Paige POV:

"What is your deal?!" I half yell, even though I'm a little scared at the look she's giving me; this overwhelming look of withheld anger that's she's trying to restrain.

"You are my deal, Saraya. This attitude you have towards me is getting old. Anybody else, I wouldn't have even cared. But it's you. And I know you. Maybe better than you know yourself. You're finding and holding onto reasons to dislike me because--"

"Because what? Because you think I can't admit my own feelings? You're wrong." I cross my arms while stating.

She shakes her head. "Oh, sweetie. Do you really think that?" she asks with a condescending tone.

"I don't think it, I know it, pumpkin." I respond, matching her tone.

She clicks her tongue. "You say that, yet--"

"Yet nothing. You never wanted to speak to me again." I stand up so I can get the upper hand. That did not feel good, April. It took a while to stop feeling guilty for the demise of our friendship and for me to move on. And I called you when I was drunk." I point out.

She has this bemused look on her face as she rises. "Hmm, when you say 'You never wanted to speak to me again' I get this strange feeling of deja vu. Nevertheless, if you would ever have a normal conversation with me, you'd know that I was wrong for saying that. I regret it very much. And you being drunk doesn't mean shit. In fact, it only proves my point even further."

"And your point is?"

"You make up all these reasons to deny the truth of how you really feel. Keep up, Sara, I've already said this."

I roll my eyes as I ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. "Since you know everything about me, go ahead and tell me how I really feel. Go on." I gesture for her to continue.

She stares at me for a few moments. "You miss me. Duh." She scoffs.

I snort a little. "Ok April."

"So you're saying, when you heard my theme song, hell, even when you saw that you had an anonymous opponent, you weren't even a little hopeful it was me?"

I just shake my head no in response. "Well that's just a bold face lie, now isn't it, Saraya?"

"Maybe to you."

"Stop lying."

"I'm not lying."

"Stop lying."

"I'm not--"

"Don't lie to me, Sara."

"I'm not lying! Ok? I. Am. Not. Lying. Goddamn, April." I huff out.

She narrows her eyes. "I can't believe you're making me do this." She steps forward to me, making me step back some.

"You're gonna get... the Treatment." My eyes widen. Oh no, not the treatment.

"A.J... stay back. I-I'm warning you." I nervously say as I put my hands up in defense. I don't want the treatment! She was always ruthless with it.

She just keeps coming closer. "A.J, please don't do this." I plead.

She shakes her head, "You've left me no choice. This is the only way to get the truth from you."

My legs hit the back of the bed, so I push her and try to get away, but she grabs my arms and roughly pins me to my bed. I try to wiggle and worm my way out of her grasp, but once she sits on my legs and locks my arms in between, it's a done deal.

Here it goes. The Tickle Treatment.

She opens fire and starts tickling my sides, and I start giggling uncontrollably.

"A.J. please!" I ask through my first of giggles. She's not letting up, though.

"Tell me the truth, Saraya." She responds.

"I did already! April please--" I can't even finish because she's tickling me so hard.

"Tsk tsk tsk. I guess we gotta turn this up a notch." She says as she tickles up my back to my neck. My most sensitive part of my body.

Through my laughter, tears, and loss of breath, I finally give in. "Alright! I did!"

"Did what?"

"I LIED! I DID MISS YOU!"

She finally stops, and I finally stop laughing. I've laughed so much my lungs hurt and it's hard to let air in.

She gets off my of my legs and I turn over so I can hold onto my ribs and catch my breath. At the same time, I'm thinking about how I'm gonna get her back.

She makes a noise and I look up at her; she's holding her hand out with a grin. I take it and she pulls me up.

"It didn't have to come to that, you know." She sarcastically sighs out as she gently takes us back to the couch.

"Now, can we please have this overdue conversation?"

"I though we did," I say with one final breath. "Isn't this how this all started?"

"That was not a conversation. It was us trying to convince each other of something."

I don't say anything for a few moments, but I eventually give in. What harm could come from us talking? "Where do we start?"

She gives it some thought. "Talk to me about what happened when I 'left'."

I roll my eyes. "When we were at the hospital, you said you never wanted to speak to me again. That made me feel like you never cared about me nor our friendship if you were willing to throw it all away. And I was hurt, because I thought you were going to be my biggest supporter when I came to Raw. But you showed otherwise, and I couldn't get over that." It felt so good to get some of the weight she left off of my chest.

"At the time, I was very upset, very--"

"Egotistical? Powerhungry? Arrogant?" I smirk. She laughs.

"Egotistical is more like it, yeah. I did let success go to my head, and I became an asshole. And I was mad that it was you to beat me--"

"Why? Like, that whole day, you were ignoring me, my text, my calls. We were supposed to meet up that day for lunch. You just ghosted on me. So I know you were mad at me for something else that Monday, April. I just wanted to know what I did."

She watches me cross my legs as I watched her tense up but smile nervously. "You did absolutely nothing. If anything, I was mad at myself. Something could have gone a certain way that day and I was pissed for making myself believe that it could. I can apologize for that."

I really want to press more into why she was upset, but I can see she's getting tense talking about this, so I just nod and let it go.

"Anything else you wanna know?" She gets up and goes over to pick up the remote she once threw on the ground.

As she bends over to pick it up, and I turn away as I blush furiously. It was probably on purpose.

I clear my throat as she comes back over. "Do you need some water?" She asks, sitting down.

I shake my head, both to say no and to shake loose all of the dirty thoughts that just popped in.

"What has been going with you? Like, you haven't acting like yourself." I reply.

She cocks her head. "How have I been acting?" She half laughs out. She knows exactly what she's doing.

"You've been very... comfortable around me. But if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were being flirty with me." I think she has been, but I'd like to be sure before I make any final decisions.

Her eyebrows scrunch up. "You've pushed me to be this comfortable with you, and that's what I'm doing!"

"Why now?" I laugh out.

"Because," I wanted to tell her how stuttering makes her guilty. "This is something you've wanted from me, and I'm showing I'm serious about this friendship by giving you something you've wanted from me." She eagerly nods with a smile.

"That isn't all she wants from you, April." That voice interrupts. I roll my eyes a little as I ignore it.

"But um, you feel like I've been flirty towards you?" She smirks.

My heart flutters a little. "I mean, haven't you?"

"Oh, of course." She shrugs like it's nothing.

I hold back a grin. "Why, though?"

She raises an eyebrow slightly. " Because you started it! You called me and you left a very sensual, very sexy message for me. It would be rude of me to not return the favor." She argues as she laughs.

I groan dramatically with a smile and blush forming. "This damn voicemail... was it that bad?" I cringe while burying my head in my hands. I never got to listen to it, so I'm curious. At the same time, sexy? Sensual? I'm a little anxious and afraid to hear what I've said.

I hear her leave the couch. "Define 'bad'." She replies.

I take my hands off of my face and brush my hair back. "Embarrassing. Humiliating. Frustrating." I shake my head to myself.

"Why frustrated?" She asks.

"Because when I get drunk out of my bloody mind, I always doing something crazy. Something I probably I had no business doing."

"Oh. Like what?" She comes back and sits down with a phone in her hand.

I shrug. "Like this. Ooh and remember what I told you about that situation at Mickey's? When I left with no skirt with Meredith?" I disappointedly shake my head and laugh. "I was convinced it was there, just nobody saw it."

I hear her chuckle softly. "I remember when you told me." she ruffles her hair and leans back, holding her legs close to her. It's times like that I see the (kinda) innocent side of April that makes her... adorable. And cute.

I look at her and sigh. "I was never gonna tell you I knew about it. Well, I never listened to it so it wasn't gonna be much work."

April scoots over closer to me and starts to fiddle with her phone. "That was never going to work. You know I'm persistent," She chuckles. "But I give you an A for effort!" She tries to sound sympathetic, but ends up laughing. I just smile at her.

"Would you like to hear it?" she asks.

I shake my head. "I think I'm okay."

"Too late." And she begins to play the voicemail. I close my eyes so I won't have to look at her; what I'm about to could be so embarrassing.

Right, I was. It's so cringeworthy and hard to listen to:

"I hate myself for missing you, knowing damn well that I shouldn't."

"Can't kiss you, squeeze you in all the right places."

"Maybe I need to sit on your face to get the point across." It was right here that I squealed and cringe the hardest. Yet, at the same time, my body starts responding to the thought of it.

I hear April laugh and she turns it off. This is funny to her? Seeing me like this?

"So you enjoy torturing me like this? Making me feel totally embarrassed?" I asked defensively, finally taking my head out of my hands.

Her amused look doesn't go away. "I do enjoy torturing you like this, but not to embarrass you, darling. It's to laugh about a stupid situation."

I just look at her and she smiles. I guess she's right.

"So... are we good? Can we finally get this friendship back on track?" She asks, hope shining through.

I sigh. I do miss her a lot, now that I can finally say it. She seems really sincere about apologizing, even though I had to pull it from her. And... it would be a little nice to be near her, and not feel the guilt about thinking of her, as a friend. It'll still be weird to think of her as anything more. It's definitely awkward to be looking her in the eyes knowing I just had an orgasm to her.

I blink excessively and squint my eyes at her before grinning and tackling her in a hug. A hug that she gladly accepts.

"The dream team is back!" I throw my feet on the ground, standing up straight while still having my arms wrapped around her waist.

She squeals as she wraps her legs around my torso. "It's about damn time! Pai-J in full effect!"

"So long as you don't push me away." I remind her.

"We'll see how you act when you're around a few crates," She replies.

I pull back and look at her funny. "What? Too soon?"

I shake my head; the last thing I do before I attack her with the Tickle Treatment.

*the next day, 6:00 pm*

I'm walking and talking through the halls with April to the locker room, though she's not actually going in.

"Text me when you're done, 'kay?" She asks while rubbing my arm. Before I can even try to tell her I lost my phone, she walks off quickly. I watch her walk away as somebody from production walks up to her and says something to make her walk back to me.

"Mark wants to see us." She shrugs. I nod and we walk in the direction of Mark Carrano, Senior Director of talent relations.

...

"Paige, A.J. Thank you for coming." Mark says, getting up to greet us as we enter his office. He walks around and hugs us both.

"Anything for you, Marcus." AJ says as we sit down.

"AJ," he says in a warning tone, but he smiles to show he's playing.

"Sorry, Mark." She responds as she sits back.

"How are we doing, ladies?" He asks. We both say good. "Well it's great to see you back, A.J. How are you feeling?"

"Well I'm feeling great. Kinda on cloud nine, actually." She says happily. I just half smile to myself.

"That's great. Well, obviously we have some things to go over. First: Paige your rematch for the title is scheduled at the next pay-per-view, Battleground. And, this is great because we're gonna build up the... tension between you two. Sounds good?" He finishes as he starts writing something down.

"Sounds good to me. I love a good feud." I reply in A.J.'s direction just to get a rise out of her. But it is very true; it's been 3 months since I've been to Raw and, while I was champion, I was champion for three months. I never got a rivalry even though there were many of times when I could've. On top of that, I never really had a storyline, except the diva who's different from all the others. So I'm very glad to have this; it's even better because it's with A.J.

She looks over at me as she smirks. "What a coincidence, so do I. But what type of feud will this, Mark?"

He hesitates before he speaks. "So, the thing about that is it's more... intimate, than some would like to think. I-it's more on the 13 side of PG-13... more like 14."

I'm not sure if I'm hearing him correctly. "A lesbian storyline?" I ask, trying not to show how excited I am. I see A.J. sitting still looking at him skeptically.

He stops writing and looks up, "Well, not totally 'lesbian'. It's not full blown sex. It's just... okay so it's a tension between you, obviously. It's starts off over the title, then, Paige, you'll start playing mind games with A.J.: you'll want to be her friend but you turn on her and start mimicking her. But A.J. takes it as you want to be more than friends and starts making advances to you. From there it's just random thoughts. Nothing's stable yet, but it's a path the board and I want to take a chance with."

I'm very eager to do this story. I honestly love it and I think it'll shock people.

After a moment, A.J. sits up straight. "How... fitting," She sighs out with a smile. "So you say there's no sex, even though Edge and Lita basically jizzed on all of America, then what is the ideal limit?"

I nearly snorted as I laughed. Carrano just smiles. "Truthfully, I don't know the board might say, but if it was up to me, I don't think kissing is all that bad. But who knows, since you're obviously with Punk, A.J., and we don't want to do anything that may cause conflict between you two. Before we do anything, we want everybody on the same page."

A.J. deflates a little at the mention of Phil. "We're not together anymore, Mark." What?! They're not together? Why didn't she tell me? Why do I feel guilty for not being totally sad about it?

Mark looks regretfully at her. "I'm so sorry A.J. I didn't know."

She shrugs and waved it off. "Not a problem. Not many did. But back on track, I'd be happy to be apart of her first storyline on Raw. It's like an honor."

I feel my cheeks get hot. I guess we're just gonna ignore the bomb she dropped on us. "Well if she's down, then I'm obviously down, too. This can be a really great opportunity." I smile.

"Hmm, are you sure it isn't because you just want to kiss me?" She asks and I snap my focus at her, only to find her giggling. Oh, it was a joke.

"Yes, A.J. All I want to do is tongue you down in tens of thousands of people on national television. In fact, why don't we go get a room afterwards?" I sarcastically suggest.

She looks impressed at my comeback. "Why wait till then? I bet there's a dark corner around there somewhere."

"I'll meet you at the nearest one." We just stare at each other until we just end up in a fit of laughter. Yeah, I'm laughing on the outside. On the inside, I'm finding the strength to not show my true emotions: not trying to show that deep down, I'm really, seriously, considering it and I am getting wet just thinking about it.

We hear Mark cough and we focus back on him. "Well, there's no question if you'll work well with each other. We'll start this next Monday. Tonight is a free night, but Paige, you have a house show tomorrow near Quebec against Summer. I'll email you about it, if not tomorrow morning." He nods.

I shake my head. "I lost my phone a couple days ago."

"Oh I'm sorry about that. I'll just find you before tonight then." I nod. "Unless there's anything else, I'll see you girls later." He finishes and we both stand up and head for the door.

We both say our goodbyes to him and head out the door.

"You said you lost your phone?" She asks after a brief silence.

I nod in response. "Was it the night we arrived here? On the bus?"

"Yeah. I woke up and my headphones were lying right next to me, even though I slept with music playing."

We keep walking until we reach the locker room again. "Well I don't know if this helps any, but I woke up and saw somebody getting up and walking away from next to you."

"Really?" This is great news, not a lot, but enough to know I didn't lose my phone. Somebody stole it. "Did you get a good look at them?"

She shakes her head. "All I know is that it was definitely a guy with a hood on. He had a, um, a red stripe on his jacket's bicep."

It takes me a minute to think about what A.J. tells me and try to match it with anybody I can think of. Then in instantly comes to me. I'm so stupid for not suspecting him sooner.

I give A.J. a big hug and thank her for telling me. From there, I quickly walk in the direction of the men's locker room.