262. Chapter 262

Maggie loves getting home after Alex.

If she doesn’t find her at Kara’s -- which is about half the time -- she’ll find her in her bed, in one of Maggie’s henleys and adorable pajama pants, propped up with three different pillows, glasses on, pen in her mouth, medical journals sprawled across the bed.

“Ehay!” she’ll say brightly, pen still in her mouth, and Maggie will know, but she’ll ask anyway.

“What’s that there, Danvers?”

And Alex will blush and take the pen out of her mouth and start the clumsy process of disentangling herself from the blankets and pillows without spilling reports on the most cutting edge medicine all across the floor.

“I said, hey babe!”

And Maggie’s smile will light up the entire apartment, hell, the entire building.

The entire city.

“Stay in bed, Alex, I’ll be there in a few,” she’ll laugh as she bends to give her a kiss, and Alex will kiss her back and try to pull Maggie down on top of her but Maggie will pull back and kiss Alex’s nose and giggle that perfect giggle.

And Alex will settle and content herself with watching Maggie from the tops of her glasses as she moves across Alex’s apartment -- their apartment? -- like she’s been living there her whole life.

She’ll put away her gun and badge first, then kick off her boots, and she’ll sigh softly each time.

She’ll strip her shirt off and stride around without it, or with her button-down open but not quite off, and Alex sometimes wonders if she does it to make her throat run dry or if she does it when she’s alone, too.

Water is next, an entire glass downed in one go, and she’ll refill her cup and bring Alex one, too, giving her another kiss as she checks in about Alex’s day. And they fill each other in about the big things -- another fight with Eliza, who sends her love to Maggie anyway, and a case closed almost single-handedly -- and the little things (or the big things, depending on one’s perspective) -- whether Pam from HR and Jess over at LCorp are just friends of something more, Winn’s latest antics, Maggie’s partner’s latest date with his wife.

Some of these stories are slurred, because Alex has long since brushed her teeth, but Maggie does it while they talk, and Alex loves how thorough she is, loves how she flosses meticulously, loves the sound of her rummaging around in the bathroom, the sound of her jeans dropping so that when she strides back into the bedroom, it’s in nothing but a bra and boy shorts, boxers, or a thong, depending on the day.

And Maggie will pick up one of the medical journals Alex has been studying and flip through it while Alex watches, and she’ll intentionally garble the pronunciation of eight-syllable words just to watch Alex’s smile, and she’ll want to know what’s wrong with a good novel every now and then and she’ll want to know if Alex knows how happy she makes her, because god, god, god, she’s never had anything nearly as perfect as this.