A/N: Big thanks to SweetHeartCandy, xPunkifiedx, aliveagain, RKOCMJHGIRL, Warblette, rkoxkelcie and Ainat for the nice reviews; you don't know how glad I am that you like this! Anyway, in this chapter the last woman is revealed, finally! I hope you like it and just so you know, the italics this time are for Punk's memories (I didn't want to make the whole story in italics)

ChApTeR 3

Moving his olive green irises away from the flat TV screen hanging from his living room wall, Phil Brooks looked down to the floor so he could take on the image of his ten year old daughter lying flat on her stomach while putting all her attention on the movie playing in front of her eyes.

She seemed engrossed by it, almost as if she was in a trance and after observing her for a few minutes he just had to shake his head in amusement. To a certain point it was funny and his lips curved into a smile while he took on the expression her pretty face was making.

Sure, the girl was supposed to be doing her homework and instead she was watching a scary movie; thing that her mom would definitely disapprove so he shouldn't be smiling about it.

But Phil, well… he usually wasn't too strict when it came to his daughter's scholar duties because he remembered that as a boy he hated school with a passion and more often than not he would skip doing his homework so he could do more entertaining things like reading comics or going outside with his friends.

As for the horror movies… he loved that the girl took after him when it came to her taste in films and he encouraged her curiosity by letting her watch the good classic ones with him or even by making up messed up stories of his own.

Her mom didn't like that and she didn't like either that every time he would take her home with him, girl came back with her homework undone and with her mind running wild about serial killers, monsters and evil creatures that served as antagonist to a good super hero.

But it was what it was and he was used to the reproaches and stuff; it was almost like a routine.

Shrugging and making peace with the knowledge that Isabel would probably return to her mom's Sunday afternoon without finishing her homework, Phil leaned forward and moving silent as a shadow, he reached for her leg grabbed it.

"Gotcha!" He yelled, shaking her up.

The result was that the girl screamed as loud as she could, drew her leg away and almost jumped to her feet. "Dad!"

Pushing his back against his sofa, Phil laughed out loud; he loved doing that and he would never get tired of it. As he saw it, the girl should be used to him doing it and she shouldn't even get startled at that point.

"Oh you should have seen your face."

Pouting her lips and turning her back to the TV, the young girl sat cross legged over the floor and eyed him reproachfully. "That wasn't funny, dad."

"Yes it was. It never gets old."

As her only response, Isabel rolled her eyes and feeling unfazed, Phil blew out a breath and took a look at the hour; taking notice that it was just after midnight.

"You know what else is funny, that it's time for you to go to sleep. Haha, now go brush your teeth and we'll do this the nice way, Isabel."

"I don't like the nice way, Phil." The girl said in a mocking tone and before she could take joy in her little moment, Phil got up from the sofa quickly and the girl screamed again, jumped to her feet and ran to the bathroom.

"Okay…" Shaking his head and snorting, Phil mumbled, remembering when three or four years ago he was able to take the girl to Chicago for Christmas the first time ever.

It has been a crazy week and because the girl's mom has been very adamant that he should not ruin the big secret that there was no Santa, Phil has tried his best to make a memorable night for his girl. The result has been that on Christmas Eve, the combination of too much candy, Colt filling her head with crazy stories, Teno making her laugh with his occurrences and with Natalie spoiling her silly, the girl didn't want to sleep like at all.

That right there was a problem to him because in order for him to put her presents under the awfully decorated artificial palm tree Colt brought as a Christmas tree, Phil needed the girl sleeping. That was how their little tradition of him putting her to bed in a kinder version of his GTS started… it lasted about two years before it disappeared and that night was the first time in a long while that they played around with Punk's Go To Sleep.

Still smiling, Phil turned off the TV, checked that the door would be locked and turned off the lights of the living room. To him it was still relatively early, but since he wanted to go out early in the morning to make the best out of his time with Isabel, he needed to put her to bed or else she wasn't going to wake up until noon.

Once all was set, Phil saw the girl getting out of the bathroom and running towards her room. She was dressed for bed so in his mind he was glad that he didn't have to turn his dad mode on so she would listen.

"Dad." She called as he was passing in front of her door to say goodnight.

"Yes?" He asked, standing under the doorframe to her room and folding his arms to his chest.

Isabel was already in bed and flashing the sweet smile she would use when she wanted something from him, she tilted her head to the side and looked up to him. "Will you tell more about the story about you and mom? Pleeeeeeeaasee."

Clicking his tongue to his check, Phil hummed. "I don't know, it's kind of late and tomorrow we have to be up early."

"But Dad… I will be up early without complaining, I promise."

Blinking his eyes slowly, Phil considered it for a moment. He could tell her something brief to satisfy her curiosity and leave her content for the night… it wouldn't be mush of a big deal.

"Okay, but this will be just something short and I don't want you begging or making pretty eyes at me when I'm done, understood?"

Beaming, the girl nodded and sat on the bed; by the look on her face she was very eager to listen whatever Phil was going to say, be it short or not.

"So where was I?" He breathed out as he walked into the room so he could sit next to her in the bed.

"You and Maki were going out."

"Right, right… well, MaKi and I went out that night and we caught up…" He said, remembering that he and his ex-girlfriend had done a lot of catching up that night… twice. Not that he was going to tell that to Isabel, that was classified under the file of too information to share with his daughter. "Now I don't know if you remember that before MaKi showed up, I was supposed to meet with Phoenix. Well, the following day, Phoenix was not very happy that I went out with MaKi. She wasn't saying it but I would see it in her eyes."

"Was she mad because she was jealous?"

Chuckling at the fact that his daughter was perceptive enough to get the little details, Phil ran a hand down his jaw. "Maybe, but right in that moment I didn't see it that way; I just thought she was crabby for some other reasons and I didn't think too much about it…

"Are you serious, Phil?" Phoenix asked as she sat at the other side of the table, her clear blue eyes staring directly into his olive green orbs while her jaw seemed painfully set.

On his part, Punk just sat there, a big grin on his face as he remembered some of the details about his meeting with MaKi the previous night. "Serious about going out with her? Well we just went out to talk…"

And it has been like that at the beginning. They went to eat, they talked about everything they could think off and they had a good time; during dinner there hadn't been one single inappropriate touch between the two and other that their eyes refusing to leave each other, no one would say that they were planning on doing something that could trespassed the line of an old friendship.

The problem came when he had to drop her at her hotel…

Not that he was going to discuss that with his friend, but when the moment came to say goodbye, he just didn't feel like ending the night at her door and he didn't… they didn't.

"Isn't she supposed to be getting married soon?" Last night she made sure we all saw her big engagement ring."

"Yes she is." Pushing the inside of his cheek with his tongue, Punk looked at his friend for a few minutes and sighed. Yes, MaKi was supposed to get married and what happened last night wasn't going to change that. They just… they just let themselves be carried away and that was it. It happened, they liked it and now that they got it off their systems they could move on with their lives.

Was it wrong? To her fiancée yes it would be, but to Phil it has been more than good, especially since he was crawling out of a bad breakup.

"You are impossible." Phoenix said shaking her head and Punk snorted, getting up to his feet and walking to her. Once he was at her side, he pulled a chair next to her and sat down.

"Yeah, but you love me anyway." After saying that, he took a strawberry out of her plate and ate it.

"No I don't; all you do is eat my food and give me headaches. I don't know how I put up with you." She said with an indifferent shrug; but when he leaned to her and kiss her cheek briefly, she didn't try to push him away.

"You know, tonight I'm going to take you out somewhere nice. Will you love me back if I do that?" He asked teasingly, trying to cheer her up because she definitely seemed to be in full annoyed mode.

It was weird, but he didn't understand why would anyone could be crabby in such a nice day; it was as if everything was backward, he was feeling content for the first time in weeks and now Phoenix, the most positive human being he knew was being the difficult one.

"I don't know, I'll have to think about it." She said with another shrug.

"Good, good…" He said absent mindedly, knowing full well that when the night came, Phoenix was going to be there for him to take out. She was basically the only constant woman in his life, the one he could trust above any other and he wanted to make it up to her for cancelling last night in favor of MaKi. "Anyway, I have to meet with this Diva and start this shit about training her, I'll see you later." He said, giving her another kiss on her cheek before standing up and heading to the place he was supposed to meet with his trainee.

Walking out of catering and venturing through the backstage corridors of the arena they were going to perform that night, the tattooed professional wrestler known as CM Punk headed pass the Gorilla position and walked down the ramp, taking notice that his Diva was already there.

Now, it was still early in the afternoon so the stadium was closed to everyone but the wrestlers and the crew that was putting everything together; from lighting to sound and all the little details that made the whole live WWE experience something of another kind.

But even though it was still too early, the ring was already there and that was where the woman he was supposed to train was, sitting in the middle of the ring while talking on her phone

Shrugging but happy that at least she was on time, Punk continued walking. He did it in his best spirits, whistling an old tune all the way to the ring and finally stepping into the square circle.

"I have to go, bye." The woman said over the phone in an annoyed tone of voice as soon as Punk got in and then she got to her feet. "Punk," She said, arching an eyebrow and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well, well, well… it seems like someone up there thinks that you, a former Divas champion need to learn how to wrestle. How messed up is that?"

Running her tongue over her lips, the WWE Diva blew out a breath but said nothing.

Punk watched that through half closed eyelids, not really knowing if the woman's silence was a sign of her being petulant or what. He knew she had a reputation of being a bit too much into herself and really, when women that thought they were the big shit were told that they weren't, they would usually feel bitter about it.

"Okay, I'll be telling a lie if I say that I've been watching Divas perform so I don't know, can you at least run the ropes?"

"Depends on who you ask." The blonde woman responded, placing her hands over her hips and locking her eyes with his.

Arching an eyebrow and chewing hard on a fruity flavored gum he put in his mouth as he walked around, Punk snorted. "Alright, Pepe. Then let me see what you have…"

"Pepe?" Isabel asked with a giggle. "Pepe sounds like an ugly man, eww."

Snorting, Phil looked down to his daughter. "Well this Pepe I'm talking you about is not a man, she is a woman and a very pretty one."

"How pretty?" She asked with a smile.

Sighing, Punk twisted his lips and went back in memory lane. "Very pretty." He said, thinking that not only was his Pepe pretty, but she had a killer accent that even when he loved to make fun of it, it used to drive him crazy… and not in a bad way.

"Was Phoenix pretty too?"

"Oh yeah, all of them were more than pretty, they were any men's dream come true. I ended up caring a lot about them."

"So why are you not with neither one of them?"

"Well… do you remember when I said that all men were jerks and that you should never trust one that wasn't me? Well I was a bit of a jerk back then and thinks complicated a little bit and… that will be all for tonight. Now go to sleep."

Pouting but holding up to her promise, Isabel lay down to her side and Phil kissed her forehead. At that, the girl closed her eyes and smiled. "Dad, do you still think mom is pretty?"

Breathing in, Punk got to his feet and stretched. Even with her eyes tightly shut, he could see that his daughter was eagerly waiting for an answer and he gave her an honest answer. "Your mom is beautiful, that's why I'm glad you look like her. Now goodnight, princess."

"Goodnight, dad."

Turning off her lamp and walking out, Punk went back to the living room and without bothering to turn on the lights, he sat on the sofa. Talking about the past with his daughter was making him remember a lot of things he thought he had forgotten and now, ten years later, he couldn't help but to feel a mix of nostalgia, regrets and of course, joy while remembering those three women that in one way or another, ended up meaning so much to him

Maria, Beth and Maryse… he wondered what they were doing right in that moment…

TBC