As My Heart Grows Fonder

Three weeks had passed since that NXT taping and Darcy was definitely getting better. She had convinced the doctors that she was healthy enough to go back to training but only after promised them that she would take it easy when she entered a ring.

It was the morning of her first day back at training and she had woken up bright and early – her sleeping patterns had more or less gone back to normal now that she was back to sleeping on the couch.

She was cooking her breakfast when Jon exited the bedroom. He mumbled a tired 'morning' on his way to the bathroom and Darcy continued shuffling around the kitchen.

She was frying bacon and boiling eggs – frying eggs never worked out well for her – for both her and Jon. She didn't really know how to thank him for being as helpful as he had been so she figured cooking him breakfast was the best way to start.

When he walked out of the bathroom, a towel around his hips, Darcy quickly averted her eyes.

"Dippy ecks?" she asked with her back to him.

"Dippy what?"

"Uh, dippy ecks," she repeated with a flushed face. No way was she turning around to face him when he wasn't dressed. "Soft-boiled eggs."

"You're cooking me breakfast?" Even without turning around Darcy knew that Jon was smirking at her.

Trying not to sound defensive she responded, "I was cooking myself breakfast and figured putting on a few extra eggs wouldn't be hard."

Jon didn't respond to her but she heard his bedroom door shut. She started to plate up their breakfast as she heard Jon bustling around in his bedroom.

She and their food were sitting at the small round table when he walked out of his room. She smiled up at him shyly for a brief moment before looking down and beginning to peel an egg. As Jon pulled out a chair he thanked her for cooking him breakfast.

"You say some really weird shit sometimes, you know that? Dippy eggs?"

"Ecks, actually. They're just things I picked up from a teacher in high school. Pennsylvania Dutch English."

"Huh," Jon nodded, a little surprised. It took him half a second to change the tone of the conversation. "Are you sure you're ready to do this today?"

Jon's question caught her off guard. They hadn't exactly spoken about her returning to the ring and she had expected him to keep his mouth shut. He rarely brought up Harry, what he did or anything remotely related to the topic. Darcy was well aware that he was tiptoeing around her and usually that would have pissed her off but this time she was grateful for it.

"Yeah, that doctors said that I was fine-"

"I don't care about what the doctors said. I want to you know if you're going to be okay getting back into the ring being thrown around."

Darcy froze with her fork halfway up to her mouth. The thought ticked over in her head. It wasn't something she'd thought about. Jon was staring at her with a raised eyebrow so she put down her fork and nodded.

"I'm going to be perfectly fine."

"You don't have to pretend around me. You know that, right? I'm not going to give two fucks if you're scared-"

"I'm not scared," she said lowly. "I don't do scared."

Before she'd even finished speaking she was pushing her chair backwards and standing up. She didn't even bother taking her plate to the sink instead she grabbed her packet of cigarettes off the counter and walked out the back door.

"It's great to have you back, Darcy."

Darcy sat opposite Steve Keirn in his office. As soon as she told him that she was coming back he had cleared his morning schedule so that he could talk to her. She knew that he was going to ask her how she was, make sure that she was okay to be back in the ring and then assure her that everyone in the company supported her and she was not disappointed.

Form her responses it was easily to tell that she didn't want to be having the conversation – they were short and to the point – but she knew that there was no way to get out of the meeting. That and she really wanted to pitch the Harlequin idea so sticking around was important.

"I know that you're probably really busy but seeing as I'm here... I wanted to put forward an idea."

Keirn nodded, "Go ahead."

"I know that you're not head of creative or anything but, uh, when you guys snatched me up I was doing a harlequin gimmick in ROH and I was having a lot of fun with it. I was just wondering if maybe we could bring that here?"

"I don't see why we can't talk about it," he said to her, looking at least a little interested in her idea. "I'll talk to Dusty and we'll see what we can do."

She smiled at him and at the idea of getting to have an actual character. There wasn't anything wrong with going out and being herself but it didn't make for a whole lot of fun.

Sara Del Rey and the other Divas had already started their day of training when Darcy joined them in the ring. She was aware of the cautious looks she was being given and she had half a mind to slap the pout off Mercedes' face.

"You ready?" Ashley asked when the blonde was in the ring. Darcy nodded before giving Sara all her attention.

They were given a simple chain of moves that began with a normal lock up. Darcy came face to face with Saraya first and the Brit hesitated.

"Do. It," Darcy said through gritted teeth.

They locked up in the centre of the ring and Darcy was good to go. She got Saraya into a side headlock before she was flipped over onto her back.

She was put through back bumps, front bumps, side bumps and bodyslams and never once stopped.

The session, that was supposed to go for 7 hours, was cut short at 5 for Darcy when Bill DeMott walked towards the ring and told her that she was done for the day. Her protests were ignored and he repeatedly told her that she shouldn't push herself too hard.

At first she merely stood beside the ring and watched the other girls before she wandered over to the guys.

"What are you doing over here?" Colby asked from the top rope just before he landed a moonsault on Brad Maddox.

"DeMott told me I had to stop for the day but now I have to wait until Jon finishes before I can go home."

"I thought you said you were doing okay," he said as he rolled under the bottom rope so that he could sit on the apron.

"I'm doing great but what Head Trainer says goes," she responded with a shrug.

"Jon's got another 2 hours what the hell are you going to do until then?"

She shrugged at him again before pushing him back into the ring so he could continue his day. She went straight towards the gym and sat down on the floor, cooling down. She started her stretching off to the side, watching as some of the superstars went about their day's weights.

Just as the girls had done, they watched her with sad, cautious eyes. It was almost as if they were expecting her to break at any moment. To a certain extent she appreciated it – they had no reason to worry about her given that she barely even spoke to any of them – but she would appreciate it more if they would stop staring.

"What are you doing back here?"

"DeMott gave me the rest of the day off. Didn't want me to hurt myself."

"You can't blame him."

Darcy shot Jon a glare but kept her mouth shut. There wasn't any use getting into an argument about it. They were both as stubborn as each other.

"Hop on," Jon said suddenly as he bobbed down in front of her. Darcy looked down at him quizzically until he reached up and patted his back impatiently. She stepped forward, hooking her legs around his waist. His arms wrapped around her thighs and he lunged forward.

"What are you doing?"

"Weights." The answer was simple enough but it explained absolutely nothing to her.

"I don't weigh enough for this to be helping you at all," she commented, resting her hands on his shoulders. She knew that he wasn't going to drop her.

"I'm giving you something to do. Just go with it."

She did just that, her hands gripping into the shoulders of his shirt as he continued to do lunges around the room. She wasn't sure what was happening, but he was right: it gave her something to do. People were giving them curious looks but she purposely avoided looking at them.

Jon dropped her to her feet and fell forward, starting doing push ups.

"On you get," he said without stopping.

Darcy sat down on the middle of his back – he barely even tensed as she did so – before reclining backwards, her head resting on the back of his and her legs stretching out against his.

"Is this doing anything at all?"

"Nope."

Darcy wasn't bothered. It was nice. In a weird sort of way.

"You're going to have to give up the couch for a day or two next week, is that cool?"

"What? Why?" Darcy asked almost aggressively, shifting in the car seat to look at Jon. "So you can get laid?"

"What? No," Jon said with a scrunched-up face. Darcy wouldn't admit it but she was a little relieved to hear it. "Sami wants to come down."

"Callihan?" Jon nodded and Darcy continued, "So what am I supposed to do? Get a hotel room or what?"

"Sleep in my bed again."

Darcy froze momentarily at the suggestion. There had been nothing to hate about sharing a bed with Jon – once she'd stopped crying every night before she fell asleep he had kept to his side of the bed – but he had said it so casually.

"Uh, yeah. I guess that's okay?"

He told her that he'd be over the following Saturday and that he was going to stay for a couple of nights. It wasn't like Darcy could object if she wanted to but she was interested to meet Sami. Jon had spoken about him quite often and she'd seen some of his matches so meeting him wouldn't even be too weird. Sharing a bed, though. Because his friend would need the couch. Darcy was clearly over thinking it.