Not for you (FIN)

Images raced to my mind. Dom, sitting on his trailer, crying; me stretching my hand out to touch his shoulder. Dom looking at me, arms crossed, while I was kneeling in the desert. Him staring at me, because I kept the water for my car in the fridge. Winking at me when finishing a race, driving by. Dom on Houston Beach, running towards me, laughing; the sun in his back; coming for me the night I had won the GTO and many more images which, all of a sudden, blurred into one single image: Dom looking at me.

Darkness.

I was dreaming. It was a very pleasant dream about one of the last days in New York, when Dom and I had walked around the lake. It was also a strange dream, though. Bits and pieces of conversation seemed to drop into it from time to time, like through a thick, muffling curtain; but those were no conversations in which I had participated, as far as I could think.

"-losing her-"

"We have a heartbeat-"

"- and drove straight into the house-"

"-took you so long anyway?"

"-she made him do wha-"

"- wanted him to know that she-"

"- think we should try and repair-"

"...get the fuck out of here!"


Strange. That last voice was Dom's, some of them I couldn't place, and others, as strange as it might sound, reminded me of Michael.

Then there was this strange sound, like a breathing machine, all the time.

What a strange dream.

Darkness. And another dream.

I found myself in the house, getting out of the car, staring from Verone to Dom, but where I had assumed him to stand was now another Verone, pointing the gun at me, shooting.

"No!" I tried to scream and jump away, but didn't manage. There was something in my neck that didn't allow this.

"Shhht, it's alright. Lay down, sleep."

I looked around to find that it was obviously late at night; I was in a bed and the thing in my throat was... something attached to a machine nearby. That thing was attached to my mouth with straps that ran around my head, but to my own surprise, the pressure on my face didn't scare me.

"Lie down." The voice said.

I tried to find the source of that voice. It had to be somewhere at the end of the hands that were still trying to pin my shoulders down... But I was too tired to...

Darkness.

Another one of those strange dreams.

This time I was sitting on top of my trailer at Racewars, the wind carrying over what seemed to be conversations from other camps. Strange enough, one of the voices always seemed to be Dom's.

"-will freak with that tube in her-"

"-you don't take that thing out, I'll do it myself-"

"-was awake, I swear!"

"-nightmares are not unlikely, considering what-"

"-no medical reason why she doesn't wake up, so we assume it's-"


Something in my throat was tickling me. Did I catch a fly? I coughed. A short time later Dom sat at my side on the trailer, just like we were sitting in that first night And he looked at me.

"You need to wake up." He said, with a voice more soft than I was used to. "Please... wake up."

"I'm awake, don't worry." I breathed. It was no more than breathing out, the words just formed by my lips.

Something touched my face. In my dream it was a silk shawl flying through the warm summer air at Racewars. It felt nice... its touch so light on my cheek.

"Can't believe this, she's smiling." A voice from somewhere beneath the trailer said. I frowned. Michael?

"We should catch this shawl, it's a pity something like this is flying around..." I tried to say, but surprisingly, my own voice was so rasp that I didn't recognize it.

I caught the shawl with my hand, it was still touching my face. Strange, a silk shawl so thick and warm. Holding it tight to my face, I fell asleep.

I was sitting in the house again, back to the wall, feet on the ground, holding my ribs, but the pain was gone. Dom was looking at me, my face in his hand. The sun was shining through the opened front door, but instead of the scene I saw there last time, I was looking at a field filled with flowers.

I smiled at him.

"Love you, always did, ever since that first night at Racewars." I whispered, more than surprised that I managed. "Just too stupid and stubborn to say it."

"I know." He said, smiling back. "Love you too."

"Flowers are beautiful." I said, noticing with a frown that the field had grown into the house, right to my feet.

"Some are from Vince, others from Roman, then there's this bouquet from Sway and Memphis..."

"They planted this field of flowers?" I said, dizzy.

"Yes, they all planted a field of flowers for you, baby." He said, a tear rolling down his cheek.

"Nice..." I said, drifting back to sleep.

Then I found myself standing before the house, seeing my car crashing into it. A rain of wood and metal pieces went down around me, the cooler at the torn-up front giving a sharp hiss, throwing thick clouds of heated steam.
"Years of work, fifteen years of ownership, all destroyed in the blink of an eye." I muttered.

"And thoroughly so. But thank you." Said Dom's voice from somewhere beside me.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He sat beside my bed, head on my pillow, one hand holding mine, his eyes closed.

Moment. Bed?

I looked around. Obviously, I was in a hospital bed. A slumped figure was sitting somewhere by my feet behind a table with flowers, I couldn't recognize him as the head was buried between his pulled up knees. But Dom... I looked back at him.

"Thank you for what?"

"For crashing your-" He looked up, and his eyes grew wide. "You're awake?"

From somewhere at the end of my bed came a muffled noise. I turned and saw Michael looking up. "Wurde auch Zeit!" He grumbled in German.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I said, in English, as I usually found it not very polite to talk German in front of people who couldn't.

"Waiting for you to finally wake up?!?" Michael said, getting up and walking to the other side of the bed. "How are you?"

"Fine, except that my throat feels as if I had swallowed a box of nails. What the hell happened?"

"Verone shot you when we were wrestling for the gun."

"I think I remember that. What about them nails?" I reached up to massage my throat.

"Oh, you had a breathing tube in there for almost two weeks." Dom said.

"I what? Could one of you please explain to me what happened after Dom carried me out of the house? That's the last thing I remember... but I had some strange dreams."

"The bullet went straight into your lung. It wasn't really funny. Just before the ambulance had arrived, you were choking on your own blood, and a lot of it." Said Dom.

"You went into cardiac arrest several times." Michael said. "They had put you into a coma, and then, after some days, you wouldn't wake up. You obviously had some dreams.. about... shawls... and flowers, as it seems."

"Oh. I spoke?" I said.

"And how!" Dom replied.

"Embarrassing," I said, trying to pull up the blanket to my face. "I'm tired."

"You're tired? That's strange; you just slept six weeks." Michael smiled.

"I WHAT?"

"You slept six weeks in one piece. Not even touching your face would wake you up." Dom said.

A strange kind of feeling crept up my back. I suddenly remembered how I had placed his hand on my face when I was...

"I almost died." I said. "And you threatened to kill me if I would!"

"Who said Dom was logical?" Grinned Michael, making me look at him in amazement.

"Since when do you know him so well?"

"Since we know each other for some time and talked the shit over." Dom said.

"And since when are you into talking shit over?" I asked.

"Ever since you taught me." Dom answered, smiling, touching my face with his thumb, which, all of a sudden, held nothing to fear for me.

I couldn't help but look at Michael. He just smiled. "Seems like you found someone to get over your phobia?"

"Seems so, yes."

"I'm happy for you - for you both, actually. Oh, and by the way... you were right when you said I didn't know him. Now I do." He turned, still smiling; took his jacket and walked to the door. "I better go now, spreading the news and do a little more work."

"What are you working on?" I asked, but the door had already closed.

"Surprise," Smiled Dom, "and I won't spoil it."

It just couldn't be something for my car this time. I had seen it, twice even; it was a wreck, a ball of twisted metal that would never roll again, probably still stuck in the front of that house. What did Michael work on?

Suddenly I remembered something.

"Dom..." I started, looking at him.

"Yes?"

"I had a strange dream..."

"Many of them, yes."

"It was funny. In one of them, I told you I love you."

"I know. And I told you I love you too, you remember this?"

"That wasn't a dream?"

"It wasn't." He considered for a moment. "Did you mean it?"

"You should know me, I never say anything I don't mean." I smiled.

"And what exactly does that mean?"

"That I love you. Want to be with you. Talk to you. Cry with you. Laugh with you. Walk with you. Touch you. Make love to you."

"Good plan." He said.

I sighed. "Unfortunately I'll have to leave the country in a few months, you remember that?"

"We'll see." He smiled.

"What do you mean?"

"You just sleep, get healthy, back on your feet again. I want to take you home with me."

"Home as in - into my trailer?"

"Sleep, baby. Sleep." He kissed my forehead and pulled the coverlet to my shoulders.