Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2025-02-12 05:42 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2025-02-12 05:42 pm
Entry tags:
Fanfiction: For Someone Else (Severance)
This is the sixth Severance fic I've posted in approximately three weeks. I am absolutely losing my mind about this show.
Title: For Someone Else
Fandom: Severance
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,300
Summary: Helena's loyalties start to shift.
Warnings: Allusions to consent issues. Severance spoilers up to episode 2.04, 'Woe's Hollow'.
Dylan’s been less talkative, since the Outie Family Visitation Suite perk was quietly introduced. Withdrawing from Mark’s search for his wife, focusing on his work. It’s all working as intended; if the MDR team can be divided, they can be conquered.
It’s strange, but a part of Helena almost misses him. Dylan is vulgar and, in most respects, an extremely poor example of the Lumon core principles. But he’s entertaining, in a way. Helena’s days confined in this office have certainly felt less lively since he started to pull away from the group.
She gives in to temptation when the two of them are alone at their desks, Irving and Mark probably plotting sedition in the kitchenette. This is a mistake. She shouldn’t be wasting her time with Dylan at all; Dylan is under control.
No. This is the right decision. She needs to keep an eye on Dylan as well; if he’s neglected, he could still become dangerous.
She lowers the divider. “How’s your wife?”
She enjoys the bluntness she’s able to employ as Helly. No need to be diplomatic or euphemistic; she can just get straight to the point.
Dylan shoots her a wide-eyed look. “Holy fuck, you know about that?”
“I heard Milchick talking about it,” she says. “On the phone.”
“What was he saying? Do you know if it’s my actual wife? ’Cause I wouldn’t put it past this place—”
“I just heard something about a family visitation suite,” she says. “I figured maybe that’s where you’ve been disappearing to, ’cause... well, we know you have a family, right?” Although, now that she thinks about it, that wouldn’t explain how she knows he’s seen his wife and not his children. She needs to turn the questions back on him, distract him from asking for any more details. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m – I’m sorry. Milchick said, uh, maybe you guys wouldn’t feel great about it. ’Cause you’re all single.”
“Well, it’s fine for me to know, right?” Helena asks. She gestures to herself. “I could not care less about whatever worthless family this person has on the outside.”
Dylan seems to hesitate for a moment.
“It’d be good, actually,” he says. “To have someone I can talk to about it. You sure you don’t mind hearing it?”
Helena nods. “Hey, I’m here to listen.”
-
It bothers Helena, more than it should, that Irving doesn’t believe her story about the gardener. It’s a problem, of course; it should bother her in that sense. She made a mistake, and it could threaten her cover here. But...
She sees, when Irving looks at her, how much he wants to believe her. How much he cares about her, or about the person he thinks she is. It’s hard not to wonder what it would feel like to be the one he really believes in.
She makes a little snow seal for him. A peace offering.
It’s not the kind of thing she’s done before. It takes four tries before she’s satisfied, and she finds herself laughing quietly as she shapes the snow, amused by how ridiculous it is. Dylan asks what she’s doing while she’s hunting for stones for its eyes and nose, ends up helping her look.
She’s enjoying herself. It’s a strange realisation.
-
Helena watches Mark sleep in her tent. Matches her breathing to his, slow and steady, in and out.
Should that have happened?
In the moment, she couldn’t have imagined having regrets. She was caught up in being wanted; she’s been caught up in it since she saw that moment on the surveillance footage, a kiss she doesn’t remember. But...
Mark’s expression shifts in his sleep; he mumbles something. Her name, almost. But not quite.
She’d never been looked at like that before. There’s a warmth in her chest when she thinks of it. But it wasn’t for her.
-
There’s a moment, on the ORTBO, when Irving looks at her and she thinks: That’s it. It’s over. He knows.
Nothing happens. The ORTBO ends without incident. But Helena is still tense.
It takes her a long time to pin down her unease. She thought, at first, that she was just afraid Irving might still expose her.
It’s not just that. She’s disappointed.
She’s been lying and lying to these people. Watching Dylan pull away from his friends, watching Irving’s increasing paranoia and grief. Watching Mark make himself vulnerable to someone he thought he could trust.
If she’d been exposed, at least it would be over.
-
She spends three days trying to talk herself out of her decision. It doesn’t work, and she wasn’t really expecting it to; she’s always been stubborn. She guesses that’s something she and Helly have in common.
“Could you help me out in the supply closet?” she asks, when she finally abandons the struggle with herself.
A small, shy smile breaks onto Mark’s face. “Yeah, of course.”
He’s so clearly excited to be alone with her; he doesn’t know what’s coming. She wishes she could feel nothing but contempt. It’s too late; she’s made the mistake of caring.
She closes the closet door behind them, turns to face him. He’s smiling at her. She lets herself take that in, just for a few seconds, before she speaks.
“My name is Helena Eagan,” she says. “I’m Helly’s outie.”
Mark lets out a kind of half-laugh. “What?”
“Helly never came back after your Overtime Contingency escapade,” she says. It’s done; it’s out. The words come easier now. “It’s been me. Here, on the severed floor, in her role.”
The bewildered amusement on Mark’s face vanishes. “W-what?”
She takes a deep breath. “Lumon needed an observer to—”
“Fuck.” He’s pressed a hand over his mouth; his voice is so strangled, so desperate, that she cuts herself off. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”
He’s trying to back away, as much as he can in the enclosed space of the closet. She takes a step towards him, without thinking, and he holds his palms up like he’s trying to ward her off somehow.
“I—” He looks stricken. “I thought you were Helly. In – in the tent. I—”
She reaches out to touch his arm. It’s almost automatic by now: when you’re Helly, touch people to comfort them. It’s not something she’s used to in her life as Helena, but it’s natural among the MDR team.
Mark jerks back, so sharply he bumps into the shelf behind him.
“Oh, my God,” he says, very quietly.
What does she do, here? Does she apologise? Will that make a difference?
“Fuck,” he whispers. He grips his head in both hands, like he’s trying to hold it in place, like it’s trying to escape. “I can’t believe I – I didn’t see it, I didn’t even know, I can’t believe I—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says.
She doesn’t like saying it. That night meant something to her; she doesn’t like framing it as someone’s fault, like it’s something that shouldn’t have happened. But there’s a rising sense of sickness in her gullet as she looks at Mark’s expression.
It shouldn’t have happened. She hurt him.
He sinks down to sit on the floor, his head still in his hands. She sits down next to him. She doesn’t know what else to do.
“Uh,” he says, eventually. He lets out an unsteady breath, looks over at her. Breaks eye contact straight away. “Why – why are you telling me?”
It’s a good question. It’s definitely the wrong decision. But...
“I... didn’t like what I was doing to you,” she says. “The three of you. I guess the problem with strategically getting close to someone” – he flinches at getting close to, and she falters for an instant – “is that you might actually realise you like them.”
He meets her eyes again at that. He’s looking at her like he expects her to stab him.
“So,” she says. “If my cover’s exposed, I’m no use as a mole. That’s why I’m telling you.”
Mark climbs to his feet. Just for an instant, he holds out his hand to her, and then he snatches it back like he’s touched a hot stove. She stands up on her own.
“You didn’t like what you were doing to the three of us,” he says, after a long moment. “What about Helly?”
Did she do something to Helly? She can’t have done anything to Helly; Helly isn’t here. “What about her?”
“You’re in her body,” Mark says. “Are you going to bring her back?”
For a moment, idiotically, Helena is surprised by the question. She knows how much these people care about that version of her; she’s experienced how they treat her firsthand. But somehow it hadn’t crossed her mind that that would be Mark’s first priority here.
This isn’t Helly’s body. This is her body.
“I... don’t actually need the work,” she says, carefully. “I’m sure a new team member would—”
“No,” Mark says. “We need Helly here. If you – if you care about us... do you care about us?” He swallows, visibly. “If you care about us – we need her.”
He’s looking at her like she’s a stranger. She supposes she is. But it feels strange, now; it jars with the memory of how he looked at her as Helly.
“She tried to kill me,” Helena says. “You’re asking me to put that weapon back in her hands.”
For a moment, Mark looks thrown, but he seems to find his voice. “You wouldn’t let her go. I’m sure—”
“She’s gone,” Helena says. She’s upset by the way her own voice frays; she’s not supposed to sound like that. “She got what she wanted.”
“I’m sure she’d be, uh, less violent if you gave her more freedom. Do you have the power to do that, if – if you’re an Eagan? Just... let her be outside sometimes? Maybe, I don’t know, an evening a week?”
“How much of my life are you asking me to give up for someone who hates me?”
“She’s our friend,” Mark says, “and she doesn’t exist any more. We just want her back.”
Of course they do. She’s their friend.
Helena swallows. Her throat feels tight. They’ll all just resent her if she doesn’t give Helly back to them, won’t they?
“I’ll give her some time outside,” she says, “if I can have some of the time in here.”
There’s surprise in Mark’s expression, and discomfort. Of course there is. He doesn’t want her; he wants Helly.
But she wants him. Him and Irving and Dylan. They were kind to her, and she doesn’t want to give that up.
Stupid. They weren’t kind to her. They won’t look at her like that any more, now that they’ll know who she is.
“I... guess that’s fair,” he says, cautiously. “If—”
“Forget it,” she says. “She can have my Sundays. I never know what to do with them anyway.”
Mark stares at her for a moment. Opens his mouth.
The door opens.
“You two getting cosy in the supply closet?” Dylan asks.
Helena looks sharply at him. Does she – does she have to explain it again, does she have to see his expression change the way Mark’s did?
“Oh, hey,” Dylan says, “what’s wrong?”
She strides over and gives him a hug.
He makes a startled noise. “Uh, what—”
She walks out into the office, with so much purpose and determination that Irving starts to his feet, looking like he’s about to ask something. She hugs him as well, and then she starts running for the elevator.
Her heels are slowing her down; she tugs her shoes off in midstep and holds them in one hand, pelts barefoot through the corridors. She hammers on the call button when she reaches the elevator.
She can hear running footsteps. She doesn’t know if it’s Milchick, coming to chastise her for making a scene, or one of the MDR team wanting to check on her.
Either way, she’s not planning to linger. She steps into the elevator and leaves the severed floor for good.
-
She tells Milchick that her cover as Helly R has been blown; she doesn’t give further details. She makes arrangements for Helly’s return.
Lumon isn’t thrilled about letting a severed employee spend time on the outside, or about bringing Helly back at all; she’s considered a ‘problem employee’, unsurprisingly. But Helena explains that, if they make concessions to Helly, maybe she’ll be willing to help paper over the PR disaster of her actions during the Overtime Contingency.
She doesn’t know if the argument convinces anyone; she’s certainly not convinced of it herself. But, whether they believe it or not, they have to listen to her. She’s an Eagan.
She’s disoriented by the first switch after Helly is restored, when she heads into the office. She steps onto the elevator, a part of her expecting the white walls of the severed floor, and an instant later she finds herself right back where she was.
It hadn’t really hit her, until this moment, that she’ll probably never see Mark or Dylan or Irving again.
-
Helena hides her valuables on the Saturday, and the knives. She leaves sixty dollars in cash on the kitchen counter, in the hope that giving Helly an allowance will prevent her from trying to obtain money through fraud or pawning or Kier knows what else.
She doesn’t know what to expect on the Sunday, after she comes back from Helly’s first officially sanctioned stint in her body outside. She’s arranged a bodyguard, to make sure she doesn’t do anything too crazy, but she’s still half-convinced she’ll come back to a burning building.
But she wakes up on Sunday evening, and everything seems more or less fine. She guesses Helly has an incentive to behave herself on these weekend excursions, if she wants to keep them.
Helly’s messier than she is; she doesn’t seem to have made any effort to tidy up after herself. Helena can get an impression of what she’s done by looking through her home, taking note of anything out of place: the television remote lying askew on the sofa, rather than on its usual table. Her shoes by the front door, mud-caked and two feet apart.
The bedclothes are rumpled, which concerns Helena slightly; Helly was only here in the daytime, from nine to five o’clock. She asks the bodyguard about it.
“She just slept for half the afternoon,” he says. “She wasn’t that much trouble. Mouthy, though.”
She’d never have had the opportunity to sleep before, Helena supposes. She’s never really thought about it.
From the look of the packaging in the kitchen, Helly has bought and eaten an entire birthday cake. Which probably isn’t the best thing for their shared body, but it could be worse.
-
She leaves a note for Helly the next Sunday, before the switch. How are the others?
There’s a reply scribbled underneath in the evening. Better now that you’re not there.
She guesses that’s all she deserves.
-
Really, she might as well give Helly her Saturdays too; it’s not like she often has much to do with those either. But emergency Lumon meetings will sometimes take place on a Saturday, so it’s best to remain as herself, just in case.
No meetings today, though. Helena tries to focus on reorganising her wardrobe.
The doorbell rings. A delivery, probably, although she doesn’t think she’s ordered anything. She’s considered requesting a glass portrait of the MDR team, but she’s decided against it; it’s best not to raise questions about where her loyalties lie.
She opens the door and finds herself looking into Mark’s eyes.
“Uh,” he says, “hey.”
She just stands there, paralysed, her hand still on the door. She’s thinking of that night in the tent. She’s thinking of—
Why is he here? Why would Mark Scout come to see her?
“Helly gave me your address,” he says. “Can I come in?”
And that raises even more questions. Did Helly contact Mark’s outie during one of her Sundays outside, tell him about their arrangement? Or is this Mark S, the innie, the one she knows? Out here, in the real world? How?
Her mind seems to connect with her muscles at last. A part of her is half-convinced he’s here to kill her. But she gestures him inside.
-
Reintegration. The official word is that it isn’t possible. Helena finds herself fascinated by the concept, turning it over in her mind. If she reintegrated, what would it be like?
You’re in her body. Mark’s words still bother her, sometimes. If she reintegrated, maybe he would feel she’s taken Helly’s body away from her for good.
She can still see Mark S in the man sitting with her, though. He’s different, certainly, rewritten and recoloured by the experiences of his outie. But he still exists; she’s sure of that.
She’s glad. She wouldn’t want him gone. He’s an innie, but it’s hard not to think of him as a person. And a person who matters to her, even if she knows she doesn’t really matter to him.
She should probably write her own innie an apology. For a lot of things, really.
When he turned up, she was expecting to get straight to the point, the reason he’s here: information, or revenge. But they’ve just... been talking. About reintegration, about family, about what’s happened since they parted ways. He’s asked whether she’s been in trouble with Lumon, whether Helly’s been causing any problems in her body, but it mostly just feels like making conversation; it can’t be why he sought her out.
She asks how Dylan and Irving are, and a strange softness comes over his expression. It’s the closest he’s come to looking at her the way he looked at Helly. She has to break from his gaze.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “It’s part of the reason I came here, actually. I couldn’t figure out why you asked to keep some of the time in the office.” He shifts on the sofa. “It’s us, right? You miss us.”
A yes would be humiliating. A no would be a lie, and she’s lied enough to him already. She doesn’t say anything.
“What do you have in your kitchen?” he asks. “I could make us omelettes or something, if you don’t have dinner plans.”
-
Something shifts in Mark’s attitude after they’ve eaten: there’s a kind of intensity there, a kind of focus. They’re coming up to the real reason he’s here.
“I should probably get going soon,” he says, standing from the dining table.
Helena stands as well, automatically. She doesn’t like sitting while talking to someone on their feet, that sense of being physically looked down on.
“This has been nice,” she says, and she means it. “But you didn’t come here just to keep me company.”
He’s silent for a moment. “Well, no.”
She gives him one of her carefully perfected smiles, the kind with absolutely no feeling behind it. “It’s fine. I understand that we’re not friends.”
“I still kept you company,” he points out. “The fact that I have ulterior motives doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly.”
Friendly, he says. Not friends. It feels like a careful distinction. But it’s still more than she expected.
“Does that mean you’ll visit again?” She wants him to say yes; she’s embarrassed by how much she wants him to say yes.
“Depends,” he says. “Will I still be alive next week, or is your company going to assassinate me?”
The smile that comes to her now is imperfect, just the corner of her mouth tugging upwards. It might even be genuine.
“That might depend on your ulterior motives,” she says. As if she doesn’t know exactly why he’s here.
It’s a few seconds before he speaks. “What do you know about Gemma?”
She holds his gaze for a long moment. This is it; this is when she decides if she’s really going to let her company burn for these goddamn innies, these half-people who somehow got under her skin.
“I’ll tell you all that I can,” she says.
Title: For Someone Else
Fandom: Severance
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,300
Summary: Helena's loyalties start to shift.
Warnings: Allusions to consent issues. Severance spoilers up to episode 2.04, 'Woe's Hollow'.
Dylan’s been less talkative, since the Outie Family Visitation Suite perk was quietly introduced. Withdrawing from Mark’s search for his wife, focusing on his work. It’s all working as intended; if the MDR team can be divided, they can be conquered.
It’s strange, but a part of Helena almost misses him. Dylan is vulgar and, in most respects, an extremely poor example of the Lumon core principles. But he’s entertaining, in a way. Helena’s days confined in this office have certainly felt less lively since he started to pull away from the group.
She gives in to temptation when the two of them are alone at their desks, Irving and Mark probably plotting sedition in the kitchenette. This is a mistake. She shouldn’t be wasting her time with Dylan at all; Dylan is under control.
No. This is the right decision. She needs to keep an eye on Dylan as well; if he’s neglected, he could still become dangerous.
She lowers the divider. “How’s your wife?”
She enjoys the bluntness she’s able to employ as Helly. No need to be diplomatic or euphemistic; she can just get straight to the point.
Dylan shoots her a wide-eyed look. “Holy fuck, you know about that?”
“I heard Milchick talking about it,” she says. “On the phone.”
“What was he saying? Do you know if it’s my actual wife? ’Cause I wouldn’t put it past this place—”
“I just heard something about a family visitation suite,” she says. “I figured maybe that’s where you’ve been disappearing to, ’cause... well, we know you have a family, right?” Although, now that she thinks about it, that wouldn’t explain how she knows he’s seen his wife and not his children. She needs to turn the questions back on him, distract him from asking for any more details. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m – I’m sorry. Milchick said, uh, maybe you guys wouldn’t feel great about it. ’Cause you’re all single.”
“Well, it’s fine for me to know, right?” Helena asks. She gestures to herself. “I could not care less about whatever worthless family this person has on the outside.”
Dylan seems to hesitate for a moment.
“It’d be good, actually,” he says. “To have someone I can talk to about it. You sure you don’t mind hearing it?”
Helena nods. “Hey, I’m here to listen.”
It bothers Helena, more than it should, that Irving doesn’t believe her story about the gardener. It’s a problem, of course; it should bother her in that sense. She made a mistake, and it could threaten her cover here. But...
She sees, when Irving looks at her, how much he wants to believe her. How much he cares about her, or about the person he thinks she is. It’s hard not to wonder what it would feel like to be the one he really believes in.
She makes a little snow seal for him. A peace offering.
It’s not the kind of thing she’s done before. It takes four tries before she’s satisfied, and she finds herself laughing quietly as she shapes the snow, amused by how ridiculous it is. Dylan asks what she’s doing while she’s hunting for stones for its eyes and nose, ends up helping her look.
She’s enjoying herself. It’s a strange realisation.
Helena watches Mark sleep in her tent. Matches her breathing to his, slow and steady, in and out.
Should that have happened?
In the moment, she couldn’t have imagined having regrets. She was caught up in being wanted; she’s been caught up in it since she saw that moment on the surveillance footage, a kiss she doesn’t remember. But...
Mark’s expression shifts in his sleep; he mumbles something. Her name, almost. But not quite.
She’d never been looked at like that before. There’s a warmth in her chest when she thinks of it. But it wasn’t for her.
There’s a moment, on the ORTBO, when Irving looks at her and she thinks: That’s it. It’s over. He knows.
Nothing happens. The ORTBO ends without incident. But Helena is still tense.
It takes her a long time to pin down her unease. She thought, at first, that she was just afraid Irving might still expose her.
It’s not just that. She’s disappointed.
She’s been lying and lying to these people. Watching Dylan pull away from his friends, watching Irving’s increasing paranoia and grief. Watching Mark make himself vulnerable to someone he thought he could trust.
If she’d been exposed, at least it would be over.
She spends three days trying to talk herself out of her decision. It doesn’t work, and she wasn’t really expecting it to; she’s always been stubborn. She guesses that’s something she and Helly have in common.
“Could you help me out in the supply closet?” she asks, when she finally abandons the struggle with herself.
A small, shy smile breaks onto Mark’s face. “Yeah, of course.”
He’s so clearly excited to be alone with her; he doesn’t know what’s coming. She wishes she could feel nothing but contempt. It’s too late; she’s made the mistake of caring.
She closes the closet door behind them, turns to face him. He’s smiling at her. She lets herself take that in, just for a few seconds, before she speaks.
“My name is Helena Eagan,” she says. “I’m Helly’s outie.”
Mark lets out a kind of half-laugh. “What?”
“Helly never came back after your Overtime Contingency escapade,” she says. It’s done; it’s out. The words come easier now. “It’s been me. Here, on the severed floor, in her role.”
The bewildered amusement on Mark’s face vanishes. “W-what?”
She takes a deep breath. “Lumon needed an observer to—”
“Fuck.” He’s pressed a hand over his mouth; his voice is so strangled, so desperate, that she cuts herself off. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”
He’s trying to back away, as much as he can in the enclosed space of the closet. She takes a step towards him, without thinking, and he holds his palms up like he’s trying to ward her off somehow.
“I—” He looks stricken. “I thought you were Helly. In – in the tent. I—”
She reaches out to touch his arm. It’s almost automatic by now: when you’re Helly, touch people to comfort them. It’s not something she’s used to in her life as Helena, but it’s natural among the MDR team.
Mark jerks back, so sharply he bumps into the shelf behind him.
“Oh, my God,” he says, very quietly.
What does she do, here? Does she apologise? Will that make a difference?
“Fuck,” he whispers. He grips his head in both hands, like he’s trying to hold it in place, like it’s trying to escape. “I can’t believe I – I didn’t see it, I didn’t even know, I can’t believe I—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says.
She doesn’t like saying it. That night meant something to her; she doesn’t like framing it as someone’s fault, like it’s something that shouldn’t have happened. But there’s a rising sense of sickness in her gullet as she looks at Mark’s expression.
It shouldn’t have happened. She hurt him.
He sinks down to sit on the floor, his head still in his hands. She sits down next to him. She doesn’t know what else to do.
“Uh,” he says, eventually. He lets out an unsteady breath, looks over at her. Breaks eye contact straight away. “Why – why are you telling me?”
It’s a good question. It’s definitely the wrong decision. But...
“I... didn’t like what I was doing to you,” she says. “The three of you. I guess the problem with strategically getting close to someone” – he flinches at getting close to, and she falters for an instant – “is that you might actually realise you like them.”
He meets her eyes again at that. He’s looking at her like he expects her to stab him.
“So,” she says. “If my cover’s exposed, I’m no use as a mole. That’s why I’m telling you.”
Mark climbs to his feet. Just for an instant, he holds out his hand to her, and then he snatches it back like he’s touched a hot stove. She stands up on her own.
“You didn’t like what you were doing to the three of us,” he says, after a long moment. “What about Helly?”
Did she do something to Helly? She can’t have done anything to Helly; Helly isn’t here. “What about her?”
“You’re in her body,” Mark says. “Are you going to bring her back?”
For a moment, idiotically, Helena is surprised by the question. She knows how much these people care about that version of her; she’s experienced how they treat her firsthand. But somehow it hadn’t crossed her mind that that would be Mark’s first priority here.
This isn’t Helly’s body. This is her body.
“I... don’t actually need the work,” she says, carefully. “I’m sure a new team member would—”
“No,” Mark says. “We need Helly here. If you – if you care about us... do you care about us?” He swallows, visibly. “If you care about us – we need her.”
He’s looking at her like she’s a stranger. She supposes she is. But it feels strange, now; it jars with the memory of how he looked at her as Helly.
“She tried to kill me,” Helena says. “You’re asking me to put that weapon back in her hands.”
For a moment, Mark looks thrown, but he seems to find his voice. “You wouldn’t let her go. I’m sure—”
“She’s gone,” Helena says. She’s upset by the way her own voice frays; she’s not supposed to sound like that. “She got what she wanted.”
“I’m sure she’d be, uh, less violent if you gave her more freedom. Do you have the power to do that, if – if you’re an Eagan? Just... let her be outside sometimes? Maybe, I don’t know, an evening a week?”
“How much of my life are you asking me to give up for someone who hates me?”
“She’s our friend,” Mark says, “and she doesn’t exist any more. We just want her back.”
Of course they do. She’s their friend.
Helena swallows. Her throat feels tight. They’ll all just resent her if she doesn’t give Helly back to them, won’t they?
“I’ll give her some time outside,” she says, “if I can have some of the time in here.”
There’s surprise in Mark’s expression, and discomfort. Of course there is. He doesn’t want her; he wants Helly.
But she wants him. Him and Irving and Dylan. They were kind to her, and she doesn’t want to give that up.
Stupid. They weren’t kind to her. They won’t look at her like that any more, now that they’ll know who she is.
“I... guess that’s fair,” he says, cautiously. “If—”
“Forget it,” she says. “She can have my Sundays. I never know what to do with them anyway.”
Mark stares at her for a moment. Opens his mouth.
The door opens.
“You two getting cosy in the supply closet?” Dylan asks.
Helena looks sharply at him. Does she – does she have to explain it again, does she have to see his expression change the way Mark’s did?
“Oh, hey,” Dylan says, “what’s wrong?”
She strides over and gives him a hug.
He makes a startled noise. “Uh, what—”
She walks out into the office, with so much purpose and determination that Irving starts to his feet, looking like he’s about to ask something. She hugs him as well, and then she starts running for the elevator.
Her heels are slowing her down; she tugs her shoes off in midstep and holds them in one hand, pelts barefoot through the corridors. She hammers on the call button when she reaches the elevator.
She can hear running footsteps. She doesn’t know if it’s Milchick, coming to chastise her for making a scene, or one of the MDR team wanting to check on her.
Either way, she’s not planning to linger. She steps into the elevator and leaves the severed floor for good.
She tells Milchick that her cover as Helly R has been blown; she doesn’t give further details. She makes arrangements for Helly’s return.
Lumon isn’t thrilled about letting a severed employee spend time on the outside, or about bringing Helly back at all; she’s considered a ‘problem employee’, unsurprisingly. But Helena explains that, if they make concessions to Helly, maybe she’ll be willing to help paper over the PR disaster of her actions during the Overtime Contingency.
She doesn’t know if the argument convinces anyone; she’s certainly not convinced of it herself. But, whether they believe it or not, they have to listen to her. She’s an Eagan.
She’s disoriented by the first switch after Helly is restored, when she heads into the office. She steps onto the elevator, a part of her expecting the white walls of the severed floor, and an instant later she finds herself right back where she was.
It hadn’t really hit her, until this moment, that she’ll probably never see Mark or Dylan or Irving again.
Helena hides her valuables on the Saturday, and the knives. She leaves sixty dollars in cash on the kitchen counter, in the hope that giving Helly an allowance will prevent her from trying to obtain money through fraud or pawning or Kier knows what else.
She doesn’t know what to expect on the Sunday, after she comes back from Helly’s first officially sanctioned stint in her body outside. She’s arranged a bodyguard, to make sure she doesn’t do anything too crazy, but she’s still half-convinced she’ll come back to a burning building.
But she wakes up on Sunday evening, and everything seems more or less fine. She guesses Helly has an incentive to behave herself on these weekend excursions, if she wants to keep them.
Helly’s messier than she is; she doesn’t seem to have made any effort to tidy up after herself. Helena can get an impression of what she’s done by looking through her home, taking note of anything out of place: the television remote lying askew on the sofa, rather than on its usual table. Her shoes by the front door, mud-caked and two feet apart.
The bedclothes are rumpled, which concerns Helena slightly; Helly was only here in the daytime, from nine to five o’clock. She asks the bodyguard about it.
“She just slept for half the afternoon,” he says. “She wasn’t that much trouble. Mouthy, though.”
She’d never have had the opportunity to sleep before, Helena supposes. She’s never really thought about it.
From the look of the packaging in the kitchen, Helly has bought and eaten an entire birthday cake. Which probably isn’t the best thing for their shared body, but it could be worse.
She leaves a note for Helly the next Sunday, before the switch. How are the others?
There’s a reply scribbled underneath in the evening. Better now that you’re not there.
She guesses that’s all she deserves.
Really, she might as well give Helly her Saturdays too; it’s not like she often has much to do with those either. But emergency Lumon meetings will sometimes take place on a Saturday, so it’s best to remain as herself, just in case.
No meetings today, though. Helena tries to focus on reorganising her wardrobe.
The doorbell rings. A delivery, probably, although she doesn’t think she’s ordered anything. She’s considered requesting a glass portrait of the MDR team, but she’s decided against it; it’s best not to raise questions about where her loyalties lie.
She opens the door and finds herself looking into Mark’s eyes.
“Uh,” he says, “hey.”
She just stands there, paralysed, her hand still on the door. She’s thinking of that night in the tent. She’s thinking of—
Why is he here? Why would Mark Scout come to see her?
“Helly gave me your address,” he says. “Can I come in?”
And that raises even more questions. Did Helly contact Mark’s outie during one of her Sundays outside, tell him about their arrangement? Or is this Mark S, the innie, the one she knows? Out here, in the real world? How?
Her mind seems to connect with her muscles at last. A part of her is half-convinced he’s here to kill her. But she gestures him inside.
Reintegration. The official word is that it isn’t possible. Helena finds herself fascinated by the concept, turning it over in her mind. If she reintegrated, what would it be like?
You’re in her body. Mark’s words still bother her, sometimes. If she reintegrated, maybe he would feel she’s taken Helly’s body away from her for good.
She can still see Mark S in the man sitting with her, though. He’s different, certainly, rewritten and recoloured by the experiences of his outie. But he still exists; she’s sure of that.
She’s glad. She wouldn’t want him gone. He’s an innie, but it’s hard not to think of him as a person. And a person who matters to her, even if she knows she doesn’t really matter to him.
She should probably write her own innie an apology. For a lot of things, really.
When he turned up, she was expecting to get straight to the point, the reason he’s here: information, or revenge. But they’ve just... been talking. About reintegration, about family, about what’s happened since they parted ways. He’s asked whether she’s been in trouble with Lumon, whether Helly’s been causing any problems in her body, but it mostly just feels like making conversation; it can’t be why he sought her out.
She asks how Dylan and Irving are, and a strange softness comes over his expression. It’s the closest he’s come to looking at her the way he looked at Helly. She has to break from his gaze.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “It’s part of the reason I came here, actually. I couldn’t figure out why you asked to keep some of the time in the office.” He shifts on the sofa. “It’s us, right? You miss us.”
A yes would be humiliating. A no would be a lie, and she’s lied enough to him already. She doesn’t say anything.
“What do you have in your kitchen?” he asks. “I could make us omelettes or something, if you don’t have dinner plans.”
Something shifts in Mark’s attitude after they’ve eaten: there’s a kind of intensity there, a kind of focus. They’re coming up to the real reason he’s here.
“I should probably get going soon,” he says, standing from the dining table.
Helena stands as well, automatically. She doesn’t like sitting while talking to someone on their feet, that sense of being physically looked down on.
“This has been nice,” she says, and she means it. “But you didn’t come here just to keep me company.”
He’s silent for a moment. “Well, no.”
She gives him one of her carefully perfected smiles, the kind with absolutely no feeling behind it. “It’s fine. I understand that we’re not friends.”
“I still kept you company,” he points out. “The fact that I have ulterior motives doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly.”
Friendly, he says. Not friends. It feels like a careful distinction. But it’s still more than she expected.
“Does that mean you’ll visit again?” She wants him to say yes; she’s embarrassed by how much she wants him to say yes.
“Depends,” he says. “Will I still be alive next week, or is your company going to assassinate me?”
The smile that comes to her now is imperfect, just the corner of her mouth tugging upwards. It might even be genuine.
“That might depend on your ulterior motives,” she says. As if she doesn’t know exactly why he’s here.
It’s a few seconds before he speaks. “What do you know about Gemma?”
She holds his gaze for a long moment. This is it; this is when she decides if she’s really going to let her company burn for these goddamn innies, these half-people who somehow got under her skin.
“I’ll tell you all that I can,” she says.
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I like how much this conveys about what Helena has been taught to want and value in a person and how it conflicts with what she actually wants.
I bet she enjoyed saying that.
I love this description and her learning to do something so sweet and human. Helena feels like the opposite kind of outside regular human experience from Helly - she knows the world, but not things like friendship or real connection or how to let herself have fun without the weight of family expectations, and that's a very interesting and believable take on the character.
I like how you write her coming to grips with what she did. It's a good example of showing the mindset and rationalizations without excusing it. (Understanding includes understanding that she did something selfish and inexcusable and hurt Mark, and also why she didn't really get the impact of what she was doing until afterward.)
I like the mindset you write her as having.
This really works as the first rationalization and kind of plausible from her perspective, given the little she knows about Helly.
I love that she asks for this and how and why she gives it up.
Oh, ow!
I love how much Helly, now that Helena's showing her a little kindness, goes from attack mode to trying to enjoy life outside and not be totally considerate of Helena, but also not deliberately hurt her.
This is really good at expressing the mindset of someone who was taught to think of innies a certain way and is running into contradictory experience.
Really good and nuanced.
Yes! Go Helena! Growth!
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I like how you write her coming to grips with what she did. It's a good example of showing the mindset and rationalizations without excusing it.
I'm glad to hear that! It's tricky to write about the aftermath of a sexual assault when I don't think either of the people involved would think of it in quite those terms (especially Helena, who, as the assailant, would be particularly invested in not letting the thought 'oh, that was rape, wasn't it?' cross her mind).
This comment was the last thing I read before I went to sleep last night, and it was such a good way to wrap up the day! Thank you so much.
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Hey Helena did you consider that sex by deception is considered rape in many jurisdictions?
It hadn’t really hit her, until this moment, that she’ll probably never see Mark or Dylan or Irving again.
You made actual friends.
She should probably write her own innie an apology. For a lot of things, really.
No shit Helena
She holds his gaze for a long moment. This is it; this is when she decides if she’s really going to let her company burn for these goddamn innies, these half-people who somehow got under her skin.
!!!!
One thing I'm coming to appreciate through these fics is how spare and refined your prose is. No words wasted, absolutely everything building the picture.
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It's been really interesting to see the fandom's response to the canonical rape by deception. Helena's a sympathetic character, but Helena raped Mark. They're hard facts to reconcile, understandably, so a lot of people end up trying to argue either that Helena can't be sympathetic or that it can't be rape.
I don't think Helena is a monster! Buuuut that doesn't make it not rape. I'm really interested to see how the show itself deals with the fallout.
Thank you so much! Your words about my writing really touched me.
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I don't think Helena is a monster! Buuuut that doesn't make it not rape.
I think that is a genuinely valuable narrative to be telling!!!