[fanfic] 30 First Kisses - Kiss #22
Title: 30 First Kisses - Kiss #22
Author: tiptoe39
Rating: PG for language
Summary: Molly has a secret. Matt gets drunk. Mohinder gets used to being called Mom. And that's just the beginning.
This is the 22nd of 30 possible ways Matt and Mohinder could share their first kiss, written for the 30_kisses challenge. The theme was "cradle" (yurikago). Previous kisses are here.
Janice's baby was born in June. A little boy, looking just like his mother. Janice's mother called; she'd always been partial to Matt and thought he ought to at least know. Matt hung up the phone, sighed, and thank God Molly was in the room or he might have gone straight for the booze. Instead, he put her on his lap and told her what he'd heard.
Her reaction was a little weird. She gave a bit of a funny half-smile and suggested Matt send a card of congratulations. A good idea. But when Matt suggested she help pick one out, she shut down just a bit. "I don't want to. I don't know her." Matt sighed. He'd known this day was coming, but he realized then that he'd counted on his own family--or imitation family, perhaps--to keep his head above water when it finally arrived. And Molly's lack of reaction was letting him down.
What's worse, she was sort of sullen the whole rest of the day. She didn't ask for any help on her homework, didn't want to watch any of their usual TV shows, didn't even want a story. "I just kind of want to go to sleep," she said. And it was the most words she'd strung together since Matt gave her the news. He felt childishly indignant, as though she had no right to be upset when it was his day to do so. How dare she distract him from his pity party with her own?
So when Mohinder got home, he found Matt half-sloshed in the kitchen.
His initial response was anger. "How can you do that with a child in the house?" he said. "What if there is some emergency and you can't respond because you've been drinking too heavily to hear her?"
"Oh, c'moff it," Matt grumbled. "S'one an only night I get drunk 'n' here you are so no harm no foul."
"Thankfully," Mohinder snapped. "All right, but if this ever happens again there will be no more alcohol in this house. And if there is ever, and I mean ever, a strike three? You're so much worse than out."
"Fair 'nuff," Matt said, sighing heavily.
That seemed to be good enough to appease Mohinder, at least for now. "What's the occasion?" he asked, sitting down in his usual seat and kicking off his shoes.
"Boy," Matt said.
"What?"
"'Sa boy. Jan's mom called."
"Oh." Mohinder pondered the significance of this, and when it sunk in he repeated himself, slower this time. "...Oh." He searched Matt's face. "How do you feel?"
"Drunk." Matt grinned stupidly. "Thank God."
"Right. Sorry I asked."
The silence was heavy--claustrophobic, almost. Mohinder felt long and gangly, too much leg and arm and too little substance. He wanted to curl up, to take up less space.
"'m never gonna have one," Matt mumbled, his chin resting on his folded arms. He was watching the remainder of the brown liquid in his glass change shape as he tilted the glass back and forth--triangle, then rectangle, then triangle again.
"One what?" Mohinder asked carefully.
"Family." Matt caught Mohinder's eye through the glass, and even with the distortion Mohinder caught his breath at the sadness there. "'Sall I ever wanted was a family a'my own. And I'm never gonna have one."
"What are you talking about?" Mohinder frowned at him. Matt was extremely illogical when he was intoxicated. "In case you'd forgotten, there's a nine-year-old girl sleeping in that room over there who considers you her father."
Matt tilted his head to the side. "She does not."
Annoyed, Mohinder grabbed the glass and swallowed the last bit of whiskey himself. It burned going down. "It might make life easier for you if she didn't. That way you could keep feeling sorry for yourself and never take responsibility, but she does. And that makes you a father whether you like it or not. Now start acting like one." He got up, grabbed the half-empty bottle and the glass, stomped over to the sink.
Matt followed him, breathed on the back of his neck. Mohinder shivered in disgust. "Does that make you Mommy?" he drawled.
"Oh, for God's sake, sleep it off!" Mohinder grabbed his arms, spun him around, and marched him into the bedroom.
"Sure, Mom, whatever you say. I'm a lucky husband," said Matt sleepily as he hit the bed. "Father knows best." But then he was asleep. Mohinder stared at him a moment, then rolled his eyes and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Matt dreamed that night of an unfamiliar scene. He was in the sunny attic of a house he didn't recognize, surrounded by boxes and old clothes on hangars. It smelled of mothballs and dust. In a clearing near the window sat a cradle, ideal for a newborn, lined with flowery yellow fabric and sitting on white wooden rockers. He was filled with a sense of anticipation in the dream, and he thought he heard a voice near him whispering Soon. Very soon.
He woke up more confused than hung over.
That was the day it started. And it was barely noticeable at first--just the lack of a joke where normally she would chime in, or a weekend where all she wanted to do was stay at home and read. But it grew quickly into something greater than that. Molly was stewing over something, and it was sapping all her energy. They hadn't seen her this upset since the nightmare days. Something was eating her.
When Molly didn't eat her dinner one night, Matt felt her forehead, but she wasn't sick, just sullen. "I'm just tired, leave me alone," she fussed, going to her room and slamming the door.
Matt looked at Mohinder for guidance, but he just shrugged. "You're the mind-reader, not me," he said simply.
Matt walked down the hall and rapped at her door. "Molly?" Paint chipped against his knuckles. "Honey, is there something you want to talk about?"
"No, I'm fine, I'm just tired!" she snapped.
"OK, honey, OK." He sighed, leaning heavily on the doorframe. "You promise you'll come talk to us if you feel like it?"
Silence.
"Molly? You know you can tell us anything, right?"
Leave me alone I hate you I hate her go away go away go away.
Matt stumbled back as if stung. "What?" Mohinder said, taking a few steps forward.
"She's really upset," Matt said. "She... she said she hated me."
Putting a hand on his shoulder, Mohinder said, "Little girls will think that way about their fathers every so often. Try not to take it hard. Maybe she really is just tired."
Matt raised weary eyes to meet his. "Can we go have a drink?"
Mohinder frowned.
"Hell, I'll have water. I just need to sit down."
They both had water. Tea, actually. Mohinder always had some weird brew. This one was called Assam and Matt had never heard of it, but it was a little spicy and strange-tasting. Matt heaved a heavy sigh as he stirred in a bit of sugar. "I'm no good at this," he moaned. "I should have been there for her more often."
"Me too, for that matter," Mohinder concurred. "But we are here now. That's something."
"How can you stay so positive?" Matt looked for all the world like a puppy who'd been kicked to the curb, and the truth was, Mohinder was feeling kind of protective of him. It was easy for him to slip into nurturing mode. He didn't have to think about his own anxieties when he was comforting someone else.
But he didn't tell Matt that. "Because it's important to take care of oneself. I owe it to Molly to remain mature about these things. She depends on that."
"Which is probably why she didn't say anything about hating you." Matt burned his tongue on the tea and drew back, hissing. "She did say something about hating her. Whoever she is."
"A classmate, perhaps?" Mohinder wondered. Then, giving a little half-smile over the tea, "Or do you have some secret girlfriend you've been bringing over while I'm out?"
"What? I'm surprised at you, Mom!" Matt joked. "You know I'd never cheat on you." This had become a joke in the days since Matt's one-time bender. Mohinder got protective, and he was Mom. Even Molly was in on it, at least for a little while, before whatever was bothering her ruined her sense of humor.
"Oh, so I'm not just Mom now? We're actually married at this point?"
"We've lived together long enough." He shrugged. "Probably in some states we would be, legally." Somehow the tea and the company were putting things back into perspective, and he was grateful.
Mohinder nodded. "We have put up with an awful lot together."
"A ridiculous amount."
"More than many people who are married."
"Exactly. Unless, of course, you'd rather we get divorced. I suppose you would get the apartment, though, so I'll have to fight it tooth and nail. See you in court."
Mohinder laughed, a full, round laugh that made Matt smile in return. He realized then he was joking about divorce. The subject didn't sting nearly the way it used to. And he'd happily sent along that card of congratulations. (Of course, that had a lot to do with schadenfreude that McHenry had to face consequences to his actions that went far beyond a locker-room punch.) Maybe he was finally ready to move on.
He just wasn't entirely sure where he was moving to.
He had the same dream about the yellow cradle that night, and he woke up in tears, unsure why. There had been a flash of something else at the end of the dream that had changed everything, made the feeling go from idyllic excitement to utter tragedy. Blood, a scream, something horrific. He almost called across the country to make sure Janice and the baby were OK, but he forced himself to wait till morning.
She was fine, the baby was fine, McHenry was miserable; all was as it should be. Maybe his brain had just been working through the whole thing. But he had an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach for the whole day, and that night, the dream returned again.
He brought Molly's laundry into the room on Sunday and realized what an opportunity he had. She was in the other room doodling in her notebook where she was supposed to be taking notes for a book report, and Matt didn't have the heart to scold her. His little girl feeling down was quite possibly the worst thing in the whole world. He almost preferred it when there was a bad guy to hunt down. At least then he knew what he was up against. With this, he just felt exhausted.
Setting down the laundry basket on her bed and peeking out of the doorway to make sure she wasn't coming, Matt started rifling through the papers on her desk, the books on her nightstand. But he couldn't find a clue. She was such a ridiculously neat kid that every sweater in her closet was hung up and every doll was perched on the windowsill, reminding Matt of a nursery rhyme he'd heard somewhere about pretty maids all in a row. Their beaded and painted eyes seemed to follow him reproachfully as he snooped into his daughter's private stuff.
The doll at the end had an outstretched hand, and at a loss, not really realizing it, he followed the plastic pointer toward the opposite wall. Her calendar had pictures of unicorns under rainbows, and each day that had passed was methodically X-ed out. Following an instinct, he flipped up the page to view the next month.
There was a big, black circle around July 1. No, there were many black circles, as though she'd been mindlessly drawing rings around it. And as he turned back to June, he saw for the first time multiple trails of pencil dots tracking through each day of the month, as though she'd been counting them. Anxiously, he pulled out the pushpin and flipped to previous months. The X marks and the pencil dots went back to New Year's.
He told Mohinder what he'd found in hushed tones. "Whatever it is she's afraid of," Matt said seriously, "she's acting like it's the end of the world, and I'm afraid if she doesn't talk to us soon, it will be."
Mohinder nodded. "I think you're right. We've let this go on far too long. She lives under our roof, she needs to level with us. She is still a child, and whatever she's dealing with can't be easy to handle alone."
"Our roof, huh..." Matt lingered on the concept. He supposed that he had come to consider this his apartment, at that. He'd lived here long enough that it certainly was no longer just a crash pad.
"Because we're married. Joint ownership and all." Mohinder was slyly smiling, and his eyelashes were fluttering up and down.
"So what do you suppose we should do?"
"I'll see if I can pry it out of her. But if that doesn't work, we need to sit her down. Perhaps tomorrow night. After dinner. And make her tell us."
Mohinder made her favorite dish that night, something he called Indian Mac 'N' Cheese, noodles and sweet cheese and spices in a creamy, yogurty concoction. It looked for a while like she was going to perk up some. She asked questions about his family and his life in India. But then things took a considerable turn for the worse.
"I sometimes wonder if you aren't my sister Shanti come back to life," he said, meaning only to flatter her. "I imagine that she must have been a lot like you. Strong and brave and honest."
Molly pouted and pushed her bowl away. "I didn't ask about your stupid sister," she said in a low, heated voice.
Matt had to break in. "Molly, that's not nice."
She stood up, slammed her palms against the table. "I said, I don't care about your stupid sister! Who wants to hear about her, anyway? Who cares who she was? She's dead!" And Molly fled, shrieking, to her room.
"That is unacceptable!" Matt thundered after her, but Mohinder put a hand on his arm, stopping him. "Man, I'm sorry. That's so rough." He turned back to face him. Mohinder looked like he'd been punched in the gut. His face was pale and there was wetness near his eyes.
That night he insisted Mohinder have a beer. He stuck to tea. Because it was only fair.
"It's a remarkably bad idea," Mohinder informed him. "My tolerance for alcohol is abysmal."
Matt sucked in the bitter Earl Gray taste. "Now you've given me something to look forward to."
It took only the first bottle to get Mohinder loose, but Matt was still stuck in reality. "Sometimes I think I've doomed her," he said despondently. "She's never going to have real parents again."
"God, don't say that," Mohinder pleaded. "It's t-- too depressing, even for me."
"Think about it!" Matt insisted, raising his mug. "We're not her father. We're just glorified babysitters. Real parents have a bond. They don't yell at each other all the time or go halfway around the world teaching--"
Mohinder winced as though stung. "Or go s-- searching for killers," he retorted, though his words were a little slurred. He took another long drink.
"We should take better care of her. And ourselves."
"And each other."
Matt shot him a look. "How can we take better care of each other? We joke about it, Mohinder, but we're not married. We're just roommates. We're not even friends."
"Well, maybe we have to be," Mohinder suggested. "Because we are doing this together. Isn't she worth tolerating me?" It sounded a little like a whine.
Matt choked on his drink, then laughed. "You're worth tolerating you. For whatever that's worth."
"I'm touched," Mohinder grinned, swigging the beer. "I might just kiss you for that."
"Bring it," blustered Matt. "I can take it."
It had to be the alcohol, but Mohinder leaned over the table and did just that, wet, alcohol-tinged lips on Matt's firm and solid.
Maybe it started as a joke--Lord knew Mohinder was drunk enough to find such a prank funny. But there was a jolt of electricity that passed between them, a lurching of heat in Matt's core, and something changed in the dynamic. And suddenly Mohinder was on his lap with his hands in his hair, and they were kissing like two people who weren't drunk and actually wanted to be kissing, like two people who needed each other. It felt like it wasn't a joke anymore, like perhaps it never really was.
"Be careful what you wish for," Mohinder drawled sleepily when they gasped for air.
"You need to go to bed," Matt decided, trying to ignore the foolish heat that was coiling inside him. He pushed Mohinder up, stopped him from staggering, marched him down the hall. When Mohinder shed a few tears, his mind whispering our poor little girl into Matt's just before he went into his bedroom, Matt found himself pressing his own lips to the damp forehead, the wet cheeks, even the corners of the pouting lower lip. Whatever the implications were of what they'd done would wait for sobriety and the morning.
That night, Matt dreamed something entirely different. He was somewhere small, somewhere he couldn't breathe or move, and he knew that if he dared, something horrible would happen to him. So he was safe, but trapped, and it was either that or free but dead. And in the back of his mind he couldn't stop thinking about a yellow cradle rocking in the attic.
It'll never happen!
He woke up sweating and shouting, and it took him a few moments to realize that he hadn't been himself in that dream. He'd been Molly.
The intervention happened the next night, as planned. Molly looked down at the floor, hands folded in her lap, and Matt put his big hand over them both. "Molly, I know you don't really want to talk about this, but it's time you told us what was bothering you."
"You're right, I don't," she snapped. Her eyes were red already.
"Is it something with school? Are you having trouble there?" Mohinder, standing just behind Matt, spoke gently. She shook her head, jaw clenched to keep from wailing. "Sweetheart, I know you're in pain, but the truth is, you're not being fair to us."
Her head jerked upward at that. "What do you mean?" she hissed angrily. "It's got nothing to do with you."
"Except for I've been having your dreams," Matt said sternly. She froze, stunned. "And if something's happening on July first, then we need to know about it."
"July... You were in my stuff!" Now she did burst out crying, a full-throated scream of anger. "I hate you! I hate you and I hate your stupid wife and I hate everyone!" She dove into the couch, screaming and sobbing.
Matt and Mohinder looked at each other. "My wife?" Matt finally asked gently.
"I hate her!" Molly screamed, her voice shaking the bookcases and rattling the glass. "How come she got to have one? It's not fair!" A new round of sobs wracked her body.
Have one? Matt mouthed to Mohinder.
A baby, perhaps?
And all of a sudden, Matt had the sinking feeling he knew what July 1 was about.
There was only one way to make sure. He clapped a hand to her shoulder and concentrated, felt that familiar vacuum drawing him in. He willed himself to go there, to see it, to be there for her and with her no matter what horrors lay behind. And the veil began to lift, slowly, then with dizzying speed.
All at once he was in her old house, under the stairs with her, hiding; he was in the room seeing her parents fall, blood-soaked; he heard a familiar laugh and a face neither of them would ever forget.
And then, he was in that attic, peering in wonder along with her at a small, yellow-lined cradle rocking slightly on its wooden legs. Soon, she was thinking. So very soon...
Matt withdrew his hand. Here and now returned "Molly, your mother..."
Molly slowly raised her head, nodded her tear-streaked face. "She'd just told us that week. We bought it for her as a present. Dad and I."
"What? What?" Mohinder leaned forward.
"Her mom was pregnant," Matt said in a voice devoid of emotion; it was the only way he could bear to say it out loud. "When they were killed. She was going to give Molly a little brother or sister, and she never got to. That's what July first is. It's when the baby was due."
"Oh." Mohinder's eyes became hollow with horror. "Oh, my."
They both rushed forward to hold her, and she sobbed uncontrollably. "We bought a cradle--" she sniffed and gasped and gulped-- "as a present-- we kept it in the attic-- we were going to give it to her the next week-- surprise her--
"Mom! Dad!"
It was almost the first time she'd cried about them since she moved in; there had been a few tears, of course, but nothing truly momentous. With this, though, the dam broke and she was inconsolable.
She cried for a long time that night, for the mother and father that had been stolen from her and the brother or sister she'd never been able to know. And Matt and Mohinder cried with her. Because some grief couldn't help but touch your mind even if you weren't a telepath. And because something changed in that moment of revelation, and the imitation family felt like a real one, and real fathers cried when their real daughter was in pain.
And when the tears finally subsided, her eyes were red-lined stars swimming with sorrow, but she managed to smile. And it wasn't even midnight, but that smile felt like dawn.
When she'd calmed and hugged them and thanked them for being there and had a drink of water and cried some more and finally dropped off to sleep, they wordlessly went to the kitchen, minds sharing a single thought: It is time for a fucking drink.
Matt grabbed the teapot. Mohinder grabbed the six-pack. They looked at each other and laughed.
They compromised and went for the slightly less dangerous drug of hot chocolate. It slid down like velvet and comfort, and Matt felt warm. "So, um.... do we need to talk about anything?" he ventured.
"About what?"
Mohinder seemed to be lost in a world of foamy cocoa. Matt nearly slapped him for his cluelessness. "About last night." Then Mohinder finally had the temerity to turn red. Matt went on. "I'm going to assume it was the alcohol talking, because you haven't mentioned it, and I guess you'd rather pretend it never happened, which I can understand..." He was surprised to hear keen disappointment in his own voice. But perhaps it wasn't so much of a surprise, not really, because even now he was looking at those flushed, slightly pouting lips and remembering.
Mohinder didn't answer immediately. But just when Matt had figured he'd gone mute, he gave a sunny smile and said, "It's a non-issue for me. Because we're married, you know."
Matt sighed inwardly. Mohinder wanted to write it off as a joke, after all. He shouldn't be surprised. Or disappointed, for that matter.
But then two of his fingers were seized by a warm hand under the table.
Matt looked down for a moment, then curled the rest of his fingers into Mohinder's and smiled at him. Mohinder smiled back.
"You guys are grinning at each other."
Molly's voice was sleepy. "Can I have another glass of water? My eyes are itchy from crying."
Mohinder jumped up to get it. Molly padded over in her stocking feet, crawled onto Matt's lap, and tucked her head under his chin. When Mohinder returned, he put one hand on Matt's shoulder and reached around with the other to give her the glass. The warmth that hand spread across his back was surprisingly pervasive.
He leaned his cheek against those warm fingers briefly. As families went, this one wasn't half bad.
:end:
Author: tiptoe39
Rating: PG for language
Summary: Molly has a secret. Matt gets drunk. Mohinder gets used to being called Mom. And that's just the beginning.
This is the 22nd of 30 possible ways Matt and Mohinder could share their first kiss, written for the 30_kisses challenge. The theme was "cradle" (yurikago). Previous kisses are here.
Janice's baby was born in June. A little boy, looking just like his mother. Janice's mother called; she'd always been partial to Matt and thought he ought to at least know. Matt hung up the phone, sighed, and thank God Molly was in the room or he might have gone straight for the booze. Instead, he put her on his lap and told her what he'd heard.
Her reaction was a little weird. She gave a bit of a funny half-smile and suggested Matt send a card of congratulations. A good idea. But when Matt suggested she help pick one out, she shut down just a bit. "I don't want to. I don't know her." Matt sighed. He'd known this day was coming, but he realized then that he'd counted on his own family--or imitation family, perhaps--to keep his head above water when it finally arrived. And Molly's lack of reaction was letting him down.
What's worse, she was sort of sullen the whole rest of the day. She didn't ask for any help on her homework, didn't want to watch any of their usual TV shows, didn't even want a story. "I just kind of want to go to sleep," she said. And it was the most words she'd strung together since Matt gave her the news. He felt childishly indignant, as though she had no right to be upset when it was his day to do so. How dare she distract him from his pity party with her own?
So when Mohinder got home, he found Matt half-sloshed in the kitchen.
His initial response was anger. "How can you do that with a child in the house?" he said. "What if there is some emergency and you can't respond because you've been drinking too heavily to hear her?"
"Oh, c'moff it," Matt grumbled. "S'one an only night I get drunk 'n' here you are so no harm no foul."
"Thankfully," Mohinder snapped. "All right, but if this ever happens again there will be no more alcohol in this house. And if there is ever, and I mean ever, a strike three? You're so much worse than out."
"Fair 'nuff," Matt said, sighing heavily.
That seemed to be good enough to appease Mohinder, at least for now. "What's the occasion?" he asked, sitting down in his usual seat and kicking off his shoes.
"Boy," Matt said.
"What?"
"'Sa boy. Jan's mom called."
"Oh." Mohinder pondered the significance of this, and when it sunk in he repeated himself, slower this time. "...Oh." He searched Matt's face. "How do you feel?"
"Drunk." Matt grinned stupidly. "Thank God."
"Right. Sorry I asked."
The silence was heavy--claustrophobic, almost. Mohinder felt long and gangly, too much leg and arm and too little substance. He wanted to curl up, to take up less space.
"'m never gonna have one," Matt mumbled, his chin resting on his folded arms. He was watching the remainder of the brown liquid in his glass change shape as he tilted the glass back and forth--triangle, then rectangle, then triangle again.
"One what?" Mohinder asked carefully.
"Family." Matt caught Mohinder's eye through the glass, and even with the distortion Mohinder caught his breath at the sadness there. "'Sall I ever wanted was a family a'my own. And I'm never gonna have one."
"What are you talking about?" Mohinder frowned at him. Matt was extremely illogical when he was intoxicated. "In case you'd forgotten, there's a nine-year-old girl sleeping in that room over there who considers you her father."
Matt tilted his head to the side. "She does not."
Annoyed, Mohinder grabbed the glass and swallowed the last bit of whiskey himself. It burned going down. "It might make life easier for you if she didn't. That way you could keep feeling sorry for yourself and never take responsibility, but she does. And that makes you a father whether you like it or not. Now start acting like one." He got up, grabbed the half-empty bottle and the glass, stomped over to the sink.
Matt followed him, breathed on the back of his neck. Mohinder shivered in disgust. "Does that make you Mommy?" he drawled.
"Oh, for God's sake, sleep it off!" Mohinder grabbed his arms, spun him around, and marched him into the bedroom.
"Sure, Mom, whatever you say. I'm a lucky husband," said Matt sleepily as he hit the bed. "Father knows best." But then he was asleep. Mohinder stared at him a moment, then rolled his eyes and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Matt dreamed that night of an unfamiliar scene. He was in the sunny attic of a house he didn't recognize, surrounded by boxes and old clothes on hangars. It smelled of mothballs and dust. In a clearing near the window sat a cradle, ideal for a newborn, lined with flowery yellow fabric and sitting on white wooden rockers. He was filled with a sense of anticipation in the dream, and he thought he heard a voice near him whispering Soon. Very soon.
He woke up more confused than hung over.
That was the day it started. And it was barely noticeable at first--just the lack of a joke where normally she would chime in, or a weekend where all she wanted to do was stay at home and read. But it grew quickly into something greater than that. Molly was stewing over something, and it was sapping all her energy. They hadn't seen her this upset since the nightmare days. Something was eating her.
When Molly didn't eat her dinner one night, Matt felt her forehead, but she wasn't sick, just sullen. "I'm just tired, leave me alone," she fussed, going to her room and slamming the door.
Matt looked at Mohinder for guidance, but he just shrugged. "You're the mind-reader, not me," he said simply.
Matt walked down the hall and rapped at her door. "Molly?" Paint chipped against his knuckles. "Honey, is there something you want to talk about?"
"No, I'm fine, I'm just tired!" she snapped.
"OK, honey, OK." He sighed, leaning heavily on the doorframe. "You promise you'll come talk to us if you feel like it?"
Silence.
"Molly? You know you can tell us anything, right?"
Leave me alone I hate you I hate her go away go away go away.
Matt stumbled back as if stung. "What?" Mohinder said, taking a few steps forward.
"She's really upset," Matt said. "She... she said she hated me."
Putting a hand on his shoulder, Mohinder said, "Little girls will think that way about their fathers every so often. Try not to take it hard. Maybe she really is just tired."
Matt raised weary eyes to meet his. "Can we go have a drink?"
Mohinder frowned.
"Hell, I'll have water. I just need to sit down."
They both had water. Tea, actually. Mohinder always had some weird brew. This one was called Assam and Matt had never heard of it, but it was a little spicy and strange-tasting. Matt heaved a heavy sigh as he stirred in a bit of sugar. "I'm no good at this," he moaned. "I should have been there for her more often."
"Me too, for that matter," Mohinder concurred. "But we are here now. That's something."
"How can you stay so positive?" Matt looked for all the world like a puppy who'd been kicked to the curb, and the truth was, Mohinder was feeling kind of protective of him. It was easy for him to slip into nurturing mode. He didn't have to think about his own anxieties when he was comforting someone else.
But he didn't tell Matt that. "Because it's important to take care of oneself. I owe it to Molly to remain mature about these things. She depends on that."
"Which is probably why she didn't say anything about hating you." Matt burned his tongue on the tea and drew back, hissing. "She did say something about hating her. Whoever she is."
"A classmate, perhaps?" Mohinder wondered. Then, giving a little half-smile over the tea, "Or do you have some secret girlfriend you've been bringing over while I'm out?"
"What? I'm surprised at you, Mom!" Matt joked. "You know I'd never cheat on you." This had become a joke in the days since Matt's one-time bender. Mohinder got protective, and he was Mom. Even Molly was in on it, at least for a little while, before whatever was bothering her ruined her sense of humor.
"Oh, so I'm not just Mom now? We're actually married at this point?"
"We've lived together long enough." He shrugged. "Probably in some states we would be, legally." Somehow the tea and the company were putting things back into perspective, and he was grateful.
Mohinder nodded. "We have put up with an awful lot together."
"A ridiculous amount."
"More than many people who are married."
"Exactly. Unless, of course, you'd rather we get divorced. I suppose you would get the apartment, though, so I'll have to fight it tooth and nail. See you in court."
Mohinder laughed, a full, round laugh that made Matt smile in return. He realized then he was joking about divorce. The subject didn't sting nearly the way it used to. And he'd happily sent along that card of congratulations. (Of course, that had a lot to do with schadenfreude that McHenry had to face consequences to his actions that went far beyond a locker-room punch.) Maybe he was finally ready to move on.
He just wasn't entirely sure where he was moving to.
He had the same dream about the yellow cradle that night, and he woke up in tears, unsure why. There had been a flash of something else at the end of the dream that had changed everything, made the feeling go from idyllic excitement to utter tragedy. Blood, a scream, something horrific. He almost called across the country to make sure Janice and the baby were OK, but he forced himself to wait till morning.
She was fine, the baby was fine, McHenry was miserable; all was as it should be. Maybe his brain had just been working through the whole thing. But he had an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach for the whole day, and that night, the dream returned again.
He brought Molly's laundry into the room on Sunday and realized what an opportunity he had. She was in the other room doodling in her notebook where she was supposed to be taking notes for a book report, and Matt didn't have the heart to scold her. His little girl feeling down was quite possibly the worst thing in the whole world. He almost preferred it when there was a bad guy to hunt down. At least then he knew what he was up against. With this, he just felt exhausted.
Setting down the laundry basket on her bed and peeking out of the doorway to make sure she wasn't coming, Matt started rifling through the papers on her desk, the books on her nightstand. But he couldn't find a clue. She was such a ridiculously neat kid that every sweater in her closet was hung up and every doll was perched on the windowsill, reminding Matt of a nursery rhyme he'd heard somewhere about pretty maids all in a row. Their beaded and painted eyes seemed to follow him reproachfully as he snooped into his daughter's private stuff.
The doll at the end had an outstretched hand, and at a loss, not really realizing it, he followed the plastic pointer toward the opposite wall. Her calendar had pictures of unicorns under rainbows, and each day that had passed was methodically X-ed out. Following an instinct, he flipped up the page to view the next month.
There was a big, black circle around July 1. No, there were many black circles, as though she'd been mindlessly drawing rings around it. And as he turned back to June, he saw for the first time multiple trails of pencil dots tracking through each day of the month, as though she'd been counting them. Anxiously, he pulled out the pushpin and flipped to previous months. The X marks and the pencil dots went back to New Year's.
He told Mohinder what he'd found in hushed tones. "Whatever it is she's afraid of," Matt said seriously, "she's acting like it's the end of the world, and I'm afraid if she doesn't talk to us soon, it will be."
Mohinder nodded. "I think you're right. We've let this go on far too long. She lives under our roof, she needs to level with us. She is still a child, and whatever she's dealing with can't be easy to handle alone."
"Our roof, huh..." Matt lingered on the concept. He supposed that he had come to consider this his apartment, at that. He'd lived here long enough that it certainly was no longer just a crash pad.
"Because we're married. Joint ownership and all." Mohinder was slyly smiling, and his eyelashes were fluttering up and down.
"So what do you suppose we should do?"
"I'll see if I can pry it out of her. But if that doesn't work, we need to sit her down. Perhaps tomorrow night. After dinner. And make her tell us."
Mohinder made her favorite dish that night, something he called Indian Mac 'N' Cheese, noodles and sweet cheese and spices in a creamy, yogurty concoction. It looked for a while like she was going to perk up some. She asked questions about his family and his life in India. But then things took a considerable turn for the worse.
"I sometimes wonder if you aren't my sister Shanti come back to life," he said, meaning only to flatter her. "I imagine that she must have been a lot like you. Strong and brave and honest."
Molly pouted and pushed her bowl away. "I didn't ask about your stupid sister," she said in a low, heated voice.
Matt had to break in. "Molly, that's not nice."
She stood up, slammed her palms against the table. "I said, I don't care about your stupid sister! Who wants to hear about her, anyway? Who cares who she was? She's dead!" And Molly fled, shrieking, to her room.
"That is unacceptable!" Matt thundered after her, but Mohinder put a hand on his arm, stopping him. "Man, I'm sorry. That's so rough." He turned back to face him. Mohinder looked like he'd been punched in the gut. His face was pale and there was wetness near his eyes.
That night he insisted Mohinder have a beer. He stuck to tea. Because it was only fair.
"It's a remarkably bad idea," Mohinder informed him. "My tolerance for alcohol is abysmal."
Matt sucked in the bitter Earl Gray taste. "Now you've given me something to look forward to."
It took only the first bottle to get Mohinder loose, but Matt was still stuck in reality. "Sometimes I think I've doomed her," he said despondently. "She's never going to have real parents again."
"God, don't say that," Mohinder pleaded. "It's t-- too depressing, even for me."
"Think about it!" Matt insisted, raising his mug. "We're not her father. We're just glorified babysitters. Real parents have a bond. They don't yell at each other all the time or go halfway around the world teaching--"
Mohinder winced as though stung. "Or go s-- searching for killers," he retorted, though his words were a little slurred. He took another long drink.
"We should take better care of her. And ourselves."
"And each other."
Matt shot him a look. "How can we take better care of each other? We joke about it, Mohinder, but we're not married. We're just roommates. We're not even friends."
"Well, maybe we have to be," Mohinder suggested. "Because we are doing this together. Isn't she worth tolerating me?" It sounded a little like a whine.
Matt choked on his drink, then laughed. "You're worth tolerating you. For whatever that's worth."
"I'm touched," Mohinder grinned, swigging the beer. "I might just kiss you for that."
"Bring it," blustered Matt. "I can take it."
It had to be the alcohol, but Mohinder leaned over the table and did just that, wet, alcohol-tinged lips on Matt's firm and solid.
Maybe it started as a joke--Lord knew Mohinder was drunk enough to find such a prank funny. But there was a jolt of electricity that passed between them, a lurching of heat in Matt's core, and something changed in the dynamic. And suddenly Mohinder was on his lap with his hands in his hair, and they were kissing like two people who weren't drunk and actually wanted to be kissing, like two people who needed each other. It felt like it wasn't a joke anymore, like perhaps it never really was.
"Be careful what you wish for," Mohinder drawled sleepily when they gasped for air.
"You need to go to bed," Matt decided, trying to ignore the foolish heat that was coiling inside him. He pushed Mohinder up, stopped him from staggering, marched him down the hall. When Mohinder shed a few tears, his mind whispering our poor little girl into Matt's just before he went into his bedroom, Matt found himself pressing his own lips to the damp forehead, the wet cheeks, even the corners of the pouting lower lip. Whatever the implications were of what they'd done would wait for sobriety and the morning.
That night, Matt dreamed something entirely different. He was somewhere small, somewhere he couldn't breathe or move, and he knew that if he dared, something horrible would happen to him. So he was safe, but trapped, and it was either that or free but dead. And in the back of his mind he couldn't stop thinking about a yellow cradle rocking in the attic.
It'll never happen!
He woke up sweating and shouting, and it took him a few moments to realize that he hadn't been himself in that dream. He'd been Molly.
The intervention happened the next night, as planned. Molly looked down at the floor, hands folded in her lap, and Matt put his big hand over them both. "Molly, I know you don't really want to talk about this, but it's time you told us what was bothering you."
"You're right, I don't," she snapped. Her eyes were red already.
"Is it something with school? Are you having trouble there?" Mohinder, standing just behind Matt, spoke gently. She shook her head, jaw clenched to keep from wailing. "Sweetheart, I know you're in pain, but the truth is, you're not being fair to us."
Her head jerked upward at that. "What do you mean?" she hissed angrily. "It's got nothing to do with you."
"Except for I've been having your dreams," Matt said sternly. She froze, stunned. "And if something's happening on July first, then we need to know about it."
"July... You were in my stuff!" Now she did burst out crying, a full-throated scream of anger. "I hate you! I hate you and I hate your stupid wife and I hate everyone!" She dove into the couch, screaming and sobbing.
Matt and Mohinder looked at each other. "My wife?" Matt finally asked gently.
"I hate her!" Molly screamed, her voice shaking the bookcases and rattling the glass. "How come she got to have one? It's not fair!" A new round of sobs wracked her body.
Have one? Matt mouthed to Mohinder.
A baby, perhaps?
And all of a sudden, Matt had the sinking feeling he knew what July 1 was about.
There was only one way to make sure. He clapped a hand to her shoulder and concentrated, felt that familiar vacuum drawing him in. He willed himself to go there, to see it, to be there for her and with her no matter what horrors lay behind. And the veil began to lift, slowly, then with dizzying speed.
All at once he was in her old house, under the stairs with her, hiding; he was in the room seeing her parents fall, blood-soaked; he heard a familiar laugh and a face neither of them would ever forget.
And then, he was in that attic, peering in wonder along with her at a small, yellow-lined cradle rocking slightly on its wooden legs. Soon, she was thinking. So very soon...
Matt withdrew his hand. Here and now returned "Molly, your mother..."
Molly slowly raised her head, nodded her tear-streaked face. "She'd just told us that week. We bought it for her as a present. Dad and I."
"What? What?" Mohinder leaned forward.
"Her mom was pregnant," Matt said in a voice devoid of emotion; it was the only way he could bear to say it out loud. "When they were killed. She was going to give Molly a little brother or sister, and she never got to. That's what July first is. It's when the baby was due."
"Oh." Mohinder's eyes became hollow with horror. "Oh, my."
They both rushed forward to hold her, and she sobbed uncontrollably. "We bought a cradle--" she sniffed and gasped and gulped-- "as a present-- we kept it in the attic-- we were going to give it to her the next week-- surprise her--
"Mom! Dad!"
It was almost the first time she'd cried about them since she moved in; there had been a few tears, of course, but nothing truly momentous. With this, though, the dam broke and she was inconsolable.
She cried for a long time that night, for the mother and father that had been stolen from her and the brother or sister she'd never been able to know. And Matt and Mohinder cried with her. Because some grief couldn't help but touch your mind even if you weren't a telepath. And because something changed in that moment of revelation, and the imitation family felt like a real one, and real fathers cried when their real daughter was in pain.
And when the tears finally subsided, her eyes were red-lined stars swimming with sorrow, but she managed to smile. And it wasn't even midnight, but that smile felt like dawn.
When she'd calmed and hugged them and thanked them for being there and had a drink of water and cried some more and finally dropped off to sleep, they wordlessly went to the kitchen, minds sharing a single thought: It is time for a fucking drink.
Matt grabbed the teapot. Mohinder grabbed the six-pack. They looked at each other and laughed.
They compromised and went for the slightly less dangerous drug of hot chocolate. It slid down like velvet and comfort, and Matt felt warm. "So, um.... do we need to talk about anything?" he ventured.
"About what?"
Mohinder seemed to be lost in a world of foamy cocoa. Matt nearly slapped him for his cluelessness. "About last night." Then Mohinder finally had the temerity to turn red. Matt went on. "I'm going to assume it was the alcohol talking, because you haven't mentioned it, and I guess you'd rather pretend it never happened, which I can understand..." He was surprised to hear keen disappointment in his own voice. But perhaps it wasn't so much of a surprise, not really, because even now he was looking at those flushed, slightly pouting lips and remembering.
Mohinder didn't answer immediately. But just when Matt had figured he'd gone mute, he gave a sunny smile and said, "It's a non-issue for me. Because we're married, you know."
Matt sighed inwardly. Mohinder wanted to write it off as a joke, after all. He shouldn't be surprised. Or disappointed, for that matter.
But then two of his fingers were seized by a warm hand under the table.
Matt looked down for a moment, then curled the rest of his fingers into Mohinder's and smiled at him. Mohinder smiled back.
"You guys are grinning at each other."
Molly's voice was sleepy. "Can I have another glass of water? My eyes are itchy from crying."
Mohinder jumped up to get it. Molly padded over in her stocking feet, crawled onto Matt's lap, and tucked her head under his chin. When Mohinder returned, he put one hand on Matt's shoulder and reached around with the other to give her the glass. The warmth that hand spread across his back was surprisingly pervasive.
He leaned his cheek against those warm fingers briefly. As families went, this one wasn't half bad.
:end: