Author's Note: Because a lot of the most important memories are not good ones. This chapter is a bit sad but I tried to end it on a light note. Not really sure if it's as good as some of my others but… I think that a lot. Maybe I'm just my own worst critic! Hope you guys enjoy.

A Dark Time

She was taking a walk with Mia and Jack around the neighborhood when she remembered one of the worst times of her life.

Perhaps it wasn't fair to claim that, for surely it had been just as bad, if not worse for Mia and Dom. But when she remembered it with sudden, painful clarity she had stalled on the sidewalk, staring up at the corner house with the overgrown yard. There was a cracked, cement stoop and the brown paint on the siding was peeling.

Mia paused too, hands resting on the stroller she was pushing as she turned to follow her friend's gaze. "Your old place…" she murmured. "Dom took you by here before, didn't he?"

Letty nodded, staring at the narrow windows. Its current resident had hung up sunny yellow curtains, perhaps to try and give the place a little cheer for not a lot of money. Letty couldn't even fathom of a time when her mother had bothered with such a thing.

She could feel her father's dog tags resting against her chest with a sudden heaviness and reached up to wrap her hand around them. She had remembered sitting on that stoop and looking up at the stars with her father. How he'd told her that wherever he was in the world he could see those same stars. And that whenever she looked up, she could think about how he was looking up somewhere and thinking about her.

For a long time, even after he'd died she'd stared up at the sky and imagined that he was still somewhere staring up at the same sky.

She remembered too many nights spent on that stoop just to get away from her mother. How Dom would walk down the street and sit with her there just talking. Just about anything… about cars, about his Dad or Mia. About something stupid Vince had done. About nothing at all.

She remembered climbing into his lap and kissing him breathless, his hand up her shirt, her hand down his pants, never worrying that her mother might catch them because the woman never cared enough to come check on her.

And when the old stoop became too public a place to be alone they'd see how fast they could get back to his place and sneak in without waking his Dad or Mia.

All of these things had already come back to her, making her smile or cry, and share them with Dom, whispering little things she remembered when she curled around him in bed.

But she hadn't remembered another time spent on that stoop with Dom. Not until she stood there now with Mia under the warm LA sun, listening to Jack push buttons on some little hand-held toy that played music. And suddenly she remembered it like it was yesterday.

It was only days after Mr. Toretto's funeral and she was still in a daze. Nearly every minute since that horrible day at the races she'd been with Dom and Mia. Helping Mia around the house, sweating hours at the garage with Dom and Vince to try and catch up with the work. They'd closed only one day to go to the funeral, which they'd all planned together. Mia had seemed to cry constantly, while Dom never seemed to cry at all.

She hadn't even seen him break down since that day at the races. The day she'd stood with him in the pit and watched his father crash. Watched the wreck go up in flames. Stood in shock as Dom started screaming. The pit crew had to hold him back to keep him from running onto the track.

And since then he'd been almost blank. Going through the motions. He worked hard at the garage; he made sure Mia went back to school. He was physically present, but he hadn't really been there. And even when they'd be alone together he wouldn't or couldn't talk about it.

And she might have worried, or thought that he was pulling away from her, except that she knew him so well. She knew that he'd talk about it when he was ready. She knew that from the desperate way he seemed to hold onto her in his sleep, the way he reached for her hand as they watched them slowly lower the coffin into the ground. How he'd turn to her early in the morning, pressing his nose against her temple and whisper that he loved her when he thought she was still asleep.

So she knew he would talk to her eventually.

She just hadn't expected it to happen the way it had.

It was the first day she'd gone back to her place. In the middle of the day her mother was gone at work. It was the perfect time to slip back home and get some more clothes and stuff. She didn't really live at home, or she wasn't there often enough to feel like she did, but she and Dom had both known his dad probably wouldn't have approved of the fact that she was practically living with him. So she'd become quite adept at sneaking in and out of Dom's room. And on the nights she couldn't get away with it she would innocently crash in Mia's room.

She figured Mr. Toretto had probably known the truth the whole time but he'd never said anything about it.

It was a Saturday so the work load at the garage was light enough for Dom and Vince to handle on their own. Mia had gone to the movies with some friends, probably hoping to get her mind off of things. It was after two when she made the walk down to her house. The guys should be home from the garage by now, but she half-expected Vince had taken Dom to some bar to get wasted.

She wrinkled her nose at the wine bottles piled in the kitchen sink and sighed. Her mother never could stay sober.

She bypassed the mess of a kitchen and hurried up the stairs to her room. The clothes she'd left on the floor the last time she'd changed here were still there and she gathered them up, shoving them into her duffle bag. She emptied her dresser and her closet, cramming the bag as full as she could get it. She'd come back for the rest eventually. After losing Mr. T she didn't think there was any way she'd be back here. Dom and Mia were her family anyway.

She was just grabbing a pair of boots to take with her when there was a pounding knock on the front door.

Brow furrowed in confusion, Letty hurried down the steps, dropping the bag and her shoes at the foot with a soft thud. She yanked open the door to see Dom standing there on the stoop.

"Hey, I was just about to-" she trailed off when she saw the anguished look on his face.

And the blood splatters on his shirt.

Her eyes went wide. "Dom…?"

Then she was in his arms and he was clinging to her and her arms were around him. She could feel his face pressed against the curve of her shoulder, feel the dampness through her shirt. They sank down to that old cement stoop, her in his lap as he held onto her and cried.

For what seemed like an eternity Letty didn't say anything, just laid her head against his and rubbed his back idly.

Finally his grip on her eased slightly.

"Letty," he breathed against her skin. "I fucked up…"

She tightened her arms around him. "Dom, it's going to be okay…"

"No it's not. Let… I need you to watch out for Mia. Promise me."

"What are you talking about Dom?" she pulled back to look at him, her hands coming up to frame his face. His eyes looked so dark. "What happened?"

"Linder…"

She tensed slightly. It was the name of the racer who'd hit his dad's car. Who had inadvertently been responsible for Mr. Toretto's death.

"I… saw him," Dom said, one hand clenching in her hair.

"What did you do?" she managed, though she had a sick feeling in her gut.

"I didn't even realize what I was doing. I was just… hitting him." He drew his hands from her to stare down at them. "I just was so… angry. He's alive and my dad isn't… and I just… wanted to hurt him. And I didn't mean to keep on hitting him Letty. And then I realized there was all this blood… and he wasn't even moving."

"Oh my god… Dom…" she whispered. Had he killed a man? What was going to happen to him? She held on tighter.

"He was alive… and I called 9-1-1… But they're going to come for me."

She could feel tears burning her eyes though they didn't fall. Her throat felt tight. Dom buried his face in her hair. She held onto him and tried to imprint the feeling of his arms around her onto her soul. She could feel his heart beating against hers and the heat of his breath feathering against her throat.

Letty pressed her eyes closed as she heard sirens in the air. "Whatever happens, Dom, I'm not going anywhere."

Letty licked her lips slowly, unclenching her hand where she'd fisted it at her side, letting out a shuddering breath as she stared up at the house. That place held so many painful memories, and once her dad had been gone it had held so little love.

She could still remember how the cops had arrived to arrest Dom. How one of the officers had needed to drag her away from him. She remembered how she'd cried as she watched them cuff him and take him to the police car. She'd just been 17 years old. Just a damn kid. And her world had begun to crumble in front of her.

She'd lost a second father with Mr. T, and she'd lost Dom. And then she'd had to wipe away the tears and go back home to tell Mia and Vince what had happened.

She'd had to sit stoically through the trial with Mia crying next to her. She'd had to watch Vince spiral out of control going to the bars every night and drinking himself silly. She had to slap him into gear just to keep the garage running. She had officially dropped out of school, not that she'd cared about leaving text books and homework behind. Dom hadn't exactly been happy when she'd told him.

She'd had to make it through weeks without seeing him, forced to write letters and making the most of the limited visiting hours she and the others were allowed. And every time she'd seen him he looked different. He'd gotten bigger, passing time in the prison gym and she figured it was probably better that he looked like he could break most of the guys in there in half. But it was his eyes that killed her. The way they looked like they'd seen too much.

"Letty?" Mia was blinking at her. "You totally zoned out there. Did I lose you?"

She blinked at her friend. "No… I just," Letty swallowed. "Dom came here to me… right after the incident with Linder."

Mia's eyes widened with understanding and then softened. "Those were bad times," she said softly. "You were my rock through all that, you know?"

Letty looked at her friend in surprise. "What? I was a wreck…"

"You never seemed like it." Mia smiled sadly. "Even though years later I could look back and realize you must have been suffering just as much as the rest of us. But you didn't show it. You held us together. God knows what would have happened to Vince if you hadn't been around… And me? I wasn't ready to be on my own."

"You did fine," Letty said softly. "Give yourself some credit. Managed to finish high school with honors."

"Please," Mia rolled her eyes. "I went to class while you ran the garage with only Vince's drunken ass for help."

"You did the books," Letty insisted. "And worked afternoons at the store."

Mia laughed. "Listen to us arguing over this. I guess we're both a hell of a lot stronger than we give ourselves credit for."

Letty snorted. "I give myself credit."

"Okay fine. At least one of us is humble."

"Tell yourself that but I saw you posing in front of your mirror for like ten minutes yesterday," Letty taunted.

Mia gaped at her, then punched her in the arm. "Hey!" she laughed.

"I almost felt that. Have you been working out?" Letty grinned at her friend.

"So mean," Mia complained as they walked on past the house, leaving it and the sad memories where they belonged. In the past.

It was good to remember them. To remember how they shaped her. But it was time to make some more happier ones.