losttheright | (no subject)

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The awful thing is, at first, she believes him. It doesn't change how fucked up his leaving seems, or how abandoned she feels, but Lee tells her that he'll be back, and Molly doesn't have any reason not to take him at his word. Even when she gives in and lets herself break down the way she's been trying not to for what feels like an eternity — waiting just long enough, once Lee has closed the door behind him, that he should be safely down the hall and out of earshot — it's not because she thinks he's gone for good. Whatever worries she might have, they aren't really his fault, and it's not fair, or so she tells herself, to attribute them to him now. She can't blame him for being upset about this when she is, too, and everything that's happened, however far from reassuring, makes sense under the circumstances.

That's what she wants to think, anyway. For a little while, she manages it. But minutes turn too quickly into an hour, and then one hour turns into two, and the more time passes, the harder it is to trust that he'd meant what he told her. Needing some space to process this is one thing, but even so, it doesn't take hours to get some air, and to go that long without so much as a fucking word makes it seem all the more unlikely that that's actually what's happening here. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time someone said something like that without meaning it. Stephen told her he'd come back, too, and by the time he finally did, it was too fucking late. Things aren't going to end the same way this time, but knowing that makes her no less uneasy about where she and Lee stand now.

Under any other circumstances, she'd call him, or at least text, but as it is, she's not sure she could take it if she didn't get an answer. Too much of this is too familiar as it is, and she's not looking to make that any worse for herself, which is the only thing that would accomplish. She just also isn't sure, as the night wears on, how much longer she can sit around waiting for him, feeling like she's going out of her fucking mind. It's with that in mind that she goes into the bedroom and starts to get some things together, thinking she'll go stay somewhere else for the night. Halfway through doing so, though, she realizes there's no one she'd want to talk to about this, and gives it up, leaving her partly-packed bag on the bed and heading for the kitchen.

She means to just have one drink. One drink, she thinks, in a fit of desperation, can't do any real damage. She's only just found out, after all, and she'd have been drinking tonight if she hadn't taken that stupid test yet, and it's hard to imagine that making any real difference. One drink, though, as it turns out, isn't nearly enough to take her mind off everything going on, and it isn't long before one becomes several becomes what's left of their bottle of scotch, left empty on the table when she dozes off on the couch, still dressed in yesterday's clothes.

If falling asleep had been too easy, then waking up proves to be the opposite, her head pounding before she even opens her eyes. Molly hasn't been hungover like this in a while as it is, and remembering the events of the night before doesn't help at all on that front. Even then, though it should be fairly obvious that she's still there alone, judging by the fact that she's still fully dressed on the couch, a part of her can't help hoping that maybe, just maybe, Lee will have come back during the night and this will all have been one big fucking misunderstanding. One look around the apartment, and that part of her is very quickly let down. Lee's coat and keys are still gone, and everything is still where she left it the night before, from the empty bottle on the coffee table to the bag she'd started to pack before she wound up drinking instead.

From there, everything she does feels like nothing more than going through the motions. She throws up all she'd had to drink the night before in the bathroom, thinking bitterly that she's going to have to get used to doing so anyway, brushes her teeth, takes a couple aspirin and drinks some water, throws out the empty bottle and puts her glass from the night before in the sink. She's in the middle of straightening up the couch when she hears the door open, and though she knows there's really only one person it could be, she's still visibly stunned when she stops and turns to see Lee coming inside. For what at least feels like a long moment, she can't do anything but stare. Then, finally, as if she can't quite wrap her head around the fact of it, she says, "You're back."

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His head's killing him when he wakes up on Kara's couch the next morning. Part of it is probably because he and Starbuck drank enough for an entire squadron of Viper pilots, and the other part is because he barely got any sleep despite it. Every few hours, Lee found himself waking out of a restless sleep, his mind on Molly and their conversation last night. On a few things Kara said in between drinks.

He's frakked up here, and he knows it. Maybe he hadn't been ready for this last night, but Molly obviously hadn't been either. And Lee... he'd run, leaving her to deal with all of it.

You turn into the approach, or you turn tail and run.

Lee had chosen the second option, only to find that there's nowhere to run to. And that running is just what he'd been afraid of doing in the first place.

Kara's still asleep when Lee pulls on his coat, grabbing his things and heading out of the door. If he's lucky, Molly won't have changed the locks on their apartment door. But he's never been very lucky.

By the time Lee makes it home, his head is still pounding, and he tries to do it without making too much noise. Only, Molly's right there. She hasn't left, and he feels like the world's biggest godsdamned asshole.

"We should probably talk," he says.

Already, it's almost too much. Molly isn't sure quite what it is, whether it's the relative lack of sleep or the hangover, everything she's had on her mind for the last day or the simple fact of Lee standing here now, or, more likely some combination of them, but just hearing that is enough to make her feel like she's about to burst into tears again. That it isn't necessarily a very promising start, after an entire fucking night, doesn't help matters either. He's right, they probably should talk, but she can't in the moment think of a single thing to say that wouldn't be too spiteful. She already tried talking. It didn't exactly go very well.

She stares at him for another few seconds, until her vision starts to blur, and then she turns, blinking furiously to try to clear the tears from her eyes as she folds the blanket she'd half-slept under the night before. It's more an excuse to keep herself occupied than anything else, but she's not sure she could bear to keep looking at him. Not like this, and not when she can already barely keep it together. Things are fucked up enough already without her embarrassing herself more than she did last night. At least she didn't ask him not to go like she'd wanted to. That almost certainly wouldn't have worked out well.

"I don't really feel like talking," she says, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to keep her voice as even as she can, still not looking at him. All things considered, it's the nicest way she can put it, when the idea of his wanting to talk now, after all of this, is pretty fucking ironic. "I'd just like to know if you're staying or if you only came for your stuff."

At the very least, she's speaking to him, which is more than he expected. Lee peels off his coat and drapes it over the back of the couch, expecting her to tell him to get the hell out. When it doesn't come, Lee cautiously takes a seat, frowning.

"I get that," he says, of her not feeling like talking, and knows he deserves it. She needed him to stay and he couldn't. And maybe Lee's still not sure he's prepared to deal with this, but he's sure that he's not going anywhere this time.

"You don't have to say anything. But I was hoping that maybe you'd listen?"

That she considers saying no isn't because she's angry, though she is. There's a fight it feels like they're on the cusp of having, that they probably need to have, but however that goes and whatever comes of it, Molly isn't planning on shutting him out entirely. Given the position she's in, she kind of can't, and even setting that aside, she doesn't want to lose him over something that she never asked for in the first place.

He'd still left, though, and after a night spent wondering if he would even be coming back at all, it's hard to let go of that. It's hard to deal with any of this, harder still to keep from falling apart entirely, and for all that she'd really prefer not to do so in front of Lee, being around him is only making it worse. Whatever it is he has to tell her, there's no way she'll be able to listen to it and maintain any semblance of composure, not when her hold on that is already so tenuous.

But she doesn't want to do any more damage here than has already been done, and so she lets out a tremulous sigh, eyes shut tight as she pushes her hands back through her hair, and nods once. "Fine," she says, brusque. Without looking at him — she can't, not yet — she starts for the kitchen, both to get another glass of water and for an excuse not to just be standing there, waiting to hear what's going to come next. "Whatever you want to say, just say it, Lee."

She heads for the kitchen, and Lee's left sitting there on the couch. He doesn't blame her for not wanting to sit and talk; he's frakked up and they both know it. Mostly, he's just relieved right now that she's going to listen at all.

"I shouldn't have left. I frakked up and I'm sorry," Lee says, and really, they should have been the first words out of his mouth when he came through the door, but he was mostly just relieved that Molly was still there in the first place.

"I guess I just wasn't expecting it. I wasn't..." he trails off, quiet for a moment, because it's not as if this is something Molly expected either. And it's not something she can just run from. "No. That's not fair. And... I'm not here to make excuses, but there's something I haven't told you yet. I was engaged. Before Dee. Before the attack on the Colonies, before everything went to hell. A few weeks before the attack, she told me she was pregnant."

Gods, Lee doesn't even remember how long it was. Maybe even less than that. But it'd been soon enough after that he'd been ordered to fly at Galactica's decommissioning ceremony before they'd had a chance to talk again. Lee isn't sure if they ever would have, or what either of them would have said, but there's not a lot he regrets more than pushing Gianne away that day.

"We fought. Because I said I wasn't ready and... for a million other reasons. Not long after that, I was called away on assignment, the end of the worlds happened and I never saw her again. It doesn't excuse what I did. In fact, it does the opposite of that, but I figure it's about time I start coming clean, considering the circumstances."

At first, Molly keeps busy as she listens to Lee start to speak, moving to the cupboard for a glass to the freezer for ice to the sink for water. Even now, after the way he left her yesterday, a part of her feels guilty for it, especially once he starts apologizing, but it seems like her best shot at not falling apart yet, and despite being a room away, she really doesn't want to start crying in front of Lee. Maybe she's just delaying the inevitable, but at least it'll buy her a little time. They should be able to talk about this without being derailed by her being a goddamn mess anyway, and chances are, that's all that would happen. Upset as she is right now, it's not an attempt to spare his feelings. If he feels bad about leaving, she doesn't fucking care. After a night spent waiting for him, though, after not even being able to finish packing a bag, she wants to try to keep what dignity she can.

He gets to the part about his fiancée having been pregnant, though, and she stops, leaning back against the sink, her head in her hands, glass abandoned on the counter beside her. In a sick, twisted way, it's perfect, really, his own history with this sort of thing sounding like it's about as fucked up as hers is. She couldn't have known that yesterday, though, and, God, does she wish he'd told her then. That's all she'd really wanted, for him to talk to her. At least he finally is now, but what he has to say is still pretty far from reassuring. If that's how things were before, and he took off last night the way he did, she's not sure how she's supposed to expect this to turn out any differently.

For a long few moments, she's silent, not much more inclined to talk than she was when he first came in. Eventually, though, she has to say something, even if the sound of her voice gives away just how difficult it is for her to try to keep it together. "So what are those circumstances?" she asks. "Because you told me you weren't ready, too, and I'm not sure the world's gonna end again this time. It's not like... I'm not gonna try to trap you or force you into anything. If you want to walk away again, walk away. I just need to know if I'm dealing with this on my own or not."

"I meant what I said yesterday, Molly," Lee says, and his voice is quiet, "I am not ready for this. But I'm not going anywhere."

He pauses, and all he can think of is that raptor flying away with his father on it, his mother yelling at him and Zak, the drinking. He knows that he and Molly are different people, but all he can think of is the two of them ending up there, and he doesn't want that for either of them.

"That's what my father did. He was a military man, not around a lot. He'd show up every couple of months, and then he was off on a battlestar again. I guess... I don't know, I guess all I could think about when you told me you were pregnant was that I don't want us to end up like that. And I don't want to end up like my father."

Maybe this is something he should have come clean about last night instead of leaving. Or maybe he'd needed the night to realize how close he was coming to losing everything all over again.

He tells her he's not going anywhere, and, finally, that's what pushes her over the edge, a hand pressing to her mouth to stifle any sound as she starts to cry. She doesn't even know why, be it built up stress or relief or the fact that she's not sure she believes him. It sounds nice, sure, but last night he'd said he was coming back, and she'd taken him at his word then. As much as she hates that it's the case, it isn't so easy to do so now, not even with what he has to tell her shedding some more light on the situation. At least it's something she can understand, Lee not wanting to be like his father when she's spent a lot of time not wanting to be like hers. In this context, though, there's too much other shit she has to deal with for that to enter the equation, for her to think that far ahead.

Instinctively, she wants to tell him that he won't be, but those words won't come. It wouldn't be true if she did, when she can't guarantee that, when she doesn't even know Lee's father to be able to make a comparison, and he'd know it. After last night, she doesn't think she should need to be the one offering any reassurance anyway. Still, she comes as close to it as she can, her hand dropping to her side before she speaks again.

"If it helps, I don't even know if I want it," she says, staring at the kitchen floor. "I just know that I can't..." Trailing off, she shakes her head. With all he's told her, she's probably due a confession or two of her own, and she's known since last night that she would need to get to this sooner or later. There's not really any getting around it now. "You're not the only one of us who's been through this before. I guess you didn't stop to consider that you might not be before you left last night."

Edited 2016-02-13 09:22 (UTC)

"...what?" Lee asks, and it's not the fact that she admits that she's not sure she wants it that gives him pause. It's the same way he feels, even now, even after realizing that this isn't something he can just run from. Though, considering what he's kept from her... Gianne, and Dee before, it's not as if he can hold it against her. He just never really imagined that this was something she'd been through before.

It's big. And personal, he supposes.

Lee stands, walking to the kitchen to join Molly there. He knows she's still pissed at him, but even knowing that, he can't resist the urge to grab her hand when he gets close enough to, even though she's staring at the floor.

"Molly, what do you mean, you've been through this before?"

Though this probably isn't a conversation they should have from separate rooms and she knows it, Molly isn't expecting Lee to come into the kitchen before she can walk out, and she sure as hell isn't expecting him to reach for her hand. For a moment, she's tempted to pull away, but she doesn't. Angry or not, she needs to get this out before she picks a fight or circles back around to that, and she's too caught up in her own head to switch gears like that now anyway. She's known since yesterday that she was going to have to tell him about this, but that doesn't make her any more prepared to now. It just isn't something she talks about, and with good reason. But it's relevant now in a way she never imagined it would be, and especially in the face of what he's had to say, there isn't really any getting around it.

"Back home, I slept with my boss," she says, figuring she might as well cut to the chase on that front, not yet lifting her gaze. "This guy running for president, whose campaign I was working on. He was married, had a kid. It wasn't supposed to be a big deal. I mean, it was just the one time, and he's the one who came on to me, and it wasn't like it meant anything. Except I wound up pregnant." She swallows hard, taking a deep, unsteady breath before she continues. "It was a liability. I was a liability. His career, my career, my dad's career, they all would have been ruined if it ever got out. So... I had an abortion."

She's wondered sometimes what she would have done if it were anyone else's. At twenty, she'd been even less ready to have a baby than she thinks she is now, but she can't really see herself making the same decision under any other circumstances, either. The situation being what it was, she hadn't really had one at all. Now, she does, and however much she might not want it, whatever damage has already been done here, the one thing she is certain of is that she won't do the same thing this time.

Finally, she looks up at Lee, swiping her free hand over her cheeks as she lets out a laugh with no humor behind it. "You know, the really funny thing is, the guy who took me to the clinic? When he dropped me off, he said he'd be back. I waited around all night for him, too."

"Gods," Lee says, and it's a lot to take in. They've both been on their respective sides of this before, and if he'd known, then there's a good chance he wouldn't have left last night. But as it is, knowing now can't take back the fact that he ran out on her and spent the night drinking with Kara. It sure as hell doesn't do anything for his pounding hangover.

It's not something he can fault her for, though. Not considering his own past, what he and Kara did to Dee and Anders back when they were with the fleet. Kara in Darrow might not remember it, but Lee does. The guilt he felt about it every day. For him, maybe it was something worse than what Molly did, though. Because at the time, it had meant something to him. It had been a big deal. But the two of them had gotten out of it easy, all things considered.

"I'm sorry," he says again, "I... I didn't know."

On one hand, Molly is aware that his response probably makes her lucky, in a way. Not everyone would take so kindly to the idea of her sleeping with some married guy, even without her mentioning that he wasn't her first. Starting a relationship with Lee while he'd still been wearing his ring was a different story; maybe it still said something about her, but she'd spent enough time around him then to know that whatever had gone on there, his wife wasn't in the picture anymore. This is something else, and she doesn't think she would have been able to blame him if it changed the way he saw her. She may not have been the only one who fucked up that night, or even the one who initiated things, but she'd still been a willing participant. That it doesn't seem to be a point of contention now is something she thinks she ought to be grateful for.

Then again, it's not like that's her reason for talking about this, only the necessary context for why she did what she did back then. It does nothing to fix things with her and Lee, nor does it give her any sort of idea about what to do now, on an immediate or longterm scale. She wants to push Lee away as badly as she wants to pull him close, and it takes everything she's got in her to do neither.

"I was gonna tell you last night," she says, shrugging somewhat awkwardly. "But you took off before I had a chance." She knows that's got to be at least in part why he's apologizing again now, and that she probably shouldn't keep holding it against him. Hearing that he's sorry, though, while something that does help, doesn't change what the past night has done to her. "I'd ask if it would've made a difference, but I don't think I'd want to hear the answer either way."

"And I don't know if I have one for you," Lee says, though he wishes he could say definitively that he wouldn't have left. What's done is done now. You make your mistakes and you live with them. You learn from them. In that moment, he's reminded of President Roslin and the Olympic Carrier, of that slip of paper she kept in her pocket to remember her mistakes.

"I wish I'd given you a chance to tell me."

He'd left to clear his head and try to get a grasp on all of this, but even after spending all night out, and basically getting his ass handed to him by Kara, he's still not completely sure where he stands.

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losttheright - 2016-02-18 03:30 (UTC) - Expand

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adifferentpath - 2016-02-18 04:52 (UTC) - Expand

When Lee offers to sleep on the couch, Molly doesn't protest. All things considered, after a day spent mostly avoiding each other, it just makes sense, even with her a hell of a lot calmer than she was this morning, even when the fact that Lee is still here has done a lot for her peace of mind. She still doesn't really know how to be around him, or how to deal with his having left the night before, or how they're supposed to move forward from here, when she has no fucking idea what to do. The bag she'd started to pack a day ago has stayed only half-full, though, left in a corner of the bedroom when she finally emerged after pulling herself together earlier. She's not sure why she hasn't made herself unpack it. Maybe because things still feel so fucking wrong, or maybe because, in spite of his being here now, and having told her that he's not going anywhere, she's not entirely convinced that she isn't going to be left on her own with this again. Though she couldn't blame him if he did want to leave, the one thing she can be sure of is that she doesn't want that to be the case. That probably ought to be incentive to make things right, but she wouldn't for the life of her know where to start. As it is, the only reason she isn't the one sleeping on the couch is because he beat her to it.

Sometime after midnight, she starts to regret that. The night before, strange as it is, had been significantly easier, with her dozing off on the couch after drinking what was left of a bottle of scotch. Now, fully sober and alone in their bed, she's restless, alternately staring at the ceiling and tossing and turning, checking the clock on her phone every once in a while only to find that a lot less time has passed than it seems like. With the way her thoughts won't stop racing, it makes sense, but it's fucking agonizing, too. She almost wishes she'd been the one sleeping in the living room, but she's also not sure what difference it would have made. Not being in here alone might have helped a little, but the real problem is bigger than that.

It's also something she can do something about. By the time she gives in and realizes it, it's well after midnight, but she isn't too concerned about that as she makes her way out of the bedroom and down the hall, pausing in the doorway to the living room. This might well be a bad fucking idea, but she doesn't know what else to do, and she has to try. They can't just avoid each other forever, or, at least, she hopes it won't come to that. Pissed off or not, she only has been in the first place because she wanted him here, and now he is.

"Lee?" she calls, her voice small and uncertain as it cuts through the dark living room. "I can't sleep."

For a while, Lee had tried to get some work done. He'd been in the middle of reading for lectures the night before, when Molly had given him the news. But after reading the same sentence five times without retaining any of it, he'd decided to give up. He's not going to be able to focus on anything but Molly, but the possibility of a baby, and it's frakking crazy to even try to.

Everything's frakked. He's not sure where he and Molly stand, they haven't talked about where they go from here. It's pretty difficult to get a good night's sleep with that hanging over his head.

So as it is, even though he's brought a pillow and blanket into the living room and has made a bed on the couch, he hasn't slept more than a few minutes all night. He's already awake when he hears Molly's voice, and when he looks over to see her silhouetted in the dark doorway to the hall.

"Yeah," he says, and he sits up in the dark, "Me neither."

Edited 2016-02-18 06:13 (UTC)

Though she feels guilty for it right away, there's a part of Molly that's relieved when she hears his response, if only because it means she didn't wake him up. Under any other circumstances, it might not have been that big a deal if she did or not, and she'd still been willing to take that risk when she came out here in the first place. Still, she's unsure of herself in a way she isn't entirely used to, and if the last day is anything to go by, she and Lee aren't exactly on the steadiest ground with each other. It's awful of her to think so, when at least one of them should be able to get some sleep, but she'd rather this be the case than the alternative.

If she's also the slightest bit comforted by the fact that she isn't the only one this is so difficult for, she doesn't think that's the worst thing in the world, and she has the sense not to try to put it into words.

She takes a step into the room, then hesitates, shifting her weight like she isn't sure what to do. The best thing might be to cut to the chase and ask if he'll come to bed, but after everything that's happened, when they've barely spoken, it seems like too much, especially when she feels like nothing more than a scared kid again. "Can I—" she starts instead, and falters. "Can I come sit?"

Lee doesn't expect the question. Actually, he hadn't expected to see Molly at all tonight, her seemingly content for the two of them to spend the night apart. He feels equal parts relieved that she's as not okay with all of this as he is, and guilty that he didn't go to her first. But she'd given him the impression that she needed space earlier, when she'd left him standing in the kitchen after their conversation.

"Yeah," he says again, and he shifts on the couch to make room, lifting up the blanket in case she wants to join him under it, "Yeah, of course."

It's strange, how stilted things are, now he's not sure what he should and shouldn't say just now. It's only been like this between them once before, and that was for much happier reasons than this.

Even with the way Lee puts it, saying of course like it's something that should speak for itself, his answer still comes as something of a surprise, and Molly doesn't entirely know why. He left last night, sure, but he's been here since the morning, even after having had every opportunity to leave again if he wanted to. She walked away earlier, but she'd been hurt, unable to just move on as easily as that. Still, it couldn't have helped matters any. This whole thing, it seems, is a fucking mess, and she's not sure how to change that, when the situation they're in isn't something that will just go away.

Not staying away now might be a start, though. She remains visibly a little cautious as she crosses the room, but takes a seat on the couch beside him, tucked under the blanket. Already it's tempting just to lean into him, but she doesn't know where the lines are or aren't between them now, and doesn't want to cross one. He'd reached for her hand this morning, though, and she does the same now, fingers curling around his. It's something.

"Thanks," she says, though it occurs to her that she shouldn't need to thank her own fucking boyfriend for letting her sit next to him. "I'm glad I didn't wake you up."

Considering how little Lee managed to sleep at Kara's, despite how much the two of them had to drink, he's surprised that he didn't drift off to sleep easily. He's exhausted, but his mind has been racing ever since the day before.

"I don't think I was gonna get much sleep anyway," he admits. There's too much running through his head, too much he's trying to work through. And it's not as if he's ever going to be able to figure it out on his own anyway.

Molly sits next to him, and Lee hesitates for a moment before he wraps one arm around her shoulders.

Though maybe it shouldn't be, the arm around her shoulders is unexpected, and for just a moment, it's too overwhelming for Molly to do anything about. This is all she'd really wanted when she talked to him last night. It might not be that simple now, with everything that's happened since she told him, since he came back this morning, but it's the first thing since she took that stupid fucking test yesterday that's felt the least bit right at all. Being here now, it doesn't change or fix the situation they're in. She's no less uncertain about what to do, or how to get over his having left yesterday. If there's one thing she does know, though, it's that she doesn't want to do this without him if she doesn't have to, and keeping Lee at a distance hasn't helped anything.

She shifts closer, then, leaning into him like she'd wanted to when she first sat down, her head resting on his shoulder. "Yeah," she says quietly. "Kind of hard to, given all this." She pauses, sighing. "And I probably didn't help anything."

Edited 2016-02-19 05:59 (UTC)

"It's not your fault," Lee says. Sure, she'd left him standing in the kitchen earlier, but he'd done the leaving first. At least he hadn't had to wonder whether or not she was coming back, considering Molly hadn't left the apartment since they'd last spoken.

"None of it," he clarifies, though he's not sure if Molly blames herself for what they're going through. Maybe she doesn't, but just in case, he figures it's probably a good idea to make that clear. He's as much a part of this as she is, even if it might seem like it'd be easy for him to just disappear and be done with it.

He's tried to live with guilt before, and even if he did want to leave, he's sure that he'd never be able to look at his own face in the mirror again.

Logically speaking, Molly knows that's true. She didn't ask to wind up pregnant, and she's not the one who took off last night. Still, it's hard not to feel, in a way, like she's the root of this problem, as terrible as she feels for thinking about it as one in the first place, and she still could have handled this morning better. All things considered, she was probably justified in pulling away, and she can't pretend that a part of her isn't angry even now. As much as she might have thought she needed not to be around him, though, it's apparent enough now, or seems to be, that she didn't do either of them any favors by walking away earlier.

"Maybe not," she says, shrugging as best she can without dislodging his arm from around her shoulders. "But I still..." She trails off, left with any number of ways she could finish that sentence, none of them quite right. "I just want us to be okay, Lee."

Strangely enough, it's not them he's worried about. At least, not long term. It's a frakking difficult situation that they're in now, miles away from where they were just two days ago, but it doesn't mean he feels any differently about Molly than before. It's something new they're going to have to figure out how to navigate, but he's willing to go through it, no matter where it might take them.

"We'll... we'll figure it out," Lee says, "It'll be alright."

He doesn't know how it'll be alright yet, but that's where the figuring it out comes in, he thinks.

As much as she wishes it weren't the case, Molly isn't sure, having Lee tell her that it'll be alright, whether he actually thinks so or not. For that matter, she doesn't even know if she believes it herself. With everything that's happened over the last day and a half, it's hard to imagine an outcome where that's actually the case. This is all too fucked up for that, and she doesn't know how to put the pieces back together, or how they'll ever get back to any semblance of normalcy.

Sitting here, though, curled against him in the dark, she doesn't much care if he means it, or if it's true. Just hearing him say so is enough for her. It's all she'd really wanted in the first place, before he walked out and everything went from bad to a lot fucking worse. Maybe it doesn't make quite as much difference now, but that's something she can deal with later.

"God, I wish you could've told me that before," she says, laughing helplessly into his shoulder, the sound almost a sob, though her eyes stay mercifully dry. She doubts she needs to specify that she means before he left; that seems like something that will speak for itself. "But here we are, I guess."

Even having said the words to Molly, Lee's still not completely sure he means them. It's a situation neither of them are prepared for. Not emotionally, not financially, and he doesn't have a frakking clue how they're going to make it work. But if there's one thing about the two of them, they're both good with making plans, with strategizing. And maybe this isn't a mayoral campaign or an Op, but once they've got their heads on straight, Lee's hoping that they can work together to try and figure out what they do next.

"Yeah," Lee says, and can't help but let out a quiet huff of a laugh too, "Here we are. Wherever this is."