282. Chapter 282

They’re up just as the sun is rising, and the most beautiful woman they’ve ever seen is wrapped up in their arms.

They kiss her forehead and Maggie sighs in her sleep, shifting close to Alex, her lips tilting up into a smile in the tendrils of dawn’s light.

Alex groans internally, but the way they stroke Maggie’s hair gives them away: sure, they want to go for their run, but if this – this amazing woman – is the thing preventing them from leaving the warmth of the blankets, the warmth of her naked body heat, the warmth of her still-sleeping smile?

Well then, Alex Danvers figures they have it pretty damn good.

They watch the growing sunlight dance across Maggie’s sleeping face, and they run their fingers over Maggie’s bare shoulder, torso, ass, thigh, which is hitched up over Alex’s stomach so she’s half on top of them.

“My little koala,” Alex whispers to no one in particular, and kisses Maggie’s hair.

They don’t know how long they watch Maggie sleep, how long they wonder what she’s dreaming, how long they wonder what they ever did to deserve this kind of peace, this kind of happiness, this kind of perfection.

“You’re staring at me, Danvers,” Maggie croaks eventually, without opening her eyes, her smile growing and her voice thick and gravelly with sleep.

“Pfft, no, I’m not – no,” Alex splutters, and Maggie cracks open first one eye, and then the other, shifting groggily so her body is fully on top of Alex’s.

“You were, Danvers, no point denying it.” She plants sleepy kisses on Alex’s face, on their very slightly fuzzy jawline, on their neck.

“No?” Alex asks, running their hands up and down Maggie’s body, making sure the blankets are still over her so she’s still completely wrapped in the warmth their bodies have made together all night.

“Nope,” Maggie concludes, her tongue flickering out against Alex’s throat, and Alex tosses their head back and groans softly. “I’m a detective, Agent Danvers, or have you forgotten?”

“Such a detective you even detect things in your sleep, huh?”

“Mmhhmmmm. And I detect you didn’t go for your run this morning.”

“An accurate assessment, Detective Sawyer.”

Maggie swoons and pretends not to, and Alex kisses her fully on the mouth. She can’t pretend not to swoon anymore, and neither, quite frankly, can Alex.

“So here’s what we do,” Maggie proposes between soft kisses. “You go out for your run, and when you get back, I’ll have coffee and pancakes and much fresher breath than I currently have.”

Alex chuckles and kisses her deeper.

“But I’ll miss you if I go for my run,” they protest, and Maggie beams and rolls off of them. They whine and Maggie mercifully rolls back halfway to kiss them again.

“And you’ll be grumpy all day if you don’t go, Danvers. Miss me for an hour and come back to coffee and breakfast and me wearing nothing but one of your flannels, how’s that?”

Alex tries to pull Maggie back toward them, and Maggie shrieks a giggle and dodges before getting twisted up in the covers and surrendering happily to Alex’s touch.

“Okay?” Alex confirms, and Maggie kisses their shoulder.

“Yes.”

“Was that a promise?” they want to know, and Maggie tilts her head as she looks up at the person she loves like she’s never loved anyone before.

“Was what a promise, Ally?”

Alex swoons at the use of the nickname that only ever feels right off of Maggie’s tongue, that feels perfect off of Maggie’s tongue.

“To only be wearing one of my flannels when I get back.”

Maggie bites her lip and Alex practically growls with desire. “Hurry back and find out.”

It takes several kisses and a mild tickle war that leave them both gasping for air and finding it in each other to get Alex dressed and out the door, and Maggie sighs into the silence when they leave.

She’s never had this before – this intimacy, this domesticity, this perfection – and she never, ever wants to lose it.

She takes her time in the shower, remembering as she does each place Alex touched her, licked her, bit down gently – and, at her urging, not so gently – into her skin last night, each place Alex had worshiped her, and she’s never felt more cared for. More beautiful.

As promised, she slips on one of Alex’s old flannels as she makes four times the amount of pancakes she normally would, because it’s Sunday and Kara will be over soon after Alex gets back from their run. She hums to herself the entire time, even as she listens to the news and occasionally interrupts her own rhythm to yell indignantly at some story or other.

Before long, the scents of coffee and homemade pancakes – some plain, some with cinnamon, some with bananas, some with chocolate chips – fill the entire apartment, and by the time Alex steps back in, the red bandana just above their forehead dark with sweat and their cutoff, sleeveless Stanford sweatshirt perfectly highlighting the rippled muscles in their arms, the table is set and soft jazz has replaced the news and Maggie’s hair is still wrapped in a towel and Alex’s racing heart stops at the sight and scent and sound of it all.

Because before?

Before, their apartment was just that: an apartment. A place to store things, a place to sleep, a place to drink, a place to function.

And now?

“What, no double-toasted dry-as-the-desert bagel this morning?” they ask, and Maggie laughs and shakes her head as she presses a glass of water into Alex’s strong hands.

“I love you too, Danvers. I love you, too.”

And Alex beams, and Alex kisses her, and Alex pours every emotion they have into it, because together, they’re home, home, home.