668. Chapter 668

She has to wait in the decontamination chamber when she gets back to the DEO, but Maggie can tell through the comms: Alex is not alright.

So she runs – no, she sprints – to decon and she demands to be let in.

“But ma’am,” the fresh-faced rookie on duty objects, “you’ll have to go through decontamination procedures, too – “

“Then I’ll go through the damn procedures. Now let me in that room,” she demands, and Maggie hasn’t quite achieved the level of scary that her wife has, but the kid lets her in, because she’s close enough.

“Alex,” she says when she gets through the multiple doors and layers of safety protocols.

Her name is all she says.

Her name, because it’s probably all Alex can handle.

Alex, who managed to save the lives of the agents under her command tonight, but who had an argument with her mother over the phone on the way back, bloodied and partially radioactive, to the DEO, and it was the argument that broke her.

Maggie knows.

She knows by the tightness in Alex’s voice. The tension in her shoulders. The bloodshot quality of her eyes.

The way she keeps staring at the cement wall in front of her like she’d like nothing more than to break all her bones, shatter her skin, on its grainy surface.

But before Alex can take a swing, Maggie grabs at her hands.

Grabs at her hands, and covers Alex’s knuckles with her palms, somehow both gentle and firm.

Because Alex will punch into her pain with nothing to protect her knuckles.

But with Maggie’s knuckles over her own?

She would never.

She struggles for a moment, and she screams for a moment. She doubles over and she squirms, but she won’t strike out.

She doesn’t want to hit anyone but herself.

But Maggie won’t let her go.

So when Alex yells her throat raw, when she starts to sink onto her knees, Maggie’s got her.

She’s got her, and she slows her collapse to the ground with her own body.

She’s got her, and she kisses her neck and the parts of her face she can reach from behind her.

“It’s alright, babygirl. It’s alright, it’s alright. And the parts that aren’t alright right now are going to be. I promise, Ally. I promise.”

“How?” is the only word Alex can choke, and it breaks Maggie’s heart as she kisses her calm, kisses her quiet, kisses her face until Alex is leaning back into Maggie’s embrace, gentle and needy and desperate to be held, to be loved, to be cared for.

To be protected.

To be in the arms of someone who thinks of her fists, her arms, her body, as something to be protected.

To be in the heart of someone who thinks of her soul as something to be protected.

“Because you are stronger than your strongest demons, Alex Danvers,” Maggie whispers, shifting so she can look her wife right in the eyes. “Because I believe in you. And because Kara is outside ready to wrap you up in every blanket she’s ever owned and watch every season of POI with you.”

“Really?” Alex asks, her voice weak but her spirit calming.

“Always,” Maggie promises.