Work Text:
Nothing suggested that this visit was different than all of the others. Nothing at all.
It was practically textbook. Allen knew that Oppy wanted to work late tonight. So before he left his own lab, he made a pot of coffee. He poured a mug for her and for himself. Doctor Cay was working late tonight too. He could have the rest if he wanted it. It was the usual for all three of them.
After a short drive and a walk, Allen arrived at Oppy’s lab. As the ARDA research director, Oppy’s lab was impressive. It was the basis for all of the other, smaller ones inside of Red Meadow. With a cup in his left hand and the other tucked beneath his arm, Allen stepped to the door and slid it open.
Oppy was hunched over her workstation with several pieces of paper scattered around her. Her lab coat was thrown over the back of her chair, several feet away from her. Tonight she was in a simple red buttoned blouse and a pair of black slacks. She had pulled her wavy sandy hair up with a band to keep it out of her face.
Allen smiled; she had not noticed him come in. No one else would dare to disturb her when she was working this hard, lest they faced her wrath. Allen knew he was the exception. He almost didn’t want to disturb her, not when she was this engrossed in her work. Still, he was sure she needed a break.
“Coffee delivery.”
Oppy spun in her chair to face him, her brown eyes wide behind her glasses. “Oh, Allen.” She glanced at her watch. “Gosh. Is it that time already?”
“3:30. Same as always, my love.” He lifted the cup in his left hand towards her and took a sip from the cup in his right. The coffee here might be some of the worst he ever had the displeasure of tasting, but the warmth and caffeine still made him feel human.
Oppy took the coffee in both of her hands and drank. It burned her tongue. She took another sip. “Thank you.”
Allen kept the cup pressed to his lips as he stepped closer for a better look at Oppy’s work strewn haphazardly across the desk. “These waveforms still giving you trouble?”
“Yes, they’re driving me absolutely mad. I can’t figure out why they’re so drastically different in some areas, yet everything is visually normal.” She paused to take a drink. “The readings are especially prevalent near your work area.”
“Oh no,” Allen smirked. “You’re not getting me to tell you anything.”
Oppy grinned back. “Oh, come on, Allen. You can’t tell your wife why all the readings near your research lab are so odd?”
“Doctor Cay would throw me out so fast that it would make your head spin.”
“Not even for an ARDA director?”
“Not even for the president.”
Oppy sat back in her chair and crossed her arms with a huff. “What does he know,” she muttered.
Allen laughed. He placed his coffee on a small bit of empty desk then placed his hands on Oppy’s shoulders. She absently held his hand with her free one. They remained like that a while, both staring at the scattered papers without really looking at them. With Allen so close, Oppy took in the familiar scent of his cologne. She forgot about her frustration with waveforms, and her head felt light.
These fleeting moments were his reason for waking up every morning. Yes, he knew his work was important, and he was happy to do it. But these moments with her were sacred. He longed for more of them.
He leaned forward and kissed the top of Oppy’s head, taking in the scent of her shampoo. “So, about leaving ARDA,” he started, and she couldn’t stop a small smile. “I was thinking . . . how about by Christmas?”
“Yes.” Her response was automatic. It was something that they both wanted but never at the exact same time. Either Allen had something to finish for James or Oppy was on the verge of some breakthrough. They could never quite align, and this time was no different. “Maybe,” Oppy rushed to add. “I just need to solve this instability issue. I loathe to think about leaving the Olympic Peninsula like this.”
Oppy knew this mess was because of her. She had to clean it up somehow.
Allen dropped his arms from the sides of Oppy’s chair with a sigh. “There’s always more to do.”
“I know.” She turned in her chair to face him. “I’m sorry.”
Seeing her expression, he lifted his hands and gently touched either side of her face. “And I love you for it.” They held each other’s gaze for a moment. He looked away first. “I’m just wondering if you’ll really be able to walk away from all this? It’s okay if you can’t.”
She raised her hands to touch his wrists. “You abandoned the world to work here beside me. Fair’s fair.”
Who on Earth was he to take Ophelia Turner away from her creation? “LIM tech is a world-changing discovery. Your world-changing discovery. Fairness isn’t even a consideration.”
“We agreed to have children,” Oppy reasoned. “And I’m not leaving them in this hellhole.” Their children deserved to grow up in a place stable and whole, away from the chaos that LIM created. She had to fix this for everyone who was still here first, though, whether they were stuck here or they chose to stay. Then she and Allen could finally move on.
Allen noted her resolve. “Good,” he nodded. “Because I’d love to have eight.”
She laughed and lightly hit his arm. “Then I hope you’re ready to carry at least half of those yourself.”
He laughed with her. The lines on either side of his mouth and eyes crinkled when he did, and a piece of his dark hair, still somewhat shiny from hair product, fell into his eyes. She instinctively reached up to push it aside, and he leaned forward to kiss her. His stubble was rough underneath her fingertips; he hadn’t remembered to shave.
Allen pulled away first and smiled. “I love you.”
“I love you,” she returned.
He stood up straight and tapped his watch with his right index finger. “It’s almost 4 in the morning. Come home with me?”
“I’ll meet you there. I want to clean this place up a bit first, but I promise, I’ll be right behind you.”
“I’m going to hold you to that promise. You need rest, too.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you soon.” He took his empty cup from the desk and was out the door in a few quick strides.
Oppy stared after him for a moment before turning around to assess the state of her desk. As she looked from one stack of papers to the next, she began to think this really was something that could be left for later. She might be annoyed at herself when she came back, but Allen was right. She needed rest, and she wanted to rest with him.
She stood up to leave when a white light filled her vision, leaving her unable to see. A low rumbling came from somewhere above her. Frozen in place and blinded, she looked in vain for the source. There was a series of cracks, each one differing in volume. As she stared upwards, the ceiling rushed toward her.
***
Oppy first became aware of something lying on top of her. Something heavy. Then she felt that whatever she was lying on was extremely uncomfortable and not flat. Her arms and legs were bent in painful angles. The longer she remained still, the more unbearable this position became. Her limbs didn’t want to cooperate, though. They hurt more when she tried to move them.
What the hell happened?
Everything was dark now. What had that blinding light been, though? Whatever was on top of her was making it hard to breathe. It was heavy and pinning her down. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Dust flooded her nose and mouth, and she coughed.
That was even more painful than just lying still.
It was easier to remain where she was. Allen would know that she was in her lab and –
Allen had just left before that flash of light. Had he still been in the lab when this happened?
Oppy felt around as best as she could for some kind of purchase. After some time, her left hand closed around what she assumed was some kind of metal pipe. She tugged on it a few times, and it didn’t budge.
Oppy gritted her teeth and steeled herself.
Her left arm screamed while she dragged herself far enough to reach the pipe with her right hand. Inch by inch she pulled herself upwards. Eventually, she got both of her hands on whatever was on top of her and pushed it off. It fell with a dull thud.
Now free, she looked over her surroundings and saw next to nothing. She could make out a few dark shapes close to her, but it was too dark to really tell what anything was.
She looked up. At first, she only saw more darkness. It was everywhere: left, right, up, down. While her eyes adjusted, she noticed the tiniest specks of light above her. Stars.
The ceiling must have collapsed, and she had been stuck under part of it.
Oppy sat wherever she had been standing. It was too dark for her to try going anywhere. Instead, she continued to stare at the stars. The longer she did, the more the dark shapes around her started to make sense.
She grasped her way around her immediate area, unable to recognize anything familiar from her lab. She moved across the uneven environment at a snail’s pace, unsure of where she was going.
“Allen?” she called out. She imagined that he might have been quick about leaving. He could be back at home, unaware that any of this had happened. Or he could have gotten to his car but not left yet. He could be looking for her. She called him again, “Allen?”
If she stayed still, the silence around her was tangible. She was so used to electrical humming and the sounds her different lab equipment made. Usually she could hear voices outside of her lab from whoever was walking by.
She could hear no one around her.
Fighting off a wave of fear, she called Allen’s name again, louder this time. No one answered, so she continued crawling over the fallen ceiling. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed nor how far she had moved from what used to be her lab.
The surface she put her foot on wasn’t as sturdy as she had thought. Her foot slipped, and she followed. She slid and landed with her legs bent underneath her. It was near impossible to see again. She could see a few stars when she looked up, but everything around her was incomprehensible.
“Can you hear me, Allen?” She wasn’t expecting a response, but her heart sank when she received none. She began to feel around again for something to pull herself up.
Oppy tried to reposition herself to stand, though restricted movement and pain kept her from doing so. “Allen, please,” she said, more to herself than anyone who might be around to hear. “Oh, God, please . . ."
A bright light shone from above her directly into her eyes. She closed them with a groan and tilted her head away from the source.
“Doctor Turner?”
“Get that light out of my face,” she said.
“Oops. Sorry, Doctor.”
The light was pointed somewhere else. Oppy looked up at where it had come from and found a pair of eyes staring down at her.
“Oh, man. This is a crazy night, isn’t it? I mean, one second, I’m falling and all these stars are around me! I thought it was a dream, but it felt so real. The next second, I’m getting reports over the radio that Red Meadow collapsed! I was at a tower close to here, cleaning up after the guard shift, when –”
“Help me up,” she interrupted. The man would have kept talking if she had let him, and her legs were starting to go numb.
“Oh, sorry about that.” The man bent down and grabbed under Oppy’s arms. He lifted while she grabbed on to whatever she could to pull herself up. “There you go. Are you okay?”
From the light of the flashlight, Oppy could see a young, stocky man. A thick dark beard and moustache covered the lower half of his face. His eyes were dark, and they shone in this light. He looked concerned.
“I’m not worried about myself right now,” she said, despite her entire body aching. “Have you seen Allen? He was here –”
The man’s face shifted. “Wait a second. Allen – Doctor Turner was here?”
“Yes.” She sounded annoyed.
“How long ago was that?”
“Does it matter? I don’t know how long it’s been since he left,” she snapped. The man didn’t respond, instead choosing to fidget with the flashlight. He looked away from her. The shift in his demeanor unnerved her.
“Aw, hell.” The man rubbed the nape of his neck with his free hand. “You haven’t heard?”
“I haven’t heard a thing. I’ve been in my lab all night and was there when the damn roof collapsed.”
“There was some kind of accident,” the man began, running a hand through his hair. “Doctor Turner and Doctor Cay were both involved in it.”
Blood roared in Oppy’s ears. “That’s impossible. Allen was –” She stopped herself. She closed her mouth and swallowed hard. Instead, she asked, “What do you know about it?”
“Not much at all. Everyone on the radios was talking about seeing different things, different visions. Like . . .” the man thought. “Like hallucinations. That was all everybody was talking about when there was that bright white light.”
“I saw that light, too,” Oppy looked away. “The roof collapsed right after.”
“Pretty soon after that light, some guys told us over the radio that they found Doctor Turner and Doctor Cay.”
“’Found’ them?”
“Yeah, found them.” The man wouldn’t meet her eyes. “They were both found dead.”
“How did – no, that can’t be right.”
“I’m real sorry, Doctor. That’s what they were saying on the radio. I’m sure they were looking for you to tell you, but I just happened to see you first, I guess.”
Oppy couldn’t stand any more. She sat on the debris right next to the man. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again, and the man had to lean towards her to hear. “You’re sure that’s what you heard?” she asked.
“That’s what I heard. I might have gotten a few details mixed up. A bunch of people were talking all at once, you know? But I wouldn’t tell you that if I wasn’t sure about it.”
Oppy stared at the dark shapes around her, unseeing. Allen wouldn’t have had enough time to leave her lab and get to James’s before that flash of light. Something didn’t add up. Allen couldn’t have been with James like Tobias said he was because he had been visiting Oppy. She had seen him. She had smelled him. She had touched him. He had made her laugh and dream about their life together after all this. He had made her feel loved.
“You said something about hallucinations. Could whoever found Allen and James have just imagined it?”
The man looked at her, and she felt his sadness, his pity, his sympathy. He saw a widow doing everything she could to keep her husband alive. “It wasn’t just one guy who found them. A couple of guys confirmed it.”
At this, she pulled her glasses off and covered her face with her hands. The man raised an arm as if to put it around her shoulders, but then decided against it. He let her stay like that. Nothing he could think to say would do her any good.
He remained beside her. Every so often, he could hear her take a breath that would get caught halfway. Once, a voice sounded from his radio. He quickly turned it all the way down.
The sky began to lighten. Lighter shades of dark blue spread across the horizon, revealing the dark foliage of the wood around them. “Hey,” the man said as stripes of gold began to shine in the sky. “Let me take you home.”
Oppy stayed still, and he wasn’t sure that she heard him. As he was about to repeat himself, she lifted her head and put her glasses back on. He could see that her face was wet. “Okay,” she said.
The walk to the man’s truck and the drive to her house were a blur. When they arrived, the man opened the car door for her and then the house’s front door. Oppy walked in as if she were in a trance. The man followed but waited right by the door.
It was bright enough now for Oppy to see that her clothes had rips and tears everywhere. She had never put her lab coat back on. That was back somewhere under all the rubble. Her hair was now barely contained by the band she had tied, so she took it out and retied it. After, she sat on one side of the loveseat, clasped her hands together, and stared at the floor.
The man remained silent for a while, watching her. “Doctor?” he asked.
She lifted her head towards him, but didn’t meet his gaze.
“You should try to get some sleep. I know it’ll be hard, but –”
“I have work to do,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“I can’t sleep because I have work to do.”
“Uh, I really think you need some rest,” the man said.
“Thank you for your concern,” Oppy said. “But I’ll work better if you’re not here. Less distraction.”
The man did not want to upset Oppy further, no matter how much he thought she should sleep. Arguing with him wouldn’t help her either. He couldn’t just leave her here alone, though.
“Here,” he said, unclipping his radio from his belt. He twisted the dial on top a few times. “I’ve set this radio to its own frequency. I’ll be working nearby, and I’ll have my other radio. You let me know if you need anything, okay? Don’t think twice about asking me.”
Oppy took it without fuss. She looked at it before nodding.
“Alright, then, I’ll be around if you need me.” He turned to leave.
“Wait. What’s your name?” Oppy asked, still looking at the radio.
“Tobias. Tobias Barlow.”
“Thank you, Tobias.”
He left, closing the door behind him.
Oppy put the radio on the coffee table in front of her, knowing that she would not use it. She got up from the loveseat and went to gather up some things: a notebook, a writing utensil, and whatever notes she brought home from her lab over the years.
It wouldn’t be long before someone came to find her and ask her all kinds of uncomfortable and invading questions about Allen. Her husband had managed to pull off the impossible and be in two places at once. She intended to be the first to figure out how. If he was dead as everyone seemed to believe he was, James, also dead, was the only other person who knew what he was up to. She’d figure that out, too. And she’d figure out how he had stopped by to tell her he loved her one last time.
She had work to do.