223. Chapter 223

It’s not that Alex does it on purpose.

She doesn’t want to worry anyone. Doesn’t want to burden anyone.

That’s exactly the point.

It’s not that she does it on purpose, the disappearing. The vanishing.

She survived being on a fugitive with a three hundred year old Martian, and she’s not a trained DEO agent for nothing.

She’s good at disappearing. At vanishing.

Very good at it.

But not quite as good, apparently, as Maggie Sawyer is at finding.

Because when Alex does it this time – when they’ve had her father back for a few weeks and she’s just too overwhelmed, too overcome, too everything, too nothing, because she was his pride and joy and then he was dead and then he wasn’t and then she couldn’t save him but then she did and then he wasn’t the same but he was but he wasn’t, so she is overwhelmed and she is overcome and she is everything and she wants to be nothing – when Alex disappears this time, Maggie finds her.

It’s a sunny day – gorgeous – but Alex has all the shades pulled and she courts the darkness like just a few short weeks ago she was courting Maggie Sawyer, and she was courting death, courting danger, courting destruction, as she fought at Maggie’s side, at her sister’s side, to get her father back.

And now everything is fine, and she has no reason not to be fine.

But she’s not fine.

So she courts the slivers of darkness that she can find in the overwhelming sun, the sun with the audacity to shine, with the audacity to boast its brilliance without even doing Alex the courtesy of letting her evaporate.

Because if she is nothing but molecules – just for a little while, just while she rides this out – Maggie can’t tilt her head and squint slightly like she does when she’s worried, and Kara can’t insist on flying through her window, and Eliza can’t call her Alexandra and J’onn can’t stare at her when he thinks she’s not looking, fighting the temptation to read her mind so he can know exactly what’s wrong and James can’t bring her extra donuts on game night because he knows something’s off and Winn can’t gently touch her arm and remind her that he’s here, always, if she wants to talk about anything.

If she is nothing but molecules, even for a little while, they can’t worry. She can’t worry them. Burden them.

They all have enough going on, anyway.

But Maggie apparently disagrees.

She doesn’t kick down the door of the abandoned warehouse Alex breaks into when she needs to get away, when she needs to kick and scream and collapse on the floor and let herself get dusty, become dust, before her numbed out tears patter onto the cold, hard, unforgiving ground and trace patterns into the cobwebs and sawdust.

She doesn’t kick down the door, and she doesn’t ask what Alex is doing in there.

She’s already asked Winn, and she knows it has nothing to do with DEO business. She knows exactly what Alex is doing, because she knows… Alex.

“Danvers, just tell me one thing, just answer me the one question: are you physically hurt?“

She needs to know, because she knows how hard Alex can punch, and she knows how hard Alex can kick, and she knows how solid concrete is, and how tempting stone walls are when you want nothing to disappear, to be only your own burden.

Alex doesn’t answer for a long moment, because she’s on the ground and she’s shocked at the lack of judgment in Maggie’s voice.

Shocked at hearing Maggie’s voice on the other side of the door at all, because no one’s ever been able to find her before, on these dark days.

Shocked at the question. Not what are you doing in there or why aren’t you letting me in or what the hell is wrong with you.

“No,” she hears her own voice calling before she realizes she’s opened her mouth, before she realizes she’s dragging her body toward the door that Maggie must be crouching on the other side of.

“No, I’m not physically hurt.”

There. Not so bad. She’s used to calling out her condition after an explosion, a shooting, a cave-in. This doesn’t have to be so different.

“Okay. Do you want me to leave, Alex?” Maggie is calling, loud enough to be heard, but soft enough to not send Alex spiraling, and Alex presses her back against the door, and she takes comfort in imagining that, on the other side, Maggie has her hand pressed right where Alex would want it.

She wants to say yes, and she almost does. “I didn’t ask you to come, Maggie. I didn’t even tell you where I am.”

It comes out like an accusation, and she didn’t mean it to. Didn’t mean to sound so angry.

Maggie doesn’t seem to notice. Or rather, she doesn’t seem to mind. “I know you didn’t, Danvers. That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you want me to leave.”

No. Please don’t leave. Please break down the door, please pick the lock, please break down my door, please pick the lock I chained around myself so long ago.

Yes. You deserve someone whole, you deserve someone full, you deserve someone strong.

No. God, god, god, please, no, don’t leave me, not now, not ever, because if I think I’m broken now, my god, I don’t want to imagine what I’d be if you ever left.

Yes. Your smile is starlight and your laughter is an antidote to my worst poisons and your hands are gentle and your hands are strong and your hands shake when they touch me and you don’t deserve this, you don’t need this, you deserve happiness, not… me.

None of the warring words in Alex’s mind, in Alex’s body, find their way out of her mouth.

She hears Maggie shift outside the door, and she nearly yells out, because she’s nearly convinced that Maggie is leaving.

But she’s not. She’s settling in, with her back against the door – her back against Alex’s, it sounds like – and she’s leaning her head back against it, too, and Alex hears it, feels it, so Alex does the same.

Silence stretches into minutes, into an hour, more.

“I’ve got you, Ally,” Maggie reminds her, just the once. “You are never, ever, ever a burden. And I’ve always, always, always got you.”

She’s so quiet before that, and after it, too, that for a while, Alex wonders if she’s hearing things, if the imposed darkness of the warehouse, of her mood, is clouding her brain.

But the part of her that still knows, even now, that Maggie Sawyer loves her – is even in love with her, maybe – knows that she’s not making anything up.

That Maggie’s got her.

And sure enough, when she’s ready – when she needs to eat and needs to pee and needs to shower and needs to fall into Maggie’s arms and let Maggie play with her hair and whisper sweet everythings in her ear until she falls asleep and wakes to Kara and Maggie making breakfast together and laughing softly so as not to wake her – Maggie’s there, and Maggie’s eyes are soft, and her arms are open, and the way she touches Alex, the way she holds her with her warm gaze, makes Alex think that maybe, just maybe, she’s not a burden at all.

Maybe, just maybe, she’s worthy of being cared for.