Out in Miami, in the early hours of the morning, Brian's oldest friend Tej Parker looked over an email that Brian had sent him a couple of hours ago. He was trying to decipher the code as it had been a couple of years since Brian had used it. He ran his hand over his face and closed his laptop. He needed to walk and think as Brian sent him a complicated message. Tej knew one thing though and that was that Brian was on the run heading northeast to Canada. Past that he needed to think of the rest of the message. He understood bits and pieces but not enough to take immediate action.

When he left his office inside his garage, Jimmy his master mechanic, saw him go to leave and asked, "You're up early boss."

Tej yawned, "Yeah. I got an email and I need to take care of some things for a friend."

"Is this the friend from LA?"

"Yeah he's in trouble and I'm trying to figure out his message."

"You two use code to send messages back and forth?" Jimmy asked.

"Yeah his line of work doesn't let us have normal conversations so we created a code that only we got."

"Damn. I hope you can figure it out. He seems like a good guy from the couple of times I've seen him."

"I hope I can too." Then Tej left the garage.

As he walked the few streets around his garage, he made it to a strip of beach so he sat in the sand and watched the waves. He was thinking of the places that Brian named in the email and knew they were past locations that Brian had been. Brian's message finally started clicking into place and he knew that Brian was on the run with a person he was supposed to arrest but instead they were on their way to Canada to catch a flight to France. He always thought of Brian as a crazy ass white boy but he knew that something in his past had driven him to take his current path. Breaking the law was a 'Tej' specialty but everything that Brian had done in six weeks Tej knew even he was outdone. Brian had crossed over to the lawless side and he was using his knowledge of the law to avoid capture.

With most of the message finally in place he went back to the garage and looked at again. A reference to Jack and the Beanstalk gave him his next clue and he found his burner phone and called Jackie in LA. Jackie answered his phone on the third ring, "What?"

"Hey Jack. Sorry to bother you, this is Tej Parker Brian's friend."

Jackie sat up in his bed and asked, "Is he doing alright? I haven't heard from him since he left my apartment yesterday."

"He's alright. He mentioned you in his email to me saying you'd know what to do if you heard from me."

"Yeah. I'll get it taken care of. Thanks for the call."

"You're welcome. Call me if you need anything."

"You know I will." Then Jackie hung up and got out of bed to gather up some papers that Brian needed before he left the country.

The next morning found Dom sitting at the formica table and Brian was out getting them breakfast from the cafe attached to the motel. He saw the black bag sitting on the end of the bed Brian slept in but made no move to touch it. He knew they'd come to an understanding the night before and he wasn't going ruin it by letting his curiosity get to him. He had a feeling that Brian left the bag on purpose and that it was a way of testing whatever it was that they were trying to establish.

Brian came back with two bags and a drink carrier with coffee. He saw Dom sitting at the table glancing at the bag on the bed and messing with the edge of the sling that started to thread but not doing anything else. Brian sat the bags and carrier on the table by Dom and asked, "You weren't shitting me last night right?"

Dom glanced at Brian and asked, "Which part?" He kept his tone even and low.

"Everything?" Brian said as he walked over to the bag.

"No." Dom sighed.

Brian swallowed and said, "Come here." While he waited on Dom to walk over to the edge of the bed he started to empty the small but deep bag on the bed stacking everything neatly together.

Dom stood next to Brian and Brian pulled out file folders and stacked those together, then he pulled out a few basic supplies (bottled water, military rations, flashlights, a half dozen pairs of rolled socks, and a rolled up blanket), and Brian laid a few tech gadgets on the bed. "What's with the military stuff?" Dom asked pointing out the rations and socks first not knowing if the military was in his past or not.

"Just in case we get stuck somewhere and have to survive on our own for a couple of days. I like to have all possible scenarios covered and being stranded is definitely one of them."

"Whose files are you carrying? Do you have one on me?"

Brian looked at the manila file folders and picked a middle one up and handed it to Dom. "Those are some of my undercover cases. That one is yours."

Dom opened up the file and saw a few wide lense pictures of himself and a couple of the team standing around and then he flipped those over and handwritten reports were made known. It looked like Brian wrote extensively about everything when he was on the job. Dom skimmed the notes on the latest report and looked at Brian. "You were there and you still covered everyone's asses. Why?"

Brian saw more questions in Dom's eyes and took a deep breath. He said, "You guys didn't deserve what the Feds were going to throw at you and besides you doing the crimes on interstate highways that never left the southern part of California, I thought the Feds interest was rather weak."

"How many other cases did you throw away?" Dom asked as he eyed the stack of files.

"Two and it was really bad consequences afterwards."

"Did the LAPD reprimand you?"

"Never officially worked for the LAPD. My full name is Brian Adam Connerson. According to the FBI I'm Brian Nicolas O' Conner. I'm an undercover agent for the Bureau."

Dom sat on his bed and reiterated, "Who the fuck are you?"

Brian sighed and ran a hand over his hair. He glanced at Dom before he said, "I'm telling you the truth. You don't have to believe me but it really is the truth. I've learned so much from all the police training and being on both sides ingrains a lot of paranoia. I am what my past has shaped me to be and trying to dive into things without making sure there's a solid base is really not my style. Too much can go wrong even if it's with the best of intentions."

Dom took in what Brian was saying and nodded in understanding. "Okay. Let's eat so we can get on the road again."

Brian let out a small smile - there was so much he wanted to do and show to Dom but he knew that things would get there if it was meant to be..

Mia had decided that morning that she would go ahead and open the store to hopefully distract her from her conversation with Dom the night before. She had been open for about an hour when she saw Hector park across the street. He walked in and saw her standing by the register with a school book opened and he said, "Hey Mia."
"Hey Hector. Can I get ya anything.

"Nah I'm good. Just heard what happened to everyone. I'm sorry shit went down like that. We just heard that the Snowman and your brother are on the run together?"

"Yeah. Dom told me Brian has a plan and to just take care of things while they're gone."

"If you need anything call. We got your back while Dom's taking care of his stuff."

"Thanks Hector. Jesse gets to come home in a couple of days and then Vince if he's healing alright will be able to come home by the end of the week."

"That's cool. Surprised that Jesse survived with how we heard it on the street. Snowman is one of a dude." Hector said with some reverence in his voice.

"He's definitely something Hector. Thanks for checking up on everyone. I'll let them know you send your regards."

"See ya later Mia." Hector ducked out of the market and Mia sighed.

She was going to have her hands full by the end of the week and she still hadn't heard from Letty or Leon so she didn't know if they had even made it anywhere. She missed her best friend and hoped she'd hear from her in the future but for now she'd be strong for Dom and help Vince and Letty back to health as best as she could and go on with life.