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The Way to Eden	By : Esquirella Category: WWF/WWE > General Views: 3514 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the celebrities of WWE/WWF. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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“Promise me you’ll call me every so often,” Tony said as he and Tara stepped out of the café. “I don’t want to lose touch again. Ben’s going to kick my ass when I cross over, you know.”

“He won’t,” Tara laughed. “He’s probably too busy changing diapers.”

“Who says? Maybe they don’t need those in heaven.”

“Maybe,” she smiled sadly up at him. “I promise to call often. How’s that?”

“It’ll do,” he grinned back. “Are you sure you can’t stay longer?”

“I wish I could,” she replied sincerely, enjoying the easy new friendship they’d forged. “But the plane leaves in just a few hours and I have to get everything I need.”

“Be careful, Tara,” he suddenly assumed a serious expression as they walked down the street toward the entrance to the T. “I know you have to do this for your friend’s sake, but don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Okay, then,” he smiled again before descending the stairs.

Tara watched until he was out of sight before heading back towards her home. Talking to Tony had been somewhat of a relief, though she still felt uneasy when her thoughts turned to Shannon. Sighing, she carefully crossed another street and turned the corner. As she stopped to wait for a traffic light to turn her cell phone rang and jarred her out of her musings. Checking her caller ID, she noted Shannon’s number and clicked on the phone.

“Hello?” she asked warily.

“Baby, I’m glad I cawtcha,” Shannon said breathlessly.

“Is something wrong? Aren’t you supposed to be boarding a plane now?”

“In fifteen minutes,” he replied. “Look, I wanna apologize fo’ las’ night.”

Tara pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it quizzically. This couldn’t be the same man she’d married.

“Why?” she finally asked.

“’Cause I didn’ give ya an opportunity t’ ‘xplain.”

“My fathers,” she answered in a monotone.

“’Scuse me?”

“My fathers spoke to you, didn’t they?”

“I’s not jus’ them,” he sighed. “I really am sorry fo’ that. I kno’ ya don wanna go back.”

“Do you know that?” she asked calmly in Rio’s voice. “Are you so sure?”

“Stop that, damn it!” he seethed. “Tara, ya kno’ I don’ wanna see ya ‘urt.”

“Rio has never hurt me,” she returned. “She was the only thing that kept me together.”

“I kno’.”

“Do you?” she asked again, feeling the old rage simmer again. She wasn’t really angry with Shannon, but being back in Massachusetts and visiting hers and Ben’s old haunts had dredged up a lot of memories for her. Some of them weren’t so pleasant, either. “You do not even know why I became Rio in the first place.”

“Onna ‘count o’ yaw firs’ ‘usban’s death.”

“Though clearly not a small matter, that is only one part of the story.”

Shannon’s soft gasp was almost inaudible, though not to Rio’s well-trained ear. She waited patiently for him to recover his voice.

“Why then?”

“I do not wish to explore the reasons at this time, and certainly not over the telephone.”

“We eva gonna talk ‘about it?” he asked curiously. “O’ don’ ya trus’ me ‘nough.”

“Here we go again with the trust issue,” she murmured. “Why do you demand so much trust from me, yet refuse to give me the same?”

“I trust ya wit’ ma life!” he yelled into the phone.

“But not enough with mine.”

“Look, ya don’ hafta turn ta ‘er all th’ time, ya kno’,” he grunted. “Ya ‘ave lots o’ family now.”

“She was my first line of defense,” Tara replied, still using the accent. “And she is not so very far from Original Sin.”

Shannon sighed harshly into the phone, apparently trying to remain as calm as possible. ‘Sure,’ Rio thought sardonically. ‘Be very careful not to upset your unstable and violent wife.’

“Ri,” he said softly, using Jeff’s nickname for her in an attempt to reach through the steel wall she’d erected. “She’s nothin’ like ya, baby. An’ I don’ hate cha. I kno’ yaw importan’ ta ma wife.”

“Then stop acting as if my appearance brings about an Armageddon,” she hissed. “And acknowledge that even when I do appear, I AM your wife. Tara and I are one in the same. I no longer think of her as a separate being and she no longer leaves everything up to me.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said sadly. “Bu’ Sin . . .”

“Is my sister,” Rio shot back. “And very, very much like I was in the Series, before I met you all.”

“Ya mean when ya met JEFF?” he asked with a small amount of bitterness.

“Shannon,” Tara sighed, now back in her own voice. “Jeff brought me to YOU! He may not have wanted to, but he did. And nothing . . . and NO ONE can ever take me from you.”

“I kno’.”

“No, you don’t,” Tara muttered. “If you really did, this wouldn’t come up over and over. I love YOU. The fact that I don’t talk about what happened just before Justin and Sven took me away from here has more to do with my own shame than any lack of trust.”

“Shame?”

“Think about it,” she sighed. “And we’ll talk about it . . . really talk about it . . . after I get Shane back from Serpentina. Okay?”

“Tara?”

“Not over the phone,” she pleaded. “And not before a fight.”

He was quiet for a minute, trying not to ask the millions of questions that were running around in his head. She knew it, too. She knew him all too well, and she loved that he was trying to do this for her. If only he could have been this way last night. Her nerves wouldn’t be so raw and her mind could be in a more appropriately focused state.

“I love ya, baby,” he finally said. “Mo’ than anythin’ in th’ worl’, ya kno’ that?”

“I know.”

“Nothin’ ya tell me will eva make me wanna leave ya.”

“Um.”

“NOTHIN’, Tar,” he said emphatically. “Yo’ mo’ mine now than when we firs’ got tagetha. An’ I’m all yaws, too. Tha’ ain’ neva changin’!”

“I know.”

“I kno’ ya kno’,” he laughed wryly. “It jus’ bears repeatin’. I’mma go git tha’ plane now.”

“Be careful, okay.”

“I always am.”

“I love you, Shannon.”

“I love ya, too.”

--------------------------------

Shannon hung up the phone thoughtfully then carefully replaced it in his carry on. He knew he had to before he threw it against a wall and shattered it. His worst fears had just been confirmed and he knew he had to get a hold of himself before he met up with his wife in Florida, afraid she’d mistake his anger at what had happened to her for revulsion. And why would he be repulsed by what had happened to her? It wasn’t her fault. But he knew Tara and in her mind it was her fault. She’d lived a life of misery filled with nothing but people who’d told her over and over again how it was all her fault. Except for one.

He sighed as he thought again about his wife’s first husband. How he’d always been jealous of Ben. Even if the man was gone, he would forever be the first one who saved her from that world of neglect and self-loathing. Until now Shannon wasn’t sure he could fill those shoes adequately. Now he saw just how desperate Tara was to hide the horrible things from her past so that she didn’t jeopardize her relationship with him. At first, he thought she didn’t have enough trust in their love, but now he was seeing a whole new side of it. She’d been taught to never trust when things went well, because that’s when they went wrong. And it was only natural for her worry that what had happened . . . that such a violation of her . . . would cause her to lose everything she held onto so tightly.

He’d been going about handling her all wrong, he knew now. The tough approach worked well with Rio because she was the tough exterior. But Tara was the vulnerable interior, and she needed reassurance, not toughness. She needed to know that no matter what anyone did to her in the past, he wouldn’t leave her. Yes, they needed to have a long conversation after her fight. And he would make sure he never screwed up that badly again.

Matt stalked over to Shannon as he was rising and picking up his bag.

“Tha’ don’ look like it went betta than las’ night,” he said gravely.

“No, it did,” Shannon replied absently as he searched his pockets for his ticket. “Jolene’s plane git off okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” The dark haired man studied him avidly.

“Matt, I’m fine,” Shannon sighed.

“No, yaw not.”

“Look, can we no’ do this now? I ain’ inna mood.”

“Oh, yaw inna mood,” Matt replied. “A badass one, now tell me.”

“Matt.”

“Shannon, she’s ma baby sista. Ya tell me, o’ I neva shut up.”

Shannon sighed again as he considered Jeff’s older brother carefully. He knew he shouldn’t tell him what happened, if only that it should come from Tara if she wanted him to know. He also knew his wife was probably just as worried about disgusting all of her friends as she was her husband. No, Matt was likely never to hear it from her. But he still couldn’t bring himself to say it outright. He decided to say as little as possible and let Matt work it out like he did.

“Ya rememba when she tol’ us the li’l bit about ‘ow Justin sav’d ‘er, th’ secon’ time?”

“Yeah,” Matt said in a flat voice. The voice that he used when he knew something big was coming that he wouldn’t like. In other words, the “Jeff voice”.

“Rememba when I ask’d ‘er wha’ ‘appen’d there?” his Southern drawl getting very thick with his own agitation. “An’ she neva tol’ us. Jus’ chang’d th’ subject?”

“Yeah.”

“She didn’ outright tell me jus’ now,” Shannon replied. “Bu’ she’ ‘inted at it. Wha’s th’ wors’ thin’ tha’ can ‘appen to a woman?”

Matt’s gaze lost it’s cold, flat look and took on a thunderous expression that shocked Shannon, even though he’d known Matt most of his life. “Don’ say it.”

“I wasn’.”

“Tha’s th’ man Jusin said ain’ a problem anymo’.”

“Tha’s th’ one,” Shannon nodded. “I assume ‘e means dead.”

“He betta be dead,” Matt growled.
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The Way to Eden