Author's Note:
Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews.
I hope you all enjoy this one as well. This chapter and the next don't have much of Letty/Dom, but it's building up for a really good moment --which I've begun writing.
There are a few curve balls ahead, but it'll please all those Dom/Letty fanatics (like me) to know that they will be getting together at some point in the kind-of near future....
...how long they stay like that is anyone's guess. ;)
Anyway, enjoy this chapter, the next actually has no Dom in it, and I will be taking greenglowchaiss's recommendation and adding a chapter that fills in Letty's background -- in about two posts
Read and Review Please. =)
========================================================
"Here sweetie, drink that." Mia said gently, offering a glass of juice to Taylor, who pulled himself away from his father long enough to look at it and shake his head.
Dom took it for him and pressed it up to his mouth without asking, "Drink." he said firmly.
Taylor promptly drank.
Everyone was sitting around the living room. No one had said much, mostly because the little boy seemed to still be quite upset.
He wouldn't look at anyone or let go of his father. In fact he was quite inconsolable.
Mia was near tears, Brian was very worried because Mia was near tears, Sonya was trying to get Mia to calm down, and the guy were just watching Dom comfort his son.
"Alright that's enough." Dom said suddenly, and detach his son's arms from his neck, a bit roughly.
"Dom!" Mia scolded, her eyes wide.
The child needed comforting.
He glanced at her quickly, and Mia recognized the look. It was his I-know-what-I'm-doing look.
"Look at me Tay..." he said, when the little boy looked up he spoke again, "Your safe now and your not hurt, so it's time to stop crying." his voice was firm.
"For christ's sake Dom, the kid just fell off the roof, let him cry if he wants to." Mia said aghast.
"I kinda agree with Mia, here bro, the kids' earned his right to cry for at least another hour." Leon added, Vince nodded his agreement.
But Dom didn't look up, his eyes were fixed on his son, who amazingly had stopped crying and now looked a little sheepish.
Without looking up Dom spoke, "Actually Mia, he didn't fall off the roof -- he jumped. After at least three people in this room told him not to."
The silence was interrupted by Sonya -- as she giggled, and Vince glared at her.
"What?" she said shrugging, a smile on her face. "It's obvious what the kid did." she said to the room in general.
The others just stared, all except Dom, who was still engaged in a staring contest with his son.
"He cried his head off, in hopes that his dad would forget he'd disobeyed--" Sonya clarified for the others, then added, "...gotta give the kid props for scheming."
The guys couldn't help but smile as the idea took root in their heads.
"You got a devil, there Dom." Brian said grinning.
Even Mia smiled a little.
The little boy sighed suddenly, as if relenting, then said softly, "I'm sorry Daddy."
Dom nodded, "I know you are, kid, but we've still got a problem 'cause you didn't do what I told you to do."
Nodding vigorously, Taylor defended himself, "uh-huh I did. You said come down, now, and I did."
"That isn't what I meant Tay and you know it."
"But it's what you said, Daddy."
"Do you remember what happened last time you did something like this?" Dom asked his voice very serous.
The child nodded, looking down, "I broke the car."
"And then what?"
"Then I was pu-shin-ned."
"Should I punish you now?" Dom asked, ignoring the mispronunciation.
Taylor shrugged, still looking down.
"Of course not." Mia said firmly, causing Dom to look up.
Her eyes were bright and her words crisp, "Are you insane? Whether he fell off or jumped off doesn't change the fact that the kid just had the shi..." she paused, reassembled her thoughts and began again, smiling slightly, "the shish-kabob scared out of him. He's been punished enough." she finished firmly.
Then added, looking at Taylor and opening her arms, "Isn't that right, baby?"
Taylor hesitated for a moment, before realizing this was his way out and rushing into her arms. Nodding from the safety of within them he stated, "Yes, push-i-ment enough."
Everyone smiled, including Dom, his son knew how to take advantage of a golden opportunity when one arrived, that was for sure.
"I don't know Mia...." he said warily, just to make Taylor appreciate his aunt.
"I do." she said firmly, taking the hint, "You're not punishing him and that's that."
Dom looked at Taylor and said smiling a little, "Well, buddy, it looks your Auntie Mia has saved you. No punishment... this time."
Taylor grinned, his eyes and nose still a little red. He looked up at his aunt, "Thank you Auntie Mia."
Mia melted, she squeezed him just a little tighter and dropped kisses on his head.
Taylor allowed her to, for a few moments, then he began to squirm, forcing Mia to relinquish her hold.
To her surprise he didn't leave her, though, just stood next to her side.
Dom glanced away from them for a moment as Letty and the girls came in. "Buddy why don't you go to the room for a few minutes kay."
Taylor knew he was still on thin ice, without further word he took to the steps.
The instant he was out of sight, Dom laid back on the sofa, his face up towards ceiling, his eyes closed.
Wearily, he rubbed his hand over his face a few times, taking deep breaths as he did so.
"You okay?" Mia asked, concerned.
He took one last deep breath and exhaled before sitting up again, "He wasn't the only one who got the shit scared out of him."
He'd never meant anything so truthfully, at the moment he didn't think he'd ever be able to erase that instant from his mind, the instant when he'd thought he'd lose his son.
The girls had quietly filed in after Letty, and the minute their parents laid eyes on them, the yelling started.
Brian was first, "What in god's name were you two thinking?" he started, standing, walking over to them.
"You could have killed your cousin!" Mia yelled, she didn't stand but the volume of and rage in her voice more than made up for it.
"You've pulled some stunts before but this... this is..." Brian was actually stuttering he was so furious. He didn't even know where to begin, this was so beyond anything the girls had ever done. "I can't believe..." he began again but never finished.
Letty cut him off, "Girls, go to your room."
"What?!" Brian and Mia exclaimed simultaneously. They looked at her as if she'd gone crazy.
They'd always allowed Letty rule with the girls, it was easier that way -- since she could usually get them to do things no one else could.
But this... this was ridiculous.
"Letty..." Mia began, her eyes angry.
"Girls, go to your room." Letty said again ignoring Mia. The girls glanced at their mother before running up the stairs.
"Letty, the girls have to be pun..." Brian began his voice as calm as he could make it.
He didn't like Letty undermining their authority, or rather his. When it came to discipline and punishment of the girls -- both usually fell to him.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!" Mia yelled, standing, cutting her husband off, "I will not allow them to get away scot free with this Letty. They could have killed him."
"Your right." she said, simply, as she walked over and stood next to the sofa.
"I am?" Mia said quickly, questioning a little, not that she was right but that Letty had agreed so readily.
"I am." she stated firmly, quickly thereafter. "I know am... and you know am... so why didn't you let us..."
"Why don't you sit." Letty interrupted her, knowing that this stress was not good for the baby, she motioned to the armchair.
Mia sank into it, feeling tired, suddenly.
"I didn't let you punish them..." Letty continued, her voice serious, "...because your right Mia. I'm the one who gives the girls leeway. I let them think they can do what ever they want..."
"You can't take the sole blame for that Letty." Brian interrupted, as he sat down.
"Yeah, we spoil them like crazy too." Leon said.
"Yeah, but I give them power." she said almost sadly. "You all give them things. I give them power, I let them decide where we go and what we do when we get there. I let them act like they're accountable to no one. I'm the one who talks their parents into letting them stay out late and not send them to school."
"Letty, you are not solely responsible for the girls' attitude." Sonya said softly.
"No." she agreed, "But I do encourage it enough that I may be solely responsible for it's size."
"I'd let you punish them Letty, but..." Brian shook his head, "You've never been able to. I think it's best if I do it."
"Brian..." Letty began.
"Last time you set out to punish them you ended up buying them doll houses so they wouldn't be bored in their room."
"This time is nothing like last time." She said a little angrily.
"What aren't you telling us." Mia asked.
She paused, then said softly, "The girls asked me last week if they could use the new equipment. I told them not to until some one showed them how to use it, because this one was different. I told them it didn't fasten onto the roof, like the other one. I explained that this one made for a faster descent but wasn't as safe. I told them when someone taught them they could, but not now. Actually, I even told them that after someone taught them they should only use it when an adult was present -- because it was more dangerous than the other one."
"They did it anyway." Dom surmised, his eyes on her. He couldn't help it. She looked almost hurt, as if their disobedience had hurt her feelings -- actually, he realized, that's exactly what it was. She was taking this as a personal, and was seriously hurt by it.
"Yes," she said turning to him, "...they did it anyway," there was pain in those words, confirming his theory.
Their eyes met a moment before she turned back to face Mia and Brian, "I'll deal with this."
"Letty..." Brian began still not convinced.
"She'll deal with it Brian." Mia interrupted him, her eyes boring into him.
He met his wife's eyes and sighed, "Fine, go deal with it," he said to Letty a moment later.
She nodded and turned slowly, heading for the stairs.
Once at of sight Brian spoke, "What's wrong with you Mia? You know how she is with the girls, they have her eating out of their hands."
"No, darling, that's you." Mia said sweetly. The others laughed a little, Brian found nothing amusing.
"She won't be able to..."
"Brian," she said softly, her voice shutting him up, "...the girls have never disobeyed Letty before," she said it calmly but there was a wealth of meaning behind that phrase.
It was a thought that had never occurred to Brian.
He sat down.
"Are you sure?" he asked incredulously, re-running in his head the girls' entire childhood.
Had they really never disobeyed her?
Mia nodded, "Yes. You, me, the guys, Sonya, they've disobeyed us all. But never her."
Everyone was silent.
"What does that mean?" Leon asked, he was a little lost.
"It means..." Mia said slowly, "...that even if she only makes them go to bed without dessert, they'll be devastated. Because she's disappointed in them, because they hurt her feelings by outright disobedience, because even if just for a moment... they aren't her little darlings."
They all considered the thought. The look in the girls' eyes whenever they saw Letty.
They worshiped her, she could do anything, as Dolly pointed out yesterday.
Mia was right, the fact that just for an instant they weren't her darlings would crush them.
"I'd say ..." Dom began softly, "...that maybe they too have been punished enough."
No one argued.
========================================================
