Archive of Our Own

It comes on slowly enough for Laurel not to notice, at least for the first few hours. The pain is easy to dismiss as something else, just a tension headache, or eye strain from staring down a word processor since early that morning, or not enough caffeine in her system.

That is, until Laurel stands up to stretch and grab her cardigan from where it hangs on the back of the door and she’s bombarded all at once with a throbbing pain in her temples; her vision goes blurry as she sinks back into her chair, reeling and trying to get her bearings. Even after blinking rapidly, the staticky spots in her vision remain. Suddenly she doesn’t feel so cold anymore, instead feeling much too warm. 

As a child, and even through her undergraduate years, Laurel was prone to the occasional migraine. And while she’s mostly sure that’s what this is—a migraine, albeit a really severe one—a dark inkling of doubt grows in her mind as she squeezes her eyes shut, weathering the throbbing pain behind her eyes that seems to come in waves. 

Gasping, Laurel forces herself to open her eyes as images of Dr. Daudier flash across her mind. A shiver runs down her spine and she finds herself needing to scratch at her earlobes to dispel the crawling feeling that invades her senses. 

Slowly, as if moving through water or some thicker substance, Laurel reaches for the metal water bottle next to her laptop, dented in several places and covered in worn-out vinyl stickers. She ends up greatly overestimating how heavy it is; the bottle is almost entirely empty as she picks it up, throwing herself off balance.

There’s a water fountain at the end of the hallway, she knows. It’s only ten feet away at most, yet to Laurel in her current state the walk seems like a Herculean effort. Still, her throat stings now, having been expecting water yet receiving none, so she slowly begins extricating herself from her chair. It’s a process, to say the least: every slight change in posture causes another surge of pain to shoot from the top of Laurel’s skull down to the base of her neck, and she moves as if she’s being puppeteered on delicate strings.

Once she’s acclimated to being upright, the next thing is to actually get down the hall. The fluorescent lights against the linoleum tile are bright and offensive, contrasting heavily with Laurel’s own carpeted, lamplit space. With the fingertips of her left hand skimming the wall beside her, Laurel walks slowly, one foot in front of the other, trying to keep the pain and tunnel vision at bay as the ugly gray fountain waits for her, tucked into a niche in the wall and passively buzzing with refrigeration. 

The sound of the water against stainless steel is almost calming to Laurel, but it’s still too sharp on her senses to be comfortable. Still, her throat feels better once she’s had some to drink, even if her head doesn’t. 

Then she does something—moves too fast, swallows too hard—and another pain stabs through her. Laurel hunches over, water bottle forgotten, tipped over on the floor, and clutches her forehead, fingers threading through and pulling at her hair. The thoughts creep back into her mind, the crawling sensation sends her arms tingling, and Laurel’s entire world spins.

She’s certain, at this point, there’s no use in trying to make it back to her office. Going to the end of the hall was a difficulty, but returning feels more like an impossibility. Instead, she smacks her shoulder into one of the doors beside the water fountain, bearing gender-neutral bathroom signage—Luke’s implementation—and stumbles into the dimly lit restroom. 

In the mirror, grimy from infrequent cleaning, Laurel tries looking at herself. Half of her face is obscured by her hair, tousled and itchy where it tickles her neck and cheek. To make matters worse, the static in her vision seems to have only grown, rendering entire regions of her eyesight completely useless. What is visible of her face is unappealing to Laurel; her eyes are red-rimmed, her face pale. 

Without really thinking, Laurel turns on the tap in front of her. The water on the porcelain is a different sound entirely than that of the water fountain out in the hall—much quieter, not as painful. Cupping her hands, Laurel collects some and leans over the sink. Squeezing her eyes shut just past the point where it hurts, she splashes the water onto her face, recalling the times before where such a thing has brought her at least a little relief from the stabbing pain.

This time, however, Laurel stumbles backward into the wall, spluttering and shaking her hands so vigorously that her knuckles crack. The water drips down her face, collecting at her chin before soaking into her shirt as she rubs at her eyes, trying to stop the stinging sensation but only worsening it. When she looks back up at herself, expecting to see a damp, gaunt woman, she sees for a moment a version of herself spattered with bright red blood: Dr. Daudier’s blood. 

Despite herself, and her reservations about germs, Laurel sinks to the ground. It’s the only thing she can do, desperate to not look at herself any longer. The sink still runs, and the stream of water from the faucet finally tips over the threshold into annoying and painful. Dry half-sobs escape from Laurel as she buries her face into her folded arms, hugging her knees to her chest. 

Desperate for any sort of comfort, Laurel softly rocks from side to side, hoping that the inertia will keep her feeling human. Rolling onto her hip, grimacing at the way it pops, something in Laurel’s pocket presses into her leg. She doesn’t even remember putting her phone into the back pocket of her slacks, but she must have done it at some point. Pulling it out, she has to squint at the brightness of her background. Another sob feels its way up Laurel’s throat, and she’s hit with the sudden thought that she really, really wants someone to help her. Unlocking her phone, she reaches for Luke’s contact when she remembers that he’s on a plane to Los Angeles at the moment. Defeated, Laurel lets out another half-sob, half-sigh, and scrolls through her contacts to see who else she could talk to, even though talking is the last thing she wants to do.

Between scrolling hopelessly up and down and dialing Gareth’s number, Laurel’s mind is a blur. It isn’t until the tone rings out, long and low, that Laurel fully realizes what she’s doing. Before she can hang up, though, the best worst-case scenario happens: Gareth answers.

“Laur? Are you okay?”

Gareth’s words alone send a shocking sense of calm through Laurel. “I’m… I think I…”

Laurel struggles, trying to formulate a sentence. 

“Laurel? Baby, what’s going on?”

“No, sorry, it’s… I’m… Gare…” Laurel continues to stammer, feeling a bit like she’s starting to drown in a rip current.

“Where are you? Never mind, I have your location shared. I’m on my way.”

Laurel nods, even though Gareth can’t see her. The line stays alive, interspersed with Gareth’s breathing and the distant clinking of keys and door handles, and Laurel realizes through the fog clouding her brain that Gareth is waiting for her to hang up. She does; the red button is an enticing and welcome escape from the sensory stimuli and confusion that the phone call has brought.  

Now all that Laurel can do is wait. The faucet still runs, the sound growing more and more grating by the second. Several times, she swears she can hear footsteps approaching, but each set of them pass her by. It’s around the time when most people in the building start heading home, and Laurel wants nothing more than to join that group. But her head still throbs and every slight movement brings with it agonizing, burning pain that makes her vision go even fuzzier than it already is. 

The hinges of the door swinging open are loud enough to cause Laurel to startle and blot at her tears, but her guard falls as soon as she sees Gareth’s face, furrowed with worry. 

In an instant, Gareth is on his knees beside Laurel, hands tremulously hovering, not knowing what to do. “Laurel, baby, talk to me. What’s going on?”

For a brief moment, Laurel looks up at Gareth, into those blue eyes weathered with the day’s exhaustive tasks. Her lip quivers as she finds herself unable to form an answer to his question that sounds even somewhat normal.

Aside from the noise of the faucet running and Laurel gently whimpering, the bathroom is quiet, almost serene. That is, until Gareth gathers up the nerve to reach out and stroke Laurel’s hair.

At the slight touch of his fingers and palm against her scalp, Laurel jerks back, holding her arm up in front of her face. The movement is sudden enough to startle Gareth, too, but he can’t be preoccupied with that now, not with Laurel in such a state. 

“I don’t—I don’t want to—get blood on… on you,” Laurel stammers, her stomach twisting and sinking as she sees Gareth’s face. There are no bits of brain matter or splatters of blood marring his skin, just a foreign, worried look causing his eyes to gleam under the fluorescent lights above him.

“Blood?” He asks, innocuously, tenderly. 

Laurel shakes her head, the small movement still strenuous enough to send her vision sparking like a blown power line. “Sorry,” she whispers. “I thought, um. The bugs.”

She can’t find it in herself to keep her eyes open: part of it is that she doesn’t want the glare from the lights to cause her any more pain. Another part of it is that she doesn’t want to see Gareth’s reaction; she’s sure it’s going to be even more heart-rending than the last few piteous glances he’s given her, and she doesn’t need that in her life right now. Gareth is too good for her, too good to be spending his evening on the disgusting floor of a bathroom trying to get through to her.

With her world blacked out and buzzing angrily on all sides of her, the simple closing of the faucet may as well be a knife severing the strings holding her in place. The sound dissipates, and she can hear Gareth’s breathing, and it isn’t at all soothing. 

“Laurel, I know this is really hard,” Gareth says, hands awkwardly fidgeting with his tie, “But I just need some yes or no answers so I can figure out what’s going on. So I can help you. I want to help you.”

He manages to get a nod in response, even with Laurel’s eyes still closed, her wet eyelashes heavy on the tender skin above her orbital socket. 

“Did you see any bugs?” Gareth shudders as the words leave his mouth, and he prays silently that Laurel says no. 

Laurel, in actuality, doesn’t say anything, but she cautiously shakes her head enough for Gareth to register it as a negative response.

“Did you… feel any?”

Another miniscule back-and-forth motion happens, and Gareth finally lets some of the tension out of his chest. It seems to be for naught, however, when a second later Gareth hears a high whimper from Laurel.

His heart is back to being gripped as if stuck in some sort of vice as he watches Laurel’s shoulders shake, feeling utterly helpless. “Laur, what is it?”

“Head hurts,” she finally croaks, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve, as gross as that feels. “Sorry, I feel… stupid. Obviously there were no bugs.”

Gareth stares at her for a second, looks into her teary, bloodshot eyes, and gives a slight smile. “You’re not stupid, Laur. You’re the smartest person I know.” He watches as she folds her arms back around her knees, resting her head as if it’s too heavy on her neck. “Migraine?”

“Yeah. Bad one,” she responds. “What?”

“It sure is nice to have, I dunno, normal problems. No bugs. No mind control. Just a migraine.”

“Just a migraine,” Laurel sniffles again, prompting Gareth to leave her side momentarily only to return with a handful of paper towels. “Still fucking sucks,” she says after blowing her nose.

“I know it does, babe. I know it does.”

“But,” Laurel manages a half-smile, “You do have a point. It could be worse. It could be space bugs.”

Gareth just chuckles, and for the first time since he’d found her crumpled on the bathroom floor, Laurel leans into him, letting him caress her hair. “It could be space bugs."