"Stephanie?" a voice called through the door. "Honey, can I come in?"

"It's a free country isn't it Mom? Except where I'm concerned." She replied bitterly as Linda came in with a plate of food and sat on the bed. Stephanie turned away from her. With a sigh, Linda put the plate on the dressing table and smoothed Stephanie's matted hair away from her face. "He did what he thinks was best for everyone."

"Best for him you mean." Steph replied. She sat up and looked at Linda intently. "Mom, you may not believe me, but I was happy there. I was earning my own money, doing my own thing. Everything I had was mine and mine alone. Including Chris. And then he came along and decided to tear our lives apart."

Linda listened silently, knowing that Stephanie needed to get this out of her system. Steph drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, thinking about how she could best convey her thoughts to her mother.

"You and Dad have never shielded me from the harsh realities of the business. As long as I can remember, I never wanted to get involved with a wrestler. I just didn't want to do that, after hearing all the stories about mat rats, drugs, marriages breaking up. But I didn't know Chris was a wrestler until just before we became a couple. And by then it didn't matter to me. I knew he would never stray. No matter what else happened, I knew he wouldn't do that to me. He told me once that he couldn't hurt me cause to hurt me would mean he'd be hurting himself ten times worse."

"That's very sweet." Linda said, wishing she knew what else to say. "Steph, I want you to know that while I didn't agree with your father to send you to my sister's house, I didn't fight him on it either. Mainly because he was so adamant about it. And while I don't think you did the right thing by leaving Sabine's and living on the streets, I think you would've had a damned good reason for doing it."

"What about what he did to me and Chris?"

"That was the wrong thing to do." Linda's eyes flashed angrily. "He had no right to force you to do that."

"Thank you Mom." Stephanie buried her face in her arms and started sobbing. "I really needed to hear that."

"Oh baby, come here." Linda hugged her daughter tight, rocking her gently for a few minutes. "I'm proud of you, you know that?"

"Don't give me that 'You finally thought of someone other than you' speech I got off Shane." warned Stephanie. Linda shook her head. "I was going to say that I've never seen anyone rattle Vince as badly as you did by standing up to him. He was horrified. Maybe now he'll realise that he can't dictate what we all do any more."

"He was forced to make a choice. And unlike you, he made the decision that would make him look best - especially since it's not likely to become public that you managed to get Chris a WWF contract before his WCW debut." Linda shook her head. "I can't believe you did that - told Vince you would return home only if he promised to leave Chris's career alone and sign him when his current contract expires. That took guts honey, to make force him to make that decision."

"Not really. He was packing up my clothes while I was challenging him."

Linda laughed and patted Stephanie on the shoulder. "I better get back down there. Shane's gonna bring you up dessert, but only if you've eaten everything else."

"I'm not hungry." Stephanie replied listlessly. Linda smiled. "Then humour your old mother. I'm no psychic, but something tells me that you'll need all the strength you can get over the next few days."

"What do you mean? What's Vince got planned next?"

"It's nothing to do with him. In fact, I think this surprise was extremely unplanned." Linda smiled at Stephanie's confused look and left.

~~~~

"How is he?" Edge asked with concern. Integra shook her head. "Not good."

"I would be too if my woman just up and left like that." Christain shook his head. Lydia rested her head on his chest, listening to the soothing beat of his heart. "That's not something you'll have to worry about my love." He hugged her tightly. "Good."

"Why do you think she did it? Why would she just up and leave?"

"I don't think she had much of a choice." Integra said slowly. Christain looked at her in surprise. "What makes you say that?"

"Look at the way it's written." Lydia said quietly. "All the apologies, the talk about decisions... It's not like she woke up and thought "What will I do today? I know, I'll leave my boyfriend, that'll make things interesting."

"Jesus, who'd she leave? You or Jericho?"

"Shut up." Lydia snapped, burying her head in Christain's chest. "You guys don't get it. OK, so Steph is this big mystery right? None of us know anything about her past. Doesn't matter, she's a good sort, Chris obviously loves her, we all end up adoring her right?"

"Yeah." The brothers admitted. Integra sighed. "It's a girl thing. No matter what she hid about the past, Steph was more than just the girlfriend of Chris, she was one of our friends as well. I don't know what you guys are like, but when it's a close group of girls then there's very little we don't know about the other's relationships."

Edge and Christain exchanged worried looks, much to the amusement of their girls. Lydia picked up the story. "What our point is - and Integra and I discussed it while you were babysitting Chris drowning his sorrows the other night - on Saturday night, Stephanie was saying how much she missed Chris, but she'd have to adjust to him being away."

"To cut a long story short - She wasn't planning to leave. We think that someone - probably a family member blackmailed her into leaving - possibly by threatening Chris."

"How many family members has she got?" asked Christain. Edge added thoughtfully. "And what kinda relationship does she have with them?"

"She has an older brother who she's fairly close with, a mother who she gets along with pretty well - or did until leaving home - and a father who she cannot stand. If any of them were involved, it was her father."

The others looked over at Chris, who was leaning against the door frame, red eyed and scruffy. Lydia looked at him sympathetically. "How are ya?"

"To be perfectly honest Lyd, I've been a hell of a lot better." He laughed bitterly. "But I can't recall ever feeling worse than this."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too. But what's done is done. She won't be back. I know that."

Suddenly Edge realised something. "It won't kill you to say her name you know."

Chris turned away violently. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."