321. Chapter 321

The first time they go, Alex just picks Maggie up on the back of her bike after Maggie’s had a long, rough day on the job. She doesn’t say anything other than, “wanna go for a ride?”, and Maggie immediately accepts the spare helmet she’s holding out for her, because there’s no need for any other words.

Maggie guesses that Alex drives for maybe three hours, always sticking to long, winding roads, always taking the routes that avoid traffic lights, traffic signs. Always taking the routes that avoid human beings.

Because sometimes, Maggie likes aliens better than humans, and this? This, Alex knows, is definitely one of those days.

So she takes her out way past the city limits, DEO’s old spot in the hills. Takes her out into the desert, takes her out far enough to get away from lights, from sound, from any people, alien or human.

Far enough away so that the only lights are the headlight on her bike, the stars starting to peak out of the increasingly velvet sky.

Far enough away so that the only sound is the soft roar of her Ducati’s engine, the wind whipping past their helmets.

Far enough away so that the only people are the two of them, the only people are present in the way Maggie’s arms wrap snug around Alex’s waist, the warmth of Maggie’s body pressed against Alex’s back, leaning into every curve, of her body and of the road, the thoughts, the love, the appreciation, passing between their bodies like oxygen that they’d starve without.

“Alex,” is all Maggie breathes when Alex finally pulls over and tugs off her helmet, her eyes not on the beauty above her, but on the beauty in front of her.

Because Maggie is holding her helmet slack at her waist and her perfect lips are parted and her eyes are wide and her head is tilted back because the stars, now, are endless, are infinite, are… everything.

Alex smiles and doesn’t bother trying to keep her lip from trembling as she slips off her jacket and puts it on the ground next to her bike, sitting and taking Maggie’s hand, drawing her down, drawing her close, drawing her head down to rest on a pillow made of Alex’s arm, of Alex’s love.

Neither know how long they lay in silence together, and neither cares.

Occasionally, one of their hands will shoot up and point, to make sure the other doesn’t miss the random meteors that soar over them, dying embers on a canvas of dying plasma.

Occasionally, they’ll see the same meteor at the same time, and they’ll both point, and they’ll both exhale a small laugh, and their fingers will intertwine as they bring them slowly back to earth.

Occasionally, they’ll be tempted to tell the other that they’ve always wished on shooting stars, and right now, there is absolutely nothing to wish for.

Because they have absolutely everything.

Alex thinks about telling Maggie of all the nights alone, and with Kara, and alone, on her roof in Midvale.

Maggie thinks about telling Alex of all the nights alone – just alone – in the back of her pickup in Blue Springs.

And they will, they will.

They will.

But right now?

Right now, the stars do the speaking for them.

Right now, the stars tell them everything they need to know about what it means to, finally, be home.