445. Chapter 445

He giggles when he sees her, and Alex arches an eyebrow but says nothing.

He hides his grin behind his hands, pretending to scratch at his five o’clock shadow. Pretending to be the picture of innocence.

Alex ignores it.

Winn often has his little jokes with himself, in his head, and it probably is a coincidence that he started laughing when he saw her.

But then James does it when he walks in.

And Kara.

And J’onn.

“Okay, what the hell?” Alex wants to know, because there is no fiber of her being that feels insecure with these people – with this family – so it doesn’t even occur to her that they’re making fun of her.

But it does occur to her that something’s going on that she doesn’t know about.

Something that’s making them all giggle in anticipation.

Something that’s making them all squirm and glance at their watches, their phones.

Something that makes them look up with eager grins instead of confused surprise when the crisp, excited sound of a dog barking echoes through the DEO hallways.

“What the…” she asks, and she turns, and Kara is squealing with her hands behind her mouth and Winn is reaching into his desk for the massive chew toy he bought last weekend and James is snapping photos and J’onn is watching his children with barely-concealed delight.

Alex turns, and she falls to one knee, and tears spring to her eyes, because she and Maggie have been talking about it.

They’d been talking about it a lot.

About getting a dog. Naming them Gertrude.

About getting a dog, a huskie, an adopted puppy, to love, to parent, to go on adventures with.

Together.

A family.

They’d been talking about it a lot, and now Maggie’s dimples are on full display, and now an extremely tiny, extremely fluffy huskie is running right at Alex, leaping up and licking her face, tail wagging, tongue panting, face smiling.

“Gertrude Danvers must already know you since your scent is all over me,” Maggie beams as Alex forgets where she is, forgets that she commands the soldiers around her in battle, in war, only knowing that her girlfriend loves her, that her girlfriend wants a family with her, that this little angel is their first dog in their lifetime of firsts.

“Danvers?” Alex asks, her voice cracking over Gertrude’s fur, looking up at Maggie through tear-stained eyes.

Maggie squats back on her haunches in front of Alex, adding her hands to the mix, together their hands covering Gertrude’s entire excited body.

“I figured they should have your last name,” Maggie says, and it’s soft, and it’s vulnerable, and it’s I love you, I love you, I love you. “Since I’ll probably want to have it one day, too. If you’d let me, you know. If you’d want me to.”

Alex forgets how to breathe. She forgets how to do anything but smile into Maggie’s lips, anything but kiss her until neither of them can feel anything else.

Nothing else, that is, except for the small critter leaping up to their faces, tongue out and eager, trying to get in on the love.

They laugh as they pull back from their kiss, and Winn and Kara can’t contain themselves anymore.

“Can we meet them? Please please please?”

“I bought them a chew toy!”

“Come down here, you two.”

James laughs while he snaps photos, while Winn and Kara drag a faux-resistant-looking J’onn down to meet Gertrude.

“They are rather – “

“Adorable?”

“Fluffy?”

“Perfect?”

“The cutest little puppy ever to puppy?”

“Endearing,” J’onn grins, and his children laugh while his grandchild yips. “And they couldn’t have better parents.”