Title: Five Good Years and a Tank of Gas

Author: Babydolleyez

Pairing/Character: Molly Fitzpatrick, mentions of Molly/Felix

Word Count:

Rating: PG

Summary: Molly following graduation and a few insights into her later life

Spoilers: All of Season two

Notes: Takes place at some point during "Not Pictured", title taken from the song "Mama I'm Alright" by Miranda Lambert, the full line is "Five good years, and a tank of gas, fifty watts and Johnny Cash, a guitar and a broken heart" . And for the record, I have no idea how you jump start a car. I don't even have my learner's permit. Disclaimer: I don't own any characters herein this fic. And if you attempt sue you wont get anything. Really. I can't even pay my library fines.

Molly stopped by the door of her truck, pulled out her keys. She took a glance back at her now former high school, feeling only a slight negativity from her core. Her beloved alma mater had never done her any good. She had no friends, and no one knew her name. Even in the age of awareness about child abuse, no one had ever said a word about the bruises on her arms, she had even come to school bleeding from a beer bottle broken on her shoulder and no one said a thing.(1) But fear of her family's notoriety had kept anyone from picking on her and the 09er jerks had thankfully never attempted to make a move on her.

Her truck wouldn't start. It wasn't the first time either, the 250 dollar piece of shit, but you got what you paid for. She sighed, got out and pulled her jumper cables out of the box, that were buried underneath her few worldly possessions. Some clothes in a bag, the ankle bracelet Felix had made her in shop, the bugged yellow truck that Weevil had never retrieved.(2) She had taken the money she had been saving for the last four years from the pittance she was paid at the River Styx. It amounted to just under four thousand dollars.

Her and Felix had spoken about this for some time before his death. They had spoken about leaving this God forsaken hell hole in the glitz and plastic of Southern California and going out East, to Albuquerue, Santa Fe, maybe as far as Houston. Now that he was gone, it was really the least she could do, to hold up the end of her bargain.

She had been shocked to see Sheriff Lamb at graduation. She was instinctivly uneasy around most police, but this one in particular made her stomach crawl. She had tried to catch his eye when they were leading him out, but his face was to the ground. How was he to know she understood? She had heard the charge, and her uncles and cousin's bragging and rambling had informed her of Thumper's snake in the grass tactics, even though the only PCHer she had ever seen there was Cervando. And she thought, if Thumper did kill Felix, then good riddance and godspeed to whoever wasted him.

She got back in her started truck and took a few minutes to look at some picture in her glove compartment of some of the happier times. She then broke down for the first time since the death of the one person who had truly loved her. Tears fell silently down her cheeks in torrents and it took five whole minutes to regain her composure. She took a look at her face in her side mirror. Her mascara was running down her cheeks, but the damage was below that. Her face was pallid and drawn, her brown eyes dull and her thick hair in disarray. She guessed that a year of repressed grief could do that to a person. Baby girl, she thought, this is the hardest anythings ever going to hit you, this is as old as your ever going to get.(3)

She closed her door and started her truck again. After she pulled out of the parking lot, she drove without even slowing down, until she was past the Neptune city limit signs.

She will end uo in Tulsa.(4) Using her savings to get a cheap apartment on the wrong side of town, and earning her keep as a waitress. When she reaches twenty one, she takes a job as a bartender in a slightly better area. She will never marry, and the boys wh ocome to the bar every night are her only children. They will sometimes be rowdy, but Molly has physical strength along with her emotional fortitude, and she will never miss serving beer to meth headed, weed flying lunatics who called themselves her family members.

Some of the old timers at the bar wonder about the past she is so secretive about, but they all imagine she must have been hot as a young girl, always over guessing her age by five years at least. They will wonder why she still and always will live alone.

Every night at one thirty, she will leave the bar into the unnervingly quiet Tulsa night. She will enter her ancient green truck in her blue jean skirt and Fighting Irish jersey and drive home to the little corner of teh world she has found for herself.

1. I find it difficult to believe someone in Molly's situation could escape without enduring some sort of abuse.

2.I think she knew the truck was bugged, even if no one had told her, she otherwise would have no reason to steer the conversation that way.

3. Paraphrased from Bastard out of Carolina.

4. Chosen because it is also the setting of The Outsiders, one of my favorite books as a preteen.