Chapter One

"What's been going on with you lately?," asked Xavier, the concern in his voice clear as she stroked his fingers through her soft, brown hair, holding her close to him as they sat upon the wooden bench beneath them, "You've been acting weird all week."  The words were an understatement to say the least.  Over the last week, she had pretty much shut herself down and doing her best to avoid any physical contact that could be considered sexual, the fact that she refused to even ponder on the idea of drinking alcohol with him, going so far as to swear off anything with caffeine.  He did not know what to make of her behavior as of late, knowing it she was up to nothing mischievous against him, but probably hiding something she did not know how to deal with.  Yet, with this idea did nothing to push aside his suspicions of what it was she was keeping hidden.

"I'm scare, Xavier?," she answered him after a very long period of silence that felt to last forever.  The words hit him like a brick to the head.  He had done everything he possibly could to assuage any irrational fears that anything would happen to him, that they were in fact secure with their life.  With all that effort to make her feel safe, what could possibly make her afraid?  "Of what?," he asked, ignoring the sound of technicians making the final preparations before War Games went on the air as he continued, "Nothing's going to happen to me and you have to be the safest woman in the country right now.  Don't worry about me in the match with Dyson and Alexa, I've beaten Red Cell people before and I intend to keep that streak going, and I know the rest of The Breed has my back in case something goes down after the match.  So what's there to be scared of?"

"It's not....," she begun, her voice trailing off into the air surrounding them, "It's got nothing to do with wrestling...  With any wrestling at all.  It's just something else that's going on and I just don't know how to approach this."

There was something going on with her, but to his surprise, it had nothing to do with this world of wrestling they were no embedded, but deeper and more personal that he had originally thought.  "What is it, Mel?," he asked, his voice to the point of breaking.

Her body pulled away from him, standing up, lifting a hand up to her face to wipe away the tears that started to stream down her face.  "I... I can't," she managed to get out in between choked sobs, "I'll be back.  I have to go talk to Shane."

The whipping sound of the khaki fabric of her pants as her legs sliced the air between them like scissors as the propelled her to a run to the locker room door.  The door whipped open, slamming it shut behind her after she ran into the arena hallway to leave him there alone.

What the fuck did Shane have to do with any of this?  And didn't they like hate each others' guts just a few weeks ago.  Match at Halloween Spooktastrophy?  What the fuck happened with that?  This past months had definitely been one for changes.  He was actually helping Shane bring Victor Von Doom back to power, fighting for him to be in charge rather than the guy who had had him arrested.  What the fuck was going on in the universe?

A match for the newly renamed ESW Championship, and he had his mind distracted by the fucked up going-ons in his life.  Would it be too much to ask for some normalcy for once, exchanging the drama for a single day of being normal and not having a killer fucking migraine all day.  No matter, she would be back soon, and he could not let himself be distracted by constantly thinking about what the hell was going on with her.