Molly couldn't look at Mark for fear that her rouse would have been shaken to its very foundation. Her whole life had been carefully constructed in the weeks following that fatal accident. After the doctors had told Old Barlow that his wife were brain dead and there was no hope of any kind of recovery; he should say his good-bye and pull the plug. Nothing was ever normal for Molly from that moment forward.

Molly's parents had amassed a small fortune and even Old Barlow had a few bob tucked away for events that might have popped up. It took every penny, and even more borrowed from others to set Molly up where she would remain until this day.

Old Barlow was a wicked smart man, could read a person like most read a book. Were something he took to teaching Molly; how to spot those little tells on a persons face when they were telling a fib. Something that aided her greatly in her ability to amass information. Perhaps that were why she didn't want to look at Mark now, either she would see something on his face she didn't want to, or she'd not be able to maintain her illusion if indifference.

She didn't wait for him to answer her before she were moving. With a lean off the bed she shut the window and drew the blinds to make sure no one could spy. Then she was up and slipping from the room to do the same through, even checking the door to make sure it were locked. Last thing she did was turn the stereo on, though she paid no thought to what might have been playing.

Making her way back towards there Mark was still standing in the doorway, she took on that Molly toughness and walked right up to him. She took the lower part of his face in her hand, though it were a soft grip.

"Don't ya be lookin' at me like tha', I were sworn ta keep it silent.." Honor was really the only thing anyone ever owned, at least from her stand-point. If you had no honor, then in this life, you had very little at all. fearing he might actually be disgusted or angered at her touch, she withdrew her hand but kept her poker-face well in place.

With Old Barlow ill, Molly had been cut-off from her only out-let. Mark's father had been the only person that she could confide anything in; in the last year of his illness she hadn't burdened him with anything, and so things had been mounting and were now coming to an ugly head all at once.

She was on the fence listing between what she had to be, and the emptiness that had been clawing, eating away at her resolve.. The crossroads loomed before her. Once Mark's Ma were....gone, Molly would be free. Only she had nothing waiting ...

The music playing would have been his. It were the thing he liked the most. Music hardly had anything physical to it now that it could be downloaded and appear, like a phantom, anywhere you could fit a play button. He had two wrieless speakers mounted. It weren't a professional system, but it were better than most and the speaker placement was strategic enough that the sound came to them evenly.

The song was Spainish Sahara. It started so slow and soft that it weren't til the guiter chords got volume that he felt her hand on the side of his face. There weren't any anger or disgust on his face. He should have felt more blame but there weren't anywhere to put it. Not with dying Da or their long-time dying mom. Not with the secret keeper.

"Sides, it don't change much." He sighed, looking at the ground, "vegetable or not, it were all still like she was dead. Naht got a word to say to us or a way to be with us either way. Still," he sucked in a breath and looked at Molly square, "Billie would have spent too much of her life hanging round mom's bed if she knew it were there. She was so young when mom died she was like... I dunno, naht like a person. Billie really liked the idea of mom and were only old enough that all she could remember were the good things, like she were a pleasant dream."

The brown-auburn twists of hair fell about her shoulders, snaking and turning like cords of rope all cut at different lengths and thickness. It was something that the general public saw as a sign, either she was a Pickey or a low-life, or a druggie. The manor in which Molly tended to dress certainly enabled the image to a degree. If you too Stevie Nick and Cindy Lauper and mashed them together, you had a pretty good image of Molly's idea of a wardrobe.

Various bobbles hung about her neck, nothing flash, just layers she used to aid in hiding those scars. When Mark spoke Molly let the mask on her features slide away. "Aye, was 'ard on Old Barlow..." She turned her head, catching the music in her ear. Molly could play the guitar and rather well.

Her hand lifted, scrubbing across her eyes. "He did wha' he thought were right.. I just didna feel right bout nout tellin' ya now and all..." Returning her gaze to him. "Now more so since ya be taken his place an all... ifin I remain as I 'ave been doing, I'll be comin' ta ya with things more often.." She was trying to read his features, trying to gauge things a little better, but Mark, being his father's son seemed to have that knack born into him for keeping people in the dark as to what was running through his thoughts; unless he wanted them to know.

It were that way since mom died. Those sort of big events had a way of shaping how some people sorted things out. The idea of a world without Da was still beyond comprehension, he could have believed the old man would talk or hit his way out of that trouble. It he could, dying wouldn't be on the table.

Molly's eyes opened up to him. The sheild of the doors behind them swung open and he felt like she were wanting him to walk through. He remembered her naht being like that years ago, when he were twenty and sitting on the edge of her bed, drinking a beer after they just had a long go at each other. It were business in those days, but that didn't mean it were unpleasant. Though those days she were never so open to him as she were now, fully dressed and without the sex and looking like she meant it when she were telling him sorry.

"Da told me to expect you, to look for you. Said you was one of the lifelines to this place, knowing what you know and never giving a tip you knew was bad. He said if I were smart I'd appreciate what you was." Mark made himself smile. The conversation weren't hurting him, but all the baggage which were tied to it kept elation from catching the corners of his lips and turning it upward, "A woman who knew where to find things and keep her mouth shut."

Molly understood something, about how lonely it was at the top. She'd had a string of lovers, and damn near every last one of them was only there for that information she had, for her contacts. Seeing as she had had relations with a few on the police force as well as the local DMV and other state and local offices.

"So, I been thinken bount coming on the road fer a bit. Ya know, I been there in that place so long, I juss need ta get away from it fer a bit, ya know..?" Her brows arced slightly with her words over those too round eyes. There was an unspoken question there. Molly was deferring to Mark, perhaps a show of respect, or guilt for not having told him that first time he had payed her for her information. It had been that fact that kept her all business, it had been those secrets she kept keeping her locked up in both the physical and emotional state. Why she had kept away from all but Old Barlow.
When he made the comment about how she was able to keep her word, is was a sad smile that pulled at those lips.

"Won't deny you a place in ranks if that's what you're wanting." Molly knew, probably deep down in there, that he weren't in a position to tell her no on many things. Beyond that, he wouldn't have said it, anyway. A fixer like Molly were too valuable, and they were on good terms despite all that was hovering overhead.

Maybe when the tidal wabe hit he'd feel differently. But right now it were all pragmatic and peace-talk. There were going to be turmoil, sure enough, when Da passed. Every person he could have on his side he wanted to be there.

It were a melancholy smile on her, which was about how many were smiling on these trying times. He reached out and held her face, saw way she she had his before, "Dust gonna settle before long and it gonna be better than it were before."

She could have told him, could have said she was going to do this and that, and there would have been little he'd been able to do about it other and agree. Where she had done that with others, and would perhaps do that with others still, she'd offer Mark the reigns in that matter. Perhaps she wanted someone to take control in some regard, someone else to tell her what to do for a change.

Mark touched his hand to her face and it were a bit like throwing a match on gas. One hand lifted, cool fingers laying atop his. "I think this time, the debt is on mah side.." Spoken with hushed tones in the second before she leaned in and boldly pressed a kiss just off the side of his mouth. "Thank ya..." Behind closed doors and locked away from the world at large, Molly really wasn't all that savage a woman after-all. She was just trapped, like so many of them were, into a roll that only she could fill.

"You never know what life is gonna bring you. Can't say I don't mind having you in my pocket a little, even if circumstance for it were grim." Perhaps the half-life of a real smile were there now. He didn't know how in the heat of summer, in his caravan, that her hand could be cool. But she were always like that, her hands and feet like ice even on days that made a cactus wilt.

Then there were the familiar press of her, just at corner pocket of his mouth. "Molly--" then he were pausing, cause there was a world of things he wanted to say but weren't able to. Instead he kissed her, a simple honest kiss that were the sort people gave when they'd known each other initmately and the terms of which hadn't soured. Then he cleared his throat, feeling like a tangle were in his chest, "I got to sleep in Billie's bed," he noticed that his bed had been looking rearranged and slept in by her. Reaching down, he took her hand and kissed her knuckles again, same way he had when he was saying hello, "Get some sleep, yeah?"

She closed her eyes, leaning back away from him and there was a knowing smile. Molly had watched the way Keirra had acted about him and given they seemed to be been off on some adventure, it was easy to add that one up. Her feelings on the matter, on Keirra however were a mixed bag at best. But, it was his business and she'd not intrude.

"Sokay Lad..." drawing away from him. "Ta ya own bed.." she'd not torture him with the room that was girlie hell. "We gota more ta render in the morning, but we need Levi fer tha..." she said as she moved out of his room. "Sleep whell..." Knowing sleep would not be finding her anytime soon. She'd head out for a little walk on the glen to aid quiet those demons in her mind.

It weren't for a regard for Keirra that he didn't take up Molly's opportunity. Sex were sex and it weren't bad when it could be got, no drama, no relationship attached. It were more than that, though, which held him back. He couldn't tell how upset he were from all the news he got, and while the thought of something acrobatic which would take up some hours of a restlessnight weren't an exaggerated promise from her, he felt like there might be some anger in it which would make it meaner and unkind. It weren't Molly's fault that thoughts paraded in his head, but he felt more like he wanted a punching bag than to get spent and Molly weren't the sort to get a mixture of that from him.

"More?" He shook his head, kissed her on the cheek and stepped round her to sit on his bed and strip off his shirt. There were a nod from him when she told him to sleep, though he knew he wouldn't be, either. His mind would be sorting and he'd push through his playlists til the songs that fit him right came on and carried his feelings through.

It'd be better, come morning.