Chapter 3:

Tej's Garage, Miami

The two racers had drank all the stock of beer in the boathouse and Brian, much to Dom's surprise, still hadn't passed out. Considering that out of the 3 six packs Brian had on the boat, the blonde had drank all but 2 bottles, that was saying a lot. Seeing the vaguely impressed and equally worried expression on the bald racers face, the wizard smiled wryly. "I have a high alcohol tolerance."

"Define high?" Dom raised an eyebrow as they both started to walk back outside, joining the rest of the team still milling around the garage. Going by the frustrated looks on everyone's faces, they were grilling Rome about him but not getting all that much. Not surprising, since Rome didn't actually know all that much about him either, a fact he was starting to understand. It had nothing to do with the black racer himself, but Brian hadn't been in a very trusting mindset back then, having just got out of a war, he didn't trust anyone back then with anything, never mind information about himself that could be used against him.

"You've drank like 16 bottles of beer, how have you not passed out by now?" Much to Brian's annoyance, that sentence was said loud enough to garner the attention of the entire room, specifically Mia's. The hidden smirk on Dom's face practically screamed that it was on purpose.

"How many bottles!?" Mia shouted, drawing some impressed and shocked looks.

"16." Directing the deadpan answer to the brown haired Italian before turning back to Dom "Like I said, high alcohol tolerance. I might as well be drinking water for all the effect this is having on me." Ignoring the irate brunette might not have been the best move but Brian really didn't care, knowing that Mia wouldn't hit him with how much he looked like death warmed over.

"16 bottles of beer is like water to you?" This time it was Vince's incredulous voice that rose above everyone else's, beating everyone to the punch. Brian had never had more than one beer when he was staying with them, it was a surprise to see him like this.

"Yes" Brian's matter of fact statement didn't seem to help at all, instead only seemed to surprise everyone even more. If this was how they reacted to his drinking then he wondered how they would react to his years of partying and drugs.

"Do we want to know how that came to be when you just turned the legal drinking age?" This time it was Letty that contributed to the conversation, her tone vaguely impressed and simultaneously worried as she glanced back and forth between Brian and Mia.

"Boarding school." That little piece of information seemed to bring everyone short, stopping Mia dead in her tracks just as she was, no doubt, about to release a verbal take down. Brian and Dom seized the opportunity to take the only two seater couch left empty as they joined everyone in the area of the garage designed to relax after a hard days work. It was apart of the garage that had everything in view without any obstructions, so that no one could steal anything while no one was in the main area.

"You went to boarding school?" Suki blinked as everyone else stared at the former raven head, who tries to block out the sounds of painfilled shrieks and falling rocks and spells flying past his head as the accusing stares dig into him for not stopping the battle before it could happen. He tries to block out the sounds of taunts and pleas for help that seem to come from every set of dead eyes around him. He tries like he has been for 4-5 years and fails yet again.

"For 6 years." The reply just seemed to confuse everyone further, as if they could not imagine him in any kind of boarding school. Understandable, most boarding schools did tend to be private, especially when they were at school age, and private schools tended to be strict and expensive, not exactly an image he had portrayed to anyone in the garage. Besides that, most parents weren't comfortable sending their kids to a boarding school so it was usually only collages that had dorm rooms. Knowing that Brian was only now turning 21 and knowing he joined the police academy at before he turned 19, there wasn't really enough time for boarding school.

"When?" That came from Roman; having known him the longest, the new information made him wonder when this was, since it had to be before they'd met, at which point Brian had been 17 and not old enough for college.

"From when I was 11 to 16." Brian's reply seemed to stump everyone, talking of getting sent to boarding school that young had only been in the context of threats and jokes, none of them had known that their were actually schools that took young kids as year round students, other than military schools.

"Who opens up a boarding school for middle school and high school kids?" Leon interjected, surprising some people; Roman jumped, having forgotten the man was there with how quiet he was. Though his reaction seemed to have brightened up the mood some what as smiles spread across their faces and Brian aimed a mocking look in Roman's direction only to get the finger in return.

"And who graduates at 16?" Tej added to the previous inquiry.

"Technically, 17." Brian stated, grabbing another beer from the mini fridge kept there, drawing disapproving looks from everyone but simply ignoring them as the conversation continued on. If he was going to have to talk about school then they were lucky he was grabbing piss poor beer and not vodka.

"What?" Tej blinked.

"It starts for kids at 11 but graduation is typically at 17, not 16." Brian clarified.

"So you didn't graduate?" Jimmy asked. It wasn't meant to be offensive or anything, in fact it was actually quite common in the racing world. It was a little confusing in Brian's case since the police academy didn't take drop outs and the blonde was a cop, but other than that, the occupants in garage could say that they knew more drop outs than they did graduates.

"I did." Brian's answer seemed to both relieve and increase the confusion in the room, something the blond was finding some small amount of amusement and bittersweet nostalgia in. It had been something of a past time for him, confusing people just for the hell of it when he was bored. The twins used to join in on the fun and all three of them would tag team in confusing people.

"How?" Roman caught on to the silent game he was amusing himself with, giving him a look that said how insufferable Brian was being again.

"I didn't bother with actually going back for my last year." Brian didn't even blink as he said that, like it was completely normal to just ditch an entire year of school. He doesn't let the air choke him, ignores the claustrophobic feeling of the air around him ripping into him, he swallows the taste of blood and ashes in his mouth as he remembers why skipping the year was necessary and not a choice at all. He feels it all, remembers it all but he lets none of it show on his face, after all he has a lifetime of practice.

Everyone else was left exchanging looks as Brian continued his explanation. "I talked with the principle around a year later, when my class was graduating, she told me I didn't have to repeat the year and gave me my diploma."

"How does that even work?" Jesse asked, knowing that it could not have been that easy.

"I already had enough credit to graduate with 6 years instead of 7, also I knew the coursework and had already shown it. That and she said I was enough of a menace to teach for 6 years, she wasn't going to subject herself or anyone else to another year of teaching me." He tries to remember the classrooms filled with kids, joking and laughing and paper origami flying around the room to send notes to other classmates and friends. He tries to remember the gum stuck under the desks and the chisel that was used to scrape it all off. He tries to remember all the fun they had running through the halls and dodging teachers and generally having fun and acting like 'a bumbling band of baboons'. He fails.

"You were that bad of a student?" It's Dom's good natured jab that brings him out of the deep dark hole he's fallen into as he snaps back into focus. He's still dealing with what is probably a concussion, too much beer for his steady head to prevail and entirely too much exhaustion for him to firing on all cylinders.

"That good. School was too easy for me, I was working miles ahead in all my classes so I got bored in lessons. Nothing was challenging enough to catch my attention so I just didn't bother to go to class and if I did then I usually did something to disrupt the lesson." Back then, the explosions he had caused had been something amusing to get kicked out of a class that was boring him to tears, maybe spread a bit of laughter around, now it was just a reminder of shops and homes being destroyed and friends and family screaming as they died.

"And you didn't get expelled?" Jesse questioned incredulously, having had a similar experience but a completely different outcome.

"I was never even suspended. All I ever got were detentions." Brian admitted. It wasn't like they could expel him, The-Boy-Who-Lived, and not get crucified by the media at the same time. Besides that, Dumbledore had never believed Voldemort to be gone forever and he couldn't just expel the one prophesized to vanquish him and expect the prophecy to come true with only a first year education, if that. Not that anyone in the room new that.

"How many?" Letty and Vince smirked.

"Put it this way, I spent more time in detention than I did in my own dorm room." Honestly he was still a little proud of that particular record, or a lot proud, a fact everyone around him could tell. The blonde wasn't exactly trying to hide it. He and the twins had a bet going with Lee Jordan about how many detentions they could get if they could beat the previous record set by the Marauders. In the end, Brian had achieved that on his own and won the bet that had driven so many people up the wall, teachers and students alike.

"Wow" and "Jesus" seemed to be a popular reaction, all of them expected him to have a detention record, you couldn't call yourself a racer if you hadn't been in detention, but they weren't expecting that. To be in detention more than your own dorm room was an achievement, especially since a student in boarding school would spend most of their time in their dorm room, if anything just to escape the teachers.

"Getting back on topic. How does boarding school even lead to a high alcohol tolerance? Especially at those ages when the legal drinking age is 21." Suki asked, bringing the conversation back to where they started. Though her question seemed to draw some amused looks as well as a particular indulgent look from the blonde in question.

"10 out of 12 months for 6 years without any form of parental supervision what so ever. That's how." Brian's amused reply seemed to cause the Asian racer even more confusion.

"That means." Suki raised an eyebrow at the unaffected racer.

"That means that we could bring in what ever we wanted, including alcohol." Brian clarified.

"You were allowed to bring alcohol to school, and actively drink it?" Suki demanded.

"No allowed per say, more like the teachers credited and trusted us with the ability to follow the law." Brian added sheepishly, "Obviously, they were mistaken and their trust was misplaced." Several snorts and snickers ran through the garage at that, clearly picturing a miniature Brian breaking the law was not a hard thing to imagine. If only they knew what type of laws he had broken and how regularly.

"Seriously? You smuggled alcohol into school when you were 11!?" Letty seemed to be torn between amusement and disbelief, a reaction shared by everyone. Dom's clenched fist and tightening of his eyes were the only thing that gave away the slight undercurrent of anger he was feeling, a reaction that was shared with his sister, at the thought of anyone serving an 11 year old alcohol of any kind.

"What makes you think I did it? It could have been anyone else, why me?" Brian teased, raising his eyebrow at the Latina.

"Because you're you." Said Latina rolled her eyes in return, seeing the gentle type of teasing for what it was. Brian had once felt comfortable enough around them before, Letty hoped this was a sign that he still was.

"Fine, I occasionally helped." Brian admitted, his tone a playful type of condescending, making it clear that he was only joking around and not taking any offence to the words.

"Define occasionally." Dom threw back at him, smirking when Brian glared back him. Just why did he have a feeling that Dom was going to bust his balls at everything.

"Couple times a week." Brian mimicked the tone of the words as he threw them back at the Italian racer.

"Brian!" Mia's sort of amused and sort of scandalized tone rang out through the garage and the others burst into laughter.

"If the administration didn't want us smuggling things in then they should have tightened security." Brian's unrepentant shrug and grin hid everything he was feeling, or remembering as it were. The dementors guarding the school posts looking for an escaped criminal, the death eaters patrolling the village and corridors, looking for students to torture.

"So, I tell you to go get some sleep, and instead you decide to drink 16 bottles of beer?" Mia's voice seemed to echo through the garage as she raised an eyebrow but her tone was a bit, or a lot, exasperated as she eyed the now youngest member of their team.

"Yeah." Brian emphasized his point by bringing up the bottle of beer in his hands, second one after they had sat down, to take a sip. "Though technically it's now 18 instead of 16."

"You are an idiot Brian." Yeah, that seemed to be the running constant in his life.

Tej's Garage, Miami

It's early in the morning, around dawn, when Brian decides that he's had enough of tossing and turning in bed and just gets up to work on a car. The previous day had been a lot to handle, in the span of twenty four hours he had effectively made a run for a drug carter boss, successfully confused Miami PD with a mad scramble, closed a joint FBI and Customs case, also rescuing the life of an agent in the process, by parking his car on to a boat. He had also come face to face with his past case and reason for being on the run, only to end up forgiven and spilling a lot more information that, in hindsight, Brian really should not have. None of them had the protections in their mind or bodies to stop themselves from being forced to give up information. If someone from his actual past found him, then they could easily use veritaserum or legilimency to get what ever they needed.

After everyone turned in for the night, he knew staying in the garage would be idiotic move, knowing Dom and Mia they would organize the whole team to check up on him to see if he was sleeping or working, they had done it before too. Given that they were staying here in the garage had made that even more likely; it had gotten too late last night for the team to find any accommodation for that many people so Tej had offered up the two spare rooms above the garage, there had been 3 before but Rome had taken one as well. Knowing how easy it would be for someone to look down and catch him working, Brian had also retired to bed but hadn't got a wink of sleep at all, simply tossing and trying to turn into a position that wasn't making his body scream out in pained protest. Giving up around dawn, he simply got up and elected to work on a car in the garage, shirtless in his sweatpants. There weren't a whole lot of opportunities he got where he could go without a shirt, he had too many scars for that but the blonde figured it was early enough that he could get away with it, grabbing a shirt to put on for when it got closer to the time when everyone would be waking up.

He had lost the Skyline when customs had originally grabbed him for the case, the electrical systems being fried beyond repair, the Evo hadn't been worth keeping either, the tracker had been so deeply imbedded into it's system that it was less of a hassle to get a new car. The Yenko had also been beyond saving after he decided to park it on a boat, which left one blonde racer without a car. He really did need a new car, but he needed to figure out how he would do that without tipping off anyone about the money. If he used the cash that he and Rome had helped themselves to then Customs and FBI would be on their trail but if he didn't then the team would wonder how he got enough money to afford it. While there was a garage filled with cars back in England, Brian didn't want to have any of them shipped over because they brought up the same issue of money as well as too many questions and memories. Thinking it over, he started to work on a car that had been brought in after some new rich kid had not only blown his father's money but also the engine of the car. Tej's garage was the best in town so the car had been brought here for a complete engine replacement. Getting so lost in his thoughts as he worked under the hood, he didn't hear anyone come into the garage.

Feeling something touch one of the scars on his back, Brian immediately snapped straight back up, twisted around to grab the hand as he swung their body around and jerked his own body in a way that had him pinning who ever it was face down with their hand behind their back in the middle of their shoulder blades, ready to be dislocated if they made one wrong move. It was the sound of Jesse yelp that snapped him out of it, his body taking another moment to overcome basic survival instinct before he quickly released the computer genius and backed away.

"Son of a, Jesse don't sneak up on me. Are you alright?" He sounded stressed, even to his own ears never mind anyone else. He may be younger than Jesse, but there was this type of innocence that Jess had never lost. Their upbringing was similar in a way, but Brian hadn't bothered to hold on to that part of himself when he was younger, and hadn't had the option of holding on to it when he had gotten older. Their was too much expected of him for that to be possible, too many lives that were looking towards him to be saved, too many enemies hell bent on killing him. Brian never had the option, or someone there for him that was willing to take up the burden besides Sirius, for all that they bolstered about being adults and letting the adults handle it. Jesse had Leon at first, then later on he gained the rest of the team as well.

"I'm fine." Jesse's voice was quiet, barely audible, as he stared in horror at the mess of scars on Brian's chest and back. He had thought once or twice that there might be some embarrassing tattoo, and he did have plenty of tattoos, or something else that Brian didn't want anyone to see since the racer had never really taken his shirt off in front of them. Everyone from the team had tried to convince him, but the blonde had remained stubborn, even in the face of the hot Californian sun in the middle of summer. Letty and Vince had once tried to hose him down with water in an effort to get him shirtless but had been shut down by Mia having seen how uncomfortable Brian got every time some one pressed him. The fact that Brian was trying to hide the mess of scars had never crossed any of their minds.

"Brian, what happened to you?" The former wizard looked confused for a second before following Jesse's gaze down to his own chest and realizing he didn't have a shirt on. He immediately grabbed the t-shirt he had brought out with him, laying innocently on the open hood of the car and pulled it on, covering up the mess and sealing it behind a mask like he had always done.

"Nothing you need to worry about, I'm fine Jesse." Brian gave a small smile, aiming to reassure him but it probably fell flat given the look on Jess's face. Instead, he turned back to the car, this time being more wary of his surroundings and not getting lost in the engine.

"At the start, we pissed that you were a cop. We were convinced that you would ruin our lives, instead we did this to yours." It was clear that the young genius felt horrified by what he had seen, the signatures of a whole mix of people: his relatives, Voldemort, Death Eaters, teachers, creatures. Honestly at this point, anything anyone could name had probably left a mark somewhere on his skin.

"I knew what would happen to me once I decided to go against the job. Besides, those weren't from that, those were from before I met you. Either way none of it was your fault." As much as Brian didn't want to give up even more information about himself, he gave up a little bit right now, realizing that Jesse thought all the scars were caused by people in response to Brian letting the Toretto Case fall through. Thinking that the information would at least decrease some of the horror Jesse was feeling, instead all his words served to do was increase it even more. The thought of a teenager going through all that, to the point that he would have more scars then unblemished skin.

"How'd you get that many from before?" Brian simply shrugged, more or less ignoring the question as he continued working on the car. He had never been all that comfortable taking about himself, that was one of the things that made him so good at undercover work, but he hated even more since he had joined the wizarding world. Even the smallest thing about him would end up on the front page only to be used in their hate campaign when he went against what they wanted from him. There had never been a sense of privacy that he had now.

Jesse nodded realizing that Brian had probably reached his limit for sharing and left him in peace to work on his car, only to be joined step by step as Brian walked back with him to meet the rest of the team who had all come down by now, luckily Brian had gotten his shirt back on before any of them had come in. The thought of the younger than him racer, and wasn't that a surprise, having to go through all that without any family, the things that happened to him; it left a sour taste in his mouth and an empty feeling in his stomach but being able to talk and sit with Brian now, being able to touch him helped to make it hurt a little less. They had finally found and they would bring him home, they would make him understand that he was family; it would take time but they would do it.

Taking with Jesse about some repairs to the electrical systems, the both of them sat down and grabbed a cup of coffee without pausing or breaking stride. The others watched in fascination as they dodged all the obstacles in their way without even looking, Brian maneuvered Jesse away from a chair he was about to bump into. Roman walking, still yawning as he took a seat only to perk up a bit as he caught sight of Brian seemingly distracted. Mia frowned and was about to intervene when she saw Tej, Suki and Jimmy all shaking their heads frantically, instead she sat back down and watched closely as the black racer took a croissant from the plate laying on the table with the coffee pot and mugs. Roman aimed the pastry straight at the back of Brian's distracted head and threw it dead straight, watching in anticipation only for Brian to reach up behind him and pluck the pastry out of thin air without pausing or turning around. Taking a bite and a sip of boiling hot coffee to wash it down with, he quickly swallowed and threw a quick thank you towards the direction the baked good came from.

"Another fail!" Tej crowed as Rome slumped down, Jimmy and Suki burst out laughing and the others snickered and snorted at the dejected look on Roman's face. Brian and Jesse finally exited their conversation as they took stock of the room. Jesse seemed a little confused about what happened though Brian sighed in realization as he looked to from the sullen racer and the croissant in his hand.

"Would you give up already?" Brian asked exasperated while the former prisoner of Chino glared at him, making his answer clear.

"One day, Brian, one day." Jimmy snorted as Suki tried and failed to muffle her giggling.

"Not possible." Tej egged him on.

"Brian and Rome have this little game." Suki started to explain when she the amused but confused looks on team Toretto's faces. "See, Brian says that it's impossible -"

"Not impossible, just difficult." Brian interrupted. "And I am not involved with this, this is all his idiocy."

"Impossible." Suki glared back him, matched by Roman's glare towards the blond as well. "To catch him off guard and Roman has taken it upon himself to prove him wrong. Now whenever the opportunity comes, Rome throws something at Brian when he's distracted but Brian always seems to know it's coming and catches whatever's thrown at him."

"That's cause he has eyes in the back of head." Brian snorted at the weak defense.

"I do not. You just suck at stealth." Roman looked offended but decided against starting something, grabbing a coffee mug and filling it up. Tej looked disappointed at the missed opportunity, as Suki and Jimmy smirked at him shaking their heads. Tej took way too much amusement in their bickering.