Part One: Tub
There is warmth and darkness. It's a comfort, knowing there is a world beyond her little sanctuary. She is able to create a distance, even just for half an hour or so.
Darcy is lying in the tub, up to her nose in the warm water that engulfs her, cuts off the sounds of the outside. Bubbles crawl across and rise. She can hear her own breathing, the water lapping. She feels herself be limp under the water, eyes closed. She's never drifted off in the tub, thank God.
She sits up suddenly, water sloshing. Her ears are a little blocked. She glances around the bathroom, seeing her phone on the floor near her towel. It's getting late, and the water is already becoming tepid. She looks down at her hands, seeing the wrinkled fingerprints.
She rises, draining the tub as she grabs her towel and starts to dry herself. She can hear murmurs outside the bathroom, and she knows it's most likely Jane and Thor having some lovey-dovey conversation.
She grabs her phone, sees Ian hasn't called her back yet. She'd rather not have their conversation over the phone, but he's getting harder to reach those days.
She grabs her robe and wraps herself in it, toweling off her hair as she walks out into the landing. Thor and Jane are standing together, the night stormy outside from what Darcy can see through the windows. She sighs a little and Thor glances her way.
"Darcy. Feeling better?"
She shakes her head. She's restless, itching for something she can't quite name but she knows it's not here, not in London.
"That's too bad."
She shrugs. "What about you, big guy? Heading off soon?"
Jane shoots her a look and Darcy's eyebrows rose.
"I wasn't supposed to say that?"
Jane crosses her arms. Darcy supposes Thor doesn't need prompting, and Jane's time with him is few and far between. Darcy tries her hardest not to feel like a third wheel but it's harder in such a tiny space. Erik is out, but he's been sleeping on their couch for weeks and shares Darcy's frustrations. Jane and Thor's relationship is… stormy. Darcy can no longer laugh at the irony.
Darcy departs for her room, dressing and pulling the bed covers over her. She finds herself listening out and she can hear Jane's raised voice. She sighs, unlocking her phone once more.
We need to talk. Why are you MIA dude?
To her surprise, grey bubbles appear almost immediately to indicate Ian's speedy reply.
I think we were better off as friends. Colleagues.
She feels relief. At least she's not hurting him.
Okay. Do you need a reference for your next job?
She adds a winky face and he replies with a thumbs-up. Darcy puts down her phone and grabs her laptop that's charging on her floor, flicking potato chip crumbs off it when she opens a web browser.
Thor left without saying goodbye. Darcy's hurt by that but she understands. She wonders how she's meant to bring up her plan with Jane without causing more disappointment.
Jane hasn't been her boss in a long time. Sure, Darcy works for her still, but there's a different dynamic to their relationship, especially since the Dark Elves. Life feels more precious, which is why Darcy bought her Eurotunnel ticket.
She spends another week after Thor leaves preparing herself for the conversation with Jane, only to have Erik ask her about taking that holiday she was always complaining about not having.
"I'm going to France," Darcy says.
They're all sitting at the table eating dinner, fish and chips on Friday. Darcy douses more vinegar on her chips to combat her rising nerves, wondering how badly Jane could take it.
"Oh," is all she says, pausing her chewing.
Darcy and Erik exchange a look.
"When?" Jane adds, popping another beer batter chip in her mouth.
"Three days from now," Darcy mumbles, finally looking at her.
Jane blinks a few times. "Okay. That's… good. That's good."
It's like she has to say it twice to make it true, and Darcy grabs her greasy little hand and squeezes it.
"I'll come back soon. I just need a break from all the rain."
Jane tilts her head at her, eyebrow quirking.
"It doesn't rain that much. Maybe two-hundred days of the year."
Darcy mirrors her.
"Really?" she says, licking her salty lips for a second while she and Jane stare each other down. "Gavin, the guy who owns the corner shop… he says this is unseasonable rain. As in, it's raining more than usual. I'd say it's closer to three-hundred days of the year."
"'Unseasonable' means it's unusual," Jane retorts.
"I think we'll have fun, Jane and I," pipes up Erik, and Darcy draws her hand back to rest her elbows on the table, surveying him. "Just like the good old days at Culver."
"I resent that," Darcy mutters. "I don't remember a life before you guys."
She's being perfectly candid. She doesn't remember a time before knowing Jane or Erik. She knows she existed before them and that one day she might be without them but it's hard to fathom, especially when she belongs with them. She likes her weird nerdy science family.
"So don't go," Jane says.
Darcy can detect her sadness more easily since Thor left, feeling her heart sink a little.
"I need a break," Darcy says again.
Jane falls silent, nodding.
Darcy packs what she can, telling herself over and over that she deserves this. She's worked hard and she hasn't had time off in years. Ian was meant to make things easier, but she knows she has to slow down for once.
She needs a second to breathe, to let the outside world in. Her life has become too insular. She all but fell off the face of the earth after the Destroyer. The Dark Elves just further amplified the weirdness of her life. She promises Jane she'll be back in three months. Three months seems exceptionally long, but she knows when she used to have fun time would pass by pretty quickly.
She still feels selfish, feels like anything she does can't have value if it's not for research or some materialistic value like paying their rent.
She knows she'd never have stayed so long with Jane and Erik if she had a family to go back to, but she just had her Aunt Jo back in Chicago, just that little gravestone beside her late mother's own plot in a graveyard she hadn't been to in years. Darcy was raised by one woman, a fierce creature of utter independence. Maybe she needed to try it again, being alone.
This can't be selfish. She heard of people running away from their responsibilities but Darcy's doing the opposite. She needs this to miss work while she's gone. She'll eat pizza in Italy and wish Jane was there, but maybe next time they'll go together. It'll change how she looks at London when she gets back.
She boards her train, new sunglasses on her head, waving at Erik and Jane from her window.
There's a wave of nausea. Sounds that come before light, the feeling of latex. She can smell something sterile like she's in a lab. Darcy's been in enough labs to recognize the remnant Bunsen burner smells. There's just one voice speaking but she can't be alone, she feels heat of more than one body touching her.
She tries to blink herself awake, sure that she's on the train still and probably waking from some awful dream. Maybe she fainted during the journey.
Her mouth is dry. There's a bitterness but her teeth have a fussy film to them, her tongue is heavy behind her teeth. Something unhinges her jaw and there's the first bloom of pain behind her eyes.
She whimpers because she still can't see and she's hurting. She shivers, feeling so much colder.
The person who's talking isn't speaking a language Darcy understands. It takes longer for puzzle pieces to fit but she understands after a few sentences that it's Russian.
Shapes come into view and she tries to blink away the dark edges of her vision, failing to do so when more fingers pull at her tongue, grab her arms.
"Please…"
She doesn't know what she's begging for. Maybe some release, an explanation. Why does it feel like she's got the flu? Her limbs are like lead and she aches all over.
Her stomach clenches and she doubles over, hands grabbing her shoulders. There's a sting and warmth wraps around her, trapping her.
She feels something like bliss, something soft and inviting and she goes back to the darkness once more, collapsing into a dream.
Darcy jolts awake to darkness.
She begins to hyperventilate, desperate to orientate herself. She feels slick wetness beneath her, smells dirt. She's sitting in leaves and mud on the ground, staring up at the moon.
There's a dog barking somewhere beyond and she whips her head around, seeing nothing but the empty park behind her. She rolls her shoulders and hisses.
Something feels bruised. Her chest is tight and she tries to breathe slower though her heart is racing. She tries to remember something – anything– that could help her.
She grunts as she moves slowly up, pulling herself to a standing pose. Her legs feel weaker. She touches her face and feels stickiness.
She remembers sitting down on her train. She remembers that morning, remembers the butterflies of anticipation. She was taking her first vacation in years.
She shuffles and then begins to walk out into the open air, seeing a house's porch light on across from the park. She pats herself and finds her phone but it doesn't switch on.
She tries to remember if she took anything while on the train. She'd done sleeping pills before on planes, but she doesn't even remember leaving the station. She remembers Jane and Erik waving up at her.
Why does everything feel so fucking foggy? She makes soft huff of irritation as she walks toward the house, feeling like something is nagging her in the back of her mind. It feels like when she walks into a room and can't remember why she was there to begin with. It's right there, whatever information she needs. And yet it's so impossibly far away.
She knocks on the front door, seeing her hands are caked in blood. She lets out a gasp, rapping on the glass a little faster.
"Please! Please help me –"
The door abruptly opens and a woman is standing there with her small child hiding behind her. The woman's eyes bulge and she puts a hand to her mouth, spinning around to shield her kid from the sight of Darcy.
"Alice, go upstairs. Upstairs, now."
She's speaking English, with some kind of accent Darcy's heard in London. Maybe she's from Newcastle? But what is a woman speaking English with that kind of accent doing in France?
"Where am I?"
"Please stay still," the woman says, glancing back at Darcy as the kid races upstairs and out of sight.
"What do I look like?"
"I think your nose is broken."
Darcy's hands go to her nose but it doesn't feel tender. She feels more stickiness, congealed blood. Everything's a little blurry and she realizes she's not wearing her glasses or her contact lenses.
"Where am I?" Darcy asks again.
Her throat is dry and she's trying to swallow. Her voice sounds hoarse.
"Fenham, love," the woman replies.
She has her phone out and starts dialing.
"I'm calling the police."
Darcy feels like she might pass out. She lowers herself on the porch, staring at her hands. Her nails are torn, with dirt and God knows what else under them. She tries to rub her hands on her pants and she can see they're filthy.
She stinks. It's as if she wasn't aware of herself and then the volume's been dialled way, way up. She cups her ears, feeling like her head might burst from the sudden onslaught of sensations.
"Police?" she finally says, and the woman nods.
"I think you've been hit by a car, love."
Darcy's eyes widen up at her.
"Wait… Fenham? Where's that?"
The police arrive with paramedics. Darcy feels herself start to shrink, afraid of what everything means.
She hadn't done anything close to risky in the longest time. Before Puente Antiguo she used to smoke weed every so often but she never overdid it. She only drank a few beers at a time, occasionally cracking open some wine to share with Jane while they watched TV.
She tried acid once. Just once. Maybe this was something residual from years ago? That theory seems a little far-fetched, but weirder things happen to Darcy all the time.
She must have blacked out but she has no idea when that could have happened. She thinks of her mom and shudders, the paramedic asking if she's alright.
"My mom… she had episodes when I was a baby."
"What kind episodes?"
Darcy felt her face flush. "Psychosis."
The paramedics looked at one another.
"Miss, we should take you somewhere to get cleaned up."
Darcy gulped, glancing at the uniformed officers who were watching her while she sat on the porch.
"Her pupils," one of them said, and Darcy frowned.
"I'm not on drugs."
She had no idea if that was true but she still felt she had to defend herself against the accusation.
She was driven to the nearest hospital, asking for a phone charger several times before someone at the front desk took pity on her. The paramedics did their best job at cleaning her of the coagulated blood on her face and hands but she was still aware of her own smell.
It didn't help that people were turning to look at her, their noses wrinkling.
The hospital was smaller than Darcy was used to, the waiting room cramped with local patients. She was finally shown into another room and a doctor looked over her chart.
Darcy unlocked her phone, seeing the date was wrong on her phone.
"What's… the date today?"
She didn't want to ask a question that would make her sound like a crazy person. Absent-minded, sure. But she didn't want people to consider locking her up.
"It's April 23rd."
Darcy's eyes widened. "No. It's… no. I…"
"Are you alright?"
Darcy felt like she could throw up. That couldn't be right. It was June. She left London on June 3rd. Maybe the doctor had been run ragged, their own mind a little off.
"It's April 23rd?" Darcy repeated.
"Yes. Do you know where you are?"
"Fenham. The lady who answered her door told me."
"You're American…"
The doctor trailed off, glancing at the chart once more. He frowned a little.
"Darcy Lewis."
"Yes, that's me."
She knew that without a doubt. Her name was Darcy Lewis and she'd woken up in a park in Newcastle, covered in blood.
"Where are you staying? At one of the hostels in town?"
Darcy shook her head.
"I'm… meant to be in France."
"Do you know what happened to you?"
Darcy swallowed a couple times, feeling sick.
"No… I… don't remember."
She felt the sudden urge to cry. The doctor consulted the chart yet again, unaffected by her tears that began to fall.
She looked back at her phone, seeing she had several hundred text messages left unread.
Her eyes bulged.
"Miss?"
"I need to leave. Now, I need to leave right now. Right now."
She looked around and remembered she had no bag. No money, nothing. She just had her phone and her muddled head, her rapidly beating heart.
"Do you have someone we can call?"
The doctor continued talking while she went through her phone, tuning their voice out. She never had more than a few unread texts at a time. Darcy prides herself on being a great communicator. She is punctual, precise with her texts.
Is this even her phone, she wonders. She opens each text, seeing Jane behind the majority of them.
Did you arrive safely?
Just checking in again, Darce. Call me sometime soon?
Darcy, are you safe? You said you'd stick to the tourist traps. Were you just saying that so I wouldn't worry?
Darcy's hands begin to shake the further she goes.
Did you break your phone? You're not answering emails, either
Darce, please call me
D, did I do something wrong?
One from Erik breaks the chain:
Jane is very worried. I'm worried, too. Please call us. Please.
More from Jane, reaching the edge of hysteria.
Did I do something wrong?
Where are you?
Darcy, please – anything. Anything at all. Please let me know you're safe. I don't care if you've gone for good. I just want to know if you're okay.
Please. Please Darcy. Please. Anything.
Darcy feels tears start to fall and the doctor snaps:
"Miss Lewis, I need you to tell me if you've taken anything. You told the paramedics that your mother has experienced psychosis…"
"My mother is dead," Darcy murmurs.
She stares down at nine months of texts, all from Jane and Erik. She sniffs, swiping at her eyes.
"I need to call someone in London. They'll come get me."
Darcy can't explain nine months missing from her own mind.
She has scans, tests of all kinds. There's nothing wrong with her brain. She had no activity on any of her social media accounts the entire time she disappeared. Not a single blip of anything anywhere. Darcy knows hacking might help, but surveillance cameras only show so much data before they're wiped. She can't go back further than a few days when she tries to see how she got to Fenham.
She has no idea if she even left England. Her passport was missing along with the rest of her belongings.
When she sees Jane and Erik as she arrives in London she begins to cry. She is so afraid but she can't give them a reason. For the longest time they thought something awful had happened to her.
She did a pregnancy test and it came back negative. She was clean, healthy even. She'd lost weight but not enough to consider significant. She felt so different.
For a few days, they theorized what happened. Maybe Darcy was transported somewhere. Maybe it was Loki. Maybe Thor accidentally did something and there were repercussions on Earth. They didn't know, and they couldn't know.
It becomes the thing they don't talk about.
It becomes the thing that keeps Darcy up at night.
It becomes the fuel of her nightmares to follow, the nightmares full of hands, stabbing pains and hazy sighs.
It becomes a secret buried deep inside her.