139. Chapter 139

She’s seen Maggie rage and she’s seen Maggie shake and she’s seen Maggie break almost everything in her apartment after the massacre at the alien bar and she’s seen Maggie after fights with her father and she’s seen Maggie after terrible elections and she’s seen Maggie after court dates where her colleagues succeeded in locking away kids whose behalf she’d testified on, who she’d spent weeks, months, all her energy, fighting to keep out of the system.

But she’s never seen Maggie quite this angry.

Because the trafficking operation that they break up isn’t just trafficking aliens. It’s trafficking alien children, with an emphasis on alien children that can pass as human children of color, and Maggie shoots every single dealer in the head before waiting for backup, before waiting for orders, because the kids are shivering and the kids are in chains and the kids are looking at her like she’s the first bit of hope they’ve seen in god knows how long, like she can rescue them.

And she is, and she does.

That night when Maggie’s tears have finally run dry and she’s finally stopped raging, Alex strips her clothes off slowly, slowly, steers her into the bathroom, turns on the shower, and washes all the blood off Maggie’s hands, off Maggie’s face, off Maggie’s body, out of Maggie’s hair.

She holds her all night and she holds her through the nightmares and she holds her fists steady, she holds her fists safe, when Maggie wakes up trying to punch, to shoot, to protect.

She kisses her when they toss on cut-offs jeans and tank tops and she wraps a bandana in Alex’s hair and head out to meet Kara and Lena and James and Winn to help oversee the construction of the L Corp funded-refugee orphanage, to participate in the building, to play with the kids, to make sure the climbing gym is creative enough to be accessible, to be fun, to be distracting and to be healing, for all the rescued children, whether they have six limbs or four or none, whether they have low vision or no vision or infrared vision, whether they can phase through solid metal or whether their skin scalds on solid metal.

It’s been years since they agreed they didn’t want children, and it’s been years since they agreed their family was perfect enough as it was; but months go by and laughter returns to the children and levity returns to Maggie’s step and they know, they both know, that two of the four refugee children who haven’t been adopted yet – one with no limbs when out of human form and one with spikey hair that isn’t hair at all – are theirs, and the other two of the four – one with wings and one with a perpetual giggle – are Kara and Lena’s, and Lena rushes the adoption papers and the next Thanksgiving features food from six different planets, and when the kids climb into their bed in the middle of the night, in the middle of a storm, Alex kisses Maggie over the top of their huddled-under-the-blankets heads, because she’s never seen her happier.