A/N: Thanks to Straight Edge Queen, AllieKat21, Villana Del AmourRunning-Wild22, Sparkles2004, Jas120, AnimusPatronus, and vinlovedroolwish for there reviews!

As for Vince: Yeah, he's a little slow on the uptake as far as Bella is concerned, but lets be honest, it's not his brains that got me writing this little story ;)

This chapter is (I think) going to be the last flashback chapter until we start telling Han's story (which will happen later). Also, I didn't notice this 'till I was proofing, but it's mostly narrative. Oh well. Still, it ties up the end of the flashbacks to the beginning of the present.

I promise things are going to start heating up soon!

Review and Enjoy!


Mia passed through the house, feeling like a ghost. She'd found Rae's note the day before, and after that, it had been a blur of frantic phone calls trying to find out where she had gone. Mia couldn't figure it out; she got Rae needing a little time alone, sort of. Lord knows she'd wanted to get away from everyone now and again. But she hadn't known Rae was having a harder time than the rest of them.

She quickly emptied the laundry from the hamper in the room she had shared with Rae, then moved to Dom and Letty's room. It still looked like her brother had never left. Letty hadn't changed anything when she moved in, just adding her own things here and there. It was almost like he still lived there.

Most of Letty's dirty clothes had at least made it to the general vicinity of her hamper, and Mia loaded them into her basket with a sigh. She just couldn't get over the fact that all her best friend left was a note. If it weren't for the fact that it was definitely Rae's writing, Mia might have thought she'd been abducted or something. But there it was, plain as day. Mia felt a little betrayed. Not telling the others, yeah. They'd go all big brother, and Letty wouldn't let her cousin out of her sight for months if she thought Rae was bailing on her.

But Mia was her best friend. She wouldn't have been happy, but she would never have ratted Rae out. She didn't even know Rae was having problems. Maybe it was because of Tran, or more precisely, because he beat Vince. She wouldn't put it past any of the guys to have said something to piss off Rae. But it must have been something pretty bad to have sent her packing.

Probably Vince then. That would explain why he was acting so weird.

Hefting the large basket higher on her hip, she pushed into Vince's room. Picking her way through the crap on the floor, she gingerly placed crumpled up pieces of clothing in her basket. She didn't know what was clean or dirty, but she figured it was a safe bet to just shove it all in.

Rae would come back soon, Mia just knew it. 'till then, she'd just have to put up with the rest of them. She was just leaving Vince's room when her highly trained laundress senses spotted a crumpled up piece of cloth in Vince's trash can. She lifted it carefully between her thumb and index finger and placed it on the top of her pile. It was obvious from the lace and color that it was a pair of woman's panties, and Mia shook her head in disgust. Another racer skank who's name he never even bothered to learn.

Making her way to the laundry room, she was greeted by a trash bag with a hastily scrawled note taped to it.

Wash these for us? Pretty please?

-Han

Mia smiled at the note. Not that she wanted more laundry, but she had spoken to Leon and Han when they came round earlier, and neither of them had mentioned the laundry. They knew she would have told them to shove it if they had, but now she just put it in with the rest.


The next day, Vince made his way down to his room, dog-tired. The Team had already started working hard on a replacement car for the one he had lost to Tran. But, as always, it wasn't going smoothly.

He didn't even notice them at first, folded into a small, neat triangle on the very top of the clothes pile on the edge of his bed. It wasn't the first time Mia had done it, her own little passive-aggressive way of saying she didn't approve of his womanizing ways.

He knew she did it to the other guys too, but this was different. These were Rae's, and Vince suddenly went cold, wondering if Mia knew. If she did, he was screwed big time. She'd tell everyone, and Dom would probably break out of Lompoc just to beat the shit out of him.

He stood in the middle of his room, staring at them as though they were going to start screaming his guilty conscience for all the world to hear. He could see the ragged edge of the lace from when he'd torn them, so desperate to be inside her. He remembered the blood on the sheets, the wide-eyed look she'd given him the next morning, and felt sick at the thought of using her, hurting her the way he had.

He reached out and grabbed the panties, trying to ignore the soft, textured feel of them in his hands. He raised his arm, ready to through them into the trash, when he remembered the way she felt under him, how good he'd felt in that one drunken night.

He flopped down onto the bed, bouncing a little as he stared at them. He wanted to forget so bad. But at the same time, a part of him couldn't regret it, and didn't want to forget. And that just made things worse. He raised them to his face before he even knew what he was doing. Of course, all they smelled of after being washed was laundry detergent, but for some reason, he could still smell the light cinnamon-vanilla scent of her body wash, and feel the softness of her skin, the thickness of her black hair.

He couldn't deal with it. Part of him knew she wouldn't come back, that he had finally managed to do what Tony had always warned him his thoughtless comments would do – he'd driven her off.

Standing, he made his way over to the trash can, planning on throwing them out. But he stopped at his chest of drawers, and eyed the cheap wooden box on top. Before he could think it over too much, he placed the panties inside and closed the lid. He left them there, figuring he'd get rid of them later.

He never did. He kept them, not as some kind of lewd trophy, but because they were the only thing Rae had left behind. He'd never opened the box, never touched them again. Not once. But he knew they were there, taunting him, reminding him just how badly he'd fucked up.


Rae stood on the doorstep of her brother's apartment building, checking her appearance in the dark glass of the door. It had taken her a week to work up the courage to drive to Chicago, and another three days to actually get there. She kept having to stop to throw up.

She snuck into the building as another resident was leaving, and made her way up to his home. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door, and a few seconds later she heard Vivian's softly accented voice calling out "Just a moment!"

There were a few thumps and muttered curses, then footsteps moving towards the door. Rae heard a sharply indrawn breath as Vivian saw her through the peephole, then the door spun quickly open.

"Raeka! What are you doing 'ere?" Vivian exclaimed, pulling her into a welcoming hug. "Not zat you are not welcome, of course, but Alex did not tell me you were coming!"

Rae smiled nervously. Despite not having spent a lot of time with Vivian, she got along well with her brother's girlfriend. "Um, Alex doesn't know yet. I…I had to get away for a while. I was hoping I could stay here, unless it's too much trouble-"

"Of course not! You can stay as long as you need, it is no problem!" the blonde woman frowned, ushering Rae inside the cozy apartment. "Sweet'art, what is wrong?"

"Is Alex here?" Rae asked quietly.

"No, he is still at work. I can call 'im if you want," she offered with a smile, leading Rae to the living room and gesturing for her to sit down.

"No! No, that's okay thanks. I just wondered…" Rae trailed off, fiddling distractedly with the cuff of her sweatshirt.

Vivian studied her for a moment, the Frenchwoman's clear blue eyes not missing a thing. "Rae, what 'appened? Alex said you had moved to San Francisco. Why did you leave L.A.?"

"L.A…When Dom went to prison, things changed. Things kind of fell apart. I need to get away." She took a deep breath, getting ready to tell the lie she'd been practicing since she'd realized she was pregnant. "I did something stupid in San Francisco. I met this guy…" She was having trouble finishing.

After a moment, Vivian asked hesitantly, "Did he 'urt you?"

"What? No! Nothing like that, it's just…" Time to do it, bite the bullet. At least she was getting some practice before she told her brother. "I'm pregnant."

Vivian blinked and sat back. Obviously she hadn't been expecting that. "The father, he is not involved?"

"No," I said firmly. She nodded acceptingly, but Rae knew my brother would push more, wanting to know who knocked up his eighteen-year-old sister.

"Do you know what you want to do?" she asked softly, her voice telling Rae she wouldn't judge, whatever her decision was.

"I'm keeping it. That's sort of why I'm here. I figured I should be near family."

Vivian frowned, and Rae knew what the woman was thinking – the Team was as much family as Alex. After a moment of thought, Vivian shrugged her slim shoulders. "There is more, I know, but I will not push. You will tell me when you are ready."

"Thanks," Rae smiled, "I wish Alex would say the same, but…"

"But you brother will 'ave a fit. Don't worry, I'll stop 'im if he goes too far," she smiled. "Men, eh? And they call us emotional!"


Needless to say, Alex didn't take it well at first. Shouting, yelling, angry demands to know who was responsible. But eventually he calmed down, and as time went on, he had to admit that his sister was handling things remarkably well. Sometimes he forgot that she wasn't the traumatized thirteen-year-old he'd left at his Abuela's. It may have been only five years, but she had grown up in that time.

Rae had gotten a job in a restaurant, but had been quickly fired when the manager had found her vomiting in the bathroom for the third day in a row and put two and two together. She didn't desperately needed a job straight away, but she was determined to pay her way with Alex and Viv, and having a baby was not cheap. She was on her way to an interview for a job working in a clothing store when she was distracted by the pictures in the window of a tattoo parlor.

It was like that first time at Berto's when she was hypnotized by the images. Before she even realized what she was doing, she had walked inside. She was flipping through one of the flash books when a tall, skinny black guy with a bright red Mohawk sidled up to her, putting on the charm for what he thought was a potential customer.

"See anything you like?" he asked smiling. Rae did a double take as she realized the guy was older than he looked, and where she had originally though he was in his mid-twenties, she mentally added another ten years to her guestimate.

"I like the designs, but I don't want a tattoo, sorry," she said, closing the book, with an apologetic smile.

"What, too chicken?" he taunted, eyes twinkling with good humor.

"Nah, I'd just want my own design," she replied honestly.

"Oh yeah? You draw?" he asked with real interest.

Rae nodded.

"Got anything on you?"

She nodded again, digging out the battered sketchbook she always carried with her. He flipped though the pages, eyebrows raised in surprise. Some of the drawings were more traditional, landscapes and portraits, but the majority were designed specifically for tattoos. Most were rough pencil sketches, but a few she finished in color.

"You an art student?" he questioned, not taking his eyes of the book.

Her cheeks flamed. "Nope."

"You ever worked in a parlor before?" he continued, this time watching her closely.

"Not really. I used to hand out at one in L.A., but I never worked there. Berto – he's the guy that owned it – he bought designs from me once in a while, but I think he was just being nice," she rushed, suddenly feeling really embarrassed. This guy was a professional, and here she was waving her sketchbook.

"I doubt that kid, these are good," he murmured looking back at the book.

A tiny bubble of hope blossomed inside her. "I don't suppose you would be interested in buying some flash? I've got books full at home, and I could really use the cash."

He looked her a second, and frowned. "Why the big need for money? You in trouble? Drugs?"

Rae bristled, feeling insulted. "No way."

"Then why?" he asked, closing the book and handing in back to her.

She shoved it roughly back in her messenger bag, suddenly feeling really pissed off at all the questions she was being asked by this total stranger. "Not that it's any of you business, but I'm pregnant, and babies aren't cheap to look after. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a job interview to get to."

"Have you ever thought of working in a tattoo shop?" he asked as she was about to open the door. She froze. "'Cause if you've got more stuff like this, I'd love to have you as my apprentice."

She turned slowly. "Really?"

He smiled. "Really. Sort out some drawings, different styles, and come in anytime tomorrow."

She nodded, stunned, and walked out. She still went to the interview, but she found it hard to get enthusiastic about selling clothes when she'd been offered her dream job. The next day, she did as he asked, and brought in more drawings. He hired her on a trial basis, which quickly turned to a permanent job.

She got along well with the others that worked in the shop, and while it was nothing like what she had been a part of in L.A., she started to feel like she was moving on. As the months past and her stomach grew bigger, she even felt…happy.

But she couldn't help feeling painfully alone at certain times. Her first pre-natal appointment, when the baby kicked for the first time, when she was shopping for baby things, when she was trying to think up possible names. Is not that she missed Vince in a boyfriend-y way, because they had never been like that, but she had always thought that if she had kids she would have the father by her side for all the milestones.

And there was so much that she wanted to share with the rest of them. Vivian was great with the girly shopping, gushing over the cute little baby outfits, but Rae wanted nothing more than to share it all with Mia. Even Letty – and that was saying something.

Eventually she got used to it, and when she held her newborn daughter in her arms, she didn't regret a thing. Everyone at the shop was great, and they didn't mind Bella being there while she worked, and in the end the little girl became a sort of mascot.

Once Bella was sleeping through the night, Rae moved them into their own apartment. It wasn't much, but there were two bedrooms, so her daughter could have a real nursery. It still wasn't far from Alex and Viv's place, and they were happy to babysit whenever she needed it.

While she made lots of friends, here romantic life wasn't quite so prosperous. She was always upfront about Bella, letting her dates know that her daughter would always be her first priority. Most of the guys ran in the opposite direction as soon as they found out she was a teenage mother, and most of the rest couldn't handle coming in second.

The few that made past the first two hurdles still didn't last. It was nothing dramatic, just normal relationship ups and downs. That's not to say that Rae's feelings for Vince didn't cause the occasional problem, but she tried to put it all behind her. Eventually Kevin decided to open another shop, and put Rae in charge. By then she had a settled life.

A home. Not better than L.A., but different. She finally built her new life.

Then she got the call.