Chapter Text
Invincible. Invincible .
Too powerful to be defeated or overcome.
Adjective.
Derived from Middle English or Old French from the Latin word invincibilis.
She traced that thought in her mind, chasing it down a word tree and extending its roots out until it held all the meaning she could think of. Thoughts like this always calmed her down. A sound tapped against the glass of the window. She sat up on instinct and peered out. Just a squirrel. Gemma slowly lay back down, this time on her side so that she could stare out. She adjusted her head on the pillow Devon gave her. It was too hard. Reminded her of the pillows at Lumon. Factory-made and perfectly shaped, yet somehow never quite comfortable enough. It was starting to get light out. She still hadn’t slept. She couldn’t get herself to. She knew her friends were concerned; it had been two weeks since the rescue, since Lumon had temporarily shut-down (though she had doubts that wasn’t true), and Gemma had barely slept 2 hours every night. Everytime she shut her eyes she was back there. Red light flashing, the door locked, Mark running away from her. He’d. Ran Away. She swallowed hard at the memory. She’d realized right then that it wasn’t him, but something about it still stung. She rolled over to the other side. If she wasn’t falling asleep thinking of Mark, she was back there. At the fertility clinic, parking her car to play charades with her friends only to see Dr. Mauer’s face, in that white room with the same tune playing over and over and the food with no taste in her mouth. Gemma squeezed her eyes shut and put the blanket over herself, plunging her thoughts into semi-permanent darkness. She held her legs to her chest like a child does when they feel vulnerable, trying not to cry.
It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe now. We’ve got you. I got you, Gemma. She tried to remember what Devon had said to her while hugging her and sobbing after she and the (familiar? Gemma didn’t know why, but her presence felt familiar) woman with white hair found her in that stairwell. She didn’t remember anything else from that day, just that she was sobbing uncontrollably and that she wasn’t on the testing floor anymore. Oh, and that Mark had disappeared. One second he was kissing her face, the next he was gone. Some of her favourite books were about so-called “star-crossed” lovers, but she never in a million years imagined her own to mimic them. Except this was a thousand times different in a fucked up memory-loss kidnapped by a corrupt exploitative company way. A tear escaped from her eye and she let it run down her cheek. Gemma hadn’t known what to expect, entering the world again after two years of being locked inside, but she certainly hadn’t believed it to feel this lonely. Everybody had thought she was dead. Even her own husband. And she had no idea what to do about that. He felt so lonely he let himself be convinced by the company that took her to be severed on his own so that he didn’t have to grieve her. She didn’t know what to make of her innies, either. There was only one that left her feeling positive feelings, and it was the one that she had to go up the escalator for.