Disclaimer: Any mention of the WWE and its superstars is used here purely for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.
Music Disclaimer: The song used is You Want To Make a Memory – Bon Jovi and it is used here purely for educational and entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended. 
Authors Note: This story is a one shot fiction – one that was born out of a song ( see above) and is also an entry at the WWE Fan Fiction Library – Open Archive June 2007 Song Fiction Contest. It was my take on the song using the characters of Trish Stratus and Jeff Hardy. Read and Review but as always reviews are not mandatory. Happy Reading!

 

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Why had he agreed to come to this stupid gathering again? Jeff wondered as he walked through the front door. He had been here so many times, hell they even taped their show, the one Matt insisted on putting on the Internet here. The more he came here though the more he realized that Matt had spent way too much money on a house he really didn't need.

 
People were milling around everywhere, all drinking what he could only assume to be alcohol out of plastic cups. He felt sick to his stomach just looking at it. He had never been a huge drinker, but a few years back, with his pain pill addiction he had sworn never to get into another habit that he couldn't willingly break. Even in the spirit of a party, the first one of Summer that his brother insisted on throwing, he would not dream of drinking with the people here.

He stopped short then as he saw the blond hair pass by him, directly to his left. He knew that blond hair, would recognize it anywhere. Could it be or were his eyes playing tricks on him?
Could she really be at Matt's party?

It was not the first one that she had been too, as he used to bring her with him every year. It had been a ritual for him back then. Needing someone with him to get him through the rough spots. But that had been before the pills had taken over his life, his mind and ruined whatever there had been between the two of them.

Which made him question even more now just what she would be doing here at his brothers party.

He hadn't spoken to her since that fateful night all those years ago when he had pushed her against the hotel room wall, leaving her bruised and broken and most of all afraid of him. Not a moment he wanted to be remembered for surely but one that if it was indeed her he was going to have to relive all over again.

 

Hello again, it's you and me
Kinda always like it used to be
Sippin' wine, killing time
Trying to solve life's mysteries

"Jeff, is that you?"

 
He turned then and came face to face with the vision he had witnessed in his mind all of these years. She looked the same as she did back then, but this time was different because a sense of fear was no longer lingering in her eyes. She had a look of happiness. Something he realized now that he had never really given her.

He nodded his head, his voice to stunned to speak. He had been sure it was her and now as she stood before him, her jeans and baby tee brightening her hair he knew that no words would come.

 
"It's been a long time." she said, obviously not in the slightest bothered by the fact that he hadn't said a word. It was as if she was back in the past and they had the easy way about them. Where they could talk about anything and make it last forever.

 
He was different because standing here staring at her now, he knew that he could never go back to the way things used to be. The easy way they had with each other. Because he had ruined it all the night he had chosen to throw her against the hotel room wall when she had told him to get help for his addiction.

"How are you?" he said, the painted smile pasted like a light bulb on his face. If he had to get through this, he would do it with dignity. Now was not the time to turn into the silent buffoon. Let Matt be the brother that got tongue tied around women. He just couldn't do that and especially not tonight. Not with her.

 
"I'm good. Things are really looking up for me."

Since you left the WWE. He wanted to say but didn't. Of course that was what she had meant; what else could there be when you really sat down and thought about it?

"I'm sure you're wondering why I am here, after what happened the last time we were together." She said then, interrupting his thoughts and bringing him back to the present. Of course he wondered why she was there, but at the moment he was just shocked that she had finally made a mention of that night. The night he had lost his mind, and in the end, his heart as well.

"I wondered yeah, but you're Matt's friend and a staple at these parties, so not too shocked that you showed."

Nice one Hardy, real smooth.

"Ashley invited me. Which reminds me, I left her alone and I really should go find her. She is probably wondering where I ran off too."

 

She wanted to scream at him to make him see that she really didn't want to leave. She really didn't know what had gotten into her of course, this being the first time she had seen the man since she had begged him, hell pleaded with him on her hands and knees to kick his habit. But she just couldn't walk away.

"I don't want to keep you but maybe we could talk before you leave?" he asked, his voice a low monotone and his eyes not quite looking in her direction.

He was as nervous about this as she had been when she noticed him come in the house only a few minutes earlier. It had taken all of her courage to talk herself into making the first move. She wanted to look like the bigger person, like what had happened three years ago hadn't really bothered her. That she had moved on and forgotten all about it.

The truth was though, she wasn't even close to forgetting and just being this close to the man, taking in his scent, the Jeff Hardy scent, she knew she never would be. She missed him more then she wanted to admit and just didn't want this conversation to end.

"You want to talk?"

He nodded and tried to bring the smile back to his face, failing miserably. She knew this wasn't easy for him, it couldn't be given what he had done to her that night. She wanted to tell him it was alright, that she had gotten over it and it didn't matter but she knew deep down it wouldn't matter because to him, it would always matter.

She did the only thing she could think of and she passed one of the two filled cups in his direction. When he turned his head away and shook it off she suddenly realized why and made up for it. "It's club soda. I don't drink either."

Watching his expression lighten a bit, she felt the blood rush to her head as he accepted the cup from her. Never before, even when they had been dating years prior had she felt this heavy bolt of electricity when touching him. She wanted to jump back in shock but planted her feet harder into the floor.

"We can talk now if you like, I don't know how long I am going to be staying."

He motioned to the door and she followed him out into the early evening light, as the sun was going down around them, the sky bathed in orange. She watched it for awhile, realizing just how beautiful the Carolina sunsets were on a early Summer's night such as this one wishing she could get back here more.

 

Do I tell her how much I've missed her and wanted to pick up the phone and tell her to come home to me? To us? He questioned, all sorts of thoughts running rampant through his mind. He had never thought he would get this chance again, the chance to tell her just how much he had changed and how much he still cared. But now that he had the chance he was not sure if it was the right thing to do.

"I've missed you Jeff. When you walked out of the hotel room that night, I knew I would never see you again and it broke my heart. I always wished we would meet up again, or that you would call me, begging me to come back to you and telling me how sorry you were about the way everything happened."

If he had been waiting for the intro to the deepness of this conversation she had just given it to him on a silver platter. He had been so worried about upsetting her that he had waited and in turn given her the opening shot. She had hit her target hook, line and sinker.

 
"I wanted to call you Trish, you have no idea how badly I wanted to make you come home with me. I just couldn't. I knew the only way I could ever make up for what I did that night in the hotel was to get myself clean and make something of my life. I never meant for any of that to happen."

 
He looked down to the deck floor then, afraid to look into her eyes and see the hurt that he had caused bubble to the surface. Maybe talking to her this way wasn't such a good thing after all. Maybe it was best that they both walk away now before things opened up worse and there was no escape for either of them.

She touched him then, lightly, like a butterfly on his shoulder and he looked up, when he did right into her eyes. "Jeff I understand why you did what you did. I just wish it didn't have to end the way it did."

He wanted so much to let those words out but thought better of it. Now was not the time to ask her to come back to him after her life had moved on as well as it had. She had apparently begun dating an old boyfriend from high school and they were thinking about moving in together. That was from Amy, before she had gone and done what she had done with Adam. Back when they been almost been siblings.

"It doesn't have to end this way if we don't allow it too Trish. We can change the way the story is written."

 

Did he just say what I think he said? She wondered to herself the minute Jeff got the words out of his mouth. Was he right? Could it be that they could change the way this all happened? Could they really go back in time and make things right again between them? Was there hope in a world so ridden with doubt?

"Jeff what are you saying?"

She watched him silently as he paced back and forth over the length of the deck. It had been so long since they had been in each others company but not much had changed with either of them. Jeff still had his way of dealing with hard questions by walking them off and she had a way of just pushing it away.

Maybe things weren't so hopeless after all. Didn't she still love him as much or more then she had all those years ago? Hadn't she broken a really nice mans heart only the week before because he wasn't Jeff?

 

"This meeting tonight Trish, it has to mean something. It cannot just be chance that brought the two of us here. I don't even want to be here celebrating Summer when I still feel like a piece of my season is missing. You are that missing piece. You always have been. I have known it from the first time we met and every day since. Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what? She asked him confusion written all over her face.

He knew he was making a mess of things, letting all of the thoughts come out of his mouth in a jumbled mess, but he only had one more shot to make this work, to make her stay. He had to make her see how much good they could do together, if only they let go of the past.
"Feel the winds changing, we need to take this chance. Don't you see that?"

 
He could see that she saw it the way he did but was still afraid to take the steps to move forward. He couldn't blame her of course but he wished there was something more he could say to her to make her understand.

There were times that the past got in the way with him too. All of those times when he had left her on the road alone and chosen to come back here to Carolina and pop pills and block out the world. The times when he should have talked to her, been with her, giving himself to her. Instead he had given himself to the pills, to the feeling they gave him and in turn, pushed himself so far away from her there was no way back.

If you go now, I'll understand
If you stay, hey, I've gotta plan

"I can't do this now Jeff. I can't go back."

 

She ran from the deck then, leaving him alone to remember just what had happened in that hotel room three years earlier and remembering the one thing he still hadn't told her, the thing that mattered more then anything.

He had forgotten to say thank you.

 

 
"Trish what's wrong?" Ashley asked as she saw her friend run through the door, tears spilling down her face. She had only left Trish for a few minutes and something bad had happened.

 
Ashley saw him then, enter through the same door Trish had just come flying through, but before she could ask her friend just what had happened between her and the younger Hardy, Trish made a beeline for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her, not caring who might have heard or seen what had happened.

"What did you do to her Jeff?" Ashley snapped, grabbing Jeff by the collar of his shirt and pushing him in the direction of the bathroom that Trish had just run into.

"I didn't intend to do anything. I wanted to right the wrongs of the past thats all."

 
She knew what he meant of course, it was something Trish had told her not too long after she had joined the WWE, and what they had talked about in length many times after that, throughout their time together on the roster. Before Trish had walked away from it all to settle at home in Richmond Hill.

"Why now? Why tonight Jeff? Do you have any idea what kind of week she has been through?"

Jeff looked at his friend, the woman that for a year had been his brothers girlfriend and one of his closest confidants. What did she mean? What kind of week had Trish had?

 
"She broke up with Ron, the same night he asked her to marry him you idiot. Then you pull her outside and bring up the past? Just what the hell are you on tonight?"

The minute the words flew out of her mouth she regretted it. She knew what Jeff had gone through to make his life better, to change and now here she was throwing it all back in his face. When she looked to him again she noticed he was already at work on the bathroom door.

Standing behind him, Ashley whispered one last threat into his ear. "You hurt her again and I'll kill you myself."

 

She unlocked the door to the bathroom, hearing Ashley and Jeff yelling at each other outside of it and wanting to put a stop to it. When the door finally inched open, she came face to face with the man who only minutes ago she had run from. She had wanted clarity, to make sense of what she was feeling, had been feeling all along and the longer she stood in the doorway, the more clear things seemed to be.

He was standing here now, putting his heart on the line, saying all of the things he should have said then and trying to make things right. Was there any love left in her heart for him after what they had gone through?

Could they ever truly be happy again? Could they change the way the past had made them and be anything more to each other then just passing friends?

"Yes Trish we can."

Locking eyes with the man in front of her she knew he was right. He had read her mind, had known her doubts and just how much of a toll they would take on what would happen here tonight. With the party raging around them, the sounds of the music drowning out all conversation around them, she knew that the decision was no longer in her hands.

"Jeff I love you, I always have and despite my better judgment, I always will."

He kissed her then, but before he did, he said the words he had waited three years to say and that she had waited three years to hear.

 
"Thank you."