January 18
Manhattan, New York
It had certainly been a whirlwind few days for Bella Madison and Malachi. Sunday night, they had been ready for Bella to take to the ring at SCW’s Inception event for a shot at the Bombshell Roulette title, only for the couple to be told that she would not be able to compete…due to her pregnancy.
The news had rocked them to their core. It certainly wasn’t the way they envisioned this particular conversation happening, not with their wrestling bosses and the head of SCW’s medical team - and certainly not broadcast to an international audience. But the proof was there, Bella’s blood test results had shown she was more than likely pregnant.
As soon as they had landed back home in New York, Mal had been on the phone to the office of the doctor that had been taking care of Bella through the fertility treatments. When Bella had questioned him about it, he simply told her that he wanted to be absolutely sure. “No way in hell am I trusting lab results from a man named Al Koholik,” he had grumbled, while Bella rolled her eyes and giggled.
Which is how they now found themselves in the waiting room of Dr. Hilland, waiting to be seen. Bella was sitting in a cushy armchair flipping through a magazine, while Mal was pacing the floor in front of her. She glanced over the top of her magazine at her husband, arching an eyebrow over one blue eye. “Mal, will you sit down? If you pace any more, you’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
He stopped in his tracks to give her a sheepishly apologetic stare, and took the seat next to her. “Sorry. Just…I don’t want this to be a fluke, you know? Get our hopes up just for the doctor to bring them all crashing down again.”
Bella put the magazine aside and reached over to take his hands in hers, giving him an encouraging smile. “Babe, I really think this is it. I mean, you really think Mark and Christian would tell us live on an internationally broadcast pay per view event unless they knew for sure?”
He gave her a withering stare. “Considering their medical expert was ‘Dr. Al Koholik’, I’m a little disinclined to take it at face value. Christ, I would have trusted Dr. Oz over him.”
Bella giggled. “Come on, babe. Have a little faith. You are Catholic, after all.”
“Non-practicing.” But he leaned over and gave her a kiss. “Alright, alright. Let’s just hope for the best.”
She gave him another smile just as the door opened and Dr. Hilland poked her head out. “Mr. and Mrs. O’Connell, nice to see you again! Come on back.”
They stood up and followed the doctor through the doorway and into an examining room that was set up with an ultrasound machine. The doctor closed the door behind them and turned to the couple, smiling at them brightly. “Well, from what I understand, congratulations are in order!”
“Well…we’re not ready to pop the champagne just yet, doctor,” Mal said.
Bella elbowed him lightly in the side. “What happened to ‘hope for the best’?”
Dr. Hilland laughed. “It’s all right, Bella. With everything the two of you have been through over the past few months, I can understand why your husband is a little hesitant. Luckily, I’ve got a foolproof way to put your minds at ease.” She gestured to the ultrasound machine. “Now Bella, you can go ahead and hop up on the table and get comfortable. I’ll get this all set to go.”
With assistance from Mal, Bella managed to get herself up onto the high examining table and she laid back on the pillow. Mal stood on the opposite side so as not to impede the doctor, and he held on to Bella’s hand. She gave him a big smile, which he returned just as the doctor stepped up beside the bed.
“Alright, everything’s all set to go. Bella, if you wouldn’t mind lifting your shirt just a little bit?”
Bella pushed her shirt up to expose her stomach, and Dr. Hilland poured some gel into her gloved hand. “Fair warning, this is gonna be a bit chilly.”
She rubbed it onto Bella’s stomach, and the sudden chill made her jolt a bit. Mal stifled a laugh behind his hand, and Bella gave him a mock glare. Dr. Hilland finished rubbing the gel on her stomach and lifted the wand from the table beside the bed. “Alright, here we go. The moment of truth.”
She gently pressed the tip of the wand to Bella’s stomach, moving it around in small circles around her belly button while she stared at the screen. The room was quiet while the doctor worked, and when a few moments passed by with nothing, Bella glanced up at Mal with a slightly concerned expression on her face. He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of her hand, reaching over and smoothing back her hair with his other hand. “It’s alright, mo chroí.”
The moments seemed to stretch on forever with no word from the doctor, and Mal was on the edge of throwing up his hands and cursing a blue streak to the gods for giving them the tiniest glimmer of hope only to snatch it away so cruelly, but then…
The faintest little heartbeat.
It was so faint that it could have been easy to miss, but with the silence of the room it was almost thunderous. Dr. Hilland smiled as she zeroed in on a spot just underneath Bella’s belly button. “Ah, there’s the little peanut. Tricky little one already. I think you two are going to have your hands full in about nine months or so.”
And there, up on the screen, in grainy black-and-white…
Their baby.
It wasn’t much more than a misshapen blob, but the doctor pointed out the shape of the head, the tiny nubs of its limbs just beginning to form. Bella let out a sob, the tears flowing down her cheeks as she stared in awe at the screen. But another sob drew both hers and the doctor's attention, and they turned to see Malachi - the tough, no-nonsense, borderline sadistic professional wrestler - openly weeping. The tears spilled out of his eyes and down his cheeks, rolling into his beard. Bella smiled as she squeezed his hand, and he looked down at her with the biggest, proudest smile on his face.
—-----
“And just like that, the comeback kicks off to a winning start. Just like I said it would.”
Sitting in the tastefully decorated living room of his New York townhome, Malachi smirked towards the camera as he relaxed in a cushy armchair. Dressed in dark jeans and a crisp white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he had his right leg crossed over his left with the ankle resting on his knee and his arms folded neatly in his lap. His blue eyes were shining with a determined glare as he settled more into the chair, preparing to speak.
“People are going to learn that when I say something’s going to happen, it’s a damn foregone conclusion. Like two weeks ago, when I said I was coming back to SCW and I was going to have my hand raised after I painted the canvas with Alex Rush…and lo and behold, I came out of that match with the victory. And that was just the first stop on my road to SCW gold. Next up, another annoying little pissant that I’ve already put down once before but am more than happy to do so again - The Troll.”
Malachi gave a roll of his eyes as he dropped his leg to the floor and moved to the edge of the chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “You know, I will give you a modicum of credit. You are absolutely winless in this company, and yet you still keep coming back time and time and time again to continuously get your ass handed to you by people who are leagues and miles above you. You may not have wrestling skill, but at least you’re persistent as hell.” He smirked again. “Then again, so is herpes.”
He leaned back again, crossing his arms across his chest. “Am I being a little cruel? Maybe. I know that I said I’d sort of turned over a new leaf, and for the most part I have. But you see, you’ve been an absolute shitheel on Twitter for quite some time now to a lot of people. People I care about. And that just doesn’t sit right with me.” The smirk gradually fell away from his face until he was practically glaring at the camera. “It’s one thing for you to come at me with your pathetic little insults, acting like I give one iota of a fuck what you have to say. But when you come for my pregnant wife - who can hold her own, trust me - that is absolutely unforgivable.”
The smirk returned to his face, though now it was a little more malicious. “Now, some people may be feeling pity for you after your hag of a girlfriend reamed you out on national television, but I’m definitely not one of those people. In fact, I’ve got some receipts from you that are desperately in need of being cashed in.” He reached beside the chair he was sitting in and held up what appeared to be a singular piece of paper. But when he moved a few of his fingers, the paper unfolded to about three feet in length. “I was going to sit here and list all the reasons that you’re an absolutely useless tool, but in all honesty I wouldn’t want to waste the oxygen it would take.”
He quickly balled up the paper in his fist and fired it off to the side, into the crackling fireplace that was beside him. The paper caught flame immediately and quickly burned up into a pile of ash while Malachi rose up from the chair to stand in front of the camera. “No, what I’m going to do instead is march down to that ring on Sunday night, and I’m going to tear you limb from limb. I’m going to show your little woman that she indeed saddled herself with the biggest loser on this planet, and I’m going to enjoy every single moment of it. And then, if you’re truly as smart as you say you are, you will never show your face around my ring again.”
With a snarl, he drew his thumb across his throat as he put a hand over the camera lens, cutting the feed to black.
