THE ROAD IS LONG
This chapter was going to be Tino meeting Leon and Vince but this came out instead. I've had quite a few amusing chapters recently so I thought I'd stick this one in. It's a bit deeper than the rest. It certainly had me thinking. I hope it's alright and not too OOC for Dom and Letty. I don't think it is…but if it is sorry. I needed to explain a bit more about their relationship back in L.A, coz in the film they had a very spur of the moment kinda thing going. First they would argue, then they would be having away with it. I guess that sums up Dom and Letty full stop but I always thought there must be some reasons behind it, something that made them that way. Well, this chapter is my attempt at fathoming out the enigma that is Dom and Letty. Hope you like it. Gem xxx Chapter 19: Lean On Me. Letty had spent the majority of the day catching up with Vince and Leon. Laughing and joking the way they had back in L.A, though when she asked about the events back at the shop and garage both of the older men became tight lipped, only giving a vague and brief overview of what had gone down. No doubt Dom had warned them not to go into too much detail, instead taking all of the worries of the entire team onto his own broad shoulders. Letty glanced up from where she sat sprawled on the sofa beside Leon who had fallen into another exhausted sleep. Frankie had tried her hardest to wrangle a day off from school due to the events of the morning but Donni remained firm and had driven her there herself, much to Frankie's fury. Once Frankie had left the house, Jesse had scrambled off to his beloved laptop, the only thing that could keep his attention for more than five minutes…besides Frankie. Vince had long since moved away to talk with Mia and Donni, when she returned from the school run, in the kitchen area as they prepared lunch. Dom, however, was nowhere to be seen. More than likely he had disappeared somewhere to try and shoulder the burdens of them all alone, as he always did. Never once did he realise that the Team was there to help him carry those burdens, to heft some of the weight of problems that they had created. They had gotten into the trouble together, as a Team. Why Dom thought that they shouldn't have to bear that trouble together was beyond Letty. She sighed, grabbing Leon's wrist and twisting it so that she could see the dial on his watch. "Comin' up for two o'clock." she muttered to herself, dropping Leon's wrist and causing him to grunt in his sleep and turn over, almost kicking her as he did so. She gave his unconscious form a sad smile as she stood and straightened out her black cargo pants that she had rolled up to the knee in an attempt to keep cool and Dom's old shirt that she still wore. Leon hadn't deserved all of this shit. None of them had really. She stretched out her stiff muscles and yawned, heading towards the back door passing Donni and Vince who were getting on like a house on fire much to Mia's only barely concealed disgruntlement. She pushed the door open and padded out onto the wooden decking stopping at the sight of Dom leaning against the paddock fence, head in his large hands as if the world was about to end. He looked so lost, so despairing as he rested his weight onto his elbows upon the fence. Only once before had she seen him so utterly distressed that watching him made her heart ache. The day of his father's funeral. Mia had been too upset to play her usual role organising everything. She had tried, though. Desperately she had tried to keep up appearances, but in the end Letty had understood and taken the reigns from the younger girl. She hadn't needed the extra pressure of organising the funeral and the wake when all she wanted to do, all she was supposed to do was grieve. Letty knew that all consuming desolation only too well having had to bury both of her parents at the age of seventeen after a car accident, and so she knew exactly what Mia and Dom had needed. Letty swallowed at the memory and moved away from where she stood, leant against one of the wooden veranda pillars, and moved slowly and quietly down the steps towards Dom, cursing herself silently for forgetting to put her shoes on again. Dom's head turned at her approach, glancing over his large, slumped shoulder and then turning back to staring at the horses that pranced about, frisky in the heat of the afternoon. "You're gonna hurt your feet like that." he stated, his voice deadpan but Letty continued to his side regardless. "I'll live." she responded with a shrug, stopping and leaning onto the fence beside him, though not touching. Dom always needed his personal space. They fell into silence for long moments, simply watching the three horses as they nipped at each other playfully and sprinted away in a wild game of tag. Finally Dom lifted his heavy head from his hands and sent Letty a sideways glance, breaking the quiet as he cleared his thick throat. "How's Leon?" he asked, voice rough and he coughed to clear it before asking the question again. "Sleepin'." Letty replied still looking out into the field. "Same old Leon. Vince is having fun with your cousin." she smiled to herself at that, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face. "Leon's gonna be fine, Dom. We're all gonna be fine. But…" she turned to face him, folding her arms and leaning her shoulder against the fence. "But you are gonna burn yourself out if you carry on like this." Dom cocked an eyebrow in what was supposed to be an amused expression but he failed miserably, only looking more lost than before. "Carry on like what?" he asked finally, abandoning his attempt at light heartedness but still trying to keep his emotions from Letty. "Bottling stuff up and shit." she replied, her voice raising a little in volume though not as loud as it had been that morning when she had been mad with him. "You do it every single time, Dom. Every single time! Why do you think that you have to solve all our problems for us?" Dom turned to look at her fully, partly startled by her question but Letty continued before he could get a word in edgeways. "Don't even deny it, Dom. We both know that it won't work with me. You might be able to hide it from Mia and the guys but you can't keep it from me." she locked eyes with him for a little longer, then turning to glance back out at the horizon. "I know you too damn well for you to be able to pull shit like that with me." Dom sighed and pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes, rubbing at them to relieve the weariness that he felt to his very core. He was tired. Too tired to argue with Letty as she seemed intent on doing. "I can't deal with this shit right now, Letty." he warned, rubbing the heel of his palm into his left eye when his fingers proved to be quite useless at relieving the fatigue. "Then tell me about it!" she pleaded, dark eyebrows drawn together in desperation. "You're just one man, Dom. You may be King of the Streets, you may think that you're the big 'I am' but you're still only one man. You can't take the worries of five other people on as well as your own. You're gonna make yourself ill!" Dom shook his head even as the words fell from her lips and he took her shoulders in his hands, holding her at arms length. "I have to, Letty! It's my job!" he replied, tension colouring his tone as his eyes stared straight into hers, as if he was glimpsing her thoughts through her wide pupils. "It's my fault! This whole entire mess is my fucking fault!" he let his hands drop and stormed a few paces away, planting his hands on his hips as he kept his back to her. "I was the one who dealt with the Tran's. I was the one who suggested the heists. I was the one who said Brian was okay. I was the one who insisted upon going after that last truck and almost got you and Vince killed. I was the one who told Leon and Vince to stay in L.A and sell off the businesses when it should have been my job." he paused his furious rant to turn his face to the cloudless sky as if looking for the answers up in the endless blue. "Every single thing that has happened to this Team has been my doing. I brought it down on our heads, Letty, and I very well may had killed all our asses if the Tran's ever find out where we are." Letty was silent for several long moments, simply standing stunned that Dom had revealed so much to her. Then she snorted, letting it spiral out into full laughter and causing Dom to whirl around suddenly to glare at her. "Don't flatter yourself, Dominic Toretto." she retorted, ignoring the anger that was growing on his face. "You didn't do any of that." Dom opened his mouth to snap a reply at her but Letty cut him off again. "We did it. The Team did it. Not you. Not anyone person. All of us. Together." her eyes were fierce as she spoke and Dom felt unable to do anything but listen to her. "First off, Tran was a shit-head. He was always gonna rope you in somehow just because of the.." Letty swallowed and her teeth clench for a split second, her deep brown eyes turning cold. "Because of the incident with his sister." "Letty, you know that was a-" Dom began, fearfully, raising his hands towards her. "Mistake?" she queried, cocking her head to one side with a sad smile. "Yeah, I know. I got over it a long time ago, Dom. You don't have to worry about me kicking up shit from the past, but just hear me out." Dom nodded his accordance and fell silent once more as Letty took a deep breath and continued. "Mei Tran would not have gone out of her way to get you pissed off your face and into her bed if I hadn't been the cocky little bitch that I was. She has always disliked me and I've always disliked her, from when we were in school together. So, in the end, the whole thing with you and Mei was less to do with her sleeping with you and more to do with her sleeping with my man." she cleared her throat before shaking her inky haired head and continuing, making sure that her voice didn't quaver and betray how the event still troubled her four years on. "Anyway, Tran was always going to try and get you back for that. As for the heists? We all agreed to them, Dom. We wouldn't have gone along with you if we hadn't. The thought of a little extra money on the side caught all of our attention and we're all to blame for that. Now, O'Connor." Letty paused and gave a lopsided smirk. "O'Connor is Mia's fault." she laughed at that. "I could tell the moment I saw him and Mia together in the shop that she wanted to get into his pants." Dom gave a pained expression "Please, Letty! That's my sister!" he groaned and Letty laughed all the more. Finally she sobered, and rested her head onto her left shoulder as she watched Dom carefully. "All I'm saying is that all this shit is our making. Let us help clean it up." she shrugged and fell silent, waiting with baited breath for Dom's reply. Knowing how stubborn he was, she didn't hold out much hope that her little speech had done a lot of good but she'd had to try. Watching Dom go through hell alone was far worse for Letty than actually dealing with the problems herself. "I don't want anyone to have to worry anymore." he growled out after several heartbeats, his face determined and fixed in the stoic expression that meant he wasn't about to negotiate on that issue. "I don't want Mia to have to pick up the pieces like she has so many times for us all. All I want her to be concerned with is bringing that baby into the world. She's still a kid and I want her to have at least a little bit of that carefree life that kids are supposed to have before the baby is born." Letty nodded in agreement and remained quiet, letting Dom take his time as he continued, pointing his large, powerful hand towards the house. "Jesse has just recovered from being shot. He almost died and he's dealt with enough shit to last all of us a lifetime. Vince almost lost his arm, was shot in his side and almost beat a man twice his size to death just to stop the fucker from killing Leon. They have dealt with their fair share of crap, Letty." he paused taking in a deep breath before continuing, turning back towards the paddock once more. "It's my turn to take care of it all now. I can't take back what happened in the past but I can make sure that they have a stress free future. I can do that much for them at least." Letty sighed and rubbed a hand over her frowning forehead in an attempt to relieve it of the tension behind her temples. Dom was an obstinate one, alright, and she could feel irritation tingling in her aching mind. "Fine, Dom. You want to be all cryptic and shit, go ahead. Be my fucking guest. You don't want to tell me what is happening, that's alright by me!" her voice was turbulent, full of frustration, but as Dom turned his head to look at her, her eyes softened and she smoothed the palm of her hand up over his tight, stiff back to rest at the base of his neck. "But you've got to understand that as much as you want to help the Team, I want to help you. You can't do it all alone, as much as you want to." she moved her hand up to cup his cheek, smoothing her thumb across it as tenderly as she knew how. Their relationship had been fiery from the very start and little tenderness had been displayed throughout it's entirety, but at that moment Letty knew that they needed a little bit of gentleness every now and again just to remind them that it didn't always have to be about the passion and lust. She was there beside Dom and he was there beside her, no matter what or who had interfered with them in the past. They were still there together and were both too stubborn to leave the other if nothing else. It was that tenacity that saw them through, and was what would see them through again. She took a step away from him, her hand slipping from his face, spreading her arms wide and inviting him to look at her properly. "Okay, so you don't want to speak about what happened to Leon and Vince in L.A. You don't want to talk about what you think will happen to us if the Tran's ever find us. You don't want to talk about the why's, or the how's, or the who's. That's all okay. Just…" she hesitated for a split second, unsure whether her words were having any effect upon his pride whatsoever. "Just let me in a little bit, okay? If you won't let me help you out with the other stuff, take a little bit of worry from your shoulders, let me at least help you worry about our future." "Safe. That's what our future is gonna be. Lets leave it at that." Dom responded and Letty gritted her teeth and growled out in aggravation, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. "Alright, Dom. Lets put this in a way that you're gonna understand." she bit out, a frown darkening her eyes as she glared at him. "You have no control over me. You have no control over the Team either, but first things first, you can't write my future down for me and expect me to be happy about it." her gaze shifted again, turning instead to pleading, desperation for him to talk to her properly clear in their dark depths. "I want to be a part of building our new life together. I want to have a say. I want to help you decide whether we're gonna open a new garage down here. Whether we're gonna stay in the same house as your cousins and the Team forever or get a place of our own someday. Whether we're gonna help Jesse to go back to school and get some qualifications coz that boys is hot with talent. Whether Mia is gonna paint the baby's nursery yellow, pink or blue." she smiled at all of the events that she listed and Dom smiled with her. "What I'm saying is, I don't want to be watching on the sidelines anymore, like I was in L.A. I wanna be a contender in this race." Dom considered Letty carefully as she finished speaking, taking in not only the resolute light that shone in her eyes but also the frantic desire to reach him with her words. They had never really talked, never got all their problems and worries out into the open and perhaps that was where their relationship had started to go pear-shaped. That was when the fights had started and if it hadn't been for the last heist, they would have probably been long since broken up. That was one good thing that had come out of the whole mess that Tran, Brian and the heists had landed them in. It had given them the perfect excuse to take themselves away from the drama, extract themselves from the things that had begun to sunder their relationship together. It had given them a second chance…to start over. Dom's smile widened as his thoughts swirled around and he stepped towards Letty, pulling her close suddenly and clamping his arms around her as if he would never let her go again. "When did you get so fucking smart?" he chuckled in her ear and Letty made a noise of mock irritation, though she wrapped her own arms securely about his waist, her head resting underneath his chin snugly. "I've always been this smart." she retorted, her voice muffled by Dom's chest. "You just never paid me any attention." She regretted saying the words almost as soon as they had fallen from her lips as she felt Dom stiffen. They both knew that her words were closer to the truth than was comfortable but there was no escaping the fact that she had finally spoken them and that they were blatant reality. In L.A Dom's life had only had room for one thing. The love of the race. Perhaps that was why Letty had flipped every time that he had spoken to another woman. At least they were something real for her to focus her anger at being second best in Dom's life upon. How could she fight a feeling? How could she fight against the freedom that racing gave him? They held onto each other for a moment longer before Dom pulled away and clasped her shoulders tightly again, looking down into her eye, sincerity clear in his own gaze. "It's gonna be different this time around, Letty. I swear on my father's grave. I almost lost you once, don't think for a second that I'd risk it ever again." his voice was low, barely more than a rumble from deep in his chest and Letty could do no more than nod her head. "I'll try my hardest to talk to you more. I do want your help, Lett. It's just hard for me to ask for it." "I know." she muttered and they lapsed into another silence, though this one was less charged and more comfortable than the others as they had both reached an understanding. They were partners again. Not Letty on the sidelines and Dom on the starting line, but both of them, side-by-side, ready to put pedal to the metal and create a life that they both wanted to live. Suddenly Dom's face split into a wide beaming grin and Letty raised her eyebrows in bewilderment. "Blue." he said simply. "Blue?" she asked, wrinkling her nose in confusion. "Blue, what?" she prompted when receiving no further answer and Dom laughed to himself. "Mia's nursery." he illuminated with his infamous cocky grin. "Gonna paint it blue. She's going to have a boy, I just know it." "No way!" Letty retorted with a scoff. "I bet you any money she has a girl!" Dom tossed his head back a mocking blast of laughter, before wrapping his arm about Letty's shoulder and steering them back towards the house. "Boy." he replied but lightening quick Letty spat out her own response. "Girl!" "Boy!" "Girl!" "Boy!" "Girl! Girl! Girl!" Letty chanted, grinning up at him as he narrowed his eyes feigning anger at her and swatted her on the backside, sending her up the veranda steps before him. -00000- Hope you liked that one. I couldn't stop writing it when I had started. I even missed watching blinkin' 'Hell's Kitchen' for it! Argh! No! Come back Jean-Christoph Nouvelli! Okay…yes…ahem…please read and review!
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