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Her children's cries echoed in her mind, entreating, begging, until finally they spelled out nothing but their agony. This nightmare clung to Moira, as though it were the imprint of a memory – the last before falling asleep. She could almost feel the stab of pain blossoming in her chest, the impact of the ground as she fell, the coldness in her limbs.
It was a strange dream. In it, she knew it was Slade Wilson who held the blade to her heart. She knew it with the strong conviction that confused dreams with reality, but the face that gloated in triumph was Malcolm's.
Moira started awake to a fluttering of fear. She had thought that by selling him out to Ra's al Ghul she would have cut herself loose. And yet he haunted her.
"Welcome back, Moira."
The voice was muted – disembodied and far away, as though the air that carried it had turned viscous. It sounded like an echo, barely recognizable beneath the rush of blood through her ears and the pounding in her chest, but the sense of dread that washed through her was unmistakable. How did he get here?
She tried to shift away even before her eyes settled upon Malcolm.
To her horror, she couldn't move, nor could she feel her body.
"I am sorry about the discomfort you're experiencing," he said and brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. She wanted to tell him to leave her alone, but even if she could have talked around the tube in her mouth, not a sound escaped her throat. None of the commands she issued to her limbs stirred her body in any way, as though she were both intoxicated and dreaming of this encounter.
Perhaps she was. She remembered Malcolm's smirking face in her last dream – as though he finally held her heart in his hands and that this time, there was no escape.
Did he have anything to do with her immobility? Did he stab her after all, like she dreamed it, or paralyze her in some other way? And more importantly, if Malcolm was here with her, where was Thea? Moira hoped she was with Oliver, who would keep Malcolm away from her.
"Give it a few days and you should return to normal. Rest now, Moira. You need your strength."
Although her body wanted nothing more, Moira had no intention of resting with him so near, without knowledge of what had happened to her children. She needed to find them, make sure they were safe, yet she felt weak, so weak... The mechanical ventilator by her bedside lulled her back into a state between waking and dreaming, and heaviness settled in her bones.
She succumbed to sleep and with it, to the dreams it brought. Memories of a life unlived. A private piece of heaven, where no one she loved ever feared danger, where Robert returned whole and hale from his visit to China, where Oliver set matters right with Laurel, where Rebecca never died. Where Thea was Robert's child not only on paper.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, she clung to the image of her children, needing to be awake when they came to visit her in order to spare them at least a little grief. She well remembered the alternation of worry and relief that hospital visits brought, when she heard her children were recovering from accidents, when she herself was brought in with a concussion, when she checked in on Malcolm after the failed assassination attempt.
But no matter how long she waited, her children never showed. The only shadow that stole into the room was Malcolm's. She didn't understand how this could be, how the doctors could let him in but no one else. Had she died after all and landed in her own personal version of hell, helpless, alone, and at his mercy?
That would be worse than Iron Heights: not only a prisoner in her own body, but one in Malcolm's care as well? How was this possible? Moira gritted her teeth. She refused to believe this. She would not let Malcolm rule her life again. Clenching her fists, she vowed to get away as soon as she could.
Grim determination mixed with the small relief over the responsiveness returning to her limbs.
"I'm happy to see you're showing progress," Malcolm said as he switched out her emptying IV bag for a new one. She had never seen him wear nitrile gloves before, nor had she known he had any medical knowledge of this kind. Then again, she hadn't known about his involvement with the League of Assassins before.
In hindsight, that explained a lot about his change. She hadn't noticed how unrecognizable he had become once he returned, believing to see the old Malcolm in the shell he wore. It wasn't until Robert told her about the Undertaking that she realized she didn't know this new Malcolm at all, and that reaching out to him was years too late. And yet she couldn't break from his side, not with the decisions Robert had made before his death.
"You've always given me the strength to continue," Malcolm said. "That hasn't changed. You're a fighter, Moira. I admire that about you."
Whatever he was trying to tell her, Moira could find no relief in his words. They reminded her of her biggest regret. Had she learned about his doubts concerning the Undertaking sooner, she would have retracted what he took for her unflagging support. And maybe then, certain matters would have stayed buried deep underground where they belonged. But in fearfully staying at his side, she had encouraged him to see his ghastly vision through till the end.
She should have opened her eyes and stood up to Malcolm a long time ago. But after learning what he was capable of, she had been so afraid of losing Thea, too. It was no excuse for her own deeds, but Moira wasn't looking for redemption. Nothing was sacred as long as her children remained out of harm's way.
Malcolm talked quietly throughout his visit as though to himself, although he knew Moira could listen, if not respond. His subjects ranged from his intentions to his life with Rebecca and Tommy to the friendship he shared with Robert and Moira. His words, however, soon lost their their outline and began to flow together like water into the ocean. Moira no longer listened, but the memories he evoked formed a background to her dreams.
In them, she saw Thea, barely able to sit still as Moira brushed her hair before bedtime. She was intend on recounting everything that had happened at school and what her crush had said to her. Moira witnessed her daughter's rapid growth all over again, from when she first laid eyes on her in the hospital to the last moments they spent together. One moment, Thea was skipping rope or drawing the walls with crayons, the next she was trying out make-up and dating.
The same went for Oliver. She saw him flitting through the house, running after Tommy and upsetting every table and trinket in his path; she saw him dashing to get ready for yet another date with another girlfriend, yelling that he might be late; she saw the door fling shut behind him, a sound she would forever connect to her son in her mind.
Just as she would associate the ringing of a phone and Robert's furtive whispers with an ache in her chest she had been determined to overcome, but which broke out anew whenever she saw him with a receiver in hand. Moira suspected this business associate he claimed was on the other end had less to do with the future of Queen Consolidated than with the strain on their marriage.
*
The next time she woke, the intubation tube was gone. Suddenly breathing on her own felt strange. Air fluttered to her lungs and out again, tickling her throat. She tried to clear it, but her muscles weren't strong enough yet. The effort only made her skull hurt worse.
"How are you feeling, Moira?" Malcom asked. His voice still sounded far-off, as from a distant shore. She could barely make out the words.
"Where are my children?"
"Safe." Malcolm disturbed the balance of Moira's mattress, and even that small shift to her right side felt like she was falling into the ocean.
"Where?"
Moira could hardly be certain the words came out of her mouth, so faint was her her voice. Her throat burned from the effort of speaking and exhaustion ached deep within her, as though compressed into her bones. Whatever answer Malcolm might have given her, seemingly endless fatigue engulfed her. She tried not to let it, tried to hold fast onto her consciousness, because now more than ever she needed to hear her children were sound. She needed...
Her needs, along with her consciousness, slipped from her like water through a hole.
Sleep was less like drowning than it was like becoming one with the water: dissolving molecule by molecule into a greater ocean, until not a part of her own body remained. Yet this dispersing of her corporeal existence was not always like drifting on that ocean. Sometimes the supporting body of water was not there at all, and she felt like falling out of her skin, like losing hold of herself. Once the water came rushing back, it would not carry her to its surface, but instead enclose her in its depths until its weight left her nowhere to turn.
The day Robert had set sail with the Queen's Gambit, Moira had believed she was finally in a good place with her husband, despite all her misgivings. But when the news had arrived that both he and Oliver had been lost at sea and were presumed dead, her life suddenly had ceased to make sense anymore. She'd floundered, and if not for Thea, she would have allowed the pain to overwhelm her. In the beginning, she had not believed herself capable of stomaching the loss or handling the loneliness. Only with the help of her daughter and eventually with Walter could she allow herself to move on.
Yet once she had regained the bottom under her feet, Malcolm had approached her about QC's involvement in his Undertaking. Suddenly forced to deal with Robert's choices, Moira had found herself entrapped. All the sympathy she had felt for Malcolm in the past was gone, supplanted both by fear and by loathing – not only for him, but also for herself.
Had she been stronger, she would not have sought comfort in his arms that night, all those years ago...
They had both been reeling from the shock of Rebecca's death, but Moira could not entirely set aside her personal hurt. Consoling Malcolm in his time of grief had been her way of dealing with Robert's betrayal. In concentrating on alleviating another's pain, she could forget her own. Or so she thought.
Making love to him had felt a lot like saying goodbye. And in a way, they did: the Malcolm she knew had soon after disappeared, never to return.
*
Her last memory was of a car crash. She and Oliver had just been reconciling with Thea and Moira was hoping to finally turn a new page with her children. Before she had had the chance to tell them that Malcolm was still alive and looking for Thea, there had been a flash of light and glass shattering everywhere.
The memory formed slowly, seperating itself from the other nightmares. Even the vaguest hint of it made her increasingly anxious, and she trained her vocal tract every waking minute. More than anything, she needed to know if her children were all right. What if the reason they had not come to visit her was because they themselves had been injured? The mere thought of Malcolm taking care of Thea the way he tended to her made her shiver.
Malcolm would not hurt Thea, of that much she was certain. He had waited too long to be reunited with her. He might have used her as leverage against Moira before, but now that he knew Thea was his daughter, he would not let her come to harm. He was too lonely to release her once she was in his grasp.
Yet who knew what else he had planned for Thea, why he had been so obsessed with the idea of suddenly acknowledging her as his daughter? Moira could not let him corrupt her. It would be her worst nightmare.
*
Moira had no way of keeping track of time. No windows open in the bare, white walls of what she initially thought to be a hospital room. Despite the medical equipment at her side, however, this was no hospital room. There were no doctors or nurses checking her condition or marking off visiting hours, no other patients to converse with, and no sounds from beyond her doors. As if her cell was padded.
The only sound penetrating from outside was the occasional knock that announced Malcolm.
"Your progress is remarkable, Moira."
Moira was inclined to disagree. Her progress felt sluggish, she could still barely keep herself upright, and each day she had to spend in Malcolm's care was even more excrutiating than the painful headaches she woke up with every morning.
Whenever he entered, he would comment on her condition as though her improvement was his only concern. She suspected that he was more interested in maintaining her vulnerable position than in actually helping her recuperate – that he secretly exulted in her predicament, and that by taking care of her, he added more to the perceived debt she owed him. Not that Moira could do much about her current situation. She had no idea of where she was, no way of finding out, nor of contacting anyone, let alone of getting away by herself. The last time she tried, she had collapsed in front of the bed, unable to will her muscles back into obedience. Malcolm picked her up without a word when he found her like this, yet the pride in his eyes was unmistakable. Whether he was proud of his handiwork of rendering her immobile or of Moira for pushing herself so hard to escape, she could not tell. Malcolm had never been an easy man to read.
And he gave her little to work with. He had schooled his features into a mask of affection and his voice held nothing more than fondness and acceptance, all of which unsettled her nerves. Not that this display was entirely uncharacteristic for him in her presence. If Malcolm had not been the skilled actor he was, she would have wondered whether it was an unconscious response, because he should have known by now that appealing to the woman inside her did not work. She would never let him wheedle himself into her good graces again. Not after all that he had done.
She might have once – wrongfully, stupidly – believed that her support could make a difference, could pull him down from the ledge of sanity again, but he had since disabused her of that notion. She wouldn't trust him anymore.
Still, she had to rule her thoughts if she wanted him to share the information Moira needed. She had tried to question him as soon as her vocal chords could handle both the volume of answers she demanded and a neutrality of voice that would not betray her emotions. No matter how long she might have been here, she could not shake the unease that settled behind her breastbone whenever Malcolm was near.
What he offered her in lieu of information were vague promises of a future revelation: "This is not yet important" or "I will show you once you are ready."
Perhaps he deemed her ready now, because this time, their exchange took an unexpected turn. Instead of once again deferring her to a later date, he said he had something he wanted to show her.
"As promised, this is a reward for your hard work," he said as he opened the door, yet the words did not seem to be addressed to her.
When he stepped away from the doorway, Moira saw why.
"I told you, I don't need anything." Thea pushed past Malcolm, but froze when her eyes settled upon Moira. "Mom?"
"Thea!" Moira shot upright. Shock and relief flooded her senses at the same time. Her body screamed in protest, but she didn't care. "Thank God, you're alive."
But Thea would not move. She would only stare at Moira in horror. A sliver of dread finds itself into her heart, and Moira covers her mouth with her hands to stifle a sob. How long had he been keeping them apart?
"There's no way," Thea said, taking a step toward Moira, but still hesitating. "Oh my God, I must be hallucinating." She rubbed at her face and took another look at Moira. Then she rounded on Malcolm. "This is your doing! You poisoned my cup again, didn't you? I can't believe this!"
Coldness ran through Moira's limbs. Her daughter was conversing with a man she had hated with a passion not long ago – a man who would not have thought twice about killing her only to hurt Moira – as if they had always known each other closely.
Malcolm smirked and put a hand on Thea's shoulder. "You're mistaken, Thea. This is not an illusion."
"Malcolm," Moira demanded. Both turned to her again, Malcolm smug and Thea startled, as though she had already forgotten about Moira's presence again and now felt guilty about it. "What have you done to my daughter?"
"Our daughter," Malcolm corrected with visible delight. Moira resented him for this.
"Mom, is it really you?" Thea asked uncertainly, looking back to Malcolm for reassurance. When he nodded, Thea approached her cautiously, as though Moira were a wounded animal.
"What is the matter, Thea? Do I look so changed?" Moira could explain Thea's reaction no other way. She had seen no mirror since she had woken, so she could not even begin to imagine how she must have emaciated.
"You look fine. It's just..."
Malcolm stepped up behind her and rested his hands on Thea's shoulders again. "The first time you woke, you were not yourself, Moira. You became so violent I had to restrain you. But don't worry. It was a temporary matter resulting from dehydration and shock."
Thea looked at him incredulously. "What the hell are you talking about, dad? Would you stop lying?"
For a moment, Moira was unsure whether she had heard right. Her hearing was still faulty at times, blotting out certain phonemes or muffling entire frequencies, and yet she could have sworn Thea had acknowledged Malcolm as her father. Was her mind playing tricks on her?
"I ask again, Malcolm. What have you done to Thea? Why is she here?"
"Mom, it's okay. You don't have to be mad at him anymore. I chose this."
"Oh, Thea. But why?" The question was barely a whisper.
"You know why." Thea's face hardened as she approached. "I was so sick of everything. Everyone thinks they have to protect me because I'm just this weak little girl who can't handle even a sliver of truth. Even Roy was keeping secrets. God, I hate him for this. I had enough. At least dad wouldn't to lie to me."
"Oh, darling."
Thea sat down beside her and Moira mustered all her strength to embrace her daughter as though she would never see her again. She had waited too long for this and was so grateful to finally see her, no matter the circumstances.
"How is Oliver?" she asked. "Is he all right? Does he know where you are?"
"He's doing fine." Thea shrugged, as if to say she didn't know or care. "I told him I was touring Europe. As long as I send him status messages now and then, he won't get on my case."
"There is no need for you to worry, Moira," Malcolm said and laid a hand on her shoulder. As usual, Moira let him. "I'm protecting her, as I am protecting you. Your son won't find her unless she wants to be found."
"He's also teaching me how to be strong. I learned a few cool tricks that I have to show you later."
Despite her relief at seeing her daughter alive and well, Moira suddenly felt uneasy again. The Thea she had left behind would never willingly have sided with Malcolm. He must have done something to her, but Moira hesitated to think of what. Had he used Moira's life as bargaining chip? Was that why he had been keeping her alive?
"But he didn't tell me that he was keeping you around," Thea continued, casting Malcolm a reproachful look. "Is this really not a dream? How long has she been in here?"
"Your mother has only now recovered enough to see you."
"But... how? She was dead. We buried her."
Dead? Moira remembered a nightmare and her children's cries. Cold night sweat she had thought was blood. A clenching in her chest she had mistaken for fear. Could this really have been a memory? It seemed so distant, so impossible. Moira looked down at her hands. Blue rivers shimmered through translucent skin. But life still followed their course. Moira could feel it beating within her.
"A combination of electroconvulsive therapy and a chemical bath Unidac has been secretly devising. The formula is far from perfect yet, but has so far yielded astounding result. Don't you think? I wish I could have done the same for Rebecca."
The skull-splitting headaches and the burning skin she had woken up to. Had they been the result of Malcolm's treatment? She thought it had just been trauma and the feeling of regaining her senses.
"Was I really...?"
"I told you, Moira. There are places in the world where death is only an illusion."