Disclaimer: I lay no claim to any person, place or thing that you may recognize.

Characters: Jeff/Maria; Lita, Trish appearing/mentioned

Notes: I am without a proper grammar and spell checker, so there may be a few stray typos here and there. Please also note, I ignore real life situations on a regular basis with my stories. You would do well to remember that before getting on my case about it.

~&~

He supposed, that no matter what happened in their seperate lives and no matter what obstacles where placed before them; it would always come back, somehow to them. And not in the romantic sense of the word, they'd come to that conclusion years ago... but in a sense that they would still be two halves of a whole.

Best friends and soul mates.

Not everyone understood that about them, but they didn't need everyone to understand. They understood how their relationship worked and those close to them understood how their relationship worked. She was like the sister that he never had, and at one point she may have even been his actual sister-in-law... or maybe not. Things happened for a reason, after all, and despite how picture perfect his brother and his best friend seemed to be at times...

Well, that was a different story for a different day.

And despite the rockiness and raw emotion and pain of the situation, they'd moved past it. All parties involved, for that matter, and though she had suffered the worst of it all... she had complained the least. At least outloud. He knew better though, just as he always did. There were nights that he understood that she needed a shoulder to cry on or nights that she wanted to avoid the topic all together. There were also nights that she just wanted to be free and he would do his best to get her as close to that freedom as he could.

She was the same to him, of course. And everyone close to them knew this.

Which was why his older brother questioned...

And that was why the pretty blonde Canadian had called with concern... both for him, the current WWE diva and for the former WWE diva.

Lita had explained as much as Trish needed to know, enough so that the well meaning blonde would kindly step away and back off from the situation. And Trish was good like that, instead directing her attention towards her friend's seemingly non-existent love life.

As for Jeff, he still had yet to explain anything to his older brother and really, he didn't feel that it was necessary for him to explain.

He knew the reasons why he was with her and that was good enough for him.

But Matt, being the older and supposedly wiser brother, had bugged the younger sibling until Jeff finally gave in.

She was not and she had never been and she never would be a replacement for his best friend. The WWE Champion was fully aware of the fact that they were two different women and he loved them both. Equally, but not quite the same.

And Lita understood that and that was how she wanted it. The former WWE Diva, after all, now had her set of problems to worry about thanks to Trish.

More importantly, from the very beginning, Maria understood how things worked. She hadn't been threatened in the slightest and she never felt any hostility, resentment or jealousy. Rather, her relationship with Jeff beneffitted after she formed a good friendship with Lita.

Because Lita, after all, understood Jeff better than nearly anyone ever would.

And that was most certainly something that Maria could, and would, use to her advantage.

~ FIN ~