704. Chapter 704

Her entire body shook the first time she cut her hair.

Not for a trim, or for the curling or coloring that her mother wanted her to get.

The first time she cut her hair like she wanted to cut it.

She knocked back a couple of whiskeys first, because she’d made the decision – she was sure – but she felt like she needed something a bit extra to get herself through the door.

“It’ll be fine, Mags, I promise,” Adrian had promised, his hand wrapped in hers. “The first time I cut my hair off, I was shaking like a leaf, too.”

“No one’s shaking like a leaf, your mom’s shaking like a leaf,” Maggie had murmured, and Adrian had laughed and kissed her temple.

“You look amazing right now. And you’re going to look amazing after your haircut. Cut or not, you’re still the studliest butch ever to butch. And that Alex Danvers isn’t gonna know what to do with herself. She’s gonna be able to function even less around you than she is now.”

Maggie had guffawed at his banter, gripped his hand quite a bit too tight, and wondered when the roles had become reversed and when he’d become a caretaker, a guide, for her, instead of the other way around.

Probably when she told him she wanted to shave most of her hair off.

Probably when she wore a tie around him for the first time and blushed while he did nothing but support and praise her.

Probably when she was embarking on a journey that wasn’t his, exactly, but that made them even closer, somehow, anyway.

And he was right about it all: about how good it would look, how good it would feel.

The first time she ran her hand over the back of her head and felt nothing but the soft spikiness of her fresh fade, she cried, and Adrian dutifully pretended he saw nothing.

But that’s not all he was right about: he was also right about Alex Danvers.

That DEO agent with increasingly red hair and sharp eyes that caught everything.

Alex is steady and focused and confident, and her scientist-soldier air made Maggie weak in the knees.

For months, she’d thought she was the only one.

But now?

Now, strutting onto the field in her oversized police jacket, walking off the filthy looks and even filthier mutterings she’d just been treated to on the way over, she catches sight of Alex Danvers supervising her field agents’ work.

Effortless, efficient. Flawless. As always.

Until she sees Maggie.

And promptly trips over herself.

Maggie is over at her side in an instant, one hand on her waist and the other wrapped around her wrist, making sure her hand isn’t cut from breaking her fall.

“You okay, Danvers?” she asks, and there’s no teasing or bravado in her voice; not like how there usually is when they interact.

Because the sight of Alex nearly getting hurt could never be funny to Maggie.

Even if the possible reason behind her tripping over herself may or may not be making her heart positively sing.

“You cut your hair,” is all Alex manages to say as she stands back up with Maggie’s help, shooting her agents a look that clearly says that their bodies will never be found if they ever breathe a word of this to anyone.

“I did,” Maggie shoves her hands deep into her jeans pockets as Alex brushes herself off, steady now. Maggie gulps. Alex’s eyes don’t leave her face, her hair. Her body.

She gulps again. “So,” she nods around at the crime scene, “what’ve we got?”

Alex furrows her brow like she’s confused by the question, but only for a moment.

“Right, work, um. See where the concrete’s shattered there? We think it was…”

“Danvers?”

But Alex has trailed off, her eyes unable to leave Maggie’s lips. “It – it – I’m sorry, I – you – you look really good.”

Maggie arches an eyebrow and suppresses a whoop.

“What, and I looked like crap when you saw me last week?”

“Huh? No, god, no, Maggie, you’re always… just… now, you know, with the hair and the boots and the…” She gestures vaguely at Maggie’s body, and Maggie tilts her head, enjoying more than she’d care to admit watching the steel-eyed agent stumble over her own words.

But she takes pity on her before Alex can talk herself into too deep a hole.

“Let’s say I take you to dinner tonight, Danvers, and we can talk more about uh… all the…” Maggie imitates Alex’s hand gesture, but the teasing is gentle, designed to make Alex blush in delight, not to make her feel badly.

She utterly succeeds.

“Yeah? I mean, I’ve been trying to figure out ways to ask you for months – “

“So have I – “

“Then why haven’t we – “

“Well we are now.” They giggle, both a little breathless, both more than a little caught up, and even as she smiles and listens to Alex report on the status of the joint crime scene, she thinks Adrian would probably have the answer to why it took them so long: she had to find more of herself before she could offer it all to Alex.

Because that’s exactly what she plans to do.