As I've done before, I'll add musical cues, if you'd like to listen to what would be the "soundtrack." It's basically just what I use to write and imagine the scenes.

At half past midnight, Scout face planted directly onto the burgundy red couch in front of the massive fireplace that took up her living room. One wonderful thing about inheriting her great-grandparents' house, being that it was 200 years older than she, it had been built so consciously she could heat almost the entire house just by using the fireplaces. When she was in the mood to make the effort. She bellowed into the giant pillow, the dog sticking his enormous fluffy blockhead in her face.

"Ten HOURS" she groaned. She hadn't imagined she'd have been able to spend that much time in a car in a single day, but she'd done it, going to Philly and back. After she'd tucked herself and the dog into her queen size bed, she scratched the top of his head and yawned.

"Did you have a good time with Megan today?" She asked rhetorically. Her friend from next door had come in to take the big Newfoundland to her house while Scout had been gone. The trip would have been too much for the curious canine. Scout sipped hot chocolate with fluff and marshmallows, and drifted off to the sounds of NatGeo.

Announcer's Voice: Welcome back to ESPN2. We're bringing you the exclusive coverage for the upcoming MMA event that has everyone talking: SPARTA, the War on the Shore will be held July 4th of this year in Atlantic City. And now that it's been announced that legendary Russian Sambo champion Koba will be coming to the United States to participate in this epic event, we also want to update our viewers on another development that has been in MMA news over the last two days. Both manager Jem McKinley and fighter William Royce were involved in a major car accident over this weekend, leaving Heorot MMA to select another fighter to train for Sparta. J.J. Riley confirms that bid as of yesterday morning belongs to Kondo McKenna, a 14-0 fighter out of Pittsburgh known for his speed and tenacity. Born deaf in Ghana, and adopted by a Pennsylvania couple in 1996, the 24 year old's name, trainer Jamie Kenzel tells us, is Swahili for "battle." And what a battle it shall be. We in the MMA community are thinking of the families of both McKinley and Royce this morning as they recover in a Philadelphia area hospital. More on this new fighter tomorrow night at 10 on Sparta Exclusive, our weekly update program going into the tournament. In other news….

Scout crunched out to the car through the snow in her favorite low-heeled boots, her brown Castille Uggs that Jem had bought for her when they were wandering around downtown Philly. Dark skinny jeans and a fitted emerald green scoop neck sweater rounded out the rest of her outfit, and she'd put on her big, cozy wool letterman jacket, charcoal grey with black sleeves and the "Heorot MMA" logo on the back. Along with naming her children after characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem's mother had poured literary appreciation into her children in other ways, and naming their club Heorot after the mead hall in Beowulf was Jem's nod to that. Meaning hall of the "Hart" which was a male deer, Jem also liked the dual concept of masculinity and "heart" which he hoped all his fighters would have. Also acknowledging that warriors who live and gather together at a mead hall develop a very strong bond, almost like a family bond, the name, Jem thought, perfectly rounded out the ideals to which he was hoping to aspire.

Scout punched in the code to open the garage, which was detached from the house, and looked over her car. It had started out as a rather tragically neglected cherry red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible, which she carefully nursed back to life with the help of some very helpful and knowledgeable antique car mechanics, who fulfilled her bizarre request to match Behr paint's "Precious Emerald" and repaint the entire thing. The white wall tires, the off white leather interior (almost never seen because of the Newf whose presence required blankets on the seats) and the sweet new engine brought her "baby" to life. And she drove it every chance she got. She opened the door and the dog bounded into the passenger's seat.

Scout pulled up to the little alley at Colt's where she'd parked the few times she'd been there since it had changed from Fitzy's. Truth to tell, she hadn't been to Fitzy's since she was nine anyway. Her grandfather had only brought her to that particular gym a few times. But she'd met Colt and become friendly with him when her brother had broken into the MMA side of the fighting business, and she'd come by to look at independent fighters Colt thought were decent but didn't have the time to train. She'd look at them for her brother, who wanted a better look than a YouTube clip before making the trip from Philly himself. She pulled her big black Céline luggage tote (a particularly luxurious birthday gift to herself after a bad breakup) out of the backseat and brushed the leather a bit. She had a terrible weakness for couture handbags. But nothing impractical. The volume of quirky contents she carried with her had saved the day on more than one occasion. Obediently, her dog hopped out of the car and shook himself out as she shut the door. She rounded the corner to Colt's, pulling the door open.

Tommy Conlon had gotten to the gym an hour before his trainer. He'd taken an especially convoluted route on his run to the gym that day just to have time on his own without him. But he had showed up eventually, and directed Tommy to the next set of revolutions. He was hitting the bag, and quite enjoying the blasts of cold air from outside that hit his body and came through the chain link fence where Fenroy sat, as the different trainers and fighters and corner guys came in throughout the morning. The sucking sound of the door opening thrust a fresh breeze of chilly Pittsburgh winter air towards Tommy, and with it, the slightest scent of mandarin, iris and lotus. And then there was a loud bark.

(Play) Ellie Goulding- Explosions

Scout shuffled inside and shook involuntarily, hugging her coat close. She ushered her big Newf into the gym quietly, she had asked Colt if he was all right with her bringing a small horse to his training facility, and he hadn't minded one bit. He didn't have dogs himself, he said, or he'd bring them. She hoped that he had mentioned it to his staff.

"I'm Scout McKinley, it's Fenroy, right?"

She smiled. She learned to smile a lot being a child in old school gyms where a lot of men were uneasy having girls around.

"Yeah, Hi!" Fenroy said. He came around the corner.

"Colt told me you'd be coming in, and your team has already settled in, so yeah, you're good to go."

Then Fenroy laughed when the Newfoundland barked loudly. "Who's this?" He leaned down and pet his big head.

"This is my big monster," she said, laughing. "No barking." She told the dog.

Then she turned to Fenroy. "I hope it's okay, Colt said it was fine-"

"Hey Scout!" Jamie yelled from across the room.

Scout stood up on her tiptoes and waved.

Fenroy smiled "You're good, go ahead."

Then she walked around the entrance and into the main gym, and into view.

Paddy Conlon didn't notice Scout. But he definitely saw Tommy notice Scout. Tommy actually stopped punching and broke focus, which never happened, and Paddy scrunched up his eyes in confusion until he turned to see what his son was looking at. If it weren't for the wavy reddish hair past her shoulders, he would've sworn to himself that he was looking at a young Gene Tierney. He watched Tommy lick his lips and roll around the toothpick he insisted on keeping in his mouth as much as possible, until he was biting on it.

"Hey! Come on! Back to work!" He grumbled.

Tommy watched her, whoever she was, with fascination as she strode over to the group of men who were gathered around a sparring pair on the mats in the corner. He was entranced. She reminded him of the starlets in the old movies his mom had loved so much. Halfway over to the group she seemed to belong to, she took the dog's leash off of him, and the fluffy, black, 130 pound Newfound barreled towards the oldest of the men, the skinny, frail looking guy he heard them call Gus.

"Mathúin!" She snapped, and the dog skidded to a stop.

"Gentle with Gus." She said, as she approached her team. She turned towards Tommy and flushed a bit in her freckled cheeks when she saw him looking at her, turning her head quickly to sweep her hair in front of her face. The dog enthusiastically greeted all of the members of her team, and they swallowed Scout up in their fold, chattering away as Kondo grabbed her and hugged her, ecstatic about Sparta.

Tommy noticed his father laughing and he scowled.

"Whasso funny?"

"Mathúin" he said, pronouncing the dog's name, ma-HOO-in the way Scout had. "is old Irish for bear."

Fenroy walked by, carrying a stack of flyers to pin on the bulletin board for members out back, and Tommy tapped him gently as he walked by the bags.

"Hey." He said. He and Fenroy had shared an uneasy trust ever since Tommy had gotten the idea that it had been Fenroy who had posted the Pittsburgh Beatdown video of him on Youtube. He gestured over to Scout and Kondo, who were talking enthusiastically together.

"Issat her boyfriend?" He asked.

"Sinless Scout?" he laughed. "Nah, man, it's much more serious than that. He's her fighter."

Tommy furrowed his brow. On the one hand, on the extremely rare occasion Tommy saw a girl who he was certain could hold his attention longer than one night for reasons other than physical enjoyment, who was apparently uninvolved, he was pleased. On the other, he was shocked that she seemed to be part of the training team. He wasn't used to that. The girls he knew were usually around fighters for reasons other than learning the sweet science. But as he gazed at her from what he believed was time to time throughout the day, and was in actuality aggressive, hungry, persistent staring, he saw that she was actively working. The big teddy bear she'd brought with her stayed by her side most of the day. Physically, she wasn't just a pretty face. In her pretty green low cut sweater he could see how delicate and pale her skin was, and wondered how soft it might be. She was busty, with a high, round behind, and legs so long they seemed to start in her ribcage. But she was by no means a beanpole. Tommy tended to like girls with a certain soft curvaceousness. As he went through his workout routine, and listened to Paddy's instructions, he watched her in those gaps in focus he allowed himself to refresh his mind.

Scout had seen the Pittsburgh Beatdown video. Jem had texted her the link with the caption 'LMAO'. Neither were fans of Mad Dog's cockiness. She'd seen this fighter's intensity in the video, his drive, his viciousness, his raw power. But she hadn't realized how physically imposing he was until she was walking across the gym for one reason or another (towels for Kondo, water from the fountain for Gus, taking Mathúin out for a break). Her heart almost stopped when she took her phone upstairs to call the hospital for the third time for an update on Jem and could see Tommy Riordan staring at her through the slats in the steps, his eyes on her as he worked a speed bag. She usually never found herself intrigued by a fighter for reasons other than skill and potential, and it made her uneasy.

After dark, when Scout was getting ready to leave, and Tommy had enlisted another fighter to spar (civilly) with him, he stopped as his opponent fixed his gloves and watched her walk out, the cold blast of air as she opened the door sending a chill through his muscles as the air blew across the sweat on his skin.