Summers of Mindoir

Chapter 1: Last Resorts

Year 2150 – Earth, Ireland

Shepard was in a bad spot.

"Shepard takes a right hook to the jaw! Manningham is driving him to the ropes!"

Broken jaw, ribs getting hammered, backed into a corner. He needs to push back or he's done. A left hook to the face…nope, missed. Manningham is gonna punish him for that.

"Manningham is like a machinegun with hands and Shepard is getting riddled out there!"

The crowd seems bored. This outcome was predictable. Will Shepard was probably the biggest bum in his weight-class, while Ryan Manningham was a rising star contender. Most folks were just happy to rake in the easy bet money. Except for one face in the crowd: that face belonged to a dark-haired woman with a silver-band around her ring finger. Her aquamarine-colored eyes looked on the match with horror and disgust…and it was about to get worse.

Will could barely see anything right now, all he could feel was Ryan's shots and jabs. Ref is this close to calling a TKO, but Ryan was just about ready to end it anyway, he's winding up for a haymaker.

Aw shit. That was Will's last thought before fist met skull.

"Shepard is down! Manningham delivered a nasty right haymaker and it was Goodnight Irene! Ref is calling it annnnd…that's it! Manningham wins by KO in 5 rounds. He continues his climb up the ladder while Shepard eats his 12th straight loss: this is also his 4th KO loss this year. If you ask me, he needs a thorough head examination after tonight."

Shepard's crew started crowding him, ready to bring out the stretcher. To his credit though, he managed to regain consciousness and slowly but surely summoned the strength to stand up. He let his pride fuel him on the way. As he hobbled his way out of the ring, he could see through his swollen, puffy eyes the dark-haired woman waiting on the floor by the exit to the locker-room. Her face looked damp from semi-dried tears, her eyes betraying a look of concern, disgust and frustration all at once.

"You look like shit," she managed to say.

"Is it that bad?" He replied. Feeling out his face, and yeah he certainly felt like shit right now.

"Worse…come here," she waved at him to come over and when he was close enough she draped his arm over her shoulder to support him, then they slowly made their way to the locker-room.

"I was scared you were actually going to die this time," the woman said in a subtle, angry tone.

"Ah come on Hannah…you know I'd never leave you," his voice was slurred, but that response seemed to have earned him a faint smile.

"How many times do you have to lose before you realize this isn't working?"

"Till I make just enough for the farm."

"I'm going to be burying you under the farm at this rate!" she said with more anguish in her voice. The two of them had been looking to buy a plot of land to start a farming business together. The thing was though that the Earth was now so developed and over-populated, fresh farm land was extremely expensive to come by. And for a young William Shepard, boxing seemed to be the only way to come into that kind of money. Ever since he was a child growing up in the Irish countryside, all he knew how to do was fight. Now that he had a family to look after, he was especially determined to win just one big pay-out to set them up. So much so that he signed up for the most dangerous, underground boxing circuit in Ireland just to maximize the earnings.

Once they made it to the locker-room, Hannah set him on the lounger and started applying the first-aid to him. She's done this so many times she was practically his personal physician.

She sighed, "I'm getting really sick of this Rocky impression you know," she said while slowly stitching his face together. He hissed every time the needle pierced his skin.

"I know you think this is the only way to make our dreams come true," she finished the stitches and started gently rubbing his face, feeling out any blemishes. Her voice took a more concerned and contemplative tone. "But the dream, isn't worth your life. Especially now that…" She took her free hand and started rubbing her slightly swollen tummy. "It's not just the two of us we need to look after anymore," Will didn't reply, just laid down absorbing her words. "…And if you do make out of this alive, I don't want the first words you try to teach our child be slurred through a concussion."

It was Will's turn to talk now, so he took a deep breath and held onto his wife's hand. "Hannah…I know it's not fun at all watching me up there," she scowled at the blindingly obvious statement. "But trust me. With my record, all it's gonna take is for me to pull one upset win: everything will be set for us, and I'll never put the gloves on again."

Hannah took a moment to take in what he said. "What if that win never comes? What if you just keep getting your ass beat every week, and I'm the one left to fix you up until there's nothing left of you?!" Her voice choked, and tears started welling up in her eyes as she asked. "And then I'm the one stuck with raising a baby by myself?! What then Will Shepard?"

Will was at a loss with her questions. He hated seeing her upset, especially when he was the cause of it. And there was no denying her logic, there was no reason to believe that a win would ever come with the luck he was having. Shepard always showed heart in the ring, but blind determination could only get you so far and he was regularly proven to be overmatched in this league.

"So…you'd rather I just give up and we lose the dream?"

"I'd rather lose the dream than lose you, yes," That hit him like a ton of bricks. "And have you look into non-life-threatening ways of making money like the rest of us normal folk do."

Will took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling. "Ahhh…ok darlin'. I'll think about it."

"You'll do it."

"I'll think about it."

"I don't think that noggin' of yours is any condition to do 'thinkin' after the beating it just took. So do it!"

"Alright! Alright! I'll set up a meeting with Brenden and we'll work something out."

Hannah took a big sigh of relief. "Good…that's I wanted to hear." She pulled up a chair, gave him a soft kiss and rested her head on his bandage-wrapped chest, feeling the steady movement of his breathing, their hands still locked together. The subtle power of sleep started to claim both of them, until Hannah suddenly remembered something she wanted to tell him before his match started.

"It's a boy."

That woke Will right back up.

"Huh?"

"The doctors, they said it was boy…we're having a son Will."

"A son…" a wide smile started growing across Will's face. It messed up the stiches a little bit, but he hardly cared. "That's wonderful news darlin'."

Contrary to Hannah's earlier joke, Will's noggin' was doing a lot of thinking right now. Specifically, what exactly was he going to tell his bookie Brenden to get him a good-paying winnable match. Because now with thoughts of his son now rolling in his head, he was more determined than ever to secure a good future for his wife and the little one. He should probably think about what he was gonna tell Hannah if he booked that match too.

A/N: So, after many years of lurking on this site, I've finally decided to try my own hand at this writing business and came up with this story. Please leave a review, let me know what you all think. I really want to make this a new hobby for me. Thanks for reading :)

By-the-by: The son Hannah is pregnant with isn't THE Shepard yet. It's his older brother, but we'll get to that. Special Thanks goes to RedCenturianG for beta-reading for me. Check him out, the guy is an excellent writer!