The Night the Car Crashed

Around ten-thirty, Sunday morning, the sun really started to shine into Dominic's room. Tia groaned and pulled the covers up over her head, Dom chuckled, he'd been awake for some time just watching Tianna sleeping. He'd watched as the stream of light crept over the dark blue comforter, and threaten to stir Tia from the peaceful slumber she was in, threaten to disturb the one time where she really looked at peace, calm-- unaffected by the horrors of her life. Dom pulled the covers up over his head too and scooted down in the bed until he was nose to nose with Tia. When she blinked her eyes open to raise a brow at him he spoke, "Hi."

"Hi," Tia said through a yawn. She smiled serenely and kissed Dominic sweetly, only to find herself pulled into a deeper kiss and have his arms wound around her wait, holding her body tight to his. She laughed when the kiss stopped and grinned, "Good morning to you, too."

Dominic laughed and tossed the covers off of their bodies, both grumbling and squinting their eyes at the onslaught of light, "The worst part is we were expecting that."

Tia nodded, and grinned. "Yes, yes we did." The sun glinted off her hair oddly, it gave her hair the flamingo pink highlights Dominic was used to, but he could've sworn her hair had been darker.

"Tia, did you dye your hair?"

Tia scoffed, and then laughed, "Yes, you know, I did. I added red to it. Turned it this pretty cranberry color. Surprised you didn't notice last night."

"I was worried about more important things last night that the color of your hair." He joked slipping out of bed, and stretching.

Tia admired the body before her, then sat up, "You know what I'm worried about? Ice cream. I really want some ice cream."

"There's some Double Fudge Brownie Chunk in the freezer downstairs, if you want."

"I'm practically salivating, that's only like the best kind of ice cream on the planet." She hopped out of bed and grabbed the crumpled blue silk shirt that Dominic had discarded to the floor some time after she'd fallen asleep, and slipped it on. She buttoned it quickly, and headed out the door of the bedroom. "I'll be right back with two spoons and the ice cream."

"What are you doing here?" Romeo's voiced stopped Tia dead in her tracks on her way down the stairs and she froze. For a second she just stared, then shook it off, "Well um..."

"Hey isn't that the shirt Dom wore on your guys date last night," Brian who had been getting coffee for Mia and Ro said as he walked in from the kitchen. He instantly felt the impact of his words when both Mia and Tianna shot him nasty glares. He had forgotten that Romeo didn't know about the date. "Whoops," he had quietly as he sat by Mia on the sofa and received a hard smack in the shoulder for his slip up.

"Their what?" Romeo slowly turned his attention back to Tianna and some strange puzzle pieces began to fit together in his mind. There was the shoes and jacket he saw laying in the yard, the wrap he found by the door and the blue dress that went with it stretched out on the stairs. His sister was there, standing on the stairs in on a wrinkled shirt that was too big for her, and buttoned wrong, with hair a tangled mess with a couple bobby pins still in it.

"Hey Princess, where's that ice cream?" Dominic had come down the stairs bare-chested and bare foot. The linen pants he wore with his suit had loosened in the waist due to sleeping in them and the rim of his Speed Racer boxers could be seen. "Oh, hey, Romeo... um... it's not what it looks like?"

"Shut-up, Dominic," Tia whispered harshly, then as her brother stood abruptly she jumped, "Forget that just run!" She and Dominic ran back up the stairs and down the hall way hand-in-hand, just barely getting his bedroom door shut and locked before Romeo came barreling into it.

They were both laughing and grinning like fools. Dominic swept Tia up into his arms, "We're trapped Princess. I just wanted to let you know I love you before I go out and sacrifice myself to the dragon." He crushed her mouth with a kiss, set her down and turned for the door.

"No! Come back here!" She grabbed his hand and pulled him back to her. As soon as they started running it became a game for her and she'd missed the sincerity in his comment. "We can escape!"

"No you can't!" came a shout from the hallway.

Tia giggled and Dominic rose a brow curiously, "How?"

"Um, um, um..." Tia looked around frantically for an exit. "The window!" She covered her mouth when she thought she said it too loud, but soon the two were both on the bed pushing the window open.

"I don't think we'll make it to the car before he gets out of the house..." Dominic said as they climbed onto the front porch roof. "I think that's him pounding down the stairs instead of the door."

"Then we go up?" Tia commented, but it was more of a question.

"Up will work." Dominic quickly climbed up onto the main roof off the house and pulled Tia up after him. They both collapsed against the hot shingles. Dominic pulled Tia's body up onto his to protect it from the heat of the dark roof. "Think we made it?"

"Who cares? If not I doubt he'll come up here after us. Now kiss me in case we roast up here." Tia grinned and Dom was more than happy to oblige her. With their arms tangled around each other, they shared sweet little kisses, and kisses that would seem as if they were giving each other the last kisses the would ever give. As if death were towering over them and they knew that kiss would be their last.

A sudden spray of cold water had Tia screaming, Dominic shouting curses, and Both of them scrambling to get out of the range of the water. "Stop kissing my sister!" Romeo shouted up at the two on the roof. He was standing in the front yard with the water hose, and glaring angrily at the couple on the roof. "Get down here now Toretto so I can kick your ass for sleeping with my sister."

Dominic stood on the roof, with Tia behind him. She was hiding really, and using him as a human shield for the water Romeo used as a weapon. Oddly enough, Dominic didn't mind. "Listen, Romeo I didn't sleep with her, I mean, I did, but not like you're thinking!" Tia squealed when Romeo fired off another stream of water and laughed.

"This is one of those times where you need to be real clear on what you say!" Romeo said lowering the water hose again. "Now get down off of that roof before you both slip and die."

That was a legitimate argument for the two to get off of the roof, so Dominic climbed down on to the front porch roof then dropped down to the ground. Tia was following him down of course, so when she hung off the edge of the front porch roof, Dominic wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her down slowly. Tia had her arms wrapped around his neck, and they shared a look that was very telling.

Romeo frowned and sprayed the two with water, "Stop that. Listen to me, Toretto. If you loved my sister enough to sleep with her, and you better have loved her when you did it, you better be planning on marrying her because I'm not having it any other way. Things are going to be done right."

"Well I was planning on it, but you haven't exactly given me an opportunity have you?" Dominic glowered, and then because he was rapidly becoming angry, and Ro's display, he added, "and we haven't had sex!"

Mia and Brian were leaning on the front porch railing. They had been watching since Romeo went out side, and both of their jaws dropped when they heard what Dominic had said in reply to Romeo. They both glanced at each other, shared the same slow grin, and turned their attention back to the show.

"You were what?" Ro stared off slowly then advanced toward Dominic shouting and blasting him with the cold water from the hose, "How can you say that? You've barely known her for two weeks! You expect me to believe that you love her? Much less that you're planning on marrying her? I ought to beat some sense into you!"

"Yes!" Dominic tried to dodge the heavy stream of water, and talk clearly, "Yes, damnit! I expect you to believe it! I'm in love with her! I have been for some time now! I love her and I'm going to marry her!" Dominic fell hard backwards, when his foot slipped on slick grass, but he didn't stop. "At least you know if she decides to say yes when I ask and you approve. I mean if you don't approve I'm still doing it, but it'll be right if you do."

The blast of water stopped and Romeo stare for a long moment, just trying to put together all the thoughts in his head, and be mad at Dominic at the same time. He couldn't be mad, but he could be displeased, and he was when he spoke, "Get up."

Dominic didn't have a chance to get up, as soon as he tried he was knocked back to the ground by a wet, pink haired woman, wearing his shirt. Tia had been be paralyzed first by Romeo's blatantly, brotherly comments, the just in awe, when Dominic professed his love, and the idea of marrying her, straight in the face of death, well, her brother, and that was more impressive. She sat on his chest and whispered down to him, "You're in love with me?"

"Yeah," Dominic answered quietly, pushing a wet strand of hair from her face.

"Really?" Tianna face contorted with the questioning thought before she continued, "because I do not want to fall unless there is going to be someone there to catch me."

"Oh, well I'll catch you. I promise I will. Princess... if for some reason that I ever miss at all, I will stay right by your side until you're well again. I wont ever leave and you know that." Dominic watched a slowly Tianna's frowning mouth spread into a wide grinned and wrapped his arms around her when, she threw hers around his neck and kissed him for all she was worth.

"Oh come on..." Romeo rolled his eyes and lifted the hose up and with heavy pressure on the nozzle's trigger sprayed the couple until they were laughing and shouting and screaming, until they ran around the side of the house and escaped his reach.

"That was just mean," Mia scolded from the porch.

"Oh yeah? No, I think this is meaner," with his brief warning issued Romeo soaked Mia too. He was laughing so he really wasn't being mean, just further wreaking a little summer chaos.

The water war continued late into the day. Dominic and Tia had found the water hose at the back of the house and dragged it around to the side of the house to spray Romeo with. Mia and Brian had found old water guns inside the house. Even the other guys of the DT team got into it. They happened into it, get bomb-barded with cold water has soon they showed up at the house and exited their cars. With the victorious finding of balloons in Jesse's trunk, the three men joined in as well. When the battle came to an end the group was sprawled out all over the front yard and porch, all victims of mud and water, but all looking like they had a great time falling prey to the damages of water.

"Do you love him, Tia?" Romeo asked. He hand Tia had stayed at the Toretto's for dinner, and were no driving along the coast it was starting to ran and the clouds were low, so it was hard to see, but Romeo still drove along.

Tianna grinned happily, and leaned back in her seat, she was relaxed, and content, and just astounded at the discoveries made today. "I suppose I am. I've never really been in love before, so I don't know the symptoms. Have you ever been in love, Romeo?"

"Once, a long time ago. My last year of high-school. Her name was Juliet so you can imagine were the talk of the school." Romeo grinned then squinted a bit, turning his high beams off as they were just reflecting off the fog and making it harder to see.

"What happened? Where is Juliet now?" Tia turned in her seat so she could face the man who'd become her brother.

"Her parents had her committed to a mental institution for chasing a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol with a bottle of Jack Daniel's."

Tianna blinked, that sounded like a familiar story, "Why would she do something like that?"

"She told me she had a headache. She told the doctors they could fuck off." Romeo laughed turned the wind shield wipers up on high, the ran was really coming down now.

"So where is your Capulet now?" Tia used the last name of the Juliet in Shakespeare's tragedy when she asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.

"Well I think you know her now as Mystic."

She was right, but she gasped and acted excited. "Really? No kidding?"

"No kidding."

"So that's why you're so cranky about her breaking up with you. You guys had a history! I can't believe you didn't tell me about her before."

"So I had a secret, sue me."

"No, I'm not going to sue you. I have my own secrets."

"Oh?" Romeo arched a brow curious and looked over at Tia. "Like what?"

Tia took a deep breath, "Well for one thing...I was commi--" Something to the right caught her eye and she screamed, "Ro, look out!"

Ro slammed his foot on the brakes but it couldn't stop the other car from slamming into the right side of the blue Mustang and sending it rolling and tossing down the beach side cliff. They'd seen the flash of purple too late, they couldn't have stopped it from happening even if they'd seen it seconds earlier.

In the sand the car lay crumpled by the impact of all the rocks. The rag top roof was torn badly, and the passengers inside were lucky to have survived, even if it was just barely. Tianna was rubbing her head, it was sticky with blood from where she banged it on the dash board and cut on the side from where her window shattered. The searing pain in her left shoulder meant one of two things-- either her stitches had ripped open, or her shoulder was dislocated. When she managed to open one eye, the other was cut just below the brow and Tia couldn't see through the blood, she realized then it actually could mean both things. "Oh god..." She groaned and crawled out of the car, seeing on the beach nearby the unconscious body of her brother.

Tianna crawled over to him and looked him over, he had shrapnel embedded deep in his abdomen. She was whispering to Ro telling him to hang on, begging him to stay alive so she could go find help and get him fixed, so she wasn't paying attention to the car when it's engine caught fire. All she knew when the fire reached the NOS was the roaring in her ears, and the stinging pain of metal and glass bits hitting her in the back. She screamed, but strong as she made herself be, she refused to pass out from all the pain, and forced her self to stand. She had to lean heavily on her left because the slightest bit of pressure on her right knee made her vary aware of the hot steel deep in her calf. "I'm going to get help. You don't go anywhere, and stay alive."

When Tianna reached the road she was greeted by a woman she'd only once met before, and collapsed into that woman's arms. "The car... went off the road... it exploded. Ro's hurt real bad... we have to find help." Tia was forced to stand again by the woman who was there, but had to lean heavily on the woman for support.

"I know," the rough voice said calmly. "I already called them, I was driving by when I heard the explosion. They're on the way, but right now we have to get you somewhere safe." This seemed to placate Tia and without argument she allowed the woman to put her into the purple Nissan 240SX.

"Is he going to be okay?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine, honey," the woman answered climbing into the driver's seat. Soon they were speeding off down the road, past hospitals and anything really resembling civilization, they were heading up into the mountains.

"Where are we going?" Tia was starting to loose consciousness, growing weak from the trauma and the blood loss, "Letty, do you have a phone? I want to call Dominic."

"Dom will just take you to a hospital, and I know you hate those, don't you?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Well I'm taking you somewhere, where they can fix you up good, and as soon as they're done you'll be able to go back home where you belong."

Tianna was unable to do anything but comply as she slipped into the black that wanted to overtake her. In the black she couldn't feel the pain. She didn't have to think, she didn't have to worry about anything, in the black she could just be quiet. She could survive on the one thought alone in her head, "Home where I belong, home with Dominic, and Romeo, and with Dominic because he loves me."

Letty glanced over to the woman in the passengers seat when she mumbled about Dominic, and frowned. "Dominic? That was not the home I was told about."