Chapter 51 - Remember I love you
AN: Sorry I made you all wait so long, but school is taking up a lot of my days then I have to work another 20 some hours a week and this has not left time for my writing, plus I had to put my cat to sleep, hurt myself, and got hit by hurricane Juan and lost power, it's been out for like 24 hours now and no sign of getting it back on. I'm at a friends house stealing the internet and power to run my laptop. Let me know what you think as always. Enjoy. Tempest.
Dom woke up the next day and momentarily wondered why he was still in bed at 9am and why his alarm hadn't gone off. Then it all came crashing back to him and he groaned. What were they going to do about this whole mess? He didn't really know. He knew Torrie had to be told but didn't have any idea how to go about telling her. He couldn't just have her Dad walk into the room and have her find out he wasn't dead by him just appearing in front of her. But he didn't know how to tell her this either. Didn't know if it was possible to prepare her or break it to her gently.
She'd thought her dad was dead and she had been really upset about it. Letty was likely right when she said it wasn't like Torrie was going to be ultimately upset her dad wasn't dead, but Dom figured that at first she was going to be really mad. As long as she thought Harry had faked his death to leave her to straighten things out she was going to be very upset. Dom still remembered how when she'd first joined them Torrie had felt like her dad killing himself had been her fault for not sharing more of her feelings with him after her mom was killed. Torrie had been very guilty over the whole situation.
Dom was also incredibly curious as to why Harry had had to leave the country. What could have happened to force Harry to need to flee the country for a year? Dom knew that Harry hadn't exactly been above board in his business practices back when he ran 'The Racer's Edge' but Dom honestly couldn't imagine Harry being into anything bad enough to cause him to have to abandon his entire life and run. All Harry'd been into as far as Dom knew was buying stolen merchandise. Even if the cops caught him, he wouldn't have been able to just run away and then come back so there had to be more to it then that. Plus, the cops knew about what Harry'd been into. That was how they'd convinced him to help Brian in his undercover investigation against Dom himself.
He looked at Torrie, still sleeping. She looked like a beautiful angel while she was asleep. Dom wished he didn't know she had the temperament of a wildcat. But he was glad she did too. When she'd first come to live with them she'd been shy and timid, withdrawn into herself, till fighting him and gaining the friendship of the guys and Mia had slowly brought her out of her shell. Dom did not want Harry's return to drive her back into herself. She was beautiful, confident, outgoing, gregarious, and fun as hell to be with now. She was also stubborn, opinionated, could now be overconfident, and jealous and possessive of anything and anyone she saw as hers.
If he was honest, he also didn't want to face the chance that she could chose her father and the easy life she could have with him over Dom and the life of working in a hot greasy shop for the rest of her days. Dom reminded himself that Torrie had told him countless times that she loved him, not what he could give her, and also that he had the money to give her anything she wanted if it came to that. He didn't want to lose her, and he was prepared to do what he had to keep her. He looked at the clock. All that thought had taken him 30 minutes. He wondered who else was up. He couldn't put it off much longer, he was going to have to get up and go make a game plan for how they were going to handle breaking the news to Torrie.
He rolled out of bed. Torrie made a small noise, then rolled into the center of the bed on her tummy, arms and legs spread to take up the whole bed, like she always did when Dom left her in bed alone. Most of the time half the fun was waking her up. She was always in a bad mood when she first woke up, except with Dom in their room. Of course that could have something to do with how he normally woke her up. He leaned over, kissed the nape of her neck and then got dressed. He wore the only thing he had that passed for dressy, a black top and slacks. He didn't want to look to hard at why he wanted to impress her father all of a sudden. He was Dominic Torreto, he didn't have to impress anyone. He turned to leave the room.
He paused with his hand on the door of his room and looked at Torrie, still sleeping. He wanted to hold the image of her sleeping like an angel in his mind because he knew when he brought Harry up to see her she was going to change into a spitting wildcat. He closed the door softly behind him and headed down the stairs. He groaned as something else donned on him. He wasn't only going to have a fight on his hands when Torrie saw her dad; Harry was going to want to kill him for the fact that Dom and Torrie shared one room. This day was really, really, going to suck; Dom didn't know how he was going to get through it. Not only the embarrassing chat with Torrie's dad, but he hated to hurt Torrie, and he figured this whole situation was going to.
He walked into his kitchen and found he was the last one to join the world of the awake. He grabbed his coffee cup, the one with the picture of the red RX-7 that looked just like his on it that Torrie had gotten him somewhere, before the car was destroyed, and filled it with coffee. He didn't always drink coffee, in fact he rarely drank coffee, but he figured that if he'd ever needed a reason to stall for time to regroup, and a reason to be as alert as possible, it was now. He had avoided looking at anyone up to that point. He was still trying to think of what to say, how to answer the questions he was bound to be asked by Harry. He couldn't stand in front of the coffee maker forever, he figured he'd have to go sit down and try to eat whatever Mia had made him for breakfast at some point. He topped up the coffee he'd already drank and turned.
He faced 6 pitying looks and one hostile one. His seat at the head of the table was free so he sat down. He shared a look with Vince; both men clearly knew just how bad this could turn out to be. Mia got up, made Dom a plate and set it in front of him with her best encouraging smile mixed with her best I love you smile. She sat back down in her seat of the day, what would normally be Torrie's seat. She squeezed his hand under the table. He knew she was telling him to be strong.
Mia knew him so well, he could tell she was telling him to stop worrying about things, she knew he was feeling inadequate as Torrie's boyfriend now that he was confronted by her dad, and Mia was telling him that she felt he was the best man in the world. But he'd been brother, father, and mother to Mia for the last 6 or so years so he figured there wasn't any other way for her to feel. But she'd turned out into a beautiful, kind woman so he must have done something right after all. He gave her a smile, to let her know he understood. They'd often been able to communicate like that. He ruffled her hair. "Mornin' baby sis. Sleep good?"
"Yeah Dom. Eat your breakfast." She fussed over him like a mother hen.
"We gonna open the garage today Brotha?" Vince asked, figuring if not someone had to go throw up a sign to that effect.
"I guess it all depends on how the day goes V. If there's somethin' you wanna do down there you can go down any time. The keys are where they always are." Dom said with a glance at Vince.
"Well, I just figured that either the guys and I could go open the store," Vince said with a glance that let Dom know Vince thought that he might want the privacy, "or we should put a sign up to tell people we're stayin' closed for the day."
Dom didn't know which would be better, having just Torrie, Harry and himself in the house to fight it out, or having the team there so at least someone had his back, and Vince would be a good buffer between Torrie and the world. Torrie and Vince had made up and Dom knew that she could turn to Vince if she wouldn't turn to him. He knew, or he figured he knew that Torrie would forgive him for his part in this eventually, but he didn't know if Harry was ever going to be able to see him as suitable for Torrie. And he was worried about who would ultimately be more important to her, Dom or her father.
"Well, when do I get to see my daughter?" Harry asked. He was clearly trying not to go into Dom over the same rooms issue in front of the whole team. Dom decided it made more sense to send the team to work.
"Vince, take Letty, Leon and Jesse and open the garage. Mia, why don't you go open the café?"
"You sure Dom?" Mia asked him.
"Yeah, go. It's for the best." Dom used both hands to rub his head. The team finished up and filed out of the house, and left in there respective cars to go do as he asked. He thanked god that his team respected him and trusted him. The last thing he needed was to have a fight with the team over them leaving him and Harry alone. When they were gone he turned to the older man.
"I imagine you have some things you want to say to me alone." Dom stated and sat down. He didn't want to intimidate Harry. He knew that Harry had to say his piece.
"I don't even know where to begin." Harry sighed. He was totally angry with Dom, but he didn't even know what to say, without getting up and strangling the larger man.
"Well, let me start by saying I'm sorry that you found out the extent of my relationship with Torrie the way you did. I'm not sorry we're together, but I didn't intent for you to find out how, um, close, we were by accident like that."
"I just can't believe that you and my little girl live together. She deserves better then to be someone's live in girlfriend. And you're too old for her. You use women. I don't want you to hurt my baby." Harry was getting madder and madder as he thought about it.
"I've never used Torrie, or hurt her on purpose. We've had our fights but she's just as stubborn as I am so I don't think that can be helped. And it's not like she just lives here so we can use each other for," he searched for a word to use instead of sex, he didn't want to be that blunt. "company. She had her own room at first, and she stayed in it alone for a long time. But we," Dom hated to talk about his feelings any time, let alone to someone like Harry he didn't know that well, and hadn't seen in a long time, but the man deserved to know, "fell in love and I couldn't help it. I know I'm too old for her, I know I'm not good enough for her, but I love her. And she loves me. I can't help that, and I don't want to."
Harry sighed. Maybe if he'd been around he could have stopped this, but if the team had told him the truth Torrie could have been out on the street all the time he had been gone. He'd been told once that you couldn't help who loved, and you weren't supposed to. If his daughter was really in love with Torreto, and she didn't just think she was, then he wouldn't stand in their way. However, if he thought that she was staying with Dominic out of some sense of owing him, or because it was the opposite of how she'd normally act then he'd try to put his foot down and get her to move home. He'd bought their house back, she could move back into her old room tonight if she decided she wanted to. "Ok. I want to see her." It was 10 am, it was time for him to be reunited with his child.
"I want to go prepare her first. You wait down here till I call you, ok?"
"Fine, just don't take forever."
"Ok, I'll call you when I'm ready." With that Dom stood up and started up the stairs. He had no idea how to prepare Torrie for this. First step was wake her up and hope she wasn't too cranky. And hope she wasn't too sick to stay awake. He opened the door of their room. She'd moved onto her back, but she was still taking up the whole bed, lying in the dead center. He moved to her side and sat down. She rolled toward him when his weight shifted the bed. She just sighed and kept on sleeping. "Hey, sleepyhead. Wake up." She kneed him with an angry look and rolled away from him. She hated to wake up sometimes. He lay down behind her and started to kiss down her neck. "Wakie, wakie." He sing songed as best he could in between kisses. She rolled on her back and opened her eyes in slits.
"What?" She asked. It was not going to be a good day at all, Dom thought. She was in a pissy mood already.
"Time to wake up for awhile princess." He took a chunk of hair that had come loose from her knot off her face and tucked it behind her ear.
"Why?" She whined.
"Cause it's late, and there's something important we need to talk about." She must have picked up on his mood because she came more awake and seemed less grumpy.
"You seem really worried baby, what's wrong?" Now she was in mother mode. That was a good thing for him, it should keep her calm, with him at least.
"Well, we had quite a shock here last night. Someone came to see you. But you were sick and we didn't want to wake you. So the persons been waiting to see you all night. You think you're up to a visitor?"
"Who?" She asked with a puzzled look. "I don't want to see anyone while I look like hell." She looked down at the old undershirt of Dom's she was still wearing.
"I don't think the person'll care what you have on princess, and they really want to see you. But I could help you up and help you put on, say, sweats and one of your own shirts." Dom offered. She couldn't refuse to see her dad, the other man would go crazy.
"It's that important that it can't wait?" Torrie asked, some of her bitchy mood returning. She really didn't feel well at all, she was still pissed to be missing a week of work at both her store and the garage, and it pissed her off to have to get dressed at all. Plus she had no idea who could be wanting to see her so bad they couldn't wait till next week when she was feeling better.
"It's pretty important baby or I wouldn't have woken you up." Dom said, concern for her evident on his face. She knew he really did watch out for her and he hated to do anything to upset her so this really must be that important. Which left her extremely curious as to who it could be. She leaned up, even though it was a big effort, and kissed him.
"I know you try to look out for me Dommie," She started. He hoped she didn't call him that in front of her dad, he found it so embarrassing but cute when she did it. "and I'll see whoever if you help me clean up a little." He kissed her back, then stood up and went to her dresser. He picked out her sweats and a pink tank top. He helped her change and then she wanted to do her hair. She tried to brush it out herself but she didn't have the strength so he ended up doing it for her. She almost fell asleep again.
"Ok, so you're dressed, your hair is done, anything else before I take your guest up here to see you?" Dom asked her.
"Why don't you carry me downstairs to meet whoever Dom? This room is a mess." She told him. Leave it to Torrie to think of that, the room was a mess, his cloths and hers were in piles on the floor. Neither of them were big on tiding the room up and Mia had a rule against cleaning other people's bedrooms. No matter how hard Vince, Jesse, Leon, Dom, and Letty tried to convince her otherwise.
"I don't want you out of bed Torrie. I'll kick the laundry under the bed before I go downstairs." She sighed but didn't fight him. He hid the mess as best he could and went to open the door. He didn't think she was prepared yet for what was to come. "Torrie." He sighed. He didn't know where to begin.
"What Dom, what's wrong?" Torrie was getting more and more upset.
"Well, this is going to be a shock for you. I just want you to be ready for that. I can't explain it any better cause I just don't know how, but you're gonna be upset at least ok. Just remember I love you and if there was some way I could have protected you from this I would have ok? Remember that I love you, no matter what."
"I love you too Dominic, it can't be that bad." Torrie was trying not to panic. Dom never got upset like this.
"Ok, one minute baby." With that he left the room, leaving the door open and headed down the stairs. Torrie heard him talk to someone, heard his deep voice and a higher pitched but still male voice answer him back. Then she heard two sets of footsteps on the stairs. "I'm just going to wait till I know she's ok, then I'll leave you two alone, ok?" Dom asked Harry.
"Fine. Fine." Harry answered and stopped just short of where Torrie would be able to see him in the doorway. Harry had been so excited to see Torrie that at first that had drowned out everything else for him. But now that he was faced with the moment of truth, and knew that she'd figured him dead, he didn't know what to say to her, or what to expect in terms of her reaction. He turned back to Dom. "I don't know what to say to her." Harry whispered.
"I don't know either man. But she loves you. Just remember that. And remember that she has a hellish temper, but she always calms down eventually. Want me to go in first?"
"Yeah." Harry was ashamed of himself for chickening out that way, but he couldn't help it. Dom walked into the room.
"You ready Torrie?" He asked as he entered the room.
"Yeah Dom, I'm ready, scared now that I see how freaked out you are, but I'm as ready as I'll ever be." She answered him. Harry figured that was his queue. He stepped into the room.
"Hello Princess." He said, smiled and promptly started to cry.
"Daddy." She shouted and held her arms open. She couldn't get up, she tried but failed. Harry grabbed her as she sobbed. "You're dead! They showed me the car. They said you killed yourself." She couldn't stop crying.
"They said I killed myself? Your team told me I was declared dead but not that I killed myself. I left the country. I had no choice, but I didn't kill myself. This is such a mystery."
"A mystery." Torrie, as Dom had predicted, was starting to get angry. "You mean to tell me for the last year I thought you were dead, that you killed yourself, and in reality you left the country. Left me to clean up behind the mess you made of our family affairs and the store and just ran away." Dom knew Torrie so well.
"I left you a note, I didn't leave to leave you to clean up my mess, I left because someone was trying to kill me. They didn't, contrary to the popular belief around here, succeed, but the police made me leave the country. I couldn't contact you after I left but the note explained everything. I don't know who faked my death."
"I never got a note." Torrie added and looked at Dom. Harry also looked at Dom.
"Are you two going to be ok, do you want me to leave you alone?" Dom asked, he didn't want to leave, but he would if Torrie asked him to.
"Yeah, I guess we do have some stuff to discuss alone Dom, but don't go far." Torrie looked very shaken. Dom leaned down and hugged her, then kissed her cheek.
"I'll be in the living room if you need me princess." With that he left the room.
Torrie turned to her father.
AN: Sorry I made you all wait so long, but school is taking up a lot of my days then I have to work another 20 some hours a week and this has not left time for my writing, plus I had to put my cat to sleep, hurt myself, and got hit by hurricane Juan and lost power, it's been out for like 24 hours now and no sign of getting it back on. I'm at a friends house stealing the internet and power to run my laptop. Let me know what you think as always. Enjoy. Tempest.
Dom woke up the next day and momentarily wondered why he was still in bed at 9am and why his alarm hadn't gone off. Then it all came crashing back to him and he groaned. What were they going to do about this whole mess? He didn't really know. He knew Torrie had to be told but didn't have any idea how to go about telling her. He couldn't just have her Dad walk into the room and have her find out he wasn't dead by him just appearing in front of her. But he didn't know how to tell her this either. Didn't know if it was possible to prepare her or break it to her gently.
She'd thought her dad was dead and she had been really upset about it. Letty was likely right when she said it wasn't like Torrie was going to be ultimately upset her dad wasn't dead, but Dom figured that at first she was going to be really mad. As long as she thought Harry had faked his death to leave her to straighten things out she was going to be very upset. Dom still remembered how when she'd first joined them Torrie had felt like her dad killing himself had been her fault for not sharing more of her feelings with him after her mom was killed. Torrie had been very guilty over the whole situation.
Dom was also incredibly curious as to why Harry had had to leave the country. What could have happened to force Harry to need to flee the country for a year? Dom knew that Harry hadn't exactly been above board in his business practices back when he ran 'The Racer's Edge' but Dom honestly couldn't imagine Harry being into anything bad enough to cause him to have to abandon his entire life and run. All Harry'd been into as far as Dom knew was buying stolen merchandise. Even if the cops caught him, he wouldn't have been able to just run away and then come back so there had to be more to it then that. Plus, the cops knew about what Harry'd been into. That was how they'd convinced him to help Brian in his undercover investigation against Dom himself.
He looked at Torrie, still sleeping. She looked like a beautiful angel while she was asleep. Dom wished he didn't know she had the temperament of a wildcat. But he was glad she did too. When she'd first come to live with them she'd been shy and timid, withdrawn into herself, till fighting him and gaining the friendship of the guys and Mia had slowly brought her out of her shell. Dom did not want Harry's return to drive her back into herself. She was beautiful, confident, outgoing, gregarious, and fun as hell to be with now. She was also stubborn, opinionated, could now be overconfident, and jealous and possessive of anything and anyone she saw as hers.
If he was honest, he also didn't want to face the chance that she could chose her father and the easy life she could have with him over Dom and the life of working in a hot greasy shop for the rest of her days. Dom reminded himself that Torrie had told him countless times that she loved him, not what he could give her, and also that he had the money to give her anything she wanted if it came to that. He didn't want to lose her, and he was prepared to do what he had to keep her. He looked at the clock. All that thought had taken him 30 minutes. He wondered who else was up. He couldn't put it off much longer, he was going to have to get up and go make a game plan for how they were going to handle breaking the news to Torrie.
He rolled out of bed. Torrie made a small noise, then rolled into the center of the bed on her tummy, arms and legs spread to take up the whole bed, like she always did when Dom left her in bed alone. Most of the time half the fun was waking her up. She was always in a bad mood when she first woke up, except with Dom in their room. Of course that could have something to do with how he normally woke her up. He leaned over, kissed the nape of her neck and then got dressed. He wore the only thing he had that passed for dressy, a black top and slacks. He didn't want to look to hard at why he wanted to impress her father all of a sudden. He was Dominic Torreto, he didn't have to impress anyone. He turned to leave the room.
He paused with his hand on the door of his room and looked at Torrie, still sleeping. He wanted to hold the image of her sleeping like an angel in his mind because he knew when he brought Harry up to see her she was going to change into a spitting wildcat. He closed the door softly behind him and headed down the stairs. He groaned as something else donned on him. He wasn't only going to have a fight on his hands when Torrie saw her dad; Harry was going to want to kill him for the fact that Dom and Torrie shared one room. This day was really, really, going to suck; Dom didn't know how he was going to get through it. Not only the embarrassing chat with Torrie's dad, but he hated to hurt Torrie, and he figured this whole situation was going to.
He walked into his kitchen and found he was the last one to join the world of the awake. He grabbed his coffee cup, the one with the picture of the red RX-7 that looked just like his on it that Torrie had gotten him somewhere, before the car was destroyed, and filled it with coffee. He didn't always drink coffee, in fact he rarely drank coffee, but he figured that if he'd ever needed a reason to stall for time to regroup, and a reason to be as alert as possible, it was now. He had avoided looking at anyone up to that point. He was still trying to think of what to say, how to answer the questions he was bound to be asked by Harry. He couldn't stand in front of the coffee maker forever, he figured he'd have to go sit down and try to eat whatever Mia had made him for breakfast at some point. He topped up the coffee he'd already drank and turned.
He faced 6 pitying looks and one hostile one. His seat at the head of the table was free so he sat down. He shared a look with Vince; both men clearly knew just how bad this could turn out to be. Mia got up, made Dom a plate and set it in front of him with her best encouraging smile mixed with her best I love you smile. She sat back down in her seat of the day, what would normally be Torrie's seat. She squeezed his hand under the table. He knew she was telling him to be strong.
Mia knew him so well, he could tell she was telling him to stop worrying about things, she knew he was feeling inadequate as Torrie's boyfriend now that he was confronted by her dad, and Mia was telling him that she felt he was the best man in the world. But he'd been brother, father, and mother to Mia for the last 6 or so years so he figured there wasn't any other way for her to feel. But she'd turned out into a beautiful, kind woman so he must have done something right after all. He gave her a smile, to let her know he understood. They'd often been able to communicate like that. He ruffled her hair. "Mornin' baby sis. Sleep good?"
"Yeah Dom. Eat your breakfast." She fussed over him like a mother hen.
"We gonna open the garage today Brotha?" Vince asked, figuring if not someone had to go throw up a sign to that effect.
"I guess it all depends on how the day goes V. If there's somethin' you wanna do down there you can go down any time. The keys are where they always are." Dom said with a glance at Vince.
"Well, I just figured that either the guys and I could go open the store," Vince said with a glance that let Dom know Vince thought that he might want the privacy, "or we should put a sign up to tell people we're stayin' closed for the day."
Dom didn't know which would be better, having just Torrie, Harry and himself in the house to fight it out, or having the team there so at least someone had his back, and Vince would be a good buffer between Torrie and the world. Torrie and Vince had made up and Dom knew that she could turn to Vince if she wouldn't turn to him. He knew, or he figured he knew that Torrie would forgive him for his part in this eventually, but he didn't know if Harry was ever going to be able to see him as suitable for Torrie. And he was worried about who would ultimately be more important to her, Dom or her father.
"Well, when do I get to see my daughter?" Harry asked. He was clearly trying not to go into Dom over the same rooms issue in front of the whole team. Dom decided it made more sense to send the team to work.
"Vince, take Letty, Leon and Jesse and open the garage. Mia, why don't you go open the café?"
"You sure Dom?" Mia asked him.
"Yeah, go. It's for the best." Dom used both hands to rub his head. The team finished up and filed out of the house, and left in there respective cars to go do as he asked. He thanked god that his team respected him and trusted him. The last thing he needed was to have a fight with the team over them leaving him and Harry alone. When they were gone he turned to the older man.
"I imagine you have some things you want to say to me alone." Dom stated and sat down. He didn't want to intimidate Harry. He knew that Harry had to say his piece.
"I don't even know where to begin." Harry sighed. He was totally angry with Dom, but he didn't even know what to say, without getting up and strangling the larger man.
"Well, let me start by saying I'm sorry that you found out the extent of my relationship with Torrie the way you did. I'm not sorry we're together, but I didn't intent for you to find out how, um, close, we were by accident like that."
"I just can't believe that you and my little girl live together. She deserves better then to be someone's live in girlfriend. And you're too old for her. You use women. I don't want you to hurt my baby." Harry was getting madder and madder as he thought about it.
"I've never used Torrie, or hurt her on purpose. We've had our fights but she's just as stubborn as I am so I don't think that can be helped. And it's not like she just lives here so we can use each other for," he searched for a word to use instead of sex, he didn't want to be that blunt. "company. She had her own room at first, and she stayed in it alone for a long time. But we," Dom hated to talk about his feelings any time, let alone to someone like Harry he didn't know that well, and hadn't seen in a long time, but the man deserved to know, "fell in love and I couldn't help it. I know I'm too old for her, I know I'm not good enough for her, but I love her. And she loves me. I can't help that, and I don't want to."
Harry sighed. Maybe if he'd been around he could have stopped this, but if the team had told him the truth Torrie could have been out on the street all the time he had been gone. He'd been told once that you couldn't help who loved, and you weren't supposed to. If his daughter was really in love with Torreto, and she didn't just think she was, then he wouldn't stand in their way. However, if he thought that she was staying with Dominic out of some sense of owing him, or because it was the opposite of how she'd normally act then he'd try to put his foot down and get her to move home. He'd bought their house back, she could move back into her old room tonight if she decided she wanted to. "Ok. I want to see her." It was 10 am, it was time for him to be reunited with his child.
"I want to go prepare her first. You wait down here till I call you, ok?"
"Fine, just don't take forever."
"Ok, I'll call you when I'm ready." With that Dom stood up and started up the stairs. He had no idea how to prepare Torrie for this. First step was wake her up and hope she wasn't too cranky. And hope she wasn't too sick to stay awake. He opened the door of their room. She'd moved onto her back, but she was still taking up the whole bed, lying in the dead center. He moved to her side and sat down. She rolled toward him when his weight shifted the bed. She just sighed and kept on sleeping. "Hey, sleepyhead. Wake up." She kneed him with an angry look and rolled away from him. She hated to wake up sometimes. He lay down behind her and started to kiss down her neck. "Wakie, wakie." He sing songed as best he could in between kisses. She rolled on her back and opened her eyes in slits.
"What?" She asked. It was not going to be a good day at all, Dom thought. She was in a pissy mood already.
"Time to wake up for awhile princess." He took a chunk of hair that had come loose from her knot off her face and tucked it behind her ear.
"Why?" She whined.
"Cause it's late, and there's something important we need to talk about." She must have picked up on his mood because she came more awake and seemed less grumpy.
"You seem really worried baby, what's wrong?" Now she was in mother mode. That was a good thing for him, it should keep her calm, with him at least.
"Well, we had quite a shock here last night. Someone came to see you. But you were sick and we didn't want to wake you. So the persons been waiting to see you all night. You think you're up to a visitor?"
"Who?" She asked with a puzzled look. "I don't want to see anyone while I look like hell." She looked down at the old undershirt of Dom's she was still wearing.
"I don't think the person'll care what you have on princess, and they really want to see you. But I could help you up and help you put on, say, sweats and one of your own shirts." Dom offered. She couldn't refuse to see her dad, the other man would go crazy.
"It's that important that it can't wait?" Torrie asked, some of her bitchy mood returning. She really didn't feel well at all, she was still pissed to be missing a week of work at both her store and the garage, and it pissed her off to have to get dressed at all. Plus she had no idea who could be wanting to see her so bad they couldn't wait till next week when she was feeling better.
"It's pretty important baby or I wouldn't have woken you up." Dom said, concern for her evident on his face. She knew he really did watch out for her and he hated to do anything to upset her so this really must be that important. Which left her extremely curious as to who it could be. She leaned up, even though it was a big effort, and kissed him.
"I know you try to look out for me Dommie," She started. He hoped she didn't call him that in front of her dad, he found it so embarrassing but cute when she did it. "and I'll see whoever if you help me clean up a little." He kissed her back, then stood up and went to her dresser. He picked out her sweats and a pink tank top. He helped her change and then she wanted to do her hair. She tried to brush it out herself but she didn't have the strength so he ended up doing it for her. She almost fell asleep again.
"Ok, so you're dressed, your hair is done, anything else before I take your guest up here to see you?" Dom asked her.
"Why don't you carry me downstairs to meet whoever Dom? This room is a mess." She told him. Leave it to Torrie to think of that, the room was a mess, his cloths and hers were in piles on the floor. Neither of them were big on tiding the room up and Mia had a rule against cleaning other people's bedrooms. No matter how hard Vince, Jesse, Leon, Dom, and Letty tried to convince her otherwise.
"I don't want you out of bed Torrie. I'll kick the laundry under the bed before I go downstairs." She sighed but didn't fight him. He hid the mess as best he could and went to open the door. He didn't think she was prepared yet for what was to come. "Torrie." He sighed. He didn't know where to begin.
"What Dom, what's wrong?" Torrie was getting more and more upset.
"Well, this is going to be a shock for you. I just want you to be ready for that. I can't explain it any better cause I just don't know how, but you're gonna be upset at least ok. Just remember I love you and if there was some way I could have protected you from this I would have ok? Remember that I love you, no matter what."
"I love you too Dominic, it can't be that bad." Torrie was trying not to panic. Dom never got upset like this.
"Ok, one minute baby." With that he left the room, leaving the door open and headed down the stairs. Torrie heard him talk to someone, heard his deep voice and a higher pitched but still male voice answer him back. Then she heard two sets of footsteps on the stairs. "I'm just going to wait till I know she's ok, then I'll leave you two alone, ok?" Dom asked Harry.
"Fine. Fine." Harry answered and stopped just short of where Torrie would be able to see him in the doorway. Harry had been so excited to see Torrie that at first that had drowned out everything else for him. But now that he was faced with the moment of truth, and knew that she'd figured him dead, he didn't know what to say to her, or what to expect in terms of her reaction. He turned back to Dom. "I don't know what to say to her." Harry whispered.
"I don't know either man. But she loves you. Just remember that. And remember that she has a hellish temper, but she always calms down eventually. Want me to go in first?"
"Yeah." Harry was ashamed of himself for chickening out that way, but he couldn't help it. Dom walked into the room.
"You ready Torrie?" He asked as he entered the room.
"Yeah Dom, I'm ready, scared now that I see how freaked out you are, but I'm as ready as I'll ever be." She answered him. Harry figured that was his queue. He stepped into the room.
"Hello Princess." He said, smiled and promptly started to cry.
"Daddy." She shouted and held her arms open. She couldn't get up, she tried but failed. Harry grabbed her as she sobbed. "You're dead! They showed me the car. They said you killed yourself." She couldn't stop crying.
"They said I killed myself? Your team told me I was declared dead but not that I killed myself. I left the country. I had no choice, but I didn't kill myself. This is such a mystery."
"A mystery." Torrie, as Dom had predicted, was starting to get angry. "You mean to tell me for the last year I thought you were dead, that you killed yourself, and in reality you left the country. Left me to clean up behind the mess you made of our family affairs and the store and just ran away." Dom knew Torrie so well.
"I left you a note, I didn't leave to leave you to clean up my mess, I left because someone was trying to kill me. They didn't, contrary to the popular belief around here, succeed, but the police made me leave the country. I couldn't contact you after I left but the note explained everything. I don't know who faked my death."
"I never got a note." Torrie added and looked at Dom. Harry also looked at Dom.
"Are you two going to be ok, do you want me to leave you alone?" Dom asked, he didn't want to leave, but he would if Torrie asked him to.
"Yeah, I guess we do have some stuff to discuss alone Dom, but don't go far." Torrie looked very shaken. Dom leaned down and hugged her, then kissed her cheek.
"I'll be in the living room if you need me princess." With that he left the room.
Torrie turned to her father.