Mac knocked on the laboratory door then waited to be let in. When there was no movement he knocked again. He still couldn't hear anything or see any signs of someone moving. Not wanting to waste any more time he typed in the pass code he had been given for the laboratory and pushed the door open.
When he entered, he saw Sarah sitting on the floor with her back against her desk. She was staring ahead unblinkingly, her phone lying on the floor beside her hand. It didn't look like she was breathing, but as he got closer he saw that she was taking shallow, measured breaths. She made no indication that she had seen him, even as he knelt beside her.
"Sarah," he said softly. "What's happened?" She turned to look at him but didn't say anything. "Where's everyone else?" he tried.
She swallowed and then took a breath in. "Just me and Emily. She spilt something when I bumped her. She went to change." She looked at her hands. "How can I be so stupid? How hard is it to just watch what I'm doing?" she hissed.
"I'm sure it wasn't your fault," Mac told her. "Accidents happen."
"Well, they shouldn't. All it takes is for me to watch what the hell I'm doing!" she said angrily, then she sighed. "She should have spilt it on me, at least I deserved it."
"Hey, don't say that." Mac sat down beside her, taking one shaking hand in his own.
Sarah looked down at her hand free which was shaking and had permanent marker stains on the inside. "I shouldn't have messaged you," she told him. "I should have dealt with this like an adult. It's just something stupid, nothing to get so worked up over."
Mac's heart broke to hear her talking like that. She had been doing so well lately, her anxiety attacks had all but stopped. He knew that sometimes it didn't take a particular thing to start it all up again, but she must have started to crack under the pressure of work. Between the anxiety attack last night and then this small accident, it started that spiral of thoughts and brought her to the ledge where she couldn't talk herself down.
"You know you can always message me, especially if you need me," he told her gently. "I know it might not seem like it, but whatever happened here, whatever caused the incident with Emily, it wasn't your fault."
Sarah laughed shakily. "I know, but that makes it worse. I just broke down over something stupid."
"It wasn't something stupid." Mac told her gently. "You were on edge to begin with, and then something unplanned happened. It's enough to throw anyone. Your brain chemistry is unbalanced, and it made it all seem so much worse than it was." Sarah nodded slowly. "I'm so proud of you," he told her. "You let me know; you got help so you weren't dealing with this on your own when you couldn't cope."
"I probably shouldn't have stayed around the needles when all I wanted was to make the pain and the voices in my head stop…"
The grip Mac had on her hand tightened. "Did you think you'd be able to resist, though?"
"Yes, that's why I didn't swap shifts."
Mac smiled at her. "Then you made an informed decision. When things became too much, you let me know. You didn't touch the needles. You're doing okay."
She nodded at him. Her breath had started to come more naturally, and she wasn't staring unblinkingly off into the distance either. "All I could think was that I needed you here, I needed you now, right now," she admitted. "You're kinda like a remedy when you're right there in front of me."
"The bravest of faces are the ones where we fake being okay." Mac kissed her forehead, brushing the slightly sweaty red strands off her face.
She nodded, leaning into him. They stayed like that for a while, the final tremors that were rippling through Sarah slowly stopping.