Molly and Emma: Donuts and Hat Tricks

[x-minibruiser.livejournal.com]

(Backdated to March 9) Molly convinces Emma to go to Count Donutula's with her after a psychic session to help her with rebuilding her lost memories. Before they go, however, Molly also shows Emma her hat collection.




Molly opened her eyes. She got used to closing them cause it felt weird to be staring at Miss Frost the 2nd the whole time. She was afraid she'd get cross eyed.

When they worked on stuff in her brain she usually got tired, she didn't know why. She started to remember things a little better now. Not everything, but it sorta came like a trickle sometimes, when she saw something that reminded her of something else.

"Are we done?" she said curiously. And sometimes it went so fast it felt like no time had passed at all.

“We’re done,” confirmed Emma. “Just remember, if you find yourself remembering something in the next few days and it upsets you, you can call me or Mr Haller and we can make sure it’s not going to cause you any problems. What I’m trying to fix isn’t all that easy to fix and I want to be certain that I’m doing it right.” Emma had talked it over with Molly before, the fact that she couldn’t just restore Molly’s memories because of the way the damage had been caused, but now they’d been working together for a little while, it seemed that Molly’s brain was starting to reconnect to some of those lost memories. Emma found that encouraging but couldn’t stop herself from worrying that the memories may manifest in a way that might traumatize Molly.

Molly nodded, glancing down. "I...remembered some stuff, actually. About Genosha," she said quietly, fidgeting with her hat.

"I was in the gym and Angelo was in the gym and he tripped and it reminded me of when....when the bad guys hit him in the head." She didn't know if Mr. Haller had told her or not.

"So, I guess its working?" she offered hopefully. It was a bad memory and a scary memory but she didn't forget it the moment she remembered it. Did that make sense?

"It is working," confirmed Emma. "The problem with what happened to your memories is that most of the ones that you lost are the bad ones. So what I'm doing will mostly bring back bad memories. I don't like giving you bad memories back, but they're part of what happened to you. Not remembering them is like... cheating. Cheating in a way that didn't train you to process bad things that happened to you. What it was starting to train you to do was lose all of your memories and, eventually, that would mean that we didn't have a Molly left at all." Emma put on her very solemn face. "I quite like Molly Hayes. I wouldn't like to lose her. Would you?"

Tilting her head, Molly scrunched her nose, then shook her head. "No, ma'am. They might give away all my hats," she said, making a face. She very much liked her hats.

"So....if I remember all the things that happened....will I get...different?"

She couldn't decide if being different was good or bad. She wanted to be smarter, but she liked herself too.

"Of course you will," said Emma. "But you get different every day, with every thing that you do. Life isn't all that much fun if you don't learn anything new. I always try and learn something new, every day. And believe six impossible things before breakfast." Emma had no idea if Molly would understand the quote, but she injected her tone with the mock seriousness demanded by that other White Queen.

Molly blinked at her in confused silence for a moment or two before brightening with a dawn of realization.

"Alice..." she said, smiling broadly. She quite liked that book. It reminded her of being with the X-People, going from the boring stuff to the exciting stuff. She leaned in, going along with her.

"What did you learn new today?"

Emma blinked thoughtfully. "Do you know," she said, "I don't think I've learned anything new today. Maybe you can help with that. Can you think of something I haven't done before? Maybe you could show me that and it would be something new."

Glancing up at the ceiling, Molly thought about it for a few moments. Her hands flew up excitedly.

"Oh! Have you had a mango donut?"

"I think I can safely say that I've never had a mango donut," replied Emma, after thinking about it for barely a second. The fact that she could barely remember ever having eaten a donut in her life meant it was not a difficult question to answer. Emma thought about it some more and gave Molly a slightly dubious look. "Is there such a thing as a mango donut?" she asked.

Molly nodded quickly with an assuring look. "There's a donut place...named after a vampire...and they have weird donuts like that. They also have one that's like....a red bean paste. And a banana one...and a mint one. It's really cool! And you can have a glass of milk with it. Which is good for your bones."

"Well, yes, it is good for your bones," replied Emma. "And probably goes better with mango donut than Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame would," she added and then smiled as her dry sense of humour bounced off Molly's puzzled look. "Would you like to introduce me to a mango donut?" she asked. "Seeing I am giving you back a lot of bad memories, I thought perhaps we could end this session with a good memory. If you would like to go to this vampire-themed, red bean paste donut serving... eatery?"

The question made Molly nod again with an ecstatic grin. Leaning back in her chair, however, she paused suddenly. "Are...you sure?" she said.

"I know you're busy like...saving the world and stuff. I don't wanna stop you from taking care of bad guys."

"I have a very large diary, run by a very efficient lady," replied Emma, "and I made her fill all of this morning and a little bit of the afternoon up with an appointment for Ms Molly Hayes. I have at least two more hours before I need to save the world again and I can have a very nice taxi here for us in no time to take us to the donut shop." Emma smiled at Molly. "So, shall we go?"

Molly blinked owlishly at Emma, then smiled again and nodded quickly.

"Yes please!" she said, then paused.

"Can I change my hat first? I have a donut hat and I want to match," she said. Style was important.

Emma gave Molly a sideways look but wisely decided not to comment on what a donut hat might be. "You can certainly change your hat, if you would like," replied Emma. "Perhaps I could come with you? Just in case our session means more memories get triggered. I would not like anything bad to happen to you."

"Yeah," Molly said as she hopped up. "That would be bad."

"Oh um...I would love for you to come! You can see all my hats!"

She held out her hand. Couldn't just grab her and yank her along like Wademan or Matt or Angelo or Anybody Else. She didn't think she'd like it.

"I had to make my own donut hat cause they didn't have any online."

Emma took Molly's hand gently in her own and let herself be led out of the room and up the hallway, presumably towards Molly's room. "That sounds very creative of you," she said. "I don't think I could make a donut hat to save my life. I do have a person who makes hats for me, but mostly they make them of little wispy bits of feather and I wear them to horse races and funerals. They don't really make them to look like donuts when you go to a funeral. People get cross."

Molly nodded. "It's called a fascinator, right? The feather thingy?" she said, waving her hand around next to her head to show where it could be. She knew a lot of names of hats, which she was happy to be re-remembering.

Opening a door with cardboard cut out letters and glitter that spelled 'Molly' and a more humble set of letters that read 'Topaz' Molly spread out her arms.

"This is my room!" she said. The room consisted of two beds, one exceedingly more colorful than the other. Molly skipped over to the colorful side, then pulled out a plastic box from under her bed, then opened up her closet.

"I couldn't fit all the hats in my closet so I had to make a holder."

Emma blinked at the sheer number of hats that confronted her in both the closet and the hat holder, a dazzling array of colour and shapes. “That,” she said slowly, “is a lot of hats. More hats than I think I’ve ever seen. Except perhaps at Ascot. Or royal weddings. Though, yes, they’re more likely to be fascinators. The little feathery things.” She confirmed Molly’s memory. “Which one is your donut hat?” Emma could see more than one item that could adequately meet the description of donut hat, depending on how you chose to define donut.

Molly beamed proudly at Emma's confirmation. Standing on her tiptoes, she peered around, then, after a moment, pointed with a normal Molly over-exaggerated gesture.

"This one!" she said, plucking a pink top hat that had a pink donut with sprinkles design around the inner edge. She held it up.

"You can try it on if you want."

For a long moment Emma looked at Molly carefully, weighing up dignity, the odds of her sister unexpectedly coming in to see Molly and the slightly bashful, slightly hopeful look on Molly's face, a look that indicated that Emma trying on the hat might be more emotionally significant than even Molly was aware of. With a tiniest shrug of her shoulders and an amused twitch of her lips, Emma took the hat and using a nearby mirror, settled it into place on her head.

"Do you know," she said to Molly, "this isn't even the second most ridiculous hat I've ever worn." She did something that could almost be a model's twirl and faced Molly to show off the donut hat.

Blinking, Molly's smile crumpled and she fell quiet, pulling her own hat down a little lower.

"Oh," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

“Oh no,” said Emma, quickly, reaching out a hand to Molly and then drawing it back before it touched her. “What did I say wrong? I like your hat. Very much.” She held back from reaching out to Molly’s mind, not wanting to repeat what she thought of as Molly’s parents’ recurring pattern of violation. “I was just being silly. Please tell me what I did to upset you.” She said the last gravely, wanting to impress upon Molly the fact that she took hurting Molly’s feelings very seriously.

Fidgeting with her shirt, Molly was silent for a few moments, almost afraid to say something. But Miss Frost the 2nd wasn't her mom, and she'd spoke up before and she did want to know.

"You said...the hat was ridiculous," she said with a sniff, eyes flickering up to her then back down. She had thought her hats were really awesome. Were they not?

“I’m very sorry, Molly,” said Emma. “It was a line out of a movie review I read once and I was just being silly using it. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about your hat. It’s a very special hat and very pretty. Did you make it? Because it’s not easy to make hats,” Emma said the last with authority, having had many an appointment with a milliner.

Molly nodded. "At the halloween party I was the Mad Hatter and magic made us our costumes so I know how to make hats...like...all of the hats instead of just decorating them," she said, a bit of glee creeping into her voice that she couldn't quite contain.

"Okay...maybe not...all...of the hats but a lot of them."

“How about...” Emma started and then stopped and crouched down until her eyes were on a level with Molly’s. “There are reasons, grown-up but not very sensible reasons, that I can’t wear your donut hat out to the donut... place. But sometimes, with some of the other grown-up things I need to do, I need to wear hats. There are...” Emma waved her hand around in a vague gesture. “Parties. And other events. Would you like, if I give you time beforehand and some idea of what I need, to make me a hat to wear out? And if it’s a really good hat, maybe you could make me other hats to wear out, when I need them? I’d need to work around some child labour laws, but I could work out a way to pay you for them properly, of course.”

Taking a step forward, Molly looked uncertain, like she didn't hear her right.

"Really?" she said with a gasp that ended with a blossoming smile. She liked to make her hats but she didn't think anyone wanted to wear them but her. People at the mansion didn't wear a lot of hats, except in the winter cause it was cold or like a ball cap or something

“Really,” confirmed Emma, her smile blossoming to match Molly’s. She tilted her head suddenly and said, “Our driver has just arrived. How about we talk about this at the donut shop and you can tell me all about the kind of hats you know how to make. And I have a lady in the city who sometimes makes me a hat for some of those important parties. I could talk to her and see if we can arrange to visit her one day and maybe she could show you some of the hats she makes and how she makes them. Would you like that?”

Molly was still blown away by the other thing but then this thing happened so her eyes got bigger, leaving her nodding, wordless and happily stunned.

Emma waited for Molly to say something and then, when Molly continued simply to beam and nod, took the liberty of a gentle brush of her mind against the girl’s. The inchoate swirl of happiness and surprise mixed with a touch of yearning towards recognition made her realise that no further words would be forthcoming. For a moment, Emma wondered whether Molly’s parents had ever thought to be interested in what Molly was interested in, had ever thought to encourage the girl to follow her passion or even recognised that it could be a passion. But that was for another time – for now there was the opportunity to create a happy memory of donuts and hats to overlay the unhappiness of a memory-recovery session. With that, Emma reached out her hand and used it to turn Molly around and face her towards the door and begin to usher the still happily incoherent girl out of the Mansion.