Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or real people portrayed in this story. The characters belong to the WWE, and the real people own themselves.

A/N: So here we are. This is the spin-off story from Hugs and Kisses. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, if you go to my profile and see that giant monstrosity of a story, this is part of that. This is the Dolph and AJ part of that. You don't necessarily need to read that story, but if you want to know what's going on in this one, you might want to read from chapter 395 to last week's chapter.

If you don't feel like doing that, basically all you need to know is that, as with Hugs and Kisses, I follow storyline. What I see on screen is what I write about. Anything that happens off-screen, like tweets or videos of cake fights or just general life stuff, I may alter to my liking, but what happens onscreen is what I write about. So pretty much, Dolph and AJ have been together for a while, and they're not broken up. You'll catch on quick.

This isn't to say that characters from both stories won't make appearances, so I mean, I would recommend you read the other story, but again, you don't have to as this will focus on Dolph and AJ. Anyways, this is still an experiment, so we'll see how it goes. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot to work with on Raw, so it's not really show-centered, but I hope you enjoy anyways. Please review and tell me if you like this format because I'm still trying to think this whole thing out and your opinion will mean so much. Be brutal if you want, I can take it. :)

"Babe, your phone."

Dolph just laughed as he continued to watch whatever he was watching on his laptop. She frowned and rolled her eyes. Not that she had any reason to since she'd been dead to him while catching up on some comic books she'd been meaning to read while touring South Africa but never found the time to do so. Then she'd meant to read them on the plane, but again, found herself sleeping most of the way.

"Dolph, your phone," she said a little louder, but he was wearing his noise-canceling headphones (she didn't know if she should feel insulted by this fact). She rolled her eyes again and stood up from the couch in their room and walked over to the bed. She climbed on top of his back and rested her entire body on his, her head nestled between his shoulder blades.

Dolph reached up and took off his headphones. "Is there any reason why you're using me as your bed? Not that I mind, but really, you should be naked when you're doing this."

"I don't sleep naked."

"When is that going to change by the way?" Dolph asked. "If you do it, I'll do it."

"No," she told him, "I don't feel comfortable sleeping naked."

"Oh, is that why you always insist on finding your underwear after we have sex?" he laughed. "You could just put on my boxer briefs if you wanted."

"They wouldn't stay on…oh, okay, I get it, if I tried to put on your underwear, they'd fall off, and I'd be naked again, very funny, Ziggy, very funny," AJ leaned over his shoulder so she could see his face. "You weren't paying attention to me calling you."

"So this means you want to press me into the mattress and take me wildly, are you going to sully my reputation?"

"Not tonight, I'm exhausted, all the traveling, everything, I'm exhausted from living," she groaned. "I can't wait to go home and just climb into our bed and sleep for days then I want to lounge by the pool and slather myself in SPF 5000 while you slather yourself in SPF -70,000."

"I like a good tan," he told her, "that sounds nice, and we can get our kid."

"I miss my baby!" AJ groaned, "he probably misses us so much."

"You mean he misses me so much, right?"

"He does not love you more than me," AJ protested. "Oh my God, I'm an idiot, I forgot why I needed to get your attention. Your phone was ringing."

"And you didn't check it?"

"I didn't really feel like seeing some random girl hitting on you," she told him.

"Cute," he said, reaching around him and slapping her butt. "Get off me now."

"Yes, sir," she rolled off and laid down next to him. He got off the bed as she replaced him at his laptop, grabbing his headphones and putting them over her ears as she started playing around with whatever was there.

He grabbed one side of her headphones, pulling them away from her ear. "Whatever you do, don't go to the folder marked 'Pictures of bunnies,' alright? You won't be interested in that folder at all."

"Okay," she told him as he turned his back to grab his phone. She immediately started looking for the folder, finding it rather easily. She opened it up, and it was just as she suspected, a whole bunch of pictures of bunnies. She cursed her boyfriend's dorkiness before she went to check her email.

Dolph grabbed his phone, unlocking it and looking at the unfamiliar number. There was a voicemail, and he shrugged, bringing it up to his ear. "Hey, Dolph, it's Kaitlyn, I was hoping we could meet up and go over strategy for Sunday, it's been a really long time since we've teamed together, and Big E and AJ have been together for months so they're bound to be better, I thought we could just kind of get coordinated, let me know."

Dolph rolled his eyes and put his phone down onto the nightstand. He climbed back onto the bed, but refrained from climbing onto his girlfriend. Instead, he rested his head on her shoulder. "Hey."

"Mmm?" she grunted, taking his headphones off. "What's up?"

"It was Kaitlyn."

"Um, what?" AJ said. "What was she doing calling you?"

"She wanted to talk strategy."

"Did she proposition you for sex?" AJ asked incredulously. "Because I'll break her face."

"While I really want to see that, no, she didn't proposition me for sex, that's not to say that's not what she wants, but she didn't say it explicitly, but then, doesn't every woman want sex from me? I bet the first time you saw me, you wanted sex from me."

"We were staring at each other across the ring, you were with Vickie Guerrero, and you then wouldn't let me tag my partner in, do you really think I wanted to have sex with you in that moment?"

"Yes, yes, I do think that you wanted to have sex with me in that moment."

"Are you going to meet up with her?" AJ asked, ignoring his answer. Dolph just smirked and kissed her briefly.

"No," he shook his head, "why would I want to meet up with her? Look, the less she knows, the better, you want to use this to your advantage, so that's what we're doing. We're using our advantage and making sure we're not a well-oiled machine, but speaking of well-oiled—"

"Is your mind ever out of the gutter?"

"We've been together for ten months, and have I ever?" he asked.

"Wow, ten months, really?"

"Last October, and I think my counting skills are okay, I don't think the concussion knocked those out of my brain," he told her.

She sighed, "I don't like thinking about that, happy things, please."

"Well, I'm not meeting Kaitlyn. I didn't even want this thing to go this far, you know, but since when does The Miz have the power to book matches? And of course Vickie would go along with it because she's still not over me, which, I get it, I'm me, women don't get over me, that's what I was saying earlier."

"Well, men don't get over me so easily either. You wouldn't get over me."

"I'd get under you."

"You would cry, and you would want to drown your sorrows in a bottle if you didn't have me around, face it," she told him, ignoring his dirtiness. Part of her wanted him to tell her that he would never get over her. Sometimes, she still needed the reassurance that came from him. Although she was in a much better place regarding their relationship, sometimes she still needed the reminder that he loved her.

"Yeah, a bottle of protein drink," he told her with a scoff.

"You wouldn't even be upset if we broke up?"

"No, because I'm never planning on breaking up with you," he shrugged carelessly. "So it's not even going to cross my mind. Come on, let's go to bed because we have an early flight tomorrow."

"You really do want to like…I don't know, spend the rest of your life with me?"

"Oh, I don't know, yes," he said in a dumb voice as he turned off his laptop. "If I keep saying it, you have to believe it at some point, right?"

"Shut up," she said, climbing into bed. "I just like to hear it, that's all. It just reminds me."

"Reminds you of what?"

"That you're really here."

The next day started too early, but the thought of finally getting home, and seeing Nacho made everything better. She couldn't wait to be in her own space with no other wrestlers around, without any shows for the rest of the week. Next week was SummerSlam, and they'd be spending the entire week in LA, which excited her boyfriend because he wanted to hit up every comedy club and improve theatre they could find. He was going to be like a kid in a candy store, and she was going to be the one he dragged around sampling all the candy.

"Home!" AJ dropped down to the floor and laid on her back as Dolph looked down at her, cocking an eyebrow. "Oh my God, it feels so good to be home."

"That floor hasn't been cleaned in almost 20 days, you know?" Dolph told her and she scrambled to her feet as she laughed. "Are you going to get Nacho now?"

"Yeah, I'll head over."

"I'm so glad we have people around here willing to take care of him, it gives me peace of mind knowing that he can spend the time with his friends and not in some boarding place," AJ said, "I'll bring our things upstairs."

AJ brought their things up to the bedroom before immediately changing into shorts and a t-shirt. She threw the covers back and climbed into bed. They'd barely had time between landing in the States to Raw, and it was catching up with her. She closed her eyes for a second, just taking in the quiet of the house, and the comfort of her own bed and pillow. She burrowed herself under her blankets, creating a small cocoon for herself.

"You couldn't even wait five minutes to get in bed, could you?" she heard her boyfriend walk into their room. She felt something land on the bed and start to move towards her. "There's your mom, Huevos."

"Nacho!" AJ pulled the covers back and Nacho hopped over her legs to get to her and she hugged her dog and kissed him on the head. It was only a few moments later that he snuggled into her and she pulled the blanket back over the two of them so Nacho was pretty much hidden underneath them.

The room was bathed in shade as she heard Dolph close the blinds behind her. She made no motion to move because she was so incredibly comfortable right now. She was used to hotel beds in countless hotel rooms, so when she actually got to sleep in a regular bed with a regular mattress and sheets she bought herself (some of Dolph's sheets were so old she was afraid he'd had them since high school or something) it was such a luxury. The mattress sagged for a moment as Dolph climbed in behind her, and she felt his arm snake around her waist and pull her closer to him as he settled in behind her.

"So what are we going to do about Kaitlyn and the match?" Dolph whispered into her ear.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how are we going to plan this? I'm not…I don't know if I'll be able to stand back and watch her hurt you if it comes to that."

"You know I'm a wrestler, right?"

"You know you're my girlfriend, right?"

"But not to Kaitlyn, I still don't know how Katie missed that one," AJ said as Nacho emerged from the bed and climbed out so he could have his own space. AJ laced her fingers together with Dolph's around her waist. "I guess that's what happens when you have no friends. But I say we play this out like we were going to."

"You mean just go out there and just have a match?"

"Yeah," she responded. "I mean, we were going to let you and E just have at it, why not just all four of us? It's not like either one of you can lay your hands on me because of mixed tag rules."

"How cool would a match be between us though?" he asked. "We'd steal the show. You could lock me in the Black Widow, it'd be amazing, people would go crazy, they'd praise the hell out of us, management would want us to be featured every week, we'd do press all over the place."

"You just want to be able to spank my butt as you tap out in front of everyone."

"If I'm going to lose to anyone, I want it to be to you," he told her, and she smiled. "But yeah, I guess we should just go through with it, just do what we were going to do. Just don't get yourself speared again, there's only so many times I can take you nearly broken in half."

"I'm a lot tougher than I look," she yawned. "We'll be fine, everything after SummerSlam will be good for both of us. I have Layla to watch my back now, and I'm keeping the title with me forever. And you will take everything by storm."

"I hope so," he sighed, and she pulled his arm tighter around her. "You don't even have to say anything, babe, it's just…the concussion—"

"Dolph…"

"I know, Jeannie, I know you hate hearing about it, I know you hate thinking about it, but…it screwed everything up, and I haven't felt…I don't know, I just felt like I lost a lot of momentum because of that."

"You'll get the title back, Ziggy, you will, and you'll hold it for such a long time, and people can't help but love you, alright?" she told him. "They love you now, even when you're being a jerk to me, they can't help themselves because you're just so charismatic and perfect."

"Only you think that."

"No, not just me, after this is all over, you're going to get back to that, and we'll be that power couple. We have to be, it's what we've always wanted, and look at us, we're here, we're in the business we've dreamed about since children, so we know what it's like to work for what we want and get it. The same applies here. If we work for it, we'll get it."

Their time at home was way too short. Dolph and Justin attended a Diamondbacks game together while AJ stayed at home, but that was the height of their downtime. Otherwise, they stayed at home, pigged out on food they shouldn't, lounged by the pool, and played with Nacho. Someday that would be their lives, someday they would be in one place for more than a few days, but that wasn't now, and that wasn't today, and before they knew it, they were in Chicago for their panel and autograph sessions. It was Dolph's second session and panel this year, but it was her first, and she was excited for it, especially the panel.

"So what are you going to say on the panel?" Dolph asked as they waited to be introduced. "Are you going to hate me?"

"No, I'm not going to hate you, I'm going to answer truthfully."

"What if they ask you who the best kisser is because they're going to ask you, you know?" Dolph said. "Are you going to say me?"

"No, I'm not, I'm supposed to hate you, remember?"

"I thought you just said you were going to answer truthfully…wait, are you saying I'm not the best kisser and you're trying to spare my feelings?" his jaw dropped a little. "I have had plenty of practice kissing, and I'll have you know, I've never left a girl unsatisfied."

"I know," she appeased him, but he frowned at her. She just gave a shrug. "Well, if someone asked you who was the better kisser, me, Vickie, Maria, or Kaitlyn, am I missing anyone?"

"No, I don't get around as much as some people in this room," he said.

"You mean Ricky?" AJ whispered, pointing over Dolph's shoulder to the third person on their panel. "I never took him for the type."

"I'm going to character assassinate you out there. I'm going to tell them all about the things you do at home, how you wrap Nacho up in towels like a burrito, how you leave laundry all over the place, like, you're not even stripping for me, how do your t-shirts end up on the kitchen table?"

"You will not," she poked him in the stomach, "or I will attack you on Sunday."

"You wouldn't dare."

"You've only been dating me for ten months, try me, Ziggler."

"Wow, so we fake break up, and this is how it's going to be, huh?" he told her, backing her up slowly until her back hit the wall. "And you know what's really sad here?"

"What is really sad?" she pouted a little bit, jutting her lip out. He leaned forward and tugged on her lip a little before kissing her. Before she could fall into the kiss, he was pulling away, but keeping his forehead leaned against hers. AJ was briefly aware that they were doing this in front of Ricky Steamboat, but then she looked into her boyfriend's incredibly blue eyes, and she was lost again. "What is it?" she breathed.

"I have a whole pocket full of cash to buy you comic books and action figures," he told her, pulling away and shrugging, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Her jaw dropped open and he took another couple steps back and turned his back to her, waiting for the doors to open so they could go into the hall where their panel was being held.

AJ chased after him, pulling his arm out of his pocket and ducking under it, wrapping it around her as she wrapped her arms around his waist. "You do?" she asked eagerly.

"I know you had to leave your purse upstairs, and you've got, what, you're ID and wallet, you don't have any money and I know you're drooling at the thought of getting to walk the floor out there and buying everything you want, so I brought my wallet."

"You've just earned so many points, Dolph Ziggler."

"So will you please say I'm the best kisser already?"

"We'll see."

She didn't, well, she did, sort of, but not totally. Dolph was proud and happy when she said it, and he couldn't keep the smug look off his face, until she said that Punk wasn't bad either, which caused the smile to falter from his face. He knew she was teasing him, saying it because he'd explicitly told her that she should say him. His girlfriend was such a little tease sometimes, but he liked that about her.

He liked that she was comfortable in their relationship now. He liked that she could be herself again. He liked that she laughed and joked and wasn't crying over a hot beverage by herself. He liked that when he went home, she went home with him. He liked that she nodded when he said he still had his Spirit Squad outfit. He liked that she automatically assumed she would know her response when she talked about her comics. He liked that she knew what he was going to say before he said that he liked Archer. He just liked that they were so in tune with one another. He tried to keep his feelings at bay, tried to remain indifferent to her, to at least try to play up into it, but he couldn't, not anymore.

He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to hide his feelings for AJ, not properly anyways. She was too much into his heart, too much in his life at this point. His house was no longer just his. It was their house now. Even when they were trying to hate each other, like earlier this week when they were trying to act like they hated each other, he was afraid it came off more like they wanted to make out with one another. Kaitlyn didn't seem to notice though, and that was the important thing to AJ. Kaitlyn was just so consumed by revenge that she didn't seem to see any of it.

Or she just chose not to see it.

"Okay, E said he's ready to leave, I'll see you at the arena," AJ leaned up to kiss him on the cheek.

"Bye, babe," Dolph told her as she walked out of the room and downstairs where E was waiting. Since Kaitlyn seemed to think she and Dolph were not together, it seemed safer for her and E to travel alone hence separate cars. AJ walked out to the car with E and climbed inside after putting her things away.

"So what do you think you'll do when all of this is over?" she asked. "I mean, there's no way that you just stay my bodyguard because you suck at it."

"Well, maybe if you weren't always getting yourself into trouble I could rest between trying to save your butt."

"My butt is worth saving."

"You don't have any junk in that trunk."

"I have plenty of junk, candy wrappers, a spare tire, old CD's, some old clothes, plenty of stuff," she argued.

"I think I might go after the US title or something," E told her. "I don't know, I want a title, I was the NXT champion for a long time, I think I can move up in the world. I can be like The Jeffersons."

"You should," AJ told him, patting his arm. "You could be great."

"Plus, two skinny, white boys fighting for it on Sunday, I think I can down either of them…after I take down your skinny, white boy."

"He'll take you down."

"You're on my team, you should want to win," he reminded her. "I still can't believe The Miz made this match. Who the hell gave him that authority?"

"Nobody, but you think Vickie was going to pass up seeing us fight each other?" AJ rolled her eyes. "You know, she and Dolph broke up long before we ever started dating, she's just such a bitter, old woman."

"Yeah, well, she's our boss, so we have to show her a little bit of respect."

"I know, don't tell me things I already know," she said, "and I'm not asking you to go easy on Dolph, he would hate me if I even tried that, but…I think the only logical solution to this match is for me to pin Kaitlyn."

"So you just think it's going to be that easy."

"Oh, what, before you were telling me that I was buggin', so why aren't I wiggin' about this?"

"You are kind of wiggin'."

"And I think you have a crush on Kaitlyn," AJ countered.

"Okay, now I know you're wiggin'. I do not have a crush on her."

"Well, you don't have a crush on me," AJ said, "and you kind of treat her better than me, which is kind of weird considering I'm your best friend, so until you prove me wrong, I think you have a crush on her."

"She's not…that bad."

"I knew it," AJ rolled her eyes. "She's not, and someday, maybe we can be friends again, but her betrayal hurt. It just…at a time when I really needed a friend, she wasn't there, and not only that, but she called me a lunatic. She was my best friend and suddenly was just…not there anymore."

"I'm sorry, AJ, I really didn't know you—"

"And it's okay, I'm okay now," AJ said. "Dolph made me okay."

AJ didn't want to get emotional, but she was. "The other men, they broke me, little by little, bit by bit. She should have been there. She should have told me things would get better, that I would be okay, that's all I needed. I just needed someone to tell me it was going to be okay. She didn't. They all treated me like something that was lesser than. I was never their equal, I was never wanted. And my best friend didn't want me either. Dolph saved me."

"Don't you think you saved yourself? You know he'd say that. That guy is stubborn as hell. It's probably all the bleach."

"I know he'd say that, but you know what, he's wrong. He makes me better."

He had nothing to do on the show. He couldn't believe this. Three hours, and he had nothing to do. He was pissed off. He was pissed off beyond anything. Not even an interview, not a match, nothing. So what was he supposed to do, sit around? He was about to find Brad Maddox, hell, he would find Stephanie McMahon if he had to, although she was probably busy with her kids.

"Dolph!"

Dolph sucked at his teeth a little and turned around. "Kaitlyn."

"Did you not get my voicemail last week?" she asked.

"I got it, but I was busy," he told her.

"Well, I saw the schedule, neither one of us have anything, so we really need to strategize, I think. I really want to win on Sunday. I just want AJ to realize she's not better than me. She may have beaten me—"

"Three times now," Dolph reminded her unconsciously. She stared at him for a moment, but shook it off. He needed to watch his mouth around Kaitlyn when it came to AJ because he wasn't sure he could keep the pride out of his voice.

"Yeah…anyways, I don't want it to be again, and I'm sure you don't want Big E to beat you, right?"

"No, I don't."

"Great, so I say we scope out their match and talk about what we can do. We haven't teamed together in forever, right? It's been like, what 3 years, we're out of practice, right. Oh man, is that going to be awkward that I brought that up."

"Why would it be awkward?" he asked.

"Because we kind of made out, remember?"

"Yeah, that was three years ago, I think we're both over that," he deadpanned, at least hoping she was. It would be doubly awkward if this woman was holding a 3 year long crush on him. Besides, wasn't she on the verge of hooking up with Cody Rhodes a few months ago.

"Yeah, I completely am," Kaitlyn said, "just didn't want it to be weird."

"It's not," he told her. "I just want to watch this match and get it over with, and we'll talk."

"You aren't over her, are you?" Kaitlyn scrutinized him, giving him an eye. "She said it on SmackDown, she said you weren't over her, and I don't think you are. Do you have a problem with me hurting her?"

Of course he did. He was tired of seeing his girlfriend get speared. He wanted to give Kaitlyn an earful, but instead shook his head, "You have to do what you have to do."

He wasn't sure he could actually live by that motto though. He wasn't sure he could stand across that ring and see AJ get beat up on. It was hard enough watching it backstage, but while in the ring, it was terrible. When Kaitlyn speared her on SmackDown, Dolph kept staring at his girlfriend writhing around on the mat. His eyes wouldn't leave her, and his limbs were pulling him towards her, but he fought as hard as he could to keep from going to her, picking her up and taking her backstage.

He didn't know if he could go through that again.

Watching the match was boring except for the fact he got to see his girlfriend in action. She was perfect, as always, and showed why she was the Diva's Champion. Natalya was a tough match up for her, but AJ was quick. But when she got put into the Sharpshooter, Dolph knew it would be difficult for her.

"Ha!" Kaitlyn exclaimed when AJ tapped on Natalya's second Sharpshooter attempt. "I don't know how she's still champion, she's such a fluke."

Dolph had to suck at his teeth again. "I guess so."

"I'm so taking her out on Sunday," Kaitlyn shook her head, practically salivating over it. "Come on, I think I have some ways you can outmaneuver E. He's kind of slow in the ring, I think we can capitalize on that." Dolph gave one last look towards the screen where he saw his girlfriend looking like she was deflated and defeated.

Sunday, and the end of it all, could not come soon enough.