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The first time they talked about getting a place together, it wasn’t meant to be serious.
Maggie was lying on Alex’s stomach, both half asleep, and they were softly talking about whatever came to mind.
“If we ever got a place together, what would you want it to be like?” Alex asked, looking at the ceiling instead of at her girlfriend.
“Hmm, I think I’d like it to be an apartment, just a bigger one than the ones we live in now. Maybe with those exposed walls? Yeah, I always thought those were awesome. Oh, and big windows.” She answered without much hesitation.
“Sounds good.” Alex said and Maggie lifted her head up a little to look her girlfriend in the eye.
“What would you like? You know, if we got a place together.” She asked, slowly crawling higher on the bed, so she was face to face with Alex.
Alex laughed and put her forehead against Maggie’s. “I think I’d like there to be a big bed, you know, for when we want to sleep…” She said, to which Maggie grinned. “Yes, sleeping, very important.” She responded and gave Alex a teasing kiss.
“And if I’m being serious, I mean obviously I was serious, but I’d like to have a big library, I never had the space for that here and I’d really love to have one.” Alex added.
“Good, we’ll get that one day, Alex.” Maggie said, looking her in the eye. Alex just smiled into the kiss she planted on Maggie’s lips. That night they didn’t talk about it anymore, but Alex made sure to remember the big windows and the exposed walls. Maggie decided she needed to make sure Alex got her library. And for the bed… well, neither of them really thought they needed to remember, there was no way they’d forget about it.
The next time the topic came up was a few months later. And it really wasn’t intentional.
Maggie had been working late on a case and Alex had been home early for a change. So when she finally walked into the apartment (Alex’s, but it was theirs for all intents and purposes) Alex was already curled up on the couch, sleeping.
When Maggie walked up to her, she saw that her girl had been working on her laptop because the thing was discarded halfway closed at her feet. Maggie picked it up so it wouldn’t end up dropping to the floor if Alex decided to start rolling in her sleep.
When she moved it, the screen lit up and showed a real estate website.
It wasn’t in in Maggie’s nature to snoop, so she silently closed it, but her heart leapt for a second.
The past few weeks she’d been looking at places for them to move into together. She’d found a few good ones but she wasn’t sure if Alex was ready for that step yet, let alone if she herself was, so she hadn’t told her yet. But now maybe Alex was doing the same and maybe Alex was ready and maybe this would really happen and… too many maybes.
Maggie turned towards her girlfriend and softly brushed her hair off her face. That woke her up.
“Hey, babe” Alex said with a hoarse voice. “Everything go well at work?”
“Yeah, I think we’re almost done.” Maggie said, a little nervous. Alex picked up on it because of course she would. She looked confused for a second before looking around subtly. When her eyes spotted her laptop on the table, where she knew she hadn’t left it, a shadow of panic showed in her eyes. She hoped Maggie hadn’t seen it, but of course she had.
“I was just… I know we only talked about it once but I’ve been thinking about it a lot more and…” She started muttering when she decided there wasn’t really any point in trying to cover up what she was doing.
“Babe, babe, it’s okay.” Maggie interrupted, “Actually, it’s more than okay, I’ve been looking too.”
“You have?” Alex asked, suddenly surprised.
“Yeah of course I have, I just wasn’t sure if you wanted to think about it yet, so I didn’t say anything.” She said softly.
“Oh wow, me too, exactly same here, I’ve had that page bookmarked since the morning after we first brought it up,” Alex admitted feeling very relieved. She reached for her laptop and looked at Maggie, “Do you want to see?”
“Absolutely.” She grinned. She put her head on Alex’s shoulder while she showed her a few apartments she’d found interesting around the city.
The first few were all promising, but it’s only when she was pulling up the fifth one Alex said, “This next one is my favourite, but if you don’t like it, I’ll be just as happy anywhere else as long as I’m with you. So just tell me what you think honestly.”
She opened the page and suddenly Maggie was sporting a wide grin and walking across the apartment before Alex could say anything else.
“Babe, what are you doing?” She asked, but Maggie was holding up her finger to signal her to wait. She was already walking back with her own laptop in her hands. She sat down again and showed Alex the link on her screen that was labeled ‘Home?’. When she opened it, well, to Alex’s surprise, but to exactly no one else’s, they had picked out the same place.
After that night, the topic was coming up a lot more often.
About three weeks later they were signing the lease to the fourth story apartment with giant windows, exposed walls, an entire room that Alex would later fill with countless books and, partially because of Kara’s request, a large bedroom with a door.
The first evening in their new place was spent eating take-out on the floor in the middle of the living room with their friends and later the first night on the mattress in their bedroom, because they hadn’t gotten the bed itself yet.
It was their first time there that, even empty, made this place that was completely theirs already start to feel like home.