I do now own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

This part goes out to women with fertility issues or have had their cycles screwed around with due to medication or illness. It's also a giant "fuck you" to those who still think menstrual cramps are psychosomatic.

There is also a synopsis of Harold and Maude. I've tried my best not to spoil it too much, but…spoiler alert.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Doses of Reality

Jane tries to be as discreet as she can about her medical issues. They're embarrassing, they're personal, and they're outside of a man's comfort zone. (Men try to act all tough, but they all turn out to be afraid of a little blood.) Still, at one point during the summer she has to cancel on a date, and her explanation, "it's kind of a female thing", doesn't prevent him from stopping by and bringing prescription painkillers.

Tommy stops short when he sees her open the door.

She's bent at the waist, clutching her belly, skin looking more waxy than smooth and even paler than usual; there are dark shadows under her eyes and a light sheen of sweat on her face. She's shaking on her feet and he guides her back to her bed after closing the door behind him. He notices the room-temperature water filter and glass on the nightstand along with a box of Midol. "This goes beyond just cramps, bloating and craving chocolate; doesn't it?" he says. Jane responds with a forced laugh and a grimace.

"Part of the whole infertility issue," she says through clenched teeth, picking up and pressing a heating pad against her abdomen.

She went from the age of fifteen to the age of twenty without menstruating; for a time she continually worried about pregnancy, though test after test taken with shaking hands and in the privacy of her bathroom proved her wrong. It took a doctor's visit to diagnose it as amenorrhea; an illness she thought was reserved for starving women. It could've been remedied by changing her lifestyle and habits, but that didn't happen until she was sober. Now, and with the help of medication, she's menstruated twice in the past year. Both times have been short and incredibly painful. Both have sent a burning, tearing sensation throughout her abdomen, punctuated by back pain and cramps that steal her breath and make her cry out, make tears prick behind her eyes. She doesn't want him to see her like this. He doesn't seem comfortable with it, either, but he asks for an explanation and she gives it to him.

"And the worst part," she says, trying to laugh off a cramp that seems to turn her insides into glass only to break them, "is that all this is a sign that I'm getting healthier."

It's brings a kind of gravity to their relationship. He keeps seeing her as the healthy one, physically and mentally. Unless she brings it up, he tends to forget she's "in recovery." And then things like this happen and he remembers she's got her own problems.

What takes her by surprise his how he leans in and brushes her hair away from her face—it's starting to grow out at riotous angles and in thick waves—with his fingertips in a manner so gentle she barely feels his touch. He takes the water from beside the bed and hands her the glass, helping her down a sip.

And she remembers. He took care of someone who was far sicker than she; spent two years of his life doing so. This is not entirely new to him.

He doesn't stick around when he realizes it won't do a bit of good if he does; it won't be the last weekend they get to spend together. They have time.

And he realizes that come the first week of November will be the one-year anniversary of Sparta. Three months. Even now, he's restless. He puts himself through boxing drills and when he does for that time gets taken back. He never dislocated his shoulder, never lost SPARTA, never had to go through any of that shit. It's a year previous and his body's never been damaged. He's a fighter. It's just part of him that's ingrained and has been there almost all his life.

Part of him itches to go back into the cage. Is a year a long enough time to heal?

The thought isn't lost on him. Back in late February he and Jane took three months off from each other and again three months are ticking down.

F

One day after receiving a look of deepest loathing and disgust from Mrs. Shropshire that could shatter steel, Jane tells Tommy she'd rather meet at his apartment that weekend, and, after some protest, the man acquiesces. When she arrives at his flat with her backpack containing her laptop and several DVD's, she understands why he didn't want her to see it.

His apartment, like hers, is a studio with a view of boarded-up flophouses, a sex-toy shop, his gym, and a couple of relatively stable-looking apartment buildings. However, Jane, regardless of her lack of interest in interior decorating, has at least tried her best to make the place feel like home; she keeps it clean and organized, with as much of a personal touch as her sparse furnishings will allow. There is far less of this in Tommy's apartment. It's clean but is clearly a more neglected building than hers and has a neglected feel to it; a mattress minus the frame is kept against a wall and aside from this and a dresser, there is no furniture. However, a couple of photographs on the dresser catch her eye the moment she walks in.

Tommy says nothing; he warned Jane and doesn't need to apologize. He cleaned it up to the best of his abilities. He looks over at her and notices her eye travel to the two pictures he's managed to keep and makes her way towards them. He winces, wishes he'd remembered to put the pictures away, and prepares to talk about more than he's ever ready to.

The first picture she notices is one of a woman with somber, world-weary grey eyes in a relatively young face. She's holding an infant in her arms, and while it's obvious who the child must be, Jane still focuses on the woman. She is a striking woman; all full lips and strong cheekbones but it's the eyes, indeed, her whole demeanor that grabs her attention. It is the look of someone who is solemn and unsmiling, unhappy to say the least but still as strong and dignified as she can manage.

Jane doesn't realize that Tommy's come up behind her until she hears him say, "Mary Riordan. My mother."

"She's beautiful," Jane murmurs, not looking around.

"Not during those last few years," Tommy says. His voice becomes hard.

"You have her eyes."

He has nothing to say to that, negative or otherwise. She looks at the other photo of two men in fatigues. Tommy looks so young in this picture; easily her age, perhaps even younger, and his face is fuller, complete with a genuine smile. By this point he's lost his mother and his childhood home but he's not yet the haunted, enraged man she's known. She doesn't recognize the other man, who looks to be the same age but is smaller and darker.

"Manny Fernandez. My best friend," Tommy answers without her having to ask.

"What happened?"

"He's dead." His voice has a tone of finality to it, and is harsher than before. She pushes her luck.

"When was this taken?"

"When we were nineteen. Around the time his first kid was born." She senses him now, knows when he turns away from the dresser. He doesn't talk much, but still manages to speak volumes. She spares another glance at both photos, both people he cared about and lost, and turns to follow him.

"When did he…?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he says, glancing back at her with a look harsher than any other she's seen on him in months, and she won't dare tell him how petulant he sounds. She was pulling for air anyway.

"Yeah, I know. You never do." She hears him snort and face the window. This isn't a good start. She knows how much he hates being the least bit vulnerable, and letting her into his apartment is a doozy. She takes another tentative step towards him and the way his shoulders are hunched and tensed as if preparing to attack.

She tries to clear the air. "Can I get a glass of water?" she asks.

Tommy turns and looks at her with his eyebrows almost disappearing into his hairline and presses his lips together. After a moment he sighs and heads to the so-called kitchen that is even smaller than hers.

"I brought some movies with me," she calls after him.

He glances behind her. "Yeah?"

She sets her backpack down near the bed and sits down on the mattress as she leans over and unzips her backpack, pulling out each DVD and calling out their respective titles. "Pulp Fiction; Last of the Mohicans; Reservoir Dogs; There Will Be Blood; Gangs of New York; Goodfellas; and for some lighter viewing: The Fisher King; Harold and Maude; Dead Poet's Society."

Tommy comes back with two glasses of water and sits down beside her. "Did you bring your entire DVD collection?" he asks, sounding bemused.

"No. Just most of my favorites."

"But not all of them." He paws through the pile and picks up the Harold and Maude DVD, frowning.

"Pulp Fiction is my reigning all-time favorite, but all of these are movies I haven't gotten tired of watching and probably never will. You're holding my favorite romantic comedy right there," she adds.

Tommy raises his eyebrows and holds the DVD up for her to see, as if she was unaware of what it looked like. "There's gotta be a fifty-year age difference between the two of them." 'Them' being the young man and the elderly woman standing side by side on the front cover.

"Sixty," Jane corrects him and takes a drink of water. "Harold's somewhere between eighteen and twenty. Maude's seventy-nine. They meet when they're both at the funeral of someone neither of them know."

"And they fall in love."

Jane shrugs again. "You wanna watch it?"

Tommy glances at the more masculine choices, most of which he's probably already seen, and says, "Sure. Why the hell not?" He's still cold from earlier but finds an outlet for Jane to plug in her laptop as they both kick off their shoes and settle back on his mattress to watch the film.

E

"…What brings you joy?" a psychiatrist asks young Harold, to which, after a lingering and almost painfully awkward silence, Harold replies in a monotone voice, "I go to funerals."

He can't help it; he laughs along with her. This kid drives a Hearse and has faked his own suicide twice already. He glances over at Jane and plays with a stray lock of hair that covers the side of her face.

"She stole my car!" the priest from the funeral runs off after Maude after she's sped off.

Of course her favorite romantic comedy would be between an old woman who likes to steal cars and a guy even younger than Jane who's obsessed with death. Of course.

And he'll admit it; he laughs when Harold's mother sets him up on several dates, each of which Harold intentionally completely screws up, taking satisfaction in it every time. How long has it been since he's done this? How long has it been since he's just kicked back and watched a movie with someone close to him?

Well, never, really. Not like this.

By the time the end credits roll, she's curled up into him, looking ridiculously cute as she nudges his shoulder with her head. "Would you do that?" she murmurs.

"Play the banjo?"

"No; plan to end your life at a specific age, regardless of what's going on or how happy you are at that moment."

He pauses and glances down at her. "I never thought I'd live that long," he tells her.

"Me, neither." She ejects the disk, puts it in the box, and sets the laptop aside so she can lean in and kiss him. "But all in all; a better romantic comedy than most. Although that's not saying much."

Tommy smiles a little at her. Jane's weird. It's one of his favorite things about her. "I like how this is your idea of a romantic comedy," he tells her as he returns the kiss.

"I could've made you sit through 27 Dresses or one of the Twilight movies."

"And shatter my manhood."

"It would take more than a bad romantic film to do that," Jane says, and slowly pushes him onto his back.

"Oh, come on. You expect me to be able to fuck you after watching a movie about a suicidal kid banging a geriatric?" Tommy says, and while he's mostly joking, Jane raises her eyebrows and slides off of him.

"Oh. No. Of course not." She starts to get up but before she can leave the mattress he pulls her back down.

Jane looks up at him as he braces his hands on either side of her head.

"You're an ass," she says with a straight face, but laughs a second later.

Tommy decides he really doesn't need to tell her about his still—meandering thoughts about fighting again. That can wait. Probably for a while. He gets the feeling she won't like the news.

A

Their neighborhood is not a good one, so one night when a gun goes off less than a block away it's not the most surprising thing in the world, but it wakes them both up.

For Jane, the sound of the gunshot is not as distressing as what happens when she sees Tommy wrench himself out of bed after a quick check to make sure the gun outside didn't pierce his body. He's hyperventilating and shaking in a cold sweat. She knows he sometimes wakes up at night, but she's never seen this before, and isn't sure if it's stupid to reach out and touch his shoulder as slowly and gently as she can.

He jerks away and after a moment turns to look at her with wide, wild eyes, realizing the touch came from someone who is not a threat to him. It takes him a few moments to discern dream from reality. He looks around the apartment and it's the same as always. The same bed, the same couch and desk. He still shakes, and she murmurs, leaning against his back, whispering into his ear, "It's okay. You're okay. I'm here." She repeats it again and again, a soft mantra, hoping her voice is as soothing as she wants it to be, and it feels like it's some kind of lullaby as she coaxes him back into bed. She kisses his shoulder and the nape of his neck, kisses the space between his shoulder blades. It's not something she does in a sexual manner; she does it to provide comfort, to bring him back to her. She does her best to calm his shuddering breaths, to fill the otherwise silent room. He isn't going to talk. She's come to expect that.

The words fall from her lips for the first time; words she's fought back due to trepidation and fear of embarrassment. "I love you," she whispers against the nape of his neck.

His body starts to relax. She doesn't know if that means he heard her or not. But she means it. She holds him, and he eventually relents without a word.

At some point they both fall back asleep; the last thing she thinks beforehand is that yes, she loves him. And for now that fact manages not to scare the hell out of her.

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I'm pretty sure I know what you're thinking: I waited a month for an update and you give me this shit? Again? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I probably won't be updating every couple of days like I used to, but I'm not abandoning the story.