Chapter Text
The woman sitting across from Jon had been in the Distortion. He could tell just from looking at her. She sketched a maze of sharp lines that cut into the paper in front of her, a map of meaningless spirals. It was the sort of map an Archivist might have sent their assistant into a Distortion with.
"Miss Richardson," he spoke carefully, injecting just a little Compulsion into his voice to gain the attention of the muddled woman. Her head snapped up at his words. If he looked hard enough, he could See the way the world still warped around her frame, like the background of a funhouse mirror. He could feel a headache threatening to appear, and blinked the spiral out of his gaze.
Trying to help Michael's victims tended to be a losing battle, but the effort had stuck around from their more antagonistic days, before it'd mellowed out. Nowadays, Michael found his attempts more amusing than anything. A game that it always won.
"Um, well, I've been, I've been trying to draw you a map," said Helen Richardson. "But, it doesn't ... it doesn't work."
"I know," Jon reassured her quietly. "It won't. It doesn't make sense. It's alright, Miss Richardson. I've seen it."
She stared at him, eyes wide and scared. "You have?"
"Yes. I have. Did he talk to you? Michael?"
"That's ... that was what that man called himself. Do you know him?" She sounded angry, suspicious. The truth was unlikely to endear him to her in this situation.
"After a fashion. He spoke to you, then." Jon did his best not to let Compulsion colour his voice as he again asked for her statement. Sitting as she was in Beholding's domain, she would feel it regardless. Give her statement whether or not he even asked her. Jon didn't enjoy dragging statements out of people, unfortunately.
Helen's statement twisted in the same way as Michael's halls. Jon recalled the first time he'd listened to someone speak of the Distortion. The feeling of being lost in it himself. Endless, winding corridors. It'd made him dizzy. He'd thrown up in an alley after they'd stumbled back through a yellow door. That had been before Michael Shelley's trek through its halls.
It was easier now. To ignore, at least. No matter how much Michael complained, he tended to acquiesce easily when Jon requested a lift. Jon had built up a tolerance.
Still, he took a moment to right himself in the dizzying tide of the Spiral, and let Helen do the same. He offered her a tight smile. “It bears repeating, I know it; Michael. I believe you completely.”
Relief washed over the woman’s face, and she offered him a litany of shattered ‘thank yous’.
“Can you help me?” she asked. “Please? Anything at all?”
Jon sighed, looking away. Really, short of spending his every moment at her side, what could he do for the terrified woman? “It’s complicated,” he offered with a wince.
“Complicated?”
Jon happened to look up past Helen Richardson's frown on his quest to avoid eye contact, and found a second door in his office. It sat unobtrusively on the wall that his office shared with the main Archives, and it was a cheerful yellow.
Helen followed his gaze, blinking as if to clear her vision. "Was there ... was there two doors when I ... ?"
"No," Jon said, turning back to her. "No, there wasn't. You'll make it out of the Institute safe, Miss Richardson. I can assure you that much, at least."
"And after?" she asked quietly, eyes turned downwards to gaze at spiralling maps.
"Afterwards," Jon replied slowly. "You watch out for yellow doors."
"So there's nothing you can do," she surmised with a bone-tired huff. "Suppose I can't ask you to walk me around for the rest of my life, then?"
"Um ... I m—"
She waved him off quickly, offering a quirk of her lips that was more of a grimace than anything. "That was a joke. I'm sure you have a million more important things to do than babysit a paranoid real estate agent."
"I might be able to keep you from his halls if I escorted you everywhere for the rest of your life," he admitted. "But as it is, all I can offer you is advice."
"Don't go through any strange doors."
"Exactly." He reached across his desk to set his hand by hers. "I really do wish there was more I could do for you."
Helen looked down at their hands for a moment, before exhaling an exhausted sigh and shaking her head. "No, it's okay. Thank you for listening." She started sweeping her failed maps into a pile, pushing it over to him. "Here, if you want them. Even though they don't work."
He took the paper, setting it to the side as she stood. "Would you like my contact information? In the case that you'd like to talk again."
"If you don't mind ..." she accepted reluctantly, and he nodded. He pulled out the middle drawer of his desk, fumbling around in it until he found one of the scrap pieces of paper he'd already jotted his personal number and email on. Helen folded the proffered paper neatly and slid it into her pocket as Jon stood.
Helen turned to take a step towards the door beside the bookshelf, but Jon reached across his desk and deftly caught her sleeve and pulled her back before she could advance any further. "My office only has one door," he said warningly. "What colour is that one?"
Helen froze, her arms falling limply to her side. Jon let go of her so that he could round the desk to stand beside the woman. "What colour is it?" he prompted once more, voice quiet.
"Yellow," she breathed. "It's yellow. It's him. Oh, God."
"That's right." Jon cautiously rested a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly when she didn't shake him off. "I know it's hard to concentrate, but can you look at the other door for me, please? What colour is that one?"
"It's— it's—" her eyes darted between Michael's door and the door to his office, the two no doubt blurring together in her mind until that deceitful yellow was all she could process. Jon squeezed her shoulder again, an attempt to ground the woman.
"It's a dark wood, Helen. Varnished and unpainted. You know that. Do you see?"
She nodded slowly, forcing her eyes to focus, settle her gaze on what she thought might be the real door to the office. "I see," she said at length. She stepped forward, and he walked with her as she closed the few metres between his desk and the door. Helen stopped in front of it, though, and he could feel her shaking beneath the hand he still kept planted on her shoulder. Her breathing was shallow.
"How about we sit down for a moment," he suggested softly. The woman nodding, the energy seeking to leave her as she sunk to the ground. Jon hovered briefly, before joining her on the floor of his office. "Is it okay if I touch you again?" he murmured.
She nodded, slightly desperate." Can you—" breaking off, she reached out blindly and managed to find Jon's hand, taking it in both of hers and squeezing it tightly. He squeezed back, and requested that she followed his breathing.
"What if it's—"Helen tried to speak once her breathing finally calmed. Her words got caught in her throat, and she had to look away from Jon. "What if it's not the right door?"
"It is." Jon tried to get a look at her expression, but he couldn't see much past the messy bangs fallen into her face. He categorically refused the Eye's suggestion that he Look at something so small.
"But ... but ..." she couldn't continue, but Jon nodded in understanding anyway.
Jon sighed. "I know.”
Before she left, Jon implored her to phone him if she found herself struggling to see a door for what it was. Ask him to See it for her.
In the end, he only received one such call. He was able to guide her in the right direction on just one occasion, before he received the message he’d been expecting since the moment she stepped into his office.
***
The Doorman and The Archive
The Doorman: hehehehehehe
The Doorman: I wiNn!
The Archive: Hmm?
The Doorman: the wandErer has reTurned to my domaIИ
The Archive: Ah, Miss Richardson?
The Archive: Well, it was worth a try.
The Doorman: was it r eal ly ??
The Doorman: yo uR Яe waSTiИ g your tIme ArccH iviST