355. Chapter 355

DEO agents part like the Red Sea for her, because Alex Danvers terrifies them.

Alex Danvers’s girlfriend with tears in her eyes and murder in her step?

They’ve been trained better than to pick fights they can’t win.

But James?

James knows better. But he also knows Maggie better.

He steps out of the sea of agents just itching to get their hands on Rick, and he blocks Maggie’s path with his hands already partially raised in mock surrender.

Neither of them comment on the social poignancy in their position.

“What?” she snaps, and her voice is rough, ragged. Terrified.

“You’ve gotta go easier on Kara,” he pleads, his voice soft, not wanting to embarrass her in front of the agents. He knows she’s been trying to win their respect for quite some time now. And he knows Kara isn’t exactly making that any easier right now.

“Alex is the only family I have, James,” she snaps again, anger in her eyes but grief in her voice.

It almost breaks him, because Alex is his family, too.

“That’s not true,” he tells her soft, he tells her gentle, he tells her bracingly.

But for a moment, she thinks about punching him.

About doing to him what she’d had to do to the boys in Blue Springs who told her she was disgusting, broken, who wanted to fix her, who told her that her love wasn’t legitimate, wasn’t real. Was dirty.

About doing to him what she wants to do to Rick, for kidnapping Alex, for torturing her. For the leer in his eyes when he talked about her playing for the other team, when he talked about having wanted her. About stalking them. About whatever other terrible things were in his mind when he thought about them. Looked at them. Watched them. Invaded their lives. Torturing Alex, killing Alex, for his father, yes, but also for his scorned crush, also for his loss of a girl to her sister, to her studies, and then, ultimately, to a woman.

She wants to load it all into James, because how can he do this? How can he tell her that Alex isn’t her family? Hadn’t he helped her set up that whole valentine’s thing? Hadn’t she explained the situation to him? Didn’t he remember about her… family? Wasn’t he supposed to be the… kind one?

She tenses when suddenly his hands are on her shoulders, but before her body can react, his voice reaches her ears.

“She’s not the only family you have, Maggie. You have all of us, too. And we’re going to get her back together. As a family. I promise you.”

Maggie doesn’t know if it’s the steadiness of his hands, or the softness of his voice, or the tears in his eyes, or the way she swears he knows what she was just thinking, or the way he calls her family, family, family. But whatever it is, it almost breaks her.

She steps away from his grasp, from his eyes, from his warmth, from his love, because she can’t break.

Not while Alex needs her.

She swallows and she nods and she bites her bottom lip slightly, slightly, and she watches his face, because she’d spent seventeen hours the day before – was it only a day ago? – trying to talk a man down from killing people, and she’d succeeded (they were alive, alive, alive, just like Alex had better get out of this alive, alive, alive). She watches his face, because Kara might think her job is less than hers, somehow, but this? This is her job.

Reading people. Knowing people. Understanding people.

Empathy.

Empathy isn’t typically the job of the police. Quite the opposite. She knows it, because she’s seen what cops typically do to people who look like James. To people who look like her.

And she’s in it to change all that.

So empathy. Empathy is her job.

So she watches his face, and she narrows her eyes, and she steps back into his space, because now she has someone to take care of, and that can keep her in control, in command, composed. Just for a little while longer.

“Are you alright?”

She reaches up to touch his arm, and he stares at her for a moment.

Maggie scoffs at her own stupidity.

“Of course you’re not alright. Do you need anything?” she amends.

“Work with Kara. Don’t fight her. You two can be an amazing team. And Alex needs an amazing team right now. Alright?”

Maggie swallows and Maggie nods and Maggie almost stands on her tip toes to kiss his cheek, but that, too, might break her.

And she can’t break yet.

So she heaves a sigh and she nods again and she turns around and she raises her voice.

“Hey, Little Danvers.”

Kara turns, surprise and nerves and a little bit of anger written all over her face, and half the DEO turns with her.

“Come on, let’s save our girl. Together, okay?”

Kara blinks, and Kara glances at James, and she glances back at Maggie, and she uncrosses her arms.

She nods, and she means it.

“Together.”

J'onn clasps James’s arm as he walks past him.

“Thank you, Mr. Olsen,” he says softly, and James nods grimly.

“We’ll get your daughter back, J'onn. We will.”

J'onn nods and he sighs and he does something he hasn’t done in centuries.

He prays.

And he hopes someone, somewhere, hears it.