A/N: Like most of my fics, this happened during the middle of a lecture and kind of manifested into this weird multi-parter that will be NOTHING like the actual movie but is stuck in my head nonetheless. Have it anyways.

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By the time Dom climbs out of his car, Letty is already leaning against hers, a dark grey Jensen Interceptor. A single eyebrow raised at him. "You got me. But you dented my car, fucker."

He raises an eyebrow right back at her, trying not to gawk as he cautiously walks towards her and takes her all in, for real this time. No frozen moments of shock, no bullets sent flying towards him. He realizes that her hair is longer than when he'd last seen her, the bangs she'd impulsively cut in the bathroom one day had completely grown out. The simple dark tank she wore made her bronzed skin practically glow in the warm night, and her tan cargo pants were tucked sloppily into a pair of muddy combat boots. Her stance screamed of defensiveness, like a cat ready to spring at the slightest provocation. He returns his eyes to study her face, smirking slightly at her. "You weren't hiding very hard."

"Not anymore."

Something in her voice is tinged with desperation, and no matter how hard she tries to hide it from him, he hears it clear as day. She's fucking terrified, but too proud, too brave to show it. Even to him. So he changes the subject, making a note to get it out of her later. If there was a later. No, he decided. There most definitely would be. He wouldn't let her go again. "What the hell happened to you, Letty? I thought you were dead."

"I was dead." She bit out. "Every minute of every day. And not just after that cabrón tried barbecuing me."

Her words held no pretense. He knew she was referring to the Dominican Republic, to her waking up alone next to a cold, empty space of bed. To him breaking the one promise that had meant the most to her.

"I did it to protect you."

She barks out a laugh, wipes her hands on her pants and stands up to her full height. Her classic fight mode. Letty's harsh voice drags him from the memories, her snarl all-too-familiar. "Bullshit, Dom. It was all about you. You didn't want to deal with the guilt and you didn't want me on your conscious like I was some fucking responsibility or some shit. But it wasn't your choice to make, it was mine, and you took that away from me."

He doesn't know what to say to her. They were infamous back in LA - god, just the thought of LA hurts just a little bit - for fights. Breakables tucked away and spat for the walls and doors bound to be damaged by a particularly nasty one. Their rows were almost legendary, and when they were teenagers, small crowds used to gather as stealthily as they could just to watch Letty bust his balls. After they'd officially been together, Mia had been dead-set on crowd control, mostly because she didn't like the idea of half their neighborhood watching her brother and her best friend practically dry hump each other now, he is fairly certain nothing he says can make this better. He needs to let her be pissed, ride it out, and hope that when she comes out the other side she'd be his.

"I'm sorry." He knows it won't help, but he says it anyways.

"Me too." It's a sad, deep sigh she releases. She shuts down at his attempts at eye contact, leans back against her car a little more.

"You didn't answer me." He says gruffly, "How the hell'd you get mixed up with this shit?"

She tries to laugh it off. "Had to do somethin' with all my free time as a ghost, right?"

"Letty." Scolds her now, dips his head down to be a little bit more eye level with her. He used to do it when he was acting like a condescending dick, a reflex just like Letty's was her middle finger or a well-executed eye roll. And it pisses her off.

"The fuck you want me to say, Dom? I made my choices and I've stuck my them."

He refuses to budge, ignores her dig at him. "But this? This shit ain't you."

She shakes her head, kicks up some dirt and pebble with her boots. "You don't know me anymore. A lot has changed."

"Bullshit." He challenges her. "You turn the water off when you shower because when you lived in the Dominican Republic as a kid, the water was so cold it made your head hurt. Your favorite beer is Presidente, but you'd drink us out of Corona anyways. You hate berry flavored anything. You're terrified of ladybugs. Can eat two huge animal style burgers in one sitting and still have room for dessert, which you have to have after every meal. You sleep on your stomach and claim to sleep on the left side even though usually you take the middle. And you still miss your mom every day." He makes sure her eyes are on his as he opens his hand, the chain attached to his finger falling down and clanging. Dog tags.

Her eyes widen as her hand slowly reaches out for them. "Where did you-"

Eyes stay trained on hers and his voice goes as soft as he can make it with the adrenaline still pumping through his body. "They were in the car. It was how Mia identified your body."

"Not my body." She says it reflexively, almost like a mantra, as if she'd told herself for weeks that the coffin and headstone she'd seen pictures of weren't hers, that she was alive and breathing and not in the same cemetery that Anthony Toretto was buried in.

"Obviously." He tries not to snark, but he says it anyways, and she lets it go in favor of reaching out for the tags. She closes her fingers around the ball chain, moving to take it away, but his hand clamps down over hers.

"Dom." She says haltingly, looking down at their joined hands as he runs his thumb along her knuckles, strokes her smallest finger gently.

"Come back with me."

She looks down, brushes her thumb over the embossed name on the tags. Ortiz, M C. "Dominic, how many ways to I have to say no before it gets through your big bald head?"

"What are you so goddamn afraid of?" He fires right back at her. "We can protect you."

"Dom, no." She bites out forcefully, yanking her hand back and the chain with it. Dom winces as it - and her hand - is ripped from his tight grasp. "You need to stay the hell away from all of this. This is my turn."

He's glaring at her now, every stubborn inch of her as she tries to stare him down and talk him in circles. "You're outta your goddamn mind if you think I'm letting you go again."

"You're not letting me do anything. I'm leaving this time."

"The hell you are. I don't need protecting." He shouts, his hand coming to the back of his neck as he appreciates the irony only a second too late. And by the incredulous look on her face, she didn't miss it either.

"Neither did I." She shoots back, her hand twitches, each finger stretches and curls and for a second he's not sure if she wants to punch him in the jaw or shoot him again. She obviously restrains herself and shoves her free hand back into her pocket instead. "And I wouldn't be in this mess if you'd have just fucking listened to me instead of acting like a fucking meatheaded gorilla. Ride or die, remember?" She says the last words mockingly, throws them back at him like they were the punchline to the joke that had become their lives.

"Letty, this has nothing to do with-"

"It has everything to do with it!" Letty's voice raises, it echoes in the night she drops back down to a low rasp and shakes her head. "You don't understand."

"Make me." He opens his arms out to either side. "I'm right here, baby."

He thinks she almost smiles at the endearment, but her face quickly drops and she turns indecisive. A few more glances at him from under her eyelashes and she sighs, dropping her head back to stare up at the stars above. "Owen worked for Braga, Dom. He was there the whole time."

"What?"

"He was there. At the races, at the club. I don't know how he tracked us down that day, but after I was blown from the car and Fenix thought I was dead," Her voice breaks off and she takes a ragged breath, still unable to completely remember the crash, but remembering the terror as she felt herself flipping through the air, the metal on the pavement, all intermingled with memories of another burning car and Dom's screams in her ear.

He's only a breath away from her now, thinks about touching her for a moment before deciding against it. He lowers his voice to a low murmur, lets her make the last move and lean lightly into him. "What happened, Letty?"

She turns her head on his chest, stares out beyond the bridge, beyond the city that was just another name in a long list of places that would never feel like home. "I woke up in his car. Somewhere in Mexico, a hospital that didn't ask questions about bulletholes and broken bones. And as soon as I was able, we were on a flight to London. I was so out of it that I didn't know what was happening." She sighs then, closes her eyes before forcing them open again to face the reality of her life beyond his arms. "And the next thing I knew, I was dead. To everyone that mattered. And he told me if I ever went back I'd be dead for real. And everyone I cared about…he showed me pictures. Of you, Mia, my abuela, even the goddamn buster. Targets over your faces. I didn't know what else to do."

"I killed Fenix." He doesn't know why he feels the need to tell her, blurt out what he'd done in her name so that maybe it would give her some piece of mind, knowledge that they weren't being hunted down like animals. That they were the hunters in this game. She pulls away from him then, takes a step back to look him dead in the eye.

She shakes her head slowly. "It's not just Fenix. Or Braga. Or whoever you guys have pissed off along the way. It's bigger than that, Dom, don't you get it?"

"Baby, just come with me." He begs now, and he doesn't even care. Something in her eyes scares him, makes him want nothing more than to throw her in the car behind him and drive her to safety, get her on the next flight to somewhere far away from where they were.

"You don't get it, Dom! I can't."

"What's he got over your head, huh? Why are you so scared?"

"I'm not scared, you fucker." She nearly screams at him, her face flushed with anger. "If I leave, you're dead. Mia's dead. Brian. Their baby. Everyone."

"Letty," he says softly, putting his arms out to attempt to calm her. It doesn't work, and she takes a few more steps back, furthering their distance even more. "We're taking them down. Don't worry about us."

"No one can take them down. Not even-," She gasps on what he can only define as a sob, composing herself quickly before continuing. "Not even you, you cocky bastard."

He half-smiles then, letting some of that old arrogance take over, hoping as a last resort that it would bring her back to him. "Not just me, I got the best team in the world behind me."

The dog tags in her hand made an indent, and she rubs at it absently as she slides it into her pocket. He notices then she has another chain around her neck, disappearing underneath the fabric of her wifebeater

She raises her head to stare him down, her eyes hard, almost begging him to understand. "Yeah, they ruthless killers? They glance twice at a person before putting a bullet straight through their skull? A perfect stranger who'd never done shit to them but glance their way?" Her voice is low, a hoarse rasp he'd fell in love with so many years ago. The tiny girl with the big mouth and the scratchy little voice. God, how he wished he could go back and hold on and never let go. He's brought back to the present, however, as she is spurred on by his silence. "Because that's what we are. We get just once glace at that team of yours, and we use the second to fire."

He shakes his head firmly. "But it's not you."

"I shot you, didn't I?"

"No, don't pull that shit, Letty. I knew exactly what you were doing. You didn't want me there so you made me leave and-,"

The Imperial Death March stops him mid-sentence, Letty rolls her eyes as she yanks her phone from her pocket and swipes across the screen. "Yeah?" Pause. "No, she ain't with me. You know her, you check all the toilets in the club?" Another pause, and she bit her lip before nodding to herself. "Okay, on my way."

He moves to speak but she silences him with her hand, pressing another button and putting the phone back up to her ear. Whoever answers is loud enough he can hear them, and Letty winces before she quickly turns down the volume.

"Vegh." She waits for a response, rolls her eyes as whatever Vegh tells her clearly irritates her. "No, I don't give a shit who you're fucking, get your ass to the garage now."

"Letty," he's begging her now, ignoring her heated look as she quickly ends the call. "If you're caught with them, I can't promise you won't get hurt."

She snorts, jams the phone back into her pocket and rolls her eyes. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't just up and leave."

"Why? What is so important?"

Letty freezes for a moment before shaking her head, taking a few steps and raising her arm towards the door handle.

"No," Dom lunges for her arm and barely catches her, pulls her reluctant form back to him. "What aren't you telling me?"

Struggling, she digs her nails into his hand, feels the tears she'd pushed down earlier resurface as he refuses to budge. "Dom, let me go."

"No." He damn near growls, crowding her against her car and putting his free hand on her cheek, tilting her head back to look at him.

Her mouth opens and closes a few times, more tears rolling as she brings her hands to his chest, digs the heels in. "God damn it, Dom!" She gasps out, glaring at him through her watery eyes as she presses against him with all of her strength. "I was fucking pregnant, okay?"

His arm drops in shock and she seizes the opportunity to back away. Before he can even move to catch her again, she's already inside the Interceptor and revving the engine, disappearing into the night and leaving the stunned man in her wake.

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