Author's Note: Okay this is a chapter where Letty remembers Jesse and it's sad and I'm sorry. Not as sad as the chapter about her dad I think but it depends on you also. Well, I hope you guys enjoy it anyway. Thanks so much for reading, following, favoriting and all the wonderful reviews.

Jesse

With everything that she didn't remember about her life, the one thing that she hadn't ever forgotten was cars. Maybe that was why the days spent working at the garage were so relaxing. Even days when they were swamped with work and she was up to her elbows in grease she was at ease. Here there were no questions. There was no confusion over where something was or what something was. The garage felt familiar from the very moment she set foot into it. Even in the first weeks she'd been home before she remembered anything.

Now she had little snippets. She could remember her first car, that her father had helped her build out of wood when she was seven. She would race it down the hills near her grandmother's house. It was how she'd broken her arm. She could remember the first time she'd kissed Dom, sitting on the back stoop of his house, where they'd spent half the night talking instead of enjoying the party going on inside. She could remember the time she'd dragged Mia out to a horror movie and then been forced to spend the night in her room because her friend was so terrified.

There was more she remembered.

But there was still a lot that she hadn't.

She looked up from her work to see Dom and Brian bent over some sort of schematic in deep discussion. Mia had already taken Jack home for the afternoon. Wiping her hands on a rag Letty grabbed her water bottle and wandered outside for some air. It was hot in the garage, but out here there was a bit of a breeze.

She took a deep breath, then frowned as she caught a familiar smell in the air. She may not have all of her memories but pot was a very distinctive scent. It had been a lot of years since she'd smoked it herself, and even then it had only been rarely, from what she could remember. Most people either detested the smell or loved it. Letty didn't really care much either way. She'd gotten used to it when….

Her mind blanked for a moment as she strolled down to the sidewalk.

There a kid was sitting by himself, a joint pinched between his fingers, black nail polish on his fingers, baggy black jeans, dirty grey t-shirt, a black beanie on his head. Scrawny, pale kid bouncing his leg unconsciously as he took another drag.

Her boots scuffed against the walk and he looked up, startled, dropped his hand behind his back, looking up at her with wide eyes. He took in her appearance, the white tank top streaked with dirt and grease, the grey work-pants and her ancient, scuffed up combat boots. She tossed him a grin and raised a brow.

"What? You think I'm gonna call the cops?"

He studied her a moment, a dubious look on his young face before he raised the joint to his lips and took another drag.

"You never know about adults," he muttered.

"You remind me of someone." It was out of her mouth before she realized it.

The kid looked at her blankly, dropping the remains of his smoke to the ground and stamping it out with his foot. He pushed himself to his feet and he was taller than her when standing, just barely.

"Thanks for not calling the cops, lady." He grinned, then waved as he sauntered away.

Letty watched him go, the smell of pot still lingering in the air. She furrowed her brows, sitting down on the curb he'd abandoned. She stared down at her hands, fingernails unpainted, grease caught under their short tips. She rested her hands on her knees and gazed out at the street. Across from the garage there was a tire shop and the back of a tall apartment building that some kid had tagged, the city had painted over with white only for it to be tagged again.

"You'd think the city would find better ways to spend their money."

A voice from her past echoed and she blinked slowly, grasping at the threads of the memory.

A wisp of smoke curled in front of her face in the hazy sky of LA's dusk. The sun was setting, painting everything in orange and yellow, caught in the sheen of smog that hovered over the city. The cement curb she sat on was still warm beneath her from the sunny August day.

Two sets of boots, side-by-side. Hers – brown work-boots splattered with grease. And Jesse's black combat boots, scuffed and scarred to hell, covered by the tattered hems of his jeans. His leg, perpetually bouncing when he wasn't focused (which was most of the time), his black-tipped fingers grasping a joint that he offered to her.

She took it, raising it to her lips for a short drag before passing it back. She had to drive home, after all. And she wasn't exactly well-behaved but she wasn't stupid either. Driving under the influence meant she could damage her car, after all.

"They have lots of ways to waste time and money," she said, stretching out her legs in front of her.

Jesse chuckled, then sighed and looked over at her. "Hey Letty, can I ask you something?"

She glanced at him. "Sure. You know you can."

"I was thinking… of you know… taking my test to get my GED."

She blinked at him, at a loss for a moment. "Really? That's great. But what do you want to ask me about?"

"Well you took it didn't you?"

"A couple years ago… But you're not asking for study help are you because you'd be better off hitting up Mia for that shit."

"No," he laughed, shaking his head. "I just… do you think it makes a difference? Do you feel like it was worth it to get it?"

She frowned, scuffing her boot against the pavement. "I guess it depends on why you're getting it, Jess." She dragged a hand through her hair. "I did it… to prove something to myself."

"What do you mean?"

"I always wanted to drop out of high school. I thought it was BS. But I didn't actually leave school until I had to, when I was running the garage and Dom was in jail. And yeah maybe… school wasn't for me at the time but there's something… satisfying about having that piece of paper. Not because it's significant, but because it meant I didn't give up." She wrinkled her nose. "Sounds like crap, doesn't it?"

"No." He grinned at her. "I think I understand. I tried at school… you know? I just couldn't focus. And I hated the pills. They made me… not feel like me."

"If you want to get your GED you can do it Jess. We know you'll ace the math part." She laughed.

"That's true. I might ask Mia's help for the rest… maybe. I'll look into it. Thanks."

"No problem." She smiled. "I'm just surprised you asked me and not Dom."

"He'd tell me to do it just because he always wants people to… do that kind of stuff. Like he makes Mia go to school." Jesse shrugged. "Plus I don't want to disappoint him, you know?"

"I hear you. I don't think any of us want to," she agreed.

She put her arm around him and he smiled. She felt protective of him. Like he was the little brother she'd never had and never known she'd wanted. Standing, Letty rubbed a hand over the beanie on his head.

"Let me know what you decide to do," she said, then walked back up to the garage to help close up for the night.

She remembered he had decided to take the test. Not long before they'd taken on the hijackings in LA. Every Saturday he'd meet Mia at the library to study. It had been a plan to surprise Dom once he'd passed.

He'd never gotten the chance. Thanks to Johnny Tran.

She could still remember his smiling face. The way he'd light up when he would talk about cars or engines. How shyly proud he was when he would get praise from anyone… especially Dom. How much he hadn't wanted to disappoint him.

Letty stared down at her hands and closed her eyes against the burning tears, let out a long breath and dropped her head.

"Letty?" Dom's voice broke through the haze of sadness and loss and she lifted her head to look up.

"What's wrong?" he asked, lowering himself beside her with a little groan.

She chuckled softly. "Getting old?"

"I think I'm just taller since the last time I sat on a sidewalk."

She smiled slightly, then looked back down at her hands. "I just was… thinking about… Remembering Jesse."

Dom was silent, and his silence was filled with his own sense of sorrow and loss.

Letty glanced over at him, shifting closer on the curb. She leaned against him and he wrapped his arm around her. His hand cupped her shoulder, fingers rubbing the bare skin there idly. It was a dual sort of comfort they took in one another, neither of them saying anything for a long time.

"He was just a kid," Dom finally murmured. "And I can't help but feel like… I failed him."

Letty looked up at him in surprise, wrapping her arm around his waist. "It wasn't anyone's fault but Tran's."

"I should have been watching out for Jesse," Dom insisted. "I shouldn't have let him make that bet."

She chuckled softly, resting her head against his shoulder. "There you go again. Dom… you have to let people make their own choices… and take the responsibility for those choices. In the end it was Tran's fault… what happened to Jesse. There was no need to gun him down like that, in cold blood." She shook her head. "Don't look back on him and feel guilty."

She lifted her head, letting out a little sigh. "He was happy here… you know. It was better here for him than it had been at home."

"I know," he agreed.

"I miss him too," she said softly.

Dom pressed a kiss against the top of her head and held her close as they sat together on the curb, watching the sun set over the LA skyline. Both of them remembering a family member they had lost too young.