Disclaimer: I own none of the characters presented in this story. Red Dead Redemption and all associated with said property belong to Rockstar Games.

Disclaimer: Strong depictions of violence, murder, and other such heinous and repugnant acts, very harsh language used throughout, and some taboo and offensive material occasionally presented.

Part Forty-Three: Molly

11:00 AM, August 25th, 1899

Old Light Saloon was atrocious. The red-headed woman with the weird eye had swept the floors twice and still, they were peppered in blood and glass. They'd lit a fire for her but it was still too dim; it hurt her eyes to focus on what was happening. Agent Ross sat across from them, leering with utter contempt. His brown mustache was cartoonish and stupid-looking, and Molly didn't like him much, so she insisted they move tables to an identical one a few feet away. "It's not up for discussion, " she'd said, "we sit there or this meeting is over." She'd dragged her chair over—the one waiting for her was slightly more prickly, so she'd opted to migrate her old seat—and Micah followed shortly behind her.

Molly did all that so Edgar Ross would need to snap his fingers, calling for his newly purchased bear's head cane, and hobble on three feet to them, grunting angrily all the while. She smirked.

"That's too bad about your leg," she said presently as they waited for their fourth guest, "my Micah got his leg shot in good, but look at that!" She pointed to his nearly recovered ankle. "Now it's an order of apple pie! Guess the big man in the sky likes him more than you."

The distance between his eyes and nose shrunk as he snarled at them. His left hand was on his cane and the other his pistol in his holster. And oh how that right hand clenched with desire. She smirked wider.

There were only a few other Pinks in the room, keeping to the shadows—Molly could only make out their white cotton shirts in the darkness. In fact, Van Horn's population of Pinkertons had dwindled down to record lows from the previous night with Lenny. A plague or new set of orders were the only two logical solutions Molly could foresee.

She felt something snap around her fingers and she turned to pry it off, but saw it was just Micah holding her hand. He gifted her an infatuated smile and she did her best to mimic it exactly, failing miserably. Her fingers were twitching from the boiling heat of his; he was strangling her and it was unbearable. Attempting politeness, she allowed him to violate her a moment longer before briskly breaking their embrace, slapping her palm on the back of her neck—a ray of light struck there and produced sweat as an aftershock. The salty liquid cooled her burned fingers and she sighed.

"Y'know, a few months back," Agent Milton said from the door behind them, entering the pub, "I went to the theatre with a girl—"

"Granddaughter, surely," Molly bit.

"Girlfriend," he clarified, irritable. He didn't sit, just stood over the table like it gave him power over them. His hands were on his hips and he spoke friendly. "Anyway, it was a stage play, not one of those cute drawin' movies, called The Crone, the Crook, and the Cripple. And now I'm livin' it! What a life!"

"Shut up," Ross barked. "I ain't a cripple, I'll be back on my feet in no time."

"Denial is the first stage, my friend." Milton smiled, patting him on the back. Molly could taste the whiskey on his breath—it was foul and reeked of a few different brands. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, the play. And it's pretty—well, to be fair, my eyes were more on my special lady friend than the play—but I thought it was pretty darn good!" He stopped a moment, dragging a chair to the head of the table aside Micah and Ross, letting the rotten wood screech against the floor. He flung his leg up on it and leaned forward, staring down at Micah. "The only part I would change is the ending. Y'see, in the play, the crook runs from the law and gets gunned down like a dog. I don't want that to be our working relationship, Micah. Do you?"

"As a general rule," Micah said, slowly raising a finger to Milton's head, "I strive not to answer stupid questions, but I'll oblige you…" he tipped the bowler hat off the agent. "... this time only. No, I don't want that to be our working relationship."

Agent Milton's hair was buzzed down—it was atrocious. The shaven sideburns and mostly buzzed scalp left only a short patch of hair across his crown. Molly made a silent vow that if some psychopath ever did that to her hair she'd jump into the ocean so no one would ever have to look at it.

Despite the awful hairstyling, he didn't blench an inch towards his hat. "Can I get you a drink?" he asked Molly.

"I wouldn't order a drink here if I was on fire," she pronounced dramatically. "Besides, based on the smell of you, I don't think there's much left in this joint to drink."

Milton chuckled—though it may have been a hiccup—and shifted to her partner. "Micah, for our union to be a success, some things are required of you. Like any marriage, you can't two-time me, which you've already by bringin' this Irish whore into the mix."

"Who are you callin' a—"

"But I'll forgive that. But what I can't forgive…" he frowned, rage filtering into his voice, "... is you disappearin' for weeks on end with no communication or correspondence with us! When you do that, Micah, it makes me suspect that you've had a change of heart, or worse: that you're playin' us. And if God forbid, you are… well, use your imagination." Ross removed his weapon and laid it flat on the table in Micah's direction.

Panic swelled inside Molly, and she wanted that drink now. Really, really bad.

"Now, Micah," Milton continued, "right now, you're going to tell me where your camp is like you did with Lakay, and this time there will be no survivors!"

Micah drummed his index finger on the table awkwardly, before clearing his throat and stating his answer to all that. "Uh… no."

Milton jerked his head back incredulously. "N-no?"

The sight of that man being put in his place made Molly's mouth—among other things—grow moist. Her man was grimy, greasy, and pregnant with a grotesque beer belly that repelled her, but she forgot all those things suddenly. His golden hair was perfectly washed and trimmed and his chest was as flat and muscular as Dutch's—more even—and she wanted to kiss him until his whole face blushed from her red lipstick.

Milton stepped down from his chair, rising to full height. In one quick motion, he snatched Micah by the collar of his black shirt. "Who do you think you are?! You came to us, and now you want to back out? You think you can—"

"Where are all your other guys?" Micah asked, as relaxed as Abigail had been during her sleepy phase back in Saint Denis (God, Molly missed that phase—now the woman wouldn't stop hounding her).

"W-what?" Milton stammered, caught with his pants down.

"Dutch said there were dozens of you guys here. Sixty or seventy, something like that. Unless I got spontaneous cataracts, I counted… maybe a little over a dozen on the way in?" Milton dropped Micah back in his chair and wavered backward until he hit the wall. Molly hoped splinters stabbed his stupid bald head. "Been outsourcing, have we?" His eyes glimmered with a smug sparkle that said he knew something she didn't. Molly hated that. Him sitting there like Dutch would, thinking he was so clever and she was so dumb. Suddenly she wanted to take Ross's cane as a club and bash Micah's brains in—not to kill him, she wasn't an animal. Just to knock him out, to shut those smug eyes. From there she liked to imagine she'd burrow her sharp nails in his forehead and crack his skull open, fishing for that thing he knew and wouldn't tell her so there would be no secrets between them. She hated secrets.

Milton's expression settled into the familiar narrow-eyed righteous face of God. "Whatever you think you know… I am still in control here."

Micah reached for the sky. "Whatever you say, cowpoke. But… things have changed, now." He turned his head and smiled so sweetly at Molly that she decided to forgive him for keeping secrets from her. He took her hand again and this time, the sensation was lovely. "I want certain assurances."

"What assurances?" Ross grumbled.

He spoke to them, but he didn't take his eyes off his woman."I may have a deal with you, but we both know bounty hunters don't care a continental 'bout that. And we both know Langton's crew's in town, don't we Milton?"

Milton gritted his teeth, but Molly didn't notice. Micah's eyes were an icy blue and they sent a cold and warm shiver down her spine. They were two shining whirlpools and she envisioned herself swimming in them, naked. And then he was swimming too, naked with her, and they were kissing and hugging each other's slippery glowing bodies and in love. Like Adam and Eve, man and woman, and Dutch was the snake, and they were going to kill him and—

"What's your point?" Milton interrupted.

Micah turned away from her, and she hated that. She squeezed tighter on his hand, and if he hadn't pulled free of her, she was certain she would've broken it. "My point is… if I help you kill Dutch, and in exchange, you grant me freedom, them bounty hunters are still gonna want a piece, and I doubt they abide by your freedom. Before, I didn't care if I lived or died, but now…" he smiled at her, "... like I said: things have changed. I need to be walking away from this with something to show for it."

"You'll have your life to show for it," Ross said, cocking his pistol, which was still table-bound.

"For a week. Then those bounty hunters'll get to me and what am I to do without the gang's protection?" He laughed. "What, are you gonna protect me?" They said nothing; they didn't need to. Everyone in that room knew the agents wouldn't have saved Micah and Molly if they were their own parents. "I want you to cancel my bounty."

"You want me to—okay…" Milton snorted, pinching that flab of skin where the nose met the forehead. "Answer me this: do I have a sign etched on my jacket saying 'Jesus Christ?'"

"Don't be—"

"That's a no. Now, answer me this: do I have a sign reading 'Governor of New Hanover?' No? Then that means I don't have the authority to terminate a bounty on a member of the most wanted gang in the country!"

"Can't ya buy out the bounty?" Molly asked.

"Me?" Milton stood and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He yanked them back out, holding the interior fabric; it was a comic gesture, but they got the point. He was broke. He chortled hysterically.

Molly realized the whiskey was hitting him harder than she'd speculated. "What about your boss? Cornwall's rich as Croesus, ain't he?"

Milton cackled like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. Molly searched the rest of the site; no other Pink was laughing. Just standing there, as quiet as cats. "So, let me get this straight." He wiped the moisture from his eyelids. "You're wanted for five thousand dollars for stealin' Cornwall's money, and you want Cornwall to use his money to bail you out?"

"Six," Micah whispered. "Six thousand."

Now, I'm going to ask you to brace yourselves, sit down. Because, as ungodly as this sounds, Molly O'Shea had an idea. "Steak and expensive cigars…" she muttered.

"Huh?"

She wasn't sure how it happened, but she found her tongue buried in Micah's throat. She hopped to his lap and he squeezed her thighs through her dress and leaned forward so her back smacked the table. He became expeditious and started kissing lower to her chest and she giggled, her legs swimming up and down so wildly that one of her boots flipped off.

Ross and Milton didn't know what to do except divert their eyes and pray this was a dream. Ross arced his cane so the bear's eyes weren't facing the horror.

"This isn't a goddamn brothel!" the cripple finally roared, slamming his fist on the table so thunderously the whole saloon shook.

From Molly's perspective, glancing at him upside-down, his frown was a smile and she reciprocated. "There're bonds. State bonds. Worth six thousand dollars. We can snatch 'em up right from under his nose!"

"Then we'll pay off my bounty," Micah continued, "and then, and only then, you get Van der Linde."

"We can't let you have those bonds," Ross insisted. "That's a part of your gang's treasury of stolen goods and I'll sooner see them burn than give you a nickel!"

Milton scratched his chin. There was only a single limpsy hair, and yet he stroked it like it was a full beard. "Yes… of course, we can't take them if we don't know where you hid them, and I'll see no reason to beat that information out of you."

Ross was aghast. "Milton!"

"Ross." At a moment's notice, Milton was sober, staring at his lackey with a stern, imperious countenance that dissuaded the very notion of objection. He acknowledged their guests. "You have a deal."

Micah coiled his arms around her waist and lifted Molly back onto his lap. "We're gonna get all of it," he told her. And they kissed. Her fingers started wrapped around his shirt's front placket between two white buttons but gradually rode upwards behind his skull, smooshing his face further into hers. She felt his soft locks and couldn't help but groan internally, knowing they were blonde. Blonde was atrocious. He'd need to dye his jet black—like Dutch's. But it didn't matter because she knew he would. He loved her and needed her and would do anything for her. He was going to rescue her and hurt everyone she hated, starting with Dutch, Sadie, Abigail, and all the rest. She smiled into their fierce kiss.

Then he intertwined his fingers with hers and her smile sagged ever so slightly.

So the full explanation of what Micah referred to with Milton will be revealed in two chapters, but comment if you think you've figured it out yet.

Hope this chapter explains why Micah and Molly didn't reveal Beaver Hollow to the Pinks earlier. And yeah, Micah's snitching was responsible for Lakay's invasion and the tip about the boat in Van Horn if that wasn't clear.

A lot of characters in this fanfic are exaggerated versions of their original counterparts and Molly is no exception. Less of an annoying diva like in the game and more of a bipolar egomaniac. Let me know if you like the change!