Subsequential

Returning to work was a blessing. ‘Take as much time as you need’ had actually meant ‘get back as soon as possible’. At least that’s what Carra needed.

Seeing people and dealing with problems that weren’t her own was exactly what she needed.

She woke up looking forward to getting out of the house. The time she did spend there was spent wandering through the empty rooms looking for anything to do, or doing as much as she could to take her mind off of being alone.

She’d been alone before Leon. Had lived in this big beautiful house alone, and quite content. Now every room just needed something more in it. Somebody.

Signs of him remained. The scuffs on the table where he’d set his boots. The nicks in the counter where he’d refused to use a cutting board. The blue streak down the laundry room wall. She still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to spill half a jug of detergent.

They’d had separate bathrooms, but had often met in the others’ doorway to chat about their day or get in some good gropes before bed. She hadn’t been able to take down his bathroom stuff. Razors and toothbrush. Shampoo and cologne. His cologne…

She’d sprayed his pillow. It had been to help her feel less lonely, but had backfired. Instead she’d spent the night clutching that pillow and crying for him.

The bedroom was where she missed him most.

Huge house, lots of things to do, but they’d spent the most time in their bedroom. Doing unmentionable things in the bed. Even more unmentionable things in the hot tub off their bathrooms. Snuggled together in the big divan before the television. Or just lying in bed chatting, and snuggling.

Leon had been an incorrigible snuggler. At first she’d thought his constant ‘hands-on’ was just to verify that she was there, that they truly were together. But either it was just part of him or he’d gotten addicted in those first few months. He was constantly touching her. Not always in a groping fashion, but more times than not it was. Now she just missed him. Bending over to get a dish from the cabinet she half expected for him come up behind her. Or rolling over in bed to find no one there. Or just holding hands.

Weeks passed. ‘Time will heal’ wasn’t true. He was gone and she was as empty as the house.

When it got to be too much she went to see him. ‘Loved eternally, in this life and into the next.’ She’d chosen the epitaph. His stone was simple, no engraved flowers or whatnot. He’d said that much about it, but he’d told her to choose the words.

Sod had been placed back over the tiny mound of dirt. Holders were there for flowers but she removed them. Leon wasn’t a flowers guy. The things he had been into didn’t seem appropriate on a grave so instead she set a picture of them together.

Unlike the rest of Toretto’s team, Leon had cleaned up well. Yeah, he’d had her helping hand, but she’d never forced it. He’d wanted, or needed to change and she’d come along at just the right time.

They’d seen their relationship as destined, their families and friends had seen it as devastating. Guess they’d all got what they wanted.

Her parents hadn’t wanted her with the ‘greaser’. His hadn’t liked the changes he’d undergone after they met. They hadn’t been the only ones to not like that.

She’d gone with him to Toretto’s once. It was just after all the trouble, just after Brian had gone away. Leon hadn’t encouraged her to go, but she’d wanted to be friends with his friends. He talked about them so much, especially Dom.

Dom. Carra had met Dom and had seen two things at once. First was the most obvious. Dom was an egotistical male that was used to getting anything he wanted. Good-looking? Definitely. Good-hearted? Not at all. He’d inspected her like fruit on a stand, and she had considered what she'd do if he decided to handle the product as part of the inspection. Second was a little less obvious, and much more complicated. Leon idolized Dom, respected him, and resented him. He’d watched the perusal his supposed friend was giving his girl, all the time with a half hopeful, half scared look on his face. She got the impression that he wanted Dom to approve of her, but not approve so much that she’d be on his arm next time they met.

Carra had interrupted his assessment. She’d smiled, not at all sincere and turned her back on him. “Nice to meet you, but Leon was just going to get me a drink.”

She’d seen the utter shock on both men’s faces. Cool disbelief from Dom, admiration from Leon.

They’d left and she’d never gone back. Leon had though. But Dom’s less than receptive attitude toward her or anything to do with her made each day worse.

Later the changes in Leon became more distinct. He dressed better, spoke better, showered regularly, and came straight home after work. When the tension got to be too much he’d changed jobs, finding something closer, and more dependable. But still he’d gone to see them.

The team didn’t attend the wedding, and she couldn’t have been more pleased, or more sad. Leon had wanted them there and it hurt him to have them stay away.

She never heard how the visits went after that, but they became less and less. Down from once a week to once a month, to not at all in the two months before the accident.

Racers crashed. It wasn’t a newsflash when it happened. It was expected. Pro, drag, Nascar, street. Everywhere they were racing they were crashing.

Carra hadn’t encouraged him to stop. Never told him that he couldn’t do it. He loved it and she wasn’t going to be responsible for taking that away. Especially when she already felt responsible for taking him from the life he’d had. He told her that it had been his decision, how his life was better with her, and how he was thankful that she’d been there for him. And while she knew he wasn’t lying, she knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth. No one could lose friends they’d been that close with and feel nothing.

He did stop racing, on the street anyway. He went to the track on occasion, even taking his car. Pay to drive, legally. It didn’t have the same excitement of street racing, but he seemed more content after.

Then Dom had called. She’d answered the phone. He hadn’t introduced himself but she’d known it was him. Leon got on the phone and had left in a matter of minutes. He’d raced off to help a friend who hadn’t been there to support him.

She’d gotten the call at midnight. Up and waiting, and starting to worry. Mia called. There’d been an accident. Leon was in the hospital. Carra hadn’t been overly surprised.

He’d been alert and apologetic. She’d shushed him, only wanting to make sure he was okay. And he had been, in appearance. Then his vitals had dropped.

Rushed into surgery, they’d repaired torn tissue and a collapsed lung, and stopped several of the worse internal bleedings.

Two days he’d been out. She never left him, and the team never came to see him. Mia came, saying they were thinking of him, but for their safety they were laying low. Carra hoped they got caught at whatever they were doing now. Prison seemed a just reward for abandoning Leon here.

He’d come out of it finally. Weak, but alert. Just in time for the absent team to show up. Carra had stood back and let them raucously tell him how they’d never been worried. They’d known he was just livin’ it up in a bed with all these nurses. She didn’t speak to them, and Dom seemed the only one to notice.

As they left he tried to speak to her but she’d walked away. She didn’t need anything from him.

Nearly two weeks in the hospital, and they were ready to release him. Leon was more than ready to go home. They were walking the halls the night before his release, getting him up and exercising, when he fell.

Tests showed that infection had set in from a minor puncture wound that had already healed over. Surgery again. Now they weren’t repairing, they were cutting away. Liver mostly gone. A foot or two of intestine. One kidney out completely, and the other refused to work. Unconscious and on dialysis.

Carra had sat with him. Always sitting, or getting out of the way, but she never left.

Dom had come that night. They hadn’t been told yet about the new turn for the worse. He was supposed to be leaving the next day. Dom came to the door, only to stop when he saw Leon’s condition. She’d stared at him, openly challenging him to try to say a damn word. But he hadn’t. The coward had dropped his gaze and walked away.

The team came back a couple times. Dom a few more times alone. But Leon never improved. He was conscious some, but in a lot of pain. The dialysis was making him sick. The pain medicine was making him sleep. His weight dropped forty or so pounds in two weeks. He got weaker, and sicker. His body just wouldn’t keep fighting, and he’d accepted it.

He made her help him get his will written. A lawyer came to officiate it. Then he asked her to leave a few times when he was at his best to write his letters. He only wrote two.

Every day he seemed surprised to still be alive, and every day he got worse. Sometimes a whole day would go by and he wouldn’t rise from his drugged stupor enough to be coherent. During his good times they did the things he wanted. They bought graves, side by side, over the internet. Headstone chosen, service planned. She was half expecting him to order invitations.

She knew the day he was leaving her. He’d asked for a soda. Just a stupid cola, and she’d gone to get one. He was sitting up when she got back. It was the first time she’d seen that in nearly two weeks. She’d sat beside him, and could smell that he’d used cologne and mouthwash while she’d been gone.

He’d held her and told her he loved her. And he told her he was sorry. She could see he was hurting, had probably skipped meds to be so alert. She’d cried when he asked her to leave, and refused.

She’d helped him lie down again, and he’d closed his eyes and just like that he was gone. The nurses shoved her back when they came in to try to revive him, but there wasn’t much left to revive. She’d left then finally, unable to watch them torture his body.

It had been six weeks to the day of the accident.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v111/chriscent/Dom/th_Leon-cut.jpg