This isn't weird.

Always the Problem

Molly.

Shit.

The thought hit him as he was brushing his teeth, still groggy from sleep, and a split-second gasp of realization set him choking on the toothpaste he was so close to spitting out. He spent the next minute coughing and hacking against the cold burn of peppermint foam lodged in his trachea, and wondering if it was really too much to ask for his brain to have epiphanies and the like at more convenient moments, before he could finally return to the thought that had put him in this condition.

He'd spent the previous night so absorbed in the horror of his own experience with Caleb Buckner, he'd completely forgotten that the catalyst for the altercation had been Caleb's wife. How could he have forgotten about Molly? She surely knew by now that her husband had been arrested, and how exactly she would react to this turn of events, Ben couldn't begin to guess. Considering his personal involvement in the situation, it wouldn't be right for him to leave town without at least checking in on her.

"But I just want to go home," he groaned at his reflection. The sound of his voice solicited a disapproving little chirp from George from some unknown corner of the room. Ben looked around, startled, only to find his surprise visitor already purring against his ankles. (How had he even gotten into the bathroom? The door was closed. This was exactly why he didn't trust cats.) "I know, I know," Ben sighed, bending down to scritch behind his ears. "I have to." He wiped the mirror clean of the toothpaste he had coughed all over it, grabbed his bag off of the bed, and headed downstairs.

Walt and Hoyt were already awake and ready to see him off with a thermos of red chai and a small cooler stuffed with a day's worth of snacks and sandwiches. "You guys are the best gay dads ever," he said with an unexpectedly emotional hitch in his voice. Hoyt said goodbye with a handshake. Walt said goodbye with an organ-crushing hug.

As Ben was surreptitiously checking his ribcage for fractures under the guise of scratching an itch, Walt exclaimed, "Oh! Almost forgot! You should probably have this, too." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar phone—Millie's. "You could probably pop your sim card into it so you're not drivin' across the country without a phone."

"Shit. That's a good idea." Ben looked down at it, briefly hesitating. It felt like a violation of Millie's privacy, but it was a necessary evil. As long as he didn't give into the temptation to peek through her photos, or anything else personal, he reasoned, it was alright. He'd get his own phone fixed as soon as he got back to Corvallis, then he'd turn it off and not touch it again until he could give it back to her.

He knew that Molly was usually a late sleeper, but he decided to try his luck driving straight there, and hoped she wasn't annoyed with him for waking her up. It was barely seven AM when he pulled up the house. Much to his surprise, when he knocked on the door, she called at once, "Come in."

The door was unlocked (he found this nearly inconceivable), so he pushed it open and stepped inside to find Molly sitting on the couch wrapped in an old, faded quilt. She was dressed in pajamas, with her knees drawn up to her chest in a fragile pose that reminded him very much of her sister.

"You're up," he said.

"I haven't slept," she replied.

"Oh." He stood there for a long moment, awkward and unsure, before finally taking a seat on the recliner facing her.

"They let me see him."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. He's in the hospital, so... I guess he's getting out of sleeping in a jail cell for a night or two."