The Other O'Conner [HIATUS]

Chapter Ten

T E N

'You want a day job?'

- Roman Pearce

Zack decided to work on his ruined car to pass the time at night and not have to deal with the nightmares. It never changed how he felt but he felt a little bit better.

"You look... at peace," Mia told him one morning as she brought him a cup of coffee and some breakfast.

He didn't know what it meant for her but he knew that it meant he was slowly starting to let go of all the hurt and loss he'd managed to feel every since Letty's death.

"I'm just throwing myself into this so I won't need to be saved like Brian always seems to think."

"You've been my hero on more than one occasion."

"Not the same, Mia. I never had to protect you because you are pretty damn good at it yourself," Zack admitted just wanting to let her know that she was stronger than Dom or Brian sometimes gave her credit for.

"Well the same goes for you," she smirked knowing she had gotten her point across even if the words had come from Zack himself.

He actually smiled at her words before getting back to fixing on his car.

-

Later that day, Zack found himself gearing up to go out on a "ride" with Dom and the guys.

They needed invisible cars and what better than the cars that would possibly be chasing them throughout the streets as they make their getaway with a big fully loaded safe.

He climbed the fence and checked the cars deciding that they would need two of each and with Dom and Brian taking the other cars it would make perfect sense.

"We've got to keep the gate unlocked. When this goes down, we have to be close by to slow them up a bit," Zack volunteered as he pointed to the map of the streets. There were two easily busy streets surrounding the station so he wanted to position most of the guys around to throw off the police and give Dom and Brian their window. "Gisele's going to come in here so Roman and I need to push them back as far as we can."

"Sounds about right. This has to work especially with that small window of time. Throwing off the police will give us an advantage."

"What about Hobbs?"

"We'll handle it," Dom stated in finality knowing the man had yet to give up on arresting them even going as far as to put the rest of the team on the blacklist.

-

Mia and Zack strolled through the streets as he carried bags of food that she had bought and admired the streets full of life. He wanted some of those fruit that were being carved into flowers with chili powder being sprinkled all on top of it.

"Hey, let's stop for a second. I want one of those and I've never really had a taste for exotic fruit but-"

"Give it a try. I'm not going to be near you because that chili powder is giving me a headache."

"Then we should go back," he sounded worried about her.

"No, no, eat your fruit. I'll be fine."