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Angela groans into Fareeha’s mouth, responding to the feeling of hands moving from their place on her hips to grab her ass. She knows that she should stop now, if she does not want things to go much further—and that is the case, or so she tells herself. It is better to wait, to discuss things first, to make sure Fareeha knows everything before they move forward; Angela knows this, and she believes it, but things are not quite so simple. For one thing, she can hardly find the nerve to bring it up. Even when she does, she then has to get Fareeha alone in a room to talk to her, and half of the time they are busy with gentle declarations of love and things are quiet and she cannot bear to disturb the peace… and the other half they are like this, with her straddling Fareeha’s hips, or the two of them pressed up against a locker in the gym, or, once, with the two of them on top of one of her nice, clean examination tables. So they find themselves here yet again, with her on top of Fareeha, unsure if the feeling in her stomach is arousal or anxiety (probably, it is both). She should say something, anything, but her mouth is otherwise occupied and Fareeha’s hands feel so good on her body and—
One of those same hands moves under the hem of her shirt, and Angela knows that if this goes any further she will not want to stop, not for anything, and so she pulls back, rests her forehead on Fareeha’s, catches her breath, says “Wait.”
Fareeha’s hands still in an instant, it seems that by now she is used to this, is used to Angela cutting them off abruptly and without explanation. (Angela feels guilty for being relieved.)
Once she has caught her breath, Angela mutters a quick apology, climbing off Fareeha and turning her back to straighten her clothes. She cannot face Fareeha right now, does not want to see if Fareeha feels disappointed, or confused, or worse, hurt; she is halfway to the door before Fareeha’s voice stops her in her tracks.
“Please,” says Fareeha, and oh, it is worse than Angela thought, she sounds both confused and hurt, at once. This was not Angela’s intention, the last thing she wants is to hurt anyone, but she especially does not want to hurt Fareeha, does not want her own anxiety and reservations about this to come between them.
“Please,” repeats Fareeha, “What am I doing wrong?” In that moment, she sounds so hurt, so much smaller than herself, that Angela cannot help but turn around, cannot help but face her.
“I’m sorry,” says she, and flicks her gaze away, unable to hold eye contact for more than an instant, not when Fareeha looks so lost. “It really isn’t anything to do with you. It’s… there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just me.”
Before Fareeha can say anything, can ask more questions, Angela turns on her heel and flees. She cannot have this conversation, not yet—not when she likes Fareeha so much. Although she is relatively certain it will not happen there is a chance, however small, that Fareeha will break up with her when she learns, will find the truth unacceptable, and, selfishly, perhaps, Angela wants to enjoy their relationship just a little longer before they reach that point. Even if things go sour, it will be nice to have had this much, will be nice to have this period to look back on.
It is not until later, back in her own quarters, injecting her biweekly estradiol dosage into her thigh, that Angela stops to think about her wording. There is nothing wrong with Fareeha, she had said, but with herself—and does she truly believe that? She had thought she had moved past such thinking, moved past believing that she was any lesser for being different, but evidently, she has not. To be nervous is one thing, to fear rejection is understandable, but she would like to think that, at this point, she is not ashamed of who and what she is.
And what is she? A doctor, certainly. A scientist, always. A comfort, when she has needed to be. A hero, if reluctantly. A woman, like any other.
For she is a woman, regardless of her chromosomes. She knows, this, she has known this.
Why, then, does she hesitate?
Fareeha likes women, and only women, she has indicated as much to Angela, but Angela is a woman, both in Fareeha’s eyes and in fact. Why should this change anything? It will not, if Fareeha loves Angela for who she is, and Angela believes she does—Fareeha is as earnest in her affections as she is in anything else.
Somehow, knowing logically that there is nothing to fear is not helpful. While Angela wishes that she might be able to act rationally in any given situation, that she might be able to approach her own personal problems as calmly and efficiently as she does what situations arise in the operating theater, she cannot. At the end of the day, when her scrubs are off, her lab coat hung up, her uniform stowed away, Angela is a woman like any other, not exceptionally brave, not exceptionally rational, one with anxieties, and flaws.
One of those flaws is a fear of isolation, a fear that, at the end of the day, she will be as alone again as she was the day her parents died, as she was when Overwatch fell. So she protects herself, hides anything she fears might result in rejection, just like she is now. As a form of preventing loneliness, it is ultimately self-defeating; her secrecy tends to drive others away, and with those it does not, she cannot help but feel her connection is superficial, is inauthentic, is hinged solely upon her pretending to be someone whom she is not—someone confident, someone without fears or flaws.
Even though Angela generally thinks of herself as being happy with whom she is, insofar as her being transgender is concerned (there are other aspects of herself she is much less content with), she cannot help but fear that others will not be as accepting, cannot help but fear that they might view her as being inauthentic, a fake woman. She is not, and she knows it, and none of the people whom she cares about might believe such, and yet… she is too afraid of a negative reaction to risk broaching the subject. She is afraid, and as a result, she will keep pushing away the people who care for her, will keep avoiding situations which make her uncomfortable, will keep isolating herself, unless something changes.
What is it McCree says? Like ripping off a band-aid. Ripping off a band-aid is, surely, not painful enough for this situation, is too short-term a problem. If she is going to do this, it will be like relocating a joint, a flash of pain, all at once, sharp and sudden and nauseating, followed by a persistent ache. However, it needs to be done. If she is ever going to stop living in fear of rejection, then she needs everything to be out in the open, needs to know—one way or the other—how Fareeha feels about this, so that she can relax, or begin to move on, and to heal.
Before she can back out, Angela retrieves her phone, bites her lip, and messages Fareeha, asks her to come to Angela’s quarters, if she is awake. Everything Angela knows about communication and negotiation suggests that this is a bad idea, that they ought to meet in neutral territory in order to have a conversation where one or more of them might be uncomfortable, but Angela needs to be in her own quarters, needs to know that she is in control in this situation, needs to feel safe, if she is to do this.
Fareeha’s response is not the immediate one Angela has come to expect; the message displays as read, but there is no reply forthcoming. Angela waits, thinking Fareeha is perhaps confused, is composing a reply, doing something, anything but ignoring her—has she really hurt Fareeha that much, in her fear? She certainly hopes not, it was never her intent to hurt anyone, only to protect herself, and if she has—
A knock on her door. Fareeha. Of course Fareeha would come straight to her, would not hesitate to do something if she believed Angela needed, would not stop to question why, how silly of Angela to have ever worried at all.
Before Fareeha can knock again, or start to worry, Angela opens the door, invites her in.
Her nervousness must be apparent, because Fareeha’s first question is, “Are you alright?”
Is she? As well as can be, she supposes, stomach tight and head light with anxiety. As well as can be, when she is about to admit something she has not in a very long time. As well as can be, when she worries their relationship is hinged upon what is said tonight. When she opens her mouth all she says is, “Yes, I’m fine, really. Just a bit… nervous.” Even to her own ears, the words ring hollow.
“If this is about earlier,” says Fareeha, grabbing Angela’s hands in her own larger ones, “I’m really sorry. I’ve been thinking about it all day and I didn’t—I don’t—want to pressure you. If you don’t want to have sex, that’s fine with me. Really.”
“I do!” The interjections sounds a bit over eager, and Angela blushes, has to pause before she continues, “I do. That’s… not the problem. I’m very much interested in sex, in general, and with you, in specific, although it is good to know that if I wasn’t, that wouldn’t be a problem…”
She is rambling, she knows she is, but she cannot help it, cannot make herself stop speaking long enough to collect her thoughts before barging onwards. Luckily, if embarrassingly, Fareeha can tell that this is not the conversation Angela intended to have, and cuts her off before things can go further, “Angela,” says she, voice reassuring, “breathe.”
Right, breathing. Breathing is good. As a doctor, she ought to know that, ought to know that this is a stress response and that if she just wills herself to relax everything will be easier, and done with sooner. She makes patients take deep breaths before snapping joints back into place, she can do the same with her own metaphorical re-location now. In, and out. In, and out. In, and out.
She opens her eyes, which she does not even remember closing, takes one last breath, and forces herself to speak, thinks, a flash of pain, then a dull throb, “I’m transgender.”
Angela feels on knife’s edge, unable even to direct her nervous energy into speaking more, waiting as she is for Fareeha to respond, for acceptance or condemnation, either of which would be a relief, would be better than this waiting, this uncertainty, this moment which seems to stretch for an eternity. At first, she holds her breath, but the silence lasts too long, and she needs air, needs to remember to breath calmly as possible. The room seems hot, and for the first time in a while she is distinctly aware of how she fits in her own skin, which suddenly feels far too tight across her own body. It is terrible, waiting.
She cannot even look at Fareeha.
Finally, after what seems, to Angela, like a great deal of time, but was, in all likelihood, not terribly long at all, Fareeha breaks the silence, “Have I been misgendering you?”
Angela is not sure what response she expected, but it was not that. “No,” says she, nearly laughing, partially at how terribly sorry Fareeha sounds, to have done nothing wrong, but mostly out of nervousness. It seems she has not spoken plainly enough, “You haven’t misgendered me I’m… I’m a trans woman, Fareeha.”
“Oh,” says Fareeha, much more quickly this time, and Angela wishes she could say more clearly what it is she is thinking, what it is she is feeling. While Angela is good at reading people, in general, and Fareeha, specifically, she knows she is too caught up in her own emotions, right now, to accurately judge Fareeha’s.
“I’m glad,” Fareeha continues, “That you trusted me enough to tell me,” and oh, that is bad, thinks Angela, very bad, Fareeha is glad that Angela mentioned this, now before they moved forward, she must be, because she does not want to deal with this, does not want Angela now that she knows, and, and, and—
—and Fareeha is still speaking, “But believe me when I say this,” she moves into Angela’s space, and it is all Angela can do not to flinch back, to shrink in on herself, when already her own skin seems too tight and the air seems too thin to breathe, it is all Angela can do to make and maintain eye contact when Fareeha tilts her chin up so that they are face to face again, “It changes nothing.”
It changes nothing? How can that be so? Of course this changes something, even if not in the way Angela thought it would. The mere act of observing something changes its very nature, the act of knowing a person changes the one who is known—she says as much to Fareeha, though not so eloquently. Because she has shared this, because Fareeha has accepted her, fully, they are both of them changed, and their relationship with them.
A change for the better remains a change. What else could she call the sudden lightness in her chest, the way air now fills her lungs easily, the shift from shaking in her hands to every muscle in her body suddenly untensing.
To at last have spoken about this, to know that she will not drive Fareeha away, simply by being who she is, is a relief, a release of tension and anxiety which has been building up for months now, and she finds that she is now very tired, and feels very weak.
Later, later there will be time enough to discuss this further, there will be time enough to touch Fareeha, and to be touched in turn, but for now, all she wants is to be held, to hear Fareeha’s heart beating in her chest, to know that they breathe the same air, and everything is fine, different, but fine.
She bridges the gap between Fareeha and herself, tucks her head beneath Fareeha’s chin, and at last, she is calm.
“I love you,” she whispers, quietly enough that even she can scarcely hear it. “And I am so, so happy to know that you love me, too.”
“Of course,” says Fareeha, and perhaps, it really is that simple to her. Perhaps for Fareeha, strong and sure, this truly is as nothing.
“Of course I love you.”
To Angela, it means everything.