After beating down Shelton Benjamin, Primo Colon and Sanity, Mike gets less than a day at home before he has to fly back out for media, and live events, and the start of Wrestlemania weekend. He stares down at Sara Louisa, who'd fallen asleep against his side while watching some cartoon program that AJ had put on for her. He reaches out, carefully, and brushes his knuckles against her forehead, feeling her smooth skin, her soft hair. Love, intense and bittersweet, rushes through him like it does every time he gets a moment to really look at his little girl. He may live another life, with another family, when doing anything under the WWE umbrella, but this is his home. This is his blood, his soul, his heart, everything important, within these four walls. The fact that he'd so easily put it all at risk for a partnership with Shane McMahon... for his father's approval, something that he'd struggled for his entire life...

Shaking his head bitterly, he eases Sara up and just holds her, relieved when she doesn't wake up. "I promise you," he whispers to her. "I swear to you... I will not lose Sunday. I will fix this." She stirs, a little, makes a soft, sweet noise against his shoulder, but eases back into sleep when he rubs her back gently. Of course, he thinks bitterly, this all depends on my ability to trust Shane. Will he keep his word? Will he not tell anyone if I... when I defeat him on Sunday? His only consolation is that, despite everything, Shane had stayed true to his word with his father and never revealed whatever was in the lock box that had led him home to the WWE despite everything that had been said and done between the two back then and since.

AJ appears before him, a soft look in her eye as she looks at her husband and daughter. "Hey," she whispers to him.

He smiles weakly at her. "Hey."

"Put her in her room," she whispers. "Then let's go to bed." There's a certain weight to her words that Mike blinks at, but he obliges without question, leaning over Sara for a few moments, just watching, before pulling away and going to find his wife. She's sitting at the edge of the bed, staring up at him with a soft, weary smile. "Is everything going to be ok, Mike?"

He wants to forge ahead, tell her in no uncertain terms that of course, no doubt everything will be fine! Shane doesn't have the best win-loss record since his return, after all. But that doesn't mean anything. It just takes one time, one shock win, to turn things around, honestly. He just feels too strangled emotionally and wiped out physically to lie, so he sits next to her, and takes her and rubs his fingers over the lines of her palm, lost in thought. "I hope so," he says softly. "I think so. But..." His words fail him. One of the few times in his life, he has legitimately no idea what to say. "If it doesn't... if everything comes out..."

AJ sits quietly, waiting for him to further his thought, and when he doesn't, she exhales softly and eases up onto her knees, hugging him. "It doesn't matter," she whispers to him. "Sara Lou and I will always be here. No matter how rough things get. You'll always have us." Her eyes are dark, settled in her convictions, and he swallows hard, suddenly feeling choked up and shaky. "Mike..." She eases into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her forehead to his. "I love you. I have loved you for a very, very long time. I appreciate the man you are, and I adore the father you've become. Years back, I never imagined I could be this happy, this fulfilled, but here we are. This lovely home, a beautiful daughter, an amazing group of friends. If you lose to Shane, if our truth comes out..." She swallows. "It wouldn't be the worst thing." She rubs his cheek and smiles sadly at him. "But I know you're going to fight your hardest to protect all of us."

There's this look in her eye, something in her words that he thinks he's missing, But he's too exhausted to grasp it and then she's kissing him, slow and gentle, and he sighs into her mouth, sprawling his hand out over her back to brace her as she presses into him. He holds her close as he moans softly and she tastes him, curling her fingers around his jaw, her free hand slipping between them and working at his shirt, unbuttoning it and easing it slowly from his shoulders. Her top slips off easily and he sighs as he feels her warmth, easing some of his tormented thoughts. "I love you," he whispers against her skin as he kisses every inch of her that he can reach. "I love you so much."

She pushes him down against the bed and mouths at his jaw, nibbles down his throat, fingers stroking his abs and giggling softly when his muscles twitch under her ministrations. "I love you too, more than anything," she murmurs, sighing slow and deep when he cups her face and brings her in for another kiss, long and deep and full of promises and intentions that neither of them can ever quite name.

Tuesday. It's no true surprise when Shane throws Mike to the wolves of Sanity. It's a maddening thing, to try to keep his head above water against all three of them, and he wonders, for a wild fearful moment, if they will be involved Sunday. If they will try to make him lose. But he can't think about that, he just has to survive now, all too aware that Shane is backstage somewhere, watching closing with that ugly, maddening smirk on his face. So he fights, and he he struggles, and eventually, eventually it ends with he and Eric Young backstage. Even at his worst, he's never gone out of his way to really injure another competitor, but this time, he does. Grabs a crate while Eric's sprawled out, leaning against something, and pushes it with all of his strength straight into the man. Brings the fight to an end, at least. Grants himself the win, and he's still standing there, watching, when Becky arrives.

She has had her own struggles against the McMahons, has overcome them all and come out with the Wrestlemania main event in her grasp. He nods discreetly at her and her lips twitch up as she walks past him, determined and confident in her ability to get it done in five days.

He envies her.