343. Chapter 343

She said she couldn’t do this without Kara.

This coming out… thing.

This realizing that her entire life isn’t what she thought it was. That she’s completely different than she thought she was.

Except she’s not. Except she is.

Because Alex knows what she’s good at. And she’s good at training.

Training to be Kara’s protector, at the demand of her mother and the passive agreement of her father.

Training to be a scientist, under the tutelage of the most renowned bioengineers in the country.

Training to be a soldier, under the sometimes harsh care of the man who’s come to be her… well, her father.

Training is something Alex is good at.

But this? This thing, this… this liking Maggie? This… this being… whatever this is…

Gay?

Lesbian?

The words still make her flinch inside.

This… thing? This thing that she can’t do without Kara?

It goes against all her training.

It goes against her training – and she’s good at her training – because she’s been trained to be sexy for me. She’s been trained to appeal to men, she’s been trained to not even consider her feelings for women as real, as noticeable, as an option that wouldn’t be… imperfect.

Because she’s been trained to be perfect.

And she’s pretty damn good at it.

But this?

She’s fallen out of a spaceship, she’s freefalling to earth, and god, she hopes Kara knows how to catch her, because she doesn’t know if she can catch herself.

She tells her mother that she knows better about people. And she wishes she didn’t.

And she does know better about people.

About men. About men whose hands are too rough – not that she minds things rough – but she minds when the roughness isn’t for her, isn’t about her, doesn’t consider her, doesn’t realize that she might have needs, too.

About soldiers. About watching people die and about having to kill. About having to sleep at night, somehow, with the last breaths of people whose lives she’s ended lingering in her ears, under her fingernails, deep in her throat.

About perfection. About the way perfection tastes like the bottom of a bottle of bourbon and sounds like her mother’s ringtone and feels like Kara’s smile hiding the storm behind Kara’s eyes that Alex will never, ever be able to soothe.

No matter how perfect she is.

So this? This… gay… thing?

She means it when she says she can’t do it without Kara.

She calls her late one night, late one night after shooting pool with Maggie, because Maggie had shown up at her door and told her she didn’t want to imagine life without Alex, and who could say no to that?

And Maggie had been kind, and Maggie had been gentle. Maggie had been careful and she’d been funny. She’d been her normal self, on just this side of cautious.

Because Alex knew it then, more sure than she’d been even when she kissed her – knew from the way her stomach swooped when Maggie bent over the pool table to line up a shot, from the way heat pooled between her legs when Maggie’s tongue stuck out slightly in concentration, from the leaping of her heart when Maggie touched her arm and the flight of her soul when Maggie laughed, when she was the reason Maggie laughed, the reason she smiled, the reason she seemed happy – that she was falling in love.

With a woman.

She’s nearly vomiting when she calls Kara, so distraught that she barely even registers Kara’s sleepy tone, the way she clearly just woke her little sister up from a sound sleep. It is well past midnight, after all.

“Alex?”

“I’m…”

“Alex, are you okay? What happened, do you need me to – ”

“No, no, I’m not hurt, Kara, I… I’m g… I like Maggie.”

She’s collected enough, now, to hear Kara’s relief, her soft smile, in her voice.

“I know you do, Alex. Do you want me to come over so we can talk about it? About her? Or about you?”

Alex’s stomach swoops, because talking about Maggie? That would be hard. It would be hard, but it would be easier. Because if it was just about Maggie… just about this girl she liked, and then kissed, and then rejected her, and they were just being friends, so it was no big deal, really, it was just this one thing, this one little phase, this one little mistake, misinterpretation, right?

But Kara knows, and Kara said they could talk about… Alex.

So Alex’s stomach swoops, and she stammers out a no, no, go back to sleep, she’s sorry for calling, but then there’s a tapping on her window and she sighs, because her sister is Supergirl, and her sister is just as fast as Barry Allen.

She lets her in and Kara takes the bourbon out of her hands immediately.

“Talk to me, Alex, not the whiskey.”

Alex sinks back onto the couch and shrugs and sighs and thinks about the way Maggie smiles and the way she smells faintly of motorcycle exhaust and something sweet that Alex can’t quite identify, and –

“Alex.”

And then she’s crying, and god Kara’s arms are strong, and she’s never been more grateful for it, because she’s breaking and it’ll take a lot of strength to hold her together.

More strength than she has on her own, apparently.

It’s while she’s gasping for breathing and trying not to hyperventilate that she chokes the words out.

“Kara, I… I’m g… I’m… a lesbian.” It churns her stomach just to say it. It churns her stomach and it burns her face and it makes her sob harder, but god, god, god, relief also sears through her like oxygen. Relief and truth and something that feels an awful lot like… herself.

“I’m so proud of you, Alex. I’m so proud of you.”

Kara is kissing her forehead and stroking her hair and wiping her tears, and Alex’s phone vibrates and she and Kara both laugh wryly, because maybe one day they can cry on each other without being interrupted by work.

But it’s not work.

It’s someone that makes her heart leap, that makes Kara smile when she sees the caller ID and how quickly her sister goes to open the message.

I had a really great time with you, Danvers. Thanks for coming. Let me know you got home safe, if that’s okay?

Kara arches an eyebrow – when Alex’s tears are dry and her heart rate is a little steadier, it might be a better time to talk about the fact that Maggie sounds an awful lot like she might like her, after all – and smiles as she watches her sister’s normally steady fingers type out a response, as she watches her sister’s normally shrewd eyes sparkle like a teenager’s.

“I’m so proud of you, Alex,” she repeats, because Alex might have been trained by the world to think that being gay, being a lesbian, is less than perfect, but Kara knows better: because the happiness, the hope, the excitement, the affection in Alex’s eyes right now?

That look defines perfection.