Author's Note: Hey guys. Finals are fast approaching so I may be a bit slow at writing for a while, but I'm still percolating plenty of ideas. This chapter deals with Letty's first visit to the cemetery as she mentions in the film. It's a bit serious and sad, but ends on a lighter note. I have planned a sexy chapter soon as well as some with some of the others. Enjoy and thanks for all the follows and faves!
Week Ten – Year One
It had been a beautiful, sunny day in Los Angeles, as it nearly almost seemed to be. So even as the sun began to set, night falling over the city, the warmth still lingered in the air, soaking up from the pavement and battling against the breeze that came up off the coast. She'd talked Dom into taking her out to the cemetery, even though she knew he didn't really like the whole idea.
But she had to come and see it with her own eyes. There was something about knowing that people who loved her had buried her… and mourned for her. But it was still such an abstract knowledge. Almost like the knowledge that she was Letty Ortiz. Born in 1983, raised in LA. Grown up in a tough neighborhood, always scrappy and full of fight. Her Dad had died before she was ten and her mother, a struggling alcoholic, had barely managed enough parenting to keep Letty from getting taken away.
All these things that she knew only because Dom had told her. Because he knew every little bit about her. Each scar, tiny, large, in between. The physical and the emotional. All the little hurts and pains and joys that his Letty… his, had shared with him. But she couldn't remember a single one of them.
She rolled the window down, gazing out at the scenery that flashed by as they drove through town towards the cemetery. Here the street lights didn't shine as brightly and more trees punctuated the grassy space. Still, she could see the silhouettes of stones between them and a small ball of dread settled in her belly.
Dom looked over at her. "You sure about this?" he asked. She could tell he was unhappy, but he didn't argue with her. He never really seemed to argue with her. She wondered if it was because she couldn't remember things. If he was just trying to be patient with her. She could only imagine that he must not have always been so laid back. Mia had told her they'd used to fight.
"I'm sure," she said, offering him a smile. "It's something I think I need to do."
He drove through the wrought iron gates that still sat open, taking a turn down one of the paths. It was like he'd been here before, more than once. Even though she knew that he hadn't been around when she'd 'died', and that after that he'd been basically on the run. Somehow he'd found the time. The thought tightened her chest and she looked over at him as he pulled up alongside one of the small hilly areas and shifted the car into park.
Letty opened the door and stepped out into the night air. It had gotten a little cooler, but she didn't feel the need to reach back in the car and get her jacket. She heard Dom's door open and close and he soon came around to stand beside her.
"This way," he said, then started up the grassy slope.
Tucking her hands into her pockets she followed him. The stone he'd come to a stop in front of was large and polished to a shine. She could see her name, which dominated the top half. She was struck with the absurd urge to laugh. She was standing here… in front of her own grave. It was ridiculous. It shouldn't have been funny.
People had mourned her. Someone else was buried here… with her name and her tombstone above them. She brushed her fingertips over the stone. Daughter… sister… friend, it read. She knew her father was dead. So whose daughter was she really? Her mother's? She didn't have siblings either. She stared at it. Did she?
"I have a brother or sister you forgot to mention?" she asked, glancing up at Dom.
"No," he answered. "Mia was the one who told them what to put. She always thought of you as her sister…" he trailed off. "I couldn't be here to take care of anything. She had to do it alone."
"It was nice of her to…" she trailed off, chuckled. "Not many people get to thank their friends for organizing a nice funeral."
"Let… that's not funny," he said.
"But it is," she replied, glancing at him. "I'm not dead. And I'm standing here… on my grave." It had to be funny because what else could it be? Terribly upsetting.
She looked at the date of her supposed "death", trying to think back to what he could recall from the year. Waking up in that hospital… Shaw. She furrowed her brows and looked away. Nothing before it. Not a thing. Just… emptiness.
"Is someone buried there?" She wondered, looking down at the neatly-trimmed glass.
"Whatever remains they recovered from the crash site," Dom explained. "The car set on fire so… they weren't exactly identifiable. Mia just ID'd them cause your dog tags were on site. The ones that used to belong to your Dad."
"I remember seeing them in my box of stuff in the garage…" she murmured. "No wonder they were all charred and half-melted."
They stood together in silence for a moment, just staring at the stone, thinking wildly different thoughts, no doubt. Letty looked up in surprise when she felt Dom's hand close around hers, lacing their fingers together to hold on. As if he was afraid she might disappear. As if reassuring himself that she really was alive and standing next to him.
It hit her how hard this must be. How much pain this place must cause him. Even after having her back, wasn't it just a reminder of everything they'd lost? Frowning, she tugged at his hand and turned away.
"Let's get out of here," she said.
"Wait." He held still, pulling her back to his side gently. "I want to show you something else."
"Here?" she asked, lifting a brow, but she subsided, following him as he walked between the stones a short distance away.
Just diagonal from where her own headstone sat… now that was a strange thought, Dom stopped before an older pair. Letty came up alongside him, dark eyes sliding over the names there. Jack and Luz Toretto. Born just years apart, but more than a decade between their deaths. Beloved wife and mother… God guide her to a place where she will no longer suffer, the words etched into the more weathered of the stones read. She'd never even met the woman, who'd died before she'd come into Dom and Mia's life. The younger Toretto didn't remember much about her either, and though Dom had his own fond memories and feelings, she could imagine that they were as unclear as the knowledge she had of her past. Where what she knew was viewed through someone else's eyes, his memories were half blurred and rosy from youth, the woman unchanged in his memory even as he was likely leagues away from that boy who'd been tucked into bed and sung lullabies.
"Your parents," she murmured, and it was her turn to reach for his hand, wrapping her fingers around that big palm and holding on.
"I guess you don't remember my Dad," he replied, letting out a soft sigh.
She shook her head, knowing that it bothered him more than he let on, that she couldn't remember things. Couldn't remember their history together, the things that were important to him. He claimed it didn't matter and even though he never put any pressure on her, she couldn't help knowing that it did matter.
"You've told me some," she said instead, leaning her head against his arm. "Tell me more."
"He always had this… presence," he began, his voice almost a raspy whisper of sound in the air between them. "He was the glue of our family. Me and Mia, Vince… when he was a kid he practically lived at our place, trying to get away from a bad situation at home. And then later you were there too. The whole neighborhood would turn out for his barbeques."
Letty smiled, picturing the man she'd seen in the photos in the old garage. That familiar feeling of family… like the barbeques Dom and Mia still insisted on every Sunday. Now little Jack was growing up with that very same tradition. Some part of the grandfather he'd never know, but who lived on through his mother and his uncle.
"He used to have this ability. He'd talk and everyone would listen. It was like you couldn't help but do what he wanted you to do. You wanted to make him proud. No one could stand to disappoint Dad." He chuckled. "Even Vince fell in line."
"Sounds like you," she said, nudging his arm gently. A smile tugged at her lips as he looked at her in surprise. "No, come on. Everyone else that knows you would agree," she explained, lacing her fingers through his and pulling him away from the tombstones, from the sad memories and regrets. "Your Dad is still here, Dom because he lives on in you and in Mia. Those things you talk about… those traditions, that presence?" She looked up at him. "Maybe I can't remember them in him but I can see them in you."
Something about that statement made him smile, even as it gave her a little hope too. She was finding out things about these people, their lives and histories and hopes and dreams and feelings. And she didn't need memories to learn them. It was real, here and now. Not some past, or some name on a tombstone.
"Come on," she grinned up at him. "Let's get out of here. Do something that makes us feel alive."
He laughed, wrapping his big arm around her. "Like what?"
She held out her hand, palm up. "Can I drive?" she asked, lips curled in a secretive smile.
Sighing, Dom dropped the keys into her hand. "You know I hate surprises," he complained as she led the way back to the car.
"This is the best kind of surprise," she replied, a wicked glint in those dark eyes.
"Well… when you put it that way," he opened the passenger door and slid in.
Her laughter filled the still air of the night around them as the car rumbled to life, the rev of the engine drowning out the sorrow of this place as they left it behind, took the winding paths back out towards the main roads where streetlights washed the pavement and people milled the sidewalks. A beautiful summer night to leave the windows down and just drive. To breathe in the air and remember what it felt like to be alive and free. The kind of moments she'd rarely, if ever had when she was running with Shaw and his crew.
Dom leaned over, his big hand closing over her thigh. The warm pressure pulled Letty from her thoughts to smile over at him. His presence was a comfort she hadn't known she'd been missing in the years they'd been apart. That when she'd felt alone and empty… it hadn't just been because she couldn't remember anything. But because he wasn't at her side.
"Trying to distract me?" she asked, grinning over at him.
He squeezed her leg with a laugh. "Always have been."
"I'm guessing you've been more than a little successful in the past."
"Sometimes," he agreed. "But you've always been sure of your own mind."
"So then I must have let you distract me," she replied, amusement in her voice.
"You going to let me distract you now?" Dom asked.
"Be patient," she scolded. "Unless you want to crash." But she was laughing when she pulled off the road to take the darkened path down to the private beach.
Dom had her in his lap about the same time she got the car into park and she grinned against his mouth, wrapping her arms around him.
"Feeling alive yet?" he asked when he drew back and she framed his face with her hands.
"Definitely," she answered. Thoughts of cemeteries and death were far from her mind. There was only right now, here, just the two of them. And that was all that mattered.