Previously on Drift Velocity:

Han leaves Jess. Jess gets sad. Instead of staying sad, Jess decides let's be awesome instead a.k.a she thinks 'wow, criminal heists involving Yakuza will make me feel better for sure' =] Then, Han comes back. Jess acts stupid and lets her emotions take control (i.e hugging him when clearly she should have punched him in the face LOL), but shortly after this mental failure, she strongly walks away from him (yay for her)...and then...cut to opening credits =)

Chapter 7

What Han didn't get, was that Jess was still hurting. He had left her, without even a second glance and he had no trouble doing it either, as far as she could tell. That wasn't something Jess could just get over, no matter how much she wanted things to go back to normal. After all, how could it go back to normal? She was now in too deep with DK and how would she even get out of it. Actually, how would she even be able to hide that from Han? Now that he was back, there was no doubt that he'd go back to working with Takashi. That's where the money was. And when he found out that she was in on the heists that were going on, well yeah, things were going to get ugly.

Jess sat in an empty parking lot. She was freaking out, there way no other way to put it.

So, did that just happen? Han's back.

It was what she had thought she had wanted for so long and now that he had actually come back, she didn't know what to feel. Taking her frustration out on the steering wheel, Jess hit it. Hard. "Ow, freaking hell!" she yelled out loud. She was so mad at herself for her earlier reaction. How could she just give in to her emotions like that? "Just play right into it, Jess, why don't you? I mean obviously Han wasn't at fault for leaving you. Her thoughts were dripping with sarcasm. "Oh man, what happens when he finds out?" she paused. With an angry sigh, she continued, "Who cares? He left you, in case you've forgotten and he's probably going to do it again," she reminded herself out loud. "Oh, great, now I'm talking to myself," she shook her head in annoyance.

"Okay, I can't go back to the garage, not until I pull it together. Where to go? Where to go?" she tapped the steering wheel in thought.

Finally, after thirty minutes, she pulled out of the empty parking lot that had given her a chance to think. Jess sped down the highway, hoping that arriving at her destination would not cause too much trouble.

DK's Club

Jess drove behind the seemingly quiet brown building and parked. Taking a deep breath, she marched up to the back entrance and into DK's club. She almost lost her nerve at the last step, but then realised that she had nowhere else to go.

"I'm here to see DK," she said to an unfriendly guard. The bulky guard knew her from the heist 'meetings', so he let her through.

DK was sitting at his desk with his feet on the table. He eyed her curiously.

"I need a place to stay." Jess stated this, as more of a fact than a question.

"But from what I hear, your boy is back. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Jess' silence rang clear for Takashi, so instead he motioned for one of his 'minions'.

"Get this girl a room. No one is to bother her." He smiled at Jess, who in return said "Thank you," bowing her head just a little.

She hated the thought of asking anything of DK, but what he was doing for her was a big thing, and she would not forget it. Apparently, from the look on Takashi's face, he wouldn't either.

Jess sat on the bed in the room she was directed to. Breathing a sigh of relief, she lay down and fell asleep. She knew she should be worried about now being indebted to DK, whether he mentioned it or not, but she refused to think about certain things tonight. She would deal with this entire mess in the morning.

In the morning:

Jess woke up early and got ready. How in the world was she going to be able to avoid Han today? Not a chance. She had work and there was no way around it. Not that she needed the money; she was actually considering skipping town. That was probably not a good idea. At least, now she felt that she could face Han again. Besides, why should she be running? She decided to get to the garage and go from there. She wasn't really one to plan ahead anyway. Live your life a quarter mile at a time, right Dom?

But there was one thing she had to do first.

"You can't get him involved DK. He can't know about the heists," she explained to DK.

His look was surprised but in a mocking way. "I'm sorry, I wasn't under the impression that I took orders from a girl."

Ignoring the swipe at her, Jess continued, "I'm sorry Takashi, but if you want these heists to go on, then the only way is if Han doesn't know about my involvement. He'd never let me do it." Jess tried hard to keep her voice emotionless, but Takashi heard the resentment that was there.

"You're a big girl now; I think you can take care of yourself."

"No. You know what he's like. He's not going to go for it."

"Leave Han to me."

Jess raised an eyebrow. "Why? What are you going to tell him?"'

"Nothing you need to worry about. Now, if you'll excuse me," he said, getting up from his chair. "I've got business to do."

Jess left after that. Hopping in her car, she drove to the garage. As she got out, she saw the gang congregated around the couches.

"Hmm, so I guess no one works here if I'm not here then," she smirked at them all.

"Where've you been Jess?" Twink asked curiously, "And in the same outfit too. Did someone have a little too much fun last night?"

"You wish you could hear the details," Jess winked. Up until this point she was comfortable, probably because Han couldn't be seen anywhere. Probably off with some skank, sleeping off the drinks from last night.

Twink was about to continue, but closed his mouth.

"What? Nothing to say, Twink? Well that's got to be a first," she laughed. Just then Han appeared from behind the hood of a purple Mazda RX-8 that was off to the side. He had heard it all and his expression was unreadable.

"Hey Jess," Han said casually. Jess didn't think two normal words could trigger such a reaction. She was pissed. All that anger at Han leaving had finally surfaced.

She gave him the most devoid look of emotion possible. "Hi Han. Welcome back," she said coldly. Her reaction stung Han, she saw it in his eyes. And her own tone had shocked her. She continued on through the garage down to her basement room.

Hmm well that wasn't exactly normal, was it? She thought to herself. Am I glad he's back or aren't I?

Closing the door, she went to shower and get changed. Towelling her hair, she stopped in mid air. Han was standing in the doorway.

"Did you want something?" she asked icily. Okay, definitely not glad he's back, she thought.

"Yeah, I want to know what happened since last night," he said calmly.

"Last night?"

"Well, one minute you were happy to see me and then you bail. And now you're acting like a…" he paused.

"Like a what?" She knew what he was going to say.

"Just different," he concluded.

"How did you think I'd be? Oh right! You were hoping that that stupid lapse of judgment last night would continue." She flung the towel on the floor and turned to face her mirror. Her hair hung in loose dark brown curls, reaching her mid-back. She had on dark jeans and a light brown mechanics shirt, with her name embroidered on it. In the reflection, she could see Han still standing in the doorway. When Han didn't reply, she continued, "Don't you get it? You left us. You left me. Did you really think it'd just go back to being normal? One big, happy family?"

"Everyone else is over it. I'm back now, what's the big deal?" Ooh, definitely the wrong choice of words, Han realised as soon as they came out. He wasn't thinking very sharply, since Jess looked so damn beautiful just then. He missed this. The fire that she possessed.

"What's the big deal?" Jess stopped mid-rant. "Just forget it." She tried to move past him, but he grabbed her arm.

"No, Tell me." His brown eyes were hard. He had that look that demanded an answer. Jess knew he wasn't going to let her go without an explanation.

"Fine," she said, shrugging off Han and stepping away from him. "The deal is that you bailed on us! It was so easy for you to walk away, how am I supposed to trust you again? How do I know you won't just leave again?"

Han was speechless. "That's right, I don't know. And until I'm okay with that, I don't really want to pretend that everything is okay, because it's not!"

Jess stormed out of her room and into the garage. She sat on the couches next to Neela and let out a sigh of relief. That felt good.

"So what's going on?" Neela asked.

"Nothing much. Just vented," Jess replied, smiling. "And it felt really good."

"Where'd you stay last night?" Neela was prying now, since Jess had already informed her that her and Jason were over.

"Just at a friends," Knowing Neela wouldn't drop it, Jess continued, "DK's. You can't tell anyone alright. Especially Sean." Sean she could handle, but if Sean knew, it was only a matter of time before Han did and that she didn't know if she could handle.

Neela looked shocked. She was obviously not happy about it either, but there was nothing she could do. "Since when are you and DK friends?" She raised an eyebrow at Jess.

Avoiding the question, Jess motioned to the Nissan in the corner, "I better get a moving on those brake discs."

"Yeah, yeah, go for it," Neela said rolling her eyes. "But this conversation isn't over, you know."

Jess walked away, knowing she'd have to explain herself sooner or later, and in Neela's case, it was probably going to be sooner. She didn't want to think about anything right now. She just wanted to work on cars and clear her head of all thoughts about him.

A/N: WOW it's been a while..sorry *smiles sheepishly* . I can honestly say that there's nothing like upcoming finals to get the procrastinating writing juices flowing *face palm*. I feel that I am definitely going to flunk this semester, but at least I will have achieved something (one chapter update? LOL).

Anyways, I hope you guys like it, don't be too mad if it's crap, it was pretty hard to write this after not doing so for such a long time *sigh*

R&R if you can/want to ( but only the good stuff, I can't really take criticism right now :( )