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Title: There Are No Happy Endings
Characters/Pairings: Sean/Nadine, Kevin, Tommy/Jenny, Jimmy/Joanie, Helen Donnelly, Joey Ice Cream
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, allusions to drug use and violence
Word Count: 1,980
Spoiler alert: through "Easy Is The Way"
Summary: Five happy endings that might have happened after "Easy Is The Way" ended.
Author’s Notes: Unbetaed. Concrit welcomed with enthusiastic applause. I watched "Easy Is The Way" while depressed and wrote this and made myself more depressed. Damn cliffhanger endings...why do the networks hate us?

Sean

They picked up Nadine at her apartment. Sean insisted, and nobody could dissuade him, so they made the stop and waited in the van while Sean and Nadine stood in her doorway, arguing in hushed tones until she gave up and hugged him and went to pack a bag.

And when they left again, Sean was driving, and Nadine was perched awkwardly next to Joanie, eyes bright with excitement and confusion and adventure.

Throughout the drive, it was Nadine and Joanie that kept everyone's spirits up, chattering excitedly with each other about what they planned to do when they reached their destination...wherever that was. Nadine chose all the music they listened to, and was so enthusiastic about her choices that everyone else got into it, too. Joanie bubbled over with enthusiasm about everything, and the further they got from New York the happier she got. They ganged up on Joey to get him to tell a story that didn't even pretend to be truth, to distract everyone. Joanie got into Nadine's textbooks and coaxed Jimmy into looking through them with her. Sean wouldn't stop grinning, and Tommy's grim expression lightened a little every time he looked at his youngest brother.

Three weeks later, Kevin was the best man, Joanie was the maid of honor, Jimmy and Joey stole a ton of beer for the reception, Tommy made a toast, and Helen was full of dismal forebodings as would have been predicted but allowed herself to be persuaded to kiss her new daughter-in-law on the cheek.

Sean kissed his bride again, and again, and again, and they laughed in disbelief—we're married!—while his brothers whooped good-natured lewd encouragement, his mother shook her head in despair, Joanie giggled herself sick, and Joey shook his head: "Little Seanie married, who'd'a thought it?"

A year later, a new life was brought into the world: they called her Roberta Catherine Donnelly, and as Tommy carefully gathered his new niece into his arms, he silently promised her, his baby brother, and his sister-in-law, all the same thing: You will never have to fear for your life from the mob.

Kevin

It was a long time before Kevin needed any happy ending other than seeing his brothers and his mother and Joey and his brothers' girls safe and content. He was the one who plotted out their course, tracking their progress in the old road map, following his dad's old pencil markings with a happy smile.

He sang along with the radio and badgered Seanie into pulling over at a thrift store so he could 'buy' a new jacket. Tommy made him actually pay for it, but he wasn't particularly upset about that; it fit nice and the sign on the wall said all profits went to charity, so probably he would've felt guilty about walking out without paying for it.

They'd been settled into their new home for a while, and everyone was pretty happy, and Kevin liked that. Liked seeing his family happy. Especially Ma. She hadn't been happy near enough, lately, and she was smiling a lot more now.

That was when the old itch came back, and he went to the races.

There was this horse, see. This really amazing horse. Luck Of The Irish, she was called; how much more of a sign did anybody need?

Jimmy made fun of him. Said that Luck of the Irish meant 'if it weren't for bad luck there'd be no luck at all' and that's exactly the kind of luck Kevin had, so come on, come back to the bar and leave the horses alone. But Kevin just shook his head and said it had been their lucky year so far and he had a feeling, he had a really good feeling about this horse, and he put all his savings—five hundred dollars—down on Luck Of The Irish to win. The odds were a little long, but that was okay, that just meant the payoff would be better.

Sean came to the race with him. Kept grinning and making fun of him and insisting that it was a waste of money. Kevin ignored him, mostly, except to tease him back; some of the other spectators paused what they were doing to look at the two brothers with a fond smile.

Luck Of The Irish won by a nose.

Tommy

Nobody asked any questions when Jenny stepped out into the street in front of the van, forcing Sean into a very abrupt, very ungraceful halt.

Nobody asked any questions when Tommy let her into the van and she very calmly found a seat, and they all saw that her clothes were splattered with blood.

Nobody asked any questions about where her wedding ring was, or why she'd changed her mind, or whether her father was going to meet up with them at any point.

When a day later they heard on the radio that Samson Dawlish had been found dead in his apartment building, they still didn't ask any questions, but Joanie loaned Jenny a change of clothes, and Tommy brightened up a very little.

Jenny didn't offer any explanations. But at the first gas station they stopped at, she disappeared into the tiny bathroom for a very long time, and when she walked out her skin was a tight, stretched pink all over where she'd scrubbed it almost to bleeding.

A hundred miles later, Tommy kissed her behind the van in a Burger King parking lot, a soft, tentative, questioning kiss, and she kissed him back.

Kevin almost cheered from where he was spying behind a parked car, but Seanie elbowed him sharply just in time. Nobody let the two of them know that they knew what had happened.

But if Tommy and Jenny thought they were being discreet, then they obviously had no self-awareness whatsoever.

They had been settled into their new place for a month when Tommy walked in one day loaded down with paint cans and got to work. On every wall in every room he painted; for nearly a week he painted. And when he was done, there were bright, colorful murals on every wall, and hidden among the bright lines and colorful shapes were familiar faces: his brothers, Joey, Ma; Nadine and Joanie, Kate and Matty Farrell; Pop and Frankie and Calero. And on every wall, Jenny looking out with a bright smile, a smile that very nearly captured the beam Jenny walked around with for two weeks after seeing his handiwork.

Jimmy

The first thing Joanie did when they were all settled in and safe was find a rehab program, and enroll them both.

Jimmy sulked about it for a while and swore he wouldn't go. Not even if she bullied him or threatened him or left him would he go to some stupid rehab, he promised.

So she didn't bully or threaten or leave. She cried and begged and pleaded with him, saying she didn't want to be a junkie anymore, she wanted to belong, and she wanted to belong with him, and in the end he couldn't take it anymore and he went.

When Kevin came to visit him in rehab and Jimmy was grousing about why the hell had he ever thought this would be a good idea, Kevin grinned and said it was because he loved her. Jimmy had to hit his brother for that, chasing him out with barked orders not to come back.

When they got out, Joanie kissed him and threw her arms around his neck, looking healthier than she had in years, and wouldn't stop fucking smiling, and he thought to himself: well. Damned if Kevin's dumbass suggestion wasn't right after all. He loved her.

They bought a bar.

It took a while, but a couple years later they had a clientele and a reputation for being the only authentic Irish-American pub in the area. Jimmy was surly with the customers, Tommy and Kevin and Sean and Joey pitched in to help with work whenever they were needed, and they didn't sell mixed drinks; you got beer or hard liquor or you got the hell out. Joanie stopped bleaching her hair and led the red grow out; she flirted with the customers and hummed happily as she mopped down the bar.

They went to dinner at Helen's every Sunday and were almost constantly surrounded by family. Joanie had never been happier, and sometimes, Jimmy could almost be persuaded to admit that he kinda liked it, too.

Helen

It was terrifying. Blood, and pain, and broken glass, and the very strong feeling that there was not supposed to be a hole in her body there. And she could hear Joey hyperventilating and that girl of Jimmy's screaming in terror and gunshots, so many gunshots...

She cried out, and Tommy clutched at her hand.

She had her boys, she reminded herself; and she knew better than to doubt her boys, they were good boys, smart boys. They would figure out what to do, and they would fix this.

Well, Tommy would, anyway.

So Helen just focused on keeping her breathing going until Tommy could fix this.

And sure enough, they made it to a hospital; the whole ride was a blur to Helen, who was focused on breathing and pain, but the hospital was bright lights and a terrified nurse saying you made it just in time, needles and pressure and then blessed darkness—

The bullet wound was serious and required surgery, but the boys managed to scrape up the money and simultaneously coerce the doctors and nurses into not letting anyone know that they were there.

She woke up to find eight worried faces clustered around her, and noted that at some point her sons had added Jenny and Nadine to their ranks.

As soon as she felt well enough to leave, she walked out of the hospital, ignoring the doctors' protests, and rejoined her family on the run. The group had been scouting out destinations and Tommy swore they had found a house that she would love, a home that would make up for their loss of the neighborhood.

When she walked inside and looked around, she thought to herself that it wasn't quite the apartment she and Bobby had worked so hard to buy for themselves and their children, but it would do.

A year later, her sons and Joey and the girls had worn it in enough that she could almost hear Bobby's voice around the corner.

She was home.

Joey

"That's the thing about the Donnellys," Joey concluded. "They always got away, in the end. And I went with them. 'Course, I was one of the family and all—but that's another story."

"Right. But here's the thing," the lawyer said. He opened his briefcase and extracted a thick mass of files, laying them down one by one in front of Joey. "Nadine Gage graduated from Manhattan School Of Music with a bachelor's degree. She never got married and has no kids. No horse named Luck Of The Irish has run a race in the United States in the past twenty years. Samson Dawlish's body was never found; Jenny Reilly was questioned about his disappearance but there was never any evidence against her. We can't find a single bar that matches up with your description of Jimmy Donnelly's bar, and a woman matching Helen Donnelly's description was declared DOA at the community hospital that night."

Joey looked down at the files, paged through them carelessly, and handed them back.

"Perjury's a crime," the lawyer said fiercely. "So how about for once in your miserable life you tell us the truth. What really happened to the Donnellys after the shootout with Farrell?"

Joey shrugged and gave that half-smile that meant anything except happiness. "I just wanted to give them a happy ending, for once in their lives."