Chapter Text
Letty was groggy, uncomfortable, and vaguely aware she was moving very fast. And she was fucking pissed. This was not how the plan was supposed to go, and if she could get out of the cuffs locked at an awkward angle behind her back, she just might conveniently forget any and all promises she’d made to Mara about leaving Shaw to her.
* * *
Shaw knew someone was tailing him from the moment he left his warehouse, but he didn’t know who or how until he caught a flash of white and blue as he swerved onto the freeway.
“Snow Queen.” he spat the moniker out like a curse.
“Repeat, boss.” Kay’s raspy voice cut through.
Shaw spoke more clearly so his team could hear him through the comms, “The Snow Queen seems to be following us.”
“Want me to shake her?”
“If you would be so kind.”
* * *
Mara had reached the point where she was mentally tagging who each comment came from, but not doing much in the way of responding to any of them.
“Street scene is clearing.” Rome.
“Just hit the freeway.” Bri.
“Kay just broke out of Shaw’s formation. Falling back toward you, Mara.” Tej.
“Shit!” Mara cursed.
“Two minutes behind you. Three tops.” Bri.
“Hold tight, Ara. We’re coming, babe.” Dom.
Mara huffed out some of her pent-up frustration in a quick breath then grinned. With Dom at her back, Shaw didn’t stand a chance.
* * *
Kay glided smoothly out of her position at Shaw’s flank. Shaw’s cars were often flashy, but Kay herself kept it simple and subtle. Her black Corvette was nice enough to turn heads, but looked common enough that no one paid attention for more than a moment. Her engine, on the other hand, was anything but simple and subtle. She wasn’t surprised that the Snow Queen noticed her. She wasn’t surprised that the Snow Queen matched her pace, by all appearances giving up on chasing Shaw. Kay knew better. The Snow Queen was up to something. She wasn’t surprised when the Snow Queen revved and shot forward a bit, testing Kay. Kay obliged and followed. She was a little surprised that the Snow Queen followed her course off the interstate, up an overpass, and back down onto a service road.
Kay quickly decided that while the game of cat and mouse was all good fun, she had better things to be doing. She hit a button on her steering wheel and watched with a grim sort of satisfaction as the small metal disk fell from her undercarriage and went sliding toward the Snow Queen.
She was definitely surprised when Snow Queen’s driving style suddenly morphed into something completely different – into something completely familiar. Snow Queen hit the brakes even as she shifted gears in a way that made Kay cringe, because she knew it had to be just grinding the gears, but Snow Queen’s back tire hit the disk just right and it went flying into the copse of trees off the road as she slammed to a stop, parallel with Kay. It was a distinct move that Kay had only seen once before in her life, and despite numerous drivers efforts, had never seen duplicated, and her gut clenched even as the thought crossed her mind.
Kay raised her hand frantically to her ear, “Shaw. It’s Mara. The Snow Queen is Mara.”
She heard only static in response.
“Shaw?!”
“Shaw, answer me damn it.”
More static, then a familiar smooth voice, “Jammed your signal. You’re S.O.L. if I get to him before you. Catch me if you can.” She barely caught Mara’s grin as she shot past her and back toward the highway, completely unconcerned as Kay’s bomb went off and shrouded the little grove of trees in flames.
Kay cursed and followed.
* * *
Shaw kept his eyes on the road, save for the occasional glance in his rearview at Letty cuffed and prone across his back seat. His mind raced through contingency after contingency. Then his train of thought was interrupted by Kay’s offer to shake her and he gave the affirmative even as he settled on a plan. The race tonight would, at the very least, provide a bit of cover, and at best provide a worthy distraction for the Snow Queen.
* * *
“Please tell me you’ve still got eyes on him.” Mara practically pleaded as she alternately kept her eyes on the road in front of her and Kay’s Corvette in the rear-view.
“About a quarter mile behind him. You were right. Looks like he’s heading toward the races.” Brian answered her.
* * *
Letty barely held back a grunt of pain as Shaw slammed his brakes and cursed. But she took advantage of the fact that her hands were free and she bailed out the passenger side door in a hail of bullets and more cursing.
* * *
Shaw flew around the corner and immediately slammed his brake to the floorboard. The race was here tonight. John had confirmed it. But here was deserted and for a brief moment his mind went uncharacteristically blank before jumping back to life and running through a list of who the hell could manage to fuck with him this badly. He was distracted only by a sudden movement in the backseat as the door flew open and Letty dove out. He was dispassionately impressed as she just ran toward cover without looking back or flinching as he unloaded his handgun toward her retreating form.
* * *
The drive from the warehouse to the abandoned race scene was kind of blur of split attention between Shaw and Letty, Mara and Kay, and just driving in Dom’s mind. Everything came back into focus as he slid around the corner to see Letty running for cover and Shaw standing half out of his car and shooting at her. Dom shot past Shaw’s still car and screeched to a stop between Shaw and Letty even as Brian shot past Dom and flung open a door for Letty to dive into.
“She’s been hit!” Brian’s voice came frantically across the comms as Shaw stopped shooting.
“Get her to a hospital. Now.” Mara bit back.
* * *
Mara’s vision blurred at Bri’s declaration that Letty had been hit, but she forced herself to focus and offered a brief nod that he probably couldn’t see as she shot past him and brought her car to a stop off to the side somewhere between Dom and Shaw. She took a final fortifying breath and opened her door, vaguely aware of more cars pulling in around them.
* * *
Shaw’s breath caught as he watched the elusive Snow Queen’s door open. Black motorcycle boots mostly covered by ripped denim up long legs to a form fitting vintage Dodge shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow covered the figure that stepped out. As his eyes traveled the rest of the way up to blonde tresses in a messy braid and eyes bluer than a clear sky, Shaw’s blood ran cold and the word escaped in a breath before he could stop it or register that her gun was pointed unerringly at his chest, “Mara.”
She inclined her head tersely, beautiful eyes as cold as the ice of her new moniker, "Alexander.”
Shaw slowly took in Toretto in front of him, Mara his right with Kay behind her. O’Conner’s taillights were fading in the distance, and he heard Selena and Victor’s engines idle to a stop behind him. He threw his head back and laughed. Mara raised a single brow at him coolly.
“Mara, Mara, Mara.” he shook his head condescendingly, “I should have known. You were, after all, the only person to ever actually pull anything over on me. I suppose it was too much to hope that there could be another even half as intelligent.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Alexander.”
“Even if I tell you I love you more for it all?”
“She’s not interested.” Dom growled before she could respond.
Shaw darted a calculating gaze between them, another realization dawning, “Oh my. No wonder Miss Ortiz was so… prickly.”
Mara scoffed, but offered no other response. Dom simply glared.
“I’ll make you the only once, so consider it carefully, my dear.”
Mara remained silent.
“Shoot Mr. Toretto, return what you took, and return to my side. We’ll let this all be water under the bridge.”
* * *
It was Mara’s turn to laugh.
Shaw looked at her incredulously, clearly thrown off balance, but fighting to maintain his cool, “Something funny?”
Mara smirked, “You actually seem to think that offer is going to work.”
Shaw raised his arms out to the sides, “Look around you! You are outmanned and outgunned. Surely you don’t think the two of you can get away from four of us.”
Mara’s smirk darkened, “I’ve been two steps ahead of you since day one. You don’t honestly think you have the advantage right now, do you?”
“Kay, shoot her.” Shaw commanded, as if to prove a point.
A shot rang out.
* * *
Kay raised her gun from her side and took aim. She pulled the trigger. Then felt pain.
* * *
Mara turned in time to see Kay fall and watch Rona step out of the shadows with her gun raised steadily in the mechanic’s direction. She nodded in the cop’s direction before turning back to Shaw and retraining her own gun on the man. Later, Mara was never quite sure precisely what started the chaos that followed; the memories were adrenaline-fueled and fuzzy.
Shaw shouted some order and suddenly Selena was heading toward while Shaw and Victor headed toward Dom. Before Victor could make his way too far forward, a Hummer flew onto the street, smashing Victor’s car moments before Hobbs stepped out of it. Elena jumped out of the other side and sprinted toward Selena. Mara was pretty sure that the fight between Victor and Hobbs would have been one of epic proportions if Victor hadn’t already been down an arm. Elena and Mara tag teamed Selena, and in the end, Mara was grateful for it, because she wasn’t certain she could have handled that level on unpredictable insanity on her own. As Elena cuffed Selena none too gently, Mara turned just in time to see Hobbs final right hook drop Victor into a crumpled heap. Rona was crouched over Kay’s body, checking for a pulse, gun still in hand.
And Shaw was raising a tire iron over his head with Dom at his feet. Mara dove for the gun she’d dropped in the scuffle with Selena. She vaguely registered an intense pain in the general region of her ribs, but the adrenaline allowed her to push it aside. She took aim and pulled the trigger. Shaw turned toward her, shock clear on his features, as the blood blossomed across his chest and he fell to the ground.
Mara’s last thought before succumbing to pain and the darkness fighting toward the edges of her vision was that the whole thing felt really anticlimactic.
* * *
Mara woke up in a hospital two days later with Letty in the bed to her left and Dom in the bed to her right. Both were as pissed off as she was about being in a hospital at all, but all were equally grateful to have been placed in the same room. Even more than they were pissed off, the hospital staff was tense and frustrated in response to the rough and tumble clan of racers that had taken up residence in the closest waiting room.
Bri was the one to finally explain to her what went down, in a straight-forward way reserved for Mara alone, “You shot Shaw, he’s dead. Rona shot Kay, she’s dead. Rona is on suspension pending investigation. Selena, Victor, Devon, and John are all in lock-up for their foreseeable futures. Julius got two to five. Jamal decided to hang out in Miami. Satchel’s a ghost, not even Tej can find the kid. Your record is cleared, we’re all clear, we’re all free, and we’re all alive. I miss anything?”
Mara shook her head but drew her brows together.
“What?” Brian insisted.
Mara shrugged, then winced as the motion pulled at the stitched hole in her side, “It all just feels… I don’t know. Less dramatic than it should have been?”
Brian laughed, “Tej and Sean technically died, you and Letty got shot, Dom got the shit beat out of him, and you shot the bastard who ruined your life. How much more dramatic do you want?”
Mara offered another small shrug.
Brian rolled his eyes, “You need anything else?”
Mara grumbled something about getting out of the fucking petri dish, and Bri just laughed, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and breezed out of the room.
* * *
Three days later, Mara found herself gingerly climbing into an SUV that she was pretty sure Tej had bought solely for the purpose of transferring three of the most impossible patients on the planet back home where they could reign down hell on family instead of innocent medical personnel.
* * *
Five days later, Mara woke up with her head on Dom’s chest and his eyes staring down at her.
“I know my bedhead’s not that interesting, Toretto. What?” she grumbled.
His responding chuckle rumbled through her, “Nothing.”
“You’re a shitty liar.” she mumbled.
She felt him still, “I almost lost you.”
She shrugged, “And I almost lost you.”
He tensed.
Before he could start yelling she struggled up to look him in the eye, “This is our life, Dom. It isn’t always pretty. But it’s also not always going to be so damn ugly. The point is that it’s ours, and it isn’t going to change, so just own it.”
He nodded slowly. “We own it.”
“We own it.”
* * *
Exactly one week after the showdown with Shaw, Mara was sitting on the porch with Sean and Jack. Rona walked up the steps and sat down on the floor in front of Mara, thoughtfully watching Sean and Jack playing with model cars on the other end of the porch.
After a few minutes she quietly offered, “Got the results of the internal investigation.”
“And?” Mara asked.
“Turns out your old pal Carte was our leak.”
Mara barked out an undignified sound somewhat resembling laughter then groaned, “Why is that not surprising?”
Rona shrugged.
“What else?” Mara asked gently.
“I was cleared.”
“But?”
“But I don’t know if I can stay. Being a cop… it was always more about proving something than actually wanting to do it. After this… I just don’t know. But I don’t know what else to do.”
Mara smiled at her, “Dinner’s at six on Sundays, how about we start there?”
After a moment, Rona smiled back, “Got a beer preference?”
Mara laughed, “Bring anything but Corona, and Dom’ll kick your ass to the curb so fast your head spins.”
* * *
Mara leaned back into Dom and sighed contentedly. She was fucking exhausted – apparently healing from a gut shot took a lot out of a girl
“What are you thinking?” Dom asked quietly.
She suppressed a shiver as his voice rumbled through her. Her eyes roamed over her family. Brian sat at the other end of the table with Mia in his lap as he bickered with Rome about something and Tej sat back laughing at them both. Twinkie had drawn Jack duty and was currently making sure the toddler didn’t drown himself in the six inch plastic pool. Sean and Rona sat on the back steps as Sean animatedly told a story that Mara recognized from his hand gestures as one of the stunts he had pulled in Tokyo. Letty sat gingerly in a chair near the porch, observing the proceedings in a similar manner as Mara.
Mara sagged further back against Dom, “It’s good to see my family happy. It’s good to be home.”