383. Chapter 383

She doesn’t realize she’s doing it.

Singing.

But Maggie sure does.

She stops and she stares and she almost cries, because a few months ago, this woman was badgering her about whose crime scene it was, and now… well, now, she still does that, but she also wears silk slips and pads around their apartment in bare feet, wearing her glasses and singing softly to herself while she gets ready for bed.

She doesn’t want her to stop – god, god, she never wants her to stop – but she needs to touch her skin, to press her lips against the back of her neck. So when Alex is pouring them both some tea, Maggie slips behind her and hesitates when they’re close enough to feel each other’s body heat.

“May I?” she whispers, and Alex hums contentedly and melts back into her arms. The singing stops, and Maggie’s heart sinks, but it also soars because her lips are on the back of Alex’s neck and Alex is nearly swooning and she’s so warm and she’s so soft and she’s so, so, so beautiful.

“You don’t have to stop, babe,” Maggie whispers, and Alex tilts her head as she leans it back onto Maggie’s shoulder.

“Stop what, stop doing the tea thing? Because I’d kind of rather be in your arms.”

Maggie smiles and kisses Alex’s exposed neck, and Alex moans softly. Maggie hisses at her responsiveness and fights the urge to carry her to the bed and make love to her all night long.

“Singing,” she breathes. “You didn’t have to stop singing.”

Alex turns in Maggie’s arms so they’re chest to chest, and Maggie has to remind herself to breathe.

“I was singing? Mmm. I guess I was. Kara says I do that sometimes. But only accidentally. I never really realize I’m doing it.” She stops and she thinks and she stares at something nonexistent over Maggie’s shoulder.

“Come to think of it, I think I’ve only ever done that around Kara.” She returns her eyes to Maggie’s face, to her lips, and smiles a smile that could restore Kara’s powers if ever she solar flares again. “I must be pretty comfortable with you, Sawyer.”

Maggie leans into their embrace and kisses her lips softly, gently, tenderly. “Get used to it, Danvers.”

Alex kisses her back, and it’s sweet and it’s slow and it’s dancing without music and it’s floating without gravity.

They’re hugging as much as they’re kissing, and they’re smiling as much as they’re breathing each other’s breath.

“So you like when I sing?” Alex asks, and her voice is shy, and her eyes are almost timid, and Maggie chuckles, because how in the hell did she wind up with the most perfect woman ever to exist?

“I love it, Alex. Couldn’t really hear you too well, but – “

“Come to bed.”

“Danvers?”

“Come on.”

Alex is smiling and she’s stepping back from their embrace, their tea abandoned.

Abandoned, because Alex has thought of a better way to get Maggie to fall asleep.

It’s been hard for her – hard for them both – since the massacre. Since the deportations and since Jeremiah. Since Rick. God, since everything.

But Alex is interlacing their fingers and she’s smiling and Maggie is following, following, because she would follow Alex to hell and back, but it looks like they’re going to heaven, instead.

Because Alex is laying her down and Alex is laying next to her, leaning up on one elbow, facing her, stroking her hair and warming her skin and kissing her eyes.

“In the mood for anything in particular?” she asks, her eyes wide with nerves, her lips curved with shy excitement.

Maggie can’t speak, because she’s never loved anyone like this, never been looked at by anyone like this, and Alex just smiles because Alex feels it, too.

She wets her lips and she swallows her nerves and she closes her eyes and she sways slightly to music Maggie can’t hear, and she opens her mouth.

“It’s late in the evening

She’s wondering what clothes to wear.”

Maggie knows the song – of course Maggie knows the song – and her breath hitches and tears immediately start stinging her eyes.

“She puts on her makeup

And brushes her long brown hair.”

They share a giggle and a nose rub at the unapologetically adorable face Alex pulls at changing the lyrics from blonde to brown, and Maggie has never felt more loved. She snuggles closer into Alex’s arms, and she knows Alex is trying to sing her to sleep, but she can’t close her eyes, because how could she possibly look away from this?

From Alex, in a silk slip and glasses, soft voice and even softer eyes, stroking her hair while she sings to her about how wonderful she looks tonight?

They both laugh when Alex injects a comment about arm candy when she sings about a beautiful lady walking around with her.

They both let a single tear slip out of their eyes when Alex sings about the love light in Maggie’s eyes, about how Maggie just doesn’t realize how much Alex loves her.

Neither of them know exactly when they stop crying, when Alex stops singing, when they stop giggling at Alex’s commentary on the songs she chooses and when they stop kissing in between verses, but even as they stop all those things and drift into sweet, dreamless sleep, tangled in each other’s arms, in each other’s love, neither of them stop smiling.