To be Anywhere but Home

Chapter One:

Normal Would Be My Heaven

Tired drops of rain beat down onto the roof of Toretto's Market and Café. Saturdays were the slowest in the week, in turn providing plenty of time to catch up on the little things. Mia boosted herself up onto the counter and pulled a bottle of deep purple nail polish from her pocket. Normally she wouldn't take the chance of anyone catching her with her guard down, but the weather had really gotten to her. It was changing everyone; it never rained that much in Los Angeles, especially in the heat of summer.

"Debbie just hit the wall; she never had it all; one Prozac a" The alarm clock was silenced with one powerful blow to it's head. Waking up was hard enough, but waking up to a once loved punk rock band gone crap pop was an entirely different thing in itself. Lily tried to clear her head as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, and stood a few seconds later.

Still half asleep she walked the short distance to the bathroom and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink. She looked horrible, beyond that if it was possible. The poor girl hadn't slept a whole night through in days. Her dark brown hair was a mess, shorter parts frizzing out from the messy bun, hugging the back of her neck. There hadn't been time to take care of her skin and it was bearing the scars well. Tiny red soldiers stood their ground on her chin, forehead, and on the sides of her nose.

Discouraged by seeing the problems Lily grabbed at the left side of the mirror, and started the search through it's cabinet, seconds later she emerged with a tiny bottle of Aspirin. Placing it on the side of the sink Lily grabbed a bathroom cup and filled it with water, and then with both treasures in hand she walked out of yet another room and into the one next to it.

To worn to speak she placed them on the night table next to her mother's bed, shook her shoulder slightly to wake her. Lily gestured to what she'd brought in like Vanna White, gave her mother a fed up look, and left the room. You know how screwed up the order of things is when 15 year old Lily stays up all night worrying about 32 years old Hannah, her mother.

It was a year after their last heist and after each person went through their own private sections of hell, the team seemed to be together again. And they were, materially, but inside they were all somewhere else. Some where they were before the heist trying too forget, other's hiding out in the future, refusing to acknowledge what had happened.

Jesse dealt with what had happened, or at least gave the appearance that he did. And almost the second his shoulder was healed he was back on the computer, but with new tasks. For weeks he was in the basement, trying to clear Dom's record so that he could come back. There wasn't really a team without Dom and everyone knew that they wouldn't last much longer without him. Since he had disappeared, neither them nor the police had gotten any clues as to where he might be, so the heat had died down some.

A changing Jesse cleared Dom's record, as best he could, some things would have to remain because no one would by him not doing anything.

There had been money left, from previous heists they had done, but the team used this to pay off certain law enforcement that was easily swayed to look the other way. And finally, a year since he had fled, "the king of the streets" was back and things could be like they used to be. But sooner later they would have to ask themselves, did they want them to be.

"Mom get out of bed! You're gunna be late for work again!" Lily screamed from her room as she rummaged through clothes at the bottom of her closet, searching for a clean pair of jeans. "We can't afford for you to get fired from this job mom." Lily found what she was looking for and pulled them on over a blue pair of girl's boxers. She zipped up her fly as she was walking into her mother's room. Hannah was still in her bed, engulfed in a sea of blankets despite the warm weather.

"I'll call in sick for you at lunch but, this is the last time." Her mother just looked too helpless to be angry with. "I love you mom, okay? I have to go now." She leaned down, moved the blanked and kissed her on the head.

Lily held back tears and made her way into the living room, grabbed her backpack, and walked into the morning heat of July. Leaving her mother to fend for herself, knowing full well that she couldn't.

Finished with her fingernails Mia moved onto her tiny feet. She moved them up so they were on the counter and began to work from left to right. With the pounding of the rain she couldn't really hear anything or anyone.

"Mia I love you to death girl but that's just sick."

"What's si? Come on, we eat on that counter Mia." She smiled and jumped off.

"Yeah, yeah. I was bored okay?" She started grabbing plates from under the sink, and then other things that would be used in making their lunch.

"Why don't you just go back to school, that used to take up like…all of your time?" Letty climbed onto a stool near the sink.

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Mia smiled and handed her, her lunch before moving onto Jesse's.

"You know what I mean girl."

"I don't know, I have 2 years left, and since…everything, I haven't been able to catch up. I failed last years classes and I'd have to take so much so many of them over, and I don't know. It just doesn't seem worth it. I wouldn't have time for much of anything." Mia handed Jesse his lunch. "Where's everyone else?"

"Working." She sensed her old friends getting uncomfortable and after what happened she didn't want to push her.

"Does Dominic know you're here."

"He will…eventually." Mia gave them that motherly look, like they'd done something wrong and now they'd have to pay for it.

"Come on, we were starving and"

"I'm not a part of this." Jesse went to speak again but she cut him off. "You made your own lunch, I was taking inventory the whole time." Mia grabbed the magazine Jesse had brought in with him. Quickly she glanced at the cover. 'Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. 'Figures.'

"I'll be back later."

Before they could protest she was out of the store with the magazine above her head as her only means of protection. And then before she got into her car Mia tossed it in a nearby trashcan. "Right where it belongs."

"…Really if you take the square root of four hundred and thirty two and divide it by one thousand two hundred and ninety six then you'll the correct measurement. Further more by taking the loose sums and by using a slightly transposed Pythagorean theorem you just may be able to create an interchangeable quadrant on your next project…"

The girl sitting next to her in a mini jean skirt and expensive indigo halter, who conveniently happened to be her best friend Kira, passed Lily a note.

'if this gets any more boring i think i'll hang myself with his bow tie.' Lily smiled and grabbed a pen.

'i think he'd kill u b4 he let u get it off him.' The teacher glanced back at his students and lily paused, midway through passing the note, but he was to enthralled with his teachings to notice.

'so bitch, how's ur mom doin' Mr. Tesler had begun to hand out a stack of papers from his desk when he stumbled and they went flying everywhere. As he knelt down to pick them up no one made an effort to help him.

'didn't get home till after 3, she was at some party in Vesaga i think.'

'OMG! so was i, but i don't think i saw her there, she might have been the slut dancing topless on the bar with dollar bills sticking from her thong.' He had successfully picked up all the tests and as he was rising from the floor the most welcomed sound in the world came, the bell.

Kira threw the note on Lily's desk and was gone before most others, leaving her friend to fend for herself. After gathering all of her belongings into a pile she opened it and barely finished before it was out of her hands, being inspected by the omniscient eye of Tesler.

"That's detention Ms. James, half of it for your use of the word bitch and half for passing a note during my class. If this is what you're doing all the time I can see why you're failing."

"With all do respect bitch is not a swear, it's a thing." Lily normally never spoke like that to people in authority, but he'd been on her case for as long as she could remember.

"See me after school today, and we'll discuss in full the perborate of this note."

"So we're going to discuss a salt of acid containing the monovalent, negative radical BO3 ? Really, I'm dieing to see how that relates to you're class, other than intensifying the fact that you disregard ill use of the English language. At least when it's coming from your mouth."

Lily was never the smart one in fact she was failing Math and History, barely passing Science and English, but out of them all she favored English the best. Since she was little she had always liked to write to write poetry, starting out about trees and her happy home, but quickly escalating to her mother's drinking, and father's death. And the fact the Mr. Tesler had chosen the word perborate was a gift, for it was on one of the few tests she hadn't failed.

"Mr. Toretto, I'm sorry but there is not enough in your account to go on further with this transfer."

"Check again, I just put five hundred in"

"Yes you did sir and it was used to pay past debts. Speaking of debt you still owe five thousand in back taxes. Sir, might I suggest claiming bankruptcy, or its showing your house is paid for, why not take out a second mortgage?"

"Thank you for you time." Dominic placed the phone down on the receiver trying to stay calm. He ran his hand over his head, stood, and walked out of the office.

"Where'd you put the vise-grip, we can't finish the Honda without it?"

"Vince, how the hell am I supposed to know? I've been in that fucking office all day." Dom pulled his work shirt off the ground, and pulled it on over his wife beater. "Did you at least finish the Mustang?"

"Dawg, we need to order that hydraulic jack to finish."

"That's why you didn't finish? So what the fuck have you been doing all day?" The vein in his head had started ticking as he walked over to a pile a junk and pulled something off the top. "This what you're looking for?"

"Dude, we didn't"

"Where's Letty and Jesse?" Inside he already knew the answer.

"They went down to the store for lunch and" Dominic threw the wrench he had in his hand down and it chipped the cement of the floor, turning around he went into his office and slammed the door. Cursing under his breath.

"What's with him?" Vince asked as scratched his head with his good arm. The stress of everything was changing people, Dom especially.

Like she'd promised Lily went down to the office phone instead of going to lunch, for what was probably the hundredth time and got into the ever growing line. She couldn't help but listen to the conversations going on around her, but just as soon as she had focussed on them she tuned them out. There was enough drama in her life without adding the endless troubles in everyone else's.

Half an hour later she finally was able to pick up the worn phone, and dial the unfamiliar number of her mother's newest employer, ready to grovel.

'Burger King, Wendy speaking.' Came a less than chipper voice on the other end of the phone.

'Hello Wendy,' she attempted to sound happy, 'this is Hannah James, I'm a waitress there and I would just like tell you that I won't be able to come to'

'Please hold.' Lily figured that the woman had dealt with deadbeats like "herself" on a regular basis.

Absentmindedly she glanced behind her and was greeted with many none too pleasant looks. Quickly she turned back around as the woman spoke again.

'Ms. James you just started working here two weeks ago and you have already been late two times, and have missed work,' the woman scrolled her finger down the list of names,' on three occasions.' Lily shook her head, Hannah had claimed to have only been late once to this job, and other than that arriving every other day.

'I understand but my…husband just died and I have to bury him.' She slapped her hand on her forehead not able to believe she'd said that.

'Regardless, if you're not at work in twenty minuets you will not work here anymore and fur'

'But' She started to plead.

'You and I both know your husband didn't die. Come pick your last paycheck up Wednesday, no later or it won't be here.'

'No you don't understand'

'That's right I don't, and frankly I don't care.'

Lily's ears were greeted with the hum of the ended phone conversation. Defeated she placed it down, only for the person behind her to pick it up again…a depressing cycle in its repetition.