Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s not surprising that the first image that’s somehow pushed through from his innie is of Gemma. He thinks maybe there’s less separation there than he’d always suspected, that maybe it’s some conscious decision on the part of his other self: to show him Gemma. 

She’s alive. Mark knows it’s true now, in a way he hadn’t before. 

He thinks maybe this means Reghabi was right: he just needed a push. He pulls out old photo albums, sleeps with Gemma’s favorite sweater draped across his pillow, eats all of her favorite foods—and tries not to feel desperate when, day after day, he doesn’t see her again. Tries not to feel like a failure when he can’t even call to mind the image of her he’d seen before. 

At night he silently begs himself for something else, something more. Talks to himself like a different person. Morning comes, as it always seems to do, and though he wakes with his face pressed against Gemma’s sweater, he’s no closer to her than he has been for two years. 

He pads down the stairs and into the living room, where he flips the TV to the news. He rarely watches it at this point, but at least there’s something to help swallow the silence of winter and cold and grief and loss. In the kitchen, he chokes down whatever-the-fuck concoction that Reghabi mixes for him and pours himself a bowl of cereal–Special K Fruit and Yogurt, Gemma’s favorite–and milk. The Kier Chronicle sits folded in the middle of the table, evidence that Reghabi has already been out and about, though there’s no sign of her now, and for that, Mark is grateful. 

He flips the paper to the back and studies the empty crossword puzzle. He hasn’t done one in years, hasn’t even stopped to look at one. He’s horrible at them, after all; his mind just doesn’t work in the same way as…well, Gemma’s. He doesn’t excel at wordplay, at remembering facts and names. As he studies the black and white squares, he half expects to see her blocky, all-capital letters filling the boxes. But in the interest of the experiment, in the interest of doing things Gemma would do and loving things Gemma would love, he picks up the pen and begins.

The puzzle should calm his frantic mind, should focus him on something, but it only makes him more distracted. He squeezes letters between black boxes, scribbles them out, and berates himself for daring to use a pen. He’s pondering what the hell “Okeanid's kin” could mean when his pulse picks up and suddenly he’s breathless, clinging to the edges of his cheap plastic bistro table and—

He leans over a bathroom sink, water running from the tap, his hands clutching the sides of the ceramic basin. He has no idea what’s happening, or why he feels like this: panicky, out of breath. 

There’s a voice on the other side of a closed door. “Mark? Hello?”

He isn’t sure what he’s doing here or even where here is. He just knows that when he hears that voice, his heart launches into his throat, his pulse blares in his ears, his stomach turns over. For a moment, he thinks it’s Gemma’s voice. It must be; it makes him feel the way that Gemma’s voice makes him feel. But he hardly remembers it, has videos and voicemails saved that he hasn’t listened to in years. Can’t, not yet.

“I’m going to come in.” But the door doesn’t open. 

He's desperate to see her. He pulls away from the sink, flexes his fingers, and follows that voice until—

He’s in his living room staring at his hands. His palms are crossed with the indents of the plastic lip of the table. The woman’s voice echoes in his mind until he gathers his bearings enough to realize that it’s not just in his mind anymore. She’s here—the woman, the voice. She’s right in front of him. 

He’s so close to the TV that he has to take a step back to properly focus on her. She’s stunning and stern, and his eyes trace over her features. Over the slopes of her face, her pinned-up red hair, the curve of her neck—

The shadows of her collarbones where he dips the tips of his fingers. She smiles down at him. She’s bathed in warm, red light, and she’s stunning and beautiful and feels like his. Her hair falls across her forehead as she leans down to kiss him. 

He doesn’t know where he is, but he’s all-consumed with her. He loves her. He worships her.

He lets his fingers brush over her cheeks, slide through the soft tresses of her hair and—

His fingers smudge the TV screen as he pulls them away. He can’t catch his breath. He’s suddenly all too aware that what Seth Milchick had said that night at Devon’s house, that his innie had found love, was true. But it isn’t as he’d thought, as he’d convinced himself. If Gemma is alive down there, he’d thought it would be poetic, that it would be fated, that his innie had found her, had felt what he felt, and had fallen in love with her all over again.

His throat burns and he tastes bitter guilt on the back of his tongue. It doesn’t matter that he thought Gemma was dead; it doesn’t matter that his innie was quite literally intended to lack his memories, his emotions. How many times has he looked into Gemma’s eyes and not known it was her, the same as he now looks at the woman on the screen without knowing her? He feels ashamed.

But he can’t turn away. Can’t even focus on what she’s saying over the pounding of his heart as he—

Finds himself back in the bathroom, facing her. “You couldn’t tell? That she wasn’t me?”

Anger floods his veins, tenses his muscles. Anger at himself, at her and not-her at the same time. He feels as confused by these emotions as she looks, eyes wide and searching, lower lip barely trembling. The words that bounce in his skull are I didn’t know and forgive me and how could you do this to me and nothing makes sense.

Except now he knows.

It’s not only Gemma he’s betrayed—

He sits on the couch. He tells himself that he’s getting somewhere. The woman on TV talks of Lumon; he doesn’t listen. He just watches her face. The same as the woman in the flashes of memory—if that’s what these are, memories. Her expression is harder; her voice is tighter. He thinks if he just looks a little closer, looks a little longer…he’ll figure something out. Her but not-her.

Tears cloud his vision, and he can barely make out her face. Blurry, covered over. Like charred remains, Gemma and not-Gemma. It had to be her because she’s not here. She’s not here because it had to be her.

I didn’t know. Forgive me. How could you do this to me?

He wipes his eyes—

And faces her in the hallway. He wants to touch her, comfort her, but he knows he can’t. Partly because he’s not-him and he’s not sure who she is at all. But mostly because the air is thick with his betrayal. You couldn’t tell? That she wasn’t me?

“You just have to trust me.” Her eyes are glossy, the tip of her nose pink. She’s trying to stay strong, but he knows that she’s broken, same as he is. “This is real.” She says it like she’s desperate to convince him, like she’s desperate to convince herself.  She shakes her head. “Not everything down here is a lie.”

But it’s not true, he knows. Everything’s a lie because he’s a lie. 

“And stop being a fucking asshole.”

If he weren’t so lost he’d find it funny. He thinks, Devon would like her. He thinks, Devon liked Gemma, too.

He watches her walk away—

And the TV program flashes to a commercial. The woman’s face no longer fills the screen. He doesn’t know how long she was even there, how much time passed between memories or visions or wishes. Seconds, maybe. 

Now she’s gone. 

He turns off the television. The pounding of his heart is replaced by silence. The heavy silence of winter and cold and grief and loss. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, amongst all the things he can’t remember, he trips on Petey’s words:

You carry the hurt with you. You feel it down there, too. You just don’t know what it is.