Reality (Linstead AU)

Chapter 67

A/N: I'm excited to return to this world. The extent to which I've missed it since I ended book two has surprised me. This may only be a short story of a few chapters, but it's hopefully not the final one. We're back to Jay's point of view this time.

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Jay Halstead sat in the production area just behind the curtain at Summerslam, WWE's second biggest event of the year. He had goosebumps covering his arms and tears in his eyes, which he hoped no one would notice.

Nearby, Erin, the incredible woman who he was eternally lucky to be engaged to, was directing the TV broadcast. In the ring were Raquel Victoria Gonzalez and Clementine, competing in the main event of the night.

Those two women had fought many times before, yet Clementine had never managed to win the WWE Women's Championship from Raquel. No one had. Raquel's reign had already set a record for the longest in the history of the Women's Championship.

The build for this match had revolved around Clementine's character telling Raquel's that she wanted one more match, in the main event of Summerslam. Her pitch had been that if she won, she would finally win the championship for the first time since before the horrific knee injury that had cost her more than a year of her career. But if Raquel won again, Clem had pledged to stand in the ring with Raquel on live television and public admit that Raquel was the better wrestler. That ego-stroking possibility had been enough of an enticement for Raquel to accept the challenge.

The following week, Erin had written her own character to make a rare appearance on TV, making the fair point that the fans had seen Clem and Raquel go at it before in all manner of different match types. If there was going to be one final fight to end the feud once and for all, it was going to have to be something special. And something special was what she had gone on to announce. The match was to be a sixty minute ironwoman match – meaning that the two women would fight for an hour without a break. Every time one of them scored a pinfall or a submission, it would be added to their total. Whoever had the highest total when the clock reached zero at the end of the hour would win the match, and the championship.

Now, as Jay sat with the goosebumps on his arms and the tears in his eyes, there were less than thirty seconds left on the clock. He had a particular investment in the match because he had been the producer on it. Being a producer was his second job with WWE now, in addition to wrestling. At one time he had been lining up talent scouting as something to get into, but when one of the company's producers had broken a leg in a car accident and needed time off, Jay had offered to help Erin out and produce a few matches. To his surprise and hers, he had taken to it like a duck to water. He'd always had a great mind for the business, and he had found that he didn't struggle so much with his people skills if he worked with the women's roster, so he now produced a lot of their matches.

His job as producer was to lay out all of the important moves and moments that would tell a match's story. The finish was of course critically important. A match could be great throughout but would still be considered the shits by most fans if the finish sucked.

Twenty five seconds to go. The finish of the ironwoman match – the first pay-per-view main event match Jay had produced – was not going to suck. One thing none of the fans had expected was for the hour-long fight to get to this point with the score tied at zero. Raquel and Clementine had beaten the shit out of each other, legitimately. Jay was surprised by how hard they had gone at each other. Knowing both women as well as he did, he knew that they were loving the physicality, and the way it had heightened what was possibly going to be the best match of both of their careers.

Twenty seconds to go. The fans were on their feet, losing their minds. Clementine had Raquel caught in an ankle lock, a devastatingly painful submission hold. If Raquel submitted before the time ran out, Clementine would win one to zero and become the champion. The crowd believed it was going to happen. Referee Deonna Purrazzo was kneeling on the mat, right in front of Raquel, ready to make the call if she did submit.