All commercial flights were grounded in British airspace because it had not yet been established exactly how the disaster of the previous day had been able to happen. Thanks to extra security measures introduced after previous terrorist attacks, hijacking a plane was thought to be impossible in this day and age. Early indications were that the terrorists had found a way around that problem by either having their people train and qualify as pilots, or by recruiting people who were already pilots. It was a terrifying prospect for the world of aviation, not to mention the general public of western countries as a whole.
For Hunter and WWE however, the suspension of air travel had provided a much more immediate problem: How were they going to get from London to Edinburgh, Scotland in time for that night's house show? In the tradition of "the show must go on," every effort had to be made to ensure that the event did in fact go ahead. Bringing in buses had been the only viable option for transport, but the journey promised to be a very long and tedious one. It would have taken at least eight hours on a good day, and with the significant increase in traffic thanks to the disruption, this was definitely not going to be a good day. To try and give them the best possible chance of making it to the arena in Scotland in reasonable time to prepare for the show, Hunter had ordered that the buses were to leave the hotel at five AM. Early alarm calls were hardly uncommon in the wrestling business, but they were nonetheless unwelcome. The events of the previous day, which had of course shocked everyone, combined with the early start, meant that there wasn't much conversation between the Superstars as they were counted onto the two buses.
Unable to fly back to America to fulfill her commitments, Ronda was now also traveling with the rest of the WWE party. Being able to stay with Seth was something that she was grateful for. Having to leave him so soon after what they had been through less than twenty four hours earlier really would have been hard for both of them. Having each other's support was the only thing that was really keeping them going after the horrors they had witnessed at the Houses of Parliament. First to get onto their particular bus, the two of them took seats near the back and tried to get as comfortable as possible.
"You look worse than I feel," Ronda mumbled to Thea a minute or so later when she walked up and took the seat right across the aisle from her. It was the first time they had seen each other since the attack.
"I feel awful, but a bit better than yesterday," Thea groaned back. "At least the sore throat has gone. I had to go back to bed after we saw you on the news yesterday morning, and I ended up sleeping for like twelve hours. It was a good job Adam sent a text to tell me that we had to be out early. So, uh, how are you?" Asking that particular question felt strange given what Ronda and Seth must have gone through, but it was too early in the morning to think of a better way of putting it.
"Never been better," Seth mumbled. He already had his Beanie hat pulled down over his eyes in the hope that it might make sleep come a little easier for him, not that sleep could possibly come easily when he was sandwiched into a seat on a bus.
"Didn't sleep well," Ronda said, which was a major understatement. Every time she closed her eyes, she was confronted by the awful scenes she had witnessed the day before. Seeing people, both living and dead, with such hideous burns or injuries would live long in anyone's memory. At least Hunter had already promised to arrange counselling for her and Seth. She had a feeling that the help would be much needed, doubting that the full weight of what she had been through had hit her yet. Things like that could be a gradual and very unpleasant process, she had learned that when she had fallen from a horse and broken her neck many years before. Night terrors could be nasty, persistent things.
"I'm going to guess you don't want to talk about what happened or what you saw," Thea said gently.
"You guess right," Ronda replied. "No one should have to see things like that, and I'm certainly not going to sit here describing them to a documentary that's supposed to be about wrestling."
Although she had no intention of pressing the point, Thea thought that was a naive thing to say. If Ronda thought this documentary was going to consistent mainly of wrestling related content after the footage Adam had shot in the aftermath of the disaster, she had another thing coming. There was no way that WWE were just going to edit out two of their stars helping the injured and pretend that it hadn't happened. Cynical though it undoubtedly was, the potential of Ronda Rousey: Revolutionary to draw ratings had gone through the roof. Business was business, and that kind of opportunity could not be passed up. It was hardly as if no one else would make documentaries about what had happened, and they would want Ronda's input, so WWE might as well get themselves ahead of the game. Thea expected to be given new instructions by Hunter or Stephanie in the near future, as far as that was concerned.
People had been filing onto the buses while they had been talking, including Maggie and Adam, who had sat together a bit further forward. "They're getting along well," Thea said, managing a grin as she nodded towards the front of the bus.
Ronda knew who she meant, and gave a thin smile of her own. "Good for them. I'm sure Adam needed to be with someone last night; he was there with us, after all. Maggie will have taken care of him, she's good at that kind of thing."
Roman Reigns had been walking up the aisle towards the back of the bus, looking for somewhere to spend the impending miserable journey. Seeing the empty seat next to Thea, and more importantly the fact that she was sitting opposite his two friends, he figured that spot was the one he wanted. "Room for a little one?" he smiled at Thea.
"Sure," she replied, shifting over to the seat next to the window. Part of Ronda was glad about that, knowing that there might have been little chance to get any sleep with Thea sitting next to her. It was understandable that she felt the need to ask a lot of questions, it was her job when all was said and done, but Ronda just didn't need it this morning.
Roman sat down and tried to fit his huge frame into the available space as best he could, looking over at Ronda and Seth with some concern as he did so. "How are you guys? I was going to come down to your room last night, but I decided it was probably best to leave you alone, you know?"
"Don't think it's really sunk in yet," Seth mumbled, the Beanie remaining in place over his eyes. "We've just got to get on with it, I guess. Hunter offered us time off. Honestly, I think that would probably make things worse though."
"You're probably right," Roman said thoughtfully, imagining what it would be like for Seth or Ronda to sit at home with nothing to do other than think about whatever awful sights they had seen at the Houses of Parliament. "How about you, Ronda? You okay?"
"About as okay as I can be," Ronda sighed. "He's right, it's not really sunk in yet. We're going to have some counselling sessions when we get back home, so hopefully that helps us deal with the worst of it." She was about to go on to tell him about the idea for The Rousey Foundation, but they were approached by Bayley and Elena D'Agostino, who selected the two empty seats behind Seth and Ronda.
"Hi," Elena said tiredly to the two people in front of her. "How are you?"
"We saw you on the news," Bayley added. "What you did was really courageous."
Seth and Ronda went through a similar conversation to that which they had just had with Roman, telling them that they were okay and that they were going to attend counselling when they returned to America.
"Did you know the press and TV news people were at the hotel last night, trying to get to speak to you?" Bayley said to Ronda. "You ended up being one of the stories of the day."
Ronda did know. Hunter had approached her in the hotel's lobby just before they had walked out to board the buses and told her about it. He had informed her that he had given a statement on behalf of WWE and all its employees, and he wanted that to be their final say on the matter. Having WWE Superstars making controversial political statements on TV definitely wasn't the kind of thing that he wanted to deal with. Mindful of her commitment to further improve the way she acted at work, Ronda had agreed that she would say that she had no further comment to make whenever she happened to be stopped by anyone from the media, which was inevitable sooner or later. "Yeah, Hunter told me," she said. "He doesn't want me to say anything more about it, and that's fine with me. We didn't go help those people to get attention for ourselves, we did it because it was the right thing to do. And it's not fair if they're only talking about me, either. Both of us were there, and we both helped people."
"Don't worry about it, babe," Seth mumbled. "Like you said, we didn't do it for attention. I don't care what they say or whether or not I get mentioned. It's not important." The fully loaded bus had pulled into traffic while he was speaking. "I'm going to try and get some sleep," he announced, in the vain hope that everyone else would do the same and there might actually be some peace and quiet.
"The show is going to be strange tonight," Elena said, immediately blowing his hopes out of the water. "I wonder what Hunter's going to do? We can't act like nothing happened."
"No, there will have to be a minute's silence or something to start the show," Roman said.
An idea occurred to Ronda as she listened to that exchange. Her intention was to speak to Paige at the earliest opportunity about setting their differences aside, after accepting the fact that she had been in the wrong when refusing to lose to her at a creative meeting a few months earlier. Verbal shots had been fired in both directions since, some of them quite personal. It was time that kind of thing stopped, Ronda had decided, and what better way that to do something for the English Diva in the wake of the disaster that had been inflicted on her country? Although she didn't know Paige well enough to judge how patriotic she was, she knew that if the situation was reversed, had the White House been attacked, for example, she would feel very upset and angry about it. Turning so that she could look at Bayley and Elena through the gap between her seat and Seth's, Ronda said, "We should do something for Paige, guys. I know putting her over in a match isn't much, but at least it's a nice gesture."
"We were thinking the same," Bayley nodded. "I was going to mention it to you, actually. I'm sure Hunter has thought about it, but we should talk to him about it when we get there."
"The idea we had was a six woman tag match," Elena joined in. "Paige is obviously going to be face, so we thought it could be her, you Ronda, and Bayley, against me, Sarita and Nikki."
After considering that for a moment, Ronda said, "Yeah, that makes sense. I was trying to come up with a way for me to put her over, but your idea makes more sense for tonight. Face on face isn't the kind of thing we want to go for."
"I'll be happy to get the pin, if that's what you want?" Elena said. As was sometimes the case, her choice of words was awkward in her second language. Everyone knew that she was offering to be the one to have her shoulders counted down to end the match.
"Okay, we'll pitch it to Hunter first chance we get," Ronda decided, not even thinking about the fact that the other two had automatically deferred to her to get the boss on side. Everyone was just used to that being the way things were.
Sharp as ever, Thea had noticed exactly that as she sat and listened to the conversation, out of sight and out of mind, sitting the other side of Roman. Regardless of what Ronda said or wanted, she thought, there was an established pecking order in the Divas roster, with the big star and the big ego at the top of it. Good intentions or not, that kind of thing was hard to change.
For his part, Seth had missed almost the entire exchange. Despite the chatter going on all around him, he had managed to fall sound asleep.
Eleven hours later, the coach pulled into its designated parking place at the arena in Edinburgh. On board, Ronda nudged Seth awake. "We're here, honey. That has to have been the worst journey ever undertaken by anyone, anywhere in the world, ever," she complained to him as he stretched, trying to wake himself up.
"I agree," he yawned.
"What do you mean, you agree?" she demanded. "You slept the whole time. You only woke up when we stopped for that coffee and piss break."
"And what a cup of coffee and piss it was," Seth quipped, making light of her unfortunate phrasing.
Roman laughed at the joke as he stood up and tried to stretch, not that he had much room to do so. "You were the lucky one," he told Seth. Gesturing to Ronda and the two women sitting behind her, he added, "Word to the wise: Never travel with these three sitting together again. At least not without a good pair of earplugs."
Grinning, Seth said, "Earplugs are uncomfortable. We'll just bring duct tape next time." Laughing tiredly, the two men exchanged a fist bump, ignoring Ronda's theatrical scowl.
"I'd like to see you try it," Elena said, starting to follow Bayley down the aisle to get off the bus.
"Daga, you're the worst one of all," Roman needled her as he followed behind them. "I think you must breathe through your ears or something. You definitely never stop talking long enough to do it any other way."
"Maybe you should have cut one of your promos on us," Bayley suggested. "That would have soon put us all to sleep."
Everyone in their small group responded with an over the top "Ohhhhh!" and then burst out laughing.
"That was brutal," Ronda giggled, waiting for Thea to follow behind Roman. "Jesus, Thea. You still look ill, girl."
"I did get some sleep, but I'm struggling," Thea admitted with heavy understatement. "We should do some filming tonight, but I really don't think I can face it. I need to crawl into bed as soon as I can and try and sleep through this damned thing. I'll have Adam film you, though, we can do that at least."
"Okay, I guess we've got to get back to it," Ronda agreed somewhat reluctantly. It had been a long day to say the least and her nerves were frayed. That's what you get for agreeing to full access twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, she scolded herself silently. Why had it seemed like a good idea at the time?
They filed off the bus, joining the crowd of people from the other bus, which had arrived just ahead of theirs. Looking around, Ronda saw that everyone looked as tired, uncomfortable and irritable as she felt. It was the part of being a wrestler that people who didn't do the job rarely considered, she thought, glad that she no longer had to work the full schedule that most of the others did.
Closer to the arena's entrance, she could see a group of people who could be nothing other than the media. They had cameras, microphones and notepads at the ready. She didn't notice that Hunter was walking up to her until he spoke, addressing both her and Seth. "They'll be here hoping to speak to the two of you. I'd appreciate it if you didn't give them any comments. As I said before, we've released a statement on behalf of WWE and all our employees. I'd like to avoid the controversy we'd get if someone said the wrong thing."
Ronda knew that he meant her. Seth was too smart not to keep his mouth shut when asked, and even if he did say something, he would manage to avoid kicking up a shit storm with some comment that would anger one group of people or another. That was the kind of thing that she often did, even when she had no intention of doing so.
"No problem," Ronda told the boss. "I'll say nothing to them. I'd like to talk to you about an idea for tonight's show when we're set up inside."
"Alright," Hunter agreed, "But it's going to be manic trying to get organised in time. The show starts in a couple of hours."
"Hey, at least we got here in time," Seth said. "I had my doubts."
"Yeah, me too," Hunter said frankly, then headed off to speak to someone else.
Ronda, Seth and Thea regrouped with Maggie and Adam, chatting about the journey as they made their way towards the entrance. Most of Ronda's attention was on the media group, who started calling out her name and shouting questions when they saw her approaching. There would have been times in the past when she would have gone ahead and ignored Hunter's request, and told them exactly what she truly thought about the events in London and the people responsible for it, but not this time, she decided. What good would it have done to express to Hunter that she had a desire to improve the way she acted at work, only to go and do something like that less than twenty four hours later? No, she had to tow the party line as the boss had requested. She knew that Seth must have been tempted to caution her against going off message, but he said nothing as they walked side by side up to the waiting reporters.
It was hard to make out any of the individual questions that were being fired her way because the journalists were all shouting at the same time, not that it mattered when she wasn't going to be answering any of them. Holding a hand up soon silenced the crowd. "WWE have issued a statement on behalf of their employees regarding yesterday's horrific attack in London. Neither myself or my husband have any further comments to add to that statement. Thank you."
Another volley of shouted questions came her way, but she and Seth had already turned and quickly walked into the building. "Well played, babe," Seth smiled.
"You know me," Ronda grinned back. "Never one to cause controversy."
"Yeah, right."
After getting the green light from Hunter for the idea for the six woman tag team match, for which she had rightly credited Elena and Bayley, Ronda had asked if she could be the one to tell Paige about it. The request had surprised Hunter, but in a good way, and he had agreed without hesitation, adding only one further instruction for her: The encounter had to be filmed for the documentary.
When Ronda had left his office, Hunter had sent a runner to bring Thea Trinidad to see him. One of the many things that had been on his mind during the lengthy journey up from London had been the documentary about Ronda. Considering what had happened the day before and the footage that Adam had gotten of it, it seemed obvious that the entire concept of the show had to change now. Ronda's everyday life was now not going to be the primary focus. How could it be? What the show had to be about now was the disaster and how Ronda had decided to use what she had been through to change herself for the better. Part of that was starting up her own charity, with help from WWE, which also brought with it the added bonus of making the company look good.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" Thea asked as she tapped lightly on the office's open door.
"Call me Hunter," he replied pleasantly, gesturing for her to enter the room.
"Okay, Hunter. What can I do for you?" She figured she already knew the answer, but it was polite to act as if she didn't.
"I just wanted to update you on the documentary," Hunter announced, getting straight down to business. "Our requirements have changed somewhat after yesterday's events. I'm sure that doesn't surprise you a great deal. What we're now going to want is to focus the show on what happened in London and how Ronda plans to use her experiences as motivation to better herself and to help others. It's just the kind of story that we really like at WWE. I'm not saying we're going to trash all of the work you've done so far of course, I'm just giving you direction on how I want you to go forward. Less trailing Ronda around, filming everything she says and does. Focus on the charity that she's going to launch, and focus on how she's going to bury the hatchet with Paige. She might think I don't know about the bad blood between them, but nothing happens in my locker room that I don't know about."
Thea had to dismiss the first two responses that came to mind. Asking him what he was talking about when he mentioned Ronda and a charity wouldn't be a good idea, because she definitely should have known about that by now. While it was true that the only reason she didn't was that she had been suffering with her illness rather than talking with Ronda, it was still an excuse that she didn't want to have to make. Then there was also a question about why Hunter had let the bad blood go on between Ronda and Paige without doing anything about it. On the face of it, the answer to that seemed kind of obvious. As long as Ronda was happy, things would have been left the way they were. Again, she found herself wanting to chuckle at Ronda's denial of any kind of special working relationship with the boss. Yeah, and I just saw a pink elephant fly past the window, Thea thought.
"Okay, you got it," she smiled. It was hardly as if she could have given any other response. None of what the WWE Chairman had said to her had been phrased as a question. "I'll go catch up with Ronda now then."
Hunter nodded. "Good. Thanks, Thea."
"Well, I just barely avoided embarrassing myself in front of Hunter," Thea said as she walked into Ronda and Seth's locker room a couple of minutes later. Neither of them had started to change yet, and Adam and Maggie were also in there too, joining in with the distinctly tired sounding conversation.
"You weren't drooling over him were you?" Ronda quipped, turning to look at her. "Half of them do. I've never seen it myself, to be honest."
"How could you, when you've got me?" Seth chimed in, with a grin of his own.
"Do you really want anyone to answer that?" Maggie giggled from her seat in the corner of the room. Everyone laughed at that, including Seth, who knew that if you couldn't laugh at yourself then you had no right to ever laugh at others.
"Actually, what happened was Hunter blindsided me with the news that you've decided to start a charity, and that you've said something to him about burying the hatchet with Paige," Thea said. "He wants to change up the way we're filming the documentary and make it less about following you twenty four hours a day and more about how you plan to use what happened yesterday to better yourself. That was how he put it, at least."
"I think that's a pretty accurate way to look at it," Ronda decided. "What we're going to do is start a charity to support firemen who get inured, as well as the families of those who get killed on the job. We saw some of them in action yesterday and it just struck us how brave they are, yet they get so little recognition and support for what they do. The Rousey Foundation will hopefully be able to change that."
"I think that's a fantastic idea," Thea smiled broadly. "You're right, those guys really do a fantastic job. Put me down as donation number one when you get it started."
"Thanks," Ronda said. "I'm sure it will take a while and there will be all kinds of bureaucracy and bullshit to get through. I was talking about that with Bayley and Daga on the bus. Hunter already said that he will get some of the people who helped him and Steph start their charity to work with us, so hopefully that'll make it a bit easier. It's all that crap that I really dread to be honest. What I want to do as soon as possible is appoint someone to handle all of that shit for us so that we can just get on with publicising it and raising money. That's where our strengths will lie; we're definitely not office workers. In an ideal world, Hunter's people will be able to do all of that side of it for us, but we'll have to see."
"Don't worry, babe, I'll take care of that stuff with Hunter," Seth promised her.
"Thank you, honey," Ronda said warmly, kissing his lips.
None of that exchange had surprised Thea at all. Much like the restaurant that she and Seth owned, they were more sold on the idea of having the charity than actually running it day to day, and Ronda certainly didn't seem interested in that kind of work. Not that there was anything wrong with that of course; Hunter and Stephanie presumably had a similar kind of arrangement with their own charity.
"Well, I suppose it's time we went and found Paige," Ronda said. "Let me guess, this is where you want to start filming again?"
"We wouldn't miss this for the world," Adam answered before Thea got the chance to.
Standing outside of the locker room that was partially being shared by Paige, Ronda turned to Adam, who was standing nearby with his camera at the ready. "I said don't film anything until I've spoken to her about it," she snapped at him.
"Sorry," he replied sheepishly, lowering his camera immediately. Tempers could be lost easily after the kind of journey they had all been on, he realised.
Shaking her head in annoyance, Ronda knocked on the locker room door. It was Paige herself who opened it a few seconds later. "Ronda." A mixture of surprise and distaste. "You need something?"
"Can you come out here for a minute, Paige? I wanted to talk to you."
"Yeah, alright," Paige agreed reluctantly and stepped out into the hallway, letting the locker room door swing closed behind her. Personal differences aside, there was at least one thing that she wanted to say to Ronda. "Listen, before you say anything, I want to say that what you did yesterday was very brave and I respect you for doing it. We're never going to like each other..."
"Can I stop you there?" Ronda cut in with more politeness than she was used to using. "You know everything I do is supposed to be filmed right now? Do you mind if we..."
"Whatever," Paige shrugged, knowing what she was going to say and that she was going to be expected to repeat her previous statement. All part of the Ronda Rousey circus, she thought. Adam dutifully started filming. "Like I said," Paige started over. "What you did yesterday was very brave, helping those people like that. We're never going to like each other, but I do respect you for doing that."
"You say we'll never like each other, and maybe you're right," Ronda had to admit, "But the reason I came to see you is that I did a lot of thinking last night when we got back to the hotel. Seeing some of the things we saw yesterday will make you do that. Anyway, I got to thinking about the heat between us, and when you see things like what happened yesterday, the awful things that people do to each other, there's too much animosity in the world, Paige. We've both done and said things to each other that we shouldn't. Honestly, that's mostly my fault for refusing to put you over that time. I shouldn't have done that. It was selfish and it was unfair on you. What I'd like us to do is try and put our differences aside, and to show you that I mean it, I've spoken to Hunter about an idea that me, Bayley and Daga were talking about on the bus on the way up here. Bayley and I want to team with you tonight. We thought it was only right that you had a match and a win tonight, you know, after yesterday. What do you say?"
Paige was surprised to say the least, mostly by the fact that what Ronda had said had actually sounded genuine rather than bullshit that she was saying for the sake of the camera. She looked down at the hand that Ronda had extended towards her, wondering if she ought to shake it or not. It was true that life was too short to spend hating on someone you had to work with. Accepting the handshake didn't mean that she had to be friends with Ronda, it just meant making peace with her. That wasn't too much to ask, was it? "I hear what you say, Ronda, but what if Hunter asks you to put me over in the future? Are we going to go back to square one?"
"No," Ronda shook her head. "You have my word, no more of that selfish bullshit." The extended hand remained in place.
Paige decided to shake it, nodding her head in something akin to respect as she did so. "Fair enough, I'll take you at your word. Why don't you come in and tell me about the match we're going to have?"
"I'd like that," Ronda smiled. Part of her had expected Paige to call bullshit and refuse to shake hands with her. It would hardly have been the most surprising reaction of all time if it had happened.
Paige glanced at Adam before she opened the locker room door. "Your shadow will have to wait out here though. We're changing in there."
"Well that sucks," Adam muttered to himself as the two women disappeared into the locker room and closed the door.