I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. There will be some back-and-forth between perspectives, sometimes without warning. Oh, and though this chapter also has stronger and more graphic sexual content (but funnily enough it's pared down quite a bit from the original version of this chapter) I need to put it out there that not all chapters from here on out will have sex scenes in them.

Chapter Twenty-One: The Next Day

He wakes up at one point during the night; it's common for him. His sleep rarely goes unbroken, and though he almost never remembers whatever it is he was dreaming about, he can guess it almost always involves gunfire, blood, and last words. But this time he wakes up against the sleeping body of a beautiful woman; someone who trusts him in a way she's never trusted anyone else. And for a moment he watches the smooth, unbroken line of her form, feels her breathe, back aligned with his chest as though all is right with the world, and it's easier to get back to sleep. He kisses the tattoo on her shoulder blade and after several minutes sleep finally comes to him, and lasts, perfect and dreamless, until morning.

F

He's there when she wakes up. `It's not that she's surprised that he followed through with his promise that this takes her aback, but rather that she's never had someone stay the night with her—outside of a slumber-party setting anyway. She's not used to the weight of someone else in bed, of the touch of skin on skin, of breath against the nape of her neck and a large, warm body against hers. She enjoys the sensation; the security in it. It would be hard not to feel secure in his grasp, one thick arm looped around her, holding her close. Still, she isn't sure what the protocol is for this. Does she have anything in her kitchen he might deem acceptable for breakfast? Or would he want to go home? She's pretty sure Tommy knows the rules for this sort of thing.

She shifts and turns her head back, seeing a face that in sleep looks more at peace than she will probably ever see him when he's awake. She turns her body, careful not to disturb his, and kisses lips that part slightly at the contact.

She smiles a little as he wakes up seconds later. "Good morning," she tells him, and starts to turn away, finding her panties on the floor and slipping them on before sliding out of bed. "Do you want any coffee?"

Tommy, meanwhile, is awake enough only to watch the sway of her hips as she heads to the kitchen, and the question barely registers. Without ever really having to try, she's probably the sexiest woman he's ever encountered. "Uh, sure," he starts to say, but then thinks better of it. She's not a kitchen maid. He's never been the kind of guy who demands his woman make him a sandwich after sex. He gets up, not giving a shit about his own nakedness, and crosses the room to reach her and the weird modesty she seems to have. He touches her arm as she busies herself with the coffee-maker, pouring grounds into the filter. "You don't have to worry about it right now," he tells her.

She bites her lip, eyes wide, and she turns away from the counter. "I just…I don't know how to do this," she says. "I don't know any of it, the 'what happens afterward' part." And just like that, her youth and only partial-experience hit him full-on in the face. She's never slept with anyone, never shared a bed with someone who would be there the next morning. She has one arm across her breasts, and he doesn't get why. He saw her naked only hours ago. She knows he has no problem whatsoever with it.

"What do you feel like doing?" he asks her.

She glances over at the bed and back at him. He gets the cue. "Me too," he says as he trails his hands down her sides before sliding one to her back, the other behind her legs as he tips her into his arms, causing her to yelp and then laugh as he carries her to the bed, far from done with her, lying her down on the bed and kneeling above her before leaning down, going further down south with his lips and tongue, hearing Jane's gasps and broken breathing, feeling every reaction as he continues. There's still a lot he hasn't explored, and he's impatient to find out. He slides down her panties, only for her to grab his wrists, sitting up to stop him. Her eyes are wide and there's something close to panic in them.

"What's wrong?" he asks. He would've expected a reaction like this yesterday, before she let him fuck her, before he slept with her. If anything, he thought she'd be more open to him going down on her than any other act.

"I've never…"

"You never had anyone go down on you. Or make sure you got off. I kind of guessed that."

"I never had anyone who tried," she says.

"I wanna change that," he tells her. She looks doubtful. He sighs. "What would you rather I do?"

She hesitates, slides out of the bed to stand, and lets gravity let her panties fall the rest of the way, stepping out of them, eyes never leaving his face.

"I…I want you to lie on your back," she says, and he does, eyes widening at the command. And he's pretty sure he couldn't be any more turned on when she climbs back onto the bed, swinging her legs on either side of him, watching his face carefully, as if waiting for him to tell her no. But his body can't lie, and she knows he won't. She sits back and slides down onto him.

She's still not used to this; she winces at the pressure and has to force herself to come down the rest of the way, taking the entirety of him into her, and for a moment she's still, adjusting to his size, not realizing that, like before, she whimpers, shutting her eyes for a moment. When she takes her hands from either side of his body and places them on his chest, she's not quite sure what she's doing. She starts to rock her hips, but she's uncertain; an apprentice. She's still in a little pain, but she's adamant. She wants to take the reins. She wants to be on top of him, wants to be the one to make him come. She wants her movements to guide him into his orgasm.

He seems to get all of this. After the initial groan as she took him into her, he brings his hands to her hips and starts to guide her, hands almost skimming over the flesh, not trying to force her into a specific rhythm. It's hard not to want to keep going, to take it further, when he looks up at her with an expression that clearly indicates that he is just fine with this arrangement.

All he can feel at first are tight, impossibly wet walls around his cock. He'd think that he'd be prepared for this, after a night without latex, but he's not. He doesn't even really like being on bottom, but seeing her body, the expanse of creamy skin, the slim, arching body and pert breasts and the way they follow the movement of her hips more than makes up for it. He watches her face, the way she closes her eyes when she sinks down fully onto him, hears the soft whimpering sound and doesn't exactly take pride in it—it's been a lot longer for her, after all—but loves how she tilts her head back, that moment before she starts to move.

She's never been on top, never called the shots and he knows it; it shows. And while he's lost in an overstimulated state that could turn him inside out he's somehow aware of the fact that he might have to guide her, at least at first. He brings his hands to her hips and tries not to grab too hard or let his fingers dig into her skin and tries not to thrust up suddenly like he wants to.

She finds her rhythm and her confidence early on, and he relinquishes all control, pulling his hands away from her hips and sliding them elsewhere, between her legs, teasing her breasts, playing on every reaction he provokes, enjoying the hitch in her breath, the keens and contractions and the sight of it. He gets it; she wants control. She wants to prove she has just as much of a say in this as he does. That even though he's larger and stronger he's not automatically the one who controls everything physical that will go on between them. But that's really not what he's thinking right now. Right now the only thing he's thinking coherently is that he loves the sight she presents: the way her back arches and those tits of hers bouncing in time with her rhythm keeps him more or less hypnotized; the sweet face looking sinful as she bites her lip and lets her head fall back.

She loves his body; spiders her hands across his chest and abdomen, brushes fingertips along the side of his face because from this position she can touch him far more easily. By that same token he can touch her far more easily as well and he takes full advantage of it; stimulates every pleasure zone he can reach, making her speed up, work against him harder, cry out and in turn further stimulate him. She loves the power she has right now. She doesn't want to be treated like a porcelain doll. She wants to ride him. She wants to make him come so hard he sees stars. She wants him to melt under her. Her, the sad, pale, mousey girl who never had any power with men. She finds her movements more easily, and the rocking becomes more certain, confident and she watches him but he's watching her, and it encourages her.

When he starts feeling his climax build, he grips her inner thighs, spreads them a little wider to get to her clit better, and starts rubbing his right thumb around it in a circle, and he hears the groan above him, the keen as she speeds up and brings her own hands to his abdomen. He does it again, this time at the same time his left hand squeezes one of her breasts tight and she clenches harder around him than before, grinds against him harder than before as she cries out louder than before, and he's done in. He comes into her with an insubordinate bucking of hips against hers as he finishes with a hard groan, one that's outmatched in volume by Jane's cry of what's probably a mixture of pain and pleasure as she digs her nails into his chest, lets out a "Fuck!" that resounds through the room—something else that her elderly Baptist downstairs neighbor will complain about, but that's the farthest thing from her mind.

It's shortly afterwards that something that's not quite an orgasm, at least not like the one she had the night earlier, brings her through the immediate aftermath. It's still a kind of release, still something that catches her as she catches her breath, added to the slight aftershock as she lifts her hips off of his, separating their bodies.

It doesn't last as long as the first time, but he doesn't care. He watches her flushed skin as she leans forward, slides off of him, and he brings his hands to her ribcage and pulls her down on top of him, her face just above his. Their eyes meet and hers are impossibly wide, the dark brown, the dark green all mixed together and her soft red lips are parted and he has to kiss them.

"Was that okay?" she says, and he almost laughs. Once again, she's become a naïve girl.

He raises a brow. He brings her forehead to his, the sweat mingling and he kisses her again.

"You," he tells her, "are fuckin' amazing."

She starts to laugh. Her eyes are bright and her face is flushed and there's sweat on the sheets and an energy in the air and he wouldn't want to be anywhere else. She brings her head to his chest, curls up into his side because really that's all the room the bed will allow.

"So," she murmurs against his chest, "Does coffee sound better right now?"

He laughs up at the ceiling. "I don't think I'll need it. Wide awake right now." All he can think is that this was worth the wait; he would've gladly waited even longer if it meant he'd be here with her. He doesn't quite get how; he isn't sure what sets him apart, but he knows she doesn't want anyone else; couldn't do anything like this with anyone else.

"You seem like kind of a gentleman," she says, the words muffled a little. She lifts her head and looks at him. "Like you follow some kind of etiquette with things like this."

He trails his fingertips along her spine. "What do you mean?"

"Last night," she tells him. "You made sure I came."

"With the kind of sex you were exposed to, all that time you went without any of it, any guy with a brain in his skull would've made sure you got off. You needed that more than I did." He makes sure she's still looking at him when he says, "A guy who doesn't care if you enjoy it or not isn't worth your time."

"At least two-thirds of women don't climax during sex, at least not most of the time."

"They can still enjoy it. They should get to."

"That's very considerate of you."

He doesn't want to get up. He wants to stay right here, lost in a post-orgasm haze with—and the word seems weird to him, since he hasn't really used it that often—his…girlfriend lying next to him, her breath evening to match his, the side of her face against his heart, being able to feel something like this, allowing himself to feel something like this; the intimacy that's not as familiar to him as Jane seems to think. A stillness that doesn't bother him.

After several minutes she lifts her head up to cast a lazy glance at the clock on the wall, one of constellations and painted suns in place of numbers, and her eyes get huge as she gets up, muttering, "Shit!" as she crawls over him and out of bed.

Tommy sits up as Jane heads to her dresser, her movements a little sore, pulls on a pair of clean panties and then a sports bra. "What's going on?" he asks.

She turns around, trying to alternate getting dressed and explaining it to him. "I have a meeting I have to go to. Usually I can get a ride but today I'm commuting and if I don't leave soon I will be late." She does an odd little dance hopping into a pair of jeans that hang off her hips as she fastens them.

"An AA meeting?" he says, getting out of bed.

"Yeah. One of those."

And it's something he almost forgot about. Or maybe wanted to forget; brushed aside. And the fact stops him short, the way she drops it so casually.

"Do you have to?" he says, and it sounds so childish he almost winces.

"I'm afraid so," she says, now putting on and tying her shoes.

He sighs. He might as well get dressed, too. He finds his boxers on the floor and pulls them on, followed by his pants.

Once she's finished getting dressed, she turns and notices. "I'll be coming back," she tells him.

"Well, yeah, since it's your apartment," he says, tucking his wallet back into his pocket and finding his shirt somewhere a couple feet away. "I have a couple of things I need to take care of, too."

Jane bites her lip.

They end up leaving together, but it's not until they're nearly outside that Jane stops him. "When do I get to see you again?" she asks.

Tommy just looks at her for a moment. Just over a week ago they started back up a relationship that had been rocky in earlier months, the foreplay more mental than physical. Starting last night it's shifted and grown and it's even better than he expected. "When do you want to?" he asks.

She smiles a little at him, shrugs as she says, "The first chance I get."

He can't help but grin back. He smiles more with her than he has in over a year. "You have any mornings free? Just to talk, plan out something to do for the weekend?"

She nods. "Tuesday. My one free morning."

"When're you most awake in the morning?"

"It doesn't really matter; I'm a morning person. If it's after seven, seven-thirty and I've gotten more than three hours of sleep, I'm good to go." Holy shit, he believes that.

"So, what, nine?" Enough time to run, to do as many push-ups as his body will allow, and to get ready.

"Sounds good. Here?"

"Wherever you want," he tells her, and means it. Outside a church basement where twelve-step meetings are held, in the back alley near his apartment, in the pits of hell. If he sees her and she's okay it's fine by him.

She grins; a closed-mouth affair that quirks up one corner of her mouth. "Here, then," she says, leans in, and kisses him, sweet mouth almost smiling against his. And for a second he wonders why he pulled away when all she said was that she was going to a meeting. She's not a born-again Christian with no personality and nothing but shame. She's just her.

As they head out the door, he asks, "Does he know that you know me?"

She doesn't seem bothered by the question. And her answer puts him at ease. "Nah. Not unless you told him yourself or he's capable of telepathy." She understands the look on his face. "I don't think that it's my call to make. He's your father, not mine."

"Thanks." He doesn't need to add that he'd rather she continue keeping quiet about it. He isn't going to swap war stories with the old man and he sure as hell isn't going to talk about women with the old man. He couldn't talk about his own experiences if he wanted to. And Pop is the last person on earth who could give advice about women. He doesn't get to know about it.

As they head off in separate directions, he glances behind him, raises an eyebrow at the baggy jeans and tee-shirt she has on. He likes that he's the only person who gets to see the sweet body underneath those oversized clothes.

E

She's still a little late to the meeting, and more heads turn in her direction than usual. She doesn't think she looks that frazzled, even if it's humid out and the soreness between her legs shows in her walk (which it does not.) She sits across from Dionne, who catches her eye and looks down as though she's trying not to either grin or roll her eyes as the contact sheet comes around and a newcomer gets a welcome packet.

Patrick's been coming to the meeting on Jefferson Street most Sundays for the past several months, which doesn't help matters. The awkwardness of sitting through twelve-step meetings with Tommy's father was already uncomfortable when she found out the two were related. Now she's certain he has a Dad-radar of some sort—hell, maybe he is capable of telepathy—and that at one point in which he smiles at her those blue eyes can get in one glance that she fucked his youngest son, the apple of his eye, just earlier this morning.

She doesn't usually share at meetings, and much prefers to listen because there's not much she can say that no one else isn't already saying. And though she's crossed a bridge she was terrified to even face, though she's completely, giddily happy and grinning like an idiot at several points during the meeting, she holds back from sharing why. Some things you don't share at meetings. Some things you keep a little closer, and share with a sponsor and few people else.

And because her sponsor is her lifeline, she and Dionne catch up in private after Jane drinks a Styrofoam cup of coffee that scalds her tongue and throat, goes to the bathroom and finally faces the woman who might not have telepathic powers but does have much more of an idea of what's going on in Jane's life.

"You really meant it when you said you wanted to take things farther soon," she says in a near-whisper as they leave the church, avoiding people coming in for the late service.

Dionne's car was in the shop earlier that morning but now she can give Jane a ride and take away another excuse to avoid telling the truth.

"So the two of you went for it," she says.

"That's not a question, is it?"

"Hell no. The way you're walking? The way you kept smiling even when you showed up late? And come on. I'm a woman. I know a post-coitus glow when I see it."

The post-coitus glow that's turning into a blush. "Well, I followed your rules, at least." She adds, "It was good advice. Thank you."

After a few moments, Dionne says, "I'm glad it was a pleasant experience for you."

She says it because she can't quite keep it down. It's hard for her to keep things from her sponsor. "He made sure I got off. He didn't force me into anything I wasn't ready to do."

Dionne smiles a little, watching the road. "Amazing how different it is when the man wants to make it good for you."

"Just how much does this change everything?"

"It pushes things into new territory. You may need to play things by ear. There will be things you'll need to spell out for him."

"Yeah." She sighs and sits back. She's sore and it's the only real proof to her that she's not in some incredible dream from which she'll wake up and find none of it ever happened.