Arigatou ありがとう

Smile 笑顔

"Do you understand? If you want to see real smiles, you have to be smiling, too." – Nieg, Necromancer

"Are you alright?"

It was a simple question, one that Dan found he couldn't easily answer.

After all, he found that the simplest of questions were the hardest ones to answer.

He glanced at the girl next to him, with her bundled up coat and her rosy cheeks. It was early January, and the cold air had still not managed to find its way out of the city. But that didn't stop the two of them from going to the park every weekend.

'You need to get out more,' he remembered her saying. 'You're going to get sick if you stay inside all day.'

'It's freezing outside. I'll get sick either way.'

But he went out with her anyway, because she had always managed to make every situation go her way, no matter how foolish it might have been.

"I'm fine, Molly." His eyes didn't turn to look at hers, instead opting to stare at the several children skating on the ice rink just a few feet away from them.

What she said next made him pause. "Then why won't you look at me?"

Dan pursed his lips at the question. Because I don't want you to see that I'm lying.

"Really, Molly, everything is fine." He tried to make his statement sound convincing, but it seemed to make her grow even more incredulous.

"How's everything at home?" she asked, not taking her eyes away from his face. Although she didn't know everything that had gone on in Dan's life, she knew enough to know that there were a lot of problems in his family life.

"Well enough." He looked up at the sky; it was dark and gray and all around depressing. He supposed he liked it better this way, because if it had been bright and sunny, it would have practically been a slap in the face, or someone saying to him, 'Everything is screwed up in your life, but, you know, not everything is about you. No one really cares.'

The world goes on without you.

"Really?" She looked at him doubtfully. She was smart. She knew when he was lying and knew when he was telling the truth. It made it hard for him to ever convince her that everything going on in his life was fine, because she knew nothing was going right for him. It almost wasn't fair, having an outsider care about his problems instead of his own family. She didn't even know his full situation, and, yet, here she was, waiting for him to tell her all of his problems.

It wasn't fair.

"Things… Things haven't been so great right now," he said hesitantly, not wanting to reveal too much. "My family and I… We've been having some problems."

"I can tell," she said softly, her eyes urging him to tell her more.

"We've went through a lot lately," he admitted, trying to ignore the flashbacks that were going through his head. "We're not exactly the happiest family at the moment." We never were.

Molly said nothing for a few minutes, leaving them in a silence that outsiders would have called 'comfortable'. Dan called it 'tense'. "Families go through spats," she said slowly. "There's always going to be some tension and trouble there. But, you know what? That's what family is there for. They're there to pick you up when you fall, support you, and love you no matter what you've done. That's what it means to be a family: To go through everything together." She turned to him, her eyes determined and her jaw set. She was the most serious Dan had ever seen her. "You'll all get through it. I don't care what it is." She held up a hand to stop him from interrupting her. "You'll get through it. You all will. There's always going to be someone there in your family to support you and gather up the broken pieces.

"It doesn't matter how far apart your family is, or if you all get along; there's always going to be someone there for you in your darkest moment. And I know it might just sound like I'm quoting some old philosopher or something, but it's true; I'm speaking from experience." She grabbed his cold hand in hers, startling him. If it weren't for the tightness of her grip, he would have been tempted to pull away. "Things will get better, Dan. I promise. Okay?" She gave him a supportive smile, her eyes shining. "Besides, I'll always be there if you need me. We're friends, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Of… Of course we're friends." Because even though he had wanted to be more than friends for quite some time now, he found that, at the moment, what he needed most was a friend; someone who didn't know anything about his past, someone who could lead him to his future.

Molly squeezed his hand, her smile widening. Suddenly, they weren't just sitting on an old park bench anymore; they were sitting at a place where they could just be themselves, and forget about everything else.

"I wish you would smile a little more naturally." Dan jumped a little at the statement, prompting a sad smile from the girl next to him. "You'd make me smile a whole lot more if you did."

Smiling wasn't even really in his vocabulary anymore. His smiles were usually dead and dry; it was as if he had forgotten how to do the action.

"Smile?" He swallowed, suddenly feeling numb.

"I've found that if you smile, others will too." Molly tilted her head, trying for a small smile. "So, if you smile, I think your family will start to, too."

Smiling? I don't think it's possible for Ian to smile anymore. I doubt Amy can either. Not after what happened.

But, when he looked at her hopeful and supportive face, those negative thoughts disappeared.

Because, even if no one else would, he could at least try to smile.

For Molly.

…

a.n. Those last two words were cliché and cheesy, I know, but I couldn't resist.

Ian mentioned on The 39 Clues Message Board about a girl named Molly writing a letter to Dan asking him to go to the dance with her. So, I thought, why not write about them?