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 15

Letty's POV

--

Brian entered our lives so quickly and so completely it sent us into a bit of a tail spin. And by us, I mean Vince, Jesse, Leon and myself. It was the Toretto Two that wanted him in our lives, not the rest of us. We were perfectly happy with the family we'd created for ourselves, we didn't need anyone else. We were enough. Plenty.

I spent a lot of time over at Mama and Papi's during that time. Dom and I were so weird around each other then. I was afraid that we were drifting so far apart we'd never be able to come back together. I talked to Mama about it a lot. Told her how different Dom was, of course I left out the part about the heists. Oh no, Mama didn't know about the heists. She couldn't know. She'd kill us. I think we all feared her and Papi's wrath more than the cops.

Brian never met Mama and Papi. I didn't want him to. That feeling about him that I just couldn't shake. I didn't want them involved in it. Dom didn't dare argue with me on that one. He knew better. Even though we argued about everything back then. From what we had for dinner, to what parts needed to be ordered at the garage, to who drove what role in a job. Anything and everything. Even Mia once.

It was the day after Mia and Brian's date and we were working in the garage. Brian left to do a run of parts for Harry. Mia and Dom had a little tiff. Yeah, I said tiff, because you can't call what they had an argument. That wasn't an argument. It was a passive aggressive tiff. There's no other word for it. Anyway, Mia stormed out of the garage and I rolled out from under a car. He was looking into the belly of a one and he just looked so stressed out. He can't hide stuff like that from me and most of the time he doesn't even try to. It was just us; there was no need to hide, except that we'd been arguing for days. I could tell it had taken its toll on him, and he was trying to hide from me then. It could have turned into an argument so easily. He was defensive, just like he always was when he was tired and overwhelmed. I questioned him on Mia and he snapped back at me. I believe his exact words were 'what do you care?' A low blow. He knew how much I cared, and I think he knew that normally that would make me snap and we would end up having a knock down drag out which would inevitably result in us tearing each other's clothes off. He needed a release, and I think he even wanted me to yell at him. To tell him he was wrong and he was an ass. But looking at him, he seemed so defeated. I couldn't, and I wouldn't engage him in a useless argument. I gave him what he wanted, what we both wanted, and needed. We had the garage all to ourselves, no one was around. No one would ever know, not that we cared about that. I needed him as much as he needed me. And I needed to show him that I loved him, that I knew what pressure he was under, that I would always stick by him.

We found out later that the cops raided Tran's that day. Brian was acting so strange when he got back from the run for Harry. Looking back it was my instincts that made me look at him a little more closely that day. Something was definitely wrong. I knew it, but I ignored it. But when Dom came back from taking the newly finished car for a test drive and he told me that he was going to let Brian in on the heists if he did well at race wars it was all on.

We were supposed to be done with the heists. Tran had said as much with the last job. That was it, it was over, and we could get back to normal. We got in to it pretty bad that night. I know that Mia ended up spending the night at Mama and Papi's to escape the war we were raging inside Dom's bedroom. I was beyond angry. I had accepted that we had to do the jobs to get Tran off our asses. I didn't like it, but I'd accepted it. I couldn't understand why he would drag us into another one. Why he would risk our family, our life together, our future, again. I screamed questions at him and he just sat on the end of the bed saying 'you don't understand' to every single one. The same thing over and over again. He never yelled, he never flinched. Just the same monotonous response every time. He made me angrier and angrier by the second. He wouldn't fight with me, and that scared me to death.

I think I ended up calling him a pussy or something, just to get a rise out of him, to make him fight with me. It was an easy blow to land and it hit the spot just right. Dom stood up, strode up to me and stood so close to me, looking down into my face, that it should have been intimidating. But Dom could never use his size or anything else to frighten me into submission.

"We have to do it Leticia. I've told you we're doing it. So we're doing it. That's it, end of discussion." Well, do you think I would really leave it be at that? Hell no. I was not some submissive little racer slut. I had never let him pull that shit with me and I wasn't about to start then.

"Don't you even try to pull that domineering bullshit with me Toretto. You want Vince, Leon, Jesse and I to help you pull this off you better start talking. Cause if I don't like the reason it ain't happening." I was being exactly what I was accusing him of being, but I didn't care. We'd followed Dom blindly for long enough. It was his turn to start doing what we said, to follow our lead. I looked up at him looking down at me, both of us standing strong refusing to back down. His face was so hard, I know that look, and I know the fear it has invoked in others. But that tactic didn't work on me. I held his gaze with a fierce one of my own. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he sighed, his eyes closed for a second and his head lowered. He was defeated, and in watching him like that, I felt defeated. I never wanted to beat him, to crush him; it was never my aim to see him like that, to have him feel that way. I always wanted to make him feel strong. But I wasn't going to stand by and follow him into reckless and dangerous situations. We are a partnership, we stand together, no one leads and no one follows. We make each other strong.

"We're gonna lose the house Lett." I almost didn't recognise his voice. I raised my hands to cup his face; I made him look at me again.

"What are talking about baby?" I tried to keep my face as soft as possible.

"It wasn't enough. The business Tran sent our way. It wasn't enough. We've been sinking too much money into the garage and not enough has been coming in. I made some payments on the mortgage but they weren't enough. I've been trying to hold them off. But if I don't get them this money they're going to take the house. Our house. I can't let that happen." I couldn't wrap my head around what he was saying; I just stared at him, trying to process it. We couldn't let it happen, we couldn't. This was our house. Dom's, Mia's, mine, Maria and Tony's. We couldn't lose this too, Dom couldn't lose this too. I had to be strong again, for him.

"Ok baby. We're not going to let that happen." I dropped my hands from his face and we moved to sit on the edge of the bed. "There has to be another way though." He shook his head at me. I knew there wasn't. I knew that Dom would have already explored every possible option. If he was left with this, he was desperate. I nodded my head and took his hand. "Then we have no choice. We have to do it."

TBC…

Reviews?? I'm a review junking, come on, feed my habit! I've been good. Updating regularly. Come on…

Thanks for all the reviews people. So please keep them coming. I love hearing from you.