losttheright | (no subject)

Even after the doctors tell her it's alright to, Molly doesn't sleep. She's exhausted, more so than she thinks she ever has been, every inch of her aching and weary, residual nerves keeping her worn out, and the rest would do her good, she knows. The trouble is, it wouldn't be rest at all. She's uneasy enough lying awake in a hospital bed, with people she knows nearby and reassurances that she's safe. Left to her mind's own devices, she wouldn't have any of that, and she doesn't think she could stand that, not yet. When she already can't stop replaying the night's events over and over, there's no need for her to do anything to make it worse. At least she manages to talk them out of giving her a sedative. It's not much, but whatever little she can still control, she means to.

The sun comes up, but the quiet of the few hours before, after everything started to settle, carries over. Someone comes in to take a look at her, make sure she's coherent and that her pupils are still the same size — she hadn't realized before just how much care there was in treating a concussion — and ask how she slept. She lies and says she slept alright. At least it gets the nurse, this one a woman she doesn't know, out of the room, leaving her to the games on her cell phone and a few shitty TV channels. It's about as relieving as it is enough to drive her crazy. She can't work, though, when her inbox is already flooded with emails not about policy but about Patrick. That the story was going to be news is something she's been dimly aware of since she was brought in here, but she hadn't expected it to be like this. She's just lucky no one's tried to call her yet. It's only a matter of time.

She tries her best to distract herself from its inevitability by changing the channel to a soap opera, losing herself in the lives of people with more drama at hand than she does. There's a small amount of comfort in the melodrama, people fumbling through poorly acted lines and turning on the tears at the drop of a hat. At least none of it is what she's got in her own head. She hits mute, though, when she hears someone at her door, setting the remote on the side table with a stretch that only draws a slight wince from her. She'll turn it off when she sees who it is, she decides.

"Hello?"

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He'd heard the start of it on the police scanner. News of women attacked and murdered is more than enough to get Jim's blood up, but it's not until he heard the names of the injured that he hit real fury.

He's mostly collected now, even if his knuckles (and bedroom wall) have seen better days, showered and calm and quiet when he appears in Molly's hospital room door. Jesus, she looks like hell.

"It's Jim," he says. "You up for a visitor?"

She's expecting one of the doctors or nurses, the medical personnel who've been coming in and out of her room intermittently since she was first brought in. Seeing Jim standing in the doorway, though, Molly just about lights up, or as close to it as she can get when she's this fucking exhausted (and visibly so) and without pulling at the stitches in her lip. There is, of course, a part of her that still feels distinctly uncomfortable about all of this — not what happened itself, that's something entirely different, but being seen in this state by people she knows — but it's not like there could be any avoiding it. Right now, self-conscious as she might be, it's mostly just nice to see him, that he's here.

"Yeah, of course," she says, reaching over and hitting the power button on the remote after all, not needing even the visuals of a soap opera on in the background when she'll have his company now. "Come on in."

Jim does, pulling the ridiculous stuffed bear he'd panicked and bought in the gift shop earlier. "How you feeling?" he asks, placing it in the hand not currently stabbed through with IVs before he takes a seat at her bedside. "They got you pumped up full of the good stuff?"

At the sight of the bear, Molly's smile widens just the slightest bit, her gaze resting on it for a moment before she looks back up at Jim. It's a sweet gesture, one that, at any other time, would probably be ridiculous, but that right now means a hell of a lot. With the state she's in, it's the smallest things, she's finding, that go the longest way, and if it makes her consider fleetingly that her family might have done the same for her, she pushes the thought down too quickly for it to matter. She wouldn't want them to see her like this anyway, wouldn't want the headlines that this having happened back home would bring with it.

"Like a truck hit me," she answers, tone deceptively light. What she really feels like is someone who was almost killed, but those are just the facts of the story, ones he probably knows already if he's here. "But they've given me the good stuff, yeah. Just enough that it won't knock me out." Absently, she ruffles the fur on top of the bear's little head. "He's cute," she says. "Thanks."

"He actually squeaked 'Get Well Soon' when you squeezed him," Jim confesses, "Really took the whole thing from cute to the stuff of nightmares, so I took the speaker out."

Smiling, Jim leans forward in his chair, wishing like hell that Bones was still around to watch over her - and to indulge Jim with hourly updates. "Who all's been by to see you?"

"Oh, well, thank you for that," Molly says, letting out a slight laugh. "Definitely better without the sound byte." As it is, she doesn't think it could really prompt any nightmares when she's got plenty of material for those that's far worse, but it's still easier without it making noise. She keeps it close as she looks over at him, trying not to let herself be too self-conscious. "Actually, uh, you're the first. But the doctor and nurse who took care of me when I came in are friends, and so is the cop who took my statement, so that's sort of like having had other visitors."

"Sounds like you're well taken care of," says Jim, though he's sure that others will be by. Molly's not the type of person one shakes off easily, and he knows she must be on a fair few minds right now.

"But if you need anything, anytime, text me and I'll be here, and it'll take more than visiting hours to keep me out. Even if it's just to sit and watch tv." He smiles then, gentle and a little sad. "Or to do more. I've, uh, been at the mercy of a madman myself. I was just a kid, but I think about it everyday, so if you ever need to talk, keep me in your phone."

Expression a little more somber, though there's a faint, sad smile of her own behind it, one of quiet understanding, Molly nods. She doesn't know the details of whatever it is that he went through, but right now, she doesn't think she needs to. Just what he said, and the sense of not being alone in this, is all she really needs.

She reaches over for his hand, not quite so worn out that she can't manage to stretch that far. Besides, though she still feels like shit, the painkillers they've given her really are helping some. "I'm sure I'll take you up on that," she says. It's the sort of thing it's easy to imagine in theory, how awful this is, but the thing she never got before is how lonely it is. People give sympathetic looks, they try to take care of her, but without having been through it, it's impossible to really get. Even if she doesn't talk about it more — and she isn't sure now if she can or will — it helps, having that from him. "Gotta warn you, though, whatever this soap opera is, it's pretty fucking addictive already."

Jim returns that sad smile and looks up at the screen, his expression brightening. "Hospital Dynasty!" he exclaims. "Spock totally watches this when he thinks I'm asleep." He nods at the woman with long, perfectly bleached and straightened hair.

"He thinks she's secretly a robot, sent from the future to ruin the life of Dr. Ortiz. I tried to explain to him that soaps aren't usually that creative about the space time continuum. But you never know."

He cocks his head. "He could be onto something. An ass like that has to be manufactured."

"I think it's probably just plastic surgery," Molly says, a quiet laugh rising up in her throat. As far as she's aware, that was closer to the norm with soap operas back home, though around here, she wouldn't rule anything out. Evil toys once attacked them, after all. A robot sent from the future might not actually be that implausible. "Is she actually trying to ruin his life, or is that just part of the conspiracy theory? I'm trying to get brought up to date."