A/N: A flashback chapter, because we gotta know why he's Laurie's dad and all that. That being said, the canon rape attempt is here but not done in detail and easy to skate around. His routine in this chapter is pretty shitty because I am not a funny person and he is pretending to be a total dumbass (or more of a dumbass than usual) for the crowd's sake, so yeah. Take it with a grain of salt.

"Everyone always tells me that my wife is out of my league. I didn't even know she played baseball!" That was an old one, corny and not very well thought out, but it served to be a good opener to his Ladies' Night act every now and then.

When he was eighteen, Eddie somehow found his way into college. He and his parents had never gotten along well, but they did very well financially and they were determined to make him an educated man. He didn't know exactly why he went along with their plans- maybe some part of him wanted to improve the relationship.

Whatever the case, when he graduated high school, he moved on to a nearby university, and that was where he met Sally Juspeczyk. He didn't know why she was there either; she always went on about wanting to go to an acting school so that she could be a movie star, but she stuck to majoring in drama and taking whatever parts she could get in the university's plays.

He had met her through mutual friends, Hollis, Byron, and Bill. Eddie wasn't particularly close to the three men, but he roomed with Bill and was sometimes invited along with them. They were the closest things to friends he had, so he rarely turned down an invitation. On one of their outings, Sally tagged along.

They had talked about her rather frequently, but he had never met her before that night and was absolutely floored by her beauty. He had had his fair share of girlfriends over the years, but he had never met someone quite as stunning as her. Almost instantly, he was infatuated with her.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great that's she's pursuin' her own interests and all, but I'm more of a football man myself."

After that, he did anything and everything to get her attention. Whenever he had the chance to hang around Hollis, Byron, and Bill, he took it, hoping that he might run into her, and he tried to figure out where a drama major would spend her downtime.

He was studying business because that seemed the most practical choice for someone who didn't give a shit either way, and that meant that it was nearly impossible for their schedules to line up. They really didn't have all that much in common, but that didn't stop him from pursuing her.

Whenever they did have a chance to talk, he would shamelessly flirt with her and she would return the sentiment, though he had heard that she was like that with everyone and he had no way of knowing if she had any special interest in him. It was hard to tell I he should try asking her out or if he would only be met with rejection if he tried.

He grew more impatient with each passing day, wondering when he would get up the nerve or when she would give him more of a sign. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything and he had a hard time not getting his way.

"But, then again, I don't play baseball. Doesn't make sense that people tell me she's outta my league when I'm not even in one. But it wouldn't be the first time I didn't understand what someone was sayin'...especially where my wife is concerned!"

Things took a turn for the worse when the group went out drinking one weekend. Eddie was in a particularly bad mood after finding out that his grades were so low that he was going to be put on academic probation, and he intended to do whatever he could to forget about the problem.

But with Sally sitting across the table and giggling at everyone and showing just as much attention to Hollis as she always showed Eddie and winking at Byron and laying a hand on Bill's arm, his mood was not improving. Sally was supposed to be his, he knew that, and these guys were nowhere near worth her time. And if she didn't see that, he was going to have to prove it to her.

He was drunk, but that was no excuse for what followed. She got up and excused herself, and after a few minutes, he did the same. He waited in the dark hallway outside the bathrooms and when she came out, he grabbed her. It was public, but there was no one around and he figured this was the perfect time.

She resisted him but he just laughed it off, so far gone that he didn't think there was any way she could mean it. When she scratched him hard enough to draw blood, he knew that she did, but something in him snapped and before either of them knew what was happening, he had punched her in the stomach and shoved her against the wall, unzipping his pants.

He liked to think that he would have snapped out of it and stopped before things went too far, but he'd never know because a large man happened to come down that hallway and realize that Sally did not want what she was being given. Eddie was on the floor before he could really think about what he was doing.

"It's our friends who keep telling me that. Well, they're really her friends, but she says their 'ours'. Sorta like how all of my stuff is ours, except my old friends. Those aren't even mine anymore!"

After they found out about what was going on, Hollis and Byron wouldn't speak to him anymore, and Bill only did when it was necessary. They wanted to report it to the school and the man that had intervened wanted to call the police, but Sally had insisted that they let it drop. She was afraid that there might be backlash due to the way she was dressed or the fact that she was drinking underage.

But she made it clear that, though she was not taking any form of legal action, she was not planning on forgiving Eddie any time soon. With none of his friends speaking to him and his grades showing no sign of improving, he dropped out of school, which served to be the final cut in his ties to his parents.

He took up his job at Walmart then and lived alone, trying to pretend he didn't give a damn what had transpired that night. He had been drunk and made a mistake, so what? It was her loss not wanting to see him anymore and not forgiving him, right? He didn't care if Sally hated him forever and he certainly didn't miss her.

"Most of her stuff is still hers, though. Not supposed to touch anything...till it needs fixin', at least."

He never expected to see Sally again after that, but things didn't play out that way. One night, against all odds, she ended up sitting next to him at a bar, not realizing that it was him at first. He debated whether he should say anything or let her notice him, but he wasn't patient and he spoke up first.

She jumped, looking guilty to be recognized in a place like that, and she jumped again when she realized exactly who was talking to her. He told her that if she wanted him to go, he would, but that it had been a long time and it would be nice to catch up. At first, she was angry, telling him he had a lot of nerve to expect her to ever want to talk to him again after what had happened, but once he apologized, she backed down.

That was when she told him that she wasn't really mad at him anymore, not after all this time. She was just angry in general, having a rough night and a rough life. He asked her to elaborate and she told him that she was married now, that she had gone nowhere with her life, and that she absolutely hated her husband.

She want on to describe how empty and loveless the marriage was and he listened and was as sympathetic as he could be, and then they were in bed together. And then it had been a few months, and they had continually met up, and he was her brief respite from her miserable marriage.

"And then, once I'm broken it worse, I pawn it off on someone else to fix."

It all came crashing down when she confessed to him that she was pregnant and pretty sure it was his. She and her husband hadn't slept together in a while, and it was nearly impossible for it to be his. Whether or not he would figure this out didn't matter; she was cutting things off with Eddie for good.

He didn't agree with her decision, but there wasn't much he could do to stop her. So, even though he wanted to be a part of the child's life and he wanted to be with Sally, he decided that he had to respect her choice now, because if he had done that all along, he might be the one she was married to now and that made the whole mess his fault in the first place.

The baby was a little girl named Laurel Jane and he saw her once when she was a baby. It was another chance encounter; Sally was shopping while he was working and they pretended to be old friends and he pretended that the little baby in her arms was not his daughter.

When he met Laurie years later, as one of Dan's friends, he still had to pretend that and not ask why she had her mother's last name instead of her father's. He tried not to feel a little satisfied that there was a chance the marriage had gone south for good.

His Ladies' Night routines were never as good as they could be, but playing a part was harder than it looked; perhaps that was why Sally had never made it as an actress. But he did well enough and the women who showed up for that sort of thing loved it. Whether he was the idiot husband or the free and easy bachelor, they ate it up and even if they knew he was just playing the part, they didn't know just how terribly his love life had turned out or that the next week, he would have to deal with glares and subtle insults from the girl who didn't know she was his daughter.