I think I've lessened the angst for this chapter slightly...you guys are the judges though

A couple words though: The lyrics in this chapter are from the song I Won't See You Tonight Part One by Avenged Sevenfold (great song, there's an ashes vid set to it on youtube) Some of the lyrics were paraphrased in chapter 4 as well, as part of Molly's drawing. Also, I don't own ashes

Chapter 6

Molly stood, staring out the window into the garden. Charlie was playing down there with Ethan and Jimmy, doing God only knew what. Ella was sitting in the room, her nose buried in a book. Kate had gone to work and no one knew where Tom was.

It had been nearly a week since she had fallen on the pavement outside and now her plaster was off and her headache gone. There was still a giant scab on her forehead from where her head was cut open, but that would heal in time.

"I think I'm going to go to the park," Molly announced to Ella. She and Ella were getting along fine as roommates, both with similar interests. Well, pretty much, except that Molly had to back up her technology and music interests thirty years. She missed the two thousand songs on her IPod to pick and choose from at any point. She missed the band Avenged Sevenfold most of all. She had fallen in love with them soon after her mum had died. She would never forget the first song she had heard by them. I Won't See You Tonight Part 1, it was called. If she thought about the lyrics she could imagine her mum singing them. There was only one part of the lyrics she ignored. As she left the house, she sang it under her breath.

"So far away, I'm gone. Please don't follow me tonight, and while I'm gone, everything will be alright."

Those were the only lyrics that were inaccurate. Not everything was okay while her mum was gone. She had to follow in her mother's footsteps. She had to kill herself, even though now she had run away. Even now, hiding from her mum and living with a bunch of teenage runaways, she was happier than she had been with Evan. She had finally found people who understood what was going on, and that's what she needed.

Molly sat down on the bench, removing her jumper. It was warmer out than she had expected October to be. They had provided her with clothes after she had woken up, telling her there was no need to return anything. She was still wearing her black jumper though. She had washed the blood out of it after she had woken up. It was warm and comfortable and she loved it.

Molly pulled out her sketchbook from the bag she now carried around with her. Tom had given it to her after he realised she never went anywhere without the notebook and was always looking for a pencil that she had lost.

Molly opened up to latest sketch she was doing. It was a drawing of Tom, something she could do completely from memory. Besides, she didn't really want him realising that she was drawing him.

Her forehead itched. Molly reached up and started to scratch it, swearing as a stinging pain told her that she had just removed the scab. She held her hand up to it, but it was bleeding quite badly.

Without anything convenient to staunch the flow of blood, Molly sighed and grabbed her jumper, holding it to her forehead. After a few minutes, she checked the cut on her head. The flow of blood seemed to have stopped, but now her jumper was soiled again.

Molly threw it over the back of the bench, pulling out her pencil and ignoring the jumper. She had just finished shading Tom's face and was starting on his hair when a voice behind her startled her.

"That's really good."

"Tom!" she said, quickly closing the notebook.

"I always seem to frighten you in this park, don't I?" he laughed.

"Maybe if you didn't sneak up on people," she teased.

"I meant what I said though. That drawing was really good."

Molly blushed. "Thanks."

"Can I look through what you've done?"

She looked away and nodded, passing him the sketchbook. Tom started to flip through it, grinning.

"These are amazing Molly!"

"It's just a hobby."

"You could make money off this. Honestly! Have you shown these to any of the others?"

"I don't normally show people my work. I got told once it was weird to be drawing pictures of people so I stopped."

"Not with skills like this," Tom said. "I bet Ella would beg you for this drawing of her! Actually, I'm going to beg you for mine when you're done!"

Molly said nothing, unsure of what to say. Tom continued to look through her sketches, always returning to the one of him. Eventually, he stopped, handing her the sketchbook back.

"I promise I didn't come here just to scare the shit out of you," he said, pulling a pack of fags out of his pocket. "Want one?"

Molly nodded and he handed one to her, giving her a light. They smoked in silence for a bit, until Tom started again.

"We never really got to know you too well, Molly. Well, Ella might have, but she doesn't tell anyone anything."

"I haven't told anyone anything about me," she answered honestly

"Do you mind if I probe into it a bit?"

Molly shook her head no.

"What's your last name, first off? We never found out."

"Drake."

"Good to meet you Molly Drake. My last name is Dellucci. As is Kate's. We were both born with real Italian names, but you Brits couldn't pronounce them."

"What was yours?"

"Taht-zee-ano," he pronounced slowly, spelling it out for her. "T-a-z-i-a-n-o."

"Taziano," she said.

"It translates as Tatian, but I figured Tom would be better. Kate's is more of a direct translation. Her name is Caterina."

"I was named after my great-grandmother. And my father's cat that he had when he was a teenager," she added flatly.

"What does your dad do?"

"He writes for The Guardian. He wanted to be a novelist, but since that didn't work, he got into journalism."

"What about your mum?"

"She's a police officer."

"So she'll have the whole station looking for you."

"I doubt it. I doubt she'd miss me."

"Where did she work?"

"Fenchurch East," she said, proud of herself for remembering and not saying Scotland Yard, which was where her mum worked in 2008.

Tom let out a breath.

"Is that a problem?"

"No. It's just...we had a run in with them last month. Jimmy saw someone get shot, and he was the first to talk when the coppers addressed the group. The next thing he knows, he's being interrogated violently by their DCI. The DI bird got him to let Jimmy off, God only knows how she found the true killer. But when Jimmy got back, he was all shaken up, covered in blood and bruises and missing a tooth."

Molly put her head in her hands. This was the man that her mother was in love with.

"That the man that you mum prefers over you?"

Molly nodded.

"Your mum's the DI, isn't she?"

Molly nodded again.

"She wants you back. She was heartbroken when I went to Luigi's a few days ago."

"She'll get used to the idea. Just give her a few weeks."

"We don't have that long, unfortunately. Luigi told us that we have to go to the restaurant the next time we get food. He's going to serve us dinner there."

"What? When's this?"

"Two days from now."

"I can't see her, Tom."

"You have to. Luigi will pull the plug on everything if you don't," he said pleadingly.

Molly sighed, considering. She couldn't let the other ones there lose their home because she was stubborn. "Fine," she said. "I'll go."

Tom smiled. "Don't worry. We'll have it so your back is turned and none of the coppers will recognise you."

Molly smiled. "Good."

"Now, what say you we go back to the house and show Ella that picture you drew of her?"

Molly laughed as she stood up. "Fine, as long as she doesn't get to go through my sketchbook as well."

Tom grinned, throwing his arm around her. "I'll decide that."

They walked back to the house together, the soiled jumper laying forgotten on the back of the bench.

~(*)~

Alex surveyed Hyde Park through sleepless eyes. All she had done since Molly disappeared was worry. She knew the probability of a child showing up alive after 48 hours was highly unlikely.

That's kidnappings, she thought to herself. Molly wasn't kidnapped. She ran away. I wasn't a good enough mother, so she ran away. Simple as that.

She wished she could go back to work, but Gene had forced her to take a week off, telling her she was unfit for work. He had told her in his Gene Genie way that she needed to man up and get over her daughter's disappearance, because there was nothing she could do about it. They had people looking, and Molly would show up. But until then, they needed her to focus on the cases at hand.

Alex had ignored this and he had told her to come back when she could focus on the proper case. She was extremely angry at him for this and now refused to even go near their corner table, instead sitting at the bar to get pissed every night. She had no idea how she made it upstairs every night, but had a feeling that Gene had something to do with it. The bastard.

Alex sat on a bench, pulling out the drawing. It was crinkled now from her constant folding and unfolding of it, but the effect hadn't been ruined. It still tore at her, showed her what a horrible mother she truly was.

"I'm sorry, Molls," she whispered. "It's all my fault."

Alex stood back up, a black jumper catching her eye. It was on the ground behind the bench.

It must have fallen, she thought. Alex picked it up and froze, staring at it. It was the jumper Molly had been wearing the day she arrived. She pressed it up to her face, pulling it away when a wet feeling hit her face and reeling at the scent of cigarette smoke. Alex put her hand up to her face, wiping away some of the wetness and looking at it.

It was red. She let out a sob. Blood was on Molly's jumper. Molly was in trouble, possibly dead, and she was holding the proof in her hands. There was only one thing she could do. Alex started running to the station. She'd force Gene on this if it was the last thing she'd ever do.

~(*)~

"Tom. Can you come in here for a minute?" Kate called from the sitting room.

"I hate the news Kate!"

"Get in here, now," she commanded.

Tom hurried in, looking at the television. Kate only commanded him in when something important was going on.

Hunt was on the screen, holding a broken looking DI Drake as the DS addressed the crowd.

"If anyone has any knowledge on the whereabouts of Molly Drake, or spots her, please ring Fenchurch East CID," he finished.

The television switched back to the anchor. "We have a drawing of what Molly Drake looks like. Again, if you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of this child, please phone Fenchurch East CID."

"Who did you bring here, Taziano?" Kate asked dangerously, reverting to Italian.

"I didn't know that she was Drake's daughter, did I?" he replied in his native tongue.

"But you know what's going to happen, right? If we don't get reported by the time we go to Luigi's, we'll be arrested there."

"Listen, I've got an idea. They're looking for a black haired girl with a birthmark, right?"

Kate nodded.

"We bleach her hair. Put some red streaks in it or something. Put a plaster over the wound on her head and her birthmark and say she fell."

"Do you think that will work?"

"It should, as long as the neighbours don't bother phoning Fenchurch."

"They shouldn't," Kate said semi-confidently. "They don't ever bother with us anyway."

Tom nodded. "Exactly. Just trust me, Caterina. She'll be fine, we'll be fine, until she returns to her mum.

"We better," Kate said, returning to English. "Otherwise, it's your head."

Tom sighed. Please, he pleaded to the air. Let us pull this off.