A/N: Oh, gosh. Looks like I screwed up the dates again. Anyway, that's fixed. Thank you for reading and reviewing! :)

X

September 10th, 2010 – Brooklyn

"Do you remember that time when uh… What's his name… The history teacher in freshman year?" Jesse asked.

"Oh! Yeah! The guy with the handle bar mustache, right? Um… O'Handley, right?" Felicity quipped, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin.

They had finished off their shopping trip about an hour ago and decided on going to some random restaurant for lunch. Jesse had ordered a burger and fries as well as a tall pint of beer while Felicity had settled on roasted chicken and potatoes. They had been busy reminiscing about high school and generally catching up on the past few years – save for the most recent ones at least.

"Yeah! Mr. O'Handley! Remember the time he fucking face planted right in the middle of class because he tripped over the projector cord?" Jesse laughed.

"Oh, yeah, like hell I remember that! And he spilled his damn coffee all over my final paper?" Felicity stewed, making a sour face.

"God, I'd never seen you so pissed off, I swear you were about to shove your foot in his ass," he laughed, taking a bit of his burger.

As far as moods went, this was the best Jesse had felt in a long time, aside from when he made his escape from Jack's compound. He had been keeping his mind off anything that had happened in the last two years and instead focusing on thinking about simpler times – happier times. Felicity seemed to be a lot happier as well. All it really took was a few goofy stories from their teenage years to make everything better. He wondered how long that would last.

… You'll get a nice apartment, a nice job, a nice name… Who knows, maybe you'll start a nice family and settle down in a nice neighborhood…

He had had those thoughts at the back of his head for the whole day. From today on, he was the master of his own destiny. There was no Walter White, Gustavo Fring or Jack Welker to tell him what to do or put a gun to his head. He was his own man, now – free to do whatever he wanted. Those sorts of thoughts only caused Jesse to smile like an idiot.

"I considered it. Shit, I think I stayed up the whole night before that to finish it on time!" Felicity exclaimed as she waved her hands in the air. "Man, that was ages ago… I can't believe I still remember that stuff… God, we're old, aren't we…"

Jesse shrugged.

"Twenty five ain't old," he said.

Felicity furrowed her brow for a moment before laughing.

"Your birthday! It's in three days!" she mused, a wide grin spreading across her face.

He had forgotten. He had just started working with Walter around his twenty fourth birthday and the years in between just seemed to fly by. Jesse scowled as he remembered the watch he had given Walt for his 51st. Not wanting to dig up back memories, he shoved a few fries in his mouth and shrugged again.

"It is, isn't it?" he said, sounding a bit introspective.

"How about you tag along with me tomorrow night? I'm going to a party with a few friends from the bar – I dunno, you can meet new people and all that shit," Felicity suggested.

The more and more Felicity considered letting Jesse into her world, the more and more nervous she got. There were facets of her life that even she wasn't able to completely accept yet, whether it be the incident with her parents or even the state of her current source of income, it was quite a bit to swallow. Felicity refused to pile that onto Jesse's plate, especially after all that he'd been through.

"Uh, do you really think that's a good idea?" Jesse questioned.

Even though he had done quite a bit of showing his face around town, he was still a bit paranoid over whether or not people would recognize him or not.

"Well, I mean just about everyone is gonna be piss drunk, I doubt they'll remember you at all," she reasoned, shrugging.

Jesse chuckled.

"…I'll think about it. I don't know if I'm ready to hit the party scene just yet," he admitted.

Regardless of how on and off he was with drugs, Jesse couldn't help but twitch at the thought of shooting or smoking up again. One would've thought that he wouldn't want anything to do with drugs after all that he had been through, but old habits die hard. It was so much easier to float away on a numbing cloud than to have to wake up and face the world for what it truly was – a disgusting cess pool of liars and cheats. Now that he was more or less clean, that reality was something he would just have to deal with. Some people were just horrible, and that was that.

"Heh, alright. I hope you can make it though. It'd be pretty shitty to spend your birthday all by yourself."

She flashed him a small smile before continuing to pick at her food.

"Hey, so… How are the guys?" Felicity suddenly asked.

Jesse felt his blood run cold. It was only a matter of time before she brought them up. After all, they were here friends too, once upon a time. He knew that she had always sort of been close to Emilio since they were both 'new kids' growing up - hell, outcome aside, Felicity even ended up going to prom with him. While he didn't exactly want to bring up the past few years, Jesse felt as if he owed her an update about her childhood friends.

"Well… I-I worked with Emilio for a while… Y'know… Making crystal," Jesse began in a hushed tone. "But… Things went south and he ended up getting booked by the DEA…"

Felicity pursed her lips, not sure of how to feel. For some reason, none of this came as a surprise to her – and that made her feel horrible; that she had such low expectations for people she called friends. But she was one to talk.

Jesse was still talking.

"Mr. Whi- Walt… He… Well, he locked them in the RV with all this uh… Phospho-whatever gas… And he kicked the bucket right then and there…"

Her blue eyes widened.

"Oh…" she mumbled, gulping.

"But uh… The other guys, Skinny Pete and Badger… They're cool," he added as if to soften the blow.

Jesse noticed her furrow her brow.

"W-What about Christian?" she stuttered, not exactly wanting to hear what she was already thinking.

"Combo… He… He got caught selling product on the wrong turf and… God, they used a fuckin' kid to do it, Fissy… A kid… He was eleven years old for fuck's sake…" Jesse muttered as his mind descended deeper into repressed memories – waking up with Andrea in his arms, holding her after her brother had passed away. He could feel the anger rising up in his gut – the same anger that drove him to try to kill the two guys that had the gall to use a child to commit crimes. Jesse's fist was clenched tightly around his pint of beer. Any tighter and he was sure he could've broken it.

Felicity instantly regretted asking anything about what had happened in the past few years. She had no idea just how many people were involved with all of this. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes as she thought of Emilio and Christian. Regardless of how close they were when they were kids, they still practically grew up together. It felt as if a piece of her own personal history was just wiped away. Slowly, she rose from the table, slinging her purse over her shoulder. They were pretty much done eating anyway. Felicity tossed a few bills onto the table before rushing out of the restaurant without saying so much as a word to Jesse.

He watched her in confusion and only decided to go after her as soon as she walked out the door. After trying so hard not to make her upset, he went and did this. Perhaps he could've delivered it better. Either way, all he could really do was tell her the truth even if she had to suffer for it. All of Jesse's previous anger had dissipated into worry. Even though he knew it wasn't his fault, something inside of him scolded himself for not trying to protect her from something that could have potentially hurt her – an instinct that had been constantly kicking him in the ass for all of his past relationships.

Jesse found her standing in the parking lot, sitting on the trunk of her car. She held her head in one hand while a smoldering cigarette dangled from the other. He approached her slowly, soon drawing close enough to hear her crying.

"Hey… Are you alright?" he inquired.

She looked up at him, glassy blue eyes staring into his own. All she did was offer him a meager shrug, a small worn smile on her face.

"What a fucking world," she mumbled, taking a long drag from her cigarette before flicking off the ashes. "Cooking meth and committing fraud – we've come a long way from Mario Kart and shitty karaoke."

Jesse chuckled a bit, leaning against the car beside her.

"Hah, tell me about it…" he sighed as he eyed her hunched over figure. "You don't drink anymore but you smoke now?"

Felicity cocked a brow, turning to look at him. She shrugged and shoved a hand into her purse, rummaging around before producing a package of cigarettes. It had been way too long since he last had a good smoke. Jesse didn't hesitate to fish one out of the pack, balancing it between his lips as Felicity pulling out a lighter. He inhaled as she lit it and allowed the smoke to seep into his lungs. His eyes fluttered closed, letting the cigarette calm his nerves ever so slightly.

"At least with smoking I can manage to drag my ass out of bed in the morning… And I don't do it often," she explained, blowing a steady stream of smoke out of her mouth.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jesse asked, sounding a bit concerned.

She only shook her head.

"Don't worry about it," Felicity said passively, waving a hand at him.

Jesse decided to let it slip for the mean time. There was no use in trying to get her to talk about anything personal since he had already upset her once today. He took a long drag and sighed again. He suddenly felt a slight weight on his shoulder. Felicity was leaning on him now, still slightly hunched over. He tensed up for a second, not used to the feeling of human contact that wasn't some sort of violent act.

"What would've happened if I never left ABQ?" she questioned. "Do you think things would be different?"

He wasn't exactly sure what she meant by that but he figured she was talking about the two of them.

"I… I don't know, I mean… Shit was pretty crazy around the time you moved away," he lamented.

"Well, like… What would've happened with everyone? I just think that maybe if I stuck around that I could've… Helped… I don't know…" she murmured.

Jesse frowned. She had actually been talking about everything overall – and here he was thinking she was talking about them. Regardless of any internal embarrassment that he might have been feeling, he was still concerned by the fact that she was making herself feel guilty for the situation he was in. Luckily, it looked as if she hadn't caught what he was implying.

"Don't even think about that, Felicity," he scolded. "I'm sure I would've still ended up knee deep in shit regardless of if you had stayed or not. That's just how it was always meant to be for me…"

To think they had been laughing and enjoying themselves just fifteen minutes before and now there they were, sitting on a car in a restaurant parking lot.

"You're a lot better person than you give yourself credit for, Jesse," she whispered.

"…I wish I could believe you – but you don't even know the half of what I've done…" he said, voice hoarse.

She slowly lifted her head off his shoulder, hopping off the car and onto her feet. Felicity flattened her cigarette with her heel and crossed her arms over her chest.

"A person's choices reflect who they are and I have a feeling that if you go back and think about all the things that you've done, your intentions would say otherwise," Felicity reasoned.

Jesse let her words sink in for a moment. He knew there was some truth to what she was saying. For instance, Mr. White, despite being a power hungry megalomaniac, always had the best intentions for his family in mind. Jesse couldn't deny that most of his decisions were based off of his feelings for other people. He stared at the concrete below them, going through every one of the choices he had ever made.

Slowly, Felicity came towards him again just like she did on the first night that he arrived in Brooklyn. Her small hands cradled his face, lifting it up so that his eyes met hers. She smile softly as if she had just thought of something funny while her thumbs traced over the scars on his face.

"I really missed you, Jesse."