In The Stars

Prologue

Kyra rolled her eyes at the lady in the checkout line who was giggling stupidly while her Dad tried to patiently humor the woman and finish paying so they could escape.  She was used to women fawning all over her Dad, used to being either ignored or having to deal with women trying to butter her up with gag-inducing, fake sweetness. Her Dad was a famous former wrestler, wealthy, and despite his age, still quite good looking according to most.

To her he was just Dad. He was a really great Dad--he'd raised her on his own after her mother had abandoned them when she was a baby, and he'd never once complained. He'd been the kind of dad who'd been at her soccer games, dentist's appointments, and school plays, and while they had moved around quite a bit, she'd never lacked for anything. Plus her Dad was one of her best friends. He was goofy and fun. He'd been her favorite playmate as a young child and even as she'd gotten older, he'd been the kind of Dad she could confide in, even about embarrassing stuff. In short, she adored her Dad.

A few years ago she'd noticed how her Dad hardly ever dated despite the women constantly falling over him, and she began to get worried. Despite her own Mother's abandonment, Kyra had been raised mostly around happy couples and families, and it made her sad to think that her Dad didn't have that. Her grandparents, Uncles and Aunts, and even the honorary Uncles and Aunts like Seth and Rebecca were all so happy with each other, and when they didn't think anyone was listening she would catch bits of conversations where they would bemoan the fact that her Dad had never remarried, and curse her mother for what she'd done to him.

Kyra had only met her mother a handful of times, and she was perfectly fine with that. She personally thought her Dad was better off, and she knew she was glad that her Dad had been the one to raise her, but she did worry about if her Dad was truly happy without his "one". 

Two years ago she'd decided that she would fix that problem and she'd set about finding the perfect person for her Dad. It had been a lot harder than she thought it would be though. She'd blundered several times, trying to set her Dad up to almost comical results (at least it might have been funny if she hadn't been so miserable over her failure). Her Dad had taken it in stride at first, but eventually he'd enforced rules that had made it even harder. She was allowed to introduce him to someone, but not allowed to set up a date for him, and it didn't take long for her to realize that her Dad didn't take any of the introductions seriously. 

She'd enlisted the help of her honorary Aunt and Dad's friend Rebecca (sometimes know as Becky or Bex) but Becky had made her realize that she couldn't simply choose someone for her Dad because a soulmate had to be her Dad's choice and not hers. Becky had promised that if a situation ever called for it she would help, but in the mean time she had to cool off on the constant introductions and instead look more at what her Dad really wanted.

She'd been pretty dissapointed at first, but as time passed and she grew up a little more she began to realize that Becky was right, so she pushed thoughts of setting her Dad up to the side and focused more on herself. She was getting old enough to start thinking about what she wanted for the future. Her Dad had never really pushed her towards his profession, but he also couldn't avoid having her around it either, and lately she'd become a lot more interested in it.

Being fit and enjoying fitness as a way of life was something her Dad had instilled in her, and it was natural that she saw how that translated into wrestling. When her Dad had got the job in London working as a coach at the WWE's Performance Center there last year, she found herself spending more and more time around it on a regular basis.

Most of the coaches and wrestlers while not exactly ignoring her, treated her more like she was simply a fixture of the facility. She'd made herself useful though and stayed out of the way and eventually made friends with a few of them. They wouldn't let her actually train yet, but she got to hang around and watch a lot, observing and learning for the future. 

A few weeks back a new coach had been hired for the women's division. She was there to help fill in for another coach as she went out on maternity leave. Kyra was impressed almost immediately at how the new coach seemed to garner the respect of the other coaches and all of the wrestlers so quickly and then she understood why once she got to meet her. Coach Martinez had been at once friendly and inviting to her even though she was just a kid hanging around (and what some might think of as getting in the way), and she'd instantly endeared herself to Kyra when she treated her with the same respect she gave everyone else.

She'd talked her Dad's ear off at night about the new coach and how awesome she was, and her Dad humored her listening intently, but didn't inquire further except to make sure Kyra wasn't making a nuisance of herself. She'd tried to impress on her Dad that the reason why she liked the new coach so much was because she never felt like she was being a nuisance. 

The coach had allowed her to call her by her first name, Bayley, when it was just the two of them and had happily chatted with her during her downtime. She was sincerely interested in the physical training that Kyra was doing for her own fitness and to prepare for the future if wrestling was truly what she wanted to do. She'd offered advice and commiserated with her about having to wait, confiding stories of being a young teen on the sidelines, always hanging around the ring until she reached that magical age when she was allowed to start training for real. She'd encouraged her and the best part about it all was that she'd done so without having any clue who her Dad was. For the first time in her life Kyra felt like someone truly got her. 

For all that she loved her many real and honorary aunts and uncles and the dozens of cousins, both by blood or by choice that they brought with them, she'd always felt lost in a sea of people, a lone child with no mom or siblings to anchor her. And she absolutely loved her Dad, but that didn't mean she didn't still resent, at least a little, how his celebrity, his status, and his wealth meant that she was always a token attachment to him, and never really seen for herself in her own right.  It didn't help that she took after her Dad too in that she was introverted, making it difficult to make friends in their somewhat transitory lifestyle.

Her Dad was from Ireland, and they'd spent a few months here and there along with most holidays at his childhood home, but he worked for an American company and they had lived in the US as well as Mexico, and now in the UK. She knew most kids didn't get to travel the world like she had, so she tried to appreciate all of the good things about her unique upbringing, but she still hated that any time she made friends, they would inevitably end up moving. 

Her Dad had promised this time around though that he intended for them to stay closer to home for a while. Her Grandfather's declining health had played a role in her Dad accepting his current job, and her Grandmother and Aunt had both theorized (when they didn't realize she was listening of course) that it had finally forced him to stop running from the past.

The checkout lady finally released her claws out of her Dad and they were able to leave the store, thankfully unscathed. This one had been the "ignore her existence" type, and she thought briefly again of her mission to help her Dad, and then wondered what her Dad would think of Coach Martinez. She was nothing like the overly flirty check out lady. Then again she also wasn't much like any of the few women that her Dad did seem to show some interest in over the years. Dad would dismiss her anyway if she tried to introduce them, so she might as well not waste her time.