Author's Notes: Brena and her Uncle Deaglan are from The Tau Hypothesis, by AeonBlue. This version of Ronda Rousey is based on the version of her created by Zvarmy in his Broken Arrow series.
This story doesn't exactly fit in any of these worlds neatly, and thus does not affect continuity. It is a Christmas present, meant for two folks I considered friends.
Bows and Bells and Christmas Elves.
As one of the principle owners of the WWE, Stephanie McMahone-Helmsley was used to giving wrestlers and Divas both good news and bad news and took it in stride. What she wasn't as used to was giving one person good news, and one person bad news, at the same time, especially when it was the exact same news. But that's precisely what she was going to be doing one cold Tuesday morning in December. And she was looking forward to it.
She was sitting in the coffee shop of a hotel, the two divas in question sitting across the table from her, but they weren't sitting close any anyone looking their way could tell the two women were not only not friends, they just didn't get along at all. Which would make what Stephanie wanted them to do even more difficult, but Stephanie also knew that one of them would make the best of it. The other one? Well, that was another story.
"Well," Stephanie said, smiling at both of them, and taking a sip of her coffee. The table had been cleared of the breakfast dishes, all that remained were water glasses and coffee cups. "I'm sure you're wondering why I asked both of you to breakfast."
"Well, yes, now that you bring it up, I was wondering," the blonde woman said, fiddling with her own coffee cup, but not drinking from it.
The woman with the black hair done in hundreds, perhaps even thousands of tiny black braids said nothing. She held her coffee cup, both hands curled around it, as if for warmth, even thought the coffee shop was quite warm.
"I know you girls are supposed to have the morning off until you have to report to the arena, but something came up, and I need you both to do some good will PR work." Stephanie put her coffee cup down and smiled at both of the women. The smile was genuine, but it was clear this was not an option.
The blonde woman groaned. "Stephanie, I promised Seth and Roman we'd all go to the gym this morning," she began.
"I'm sure Roman and Seth are capable of going to the gym without you," Stephanie said, her voice crisp and business like, making it clear she would brook no argument. "Ronda, I know your contract exempts you from a lot of the PR work we do in the WWE, but it doesn't exclude you from all of it. Since you agreed to be on SmackDown this week, you have time to do this and it's important."
"What is it we're gong to be doing?" The dark haired woman asked.
"I'm glad you asked, May," Stephanie said. "I need the two of you to go to a local hospital. There is a children's ward and we agreed to send two of our most popular divas over to help the kids decorate a Christmas tree. Most of these kids won't be able to go home for Christmas, so the clinic wants to make sure they do what they can to give these kids some type of holiday."
"Oh, those poor kids!" May said, shaking her head sadly. "Imagine, being in a hospital for Christmas."
Stephanie had already predicted that would be May Devany's response. The woman had the biggest heart, especially when it came to children. She had not only been predicting this, she had been counting on it. "I know," Stephanie said, nodding in agreement. "And we know this is a last minute thing, but we'd really like to do this. We'll be providing the tree and all the decorations. The tree is a large one, and it's being delivered while we speak along with the decorations."
"Should we dress in a particular way?" May asked, smiling, "Do you want us in ring gear or casual clothing?" Secretly, she hoped it wouldn't be ring gear, even if the hospital was warm, which it would be, ring gear wasn't exactly suitable for this time of year.
"I'm glad you brought that up," Stephanie said, even though she had known May would bring it up, that was just May's way. "We have special outfits for this. They've been delivered to your rooms. When we're done with our coffee, we need you girls to go up and change. There will be a car out front to take you there. We need you to get going right away, if you're going to make the arena in time for late call."
May nodded, and took a gulp of her coffee, eager to get started. "This sounds like fun."
"This sounds like hell," Ronda muttered, taking the tiniest sip from her own cup.
When the women got to their rooms the outfits they were supposed to wear were waiting. May looked at her outfit and smiled. Green pants, red blouse, green vest. A green pointed cap with a red pompom at the tip of it. Christmas elf, she thought, I'm going to be a little Christmas elf. She wasn't surprised. Standing barely at five feet, one of the shortest Divas ever, it wasn't at all shocking to think that she would be cast as an elf. I wonder what they're putting Ronda into?
Barely had the thought formed in her head, when she heard a roar coming from further down the hall, no doubt where Donna's room was.
I guess she found her costume, May thought as she started to change.
The two women met by the elevator. May looked darling in the elf costume, smiling brightly. Ronda, on the other hand, looked miserable in a red velvet dress, trimmed with white, fake fur. "Mrs. Claus, I presume?" May asked.
"Shut the fuck up," Ronda snapped.
The ride over to the clinic was silent. Ronda stared out the window her expression one of stony resolve. It wasn't that she always minded doing PR work, some of it could be fun and it did help cement her popularity, but this was a bit much. Dressed like Mrs. Claus? Decorating a tree with children who had suffered from severe brain trauma? And the worst, stuck with Little Miss Elfshine? She couldn't even make jokes about how awful this would be, May Devany wouldn't hear of such a thing. Ronda looked over at May, finding her looking intently at her tablet. "Let me guess," Ronda said, breaking the silence. "You're looking up everything you can about this place, aren't you?"
May looked up and nodded in mild surprise. "Yeah, how did you guess?"
"I'm a fucking mind reader," Ronda muttered.
When they got to the clinic, the press was already there, having been informed of this event earlier and being prepared. May wasn't surprised, nor embarrassed to be caught being an elf for the day. She had long ago learned to ignore cameras when it came to PR work with children.
Ronda, on the other hand, stared at the cameras with daggers in her eyes. I'm going to be all over the local news, possibly even the national news, wearing a fucking Santa Claus dress, she thought. Stephanie and Hunter owe me big time for this. More than big time, at the next contract signing they'd better have sixteen sports cars and a private jet just for my use as my bonus. How dare they humiliate me like this?
Once inside, May had no problem walking up to the main desk, where the nurse behind it was looking as if she had spent most of the night and all that morning doing the work of ten people. There were pencils stuck behind both ears, a pen in her mouth and she was thumping loudly on a keyboard with a phone in her ear. She looked up at May, eyes narrowing as she took in her costume. "You've got to be kidding," she muttered, as if the presence of her and Ronda was nothing but an annoyance to her already busy day.
She seems pretty cool, Ronda thought.
May quickly scanned the nurse's uniform for a name tag and saw it. "Hi, Meredith," she said, brightly, ignoring the daggers the nurse was sending out of her eyes. "Mrs. Claus and I are here to help decorate the tree for the children." She looked about her. "I don't see any children."
"Yeah? That's because the children's ward is on the other side of the building," Meredith said. A camera man was following them, and the nurse glared at him. "Shut that thing off!" she ordered. "Patient confidentiality says you can't film in here!" The camera man immediately lowered the camera and shut it off, looking thoroughly chastised. Meredith watched until the little red light turned off, then looked back at May. "They have their own private entrance, you should have gone to the other side of the building."
"Can we just cut through here?" May asked.
"Yeah, I guess," Meredith said, already going back to her keyboard and thumping noisily again.
"Er, how would we get there?" May asked.
Meredith looked up again, and Ronda nearly laughed at the look she was shooting May. As she drew in a deep breath, another woman, who had been wheeling an elderly gentleman down the hall, stopped and almost instantly put the breaks on the wheel chair and hurried over. "Don't worry, Meredith," she said, her voice sweet and almost musical. "I'll show them how to get to the children's ward, it's no bother. I was just taking Uncle Deaglan on a stroll in the halls, since we can't really go outside."
Meredith looked at the woman, flashing her a smile of genuine warmth and gratitude. "Thank you, Brena, you're a life saver." She turned her attention back to the keyboard, hanging up the phone that had been in her ear the whole time, obviously having not been talking to anyone for awhile.
May turned to Brena and smiled warmly. "Thank you, so much," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm May, and this is my -" there was only a brief hesitation before she said, "-friend, Ronda. We appreciate you're showing us the Children's ward and we're sorry for the confusion."
"Oh, it's quite all right," Brena said, smiling warmly at both of them. "It's no trouble at all. I'm Brena, by the way, and it's wonderful to meet you."
I have the feeling she'd say that to Jack the Ripper, Ronda thought grunting a hello. Congratulations, May, you have found another member of your tribe. Not the tribe of runts, but the tribe of people too nice for their own good.
They walked over to the wheelchair. "This is my uncle Deaglan," Brena said, introducing the fragile man who was smiling.
If it was obvious Uncle Deaglan wasn't completely there mentally, it was obvious that he was at least enjoying himself. He seemed to be most interested in May, watching her intently, his grin widening as she leaned over and gently took his hand. "It's an honor to meet you, Deaglan," she said, shaking his hand carefully and gently, more stroking it, than shaking it.
"Bird!" Deaglan said, grinning even wider. "Hazel! Bird!"
"You'll have to excuse him," Brena said, as the four of them began strolling down the hall to the Children's ward. "He has some trouble with verbal communications."
Trouble? Ronda thought, shaking her head, that's like saying Roddy Piper was kind of a heel.
"That's fine," May said. "I'm sure he gets his point across when he has to."
May and Brena chatted happily about, as far as Ronda was concerned, absolutely nothing. Weather, the clinic, the neighborhood, which apparently was the neighborhood Brena had grown up in. Apparently, the Children's ward was enough of a distance that they also had time to talk about dancing, flowers, and who knew what else. When they started discussing the merits of Forget-Me-Nots vs. Common Field-Speedwell, Ronda just tuned them out completely and began thinking how much nicer hospitals would be if they had bars instead of gift shops.
When they got to the entrance of the Children's Ward, Brena stopped. "The lobby is right though those doors," she said, sweetly.
"Would you like to come with us?" May asked her, having enjoyed the company of this woman immensely and thinking Brena and Deaglan both seemed like the type to enjoy being around children.
"I-I don't know if we should," Brena said, looking at the heavy double door with an almost wistful expression as if she would love nothing more than to decorate a tree with May and the children. "They usually keep these areas apart."
"Who cares about usually, it's Christmas time!" May said brightly. "If they have any objections, I'll say you're our special helpers for today." On a fit of whimsy she pulled off her elf cap and walked over to Deaglan. "Would you like to be my helper for today?" When the old man grinned and made several jerking motions with his head, May put the cap on his head. "Now it's official!" She stood up and beamed.
While Ronda wasn't sure about this at all, she wasn't going to let May upstage her, or take away a golden opportunity to rid herself of at least part of her costume. "Well, if he's going to wear your hat, the least I can do is this," she pulled her own crisp white cap off her head and handed it to Brena. "You can wear this."
"Then it's settled!" May said, as Brena took the cap, thanking Ronda for it, and putting it on her head. "We're all set!" She turned to push open the doors leading into the Children's Ward. As she did, Deaglan's hand shot out, faster than anyone would have believed possible and he quickly and firmly pinched May's butt. May leaped in the air, spinning around and looking at him. "What!"
"Uncle Deaglan!" Brena said, clearly mortified by what he had done. Uncle Deaglan grinned wildly, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "Oh, Uncle Deaglan, you shouldn't have done that!"
"It's-it's okay," May said, now that she realized what had happened. "I'm sure he didn't mean it."
Uncle Deaglan's grin just widened. You damned well did mean that, Ronda thought, unable to resist giving him a smile. I might actually like you, old man. You might have snow on the roof, you might be a few cards short of a deck, but you know what you want and you're not afraid to show it.
Uncle Deaglan looked up, seeing Ronda smiling. "Bird!" he proclaimed, pointing at May, then repeated it again, just to make sure Ronda understood him, "Bird!"
The tree was already up in the lobby of the Children's ward, and the children who were staying at the clinic were already there, having been brought by nurses aids and volunteers. As Ronda looked at the kids, she felt her heart sink. She had done enough Make-A-Wish engagements and various other charitable events, she wasn't a stranger to sick children, but this was not the usual scene of bald children with large wistful eyes. While a fair amount of children seemed normal, almost too normal to think of them as sick, a lot of them were in far worse shape. Belted into wheel chairs, sitting in chairs with crutches next to them, helmets on almost all of them and so many of them had a blank look as if someone had turned off a switch located just behind their eyes. Head trauma, she thought, swallowing hard as she looked at a young boy who was wearing an ugly Christmas sweater of red and green, but drooling so excessively that someone had put a white bib on him that looked to be soaked through. Some kids were sitting in chairs, but jerking around as if they had no control over their bodies, strange strangled sounds coming from their throats. Some were shouting, not really saying anything, just shouting. And while some of the shouts sounded happy at the excitement of having visitors and a giant tree in the lobby, others were just shrieks as if inside these horrible prisons of the mind, there were completely average children, crying to get out. You should have warned us better, Stephanie, Ronda thought, I wasn't prepared for this.
May, on the other hand, while also taken aback, had been a bit more prepared, having done some research in the car. Any shock she might have felt, she pushed firmly inside of her. Shock would not help these kids, they had been given enough in their lives, they didn't need her shock or her pity. All she could give them now, all they needed from her and the WWE was a day of joy, to see a tree decorated by her and Donna, a chance to help decorate if they could. Smiling, she looked at a little girl who had come running forward, eager at all the excitement going on in the normally quiet ward. "Hi, my name is May and I'm one of Santa's Elves," she said, brightly.
The girl raised and lowered herself on the balls of her feet, flapping her arms eagerly. "She can't talk," one of the nurses aids told May. "Her name is Noel."
"What a pretty name!" May said, ignoring the comment about the girl being unable to speak and taking her hand. "With a name like that, this must be your favorite time of the year! Well, I'll tell you what, Noel, you are going to be my special helper today. Would you like that?"
Noel grinned and if she didn't nod, she did flap her free arm more enthusiastically, which was enough of an answer to May. Anyone could see the young girl was pleased with the honor of being chosen to be May's special helper.
A quick look at Ronda told May Mrs. Claus was not going to be much help in getting things organized, so she took over. She had the children all introduce themselves, or had an aid or volunteer tell her the names of the kids. She sent Ronda outside to tell the press that they would give interviews when they were leaving and not before. Ronda at first looked as if she might get pissed that May was ordering her around, but then seemed to see the wisdom of being allowed to go yell at people and hurried off to do that. "Remind them of patient confidentiality," she whispered to Donna. "Remind them that these kids can't give consent, they're minors and we don't have permission from the parents. Tell them we will be more than happy to talk to them when we leave and that's it. Tell them whatever you want, just make sure they are too scared to step foot in this door."
Ronda nodded and headed for the door, cracking her knuckles, a genuine smile on her face, and a gleam in her eye.
When Ronda returned, most of the press having left after she gave them a little talking to, May had things organized with the tree. She had organized the decorations in order of what they would need first. Lights, then garland, then ornaments. Much to May's relief, she noted that the decorations the WWE had sent over were all as sturdy and unbreakable as possible, and most were too large to fit into mouths. For once the interns paid attention, she thought as she turned to Ronda. "Mrs. Claus, since Santa can't be here today, why don't you do the honor of putting up the lights?"
The tree was a fake one, but it stood well over twelve feet tall and looked like if stringing lights would prove to be difficult. "Why don't you take those lights-" Ronda began.
"And deck the halls with them?" May said, cutting her off. "No, we're just here to do the tree. And I'm just a little elf, as you're so fond of reminding me. You should do the lights!"
Ronda stared at her, and seeing the glint in her eyes, frowned, but took the string of lights May offered. All those times calling her a dwarf, a runt, and a fun sized freak have come back to haunt me, she thought. There was a ladder set up near the tree. Taking a deep breath, she started climbing up, prepared to string lights.
Unfortunately, there wasn't anything even the healthiest of the kids could do to help while the lights were being hung, at least towards the top. May used the time to walk around with Noel and try to make sure she had the kids names correct. More than once, she thanked her parents for somehow managing in their mixture of DNA, to give her an excellent memory when it came to names. On days like this it was a blessing.
Since she was counting her blessings, she was also grateful that she had asked Brena and Deaglan to help them. Just as she expected, Brena and the kids were taking to each other like ducks to water. Kids know a gentle soul, May thought to herself as she saw Brena, sitting on the floor with a group of kids, softly singing Christmas carols. And if some of the kids couldn't sing, but only give squawking noises, it didn't seem to phase her at all. Even Deaglan was grinning, and when they started to sing the twelve days of Christmas, he seemed to get very excited about each verse that involved birds. "Doves!" he cried out at the second verse, and "Swans" he cried out for the seventh.
A boy of about eleven or twelve, who seemed fine, asked if he could help. May would find out later that he was prone to seizures due to head trauma suffered as an infant. He was in the clinic as a trial patient for a new type of seizure medication and so far it seemed to be working well. His name was Timmy and he was one of the tallest kids in the group. May put him over by Donna, asking him if he could hand her strings of lights as he needed them. He was delighted with his chore and stood carefully by the ladder, calling up to remind Ronda that if she needed more lights, all she had to do was ask.
Thinking Ronda and the lights were covered, she turned her attention back to the children, talking with them, answering questions they had, realizing as she always did, that children, whether healthy or sick, were children and just like any children, most were eager at anything new and this huge tree being decorated was certainly something new and they all wanted to go over and touch it, investigate it. May knew she had her work cut out for her, keeping them occupied enough so Ronda could get the lights and the garland on it. She did turn to look at the tree several times to see how the progress was coming, and much to her surprise, Ronda was handling it well, accepting lights from Timmy, climbing up and down the ladder, moving it to different locations to hang the lights evenly. This is turning out better than I expected, May thought.
While the lights did go smoothly, the garland was another matter. It was a new type of garland, more slick and slippery than the normal garland and much stiffer too. It had been packaged as "safe" garland, because it was nearly impossible to pull it apart. The problem was that these very safety issues made it really difficult to get on the tree. Even worse, there was something about the plastic it was made with that made it want to stick to cloth and human skin.
"Mrs. Claus has a potty mouth," Timmy suddenly announced in a loud voice. May rose to her feet, whirling around to see what was going on. Ronda was on top of the ladder, wrapped almost head to toe in shiny silver garland, looking furious. The end of the string of garland was dragging on one of the steps to the ladder and as May watched, Ronda stepped on it, lost her footing and came tumbling down the ladder.
"HOLY-" Ronda began as May ran over to her.
"-BELLS!" May shouted to cover up whatever word was about to come out of Donna's mouth. "HOLLY BELLS!" She shouted again, even louder. She grabbed a package of sliver colored bells. "Why yes, Mrs. Claus, we do have HOLLY BELLS!" she exclaimed, her voice loud and overly enthusiastic. "But we can't hang these up until we get the garland up, can we? Silly Mrs. Claus! You've been decorating trees forever, you should know that!" She looked back at the kids, "Mrs. Claus is so excited she forgot the holly bells go on after the garland!"
Ronda shot her a murderous look as the kids laughed. Wrapped head to toe in silver and gold garland, May had to cover her hand with her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. "You look like something a Unicorn would have farted," She said softly, as she helped Ronda to her feet, pulling at the garland.
"And why don't you go fuck yourself?" Ronda suggested in a low voice.
"What did she say?" Timmy asked, also hovering close.
"She said 'why don't I frolic, little elf!'" May said quickly and turned her attention back to Ronda. "Watch your language," she hissed into the woman's ear as she pulled at the garland, finally freeing it.
"Watch it," Ronda muttered back, "Or when we get out of here, I'll deck your halls and it won't be with balls of holly!"
"Why not?" May murmured back, her voice sweet. "I hear when it comes to balls, you're the queen!"
Before Ronda could respond, May stepped away, far enough so she wouldn't be able to hear whatever Ronda wanted to whisper back. "Oh look! Even though Mrs. Claus had a little mishap, she's got the garland on the top of the tree! I can help her with the bottom part!"
They got the garland onto the tree, Ronda muttering things under her breath that May was sure were not part of the PG era, but at least none of the kids could hear them. When the garland was on, then the kids who were able could help decorate. May decided Ronda would be best to stand by the table of ornaments and hand them to the children, one by one. Then May and Brena could help the children who needed it, hang them on the tree. It was getting close to noon, and they were told that at noon, this activity would end, the children having to eat lunch. When they're gone, we'll put what's left of the decorations on the top part of the tree, May thought, not wanting anyone on a ladder while the kids were close by.
The decorating was going well for the most part, and May was pleased. They had moved Deaglan closer to the tree, and Ronda surprised May by bringing over any bird shaped ornament and helping him hang them on the lower branches he could reach. She likes him, May thought to herself. She probably won't want to admit it if I ask her, but she likes Deaglan. Probably because he goosed me, but still, she likes him.
It was quarter of twelve when the aids and volunteers started making motions indicating they needed to wrap this up. May was just ready to draw out a sigh of relief that it was soon over without any further mishap, when she heard a thud behind her. She turned around to see Ronda lying flat on her back.
May would find out later that the little boy who had been wearing a big, Joshua was his name, had been wheeled up to help hang ornaments and in all the excitement had managed to pull off his bib and throw it to the floor. The front of the bib was a soft terrycloth material, but the back was slick plastic. The bib had fallen, plastic side down and Ronda had stepped on it, it had slid, and she had gone flying through the air, onto her back.
May knew that what would come out of Ronda's mouth once she got over the shock of falling would not be pretty, and she could hardly blame her. Sure, wrestling was all about tumbling and falling, but sometimes that could be a problem in itself. You were so used to falling only when you were told to, you forgot sometimes that falls could come out of the blue. May only had a couple seconds to react, the couple seconds while Ronda was in shock. She reached to the decorations table and grabbed a Christmas bow, one of those ones that had the adhesive on the back, peeled it off, ran to Ronda and shoved it on her lips to silence her.
"PUCKITY PUCK!" Ronda said, talking around the adhesive. She reached up to tear off the bow, but May held it firmly over her mouth. Aids were starting to come forward to see if they could help.
"She's fine!" May shouted, even though she had no clue if Ronda was fine or not, she was just hoping so. She turned back to the blonde woman who was looking at May as if she were a huge bug she wanted to stomp on for a few hours. "Are you okay?" she asked, softly.
Ronda just glared at her, unable to answer, as May's fingers firmly held the bow in place. "Blink once for yes, twice for no," May said. "Are you okay?"
A long pause, while Ronda attempted to make May burst into flames with the power of vision, but finally, she blinked, once.
"Good," May said. "Now, I know you're pissed and I understand, but until you can control that mouth of yours, you're going to leave this bow on it, okay? You don't want Stephanie and Hunter to find out that Mrs. Claus gave the kids a vocabulary lesson today, do you?"
More daggers, but Ronda blinked twice. Smiling, May stood up and held out her hand, helping Ronda to her feet. "Look, Everyone! Mrs. Claus is wearing a Christmas bow! Doesn't she look festive?"
Two hours later, the event was over, selfies had been taken with the kids, pictures sent to the WWE PR department, many of them showing Ronda with a bow over her mouth, but she didn't remove it until the last kid was out of the room. The tree was decorated properly, with ornaments going from the top to the bottom. Brena and Deaglan had stayed to help, which May was grateful for. She liked Brena, and was glad for the chance to talk to her. She had the feeling that Brena spent a lot of time in this clinic and thus didn't get many chances to talk to women around her own age and thus, she was enjoying May's company as well. May liked Deaglan too, even if she was a little wary of his hands when she got too close. Ronda though, had no problems staying close to Deaglan, having figured out that if Deaglan couldn't talk, he at least seemed to understand enough, so she talked to him openly, but, being careful of her language.
When all was finished and all the packaging from the decorations cleaned up, Brena gave May a hug, which she returned. "It was so wonderful to meet you!"
"I loved meeting you too," May said. "You have my number, right? Text me! And the next time we're in Philly, I'll get you tickets to the show. Deaglan too, if they'll let you spring him for the night, if not, you can bring a friend."
"I'd like that!" Brena said, smiling. She turned to Ronda as if she might hug her, but then saw Ronda was not the type to go for casual hugs. "It was nice to meet you, Ronda."
"It was nice to meet you too," Ronda said, then surprising both of them, leaned down and hugged Deaglan gently. "You're sharper than you let on, old man," she whispered into his ear. "You may have most folks fooled, but you don't fool me."
"Bird!" Deaglan agreed. "Dove!"
It was on the limo ride home when May felt the top of her head and shook her head. "We forgot to get our hats back," she commented to Ronda, as she pulled her phone out of her purse to send Brena a quick message. "Enjoyed meeting you, Merry Christmas."
"Yeah? Wish I could have donated the whole fucking outfit," Ronda muttered. "If Stephanie has a problem with my hat missing, I'll tell her if the costumes were so important, she should have come along with us to keep an eye on them." Ronda's eyes glittered dangerously. "And if she had come along, I would have suggested she could have been the angel and shoved that fucking tree right up her ass."
May tried not to laugh. "Admit it, Ronda, it wasn't that bad," she said, when she was able to get control of herself. "We got to spend a day with some kids that probably don't get a lot of attention because of their injures and illnesses. We got to decorate a tree and we met a lovely woman and her uncle. And admit it, you like Deaglan."
"I don't like anyone," Ronda snapped, then thought better of it, and softly added, "Okay, Deaglan was pretty cool."
May knew that was the best she'd get from the woman, but that was okay. Tipping her head to one side, she studied Ronda. "I know once we get to the arena, we'll be busy and won't have a chance to talk and I know after SmackDown, you and Seth are gone until Raw and that's after the holiday, So, I just want to say, Merry Christmas."
Ronda stared at her, as if in all her dreams, she could not imagine May Devany wanting to wish her, Ronda Rousey a Merry Christmas. "Uh, thanks," she mumbled, then realize something else might be expected and added, "Merry Christmas to you, too."
The End