705. Chapter 705

It’s usually fine with her.

Hell, it’s usually more than fine with her.

Touch.

Loud noises.

Hell, she’s a doctor and a soldier.

Touch and loud noises are kind of her jobs.

But there are days.

Days when she remembers what it was like to be confused by this beautiful cop taking her hand and holding it, no explanation, no excuse, no apology.

She was confused, then, by the intimacy. And she was confused, more, by how much she liked it.

Now, intimacies like that are commonplace. Are glorious. Are perfection wrapped up in warm hands and soft kisses.

Except days like today.

When she’s out in the world and she’s functioning, but god, she doesn’t want to be.

Even laying in bed is too much of an effort.

She wants to be sprawled out on the floor, feeling the rug against her cheek, feel all her limbs in contact with the ground beneath her. Sinking, sinking, sinking.

Because her entire world is sinking.

But she gets up, and she goes – after quite a while, of course, on the floor – but she still can’t bear it.

The sound of cars honking as she passes them on her way to work.

The passing touches of people she loves, wishing her a good morning.

The sound of a fellow agent slamming their locker shut after getting suited up for work.

Every day sounds, every day touches.

Today, they make her want to scream.

Except screaming would take too much effort, and screaming would be too damn loud.

Kara is the first to notice that something is wrong. Well, that nothing is wrong, but that everything is wrong.

And she wants to hug her, because Kara is nothing if not tactile, if not giving, if not loving.

But Alex flinches when Kara’s arms go up. She tries not to.

And someone else might not have noticed her reticence. But Kara does.

Of course she does.

“No hugs today?” she asks, her voice soft, and her hands suspended in the space between their bodies.

“Maybe at home, later,” Alex answers, her voice just as soft, because she can’t break. Not here, anyway.

Not where she’s supposed to be strong, powerful. A leader.

And sure enough, she is. Later that day.

She’s the one who protects that kid, the six year old who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and brings them back into their mother’s arms.

The mother, sobbing in relief and recently-abated terror, hugs her. She hugs her full and hard, and there’s nothing remotely sexual about it. It’s just the hug of someone getting her child back, safe and sound and grateful. So damn grateful.

And normally, in situations like this, Alex would pat her back and smile, awkward but happy, a little unsure what to do with a stranger’s intimacy but pleased by it nonetheless.

But today? Today, it makes her chest seize up and it makes her throat tighten and it makes her see stars.

Because today, touch is not something she can abide.

And today – naturally – is the day everyone wants to hug her.

The mother of the child she saved; the child she saved; the cousin of the child; the kid’s teacher; the kid’s friends.

And, when she gets back to the DEO, Winn, James, hell, even Vasquez. Because it was a job well done, and Winn loves nothing more than skidding across the floor into the open arms of his family.

Except Alex’s arms aren’t open.

Because James’s hugs are warm and full-bodied, and his voice is soft when he asks – in her ear, not out loud in front of everyone, because he knows vulnerability is not something she likes to do publicly – if she’s alright.

Because missions like this – even when they end well – can be extremely intense.

He hugs her extra close when she doesn’t answer, because he knows that means she’s not alright.

And she loves him, and she knows how much he loves her.

But it makes her want to scream.

Even worse when Winn hugs her, because it’s cumulative, and because he’s so excited, so proud of her, and what kind of a monster is she that the touch of two men she loves like brothers – two men she would willingly die for – sweep her body into the heady rush of an oncoming panic attack?

She almost punches Vasquez when she pulls her in for a hug, too.

She doesn’t.

No one’s doing anything wrong. Not exactly.

She fights down a scream.

She tries to remember to breathe.

And then there’s a voice, someone calling her name, and it gives her just a little bit of hope.

“Danvers,” her fiancee says, and she turns to see her jogging into the room, smile on her face. “You were amazing out there,” she tells her, and Alex almost flinches because she could swear Maggie’s about to hug her, too.

But she doesn’t. She stops just short of touching range, and she tilts her head and bites her bottom lip as she regards the woman she’s going to marry, the woman who finds it easier to save lives than to live her own.

“No touching today,” Maggie smiles, and it’s the understanding in that smile, the simplicity of that statement, that makes Alex want to break down and cry.

But not from stress, this time. From gratitude.

“Tonight, maybe,” she tells Maggie the same thing she’d told Kara earlier, and, like Kara, Maggie nods and smiles like Alex is completely normal, like she’s completely amazing, even – and especially – when she’s asserting what she needs.

“I love you,” Maggie reminds her by way of responding, and it makes Alex melt still, now, after all this time.

And she knows beyond a shadow of doubt that it always will.