The next chapter, as promised! :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you to: Mrz Letty Ortiz-Toretto, xsparklesthemagicalunicornx, and Rue Dawn (Good luck house hunting!)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but Alex, Mickey, and Ronnie.

Diamond in the Rough

Chapter 58: Surprise Visits

By: LoveInk

Alex was sitting in the kitchen a carton of ice cream in front of her. She hadn't bothered with serving herself a bowl; instead she was eating it straight from the carton. She'd just put a spoonful in her mouth when Michaela crept passed, heading towards the front door. The other girl stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Alex sitting there. A blush colored her cheeks as she scratched at her neck. Alex knew this move well; Vince did the same thing when he was feeling guilty or nervous. "I was just…I was with…" Michaela sputtered. "Fuck."

"Uh-huh," Alex said around the mouthful of ice cream. She pushed the carton towards her. "Ice cream?"

She sighed before grabbing a spoon and sitting across from her. She peered into the carton and raised an eyebrow. "Rocky Road? You don't like nuts."

She shrugged a shoulder. "It's a new pregnancy thing. I like all sorts of things I didn't like before. Ronnie bought me a jar of pickles and I ate every single freakin' one. They were delicious."

"Weird," Michaela mused, putting a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. "So? Where's my lecture?"

"I'm not going to lecture you," Alex said, grabbing the carton. "I'm not Mia."

Michaela looked at her skeptically. "Really?" she asked flatly.

"I will say this. You're playing with gas and its going to blow up in your face," she commented flippantly.

"I believe the expression is playing with fire," she corrected with a smirk.

Alex snorted and shook her head. "You're the fire. Jess decided it. In every relationship, there's fire and there's gas. Vince is fire in ours, you're fire in yours and Leon," she explained slowly. At Michaela's confused look, she shrugged. "Ask Jess. He explains it better."

"Whatever."

"Can I ask a question?"

"If you must," Michaela said on a sigh.

"Why?" Alex asked softly. "Why are you fuckin' with his head like this? I don't want to get all over-protective sister on you, but…please stop. It really, really messes him up."

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I can't let him go, Lex," she said, a lump rising in her throat. "I try to be okay without him and I'm just…not. And Jem is great and he's sweet and nice but I just can't let Leon go."

"No one's asking you to."

"It can't work, Lex. Don't you see that?"

Alex shook her head. "What I see now is two people being stubborn. You about planning for the future, him about not planning for it. You're both freaking each other out in opposite ways. I'm going to tell you sort of the opposite of what I told Leon. Look at where you are right now. You're lost. You feel like something is missing because it is. He is missing. So fuck what you want for the future and think about what you want now because it's him. He makes you happy. So he doesn't want kids, who the fuck cares? You can borrow mine any time you want!"

Michaela smiled slightly at her offer. She felt a tear slip down her cheek. "The other day I found a note that he wrote me. He had hidden it in my sun visor. It was a silly, stupid note that just said I love you and he signed it Prince Charming. I crumpled it up and tossed it in the back seat. Today, I was cleaning it out and I saw it and I just…I needed him."

"So you decided to slip in his window for a quickie?"

She laughed, wiping at her cheeks. "Gosh, Lex, you make me sound so…slutty."

"It's a slutty move. Sorry," Alex replied bluntly.

Michaela was just about to answer back when a sleepy Ronnie meandered in, rubbing at his eyes. "The fuck you doin' here?" he asked Michaela.

"She needed to talk," Alex lied smoothly.

Michaela gave Alex a grateful look before pushing away from the table. She walked around it to give her friend a quick hug. "And now we're done talking. I'll see you all later. Night."

Ronnie watched her walk out before turning to Alex. "She fucked Leon, didn't she?"

Alex nodded exaggeratedly. "Oh. Yeah."

A few days later…

Leon hated going to Lompoc. Hated it with a passion. Mostly because he knew very well that he should be in there alongside Vince. After all, they'd committed the same crime, hadn't they? But he promised Alex he'd visit, so there he was sitting in the visiting center waiting for Vince feeling nervous as hell.

When Vince walked in with the guard, he looked surprised to see Leon there. "When I heard I had a visitor, I figured it was Mia," he said as he sat down across from his friend.

"Lex wanted me to visit," Leon explained with a shrug. "How you doin', brotha?"

"Fantastic," Vince answered sarcastically. "How's Tiny?"

He shrugged again. "Her mom, dad, and sister all came in early for the baby shower and they're driving her insane.'

Vince grunted in response. "When's the shower?"

"In like two weeks."

"Hmm. How's my sister?"

Leon sighed and ran a hand through his hair. How was he supposed to tell Vince that the last time he'd seen Michaela was for a random quickie in the storage closet of the garage and she'd bounced without a word as soon as it was over? How was he supposed to tell Vince that Michaela pulled stunts like that all the time, but always went back to her stupid cowboy boyfriend after? "Dunno," he replied simply. "I haven't talked to her in days."

Vince nodded his head. "I heard about the break up."

"I figured. Things don't stay a secret for long in this family," Leon said before pausing. "You're not going to kick my ass are you? I swear it was a mutual thing."

He chuckled. "Yeah, let me hit you now and fuck up any chance of me getting out of this place early and being there for my fiancée when our first child is born. Not gonna happen. You're not worth it, sorry. How's the Maxima?"

Leon winced, he was hoping Vince wouldn't ask about his car. "The clutch will probably need to be repaired or replaced once you get out."

Vince narrowed his eyes at his friend suspiciously. "And why's that?"

"Because Alex has been driving it."

"You've been letting her drive my car?" he repeated, clearly not happy with that idea. "She can't drive a stick well. Believe me, I tried to teach her."

Leon ran a hand over his face. "I know. But you try telling a pregnant woman she can't drive her fiancée's car. I hid the keys from her and she almost gave me a black eye! She claims she's too big to hop up into the Jeep, but I think she just likes driving your car."

"If she's too big for the Jeep, she shouldn't be driving at all! What the hell, Lee? I thought you were taking care of her!"

"She's fine driving, V. Trust me. I brought that point up to her and she put her damn baby book in my face to show me how wrong I was and then she hit me with it."

Vince chuckled. He could picture his tiny fiancée doing just that to her pseudo-brother. She probably stamped her foot somewhere in her tirade too. "Fair enough, I guess." He ran a hand through his hair before muttering, "My poor car."

"It'll be fine. I'll order parts for the clutch when I get back and we'll install them once you're out," Leon reassured him. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. He knew his next sentence would likely piss Vince off. "Um…Anthony called Lex."

"Anthony" was Dom's middle name and their codename for him. It'd been long ago settled that middle names would be used in front of any officer if any member of the team was in trouble.

"What?" he asked, both surprised and a little angry. "Why the fuck would he call her? He's made his feelings about her crystal clear, and if he hurt her fuckin' feelings, he's in for a world of hurt next time I see him. What'd he say?"

"Well, she hung up the phone on him multiple times before he could get her to listen."

"That's my girl," Vince proclaimed proudly. "So?"

Leon shrugged. "He just wanted to know how we were and see where Rose was." Rose was of course Letty's middle name.

"How is…Rose?" he asked, his nose wrinkling in distaste. Letty hated her middle name and he could vividly recall the punches he got from her every time he called her "Leticia Rose."

"She's looking for Anthony, of course," he answered honestly. "She's comin' home, though. Figures she'll start here and work her way to him. You know, follow the trail of skanks. Someone here's gotta know somethin' right?"

Vince bobbed his head up and down. "Tell her to call up Hec. He'll know somethin' if Anthony went down south."

"Will do," he replied. "When's the hearing?"

"Next week. Don't tell Tiny, though. I don't want to disappoint her if it doesn't work out."

Leon smirked. "Why wouldn't it work out? You been fighting?"

Vince shrugged a shoulder. "Nah, but a lot can happen in a week. You never know, right?"

"Time," the guard said, approaching the table slowly.

"Later, brotha," Leon said on a nod. "Be good."

:) What'd you think? I couldn't think of a good middle name for Letty but Leticia Rose sounded so pretty and girly that I could just picture Let hitting the guys when they'd call her that... ;)

Review please! :D

~Love Ink