For the first time, the group of Dean, Ronda, Seth, Bayley and Zelina had travelled together on the way to Raw. Although Money in the Bank had been a successful night for Dean and Ronda, with him winning the Intercontinental Championship and her winning the Money in the Bank briefcase, the atmosphere in the car on the drive to the arena had been sombre.

The reason for the depressed mood among the group was the fact that Roman Reigns had sustained a potentially very serious knee injury in the men's Money in the Bank ladder match. Being knocked from the top of the ladder by Bobby Roode, Roman had landed on his feet, but his left knee had buckled under him, leaving him screaming in pain and unable to complete the match.

Roman had been examined by a doctor when he got backstage, and although a scan would be required in the coming days to accurately assess the damage, the initial diagnosis was likely multiple ligament tears. Having experienced the same thing himself, Seth had been able to give the group some insight into the pain and hardship that kind of injury brought, and it had sent chills down all of their spines. Dean and Seth had been particularly affected, of course, being such close friends with Roman. While the whole group hoped for good news to come from Roman's scans, they were realistic enough to admit that they were unlikely to get it.

When the time came for the men and women to head off to their separate locker rooms, Dean and Ronda stepped away from the group. "Sorry I've not been much company since last night," he said.

"Don't worry about it, I understand," Ronda said with a reassuring smile. "I know how much Roman means to you, and it's a big shock when something like that happens to a friend."

"Thanks, darlin'," Dean said, appreciating the sympathy, not that it could do anything to change the situation. "Assuming he's got ligament damage, and let's be honest, he almost certainly has, he's going to need surgery. I'll want to go down to the hospital and see him as soon as I can after the surgery, when I have some time off."

"Of course," Ronda said without hesitation. "I'll come with you, if you like. Or not. Whatever you want."

"Thanks," he said again, managing a smile. "Judging by what Seth was saying about his injury, it'll be a week or so at least before they'll operate. You'll be on that Fiji trip for your filming by the time I get chance to go and see him."

"Yeah, you're right," she realised. "I was hoping you'd be able to join me over there, too."

Dean seemed to take what she had said the wrong way, thinking she was complaining about the fact that he might not travel out to see her as she had hoped. "Well, I'm sorry my friend getting injured isn't convenient for you," he snapped.

"Woah, calm down," Ronda said, a little taken aback. "That's not what I meant, so don't snap at me."

"Sounded like that's what you meant to me," he replied, still sounding annoyed.

Ronda bristled. "I literally just said I was happy to go with you, or for you to go by yourself. I know you're upset, but I'm not going to have you taking it out on me when I've done nothing to deserve it."

For a second, Dean seemed like he was going to fire back at her. Instead, he closed his eyes for a second and took a breath. "Sorry," he sighed. "You're right, I'm taking it out on you. I'm just not good at dealing with shit, you know?"

While she appreciated the apology, Ronda was still annoyed at how he had spoken to her. "Alright, forget it. I'll see you later," she said, walking away without giving him their customary kiss when they parted ways.

As she walked away, Ronda noted that while Dean didn't call after her, she did hear him kick something in frustration. He was angry with himself for his behaviour, as well he should be, she thought. The brief altercation had made her already fairly poor mood even worse.

When she entered the locker room, she saw that Bayley and Zelina had beaten her to it, and were already engaged in conversation with Sasha Banks. Feeling like she didn't have anything she wanted to say to Banks, Ronda made her way over to her locker, where Natalya and Becky Lynch were chatting, arranging their things in their own lockers.

"Hey, guys. How are you?" Ronda asked her friends as she approached.

"Good, thanks. How about you?" Nattie asked.

"Been better," Ronda admitted. "Dean and Seth have taken Roman's injury pretty hard, and Dean was a prick to me just now. He apologised, but I'm still mad about it."

"What happened?" Becky asked, looking at her with concern.

"He took something I said the wrong way and got all pissy with me. I haven't seen him like that before."

Becky frowned. "I hope you told him he was out of order?"

"Damn right I did. I'm not taking shit for no reason, from him or anyone else. He apologised, so I guess we're okay. I'm just annoyed, though. Anyone got any good news for me? I could do with some cheering up." Ronda took her Money in the Bank briefcase out of her travel case and set it on the bench in front of her locker. "Since I won that thing, everything's been negative."

"Aww," Natalya said sympathetically. "Becky and I will soon cheer you up, don't worry. I don't know if it's necessarily what you had in mind when you asked for good news, but there is something pretty cool going on tonight. They've moved Corey Graves to Smackdown exclusively. Apparently Steph's been pushing hard for a female commentator on the main roster, and we're going to get one."

"Oh," Ronda said, pleasantly surprised. She was about to ask who had gotten the job, feeling like she probably knew the answer, but Becky had already beckoned over the woman in question, who had been standing nearby, talking to Nia Jax. Ronda immediately recognised the African-American woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, having seen her as a commentator on NXT for the past year or more. As always seemed to be the case, she had a WWE baseball cap on, with her short hair in a couple of pig tails sticking out of the bottom of it.

"Hey, Ronda. Great to meet you," the woman said with a pleasant smile, offering her hand. "Clementine Everett."

"Clementine," Ronda smiled, accepting the handshake. "Congrats on the new job. It's well deserved, in my opinion. You've been killing it on NXT."

Along with many fans, Ronda had been very impressed with Clementine's work at the NXT announce table since she had signed for WWE. Commentary teams received a lot of negativity on social media, often accused of not being able to help make the bigger moments special in the way that Jim Ross had done for so many years. It hadn't taken long before Clementine had convinced a large portion of the audience of her ability to do exactly that, bringing real emotion to her work that was sometimes lacking from people like Michael Cole.

"Thank you," Clementine said happily. "I'm really excited for tonight. It's a big honour to make it to the main roster, and to Raw. I'm definitely looking forward to calling some of your matches, too."

An idea came to Ronda, relating to something that she had discussed with Zelina earlier in the day. Since she had one of the commentators standing in front of her, it was the perfect opportunity to bring it up. "Hey, Clementine," she said enthusiastically. "While I've got you, I wondered if I might be able to run something by you?"

"Absolutely," Clementine said, sounding honoured by the suggestion.

Ronda smiled. "Great. As you know, Zelina is going to be doing most of my promo work from now on. She raised a point with me this morning, saying that she would like a nickname to use when referring to me. You know, like Heyman calling Brock 'The Conqueror.'"

Clementine nodded her understanding, encouraging Ronda to go on.

"So, we spent some time tossing suggestions around, and we finished up going with one some people used to use for me when I was in UFC. She's going to call me The Arm Collector. I'm wondering if you might start using that a bit on commentary to put it over for us?"

"I'm definitely up for it," Clementine said. "I'll have to okay it with Vince or Hunter, but assuming they don't have an issue with, I'll be sure to use it for you."

"Awesome, thank you," Ronda said. "Zel and I are going to mention it when we get a chance, so I'll also say that I asked you to use it on commentary."

"Sounds like a plan," Clementine smiled.

The two new acquaintances spent another few minutes chatting away, getting to know each other a little, until Dana Brooke approached them. "Ronda? Dean's outside, asking to see you. Something we should know?" she added, trying to crack a joke.

Ronda decided to hell with it, news of their relationship was going to end up coming out soon enough anyway. "I'm dating him, if that's what you mean," she said simply, enjoying the surprised expression that appeared on Brooke's face as Natalya and Becky laughed. Having already been in the news, they had enjoyed the short exchange and Dana's reaction to it almost as much as Ronda had.

"Oh, uh, I didn't know," Brooke stammered.

"Now you do," Ronda said, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder before heading for the door. Assuming Dean had come to apologise again, Ronda felt glad that he was making the effort to make things right after their earlier unpleasant exchange, which had seemed to come out of nowhere. It had been the first negative experience between them, and she looked forward to moving on from it.

"Hey," Dean said in what passed for his version of a gentle tone when he saw her emerge into the hallway.

"Hey," she replied in a similar manner, walking over to him.

"Listen, Ronda, I know I said I was sorry back there, but I wanted to come and say it again. I went off at you for no reason. It wasn't on, and you didn't deserve it, so I'm sorry. Rome's injury hit me pretty hard. I just seems like, as a group, we can't catch a break. Seth had his long injury, then when they tried to put Shield back together, it was one thing after another. First Roman got injured, then I fucked my arm up. I've only just come back from that, and now Rome's trashed his knee. I'm not a guy who handles being upset all that well. But, I know that doesn't mean I can start taking your head off every time you say something."

"Come here," Ronda said, spreading her arms to offer a hug. It was gratefully accepted, if only briefly. "You don't have to bottle your feelings up, Dean," she told him. "I'm here for you whenever something gets you down. It's part of my job, being your girl, same as it's part of your job to do it for me."

"I know," he sighed as they parted. "I'm just not good at talking about stuff; never have been. I let things build up inside until it all gets too much, then I let fly at someone. It's a bad character trait."

"Yeah, it is," she said with a grimace. "No more, okay? You need to trust me, Dean. You need to open up to me about things, so I can be there for you. Also, I meant what I said earlier. If I wasn't booked to film the shark week show in Fiji, I would have been happy to come with you to see Roman. All I was trying to say when I said whatever I said about wanting you to come out and join me was that I was looking forward to us getting a few days of vacation together. Picture the scene, lying on the beach together in the sun, a few drinks..."

"Say no more," he cut in before she could go on. "You've got me at the sun, drinks and the hot chick."

The return of the Dean that Ronda loved was enough to make her giggle. "You could even get in a cage for a shark dive with me."

"Not a fucking chance," he insisted warily. "You can go do your filming. I'll be waiting on the beach when you're done."

Ronda smiled broadly. "So, is that a promise that you'll come out to Fiji at some point while I'm there?"

"If Roman has his surgery around the time we're thinking, I need to make sure I visit him. But after that, yes, I promise I'll come to Fiji."

They kissed each other softly on the lips, then Ronda tenderly said, "Dean, I know Roman's your friend, but you're making a big thing of making sure you see him after his surgery. I'm not saying you shouldn't act like that, but I'd like to ask why?"

Dean looked down, breaking eye contact. For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to answer. "When I got my injury and had to have surgery, how many people do you think showed up to see me when I was at home recovering?" he mumbled eventually.

"I don't know," Ronda replied, although she felt sure she probably did know.

"Two. Seth and Roman. They were the only ones who gave a shit," he said, looking up at her. "I'm not going to mope around about it. No one ever gave a shit when I was a kid, so I've always been used to it. But what I am clear on is that since those guys give a shit about me, I definitely have to show them that I give a shit about them. Does that makes sense?"

Ronda gave him another gentle kiss. "It makes perfect sense. I've got good news, too. Now there's three people who give a shit. I give a shit about you, Dean."

"I give a shit about you, too," he replied with one of those crooked smiles.

It was a curiously romantic moment, given the language used, and they held each other, kissing passionately. And they didn't give a shit who might see them, either.


A/N: Thank you to everyone who made a prediction last time. I'm not sure if this has happened before, but there is no shout out. No one guessed correctly that it would be Clementine who got the commentary job.

I intended Raw to be a part of this chapter, but it would have been a very long one, so I decided to put a cut in. It does give us the opportunity for another prediction question, though.

Who is Ronda's first rival going to be, following the Money in the Bank match? Could she even cash-in straight away on Nia? Post the name of the person you think Ronda will be working with in a review.