I Need You to See
For the last month and a half, Molly Hooper felt like she'd woken from a bizarre dream. Her brain still felt foggy sometimes, when she thought about where she'd been before. Had it even been real? Arkham, Massachusetts with its assortment of monsters and senseless violence. Death and fear were as integral to that hellish campus as oxygen was to normal human beings.
Heh, normal human beings. What was normal anymore? Arkham had turned Molly Hooper's entire world upside down, especially when it came the perception of that word. She'd seen monsters, superhuman beings...And then there was Johnny.
A man who could set himself on fire and had somehow found a spark of interest in her, of all people. She'd been reluctant - and why not? Why should he find her attractive? She was a bit plain and sometimes she looked too skinny (her mum was always telling her that) and besides, she could read him well enough the first time they met to realize Johnny was a bit of a flirt.
But he was also quite capable of being nice. And, truth be told, after her last few attempts with the opposite sex, it felt good for someone to give her a little bit of attention.
Now, back home in monster-free London, going on with her normal life, Molly's thoughts kept drifting off more and more frequently. She'd spy someone on the street with a similar haircut, or the right build, or she'd give bright flashes of light a second glance in case they were from a man aflame.
But it never was.
On more than one occasion she found herself tempted to just give up, call it all a silly dream and move on. And then she caught wind of an announcement on the telly - and she saw him. She stopped in the middle of her flat, a pint of ice cream in one hand and the spoon in the other. Slack-jawed, she stared at the screen. There he was, handsomely carved face and all, with a caption on the photo.
Here Comes the Storm - some type of kitschy title talking about his 'comeback' - she actually didn't pay too much attention to the details of why. Molly only cared about the WHEN and WHERE.
Three days later, Molly Hooper was making the most impulsive decision she'd done as of her own return: she called out of work and drove to the press conference, the whole ride over her fingers drumming nervously on the wheel, her mind tense and teetering on the notion of turning back.
When she arrived, Molly was awestruck by the sheer number of women who seemed very interested in the man she hoped she knew. What if it was all a big mistake, a misunderstanding? What if, with the crazy time-scheme of Arkham, he somehow didn't know who she was? Was she about to make a big fool out of herself, trying to see him?
She took a seat as close to the front as she could (ending up in row eight); in the nearby aisles, she saw microphone stands being adjusted. "Looks like there's a Q & A portion," she thought, hands twisting nervously in her lap. It helped to briefly take her mind off the nagging worry:
What if he'd forgotten about her?
Heh, normal human beings. What was normal anymore? Arkham had turned Molly Hooper's entire world upside down, especially when it came the perception of that word. She'd seen monsters, superhuman beings...And then there was Johnny.
A man who could set himself on fire and had somehow found a spark of interest in her, of all people. She'd been reluctant - and why not? Why should he find her attractive? She was a bit plain and sometimes she looked too skinny (her mum was always telling her that) and besides, she could read him well enough the first time they met to realize Johnny was a bit of a flirt.
But he was also quite capable of being nice. And, truth be told, after her last few attempts with the opposite sex, it felt good for someone to give her a little bit of attention.
Now, back home in monster-free London, going on with her normal life, Molly's thoughts kept drifting off more and more frequently. She'd spy someone on the street with a similar haircut, or the right build, or she'd give bright flashes of light a second glance in case they were from a man aflame.
But it never was.
On more than one occasion she found herself tempted to just give up, call it all a silly dream and move on. And then she caught wind of an announcement on the telly - and she saw him. She stopped in the middle of her flat, a pint of ice cream in one hand and the spoon in the other. Slack-jawed, she stared at the screen. There he was, handsomely carved face and all, with a caption on the photo.
Here Comes the Storm - some type of kitschy title talking about his 'comeback' - she actually didn't pay too much attention to the details of why. Molly only cared about the WHEN and WHERE.
Three days later, Molly Hooper was making the most impulsive decision she'd done as of her own return: she called out of work and drove to the press conference, the whole ride over her fingers drumming nervously on the wheel, her mind tense and teetering on the notion of turning back.
When she arrived, Molly was awestruck by the sheer number of women who seemed very interested in the man she hoped she knew. What if it was all a big mistake, a misunderstanding? What if, with the crazy time-scheme of Arkham, he somehow didn't know who she was? Was she about to make a big fool out of herself, trying to see him?
She took a seat as close to the front as she could (ending up in row eight); in the nearby aisles, she saw microphone stands being adjusted. "Looks like there's a Q & A portion," she thought, hands twisting nervously in her lap. It helped to briefly take her mind off the nagging worry:
What if he'd forgotten about her?