Prologue
Three years earlier—Kirby Plaza medical facility
Mohinder seated himself across from Noah Bennet a week after Peter and Nathan's unfortunate 'disappearance'. At least, that was the word Mohinder used in order to prevent Molly from growing too upset.
When Noah had first met Mohinder a week ago, he realized from that one moment after dispensing Th ompson's body that Molly had formed a special place in Mohinder's heart. After nearly killing her, he realized that Matt also seemed to have developed a soft spot for Molly. To Noah's amusement, the reason why they were sitting in Molly's old room at Kirby Plaza's medical facility was actually to discuss guardianship. Mohinder had called him yesterday and asked for Noah to meet him today to discuss options with Molly. Now, Noah felt an odd sense of déjà vu, as he remembered being in Mohinder's shoes all those years ago when Claire was first placed into his arms.
Mohinder broke the awkward silence, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "I'm sorry. I just…I didn't know who else to call about my…Situation." He said quietly, averting his gaze from Noah's penetrating one.
"How's Matt?" Noah asked with a knowing smirk.
Mohinder looked up at him, startled. "Matt? He's fine. He actually regained consciousness this morning. Molly's with him right now." Mohinder swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing at the sound of her name.
Noah sighed. "Does Matt know you've requested guardianship for Molly?"
Mohinder shook his head, and ran his fingers through his hair. "I didn't know how to tell him. He just lost his wife. The divorce papers have been signed. Molly was the only one that made him smile yesterday."
"Have you e ver considered having both of you become Molly's guardians?" Noah asked.
Mohinder seemed taken aback by the question. "No…I…I mean, I barely know Matt. And, there's not really a lot of room for Molly and I as it is. Right now I'm being couched until I can afford to buy her a bed…"
"…So you need to do some rearranging. But let's be honest, do you really think Molly's going to be able to forget about Matt? He's one of her heroes after all. And seeing as Matt doesn't have a place to stay, it seems only fair that you both take care of the girl that has caused both of you to soften up. In fact, having Matt move in will work to your advantage, because I hear that you're planning on spreading the word about the Shanti virus."
Mohinder nodded curtly. "Yes, I am. I suppose you're correct. After all, I can't bring Molly with me and she can't stay here by herself."
"Exactly. Discuss it with Matt. See what he thinks. If he agrees, you'll have a beautiful system planned out. And Molly will be well loved in her new home." Noah said, waving his hand as if this was the easiest discussion in the world.
Mohinder's eyebrows furrowed into a frown. "But…What about the company? You said yourself last week that Molly is still valuable to the company, won't they still come after her ? How can I…We…Protect her from them?" Mohinder asked worriedly.
Noah's smile faded and he leaned forward. "I can tell you care about Molly very much, and she cares for you. If you really believe that you're ready to take care of Molly as her father figure, then allow me to reassure you that protection is not a problem. If you really love Molly, you will protect her no matter what it takes. If you must, you would probably die for her. Am I correct on that assumption, Dr. Suresh?"
Mohinder hesitated at what Noah had said. If he had to, would he risk his life for Molly, a girl he had only just met? Mohinder thought of her smile, her faith in him, her beautiful blue eyes, her laughter, and he knew. He looked up at Noah and nodded mutely.
Noah shrugged. "Then you shouldn't have a problem with protecting her from the company."
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Three years later—Present day—Los Angeles, California
Mohinder jogged down the hallway and leaned over the railing. "Molly! I hope you're out of bed and dressed by now!" He called up the stairs.
As if being summoned, Molly appeared at the top of the staircase, a hard frown etched into her beautiful features. It amazed Mohinder that Molly had been living with him for three years. He could still remember how elated Matt and Molly had both been when he had suggested the thought of Matt living with20him to help raise Molly. In those three years, the three of them had formed a close knit family. In those three years, they had all changed, Molly however, had changed the most.
At thirteen years old, Molly had begun to grown into more of a woman. Her current height was about five feet, and she was still as skinny as she had been three years ago. She had grown her long brown hair down to her elbows, and hardly ever wore it up. Often times she would be caught twirling strands of hair around her finger while day dreaming. Her blue eyes were still, by far, her best features. Much to Mohinder and Matt's chagrin, boys had all ready begun to give Molly the once over when they had arrived at Los Angeles two weeks ago. Molly, however, barely seemed to notice. She had spent most of last week worrying about her hair and her clothes for her first day of school, which happened to be today.
Mohinder grinned at her. "There you are! I was beginning to think I would have to drag you out of bed. First impressions mean everything, you know. Are you all set for your first day?" Mohinder babbled nervously.
Molly clomped down the stairs and stopped three steps from the ground and placed her hands on her hips. "My name's Holly, not Molly. Remember, Arvind?" Molly hissed, icily.
Mohinder's smile faltered, and then finally faded. "Right, my apologies." He said quietly.
Molly rolled her eyes and2 0crossed her arms over her chest. "We've all ready been here for two weeks, and you still can't get it straight. Do you want the company to find us?"
Mohinder shook his head. "Of course not. You know I'd put my life before yours."
Molly's blue eyes flashed angrily. "Then why'd you allow them to experiment on me?" She spat out.
Mohinder flinched. "I told you, I…"
"OK, are we all ready?" Matt asked, coming down the stairs at that moment, while trying to tie his tie as he went.
Mohinder shot him a relieved glance and Matt shot him a look that stated, "You owe me."
"Ready as I'm supposed to be." Molly said angrily, finally walking down to the first floor.
"Then let's move out." Matt said pleasantly, all ready beginning to move towards the front door.
Mohinder reached down and picked up Molly's bag and handed it to her. "Are you ready to start your first day?" He asked.
"For the thousandth time since I came down the stairs, yes. God, I don't know who's more nervous, you or me."
Mohinder followed Molly out the door, and locked it behind him. Matt had all ready pulled out of the driveway, and he beeped the horn and waved goodbye. Molly and Mohinder both waved back before piling into their second car, a green miniv an that all three of them despised.
Mohinder let out a deep breath before starting the car and easing out into the sun baked streets of California. Both Molly and Mohinder sat in silence; both lost in their own thoughts. Mohinder occasionally gazed at Molly out of the corner of his eye, and Molly gazed out the window, adjusting the volume on her iPod every once in awhile.
Mohinder had to admit Molly was a lovely girl. She was also pretty smart, or at least she had been in school back in New York. But in the past year their lives had been turned upside down by the company. It was because of the company that had forced Molly, Matt, and Mohinder into hiding. For six months the company had been running a program under ground, within the Hartsdale Company facility, and Mohinder had never known about it. The company had begun to experiment on children and their abilities; Molly had been threatened to be used as one of their experiments. However, due to Matt and Mohinder's protectiveness, she had been warned to keep her mouth shut, failure to cooperate would require her to lose her life with Matt and Mohinder for good. Seeing as Molly was a child, and often gullible and weak when it came to her family, she had agreed. By the time Matt and Mohinder had learned the truth about the company, Noah had all ready set up new identities and a new life for them, back where Molly had grown up.
In Los Angeles, Matt and Molly were known a s Mike and Holly Baker. Mike was a single father who had raised Holly since childbirth after Holly's mother passed away shortly after giving birth. As Holly grew older, she began to experience some withdrawal from her father, due to lack of a motherly figure. Mike hired Mohinder, known as Arvind Patel to watch over Holly at all times once Holly was prescribed with a post traumatic anxiety disorder. That last part wasn't a lie. When Matt and Mohinder had begun to fear for Molly's mental health, they had taken her to a psychiatrist, who had prescribed her with post traumatic anxiety disorder. She also deemed Molly mentally incompetent, after Matt had stupidly forced Molly to reveal the truth behind her depression. Luckily, Matt had taken care of the psychiatrist with his powers, but after that appointment, their lives had changed drastically. Noah's first plan had been to separate Mohinder from Molly and Matt, but all three of them had refused, which was how Noah had come up with this story, so that Mohinder's whereabouts wouldn't be too suspicious. After all, how many Indian doctors hang out with an American father and daughter without the American father and the Indian doctor being gay (which Matt and Mohinder most definitely were not)?
Mohinder pulled into the parking lot of the art school Molly would be attending, Mohinder shadowing her all the time due to her "condition". Mohinder parked the car and unbuckled his seat belt, watching Molly to make sure2 0she did the same.
Molly reluctantly followed Mohinder's lead, glaring at the stone building the whole time. It looked like more of a medieval castle than an art school for "gifted" children.
"I'm sure it's not as bad as it looks." Mohinder said, lamely, noticing Molly's reluctant gaze.
Molly shot him a look of death. "Don't talk to me. It's bad enough I have to start a new life again, this time with a new name and a new home, but it's even worse that I have to have you shadowing me all the time because I'm 'mentally unstable.'" Molly snapped, putting air quotes around the words, 'mentally unstable'.
"Look at the bright side, you'll finally have a normal life." Mohinder attempted weakly.
"What's normal about it?" Molly retorted, her neck snapping around to fully face Mohinder. "The fact that I can't use my powers without the risk of possibly getting tracked by the company? Or by the fact that we're hiding from the company in the first place? Or better yet, the fact that you are now working with Noah Bennet again in an attempt to bring down the company…Again." Molly gave out a huff before saying, "I still say the easiest way to take down the company once and for all is to find a bomb and blow it up."
Mohinder couldn't help but smirk at how childish Mo lly could be sometimes, and yet she still managed to appear to be grown-up. "Yes, well, how would we get our hands on a bomb? And besides, Noah has a friend of his inside the company right now; she's all ready beginning to plot something. And besides, you know as well as I do that the company seems to be located in different parts of the world. Blowing up the facility in Hartsdale isn't going to bring the company down just like that." Mohinder said, snapping his fingers for emphasis.
Molly shook her head in irritation. "I still can't believe that the girl Noah hired is Ruby, she used to work for the company. She was pretending to be me. She took over my life for two months while I was locked in some holding cell within the company, and now all of a sudden she's on our side? I'm telling you, we shouldn't trust her."
"Noah knows what he's doing. He knows best." Mohinder said calmly.
"Yeah, whatever you say Arvind." Molly said sarcastically, before climbing out of the van, ending the discussion abruptly before saying something she'd regret.
Mohinder gave out an irritated sigh before following Molly's lead.
'Bennet had better come up with a strategy for taking down this company fast…Because I'm not sure how much longer we can handle all this.' Mohinder thought bitterly.
-+-+-+-+-Present day—Hartsdale, New York
Noah Bennet had his car parked a block away from where the company facility was being held, waiting for some sort of call from his newest assistant, Ruby. The Haitian had disappeared a couple of months back, his whereabouts unknown, even to Noah.
Noah's cell phone rang and he picked up after the first ring. "How's it coming?"
"I found Molly's records…It doesn't look like they're finished with her yet." Ruby's voice said, crackling over the phone line.
"There's a problem, isn't there?" Noah said, gripping the phone tightly to his ear.
"Looks like it. Apparently they have this new system set up. If a kid appears to be weak, they annihilate the kid, but the annihilation process can take up to a couple of weeks. They drain the kid of his blood, which apparently gives them the full extent of power from whoever was killed. They've all ready performed the task on three kids, all of them successful."
"And you think they're going to do this to Molly?"
"I know they are. They're just waiting for her to slip up and use her powers. The isotopes are still in her blood stream from one of the experiments they ran on her. Once she slips up, they're going to bring her back there, take away her powers and kill her all in one whack." Ruby's voice said monotonously over the line.
"Well…We better make sure Molly doesn't slip up then." Noah said bitterly.
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Later on that day, Molly had locked herself in her room. Her room was her only source of privacy nowadays, and even then, her privacy was slim. Six months ago, Molly's life made perfect sense, or as much sense as it could, seeing as she did have some psychopathic killer after her, and she had the ability to find people, her life didn't make that much sense. Still, her life had been pretty close to normal. Then, the company had requested her for a meeting, which soon turned into a weekly meeting, which then turned into a daily meeting, and the meetings weren't just meetings. They were experiments where they often treated Molly as one of their lab rats than an actual human being. They had nearly killed her through their testing, and then she had tried to kill herself. That was how Matt and Mohinder had ended up sending her to a shrink. Now six months later she was forced to live in a new home, with a new identity, and a new school. Her whole life had been messed up from the beginning, but after what the company had done to her, how they had experimented on her, that had taken the cake on her bizarre list.
The experiments began after her thirteenth birthday…
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Yeah, kind of a sucky ending, I know. And I know there wasn' t a lot of Matt in this chapter either. He's going to be showing up a lot more after this though. The next chapter goes back six months, and the story will progress on to today with Molly, Matt, and Mohinder's current situation and their hopes to take down the company. If you want to find out more, please leave a review on the way out. I have a policy: No reviews, no story. Your opinions and your assistance are greatly appreciated in making this story a success. If you stop reading because you're finding that it sucks, you should have left a review with some helpful hints. Just a little heads up. Thanks for reading and PLEASE REVIEW!