Title: Through Another's Eyes

Rating: T

Ship: Dom/Letty

Description: A background, foreground and future fic surrounding Dom and Letty and the circumstances involved in the movie. Answering a lot of questions the movie left open.

Disclaimer: I wish. The things I could do with Dominic. ;)

Chapter 12

Dom's POV

--

Lett got so pissed when she found out about 'the plan'. I had obviously seen her pissed before, but this was something new. Fear was feeding her anger and that made her ten thousand times more frightening. And believe me, without it Lett is frightening enough, with it she was a force that I didn't really dare reckon with. But there's something about Letty you gotta understand. She hates it when I back down. She really does. No matter how angry she is, or upset she is, she never wants me to back away from a fight with her. She never wants me to give in and feed her some bullshit line like 'you're right honey, I'm sorry, I was wrong'. Hell no, not my girl. She wants me to fight with her until we can't fight anymore, which usually means that we're kissing feverishly. She told me once that if we didn't have enough love for each other to fight than what was the point? I don't really get the logic behind it, but the fighting, it's kinda hot, and the making up is fucking spectacular.

So it was out. She knew about everything. The deal, the stolen parts, the mortgages, everything. And damned if she ain't stubborn. I couldn't talk her out of coming on the heists with us, no matter how much I tried, and believe me I tried. I even used some pretty creative ways to try and trick her into staying behind. But nothing worked. She was coming with us. Come hell or high water. We fought about it constantly. Somehow it usually ended up being a fight about whether or not I loved her. A stupid question. It was because I loved her so much that I didn't want her to go. I didn't want her to get hurt. Or end up in jail. I wanted her safe and at home where I knew no one could get to her. But that didn't matter. Her view was that I didn't want her to go because I was being selfish. I wasn't thinking about how my actions would her hurt her. It was true, partially. I was worried about her, about her safety, but it never occurred to me how painful it would have been for her, if something had happened to me. And that's why there was always a lot of tension between us during that time.

We performed the first heist and it was easier than we thought, and one hell of a rush. The sex Letty and I had after, was mind blowing. But once we delivered the truck to Tran, the high wore off. It was always like that. There were these initial highs, which lead to earth moving sex, but it always ended in crushing defeat once the goods were delivered. We're not hardened criminals. We really aren't. We love cars, we love the speed, but that's it. We honestly just wanted to work on cars and race. We never wanted any of this, and I sure as hell didn't want any of this for my family. But that old saying came in to it. When you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, there really is no place to go but down.

It killed me; it really did, knowing that I was putting them in this situation. My failures were causing our inevitable downfall. I couldn't provide for them, I couldn't protect them. I'd failed. And now I was dragging them into a criminal life. I hated it, I hated myself. Subconsciously I tried to sabotage myself. I would allow the girls at the races to rally around me, I knew it pissed Letty off, I knew it hurt her, but I did it. I always thought she deserved better, and I thought I was doing her a favour by giving her a reason to cut and run. But my girl is hell smart, and she saw right through that. She never backed down from a fight, not my feisty senorita, and she wasn't going to let me push her away.

We never talked about it though, Letty would just threaten the girls and they'd back away. I never actually had any interest in any of them, I just... I don't know... I thought I was helping her. I know now that I wasn't. I was making things worse. But you know what they say about hindsight?

There were a lot of things we never talked about during that year. We never discussed the heists, except to plan them, we never discussed my increasingly foul mood, or that of the others, and we sure as shit never discussed the fact that I was dying on the inside. I had to be tough. I had to be strong, no matter what; I had to be the man that I had failed to be for them in the past. They could never know how hard it was for me. They could never know how badly I wanted to cut our losses, say to hell with Tran and find some other way to pay off the mortgage. I had to be strong.

You gotta understand. None of them were to blame. Not Vince, not Leon, not Letty, not Jesse, not even Tran. It was all my fault. If I hadn't lost control that day with Linder, we never would have been put in this position in the first place. I never would have gone to Lompoc and Eddie wouldn't have been left to look after the family alone. It was my responsibility to look after them. To work the garage and pay the mortgage, and I'd failed at it. I'd failed to look after my family and it was my fault that they were now criminals. I'd done this to them. Me. All because I wasn't strong enough.

It made me angry, and bitter, and determined not to fail again. We would finish these heists to get Tran and the bank and everyone off our backs and everything could go back to normal. How stupid is that? I was such a dumbass to believe that everything could go back to normal after all of this. But I honestly thought it could. That if we just got through each heist, and got everyone paid back, got all the shit off our backs, it would all be ok. Never mind that I was alienating my family. Mia was pissed at me. Letty was pissed at me. Vince would follow me to hell and back, but I know he still doubted what we were doing. And Leon and Jesse, they were loyal almost to a fault. They would always do whatever I said, no matter how wrong it felt to them. I thrived on it, on their loyalty and their trust; I started to believe I deserved it. That my word was gospel. I was an ass. There's no excuse for my actions or my attitude. I was a dick.

And I suppose that was the reason I let Brian into our lives. I thought he was a good guy, and I suppose he turned out to be an alright guy, despite everything. But I welcomed him into our lives, into our home, and into our world. I didn't listen to Vince, or Leon, or Jesse when they told me he was dangerous. I didn't even listen to Letty when she told me she wasn't sure about him. That there was something off about him. Something didn't fit. I should have trusted her. I should have trusted her for no other reason but she was my woman and she told me that something was wrong. And I should have trusted her because it was Letty and Letty had amazing instincts about people. She knew better, and I should have known better. I didn't listen and we came so close to losing it all because I was stubborn. Because I had started to believe the hype about my self. I thought I was 'the great' Dominic Toretto. I was a fool.

TBC…

Ok, firstly I have to say how unbelievably sorry I am that I haven't updated this fic in so long. But I promise, I swear, that I haven't abandoned it. I haven't forgotten about it. I'm trying to finish it. In fact I'm trying to finish all three open fics I have. So please, be patient and stick with me. There will be an end to this fic. There will be an update soon. Through Another's Eyes has not died! Please review and let me know that people are still reading! Thanks.