287. Chapter 287

It always happens before Eliza visits – without fail – but it will also happen when Kara is sad, and she feels like she can’t do anything about it.

It’ll happen when someone mentions Jeremiah, or Cadmus, and glances at her quickly, furtively, to see if she’ll nod efficiently and talk strategy with them and slam them into the nearest wall or console and threaten their life with her index finger.

And it’ll happen seemingly at random, for no apparent reason.

When she thinks of a project in the lab she’s not completing as fast as she’d wanted to, or when she thinks of that time last week she was late for dinner with Maggie – Maggie had assured her it was fine, but was it, really? – or when, for no apparent reason at all, her chest just seizes up and she starts to panic but god, god, god, she is ruthless, blew-up-Cadmus-single-handedly DEO Agent Alex Danvers, so god, god, god, no one can see.

So she just clenches her fists – and who would be surprised to see her with a resting pre-punch pose, really? – and she digs her nails into her palm, and she digs harder, and harder, and harder, the stinging, the beginnings of blood under her nails, the pain, so sweet, so needed, so focusing, so sanity-inducing, so grounding.

So perfectly invisible to anyone looking at her, she convinces herself.

But Kara notices.

And Maggie notices.

Of course Kara and Maggie notice.

They exchange a glance over the pool table when it happens in the bar, when Alex is clenching her fists and staring off into the distance, because Maggie had told her they could find a pool hall without alcohol, but Alex insists on the bar, but she’s surrounded by drinks she wants to have and highs she needs to numb the pain, and she’s surrounded by her failure to save everyone that night – doesn’t matter that she wasn’t there – and the burns Maggie got on her back in that explosion, and combined with the sweet, sweet memories of falling in love and first dates and long laughs, her body, her brain, goes into a bit of an overload and she clenches her fists to steady herself, to calm herself, to ground herself.

“Alex, you’re up,” Kara calls gently after getting a nod from Maggie, and they both watch her hands, Kara from over her glasses, to x-ray and see the scrapes, the little nail marks, Alex has pressed into her own skin. She nods at Maggie as Alex squares her shoulders and fakes a smile and gingerly picks up a pool cue.

“It’s okay if you’re not alright you know, babe,” Maggie runs a gentle finger down Alex’s back, and Alex stiffens.

Maggie pulls her hand back immediately, but Alex melts back into it.

“Why wouldn’t I be alright?”

Maggie looks at her, head tilted, for a long moment – her face completely lacking judgment, her face completely lacking anything but adoration and love – and she glances at Kara, who nods, because she knows Alex, and she knows she needs this.

Maggie gently takes the cue from Alex’s hands and holds up her palms, bringing her lips to each indentation gently, softly, tenderly.

“You know, holding ice cubes helps, Ally. When your body needs a release. It won’t damage you, but it’ll give you that rush. That grounding.”

Alex blinks and pffts and looks wildly over her shoulder for help from Kara, but Kara has her arms gently across her chest and her eyes full of love and concern and unwavering support.

“And you can tell us, Alex. You can tell us when you’re tense, when you’re… panicking.”

Alex shifts, but she doesn’t move her hands from Maggie’s gentle grasp. “I don’t panic, Kara, I’m a DEO agent, I – “

“Alex. It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

Alex stares between the two women she loves most – between her girlfriend’s soft eyes and supportive half-smile, and her sister’s trembling hand as she strokes her hair and those ocean eyes that have seen worlds of agony – and she wants to feel defensive. She wants to feel angry. She wants to lash out and she wants to deny and she wants to rage and kick and scream.

But Kara’s eyes are nothing like Eliza’s, and Maggie’s hands are nothing like any that have ever touched her, and Alex surrenders to being supported. To being loved.

“Can we go home? Ice cream and cuddles?”

Because getting support is making her panic more, because she’s not worth it and she’s making a big deal out of nothing and she should be stronger than this, better than this, but their eyes are telling her that’s not true, that she is perfect and valid and real and worthy and her heart is racing and if she’s going to panic and have it be acknowledged, have it be honored, have it be loved as she is loved, she wants it to be at home – any of their homes, because they’re all home, now, to her – so that if the tears come, at least they will come only in front of her family, not in front of aliens and humans alike in front of whom she has a reputation to uphold.

“Ice cream and cuddles it is, Danvers,” Maggie kisses her cheek, and Kara snuggles into one of her sides as Maggie wraps an arm around the other as they head out of the bar, Alex looking for all the world like she’s confident and cocky, draping her arms around two beautiful girls, but feeling for all the world like her girlfriend and her sister are holding her up, are the only reason her legs are moving forward, are the only reason her palms are alright, the only reason her heart hasn’t beaten out of her chest yet.

And she knows, somehow, that it’ll be alright. That she’ll be alright. That she’s loved. That she’s not weak for leaning on them. That she’s strong for leaning on them.

That they love her all the more for it.