Turn It Up

Never Gonna Be Alone

Days have passed since the friendly, subliminal intermission between Fergal, Alexis and Matt; As well as April and Pam. Life was beginning to take a turn for the normal once more, or at least as normal as life of a WWE Superstar can be. It really is hard to do this day in and day out, eventually your mind will become super burnt out and you won't have any direction.. Fergal felt like his support system had vanished into thin air and there was no real way of recovering it. All the kind words that Alexis and Matt dropped on him were for nothing. Nothing of what they said was actuality and it was beginning to take its toll on his mental health. He felt more nervous, anxiety was at a new high, his depression was on fire and he had weird pains frequently through his heart and head. He wasn't going to let Pam in on how deadly he felt, and by deadly I don't mean him being a danger to others, I mean deadly as in his body, on the inside, was tearing itself apart. He was beginning to become plagued with tension headaches, people at work took note of it. His work, speaking of that, was suffering as a result. His pace in matches slowed down almost to a halt, compared to normally the high octane, high energy that made him famous. Fans on social media became increasingly more and more concerned with him and it was not until he got pulled aside by Paul that reality really sunk in. Paul didn't even waste the time to get him into his office, instead he just grabbed his attention in the backstage area and spoke in that quiet, yet serious tone that he was famous for. "Listen, Fergal. We love you man. We all honestly do. Don't get me wrong or take this in a bad light. But we see you. Okay? We see right now you're damaged, is it from what happened with everybody recently? I know you're obviously close to Lexi, Shinsuke and Rebecca. And then what happened to Pam? Look, nobody is blaming you for being a little bit out of it, hell I would be too. But you have to remember; Coming here and basically not being here? You know what I mean? It can't happen. Those guys out there rely on you to be safe and conscious of every step you take against them. If you are too distracted? Then we need you to get out of the ring before someone gets hurt. This isn't an attack on you as a person, man. Don't get me wrong, we just see this. Is it health related? Are you hurting and just not telling anyone? If that's the case, we need to get you to see the doc and get you back to normal. If not, just find a way to get whatever you have inside, out and get it far away from you. We love you man, try and be safe." Paul patted him on the shoulder and Fergal said exactly zero words. What could he say? That he feared his relationship with Pam was rapidly declining? That he took blame for what happened to the others? There were no words to describe how Fergal was feeling. It was like he was fighting a demon who wielded a gun, and all he had was a twig. Fergal paced around the locker room area and decided. He needed time off to himself. He knew this would likely result in them being angry with him, but he needed the time to mentally recover..

Fergal spoke to nobody of this, he didn't want to alarm anybody, nor did he want to tell Pam right away, fearing she would dip out of the spotlight as well. Fergal entered Paul's office five or so minutes later and made his decision. Paul saw the look on his face and nodded at him in an understanding, fatherly kind of way. "What can I do for you man? I see that look. You've decided on something. What is it?" Paul put down his pen and crossed his hands, Fergal didn't want to do this, he really didn't. But there was nothing else he could do. At this stage in the game, it became so obvious that he needed to do this, all the time that had passed? He never truly got over it..

"I need to get out of here mate." Fergal said only that and Paul nodded his head at him. "Take as much time as you need. Me and Steph are here if you need anybody. Okay? Let us know when you want to get back. And don't worry, we'll think of a way to write you and the title off for now." Fergal nodded now, "Are you sure? I don't want to be looked at as a paper champion." Paul laughed lightly at this concern, "Don't even sweat that. Look at Brock, he literally has it in his contract to not have to be here all the time and guess what? He didn't as champion either. Just go get yourself fixed up wherever it needs to be fixed. We'll be waiting here for you buddy." Fergal nodded and almost bowed to him, "Thank you, a lot for this." Paul smiled lightly, "No problem." Fergal exited the room and walked throughout the locker room area, it was odd.. There were so many people all around him, yet he felt utterly alone. There literally might as well have been no people here because Fergal didn't really get that feeling of inclusiveness, isolation, cold isolation filled his heart and was not replaced by anything. Pam was on the other side of the building with the makeup team, getting herself situated for the night. She was completely unaware of how Fergal felt inside for he reassured her that he was simply tired.. Pam being completely in the dark about how he felt was, to him, for the better.. He didn't really think that she would be able to handle how he felt and it was smarter to just shut her down and make sure that she had no true idea what was going on inside of his mind. Oh Fergal, how the past scared him so.. It scared him so much in fact that he didn't tell her how he was feeling because he remembered how it went a few times previous to this event where Pam lost her shit. Fergal didn't want to keep making the same mistakes, being sad over the same shit and spewing it onto the happy Pam was something that just couldn't be accepted anymore.. He couldn't do that to her, not just after she was released from the hospital.. It didn't feel right to do that to her, she just was starting to seemingly get all of her ducks in a row and he could NOT just rain on her parade like that. No, so what did he do? Just as I said, he kept her in the dark, fearing the ghost of the past that would seemingly come up and destroy all that he loved. He went back to the locker room, packed his bag and zipped it shut. He slid his phone out of his pocket and texted Pam simply saying, 'Hey babe. Not feeling well. Gonna get out of here. Will be at the hotel if you need me. Good luck. I love you.' And hit send. He probably was going to send her into a panic, rushing, running frenzy to find him before he skid out. Hopefully he would be able to get out and avoid the awkward confrontation of having to explain himself, as well as hide his DEEP rooted depression from the future mother of his children.

Honestly at this stage in the game? Fergal wasn't even sure if she wanted to do that. That pained him to no end not knowing what she thought. Pam was just being distant with him, and he didn't understand why she was behaving like this. Did he do something to wrong her at some point in time? He hated not knowing what she thought or felt, Fergal slid into a hoodie to hide his appearance from everybody and was again, hoping to avoid her, and at this point? Everybody else needed to just stay the hell away from him. He didn't want to answer any questions for honestly he was too agitated to do that without lashing out at the first person who tried to help him. He was in a dangerous place mentally and was actually, surprisingly, conscious of the situation. Pam saw the text a few minutes late, after they finished up putting her makeup on, Pam entered freak out mode. Just as Fergal thought, she ran around the backstage area asking anyone who would look at her if they've seen Fergal. She texted him 'Wait, please don't go yet.'

All she wanted to do was to tell him how special she was to him, for in Pam's mind, Fergal needed to be reminded of these things daily otherwise shit like this would happen. It was hard to read someone who never spoke up about how they felt, it was even harder to understand what they needed out of you. Fergal was a mysterious person, any number of his friends can account for that and tell you the saaame damn thing. Pam continued to run, as some of the crew watched in a creepy manor her running, she took note of their faces, but had to ignore them for Fergal was far more important than some creepy, almost man looking at her body as she ran around backstage. Some people have exactly zero respect and exactly no excuse for doing the things that they do. She ran and ran, by this point she sadly had to assume that Fergal was long gone and didn't wait for her. He never returned her text and he just kind of vanished off the face of the earth. That wasn't exactly the best thing that he could have done, not only because she genuinely cared about him, but she was clueless to what was happening to his mental state. She didn't know whether to think that he was okay or not, she didn't know if something happened to him backstage, perhaps he pulled a muscle real bad stretching.. Or worse. The anxiety that he had earlier spread like wildfire inside of Pam. She hated that feeling of an overwhelming sensation coursing from her knees, up her thighs, through her stomach and nestling into her heart. Pam looked up, pushed her hand hard onto her chest and looked around. She spotted a suspicious looking man with a hoodie on and she DARTED over to them. It turned out that this would be either a good spot, or the most awkward misidentification in human history. Ignoring that sinking feeling in her chest, Pam ran over and tapped the man on the arm, "Hey.. Wait." When they turned around, her Sherlock Holmes hunch paid off. She managed to find Fergal.. A true needle in a haystack situation if ever there had been one. "F-Fergal. Holy.. Moly.. Where and why are you going? What.. W-what happened." Pam's anxiety was played off quite well by 'being out of breath'. And luckily Fergal bought the shit out of it. He put his bag down and could not lie to her face, he could keep her in the dark for as long as he needed to, but lying? That was something he just could not, and would not do to her. "I need to get out. I need to clear my head, Pamela.."

Pam was kind of off put by this claim, she didn't know whether that meant she needed to.. Fuck off? Or just be there for him. "Don't you want to be here with me, Fergal? I mean I love you.." Her words were jumbled up and she probably came off as WAY too douchey for Fergal to just be happy with. No, not this time. He actually understood her concern and pushed away her proposal. "It's just this place. Is a disaster for me. I haven't accepted what even happened to everybody. I haven't had time to heal. Y'know? I was so focused on makin' sure that you guys healed up and didn't have any pain that I completely ignored the fact that I feel like I'm rotting on the inside. Paul could see it, the fans. Have you not been on Twitter? THEY see it.. I can't be here right now. I am a liability. I didn't want to drag you down to the abyss with me. Please just stay Pam.. Wrestle and give those fans somethin' to believe in." Pam was honestly a little taken back by his willingness to admit there was something wrong with him. Pam nodded slowly, a sad expression took over her face. "Okay. You um. Take as much time.. As.. As you need to.." Pam was on the brink of sobbing like an infant who just dropped their ice cream on the floor. Fergal grabbed her by the waist with one hand, kissing her on the lips softly. "I'll be back.. I love you.." Pam broke the kiss, "Please be okay.. I love you too.. Don't feel too alone.. Please.."