663. Chapter 663

“What’re you doing for Thanksgiving, Sawyer?” Max Lord wants to know, his eyes flashing.

And normally, Maggie can handle herself around jerks like Max. Very well. But right now, her body gets smaller and her eyes get terrified and her lips stammer over a response.

Until Alex slings an arm around her – still sweaty from basketball practice – and puts her other hand on her hip, glaring at Max heavily.

“She’s coming home with me,” she tells him, her feet finding Maggie’s toes and stepping down slightly so that she doesn’t argue or ask what she’s talking about.

Because it’s something they haven’t talked about.

Well, mostly.

Because when Maggie told Alex that she was staying on campus for Thanksgiving, she said it like it was a closed conversation. Like she didn’t want to talk about it. Like she wanted to pretend the holiday didn’t exist, because that’s exactly what her family did with her.

So as Max stammers his way through sarcasm and terror of the basketball team captain’s glare and backs away slowly, Alex looks down at Maggie with an apologetic squint on her face.

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t want you to have to deal with – “

“No, Danvers, no need to apologize. You did me a big favor there, I owe you big.”

Alex’s stomach flushes, and she knows it’s not just from post-practice jitters.

She can practically hear Lucy and Kara yelling at her in her mind, telling her to just kiss the girl already.

She shakes her head.

“You never owe me anything. What are friends for, right?” she grins lopsidedly, and takes her arm off Maggie’s shoulders, swooping down to pick up the basketball by her feet and dribble it casually toward the locker room.

“Friends. Right.”

Maggie follows and changes the subject, asking Alex how her practice went, how that new Luthor girl is fitting in with the rest of the team, if she’s still taking it easy enough on the ankle she’d sprained last month.

As they talk, Maggie tosses Alex’s basketball up and down to herself, laying back on one of the locker room’s wooden benches, as Alex strips to get changed.

Alex tries not to blush and Maggie tries not to look.

Both fail.

“Really though,” Alex says suddenly, interrupting their banter about Alex needing to learn how to take better care of herself. “You can come home with me for Thanksgiving, Mags. I know you like to deal with the holidays by pretending they don’t exist, and that’s okay, it really is – “

“It’s fine, Danvers. I don’t want to celebrate the genocide this country was founded on, that’s all – “

“And neither do I, Sawyer, but we can’t change the fact that everyone talks about it like it’s time for family, and that that… can get painful. And I don’t want you to be in pain, and I don’t want you to be alone. You don’t have to be. I mean. No pressure or anything, I just – “

“Yes,” Maggie interjects, sitting up, now, her legs straddling the bench, the basketball still in her hands. “Okay, sure. As long as your mom and Kara won’t mind – “

“Won’t mind? They’ve been telling me to invite you for weeks, you just never seemed to want to talk about it – “

And suddenly, the basketball is bouncing aimlessly on the floor, because Maggie’s arms are wrapped around Alex’s body, and Alex is hugging her back just as eagerly.

Until they both realize that Alex is still shirtless.

Until they both blush and gulp and stammer and make excuses in their heads for why they’re suddenly more turned on than any kind of closeness with anyone has ever made them.

Until, that is, the next week, when Alex flies Maggie out to Midvale with her, and their pinkies touch throughout the plane ride.

Neither of them acknowledge it – this shift between them – and neither of them talk about the fact that it feels like Alex is bringing home her girlfriend, not her best friend.

But they don’t have to talk about it, because Kara is beaming enough over the two of them to more than make up for it.

Maggie locks herself in the bathroom during Thanksgiving dinner, because Eliza had been so warm to her and Alex had kissed her on the cheek when Eliza said she was so grateful she could join them and Kara had said it felt like having another big sister in the house and everyone treated her like she belonged and…

“Mags?” Alex’s voice is soft and empathetic and understanding and full of unbridled love.

“I’m fine, Danvers,” Maggie tries not to sniffle, but Alex tries the locked door anyway.

“You know I can just pick this lock,” she tells her, and Maggie sighs with a surrendering smile as she opens the door, letting Alex take in her red eyes and wet face.

“Oh Maggie,” Alex takes her into her arms and promises to never, ever let go.

“Decorating time!” Kara tosses stuffed animals at her sister and her sister’s maybe-girlfriend the next morning until they wake up and disentangle from each other’s arms.

“Decorating?” Maggie asks groggily, and Kara just laughs maniacally, takes her by the hand, and tugs her downstairs.

“Decorating!” she declares, arms spread wide at all the boxes of Channukah and Christmas decorations Eliza had brought down the night before.

Alex blushes as Eliza shows Maggie the macaroni ornaments Alex had made as a child, and Maggie blushes when Kara – with big eyes and sharing a wink with Eliza – announces that she’s going to hang the mistletoe.

And then proceeds to dangle it right above Alex and Maggie’s heads.

“Now, this is a consensual mistletoe, so no one has to kiss anyone if they don’t want, but – “ Kara explains merrily, but Eliza shushes her gently as Alex’s eyes meet Maggie’s. As their hands find each other’s faces. As their breaths sync up and their heart rates skyrocket.

“You’re already my family, Maggie,” Alex whispers as Maggie licks her lips and fights in vain not to cry. “But would you… would you want to be my girlfriend, too?”

“Yeah, Danvers,” Maggie’s voice cracks, and she finds that she doesn’t even care, because her smile, in this woman’s arms, never will. “Now can I kiss you already, or – “

Kara whoops and Eliza wipes her eyes as Alex kisses Maggie slow and soft and passionate, and Maggie kisses her back with everything she has.

“Alright girls, save the rest for when you’re not in front of your mother,” Eliza chides gently when Alex’s lips part for Maggie’s tongue. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you the same series of sex talks I gave Alex, Maggie darling – “

“Not right now, Mom!” Alex shouts, but she’s smiling because all she sees is the light in Maggie’s eyes.

In her new girlfriend’s eyes.