275. Chapter 275

It starts with a shaking that she can feel, but that no one can see.

It starts with a trembling, like she’s trembling on the inside but it won’t translate into the outside of her body.

She doesn’t know whether to be relieved – at least no one can see – or scared – is it in my head?

She runs tests on herself and she tells no one.

Maggie notices anyway.

So does J’onn.

But when she loses balance on a basic mission and misfires her gun and Kara doesn’t believe her explanation that she’s fine, she’s fine, she just got distracted, she’s just tired, she submits to a full work up. Finally.

Maggie’s eyes are wide as she hugs herself in the back of the room, as she watches Alex get a full neuro exam, as she watches tubes get filled with her blood, as she watches the DEO medics whisper to J’onn and Alex’s body tense as she sits up and Kara has to hold her down.

“You people realize I’m a doctor, right? You realize I’ve been practicing longer than the both of you combined, that I – ”

“Alex – ”

“No! No whispering! No whispering and no sad eyes and no – just tell me what’s going on.”

And they do, and she expects Maggie to cry. Hell, she expects Maggie to leave.

Because already, Alex is running it all through in her head.

She won’t be able to hold a gun. Not even the ray gun that shoots so easily.

She won’t be able to reliably keep herself or others safe out in the field. Hell, she may not be able to navigate in the field.

And forget lab work, forget sticking needles into people’s veins and stitching up her fellow agents and conducting emergency field surgeries and…

And saving lives.

Forget saving lives.

Failed. Again. It figures.

And not just at work.

Because Maggie loves how steady Alex’s fingers are inside her, how strong. Maggie loves Alex’s precision, Maggie swoons under Alex’s touch. Maggie moans in ecstasy when Alex lifts her up and carries her into the bedroom, when she holds her down and fucks her senseless while whispering how much she loves her into her ear.

And now?

And now the failure is physical. Now the failure is everything. Now the failure is permanent.

She keeps her face steady and she listens as J’onn steadily instructs the medics to listen to Alex, to do as she says and continue giving everything to her straight up.

So they do.

Kara bites her lips and adjusts her glasses and holds Alex’s hand and asks more questions than Alex knew her little sister could have about biology.

Maggie doesn’t say anything at all. Not with words, anyway. She crosses the room and sits on Alex’s other side, and she kisses Alex’s forehead, but that’s all Alex knows because Alex won’t look at her eyes. She doesn’t want to see resigned obligation, and she doesn’t want to see pity, and she doesn’t want to see heartbreak.

She doesn’t know that if she looks, she’ll just see warmth.

“Yoga can help a lot, right?” is the first thing Maggie says, after a long while. “In addition to the DBS, if she decides to have it?”

“I’ll have it,” Alex says immediately, without hesitation and without emotion and without looking at her girlfriend.

“For a lot of people, yeah, holistic treatments can be quite effective.”

“See Danvers, I finally have the perfect excuse to get you to come to yoga with me.”

Alex hears the grin in Maggie’s voice and turns to her, finally, disbelief on her face.

“Why are you being so – ”

Maggie cuts her off – not something she makes a habit of, but she knows Alex, and she knows this isn’t going to be something Alex wants people to hear – “Guys, could you give us the room, please?”

J’onn nods the DEO doctors out, and Maggie lifts her hands to stop J’onn and Kara from leaving. “No, you guys are Alex’s family, I didn’t mean you guys should leave.”

They both beam down at her, and Alex waits.

“What were you saying, Alex?”

“Why are you being so… calm? I’m going to lose my job, my entire life, hell, our sex life, Maggie, it – ”

“Danvers, I’m not calm. I’m furious. You don’t deserve this kind of pain, and I know, I know, that this is going to be so hard for you. But ride or die doesn’t mean bouncing when things change, Alex. And it’s change. And that change is gonna be hard. Dead hard. But I don’t love you because you shoot guns and beat the shit out of people and are incredible in bed. Sorry guys.”

“Should I leave?”

“No, J’onn, that’s the most graphic I’ll get for now.”

“Thank god.”

“Alex, I love you because of why you do those things. Because you’re so desperate to protect the people you love, to fight for what you know is right, to take care of people, to make me… to make me happy, to give me pleasure. Wasn’t too graphic, was it?”

“Getting there, Maggie.”

“Sorry, Little Danvers, I promise it’s done now.”

Alex smiles, shocked that she still can, and her heart warms, shocked that it still will.

“Those things, Ally? Those things haven’t changed. Those things aren’t going to change. You’re still you. And we have a lot to figure out, a lot about how you’re going to move differently in the world now. But we’ll figure it out together, Alex. You and me and Kara and J’onn and James and Winn. We’re gonna figure it out. Together. Okay? You haven’t failed a damn thing. I promise.”

“You’re perfect, Alex,” Kara echoes, and Alex is shocked by the lack of pity in her voice. She sounds exactly like she did when Alex came out to her: full of love, full of emotion, but not full of pathetic sympathy.

And that? Alex can stomach that. She squeezes Kara’s hand, and when her own trembles with the effort, Kara just smiles.

“You’re my big sister, Alex. And you’re never gonna stop being a badass.”

“We should still come with a warning?” Alex asks, and Maggie kisses her hand as she watches the two of them.

“No one ever gave me a warning about you two,” J’onn deadpans, and Alex laughs at the normality in his voice, in the good god they’re going to figure out a whole new set of danger to get themselves in now voice.

“The Danvers sisters will always come with a warning.”