AN: I didn't want to make this so long but there was nowhere that really made sense to take a break in the middle. Just a friendly reminder that this story is like a popcorn flick, not really meant to be taken seriously, and a bit larger than life.

Lose the Road

By – TempestRaces

Chapter 7 – Describing Pain

"It's not too late to reach your hand to spare a drowning man."

All he wanted was for it to be over. And he felt like he was close to getting what he wanted. The blackness was a little denser. The sensory perception of external stimulus in his world was a little dimmer. Maybe most people would fight the blackness creeping. But not him. Really, what did he have to live for?

His team was gone. Long gone by now.

He was in the hospital. He hated hospitals more than almost anything else.

He'd started his life down the road to totally fucked beyond repair two years ago, and ever since then he'd been living life like a man who didn't care. Like a man with nothing worth living for. Because after he'd broken her what did he have? Some half assed infatuation with a woman who picked a god damn cop over him. Over the man who'd been there for her through every difficult time she ever had her whole life. She picked the lying cop over that kind of loyalty. She didn't deserve him. Finally he saw that. She didn't deserve him because she didn't want him. And he would never make her happy. Why he had ever wanted to try so hard in the first place was lost on him. She would never make him happy either.

But so what was the point in carrying on now. Team gone. Only woman who ever really loved him gone.

So he chose not to get well. He chose to die. And the blackness was finally winning.

But what the fuck was that noise? Chick crying. Shut it Mia! Really, put a god damn sock in it already. Damn woman cried over everything. He didn't want her crying over him. Her tears were fake three quarters of the time anyway. Her woman's ploy to get her way. And even if she meant it this time, it was too little, too late after what she'd done to him with Brian. It'd serve her right when he died. See if she regretted the cop then!

But it didn't really sound like Mia crying. Not really. Mia never really quite reached that level of real despair. And the woman crying so close to him sounded totally broken. Like nothing would ever be ok in her world again. Like her heart was broken. Like he imagined another woman had sounded crying on the night he'd broken her.

It couldn't be. He started to fight the black shadow back. He couldn't let go until he knew for sure. If it wasn't Mia, and the crying was familiar to him, who else could it be? The sound of her tears was causing him physical pain. The injuries to his arm and side weren't. They couldn't penetrate the morphine induced fog he was living under. But the sound of those tears tore right into his gut like a ten inch bowie knife pulled out of a clunky high heeled bitch boot. The thought of that woman being broken down in despair made him feel sick, and he knew he hadn't eaten in days.

He fought to get his eyes open for another few moments. When he finally won he wished he hadn't. After god knew how many days without any light at all, his eyes didn't take well to being opened, even in the dim night time lighting of his hospital room. He tried again, only opening his eyes into cautious slits for the first few seconds. When that was ok, he moved his head to the side so he could get a better look at the person drenching his bed than he could out of his peripheral vision. All he could see was a cloud of curls the colour of black cherry cola.

Thankful she was sitting on the side of his body where his arm wasn't wrapped in gauze and stinging like a bastard, he slowly gathered his strength and moved his good arm toward her head. He felt like he'd been sick for weeks. He was so weak that moving his arm the few inches needed to pick up one of her shiny curls was an effort. But he managed it. The texture of that inky fire was just as he remembered. Baby fine, silky and soft. She didn't feel him toying with her hair, if her actions were any indication. She kept right on sobbing, her head turned toward his feet. He cleared his throat, getting ready to say something to her, and she didn't hear him over her own broken cries. "Baby," his voice was a low pitched rasp that he could barely hear himself over the noise she was making. "Baby," still low pitched and gravely, but closer to his normal. "Surely to god I'm not worth all this." She lifted her head to look at him but her crying got worse not better. She shook her head from side to side as she pushed away from the bed in what seemed like terror. "Is that no, I'm not worth it?"

"No," she answered with an almost hysterical laugh before her sobbing resumed. He was dying and he was trying to be funny. What was it with her and funny guys? And now he wasn't going to just die. He was going to wake up and be funny and talk to her and remind her why she'd fallen for him in the first place and then he was going to die. It wasn't fair! Her breath caught on another sob.

"Well? You woke me up and now all you wanna do is sit there and make like a watering pot?"

The image brought another laugh out of her before the crying took over again, though slightly lessened. "Fuckin' funny guys," she muttered. "No. I don't wanna cry. I never wanna cry. But it all the stuff with Jess and just when I was dealing with that, he had to go and tell me that you didn't run off with the rest of the toolbox patrol." It was clear that toolbox was not supposed to point out they were all mechanics. That toolbox was her way of calling them 'stupid tools'. "That you were here in the room across the hall." How could it feel like two years was two weeks now that they were together again? It was like they had barely been apart. She still knew him as well as she knew herself, no matter how long it had been since they were last together. There was no shyness, no awkwardness of a long separation. Just a soul deep knowledge that they knew each other that went so much deeper than an acquaintanceship because he was friends with her cousin. They were two sides of one coin.

She looked at him with those god damn serious eyes. He never could handle it when her eyes went all serious and grey on him. "Baby," he started, attempting to sound soothing. The years fell away for him as well. She was hurting and he needed to wrap her in something soft and protect her from the world and anything in it that could cause her this kind of pain. His physical limitations made him want to start throwing things, and the fact he wouldn't have the strength to throw a Nerf ball across his small room just frustrated him further.

"And on the way to see Jesse this morning, when I was trying to psych myself up to go into his room and see my baby cousin on all those machines and with god knew what going into him and being done to him I stopped to listen to these two nurses talk about the hot guy who was dying in the room across the hall."

He winced, wondering how she had taken that news. He didn't have long to wait.

"And I was sad for them because they were sad, and sad for whoever was so young but dying because he just didn't wanna live. But then I shrugged it off, because I had no time to cry for a stranger."

The sobbing started in earnest again.

"They were talking about you! And I just shrugged it off like too bad, so sad but I have Jesse to worry about. And then, at the house I was perfectly awful about Leon and you, because I thought you took off with the rest of them and left Jesse all alone."

Her guilt and despair was almost palpable. "Aw baby, you couldn't have known. You couldn't have known." He lifted his good arm up, glad again it was the side she'd landed on. "Come here."

"I can't." She shook her head. "You're," she gestured at the bed in general, clearly at a loss for words. Not to mention how clean terrified she was at the thought of touching him again. Her body had craved his touch every day for the last two years, and had been denied every day for the same stretch of time. If she found herself back beside him in that way, could she ever let him go again? And he looked so small right now, and so hurt, she was scared she'd break him or hurt him further, and it wasn't something she wanted to feel about him, didn't want to think that way about him. And it made her feel sick, to think of him being physically weaker than her. But he looked as if he was. And people in hospitals with all those things hooked to them made her edgy and nervous. And that wasn't a way she was use to feeling about Vince. Vince being around her was one thing that normally allowed her to feel like it was ok to stop being so strong for awhile.

She looked at him like he was crazy for telling her to climb into his narrow little bed with him. He really hoped it wasn't because she thought he was crazy to think she would ever want to touch him again. There was a look of wide eyed terror on her face, and the thought that she was scared she would be able to break him in some physical way was just as distasteful. He started to poll his extremities. His arm was really sore, now that he was more aware of it, and his side felt very tight over his left hip. He felt the pull of many stitches in his skin, tight and itchy. He shifted a bit, grimaced. Now his hip was tight and sore as fuck. But he wasn't hurt too bad, all things considered. He had to guess he'd lost enough blood to cause him to black out, and thus the almost death inducing coma had ensued. "Yeah, well my side is hella sore down over my hip, but," he looked at her, "if you come over here already. Come on," he insisted when she didn't move. All he could grab of her was the one curl he still had wrapped around his finger. Her hair was longer than he remembered. He tugged. She slid the chair closer to the bed. "That's a start but not what I meant." He looked at the space under his arm pointedly. "Right up here. Come on already."

She didn't want anything more than she wanted to take him up on what he proposed. But it seemed so wrong. Half an hour ago he'd been the guy who was dying. And now he was the guy trying to get her into his bed. Again. It was almost too much to take. Her crying, which had tapered off, started to pick up again. How could she do what he was asking?

The look on her face was killing him. It wasn't just the runny nose, red ringed eyes, blotchy skin. It was the total look of confusion and desolate pain in her eyes. "I'm not sure that I can get up and go get you, but I will try. And you know I'm serious. Trouble, I hate it when you cry. So just come over here already so you can stop and I can get this knife outta my damn gut, ok?"

"What if someone comes?"

"They think I'm worm food. What will they care?" Her intensified crying let him know it had been the wrong way to go. But then it worked and he stopped caring. She practically launched herself onto him but somehow managed to land carefully, barely touching him.

"That was the worst part! If you die, who's gonna be strong for me? With everyone gone and Jesse hurt and everyone looking to depend on me, who am I gonna depend on if it's not you!? You were the only person who ever made me think you might just be stronger than me. Strong enough to take on some of the burden. If you weren't in the world, who'd be there for me?" she sobbed brokenly, guilty for putting that weight on him.

And there was his reason to go on. He wanted to be that man who could be strong for the she wolf so much, he wondered how he hadn't hauled her back to his bed a week after he lost her. "I picked up the phone to call you so many times," he muttered into her hair, settling her where he wanted her with his one usable arm the best he could. She had to be closer. Her clinging to the edge of the bed routine wouldn't do. If he had to live when he had been so sure he had no reason to bother, she had to be close enough to remind him why he'd changed his mind. Her head on his shoulder, her arm across his chest, her right leg pulled up over his stomach to avoid his gun shot wound while still bringing her as close to him as he could get her. He kissed the top of her head.

"Why didn't you?" she asked. Her voice took on an almost childlike tone, sleepy and curious with a touch of petulant impertinence.

"I made you hate me so well that every time you called for Leon or Jesse and I answered you hung up and tried again. You wouldn't even talk to me long enough to ask me to go get one of them."

"As soon as I heard your voice I couldn't get a word out that wasn't yelling at you or breaking down in crying. Hanging up was the only way I could go."

"You shoulda yelled," he murmured.

"You shoulda called."

"I shoulda called." He sighed into her hair. It gave him a good excuse to smell her. She still just smelled like her, and not like hospital. It was like home. "So, you gonna tell me why the kid's here, or just repeatedly try to scare me by pointing out he's in the room across the hall?"

"I thought you knew."

"I don't know anything after the whole hanging on the side of a speeding transfer truck thing stopped being current. I know Jesse raced for slips, lost and took off. But how did he get hurt?"

"He finally went home and Tran followed him there. Shot the place up and hit Jesse three times."

"Is he gonna be ok?"

"Yeah. He's ok. He's gonna be ok." She tipped her head back so she could look at his face. "Are you?"

"I am now. If you're staying."

"I'm staying long enough to see Jesse back on his feet. No one knows I'm here shy of Jess and Angelo. And you."

"Angelo?"

"Yeah, Angelo. The friend who taught me Italian. He's been my best friend since I was fifteen. V?"

"Um," he answered back. He could feel his heart racing, now that things were calmed down. It couldn't be good. He hoped he wasn't lying to her when he told her he was going to be ok. Now. Could a person decide to die, start to make it happen, and then just change their mind?

"The cops and hospital think my name's Jessica and that I'm Jesse's twin sister. You gotta remember it."

"Cops?"

"Cops everywhere. Jesse told me a bit about what went down." She cut Vince off when he went to talk. "And I don't wanna know any more than he told me. Because if I know something that the cops'll want, and it'll save some trouble for Jesse down the road, I'll tell them. So don't tell me anything I shouldn't know. For my own good and for whatever feelings you still have for Dominic fuckin' Toretto."

"Why're you so pissy with Dom?"

"Why am I so pissy with Dom? Are you serious?" Her eyebrows met over her nose in a fierce scowl. "Oh, you'd mean aside from letting Jesse bet the slip to the Jetta, leaving him alone terrified and running from some homicidal sociopath on a motorcycle while he went off to hijack a fucking transfer truck mid-flight down a god damn state highway in the middle of the god damn daytime in fucking Honda Civics! You mean aside from all that, right?"

"Temp, you can't blame it all on him."

"I can lay whatever the fuck I want to at his feet. I was there for a first hand example of Don iron-fist Dominic and how he ran his house, remember? If he was going to play ruler of all he surveyed to that extent, he had no call not watching out for Jesse better. If he was such a high and mighty ruler, he had no right to run off when he'd led you and Jesse into such consequences for his actions."

Vince sighed. How was he stupposed to set her straight and not alienate her again straight away? "The whole thing was my idea."

"Excuse me?" She met his eyes, and the absolute truth of his statement was found there. "I knew you were kinda an idiot, but this takes the cake. And I can't even kick your ass because you're already incapacitated in the hospital. Your idea?"

"Kinda." Vince sighed. "Dom was in money trouble. He wanted shit for the car he couldn't buy. The garage wasn't busy as he woulda liked. The business deal he had on the go with Tran went sour and it didn't get better when Dominic slept with Tran's sister. I offered Dom the money to bail out the store and fix up his car, but he wouldn't take it. He's always known a bit about what I was into, and he kept after me that there had to be something I could get him into for him to earn what he needed. He wouldn't stop about it. This guy had always been after me to pull a job like the trucks off, but I was never interested. It was too dangerous, even with such a huge payoff. But then, I took a good look at my life and realized I just didn't care anymore. I told my source to hook it up and told Dom I had something for him."

"And even knowing the level of smart you work at, they took your word for it being a good idea." She shook her head. "Priceless. If I ever see Leo again I'ma kick his ass into next year. Into next century. For thinking this was a good idea and for letting Jess throw down the fuckin' pink slip to his crazy ass dad's Jetta."

"It wasn't high risk for them. All they had to do was drive. They're all good at driving. I took on most of the personal risk. It was the only way I could basically give Dom the money and have him take it."

"You got my baby cousin involved in the first ones though. What if one of you had died?"

"Jesse can't be your baby cousin, he's older than you," Vince chuckled before the action pulled his skin tight over his gunshot and he winced with a grimace and a cough. It was ok, because his next statement was a sober one anyway. "I guess I was sorta hoping I would."

"Why?"

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. "Seemed easier than trying to figure out my fucked up life." He looked down into her face. Her eyes were closed. Her skin was pale, and there were dark circles under her closed lashes. He didn't want to talk about why he wanted to die anymore. Not with her and not tonight. She was hanging on the edge of a precipice by her finger nails. She had always struck him as resilient, like a flexible sapling rather than a rigid tree, but she had already bent to her breaking point tonight. Any further bent and she'd break in two. When another lone tear leaked out under her closed lids, this fact was confirmed for him and then some. "When was the last time you slept?"

"This afternoon," she muttered back, trying not to start crying in earnest again.

"For how long? Five minutes?"

"Three hours or so." She yawned, opened her eyes and checked the clock. "I guess I should go home, go to bed. Get some rest and let you get some too."

"When was the last time you slept before three hours this afternoon?"

"Couple hours last night in the truck. I'll be ok."

"I'm sure you will be but you ain't drivin' nowhere the way you are right now. You're barely alive."

"You are not in any position to issue orders. You are drugged outta your damn mind, tied to two IVs, and barely conscious."

"What'll Jess do if you kill yourself on the way to the house?" He left what will I do unsaid. He figured it went without saying.

"I'm not that tired." She yawned hugely to make herself into a liar. "Besides that, where do you think I should sleep? On the floor? In the truck?"

"How about right where you are?"

"I can't stay in your hospital bed for the night, V. Someone'll just come along and kick me out sooner or later and then I'll be driving home in the middle of the night. They must check on you at some sort of regular interval all day and night long."

"Baby, I've done nothing but sleep for days. I'll be awake all night. I'll make sure they leave you alone."

She wanted what he was offering her more than anything. To sleep in his arms, his heart beating under her ear. Proof he was alive all night long. "Maybe I could just take a little nap before I leave. Just until the nurse comes and kicks me out."

"Ok. You go to sleep until the nurse comes." He smiled at her, not that she knew. He was pretty sure she was practically asleep already. Of course, she was right. He was totally fucked out of his mind on morphine. But he still knew where he wanted her.

"V?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're not gonna die." The childlike tone was back in her voice. Exhaustion was clearly taking its toll.

"I'm glad you came. Even if it was only for Jesse, and because he made you check on me. And I'm glad I'm not gonna die too."

"Wanna know a secret?"

"Sure." He wanted her to get the sleep she clearly needed. But he'd missed her. He'd missed her smell, her sound, the feel of her skin, the weight of her. He'd missed the quiet talks alone, just the two of them, when he could open up and be himself because her opinion of him wasn't based on how hard and tough he was. Just the opposite, in fact. He wished he knew where he stood well enough to lean down—if he even could—and taste her mouth. He missed the taste of her too.

"I came for Jesse. But I came without calling or trying to find out anything about what went on because I wanted there to be a chance I'd see you."

"Do you wanna know a secret back?"

"Ok."

"The whole time we were doin' what we were doin' I was hopin' you'd catch wind of it from Leon or Jesse and come down here to kick my ass for it bein' my idea in person. I just never figured on the pair of them bein' able to keep their fuckin' mouths closed so well. First time for everything."

She smiled softly at the wry tone to his statement. "How much of this are you gonna remember tomorrow?"

He thought honestly about how drugged he was, how his head felt. He'd done a few drugs in his day. But nothing to compare to this. "Not much. Bits and pieces."

"Then I have another secret."

"Yeah?"

"Um-hmm." She sighed. "I think I was in love with you, before." Telling him when he likely wouldn't remember was dirty pool. But if he died, she didn't want it to be never knowing that she had loved him. And somewhere in his subconscious, he'd always know now. He'd hear her saying the words when he wasn't thinking about her. If he somehow didn't make it, he'd still know. She knew she would never say it to him were he in his right frame of mind. But that didn't change the fact that she thought he had to know.

He could only blame the drugs. "I think I was in love with you too."

She settled herself more comfortably beside him. She had been loved. The vague sense of comfort and safety because he was in her world returned, strengthened. Tested its new, bigger, stronger wings out in the blackness of the night and found them sound, sure. "Night." She reached up to kiss his cheek.

He saw his chance, turned his head so her lips found his. Her hand crept up to rest against his cheek as she allowed their lips to remain pressed together for a moment. The kiss was pure, sweet. Almost innocent. He really didn't know if either had ever offered the other a gesture so totally devoid of heat before. It was he who broke the contact. It was put an end to things, or take them farther and he wasn't sure if she could handle it, would want it, or if he even could. She needed to sleep. The translucent quality of her skin and the dark smudges under her eyes worried him. She hadn't been taking care of herself. "Get some sleep T." One she was out, he slowly managed to wiggle her around so she was carefully draped across his chest. Her head found the hollow where it fit so well, her lips brushing the side of his neck and her heart beating against his, chest to chest.