A/N: Thanks so much for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing! ;)

With her arms secured around his waist, Renesa pressed her left cheek into Seth's back, closing her eyes as he drove them over the bumpy terrain upon which his home sat. Endless acres stretched out before them, the ATV coasting quite nicely over rocks and twigs whenever the tires crunched them. Faint sunlight warmed their skin, a flock of birds cawing overhead as they spread their wings and swooned over the last little slivers of daylight. Renesa wore a stuffed backpack, filled with all the necessities for their ride across Seth's land, which would end with their arrival at a shimmery pond spanning over several yards.

Renesa had never seen it before, but that was how Seth had described it: quiet, serene, and a shimmering mass of water that was worth the trip over. In truth, all she cared about was alone time with her boyfriend, and whether that time was spent at his home, at her apartment, or on a grassy mountain inhabited by billy goats didn't make a bit of difference. Seth was all hers in those brief moments, away from all intruding eyes and ears. As a new couple, that meant the world, because they needed their privacy more than ever.

The intense and intimate moments alone were, in lots of ways, the very glue that held them together. Opening her eyes, Renesa used her right hand to adjust the chin strap on her helmet, which was a tad too tight, and she wrinkled her nose. The only reason she had bothered wearing one was because of Seth's insistence. She found it largely unnecessary with the low rate of speed at which they traveled, but who was she to stand in the way of her boyfriend's protectiveness?

A few rogue glints of sunlight hit the pond at just the right angle to make it sparkle like a giant diamond, and Renesa spotted the water even before Seth began slowing, coming to a stop beside a large bur oak tree, several acorns littering the ground beneath. As the engine dulled to cessation, Renesa unhooked her helmet and climbed off the back of the vehicle, her sandals crunching in the leaves as she explored, bringing her hand up over her eyes as a shield from the glare. The dull thump of Seth's footsteps followed, and she jumped when he came up behind her, gently working the backpack off her shoulders. "Here, let me take this real quick."

"What's in there?" she asked.

"Nothing much. Just a blanket for us since we're gonna park it up under that tree," he said, pointing toward the one the ATV was stationed beside. "I also brought little stuff, just snacks, drinks, and that kinda thing."

"We should go for a swim. Skinny dipping, maybe?" Renesa said, only partially joking.

"Nah, that's stagnant water. It's great to look at, but probably too dirty to get in. You can see the leaves and stuff from here, just floating around in there. Who knows what else is in that water."

"Then why'd we come here?"

"To admire it from afar," Seth said, placing his hand on her right hip. Renesa tilted her head to send him a sidelong glance, and he kissed her cheek. "And also to talk. Come over here. I have some things I want to say to you."

"Oh." Renesa gulped.

"Hey, don't you dare," he warned, this time spinning her far enough into his arms that he was able to press a proper kiss to her lips. When they pulled apart, he brushed her hair back with his hand, running his palm all the way down her long and silky ponytail. "This is nothing for you to be worried about. If we didn't talk, that would be cause for concern, but not this. Talking is always a good thing."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," she said, her forehead still wrinkled with worry.

Seth pursed his lips and touched her cheek, bucking his head in the direction of the tree. "Come on."

Once he had unzipped the bag and spread the blanket flat, he took a seat, reaching a hand up to beckon Renesa down. The second she was seated, his arms were around her body, and he leaned them back against the tree trunk, kissing the top of her head. A gust of wind whistled in Renesa's ear, and for a moment, she enjoyed the quiet, even basked in it. Not speaking was safer than opening up a can of worms, which she feared Seth might be preparing to do.

"How have you been feeling lately?" he began. When she glanced up, silently questioning him, he added, "About our relationship, I mean. Us as a couple."

"Good."

Seth smirked, his chest quaking with unshed laughter. Even his eyes danced, taking some of the severity out of the conversation. Instead of two people delving into serious territory, it was more like they were two best friends, simply sitting around chatting. Renesa's tensed shoulders relaxed with his next words. "Good? That's it? I was hoping you'd say these past few weeks have been the best of your life, that you can't imagine life without me, that you want to have a full-sized statue of me erected and placed in the middle of your living room, that kinda thing."

"Ha-ha, very funny," she rolled her eyes. When he grinned at her, she gave his face a small push. "You're such a nerd."

Seth's laughter grumbled as he pulled her in closer to his side. He nuzzled her hair as his deep chuckles died down. "No, but seriously, Ren, you make me really happy, and these past few weeks really have been some of the best of my entire life. I'm all in this, and I want this relationship to work, no matter what we have to do to get that end result."

Renesa faced him and they shared another kiss, this one more intense and longer than before. They each pulled away panting, Seth patting his lips on the back of his hand to get rid of the red lipstick that had transferred from her mouth. With Renesa's help, most of the offending lip stain was wiped from his face within seconds. She settled against his firm body once more, stilling. "That's a really sweet thing to say, honey. I'm happy with you, too, and these really have been some of the best weeks of my life. You make me a better person, and you teach me things I don't think I ever would have learned otherwise. Just in general, you're so smart, and you rub off on me in all the best ways."

"That's good to hear," Seth answered. "I just was thinking about you today, and I decided we couldn't go back to work again until I had a chance to talk to you first. I have to tell you something. I've been feeling a little bit guilty about the way I acted last week, so I'm putting this out there."

"Guilty for what?" Renesa asked, her mouth twisting upward at the corners. Seth brushed his fingertips over her cheek, glancing up at the daylight they were losing by the second. Soon, it would be dark, but he liked it that way. At night, they were sheltered, hidden, and withdrawn in a world where, if only for a moment, he could make believe they were the only two people who existed. In that secret place, Renesa was all his for the taking.

"I don't know if you noticed or if you'll even remember, but it was that day we were late for Smackdown. Before the show, we went to a park to have lunch, and I was getting sorta snippy with you. I wasn't horrible or anything, but I was kinda short with you."

"Oh," she murmured, staring at her lap. "Yeah, I remember."

"Yeah," he said, tucking some hair behind her ear, "and I'm sorry, because I wasn't very fair to you. I didn't say anything about this before, but I was actually trying to put some distance between us. I thought if I guarded myself, you would back away from me a little bit."

"But why?"

"Because we had been in the shower together that morning, and we did what we did, and I freaked myself out. I think I just got scared, and, yeah, I'm man enough to admit that I get scared sometimes, so there you have it." Seth paused, scratching the back of his head, where his hair was tucked messily into a hair elastic. "I have this bad feeling in my gut, like I'm going to somehow do something to screw us up and make you not want to be with me anymore, so in some ways, I've been feeling like it would be easier to make you break up with me now than to have you break up with me later, when I'm in way deeper. I'm falling in love with you, but it doesn't feel safe to me like it should. It feels terrifying, and I can imagine my future self doing something stupid and losing you. I don't want us to end in some awful way."

"I get scared, too, sometimes," Renesa whispered. She swallowed thickly as her eyes glimmered, taking her by surprise, because she hadn't felt sad up to that point. Something about his words, his tone, touched her in the most delicate of ways. Cracking her knuckles, Renesa cut short the silence between them. "I feel so much pressure because I can't even enjoy being with you the way I would in a normal relationship. Now that my dad knows about us, it feels like he's always watching, just waiting for us to fail, and that hurts me a lot and gives me anxiety, but I try not to think about it, because I don't want my moods to affect you. I just want us to be able to be happy together."

"Yeah," he sighed, "me too, baby."

"And this ring means so much to me," she said, lifting her hand to show it off. Seth grabbed her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing the top of the ring he had gifted to her. Renesa smiled as he placed her hand down gently in his lap. "It's a symbol of everything good about us, and whenever we have to be apart, it makes me feel closer to you, because no matter how much distance separates us, I'm wearing this piece of jewelry that you picked out for me and that you touched with your own two hands, and that always makes me feel closer. That's probably dumb, I know, but it's just how I feel."

"It's not dumb at all. Not even a little bit. I mean, that's why wives sometimes sleep with their husbands' shirts whenever they're away from home. It's like having a little piece of that person there with you."

"Exactly," Renesa nodded.

"And so I get it."

"I understand why you were trying to push me away and why you're scared we won't work, but I don't like that you're already counting us out. Can't you give it time before you decide we're going to eventually crash and burn?" she replied. "For all we know, we'll be married with kids someday. You never know."

"It's just kinda scary, Ren, and that's why I'm trying to figure it all out. I just want to be honest so you can help me, and I can help you back. We can help each other."

"I want that, too."

"Sometimes I feel like...I don't know how to say this without sounding like an ass, but I'm sure gonna try. I feel like, with us being on the road together all the time, it's easy for me to be a good boy, so to speak, because you're right there, and if I need some lovin' or a hot chick to hang with, you're there for me. But in the event that I were to be away from you, or, like, if you were off the road for a while or something, I don't know what I'd do, because I get these urges, these strong sexual urges that make me want a woman, and if you're gone, I don't know what would happen. I want to be faithful to you, but if I'm all amped up and ready for the bedroom...I just don't know," Seth finished, staring at his hands as he fiddled around with them.

Renesa raised a hand to her chest and looked away. Shakily, she said, "So you're basically telling me if I'm ever not around, you'll cheat on me?"

"No, God, no, that's not what I meant."

"Because if that's the case, I don't know what we're even doing here."

"You're taking it the wrong way."

"What other way was there for me to take what you just said?" Renesa demanded. "You were pretty clear."

"I know, but I'm not saying I want to do it. I'm saying I'm scared about it, because I feel like if you're ever not there, I could lose control, and I don't want to do that because I love you so much. That's the point of this talk," Seth explained. "I'm saying this now so we can prevent it from happening later on, because I don't want to screw this up. I'm sorry if knowing this hurts your feelings, but I'd rather tell you now and work on it than to not say anything and fuck up later."

"But what am I supposed to do with that?" Renesa asked, her arms still folded over her chest as she huffed noisily, both cheeks flushed. "How am I supposed to turn into a superhero and make you not want to cheat on me? If I'm not already enough that you wouldn't want to do that ever, then I don't know what to tell you. Go find someone else, I guess."

"I don't want anyone else."

"You just said..." Renesa scoffed and held her breath, letting it out slowly over the course of several seconds. She threw her hands up and stood. Seth bolted up beside her, thinking she would ditch him, but she made no moves to leave. "I get what you're saying on the one hand, but still, the fact that you'd even tell me this means, on some level, you're thinking about being with other girls."

"No, it doesn't."

"Then clarify for me," she insisted, waving him on. "You tell me what it means."

"It means I've fucked up in the past, I know what I'm capable of based on past actions, and I'm scared the same thing will happen with us, so I need you to help me. I need you to be here for me and be available to me so that it doesn't happen. When we're apart and I call you to check in, I really need you to be there and answer your phone for me, because just the sound of your voice would be enough to snap me out of whatever idiotic thing I was thinking of doing."

"And if I didn't answer?"

"If you didn't answer?"

"Yeah, Colb, let's be realistic. We're both busy adults with busy lives. What if you called me to stop you and I couldn't answer? Then what?" she asked, taking a couple steps toward him and closing the gap. "You would just cheat on me, call it day, and when I found out about it later, you'd tell me the whole thing was my fault for not answering my phone when you called?"

"No! Of course not!" he exclaimed.

"Then what?" she shouted back.

"I don't know!" Seth countered, breathing noisily through his teeth, his nose almost touching the tip of hers. In his eyes resided a level of frantic pain she likened to that of her pounding heart, and that was when she realized, they were both broken, but that didn't have to be a death sentence for their relationship. They could be put back together, could be restored as a pair, and that made her heart sing, even if only the tiniest bit. Cupping his cheeks, she swished her thumbs over his soft skin, and his arms wrapped around her waist. "What's wrong with me, Renesa? Why am I fucked up like this?"

"Sweetie, stop. You're not fucked up."

"But you don't do this. You don't cheat on people. You don't worry about cheating, or get scared about what you might do with a guy if you're away from me. You're normal, so why can't I be normal, too?"

"You are normal, Colby."

"Obviously not."

"Shh, stop it," she shushed him, standing on the tips of her toes to press a kiss onto his forehead. Then, she decided to take the route of honesty, to lay the situation all out on the line the way she saw it. As the evening air cooled around them, crickets began to chirp, and the sound was comforting to Renesa, like a reminder that although they were secluded, they weren't alone. There was still life out there. "From what I see, we're lost right now. We're both good people, and we have good intentions toward each other, but it doesn't always come off that way because, in my opinion, neither one of us ever really learned healthy communication skills."

"Yeah."

"You know?"

"Uh-huh."

"And so we struggle now as young adults, because we want to be good to each other, but all we know how to do is get through life with whichever meager skills we have. The world around us isn't going to change, so if we want to have a better relationship, we have to be the ones to change."

"But how?"

"I think our problem is bigger than what we can handle by ourselves. In my own perfect world, we'd be able to work on it and fix it together, without anybody's help, but, honestly, knowing I'm starting counseling soon to deal with my family issues, I don't think it's so bad of an idea if we start getting counseling for us as a couple. Maybe I can go to my first session alone, and if the counselor seems really good, I can tell them I want to bring my boyfriend in with me the next time. If they go for that, then you and I can get some help so we can be together for a really long time, because that's what I want, and I know you do, too."

A load was taken off Seth's shoulders once her idea was spoken, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "That sounds good. I'm willing to do whatever it takes, so, yeah, just tell me the time and place, and I'll be there. Could you try to schedule it on Wednesdays or Thursdays, though, because that's usually when we're off and don't have much to do. Evenings would work, but I'd prefer afternoons so that we're home by dinnertime."

"I'll make it happen."

"Okay, good."

Renesa smiled warmly at Seth, giggling when he nuzzled her nose. "You must really love me."

Seth quirked his head to the side, giving her the funniest, most loopy smile she had ever seen. "Well, yeah, I do, but why do you say that?"

"Because I've never been with a guy so open to seeing a counselor. I tried to do that with one of my past boyfriends when I felt things going south, and he put up so much of a fight against it that I just left him. I couldn't do it anymore. We were fighting way too much, and he didn't seem to care about changing anything, so I peaced out."

Seth held her gaze, rocking her in his arms. "He's an idiot for letting you go, but it's a good thing for me he did."

Running her hand across his cheek, Renesa took in a deep breath and glanced up at the sky, a nice shade of navy blue there to greet her. "What are we doing out here in the dark? We probably should have ridden out here earlier. It's super eerie in this spot at night. Too quiet."

"I just wanted to be alone with you, but if you don't like it out here, we can ride back home and grab my truck. We'll park it somewhere else and lay out in the back of it with blankets and stuff. Want to?"

"That sounds better."

Renesa sprang forth, rushing back toward the ATV, but Seth grabbed her hand, yanking her back. "Wait, wait, Ren. Come here for a sec."

"Okay," she said, easily agreeable. With a hop in her step, she returned to Seth's side, all smiles.
"What's up?"

"My family knows about you."

"Knows what?" she asked, a hitch in her tone.

"That we're dating, crazy," Seth said, his signature laughter following directly after. "What did you think I was gonna say?"

"I don't know. Don't mind me."

Once again, Seth's laugh filled her ears, then fell away. In the distance, streetlamps flashed on, casting orange glows onto an otherwise darkened earth. "Anyways, they know about you, because every time I talk to them on the phone, I bring you up about a million times. They know that only a select handful of people are aware we're together, so they're keeping things quiet, but my brother, and especially my parents, really want to meet you. They know you're Vince's other daughter, so they always ask if you look like Stephanie and stuff. It's pretty funny, actually."

"That's cute," Renesa said, covering her mouth with her hand as she giggled. "What do you tell them when they ask?"

"I say you're beautiful and that you do look similar to your sis."

"Do you think your mom will like me?"

"Oh, for sure," Seth answered abruptly. "That's not even a question. She'll love you. I just figured that since I already met your mom, it might be good for you to meet some of my family and kinda see where I come from and how I turned out the way I did."

"How many siblings do you have?"

"Just my brother Brandon."

"Oh. Small family."

"Yeah. So is yours."

"I want you to meet my cousin Allison one of these times. You've talked to her that one time over the phone, but she's basically a mega fan of yours and she'll probably freak out when she finally sees you in person. Especially since she'll be seeing you up close, and not from the audience during a match or whatever," Renesa said. "It would make her so happy to meet you."

"Yeah, you'll have to bring me back by Providence one of these ol' days."

"Hey, Colb?"

"Yup?"

"I'm nervous about Monday, about going back to work after being basically banned from Smackdown this week," she admitted, taking pause. Renesa swirled the toe of her sandals against the grass. "Is that stupid?"

"No, but what are you worried about?"

"My dad. He won't let me live down the fact that I was late to a show. I know him better than almost anyone, and I have this feeling in my gut like he's waiting for Monday so he can torture me a little more. It was a small mistake, but he acts like it's the end of the world when me, Shane, or Steph mess up."

"He's real hard on you guys."

"Yeah, he is."

"Well," Seth shrugged, scratching his ear, "all you can do is try your best, and you can't let him get to you. You let Vince upset you, and you give up way too easily. I know he hurts your feelings sometimes, but you've gotta learn how to eat shit to get to the good stuff. It's like when I first started wrestling. I wanted to main event Wrestlemania someday, but I didn't get to do that right out the gate. I had to wrestle at an old, dingy gym in Chicago that had absolutely no heat in the dead of winter, so I froze my ass off every day, then I had to drive back and forth every day and pay a shit ton of money to use the toll roads just so I would be there on time. The point is, sometimes you gotta take the bad with the good, so if he gives you shit, work through it. You'll be happy with the end result."

"I don't need to take his crap, though."

"Ren..."

"What?" she asked, raising her chin haughtily high and peering down her nose. She looked identical to Stephanie. "I don't."

"Just try to focus on all the good things about Monday. I'll be there with you, your sis is coming back, and you and Renee have been talking a lot on the phone lately. Maybe you can hang out with her and take your mind off some of your stresses. Renee's real good for that kinda thing, 'cause she loves to laugh and joke around," he pointed out. "That girl will make you forget about your problems in no time at all."

"True, true," Renesa nodded.

"All right, let's head back. Maybe we can run inside and grab Kev and take him out in the truck with us. He doesn't like being left alone for too long, and I don't really want to do that to him anyway, so, if you're okay with it, he can tag along this time."

"I don't mind at all."

"Cool," Seth replied, tightening his arms around her. He stroked her hair with one hand, sliding the other over her hip. "And, baby, I'm gonna make everything right between us, okay? I'll fix every single thing that's wrong, even if that means we have to go to counseling twice a week. You don't need to be worried."

"Thank you. That's reassuring to hear."

"I'd do anything for you, Renesa," Seth responded, taking care to emphasize the most important word. "Anything."

Renesa was left only to nod because, when he spoke, she believed him.