Thank you for taking me here. We should do this more often."

"Yeah I know, just the two of us. And we should spend this honeymoon finally. Somewhere warm..." "Oh I was thinking about Christmas...in Germany? Pretty please?" Jon shuddered. "When that is what you want...we will do that. When we get the time off, because I plan to be back in the ring by then."

"You will be. Before Survivor Series. You will see."

I was more than grateful to be right with this assumption.

We went home on the weekend, Jon got his stitches removed and the shoulder rehab began. He did well physically and mentally.

There were a couple of times when he had headaches from withdrawal still or the urge to drink again, but he would come to me then because we had decided that positive reinforcement works best and I slept with him then. Really. And it worked well. But at one point, about 7 weeks in I had to call Jon out on the fact that he was using the positive reinforcement simply for more sex and not because he was feeling bad.

He was such a tool sometimes.

About 8 weeks into rehab I had to attend some seminars at Stamford for WWE employees. Mine were about media, and law and stuff. I had to stay for a week and Jon and I met up in Florida where he would finish his rehab at the WWE training facility getting back into ring shape. Getting ready to come back. Getting ready to serve some justice!