Chapter Text
The last thing Mark Scout remembers is the severed floor elevator.
The next thing he knows (and is suddenly very acutely aware of) is warmth. A mouth. Pressure. His hands in someone’s hair—silky, coppery, soft. A body shifting against his, straddling his lap. A groan, soft and pleased, escaping the mouth that’s kissing him like it’s done this a hundred times before.
His eyes fly open to the someone on top of him.
Someone familiar.
Someone who looks a lot like Helena Eagan.
"Hey!" Mark yelps in shock, and shoves her off him. "What the fuck?"
"Jesus, Mark!" Helly yells back. "How about you, what the fuck? Hello?"
"What is this?" Mark demands. "What are you doing?"
Helly lets out a short, strangled laugh. "Are you kidding?" she asks. "You've got to be kidding."
"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Mark snaps at her. "What's going on?"
"You tell me!" Helly shoots back. "What's going on with you?"
"Whoa!" he says, putting his hands up in protest. "Alright, let's just ... hang on a minute. It's Helena, right?"
It's as though Helly's been stung. Hadn't they just been through this?
"Mark," she says slowly, trying to compose herself. She places a hand on her chest. "I'm Helly. Remember?"
"Helly?" he repeats, incredulous.
"Yes," she says, eyeing him warily.
"Ok, " he says. "Fine. Why don't you start with where we are? Or maybe — what am I doing here?"
Helly folds her arms.
"No," she says flatly. "How about — who are you, right now?" she asks.
"Well, I'm very fucking confused," Mark says, and looks around, then down at himself. "Did we just – are we –?"
He can't bring himself to say the words out loud, because the idea that he just woke up half-naked with Helena Eagan, his boss, or whatever she calls herself, is currently blowing his mind a little.
"Yeah," Helly says dryly, now standing in her bra and underwear as Mark fumbles for the buttons on his shirt. "Yeah, we did, Mark. I think we need to back up a minute —"
"You think?"
A tense beat passes between them, then Helly takes a deep breath.
"You're not him, are you?"
Mark blinks at her.
"What?"
"I'm not Helena," she says. "I'm Helly ... her innie," she manages through gritted teeth. "And up until about a minute ago, you were your innie. Mark S."
"Huh," he says, lamely, fumbling for the words, "well, it's ... nice to uh, meet you, Helly."
She scoffs, scooping up her blouse from the floor. Wounded.
"Yeah," she says, "you too."
An awkward beat passes between them, before Mark finally puts two and two together —
"And you — so you're severed, too?"
"Yeah, well," Helly answers grimly. "Wasn't exactly my choice."
"Okay. Okay, wow. And we —?" He makes a gesture between them.
"We're ..." Helly searches for the words. "We work together, Mark. We're friends." She decides, and manages a thin smile at him.
And he's found love, a distant voice says somewhere inside his head.
A strange feeling is rising to the surface inside Mark's chest, something warm and familiar.
"Friends," he says, testing it out. "Alright."
Mark slowly tries to piece together what the hell his innie's been up to, this whole time. With this ... Not Helena Eagan.
He glances up at Helena's doppelganger, who's staring at him inquisitively, her face flushed, eyes wide, her hair a wild, copper halo around her head.
He doesn't know why, or how, but the realization suddenly hits him with the force of a thousand bricks: Mark has feelings for this woman. Or his innie does. Or he does? He's not sure.
Not for Helena, exactly, but this woman with her face, standing before him.
He swallows heavily.
"What?" Helly says, grabbing her skirt from the back of a chair. He watched as she steps into it, and pulls it up over her waist.
"Uh, nothing," he says quickly. "I'm just trying to make sense of ... everything."
Helly snorts. "Good luck with that. And you met Helena? I bet she was a real treat."
"Yeah," Mark answers, flashing briefly to his strange encounter in the restaurant. "She was ... something." He frowns. "Wait, if I'm here ... how do I know you're not her?"
Helly gives him a hard look, then sighs.
"You don't, I guess," she says, smoothing out her skirt. "But you'll just have to trust me. We trust each other in here. You. Him. Me. Whatever."
Suddenly and inexplicably, some version of Mark wants to leap out, right now, hold her in his arms, and never let her go. Possibly fuck her senseless. He doesn't know. It's a lot. He winces as pressure builds behind his eyelids, then disappates.
"Mark?" she says. "You with me?"
All Mark can do is nod slowly, and look around the room, surveying the wooden furniture, glass displays, thick velvet curtains, and scattered Eagan knick knacks. It gives him the creeps.
"Hey, what the hell is this place?" he asks her. "Where are we?"
Helly smirks.
"The 'Kier Eagan Replica House'," she says theatrically, and gestures grandly around the room. "Apparently it's super accurate."
Mark makes a face. "So, we're in your family's house?"
(You wanna take me home to Dad already? —
— Yeah, I think it's time.)
"Replica house," Helly corrects him, and nods. "Well. The bedroom." She picks up a small metal sign from the floor, and displays it to him: DO NOT LIE ON KIER EAGAN'S BED. "See?"
Mark continues to stare at her. The hell?
"It's like a freaky Eagan museum," she continues. "At the office. Also, not my family. Her fucked up family."
Freaky, Mark thinks. That's one word for it. Pain begins to buzz faintly in his head again. This isn't making sense.
"We're ... at Lumon?" Mark asks Helly, trying to piece it all together.
"Yes," she says, slightly exasperated. "It's completely insane, I know. Anyway, we figured this was way better than fucking under desks which I'm surprised they even let us –" Mark looks temporarily taken aback at her words " –okay, sorry, yeah, I see we have to probably rewind, here."
"Yeah," Mark lets out a short laugh, and clears his throat while pulling up his pants. "I have a lot of questions."
"Same," Helly says. "Like, we should probably start with ... how the hell did you get here?"
"I don't know," Mark says, rubbing his chin. "I was in the elevator this morning, like normal, and then —"
"You woke up here," she finishes for him, and frowns. "Some kind of reverse OTC. I wonder why. I wonder what they want from you."
Mark blinks. Reintegration. This must be part of it, somehow. The process must have sped up, this must be what it's like, and he's about to try to explain to Helly, when —
"Gemma," he remembers, suddenly. "Fuck. What about Gemma?"
"Gemma?" Helly repeats.
"My wife," Mark says shortly. "She —"
"Oh, Miss Casey," Helly murmurs, then shoots him a serious look off his confused expression. "We've been looking for her."
"Really?" he says, and looks around the room, at the disheveled bedsheets, and curiously, some picture frames, broken and scattered on the floor.
Mark raises his eyebrows as he meets her eyes, and Helly blushes.
"I mean. He's, ah – concerned. We want to help you," she says sincerely. "But —"
"But?" he says.
Helly takes a deep breath.
"There's a lot you don't know," she says gently. "We've all been through a lot."
"So enlighten me," Mark says.
Helly glances toward the exit, then back at him.
"I don't know how much more time we have," she says, and looks at him. "Or how much time you have. But I'll tell you anything you need to know."