I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. The reference Jane makes is to the post "Adventures in Depression" from the blog "Hyperbole and a Half."

I need to clarify: Jane is infertile. Period. I promise I am not throwing out a red herring and setting up a "she's not really infertile and later gets pregnant" scenario. She has some health issues that will be given more attention and clarification later on.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Pink Cloud

Tommy skims his fingertips along the tattoo on Jane's right hip, and then reinforces the touch with a sliding palm of his hand. "That's gotta be the ugliest fuckin' tattoo I've ever seen," he says, grinning a little. "It looks like a rash."

Jane laughs. Even while spent, sweat drying and breath back to normal, she still finds that every touch warms, assures, and excites her; raises the flesh under Tommy's hand. "I know. It's supposed to be a patchwork heart, not that anyone could ever tell." She turns her head away for a moment, still lying on her side. "It was a major high school mistake."

"You make a lot of those?"

She knows she doesn't need to answer that. She smiles a little to herself, remembering an event that was horrifying at the time but is now pretty damn funny, at least to her. There aren't many of those kinds of memories. "I was sixteen. A guy that sold me weed had gotten an ink machine, wanted to be a tattoo artist, and I offered to be one of his guinea pigs."

"That was a mistake."

"It only gets dumber from here. I was drunk when I showed up at his house to get the tattoo, because I'd been worried about the pain. I was too drunk to fully comprehend that the guy was fucking lit. He screwed it up so badly he felt bad when I showed it to him later and he gave me my money back."

He laughs with her, but asks, "You ever think of getting it removed?"

"I've thought about it. And no, I don't think I will. I like it, in a weird way. It's a reminder of who I've been and what I've done and how far I come. And when I feel like a complete loser, a waitress and part-time community college student living in a shitty apartment in a shitty part of town, I can look at this and think, 'Hey, I'm doing all right.'" She laughs a little again and bites her lip.

Instead of laughing with her, he once more slides his hand along the tattoo, slides his whole body down to replace his hand with his tongue and then his lips, and he hears her breath hitch, her body contract, hears a soft moan.

"It kind of scares me," Jane says, knowing what he's about to do.

He knows. "Why?"

"What if you don't like it?" she asks, and it just sounds so childlike she can't help but wince. "That's not what I meant. It's just…it's really…I don't know…intimate."

Tommy lifts himself up on one elbow and looks at her. "There's no way I'm not going to like it." She laughs a little, sounding nervous, sounding breathless. Her body is already becoming high-strung, and he can tell. He tries to calm her down as he lowers his head.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," he mutters against the soft skin, coaxes her onto her back. He knows she can hear him. He waits for a response.

He doesn't have to wait long. A hand gently threads through his hair, stops at the nape of his neck. "I know," she tells him. She doesn't add, 'Not physically, anyway.' She doesn't have to. He's hurt her verbally and emotionally, but she knows, is as certain of this as her heartbeat; he will never strike her, will never rape her, will never do any damage to her body. And now, coaxing her body into something that terrifies her a little, bringing her to face a fear that's outmatched only by the anxiety over this whole relationship, he does the exact opposite of damage. Tastes her, touches her and every intimate detail; eats her out until she's certain she'll die from the sheer nerve-popping pleasure of it. He seems to be hell-bent on making her come so loudly that her downstairs neighbor will have realized she'd had nothing to complain about earlier, not in comparison to this.

He likes spinning her out of control, likes that she's sensitive to every little thing. He likes that she squirms, twists and arches, biting her lip and trying not to be too loud, as he raises his head at one point and sees it. Twist and shout, he thinks, and goes back to work. She's so there, so present, that she couldn't censor herself if she wanted to, he likes that, too. He holds her hips steady when her body starts to tremble, feels a hand brush against the back of his head, trace his shoulders and his hands on her, the grip becoming tightens hard over his hand when she reaches a climax that wracks her whole body, sending it into spasms as she loses control.

When she comes down, her breath starts to return to normal, he leans back up and looks at her, the flushed face and eyes only just starting to open again, and he uses the same words she used nearly a week ago. "Was that okay?" he says, unable to stop from grinning, because she's looking at him as though he's just walked across water.

She smacks his shoulder—his right, of course—lightly in response and pulls him down to her, and the force she kisses him with, tasting herself on his mouth, is all the answer he needs. It's not long before he's ready for a second round, and so is she. Pent-up months of wanting to do this with her, wanting to touch, taste, take her over and over, spill over again. It's no less strong than the first time; in fact, it seems to get better.

This is pretty much how it goes the rest of the night. The only times either of them leave the bed are to use the bathroom, and, at one point, to get some water and dinner, salvaging the contents of Jane's fridge. He doesn't share information about himself. She questions him a little, asking him about the origins of his tattoos (she counts six, and he explains none of them) or whatever prior experience he had with MMA, or where he lived between Pittsburgh and wherever the military shipped him. He doesn't talk about any of these things, avoids the questions, and she gives up, finally sharing more stories from high school. Not the ones that haunted her for the longest times. Not the most painful ones, but stupid mistakes she made from which a little humor can be gleaned, and they manage it. She tells him about how in her (second) sophomore year of high school she held onto a friend's weed for him, got caught with it (by cops, no less) and had to spend the night in a holding cell. It had been a school night, to sweeten things up.

She tells him she won two superlatives her senior year: "Most Likely to Party" and "Most Likely to Sleep in Class." She tells him how she was hung-over when she took her SAT. "I got a high score on it, considering."

She makes herself laugh a couple of times, makes him laugh, which is even better.

"Were you a drug-addict?" he asks eventually.

She pauses, gives it thought. "Drugs were a part of my downward spiral; not meth or crack or anything like that, but weed, salvia and sometimes acid, Percocet, Adderall, and coke on two occasions, one of them being the last time I ever drank. Mostly it was weed. I gave all that up along with drinking, but they weren't things I was interested in doing without alcohol. I used weed and sometimes salvia and Percocet as hangover remedies, but otherwise I didn't want the drugs without the alcohol. Which was pretty stupid, if you think about it. Combining alcohol and acid? I'm amazed I made it out alive." She gives it some more thought. "I'm a substance addict. Alcohol was my main demon. Drugs and depression supplemented it."

"Depression?"

"Yes; very much. I can't for the life of me remember who said it first, but trying to force yourself to be happy, trying to use willpower to overcome the kind of apathetic sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn't going to work. Something is fundamentally wrong. It's like a disease. Sometimes it lies low; sometimes it feels like it takes over my body. It's all I can do even now to keep going to work and going to meetings during those times. I take some prescribed medication for it. Felt a little weird at first; 'a mind-altering drug? Shouldn't I stay away from those?'"

"Do they work?" he says, cynical.

"Sure. It doesn't get rid of the depression. That's pretty much permanent. It just helps." Jane sighs, lies back, and says, "The horrible thing I learned from rehab, people who have that switch, that 'addict' part in them, can become addicted to nearly anything. I mean, things I can't imagine wanting to do. Bulimics who got addicted to throwing up, to enemas. Shit like that, no pun intended."

"Oh, God," he mutters, winces at the information.

"Change topic?"

"Please."

"Have you talked to Brendan since his birthday?"

"Not that topic."

"But I don't want to keep talking about myself," she protests, propping herself up on her side, her arm propping her head up as she grins a little at him, doe-eyes pleading a little. "Your life is a hell of a lot more interesting than mine, and there's so much of it I'm not allowed to know about."

Tommy sighs and rolls over onto his back. "Okay. Yeah. Once."

"How'd it go?" Jane says, immediately curling up against him, the solid wall of his chest, the body heat. It's intoxicating to her. His size and build is incredibly comforting when it's not intimidating. Even more so is the arm he wraps around her, holding her to him.

"Fine, I guess. It was over the phone. I'm not gonna travel more than five hours every time he wants to catch up. He's doin' okay."

She nods against his chest, against the tattoo of the masks.

"Don't you got family that keeps in touch?"

"Hey, don't try to divert my attention."

"But don't you?"

She waves her hand in a "kind-a, sort-a" gesture. "It's a much larger family. Now that I'm clean and sober and several states away, it's easy for them to forget about me. Nowadays I can usually get out of birthdays and family gatherings, what with the distance and all." She lifts her head to look him dead in the eye when she tells him, "My family, for all intents and purposes, is here." He understands, even if he'd rather not. She eventually lays her head back down and absently trails her fingertips along his chest and abdomen, feeling the rise and fall and thinking that this is what it's like to be completely at peace.

They eventually fall asleep that way. Jane falls asleep first. It takes Tommy a little longer, and he stares up at the ceiling. Earlier he thought he might love her. Now he knows he does. And part of him wants to leave and not look back, because it doesn't scare him, but it's…unnerving. What he does instead is wrap his arm tighter around her and close his eyes, knowing that sleep will come eventually.

F

There's a part of her that she hadn't realized existed. If she believed in fate, she'd have thought that Tommy was the person meant to help her find it. The part of her that isn't afraid to be intimate with someone; the part that finds all this natural; the part that isn't terrified of him seeing her undressed and vulnerable.

Maybe it's because she feels somehow powerful; she affects him, even though she's more transparent about it. A naïve part of her, one she hopes is not too foolish, believes he'll open up to her at some point; maybe not to share the more traumatizing aspects of his youth or time spent in combat, but still something else, something to keep her from having to be the one to supply mostly one-sided conversations. He's not an open book. He's not talkative. She gets that. But she knows he's present, mentally and emotionally. His eyes don't glaze over when she talks.

Things actually seem perfect right now; the things that aren't can simply be brushed aside, for right now they don't matter. She's heard this state described as a "pink cloud." She hears the trouble with pink clouds is that you eventually fall off of it, but she can't picture that, and wouldn't want to anyway.

When she falls asleep she can feel someone breathing against her, can feel warm flesh against hers. This is what life is. This is what existence is about.

E

The next morning Tommy's restless. He likes sharing the single-side bed and the warmth of Jane's soft little body against his, her mouth trailing over his skin with growing confidence. He likes the sexy, sleepy smile she gives him as he gets up.

"Hey," she murmurs.

"Hey," he responds, finding his clothes on the floor and pulling each article on one by one. He needs to go back to his apartment, getting his workout clothes, go running, something like that because it's not that he wants to leave so much as it's something his body not only craves but demands. He glances behind him, at Jane as she lies on her side, still curled up with her legs tangled in the sheets and her breasts exposed for him and damn, he wishes he could stay.

She watches him as he reaches for his shirt. "At risk of making this sound like the morning-after scene from Romeo and Juliet, it's still pretty early."

"It's not like I'm leaving town. I'll be back." Jane bites her lip and looks up at him with her sad doe eyes. Tommy almost groans at the ploy. "You go to your meetings on the weekends. I work out. I need it."

Jane sighs. "Okay. But can you stay here just a little while longer?"

He raises his eyebrows and drops his shirt, turning back to the bed in time for her to laugh and push him to his back, straddling him, only for him to switch their positions.

"'Twas the nightingale, and not the lark," Jane laughs, tilting her head and gasping as his mouth trails down her neck.

This continues for a couple of weeks; neither of them questions the arrangement. They can't really sleep together in the middle of the week. Tommy has to get up early in the mornings and Jane warns him that after a waitressing shift, she is dead below the belly-button. Still, they make arrangements and a couple of conversations during the workweek and spend as much of the weekend together as they can, and every time they're both surprised by how easily this comes to them. Jane still goes to meetings on the weekends, and Tommy still exercises.

"Hey," she told him the second weekend they slept together, "Just because your father skipped meetings for you doesn't mean I will."

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, look what happened to him," he replies.

He takes her out to parts of Pittsburgh he remembers fondly, and there aren't many of those, but it's something. They go back to the Zoo now that the weather's warm and there's a wider variety of exhibits. They both realize they don't care where they go as long as the other is there, too.

Neither of them are fans of PDAs, so there's no kissing in the polar bear tunnel like so many couples choose to do. There's a lot of laughter, he remembers.

The days go too quickly. At one point in early July after a meeting Patrick stops Jane and tells her that she's been looking so happy, so radiant lately.

"Whatever you're doing, maybe I should do it, too," he says.

And, oh, god, it's too much. Jane holds the rail of the steps as she bursts out laughing. Poor Patrick is left standing there, looking bewildered and wondering what he said that was so funny.

"I'm sorry," Jane says, wiping her eyes. "It's just…uh, it involves a man."

"Oh!" Patrick laughs a little. "All right. Statement withdrawn. But I'm glad he's making you happy." He smiles and heads to his car.

She can't quite keep from giggling a little afterward. 'No, you would not want to do what I'm doing,' she thinks. 'Especially seeing as I'm doing your son.'