537. Chapter 537

When she was four, it was a magnifying glass so she could get to know the ant colony under the porch better.

When she was seven, it was a smile from her second grade teacher, because when she smiled, Maggie felt warm and proud and tingly all over, and the other kids’ harsh blows and harsher words mattered less.

When she was ten, it was for the other kids to just leave her alone; she didn’t need friends when she had books, and she didn’t need other kids when she had the creatures she’d play with, the tall crops she’d hide among, on the farm.

When she was fourteen, it was Eliza Wilke’s mouth on hers, Eliza Wilke’s hand in her hand, Eliza Wilke’s new purple sweater crumpled on the floor.

When she was fifteen, it was a scholarship that would get her out of this damn town, away so she never had to look back, so far away their cruelty wouldn’t follow, couldn’t follow, would shrivel with distance and die like they had to her ability to trust.

When she was nineteen, it was to never have to leave the forensics lab, to be touched like she wasn’t something to leave in the morning, to not be alone on campus during the damn holidays.

When she was twenty-three, it was to secure that promotion, because she didn’t graduate high school early for nothing and she didn’t study that hard in college or work that hard in the academy for nothing.

When she was twenty-six, it was to be better, to be able to trust someone for once, to not shrivel with disbelief when Emily talked about building their life together, to not have taken the girl who smiled at her back to the Baldwin Hotel because she was scared, because she was doubtful, because she was broken.

When she was twenty-nine, it was to keep her city safe, because at least here, she was worth something; at least here, she had a job to do that meant something; at least here, she had the opportunity, finally, to change the way the police operated, to protect aliens and humans both, to protect the kids who grew up like she grew up from the uniform she’d shed with that promotion.

When she was thirty-one, it was Alex Danvers.

It was Alex Danvers’s smile, the way she splutters and stumbles when she’s caught off guard, the way she holds more fire in her eyes alone than anyone else could handle throughout their entire bodies; the way protecting people she loves is wired into her DNA, the way she lets herself get absorbed, fully, into healing people even when her hands have been trained so long for destruction.

When she was thirty-two, it was a lifetime of firsts with this woman. This woman who put a ring on her finger, because this woman had also wanted a magnifying glass, because who wouldn’t want to spend hours under the porch playing with ants?

This woman who had also wanted her second grade teacher, but not known the words, because the words were denied them both.

This woman who had also yearned for the attention of the other kids, who was popular, ish, until she had to protect her sister from them, who gave it all up for the sake of love.

This woman who also slept over her best friend’s house, too, who didn’t have the words Maggie had had, but who remembered those wants, now, like she remembers her studies.

This woman who also needed a scholarship, too, because she would be worthless if she didn’t, a failure if she didn’t, again, again, again, even though she couldn’t leave, because Kara, Kara, her kid sister Kara.

This woman who also hadn’t known what life was outside of the lab, because she had things to prove and things to cure, in other bodies and in her own.

This woman who almost lost all those opportunities, because she didn’t work that hard for nothing, but god, lord, it felt like she did.

This woman who ran from intimacy in her own way, for her own reasons, because no one had let her have the words and no one had let her have the attention and no one had yet gotten her to be herself.

This woman who also just wanted to keep her city safe, who started finding her worth in the endless days and even more endless nights, who lived to protect, even when she didn’t realize she, too, deserved protection.

This woman who wanted her.

Only her.

This woman who called her amazing when everyone else had called her ableist slurs; this woman who refused to judge her when everyone else had pathologized her; this woman who wanted a lifetime of firsts with her, because she saw her, she heard her, she loved her for… her.

And it was all Maggie had ever wanted.