Thank you all so much for reading and I hope you enjoy this final installment. Four banners for the fic can be seen on the AO3 posting under the penname DLanaDHZ.

Chapter 6

Dom spent two days in the hospital, recovering from hypothermia and having his mental functions watched in case a lack of oxygen had caused any damage. As soon as he'd been conscious enough to make requests, he had the nurses make a phone call for him.

Letty arrived in less than an hour. She was dressed real professional, which Dom commented on with a teasing grin. He'd never seen her outside of grease stained jeans and tank tops. After slapping him upside the head, she told Dom she'd just come from a manager meeting for the maintenance shop she owned with Jesse.

"Jesse's got a thing for designing fast cars," she said. "He was approached last week about a job. The whole company was. That's where I was before I got the call. Some racing company wants to sign a contract with us."

"Sounds like a good gig. What's holdin things up?" Dom asked.

She looked good. She looked healthy. She definitely looked like her business was going well, and he was happy for her. Her serious eyes stared into his and she cocked an eyebrow.

"You," she said. "For one thing, you pulled me out of the meeting. For another, the racing company…" And then her eyes weren't so serious. They were nostalgic. "They're the ones who bought the track last year. I didn't want to do anything without asking you first… but I couldn't find you."

"Take the job, Letty." Dom held his hand out for her and she slipped her own easily into his. "I'll be alright."

"Big words coming for the guy who disappeared for six years and showed up in a hospital." Letty frowned deeply and gripped his hand tighter. "Speaking of – they said they rescued you from the Charger. How did your car end up in the bay? You've always been a great driver."

With a careless shrug, Dom lied and said, "I was blowin off steam, speeding like a lunatic. Hit something slick in the road – maybe ice. Next thing I knew, I was being given CPR by some sexy Spanish woman."

Snorting, Letty said, "Yeah well that sexy Spanish woman is apparently your head nurse. She met me at the door. You're lucky she was driving by when you had your accident." And the way she said it – accident – made it clear she didn't think there had been one.

Dom frowned and nodded slowly. "I was," he said. But he was thinking about an empty racetrack and an angel with wings that only showed in the dim sun rays streaming into an open garage.

Hours had passed in that place with Brian. Not that time mattered there, but it had been hours. They'd fixed half a car together. They'd had lunch. They'd talked so much. And yet the doctor said he'd only been in the bay for three to five minutes – just long enough for his savior to skid her car to a halt and dive in after him.

Besides that first moment of consciousness, Dom hadn't mentioned Brian to anyone. Even dizzy from medication, he'd kept his mouth shut. Letty watched him with loving eyes and Dom felt the urge to tell her… but it sounded crazy, even to him. He'd probably just dreamt the whole thing as a way to convince himself to live. But it felt so real.

"Hey, drop the long face," Letty said then and knocked him on the shoulder, but her face was long too. "Look. I know it's been a year, but… Well we had a small grieving party for Mia after it happened, without you of course, but I wanted to ask if you planned to do anything more formal. You got her ashes, right? Could we have a service or something? Somethin more official? Everyone is willing to chip in if you don't have the dough. We want to do something nice for her."

But Dom shook his head. "I got the dough," he said, using her lingo. "Money's not a problem anymore. Someone bought the track, remember?"

He smiled gently and Letty smiled back. "Right. So can we? It's your call, Dom."

Dom had been too depressed after Mia died to have a service or see the body one more time. The ashes were in a tiny storage unit because he couldn't bare looking at them either… but now he was glad he'd put them there. If they'd been in the car…

"Yeah," he finally said. "Yeah, she'd like that. Shoulda done it a long time ago."

And then Letty was hugging him, her nice blouse smooth against his arms when he pulled her closer, and God it felt so good. He missed the contact, the familiar scent, the chastising tone. He'd missed all of her, and he almost cried after all this time. Almost.

"I'm sorry," he said, his rough voice even rougher as he hid his face in her hair.

"It's okay," Letty assured him, rubbing his back. "Everything's gonna be okay now."

He still soaked up her embrace, still loved that she was even there, and he listened intently as she started talking about weekly races the track would be holding and catching him up on the lives of their mutual acquaintances, but…

'I promise everything will be alright.'

Her words made him think of Brian Spilner. And so did her update on the lives of his old friends. It was exactly how Brian said it was, and even if Dom had managed to hallucinate the rest of it, he had no way of making up the lives of the people he'd been apart from for so long.

Vince had a son, she said, named Nico. He was named after Dom – Dominic – and Vince always complained that Dom needed to get his ass over to the house to meet the kid. And Jesse… Jesse got noticed by the track's new owners because he organized races all over the city, and he was always saying how Dom could smoke all of those jokers if he ever showed up, and Letty was pretty sure he kept organizing the races in the hopes Dom would show up to one.

Speaking of races, the track hosted them already, but Jesse was gonna be in charge of them as soon as Letty signed the papers.

"You should come by, check it out," she said. "Maybe not week one, but we'll all be there."

"Yeah… maybe I will." Dom pursed his lips slightly and then grunted out, "Gonna need a new car first, though." And Letty chuckled softly.

The first thing Dom did after leaving the hospital was check about his old home. It had been foreclosed on six years ago, and it looked like no one had done more than lease it for a year since then. Letty might have hinted that the neighborhood possibly wasn't very friendly to the people taking up residence in a beloved community member's home. And Dom was both proud and a little ashamed of them, but chose to let pride be the dominating feeling.

Buying the house was almost too easy. The bank that owned it now saw it as a liability because of the neighborhood's personality and was eager to be rid of it, plus the housing market was still shit, so Dom regained his family home for not even half of its true value.

There was no moving truck to signal his return a week after his accident, just a new truck full of the contents of his small storage unit, but people noticed him as he unloaded. At the end of just two hours he was headed outside to grab his last box.

When he stepped outside to get it from the truck, there was someone leaning on the truck bed. Muscled, tattooed, and tan, Vince looked almost the same way he did when Dom left. His hair was neater now, somehow, and he was almost clean shaven, but otherwise he looked the same. Older, but the same.

"So you're back, huh?" Vince asked with a grunt.

"Yeah. Finally caught a break," Dom answered, crossing his arms and standing back about ten feet from his old friend. "So you got a kid, huh?"

"Yeah. Finally found someone willing to put up with me."

The sound of distant cars and the buzzing of afternoon bugs hung between them, but they just stared at each other. Vince had always been hard headed to begin with, and they hadn't seen each other in six years. Dom was under no delusion that he could just waltz back into the life he had back before his parents died, and if Vince didn't welcome him back like Brian seemed to expect him to, Dom would understand.

Vince scoffed and sighed, and then he was pushing off the truck and striding quickly to Dom. He snapped his arms around Dom and embraced him tightly. "It's good to have you back, man. We were worried the next time we'd see you was at your funeral."

A response was forming in Dom's throat, something about the details of Mia's belated wake, but his words were cut off by Letty's voice saying, "It almost was." She was walking across the street from her house, no longer dressed formal but back in the shorts and tank tops Dom expected her to wear in the garage. "Found him in the hospital. Didn't I tell you?"

"No," Vince said, turning to look at her, brow knit together. "Gotta stop keepin secrets like that, Letty. What if the rest of us wanted to visit him?"

Dom couldn't get a word in before someone else was jogging across their lawn to join in on welcoming him home. Letty and Vince were quietly arguing about when a phone call was warranted and when it was best to not alert the whole neighborhood about something, but Dom couldn't break them up because the small group had attracted attention and now more people were showing up.

Most he recognized from before everything happened to him. Some were introduced then, as spouses and children and significant others. And some promised to bring their new additions around when they got home. Someone was already suggesting a big cookout to welcome Dom home, and many voices were in agreement and schedules were being compared and times suggested and who should be invited.

In a way, it was actually like he'd never left, as though the last six years were just a long vacation he'd gone on, and everyone just wanted to see the souvenir photos and ask for the details. Now, more than any time before in his car or any time speaking with Brian, Dom felt ashamed of himself for ever feeling like he was alone in the world. He'd turned his back on all these people, on his neighborhood. And when Jesse showed up that evening, tow truck hauling in the re-re-rebuilt charger, Dom swore he'd never give up on them again. This was his family too.

Each week, he got an invitation to the track races, but for a month, he put it off. He focused on the Charger, improving the engine and the fuel injection and the tires, and that was when he wasn't planning Mia's wake or settling his hospital bills or thanking Elena, the beautiful nurse who'd saved his life.

"Dom, you need to come to the races this Friday," Letty said after a month. "Even if you don't race, you need to come. The owner wants to have a word with you."

"Oh yeah? What does the mighty William O'Conner want with me?" Dom asked, pulling back from the Charger's engine. The car was already perfect, but he kept tweaking it anyway.

"I think he wants to hire you as a manager," Letty said and she was smirking when he looked up at her. "You know that track better than anyone. People trust you, they follow you. He knows that. Just meet with him, see what he has to say. I mean… you can't live off the money he paid you forever."

It was a good offer, Dom reasoned. He'd get to work at the track like he used to, get to be around races and the people he loved. Shutting the hood of the Charger, he then grabbed a towel to wipe off his hands and pretended to consider.

"Yeah. Okay, I'll meet with him. Set it up for me?" he asked and Letty readily agreed.

As she spoke about not worrying and wearing whatever felt comfortable and how good this could be for him, Dom's mind tried to get over the one blockage between Dom and the track. The only reason he hadn't gone to the track yet for the races was Brian. The track would look different for sure, but not that different. He worried that if he went, he'd spend the whole time searching for the angel even as he interacted with other people. Or worse, he'd be on the lookout for puddles of blood and worrying everyone by focusing on everything red near the ground.

A month ago, he avoided that track because of his family, and that still tugged at him, but now it felt like there would just be one more ghost to haunt the place for him… one more person he hadn't been able to save.

On Friday, as he drove to meet William O'Conner, he wondered what happened to his angel. He could still remember the transparency, the exhaustion in Brian's face and voice. He knew he'd never find closure on that meeting without some kind of sign of what happened to Brian. And really he just wanted to know the other was okay in one way or another.

Maybe going to the track was a good idea in that respect too. Maybe there he'd find the sign he was looking for.

Mr. William O'Conner was a businessman inside and out. He wore a suit without the jacket, but it was still a suit, and his office was downstairs by the conference room where all normal managers liked to work. His walls were filled with degrees and awards and commendations and things of the sort, but like Dom's father, he had a few photos of his family – although they were small and not facing the public. Dom only knew they were photos of his family because as he sat down he saw one from an angle that appeared to be Mr. O'Conner, his wife, and a smiling child.

Mr. O'Conner was blonde, his hair slicked back and carefully sculpted. He smiled when he greeted Dom, and it felt genuine and familiar. Through the entire process of Mr. O'Conner purchasing the track, they'd never met in person, but they knew enough about each other to skip the majority of a usual first meeting.

"Will you be joining the races this afternoon, Mr. Toretto?" Mr. O'Conner asked. "I hear you used to be a champion – off the official record."

"Was thinking about it," Dom admitted. His mind wandered briefly to the conference room next door and how clean the glass had looked as he'd passed it to get to the office. "Any good competition?"

Now Mr. O'Conner laughed out loud. "I'm not trying to sound arrogant, but I think our drivers are perhaps the best unofficial group in the States. I'm hoping to convince some of them to join the official team, start earning some real money. My son is supposed to head the team but he claims he won't drive for me unless he has a good team to ride with."

"Your son's a driver?" Dom asked curiously and wondered if O'Conner junior was actually good or just a buster with a rich dad.

"He's the reason I got into the business," Mr. O'Conner admitted. "Boy has racing in his blood. Actually, he'll be at the races today. He usually is. I'd like for you to meet him, if you would."

"Sure thing, Boss," Dom said and shrugged his shoulders.

Without missing a beat at the nickname, Mr. O'Conner jumped up with, "Speaking of Boss, the reason I asked you here today is that my son loves racing and I love supporting him and I've come to really enjoy the track and the sport, but I'm not a racer. I need a team manager, someone to run the human aspect of the business while I run the, well, business side of the business. Your name came up from everyone I asked, and it would be an honor to welcome you back to the track… if you'll have us?"

It was almost what Dom had expected when he walked in the building, but it was also a little bit more. Run the team? That would be more than a little perfect for him. And after six years of his life falling apart, Dom was really starting to wonder what he'd done to suddenly get such opportunities again.

Brian's voice came to him then. 'Everything'll work out in the end, Dom. It always does.'

Everything did seem to be working out. Everything except Brian.

The two men talked about options and specifics of what being manager of the team would mean – how much power Dom would have. A big stipulation by Dom was the he could veto members, with heavy insistence that this included Mr. O'Conner's son if he didn't pull his weight. At the end of the meeting, they had what sounded like a deal, and they planned to regroup in two days after Mr. O'Conner's lawyer had drawn up the official work contract with all of their discussed details added in.

"Thank you, Mr. O'Conner," Dom said as they shook hands. "The opportunity means a lot to me."

"No worries, Mr. Toretto. Now go. The races will have started by now. Go meet the drivers. See if any catch your eye." And the way he said it left no question that he expected Dom to be impressed by the driving of his son.

Doubt still lingering in his mind, Dom left the office and headed for the track, where music and engines could already be heard. It was infinitely different than when he'd been dying. There had been no sound at that track, no energy pulsing through the speakers, no savory smells from the food court. A few people were milling about inside, looking to get something to eat, and Dom looked over each of them, expecting one to be Brian, big, bouncing, blonde curls and all. But no one even came close.

Part of him wanted to skirt by the races, check on the storage area just to assure himself it wasn't the Sunday room anymore, but that was stupid. Of course it wouldn't be the Sunday room. He wasn't dead anymore, and the only dying he was doing was the same as everyone else – the slow progression toward old age.

As soon as he stepped outside, he was drawn into the excitement of the races. The stands had quite a few people in them, but a lot of people were in the center of the track, running back and forth to cheer on the drivers. Dom went up into the stands to watch and spotted Jesse by the garage, talking to some teenager about a red mustang that sat just barely inside, its hood still smoking while two other mechanics started trying to cool it down.

Jesse looked good – a lot better than he had six years ago. At the welcome home cookout, he'd told Dom that he was drug free, which made his smoking habits from six years ago sound a lot more serious than they had been. But whatever changes he'd made in his life… they'd worked for the better.

Cheers erupted as the next race got set up and three cars pulled up to the starting line. These weren't track cars. These were street races being done on an official track. The hopefuls for the new race were a pink Honda S2000, a white Ford Mustang Fastback, and a blue Skyline R34 GT-R. Dom's heart skipped a beat and then the flag dropped and the cars took off down the track.

"Hey stranger," Letty greeted him as she joined him in the stands.

"Hey," Dom replied, distracted. "Who's driving in this race?"

Casting her eyes out over the cars, Letty gave a shrug. "Let's see. Well it's a pretty good line up. The pink one winning is Suki. The white loser is Roman, but if he hears you calling him that he'll think you're too straight. Call him Rome."

"And the Skyline?" Dom asked, trying to control his heart.

That was Brian's Skyline. It couldn't be Brian's Skyline, but it was. The same color. The same model. Same reckless driving. The Skyline gained on the Honda and overtook it, earning the lead.

"Mr. O'Conner's son," Letty said, rolling her shoulders and smiling out at the cars. "He's pretty good. You should see him in a stock car, but that Skyline is his baby. Kinda like you and the Charger. You take the manager job and he's gonna be the first person in line to be officially signed to the team."

"What's his name?" Dom asked. The race was almost over and Dom started to descend the stands, heading for the finish line.

"Hm?" Letty hurried to follow him and hit the asphalt just behind him. Her answer was drowned out by the cheers of O'Conner Jr. winning the race, and Dom had to stop and let her catch up so he could ask her again. "Brian!" she shouted over the roar of the spectators. "Brian O'Conner!"

Brian.

Dom shoved his way through the crowd around the idling cars, Letty calling out after him. Brian's last name was Spilner and he died in the forties. But Brian drove a blue Skyline, and so did this Brian and-

He found the center of the crowd. Suki was leaning on her car, smiling and chatting with some girls about the engine. The other two drivers, one dark skinned and one light, were high fiving and slapping each other on the shoulders and being jostled by their friends, and neither had blonde curls but the light skinned man's shoulders looked familiar and Dom took a few steps closer, hesitantly.

The other man turned, laughing, and caught sight of Dom. His wide smile was familiar, like his father's, but there was no mistaking those cheekbones, those eyes. He'd cut his curls off, but this was Brian. When Brian spotted Dom, his smile faltered ever so slightly, and then cranked back up as though nothing had happened to spook him.

"Brian," Dom called out, taking a few more steps closer.

"Hey," Brian greeted. He held out his hand toward Dom. "Dominic Toretto, right?"

Dom's heart fell. It looked like Brian, but… He didn't know Dom.

"Yeah." He took Brian's hand in his and they shook, and Dom was trapped between disappointment and convincing himself it didn't change anything. Disappointment was winning. "Good race."

"Thanks. Suki's great too, and a really good sport. Right, Suki?" Brian asked, calling out to the other driver. Suki was too far away to hear properly, but she smiled and waved at Brian when she heard her name. No hard feelings there.

"And what am I, Bri? Moldy cheese?" the dark skinned man asked, right behind Brian. "Not gonna tell the new boss man about me too? I see how it is. Ladies gettin all the love and attention these days."

Brian laughed and, despite the lack of recognition from him, it made Dom's chest tighten pleasantly. "Calm down, Rome, I got you. Okay so Rome is a great driver too. He can drive circles around most people. Except me."

"Yeah, aight. I see how it's gonna be, Bri. You be like that," Roman said, but when Brian turned to look at him, the other smiled and the two high fived again, so Dom wasn't worried about him being embittered.

It was unbelievable. He was seeing Brian among other people, laughing, smiling, solid and real. He'd asked for a sign that Brian was alright and he got Brian, living a new life. It was more than he asked for but all that he wanted… except that Brian didn't know him.

"So you liked the race, huh?" Brian asked, bringing Dom's attention back. "Think I might make the team, Mr. Manager?"

"Yeah," Dom answered gruffly. "I don't sign that contract for a couple of days, so I'm not your manager yet, but I'd say you're definitely invited to tryouts."

Someone behind Brian shouted as they were lifted off their feet and it was loud enough to draw Dom's attention away again. Past them he could see the storage door. He remembered Brian in there, laughing full and hearty after tricking Dom, and he was glad that Brian was being given a chance to have that carefree smile more often.

"Sunday," Brian said, startling Dom. "You're gonna sign then, right? I think you'll make a great manager. I've heard a lot about you."

Grunting, Dom shrugged. "Well that seems like the plan," he agreed.

Jesse's voice called out over the speakers for the cars to move off the track and make way for the next race, and Suki and Rome moved away quickly for their vehicles. Brian took a step away but hesitated there.

"Don't worry," he said. "Everything's gonna work out fine. With the contract I mean."

His smile hid something, and it gave Dom hope. For a moment he didn't know what the hope was for – A good job? An easy life? A fulfilling career? – but none of those matched Brian's smile. The blonde took another step back when Rome honked his horn before driving away. He glanced toward his car, glanced past it toward the stands and the storage door.

"I mean," he said, looking back at Dom, "Nothing too bad happens on Sunday, right?"

And now the sneaky undertone to Brian's smile grabbed at him with the full force of its meaning. This was Brian O'Conner, son of legit businessman William O'Conner, but this was still Brian Spilner, son of a good-for-nothing nobody from the forties. And maybe he really did remember that.

Brian stepped away from his car, more into Dom's personal space, and he lowered his voice. "I told you, didn't I?" he asked, and when he smiled at Dom, Dom smiled back. Because Brian had told him so many things, and they were all true.

"Yeah," Dom said as Brian took a step back again, Jesse's voice calling out again on the speakers. He urged Brian to move his car and for the spectators to get off the track. "Yeah, nothing too bad happens on Sunday," Dom agreed. He caught Brian by the bicep as the other tried to leave again. "Hey, speaking of Sunday, we're having a barbeque. Think you can make it?"

The smile he received was wide and warm, and Brian grabbed at Dom's bicep too, aligning their arms. "I'll be there like my life depends on it," he said, a joke in his voice. Then he pulled his arm from Dom's, their arms sliding against each other the whole way.

Brian finally got back in his Skyline and drove it to the pit area, and Letty was finally able to get up next to Dom again, questioning his attitude, and Brian looked over at Dom before Rome garnered his attention full time, and Letty was snapping her fingers in Dom's face and demanding his concentration, and… and yeah. Maybe everything would be alright in the end.

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