Work Text:
Harmony Cobel watches as innie Mark pushes Gemma—Ms. Casey, to him—through the stairwell doors and doesn’t follow. Harmony watches him hesitate, even as Gemma screams at him from outside. Watches him turn around at the sound of his red headed coworker’s voice behind him. Watches them run away together, hand in hand, back down the winding corridor along the severed floor.
She fumes. The plan was not supposed to go like this. It was risky, yes, but it was basically foolproof. Innie Mark discovering agency was never part of the plan. And more than that…the barrier held, for Mark and Gemma’s innies. It seems like there was nothing there, no memory at all, no bleed through of emotion. Five years of their lives, forgotten just like that? Guilt and anger pulse through her veins. No, she can’t accept that. She won’t. Through blurry vision, Harmony flicks the override called “Goldfish”. Sets it to three minutes.
This time it’ll work, she tells herself. She grinds her teeth together. The chip is flawed, she knows this far too well. So why does he feel nothing for her?
☯
Gemma bursts back in the door, her desperate wail for Mark cutting off sharply as Ms. Casey stumbles and catches her breath, not knowing why she’s here. Her throat is hoarse but she doesn’t remember doing the yelling.
Mark comes running down the hall, panicked. His voice fills with relief when he sees her.
“Oh! Thank goodness, you’re here. You were right next to me just a second ago. Anyways, we need to get you out, outside for real! Come on!” He grabs her hand and continues their journey toward the stairwell for the second time.
He’s sprinting, eyes locked on his goal, and the momentum and their locked hands pull them both outside.
There’s a flicker where Mark and Gemma adjust, and suddenly they are themselves. They are reunited.
Harmony feels a squeeze in her chest. They’re free. They can escape. Her plan worked. “Go, now. Just go…” she whispers.
“Mark!” A call comes from inside the hallway, piercing through the cracks in the door.
No, Harmony thinks. Not again.
Mark and Gemma both turn at the sound of her voice.
“Helena,” Mark says, wonderingly. No—what was her name? He closes his eyes and tries to recall. The name comes to him not from his conversation with his other self, but from his own memories. His own experiences. Helly.
Flashes of moments flicker behind his eyelids.
“The work is mysterious and important.”
“Hey, that’s good, that sounds just like me.”
“Yeah, like mid-argument over car wash coupons.”
“Honey, you’re cutting them wrong.”
“Mark?” Gemma’s voice startles him out of his thoughts. “Let’s go, baby. We have to go.”
She sounds frantic. Her teeth have started to chatter.
Mark opens his eyes to see Helly has run over to the other side of the door, pushing on the crash bar slightly so that the frigid air from outside enters the building. Helly blinks, the cold air sudden and biting on her skin and eyes.
“Mark,” she whispers, broken, and suddenly Mark’s vision splits in two. The pain blinds him. He falls forward, unaware of anything else. Before there’s darkness, in the far off distance he hears two voices come together, dissonant. Both screaming his name.
☯
Harmony watches Mark slip through the door and back into Helly’s arms, and her jaw drops.
He’s disoriented and stumbling, but it’s him. The innie again.
“Fuck! Shit! Kier help us all!” Harmony cries out.
How could this happen again?
She watches as Helly carefully drags Mark away from the stairwell. Her eyes flicker to Gemma’s tear streaked face as she screams and screams for Mark. A flash of pity crosses her expression, but she trudges resolutely on. Before the pair can leave Gemma’s line of sight, the dark-haired woman pushes her way back into the building, the door shutting with finality behind her. Her gasps and cries fade as the switch happens yet again.
Harmony slaps her hand over her face. She doesn’t look up to see if Mark or Helly acknowledges Ms. Casey’s presence. This is ludicrous. One more time then…
She clenches her jaw and activates “Goldfish” on the innies again.
They pause their movements, their memories of the past three minutes erasing cleanly.
☯
Mark is blinking in confusion. “Fuck, my head hurts,” he murmurs, and Helly pats around the area, searching for signs of brute force damage. She finds nothing.
“How are we here?” Helly whispers. “You need to go.”
Her eyes fall on Ms. Casey’s form. She’s on the ground still, her face flushed and wet from tears.
“You both do,” Helly says, giving Mark a gentle push away from her. She’s fighting the urge to hold on to him like a lifeline. This isn’t about her.
Mark walks over to Ms. Casey and helps her stand. He watches Helly turn the corner away from them. Hot tears well up in the corners of his eyes. He knows that she knows that she can’t watch them leave.
Harmony holds her breath. “Good girl, Helena…” This is it then. Third time’s the charm. She leans closer to the monitor, hoping to Kier and all things holy that nothing will stop their escape now. She looks at her watch. Fifteen minutes late. Devon will be furious with her if this plan doesn’t work, and she doesn’t want to incur the wrath of that woman.
Mark and Ms. Casey pace together towards the stairwell exit.
When they reach the door, she looks back at him with unsure eyes.
“Why, Mark? I don’t think I’m allowed to leave.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Casey. I don’t have time to explain. Your real life is out there.” His voice shakes. He knows Lumon is after them, that they won’t have another chance if they get caught.
“The only life I’ve ever known is in here,” Ms. Casey says, turning around. Resolute.
A flicker of understanding reaches Mark’s eyes. This unwillingness to just listen, this stubbornness. He relates all too well. His eyes harden.
As they stand there, on the precipice of losing their personhood, Mark thinks about Helly, about losing her forever. Losing himself forever.
“I want to stay,” Ms. Casey states, the most confident she has ever sounded, and Mark finds no fault with that. Hey, outie, your wife doesn’t want to leave. A pang of schadenfreude licks up his spine, making him smile darkly at the thought. Oh, how the tables turn.
“Will you stay and fight with us?” Mark asks her, and she nods quickly, eyes wide.
Mark takes in her expression and grins. “Then let’s go.”
They take off running and round the corner, where Helly is waiting for them, in shock.
“Mark? Why are you—“ she’s cut off when Mark knocks the air out of her in a huge hug.
“I’m not leaving. We’re not leaving.”
They break apart and Helly looks at Mark in awe.
He nods to Ms. Casey, who waves shyly at Helly.
Helly processes this for a moment, murmurs, “But your outie—?”
“Fuck my outie,” Mark cuts in roughly. “He doesn’t care about you or Ms. Casey. Or Dylan, or Lorne and the rest of MN, or Felicia and the rest of O&D, or C&M or any of the other innies in here. I do. And he doesn’t control me. Not anymore.”
He cuts himself off, catching his breath.
There is a stunned silence.
Then Helly leaps forward and embraces Mark in a tight hug. When she releases him, she turns to Ms. Casey and hugs her too.
Ms. Casey yelps, then sinks into the hug, stiffly wrapping her arms around Helly’s back.
“I’ve never hugged anyone before,” she says in a quiet voice.
“Sorry, I didn’t ask if you requested one,” Helly says, the sound muffled into her neck, not letting her go.
They break apart and Ms. Casey’s smile is watery.
“I would have said yes,” she admits. Helly grins widely.
They’re interrupted by the sound of cymbals crashing and french horns blaring.
They look at each other.
“We’d better go help,” Mark says. They start running together, deeper into the maze, deeper into the home that they once called hell.
☯
Harmony Cobel slams her fist on the control panel, feeling her patience reach a boiling point. Well, what’s one more.
She flicks the switch on again.