Molly Stearns (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
losttheright) wrote2012-09-25 06:11 am
losttheright) wrote2012-09-25 06:11 am
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Days pass. Gradually, things start to go back to normal. It isn't as if Molly is especially surprised by that — the people in this city are resilient, she saw it before after monsters attacked and she's seeing it again now, when the enemy wasn't something tangible, but illness — but it strikes her as noteworthy all the same, in large part because, for once, she's having difficulty doing the same. If there's one thing she's ever been good at, one thing she's prided herself on, it's her ability to keep going even when things are at their worst. Back on the campaign, she managed it even when her life was falling apart, and when the very man she was campaigning for was, in large part, responsible for it. It's different now, though. A pregnancy in its early stages wasn't anything that could have been noticed, and she always meant to take care of it, anyway; if not for how complicated everything got, it would never have been consequential at all. The bruises on her face, though, are unmistakable, nothing that could have just been pretended away, and the result of something a lot more awful than ill-advised sex with her boss. She can hole up in her apartment all she likes, but even that makes little difference when she still knows, when she can barely sleep at night for memories of having a gun held to her head.
The week it takes for her to pull herself together before she goes back to work — as much, too, because she's worried about coming into contact with the virus again as for the way she looks, though the latter's been more of a concern — is also time enough for the bruises on her face to fade a little, the swelling around her eye to go down some. With makeup to cover the marks left on her face and jaw, she looks almost normal, nothing too evident to anyone who wouldn't be looking, and that's enough for her to act like it, too, at least around other people. Of course, it's not as simple as that, the damage done more than physical, but she'll take what she can get, and not having to field questions about why she looks like she got beat up is a big step.
That is, maybe, why she's let her guard down a little, heading back to her building with that same outward sense of normalcy, grateful for the diminished chaos. It's also why, as she pushes the button for the elevator, the last thing she's expecting is to see Russell heading in the same direction. When she knows his apartment is here too, this was bound to happen eventually, but seeing him for the first time since he threatened to kill her shakes her more than it ought to, and it's all she can do not to let that show. As it is, she still keeps her head turned away, tension in her shoulders, hoping she won't have to say anything and hating herself a little for it.
The week it takes for her to pull herself together before she goes back to work — as much, too, because she's worried about coming into contact with the virus again as for the way she looks, though the latter's been more of a concern — is also time enough for the bruises on her face to fade a little, the swelling around her eye to go down some. With makeup to cover the marks left on her face and jaw, she looks almost normal, nothing too evident to anyone who wouldn't be looking, and that's enough for her to act like it, too, at least around other people. Of course, it's not as simple as that, the damage done more than physical, but she'll take what she can get, and not having to field questions about why she looks like she got beat up is a big step.
That is, maybe, why she's let her guard down a little, heading back to her building with that same outward sense of normalcy, grateful for the diminished chaos. It's also why, as she pushes the button for the elevator, the last thing she's expecting is to see Russell heading in the same direction. When she knows his apartment is here too, this was bound to happen eventually, but seeing him for the first time since he threatened to kill her shakes her more than it ought to, and it's all she can do not to let that show. As it is, she still keeps her head turned away, tension in her shoulders, hoping she won't have to say anything and hating herself a little for it.