Life had not been easy for Lee lately. Not that life ever seemed to run smoothly for her for very long, but recently things just kept seeming to pile up on her. Blaine had left, but she was dealing with that. Though his frequent calls and emails did help in that. It would have been easier if she was able to call him back, but she understood why he was going through all those hoops.

And then there was Tarin. Again, Lee could understand the why, but that didn’t make dealing with the situation any easier. Though to be fair, there probably wasn’t anything in the world that would make it easier to deal with your ex-husband asking you about why your boyfriend and father of your unborn child was suddenly gone. Because your son had been very vocal about that fact.

Yeah...and being pregnant, Lee couldn’t even have a beer to deal with that. Or three to try to avoid dealing with it.

Add to all of that the constant questions from a curious 7-year-old and Lee was stressed. Enough so that she left work for a long lunch to head to the gym. Before they had found out that she was pregnant, her training and sparring sessions with Blaine had been quite stress relieving. And while she knew that she couldn’t do that today, not 21 weeks pregnant with her stomach seeming to protrude more each day, Lee hoped that working the bag a bit would at least help a bit.

Before long, Lee had changed into a grey t-shirt and black sweatpants, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Pulling her red MMA sparring gloves on that Blaine had gotten her, Lee made her way over to the bags, avoiding eye contact with the guys that worked there. The last thing she wanted at the moment was to explain why she was there after she hadn’t been to the gym since before she started showing. Or questions about where Blaine was.

Joe had been fast asleep until a few moments ago. He was on a bus, actually a tour bus but still a bus nonetheless, and had been sleeping on his way to New York until, well, the bus got there and shook him awake. He staggered up, stretched rather quickly as people filed off the bus, and grabbed his duffel-bag with his right hand and slung the strap on his right shoulder. He was the last person off the bus, but, as every other person was busy taking pictures or getting food, Joe was walking away from the group in search of a gym.

Now, Joe grew up in a city a lot like this one but a lot more violent, so, to say he was happy to be here was a bit of an understatement. He was ecstatic, even if he didn't really show it. It'd been too long since Joe got to travel so he was pretty okay with this whole ordeal. Joe walked over to a street corner and held out his hand to signal for a cab to come over. When a cab finally stopped for him, he rushed over and threw open the door, practically leaping inside the cab.

"If you know any good gyms, take me to the closest one."

The cab driver nodded and began driving to the nearest gym. Joe, who was kind of a quiet guy, didn't say anything in the cab. He was really just enjoying the whole experience of being here, and how different it was from Chicago. He looked at the window at all the busy people in their cars and the countless pedestrians swarming through the area. The cab came to a screeching hault outside a gym.

"Thanks for the ride. Also, keep the change."

Joe had handed the taxi driver seven dollars more than what was owed but he didn't seem to care all that much about it. He hopped out of the cab, duffle-bag in hand, and walked inside the gym. Before doing anything else, he went up to the front desk and started talking to the guy who was sitting there. Joe just asked the guy about membership prices and what type of equipment they had here.

Lee had just reached the bags, working her hands into her gloves more comfortably when she heard her name being called behind her. Lee seriously thought of ignoring it, of pretending there was no one trying to get her attention. She even did ignore it the first time her name was called out.

But when she heard ‘Lee’ being called out across the gym for the second time, Lee turned and started back toward the front desk.

”What is it, Tony?” Lee asked, a little exasperated, expecting she knew what the man behind the counter was going to say.

”I thought Blaine said you weren’t supposed to be training anymore.”

Yup, Lee had been right, Tony had said what she expected him to say. Maybe she would have been better off training at Haven after all. ”I’m pregnant, not an invalid, Tony,” Lee replied, shaking her head at the man as she felt someone else approach beside her. Lee glanced over to see a very tall, very muscled young man standing there. She was used to the size difference between her and pretty much everyone in the gym at any time, but this was a little extreme. ”Plus, it’s not like I’m going to be sparring,” Lee replied, turning back to look at Tony.

Only to turn her eyes back to the young man beside her when she heard him asking about fees and equipment. ”It’s actually rather reasonable here,” Lee said. ”At least by New York standards. And I’ve never heard my boyfriend complaining about not having access to any equipment, and I swear he still trains as if he’s going into a career making match.”

"I actually might be going into a career making match so the more equipment the better."

He chuckled a bit trying to come off as friendly. He turned back towards Tony and paid to use the equipment and everything for the day. "If I like your guy's set up you'll be seeing a lot more of me around here." He gave the two a small wave and walked to the men's locker rooms that were close to the back of the gym. Joe was already basically ready to workout, for him at least. He was wearing his necklace and white wife-beater already, he just needed to slip into some shorts and put his bag away.

Joe came out of the locker room almost as quickly as he got in there. He was now in shorts and he was holding two bright red boxing gloves in his right hand. He headed straight for the punching bags, they were in a sort of zigzag set-up. He stopped in front of one that was in the middle and slipped on his boxing gloves. He began going to town on the bag, throwing punch after punch towards the center of the bag. After a short while, he hit the bag a little too hard and it went flying back, only to come towards him with the same amount of force. He stopped punching and let the bag come to him, basically catching it in the process.

He breathed in and out, very heavily. He wasn't tired, far from it, it'd just been too long since he'd gotten to practice so he had to warm up first.

When the young man said that he might actually be going into a career making match, Lee gave him another quick glance. He definitely seemed to have the muscle for that, but he still seemed rather young. Not that Lee really knew much of anything about professional, or even semi-professional fighting, but shouldn’t he have to put more time in before making it to a career making match? Unless this was just the first of those, to get him to the next level.

Not that it really mattered to Lee, and even if she was curious, the young man had paid and turned away before she was able to say anything else. So Lee turned back to Tony, an eyebrow raised. ”So can I go let off some steam on a bag now?” she asked. And luckily for him, Tony let her go without another word, because her next idea was to let off that steam on him despite the fact that she knew she shouldn’t be sparring.

So Lee turned and made her way back over to the punching bags in time to see the young man come back into the main gym. But instead of front and center like he was taking, Lee made her way over to the side, gradually warming up with kicks and punches to the bag in front of her. Though, despite the warm up, the blows were nowhere near as powerful as they normally would be; without Blaine, Lee definitely did not have the energy levels she was used to having while working out.

At least she wasn’t the only one seeming to have energy issues, Lee noticed a short time later as she saw the young man she’d sort of met at the desk already taking a breather. Though she had noticed how hard he had been hitting. ”Not everyone goes down just because you hit hard,” Lee called over the small distance between them. ”If you need to stop to breath after just that, you could lose that match of yours.”

"I don't need much of a breather, I've just been on a bus for...actually, I don't know how long that trip was." He laughed a bit and rubbed the back of his head before getting back to punching the bag. "Besides, doesn't look like I'm the only one who's a little drained. You sure you should be doing this?" Joe was referring to the fact that she looked sorta stressed and dehydrated. He kept throwing punch after punch, each one getting faster.

He had really started warming up now, barely leaving anytime between punches for the bag to come back to him. He started focusing for the lower section of the bag, where the stomach would be for someone about his size and made his punches less powerful but a lot quicker. "You're looking kinda mad, everything alright?" He asked her this but didn't look away from the bag. He threw a right hook in on the bag as he worked his way up the bag, working the "chin" of the bag. "I'm Joe by the way." He stopped punching and extended his right hand to her in what would have been a handshake if he weren't wearing a boxing glove.

So he wasn’t just new to New York, he was brand new, just got off the bus and came...here? ”No offense, but I can think of much better places to go to when you first get to the city than this,” Lee replied, her tone slightly teasing. Though, she was being honest, as well. And, though a gym wasn’t the last place she would choose to visit right away when arriving in the city, it certainly wasn’t even in the top 10.

And yet another person thinking she shouldn’t be doing something simple just because she was pregnant. Ok, sure, it was a little more difficult because she didn’t have Blaine to help boost her energy up, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t be doing this. Though, in his defense, this guy was young, maybe he really didn’t know better. So Lee gave him the benefit of the doubt and waved his concern off. ”Nah, I’m fine. Sure, I’m a little off balance because of, well, the obvious,” she said, waving toward her stomach. ”And I don’t have as much energy as I normally do when I’m here, but that’s really no reason to a mother can’t work out?

“And I’m not exactly mad, I’m stressed,” Lee continued. ”It decided to be out and about this afternoon, and how see how things went there?”

"Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything about the baby." What he was trying to say was he didn't mean to imply that she couldn't or shouldn't be working out because she's pregnant. Since he was kind of nervous, thinking he had offended her, he didn't really get out what he meant. Joe figured the polite thing to do, seeing as he thought he just insulted her, would be to help her work out. He moved behind the punching bag she was working on, "If you want any pointers on, how to fight with, a little extra weight, I might be able to help?"

He smacked the bag in it's center, which was about level with his chest. "Since you have the baby you probably would want to not do a ton of kicking since it might make you fall over. I'd suggest keeping some more conserved punches that you can pull back quick from." He moved to the side of the bag, just in case she decided to hit it. He looked her over kinda quickly, "You sure your gonna be okay, I probably can't speak on the matter of working out when you're stressed but I know working out when you're drained is like the worst." Now, obviously Joe didn't know she had powers or what her powers involved so he just assumed she lacked energy from something like not getting enough sleep or not getting a hearty meal.

While he waited for an answer, he began looking around the gym. He noticed the ring, that he somehow missed earlier. He'd have to remember to use that sometime for practice. He looked around some more and noticed a water fountain nearby. He figured she had a water bottle of her own but if not, he could at least fetch her a cup of water, after all, that'd be the polite thing for him to do.

Joe had to wonder, why he had just kinda latched on to the first person he met here. Yeah, she was pretty and seemed really nice but like, this was kind of a weird thing for him to do. Could it be because she's pregnant? Did that just make him subconsciously want to be a lot nicer to her? It was probably a little bit of all those things, but still, he couldn't quite figure it out.

If Lee hadn’t been the one to point out the fact that her stomach was larger than she was used to first, she may have been a little offended by the comment that Joe made about ‘extra weight’. But the fact was, that really was a bit of a problem she was having at the moment. But he was offering to try and help her out, which was a lot more than the staff at the gym were doing. Though who knew what Blaine had been asking them to do if she ever came in; as much as she loved the man, the kid glove treatment he had often given her since they found out she was pregnant had very quickly gotten old.

”That would be helpful,” Lee replied with a slight smile. Though Joe very obviously worked out, he was still quite young; only time would tell whether his assistance would prove useful. ”Oh, and I’m Lee, by the way,” she continued as she watched Joe hit the bag.

Only for him to then step to the side and start worrying about her energy levels. Lee couldn’t help it, she rolled her eyes as she gave the bag a few quick jabs. ”Just because I have less energy than I generally do when working out, doesn’t mean I’m worn out,” Lee pointed out, giving another few jabs. And she put some real power into the hits this time. Hell, she’d actually gotten a good three hours sleep after working at the bar last night before taking Kevin to school that morning, so she wasn’t even coming close to crashing, either.

”I do understand what you’re saying, though,” Lee said a few moments later, her tone softening a bit as she looked over at Joe. ”So quick, short punches. Any other suggestions?”

"If you're against a guy, a punch to the crouch wouldn't hurt. Not that I approve of anything below the belt though." He chuckled a bit and crossed his arms. He brought his right hand up stroking his chin a bit as he thought. He narrowed his eyes and then widened them suddenly when he got an idea. "How about you try and take me down Lee, the easiest way to know if something will work is to try it out. Right?"

He looked over at the ring nearby, checking if anyone was using it. He started stepping towards it but didn't really move that far away. "I think I even found a spot. What do you say?" He turned around to look at her when he said this. He was honestly pretty excited to get back in the ring, even if she didn't go. He figured if she didn't want to hop in he could probably just spar with one of the other people here.

The more he thought about it, the worse of an idea it seemed. Joe figured it wouldn't do his rep any good but it was honestly too late now to be having second thoughts. The decision was now up to her.

Yeah, this kid was inexperienced, Lee realized. Even when she was so young that she was still living with her parents, before she ran away at 16, Lee knew that a kick or a knee to the crotch would be much more effective than a punch. Not that Joe would ever be in a position to need to do something like that himself. And he was trying to help.

And then he was suggesting that she try to take him down while glancing at the ring. And it was true that a person wouldn’t know whether they were capable of doing something without actually trying it. But as Lee eyed the young man, this kid really, she realized that Blaine had to have started training before Joe was born, and she’d managed to take Blaine down. A few times.

Pregnant or not, it seemed like Joe needed a little lesson in making assumptions.

Making a very obvious glance down at his boxing gloves as he turned to face her again, Lee started walking toward the ring. ”Do you have any real fight training?” Lee asked over her shoulder as she climbed into the ring. Only slightly more awkwardly than the last time she’d done so with Blaine. ”Or do you just know how to box?”

Joe slipped into the ring and tightened his gloves. He stood in the opposite end of the ring waiting for her to make a move when she was ready. "You saying boxing ain't fighting training?" He said this in a tough guy tone but he was obviously doing it in a joking way. "I've been boxing semi-professionally for a couple years. If you want some out of ring stuff...uh...I beat up the bullies that used to chase me home."

He put his fists up in sort of a nonchalant way, almost mimicking the way someone with little experience would compose himself. He was obviously doing this to simulate the type of person that'd punch a pregnant lady, that common occurrence that's just always happening. He made sure to keep himself unprotected, leaving his legs wide apart and keeping his chest open.

He moved closer to the center of the ring but still maintaining significant distance from her. "Do you have any experience with fighting? I saw you doing some kickboxing over there but I couldn't really tell if you were trained in it or not. Also, feel free to hit me when you're ready, I'm just a little chatty is all."

Joe climbed into the ring behind her and went over to the opposite corner. Just like the ‘rules’ would say. And his only non-boxing...thing he’d done was to beat up some bullies? ”Yeah, no. Boxing isn’t real fighting,” Lee said as she watched him raise his arms. But not as far up as she’d seen other guys in the gym lift and hold them. Not enough to be useful protection.

He really didn't’ think she was capable of much of anything, Lee realized as she moved forward slightly. But not directly toward Joe, angling a bit, starting to circle. Her arms hanging down, loose but ready, at her sides. Not a position of readiness she was sure Joe would expect. But then again, Lee’s stomach rather than her head, was what she planned on protecting. Not that she was planning on letting Joe land anything.

Did she have any experience with fighting? Lee couldn’t help the slight chuckle that escaped her lips. Did he honestly think that a pregnant woman would get into the ring with a guy who’d said he was training for a career-making boxing match if she didn’t have some sort of serious training and experience? ”Yeah, you could say I have some experience,” Lee replied, getting closer but not quite within reach. But in her case, it was the life-and-death kind of experience. Bare hands going up against automatic weapons or psychopathic murderers.

"How is boxing not real fighting?" He asked in a jokingly offended tone. "We take them down the same, just one has rules in place I guess? At least it's better than that MMA stuff, rolling around on the ground while leg locking someone just isn't as dignified." He laughed a little at his own joke but it came out as more of a scoff.

Noticing her advances on him, he decided he'd make the situation a little more realistic. He raised his hands in a overtly offensive way, sacrificing defense, like a mugger or a thug would do. He then started moving his feet closer in, and almost bouncing in place, but moving his body too face her. He made sure his body language was giving off the signal that he would lunge forward like a slugger because, that's what he planned on doing, minus the slugging part of it.

"So...what kind of experience do you have? I'm sure someone like you has some stories to tell." He said this pretty sincerely although the seriousness his face was giving off could have miscommunicated that. "Alright, might as well get started." Suddenly he sent a right hook flying at her head, he stopped it of course, so he wouldn't actually hit her, but he still wanted this to seem as real as possible.

Lee could easily turn the question back around on Joe: how was boxing like real fighting? Sure, there were punches, but as far as Lee was concerned, that was where the similarities stopped. But in a real fight, who was going to be concerned about some silly rule about not hitting below the belt? At least MMA was closer, gave you more skills to use. But still, those rules…

Lee had gone back and watched that first fight Blaine had had with the man that looked and sounded like him. Not that she had actually been able to stomach much of the video. But with the bit that she had been able to watch, Lee had realized one thing: it was Blaine’s adherence to those arbitrary rules that had lost him the fight. If his doppelganger hadn’t threatened her and the baby...even now, Lee was still scared to think of what could have happened.

But Lee shook those thoughts away. She needed to focus. As she turned her full attention back to Joe, Lee noticed that he was taking up a much more offensive pose, moving his feet more. Lee bided her time. Because of her size, and how life seemed to go for her, Lee had focused a lot of her training on reacting, and getting out of situations. She’d just wait to see what Joe did, first.

And then Joe started speaking, and Lee nodded. ”Oh, I have plenty of stories,” she told him. Though she wouldn’t be sharing those stories. Most of them she hadn’t even told Blaine. Despite her fighting skills, he hadn’t asked and she hadn’t shared them, having been worried about what he might think.

Finally, Joe made an actual move, swinging a right hook at her head. The good thing about being so much smaller than her opponent was that it made it that much easier for her to duck under the punch before Joe had the chance to pull it. Moving forward as she went low, Lee threw her own punch at Joe’s now exposed side right before she stepped her foot forward to sweep his rear leg. With any luck, that would unbalance him enough to drop him to the mat.