She doesn’t want this to be real.

She doesn’t want any of this to be real.

It’s not that Molly doesn’t understand what she’s seeing before her, it’s not that she never knew that her mother had hurt her.

It’s just different to assume the truth, and another to be looking at the official documents that solidify the reality of it all, to know that the woman she loved more than her mother, turned out to be more of the same.

It’s not the fact that he was adopted that’s making the anger swell in her, eyes reading the papers over and over again until the words blend together, that makes things different this time. She’s always known that as a fact.

It’s having to read over and over again, across scores of documents that her mother had presented herself as Teddy’s mother. That she planned this, inch by inch, preparing weeks -- months, even -- before she’d even come to Montana to see Molly. It’s the evidence before her that her mother had not only planned all of this but had put hard, concrete thought into tricking Molly into helping her.

It’s right there: her own signature on the papers giving up her rights as a mother, date and all. She knows that she wasn’t coherent when she signed, even if she can’t find the memory in her own head. She can see where Julia had signed over the rights to Teddy, she can see that everything had seemingly gone through legally.

The anger that grips her is the deceit inside of it all, the betrayal deep in her gut that won’t leave as much as she tries to swallow it down.

It used to be so easy to keep it all inside of her, to keep everything at bay.

And she can’t anymore.

Not with Julia’s desperate email begging her not to be angry, not with the fact that this was years of lies exchanged between the three of them. Years of Molly feeling lost, years of questions and emptiness that could have been solved so much sooner.

Molly knows that she needs to get up. She has to get out, get some fresh air. Call Thom, call Adam. Get in her car and drive until she can get somewhere to scream. Gather everything up and maybe even ask Callista for help -- she’d offered, hadn’t she?

Her hands are shaking. Her head hurts, and each draw of breath is harder and harder to take. Her jaw trembles, and the tears that blind her feel hot going down her cheeks.

It’s one thing to suspect. It’s another to have everything she’s been afraid of to be confirmed, in the worst way, by the one person she thought had her back.

Stupid. She was so stupid to have trusted her.

Molly grits her teeth, tries to stop it. Tries to keep the screaming, the tears from coming up. Her hands go up desperately over her mouth, eyes squeezing shut, feeling her powers start to flare up in response.

Control. She needs to get control.

She fails.. She can only think of waking up in the hospital, the devastation when her mother told her that Teddy was gone. She remembers her aunt in the later years, acting so gentle so ---

Her head hits the ground and she curls up and can’t take it anymore, the scream tearing from her throat. She doesn’t hear it over the sound of every single glass window in her apartment shattering all at once. Nor can she hear herself sob as everything in her apartment shudders, everything around her starting to lift. Kitchen appliances, utensils, her plates all fling themselves from the cupboards at once. They start to rage around her as she keeps screaming, unable to keep any of her anger down anymore.

There are footsteps, cries, but Molly keeps the door shut. Every new ragged breath between screams sends things careening in her apartment, furniture flinging itself across the hall, her photos rocketing off the walls. All of her anger unleashes itself onto the apartment, bed even upending on itself, appliances tearing themselves from the walls.

Molly isn’t sure when she finally withdraws, only that her tears stop, and her breathing evens out enough for her her to swallow breath after breath. Her back feels pained from something hitting it, as she registers the dull thud of objects hitting the floor. There’s someone banging on her door, cries to call the police.

Staying here wasn’t an option.

The hold on the door falls, and it opens with a bang as she shakily gets herself up off the floor. The utter disaster of her apartment didn’t matter to her, nor did the look of the poor person who wanders inside.

“Ms. Patton, are you okay? What happened --?” A neighbor looks at her, distraught and concerned, coming to place a hand on her shoulder. His thoughts are frantic, and voice sincere -- Hari Kapoor. Two doors down from her.

Cover up. She needed to cover this up before she could leave.. “There was a gas accident, Hari,” Molly says, her powers reaching out, pushing at Hari’s mind. There’s no resistance as she talks, every syllable falling dully. “No one was home.”

“A gas accident,” Hari nods, her telepathy settling, “No one was home.”

Molly swallows. “Call the police. Tell them no one was home.”

“I’ll call the police, and tell them no one was home,” Hari echoes, drawing out his phone.

Molly moves past him, and forces the elevator to come to her. She pushes everyone out, and lets the doors shut.

She doesn’t know where to go when she hits the ground floor and the cold air hits her. Molly wraps her powers around her, shielding her from others, arms wrapping around her waist. Her phone is still in her apartment, probably damaged, and her coat probably was too.

Somewhere. She’d find somewhere to go, to breathe and maybe stop seeing her mother’s face when she closes her eyes.