Author's Note: Okay soooo it's been a while since I wrote for anything. I apologize. It's just been harder for me to write lately, so expect updates to take longer. I'm sorry but I'm still writing. This chapter is about how Jesse and Leon came to join the team. I know in the first movie Mia attributed it to Dom and it still is, but I wanted to put my own spin on it, so I came up with this idea. Hope you guys like it!
An Introduction
They were a team. She'd been a part of that team before she could remember, quite literally. When she'd been in London, working with Shaw she'd been part of a crew. But it wasn't like being part of a team. Like being a part of a family. A family she'd been welcomed back into without a second thought. Even though she'd shot Dom. Even though she'd done some other questionable things while she'd been working with Shaw. Bad things. Worse things than she'd ever done before.
And there were times when she was trying to sleep, staring at the ceiling in the dark, listening to the sound of her own breathing, or Dom's breathing, or both of them breathing. Sometimes late at night she could hear Jack fussing as Mia soothed him. The comforting sounds of the city around her; night insects, the distant wail of sirens, the occasional voice of one of the neighbors. Her mind would wander, unable to quiet, unable to sleep. Memories flitted to the surface, old ones and new ones. Warring in her mind. Trying to tell her who she was.
Who was Letty Ortiz?
She didn't really know, if she was honest. She was starting to remember things, get pieces of herself back. But she didn't feel whole. And she had a hard time trying to blend the Letty she'd become, running with Shaw, to the Letty she'd been before she'd lost her memories.
It helped that she had people around her that she remembered. People that she trusted and loved. Her team. Her family.
She rolled over in bed, studying Dom's sleeping face in the faint streetlight that drifted through the blinds of the window. He looked relaxed in his sleep, at ease in a way he didn't when he was awake. When she could see the wheels in his head constantly turning. For Dom everything he did was about keeping his family safe. His team safe.
He wasn't always able to do it. They'd lost Gisele getting Mia back from Shaw, a loss suffered in the quest for Dom to get her back. To get back the woman he loved. The woman he'd thought was dead. It made her feel guilty, to know when she heard the sadness in Han's voice on the other end of the phone. Han, who'd become a part of their family that first time in Mexico. Not too long after they'd lost Jesse. After Leon had taken off.
They had been family too. But they were gone now. Like they were always doomed to lose the people they cared about. Just like Dom had thought he'd lost her.
She could feel the weight of his arm curled around her waist, the warmth of his skin against hers. She listened to the steady sound of his breathing, curling closer to him. Rested her head against his chest where she could hear the beat of his heart. He stirred beneath her, a sigh feathering against her hair, the arm around her waist tightening just slightly. Reluctant to let her go, even in his sleep.
She let her eyes fall shut, willing her mind to stop wandering. Her body felt weary but her thoughts wouldn't quiet. She concentrated on Dom's warmth beneath her, the way his chest moved with his breathing. The curl of his fingers against her hip, the soothing feeling of lying there with him in bed, in their bed.
She was curled up in the bed she'd shared sometimes with Dom before his dad had passed away. The bed that had become hers the day Dom had gone to Lompoc. It was just after 9pm and she'd retreated to the privacy of the bedroom after Mia had passed the phone off to her. Dom usually called every other day, maybe every day when he was going through a rough time. Sometimes he didn't talk to Vince, sometimes he didn't talk to Mia, but he always made sure to save at least five minutes to talk to her. Sometimes that was the only communication they had, when she was too busy at the garage to get in during weekend visitation hours.
She hated those weeks. But with just her and Vince working at the garage they happened often.
"Hey baby," Dom's voice drifted through the phone line, deep and yet hushed as it always was when he called. It wasn't like the phone in the prison was kept in a private area after all.
She smiled, tucking the phone against her ear as she pulled her knees up against her chest. "Hey Dom."
"How you doin'?"
"Okay," she said. 'Tired,' she thought. 'Missing you,' followed hotly on its heels, but she held her tongue. Dom was the one locked up. She didn't need to make him feel guilty.
He was quiet a moment. "My parole hearing is only a six months away," he reminded her.
Though Dom had been sentenced for three years he'd been up for parole as he approached the end of his second year serving. Good behavior and all that bullshit. She was still afraid to get her hopes up.
"I know," she tightened her hands on the phone. "We'll be there."
"You comin' this weekend?" he asked.
"I'll try," she promised. She'd missed him the weekend before. She wouldn't miss this one if she had to stay all night at the garage the next few days.
"Listen," he interrupted her thoughts. "I think you need to hire some more help for the garage."
"Dom," she protested. "We can't afford another mechanic."
Not while they were trying to keep the garage open and the shop, pay the bills on the house, plus pay off the lawyers and Linder's medical bills. Mr. Toretto's insurance coverage only went so far. The bulk of that had been eaten up by final expenses. Death was a costly thing. In more ways than one.
"I have a name for you," he continued, as if he hadn't heard her. Stubborn bastard. "Guy I met in here has got a kid… great with math, computers, engines, cars, all that shit. Says he's a good kid, but never finished school. Doesn't have a lot of other options. You could give him a job, room and board."
She was silent a moment, dark eyes flicking over the bedroom. She blew a sigh out her nose and lie back on the bed. They did need the help and she really needed someone with more engine expertise than Vince had. He was good for the muscle but he could be a dumbass when it came to the finer points of car maintenance.
"Fine," she muttered. "Where do I find this kid?"
It was true that Dom had always been responsible for bringing the members of their rather unconventional family together. But that didn't mean they all didn't share their own bonds. With her and Vince it had always been that they were the two people who knew Dom the best, who understood his many moods and the things about him that drove them crazy, or caused them heartache. With her and Mia it had always been this bond of sisterhood, the only two women in a house full of boys, united by the man they loved; one as a brother and one as a boyfriend.
It was true that sometimes the sun seemed to rise and set over Dominic Toretto, but there were times when his family had needed to survive without him.
Letty double-checked the address she'd scrawled on an old receipt as she pulled up in front of the old Spanish-style house. The walls were crumbling, brick showing through the plaster here and there. The front yard was overgrown. The narrow driveway was crammed with cars, most of which looked to be illegally modified. All the windows were open, and the heavy smell of marijuana drifted in the air.
The neighborhood was a bad one, and Letty briefly wished she'd brought Vince along as backup as he'd suggested. But one of them had to stay at the shop during lunch break with Mia at the community college today. There was no way she was entrusting Vince to doing something that involved talking, even though she was little more diplomatic herself.
She stepped out of her car, closing the door behind her, and strolled up the drive slowly. The sound of heavy metal drifted out of one of open windows. She wore her work clothes, an ancient pair of Dom's grey pants – from when he'd been about 15 or so – otherwise it would be falling off her ass. As it was she'd cinched the waist with a black leather belt. She wore a white ribbed tank, stained with grease and oil, with a black zip-up hoodie and her beat-up tan work-boots.
There was a rotting old shed in the yard with a big chain and padlock across the door. A smell lingered in the air closer to it, like rotten eggs and the burning scent of bleach cleaner. She narrowed her eyes, pounding up the narrow brick stairs to the side door and knocked loudly.
The guy who answered the door looked young – sixteen perhaps. Scrawny kid, pale as hell with bloodshot blue eyes and black-painted fingernails. He stared at her and she looked back, raising a brow.
"I'm looking for Jesse," she said.
He looked confused, glancing at her, then peeking out of the door as if to make sure she was alone. "Uh… that's me."
Letty sighed internally. Dom seriously hadn't been shitting her when he said this guy was a kid. But she'd been one too when Mr. T had first let her come to work in the garage. She'd give him a chance.
"I'm here about a job." She tucked her hands into her pockets. "Mind if I come in?"
He rubbed a hand over his head, through messy brown hair. "Yeah uh… my Dad told me someone might come by." He stepped back to let her in.
Letty walked into a kitchen that had seen better days. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes; there were piles of mail on the table next to an overly full ash tray. A half-rolled joint sat out beside it. There were beer bottles – empty, crowding one of the counters. Jesse motioned for her to take a seat, which she did, terribly glad that Mia kept the Toretto's place clean. She had half a mind that it would look similar enough to this if Vince and Dom had been left to their own devices.
"So…" she began, watching him resume rolling the joint. "Tell me what you know about cars…"
Turned out the kid, who really had been only sixteen, had known a hell of a lot about cars. About engines. About designing cars. Jesse came with Leon, one of his roommates, knew enough about cars to be useful. And they were both willing to work for next to nothing, and a place to crash. Which helped her out.
She'd had one rule. Pot was fine, but nothing harder than that in the house. No selling either. She'd needed Mia away from the bad shit in this world. If there was one thing she could do for Dom while he was locked up, that had been it.
And Jesse and Leon had become a part of their team, a part of their family. Invaluable at the garage, and loyal to a fault. And once they'd been able to keep up with work at the garage the bills had been paid. Leon and Jesse moved out to their own place.
Dom had come home from prison, and their new family had adjusted. Jesse, and even snarky Leon had taken to him, even bowed beneath his patriarchal presence. They'd followed his lead, put their trust in him. Maybe that was why Leon had left after the disaster of their last hijacking in LA, after Jesse's death.
Some things even the closest of families couldn't weather.
Letty curled her hand around Dom's bicep and held on. Would they be able to live this life that Hobbs had handed back to them. Keep their family together and stay on the right side of the law? Would they be able to live without the adrenaline rush?
Only time would tell.
But for now they had each other. And that was enough.