Flames

Back in Vegas, part 2

"How can you be half Irish and love the sun so much?" Becky groused as she crawled out of bed to check on Roux. They were still in their SummerSlam hotel suite, so the unfamiliar room layout meant Becky had to actually watch where she was going; she and Seth had thought about catching a late flight to their place in Los Angeles, but it had been so long since she had been backstage as a competitor, not a visitor, and Becky wanted to hang out with her friends. Some of them were meeting up for an early brunch that morning—a small perk of having the event on Saturday instead of the usual Sunday—but they still had a few hours before they needed to get ready. It was technically Seth's turn to wake up for Roux, but his match had been far more gruelling than Becky's had, so she scooped Roux out of her travel crib and went over to the window, where the sunlight was just starting to peek through. "Maybe you'll be lucky and your complexion will be more like Daddy's," Becky whispered, "and you won't burn whenever you happen to look at the sun the wrong way."

A muffled groan made her turn back to the bed. Seth was still asleep, instinctively reaching for her, so she pulled the blanket back up and went out into the sitting area of their suite, taking her phone with her. Even though she had muted it for the night, she was sure she would have a ton of messages waiting for her, so she would try to make a small dent in the backlog while she coaxed Roux back to sleep;she had quickly learned that multitasking was one of the many keys to motherhood. After making sure the bedroom door was closed, Becky opened the curtains a bit in the sitting area to give her some light. "Look, here's a picture from Auntie Sasha!" she said softly, stroking Roux's hair. "There's Ryu!" She went through the messages from her closest friends first, then worked her way through the ones from other wrestlers and friends.

Roux was already sleeping again by the time Becky made it to Twitter, but she wanted to see what the reaction to her attack on Bianca was after fans had had a few hours to think about it. There was still a ton of chatter and now the theorizing had begun; since there had been time to digest Becky's return, now fans were talking about all the potential matches. Becky smiled at the list of names: Liv, Toni, Naomi, Mia, even Kay Lee Ray along with the regular wish list of Bayley and Sasha.

The deeper she dove, though, the darker the messages became. She expected disappointment and frustration and fans calling her a hypocrite for doing a Charlotte-like swoop to interject herself into a title match. Being called a bitch happened so often that it lost all meaning. Ones telling Seth to come collect his wife just made her laugh. The first few accusations of her being a bad mother stung, but she quickly reminded herself that those fools had no idea that Roux was with her almost every hour of the day. The death threats, though, were harder to brush off. Some were laughable only because they were so badly misspelled, but some were so detailed—complete with clips from horror movies—that Becky stopped scrolling. Stalkers were always a very real threat, but after Sonya's ordeal, all the wrestlers were more aware—and more wary. Seth had a very public profile in Davenport with his cafe and his wrestling school, so it wasn't exactly like they were hard to find; now that her hair was fiery orange again, she was far more recognizable.

"What is that?" Seth's voice was soft, but it still startled Becky so much that she dropped her phone to the floor.

Becky glanced down at Roux quickly, but their daughter was still sleeping soundly. "It's... nothing. Just idiots talking a big game on Twitter...."

But then Seth was walking around to the front of the couch, bending to retrieve her phone. "Becky, these are death threats." His gaze hardened as he kept scrolling, and Becky wrapped her arms tighter around Roux. "They're... they're threatening our daughter."

"I know." Becky gazed around at the hotel suite. Was a life in hotels what she wanted for Roux's childhood? She knew Holly would happily look after Roux while she and Seth were on the road. As much as she loved the idea of her daughter being able to see her and Seth at work, her safety would always come first. "You signed up for this. I signed up for this." She paused and kissed the top of Roux's head, nuzzling her sleep-mussed hair. "She didn't."