They'd all gathered seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but Brian still managed to find them somehow. "I didn't have much time so I couldn't get to everything, but the cars have been wiped down. There's enough circumstantial evidence to make your lives hell though, so you should probably all get out of here. Head to Mexico for a while."

Vince stared angrily up at Brian from the wheelchair the cop had commandeered from the hospital when he was sneaking Vince out. "If it's circumstantial, why can't we just stay here? They can't pin us with circumstantial can they?"

Brian shook his head. "No, but all of LAPD is gonna hassle you if you stay. You're making them look bad, not to mention they put one of their favourite UCs with you guys and he went native. They look like idiots at the minute, not to mention they look like idiots while they have guests. They don't like having to involve the FBI, they really don't like having their asses handed to them while the FBI is here."

Dom nodded. "So we go to Mexico…how long for?"

Brian shrugged, leaning back against his car. "Not sure, it'll take a while to get everything cleaned up so they can't mess with you guys. I'll let you know when it's clear though."

XXX

And he did let them know. Eight months after they left Dom received a parcel in the mail, inside were official pardons for everyone. He took them to a lawyer to make sure it wasn't someone just messing with them, and when they proved to be legit, he took the family home. He expected to find Brian sitting on the front steps, but he wasn't there.

When Dom asked Harry about Brian, he said he hadn't seen the kid since before everything went down. He asked around all the LA racing scene, but no one had seen him. There were rumors he'd raced his way to Miami, but no one knew for sure. And when he finally bit the bullet and asked Tanner about Brian all he got in response was a glare.

So they put the word out in the scenes, if anyone bumped into Brian O'Connor or Brian Spilner or Brian Anderson…any white Brian with big baby blues, Dom wanted to know about it. Months went by and they heard nothing, and Dom couldn't sit still any longer, he went to Miami.

In Miami he found out Tej was the man to talk to when you were looking for someone or something. He knew enough about anything going down that he could find just about anyone. Tej stared at him when he explained who he was and that he was looking for Brian.

"Huh, crazy ass white boy was right." Tej shook his head and walked out to the back of the garage, Dom followed him into a tiny house boat. "Brian said you'd be by, said when you came I had to give you this." Tej threw a duffel bag to him. "Said it was for the family, to help ya'll back on your feet."

Dom unzipped the bag and fell back onto the couch in shock. Full to bursting with hundred dollar bills, Dom wasn't sure where Brian could have got so much money. He looked up at Tej who was grinning like a mad man. "Where'd he get this man?"

"The FBI caught him racing here…kind of blackmailed him into doing a job for them. Go undercover as a driver for the drug lord, put the drug lord and his money together and they'd clear his record. He upped the ante to include all of ya'lls pardons and they had to agree cos they had no one else. Only problem with their plan was that they didn't know how much money this guy had. So Brian took the chance to unleash his sticky fingers for once." Tej grinned. "Rome, a friend of Brian's from when they were kids, he got half of what Brian lifted cos he did the job with him. His share is what's there at your feet."

Dom shook his head in disbelief. Brian had gone against the job to let them go, gone against the law when he removed evidence and been hunted down and he thought he owed them a bag full of cash? "So, why didn't he come home when they cleared his name?" Dom asked quietly, hoping the answer wouldn't be one that would smash their family apart. "He knew we'd be coming cos he sent those pardons, why didn't he meet us there?"

Tej shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know man, he was planning to have a bit of bay time with his car one morning before the shop opened but he disappeared in the night. Two weeks later his car disappeared. Never said anything to anyone and we haven't heard from him since, other than the note I found sitting on top of that bag.

XXX

Jesse came running into the main part of the garage more excited than he'd been in months. "Dom! Dom! I've got a way to find him!" he yelled urgently, almost tripping over Vince's legs where they were sticking out from under a car he was working on.

"Slow down Jess. Who have you got a way to find?" Dom asked in that voice he used when Jesse was mentally twelve miles ahead of the rest of them and he needed to drag him back to explain.

"Brian! I've got a way to find him! So I put some extra feelers out right? On top of the racing scenes. I know a fair few hackers around the place. They're always going into places they shouldn't online, so I figured they might catch sight of Brian if he's with the cops or FBI or whatever."

"He's still a narc?" Vince grumbled. He'd thought for sure that Brian would have given up on being a cop after he let the team go. If only so he didn't have to go around pretending to be something he wasn't, going into dangerous situations for months on end because his superiors wanted information.

Jesse shrugged. 'I don't know, but he might be so it was worth a shot right?"

Dom smiled at Jesse. "So someone hacked something and found Brian by accident then?" He'd been trying to find the buster since the man hunt for Officer O'Connor was televised and he realised Brian hadn't said Dom got away from him, hadn't tried to hide the fact he'd let Dom go. He wanted the kid to know they were still family. He'd seen that look on Brian's face often enough while he was with them to know that Brian didn't have family of his own; that envy of family and the uncertainty of what he was meant to do.

Jesse shook his head. "Nah, no one's caught sight of him, but a friend in England made this program...calls it God's Eye. Basically the best hacking, locating and tracking program there's ever been. I send a photo of Brian and God's Eye gets the parameters to find him. It hacks into every camera and audio device there is. Brian walks past a soccer mum talking on her camera phone? We've got him. Gets into a car where a camera can see him, then God's Eye has his licence plate to track."

"This is great Jess! I'll get all the photos we've got of him for you. More we send the better right?" Leon asked, for once his calm mellowness taking a back seat to excitement.

XXX

It was a week before Ramsey had any news on Brian, and as soon as he saw the caller ID Jesse put his phone on speaker. "Uh, Jess, God's Eye found him but...I don't know if it's in time or not..."

"What are you talking about Ramsey? What's happening?" Jesse asked worriedly. He knew Brian had a knack for getting into trouble, but he also had a knack for getting back out. He'd told Ramsey all of this, so something seriously bad had to be happening for her to say what she'd said.

"Hang on and I'll..." they could hear furious typing of keys on her end. "There. Have a look at your computer."

The team ran to Jesse's area of the garage and found Jesse's computer showing Ramsey's screens. Brian was somewhere that obviously wasn't America and he was in the middle of a shootout, by himself, surrounded by people who obviously wanted to seriously hurt him. He was already bleeding.

"Jesus Brian, what the hell are you doing?" Leon murmured, staring at the screens in horror. They watched in awe as he took out almost every man there. They'd never seen him do anything in line with his job as a police officer, never seen him shoot or subdue someone, it was a relief to see he could handle himself when he chose to. And it was suddenly very obvious that every fight that he had lost with Vince had been by choice. He took the first hit from the burly guy wearing a fur coat like it was nothing. And then he got serious. Within minutes the guy was on the ground and Brian was talking angrily to him…in another language.

It was then they saw another man step out from behind a post, his arms crossed and his expression a mixture of amusement and controlled anger. Amusement and controlled anger on the face of a man who could almost be a clone of Dom. "I don't see why I had to sit back and watch the whole thing, could have helped." The big guy grumbled, throwing a coat over Brian's shoulders.

"Huh, who new Dom could be a mother hen." Leon laughed, ducking the swipe Dom took at his head. "Seriously, he looks exactly like you man."

"We went over this." Brian answered in exasperation. "Anatoly," a harsh twist on an almost dislocated arm of the man on the ground. "Wouldn't have shown his ugly face if he thought I wasn't alone. You did see he only showed up near the end there, right X?"

"Mmm, still don't like it. They're expectations are getting higher Brian, what are you going to do when they send you on a job that will kill you?" the man called X asked.

Brian shrugged, pushing on Anatoly's arm in a certain way that made him flip over onto his stomach in an effort to keep the shoulder in its socket, Brian smiled at the reaction as he pulled out a set of zip ties. "Go surfing?" he asked happily. "Or snowboarding. I dunno X, we'll think of something to do."

"You really think they'll just let you blow them a kiss and walk away?" X asked curiously, picking Anotoly up and setting him down on his feet, leading Brian to a nearby bench seat. "Think they might have something to say about that Brian."

Brian grinned. "Why do you think I haven't done it already? It's gonna be tricky to make them realise I'm serious…and that they shouldn't kill me for turning down a job. Wait…is it a job? I don't get paid, and I sure as hell didn't willing sign up for this. Coercive employment…nah, that still leads to being paid…"

X chuckled, pushing Anatoly back to the ground so that he was sitting on his butt with his legs out in front of him. Next he guided Brian to sit on the bench and pulled the coat back off his shoulders. "I called your contact when you got him on the ground but I don't know how long they're gonna take. You think they shot you anywhere vital?"

Brian shrugged, leaning back while X checked his wounds. "Not sure, adrenaline's still pumping." He watched X check every wound, seemingly surprised at each new patch of blood the man found.

X pulled Brian's coat back around his shoulders, he still looked angry but he was far more relaxed than he had been. He pressed a kiss behind Brian's ear before wrapping his arm around his shoulders and pulling him in close for warmth. "Nothing too bad this time. Luckily."

Brian grinned up at the big man. "You just love watching me fight twenty-odd guys at once, don't you? Gets you hot." He chuckled, like he thought he was hilarious.

"Mmm, and you speaking Russian when you're angry." He dropped another kiss on the top of Brian's head. "You have no idea just how fucking hot you are O'Connor."

Everyone but Mia looked surprised at the realisation that Brian was gay, or at least swung both ways. He didn't seem to be in any hurry to get further away from X, in fact he was leaning closer, like the man was a comfort.

Brian was still laughing when two black SUVs arrived. One was obviously for Anatoly as the passengers picked him up and left without a word to Brian or X. The other was clearly for Brian and his friend, as X helped Brian to his feet and walked him over to the car. "He got shot a few times, think there might have been a couple of stabs as well." He explained to whoever was in the car as he helped Brian in.

"Seriously, you're loaning the plane. I wanna go somewhere warm." Brian could be heard grumbling at someone until X shut the door behind him.

Toretto's family glanced at each other hopefully. "LA's warm, right?" Letty verbalised what they were all hoping. Maybe Brian was finally going to come home.