158. Chapter 158

Maggie’s had a deep aversion to therapy ever since one of her teachers suggested she needed it for being caught making out with one of the local college girls under the bleachers during her junior year.

She’s had a deep aversion to it, because she prefers solitude and she prefers beer and she prefers her heavy bag, but the precinct is making it mandatory for everyone who’s been working on Cadmus-related cases, and she needs her job more than she needs to avoid a therapist, so she goes, and she sits, and she bites the inside of her cheek, and she waits.

She answers questions stiltedly and directly and stiffly, but she answers them, because she needs to be cleared for duty and anyway, since she’s started dating Alex, she’s had an easier time talking, so it’s not that bad, she supposes.

So when the therapist asks her, in their third session together, whether she’s familiar with borderline personality disorder, she freezes, but she waits, because that’s what her best – only – friend growing up was diagnosed with a few years ago.

“Why’re you asking?” she asked, and the therapist tilts her head, and her eyes are warm, her eyes are nonjudgmental, as she asks if the sudden dips into silence, the sudden dips into isolation, the sudden dips into despair, are ever triggered by a sense – real or imagined – of rejection, of abandonment, of emptiness, of worthlessness, of never being quite good enough, of never being quite worthy.

She leaves the office with a lump in her throat and she’s quiet when Alex comes home, she’s quiet when Alex kisses her, and then she notices that Alex is being quiet, too.

“Stupid mandatory therapy thing again today,” Alex grunts, and Maggie nods, and waits, because she knows Alex wouldn’t have said anything about her DEO-mandated sessions if she wasn’t going to talk more about it.

“Shrink says I’m depressed and have PTSD and also that I’m a functional alcoholic.”

Maggie nods and Maggie swallows, because she’s already known these things, but Alex didn’t, and Alex is sighing and staring at the bottle of whiskey on top of the freezer.

“And what do you say?” Maggie asks softly, softly.

“That I’m a soldier and this shit goes with the job.”

Maggie smiles faintly, and she draws Alex into her body and strokes her hair.

“Mine says I’ve got BPD. The whole worthlessness thing, turbulent relationships thing, that I’ve got going on.”

“We don’t have a turbulent relationship,” Alex objects quietly, and Maggie nods and kisses Alex’s hair.

“Maybe not yet, but I keep waiting for it.”

Alex sits up and kisses Maggie’s face, everywhere, everywhere.

“It’s okay, you know,” Alex tells her, and Maggie blinks, not understanding.

“I loved you this morning, before you got diagnosed. And you’re the same as you were before. Except now, you maybe have different language to help you cope, to help you feel better. That’s all. Same person, different language. And in any language, I love you, Maggie.”

Alex kisses the tear that streaks down Maggie’s cheek, and she strokes Alex’s hair, her neck, her ears.

“You know the same for you, right? That I don’t care if we need to avoid bars or clear the freezer of all the alcohol, that I don’t care if I never have a drink again if that’s what gonna make this easiest for you. Because you’re right, Ally: you’re a soldier. But you’re also loved, and you deserve… you deserve to be cared for, not just stitched up and tossed back into battle. And I… I want to care for you, Alex. Because I do. Care for you. Love you.”

It’s Maggie’s turn to kiss the tears from Alex’s face, and Alex’s heart swells, because this? Diagnosis or not, she can get used to this. They both can.