Chapter 1 – On The Edge

Dark amber colored eyes watched him from across the gym floor. She watched as his body moved and tendons flexed and sweat it out; his muscles were getting bigger but what she was really concerned with was his knee. He'd been close to making his comeback after tearing his ACL, MCL and Meniscus.

He had been coming to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando Florida since a few weeks before WrestleMania 32. The one he couldn't be a part of because of his injury. She couldn't help watching him; she was fascinated with the way he worked his body so hard to get the best results.

"Stop staring at him."

A voice broke her out of her thoughts. Sophie's eyes snapped away from the ex-WWE champ to the Emerald eyes of her sister. "I'm not staring; I was admiring."

"No you were staring and it's getting stalkerish." Ines stated honestly before she flipped her long blood red hair from her face.

"I wasn't stalking either…bitch." She mumbled under her breath as they turned to face each other and we're throwing the medicine ball back and forth to help build their arm strength. Today was arm day which usually kicked their ass; leg day was far easier.

"I heard that." Ines pointed at her sister. "If you're going to stalk him at least have the balls to go talk to him." Ines admonished.

"Please Mr. WWE Champ probably doesn't even remember little old me…Speaking of which have you heard from Gigantor?" Sophie asked with a smirk.

Ines glared at her little sister. "Stop calling him that. Don't make me school your ass in front of your crush who is no more than 20 feet away. I would hate to make you tap out in front of him."

"Pfftt" Sophie scoffed. "You wish wench."

Ines fixed a look on her face before she threw the medicine ball back at her little sister a little harsher. "Don't make me prove it little girl." She growled.

Sophie mocked her sister for a few more minutes until Ines started to take a step towards her and she threw her hands in the air. "Okay Okay." She conceded before watching the smirk slide across her sisters face.

"That's what I thought." Ines stated triumphantly.

Sophie's eyes went back to Seth as she watched him flip up into a handstand and walk along the mat on his hands. He always did have great concentration when it came to working out. Her memories of their last night in NXT together came flooding into her brain.

"I heard a rumor that you, Dean and Roman are going to the main roster." Sophie stated rather than asked.

"Yep." He recognized Sophie's voice.

"So you're really leaving…"

Seth looked up from tying his sneakers and saw Sophie's reflection staring back at him in the mirror. "You know it. It's a great offer from Paul and Stephanie. It was a surprise that they wanted to put me with Dean and Roman, but we just seem to mesh well in the ring, so making us a faction wasn't much of a leap." He stated before he stood and grabbed his t-shirt and turned to look at the beautiful one half of the Bernard sisters.

"You know this place isn't going to be the same without the three of you around." Sophie stated truthfully. "It's going to be boring as hell."

Seth chuckled. "I don't think it's going to be quite as boring as you think it will be. There are plenty of people in this mobile circus to keep everyone entertained."

"By you three, I meant you." Sophie sighed softly as she watched him pull his t-shirt over his head and smooth it down his gorgeous chest. Good God it was a sin to cover up that much nice look flesh. "It's going to suck going to the bar after the shows without you and having you kick my ass when we would train together."

"Hey it's not like you don't know where I live; we've been to each other's places a million times. Our schedules will be a little off kilter but it's not like I won't see you ever again." Seth stated honestly as he continued to pack up his gear for the last time as a member of the NXT roster. "I'm sure they will have us come down and throw our weight around here to push some of the other guys and besides you and Ines will get called up eventually. Your time will come and believe me you'll be as unready and unprepared as we are. We are going to get run over by the main roster and so will you, but just remember when you get there; you'll have friends around."

Sophie scoffed. "That little speech doesn't make it suck any less."

Dark chocolate brown eyes focused and re-focused as he continued to work his body into a sweaty frenzy. He was really trying to push his knee and its capacity to keep up with his fast pace. If his knee couldn't handle his normal pace in the ring he was NEVER going to get back on the road with his friends.

It didn't take him long once he arrived at the Performance Center he could hear all the voice murmuring about him training so hard.

But the one person who really caught his eye was his old weekend drinking buddy Sophie. He honestly felt like a big dick because ever since he'd been called up to the main roster he hadn't spoken to her. She had been the coolest chic he'd ever met. She and her sister Ines had been signed around the same time he had; he just had gotten the call up before them. Which he still didn't understand; the sisters were one of the best female teams in FCW/NXT.

He could feel her eyes on him, but clearly she couldn't even approach him. Was his characters reputation such an asshole that she couldn't even approach him? Even he had to admit playing a heel sucked and he knew the rumor mill was flying about how he was the same in the ring as he was out of the ring; which was completely false. Of course she would probably believe that more if he hadn't cut ties with his FCW/NXT friends since going to the main roster.

The truth was NXT and the WWE main roster had two different schedules so it was often difficult to be on the same page with any of them; unless there was a big Pay Pre-View weekend where NXT was in the same city and state.

Seth could tell out of all his friends it would probably be the hardest on Sophie. They had really gotten to know each other over the last few years. Seth zipped his bag as he walked over and stood in front of Sophie. He never could quite get over how beautiful she was, but he knew better than to get involved with a co-worker when neither of them knew where their career in WWE would take them.

Seth cupped her cheeks as he felt her hands come up and gripped the sides of his t-shirt as he leaned down and gently brushed a kiss across her forehead before he pulled her into his arms. Her face buried in the side of his neck as he felt her arms wrap around his torso. "You know you can call anytime you want; we can always have our bitch sessions over the phone." His voice stated in a lower octave.

Why didn't he just kiss her? He wanted to kiss her so badly. All the nights they spent bar hopping with everyone in the NXT roster and she had been the first girl he had actually forced himself to keep at an arm's length. Sometimes their career choice sucked. Now they were going to be on separate shows and it would suck even more.

God why didn't he just kiss her?

Seth still kicked himself in the ass for not kissing her, but when it came to starting relationships he knew long distance plus his traveling schedule equaled disaster.

Seth was pulled from his own private thoughts about the last time he'd seen Sophie, when a dual squeal echoed through the Performance Center. His dark eyes shifted over to where the familiar squeal came from and watched as Antonio Cesaro had picked up both sisters in a huge group hug. He watched as Sophie smiled widely as she reached up and pulled Antonio's head down before she kissed the top of his bald head. He was almost jealous of his friend's bald head touching her lips.

Antonio had also come up through FCW/NXT with them; he'd also know Antonio when they were in the Indy's together. He had been another weekend drinking buddy with all of them and had been called up to the main roster right around the same time as him, Dean and Roman. When Seth had gone out with his knee injury in the beginning of November; Antonio had gone out with a rotator cuff tear and had to have surgery almost 3 weeks later. So they were in the same boat with surgery and Physical Therapy. Antonio had since returned to action, but Seth hadn't been medically cleared yet.

Antonio had become fast friends with the Bernard sisters since they were half French and half American; Seth always caught them in some deep conversation. Seth could sit and listen to Sophie speak French for the rest of his life; her English was perfect but damn could her French make him weak.

The sisters were pleasantly surprised to see Antonio. He'd tried like hell to keep in touch with his friends in NXT when he left for the main roster.

Antonio followed the sisters into the ring room. It was basically a room in the Performance Center that had about six wrestling rings set up for practice. As they walked in they could already hear someone in there practicing and noticed it was Seth. He was putting himself through every move he did in the ring – he had to make sure he could perform every single move in his arsenal. If he couldn't do it he wouldn't be able to come back yet.

Sophie couldn't help cringing physically every time she watched Seth land on his surgically repaired knee; hoping it didn't hurt nearly as bad as it looked like it did.

"You really need to stop staring at him unless you're going to go over and talk to him." Ines stated matter-of-factly.

Sophie finally turned away from the ring as she and her sister got into one of the practice rings and started throwing each other around. Sophie always loved getting in the ring and working with her sister – no one pushed her as hard as Ines did. That and the fact that if they wanted to talk shit it was usually in French to each other just to get under each other's skin.

"You never answered my question if you've heard from Braun or not." Sophie stated trying to get her mind off of Seth Rollins beating himself up in the ring across from theirs.

Emerald eyes looked at the mat as she tapped her sneaker covered shoe on the mat before she leaned against the top rope and looked over at her baby sister. "It's touch and go right now. It's hard to have a relationship with someone whose not even here. We knew eventually it would happen, I just don't think we were expecting it to happen so soon." Ines didn't enjoy talking about missing Braun, but at least she and Braun knew where they stood.

"Yea well at least the guy you like had the guts to make a move before he even left and is actually still communicating with you. I've just sort of been waiting for…nothing." Sophie stated as she watched as Antonio walked over to greet Seth as he sat on the edge of the ring.

"Believe me it's not all it's cracked up to be." Ines said with a frown on her face. She knew Seth and Sophie had gotten too close too fast for them to not catch feelings for each other. Seth Rollins had been stubborn about not getting involved with anyone in NXT because he didn't want to end up hurting someone when he couldn't give them 100% of his attention…or at least split it between his career and his girl.

Ines could see where he was coming from now that she and Braun were trying it. It wasn't the easiest thing to do or to put someone through. Braun Strowman wasn't anything if he wasn't a gentleman and was at least good about coming to see her in Florida on his days off; as long as it didn't interfere with her training or his WWE schedule. He did call her when he had free time but 80% of their conversations came through text messaging.

Ines looked down as her cell started ringing before she looked up at Sophie.

Sophie smiled weakly. "Take it, talk to him and tell him how much you miss him." Her dark amber eyes spared another look towards Seth as she turned back to her sister. "I'm going to go run on the treadmill and get some shit worked out."

Sophie hopped out of the ring as she watched her sister answer her phone a smile sliding across her face; it did Sophie's heart some good to see her sister so happy in life. There were treadmills along the wall of the ring room so the people not working in the ring could keep their muscles warm. She popped in her earbuds as she swept her waist length raven hair up into a ponytail. She set a nice pace on the treadmill as she started running her ass off.

Dark chocolate eyes wondered to the figure running in the corner. He knew she ran to clear her head. She could run for hours on end and not even break a sweat or be tired even a little. She sat talking with Antonio for a good bit as he let his knee recuperate from the strenuous workout he had given it all day practically.

The longer he sat talking to Antonio the more his focus was broken as he watched the raven haired beauty running at her normal insane pace. He loved watching her on the treadmill her ponytail swayed back and forth in a systematic rhythm. Chances it was swaying to the beat of her music like it always did. He could tell whatever was bothering her was consuming her whole body and soul. He watched as her older sister went over and hit the off button on the treadmill; forcing her to stop.

Whatever was going on with her he could tell she was on the edge and when she was like that it was never good and somehow he knew it was his own fault.

Why the fuck didn't he just kiss her?

Seth groaned inwardly as he said his goodbyes to everyone as he took off for the hotel; he was in dire need of a shower and a coffee before he had to visit the company doctor in the morning for a status update.