568. Chapter 568

All the stuff with Rick Malverne?

Her credit card, that frozen water, that burning in her lungs?

Replays in her nightmares, sometimes.

But more often, it’s other things.

Things that life has been moving too quickly for her to really process.

Things that she may never be able to process.

J’onn, almost being experimented on by Cadmus.

Killing Astra. Kara’s words under Red Kryptonite.

Kara, on Krypton under the Black Mercy, not remembering her at all. Those cool, distant eyes.

Almost killing Kara under Myriad.

Jeremiah.

Stories about Mars. The ones that M’gann told her that J’onn would only ever hint at.

The bar.

The sounds Maggie made when she found out.

The cracks in Maggie’s voice when she was trapped in that tank. The desperation in Kara’s.

A life where she had followed orders without hesitating; where she had blown up her own sister.

It’s those ones that make her scream. Those ones that soak the sheets and make her utterly unable to fall back to sleep, even – especially – when she has to get up extra early for work.

It’s almost easier when the screams from her dreams translate into screams in waking life. It’s almost easier, because even though she feels endlessly guilty for waking Maggie, Maggie helps.

Maggie rubs circles onto her back and traces patterns with delicate fingers from her collarbone down her breasts. Maggie kisses her everywhere and changes the sheets and Alex’s pajamas when they’re soaked through, and sometimes, Maggie showers with her, breaking out their lavender scented body wash and rubbing Alex down until the smells, the sensations, lull Alex’s body back into safety, into sleepiness.

It’s harder, the nights where she wakes up silently. The nights where she wakes up and Maggie is next to her, but also another universe away from her, her breathing even and deep and peaceful.

And if Alex hates waking her by accident, she hates even more the idea of doing it on purpose.

So she’ll stay awake.

She’ll stay awake, and she’ll turn the brightness on her phone to the lowest setting, and she’ll angle it away from Maggie’s sleeping face, and she’ll distract herself until, finally, hours later, her eyes start to droop again. Until, finally, hours later, the remnants of her nightmares fade to exactly what they are, now: dreams.

But one night, Maggie wakes. She wakes and she sees the dim light of Alex’s phone.

“Ally?” she murmurs, her voice thick with sleep and saturated with the way they’d made love before passing out.

Alex gulps and lowers her phone, suddenly washing them both in near complete darkness. “Nothing, babe. Sleep, it’s okay.”

“Buyanaseepin,” Maggie murmurs, and Alex can’t help but smile, even though she’s still shaking from her nightmare, trembling from how real it had felt, how now it had felt.

“Say again, pretty lady?” she asks, shifting to drop her phone back on the nightstand and wrap her arms around Maggie, who gulps and clears her throat in an effort to achieve more coherency.

“But you’re not sleeping,” she protests more clearly, and Alex kisses both of her eyes.

“What, so now one of us can’t be awake while the other’s sleeping?” she teases softly, and Maggie leans up on her elbows, squinting as her eyes adjust to the darkness.

“No, but… did you have a bad dream?”

Alex is good at many things. Lying is one of them.

But not to Maggie.

She just looks down, and Maggie plops on top of her. Alex oomphs, and Maggie shifts.

“Sorry. Trying to hold you,” Maggie says sleepily, and Alex kisses her hair.

“I’m okay,” she tries to insist, but Maggie knows better.

“I’m here,” she tells her, pressing a kiss to her chest. “I’m here, and you’re here. J’onn’s safe, and the boys are safe, and Kara’s probably banging Lena at the moment – “

“I thought you were trying to make me feel better?” Alex tickles her, and Maggie squeals and squirms and Alex relents.

They kiss, long and sleepy and needy.

“I’m here, Al. I’ve got you, okay? Come on, you wanna put on some Food Network? We can both drift back off instead of you trying to comfort yourself on Twitter.”

Alex sighs and nods, her heart slowly going from quaking to glowing.

“I love you, Maggie Sawyer,” she murmurs as Maggie flicks on the TV and settles solidly into Alex’s arms.

“And I love you, Alex Danvers. Even if Food Network will never help you win your battle with fire alarms.”