70. Chapter 70

Alex isn’t a screamer – not when Maggie’s not touching her, anyway – so when she jolts awake from her nightmare, she doesn’t make a sound. She doesn’t make a sound, but she sits bolt upright, bare chest heaving, some of her short hair stuck to her forehead from sweat, keen eyes adjusting to the dark almost immediately, searching into the night for any sign of a Cadmus laboratory, any sign of scalpels and screaming and test subjects.

But she only finds Maggie’s bedroom, yesterday’s bra slung over Maggie’s desk chair, her oversized NCPD windbreaker on a hook on the back of the door, a glass of water carefully placed next to her glasses on the nightstand because Maggie knew Alex always got thirsty in the middle of the night.

She only finds everything that is Maggie – safe, secure, home – and she doesn’t jump when a pair of warm hands slide around her waist, because the hands, too, don’t feel like her nightmare; they feel, instead, safe. Secure. Home.

“Another nightmare, babe?” Maggie asks, her voice full of sleep, full of gravel, full of concern and full of love.

“I’m fine,” Alex tells her, leaning back into her touch, and she feels Maggie shaking her head against her bare back.

“You’re shaking, Al,” Maggie whispers, and there’s no judgment in her voice, no sign that she thinks Alex is weak, that she thinks Alex should be stronger than imaginary wisps flitting through her subconscious at night. No sign, because she thinks quite the opposite.

“I’m okay,” Alex hears herself say, and she hears her own voice crack, and she feels Maggie’s lips on her spine and she feels herself, for once in her damn life, let herself be taken care of.

She lowers back down onto the bed, back down into Maggie’s arms, back down to the sheets that smell like everything that is Maggie, back down to where Maggie’s long hair tickles her face, to where Maggie smoothes her own hair off her forehead, kisses her jaw, her chin, her nose, her cheeks.

“You’re alright, babe, everybody’s alright. Kara, J’onn, James, Winn, your dad, your mom. Everyone. Everyone’s alright. I promise.”

“You?”

“What about me?”

“You’re alright too?” Maggie’s heart nearly explodes and she has to try several times before she can successfully swallow, before she can successfully breathe, before she can successfully do anything but want to bawl, because Alex Danvers worries about her like she… like she’s family.

“Yeah, my love. I’m alright, too.”

“Good.”

Alex smiles sleepily, and her body relaxes. She snuggles closer into Maggie’s arms, and Maggie runs gentle fingers over her naked sides and presses kisses to her hair as Alex falls back into a safe, secure, home, sleep.