fic: The End Is All I Can See
Title: The End Is All I Can See.
Rating: PG-13.
Pairings or Characters: Molly, Zach, implied Mohinder/Matt, Sylar, most of the rest of the cast to some extent.
Warnings: SPOILERS for Five Years Gone, character death - assume everyone could get the chop and you're good.
Prompt: 20. Something Molly centric and set in the 5YG 'verse.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything and I certainly don't own this.
Summary: She thinks about Mohinder, redemption, and Matt - and how, in the end, she'll be the one to condemn them, all because God has a plan. Molly, five years in the future.
Notes: So. I claimed this prompt from heroes_fest about four days ago and now it's done. Over a month before the posting period. Obsession, it's what's for dinner. (Sorry for my girl!crush on Claire creeping in a bit here.)
and I know the moment's near
and there's nothing you can do
look through a faithless eye
are you afraid to die?
muse - thoughts of a dying atheist
In the display case at school, there's a picture and a tiara for every homecoming queen stretching back to the 1950s. Except 2005, that is. For 2005 there's nothing, no photograph, no explanation; it's the year that never was as far as the officials are concerned. Who wants to be reminded of a visit from America's most dangerous serial killer, and a cheerleader who was one of them?
It's a monument to hypocrisy and bigotry, and Molly looks at it everyday, knowing that the day two blonde cheerleaders are among the smiling queens will be the day that a sliver of her faith in the humanity will be returned.
But that's not today.
“Why torture yourself, Russell?”
Molly half turns at the voice, tapping a couple of buttons on her phone before dropping it into her bag.
“I'm sorry, were you saying something?”
Stacey Walters overly made up face stares back at her, her posse fanning out around her, snickering like she's some kind of comedienne, or something.
“You're never gonna make homecoming queen, so why even look?” She sneers, flicking her brown hair over her shoulder. Molly smiles back.
“Wow, you some kind of humanitarian or something, Stacey? I think you missed your calling as school counsellor, for serious.”
Stacey's blank for a second (working out whether that was an insult or not, Molly hopes) then she purses her lips, sucking on her teeth. “Well, at least I don't live with my gay cousin.”
Molly nods appreciatively. “Oh, nice comeback, Stace.” She adjusts the straps of her bag and turns to leave.
“Don't even think about asking Kevin to the dance!” Stacey yells.
Molly holds her hand up, and, slowly, raises her middle finger.
*
“Okay, I'll be there in an hour. With the forms, yes. No, I can't physically go any faster than I already am. Maybe you should have found someone with a more appropriate skill set. Don't you start with me, okay?”
Molly closes the front door quietly, the tense conversation getting louder and quieter as it's moved from room to room. She sets her bag on the kitchen table, pushing aside last night's pizza boxes and plastic cutlery. The kitchen/diner looks worse than usual; in addition to the half rotting food, there's a sports bag on the floor, an explosion of clothes inside and around it and a haphazard pile of papers on the counter. She peers at the top page, catching phrases like 'place of birth' and 'social security number'.
“Oh good, you're home. Thank God I don't have to try and find a pen in this mess now.” Zach smiles as he tugs a cap down over his hair and drops to the floor to stuff all the clothes into his bag.
“Bennet ring?”
“How'd you guess?” He laughs breathily, jumping back up and grabbing the pile of papers. “I'll be back- I don't know, sometime. Hopefully in the next two days. The fridge is full, and I think I paid the gas, but if the heating suddenly shuts off, you'll know why that is. Don't do anything I- Look, just don't do anything, 'kay?” He opens the front door with his elbow, and walks backwards out to his car.
He waves to her as he tears out of the drive.
This is her life now. She thinks about this as she settles down to do her homework, tapping at her phone for a second before pulling her chemistry book onto her lap. She's only fifteen, but it feels like she's lived ten times over already, been a hundred different people.
It's not that far from the truth.
In the beginning, she was plain ol' Molly Walker, girl from the perfect nuclear family. Then she was Molly Walker, orphan-with-two-daddies, and a little while after that, Molly Walker, stuffed into the trunk of a pick up and driven almost two thousand miles to be handed to an eighteen year old kid.
*
Bennet seemed like a nice enough guy, the whole trying to kill her thing notwithstanding, and he looked sad when he took her hand that day.
Mohinder's eyes were wide and shiny, but he said he was fine. He said: don't worry about me. He said: this going to be a great big adventure for you.
He was lying, but sometimes adults have to lie to kids. It makes them feel like they're in control, even when they're not.
She hadn't wanted to go, but she'd wanted the tests even less. So much, she wanted them to stop. This way, they said, there would be no more tests. It had seemed too good to be true.
The truck had Texas plates, she noted, as Bennet bundled her into the trunk. She had to go in here, he told her, because no one could see Molly Walker ever again. He tried to make it as comfortable as he could, with a blanket and pillow and bottle of water, and it was okay, she liked enclosed spaces, they made her feel safe. And, although she was thirteen by then, she was small for her age. It wouldn't be so bad.
Bennet looked down at her, arms raised, ready to close her in. He smiled. You remind me of my daughter, he said, squeezing her hand quickly and closing the trunk with a soft 'click'.
The person she was going to, he knew the score. After everything had been turned on its head, he'd dropped any plans to attend college, and had tracked Bennet down and demanded that they do something. He was Bennet's first and best ally.
I trust him, Bennet said. I trusted him with my daughter.
He had no family left in Odessa, they'd all left after Sylar's second attack on the state, when he'd ripped through there in the height of his misbegotten reign. But he'd stayed; it was his home, there was nowhere else for him to go. And how would Claire find him if she ever needed him?
His name was Zach.
*
Now she's Joanna Russell, little orphaned cousin of Zach, who has short red hair and is a chess nerd and who is, in every conceivable way, normal.
She gets into bed at midnight, after watching the news where they're running another one of President Petrelli's many speeches. She sneers at the screen and shuts it off, flopping into bed and pulling the covers over her.
Tonight, Mohinder is working furiously at something, hunched over his desk, with just his lamp for company.
Tonight, Matt is at the target range, but she can't stay for long because he'll sense her.
Tonight, Niki is selling her body for money and Peter is watching, invisible, from his stool.
Tonight, Claire is curled up asleep with her fiancée.
Tonight, Sylar thinks nothing about his plan can go wrong.
*
She still has the dreams, the 'Nightmare Man' coming at her night after night, whispering words about her parents, telling her how everyone she's close to is going to die. How it's her fault.
Sometimes he has Sylar's face, sometimes he has Matt's, sometimes he has hers.
Waking in a cold sweat, twisted in her sheets, or occasionally on the floor, is normal practice for her, but tonight the after images seem to have been burned into the back of her eyelids, because it's all she can see: the top of Matt's head neatly cut off, growing blood stains on Mohinder's shirt, Nathan's wide, wide smile.
She grabs for her phone, hitting buttons at random and holding it to her ear, listening to the lady on the other end tell her that she's dialled incorrectly. She hopes he's up, hopes he's monitoring the lines tonight, just sits on her floor with her sheets still wound around her legs and hopes.
There's click midway through lady's third monotone announcement.
“Hey,” a voice says, as bright and awake as it always is. She aches with relief.
“Hi, I just needed someone to talk to.”
“Well, that's what your guardian angel is here for.”
*
There's something about this town, Zach says. It brings out the best, and the worst, in people. Unfortunately, these days, the best in people is hard to find.
Zach shows her videos and photo albums when she first arrives. “This is Claire,” he says, eyes on the blonde as she throws herself eighty feet to the ground.
“This is Jackie,” he says, showing her newspaper clippings. “She was a complete bitch, but, y'know.”
“Did you love her?” she says. “Claire, I mean. Not Jackie.”
“Did I? No. Do I?” He smiles. “Yeah.”
“Were you her boyfriend?”
He sighs. “It was complicated. I... don't think I wanted to be her boyfriend, to be honest. I just loved her.”
Molly learned two things that day. One, stuff was complicated. Two, Claire was cool.
*
In addition to being a chess nerd, Molly's also a computer nerd. It makes her smile, thinking of how many families are living safely, under new identities, using fake driver's licenses that she's run up on her laptop.
Today, she's cycling out to Kermit, to knock on the door of a nondescript off-white trailer.
“Hi!” she says brightly, as a nervous middle-aged woman opens the door. She holds up a leaflet and smiles. “Can I talk to you about our efforts to build an ark for God's second flood?”
The woman's face falls with relief. She grips Molly's forearm tightly and pulls her in.
“I thought-” Her hand quivers as she raises it to her mouth.
“Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Zach sends his apologies; he's out of town at the moment.” She swings her messenger bag around to the front, flipping it open. “Your papers. Your name is now Tina Evans. You're booked on the 1.15 train to Dallas, then you're going to have to change a couple of times before you end up in North Carolina; all the instructions are in the envelope. I've got hair dye and a change of clothes here for you, as well as your new house and car keys. There's a job waiting for you at the other end. Now, do you need help with your hair?”
The woman's eyes have grown wider and wider throughout Molly's short speech, until they shine, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She shakes her head wordlessly.
“Okay.” Molly takes the ticket to Dallas out, placing it in the woman's hand and gently closing her fingers around it; covering the hand with both of hers. “You'll make it. I did.”
She leaves shortly after, knocking on doors and slipping her fake flood leaflets with erroneous contact details under them, to keep up appearances. Then she cycles a reasonable distance and sheds her jacket and hat, turning her reversible messenger bag inside out and continuing on.
She's back in time to finish her calculus homework, clean the apartment and make dinner.
It's just the way she rolls.
*
Molly's never had a boyfriend. For the obvious reasons, really; superpowers, secret identities and teenage awkwardness.
She's an awkward looking girl, short scruffy hair cut by Zach the day they both discovered that he could not cut hair, a childishly round face and infeasibly long arms and legs for her small stature. She's not unattractive by a long shot, but she's often mistaken for a boy. It's... yeah. Not ideal.
“Do you ever put that thing down?” Zach points at her phone with his spaghetti loaded fork. She snaps it shut and lays it down in the middle of the table, taking her own fork up and attacking the TV dinner with gusto.
“So, Zach. Can I ask you something? About relationships?”
He raises an eyebrow, swallowing a meatball whole. “I've not giving you the sex talk. That's what the internet's there for.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, somehow, I don't think you'd be the best person to ask. Which leads me nicely to my question: when was the last time you went on the date?”
He regards her suspiciously. “In case you haven't noticed, I haven't really got the time for that.”
“What about when you were younger?”
He rolls his shoulders. “I've never had time for dating. I spent my time as a teenager filming my best friend throwing herself off of things and trying to fend off the anti-powered revolution.”
“You ever been on a date?”
He sniffs at this. “Of course I have.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He swirls his fork around the carton, lifting it up and trying to bite the end of a piece of spaghetti. It hits his face a couple of times, the sauce leaving orange smears on his cheeks and around his mouth. She watches him silently, finishing her food off. He's not taking the bait, she's going to have to be more direct. “The question I'm asking here, that you are avoiding admirably by the way, is what team do you bat for? Or do you bat for the third team?”
He wipes his face with the back of his sleeve and stands, taking both of their empty cartons and tossing them in the trash. “I bat for the 'it's none of your business, I'm not talking to you about it, you're fifteen and by the way, it's still none of your business' team.”
“But... maybe I'm having conflicting feelings about someone at school, and I just... need some guidance from someone's who's maybe been through it.”
He turns, resting his palms on the edge of the counter behind him, and smiles. “No, you're aren't. You're just being nosy.”
“Fine.” She sighs dramatically, scooting her chair back and resting her feet on the table. “But, two daddies over here, remember. I'm hardly gonna judge.”
The smile that had been so easy a moment before drops slightly, his expression taking on a faraway look. He takes in a deep breath. “God, you remind me of Claire sometimes.”
“Everyone says that. Must be the hair.” She jumps up from the chair. “C'mon Mr Mystery, there's a Firefly marathon on.”
*
She was happy in New York, against all the odds. After the explosion, they had been relocated to a facility outside of the blast radius, where Molly received her final transfusions, and Mohinder tried to convince her that everything was normal. It wasn't, but that was okay, because she found a funny kind of stability in Mohinder and Matt's love.
In between the blood tests and the injections and the training, she was happy.
It lasted approximately a year and a half before everything went to hell. Matt stopped visiting so often, and even when he did, it wasn't really him. A kind of darkness had settled over him; she saw it, Mohinder saw it, and the darkness crept into their lives too, seeping into all the happy parts of the day.
Sometimes she clairvoyantly eavesdropped on conversations, because really, no one was going to tell a twelve year old girl anything.
Training had sharpened her senses; now when she zeroed in on a person, she could comfortably project herself into the room, walk around, even get about twenty feet away from the person before she snapped back.
She stood at Mohinder's back as Matt spoke.
“It's a good opportunity.”
“Yes.” Mohinder nodded. “I just fear-- This job, it's dangerous. You've changed already.”
“So have you.”
Mohinder's shoulders slumped. “I know. But Matthew, what about Molly? What if you were asked to take her in?”
Matt dug his hands into his pockets, a move that so contrasted with his new persona for its childishness. “Molly isn't a terrorist.”
“Do you really think that's all you're going to be asked to do? Catch the bad ones? In this climate?” Mohinder seemed tired, pulling his glasses off and rubbing his face with the back of his hand.
Matt glanced away, stared hard at Mohinder's open copy of Activating Evolution, full of notes in red pen and post it notes marking certain pages. “Nathan's a shoe-in for president, you know. He wants you to be his Chief Medical Advisor.”
“I know. Don't change the subject, Matthew.” The glasses went back on, and he pulled himself up to his full height. “Listen to me. This isn't going to end well for any of us. Let's just leave, run as far as we can. You and Molly's powers, they're easily hidden.” At Matt's shaking head, he deflated again. “Matt, please.”
“Did you really think this was going last? Like you said, in this climate...”
Three months later, on the eve of the election results being announced, Bennet arrived to take her away.
*
There's a jutting roof underneath Molly's window, and sometimes she sits on her ledge, feet dangling an inch or so above the tiles. Tonight, wind chimes jingle above her head.
“Molly.” The voice is so faint that she could have passed it off as the wind if she wasn't actively listening for it. Carefully, she stands, walking across the tiles and jumping the one floor to the grass below.
“Hi.” She cranes her head up to look at him.
The Haitian stares back with his usual impassivity. “Why have you called me here?”
“I want to know what's going on is why!” she hisses at him, jabbing her finger at him for a second before feeling silly for it. “You said you were going to do something. You said you were going to help.”
“I am.” He doesn't blink a lot, she notes, so it's impossible to tell whether he's lying. That's what people do, right? Blink a lot when they lie? But then, maybe some people know that and don't blink at all, to overcompensate. All it means for her is that she can't tell either way what he's thinking.
This is the third time she's spoken to him, after Bennet gave her the wind chimes and told her to use them only when she absolutely had to. Well, maybe this doesn't exactly qualify, but she needs to feel like someone is listening. She needs to not carry this horrible weight alone, and the thing about the Haitian is he seems omnipotent; a blank slate to write all her fears on. That first time she called on him, he already knew, and he took all of her shrill, panicked hysterics, let her cry and shout in the middle of the day when everyone was at work and all the houses were empty.
He told her about God's plan, fate, destiny. “When the time comes,” he said, “you'll know.”
They're being kept alive by the whim of a higher being, apparently, and it was not for Molly to interfere. She's never been so sure about that, but Bennet told her to trust him, so she does. For the moment.
“Okay.” She breathes out a breath she didn't know she was holding. “I'm just... worried. He's so close to Matt and Mohinder. Isn't there something you can do?”
She thinks, maybe, that she sees a hint of a smile then, but then again, it might just be the way the moonlight is hitting his face. “I am where God wants me to be.”
“Is that your cryptic zen way of telling me you are doing something?”
He looks up at her window. “You will need help to get back to your room. You are... small.”
“Funny guy.”
She accepts his boost up and kneels on the smooth tiles as he recedes back into the darkness like ghost.
Why couldn't she have secrets about whose boyfriend was cheating on who, like everyone else? Honestly.
*
That summer, a truck of powered children are discovered as the driver attempts to get over the border to Mexico. There's a struggle while apprehending the man, and, after appropriate warnings, the police officers open fire, killing five children in the fray.
A needless tragedy that could have been avoided if only the children had been brought to the proper authorities for tests. It's wonderful fodder for breakfast TV; the consequences of breaking the law.
“Did you know him?” Molly asks Zach. He shrugs.
“We don't use our real names, and they're not releasing any pictures. They want him to be a faceless villain.”
Mohinder is working very hard on something now, every time she sees him he's scribbling in a notebook or in his lab, mixing chemicals and taking blood samples. She hears breathy whispers about a 'cure', and Nathan's dark eyes and smooth as silk voice push him onwards, keep him up all night working.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks him, stepping around to stand over him as he writes. “You know it's wrong, I can tell by your face.”
But he doesn't hear her, and when he runs out of paper, equations and formulas covering every inch of the page, he takes up a piece of chalk and continues his theories on the board. And when Matt enters the room, grunting something about how none of the children on the truck were her, Mohinder's hand only pauses for a fraction of a second.
“Yes,” he says. “I'd know if she were hurt.”
“Yeah,” Matt echoes, ignoring what irrational statement it is, coming from a scientist like Mohinder. “We'd know.”
*
There's still that damn empty space for 2005 when she looks at the display case on the first day of the fall term. She's a sophomore now, not that anyone would be able to tell, not like anyone's treating her with any respect now that she's not one of the new girls.
She thinks about Zach, Claire, how they'd embraced their 'inner freaks', and then there she is, standing behind the counter at the Burnt Toast Café.
Claire's refilling coffee, brown hair swishing behind her.
“Coffee? Coffee?” She stops at someone holding a menu. “Can I get something for you, Sir?”
The menu lowers. “I don't know, Claire. What's good?”
Molly's glad she skipped the cafeteria's chicken surprise today, because it wouldn't have stayed in her stomach very long.
Matt stares back smugly at an aghast Claire. His hair's going grey now, Molly thinks fleetingly as she pulls out far too hard, stumbling back and crashing into a crowd of people.
“Sorry, sorry!” she yells as she abandons her scattered textbooks and careens towards the door.
*
Claire and Matt are about to board a private jet to New York. Molly's running flat out, through traffic, across fields, to get home, to get Zach, to get-- something. Someone to help, because this is too much for her, too big - her secrets are overtaking her.
There's no time for wind chimes and secret phone calls now. She'd know when the time came.
She stops suddenly, tripping over her feet and landing in a heap at the side of the road, a horrible, terrible, just plain bad idea filling her mind.
She stands, closing her eyes tight, focusing hard on Matt. He's walking up the staircase to the plane, Claire shoved in ahead. Molly takes the steps two at a time, passing straight through him and spinning around. He's stops, a puzzled expression colouring his features.
“Matt!” she shouts as loud as she can. “Matt, don't do this! This isn't you! Come on, see me, Matt! You're the closest thing I have to a father! Please!”
His gaze locks with hers for a second, something close to comprehension inching its way in. Then, he shakes his head and walks on, tensing slightly as she passes through him again.
“Matt!” she screams, as the stairs are pulled out, and the shock of that snaps her back to herself. She collapses to her knees painfully, taking short ragged breaths. Cars in the street have slowed down or stopped altogether to goggle at her. She pushes herself back up and staggers over to one of the cars.
“Hey!” She raps insistently on the window until the terrified looking driver rolls his window down. “Don't suppose I could hitch a ride to Midland International, could I?”
*
Molly thanks God and Vishnu and whoever for a number of things when she gets to JFK hours later. Number one, that there had been available seats on the next flight departing; two, that she had her wallet on her and enough money on her card, and three, that she'd turned sixteen over the summer and therefore didn't need parental permission to fly.
Claire and Matt are in a car driving towards the Petrelli mansion.
Molly eyes the endless line to catch a taxi, takes a deep breath, and vaults the barrier, running out into the path of an oncoming taxi. The brakes screech at the last moment.
“I will pay you four times what you charge if you take me next!” she yells, running around to the door.
*
There's been an accident on the road. Matt's dragging Claire out of the car. The news guy on the radio says that traffic is backed up for miles. Zach's not answering his phone. Sylar is talking to Mohinder. Niki is storming away from Peter. Bennet is nowhere.
Zach's still not answering his phone.
Claire is in the mansion's lounge, looking at photographs. Mohinder's cutting the string. Matt is at Isaac's apartment. Sylar is coming. She doesn't want to look for Zach.
Sylar is coming.
Molly starts, leaning forward and banging her hand on the divider. “Let me out anywhere here,” she yells, throwing a fistful of dollars at the driver and jumping out.
She zigzags through traffic, probably breaking a couple of different laws as she nears the mansion, cutting through people's backyards and emerging across the road.
Super, only... Every car in the street has tinted black windows, and, when she stands still, she can see the almost imperceptible movement of secret service agents.
Claire turns and looks at Nathan.
“You have no idea how important you are to me, Claire.”
Molly can't bear to stay any longer.
*
There's a memorial service at Kirby Plaza. Molly stands at the back, where she can't see a thing above the sea of heads, but maybe that's best. She's defeated, but she's still there, torturing herself for God knows what reason; the least she can do for herself is not have to look at his face.
He begins to speak, and she can practically see everyone's ears pricking up - a bunch of labradors sitting down like they've been told and listening to their master. She wonders if Peter's at the bar watching this, wondering when his brother stopped being the guy he grew up with. She lets her eyes flutter shut for a second-- and no.
“Should we freeze time?"
"Nah, I haven't had a good fight in years.”
She looks over to her right, the holding facility is just a couple of blocks over; she could make it in about five minutes if she ran - and since she is, apparently, already in training for the marathon...
She slips away, knowing full well that no good will come of this.
*
The facility is in chaos, the front doors wide open as guards run in and out, yelling incomprehensible orders at each other, and it's easiest thing in the world for Molly to slip in unnoticed. She even has time to reminisce on the days when she herself was held here.
Or, you know, she could not.
Hiro has a sword to Mohinder's neck (her heart catches for a second then) but-- another Hiro is telling him not to kill Mohinder. That he's a good man.
The elevators don't look like the best bet, with the agents and the guards and all of that. She takes the stairs, her woefully inadequate shoes pounding on the concrete steps as she ascends to the fourth floor. She gets to the landing, where, beyond the heavy fire door, Matt is on the phone and one of the Hiros lies bleeding on the floor.
She walks around the room, sees the look of shock on the younger Hiro's face, the worry on Mohinder's, Peter's set jaw, Ando trying to coax his friend to action, and further in, slumped over a table, the Haitian.
She crouches beside his body. “Where God wants you,” she whispers.
“God?”
She freezes, snapping back to her body in the fire escape. She's still crouched down, and she lays one palm down on the ground, slips the other into her pocket and turns her head. “Mr President.”
Nathan's face smirks down at her. “Miss Molly Walker. You're a hard girl to find.”
She swallows, pushing herself off the ground. If she's going to die, she's damn well going to do it on her feet. “Funny thing, I could say the same thing for you, Nathan Petrelli, and I'm pretty good at hide and seek.”
He full on grins at her, gaze darting to where her hand is in her pocket. “What are you doing there then, sweetheart?” She balls her hand to a fist, but it's useless; her arm lifts until it's straight out at her side. “Now, what's this you've got here?” He clicks his fingers, bringing her phone flying out until it's floating in front of his face.
“'Hel'?” He scoffs, reading her half composed text message. “How sweet.” He closes his hand slowly, the plastic casing contorting and cracking before it drops to the ground with a clatter. “Sorry, I think I may have deleted your message.”
He throws her against the far wall, pinning her there with invisible bonds. “I'm going to make this quick for you, because I'm against the clock here. It's a mercy, really. You won't have time to beg like your father did.”
She grits her teeth, already beginning to lose feeling in her hands. “If you're going to kill me, don't use an innocent man's face, Gray,” she spits out.
“Certainly.” His features shift as he lifts his arm, into the man's who has starred in so many of her nightmares. It seems painfully slow, sweat forming along her brow, salty water dripping down into her eyes. She thinks about Mohinder, redemption, and Matt - and how, in the end, she'll be the one to condemn them, all because God has a plan.
It happens without her even trying; one second she's against the wall, the cut about to draw its red line across her head, and the next, she's standing behind Sylar, looking back at herself. Huh, so that's what she looks like when she goes all out-of-body: stiff, eyes rolled back into her head.
Sylar makes the first telepathic incision, and she can't help but think how he might hit her frontal lobe, screw with her long term memory, her ability to tell right from wrong - not that it really matters all that much at this point; she'll be dead soon. Damn Mohinder and his exhaustive biology lessons.
She grimaces as the first thick trickle of blood runs down her head. And then, a miracle. She smiles, in her ghostly form, and even the edges of her body's pale lips turn up, just a touch, as a fusebox above where Sylar's got her body pinned explodes, throwing his concentration for one crucial moment. She snaps back as she's dropped to the ground like a rag doll. From her perspective as a heap of too long limbs, Sylar looks down at her, a slight snarl on his face, then phases straight through the wall, leaving her to it.
She closes her eyes, sucking in a couple of deep breaths. Her own personal guardian angel has been paying attention today.
After one abortive attempt that ends in her sprawled out in the middle of the floor, she manages to crawl to her knees, though her head pounds, and she knows the world spins but she's pretty sure it's never been this fast before. Underneath the door, there's bright bright blue light.
“Shiiit,” she slurs, “I gotta get out of here.”
She gets to her feet - somehow - sways on the spot and falls against the wall, scrabbling for the banister and slipping down the stairs.
There are a lot of stairs. She doesn't remember there being this many stairs on the way up.
“Miss? Miss? Are you okay?” She looks up at an officer. Huh, she's on the ground floor. When did that happen? She holds a sleeve to her bleeding head.
“I'm great, but Sylar's up there. You might wanna, I don't know, clear out or something.”
She's never actually seen all the blood drain out of someone's face before.
She stumbles out into the street as blue and red light seeps out of the building. The traffic in the street has come to a complete halt, as people stop to stare open-mouthed at the sight of the facility. Molly weaves in and out of the cars, away from Peter and Sylar, Hiro's dead body, Matt and Mohinder.
Tears roll down her cheeks. She doesn't look back.
*
“Hey, good-lookin', you needing a ride?”
She glances sideways at car; it looks like it's being held together by sheer willpower alone. It stops, and she peers in through the window, still holding her sleeve to her head - now soaked in blood all the way up to the elbow.
“Finally,” she says. He grins, kicking the passenger seat door open.
“Get in.”
She stumbles around to the other side and falls in heavily. He leans around to the back, plucking a first aid kit from among the broken pieces of computers and newspapers. “Let me clean that up.”
He dabs at her with something that stings, and she screws her eyes shut, uses the pain as an excuse for the tears dripping down from her eyelashes. He doesn't comment on it, instead saying,
“'Hel'? It's a good thing I know Molly shorthand.”
“It's a good thing you were monitoring the line,” she replies, letting him crookedly tape some gauze to the wound. The edge of the plaster sticks to her eyebrow. “Or you might have been sewing me up right now rather than just cleaning me up.”
Her jeans vibrates. “What the-?” She pats her leg down, finding the source. Her second phone. She'd forgotten she even had it on her.
She yelps when she reads the name. Zach. With shaking fingers she flips it open.
“Zach?”
“Molly! Where are you?!”
“Where am I? Where have you been? I've called you over and over!”
“I've been in an airport! Have you seen the news? Sylar is-.”
“Zach.” She rubs her face as the engine starts. “Zach, you need to go. Now. Just run; it's all gone to hell, everyone's dead.”
There's a long pause on the long, and a heartbreaking whisper, “...Claire?”
“I'm sorry. Don't go back to the house, just leave in what you're standing in.”
A ragged breath, and then, “Are you going to be okay?”
She looks around at the driver, nods, even though Zach can't see the gesture. “Yeah, I'm with someone I trust.”
*
New York falls into chaos, explodes into red and blue on the evening news. Evacuation comes, but too late for most, and Molly eats candy bars and drinks kool-aid to keep her strength up.
Head wounds bleed a lot, she tells him, it's nothing to worry about. The truth is though, you lose enough blood and you die.
She might die soon, she thinks, if they don't get to the hospital, but everywhere's on alert and the blood that seeps through the often reapplied bandages shows her for who she is.
So they drive, drive, drive as she falls in and out of consciousness curled up in her seat, music on the radio soothing her and news bulletins quickly skipped with a touch of his hand.
Her vision's not so good now, hours, days later, but his hand covers hers and she smiles, strangely calm. “Where're we going?” she whispers.
She can just make out his smile in return. “Thought we'd swing by and see Mom. Then- off into the sunset. How's that sound?”
“Sounds great.” Her eyelids flutter closed, and she sees Mohinder how he was, young and optimistic, laughing breathlessly as Matt swings her in his arms. She squeezes the hand covering hers. “So, what do I call you now?”
He leans in, brushing her clammy cheek, and pushes a black curl from his face. “People call me D.L. these days.”
Rating: PG-13.
Pairings or Characters: Molly, Zach, implied Mohinder/Matt, Sylar, most of the rest of the cast to some extent.
Warnings: SPOILERS for Five Years Gone, character death - assume everyone could get the chop and you're good.
Prompt: 20. Something Molly centric and set in the 5YG 'verse.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything and I certainly don't own this.
Summary: She thinks about Mohinder, redemption, and Matt - and how, in the end, she'll be the one to condemn them, all because God has a plan. Molly, five years in the future.
Notes: So. I claimed this prompt from heroes_fest about four days ago and now it's done. Over a month before the posting period. Obsession, it's what's for dinner. (Sorry for my girl!crush on Claire creeping in a bit here.)
and I know the moment's near
and there's nothing you can do
look through a faithless eye
are you afraid to die?
muse - thoughts of a dying atheist
In the display case at school, there's a picture and a tiara for every homecoming queen stretching back to the 1950s. Except 2005, that is. For 2005 there's nothing, no photograph, no explanation; it's the year that never was as far as the officials are concerned. Who wants to be reminded of a visit from America's most dangerous serial killer, and a cheerleader who was one of them?
It's a monument to hypocrisy and bigotry, and Molly looks at it everyday, knowing that the day two blonde cheerleaders are among the smiling queens will be the day that a sliver of her faith in the humanity will be returned.
But that's not today.
“Why torture yourself, Russell?”
Molly half turns at the voice, tapping a couple of buttons on her phone before dropping it into her bag.
“I'm sorry, were you saying something?”
Stacey Walters overly made up face stares back at her, her posse fanning out around her, snickering like she's some kind of comedienne, or something.
“You're never gonna make homecoming queen, so why even look?” She sneers, flicking her brown hair over her shoulder. Molly smiles back.
“Wow, you some kind of humanitarian or something, Stacey? I think you missed your calling as school counsellor, for serious.”
Stacey's blank for a second (working out whether that was an insult or not, Molly hopes) then she purses her lips, sucking on her teeth. “Well, at least I don't live with my gay cousin.”
Molly nods appreciatively. “Oh, nice comeback, Stace.” She adjusts the straps of her bag and turns to leave.
“Don't even think about asking Kevin to the dance!” Stacey yells.
Molly holds her hand up, and, slowly, raises her middle finger.
*
“Okay, I'll be there in an hour. With the forms, yes. No, I can't physically go any faster than I already am. Maybe you should have found someone with a more appropriate skill set. Don't you start with me, okay?”
Molly closes the front door quietly, the tense conversation getting louder and quieter as it's moved from room to room. She sets her bag on the kitchen table, pushing aside last night's pizza boxes and plastic cutlery. The kitchen/diner looks worse than usual; in addition to the half rotting food, there's a sports bag on the floor, an explosion of clothes inside and around it and a haphazard pile of papers on the counter. She peers at the top page, catching phrases like 'place of birth' and 'social security number'.
“Oh good, you're home. Thank God I don't have to try and find a pen in this mess now.” Zach smiles as he tugs a cap down over his hair and drops to the floor to stuff all the clothes into his bag.
“Bennet ring?”
“How'd you guess?” He laughs breathily, jumping back up and grabbing the pile of papers. “I'll be back- I don't know, sometime. Hopefully in the next two days. The fridge is full, and I think I paid the gas, but if the heating suddenly shuts off, you'll know why that is. Don't do anything I- Look, just don't do anything, 'kay?” He opens the front door with his elbow, and walks backwards out to his car.
He waves to her as he tears out of the drive.
This is her life now. She thinks about this as she settles down to do her homework, tapping at her phone for a second before pulling her chemistry book onto her lap. She's only fifteen, but it feels like she's lived ten times over already, been a hundred different people.
It's not that far from the truth.
In the beginning, she was plain ol' Molly Walker, girl from the perfect nuclear family. Then she was Molly Walker, orphan-with-two-daddies, and a little while after that, Molly Walker, stuffed into the trunk of a pick up and driven almost two thousand miles to be handed to an eighteen year old kid.
*
Bennet seemed like a nice enough guy, the whole trying to kill her thing notwithstanding, and he looked sad when he took her hand that day.
Mohinder's eyes were wide and shiny, but he said he was fine. He said: don't worry about me. He said: this going to be a great big adventure for you.
He was lying, but sometimes adults have to lie to kids. It makes them feel like they're in control, even when they're not.
She hadn't wanted to go, but she'd wanted the tests even less. So much, she wanted them to stop. This way, they said, there would be no more tests. It had seemed too good to be true.
The truck had Texas plates, she noted, as Bennet bundled her into the trunk. She had to go in here, he told her, because no one could see Molly Walker ever again. He tried to make it as comfortable as he could, with a blanket and pillow and bottle of water, and it was okay, she liked enclosed spaces, they made her feel safe. And, although she was thirteen by then, she was small for her age. It wouldn't be so bad.
Bennet looked down at her, arms raised, ready to close her in. He smiled. You remind me of my daughter, he said, squeezing her hand quickly and closing the trunk with a soft 'click'.
The person she was going to, he knew the score. After everything had been turned on its head, he'd dropped any plans to attend college, and had tracked Bennet down and demanded that they do something. He was Bennet's first and best ally.
I trust him, Bennet said. I trusted him with my daughter.
He had no family left in Odessa, they'd all left after Sylar's second attack on the state, when he'd ripped through there in the height of his misbegotten reign. But he'd stayed; it was his home, there was nowhere else for him to go. And how would Claire find him if she ever needed him?
His name was Zach.
*
Now she's Joanna Russell, little orphaned cousin of Zach, who has short red hair and is a chess nerd and who is, in every conceivable way, normal.
She gets into bed at midnight, after watching the news where they're running another one of President Petrelli's many speeches. She sneers at the screen and shuts it off, flopping into bed and pulling the covers over her.
Tonight, Mohinder is working furiously at something, hunched over his desk, with just his lamp for company.
Tonight, Matt is at the target range, but she can't stay for long because he'll sense her.
Tonight, Niki is selling her body for money and Peter is watching, invisible, from his stool.
Tonight, Claire is curled up asleep with her fiancée.
Tonight, Sylar thinks nothing about his plan can go wrong.
*
She still has the dreams, the 'Nightmare Man' coming at her night after night, whispering words about her parents, telling her how everyone she's close to is going to die. How it's her fault.
Sometimes he has Sylar's face, sometimes he has Matt's, sometimes he has hers.
Waking in a cold sweat, twisted in her sheets, or occasionally on the floor, is normal practice for her, but tonight the after images seem to have been burned into the back of her eyelids, because it's all she can see: the top of Matt's head neatly cut off, growing blood stains on Mohinder's shirt, Nathan's wide, wide smile.
She grabs for her phone, hitting buttons at random and holding it to her ear, listening to the lady on the other end tell her that she's dialled incorrectly. She hopes he's up, hopes he's monitoring the lines tonight, just sits on her floor with her sheets still wound around her legs and hopes.
There's click midway through lady's third monotone announcement.
“Hey,” a voice says, as bright and awake as it always is. She aches with relief.
“Hi, I just needed someone to talk to.”
“Well, that's what your guardian angel is here for.”
*
There's something about this town, Zach says. It brings out the best, and the worst, in people. Unfortunately, these days, the best in people is hard to find.
Zach shows her videos and photo albums when she first arrives. “This is Claire,” he says, eyes on the blonde as she throws herself eighty feet to the ground.
“This is Jackie,” he says, showing her newspaper clippings. “She was a complete bitch, but, y'know.”
“Did you love her?” she says. “Claire, I mean. Not Jackie.”
“Did I? No. Do I?” He smiles. “Yeah.”
“Were you her boyfriend?”
He sighs. “It was complicated. I... don't think I wanted to be her boyfriend, to be honest. I just loved her.”
Molly learned two things that day. One, stuff was complicated. Two, Claire was cool.
*
In addition to being a chess nerd, Molly's also a computer nerd. It makes her smile, thinking of how many families are living safely, under new identities, using fake driver's licenses that she's run up on her laptop.
Today, she's cycling out to Kermit, to knock on the door of a nondescript off-white trailer.
“Hi!” she says brightly, as a nervous middle-aged woman opens the door. She holds up a leaflet and smiles. “Can I talk to you about our efforts to build an ark for God's second flood?”
The woman's face falls with relief. She grips Molly's forearm tightly and pulls her in.
“I thought-” Her hand quivers as she raises it to her mouth.
“Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Zach sends his apologies; he's out of town at the moment.” She swings her messenger bag around to the front, flipping it open. “Your papers. Your name is now Tina Evans. You're booked on the 1.15 train to Dallas, then you're going to have to change a couple of times before you end up in North Carolina; all the instructions are in the envelope. I've got hair dye and a change of clothes here for you, as well as your new house and car keys. There's a job waiting for you at the other end. Now, do you need help with your hair?”
The woman's eyes have grown wider and wider throughout Molly's short speech, until they shine, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She shakes her head wordlessly.
“Okay.” Molly takes the ticket to Dallas out, placing it in the woman's hand and gently closing her fingers around it; covering the hand with both of hers. “You'll make it. I did.”
She leaves shortly after, knocking on doors and slipping her fake flood leaflets with erroneous contact details under them, to keep up appearances. Then she cycles a reasonable distance and sheds her jacket and hat, turning her reversible messenger bag inside out and continuing on.
She's back in time to finish her calculus homework, clean the apartment and make dinner.
It's just the way she rolls.
*
Molly's never had a boyfriend. For the obvious reasons, really; superpowers, secret identities and teenage awkwardness.
She's an awkward looking girl, short scruffy hair cut by Zach the day they both discovered that he could not cut hair, a childishly round face and infeasibly long arms and legs for her small stature. She's not unattractive by a long shot, but she's often mistaken for a boy. It's... yeah. Not ideal.
“Do you ever put that thing down?” Zach points at her phone with his spaghetti loaded fork. She snaps it shut and lays it down in the middle of the table, taking her own fork up and attacking the TV dinner with gusto.
“So, Zach. Can I ask you something? About relationships?”
He raises an eyebrow, swallowing a meatball whole. “I've not giving you the sex talk. That's what the internet's there for.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, somehow, I don't think you'd be the best person to ask. Which leads me nicely to my question: when was the last time you went on the date?”
He regards her suspiciously. “In case you haven't noticed, I haven't really got the time for that.”
“What about when you were younger?”
He rolls his shoulders. “I've never had time for dating. I spent my time as a teenager filming my best friend throwing herself off of things and trying to fend off the anti-powered revolution.”
“You ever been on a date?”
He sniffs at this. “Of course I have.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He swirls his fork around the carton, lifting it up and trying to bite the end of a piece of spaghetti. It hits his face a couple of times, the sauce leaving orange smears on his cheeks and around his mouth. She watches him silently, finishing her food off. He's not taking the bait, she's going to have to be more direct. “The question I'm asking here, that you are avoiding admirably by the way, is what team do you bat for? Or do you bat for the third team?”
He wipes his face with the back of his sleeve and stands, taking both of their empty cartons and tossing them in the trash. “I bat for the 'it's none of your business, I'm not talking to you about it, you're fifteen and by the way, it's still none of your business' team.”
“But... maybe I'm having conflicting feelings about someone at school, and I just... need some guidance from someone's who's maybe been through it.”
He turns, resting his palms on the edge of the counter behind him, and smiles. “No, you're aren't. You're just being nosy.”
“Fine.” She sighs dramatically, scooting her chair back and resting her feet on the table. “But, two daddies over here, remember. I'm hardly gonna judge.”
The smile that had been so easy a moment before drops slightly, his expression taking on a faraway look. He takes in a deep breath. “God, you remind me of Claire sometimes.”
“Everyone says that. Must be the hair.” She jumps up from the chair. “C'mon Mr Mystery, there's a Firefly marathon on.”
*
She was happy in New York, against all the odds. After the explosion, they had been relocated to a facility outside of the blast radius, where Molly received her final transfusions, and Mohinder tried to convince her that everything was normal. It wasn't, but that was okay, because she found a funny kind of stability in Mohinder and Matt's love.
In between the blood tests and the injections and the training, she was happy.
It lasted approximately a year and a half before everything went to hell. Matt stopped visiting so often, and even when he did, it wasn't really him. A kind of darkness had settled over him; she saw it, Mohinder saw it, and the darkness crept into their lives too, seeping into all the happy parts of the day.
Sometimes she clairvoyantly eavesdropped on conversations, because really, no one was going to tell a twelve year old girl anything.
Training had sharpened her senses; now when she zeroed in on a person, she could comfortably project herself into the room, walk around, even get about twenty feet away from the person before she snapped back.
She stood at Mohinder's back as Matt spoke.
“It's a good opportunity.”
“Yes.” Mohinder nodded. “I just fear-- This job, it's dangerous. You've changed already.”
“So have you.”
Mohinder's shoulders slumped. “I know. But Matthew, what about Molly? What if you were asked to take her in?”
Matt dug his hands into his pockets, a move that so contrasted with his new persona for its childishness. “Molly isn't a terrorist.”
“Do you really think that's all you're going to be asked to do? Catch the bad ones? In this climate?” Mohinder seemed tired, pulling his glasses off and rubbing his face with the back of his hand.
Matt glanced away, stared hard at Mohinder's open copy of Activating Evolution, full of notes in red pen and post it notes marking certain pages. “Nathan's a shoe-in for president, you know. He wants you to be his Chief Medical Advisor.”
“I know. Don't change the subject, Matthew.” The glasses went back on, and he pulled himself up to his full height. “Listen to me. This isn't going to end well for any of us. Let's just leave, run as far as we can. You and Molly's powers, they're easily hidden.” At Matt's shaking head, he deflated again. “Matt, please.”
“Did you really think this was going last? Like you said, in this climate...”
Three months later, on the eve of the election results being announced, Bennet arrived to take her away.
*
There's a jutting roof underneath Molly's window, and sometimes she sits on her ledge, feet dangling an inch or so above the tiles. Tonight, wind chimes jingle above her head.
“Molly.” The voice is so faint that she could have passed it off as the wind if she wasn't actively listening for it. Carefully, she stands, walking across the tiles and jumping the one floor to the grass below.
“Hi.” She cranes her head up to look at him.
The Haitian stares back with his usual impassivity. “Why have you called me here?”
“I want to know what's going on is why!” she hisses at him, jabbing her finger at him for a second before feeling silly for it. “You said you were going to do something. You said you were going to help.”
“I am.” He doesn't blink a lot, she notes, so it's impossible to tell whether he's lying. That's what people do, right? Blink a lot when they lie? But then, maybe some people know that and don't blink at all, to overcompensate. All it means for her is that she can't tell either way what he's thinking.
This is the third time she's spoken to him, after Bennet gave her the wind chimes and told her to use them only when she absolutely had to. Well, maybe this doesn't exactly qualify, but she needs to feel like someone is listening. She needs to not carry this horrible weight alone, and the thing about the Haitian is he seems omnipotent; a blank slate to write all her fears on. That first time she called on him, he already knew, and he took all of her shrill, panicked hysterics, let her cry and shout in the middle of the day when everyone was at work and all the houses were empty.
He told her about God's plan, fate, destiny. “When the time comes,” he said, “you'll know.”
They're being kept alive by the whim of a higher being, apparently, and it was not for Molly to interfere. She's never been so sure about that, but Bennet told her to trust him, so she does. For the moment.
“Okay.” She breathes out a breath she didn't know she was holding. “I'm just... worried. He's so close to Matt and Mohinder. Isn't there something you can do?”
She thinks, maybe, that she sees a hint of a smile then, but then again, it might just be the way the moonlight is hitting his face. “I am where God wants me to be.”
“Is that your cryptic zen way of telling me you are doing something?”
He looks up at her window. “You will need help to get back to your room. You are... small.”
“Funny guy.”
She accepts his boost up and kneels on the smooth tiles as he recedes back into the darkness like ghost.
Why couldn't she have secrets about whose boyfriend was cheating on who, like everyone else? Honestly.
*
That summer, a truck of powered children are discovered as the driver attempts to get over the border to Mexico. There's a struggle while apprehending the man, and, after appropriate warnings, the police officers open fire, killing five children in the fray.
A needless tragedy that could have been avoided if only the children had been brought to the proper authorities for tests. It's wonderful fodder for breakfast TV; the consequences of breaking the law.
“Did you know him?” Molly asks Zach. He shrugs.
“We don't use our real names, and they're not releasing any pictures. They want him to be a faceless villain.”
Mohinder is working very hard on something now, every time she sees him he's scribbling in a notebook or in his lab, mixing chemicals and taking blood samples. She hears breathy whispers about a 'cure', and Nathan's dark eyes and smooth as silk voice push him onwards, keep him up all night working.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks him, stepping around to stand over him as he writes. “You know it's wrong, I can tell by your face.”
But he doesn't hear her, and when he runs out of paper, equations and formulas covering every inch of the page, he takes up a piece of chalk and continues his theories on the board. And when Matt enters the room, grunting something about how none of the children on the truck were her, Mohinder's hand only pauses for a fraction of a second.
“Yes,” he says. “I'd know if she were hurt.”
“Yeah,” Matt echoes, ignoring what irrational statement it is, coming from a scientist like Mohinder. “We'd know.”
*
There's still that damn empty space for 2005 when she looks at the display case on the first day of the fall term. She's a sophomore now, not that anyone would be able to tell, not like anyone's treating her with any respect now that she's not one of the new girls.
She thinks about Zach, Claire, how they'd embraced their 'inner freaks', and then there she is, standing behind the counter at the Burnt Toast Café.
Claire's refilling coffee, brown hair swishing behind her.
“Coffee? Coffee?” She stops at someone holding a menu. “Can I get something for you, Sir?”
The menu lowers. “I don't know, Claire. What's good?”
Molly's glad she skipped the cafeteria's chicken surprise today, because it wouldn't have stayed in her stomach very long.
Matt stares back smugly at an aghast Claire. His hair's going grey now, Molly thinks fleetingly as she pulls out far too hard, stumbling back and crashing into a crowd of people.
“Sorry, sorry!” she yells as she abandons her scattered textbooks and careens towards the door.
*
Claire and Matt are about to board a private jet to New York. Molly's running flat out, through traffic, across fields, to get home, to get Zach, to get-- something. Someone to help, because this is too much for her, too big - her secrets are overtaking her.
There's no time for wind chimes and secret phone calls now. She'd know when the time came.
She stops suddenly, tripping over her feet and landing in a heap at the side of the road, a horrible, terrible, just plain bad idea filling her mind.
She stands, closing her eyes tight, focusing hard on Matt. He's walking up the staircase to the plane, Claire shoved in ahead. Molly takes the steps two at a time, passing straight through him and spinning around. He's stops, a puzzled expression colouring his features.
“Matt!” she shouts as loud as she can. “Matt, don't do this! This isn't you! Come on, see me, Matt! You're the closest thing I have to a father! Please!”
His gaze locks with hers for a second, something close to comprehension inching its way in. Then, he shakes his head and walks on, tensing slightly as she passes through him again.
“Matt!” she screams, as the stairs are pulled out, and the shock of that snaps her back to herself. She collapses to her knees painfully, taking short ragged breaths. Cars in the street have slowed down or stopped altogether to goggle at her. She pushes herself back up and staggers over to one of the cars.
“Hey!” She raps insistently on the window until the terrified looking driver rolls his window down. “Don't suppose I could hitch a ride to Midland International, could I?”
*
Molly thanks God and Vishnu and whoever for a number of things when she gets to JFK hours later. Number one, that there had been available seats on the next flight departing; two, that she had her wallet on her and enough money on her card, and three, that she'd turned sixteen over the summer and therefore didn't need parental permission to fly.
Claire and Matt are in a car driving towards the Petrelli mansion.
Molly eyes the endless line to catch a taxi, takes a deep breath, and vaults the barrier, running out into the path of an oncoming taxi. The brakes screech at the last moment.
“I will pay you four times what you charge if you take me next!” she yells, running around to the door.
*
There's been an accident on the road. Matt's dragging Claire out of the car. The news guy on the radio says that traffic is backed up for miles. Zach's not answering his phone. Sylar is talking to Mohinder. Niki is storming away from Peter. Bennet is nowhere.
Zach's still not answering his phone.
Claire is in the mansion's lounge, looking at photographs. Mohinder's cutting the string. Matt is at Isaac's apartment. Sylar is coming. She doesn't want to look for Zach.
Sylar is coming.
Molly starts, leaning forward and banging her hand on the divider. “Let me out anywhere here,” she yells, throwing a fistful of dollars at the driver and jumping out.
She zigzags through traffic, probably breaking a couple of different laws as she nears the mansion, cutting through people's backyards and emerging across the road.
Super, only... Every car in the street has tinted black windows, and, when she stands still, she can see the almost imperceptible movement of secret service agents.
Claire turns and looks at Nathan.
“You have no idea how important you are to me, Claire.”
Molly can't bear to stay any longer.
*
There's a memorial service at Kirby Plaza. Molly stands at the back, where she can't see a thing above the sea of heads, but maybe that's best. She's defeated, but she's still there, torturing herself for God knows what reason; the least she can do for herself is not have to look at his face.
He begins to speak, and she can practically see everyone's ears pricking up - a bunch of labradors sitting down like they've been told and listening to their master. She wonders if Peter's at the bar watching this, wondering when his brother stopped being the guy he grew up with. She lets her eyes flutter shut for a second-- and no.
“Should we freeze time?"
"Nah, I haven't had a good fight in years.”
She looks over to her right, the holding facility is just a couple of blocks over; she could make it in about five minutes if she ran - and since she is, apparently, already in training for the marathon...
She slips away, knowing full well that no good will come of this.
*
The facility is in chaos, the front doors wide open as guards run in and out, yelling incomprehensible orders at each other, and it's easiest thing in the world for Molly to slip in unnoticed. She even has time to reminisce on the days when she herself was held here.
Or, you know, she could not.
Hiro has a sword to Mohinder's neck (her heart catches for a second then) but-- another Hiro is telling him not to kill Mohinder. That he's a good man.
The elevators don't look like the best bet, with the agents and the guards and all of that. She takes the stairs, her woefully inadequate shoes pounding on the concrete steps as she ascends to the fourth floor. She gets to the landing, where, beyond the heavy fire door, Matt is on the phone and one of the Hiros lies bleeding on the floor.
She walks around the room, sees the look of shock on the younger Hiro's face, the worry on Mohinder's, Peter's set jaw, Ando trying to coax his friend to action, and further in, slumped over a table, the Haitian.
She crouches beside his body. “Where God wants you,” she whispers.
“God?”
She freezes, snapping back to her body in the fire escape. She's still crouched down, and she lays one palm down on the ground, slips the other into her pocket and turns her head. “Mr President.”
Nathan's face smirks down at her. “Miss Molly Walker. You're a hard girl to find.”
She swallows, pushing herself off the ground. If she's going to die, she's damn well going to do it on her feet. “Funny thing, I could say the same thing for you, Nathan Petrelli, and I'm pretty good at hide and seek.”
He full on grins at her, gaze darting to where her hand is in her pocket. “What are you doing there then, sweetheart?” She balls her hand to a fist, but it's useless; her arm lifts until it's straight out at her side. “Now, what's this you've got here?” He clicks his fingers, bringing her phone flying out until it's floating in front of his face.
“'Hel'?” He scoffs, reading her half composed text message. “How sweet.” He closes his hand slowly, the plastic casing contorting and cracking before it drops to the ground with a clatter. “Sorry, I think I may have deleted your message.”
He throws her against the far wall, pinning her there with invisible bonds. “I'm going to make this quick for you, because I'm against the clock here. It's a mercy, really. You won't have time to beg like your father did.”
She grits her teeth, already beginning to lose feeling in her hands. “If you're going to kill me, don't use an innocent man's face, Gray,” she spits out.
“Certainly.” His features shift as he lifts his arm, into the man's who has starred in so many of her nightmares. It seems painfully slow, sweat forming along her brow, salty water dripping down into her eyes. She thinks about Mohinder, redemption, and Matt - and how, in the end, she'll be the one to condemn them, all because God has a plan.
It happens without her even trying; one second she's against the wall, the cut about to draw its red line across her head, and the next, she's standing behind Sylar, looking back at herself. Huh, so that's what she looks like when she goes all out-of-body: stiff, eyes rolled back into her head.
Sylar makes the first telepathic incision, and she can't help but think how he might hit her frontal lobe, screw with her long term memory, her ability to tell right from wrong - not that it really matters all that much at this point; she'll be dead soon. Damn Mohinder and his exhaustive biology lessons.
She grimaces as the first thick trickle of blood runs down her head. And then, a miracle. She smiles, in her ghostly form, and even the edges of her body's pale lips turn up, just a touch, as a fusebox above where Sylar's got her body pinned explodes, throwing his concentration for one crucial moment. She snaps back as she's dropped to the ground like a rag doll. From her perspective as a heap of too long limbs, Sylar looks down at her, a slight snarl on his face, then phases straight through the wall, leaving her to it.
She closes her eyes, sucking in a couple of deep breaths. Her own personal guardian angel has been paying attention today.
After one abortive attempt that ends in her sprawled out in the middle of the floor, she manages to crawl to her knees, though her head pounds, and she knows the world spins but she's pretty sure it's never been this fast before. Underneath the door, there's bright bright blue light.
“Shiiit,” she slurs, “I gotta get out of here.”
She gets to her feet - somehow - sways on the spot and falls against the wall, scrabbling for the banister and slipping down the stairs.
There are a lot of stairs. She doesn't remember there being this many stairs on the way up.
“Miss? Miss? Are you okay?” She looks up at an officer. Huh, she's on the ground floor. When did that happen? She holds a sleeve to her bleeding head.
“I'm great, but Sylar's up there. You might wanna, I don't know, clear out or something.”
She's never actually seen all the blood drain out of someone's face before.
She stumbles out into the street as blue and red light seeps out of the building. The traffic in the street has come to a complete halt, as people stop to stare open-mouthed at the sight of the facility. Molly weaves in and out of the cars, away from Peter and Sylar, Hiro's dead body, Matt and Mohinder.
Tears roll down her cheeks. She doesn't look back.
*
“Hey, good-lookin', you needing a ride?”
She glances sideways at car; it looks like it's being held together by sheer willpower alone. It stops, and she peers in through the window, still holding her sleeve to her head - now soaked in blood all the way up to the elbow.
“Finally,” she says. He grins, kicking the passenger seat door open.
“Get in.”
She stumbles around to the other side and falls in heavily. He leans around to the back, plucking a first aid kit from among the broken pieces of computers and newspapers. “Let me clean that up.”
He dabs at her with something that stings, and she screws her eyes shut, uses the pain as an excuse for the tears dripping down from her eyelashes. He doesn't comment on it, instead saying,
“'Hel'? It's a good thing I know Molly shorthand.”
“It's a good thing you were monitoring the line,” she replies, letting him crookedly tape some gauze to the wound. The edge of the plaster sticks to her eyebrow. “Or you might have been sewing me up right now rather than just cleaning me up.”
Her jeans vibrates. “What the-?” She pats her leg down, finding the source. Her second phone. She'd forgotten she even had it on her.
She yelps when she reads the name. Zach. With shaking fingers she flips it open.
“Zach?”
“Molly! Where are you?!”
“Where am I? Where have you been? I've called you over and over!”
“I've been in an airport! Have you seen the news? Sylar is-.”
“Zach.” She rubs her face as the engine starts. “Zach, you need to go. Now. Just run; it's all gone to hell, everyone's dead.”
There's a long pause on the long, and a heartbreaking whisper, “...Claire?”
“I'm sorry. Don't go back to the house, just leave in what you're standing in.”
A ragged breath, and then, “Are you going to be okay?”
She looks around at the driver, nods, even though Zach can't see the gesture. “Yeah, I'm with someone I trust.”
*
New York falls into chaos, explodes into red and blue on the evening news. Evacuation comes, but too late for most, and Molly eats candy bars and drinks kool-aid to keep her strength up.
Head wounds bleed a lot, she tells him, it's nothing to worry about. The truth is though, you lose enough blood and you die.
She might die soon, she thinks, if they don't get to the hospital, but everywhere's on alert and the blood that seeps through the often reapplied bandages shows her for who she is.
So they drive, drive, drive as she falls in and out of consciousness curled up in her seat, music on the radio soothing her and news bulletins quickly skipped with a touch of his hand.
Her vision's not so good now, hours, days later, but his hand covers hers and she smiles, strangely calm. “Where're we going?” she whispers.
She can just make out his smile in return. “Thought we'd swing by and see Mom. Then- off into the sunset. How's that sound?”
“Sounds great.” Her eyelids flutter closed, and she sees Mohinder how he was, young and optimistic, laughing breathlessly as Matt swings her in his arms. She squeezes the hand covering hers. “So, what do I call you now?”
He leans in, brushing her clammy cheek, and pushes a black curl from his face. “People call me D.L. these days.”