695. Chapter 695

“You know it’s nothing personal, Danvers. It literally has nothing to do with you.”

“No, just with the fact that I’m in love with her daughter and I’m a woman.”

Maggie pauses for a beat, a half-amused and half-apologetic look on her face. “Right. That part.”

There’s another pause as Alex steels herself, sets the shutters behind her eyes to reflect only steady confidence, only sturdy support.

Because that’s what Maggie needs right now: her girlfriend’s support.

“I’ll be absolutely fine, Mags. I’ll be with you. Don’t worry about me: just let me take care of you, okay?”

Maggie bites her lip and studies Alex’s face for a long moment. “Fine. But don’t feel like you have to pretend to be okay just to be supportive, okay? We can support each other: you don’t always have to be the strong one, Alex.”

“Neither do you, babe,” Alex whispers as she kisses her, long and sweet enough to get them through – hopefully – the next three hours.

Because during the next three hours, they’ll be in close quarters with Maggie’s mother, courtesy of one of her little cousin’s eighth grade graduation.

The afternoon starts well – or terribly, depending on perspective – when her cousin practically sprints up to Alex before the ceremony and nearly tackles her in a hug.

“When are we going to the museum again?” she asks as Alex re-adjusts the child’s graduation cap affectionately.

“How about we take a trip to celebrate your big day?” Alex suggests, and Maggie gets the wind knocked out of her with a hug of her own.

“Your girlfriend’s the best, Mags!” she declares before rocketing off again, finally heeding the summons of her teachers to get back in the back of the auditorium.

“You think it’s appropriate to take an impressionable child out for day trips like that, do you?” Maggie’s mother deadpans at Alex. The first words she’s spoken to her today: the first time she’s acknowledged she’s there.

Maggie’s fists clench and her back straightens, but Alex soothes her with a caress of the small of her back.

“She really loves the planetarium, and your daughter does a great job of being a tour guide.”

“Well, that’s just because you make the exhibits so much more engaging, babe: Ma, did I tell you that Alex worked on some of the bioengineered projects featured there?”

“You might have mentioned it,” her mother shrugs noncommittally, and Alex kisses Maggie’s hand to help her unclench her fist.

She’s shaking by the time the graduation ceremony is over.

Because Maggie’s mother is generosity and sunshine with absolutely everyone in the auditorium and in the reception downstairs.

Everyone except Alex.

When she acknowledges her existence, it’s either dismissive or critical.

But never downright mean.

She plays her cards better than that.

She never gives Alex anything to directly defend herself about.

To explode over.

It makes Maggie seethe.

It makes Alex excuse herself to the bathroom to cry.

Because she’s a grown woman, and the ire of someone else’s mother – even if that someone else is the woman she wants to spend her life with, whose family she so desperately wants to be part of – shouldn’t make her cry like this.

But it does, it is.

So when she takes just a little too longer and Maggie knows her just a little too well and comes to find her, Alex’s eyes are red and her nose is dripping and her makeup has long since run its course.

“Sweetie,” Maggie murmurs as she crosses the small, junior high-sized bathroom in a few easy strides. Alex tries to resist when Maggie takes her into her arms – Maggie’s in pain, too, and Alex should support her, she shouldn’t be falling apart like this, she… – but Maggie shushes her gently, comfortingly.

“Let me love you, Danvers,” she whispers into her ear along with a soft kiss, and for once, Alex does.

Maggie doesn’t care when Alex’s snot winds up mixed with her tears on her shirt, and she laughs softly instead of being grossed out when Alex sniffles loudly, wetly, in her arms.

“I’m so sorry, Alex,” Maggie whispers when Alex’s tears start to dry, somewhat.

“Maggie, no, it’s not your – “

“I know it’s not my fault, babe, but it’s still… you don’t deserve the way she treats you, honey. She shouldn’t get to take her homophobia out on anyone, but certainly not on you. I’m so sorry I’m exposing you to such… I should have just come by myself today, I should never have – “

“No, Maggie, I wanted to come, I – “

“I should protect you better, Alex. I never want to make you cry – “

And now, Alex starts to hold Maggie, because now, Maggie is starting to shake, starting to cry.

Alex paints her face with soft kisses and unconditional support and warm murmurs of reassurance, of stability. Of love.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Mags, understand me? You didn’t make me cry, baby – ”

“No. I did, didn’t I?”

Both women jump at the sound of a third voice in the bathroom.

One that Alex has come to associate only with hot anger and searing pain.

Maggie’s mother.

“Ma, we weren’t kissing or anything, we – “

“It’s obvious what you’ve been doing, Maggie.”

They’re silent and clinging to each other, still, like they’re waiting for a verdict from a higher power.

Because, really, they feel like they are.

“You’ve been comforting each other. And that’s… that, I suppose, is something my daughter could use. Even if it does come from… a woman.”

She locks eyes with Alex, and a small current passes between the women even as a stream of noisy middle schoolers burst into the bathroom.

Maggie’s mother nods. Alex, slowly, nods back before taking Maggie by the hand and leading her out of the bathroom and back to the reception, both of them drying their eyes on the way.

“What just happened, babe?” Maggie asks.

“I think your mom still hates me. But maybe, now, a little less.”

Maggie shakes her head incredulously. “Can we not do that again?”

Alex tilts her head questioningly, and Maggie wraps her arms around her shoulders. “Can we not try to suffer alone, next time? Can we be there for each other? I don’t know about you, Danvers, but crying with you is much better than crying by myself. And if you’re going to cry, I want to be there. If you want me to be.”

Alex nods, slowly, as she leans down to kiss her girlfriend amidst a swell of oooohs from the recently minted graduates.

“Always,” she murmurs against her lips, and she means every syllable.