328. Chapter 328

She can’t fly – not like this – so for once, she actually does take the bus.

Turns out, the bus doesn’t help.

Because the bus itself is almost as loud as weaving through National City’s wind tunnels, and because on the bus, people touch you – even by accident – and people talk loudly and babies cry and the bus swerves and it squeaks when it makes a sudden stop and Rao, she should have just flown, because this migraine is starting to blur her vision but at least the overload from sound, from scent, from touch, from everything, might have been less in the air, alone, alone, alone…

Except she doesn’t want to be alone.

She wants to be with the only person who’s ever understood her overloads, her migraines, her panic attacks from too much, too much, too much.

So she nearly vomits with relief when the bus finally slams to a stop a block from her big sister’s apartment.

She doesn’t know how she makes it up the stairs and into Alex’s apartment, but she knows immediately – because the only heartbeat in the apartment isn’t Alex’s, is slightly higher than Alex’s – that Alex isn’t home.

“Hey, Little Danvers,” Maggie looks up from the couch, a newspaper lowered as she looks up at her, her legs bare until the very tops of her thighs where her boxers end.

Her sister’s girlfriend starts talking, but immediately stops with one look at Kara.

She nods and she tosses aside the paper and she stands.

“Come sit,” is all she says, her voice softer than her initial greeting, and Kara doesn’t ask how she knows, doesn’t ask if she’s mad at the intrusion, doesn’t ask anything at all.

Kara stumbles to the couch and sits, and before she can wish desperately that Maggie would turn off the jazz she has playing through the entire apartment, Maggie switches it off, in the same motion that she strides over to switch off all the lights.

She says nothing as she pads up the step into Alex’s bedroom and returns with the entire comforter – because she’s noticed how much Kara loves that thing – and manages to wrap Kara up without once touching her skin.

She says nothing as she slips into Alex’s bathroom, then into her kitchen, and returns to press a pill from a bottle labeled “Kara’s Aspirin” and a glass of water into Kara’s hands, gently, gently, gently.

Kara accepts them docilely, swallowing the pill, the water, in slow, shaky gulps.

“Can I snuggle on you?” she asks in a small voice after a few long, long moments of silence, of Maggie sitting on the opposite end of the couch, waiting patiently, waiting quietly.

“Come here, Kid Danvers,” Maggie whispers, and Kara all but topples over to Maggie in her massive buffer of Alex’s massive comforter.

Maggie would normally swipe her thumbs in circular patterns on Kara’s back, but today, she keeps her hands still. She would normally pepper her hair with random kisses, but today, she barely moves.

Because today, Kara needs the contact, but Rao, does she need the stillness just as badly.

And Maggie is happy to provide.

She lets her own head tilt back on the edge of the couch as Kara snuggles into her chest, and when she hears Kara’s breathing slow, when she feels Kara’s body lose its tension, she lets her own breathing slow, lets her own body relax.

She doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep until the front door opens and a crack of light seeps into the apartment.

Maggie’s eyes open immediately, but she realizes who woke her before her body has the chance to tense up.

“I think she got overwhelmed and had a migraine,” Maggie whispers softly, so softly, before Alex has the chance to ask.

Alex slips off her boots and pads over to the other side of the couch quickly, kneeling in front of Kara and smoothing the hair gently out of her face, kissing her forehead and feeling it with the back of her hand like she’s checking for feverishness.

“You gave her aspirin?”

Maggie nods.

“And she drank water? And no music, and no lights, and no movement, and no talking?”

Maggie nods at each need, a soft smile on her face, loving Alex for the way she loves her sister, for how hard she loves her, for how fully she loves her.

Alex blinks, and Alex stares, and Maggie gets the distinct impression that Alex would throw herself at her and kiss her senseless if her little sister wasn’t out like a light in her lap.

“Thank you,” is all Alex says, but she injects it with all the love, all the passion, all the disbelieving gratitude, that she’s ever had.

“Anything for my Danvers girls. Anything at all.”