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They’re staring at him like he had just confessed to murder or worse. Scared. What the hell was going on? Devon’s eyes are wide and red with tears and she’s clutching Eleanor to her chest as if someone had tried to claw her right out of her hands. He straightens his back and shivers. It's strange that he can’t remember. He was sure he had just been hugging Mrs. Selvig? Where has she gone? Peering around the room he soon realizes she is nowhere to be found. It’s then that he notices his heart is racing, even though he has no idea why it would be. He feels the wetness around his eyes and wipes a finger tip along his bottom eyelash. Tears . What the fuck is going on?
“Mark?” Devon asks tentatively, her voice thick with emotion. Ricken is standing beside her clutching her hip, the same pitying look in his eye when Mark drank too much and was being a dick. It’s infuriating.
Devon taps at Ricken’s chest and gives him a silent direction. He clears his throat, the sound cutting harshly through the awkward tension. Mark must have said something. Maybe he was drunk? He only remembered having one beer earlier, alone on his couch before he knocked on Mrs. Selvig’s door. From the way they were looking at him, it seemed like a reasonable conclusion that he had blacked out.
“Hey everyone,” Ricken announces as lightly as he can, cutting off Mark’s thoughts. “Why don’t we all connect again in the living room, and share our most profound revelations from the reading tonight?”
The group stares at him for a minute, questioning, but decides to follow Ricken’s suggestion and then slowly disperse. They trickle into the other room with sideways glances and whispers on their breath, and Mark’s ears burn with the feeling that he’s definitely done something-something stupid and completely embarrassing apparently.
Devon reluctantly hands Eleanor off to Ricken and then heads towards Mark, her body offering comfort, but her face worried, like she doesn’t know what he’ll do. He moves his arm to respond to her and that’s when he realizes there’s something in his hand. Devon eyes it warily as he holds it up to inspect.
It’s their wedding photo. Mark studies himself: he’s younger, hair neat and cut close around his ears, and smiling at her. Happy . She had worn her hair down that day and God, she looked perfect. He had this photo framed, somewhere . But he kept his tucked away in his bedroom closet along with most of the other photos he’d never unpacked after moving. After it happened, Gemma was everywhere; under his nails, beneath his skin, in the sheets, in the shower, in the garden. Every time he blinked she was behind his eyelids. She was in every second of every day, and it was agony .
Mark didn’t get out of bed for two weeks after the funeral. He had slept on her side, where the scent of her sweat and body lotion still lingered. If he closed his eyes and buried his face deep enough in her pillow he could almost feel her against his skin. Sometimes when he woke up he’d forget. The best four minutes of his day was when he didn’t remember and he’d pad around on the bed searching for her thigh. Some days he woke up crying. It’s hard now to remember the beginning. He was so bleary eyed and numb to everything around him he might as well have been catatonic. Devon stayed with him for a week after, and it embarrassed him now when he thought of how she took care of him. But after she left he was left to his own devices. He struggled to keep up with his work, was constantly late or missing lectures, unable even to get it together enough to answer student emails in a timely manner.
Then, for the first time ever his drinking had seeped into his daytime life, walking into his first class fifteen minutes late with a hangover so bad he wasn’t sure he was even sober. He noticed the glances his students gave each other, the pity and questions and judgment. Everyone at the school knew what had happened, knew they were married, knew too much. Gemma was an incredible professor and she was well-liked, and some of them were also mourning her. He couldn’t even look at their faces. It was torture getting through a lecture, with a shaky voice and lost train of thought. He’d have to constantly swallow around the heavy feeling in his throat that never ceased. He doesn’t think he ever cried that much in his life.
One day, the department head smelled liquor on his breath and pulled him aside. This led him to a meeting with the Dean. More pity and concern and judgment. He hated every single one of them, and he was glad when they told him he would be on indefinite leave without pay. Fuck all of them.
He immediately came home, drank a fifth of bourbon, and tore everything from the walls, ripped her clothes from their closet, makeup from her vanity, emptied her craft table, destroyed the shelves in the garden shed. He needed it out of his sight, as if throwing it away would somehow make it easier. But in the end he couldn’t be rid of it. And so all the boxes filled with Gemma stayed neatly stacked in his new basement.
There was one thing he kept though. His favorite picture of her. The one he had taken of her with her roses on her 40th birthday. The one he destroyed and then pieced back together. He had it folded in his wallet now and he thinks that’s where it will stay from now on.
Mark has no idea why he’s holding the picture of them now, in Devon’s kitchen, at a party where no one knows him. Can’t for the life of him remember picking it up.
“Mark?” Devon says again, reaching for the photo and scanning his face. She’s studying him intently, her eyes wide and teeth worrying the dry skin at the bottom of her lip.
“What the fuck is going on?” Mark whispers to her. His chest grows tight and he almost drops the photo as she takes it from his hands.
“Ssh, just come with me,” she replies tugging at his arm.
He follows her down the corridor, past the unnerving grey painting of trees (the one that used to be his favorite out of Rickon and Devon’s eclectic taste.)
Sucking in a shuddering breath, he gains his courage and joins her in the office. She lets him in and then shuts the door with more force than needed. Mark can see it written on her face and the way her shoulders are tense. She’s freaking out.
He laughs nervously, “What?”
Devon sets the picture where it belongs and then turns around. She shuts her eyes and lifts her hands up to her chest as if to shush him.
“You might want to sit down Mark.”
“Devon, what the fuck are you talking about? I don’t understand—“
“Mark!” She yells over him and he falls silent. The tears are already in her eyes and she takes a deep breath before she speaks.
“He was here !” She whispers frantically, as if someone down the hall might hear them.
“Who was here?”
She stares at him, the words caught in her throat.
“Devon, who was here?” he asks again.
“The other you.”
“What do you mean the other me?”
“The other Mark! The one at work. He was just here! I talked to him and he wandered around the party for like thirty-five minutes!”
Impossible .
“That’s impossible.” He rasps, but she’s already shaking her head before he finishes his sentence.
“No, Mark, he was here. I talked to him. And it was not you.”
“Wait,” he says, his heart pounding in his chest now. “What are you talking about?”
Devon takes hold of his arms and gently pushes him back towards the chair, then she’s pacing in front of him, and twisting her fingers nervously.
“Devon-”
“This is fucking insane Mark. Like truly insane. It was you, talking to me, but it wasn’t you.”
"So you’re saying my innie was here, outside of Lumon?”
“Is that what you call him? Yes! He was here! He sat for Ricken’s reading for Christ’s sake. I’m not exactly sure when it was that you changed, but I think he was trying to get my attention for a while and I was distracted by the baby,” Devon sucks in a deep breath, looking helplessly mind-boggled.
“I finally was alone with him, and once I really stopped to look at you- at him - I knew something was off.”
Devon stops and observes him, closely, as if she hadn’t really looked at him in a while. She squints her eyes like an artist observing a model.
“He was….different. Almost younger somehow. Or innocent–I don’t know. He didn’t seem to know things you would know. Even the way he smiled, the way he held his shoulders. His voice was different, Mark, it was strange.” Her eyes go wide as thinks about it, and he knows it must be true.
Mark feels as if he could jump out of his skin. His blood is pumping through his veins and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. How could this be happening? They told him this was impossible. Which is laughable at this point. Of course Lumon had lied to him like they lied about everything else.
“Ok! ok-well, what did he say?”
Devon stops in her tracks at his question, and her lip quivers. She crosses her arms as if she wanted to give herself a hug. “Mark, he asked me why you put him in there.”
"Put him in there?”
“Yes, those were his exact words. Put him in there. He was upset. He was saying someone needs to go down there, like inspectors or something. I told him about Gemma, about the car crash, about why you did it. I think he understood.”
He almost flinches at the sound of her name, “Understood what?”
“Understood that you did it with good intentions. I don’t know Mark, it seems like whatever’s happening to him down there isn’t anything good. And it has something to do with Mrs. Selvig– or Ms. Cobel as he called her. He knew her Mark! She’s his fucking boss! And I think she figured it out because she left the baby in here and then disappeared! I have no idea where she went, but I’m assuming she ran to Lumon to tell them he was out.”
“Christ, Devon, this is fucking insane! So Mrs. Selvig isn’t my neighbor, she’s actually my boss at Lumon?” He stutters over the words as they sink in. His mind races so fast he can’t keep track of his thoughts, “I mean, she must be keeping an eye on me for something. Devon, you have no idea the crazy shit that has been happening to me. I swear to God you can’t make this up. I met one of my coworkers from inside and then he died , and there was this woman who I guess is trying to infiltrate Lumon, and this guy attacked-”
“MARK!” Devon yells, interrupting him and he meets her gaze. She’s frantic and her chest is heaving.
“He said she’s alive.”
“Who’s alive?” His hand instinctively clenches the armrest of the chair and his heart feels as if it might explode.
She doesn't answer. “Devon-” he urges, his voice breaking, “Who’s alive?”
“Gemma-” she replies, barely a whisper, “It was the last thing he said. He was so distraught-right before you came back. He must have seen the picture because it was in his hand.”
Her name rushes over him like a tidal wave, and his entire body shakes. His stomach clenches viciously and he feels sick.
“No,” he rasps. “That can’t be true.”
Devon’s tears overflow now, streaming freely down her face and dripping from her chin. “He’s you , Mark. Why would he lie to you? I could see it in his eyes. He’s telling the truth. He knew her.”
He shakes his head. “No, it must be a trick or something. They sent him out here on purpose to fuck with me.”
“No, I don’t think so. He said that they were on a time limit and once they were caught it was going to be bad. He looked scared. Mark, what do they do to you down there?”
“I-I-,” he stutters realizing he doesn’t have an answer for her, “I don’t know. It’s what I’m trying to figure out. But how would he have seen Gemma? I don’t understand it. She’s gone. She was in a coma, I was at her fucking funeral. She’s gone.” He can’t keep it in anymore and chokes down a sob. He puts his face in his hands and lowers his head to his knees trying to gather himself. “This can’t be happening.” He sucks in snot and harsh breath and rushes out of his chair, unable to be still anymore. The nausea takes over and he breaks out in a cold sweat and feels dizzy. He clasps his hand over his mouth and gags,“--Ah, I’m going to be sick.”
Devon rushes him over to the office trash can and he falls to his knees and wretches violently. She sits quietly next to him and rubs gentle circles along his back, the same as she used to when they were little. The muscles in his back convulse again but thankfully he isn't sick. A guttural sob breaks free and he’s crying.
“This can’t be happening.” Devon’s circles along his back become more rhythmic and then she shifts her body so she can pull him into a hug. He can’t even be bothered with the indignity of it. She cradles his face, gently stroking his hair and he rests his ear against her chest, feeling her heartbeat flutter as rapidly as his. She squeezes him and he balls the fabric of her shirt in his fists. After a long moment, he relaxes as it all floods out of him as fast as it came, then swallows and clears his throat. He pulls away and she gently releases him from her grip. He wipes his eyes and nose with the back of his sleeve and looks at her.
“I’m sorry.” He says clearing his throat again, the hot embarrassment starting to climb up his neck.
“Don’t be sorry.” she replies, wiping her own tears away.
His grief and shame mutate as his mind settles and he can finally, truly focus on what Devon has told him. It all becomes clear. A white hot rage churns inside his chest and Devon notices him change.
“What?” she asks, concerned.
Mark motions to stand up, “I have to go.”
“Mark, wait!” she pleads, reaching for his hand, but he pulls it away. Devon jumps to her feet and follows him out the door, “Mark–”
Ricken and the last of the bizarre guests are staring at him as he rushes by the dining room. Sensing something is wrong, Rickon gets up quickly and follows behind Devon.
“Mark, where are you going?” she asks, hot on his heels as she scrambles behind him in the driveway. The icy air is cool against his wet face and he feels awake. Maybe for the first time in two years he finally feels like he’s not a ghost. He's a person. He has purpose, he has rage, he has hope . He's alive. Gemma is alive.
Without looking behind him he climbs in the car calling over his shoulder, “I’m going to find Selvig.” Then speeds down the driveway heading towards the road that leads to Lumon.