499. Chapter 499

Kara shared her room at first.

At first, when Kara couldn’t sleep for nightmares, for the lack of soft engine thrumming just outside the window, for the presence of an air that was too heavy, too smelly, too… foreign.

“Midvale is the United States in a nutshell, Kara; it’s not foreign,” she’d told her once, trying to be comforting.

But Kara had continued to tremble, and Kara had shrugged.

“Everywhere’s foreign to someone.”

It was one of the first things her little sister taught her without meaning to.

And she learned a lot of other things, too.

Sharing her home with Kara.

Sharing the space – the love, the attention, the affection – that had always, previously, been hers and hers alone.

Hers, because when she was little – well, littler – Eliza and Jeremiah would let her crawl into their bed at night when she had a bad dream.

Jeremiah made her a supernova-style nightlight to keep away fear of the dark.

Eliza had read to her parts of her dissertation, cuddled up together in Alex’s bed at bedtime, and Jeremiah had laughed softly when she would drowsily ask sharp questions about advanced biomedicine.

Their little prodigy.

Their little prodigy who was smart – so smart – and who made pillow forts and invited her parents into them and who slept with them when she accidentally wet the bed and who turned her room into a veritable chemistry lab every time they let her close the door.

That all changed when Kara came.

When Kara came and the space was shared, and the love was shared, and the attention was shared, and the affection was shared.

Because she cuddled Kara when Kara had nightmares about a burning planet, her dying family, her all but extinct people. And in comparison, Alex’s regular old bad dreams just didn’t seem serious enough to warrant nudging her parents awake anymore.

The nightlight became Kara’s.

She grew to love Kara. She did. So damn much.

She came to almost even love sharing a bathroom with her, because when Kara was deemed adjusted enough, Eliza’s office became her own bedroom.

So it was just a bathroom they shared, then.

Alex was surprised to find that she missed it. Sharing a room with her little sister.

But the way Kara always left Kryptonian-style toothpaste residue in the sink and the way her special Kryptonian-style hair brushes and shampoos took up most of the bathroom space made Alex cherish having her own room back again.

Not that she always slept in her own room.

No, no, because there were nights – many of them – that she slept in Vicky Donahue’s room.

In Vicky Donahue’s bed.

Because Mr. Donahue would always ask if they needed anything else, if Alex was sure she didn’t need the blowup mattress, because really, it wasn’t a problem.

But no, no, thank you so much, but don’t worry, Mr. Donahue, I’m fine right here.

And she was more than fine, right there. Next to Vicky. Sharing Vicky’s warmth, sharing Vicky’s breathing space. Feeling the heat radiate off Vicky’s skin, hearing the rhythm of her soft breathing, not even minding all that much that Vicky had no nightlight in her bedroom.

She was more than fine, right there in Vicky’s bed, but she had no other words for what she felt. No other words for what she… wanted.

So when they fought over nothing – nothing, because something without vocabulary is nothing, it’s nothing, just drop it, okay, it’s all in my head, okay? – she mourned the loss of her. Her closeness. Her bedroom. Her bed.

And in college, she didn’t dare approximate the same conditions again.

She kept out of her roommate’s way, and her roommate kept out of hers.

She was always in the lab, anyway. Always tutoring, anyway.

So her room became somewhere she occupied at night, but didn’t really… live.

Boyfriends – boys from organic chemistry who seemed smart enough – came and went, and always arched their eyebrows at the sparsity of Alex’s living arrangements.

But her living arrangements were never what they came back to her dorm for, anyway.

Her dorm was where she stayed, but it wasn’t really where she lived.

That didn’t change much in med school – except she traded never being home, never making a home, because she was at the lab for never being home, never making a home, because she was at the club.

And then J’onn J’onzz.

And then the DEO, and then a whole new reason to never be home, because home, now, was the place where she trained to protect her sister.

Sisters’ Nights and training and it didn’t occur to her that she shared Eliza’s love for candles, didn’t occur to her to decorate her apartment beyond the furnishings Kara had forced her to get, beyond the pictures on her mantle.

Her father.

Because Kara’s apartment was always more her home, anyway.

She had a toothbrush there and she rediscovered snuggling her sister back to sleep from nightmares, rediscovered Kara’s Kryptonian morning breath and her enthusiasm for stashing midnight snacks in her bedside table.

Because Kara was her home, and always, always would be.

And then there was Maggie Sawyer.

Then there was Maggie Sawyer, and there were sleepovers that sometimes ended in soft kisses to the back of the neck and sometimes ended in screaming orgasms.

There were mornings that began in a panic because she didn’t immediately see the note Maggie had left on her pillow that she’d be right back, that Alex was beautiful, that she was bringing her donuts and Alex should stay in bed because she deserved to be spoiled.

There were mornings that began in bliss because Maggie was still sleeping next to her, and the growing sunlight would dance on her eyelids and paint her lips, and Alex was…

Alex was in love.

Alex was home, in her own home.

In her own skin.

So when she stole Maggie’s toothbrush from Maggie’s bathroom and brought it back to her own, she presented it to her bewildered girlfriend with a question mark, a nervous smile, and terrified, hopeful eyes.

Maggie tried not to cry and Alex didn’t bother trying, reading Maggie’s smile and feeling her own heart soar as she lifted off Maggie feet and kissed her soft, kissed her hard, kissed her tender and kissed her firm.

“Welcome home, Maggie Sawyer,” she whispered against her lips, because Alex had always had a home. Somewhere.

Even when it was just a place to crash.

And now? Now, Maggie would always have one, too.