213. Chapter 213

It’s nearly 3 am and their bodies are spent, but their minds are buzzing.

Alex is holding her – of course Alex is holding her – and she’s tracing patterns onto Maggie’s skin with her fingertips, the way she knows Maggie loves, the way she knows makes Maggie feel safe.

The silence between them feels good; the silence between them feels comfortable; the silence between them feels like intimacy, because that’s exactly what it is.

When Alex had made love to her – hours and hours spent worshiping every part of her body, every piece of her soul – it was nothing Maggie had expected, but everything she’d needed.

She’d expected to apologize and make the night about Alex, and that would have been perfectly fine with her. Alex did deserve all the fuss.

But Alex had refused, because Alex had heard her – truly heard her – so the night had been Maggie’s.

And Maggie doesn’t know what to say, not yet, because she’s never been cared for like this before.

But she smiles when Alex asks, because of course Alex asks, because Alex is perfect and Alex wants to know her more, wants to learn her better.

“Do you want to tell me more?” she whispers as she traces words of love in Russian onto Maggie’s torso with her fingertips. “About what happened?”

Maggie shifts back closer into Alex’s naked, warm body, and smiles with her eyes closed as Alex kisses the back of her neck.

“I think she knew. My aunt. Before I even showed up at her doorstep. My mom’s sister. I don’t know if my mom had called her or what, but she didn’t seem surprised, anyway. I don’t know. I never asked. I just kind of wanted to forget about it. I showed up with a duffle bag and nothing else and she just took me inside and held me and made me eat something.”

Maggie chuckles, and Alex kisses the nape of her neck again. “She’s always making me eat something. She didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t tell her anything, except a bunch of jumbled up crying stuff about my dad hating me and saying he never wanted to see me again and calling me filthy and a disappointment and selfish and an ingrate and mentally messed up.”

She feels Alex’s bicep tightening under her head, and somehow Alex’s rage makes her feel safer, makes her feel more loved, makes her feel braver.

“It took me like a month to finally tell her the whole thing. I’d come home with black eyes from school and all these bruised ribs and stuff, and she’d just patch me back up and feed me and kiss me and let me sleep in her bed when I would wake up screaming, but she didn’t force me to talk. But when I did, I was so scared, Al. Scared that maybe if she knew the whole thing, she’d react the same as my dad, and then I’d really have nowhere to go. But it was destroying me, inside, you know, and I just had to… and it paid off. She didn’t treat me any different, she didn’t even seem all that surprised.”

Maggie chuckles again and turns slightly so she can see some of Alex’s face, then decides she wants to see all of her, so she shifts completely in her arms so they’re facing each other.

“Turns out she wasn’t surprised, she’d figured since I was a little kid. I mean.” Her eyes darken. “I was a little kid. But you know. Littler. And I saw my dad in town a few days later – he ignored me, of course, always did after that, pretended I didn’t… anyway – and he was sporting a black eye, and I’m pretty sure it was her that did it. Wasn’t until years later that she told me she’s bi, that she told me her parents had never minded, not that much anyway, and she’d begged my mom not to marry my dad because of how… because of what an ass he is, but my mom was young and in love and all that whatever stuff. Anyway.”

Maggie looks up into Alex’s eyes and holds them for a long moment with her own. “Am I talking too much?”

Alex smiles and kisses her nose and shakes her head. “You’re not talking nearly enough.”

Maggie mirrors her expression and snuggles close into her chest.

“You know I went to college a year early? We had a nice life together, my aunt and me – we’d go on road trips and she took me hiking and camping and I saw the ocean for the first time with her, and she taught me to cook and she took me to my first gay bar and all that – but the town, I couldn’t… I did everything I could to get out, as fast as I could. And I did.”

She looks back up at Alex. “Which works perfectly, really, because if the timing had been any different, I may not have been promoted when I was, and I may not have met you.”

Alex beams softly. “I can’t imagine my life if I hadn’t met you, Mags.”

“Same, Danvers. Same.”

Maggie stifles a yawn, then, and Alex studies her face with endless fascination, with endless love.

“Sleep, princess. I’ve got you.”

Maggie blinks, suddenly scared, suddenly somber.

“You promise?”

Alex kisses first one eye, then the other, then traces every inch of Maggie’s face with soft lips and warm breath.

“Always,” she whispers, and Maggie falls asleep wrapped in Alex’s arms, a small, safe, home smile on her lips.