Disclaimer - I do not own anything affiliated with Universal studios because that is where The Fast and the Furious comes from and I am merely using the characters from their films for creative purposes. There are also many, many songs that inspire certain chapters that I use as a sort of muse for the way I want things to pan out. So please, don't sue me for using your material. I mean no harm. It is all in the name of entertainment. And I can't afford it.

AN: Hello Candy Cane Children. As you may or may not have noticed, this story is a re-post with adifferent title and some changes here and there. This wasn't a ploy to get more reviews for my story or anything like that, Ipromise you all. Merely an attempt to better what I had already written. I just wanted to make some changes, add things, take things out etc. So what better way to do so than just take it down, re-do it and then try again. Anywho, hope y'all enjoy this the second time round. Rock on kids - Jet.

Coffee, Cigarettes and Apologies

By Jet-Indigo

Chapter One – No One Knows

"Ouch."

"Sorry."

He cracked open one eye. Someone else was in the room with him. He braced himself as the harsh white light seeped into his vision, temporarily blinding him. He blinked rapidly but as his eyes stopped hurting, another pain replaced it. A sharp intake of breath was followed by somebody attempting to shift him to a more comfortable position. He looked around, willing himself to focus on something, anything. Eyes squeezed shut, he opened them once again and slowly, shapes began to form before his eyes.

"He's awake," came the familiar voice. But they weren't addressing him; there was another person in the room. Why had they all invaded his bedroom? Didn't they realise he was trying to sleep, trying to get some – Fuck. A sharp, tugging pain bit at his stomach as he tried to move. He let out a sigh of relief as it subsided, only to gnaw at him again like a rat trying to escape the confines of his body. This time, it didn't subside. It remained constant, harassing him.

"Its okay V, she's hitting you up with some morphine." He felt a clammy hand upon his forehead which then moved through his hair.

"This should calm him down, the guts a painful place to get shot."

"Tell me about it," he muttered, opening his eyes and looking up at the weary face looking back at him. She smiled at him and he suddenly felt a warmth attack his heart. "Letty…"

"Hey Pickle," she greeted warmly, gripping his hand reassuringly. She looked rough but she was keeping up a calm exterior that worked surprisingly well for her. There were dark rings around her eyes as though she hadn't slept in days. Her hair was scraped back against her head with a couple of loose tendrils framing her face. Yet she still smiled and it lit the room. The astounding rarity of a Letty smile. "Dumb question, but how you feelin'?"

"I've been better," he replied.

"I'll bet," she laughed lightly, failing to relieve the harsh mood.

He breathed heavily, trying to lift his arm to his face, but only getting halfway. He groaned thickly as sharp shooting pains flew up his arm, from the wrist to the shoulder. He breathed deeply; hoping the pain would just pack up it's unworthy bags and take a jet plane into oblivion.

Then it all came flooding back to him. The truck. The shotgun. A flash of white and he was bleeding from the gut. And his arm was entwined with wire, cutting deeper and deeper with every moment he spent on the side of the truck. The pain he felt physically at that moment had been numb but in his mind, he could feel everything that happened to him that afternoon.

Shit, when was that? When the fuck did that even happen…Did it happen? Oh God, the pain.

He winced, biting down hard on his bottom lip in a bid to stop himself from wailing. He wanted to so badly but as a man he couldn't allow himself to be seen that way. He would much rather cry his tears in private where he could be sure that if he couldn't stop, it wouldn't matter.

"You look uncomfortable; you want me to help you find a better position?" Letty enquired with a genuine caring tone to her voice. He opened his eyes to look at her. She was peering at him meekly. Although it felt a little unnatural for her to be the caring one, she would always have special places in her heart for her closest of friends.

"No…No thanks Let. I don't think the position I'm in would make any difference right now."

"You gave us quite a scare buddy, thought you were gonna die on us for a while there."

"Shoulda just left me to rot," he muttered, turning away from her and suddenly feeling the urge to crawl into a dark space and weep.

Instead, he vomited.

In an instant, Letty was by his side, reassuringly rubbing his back. He wretched several more times but nothing escaped his mouth and left him gasping for air. He looked at the mess he had made on the white sheets and then looked up at Letty.

"I don't recall eating carrots lately," he said, earning him a chuckle. She shook her head at him as he leaned back and cleared his throat. He swallowed and his throat hurt from the acid that had just passed through. He watched Letty leave to get the nurse before allowing his heavy lids to droop closed.

…

The next time he awoke, his room was dark. After a few seconds, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he scanned the room to find that he was alone. At the window, a light rain pattered and gave him a strange sense of ease.

He sighed, nestling into his pillow. The smell of vomit had disappeared, he noted, thankful. The room smelt of antiseptic though and he couldn't decide which odour he would prefer at that moment.

He realised something was attached to his index finger on the left hand. He lifted it up in the darkness, barely making out the clip that was monitoring his pulse rate. He let it drop back to the bed and proceeded to drum the mattress by his thigh with his fingertips. He was itching to play his guitar, finding that he was unconsciously playing invisible chords with his undamaged hand.

He glanced down the padded bandaging of his right arm, feeling the urge to just rip it off. He knew that was dumb but if he could just get it at the right point…No. Don't be an idiot Vince.

His stomach growled ferociously. A big, greasy burger would go down well right now. He slapped his cheeks together, an odd taste arousing his taste buds. He had thrown up earlier. That could have been the reason. That along with the starvation. Weren't they supposed to be keeping him on a drip or something? He shouldn't have felt that hungry, right?

Of all the possibilities, there were so many things he wanted right then – some of Dom's barbequed chicken; Mia's pot roast; Leon's belly-busting breakfast; Letty's…Well Letty didn't cook. More to the point – she couldn't. But that wasn't to say she had tried. Oh Christ had she tried. Cue to the great kitchen fire of '97 - the memories. Even Jesse made some grade A pancakes, oh those pancakes were the best.

Yeah that's right, think of all the things you can't have right now. That's real clever. That'll keep you sane…

He hummed a familiar tune to himself, a vain attempt to make himself think of a different subject. After a minute or so he gave up with the humming and began singing softly.

"Oh look, I'm talking to myself now. I'm going insane." He shook his head to himself. "S'weird." He chuckled at something…Nothing. "Nothing's funny Vince, why are you laughing? I don't even know. Oooh." He sighed. "I'm still kinda hungry though. I wonder if this bandage is edible. Nah that's stupid. Be cool though"' He lowered his head, eyes darting around the room suspiciously. He stuck out his tongue slightly, grazing the thick gauze strapped tightly around his arm. "I could always just pretend its chicken – everything tastes like chicken. Who am I kiddin', this tastes like fried bear crap."

After several more minutes of having an intriguing conversation with himself, Vince came to one startling conclusion – He was bored.

…

"Leon man, stop fluffing my damn pillow, you're buggin' me. I'm trying to watch TV," Vince complained, manoeuvring himself around the tall man in a bid to get a decent line of sight on the small portable. He sighed loudly, expressing his annoyance in a number of non-verbal manners. "If I wasn't bandaged up man, I swear to God…"

"Fine," Leon huffed. He collapsed into the chair by the bed and glared at Jerry Springer.

"See? Jerry's not so bad once you get over the funky hair do. He's a good guy; it's not his fault that people have sexual relations with horses."

"You've been here too long," Leon tried to hide a smile while shaking his head at the big guy.

"You love it," Vince quipped through a mouthful of mashed potato. Despite his injuries, he hadn't lost his appetite and wolfed down the rest of his chicken, mash, carrots, peas, yams, stuffing, sausage and gravy. He pushed the tray aside and with a little help from his teeth, opened a pot of chocolate pudding, which he necked back.

"'Memba the time we played that drinking game where we had to take a shot each time a fight broke out?" Leon asked, watching as the bald security man tried to rip about the two pieces of trailer trash.

"Yeah. Jess got so wasted."

"Yeah, and ended up puking in Letty's shoes."

"So what's up? You've been a big silent goon lately, that's not like you." Vince asked, licking the lid of his pudding.

"Just…Everything, I guess. Jesse's gone, you nearly died, Letty's broken a coupla ribs but she won't see a doctor cause she's a stubborn bitch and I've gotta figure out a way to tell my father that his son is dead. Aside from that, I'm peachy creamy," Leon blurted, without taking a breath. He breathed in sharply, looking at Vince and letting the breath out.

"Dude, you really think it's a good idea to be tellin' your pop about Jesse? I mean, while he's still inside?"

"This is his son we're talking about. He's got a right to know."

"Yeah but…You know why he got an extra six months. This would just about kill him, or worse, he'd kill someone."

"Thanks for pointing that out…" Leon muttered, leaning forward as his head fell into his hands. "Since when have you been the rational one, V? You've never had a rational bone in your body; now all of a sudden you're tryin'a give me advice?"

"Christ Leon, I'm sorry. Anyone would think that maybe I'd had a lot of time to think lately due to this whole charade. It's not like I've been in here by myself for days on end, unable to sleep at nights because I don't know what's happened to my family."

Leon stared at Vince. Seeing him angry was hardly new but this was a new kind of angry. This was a hurt angry. He could understand that, but it felt odd to have the known brute of the pack to be giving him advice about such a tetchy subject. His brother had died, and he needed to tell his father.

"Look I'm sorry okay? I didn't mean it the way you thought."

"It's okay. Just – just don't underestimate me."

Leon nodded slowly. "To top things off," he turned to look up at Vince, "Dom and Mia have disappeared from the face of the earth, left no note, the banks have been cleared out – well the three I know about. There's probably more knowing Dom and I can't go back to the house 'cause there's bound to be someone watching it so I can't get to any of the cash that's hidden in my room. I can't get to any of my clothes, neither can Letty. I can't even go back to get the Jetta – although it's probably covered in bullet holes anyway.'

"So we're living at a motel with the money me and Let won between us at Race Wars and by the looks of things, we're gonna last about three more nights before we're burned out and have to live in our cars which will probably be in the system now meaning the pigs will be on the lookout for them, and they aren't exactly indistinguishable. Hence a big fucking mess."

"Feel better now?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," he sighed. "I couldn't tell Letty all of this 'cause she's kinda lookin' at me to be the level headed one when really I have so many fucking doubts about how we're going to survive."

"I've got an account."

"What?"

"A private account, just in case of emergencies and shit ya know? And this is kind of an emergency I think you'll agree. I need to go into the bank myself to retrieve it though, but you two can stay at my place for the next coupla of days, I don't know why you didn't think of going there in the first place."

"It didn't cross our minds V; we were more worried about all this shit goin' down."

"Things will be fine Le. I know I've never been the protector and I'll never fill the big brother role that Dom took upon himself but I can offer you a place to stay and some money that will get us outta here."

Leon stared into the blue eyes of his long-time friend. And he saw him in a new light. Not the way you feel sorry for someone who's in hospital because you're glad it's not you in that bed. Not because the real, witty, amazing person had begun shining through more and more in the past few days. But in the way you would look at your new born child.

It was strange but Leon was so captivated by the man before him at that moment. In a matter of seconds he had trusted him enough to tell of his personal bank account, offer them a place to stay and without even saying so, falling into the protector role. Despite not thinking he had done very much, Vince had done a whole lot in Leon's eyes.

In all the years Dominic was around, Vince was always seen as the big, dumb dog that lumbered around after his master. Attacked when he was told to attack. Jumped when he was told to jump.

But in reality, underneath the shell, he was waiting to care for someone. And those someone's were Leon and Letty.

Instead of spoiling the moment with expressions of gratitude's, Leon pulled himself up from the chair, plopped on the bed and pulled Vince into an embrace.

They sat like that for some time, not a word shared.

…

"Look at you brother, look at you. What mess did you get yourself into this time?" Vince could just make out a looming form in the doorway, standing confidently against the frame. Looking down at himself, down his bandaged arm, the flimsy hospital gown that emasculated him when they came to wash him, he couldn't help but feel pathetic.

"Long time, no see, bro," he muttered, as the figure sauntered into the room and stood at the foot of his bed. He took in his brother's appearance, he had changed a lot since the last time he had seen him – but then he was always changing.

"Sure is." He looked around the hospital room, at the flowers on the side obviously purchased by a woman. "Sure is," he mumbled again.

"What are you doin' here?"

"Well, when word on the street is that my big bro got himself shot, I had to check it out for myself."

"How noble of you. Come to mock, have we?"

"You'd love for that to be the case Vince, wouldn't you? It'd be so much easier for you to fend me off if I ribbed you about being stupid enough to get shot. So much easier for you to put up that fucking macho act and tell me to get the hell out of here. Well," he stared hard into the eyes of the living organism he had shared a womb with, "You're fuckin' wrong."

"You think you've got me figured out? You don't even know me anymore, you haven't done ever since you ran off with your little Hellions on your pretty lil Choppers and you're ridiculous leathers. You made the decision to disown our family and now you're back because you heard I got shot and God forbid you might not have seen me again? That sound about right to you?"

The two men shared daggers, puffing out their chests defensively and breathing deeply. For a long time there was no noise aside from the trees rustling lightly outside in the night sky. For three years they hadn't seen each other, having left on bad terms and not speaking since. For three years they had been angry, angry with each other – angry with themselves.

"Henry, why the fuck do you have a mullet?"