Standing in the corner of their hotel's gym, Sonya and Charlotte refilled their drink bottles from a water cooler. They had both worked up a good sweat, and were looking forward to hitting the showers. But first, they had to take a moment to have a refreshing drink.

"I wouldn't want to catch one of those," Charlotte said with humour. She was referring to the punches that Lucy Thorne was throwing at a nearby punch bag. Each one connected with a loud whack. It was noticeable that Lucy wasn't wearing boxing gloves either, she merely had her hands wrapped.

"That must hurt her hands after a while," Charlotte said.

"It's actually good for toughening the hands and arm muscles," Sonya said. With her MMA background, she had more knowledge about that kind of thing than Charlotte, who had been a gymnast before joining WWE.

"If you're going to stand there gawping, you could at least come and hold the bag," Lucy said, stopping for a moment of rest.

Remembering her deal with Charlotte that she would be the one to try and mentor Lucy while Charlotte took Valentina Ferreira under her wing, Sonya looked at her girlfriend and said, "I'll do it."

Charlotte took a long hit from her drinks bottle and nodded. "Alright. Shower time for me."

Sonya couldn't remark on how much she wanted a repeat of the previous morning, when they'd had sex in their hotel room's shower. In any event, the gym would hardly have been the place for that. "See you in a bit," was all she could say, parting ways with a smile, since a kiss was out of the question. Secrecy was extremely frustrating sometimes.

"Those are some hard punches you're throwing," Sonya said to Lucy as she took hold of the punch bag.

"Used to be a boxer," Lucy said simply, going right back to work, grunting slightly with the effort of each punch she threw. Sweat soaked her face and dripped from her nose, giving an indication of how long she had been at it.

The response hadn't been delivered in the friendliest of tones, but Sonya took the positive that she had at least found something to get Lucy talking. If her instinct about Lucy's attitude being a defence mechanism was right, then getting her talking about something, anything, was a small step towards breaking that barrier down and getting to know the person hiding behind it. "So how did you end up in WWE?" she ventured.

Lucy thundered a right hand into the bag. "We here to talk or train?"

"Both," Sonya said, putting some firmness in her voice. "I asked how you ended up in WWE."

"I was close to joining UFC when WWE approached me. I don't know who had scouted me or why, but they wanted to offer me a trial down in Florida. I decided there was nothing to lose by going, so I went. They liked what they saw and offered me a contract. Now can we train?"

Lucy went back to working the bag while Sonya took in the response and decided what her next question was going to be. "You must be happy with the decision to come here, now that you're on the main roster?"

"Sure, I enjoy the wrestling. That crowd reaction when I came out last night was something else. I just don't like all the backstage shit."

"Backstage shit?" Sonya asked, unsure what the comment was supposed to mean.

"Being in a locker room with all those other girls. I soon learned how it is around here when I joined NXT. I was over here in a new country, trying to learn a new craft and no one gave a fuck. No one took any time to work with me or anything unless they were told to, so I decided bollocks to them all, if I had to learn everything from the coaches, that's what I would do."

Sonya thought about that for a moment while Lucy continued punching the bag. She realised that Lucy probably hadn't even tried to look at it from anyone else's point of view. Everyone who had been on development contracts would have shown up feeling nervous and unsure of themselves, and Lucy had been the tallest, least approachable, most abrupt and intimidating girl in the locker room. It was only natural that the others had given her a wide berth. But Lucy had taken it as a personal slight, and was clearly bitter about it.

"You're not the most approachable person," Sonya said as diplomatically as possible.

"I wonder why?" Lucy fired back confrontationally.

Sonya saw that in Lucy's mind, the problem clearly lay with everyone else, not her. Sonya wasn't particularly surprised by that. It fitted right in with what she expected of someone with a personality like Lucy's. She had the 'I'm always right and everyone else is always wrong unless I say otherwise' kind of attitude. It would be a challenge to get Lucy to change her ways, but it was a challenge that Sonya was up for. "Well, you've got me, Char and Val to travel with now," she offered.

Looking less than impressed by the prospect, Lucy started unwrapping her hands and walking in the direction of the gym's exit. "I think that's enough training," she said over her shoulder.

Smiling to herself, Sonya followed Lucy to the locker room. As they entered, Charlotte was just emerging from her quick shower, body wrapped in a towel. Lucy said nothing to her on her way to her locker, while Sonya greeted her with a smile.

"How did that go?" Charlotte asked quietly when she and Sonya were standing by their lockers, a fair distance away from Lucy. There were other women in the room chatting away, so there was no chance of their new traveling partner overhearing them.

"I'm starting to get a handle on her. It's pretty much how I described to you the other day. She's got no idea how to make friends, and she resents people for not being friendly towards her despite the fact she's not friendly to them."

"That's actually quite sad when you think about it," Charlotte said sympathetically. "It must be a lonely way to live."

"Yeah, well, we'll work on it," Sonya said with a smile. "I'd better get in the shower. Is Val meeting us downstairs?"

Charlotte nodded. "She said to text her ten minutes before we're ready to leave."

Sonya chuckled to herself. "Should be an interesting trip."

With four people and four sets of luggage to transport, it had been necessary to hire a people carrier for the job. While they waited for their two new companions to arrive in the hotel's parking garage, Sonya and Charlotte lowered the third row of seats to give them enough storage space in the back.

"Good morning," Valentina said, timing her arrival perfectly as Sonya and Charlotte finished preparing the car.

"Morning, champ," Sonya said cheerfully to the woman she had dropped her title to the previous night, wanting to make it perfectly clear that there were no hard feelings.

"I still can't believe it," Val said, shaking her head. "I was blown away to get called up, and then they make me champion on my first night. Thank you again for being so good about it."

"Of course," Sonya replied. She stood aside so that Valentina could load her travel case into the car.

"We're going to alternate the driving," Charlotte said. "It's the only fair way to do it."

"Sure. I'll go first, if you like?" Val offered.

"No, I'm up first," Charlotte said. "I just wanted to let you know what the deal was."

Lucy walked into the parking garage, looking grumpy as she pulled her travel case along behind her. "Just so you know, I'm only doing this because Hunter told me to," she announced as she approached the group.

Finding it hard not to smile at Lucy's manner, Charlotte walked around to the driver's door and got into the car as Sonya assured Lucy that they were aware of the situation.

"Whether you want to travel with us or not, you're doing your share of the driving," Sonya added.

"Fine," Lucy grumbled. She put her case into the back of the car and walked around to get in without another word.

"Is she going to be like that all the time? She kind of scares me," Val said quietly to Sonya just before they got in the car.

"We'll get her talking," Sonya promised. "Before long, we'll all be the best of friends."

Valentina obviously doubted that, but she joined Lucy in the back of the car.

Moments later, Charlotte was pulling the car out onto the street. They were underway on their first road trip.

"So, Val, how did you end up in NXT?" Charlotte asked, using the rear view mirror to briefly make eye contact.

"I've lived in America for a few years now. Once I decided I wanted to be a professional wrestler, WWE was where I wanted to end up. I figured my best chance of making that happen was to move here and work as many independent bookings as I could get, hoping that someday I would get an opportunity. Eventually, I got a trial, and I did so well that day. It felt like the best I had ever performed, and at such a crucial moment. I'll never forget how happy I was when I left the Performance Center afterwards, and shortly after that I was offered a developmental contract."

"What a lovely story," Sonya smiled.

"I love hearing things like that," Charlotte said.

Lucy sat next to Val, browsing the internet on her phone, giving off vibes that she had absolutely no intention of joining in the conversation.

Sonya told her story of how she'd had a few MMA fights before deciding to try of for WWE by applying to appear on Tough Enough, an application that had been successful.

"Yes, I remember seeing you on there," Val said. "You came out on that show too, right?"

"I sure did," Sonya said. "I told Triple H that I wasn't married yet, but I had a girlfriend. At that point, I honestly thought my girlfriend and I would get married. But when I got called up to the main roster, she ended it with me because she wasn't interested in being in a relationship with someone who wasn't going to be there."

Even though she had heard the story before, it still made Charlotte's blood boil that Sonya had been treated in such a disgusting manner, even if Charlotte was now the one ultimately benefitting from it.

"That is awful," Valentina said, truly horrified that someone could do that to someone they supposedly loved.

Lucy said nothing, but Sonya saw in the mirror that she looked up from her phone for a moment, looking like she might add her voice to the chorus. But she didn't speak.

"So, uh, what's the craziest or stupidest thing you've ever done?" Val asked, wanting to change the subject to something more light-hearted if possible.

"I invited everyone in my volleyball team to a party at my house one night when my parents were out," Charlotte said, laughing at the memory.

"How many people showed up?" Sonya asked.

Charlotte laughed again. "I have no idea. I invited the people I invited, then they invited others. Before I knew what was going on, the house was full of people, the garden was full, the pool was full. We had dad's music system blasting out, there was more beer around the place than we could ever have gotten through. All off a sudden someone came up to me and asked, 'Who drives a silver Benz?'"

"Oh god. Your dad was back home?" Sonya guessed.

"Yep," Charlotte chuckled. "Half the people jumped over the fences and ran before he got in the house. Needless to say, my mom and dad were pissed off."

Everyone laughed, even Lucy, slightly.

"What about you, Val?" Charlotte asked. "Tell us the stupidest thing you've ever done."

"I went scuba diving once."

Lucy put her phone down and looked at Val as if she was dumb. "What's supposed to be stupid about that?"

"I can't swim," Val announced.

Sonya and Charlotte roared with laughter. It took Lucy a moment, but she couldn't stop herself joining in.

"How do you dive without being able to swim?" Lucy asked after a moment.

"Badly," Val replied deadpan, and everyone laughed again.

"Seriously though," Lucy said. "How did you get back to the top if you can't swim?"

"I managed. The fins make it easier, I guess."

"Suba diving without being able to swim. You've got me beat," Charlotte conceded with another laugh.

"Alright, Lucy, your turn," Sonya said, turning in her seat to look at the woman sitting behind her.

Lucy seem surprised for a second that she had been asked to participate. "Uh, I set fire to the cricket pitch at my school one time."

Everyone laughed once more.

"You set fire to a cricket pitch? Why?" Charlotte asked, carefully watching the traffic while joining in with the fun.

"I had a row with the coach. He said he was going to punish me by taking me out of the team for a game. I was so pissed off, I decided if I wasn't going to play, no one else was either. So, I waited until after school, walked out to the cricket pitch, put all my cricket kit in the middle of the pitch and set fire to it. It ruined the pitch, and I never played cricket again."

It wasn't quite the kind of funny story people had been hoping for, but they laughed anyway, at the fact that Lucy had been brazen enough to do that.

Sonya felt glad that Lucy was talking with the group now. Step one accomplished, she thought. Maybe traveling with her wouldn't be a problem after all?

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my friend who cannot swim.

Thank you to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter.

So, Charlotte and Sonya are happy traveling with Valentina. And possibly they've got Lucy on side as well. Do you think that's the case, or will there be problems?