Work Text:
Gerard Keay is coming into work – well, he doesn’t particularly work there, he just works with the head Archivist who saved his life from domestic doom and pulled him into stopping it from a different kind of doom entirely. And that meant a lot of travelling, learning what you can, coming home and putting it together, and then taking leads from there. Rinse that down with a hell of a lot of coffee and existential dread, and repeat. And working in grand schemes like that doesn’t give him much time to notice all of the moving parts.
But today feels different – he has to take a different route into the Archive, for example. He got in a pretty nasty fight with a clown that had too many teeth, so he can’t particularly take the old, steep stairs down. If he wasn’t traumatized out of going to court ever again in his life, Gerard would definitely try to sue whoever’s still alive with authority, talk their ear off about how two-hundred-year-old buildings aren’t up to code even if they were made by Smirke or some other architectural genius. That if will forever be an if, though, there’s a reason he can barely recall those weeks in 2008 where he thought and promptly un-thought this grand idea that something was going to change in some way that actually meant anything. No matter if his ghosts are alive or dead or something in between, Gerard still has to use the elevator.
Gerard doesn’t technically work there, which means this is a job for the lanyard he always keeps on him, the one that isn’t his. It’s an employee pass, to unlock the elevators and the side entrances and all of that – another inane design choice by another old man, but one he can deal with. Gertrude kept her assistants’ things. He doesn’t pay much mind to it, usually, but the same powers protecting him beyond his will make him read the name and get filled with questions. Gertrude is not a nostalgic woman, Gerard knows this, but she’s not allergic to talking about the past.
All that being said, she has never once mentioned the name printed on the identification card. Michael Shelley. Archival assistant. In the picture (past the eyes cut out, obviously, Gertrude will be Gertrude) is this guy, maybe even younger than Gerard himself is, with curly blond hair that he can tell is a nuisance just by looking at it. And Gerard is curious. Curious enough that he stares at the picture for the whole twenty seconds of elevator time. This kid doesn’t have a reputation down in the Archive, and while the fact that his name has never come up might not mean anything, Gerard decides to try his hand at asking.
He enters the Archive and Gertrude is already packing her tiny suitcase for the next research trip. He never knows how she can take so little with her – sure, she’s an Archivist, whatever that means, so she takes all of her Watcher shit everywhere she goes, but she still needs material things, doesn’t she? Even if she buys all her clothes wherever she is – she’ll have to bring them back or risk leaving them behind. But he’s not here with Gertrude to criticise her packing, he’s here to stop the world from becoming prey.
He throws down his own cheap hiking backpack – stuffed with only the essentials; first-aid kit, cigarettes, couple changes of clothes, sketchbook if he can spare a second of free time. “Plane tickets are not for two hours, and the airport is forty-five minutes by car. We’ll go over what we’re looking out for.”
Gerard nods – travel, especially that which has a goal, makes him feel like he’s being pulled by a string. Time to leave again, that’s what mum said when Gerard was still just a kid. Time to not know when you’re coming home next, it’s dangerous out there, kid – long as I can still get my shit done it’ll be fine. Here, he’s more of a participant than a passenger, but it’s still work. They go over the bullet points – Gerard had to type up an eMail to this one young woman, claims to have seen something – looked more like herself than she did or something Stranger-sounding. Gertrude bought them each their own rooms for the hotel, thank god. Then the next day, they’re supposed to just go around, find more leads. It’s all both boring and the most intellectual topic of discussion there is.
As they’re getting out of the taxi, in front of the airport, Gerard finally decides to spring the question that might not even have an interesting answer. Curiosity’s one hell of a thing. “Hey Gertrude. Whose employee ID did you give me?” He takes a stringy piece of hair out of his face. “And I don’t mean ‘well, he worked for me’. All of your employees did – who’s Michael Shelley?”
Gertrude falters – it doesn’t show on her face, but Gerard can hear the hitch in her breath. He just pays attention to that sort of thing. “Well, he was my assistant, so you’re right about that. But he – Michael, he sort of did the same things you do. Going on work trips, and–” she pauses, and sits down beside him. “I think that’s quite enough, unless there’s a reason that you’re asking.”
“What happened to him?” He asks, though at this point it’s just to see her falter. Gertrude is human, definitely, but she doesn’t budge easily on matters of emotion. Michael followed Gertrude around the world, so did Gertrude cut the string that pulled him along with her after so many years, or did he get torn out of the picture in some other way. It’s the Institute, damnit, there is no normal end. So what happened?
She gets quiet – this can’t even be said aloud when it’s sure to be spoken over within the crowded airport. She thinks for longer than it usually takes her to come up with a response, though he’s sure she knows. It’s not like the little she’s said about his father. It’s not like he went missing one day – then Gertrude would’ve searched. As long as whoever it was would still be useful.
“The Spiral had its ritual plot – that’s why we don’t need to concern ourselves with that one in particular any more. And Michael helped me stop it from happening.” Gerard looks at her like she’s going to continue, go on, tell me why he can’t help with this one. She’s done, though. And he comes to a conclusion almost immediately.
“He was a sacrifice,” Gerard mutters into the open, stifling air. Feed the assistant to some twisting thing, and everything’s back to normal. “Gertrude. Tell me I’m wrong.” Tell me you’re not keeping me alive just so I can die at the right time. He stands up on his painful leg, just so he can impose. Tell her he means it.
“I had to.” She stares right into his eyes – they look like his mother’s. Another who questions Gertrude for doing what she needs to do. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking. The Spiral did.” If he didn't know better, he'd almost think she sounds sad. On the off-chance that yes, that's exactly it, he banishes his anger to the inside.
If Gerard had anywhere else to go, anywhere else he could make himself useful, he’d storm out. He’d make one goddamn promise to himself, say that he won’t add himself to the list of corpses under Head Archivist Gertrude Robinson. But he doesn’t, and she’s already paid for rooms, and whose to say it isn’t the best cause to die for he’s seen in a while? Would he not be worth it?
He scoffs, though he’s scared. No matter what killed the dead-but-not-gone ghost that sits between them, he’s got nowhere to go but here. Reason number 30, at least, why travel makes him sick. Silence. Then, “Do you have a permanent marker?” Gertrude just so happens to have one in her pants pocket, so she hands it to him. He scribbles out all of Michael Shelley’s memory, so that it doesn’t have to be his. Gerard Keay is alive, he’s not a sacrifice waiting to happen, and he’ll pry his stubborn ass out of anything. He writes his name on the other side of the card. He’ll never have his own – he doesn’t want to be tied down to the Institute, but it doesn’t make a difference either way. He still can’t leave.
“Does the Stranger ritual need anything, y’know, like that?” Will he have to give up his life for the world, what’ll happen if he doesn’t?
“Gerard,” Gertrude says in a tone that reveals nothing. “I don’t know. That’s what we’re here to learn. Now come on, our plane is boarding.” The string pulls him along and he wonders what it’s winding up to.
There has to be something, and he’s more curious than before.