Archive of Our Own ^beta

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."

Chapter Text

Mark sits cross-legged on the bed, elbows resting on his knees, as Helly paces in front of him. Her words come fast, almost mechanical at first — facts lined up like armor. How the two of them bonded at work. The OTC. How Helena hijacked her and tried to spy on their team for weeks. The awful way she stole precious moments with her Mark — and how they made up for it. Her throat catches when she tells him about Irving — and Ms. Casey.

"Jesus," Mark says, after, running his hand through his hair. "What the fuck."

"And that's just like, the major bullet points," Helly says. "I wasn't even here for a week, so I'm missing a lot. Oh, and you don't even know about the waffle parties."

"The what?" Mark says, his eyebrows raised.

"Don't worry about it," Helly says dismissively. "I know that was a lot. But I'm trying to catch you up to speed just so — you know. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Mark says. His head is spinning. "I mean, I guess. I don't know. What I can't figure out is what you — sorry, Helena — knows. Or wants."

Helly grimaces.

"Yeah, we don't really know either," she says. "The Eagans as a whole are kind of a mystery, but they're into some really fucked up shit. Which means she must be pretty fucked up, too."

He takes another glance around the tastefully decorated room and its odd Eagan knickknacks.

"Yeah," Mark says slowly. "I guess." A beat passes. "Helena, she uh, she found me outside, somehow."

"Really?" Helly says. "Oh my god, Mark. What did she say?"

He shrugs. "It seemed like she wanted something, but I honestly couldn't tell. It was ... weird."

Helly lets out a dark laugh. "That little freak."

Mark half-laughs with her, then says softly — "Yeah, I don't know."

"Look," Helly sighs, "all I know is that she runs the company. And I don't know what she knows about Ms. Case — Gemma. And I'm sorry that happened to you. It's fucking awful. It's all awful. They control everything we do. Our outies."

Her words hang in the air as Mark considers.

"I hadn't really thought about it," he tells her. "Us. The innies. Outies. Or. I just. Honestly, I assumed he was in here working in the archives this whole time, and now —"

"Right," she says. "I mean, it's a pretty good selling point, the whole splitting your brain, never worrying about work thing, I get it. But, you just ... you don't think about the consequences. About creating another whole person. We have a life down here, too," she says firmly.

"I can see that," he says, softening.

"And you — my Mark," she continues, "He's a good person. He tries. He's there for people. He's there for me. Always."

Mark doesn't know what to say. Helly is looking at him like she's trying to see through him, as though she can somehow find a way to her Mark in his eyes. His heart is racing, thinking of his innie, and how he apparently has a whole relationship, a whole other life with this woman. He's suddenly seized by the strange, confusing and overwhelming urge to kiss her, again, while he's fully present, the kind of searing, life-altering kiss that confirms just how much he cares about her.

"Mark?" Helly says suddenly. "Where did you go?"

"I —" he begins.

"Is it you?" she whispers, her tone almost hopeful.

"Helly," he starts, and she looks as though she's about to ask him something, when her wristwatch beeps furiously.

"Shit," she says, "our break's over. We've got to get out of here."

Mark stares at her dumbly, and she rolls her eyes.

"Just put on your jacket and follow me," Helly says, nodding to his clothing, discarded on the floor. "We'll figure out what to do with you on the way."

Chapter Text

Mark quickly collects his suit jacket and follows Helly out of the bedroom, down the staircase, and into the foyer of the grand house, marveling as he goes. She's a few paces ahead of him, carrying her heels in her hand as she walks, her hips swaying in rhythm with her steps. Mark tries not to stare, but he feels mildly insane at this turn of events. At everything. He's not sure where to focus his gaze as they emerge into the massive open atrium and onto fresh grass. His jaw drops.

"Jesus," he says, looking around the room, then back at the old Victorian, looming large behind them. It's a lot to take in.

"No, Kier," Helly corrects, her voice echoing slightly around the imposing stone walls.

Mark shoots her a look, and she shrugs.

"Apparently."

She pushes through a pair of double doors. The next room hits him like a cold front. Mannequins — dozens of them — stand frozen in place, each dressed in period clothing, their painted smiles stretching unnaturally beneath glassy eyes. A hall of waxy ancestors.

A cold, buzzing pressure builds behind Mark’s temples again.

Helly doesn’t slow down.

"It's probably best we don't hang out here for too long," Helly is saying, somewhere ahead of him, making a beeline for the staircase on the opposite end of the room. "We usually just run past these creeps as quick as we can."

"Yeah, no problem," Mark says slowly, quickly scanning the names of each Eagan CEO, feeling full body shudders. He follows her up the staircase, still staring around the room.

"Ooh!" Helly exclaims, and turns around to face him from the landing. "One time we were here, the other you came up with a bingo game so we wouldn't get bored. Stuff to check off."

"Really?" Mark says in surprise. He's kind of impressed, in spite of himself. "That uh, kind of sounds like me."

"Yeah, well, it was pretty lame," Helly admits with a smirk, swinging her heels playfully by the straps. "But you got more creative with it later."

"Oh yeah?" Mark says, raising his eyebrows. "How's that?"

"Mhm," she replies, leaning back against the railing. "It was pretty dirty, actually — even for you."

"Oh, was it?" Mark says before he can stop himself. "How dirty?"

"One was a picture," Helly says, matter-of-fact. "That was pretty creative. The rest of it was just kinda ... competitive." She shrugs.

"Competitive, huh?" Mark says, now at the top of the stairs, at the landing, now nearly face-to-face with her, the strange, overwhelming urge from before slowly rising in his chest.

"Mhm," Helly breathes, her eyes playful. "A list. To cross off."

"A list," he repeats slowly. "And how'd that work out?"

A half-amused, half-scandalized smile crosses Helly's face. Mark's eyes connect with hers, searching them for some kind of silent sign or unspoken permission.

"We were aiming for a high score," Helly says, and without thinking, before she can say another word, before Mark is even fully aware of what's happening, almost by instinct, he's leaning forward —

— like a reflex, he cups her face in one hand, tender but sure, and something in Helly softens — not surprised, exactly, but caught in it. Like she’s been waiting. He briefly thinks this is kinda fucked before —

— he kisses her, deeply. Helly lets out a noise of surprise, but she's arching into him, responding, parting her lips as invitation. She's pulling him closer to her by his jacket, practically crushing him against her, and deepening their kiss, wanting more, more. Helly tastes like spearmint and sweet fire, and he can't seem to get enough, can't get close enough to her, his hands sliding around her back. It feels right and wrong all at the same fucking time, fated, inevitable and strange, and he wonders now how many times they've done this —his innie self has done this with her — and if it's always been this fucking good, hell, if he's been this fucking good — and just as he's wondering what she's thinking, she breaks their kiss and pulls back to gaze at him.

"What the fuck," Helly says softly.

"What?" he asks, slightly breathless. "Was that on the list?"

"Kissing an outie in the Perpetuity Wing? No, Mark, that's new," she says with a laugh, and then stares at him. "I liked it."

"Yeah?" he says.

"Yeah," she says. "Do it again."

Chapter Text

Mark smiles as he pulls Helly close to him, kissing her senseless, whispering words into her hair until she dissolves into giggles, any momentary thought of how fucking strange this all is: her kissing the hell out of Mark's outie in her outie's weird family legacy hall, six pairs of cold, lifeless eyes just staring out at them (she tries not to think about it), any notion of how they need to get the fuck out of here and soon — forgotten.

"Is it different," Mark murmurs, kissing her along her neck, "with me?"

Helly stops him, then, and brings her hand to his face, looking into his eyes. She remembers a different kiss, another question, in another hallway.

Kissing Mark's outie is not exactly all that different than kissing Mark S., she decides. But. This Mark is bolder where Mark S. is careful, a little more aggressive. Intense. Rough. Mark S. is passionate for her, but this Mark ... well. He devours. He's doing it now, kissing her face and hair and neck like a man starved. She can't explain it, but she's hungry for him, too.

"Yes," Helly admits with a gasp, as Mark finds a sensitive spot, "god, yes."

"Fuck," he groans into her hair, "Helly," and kisses her fiercely, his fingers working their way under her shirt, touching her everywhere as she sighs. He can't explain why this suddenly turns him on, it's too much of a mindfuck, even for him. Helly is definitely not Helena Eagan; she's lighter somehow than the woman he's only seen in press interviews, the oddly formal beauty he met in a Chinese restaurant and never knew quite what to make of their strange attraction, and now —

Not that you'd know what kissing Helena Eagan would be like — he thinks to himself briefly —although I guess you kind of do.

Before his mind can really explore what that means, Helly pulls back from him, breaking their embrace.

"Mark," she says softly.

"Yeah?" he says.

"We need to go," she says, and he lets out a groan. "They'll start looking for us — well, you. Him."

"Oh," he says. "Right. Uh, what ... what do you think I should do?"

Helly sighs. "I don't know. Just act ... normal." She thinks, then — "Act like you really want to be here."

He frowns. "Do I?"

She shrugs. "You did a pretty good job convincing me, once."

"Okay," he says, straightening his tie and smoothing down the wrinkles on his jacket. He holds his arms out at his sides, palms up. "How's this?"

Helly tilts her head at him.

"Just one more thing," she says, and reaches up to run her fingers through his hair, combing it so some edges stick out just behind his ears. He almost looks like hers again, her Mark S., and Helly instantly feels a pang of something close to guilt, an ache deep in her gut.

"Perfect," she says, and forces a smile. "Let's go."

Mark follows her up the rest of the stairs and into the next chamber, where the figure of Jame Eagan stands tall and solitary in the middle of the room.

"So this is —"

"Her dad, yeah," Helly says, looking up at Jame.

(I'm not the one who invented a revolutionary medical procedure —

Oh, no, that was my father. )

Mark follows her gaze, regarding the silent white-haired man with curiosity.

(You should meet him sometime.)

"You said I should meet him," Mark says aloud, absently, and Helly lets out a laugh.

"Excuse me?"

Mark clears his throat. "Uh, not you. Her."

"Oh god," Helly says with a groan. "Yeah, I don't know about that. Or hey, maybe you should. Meet him. It would really fuck with her. Or maybe you could poison his food, or something."

"You're not a little bit curious?" Mark asks her.

"About the guy who invented a technology that sentences people, including his own fucked up daughter, to this nightmare prison? Yeah, I'm good," Helly says shortly. She crosses to the other side of the room and finally slips on her heels, one by one.

Nightmare prison. He swallows, digesting her words. She doesn't seem wrong, exactly, but. Mark didn't sentence anyone to a nightmare prison — at least, not intentionally. That was not in the fine print of his Lumon hiring paperwork. He stares back at Jame Eagan, haunted, a thousand questions running through his mind.

Who are you? he thinks. And what have you done?

Helly flings open the exit door, and pokes her head out, scanning the hallways.

"Okay," she says. "I think the coast is clear. You ready?" She extends her hand to him.

"Yeah," Mark says, placing his hand in hers, ready to follow her wherever she's about to lead him.

Chapter Text

He steps out with Helly into the hallway, and squints, allowing his eyes to adjust to the blinding, bright white and florescents of the office hallway. The hallway seems to be endless in every direction, stretching out into infinity. Where do we even start? he thinks. How the hell does his innie even know where the fuck he is, half the time?

"Oh, you don't," Helly says, with a laugh, and Mark realizes, with mild embarrassment, he must have said that last thought out loud. "We keep trying to map the hallways, but we never quite get it right. Come on."

Helly banks a right and drags him along with her. Mark's fingers grip hers tightly. Her palm is a little sweaty inside his, but neither of them seem to mind.

"Where are we going?" he asks her, falling into step beside her as they walk.

"MDR," she says. "We have to get a few of the numbers cleared so it at least looks like we're doing something. And then we can figure out ... well, why the hell you're here, I guess."

"MDR," he says slowly.

"Macrodata Refinement," she says to his unanswered question. "Our department. And don't ask, because I don't know what the hell we do, but I know that for some reason, you do it really well. That's important to them."

Mark straightens a bit, and clears his throat as he walks. A few minutes of silence pass between them, a few minutes of him following Helly like a hapless, lost puppy —until he notices her trying to hide a smile.

"What?" he says, frowning.

"Nothing! It's just ..." She tries not to laugh. "Your walk."

"My walk?" Mark repeats, incredulous. "I'm at work. This is how I walk when I'm at work."

Helly snorts.

"Okay, first of all," she says. "How would you even know?"

Mark opens his mouth to argue, then closes it when she shoots him a look.

"Exactly," Helly says. "So he's sort of — he's less tense, more relaxed, like this." She lets go of Mark's hand to demonstrate, drops her shoulders, and slows her pace. "See?"

"Oh, Jesus," he groans. "No. I don't do that! No. You have got to be kidding."

"Nope," she says firmly. "I mean, they just made you department chief. I don't know, maybe you're not used to it. The walk. The stance. The authority." She raises her hands in a dramatic gesture.

Mark rolls his eyes but copies her style, slowing down and relaxing his shoulders slightly.

"Hey! There ya go, boss," Helly says brightly. "Proud of you."

"Thanks," Mark replies sarcastically, then realizes. "Hey, technically aren't you, like, my boss?"

Helly turns to him.

"Sometimes," she says mysteriously, then arches an eyebrow, and grins. "You like it."

"Right," Mark says with a laugh. "I bet."

"Oh wait, I have to show you something," she says, and pulls him down two more hallways after her until they land in front of a bank of elevators — oh so that's .... he briefly thinks — until he spots the large, unsettling painting on the wall.

"Whoa, what the hell is that?" Mark asks.

"Fucking weird, right?" Helly says, joining him to look at it. "They hung it here after the OTC, I guess."

He shoots her a confused look, and she continues.

"There's another department here, called O&D," she tells him. "Optics and Design. They're in charge of" — she waves a hand — "all of this."

Mark frowns at the painting, depicting a bearded man with a sword, benevolently gazing at four people sitting below him, with only their heads visible. What the fuck, he thinks. It sends a chill down his spine.

"There's a lot more where that came from, I think," Helly says, interrupting his thoughts, "but I've never been to see it."

They stare at the painting together for a minute before Mark turns to look at her.

In this moment, he wishes he could take Helly to a real art museum. He wishes she could see it. See anything. He thinks of the small art museum in Kier, which had weird Eagan shit like this, sure, but had a few traveling exhibits too, impressionists and neo-classicists mostly.

He thinks instead of showing her the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, or the MoMa in New York. See if she'd like it, see if she'd be into Rembrandt or Jackson Pollock, what she'd think of them. What they'd talk about, or if they'd talk at all. If they'd get coffee or drinks after, or —

Mark suddenly can't remember the last time he'd been in a museum, or done anything else besides get blackout drunk on a weekday evening. His stomach roils, and the dull pain spikes rapidly in his head, like someone turning up the volume, and he groans. He looks back for Helly, who's staring at him anxiously.

"Mark?" she asks. "Are you okay? You look —"

"Fuck," Mark hisses, as a vision suddenly materializes into view —

— the bright hallways of Lumon flicker, then dissolve into the marbled halls of the Musée d'Orsay, sometime on a Paris honeymoon, hushed laughter and stolen kisses in shadowed gallery corners. He's embracing a beautiful woman with dark hair and soft brown eyes —

— but when he pulls back, her hair is unmistakably red, her eyes a mossy green —

"You wanna get out of here?" the woman whispers into his ear.

"Mrs. Scout, are you propositioning me?" he's saying with a grin. "I'm doing my best work here."

"Oh, your best work?" the red-haired woman replies, arching an eyebrow. "Really? This is your best? I think I'll be the judge of that later."

"Yeah?" Mark teases. "Is that a threat or a promise?"

She shrugs.

"Up to you," she says, then her face suddenly shifts, and she's the dark-haired woman, looking deadly serious — "please, Mark."

He pulls back with a start.

"Mark —"

"Gemma?"

"Mark? —"

"—Mark!" Helly's voice cuts sharply through his vision, bringing him back to the present. "Oh my god."

"What?" he says, looking around. "What is it?"

Suddenly, he's aware of something wet, just above his lip. Mark brings his fingers up to his face, and touches the spot, curious. When he pulls them away, his fingers come back dark red.

"Your nose," she says, "it's ..."

The volume in his head finally spikes to a ten and the last thing he sees is Helly's wide-eyed, horrified face — before everything fades to black.

Chapter Text

Mark S wakes with a start, breathing heavily, the elevator lobby of the severed floor swimming into view. The elevator lobby? But he was just in the Perpetuity Wing —

— and he's back in his suit —

the fuck?

— and Helly — where is —

"Mark!" A familiar voice cries out beside him. He turns to see Helly kneeling at his side, her cool hand pressed against his forehead.

"Helly!" Mark says, relieved but confused as Helly pulls him into her arms, hugging him. He blinks. "What's going on? Weren't we just — "

"You're back," she whispers softly, and leans in to kiss him on the cheek.

"I'm back," he repeats, still looking at her questioningly. His eyes dart around the room, looking a little bit like a cornered animal. "But ... how?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" she asks, pulling back to look at him.

He arches an eyebrow at her and she blushes.

"The uh, Perpetuity Wing?" he says tentatively. "We were —"

She nods.

"Right, so," Helly says quickly, "Your outie was here. Right before you passed out."

"My outie?" Mark says, frowning. "What?"

"I don't know, either," she says. "I think ... it's some kind of reverse OTC? Something with your chip?"

"Yeah, maybe," he says, sounding dazed.

"Before we do anything," she says, "we have got to get you cleaned up."

Mark looks at her, confused, and touches his nose. His eyes widen.

"Fuck, again?"

"Not Milchik this time," she says and he nods in agreement. "Come on."

She extends a hand and helps him to his feet.

"I know where we can go."

———

"So," Mark asks, "What was he like?"

He's leaning against the sinks in the MDR bathroom, one hand on the counter, his head tipped back, as Helly tries her best to administer to his nosebleed with a tissue.

"Was he like, angry, or ...?" Mark's voice is bright, interested, on the edge of hopeful, and it makes Helly's heart ache.

"Um," she thinks, dabbing at the dried blood around his nose, "well yeah, at first, he had a lot of questions. But he was —" she pauses, the words kind of like you threatening to spill from her lips (but not at all, because Jesus, the fucking way he kissed her) "— curious. Smart. Very, very confused."

Mark lets out a short laugh. "Yeah, I bet. Wow."

"And get this," she says, conspiratorially, "he knows Helena. Or met her once? I'm not sure."

Mark raises his eyebrows.

"Really?" he says. "Huh."

"Mhm," Helly says, "now hold still." She holds his head, then shoves the wadded up tissue up his right nostril.

"Ow!" he yelps, "hey!" and clutches his nose. She makes a face at him.

"Sorry, boss," Helly says, "I'm not a trained professional."

"Jesus," he says, wincing, but he's half-laughing, and she smiles.

"You doing alright?" she asks, more gently, curious. "I know it's been weird, aside from the ... nosebleed thing."

"I'm good now, I think," he says, grinning at her. "Honestly. Thanks."

"You're welcome," she says, smiling back at him, her heart pounding slightly.

"We'll figure it out," he says.

"Yeah," she replies, staring at him. Her Mark. He looks so goofy like this, with half a tissue sticking out of his nose, and yet there's a familiar look in his eye, like he might, oh no —

He grabs her by the work badge and pulls her close to him.

"You're a mess," she teases, when they're eye to eye, and he stares at her like she's some kind of answered prayer. That look, she thinks, it's almost like —

"Yeah," Mark says, and leans in to kiss her, soft at first, then insistent, tender in only the way he is with her, and it's everything. "Missed you," he whispers.

She lets out a short laugh and says, "oh my god, you were gone for like, ten seconds" but kisses him back with half-relief, half-desire, half-of-something-else, aching in her gut. She has to tell him, it's not right, not after everything Helena put them through, they've been so honest with each other, but right now, the way he makes her feel, this Mark, her Mark, suddenly she feels like she's in an elevator, falling ten stories and she doesn't want to stop —

"Mark," she sighs as he continues to kiss her.

"Yeah?" he says, smiling against her lips.

"There's something I need to tell you —"

To Helly's surprise, Mark suddenly breaks their embrace and grabs her by the shoulders, as though to steady himself, and lets out a gasp. He looks startled, as though he just woke up from a nightmare.

No, she thinks. No fucking way.

"Okay," Mark Scout says, his voice gruff, annoyed. "Either I'm dreaming right now, or this is one hell of a side effect."