#reintegration

Helena woke with a sharp gasp, whimpering as she brought her hand up to her head, the sound tearing out of her before she could stop it. The pain hit before she could even comprehend it, raw, electric, blooming behind her eyes and down the back of her neck where the incision still pulled tight under fresh stitches. She hadn’t even meant to fall asleep, but Mark had coaxed her into it with the soft patience he’d developed since he began dating Helena. ‘Just close your eyes, Honey. I’ll be right here.’ She’d argued at first, of course. She always did when it came to taking care of herself, especially in ways she deemed selfish. But eventually the exhaustion had won.

Now the room was dim, afternoon light bleeding gold around the edges of the blackout curtains, and she felt… wrong.

Small?

Her legs were curled up like a kid trying to disappear into the mattress. Her chest rose and fell with a panic that had nothing to do with the pain and everything to do with the fact that she shouldn’t feel like this. She was Helena Eagan. She’s survived worse than this. But right now her throat was thick and her eyes burned and the only thing that made any sense was that she wants Mark to comfort her.

“Mark?”

It came out high pitched, almost a whine. High and cracked and humiliating. She clapped a hand over her mouth too late.

Footsteps in the hall. Soft, quick. The door eased open.

She shoved her face into the pillow before he could see, muffling the sob that followed. The fabric smelled like the detergent he’d started buying because the scent didn’t make her headaches worse. She hated how much she noticed things like that now.

Mark’s weight dipped the mattress. The bed creaked gently under him.

“Hey,” he said, voice low and careful, like he knew she needed something, and she was trying to pretend she didn’t. “What’s wrong, baby?”

The endearment landed like a match on dry grass. She twisted herself, burying her face against his thigh instead of the pillow, arms wrapping around his waist like she could anchor herself there. She’d moved too fast, causing her head to hurt, and she whimpered again, the sound small and high and entirely foreign to her own ears.

“Hurts,” she managed weakly. Her voice was still fragile, and childish. She hated it. She pressed closer anyway, forehead against the warm cotton of his shirt, breathing him in like he might vanish if she didn’t. “Mark.” She repeated.

His hand settled on the back of her head, fingers carding gently through her hair—careful of the incision, as it was still raw, she’d only gotten her stitches out last week. “I know it does. You’ve been pushing yourself.”

She shook her head against his leg, a tiny, stubborn motion. “I’m fine. I’m—” Another sob choked her. She was not fine. She was unraveling in a way she couldn’t name, like the surgery had cracked something open inside her that had been sealed shut for decades. She felt five years old and thirty at the same time, and the mismatch made her want to scream. People like her didn’t get to be small. People like her didn’t get held. They got corrected. They got told to stop crying. They got sent to the breakroom and forced to read the compunction statement.

Mark’s thumb stroked slow circles at her temple. “You don’t have to be fine right now. I’ve got you.”

She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to. But the old reflex was louder: Don’t need. Don’t ask. Don’t let them see. So she cried harder instead, the kind of crying that hurt her ribs and made her nose run and left her shaking so badly she couldn’t even form words. Every time he murmured something soft, ‘breathe, Hel. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere’, it only made it worse, like kindness was a language her body had forgotten how to accept.

“I don’t- I can’t-” She hiccuped, fingers fisting in his shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Snot and tears soaked into her pant leg.

“You don’t have to be sorry about being in pain.” His voice is gentle and caring, and she felt the shift in his chest as he let out a slow breath. He’d been reintegrated now long enough to know what it was like when the walls came down. He still had nights where he woke up feeling like he was two different people at once. But he hadn’t yet had to watch someone else go through it while being fought every inch of the way.

Helena tried to pull back, to wipe her face, to at least look like she had control again. Mark’s hand stayed gentle but firm, keeping her right where she was.

“Stay,” he said quietly. “Just for a minute. Let me take it.”

She made a broken sound that might’ve been an agreement. The pain in her head was still vicious, but the bigger ache, the one that lived behind her sternum, the one that had been there long before the surgery, felt a fraction smaller with her face hidden against him and his hand in her hair.

She didn’t understand why she felt like this. Why her body had decided that today, of all days, she needed to be small and loud and impossible to console. She only knew she couldn’t stop, and Mark absolutely wasn’t asking her to.

Instead, he just held her while she cried herself raw, whispering those three words until they started to stick somewhere deep she didn’t have a name for yet.

“I’ve got you, baby.”

Mark kept his hand steady in her hair, slow strokes. Every time her shoulders hitched with another sob, he let out a soft shushing sound, barely louder than breathing.

“I’ve got you,” he said again, the words low and even as he leaned down to press a kiss to her head. “Just let it out, baby. You’re safe.”

She hated how much she needed to hear it. Hated how the words made fresh tears spill faster down her cheeks and soak into his shirt. Her fingers stayed clenched in the fabric like a lifeline, knuckles white. She tried to speak, to tell him she was being ridiculous, that this was embarrassing, that she was Helena fucking Eagan and she did not cry like a child in someone’s lap, but all that came out was a broken, pathetic, high-pitched whine.

“Mark… hurts…”

“I know, baby.” His other hand moved to her back, rubbing slow circles between her shoulder blades, noting the tension knotted there. “It’s all still fresh. The doctor said the first few days would be the worst. You don’t have to pretend it’s not bad.”

She shook her head against his thigh, stubborn even now. “Not just… that.” Her voice cracked again, sounding far too young, far too small. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, as if she could will the feeling away. “I feel… wrong. ‘N too small. I don’t know why.”

Mark was quiet for a moment, processing. He didn’t understand it either, not really, but he’d felt fragments of it himself after Gemma had “died”, and again after his own reintegration: moments where the world felt too big and his mind felt too little, where old wounds he couldn’t name rose up and choked him. He didn’t try to explain it. He just kept holding her.

“You don’t have to figure out the ‘why’ right now,” he murmured. “You just have to let me help. Okay?”

Helena made a miserable sound, half sob, half protest. She wanted to push him away. She wanted to sit up, wipe her face, and tell him she could handle it alone like she always had. But her body wouldn’t listen. Instead she burrowed closer, pressing her hot, wet cheek harder against his leg, seeking more of his warmth, more of the steady pressure of his hand.

“I don’t… I can’t need this,” she whimpered. “I’m not s’pposed to—”

“You’re allowed to need it.” His voice was soft but firm, the same tone he used when he’d finally convinced her to lie down earlier. “You’re allowed to hurt. You’re allowed to cry. I’m never going to leave you alone with it.”

Another wave of pain hit her, throbbing, stronger than the last. She cried harder, the kind of crying that left her gasping between sobs, her whole frame shaking. The pain in her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat, but it was nothing compared to the terrifying relief, and fear, of being held while she fell apart. No one had ever stayed for this. No one had ever rubbed her back and told her it was okay to be inconsolable.

Mark shifted slightly, just enough to pull the edge of the blanket up over her shoulders without dislodging her from his lap. He leaned down, pressing another careful kiss to the top of her head. “Shh, I’ve got you. Breathe with me, okay? In… slow. Out…”

She tried. The inhale was shaky and too loud, but she followed the rise and fall of his chest as best she could. It helped, a little. Not enough to stop the tears, but enough that the panic didn’t swallow her whole.

“You took such good care of me when I was first reintegrated,” he said quietly after a while, still stroking her hair. “Let me do the same for you now. You don’t have to be strong every second. Not with me.”

Helena’s grip on his shirt loosened just a fraction, then tightened again like she was afraid he’d disappear if she let go. Her voice came out tiny and muffled against his leg.

“Don’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. “I’m right here. As long as you need.”

She cried until her throat was raw and her eyes felt swollen shut. Eventually the sobs tapered into hiccuping whimpers, her body exhausted from fighting both the pain and the overwhelming need to be comforted. Mark never once pulled away. He continued murmuring soft nonsense, promises, reassurances, little praises for breathing slowly, for letting him hold her, until she was limp and trembling in his lap, too drained to do anything but cling.