Who Do You Love - Dean Ambrose

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

The next night at Smackdown the mood was sombre, which was fine by me because it summed me up as well.

The entire day had been difficult for me and although Dean had done his best to pick me up, there was still no getting over what had happened.

My father had been hit by a car driven by the crazy cult leader who was stalking me and not only had I seen it happen, I'd had to wait for him to pull through the surgery as well. As if all that hadn't been enough however, I had then divorced myself from my family and so the day was spent, sort of, I guess mourning Hunter. I mean, hewas still living but our relationship wasn't and although I fully stood by my decision, it didn't make it easier.

In fact it was hell.

The only thing that made it better was knowing that Stephanie would be absent for once and given the enormity of what they'd done to Hunter, it was likely the Wyatts would be as well.

When you decide who you want in your life, come and find me.

The words whirred round and round in my head and I just couldn't shake them no matter what I tried. I needed work to keep me sane but whereas before I had been terrified at being ringside, tonight I could hardly wait for it to start. Anything – anything – to stop me mulling it over and constantly thinking too damn hard.

We were five minutes from show time when Matty turned up and we greeted each other with a bone-crushing hug,

"Are you okay? Duh. What a stupid question. Your dad had surgery. Of course you're not."

I shrugged a little and scratched my arm absently and Dean reached over to make me stop,

"Uh, I mean, it's all kinda broken but I'm still here, I guess that's something right?"

"Damn straight Baby Girl," Roman put in deeply, using a bottle to dampen his hair. Honestly, it was kind of impressive that Matt was in their locker room without freaking out but as it turned out it wasn't for a catch-up that he had taken the trouble of walking so far out.

"Listen sweetie," he took my hands tightly, "I've just had word that Stephanie's showed up."

My mouth dropped open in astonishment,

"What? But – but what about Hunter? Why is she here?"

Shunting Matt aside with his shoulder, Dean stepped in to take his place, cupping my cheeks with his taped up palms and gently stroking my skin with his thumbs.

"Princess, it's fine. We talked about this. You knew you would have to face her sometime."

"But I thought it would be next week or next month or – you know – maybe next year."

"Well," Seth shrugged, "Then think about it this way. Better to get this whole thing over and done with. Like ripping off a band-aid. You gotta do it nice and fast."

I took a deep breath and nodded my head, rocking it up and down in Dean's hands. It certainly helped that the guys were there with me and it helped even more that I knew they had my back. They might have been Authority minions but when it came right down to it they were my guard dogs and I smiled somewhat weakly,