Work Text:
It starts with a nosebleed.
Helly hovers nearby, the image of blood smeared on his cheek still fresh in her mind. Miss Huang's voice fades to a dull hum as her gaze catches on Mark's hand, his fingers wrapped around the edge of the desk. Her mind immediately flashes to exactly where that hand was not even an hour ago, and she's sure her face is flushed as she recalls how wonderful he made her feel.
Everything since she returned to the severed floor has been a nightmare that she can’t escape, but this. This is one good thing. Something that belongs just to her and Mark.
Something that no one can take away from her.
But then Miss Huang suddenly calls out Mark's name, her voice shrill with panic. When Helly looks at him, his face is paler than it should be, his gaze vacant, and a thick tendril of fear slithers through her veins.
Miss Huang flutters around him, and Helly edges closer, nails digging into har palms. He looks like he’s in some kind of stupor, his dark eyes unfocused. She has a moment of panic. Did what they just do, do this to him? Is this her fault?
Beads of sweat appear on his forehead as he looks around the room like he's never seen it before. A furrow grows between his brows as he seemingly takes it all in. His gaze lands on her and it's like he's looking at a stranger.
Her stomach drops to her toes before slingshotting into her throat.
It's him but it's not him.
And then he blinks, like he's coming out of a daze. Glances at her with that familiar grin, the one that feels like a secret just between them.
Miss Huang peppers him with more questions, her voice more clipped, her hands unsteady. Helly feels unsteady herself, although she’s not exactly sure why. It was all of ten seconds when everything felt wrong. Surely she just imagined it. The way he seemed to not recognize her.
But in the back of her mind, she remembers that Helena Eagan masqueraded as her for days without anyone knowing. Remembers thinking that she’d notice if that happened to Mark—she would be able to tell.
As she watches him hold a wad of tissues against his face, she’s not so sure now.
Once his nose stops bleeding, they’re dismissed by Miss Huang, who still seems rattled. Mark slips his hand into hers as they make the long trek back to MDR, and makes a stupid joke like he can tell that she’s unsettled, and it all feels so normal that she pushes that weird blip out of her mind.
And she breathes again.
*
He sets a mug of coffee on her desk and she smiles gratefully.
“Thanks,” she says. “Just what I needed.”
He grins at her, tapping his fingertips on the edge of her desk. “How’s it going?”
She shrugs. “I’m not making much progress, but also I really don’t care.”
“Can you two stop canoodling out here in the open?” Dylan says. He eyes them both without taking his hands off his keyboard. “Some of us are trying to work.”
Mark reaches out to trace his fingers along the back of her hand and her cheeks heat as she catches his hand in her own. They share a secret smile until there’s an emphatic throat clearing from the other side of the work station.
As Mark settles into his own seat, she warms her hands on her mug, ignoring the numbers floating on her screen and raising the cup to her lips instead.
And then she promptly spits it out. What the fuck?
Mark has made her coffee more times than she can count, and every time he’s made it just how she likes it—cream, one sugar. And this…not that.
When she glances over at him, he seems oblivious, getting to work on his own refining, and she stares back at the mug and then back at him, her mind racing.
It’s not the end of the world to mix up how someone takes their coffee, she rationalizes. It probably happens all the time.
She hears his fingers stutter on the keys, recognizing a change in routine without even seeing him. The familiar rhythmic sound suddenly halts. He sucks in a deep breath and holds it for an uncomfortably long time, and for some reason, she freezes for a moment too.
And then he slams his hands down on his desk and she leaps to her feet, peering over the divider between them.
"What the hell?" Dylan says, his head appearing over the top of the other divider. "You okay, man?"
Mark doesn't look okay, exactly, but she can't put her finger on why. He glances up at them and smiles in what she's sure is supposed to be a reassuring way, but all it does is make the nerves that have been lingering since that weird moment with the nosebleed come alive once again.
"What’s wrong?" she asks.
"Thought I saw something," he says, and for a moment she thinks he's going to explain, but he simply lets out a breath and shifts in his seat. “It was nothing.”
She presses her lips together, and she can tell that he knows she doesn't quite believe him.
"I'm fine," he says. His eyes are wide and earnest, and she can’t help comparing them to the moment he looked at her like she was a stranger.
He turns his focus back to his computer and she lowers herself back into her seat, chewing on her bottom lip. Through the gap in their workspaces, she watches him shove his hands into his hair, shoulders slumping as he buries his face into his palms.
She isn't convinced.
*
MDR is silent, save for the gentle clacking of keyboards. Her eyes blur as she stares at the numbers on the screen, waiting for any to jump out at her.
It’s routine at this point, an average day on the job, even if she has no fucking clue what that job exactly is.
And then it’s not.
One minute Mark's sitting at his desk, his face relaxed and at ease, and the next he's gone. His chair goes skittering across the room as she and Dylan both leap to their feet in surprise.
She immediately chases after him, Dylan's confused shout echoing down the hallway behind her. Mark’s just ahead, the sound of his pounding feet leading the way as he tears through the endless hallways like a madperson. Her breath heaves, her lungs clenching for air, and as she pushes through the discomfort she takes a moment to curse her outie for not being in better shape.
He's breathless and jittery when she finally catches up, pacing a quick path up and down a hallway she's never been in before. There’s a manic energy about the way he’s moving—he’s muttering to himself but she can’t quite make out what he’s saying.
There’s a familiar paper clenched in his hand, and she braces her hands on her legs as she studies him. She hadn’t realized he’d gone back for it.
“Mark?” she ventures, once she’s caught her breath. “What are you doing?”
He whirls around and for a moment he seems confused, like he can’t remember what he’s doing either.
“I was just…I’m not sure,” he admits. He glances around, down at the paper in his hand, at her. The silence feels suffocating, like there’s more happening here than either of them realize.
“You’re not sure?” she repeats, and part of her wants to needle him, push him until he admits that something is wrong. But a bigger part of her sees the confusion in his eyes, the trickle of fear as he looks down at his own hands like he’s looking at a stranger.
She thinks about how manipulative Helena was when she was first sent down here—refusing her requests and recording videos that made it clear just how little she thought of them all. How she then snuck in here pretending to be Helly.
Their outies seem to just do what they want, without any regard for how it might affect them—their innies. Like they forget that they’re actual living breathing people, with wants and needs and lives, and people who care about them. They’re not just chess pieces they can move around however they want.
Maybe he’s just as lost as she is.
And so she takes his hand, squeezing gently. “Let’s look at this together.”
*
One morning they sneak away, when the stolen glances and secret smiles become too much to handle. All she can think about is his hands on her body, the way he makes her feel. It’s distracting. He’s distracting.
Dylan rolls his eyes and tells them to “have fun refining,” not even looking away from his screen.
She feels light and floaty, the way she only does around Mark. Their fingers intertwine as they make their way through the maze of hallways, slotting together like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and it takes forever to get anywhere because she keeps stopping to kiss him.
“We’re never gonna get there,” he laughs against her lips.
“I don’t care,” she says. It’s not like they have anything better to do.
He grins at her, wide and happy, and her heart trips. She leans in and kisses him again, fingers curled into the lapels of his jacket, his body warm against hers.
She loses track of time. Everything narrows down to him. To this moment. Them.
His breath stutters against her lips as he shifts slightly away, and then she hears it.
Gemma.
She immediately stiffens. Who the hell is Gemma?
He doesn’t seem to notice, his fingers still soft against her cheek as she pulls away. When their eyes meet, he stares at her, but she swears he’s not actually seeing her. There’s something in his gaze that doesn’t ring true, that just doesn’t feel right.
She holds her breath, holds still, holds him, like if she holds on tightly enough everything will go back to normal.
And then it does.
He blinks and his entire demeanor changes, his body canting towards her, hip lips chasing hers, as though nothing out of the ordinary happened.
But she hears the name echoing in her mind long after they’re back at their desks, cheeks flushed and lips swollen.
Gemma. Gemma. Gemma.
*
At lunch, he brings her raisins, sets the package in front of her like it’s completely normal and when she laughs and playfully tosses it back at him, he stares at her, puzzled.
“You don’t…like that?” he says slowly, and it’s a question but it’s also not, like he’s simply thinking out loud. He turns the small package over in his hands, looking down at it.
She laughs. “Uh, no. They’re disgusting and I’ve said that since my very first day,” she tells him. When he just continues to stare at her, her stomach knots uncomfortably. “Are you…okay?”
He shakes his head, blinks hard, before tossing a grin her way. “Yeah, of course. I was just kidding around.”
She knows he wasn’t though. She saw him falter, the crack in the facade that he couldn’t quite hide. It’s one more piece of a puzzle she isn’t sure she wants to assemble. But mysteries bug her and she’s not good at leaving things alone, and so whether she wants them to or not, she’s mentally assembling a list of worries.
“Were you?” she says steadily.
He cocks his head, still grinning. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve been acting weird for days.”
He scoffs. “No I haven’t.”
“You have,” she insists. “Ever since you got that nosebleed. Are you really not going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” He seems confused, which only frustrates her further.
“What’s going on with you?” she bursts out. “You’re really going to pretend like nothing’s going on?”
He shrugs, but the flicker of unease that crosses his face makes her feel sick. “There’s nothing going on,” he repeats. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to trust me,” she shouts. “I thought you did trust me.”
“I do trust you,” he replies, his eyes searching hers like he can find an answer there if he looks hard enough. “Of course I do.”
“You sure have a funny way of showing it.” She stands up and tosses the remains of her lunch into the trash can, and leaves him sitting there.
She can feel his eyes burning into her back as she walks away. When he eventually comes back to his desk, everything between them feels awkward and wrong and filled with unspoken things. He’s hiding something from her and she doesn’t understand why.
GemmaGemmaGemma echoes through her mind on a loop.
And so she steadfastly keeps her eyes glued on her screen and her fingers on her trackball, no matter how much she wants to look in his direction.
*
It’s still early in the day, but they’re secreted away in the bathroom, because she just needed to be close to him. Her heart feels too big for her chest, electricity thrumming under her skin, her fingers itching to touch him, like some part of her can sense the ticking clock looming near.
Their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces and she still marvels at the sensation of his hands on her skin, the taste of his kisses.
It should probably feel dirty, but it’s one of the only places they have guaranteed privacy. Yesterday’s argument still lingers in her mind, but she pushes forward, trying to get answers to the one unrelenting question that’s refused to give her any peace.
“Who’s Gemma?” she asks, their foreheads pressed together.
He blinks at her, his knuckles tracing the knobs of her spine. “Is she from O&D?”
“You tell me.”
He shrugs, but she’s not entirely convinced. “I’m not sure.”
And then he’s kissing her again and her legs wrap around his hips, and any thought of Gemma is banished clear from her mind.
Later, they’re shooting the shit and he completely forgets a story she told him the other day. Looks at her in confusion, like a lost puppy, a furrow in his brow that’s becoming more and more commonplace.
He forgets the way she takes her coffee, her favourite snack from the vending machine. Mixes up which side of her neck is more sensitive, a flush staining his cheeks as he kisses his way to the opposite side.
It feels like things are unraveling and she’s the only one who’s noticing.
“Who’s Gemma?” she asks again, because the name has been a pounding refrain in her skull for days.
He shovels the last bit of his lunch into his mouth. “You asked me that earlier. Why is she so important?”
His face is calm but there’s a slight pinch at his mouth that makes her breath stutter, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. She doesn’t respond and he presses a kiss to the top of her head on his way out, almost thoughtlessly, like it’s just muscle memory, and it makes her heart want to burst because she cares so much about him, and he called her Gemma.
“You said her name,” she says quietly, and he pauses in the doorway to the kitchen. “The other day, when we were kissing in the hallway.”
His shoulders are tense as he slowly turns around. “I don’t remember that.”
“I do.”
“Why would I call you Gemma?” he says, and he then stiffens for a moment, his eyes clouding over.
“Mark?”
It goes on long enough that she gets to her feet, slaps him gently on the cheek, trying to wake him up. Her heart feels like it’s going to erupt right out of her chest, until he sags, his entire body going limp.
“Helly,” he says, his arms around her, his forehead pressed against her neck. “Helly.”
She holds him tighter against her, struggling to keep them both standing but refusing to let him fall. “Yeah,” she says, her lips right near his ear. “It’s me.”
*
And then he doesn't come to work for a long time. She starts a tally after the first day, a knot of worry tangled in her gut. As the days without him drag on, she tries to get answers, but Mr Milchick brushes her off with placid excuses that tell her literally nothing. Dylan seems concerned enough, but he disappears every couple of days too and always comes back looking unusually satisfied.
And then on the eighth day, he steps off the elevator.
Mark looks at her warily, but she doesn't even pause to calculate why before throwing her arms around him.
"I was so worried," she whispers into his neck, holding him for another moment longer before drawing away and smacking him on the chest. "Don't fucking do that again."
He looks slightly puzzled. "Do what?"
“You’ve been gone for eight days,” she says. “No one would tell us anything real. What happened? Are you okay?”
There’s a long stretch of silence, broken only by the faint humming of the hallway lights. The relief that had burst open in her chest slowly drains away the longer he’s silent, the space between them stretching until she feels like she’s on the other side of a chasm.
She thinks back to that nosebleed all those days ago. The flicker of someone else on his face.
Gemma.
All of the other clues that lead her to an answer she’s not sure she wants.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” she ventures. Maybe he’s still pissed at her about their argument. She spent hours agonizing over it, turning every word over in her head. Thinking about what she should have done differently, if she was the reason he hadn’t returned.
But there’s no way that’s the case because when he leaves here, he doesn’t remember her. He has a whole other life that she’s not a part of, where she’s not even a thought in the back of his mind. They only exist down here, tucked away from the outside world.
He looks faintly confused for a moment, like he’s racking his brain for context. “You don’t need to apologize.”
And then he turns and strides down a hallway in the opposite direction of MDR.
“Where are you going?”
This time when he turns around, there’s more emotion in the depths of his eyes than she’s ever seen—pain and despair and grief and fury. It’s him but it’s not him, and she can nearly see the warring parts on his face, in the way his fingers reach for her before closing into a fist.
How can this be possible? It shouldn’t be, right? It’s irreversible, they said. Permanent.
But the proof is standing right here in front of her, a man she knows intimately and a stranger, all wrapped up into a single person who still makes her pulse race.
What happened to him out there? She thinks she can see the echoes of what he went through in the lines on his face, the dark smudges under his eyes. Her eyes sting with tears the longer they stare at each other, her heart in her throat because she wants to understand, to push him to tell her everything.
But he’s not hers. Not entirely.
She stumbles forwards and he flinches, before softening.
“I’m going to burn this fucking place to the ground.”
His voice is hard. Unyielding. But then he looks at her and it’s the same Mark she’s always known. The one who likes to switch off the lights at the end of the day because he finds it satisfying when they rhythmically turn off one by one. The one who has a ticklish spot on his right side. The one she cares about.
He's still in there, even if he's not the only one.
“You wanna help?” he asks, and her stomach flips.
They’re on the edge of a precipice and she can feel change in the air as she takes a deep breath. He might not be exactly hers, and she’s a little terrified about what’s going to happen next, but there’s no way she’s letting him do this alone.
A smile creeps over her face as she nods. “You bet I fucking do.”