356. Chapter 356

She flew Maggie there.

She could tell Maggie hated it.

She could tell Maggie wanted to throw up.

She could tell because she could hear Maggie’s heartbeat, she could feel Maggie’s stomach roiling.

She could tell because she wanted to throw up, too.

And when they found her?

When they found her, and she spilled out of the water, the longest moment of Kara’s entire life was the moment before Alex did the most beautiful thing Alex had ever done.

Coughed.

She’d held on.

She’d held on.

She’d held on.

And now Maggie was holding on to her, and Alex was holding on to Maggie, and Kara knows that this morning, she would have been jealous. This morning, she would have been territorial. This morning, she would have been angry.

Because this morning, Maggie was an arrogant cop who only barely deserved her sister.

But right now? Maggie is the woman who loves her sister so much that she saved her.

No.

They saved her.

Together.

And Kara? Kara will never look at Maggie the same way again.

But she needs Alex. Just Alex. 

She needs her sister.

Because Alex is breathing, breathing, breathing, and they’re loading her onto a stretcher but Kara doesn’t want that. Kara just wants to fly her home, fly her home in her own arms, because she never wants Alex to leave her arms again.

And she doesn’t.

Because the medics must know.

They must know that if they try to pry either Maggie or Kara away from Alex’s barely conscious form, all hell will break loose.

So they work around the women.

The women who love her most in the world.

It takes hours for Alex to rouse from when she passes out on the way back to the DEO.

Hours during which James and Winn have to pry Kara from her side so she can eat, so she can rest, so she can breathe, breathe, breathe.

But only after, of course, they’ve done their share of touching her, of crying over her and pretending they’re not, of watching her chest rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, because she’s only sleeping, only resting, not dead, not dead, very much not dead.

J’onn tries to reason with Maggie. James tries to reason with Maggie. Winn tries to reason with Maggie.

She won’t move from the room.

Kara decides that Alex is adequately protected.

So she lets Winn and James take her away, take her to get out of her suit, to shower, to eat, to try, just for a moment, to breathe.

And when she checks in on her sister less than an hour later – they couldn’t keep her (or themselves) away longer than that – she’s awake, and she’s busy.

Busy making out with the woman who loves her, busy wiping tears from Maggie’s eyes, from her own eyes, in between open mouthed kisses, in between foreheads pressed against each other and I love yous whispered over and over and over again.

Kara smiles, and Kara nods, and Kara waits.

She waits, and she waits, and she waits, and she wonders vaguely how someone who just nearly drowned can possibly kiss someone for that long, but then again, if anyone can figure out a way, it’s her sister. 

Her sister who’s alive, alive, alive.

“Kara,” she hears, and Alex’s voice is weak. Weak and somehow strong at the same time.

Weak with exhaustion and weak with tears and weak with something that sounds an awful lot like happiness. Like relief. Like being alive, alive, alive.

She crosses into the room so fast it blows Maggie’s hair back, blows Alex back with an oof onto the bed, and Kara apologizes desperately, but Alex just wheezes a laugh and pats the bed next to her. 

Maggie stands and then bends to kiss Alex’s hand – one knuckle at a time, slow, staring into her eyes the entire time, and Kara thinks with a jolt of Lena before shoving the thought away – and then she’s touching Kara’s shoulder, and she’s hesitating, and she’s leaning down to kiss Kara’s cheek for a long, lingering moment.

“Thank you, Kara,” she whispers, and Kara splutters.

“For what?”

“For bringing her back to us.”

“Maggie, you – “

But Maggie just puts her finger on Kara’s lip affectionately and makes to leave. “Spend time with your sister, Little Danvers. I’ll go get extra potstickers for when you inevitably need to refuel.”

Alex laughs softly. “I love you, Maggie Sawyer,” she calls out as Maggie leaves.

Maggie stops full in her tracks, her smile too big for her face, for the room, for the world, for the universe.

“I love you, Alex Danvers.”

She leaves without another word, and Kara raises her eyebrows at her sister as she links their fingers together.

“Well that’s new.”

Alex shakes her head, still smiling like she didn’t just nearly die.

“No, it’s not. It’s just new to be saying it out loud.”

Kara smiles and leans down to kiss Alex’s face.

“I thought I lost you.” Her lips quake – her entire body quakes – against Alex’s forehead, and Alex raises her hands to hold her sister close to her.

“Can’t snag the title of only badass in the family that easy,” she quips, and Kara just sobs harder.

“It’s not funny, Alex.”

Her voice cracks, and Alex almost breaks.

“I know. I know. I know.”

“It was my fault,” Kara squeaks, her face now buried in Alex’s shoulder, her body shaking so uncontrollably she jolts up from the bed so she won’t accidentally break Alex’s bones.

So she won’t accidentally hurt her. Again, again, again.

Alex furrows her brow and tries to sit up.

“Kara, what – “

“All of it, it’s my fault! That he knew who I was, that he knew to target you! That… that you broke your arm. I broke your arm, Alex. And then I… the water, it…”

“Kara.”

“You would have been fine, we would have worked it out, I… the water, you almost drowned, Alex, I can’t… I can’t imagine how scared you were, I… and that was my fault, Alex, mine, mine, and I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, but I – “

“Kara, stop it. Please.”

“Alex, it’s all my – “

“Kara. Listen to me. Can you do that? For me? Please?” She sounds exhausted and she sounds exhilarated and she sounds worn out and she sounds alive, alive, alive. So Kara stops, and Kara worries at her lip, and Kara wrings her hands, and at Alex’s weakened beckoning, Kara sits.

“Kara, none of this was your fault. Okay? None of it. None. Not the plan, not the… the water…”

Kara shakes and starts to sob again, and Alex lays a hand on her thigh.

“Hey, hey, listen to me. Remember… remember that surf competition, when I was a junior in high school?”

Kara adjusts her glasses and sighs out a soft laugh. “Yeah, you wiped out and nearly dr – oh. Oh.”

Alex grimaces, too, but she shakes her head. “When we were kids, I… what I thought about, then, was… was how much I wanted to tell you. About how you weren’t just… an annoyance, you weren’t a hindrance on my life. You weren’t a nuisance, you were… you were my everything. And you still are. Kara, I… this time?” 

Alex shudders and Kara knows there will be long nights, and there will be nightmares, and they will be so much different than after that surf competition, because that wasn’t deliberate and it wasn’t torture. Traumatizing. Very. But not… not this.

But Alex presses on, and Kara files it away for later.

“This time, I knew… I knew you know how much I love you. I knew you know… Kara, that was… short of hurting you, or threatening you, that was the scariest thing that anyone has ever done to me. But I… Kara, I would do it a thousand times, a million, more, if it was to protect you. If it was to keep you safe, keep you from being blackmailed like that again.”

She doesn’t say that next time, it could have been James. Winn. J’onn. Lena. Cat. Maggie. She doesn’t say any of it, because she can barely bring herself to think it.

All in all, she’s grateful.

Grateful it was her, not any of the other people Kara loves.

“Alex, I would never want you to – “

“I know. I know you wouldn’t, but Kara, I just… I love you. I love you, and I would do anything for you. But I don’t have to anymore, not right now. Because look! I’m safe, and I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Okay? I promise.”

Kara sobs again, and this time, when she curls down onto Alex’s chest, Alex sobs, too.

She breaks her promise when Maggie comes in and Kara shifts back out, to replenish the water she’d drained from her tear ducts onto Alex’s shirt, to try to stave off the brutal headache from her crying session.

She breaks her promise because she unleashes her puppy eyes on Maggie, and Maggie is helpless, and Maggie is all but forced to help her limp out of bed, and Kara can’t do anything but beam, because if the way Alex breaks her promise to not go anywhere is simply by stumbling away from her bed with her girlfriend’s strong, loving arms around her?

That’s something that Kara can definitely, definitely live with.