"So much for the secrecy act," Lucy announced without preamble when she walked into the Shield locker room. She saw that Dean had apparently not arrived yet, and Roman had not started changing, which was lucky since she hadn't thought about it before she came charging through the door.
"What's happened?" Seth asked, getting up off the bench and walking over to her.
"I don't know how, but someone's figured out that we're seeing each other. I just had Bayley asking questions when I walked into the locker room. It was pretty obvious that someone else had put her up to it, so you can bet your arse it's already spreading like wildfire around here, even though I denied it."
"Shit," Seth sighed, shaking his head. He knew how important it had been to his girlfriend to keep their relationship a secret for a little while longer so as not to give the impression to others that they had rushed into things. It was inevitable that some people on the roster would be judgmental and look at it that way, even though it wasn't true.
"I'll leave you guys to talk," Roman offered, picking his phone up and heading for the door.
"Thanks," Lucy said, stepping aside so that he could leave. After he had closed the door behind him, she asked Seth, "What are we going to do?" Her frustration was more than apparent.
Seth grimaced. "If you're right about it already spreading around the back, which you probably are, then there's not a lot we can do. It's going to spread, and people are going to start gossiping about us. Then the next thing will be rumours coming out online, then it will be all over Twitter."
Lucy felt angry enough to kick something. She knew exactly what would happen as soon as the news hit Twitter and all of Seth's fangirls found out that he was off the market. "And that's when the shit storm comes my way. I'll be getting all kinds of abuse when the nut cases find out. Look at what Renee's had to deal with for being with Dean. People are fucking crazy. I hate my private life being talked about at the best of times," she went on, not realising that she was starting to rant.
"Babe, stop," Seth said gently, embracing her. "You're getting worked up about it, and that's not going to change anything."
Pushing her way out of his hug, Lucy snapped, "Of course I'm getting fucking worked up. You're not the one who's going to get the shit. You're not the one everyone will call a slag. No, it'll be, 'Good for Seth, he's shagging Lucy Thorne.' But when it comes to me, it'll be, 'Filthy slag. She's only been on the team five minutes and she's shagging Seth Rollins.' It's total double standards and it really pisses me off."
"I get that," Seth said, trying to placate her as best he could as he could see a trademark Lucy Thorne temper eruption on the way. "But don't take it out on me. We're in this together, babe. What we need to is decide what we want to do about, not get into a fight."
"Sorry," Lucy said, realising that he was right. This was not his fault, and he was trying to be there for her. She walked over and slumped down on the bench. "I don't know what we can do about it," she said frankly. "It's pretty much out of our hands now, isn't it?"
Seth sat down beside her. "Yes and no. We can't stop the rumours, but there's a big difference between rumours and out relationship being confirmed, made official I guess you could call it, by us. We still get to decide when that happens."
"True," Lucy said. "I hope you won't be offended if I say I don't want to do that yet? I was hoping we could get through Wrestlemania week at least before we said anything. I didn't want to have to do Axxess with everyone asking questions about my private life all the time, you know. Although, that's probably going to happen anyway now," she realised even as she said it.
"I've got an idea," Seth said thoughtfully. "I might have the perfect time we could go official, if you want to avoid us being headline news."
"Oh?" Lucy inquired.
"Wrestlemania Sunday," Seth suggested. "We could make a video together, or go live on Instagram or something and say that we want to let everyone know that, yes, we are together. Within hours, everyone will have moved on to talking about 'Mania."
Lucy managed to give him a smile for the first time since she had walked into the room. "That's good. That's very good. You're a devious man, Seth Rollins. I can see what they based your heel character on."
"You'd better believe it," Seth said, smiling back at her. "As for people sending you abuse on Twitter or whatever? If they do, block them. I know you're not the kind of person who cares what people think of you. Everyone here knows that."
"That's true," Lucy said, cheering up a little. "If they want to be jealous of me because I'm with you and they're not, fuck them. They can kiss my arse. I guess it's another reason for people to boo me, though, not that more reasons seem to be needed," she added as an attempt at humour.
Seth shrugged. "That won't matter after 'Mania anyway. We're turning heel, remember?"
As if on cue, Dean walked into the locker room at that moment, followed by Roman. They had apparently bumped into each other somewhere. "Hunter wants to see us," Dean announced. "Something about changing the plans for us after Wrestlemania. I think they're shit canning our heel turn."
Lucy was quickly on her feet after hearing that. "What do you mean shit canning our heel turn?" she demanded, almost as if she blamed him for the news.
"There ain't many ways to mean that sentence," Dean said with plenty of irritation of his own.
"Alright, calm down," Roman told both of them firmly. Tensions were starting to run high in the Shield locker room for the first time in weeks. "Let's just go and speak to Hunter and see what he has to say. If we don't like it, we can tell him how we feel. Getting snippy with each other isn't going to help."
"You're right," Lucy conceded. "Sorry, Dean. It's not been a good day. I shouldn't have took your head off like that."
"Forget it," Dean said in acceptance of her apology as they all followed Roman out of the room.
Lucy walked beside Seth, with the two other men in front of them. "If Hunter does insist on taking this heel turn off us, I'm going to Steph with it," Lucy said, defaulting to the position of playing favourites which had caused her to be unpopular with the fans and with her colleagues in the first place. "We were promised a heel turn, and they had a good idea for it, too."
"Well, we weren't exactly sold on the creative," Seth reminded her. "The idea of kidnapping Stephanie getting heat on us wasn't a certainty by any means. But I wouldn't go to her behind Hunter's back if I was you. That kind of thing wouldn't go down well, and it would undo a lot of the hard work you've put in to start mending fences around here recently."
Although she could tell Seth was being the voice of reason, she was still not happy about the prospect of losing the heel turn she and the rest of the team had wanted. "So we're just supposed to get shit on and have our plans changed for no reason?" she asked grumpily.
"We don't know what the reason is yet," Roman pointed out. "That's why we're on our way to speak to the guy."
Lucy had to concede that point, so she continued walking in silence. She considered it a good thing that no one chose that moment to approach her or Seth and start asking personal questions, or she might have found herself in hot water for smacking someone in the face again. Another idea occurred to her and she spoke quietly to Seth. "Should we tell Hunter about us? He's going to start hearing rumours real soon."
"Good point," Seth said. "Yeah, it might not be a bad idea to be up front with him and tell him."
"Right," Lucy sighed, still not happy at all with how their secret had come out before they had been ready.
"Ah, come in, guys," Hunter said, standing up behind his desk to greet them when Roman lead the team into his office. To Lucy's disappointment, he was the only one in the room, probably by design, she realised. No McMahon's meant no potential for taking sides with Lucy Thorne.
"Hunter," Roman greeted the boss pleasantly on behalf of the group. "Dean was told you wanted to see us; something about changing our plans for after Wrestlemania and dropping our heel turn?"
There was nowhere for five people to sit and have a conversation in the office, so Hunter walked around the desk to stand in front of them. "That's right. There's been a development which means we need to shelve the plans we had for you."
Shelve was a better term for it than shit can, Lucy thought, suddenly trying not to smile.
"What development?" Dean asked in his usual direct style.
A smile appeared on Hunter's face. He was obviously proud of whatever he was about to say. They quickly found out why. "We've just signed Matt and Jeff Hardy," he announced.
"Oh!" Seth exclaimed, excited by the news himself.
"Exactly," Hunter said, still smiling. "Needless to say, their return is going to be a huge deal and they're going to get a great reception when they debut at Wrestlemania. They are going to be assigned to Raw, and obviously will be a face team. What we've decided is, we want to also have a big name face team on Smackdown. That's where you come in."
"You're trading us to Smackdown?" Lucy asked, unsure how she felt about that prospect. A change of scenery might not be a bad thing, but then she had just started to make friends in the Raw locker room at last.
"Not exactly trading you, no," Hunter replied. "You're still going to get 'fired' because of your loss at Wrestlemania. Nothing has been changed with regard to that match."
"So we get fired from Raw and then Shane signs us to Smackdown?" Seth guessed aloud.
"In basic terms, yes," Hunter said. He went on to outline the plan, trying his best to get all four of them to buy in to his pitch. "We would have a few weeks go by without you on either show. Then, the four of you are at ringside on Smackdown one night, as if you've bought tickets. During one of the matches, the action spills to the outside and someone from a heel team ends up going over the barrier and landing in your laps. The next thing we know, a punch is thrown and all hell breaks loose. The four of you end up in the ring, laying waste to everyone in sight. I can see the fans going wild for that. It would be hyped up like you've invaded the show and security would come and drag you out of the ring. Only later would we find out that you've actually been signed to contracts by Shane and you are actually now on the Smackdown roster."
Much to her surprise, Lucy actually liked the sound of the idea, not that she was going to give in that easily. "We liked the idea of turning heel," she said.
"I know," Hunter said, actually with some sympathy in his tone. "And we were set on giving it to you, until the opportunity to sign Matt and Jeff came up. Sometimes in business, as I'm sure I don't have to tell you, certain things come along that a company has to do, and that has a knock on effect for others."
"We get it," Roman answered courteously. "What about if we went with your idea with the showing up on Smackdown and coming out of the crowd and everything, but we did it as a heel turn? It was the heel turn we wanted, not necessarily the angle with you and Steph. The way you described it, it sounds more like the kind of thing heels would do anyway."
Hunter appeared unmoved by that suggestion. "We're looking for you to be the face team of Smackdown. We're lacking a real face team over there, since American Alpha don't quite have the backing we hoped for at the moment."
"Come on, H, we're looking for a bit of give and take here," Dean said. "We're happy to go with everything you're suggesting. We've not objected at all to moving to Smackdown, or to any of the creative you've just suggested. All we're asking for is a heel turn."
Before Hunter could respond, Seth jumped in. "We understand that you want a really popular face team on both shows. That totally makes sense. But the face team on Smackdown doesn't have to be us. Book us as the heels and have us build someone else as the face team. Whether it's American Alpha or anyone else you choose, put them in a program with us and we can put them over as faces."
"You're all dead set on turning heel?" Hunter asked, looking at each of the four people in front of him in turn. After getting positive responses from all of them, he said, "Leave it with me. I'll talk it over with Vince and we'll see what we can do. No promises, though."
"Thank you. We appreciate it," Roman said in his role as leader of the group.
"Okay, that's all for now," Hunter said with a hand gesture towards the door as he stood up from the edge of his desk. The meeting was over.
"Actually, Seth and I would like a word about something else," Lucy said as Roman and Dean made for the door.
"Alright," Hunter said easily. He waited for the door to close behind the two men, then said, "What can I do for you?"
Suddenly feeling awkward, Lucy didn't know exactly how to put what she wanted to tell him. "The thing is, uh, Seth and I... Well..."
"We've been dating each other for a few weeks," Seth helped out. "Someone's started spreading it around the locker room tonight, so we thought we should tell you. We figured you should hear it first hand."
"But we'd appreciate it if you kept it quiet," Lucy added. "We're not ready to go public yet, if you know what I mean."
If Hunter had any reaction to the news, he didn't let it show on his face. He simply nodded and said, "Thanks for letting me know. If it goes public, it won't be from me, Steph or Vince. You have my word on that."
"Thanks, H," Seth smiled.
"No problem," Hunter said, then gestured to the door again. "I have to get on, if there's nothing else?"
"No, that's all, thank you," Lucy said.
After she lead the way out of the office, Seth said, "I just told someone you're my girlfriend for the first time."
"And how did that make you feel?" Lucy asked studiously, hiding a grin.
"Proud," Seth answered honestly.
Lucy stopped in her tracks. When Seth looked at her, she looking into his eyes. It was the way he had said the word as much as the fact that he had chosen it which had melted her heart. "That's the sweetest thing you've said to me," she told him softly.
"Well I meant it," Seth said. He checked that no one was paying attention to them, then planted a quick kiss on her forehead.
In that moment, Lucy felt more love for him than she had at any point to date. She was close to saying the three magic words to him, but Enzo and Cass rounded a corner a bit further along the hallway and walked in their direction. Just like that, the moment was over.
"I could use a coffee, or something stronger," Lucy said, feeling frustrated again.
"How about coffee for now and something stronger tonight?" Seth suggested. "After all, there's no point in us sneaking around the hotel anymore."
"Deal," Lucy said as they started walking again.