Author's Note: TW below
Super nervous about this one.
Emerald Green
Chapter Twenty-Four
What Happened
Molly forced herself to leave the bathtub. She watched the water drain, slowly. Then she dried herself with the towel, and neatly put it in the hamper. Then she grabbed a hand towel, and wiped the traces of mud left on the porcelain away. She put it in the hamper, and then folded her dirty clothes and put them in, too. She dressed for comfort rather than style: an emerald-green t-shirt four sizes too big for her she'd found in the wardrobe, black pajama shorts she'd bought at the World Market. She brushed her hair. Then brushed it again. Then again.
Finally, she had to admit, she couldn't waste any more time. He hadn't said anything, but she knew what was waiting on the other side of the door. She'd heard him come in. She knew why he was here.
She took a deep breath. "Phoebe, Heather, Olivia, Eleanor, Nina, Ivy, Xyla." And she stepped out of the bathroom.
The Doctor was there, clean, too, in the grey vest, sitting on the edge of her bed, reading the book on Gallifrey she'd left in her room. He looked up when she stepped out, then set the book back on her bedside table, placed his glasses on top of it.
"Molly."
She winced, as though he might hit her. What was coming was worse than if he actually had. "Yeah."
"It's time."
She looked up, as though the ceiling could help her out of this, then met his eyes. "I know."
He gestured to the bed beside him, and she walked around to the other side, sat down with her back against the headboard, clung a pillow to her chest like it could save her. He shifted to face her, crossed his legs in front of him. "Molly," he started. He paused, and part of her hoped he would change his mind, but she knew it was too late for that. It had to happen now. "What happened when you were thirteen?"
Her heart was pounding. The last time she remembered it beating so fast and so hard and so painfully was those long, agonizing minutes after she'd been shot, before the neighbor had finally heard her banging on the door and saw the blood leaking out to the other side. She was scared like she hadn't been since she'd had to take the stand and testify against Ivy's daughter.
This was her worst nightmare come true. From now on, the Doctor would look at her differently. Look down on her, for what she did. Maybe ask her to leave. She wouldn't blame him for a second. Maybe she'd make it easier on him and volunteer.
Molly cleared her throat. Swallowed. Sighed. And then she could do nothing else to avoid it. It was time to dive straight into the deep end, like she always did.
She looked him in the eyes. "I found out my father was a serial killer." She watched as he sighed, and rubbed at his eyes. "You guessed?"
"Not…" he began, then lowered his hand to look at her, his hands folded in front of him. "I didn't know. It wasn't a theory I had, until…until we talked about your father, the way you reacted. I never realized his not being in your life on the show was such an intense thing. And then…the names sort of…drifted into place. What the book was about."
Molly nodded. From there, he could put most of it together. "You can probably guess everything else, then."
He gently shook his head. "No. There are still so many…" he began, then changed his mind. "I need to know what specifically caused the PTSD. So I can protect you."
She'd been a liability, she knew. She had to tell him everything, no matter what she assumed the Doctor already knew. "Okay, then." She cleared her throat. "The whole story. It begins, actually, when I turned twelve. I had a birthday party. Not by choice, really, but my parents had been arguing a lot and wanted to throw a guilt party. They invited everyone at school, not realizing that most of my sort-of friends were in the ballet, though they lived too far to go all that way for a girl they only hung out with in class. The kids at my actual school thought I was…weird. And I was. The loud girl who bullied the bullies, like that made me any better. Who didn't care about anything but being a ballerina. So…they didn't respect me, my parents, or our house when they came over for the party. They were tearing the place apart, and none of the adults could control them. I had enough, and got on top of the dining table. I don't remember what I said, but they all shut up and went outside for the piñata." She paused. That had all been easy to say. A weird kid's birthday party. Nothing strange about that.
But now it was time for the part where it all went up in flames. "My father pulled me aside for a moment. He told me how amazing it was I got all the kids to listen to me, even when they didn't listen to their parents, and asked if I was a goddess. I laughed and said yes. I…I thought he was joking." The Doctor didn't know it, just like she didn't know it at the time, but that was the second worst thing she'd ever done. The first was coming.
"A year later, at about two am on my thirteenth birthday, my father woke me up. He told me he had a birthday surprise for me in the shed. We crept by the master bedroom, so we wouldn't wake my mom, and went out the back door, then to the shed. Our shed had access to our storm shelter, which we called a basement, and which had been extended out to a couple rooms by the previous owners, and Cillian – my father - turned it into a woodworking shop. I went down the stairs, and it was dark. My father had me by the arms to help me down the stairs. He closed the door behind us, then guided me to a wall. And then…and then I felt him put chains on my wrists and ankles, so quickly I didn't have time to react."
He hadn't reacted much to her story about the birthday party. She hadn't expected him to. Though she didn't like admitting she'd been a bully, it wasn't exactly earth-shattering news.
But now she was seeing the vague horror and pity in his eyes that she hated more than anything. She'd had to see it, repeated over and over and over again while person after person had come to question her after. And it would only get worse, and eventually, soon, it would shift from pity to something else. Disgust, disappointment, anger? She couldn't predict. Maybe all three.
It was easier not to look at him, so she looked down at her hands, as she twisted her fingers this way and that. "I noticed a smell in the room. It smelled like when a rat had crawled into the vent in my bedroom and died, and sat there for days, but stronger. I choked and gagged on it. I heard shallow breathing ahead of me. But I couldn't see anything. It was still dark when he started talking." And here it came: the truth of her first mistake. "He told me I was a goddess. That I only seemed to realize it sometimes, like at the birthday party. I was a reincarnated goddess, and her spirit was inside me. He told me her name."
She heard his sigh, saw him make some sort of movement in her peripheral vision. "The Phoenix."
Molly nodded, her throat too tight to make a sound for a moment. She wished she had a glass of water. "He was going to complete the ceremony to release her, and she was going to rain a cleansing fire on the earth, and then a better world, a paradise would be reborn from the ashes." She paused. "I never understood the attraction of that. Burning the world means burning you, too. Why would anyone want that?" Her attempt at levity fell flat, as she knew it would. She had to keep speaking, and she did, quicker now so she wouldn't give into her cowardice and refuse to tell him any more. "He told me about the ritual. How the Phoenix demanded a series of sacrifices. Not just human life, but pain and blood. Over the last year, he'd gone to the neighboring cities to find and hunt the right women for the ritual. Then he kidnapped them, brought them to the storm shelter, and then tortured and killed them. He always said he was traveling for work, but he was finding women with the right first initials."
"Phoebe. Heather. Olivia. Eleanor. Nina. Ivy. Xyla." He named each of them slowly. "P. H. O. E. N. I. X. Phoenix." He said it as though this was something he already knew, but hadn't realized the context of. Of course he'd noticed what the names spelled.
She nodded. "That's when I realized what the smell was. He'd set the bodies in a circle around the edge of the shelter, in a sort of circle. I wanted to burn my nostrils, but I could barely move, just shift my wrists some, move my arms a little, move my legs, though not enough to stand straight. He kept talking, saying it was time for the last two sacrifices." She paused, remembering the terror that gripped her when he said that, though she'd thought she wasn't capable of being any more afraid. "He turned the light on, finally. There was a woman in front of me, tied to a chair, her auburn hair a curtain concealing her face. She was starting to wake up."
"He hadn't killed Xyla yet," he said. His voice sounded sick. He had no idea yet just how sick he would feel when the story was over. How sick she would make him.
"No," Molly replied. "He needed me there for the end of the ceremony, so immediately after she died, he could cut me open and release the goddess."
"Molly…" he began, his voice distraught. She finally looked up at him. Already, she saw the tears in his eyes. But she wasn't crying. She wasn't sure she could cry over this part of the story anymore. It numbed her.
"He started saying prayers," continued Molly, still watching him. "I couldn't follow them. The woman was shouting at him. He explained it all again, as he stepped into the shadows. The light was faint, hanging over the woman, attached to a ceiling fan so it swayed. I couldn't see the edge of the room past the woman, but he came back with…" her throat closed. No. He didn't need that many details. She wouldn't make him carry that with him, too. "He started. Still chanting, still praying, he tortured her. And I watched, every single second, as he wanted me to. I screamed until I could barely make sound anymore. And he…he used all kinds of things. Including…"
"A bone saw," the Doctor whispered, when she couldn't force the words out.
Molly closed her eyes tight as she heard the echo of the buzzing of the saw bounce around her head. "Yeah," she said, her voice shaking. She opened her eyes again. "It went on for hours. I don't know exactly how long. But in that time, I noticed that the cold grip of the chains felt less and less tight, as my wrists became slippery with sweat and blood from where they cut into me when I pulled on them." She lifted her hand to point at the thin white line of a scar that went halfway around both of her wrists, though she was certain he'd noticed that, too. "They were made to fit an adult. And I'm bendy, stretchy. I figured out that, at the right moment, I could slip the chains off my hands, maybe get them off my ankles. The tables for his torture devices were right behind her, but now and then he disappeared into the other room, where the electrical outlets were. If he could just go back there, I had a chance. And it came soon after I realized I might be able to escape. The bone saw ran out of charge, and he went back into the room. I immediately got to work, managed to slip the chains off my wrists. It took a few seconds longer than I wanted to get my feet out, but I managed it. I got to my feet as quickly as possible. I looked at the door he'd gone through, with the padlock on my side. The woman in front of me, covered in blood, missing parts of her body now, all tied up with ropes, with knives behind her. Then at the stairs."
She stopped speaking. No. No. She didn't want to say this. She couldn't say this. She couldn't. This was what was making her cry now, the tears slipping off her eyelashes and falling soundlessly down her cheeks. Not the memories. The fear of what lie ahead. Of his face changing. Her one friend, her comfort character, all she had in this universe and hers, turning away in revulsion. It was coming now. Right now. And she couldn't do it.
"Molly," he urged her, gently. "What happened next?" She swallowed back bile, and shook her head. He reached to take her hands, and she pulled back sharply. She had to pull away before he did. He took her shoulders, instead, and didn't let her lean away. "You can tell me, Molly. I promise. I told you…I am far more concerned with disappointing you than I am of you disappointing me."
"Not possible," she said, or tried to. Her voice was too tight, it came out in simple syllables, but he seemed to understand what she said.
Though she had her eyes locked on the purple bowtie, tracing the swirls of the fabric in order to avoid looking at him, she could see his jaw move side to side a few times before he spoke again. "It is," he insisted. "Listen. I told you about what I did. That I killed all those Sontarans. You can tell me this."
"It's not the same."
"It doesn't have to be for us to be equally ashamed of what we did," he said. "I haven't heard any reason you should be ashamed, and I do not think I will. But even if I do, that won't change what I think about you."
"It will."
"Did how you think of me change?" She knew it was a test, but still in his voice she heard a similar fear to hers.
"No. Of course not," she replied, and forced her eyes back on his concerned face, the expression making her stomach twist uncomfortably. "But you were in a battle zone. They'd killed people. It's not the same."
"They didn't have to die," he reminded her. "I didn't have to do it. And there were other things, things that I…" He couldn't finish the sentence. He took her face in his hands. "You can trust me not to hate you, Molly. You really can." He patted her on the cheek, and pulled his hands away. "The door. The woman. The stairs. What happened next?" He re-centered their conversation.
Molly ran her fingers down her face, hoping to wipe the tears away without his noticing. Fine. No avoiding it. Jump right in. "I heard her make…a sound. A sort of gurgling sound, from the blood in her mouth and down her throat. She spat some of it out, and made the sound again. Then I heard her. 'Help', she said. Another gurgle, and again, 'help'. Gurgle. 'Help'. And I…" No no no no no no no this was everything she'd feared since that first night. But she had to do it. She had to. "I ran up the stairs."
There it was, the worst of her laid out. She felt naked, sitting there beside him, every awful thing about her, every flaw on display. She watched his eyes for the change, but he had them carefully guarded now. That made her stomach sink. He was an emotive man; he'd said it himself. He'd just been showing emotion. And now she couldn't read it. Now he hated her. Probably almost as much as she hated herself.
The story wasn't finished, but she found she couldn't continue until she had some read on him. Some idea of what he was thinking, feeling. She needed to know if he even cared to hear the rest.
The wait for his reaction wasn't long. "Molly," he began, his voice almost a whisper. "…what was your mother's name?"
A wave of pain. Another wave of fear. The awful truth. "Xyla."
His eyes closed to that horror. Now he ran his hands down his face. She thought she maybe even saw him shudder. When he looked back at her, she saw the tears on his face, watched him wipe them away, less discreetly than she'd tried to wipe away hers. "He tortured your mother in front of you," he said, his voice thick. How could he still care?
"Yeah."
It was silent for a moment, before he took a breath. It even sounded as though his chest rattled, the way hers did when she fought crying. "How did you get away?"
It was almost over, at last. "I ran up the stairs and out the door and out the shed and just kept running. I ran past the house and into the woods, that I explored almost daily and that I knew my father wasn't as familiar with. And I heard him then, behind me. I ran through every hurtle I could think of, down a steep drop, through a dried creek, over boulders. He was gaining on me, but it was fine, because I knew exactly where the neighbors land started. I saw it ahead of me, the tall barbed wire fence. I was skinny, and flexible, and I'd slipped through their fence before to see the cows. I was almost through when he grabbed my ankle, and tried dragging me back over. But I'd been dancing since I was three years old, and kicked back as hard as I could. I don't know where I hit, but he let go of me and I got through. He didn't try to follow. He told me he'd be back to release me someday, and that he was going back to finish killing my mom, so all he had to do was find a way to kill me to release the Phoenix. I ran straight into my neighbor's house as the sun was rising. They were both already awake, and called the police. My father hadn't even tried to get away. He sat in the house, having a cup of coffee while he waited to be arrested."
The silence stretched on. She watched his face as he absorbed all of this, watched for every little movement and tic that she'd memorized watching the show. It was confusing. Yes, the shock was there, there was always shock. Some pity. People still pitied her. But she waited for the cold shift of his eyes, the anger just under the surface he always showed when someone he cared about did something awful. That she'd seen when she'd injured the Mechana. What she'd done was worse than what any of his other companions had done, to her memory.
But he was good at hiding it. She saw a small lowering of his brow, a shift in his jaw, his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed. A small exhale of air. He was being merciful, she realized. Trying to be kind despite his repulsion, because of the trauma. She wished he wouldn't. She always hated people letting her get away with awful things because of her trauma. She'd tested how far it would go before they'd stop when she'd lived in foster homes. And the sooner he showed her the anger and disgust, the sooner she could break from it, the sooner she could know what happened next.
He seemed to be watching her as much as she watched him. "And then the police came, put you into the car as it rained, and took you to the hospital."
"Yes. I wasn't overly wounded, but they wanted to keep me under observation, for the trauma. I wasn't well, but it wasn't as bad as it would be, later," she admitted. "They needed to make sure I wouldn't hurt myself. But I was so disconnected from everything those first few days, I didn't really know there was a myself to hurt." She remembered those days, staring at the blank white wall, a relief after all the red. It felt like bleach for her eyes. "They thought I was coping alright, so they sent me to the first foster home. That's where things went wrong. I was constantly screaming, shaking, crying. They didn't know why. But the father and older brothers were woodworkers."
"And a saw was constantly running."
Molly nodded. "I didn't know then, that it was a trigger. No one knew. That's why I don't blame them for sending me away. Sometimes in the flashbacks, I hurt them, though I didn't mean to. They didn't know what to do." She may as well tell him everything, she decided. "That's partially why I became so…" She may as well admit it. "Obsessed with the show, well, movie back then. Doctor Who. I had a room in the basement, and though the windows faced the driveway where they worked, I could turn the volume up and barely hear it. I didn't know why it helped, but it helped." And it had gone from the comfort of the sound to the comfort of the Doctor. "I was seeing a therapist at the time, but he wasn't equipped to handle me, and the next home found someone else for me to see. She was the one who told me about the W. W. J. D. thing. And that's when I realized exactly who I could think of when I was scared to do the right thing, or afraid in general."
Another piece of the mystery clicked into place for the Doctor. "The names."
"I swore to them, though I wasn't sure I believed in an afterlife, that I wouldn't die until I had put as much good into the world as they should have been able to, but had their lives cut short by my father. Seven lifetimes of good, in my one. Eight, really, including my own."
Again, she saw his face light a little, when another question was answered. "You decided to save the world for them. That's why you insist that the only reason you exist is to put good into the world."
"I promised," she said. "It kept me from committing suicide, later, when the shock had worn off, when I was a witness at my father's trial and had to watch family members of every woman my father had tortured to death for me take the stand and talk about them and their last moments before Cillian found them. I wasn't allowed to die until I completed my mission. And of course, it's going to take a long, long time."
He shifted, leaning closer to her. "Molly, what he did, that wasn't your fault. He didn't kill them because of you."
"He did, though," she insisted. "Partially. I know I'm not responsible for my father's actions, objectively. But he wouldn't have done any of it if I hadn't told him I was a goddess. People like to pretend that part isn't true, but it is. I have some responsibility for it."
"You were a child," the Doctor said, earnestly. "You had no idea what was happening in his head. That he wasn't joking. You can't possibly be at fault for that."
Molly considered his words. She'd heard them before, of course. Everyone tried to make her feel better. But it was cold fact: if she hadn't said she was a goddess, he wouldn't have killed those women as a sacrifice for her. But they never admitted it. "I know," she lied, instead. One of the few times she did it smoothly. "But there are so many things you aren't at fault for, that you blame yourself for. This is mine."
He wanted to argue, she could see. But she could also see the moment he realized that it would do no good. Because he knew it, too: that some of the things he took responsibility for were not things that were under his control. But his hesitation faded. "There was nothing you could have done, Molly. You had no way of knowing. You couldn't have saved them."
She took a breath, not knowing what she was going to say, her mind forming the words without her knowledge, but she knew it was cruel. "Then what's the point of me?"
The flash in his eyes, followed by a distant haze, told her he was remembering exactly what she'd wanted him to remember. Amy accusing him with those words. Him accusing himself. Both were hollow accusations. She hoped he either had to admit that he didn't carry the fault when those words were said to him, or admit that she was partially responsible.
Of course, he did neither. "The book. It was a true crime book. About what happened to you."
She was grateful for the change in subject. "I wrote it when I was sixteen. I thought, stupidly, that it would make people like me again. Well, they never liked me much, but make them at least see that I wasn't a monster myself. That people didn't have to be scared of me, or hate me. And it was a hit." Another mistake. "A bestseller. All kinds of places wanted all kinds of interviews. Networks fought for rights to do a TV movie. My foster parents at the time were responsible people and wouldn't let me do the interviews, and I didn't want to sell the rights. But it didn't work. People in town still hated me. And now I had international attention. I got death threat letters from some of the family members, though I totally understand why they thought I was profiting off their loved one's deaths. So we decided it was best if I changed my name to my mother's maiden name, which I wanted to do, anyway. To keep me at least a bit under the radar."
"And eventually your aunt took you in?"
"After the drug dealers. They were out of local foster homes."
"And she'd read the book?"
"Yes. Aiden, too. And she was my mother's sister," Molly explained. "She hated and blamed me, the way I did. But she felt familial duty, when my case worker reached out to her again and asked her to take me because otherwise I had nowhere to go."
"No wonder the show portrayed them as such unpleasant people."
Molly shrugged. She couldn't really blame Aunt Loren, but at the same time, she didn't like being around her much, either.
"My father kept trying to contact me," she said. One last horrible thing to tell him. "He said he'd gotten help, and he'd changed, and he wanted to apologize face-to-face. Every year, on the anniversary. When I was eighteen, I decided I'd give him a chance, even though I never wanted to see him again. I thought it might give me closure. I called the prison and told them I wanted to visit. They told me my father couldn't have visitors. He'd told his cell mate what he planned – that he was going to find a way to kill me while I was there so he could finally release the Phoenix. His cell mate said he was going to tell the guards, and my father stabbed him with a shiv. Before he died, he told the guards all about it. Just another person who'd died because of me." She realized, now, that she knew a little of how the Doctor felt when people died to save him. "I decided I wanted a new start. Changed my name again, took my savings from the book, and moved to New York City. And, well. There's the whole story." She sighed. "Not as much fun knowing, is it?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No. It's not fun knowing at all." He was disappointed, she could tell. She was sure the mystery had been fun on the show, trying to put the pieces together. Now the whole, terrible truth was all laid out. And it was real. And he didn't like this mystery at all.
It was quiet again for a long time. Molly didn't know what else to say. She felt she'd spent all of her words.
Finally, he said, "I don't understand something. You told me there was something you did, something terrible. I don't think it was your joke with your father. What was it?"
Molly blinked slowly. Surely he was joking? Mocking. Lying. He lied. "Are you kidding?" It was a genuine question. There'd been nothing in his character on the show that showed him being cruel like this, but their shows didn't always match up to their real selves.
"No, of course not," replied the Doctor. "What was it you did that you feel was so awful?"
She still wasn't confident he wasn't joking. She knew he'd been listening. "My mother begged me for help, Doctor. Don't you remember that bit? Gurgle, help. Gurgle, help. Gurgle, help. I could have locked my father in the other room with the padlock, used one of the knives to cut her free, got her upstairs and to the house and called the police. Maybe she hadn't lost too much blood, maybe she would have lived. But instead, I ran. My mom was dying, and begged for my help, and I ran away from her."
The Doctor stared at her, his eyes annoyingly blank. Slowly, she saw understanding come into them. And then a gentle concern she didn't understand. She'd ran from her dying mother. What understanding and concern could there be?
"Molly," he said, his voice soft as it had been when he was trying to coax the Adipose from hiding. "That sound…that gurgling sound."
"What about it?"
"It wasn't just from the blood."
She felt an eyebrow twitch upwards. "What do you think it was?"
"She was saying 'get'. 'Get help'."
Molly felt like she was plunged into cold water, and then felt fire build in her chest. "How could you know that?" she spat. "How could you possibly know that? You weren't there. I was. She begged me for help."
The shaking of his head made her consider slapping him across the face. "No, Molly. She was telling you to get help. She was telling you to run. She wanted you to run."
"How would you fucking know that?!"
He leaned in a little closer. She hated the pained kindness in his eyes. "Because, Molly. She sold her pearls to take you to see Giselle."
"What does-"
"She put you first." He paused significantly. "She'd have wanted you to save yourself first."
Now she felt as though she'd fallen off a waterfall, with the cold rushing around her, drowning her, as she span and span. His face span, too. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess of words and images and feelings, too many of them all at once. She forced herself to focus on the image and sound she'd spent all these years running from.
Gurgle. 'Help.' Gurgle. 'Help.' Gurgle. 'Help.' It was always a gurgling sound to her. Not choked, not slurred. Not a squelch. Gurgle. G. 'G- help. G- help. G- help.' Subconsciously, she'd registered the then it was clear as though her mom hadn't had blood in her mouth and throat at all. 'Get help. Get help. Get help.'
She crashed into the raging river below the waterfall.
Molly was screaming before she realized it. She screamed and screamed like she was back in that basement, her eyes shut tight. And then she didn't know if she was screaming or sobbing. Was it possible to do both at the same time? She was screaming/sobbing and the pain that exploded inside her chest was so excruciating that her mind couldn't even form words anymore, so all she could do was scream and sob and soak the Doctor's shoulder with tears and saliva, and she only now vaguely realized he'd pulled her in and had his arms around her, less like a hug and more like a tight squeeze, like when they'd used pressure therapy on her in that first foster home in a desperate attempt to calm her before she hurt herself or anyone else.
Oxygen evaded her. She couldn't breathe through the sobbing and screaming and the Doctor's thin shirt. It didn't matter. Oxygen wouldn't have settled the spinning in her head, the explosive pressure. But she thought in the distance, a million miles away, the Doctor might have told her to breathe, might have put a hand on the back of her head to tilt her head up so she could inhale, but she still couldn't do anything but make one long, awful wail, until her lungs demanded oxygen.
That breath brought her a millimeter back towards reality, but it wasn't enough, and she choked on the spit and the snot and the salt of the tears every time she tried to take another breath. It didn't feel worth the effort.
But the Doctor had snatched a tissue from the box still on her bedside table from when she'd been sick, and without releasing her, pressed it to her face, and then grabbed another when that first one was soaked through in a second. She dropped it beside them, then took the second. Then the third. With each one, she took a breath, and was slowly coming back to reality. It wasn't much longer until she was able to ask herself why she'd reacted so violently.
Of course, she knew. Her mind couldn't process the tidal of grief and relief and elation and pain. What it meant that all these years that she'd used hating herself for what she'd done were such a tragic waste. She had done exactly what her mom had wanted her to do. Molly hadn't abandoned her as she begged for her life.
Molly grieved for her mother all over again, that awful tidal wave pulling her back in. She grieved all that time she'd used hating herself. Grieved the energy that could have been put toward something else. She grieved for who she could have been without carrying this. And, strangely, she grieved for the guilt itself. It had been her constant companion for so long – who was she without it? It felt like her identity had been yanked away from her.
But the relief swept through soon after, forcing the grief and pain to sit on the sidelines. And the elation came with the relief. It was sweet, and light, and she now heard herself giggling as she tried to stop the sobs. Was this what it felt like to not have her mother's blood on her hands? Is this what everyone else felt? How did they get through their day, without being weighted down with so much guilt they could barely stand straight?
And now she was laughing at how ridiculous it all was. The Doctor had figured it out. She'd revisited those memories so many times, even relived them, but leave it to the Doctor to catch the one detail she'd missed, even though he hadn't been there. And that reaction, that screaming and sobbing, and now her giggling, still clinging tight to him. She sounded stark raving mad. She felt the pricks of embarrassment on the back on her neck and across her face, but she couldn't bring herself to really feel it. She was feeling so many other things, there wasn't enough space for it.
Molly hadn't been an accomplice in killing her mom. She hadn't run away while someone begged for her help. She didn't have some monstrous secret the Doctor would hate her for.
Again, she was struck by the wonder of being able to be wholly, completely herself in front of someone. No lies. No secrets. No other names. Just her. Just Molly Quinn.
"We've gone through the whole box," she heard the Doctor say. "And my shirt."
She breathed in the cool air, calming her fit of giggles. "I think I'm done."
"Brilliant," said the Doctor. She could almost see the discomfort on his face. "I'm not good with crying."
She patted his back. "I think you did pretty good. Ten out of ten." She finally forced herself to pull away, and was immediately disgusted by the pool of wetness she'd left on his shoulder. "Oh. Gross." She lifted the pillow and tried to use the case to wipe the fluids off his shirt, but only managed to rub it more into his skin. "Sorry."
"No matter," he said, though he still made a small face looking down at it. "It's just a shirt."
She wiped at her eyes and cheeks with the back of her hands. There wasn't even any mascara left to come off, and there always was after only washing her face once. "A bit…embarrassing."
The Doctor waved a hand as if it were inconsequential. "No worries. Well, some worries," he said, and his voice returned to its earlier gentleness. "Are you okay?"
Her eyes drifted behind him, though she didn't really see the TV or the dresser there. Was she okay? "I don't know," she admitted. "I can't believe I…" It was hard for her to say it out loud, but somehow, for once, looking him in the eyes made it easier. "I didn't run away when she begged me to help. I didn't abandon her to her death. I don't know how to measure myself without having done that, if that makes any sense."
He nodded, and a small, sad smile entered his eyes. "It makes perfect sense," he replied, a tone of camaraderie in his voice.
Of course. His horrible act, the one he had defined himself with for so long, that was such a part of what had made him who he was now, that gave him such a drive to try to bring peace to the universe, that was, in a way, his whole identity – had turned out to be something completely different than what he'd believed for hundreds of years.
He hadn't committed the genocide of his own people, partially in vain. He'd saved them. His home world still existed. Even now, if he decided he didn't care about the consequences, he could try to find it and return. He hadn't been their great destroyer, after all.
What a change that must have been. She wondered if the show really portrayed his whole reaction accurately. She knew he took things in stride, but it wasn't until this moment she realized just how subtle his reaction had been, at least in comparison to hers. How much his own concept of himself must have shifted.
She smiled back, but she thought that instead of sadness, a warmth touched her eyes, a warmth like she hadn't felt since…well, she didn't know if she'd ever felt it before. She might not have been capable of this genuine lightness before, this true gratitude. "Thanks, Doctor." She giggled again, like a damn schoolgirl, and she didn't care. "Sounds silly. 'Thanks'. You just changed everything in my life. Again." She wanted to throw her arms around his shoulders, but maybe she'd hugged him enough. Instead, she kissed his cheek. "Thanks."
He, in turn, seemed grateful for her gratitude. "Don't mention it," he said cheerily, and tapped his finger on the tip of her nose, making her laugh again. "I'm just glad someone put those pieces together for you. Honestly, don't know why no one has before." He slid off the bed, getting to his feet. "Do you want a minute?"
She inhaled slowly as she thought, then shook her head. "I don't think I want to be alone right now. I can't…process it all at once. This is heavy stuff. I need a break."
"Absolutely agree," the Doctor replied. "Give me a bit to change. I'll meet you in the control room."
Molly nodded her agreement. She took a minute to go wash her face, throw on her usual mascara, tinted moisturizer, and red lipstick, and changed into a clean, non-pajama outfit before running back to the console room.
The Doctor was already there. "So! What do you want to do? Hit a moon?" They'd already brought the Mayor the crystals. Well, the Doctor had. She'd been crying in the bathtub.
"I do, but…" She tried to think of what she wanted. "I want to shake this off, first. So I can really enjoy it."
"Shake it how?"
She laughed again at how it was phrased, but realized he was right on target. Molly thought of another of her favorite shows, even though it hadn't been made by the BBC, and smiled. "I need to dance it out."
"Dance it out?" But he sounded intrigued by the idea.
"Exactly how it sounds. Put on music. Dance like an idiot. Or like you."
"Dance like a master it is, then," he said, briefly pointing at her, his tone a mite accusatory. "What are we dancing to? Pick any song, from any time, any place."
Molly considered a moment, then smiled wickedly. "Rocky Horror Picture Show."
She saw that she didn't need to name the song in the Doctor's returning grin. "Ha ha, yes! Time Warp it is!" He flipped a switch here, did a quick spin, flipped a few switches there, and then it was playing. The TARDIS, she decided, had the best surround sound in the universe.
Could they have done the moves listed in the song? Certainly. Did they? No. It was a sort of free-for-all, each of them doing their own moves, jumping and spinning and wiggling and laughing, lots and lots of laughing. Molly forgot to have any shame at all, and the Doctor likely had never had any to begin with. It was all just a long period of silliness, and then it was over.
The Doctor turned the music off as Molly gripped the side of the console, trying to catch her breath.
He looked over at her, a cheery twinkle in his eyes. "Well? Feel better?"
Molly took a moment to close her eyes, searching all her body and mind for the dark shadows that had always had her in their grasp. She couldn't find them. Instead, a sort of yellow light was barely contained inside her. She felt feather-light. She felt giddy. She felt…
Was this what happiness was supposed to feel like?
Molly opened her eyes and smiled back at the Doctor. "Yes."
For the moment, at least, she was completely and utterly…better.
TW: Torture mention, suicide mention
I came up with this character ages ago, well before this fanfic, because I wanted to explore the idea of what it would be like to be related to a serial killer, and the idea spiraled out from there.
I'm writing a mystery novel, and I've never written mystery before. If those of you who had any kind of theory could do me a huge favor and let me know if you got it or how close you were, I'd appreciate it. The goal is for people to be able to put the pieces together on their own by this point, and I'd like to know if I did my job right. (Also, yeah, it'd be fun to hear!) Thanks so much!