Leave any mail for Molly Stearns here. She can also be reached via email at molly1991@dmail.com.

"This is me," Molly says with an excessive little flourish towards the building in question, smiling as she does so. She feels good already, she realizes. Better than she did when she first went out tonight, and definitely better than she usually expects to in the stretch of days leading up to the particular anniversary that's closing in on her. Unless things go completely wrong when they get inside, which she doubts they will, that's only going to continue. They got stuck under mistletoe together once, and it was a good kiss. Not being forced into it or surrounded by strangers this time, both of them aware of what they're here for, she thinks they can do even better.

Really, she ought to be direct like this more often. It tends to have good results. That sort of confidence just doesn't come as easily for her as it used to, though, just one more reason why this feels really fucking refreshing.

Fishing her keys out of her purse, she leads him into the building and towards the elevator. "It's not much, but I'm guessing that won't be a problem."

With as long as she's been in Darrow, Molly is pretty well used to the way things work here, inasmuch as anyone can be. People disappearing has become an unfortunately normal part of her life, so many of the people she's known and cared about gone now. The loss of Clarke, though, her oldest and closest friend, so close on the heels of losing Stephen, admittedly has her a bit thrown. All she can really do is keep going through it, something she learned from experience a long time ago, but she still feels oddly heavy, worn down in a way she can't totally ignore. She'll never stop thinking that she's lucky to be here, no matter what happens, but it's still hard to be the one left behind.

After work, thinking it's less miserable than drinking alone in her apartment, she heads to a nearby bar, somewhere she's visited frequently in the time she's been here. It's a reasonably nice place, though not so much so that the drinks will bankrupt her, so it's kind of perfect.

She's ordered herself a gin and tonic before she catches sight of someone she knows sitting a few seats over. With a smile, she says, "Fancy seeing you here."

Sometimes, if she really stops to think about it, Molly finds it almost odd how easy this is, how well it works. Her last serious relationship — which is to say, her only other serious relationship — always felt a little like playing house, pretending to be something she wasn't. The words were there, and the idea of the right feeling, but that life never really felt like hers. Maybe it's the history she and Stephen have shared and managed to move past, both back home and here, or maybe it's something else, but that never really seems to be the case with him.

She probably loves him. At least, she thinks that's it, what the word would be for what she feels for him. More than a year since he came knocking on her door remembering having been here before, nine months since she moved in with him, and feeling good about all of that, not bored or restless or anything of the sort, it seems to fit. She doesn't feel odd or panicked about it, either, which seems pretty telling in its own right. That is, when she considers it at all, which mostly, she doesn't. Things feel comfortable enough that she doesn't need to. Besides, she's never been much of a romantic.

Even so, and despite the fact that election season is probably the worst time for it, she's got it in her head that they could both use a break, and she has a plan. Neither of them is typically great at stepping away from their work, but one night off won't kill them. And one night off is what she's decided they should have, or at least a few hours.

"So," she says, half-draped over a chair, as casual as anything, "hypothetically speaking, what would be the chances of me getting you to call it a night early?"

Molly probably should have seen this coming. Granted, she could say the same about this whole damn turn of events, too — her attempting to dissuade her boss and coworkers from letting the Purge happen as planned, her inability to do so, her eventually being unable to play along with it anymore — but while this seems like a surprising twist, she thinks it shouldn't. Of course she would wind up at Stephen's door following this whole debacle. They aren't what they were before, whatever that was, and she doubts they'll ever be, especially with what he knows about her now, but he knows politics better than anyone in this city she knows. And it isn't that she's looking for advice, exactly, having made it this far on her own and being proud of doing so, but the enormity of what she's just done is finally starting to sink in. It may not be official yet, but she has implicitly quit her job, her phone already starting to ring with calls from people who want more of a statement on the matter from her. She's silenced them all. She thinks there might be something a little ironic about that, given where she's currently standing, in front of Stephen's door, in the same hallway of what used to be her own apartment, years ago.

Strange as it may be — as his presence here may still be at all — she doesn't really know where else she could have gone, anyway. She has to talk about this with someone, and he'd find out eventually. Better that he do so now, and from her. Her heart starting to race a little with the rush of all of this, she finds herself strangely nervous when she lifts her hand to knock on his door, teeth pressing into her lower lip when she steps back. It occurs to her that she doesn't know how he'll react to this. She does know damn well that he's taken to the Purge about as kindly as she has, but he might think she's fucking crazy for having reacted like this. Still, while she really is not looking for advice, Molly hasn't got a clue what she's going to do next, where she'll go from here, and there's a chance he might have an idea on that front. He's just been starting out here. Now, she's starting from scratch, too, and it is seriously fucking daunting.

It's over.

Thinking about it like that is probably strange and awful, Molly is sure, but right now, she doesn't care. The papers are all signed, Abigail is with Jessica — with her mother now, in every legal and emotional sense — and her belongings in the process of being moved over, and she's all but signed the lease on an apartment she's been eyeing for a while. Whatever should or shouldn't be the case, though, she doesn't feel conflicted at all. Mostly, she just feels relieved, a weight off her shoulders that she's been carrying around since Lee disappeared, or, really, since well before that. She was never cut out for the life she wound up in. Maybe the two of them together could have made it work, but she isn't so sure of that, either, with as much time as she spent waiting for him to change his mind and leave again. From the start, it wasn't right. She doesn't regret the choice she made, if only because she knows she couldn't have made a different one, but things finally feel like they're starting to fall back into place.

She may still be well and truly fucked in the head, but that's something to deal with at a later time. Right now, the relief outweighs all of it.

Finally alone, Molly considers going to a bar, but then pulls out her phone instead, firing off a quick text to Clarke. She may as well have a little company. It's less depressing than drinking alone. Everything's finally settled. :) Wanna come celebrate with me?

Some days, it feels like she's been going nonstop for months, trying to get her life back and everything about it in order. Some days, that's a relief. If she stops, she has to think about it; if she thinks about it, she'll wind up teetering on the edge of a precipice again, increasingly less capable of staving off the breakdown she's been waiting to hit her since she woke up on New Year's Eve to an empty bed, her child left without a father. Strangely enough — or maybe not so strangely, when she really thinks about it — it isn't Lee she mourns, or is trying to stave off mourning, or whatever the fuck the right words for it would be. Some of her friends who've gone, yes, the loss of Katie and Jamie in particular one that cuts deeply, but mostly, it's herself for whom Molly finds herself grieving, the person she used to be, the life she used to have, the one she's been trying with all she's got to get back to. There are moments when she thinks she almost manages it. Most of the time, though, she knows it's just a front. There's too much she needs to get in order for her to actually feel like herself again.

This is part of that. For the past few months now, she's had occasional meetings with a lawyer, figuring out what her options are and how best to proceed. It's with increasing certainty that she thinks she will move forward with the adoption process, too, making this all the more important while she works out the details.

She's on her way out, feeling just a little lighter, as she's prone to after meetings like this, when she spots a familiar face heading towards the elevator too. It takes Molly just a moment to place her, but she's always had a head for names and faces; it practically comes with the job description. She smiles, then, turning towards the other woman. "Hey," she says. "Rebecca, right?"

Somehow, it doesn't come as a surprise when she wakes up alone.

Losing Russell and Andrea in one go the way she had, Molly had been thrown for a loop to say the least, left in a state of panic dangerous for her condition at the time, feeling like her entire world had just given way from under her feet. Mindy going not long after hadn't exactly helped much, though she had been preoccupied with Abigail at the time, sleep-deprived and exhausted and not able to stop to pay it too much mine. Before then, there had been any number of others she'd lost, close friends, people who might have been something a little more than that if given half the chance. Lisbeth, Chase, even Stephen, who she still thinks about more often than she would ever admit to, they'd all left her thrown. And it isn't like this doesn't, not by a long shot.

It's just that, sooner or later, she was bound to grow numb to it, and when she finds Lee gone, tries to call him only to hear an automated message that his phone has been disconnected, the most she feels is a hollow emptiness in her chest and the sense that she should have seen this coming.

Then again, for all she knows, time has nothing to do with it. She hasn't felt right since Abby was born, since before then, just waiting for something to click into place that still has yet to come. The other people she knows with children, they're good at it, they're happy about it. Even when it's hard, it seems like something that makes sense. That's never been the case for her. She's always been good with kids, but apparently that doesn't extend to her own, probably in no small part because that connection is something she just seems to be lacking. Oh, she can fake it alright, she can go through the motions and do what she needs to, but that doesn't change the fact that it's been a long time since she felt like herself, with no end to it in sight. Once or twice, she's tried looking it up to find out if that's normal, seen some terms thrown around, read that for people who've been through some of the shit she has, this transition and experience can often be more difficult. Whether there's a clinical term for it or not, though, something is missing. That, apparently, is also the case when it comes to trying to process the fact that Lee is gone, that she's here now on her own with a baby that she's never really known what to do with, just a couple of weeks away from going back to work.

In all the years she's been in Darrow, for the most part, Molly hasn't done much thinking ahead. It's enough just to be here, to know that she gets to have something at all, and if that time runs out, well, so be it. Now, that's just about the only thing she can do, to try to determine where she's going to go from here, because God knows she hadn't considered that this might be where she would wind up, twenty-five and a single parent. Nearly five more years of life than she was ever supposed to get back home is still a big fucking deal, but that's all the more reason why she can't waste what she has. She needs to let herself have a life. She needs to do what's right for both of them, and even before she was on her own with this, she wasn't sure that it was something she would be cut out for. It just seemed like she didn't have another choice. Like she said to Lee once, though, there are choices, and that hasn't changed just because Abby is almost three months old now. Somewhere out there, there's got to be someone who would be thrilled to raise a little girl. When she considers it like that, she isn't really sure that there's even a decision to be made.

Still, it isn't as if she can do any of this impulsively, not least when she doesn't exactly trust herself with it. So, instead, she does the only thing that makes sense: she pulls herself out of bed, calls a babysitter, dresses in jeans and a button-down shirt, curls her hair and puts on a little makeup. Before she leaves the apartment — and, God, she doesn't think she can stay here for very long — she sends texts to Katie and Clarke, two of the only friends she's got left and the two people she trusts the most, to see if they're around for her to stop by. Either one of them, she has no doubt, would tell her if she's making a mistake by even letting this be an option. Deep down, though, it already doesn't feel like one.

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."

This isn't supposed to be happening.

In the past, she's fucked up and she knows it. She hasn't been quite as careful as she could have, she's slept with the wrong people, she's put herself in all sorts of situations that she probably should have thought through better. Lately, though, this past year and change, that hasn't been the case. For the first time in her life, she's done things by the book, so to speak, got a boyfriend, moved in together, fallen into a steady routine, actually fucking fallen in love. They haven't exactly talked a lot about where they're going to go from here, but she hasn't seen any need to. What they have is already more serious — and conventional — than any relationship she's been in before, and it works for them. Like with most things, she's just taken it as it comes. Now, Molly isn't so sure that's going to be an option anymore.

She isn't sure of anything, really, except her own uncertainty and panic, which puts her potentially even worse off than she was the first time she was in this position. Then, the decision had been made for her the second she found out, no matter how difficult it might have been for her. It wouldn't have been complicated at all if it hadn't been for what turned out to be exactly the wrong person finding out. This time, there's someone else in the equation, and her history might dictate what her choices are here.

That's about as far as Molly has managed to consider anything, though, when all of this has taken place so suddenly. The test she'd gone out to buy on her lunch break had only been to rule the possibility of being pregnant out, to get the lingering thought out of the back of her head and convince herself that being late was just due to stress. She hadn't actually expected a positive result. Everything since then has been a bit of a blur: leaving work early claiming to be sick, taking a couple more tests just to be sure, then making a last-minute appointment to see a doctor, just to be sure. But although she still has to wait on the results of a blood test, there's enough pointing towards the same thing that she knows there's no real way around it, no sense in holding out hope.

Maybe if it weren't for what happened before, the shit in her past that she hasn't told Lee about, this might not seem like quite such an awful thing. Where once she'd thought that, one day, she would settle down and have a family, though, in the time since she's been here, she hasn't known if she'd be able to do that at all anymore. Even if she did, she wouldn't have picked now. There's no getting around it, though, and so, when she gets back to the apartment, only a little later than she normally would have, she doesn't waste time, certain she wouldn't have been able to convincingly pretend like everything is okay anyway. She just takes a deep breath and walks inside, looking about as worried as she feels.

"Hey," she says, relieved at least that Lee is back already and she doesn't just have to sit around with all of this in her head. "Are you busy? I kind of need to talk to you."