Not beta'd or proofed. These things just seem to happen. Blame rewatching a whole mess of episodes before the premiere and wondering about Beckett and Espo's backstory.
She doesn't think she's ever been so embarrassed in her life. Embarrassed and ashamed that it happened to her – that she let it. All the time she spent in therapy trying to find herself again and be strong and stoic wasted. And she'd been doing so well.
Months on the job without a single incident and now this.
She throws punches at the bag, feels the sweat dripping down her face and back and ignores the pain beginning to throb in her arms and forehead. With one more strike her vision swims, the room spins and she falls to the mat.
The instant she hits the floor the alley flashes in her head and panicked, she scrambles back until she's against the wall. The concrete scrapes against her shoulder blades but she doesn't care. Can't. Air comes in bursts, her chest heaving as her lungs try to fill but can only spasm; she's so lost in her head that she doesn't hear the door to the precinct gym open, or the footsteps that start, halt, and then hurry over to where she's curled into the corner.
"Beckett?"
His voice is distant, underwater maybe? She can't tell.
"Beckett, come on. Can you hear me?" His hand gently touches her arm, "Beckett."
"Mmm," is all she manages. It sounds something between a moan and a grunt, annoyed. It's almost a desperate plead for him to go away and leave her alone with her panic attack. This hasn't happened in months, more since it happened outside of the privacy of her apartment, and she can't bear to have him look at her the way she knows he is. She can't see his face through the blur but she knows he's looking at her with pity.
She just knows.
"Beckett, you gotta' breathe."
"Am." She cracks, "Trying." Her jaw is so tight.
"Here, just listen, alright? You're gonna be okay." Both of his hands are gripping her arms, pulling her tight together. She's already curled into herself but he pulls himself so that he's situated right in front of her – putting pressure on her arms and grounding her. "Just breathe, you'll come out of it."
Soon enough she can feel her chest taking in air properly again, the thumping in her head has eased and it's as if every muscle in her body can finally relax and stretch. She sucks in slow breaths, finally letting her head drop back against the wall as she tries not to sob with the pleasure of just being able to see clearly again.
"Hey," he whispers. "Better?"
"Yeah. Better." She nods quickly, wraps her fingers around her knees, clenching and releasing. "Thanks."
"No problem." He sits back, waiting. "This the first time this has happened?"
"No," she rasps, "but it's been a long time. Never happened here, either."
"I saw your face at the crime scene. You went white."
Yeah, she did. She knows – could feel it when it happened, the way the blood drained from her face. Their case, a woman was lying in an alley, her body torn up by a knife and it was just all too much.
"Your mom?"
She freezes for a beat. She wants to be pissed and yell at him for sticking his nose where it doesn't belong but she has no energy left. And there's something in his face that…just…she can't yell at him.
"Yeah," she whispers.
With a sigh he moves to sit next to her. The two rookies sitting side-by-side in the empty gym, knees pulled in.
"Thought I was okay. I thought that I worked through everything and I could do the job, but it just snuck up on me." Her voice is even and steady, "I didn't think that it would-" She heaves another breath and swipes the few errant tears from her cheek.
"When I came back from my tour I was a mess for a while. I was always looking over my shoulder, thinking' someone was out to get me. Nothing helped. It wasn't until I got here that I felt like I was in control again, but even then…" he sighs, "it's not easy."
He turns and looks at her even though she doesn't return the gesture. "It's not something you ever think is going to happen to you. You think 'I'm different, I'm okay,' but…you're not. You're still figuring it out, and that's okay."
She sniffs, brushes away the last traces of her breakdown and looks him in the eyes for the first time since he walked in. He's not judging her or diagnosing, just being understanding. It fills her with a sense of company and thank you for not making it a big deal. "Thanks Javi."
"Anytime." He nods towards the punching bag that had finally stopped swinging back and forth. It hangs like a lantern in the middle of the gym. "You really think it helps beating the shit outta' that thing?"
Kate shrugs. "Sometimes. Today I just…wanted space. It's busy downstairs and I needed quiet."
"Okay." He stands from where he had settled beside her and for the first time she notices that he must have had a similar idea, dressed in gym shorts and an old army tee ripped at the sleeves. There's a split-second thought of guilt in her gut. As if ruining her own day wasn't enough?
"Oh, you don't-" She's cut off when he turns and reaches his hand down to her. "What?"
"You want quiet, I want quiet. I'll hold the bag for you."
She lets him pull her up, still relatively stunned that witnessing her having a panic attack has apparently just rolled off his back. "You sure?"
"Yeah," he smiles, finding his stance while she stares. "You coming or what? We've got to make sure you don't fall down on your ass like that again."
She laughs, re-tapes her hand and lets the weight fall a little further away.