It was the next day. Not that Hunter had slept that night - he couldn't have, even if he wanted to. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking of his husband and baby girl in some apartment building thousands upon thousands of miles away. Did Hera think about him? Did she even remember him? Thoughts such as these plagued him constantly, and every time he closed his eyes, he thought about Shawn degrading him so cruelly. All he wanted to do was check-in on them, and Shawn had made it clear that the next time he tried, he would call the police.

There was a knock on the door. Hunter groaned, scowling at it, mentally willing it to burst into flames. When that didn't happen, he slowly rolled off of the bed. Another knock, this time harder. "Oh, for God sakes, calm down! I'm coming, I'm coming."

He swung the door open, barely having time to move aside before Stephanie McMahon welcomed herself into his hotel room. "I heard about the situation, Hunter. It's a mess... quite literally. But that doesn't mean that you can let your physical well-being sit on the backburner."

Hunter looked at her uneasily, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. He stifled a yawn. "Oh, yeah? And what exactly do you prescribe, Dr. McMahon?"

"Very funny, Hunter. Seriously, you're hilarious." She rolled her eyes. "You should be in the hospital right now! You can barely move your arm."

"You think I haven't realized that? It is my arm, after all." Hunter turned his back on her, sitting down on the foot of the bed. "But realizing it and caring about it are two very different things. My wrestling career is probably over and my family life is shot to hell. What's there left to care about?"

Stephanie frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. "Hunter, I highly doubt that Shawn would want to see you handling it like this. You may be at odds with him right now, but that doesn't mean that he wants you to do permanent damage to your body."

"You didn't hear him, Steph." Hunter said.

"I may not have heard him, but I know him." She countered.

A surge of jealousy rose in Hunter's throat. "I'm the one who's married to him. I think I know him more than you do."

Stephanie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that's working perfectly right now too, isn't it?"

Hunter narrowed his eyes and took an involuntary step forward. Stephanie's eyes had a flicker of fear in them, yet she stood her ground like a righteous McMahon would.

"Why are you even here?" he hissed at her.

She flicked her brunette hair off her shoulder and cocked one of her legs outward. "We've been working very diligently in Creative as of late. We want you to begin a feud with Brock Lesnar."

Hunter groaned and sat back on his bed. "Haven't we already been in a 'feud'? Besides, my body is done. I can't keep fighting him, at least not now, anyway."

One of her arched eyebrows rose. "Are you telling me you're retiring?"

"No," Hunter groaned. "I just need some time off."

Stephanie closed her eyes and tapped her foot rapidly. "You're not in any condition to announce this now. Next episode of RAW, though, you're telling the fans."

"Why is this important? Why can't you just say I have some injury?" Hunter asked.

"Well, we've been slightly pushing the idea that you'd be coming back to wrestling for a bit," Steph admitted. "So you need to set those ideas to rest. I'll see you next week."

And without another word, the woman turned and left his hotel room. Hunter groaned again and fell back against his bed. McMahon's; they were all the same.

Hera refused to talk to Shawn for over a day, and every moment it continued he felt his spirit dying more and more. No matter how pissed off at Hunter he was, he was still a parent to Hera.

"Hera?" Shawn called. She was coloring in front of the TV, steadfastly ignoring him all the while. "Hera, honey, how would you like to call Daddy Hunter on the phone?"

Hera perked up and looked over at Shawn for the first time in several hours. "Really?" she asked, hopeful but still skeptical.

Shawn nodded. He patted the seat next to him and pulled out his phone. He had never seen Hera run so fast in her life. She scrambled up onto the couch with him while Shawn called the number that Hunter had called him from earlier. It picked up on the third ring.

"Shawn?" Hunter answered, confused.

"I have someone here who really wants to talk to you," Shawn said flatly. Just hearing Hunter's voice was making him angry.

"Hera?" Hunter exclaimed. He could almost feel the excitement rolling off of him.

"Yes," Shawn answered, before handing the phone over to his daughter.

Hera grabbed Daddy Shawn's phone in her little hands and held it to her ear. "Daddy Hunter?" she asked into the phone excitedly.

"Hera, baby," he said gently. "I miss you. How are you?"

"I miss you, Daddy," she said. Tears started welling in her eyes. "Come home, Daddy, please."

"I can't right now, Princess," Hunter said. It broke his heart to say so to his daughter. "Daddy has some stuff to do right now. I need you to be a good girl for Daddy Shawn, okay? I'll be back with you two as soon as I can. If you ever really miss me, and need me to be right there, I want you to have Daddy Shawn take you outside so you can look up at the sky. We'll always be looking at the same sun, or the same moon. The sky will keep us together, okay, baby?"

"Okay," Hera sniffled. "I love you Daddy."

"I love you too, Princess. Be good to your Daddy Shawn, okay? He loves you very much."

"Okay, Daddy. Bye bye."

Hera handed the phone back to Shawn, and he hung it up before giving his daughter a big hug.

"Do you still hate me?" Shawn asked. While he tried to make it sound lightly teasing, he was still hurting from those three words.

"No," Hera responded. She smiled a watery smile before she said, "let's watch one of those princess movies now. It's gonna take forever to watch all of them."