A/N: The last few weeks I haven't been able to write much. I've been sick with a cold, and working on NaNoWriMo, and all in all I did the best I could with BtB, EuM and WWDD but they were short because it's all I had time/energy for. But now NaNoWriMo is almost done, and my cold is mostly better, so I'll be back to writing longer chapters soon. Thank you for your patience.
Ricardo can't watch Survivor Series, because it airs on a delay, but he follows the results from his phone whenever they take a break from training. It's not a great card for those he cares about. Mike is in a survivor series match and his team loses. Alberto loses to Roman in the semi-finals and Paige loses to Charlotte. He winces and puts the phone down, returning to his students.
They have a ridiculously busy week: a photo shoot on Sunday, training for upwards of fourteen hours every day. Halfway through the week, he realizes that he's been in India for two full months now. He lays in the middle of the ring and stares up at the ceiling, reflecting on everything that he's seen and experienced, and what's happened back at home since he'd left. He almost forgets about Thanksgiving, but he makes sure to tweet about it as soon as he remembers, also sending a group text to everyone back in the States. When the responses start coming in, wishing him the same, he smiles. The facetime that follows makes him wistful for home and happy all at once.
He finds a few minutes here and there to sketch, which is a pain because of his re-broken finger, but he manages a few decent attempts. As Friday progresses, he has to fight yawns. Finally they end for the night and he goes back to his bedroom, sinking into his bed. Normally he would go out with his students, explore India a little more, but he's so exhausted that he can't even find the strength to stand up. He alerts them that he'll be staying in tonight and collapses back against the mattress, his eyes immediately slipping shut. How many hours pass before he opens his eyes again, he's not sure but it's early morning, the sun just starting to rise.
He yawns and rolls back over, glad that it's an off day. "I'm not moving," he mumbles to himself, burying his face in his pillows. "Nope... not moving at all."
And he doesn't, except to get some food, and some water, and his sketch pad. When he's not drawing, he's sleeping, hoping that a day of rest will be enough to revive him so he can be on top of his game for training come Monday. "Hmm," he sighs, hugging his pillow. He realizes all over again just how badly he misses Paige, her soft fingers in his hair whenever he felt less than 100%, gentle kisses to his forehead and chin as he drifts in and out of sleep.
"Soon," he mumbles into his pillow, holding onto hope that Paige will be coming to India with the tour in a couple of months. But first I have to get through the holidays... He grimaces before closing his eyes in the hopes of falling asleep again.