Buffy slipped into his motel room, the soft click of the closing door the only sign of her entry. Brian glanced up in shock. When had his sister learned to be so quiet?

"Buffy?" He asked softly, getting up from where he'd been lounging on his bed, idly watching the news. They'd all needed to stretch and sleep, and having made it just under half of the way to Cleveland, Buffy had paid for them to stay in a motel for the night while Dom arranged for them to use a different car for the rest of the trip. The two seater Supra wasn't going to cut it another day. He wasn't even sure how they managed it for more than that first couple of hours. Brain also vaguely wondered where Buffy's money came from, but decided not to ask. What he didn't know about couldn't be used to hurt her.

He resettled himself against the headboard of his bed, patting the spot next to him. Buffy sat down next to him cross legged. She leaned forward, running her fingers through his hair briefly.

"God, what did you to yourself Bri? You need a haircut. And a dye job. Stat. This is awful." She murmured. Brian batted her hand away, a rueful smile plastered across his face.

"Well you gotta do what you gotta do Buff. It's for the job." He replied easily. Buffy's eyes hardened.

"The job. Brain, why are you here? You're a cop, but I found you working in a machine shop with someone who obviously lives on both sides of the law. And somehow you were able to drop everything to take me to Cleveland without calling anything in." Brain forgot sometimes, that beneath his sister's ditzy blonde princess act, she was actually incredibly observant and smart in her own right. Brian groaned, running a hand through his poorly bleached, too long curls before answering her.

"I'm undercover." He admitted. Buffy sent him a sharp glance through her shadowed shattered eyes.

"With Dom? Or investigating him?" She asked quietly.

"What do you think?" He snapped at her crabbily. The stress of the past year was catching up to him. His opinion on the Toretto clan was turning and he wasn't sure what he was going to do about it yet. The crew had become his friends, and Mia…. she was quickly turning into something even more than that.

Bilkins had green lighted a SWAT operation on Johnny Tran's warehouses. That had happened earlier that day. Brian would learn the pertinent information gathered, receive all the details later on, once everything was processed. He had originally been annoyed when he was told to stay out of the arrests. But now he was grateful to have been kept out of it; otherwise he wouldn't have been able to help Buffy. He wouldn't have seen her if he'd been busy prepping for the bust.

"Brian." Buffy said, a soft warning filling her voice. He sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair.

"I know. I'm sorry Buff. It's just…. This all started out as just a case, but now? I don't know… They're my friends now. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what I can do." Buffy sighed.

"You're too close to him now Bri. He trusts you. And even worse; you trust him. You're on the same side now. I can't bring you with me to Cleveland with this between the two of you. Whatever it is you're investigating, whatever you think he might have done. Let it go, or arrest him. Because I can't have him trying to kill you for betraying him while we're there. It's too dangerous otherwise." Brian's heart froze.

"Buffy…"

"Brian. Either you tell him that you're a cop or I cut you both loose. An apoc- Cleveland, is not the place to be dealing with those kinds of have to pick." Buffy stood up, heading for the door. Brian stood up to follow her, to do what, he didn't know. But he had to do something. The case was important, but so is helping his sister.

Buffy turned around to face him from the open doorway.

"If it were up to me, I would have left both of you behind in LA. If it were up to me, I would ditch the two of you tonight; make my way to Cleveland by myself. But I'm going to leave it up to you Brian. Either you clear the air between you two, or I leave you behind."

"Buffy, I can't do that. I can't do either of those things." Brian tried to reason with her, but she just cut him off.

"And Brian?" He looked her in the eyes. Something inside her broken shattered eyes glimmer back at him. Like diamonds; strong and nearly unbreakable. For all the years he'd known Buffy, he'd always been able to see the steel at her core. Tough and unyielding. But he'd never seen her stripped quite so bare that the diamonds within her core flashed at him. His sister had that look in her eyes, the one that warned him that she wasn't somebody to be dismissed.

"Yes?"

"In my world, I am judge, jury and executioner. My word is more than law. I don't give the people around me these kinds of choices often. Choose carefully." With those final words, Buffy finally left, the motel room door clicking shut behind her. Brain collapsed onto his bed with a loud groan. He had a lot to think about.