Work Text:
She knows drunk Alex.
They’ve known each other for long enough that she’s seen her once or twice. In the time they’ve been together, Maggie has certainly met her. (Two months, almost to the date. And isn’t that a thought, that they’ve been together for a while now, two months, meaning eight weeks, which is almost sixty one days. Almost two months of this.)
So she knows drunk Alex. She can think back to New Year’s and remember the happy, drunken voice note Alex had sent her. They’ve been tipsy at the bar together and gotten maybe a little more handsy than they intended. She knows Alex’s easy smile and her loose shoulders and her footsteps which lean just a bit to the right when she’s had too much too drink, which has only happened once.
She doesn’t know this Alex, has never faced her before.
She walks in and notices the slump in her back, as opposed to Alex’s usually perfect posture which gives her away as the child of doctors. She notices the way her leg is carelessly thrown over another chair, the way she sinks into herself and into her seat.
Maggie notices the bottle that was almost full this morning.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, and doesn’t receive an answer. She has only to stand in front of Alex to see her unfocused gaze, her slow movements. Her eyes, red and swollen. Oh. “How was your dad’s first day?”
Alex empties her glass.
“Not good, huh?”
She touches Alex’s foot, and Alex lowers her leg so Maggie can sit in front of her. And then Alex is reaching for the bottle.
“Whoah, whoah, whoah, okay, hold on.” She stops her, puts the bottle back on the breakfast island. “Hold on.”
Alex looks at the floor, at anywhere but her, and Maggie’s chest aches. She knows what it’s like to drink something strong and lose her cool. To drown herself and her feelings in a bottle. She’s guilty of it, ten times over. But that was before. Now, she has Alex, if she ever needs to wind down and talk about things and be held. And Alex has her. She has her.
She touches Alex’s cheek, noting how cold she is despite the hoodie she’s wearing.
“Hey, I’m here, okay?” Her thumb rubs soothing circles, but Alex doesn’t react. “You can tell me anything.”
Alex nods, but her eyes remain downcast.
“Hey, look at me.” She makes Alex meet her eyes with a gentle finger under her chin. “What happened with your dad?”
Alex meets her eyes. She takes a breath. And she crumbles.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Maggie kisses her forehead before putting her arms around her, letting her sink into her embrace. She holds Alex like she’s something precious, because she is, Maggie would never forgive herself if she let the woman in her arms ever be harmed.
She winces when a Alex lets out a sob, an automatic “Okay” escaping her lips.
“Shh, it’s okay,” she repeats, holding Alex harder as the waves don’t seem to abate but become stronger, Alex’s shoulders shaking while she cries. Maggie’s throat aches, but she pushes it down.
“You’re okay,” she repeats.
She doesn’t ask any more questions, doesn’t need to know until Alex lets her know. All she needs is to be here.
She's never seen Alex crying, not like this.
She's made Alex laugh so hard a pair of tears squeezed out of her eyes. She'd wiped a few tears away after they had sex for the first time, after emotions got the best of Alex because, yes, that's how it's supposed to feel, that's how good it can be, and she'd understood, had held her through it. She's never seen her cry like this, never witnessed the red eyes and the thick, wet sobs and the shaking, that's what kills her.
She rubs her hand up and down her back and kisses her head a few times, and feels Alex's fingers tightening in her shirt.
She stands there, holding her girlfriend, until her legs feel stiff. Until the tears stop.
Alex pulls away softly, mechanically, and wipes at the tears and snot on her face, looking miserably up at Maggie.
Maggie just wipes her girlfriend’s eyes.
“I’m sorr-”
“Don’t,” she interrupts right away. “Don’t apologize. I’m here for you,” she says, firm. “Always, okay?”
Alex nods, sniffs, and Maggie takes a breath. She runs her hand up and down Alex’s back.
“Want to lay down?” she asks, instead of asking again about what happened. That can wait. Alex nods.
She leads Alex to her bed, noting the uncertainty of her steps and wondering if it’s a better option to lead her to the bathroom so she can throw up however much alcohol she just ingested. Just how full was the bottle? She can’t quite remember.
When Alex sinks into the bed without prompting, however, and curls up in a ball, Maggie forgets about it. She doesn’t have the heart to make her get up, even if it’s to prevent something worse in the morning.
Maggie takes off her boots.
“Maggie?”
She’s kneeling on the bed already when Alex calls.
“Right here, Danvers,” she says, and meets Alex on the middle of the bed. She puts an arm around her waist, holds Alex when she curls up next to her, when her knees bump against hers, when her eyes squeeze closed and two tears roll down to the mattress.
Maggie just wipes them away and holds her.
And then she feels Alex’s hands on her waist, on her back, and then desperately untucking her shirt.
“Alex, you’ve been drinking,” she says softly, about to push her hands away, but once she feels Alex’s palms on the naked skin of her back, that’s all it is. Alex presses herself closer to her, if that’s even possible, and Maggie is tempted to take her shirt off, if feeling her skin is what will help Alex, she’s tempted to do anything and everything to take away that dark cloud that seems to have settled over Alex’s gaze.
She still doesn’t ask questions.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” she whispers, going back to rubbing Alex’s back. Up and down and up again. “I’m right here.”
She accepts the cold hands on her skin and the tears and intertwines herself even further with her girlfriend, with this beautiful woman, who has always been so strong and now looks so broken.
Maggie’s heart aches, and she still doesn’t know anything, doesn’t know of reasons, all she knows is what she needs to.
That she belongs here, that there’s nowhere she’d rather be than on this bed, listening to Alex’s heartbeat while she falls asleep.