250. Chapter 250

She’s at it earlier than she normally is.

The heavy bag.

And hard.

Alex is still groggy and still sore – she can’t tell whether the last part is more from Cadmus or from the possibly dangerous amount of sex they’d had when she got back from nearly being flung halfway across the galaxy – and if Maggie were anyone else, Alex wouldn’t be able to possibly fathom why or how Maggie is up this early, slamming at the bag as hard as she is.

But Maggie is not anyone else, and Alex knows her.

“Give the poor bag a break and give me a shot, Sawyer,” she greets, and Maggie stills on the balls of her feet, and she tenses just slightly in her left thigh, and she turns into a high kick that Alex parries.

“The tension in your left leg is one of your classic tells. Again,” she says, keeping her eyes on Maggie’s.

They’re red, as she knew they would be.

Because Maggie’s been crying.

“I hate them,” she says between blows, all pulled so as not to hurt Alex, all somewhat more gentle than she would be in the field, because this woman is the woman she lives and breathes for.

This woman is not who she wants to be fighting.

“I hate,” she hisses as she ducks under Alex’s swing. “The whole fucking lot of them. And I know, I know.” She sidesteps a punch and lands one of her own, pulled, easy, gentle. Alex nods so Maggie knows she’s okay.

“I know, empathy. Even for people who act like they have no soul. Fine.”

She turns and slams her wrapped fist into the heavy bag, because pulling punches on her girlfriend isn’t good enough anymore, because she can’t bring herself to imagine Lilian Luthor’s face interposed on her beautiful, perfect girlfriend’s concerned, open, loving one.

“But I just… it’s just more of the same… fucking… white supremacist… bullshit.”

She punctuates each word with a different combination, and Alex watches, and Alex listens, and Alex hears.

“What, oh, you don’t belong here according to our goddamn KKK roster, but hey, listen, we’re generous people, we’re good people, we’re just gonna destroy your lives instead of end them, hooray, look what humanitarians we are.”

She plants her feet and rotates her hips and slams over, over, over again into the bag. Fast, hard, angry. Hurt. Terrified.

“Why, Alex?” She’s sobbing now, her voice cracking, sweating forehead on the bag, and she lets Alex wrap her arms around her waist and she lets her warring body go limp in Alex’s strong arms.

“Why are they like this? Why… No, how. How can they… how can they hear those screams and see that pain and not… how can they so completely convince themselves that they’re not people? Hell, that James and Susan and Adrian and me aren’t people? I don’t… Ally, I…”

She breaks and Alex nods and Alex turns her pliant body around so her face is buried in Alex’s shoulder and she kisses her forehead, her hair, and she tells her it’s okay, to let it out, that she’s not alone, that she’s loved, that she’s seen, that she’s heard, that she’s perfect.

Because she is, she is, she is.