Chapter Text
“How are you feeling, Barb?” Miss Lynn asks.
“Okay,” Barb says immediately, because that’s the appropriate answer, but she wilts a little under Miss Lynn’s stare (so nonjudgmental that it comes back around) and corrects, “I don’t know. Tony is gone and I don’t know why I’m the one in charge. Mel has been here longer than me.”
Miss Lynn tilts her head. “You have many leadership qualities,” she says. “The board believes so. You wouldn’t have received the promotion otherwise.”
“I guess,” Barb says. “It just feels - off.”
“Ah.” Miss Lynn clears her throat and glances at her notes. “In order to lift your spirits, I’ve been authorized to share some facts with you about your outie.”
Barb blinks. She’ll never be used to this.
“Your outie was on the honor roll through her entire academic career,” Miss Lynn recites. “Your outie is often asked to reach things on high shelves. When your outie goes to the gym, other people watch her exercise with awe. Your outie was approached by a modeling scout during a visit to the mall.”
There’s a beautiful black-haired woman sitting in the portable recliner next to Bobbi’s. She’s chewing on a pen, flipping through a textbook with a vague abstract painting on the cover, and Bobbi flashes what she thinks (hopes) is a devil-may-care smile. “Just some light reading?”
The other woman looks up and her smile is just the cutest thing Bobbi has ever seen. “Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience,” she says. “The department finally approved my mythology and gender course. I might be overpreparing.”
“Aw, I bet you’ll rock it,” Bobbi says.
“Awfully confident in a stranger,” the woman teases.
One of the nurses comes over to set Bobbi up, and she makes the mistake of glancing at her arm as the needle goes in -
And maybe the moment is just extra-heightened, or maybe this would have happened anyway, or maybe the universe wants to mess with her chances, because she promptly passes the hell out.
When she comes to, the black-haired woman is there and still smiling that cute smile at her. “Here,” she says, offering a cafeteria carton of orange juice, “you look like you could use this.”
“God,” Bobbi groans, “I’m so embarrassed. I was gonna be so suave.”
“I’m willing to give you a chance to save your image,” the woman says. “I’m Kara.”
“Bobbi,” replies Bobbi, and she can almost see the sparks going off around them.
Phi tries to quit, and her outie responds not just with a no, passed onto her by management, but with a filmed refusal. It’s clearly the same person, physically, but Phi’s outie is so cold, so brutal - there’s nothing but hate in her gaze, bitterness in her tone.
Barb’s immediate reaction is to put a hand on Phi’s shoulder and ask if she’s okay, but Phi shakes her off.
Phi tries to hang herself in the elevator later that night.
“You’re so much cooler than Bobbi’s last partner,” Daisy declares, toasting Kara with her beer bottle.
“Daaaisyyy!” Jemma yelps, nudging her girlfriend’s arm. “Don’t be unkind.”
“I’m just stating facts,” Daisy shrugs.
“You see why I didn’t want to bring you over,” Bobbi says, laughing.
“Oh, I don’t know, I think it’s funny,” Kara smirks.
When Phi returns, a vague abrasion lingering on her throat, she waves off her coworkers’ concerns and settles in at her desk. She might be working; she might just be pretending. (It’s sort of hard to tell, given the nature of macrodata refining.)
Soon, though, Miss Lynn enters the office, and Barb’s brow furrows. “Miss Lynn?”
“I’m here to observe Phi R.,” Miss Lynn says. “In order to ensure she doesn’t experience any more suicidal impulses.”
Phi snorts.
“Oh,” Barb says. “We’re all looking out for her, you know.”
“I know,” Miss Lynn says, and maybe she means it. “I’d like to observe that as well.”
Fitz is in the middle of telling some elaborate, fatuous story, and Jemma is patiently nodding along because she’s too good of a friend, and Daisy is mostly watching Jemma because she’s just pretty gay like that, when Kara squeezes Bobbi’s hand under the table.
“Babe?” she asks, voice strained.
“What’s up?” Bobbi asks quietly.
“I think my uterus is on fire,” Kara mumbles. “I’m sorry. Could we, uh…”
Bobbi is already standing up and clearing her throat. “Yeah, we have to get going,” she says with an apologetic wince.
“Oh, is everything alright?” Jemma asks with a frown.
“I hope so,” Bobbi murmurs, glancing at her wife anxiously.
“They’re firing Miss Lynn!” Barb whisper-shouts, storming back into the office with a furious expression.
“What?” Alfie asks. “What did she do?”
“Is it because we skipped out on her when she was nannying us?” Phi adds guiltily.
“I don’t know,” Barb says. “I don’t think she knows either. But I went in for my wellness session and the office was almost entirely cleared out. She’s just… not going to be here anymore.”
“Maybe she’s just leaving the company,” Mel suggests, although she doesn’t sound like she believes it.
“It doesn’t feel like that,” Barb murmurs. “It feels… wrong.”
“I turned in the paperwork,” Kara announces, appearing in the doorway of Bobbi’s office. “I’m taking next semester off from teaching.”
“Good,” Bobbi says. “Good, you deserve that.”
Kara wraps her arms around herself. “I should just be able to live with it,” she says. “Tons of people with endometriosis do.”
“Because they’ve had years to adjust, probably,” Bobbi says. “You just got diagnosed, babe. You need time to reevaluate and figure out how to feel better.”
“Yeah,” Kara sighs, coming over to kiss Bobbi’s head. “Are you coming tonight?”
“I have so much grading to do,” Bobbi says apologetically. “You should go without me.”
“If you’re sure,” Kara says, drawing the syllables out. “Fine. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Kara doesn’t come home that night, though. Kara doesn’t come home.
“My outie,” Barb whispers, leaning closer to the others, “I found out she was married.”
The others are quiet for a long moment. Phi makes a face like she’s deeply uncomfortable (which makes sense, considering other recent events); Mel and Alfie exchange anxious glances. Finally Alfie asks, sounding surprisingly choked up, “Was?”
“She died,” Barb says. “Or I thought she died. She’s Miss Lynn.”
“What?” Mel asks.
“I don’t know how, or why,” Barb says, “but I saw her picture - she’s, she was…”
“Did you ever feel anything?” Phi asks. “For Miss Lynn.”
“No,” Barb exclaims. “No. I don’t know. Maybe. It doesn’t matter. I have to get her out.”
They buffet Kara from room to room, costume to costume, wig to wig, story to story.
She exercises.
She reads.
She eats.
She sleeps.
She answers questions she doesn’t understand.
She remembers in her body but forgets in her brain.
They treat her like a lab rat, and she thinks she doesn’t mind being one if it means she gets to see Bobbi again at the end of it.
The doctor tells her that Bobbi thinks she’s dead, that Bobbi has moved on.
She hits the doctor over the head with a chair.