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It's been a long day and you want nothing more than to go home, but you're here, just you and Peter, sitting in a quiet corner of a nearly empty cafe near campus. You go over the past few days' interactions, searching for the one that led to this, what purpose he could have for inviting you here, and you're grateful that, for the moment, his attention is elsewhere, looking out the window. (You remember learning the hard way in college that invitations to get coffee are often euphemisms for requesting a date—except, of course, for when they aren't, except when it's just two friends sharing a moment, and how is anyone supposed to tell the subtle, nuanced differences between the two? You are a linguistics expert, but there are still some language codes even you can't crack).
You twist the silver ring your mother gave you before she died around and around your finger, try to block out the glaring, flickering fluorescent lights overhead that bounce, hard and unforgiving, from the peeling yellowed walls into your eyes.
“I wanted to thank you for today,” he says eventually, turning to you, and your heart jumps because even waiting for him to speak, the words catch you off guard, because you'd gotten lost in your own thoughts trying to work out his motives (it really would be so much easier if people would just say what they meant straight away, instead of waiting and making you fret and wonder).
But, ah. There it is, the reason for this particular social outing: Gratitude for this afternoon, when you'd suspected Walter was on the verge of a shutdown at the crime scene, the overwhelming smell of antiseptics too much for him, and you immediately took him outside to calm down, drove him back to the safety of his lab as soon as he was ready. (Of course, an expression of gratitude had been on your list of possibilities for this excursion and it's not like you really thought he'd be after something more, but just the same, you can't help the little sigh of relief that escapes you upon confirmation that this is all it is).
“You’re so patient with him,” Peter says, leans back casually in his chair, coffee in hand. “I don’t know how you do it.”
You shrug, and take a sip of your own coffee to hide your discomfort.
“My father is autistic,” you explain—and it's true, even if it's only half of it. You'd never have gotten this far in the Bureau if they knew. Heck, you're almost certain you'd be fired on the spot if they ever found out.
Peter pushes his lips in a sympathetic half-smile. He thinks you're bonding, building rapport and understanding over a cup of coffee and the burden of having a disabled parent.
But it’s not Peter you understand, not Peter you care about. But you follow your script, you keep up appearances, and you return his smile, because that's what you do.
***
You think about Astrid: your own dark skin, with dark, tight curls splotched sporadically in bright red (you wear your own curls loose, unfettered, no dyes or synthetics; you wonder what, if anything, the way you wear your hair says about you, and her). You wonder at all the things you have in common, all your similarities, and all the ways you diverge. (“You're so different,” Peter says, and you can't frame the answer in words, but you know, deep in your marrow, that he's wrong. Your differences are just divergent manifestations of a vast, vibrant, varied spectrum; you're the same in all the ways that matter). You look at her, you see her hurt, her downcast eyes, and—and it's so much more than looking in a mirror. You're careful about revealing yourself even in front of mirrors, using them more to practice the passing self you want to present to the world: but in Astrid, there you are, your real self, all your insecurities and differences laid plain to bare. (And she's beautiful, you think; she shines as bright as the full moon on a clear night, silver and sparkling)
You refuse to call her Alternate Astrid, because she's you, but not you; she's a whole person and to attach a word like Other or Alternate would be to make her less than she is, and your world, and hers, does that to the both of you enough as it is. You are Astrid, and she is Astrid, and taking care of her when she comes to you, making her a cup of coffee, offering her all those small comforts you find so easy to gift others but never yourself is the most radical form of self-love you can imagine.
***
There's something about being in the lab with Walter. He gets your name wrong; his ethics, hygiene, and methodology are all highly questionable, and yet... It works. Somehow, an ease develops between the two of you. You hum or you rock, and you don't worry about his judgement; he doesn’t mind, doesn’t bat an eyelash, doesn’t get angry with you. He mimics your soothing behaviours sometimes, unconsciously, and then it's just the two of you, moving in symmetry, swaying as one to the beat of the music, rocking the anxieties from your bones.
He lets you keep the lights dim, doesn't mind when you need to turn the music down, or cover your ears, or be alone. He understands because he has his needs, too, and they're uniquely, wholly his own, but they're in the same playing field. You bake together, filling the lab with warmth, homey aromas, and sweet tastes that block out a harsh world that always seems out to get you both. You work in quiet harmony, neither bothering the other.
So if he gets your name wrong, maybe you learn to let it slide, because he gets you and that seems more important.
(You wonder if maybe he’s on the spectrum, too—with his memory, his speech patterns, his sensory sensitivities and his need for routine, for a safe, stable, environment he can control, it seems plausible. Maybe his time in the institution heightened his sensitivities, broke down many of the social scripts he'd developed over a lifetime, and sent him spiraling into a burnout he’s not been able to work his way back from. It wouldn't surprise you. The mental health industry is not a safe place for people like you.)
***
You think about Astrid, about the rigidity of her body, the stiffness, as though all the world is on fire and set to burn her. Was she diagnosed as a child? When her hands flew, did they tether them with venom to her sides, hissing, “Quiet hands!”? Did they take her chin in vice-like grips and force her head up when she could not look them in the eye?
You think how easy it would have been for that to be you, if your father had been a little less stern with your teachers, if he hadn't been different himself, if he'd let the hours of therapy continue.
You weep, and if it's for her or for yourself, you can't be sure.
***
“Why are they having you play babysitter?” your father asks, and there's fire in his veins. He smells like flour and home (your love of baking was kindled by him, though Walter's certainly done his fair share to make it burn brighter). He doesn't know what you really do, of course—just the surface boring stuff, without all the weirdness. “You could be doing so much more.”
“Dad,” you say. “I'm happy where I am. I still get to go out in the field, but background stuff is what I'm best at. Research, categorizing, codebreaking. And, yes, taking care of Walter. Being in the centre of things would be too much for me. You know that.”
“All right. I just don't want my baby being given the short stick.”
You smile. “I know. Thanks for always looking out for me, dad.”
***
Astrid has something you don't: her team knows who she is. It's both a blessing and a curse: she's free to be herself around them, but that means dealing with platitude and pity. You see the way the Other Side looks at her and talks to her, and cringe at the thought of your own teammates ever treating you that way. (You had too much of that during your youth to deal with it as an adult in the workplace).
***
You're alone in the back office and you shouldn't, not with the others right beyond the glass wall, not when they could come in at any moment.
But you need this. You can feel everything creeping to the surface, all pressing down on your head, twisting in your stomach and crawling across your skin, and if you don't get it out, you're going to break, collapse into a puddle on the ground, tear out your hair, and the last thing you need is for them to see that . So you crawl under the desk and pull your jacket over your head and you pick at the dry skin on your lips. And maybe it's childish, maybe you should've grown out of this years ago, but it helps, it makes you feel safer, like now there's a barrier between you and everything that's wrong and crushing and maybe, just maybe, if you can be left alone long enough, you can get it all out before it's too late, you can put off the meltdown you feel creeping up on you until you're at home, alone, and you don't have to worry about what the others will think—
“Astrid?”
The voice breaks through the veil; you stop abruptly, your hand falling neatly into your lap, your head shooting up toward the sound. You wait out the seconds for the noise to translate into a word in your brain, and then the word's code to break, to take shape and meaning you can understand. It takes longer than usual because it has to worm its way through the crowding fog that's quickly threatening to suffocate you.
You fold your smile back in place with effort. You sit prim and proper on the floor under the desk. “Olivia.”
“Are you okay?” (Not “What are you doing?” or worse, “What's wrong with you?”; Still, you can't help but feel like you've been caught committing some heinous crime, like a child about to be scolded)
You hold the smile stitched in place, but the tears are forming now and if this doesn't end quickly, you won't be able to hide them.
“Yes,” you say, and the one, small word is all you can manage.
“Would you like to be left alone? I can make sure no one comes in for a while. ”
You nod, because that's all the response you can muster, and Oliva turns away. Before she shuts the door, she looks back. “Let's talk later? You can talk to me about anything, Astrid.” And then she's gone, and you crumple to the floor in relief, and let the tears flow.
***
She asks how you are the next day at work, and you skirt around the issue; you tell her you're fine, thanks, and mirror the question back at her, because that's how this is supposed to go, and she was never supposed to see you that way. She doesn't force it, she lets it go, but she graces you with all these smiles and spends all this time sitting quietly with you in the lab. If it were anyone else, it would bother you, it would feel like she's treating you like a child because now she sees you. But this feels right, like she's helping in the only way she knows how (probably she is; Olivia is hardly the model of neurotypicality herself, after all. Maybe that makes the difference in your current response). And that's just like Olivia, isn't it? There when you need her, but waiting until you're ready to talk. And surprisingly, that's just what you need.
It takes time to work up the courage to approach her again. You need time to prepare, to come up with a perfect explanation, to gather data and rehearse putting it into the right language. It needs to be in a safe place (the lab) where you can bring it up in casual conversation (you have a perfect segue planned); there can't be anyone else there, and it needs to be a rare, quiet day with minimal chances of someone walking in or a call coming through.
Of course, it takes a while for a such safe opportunity to arise. But at last it does, a little more than a fortnight after what you're secretly labeling The Incident.
It's mid-afternoon; you've just had lunch, and the two of you are going over some files together.
You twist your ring around your finger under the table for an hour before you manage to start (though there are a number of false starts, all covered up by clearing your throat or pretending you were thinking aloud or asking a question).
“I'd like to go over to the other side soon,” you say. “I want to visit Astrid.”
Olivia glances up from the file she's reading. “Any reason in particular? It will be easier to get clearance if your visit has a purpose.”
“We're a lot alike. I want to tell her. I want her to know she's not alone. I wasn't brave enough when she was here.”
“You don't seem very alike.”
“Oh, sure, we're different. I can't do what she does with numbers. But I can see patterns in language, in a similar way.” Here it is, the moment of truth; ring twisting hurriedly around your finger, you take a breath and dive in: “She's autistic, and even though we're very different, so am I. I'm better at passing as nuerotypical than her, that's all—neurotypical means typical brain wiring."
Olivia smiles, shifts a few papers into a new pile. “I did wonder if you were going to tell me. Though there was always the possibility you didn't know, I hoped that if you didn't, meeting Astrid might help you consider it as an explanation.”
You stare. “I—well, yes, I knew. You knew?”
She shrugs. “I suspected. Do you remember the boy we found who was nonverbal? I started looking it up then, but a lot of what I found rang true for me. In our line of work, it wouldn't be good for me to get diagnosed. But research, I can do, when I have the time. After that, there were little things that made you ping as autistic for me—and Walter, too. Meeting the other Astrid confirmed you at least. You provided further confirmation the other week, when I walked in on you in the office.”
You sigh and smile, as relief floods. All the preparation and time working up courage, and it was unnecessary, because she knew, and not only is she not bothered, not only do you not have to explain anything, she's the same.
“You know,” you say, and you feel your smile stretch wide. “If we can get Astrid back over here, we should have some coffee together in the lab. You, her, me, and Walter. The exclusive Autistic Fringe Club.”
Olivia smiles, too. “I'd like that,” she says.