Fic: And You Welcomed Me (Fast & Furious, Mia gen, 10,700 words, General Audiences)

[rsadelle]

Summary: Mia makes herself a new family.

Notes: Happy Yuletide ilyena_sylph! I enjoyed writing this for you, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Title from Matthew 25:35: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me." Thanks to M and S for read-through and consulting services; any remaining errors are my own.


Story on AO3


In March, instead of a mortgage statement from the bank, Mia gets a visit from the FBI.

"Agent Parker," one of them says, both of them holding up their badges. "This is Agent Garcia. We'd like to ask you a few questions. May we come in?"

"No." Mia steps out onto the porch with them and closes the door behind herself. She folds her arms over her chest while she waits for them to start talking.

Agent Parker sounds like all the FBI agents, cops, and lawyers have at first, until they figure out she can't help them and doesn't want to anyway, when he asks, "Miss Toretto, can you tell us how you paid off your mortgage?"

That is absolutely not the direction Mia thought this conversation was going. "What are you talking about?"

"Two days ago a cashier's check drawn on a numbered account in the Caymans arrived at your bank to pay off the rest of the mortgage on this house." Agent Garcia hands her a piece of paper, a printout from the bank showing just what she said. It looks real. So did Brian.

Mia hands the paper back to her. "I don't know anything about it." She has plenty of practice remaining calm under pressure. They won't know that she doesn't know, but she has a lot of guesses, and knows what it probably means. If it's true.

"Miss Toretto," Agent Parker says, and it's early for him to start taking on the sharp tone they all use when they figure out she can't and won't help them find Dom, "when was the last time you spoke to your brother?"

Mia folds her arms over her chest again. "Like I've told every other agent who's come to see me, the last time I talked to Dom we were on the sidewalk," she jerks her chin toward the sidewalk behind them, "and Jesse was bleeding all over us. He and Officer O'Connor," she never calls him Brian out loud anymore, "left, and I haven't seen or heard from either one of them since." Until now, anyway, if the statement is real.

"Could your brother have paid the mortgage?" Agent Garcia asks.

The answer is yes, but, "I don't know," is true enough, and safer for everyone.

Agent Parker and Agent Garcia need better training because Mia can read everything on their faces when they look at each other and decide that she's not only unhelpful but incapable of helping.

Agent Parker hands over a card Mia's just going to throw away once they're gone. "Call us if you think of anything that might be helpful, anything at all, or if your brother contacts you."

Mia waits until they're off her porch before she goes into the house, and until they've driven away before she goes to the bank.

The teller at the counter hands her off to a loan officer who hands her off to the bank manager.

"We contacted the bank the check was drawn on," the manager says, hands folded in front of him on the desk. "It was a legitimate check. The funds have already cleared. The remitter was listed solely as a numbered account. Of course, those banks are used by people who don't want their identities to be revealed, so we couldn't find out who sent it."

Mia knows anyway.

The manager picks up a piece of paper from his desk and hands it to her. It's a copy of the same statement the FBI brought her. When Mia looks up, the manager is smiling at her. "Congratulations, Ms. Toretto. You now own your house."

Mia can't help the tears that prickle in her eyes. She and Dom own the house. Her family's gone, but doesn't have to leave her home. Dom made that happen.

She blinks back her reaction and says, "Thank you," to the manager, smiles at him when she shakes his hand. She holds her head high as she leaves the bank. The FBI is probably still watching her.

The church is always open for those who need to pray, and that's where Mia goes next. She lights a candle and kneels before Mary, her hands clasped together. She has no way to contact Dom, but she can kneel in the church she's attended her whole life and direct her litany of Thank you, thank you, thank you. to Mary and her Son. Then she prays. Holy Mary, please watch over my family and keep them safe. Please keep Dom, Letty, Vince, and Leon safe. Please take care of Jesse and find him a place in Heaven where he can build engines for eternity. Mia doesn't dare pray for her still living family to come home, but she can pray for their safety.

Mia stands slowly, easing out of the stiffness from kneeling for so long. Father Miguel is sitting in one of the pews.

"Hello, Mia," he says when she sits down next to him.

Mia looks up at the altar for a moment before she says, "Dom paid the mortgage on the house." Saying it out loud to someone else makes it even more real. Tears fill her eyes again, and this time she doesn't try to fight them. Father Miguel is her confessor and counselor; he knows as much of the story as she can tell anyone.

He sits, silent and comforting, next to her while she cries.

"It means he's safe," she says after she digs Kleenex out of her purse and dries her eyes enough that the furnishings of the church take on their defined shapes again.

"And he's thinking of you," Father Miguel says gently.

Mia nods. "Yeah," she says through another rush of tears. "I didn't know if he would."

Father Miguel puts a hand on her shoulder. "He's your brother, Mia. We all know how much he cares about you."

Dom rarely came to mass with her after Lompoc, but it was enough for Father Miguel to meet him a few times. Dom's overwhelming presence probably means other people from the neighborhood have also told Father Miguel stories about him.

"He could have paid it before." They're the only ones in the church; it's safe for her to tell him that much. Mia blinks back the rest of her tears. "I guess he thought he would always be here."

Father Miguel squeezes her shoulder. "We often take the certainty of our lives for granted."

Mia manages a slight smile. "I won't take owning the house for granted."

Father Miguel smiles at her. It's gentle, and reassuring, and it's why she goes to him for confession. "It's a gift. I'm sure you'll remember that."

Mia looks up at the altar, Christ on the cross above it. "I will." It's a promise to herself and to Dom as much as it is to Father Miguel and God.

*

Mia's been walking just barely on the right side of the thin line between keeping and losing the house. Dom paying off the mortgage changes all of that.

"Good news," Mia says when she goes into the garage on Saturday.

"What's that?" Benny, the mechanic she hired after Dom left, doesn't slide out from under the car he's working on. He doesn't have time to stop and chat with her if they're going to keep the garage open.

"I'm hiring another mechanic."

At that, Benny does slide out from under the car. "For real?"

Mia lets the wide, relieved smile cross her face. "For real."

"Good," Benny says. "We can use the help. You sure we're going to be able to swing that?" It's a casual question as Benny slides under the the car.

"Someone paid off the mortgage on the house." Mia knows it was Dom. Anyone who knows or knows about Dom will know it was Dom. As long as she doesn't confirm it for anyone, no one can tell the FBI it was Dom for sure.

Benny gives out a low whistle.

Mia taps a hand against the car's body. "I'm going to put up a sign and ask around, but if you know anyone looking for a job."

"I might," Benny says. "I'll think about it."

Benny doesn't, in the end, come up with anyone, but they find someone anyway. His name is Andrew and he comes in because he and his wife just moved into the house next to Mrs. Ruiz, who Mia sees at church every Sunday.

"They're a nice young couple," Mrs. Ruiz tells Mia, which is good, but what really seals it is that the owner of the garage in Highland Park where Andrew's been working swears when Mia calls him for a reference.

"Well, hell," the guy says. "I was hoping he wouldn't find something and stay here. He knows pretty much everything there is to know about cars and he's good with customers."

Mia brings Andrew in to talk to Benny, and when Benny deems him "a good kid, sounds like a good mechanic," she hires him.

They open the garage six days a week instead of the five they've been doing. Benny has time to take a break between cars to get a cup of coffee and check in with Mia. They schedule more appointments and take in more cars without appointments.

Mia does the math and breathes easier, the stress of trying to keep the garage and the store open and the mortgage paid easing up. Things are still tight, especially in the first two months after she hires Andrew, but they're manageable, and word gets around the neighborhood that the garage has a pair of mechanics and open appointment times again. It's enough business that Mia doesn't have to worry about the garage staying open.

*

Mia puts a help wanted sign up at the store. The store has never been hugely profitable, but they used to do more business than they can with how few hours they're open now. Mia splits her time between the store and the garage, and Magdalena, one of the girls from the neighborhood, works after school and part of the day on Saturdays, more hours during the summer, but it's not enough to do more than break even.

Casey comes in on a Tuesday morning, a little before anyone would come in for lunch. She's holding herself ramrod straight, clean but obviously worn jeans and t-shirt clinging to her thin frame. She looks young, and underfed. She tells Mia she's twenty-five.

"I've waitressed before," Casey says, looking at the lunch counter. "I'm good at it, and I can learn the rest of it."

The application form she fills out - Mia dug up a sample online and made some copies - lists two diners and a McDonald's in her work history, and an address Mia recognizes as a run-down apartment complex a mile and a half away.

Mia looks at her, her wrist bones sharp, the muted, desperate hope in her eyes, and asks, "How are you with sandwiches?"

"Um, I've made them before."

Mia smiles at her. "Okay. How about this. Make us a couple of sandwiches and we'll talk. Pastrami for me. Whatever you want for you."

Casey gives her an uncertain look, but when Mia goes around the counter to sit on one of the stools, Casey washes her hands and makes them a pair of sandwiches. She chooses turkey and Swiss for herself, and there's a tension to her frame as she puts both of them on her sandwich, like she's waiting for Mia to stop her.

Mia pauses to say a silent grace before she tries her sandwich. It's better than the ones she makes, and she doesn't think it's just because she didn't have to make it herself. She smiles at Casey. "Well, you sure can make a sandwich." She gets up and goes to the refrigerated case. "What do you want to drink?"

"Oh," Casey says. She looks at the case. "Coke, please."

Mia grabs a Coke for each of them, and sits down with Casey. "What brought you to LA?" The McDonald's in her work history is in Oklahoma, one of the diners in New Mexico, the other in Arizona.

Casey shrugs with exaggerated carelessness. "Just time for a change. I always wanted to see the ocean." The second part sounds real.

"Do you like it here?"

Casey presses her lips together for a moment, then says, "Yes. I think so. I think this could be a new start." She ducks her head and takes a bite of her sandwich.

Mia sips at her Coke. "I think that's why a lot of people come to LA."

"Is that why you came here?" Casey asks after a moment.

"I was born here," Mia tells her. "This is my family's store." Casey looks wary at that, until Mia adds, "I'm the only one left," which is true enough, "so now I'm running it."

Casey looks around the store. "Is it just you working here?"

"No," Mia says. "One of the girls in the neighborhood works part-time, after school and Saturdays."

Mia gets up and goes around the counter to ring up a soda and bag of chips for a guy who flashes both her and Casey a grin before leaving.

"We're in a pretty good location," Mia says when she rejoins Casey at the counter. "We get a mix of people from the neighborhood and people passing through."

They eat while Casey asks a few questions about the store: how long it's been in business, how busy it usually is, what hours Mia wants someone to cover.

When they're both done with their sandwiches, Mia wipes her hands on a napkin and says, "It was nice to talk to you. I'll be in touch."

Casey shakes her hand. "Thank you. It was nice to meet you."

After Casey leaves, Mia cleans up after both of them, washes her hands, and makes sandwiches for a couple of women who come to the counter.

It's only later, after Magdalena comes in after school, that Mia gets a chance to check Casey's references.

"Good worker," the diner owner in Arizona says. "Kept to herself, but always showed up for her shifts, which is more than I can say for some."

The diner owner in Texas sighs and says, "Well, I'm glad she's all right. She's a good waitress, shows up on time. I got the feeling she wasn't real happy here. Maybe she'll like LA better."

The manager of the McDonald's in Oklahoma hasn't worked there long enough to have known Casey and gives Mia the corporate number to verify employment. Mia doesn't bother; the diner owners are enough.

It's a risk, she supposes, that Casey won't stay and she'll have to hire someone else soon, but Mia has a feeling about her.

She calls on Wednesday and asks Casey to start on Saturday. "You won't always have to work Saturdays, but I'll be able to get you used to the store while Magdalena's working."

"Saturday is fine," Casey says, and Mia doesn't think she's imagining the tremble of relief in her voice. "Thank you."

"I'm glad to have you with us," Mia says, and she means it. Once she gets Casey trained, she keeps the store open longer hours, which brings in more customers. People from the neighborhood drop in to pick up an item or two and tell her, "It's good to see you open more hours again. Your parents would be proud."

There's an ache when Mia thinks about Mom and Dad, but she thinks they're right. The store and the garage were Mom and Dad's way of giving Dom and Mia a future. Dom's gone, but Mia can make her future out of what's left.

*

Mia spends Saturdays at the garage, getting caught up on paperwork and accounting and dealing with customers while Benny and Andrew work on cars. That means she's the one there to see a woman's face fall - her paperwork says her name is Angela - when Mia tells her how much the repairs to her car are going to cost.

"I can't afford that," Angela says bluntly. The boy next to her - her son, Mia thinks - leans into her side, and Angela puts an arm around his shoulders, hugging him close. "I can't-" She breaks off, and then asks, "Can I pay you in installments? I need a car to get to work and I can't afford a new one."

Angela's clear panic tugs at the part of Mia that now knows what it's like to struggle to make it, even if she's never had to worry about transportation. She finds herself saying something she's barely admitted to herself. "Look, I'm planning to repaint a couple of rooms in my house. There's wallpaper that has to be stripped first. You help me with that, pay us twenty a month for the next three months and we'll call it even." Mia's not keeping mental track of the finances down to the penny anymore, but she knows about what she has to work with, and she can afford to make that deal.

Angela stares at her without speaking for a moment. "That- You would really do that?"

Mia smiles at her, gentle despite the residual panic she can feel welling up at the idea of changing the house just because she wants to. "I would."

"But don't you have to check with the owner?"

That puts a little more confidence in Mia's smile. "I am the owner. What do you say?"

"Yes," Angela says. "Yes, thank you so much. I don't even know your name."

"I'm Mia."

"Mia," Angela says, smiling at her. "Thank you so much." The boy with her sits up. "This is my son Zack."

Zack holds out his hand so seriously that Mia bites back her smile when she shakes it.

"I can help paint too," he says very earnestly.

Mia can't quite hold back her smile anymore. "I'm sure it'll go faster with all three of us. I don't have paint or anything yet. How about next weekend?"

"We can do that," Angela says. "Zack has soccer on Saturday morning, but we don't have any plans for the rest of the weekend."

"I'm here on Saturdays," Mia says. "Sunday? Around eleven?"

"We'll be there," Angela promises.

Mia gives Angela her phone number and address, gets her first payment for the work on her car, and tells her, "Benny's taking good care of your car. We'll have you out of here in an hour or two."

It takes an hour and a half until Angela and Zack can drive away, with another promise to see Mia next weekend, and another couple of hours before Mia can close up the garage.

There's a whole wall of paint samples at Home Depot. Mia stares at them in something like despair for a few minutes before she takes a deep breath and thinks about what she needs. The living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the master bedroom, the master bathroom. She picks out dozens of paint strips, thinking about what she wants the house to look like now. It's only her. She gets to and has to make all the choices.

The paint strips go into her purse, and then she gets a cart and picks up a dozen large, plastic tubs.

At home, Mia piles the plastic tubs next to the stairs to deal with later, and holds the paint strips up to her walls, imagining what her house will look like with new paint. She eats alone at the dining room table with paint strips spread out in front of her, and leaves them there when she goes to bed.

*

On Sunday morning, Mia goes to mass like she does every week, and when she comes home, she changes out of her church clothes, ties her hair back, and brings the plastic tubs upstairs.

She starts with the master bedroom. If she's going to repaint it and move into it, she has to empty it first.

Packing up Dom and Letty's things is worse than packing up Jesse's was. Mia knew Jesse was never coming back. Packing Dom's t-shirts and Letty's cargo pants into plastic tubs feels like she's burying them, losing hope that they'll ever come back. She tries to tell herself they're just clothes, but she recognizes the shirt Dom wore to her high school graduation, the dress Letty wore to mass last Christmas, all the clothes she saw them in at home every day for years.

Mia stops and rubs the back of her wrist across her eyes. She's not getting rid of it. She's just packing it up until they can come home.

They might never come home.

There are a pair of frames on the dresser with pictures of their family. Dom, Mia, Mom, and Dad in one, and Dom, Mia, Letty, Vince, Leon, and Jesse in the other. They catch Mia's eye when she's finally finished cleaning out the drawers. She picks them up and looks at them, the two families she's lost, and then she sits down on the floor, cradles them in her lap, and cries until she can't cry anymore.

The frames go in her room for now, and Mia's too wrung out to cry again as she packs up the rest of Dom and Letty's things. She lugs the full tubs up to the attic, and looks at the other closed doors along the hallway. She's been in Vince and Leon's rooms, to dust and vacuum and make sure there was nothing molding in there, but she left everything else alone.

Mia closes her eyes and takes a deep couple of breaths. She crosses herself and prays. Holy Mary, give me strength.

Vince and Leon's rooms go faster. She doesn't stop to think about what she's doing or what she's lost. She just packs, until all that's left is the furniture, until the only lived-in room is hers.

*

"Hi," Mia says when she answers the door, smiling brighter than she feels. If she does this, it really means she's not keeping the house the way it was for everyone else to come home to. It's only hers now.

Angela and Zack don't seem to notice her hesitation.

"Hi." Angela smiles back at her. "House painters, reporting for duty."

That makes Mia's smile a little more real. "Come on in. We're going to work on the downstairs today, and see how it goes." She gestures at the living room. "We need to strip the wallpaper in here and the dining room, and then we can work on the kitchen. We're not going to finish it all today."

Zack looks at the house dubiously. "It's a lot."

Angela ruffles his hair. "Let's get started then."

Mia pulled as much of the furniture away from the walls as she could move by herself. They start with the rest of it, moving it far enough out into each room that they can get to the walls. Angela helps her throw drop cloths over everything, and Zack makes sure the floors are covered all the way to the edges.

"I've never done this before," Mia says, "but Mr. Chin next door said if we steam it, the wallpaper should come right off." She gestures at the rented steamer.

"I've never done it either," Angela says. "How does this work?"

"One of us steams the wallpaper, and the other one strips it." Mia hands Angela and Zack goggles and gloves, and puts on her own. "You steam, I'll scrape, and Zack can put the pieces in a trash bag."

They start at the bottom, right by the baseboards in the living room. The steam seems to work, and they get about a third of the way around the living room before Mia calls a halt. Her arms ache.

"Let's have lunch. I bought things for sandwiches."

"Yeah," Zack says. "I'm hungry."

"Me too," Mia says. She shakes out her arms and takes off the goggles and gloves.

Angela turns off the steamer. "We should probably put more water in this too."

Mia directs her and Zack to the laundry room sink and heads into the kitchen.

She makes a stack of sandwiches and pours a bag of chips into a bowl. She adds three glasses and a pitcher of lemonade to what she takes out to the table outside. After the last few hours of stripping wallpaper, Mia doesn't want to look at the walls of the house anymore.

Zack reaches for one of the sandwiches first, and Mia's mouth is open, ready to tell him the rule they've lived by for so many years. But Dom's not here anymore. That was his ritual, not hers, and she's repainting the world they shared. She swallows against the sudden urge to cry, another way she's lost her family, and says instead, "I'm used to - we always said grace."

Angela nudges Zack to put the sandwich down and takes his hand.

Mia crosses herself, folds her hands together, and bows her head. "Heavenly Father, we thank you for your blessing of the food we are about to eat, and for bringing us into each other's lives. Amen."

Zack and Angela echo her, and they're silent for a few minutes while they dig into their lunch.

"This is really good," Zack says. "We should have sandwiches like this, so you can have different kinds." There are partially eaten halves of turkey and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on his plate.

"They are good," Angela says. "Thank you for lunch."

Mia waves a hand. "It's nothing."

"It's not nothing," Angela says softly. "Thank you."

Mia looks at Zack, happily switching between his two different kinds of sandwiches and then meets Angela's eyes. Her backyard used to be filled with people on Sunday afternoons. "You're welcome," she says, and has to look away when her voice trembles.

Angela ignores it, and Zack doesn't seem to notice, and after a minute, Mia can ask Zack about soccer and the rest of lunch is lighter.

Angela turns off the steamer without prompting when they finish the living room. It's getting late, and Mia doesn't think her arms will hold up to doing any more today.

Mia turns in a circle, looking at the stripped walls of her living room, the furniture still covered in drop cloths in the middle. "I think this is going to take longer than I thought it would."

"It's a big job," Angela says.

"It's a really big house," Zack says. "Do you live here all alone?"

Mia nods. "Right now, yes." She takes off her gloves and goggles and stretches. "I think we're going to have to do the dining room next weekend, and then it's all just painting. There's no wallpaper upstairs or in the kitchen."

"Sunday again?" Angela asks.

"Same time," Mia agrees.

After they leave, Mia leaves the furniture where it is, makes herself another sandwich for dinner, and goes to bed feeling exhausted but satisfied with what they've done to the house so far.

*

Mia works on the walls in bits and pieces while she's home during the week, washing and sanding down the parts they've already stripped of wallpaper. It only takes a second Sunday - Angela and Zack bring lunch for the three of them this time - to strip the wallpaper in the dining room.

"Do we get to paint today?" Zack asks eagerly the third week.

Mia grins at him. "I think so. We have to put down primer in here and in the dining room, but I think we can do the ceilings, and start on the kitchen."

Zack looks up at the walls, and at the ladder Mia has propped up against the stairs. "That's a lot of moving the ladder again."

Mia laughs. "We're supposed to paint along the edges with brushes, but I bought rollers to do the rest of it." They're long enough to reach the ceilings and the top of the walls, at least for Mia and Angela.

Zack helps pour the primer into a pair of plastic trays, and Mia and Angela start at opposite ends of the room, taking turns with the ladder to brush the top of the walls. It takes a few tries to figure out how much primer is the right amount on the roller, and how to get it to cover evenly.

Zack runs from one side of the room to the other, moving the trays as Mia and Angela move, until the entire living room has primer covering the walls. They do the same thing in the dining room, and then take the rollers and trays into the laundry room to wash them out before they start on the kitchen.

"My arms are so tired already," Mia says.

"Mine too," Angela agrees. "Those things are heavy when you're holding them for that long." She stretches one arm across her chest and then the other.

Mia looks at the clock; it's taken them a couple of hours to do just what they've done. "Let's stop for lunch." She makes a face at the primer. "Outside."

"Good idea," Angela says. "Take a break from the fumes."

Zack and Angela close up the primer while Mia makes a large stack of sandwiches. She'd cook something else for them, but the kitchen is half disassembled for painting, and this is easy.

"How long was that wallpaper on there?" Angela asks over lunch.

"I don't know," Mia says. "Ever since I can remember. I don't know if it came with the house or not."

"Have you always lived here?" Zack asks.

"Yep," Mia says.

Zack squints at her. "Always by yourself?"

"Zack," Angela admonishes.

Mia takes a breath. She doesn't talk about her family; everyone in the neighborhood knows and there's no one else to tell.

"No," she answers Zack. "With my parents and my brother, and then my brother and some of our friends. Now it's just me."

Angela nudges Zack to keep eating his sandwich. "Time to make it what you want?" she asks Mia.

"Yeah," Mia says. "Something like that."

It helps, to have people around that she can't break down in front of. It helps, too, to do the painting in stages. She's not just wiping out what was there. She's remembering it as she goes, getting down to the bones of the house and building it back up into something new.

*

Mia needs her kitchen, so they paint it first. They leave the cabinets and ceiling white and paint all the walls between them bright yellow. They do the dining room the same day, one wall a bright purple and the rest of it a lighter shade. The living room takes its own day, one wall white and the rest of it bright turquoise. Mia knows, every time she comes into the house, that things are different now.

"You didn't have to move everything out of here," Angela says when they get to the master bedroom.

Mia refuses to think about when she did just that. "I haven't moved my stuff in yet," she says, and it comes out just a little brittle, enough that she forces a smile. "I've been living in my old room."

Angela looks like she wants to ask, but she just gets Zack to hold the ladder while she tapes the edges of the room.

They paint the wall that's going to be behind the headboard dark blue, the other walls a lighter blue, the ceiling a blue so pale it could be mistaken for white if it weren't for the contrast to the white doorframes.

They do the master bathroom last, and by then they have such a system down that getting the soft green on the walls goes fast. They clean up and have sandwiches outside, like they have every week.

"Your car's mostly paid off," Mia says.

"And your house is painted." Angela holds up her glass of lemonade in a toast. "It looks like a whole new place."

"Yeah," Mia says. "Yeah, it does."

"I like it," Zack declares. "It looks happy."

Mia looks up at the house, the yellow in the kitchen she can see through the windows. It isn't happy, not yet, not really, but it looks that way, and maybe now she won't see where her family is supposed to be every time she walks through her own house.

"There's a soccer game out front," Zack says when they're done with lunch and he's been wandering around the backyard and halfway down the driveway, doing whatever it is eleven-year-olds do when they're entertaining themselves. "Can I go play?"

Angela looks at Mia, who nods at her. "Kids from the neighborhood."

"Sure," Angela tells Zack. "Don't go too far."

"I won't," Zack yells over his shoulder as he runs down the driveway.

Angela and Mia take the dishes into the kitchen, and then they take their glasses and the pitcher of lemonade onto the front porch. The kids are running up and down the street with a soccer ball, Zack right in the thick of it.

"He's a good kid," Mia says.

"He is," Angela agrees. "I'm trying to keep him that way. I think it gets harder when they get older."

"You're doing a good job."

"For now." Angela sighs. "I just don't want him to turn out like his dad. He seemed so great, and I really loved him. He told me he and his wife were separated and he just had to get a divorce before we could really be together. When he was done with the job he was out here working on, he went back to her. Total cliche, right? I felt so stupid."

"You couldn't know," Mia says. Then she returns the confidence. "My ex-boyfriend was an undercover cop investigating my brother. I had no idea." The sting of that betrayal still tastes bitter.

Angela's silent for a moment - Mia doesn't blame her; it's a pretty big thing to take in - then asks, "Is that why you live here alone?"

"Yeah." Mia runs her fingers through the condensation on her glass. "He let Dom go, in the end, and no one ended up in jail, but they're all gone, everyone who used to live here."

"What about-" Angela cuts herself off in the middle of the question. "I mean, if you want to talk about it. What about your parents?"

"My mom died when I was in junior high," Mia says, "and my dad a few years later." It's been long enough that it's a duller ache than thinking about her second family.

"Okay," Angela says, "I guess I won't complain about my dirtbag ex."

"No, no," Mia says with a little bit of a laugh. "I don't mean it that way at all. Complain all you want."

"No," Angela says. "I get tired of it."

They drink lemonade in companionable silence for a few minutes watching the kids play soccer.

"Do you want to come over next Sunday?" Mia asks. "Just for lunch, not to do more work on my house."

"I think we'd like that," Angela says. "Are you sure you want to make us more lunches?"

"We used to have Sunday barbecues every week," Mia says. "I'm sure."

Angela hugs her when she and Zack leave. Mia tries not to lean into it too desperately.

"We'll see you next week," Angela says.

Zack looks up at that. "I thought we were done."

Angela ruffles his hair. "We are. Mia invited us over for lunch."

Zack beams at both of them. "Can I play soccer too? Emily said they're out there every week."

Angela grins at Mia. "We'll see you next week."

Mia smiles for the rest of the day.

*

Having Angela and Zack over for lunch every Sunday isn't quite the same as the family afternoons that made up most of Mia's life, but it satisfies something in her that misses cooking for people, misses her Sunday afternoons being filled with people she cares about.

She's locked up all but the last door of the garage on a Saturday and is waiting while Benny and Andrew clean up and get ready to go when it occurs to Mia that she could make her Sundays more like they used to be.

"Hey, guys," Mia says, "I'm having a couple of people over for lunch tomorrow. Do you want to come?"

"We've got a big family thing on Sundays," Benny says. "But thanks for the invite."

"We don't usually have anything going on," Andrew says, "but I'll have to check with Liz."

"One o'clock if the two of you can make it." Mia gives him the address and the house phone number, and she locks up after the three of them feeling good about it.

The store's still open, so she stops by there next. It's surprisingly busy - two people at the counter ordering sandwiches and three more shopping - so she steps behind the register to ring a couple of people up while Casey makes sandwiches.

"Is it always this busy on Saturday nights?" Mia asks when there's no one else who needs to be helped.

Casey shrugs, and there's a defensive hunch to her shoulders. "It's busier, yeah. Nothing I can't handle."

"I didn't think you couldn't," Mia reassures her. "But if it does get really busy, let me know and we'll make sure you have some help."

Casey's shoulders go down a little, and she nods. "Okay."

Mia smiles gently, trying to put her at ease. "I really came by because I have some people over for lunch on Sundays, and I wanted to invite you to come too."

Casey's eyes get really wide. "Um."

"If you want," Mia says. "One o'clock, my house." She leaves Casey with the phone number and address too.

Casey doesn't come to lunch, but Andrew shows up with a smiling woman shortly after Angela and Zack get there.

"This is my wife Liz," Andrew says. "Mia, my boss."

Mia smiles at both of them. "I'm so glad you could come. Come in. Mrs. Ruiz says good things about both of you."

"And about you," Liz says. "And of course you gave Andrew a job, which means you must be good people."

Mia laughs. "So is Andrew." She brings them into the kitchen and introduces them to Angela and Zack.

"Mia always says grace," Zack informs Andrew and Liz after everyone helps carry food and plates, drinks and silverware outside.

Andrew and Liz bow their heads with everyone else.

"Heavenly Father," Mia says after she crosses herself, "we thank you for the food we are about to eat and for bringing us all together around this table. Amen."

"This looks delicious," Liz says as they pass plates around. "And I love your house, all the bright colors."

"We helped with that," Zack says. "It took forever."

"Zack," Angela admonishes.

Mia just laughs. "It did take forever. There was wallpaper we had to get down first."

Andrew makes a face. "We want to repaint the bedrooms at our place, but there's wallpaper everywhere."

"It's definitely more work," Mia says. "I rented a steamer, and that worked, but it took a long time and my arms hurt so much after scraping the wallpaper all day."

"You're going to want to work on it together," Angela puts in. "I can't imagine trying to do it alone."

"I'm tired just thinking about it," Liz says. "We'll have to do it sometime, though. I'm not raising kids in rooms with that awful wallpaper."

"Maybe I can get a few days off," Andrew says with a crooked smile. "We can just make a project out of it."

"You could probably talk to your boss about that," Mia says, smiling back. "She might let you have some time off." It feels good to joke with people again, good to have her home filled with smiles and laughter instead of the silence where her family isn't.

*

Mia gets four different invitations for Thanksgiving, and chooses to spend it with Angela and Zack at their apartment. It's small, but cozy with the three of them around Angela and Zack's table.

She gets invitations for Christmas, too, but turns them down. Last year was manageable, when it hadn't quite sunk in as much as it has now that her family was really and truly gone, but she doesn't think she's up to being cheerful with anyone else this year.

She still goes to midnight mass. They went every year when Mia was growing up, and it was the one service Dom always came to after Lompoc. There are candles, pine boughs, and the reminder that Christmas is first and foremost a celebration of the birth of their Savior. It's a comfort.

It's late when the mass is over, and no one lingers particularly long. Mia joins the stream of people flooding out onto the sidewalk, and pulls her cardigan closer around her. It gets cool in the middle of the night, even in LA.

"Mia?" It's not the first voice that's said her name, and Mia turns toward it with the smile she's given half the neighborhood already settling onto her face.

It takes a moment for her to recognize the man stepping forward. "Diego! Hi." They were in a lot of the same classes in high school; Mia hasn't seen him around much since he went to UCLA and she went to community college. "I didn't see you in there." She knows it's the wrong thing to say because Diego's face freezes for a moment.

"I'm just here to walk my mom and grandma home." Diego looks up at the church stretching up to the sky above them. "I miss it, but I'm gay." He flashes her a quick, defensive smile. "Out and proud. I don't think the Church wants me in there."

Mia puts her hand on Diego's arm. "You should come to one of Father Miguel's services. He doesn't judge." She can feel Diego's muscles relax under her touch.

"And you don't either."

Mia thinks about all the women she's seen making out at one party or another, most of them for show but a few who loved each other. "Of course not." Mia squeezes his arm before letting go. "I usually go to the early service on Sundays. I would be happy to see you there."

Diego's face softens, and he leans in to hug her. "Thanks, Mia."

Mia hugs him back. One of the things she likes about church now is the comfort of human contact on the days when she doesn't go to the store or the garage and feels most alone.

They chat lightly after that for a minute or two, Diego telling Mia about his classes, Mia telling him about repainting the living room. He doesn't ask about Dom.

Mia says hello to his mom and grandmother when they make it out of the church, and they smile at her and wish her a merry Christmas.

"Are you okay to get home?" Diego asks.

"My car's in the lot," Mia says. "But thanks." She would be fine even if she weren't driving; Dom may be gone, but the Toretto name is still enough to keep her safe around here. Mia reaches out and squeezes Diego's arm. "Maybe I'll see you around."

"It was good to see you," Diego says, and he holds out his arm for his grandmother as they walk away.

Mia holds on to that image of caring, the goodwill she feels from both the mass and her conversation with Diego. It gets her home and into bed to sleep.

She cries a lot on Christmas Day. Mass takes her out of dwelling on what she's lost for the time she's there, but then she goes home to her empty house and gets hit with it all over again.

Mia's not sure if it's better or worse now that she's repainted, now that she's taken over the master bedroom. Better because she's already used to it being different from the way things were before; worse because it highlights the way nothing's the same anymore.

*

Over lunch on the first Sunday in January, Zack asks Mia, "Did you make any New Year's resolutions? Mine is to practice soccer enough to to play on the traveling team."

"That's a good resolution," Mia says. "I didn't make any. Maybe I should."

"I think you should," Zack says. "Mom says resolutions are a good way to decide who we want to be." He turns to Angela. "Right?"

"That's right," Angela says. "Mine are to get a better job, and to find us a better place to live."

It's been so easy for Mia for so many years. She had a place: she was a Toretto, she was the one who was going to go to college, she was Dom's sister, and everything those things meant were so clear that she never had to think about who she wanted to be.

"I know what mine is," Liz says. She takes Andrew's hand, and they're both smiling, and Mia guesses what's going on even before Liz says, "Mine is to take very good care of myself so the baby's born healthy."

"You're going to have a baby?" Zack asks.

Liz nods. "In June."

Mia catches her breath and stands up. "That's so great." She goes around the table to hug Liz. "I'm so happy for you."

Liz laughs and hugs her back, hugs Angela, hugs Zack, and they all hug Andrew too.

"Good thing we got the wallpaper down," Andrew says when they're sitting again, smiles stretching wide on everyone's faces.

Mia laughs with everyone else, then says, "I know what my resolution is. This year, I'm going back to school." She'll have to figure out what she has to do before she can transfer to a four-year school, and she'll have to go part-time, but she has the time and money now that she couldn't afford to devote to it before Dom paid off the mortgage.

Zack makes a face. "Why would you want to go to school when you don't have to?"

"I liked school," Mia explains. "I want to learn more. And no one in my family has ever gone to college."

"I think it's great," Liz says.

"Me too." Angela reaches over to ruffle Zack's hair. "You could follow Mia's example."

The face Zack makes in response to that makes everyone laugh.

Most of the rest of lunch is taken up with talk about Andrew and Liz's plans for the baby's room and Liz's maternity leave.

"I'm so happy for you," Mia says again when Andrew and Liz leave. "And you can count on me for babysitting."

"We might take you up on that," Liz says before Andrew puts a hand to her elbow as they go down the front steps.

Mia and Angela are in the habit, now, of spending a couple of hours after lunch on Sunday afternoons chatting on the porch while Zack plays soccer with the neighborhood kids, and they settle in after Liz and Andrew leave.

"You want to move?" Mia asks.

Angela sighs. "The air conditioning broke three times over the summer, and it took a week for the landlord to fix it last time. And you've seen it. It isn't very nice. I want better for Zack."

Mia thinks about it for a moment - there's no reason to make rash decisions, even if she thinks her impulse is probably what she actually wants to do - before she says, "You could move in here. I have the space, and the schools are good."

"Zack's a good kid," Angela says, "but would you really want the chaos of having a kid in the house?"

"There were always people living here with me," Mia says. "I miss it. And he can't cause more chaos than Jesse and Leon used to." She hasn't talked about them much to Angela, just enough for Angela to know they used to live here. She looks out at the street so she doesn't have to see Angela's face when she adds, "The FBI still comes around sometimes, because of my brother. But if you want to, and that won't bother you, we can repaint rooms for you and Zack."

"More painting," Angela groans theatrically.

Mia looks at the face Angela's making and laughs. "Or we can leave them how they are. Up to you."

Angela grins at her, before turning serious. "I'll think about it."

Mia nods. "Take your time."

*

Mia didn't expect anything much to come of her conversation with Diego on Christmas, so it's a welcome surprise when he sits down in the pew next to her at the early service on a Sunday near the end of February.

"Hi," Mia says brightly. "You came."

"I did." Diego holds himself stiffly and doesn't look around.

Mia squeezes his arm. "Are your mom and grandma here too?"

Diego shakes his head. "They usually come to the later service." His lips press together for a moment. "And I wanted to be able to leave if I decided I didn't want to come in."

"I'm glad you didn't leave." Mia looks up at Christ on the cross above the altar. "No one should be denied the comfort of God."

"Not everyone thinks that," Diego says softly.

"I do," Mia says firmly. "And I'm sure Father Miguel does too."

There's still something tight around Diego's eyes, but he smiles at Mia. "I hope so." He seems to relax as mass gets underway, probably settling into the familiar ritual of it the same way Mia does. He stays seated when Mia goes up to receive Communion. Mia touches his shoulder, but doesn't push. He'll have to find the rest of the way back to the Church on his own.

They both grew up in the neighborhood and know much of the congregation, so it takes a while to get out of the church after mass. They stop, too, so Mia can introduce Diego to Father Miguel.

"I've met your mother and grandmother," Father Miguel says to Diego. "We're glad to have you with us as well."

"Mia convinced me to come," Diego says. "She says you don't judge."

Father Miguel throws a glance at Mia, and says, "Of course not. I hope to see you join us for mass again."

Diego nods at him without committing to it, and he and Mia move along to let other people speak to Father Miguel.

"What did you think?" Mia asks.

Diego looks around at the people still crowding the sidewalk and shrugs.

There are still a lot of people around, and for all that Diego had described himself as "out and proud," this might not be the best place to talk about it.

"I walked," Mia says. "We can walk partway back together." It's not the most direct route to either of their houses, but it won't be too far out of the way for either of them.

They've left the other churchgoers far behind by the time Diego speaks. "I don't think I knew how much I missed it until this morning. I felt like I belonged there again, but I don't think that'll be true once people know I'm gay."

"Some people will still think you belong." Mia hooks her arm through Diego's. "I still think you belong."

"Maybe," Diego says.

"Not everyone will," Mia says. "But the Church is supposed to be a sanctuary for all of us. I'm not willing to give up on that."

"I can't believe you weren't in debate club," Diego says a few steps later.

That startles Mia into a laugh. "I got enough practice arguing with my brother. I didn't need to do more of it for fun." It's the first even remotely disloyal thing she's said about Dom since he left, and her heart skips a beat, then races forward for a moment.

Diego laughs too. "I bet you always got your way. You're very persuasive."

"Not always," Mia says. She stops when they get to the corner where they need to go their separate ways. "Does that mean I'll see you at church again?"

"You are very persuasive," Diego says. "Maybe."

Mia smiles and extends the invitation beyond that. "I have people over for lunch on Sundays, around one, if you want to join us."

"After church?" Diego asks. "Wasn't that the rule?"

Mia shakes her head, and this one is easy because Dom was the one who changed this tradition. "No. That was my dad's rule, not mine. You can come for lunch even if you never go to church again."

"That's even more persuasive than your invitation to church." Diego gives her a quick hug. "I'll see you around."

*

Diego comes to lunch for the first time the same Sunday Casey does, the week after Easter.

"Diego and I went to high school together," Mia says.

"Oh, did you grown up around here too?" Liz asks.

"We moved here when I was twelve," Diego says. "My parents wanted to be in a better neighborhood before I was a teenager."

Liz pats her rounded stomach. "We wanted to be in a good neighborhood before we started our family."

"Where do you live?" Diego asks.

Andrew tells him the street and, "It's a great house, once we stripped the awful wallpaper."

"I kind of know where that is," Diego says.

"They're right next door to Mrs. Ruiz," Mia says. Diego might not know where Mrs. Ruiz lives, but he knows her from church, if not from the neighborhood before.

"Mrs. Ruiz is the nicest woman," Liz says. "She made us the softest baby blanket."

"I know her," Casey says. "She always puts her change in the tip jar even when she's just buying groceries."

"She's so nice," Diego says. "I wasn't sure about coming back to the church because I'm gay, but she's been one of the most welcoming people."

Mia knows she has a good group of people around her table because no one reacts particularly strongly to Diego coming out to them.

"What made you go back to church?" Casey asks. She seems to fold into herself a little bit as everyone looks at her. "I used to go to church when I was growing up, but not in a long time."

"I was raised Catholic," Diego says, "and college is a good time to figure what's important to you." He shrugs. "I figured out that church is important to me. It was partly Mia, too. She said some people would be welcoming. Not everyone has been, but enough that it's worth going."

"We never go to church," Zack says. He looks at Angela. "Is that because it isn't important to you?" He looks confused when everyone else laughs.

"Way to put me on the spot," Angela says. "We didn't really go to church when I was growing up, so I don't take you."

"Oh." Zack frowns. "Did your parents take you to church?" he asks Casey.

Casey nods. "Yes. Baptist church. Not always fun." There's a haunted tone in her voice that makes Mia want to change the subject for her sake.

"My parents only took me to church on Christmas and Easter," Andrew says. "My sister and I were so glad to get out of there so we could open our presents or go Easter egg hunting."

"Easter egg hunting," Liz says brightly. "That's something I'm looking forward to doing with our kids."

"When they're little, can I help them find eggs?" Zack asks. "Mom says I'm too old for them now."

"Sure," Liz says. "Next year. This kid," she pats her stomach, "will just be crawling and need lots of help finding eggs."

"We can do that here if you want," Mia says. "We used to have Easter egg hunts here until Dom got too old for them."

"Not until you got too old for them?" Angela asks.

Mia shrugs. "It wasn't as fun then. Dom was always the ringleader for the whole neighborhood, so when he was too old for it, a lot of the other kids went along with him."

Liz elbows Andrew. "You hear that? We're going to have to find some other people in the neighborhood having kids just so we can keep Easter egg hunts fun."

Andrew laughs. "Oh, is that why we have to do that? I thought it was so we could swap babysitting and hand-me-downs."

"That too," Liz says. "We can't make Mia do all of our babysitting. She's going back to school, you know."

"Are you?" Diego asks. "You didn't tell me that."

"Yeah," Mia says. "I'm going to take one class this summer to ease back into it, and then just part-time after that, at least until I can transfer. I was on track to be able to apply to UCLA as a transfer student, so I should be able to pick it up again." She makes a face. "If I haven't forgotten everything."

"Good for you," Diego says. "That's great."

"I still don't understand why you want to go to school when you don't have to," Zack says.

Everyone laughs and then Diego says, "I'll tell you a secret. College is way better. You get to choose what you want to take classes in."

Zack considers that for a moment before he says, "I want to take classes about soccer."

"His one true love," Angela says.

"I bet you can find a class about soccer," Diego says. "Or maybe you can get Mia to take one and share her notes with you."

Mia laughs. "We'll see."

Zack starts trying to come up with other things that would be fun to take classes about, with Andrew and Liz providing encouragement and coming up with other unusual class topics.

Casey doesn't contribute much, but she says, "Thank you for lunch. I had a really good time," before she leaves.

She seems more solid than she did when Mia first hired her, but she still gives off the air of being just a little on edge. Mia rests her hand lightly on Casey's shoulder for a moment instead of trying to hug her.

"We're here every Sunday. You're always welcome."

"Thanks," Casey says. "That's really- You are really nice, you know? Like Mrs. Ruiz. There haven't been a lot of people who've been nice to me." She leaves after she says it, before Mia can think what to say in reply.

There probably isn't anything to say. All she has to do is what her parents did and what Dom always did and keep offering Casey a place at her table.

*

"Were you serious about us moving in here?" Angela asks in the middle of May. "I don't think I can take another summer of broken air conditioning."

"Yes," Mia says. "Of course." Her house is her own now, with her living spaces repainted and everything belonging to the families she lost packed away, but it's a large house, and lonely. "Whenever you want to."

"We're paying a reasonable rent," Angela says firmly. "And signing a contract just to keep everything in order."

Mia agrees to that, and then talks Angela down to paying a much lower rent than she originally offers.

They spend two Sundays painting. Zack chooses the same bright yellow as the kitchen for the bathroom he and Angela will be using, and a bright green for one wall of his room and a soft white for the others. They paint Angela's a light purple that's a few shades bluer than the lighter walls of the dining room.

Angela and Zack move in over Memorial Day weekend. Mia takes Saturday off from the garage and helps carry boxes up the stairs. Diego borrows his dad's truck and helps them move furniture.

Everyone comes for lunch on Sunday, and Zack greets both Casey and Andrew and Liz with a delighted, "Come see my room! I got to pick out the colors, and we painted it, and it looks so cool."

"That's a lot of stairs for you right now," Angela says to Liz. "You can wait to see it until after the baby."

"I'm glad I don't live with stairs like this," Liz says, "but I can handle them once."

Andrew keeps his hand at her back all the way up, and they both tell Zack how cool his room looks.

"He seems happy about the move," Liz says when Zack spots Diego arriving and runs down the stairs to drag him up to see his room.

"He's bouncing off the walls," Angela says. Her smile is a little tired, but genuinely happy. "We're both happy about it. This is much nicer than where we were living."

"I'm happy about it too," Mia says, and she is. She could feel the difference when she went to bed last night, the way the house wasn't empty anymore. "I need to go make sure lunch doesn't burn." She slips down the stairs into the kitchen.

"Can I help?"

Mia startles and turns around at Casey's question. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Sorry." Casey looks genuinely sorry, her lips turning down at the corners.

Mia waves away her apology. "I wasn't paying attention." She takes a breath to calm her racing heart. "Yes, you can help." She directs Casey to plates, cups, and silverware to take outside to the table. Casey always looks relieved to have a concrete task to do.

Mia transfers food to serving dishes, and she and Casey carry them out to the table. Mia sends Casey out with the last dish, and calls, "Lunch is ready," as she heads halfway up the stairs where she can be heard from Zack's room.

Zack's still talking as everyone else comes down the stairs. "I'm changing schools next year. I hope I get to be in the same class as Emily."

Diego comes down the stairs with him, listening to all of his chatter about the move and what it means for him. Andrew and Liz come after them, Liz moving carefully with how round she is now and Andrew keeping a steadying hand on her. Angela trails them, and she smiles over the banister at Mia.

Mia grins back and leads everyone out to the table. Everyone waits, even Zack quieting down, when they're seated.

Mia crosses herself, folds her hands together, and bows her head. She doesn't plan the grace she says, just opens her mouth and speaks. "Heavenly Father, we thank you for our blessings. We thank you for the food we are about to eat. We thank you for Liz and Andrew's baby's health. We thank you for bringing our family together and for the love around this table. Amen."

There's a chorus of amens, and Liz reaches over to squeeze Mia's hand. "That was lovely." There are tears in her eyes, and she lets go of Mia's hand as they slide down her face. "Oh my gosh, don't pay attention to me." She wipes her eyes and lets out a small laugh. "I'm so emotional about everything right now."

"No," Casey says, "it really was beautiful." She nods at Mia. "Thank you for including me."

Mia smiles at her, despite the way she can feel herself starting to tear up. "Thank you for being here."

Zack breaks the moment by asking, "Can we eat now? I want to go play soccer."

There's a lot of laughter at that, and Diego passes Zack the chicken first. There are plates and bowls of sides that go around the table after it, and there's the general chaos of everyone filling their plates.

When she doesn't have a serving dish in her hands, Mia watches everyone else filling their plates, everyone smiling, even Casey looking as relaxed as Mia has ever seen her. This is her family, as much as either of the families she's lost were, and she had the space and time to find it because Dom paid off the mortgage.

Mia sends up a silent prayer. Thank you, God, for your abundant blessings. Holy Mary, keep my families safe. Watch over my other family wherever they are, and keep this one together here.

It's as heartfelt a prayer as any Mia has ever said.