Title: Help (#6 in The Road Back Series)

Author: Kelly Rowe

Disclaimer: All characters and storylines (except for those I create) are the property of the WWE and the almighty God of sports entertainment Vince McMahon.

Spoilers: Raw 5/13 - Judgment Day 2002.

Synopsis: Stephanie's opportunity finally knocks.

Notes: From now on this series will break away from most set storylines and be more independent. May still contain certain storylines in line with the WWE.

Notes 2: This part is short, sorry! More of a filler than anything else.

It's been a quiet week. No more annoying calls from Kurt, so I can only assume that Shane had a word with him. Either that or he's too humiliated after he was shaved bald to even speak to me on the phone. There's also been a suspicious lack of calls from my daddy. He may be still mad at me for the berating I gave him after he chewed out Hogan on Smackdown. I'm sorry I pissed him off but he just went too far this time, Hogan didn't deserve it and it may have impacted on my chance to return. What if daddy's little speech turned him against all McMahon's again? And that it did just that is a big possibility since I haven't spoken to Hogan for more than a week and God knows what daddy has done to the guy off camera. Plus the distraction my daddy gave Taker at Judgment Day ... God why does my family always screw up *my* plans?!

I have left so many messages on his machine that even I think I sound desperate. I need to know how Hogan is doing, purely for business reasons, but I do need to know and I can't know until he answers my messages which he's not doing. He's *so* pissing me off right now! Doesn't he know that no one ignores a McMahon, even one who has been semi-banished.

When the phone finally did ring it was my mother. Like I wanted or needed to talk to *her*, like anyone wants to talk to her. All she does is bitch about my failed marriage, Shane and Marissa's lack of children and my daddy's latest fling - a.k.a Stacy Kiebler. If she didn't want daddy to mess with the hired help maybe she should mess around with him instead. I tell her - in my polite voice, I always use my polite voice with her - that I was busy looking for a job. The bitch actually had the nerve to say she was proud of me. I hate her *so* much sometimes, she is *so* condescending.

With nothing to do but wait I do start to search the want ads, hoping against hope that I'll never ever have to take one of those menial jobs that are advertised.

The call did finally come... at 3 o'clock in the morning. I was not in the best of moods, having been woken up in the middle of the night, when I answered the phone. And I have to admit to my surprise it was Hogan on the line, I'd actually figured that it was either daddy or Shane drunk and whiny again.

"Hello," I said angrily. Well you can't blame me, it was the middle of the night.

"Stephanie?"

"Yeah." I knew it was Hogan, but he threw me when he called me by the first name - he'd just never called me that before.

"It's Hulk."

Okay another curveball, he'd never referred to himself that way either. "I know," I reply. Oh gee, I sound so smart there, don't I?

"I need your help."

The words I have been waiting to hear, I try to play it cool. "What kind?"

I hear him sigh, "The type you used to give Triple H, Kurt Angle and Jericho. I need you to be my manager."

I almost fall out of the bed, even though I'd been hoping for this. "When do you need me?"

The End