Title: These Small Hours
Category: Movies » Fast and the Furious
Author: And The Moment's Gone
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T
Words: 1,375
Warnings/Spoilers: Do NOT watch if you haven't seen Furious 7.
Summary: "I've always been family, Mi." Letty crossed the room then, wrapping her arms around the younger girl's shoulders and tucking Mia's head under her chin. "A piece of paper and a priest don't make it mean more."
Official Disclaimer: All Fast and Furious characters and plots belong to Original Film, Universal Pictures, and Neal Moritz I do not hold stock either the companies or the man. Dominic Toretto, Letty Ortiz and any other character featured are NOT mine. The title, and summary come from the Rob Thomas song Little Wonders and I don't own that either.
Mia was exhausted.
There really was no better word for it.
Brian had called no less than half a dozen hours after the news reported various explosions in downtown LA. The good news was that it was over. Shaw was captured, everyone was alive, and it was officially safe to come home. The bad news was her brother had been medevac'd to Cedars-Sinai after bringing half a car park down onto himself.
It was a lot to take in at 4 in the morning,
Brian and Mando had agreed that she didn't need to hurry. She was sent back to bed with an 'I love you' and the promise of a plane ticket, and if she couldn't get back to sleep and chose to go ahead and pack her an Jack's things, well that was on her. When she and Jack emerged from their suite hours later, her flight had been booked as promised. It was a 5 pm flight out of Punta Cana, and she'd been fed lunch at a resort in Puerto Plata on the way. She was only in the air for about 7 hours, but with a 3-hour layover in Miami, and a toddler, it felt like twice that.
It also didn't help that Brian still hadn't given her any news on her brother.
She had expected to be greeted at the airport by her husband, or at the very least Letty, who had probably gotten entirely too uncomfortable with sitting around in waiting rooms. What she got instead was Roman Pierce and a military escort.
Despite her protests she wasn't immediately taken to the hospital. After the bags were loaded, he announced that they had the Penthouse at the Beverly Wilshire, as well as the Presidential Suite below it for their use, and if he showed up to the hospital with Jack in tow Brian would probably arrange a room for him right next to her brother.
"He's okay." Rome told her as he was leading her to the elevator. "Let's get Jackie settled, and I'll take you up there."
She didn't even stop to question who was going to watch her son while she was gone.
An hour later – after a shower that she swore she didn't need – Mia found herself ushered past another uniformed officer on her way into the ICU.
"Brian's still downstairs." Tej came out of nowhere, and Mia wrapped her arms around him as easily as she had greeted Rome, mentally ass jessing his bruises and making sure that his injuries were superficial. "They took him for x-rays after Letty came back from her MRI."
"X-rays?" Mia's head swam. Brian had assured her that no one else was seriously injured. "And why the hell did Letty need a MRI?"
"Dislocated shoulder, and he was complaining that his wrist hurt. Letty insisted he be seen." Tej chuckled as he remembered the way Letty had told Brian that under no uncertain terms was he allowed to argue with her. "And as for the MRI..." Tej and Roman shared a slow smile, "I think we should let them tell you."
Them sounded promising, at least to Mia's tired ears. "Where's Dom?"
"Last door on the right." Tej's arm came up, and he waved to the guard at the end of the hall. "Jakande's dead and Shaw's in custody, but Hobbes is still keeping it tight."
Mia wrapped her arms around her chest, and tried to brace herself for whatever state she was about to find her brother. The guard nodded to her as she approached. She snagged the chart out of the wall file, scanning the contents and buying for more time. According to the report, the most serious injuries her brother sustained were hemothorax and a concussion. They had stemmed the internal bleeding the best they could around the lungs, careful to avoid the broken ribs, and cracked collarbone, and MRIs and CTs showed no intracranial hemorrhaging. Everything else, while substantial, was more or less superficial. A sprained wrist that would heal, broken bones that would mend, and as long as he followed doctor's orders, no more than a week and a half in the hospital. Mia suppressed a giggle. He would be in for two weeks, minimum. Her brother was more stubborn than the man she married.
When she couldn't put it off any longer she closed the chart, dropping it back invto the wall file. The guard smiled at her slowly, and she pushed the door open the rest of the way and took a single step into the room.
And froze.
It was her brother she noticed first, in a pair of sweatpants, and a hospital gown for a shirt. He was propped up in the bed, shifted a little too far to one side for her liking, with one arm behind his head and his bare feet poking out from underneath the blanket. She could almost hear him fussing about the fact that he didn't need socks. She noted the bruising on his hands, the way one arm was wrapped, almost hallway up his humorous, and the fact that there was gauze peeking out of the sleeve of the same shoulder. There was a bandage on the side of his head, and she had to resist the urge to grab his chart again and confirm the rest of his injuries. His eyes were closed, although she was willing to bet he wasn't asleep, and his head was tilted at an odd angle, his cheek resting on something soft and dark.
It was this that gave Mia pause.
She was laying on her side, something that Mia knew she would probably bitch about later, in a DSS hoodie that was at least three sizes too large for her. Her face was pressed against his chest, one leg tucked over Dom's knees, the other straight out to allow for no room between his and hers. One hand was tucked underneath her chin, between his shoulder and her cheek, and the other, with Dom's silver cross wrapped around it like a bracelet, was stretched across his chest, Mia didn't need to count her breaths to know that there was absolutely no way that Letty was awake. And while normally the woman slept hard and wild, tossing and turning and taking up both halves of the bed at once, Mia noted that it didn't look like she could move if she had to. It was almost as if time had rewound, and Mia was staring ten years into the past.
She smiled sadly.
"I could have sworn Rome was told not to bring you here 'til morning."
Mia jumped slightly, and then shook her head at the sound of her brother's chuckle. "You're breaking at least three hospital regulations." She countered, dropping her bag to the floor at the foot of the bed, and then moving to the chair that had been shifted closer. "Your chart said you're supposed to be using a nasal cannula."
Dom chuckled again, lifting his cheek from the top of Letty's head. In the twenty-four hours since he had been admitted, this had been the first time he had been able to get her to stop moving. He'd be damned if she woke up now. "That's what you're gonna lecture me about now?" He pulled his other arm from behind his head, reaching out to take Mia's from where they clutched the bed rail. "Brian said that he told you I was fine."
"He didn't mention the hemothorax. Or that you flat lined."
His thumb rubbed circles on the back of Mia's hand. "I'm still here, ain't I?"
Arguing was futile.
Instead, Mia kissed the knuckles on the hand she was holding and leaned in to press it to her forehead. "Don't do it again," she told him harshly.
His chest rumbled, and Mia watched as Letty's chin shifted slightly. Dom rested his cheek back on the top of her head, and murmured something in a language Mia didn't immediately recognize, and Letty's eyes fluttered shut again.
It took another minute before her brother turned his head to meet her eyes. "Yeah." Mia kissed his knuckles again. "You're not getting out of explaining that one either."
Her brother's smile said it all.
