Work Text:
She looks out of place in Mary’s office. All the mess that Mary never sees becomes so apparent when she’s sitting in the middle of it, straight back and pursed lips.
And yet, she also looks like Mary’s entire office was built just for her to sit in. Mary wonders if she makes every room feel like this, like it’s her room only and you are just a guest in it.
Mary wouldn’t know. She’s never seen her outside her office. She just showed up one day, and disappeared just as quickly. Then she was back the next day, a new determination in her eyes, demanding to read Mary’s work. Mary doesn’t know whether she should trust her, but she does know she doesn’t want to cross her. So, Mary shows her her old work, everything she’s published. For once, she’s glad she hasn’t published anything about the Cave yet.
It’s been five days of finding Marisa Coulter already in her office every morning when Mary comes in. Mary hasn’t heard anything from college staff about a very conspicuous stranger letting herself in, but that’s not surprising. Mrs Coulter seems to have a talent for letting herself into places she shouldn’t be in.
On day three, Mary brought in two lattes from the Costa down the street instead of her usual coffee. The gesture appeared to be appreciated, although Marisa didn’t so much as mention it. She did offer a sly smirk, though, a smile like a chess player who just figured out their next move. It would be slightly scary, if Marisa had noticed and wiped off her foam moustache beforehand. Instead, it’s just endearing.
Mary doesn’t know when she began thinking of the woman as endearing, but she has. And she really, really shouldn’t. She can tell there’s something dangerous about her. But there’s something lost, too, and Mary wants to find it.
Today, Mary walked in again with two coffees and a ‘good morning’, almost like they’re coworkers, almost like this is normal. She found Marisa sitting at what became her usual spot at Mary’s desk. Nothing unusual. Except there was a monkey, a real-life, live monkey, perched on the back of her seat. It’s just there. A monkey.
Marisa didn’t mention it, didn’t even raise her eyes from the paper she was already reading. The monkey observed Mary with a fascinated look on its strange little face as she crossed the room and handed Marisa her coffee. Without looking up, Marisa grabbed the paper cup from Mary’s hand. Their fingers brushed against each other for an instant. If Marisa noticed it she didn’t show it. The strange part was that the monkey had a sudden jolting movement, right in that moment.
Now Mary is sitting in front of her computer, trying her best to do some work while a monkey stares at her intently and she fails not to stare at Marisa. She goes over some of her notes from the past weeks, but gets distracted every couple of words. Once, it’s Marisa’s low hum of assent over something she’s read that calls Mary’s attention away from the screen. Then, it’s her swift movement, picking up a pen and adding a note on the margin, without ever asking for Mary’s permission. A whiff of Marisa’s scent or the sound of her taking a sip from the coffee are enough for Mary to stop being able to compute any of the words on her notes for several moments.
When Marisa finally raises her gaze, it’s impossible for Mary not to notice.
‘Who’s Sister Sophia?’ She asks with mature intrigue in her voice, masking childish curiosity.
She must have gotten far back enough to read her old PhD work.
‘Oh, that would be me. I went by that name.’
This doesn’t seem to make anything clearer for Marisa. In fact, her brow furrows a bit deeper.
‘Why?’
Mary shrugs. ‘After Saint Sophia.’
Marisa inhales visibly at the mention of the saint, and her hand maintains a certain grace even as it grips on the paper in her hand with far too much vehemence.
Mary doesn’t know what caused the reaction, so she tries to explain. ‘My birthday’s on September 18, which apparently is Saint Sophia, so I chose her name. Well, it was more chosen for me. But I liked it. It means knowledge.’
‘I don’t understand,’ replies Marisa, back to her stoic demeanour. It’s a simple statement, all hints of curiosity gone, hidden away like the admission is itself too vulnerable.
That’s when Mary remembers Marisa does not know about her past.
‘That’s my name from when I was a nun,’ Mary states matter-of-factly, unsure how one is supposed to act in this situation.
Marisa nods. She stays silent for a moment, studying Mary’s face. The monkey steps onto the desk, eyes on Mary.
Four is way too many eyes on her for Mary’s taste, so she gets up, pretending to look for something under a pile of paper on the windowsill. When she turns back Marisa is still looking at her.
Marisa hums, pursing her lips.
‘So why weren’t you just Sister Malone?’
‘Because you have to choose a new name when y- wait?’ Mary stops on her tracks. ‘Sister Malone? I think you mean Mary.’
The monkey tilts its head from atop a file on Mary’s desk.
‘Who’s Mary?’ Marisa asks.
There is a long silence. Mary isn’t sure what is happening anymore. And her grip on events was tenuous at best already. She just stands there, a file of useless papers in hand, not knowing what to say.
‘Mary?’ She repeats her own name out loud, and it sounds foreign. ‘It’s me. Mary Malone?’
For the first time, Mary hears the monkey make a sound, and it’s a kind of low screech like a question.
Marisa doesn’t say anything. And then she does.
‘Your name is Mary.’
It’s not a question. It’s a realisation. Her face is blank, like she’s just made a huge discovery. The monkey jumps onto her lap and she lets it.
Then she lets out a chuckle. Mary doesn’t think she’s ever seen her laugh. It starts out a little unnerving, her gaze lost in the air. Then she looks at Mary, and her chuckle flourishes into the stilted laughter of someone who hasn’t let out a sound like this in a long time. Marisa’s eyes sparkle with amusement.
Mary laughs along. What else could she do?
‘Mary Malone…’ Marisa enounciates, then laughs again.
‘What did you think my name was?’
Marisa regains composure and replies, almost.
‘Carlo… Charles always calls you Malone’
Mary wonders if she’s referring to the same Charles Mary’s thinking of. All the people who have been springing up in her life lately seem connected to each other somehow.
‘You thought my name was just… Malone? Don’t people have two names in your world?’
‘We do. I thought… I didn’t think you had a woman’s name.’
Of course.
‘Well, I do.’ Mary smiles, hoping she’ll feel less awkward. She extends a hand, trying to make a joke of it. ‘Mary Malone, pleased to meet you.’
For a moment, Mary thinks Marisa is going to leave her there, hand hanging in the air. Then, the monkey nudges its head forward. Marisa takes Mary’s hand in for a shake, still sitting down.
‘Marisa Coulter.’ Her face opens up into a smile. ‘Very pleased indeed.’
Mary has never seen her smile like that. It’s… considerably less scary than other times. It makes Mary’s stomach flip.
Mary realises she’s been holding Marisa’s hand mid-air for a moment, so she lets go. She rubs her fingers against her palm to check her hand wasn’t clammy, because, suddenly, the clamminess of her hands is something she cares about.
‘A nun, mh?’ Marisa intervenes raising one eyebrow, before Mary can think of ways to change topics.
Mary can feel herself blush, the treacherous warmth crawling to her cheeks.
‘Yes. Order of Saint Clare. It’s not as limiting as it sounds. As you can see, I began my studies at the convent.’
‘A nun physicist…’ Marisa lets out, between herself, as if sounding out the concept.
‘Well, not for long, as you can probably tell. Left the convent pretty soon after I published that.’
Her head points to the desk, where the study that started all this lays. It sits on top of the others that are not quite as revealing about Mary’s past, if anything by virtue of having been printed out directly from Mary’s personal, nameless first draft. The incriminating thesis, in its shiny red cover, sticks out among them like Mary’s curls always used to stick out from under her veil.
‘Why did you leave?’ Marisa asks her. No, demands of her.
Mary opens her mouth to give the rehearsed answer she usually gives to this question, when it’s unavoidable. What comes out is not that.
‘I fell in love.’ Simple as that.
Marisa smiles a feline smile.
‘And who is the lucky gentleman?’ she asks.
There it is. Mary answers the truth, though what is leading her to do so is unclear even to herself.
‘ Was . It was… not a gentleman.’
Marisa’s eyes widen, her smile gone. The monkey sits up, like it understands what is being said.
This bit is always the hardest. The pity. The understanding looks. The confused reactions at a past tense people don’t know what to with. Mary braces for it.
It doesn’t come.
What Mary gets instead is an intensity behind Marisa’s eyes, and the monkey walking towards her. It takes a couple of steps, off of Marisa’s lap and onto the armrest on her chair. It cannot get to the desk before Marisa stops it by placing a firm hand on its back.
‘The first day we met,’ Marisa speaks, ‘You asked me what theology had to do with science.’
Mary nods.
‘I think you know more about theology and science than you let on.’
Marisa’s tone is inquisitive, and although she is sitting down and Mary is still standing, taller than her for once, higher ground and all, Mary can’t help but feel like she is being interrogated.
‘I really don’t,’ she confesses. ‘I thought I knew, that’s why I left the Church. But now… I’m finding things out that-’
She stops herself. She wasn’t going to talk to Marisa about the Cave, that was the whole point of only showing her old work.
Marisa doesn’t comment on the interruption. She lifts her hand from the monkey, and as soon as she does the animal rushes to Mary’s side, and starts observing her from close up.
Marisa stands up, her gaze never leaving Mary’s, unreadable as usual. But this time, it’s a different kind of unreadable. There is a softness to it.
‘I’m not sure about any of that anymore.’ Marisa surprises Mary with her earnestness. ‘Dust, multiple worlds, I thought it was heresy. But here I am.’
Mary smiles, and hopes it looks encouraging.
‘Here you are.’
Marisa nods.
‘This world is so different. Would you not be questioning things if you were me? Would you not be questioning God himself?’
There is the sharpness of rage under each of Marisa’s words. Mary is speechless.
‘Do you know what a daemon is?’
Mary shakes her head.
Marisa gestures to the monkey, who is now so close to Mary that, for a moment, Mary thinks it’s her Marisa is pointing to.
‘Your daemon is your soul,’ Marisa explains calmly. ‘A great part of my studies has been dedicated to understanding the bond between humans and these… things.’
The monkey whimpers. It’s easy now to see why it acts the way it does.
‘But I never thought I’d see a world where people don’t have them.’
It breaks Mary’s heart, the tone in her voice. She doesn’t understand this, can’t even begin to comprehend all the things Marisa is talking about, she knows this. But there is little to understand about the resentment in her words. Mary wonders if this has anything to do with the monkey only showing up today, she asks herself if this is normal.
‘We do still have souls, you know?’ Mary says, with a small shrug. ‘And sometimes it’s a blessing that they’re not visible, sometimes it’s a curse. But I guess you know that.’
‘I hope you know how lucky you are, to not have your entire being out there, for people to know.’
‘I’m not sure… What if you do want someone to know you?’
That seems to leave Marisa stunned, like she’s the one who doesn’t understand now. She looks away from Mary, appearing intent on studying the leaves on one of Mary’s plants, on the windowsill.
Mary clears her throat.
‘How did you find the papers?’ She proposes as an attempt to steer the conversation back to a point where Marisa will feel comfortable again. ‘I can give you some of my mentor’s stuff, if you’re getting bored of mine,’ she continues, in response to Marisa’s silence.
Mary crosses the room, genuinely interested to see if she can figure out where she buried Dr Murphy’s books, and she tramples a pile of files in the process. Oh well, she’ll have to fix that later.
She starts digging through her library for the books, then crouches to see if they are in the pile of volumes on the floor, in the corner of the room. When she finds what she was looking for, she smiles at the image of Dr. Murphy smiling from the back cover, the first face to be kind to her as she re-entered academia after the convent.
She turns around in triumph, still hunched on the floor, with the book in her hand, and sees the monkey right in front of her. The sight almost scares Mary, but the creature’s little dark eyes are wide and full of admiration.
‘He seems to like you.’
Marisa’s voice comes from above them, where she’s now standing in the middle of the room.
‘I like him,’ replies Mary with a smile, dusting the book off and standing up to hand it to Marisa.
Marisa takes the tome, but seems unimpressed.
‘I was enjoying yours,’ she says. ‘This one,’ she taps on the red cover, ‘You should have it reprinted, with your real name on it.’
Mary chuckles at the thought.
‘Oh, no one’s going to want to read that… I doubt anyone cared about my thesis when it came out, let alone ten years later. I keep it only for sentimental value.’
Marisa frowns, then shoots a look to the monkey, who swiftly grabs Mary’s thesis in its tiny hands, pulling it closer to himself.
‘I think it’s good,’ Marisa says.
‘Thank you.’
It amazes Mary, that this woman would be standing here, in the middle of her office, getting protective over her decade-old writing. She finds it funny. She finds it sweet.
Mary takes one step closer to Marisa, and tries to say what she couldn’t earlier.
‘You can know me, you know? If you want. Daemon or not, you can know me. I can know you, if you let me.’
She sees a nod, then a smug grin.
‘I already know your secret, Sister Sophia.’
As she speaks, Marisa bats her eyes playfully.
Mary sniggers a half-laugh.
‘Oh, you think that’s my secret? Anyone can find out I was a nun with a quick Google search. You’re going to work a bit harder than that to learn my secrets.’
Mary congratulates herself for thinking of a reply on the spot. Mentioning Google was a good move, it seems to have thrown off Marisa, who is now simply looking at Mary with those wide eyes of hers.
Then, it is Mary who is thrown off, by a pair of lips on hers, and her back against the library.
Mary kisses back.
It’s not perfect. It’s intense, and it’s eager, and perhaps a bit toothy. The corners of a shelf are planting themselves into Mary’s shoulder blades, but she doesn’t really care, because Marisa’s hands are on her shoulders, and hers are on Marisa’s hips.
Only when they break apart does Mary remember about the monkey. She feels something pull on her trouser leg, and there he is, sitting close to Mary’s feet with his little eyes closed, and his little face blissful.
Mary looks back up, positively giddy. Marisa looks at her, thoroughly kissed.
Then, she leans in and whispers:
‘I like you, Mary Malone.'