Summary: If Alex was still struggling emotionally with the kidnapping, I wonder what buttons the events of War at Home would have pushed.
A/N: Fanfiction is therapy I think. I know everyone knows that there are going to be a ton of post eps for emotionally dramatic episodes, but it feels so freeing to write them... and I love reading other people's... so... yeah. I hope to continue this because I do not think that this is going to destroy Bobby and Alex's relationship.
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine...
Alex slept in her closet that night. It was perfectly natural, her therapist had told in her first session... Perfectly natural that Alex develop some of her own odd coping skills. So, Alex decided that if it was so perfectly acceptable than there was no reason to tell anyone - including the aforementioned therapist.
It wasn't as if she crawled in there trembling and weak; No way. This coping skill was all about strength. She set herself in there as she would have prepared a bunker. It wasn't like some gross hole in the wall - it was a nice closet and she kept it clean and tidy. She wasn't sleeping on spiders or smelly shoes, she was just... not sleeping on a mattress with three open sides.
At least not tonight.
Alex thought maybe Bobby had picked up on her secret about a month ago. He'd been following her around while she finished getting ready for her counseling appointment. He always did that. For a long time it had driven her batty but now she thought of him as a large, amiable shadow. Normally it was even sort of convenient - if she had something to say she didn't need to yell or go find him because he was always just there at her elbow. But normally she wasn't trying to hide a coping skill that made her look like a freak.
She'd only had the closet open for a moment; she'd left her keys there in her rush to get ready (thats what a bunker was for - you kept your essentials at arm's reach: phone, keys, gun... There was nothing odd about it). But she thought his gaze hovered at the crack between the closet door and the floor a little too long.
Alex had slept in her bed for the first time that night. To spite him. Well, maybe not him... but to spite the weakness and fear in her that damn him, she knew he saw.
She wasn't okay. And she knew he wasn't okay... but dammit she didn't have anything in her to help. She was barely above water herself. He'd pull through - he had to because she couldn't.
Before they'd gotten the call on Thanksgiving she'd been avoiding her family and their concerned expressions. She'd gone out to watch the kids run around. The kids didn't remember Aunt Alex had even been in the hospital that summer... much less why. She could handle the kids.
She had watched her nephew shovel sand into his cousin's shoes and suddenly, in the flurry of their amusement, Alex wondered if she was ever going to be okay. And the call had come.
And she could press it all down again and focus on her job.
But Bobby had been pressing things down harder and longer than she had, she supposed, and Bobby wasn't so good at it anymore.
He couldn't pull through for her. She realized it the moment he walked into the elevator. Every nerve in her body and her brain seemed to start buzzing. Never had he disrespected her like that. Argued, squabbled, fought even - but never had he treated her as if she didn't matter.
By the time the elevator doors had shut behind him, it had sunk into her bones; He wasn't going to be her crutch this time.
Alex had never been very fond of irony. When Joe had died she'd learned that family and friends only got you so far. Even family had other family to take care of in the end. It was your spouse that promised to be there for you and you alone... So, in the echoing absence of the only person that had committed to stay, Alex had decided to be the strongest solo act she could be.
But she hadn't seen Bobby coming. The journey had been much too prolonged for Alex to think to pull back and see the big picture. Enter Irony. Before she even understood how completely she'd failed, the rug was being ripped out from under her again. Except this time it was worse. This time it wasn't death that robbed her of the man she trusted. This time it was choice. And this time she didn't even have the right to feel deserted.
Bobby hadn't said any vows. He hadn't committed his life to her. Bobby hadn't even promised to stick by her. And yet she'd come to depend on him as if he had and presume that he could and would trust her back. She hadn't thought walking away was even an option. What a fool, what a sad, naive fool.
Well, she'd been set straight. And that was fine. She shouldn't have assumed, she shouldn't have let herself get so close. He had his own problems right now and she didn't begrudge him the pain or how he dealt with it. Of, rather, if the way he decided on dealing with it was shutting her out then she had no way of changing his mind.
So she slept in the closet that night with her gun and her keys. But she left her phone on the night stand because it was past time to accept the truth. She was alone and alone she was going to thrive.
There were advantages to being an old maid. Alex smiled dryly as she turned out her flashlight and pulled the closet doors closer together, at least if she was alone, she wouldn't have to worry about explaining this to anyone.