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They can all see it, though they pretend not to. The empty space in the air. The patch of nothing which should have been Mollymauk.Jester can still hear the echo of his laugh ringing in her ears when she tells a joke.Caleb closes his hand around a non-existent mug while reading, leans back into a weight that isn’t there.Fjord can’t see the falchion anymore; every time it appears all he can see is Summer’s Dance, Molly’s head bent over it in prayer.Beau finds herself turning to exchange a snarky comment with someone who is no longer there.Nott checks her shoulder when she enters every room, half expecting to see him standing there, catching her out again.And Yasha... Yasha is Yasha. But there’s nothing to rage against now. Nothing to fight, to pummel, to crush with her blade to bring her friend back. When she’s out on her own, she can pretend he’s there. Waiting for her. Telling jokes with Jester and Fjord.She can’t stay.He touched their lives in a million small ways. Dependable, funny, charming, delightfully irreverent. And in only a few short months, he had become necessary. Not just as a friend, or a fighter. He found the bars, cut the tension, rounded everyone up for a bath.They don’t fall apart without him; Caleb and Beau bicker like always, never with any real venom. Jester is still sweet and warm and devilishly funny, keeping them whole with more than just spells. Fjord is still everyones’ big brother, Nott their little sister.Losing Molly doesn’t break the Mighty Nein.But the space where he is supposed to be is a sucking void, impossible to forget.Caduceus Clay can see the space too. Of course he can; he’s used to seeing the empty spots left by the passage of a life.The way the group goes silent at Molly’s name. The soft sobbing from Jester’s room in the night, the low rumble of Beau comforting her. The way Caleb’s hands shake when they have to break the news, again.To him, it’s all part of the turn of life.Mollymauk isn’t gone. He’s all around them, everywhere, his being spread out among the stars. He knows better than to say it. Because Molly wasn’t his loss. And he wouldn’t want to fill that space.Perhaps it was inevitable in his line of work, in his former home, that he would join a group in mourning. People only ever sought him out for death. Perhaps they would have still needed him if Molly had survived, and perhaps he would have joined them. It doesn’t matter. He knows that fresh pain, knows the wounds will take time to heal.Stories about Molly come slowly, stilted and mixed with sorrow and love. In a way, Caduceus already knows him, from the shape of that empty space at the heart of the group. The missing piece that could only fit this puzzle.He stays quiet when they talk of Molly, when Jester admits with a giggle half a sob that he had the prettiest cock she’d seen. The fond smiles on every face need no interruption. And this is how things should be. The loss is remembered, but although talking about Molly, thinking about Molly brings a pain like a raw, aching wound.... Molly wasn’t pain.Molly left every town better than he had found it. He made people happy; gave them hope, let them believe in small miracles. He fought bravely for whatever he believed in at the time. Lived every day as though it might be his last, right up until the one that was. He’d have said there was no better way to die than trying to save their friends.Well, in bed surrounded by friends, lovers, and riches at a very great age, maybe. But he’d accept this death too.Every one of the original Nein have wondered if they might have changed things. Every one has imagined leaping forward, taking his place. Saving Molly, even if it cost their lives. Maybe, if Molly wouldn’t have scolded them all soundly, the guilt there would have drowned them. Silent hours on the road, riding in the wagon that had drawn his killer, with that ghostly space beside them. No one could have done anything differently. Every what if was spent. And if there was one person in the world who’d tell them off for wasting days on sad dreams, it’d have been Molly.The best way to honour his memory, to honour him is to keep going. To leave every town better than they found it. To protect the people close to them. That’s what the Mighty Nein is good at. And maybe one day, the pain will go away. But Molly never will.