Chapter Twenty-Three (Me and Missy McGee)

"Brad?" Ryann Hardy's voice came out whisper-quiet, "tell me what I've missed?"

What a loaded question, he thought, sighing. He didn't answer, wasn't really even sure what he was supposed to say when the nostalgia was on him – New Years '97 – barely eighteen and she'd been all over him, sloppy drunk, begging him to take her. Literally. And he had because she was familiar territory – a guy he'd wrestled with back in the day's kid sister.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he finally broke the silence, the words coming out with a startling lack of conviction.

"It's fine," she replied, her hair tickling against his chest as she lifted her head, trying to catch his eye, "John's the only one who knows–"

"Ojeda," the scorn was heavy in his voice, "that slimy fuck. Don't trust him as far as I can throw him. Wasn't my choice."

"I know. I know, Brad." She studied him, watching that furrow appear between his brows, as though he felt the weight of her eyes on him. "You'll have to just trust me, okay?"

He bowed his head, one hand coming up to stroke her soft hair as he groped for words. "Ry, he's a rattlesnake," his chuckle was bleak, "but I'll give it a shot. For you."

"No," she corrected. "For us."

"Right." He echoed by rote, nodding.

"So... just tell me a story." She smiled slightly and moved her hand, reaching for his free one and interlinking her fingers with his.

It was easier to just indulge her. "Did I ever tell you how I used to be afraid of the dark?" His eyes remained closed. "I used to be afraid of losing, too."

"And you're not now?" She laughed, expecting him to join in. When he didn't, she sat up, pulling the sheets with her.

"Not the same. It's not just some empty little goal, Ryann. I need to win. I have to."

"Gregg used to say that too–"

He cut her off with a derisive snort. "Bartlett's dead – pretty sure you don't have to bring him up every ten seconds."

"I wasn't–"

"–fuck it. You wanna compare me to that try-hard shit? All the rest of these rejects who wrecked WCWF, forced this bullshit merger? Yeah. Fine. Let's talk about your departed fiancé when my jizz is still dribbling down your leg."

She flinched, looking down at the rumpled sheets as though checking for evidence of their little tryst before her gaze slid to him. He wasn't looking at her. His eyes were open and he was staring blankly at the ceiling.

"You ask me to tell you a story but you don't want truth, Ry. You want fiction – the kinda shit I say when the cameras are rolling. The alternative's just... what? You want me to tell you how he reminded me every day that I was just the bastard son of a whore?"

"I..." she sighed, "no. I just thought maybe we could..."

"Yeah." He fell silent, the urge to punish her fading as quickly as it had risen. He brought their entwined hands up to his chest, trapping her delicate fingers between his palm and the steady beat of his heart. "Every day I look at myself in the mirror, longer than I should, looking for signs that I'm turning into him. Nothing I can see, but I heard him. Just now."

"Brad," she swallowed, looking at their hands for a moment, wanting to say something, anything to make him see that he was more than that. Her brows furrowed slightly as she struggled for something to say that he wouldn't kick her out for sounding stupid over. Quickly, she opened her mouth, looking to tell him what she thought, "if you were less than the man you are today, you would have never made it out–"

"Jesus fuckin' Christ–"

"I'm not going to sit here and pretend I know how it feels, because I don't. Not firsthand. I'm the daughter of a single father, a tobacco farmer, I knew about hard work when I was young, but I could have never made it on my own. Not like you must have." Backtracking quickly, she grew a little worried at his look and wondered if she'd crossed a line, "I'm sorry."

He gave her hand a squeeze, sighing softly. His breath ruffled her hair as he pressed his lips to the top of her head. "Don't apologize for shit you had nothing to do with. You know how annoying that is?"

In a soft voice, she said, "I need you, Brad," pulling her hand free from his only so that she could hug him. It was more than just an open-ended statement, she meant each word and though they didn't sound desperate, there was the subtext of more than just a few nights of fire-driven passion in them. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Yeah?" His voice came out hoarse, "prove it."



"Shit," Alyvia Jackson rose from the chair as her husband staggered through the doorway. She'd watched him eat a running enzuigiri – he'd gone down hard and the fact that he hadn't gotten up until well after the bell spoke volumes. Frozen, she waited to gauge his mood since he'd just lost the MWA Heavyweight Championship to Prince Kamijo, technically, even though he hadn't been the one pinned.

He stood there at the sink, head bowed as the water dripped from his face. She said something and he couldn't make it out past the tinnitus in his ears. His vision was fucked, everything looking darker, still blurred. As she moved towards him, he stiffened, seeing someone else standing there in her place and then she was pressed up against him, her arms wrapped around his torso. "You're okay," she said softly.

He buried his face in her hair, closing his eyes and trying like hell to dial back the anger he was feeling. The silence was deafening, drawing attention to that ringing in his ears – he had to say something. "It's over," his voice was almost gone, nothing more than a pained rasp as he forced those two words out.

"You can always have a rematch–"

Every night I burn, every night I scream your name.

The lyrics kept rolling through his head as though that damned song from that damned movie had suddenly become some sort of skewed definition.

"Jax?"

"Don't want one." He shook his head, "fuck it. This place is dead. Won't last another three months, guaranteed. I'm getting' out."

"They sent you a new contract–"

"Not signing it."

She pulled back and moved her hands so that she could cup his cheeks, forcing him to meet her eyes even though his were glazed. "Jax, if this is what you want, you've got my support. I want you to be happy with where you're wrestling because if you aren't, what's the point?"

"Five months and four days," he whispered, sounding disappointed. "One hundred and fifty-five days if you count today. That's garbage... not even remotely good enough."

"Don't talk like that," she held out her hand, two of those happy little pills resting on her palm, "you weren't pinned–"

"You think anyone's gonna remember that? No. They're just gonna remember me dropping one to Prince motherfuckin' Kamijo." He took the pills, tossing them in his mouth before chasing them with the water she pushed into his hand like he was some feeble child.

"You can leave this hellhole with your head held high, baby."

"Can I?" He chuckled, looking down at her. "That mincing little J-pop faggot is walking out of here with my," he shook his head, "the title. I'm walking out of here with what, Lyv? What've I got intact? Pride and dignity are shot all to hell. I had to swallow 'em both so much lately I don't even–"

"You still have your pride and dignity. Nobody can take that from you." She shook her head, "Jax, every single time you enter a ring, you fight your heart out. You've sacrificed so much over the years for this business and whether or not you feel like it, you can be proud."

He sighed, averting his eyes. "You're wrong."

"How am I wrong?" She countered, defiance written all over her face, "tell me how. You shut Jared Baker up when he had the balls to bring up Ryann and we both know any memories of that little slut should be erased from the record books."

"Y'know she held a belt here once," he took a slow sip of the water, turning his head to glance at her. "Well, twice, actually... but the first time's always gonna have that asterisk."

"What?"

"She had help. As far as I know, she never won a title anywhere else she ever worked. Only won the Millennium belt here because we had a stooge at first – her goddamned idea, not mine. His name was Ojeda and he was one of the most worthless sacks of shit in the business. Shit, he was a Sons of Anarchy fanboy before that was the 'in' thing, this dumbfuck biker badass and you know how stupid she was – ate that crap up like candy. He helped her win the belt the first time because she just had to have singles gold. She bitched and moaned to get the shot, and then she cheated to win because she couldn't let me have the spotlight, even though I was in the middle of a feud with Sweets for the Heritage Title."

"I hate her."

"Makes two of us," he chuckled, "so she held the belt for three weeks, lost it at the next Pay-Per-View because Ojeda got himself fired for no-showing three booked house shows. She bitched and moaned and finally finagled another shot, even though it took her EIGHT months to actually cash it in because she was so busy running around aborting babies and then forging my signature on adoption papers. So... we're talking February 2010, and here she is, in the match with Sean McBride and 2 other assholes. McBride's in my pocket, so I pay him off and he helps her 'earn' that second one on her own. I lost the World Title a month later when she bailed on me over more of the endless drama... so you know what I did? Wigged out backstage. Got myself fined and kicked down to HER division. Next PPV, she waltzed out there like queen shit, waiting for her mystery challenger... and she got ME."

Lyv laughed, sounding delighted. "So what happened?"

"What do you think?"

"You won. You took her belt, because you could." She sounded so sure, so certain in that inevitability, "like usual."



The car was a gas-guzzling boat, complete with tailfins and whitewalls, the radio so old-fashioned they'd had to dig around on the touchy dial forever to find a station and it kept fading in and out. He didn't care, his free hand resting on Missy's bare calf – exposed by the Capri pants she wore, her legs were pulled up on the bench seat. The ends of the gauzy scarf that held her hair in place trailed behind her head, her eyes hidden behind a pair of giant movie star shades. It was almost cinematic, another moment to cross off the bucket list as the convertible ate up the miles. He'd been driving in silence, the only sounds humming along with the classics issuing from the crackly speakers.

"Hey, Miss?" He cleared his throat, "can you hear me okay?" Jackson turned his head, glancing over at her. His fingers twitched against her skin, drumming for a second before inching a little higher and the urge to pull over into the breakdown lane was nearly overwhelming. Just the sight of that joyful smile on her face made him grin like an idiot, shaving at least ten unkind years off in an instant. "I'll put the top up if you can't." Before she could answer, he chuckled softly, "you look like... who's that broad from Breakfast at Tiffany's? Audrey Hepburn?" He nodded, pleased he'd remembered the name, "maybe James Franco should be driving... like we're off to prevent JFK's assassination or something." The words came out with a wry quirk of his lips, that expression almost self-deprecating even though he was wearing a royal blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, making the effort to look as though he belonged with her.

Missy lifted her left hand so she could lower her retro glasses down her nose enough that she knew he would see her wink to him. "I hear you perfect magnifique baiseur." A little quirk of her full lips as she spoke a little French to him, that had been her latest 'thing', learning how to speak a whole new language just so she could say hot naughty things to the man she loved. Dear God she fucking loved him, and that smile that came to her lips shone with how she felt. She'd been trying to find a better nickname for him too, she'd called him Boss long before she was comfortable enough for Jackson to become Jax, but after someone rudely referred to her as 'his employee' he hadn't wanted her doing that anymore. Her voice held a note of surprise though when she processed what else he'd said. "Oh come on babe, I don't think I've ever been classy enough to be Audrey Hepburn. Though I will say that there's something about all this..." a gesture to the car, their clothing, even the radio as another old song played; "...speaks to me. With the road like this, just us riding where it goes? It is almost like we went back in time."

Her smile grew as she looked at him, that blue button-down shirt made his eyes look even more vibrant, a glow in them as he watched both her and the road adding to that. He looked lighter somehow, as if the weight of the match looming ahead of him was gone for the moment and she liked that as much as she did the light touches to her skin. He looked gorgeous to her, filled with a vitality and charm in the moment that gave her a feeling much like butterflies in her belly. She knew there were people who looked askance at their relationship, viewing them through the lens of his past and the mystery she presented and Missy simply didn't care. What they were couldn't be defined, couldn't be neatly boxed into the definitions of others and she loved that almost as much as she loved Jax himself. "And if we had? So what. I'd go anywhere with you. Back in time, forward into the future. It's all the same, as long as we're together."

The soft chuckle was lost under the rush of the wind but she could tell by the way he nodded, by the way his nostrils flared slightly on the exhale even without the curve at the corners of his lips. "I'd say something clichéd-as-fuck like 'to infinity and beyond', but... I dunno, Miss. Being back in California has me doing too much thinkin', tripping the light fantastic down bullshit memory road. So maybe," he glanced over at her again, that smile growing rueful, "maybe we write a new story over top of that, hmm?"

Missy gave him a considering look, then she smiled at him in that way she had, that belonged only to him. "I like that. Don't erase it – write it the way it should have been from day one. What we want, not what they expect. Fuck them anyway, to the very last one."

"Always started with the fucking," Jackson replied, shaking his head at the memory, "you know the first time I met Ojeda, pretty sure it was in LA – all these game pieces brought into this stupid-as-fuck company. Pro Wrestling Elite, trying so damn hard to keep the WCWF legacy alive that those fucks had ruined and I get this call from Ryann Hardy, asking me to get on a plane because there's this opportunity. Hinted around that maybe, just maybe I could get my hands on some gold and I jumped. Habit, you know? The shit with Georgie, the shit with Kirsta Lewis and HiWF and TFWF and all the other garbage was barely six months gone and I was so damned close to just packing it in." The words kept coming, even though he wanted to just stop talking. It kept happening, though. It was as though contact with her kept pulling all the poison from him – things he'd buried so long ago, things he'd all but forgotten kept springing to the surface. "She never told me she was engaged to this asshole named Bartlett. She never told me this was some elaborate game. It was just networking, the circle of contacts spinning like a goddamned rolodex, putting my foot in the door of another company because there's always been that, you know? Always. The moment a place starts to smell sour, I pull up stakes." There was a heavy amount of subtext, so many things he hadn't said and he wondered just how much of that Missy would pull simply from the tone, from the way he was gripping the wheel with both hands now, white-knuckled.

"All you wanted, was someone to play it straight with you." Missy's tone held certainty, she knew how people reacted to her man, had seen it time after time. They wanted him for what his name represented far too often, never saw beyond the 'myth' of the name. "Knowing the easy buttons to push, doesn't make the people pushing them right." She kept her response light, she knew he would talk to her without her dragging a word out of him. The thing was, he could do that to her too, and she understood fully the amount of trust that represented quite personally. She shifted a little in the seat, the top she was wearing with those capris having more than a little trouble staying buttoned as she reached over and laid her hand on his knee. A touch, a connection to now instead of those memories that wanted to run him down.

"Honesty. That's all. She could have just told me she wanted to hop up on my dick, she could have said she wanted me to lend a little legitimacy to her motley band of rejects... could've, should've... whatever. And I probably would have still gone." For the moment he lapsed into silence, eyes back on the road although they were narrowed, his brow furrowed. "The more buttons that greasy fuck pushes, the closer I'm getting to that door. You think Kyra has any goddamned idea?"

"I don't." A little curt, but he'd know that wasn't for him at all. Missy sighed, and shook her head slightly. "She's wrapped up in JD, the baby. I get that. But when you're running a company, you can't afford that unless you've got someone at your side taking care of the details. I wanted to say something to her, but damned if I can bring myself to be the one to bust her happy bubble." She shifted in the seat a little more, so she was looking at nothing but him. "If she keeps that moron over you, it's the nail in the coffin. So fucking negative, I know."

"On the surface, this Quest for the Best shit was just me being me – reaching for glory even though – overreaching, I suppose. You know it's not, though. And maybe a few people in OWF have actually clued in. I knew there was gonna be a shot if I washed out. You think at this point in my career, I give two shits if the gold is the top ranked one or not?" The question was rhetorical, "it's just a tie. I win this, I walk out with that Network Championship and I can walk away with a reason that doesn't burn a bridge. As fuckin' ironic as that is, me worrying about the tsunamis I'm creating in my wake. Jesus Christ... when did I actually grow up?"

Missy couldn't help the smile that came and went on her lips, or the soft chuckle he'd know she'd made even if he couldn't hear it over the wind. "You know how I feel about that, babe. But maybe it's not so much about growing up, as letting go. Shedding off the dead skin, dropping all the chains, fuck... slinging away everything piled on you since forever and just being who you really are. The man I see, that doesn't worry about lines anymore but sees the power anyway. If all that poetic shit makes sense."

"Makes sense." Jackson nodded, "imagery, right? Rather be a reptile shedding dead skin than a phoenix rising from ashes. It's not... reinventing the wheel. It's just... like that thing I wrote the other night while you were sleeping. Maybe this was here all along and the other garbage just needed to be stripped away. Evolution. Restoration." His hand left the wheel and he shrugged hers off his arm only to catch her fingers. "Thought I was behind the wheel, always had some sorta passenger along for the ride. Some useless succubus. Pride. My massive fuckin' ego. And now? It's..." his shoulders twitched in a shrug, nodding his head towards the view beyond the windshield, "this is a metaphor, babe. Sun and open road, no weight on my shoulders. Just you by my side – no fuckin' passengers, no hangers-on. I could drive forever, until we run out of road and I almost feel like I'd be fine with that uncertainty. Where'm I gonna be tomorrow? I don't fucking know. I really don't." He lifted their clasped hands up to his lips, kissing the back of hers. "As trite as it'd sound to the rest of them, I'm good, Miss. I'm golden," he paused, turning his head to meet her gaze, "because I've got you."