The sound of running water was the first thing that Seth noticed when he woke. It took a few seconds for him to remember where he was, and to figure out why he was fully clothed in bed. Then it all came back to him. He had climbed into bed with Ronda to comfort her as she fell asleep. Apparently he had then fallen asleep himself, and had been there ever since. Usually, he was quite a restless sleeper which meant that he was often tired in the mornings as his body struggled to get going, but this morning he already felt great even before getting out of bed.
Feeling great was one thing, but when he looked in the mirror he saw that he looked exactly the opposite. His clothes were creased, his hair was a mess and he had been sweating during the night. What he really needed was to go and join Ronda in the shower. Damn, that was an image, he thought. Telling himself that the time would come soon enough, he tried his best to make himself look something like presentable as he waited for Ronda to emerge from the bathroom.
"Oh, hey," Ronda greeted him when she finally appeared ten minutes later, fully dressed but with her long blonde hair still damp from the shower.
"Good morning," he smiled, getting up from his sitting position on the end of the bed, having turned on the TV a few minutes earlier, not knowing how long the wait was going to be.
Taking him a little by surprise, Ronda walked right over and hugged him. Her embrace was strong, which was a lot less of a surprise than the fact that she was actually doing it. "Thank you for last night," she said quietly. "Thank you for making, letting, me talk to you, and for staying with me. I'm sure it's not what you had in mind, but, uh, I needed it."
Returning the hug, Seth breathed in the smell of Ronda's sweet shampoo and felt something stirring within him once more. Again, this was not the time for that though. "I know you did," he said. "I could see how you were struggling. You're right though," he added, now joking, "It's not what I had in mind. Let's say you owe me."
Ronda released the embrace and took a small step back from him. Grinning, she said, "Asshole."
The girl had a sense of humour, another thing that Seth liked a lot in a woman.
"So what is the plan for today?" Ronda asked, referring to his request from the previous night for her to trust him and let him help her with her mental problem relating to her injury. The fact that physically there was nothing wrong with her had actually been quite a surprise for him. It was great news. If she could beat these mental problems, there was no reason why she could not get back into judo, or, even better as far as he was concerned, she could talk to Hunter about a change of career within WWE. They were all things to discuss in the future, though.
"The plan is, I go to my room, shower, change, then meet you downstairs for breakfast in half an hour. Then you trust me, and we take a drive somewhere."
"Where?" Ronda demanded. "I don't like surprises."
"Get used to it," Seth smiled, "Because I do."
"Asshole," she grinned once more.
"You know how to hurt a guy," Seth said, pretending to be upset by the insult.
"You better believe it." Ronda confirmed. Her eyes were twinkling with humour, but she gave him her fiercest facial expression.
"Downstairs, half an hour?" Seth asked, laughing.
"Yeah," Ronda agreed, her smile returning. Seth gave her a peck on the cheek and made to leave, but Ronda grabbed his arm to stop him. "Seth?"
"What?" he asked, gazing into her beautiful blue eyes.
"Thank you. Again." With that, Ronda kissed him. It was not a furiously passionate kiss as their previous ones had been. Somehow Seth liked it more for that reason. This was a more tender, loving kiss.
"You're welcome," he said as she released his arm after the kiss. He felt a little awkward, unsure of anything else that he could have said in that moment. "I'll see you in the restaurant."
Their eyes remained connected for a brief moment before Seth walked out of the room. As the door closed behind him and he walked away, he felt a mixture of emotions. He was happy to have made the first step with Ronda, both in terms of helping her, and starting to build trust in the very early stages of what he hoped would become a relationship with a woman who he realised he had fallen for. But equally, he was a hot blooded man and he badly wanted the sex. In some ways, being a good guy could be very frustrating.
Back in her room, Ronda sat on her bed using a hair dryer. Her mind was a long way from the task at hand. Instead, she found herself wondering what she had done to have a man as amazing Seth Rollins come into her life. Not many men would have done what he had done for her the previous night; they would have either avoided the awkward subject of her injury entirely, or if they had shown concern it would have only been as a way to get back to her room, in the hope of getting some sex out of it. There had not been even a hint of that from Seth. Every instinct told her that he really did genuinely care about her, and wanted to help her overcome her issues with regard to her neck injury.
Lying in his arms as she drifted off to sleep, feeling so... loved was the only word for it, she realised, was a moment that she would not forget. She knew that thinking Seth was in love with her at this point was stupid, but nonetheless, that was the way it seemed. As for her own feelings, she was not sure if love was what she felt for Seth, but one thing was for sure: whatever it was that he had planned for her this morning that he thought would help her to make progress with dealing with her fears about her neck injury, she had no concerns at all about trusting him.
"Follow the road for one mile," the satnav in Seth's car chirped as he made a turn onto another rural road. Much like the previous one they had been on, it appeared to lead to the back end of nowhere.
"Okay, I want to know where we're going," Ronda demanded impatiently, for the third time during the journey. "We've been on the road for nearly an hour."
"Another mile and you'll find out, and we've not been on the road that long," Seth smiled, thinking that so far the morning had been very enjoyable. Conversation had flowed freely between them over breakfast. It had been remarkable to see the change in her from the previous night when they had been eating in the same restaurant. Rather than distracted, awkward and nervous, she had been what he already knew was herself; confident, funny and at ease when talking about herself with him. Also that habit of touching her neck that he had noticed seemed to have vanished. Talking to someone was something that a lot of people seriously underrated as a way to deal with things. Despite this, he had steadfastly refused to tell her what his plan was as he was not one hundred per cent convinced that she would not have tried to back out if she had known what he had in mind for her. Once they were actually there, it would be harder for her to back out, and that was something he really did not want her to do. If she could do this today then she would be making real, serious progress.
"Here we are," Seth announced as the satnav also confirmed that they had reached their destination. He turned the car slowly onto the graveled road that led into the destination and Ronda read the sign that welcomed visitors.
"Wait a minute," she blurted out, sounding very unsure already.
"You said you would trust me," Seth reminded her gently as he pulled the car to a stop. There was another sign welcoming visitors on the front of the building which he had parked next to. Ronda stared at it nervously. "Come on," he urged a moment later as he opened the door on her side of the car.
"I said I'd trust you, but I didn't think you'd bring me to a stables. You're not getting me on a horse, Seth."
"Yes, I am." Seth said gently. "Come on. You're going to be fine. We're going to do this together. Didn't your parents ever tell you when you were a kid that if you fell off your bike and hurt yourself, the first thing you had to do was get back on again?"
"Yeah, but I never broke my damn neck falling off my bike," Ronda mumbled as she got out of the car very unenthusiastically. "I really don't want to do this," she moaned as Seth closed the door and locked the car.
Seth gently lifted her chin slightly, making her look into his eyes. "I know you don't want to do it, but you need to do it. Like I said, trust me. I already made a call and sorted this all out. They've got their gentlest horse ready for us, and we're going to have a whole field to ourselves. We're going to walk around it with you on the horse. That's all. I'm going to hold onto his reigns and we're going to walk. Can you do that?"
"Yes," Ronda heard herself whisper a moment later. Seth had clearly put a lot of thought into this. He was trying to make it as easy as he possibly could for her. Again, she felt every instinct telling her to trust him. The idea of getting on a horse was something that would have terrified her and sent her running in the opposite direction only the day before, but over the next fifteen minutes, she found herself being introduced to one of the stable's staff, dressing in the proper attire and then meeting a small brown horse called Bobby. Not once did she feel like she was going to be sick right there on the spot - a very pleasant surprise. There was an uneasy feeling in her stomach, but it was manageable rather than overwhelming. Seth's presence was playing a big part in that.
Shortly, she and Seth were lead to a small, enclosed field not too far from the stable block. The female staff member left them to it. Seth held Bobby's reigns and smiled as he gestured for Ronda to mount the horse. "Climb on, or whatever they call it," he said.
With the moment at hand, Ronda's nervousness suddenly grew in intensity. As she looked at the relatively small horse in front of her, she did not think that she was going to be able to go through with it.
"It's fine, honestly," Seth encouraged. "You know horses better than I do, and even I can tell that he's not going to do anything crazy. I asked them for the gentlest horse they have. Get on."
Although Ronda knew he was right about Bobby, making her legs actually move was proving to be impossible. "Seth, thank you for doing this," she managed to say. "You don't know what it means to me." She meant every word, but she was also using it as a way to stall for time.
"I haven't done anything yet. You have to get on." Seth watched as Ronda closed her eyes, giving him the distinct impression that she was counting herself down to doing it in her head. Sure enough, after a few seconds went by she almost startled him by quickly leaping up onto Bobby's back.
"Oh shit," her voice trembled.
"You're fine, Ronda," Seth said gently. "You're okay. Look, Bobby's okay with you on his back. Let's walk." Watching carefully just in case Ronda panicked and wanted to get off, Seth began to lead Bobby across the field at a very gentle pace.
After ten minutes of walking around the field, with Seth occasionally asking her if she was okay or is she wanted to stop, Ronda found herself wondering what on Earth she had been so afraid of. What Seth said was true; her fall and her neck injury had been a freak accident. There was no reason to be scared of being on Bobby's back. There had been no fear any other time she had ridden a horse. Thanks to Seth, she was not afraid now. "Seth?" she asked.
"Want to stop?" Seth asked quickly.
"No, I want you to let go of him. Let me have him. I want to try and trot for a minute."
"Are you sure?" Seth asked in surprise.
"Yeah."
Without objecting, Seth did as Ronda asked, watching with a smile on his face as she and Bobby spent the next few minutes trotting around the field before she brought the horse back over to him and jumped down to the ground beside him.
"Thank you. Thank you so much," she told him earnestly. "I can't explain how I feel just so much... better. It's like..."
"A weight off your mind?" Seth suggested.
"Yeah, but more than that. I just feel like I don't even know what I've been so afraid of all this time." With that, she stepped up to Seth and simultaneously embraced and kissed him. "Thank you for doing this, and for being here. I can't ever repay this."
"Sure you can," Seth said quietly, his mouth to her ear, "Join me for dinner tonight. You can even pay, if that makes you feel better."
"Okay, deal," Ronda laughed.
They started to walk towards the gate to exit the field. Seth had been thinking a lot about this morning and this moment in particular, preparing for the eventuality if things played out perfectly for Ronda, as indeed they had. "I know you might still have a way to go, and you might still need to talk to someone, but I've been thinking. You said that you know your neck is fine, so aren't you, uh, wasted as a referee?" he asked.
Ronda looked at him and he saw that what he was hinting at had only just dawned on her as he said it. Her eyes widened slightly and her mouth dropped open a little before a smile broke out and her eyes seemed to gleam. "You mean I should talk to Hunter and see if... See if I could wrestle? I'm not ready for that, Seth. I mean, getting back on a horse is one thing, but taking wrestling moves?"
Seth opened the gate and waited while Ronda and Bobby walked through to exit the field. "I know, but if you told Hunter the truth, he would have people work with you on that. Trust me, WWE have some amazing people working for them."
"I'm with one of them right now," Ronda said, taking Seth's hand in her own and not caring how tacky she had just sounded.
"Oh, come on now," Seth said modestly, liking the feeling of Ronda's hand in his own as he felt his cheeks warming up quickly in the cold January air.
"You're blushing, Seth Rollins," Ronda giggled, feeling so at ease around him. It felt like they had known each other for a long time, not that they had only shared two dinner dates and a tearful night in a hotel room. There was no denying true feelings, and that was what she had for him. "If I did speak to Hunter, don't you think he'd be pissed off?" she asked. "I mean, I didn't exactly lie when I said I couldn't wrestle because of my neck but, I certainly wasn't honest with him about the exact reason."
Now it was Seth's turn to laugh. "Do I think Hunter will be pissed off if Ronda Rousey walks into his office and tells him that if he can get her the right help and training, she wants to wrestle for him? No, I really don't," he smiled.