Chapter Text
"Somehow
it always comes back to winter,
it comes back to these tentative steps
taken under a blue moon
through a white cathedral of trees,
while something in me resists,
something else enters the wild."
—Jennifer Grotz, December
It stopped snowing midmorning.
The sun rose up to a strange, white world. Now, the wintry air is light with the swirl of snowflakes, ethereal and playful, as though they cannot decide which direction to take. A cloak of pallor has fallen over the ground, softly coating the cars and the porch and the bordering forest alike, opal shadows cast all around. And there is a sparkle in the dayshine, strong enough to make one blink, reflecting back the pearls of ice crystalized in the snow.
As it is, the outside world seems more like a painting, a quality like oil or varnish about it.
A sense of unreality. If Gemma were to open the window now, would she find the real, natural landscape behind it—or would she find a mere representation, blank, opaque walls? Even though rationally, she knows the answer, some days it all hangs on the edge of a precipice, about to unravel.
Her hand lingers unsure over the metal handle, and with the faintest twist, a gust of glacial air rushes in.
The fabric of reality is stable, and a sigh leaves her lips, warmth meeting cold.
She wanted today to be an easy day, but such is her luck. She woke up too many times during the night, with the distinct impression that she was still asleep and it was someone else waking up. Head full of words—screaming, clamouring, throbbing words—by the time Mark had huddled closer and gently tried to rouse her, she was somewhere else entirely, mumbling incomprehensibly. And Gemma could not help the string of letters turning over repetitively in her mind.
Dear Mr. Tisdale. Dear Mr. Tisdale. Dear Mr. Tisdale.
Who this Mr. Tisdale is, she hasn’t got the faintest, fucking clue. With all probability, he might not even exist. It is a name far removed from anything or anyone she knows, which means it was Lumon who put it there. It makes her mouth taste metallic with hate, with rage—the vivisection of her own self, the mingling of distortions and fabrications inside the walls of her skull.
Things used to be so clear, so distinctly delineated—she failed to realize how frightfully easy it is to cut an innocent person off from everything, to seed doubt into their mind, separating them from the truth.
And now, what is the truth?
The truth is that it is not possible to love and to part; it is not possible to forget. The truth is that our loved ones remain, despite it all, and even the empty seats are heavy with absence, weighted with hollowness. The truth is she has a family; people willing to lay down their lives for her, people who love her to the point of sacrifice, or to the point of driving for hours to find her favorite snack. The truth is, she underestimated herself.
She asked Mark to leave her alone, at one point, and crawled further into the blankets. All of a sudden, the prospect of going shopping along with Ricken, Devon and Eleanor had seemed almost unbearable. More of a task to be completed, and less of an activity in which partaking would make her feel more like a real person.
In a haze, she clung to the sheets for as long as she could, and when neither sleep nor relief arrived, she took to nestling in the armchair instead, watching the world—on the inside, looking out.
Gemma hugs her knees tighter, blinking slowly, and a chill rises up to her neck. She remembers, quite suddenly, the sheer waste of heat and electricity, and closes the window. Few things have changed about the guest bedroom in the time that was stolen from her, decorated in the ‘tundra’ aesthetic (“Oh, yeah, this room just screams tundra to me” Mark had teased, when he stepped in for the first time and immediately tripped over the rug), and still showing predilection for its guests of honour; truthfully, it has always been more like their secondary bedroom, and the thought makes her smile. She has grown stupidly attached to this armchair over the past days.
There is a soft knock at the door, then. She turns just in time to see a familiar mop of brown hair peeking inside.
“Um. Hi?”
Mark half-smiles. He’s barely crossing the line of the threshold, and it sends a jolt of fear through her for the briefest instant. No, no, don’t! You’ll change! Until that part of her regains awareness and loosens, swallowing the instincts that were useful below. It’s difficult—naturally, Gemma imagined it would be, but it still weighs darkly on her. Snapping back her attention, it is only then that she can appreciate the full sight of him. He’s dressed like a veritable grandpa, all warm colors, a soft knitted jacket resting comfortably atop one of his favorite shirts. Abruptly, she is hit with the knowledge, undeniable and irrefutable, that he has not worn that shirt in two years. Like her, it is slowly finding its way back.
Mark lingers softly there, tentative, ready to depart if she needs more time alone.
“идите сюда,” she says instead, earnest.
‘Come here’, ringing familiar in his ears, by the way his eyes light up and strides towards her.
She knows Devon could’ve used another pair of arms, but she is glad that he decided to stay here. There is a safety in knowing he is around, in knowing he will not disappear. Gemma shifts, between them the understanding that today is far from a good day—but letting him know that she wants to feel better, that this helps—that his touch is welcome. It’s okay, she murmurs, beckoning him closer. Like a bird, he perches himself on the armchair—but only halfway. There isn’t room for more. Even if she scoots over, only half of her ass and half of his fit in the seat. When, after finding several more uncomfortable angles, it all starts to feel too ridiculous for two individuals with a PhD to their names, it is Gemma who proposes a rearrangement—guiding his legs under her and sprawling over him instead. She lifts an arm to wrap around his shoulders, and Mark goes easily, melting against her touch. It has been too long since they snuggled on his lap like this, although in fairness, she really likes it when it him sliding onto her lap.
“What was Ricken going to fetch anyway?” she says, trying to get her interest back after refusing today’s errands. She keeps her legs drawn up, instead of draping them over the armrest.
Mark takes his time to answer, attempting to relay the message as best he can. “I understood the words ‘spherified’ and ‘olives’,”
“Jesus Christ, aren’t olives already spherical?”
Avantgarde cuisine makes her feel uselessly dumb—or perhaps it could simply be the case that she hasn’t seen a single godforsaken olive in two years.
Mark looks unsure himself about the matter, and he squints, endearingly in thought. “More like oval-shaped, maybe?”
“Hmm. Oblong?”
The mere choice of the word is enough to send them into a fit of laughter. Because it is inevitable, an inelegant snort escapes him, and Gemma can feel the vibrations ricocheting off his chest.
“Oblong olives?” he repeats, as though warming up to the novel term. They should coin it, probably. Mark’s eyes widen as he adds. “They pop in your mouth, apparently,”
Gemma hums in quiet amazement, but her pout says otherwise. I’ll believe it when I see it. Silence settles comfortably after that. Quite by accident, Mark finds the checkered blanket lying atop the backrest, and drapes it over both of them, warmth spread over like clouds across the sky. Underneath, she rubs her feet together and tightens the circle of her arms. Mark makes a little delighted noise and returns the gesture, cradling her close. It only takes a slight turn to press a kiss to the crown of his head.
“Hey,” she says, her fingers capturing a few of the rogue strands of hair around his neck. It’s getting long again. “Tell me something,”
Mark softens impossibly at the request.
“Is there… something in particular you’d like to hear?”
“A fact that you know,” she decides, liking the taste of possibility, the openness of it.
He looks bashful, then. “Well. I know that I love you,”
The words settle deep within her chest. Somehow, the simplicity of it makes it all the more moving.
Gemma keeps her voice steady. “Fair enough, Dr. Scout. But perhaps something more objective?”
“I don’t know, Dr. Scout, that seems pretty objective to me,”
Gemma tilts her head in the most annoying way she can, knowing he is just being stubborn.
“Oh, alright,” he concedes, and rolls his eyes as though looking for something in his skull. “I can tell you… about the Christmas truce in 1914?”
She lets the words coalesce in her mind, sweet and distantly familiar. A truce. Something strangely peaceful and awfully unlikely triumphing over death. Gemma feels the sweet ache that comes with remembering something already known—a particular chapter of history she might have heard hundreds of times before but somehow forgotten. She would like nothing more than to hear it again.
“Fuck yeah,”
Mark practically shines. His eyes crinkle at the corners with the force of his smile.
“Okay. So I will preface this by saying Christianity as a religion is excessively extended and full of contradictions, resulting in violence more often than in peace. So this story is a nice exception,” he pauses, in the lofty, academic way he always does before diving in, filling his lungs with air.
“Anyway, the 24th of December arrived on the Western Front, and there were hardships on both sides of the trench line. Cold, hunger, you name it. Violence and hostilities ceased gradually in the week leading up to Christmas Day. Some officers weren’t too happy about it, of course, but the majority were a tired, peaceful bunch with no appetite for more bloodshed,” she pulls him impossibly closer, his hair almost tickling her. She lets her eyes slide closed against the waves of warmth.
“Roughly 100,000 of them, between British and German armies. And so, moved by this strange phenomenon, in Dutch, they called it ‘der Weihnachtsfrieden’; and in Russian they called it…” and without fault Gemma chimes in, opening one eye, because she has never been known to miss a cue.
“Рожде́ственское переми́рие,”
“Exactly. Those who were installed in the trenches lit up candles, and some even joined into song. As the artillery fell silent, both sides started shouting Christmas greetings to each other, and the best part of it is that language became secondary. Not long after, there were tacit excursions across No Man's Land, which was the most terrifying thing you could do. Soldiers were completely naked-butt exposed, and naturally they all feared they would be targeted by German snipers. But even snipers want a break from it all, so they got lucky. In the meetings that took place, small gifts were exchanged, such as tobacco, alcohol, and even more personal trinkets like buttons and hats. I even read the story of a selfless British soldier who cut the filthy, unnaturally long hair of a Boche. He had been forced to leave his hairdressing salon to become a machine gunner, you see, and when…” and the cadence of his voice carries away the joys and sorrows and idiosyncrasies of times long past; and for a little while, the whiteness of the snow and the hallways is kept at bay.