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“We wake as if surprised
the other is still there,
each petting the sheet to be sure.
How we have managed our way
to this bed,
Beholden to heat like dawn,
indebted to light.
Though we’re not so self-important
As to think everything
has led to this,
Everything has led to this.”
—Nicole Sealey
Gemma thought she had forgotten what warmth felt like.
Somewhere in that dead ocean of whiteness and unfeeling gazes and carefully calculated steps, she lost sight of it.
It became yet another thing she could not, was not allowed to access anymore—like sunlight, like air, like freedom.
Because she knows now, there are places on Earth where warmth simply cannot reach, places where the atoms of every thing are a billion light years away from each other—frozen, untouched, almost unreal. That is the nature of the underground; it swallowed her whole; it made a vow to never let her go.
And so by necessity, every last ounce of free will was excised; she shed the skin that knew life as it was, and grew another accustomed only to the routine that filled her hours and hours—the sterilized sheets, the artificial costumes, the coldness of the stethoscope, the electric rods that measured the truth and the lies of her mind, the needles; God, the myriad of needles—those were the only surfaces whose touch it received, devoid of even a slim trace of decency or humanity.
And in the absence of touch, there were, perhaps, even more frightful things: strange words wielded like weapons, questions to prod and penetrate into the soft parts of her, eyes hungry to strip her of every layer of protection.
All of that broke her—in ways she never imagined one could be broken.
And all of that—is gone.
Because there is warmth now, coming up to greet her like an old friend, with open arms. And even though Mark does not yet know—that this skin isn’t hers, that it hasn’t felt hers in a too-long time—his hands remain gentle, so much so that it makes the pieces of her slowly fall into place, into memory; the distinct recognition of how it was, of how life used to be.
Mark, who is here, towelling her hair.
It is very much possible that they share this understanding: the weight of such a plain action, the world of meaning contained in it. The culmination of today’s events is this disarmingly simple, loving gesture, and perhaps that is fitting. Maybe, all along, it was meant to be.
Gemma hears the fabric’s gentle rustling, brushing the length of her locks until they’re dry and loose and free, and the sensation, at once novel and familiar, lulls her. She is here, she is here, she is real—she is not alone; she is not amongst monsters.
When the motions slow and gradually come to a stop, she reaches up without looking—and how wondrous it is, that her fingers can stretch and find his, grazing his wrist and guiding it back. Just a little longer. She doesn’t know whether she says that aloud, but just a few inches away from her, Mark understands, and the soothing motions resume.
There is no hairdryer, and there are probably other shortages yet to be discovered. It’s a shitty roadside motel, after all. The first one was the water; it went freezing cold so abruptly there was not even a second of realization under its spray, just the knee-jerk reaction of turning off the faucet; and Mark and her had stood stupidly, teeth chattering, the shiver that started in one ending in the other, traces of blood still plastered to his hair; they were still in the process of rinsing it clean, the reddish clumps thawing, melting down his shoulders and into the drain in an achingly familiar way.
Crimson upon crimson.
He cleaned blood off her once; now all she wanted was to return the favor.
By the time they staggered out of the shower, they seemed so frail, so exposed, as though the slightest breeze could unbalance and topple them. Somehow, they remained upright. And Gemma was able to find her voice, amusement and concern mingled in one. “Are you sure you didn’t get any water into the hole in your head?” “I don’t think so, but perhaps it will leak out of my ears later”. And they had both smiled, a little sheepishly, because it was madness, it was foolishness—it was ironic and almost lethal, in a way that nobody else could comprehend.
There were times when Gemma wondered whether one could cease to feel, turn to stone; she thought she came very close, the way every action became mechanised, every jab or question met with measured neutrality. But right here, in this room, there is so much to be felt.
There is newness in everything she sees, hears, smells, touches: the unmistakable night sky outside the window, a warmer light filling every corner, an uneven carpeted floor, a new type of fabric covering the bed; a new scent of soap, cheap and indistinct—and dust, so much of it that it fills her with an inexplicable sort of joy. These comprise only a fraction of the things to which she is waking up to, as though allowing herself to feel them for the first time.
The underground reduced the world to sameness, a nightmarish geometry as far as the eye could see.
That pattern has been broken.
Today, all rules were broken.
David and Goliath. And they defeated him, hand in hand, maybe not forever—but for now. And that is all that matters. And the knowledge of every inch of every hall, the millimetric science of procedures and cycles, the allotted times for sleeping and eating and testing—is slowly being replaced by the knowledge of breathing, of feeling—of existing, without any fear of being hurt, examined, scrutinized.
How terribly difficult, she thinks; to exist without fear.
It only lessens as she looks at him.
Even though it’s a little stupid, Mark lingers, reluctant to leave her side, and Gemma thinks she’d be content with just that. Please, linger awkwardly. Linger uncomfortably. Please, do. Please make more time, even when there is none.
Assuredly, she squeezes his hand, more for his sake than hers, reminding him to breathe—and he does, standing up to spread the wet towels across the chairs.
Clothes hang differently on him, she realizes, like they swim on his small frame, even though they seem to be the right size; something about the posture, the slump of the shoulders. He wears a matching top and pyjama bottom, a dull, sober shade of brown she doesn’t quite recognize and strikes her as curious. In her recollections, at least, there was always a precious sort of chaos in bed, full of mismatches, striped long sleeves and flannel bottoms, ancient t-shirts combined with soft pants; things that were clean paired with irreplaceable relics that would have unravelled upon the next wash.
Silly as it is, she wonders about the permanence of these things.
“Oh my God, my legs feel like spaghetti,” Mark declares, voice as wobbly as his knees.
It’s only logical; the adrenaline cocktail that fuelled their escape has worn off.
Watching him, hearing him—makes her smile.
“I missed it. The sound of your voice,”
Mark looks so taken aback his legs stop trembling.
Perhaps it was too much; perhaps, it was the only thing she could say.
His hair is still damp; he brushes the long bangs from his eyes like it’s always been in his nature. And it is only in this moment that other things swim up to the surface: the results of their efforts seared clearly onto his skin, the brutal consequences of an attempt to infiltrate the beating heart of hell. Purpling, shadowing bruises that are slowly blooming on his face, dots like starburst across his forehead, over the bridge of his nose. Blunt impacts. The angry, telling mark of fingers that beyond any doubt had closed around his neck—tried to extinguish the life and will in him.
It should concern her far more than it does, but she knows Lumon is capable of that and more.
And Gemma will be there, by God she will be, to witness those bruises yellow and fade, so she counts it as a blessing anyway.
When he comes back, they waste no time atop the covers. Bodies moving in tandem. Because there is still a feeling that remains, like they’re prey animals at the center of a hunt, all soft bellies and no shell, and these are the sheets that serve to make their burrow. Perhaps, if they’re lucky, they can wake up, hell behind them, to a world that is luminous and flourishing.
Gemma gives one last look at the door, looking for weak spots, even though there are none.
Beneath her fingers, she finds the bedding to be an infinite sea, smooth and feathery; a space twice or thrice the size of her barren cot. And she had forgotten about that, too, the way it all shifts when another body is pressed against the mattress.
They settle on their sides, allowing enough room to lay without discomfort, even though their knees bump against each other.
“I never- never thought I would hear your voice again,” Mark returns, and his presence is so close, so warm, so unlike anything she has recently experienced—her fingers spread just to confirm the reality of it.
He’s right there to meet her.
There is a question, then, in the tentative thumbing of his shirt buttons. “May I?” she ventures, something she cannot quite place in her throat. “I just- I would like to touch you,”
It is strange, to voice it like this—and yet it leaves her mouth like the most natural thing in the world. Amused, she feels the fabric between her fingers, the texture strangely thick. “Hey, what are these anyway? Are these yours?”
Mark looks down at himself for a moment, then seems to short-circuit altogether. “They were, uh… made on a Baltic handloom,”
A Baltic handloom. A Baltic handloom. The words do not compute. There are a million others he could’ve conjured, and somehow it was that amalgamation of eccentricities to come out of his mouth almost immediately.
A Baltic handloom. She knows in an instant, surer than the sky is fucking blue, that he didn’t just come up with that, which makes options run out exceedingly fast. A bubble bursts somewhere close to her throat, and then another, in crescendo, a spasmodic arpeggio of sounds suddenly surrounding them—and it’s laughter, yes, it’s laughter—a sweet, forgotten echo.
“A what?” she asks, drinking every sound.
That stops him short, buttons clumsily unbuttoned. Unbidden, a flush of colour rises to his face—up his ears, flaming his cheeks, eyebrows going in weird directions. And there a little snort instead of a guffaw and then it’s like he cannot even look at her all of a sudden, covering his face with his hands.
It’s as though the absurdity of it has caught him, completely unguarded—shirt only half shrugged off, one sleeve off and the other still clinging to his left arm.
“Ricken gave these to you?” Gemma says, incredulous but trusting her intuition nonetheless— because there is a story behind this pyjama set and she is determined to find out.
Gently, she takes his wrists and guides them away. She simply cannot miss the light on his face, not when he’s giggling like that.
He recovers enough to manage a single nod.
“Of course he did,”
“I'm sorry, they're so ugly,”
“No they're not!”
She pictures the exchange in her mind, the bizarre gift giving, and wishes she’d been there to witness it.
Their laughs mingle, and he wriggles as best he can until his right arm is freed, discarding the shirt completely. She basks in its absence, fingertips hardly skimming over bare skin, and Mark shivers.
His eyes slide easily shut, and Gemma knows she is welcome—welcome upon every inch of him.
She moves her hands, still careful, but growing in confidence as they splay out over his back, where they have spent countless hours.
It doesn’t take much to realize that tonight this is all the closeness they crave. Already this touch feels overwhelming—like a tide, an ocean, the expanse of warmth and skin the shoreline to which they have longed to return. She traces down his arms, the tender skin leading to the wrists, taking his hands in hers, marvelling at the way he feels at once far softer and more sharpened than she remembered.
The new wrinkles; the odd gray hair—it all seems to Gemma a discovery.
Mark shifts, and her with him, stomach pressed against his side, and she feels the breath he lets out, bringing her hand to his sternum. She catches the flutters of his heart there, and it is all she can do to lay down her ear to keep hearing the precious sounds. Nuzzling the hollow of his throat, she feels the shape of kisses forming on her brow.
Closeness gains a new meaning.
Slowly, Mark bows down to lean his forehead against hers.
A few inches of space allow her to reach into her own long-sleeve, pulling it off.
“You sure? I kinda fear you’ll get cold,” and his words are brimful, bursting with tenderness.
Because this is their language, the one they haven’t spoken in two years; and it is no surprise, really, that they are still fluent speakers; that even when they could not speak it with anybody else, they held it close, held it near. And Gemma remembers the signals, the small gestures that only gained significance over time, like shivering through the night, only for Mark to pull her top back down from where it had ridden up, or spreading another blanket over her.
“Says the one who always sleeps with socks on,” she retorts, in that same dialect, knowing and familiar.
And for a moment she doubts herself, doubts the connection between past and present, and in a bout of stupidity she is afraid to ask, do you still sleep with socks on? But after a second, the smile that spreads across his face is so wide, so whole and uncontrollable that she just instantly knows that yes, yes, he still sleeps with socks on, and he still hastily wraps himself around a robe when it’s cold in the morning and brews coffee while half-asleep and still waters his toothbrush before putting on the toothpaste, and yes, I recognize you, I recognize you, I recognize you, do you recognize me?
Mark kisses her, nose and cheekbone, and together they complete the task of pulling the long-sleeve over her head. And when all that’s left is skin brushing skin, there is a gentle and hesitant way to him, knowing it’s the thousandth time and also the first.
She guides his hands, then, until hesitance transmutes into relief, and relief into the very longing that drives her own hands. They are slow in their wandering, up and down, stroking and lingering—her hipbone, the curve of her ribs, the gentle swell of her breasts.
The edges of this body were dead—blurred and unfeeling—and now Gemma awes at the pulse under her own skin.
How impossible it had seemed, just a few hours ago, to receive a tenderness such as this.
They find a steady rhythm in their slowness—soft places, scarred places, cherished places in their bodies visited again and again, simply content to indulge in the current of this quiet want.
And when Mark pulls back, there is a light in his eyes that burns as brightly as the moment when they found each other, truly found each other, after the oblivion of that room; it is the kind of light that refuses to die out. He looks at her like she hung the moon and the stars—and the sheer, wonderful irony of it is that he is the only reason why tonight she is closer to that moon, those stars.
“You didn’t forget,” she says, because it still takes her breath away, because he has to know—he needs to know the fictions that were pushed into her throat, how heavily the shadows and lies weighed on her all this time.
You didn’t forget about me.
Mark’s eyes are terribly clear and yet glazed with emotion. “I could never,” his form shudders, he can hardly breathe. “Gemma. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry... It hurt me to remember you, it hurt so much… But I could never stop loving you. I don’t think I could, never, never, not even if they scooped out my whole brain, not even in death. You are my world, you are everything,”
And his hands are there where she needs them most, cradling her: cupping the sides of her face, brushing back the hair behind her ears. He lavishes her face in caresses, and there is something sacred in it: in the delineation of every feature, the contour of her eyes, the eyebrows, the apples of her cheeks; every blemish and imperfection.
“I just… I had nothing. No hope… other than you- any- any of you, might still remember me,” but the words break apart on her tongue, what for so long were just futile prayers now astonishingly real. “Fuck… I didn’t think I could ever go back home…”
And his voice falters too, almost a cry. “Oh, baby…”
Instinctively, he tightens his embrace, drawing her against his soft chest. She melts into it.
“There is no home without you…”
Something breaks in her chest at that, and something else heals.
A doing and undoing—a mutual sentiment.
“I was so scared,” he continues. “If I hadn’t found you, I- I- I don’t know what I would have…”
Gemma had the certainty, the knowledge that it was too late—that she was beyond help. Realizing that she wasn’t, it leaves her breathless—the thought of their journeys diverging and converging again too enormous comprehend. She pulls back.
“I wasn’t. I wasn’t scared,” her chest feels suddenly tight, close to heaving, as though the fear that went unfelt is finally catching up to her, demanding to be heard. “I was ready to die. Oh, God…”
And she just wants to scream and cry because it’s over, it’s over, it’s over and just when it seemed that Charon’s obol had been placed in her mouth, that she was about cross the river of no return... Fate had been dictated.
She recalls his words from earlier: I thought I was gonna have to die to see you again.
And the truth is perhaps they had both been close—so close to it, in fact, that death seemed more friend than foe. God. How can it be. How can something so brutal, so final—shift appearances so quickly. Countless times she had considered letting go, and the prospect had seemed to her even blissful.
There is nothing to say—no words to comfort something so terrible, so unspeakable.
They are mute before the horror.
Gemma can only press her eyes shut. She tucks her head under his chin, then, stifling a sob and failing, her mouth wobbling miserably. Mark shelters her, fingers curling around the bones of her shoulder with impossible softness—tracing soothing circles, even when he himself is swallowing back tears. She settles against his neck, and the feel of his touch finally seeps—lighting up the dark, neglected corners of herself, burning into her marrow.
For the first time in too long, she is held, she is held; she can lay down her terror, unload her burden and rest in his arms.
Time stretches into a fragment during which there is no sound, none at all—just the fierceness of their embrace.
“I love you,” he breathes, then, just for her to hear; like it overflows, like it’s all he can do. “I love you… I love you,”
And she turns towards his words, to feel the shape of them, to relish every letter; the very words she thought were utterly lost to her.
He says them again. And again, until their meaning is as solid as their bodies. And these are the recurring notes of a love that is past, and it’s present, and it’s future, too, yes; a love that remains and remains, and it never went away; it was always there, trying to reach her, trickling like rain down the floors and the wiring and the air ducts and the walls towards her thirsty roots.
And Gemma’s mind quiets—no phantom pains, no dozens of eyes itching to open and show her horrors she never wanted to see—until it slowly fades, dissolves: that image she had been forced to envision, of a healing Mark, carving out a new life with someone, expanding his life while hers only shrunk. The firmness of reality finally taking its place—this Mark who has fought like hell and yet shakes in her arms, just as fractured as she is.
“I love you…”
Gemma murmurs in disbelief. “It’s you… It’s you…”
Behind the warm blur of tears, she props herself up, in the futile endeavor of wiping her eyes. Instead, it is Mark who receives her tears, falling onto his cheeks—every line, every laughing crinkle around his eyes and mouth close enough to touch, to kiss.
She shifts to encircle his form completely, because it is all she has wanted in God-knows how long—rolling until she’s laying on top, slipping an arm under to cradle his head, her nose feathering against his. Her hands close around wound that brought them here, eager to protect.
Overcome, Mark hugs her back, just below her arms, and through their chests pressed together is love, it’s impossible not to feel it—beating and alive and bleeding into each other. As they are, there is a whole microcosm between them, and he nuzzles into her, nose squished against her skin, relishing the warmth that pours into him—the warmth that pours into her.
If they have hours—this is all they want them to be; if they have years—this is all they want them to be.
From time to time, her body is wrecked by tremors, in a way that she knows is involuntary, completely beyond her control—signifying perhaps, the enormity of such change, the unlikely possibility of this return, the shedding of this dead skin to learn warmth and softness anew—and he holds her through those too.
Because the body has always been wiser. It revealed what was done to her, in the moments ensuing agony. It took the toll and although it heals it does not forget, and hers recalls the exact feel of safety, and this is it—this is it—and there is no longer any need to make herself small, to brace herself for something blunt to strike her. Instead, her limbs stretch and unfurl like wings, reaching freely to hold and touch every crevice of him she can find; squeezing his waist, fingers coiling around the hair that scatters messily across his neck.
“Gemma…” he sighs. Her shoulder is damp with tears, and it is a wondrous sensation.
And she wants to pour herself like liquid gold, to nestle within his chest and make a home there. She knows he’d let her. She knows.
And pulling him closer still, she can only delight in the softness of his lips, finding her time and time again—seizing the closeness to turn and kiss her bicep, then the rest of her arm.
This is it, and the yoke has been lifted, and she is free to return every gesture with her own—free to cradle and caress and treasure. She cannot possibly hope to make up for all the lost time, but she is determined to try. His lips wander back to her face, and stay there for a long time after, loosely pressed against her temple. And they are here, laying where sleep cannot reach them, and neither can harm—suspended in the delicate stillness that confirms that yes, they made it, they found their way back and they won’t let go again.
And amidst the rhythm of their quiet breathing, a tick-tack, a sign of the life that stopped—but which is starting, restarting again.
A sign that there is still light in the world, and there is still goodness, and there is still love.
And if that is true perhaps, despite everything, there are still undamaged parts left within them; parts just waiting to be found.
Time loosens.
Time melts.
Forms disentangle, but only slightly.
There is a hint of light, and Mark turns towards it, neck stretching in a way that reveals the laborious movement of every muscle, and each and every remnant of violence, of damage, seem to have disappeared; as he looks simply made ethereal, beautiful, bathed in lightness.
And Gemma loves him, because she still remembers how: to love wholly, overwhelmingly; completely.
“Do you wanna see it?” he says. “The sun is rising,”