Author's Note: Well I'm so pleased people are enjoying this! I'm winging things a bit, but my plan is to sort of incorporate Brian in the Hobbs role here and do an alternate take on the events of Fast Five. Also, I'm on the fence about whether or not to keep Vince alive. I wanted to, but I'm curious what you guys think?
Also sorry Letty hasn't forgiven Dom yet. They'll have a conversation coming up soon.
Chapter 3: A New Arrival
It was later the same night when Dom and Vince sat alone on the patio with beers sweating in the warm air. The house behind them was quiet, the girls and Nico long since gone to bed, and the two of them had spent the last hour reminiscing about the old days.
"Yeah… if only we'd known how fucked up things were about to get, man," Vince said, sighing. "I can't regret it… Cause I got Rosa, I got Nico. But, we lost people too. We lost ourselves in a way."
"Yeah," Dom agreed, taking a drink of his corona. He sighed. "Life would sure be simpler if I'd listened to everyone about that last job, huh?"
"No kidding," Vince scoffed. "But you know, complications can be fun too." He shot his friend a grin.
Dom snorted. "Yeah right."
"C'mon," Vince said. "Like women. They're pretty damn complicated."
Dom shrugged, looked out over the darkened houses below, like soldiers all in uneven rows.
"So what the hell did you do to get into the doghouse with Let so bad?" Vince asked, setting aside his empty bottle. "She's been ice-cold since you showed up."
"Left her in the DR," Dom said. "For her own good."
"You know how our girl loves *that* phrase," Vince said dryly. "You fight about it?"
"We had different opinions. She wouldn't see reason so I just left while she was sleeping," Dom replied.
"Oh yeah I can see how that wouldn't go over well," Vince said. "I mean, even if her hormones weren't running whacky, that would be enough to probably have you sleeping on the couch for months."
Dom scoffed. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"She's pregnant, right?"
Dom blinked at his friend. "You know?"
"Dude, I got a kid. I recognize all the signs. Especially the shitty morning sickness Letty's got. She's throwing up every day before dawn. Can't be good."
"Why the hell didn't you say something to her?"
"Because I like my balls where they are, thanks." He laughed. "Besides, as the guy who knocked her up isn't that your duty?"
"Vince she won't even talk to me."
"After this many years and this many dumbass movies you ought to be a pro at apologizing to Letty," Vince teased, smirking at him.
"Not like this," Dom admitted, letting out a sigh. "I can't say I thought I was wrong but… I do understand why she's mad. And now she's angry cause she thinks the only reason I came to find her is cause of the baby."
"Is it?" Vince asked, looking at his friend.
"Maybe," Dom finished off his beer. "I don't know. I tell myself, I wanted to reunite with her eventually… you know? When things were safer. I would have sent for her, when I could have. But then when Mia called to tell me she was pregnant… I dunno, I just couldn't wait for a safer day anymore. I needed to be there for her." He frowned. "Not just for the baby, but… I don't want her to be alone."
"Maybe you just gotta tell her that, man," Vince said. "The girl loves you more than reason. She'll come around."
Dom snorted. "Hell. When did you get all wise and shit?"
"Oh nah, I'm only philosophical when I smoke a blunt," Vince said, and grinned. They both laughed.
He pushed himself to his feet, taking their empty bottles in hand, then looked back at his friend fondly.
"One more beer before bed?" he asked.
"Yeah, sounds good," Dom agreed.
"You're probably going to need at least one more to sleep on that couch," Vince said. "It's gonna be a bit tight."
Dom sighed. "Great."
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The girls had gone into town with Rosa and her mother to pick up some necessities, piling into Vince's Jeep, which Rosa maneuvered through the terrible traffic with the skill of someone who had been driving here all her life. After she parked they split up, Rosa and Francisca heading off to get groceries, and Letty and Mia going to the little pharmacy up the block.
Mia went through the aisles, picking up things from the list of vitamins she'd made after researching online. She threw in some ginger tea in hopes it might help Letty with her nausea, then went off to get toiletries for herself.
She met up with Letty in the snack aisle, where the other woman looked into her basket with suspicion.
"What the hell is all that?" she asked.
"Vitamins you should be taking," Mia told her.
"Mia, you're crazy if you think I'm going to take all that." Letty said with a roll of her eyes.
"It's the least you can do," Mia hissed. "You should really see a doctor. There's things you should be doing."
"Women have been having babies since before doctors existed," Letty reminded her, then sighed at the look on her friend's face. "Fine… I'll take the damn vitamins. If I don't throw them right back up."
"You can take them before bed," Mia told her, smiling. "I got you some ginger tea too, that might help."
"Thanks…" Letty said, touched that the other woman had thought to do that. Mia could always be counted on to worry about her. She supposed she had lost sight of that in her anger at Dom. "I'm sorry I'm just… touchy about this right now."
"I get it," Mia nodded. Not that she really did, but she knew that her friend had already been in emotional turmoil before the added revelation of her pregnancy. Letty wasn't someone who knew how to slow down. She was a risk-taker and she didn't want to face the reality, perhaps, that things were going to have to change. Add to that her lingering anger at Dom and the inability for them to go home and even attempt to live some sort of normal life… well, Mia couldn't blame her for wanting to ignore it a little longer.
She was drawn out of her thoughts by Letty tugging at her sleeve.
"C'mon," she said. "Let's go pay for that shit so we can hit up the autoparts store before Rosa is done getting groceries."
They checked out, then dropped the bags at the car before walking further up the street to the autoparts store. Letty seemed far more at home picking out coolant and examining fan belts than she had discussing prenatal vitamins. She added a few spark plugs to the basket and chatted up a couple of local boys about possible street race locations before they went to pay for their purchases.
"Don't tell me you're thinking of racing," Mia hissed as they waited in line at the counter.
"It's easy money, Mi," she said. "Besides, I don't have a car. Just getting the information for Dom."
"You have to actually speak to him to let him know about it, you know."
"Don't talk like I'm not perfectly justified in freezing your brother out right now," Letty told her with a sharp look.
Mia fell silent as they stepped up to pay, waiting until they were heading back out to the car to reply.
"You are," she agreed. "But, he's here, right?" she said. "That's more than you had a month ago."
"Yeah, until the feds figure out he's here," Letty said. "That's why we gotta pull this job with Vince and get the hell out of here as quickly as possible."
"Dom mentioned calling in a friend to help out."
"Han," Letty nodded. "He was with us in the DR. He's a good driver. Cool under pressure. But we need a hell of a plan to pull this off."
"I still can't believe you want to take part in it."
"I'm not a cripple, Mia. I can still drive just fine." Letty rolled her eyes, leaning against the side of the Jeep. She shaded her eyes, looking back towards the market to see if there was any sign of Rosa.
"It's still dangerous."
"Everything is dangerous," Letty said. "Don't make me have this argument twice, because you know your brother is going to try and talk me out of it."
Mia snorted. "Well, if you can convince him I'll be surprised."
"I don't have to convince him," Letty said. "I'm going to make my own choices from now on, Mia."
The topic was dropped when Rosa and Francisca came out of the store with a wagon full of bags. Letty and Mia helped them load everything into the Jeep, then climbed back into the rear seat together so they could all head back to the house.
They were in the thick of traffic before the Brazilian woman began to tell them about the gossip she had learned in the market. Prices of everything had gone up, but especially the bottled water in the grocery stores.
"It's because the price of our water has gone up so much people were buying it in bottles and jugs instead, but now that is more expensive," Rosa explained.
"Because Reyes has friends in high places he can call on for help," Letty guessed.
"Exactly," Rosa agreed. "The man has power as long as he has money. He can buy off any dirty politician and any corrupt cops."
"Then we need to find some way to take his money away, right?" Mia said.
"He has his own vault in the city center," Rosa replied. "I don't know how you could get to it."
"Don't worry," Letty told her as they turned off the highway, heading to the outskirts of the city. "This is the kind of thing we're good at."
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Dom and Vince were out back getting the little charcoal grill fired up on the patio when they heard the rumbling approach of an engine.
"If you weren't here, I'd almost think that was you," Vince remarked.
"Nah," Dom smirked. "Definitely an import."
He went around the side of the house to the street to meet the new arrival, who pulled his vehicle into the spot behind Dom's Charger and stepped out, a grin on his familiar face.
Dom went over to greet him with a hand-clap and a one-armed-hug. "Thanks for coming, man."
"Hey, when you call I'm here," Han replied, getting a bag out of his trunk. "I'm always down for an adventure."
He followed him back around the house where Dom introduced him to Vince.
"You pulled the jobs in the DR with Dom?" Vince asked, shaking his hand.
"Yeah, and helped him break out a couple of idiots from lock-up in Mexico," Han said with a smirk.
"I don't think I've heard that story," Vince said, grabbing them each a beer.
"I'll tell you some other time," Dom answered as they listened to the sounds of the Jeep struggling up the hill. "Sounds like the girls are back."
Vince went around to help unload the bags of things.
"V, please tell me you got that damn radiator," Letty complained as she hopped out of the back. "I thought we were going to have to push this thing the last quarter of a mile."
He laughed. "I did, girl, it's out back if you wanna help me put it in this evening."
"Hell yes I do," she agreed, taking her bags and grabbing a case of beer from the trunk.
She almost dropped it when she saw a familiar face in the backyard, but grinned widely instead. "Was wondering when you'd finally show up." She passed off the beers to Dom and went to hug Han.
He laughed. "Hey, I couldn't miss out on the fun this time. You weren't trying to get into trouble without me were you?"
"Eh, probably," she said, then introduced him to Mia and Rosa.
He lent a hand bringing in the rest of the groceries, but happily retreated to the patio with his beer when Rosa and Francisca set to chopping and other prep work. Mia managed to get roped into helping but Letty soon came out back to join the boys, though she was notably sans beer.
"Where the hell you been?" she asked Han as she watched Dom and Vince argue over how to set up the charcoal.
"Here and there," he replied, smirking. "Disappeared into the nightlife in Macau for a little while, easy to get lost there. I was in Vietnam when I got Dom's message though. More than ready to move on."
"What were you doing there?" Letty wondered.
"Not a whole lot. But you can get by without spending very much money and no one really asks questions. Plus the food is good." He grinned at her. "Not great for cars though, so I was getting bored."
"Yeah, sounds kind of boring," she agreed, then looked towards Dom and Vince again. "Have you two got that damn thing lit yet?"
"Vince is getting all fussy about how to place the charcoal," Dom complained.
"I think it should be in a pyramid," Vince told him.
"I don't think it needs to be mathematically precise," Dom replied, sighing.
"Just dump it in there," Letty told them. "Or Rosa's gonna kick your ass if she has nowhere to cook the meat."
That seemed to settle the matter and both men got to work.
"So what's this job we're gonna pull here?" Han asked after a moment.
"We haven't ironed out the details," Letty sighed. "But it involves a local… businessman, we'll call him? He makes his business out of controlling the water, electricity and other necessities here in the Favelas around Rio."
"That sounds like it could be bad for the people who live here."
"It has been," Letty agreed. "They need our help."
"Just like the people in the DR," he said with a small smile. "How are we going to stop a guy with that kind of money and resources?"
"You know impossible jobs are our thing," she told him. "But we think we can handicap him if we can take his money."
"I'm all for stealing from the rich. Especially the rich and corrupt," he said. "But how do we do that?"
"I think we'll need a little more help, but we've got the start of a good plan," she said. "I'm glad you're here."
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It was well past midnight when Dom found himself awake, sitting up on the uncomfortable couch and rubbing the back of his neck with a small groan. He could make out the shape of Han across the room, huddled under a blanket on a cot someone had brought over and set up. He yawned and carefully made his way across the small room towards the door that led out to the patio.
It still didn't really sit right with Dom. He didn't want his sister involved, and he really wished Letty wasn't here. But he knew he couldn't say or do anything to make either woman change her mind.
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck again. The hair on the back of his neck raised, goosebumps, even though it was warm outside. He had the strange sensation of being watched.
He turned, hearing a sound, the faint rustle of motion, a shadow in the alleyway.
"Who's there?" he demanded, keeping his voice low.
After a moment a figure stepped into view. He wore all black, an FBI vest across his chest. A gun holstered at his hip. Dom met the man's gaze, familiar blue eyes. Brian O'Conner.
"What the hell are you doing here?" they both asked at the same time. Dom almost laughed.
"I'm here tracking you," Brian said, and Dom sobered.
"Feds still after me, eh?" Dom asked, then sighed. "I hoped they'd stay off my trail here for a little while longer."
"They're smarter than you give them credit for," Brian said.
"You're still with them."
Brian shrugged. "They gave me another chance. Didn't have anywhere else to go?"
"Didn't you?" Dom asked.
"Mia and Letty are here too, aren't they?" Brian asked.
Dom shrugged, not answering. Brian didn't need him to answer, after all.
"Brian, you gotta keep them off me," he said. "Let us do this job."
"What job? Dom, I can't do that."
"Look into a guy called Reyes," Dom told him. "You'll see what we see."
"You and I know what makes the world go round, Dom," Brian replied.
"What makes the world go round and what's right are two different things. Don't tell me you've changed that much."
Brian was silent a long moment before he sighed. "Dom, the FBI knows you're here. I can't keep them off you forever. I suggest you disappear."
The two men stared at each other a moment longer until Brian turned and went back the way he'd come, disappearing down the dark alleyway.
Dom knew he was right. If he stayed here he'd only bring problems for Vince and his family. The feds would show up and they would try to take him in. People would get hurt if he resisted. He wouldn't be able to help the people here. He still needed to do that. But he needed to do it from somewhere else, somewhere off the grid. A place the feds didn't know. He went back inside and woke up Han.
It was time to put the first part of the plan into motion.
