350. Chapter 350

She’s drunk and she’s stolen Kara’s phone, because it’s finals week and all bets are off and that cute girl from biology class?

She’s 1000% sure that her name is Maggie – Maggie Sawyer – not that she paid attention.

Pfft.

No. Of course she didn’t.

And she’s 1000% sure that said Maggie Sawyer is the same Maggie that her little sister has befriended.

And therefore, that cute girl’s number – and when she says cute, she means it, but god, she also means blazingly sexy – must be in Kara’s phone.

So she swipes the phone from her sister’s bag while Kara laughs with James and Winn. Swipes it and chugs another gulp of illegal punch and she finds Maggie’s name – complete with a picture, god, a gorgeous picture, because damn, those dimples, that hair, those downcast eyes – in Kara’s contacts.

Finds the name, and tries once, twice, three times, to successfully hit the big green button that makes the phone dial.

She giggles and almost bounces on the balls of her feet as the phone rings, rings, rings.

“Hey Kara!”

Alex freezes at the sound of her voice – her voice that she’s used to hearing only asking the best questions, only giving the best answers, in bio lecture, in bio lab – and she contemplates hanging up and leaving it to her sister to explain the butt dial.

“Kara?”

But now Maggie sounds concerned, because she must hear the party in the background, and Alex has seen her smile, seen her nerdiness, but she’s also seen her motorcycle, her leather jacket, her gym bag. And she doesn’t want her to be concerned, to feel like she has to speed to the party to rescue Kara from whatever situation she might be in.

“Hey! No, nope, not Kara. I mean, of course you thought it was Kara, I took her phone, I mean, obviously you thought it was her – ”

“Danvers?”

“Not the blonde one!”

“Alex.”

“Hiiiii.”

There’s a pause and she thinks she hears Maggie shuffling something.

“Danvers, you drunk? Are you with people, drinking water?”

“Awww, Sawyer, you care about me!”

“Well I sure don’t want you passing out in your own vomit, Danvers. I’ve been there, it’s not pleasant.”

Her voice is pleasant, though, and Alex collapses drunkenly onto a half-occupied couch, completely oblivious to the couple that had been making out, who shoot her irritated looks as they get up to find a better spot to kiss.

Alex thinks she hears that shuffling again, and maybe some wind, but she’s drunk and everything is oh so slightly hazy, but pleasantly so – pleasant, because Maggie Sawyer is on the phone with her, Maggie Sawyer cares whether she throws up or not. Maggie Sawyer. God. How can anyone be that perfect?

“I’m finnneee. I just… it’s just, I know you’re Kara’s friend, but we’ve never really talked, and I… even if you weren’t Kara’s friend, I’d have noticed you, you know. I mean, how could I not notice you? Do you know we’re in the same bio class? You’re always so smartest. The smartest girl in the class. The smartest and the cutest. And my sister’s friend! What are the odds, huh? Maybe we can calculate it with genome mapping or something. But we’re more than our code, right, we have to be. You believe that, right, Maggie?”

“Hey, Danvers, I’m not cutting you off, but can you do me a favor?”

Alex preens. Her last name sounds so nice on Maggie’s tongue. She wonders what else would feel nice on Maggie’s tongue. Everything, probably.

She nods before she realizes vaguely that Maggie can’t see her.

“Mmhmm.”

“Remind me which house is throwing the party you all are at.”

Alex squints as she tries to remember. “The one across from the science building. Where we take bio. Together. But now term is ending and maybe we won’t do anything together again. Not even that we did anything in bio together, because I was too nervous to – ”

“Danvers, whoa whoa. Can you do me another favor, sweetie?”

Alex’s heart backflips and she almost careens off the couch, because she called her sweetie, she called her sweetie, she called her sweetie.

The sound of wind on the other line increases in her ear, but maybe that’s just a side effect from how hard she’s pressing the phone to her ear, like the closer she clutches it, the closer she’ll be to Maggie.

“Yeah.” She thinks her voice might be higher, might be breathier, than it normally is, but that’s alright, because Maggie Sawyer called her sweetie.

“I know you have things you feel like you want to tell me right now, and I want to hear them, but only if you still want to tell me when you’re sober, okay?”

Alex blinks and furrows her brow at the phone, because – maybe she’s more drunk than she thought – Maggie’s voice seems to be coming from two places, now. One, through the phone, and one, less static-y, closer to her body.

She looks up from the couch and she startles, because Maggie is standing over her, crouching down next to her as she hangs up her phone, all basketball shorts and hoodie and flip flops and hair hastily tied back into a messy ponytail.

She’s grinning softly, but she’s breathing kind of heavily, like she’d just sprinted from her dorm room. Because, Alex realizes dimly, that’s exactly what she just did.

“Hey Alex,” she says as Alex splutters, as Alex fumbles to sit up straight, to fix her hair, to hang up Kara’s phone without dropping it.

Alex thinks she may be imagining it, but Maggie’s voice is softer, now, more breakable, now, more vulnerable, now, than it had been when they’d been on the phone. When Maggie had been on a search-and-give-water-to-the-drunk-girl mission.

But now that she’s arrived, water bottle she must have grabbed on the way out of her dorm in hand, her voice is shy, and her eyes are shy, and her eyes are something that look a little scared.

“Hi Maggie,” Alex whispers, and then giggles because she’s not sure why she’s whispering.

Maggie grins, and it’s the sweetest sight Alex has ever seen. She made Maggie Sawyer smile.

“Why did you come all the way here? You didn’t have to come all the way here, I – ”

“Well, clearly your sister doesn’t know what you’re up to or how drunk you are, because if she did I would have heard her in the background telling you to think before you dial and all that stuff.”

Alex covers her face with hands made clumsy by alcohol.

“Ugh, I’m sorry, you’re right, I shouldn’t have – I ruined your night, I embarrassed myself, I’m sorry, Maggie, I – ”

“Hey, hey, no, that’s not what I meant.” Maggie gets up from her crouch to sit on the couch next to Alex, and she opens the water bottle for her and presses it gently into her hands.

“Drink. Please?”

“I’m not that drunk.”

Maggie just nods, and Alex does as she’s told.

She finishes the entire bottle in one chug, and Maggie just watches her with cautious but glistening eyes.

“Okay, come on. Kara!” she calls across the room, and Kara seems to materialize next to them instantly.

“Maggie! I thought you weren’t in the mood to party toni – Alex? Are you okay? What – ”

“Here. Your phone.”

“How did you – ”

“Tell you in the morning. Right now, I’m gonna take your sister back to my room – no funny business, I promise – and help her sober up a little. Okay?”

Kara glances between Maggie’s disheveled appearance and Alex’s drunken one, and she kisses Alex’s cheek.

“Don’t give her a hard time, okay, Alex?” she teases, and Alex giggles as she stands unsteadily, both Kara and Maggie stabilizing her.

“When do I give anyone a hard time?”

Kara just kisses her again, just thanks Maggie, doesn’t object to their arrangement, because she trusts Maggie not to take advantage of her sister, and she knows that her sister would like nothing more than to get to know Maggie better. She just wishes she’d have had the courage to reach out sober. But they’ll work on that. The three of them.

Alex leans on Maggie, who’s wrapped her arm around Alex’s waist, and revels in the contact.

As they walk, she rambles about the chemical structure of alcohol. About its impacts on the brain. Maggie listens and Maggie smiles and Maggie nods in all the right places, and Maggie lets her talk, lets her talk, because she’s focused on making sure she doesn’t let the taller girl stumble and fall.

When Maggie shoves her dorm door open, Alex freezes.

“You know I’ve wanted this since like, the first time I saw you. For you to take me back to your room. To…” Her eyes flit down to Maggie’s lips.

“To kiss you.”

Maggie gulps and slips away from her, taking care to keep her hands on Alex’s arms to help her stabilize.

“Go pee.”

“What?”

“You’re this drunk? You for sure need to pee. Bathroom’s right there. Can you make it on your own?”

Alex nods with tears in her eyes, and Maggie hates herself a little bit, but she’d hate herself a lot more if she let this conversation continue.

The bathroom door shuts and the water flushes and the sink runs for a long, long, long moment.

When Alex stumbles out, it’s with confusion and the shadows of hurt in her eyes.

“Did I do something wrong? I don’t have to stay here, you didn’t have to – I just thought – you ran to… to rescue me, and you gave me water, and you took me home, and I thought that meant you like me as much as I like you, and I –

"Alex. Alex, Alex, look… We can talk about all this when you’re sober. If you still want to talk about it. I promise. But right now? Right now, we can talk biology. Or astrophysics, or about the dessication and revival of tardigrades, whatever you want. Just not us. Not now. And certainly no kissing. Okay?”

Alex slumps down onto Maggie’s bed without asking, and Maggie just grins and kneels to help take Alex’s boots off.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re drunk, Danvers,” Maggie giggles like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“It’s never mattered to any guy,” Alex almost whispers, and Maggie stiffens, and her nostrils flare, and her eyes are more serious, more full of rage, than Alex has ever seen them.

“Well, it matters to me. Okay? Come on.”

She helps Alex swing her legs up onto the bed, holds her up to take in one more glass of water, hastily poured, and she kicks off her flip flops and grabs a pillow from the other side of her bed.

“You’re not gonna come to bed?”

“The floor’s perfectly fine for me, Danvers.”

“But – ”

“When you’re sober. If you still want to. I promise, Alex. Okay?”

“You promise?”

“Yeah, Danvers. Yeah. I promise.”

But Alex is asleep, a small smile on her face, before Maggie even finishes her promise. Her promise to her best friend’s big sister, who she’s been trying to gather the courage to ask out for months now.

She snuggles down onto the floor and – eventually – falls asleep with a smile on her own face, too.