284. Chapter 284

They know they’ll fall asleep.

These days, Alex has trouble falling asleep in bed. Unless it’s in Maggie’s arms, immediately after being thoroughly fucked. But tonight? Tonight’s a cuddle night.

So they know when they fall asleep, it’ll be on the couch.

It has been lately.

Since the white Martian infiltrated her brain.

Since Jeremiah.

Since… since Jeremiah.

And Maggie’s been having her own difficulties.

Her own traumas.

With her own set of memories that Valentine’s Day stirred up.

With her own set of memories, of terrors, of the bar full of her friends’ bodies, of wounds that haven’t even gotten the chance to scar yet, that Cadmus’s latest attacks stirred up.

That Alex nearly being launched across the galaxy, being held at gunpoint, conjured.

Maggie doesn’t like to talk.

But Alex knows.

Alex knows, and she makes her dinner and she pours her scotch even though Maggie’s insisted she doesn’t need to keep any in the house – and she surprises herself, because she’s not even tempted to have any for herself – and she pops popcorn, allegedly just for Maggie (I don’t know how you eat it with just coconut oil and sea salt, it’s gross, Sawyer and Doesn’t stop you from stealing it out of my bowl, Danvers and Any excuse to be closer to you, babe and Get over here, woman, you never need an excuse to be closer to me).

Alex melts when Maggie moans happily with her eyes closed at the pasta Alex made, because unless Maggie’s cooking for someone else – namely, Alex and Kara and Adrian – she never bothers being much more than utilitarian with her food. (Tiramisu doesn’t count. It has its own category, Danvers.)

And Maggie melts when Alex gets out the pillows and the blankets and refuses to let Maggie get up to put her dishes in the sink, because you work so hard all day, Sawyer, let me take care of you for once, and Alex’s top is lacey and low cut and Maggie watches her move, listens to her hum to herself, watches her smile over her shoulder because Alex knows – she always knows – that Maggie’s eyes are glued to her body, to her bare skin and to her collection of bruises, and she almost swoons.

She would claim almost, anyway.

But Maggie knows the truth: that her gaze doesn’t make Alex almost anything.

She full-out swoons, and Maggie settles back into the couch and waits eagerly for Alex to return, because she has never felt quite this domestic, quite this safe, quite this… home.

“Thank you, Ally,” she says softly as Alex sits back down and throws out her arm and puts Maggie’s favorite pillow onto her own lap, inviting Maggie to lay down on her.

“For what?”

“For…”

For dinner. For giving me scotch but not drinking any yourself. For that top with that lace and for that smile and for letting me lay in your lap and letting me put on Doctor Who episodes that you didn’t love but I did as we fall asleep and for putting the dishes away and for knowing, just knowing, that I’m spending the night, for pulling the blanket over my legs but not my torso because you know how claustrophobic I can get if the blanket is up too high, for putting your arm on my waist and making me feel safe, for making me feel wanted and making me feel loved. So, so, so loved.

“For you, Danvers. For you.”

Alex tilts her head – a habit she’s quickly acquiring from her girlfriend – and tilts her mouth to one side.

“Come here.”

Maggie does – eagerly – and when their lips meet, it’s fire under a waterfall and it’s stars exploding in the vacuum of space and it’s lethal hands turning tender and strong hearts being vulnerable and soft lips on tossed-back necks and low moans growing louder and unspoken love transporting on hitched breath and passionate sighs and whispered names.

“You knocked my pillow on the floor, Danvers,” Maggie teases, her voice several octaves lower than normal, when they part for breath, their foreheads pressed together, their arms around each other, their legs somehow, now, entwined.

“Oh, it’s your pillow, is it?”

Maggie freezes and Alex realizes her mistake, and she takes Maggie’s face into gentle hands and strokes her hair and kisses her nose.

“I love that you’re at home here. I want… I want you to be. Hell, Mags, you can have all the pillows in the universe if it means you sleep in my arms more often.”

Maggie swallows tears and Alex bites her lip, because maybe it was too much, maybe –

“I don’t want all the pillows in the universe, Alex. Only the ones that keep me here.”

They both lean down for the pillow at the same time, with the same smile, with the same hope and the same fear and the same love, love, love.

And the promptly knock their heads together.

They laugh and they take turns spluttering apologies and kissing each other’s foreheads and eventually – somehow – Maggie makes sure a pillow is behind Alex’s head (she always forgets), and Alex resets Maggie’s pillow on her lap, and Maggie lays back down, and Alex puts the blanket back on her, and Alex sighs, and Maggie sighs, and Alex plays with her hair and holds her safe, holds her close, holds her perfect.

And if they both breath soft I love yous when their eyes are dragging and they’re drifting into a more peaceful sleep than either of them have ever gotten on their own, the air between them holds their most cherished, most exciting, most terrifying, most beautiful secret.

Until they’re ready to speak the obvious into existence in the full awareness of day and not just the soft glow of sleepy perfection on the couch at midnight.