631. Chapter 631

Maggie stirs when Alex comes home.

She stirs, but she doesn’t wake herself up fully.

And she smiles softly in her sleep, because that’s a strange luxury for her: even as long as she was with Emily, she was never in a place where she could just… sleep… this easily, next to someone, with someone. In front of someone.

Too vulnerable, too powerless, too… terrifying.

But with Alex?

Well, Alex terrifies her more than anyone she’s ever known.

Because Alex makes her feel safer than anyone she’s ever known.

So she stirs when Alex comes home, but she trusts her, so she doesn’t wake fully.

Not until she feels Alex climb into bed but not fully lay down.

Not until she waits in vain for the typical pressing of kisses all over her face that accompanies Alex coming home to find her asleep.

Not until she feels Alex’s body, in bed but tense, physically present but so, so, so far away.

She opens her eyes just as Alex starts to shake with tears.

“Babe,” she croaks, her voice groggy with sleep, and Alex shudders away from her.

Maggie feels her heart collapse in on itself and releases her immediately.

“I’m sorry, I – “

“No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Alex sobs and reaches for Maggie again, pulling her back onto her body.

But her touch, her closeness, only makes Alex sob harder, her voice catching in her throat, drowning in her tears, high pitched and pained like a small creature being tortured.

And Maggie feels like she’s being tortured, because she’s been chained up against her will and she’s been beaten and she’s been battered but this?

This might break her where nothing else ever has.

“Alex, what happened? Is Kara okay, is – “

“I want kids,” Alex chokes, and Maggie thought “I love you” were the three scariest words there were, but this knocks that right out of the competition.

Her entire body freezes and suddenly she needs to vomit, but Alex’s entire body is trembling and her teeth are starting to chatter and her face is soaked and she’s clinging to Maggie like she’ll drown without her or she’ll drown with her, but either way, she’s clinging to her like she’s drowning.

Again.

Maggie opens her mouth and finds that she doesn’t know what to say.

Alex sobs harder.

Maggie crawls on top of her and kisses her face. She kisses her tears and she wipes away her snot and she smooths the hair away from her now sweaty forehead.

She builds layers and layers between herself and the woman she loves, because she has no choice.

Because Alex deserves comfort, and they both deserve communication, and to have anything like that, she needs her layers. She needs her walls.

And through those, she finds that she can speak.

“Okay, babe. So let’s talk, okay? It’s okay, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, Danvers, just… what brought this on?”

It takes a few minutes of desperately gasping for air, of Maggie laying her head on Alex’s chest to help Alex regulate her breathing, before she can tell her anything coherent.

And when she does, she tells her what she told Kara. About camping and constellations and reading and cheesy Valentine’s Day cards.

The silence that fills the space between their bodies is one of the most loaded, terrifying silences either of them have ever heard.

“Say something,” Alex begs when she can’t bear it anymore, imploring Maggie to look at her, to lift her head, to straighten up from where she’s straddling her. To look at her, talk to her. Be with her.

Maggie tries. She fails.

“Say something,” Alex begs again. “Please. Maggie. Please.”

Layers and walls and protection. Maggie gulps. She rebuilds boundaries around her heart. Her heart that feels like it no longer exists.

“I don’t want those things, Alex. They’re… they’re beautiful things. And I want you to have them, if they’re what you want. If they’re not just some heteronormative fantasy you’ve been taught you want, then… then I want those things for you. But I… I don’t. For myself. So I don’t… I don’t know…” She almost breaks. She refuses. “I don’t know where that leaves us.”

Alex’s entire body quakes underneath her, and Maggie lays back down to cover Alex’s body with her own. Like she can protect her from the shrapnel of their conflicting desires.

“Hey, shhhh, hey. Alex, sweetie, I’m… I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’m here.”

“But,” Alex sobs, leaning back as Maggie does the same, so they can look at each other. So they’re equally vulnerable to their own shrapnel.

“But you just said you don’t know where that leaves us, and… and it’s like sex, right?”

Maggie blinks. Alex explains. “Like…” She wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “Like if one person doesn’t want to have sex and the other person does, then you go with not having sex, because consent, right? So like… if one person wants kids…” Her voice breaks, and Maggie trembles, and Alex trembles harder. “And… and the other person doesn’t… then you just… you don’t have them, right? Like sex.”

Maggie chuckles masochistically at the adorableness of Alex’s simple conclusion, and she wipes her own eyes. “I don’t know, babe. I hear you, and I appreciate… you trying to… but you’ve been trying to do that. And I’m… I’m glad you told me, Alex. Because I don’t want you pushing down your feelings. And if kids are what you want, and we use that logic, then… then you’ll basically always be pushing down your feelings, and I don’t… I don’t want you to live like that just… just for me. Or for any reason. I love you too much to let you… to let you give up something you want like that.”

“But I want you, Maggie,” Alex quakes, and tears from Maggie’s face join the rivulets on Alex’s.

“And I want you. I… I love you. But maybe… maybe that’s not enough. For you.”

And Maggie doesn’t say it. Because saying it would be manipulative. But Alex knows, anyway, because Alex knows her.

“You’re enough, Maggie. You’re more than enough. You’re everything.”

“Apparently not,” Maggie can’t stop the words before they pass through her lips. She flinches immediately. “I’m sorry, Alex, I didn’t mean that, that was a selfish thing to say, I – “

“No, no, hey, if I’m not allowed to push down my feelings, then neither are you. But Maggie, my wanting kids has nothing to do with how… with how complete you make me feel. With how… with how amazing you make me feel, with how much I love you. You’re my family, Maggie, and that’s more than enough for me. But just like you not wanting kids isn’t about me, it’s about you… wanting kids is about me, not about you. You know?”

Maggie shrugs, because it hurts, but yes. Yes, she knows. She shakes her head and she tries to stop her own teeth from chattering.

“So what do we do?”

Alex takes a deep breath. “Do you want to leave?”

“No.” Her answer is immediate. “Do you?”

“No.” Alex’s answer is just as immediate.

They breathe out breaths of agonized laughter as Maggie brings her forehead down to meet Alex’s.

They breathe in. They breathe out.

“Maggie, you and I… you and I have saved the world. More than once. Against impossible odds.”

A slow smile forms on Maggie’s face. “And your logic is that if we can figure out how to do that, we can figure out how to both get what we need?” Maggie smiles, and it’s sad, but it’s hopeful.

Alex nods.

“Nerd,” Maggie chokes out, and Alex sobs, but her lips are curved up into a smile.

“So can we? Figure out how to both get what we need?” Alex asks, and Maggie kisses her lips soft and slow and wet and willing.

“I never believed in impossible things, Alex Danvers. Until I met you. So yeah. Yeah, sweetie. Let’s figure out how to both get what we need, okay? Together?”

Alex trembles, but this time it’s with need, with relief. With adoration and with trust.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she whispers as they kiss, as they cry, as they promise.

“I love you so much,” Maggie tells her.

“I love you so much,” Alex tells her.

Over and over and over and over, because Rao, how they do.