Hi! I know it's been months but at least it isn't Christmas yet lol! So I'll probably have another by Christmas once I go on break.
Just a warning, it's flashback chapter so sorry if that bothers anybody...hope you still like it!
(Brighton, 1989.)
Carl Powers, eleven years old, athletic, charming, and smart ("if he would just apply himself" as his teachers and parents always bemoaned), was the perfect son.
Molly Powers was not. She, as implied by her name, was a girl (and it was "hard to raise girls in this day and age" as her father always said). As Carl's twin sister (the name she was usually referred to as instead of "Molly" by the kids and teachers at school), Molly was also eleven years old. But she was chubby and shy, (and smart, too, possibly smarter than Carl, although nobody noticed).
At eleven, Molly Powers had already entered that awkward-preteen stage while her brother was still a handsome "young man". She was taller than him, had a face full of acne (and toothpaste to try to dry the pimples out), and had a bit of excess weight everywhere, including her chest where (little did she know) by that time she had already grown the cupsize she was going to have for the rest of her life.
In Primary School, Molly and Carl had been friends. Sure, they did have their sibling rivalry at home, but in the enemy territory, filled with strangers, the two were allies. They were in the same class and so Molly helped Carl cheat on tests to get better grades and Carl made sure none of the other kids picked on Molly (although he didn't play with her since boys and girls didn't play together in Primary School).
They walked to the bus stop, took the public bus, and then walked the rest of the way home through the quiet suburban neighborhood together and it was safe because there were two of them.
But by Year Seven, their first year in Secondary, Molly and Carl spent their school days pretending not to be related (as fraternal twins they didn't look that much alike, although they did share some facial features like face shape and eye color). Molly was quiet, studied hard and earned good marks. She kept her face hidden in a book as much as she could, as she was trying to disappear. Meanwhile, Carl had trouble focusing (possibly due to ADD, undiagnosed because his parents didn't want the stigma for him) swam for the swim team, and became popular.
And popular seventh years, who had to impressive the older boys, couldn't be friends with an ugly girl (even if the ugly girl was his sister). Carl stayed after school for swim practice and Molly took the bus alone.
Her parents encouraged her to join an after school club or a team herself, but she was just too shy and so, instead, she went to help at father's practice.
Charles Powers was a plastic surgeon. Well respected and renowned in Brighton. Because of him, Molly had always wanted to be a doctor (although not specifically a plastic surgeon) and he (in addition to all the medical textbooks she borrowed from his office to read) taught her much about medicine and the human anatomy.
He also got her medication for her acne…
…and for her eczema.
(Yes, Molly was the one with eczema.)
The red, dry patches on her hands and arms from his dermatologist friend.
He also got ADD medication for Carl from a friend who was a psychologist.
Neither of Charles Powers' children had prescriptions because that would be a written testament to the fact that Charles Powers' children were not perfect. And as a plastic surgeon it was Charles Power's job to make imperfections disappear.
(10:00 AM March 27, 2010. Hospital Canteen.)
Molly took a sip of coffee.
Rich finished chewing his toast, swallowed and then said "Aww, poor Molly's parents loved her brother more than her. So here begins the tragic backstory."
Molly rolled her eyes.
"I do try to keep a sense of humor about it too, myself." She shrugged.
"A 'sense of humor'? You?" Rich scoffed, "What's next? Having friends?"
"I don't need friends." Molly disregarded, "But that doesn't mean I don't have them. I have Toby, Meena, Sherlock…"
"Toby's a cat, I'm not sure Meena exists other than online, and as for Sherlock, well, we both know he wouldn't return the sentiment." Rich mocked.
"If you want me to hire you, I suggest you try to be a little…nicer to me." Molly suggested.
"Oh! Sorry." Rich apologized, sincerely enough (like a child that feels bad for breaking the rules…but also doesn't want to get in trouble) "I'm just getting into character. If I'm going to be playing a villain, I've got to be mean. And I've got to be mean to you to show you that I can do it….especially after that mishap with Mrs. Hudson."
"Well to be a good 'villain' as you call it—which seems a bit dramatic to me, you've got to be more than just mean." Molly instructed, "You've got to be smart. Sure, insults and taunts are an effective way to hurt people, but you have to use the right words—like truths that someone doesn't want to admit or painful memories. I don't care that I don't have friends, I've avoided having them for most of my life so it doesn't bother me. If you want to hurt me with words you have to talk about something I actually care about."
"That's why I mentioned Sherlock." Rich reminded, folding his arms.
"Yes, but you mentioned him as a friend." Molly qualified, "I don't want him as a friend. He doesn't care about friends. I want to be more than that."
"His lover?" Rich assumed.
"His enemy." Molly corrected.
"Then what do you need me for?" Rich questioned, taken aback.
"To make him realize he needs me." Molly explained, intensely, "Friends can be anyone; your lesser, your equals, even your betters. That's why Sherlock doesn't care about his 'friends'. He uses them when convenient, but he doesn't need them. Sherlock's enemies, however, he needs. He needs mental stimulation to live and his cases, the criminals he chases down, provide that. The problem is, they're replaceable—interchangeable. He needs enemies, but not any specific enemy. I'm going to become his irreplaceable, unchangeable enemy. And to do that, I have to be more than just a case of the week to him. I have to surprise him. So while he's chasing you down, so sure that you're the next 'villain' he's going to apprehend, he'll be shocked to learn that I was his real enemy all along, helping him as he worked on his cases, being his friend. That's why I need you."
Rich blinked.
"Oh." He said, "That makes sense."
In the short time he had known (not that he really knew her well (or at all)) Molly Hooper, he had never seen that level of fervor in her eyes nor heard it in her voice, even when discussing Sherlock Holmes, before.
So this was her plan.
To pretend—no, actually be—Sherlock's friend while at the same time also being his enemy, an enemy that he couldn't simply have locked away because he also needed her as a friend.
It seemed like it should work.
…But then again, if friends and enemies were both replaceable and interchangeable to Sherlock, then would being both his friend and enemy make Molly doubly replaceable and interchangeable?
So was that truly her reasoning for 'biding her time' and 'staying in the shadows' in true 'villain form, for the moment?
Or was it something else?
Was it that she was…
..scared?
Rich contemplated this while returning to his meal. He picked up the second piece of now cool buttered toast.
Molly took a small sip of coffee then returned to telling her story.
"Well, anyway…"
(Brighton, 1989.)
Botox paralyzed the skin, filling it so it was pulled tighter, and preventing it from sagging and wrinkling with the passing of time.
It also removed all sense of feeling and ability to move the skin.
So it was a trade; the beauty and perfection of youth captured forever (or at least for a little while longer) in an immobile statue made of human skin.
Molly (who did have quite a few pimples (although the cream, applied daily, was helping) but not yet any wrinkles), watched wide-eyed as her father, Charles Powers, pressed with expert precision the needle into the older middle-aged woman's cheeks, one at a time.
She was well-dressed (as she could afford elective medical treatments like this) in new clothes, sitting atop the white couchbed in the soft blue room. But her face was old, and so were her hands.
Why does something that happens to everyone, that is unavoidable need to be hidden? Molly wondered.
But of course, she was only eleven, and even then knew that she would probably only understand when she was older.
The older middle-aged woman would not look at Molly. Instead, she looked down at her wrinkling hands, clasped in her lap like a secret prayer.
Later, after the workday was over and Molly and her father were alone in his office, Charles Powers would sit on the couchbed, his wrinkling hands clasped in the same secret prayer as his daughter pressed the needle, with expert precision she had learned from watching him, into his middle-aged cheeks one at a time.
"Good job, Doctor." Charles would say, after wincing, each time Molly had finished an injection.
('Doctor' was nickname he called her. He didn't have a nickname for Carl. Just for Molly. And that made Molly happier than anything else in the world.)
Charles Powers did not just maintain perfection for others, he also needed it for himself. The wrinkles—the imperfections—on his face at his daughter's practicing touch, the skin of the fingers holding the syringe still taught (but also still red and dry and imperfect, due to the eczema).
This was kept secret from Molly's mother, Mary Powers. She appreciated the change that came with time and almost despised those who tried to defy it. She had married an army medical doctor, not a plastic surgeon.
Their fathers had been soldiers in World War Two in the same unit, both had come back injured and incomplete and so both their children grew up to work in the medical field. Charles had received his training from the military, actually, and was an army doctor for a while but after his father died he quit no longer able to look at the wounded soldiers who so reminded him of his father. So he became a plastic surgeon.
During World War Two, "Keep Calm and Carry On" had been postered on every wall in England. Charles and Mary remembered their mothers telling them about it when they were young, how it was supposed to motivate the people during one of the worst times in history. The mothers (friends that met through their husbands after the war) didn't believe in it, of course, they had been there...but there are many thing parents tell their children that they don't believe but their children do.
"Keep Calm and Carry On" was one of them. Mary and Charles both believed in it.
...they just had different interpretations of what that meant.
To Mary it meant adapting in order to cope with whatever struggles life gifted one with. But to Charles it meant staying stable and the same, weathering whatever storm and surviving unchanged and uncompromised.
Molly wasn't sure who was right and who was wrong, or if either even were right or wrong. All she knew was that she would probably only understand when she was older.
(10:15 AM March 27, 2010. Hospital Canteen.)
The brown tables in the green and white cafeteria were all empty except for the one Molly and Rich sat at. By now breakfast was over and the rest of the stragglers had left the room to begin their shifts or visit their relatives. In the kitchen the sound of cooking the lunch that would begin at 11:00 were already audible; the smells, well, smellable.
Rich was now finished with his breakfast, as he had been mostly silent during Molly's monologue (which was far from over) while Molly hadn't yet eaten any of her eggs or finished her mug of coffee.
She took another sip after taking a breath from speaking.
"So your parents were in the medical field, too." Rich conversed, "So it's sort of a family tradition. Following in their footsteps."
"You could say that." Molly allowed.
"So how'd you end up with dead bodies, then?" Rich asked.
"Live people are too much trouble." Molly shrugged.
"I love working with people." Rich disagreed, "My parents did too. My dad was a TD in Ireland and my mother was a socialite. I was very popular growing up."
"You're lying." Molly dismissed, rolling her eyes, "If that were true, you wouldn't be here trying to work for me because of money troubles."
"Okay, fine." Rich admitted, "They're bartenders. They own a pub together. Everybody in town loves them. They don't have any extra money to help me, though, so here I am on my own."
Molly seemed to believe that story (with some reservation, though).
"Any siblings?" she inquired.
"Yeah." Rich nodded, "Four of them. Two boys and two girls and me."
"And their names?" Molly followed-up.
"Eddy, Billy, Lizzie and Tori." Rich declared, matter-of-factly.
"Nice try." Molly complemented, "You were quick enough on the delivery and chose names you could easily remember…but Edward, William, Elizabeth and Victoria? Those were all kings and queens of England so it's a little too obvious."
"You caught me." Rich smiled sheepishly, "But in my defense, my name is Richard so my parents could've gone with the royalty theme."
"Not when you lied about your father being a…teacha dayleh." Molly said, furrowing her brow as she attempted to pronounced the foreign word, "That wouldn't have gone over very well, I don't think."
Rich laughed.
"It's 'tyach-ta dawwlah' but nobody really says that, anyway." He corrected, glad to finally have best Molly at something. "Besides, I admitted he was a pub owner anyway."
"I doubt that his patrons would have appreciated the names, either." Molly insisted.
"You're right." Rich sighed, "I'm an only child. What about you?"
"Well..." Molly also sighed, "I am now….but I wasn't always…"
(London, 1989.)
Carl Power's swimming championship was in London. His team rode the school's athletic bus all the way from the Brighton secondary to the swimming pool in the capital city.
Molly and both her parents followed it on the highway in the family car. They were skipping class and work to watch him compete (and hopefully win).
Stewing with jealously in the backseat was Molly, smiling along with her parents as if she was nothing but proud of her (younger by minutes) brother who seemed to get all the praise and attention from not just her parents but everyone.
Logically, she knew she shouldn't hate him for it. He didn't ask for it, he just received it. Logically, she knew if she was going to hate anyone, she should hate her parents and the kids and the teachers at school for liking him more than her. She should hate the system that rewarded athletics more than good grades, that rewarded extroversion and leadership more than introversion and quietly doing what was expected.
...but she didn't.
She hated Carl and she couldn't remember a time within her life that she didn't (even when they were sort of 'friends' during the hours spent primary school).
She knew her emotions were getting in the way of logic, in the way of keeping calm and carrying on (although she was pretending as if she was on the outside) despite the (perceived?) unfairness, the jealously and the hatred only a sibling could feel towards another sibling that she knew she was supposed to grow out of when she was older (perhaps even by now).
as her parents stared straight ahead at the bus in front of them that contained Carl (and the rest of the swim team, Molly stared out the window beside her. But she didn't see the cars and buildings whirring by.
Instead she saw the event that had occurred yesterday.
After closing up shop at the plastic surgery practice, Molly and her father went back to school to pick up Carl from swim practice.
Her father waited in the car, sending Molly inside, all by herself, to get Carl. She found him by the pool with the older boys, splashing and joking around since that their coach had left.
"Carl!" Molly called to him from the doorway, far away because she didn't walk up to the intimidating (and speedo-dressed) group of the opposite sex.
Carl glanced over upon hearing his name, but quickly looked away when he saw who it was, ignoring the call.
Carl didn't like to be reminded that he had an unpopular, uncool and unpretty sister who had the nerve to talk to him when he was in front of his popular, cool and athletic friends on the swim team. It was embarrassing. She was embarrassing.
"Carl!" Molly tried again, louder, cupping her hands around her mouth.
This time everyone from the swim team looked over at the figure standing in the doorway, too far away for her face (and all the pimples on it) and her female form (hidden by a baggy sweater and jeans) to be fully-perceived.
The swim team looked away from Molly to glanced around at each other with confusion. Who was this person (whose voice sounded like a girl but not for sure because some seventh year boy's still had high voices( including Carl who forced his words as deep as possible causing chronic sore throats)) .
"Who is it?" they wondered amongst themselves, "What do he or she want?"
Still, they didn't move to approach the person. They were too cool. If someone wanted something from them, the person had to come to them.
Sighing and blushing, Molly hid her red and cracked hands in her long sleeves and hurried over to the boys.
"Carl!" she called again as she ran across the slippery tile.
Finally, the swim team saw who she was. The small, acne-faced girl who barely talked.
"You know her, mate?" one of Carl's teammates asked.
"Uh…" Carl stalled, not sure what to say.
Luckily (for him at least) before he had to answer, Molly tripped and fell from running towards him, skidding across the floor and straight into the pool, landing painfully with a splash.
The entire swim team burst into laughter, including Carl.
And how could he not? It was funny and all the other boys were watching him.
For a moment, under the water, hearing the muffled laughter awaiting her above the surface, Molly wanted to drown.
But, instead, she slowly floated to the surface and dragged her wet-clothed body, heavy, out of the pool while the boys stared at her and laughed at her.
She rushed away, without saying a word, into the girl's lockerroom to cry. Molly never cried. She always tried to show as little emotion as possible, just like her parents. Keep Calm and Carry On. But today she couldn't.
Eventually, Molly and Carl's father came inside to find them, wondering where they'd been for the past fifteen minutes. All of the other swim team boys were gone by then, so Carl was brave enough to bring their father to the lockerroom and knock on the locked door.
When Molly finally came out, with dry eyes but wet clothes, her father did not ask.
Such a small (albeit embarrassing) moment, something that in a year or so (and definitely in five years) she would barely even remember and probably wouldn't bother her anymore, burned inside of Molly.
She was smart for her age, but that didn't mean she was emotionally mature. She knew it shouldn't bother her so much, but it did, and because it did she wanted revenge.
The plan at first, was just to steal her brother's favorite trainers; expensive and limited edition. But although it would hurt Carl, it wouldn't humiliate him the way Molly had been humiliated (which had occurred, actually, by no direct fault of Carl's).
And so Molly chose Botulinum Toxin. The active ingredient—the poison—she easily obtained from her father botox supply.
Botulism was sometimes fatal, yes, but Botulinum Toxin cannot survive in high or low temperatures nor in neutral or acidic pHs, nor in highly oxygenated areas so it shouldn't have been able to survive the neutral chlorine of the pool water enough to be fatal after a small amount was placed into Carl's favorite shoes that morning.
It shouldn't have.
Carl never wore socks because they just added more time when he was undressing to swim (he wore his speedo as underwear) and too difficult to put back on after swimming. His feet were always sweaty, and the Botulinum Toxin shouldn't have been able to survive the salt from the sweat.
It shouldn't have.
It shouldn't have survived more than to slow (or perhaps completely stop) Carl's movements so he would lose his races, let his team down, and be embarrassed in front of all the people watching.
It shouldn't have.
…but, of course, it did.
The Botulinum Toxin survived, somehow, and not only paralyzed Carl's limbs as soon as he was in the water, preventing him from swimming, but also paralyzed all the organs in his body.
It stopped his heart.
Nobody laughed this time, when Carl floated like a dead fish on the surface of the pool. But they did watch as Carl was dragged out of the pool, as the lifeguard attempted CPR, as his parents (but not his sister) sprinted over to cry by his side, as someone rushed to call the paramedics, as the paramedics finally (after what felt like so long but was only ten minutes) arrived and shook their heads solemnly. Everybody watched.
…except for Molly.
She had run into the girl's lockerroom to cry.
(10:23 AM March 27, 2010. Hospital Canteen.)
"You killed your own brother!" Rich exclaimed in disbelief.
"Yes." Molly affirmed, calmly, taking another sip of what seemed like an endless cup of coffee.
"But it was an accident, right?" Rich checked.
"Not really." Molly disagreed, "I could say that I didn't want him dead, that I didn't want to kill him at the time…but that would be a lie. I did. And so, I did."
"Then why did you cry?" Rich questioned, swallowing.
"Because when you've finally accomplished the only goal you've devoted yourself to your whole life it's…hard." Molly explained, "You always wanted that day to come, but you never really believed it would. At least I didn't. And once it did, I didn't know what to do with myself anymore."
"I see." Rich said. But he didn't really believe that was the only reason Molly had cried, "So what did you do? After that?"
"I found a new goal." Molly stated, concisely.
Her words needed no other explanation.
(Brighton 1989—London 1991.)
After her brother's death—a "tragic accident"—Molly started seeing the same boy everywhere; dark brown curly hair, pale skin, blue eyes, skinny, and tall for his age.
First, he was at the morgue of Saint Bartholomew's in London where the paramedics took Carl's body after he died at the pool, standing at the window, while Mr. and Mrs. Powers identified their son's body. (Cause of death proclaimed accidental drowning, and she was allowed to keep Carl's favorite shoes to remember him by.)
Molly, who was also in the hallway where she had been told to wait (since seeing a dead body, let alone the dead body of her own brother, would be "too much" for her at eleven years old) tried to speak to him, but her voice didn't gather up the courage and the boy soon ran away. She wasn't sure if he had seen her.
Molly saw him again, for the second time, at school. He wasn't a student, yet he was wandering the halls as if looking for something. Molly wasn't sure what and guessed that he might not have been sure what, either. He didn't notice her watching, there was too big of a crowd.
The next time Molly saw the boy again was at Carl's funeral. It was cloudy, as usual, but not raining and he blended in with everyone, many of them children from the school, dressed in black. No one there seemed to notice the child, without a parent, out of place. They were too busy being (or just looking, depending on who they were) sad. But Molly did. The boy didn't notice her, though.
Molly had never had a crush on anybody before.
Before this, she had always though romance was stupid—disgusting, even. Boys sickened her because they reminded her of Carl. She had always assumed that she would never like the opposite sex; hoping that she was asexual or at least a lesbian (although she didn't know those terms at the time).
But then she saw the boy with dark brown curly hair, pale skin, and blue eyes who was skinny and tall for his age. And by the time she had seen him three times, she knew she was not asexual nor at least a lesbian (although she didn't know those terms at the time).
After those three times, though, Molly didn't see the boy for years, spending those years remembering him and wondering who he was.
During those years, things changed for Molly.
Not only did she have to adjust to not having a brother, but she had to adjust to teachers and kids at school noticing her. Molly Powers was now known as the poor, grieving sister who lost her brother. Everybody felt sorry for her and so started being nice to her.
Her father quit his job. He sat in his study, silently, staring at the wall. The death of his son—the most imperfect imperfection—was the one imperfection he could not fix, and so he had been made useless.
Molly's mother continued to work as a nurse at the local hospital in Brighton, covering more shifts in order to try to make up some of the income her husband was no longer making. The couple had a lot of savings, but they didn't want to risk using the majority that they were saving for retirement.
Two years later, the divorce was finalized.
Carl's mother felt that Carl's father was refusing to move on from Carl's death, while she was trying her best to stay strong and move past it for the sake of the family. Keep calm and carry on.
Mary Powers, who then returned to her maiden name Mary Hooper, did not get much in the settlement (not the house, not half the money, not the car)…
…but she did get custody of Molly Powers.
Mary and Molly moved to London, leaving Charles and the memory of Carl behind, and living in a small apartment near the new hospital where Mary worked teaching nursing, Saint Bartholomew's. Molly started at a new secondary school where nobody knew she used to have a brother.
Or that she used to go by the name Molly Powers.
(Yes, in a last defiant act against Charles Powers, Mary had changed her daughter's last name as well.)
In London Molly was Molly Hooper.
(10:29 AM March 27, 2010. Hospital Canteen.)
"Maiden name, of course!" Rich exclaimed, "I was guessing that when you started the story as 'Molly Powers'. And that reminds me…want to know why the cabbie said 'Moriarty' before he died?"
"I read that on John Watson's blog and wondered." Molly confirmed, nodding with interest, "Tell me."
"That was his wife's maiden name." Rich grinned, "She took it back after she left him too. Moved back to Ireland. She was Irish, like me. Did Jeff ever tell you that?"
"No." Molly shook her head, "He didn't like to talk about his wife."
"He didn't like to talk about his wife…" Rich repeated, "…to another woman. He just didn't want you to take her side. He sure said quite a bit about her when he was giving me a ride. But it's not the kind of stuff I'd repeat in front of a lady." He winked.
"His marriage was his business." Molly shrugged, "My only business with him was paying him to do his job. But that's strange he would say his wife's maiden name before he died."
"No it's not." Rich chuckled, "That Jennifer Wilson woman he killed wrote her daughter's name before she died. Of course, that was the passwords to her phone. But then again, it was the password to her phone for a reason…Maybe old Jeff still loved his estranged wife after all."
"Or maybe he was just trying to get her in trouble." Molly suggested, "After my mother left my father, I know he hated her until the day he died."
"You said you killed him, too?" Rich recalled, casually, "How did that happen?"
"I'll tell you." Molly began.
(London, 2002.)
It was years since those afternoons in the plastic surgery practice when Molly was the almost perfect center of her father's perfect world. Daddy's little helper.
Now, Molly only spoke to Charles Powers on holidays; Easter and Christmas. She and her mother celebrated alone. He didn't celebrate at all (although every year he went out and, with his savings, bought a present he thought Carl would've liked had he still been alive…and eleven. The Carl in Charles's mind didn't age).
So Molly was surprised when she answered the landline of her small apartment she lived alone in at 24 while working and studying as a Foundation Doctor at Saint Bartholomew's to hear her father's cracking, low voice.
"Doctor…" he said, "I've gotten sick…"
Kidney disease. Renal failure. An old medical practitioner had diagnosed him.
Charles Powers had successfully hidden his diabetes—his imperfection—from his wife and children for over twenty years. When he revealed this to Molly, she realized that the botox she helped him to inject was just the distraction, so she wouldn't question the other needles in his office he injected into himself.
Charles knew his daughter was a medical student, and asked her to come back to Brighton and live in the old house with him, help take care of him (take him to dialysis, doctors' appointments, run errands for him) as he wasted away.
She refused.
Charles offered to leave her everything he had in his will (which she probably would've gotten anyway since his only other heir was dead and he was divorced).
Still, she refused.
Molly would not leave her medical training.
Then Charles told her about the life assurance policy. Another secret he had kept from his family—an imperfection that admitted his own mortality.
Molly agreed.
But she still would not leave her medical training and Charles would not leave his home, the house he had raised his son in.
And so, the two compromised.
Charles sold the house and Molly sold the tiny apartment. Together they purchased a house in the suburbs of London with the exact same architecture, design and vintage as the one in Brighton and hired movers to move everything from the old house into the new one. Every room, every item, ever little detail in the new house had to be just like the old house.
Charles Powers would not set weary foot into it until it was perfect. And when he finally did, it was. As if he had never left the house he had raised his son in.
He was home.
That was when Molly started poisoning him.
Her mother never forgave her for bring her father to London and caring for him, for replicating the house for him ("enabling the sad old man in his paralysis" Mary Hooper had called it). And so she moved on from Molly.
Then it was them who only spoke on holidays; Easter and Christmas. Now Molly spent those sacred days at the dinner table with her father and an extra empty place for Carl.
On normal days she cared for her father before and after work, she slipped the poison (not Botulinum Toxin, she feared he might already have a tolerance for that) in with the insulin injections she gave him with expert precision she had learned from watching him all those years ago in the plastic surgery practice.
The poison, in this case, was sugar water.
Instead of giving him insulin to regulate the already oversaturated amount of sugar (and urea) in his blood, she gave him even more sugar and let him (and his imperfection) poison himself.
It less than a year.
The day Charles Powers died, Molly was giving him his 'insulin' injections as usual when he looked up at her and into her eyes and smiled. He hadn't smiled in years but that day he smiled.
And Molly, not knowing what else to do, smiled back.
"You know, Doctor," he said, chuckling, "I've had diabetes long enough I can feel a blood sugar spike…and I was an army medic, too, if you remember. I know what botulism looks like, soldiers get it every so often from improperly stored food in foreign, undeveloped countries. Oh, my dear doctor-daughter…"
And then he died.
And, as promised, Molly received all his money as well as the life assurance policy as his last bequeaths. She also got the new house in London that looked exactly like the old one in Brighton.
Instead of selling it, everything in it, and moving out she stayed.
Maybe, just like her father, she refused to move on.
(10:42 AM March 27, 2010. Hospital Canteen.)
"Fratricide, patricide…but not matricide?" Rich listed, "I'm starting to think you're a man-hater, Molly."
"Think what you want to." Molly allowed.
"Well, what I just can't comprehend, fully, is why." Rich continued, "Sure you were jealous of your brother, and you wanted your father's money, that's completely normal …but isn't murder a little drastic?"
"You'd never understand…" Molly dismissed, "The minds of killers, myself included I'll admit, don't function on the same logic—or emotion—as ordinary people. Which is better and which is worse, I can't say. But I know, for a fact, that people like me think differently."
"Just because I haven't killed anyone doesn't mean I'm 'ordinary'." Rich disagreed, "And I have to understand you if I'm going to work for you—if I'm going to be you. It's my job as an actor. Why do you think I just listened to your life story over a cold and soggy breakfast in a hospital cafeteria?"
Molly smiled.
"Because I'm paying you." she said.
"You haven't paid me yet." Rich reminded, "You haven't even officially hired me yet. But I'm still here. In fact, I'm the one who came to you. I could've just written off the story the cabbie told me as the ramblings of an old man who was about to die. But I didn't. When he told me about you I listened and sought you out because you interest me, Molly Hooper. Of all the people to work for, of all the characters to play…you are the most interesting."
"Thank you." Molly thanked, with some reservation. She took a sip of coffee to punctuate her words but found the mug empty.
Rich expected a snide and/or dismissive remark from her at his statement. She knew by now that his words were often little more than perfumed bullshit. But Molly didn't say anything else.
"…you're welcome." Rich returned, taken aback and with his own reservations, but smiling. Then adding, nervously and unnecessarily, "It's all true, too. I really mean it." His smile had lingered too wide and too long now.
"No, not for calling me the 'most interesting character to play and person to work' for when I'm the only job you can find after being blacklisted." Molly corrected, and Rich's smile faded, "For listening to me. To my story. I don't get a chance to tell it often for obvious reasons and it's nice to have someone to talk to." She swallowed, awkwardly.
"You're welcome." Rich said again.
Haha, in my math-lacking mind I wrote at first that Molly's dad had been in WW2. Then woke up at 5AM to realize that it couldn't be possible (well very likely, anyway).
Anyway, hope you enjoyed and please review!