Supreme Championship Wrestling

Holly Adams vs. Selena Frost
SCW World Championship

2 RP Limit
Deadline: 11:59:59 pm ET Saturday, January 22, 2022

They walk together – or at least try to, their feet dragging through the thick snow that came up to their shins.

She can see her breath misting in the cold wind with every laborious breath she manages to huff out, her legs heavy as they push through the thick white blankets. Beside her, her beloved wife keeps by her side, as weary and hurt as the Snow Queen, herself. There are cuts on the young woman’s face and streaks of dried blood that were once as bright as the red-hair the woman has. Hair that, like the platinum-blonde’s, is covered with snow as the storm rages on above them.

They had kept going. Just like they had told one another – just like she had been prompted to do with every journey in this hell of cold and death.

The wind howls harshly, pushing the older woman back – or it would have if a strong hand had not sprung onto her shoulder and held her in place, bracing her against the push. Throwing her head back, platinum hair whipping around, Selena spied the smiling, yet weary, face of her Deanna, emerald eyes sharp but tired. With her own smile and nod, Selena pushes forward, continuing to trek as Deanna returns to her position by her wife’s side.

They had moved past ‘the temple’ that had housed so many confrontations for Selena (as well as so many deaths). But The Brand had not been left behind. They had followed, striking and attacking with crowd after crowd.

The strategy was always the same. At least one (with associates or distractions) would attack, prompting battle. And while the Frost women – ‘Witches’ their enemies kept calling them – held their own, they would inevitably be ambushed by more and more of The Brand’s group. Still, they fought, still they held them back until the Brand would flee, leaving the two women alone to continue their trekking once more.

Over and over the cycle had repeated itself, Selena losing track of the number of times. Still, she had no strategy to change it, which was what burdened her as much as the exhaustion and aches of battle that clung to her. 

They couldn’t do anything about the Brand’s attacks. There was just two of them and many of their enemy. Paid, manipulated, mislead, there were just too many… and the Frost wives were alone out here. 

What could they do but just keep fighting… just keep going?

She hears the sound of snow crunching loudly and quickly turned her head, expecting another such attack, but was stunned to see her Deanna on her knees, her left hand pressed against her chest.

“Deanna!” Selena cries out, rushing to her wife’s side and dropping down to her knees. She doesn’t feel the cold or wetness of the snow. Why doesn’t she? Why does it slow her down but not hurt her like the pain of battle or the turmoil that she feels of the state of this land thanks to The Brand? Taking her wife’s hands into hers, the Snow Queen finally sees the dark-blue wife’s hands are turning.

“Oh no…” she whispers in the dark, her hands reaching out to the maroon fabric of the coat and the dark-green sweater Deanna wears, pulling the redhead to her. It is only when her wife is in her arms that she feels Deanna shivering…so fast. “Put your hands on my skin.” She whispers. “It’ll warm them.”

No words are spoken but Selena suddenly feels a sharp stab of cold under her shirt, against her abdominals, taking a short intake of breath as her body stiffens a little. Still, she does not complain, using her hands to cradle Deanna as close to her as possible.

“It’s okay.” She whispers. “We’ll be okay.”
“Yeah…” comes the soft voice, a shiver in it. “Just a l-l-little chilly right now.”

Crunch.

Selena’s ears perk up a little at the sound of snow being walked on – it isn’t just one, but an army of crunching. Keeping her wife’s head nestled on her collarbone, sapphire eyes scan around them.

She can see them. See their glowing red eyes, small and beady, as they watch her and Deanna. The pawns, the crew, the mislead…the leaders. The Brand.

They were waiting for this moment, taunting them as they hid behind the trees and the tweeting birds. Whispering their lies and BS… waiting for them to be too weary to fight back.

The crunching sounds are louder as they finally leave the safety of the forest, surrounding the Frost wives. Selena can see their grinning faces, full of pride that they, an army, are about to defeat two women. Her eyes cast upward and she sees the large glowing eyes above her, the clouds doing nothing obscure them. 

Eyes of disappointment?
Eyes of disgust?
Eyes of… wishful thinking?

Whose eyes are they? Are they directed at her? Or the actions of the Brand? Is this enemy, Killjoy or whoever, bored with this outcome?

It doesn’t matter… Selena sighs, lowering her head to rest it against Deanna’s as she holds her tight.

The crunching grows louder before it suddenly stops. Looking up, the young woman sees the mass surrounding her and Deanna in a circle. Closer to her and Deanna, however, stands the leaders. 

Giovanni, grinning his wicked grin as he preaches from a black book “the many wrongs of Selena Frost”, as if he can make Selena ashamed for loving the world she has protected for eight years.

Cid Turner, with Cookie by his side, shaking his head and wagging his finger at Selena, as if he can make Selena ashamed of being an honest woman, while he whispers manipulations into Cookie’s ear.

Holly Adams… grinning maliciously as she struts around the Frost wives, waving her hand and declaring how she and she alone conquered them. Selena can’t really hear her words anymore, more focused on the redhead in her arms, even as Holly is screaming in the platinum-blonde’s face… as if she could make Selena ashamed of being in love with Deanna and loving her with all her heart.

A sad but satisfied smile crosses Selena’s features. They were pathetic.

They thought they could make her regret protecting SCW.
They thought they could make her regret being honest with the SCW Universe, for better or for worse.
They thought they could make her regret loving Deanna…

She feels tears prick her eyes as Deanna lifts her head to look at her, emerald eyes meeting sapphire ones. 

Eyes filled with love.
Eyes filled with trust.
Eyes filled with hope.

Without a word, Selena leans in, capturing her wife’s lips with her own, keeping Deanna tight against her form. Against her chest, she feels her wife’s cold hands reach up to press strongly against her skin, touching her breasts, then her back to pull her in as well. She doesn’t have to open her eyes to see the look of disgust in the Brand’s eyes, to hear those damned lies of ‘incest’ and…and…

She tunes it out and simply dives further into the feeling of her wife in her arms as the Brand descends upon them, eager to erase their ‘abomination’, as they were calling her and Deanna, off the earth. She ignored them and simply focused on the feel of her wife in her arms and her lips on Deanna’s.

And then…oblivion….

*************************

Frost ‘Forever Home’
Manhattan, New York
January 19th, 2022
3:02pm

She jolted awake, hearing the ringing of her phone alarm going off, effectively ending her 15-minute power nap. Her sapphire eyes blinked several times as they adjusted, her mind shifting and trying to reorganize itself from it’s short spell of sleep. A few slow breaths escaped her as her head fell into her waiting hand, the arm resting at the elbow on the large desk that filled up part of her office in her home in Manhattan. With one more slow breath, she savoured the spike in her energy from the power nap - something she cherished but knew that it would not last for long. She would need a little more help…

Quietly, Selena Frost pushed herself out of her seat and marched around the room, running her hands through her scalp in an angry scratch. “This is so fucking stupid…” she hissed in a whisper, instinctively lowering her voice, knowing of the children that were in the house. As she passed one of the walls, there was a break in the shelves of books that circled around the office space perimeter, allowing for a large mirror with black and silver metal-trim to hang on the wall.

Seeing her reflection out of the corner of her eye, Selena turned to it. The woman that stared back had the same clothes as her – black sweat-pants and a light-blue t-shirt, walking around in bare feet along the carpet – but Selena was surprised to see how blood-red her eyes were – like a sea of blood surrounding a swirling vortex of sapphire and black, as well as the bags that hung under them. Was that her? Was this the face of the world champion of SCW?

Heh, guess that’s where the ‘crazy eyes’ thing comes from… Selena thought, remembering one of the many insults Holly Adams had thrown her way every time the Snow Queen, or her wife, posted anything on Twitter, though she also chastised herself for trying to rationalize any ‘one-liner’ that woman had thrown her way when so many of them were either flat out hypocritical statements or just plain nonsensical ravings.

Stepping closer, the Snow Queen took another look at herself before giving out a sigh. “What do you expect?” she whispered to the reflection. It was an open question but one that carried explanation. What did she expect to look like after three days of barely any sleep beyond short naps in her office?

With a long exhale, the platinum-blonde lowered her head a little, her forehead resting against the cool glass. She knew that this was not the smartest course of action, staying in here and only coming out of her office to eat, shower, and spend a little time with her family (though she cursed herself at how little) but she couldn’t help it. The two factors that played in her mind were, inadvertently, working in tandem, leaving her to isolate herself in her office in what she had felt was the best course of action.

First, Talia had kept her word and sent Selena as many files and data as she could regarding Malcolm Scythe’s business dealings in his many years in Nome, Alaska, both on and off the record. And the lawyer had not been lying when she had said it was too much. In fact, she may have been underselling… 

Because it was terabytes and terabytes of data – from PDFs to videos, it was insane! Selena had gone cross-eyed for a second just looking at all the icons of files that had appeared on her desktop screen as she had opened the external hard-drive Talia had priority shipped to her (only giving Selena the encryption key through phone call). Ordinarily, the Snow Queen would have only managed a few hours of such tedious, monotonous work at a time before needing to workout or go swimming or even just going for a walk or something with the family. But then the second factor had reared its ugly head.

Holly Adams… Selena growled. 

Yes, it was annoying that the ‘head’ of The Brand in SCW had caused so much trouble for Selena – effectively ruining their End of the Year match after their own plan to screw Selena out of the world title through interference had failed, leading to a ‘retry’ of sorts at Body, Heart and Soul, the first Pay-per-view of the new year – but what that fake-blonde had done…


It hadn’t really hit Selena full until a few days ago while the wrestler had gone grocery shopping for the family, with Deanna watching the children at home. With the school season returning from the holidays, the children (specifically Elsianna and David) were, once more, attending classes and getting homework (though it was hardly such with David in kindergarten). But there Selena had been, walking down the cereal aisle with a shopping cart, picking up Frosted Flakes for David, Honey-Nut Cheerios for herself, Shreddies for Deanna and Elsianna, and regular Cheerios for Amiliah (who loved picking up the pieces to stare through the middle of them) to add to her already full cart when it had happened. 

She hadn’t seen the person come up to her until she had turned around to place the Cheerios box into her cart, almost jumping back as the middle-aged man stared at her. It was rather surprising, to say the least, mostly because, after 7 years of living in Manhattan and shopping in the same neighbourhood stores with the same people, most people tended to leave her alone beyond kind greetings. Yes, fans still came to her once in a while, but it wasn’t the bullrush it was in other cities or arenas during SCW shows. Manhattan had, seemingly, gotten use to its resident Snow Queen and the ‘Frost Family’ as it were. Still, a fan was a fan, and Selena was not going to chastise one for having the courage to approach her.

If only it had been a fan…

”Any truth to Holly Adams’ claims?
Have you always had such a discrimination against blondes?
What about all the people that look up to you? How could you hide this from them?!”

The slew of questions that had followed had thrown Selena off completely – even now, her jaw clenched at how ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ she had been – stunned at such absurd questions. How she’d managed to leave the grocery store without saying something profoundly stupid that could’ve wound up on TMZ? She wasn’t entirely sure. 

Why had she been so bothered at having a recorder shoved into her face? It wasn’t like it was the first time it had happened! She had lost track of how many times someone had come to her, looking for some kind of scoop. Why couldn’t she just have stayed calm and rationally explained the BS behind Holly’s obvious lies? But she hadn’t.

Instead, she had walked away from the man, come straight back to her home, locked herself in her office and, instead, dived into Malcolm Scythe’s files, searching high and low for any sign of “Project: Black Ice”, not wanting to think about that moment. Yes, she was still acutely aware of Malcolm’s warning when it came to Project: Black Ice – the late former mayor of Nome warning her that such research would lead to her destruction, a fact that Killjoy had goaded Selena with at Malcolm’s memorial service in Nome.

Still, she kept digging through the files bit by bit. Because Killjoy had been right. Selena was sick of feeling powerless where Killjoy was concerned. Sick of always having to ‘wait’ for someone to act and she to simply ‘react’. She wanted to be the one to be on the attack – both in this and in SCW… which was difficult when her enemy was, basically, four people against her and her wife. Still, if this ‘Project: Black Ice’ was going to help her better understand what Killjoy was or maybe give some insight as to why he was after her, then damn the consequences!

She was also just tired of thinking about The Brand like she just had been! For Odin’s sake, they had bugged the world title so they could spy on her! Was that even legal for them to do?! Yes, she had been on an SCW show when it happened, but there was such a thing as privacy, and Holly had invaded hers!

Angrily, Selena reached over to open a drawer at her desk, where there were pens, papers, a stapler and a wooden box filled with 5-hour energy shots, which she constantly refilled whenever she was low. Stifling a yawn, she grabbed one of the remaining six and downed it quickly, tossing the plastic bottle into the nearby trash bin (dark blue with white snowflakes decorated) and began pacing the room again. She had alternated the last three days between researching Scythe’s notes and thinking of ways of dealing with Holly’s lies – and the most depressing thing was that ‘going through Scythe’s notes’ seemed like the easier job!

Because it didn’t matter what she said or did – in person, on Twitter, through video or promo post, Holly was always there with a ‘counter’ regardless of how ridiculous it sounded! Holly brings The Brand in to interfere in her match? It’s Selena’s fault. Holly bugs the World title? It’s to expose Selena’s evil! Selena retains because The Brand messes up? Selena did it on purpose cause she’s afraid of Holly. Selena beats any member of The Brand? It’s witch-hexes and cheating and luck.

The Snow Queen shook her head as she sat back down against her seat, casting her gaze up at the ceiling of the office. It wouldn’t matter what she said. If she told the world Holly was lying and proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt? Holly would just say Selena was lying and repeat it over and over again, screaming it loud to try and drown the facts out. If Deanna said anything, The Brand would just claim that Selena was ‘using her witchcraft to brainwash her’. If they said it together, then Holly would somehow ‘hear the tremble in Deanna’s voice, indicating coercion’.

“Oh it’s there!” Selena stated in a high-pitched voice to the ceiling, imitating Holly Adams – if she were a cartoon character. “I don’t care if none of you heard it! I heard it! And I’ll find 10 people to come on my show and pay them to say that they all heard it too! And that will mean that EVERYONE heard it!”

She was acting being petulant and immature, she knew, but she was beyond furious. All that had happened in the last few weeks, all the crap Holly had spewed both inside and outside the ring (on her show and on Twitter, for example) – none of it really had anything to do with SCW or the World title. This was just Holly being a bitter brat because, while she had been voted as the world title challenger for End of the Year, it had been Selena, herself, not Holly, that had been voted as the Female Wrestler of the Year. And now Holly was doing all she could to just hurt Selena’s image in the eyes of the SCW Universe… and she seemed to be having more success than Selena wanted to believe, given what had happened in that grocery store.

Trying to scan one more page of Malcolm’s files, Selena’s ears suddenly perked up at the sound of footsteps approaching. Quickly, she pushed the power button to turn off the screen, casting her eyes up to see the gorgeous red hair that entered first, along with the most beautiful emerald eyes.

Looking around the room for a second, Deanna Frost’s eyes settled on Selena, offering her a sad, knowing smile. 

“Hey…” whispered Deanna as she shuffled into the room. From a casual glance, the redhead seemed no worse for wear from their match a few days ago at Breakdown, and she had taken some serious hits – a swell of pride graced Selena as she remembered how her wife had leveled Giovanni and shocked Cid and floored Holly in that match, moments where she had shown just how much potential she had, holding her own against two former world champions and former adrenaline champion! Even if the match had been thrown out, Deanna had, as she said she would, stolen the show by her performance.

“Hey.” Selena offered a tired smile, pushing back the drowsiness as Deanna moved around the desk, immediately wrapping the smaller woman in her arms as the redhead helped herself to sitting in Selena’s lap. Like Selena, Deanna was wearing comfort clothes - a long, lime-green shirt, which fell past her hips to just above her knees, almost concealing all of the black shorts she wore. Her hair was loose but she still managed to keep it out of her eyes.

Selena felt her wife’s hands around her neck as Deanna rested her head against Selena’s. “You’ve been cooped up in here for a while now.” She started slowly. “And I’m not going to guess what it’s about, but I am sure if I did guess, I’d be right.”

A sigh escaped Selena. “You would be.” She admitted with no hesitation, earning a groan from Deanna, who separated herself from Selena to stand up and pace around the room as her wife had done.

“Ohhh, Selena!” she chastised with an irritated, breathy sigh. “Why are you letting her get to you? She’s a lying bit-“ Deanna caught herself. “A lying brat!”

“The problem is-“ Selena countered, raising a hand. “Is that ‘lying brat’? People are believing. Or at least a few very loud people are. Very invasive people… And they want answers.”
“So tell them.” Deanna shrugged. “Do that thing where you sit in the ring and just rip them a new one with your words!”

“It’s not that easy.” Selena gave a small smile. “No matter what I say, she’ll just counter with something equally outrageous. Like witchcraft or hexes. Or she’ll do something even worse than bugging a title.” For a moment, Selena closed her eyes before giving a shake of her head. “Like… what if she tries to spy on us here, Deanna? If she bugs our house or places cameras there or…something…“ 

The redhead, fiery as always, rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms, taking a moment to laugh a little at Selena’s words. “Is she ready to be arrested if she does?”

“Probably not. But Xander Valentine almost pulled it off.” 
“He didn’t even get past the gate, Selena.” Deanna tried. 
“But she’s got plenty of expendable stooges.” Selena sighed, pushing herself out of the chair and walking to rest her back and head against a shelf of books against the wall – sapphire eyes meeting emerald ones. “Look me in the eye and tell me she isn’t the kind of person that would do that just to ‘expose me’.”

That was the true crux of the matter. The ‘bugging of the world title’ – it had been less about Selena ‘being caught’ as Holly had wanted and more the act of Holly invading her and Deanna’s privacy. For Selena, despite being honest about her life when asked or approached, she still did her best to keep her private life and SCW life separate. For as much as she loved SCW, she could not deny the bad things that were part of it. The liars, the cheaters, the manipulators, monsters, and one didn’t have to go too far to find some truly deplorable things happening in SCW by those ‘wishing to get noticed’ or ‘get ahead in the business’. It was even more so where the World title was involved.

For the Snow Queen, she wanted to keep her private life – her children and family – as far from that as possible. Now, with Deanna being with her, which Selena was grateful for, that was not entirely possible, but she still tried. But there had been some people that had taken ‘invasion of privacy’ to the next level:

Vixen Cain stealing her bus with her, Zelda, and her prince son, David, inside.
Xander Valentine stalking and filming outside the house she now sat in.

Those moments had scared Selena to her soul – when her home, her children, the private sanctuary that was supposed to be free of SCW, was being invaded or put on display or anything like that. She had hoped that, after Xander’s actions and how she had punished him, that no one would try such a stunt like that again…

And then Holly had spied on them… Giovanni had promised to sell the recording as part of his ‘package deal’ or whatever! And again, there was nothing there for Selena to be upset about… but the fact that such an invasion had happened…

The two wives stood in silence for a moment before the younger Frost was, once more, by her wife’s side, taking the world champion’s pale hands into her own.

“Look…” she sighed, her thumbs rubbing lazy circles against Selena’s knuckles. “You need to get out of this room. Stop thinking about Scythe, because I know you are.” An emerald glare silenced Selena as the Snow Queen tried to open her mouth. “Stop thinking about Killjoy and, especially, stop thinking about Holly and whatever crap she is going to say or do.” She gave Selena’s hands a firm squeeze. “You love me?”

A sad smile came to Selena. “Maybe I do.”

“And maybe I love you.” Deanna smiled back. “That’s all that matters where Holly’s words and ‘translations’ of us talking come into play. That is all she is going to see if she tries that crap of spying on us again. A loving family and two women who love each other more than anything. I chose you and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” Standing on her tip toes, Deanna was able to place a gentle kiss on Selena’s lips – the redhead noticing the bags under Selena’s eyes but saying nothing.

“Come on.” She urged in a whisper, guiding Selena out of the study. “You promised to help Elsianna with her homework.”

Mentally, Selena cursed herself, not because she was being taken out of her study, but because Deanna was right. She had promised her eldest child days ago and had been too wrapped up with Scythe and Holly to keep that promise. 

She is fucking me up… Selena thought as she followed Deanna. And if it’s part of her plan, then I’m playing right into it.

The thoughts faded as Selena reached the ground floor and walked into the family room and kitchen space, her eyes squinting a little in reaction to the bright light that filled the room from the inside, as well as the outside. From the large balcony window on the opposite side of the space, Selena could see nothing but snow as the massive blizzard raged on outside, clumps of snow falling from the skies without mercy!

“When did that get here?” the platinum-blonde asked, her tired eyes widening, delightfully taking in the mountains of snow that covered the ground and trees, which allowed the blue of the small lake to stand out from its place farther from the house.

“Late last night.” Deanna replied patiently, watching her wife smile a bright, yet tired, smile as she moved to the balcony window. She refused to break a moment of wonder, however brief it would be, for her beloved. She saw such moments in the eyes of her wife so rarely lately. Going skating with the children, going family bowling, reading to Elsianna, when they made love – she took a slow breath as she savoured the memory of the last time they had a few days ago. Moments of joy were rare lately for Selena, and even when she had them, Deanna could see it – at the rim of Selena’s sapphire eyes – the ever presence of sadness, frustration, helplessness.

It was as if the emotions were fighting each other back – fighting for Selena’s focus and attention. Not that it surprised Deanna. Even being the World Champion, Selena had not been able to truly enjoy her fourth reign as she wanted to. Whether it was being ambushed or spied on or… Deanna shook her head. The places for her beloved to escape the evils of the world was decreasing rapidly in number… 

She had already lost her home of Nome, Alaska, thanks to Killjoy. Quietly, Deanna prayed that this home – their private life together – would never fail to be such a sanctuary… Even if Holly wants to try to... she thought darkly as she saw Selena continuing to gaze out the windows, a hand against the cold glass.

“So much snow in one half day?” she asked out loud before sighing and turning back to face the rest of the room, a hand raising up to rub at her eye sleepily. “Where’s Elsianna?”

“Right here, mother.” The young girl answered, appearing before the two Frost wives from the doorway as if summoned. “I heard you both coming up from the basement.” She added before giving a quick sniff of her nose, using a free hand to scratch it.

“Yes.” Selena sighed, moving over to the table in the kitchen to pull out and sit in a chair. “I promised I’d help you with your homework, didn’t I?”

The child, the spitting image of her mother, gave a quick nod and a smile before quickly marching over to the table, allowing Deanna and Selena to see the binder of black and the pencil-case bag in her hands, as well as sheets and sheets of colored cardboard-paper. Immediately, their eldest child set to work, placing things on the table in proper order, pulling out papers with instructions printed on them, etc. As Selena watched, she also spied the worksheets in Elsianna’s binder, papers with math questions, English questions, questions that were, obviously, easy for an adult to answer, but challenging for someone of Elsianna’s age.

“Do you need me to look these over?” Selena asked, stifling a quiet yawn as she moved a hand towards the printouts. 
“I already did.” Deanna replied gently. “She’s fine there.”
“Oh, okay.” Selena shrugged, returning her attention towards Elsianna. “So, what do you need help with, Snowflake?” she asked.

“All that’s left is arts and crafts.” The young girl admitted. “We’re supposed to create a landscape. We can use paints, cardboard, and whatever else we want but we have to have a parent supervising us when using paints and scissors.”

“A landscape?” Selena asked as she watched her daughter pull out a ton of white cardboard. “Any…any idea what landscape you want to do? Maybe we can get a picture off of Google or something-”

Tilting her head to the side, the young girl pointed a small finger towards the balcony Selena had just been looking out of. Following her daughter’s gaze, Selena, once more beheld the winter-wonderland that was her home during the winter season. Instinctively, her hand reached up to rub her left shoulder, where she felt the black snowflake tattoo etched into her skin. 

“So are there any other rules?” Selena asked, picking up a piece of white-cardboard and turning it in her hands. She felt a little of the dizzying spell coming from her tiredness and her ‘wiredness’ of the energy shot, but she quickly breathed it away as best as she could.

“Nope.” Elsianna shook her hand, fumbling with the child scissors due to the black gloves she still wore. “Just ‘be creative’, that’s what Mrs. Shire said.”

“Not much to go on…” Selena whispered without thinking. “Yet they make 40k for it…” she added until she lifted her head to behold the surprised expressions of Deanna and Elsianna. “Did I say that out loud?” she asked in surprise. “I’m sorry…I’m just…” she tried shaking her head.

“Your mother is very tired.” Interjected Deanna, placing a hand on Elsianna’s shoulder. “She’s not as good with her words like she usually is.”

Selena – in her current state – almost snorted at that. Good with her words? How many times had she, accidentally, put her foot in her mouth with her ‘words’? She had honestly lost track. Whether it was Twitter or her promos. Hell, if she was half as good with her words as her past opponents like Vixen Cain and Syren and Ravyn, then Holly, Cid and Giovanni would barely have any material to throw at her beyond there over-exaggerations and parodies! Hell, Cid wouldn’t even have had Cookie in his clutches if she had just chosen her words better!

A sneeze from Elsianna brought Selena back to reality, sapphire eyes observing the young girl’s continued struggle with working the scissors with her gloves. 

“Sweetheart…” Selena tried. “You know you can take your gloves off, right?”

The wrestler regretted those words the moment they left her mouth as she watched Elsianna’s head jerk to stare at her mother, mouth hanging open a little. “I…I…” she stammered, unable to come up with a decent reason as to refute her mother’s advice. “Okay.” She whispered, placing the scissors down beside her.

Slowly, almost snail-like, Elsianna pulled off her gloves one at a time, her hands shaking and steadily increasing in that. The first glove came off, followed by the second. The white, miscolored, scarred flesh ran up both of her arms, starting at the wrist and travelling like a sea of scars across her entire forearm, reaching the elbow where they seemed to ‘lick’ the bicep in their approach. Selena saw her daughter, subconsciously, rub her arms with her hands, as if still trying to cover them before reaching for the scissors with one shaky hand, the other taking up a piece of what paper cardboard.

It was heartbreaking to watch for the Snow Queen. For if Elsianna had been struggling with the task while her gloves were on, her anxiety at having them off was making her hands shake so much that the paper was making little noises as it flapped in the air and against the shaking scissors-

“Elsa!” Selena suddenly cried out, not wanting to see any more of her child’s discomfort. Pale hands took the paper and scissor-holding hands gently. “Why…” she tried. “Why don’t I do the cutting and you can tell me what you want me to make and glue it all together. Okay?”

A look of relief seemed to wash over the white-blonde girl, who eagerly nodded her head before pulling her gloves back on, a long exhale escaping her as they were, once more, in their rightful place.

She’ll have to face that someday… Selena sighed as she held the red safety-scissors. “So…what will we start with? Clouds? Snow on the ground?”

In answer, Elsianna handed a dark-green piece to her mother. “Trees, then lake.” Elsianna declared. “Then we can add snow and maybe even some animals.”
“I can try and do a cut-out of a gray bunny.” Selena shrugged. “Or maybe a brown squirrel looking for nuts?”

The project continued in such a fashion for the next two hours, with mother and daughter working together to create shapes and patterns. Elsianna would ask Selena for a certain shape and Selena would cut it for her. Elsa would then, using a glue-stick, stick the shapes to a bigger cardboard piece that would be her ‘frame’ for the landscape-art. From the trees to the snowy-covered lands that surrounded the lake, they worked at the project, and for what it was worth, Selena did not, once, think about either Malcolm Scythe/Killjoy or Holly Adams/The Brand. She barely noticed Deanna watching them from the kitchen, the warm smile gracing the redhead’s face as she quietly tended to Oberon and Amiliah and David.

“This…” Deanna whispered to herself as she walked throughout the house, in the midst of doing some light laundry. “This is what she needs…”

While Selena would never admit it out-loud, her wife knew that Holly and The Brand had thrown Selena off her game, and she would be lying to herself if she hadn’t been thrown off a bit herself. From the planted ‘audience member’ (like Selena, she refused to believe a fan had chosen to attack her) costing Selena her match with Giovanni, to the blindsided attack by Cid after he had lost the title to Selena, to even things like Holly kicking out of the Glass Shard during the End of the Year match with that controversial finish – The Brand were holding more and more of the cards, always seeming to get one over on Selena and putting her wife more and more off her game.

It had been so different with Cid Turner. Yes, there had been words and underhanded attacks with a belt, but the matches themselves had, mostly, been what the Snow Queen had wanted. Matches of skills and ability, thanks to SCW management banning the Brand from ringside.

No such rule had been enforced for this upcoming weekend – despite THREE members jumping in and getting involved last time. It meant that, once again, she and Selena would probably be facing the entire Brand at Body, Heart and Soul. 

But that was only just part of the issue. As Selena had mentioned in her office, what had mostly thrown Selena off her game was Holly’s blatant invasion of their privacy. 

She wants Selena to think there’s no place for her to have her haven. Deanna thought as she bitterly folded clothes for David before placing them in the drawer in his room. It was beyond unreasonable. Did Holly think that just because she paraded her own fake, cheap, superficial life on television that Selena had to as well? That just because Holly was so desperate and attention-seeking that she was constantly filming herself that meant that she could do it to Selena too?

Selena wasn’t like that! Selena liked getting away from work to recharge and be, not a wrestler, but a wife and a mother. What was so wrong about that? Nothing… Deanna’s jaw clenched. But that bitch… she could swear in her mind. That bitch thinks she can film and record and twist it all – she thinks she can do that to anyone she wants just because no one in her circle tells her ‘no’…

Finishing the task, Deanna breathed a slow exhale. This was why she had tried to get Selena out of her office. She needed to see that their ‘forever home’ and the family she and Deanna were part of were still a haven for her. Still a place for her to refocus and get her head on right – which is what Selena needed if she had any hope to retain the world championship.

Making her way down the stairs and back to the main floor, the redhead had to jump to the side of the wall as she suddenly heard the platinum-blonde bolting past her. “It’ll be perfect!” Selena shouted as she ascended the stairs Deanna still stood on two-at-time, disappearing down the hall on the second floor and entering their bedroom. A few moments passed and the sound of drawers opening and closing filled Deanna’s ears until she, once again, heard the steps of fast-walking. This time, however, as the platinum-blonde bounded down the stairs, she was stopped by Deanna putting an arm in her path. 

As the platinum-blonde turned to Deanna, the redhead could see the eagerness and the excitement in her wife’s blood-shot eyes. The negative emotions were, still, on the edges of the sapphires, but the joy was winning out, if Selena’s smile was any further indication. Swept up in it, Deanna gave a smile of her own before moving her hand up Selena’s arm to cup her face, quietly moving in to steal a kiss from her beloved wife.

“Having fun?” she asked as she leaned away.

To answer her, Selena held up a bag of cotton balls – were those the ones from their bathroom that were used for rubbing alcohol? – and a tube of their Crest toothpaste.

“I’m sure there’s a connection…” Deanna started, eyeing each item. “But I’m not seeing it.”

To answer, all Selena did was lift and drop her eyebrows knowingly before leaning in again to kiss her wife’s cheek. With that done, she scampered down the stairs, back into the bigger gathering room where Elsianna was waiting. 

Now…it was at this point that Deanna had a choice. She could either continue to lament on Holly and the Brand and the many ways they were pissing her off by burdening her minx. Or… she mused… she could practice what she was preaching to Selena and let this place clear her mind and be part of the more important aspect of her life than The Brand’s BS… her family.

It was an easy decision to make.

Making her way down the stairs, she placed the empty hamper near the basement door before following Selena back into the room, just in time to see Selena squeezing the tube of toothpaste right in the middle of Elsianna’s picture!

“Whoa!” the redhead cried out, afraid that the exhaustion in Selena’s eyes was turning her into a ‘delirious scientist’ of sorts. “What are you doing?”

“Water!” Elsianna replied, standing up and pointing to the spot Selena had pushed the toothpaste onto. “Mother puts the toothpaste there and gently turns it with a toothpick so only parts of it turn white, indicating the parts that are frozen!”
“The rest of it will harden in its natural color.” Selena finished, already working on using the toothpick on the pile of paste.
“How did you think of that?” Deanna asked, somewhat surprised, earning a gaze from Selena, as well as an incredulous smirk from her.
“Really?” the Snow Queen asked. “Three kids that we have to remind every few nights to ‘rinse out your toothbrush and clean the sink after use’ and you wonder why I know that toothpaste hardens if left alone for a bit?”

“Fair point.” Deanna laughed. “And what about the cotton swabs?” she asked, watching as Elsianna pulled and stretched them into wisps.

“Snow clumps and wispy winds!” Elsianna replied. “This is going to look amazing!”

“Sure is!” Selena agreed as the two continued to work, adding cotton swabs to the trees and ground, with Deanna now helping to pull and stretch the swabs with Elsianna. Another hour passed of the three until the they heard the front door open, the loud barking of Oberon being heard as he scampered from his sleeping spot in the family room to rush to the door.

A few seconds passed before David, their second born, entered the room. 

“Hello, prince.” Selena smiled, dusting her hands off to make her way over to her son. “Did you have a good time at Clark’s?”

“Yeah…” David replied, but his tone seemed distant, somewhat somber – certainly not matching the tone of a boy that had just had a playday with a friend from the neighbourhood.

“What’s wrong?” Selena asked, kneeling to David’s height as she helped the boy out of his winter coat. “Something happen?”
“Umm…” David seemed to consider his words before talking. “We were walking past the ‘adult room’.”
“What’s the adult room?” Deanna asked as she overheard, immediately growing suspicious. 
“Well, there’s a kid room where the kids go to watch TV and play games.” David explained. “And the adult room where the adults go to watch TV and play games.”

The Frost wives shared a look, both women praying to Odin that ‘adult TV and games’ was not what it sounded like. “Ooookay…” Selena dragged out, only interrupted by a small cough from Elsianna as she continued to work on her art with Deanna. “So, what happened when you walked past the ‘adult room’?”

“I saw mommy.” David replied. “Both mommy and mother. On their TV.”

“OH!” Both women laughed in relief. “So you saw something about where we work, right?”
“Yeah…” David nodded his head. “But then there was a really angry woman yelling on the screen. She called you-“ he looked at Selena. “A witch and Selena Fraud. All the adults were laughing at that.”

Selena had to wince at that. She knew Clark’s family – the Winslows. Good people, kind people. Were they laughing at her?

“Some of the guys said that-“ he searched his mind, as if trying to remember what he could. “Holly would win because she was hotter looking. What does ‘temperture’ have to do with it?”

Perhaps it was her exhaustion, but Selena could not help rolling her eyes at that remark. Typical men… she thought. She had no delusions about her appearance. She wasn’t ‘beautiful’ compared to the bombshells and models like Syren, Sienna, Kelcey and, yes, Holly Adams. She never claimed to be a ‘stunning’ or ‘hot beauty’. Hell, there was a time that a “Hot or Not” list had been made on the SCW website, and Selena had DEFINITELY made the “Not” part of that list. Still, she was glad that ‘hotness’ had no factor in determining who was the better wrestler, and while, objectively speaking, Holly was a more attractive woman than Selena was, Deanna beat them both without even trying!

“It doesn’t, David.” Selena sighed. “They were just… having fun watching TV. Nothing wrong with that.”
“But they said you’d lose.” David replied. “And that woman said you were Selena Fraud. Why is she calling you that? Aren’t we Frost?”

“We are.” Selena assured, rubbing her son’s shoulders. “See, some people at work like to bully and call us names. Fraud is another word for ‘fake’ and the woman that was screaming? Well, she’s been saying I’m a fake.”

“But you’re not.” David tried, doing his best to grasp at what his mother was saying.

“No, she’s not!” Deanna assured, casting her glance over the table she stood at towards her wife and son, trying to simplify things further for the boy. “That woman screaming was just a bully calling us names. Remember when that boy at the Oberwesel zoo insulted Oberon because you said he was part wolf?” 

“Yeah…” David grumbled, remember that day they had all been kicked out of the zoo for misconduct.
“But what if you lose?” he asked, despite, Selena was sure, him not really knowing how exactly Selena ‘played’ at work.

“And I might.” She sighed. It was a real possibility. First, Holly was good enough to beat her on her own. She had proven that by beating Syren. Second, when she inevitably brought in the Brand, there was a chance that they could outnumber and overpower her, even with Deanna by her side. The Brand were a damn powerful group together – the World and Adrenaline Champion with Deanna only able to battle them to a no contest last Breakdown.

“I might lose.” Selena admitted. “And that…that would suck.” Quickly, she held up a hand towards Deanna to prevent the redhead from interjecting again. “But what happens when we get knocked down, David?”
The boy looked up to his mother. “Pick ourselves up?”
“And it’s not about how many times you get knocked down, is it?”
“It’s about how many times you can get back up.” David repeated, remembering the lessons his mothers had instilled on him, Elsianna and Amiliah for years.

“Right.” Selena smiled, reaching out to ruffle the boys hair, which still had a few specks of fallen snow from the outside. “Now go take a hot bath before you get sick from the cold.”

Behind her, Elsianna gave a small sneeze, earning her mother’s attention. “You too, Elsianna. I’ll make some hot chocolate for everyone.”

“With marshmallows?!” David asked, giving a whoop and a holler as Selena nodded her head. With no further prodding needed, the boy scampered up the steps to the bathroom to grab a hot shower, Elsianna quietly leaving, after giving her thanks to her mothers, her landscape homework in tow.

Alone in the room with Deanna, Selena moved over to the kitchen to get to work making the promised beverages for her children, using the proper cocoa powder with a bit of heated water and milk. A sigh escaped her as she stirred the contents with a spoon.

“Least they’re not being harassed at school about what she’s saying.” Selena replied before giving a yawn. “Last thing I want is for them to go through what I did…”
“With Gavin?” The question came from Deanna, and Selena nodded to it.

In a way, her past with the younger Scythe, was the reason why she could handle so much of the bully-tactics that Holly employed. Her children… she wanted to spare them that, even though she couldn’t 100% do that, as was the case with Elsianna and Aaron Stanton years ago.

“I’m scared.” The voice came from a whisper from Selena as she gazed down at the brown and white drinks she was stirring. “How long before she brings her camera-folk here? How long before she starts showing up at our kids’ school or something? Like she wants to ‘read them a story’ again or whatever crap excuse she conjures up?”

“The school wouldn’t do that without contacting us.” Deanna assured, moving up behind Selena to wrap her arms around Selena’s waist, the Snow Queen leaning into the warm body of her wife.

“I wish I could believe that.” Selena thought. “But I didn’t think Holly would stoop so low as to spy on us. And Cid Turner broke into our bus to deliver that desperate letter to come to his complex – for Odin’s sake, he wanted to impregnate you! And we both know how truly sick Giovanni is.”

She felt Deanna’s head nod against her neck, the touch comforting but the confirmation not so.

“You’re worried you’re losing your haven.” Deanna whispered.
The platinum-blonde gave a long sigh. “Yes.” she whispered back, lowering her head, her hands splaying out onto the counter next to the mugs filled with liquid chocolate. “I’m so scared that Holly’s going to go too far. And if she does… if she brings her vapid cast and superficial show here… just to mess with me…”

Her throat bobbed at the thought and her heart sank. It would be so easy for Holly to ‘show up’ at Elsianna or David’s class with ‘a book to read’ – or, gods forbid, Giovanni Aries... It was as terrifying as Xander showing up outside her gates while she was at Breakdown or outside her bus with her wife inside years ago!

“I should be thinking about ways to beat her in the ring!” Selena spat angrily. “Not if my children are safe in my own home and in my own city!”

Deanna’s arms tightened around Selena’s waist, her lips pressing a soft, kiss, desperately trying to calm the platinum-blonde. They remained standing there for what seemed like several minutes…

“We need a break.” Came Deanna’s voice as she turned Selena around to face her.
“What?” Selena asked, reaching up a hand to rub at her eye, heavy from the crashing effect of the energy shot she had taken.
“We need a break – you most of all.” Deanna explained. “They got to us a few weeks ago with that bugging the title thing. And if we keep letting them get to us whenever they so much as tweet or say something stupid, we’re not going to be able to beat them next weekend.”

“So, what are you suggesting?” Selena asked patiently, her voice sounding tired.
“We go out.” Deanna shrugged. “No kids, no wrestling. Just us – like we use to in order to get away from all of this.”
The platinum-blonde tilted her head. “A ‘break’ date, huh?”

The redhead gave another shrug but the excitement in her voice was not lost on the older Frost. “Think about it. We get away for one night. We recharge! Reclaim our haven!” 
“Reclaim our haven?” Selena asked, a chuckle in her voice.

“Yeah…” Deanna nodded, biting her lower lip in thought for a moment. “I want her to pay too, okay?” she admitted. “You think I like that she invaded our privacy? For all that stuff she’s said about us, our marriage, about your career- the fact that you don’t feel safe here.”
“Deanna-“ Selena tried before she felt warm fingers pressing into her pale lips, silencing her.

“No. I know you don’t.” Deanna interjected. “At least not like you should. You’re so worried about a spy-cam or someone coming in or whatever that you’re wearing yourself out and you’re playing right into Holly’s hands! She doesn’t want you at your best like you would for her. She wants you easy prey so she can just take the title. She doesn’t care how she does it as long as she gets it! And that… that isn’t you. That isn’t us.”

Selena remained silent for a moment, weighing her wife’s words in her mind. “So, you think a date will solve that?” she asked.
“One night – no work, no wrestling, no Holly. Just two people who love each other finding a moment of happiness together.” Her volume dropped lower. “Like we use to…” causing a sigh to escape from the Snow Queen.
“We use to talk about wrestling all the time.” Selena countered. “Even on dates.”
“And if that happens naturally, so be it.” Deanna offered. “But we can’t just stay here and wallow.”

This wasn’t some date/booty call that they would laugh about later. Deanna was genuinely worried. Selena could see that even in her current state. And she had a point. Holly’s actions were different than most people she had fought against in the past. In Holly’s case, it was less worried about inside the ring and more outside that took up Selena’s mind. The interferences, the tactics, the desperate acts Holly had done… but if she kept thinking of it. If she let Holly keep having such a large living space in her head…

Then Selena’s reign as world champion would end this Sunday and all her and Deanna’s work to make the title worth something would have fallen to one who used the title as a damn spy-tool, no different than the last one before Selena, who had used it with a fake title to promote a fake brotherhood…

“Alright.” Selena smiled. “Why not? Let’s do it.”
“Really?” Deanna asked. 
“Sure!” Selena smiled, reaching up to caress her wife’s face. “In fact, I say we go all the way with this whole ‘like we use to’.”
“What do you mean?” Deanna asked, a bit surprised.

“I’m thinking…” Selena lowered her head and whispered. “Tony’s?”
Emerald eyes went wide. “Tony’s Di Napoli?!” she almost shrieked happily, throwing her arms around Selena, who caught her, though just barely. “This is going to be so wonderful!”

“I hope so.” Selena whispered before gently disengaging from Deanna to give another yawn. “So, Friday?” she asked mid-yawn.
“Sure.” Deanna nodded.
“Okay.” Selena nodded. “You think you could give the kids their drinks when they come downstairs. I have to get back to studying Malcolm’s notes.”

“Oh…” Deanna looked back for a moment before staring up at Selena’s red eyes, once more seeing the bags underneath them. “Yeah, sure… just… can you do one more thing for me?” she asked, thinking quickly.
“I guess.” Selena shrugged and was surprised when Deanna took her by the hand and lead her to sit on the couch with her.

“I just need your help to help me do my cleansing breaths.” She explained, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Just take my hand and close your eyes with me.”

A little surprised, Selena still did as she was told. “Okay, now what?”
“Now just count backwards from 100 as I breath. That should help.” Deanna replied, her eyes closed and her back straight.

“Alright.” Selena shrugged. “100…99…98….97…….96…….95………..94………”

The time between numbers grew longer and Deanna could hear Selena taking longer breaths in-between numbers. Sneaking one eye open, she spied her wife slowly wobbling a little to the left and right.

“56……………….55…………..54……………”

Slowly and gently, Deanna reached out around her wife’s shoulder, gently pulling on it to guide Selena to fall into her waiting arms. Catching the Snow Queen, Deanna let them both fall until they were lying on the couch, the world champion of SCW safe in her wife’s arms. Selena’s voice stopped and was replaced by a quiet, calm breathing as Deanna ran a hand through her wife’s platinum-blonde hair. As she heard the children coming down the stairs for their hot chocolate, she signaled to them with a finger to her lips.

Seeing her mothers in such a state, Elsianna nodded her head before stopping David from entering the room. Keeping him quiet with silent-sign directions, the eldest tiptoed across the kitchen, grabbed the mugs and tiptoed back to David, the two disappearing into the basement to leave their mothers alone.

I’ve got you… Deanna whispered as she held her wife in her arms. Even if they expose and ruin all of this… I will always be here. She gently kissed her beloved’s crown. I will always be your haven…

The camera fades in to reveal Selena Frost sitting in wide, tuft velvet chair, surrounded by a wall of bookshelves and carpeted floor. She wears black pants and a dark purple blouse, the colors contrasting the platinum-blonde of her hair. The SCW world title is, surprisingly, absent. With one leg crossed over the other, Selena strums her fingers together.

”My stepmother had a saying…” she says a little wistfully, as if in memory. ”If it looks like a duck, walks likes a duck, quacks like a duck – then it’s a duck.”

Slowly, the Snow Queen lifts her head, revealing the clear, bright sapphire eyes that look off in thought of the memory. ”And that duck can do a hundred different things. It can change its colors, it can try and walk more than it flies. It can try and quack in a different language, it will still, forever be a duck”…

With a sad smile, Selena shakes her head before returning her gaze to the camera. I hated that saying. I always strived to never believe that. I always believed that perception determines your reality and if you try hard enough, you can do anything. You could be anything. Hell, my path up to this point – this championship – is proof of that. I came in here eight years ago, and people just wanted to write me off. They were saying I was some kind of ‘ripoff’. And I know I shouldn’t use this term, but let’s face it, me putting my foot in my mouth isn’t something new: They said I was ‘one-dimensional’. They said that I lacked the ‘it’ factor to be anything more than a ‘curtain-jerker’ or, AT BEST, an ‘enhancement talent’. she uses her fingers for the air quotes before resting them in her lap.

And I took that doubt with me. I carried it and, I won’t lie, I didn’t just shrug it off. I didn’t beat it back right away. No. It got to me. It plagued me, and I will get to that in a little bit, I promise.

But the thing is, today, just like then, I believe that anything is possible for the individual. I believe that if you work hard enough, you can be anything. You don’t have to be ‘a duck’! kicking her leg off her knee, Selena sits a bit straighter in the chair, her expression tensing.

Which brings me to Holly Adams… Pausing for a moment, the Face of SCW shakes her head. You know, my wife wanted me to ‘save this promo for later’. She wanted me to wait till I was sitting in the ring in the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan, to say this, simply because I was facing Holly Adams. Because she knew, just as I know, that once this hits the airwaves, Holly and her ‘team’ of writers and ‘consultants’ and ‘editors’ and whoever the hell else she has on her payroll are going to do what they do best and try and rip it to shreds – try and twist it into something ugly. And it won’t matter if what she says has no basis in the realms of truth or reality, she will do and say whatever she wants on her little ‘studio show’ to accomplish that. And my Deanna didn’t want what I had to say – the message that means so much to me – to be tainted in such a way…

A little frustratingly, Selena runs a hand through her medium-length hair. Because Holly Adams, hell the Brand in general, that is what they do. Just as my stepmother did, Holly looks at me and screams “Evil! Villain! Fraud!”. And while I don’t look like a villain… she checks herself over.

While I don’t sound like a villain…

While I don’t act like a villain…

Holly has gone out of her way to try and make me out to be one. From paying some poor actor to look like me and dress up like the Wicked Witch, to stalking my wife’s and my Twitter profile with her ‘less than subtle’ tweets, to bugging the World title belt so she can listen in on a private conversation between wives, she has done all she can to try and make people thinks I ‘act and talk’ like one – tried so hard to make me out to be the ‘duck’ in this war between the House of Frost and The Brand.

Taking a long breath, Selena slowly shakes her head Eight years I’ve been doing this, Holly. Eight years I have dealt with people just like you. People that pointed at me and said I was ‘fake’. In my early years, Autumn Valentine, a rising star at the time – the SCW Women’s Champion – looked at me and said that I was a fraud. She said that I was in it only for me and that there was NO WAY anyone was as ‘good’ or ‘noble’ or ‘caring of SCW’ as I was. There had to be an angle in it for me! There had to be some kind mask I was wearing and that a ‘fake bitch’ like me would never surpass someone like her. Now? While she is an extraordinary talent – while she is a record-holder and a Star of Tomorrow… only one of us has ever held the world title…

The current United States Champion Christy Matthews – for years – has fought me over and over and over again. And, whether she was in it for her legacy and reputation or in it for herself, and trust me, with her, there IS a difference, she has always been the same with me, uttering such words as ‘fraud’ and ‘fake’ and ‘liar’ and ‘manipulator’ – words that have been thrown at me by my opponents for years. For years, Christy Matthews shouted that she would always be better than me, would never let someone like me get past her. And, unlike Autumn, she used everything she could get to try and keep that promise. She bent the rules, she aligned with Katya D., sold out SCW, hell, she was in a match with me where her associate, Alexander Crowe, was the guest referee! Selena chuckles at that. Now? She may be a Hall of Famer, but there is a reason why it took her about ten years to become Supreme Champion and that’s because I was there, beating her over and over again!

If possible, her expression darkens a little… And then there were men like Vixen Cain and Xander Valentine. Men that decided that they could stop at nothing to ‘expose me’. Men that came after me. After my family. Xander attacked by bus with my wife inside with a damn sledgehammer. He stalked my home outside the gates, proving he was ‘so close’ to where my children would sleep. Vixen Cain kidnapped me, my friend, and my son for a joyride – all hoping that they could make me ‘snap’! That they could make me cast off my morals and my beliefs and ‘embrace the hatred’ and the dark…

I knocked one out in record time and I drove the other out of SCW!

Holding up her hand, Selena waits a second before speaking again. Now, you may hear all of that and you may think that Holly is nowhere that diabolical, but that isn’t the point I was getting at. In truth, you’d be wrong. In truth, Holly is worse than all of them – and this is where I give props to you, Holly. See, once they faced me in the ring, after they took me on and realized that they had failed, they tucked their tail between their legs and scampered off. 

But you?

You have worked harder than anyone I have ever had to deal with when it comes to trying to ‘expose’ me. Because I know those sound and recording studios? That ‘recording tech’? That doesn’t come cheap. You have sunk so much into trying to force the square block into the round circle, haven’t you? Tried so hard to paint me as this “scared” and “insecure” and “lying” woman while, in the same breath, proclaiming yourself as this ‘favourite of the people’. This ‘good’ and ‘wholesome’ woman.

A smirk of disbelief crosses Selena’s features. And it doesn’t matter how many times I prove you wrong. How many times you prove yourself wrong with your words and your actions. I’m “this” and you’re “that”, right?

And why? What is your obsession with that? What is your obsession with painting me in a certain light? In a certain color? Why do you point your finger and shout the same declarations and accusations of me? Why am I the proverbial ‘duck’ to you? the platinum-blonde allows a moment of silence to let the questions settle.

The reason, True Believers, is because this is all Holly Adams can do. At End of the Year, I gave Holly Adams a challenge. I told her that she could remove all doubt in her abilities as, not only a wrestler, but as a leader of The Brand. I told her that she could achieve so much to the point where she no longer had to pretend as she has for months with her ‘Supreme Champion’ status and being ‘the favourite wrestler of all the people of SCW’. She could be something inspiring.

All she had to do was fight me on her own. All she had to do is what Cid Turner – CID TURNER, people - tried to do and try and be the better wrestler. Sapphire eyes glare into the camera.

I dared you, Holly, to take that risk. To rise up to that level where I stand with the world championship and prove your words at being ‘better than me’ and ‘beating me with ease’ and, hell, ‘being the REAL Face of SCW’ – not for me and not even for the fans that genuinely voted for you (because according to Giovanni, there are millions) but for yourself and for the name and integrity of The Brand and your clients… 

And before the bell even rang, you refused. You had your ‘spiritual advisor’, though I think the better-term is ‘spiritual enforcer’ waiting under the ring to save you. To ambush me and give you the clear opening you could have used to steal the world championship.

Disappointed, and perhaps a little bitter, Selena shakes her head. And when that didn’t work, Cid Turner and Cookie were the backup to your backup. You want to know why the fans were booing, Holly? It wasn’t because I accidentally knocked you in the head with the title belt. It wasn’t because Cookie inserted herself into the ring, into our match, for the sole purpose of doing what Giovanni did and laying me out for you. It was because you had no intention of proving yourself right. You had no intention of backing up your words and giving these people a worthy SCW World title match. All you cared about was that you became the world champion…

But, much like the duck scenario, when you failed to do that, you screamed loud that you had ‘exposed’ me that night. That, while it was YOUR people interfering in the match while Deanna and I tried our best to return to what it SHOULD have been – a 1-on-1 showcase of SCW’s talent – you “succeeded in exposing me as a coward and a fraud”.

The Snow Queen keeps her eyes on the camera as she shakes her head. No, Holly. What you did was expose yourself. I dared you to face me one-on-one and you couldn’t do it. I dared you to reach my level, my standard, of wrestling for SCW and the World Championship and you failed to reach it – worse, you REFUSED to even try to reach it.

And that’s why you’ve been so after me, haven’t you? Because you are too scared to reach for my level, you have been doing all you can to bring me down to yours. You have hired teams and actors, spend so much money, simply to twist the narrative, extract some audio, anything to make me out to be some kind of evil witch, just so you don’t have to work hard and reach my level.

And while it has been amazing to watch you fail in doing so, Holly, I am done with it. I am done listening to you try and drag my name and the name of my wife and the family through the mud like you have with SCW and the World title with your vapid, illogical, superficial insults – I am done with listening to you twist the narrative, lying when the truth would sound better.

She points to the camera – to the woman she knows is watching. Because you? You think that I’m afraid of change. That I’m afraid of ‘the changing of the guard’. That I’m terrified of being without the world title, scared of being replaced as “The Face of SCW”, blah blah blah blah blah. 

Selena’s head tilts left and right before settling back into its cold stare. Holly, if I was afraid of any of that, then it would be me with the friends hiding under the ring, ready to take you out. It would be me using a chair against a guy in a bear suit and throwing said chair into the face of a masked rookie just to get ahead in a tag match. It would be me paying off audience members to run in and interfere in your matches just to increase your loss record. It would be me sending Deanna to jump you from behind as you made your way down to the ring. It would be me begging SCW to “VOTE FOR ME” by posting the same photoshop button 20, 30, 40 times across Twitter and bullying every single person that is in my way. And it would be me hiding in that film studio, acting tough in front of a look-alike in green makeup rather than marching to the ring to take you out!

You know, I’m surprised Cid or your advisor, GiGi, hasn’t stopped you from mouthing off with that line, Holly. Cause they know me better than you, but I’ll lay it out for you so even you can understand. I went four years without being considered for the SCW World title by management. There hasn’t been a world title I have lost that hasn’t ended with some kind of, at least, attempted interference or controversy from my opponent. I was passed over time and time again while people like Sienna Swann and Syren and Bree Lancaster were handed opportunity after opportunity. 

And for four years, I had to watch as the world title was dragged through the proverbial mud. Where most of the champions relied, as you do, not on their talents, but on their friends to bail them out when they were getting beaten. Over and over again, I have seen it. I have seen what obsession for this title does to people. People have sold their souls to hold it. They have traded in their morals for it. They have screwed over more deserving people, cheated others out of it, and turned their back on SCW to simply say they are the SCW World Champion! Don’t believe me? Remind me how Cid Turner and Asher Hayes became “Co-World Champions”… A knowing smile graces Selena’s lips, a pale hand placing itself over her chest. 

This is where it gets unique. Finally, there is one person with a set of ideals and morals and beliefs that doesn’t sellout or buckle or take the payout. A person that simply does what the catchphrase says… she smiles genuinely, proudly. I believe.

I believe in SCW, Holly. I believe that SCW can be better than what it has been. I believe the world title can be better than what you and Cid and Asher and others turned it into when you had it. I believe that the SCW Universe believe in that too and I believe in them.

Licking her lips, Selena looks down for a moment, as if to think before shaking her head to look back up. It’s not about being afraid of ‘losing the world title’ because one day, I know that will happen. One day, I will, once again, no longer be the world champion. I’m not afraid of that day, Holly.

It's not about fearing the ‘changing of the guard’. What all this is is that I know what losing the world title to you will do…

Because, let’s face it, Holly, we know how this match is going to go. It’s not hard to determine. I will set the standard and when she can’t reach it, Holly Adams is going to bring out Giovanni, Cid, Cookie, maybe she’ll even give Asher Hayes a call and have him jump back in too. But one thing is for sure: Holly Adams will never rise to the challenge to fight Selena Frost by herself. Because Holly Adams is too afraid to take that risk. Holly Adams is too afraid to reach for that bar, regardless of her talents and her potential. Holly Adams is too afraid to be ‘the hero’ that she paints herself as.

And I know that I’m not special to you. This isn’t a ‘single-case’ event. You beat me? You become World Champion? You’ll just go over to the next person in the same way. All I gotta do is say words like “forehead” and “Starbucks” and people will know EXACTLY what I mean when it comes to Holly Adams…

Her tone drops a little. And instead of classic “match of the year candidates” against wrestlers like Syren or Glory Braddock or Jordan Majors or even Kandis, we’ll get you whining and crying on your TV-show, whining and crying on SCW, and matches where you rely on The Brand to keep you the champion, following in the tactics of Infamous, The Beauty Network, and countless others. Matches that don’t define supreme championship wrestling, but mock it!

Selena’s jaw tightens at the thought. And I’m not ready to let that happen again, Holly. I’m not ready to let SCW go through that again. Not when I can do something about it. Not when I can be the world champion and give the SCW Universe those match-of-the-year candidates. Not when I can give SCW the world title matches that you are too afraid to give them.

Her lips suddenly break into a knowing smile. And that… that’s what really sticks in your craw, doesn’t it, Holly? That, no matter what you say, what you do, how you twist things? You can’t bring me down to your level. You throw the Brand at me, you record me secretly, you insult my wife, my appearance, my makeup, my eyes, you discredit everything about me and you cry on Breakdown “WE’VE DONE IT! WE’VE EXPOSED SELENA FRAUD!”- nope.

The people still chant “We Believe!” when they see me. They still chant “We Believe!” when they watch me wrestle. Because they aren’t your simple crew and your paid audience in your promos and studios, Holly. They speak for themselves. They speak their mind. And they know that I’ll rise above what you say and do. I’ll rise above what you throw in my way, Holly. More than that, I will always be the world champion they want to see and, the kicker of it all? I’ll be the world champion they want… and I’ll win. I’ll overcome the numbers, the cheap ploys, the excuses, the lies made by you and so many others in the back that can’t handle me – people that are BEGGING for me to turn that alignment! GO HEEL! PROVE US RIGHT – people that want me to be the “duck”. Nope. Selena grins.

I refuse to let someone else’s definition of me determine who I am… 

You know, you made a REALLY interesting statement in that little parody of yours – when you ‘melted me with water’ and went on that tangent? You said that the 2014 version of me would hate what I have become, in reference to success…

Let me educate you a little bit, Holly. In 2014, I didn’t care about anything but surviving and getting a paycheck. I was drinking myself into oblivion in 2013 because of the hell I was going through at Nome. I left that all behind to come here and take a gamble on my future. And in 2014, I was still that scared little girl. I was scared of failure, I was scared of losing everything and being fired. I was scared of looking weak. And above it all, I didn’t believe in myself about anything. I spent 2014 mostly lying to myself about who I was and what I was. I had to suffer setback and heartache to come to terms with who I was when the old me would have repressed it and hidden it as if it was something that I was ashamed of.

2014 me would never have believed that I could become World Champion – check the tapes if you don’t believe me. 2014 me would never have believed that I would go from a rookie, to an underdog, to a fan-favourite in the span of 3 years. 2014 me would never have believed that not only would I find a place here in SCW, that SCW would come to mean more to me than just a paycheck. It would become a home, a place where I could be myself and be accepted for that…

Taking a slow breath, a full, kind smile graces Selena’s lips. Most of all, 2014 me would never have believed that she would fall in love like I have. That she would find, not just some fling, but the real deal. That she would find a partner in life and in wrestling, that she would have a family of three kids when she thought she would never have any. That she would suffer some of the darkest moments of her life and yet come out of them with her beloved in her arms and a family by her side, stronger than ever. That she would become an inspiration to men and women and children everywhere – that she would be more than “the crazy miner’s daughter” that her world had painted her as…

She slowly looks up at the camera. You say that 2014 would look at me and see a sellout, Holly? That she would be ashamed of me? Then you didn’t know me then and you sure as hell don’t know me know!

Because you sure as hell can’t say the same thing can you? Like I said, you overcoming your addictions is something that I actually respect about you. But to throw it back at you, what would THAT Holly Adams think of you now?

The woman that sold out the people that trained her and made her.
The woman that screwed over countless wrestlers so she could get ahead.
The woman that hides behind her “Brand” rather than stand her ground and fight like she did against her addictions?
The woman that, rather than make herself better to reach a higher standard, does all she can to just lower that standard?
The woman that chose “Payments of $29.99” over integrity and heart?

Body, Heart and Soul, Holly… I will not care how you paint me. I will not care how you scream and declare me to be something I am not. I will not be your ‘duck’. I will not be your ‘wicked witch’. I will not be your ‘villain’ no matter how hard you try and how many lies and twists you need to tell.

Her hands coming together, Selena cracks her knuckles, an excited smile forming on her face. What I will be is the woman that is kicking your ass. And that will be a truth – a fact – a moment in history – that you will NOT be able to change.

“Selena Frost is evil, but she kicked my ass!”
“Selena Frost is a witch, but she kicked my ass!”
“Selena Frost got lucky, but she kicked my ass!”

“Selena Frost is still world champion…” her smile widens. ”And she kicked my ass!”

Believe it, Holly! She shrugs with a smile. Or don’t… I honestly don’t give a duck.

The camera fades on the smiling Snow Queen before fading to black.

Tony’s Di Napoli
1081 3rd Avenue New York, New York
January 21st, 2022
6:53pm

Selena sat quietly at the table, her breathing calm after the near panic she had had in fear of missing their reservation. Fortunately, the maître d’ had assured her that she was on time and had escorted her to her table, even giving her a once over appraisal of her dress – a far cry than the first time she had been here.

Quietly, Selena observed herself. She had chosen a dress that held a flowing double-skirt, the top layer white to match her corset, and the under layer a dark purple that matched the embroidery of said corset. The sleeves were white with only a purple accent at the wrist, and the shoulder coverings were the same dark purple. If Selena walked the right way – and years of being ‘trained’ by Anastasia DeCarlo had forced her to do so on instinct – the purple of the skirt could be seen through the high slit that ran to the middle of her thigh, revealing matching slippers. Her hair was tied back at the top but flowed freely at the bottom and she had matching eyeliner, the dark purple of her dress, only a little to as to accentuate the sapphire of her eyes. She kept her lips pale and devoid of lipstick… she knew she was going to be kissing her ‘date’ many times and had no desire to ruin her wife’s face with it.

Taking a moment, the Snow Queen took stock of the room, her eyes scanning the low-arched ceilings of bricks of the Italian restaurant. Little had changed and she was grateful for it. She saw only a few other people in the room with her, sitting at their tables quietly. No one paid her any mind, sitting in the quiet corner by the wine racks – again, something she was grateful for.

Deanna had been right. This was needed. Her haven had been shaken by Holly Adams’ actions and the actions of the Brand. They had instilled doubt and she wanted to be free of all that, if only to get her head on straight and be more ready for her match with Holly at Body, Heart and Soul.

The waiter introduced himself but Selena quickly, and politely sent him away, explaining she was still waiting for her date – although she did make one special order. After waking up in her wife’s arms a few days ago, Selena had made all the arrangements and instructions for the staff on where to take Deanna when the redhead arrived…

I can’t believe we still do this… Selena smiled to herself. In ‘this’, she was referring to how she and her wife ‘dated’. Six years of marriage and they still had these date nights once in a while, where they would either ‘meet’ at a place or one would ‘pick up the other’, allowing for the ‘surprises’ that came with ordinary dates. Deanna had chosen to ‘meet up’ and, as had become the usual with them, Selena had no idea how her wife would look or even when she would appear.

We did say 7pm… she thought as she perused the menu, steering clear of the alcoholic beverage section of drinks. I hope she didn’t get stuck in traffic… The thought worried her, because it was a slippery slope into worrying about worse events, given the New York City street life that could happen.

For Selena, she had dressed and left an hour ago, ensuring plenty of time to get here fully prepared. When she had called out to Deanna that she was leaving and would see her there, the redhead had just shouted that she’d ‘see her there’ before jumping into the shower. Did she take a cab? That would have been the smart thing, Selena surmised as it would allow her to take Deanna home with her vehicle.

Quietly, she took a deep breath to calm herself. Deanna was as much a New Yorker as Selena was. She knew the streets and how to keep safe – more than that, she knew how to take care of herself. Hell, she had proven that last Breakdown.

I still can’t believe she floored Cid Turner… and almost won us the match by pinning Giovanni! a familiar swell of pride filled her chest. It didn’t matter to the Snow Queen that her wife hadn’t won a match yet. She was getting better every time she was in the ring and Selena knew it would only be a matter of time before her beloved started achieving her own wins when matches came her way.

Maybe… she bit her lower lip, allowing her mind to drift a little in musing. What if she became a champion… while I held the World title… or maybe in a few years, we became tag-team champions together… The first was beyond possible. Why not? Did not they have a television title for newcomers like Deanna? And Syren and Ravyn had been married and tag-team champions many times! Anything was possible…

And Selena could not deny the butterflies such ideas gave her. She had already been tag-team champions with her sister, Regan, and shared such beautiful moments with her wife like the main-event at Rise to Greatness – “The Unbelievable Main Event” – she could only imagine how it would feel if she could watch Deanna be the one winning titles and smiling at her the way Selena had smiled at the redhead when the Snow Queen had won such matches… 

Selena closed her eyes and sent a quiet prayer for it… if it was in the cards… She still needs more time and I need to get past Holly and the Brand-

The sound of footsteps filled her ears and, immediately, she jerked her head up, banishing any thoughts of work from her mind, as promised by the Frost wives days ago. Sadly, it was only one of the waiters, walking to another table. With another calming breath, Selena felt it almost hitch as she spied the maître-d walk into view, gesturing towards her table with his hand and a smile. 

Immediately, Selena pushed herself out of her chair and to her feet, just in time to see the waterfall of red hair stroll into sight. 

And the Snow Queen almost laughed out loud. 

For as the redhead drew closer, Selena spied her black jeans, her dark-green sweater, and her long, charcoal-gray coat – a casual dress that was both funny and beautiful on her wife.

Lifting her gaze up, sapphire eyes met emerald ones, and Selena gazed upon an equally surprised and amused expression on her wife as the younger Frost took in the sight of her minx.

“Oh no…” Deanna said in a wisp.
“I know.” Exhaled Selena, shaking her head in disbelief as they stood only a few feet away from each other.

“Not again.” They both said at the same time, the laughter clear in their voices.

***************************************

Tony’s Di Napoli
1081 3rd Avenue New York, New York
April 24th, 2015
7:03pm

“Crap…crap…crap…” Selena huffed as she ran down the street, trying hard to jump and dart around any pedestrian that was travelling down the same sidewalk as her. The wind was blowing quite a bit and the rain had just started to fall, but she kept running. “I am so late…” she whispered as she ran. “Great going, Selena. She’s going to think you’re a flake!”

She almost bowled into an old woman walking her dog but managed to side-step in time before turning the right corner and reach the door to the restaurant, flinging it open and rushing inside. Stopping to take a deep breath, the young wrestler shook her coat carefully to remove any raindrops that had fallen on her and checked her hair, tied up in its iconic braid. 

“Hi…” she spoke as she turned her head towards the man standing at the podium, who regarded her ‘entrance’ into the establishment with a look of surprise. “I’m sorry about the loud entrance – just uh… I was running late, because of parking and…” the man said nothing, merely patiently waiting for Selena to finish speaking, which her embarrassment caused her to do. “Umm… reservations for 7pm under ‘Frost/Springs’.” She bit her lower lip, looking down at her hands, wishing she could make herself invisible and just sneak into the restaurant and appear in at the right table.

“Right this way.” The man replied, guiding with his hand further into the Italian dinery. Gulping a little, and perhaps to avoid any death glares from the people who were still waiting to be seated, Selena silently obeyed the man, following behind him.

“You said you were stuck in traffic?” he offered, trying to strike up a conversation.
“Yes…” Selena whispered, reaching up with both hands to squeeze and tug on her platinum-blonde braid, which was only a little damp from the rain – she had been lucky. “I mean…it was actually trying to find a parking spot. I ended up having to go three blocks away.”

“Heh…” the man laughed. “New York, am I right?”

“I guess.” Selena replied. In truth, she had only been living in Manhattan, in a small abode, for about 16 months now, of which she had spent most of her time travelling between SCW, IWC, and other promotions, preventing her from really staying there long enough to ‘learn the ways of New Yorkers’. Still, she didn’t really need to know the people of the city. If they were anything like Nome, then being ‘distant’ and ‘unknown’ to them was all for the better, she was sure.

Besides, tonight wasn’t about them…

Turning the corner, Selena’s eyes took in the archways of bricks and stone that lined the ceilings and walls, like Tusken-Italian style, or at least it seemed that way to her. She could see the multiple tables set out and many people filling the room with their conversations and enjoyment of the evening. 

Yet, as her eyes scanned the room, she couldn’t see the one person she wanted to. She was about to ask the suited man, but he was quickly on the move again, making the shorter woman follow. He only walked another twenty or so strides until he reached the end of the room.

And there… sitting in the corner at her own table-

Selena’s breath hitched in her throat as she beheld the woman. She was beautiful. She wore a form-fitting emerald-green gown that shined a little under the light. Her hair, as red as Selena’s was white, was loose in the back with two braids wrapped around and tied at the back of her head, her face gazing over the menus. 

“Ahem.” The guide cleared his throat, earning the attention of the young woman, who looked up and, upon finding Selena’s eyes, smiled brightly, pushing herself out of her chair. “You made it!” her voice, like a song, lifted as she made her way over to Selena, immediately reaching out to take her by the elbows. “I was just about to call your cell.”

“I’m sorry.” Selena half-laughed. “I couldn’t find a parking space. I spent twenty minutes looking and then running-“ she stopped as she spied movement from the corner of her eye, but it was only the gentleman - the correct term is maître-d. Selena finally reminded herself – excusing himself, leaving the two women alone.

With the break in their greetings, Deanna Springs was finally able to regard her date. “Wow.” She smiled. “I feel like we both had different ideas of dress for a date.”

Biting her lower lip, Selena regarded herself fully and, immediately, felt the wave of shame fill her. There her date was, dressed to the nines, looking like something from Esquire or from a movie… she was close enough that she could see the way Deanna had added a touch of makeup to her eyes and cheeks to make her features pop. How her dress held a bit of cleavage but not distastefully so like she had seen for several of the women she wrestled in SCW and elsewhere. 

In short, Selena’s date looked stunning and Selena felt the attraction immediately, like she always did with Deanna. And here the wrestler was, dressed in black jeans, a magenta shirt, and her leather jacket. It was like a biker or some kind of gangster trying to date the epitome of a noble lady.

“I’m so sorry…” she tried, pulling away to wrap her arms around herself, her eyes now locked on the floor. “I can’t believe I didn’t think… I thought that we would just-“ she felt her body shake with uncertainty and doubt. Was this all a mistake? Was it a sign that she and Deanna were so apart and mismatched – that they were wrong for each other? Yes, they had been through so much since Selena had met her in Kentucky over a month and some ago, and clearly there was some kind of chemistry there if those kisses after the Snow Queen’s match at SCW’s Flawless was any indication…

But what kind of idiot fucks up their first date like this?

“Hey…hey…” she felt warm hands take hers and looked up to see Deanna smiling gently at her. “In all fairness, I did say ‘wear whatever you’re comfortable wearing’.”

“Yeah, and I should have known that was code for ‘something other than what you usually wear’.” She looked down to regard herself again, feeling like she was wearing a garbage bag compared to the lady standing before her.

A pair of fingers went under her chin, lifting it up to allow sapphire eyes to meet emerald ones. “I think you look gorgeous.” Deanna smiled, her words causing the older woman to half-laugh, half-scoff.
“Compared to you?” she asked. “You’re…you’re… I don’t have the words to say how beautiful you are.”
“Ooo.” Deanna teased, tilting her head playfully. “Such a charmer.”

Biting her lower lip, Selena looked away, her nervousness getting the best of her. With the night already starting off rocky with her being late and, clearly, in the wrong state of attire, she wanted nothing more than to hit rewind and have a do-over. Still, she didn’t want to simply blow this night… not when she clearly had ‘something’ with this woman. 

Removing her coat to reveal the magenta shirt fully, Selena placed the coat on the back of her chair before moving around to pull Deanna’s seat out for her, helping the dressed redhead sit back at the table before taking her own seat on the other side.

“Have you ever been here?” Deanna asked.
“Oh no.” Selena shook her head. “This part of town is way too pricey for me.”
“Oh…” Deanna looked around, suddenly rather concerned. “Is it alright that we’re here? I mean… I don’t want to put you out. I’m good with staying at home with pizza and-“

Selena held up a hand. “Deanna…” she tried. “I’ve got it.” She promised. “I wanted to take you out on a real date, didn’t I? I’ve screwed up twice already, but I am sure I can cover this. And…” she was back to looking at her pale hands. “I’ve kind of wanted to take you on a real date for awhile now.”

“You did?” Deanna asked, her emerald eyes very bright and full of glee.
“Yeah.” Selena nodded, daring to cast a glance up to the woman sitting across from her. “I mean… not just ‘me showing you the world outside of Kentucky’, but a real date that adults do.”
“Well, I’m an adult now.” Deanna smiled. “Actually, fun fact. I was already an adult before I met you.”
“You were?” Selena asked, somewhat surprised.
“Mmmmhmm.” Deanna nodded. “Legal age is 16 in Kentucky – but I guess here, I just became one again. I wonder if I can get two parties or something?” she thought distantly for a moment, earning a laugh from Selena. “And for the record, you didn’t screw up this date. Least I don’t think so.”

“Well, that is sweet of you to say.” Selena smiled. “But if my mother found out that I had a ) shown up late for anything and b ) shown up in this attire-“ she gestured to herself. “So casual? She would have skinned me alive.”

“Well, I am not your mother.” Deanna smiled with a tilt of your head. “And I am just happy that you are here with me.”
“Likewise.” Selena replied shyly. 

The waiter soon found them, a rather polite young woman with blonde hair. She gave her usual spiel of specials and freshness of the lobsters and what was on tap.

“Can I start you off with drinks?” she asked, her voice a bit higher than Selena was comfortable with.

“I’ll have the-“ Selena stopped herself. She was about to order the Prosecco but stopped herself, not because of the price, but because of the fact that it was an alcoholic drink. Immediately, her memory jumped back to the first night she and Deanna had had – part of the prize Deanna had when she had ‘won’ Selena at an auction in Kentucky at the end of last month. Selena had gotten drunk off of one incredibly strong drink – ‘The Patriot’ – and the night had gone…

No, she refused to do that again. Not to Deanna –

“Water.” She replied. “Water’s fine.”
“Very well.” The waitress replied, turning her attention towards Deanna. “And you, miss.”

Immediately, emerald eyes stared over at Selena, the redhead worrying her lower lip with her teeth. “Order whatever you want.” Selena assured gently, even smiling to assure the younger girl of such a decision.

“Um…” Deanna cast her gaze down at the menu. “I have a dumb question. Do you guys make custom drinks?”
“Of course.” The woman smiled. “For specialty orders and drinks, we certainly do. Our bar is chalked full with different drinks and liquids. Did you have something in mind?”
“Well, it’s a drink…” Deanna wrung her fingers, pulling on them with her other hand. “Do you have anything with chocolate in it?”
“Chocolate?” the waitress asked.
“If it’s not possible, I get it.” Deanna assured. “But anything non-alcoholic and chocolatey. Like chocolate milk or something? The chocolatier, the better!”

The waitress regarded Deanna for a moment before casting a glance at Selena, then back at Deanna, offering her a smile and a nod. “Let me ask who’s on bar. He might have something.”
“Thank you so much.” Deanna smiled.

Excusing herself, the woman left the two women sitting there, Selena returning her gaze to Deanna. “Chocolate milk?” Selena smiled in surprise.
“What?” Deanna asked. “What’s wrong with chocolate milk?”
“Nothing.” Selena shook her head. “I’m just surprised. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t card you if you asked for wine or something.”
Deanna shrugged. “I like chocolate.”
“Me too.” Selena replied, or at least she was sure she did. “I haven’t had a chocolate beverage in… oh wow… I can’t remember when.”
“You can’t?!” Deanna asked, eyes wide. “I got a chocolate milkshake yesterday morning!”
“I know.” Selena rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I watched you drink it.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it…again…” Deanna teased. “I’m surprised you don’t remember the last time you had chocolate. That should be a federal crime.”
“Oh yes.” Selena laughed. “She’s under the legal chocolate limit! To prison with her!” 

The two shared a laugh but then grew silent. “Can I ask why not?” Deanna finally asked. 
“Probably because I had a different kind of addiction.” Selena sighed, her eyes grazing over the ‘wine list’ menu that sat near her.

Following her eyes, Deanna spied the paper before returning her gaze to Selena. “You ever think about quitting?”
Her eyes still on the menu, Selena took a deep breath before looking at Deanna. “More so lately, given what happened last month. Drinking was always my escape – or painkiller, if you will. But lately…” she took a deep breath. “It’s part of the person I was. And I’m trying to change that.”

“I’m glad you are.” Deanna offered. “From what you’ve told me, you were so unhappy. I don’t like that for you.”
“You’re kind.” Selena smiled. “But it’s a long road ahead.”
“Yep. And I’ll be there to help you all the way.”
“All the way?” Selena repeated. “I mean, it could take years.”
“Yep.” Deanna nodded.
“You’re okay for that long?”
“Like I said…” Deanna stated, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear. “I’m in this for as long as you want me with you.”

She had heard it before, but it still floored the platinum-blonde to hear such words so unashamedly. So brazenly. 

“Deanna…” she started but was cut off when a large glass was brought to them. Inside was pure brown, so dark that Selena was certain she saw parts that were black. At the top was a heaping helping of what looked like whipped cream with shavings of cocoa-chocolate on it. It looked like a work of art… and would have taken her entire attention of not for the wide-eyed, huge grin of her date.

“Italian style cioccolata calda.” The waitress offered with a smile. “The bartender said he’s been itching to give this to someone.”
“A fellow chocolateer!” Deanna bit her lower lip in excitement. “Tell him I can’t wait!”

Once more, the waitress excused herself after bringing Selena her water. 

“I honestly don’t know where to begin!” Deanna laughed, moving her head around the glass in wonder, trying to find a ‘spot’ to begin consumption. The young wrestler sipped her water as Deanna even tried turning the glass on the spot, albeit carefully, to try and find that magic point. “Do I… do I just dive in?”

“I would.” Selena laughed, giving the redhead a shrug of her shoulders.
“Okay…” Deanna took a deep breath to steady herself before casting a suddenly look at Selena, as if an idea struck her. “I’ll go first, then you gotta try it!”
“Me?” Selena asked. “No, it’s your drink.”
“You need to remember the last time you drank chocolate, Selena!” declared Deanna. “It’s Chocolaw!”
“Chocolaw?”
“Like chocolate…but lawful!” Deanna explained. 
“And who upholds this law?”
“I do.” The redhead explained. “Now come over here and try it after me!”

Giving the notion a second to think about, Selena pulled her chair out and moved around the table to sit beside the younger beauty. She had barely lowered herself to her seat when she heard Deanna say, “Okay!” and dived into the drink tilting to try and get some of the dark liquid and whipped-cream together into her mouth. Her eyes flew open as she pulled back, white foam of the cream surrounding her lips and bottom of her nose. Biting her lower lip, Selena did her best to avoid laughing out loud.

“Holy cats…” Deanna gasped. “That is good!” she added, wiping the cream off her face with her finger before carefully pushing the large glass towards Selena. “Your turn!” she declared. 

Turning her head, Selena bit her lower lip. She could where Deanna had ‘entered’ to drink the beverage and she was debating whether to follow that lead – thus sharing an indirect kiss of sorts with her date – or find a more appropriate section. Carefully, she lifted the glass to her lips and tried to drink the concoction. The cream foam hit her first, across the top of her lip, as the drink slid under and into her mouth.

Her eyes widened in surprise. The drink was so rich! So much chocolate! It was amazing! Her tastebuds tingled at the sugar and dark chocolate! “Whoa…” she gasped as she sat back. “That is so good!” she declared, immediately regretting the days, months, however long since she had had chocolate like this!

“Right?!” Deanna asked as she watched Selena wipe the whipped cream off her lip and chin with a napkin. “Uh…You uh…” she tried before, once more, an idea struck her. Without hesitating, the redhead leaned in, pressing her tongue against Selena cheek, licking the warm, soft skin playfully. 

Like being doused with cold water, Selena’s spine went stiff as she felt two distinct things. The cold of Deanna’s tongue and heat shooting downward towards her core. Sapphire eyes went wide as she jerked her head towards Deanna, who licked her lips happily. “You missed a spot on your face.” She explained. 

“I missed a…” Selena’s mouth hung open, disbelief etched into her features. “You are…” she tried, shaking her head. “I don’t even know.” 
“Good.” Deanna smiled sweetly. “Because I have no clue either. I’m just…me.”
“Yeah.” Selena nodded. “And it’s incredible. I wish I could be like that…”
“Like what?” Deanna asked, giving a tilt of her head.

“Like that.” Selena repeated. “All I’ve been thinking about all day was this date and being so afraid of screwing it up, but you… you’re so relaxed and happy and not nervous-“
“What…” the redhead help up her hand to quiet the Snow Queen. “You think I’m not nervous?”

It was Deanna’s turn to sigh a little. “Selena.” She spoke softly, but directly. “I’ve been nervous since I woke up this morning. This…” she gestured to her dress. “Was the fourth dress I tried on today. I must have tried eight or nine different hairstyles in the bathroom… I mean, hell, when you were running late, I assumed you came to your senses and didn’t want to date some kid like me.”

“You’re not a kid.” Selena reprimanded. “You’re a woman.”

“But, I mean… you think you were nervous? I’m some nobody from Kentucky on a date – a REAL date – with Selena Frost. A date that…maybe…” she shrugged, her tone hopeful. “Maybe might lead to more… But then you sat down and you told me how you were feeling and everything… and now, all I want to do is make sure you enjoy tonight. It doesn’t have to be a date, Selena. We can just be two people spending time together. No pressure. No expectations.” She gave a sigh. “I like you.” She admitted. “I REALLY like you.”

“I know.” Selena smiled. “And I really like you.”

“But if tonight being ‘a date’ is going to jinx us or make us something we’re not, then we’ll make it something else. We’ll make up a word for it if we have to. Just…” she reached out a hand to take Selena’s into hers. “Please don’t be anyone other than yourself. That’s who I want to be here with. Be you.”

“Be me?” Selena asked, her eyes drifting towards the drink of chocolate just a few inched away. “You sure?”
“Yes.” Deanna replied. “Be you and I’ll be the happiest woman here.”

With a long exhale from her nose, Selena reached out, not to Deanna, but to the drink, where she swiped a good chunk of whipped-cream from the top of the drink that remained. Bringing it between her and Deanna, she gazed down at it before casting her glance at Deanna, who also had her eyes on the cream-colored finger.

“Okay…” Selena whispered before reaching out and swiping the cream-finger across Deanna’s lips, turning them white for a moment. She licked the remaining off her finger before smiling at Deanna. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t giving you a mustache.” She teased. “Still want me to be me?”
“Yes.” Deanna shrugged, nonplussed. 

Selena didn’t wait a second after that word left Deanna’s lips, pushing herself as close to Deanna as possible and swiping her tongue over where her finger had gone, licking up the cream against Deanna’s lips, but she did not stop there. As soon as the redhead opened her mouth to gasp, Selena’s tongue switched directions and dove into her mouth, tasting chocolate and sugar along the softness of Deanna’s own tongue, turning Deanna’s shocked gasp slowly into a deep moan. 

It was only for a moment before Selena pulled back, wiping at her lip with her thumb to remove any chocolate and cream from the exchange. She felt a mixture of embarrassment – a “WHY THE HELL DID I JUST DO THAT” – and a hunger for more – a “I WANT TO DO THAT AGAIN!” – rampaging through her, but she dared not speak or move after that, her eyes locked onto the younger woman, who looked more like a deer in the headlights.

“Okay…” Deanna breathed, placing a hand over her heart. “Calm down, girl.” She told herself. “Almost had a heartache there.” She took a few slow breaths, even fanning herself with her hand before turning her gaze towards the woman. “You…” she sighed, a smile tracing her features. 

“I what?” Selena asked nervously, the confidence she had temporarily had in that spur-of-the-moment kiss long gone.

“You taste better than the chocolate.” Deanna whispered, a blush coming to both of their faces from such a confession…
**************************************

“I can’t believe you got the cuccio-something something!” Deanna explained as she sipped her hot beverage, almost purring like a content cat as she sat against her seat facing Selena.
“Cioccolata calda.” Selena corrected. “But I asked them not to include whipped-cream this time around.”

“Aww…” Deanna pouted, her lower lip sticking out. “No fun.”
“I still can’t believe we did that.” Selena smiled, a little embarrassed as she slowly, and more gracefully, sipped her own glass of hot-chocolate.

“I know.” Deanna laughed. “I was so nervous – I figured there was a fifty percent shot you’d either dump me then and there or it be a homerun.”
“Oh, it was a homerun, alright.” Selena laughed. “And then you asked me to do what I want – to be me.”
“No regrets there.” The redhead winked as she took another drink of chocolatey goodness.
“Except I was certain we’d get kicked out for such behaviour. Thank Odin we didn’t go to a Michelin restaurant.”

“Those places were always too uptight for me.” Deanna shook her head. “I mean, why can’t you wear trackpants and still look like a queen? You do it.”
“I think that might be a tad bias of an opinion, pet.” Selena smiled knowingly. “But so do you.”

The two sat in silence for a few minutes, simply staring into each other’s eyes for a few minutes, neither saying a word, not because they didn’t want to, but because what they wanted to say-

“I want to talk about work.” Selena admitted.
“Oh, thank Odin! Me too!” Deanna laughed, grabbing her chair and moving it around to sit beside her wife. “We’re out here on a date, and all I can think about now is: What are we going to do?”
“I have no idea.” Laughed Selena. “Is it wrong to hope that Jordan puts Cid in a state of soreness where even Gleebnorb can’t get him to leave his changeroom?”
“Jordan, Valentine, Brittany – I’m not even picky who does it.” Deanna shrugged.

It wasn’t that they wished ill will on Cid Turner to the point of injury. Far from it. But the former World Champion had, by choice, pissed off one too many people. What was headed his way at Body, Heart and Soul was comeuppance, much in the same way, the Frosts believed, there needed to be for Holly and the rest of the Brand.

“Plus, one less Brand member means one less person interfering in the match.” Deanna reasoned with a shrug. “I much rather only have to worry about Giovanni rather than having to worry about him and Cid and Cookie- Selena?”

The Snow Queen had adopted a distant look across her features. “Hmmm?” she asked, snapping back to the present.
“You zoned out for a second there. Everything okay?”
“Oh…” Selena looked away for a moment, running a hand through her medium-length platinum-blonde hair. “It’s just…the last time we talked about this…”

Immediately, a warm hand grasped Selena’s pale one. “She’s not here, Selena.” Deanna whispered affectionately, giving the hand a small, tender squeeze of assurance. “She’s not spying on us.”

The Snow Queen offered her beloved a ghost of a smile, but it was harder to believe than just simple words. It had been some time since someone was so desperate to, not just beat Selena, but to try and ruin her. Those like Xander Valentine, Christy Matthews, Vixen Cain – only a few had tried to this degree… and it always frightened Selena. Not because she feared for herself, her reputation or falling to ‘the dark side’ as some of them had said, but fearing how badly everything she loved outside of SCW, including her wife and children, would be caught up in the crossfire…

“Deanna…” Selena sighed, squeezing her wife’s hand. “We… we just got back our forever home. Without you, I couldn’t…” she shook her head as she felt tears prick behind her eyes. “I couldn’t even visit it more than a few times. I definitely couldn’t live there – I couldn’t see our kids there… It was just an empty house without you.”

It was the most raw truth Selena could admit to – how she had taken the kids during Deanna’s incarceration at Frankfurt and made a ‘new life’ for almost two years in Castle Schoenburg, Oberwessel. How she stayed out of Manhattan for most, if not all, of it, the pain too great to endure – of her home, their home, without Deanna.

“Now we just get it back – we get OUR private lives and our home back – and all I can think about is Holly trying to uglify it like she has tried to everything else in our lives. My career, you being a wrestler, our marriage, how we look and dress, our beliefs and morals –“

“Selena!” Deanna tried, grasping her wife’s hand tighter, causing Selena to slam her eyes shut to keep the tears from falling. A moment passed where Selena tried to calm herself down, but it was Deanna’s voice that grabbed her attention. “You were all I had in that prison.”

Opening her eyes, Selena saw her redhead staring at their joined hands, her thumbs running lazy circles into the skin. “The fact that there wasn’t a single night for almost two years where I could go to sleep with you in my arms. That I had to watch our children grow through a screen or behind a table every few days rather than in our kitchen or family room or out in our front yard. Every night, if I wasn’t crying about ‘why I was there’, I was crying about being there instead of our home… being with you.” She lifted her eyes to regard her beloved. “Those fourth Mondays of the month” – the conjugal visits – “They became the closest thing to home that I could have and I clung to them with all I had.”

She took a deep breath before freeing one of her hands to reach out and caress Selena’s face. “So I get it. I get that you’re scared of losing our home. I don’t want to lose it either. Not when we just got it back. Not when we just found it again.”

A nod and a long sigh escaped the Snow Queen. “I have to beat her.” Selena whispered, more to herself than to Deanna. “Or we’ll never be free of The Brand. They’ll always have ‘one over on us’. They’ll always have a reason to ‘justify’ all they’ve done and they’ll do it again if it works for them this Sunday.”

Seeing the turmoil in her wife, Deanna regretted allowing them to let work slip into their date. Why couldn’t we have talked about vacation plans? Or maybe Elsianna’s school projects – anything but this…

Fortunately, the waiter returned to check in on the couple, breaking the train of negative thoughts surrounding the two. “Have you decided to order?”
“Actually, we might need a-“ Deanna started before she saw a slight smile come to Selena’s face, surprising the redhead. “Unless Selena…you know…”

“I might.” Selena smirked before turning the menu over to Deanna. “Bottom of the right corner before the sides.”

Scanning the page, Deanna saw the dinner item, and the three digit price that came with it. “Oh…” she smirked. “Oh this is just you getting even with the first time we were here…”

“Absolutely.” Smirked the Snow Queen before turning to the waiter. “That black linguine with the fresh shrimp and culatello beef…”

************************************

”So… what I wanna know…” Deanna asked, biting into a piece of side sausage. “Is where do you see yourself going in five years?”

The question caught Selena off-guard as the two women enjoyed their platter of sausages, cheeses and meatballs. Because of the high prices of the entree meals, the two had opted (at Deanna’s insistence) for a series of the cheaper side dishes at the bottom of the menu, while enjoying their water and sharing what remained of the single chocolate beverage.

“Five years from now?” Selena asked as she nibbled on a meatball.
“Yeah, like that old question. Where do you see yourself in five years kind of thing? Like with work. Are you going to keep working for different promotions?”

The platinum-blonde seemed to think about this for a minute before shaking her head. “I don’t think so. I’d like to, when I get good enough, be able to set up roots in one federation. We’ve managed okay so far but it’s been exhausting wrestling so many days a week with little to no time off.” She admitted.

“You think you could set up roots in SCW?”

“I…” Selena sucked in her lower lip at the question. “I like to think so.” She looked away wistfully, her hands fiddling with her braid. “There’s…there’s something about it. I mean, when I first started, it was just to make money and be free of my mother. But just… the past year has been the hardest and the most rewarding, especially in SCW. For all the bad people there, so many people believe in it and I…”

“You’re really getting swept up in it.” Deanna smiled, her head resting on her hands, elbows on the table. 
“I really am.” Selena grinned, showing her white teeth. “Ever since Mr. D. let me into that chamber match last year against New Eden at Total War to fight for SCW and what it stood for… I just… did you ever feel like you found your true calling? Like you found the thing you were meant to do with your life?”

“Yes.” Deanna answered with another smile, earning a tilt of the head from Selena. “Remember when you fired Mr. Veers and was scrambling to get your affairs in order and I helped you?”
“That was when I made you my schedule advisor and assistant.” Selena replied. “Really?”
“Yep.” Deanna confirmed. “The second I helped you with that and that Twitter auction, I felt it. Like I was meant to do this.”

“And when did dating me come into it?” Selena raised an eyebrow teasingly as she helped herself to a piece of cheese on their plate.
“That…was a welcome unexpectation.” Deanna answered a little shyly, a slight blush gracing her cheeks.
“An ‘unexpectation’?” Selena asked. “Is that even a word?”
“Doesn’t have to be if you know what it means.” The redhead countered with a playful huff, crossing her arms to complete the picture.
“Deanna…” Selena played along, tugging at one arm in order to move it close enough to take the hand into hers. “I think it was a welcome ‘unexpectation’ too.”

She watched Deanna’s pout turn back into that bright smile, the redhead snuggling close to Selena as they sat at their table. “So…I’ve got a question.” She asked. “You ever think about winning the world title?”

The Snow Queen laughed at that. “Ha…no.” she shook her head. “I’ve never considered that a possibility.” She gave a sad shake of her head.
“Why not?” Deanna asked. “I mean, I think you could.”
“Come on, De.” Selena laughed. “I barely made it to the finals of the Shot of Adrenaline tournament and I got trounced by Rayne.”
 
It was a sobering thought. Selena had fought like hell to get to the finals, surpassing superstars like Chris Cannon, Angelica Jones, Blake Mason and Merrick Wiseman, only to get overpowered and, practically, dominated at the end by the Adrenaline champion, Red Rayne. The whole experience had left a rather bad taste in her mouth, considering her only victory over the red-haired demon was a disqualification win at the previous Apocalypse pay-per-view. 

“I think you could do it.” Deanna repeated, nibbling on some vegetables they had ordered.
“Deanna…” Selena sighed. “I’m just a nobody from Nome.” She smiled. “I got lucky getting into SCW. I’m happy fighting in the adrenaline division. I’m happy being there. Besides, being at that level?” she shivered a little at the thought. “I couldn’t handle it. The spotlight, the fame, the demands? I mean, I want to make SCW proud to have me in their ranks – can you imagine what the demand for that would be at the level of World Champion?” 

Again, the Snow Queen gave a shake of her head. “I’m not ready for that or deserving of it.”
“But what about five years from now?” Deanna pressed.

“Five years from now…” Selena sighed, giving her a shake of her head. “With Red Rayne and Dawn hunting me and with my step-mother after me, I don’t even know if I’ll make it to the end of the year.” She gave a laugh, though the statement did not hold an ounce of humor to it. “I can’t even look ahead to 2016, Deanna. Gods know what that year will hold if we can survive it.”

“Okay…” Deanna tried, stretching her lips to a fine line before rethinking her topic. “But hypothetically. What would you like to do, or where would you like to be in 5 years?”

Giving a huff of an exhale, Selena sat back in her chair, eyes looking up at the ceiling. “Professionally? Long as I feel as good about wrestling as I do now? I don’t care where I am. It be nice if I was Adrenaline champion again, or maybe take on another tier belt like the United States title. I’d like to win some big matches as well – but most of all, I’d like people to know what I’m about.”

“About?” Deanna asked, teasing a piece of sausage with her teeth.
“Yeah. Since Total War, maybe earlier, people have been calling me a fake or a fraud when I say I care about SCW and being part of it. Autumn, Dawn, Rayne, it’s always the same. Maybe, in five years, I’d like to be in a place where those kind of words don’t hold as much power. Where people don’t believe them the second they’re uttered because I’ll have a history of proving otherwise.”

“Actions speak louder than words.” Deanna replied, her mouth slightly full with food, earning a shake of the head from Selena.

“Personally?” Selena gazed down at her hands nervously, slowly losing herself to her thoughts. “In five years…I’d like to have a larger house. I’d like to set up roots – maybe even be…” her voice trailed off, eyes flashing towards Deanna. “What about you?” she asked. “Young girl like yourself…”

“I’m only eight years younger than you.” Deanna laughed.
“Yeah, almost a decade.” Selena countered. “So when I’m an old hag of 31 and you’re just a vixen of a thing of 23, where do you see yourself?”
“Oh, definitely married.” Deanna answered without thinking, causing Selena to choke a little on the water she was drinking.
“M….married?” she asked as she cleared her throat.
“Sure.” Deanna shrugged. “Maybe have a home and family – I like your whole ‘roots’ idea. How you worded it. I’d love that.”

Selena could not help the shaking in her spine. She wasn’t sure if Deanna was implying anything, but it was certainly a lot to take in for a ‘first date’. Was Deanna implying something between them? No… Deanna was brutally honest to almost a fault – an endearing, cute fault. 

“What about professionally?” Selena asked, quickly changing the subject. “I mean…you can’t want to be my assistant your whole life right.”
“No…” Deanna whispered, looking away. “But I would like to be your manager.”

Again, Selena almost choked on her water. “Manager?” she asked, her eyes a little wider.
“I mean – I know we’re still trying this out with me being your representative, while now dating and taking things slow… but…” Deanna shrugged shyly. “I don’t know, maybe someday…”

Perhaps this was just some youthful naivete or a high from the beginnings of a new relationship that Deanna was feelings, Selena wasn’t sure which. But the idea of such long-term plans – being her manager, being married… that the eighteen-year old was so actively thinking of them that she could answer such a question without hesitation.

“Deanna…” Selena tried. “I don’t want to give you any false hope. I’m…” Quickly, her hands flew up to grasp the long, thick braid of her hair tightly, twisting it a little. “It’s hard for me to just believe in stuff like that – and that isn’t you! It isn’t!”

“Really?” Deanna asked, tilting her head with a kind smirk. “First date and you’re already going into the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’?”
“No!” Selena cried desperately, feeling herself losing control of the situation at an alarming rate. “I just – I’ve never – I’ve been –“

“Selena!” Deanna called out softly, her hands reaching out to cup Selena’s face, “Breathe. You’re going to have another ‘episode’ if you keep this up.” Her eyes were serious, which emphasized the urgency to follow her prompts. 

Taking a few deep breaths, Selena felt herself slowly calming down. Conceal… Don’t feel… her mind whispered over and over again until she felt herself return to a semblance of normalcy.

“I get what you’re saying.” Deanna slowly spoke. “This is beyond exciting and new for me and something I’ve wanted. I’ve never had a girlfriend before, to be honest. But you… you clearly have been hurt… scarred… it’s harder for you to believe things will be okay.”

“Yes.” Selena sadly admitted. “After Adrian and Dawn… I just… every time I have given my heart completely, it’s been shattered. And I, to be honest… I don’t think I’d survive a third time.”

Deanna remained silent, though her expression was kind and patient towards the Snow Queen. “I won’t make promises I can’t possibly anticipate or keep.” She stated. “But I promise you that I’ll take this one day at a time, and as long as I can, I will wait and earn that trust, even if we aren’t together.”
“Really?” Selena asked in some disbelief.

“You need to trust someone in this world, Selena.” Deanna smiled. “We both do.”

Looking around, Deanna spied an untouched piece of sausage, plucking at it with her fork before presenting it to Selena. “Sausage sword fight?” she offered. “Choose your weapon!”

“No.” came a slight laugh from Selena, along with a shake of her head. “I’m alright.” 

It was the first time that night that she actually meant it.

*************************************

“Okay…thoughts!” proclaimed Deanna as the pair sat back, having finished their expensive servings of the black linguine with the fresh shrimp and culatello beef, the most expensive dish on Tony’s menu. Sitting back in her seat as well, Selena took a small swig of water to rinse out her mouth before speaking.

“Well… the pasta was creamy.” She started.
“Very nice.” Deanna agreed.
“Beef was nice and juicy.”
“Tender as hell.”
“The shrimp was so fresh!” 
“Like it was caught today!” Deanna exclaimed.

The two shared a look and very similar expression.

“Not worth the price?” Selena asked.
“Not even remotely!” Deanna exclaimed in surprise. “Holy cats, hunny, all those years, I thought ‘damn! It must be really good to be so expensive! And it was fine, but… I mean, we’ve made just as good pasta back home, am I right?”

“Yes.” Selena nodded. “And I was missing some kind of spice or kick to it. Like when you put salsa into the tomato sauce one night for the kids because we were low on tomato sauce?”
“Oh! Or when Elsianna helped me and we added scallops?”

“That one was delicious!” Selena smiled excitedly at the memory. “Or! Or!” she suddenly remembered, snapping her fingers. “Remember when David tried to help? And he dumped that big bag of peanut M&M’s into the sauce?!”

“Oh my gods!” Deanna gasped. “I totally forgot about that! He thought he had created this masterpiece for dinner and- gods, we were so scared of hurting his feelings…”
“I had a stomachache for the next two days.” Laughed Selena, clapping her hands together quietly in mirth.
“Me too!” Deanna agreed. “The one time chocolate WASN’T my friend! Damn you, chocolaw!” she shook her fist playfully.

Sharing in a laugh together, the two wives settled back in their seats, gazing lovingly at one another. 

“Six years.” Selena smiled. “Can you believe it?”
“After the prison fiasco?” Deanna teased as she tilted her head. “Nope.” She added before leaning on the table knowingly, her eyes still on Selena. “Alright – five years from now.” She mused. “Where do you see yourself?”

Blinking her eyes slowly and giving a smirk to her beloved, Selena answered rather promptly. “With you.” She stated. “In our forever home. Helping Elsianna with high-school stuff.”

“Oh, I don’t know what to do about that! Algebra and boys…” Deanna made a face as if she had just bit into a lemon. “Yuck!”
“Or girls.” Selena shrugged. “You never know.”
“Oh, good point! I didn’t think about that. And David will be close to high school as well and Amiliah will be pretty close to where Elsianna is now.” The redhead replied. “What about professionally?”

Looking up and away a little for a moment, Selena released a slow exhale, licking her lips a little. “Still wrestling?” she heard Deanna ask, to which she gave a nod. 

“Assuming everything still works properly.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure how many more title belts and monitors to the head or falls from scaffolding I can take but, if possible, yes.”

“Can I ask you a dumb question?” Deanna asked as she took a sip of water – she had long since finished her second helping of the chocolate beverage. Selena didn’t give any verbal answer – Deanna was just being polite and was going to ask the question anyway. 

“What more can you do?” she asked. “I mean, you’ve won practically every title.”
“Except the Underground now.” Selena reminded in observation. 
“Broken all kinds of records. And you main-evented Rise to Greatness, finally. Aside from just increasing the numbers, what more is there to accomplish?”

Sitting back in her chair, Selena gazed up at the ceiling a little, weighing the question, which was a fair one. “I mean… it’s less about what I have ‘left to do’ and more ‘can I still make a difference there’, you know? I mean… do you remember when you first came into SCW?”

Deanna nodded. “It was a bit overwhelming.”
“Right?” Selena grinned. “But Red Rayne was terrorizing SCW, Monarchy was on the rise…”
“Not so different from now.” Deanna observed. “I mean, Infamous had a surge, now it’s the Brand and Holly-“

“Exactly.” Selena exclaimed. “Much as I hate it, and it’s one thing Holly will never grasp, there will always be monsters and stables and armies and those that disrespect SCW. I’m not crazy enough to think a day will come where there isn’t.” she gave a shy shrug with her shoulders, the maroon-covering of her dress moving with her. “But if I can still keep up and still fight for what SCW means to me? Yeah, I’d like to keep doing that.”

“The Face of SCW…” Deanna mused, gazing proudly at her beloved.
“Maybe not by that time.” Selena sighed. “But I’d like to still try and be a solution to helping SCW rather than a problem to it. What about you?!” she suddenly flipped the question. “I mean – three matches you’ve wrestled now! You think this is something you’d like to pursue?”

“No.” laughed Deanna. “I mean…I don’t think so? Maybe?”
“Decisive.” Selena smirked playfully. “That’s what I’ve always loved about you.”
Deanna stuck her tongue out at Selena in response. “I just… Selena, it’s been hard sometimes watching you get hurt, okay?” 

“I…I know.” Came a sigh from the Snow Queen.
“But that’s who you are. But me? I just don’t know if I can do that – or handle it. I’d be too scared of someone hurting me permanently and I… I REALLY don’t want that, okay?”

“I totally get that.” Selena held her hands up. “I’m sorry I asked. It was unfair to put you on the spot like that.”
“I mean… I’m not against wrestling again. I’m not. But I don’t really want to have ‘plans’ regarding it. Kind of just want to take it one match at a time…except for one thing…”
“Ooooo.” Selena teased, leaning forward. “What ‘one thing’?” she asked. “Oh! Please tell me you want to face Holly in a match or something! If she could be your first win, I think she would turn so red she’d pop!”
“No, it’s not that. “ Deanna shook her head before leveling an emerald gaze at Selena. “But…I mean, do you think, if I got good enough, and we kept training together…” she reached out to take Selena’s hand into hers. “You and I, maybe, sort of, possibly, could try-“

The sound of “Stand By You” by Rachel Platten filled their ears, ripping the Frost women’s attention from one another as Selena’s private cellphone rang. Casting a glance at Deanna, Selena quickly fished the device out.

“It’s Gerda.” Selena answered, recognizing the number as their home number and answering the call immediately. “Hey, Gerda, is everything al- what? Wait… when? How high is it?” Sapphire eyes went wide. “We’ll be right home!” she declared, turning her phone off and shoving it in her purse before fisting out a few hundred dollar bills and dropping that onto the table – the amount, Deanna noticed, equalling far more than their bill, even with that expensive dish.

“What is it?” the redhead asked, jumping out of her seat and to her feet. “What’s wrong with-“
“Elsianna is sick with a high fever.” Selena explained quickly. “Come on.”

Without another word, the two women bolted out of the restaurant, stopping only to explain to the waitress that they had to and she could keep the change as a tip – they were gone before the waitress had time to realize just how big a tip it actually was…

*************************************

“Oh geez!” Deanna laughed as she ran down the sidewalk. “These heels were NOT made for walking…or running!” 
“I could carry you?” Selena offered, the woman holding her leather jacket over her date’s form as a makeshift ‘umbrella’ as the pair ran down the streets of New York, trying to spend as little time in the pouring rain as possible.
“Not after eating all that meat and cheese.” Deanna threw back. Deanna didn’t want to remark that she had fought and lifted male wrestlers before…

The sound of thunder filled their ears as they ran down the corner and turned, finally reaching the parking lot. Finding the Snow Queens Ford Tempo, the platinum-blonde quickly unlocked the door for Deanna, allowing the redhead to tumble into the passenger seat in the back, moving to the other side so Selena could jump in after her, closing the door behind her just as another curtain of rain drenched everything around them.

“Phew.” Deanna remarked running her hands through her hair. “I knew I should have brought an umbrella.”
“I say next time, we just get a taxi or something.” Selena sighed, shaking her coat a little in front of her, trying not to get Deanna any wetter.

“Don’t worry about it.” The redhead smiled in a purr before slipping over to lean against the Snow Queen, surprising her at first but Selena quickly recovered to hold the younger woman in her arms.

“Hi.” Selena whispered, a smile forming on her face.
“Hi.” Deanna answered back with a smile of her own, her eyes dancing.
“What are you thinking about?” the platinum-blonde asked.

“Well…” emerald eyes moved around the interior of the vehicle, taking in the sound of the rain that pelted against the metal exterior, a beautiful sound to both women. “I know at this point ‘taking me to your place’ isn’t the same as ‘taking me to your place…’.” she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at the older woman. “And we agreed to take things slow. But…” reaching up, she tucked a wet strand of platinum-blonde hair behind Selena’s ear. “Don’t we want to end this date on a great note rather than just a ‘good’ one?”

“Deanna…” Selena warned under her breath, though it was hardly possessing of any kind of authority with the redhead nestled so close to her.
“No, not like that!” Deanna assured. “But… you did tell me after your match with Angelica at Flawless that I could kiss you whenever I wanted to.”

“And you can.” Selena sighed. “It’s what kissing leads to that has me worried.”
“Well, don’t worry then.” The redhead assured, pulling herself up closer to her date. “I’ve never gone all the way after the first date.”
“Such an ‘impressive’ feat.” Selena played along. “But you’re alright with making out in a car?”
“Don’t know.” Deanna smiled as she leaned in. “Never done it before – but for you, I’m willing to give it a shot…”

*************************************

The door to the Frost ‘Forever Home’ burst open with Deanna, wearing her runners, leading herself and Selena into the house. 

“Gerda?” Selena called out as she closed the door behind her. Almost immediately, the sound of movement was heard from the family room as the short, kind woman shuffled to the house entrance to meet the two women. “Where is-“ Selena started.

“She’s up in her room.” Gerda assured. “Possibly asleep.”

The Snow Queen didn’t wait for that last past, instead bounding up the stairs, dress slippers and all. Deanna, on the other hand, returned her attention to their neighbour and sitter, who immediately began speaking.

“She was coughing and sneezing most of the afternoon, but when she had a fever of 101, I called Dr. Gray and had him come down the street to pay a house call. He said there’s a flu bug going around the school, which is probably what she has – children are more susceptible to it.”
“Thank you.” Deanna smiled.
“Thank you?” Gerda asked, surprised. “I’m sorry I ruined your date night, dear.”

“No.” Deanna shook her head. “We’re not just frisky lovers anymore.” She stated off-handedly, casting her eyes up the steps where Selena had gone. “We’re parents now.” A smile graced her lips before she turned back to Gerda. “You can head home, Gerda. Selena and I have it from here.”

The elder woman gave a nod before excusing herself from the house, Deanna closing and locking the door behind her. She only took a moment to remove her running shoes before she was making her way up the stairs as well. Reaching the second-floor, she moved to the room she knew was her eldest daughter’s before opening it.

Immediately, she spied Selena, her wife, kneeling over Elsianna, holding her hand to Elsa’s forehead.

“And she loved the picture.” She heard Elsa say to Selena. “I got a gold star!”
“I’m so glad, snowflake.” Selena smiled, moving her hand to caress her daughter’s face. “You did such a good job.”
“Thanks to you and mom.”
“We just followed your instructions.” Selena tried. “But I think you’re going to need to stay away from school for a day or two. At least till you’re better.”
“Do I have to stay in my room?” Elsa asked in a rare moment that displayed her true age.
“Yes.” Selena nodded. “You don’t want to make your brother or sister sick, do you?”

Slamming her eyes shut, Elsianna shook her head briskly.

“We’ll bring up the television tomorrow so you can watch movies and such.” Came the assuring voice of Selena.
“Okay…” Elsianna nodded before turning away from Selena to cough into her pillow.
“Oh, my poor girl.” The platinum-blonde smiled sadly, reaching out again to run her knuckles against her eldest daughter’s cheek gently. “I’m going to make you some tea to help you sleep.”

Carefully, she pushed herself to her full height but didn’t move as the child’s voice intercepted her. “Mother…” she spoke, her voice raspy and harsh in tone but not intently so. “Can you and mom stay with me until I fall asleep?” she asked, stifling another cough.

The answer come almost instantly. “Of course.” Deanna replied for both her and Selena, moving to the other side of the bed to sit beside Elsianna. “Of course we will…”

*************************************


It was midnight by the time Deanna and Selena got him to their small rental in upper Manhattan, the pair immediately taking a shower (separately, Selena had insisted) and changing into their nightclothes. The storm continued to rain with thunder and lightning outside, but neither woman moved from their spot at their respective bedroom doors. They simply gazed at one another.

“How come neither of us can go to bed?” Deanna asked with a playful smile, crossing her arms over her dark-green t-shirt.
“No idea.” Selena threw back as she leaned against the wall beside her bedroom door. “Maybe we should just say good night and see each other in the morning.”
“Great idea!” Deanna smiled, skipping over to where Selena stood. “Go ahead.”
“Beauty before age.” Selena countered.
“It was your idea.” Deanna threw back.

Biting her lower lip, Selena exhaled a long breath. “Did you have a good time?” She asked, her insecurities showing.
“Of course I did.” Deanna swore, reaching out to take Selena’s hands into hers. “You?”
Selena nodded. “Enough to go on another?”

“Of course.” Came the answer. “But…” Deanna took a deep breath, looking down to gaze at Selena’s hands, which she held. “I think it’s only fair to tell you, Selena, upfront and honestly…” another shaky breath. “I’m pretty sure I’m falling for you, okay? I’m falling pretty hard and I’m falling pretty fast.” 

Sapphire eyes widened at such honesty, the Snow Queen’s mouth opening just to hang open for a few seconds, words failing to form. “I…”

“You don’t have to say it back!” Deanna assured her, placing a hand over the open mouth. “But I have to be fair to both of us. I need you to know that’s what’s happening to me. Hasn’t changed since that kiss at Flawless.”

“I…” Selena tried, steeling herself as best as she could – if nothing else, because Deanna deserved such honesty returned. “I can’t say it yet, Deanna.” She sighed. “I want to. Gods, do I want to… but I can’t just yet. Not till I’m beyond certain…” And I’m willing to risk having my heart shattered again…

“It’s okay.” Deanna smiled. “I can wait. And I will.” Reaching up, as in the car, she adjusted a stray hair of platinum-blonde behind Selena’s ear. “It’s more than worth it.”

With one last gaze, Deanna turned to head to her room-

“Wait!” Selena rushed the few steps to catchup with her girlfriend. Soon as Deanna spun around, Selena took her hands into hers. “I…I…” she stammered a little before taking a deep breath. “Maybe I love you.” She whispered. “Maybe soon, I won’t need to use the word ‘maybe’.”
“Or maybe it will mean something else.” Deanna smiled. “Maybe.” 

Standing on her tiptoes, the redhead gently kiss Selena’s jaw before disappearing into her room, leaving the Snow Queen to walk the steps necessary to enter her room. Soon as the door was closed and locked, however, she found herself leaning against the door and sliding down to sit on the floor. 

Maybe…she had said maybe tonight – on their first date. And Deanna had promised her there would be others… “Odin help me…” she whispered to herself. Because she was going to need all the help she could get.

Because Deanna wasn’t the only person that was falling hard and falling fast.
And if this kept up, Selena knew without a doubt, then no longer needing ‘maybe’ to describe her love for Deanna wasn’t a matter of ‘if’… but ‘when’…

**************************************

Young Elsianna slept quietly, only letting out the occasional cough in her sleep. Watching her, Deanna and Selena stood, the shorter Deanna leaning with her back against Selena’s front, the Snow Queen’s arms wrapped around the redhead’s waist.

“She’ll be alright.” Deanna whispered. “Gerda said it was just a little bug.”
“I figured that when I felt her temperature.” Selena sighed. “So much for date night.”
“Least it took our minds off things for awhile.” Deanna mused, reaching up to caress Selena’s face with her hand. “You feeling better?”

Slowly, Selena shook her head. “I’m still worried.” She admitted. “But that’s kind of been taken over by worry of our daughter.”
“Sort of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

The Snow Queen nodded. “Win or lose – even if she makes all of SCW hate me with her lies…I’ll still have them.” She gestured towards Elsianna with a tilt of her head. “And this house.”
“And me.” Deanna purred, nuzzling her head against Selena’s face.
“I pray that I will always have you.” Selena whispered, kissing her beloved’s temple. “Maybe I love you.”

“Maybe I love you.” Deanna whispered, taking her date’s hand and leading them to their bedroom. “And maybe I always will…”

_______________________________________________________




The camera opens up to the empty interior of the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan, the site for the first SCW pay-per-view of 2022: Body, Heart and Soul. With SCW having finished the previous year in a controversial fashion as it had at End of the Year event, tickets have continued to sell for seats, as well as for pay-per-view viewing at home! The world is prepared to witness one of two possible scenarios: either the continue growth and presence of The Brand, or survival of the SCW standard that defines “Supeme Championship Wrestling”. However, as the camera takes in, the arena is currently empty, devoid of the ticket-goers. The tech and ring are all set up and it is in the middle of the ring that the viewers can spot the single woman standing there amidst the arctic blue and white lights. 

She wears a leather jacket, blue jeans and a magenta sweater, the SCW World Championship resting comfortably on her shoulder as the shot changes to a closer one, capturing the contemplative expression of the world champion and Face of SCW: The Snow Queen, herself, Selena Frost.

Body… Heart… And Soul… She speaks, her words calm and soft but still strong. An event of SCW’s past brought back from out of nowhere! Thrust back into the new year, the new age, be it by popular demand or by the nostalgia the board of SCW must be feeling. For the first time in eight years, Body, Heart and Soul has returned to SCW!

There is no denying the excitement in Selena’s voice as she speaks. And to give you guys some perspective, I wasn’t even around when this pay-per-view came through here! This is the first time that I will be performing on this show!

You want more history? The last time this show was here in SCW? Hall of Fame guys like Christian Savior were still around! Monsters like Blitzkrieg haunted the SCW halls. The top stable was the Pinnacle, comprised of Syren, Ravyn, Tommy Valentine, and David Helms – a stable that thought themselves superior to every other person that came here and every person that watched at home.

Now, eight years later… Hall of Fame guys like Josh Hudson and Shilo Valiant are still around. Monsters like the Jackals haunt the SCW halls, apparently the stable of the year is the Brand, comprised of Holly Adams, Cid Turner and Giovanni Aries – a stable that thinks of themselves superior to every other person that comes out here and every person that watches them…

A knowing smile breaks across Selena’s features as she turns her gaze towards the camera. The more things change, am I right? And I’ll give props to the Brand. It takes a lot of arrogance for a group of people to stand there and say “we can give you happiness for X payments of $X9.99”, doesn’t it? Because what those people are really saying is “we are so much better than you and we know it”. 

And that’s what Holly Adams has been screaming about over and over again to anyone that will listen! That is what she has been displaying month after month on Breakdown, on Twitter, on her little TV show – the fact that she takes on so much, suffers so much and we don’t. 

I mean – this woman had the brass, as a selling point, to say that, even if you buy her ‘product’, you’ll never be as happy or as good as her or The Brand, but you’ll be your ‘best’. The Snow Queen shakes her head at such logic. Seriously? That sounds more like a statement of failure on the Brand’s part if they can’t promise the same level of success and happiness that they’ve ‘achieved’ – isn’t their ‘success’ their whole selling point?

The platinum-blonde shrugs as she walks along the inside of the ring. But why shouldn’t Holly be happy? She’s on the cusp of “becoming the World Champion”! That’s what she’ll have you believe. That she’s the “REAL World champion”! The “REAL Face of SCW”, right? Yes! All of The Brand seems to know it – the rest of SCW? Still trying to figure the logic out on that. But that’s what you’ve been promoting since End of the Year, right, Holly? In-between needing what? Six episodes to get to the ‘season finale’ of your show? 

Knowingly, a laugh escapes Selena as she shakes her head. Holly Adams needing a month and six times the time in front of a camera to make a point. Holly Adams needing more time than the Avengers finale, Harry Potter finale, and the Twilight finale COMBINED to get to her point… shocking.

Taking a moment, Selena leans against the turnbuckle, keeping her eyes on the camera. Because what has these last few weeks been about to you? What has Holly Adams been talking about? The fact that I’ve beaten her ‘golden boy’ Cid Turner twice? Nope. The fact that I’ve managed to hold the world title in the longest reign of 2021? Nope. The fact that I’m the 2021 Female Wrestler of the Year and not her? That I’m the woman that won the ‘Unbelievable Main Event’? Nope. 

What’s been most important to Holly Adams is that everyone HAS TO KNOW that I’m the baddest, most evil woman on the planet. That I’m the bad guy in her storied ‘rise to the top’.

No, really, just ask her, or listen in. Or, if you’re really into it, buy her movies, buy her show on whatever network has it, buy her parody, she’ll tell you just how ‘righteous’ she is and how ‘bad’ I am. Hell, this woman basically broke the law a couple of weeks ago on Breakdown trying to prove it.

For a moment, Selena’s expression grows serious as she runs a hand through her platinum-blonde hair. Yeah, we all saw it – she ADMITTED to it. She bugged the world title just to try and get some conversation of me and Deanna so she could ‘prove’ my ‘evilness’…and no charges were pressed. No punishment was doled out for such unethical and illegal actions… but I’m the bad guy, right?  

A smirk comes to Selena’s lips. That isn’t a slight to SCW management. The point I am making is that Holly fails to realize is that she is being protected. That all of this, her getting her title shot at End of the Year, the result of that match, and getting another match against me at Body, Heart and Soul – Holly Adams is being protected. Protected by Cid Turner and Gleebnorb, protected by Cookie, protected by Giovanni Aries, protected by every person in that cast of Desperate-Housewives-rejects.

Holly Adams is being protected against any and every shortcoming she has to the point where she doesn’t just try and make the rules here – she believes she can do it just as easily as she did in that little “Wizard of Oz” parody. Holly Adams believes that if she says it, it must be true! That if ‘the great’ and ‘beloved’ and ‘favourited’ Holly Adams decrees it, the high-exalted saint Holly Adams says it so, it must be so!

Selena shrugs. Say what you will about me – eight years I’ve been here – I’ve never been protected by anyone. I didn’t have protection when Trinity Street fractured my ribs. I didn’t have protection when Xander Valentine slammed me against the metal of a cage or when I had a crate dropped on my foot. I didn’t have protection when I was told to put my hair on the line. I didn’t have a gaggle of cast mates catching me when Giovanni Aries threw me off that scaffolding or when Regan Street smashed my head open with a monitor or scarred my back with a barbed-wire-cat-o-nine-tails.

Eight years of that and being told I would ‘never’ make it this far – and yet every person that’s said it? I’ve beaten. Every person that’s said I was ‘protected’ and they would ‘crush me’? I beat. Every person that broke, scarred or smashed up my body? I’ve beaten and come out of it to the point where I am standing here as the SCW World Champion!

Lifting her free hand, Selena gestures to the camera. Where are your scars, Holly? I know! I know! You had a ‘bad fall’ that took you out of an Adrenaline championship months ago, right? You got yourself a little owie from that nose job that took you out for several weeks… From another match where you spent most of it hiding in your pod and scrambling away while crying for help. But where are your scars, Holly? Where is the blood, the scars, and the busted bones that you have given for SCW? See, you talk about about ‘freeing SCW’ and ‘doing right by SCW’, yet you take weeks off because your nose is off. You hide behind protective gear. You hide behind your Brand…

The world champion gives a quiet pause to let her words sink in.

See, Holly, for weeks and weeks now, you’ve been trying to flash that bright light on me, telling everyone to ‘look my way’ and trying to expose me. All so that nobody turns that light around and points it at you.

And yet, and this is why I love the SCW Universe, they do what they want and that’s why they boo you despite your supposed ‘millions’ of followers that picked you at End of the Year to face me. And when they look at you, they see what I see, Holly.

A cheaply created bootleg.

Sapphire eyes scan down, as if the world champion is scanning her upcoming opponent. I mean, look at you, Holly! You stole Syren’s whole ‘stable to protect her’ bit! You stole the basic “Selena is a fraud” bit that Infamous made famous eight years ago – and still uses to this day! You stole Kennedy Street’s ‘protective gear’ bit when she faced me years ago at Rise to Greatness five years ago. You stole Shilo Valiant’s bit of parodies that he was doing back in 2011 and 2012. You stole Katie Steward’s personality, Syren’s personality, Sienna Swann’s personality, and, if you order now, you’ll get a Bree Lancaster-style add-on where Holly celebrates her greatness on Twitter, her TV show and every SCW show - her own special Hollyday! 

She paused, her hand tight on the title over her shoulder, the other extended to the camera. They boo you, Holly, because they see what I see and they know what they are in for whenever you come out. The disrespect, the BS, and the wrestling that mocks and devalues what SCW stands for.

And the funniest thing of it all, Holly? Is that you fail to see that without them? Without these people that you’re insulting by telling them what to think? That you insult with your varying priced product - They’re the only reason you’re here right now!

Turning towards the stands, Selena eyes the empty seats, the camera shifting to take in the sight of the empty chairs. You know, I’ve been doing this segment for years and people have asked me several times why I don’t do what Holly Adams does. Why don’t I fill the arena with people, or insert some cardboard cut-outs or edit in some ‘audience feed’ to make myself seem popular…

Her free hand resting on the nearby rope, Selena shakes her head. The reason I don’t do that is because this, right here? This is how I set my mind right. This is how I stay grounded. This empty arena? This reminds me who holds the real power – the real destiny of SCW and its superstars. Because without the people, without the SCW Universe? This…she gestures with a circular motion with her free hand. All this is is an empty arena… all this is is an empty ring…

Her gaze returns to the camera. It is the people that come here and sit in those empty seats, the people that tune in around the world, THEY are the ones that transforms all of this into Supreme Championship Wrestling. They hold the keys to this kingdom, they ALWAYS have and ALWAYS will!

Turning back around fully, Selena’s glare is cold, directed at her nay-sayers. That is why I will never be ‘evil’ or ‘lie’ to them like you want, Holly. Because without them, there is no SCW. There is no Selena Frost the wrestler, and there sure as hell isn’t a Brand or a Holly Adams.

But you? You smirk and do your stupid parade wave and say that you’re entitled to be here. That you’re entitled to be the world champion. That you’re entitled to be the ‘Face of SCW’ while I no longer deserve it…

A smirk forming on her face, Selena lowers her head a little to laugh a bit before lifting it back up. Let me make this clear for you, Holly. I didn’t get that name by making a fancy pin on photoshop and shoving it down people’s throats on Twitter. I didn’t get it by begging SCW Universe “Please! Call me it! Please use it! I wanna be The Face of SCW!”. I didn’t get it by yelling at the fans to call me it or use it or whatever while I hid behind an Ipad, a green screen and a doctor’s note. 

I got this name because I showed up week after week, month after month, despite the injuries, the pain, the bumps, the setbacks, the losses, all of it! I show up, I fight on my own, I win or lose on my own and I strive to be better each and every day. I showup grateful to them and to SCW for what they have given me and respective of their place in this company, as the keepers of the keys. And when it came time for SCW to chose someone to stand by what those three letters stand for? When they could have chosen Syren or Regan or Kelcey or Amy Chastaine or dozens of others, The SCW Universe were loud and very clear, shouting “We Believe!” at the top of their lungs.

Taking a moment, Selena lowers the SCW title off her shoulder to hang at her side. But you, who were given this opportunity by them, you who chose to ‘hedge your bet’ rather than show your respect to them for choosing you to face me – you have the gall to blame me because your Brand screwed things up? You have the gall to try and make it about my morality?

She scoffs. That’s fine, Holly. My morals have been dissected and mocked and twisted around by people who were far more cunning in their argument and far more dangerous in their approach than you. I’m still here. I’m still fighting and I’ll still be here when this match is over and I’m still the World Champion. I’ll still be here, fighting for what Supreme Championship Wrestling means.

Because at the heart of the matter, that is what matters the most to me. That is what I love, that is what I am about. You and Giovanni have been making a lot of noise since End of the Year – we’ve all read it, heard it and seen it… and you may be right! Hell, ‘GiGi’ may be right!

This might be a ‘Night in Denver’ scenario, where the ‘millions’ of Holly Adams’ fans come out in droves and boo me right out of the building like they did at Apocalypse! Maybe, out of those millions, you really DO have people that will jump the barricade and get involved with my matches. Maybe, from those millions, you really do have people that want you to win the SCW world championship tonight!

I mean – why not? You’re easily more attractive than me. You play to the ‘model-look’ better than me. I can’t rock a facemask with rhinestones in it or a bikini or low-cut top like you can, and let’s face it, you pull off ‘fake-blonde’ better than anyone I know.

And in this ring? You got skills. I’ve said it before. Hell, you said it! You’ve only lost one one-on-one match in all of 2021! And with names like Syren and mine on that list, that says a lot. A hundred plus days as Adrenaline champion! There’s no limit to how far you can go, Holly!

Selena looks away for a second before wincing her face muscles as if in thought before turning back. Here’s the point I’m making, Holly. It may not be ‘millions’, but I believe you really DO have your fans. And when it comes to them, I could try and do what you have tried to do with my True Believers and ‘turn them’ towards me. I could write an expose on you. I could Tweet and subtweet and reply tweet and image tweet and retweet every hour by the hour. I could write parodies of movies and sub in some actors to play my friends and my opponents! I could turn my life into some exaggerated, vapid display for television! I could declare myself a hundred different things this way and that… I will NEVER win over those fans loyal to you.

The Snow Queen holds out a finger to pause the audience reaction. But unlike you, that doesn’t bother me. Unlike you, I am not concerned with those kind of fans. Those fans, Holly, are people that cheered when Giovanni Aries tried to screw me out of our match. Those fans, Holly, are the fans that cheered when Cookie and Cid got involved. And those people, Holly, are as desperate as you are to see you as the world champion. So desperate that they will settle for any way to make that happen and not give a damn about what the world title means. What SCW means…

Those are not the fans that I am concerned with, Holly. her lips forming a fine line, Selena shakes her head.

I am concerned for the fans that believe that the word ‘supreme’ means something and not “how many friends do I need holding my hand to win a match”. I’m concerned for the fans that wear the colors of their favourite superstar proudly because they want to see that superstar meet THEIR standards of wrestling and rise above all others to stand at the top of the mountain! I am concerned for the fans – the men, women, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters – that have shouted loudly “We Believe!” every time I step in this ring and I say “this is what I am about! This is what I believe in! This is what I will bring to SCW!”.

That is why I am going to win tonight, Holly. That is why I have to win tonight. Because you’ve already made it clear what happens if you become world champion. We go back to the days of Infamous, Pinnacle, Monarchy, etc. We go back to the days of Sienna Swann, Bree Lancaster, Syren – days where people booed and demanded change – demanded legit wrestling… and the world champion was too busy primping and preening herself to listen. Too busy flaunting her success to care… where the letters of SCW didn’t mean a damn thing to the supposed world champion because she ‘didn’t do anything that nobody else wouldn’t have done’…

Selena holds out her hand. That is why I have to win tonight, Holly. Because I refuse to let that willingly happen again.

And I’m not going to be like your friend ‘Chardonnay’ and say it’s going to be easy, because it’s not. You think that I’m just going to beat your ass and that will be that? You think I’m as arrogant as you are? I’m not. I’m going to kick your ass, Holly, but I’m also going to get my ass kicked… she smiles knowingly.

I’m going to be hit with everything that The Brand can throw at me. Giovanni’ll come out and hit me with The Third Eye! Cid’s gonna come out and hit me with a weapon, because THAT hasn’t gotten old in almost a year. Cookie will come out and hit me with either a weapon or her indecisiveness. And you… you’re gonna hit me with every move that you can – the Beauty Killer, the Hostile Makeover,  the Blonde Ambition! All of the Brand standing and cheering you on…  You and the Brand are going to beat me up on a scale that may make even Xander Valentine envious!!

Unfettered, the Snow Queen shakes her head. That isn’t your problem, Holly. That won’t be your problem tonight. You’ve made it very clear how good you are at beating opponents down, ESPECIALLY with The Brand helping you out. The real challenge for you is not that you can beat me down or bloody me… it’s you being able to keep me down.

Because despite your wins over me, that is one thing you – in your obsession to ‘expose me’ have failed to do. You, with your friends crying out “she’ll beat Selener Frost with ease”, still, after so many tries have failed to do.

See, you’re not just trying to become World Champion at this point. You’re not just blindsiding me with a parody where you declare some kind of witch hunt this go around. You need to deliver tonight, Holly. You need to not only beat me but ‘expose me’ somehow. You’ve got to show all of SCW exactly how I’m worse than a cowardly, desperate woman that hides behind her team and her ‘injuries’ and her ‘facemask’. 

All I have to do is beat you. Selena smiles. You have to remove ALL doubt from the minds of SCW that I am this ‘evil incarnate’ you’ve spent so much money and time trying to reveal! All I have to do is beat you. You have to back up every single accusation you’ve thrown my way, every line and every assertation…

And all I have to do is beat you.

Her smile grows as she heads to the center of the ring. Because if I can hold on, Holly – if I can take that huge ‘Brand-beating’ that is headed my way and still keep going! If I can survive you and Giovanni and Cid and Cookie and Gleebnorb and whoever else you’ve got in your pocket, if I can somehow rise above all of that and win… then not only do I silence The Brand once and for all, I silence Holly Adams!

Holding up a finger to contemplate, Selena suddenly points that finger towards the audience seats. Or rather… THEY will silence Holly Adams! Because it won’t matter how you spin it, Holly. It won’t matter how you have your cameramen edit it. It won’t matter how you try and justify it – every time you open your mouth to talk about it, THEY will drawn you out with their voices. Shouts of “We Believe! We Believe!”

All I have to do… is beat you.

She gestures to the ring she stands in. This, right here, tonight? This is truly going to be the finale of all of this, Holly. Of the Brand disrespecting the world title, disrespecting SCW and cheating the SCW Universe of what it deserves to see. And unlike you, Holly, I’m not going to need six episodes to make it happen. I won’t need a team of editors or a Brand-style army to make it happen.

All I need… is to beat you.

Whether it’s emphatic or by the skin of my teeth. Whether it’s undeniable, irrefutable, or an ending that could go either way, all I have to do, Holly Adams, is beat you. And you’re the biggest disappointment in SCW history! The biggest letdown in SCW history! The biggest liar in SCW history!

I fight you, I beat you, and then I will take the SCW world title, I will head out of this arena with my wife – I might even give her a kiss in front of the SCW Universe. she winks at the camera.

Tonight, Holly, you and the Brand are going to beat me down. You will do everything you can to ‘expose’ me – to make me fit the mold you have tried to force me into. But one way or another, I am going to be leaving with the world championship. I am going to be leaving still the SCW world champion. I am going to continue through 2022 as THEIR SCW World Champion.

Believe it, Holly. Because one way or another… I am going to beat you.

The camera focuses on Selena once more as she holds up the world title closer to her face. A knowing smile breaks across her features before it all fades to black.