Mike listens to Sara Louisa babbling over the baby monitor as AJ puts her to bed for the night, his eyes closing as she enters the bedroom and curls up close to him, kissing his shoulder. "It's vicious but I'm glad Del Rio won't be at Smackdown for the next four weeks," he tells her, hand resting low on her back. "One less thing for me to dread when I go to work every week."

AJ nods, her hair tickling between his eyes as she hovers over him, leaning in to kiss him on the lips. He hums as she sighs, nuzzling closer to him. "I dread when you go to work every week too."

His eyes soften as he strokes circles against her skin, pressing kisses down her throat. "Me too, sweetheart. Me too." They lay like that for awhile, neither quite asleep nor fully awake as they listen to Sara's sweet little sleepy baby sounds. "She's getting so big," he murmurs.

"I can't believe it's been six months already," AJ responds, lightly grazing his chest with her fingers. "She'll be crawling, talking, walking, soon. Then we'll have her first birthday party..."

Mike nods, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "I'll do the best I can to be here for it."

"That's all you can do," she sighs, falling asleep shortly afterwards.

In comparison, sleep escapes Mike as every instinct he has argues against missing his baby's first birthday. I'll think about it closer to the time of, he decides, hugging AJ closer and stroking her hair until he too falls asleep.

-x

He defeats Apollo Crews easily enough on Sunday and immediately takes the trip to Mohegan Sun with Maryse, content to put the man in his rearview mirror. Come Smackdown, he has nothing booked so he calls his agent, talking upcoming movie roles with him. Auditions for another Indiana Jones movie is coming up and his agent sets him up for them, Mike's face lighting up until he hangs up just to realize that Heath is staring at him incredulously. He beams happily at his co-star, trying to tell him about Indiana Jones. Heath shakes his head and storms off but Mike is so lost in thought about being the main star in a movie like this, he leans over and kisses Maryse enthusiastically, aware of the camera on them.

He's still on cloud 9 when she pulls away, wiping her lipstick off of his lips, gazing over his shoulder. "I think we made Heath mad," she says, looking up at him with worried dark eyes.

"Why?" Mike asks, confused.

"He wanted you to be his tag partner, but I was in character and couldn't..." She cringes. "He thinks we were ignoring him- well, you were, but I wasn't- and now... he's seen us kissing and..."

She takes a few steps forward but Mike stops her. "Wait, we'll find him after the show, ok? He needs to find a tag partner, let's not distract him. We'll explain afterwards." She leans into him and nods, fretting as they slip into Mike's locker room.

Except that it doesn't work that way, they watch Rhyno agree to be Heath's tag partner, Mike cheering up considerably at this... but when they go to look for him, a tech tells them Heath's left the arena early. Mike stares at him, unsure what to think about that, his best opportunity to rid himself of some of this guilt slipping away all of a sudden. "Dammit," he mumbles, turning away.

He can't leave to search for Heath yet, because he has a scheduled segment on Talking Smack. He's angry and aggressive and all it takes is Daniel Bryan to tell him he fights like a coward, a deluge of words pouring from his mouth until he's all but screaming, Maryse a constant presence behind him as he lectures Daniel about his own career choices, the things that had left Daniel with no choice but to retire, and how smart Mike has played this game the last ten years in comparison. He rants on when Daniel storms off, staring at the camera so there's no doubt in the sincerity of his words, until finally he's done, taking Maryse's hand and walking off.

"Are you ok?" she asks, accent thick as she follows him down the hallways.

"Yes," he says slowly. "I think we should wait to find Heath and try to explain everything until we're all calmer." She reluctantly nods at this and he leads her to the car, eager to get back to the hotel and get some sleep, wash the day off of him. For something that had started off so well, it had really circled the drain towards the end.