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Gemma feels nothing as she bursts through the metal doors into the cold, slushy snow. Not the hair in her eyes or the wool around her neck. Not the sticky blood crusting around her fingers - proof that she had held her husband between her two hands. She feels numb in a way that harkens to her time alone in a sterile white room, floating between real and unreal. Trying desperately to recall who she was before all of this. Failing.
She's tripping over herself in her haste. She's sobbing and gasping for air. She's rasping Mark's name out as if he can hear it, as if he didn't disappear back into hell.
Her hand cramps, chronic pain flaring with the cold as she grasps at the smooth stone walls of Lumon's building. She's outside. She's outside. And yet, Gemma feels absolutely nothing.
She throws up, gasping and choking as she drops to her knees in the snow. She heaves and spits on the ground and tries to regain her breath desperately but she feels so far outside of her body that she's considering just floating away into the dreary sky and being done with all of this.
"Gemma. Oh my fucking god."
Gemma blinks at her own name. Is she Gemma? Hands are around her arms, rubbing up and down gently and a face swings around to look at her and suddenly she's anchored to the present because it's Devon. And that means she's alive and that she's outside and that everything that happened in the last twenty minutes actually did happen. Devon has her hands on Gemma's face, cupping her cheeks as she keeps repeating her name - it's echo hollow in the quiet of the night. Gemma blinks, trying to fully resettle into her body. "You're alive. He did it. He fucking did it. He-Gemma where is he?"
Gemma chokes on a sob and stutters a breath as she grasps Devon's arms tightly. She can feel her sister's coat and her steady presence crouched in the snow and she barely gasps out "he went back" before she's diving into the other woman's arms. Devon shudders out a breath. "God that idiot." And then she's holding Gemma back with equal fervor and fingers are carding through her hair and Gemma feels alive and dead at the same time. "Okay Gem let's get you in the car. Are you hurt? What's all this blood?"
Devon's voice is rising a bit and Gemma squeezes her tightly as she shudders out "Not mine." At Devon's tensed form she realizes her mistake. "Also not Mark's. It's..there was a man and he...he-"
She can't get the words out. Why is she not able to get the words out?
Devon just pulls her back in and shushes her. "Okay we can talk about it when we're safe. Hey Gemma look at me." Gemma does. Somehow she leans back and look's into Devon's eyes and it crashes into her just how fucking much she missed her family. Devon holds her face between two hands. "God Gemma I love you so much. You're here. You're actually here."
Gemma blinks back tears. "Yeah. Thanks for-for getting me out."
"I mean we all know I'm the fucking genius of the family." Gemma chokes on a laugh and it's so good to hear when Devon laughs too. It's even better to feel arms around her as she's lead away from hell.
She tries to keep putting one foot in front of the other even though her husband is still inside.
...
Devon has been feeding her soup and holding her on the couch and it's all so nice and warm that Gemma feels tears streaming down her face because she had imagined this for so long and she’s here now but she’s also dying inside. Devon had explained, of course she had, that Mark was severed, that his innie had fallen in love, that..that she'd lost her husband but not really. And doesn’t that fucking suck even more. How can she save him from himself? She's dreamt of this warmth for two years and now that she’s finally here, finally out, she's still lost him.
Devon's been serving as her personal tissue and she feels like maybe she should ask what she's missed for the last two years but she'd have to actually start breathing again first. A knock on the door has Gemma's heart leaping into her throat. They've found her and they're going to drag her back down there and maybe they'll take Devon too and -
It's Cobel. And suddenly Gemma is in a blind rage, brandishing her soup spoon like a fucking gun, slamming that woman against a wall. "You." She spits. Cobel appraises her like she's a new couch or a piece of jewelry, shrewd eyes picking her apart for inherent value. "So the plan worked then."
Gemma swings around to look at Devon, wild eyes panicked. "She's..she's one of them..they they tortured me..she'd watch..she'd be there." Cobel seems to be studying her, pulling apart her reactions. "What, pray tell, do you remember Gemma?" Gemma pulls in a ragged breath. Devon is approaching her like she's trying to save a wounded deer.
It takes twenty minutes to talk her down and get them all sitting in the low light of Devon's living room.
Gemma tells them everything. The rooms. The pain she could feel but never remember the origin of. Devon grabs her hand and gently starts massaging it as she flexes it for the fifth time. "It's like...they'd wipe my memory. But there was always pain. Always fear."
Cobel takes it all in, having known most of it already if Gemma had to guess. She'd been there. She'd been one of the glassy faces behind bulletproof glass, studying her like a fucking animal.
Gemma is so so tired as she leans into Devon. "Your turn. Why the fuck shouldn't I kill you?"
Cobel leans forward in her chair. "Because you want your husband back. And you want your memories...however dire."
Later, once they've bolted the front door and the bedroom door and shoved a chair under the handle, Gemma finally feels like she might be able to sleep. Ricken is gone a book tour. Apparently things picked up while she was gone and he's been wildly successful. She senses that Devon has other feelings though they haven't gotten into it.
Instead Gemma sits, freshly showered and in a tshirt that smells like Mark and sweatpants borrowed from Devon. She's sitting on the bed and her eyes are red as she holds her niece close. "She's so beautiful." She looks up at Devon, eyes swimming. "I-I missed so much." Devon's eyes fill too but she shakes her head. "Nah. You just escaped me being really fucking mean and hungry. She won't even remember things for like...three more years? Plenty of time to get to know the best aunt in the world."
Gemma chokes on a laugh that bubbles into a sob as she leans over and kisses the baby's forehead.
...
It's been week's of recon. Gemma passes a bag of chips over to Devon and takes a sip from her lukewarm coffee as they both hunker down in Devon's car and wait for night. It's freezing in moments once Devon kills the engine and they grab a heavy blanket from the back seat to pull overtop of the both of them. "Where does Ricken think we are again?"
"Bar."
"As if either of us want to hang out at a bar."
"He's too deep in his new draft to think about it."
Gemma squeezes her sister's hand. "Easier for us then."
Devon's made peace with the way she's slowly losing Ricken to Lumon only because she cannot possibly worry about him and Mark and Gemma. There isn't enough brain space left for that. Devon thinks there's a joke about severance in there somewhere but immediately feels sick at the thought and banishes it. Mark and Gemma need her more. Her husband will have to choose on his own between his family and his corporate propaganda.
"They're coming out."
Devon redirects her attention to the front door. Sure enough, Helena is walking out of the building, followed closely by two security guards. This is what they've been waiting for. This is the only plan that will work. Devon leans over with a sly grin. "Ready to kidnap a fucking Eagan?