Molly Stearns (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
losttheright) wrote2016-01-28 03:54 pm
losttheright) wrote2016-01-28 03:54 pm
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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."
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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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.
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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."
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"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?"
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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."
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"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."
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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."
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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.
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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."
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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?"
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"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."
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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."
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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."
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"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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All at once, she can't bear just standing here crying in front of him, either, and abruptly draws away, leaving her glass of water abandoned on the counter and walking down the hall to the bedroom. She'd almost forgotten about the bag she left there the night before, and now, she isn't sure what to do with it, if she should finish packing or unpack, if she wants to leave or if she can handle staying. She doesn't get to run away from this the way he did, but she doesn't know how to get past what happened last night, or how to fix this. Hell, for all she knows, there won't be any fixing it, a thought that's far from comforting.
She stares at the bag on the bed for a long few seconds, only to find herself still at a loss, and that it's only making her feel worse. Not particularly caring, in the moment, if Lee follows her or not, she takes a seat beside it, shoulders slumping forward. As recently as yesterday morning, they'd been happy. Somehow, the thought of that just makes all of this seem even worse.
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Lee came back for a reason, though. He intends to stand by her through this, no matter how it turns out. It's not her burden to bear alone. And maybe he frakked up, monumentally it seems, but that doesn't mean his feelings for her have changed at all.
With a sigh of his own, Lee goes to pour himself a glass of water, hopeful that he can rehydrate and stop his head from pounding. And while he doesn't have a lot of faith in his ability to concentrate on anything else today, he figures he should probably at least try to finish the reading he was in the middle of last night.