First of all, ABSOLUTELY YES THEY CAN, I really love the two of them together. *_*
As for the first question, in order:
For Molly, it's definitely her sense of self, particularly in regards to her sexuality. That's a big, big part of who she is in canon (and thus was when she first arrived in Darrow); she's very comfortable in her own skin and confident and pretty shameless in that regard, describing herself with no self-deprecation as "kind of slutty." Being nearly killed and sexually assaulted during Bateman plot took a lot of that away from her, and she still has trouble seeing herself as particularly desirable. She's also a lot less naïve, for better or worse, and more capable of playing the political game, as it were.
Eduardo is definitely more confident! He's obviously happily married, and he has a business that's really his, something he essentially built from the ground up. That's all really a first for him, instead of his success being someone else's or him never quite measuring up to some absurdly high standard.
Lucy has lost a lot of her idealism. She's really been put through the ringer — had everyone she's cared about, with one exception, disappear (or die), including losing her brother twice over — and it's kind of taken away a lot of the drive she had before. She's definitely not the same girl who thought she could go out and effectively help change the world, or at least the country; a lot of that fire has really died down.
For Jenny, it's mostly a matter of having learned to adjust to the future. She came from a time when options for women's futures were really limited, and here, she doesn't have to choose between, say, getting a degree and getting married/starting a family, or that family and a potential career, or anything like that. Plus she turned 17 in canon, and now she's... years removed from that, so she's grown up quite a bit, instead of just thinking herself older than she is.
And Elvis is a little... softer, maybe? He's less prickly, less surly. He's never going to like people very much, in a general sense, but he isn't quiiiiite as rough around the edges as he used to be, or as unhappy.
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As for the first question, in order:
For Molly, it's definitely her sense of self, particularly in regards to her sexuality. That's a big, big part of who she is in canon (and thus was when she first arrived in Darrow); she's very comfortable in her own skin and confident and pretty shameless in that regard, describing herself with no self-deprecation as "kind of slutty." Being nearly killed and sexually assaulted during Bateman plot took a lot of that away from her, and she still has trouble seeing herself as particularly desirable. She's also a lot less naïve, for better or worse, and more capable of playing the political game, as it were.
Eduardo is definitely more confident! He's obviously happily married, and he has a business that's really his, something he essentially built from the ground up. That's all really a first for him, instead of his success being someone else's or him never quite measuring up to some absurdly high standard.
Lucy has lost a lot of her idealism. She's really been put through the ringer — had everyone she's cared about, with one exception, disappear (or die), including losing her brother twice over — and it's kind of taken away a lot of the drive she had before. She's definitely not the same girl who thought she could go out and effectively help change the world, or at least the country; a lot of that fire has really died down.
For Jenny, it's mostly a matter of having learned to adjust to the future. She came from a time when options for women's futures were really limited, and here, she doesn't have to choose between, say, getting a degree and getting married/starting a family, or that family and a potential career, or anything like that. Plus she turned 17 in canon, and now she's... years removed from that, so she's grown up quite a bit, instead of just thinking herself older than she is.
And Elvis is a little... softer, maybe? He's less prickly, less surly. He's never going to like people very much, in a general sense, but he isn't quiiiiite as rough around the edges as he used to be, or as unhappy.