A/N: Thanks to Jas120, AllieKat21,Villana Del Amor, 2furious4u,AnimusPatronus, AngelRose82, Running-Wild22, Special2 andvinlovedroolwish (Vince nakedness soon, I promise).
Not much to say about this chapter, but I forgot to say last time that I have a new website (not just a blog) and it's got story pages and character bios, and I'm working on a playlist for Second Chances if anyone's interested.
Review and Enjoy!
Jesse seemed mildly surprised by the force of nature that was Bella, but didn't mind her bouncing around his room. If fact, he was the only one that could keep up with her rapid subject changes, having the attention span of a three-year-old himself. He seemed a little confused as to who Rome was, but accepted him with the sweetness Rae had always remembered. As for Rae herself, he welcomed her back with proverbially open arms, although she had to do all the hugging, since he was still pretty weak.
The doctor had said that even after he was well enough to leave the hospital, he'd have to stay in a wheelchair until he was stronger. Everyone was just happy that he was going to be okay. The only problem seemed to be that once the sedatives wore off, he started going a little stir-crazy. Rae loaned him her laptop, and they all made a effort to make sure someone was there to keep him company during visiting hours, but it was clear he could wait to get out of there.
Things got better at the Fort too, everyone seemed to be fitting easily back into their old places and it felt almost like old times when they set up a barbeque to welcome Vivian to L.A.. Dom was at his rightful place over the grill, chatting with Rome, and Mia was making potato salad, although it seemed to take longer with Brian helping her. Leon and Alex were playing a game of one-on-one while Letty, Rae and Vince sat sipping Corona's in the sunshine. Rae was keeping an eye on her daughter, who was currently giving Dom instructions on how best to cook the chicken. Her recipe involved chocolate, marshmallows and ice cream sprinkles.
"So how long 'till Viv gets here?" Letty asked Rae. "'cause in case you don't remember, these guys ain't exactly known for their patience, especially when it comes to food."
Rae smiled back. "Alex said she called from the road a half-hour ago. She should be hear soon. I don't think she'll mind if we start without her, just so long as we save some for her."
"Good luck with that," Vince grinned, taking a long swig from his bottle.
"I can't believe it's taking her four days to get here," Letty remarked.
"Viv's not a big driver, plus she hates my truck," Rae shrugged, referring to her '39 pickup that Vivian had graciously offered to drive out. "It took me three days to drive from San Francisco."
"What was it like there?" Letty asked, trying to make casual conversation out of that particular sore spot.
"'Frisco? Lonely," Rae admitted. "No real friends, crappy job, shitty apartment."
They were quiet for a moment, and Vince shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "How's the hotel?"
"S'okay. No roaches or anything, but the TV doesn't work," Rae shrugged.
"So if you're staying 'till Jesse's back on his feet again, are you going to stay at the hotel the whole time?" Letty asked.
Rae looked over at her daughter, who was now playing with Mia as Brian began carrying the food out to the table. "It depends on if I decide to stay," she said quietly.
Both Vince and Letty froze, looking at her in surprise. "Is that a possibility?" Letty asked hopefully.
Rae sighed, staring down at her beer. "Yeah. I'm at this point in my life where I could think about moving. I've been thinking about putting down a deposit on my own place, work is…flexible, and Bella's gonna be starting preschool soon. If I was ever going to move back, now would be the time. Before things get more complicated."
"Do you want to?" Vince asked, his tone not giving away his views on the prospect.
Rae still didn't look up, and she began picking at the edge of the label. "I have friends in Chicago, Alex and Viv…I've made a life for us."
"But…" Letty prompted.
Rae smiled at her cousin. "But this is home. It always has been. I'll see how things go, then decide."
"You'll stay," Letty nodded knowingly. Rae just smiled.
They sat back quietly for a few moments, and watched as Rome took over from Alex, who grabbed a beer and settled next to them. Vince cleared his throat, and sat up, looking like he wanted to say something. He scowled, and Alex shot a questioning look at Rae, who just raised her eyebrows and shrugged.
Vince cleared his throat again and finally spoke. "I, uh, wanted to say thanks for comin' through for us. Both of you."
Alex nodded slowly, and after blinking away her surprise, Rae gave Vince one of her rare mega-watt smiles. He stared at her a moment, it had been a long time since he'd seen her smile like that, and he realized he's missed it over the years. At his continued attention, a slight blush crept over her cheeks and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"You never did answer my question," she remarked, and Vince shook his head, a confused look on his face. Rae grinned. "What on earth made you think jumping onto a sixteen-wheeler was a good idea?"
Vince shot Rae a glare and sat back, still not answering.
Rae turned to Letty, who was snickering away at Vince. "I could ask you the same thing. I mean, they're guys, they're supposed to act like idiots," at this, Alex started coughing on his beer, "but what's your excuse? I though you had more sense!"
Letty paused a moment, thinking, then shrugged. "It sound like a good idea at the time."
"Yeah. Right." Rae rolled her eyes. "And it had nothing to do with a certain big, tall, shaved-headed guy who's name starts with a D and ends with OMINIC?"
"Shut up," Letty replied, sticking her tongue out at her younger cousin. Rae put her had to her chest, eyes wide, pretending to be wounded. Vince raised his bottle to his mouth, the edges of his lips twitching with amusement.
Alex watched them, shaking his head. He forgot how happy these people made his sister. He sat back and watched them all as they enjoyed the California sunshine. When Tony first offered Rae a place there, Alex had seen the home she'd found with them, and had known it was best for her to stay. It was the same after Tony died. But Alex had never figured out why she'd left, and his stubborn sister had refused to give him a straight answer. He'd let it go, since it hadn't made a difference to their lives in Chicago, but when they returned to L.A., he'd been expecting fireworks, hostility, even hatred to explain the rift.
But nothing. A little awkwardness, perhaps, but after three years of separate lives, that was understandable. He'd picked up on their anger at her leaving, but most of them seemed just as clueless as he was. When they had been working to get the Team of the hook, he and Brian had talked about it, but it was clear that the ex-cop knew even less about Rae's life in L.A. than Alex did.
Alex, however, was used to his sister's secretive ways. He had accepted that there was a large part of her life that he wasn't involved in. What bothered him was that no-one here seemed to know why she'd left either. There was something else going on with his little sister, and Alex hoped he'd still be in town when the whole story came out.
Rae kept sneaking sidelong looks at Vince as he slowly sipped his Corona. They way he had looked at her earlier had her insides fluttering and her mind chanting her new mantra: notagainnotagainnotagain. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the feelings she still had for Vince.
Rae wasn't the kind of girl who could just pick up a guy in a bar, but she wasn't the shy awkward girl she used to be. And in other circumstances, she might even go for it. Take the jump and ask him out. But she had to think of Bella. Things were already muddled with Rae being the only one who knew that Vince was the father. It wasn't a good idea to complicate things even more by blurring the line with him. It wasn't fair on Bella. Hell, it wasn't fair on Vince.
She didn't want him to know. Because then the secret would be out, and inevitably the others would find out. But she also knew that if she stayed in L.A., it would be wrong to keep lying. She didn't know how he would react if she did tell him. Pissed, definitely. And angry. She just couldn't she Vince dealing with that kind of news.
In other words, she had no fucking clue what she was going to do. But she knew one thing she definitely wasn'tgoing to do, and that was let Vince get under her skin. Again.
She watched Mia playing with Bella, and knew that Letty was right. She'd end up staying in L.A. She was about to go over and join them when she heard the loud and rather distressed sound of her treasured truck pulling up to the side of the house. Leaping up, she ran over to see her dust-covered red truck slowing to a stop, and Vivian stepping out and slamming the door behind her in exasperation.
"What did you do to my baby?" Rae asked, rushing over to the old Ford and running a hand over the warm hood. It wasn't the thin layer of dust that worried her, it was the clouds of black smoke that had been belching out of the exhaust.
"It is not my fault! It is a terrible automobile! I 'ate it!" Vivian huffed, tucking a strand of her think blonde hair behind her head.
"So you decided to KILL it?!" Rae moaned.
Vivian waved a hand dismissively. "It was not me. It just 'appened."
"Just 'appened?" Rae mimicked her sister-in-law's accent. "How the hell does this 'just 'appen'?"
"Outside of zee city, it starts coughing and eh…chug? Chugging. I think, zey are mechanics, zey can fix it. So I decided just to keep driving."
A collective groan went up from where the others had gathered. "What? Was zat wrong?" she asked, her brown eyes wide.
Alex walked up to his wife and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into a kiss. "It's okay, sweetie. I'm sure they'll all enjoy the challenge, right guys?"
The Team looked uncomfortable, looking at their feet. Vince muttered something under his breath, and Rae slapped his arm with the back of her hand, knowing that whatever he said was less than polite. "Uh…sure," he said, rubbing his arm.
They all stood in awkward silence for a moment, since everyone seemed to be waiting on Rae for the introductions, and she was busy staring dejectedly at her truck, and Alex was distracted by Viv. Luckily, Bella didn't seem to mind about formalities, wiggling in Mia's arms and shouting, "Aunt Vivie! Aunt Vivie!"
Laughing, Viv took the small girl into her arms, and Rae finally looked away from the truck. She introduced them one-by-one, and they all gave polite nods or waves in response. It took Rae a minute to realise why they were all watching Vivian with curiosity.
Alex and Rae hadn't spoken of her in specifics, and they obviously were not expecting the woman standing before them. She was about as far from the rest of the Team as it was possible to get.
Effortlessly elegant, Vivian was the kind of woman who looked like she was wearing designer clothes even when she wasn't. Tall and slender, with thick silky blond hair pinned in a French twist; she was dressed in perfectly fitting jeans and a perfectly white button-up fitted shirt with its three-quarter sleeves folded up to the elbows. She looked flawless and sophisticated, and only someone who knew her well would see the signs of her exhaustion in her tired eyes and mildly wrinkled clothes. To the rest of the Team, she looked more like a fashion model than a pastry chef.
Rae would be the first to admit that she was jealous of her sister-in-laws elegance, but Vivian had more going for her than just her looks, she was as smart as a whip, and was endlessly kind and unselfish. Rae watched in amusement as Vivian won the Team over, one by one.
By the time they were clearing up the dishes, Vivian was chatting away like she'd known them for years. When she and Alex disappeared after desert, the others commented on how nice she was, Rome joking that it was too bad that Alex found her first.
When the two lovebirds finally emerged from inside the house, they were greeted by catcalls at their dishevelled clothes and flushed faces.
"Yeah, yeah," Alex laughed off, looping his arm around his wife's waist. "Has everyone got a drink?"
There were a few cheers, especially from Leon and Vince, who were more than a couple bottles down by this point. In the end, the general consensus was yes.
"Then I'd like to make a toast. To old friends, and new, to Jesse getting better—"
"Hear, hear," Leon interrupted.
Alex grinned. "We'd also like to make an announcement." He paused, looking at Viv a moment before turning back to the rest of them. "I'm going to be a daddy!"
Despite not knowing the two long, the Team were full of congratulations, and Rae was ecstatic, hugging her brother and sister-in-law and gushing over how wonderful it was. As soon as they explained to Bella that it meant she was getting a little cousin, she was laughing and clapping her little hands like it was Christmas morning.
Alex couldn't stop grinning. Apparently, Viv had found out while he was in L.A., and had wanted to tell him in person. Rae knew they had decided a few months before to stop using birth control, so it wasn't a complete surprise, but still, the excitement was contagious.
They called it a night not long after, since it was way past Bella's bedtime, and Vivian was tired from her journey. After they left, Vince, Rome and Leon all but passed out, and Brian helped Mia put the few leftovers back in the fridge while Letty helped Dom clean up the rest of the trash.
They moved quietly for the most part, not awkwardly, just thoughtfully. Every so often one would look at the other; sometimes they shared a quiet smile. There was no flirtation, Dom knew he'd still be sleeping on the couch, but things were no longer tense between the two of them.
Just as Letty was about to go back inside, Dom grabbed her wrist lightly, his thumb stroking softly. "Tomorrow," he rumbled. "We should drive up the coast, just you and me. Go to that shrimp joint you love. We can talk."
Letty watched him for a moment, then turned her wrist in his large grasp, taking his hand. She looked at their intertwined fingers, then up at his face. She moved her hand from his, the other still holding the trash bag, and cupped his strong jaw.
"I'd like that," she whispered, pressing a soft, almost chaste kiss to his lips. "I'd like that a lot."
