Title from the beautiful song choice during Alex's coming out scene (by Kaleo).

Comments and sharing (my tumblr is also queergirlwriting) are love, and the world can use a lot of love this week.

They haven't spoken in a week.

A week since Alex had stumbled her way to peaking outside of the closet.

A week since Maggie had gently, perfectly coaxed her with the head tilts, understanding eyes, small smiles, and two tiny, enormous questions – prompts, really – even as she was two shots deep in her own pain.

Alex had texted.

Of course Alex had texted.

Hey - just wanted to say I hope you're feeling alright. I'm sorry for just ranting at you last night, but... thank you. For listening. I'm here if you want to rant, too.

She'd nearly spilled her coffee when her phone buzzed, almost immediately, with a reply.

Thanks Danvers.

She heard the message in Maggie's voice, and her heart catapulted way down into her stomach, up to her throat, and back down to her chest, where it settled unsteadily.

"Fuck," she whispered into her drink, because only then did she really get it: there hadn't been some truth to what Maggie had said. About her.

There was all truth.

"Fuck."

I'll let her reach out to me, Alex figured. I told her I'm here. She said thanks. She knows. I just have to wait now. Don't want her to think I only want to be around her because I'm... angling.

She groaned at herself in her head.

She glanced up to see three faces, ranging from concerned to bemused to baffled, all staring curiously at her face.

At which point she realized the groaned hadn't just happened in her head.

"Something bothering you, Alex?"

She cleared her throat and deliberately avoided Kara's narrowed eyes and Winn's widened ones.

"No, no sir. Sorry, just... just thinking."

Hank peered at her thoughtfully for what seemed to Alex like a long while, and she had the impulse to collapse against his chest and just let him father her, latest Cadmus threat be damned.

He nodded softly, knowingly, and though she knew he would never use his telepathy on her without her consent, she wondered if he could somehow sense the woman that was dominating her thoughts. If he did, he said nothing. He let his eyes drift back to the screen the four of them were gathered around, and prompted Winn to continue his technobabble about his latest attempt to predict the location of the next attack.

Even after Hank and Winn had turned back to the briefing, Alex felt Kara's eyes still on her. She fixed her own gaze determinedly on Winn's maps and gulped.

Only years of military training kept her from yelping when her phone buzzed a few moments later and Maggie's name lit up her screen.

Her heart leaped and then all but disintegrated in terror; but only strategic efficiency passed across her face.

"J'onn," she interrupted. "We don't need to guess anymore. They're attacking a high school right now."

Just as the words left her lips, Winn's screens lit up, yellow flares around the school zone Maggie had texted her about.

Danvers. New weapons, natl city HS. NOW.

In a single glance, she and J'onn agreed on who they'd deploy, and how. Alex nodded and Hank shifted away, yelling commands to get everyone suited up.

Alex grabbed her sister by the wrist as she was bracing to soar away. "Kara." She sought her eyes and hoped hers said everything they needed to. For now. "Maggie's already on the scene."

Something flashed across Kara's face as she nodded, but Alex didn't have time to interpret whatever it was. Before she could blink, Supergirl had swept her up in her arms and sped them both away toward the scene of the of the unfolding attack.

Winn found himself suddenly alone, with a computer and a deeply furrowed brow.

"Doesn't she usually just go with the rest of the soldiers?" he muttered, asking no one in particular. Part of his brain tickled at him, at the way Alex had said Maggie's name, her desperation; at the way she'd been spacing out mere moments before, just like she'd spaced out last week; thinking, apparently, about Maggie, pool, and Maggie's ex girlfriend.

He shook his head briefly, filing these things away for another moment.

For now, his fingers took control, getting him as much intel as he could to share with his friends. Hopefully, it would keep them safe.

Kara deposited Alex onto a slab of rubble that used to be concrete, hidden from the attackers, before speeding back into the air, toward where the newbies with Cadmus weapons were elevating an entire bus full of teenagers.

Alex shook herself from the shoulders down, using her moment of re-acclimating to the ground to get her bearings on the scene. She tuned the screaming to a minimum in her ears and scanned the area with her eyes, with her every sense; Hank and the others wouldn't be here for another four minutes, at least, so assessing what she could do before they get there was key.

There were no stray high schoolers or teachers or staffers in the midst of the three white men with alien guns - good - but two of them were advancing on an NCPD car.

On Maggie.

Crouching behind the cop car, Maggie's head was calmly turned to the side, monitoring the advancing men. One of her hands was curled around her handgun, and the other was - Alex's heart trembled - splayed against the chest of a teenage boy, trembling with his back against the car, breathing shakily into Maggie's open palm, keeping him low and out of view of the advancing attackers.

Her hand was dark with the blood spreading over the boy's t-shirt.

Taking advantage of one of the men's distraction with Kara - and she utterly trusted her sister to save that bus, and all the kids in it - Alex sprinted in a crouch, using the shambles the attackers had made of the street to cover her own advance.

She launched herself behind the truck parked in front of Maggie's cop car.

"Sawyer," she whisper-shouted, and Maggie glanced at her, a crooked grin spreading over her face.

The men were getting closer now, shouting taunts. The women ignored them, but the boy trembled.

"Good timing, Danvers," she called softly. She turned to the boy and put both her hands, her gun shifted out to the side, on his shoulders. "You get yourself off this street, run straight down to that alley, understand me? We got this."

The boy nodded, eyes full of disbelieving trust.

Maggie looked back at Alex, whose eyes had clouded with tears - how strange it must be for him to actually be protected by a cop for once - and they needed no words for what they did next.

Moving as one, Maggie slipped out, toward the attackers, around the back side of her car, while Alex drew both of her guns and approached from the front side of the truck. Forcing the men to split their focus, away from the car, so the boy could run to safety.

At their coordinated approach, one of the men laughed; but both of them paused. "I think our guns are a little bigger than yours, girls," he called, and Maggie rolled her eyes as Alex tried not to grin. She saw what they couldn't - she and Maggie both did - what they were too arrogant to open their ears to. Kara had just set down the bus safely, knocking their comrade unconscious in the process. The DEO van was screeching onto their street, and Supergirl had her eyes fixed on the louder man's gun.

He expected a witty retort; he expected a comment; some banter, before he killed these women who dared face him with their merely human guns.

Alex knew he wanted it; so she didn't give it.

Instead, she glanced at Maggie, and, as one unit, the two of them opened fire on the same attacker's gun. Kara's eyes glowed as she sent a jet of red energy at the other attacker's weapon, and both whined as they powered down.

Defenseless now, Alex relished the panic in the men's eyes as Hank and the others swarmed out of the van, sweeping up all three men and their now defunct alien guns.

Kara landed next to Alex with a grim grin on her face, but she said nothing, just watched, as Alex trotted over to Maggie, whose attention was riveted on the boy she'd been protecting behind the cop car. His friends were swarming him, now, and he nodded at her in the midst of their attention. She nodded back solemnly, smiling faintly. Feeling rather than hearing Alex behind her, she began speaking while still staring after the boy in the distance.

"Saved a bunch of his classmates, that kid, when they tore up the sidewalk. Has a nice gash on his chest to prove it." She looked down vaguely at his blood on her hand, and Alex fought down the impulse to take it between her own. "He'll be okay," Maggie continued, still not looking at Alex.

Alex nodded in relief, in processing, knowing somehow that Maggie would sense the gesture. Silence grew between them as they both simply watched the high schoolers celebrate their safety. Alex glanced back at J'onn and Kara; they nodded at her as Hank slipped back into the van and Kara soared back into the air, grateful that they knew she wasn't ready to head back to the DEO just yet.

She wondered how much both of them had surmised from her desperation to get to Maggie, to keep her safe.

As though reading her thoughts, Maggie turned to her slowly, and Alex's knees grew weak at their eye contact.

Alex swallowed at the sudden intensity of Maggie's gaze; how could she have forgotten so soon how Maggie's eyes innervated every cell in her body with a single glance?

A long moment of silence lingered between them, both acclimating to each other's proximity, each other's eyes, each other's simple presence.

Maggie recovered first; outwardly, at least.

"You got here earlier than your team." Her voice was mild, but her gaze was incisive.

You and me?

Huh. I think I read you wrong. I didn't know you liked girls.

Alex pffted, pulling her head back and suddenly found herself looking anywhere but Maggie's face.

"I thought Supergirl might need a hand."

"Supergirl."

I just thought you were angling toward something.

"Well... and you."

You'd be surprised how many gay women I've heard that from.

Neither woman looked away and neither wanted to.

About what?

Alex swallowed and wrenched her eyes away, looking, again, around the scene.

"You were here alone."

Maggie shrugged. "Force is slower to respond when the school being attacked isn't mostly white."

Alex nodded slowly and bit the inside of her cheek, staring again at the embracing kids, now settling down together in the rubble, the rest of the school day clearly postponed.

She stole a glance at Maggie as the other woman turned her attention toward the - finally - approaching NCPD cars.

Sensing her gaze, Maggie turned back toward Alex. "I gotta go. Do the report filing thing."

Alex nodded a little too enthusiastically. "Right, yeah. Of course. Reports." Not knowing quite what to do with her hands, she alternately folded and unfolded them across her chest. She focused on not bouncing on the balls of her feet with nerves.

The skin behind Maggie's eyes tightened as she searched Alex's wide-eyed face. She grinned gently and took a step away. "See you around, Danvers. And uh- thanks for showing."

Throat confused and lips baffled, Alex just nodded.

"Maggie!" she blurted out a few long moments later at the detective's retreating back. Alex stepped back up to her, carefully arranging her arms so it didn't look quite so much like she was hugging herself.

Maggie turned and waited, and Alex couldn't tell if her mild expression was from hopefulness, wariness, or both.

Alex's eyes shifted around for a moment before landing back on Maggie's face.

"Listen, I... I didn't give... I was so busy trying to hand out with you that I didn't... I was trying to make you smile when I should have been offering you a space to... to mourn." Maggie blinked and Alex stumbled on. "I just want you to know that I really like... I really like hanging out with you, but I also just... I want to be a friend to you, Maggie, and I promise I am normally a better listener than I was last week."

This earned her a gentle laugh, and her heart swelled.

"I don't want you to be in any pain, but I'm... I'm here if you want someone to be in pain with. That's... that's all."

"Sawyer!" The shout came from across the street, and Alex had to fight to suppress her glaring, hard, at whichever colleagues of Maggie's needed her at the moment.

"Paperwork calls, Danvers," Maggie said softly, gravel in her voice.

Alex closed her eyes and exhaled slowly through an open mouth, all but full-out hugging herself now. Her eyes shut, she didn't see Maggie's stare, Maggie's growing smile.

"You gonna give me a chance to win back my money tonight, then?"

Alex's eyes flew wide open, and it was all she could do to avoid jumping up and down.

Keep it cool, Danvers.

"You bet," she offered, as casually as she could.

She grinned inexplicably through the entire afternoon's worth of briefings, completely oblivious to the looks Kara and J'onn kept exchanging across from her.

She was too focused on other problems.

Like whether she should let Maggie win her money back, and which outfit would most effectively say sure we both know I have a big crush on you that you realized before I did but also I really want to be a good friend to you right now but also look I'm hot.

She went with a leather jacket, black tank, and tight, tight jeans.

She went with a flutter in her heart that she'd never, ever felt before.

TBC