The Things You Never Explained

-April 22, 2014; Hershey, Pennsylvania-

"Hey Joe, do you reckon I could steal Colby for a second?"

"Sure thing, Tessa. You doing okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded at him with a smile. "Just a few bruises – nothing worse than what I'd get in the ring."

Tessa had met them in the hotel lobby – well, she had sort of been waiting for him. She wanted to speak to him before they got to work in an attempt to keep her personal life as far from her professional one as possible.

"Are you allowed to be here?" He asked her, looking over her body. His eyes lingered on her chest and she knew that he wasn't being perverse. There was a bruise along her chest from the seatbelt and the dress she was wearing wasn't doing a great job at hiding it.

"How did I know that was going to be the first thing you asked?" Tessa asked quietly.

"You were in an accident less than a week ago."

"It was a minor accident," she sighed, pulling up the top of her dress to hide the bruise a bit better, "the car wasn't even written off. Besides, we're in Pennsylvania. No way was I going to miss a show in Pennsylvania."

"And? That bruise says that you shouldn't be here."

"You've wrestled with worse bruises than this," she argued before shaking her head and taking a deep breath. "I'm not here to fight with you. I just wanted to ask you a question."

He nodded, though it was evident that he didn't believe she was fit to be back on the road.

"I spent most of last week with Jimmy and he said some things, some things that Claudio has been saying and I just – I need to know how much you hated me when you found out about Gabe. When you found out that I left."

Colby's face scrunched up and Tessa looked down at the ground. She wasn't even sure if she wanted to know the answer.

"More than I was probably entitled to," he started, looking up as he tried to figure out how to word his thoughts. "I hated that I believed we had something and then Gabe did what he did and I concluded that I was just another guy to you. I hated you for that more than anything but I guess I also hated you because I thought you were trying to sleep your way to success-"

"In a company that had pretty much zero women's division?" Tessa asked rather coldly. "He didn't exactly have much input in any other companies, Colb."

"I realised that eventually but it took awhile," he explained and Tessa sighed. "When I found out that you'd left... I was so angry at you for running away. I got really mad that you didn't try and sort it out... In saying that, though, I don't know if I would have even let you begin to explain."

Tessa nodded and sighed.

"You know that when I told you about what Gabe was doing that I wasn't making excuses. You know that right?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Good. Nothing will ever excuse what I did and I know that I can never make up for it, you know? All I can do is try to not ruin anyone's life again."

It was unspoken that she meant his life and subsequently Leighla's. The way he clenched his fist assured her that he had made that connection. Tessa looked up at him with sad eyes and shrugged her shoulders a little.

"You take care of yourself, Tessy, okay?"

As Colby walked away Tessa made the decision that she had to speak to Rami that night. She had spoken to her brother about it and he had repeated almost every day that she didn't have a choice in the matter. Rami wouldn't ever force the conversation if he knew that she didn't wish to speak about it and Jimmy wasn't too shy to tell her that there was no way she could live with herself if she kept running away from it.

"Tessa, I didn't know that you had been cleared to return."

Turning around, Tessa took a deep breath.

"I haven't, not really," she told Paul Levesque with a half worried smile. "I was told that I can hang out. So I'm going to accompany Sami to the ring later. If I'm carrying the championship I want to remain relevant."

"That's a good idea," he nodded at her and she relaxed her smile. "Don't go hurting yourself."

"I didn't even bring my boots," Tessa said with a laugh, as the Executive Vice President of Talent was called upon by Finlay.

Tessa was lying, of course. She always brought her wrestling boots in case she was needed. If she had to she would wrestle with the seatbelt bruise running diagonally across her chest and stomach.

When she walked into the Divas locker room all of the women inside looked up at her, clearly surprised to see her.

"Surprise!" she exclaimed as Brie jumped to her feet. Tessa had to duck out of the way when Brie leaned in for a hug and pointed to the bruise when Brie frowned at her.

"Tessa!" Brie gasped. "You shouldn't be here!"

"Would you be shocked if I told you that you aren't the first person to say that to me?"

Brie shook her head and made Tessa sit down, despite the latter's protests. She was asked to explain what had happened in the accident and then repeatedly told that she needed to be at home resting.

After the interrogation she immediately walked to the make-up station. It was the second time in less than a month that she was going to have to cover up some bruising, though this time she wasn't too worried about people talking about the reason behind it. Her black eye had caused too many rumours about her working relationship with AJ Lee and – even if a lot of them were true – Tessa was going to be happy when people started talking about other things.

"You guys are capable of performing make-up magic, right?" Tessa asked, stepping into the designated area. "Just enough to make it not so purple?"

"We can try," one of them said unsurely. "No promises can be made, though."

Tessa smiled and sat down in the seat, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back as they started to apply numerous layers of make-up to the required areas.

At least two Divas had their make-up done while she was sitting down, neither of them attempting to start a conversation. The silence allowed her mind to wander to how on earth she was going to walk up to Rami and announce that she wanted to speak to him about the very reason she had been avoiding him since he was called up. If the beautician noticed the sudden rise in heartbeat she was kind enough to say nothing.

-Live on Raw-

Sami Zayn ran at Adam Rose who was situated in the corner and the crowd erupted. The Helluva Kick meant the match was ending; the WWE Universe had come to expect it.

Tia cheered along with the crowd and behind her so did Adam Rose's Rosebuds. For the entire match they had been mimicking her actions and she couldn't quite determine if they were making fun of her or not. If she clapped, they clapped; if she jumped up and down excitedly, they jumped up and down excitedly. It almost as if she'd managed to develop extra shadows.

Zayn pulled Rose into the middle of the ring and hooked his leg, easily getting the pin. He looked to Tia, getting ready to hold the ropes while she got into the ring but when he looked her way he noticed that she was no longer on the ground.

The men and women of Rose's travelling party had lifted Tia only their shoulders and were carrying her around the ring, dancing in time to Zayn's music. He began to laugh at the horrified look she had on her face and the desperate grip she had on her title and the bottom of her dress.

"Well, King, it looks like the Rosebuds have taken a liking to Tia!"

"Who wouldn't? She's gorgeous and you'd have to be blind and stupid to not see it!"

"Sami Zayn has certainly seen it. He's always the happiest man backstage and since Tia came along his smile has only gotten bigger."

"And I think that Tia might have to have her smile surgically removed!"

The Rosebuds walked Tia to the edge of the ring and placed her gently on the apron. She shrugged at Sami with a confused smile and he did the same back before ducking under the top rope and joining her on the apron. Sami jumped from the apron to the ground and then helped her walk down the stairs. As they walked up the ramp he put his arm over her shoulders and gave her a tight squeeze.

Both of them were smiling like love struck teenagers and those smiles were being broadcasted on the TitanTron for everyone to see.

-Off Air-

"Now that they know I can't dance I'm going to have to work with every dancing gimmick in the company aren't I? And then I'll probably be forced into becoming Fandango's new dance partner."

Rami didn't respond to her straight away and the silence between them instantly became thick. Tessa saw a look of surprise grow on his face – it was probably the first conversation she had willingly started with him since he was called up.

"You know, I remember you being quite a good dancer."

"What? No, I'm a terrible dancer."

"Yeah, you used to put on shows in that crappy Californian motel room. I remember them quite well."

Tessa gasped and stared at him wide eyed and shaking her head.

"That wasn't for an audience!"

"Come on," Rami said, extending his arms as he laughed, "I'm an audience."

Tessa looked down at the ground, hoping that he wouldn't see how red her cheeks were getting. She remembered those dances just as well as he did. There was nothing to them but a few Justin Timberlake songs and some stupid moves to make him laugh. A giggle escaped her mouth as she recalled one memory very vividly and, as if on cue, Rami burst into laughter as well.

"I'm going to ruin this," Tessa said abruptly, squaring her shoulders and raising her chin in an attempt to look confident. "I want to talk to you."

"Aren't we doing that now?" he asked, still laughing.

"An actual conversation about what happened because I owe you that much. I owe you a lot more than explanation, actually, but I don't know how to do any more than that."

Rami nodded at her slowly, having stopped laughing. He had turned just as serious as her and it upset her – she always hated it when he stopped smiling, even more so when she was the reason for it.

"Here? Now? Back at the hotel?"

Tessa thought back to what had happened when she explained herself to Colby in his hotel room and she knew that she couldn't do that again.

"If we could find somewhere quiet and do it here? I know that it's work but I want to do this before I chicken out."

It was nearly the end of the show when they walked towards the end of a corridor. Tessa had given Rami time to shower and change which was good for her too because she was able to think about what exactly she wanted to say.

"You don't look like you want to talk," Rami said quietly, sitting down against the wall. Tessa silently sat down against the wall opposite him. "You feeling okay?"

"Um, yeah, it's just that I've thought about having this conversation almost every day since Ring of Homicide but I still don't know where to start."

"You can just take your time."

Tessa looked across at him, though her eyes rested on his chest and not his face and asked in utter disbelief, "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"What's that mean?" He asked back, sounding a little offended.

"Why aren't you mad at me? Why don't you hate me?"

"Why do you want me to be mad, T?" He moved to his knees and shuffled towards her, stopping when he was almost touching her.

"I need you to be mad because if you're not mad then I moved to Japan for no reason," she said loudly and with much more force than she intended. "If you're not mad then I spent a good portion of my life avoiding everything to do with you and my family-"

"I knew," he cut her off, reaching forward to hold her cheeks in his hands. "I knew that there was an explanation. It hurt me and I did hate you for a bit – a month, two tops – but when I had time to rationally think it out... T, I know you inside and out. I know that that wasn't you. I knew that there was a lot I didn't know and before I could even think about asking you, you had hopped on a plane to Tokyo to take the JWP offer, you had changed your number and you had virtually ceased to exist in the lives of everyone who has ever cared about you."

"It took less than 24 hours for me to have no work. Everyone knows that I got myself blacklisted but it didn't even take 24 hours. Even if I had stayed and we had talked it out...
She took a deep breath as she remembered the many phone calls. "Everyone in this industry is pigheaded and stubborn and I wouldn't have been able to get work anyway."

"It wouldn't have taken long for that to change."

"How do you know that?" Tessa asked with a hopeless shrug. "How do I know that if I worked anywhere else it wouldn't have ended up like it did with Gabe? Do you think I wanted to be sleeping with him? Do you think I liked having my friends' jobs threatened every time I saw him? People seem to think that I was sleeping with him because I enjoyed it. Why didn't anyone think of me? Why didn't anyone ask if I was okay? Jimmy said that the behaviour was so out of character for me that he regretted not tracking me down and asking me what the hell I was thinking. That's all well and good but I went to Japan and no one, no one, followed me there. No one."

"No one knew, T. How are they supposed to follow you if they don't know we're you went?"

"You knew. Even if I hadn't sent you that dumb letter you should have known-" Tessa breathed in deeply and shook her head when she realised what she was doing. "No. This isn't what I'm supposed to be talking about. It's not what happened to me it's what I did to you. This isn't your fault but here I am putting blame on you."

"This has to do with all of that," Rami spoke softly, holding her hands in his. "It's all part of the same thing."

Tessa bit into her lip as she thought of what to say next. There were so many points she wanted to cover but even the imaginary conversations she had had with him ended up jumping all over the place.

"I wasn't going to leave. I hated when you would tour internationally for two weeks – how was I supposed to move away without knowing when I'd get to see you again?" She smiled at him softly, thinking back not to the times he was gone but to when he returned and how happy she was to see him walk through the airport gates. "I didn't think it was going to be worth it. I know that if I'd told Jimmy he would have told me that I was young and stupid, that no matter how much I thought I loved you I was only 22 and to pass up an opportunity to work in Japan because of a relationship would be the dumbest thing I've ever done. He proved me right last week when I saw him. You're one of his best friends but he didn't trust that you'd stay with me, you know? We were young. Relationships don't last when you're that young. I guess he's right. He got really cynical really quick because of a few bad relationships and he stopped believing in love, or he stopped believing in long love. That he's wrong about. I haven't seen you in 5 years but I love you as much as I did when I left."

Rami didn't look as taken aback as she expected. In fact, he was so unfazed by the statement that the question he followed with sent Tessa into a small state of shock.

"What about Yujiro? Shelley was pretty sure that you'd moved on."

"I love Yujiro," she said with a slow nod, "I do. But I also love Alex and PAC and Shinsuke Nakamura-" Rami laughed under his breath, "-I love a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. If I hadn't been signed, if I hadn't ever come back to America, I probably would have married him. I loved him enough to. I did come back, though, and we broke up because of it, and then I saw you. You slammed the door in my face but I realised that it was always you. I would have married Yujiro because I was able to convince myself that it would have helped me get over you. How terrible a person does that make me? I think he knew, too."

Rami remained silent and Tessa didn't blame him. She wouldn't have known how to respond to that. She struggled when she'd had a similar talk with Alex the night before she returned to the States.

She opted for a different path, something that had been playing on her mind since Claudio told her that it might have all been in her head.

"I run away from conversations with you because I don't know how to be around you if I can't hug you, or kiss you, or just look at you like you're the most important thing in my life. C kept telling me over and over that you didn't hate me but I didn't want to believe it. It would be so much easier if you just hated me. Then I would know that there was literally no chance of ever getting you back. But you don't hate me," she muttered, looking down at her hands. Rami had never let go. "So, no matter how stupid it is, I'm going to keep thinking I have a chance."

-Monday Night Raw, April 28-

Less than one week out from Extreme Rules we finally have a Divas Title match on the card. Summer pinned the champion in a six-Diva tag-team match tonight and in a backstage segment later in the show she was told that it meant a title shot. Her excitement was quickly cut short when Stephanie McMahon reminded her that the PPV was called 'Extreme Rules' and said that she wouldn't be facing Tia one-on-one. Tia didn't look very happy when she accompanied Sami Zayn to his match after the announcement was made.

The match itself was of average quality and it seems that Tia might be the problem in this scenario as she can't really get a hang of tag-team matches if she isn't teaming with Eva Marie. It's strange for such a seasoned wrestler to still be struggling in certain match types but a Triple Threat match shouldn't be a worry. In Japan, Tia (wrestling as June) won a championship that was solely contested under Triangle (Triple Threat) conditions. I'm looking forward to finding out who the other opponent is.

-Friday Night Smackdown, May 1-

The final competitor for the Divas championship was won in a Battle Royal match and Tamina came out victorious. Both Tia and Summer were on commentary for the match and both went dead silent when Tamina stared them down. The Battle Royal didn't last long with Tamina showing dominance throughout the entire match. Should be good to see the three different styles battle it out for the championship!

a/n I sort of based last chapter off an accident I had earlier in the year when I ran my car into a tree... Last week I got rear ended by a taxi. I got that part pretty spot on, actually. I have to tell you, though, that wasn't first hand experience I needed.

Thanks to AmbreignsOrton, Imagineer1392, ajroleplays, UntilNeverDawns, CarolReigns and Straight Edge Queen for taking the time to review the previous chapter!

If you want to read some super cute Rami/Tessa times, I wrote a Christmas fic called Joyeux Noël and it's set back before Tessa did all the dumb stuff that she did!