772. Chapter 772

It’s a lot about what she can afford, but it’s even more about what she thinks she deserves.

Because her detective salary is much better than her beat cop salary, which is much more than what she could ever have hoped to make waitressing and tutoring and all the other odd jobs she did through high school and college.

And all of that was so, so much more than she could ever expect when she was living with an aunt, under the legal employment age and bound to come right home after school, every single day.

Money has a history for Maggie, and it was no small thing that she didn’t run the moment she saw Alex’s apartment.

A gorgeous one bedroom with a king-sized bed and beautiful furnishings; such a contrast to her no AC, chipped-tile-in-the-tiny-bathroom with barely a functioning kitchen studio apartment.

It was no small accomplishment that she didn’t run when Alex insisted on taking her to fancy restaurants, and paying for expensive cab rides home.

It was no small accomplishment that she didn’t run when she realized how often Alex could afford to both order an absurd amount of takeout and have a fridge full of groceries.

But being with Alex gave her a sense of stability that she’d never had, and it wasn’t because of how much the DEO paid her girlfriend.

It was because of the emotional stability Alex gave her, the steady and constant belief that she was worth it, that she was worth laughing with and making love to and spending time with just because.

It was because of the emotional stability of holding hands, and making out casually on the couch with no pressure to do anything more, and hours and hours of conversation about everything and nothing at all, and cuddles in the morning, and homemade brunch on lazy Sunday mornings.

It was all that – it was everything that was Alex Danvers and the way she loved her, because, lord, Maggie finally thought she believed that someone truly loved her – that made Maggie do more than just go through the motions with her job-mandated therapist.

It was all that, that made her actually work in therapy, because now, she actually wanted to.

It was slow. Her progress.

She started with a budget. Well, she’d already had a budget; she always, always, lived on a budget. But now, she started writing in categories like “game nights” and “move nights” and “fun nights with Alex” and even wilder, riskier things, like “movie dates with myself” and, eventually, simply, “me.”

It calmed her, to see that she could, in fact, afford to spend these bits of money on herself.

It calmed her, and it opened her up to, once in a while, spending money on herself – a new shirt that she really wanted but didn’t technically need, a denim jacket that was from a cool vintage shop across town instead of something she merely found, a whole suit that she wanted to wear on a date with Alex and, more importantly, that she wanted to look in the mirror and see on herself – and the changes on the inside started showing on the outside.

“I’m so proud of you, Mags,” Alex would tell her, without explanation or clarification, every time she noticed Maggie wearing a new article of clothing, or having more expensive produce like mangos or orange peppers in the fridge.

“You deserve it,” Alex would murmur as she kissed her way down taking off one of Maggie’s fancy new collared shirts, taking extra care to use her tongue in exactly the places she knew Maggie wanted.

“You’re amazing,” Alex would whisper in her ear as they held each other close, clothes scattered on the floor and their histories fluttering in the air between them.

“I love you,” they would whisper to each other, and eventually, Maggie found that she actually believed she deserved such a sacred statement.