163. Chapter 163

It’s not backfiring cars or gunshots resonating into the night that activate her, though sometimes she wishes it were.

Because for Alex, loud bangs and heavy impacts are still her daily life. If they trigger her, she must simply just be walking wounded at every moment. And sometimes, when she’s deep into the latest bottle of bourbon, she knows that that’s exactly what she is; perpetually traumatized.

But, more often than that, the alcohol drowns the acknowledgments that would make it real, that would give it words, that would make it something she has to deal with. And she doesn’t want to, because if she does, then she is not perfect. Then she is not made of steel.

Then she has to admit to being forged in the hottest of fires and emerging not just sharp as death, but also burned beyond recognition.

But lately, she is something else. Someone else. Because lately, she’s been more likely to have one beer than six shots. Because lately, she’s been looking forward to bedtime, not dreading it as a waste, a dull necessity, an absolute terror.

Because lately, there’s been Maggie Sawyer.

And she loves it, and she hates it, because now there’s someone next to her – someone who knows, someone who notices, someone who cares – when she wakes up screaming for Kara to come back from Krypton, yelling for Astra not to kill J’onn, please, because Alex doesn’t want to make this choice, doesn’t want to kill her, please, pleading for Non to just kill her, please, it can be as slow as he wants, just please, don’t force her to hurt her sister, please, please, please.

Maggie holds her, and Maggie rocks her, and Maggie soothes her, and Maggie’s body is pliant and willing when Alex’s eyes darken, when Alex pins her down and fucks her, hard, because when Maggie is writhing underneath her, it’s in pleasure, not pain; when Maggie is begging her please, please, please, it’s in desperate rapture, not desperate terror; when Maggie scratches her nails down her back and screams her name, it’s in love, not in fear, in lust, not in horror, in ecstasy, not in hatred.

Maggie knows, and Maggie lets her use her body like a bandage because Alex – even as she is rough, even as she is hard, even as she is callous, even as she is ruthless – is always, always, also somehow gentle, somehow giving, somehow attention, somehow caring. Maggie knows, and Maggie loves her, and Maggie is willing, and Maggie wants her.

Just as she is.

But when it goes beyond nightmares – when it’s conversations with her mother that end with her phone shattering against a distant wall, when it’s a sense of failure that seizes her chest like an iron fist because when Alex Danvers fails, people could die, people have died, Kara could die, Kara almost died – when it leaves Alex frozen and broken and nearly catatonic on the bathroom floor, razor in hand because there needs to be something, something, something she can control – when it goes beyond screaming from nightmares and turns into silent, private bleeding, Maggie knows, and Maggie breathes deep to steady her hands, and she picks the lock on the bathroom door, and she doesn’t yell, and she doesn’t ask, and she doesn’t accuse.

She just takes the razor away and she takes Alex’s hands into hers and she examines and she cleans and wraps and she kisses, gently, gently, gently, saying nothing, demanding nothing, because Alex right now can give nothing beyond her compliance, beyond her tears, beyond her exhaustion, beyond her limp-limbed acceptance of Maggie’s help, and right now, that is all Maggie needs from her.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Alex rasps when she can open her mouth again, when she trusts herself to open her mouth again, when she thinks she can manage it without throwing up all over Maggie’s bloodstained grey henley.

“Ally, you have nothing to apologize for,” Maggie whispers, and it’s gentle but it’s firm and so is the kiss she places to Alex’s knuckles.

“Oh no? I couldn’t even figure out what was wrong with M’gann, I couldn’t save any of your friends at the bar, I couldn’t stop Lilian Luthor from releasing that weapon, and if Lena hadn’t… and I can’t find my father and I can’t do anything right and I react like such a grown woman, right, locking myself in my bathroom and…” She splutters and brandishes her arm at Maggie uselessly and she shudders and she wishes Maggie hadn’t interrupted her when she did, because all she can see is the light leaving Kara’s eyes over Astra’s body, all she can see is Astra’s body replaced with Kara’s on the edge of her Kryptonite sword, all she can hear is her mother’s voice calling her exceptional some days and a disappointment most, and all she can smell is the dull mix of chemicals in her lab that she’s useless, useless, useless to help anyone from, and her body curls in on itself, and she collapses into Maggie’s chest, and she knows she can’t ride this wave out, knows she won’t survive it, but Maggie is whispering that she’s brave, that she’s strong, that she’s perfect, that she’s alright, that she’s gonna be just fine, that she’s loved, that she’s loved, that she’s loved.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when she opens her eyes, soft light is pouring through the windows, and Kara is playing a quiet card game with James while Winn helps Maggie make something that smells suspiciously like her favorite kind of pancakes.

“Morning, beautiful,” Maggie calls softly from the kitchen when she glances at Alex’s open eyes on the couch, and Alex panics because her arm, her arm, her arm, but Maggie must have changed her into a long sleeved shirt, because Maggie knows it’s Alex’s to tell, but she also knows that family, family, family.

“What’re you all doing here?” Alex sits up groggily, and Kara goes to hold her, and James smiles softly while Winn flips pancakes and touches squeezes Maggie’s hand.

“We don’t have to stay,” Kara says, “It’s whatever you want. But Maggie said you had a rough night, and we just wanted to remind you that we love you. No matter what.”

“And to thank you,” James pitches in. “You keep saving all of our asses out there, and I think it’s become so normal we’ve kind of forgotten to thank you. So… thank you.”

Alex smiles wetly and stares past them both to Maggie’s suddenly still form in the kitchen.

“I love you,” Maggie tells her, simply, and Winn and Kara both awww while James smiles and looks down.

“Yeah?” Alex asks, and in the one word are a thousand questions, about why and about how and about still and about after last night how could you and about but I don’t deserve your love.

Maggie smiles broader and wipes her hands on Winn’s shirt as she crosses the living room to kneel in front of Alex.

“Always, Alex Danvers. Always.”