"Avery?"

Isabelle sighed and waved her hand in Avery's face. This had marked the third time today that he'd decided to zone out, and though she had grown used to this little quirk throughout the year they had been married it didn't mean that she was particularly thrilled when it happened mid-conversation. Frustrated at the lack of response, she snapped her fingers and tapped her husband on the side of the head with three fingers. An action she followed up on by pushing his head to the side and muttering an obscenity under her breath. A gasp escaped Avery's mouth as he blinked hard twice, before bringing his hands to his face to rub his eyes. He groaned, stretching out and pushing his back against the rough leather back of his chair. A certain drowsiness marked his face, something Isabelle didn't notice until he stood up, grabbing onto the right arm rest and cracking his back before shoving off that and accidentally bumping shoulders with her.

"Whoops, sorry. Didn't see you there."

"What is that?"

A confused chuckle came out of Avery's mouth as he aimed his eyes down at the floor. "What is what?"

"That. The zoning out."

"Oh, that! I uh, really didn't get a good night's sleep last night. You were saying?

"No no, it's not just a one time thing Avery. You do it all the time."

"I think you're exaggerating just a little bit."

He tried to force out a chuckle, but Isabelle was less than amused. Even less amusing to her, was the fact that a few pesky strands of hair kept falling in front of her eyes, provoking a series of decreasingly subtle attempts at pushing them back into place. Finally, she gave up and returned her attention to Avery, who was now making his way from the living room to the stairway.

"Woah woah woah, get back here."

Almost as if on cue, Avery whirled around and leaned against the wall of the tiny square room the housed the stairway. "Yes?"

"I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. You're always zoning off, blacking out, whatever you want to call it; it happens all the fucking time!" There was no attempts at hiding it, Isabelle was infuriated. A revelation that was enough to get Avery to wipe the smile right off his face. Stammering, trying to find something to respond with, he took a few steps forward, closer to her.

"You're mad."

"No, really?"

"No need for the sarcasm, dear."

"Seriously. What's up with that? The zoning out? There has to be something to it."

"I've just been thinking a lot lately."

He seemed content to stop there, finally taking his eyes off the floor. A weak attempt at a smile dotted his face, which wasn't returned by Isabelle, whose prying eyes were busy trying to read through his attempting-to-be-collected demeanor until finally, after what felt like an eternity to Avery, she cleared her throat, covering her mouth with the crook of her elbow.

"About what?" she finally asked.

"Things."

"This is painful, Avery. You already know what I'm going to ask."

"Sheesh," he said with a chuckle, trying his damnedest to lighten the mood. "You're like Joan; it's the end of the world, always wanting to get in my head for no reason whatsoever."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Well, considering she cheated on me with just about everyone for the entirety of our marriage by her own admission, I'd say yes. Then again, I might be just the slightest bit biased."

And with that, he finally broke the tension. Isabelle, trying not to laugh at first, finally relented and giggled before trying to go back to the stern faced expression she had on prior. Something that never came to fruition as her giggle burst into full-on laughter as she leaned forward and rested her head on Avery's shoulder.

"Oh, that gets a laugh out of ya, eh?" he said as he wrapped his arms around her. Though, it wasn't long until her fit of laughter subsided and she looked up him with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes.

"What things were you thinking about?"

There it was. The armor piercing question. The one Avery had hoped she'd forgotten to ask, and yet there it was. Smacking him in the face with the truth; he didn't know. He had no idea what he had been thinking of when he zoned out. He never did. So, to compensate, he thought back to the last thing he remembered hearing before the slip out of awareness. He gnawed at his bottom lip as he thought, something Isabelle took a mental note of as she continued to look up at him. She let her fingers tap on his shoulder, hoping that would keep him from slipping into another lapse of awareness.

"You'll think I'm crazy," Avery began, using the phrase more to buy time.

"Stop stalling, hon."

"I'm not stalling."

"You so are!" She gave him a playful shove.

"I was thinking about how much I liked the wrestling thing. Yeah, that's the right word to describe it. Thing."

Her previously straight-lipped glare turned upwards into a grin. "Was that so hard?"

"I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm the twenty-year-old in this relationship."

"And I swear, sometimes you are." Though, it's kind of coincidental you thought that, because you got a letter in the mail today. That's what I wanted to talk to you about, funnily enough. It's from the XWF, apparently you're booked for their show, Monday Night Madness, on the seventeenth. I don't know why they mailed that here, but I guess they really wanted to make sure that you showed up. They seem really desperate to make sure people don't no show this for some reason."

"That's great! We could take another road trip together and everything. That's what you wanted to talk about, I presume?"

He couldn't hide it; this turn of events definitely made him happy. Though, her mentioning the card must've been where he caught the XWF because as it stood, he hadn't thought about that place for the better part of a couple of days. Isabelle on the other hand, didn't make an effort to look any more excited than she was when she asked him what he was thinking about. Something, that in Avery's expert opinion, meant that there was something more to this seemingly innocuous letter.

"No, guess who sent it? That creepy PR lady, Chase."

"Oh, her?"

"Yeah, and the funny thing is, there's a funny little PS message at the bottom. Some inside joke or something that I don't quite get. Could you please explain it to me?"

And now, she was excited. Not in the way Avery was a moment ago, of course. A different kind. An angry kind. Her fingers dug into Avery's shoulders, and he gulped, wondering what could be on the bottom of that letter that would send her into such a tailspin.

"Uh, sure," he said, completely and positively unsure whether or not that was a good idea.

"Goodie! It said, ahem, quote: Don't let me down, Mr. Schuyler."

All it took were those two words to make Avery completely lose his cool. His eyes popped, bulged right out of his skull and a cold sweat came pouring down his neck. His fingers, hands, arms all began trembling, something Isabelle could feel and as her smoldering eyes looked up at her husband's frightened eyes and for a moment, she didn't know what to feel.

"Well, I um..."

And then he opened his mouth and she went right back to annoyance. "You said you'd explain."

"I know I did, just give me a moment, alright?" He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling his body ease back to normal as the air left his lungs. "Coraline Chase is a very smart woman. You know I don't talk much about what I did when I was your age, right?"

"Mmhm."

"Well, Mr. Schuyler is the reason why."

She tilted her head, more confused than frustrated. "And who is this Mr. Schuyler?"

Avery gulped hard.

"Me."