Chapter Six

The talking around his bed dropped to hushed whispers and Brian drifted, spacing out when he'd meant to pay attention, to stay awake until Dom came back. It was kind of a useless hope, though. Every inch of his body was an exhausted wrung-out mess. When he felt like he was going too far under, he opened his eyes stubbornly, then let them shut.

He opened them.

Shut.

Opened.

Shut.

Opened.

Old man.

He surged forward, or at least he wanted to. The room took a sharp turn the to right and kept spinning while about four different sets of hands pushed him back down gently. The old man's were one of them.

"Who… who? Dom?" Brian slurred.

"I'm here," Dom said, from his left. "Lay down, everything is okay." It was his hand that Brian stopped fighting against, although his tense muscles ached and he wouldn't stop bracing them even on Dom's word. There was a pause and Dom's hand stayed where it was, "He's just a doctor, Brian."

The old man nodded and the movement brought his eyes down to the stethoscope hanging around the man's neck. Slowly, the tension leaked out of him. Dom had found someone.

"Yes, that's better," The doctor said gently and with a strong accent, "You let him give you these pills and then you go back to sleep. Sleep is good."

He'd rather do the man one better and jump right to that sleeping thing. He'd been awake for about two minutes but was two too many. His head was swimming and pounding all at the same time. It would be the asshole move, though, because Dom probably put in a lot of effort to get this guy for him. So he accepted the pills Dom brought to his lips and swallowed them with only a little wince. It wasn't from his sore throat though, it's from the catch he could feel in his chest when he got the pills and the water down.

Once the pills were down, no one seemed liked they cared if he went to sleep. The voices blended and he only heard the words like they were swirling around him.

Dehydration… pneumonia… amoxicillin…

It's that last word that caught his attention, ingrained in him from a lifetime of the adults around him changing and so none of them could really be counted on to remember what meds he could and couldn't have. "Can't…" He mumbled.

"Shh, Brian, I know." Dom said to him. Brian cracked an eye open and saw Dom sitting on the bed beside him, talking quietly to the doctor. His voice was pitched lower for the doctor than he'd spoken to him but he caught the general idea. No penicillin and no amoxicillin. The doctor frowned but nodded.

Job done, Brian let his eyes shut. He drifted some more and barely startled when he felt a sting in his arm. How am I so tired? All he had been doing was sleeping. They were in danger and he was sleeping. He fucking hated it. The thought made him fight the need, but in the end, was the coughing that put him back under and not easily.

"Dom!"

Dom tore his eyes from the slow drip of Brian's IV to the door. Vince opened it for Leon and Letty, who looked spooked. He gave himself the split second to close his eyes and tilt his head back in exhaustion… I guess our time is up.

"What?" He asked, opening his eyes again.

Letty's fists were clenched. Seeing her genuinely scared wasn't something that came up often. "We saw them down at the pharmacy we went to for Brian yesterday."

Damn, So not only had they figured out that one of them was sick, they had also followed their trail. Whether they were using the pharmacy angle to search each town they went through or they had penned them into this town was the real question. "Did you hear what they were asking?"

Leon nodded grimly, "They wanted to know about a blond man coming in sick, an outsider. They described the rest of us, but she's never seen you, me and Mia obviously. Just Letty and Vince but they went in separate days so I guess Letty looked local enough that she didn't think much of her. She didn't mention having seen her, at least. He described Vince though and the girl said she had seen a man like that a few days ago." He explained. "I'm damn glad I didn't go, man. Two white guys in a row would have made more of an impression. Just Vince is bad enough."

Vince shifted by the door and Dom could see the guilt clawing. "It's not your fault, V." He said, "Any one of us could have been the one. If she had seen me, she would have remembered me too."

"You're going to have to wear long sleeves until we blow out of here, Vince." Letty said. "And shave. We can't do much about 'white' and 'tall', but she got you on the other two."

"Done." Vince answered. He rubbed his hand over the tattoos and scars on his arm.

Mia came and sat down on the end of Brian's bed, the sandwich she had been making herself sitting forgotten on a plate in her lap. Dom nudged her hand towards it and she barely bothered to glare at him before she took a small bite. With all the reminding to eat and outright feeding he'd done in the last few days he had never felt more like his mother.

Once Mia swallowed, she said, "At least they're looking for Brian. If she remembered Vince, she definitely would have remembered Brian. They must not realize that he's really sick."

"Oh shit," Vince practically moaned, "I asked that place about a doctor."

"She didn't tell them that. Either it was another girl you asked, but that place was a tiny as hell so I doubt it, or she didn't remember." Letty answered.

"How did you guys even hear all of this?" Mia asked.

Leon grinned, "We were about a minute behind him. Damn lucky it wasn't the other way around. Between the open door and the open window we could hear them pretty well."

"He didn't see you?" Dom questioned.

"No, he didn't." Letty answered. When Dom kept staring, she rolled her eyes, "I'm sure."

Mia turned to him, eyes full of worry. "What do we do?"

Dom looked back down at Brian. He was on his second dose of the azithromycin the doctor had given them after Dom had explained about Brian's allergy. They were lucky he'd had something that was pretty good against pneumonia on him, otherwise they would have had to wait for him to come and Brian would have only gotten one dose so far. Between that and the IV that had bags on it Dom didn't pretend to one hundred percent understand – though Mia did and approved – Brian had been looking a bit better. His fever was down, thank God, and his breathing seemed to be easing up a little. When he coughed more gunk came up but that was a good thing too. Dom especially appreciated that Brian had been unconscious for that development, because if he knew that Dom and Mia were even aware of something so gross he'd be so embarrassed the blush might never leave his face.

Finally, he was getting better. Dom wanted to give him more time but he didn't think there was much more to give.

"This place is out of the way. Get everything packed and as much in the cars as we can. If we can, I want to wait for the doctor to come back and check everything over but if we have to, we'll run sooner." Dom answered finally. Brian's delirious nightmare came back to Dom like a sledgehammer, "And I want eyes on the road leading into here. Even a one minute warning is enough."

We need to leave.

Everything in Dom's body screamed it. If the bounty hunters caught up to them… His gut clenched at the thought. Not for himself, although he knew that two of the three outcomes of a confrontation with them ended with Dom dead or in jail, but for the rest of them.

Especially for Brian. Even if he weren't sick, although that worried the hell out of Dom too. If they got caught, there was no guarantee that the ones taking them would be humane enough to give him his medication or anything else. No, it was more the 'dirty cop' label that could get attached to him in a jail that gave Dom nightmares.

Mia's cell ringing jerked Dom out of his dark thoughts.

She answered it instantly, "Leon?" A pause, "Okay, we're ready."

"They see something?" Dom said, standing instantly. His hands went down to the needle stuck in Brian's skin, ready to pull it out and scoop him up.

"No, no," Mia shook her head. "The doctor is coming back. Leon saw him from the road."

Dom relaxed, just a bit. Still standing, he walked over to the wall dividing the rooms and pounded on it. He heard that door open and then theirs, Vince and Letty coming in.

"We have a problem?" Letty asked.

"We're one big problem." Dom sort of joked, "Doctor's on his way up. Unless he says moving Brian is out of the question, I want to be out of here after he goes in ten."

Vince nodded, "We're ready. The last of it is his meds and shit."

Dom went to the window and pulled the curtains aside. He was glad that no one was asking the question of what if the doctor says Brian can't be moved? He didn't think that was going to be the answer they got though. Now that he wasn't in danger of boiling his own blood there was only the coughing to worry about. Every dose of medicine he got was going to get him better. That could happen in this hotel room or seven towns away in some other one.

The doctor's little sedan pulled up and found a parking spot by their cars. Dom caught the way he looked over their cars with calculation in his eyes. Hopefully it was just for a higher price, which Dom would gladly pay, and not that he was thinking about selling them out.

Vince opened the door before the doctor got a chance to knock. "Thank you," The doctor said as he entered. "How is my patient doing?"

"A lot better, we think." Mia said, guiding him around to Brian's side.

The doctor sat by Brian and Dom watched his short little examination. He listened carefully to Brian's lungs. At least someone needed a stethoscope to do it now, as opposed to just their own ears from when his breathing was so loud it could be heard through walls. He moved around, checking a few more things before stepping back and smiling at them, "I think your friend well on his way."

"That's… that's good." Dom admitted in one sigh. "That's what I thought too."

The doctor nodded and his smile grew a little tense, "So I think it is time that you moved on from this place."

Dom froze. He heard Mia take in a sharp breath beside him. Vince took a step forward but Dom held a hand up. The man didn't look hostile and with the way he had eyed their cars, it was obvious he needed to be heard out. He inclined his head, "Why?"

"This town is my home, my friend, I do not wish to see bloodshed here. There are men asking about you all, they came to me, asking if I had made any house calls lately for a blond man. There might be others, they told me, they described all of you perfectly." The doctor explained. His voice was gentle, but there was a firmness there that Dom could respect.

Mia shifted next to the man. She laid a hand over his, "Doctor, what did you tell them?"

He patted Mia's hand comfortingly, "That I had seen no one and had not gone on a house call in days."

"Thank you," She whispered. Dom heard the tremor in her voice and ached to pull her to him. Now wasn't the time, though, they had to be ready. He owed her so much he would never make good on his debt but he would try. He truly would.

The doctor acknowledged her thanks with another smile and turned back to Dom. "You will go now, yes?"

"Yes," Dom answered immediately. They were riding on this man's goodwill. If they didn't leave when he asked, he could sell them out immediately. For his information he could name the terms.

"Good, good. I will help you get him ready for the drive. I wish you luck, my friends."

Four doses of antibiotics and two IV bags later and Dom finally felt like the pressure on his shoulders was letting up. Brian was finally, finally, on the mend and it was clear to see. His skin wasn't so gray, he wasn't struggling to breathe and he wasn't boiling hot. True, he hadn't been conscious since his last coughing fit had laid him flat but they'd managed to get the pills down him all the same.

At the point they were at, consciousness wasn't real high on his list of priorities. Brian swallowed the pills they gave him easily enough and Dom could carry him to the car without any cooperation on his end. So that was what he'd done. They needed to blow out of the town in the worst way.

Luckily, that had been the plan even before the doctor had gently but firmly told them to take their bounty hunters and problems and get the hell out of his town. He had even gone so far as to set Brian up with his own portable IV situation, right in the car. He settled up with the hotel and the doctor and they were gone.

He thought a bit about doubling back and going in the opposite direction expected but if the team looking for theirs split up in any way they'd be screwed. It wasn't worth the risk. He was going to have to keep going and stop along the way to rest when they could. They were in for a lot of single nights crashing in cheap rooms until they could find their way back around to where Dom had intended all along. It wouldn't be safe to go there until they were sure the heat was off though.

He wanted to drive as far as he could immediately, just to be safe, but even he had limits and he'd lapped them twice over for Brian. Gladly but still, he was tired and he knew the rest of the team was too. They would go as far as Brian could for the next stretch and stop when it suited. After that they all had some rest to catch up on and, even considering he had been mostly asleep for days, Brian needed it most of all. Hell, Dom would need some rest just for the work it would be getting Brian to sit down and let himself heal once he started feeling even fifty percent better. Keeping after Brian to eat regularly and take a break when he needed it wasn't easy.

It had only been over the last six or so hours that Brian seemed to rest comfortably. Now, though, with the way he was shifting it seemed like he was getting ready to wake up and give Dom a chance to reassure himself that Brian hadn't fried his brain with his fever. That would be a load off his mind for sure.

"Bri? You with me?" He called over, making sure to keep his voice quiet just in case Brian wasn't really waking up and it had just been wishful thinking on Dom's part.

Sure enough, Brian's face scrunched up like he was thinking real hard about something. So he called his name again and glanced back and forth between him and the road.

"Dom?"

Jackpot.

"Hey, babe, gonna wake up for me?" Dom teased, reaching out and grabbing Brian's hand.

Slowly, he was rewarded with sleepy blue eyes. "Where are we goin'?" He asked, blinking at the car. His eyes rolled over the interior to rest on the makeshift IV stand that they'd set up. "Is that an IV?"

"Yeah, so don't touch it. As for where we're going… away is pretty much the best answer I can give you. It was getting a little hot in town so once the doc gave you the clear to go we packed up." Dom explained.

"Doctor?" He asked.

Dom glanced at Brian critically, "Yeah, the doctor. You talked with him for a minute, remember?"

Brian sat up slowly and rubbed his free hand over his eyes. There was a long pause but he was clearly thinking it over so Dom let it run. "Yeah… yeah I do?"

"That sounds real confident."

"He told me to take pills and go back to sleep. I've been getting a lot of that lately so it kind of blends, man." Brian answered.

"So long as you're up to speed, we're good." Dom answered.

Brian squeezed his hand, "We're good. I think I went a little nuts in the middle there but I feel better."

"Yeah?" Dom asked, glad to hear it in ways he couldn't even put into words.

Brian waited until Dom glanced over at him and grinned, "Yeah."

Dom felt most of the tension in his body drain off, finally. "You're always a little nuts."

"Aww, I love you too."

He cracked a slow smile. Brian was going to be just fine, so he would too.

Thank you all so, so much for the support! I struggled a bit with where I wanted to end it, since it could obviously go on far beyond this point. That's an undertaking I couldn't comfortably take on though, so this felt right for me and the story. I really hope you enjoy the ending and the whole ride in general.

Again, THANK YOU!