If it was not for her heavy breathing, anyone would think her a statue. She was trapped inside her mind listening to postcard voices from her future.
"A bullet wound to the head."
"Even if she does wake the damage is already done."
"Molly, she will need 24 hour care, she will not have any motor or vocal functions, you don't want that for her, do you?"
"You need to say goodbye now, Molly."
Alex lent forward in her chair and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth in order to silence the sobs racking through her.
There was not some great goal at the end of this, a connection that would send her home. She had denied it for so long and it hurts more for it, she had been clinging to that last bit of hope that she would see her daughter again.
When the team arrives to find her shaking form sitting in the dark, Gene takes her aside.
"I'm staying h-h-h here, I am not, my daughter, I will never see her again." Her tears fall on to his coat and she held onto him, like he was the only thing she had left.
"Dead" Alex did not realize she was saying her thoughts aloud until he mutters Molly's name gently under his breath. She did not correct him, did not say, 'No it's me that is dead' because it was easier to let him think that her daughter was dead, he would not believe her if she said Molly's was alive in 2008 and although she was with Evan White she was now without her Mum.
"Mummy" At the sound of her voice Alex slumps in Gene's arm, her eyes close and her face becomes deadly calm.
"Mummy, I'm sorry" Alex knows this is the last time she will see her daughters face, so she lets her eyes roam freely, drinking in every detail and commits them to memory "They're switching your life machine off, we have minutes. Mummy I don't want you to go."
Alex holds out her arms for her daughter and then she is holding her, like she has wanted to do for so many months. She buries her nose in mousy brown hair and inhales the scent of flowers and bubble gum.
She does not want to lose this, wants to spend forever hugging her little girl. But all too soon the minutes are up, and it is time for thier last farewells.
"Mum," Molly is the first to pull away, but Alex retains as much contact with her as she can, gently rubbing her tears away, "I lo, I love you so much."
"Oh, Molls, I love you too. I tired so hard to get back to you Molly, I really did." Alex presses her lips to Molly's forehead in a lingering kiss, still whispering how much she loves her, when she pulls back and opens her eyes it's to find she has gone and Gene's in her place.
At first she still slept with her TV on, sat at her desk waiting for the phone to ring or the lights to flicker out. But the messages did not returned and in her sleep she could hear the gaps in futuristic bleeps on a heart monitor lengthening.
"Goodbye Mummy"