Author's note:

There are original characters in this series which were created by my readers. I offered the chance to have a character feature in the story and selected the ones I liked the most from the submissions I received. I'll list the characters and their creators below so that everyone has the credit they deserve for creating them.

May Devany - created by Willow Edmond

Anna Hollenbeck - created by Debwood-1999

Alexis Styles - created by Shiki94

Sarita Lopez - created by Chaka1967

I thank all of the people named above for the use of their characters and the time they put into creating them.

PROLOGUE

Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose halted their conversation immediately when their locker room door opened. They both turned to face the third man who shared the locker room, Seth Rollins, as he walked in and tossed his bag into the corner of the room with a sigh. "Where the fuck have you been all day?" Dean demanded, not bothering with any kind of greeting. There was no hostility to the question, it was just the way Dean usually spoke to his two closest friends.

"Somewhere quiet, needed to be by myself," Seth mumbled. "I had thinking to do." The expression on his face revealed that the thinking time had not entirely helped him resolve whatever the problem had been. Seth looked miserable, which was why Dean resisted making any kind of joke about him attempting to think, as he usually would have.

"Sit down and tell us what's happened," Roman said pleasantly as he sat down himself, gesturing to a chair opposite his own. Roman was almost certain that he already knew what the problem was, and so was Dean. It certainly wasn't going to be anything to do with having to work a house show in the ass end of nowhere on a Wednesday night. That was just part of the job, even if it did suck at times.

"I think you can probably guess," Seth said, running a hand through his hair as he sat down. "I broke it off with May last night."

"Sorry, man," Dean grimaced.

"Are you going to be okay?" Roman asked. He knew from past experiences of his own that it was one thing to see that a relationship was heading towards an inevitable end, but it was another to actually end it. The failure of any relationship brought sadness, at least at first.

"Yeah. Yeah I'll be alright," Seth began quietly. "It needed to be done, for both our sakes. Hell, we'd pretty much stopped spending any time with each other anyway, these past few weeks. As you know, she suggested that we went to stay at her folk's place last weekend to try and get some time together and work it out, but of course she ended up spending most of the time with her three million brothers and sisters. I guess it's something to do with her being the eldest. They flock around her like you wouldn't believe. I don't know how her parents could raise so many kids. Their house is so frantic and noisy, I was ready to murder someone by Monday morning. Anyway, we didn't really work anything out. If anything, it told me I was right to be thinking about ending it. I mean, May's great with kids. You guys have seen her with the Make-A-Wish kids around this place. The thing is, it's all the time with her. There never seemed to be any time for us."

Roman knew that Seth could at times be self-centred to say the least when it came to his relationships with women, which was the major reason that he had a history of cheating. But this wasn't the time to bring up something like that. He was about to ask how May had taken the news, but Dean got in first, taking both Roman and Seth by surprise.

"Bullshit. Well, not bullshit, but tell it like it is. Things haven't been going well for you and May for weeks, a couple of months at least. You've just stayed together because neither of you could quite bring yourselves to pull the trigger. You've done it now because Ronda's coming back Monday. Do you actually even realise how often you've been talking about her since you saw her the other week? If you want to sell me a pen, tell me it's a pen, not a pencil."

Seth narrowed his eyes slightly at Dean's weird final sentence. "Huh?"

"I'm saying just be honest," Dean said. "You fucked up with Ronda. Both of you fucked up, and you both regret it. We know that from what she said to Rome. You think Ronda might feel the same way you do, which is that you really want to make another go of it. That's why you've broken it off with May, not because she's got a bunch of brothers and sisters who get on your fucking nerves."

Although Dean had a reputation for not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, it was largely because of his on-screen character. Seth had to admit that sometimes Dean could read him like a book. This was one of those occasions. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds before conceding the point. "Fine. You're right, it wasn't working for May and I, and yeah, I want Ronda back. That girl still drives me wild."

Dean looked at Roman and held out his right hand. "Twenty bucks."

"You bet on me leaving May?" Seth asked irritably.

"No we didn't. We bet on you and Ronda getting back together, which hasn't happened yet, so this tool can stick twenty bucks up his ass," Roman said. He wished Dean would have kept the bet private, but at least he could try to make a joke out of it.

"Come on," Dean whined, even though he was grinning. "Just pay up. I told you this would happen that night we all went and watched Ronda's first movie. Fuck, that thing sucked." Dean pointed at Seth. "But he sat there practically drooling for two hours. You might as well just give me the money now."

Seth laughed. "I did not." Even though he denied it, he knew he was full of shit, and he knew he was fooling no one with his denial.

"Is May okay?" Roman asked Seth, bringing a more serious tone back to the conversation.

"Yeah, she is," Seth said, now sounding a lot happier than when he had walked in. "I think she knew that the end was coming. I think part of her might have actually been relieved that she didn't have to think or worry about it anymore. Let's be honest, May's a nice girl, she's popular, and she's great looking. She'll only stay single for long if she chooses to."

Dean grinned, knowing what his friend was thinking. "She just ain't Ronda, as far as you're concerned."

"She just ain't Ronda," Seth repeated with a hint of a grin of his own. "We're going to have some talking to do," he added, meaning himself and Ronda.

"So what?" Roman said. "You managed to man up and talk to May. Man up and talk to Ronda. The girl's still lost on you anyway. I saw it. Hell, she may as well have said it to me. That would have been the only way she could have made it more obvious."

Dean stood and headed for the door. "I gotta go take a piss."

"That dude pisses like a racehorse," Roman laughed after the door closed behind Dean.

Seth laughed too, but then his face grew serious again. "I really hope we can work it out when I talk to her."

Roman considered this for a second. "I don't doubt that you can, but I can't say if you will," he said thoughtfully. "I'll tell you the same thing I told her the other week, although I told her it for a different reason. If you do get back together and then start getting at each other's throats again, I'll bang your heads together. Understood?"

"Yes, big brother," Seth smiled, even though he knew Roman was only half joking. He then stood up, walked over to his bag and began to unpack it. The first two items he removed were bottles of water and he tossed one to Roman, who caught it one handed.

"Thanks. You know, part of me had started to think that this was going to turn into a real miss with you sleeping with Ronda behind May's back. I know what you're like."

Seth let out something between a grunt and a humourless laugh as he removed his shirt. After setting it aside, he looked Roman in the eye. "Me too," he admitted frankly. "And I didn't want it to come to that. I've been there a couple of times before and I don't want to go back again."

Roman nodded in acknowledgement as he opened his bottle of water, then downed half of it in one hit. He let a companionable silence descend on the locker room for a few moments while Seth returned to unpacking his bag. As Roman watched his brother, he smiled to himself as he decided that now would be the ideal time to slip in a piece of news of his own. "Ronda and I were texting the other night, actually," he revealed. "She told me what they've got planned for her at 'Mania and afterwards."

"Really?" Seth asked, still unpacking his bag, not really paying full attention to the conversation. It took him a couple of seconds to catch on, and when he did so his head whipped around to face Roman. "What do mean, 'afterwards?' It's only supposed to be one match they brought her in for."

"That was the original deal. But I know that Monday night, she's going to sign with WWE," Roman announced. "Three years."

"Oh shit," Seth breathed in surprise as his eyes widened a little.

"I thought you might say that," Roman laughed.