Chapter 3

The Skyline had not vanished with Brian this time. It sat in the garage, hood propped up, interior exposed. It looked a lot like how Dom felt.

"Talk," he grunted as he stood by the car, taking in the signs of damage. "Stupid."

With a firm but gentle hand, Dom brushed over the skid marks in the paint job. He hadn't fixed up a car in years – at least not with any sort of vigor. After Mia-

Dom shook his head and picked up the wrench where Brian had left it. If the angel was going to leave, he should at least clean up after himself. Dom put the wrench away, and then he rolled the creeper seat back in place against the wall. He knew the garage like a second home, knew where every screw belonged. As he got a grip on the new passenger door, which was sitting to the side and waiting to be used, Dom hesitated.

He glanced back at the Skyline and then to the door in his hands. Logically, the best way to get the extra door out of the way was to put it in place on the car, but Dom had sworn off fixing cars two years ago. So also logically, he wouldn't be the one to fix the door.

And yet ten minutes later, he was tightening the bolts on the door to attach it to the car. Wood sat under the door to lift it high enough and more wood was screwed into that wood to keep the door from falling backward, and really it wasn't the first time Dom had attached a door all by himself. Attaching the door was the easy part. Connecting the wires was the tedious bit.

It was a predictable rhythm he found himself in, stripping wires and connecting them to others and then covering the exposed wires over again. It required concentration and precision. For Dom, it was habitual. He'd rebuilt enough cars in his life that he could probably play twenty questions with Brian and order a pizza all while he attached the wires, with no added difficulty.

The repetition was soothing, and he lost himself in the familiarity. As he worked, he could almost hear the radio his sister used to keep in the garage, quietly belting out the classic rock station. He could almost imagine her swaying to the music while she worked on the paint job for the car. As he attached another wire, he could picture the way she'd smile teasingly at him if he just turned his gaze to look at her.

His eyes raised up and found someone leaning in the back corner of the garage by the silent radio. But it wasn't Mia. Even after being spotted, Brian said nothing. He leaned there, arms loosely crossed, hair as wild as ever, and just watched Dom work, calm appreciation in his eyes.

Strangely, as Dom returned his focus to the last of the wires, he found the silent company comfortable.

Last wire attached, Dom stood and carefully shut the door. Brian moved then. He walked to the car and slid into the driver's seat. As soon as the keys were in and the engine running, Dom reached around the door to check the power windows. Working. Brian hit the power locks. On. Off. Working.

The engine cut off and Brian took the keys out, dropping them back into the cup holder. For a small moment, they were both silent, both thinking. Then Brian sighed and ran a hand through his thick curls. Dom had a half-second of wondering what it would feel like to run his fingers through Brian's hair, but then his own brain stopped itself and Brian started speaking.

His voice was quiet, but in the silence of the track, he was audible. "My old lady… Sorry. My mother. She never had a good choice in men. I grew up during the Second World War. Times were tough. Times were terrifying. My dad… well she told me he died in the war. But I knew he just left her when she got pregnant."

He paused then and ran his hand around the steering wheel, feeling the leather there. For his part, Dom didn't know what to say. He didn't know what he even could say. The forties were a long time ago. Condolences were meaningless. Telling Brian not to talk about it was downright rude.

"She had a bunch of shucks through the years, but two stand out in my memory. Joey… Joey had a fondness for moonshine – said it was because prohibition was still in effect when he was born. He didn't mean to, but he taught me to fight. Never laid a hand on me or my mom, but I knew it would only be a matter of time, so I learned," Brian continued.

"And did he ever hit you?" Dom asked, irrationally thinking of finding the man and beating him right back if he had.

A small smile danced on Brian's lips. "Nope. After all my training, he got on the wrong side of a hit and run. Died instantly."

"And the second guy?" Dom prompted, curiosity getting the better of him.

Without answering, Brian bent over the wheel, leaning his forehead on the leather. He breathed slow and deep, and Dom couldn't see his expression to read it. When Brian pushed back to sit up, he didn't look to be in a sharing mood. Instead he looked bored and quizzical.

"Tell me about Mia," he said. His tone was soft and conversational, but also sweet, almost as though he were asking about a newborn kitten and not Dom's deceased sister.

"What's there to tell?" Dom asked, grunting, and thumped his knuckles on the door as he turned away. "You met her. You know."

"Dom." Brian pulled himself from the car, the movement slow and cumbersome, as though it was painful to leave the car.

Groaning, Dom cut off all communication. He smacked the hood of the car and let out a heavy, deep breath. "If I tell you, do I get to leave here?" he asked roughly. "You said Mia told you everything and she's gone. So is that the trick? I open up and then I get to die in peace?"

Brian frowned deeply, leaning on the driver's side door, but after a tense moment, he nodded. "If that's what you want," he said. "Talk to me and, one way or the other, you'll get what you want."

Silence returned while Dom tried to fight himself, to convince himself to give in and just talk, and in that silence Dom decided he'd be happy if he never had to deal with such an absence of sound again in his life… or his death.

Glancing over Brian, in the faux lights of the garage, Dom was struck dumb a moment longer. The sun, or whatever was outside, reached into the garage just far enough to hit the other man's right side. The way it made his skin glow admirably was to be expected, but for that shocked moment of muteness and awe, Dom thought he actually saw the wings Brian claimed to have. A blink later and they were gone, leaving Brian standing on the threshold of human and natural lighting, but just as human as Dom was.

Curiosity urged Dom to walk around the car and check the air behind Brian for where the wings went. Strength of Will kept him where he was, and he cleared his throat to get himself back on topic.

"Mia was six years younger than me. She was my rock, my… my sanity. No matter what else happened in our lives, we had each other, and I had her. We were the only family we had left. She was more than that though. She was… everything," Dom said and his chest grew tight as he remembered her.

The kitchen loud with sound as she blared her music and cooked and sang. The park virtually empty except for her, lying on the grass and talking about how, one day, she'd come there with her husband, and maybe they'd even have a kid.

"She was gonna be a doctor," Dom continued. "Wanted to save people. She had been accepted into college, had three scholarships lined up to pay for it, and we went out to celebrate. And then-" He pressed his lips hard together, remembered the screech of tires, the shout that only made it halfway out of his sister's throat. "I couldn't get the car to start. I couldn't drive fast enough. I couldn't save her."

"Your car was totaled, Dom," Brian said. "T-boned into a ditch. It was a miracle that you-"

"I shoulda died that day!" Dom shouted suddenly and almost punched the car door. Instead he slammed his hand onto the frame of the roof and curled his fingers in around it. "I shoulda died right beside her, but somebody, some kind of God damn guardian angel protected me."

He glared up at Brian then, anger at himself and the universe rushing back through him as he remembered the pain he felt that night. He remembered the doctors telling him how lucky he'd been, how he had an angel watching over him. And he knew Brian wasn't that angel, because Brian knew Mia, and no guardian angel would let Mia die if there was any way to save her. But Brian called himself a guardian angel, and in that moment such a title made Dom's blood boil.

"I convinced her to go out. I was driving. I was the one not watching the intersection. And then Mia was gone. Just like that. And how is that fair, Brian? How was I supposed to move on from that?!" Dom couldn't help but shout. He hated himself, hated the driver, hated everyone as soon as he woke up in the hospital and they told him Mia hadn't made it through.

Closing his eyes, he could see her, pinned in her seat, hanging above him as the car sat sideways in a ditch. He had been barely conscious, but he remembered calling her name before he finally passed out, and he remembered she was bleeding too much to survive. She'd probably already been dead, but he hadn't checked. He had heard the ambulance sirens and relaxed into the door of the Charger and let himself lose consciousness.

"You don't ever forget," Brian murmured, drawing Dom back to the present. "It'll never stop hurting, Dom. Not even if you die." He swallowed thickly and gripped the framework across from Dom. "But you don't obsess over it. Sometimes things happen for a reason, and there's nothing you, or I, can do about it. And I know you don't want to hear it and it's easier said than done but… Dom, eventually you do move on. You do whatever you can to not think about it, and one day you wake up and you realize it's not killing you anymore. You have a life and it can still be good."

"How would you know, Brian?" Dom asked, cold disbelief in his voice. Dom's life had only gotten more and more dim after Mia's death, and he saw no way it would ever get better. "You're dead, just like me."

A small shrug lifted Brian's shoulders and then the blonde smiled ruefully. "I can't see a lot of what's happening on Earth, but once in awhile, they let me know things, let me see things. And I peeked in on my mom a couple of times, you know? And I watched her get better. Dom. Do you get that? She lost me, but she got better. She used me to get herself on track. Death doesn't mean everything gets worse. You can get stronger from it."

"Like you said," Dom grunted out. "Easier said than done."

Brian laughed slightly and nodded, a slightly teasing grin on his face. "Yeah. Like I said." The angel shrugged then and walked around the car to stand two feet to Dom's right. His smile promised nothing but fun as he said, "You know what, Dom? I think I know what you'd conjure if you could."

"Oh yeah?" Dom asked, doubting how well Brian knew him despite the other's claim to knowing all about him.

"Yeah." Brian held his closed fist out to Dom and raised his eyebrows, telling Dom to hold out his hand without words.

Forehead knit, Dom did as asked and put his hand palm up under Brian's fist. The smile on Brian's face only grew at that, and Dom's stomach knotted in response, though he didn't show it on his face. Brian opened his fist while Dom's focus was still on his face, and something cold and metallic fell into Dom's waiting palm.

Glancing down quickly, Dom found himself holding a key. But not just any car key. It was the Charger's car key. Dead or alive, he'd recognize it. It had been his father's, and then his after the death of his parents. It had hung by the front door for years, lived in his wallet when they were living in the car. In many ways, that key was the heirloom, the legacy of his family. And there it was, in his hand again, even after he'd driven it into the ocean.

"Brian-," Dom began, but Brian shifted and backed up toward the entrance to the garage.

"You don't have to drive it," Brian assured, and behind him, sitting on the track, was Dom's black beauty.

As Dom moved forward, Brian stepped out of the way, and then Dom couldn't see Brian, because he only had eyes for the car. There wasn't a scratch on it. Not from the railing he'd smashed through. Not from the water or the bottom of the bay. It looked fresh from the garage, all new tires and doors and windows. He'd remade the car almost from scratch after the accident, and it looked exactly like this.

Running his hand along the shining surface, Dom felt his lungs contract. He sucked in a hard breath and squeezed his eyes shut, head bent down over the hood. The car was a ghost to him, a figure in place of all the people he cared about, and he wished he could be angry at Brian for brining it here.

But the truth was that he loved this car. Loved it like family. Loved it like home. And even if he didn't regret dying, he definitely regretted taking the Charger with him. After taking a deep breath, he made a long shushing noise as he caressed the car. It was good to see the car in such fine condition, and he smiled into the sleek black surface.

Cold.

Suddenly, for no discernible reason, he was cold. Not February-in-New-York cold. He was November-in-North-Carolina-and-jumped-into-the-pool cold. He felt wet, though his clothes were dry, and in the semi-non-existent sun, he shivered.

"Bri-," he turned to ask the angel for the cause, but Brian was gone again. Just inside the garage, Dom once again saw the dark red paint-like puddle, the same as what he'd seen on the bleachers, and he wondered if it was a lingering sign of Brian.

The cold chilled Dom so badly in his legs that he almost couldn't stand up in the wake of it. His eyes searched around for Brian, hoping the other had merely flickered to another part of the stands, but he saw nothing. Fear gripped him as his legs wobbled and he fell to his knees.

"Brian," he gasped and sucked in oxygen.

His lungs didn't want to breathe. Gasp after gasp, he still felt like he was suffocating. Raising his hand to tug at his shirt collar, he could only spare a modicum of thought to his desperately shaking fingers as he tried to relieve his airway, but there was nothing wrong with his throat.

Why couldn't he breathe? Why was he so cold? Was this death? Was he finally dying?

Muffled, as though from under the stands, Dom heard a sharp sound, like a tiny explosion. His next gasp was in shock, not in desperation for oxygen, and the air returned to his lungs. The cold retreated immediately, as though it had never been there at all, and Dom was left panting softly on the asphalt, his eyes scanning the stands in the direction of the sound.

Under the stands was the food station and a few offices, but in this world there was only him and Brian. So why did he think he'd just heard a gunshot?