SCW Boards
Roleplay Boards => Climax Control Roleplays => Topic started by: BellaMadison on June 12, 2026, 11:57:40 PM
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~*~The Arrivals Gate~*~
John F. Kennedy International Airport
New York
The terminal was busy in the way airports always seemed to be.
People moved in every direction at once, dragging suitcases behind them while staring at phones, flight boards, family members, or some combination of all three. Announcements echoed overhead every few minutes, most of them promptly ignored by everyone within earshot.
Bella Madison sat on a bench near the international arrivals area while Máire occupied the seat beside her, or at least she had been occupying it. Now the little girl was standing on the seat, hands pressed against the glass wall overlooking the concourse below while providing a running commentary on every airplane she could see.
"Mama, look! Big plane!"
Bella smiled despite herself. "That is a big plane."
Máire immediately pointed toward another. "Bigger plane!"
"I don't think that's bigger."
"It is."
Bella laughed. "Well, if you say so."
Across from them, Mal looked up from his phone long enough to shake his head. "She's got your stubbornness."
Bella didn't even look at him. "That's rich coming from an O'Connell."
"Fair."
Máire turned around dramatically. "Dada?"
"Yes, mo chroí?"
"Plane."
Mal nodded seriously. "That is definitely a plane."
The toddler seemed satisfied with this expert analysis and returned to her post. Bella leaned back in her chair and glanced toward the arrivals board. Aileen's flight had landed twenty minutes earlier, which meant customs, which meant waiting. Which meant listening to Máire identify every aircraft in the northeastern United States.
Not that Bella minded, the last few weeks had been strangely peaceful. The world had finally slowed down enough for her to notice it. That thought disappeared the second Máire suddenly gasped.
The little girl's entire face lit up. "MAIMEÓ!"
Several travelers immediately turned and Bella followed her daughter's gaze. Aileen O'Connell had just emerged through the arrivals doors. The older woman barely had time to lower her suitcase handle before a tiny blonde blur launched herself across the terminal.
"Jesus Christ," Mal muttered.
Aileen immediately dropped into a crouch and caught her granddaughter. "There she is!"
Máire wrapped herself around her grandmother's neck like she'd been separated for years instead of a few months. Bella couldn't help smiling as some things never changed. Aileen stood and immediately began peppering Máire's face with kisses while the toddler giggled uncontrollably. Only after a solid minute did she finally acknowledge her own son.
"Oh."
Mal folded his arms. "Oh?"
"You're here too."
Bella laughed instantly as Mal looked offended. "I flew all the way to the airport to pick you up and this is how I’m greeted?"
"You drove thirty-five minutes."
"Stil, traffic is a nightmare. If I was a worse son, I would have told you to take an uberl."
Aileen waved a hand dismissively. "You survived."
Then she laughed and hugged him anyway. “If that beard because any more bushy, you’ll be the exact spitting image of your pa.”
Bella stepped forward next and immediately found herself pulled into a hug as well.
"It's good to see you, sweetheart."
"You too."
Aileen leaned back enough to look at her properly. "You're looking healthier."
Bella smiled. "I'll choose to take that as a compliment."
"It was." Aileen nodded once. "You're also sleeping more."
Bella blinked. "How do you know that already?"
"Because you don't look like you're preparing to invade a small country."
Mal started laughing, as Bella pointed at him. "Don't encourage her."
It was too late as she could tell the two O'Connells were already enjoying themselves. Aileen tucked Máire securely against her hip and started toward baggage claim. "Come on then, lets get us home."
"So I’m the uber now?" Mal asked.
"Then grab my bags, I haven't seen my granddaughter in months and we have so much to catch up on."
Aileen looked genuinely confused.
"Why are you still talking?"
Bella laughed so hard she nearly had to stop walking.
~*~Boxes of Old Lives~*~
The O'Connell Home
Two Days Later
The attic wasn't supposed to become a project. At least that had been the original plan. Bella had only gone up there looking for a travel bag before the cruise. She had expected to be in and out within five minutes, grab what she needed, and get on with the rest of her day.
Instead she found boxes, dozens of them. Some belonged to her, some belonged to Mal. Some looked like they hadn't been opened since they moved into the house. Which was how she found herself sitting cross-legged on the attic floor nearly an hour later while sunlight filtered through a small window overhead.
Dust floated lazily through the beams of light, around her sat pieces of several different lives. Old notebooks, photographs, programs, college textbooks and training journals. Half-forgotten memories packed away in cardboard and tape.
Bella reached into another box and pulled out a photograph.
She immediately laughed. "Oh God."
The picture showed her at nineteen, the haircut alone was criminal.
"What have you got there?" Mal's voice drifted up from the attic stairs.
Bella held the picture up, and he looked at it then immediately started laughing. "Oh that's terrible."
"I know."
"You thought that looked good."
"I know, thankfully it grew out pretty fast.."
"That's the funniest part."
Bella threw a rolled-up receipt at him and Mal caught it effortlessly, unfortunately. He was entirely too pleased with himself. A few minutes later he disappeared back downstairs, leaving Bella alone with the boxes again.
The house below was quiet, Aileen had taken Máire somewhere, probably for ice cream or a pony, or both.
Bella reached into another container. This one was older than most of the others and looked like it had survived more moves than any piece of cardboard had a right to survive. The contents had followed her from New York to Paris and then eventually back home again, collecting years of memories along the way. The box itself looked exhausted.
Her fingers brushed against something laminated. She pulled it free, then stopped as a small smile appeared.
A faded Paris Metro pass. The corners were worn and the picture looked ridiculous. The date printed across the front felt like it belonged to somebody else. For a moment Bella simply stared at it.
The attic disappeared, the boxes disappeared and the years disappeared and suddenly she wasn't sitting in New York anymore.
She was twenty years old, living in Paris. Certain she had her entire life figured out.
The memory arrived so quickly it almost caught her off guard.
Bella turned the pass over in her hands and laughed softly. "Well..."
Her smile grew.
"There's somebody I haven't thought about in a while."
And just like that, the past came rushing back.
~*~Pink Hair and No Expectations~*~
Paris, France
Late Winter
Several Years Earlier
The venue was smaller than most of the places Bella Madison had grown up around, and that was precisely why she liked it.
The building sat tucked away on a side street not far from the Seine, squeezed between a café and a bookstore that looked older than most countries. A small crowd had packed the venue for the evening's wrestling show, but compared to the arenas she'd spent her childhood around, it felt intimate. There were no giant video screens. No elaborate entrances. No production trucks parked outside.
Just wrestling.
The kind that existed because people loved it.
Bella sat near the back of the building with her messenger bag resting beside her chair. She had come straight from class, and several textbooks were still sticking out of the top of the bag. Her bright pink hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, a choice that would have sent at least half the people back in New York into cardiac arrest.
Which was part of the reason she'd done it.
Paris had given her something she hadn't realized she desperately needed, space. For the first time in her life she wasn't constantly being introduced as somebody else's daughter. Here she wasn't Laura Phoenix's daughter or Nick Madison's adopted daughter. Here she wasn't "the future.", "the prospect.", or "the wrestler."
She was just Bella, a twenty-year-old college student living halfway across the world and trying to figure out who she wanted to be when nobody else was deciding for her.
The show had ended nearly twenty minutes earlier, but Bella wasn't in any hurry. She knew Mal would be there awhile as wrestlers were never quick about leaving after a show. There was always gear to pack, people to talk to, and stories to tell.
She was scrolling through notes for an upcoming class when a voice interrupted her. "Excuse me."
Bella looked up, as three wrestlers stood nearby. She recognized all of them from previous shows. None of them were people she knew particularly well, but she'd spoken to them enough to exchange names and small talk.
The oldest of the three pointed toward her, "You're Bella Madison, right?"
Bella immediately laughed, “That depends. Am I in trouble?"
The group chuckled, "No," another wrestler replied. "We were just trying to settle an argument."
"Those never end well."
The third wrestler pointed toward her hair. "The pink threw us off."
Bella grabbed a strand and held it out dramatically. "The pink is doing exactly what I intended it to do then."
That earned another round of laughter, the oldest wrestler folded his arms. "We finally figured it out though."
Bella smiled. "My condolences."
The group laughed again before the oldest wrestler asked the question she'd been answering most of her life. "So why aren't you wrestling? The rumor mill ran rampant a couple of years ago that Phoenix’s kid was training."
Bella leaned back in her chair and let out a quiet sigh. "You know, I should start carrying printed answers."
"Asked that often?"
"More often than you'd think."
The wrestlers exchanged amused looks, one of them shrugged. "Can you blame people? Everybody knows who your parents are."
Bella nodded. "I mean fair point...."
"You grew up around wrestling."
"Also fair."
"You've already trained."
"Still fair."
The wrestler spread his hands. "So why are you sitting out here with textbooks instead of being back there?"
Bella glanced down at the messenger bag beside her chair, for a moment she considered giving them the easy answer. Instead she told the truth, "Because for the first time in my life nobody expects anything from me."
The three men fell quiet. Bella looked around the venue before continuing. "Back home, everybody already had my future planned out before I was old enough to vote. I was supposed to wrestle. I was supposed to carry on the family name. I was supposed to do this and become that and eventually follow the same road everybody expected me to follow. Then I moved to Paris."
A small laugh escaped her. "Do you know what happened when I got here?"
One of the wrestlers shrugged. "What?"
"Nothing." The answer seemed to confuse them as Bella smiled wider. "Nobody cared. Nobody knew who my parents were. Nobody knew I'd trained. Nobody had expectations."
Her eyes drifted toward the ring.
"For the first time in my life I got to wake up every morning and decide who I wanted to be instead of being told."
One of the younger wrestlers leaned against a nearby chair. "And who'd you decide to be?"
Bella thought about it, really thought about it. "A student. A traveler. And surprisingly, a girlfriend and honestly? I'm still figuring out the rest."
The oldest wrestler studied her for a moment. "You seem happier."
That caught her off guard, Bella blinked. "What?"
"You seem happy."
She looked away instinctively, not because she disagreed but because she hadn't stopped to think about it.
The truth was...She was.
The stress that had followed her for years had finally gone quiet. She liked her classes, she loved exploring the city, she loved the freedom of being on her own without additional family breathing down her neck and she loved the stubborn Irish wrestler who had somehow wandered into her life when she least expected it.
The realization made her smile.
"Yeah," she admitted quietly. "I think I am."
The wrestlers shared a glance before one of them laughed. "Then why do I feel like you'll be back eventually?"
Bella groaned. "Oh, come on."
"I'm serious."
"No chance."
The younger wrestler pointed toward the ring. "You keep coming to shows.”
“My boyfriend works here.”
“You still watch every match."
"It's called being supportive."
"You still pay attention."
Bella rolled her eyes. "You people are exhausting."
The oldest wrestler grinned. "We'll see."
Before Bella could respond, a familiar voice cut through the conversation.
"There ya are." She turned immediately. Mal stood near the entrance with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and that same crooked smile that had been causing problems in her life since the day she'd met him. His eyes moved between Bella and the wrestlers. "What are you lot bothering her about now?"
One of them pointed at Bella. "We're trying to figure out why she doesn't wrestle."
Mal looked at them, then at Bella and back at them. A smile spread across his face. "Maybe she's still figuring that out herself."
Bella narrowed her eyes. "You're supposed to be helping me."
"I'm Irish. We don't help."
The wrestlers laughed and Bella shook her head. "Traitor."
Mal offered her a hand. "Ready?"
Bella looked at him. "Yeah."
As they started toward the exit, one of the wrestlers called after them. "You'll be back eventually!"
Bella didn't even turn around. She simply raised a hand over her shoulder. "Not a chance."
~~~~
“You really thought you’d never wrestle when ya came back?”
The voice of Mal brought her out of it, “It was more like I just wanted things on my own terms, and I did. I pissed a lot of people off along the way but then again, I pissed a lot of people off when I started seeing you.”
“Yeah, thankfully I’ll never stop proving myself there.”
“Oh babe, you have proven yourself more than ya know.” Bella sighed, giving him a kiss, “I’m gonna go out to the barn. Call me when your mother is done spoiling our kid?”
“Will do”
~*~Chosen Violence: The Path We Lay~*~
"Mercedes, I think the funniest thing about this match is that everybody already knows what they're talking about. They're talking about Victoria Lyons. They're talking about the World Bombshell Championship. They're talking about Summer XXXTreme. They're talking about what happens when you and Victoria finally get locked in the same ring with everything on the line."
"They're talking about your future.And somehow that's supposed to make me nervous."
"See, that's where you've always been different from most people, Mercedes. You've built an entire career around making people pay for looking past you. You've made a living out of proving that experience matters, that patience matters, that knowing exactly when to strike matters."
"So tell me something. Why are you making the exact same mistake now?"
"Because that's what this is, isn't it? This isn't Mercedes Vargas versus Bella Madison. Not really. In your head, this is Mercedes Vargas versus Victoria Lyons with an inconvenient stop in Indianapolis before you get there."
"I get it. Victoria has the championship. Victoria has your attention. Victoria has the match you've been thinking about. "Victoria is sitting at commentary but I'm the woman standing across the ring from you."
"You know what I've learned about people lately, Mercedes? The second they start looking toward the future, they stop paying attention to what's standing in front of them. They start assuming tomorrow is guaranteed. They start treating today like a formality. And that's dangerous."
"Because while you've been preparing for Victoria Lyons, I've been preparing for whoever stood in front of me. Bea Barnhart stood in front of me. Frankie Holliday stood in front of me. Every single one of them represented the next step."
"And now? Now it's you.I don't care about your title match. I don't care about the commentary desk. I don't care about the World Bombshell Championship. Those are your distractions, not mine."
"The difference between us right now is that I already learned this lesson. I spent months looking past the moment. I spent months worrying about what came next instead of taking care of what was right in front of me. I spent months learning exactly how expensive hesitation can be."
"You know what happened? I stopped. I stopped worrying about tomorrow."
"I stopped asking permission. I stopped looking for validation and suddenly things started getting a lot simpler. Because now I don't need to prove I belong. I don't need to prove I'm tough. I don't need to prove I'm dangerous. The women I've stepped into the ring with already figured that out the hard way."
"And now we're standing two weeks away from the cruise. One week away from Summer XXXTreme and one week away from opportunities that can change careers. And if you think I'm going to spend that week helping you build momentum for Victoria Lyons, then you've lost your damn mind."
"See, everybody keeps looking at this match and seeing a future World Championship challenger. That's fine, let them. I'm looking at a woman who's already halfway onto the cruise. I'm looking at a woman who's already thinking about the championship. I'm looking at a woman who has spent so much time talking about what's coming next that she might have forgotten something very important."
"I'm still here and unlike you, Mercedes, I don't have the luxury of overlooking anybody."
"Because while you're thinking about Victoria Lyons, I'm thinking about you. While you're thinking about a championship, I'm thinking about winning. While you're planning for next week, I'm planning for bell-to-bell."
"So go ahead and keep looking toward the future. Keep looking toward Summer XXXTreme. Keep looking toward Victoria. I'll be standing right where you left me."
"And when you finally remember that this match matters too? I hope it isn't too late."
"Because I've spent the last several months learning how to stop hesitating."
"And you are about to find out exactly what that looks like."