A/N: Thanks for the feedback, hope you enjoy the chapter, and please review, they're really helpful, and I appreciate them. :)

AJ opened a box, looking inside and seeing towels. She frowned, thinking about whether or not to keep these. She had plenty of towels here, Dolph had an inordinate number of towels. She took up the box and put it in the donation section. Now that she had the time, she was finally unpacking her boxes from her apartment. They'd been sitting around the house for weeks now, and it was time to get them out of the way.

She walked up to another box, opening it and seeing they were plates. These she wanted to keep. They were nice, and she liked them. She lifted them, bringing them into the kitchen so she could put them away. Dolph had some plates, but there was plenty of room for her things. He'd lived alone for so long that he hadn't felt the need for a ton of dinnerware. She started to unpack the things, putting them into empty spaces on the cupboard where she could reach. Dolph had bought her a stepstool the weekend after she spent her first weekend here, but it was upstairs so she'd get it later.

She was feeling…well, she didn't know quite what she was feeling. Dolph's harsh words played through her mind over and over again this entire week. She hadn't spoken to him more than a couple times, and those conversations were extremely stilted. It was like they were strangers being forced to speak to one another, and she figured it was because Dolph didn't want to discuss what happened over the phone. He was more an in-person kind of person.

She just felt a little lost. She knew she shouldn't have hung her entire career on the diva's title, but after WrestleMania, she'd been riding a high that she never thought she'd come down from. She'd beaten everyone then Paige, stupid Paige came out, and it was partly her fault for giving her a match like she had with no preparation. Most of what she felt was embarrassment though, embarrassment over losing like she did, embarrassment over the divas having this to hold over her head, embarrassment because Vickie was cackling at her when she lost.

Vickie had never been her favorite person, even before Dolph was in the picture. She remembered Dolph and Vickie interrupting her one time, Dolph telling her that he wasn't going to let her steal his spotlight, that was just funny now, but Vickie was the strings behind that, and knowing that Vickie was going to lord this over her for the rest of her life was unappealing. Was it running away? Yes. Was it a huge display of cowardice? Yes. Still, she just couldn't face anyone right now. She felt low, and she wanted to continue feeling low.

She heard the garage door open and close then saw Briley walk into the kitchen. He smiled at her, opening the fridge and grabbing a water before he walked behind her and ruffled her hair. "Look at you, you combed your hair today, and I see you're being productive."

"Yeah, I am," AJ said. "These boxes have been sitting around for too long."

"Well, unpacking means you're staying, so that's a good thing," Briley joked. "I'd be worried if you were packing up stuff, you know, since you and my brother are in a fight, and I'm like the kid caught in the middle."

"It wasn't so much a fight as…well, it wasn't so much a fight as it was him berating me."

"My brother is a jerk sometimes, but I think his intentions were in the right place."

"Yeah, but um, so…I was going to actually go visit my sister in Florida. I'll take Nacho with me," AJ said, "since I know you're going to Cleveland this weekend to go to your brother's fundraiser, but yeah."

"Okay," Briley nodded, "does my brother know about these plans?"

AJ hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, putting a couple bowls onto one of the lower shelves, "Not really."

"Were you going to tell him?"

"Of course!" AJ turned to Briley, "I was going to tell him, I wasn't going to have him come home and find me missing, I would never do that to him."

"Okay, I was just making sure," Briley nodded, not wanting to get into a fight with AJ. He thought they were both being a little stupid, Dolph for saying what he did in such a way, and AJ for letting what happened dictate her life. "I'm sensing there's more here."

"I just think…I should probably go alone," AJ added.

"And there it is," Briley said, "why do you think that?'

"I don't know, just…time with my family, you know what I mean. It's been so long since I've just spent time with them, and I would really like to just see them, and everything like that."

"Without my brother," he finished for her, saying what she wasn't. "I mean, I get that you would want to go visit your family, and I get that you would even want to do that alone, but don't you think you should actually face my brother before you do that? I mean, how's he going to feel if you avoid him like that?"

"I'm not avoiding him," AJ lied, gulping down. She just knew what Dolph thought of her right now, and she was upset about it, and when she was upset, sometimes she shut down, sometimes she went crazy, sometimes she just needed to escape.

"He's not like Daniel," Briley wasn't even sure why he said that, but it seemed appropriate at the moment.

"I know he's not."

"Then don't you think he deserves better than to have you skip town on him?"

"I'll call him."

Briley knew it was futile to argue with her so he just came around the kitchen island and started putting some of the plates on higher shelves that she just couldn't reach right now. "I think he deserves more than that, but I'm not going to argue with you."

"Thank you, Briles, I love you for that, I love you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, save it for the bleached blond one."

Dolph shoved the pillow over his head as he groaned. The light was shining through his window through the blinds, but all he wanted to do was continue sleeping. Who was the genius that scheduled an international tour right before a Raw? Whoever thought it was easy to fly from Saudi Arabia to Baltimore was wrong, and they should be punished for it. He was still jetlagged and he didn't want to go to work tonight.

Still, he needed to at least get a workout in before the show, and that required him to get out of bed. He reached over, forgetting that he was alone and hit empty sheets. That made him groan again. That's right, AJ wasn't here because she'd taken time off (whatever that meant), and they had a fight. He felt terrible about it too. Yes, they had fights, but they usually worked together and traveled together so issues would get resolved rather easily when you were stuck with one person in small spaces with no escape.

This time, though, she was back in Phoenix, and he'd been in Saudi Arabia, and now they were still almost 3000 miles apart with him in Baltimore, and you know, he was still a little mad. He just didn't understand her thinking. She was strong, she was fierce, and this wasn't how she behaved. This is how 2012 AJ would have behaved, caving in unto herself. He knew women could be…catty and vicious and mean in ways that eluded men with their simple minds, but he also knew how strong AJ was.

He recalled a backstage interview where he said that when AJ wasn't around him, she would bite someone's face off, that was the woman he loved, and she wasn't around right now. He just hoped that maybe, just maybe she needed this week off to regain that. Maybe she would watch the show and miss it, and would be on the show next week. There was no way she'd be able to look at Paige and not want to beat her up, right?

Never-mind, he just needed to get in his morning workout. While he was working out, he allowed his mind to focus on something other than AJ. He pushed his limits, always striving to be better, and sometimes, when he was at the gym, he'd pick a person at random and try to be better than they were. Sometimes, it was just to motivate himself to go harder, others, he felt like it was a challenge. When he was finished, and after his shower, he went to his rented locker and grabbed his phone. He had a voicemail from AJ, and he pressed the few buttons to get to it, listening before he left the gym.

Hey, Dolph, it's me, um, so I know this is short notice, and I know that you're going to think…well, I don't know, anyways, I'm going to Florida in a few hours to visit my sister then we were thinking about going to Puerto Rico to visit my parents. I just felt like with the time off, I should use it to the fullest advantage, you know, see my family because you know I miss them, and I just…I know that we were going to go to Cleveland and surprise your brother for his fundraiser, but I really think that you didn't need me there, you're probably going to bring in a ton of money on your own, I mean, why would anyone want to see me right now, the biggest lower around, right, but yeah, just telling you so you didn't like, I don't know, think I was ditching you, I'm not, but yeah, maybe we should just spend this weekend apart.

Dolph was immediately dialing her number as he walked out of the gym, climbing into his rental to gain a little privacy. "Hey."

"So you're skipping town on me?"

"I'm not skipping town on you," AJ told him, "if I was skipping town, I wouldn't have unpacked most of my boxes from my old place, and I wouldn't have called you to tell you that I was going to Florida."

"And you don't want me there, is that what I'm getting?" he asked. "I'm not trying to be mean here, babe, I'm just asking if you want me there."

"You have your brother's thing, and I know Donny would love to see you there."

"Yeah, but you're more important," he said, "and I'm trying really hard not to feel like you're just running away, but it really feels like that."

"I'm sorry it feels like that."

"You know, it's just a title," Dolph said, "and I know that's probably the last thing you want to hear right now, and I know that you're upset that Tamina is the new number one contender because she was or is your bodyguard, but honestly, it's just a title, and this is what you love to do, and I don't think you should just run from it."

"I just need to clear my head, and you know I've been sore too," AJ told him, "you know how my elbow has been bugging me, so think of it as getting well too. Can you just do that for me?'

"You make it difficult sometimes, you know that," Dolph told her, "because I know you've been sore, but I also know that's not what this is really about. You don't want to have all the divas laugh at you, you don't want to be the butt of any jokes. You feel like if you show up, they're all going to gang up on you, but they've got other things to think about."

"You don't know that."

"I think I kind of know that," Dolph said, "I just…when are you going to come back, huh?"

"I don't know."

"AJ, babe, this is the thing you love, this is the business that you love, and if you're going to let a bunch of women intimidate you out of doing what you love, that's not cool. You love this."

"I know," AJ sighed, "just give me some time, okay, I just need the time."

"Okay," he told her, "if that's what you want, okay."

"Dolph…"

"Nope, I'm hearing you loud and clear, and you know, have fun with your sister, and have fun with your parents, and I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, I do want you to have fun with them because you deserve to see them," Dolph said sincerely.

"Thank you, I love you."

"Yeah, I have to go, I still need to get back to my hotel and pack things up, I've got the show tonight, and everything, got to get there early, love you too," he told her, and she sighed in relief at hearing it. "We'll talk later, okay?"

"Okay," she said, "bye."

"Bye," he responds, but his brain is already thinking. She didn't say that she was completely against the idea of him being with her, and he would much rather be with her than not. Would she hate him if she just showed up at Erica's? He liked to think she wouldn't, and he hadn't seen her in over a week now, and it was too much time to go without her, even if they were in a fight.

The day went from bad to worse when he found out he was only going to be on the pre-show tonight. That sucked. He didn't want to be on the pre-show, he wanted to be wrestling, doing what he loved, and why was it always a step back. He went to go check out the panel area and found Chris and his youngest daughter. After talking for a little bit, he felt slightly better, getting out what he thought about AJ with someone. Chris could understand, Stephanie didn't seem like the easiest person to deal with, and yet he and Stephanie had been together for over ten years.

Speaking of Stephanie, he decided to go talk to her to see if he could possibly get tomorrow off. He knew it was asking for a favor, essentially using her, but he wanted to be with AJ, and maybe that would appeal to Stephanie's sense of humanity. He knocked lightly on the door, and Stephanie called for him to come inside. Her voice was sometimes so authoritative that it was scary.

"Oh, hey, Dolph, what's up?" Stephanie asked. "Oh, and I just wanted to let you know, I only put you on the panel because of the jet lag thing, and I wanted to give you a break, call it a perk."

"Oh," Dolph said, now realizing that Stephanie hadn't meant it as a slight, but she was actually trying to help him. He never thought of it that way. "Thanks, I guess I thought you deliberately wanted me off the show."

"No, that wasn't it at all," Stephanie shook her head, "I just didn't want you to have to wrestle after just coming back from Saudi Arabia, probably with jetlag still, I mean, I know AJ isn't here, but I think she'd be on board this plan."

"Probably," he chuckled, but it was nearly humorless, "but that segues nicely into what I wanted to actually talk to you about. I know that…well, I know you gave AJ time off, and she appreciates that—"

"I was humiliated by my father a number of times, and sometimes you just need to take a step back," Stephanie interjected. "I can understand where she's coming from."

"Well, she's going to Florida to visit her sister, she actually left a couple hours ago, and I was hoping, and you can say no, you're the boss, wouldn't want to get on your bad side, but I was hoping I could get SmackDown off so I could be with her," Dolph finished. "I just haven't seen her in over a week, and we didn't exactly leave things in the best place…"

He felt like he needed to appeal to Stephanie's sentimentality, "Well, yeah, we can do that, it's fine."

"Really?"

"Yeah, we can miss you for one week, I don't mind."

"Thank you so much, Stephanie, thank you, thank you, thank you," he told her, reaching out to grab her hand and shake it. You have no idea how much I really appreciate this. And thank you for going easy on me for tonight, I appreciate that too."

"You're welcome," Stephanie nodded at him. "You can go now."

"Yeah, thanks again," Dolph said, feeling reenergized. He just had to make it through the show tonight, and he'd be home free.

The panel was easy. All it required him to do was talk, and he was better than anyone at talking, not to mention he was the best looking one on the panel to boot. Nobody could touch him. They talked about a few subjects, and, at one point, E was wrestling behind him, and he got to see his adopted son win a match and played the proud papa. It was an easy gig, and actually, he was pretty grateful he didn't have to wrestle through the jet lag. He didn't want to do this every week, but for one week, it wasn't bad. It was an easy night…

…which was more than he could say for Daniel Bryan.

Now, Dolph had no love lost for Daniel. He'd treated AJ like shit for months on end, demeaned her, belittled her then blamed her for his shortcomings. He'd come to an uneasy truce with Daniel, well, maybe truce was too strong a word. He'd come to a neutrality with Daniel Bryan, actually, no, that didn't work either. He still disliked the guy, but he put up a good neutral front, yes, that was what it was. So when he saw Kane, Daniel's former friend, decimate him, and nearly leave him in pieces scattered around the ring, it left a warm feeling inside of him. It couldn't have happened to a worse guy.

The thing about Daniel was that everyone seemed so willing to forget the jerk he was a couple years ago, but Dolph didn't forget because so many of AJ's insecurities stemmed from Daniel's emotional abuse of her. She was still trying to recover from a lot of that, and while AJ came off looking like the villain, Daniel came off looking like the hero, and Dolph couldn't abide by that, so seeing Daniel get a slight dose of heavy-handed karma, well, Dolph wasn't going to act like that wasn't something he'd wanted to see happen for a long time.

It also reiterated the importance of being on Stephanie's good side. He didn't buy for a minute that Stephanie didn't at least suspect what was going to happen or outright plan it. She could be like that, everyone knew that she had a temper, and she was a McMahon, and they were notoriously unstable. Her father faked his own death by blowing a limo, this would be peanuts compared to that. He was on Stephanie's good side though, so he didn't need to worry about Kane attacking him.

After the show was over, and he did the after-show, he immediately gathered his things and went back to the hotel. He knew there were no flights that evening, but he would call first thing after he woke up to get a flight to Florida. Sleep was restless that night, filled with anxiety for the next day. He was itching to see AJ, and he could barely sleep. Once his alarm rang, he immediately called the airline to get a ticket to Florida. He'd have to take a wash on the ticket to Phoenix, he couldn't get a refund for that, but was fortunate enough to get a refund for the tickets to Cleveland. He hated that he had to miss his brother's fundraiser on Friday, but AJ was important too, and he needed to fix things with her.

He got the first flight he could make, and he high-tailed it out of his hotel and to the airport. The entire flight was too long, and it wasn't even that far from Baltimore to Tampa. He was glad he knew where her sister lived so he wouldn't have to call her or AJ. He got his rental and was on his way. Her sister lived between Tampa and Orlando so it was still a little bit of a drive but not too bad, and he was there before he knew it. He walked up to her apartment building, and up to her apartment.

"Dolph, what are you doing here?" Erica said as she opened the door.

"Hey, I came to see AJ, she here?"

"Yeah, she's here," Erica opened the door. "She's still sleeping though, did you want coffee or something?"

"Yeah, thanks, I didn't have a chance to get any," he told her as he followed her into the kitchen. "How is she, I haven't seen her since last week because I had an international tour."

"She's okay, still sad, but she'll get over it. She just needs time. She's always been a bit of a sore loser. Usually if you just indulge her, let her get everything out, she'll be fine. This one might take a while because 295 days is a long time to hold a title, but she will."

"I have faith in her," Dolph said as Erica passed him a cup of coffee. "Thanks."

"No problem. I really didn't expect to see you, she didn't say you were coming."

"She doesn't know I'm here, and I probably won't stay. I mean, she said she wanted alone time with you and your parents, and I respect that, but I just, we didn't leave things great between us last week, and going more than a week without seeing her was torture enough."

"Ahh," Erica nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. "You've got it so bad for my sister."

"How out do you think she is?" he asked.

"We were up until like 3am talking," Erica said, "so she's dead to the world right now."

"Okay, cool, I can show you something then," he said grabbing his duffel and unzipping it. He stuck his hand inside and pulled out what looked to be his toiletries bag. He opened that up and pulled out a ring box. He glanced around for AJ then slid it across the countertop to Erica.

She grabbed it, her eyes widening in Dolph's direction before she opened it. "Oh wow, Dolph, this is beautiful, she's going to love it."

"You think so?"

"Oh my God, yes, it's so unique," Erica said, "wait, did you come here to propose!" She covered her mouth lest her sister hear her, but there was nothing from the bedroom area so Erica uncovered her mouth.

"No, no, no, I mean, probably not, I'm waiting for the right moment, I'll know when it comes," Dolph said, taking the ring box back from Erica and hiding it again. "I just got it a couple weeks ago, it took a while to get specially made for her. I wanted it to be special. The one she's wearing right now is kind of her fake, not as expensive, not as cool one."

"I was going to say," she said, "but she already told me, that one is gorgeous though, she's going to love it."

"I hope so," Dolph smiled, "I can't wait to give it to her, I just…I know what I know, you know, like I know I'm supposed to be with your sister, and I know that she's the one I want to be with, I just want it to be right."

"I'm glad I gave you a chance," Erica winked at him, "I do think you're good for her. And, I'll tell you this, she had a smirk on her face watching you last night. I think it would have been a full-out grin, but she was trying to hide how much she missed you. She told me how good you looked though, and you did. If I weren't attracted to women, I might actually be fighting my sister right now for you."

"Erica, Erica, Erica, just give in to it," he told her, "there's no shame in wanting me. If you're going to want to see how the other half lives, why not see what it's like with the best of the best? And I mean the best of the best."

"Sorry, you just have too many…parts," she told him with a laugh as he laughed too.

"Dolph?"

Dolph turned his head to see AJ sleepily walking into the kitchen. She rubbed her eyes as she saw him. "Hey," Dolph said, standing up and facing her.

"What are you doing here?"

"Did you really think that I wasn't going to come see you? I mean, it's been over a week, I've been going through withdrawals. I have the shakes, I'm hallucinating, I've been carrying around a pair of your panties in my back pocket, jk, jk, it was my front pocket."

She walked up to him and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back. "Oh, I think…uh, Nacho needs a walk," Erica said, quickly grabbing Nacho and Nacho's leash and letting them have some time alone.

"I missed you," he whispered into her hair.

"I missed you too," she mumbled against him, taking him all in.

"I'm sorry," he said and she pulled away and looked at him in surprise. "I shouldn't have been so harsh with you—"

"I shouldn't have gotten upset," she added.

"No, look, the title meant a lot to you, and maybe you do need to clear your head, and I should have been sensitive to that, and I wasn't. I just know how strong you are, but even strong people have moments where they feel upset and weak, and I shouldn't have acted like I did, I'm sorry. And I know you said you didn't want me here, but I couldn't help it."

"I'm glad you came. What about your brother's fundraiser?"

"I don't care about that, I care about being with you, he doesn't even know I was going to be there, only you did, it was going to be a surprise, but it's fine."

"I love you, but you wanted to go to that to help raise money," AJ said. "Look, can we stay with Erica a few days then we'll fly up to Cleveland for that?"

"You'd be willing to do that?" he sounded hopeful.

"Compromise, right?" AJ said. He hugged her to him. "Getting time away, spending it with people I love, like Erica, like your parents and Donny, that's what's going to help me clear my head. And when I return, I'll be ready to kick ass."

"I still think you could kick ass right now."

"I do too, but I'm thinking, let them think I'm no threat, especially if Tamina wins because if she wins, she's going to think she helped me win all the time because that's what she thinks and then…then I get my title back."

"Now that's the AJ I know and love."