412. Chapter 412

She will love her whatever she does.

She will love her until the end of the earth – and hell, she’ll love her after, too.

Especially since it seems the end of the earth is hovering just a centimeter below Alex’s fingertips.

The end of the earth – bathed in ash and dust and vaporized bodies becoming the air the world breathes.

The end of the earth – bathed in the boiled blood of Alex’s baby sister.

Or another end.

An end of the earth where Alex refuses.

Refuses orders, refuses command.

Refuses to be perfect.

Refuses to kill her sister.

Accepts being the reason the entire planet is overcome.

Or.

Or.

Maggie looks at her, and she sees a third option.

A third world.

A world where her love for Alex will extend far longer, far deeper, because in that third world, that third option, everything isn’t about to end.

A world where Alex refuses, and Kara lives.

And they still find a way to save everyone.

Together.

Alex’s eyes need to know all this.

Need to know if Maggie will love her, whatever she chooses.

If her hand – her need to be right, her need to be perfect, her need to follow orders, her need to do what Kara would tell her to do, dammit, because the fate of the entire planet is at stake – slams down.

If her hand – her need to tell the world it can find another way to survive, another way to live, if the cost of survival, of living, is obliterating the brightest light Alex has ever known, her center, her core, her everything: her sister – stays trembling, stays up.

Alex’s eyes need to know that Maggie will love her either way.

And Maggie’s eyes tell her yes, god yes, yes, yes, yes.

Maggie’s eyes, the quiver in Maggie’s lips, tell her millennia of stories.

Millennia of stories of faithful love and honest trust; of unconditional pride and unending affirmation; of a detective and a secret agent, a negotiator and a soldier, a scrape and a bandaid, together, forever.

She will love her, no matter what she chooses.

But then Alex panics. Panics, panics, because the positron cannon is gone.

And now the choice is not hers. Now, the decision is not hers.

Now, there will be soldiers and they will be looking for the agents who almost thwarted them.

Almost. Almost.

She’s relieved and she’s agonized.

She’s freed and she’s tortured.

Her hands cover her face and tears cover her eyes, and Maggie?

Maggie loves her through yes. Loves her through no. Loves her through almost.

She covers her face with her hands and she trembles and she fights to breathe, and god now is not a good time for another flashback to that damn cage, that damn tank, but Maggie’s arms are around her, solid, steady, stable.

Unconditional.

“We’re gonna find a different way out of this, Alex, you hear me? Kara will be fine – she’s gonna hold on, just like you held on – and we will find another way. To get her home, and to save the planet. We will find a way, Danvers. We always do, you and me, right? Always.”

Alex lets herself be held, lets herself be bathed, be baptized, in Maggie’s words, in Maggie’s touch, in Maggie’s sanctuary.

“Hasn’t been a long enough lifetime yet, has it?” she asks, fire in her eyes and the seeds of a plan forming in her brain.

“Not nearly,” Maggie grins back, her eyes just as steely, her mind just as keen.

Without needing words, they nod, and they get to work, because – President’s orders be damned, positron cannon be damned – they will keep everyone, keep Kara, safe.

Together.