The second Sorrowful Mystery is the scourging at the pillar.

It was dark and the voice was faint. It was a voice Molly recognized but that she couldn’t quite pinpoint. A voice that seemed lost in the fog of the past.

She shivered and her arms instinctively tried to shield her body from the cold air. But she couldn’t. The restraints that held her naked body in place firmly secured her wrists away from her torso.

Then a face. Visible only by the single light source that cast on her body. It was there so that he could see her, not so that she could see him. His maniacal laugh filled the air and his Cardassian features contorted with madness.

And then there was pain. Not normal pain. Not the same electrifying one that Tomas had inflicted on her when he had pushed his modified taser on her body. It was pure and eternally lasting agony like she had never experienced before. Technology only Terrans could have invented and that Starfleet would have never allow to exist.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

The voice carried on the same words Molly had so many times uttered as a child. It was louder, more confident, grounding her through the pain. Like a lifeline guiding her out of the darkness.

“You need to give him something or he WILL kill you.” The Terran doctor’s voice made itself heard through the thoughts clouding her mind. “Yes, I’m a doctor… I can’t let you go. I told you.” The woman’s face came into focus. “If I help you get back to your ship, you’ll really take me with you?”

“You have my word.” Molly heard her own forceful words leaving her lips.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us…

Scenes flashed across her mind. Empty corridors, her bare feet hitting the deck. The dead Romulans on the communications room. The rough material of the coveralls against her skin.

… and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

The voice kept getting louder but she still could not place it. The dark corridor seeming to stretch to infinity. And then she saw her. A young woman, her hair as red as her own. Her arms extended forward as if she was urging a small child forward.

“Mom…” she breathed. Her feet picked up speed as she got closer and closer to the woman. Extending her hands forward she ran faster. “Mom!”

The young face of Mary Holloway lit up with a smile before opening her mouth to utter the final word in the prayer.

Amen.

And she vanished.

Molly woke up with a start as the yellow alert klaxon sounded. A call out for her mother caught on her throat.

For a disorientating moment, she didn’t know where she was, until everything came back to her mind. She sighed before laying her back back on the bed. Whatever was happening, Cal could deal with it. She wasn’t needed. She didn’t want to be needed. She just wanted to be left alone.

It hadn’t been long since they had returned to their own universe, fixed the ship, and departed to their next mission. And during all that time, Molly had refused to see a doctor or a counselor. She wasn’t ready. And she didn’t know if she would ever be. She had even barely talked to Cal at all, and her terminal showed a thousand unanswered messages from her uncle. She had talked to Erin here and there, enough to let her younger sister know that she was okay.

And then, the whole room shook, almost as if the Dresden had gotten hit. Had she?

“Computer, lights!”

The lights came on momentarily only to flicker out of existence, before coming back a little dimmer as the back up power picked up the slack.

In a hurry, Molly stumbled out of bed in search for a new uniform. She needed to make it to the Bridge. Regardless of what had happened the previous mission, she was still required to do her job. And mopping around was certainly not a part of it.

Finishing zipping up her tunic, Holloway rushed to the main door in her quarters, hoping that the power outage hadn’t left her stranded there.

Capt. Holloway, CIO