After losing to The Fiend, nothing quite feels right. Mike tries, he really does, he flies home and he spends a few days with AJ, with Sara and George. He even plays a few games of soccer with Ricardo while Alicia, Taya and AJ have a girl's day in with the babies, but it all feels like he's staring at the world through someone else's eyes. Nothing has as much meaning, nothing feels as solid as it did before his loss. He wonders if perhaps everything with The Fiend had just opened his eyes to how unsafe, how fragile life really is.
He's sitting outside on a relatively warm evening, staring down at his hands, when Taya joins him, a soft smile on her face. John hasn't been around as much lately, off filming a movie, and Mike misses him, especially now. When he needs his grounding force, his positive, strong attitude, more than ever. "How do you do it?" he asks Taya as she stares up at the sky overhead.
"Do what?" she wonders, turning her eyes towards him.
"This. Without John. Living." He shakes his head, aware he's not making much sense. "Everything with The Fiend... I just... I wish he had been here. I wish he was here now. I feel... so out of sorts."
Taya hums, reaching out and rubbing his back briskly. "I know," she says softly. "If he had been here, perhaps The Fiend wouldn't have wormed his way in the way he did, huh?" Mike nods and she smiles. "I think about stuff like that a lot. Like, things that would happen or wouldn't happen if John was here more. But I know keeping busy makes him happy, and I love him, so that's all I ever really want for him." She pauses. "Mike, I will say this though. He's gonna be home soon, and you'll probably be pleasantly surprised what comes next."
All he can do is gape at her as she smiles and winks at him, standing up and going back inside. "Wai- what does that mean?!" he demands, but she doesn't turn to respond or give any sign she'd heard him, the door clicking shut behind her. "Man, you can tell they're married," he mumbles. "She's as mysterious and non-forthcoming as he is now. Shit."
He doesn't want to leave AJ and the kids to go to Smackdown but he still has some worries, some residual guilt about Daniel still involving himself in all of this, so he sucks it up, he kisses AJ and the babies, and he takes his leave. Daniel starts the show off and Mike interrupts, tries to lay bare some of his angst about Daniel's only family and what might happen to them. He can already seen the refusal to accept, the pride keeping Daniel from asking for his help, in his former NXT rookie's eyes, but before they can really hash it out, figure something out, Corbin interrupts. Mike grits his teeth and listens to his pointless insults and useless rambling, but before he can really formulate a decent response, he's attacked from behind and squints up into the lights as Corbin and Ziggler laugh over his and Daniel's prone bodies. Well, there's only one way for this to go, he thinks sarcastically once his head stops pounding quite so relentlessly.
Sure enough, they get thrown into a tag match to end the night, and it goes about as expected. Mike and Daniel do not get along, but they're an ok team sometimes, and Mike breathes a little easier after he defeats Ziggler with the Figure Four, always relishing in making the man tap out more than anyone else. But time stops and Mike starts to panic when the lights die abruptly, just to come back on to The Fiend's horrible laughter echoing through the arena. He catches Daniel's eye but neither approach the other or ask if they're alright, their relationship has never been like that, even if Mike sometimes thinks it could've been. But pride before the fall and all of that.
He makes his way backstage, gnawing his lower lip anxiously, just to be told. Next week, triple threat match between he, Daniel and Corbin to determine a #1 contendership to The Fiend's belt. He closes his eyes and digs his knuckles in between his eyes. Merry Christmas, he thinks sarcastically before turning and trudging back to his locker room to get ready for his trip back home.