A/N - Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed Chapter 1 (Takerlover, I Heart Tinkerbell, Splendid, Sparkly Green and Amarantha) it's great to know that people are reading and enjoying. To those who didn't review, please take a few seconds to review this chapter to let me know what you think, if you hate it - tell me why. I can't ever improve as an author without constructive criticism.

Tinkerbell - Karma is on a temporary hold at the moment, this version of Moving On will be very different to the original, not just in writing style but content so until it's up and finished I'm not posting anymore of Karma, it just wouldn't make sense. Don't worry though - I've not forgotten about it and I will post it once this story is finished.

As usual I don't own anything you recognise from the film, everything else is my own idea and/or creation so please don't steal them and incorporate them into your own fics. It makes you look lazy as a writer and no one wants that reputation.

Read and Review people - you know you want to!

Chapter 2

It was the strangest feeling that woke Vince up, he felt totally trapped but completely secure. All the way down his body he could feel the soft, pliable warmth of what could only be Chloe. Her legs tangled in his; the thin scratchy hospital blanket pooled around their feet, a thick, soft heavy blanket tucked around the pair of them, covering them from chest to feet.

He could feel the soft, gentle exhales on his neck as Chloe slept, her arms wrapped tightly around his body, one tucked against his side and under his shoulder and the other stretched across his waist and tucked into the waist band of his boxers. Never in his life had been so grateful to have been wearing underwear. He was all too aware of the various tubes, drains and drips in his body but he'd be forever indebted to whoever had allowed him to keep his dignity and his underwear.

As Vince slowly came to the delicious, pressure of Chloe's slender frame on his body turned to pain, excruciating, 'kill me now' pain. It started at his toes and radiated up to the top of his head and nothing he did could ease it. Not counting to 4 in his head, wriggling his toes or imagining Chloe naked on the hood of his car could ease the searing pain that was coursing through his body. The only part of him that didn't hurt was his gunshot wound. The weight of Chloe on his damaged muscles was oddly comforting; the pressure on his stitches eased the horrific pain and soothed his battered body. Now if only he could do something about the rest of him he'd be ok.

"V baby, what's wrong?"

Chloe had been fast asleep, snuggled up with her friend when she'd felt him tensing and shaking under her. She'd tried moving away from him but his uninjured arm had quickly tightened around her, preventing her from moving more than a couple of inches.

"It hurts." V was in so much pain he could barely manage to speak so his voice was nothing more than a whimper. He wasn't sure if Chloe had heard him or not but he knew there was no way he could speak any louder. The pain in his arm got worse with every moment and he longed for the oblivion of unconsciousness.

"It's alright V, I'll call the nurse, just hang on."

It only took a few minutes for the nurse to answer the call buzzer but for V and Chloe it felt like a lifetime. There was nothing Chloe could do for the big man apart from hold him and comfort him and never in her life had Chloe felt so useless. Here she was a qualified doctor, in one of the most medically advanced countries in the world and all she could do was offer physical comfort and gently brush away the tears of a man who was undoubtedly in agony.

Luckily for both Chloe and V the nurse that answered the call wasn't the one that she'd kicked the previous day. Chloe was mortified by her behaviour and knew that she needed to apologise but for now, her first priority was to Vince. The big man needed her more than a bitchy nurse needed an apology.

"Chloe," the morphine had left V feeling like a big, fluffy pussycat and he damn near purred as he felt Chloe nuzzling his neck. She'd stayed with him the whole time the nurse was sorting out his injection, stroking his hair away from his face and constantly telling him it would be ok, encouraging him to squeeze her hand when the pain got too much for him. It was only when the injection had fully taken effect that Chloe had prised herself out of his grip and moved to sit on the chair next to the bed. As soon as she'd gone he'd missed the softness of her skin, the warmth of her body against his but mostly the smell of honeysuckle that had pervaded his sleep. He'd always loved honeysuckle, it was his mums' favourite scent and it seemed to be Chloe's as well.

"Chloe?"

"It's alright V, I'm here." Chloe carefully moved V's arm out of the way so she could sit on the side of the bed next to him. Even though she'd spent most of the night lying on him she was still frightened of hurting him. It had been just after the nightshift had come on that she'd gotten into bed with him. She'd been quite happy sitting in the chair beside him watching him sleep when he'd started crying and shaking. He'd seemed absolutely terrified and nothing she did have been enough to calm him down. It was in desperation that she climbed into his bed and laid by his side to comfort him. A few minutes of her running her fingers through his hair and rubbing tiny circles on the back of his hand with her thumb was all it had taken for his breathing to even out and for him to fall back into a dreamless sleep. She had no idea how she'd managed to end up so tightly wrapped round him or who had covered them up with a blanket, she was just thankful that V had managed to sleep through the night without anymore nightmares.

The pain was evident in V's eyes when he looked at Chloe – she'd never seen anyone look so completely broken and defeated in her life. The big man was guarded at the best of times and any emotions other than anger and suspicion were extremely rare for V but as he looked at Chloe she could see everything he was going through. The fear of what would happen next, the heartbreak at losing Jesse and the almost total disbelief that he'd been left behind.

"It's really you isn't it?" As much as V knew that Chloe was real he was desperately hoping that she was some kind of drug induced hallucination. That he hadn't really felt her silky smooth legs tangled in his, that the soft body he'd felt tucked around him and the gentle murmurings he'd heard as delicate fingers had carefully eased away the pain in his forehead had all been in his mind. If Chloe was real, then everything she'd told him the previous night was real and he simply wasn't ready to accept that yet. He'd known when he'd been put in the helicopter that Dom and Mia would run, leave him to face the police by himself but knowing something was going to happen and it actually happening were two totally different things. Dominic was his best friend, the man he'd stood beside through thick and thin and Mia, well he wasn't exactly sure what Mia was to him but he knew that he loved her, always had and until Brian had arrived on the scene he'd thought he always would. Brian, V's fists clenched at the mere thought of the man who'd wrecked everything, brought his entire life crashing down around him and caused the team to abandon him. The same man who'd ruined his entire life had also saved it and that was something that would take a long time for V to accept.

"Yeah, V – it's really me." Chloe had never felt so totally helpless in her entire life. Her job was to cure people, mend their broken bodies and send them on their way but there was nothing she could do for Vince. Sure she could redress his wounds and take out his stitches when it came to it but there was nothing she could do to mend his broken spirit.

Chloe was just finishing combing out her long blonde hair when she heard the unmistakable voice of the weasel doctor. She'd not intended on leaving the bathroom door open but V had wanted to keep talking to her and she wasn't able to hear him with the door closed.

"Ah, you're awake Mr Richards, that's good to see. It'll make it a lot easier for me to assess the damage to your arm."

Chloe watched from the bathroom doorway as the doctor crossed the room and stood next to Vince's bed.

"Can I help you, Doctor Matthews?" As she spoke Chloe moved towards the doctor, taking great pleasure in the look on his face when he realised just who it was that was speaking to him.

"I thought I'd made it perfectly clear yesterday that I don't want you anywhere near my fiancé and that I didn't want you treating him in any way.

"You shouldn't be in here – visiting hours don't start for another 2 hours." Dr Matthews had hoped that he'd be able to get in, deal with his patient and leave before the crazy English girl arrived. He hadn't counted on Chloe staying in Vince's room overnight.

"Did you honestly expect me to leave Vince here by himself overnight after the stunt you pulled yesterday? I don't know how it works here in the States but in England vowing to deliberately inflict pain on your patients isn't part of the Hippocratic Oath. Now I suggest you leave before I call my attorney and take out a TRO to prevent you from coming anywhere near me or Vince."

Vince didn't know quite what to think; the slender 5ft 2in girl that he barely knew was defending him in a way that had never happened before. He'd never seen anyone cut to shreds in such a way before and it was more than a little comforting that she was on his side. He didn't like to think what would happen if she ever felt the need to glare and speak to him like that. She reminded him of his mother and he'd always hated it when his mom was upset with him. Just listening to the way Chloe was standing up for him made V feel more at ease with the rest of the team abandoning him. None of them would have stood up for him, well, maybe Le would but that all depended on how bloody V's arm was at the time. Le wasn't a big fan of blood and even the mention of tampons and periods was enough to turn him a very delicate shade of green. Mia would have cried along with him and insisted that the doctors knew best, Letty would have slapped him round the head and told him not be such a baby and Dom would have left the room as soon as the doctor came in. At least Chloe had stepped in the previous day when the doctor was torturing him and had prevented more torture that morning.

When the doctor turned tail and fled, V turned his attention back to the young girl that was standing by his bed side, one hand protectively placed on V's bandaged arm and the other buried in his hair, the turquoise painted nails gently scraping his sensitive scalp.

For the next two and a half weeks Chloe didn't leave Vince's side. She stayed with him whilst he had his dressings changed, smuggled him in extra food from the vending machines when his stomach growled overnight and helped him to clean up when he decided he smelt more than was appropriate for a living, breathing man.

Every night Chloe would settle down in V's bed, wrap her arms around him as he snuggled into her chest and listen to him as he told her things he'd never told anyone before. He told her how his father had beaten him and his mom for years before his mom had finally got the courage to leave, only to die 3 years later in a car accident. He'd been 15 when she died and Dom's dad had taken him in. 5 years later Mr Toretto had been killed and Vince had yet again found himself without a family. When Dom went to prison for attacking Kenny Linder Vince had become Mia's father, older brother and best friend all in one. He hadn't wanted to take on all of that responsibility; at only 20 it was almost too much running the garage but he didn't really have any choice. Anthony Toretto was the nearest thing to a real dad he'd ever had and he owed it to him to make sure that Mia was ok.

For 2 years Vince had run around after Mia, making sure she got to classes on time, picking her up from her friends when she'd drunk too much to drive home and holding her hair back when she threw up in the gutter. The two years without Dom to help him had been the hardest two years of his life but he'd managed, he'd had to. The only other alternative was for Mia to be fostered and there was no way Vince was letting that happen.

Chloe told Vince about her life before they met at the beach. She'd been born in LA and moved to England when she was just 2. Her father owned a successful chain of hotels and was expanding into the UK. She'd married her college sweetheart when she was 18, just before she started university and for 4 years they'd been ridiculously happy together. The happiness hadn't lasted and Chloe had divorced James when she was just 22 after she caught him having sex on the kitchen table with her younger sister, Nicky. Now, 3 years later, she was almost able to see the funny side to her sister's bare ass bouncing up and down on her husband but at the time it was the single most devastating thing she'd ever seen.

Chloe had only just qualified as a doctor when she got the phone call that changed her life forever. After she'd gotten divorced her parents had returned to LA, taking her sister with her – the scandal had been too much for their mother and she'd not been able to stay in England any longer than necessary. They'd only been in LA for a few months when they were killed on the way home from a charity dinner. Nicky had decided at the last minute not to go, so in just a few short hours Chloe's family had been reduced to one other member, the lying, cheating conniving bitch of a sister that she'd vowed never to speak to again.

Vince didn't know what to say, he'd known when he met Chloe at the beach that day that something was off with her but he had no idea how much she'd been through.

"So, where's your sister now?" Chloe had been with Vince almost constantly since she'd arrived and he'd never even heard her mention her sister before now, let alone met her. A very giggly red head had been in with some clothes for her but apart from that Chloe hadn't seen or spoken to anyone other than Vince and the medical staff.

"I don't know baby, I just don't know." The last thing Chloe wanted to talk about was her sister but she felt that she owed it to Vince to tell him the truth. He'd been honest with her about everything that had happened in his childhood and she wanted to repay his faith in her.

"I've no idea where she is, we're not exactly on speaking terms at the moment. I found out that James moved to LA earlier this year and they've been seeing each other. I threw her out when I found out and that was the last I saw of her." Chloe didn't realise she'd started crying until she felt V turn is her arms and his calloused fingers brush against her cheeks, wiping away her tears as best he could.

"Please don't cry Chloe, they're not worth it, they betrayed you and broke your mothers heart. They don't deserve any of your tears."

As V spoke, Chloe realised he was right, her ex-husband was a total bastard, probably always had been and she was sure he was just using her sister. She had no idea why but she didn't really care, her sister had made her choice when she slept with him and now she had to live with the consequences of her actions.

"Come and lie with me Chloe, let me hold you." V leant forward so that Chloe could move from behind him and lie down next to him. He'd never been one to initiate physical contract with the girls he'd dated, hell he didn't think he'd ever just held a girl but there was something about Chloe, some barely visible vulnerability, that made him want to reach out and hold her.

Chloe carefully untangled her legs from around Vince and shuffled around to lie next to him. Although she'd spent every night with him in her arms this was the first time that he'd held her, the first time that he'd been the one offering comfort. As she rested her head on his chest she reached out and gently traced the tattoos on his upper right arm. She was fascinated by them and spent many nights staring at them, just drinking in the detail and intricacies of the design, grateful that the injuries to his arm hadn't cut into the ink at all. It would have been criminal for such beautiful work to have been damaged. Criminal was probably the wrong word for it as that's exactly what his actions had been that had lead to him getting injured in the 1st place. Vince was, as Sgt Tanner took great pains to remind her, a violent career criminal, a thug. Chloe really didn't care about his opinion of Vince. She knew all about the less savoury aspects of his life but she'd also seen for herself the kind, gentle side that he kept well hidden from the outside world. She had no doubt that he was capable of extreme violence but she knew that it would never be focussed at her. Vince was a thug but he wasn't an animal.