We Don't Fight Fair

-January 21, 2014; Grand Rapids, Michigan-

Tessa soon came to realise that Smackdown was just as hectic a place as Raw. Somewhere along the way she had deluded herself into thinking that the two hour event would be less of a hassle – she had seemingly forgotten that no television broadcast was easy.

Her appearance for the night was almost identical to that on Raw; Tia would stand at the top of the ramp and watch the match at hand. She was getting quite sick of being an entirely inactive participant of the show but that was to change at the next Raw.

Neither hide nor hair had been seen of Colby since he disappeared into the elevator earlier that morning and Tessa was pretty grateful. She wasn't sure how she could have a mature conversation with him after his slip up regarding their past relationship – their affair.

"Tessa!" Naomi got the newbie's attention loudly from across the room, rushing towards her. "I am so sorry, girl! It completely slipped my mind until we were an hour into the drive! Jon and Ariane were being whiny and I just wanted to get onto the road."

Tessa watched Naomi's mouth move a mile a minute, barely understanding much after the apology she was speaking so fast.

"These things happen," Tessa said, holding onto Naomi's arms in an attempt to stop them from waving around. "It's fine, honest. I got here, didn't I?"

"You didn't have to fly, did you?"

"No, no," Tessa said with a reassuring shake of her head. "I went with The Shield boys. They were some of the last to leave and Ambrose has trouble taking 'no' for an answer."

Naomi laughed with Tessa, agreeing wholeheartedly that Jon Good was a very stubborn man. Naomi apologised again for leaving Tessa at the Nutter Centre before she was called over by Cameron. AJ and Cameron would have less than 2 minutes for their match, but, as always, they would make it count.

Tessa sat idly by watching the short discussion about the match start and finish and thinking about how close she was to home. Sure, Flint was where she owned a house but Grand Rapids was where she'd grown up. All of her best memories took place in Grand Rapids and that to her meant home. Her parents weren't too far away; she could probably go visit them after the show and not be there too late. Not that they would mind at all. They hadn't seen their daughter in years; they would welcome her back with open arms no matter what time of day. Only, Tessa didn't have any plans to do that. She was going to pretend it didn't kill her inside.

"Come on," Naomi said, pulling Tessa off the steel chair. "We have to get our faces done."

June Jacobs was pale. She was supposed to look pale and sickly, so Tessa had only ever had to put on light make-up when wrestling – enough to hide blemishes and the bags under her eyes. The amount of make-up being caked on before a WWE show was still something she had to get used to.


Her on screen time lasted all of two minutes where she got to do exactly as she had the previous night, stand at the top of the ramp and watch AJ Lee wrestle.

It was becoming clearer to the WWE Universe that Tia was looking for AJ – though no one knew who she was. The commentators traded ideas back and forth but none of them had even seen her backstage let alone talked to her.

Tia was a mystery to everybody.

After their match Tessa waited patiently in catering for Naomi and Cameron to change. She had even fewer friends on the Smackdown circuit than she did on Raw.

It was just her luck that AJ had finished getting changed before either of her friends.

"We should have a little chat," AJ said in a sickeningly sweet voice.

"What do you want to chat about?" Tessa asked with an exhausted smile. "We don't have to work together until next week. We don't have to be friends."

"That's what I wanted to speak to you about... We could be friends. There's no reason we couldn't."

"Other than your boyfriend."

"I can make friends outside of him," she laughed. It was faker than Tessa's new tan.

"I don't think that would be good for either of us. Did you know that Punk wanted to get in my pants? Well, Punk's wanted to get in everyone's pants. I don't know how you do it. Walk around with him and be around all of the women he's slept with."

"I'm trying to be nice!" AJ screamed at Tessa. Tessa stood up from her seat to walk away from the confrontation, except AJ wasn't happy with that.

The movement looked entirely accidental; AJ moved her arm in the wrong way and just happened to split Gatorade down Tessa's front, getting her chin, chest and stomach.

"I'm so sorry!" AJ apologised loudly, pretending to try and help Tessa. Her hands were slapped away as Tessa forced a smile onto her face.

"You are unbelievable," she said through her smile, quickly rushing out of catering.

There was nothing elegant about her escape, she had to dodge someone walking in thus running into the corner of the door and she was pulling her dress away from her chest and stomach to stop it from clinging.

"What did you do, miss your mouth?"

Tessa sighed heavily as Jon Good's voice met her ears. She had barely made it out of catering when he appeared in front of her, sitting off to the side as he taped up his hands and wrists.

"Why are you everywhere I don't want you to be?"

"It was a different story last night, though, wasn't it?"

Tessa rolled her eyes, "You make it sound like we got busy in the back of a car."

"If we'd left you two alone, you and Rollins might have-"

"Are you going to help me at all or just make fun?"

Tessa huffed, looking down at her dress and stomping her foot. Images of doing the same to AJ flashed through her head but she knew that she would never do that to someone, regardless of how they had treated her.

"It's just water," Jon said, dropping the tape into a nearby box, "it'll dry."

Tessa sighed, "If it was just water I wouldn't be like this. It's Gatorade."

"Have a shower."

"With Princess AJ in the locker room? I wouldn't be surprised if I walked out to find my clothes up in flames." It wasn't an exaggeration in the slightest; Tessa was genuinely concerned about being in the champion's presence. She had dealt with cattiness for years and she knew that there was almost no low that could not be reached.

Jon snorted, "Use ours then and you can stop complaining."

"You don't have to be nice to me just because no one else is," Tessa said as she finally gave up on her dress, letting it go and grimacing as she felt the material cling to her skin. She looked up at Jon who was shaking his head.

"I'm being nice because I want to be, it has nothing to do with how anyone else is treating you. Do you want to use the shower or not?"

"Yes please," she answered meekly, looking down at the floor.

"We've got a match and shit so you have enough time to clean yourself up and be out before we need it." Tessa nodded in understanding, he was just trying to save anymore awkward situations. She didn't have the energy to tell him off for swearing.


Tessa was unable to believe just how good the shower felt. The water pressure at home was terrible. She never felt sufficiently clean or relaxed but the Van Andel Arena had definitely delivered. What was supposed to be a quick, 5 minute shower turned into a 30 minute long spa session.

Getting out of the shower, Tessa wrapped a towel around her and walked out of the wet area. She knew that she had been in the shower longer than intended so she began to dry off quickly – only she didn't know just how little time she had to get changed.

She had barely been able to pull on her underwear when the locker room door opened and The Shield walked in.

"Man, my knee's stiff as-" Joe's complaint was cut off when his eyes landed on Tessa's bare back, as she scrambled to cover her breasts. Jon and Colby looked at him, waiting for him to continue, but when they walked further into the room they knew why he had stopped.

"Aw, Tessa, my birthday was last month," Jon said with a slight smirk.

"What the fuck?" Colby asked, tearing his eyes off of Tessa and looking at Jon. "This is your doing."

Tessa finally shook the panic out of her head and managed to pull on her bra before she continued to properly dry her legs. She tried her hardest to ignore the men.

"What?"

"It's always your doing." As Colby blamed Jon, Tessa busied herself by pulling on a long sleeved shirt and hurrying to get on her jeans. The three men went about getting ready to take their own showers, but not before Jon made one last comment.

"Blue is a great colour on you," he told Tessa with that same smirk playing on his face, clearly talking about the navy blue shade of her bra and panties. Tessa didn't say anything, but she did start to blush. "What?" Jon asked, confused when Colby thumped him over the back of the head.

"Stop lookin' at her, man," he grumbled to his friend.

Jon laughed, "You've been staring at her ass since we walked in here."

At the statement, Tessa bit the inside of her cheek to stop a smile growing on her face. In any other situation she would have sat down to pull on socks and boots but she chose to keep facing the wall so that no one would see how red her cheeks were.

"Both of you," Joe cut in, his voice booming over the others, "Need to shut up and keep your eyes to yourself. You have girlfriends."

The three men sporadically disappeared into the showers but Tessa never once looked at them. It was much easier to continue getting changed and doing her make-up than to face any of them after she had been caught near naked in their locker room.

"Your parents are here," Jon said casually when he returned to change into his street clothes. Tessa didn't pay him any attention at first, figuring that he was talking to one of the guys, but what he added caught her off guard. "Nick, too."

"What?" She gasped, quickly turning around to face him.

"Your family is here. Jimmy sent me a text earlier, I was going to tell you but you were covered in sugar water."

"They're here?" she asked him, her arms falling to her sides in what appeared to be defeat. "I didn't even do everything."

"Maybe they wanted to see you," Jon suggested in a stern voice and Tessa pouted. "I'm not going to tell you what to do, Tessa, but you need to think about checking in."

With sad eyes she shook her head at him and turned back around to face the wall. She began piling her belongings into her suitcase, no method about it, and getting ready to leave the locker room with what was left of her dignity and that meant getting out before Jon, Joe or Colby saw her start to cry.

With a small wave and thank you to Jon as she wheeled her suitcase out the door, though she didn't make it very far. Turning around a corner into a dead-end, Tessa stopped and sat down on her suitcase. She stared blankly at the wall and felt her lip begin to quiver. The hair that was falling in her face didn't even bother her nor did the lumpiness of the suitcase beneath her.

There was no possible way she could have stopped the onset of tears. She couldn't stop picturing her parents in the crowd. She knew they would be proud of her, regardless of anything that had happened, and it made her heart swell to know that they had been able to see her live on a WWE show. Wrestling or not, her parents and oldest brother had seen her as she was starting to live out the dream.

She heard the door open to the locker room and prayed that men would walk the other way. A sob left her mouth before she could cover it resulting in all three stop talking and the sound of suitcases rolling ceasing. Footsteps drew closer to her so she deliberately shook out her hair to hide as much of her face as possible.

"Tessa?" Colby's voice caused her to whimper and bury her face in her hands. "What's wrong?" She refused to look up at him, knowing that it would only make her cry harder. "Tessy..." The nickname brought on a fresh wave of tears. Colby squatted down in front of her, but kept his hands to himself.

"I ca- I – I messed up so bad," she mumbled. "They're here... My parents are here. Nick's here."

"That isn't anything to cry over. They're proud of you."

"How do I fix this? How do I fix everything I ruined?" She pleaded with him for an answer, moving her hands from her face to grab at his wrist. She looked at him with red eyes, "Tell me how to fix it."

"I don't know, Tessy," Colby sighed, dropping so that he was sat on the floor and pulling her into his lap. "Please stop crying."

He held her to his chest, his chin resting on top of her head and his hand holding the back of it. As Tessa continued to cry hopelessly, all the while wondering if she should go see her family, Jon and Joe stood around the corner and let Colby comfort her.


a/n Thank you to UntilNeverDawns, Imagineer1392, Tootertoad85, nmoxracha, deanambooty, Livin on the EDGE, Straight Edge Queen and msgemgem for taking the time to review the previous chapter!

What do you guys think so far? Of Tessa as a character or the story in general? I know it's early days but is there anything you'd like to see happen or anything you'd like to see more of?