"I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."

Maybe running shows again in Omnes had been a mistake. Laurel had already had misgivings about it, but then, she had misgivings about her venue sitting empty too. The government had postponed the reopening of nightclubs, and even if they hadn't, it wasn't like Laurel trusted their guidelines given how fucking abysmally they'd handled everything else about the pandemic. Ultimately, of course, she'd rather lose some business for now than contribute to a second wave of infections and lose her club for good, especially in light of the spike in Oldham. But for half of 2020, her club held no club nights. No gigs. No craft fairs or dance classes or munches or karaoke. No space rentals to activists or artists or other causes she wanted to support. The film nights she'd been planning to start hosting? Nope. Worst of all for her on a personal level, no wrestling shows. No Filthy Bazaar. And the decision on whether to start phasing those things back in was one she wasn't sure she'd be ready to make. Not exactly one for vacillation, typically, Laurel had nevertheless found herself struck by an unpleasantly unfamiliar executive dysfunction with the future of her business at stake. Hell, with her chronic bronchiectasis, she was technically an at-risk person herself. Of course, being stuck in Japan for the first month or so of the global lockdown, and thus divorced from everyone else with a stake in Omnes, hadn't helped the situation either.

In a sense, when Christina approached her about starting up Live From The Thrust Stage again, Laurel was grateful. She could almost say that the decision had been made for her. Even so, she'd made absolutely certain to be as careful as possible. They'd done a test run show ahead of time to make sure all the safety precautions were nailed down. Both times, everyone in attendance was tested a few days beforehand; luckily, nobody had come back positive. Masks and gloves had been provided. Social distancing had been enforced. It meant the show took almost twice as long to produce, but it all went smoothly...

...until Adelaide Ainsworth and Lissie Hope barged their way in, and everything went to shit.

Laurel wasn't even really sure why her girlfriend had booked a match between the two of them as the return show's main event, but it was fine. As far as Laurel was concerned, Live From The Thrust Stage was Christina's show, top to bottom. Laurel provided the venue, any other resources Christina needed, any advice she wanted, and agreed to wrestle on the shows in whatever match she got told she was in. That was that. But given that she was the majority owner of the nightclub, shit that happened at the venue was ultimately her responsibility, and Addy and Lissie caused her a proper fucking headache with their invasion interrupting Laurel and Christina's match that just about turned things into a goddamn riot. Manchester City Council had come down on Omnes like a ton of bricks, and although Laurel had managed to persuade them not to take action as she'd handle things internally, she knew they'd be on very thin ice in the event of a repeat offence. On top of that, everyone had to be re-tested. Laurel had pushed Christina to fine Addy to cover the cost of it; it wasn't like Laurel and Christina couldn't afford it themselves, but it was the principle, not to mention a message that such things wouldn't be tolerated. Lissie, not being on the Madhouse roster, couldn't even be touched by a fine. But Omnes had looked into pursuing legal action against the pair, which was still ongoing.

And then there was the whole other fucking question of Sah'ta Thor.

Truthfully, she didn't even know why Thor was there in the first place. He wasn't wrestling on the show. He hadn't been there as part of the discussions between Imperial Enterprises and Filthy Bazaar regarding the Global Extreme Wrestling reunion show; she'd been bouncing messages with him for weeks, yet was as surprised as anyone to see him show up. Maybe he was still harbouring a grudge ever since their gory encounters in Sheffield, but he hadn't shown it that night. He'd just remained in his seat, watching the show as one of the few spectators... until Lissie and Addy kicked off that brawl to close out the show and he'd jumped in, going after the friends and employees of Laurel, Matty and Christina who'd comprised the show's crew and audience.

She hadn't spoken to him in person since that night. She wasn't sure what the hell she was going to say to him when she did. To be honest maybe she'd just fucking lamp him one. Either way, it was going to make producing the GEW show a whole lot more interesting and a shitload more complicated, considering Laurel and Thor were two of the primary motivators behind the whole thing.

Anyway.

That whole "near riot" thing at the last Thrust Stage show boiled down to a mountain of paperwork for Laurel, and she was pretty sure that reading through and filling out forms was the exact thing she'd be doing in hell. Who knew that running your own businesses meant so many goddamn pointless sesquipedalia-infested scraps? It wasn't fair at all, considering she was basically illiterate until about a decade ago; she should have been able to get help from the council with all this shit. Then again, that would probably mean filling out more fucking paperwork too. Oh well. It had to be done, so she was forcing herself to file all the mountains of sheaves she'd accrued in the last couple of weeks, sitting on the floor of her bedroom with all the clothes and CDs and festering bowls that usually hid her carpet pushed to the sides, and stacks of papers arranged all around her.

It wasn't as if she could use the excuse of not having enough time at present. Christina was off in the States for some memorial event for Nathan Gust, so she didn't have that distraction to exploit. Her only other onscreen engagement recently had been commentating the Breakout Tournament alongside Neal Durden and Lowri Moss, which fortunately involved no further travel than Cardiff for the Tramshed - though with anti-COVID precautions and testing, each event still occupied a lot more time than normal. Still, her only other booked match coming up, aside from the GEW tribute and further Thrust Stage shows, was Emi Yamamoto's Love Power produce event. Between taking a break from Yamashi, FGA skipping Dynamic Duos this year, and Filthy Bazaar's return getting stalled by the incident at Omnes, her calendar was depressingly open. And the sooner she got these damn forms put away, the sooner she could forget about them.

The slog was real, though. In her many years as a deathmatch wrestler she'd fought through lacerations, stabbings, drowning, being set on fire and god knows how many concussions, but this? This was severely testing the absolute limits of her willpower. More than once, her internal arguments about whether to take a break and go for a walk or a bath or anything bubbled out into external ones.

That was why she almost shook with gratitude when she became aware of another person's presence off to the side. Before even looking up to see who it was, she called, "Just admirin' the view or did you want somethin'?"

Leanne was leaning in the doorway, framed by the hallway light. "Eh," she replied slowly and uncertainly, "I was waiting for you to look like you had a moment."

"Urgh," grunted Laurel, "You be waitin' a long time. This is my life now. I'ma be doin' this shit until I die. Feels like I already been doin' it since I was born. Ain't even wipe me off or cut the cord before they shoved a stapler in one hand an' a marker in the other."

"Mm... can I help?" murmured Leanne, her tone of voice making it pretty clear that she hoped the answer was no.

To her relief, Laurel said - after a long, exhausted exhalation - "Nah, no'really. S'a one person job, yeh. Unless maybe you wanna just cut my head off right now?"

"Eh, sorry, I ain't got an axe or anythin' on me," said Leanne, patting her pockets theatrically.

"Shame," groused Laurel. She tapped her laptop, putting Sandinista! on pause, then she proffered her spliff in Leanne's direction, but the latter shook her head. "How's you, cariad? Wassup?"

"Yeah," replied Leanne, then figuring that wasn't enough added, "I mean... same as ever. Stir crazy. Paranoid mess. Been worse."

"Hubby? Baby?"

"His turn to handle dinner. While they're doin' that, I thought I'd... um... come up an' see you."

Laurel grinned. "Make me smile?"

"I uh... maybe, maybe not," muttered Leanne evasively.

"Oh?"

"Yeah I... wanted to talk to you about this GEW reunion show. But. Um. If you're busy right now..."

Laurel shook her head quickly, almost desperately. "Omigod, no please, please. If I don't get a break from forms soon I think my brain's boutta abseil down my spinal cord an' out my arse." She quickly shoved one of the two sheets in her hand onto what she hoped was the right stack, then squinted at the other. "Here, what does..." ...she traced the letters with her finger... "...in-dem-ən-if-ia... bility mean?"

"Uh," shrugged Leanne, "No idea." She stepped slightly deeper into the room, navigating her way through the heaps of mess, and knelt down to pick up the piece of paper on top of the closest pile and gave it a quick scan. "'Manner of giving counter notice,'" she read aloud, then set it back down with a little headshake and a "Fuck me," before straightening back up.

"Tell me about it, mate, this shit's insane." She dumped her other form on what she hoped was the right stack. "I got no trouble with this kinda stuff doin' it face to face with people, but once it's all written down shit gets... twice as hard to understand, yeh? So anyway, what you wanna talk about?" Before she'd even finished the sentence, she was looking around at the piles of paper and miscellaneous junk surrounding her. "Lemme clear you a space..."

"I, er, it's fine, I don't mind standing," said Leanne quickly. Truth be told, Laurel's floor almost certainly hadn't been vacuumed all year, and her bed wasn't likely to be much cleaner either. Nestling herself among the dust and dirty knickers and empty beer cans would probably be more dangerous than coronavirus.

"Suit yourself," replied Laurel, "So lay it down on me."

Leanne sighed and clasped her hands. "I... am... pretty nervous. About the whole thing."

Laurel frowned. "I mean... no shit? You ain't wrestled in almost two years."

Well. That was certainly another thing on her mind, yes. But she shook her head. "No. I mean... it's the company we killed, Laurel. It's all gonna be fresh in their minds. Every damn person there's gonna want our hides."

"Oh. I see," answered Laurel with a grimace. She'd been turning the very same fact over and over in her mind for weeks.

"You know they're gonna be practically fightin' each other for a piece of us."

"I know."

They both paused for a moment, before Leanne, waveringly, asked, "...reckon they all still hate us?"

With a vague sigh and shrug, Laurel replied, "I don't know." What else could she tell her? "Troy, Thor, Scott, Faline, Casey... they've all had matches with me since then. They've had their chance to work out some aggression on me." Of course, she knew a match or two wasn't really anything.

"Not just you, though, is it?" said Leanne grimly, "Me, Matt, Serena... Jokers... Shane. Shane bein' there especially's gonna open up some old wounds, I bet."

"Yeah," nodded Laurel, adding, "Fuckin' Cerb get off easy. Retired arsehole."

Leanne smiled, but it was thin. "He's still gonna be there with us though, right?"

"I mean. I assume so? Never actually asked him, I guess. But it feels like... it has to be all eight of us."

"Mm. Yeah. I bet someone's gonna fuckin' go for him too even if he doesn't have a match..." mused Leanne.

"Reckon?"

"Sure," chuckled Leanne - again, wanly, "You look at the people who's talking about this. Thor. Kam. Scott Simmonds. Those are not people who sort shit out with a chat over a cuppa."

"Well," shrugged Laurel in response, "Neither am I. We got to answer for some shit but people can do that the right way. I ain't about to let 'em jump him from behind."

"I think Rowan can handle himself, Ell. He's like a... ninety-time world champion."

"Sure, an' his joints are made of popcorn these days."

Leanne shook her head. "GEW's the only place I ever been thrown through a glass case," she mused, pensively, "That ain't something I ever wanna go through in my life again." She paused a moment, thinking about what she just said, then added, "Literally."

"Well look," said Laurel, trying to at least sound like the voice of reason even if she knew there was a fair chance that yes, all of The Asylum's members would have people lining up to hurt them, "We don't even know if we're gonna be in a deathmatch or whatever..."

Leanne was paying more attention to her own thoughts, though. "I'm only just gettin' my career going again after near two fuckin' years. I've a baby to think about..."

Laurel fixed her friend's gaze. "Leanne... Listen. I ain't gonna make you do anythin' you don't wanna do, babe."

...a moment of quiet, and then...

"...you an' me have to do this together, Ell. We both know that."

Laurel just nodded. Leanne was right. No point pretending otherwise. After a further uncomfortable silence, Laurel continued, "Look. Maybe we're gonna be in deathmatches, right..." she swallowed, knowing how overwhelmingly Leanne did not care for the weaponish end of wrestling, and admitted... "Maybe you're gonna end up bleeding an' bruised an' that. But... blood washes off, hon. Bruises heal. I think either way we're gonna come out the other side of this show feelin' better. Mentally, at least. Some... kinda closure, or something."

"Is that..." wavered Leanne, "...mm, why you're helpin' fund an' produce the thing? Closure? You think you can... Iunno..." she sighed and slumped her shoulders, "...buy... forgiveness?"

"Probably not." Laurel sucked in a cheek for a second. "Ain't sure if I'm doin' it for them, though. Least - not primarily. I think the main person I'm doin' it for is me, yeh."

"Yeah?"

"Eh, maybe. I'm not sure. We... we owe them, for sure. We got a debt we gotta pay. We made the mistake of our lives an', ah, I want to make up for it. But like... eh. I dunno. I don't wanna say it's a karmic thing, but I got this stain on my own soul I need to scrub out. Whether people accept the olive branch is up to them. Either way it's important to myself that I offer it, yeh?" She coughed lightly, then added, "Does that make sense?"

"Yes," said Leanne, quietly. She'd had similar thoughts, though she'd struggled to articulate them. Quieter still, she followed up, "Can't believe we thought we were doin' the right thing back then."

"Well. We were young. Stupid."

Leanne rubbed her forehead. "I keep wonderin' how everyone's gonna be when they see us. You said before about the matches you've had with some of them since then; I haven't, really. Thor's never had a chance to take his anger out on me. Neither's Troy. Or Faline. Hell, what about Scott? We took the company from him the same night he won the world title. Or Mark? Mark's probably got more right to be mad at us than anyone, considering he was the one who got us the job in the first place."

Laurel shrugged. "You two been pally on Twitter lately, I saw. You got the same footy team, that transcends all else. You could break each other's legs and then have a conversation in A&E about how cute Klopp's smile is or somethin', you'd be mates again in five minutes."

"Eh. Perhaps. Might be different face to face again though, after so long."

"C'mon," said Laurel, "Wrestling was... like... Mark's third career, anyway."

"Still a career, though. Still something he put time an' love into."

"Yeah, well, he knows about turnin' on people. For worse reasons than we thought we had," replied Laurel grimly.

Leanne nodded absently - then groaned as another thought struck her. "Jesus, what if Amy's there? I believe she would actually kill us both on sight."

"She won't be," stated Laurel firmly, "She quit the sport years ago an' she's barely even talked about it since then."

"But what if she is?" Leanne's voice was edged with desperate fear of the woman who'd probably done more to help them break into the business than anyone... and whom they'd thanked by robbing her of her love of wrestling.

Rolling her eyes slightly, Laurel insisted, "Look, if Amy's there, leave her to me, right? Anyway!" she said with sudden energy, doing a poor job of masking that she was trying to direct Leanne's thoughts to at least marginally sunnier territory, "To be fair, it's not Chelsea ain't had her part in it too. Hell, it was as much her as us. So really, like, you and me only have... an eighth of a half of... hang on," she mumbled and tapped out some calculations on her fingers... "Six and a quarter percent of the blame each."

"Eh..."

"Hell," continued Laurel, "Whole thing was Shane's idea in the first place so we can round it down to an even six."

"I don't think it works like that," grimaced Leanne.

"What do you mean? Fifty divided by two is-"

"No, not the maths," said Leanne impatiently, "I trust you on that. I mean we're all still the villains here. Just because Chelsea Reed's worse don't mean we're gonna get off lighter. Anyway," she groused, "Maybe Mark an' Kam have forgiven her since then. Family, an' all."

"I heard she ain't even been sighted again since she vanished," replied Laurel with another shrug, "Fuck, Iunno, maybe she's dead."

Leanne couldn't help the laugh. "Hah! Fuckin' overdosed in a swimmin' pool full of cocaine or summat. Though is it wrong that the reason I kinda hope she's not is because I want there to still be someone out there more hated than us?"

"Eh, probably," admitted Laurel, "But look, if there's anyone you're gonna hope is still alive for a bad reason, it might as well be her."

"S'pose," murmured Leanne. After another minute or two of reflective silence, she said, "I'm glad we got Emi's show before this, y'know. I... I really don't want my first match back, our first match together in god knows how many fuckin' years, to be..." She exhaled. "I'm so glad we have this, like, dry run? Feels kinda disrespectful to Emi, but..."

"I know," replied Laurel softly, "I get it."

"And the Skull Kids. I know they ain't to be taken light or anything. But they... they won't be actively tryna kill us. That's kind of a blessing."

Laurel sucked in a cheek for a moment, "I mean, any more than they're always actively tryna kill all their opponents."

"You've fought 'em before, right?" asked Leanne, with hope in her voice, "In Yamashi or whatever?"

"Nope."

"Oh."

"On the plus side, it means they've never fought us before either."

Leanne wrinkled her face. "They're super weird."

With a chuckle, Laurel replied, "I'm like eighty... three? Maybe eighty-four percent sure it's an act."

"I don't even know," mumbled Leanne, "I still can't even work out how much of Seren Beyer was an act."

"Not sure Seren even knows that herself, to be honest," laughed Laurel, then continued, "Look, anyway, don't think of it as disrespect to Emi. No way we wouldn't be on her show completely regardless of the GEW reunion, right?"

"Right," admitted Leanne. It was a fair point. Emi was a close friend of both Dragons - she'd even lived with them for a while - and there was no force on Earth to make them miss her and Makoto's Love Power event. To be honest, Leanne was probably ring-ready right now, but she'd wanted to make her return at Emi's show as a mark of respect. It was something she'd discussed with Laurel, and Laurel understood totally. Emi had worked as a referee for Filthy Bazaar for a little while, and Laurel wanted to return the favour and support Emi's show however she could. "I'm so proud of her, you know," said Leanne, "To think a couple years ago she never thought she'd even wrestle again. Now she's promotin' her own event."

"For sure," agreed Laurel enthusiastically, then with a wry smirk added, "Hey, I got my own company, she's promoting a show now an' it sounds like she might have plans for more. When's it your turn?"

"Oh, hell, I wouldn't know where to begin..." demurred Leanne, blushing.

"Well, you know I'd help you. I got a venue," though she glanced at the paperwork and conceded, "Long as we get no more fuckin' riots break out there. Staff, money, help booking, I got you on all that."

Leanne sighed, "I... I dunno. Just wanna get back into the swing of things for now. Focus on Emi's show, GEW show, then think about where I wanna wrestle full time. Work my way back towards titles..."

"Okay," nodded Laurel, "But if you ever do want to run your own produce event just talk to me, I'll do everythin' I can, yeh?"

"Um. Thanks," said Leanne, muttering somewhat, "And... thanks for partnerin' with me for these events, Ell. Between these bein' my first matches after so long, an'... well... all of the GEW stuff, I'm not sure I could do this all without you."

Laurel stood up, exhaling a little at the exertion after so long on the floor, and embraced her best friend. "You know I'm always here for you, babe, no matter what."

"Thank you."

"Though, y'know," added Laurel, "Without me this GEW show might not even be happenin' at all."

"...I hadn't even looked at it like that." Another thought struck her. "Here, do you trust Thor? Considerin' what he did at Christina's last show? You gotta work with him on this GEW thing, right..."

Laurel growled, "Right. An' not really, but I doubt he trusts me either."

"...fair."

"Just gotta wait an' see," shrugged Laurel, "Tonight me an' Matty are meant to have another online meetin' with him an' all the other people involved in puttin' this show on. Scott an' Benji, Kam, Shane, all that. See if he says anythin' then, I guess."

"Fuck," was Leanne's blunt reply, evidently glad she wouldn't have to participate in that herself, knowing how high tensions might run; "Well, good luck."

"Yeah, cheers. Anyways, I needa get all this lot finished an' put away before then," said Laurel, gesturing to the piles of papers. "If you wanna talk more later on, long as I ain't in that meetin', come find me. And listen - you're a friggin' master, Leanne. You're a better wrestler than I am. If I ain't sweatin', you shouldn't be."

Leanne replied, "Thanks, Ell. I should go see how Smurf's getting on with dinner an' stuff anyway," and they hugged again quickly. Muffled by Laurel's shoulder, Leanne added, frowning, "Eurgh. You are kinda sweaty, actually."

"God, I know," moaned Laurel, "I dunno what's wrong with me. I think I need to see a doctor."

"Well, I'll leave you to file and sweat in peace," said Leanne with a warm, cheeky grin as she disengaged.

"Ugh. Cheers."

"You can do it, you're strong."

"If you find an axe, that head choppin' thing's still on the table, right?"

"Hah!" called Leanne as she stepped out of the room, "I'll see what I can do, alright? No promises."

"Thank you," replied Laurel, "You're a good friend." And then, with a weary sigh, she sat back down to attempt to finish this goddamn paperwork.