462. Chapter 462

M’gann likes Alex almost instantly.

Likes her because the surface of her thoughts is conflicted – always conflicted – but the welfare of other people?

The welfare of other people is always screaming along with the disdain for herself when she feels she can’t do enough for others.

M’gann knows that feeling.

This girl looks too young to bear all of that.

But M’gann had been too young, too.

No. The Green Martians – all of them, even the eldest – had been too young.

She shakes her head and she focuses her attention back to Alex Danvers, to the young woman who’s courting her Maggie.

Her Maggie, because the nights that Maggie has too much to drink, M’gann is the one to put her in a cab.

Her Maggie, because the nights that Maggie is sober but lonely and angsty and needy and single, M’gann makes out with her in dark corners because they’re friends, yes, close, close friends, but they both need someone warm, they both need someone affectionate.

Just a little. Just enough to get them both through the next hour, the next night, the next day.

Her Maggie, because M’gann gives her relationship advice and Maggie listens to her stories about Mars.

Her Maggie, because most humans care that M’gann looks like a Black woman, and because most humans would care if they knew what horrors lay under that beautiful skin, but Maggie?

Maggie is her friend, for every bit of her.

And M’gann loves her for it.

So she likes this Alex Danvers. She likes her quite a bit.

She seems fiercely protective of Maggie and she seems fiercely devoted to making her smile.

But she’s also new to this whole thing. This whole coming out thing.

She’s also got rage that she channels in ways that are going to hurt Maggie, one day. Not directly. But it’s going to hurt Maggie to watch. Enrage Maggie to watch.

And on top of all that, she holds Maggie’s heart in her hands in a way that M’gann has never seen anyone have it.

Because she’s never seen Maggie cut her heart out of her own chest and present it to anyone like she’s bared it to Alex.

“Hey, Alex,” M’gann calls from the other side of the bar, flagging her down as Alex passes by to grab more change for another round of pool.

“Hey,” Alex stops, a dazed grin on her face. Like she can’t believe she’s on a date with Maggie Sawyer.

Because she definitely can’t believe it.

“Got a minute?”

Alex glances over her shoulder at Maggie, sitting on a stool next to the pool table, a small smile on her face, sipping at her beer and looking for all the world as happy and as dazed to be on this date as Alex is.

“Uh, yeah. What’s up?”

M’gann leans over the bar, and Alex does the same, brow slightly furrowed.

“Listen, Alex. I like you. You seem like a really great girl.”

“M’gann – “

“No, no, please let me finish. You seem really heels over head for Maggie, and that makes me like you even more. You have good taste. But Maggie… she’s easy to take advantage of. People tend to. Take advantage of her. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Alex?”

“I have no intention of taking advantage of her, M’gann. I just want to make her happy. I like that you’re being protective of her, I’m glad you have her back, but I… I just want to make her happy.”

“People rarely have intentions to take advantage of someone, Alex. Just… you seem like the kind of woman who leaps before she looks. Maggie? She’s worth both. Worth both leaping and looking. And if you don’t – if you only do one but not the other and you break her heart – I will break my vow of three hundred years to take no lives, and I will end yours. Do we understand each other?”

She says it calmly, with the hint of a soft smile, but a shiver runs down Alex’s spine.

Yes. She’s definitely gay.

“I won’t hurt her, M’gann. And if I did? I’d offer you my throat, because I’d deserve whatever slow, painful death you could devise for me.”

They hold each other’s eyes for a long moment before M’gann smiles.

“I was pretty sure I liked you before, Alex. Now I know I do. Get back to your date, now. Not polite to leave the lady waiting, hm?”

“Yes ma’am,” Alex smiles back. “And M’gann?”

M’gann glances up, the ghost of her smile still warm in her eyes.

“Thank you for protecting her. She deserves it.”

M’gann smiles and nods slowly.

“Yeah, she does.”