Chapter Two (Fully Completely)

The cameras had gone dark by the time he rolled out of the ring so nobody at home noticed when his good leg gave out on him. They were all fixated on the big screen, showing the segment the viewers at home were getting to enjoy. He covered it well enough, retrieving the Louisville slugger he'd stashed behind the ring steps, pausing for ten seconds... twenty... before the darkness encroaching on the edges of his vision receded just a little. He blinked and was backstage with no knowledge of how he'd actually gotten there, the sound of the crowd muffled behind that tinny ringing.

Do not pass out. You're almost there. The knee's holding better than before. Remember to thank her for that.

The words filtered through the haze and he could feel heat rising off his skin that wasn't just from the exertion. Brad Jackson was unbelievably pissed off and it was that anger that kept him going the rest of the way to the locker room. He saw the way his personal trainer Missy perked up the second he walked in, her brown eyes locked on him even though he wasn't looking in her direction. Turning, he put his shoulder into the door and slumped against it to force it closed before his numb fingers fumbled with the lock. Sighing, he rested his head against the cold steel and closed his eyes, that last thought passing his lips first, "well, my knee held."

Missy got up fast, grabbing him a bottle of water as she crossed over to him. "I was watching. Here... you need this." She held the water up and waited for him to take it before continuing carefully. "You mean it was better than before, right? I made some notes; can you come sit?"

"Just... gimme a sec." Those words took a shit ton of effort to force out, the plastic of the bottle crackling in his hand as he lifted it to his lips, grateful that she'd apparently known enough to take the lid off for him since his hands right now were all but useless. "Wait... notes? You made some... what?" He took a long swallow of the water, wincing at the coldness against his burning throat before opening his eyes to look down at her. "Should I be worried?"

Missy watched him carefully, and when he finally looked at her, she nodded. "Yeah I made notes during your match. I made that app to track your progress with your knee, that means when you use it too, not just working out. I was kind of surprised, a little." She paused, looking over him again. "How's your back feeling?"

"Surprised?" He tried to straighten up, groaning through clenched teeth as he turned away from the door. "Back's fine," he lied, almost convincingly.

"Yeah. You used your knee a lot for offense. Plant your weight to strike, and that...." She paused, she'd had to look up what the move was called. "Shoulderbreaker you gave Rexxx." A small snort. "He really sounds that out when he says it, all those x's." Her lips came together in a pouty sort of way but it was the furthest thing from it, she was thinking. "But I'll show you, once we get you settled. I have it all down. Moves, hits, your reactions." She paused, her instinct was to reach out and help him but she wasn't sure how he'd take that.

He shuffled over to the couch and then spent ten seconds contemplating if he should actually sit down and risk not being able to get back up or not. In the end, exhaustion won out. "My reactions. Yeah. Like the look on my face when that twinkletoes shit slapped my ass? What was my reaction there?" It was easier to grouse as he flopped down gracelessly, grateful that it was actually quite comfortable.

"Well that, too." She looked up, to the left as she pictured it in her head. "I mean I know you have a fine ass, but come on." A little smirk, as she crossed over to him and crouched down, doing a quick look over of his leg without touching. Obviously she'd do it again once he got cleaned up and she could look at his knee without the brace and the wrap, but she was seeing if there was swelling she hadn't anticipated. She tapped his other knee, nodding. "I'm going to get you a light brace for this knee too. I know, it's fine but you're going to be putting more weight on it and I don't want you ending up with two messed up knees when I can stop it." She eased up to her feet and pulled her phone out of her pocket before sitting down next to him, pulling up that app and shuffling through a few screens before she showed him her chart. "See, this is going to help. I'll record everything, and that'll tell me what more I need to do."

"I'll..." he chuckled softly, his eyes more on her than what she was trying to show him on her phone, "take my pants off if you wanna look. I mean, professionally speaking, I did just get kissed by a guy with the most meticulously man-scaped body hair I've ever seen. Kinda need to validate my masculinity."

Missy snickered before she could stop herself, it made her eyes sparkle and she nodded. "Well I'm never going to say no to you without pants, so I don't think you've got anything to worry about there." She shifted on the couch, and without thinking she leaned over and kissed him, breaking it off with a strange look on her face. "Well that ought to take care of the lingering taste." She sat back, bemused for a moment then shook herself. "Seriously though, I do want to look at your knee. And have you tell me how it felt when you used it out there. We're going to get this figured out, Jax. Seriously."

"It felt..." he sighed, unbuckling his belt before unzipping his pants. Standing up, he let them fall to the floor where they stayed around his ankles, thanks to the fact that he was still wearing his boots. Completely unashamed of the fact that he was wearing nothing more than a pair of sweat-soaked tighty-whities, he sank back down on the couch. "It felt wrong. All of it out there. I was off my rhythm from the second I got in the ring and I never really got it back. I never shoulda fucked up Therapy like that. A year... a year and a half ago, no way he'd have gotten out of it. But the knee held, babe. That's... a start, I guess." He lifted one hand to his mouth, chewing on his thumbnail for a second. "Hey, in my bag... side pocket. There's a pack of smokes. I know... not the best, but I really need one. You think you could..?"

"Yeah." She said it without thinking, already up and heading over. It took her a moment to find it, but she got the pack and the lighter before trotting back over and sitting down, handing them over. "Look, it's... it's fine. I'm not going to encourage it, but I get it. Help you wind down a little." She went immediately to examining his knee, touching through the brace and the wrapping. "We'll adjust this a bit. That might help. It held, you're right that's important but I want better for you. We'll get it. I won't... I'm not going to fail you here. You'll see." After her looking it over, she got her phone back in her hand and did a few things. "There. It'll progress. I know it." She gave him a look, a firm one. "It's going to be a little rough, but the man I know? You're going to do this."

"See, right there, I'd have said failure's not an option but that bullshit is so..." the cigarette bobbed between his lips before he used two hands to steady the lighter, bringing the flame to the tip. A long drag followed as he let his head fall back, closing his eyes for a second. "Okay, can I level with you? Between us... right here... right now... I'm gonna tell you something and then I want you to be 100% straight with me. Can we do that?" His blue-black eyes were open now, boring into hers as the cigarette smoke wafted up from the hand now resting in his lap.

"Yes." There was no hesitation, and she didn't try to duck the intensity of his gaze. "I want you to always be able to do that, alright? Don't think you have to hold back with me. Censor yourself... I mean fuck that, right? I'll give you the truth, Jax. Even if it's rough, or not something either of us want to hear."

"Tonight was a goddamn disaster. You saw the tape of my last Uncensored bout against Donovan. Your list... your notes there... how much of that is drawing red circles around everything I blew out there tonight?" He snorted derisively, waving the hand with the cigarette in it before lifting it back to his lips for another haul. "See... confession." He held up his other hand flat, letting her see how much it shook. "Ten years or so I've been dealing with that. It's worse when I'm tired. When I'm stressed..." he let it fall back to his lap, "but if I focus, I've still got maybe 90% of my grip I used to have. Tonight, though? Half of that's always there. Nerve damage. And the rest? I'm flat-out terrified. That... that wasn't me out there tonight, Missy. It was a stranger and I didn't fucking like that sloppy motherfucker one bit. What'm I supposed to do if you can't work that miracle? I'm not ready for the end. Not yet." He paused for a second, thinking about the match he had coming up in Carnage against CJ Wylde, "shit. Okay. That's unfair. Just answer me this much: do you think there's a chance?"

She looked down at her phone for a moment, and he'd see her jaw set before she put it aside and looked back up at him. "If I didn't think there was a chance, I wouldn't waste our time. I'm a realist, I know when shit's fucked up beyond fixing, remember?" She held up her own hand a moment then dropped it to her lap. "So yeah. Fuck. Yes, there's a chance. And it sounds like big talk, when I say I'm going to work a miracle and I know that. But Jax, I can do this. So... you have to let me. You have to work with me, and we're going to do it. Tonight, it was a step back maybe, but it's still a fucking step. It's a part of the process, so we can figure it out. I'm not going to give up on you, or this. You're going to get what you need from me, and I give you my word....and I just don't...I wouldn't if I didn't mean it."

He nodded, finishing off his cigarette in silence before dropping it on the floor and grinding it out under his boot. "Fair enough." He turned his head, looking at the tattooed brunette with a new sort of respect. "Then let's walk through your notes. You tell me what you saw, okay?" He rested his hand on her knee, "I trust you, babe. Fully. Completely."

Missy stilled a moment, phone back in hand and looked him right in the eye. "Same. So... okay. I'll go over this from the beginning and if something I say sounds off from what you felt, tell me. Then I'll adjust. This gives me our baseline, and we'll work from here. It's going to be rough, I won't lie about it. But I know you can do this." She relaxed back on the couch to make it easier for him to see the screen.

"No can," he replied, firm conviction in his voice as he leaned in close, casually resting his arm across the back of the couch behind her. "Have to. I've got..." he trailed off, not bothering to vocalize the nothing else that they both knew was on the tip of his tongue. Some things were better left unsaid.