Archive of Our Own

It’s the middle of the afternoon on some random Tuesday when the manuscript arrives, and when it does, it arrives via Kara, who drops it onto Alex’s keyboard to get her attention. It lands heavily, thudding against the keyboard, and Alex jumps.

“Ahh—Kara, what was that for?”

“It’s lunchtime!” Kara says. “And hello to you too. I’m sorry, I didn’t interrupt anything important, did I?”

“Not this time,” Alex says. Kara looks apologetic, so Alex shelves her annoyance and finds a smile. “Just, you know, next time let me finish the paragraph I’m on, okay?” She picks up the package and tosses it back to Kara.

Kara catches it easily and puts it right back down next to Alex’s computer. “That’s yours,” she says. “And humans take lunch breaks, Alex, it’s my job to interrupt you.”

“Mine, huh?” Alex says, and pulls the package towards her. It’s a plain-colored padded envelope, no return address, and when she tears it open there’s an equally plain-colored manuscript box inside.

“What is it?” Kara asks curiously.

“No idea. I mean, it must be a vestige from the Jurassic period or something.” It’s unusual to get a manuscript like this these days—they never arrive by mail. She remembers when she was a kid seeing piles of colored boxes, each one a different agency’s Pantone shade, stacked in her dad’s office like an analog-age city of words.

“Yeah, seriously,” says Kara, who used to pretend to save her toys from the manuscript-box skyscrapers. She watches over Alex’s shoulder as she turns the box over. “Jenny at the front desk said it came by courier from Turpin and Sawyer Literary. She was about to call you to come get it, so I said I’d just bring it back.” She leans back against the desk, then hops up onto it, sits swinging her feet. “I saw this new burger place down the street.”

“Thanks,” Alex says absently, flipping the box over. It’s pretty hefty—two, three inches. There must be two hundred thousand words in this thing. “No idea who Turpin and whatever are. I didn’t request anything in hard copy.” She runs her finger along the edge. “I wonder...”

“Look later, Captain Works-A-Lot,” Kara says, and hops off the desk again. “Lunchtime is for eating, and I want to go get burgers.”

“Lunchtime is for editing, when you’re not here,” Alex says, “and when I’m not running around the city making nice with agents or trying to convince authors our publicity department is better than Penguin’s. Lunchtime is for breaks and my break is actually getting to my work, Kara,” but Kara doesn’t seem to have a lunch break so much as a lunch vacation and she’s already tugging Alex out the door.

**

Alex comes back to her desk full of hamburger and the half of her French fries that Kara didn’t eat. The manuscript box is still lying on her desk, sprawled next to her keyboard on top of a couple of galleys. She picks it up and turns it over in her hands again, then resolutely pulls it open. For some reason the gesture feels dramatic.

There’s no cover letter, per se, just a piece of letterhead with a note, handwritten:

You don’t get the author’s name until you’re done reading. Trust me.

Dramatic, yes. Alex sees that now. And more than a little ridiculous. She doesn’t even know if she’s dealing with Turpin or Sawyer. She drops the manuscript back onto the desk with a thump and swings around to her computer, runs a couple of searches. Okay, so they’ve both represented some pretty great stuff. A lot of genre, but better than the stuff that DEO Publishing usually does—really, a lot of the stuff Alex has loved reading the most the last five years or so, thriller novels with a sci-fi edge, clean prose, inventive, worlds so cleanly built you could cut yourself on them. The stuff she’d love to work on.

It’s tempting.

It’s also completely absurd to send something by courier with no cover letter. Completely. She’s got deadlines up to her neck, and she doesn’t have time to waste on something anonymous and mysterious and apparently melodramatic. She turns back to her computer and reopens her word document, but the box keeps sitting there. She only gets through two pages of the mediocre novel she’d been editing before decisively, guiltily closing the tab and hauling the manuscript back onto her lap.

**

So yeah, it’s good. It’s very good. It’s ridiculously long and ridiculously self-confident and it’s—damn, it’s good. Alex stays at work late reading, until the floors are vacuumed and the lights in every other office have gone out, and then she reads it on the subway as it rattles its way out to Brooklyn, and as she walks home from her stop in a faint misting rain. She grabs some cold pizza from the fridge and folds herself into her armchair and finishes reading at 2 a.m., an exhaustion headache starting to push up behind her eyes.

There’s a note written on the last page.

See?

Author’s name, as promised, but only over lunch. Let’s make a deal.

—Sawyer

**

TO: [email protected]

Okay, I’ll bite. Lunch tomorrow? Noonan’s to split the distance?

Alex Danvers

FROM: Sawyer <[email protected]>

Danvers! That was fast. Can’t do lunch today, sorry. Drinks? I’ll buy. Dollywood on 14th at seven.

TO: Sawyer <[email protected]>

That’s a fast turnaround—all booked up with other editor meetings already? How many houses do you have this out with?

But yes, drinks, all right. And yes, fast. I finished the damn thing in one day.

FROM: Sawyer <[email protected]>

Booked up with won’t tell you or I’ll lose my edge. Loved Nightwire by the way. Quality stuff. See you tomorrow.

“Sawyer?” Lucy raises her eyebrows. They’re in her office, just down the hall from Alex’s. It’s nicer, but then she’s the editorial director—the only office nicer than hers is J’onn’s. And they’re a small enough company that the sliding scale of “nice” tops out pretty low. Kara’s said that Cat’s office at the Times is all glass panes and screens. Alex is fond of her shoebox, but it’s a tighter fit for two than Lucy’s. “Sure, I’ve heard of her. Maggie Sawyer. She represents lots of people on their way to something big. Why?”

“She sent me something,” Alex says. “A manuscript. Hard copy, actually.”

“That’s different. And you stayed up all night reading it, I take it, by the circles under your eyes?”

“I did,” Alex confesses, dropping into Lucy’s free chair. “Couldn’t put it down. It’s—I really want to buy it, Lucy. It’s amazing, it’s incredible writing and pacing and the suspense is amazing, and it’s, it’s incredible, incredible sci-fi. It’s, god, if I could get one book this year that doesn’t read like a novelization, if I could get one this decade—”

“Woah woah woah,” Lucy says, “slow down. Don’t take this the wrong way, Alex, but I don’t want to see you get too invested. You know how this business is.”

“I know,” Alex says, already deflating. It makes her head ache, but Lucy is right. “I know.”

“Do you know how many other editors she sent it to?”

“Not so much. It’d be a stretch to say I know anything about it at all. There was no letter, nothing.”

“On purpose?”

“I think so.” Alex shrugs. “All I’ve got is the email address.”

“Do you know—” Lucy starts, but Alex fixes her with a look, and she raises her hands placatingly. “Nothing, you don’t know anything, I’ve got it. But, okay, who’s it by?”

Alex stands. “Look, this is ridiculous. I’m not going to get it anyway. Okay? It’s going to Ballantine or something. I won’t buy the project, I won’t do anything.” This was a long shot to begin with, totally impractical. She doesn’t know anything about this agent. So it’s the best thing she’s come across. There will be other best things. It’s fine. “I’ll let it go.”

“I didn’t say that, Alex,” Lucy says.

“Didn’t you?”

“I didn’t. You love the project, okay? Talk to her.”

Alex pauses, then nods. “Thanks.”

**

She walks into Dollywood annoyed and ten minutes late. Late, because the subway was delayed; annoyed, because it’s easier than hopeful. She’s still not sure what kind of theatrics to expect from an agent who’d rather be dramatic than give Alex the information she needs to do her damn job. She shouldn’t have to jump through ridiculous hoops to get basic information about a book, but that’s what she’s expecting from this Maggie Sawyer. So she’s caught off-guard when the woman who waves her down is casual and smiling.

“Danvers!” Maggie Sawyer is a little shorter than Alex, with a warm smile and warmer eyes. There’s something steady about her presence; when Alex nods back in greeting, it’s with much more of a smile than she’d meant to give.

“Sawyer, right?” she says, sticking out her hand. Maggie has a solid shake, and when Alex takes her hand back she curls her fingers reflexively around the warm spot where Maggie’s hand had been. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

“It’s a little divey, I know, but what better place for a secret book deal, right?” Maggie says, her eyes laughing. “Let’s grab a drink, then, come on.”

“Okay, it’s a great secret agent act you’ve got going on here,” Alex says as she follows Maggie over to the bar. “But I can’t actually talk about buying this book from you until I know who wrote it and why you aren’t telling me.”

“Drink?” Maggie nods at the bartender, who slides her a bottle of Heineken.

“Sure, thanks. Yuengling,” Alex says to the bartender, who puts the bottle down in front of her with more force than necessary and gives them both a dirty look.

“It’s business, Darla,” Maggie says. Darla throws her a withering glance and moves to the other side of the bar.

So Maggie Sawyer is apparently someone who pisses off bartenders, which, yes, Alex is surprised, she’s not your profile brawler. But Alex herself has been both ends of bar fights, back before, so she guesses she isn’t one to judge. She tilts her head at Maggie, who raises her eyebrows and takes a sip of her beer. “So what’s the story?”

“Her? She’s my ex.” Maggie gives a half-shrug. “You know how it is. Didn’t know she’d be on tonight, unfortunately.”

It takes Alex a second to process, another second to realize she needs to respond. “Oh! Your—that’s—oh.” She can feel the surprise show on her face and tries to rearrange it, fast. It’s just a second, but she sees Maggie see her react and she feels guilty suddenly, gets flustered. “That’s cool, that’s, hey, yes. So you come here a lot?”

Maggie raises her eyebrows. “You’re surprised.”

“I assumed you’d gotten in a fistfight with her,” Alex admits uncomfortably. Maggie’s face smooths out into a laugh, and Alex breathes easy.

“No fights here,” Maggie says, spreading her hands. “But I’d be damn good in one.”

“Speaking of,” Alex says. “The author. So why the secret?”

“Like you’ve never edited an author who you’re glad to see go after a single book,” Maggie says. “Plenty of assholes out there.”

“A few,” Alex says, settling the beer back onto the counter. “So he’s a nightmare, our author.”

“He?”

“Are you telling me it’s not a he?”

“Well, no,” Maggie admits, a smile playing around her lips. Alex finds herself smirking reflexively.

“Of course it’s a he. Pretentious bastard.”

“Bit, yeah. Genius pretentious bastard, though.”

“Oh, totally,” Alex says. “Yes, I mean, totally. Totally.”

“Totally,” Maggie agrees, smiling again.

“Totally,” says Alex, who works with words for a living but all of a sudden cannot seem to stop saying nothing.

“So let’s make a deal,” Maggie says. “Hundred thousand to pre-empt. It’s yours.”

“A hundred—!” Alex blanches. DEO doesn’t have that kind of money to spend on first novels from random authors; it’s barely what they pay for fourth or fifth novels by returners who sell well. She can’t agree to buy this. She’ll lose her job. “I don’t know anything about this guy. And when I said genius, you know, well, it needs to lose like a hundred pages. The thing he’s doing with the ship logs, that doesn’t work at all after the first half, I think it’d do better without them entirely—actually, that’s probably like forty pages right there, and most of the rest comes from the last third. And the protagonist is a little too Batman, it could use work. It’s not, I’m not saying it’s perfect.”

Maggie tilts her beer at her. “You’re the editor.”

“I edit mass-market thrillers,” Alex says, because this is the only way not to give in immediately. She’s screaming for a book like this. “This is some Asimov level sci-fi. You don’t want me.”

Maggie shrugs. “I’ve read what you edit. Nightwire was out of this world. You should be editing Asimov-level books. You should be editing this.”

“This isn’t how you sell someone a goddamn book,” Alex protests, but it’s half-hearted. She should be editing this. It’s exactly what she’s been waiting for.

Maggie shrugs again. “It’s how I sell you a goddamn book, apparently. I’ll let you pre-empt the auction for a hundred thousand.”

“I can’t,” Alex says, feeling helpless and hating it, her fists clenched tight. Her voice starts to go angry. “Jesus.”

“I know, but it’d go for more. There are plans in the works for one of his other books, it’s going to—ugh, I can’t talk about that yet. I’m sorry. But I can promise it’ll pay out.” She looks apologetic but earnest. “This is going to be huge. And I want you to edit it, Danvers, because you’re damn good at what you do.”

“You still haven’t told me who he is,” Alex says, because she is only human, and she can feel her resolve wearing thin.

“Max Lord,” Maggie says, and takes a very long sip of her beer.

“Oh, fuck me,” Alex says.

Maxwell Lord is a legend, for those who pay attention to that kind of thing, though most people probably know his book’s title better than his name. At age sixteen, he published one of the most devastatingly brilliant sci-fi mega-tomes the world had ever seen. He also made so clear just how devastatingly brilliant he felt himself to be that he managed to piss off the entire publicity team at two different Random House imprints, set what might’ve been a new record by changing agents twice before the book pubbed, and made no shortage of enemies. Since the doors shut on the novel years and years ago, no one has heard from him—but everyone knows a guy who knows a guy who has a story with plenty of yelling in it. Legendary book, legendary asshole.

Alex’s copy of the novel is dog-eared, underlined, and worn.

“He likes to run everything through his agent,” Maggie says quickly, seeing the look on Alex’s face and possibly mistaking it for something straightforward like anger. “He doesn’t talk directly with his editors much. I’d be on all the calls.”

“Like that ever really works,” Alex says bitterly, but the idea of having Maggie act as a buffer does help. The battle in her head surges. She’d get to meet with the guy who wrote the book she read weekly in high school, get to work with the guy who wrote the book she read weekly in high school. She doesn’t even have to worry that it’ll be the nightmare it’s rumored to be if Maggie is moderating. “I guess that’s why all his agents quit, then.”

“I think he fired the first two,” Maggie says, very level, “but that’s my problem. The point is, you won’t have to talk to him.” She looks serious. “I want to work with you on this, Danvers.”

Alex leans forward onto her elbows, puts her head in her hands. She’d be an idiot to take this, at a hundred thousand dollars. She’d be pinning her career on a chance. A chance where the words keep her up at night and where there’s an agent standing here telling her she’s the first choice, the only choice. It might be the biggest compliment she’s ever received, if it doesn’t backfire. She’d be an idiot to pass this up. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Maggie says. Alex looks back up at her. Her eyes are dancing again, and Alex swallows.

“I have to talk to J’onn,” Alex says. “DEO publisher.”

“Of course.”

“I’m doing this because I can’t not do it,” Alex says, “not because your secret spy routine worked.” She smiles a little.

“Of course,” Maggie says, glowing, and she orders Alex another beer.

**

Alex gets to Kara’s place late. Her sister has an airy studio in Crown Heights; Alex doesn’t know how she affords it on a newspaper assistant’s salary, but she strongly suspects their mom is helping. It’s nothing like the shoebox Alex started out with, which she remembers with little fondness and a sting of shame. The first months in New York were rough; she’d come with no plans and a series of increasingly desperate job applications. The bartending paid the rent on the shoebox until it didn’t. The drinks at the bar were free, and they took the edge off the… the everything. She doesn’t know where she’d be if she hadn’t met J’onn at an event she’d been working. She doesn’t want to know.

Anyway. She has a one-bedroom now, which gives her a faint surge of pride. She’s doing this thing. It’s been six years and she can afford a one-bedroom if she stretches and it means she’s finally doing something right.

Kara’s studio is bright and pretty and decorated with mason jars and paintings. It has a cozy couch that used to be James’s and a half-table against the wall that used to be Winn’s and a TV that’s seen nights and nights of sister time, of romcoms and spy movies and Law & Order.

Alex has her apartment, and she has Kara a subway stop away, and she spends a lot of time at the office anyway. So if her apartment’s always empty at the end of the day, that’s just how things are. She’s making it, and that’s something she can be satisfied with.

Kara whisks the pizza out of Alex’s hands as the door is still swinging shut behind her. “How were drinks with the mysterious Sawyer?” she calls over her shoulder.

Alex heads her off at the table and snags the first slice out of the box, shimmying her shoulders triumphantly at Kara, who sticks her tongue out and then leans forward as if to try to bite the piece. Alex laughs and slides out of the way. “Get your own, goofball,” she says, and settles onto the couch as Kara selects the cheesiest slice.

“So. Drinks?” Kara asks, once she’s on the couch with her feet tucked up under her.

Alex bites into her piece of pizza, chews thoughtfully for a minute. “Drinks were good. She was surprisingly cool, actually.”

“Hey, yeah? That’s great, two days ago she was ‘Secret Spy Agent Mysterio’ and you seemed sort of annoyed about the whole thing, actually.”

“Yeah, well, pfft,” Alex says, half-dismissive, half-embarrassed. “She’s just good at her job.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Kara says. She adjusts her glasses. “You’ve been saying you could use someone reliable to send more projects your way. So how’s the book?”

“The book—is amazing, still. More and less.”

“More and less?”

Alex leans back into the couch. “Remember that book I made you read in middle school?”

Kara laughs. “Now that’s a broad category if there ever was one.”

“The Second Moon,” Alex says. “The Lord one.”

“Of course I do, it was amazing,” Kara says. “Your best recommendation so far. That came out decades ago, though, what does that have to do with—” Her eyes widen slightly.

“Yeah,” Alex says. “Yes, it’s him.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s great!” Kara cries. “Oh, wow. Alex!”

Alex lets herself glow a little, lets the happiness smooth over the nerves fully for the first time since she agreed to the manuscript. “It could be great. I think it really could be.”

“Will you like working with him, though?” Kara says, drawing herself up short, her expression turning protective. “Oh gosh, remember when you met his editor at that reading? You came home all, don’t ever meet your idols, don’t meet your idols’ editors even.”

“I know, I know. But he can’t be that bad, right?” Kara looks skeptical, and Alex shrugs. “The thing is, though, honestly, it doesn’t matter.” She catches Kara’s arm. “This could be it, Kara.” The book that catches attention. The one that gets the authors and agents she wants to notice her. The one that really gets her on the way.

Kara smiles, catching the excitement again. “I hope so.”

**

TO: [email protected]

Sawyer—

Hey. Just wanted to double-check I’m set to take this to J’onn. The $100k preempt will definitely have us covered, right? I also should have the details about how you’d like to go about hammering out a contract if this all works out. I’m getting ahead of myself, but—a Maxwell Lord book! God, fifteen-year-old Alex would have a heart attack. Anyway, I’m excited about the prospect, and it was fun meeting you the other day.

Alex Danvers

FROM: Maggie Sawyer <[email protected]>

Danvers—shoot me a text or call at (212) 555-7733 (c) or (212) 512-7321 (w), easier to talk about contract details over the phone. Yes we’re set, though, so fifteen-year-old you can return to the present day in peace, hopefully soon to be signed in triplicate. Looking forward to working with you. Know you’re the right editor for this and I like to be proven right.

Glad you enjoyed the bar too. If you get the OK from J’onn I like to pass off edits face to face when I’m representing so heavily. Should meet with Max, too, though, and he has opinions about bars, so we’ll have to take at least one for the team and go somewhere shinier.

**

Alex takes a breath, nods once to herself, and strides into J’onn’s office. “J’onn.”

“Alex,” he says, looking up from his desk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Jacket art for the Kincaid.” She hands it over. “I fixed the copy, I think we should use a different blurb on the front. I told Vasquez I’d have it back to her by the afternoon.”

“I’ll look it over,” he says, sliding the paper onto a pile. “And?”

Alex shifts her weight back, puts her hands on her hips. “I’m buying a book.”

“Alex!” J’onn says. “That’s great news. Who sent it to you? We should discuss our price range before you make the offer."

“Her name’s Maggie Sawyer. It’s more literary than what we usually do.” Alex lets the nerves coil, steely, in her stomach, and only bounces on her toes a little.

“Well, that’s all right,” J’onn says. “1984, Handmaid’s Tale. I’m not opposed. And you’ve always had a good eye for language anyway.”

She can’t help but smile, and he looks proudly back at her. Then she remembers the hundred thousand dollars and her expression shifts.

“Alex,” J’onn says. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s a hundred thousand to pre-empt,” Alex says, fast. “But—and—but the author is Max Lord.” She holds herself still.

“Huh.” J’onn closes his eyes for a moment.

“Is that a good huh, or a bad huh?”

“Sometimes a huh is just a huh.” J’onn picks up the stack of paper he’s reading and taps the edges into alignment. “You’re not reckless, Alex. You go after what you want when you believe in it.”

“Maggie says there’s something big coming up with one of the old books. And I’d work with him mostly through her,” Alex says, feeling hope start to rise in her chest, “and she seems like she knows what she’s doing. And the book, J’onn. It’s amazing.”

“Huh.”

Alex looks at him.

“Good huh,” he clarifies. “It sounds like you’re expecting me to talk you out of this, Alex.”

“You’re not going to.”

“I’m not going to,” he agrees.

“But it’s expensive,” Alex protests.

“Yes, it’s expensive,” he agrees. “But you’ve worked hard for this, Alex. You chose your moment.”

Relief and gratitude wash through her. “Thank you, J’onn.”

He stands up from his desk and puts his hand on her shoulder. “I believe in the projects you believe in, Alex. And you believe in this one.”

She does. It’s big, and she does. And Maggie and J’onn seem to believe in her. So when J’onn sends her over to contracts to get something drawn up, she heads down the hall with more excitement than nerves in her step by half.

**

The bar where they’re meeting with Max is nothing like Dollywood. It’s hardly even a bar—something closer to a restaurant, really, with waiters in black instead of bartenders in street clothes and wines instead of liquor bottles arranged prominently along the wall. The lights have already dimmed when Alex arrives; she’s suddenly glad she looked up the place ahead of time, dressed nicer than usual for work. It’s not a large space, and most of the tables have people looking more polished than the usual publishing crowd. Magazine industry or banking, probably. Or people on dates.

“Danvers!” Maggie catches Alex’s arm. She’s almost walked past their table.

“Oh! Sawyer. Hey.” Maggie’s dressed up a little too, in a satiny white button-down blouse over black pants. It’s a nice look for her, Alex can’t help but notice. Fancier than when she had met Alex at Dollywood, more polished. She looks put together, or in command, or—it’s a good look. She’s got a few papers on the table in front of her and she’s sitting—oh, god, he’s here already, she’s sitting across the table from Maxwell Lord. Alex smooths her pants with her hands, stands up straighter.

“Alex Danvers, this is Maxwell Lord,” Maggie says. “Max, your editor, Alex Danvers.”

“Charmed,” Max says smoothly, sliding out of his chair to stand and shake Alex’s hand. “Please, sit.” He gestures to her chair.

“She doesn’t need you to show her how to sit down, Max,” Maggie says, her tone good-natured and even-keeled. If there’s a barb hidden somewhere in there, which Alex is almost certain there is, it’s folded invisibly into Maggie’s calm.

“Our charming Ms. Sawyer, of course, is already seated,” Max says to Alex. She glances at Maggie, who gives her a wry, restrained half-smile. When she looks back to Max, his eyes are still on her, and he gives another gesture towards her chair with his still-outstretched arm. The fan in her is charmed, but the publishing veteran is rolling her eyes. She sits, and he follows suit.

“Wine?” Maggie says, sliding Alex a menu.

“I’ve ordered a red for the table, there’s no need,” Max says. He nods to the corner of the room and a waiter approaches the table with glasses and a bottle, already uncorked. “I hope it’s to your satisfaction.”

Maggie, Alex notices, is looking right ahead somewhere past Max’s ear.

Alex lifts her glass. “I’m sure it’s excellent.”

“To book deals,” Maggie says, lifting her glass as well. Max nods his assent, and they all clink and sip.

Alex puts her glass back on the table. It’s business time, and whether his pretension is charming or irritating doesn’t matter. Now is the time for tactical honesty. “So, Mr. Lord. I have to say, I’m so pleased to finally meet you.” She says it smoothly, formally. Max’s expression is impossible to read; beneath his calm he seems faintly, condescendingly amused.

“Max is fine, Alex. Now,” he says, “I hear you like my book.”

“Very much. And I know my editorial track record doesn’t suggest it, but I read quite a bit of this type of genre—our type of genre—and I have a number of ideas. Ideas shaped, I should note, by your first book. I’m sure you hear this a lot, but it was certainly formative.” Alex lifts her chin. She can see Maggie looking at her out of the corner of her eye, her expression amused and impressed. Alex swells with pride. She’s good at her job, not just the editing but all of her job, and it’s fun to show off a little. “Which isn’t to say that I think it was perfect, just that I know and admire your writing and that I know and admire it well enough to know what needs to change and what needs to go.”

“I see,” Max says, smiling faintly.

“We have a contract drawn up,” Alex says, “which Maggie has negotiated with our contracts department, but before we all sign I’d love to hear you describe the book to me—your elevator pitch, your take on the main themes, the things you hope will really stick. It’ll help inform my first edit, and this is a two-way process. I can make suggestions, and I can push for those suggestions, but it’s your vision for the book that ultimately decides what it will be.”

“I believe you were informed, Ms. Danvers,” Max says. His voice is pleasant, conversational. “I work through my agent.”

“Well, yes, but…” Alex pauses.

“I pay her to protect my interests with respect to my writing. That includes, although is certainly far from limited to, advocating for my interests with respect to the writing itself. I’ll make the changes the two of you negotiate. I see no reason to spend time on the negotiation myself.” Max takes a sip of his wine. His tone is still relaxed, but his expression has become unyielding.

“The negotiation?” Alex says, appalled.

“The discussion,” Maggie interjects, low.

“The editing process is hardly a negotiation, Max,” Alex snaps. “Or it shouldn’t be. It’s collaborative, not combative, and it hinges on you deciding you’re amenable to hearing what I have to say.”

“And anything that Ms. Sawyer passes along I will accept with minimal question.” Max leans back in his chair and raises his glass to Alex. “If I don’t like the job she does defending my work, I find someone else instead, and that new agent will interface with you. And so it goes, and so it goes, and soon enough… soon enough we have a book.”

Alex looks at Maggie, affronted. Maggie shrugs. “It’s the deal, Danvers. I’m on board. Saves you some stress, saves him whatever it is he thinks this is saving him.”

“Human contact, I gather,” Alex says coolly.

“Don’t be mistaken,” Max says. “There are many people whose company I don’t find particularly worthwhile. You, Alex, have already proven you’re not among that number.”

Alex looks away.

“I’ve read novels you’ve edited,” Max continues. “Smart, discerning. There aren’t many people I trust with my work. Very few. Neither you nor Maggie falls into that category. But in combination, I believe that you do.”

“He thinks that passes for a compliment,” Maggie says.

Max shrugs and sips his wine. “It’s meant to be, yes. If you’d like me to be more plain, I’m impressed with what I’ve heard about your work. And you impress me now. You’re clearly competent, driven, and what’s more, passionate. I’m convinced that you’ll work to make this book the best it can be, because you could never do anything less.”

Alex straightens her jacket. The whole thing makes her uncomfortable—the half-compliment, its framing, the hint of interest in Max’s eye. But this is still business, and she repositions herself mentally, angling herself away from the discomfort and towards her stony cool. “All right. Fine. I don’t pretend to understand why you prefer to get edits secondhand on your own book, but fine.”

“Wonderful.” Max pulls the contracts that have been sitting in front of Maggie towards him and signs each in an efficient, hard-edged scrawl on the last page. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere else to be. Ms. Sawyer, I’ll be in touch later in the week. Alex,” he pauses, “A pleasure.”

And then he leaves.

“Well,” Maggie says as the door shuts behind him. “That was Maxwell Lord.”

“He’s a real charmer.”

“But you’re not charmed,” Maggie says. The look she gives Alex is unreadable.

“Not particularly. Jesus, I can’t believe he doesn’t even want to talk about the book before he turns it off to you. I can’t believe he threatened to fire you in front of me.”

“Eh, he’s just peacocking. I’m not worried. You shouldn’t worry either,” Maggie says. She does seem unfazed. “He knows I do good work. Knows you do, too. You’ve been a fan for ages, Danvers, I thought you’d be, I dunno, bubblier at the compliments.”

Alex wrinkles her nose. “No. Absolutely not.”

Maggie cocks her head, prompting.

“What I am,” Alex says, “is insulted that he thinks that’s enough to get him off the hook. I’m supposed to be his editor. My admiration for the guy has always been literary, god.” The irritation is bleeding fast into determination, the anger into drive. “What he’s right about is that I am good at my job, and we are going to polish the rough corners off this goddamn book until it gleams. He’ll never know what hit him.”

“Damn, Danvers,” Maggie says, sounding pleased. “I mean—first off, you’re right. I knew I wanted you for this book, but I can’t wait to see you bat a round against Max. He has it coming.”

Alex tosses back the last sip of her wine and brings the glass back to the table with a clatter. “Too right he does.” Maggie smiles, and Alex feels buoyed. There’s something about Maggie’s faith in her that makes her feel electric. She’s ready to go; she’s got ideas burning their way into her consciousness already, things to jot down. She’s going to work fast and precise and Maxwell Lord won’t be able to find a thing to complain about, won’t have a bone to pick with Maggie’s negotiation if what she offers is sharp and gleaming.

“So. How do you want to do this thing?”

“Right.” Maggie taps the table. “I thought we could meet at Dollywood. Once a week, or however fast you want to work. Makes it easier for us to hash out the changes, and easier for me to make sure what I take back to Max is spot-on what we want it to be. No miscommunications and nothing getting lost.”

“Yeah, great,” Alex says. “Yes. I’m going to start on it tonight. I’ll, here, text me when you want to meet.” She pulls out her phone and opens a text. “I have your number, um, from the email, but you don’t have mine, so here.” She sends her name to Maggie, whose phone pings. 

Maggie smiles and holds it up. “All set. Any days that work best for you?”

“I’m flexible,” Alex says. “Don’t have many plans.” After it comes out of her mouth, she worries it sounds lonely instead of casual. She’d meant it to sound like she’s serious about her work. She doesn’t mind not having many plans; she doesn’t want Maggie to think she’s fishing for pity, or something.

“Work late?”

“Or else I’m at my sister’s.”

“Didn’t know you had siblings,” Maggie says. She seems interested, and Alex feels a warm current of happiness flow through her. She doesn’t make many friends. She’d like Maggie to be one, she thinks.

“Just the one. Kara. Adopted—we look nothing alike—but she’s been my sister from the minute she came to live with us when I was fourteen.”

“Welcoming fourteen-year-old,” Maggie comments.

“Well,” Alex says.  “My mom made clear I had to look out for her.” Maggie looks at her, curious, and she feels compelled to continue. “She didn’t speak the language, had just lost her family… she needed someone there. I guess when I say we were sisters from the first day, that means all the parts of being sisters.”

“I never had any,” Maggie says. “Only child.”

“I mean, she was annoying,” Alex says, “and embarrassing.” She burns for a second remembering all the times she was—less than the sister she should have been, or could have been. But Maggie laughs, and everything else ebbs. Alex is grateful when she continues, “But she was my sister, and she needed me.”

“She’s lucky to have you.”

“Well, now we mostly eat potstickers late at night and she drags me around the city on the weekends,” Alex says. “Kara’s an assistant at the Times. Sometimes I think she’s got her life together better than I do. She doesn’t need me anymore, at least.”

“I don’t know if people ever stop needing each other, Danvers,” Maggie says. “Families. She’s lucky to have you.”

Alex is a little embarrassed, maybe the tiniest bit relieved. Her cheeks are warm. “Yeah, well.”

“An assistant at the Times, huh? I know a few people there. She’s a Danvers too?”

“She’s Cat Grant’s assistant,” Alex says, “and you should hear her describe her job some time, it’s like Devil Wears Prada. Completely unbelievable.”

“I’d like to,” Maggie says. “Devil Wears Prada. Jeez. I wonder if it’s anything like working for Maxwell Lord.”

“She’d object to the comparison.” Alex rolls her eyes. “She thinks Cat hangs the stars. Probably with custom thumbtacks that she sends Kara to New Jersey to find.”

“Look, I’ll say this for Max,” Maggie says. She pauses. “He’s a dick.” Alex laughs. “He is. But when I told him I was a lesbian, he stopped with the, I dunno, lured compliments and the looks like he’s sizing you up. Nothing weird, he just... stopped.” She shrugs. “Max is full of himself and he doesn’t trust people as far as he can throw them. I don’t know that I trust him as far as I can throw him, either. But I don’t have to. It’s a book deal. And at least I know he respects me.”

Alex’s insides go frozen on the word “lesbian.” It’s not like—she knows, Maggie had said before. The reminder is just. It makes her feel all squirmy, makes anxiety pulse in her throat. She doesn’t know why, she’s never—she knows gay people and she doesn’t care, it’s—people should do what they want, be who they are. Maggie probably has a girlfriend who, she probably is very happy and, you know, that’s good. Good. Alex realizes she’s a second too close to a lengthy pause and trips over herself to find a next sentence. “Well, that’s good. Since you’re the one, you know, actually working with him.”

“I am,” Maggie agrees. “Speaking of which—I’ll text you if anything changes, but let’s do Tuesday. Dollywood after work, we can take edits from wherever you’re up to. Talk through the broad strokes of the thing like you tried to get Max to do today.”

“Sounds good,” Alex says. “Text me when you’re close to leaving work and I’ll head out too.”

“Great,” Maggie says. “And on that note, I unfortunately have to run.  I think Max paid, so we’re good to go. Which train are you headed to?”

“Ah—the Q, ideally.”

“Oh, I’m for the F,” Maggie says. “Opposite directions, then.” Alex can’t help but feel a little disappointed that they’re done already, that they have to part ways. But at the same time, some corner of her heart shines, goes golden and glowy, at the thought that Maggie asked which direction she was walking in. She wants to spend time with Alex too, then. She could’ve just left, and—she asked.

“Well—see you Tuesday, Danvers.”

“See you Tuesday,” Alex says, and smiles.

**

Alex throws herself into the work. It’s a long novel and they’re only days from Tuesday. She reschedules an agent meeting she’d set up for Thursday and skips a marketing meeting Friday morning. She knows she’s already missed the first half the jacket art meeting Friday afternoon, but she’s decided to “forget” to go; she's fully into editorial headspace, clear-headed focus conducting her eyes across the page, fingers across the keyboard. When her phone rings the first time, she genuinely jumps. “No,” she instructs the phone, and goes back to the manuscript. It rings a second time a minute later, almost in answer, and Alex leans a little closer to her computer screen, ignoring it. The third time, she has almost given up and is reaching for the phone on its last ring when someone knocks on her door.

“Alex,” J’onn says from the doorway, “we do need you at this meeting, you know.”

“Do I have to?” Alex groans, leaning in close to her screen again to highlight a passage. “It’s none of my books this week. And I’m working. You pay me to work.”

“It’s three of your books this week, Alex. Out of five on the agenda.” J’onn sits down in Alex’s extra chair, angles it to face her desk. “Which you’d know if you had read the email.”

“I was going to get to emails this afternoon,” Alex protests, but she gives her chair a spin to face J’onn. “I’m sorry. If it’s important I’ll come now.”

“Honestly? No more than usual,” J’onn says, showing a hint of a smile. Alex laughs. Art meetings are a nightmare. “But it's also not like you to miss it.”

“It’s the Lord manuscript,” Alex says. She tucks her hair loosely behind her ear. “You know how new projects are. I got caught up.”

“Ah,” J’onn says. “Is there a time pressure of some kind?”

“Yes, sort of. I'm meeting with Maggie on Tuesday,” Alex starts, but then Lucy appears in the doorway and she pauses.

“Sorry, am I interrupting?” Lucy asks.

Alex wrinkles her nose. “Aren't you supposed to be in the jacket meeting?”

“Aren't you?” Lucy shoots back, crossing her arms. “J’onn went to look for you and never came back.”

“I was working on the Lord manuscript and lost track of time,” Alex says, semi-truthfully.

“Oh come on, you couldn’t have lost track of time, I called you three times from the conference room.” Lucy’s expression is serious, but then she shows her hand by smirking. “It's a very important meeting.”

Alex hides a laugh behind a cough.

“Very important,” J’onn echoes, raising an eyebrow.

“Sorry, J’onn,” Lucy says, not sounding particularly penitent. “I wanted out. Everyone’s arguing over the Rogers cover and it was a waste of time. What are we talking about?”

“I was explaining to J’onn why I’m skipping meetings,” Alex says.

“Oh, that,” Lucy says. “She’s meeting with Maxwell Lord’s agent on Tuesday to go over edits on his manuscript.”

“I was getting there,” Alex says. “Jesus, Lucy.”

Lucy shrugs and Alex gives her a look. J’onn watches without concern. Alex and Lucy butt heads often, but they also get lunch now and then, sometimes go to the gym after work and spar. Sometimes they go drink in the corner at office happy hours—or Alex sips her drink in the corner and bounces ideas off Lucy, who draws them into pleasantries with the people near them. They don’t see each other much outside of work, or work-adjacent hours, but they get along. She guesses they're friends, pretty much. Outside of Kara, and maybe Kara’s friends, she might be Alex’s only one.

“She’s trying to impress Maggie Sawyer with all the work she’s done,” Lucy says. Alex feels herself flush red for some reason. She’s annoyed at herself for the reaction; it's unprofessional and it's irritating, beyond her control. No reason for it. “Totally foregoing work on the fall list, by the way. Alex, I need you to transmit your last two manuscripts by next week.”

They've had this conversation thirty times, and it's more of a joke than anything else. Both of those manuscripts are stalled out with authors, and Alex is just as antsy waiting for them to come back as Lucy. It's an argument they volley back and forth as coffeepot banter. “They’re coming. Relax. And I’m not trying to impress anyone. Except maybe Maxwell Lord, so he doesn’t decide to fire Maggie. Or me,” she adds as an afterthought.

“Alex,” says J’onn, leaning back in his chair and surveying them. At Alex’s mention of impressing Maxwell Lord, Lucy has perked up. She raises her eyebrows at Alex, who rolls her eyes and mouths “no” back at her. “Whatever bizarre situation Maxwell has contrived is his responsibility. Don’t run yourself ragged.”

“Don’t worry, it’s all right. I’ve got it under control,” Alex says, and when J’onn levels his gaze at her a little longer, she adds, “Really, J’onn, but thanks for worrying. I'm just on a roll right now.”

“Well, I should get back to the art meeting, then,” J’onn says, rising to his feet. “Alex, sit this one out if you like.”

“Thanks, J’onn.”

“I’ll be back soon,” Lucy says. “Tell everyone they’re all terrible and not to judge a book by its cover.” J’onn is already halfway down the hallway, but Alex thinks she can feel him roll his eyes.

Lucy takes the chair J’onn has just vacated. “You’re trying to impress someone, okay, and it’s either her with your editing prowess or him with your, you know, general aura. And extreme competence. And biceps.”

“None of the above,” Alex says, her cheeks going a little warm at the last part of Lucy’s comment. She shuffles some papers to cover for herself. “I’m just excited about the book. Honestly, Lucy.”

“Or her, I guess,” Lucy says thoughtfully, “with your competence and the editing prowess. And biceps. I shouldn’t assume.”

Alex registers with annoyance that for some reason this has made her heart rate spike, which is ridiculous. “There’s nothing to assume. I’m not, whatever you’re implying, into him. And I mean, come on, into her, seriously?” She forces a laugh. “You saw me right after I read this manuscript. I’m excited about the book, Lucy, and nothing else. This isn't high school.”

“I don’t know, Alex,” Lucy says. She doesn’t seem taken aback, just thoughtful. “You never date. And I don’t think high schoolers have a monopoly on romantic interest.”

“They have a monopoly on it making them go all starry-eyed and distracted and ready to make poor decisions,” Alex says. “I put work first, Lucy. I put my time where it counts. And anyway, I can't believe you think I’d be interested in Maxwell.”

“Two days ago he was your favorite author!”

“He still is!” Alex says, exasperated. “I don't understand what that has to do with his insufferable personality and outsize ego. He’s an author, I’m his editor. I’m working with Maggie on his book. None of this is personal.”

Lucy starts to open her mouth, then pauses, seems to decide better of whatever she was going to say. Instead, she shrugs. “Fair enough.”

“And on that note,” Alex says, “I really should get back to work. And you should go suffer the rest of that meeting. Make sure none of my books end up with jackets that are too terrible.”

“You could do that, too, if you weren’t skipping,” Lucy says, but she smiles as she stands to leave. “See you, Alex.”

“See you,” Alex says, and lets it go.

**

She finishes a rough pass through the whole book late Saturday night, and takes a closer read through the first few chapters Sunday to mark out examples of specific comments. By Monday afternoon she feels pretty good about the whole thing; she's fit about two weeks of work into half of one. She thinks Maggie will be surprised and pleased, and she's looking forward to the reaction. Grinning to herself, she sends the whole thing over in an email. She pushes her chair back from the computer and stretches; it's only 6:15.

She has plenty of time to hit the gym, something she’s been forgoing for days, and then she thinks she’ll order Seamless on her phone when she leaves and see if she can beat the delivery driver to Kara’s.

She's packed up her things and is just about to shut down her computer when she sees she already has a reply from Maggie. The woman must be glued to her inbox.

FROM: Maggie Sawyer <[email protected]>

Hey, thanks, this gives me a chance to look everything over before tomorrow. Should’ve thought to ask for edits in advance; glad you thought of it. I’ll take a look.

Alex closes out of Outlook. She's irrationally disappointed that Maggie hasn't read through her comments already, or at least opened the file to see how many there are. That’s all right. She finishes packing up and heads to the gym.

When an hour later she steps out of the gym shower and checks her phone, there's a text from Maggie:

jesus fuck, danvers

Alex grins at the screen. When she intercepts her Seamless order on Kara’s doorstep 45 minutes later, she's still smiling.

**

Maggie isn’t at the bar yet, but then again Alex is early. She finds a table off to the side and sets up her laptop, opens all her various Word documents. After that Alex just sits, bouncing her leg and staring out over the bar. She checks her watch after a few minutes and it’s somehow still twenty till, so she closes the laptop, packs everything back into her bag, and goes and orders a whiskey.

When Alex turns back to the table, glass in hand, it’s been claimed by a couple of college kids. She takes a few steps back towards the door, looking for an empty table, and that’s when Maggie taps her arm. She almost drops her drink.

“Danvers, hey,” Maggie says, bright and warm. Alex’s heart leaps into her throat. “Someone’s here early.”

“Two someones, technically.” Alex makes a show of checking her watch, then leans forward a bit and says, conspiratorially, “You’re early too.”

“Checkmate,” Maggie says. “You’re the one who found twenty extra hours in the day to get that much done, figured the least I could do would be to have drinks ready when you got here. Seems like you’re covered, though,” she adds.

“Oh—yeah, sorry,” Alex says, glancing down at her whiskey.

“What are you apologizing for?” Maggie says. “I’m just gonna go get a drink and I’ll be right over.”

“Cool,” Alex says, “Cool, I’ll be over here.” She half-gestures toward of the front of the room. Maggie smiles, and when she’s ambled over to the bar, Alex goes and puts her stuff down at another empty table. She takes out her laptop again and reopens her word documents, then takes a careful sip of whiskey. All of a sudden she’s nervous. She doesn’t know why; she doesn’t usually get nervous about work. She loves the editing process, the volleying back and forth of ideas. She likes clashing over edits, even, when she can win. It’s just—she badly wants the dynamic with Maggie to be good, for it to be more banter than argument. She wants Maggie to think her ideas are clever.

So maybe she wants Maggie to be impressed. Fuck off, Lucy. She’s allowed. It’s a good career move.

“Took your lead,” Maggie says as she approaches the table, tilting glass of whiskey at Alex. Alex smiles at her, nerves easing a bit. It’s just Maggie, who after all has been a little dramatic and a lot friendly, and it’s just a job.

“Pairs well with science fiction and red pens,” Alex replies, lifting her glass to clink it against Maggie’s. “Or track changes, I guess.”

“I still do a lot of my stuff by hand, actually,” Maggie says. She takes a sip from her glass and closes her eyes, sighs. “Damn, I’ll take that over a beer any day. Good taste, Danvers.”

“Yeah, well,” Alex says, a little embarrassed. “It’s just whiskey.” She adds, curious and searching to deflect the compliment, “You edit by hand, really? You’re a terrible millennial.”

“Red pen and printouts,” Maggie says, shrugging. “Then I dump the whole thing into track changes, which absolutely takes twice as long, but it’s never gonna change.”

“Old habits die hard. Where’d you pick that one up?”

“First job,” Maggie says. “My boss was old-fashioned and I followed her lead. To be honest, I don’t think I even realized it was weird until the intern started teasing me for it.”

“Intern, huh? Did you beat her up?” Alex asks playfully.

Maggie smiles into her drink. “Dated her.” Alex’s insides do that freezing thing again and she takes a sip too fast. It burns going down and she stifles a cough. “Well,” Maggie continues, “dated her until she dumped me,” and her face twists infinitesimally as she says it. Then she’s back and smiling, only slightly rueful. “So I guess yeah, in the end I did think about beating her up.”

Alex does her best to smile back. “Well, I’m sure she deserved it.”

Maggie turns her glass in her hand, tilts her head to the side. “I appreciate the thought, Danvers,” she says.

“Pffft, yeah, well,” Alex says. She’s trying to think of something else to say, but she’s coming up totally blank. Maggie’s just watching her, seeming softly amused. For some reason, Alex finds it extremely distracting.

“So, uh, first publishing job,” she finally finds. “With the boss who commuted from the pre-digital age. Where was that?”

“Books Venture Representation,” Maggie says. “Yeah, cliche, right? It’s huge as far as agencies go, but it’s a good place to work. Good mentors, let assistants move up pretty quickly, all things considered.”

“Was that right out of college?” Alex asks. Maggie can’t be more than a couple of years older than her, but she’s already got her name on the agency where she works. As far as careers go, seems fairly meteoric. She’s impressed.

“Nah, I was a paralegal for a couple years, believe it or not.” Alex privately believes it. “Decided it wasn’t for me around the year mark, but stuck it out for another one after I’d decided to quit for agenting. I needed some cash in the bank before I dropped down to minimum-wage internship pennies and part-time waitressing.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Alex says. “I mean, I knocked out the internships in college, but it took months and months to find anything. Lots of scraping by. I was a bartender for a while.” She hesitates for half a second, then finishes, “It’s really only by luck I found anything in publishing at all.”

“Hey, no, I doubt that’s true.”

Alex shrugs half-heartedly.

“Come on,” Maggie says. “It takes luck for everyone, Danvers. You’ve got more than luck, you’ve got skill. That’s what it took.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Alex says. Maggie tilts her head a little, like she’s thinking.

“Look, regardless,” Maggie says, “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” She smiles warmly at Alex, who can’t help giving a small smile in return. It’s almost a reflex; there’s something about Maggie that just makes smiling easier. “And you were grooming other skills in the meantime. Bartender, huh? Maybe next time you can recommend a drink.” She tilts her glass at Alex.

“Yeah, sure,” Alex says. “It’s true that I can make a mean mojito.” She’s joking, her tone light, but she’s still caught up remembering how it felt to send out application after application and never hear a word back at all, how it felt for Kara to get the first job she applied for a couple years later.

Alex thinks Maggie has noticed her distraction, because she pauses for a just a moment before responding, seeming to choose her words deliberately. “For what it’s worth, my move to the city wasn’t the smoothest either.”

“No?”

“I… let’s say I didn’t have much of a safety net,” Maggie says. Her mouth twists as she says it, and Alex wants to—do something, she isn’t really sure.

She feels forward. “Parents didn’t want you to move to the city?”

“Not exactly,” Maggie says. She gives Alex a smile that looks unhappy and forced. All right, Alex isn’t going to force her to talk about anything she doesn’t want to talk about. That’s fine.

“So. We were talking about internships?”

“Yeah,” Maggie says distractedly, seeming to leave behind some other train of thought. “I interned at Venture Rep for a few months, and eventually they hired me as an assistant. I did that for a few years. One of the junior agents left to start his own agency about a year after I started representing authors myself, and then I joined him about a year later. So.” She spreads her hands. “Turpin and Sawyer Literary.”

“Impressive, Sawyer,” Alex says. Maggie smiles, and this time it seems real again; the corners of her eyes crinkle. She has a nice smile, Alex thinks. People talk about smiles reaching the eyes, but Maggie’s doesn’t seem to reach her eyes so much as come from them. It’s warm, and it suits her. It’s a nice smile.

“It’s going well for me,” Maggie agrees. “I get to represent a lot of projects I believe in. And nine times out of ten the authors aren’t even assholes.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Lucky me.”

“Come on, you love the book,” Maggie says, leaning forward. She puts a finger on the aluminum body of Alex’s laptop. “I’ve got an email in my inbox with several thousand words of editorial notes and an armload of track changes bubbles all with timestamps from the last five days. You love it.”

“Okay,” Alex allows, trying hard to sound half-hearted but ruining it, she knows, by looking pleased. She likes hearing Maggie notice out loud how much work she’d done. It means she took note, might’ve been impressed. She’s—that’s—it’s nice. It makes it worth it. It feels good. “I’ve edited worse things.”

“Oh yeah?” The look Maggie gives her is satisfied, borderline smug. It’s a little combative and a little victorious, and oh boy, Alex is going to knock the next draft out of the damn park. Maggie won’t know what hit her. It’s gonna be so good her head will spin.

Out of nowhere, Lucy’s “impress her” comment echoes again in the back of Alex’s head, and an unexpected flare of panic licks into Alex’s chest. She shuts it down. No. Christ. What’s the big deal? This is just her job. It’s not anything weird.

“Shut up, Sawyer. I’ve also edited some better things,” Alex says. “Don’t get carried away.”

“Whatever makes you happy,” Maggie says, rolling her eyes. “I told you, Alex. I knew what you could do when I asked you to edit this. Better, worse, it’s gonna be the best it can be by the time we’re done.”

“Yeah, well, too right.” Alex tries to say it so she sounds cool, but inside her, pride and happiness and something squirmy that isn’t quite embarrassment are building. She hopes Maggie can’t tell.

“Look,” she adds, “Anyway. We’re here for edits. So it won’t be anything unless we start.”

“Right,” Maggie says. “The book.” She taps the table twice and leans forward. “So let’s talk business.”

**

Editing is a lot of things. It’s rewarding, and it’s absorbing, and it takes instinct and skill and even guts, when you’ve got an author who might not like what you have to say. It takes a kind of diplomacy unique to each person. Alex’s brand is less about persuading than she knows J’onn’s is, and more about intimidating people enough that they’ll think twice and then think again about whether they really want to disagree. It takes knowing what words look like from another angle, and it takes knowing how to strip something to its core and layer back on only the parts that matter. It’s not science; it’s better.

It’s also not, on an average day, particularly exciting. Most days are pretty much one foot in front of the next; it’s rare that Alex is especially enthused about one of her projects, rarer still that anything out of the ordinary happens.

At the start of their third meeting, Maggie drops a press release on the table.

“Prepare yourself, Danvers,” she says. Her eyes are sparkling. “You read. I’ll go get us drinks to toast.”

The headline says: MAXWELL LORD NOVEL TO BECOME MAJOR MOTION PICTURE. Alex almost chokes. She reads the release fast; it’s Max’s first novel, The Second Moon, and it’s going to be big. Alex had heard something ages back about a movie deal, but never any details; now it looks like it’s happening, and happening huge. The press release lists major actors, a major director—this will be the movie of the year.

Excitement wraps itself around Alex. Even though the movie is an adaptation of Second Moon, this is huge news for DEO and the new novel. This is the kind of publicity you can’t buy. The buzz—a new novel by the author of The Second Moon!—will sell them thousands of copies. If this movie does well, it’s possible that somewhere down the line a serious studio will turn DEO’s book into a movie too. Alex didn’t negotiate the book contract herself, barely remembers reading over it, but she’d be shocked if Maggie hadn’t held onto TV and film rights; regardless, the spike in sales from that would be through the roof. They’ll be through the roof from Second Moon. This is incredible. She can’t wait to tell J’onn.

Alex looks around for Maggie, electric, but Maggie is still at the bar. She drums her fingers on the table, grinning, and then looks down at the press release again. It’s on Turpin and Sawyer letterhead, dated several months out; Alex spots several typos and guesses Maggie finished writing it right before she left, hasn’t even proofread it yet. Actually, it occurs to her, there’s no reason at all that Maggie would’ve written a press release—that seems like the kind of thing the studio would take care of, or Random House. Maggie must’ve drafted this press release to just to surprise her. That’s hilarious.

“Nerd,” Alex says when Maggie arrives back at the table with two glasses of scotch. Maggie looks confused, but laughs when Alex holds up the press release.

“You caught me. Seemed like more fun than just telling you.”

“Maggie, this is amazing,” Alex says fervently. Maggie just grins and hands her one of the glasses.

“You damn well bet it is. This is the reason I could guarantee you’d make back your hundred-k advance, by the way.”

Alex had totally forgotten, but Maggie did allude to there being something major in the works. It’s true that this will set them on their way to a pretty great profit margin, and that could be a huge lift to Alex’s career. So Maggie can think that she was being calculating when she bought the book, if she wants. It makes Alex look good. “I knew it had to be something big.”

Maggie gives her a cocksure grin. “Yeah, you were easier to convince than I expected.”

“Yeah, pfft, well,” Alex says, hoping it comes out sounding poised and cool-headed. She feels her ears go red. “I guess I had a good gut instinct.”

She doesn’t know if Maggie totally buys it. When she replies there’s a gentle yield to her expression, like she’s indulging Alex. Alex doesn’t really mind. “Sure, Danvers. Now let’s toast to this thing and get on to editing.”

Alex nods, and raises her glass. “To Max’s book. And the hope that he writes twenty more.”

“To Max’s book,” Maggie agrees, and they sip the scotch and sit down to work.

**

Things fall into a nice routine, and they’ve got a lot to discuss for a whole month’s worth of Tuesdays as Max rewrites and cuts and expands. Maggie’s good to work with. She takes Alex’s comments and puts them into different words to make sure she understands them, comes at them from different angles. Maggie isn’t afraid to push back when she disagrees sharply, and Alex appreciates that; they clash over a pointless chapter Alex wants to cut, a totally lightweight character Maggie insists can’t go. But mostly she argues Alex over the line in gentle adjustments and offhand suggestions. The result is careful and thorough, and the revised drafts show it. It’s progressing faster than anything Alex has ever worked on. It’s better than anything Alex has ever worked on. She thinks, somewhere in the back-and-forth, caught between the whiskeys and the persistent tap of Maggie’s pen, she’s becoming a better editor.

It’s good. She feels good. Kara comments on it more than once; she’s smiling more.

“I always smile,” Alex protests, frowning.

“No, you don’t,” Kara laughs. She reaches for Alex’s cheeks, pokes her mouth up into a smile. Alex laughs too, and Kara hugs her.

“It’s okay, though,” Kara says. “I’m just happy to see you happy.”

“It’s just nice to have a project I’m excited about, you know?” Alex says, biting into another potsticker. “And someone competent to work on it with.”

“You tell me,” Kara huffs, impaling a dumpling with a chopstick. “I made six hundred and eighty copies of a magazine spread today. The printer jammed thirteen times. And then Cat made me redo it because she didn’t like the color calibration. Job satisfaction! What a concept!”

“You love your job,” Alex reminds her. “For some reason.”

Kara smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, I know, I know,” she says. “I do. Despite the printer. It’s a great job, and it’s at the New York Times, and Cat’s a pretty amazing mentor. I know you think that last part is ridiculous but she is. I’m lucky.” She pokes at Alex’s laptop on the table with her foot. “We’re both lucky. I still can’t believe it, Alex, you’re living a dream. Look at what you’re editing!”

Alex pulls her legs up onto the couch, curls into the back of it. “You know, I keep forgetting it’s by Maxwell Lord?” she says suddenly.

Kara wrinkles her nose. “I mean, that’s why it’s the dream, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. She shifts so that she’s looking at Kara, who angles herself into the couch to face her. She’s been thinking about this a lot lately, every time she’s editing with Maggie and often at work besides. “It’s the dream because it’s an amazing book. And now because it’s going to sell amazingly well, because of this movie thing. But I don’t work with Max. I haven’t even seen him since I met him. And I don’t... really care?”

“Well I mean, he was kind of a jerk to you,” Kara says.

“No, no, I know,” Alex says. “I mean, I don’t want to have to work with him, god. I just mean, I don’t care who the book is by. It’s like… it’s not even Max’s, you know? It’s mine and Maggie’s. It’s ours.”

Kara nods, slowly. “I think that makes sense. You two have been spending a lot of time on it.”

“That’s true,” Alex admits. “But it’s going to be so great. Maggie’s sense of pacing is incredible. Did I tell you we ended up moving that chapter I wanted to cut?”

“Chapter four?”

“Eight. We cut four,” Alex says, a little smug. “I won that one. But we moved eight and it really works.”

“Maggie sounds cool,” Kara says. “We should invite her next time we do something with Winn and James and everyone.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Alex says. She likes the idea, maybe more than she should. After all, they’re only colleagues. Work friends, maybe; the other week Maggie had tapped her on the arm, said she thought they worked well together. She’d done that thing where she smiles like her eyes and her mouth are competing to look the most sincere. They do work well together. She wonders if Maggie would say they’re friends.

“We should,” Kara says decisively. “Which reminds me. When do I get you back on Tuesdays? We’re gonna get behind on SVU.”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. “It could be a while.” She and Maggie are still making their way through a first pass, but then there will be a new draft, more weeks of meetings. It could be a couple of months yet. The thought is exciting. “We can DVR it and watch it Thursdays.”

“Good, because I’ve been DVRing it already,” Kara says, sounding pleased. “Want to watch one before you head home?”

Alex pretends to consider. There is not a world in which she can say no to Kara. “Yeah, okay.”

“Great,” Kara says, and turns on the TV.

**

So yeah, maybe Alex is getting attached to Tuesday nights. The thing is, there aren’t many things she does for fun beyond spend time at Kara’s and spar at the gym. She enjoys her job, but there’s something about Tuesdays that just makes her feel sort of electric. She gets to feel witty, and hammer out her opinions, and come up with stupid arguments just to make Maggie laugh. It might be the best part of her week.

Of course, it’s also inevitable that sooner or later, the first draft is done. Maggie’s taking their changes to Max, who is rewriting, and until then they’re in a lull. There are no edits to discuss, no plot holes to hammer out—nothing much for Alex to do, no reason for her to meet with Maggie. It’s a breather, and Alex finds that she doesn’t want one.

It’s not that she doesn’t have a ton of work to do. She has to reach out to potential blurbers for a whole season of her books, something she’s been putting off—she dislikes asking people to sing the praises of books she isn’t crazy about herself. She has to fill out several art forms and edit a revised book draft and read the submissions that are lining her inbox. She’s busy; she’s always busy. But—

But she looks forward to Tuesdays.

Alex taps her fingers on her desk.

TO: Maggie Sawyer <[email protected]>

I have about a million and one things I should be working on with a free evening, but honestly, I’d rather have a drink. Still up for Dollywood tonight if you are. Usual time?

FROM: Maggie Sawyer <[email protected]>

I’d be down. I bet I can beat you at pool.

**

Maggie cannot beat her at pool.

Maggie is very, very bad at pool.

Maggie is very, very bad at pool and also Maggie might be drunk. Also, Alex might be drunk. It is a distinct possibility.

Maggie laughs when she points this out—the fact that Maggie is drunk. “You think, Danvers?”

“I do,” Alex confirms, setting her drink down on the edge of the pool table. It tips on the curved surface and she reaches out and catches it, mostly, before it spills. “No,” she tells it. Then she looks back up at Maggie, who is biting her lip to suppress a laugh.  “You’ve had a lot of drinks!” Alex insists. It comes out much more indignant-sounding than she meant it to. “You have.”

“I can hold my liquor, Alex,” Maggie says. She leans over the table, sets up her cue carefully, and spectacularly misses the ball.

Alex snorts.

“I think,” Maggie says, seeming to search carefully for the syllables, “that I could beat you up with this pool stick.”

“First of all, no you could not,” Alex says. Maggie raises her eyebrows, but Alex wants to finish her sentence before she argues with Maggie about bar fights that she would win. “Second of all, you are definitely drunk, so there, because it's called a cue, Maggie.”

“Is that funny to you?” Maggie demands. “I know what it's called. That was a, a, thing.” She looks self-satisfied.

A thing. Alex is enchanted.

“A figure of speech,” Maggie clarifies. She raises her eyebrows to emphasize her sincerity and leans on the pool stick.

“Some editor you are,” Alex says. “Figure of speech. It’s not a figure of speech. It’s ridiculous, is what it is.”

“Well, I’m an agent, not an editor. So.” Maggie says. She looks smug, like she’s somehow proven a point. Alex rolls her eyes.

“You know what I meant. Some agent. Kara calls you Secret Agent Sawyer, by the way.”

“Does she?” Maggie grins.

“Once or twice,” Alex clarifies. “At first, when you were. You know. Being all cloak-and-whatever with the author name.”

“Dagger,” Maggie says, holding out the pool stick to Alex. The cue, she corrects herself. “Cloak-and-dagger.”

“Right. It’s a figure of thing,” Alex says, and Maggie laughs. Warmth spreads through Alex, slow and golden. She loves being friends with Maggie. She makes a mental note to tell Lucy that it’s not even that she’s trying to impress Maggie, clearly, because this isn’t how you do that. It’s just that she likes having friends, that being around Maggie makes her feel good. That making Maggie laugh makes her happy. So the stuff Lucy was saying about her trying to show off for Maggie isn’t true, and Alex is right, and Maggie is her friend. So there.

She lets herself smile, takes the proffered pool stick and lines it up on the table. The 1 and 6 balls are perfectly angled. Alex squints, shifts the hand she’s balancing the cue on, and sends them ricocheting into the pocket. Then she stays where she is, leaning on the table for a second longer because it’s possible that the room is spinning.

“Okay,” Maggie says, looking intently at Alex as she straightens up, brushing her hair back behind her ears. It’s a cute gesture. “Okay. Double or nothing.”

“Last I checked we weren’t betting anything,” Alex says. She’s at least somewhat sure that this is true.

Maggie frowns. “Oh.” Then an idea seems to hit her and she says, forthright, “Okay, Danvers, how about this. I will bet you cutting a whole chapter from the next draft.”

Alex laughs. “No, you won’t.”

“No you’re right, I won’t,” Maggie agrees. “But I’ll beat you next game anyway.” This is so false that Alex doesn’t say anything, just hands the cue over to Maggie.

Maggie sinks the next ball, but Alex cleans up quickly after that. She racks the balls for their next game while Maggie goes to get another drink.

“How’s Kara’s Devil Wears Prada boss?” Maggie asks when she comes back, cradling two beers. Something in Alex pushes contentedly at the walls of her mind. They’re at a bar together. For fun.

“Oh,” Alex says, taking her beer, “You know. It’s a good thing all of the Harry Potter books are out is all I’m going to say.” Maggie raises her eyebrows, though, and she adds, “You know, because in the movie—”

“I’ve seen it, Danvers,” Maggie says, sounding amused. “Just didn’t take it for your kind of flick.”

“Yeah, well, Kara likes it.” Alex parks the beer on a stool and leans forward with her cue. The rack breaks, the balls clacking satisfyingly. “Actually, I just remembered, she told Kara to consider journalism school. Cat did, I mean. Kara’s over the moon.” Alex shrugs and goes back to nursing her beer. “But her undergrad is in English and she knows everything about, I dunno, layouts and whatever. So I think Cat should just promote her. Not that, that Cat cares what I think. Or knows me,” she adds. “I mean, god.”

“Does she have reporting experience?” Maggie says. “I think I know a guy.” That’s sweet, Alex thinks.

“I mean, college paper. Oh! And Cat sent her with James to do some story on Lena Luthor the other week,” Alex says. “Which she was also over the moon about. She’s over the moon about a lot of things. It’s your turn.”

“Right,” Maggie says, and looks from her beer to the table. “I have another idea. What if instead you forfeit.”

“No.”

Maggie shrugs. “Worth a try. So how’s your job?”

Alex doesn’t feel like talking about the work she’s avoiding so she can be here. “This is my job, Sawyer,” she says.

“No, this is us getting drunk so you don’t have to write copy for the books you don’t like,” Maggie says, which, fuck, Alex forgot she mentioned that offhand last week. But she still doesn’t want to talk about it, so she shrugs.

Also, “You did just admit you’re drunk,” she points out, and Maggie laughs softly.

“Yeah, Alex, I did.”

Alex feels victorious in this. It’s obvious from the way Maggie’s looking carefully for syllables and moving a little too jerky, a little too slow, but it’s still a win for her to admit it. Alex takes a sip from her beer while Maggie tries to get the 13 ball into a pocket.

Something occurs to her suddenly. “Why do you only call me Alex sometimes?”

Maggie looks up at her across the pool table. “Because it's your name, Danvers,” she says.

That does not make any sense as an answer to her question, but also it sort of does. She decides not to think too hard about it, mostly because that seems difficult. Instead, Alex says, “Hey. We should toast to something.”

“Yeah, okay,” Maggie says. She walks back around the table to Alex and leans against it, half-sitting on the edge. She’s in Alex’s space; Alex thinks about backing up, but decides she doesn’t want to. “Ideas?”

Alex looks around the bar, and at the drink in her hand, and at her friend across from her, and says, “How about to our book?”

“Perfect,” Maggie says, and clinks her glass against Alex’s.

**

The next morning is, by all accounts, a disaster.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Lucy says when Alex walks in, feeling for all the world like a cat has thrown up directly into her brain.

“Fuck off,” Alex mutters, and burrows further into her coffee cup.

“Hangover?” Lucy asks brightly. “Max Lord show up to your editing date night so you drank yourself silly?”

“Why is there no such thing as a hangover cure,” Alex says. Her head is full of cotton, or maybe steel wool, and none of the words Lucy’s saying are seeming to get all the way into her brain. “And don’t tell me to try a breakfast sandwich or coconut water because I don’t think it’s staying down.”

“You could try activated charcoal,” Lucy suggests. “I think it’s bullshit but someone I follow on Instagram is really into it.”

Alex looks up long enough to wrinkle her nose, but that makes her head hurt more, so she drops her gaze again.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Lucy says. “Anyway, trash can is by the door if you need it, let me know if you want me to grab you a water or something. Oh, and as your sort-of boss, I should tell you not to show up hungover again. But J’onn’s out today, so if you want to take a nap on your desk, I can turn a blind eye this one time.”

Alex flirts with feeling guilty, but opts instead for burrowing her head into her arms.

She dozes on and off for forty-five minutes, and when she wakes up the Advil has started to kick in, so she opens up her cover design art forms and starts pasting book summaries in. It’s mindless and the repetition is soothing, and when she’s killed an hour she feels well enough to go rib Lucy.

“Activated charcoal,” Alex says from her doorway. “Really?”

Lucy looks up. “Oh, you’re alive. Good, I was starting to worry. Seriously, Alex, what the hell happened last night that made you dive into a bottle? Did Max show up?”

Alex rolls her eyes. “No. We just went for drinks.”

“Maggie start dating someone?”

“No,” Alex says. “What on earth does that have to do with me getting drunk?”

Lucy gives her this look, and all of a sudden it’s like something has clicked into place. The bottom drops out of Alex’s stomach.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” she says, but she knows that isn’t true as soon as the words fall into the air. Panic is suddenly constricting her lungs. She wonders desperately for a moment whether it’s too late to go throw up into the trash can in her office instead of having the conversation that she thinks they might be having.

“Come on,” Lucy says, rolling her eyes fondly like she can’t tell that Alex can’t breathe. “I’m just saying.”

“Saying what, Lucy?” The words come out almost pleasant, which is a miracle. Alex is—she’s not stalling for time. It’s that she’s piecing the words together while her brain spins out. It’s—she doesn’t know how she didn’t see it, she doesn’t—Lucy might say something else. Nothing makes sense, and Lucy might say something else.

“It’s cute, that’s all.” Lucy shrugs. “Don’t think I don’t see you fidgeting at your desk on Tuesday afternoons. Or smiling to yourself Wednesday mornings.”

It’s. Okay. It’s. Lucy still hasn’t said anything that means anything, because that isn’t what, she isn’t—she’s not in Alex’s head, and Alex is, and Lucy’s—she’s just fucking with Alex. That’s what she does. It doesn’t mean anything. She knows where Lucy’s going with this but it isn’t—she doesn’t.

Alex closes her eyes. “Lucy.”

“It’s cute,” Lucy repeats. “Your crush on her.”

Oh.

Oh.

For second, it seems like the world has stopped spinning entirely. All that’s left is the sound of her own breathing.

“Alex?” Lucy says. She sounds cautious.

Alex opens her eyes.

“I have to go.”

“Are you okay?” Lucy asks. “I didn’t mean to—look, I was just—”

“I have—I have to go,” Alex repeats. She isn’t sure how her voice is stable enough to get the sentence out. She needs to go. She doesn’t—the world is spinning again, too fast, and nothing is standing still.

Lucy starts to stand, but Alex shakes her head. “It’s—I forgot I have a meeting, I have to—I have to be there now.”

She gets halfway to the elevators before she remembers her bag, her phone. Fourteen strides take her back to her office, and then she leaves, and she walks, and she walks.

It’s mechanical; her legs move and her feet touch the ground and she’s somewhere along the Hudson by the time her brain catches up, and then she pulls over onto a bench and drops her head between her knees, arms braced against them.

Okay. Okay.

It makes—it doesn’t make sense. It’s. People know if they’re—if they have feelings for—she would know. She’s spent so many hours with Maggie the last couple of months and she would—sure, she wanted to see Maggie yesterday but that’s not because she likes her, she just likes how being with Maggie feels, and—no, that’s. That’s. Okay. She guesses she can see why Lucy thinks that she has, has a— It’s true that she looks forward to Tuesdays, but that’s because Maggie’s her friend, lots of people have friends who make them happy, it doesn’t have to be a thing. It doesn’t have to be anything.

Alex breathes in deeply and sits up. She looks out at the water, at New Jersey on the other side.

Okay.

So she doesn’t have a lot of friends, these days. Maybe she forgot how it feels. Lucy’s her friend, but that’s a different kind of friendship; they have confrontations as often as conversations, though Alex is pretty sure Lucy has her back, and they’re coworkers first. That’s different. Maggie is—not soft, but soft with Alex, though she’d never admit it. She looks at Alex with warmth, like she cares and wants Alex to know it. Of course that kind of friendship is going to feel different.

And she’s—she’s 28. She’s almost 30. Alex is sure that people know when they’re younger if they’re—it’s not like she’s ever really thought about it. She wonders when Maggie knew about herself. There’s no way that out of nowhere people just, just. Start to. Alex would have noticed before now if this were a thing. It’s—she’s sure that she’s felt this way about friends before, because it’s friendship, that’s what it is, and she’s had good friends, close friends before. So she must’ve—the feeling she gets around Maggie, that must’ve been there in other friendships, she’s sure. She remembers college, remembers high school, and finds from somewhere a half-lost memory of the pull in her stomach the first time Vicky Donohue ever called her her best friend. The way it made her chest ache with some kind of foreign happiness.

Panic licks into her chest again and Alex shakes her head sharply. No. That was—she and Vicky were best friends. She had a boyfriend that year. She dated her way through college, she—and if no one’s kisses ever made her feel anything, no one’s touches ever felt like—there are better things in her life, that’s all. She’s known that for a long time. Romance, sex, they’re just not… she doesn’t need them, not really. She has her job. She’s good at her job. She’s really fucking good at her job. And she has her sister, all those years of her mom telling her to look after Kara and she knows Kara better than she knows herself. She did that right; she knows she did. She’s good at being Kara’s sister. There are better things in her life than dating; there are things that are worth it. Things that feel right.

Kara. Shit. She was supposed to meet Kara for lunch. Alex reaches for her phone. Three missed calls. She checks her texts; Kara’s getting takeout and bringing it to the office.

Hey sorry, I’m not at work right now. Somewhere along the river. Maybe level with tribeca? I can come find you

Kara responds immediately. No it’s okay we can eat outside! I’ll find you there

Okay. Alex can—she can figure this out later. She can have lunch with Kara and go back to work and figure this out later. Maybe by the time she gets back to work her racing pulse will catch up with her mind and settle, and she’ll—oh, god, she’ll have to tell Lucy something. She can’t tell Lucy she’s panicking; that will make Lucy think she’s right, and she’s not. She’s not. She’ll just have to—she’ll have to tell Lucy something.

She’s staring out over the water thinking about everything and trying to think about nothing when Kara shows up.

“Found you! Look at you, taking a lunch break. I brought potstickers and lo mein,” Kara says, and then, “Alex, oh no, what’s wrong?”

Alex just shakes her head.

Kara sits down next to her on the bench. “Alex,” she says gently, so gently that Alex wants to cry, or maybe scream, because it’s not Kara’s job to look out for her, she’s the older sister, she’s—

She feels overwhelmed. She’s confused, and everything’s big all of a sudden, and she’s alone, and Kara’s here, looking at her with a furrowed brow and love and concern on her face. “I’m just,” she starts, but she can’t find the words, and she tries again, “I think,” and then she gives up, leans into Kara and lets herself cry for a minute while Kara says shh, no, it’s okay.

After a few minutes Alex has pulled herself back together. She sits back up and wipes her face.

“Hey. You don’t have to tell me right now,” Kara says. “I mean, you can if you want to, but you don’t have to. If you want, I can talk about something else for a few minutes?”

Alex considers for a second, then nods. “Yeah,” she says. Her voice catches, rusty from crying, and she clears her throat and tries again. “I think… yeah.”

“I’m writing an article,” Kara says, and the concern melts off her face for long enough for Alex to see the happiness underneath. “You know the profile Cat sent me with James to take notes for? On Lena Luthor? The article got a lot of hits on the site and Cat wants to do a follow-up. And she’s letting me report it.” She adjusts her glasses and ducks her head, a slight blush playing on her cheeks. “She liked my notes on the last one. It’s just interviews, not a byline, not necessarily. But you were right—if she’s going to tell me she thinks I’d do well at journalism school, then she should give me a chance where I am. And I asked her for a chance, and, you know, it’s a start.”

She’s looks like she’s trying to keep a lid on just how proud she is, so Alex reaches out and squeezes her hand. She’s proud, too; it pushes up through the tightness in her chest, warm.

“So,” Kara says, “That’s what my morning was like.” Alex laughs shakily. 

“Also, hey. I have an idea.” Kara says. She picks up the brown bag of food that’s been sitting on the bench. “I think that this would taste better on the Staten Island Ferry.”

“You have work,” Alex says. “I have work.”

“Cat was telling me yesterday how many sick days I’ve accumulated,” Kara says. “It’s a lot. You’ve got to have even more.”

Alex prepares herself to protest, but when she thinks about it, she’s just… so tired, all of a sudden. It’s half a day. Tomorrow’s new.

They take the ferry, and then they take it again. Alex still can’t find the words to explain what’s going on in her head to Kara. She can’t even find the words to explain to herself why this feels so big, why someone’s misunderstanding makes her feel like the earth has moved under her. But the wind whipping on her face makes her feel like maybe this is something that she can figure out tomorrow.

**

She tells herself it’s nothing, and she’s not going to think about it.

She tells herself that as she tosses and turns in bed and stares at the ceiling, and as she gives up and shrugs on clothes, and as she stares through the ads and orange plastic seats on the train. It’s what she ends up telling Lucy, actually, who comes over to try to apologize in the late morning with a large coffee for Alex. “It’s nothing.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Lucy says, shifting the cup from one hand to the other, “but I wanted to let you know that if you want to—”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Alex says, cutting across her. “You’re fine.” Lucy seems to believe her, because she doesn’t say much, just gives her a reluctant half-smile and heads back to her office, leaving the coffee on Alex’s desk. Which is good, because if Lucy’s not thinking about it anymore, Alex doesn’t have to either.

The thing is, there’s so much to not think about.

It’s not that it’s easier to not think about it. It’s actually really fucking hard, but Alex has always been good at beating things that are really fucking hard. She decides she’s going to just put her head down and work.

She actually gets around to sending out the blurb request letters that she’s been putting off, but when she gets to writing sales conference pitches she stalls out. She’s sitting at her screen trying to come up with sentences about the market potential of robotic dragons and she keeps ending up on Maggie’s dimpled smile, or the way Alex has never cared about breakups the way Kara seemed to, or the fact that she keeps checking her inbox half-hoping to see an email from Maggie there, or the way her stomach is still doing this hollow twisting thing.

She wants to see Maggie, Alex realizes. Then maybe she’ll know what—maybe some things will clear up. She’ll see Maggie, and things will make sense, because things always make more sense when Maggie is there. She’ll see her friend—her friend—and the empty churn of her stomach won’t be there anymore, and that’ll prove that all of this has nothing to do with Maggie.

Which it doesn’t, but—with a spike of panic, it occurs to her that Maggie might’ve had the same thought as Lucy. Maggie might’ve thought that Alex was—that she was interested. She can feel her pulse rise at just the thought. No, she thinks, no, it’s okay, that’s almost definitely not true, because Maggie’s straightforward. For all of the cloak-and-dagger nonsense at the beginning, Maggie’s always been upfront with Alex. That’s one of the things that Alex likes about her; there’s no bullshit. And she hasn’t said anything, hasn’t implied that she’s noticed anything. Alex wonders what she’d say if she did. She wonders whether Maggie’s thought about her in that way.

Alex goes back to the robotic dragons and puts words on the screen, and she snaps at an intern who comes by with the mail, at then at lunchtime she goes to the gym and punches the shit out of a punching bag.

She tells herself it’s nothing, and she’s not going to think about it. It’s not easy, sure. But it’s still easier than admitting that it might not be nothing.

**

When Alex’s phone rings on Monday morning and she sees that it’s Maggie, she jolts so sharply that she upends an open bottle of water all over her desk.

“Fuck,” Alex curses, answering the phone with one hand while she grabs for some tissues with the other. She’s irritated about the water, but more irritated about the fact that her heart is suddenly trying to jackhammer its way into her extremities. “Fuck, shit—sorry, hi, sorry.”

“Hey, Danvers,” Maggie says, sounding amused. “Catch you at a bad time?”

“No, no, you’re fine,” Alex says. “I just spilled—never mind, you’re fine. What’s up? New manuscript pages in?”

“No, not yet,” Maggie says. She pauses, and Alex barely has time to wonder why she’s calling when she says, “Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to grab lunch.”

Alex’s stomach flips, and she pedals through responses in her head, but what comes out of her mouth before she can stop herself is, “Miss me, Sawyer?”

“Yeah, you wish,” Maggie says. “Noonan’s at one? I have a meeting first and then some stuff to run by the post office on my way there.”

“Sure, see you then,” Alex says, and Maggie hangs up.

As she heads to the kitchen for paper towels, Alex registers with a mix of irritation and nerves that her heart is still hammering fast. Miss me, Sawyer. What a ridiculous thing to say. She’d thought she had until Maxwell sent in his revised manuscript to get her brain back to normal; she thought that she had more time before she would see Maggie again. She’s not sure if she’s relieved or nervous to get it over with now. Every time she thinks about Maggie it unspools all of the thoughts she’s been fighting to keep under control for the past few days.

She gets to Noonan’s fifteen minutes early and takes a lap around the block to work off some energy. Alex isn’t even sure why Maggie wants to get lunch; they’ve never seen each other outside of Tuesday evenings. She wonders if maybe Maggie did miss her. Maybe Maggie wanted to see her too. Maybe Maggie—well. No. That’s exactly the kind of thought that keeps shoving its way out of the mental box where it belongs, safely contained until it fades away. Which Alex is certain it will.

When she paces back past the restaurant, Maggie is standing outside. Alex’s heart lunges forward in her chest to see her standing there, reading the menu in the window, her leather jacket draped over her arm in the warm sun. Oh, no. Alex shoves the moment behind her—this is going to resolve things, not make them more confusing, she’s sure—and calls out, “Sawyer!”

Maggie turns, and fuck, it’s going to make things more confusing. The warmth in her smile makes Alex want to smile at her in return, and she’s noticing that now, why is she noticing that. Friends, she reminds herself furiously, they’re friends, this is a friendship feeling.

“Heya, Danvers,” Maggie says. “Thought you got lost on the way here.”

“I got held up,” Alex lies distractedly. “Sorry. How’ve you been?”

“Not too bad. Throbbing headache last Wednesday morning aside,” Maggie says. “How about you?”

Alex answers with something vague about sales conference pitches, the ones she’s been slogging through and putting off. Maggie’s eyes light up when she mentions the book with the robot dragons and how difficult it is to write copy for it, and while they wait to be seated they throw around increasingly ridiculous ideas for sales points. It’s easy and light. Caught up in banter and laughter, Alex is almost able to ignore the flip of her stomach every time Maggie smiles.

She’s less able to ignore the way she feels heat flash through her skin and settle low in her body when Maggie squeezes by her to take her seat in the narrow restaurant. Jesus, that’s—new. Or she thinks it’s new, or, shit, she hopes it’s new. Alex collects herself while Maggie pores over the menu, or tries to; she has trouble tearing herself away from looking at Maggie, and when the waitress comes she has to scramble to choose a dish. She scowls at the menu, hoping her ducked head will hide her reaction, and names the first item she sees.

Maggie, as it turns out, has bizarre taste in food. She orders a veggie burger with no condiments at all and a vegan milkshake, and when her fries come she pours ketchup liberally over the whole basket. It’s all very weird. Alex tries hard not to be completely charmed and instead looks ruefully down at her own unsatisfactory salad.

“No need for the kicked puppy face, Danvers,” Maggie says, pushing her fry basket across the table. “Help yourself.”

Alex wrinkles her nose. “You put ketchup all over them. And none on the burger, which is gross, by the way.”

“Okay, fry privileges withdrawn,” Maggie says, but she leaves the basket where it is. “You don’t get any of my burger, either.”

Alex has had this conversation with Kara a thousand times; Kara usually pouts and then sneaks fries when Alex looks away. Alex, though, is more direct. Impulsively, she feints for the burger, and Maggie, who is fast, knocks her hand away.

“Absolutely not,” Maggie says. “Get your own, dork.”

Alex can feel her face burn red, and she laughs to cover it up. There’s no way Maggie’s flirting with her; she doesn’t even want Maggie to be flirting with her, because she doesn’t like Maggie like that. She digs her fingernails into her palm under the table and changes the subject back to work and doesn’t stare when Maggie laughs and the world lights up.

They move on eventually to other topics of conversation. Maggie asks after Kara, so Alex tells her about the Lena Luthor article, and they spend a few minutes talking about the big Luthor trial and what kind of person Lex Luthor’s kid sister might be. Apparently Maggie watched all the trial coverage on TV as it aired; she’s a news junkie, she says, and a true crime aficionado. “Horror movies too,” she adds. “I just like the adrenaline rush.”

“Hey, me too,” Alex says. A thought occurs to her, and she suggests it before she can think about it. “There’s a new Alien coming out soon, we should see it. I can never talk Kara into watching them.”

“Knew we were a good pair, Danvers,” Maggie says. “Yeah, if you promise not to grab my arm when you get scared.”

Alex bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from smiling too big.

The basket of fries is picked-over and almost empty by the time there’s a lull in conversation. The silence hangs in the air for a beat and then Maggie shifts in her chair, looking like she’s hovering on the edge of speech. In the instant before she speaks Alex’s pulse leaps. “So, one of my authors went bestseller today.”

Alex catches her heart as it falls and pushes it back up again—what was she expecting Maggie to say? This is incredible news. “Holy shit, Maggie. That’s fantastic!”

“Yeah,” Maggie says, looking elated and like she’s trying very hard to play it cool. “It’s pretty exciting.”

“That’s more than pretty exciting,” Alex says. “You’re amazing, give yourself some credit. Which book? Which author? Wait, is this—was this a celebration lunch?” Realization suddenly dawns.

Maggie shrugs, still looking pleased. There’s a little bit of color in her cheeks, Alex observes. “Maybe, yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alex demands. “We didn’t—this calls for a drink at least. Come on!”

“It’s not as big a deal as all that,” Maggie says, but Alex shakes her head.

“It is, don’t sell yourself short. You’re amazing.” Maggie’s definitely blushing now, and before Alex can think about it she continues on, “We have to go celebrate. For real, this time. Let’s get drinks tonight, yeah?”

“I can’t,” Maggie says, shaking her head.

“Yes, you can,” Alex says. She’s swept up in this now. “Or, hey, we can watch a horror movie on Netflix if you want. You can come over to my place. I have some pretty nice whiskey, I bought a bottle of that scotch you made me try. Or hey! There are a million bars in this city, we could go to a new one for a change.”

“No, I mean, I can’t, Alex,” Maggie says. “I’m busy, I’m sorry. I’ve got a date.”

“Oh,” Alex says. “Oh, okay.”

“But thank you for caring. Really.” Maggie reaches across the table to touch Alex’s hand, but Alex pulls it away and clasps her hands in her lap. Maggie’s gaze follows her movement and then she glances up at Alex, disconcerted. Alex twists her fingers together and does her best not to look stricken.

“Well, that’s exciting,” she says.

“I guess,” Maggie says slowly, stretching out the words like she’s thinking. “Lunch was the celebration, really. It’s just someone I’ve been on a couple of dates with.”

“Oh,” Alex says, and then realizes she’s probably being too unenthusiastic a listener, because why should she care who Maggie dates? “Uh. Who is she? What’s she like?”

“Friend of a coworker,” Maggie says. “I don’t know, kind of… dry sense of humor, I guess? In a good way, I mean. Sharp.”

“That’s cool, that’s cool,” Alex says. She takes a sip of her water. Maggie does the same, still looking at her. The silence pools on the table between them.

“So, uh, is she cute?” Alex says finally, at the same time as Maggie says, “Can I ask you something?”

“What? That’s, uh—yeah, of course,” Alex says.

Maggie pauses for a moment more, and then looks Alex in the eye and says, “Tell me straight, Danvers, because I’m getting mixed signals like hell. Are you into girls?”

The bottom of Alex’s stomach has dropped out so many times in the last few days that she’s surprised, almost, that it still has room to fall.

“I—no. I’m not,” she says, the words tripping out of her mouth. “I’m not.”

“Oh, that’s—yeah, okay,” Maggie says. “I just, you made me wonder, with the invitation. And the, you know. But that’s fine.” She gives Alex this big grin, but it’s too casual, maybe anxious. It doesn’t reach her eyes.

“With the what, exactly?” Alex doesn’t know why she’s asking. Maybe she wants a chance to explain it away. She both wants and desperately doesn’t want for Maggie to know what she’s been thinking.

“I’m not explaining this to you, Alex,” Maggie says a little sharply. “Either you were flirting or you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t,” Alex says quickly. “I’m not—I’m not like that.”

“You’re not gay,” Maggie says. Alex nods emphatically.

“Exactly. Yeah.”

“Yeah. I got it.” Maggie looks away and Alex is suddenly, profoundly, disappointed.

“It’s fine that you are, though. I mean, it doesn’t matter to me. That is, I’m fine with—if you—anyway.” She’s expecting Maggie to be short with her, or to be offended, maybe, by the inane things that are coming out of her mouth. But when Maggie looks back at her, she’s placid as ever, her eyes narrowed like she’s evaluating something.

“It’s all right, Danvers. I get how these things are.”

“Thanks,” Alex says, grateful but uncertain. Maggie lets silence sit between them for a moment longer, and Alex shifts uncomfortably. When it’s getting too close to breaking point, she says, “Anyway, bestseller list, tell me more,” and Maggie smirks and says Alex has no idea how hectic her day has been and they’re back to normal conversation.

When lunch ends and they draw their chairs back from the table, Maggie edges into Alex’s personal space again as she tries to move into the aisle of the narrow restaurant. Alex tries not to draw in breath or flinch back, and she tries to smile normally when Maggie thanks her for coming to lunch.

“Any time, Sawyer,” she says. “Make our book go bestseller too and I might even let you have your fries next time.”

“They cast Chris Pine in the movie, or didn’t you hear? We’re going bestseller or I’ll eat my hat along with my fries,” Maggie says. “I’ll see you next week, Danvers. We should have Max’s edits in before Friday.”

She’s a few yards away when Alex calls after her, “Hope you have a good date, Sawyer.” Maggie gives a small salute without turning around, and Alex smiles involuntarily. She stays where she is for a moment, watching Maggie’s receding back until she reaches the subway entrance at the end of the block. Then she shakes herself and all of her feelings return, louder and harder to control than before.

She walks quickly back to work and actually considers stopping by Lucy’s office for half a second to spill out some of her thoughts and make room in her brain. But the idea of talking about any of this out loud is too terrifying. The idea makes her feel like she’s drowning, still, to sit down and say out loud, I just had lunch with Maggie and I think I—

Well.

To congratulate herself for making it through the afternoon, Alex leaves the office at 5 o’clock sharp and does what’s been basically inevitable for several days now: she goes home and wades halfway into a bottle of vodka.

**

Two hangovers in less than a week is probably a record for her in recent years. Alex doesn’t think she’s been hung over on a weekday since J’onn offered her her job. She comes into work on time but foggy from staring at the ceiling all night. Lucy looks up as she drags herself by her office, and about fifteen minutes later appears in her doorway with coffee and aspirin. She just lays them on the desk this time, though, and gives Alex a gentle half-punch, half-pat on the shoulder. “Offer to talk stands,” she says over her shoulder as she leaves.

Alex considers it as she sips the coffee and looks distractedly past her computer screen. A strong current of anxiety is still churning in her stomach, but the panicked edge is, for whatever reason, a little less urgent today. It’s not that Alex feels any better about the possibility—the possibility, nothing more—that she might be, well—not—that she might be interested in—it’s not that she feels any better about that. Being... not straight, that’s something that’s fine for other people, but she’s always—

Alex has tried so hard to make her life perfect. There are things that she’s expected to do, things she expects herself to do, and she’s built her whole world around measuring up. And she really, genuinely thought she was finally doing things right. She has a steady job that she loves that even makes her feel a little closer to her dad, and she sees her sister all the time. So if she doesn’t date—that’s a choice she’s been making. It’s been the thing that falls by the wayside so she can focus on the important things, the things that matter. She can keep fit and become better at sparring; she can be there for Kara; she can afford her own apartment and earn a reputation as an editor and check off every goddamn box anyone can think of if she doesn’t waste her time on the one thing she can never seem to get right.

She’s spent 28 years trying desperately to rise to expectations, and just when she really thought she’d made it, she suddenly isn’t sure if she even knows herself at all.

Alex goes to the bathroom and splashes some water on her face. On her way back to her desk she walks by Lucy’s office; when Lucy looks up from her computer, Alex nods at her, and she looks reassured.

Despite everything, Alex thinks she’s holding it together all right. She feels incrementally more settled than yesterday. Everything is still confusing, but the thing is—she wanted to see Maggie, and she saw her. At least now she knows not all of the twisting in her stomach was anxiety. She knows what it could mean—not what it necessarily does mean, just what it could—and she knows that warmth flares through her when Maggie is close. She knows that Maggie… well, not that Maggie knows everything she’s thinking about, because she’d denied it to her face, but that Maggie saw something in her. And she recognizes that she’s hoping—maybe just a little—that the reason Maggie saw it is that she was looking for it.

Last night while she was lying in bed, staring sleeplessly at the ceiling, Alex had combed through old memories she hadn’t even realized she still had. Between the exhaustion and the alcohol, she’d been able to dull the barbed-wire edges of her thoughts and actually remember. Some things had loosened; some moments were drawn suddenly into sharp focus. She almost wishes she hadn’t gotten drunk, hadn’t gotten lunch with Maggie, hadn’t lined up the pool balls and sent them spinning towards the pocket, because—because—maybe that flame she feels around Maggie is something she’s felt before.

She has no idea why, but admitting it in her head helps.

So when the hangover recedes around lunchtime, some pressure in her lungs slides away with it. She’s still turning thoughts and memories over and over and over, but for the first time she thinks—maybe there’s room for this, and for her to breathe.

Of course, that’s when Maggie texts her, and her heart turns itself inside out again.

Hey Danvers. You free tonight?

Yeah, of course, Alex responds immediately. It IS Tuesday. Thought we don’t have edits in till Friday though?

Nah we don’t, Maggie responds quickly. Then: Just wanted to talk about something.

Alex wills her heart to be still. No problem, she replies.

**

Maggie is already at Dollywood when Alex arrives. She’s got a corner table way in the back, and she’s nursing a beer. Alex thinks about getting a drink on her way over; she could use a tumbler of something hard to numb the anxiety and nerves and—whatever else—tossing around in her stomach. But she doesn’t think she can rely on too many days of aspirin from Lucy, and the way she’s feeling, tonight would not be a one-drink night.

“Heya, Danvers,” Maggie says. She looks nervous.

“Sawyer,” Alex says. “So what’s going on?”

“I wanted to talk after yesterday,” Maggie says. She looks away and takes a sip of beer before continuing. Alex’s heart thunders. “It’s… okay, look. You aren’t gay. I get it.”

“Right,” Alex says, watching the way Maggie’s playing with her hands, rubbing her thumb along her index finger.

“But I am. And I know you know that already, but it’s important. To me, I mean.”

“Okay.” Alex isn’t sure where this is going.

“It’s—look, I want us to be friends. I care about you, and I think we’ve got a good thing going on, and you’re one of the few people I’ve met in this city that I think knows what’s up.” Alex smiles, and Maggie meets her eyes, her serious expression turning warm for a half-second. “So if we’re going to be friends, I want you to know this about me.”

“Anything,” Alex says, leaning forward. “Yeah, of course.”

Maggie takes a deep breath and looks at the ceiling. “I told you once that I didn’t have much of a safety net moving to the city.” Alex nods. “I was seeing this girl in college. Junior year. We were—I thought it was serious. It hadn’t been that long, but she was basically living in my room. She convinced me to tell my parents.”

She picks up a napkin and twists it into a point, untwists it, twists it back. When she starts talking again, her mouth is turned down at the corners. “I came out to them when I was fourteen. Young and stupid. They told me I was wrong, and if they ever heard me say that I was gay again, I wasn’t welcome back in their house.” She looks right at Alex. “Elisa convinced me that enough time had passed, that they must know and they were probably okay with it. She was wrong. They weren’t. And I don’t go home anymore.”

There’s another pause, and Maggie’s voice comes out rough. “And about a month after that, Elisa decided she was straight after all. So after everything, that ended too.”

Alex has no idea what to say. She wishes she knew the exact right line, but she is at a loss. “Oh, Maggie.”

“Yeah,” Maggie says, and her eyes look damp. “So.”

Alex leans across the table and puts her hand on Maggie’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks, Danvers,” Maggie says. “It was a long time ago.”

“Stuff like that doesn’t go away,” Alex says. She hesitates a beat before continuing. She doesn’t want Maggie to think she’s trying to compare situations, but. “My dad died when I was fifteen.”

Maggie’s arm goes still under Alex’s hand.

“It was about a year after we adopted Kara. It was a car crash, but we don’t really know how it happened. It was late. He driving home from the airport after flying back from New York. He was an editor too—he was here for work about once a month, and the rest of the time he was out with us in California. There might have been rain on the road, or an animal, or another driver coming the other direction. He swerved.”

It’s been years, and Alex has healed from this as much as she thinks she ever will, but her voice still catches on the last word. Maggie moves her arm under Alex’s hand and squeezes her arm back.

“I wish Kara had gotten to know him better,” Alex says. “I wish my mom still had him around.”

“I bet he was great,” Maggie says. Alex feels a twinge as she hopes, belatedly, that she hasn’t made Maggie feel bad by mentioning her family when Maggie’s just told her she no longer has one. But Maggie’s expression is gentle, and Alex feels seen, feels understood. She hasn’t talked about this with anyone besides Kara and her mom in years. She hasn’t had someone tell her something important, something like Maggie just told her, in years.

Despite everything she’s feeling, Alex realizes, she doesn’t know Maggie that well. But sitting there across from her, something sitting warm and sad and real between them, she knows that she wants to.

**

The next night, instead of going home, she goes to Kara’s.

It’s an impulsive thing. She doesn’t text that she’s on her way until she’s getting off her train at Atlantic Avenue and onto Kara’s, doesn’t even decide that’s where’s she’s going until her train pulls into the station in the first place. Alex has been sitting on the edge of this decision all day, turning it over and over in her head. This is the first day she’s wanted to talk about everything more than she’s wanted to swallow it forever. She might change her mind again before she gets to Kara’s, or she might not be able to get the words out at all—both are more than possible. But the two of them always talk about things, and talking about things always helps. After yesterday with Maggie, she wants to try.

It’s not early, and Kara’s probably already eaten, but that doesn’t stop Alex from picking up a couple of pints of ice cream from the bodega on the corner.

“Alex!”  Kara says as she opens the door. “What’d you bring?”

“Sorry for the late notice,” Alex says, handing over the ice cream. The resolve of her last-minute decision had buoyed her forwards as she walked from the train, but somewhere between the entrance to Kara’s building and her doorway the surge of confidence seems to have drained away, replaced by a nonspecific heavy weight in her stomach. She’d had this plan, sort of, of what she was going to say and how she was going to say it. She can’t remember a word.

“No problem, obviously,” Kara says, plopping the bag on the counter and reaching inside. “Long day at work? Mint chocolate chip is your comfort flavor.” Her forehead crinkles as she pulls the second pint out of the bag. “And you only get me cookie core when you’re trying to distract me.” She looks up at Alex for the first time, and Alex curls her fingers into the sleeve of her own sweater. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, really,” Alex says. “I don’t—you know, it’s nothing.”

Kara pulls a spoon from the drawer and holds it out to her. “Come on. Let’s go sit.”

They sit on the couch, and Alex holds her pint so tightly her hands go numb with cold.

“Ice cream can only help if you eat it, you know,” Kara says around a mouthful of cookie core. She swallows. “That’s what you told me when Winn was avoiding me last year. You were right on all counts.”

“Usually am, when it comes to ice cream,” Alex says, and manages a smile.

“So,” Kara says, and pulls her legs up onto the couch, “What’s going on?”

Alex prods at her ice cream, and then looks up at Kara.

“If you say it’s nothing, I won’t believe you,” Kara says. “Unless—unless you’d rather not talk about it. But I think you want to talk about it.”

She honestly doesn’t know what she’d do without Kara in her life, sometimes. She can’t believe there was almost a world in which they were never sisters.

“Okay,” Alex says. “Um.” She takes a breath and holds it in for a second, then lets it out in a rush. “I think I’m.”

Kara cocks her head like she has no idea where Alex is going with this, and maybe she doesn’t. That’s actually reassuring, somehow, since everyone else seems to have gotten there before her, but it also means she can still change course. It’s not too late to not say anything. But this is Kara. Maggie’s right; she’s lucky. This is Kara. She can do this.

“You know Maggie?” Alex says, before she can change her mind.

“Yeah, of course,” Kara says, her brow creasing in confusion. “I mean, no, I’ve never met her, but yeah, of course I do. Why?”

“I… um.” Alex flips her spoon around in her hands. “So, you know, she’s.... gay.”

“Okay?” Kara says it like a question.

“And I just never really thought about it before, I mean, about that kind of thing, but I’ve been spending all this time with her, and now I can’t stop thinking about it, and I guess.” Alex takes another long breath. “I can’t stop thinking about… about her.”

“Okay,” Kara says again. Alex can’t look at her.

“And at first I didn’t know why, I didn’t know at all, and then I didn’t see it, and then I… now I… do,” Alex says. “Do you, um. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Kara says, but it comes out like a question again, and goddammit, Alex is trying and she needs Kara to meet her halfway.

She raises her gaze to meet her sister’s. Kara’s expression is serious, and Alex can feel the back of her throat start to burn with suppressed tears. “I don’t know if I can say it,” she says stiffly, and Kara’s gaze softens.

“Oh, Alex,” she says, and, leaning forward, pulls her into a hug.

Relief floods through Alex so powerfully that a sob escapes her. She clutches at Kara’s shoulder and Kara squeezes her back. They sit that way for a moment, Alex holding desperately tight. When she finally loosens and shifts, she can feel the ice cream container tip off of her lap and onto the couch. With a choked laugh, she pulls back to pick it up. She sets it on the coffee table and Kara puts hers next to it.

“I love you,” Kara says, “you know, no matter what,” and tears prick at the corner of Alex’s eyes again. Kara gives her this soft smile.

“So,” Alex says, “Yeah. That’s what I… now you know.”

Kara reaches out and touches Alex’s shoulder for a moment, and then shifts and adjusts her glasses. “Is it okay if I… ask questions?”

Alex raises her shoulders incrementally in a shrug and nods. “I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer them.”

“This is what you were upset about last week,” Kara says. “Right?” Alex gives another tight nod, and Kara says, “I guess I just… Why were you? So upset, I mean? I don’t know that I—that I get it. I want to get it.”

Alex exhales, and surprisingly it comes out as a sharp laugh. “Look at me, Kara. I still don’t know, and it’s all I’ve been thinking about for days and days. It’s all just so new… and so much.”

“I don’t think it has to be a big deal,” Kara says softly, and Alex bristles. “I get that it is. But I don’t think it has to be.” She puts her arm back around Alex, pulling her into her side. Alex feels the tension seeping back out of her shoulders.

“I guess. I don’t know,” Alex says. “I just feel like I’m… this isn’t something I’m supposed to be.”

“No offense,” Kara says, “but Alex, what does that even mean?”

Alex shrugs again. “I don’t know. It just isn’t anything I ever… It’s not what I imagined for myself. I don’t think it’s what Mom or—or Dad ever imagined for me. It’s not what anyone imagines for themselves.”

Kara reaches for Alex’s hand. “I don’t know, Alex. I think all anyone every wants for you is to be happy. And if Maggie is someone that would make you happy, then even if people are a little surprised, then that’s what they want for you.”

Maggie does make her happy. Maggie makes her so happy. Fuck, spending time with Maggie makes her so happy.

“You’re smiling,” Kara says softly.

Alex exhales a small laugh. “I was just thinking about Maggie.”

“What about her?” Kara prompts.

Everything, suddenly. It’s all still too much to say out loud, and Alex grasps for something to say. “She’s just… so bad at pool,” she finds, and laughs again. She can’t believe how relieved she feels. “God, Kara, I just like her so much.”

Kara’s smile turns to a grin. “I can tell.”

“I don’t know how anyone could not like her. She’s just…” Alex lets out a rush of breath. “Being around her makes me better, I guess. That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever said.”

“No, it isn’t. Can I ask another question?” Kara says. “Is it… just Maggie?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you… gay now?” Kara asks, and Alex winces involuntarily. “Which would be fine,” Kara rushes to add. “I just mean, do you still like boys too? Have you felt this way before about other girls?”

“No,” Alex says. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know if I ever—” She rolls her shoulders, trying to force out some of the tension that’s shot back up her spine. “I don’t know. I keep thinking and thinking about it and I just, I don’t know if I ever… I can’t remember feeling exactly like this before. Maybe a little, though. I keep going back over things, over and over, and I just keep—remembering things… and I think maybe I. Maybe I have, a little.”

Kara nods. “And… with boys? I mean, you used to date kind of a lot. But now it’s been years.”

Alex closes her eyes. No. That’s as far as she can go, today. That’s as much as she has in her. “I don’t know, Kara. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Kara says. “Can I ask one more question?”

She considers it. Alex feels like she’s run a marathon. She’s a little giddy and a lot relieved and still a good bit anxious. Mostly, she feels like she wants to sit here and watch about thirty episodes of Chopped with Kara and just take a break from thinking about this for the first time in days. But as much as she wants that, it’s Kara asking, and so she nods.

“Does Maggie know?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says, and the words surprise her. “I think she might have guessed.” She told Maggie she was straight, it’s true, and she thought Maggie believed her. But suddenly she finds herself hoping that maybe Maggie knows she lied. Maybe Maggie was hoping she’d answer differently.

Maybe Maggie likes her.

“You should tell her,” Kara says. “When you’re ready. That you like her.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, and she says it offhand, but what she means is, maybe I will.

**

The revised draft of Max’s manuscript comes in on Friday morning, and Alex’s heart trips over itself when she sees Maggie’s email in her inbox. She opens the document right away. But apparently she’s missed too many meetings as of late, and she’s only a few pages in when Lucy drags her off to a marketing meeting, and J’onn stops by her office to collect her on his way to an art meeting that afternoon. Alex sends Maggie a reply to let her know she’ll send her comments by Monday, even if the world is conspiring against her.

It’s a good draft; Alex spends the weekend combing through it. It’s over a hundred pages shorter and it’s twice as clean, and it makes her chest tight with pride to see her handiwork combine with Maggie’s on the page. Together, they’re making this good thing better. It turns out that Max must’ve been serious about taking critiques from Maggie without argument, because every suggestion they made shows in the revision. Alex had been expecting more of a fight from him—but then, Maggie is tough. Alex has no doubt that if it came to an argument, Maggie would win handily. The thought makes her smile. So much for Max going through multiple agents; with Maggie, he’s found one that’s worth keeping around.

On Saturday, Alex holes up in her apartment to start in on the second round of changes. Kara makes a concentrated effort to bring Alex as her plus-one to an L-Corp gala she’s covering for the Times, but Alex just can’t spare the hours, even if she wanted to go. DEO’s sales conference is coming up and she’s about to lose a big chunk of her editing time. The timing of this book is important; they’re trying to put it on the fall list and it’s already mid-April, so the final draft needs to be ready in less than two months.

To a certain degree, though, Alex is just glad for the excuse to work through the weekend. Although she’s relieved she told Kara about all of her Maggie feelings—the knot in her stomach is looser than it’s been in days—she still isn’t sure she’s ready to see her sister again. She isn’t ready for more questions, and she isn’t ready to field knowing looks when she barely understands anything herself. Working through the weekend gives her a few days just to sit with everything and think about something else for once.

Although that’s her intent, it turns out that Maggie shows up in her thoughts a lot. Alex reluctantly admits to herself that this is a crush, really a crush, when she finds her thoughts wandering to Maggie’s smile, over and over and over. And now that she’s admitting it to herself, she can’t help but remember that heat deep below her stomach when Maggie squeezed by her in the restaurant. She remembers noticing the long line of Maggie’s neck under her hair as she bent over the pool table. She tries to remember what she’s worn on Tuesdays, and if she caught Maggie looking. She wonders if her gaze has ever lingered. With a narrow dip of guilt, she allows herself to imagine Maggie kissing her—she’s so warm, suddenly, warm all over—against the wall at the bar. No, that’s bad, too public—she moves them somewhere no one can stare, puts Maggie in her apartment. Near the door, Maggie’s bag on the floor, forgotten. Maggie’s hand under her chin, in her hair, her back against the wall, Maggie’s mouth—

She wrenches herself away, her face bright red, and goes back to the manuscript.

It also turns out that Maggie was serious when she meant she wanted to be friends, really friends, because Alex gets a few texts from her over the course of the weekend. They aren’t about work, even, just stuff Maggie’s thinking about. Apparently Maggie goes jogging in Prospect Park, which must mean she lives nearby. And she seems to be spending Sunday burning through a Stranger Things rewatch, because she sends Alex a few good-natured complaints about the show. Alex isn’t much for texting, really just Kara and only when she can’t call, but it feels nice to know she’s crossed Maggie’s mind. She replies to each one and, each time, returns to her work aware than something in her heart is burning just slightly hotter than before.

**

She is restless all day Tuesday.

At lunch she goes to the gym in the office building, even though she doesn’t really have the time. She’s too antsy not to; the longer she sits at her desk anticipating seeing Maggie that night, the less she can focus on anything. The urge to move is itching under her skin, and it makes the feinting and lunging of sparring seem immensely appealing. She checks with Lucy, but she’s got a lunch meeting uptown, so Alex goes by herself. The punching bags will have to do.

She puts in twenty minutes on the treadmill first, and it helps; her heart rate already feels more under her own control. By the time she turns towards the corner of the room with the punching bags, there’s already some guy in her usual spot. She steers around him without a second thought, and it’s only when she gets to the adjacent punching bag that she notices it’s J’onn.

“Alex,” he says, dropping his stance and nodding in greeting.

“J’onn! I didn’t know you came here,” Alex says. It’s weird seeing him outside of the office, but not as weird as she’d expect.

“Not as often as I’d like to,” he replies. “Work keeps me busy. And you as well, I know. What brings you out in the middle of the day? Where’s Lucy?”

“I’m here on my own when I have a chance, and she had a meeting,” Alex says. “I had some energy to work off.”

“I noticed,” J’onn says. “I’m not Lucy, but if you’d like to spar, I wouldn’t mind. I have some restless energy to work off as well.”

“Oh,” Alex says, realizing. “It’s the anniversary, isn’t it?”

J’onn inclines his head. “Seven years.”

“I’m sorry, J’onn,” Alex says. She never knew J’onn’s wife or daughters—it happened before she started at DEO Publishing—but she’s been there for the six Aprils since. She steps forward to put a hand on his shoulder. It’s sweaty, and she wrinkles her nose involuntarily. J’onn smiles.

“Thank you, Alex.”

Alex holds up her gloves in a question, and J’onn nods and beckons her forward.

It’s a good bout; Alex is sore and feeling the strain in her shoulders by the time they’re done. She and J’onn are well matched, and after a few rounds she’s able loosen some of the nervous tightness that’s been building in her all morning. She should come to the gym in the middle of the day more often. All of those hours behind a desk can leave her antsy even on the best of days. She knows Lucy feels the same way, and it seems J’onn does as well. He seems looser and happier as they walk back towards the locker rooms, and his gait is more relaxed. He bumps Alex’s shoulder gently with his fist.

“You’re a fighter everywhere, it seems.”

Alex grins. “In and out of the ring.”

“I’m glad to see you smiling,” J’onn says. “You’ve seemed off-kilter recently. Has everything been all right? Everything well with your sister?”

“Just busy,” Alex says, and J’onn nods and doesn’t push. They stop outside the locker room entrances.

“Well, the Lord book seems like it’s been a good project for you,” J’onn says. “It sounds like you’re making great progress, and I really do think it’s going to be an asset to DEO.” Alex beams internally; she’s proud to hear it. “I’m looking forward to seeing the manuscript when it’s done. And you should have that agent come by the office sometime. We can offer her drinks.”

“I’ll tell her,” Alex says. She wonders for a second if J’onn suspects more than he’s letting on, but all she says is, “Thanks for the match. I’ll see you back at the office. And J’onn? Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“Thank you, Alex,” J’onn says. Alex nods once, sincere, and then heads into the locker room.

**

“Danvers!” Maggie says, swinging into the open seat across from Alex. She nods and Alex smiles in return, maybe slightly too big to cover for the way her stomach has just turned a roller-coaster loop. “How’s tricks?”

“How’s tricks?” Alex says, wrinkling her nose disbelievingly. “Who even says that?”

“Me,” Maggie says, grinning. “Hi to you too, Alex.”

She’s spent all day imagining how it will feel to see Maggie now that she’s admitting to herself that she has feelings for Maggie. It hasn’t been a deliberate thing, just fragments pushing their way into other thoughts. Alex knows Maggie’s smile and how she tilts her head when she laughs and how her voice goes matter-of-fact when she’s saying something serious, and she remembers from the past few times she’s seen Maggie that heady, nervous feeling she gets when she stands close. She can’t imagine that seeing Maggie now that she’s aware of all of those things will feel much different from their sum total.

Across from her, Maggie’s still grinning, and she was wrong, she was wrong, she was wrong.

Alex swallows involuntarily and tries to respond normally. “Tricks are good,” she says. “Is good?” Maggie pulls a face and she feels egged on. “How many tricks are we talking here?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m a one-trick pony,” Maggie says.

“No new tricks for you, old dog,” Alex says, and Maggie laughs. Alex’s heart blooms.

“And speaking of my one trick,” Maggie says, reaching into her bag and sliding her shaggy-edged pile of manuscript printouts onto the table, “How about that draft, huh?”

“I know,” Alex says, and they’re off. She can’t believe how much she’s missed working with Maggie in the few weeks that Max has been rewriting. She’s insightful and incisive and she has this focused intensity that makes Alex feel warm all over. She loves being some small part of the subject of that focus. It makes her feel big.

She wonders if Maggie likes working with her best, too, then remembers that this is a strange arrangement, that Maggie rarely if ever works with editors like this at all. It’s really just luck they’re working this closely to begin with. She’s glad that Maxwell Lord guards his time like a miser if it’s given her this time with Maggie; she can’t imagine having only had a couple of transactive conversations instead of making this bar theirs through weeks of pushing words around a page together.

Alex keeps sneaking these glances at her when Maggie’s looking at the screen or the page, and every single time her heart does this thump-thump-flip like she’s some kind of high school kid hoping to get asked to the movies. It feels ridiculous, reacting like this. She feels buzzy and breathless and as though all of her senses have been turned up too high. But there’s also something about this that makes her feel—alive. She thinks with a pang of consternation and wonder that there’s something exhilarating about this confusing mix of feelings. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but—she feels like some new, more true version of herself.

“Spaced out there, Danvers?” Maggie says, and Alex snaps back into the present.

“Never,” she says lightly. “I am always alert.”

“Constant vigilance,” Maggie says. “Got it.”

Alex rolls her eyes and hopes she doesn’t blush. “Yeah, well.”

Maggie grins, and then waits for a moment and says too casually, “You do seem distracted, though.”

“Do I?” Alex says. She considers for a half-beat saying something dumb about Maggie’s presence being distracting. She hasn’t been able to stop thinking about what Kara said, about telling Maggie, and there’s a corner of her mind that’s tempted to show her hand. Alex knows how to flirt; she’s not some kid. She used to be good at it. Although it might be different, now. She doesn’t know if Maggie—well, if women—she doesn’t know anything about what she’s trying to do here, or even if she’s trying to do it. The thought is terrifying and compelling and terrifying. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She doesn’t really know anything except that being around Maggie makes her feel electric and alive. She thinks all of this, but instead of any of it what she ends up saying is, “I ran into J’onn at lunch at the gym today.”

“Look at you, gym rat,” Maggie says. “Unusual to see him there?”

Alex shrugs. “Yeah, but I don’t usually have time to go in the middle of the day. Mostly Lucy—that’s our editorial director, Lucy—and I go after work, when we go. We spar.”

“Lucy Lane?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, surprised. “You know her?”

“She was on my shortlist of editors for Max’s book,” Maggie says, and Alex feels stupidly disappointed.

“Oh.”

Maggie seems to soften at the look on her face. “After you, Danvers,” she says. “I told you you were my first choice for this. Always have been. You know you’ve got quite a reputation, right?”

“Oh,” Alex says again, this time with a faint flush of pride and pleasure. “Do I?”

“Yeah, you do,” Maggie says frankly. Her gaze is steady. “Anyway, you were saying. J’onn?”

“Right, yeah, J’onn,” Alex says. “He’s the one that got me my first job, I told you that once, I think? I was bartending, and things were hitting rock bottom. I’d been applying and applying to stuff, everything really, and I’d almost given up. Showing up to work drunk. Showing up to catering gigs drunk. And then I met J’onn at some event I was working, I don’t even remember what it was, but I left with his card.” She feels exposed, but Maggie’s expression is understanding. “I owe him a lot of what I have. And today was—today’s a hard day for him. Every year. He’s lost people too, and it’s.” Alex flops one hand meaninglessly. “I wish I could do more.”

“Course you do, Danvers,” Maggie says. “You’re you.”

Alex tries not to think too hard about what that might mean.

“Yeah, well,” she says. “Anyway, that’s it, really. Just wishing I could do more. He knew my dad,” she adds, spur-of-the-moment. If possible, Maggie’s eyes soften a little more.

“I’m sure you do a lot, Alex,” she says. “Just by being there.”

Alex ducks her head. “Thanks.”

“So,” Maggie says after a beat, “You spar.”

“Oh—yeah,” Alex says. “Pretty often, yeah.”

“Any good?”

Alex would like to think so. Lucy’s good, and they’re well matched. “Very good,” she says, evenly.

Maggie makes a face like she’s considering this. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“How about you?” Alex asks. “Spar at all?

“Not at all,” Maggie says, “Or not if I can help it. Got in too many fights when I was younger and it sort of lost the appeal.”

“Just the running, then?” Alex questions, and Maggie nods.

“Got a half-marathon coming up, and a marathon in the fall.” Alex wrinkles her nose, and Maggie cocks her head. “What?”

“Marathons,” Alex says. “Doesn’t that hurt like hell? Not that it’s not impressive, Sawyer, but damn.”

Maggie shrugs. “Yeah, it can. But that’s half the point. You get it, Danvers—the focus. It makes everything else go away.”

Alex does get it. She nods.

And then, because she is apparently a masochist, she says, “So how was your date last week?”

“Not bad,” Maggie says after a beat, and Alex raises her eyebrows. “I don’t know, Danvers, how is any date? We got dinner, she came over for drinks, it was fine.”

“But just fine,” Alex says, like her heart isn’t racing at the suggestion, like her stomach isn’t twisting unpleasantly at the thought of Maggie bringing someone home.

“Just fine, yeah,” Maggie says. She drums her fingers on the table like she’s considering saying something, then raps twice on the wood. “I dunno. I’m actually thinking of calling things off with her.”

“Yeah?” Alex asks desperately.

Maggie lifts one shoulder in a shrug and makes a face. “It’s only been a handful of dates, and it’s been decent, don’t get me wrong, we’ve been having fun. But decent’s only decent. I’m thirty-one years old. ‘Just having fun’ stops being fun after a while.” She rolls her eyes—at herself, at the other woman, at some inside joke of a memory, Alex doesn’t know. “Nothing ever turns out to… anyway, you know.”

Alex does and doesn’t. She tries to think of something insightful to say, but what comes out of her mouth is, “Oh,” and she eloquently follows it up with, “yeah.”

She can almost see Maggie start to turn inward, and she races to add, “No, I do—I do get it. I do.”

“Yeah?” Maggie says, and she tilts her head slightly to the side, considering Alex. “Well, thanks, Danvers.”

“Of course,” Alex says, feeling overwhelmed and hopeful and more than a little nauseous. Then Maggie smiles at her, just this crook of the corner of her mouth really, and she’s lost.

“Anyway,” she says, tearing herself back into the moment, “Chapter eight,” and Maggie says right, right and leans back over the manuscript, and they’re back on solid ground. Alex focuses on the words on the page and tracked changes and timelines and paragraphs, and all the while the back of her mind goes, maybe. Maybe.

**

You ever watch Law & Order SVU?

Alex weighs her phone in her hand for a moment after typing, then hits send on the text and slides her phone back into her pocket.

“Who’re you texting?” Kara asks as she heads back towards the couch. She’s got a bowl of popcorn cradled in her arms, a plate of leftovers in one hand, and two open beers in the other; the whole thing seems precarious. Alex leans forward to take her beer and plate from Kara and breathes a sigh of relief when the bowl is on the table.

“No one,” she says, and when Kara gives her a skeptical look, adds, “Maggie.”

Kara looks like she might burst with excitement.

“It’s not a big deal,” Alex says. “It’s not about anything major.”

“You don’t text anyone,” Kara says, her eyes sparkling. “You don’t text Lucy or Winn or James.”

“Why would I text Winn or James?”

“You’re texting Maggie,” Kara repeats, and bites her lip in a grin.

“It’s not—don’t make it weird, Kara,” Alex says, feeling a blush fan across her cheeks. “I just figured that I can, you know. Try a little.”

“She doesn’t know how lucky she is yet,” Kara says confidently. “What’d you text her about?”

“Just TV,” Alex says. “I’ll let you know if she replies, okay?” She probably won’t, not unless Kara asks again. It’s still tied up in too much uncertainty and confusion for her to volunteer her feelings or to find uncomplicated joy in talking about her crush. But all the same, there’s a part of her that beams at the fact that Kara’s acting like this. It’s the same way she acted in high school when Alex got asked to prom, the same as when Alex first slept over at a college boyfriend’s. (That night turned to be pretty mediocre, as did most of the nights after it, but Alex has gotten used to not thinking about it.) Kara’s sitting here reacting to the fact that Alex has a crush, and not the fact that it’s on a girl. She’s still Kara. They’re still the same sisters they’ve always been.

“You better,” Kara says, and turns on the TV.

Alex’s phone doesn’t buzz during the episode. It does once shortly before she leaves, but it’s a false alarm—their mom has sent both Kara and Alex some article about the crime rate in an entirely different part of Brooklyn. Alex keeps from rolling her eyes, mostly, and pretends to herself that she isn’t disappointed as she slides her phone back into her pocket.

Her phone buzzes with a text as she walks down into the subway to take it the one stop home, and this time it’s Maggie. Alex’s heart rate leaps.

Of course I watch SVU, Danvers, who do you think I am

It buzzes again in her hand:

Used to watch it more, I miss the earlier seasons

Alex smiles involuntarily down at her phone and types back, Same, but Kara and I have been watching it since high school. Just caught this week’s episode.

Someone bumps into Alex as they push past her towards the turnstiles. Alex throws the guy a glare, then realizes she’s been standing still. Blushing slightly, she shakes her head at herself and doesn’t check her phone again until she’s on the platform with its spotty service. Maggie has replied: On a school night? For shame

I did all my homework already! Alex types, and then cringes when she rereads it. She hopes Maggie doesn’t think it sounds dumb.

Nerd, Maggie replies.

You make a commission off royalties from my homework, Sawyer

True. Nothing wrong with nerds

Alex climbs back out of the subway at Prospect Park and holds her phone tight the entire time she walks home, her heart beating in her palm.

Homework gets a lot better when they pay you to do it, she types as she climbs the stairs to her walk-up.

Yeah, that would’ve been a strong sell when I was fifteen

The mental image of Maggie at fifteen makes Alex smile. You must’ve been quite the fifteen-year-old

I pretended to smoke behind the bleachers and forged my parents’ signatures on my progress reports

Badass, Alex replies. She sets her phone on the counter while she puts her things away and changes for bed, and when she picks it back up again Maggie has replied.

Tried to be
Don’t tell me you were actually cool in high school, Danvers, I don’t think I can take the betrayal

Alex laughs and sits down on her bed to reply. I’ll have you know that I was extremely cool, thank you

Oh?

Editor-in-chief of the school paper? The coolest

Again: nerd. But that’s okay, I appreciate nerds

She’s lying on her side staring at the phone, and the smile spreads over her face involuntarily, wide and warm.

Glad to hear it, Alex replies, and she falls asleep on top of her sheets and wakes up at three a.m. from tilting, dry-mouthed dreams about Maggie’s smile and high school bleachers behind Dollywood and the rattling of an almost-empty train. She plugs in her phone and pulls the covers over herself and stares at the ceiling, feeling hollow and wanting and strange.

**

For the first time in what must be at least a month, Alex gives herself a weekend off.

It’s not like she doesn’t have work to do. DEO’s sales conference is a week from Wednesday and Alex has to finish her pitches and prepare slides and get her share of everything ready to present to the sales reps, plus she has her editing on Max’s book to do before Tuesday, and she has all her regular work to do besides. But she’s promised Kara up and down that she’ll go to the next game night and this is the first Friday in forever that her schedule and Winn’s and James’s all line up. “There are so many more four-player games than three-player, Alex, come on,” Kara says. “And I just got Ticket to Ride, please?” And then it’s actually fun, actually a breath of fresh air, actually… really nice just to take the time off and be with people.

It shouldn’t be surprising. It’s not that Alex dislikes Winn and James, because she doesn’t; in fact, they’ve grown on her over the past couple of years. She actually kind of admires the way the three of them been able to hold together despite it all: the way Winn picked himself back up after Kara turned him down, and the way Kara and James recovered from their fizzled romance, and the way Kara, endlessly inspiring Kara, just kept moving forward through the whole thing, working to keep her little circle of friends something important and untouchable. It’s like nothing Alex has ever had. Kara tells her she should invite Lucy, says, “You know they’re your friends too,” and even though they’re not really—it’s Kara they’re there for—Alex always forgets how true and possible that friendship feels until they’re actually all together.

Anyway, she blocks Winn in Ticket to Ride until he’s steaming, and then lets him off easy for the next game until James picks up the reins and cuts him off to win at the last possible moment, and Kara reprimands them all, and Alex laughs. It’s—nice. She should give this a chance more often.

And then the next day is this beautiful warm late-April Saturday, the kind of perfect-weather day that only comes along once or twice a year. Alex can almost feel the spring breeze just from the way the light streams into her kitchen in the morning. Maybe there’s something to this whole spring fever thing after all, because when Kara suggests that they go spend the afternoon in Prospect Park, Alex finds that all she wants to do is say yes.

They set up their blanket on the ground in this nice patch of sunlight near one of the paths. Alex is looking for stones to weigh down the corners against the breeze. She’s searching almost lazily, enjoying the feel of the sun on her back and idly turning over title ideas for a manuscript, when someone calls out to her.

“Danvers!"

She looks up and forgets, for a second, to breathe. Maggie’s there in jogging gear, looking sweaty and out-of-breath and grinning her biggest dimpled smile. She’s got her hair pulled back off her neck; Alex’s eyes rake down it before she can stop herself to Maggie’s exposed collarbones, her shoulders, the low cut of her sports tank. Fuck. Alex feels like she’s been bolted to the ground.

“Thought that was you,” Maggie says, sounding pleased. “What’re you up to?”

Alex swallows, her eyes still tracing Maggie’s exposed neck, and with effort wrenches herself back. “Maggie! Hey,” she says, miraculously managing to put words together. “Just out enjoying the weather. How about you, what are you up to?”

Which is a stupid question, obviously, given the jogging gear, but she’s saved by Kara bouncing up from the blanket and joining them. “Oh! Hey,” Alex says, interrupting the look of bemusement that’s starting to cross Maggie’s face. “This is my sister.”

“Kara, right?” Maggie says, sticking out her hand to shake Kara’s. “Maggie Sawyer.”

Alex doesn’t need to look at Kara to tell that she’s absolutely delighted.

“Yes, hi!” Kara says. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Alex and I are working on Maxwell Lord’s book together,” Maggie adds unnecessarily.

“Are you really?” Kara asks innocently, and Alex wants to sink through the ground. “I loved his first book, Alex made me read it in middle school. And then again in high school, actually, because apparently I didn’t appreciate it enough the first time.”

Maggie grins at Alex. “That so?”

“It might be,” Alex says evasively.

“It is,” Kara says. “Anyway, I can’t wait for the new one. It’s all Alex talks about. She was really excited to meet him, too, but I guess you can’t have everything.”

“Kara!” Alex says, half under her breath. She’s stuck on Kara’s implication that she’s talking nonstop about Maggie; it makes her feel panicky.

“No, yeah, he is kind of a jackass,” Maggie agrees easily, and Alex relaxes. “Weirdly, though, he and I get along all right most of the time. I hear I can be stubborn when I try.”

Kara laughs. “Alex can too, though.”

“Oh, you don’t say.” Maggie smirks, and Kara grins in return.

“I’m right here, thanks,” Alex says.

“And I’d have never known you had a stubborn streak if she didn’t tell me, Danvers,” Maggie says. Kara laughs, and Alex fights back a blush. “So how’s your weekend going?

“Not bad,” Alex says. “Just enjoying the weather. We were about to have a picnic. You’re, uh, you’re welcome to join us, if you want.”

“Aw, that’s cute,” Maggie says. “Nah, I’ve got another six miles, but thanks. Good weekend for it, though.”

“Very,” Alex says. “How’s yours going?”

“It’s going,” Maggie says. “Pretty chill, not up to much. Errands and work and running, really. Trying to chip away at my stack of queries. The usual.”

“Chill is nice,” Alex says.

Maggie shrugs. “Can be.” There’s a little bit of unhappiness in her tone; Alex makes a mental note to ask her about it on Tuesday. Then, like always, her casual smile reappears. “Fun to run into you out and about, though.”

“You too,” Alex says. “Who knew anyone wore anything besides business casual?”

“I gotta admit, I never pegged you for someone who’d voluntarily wear orange.”

“Hey, I like this shirt!” Alex says, and Maggie laughs. Kara smiles and adjusts her glasses.

Maggie glances down at the picnic blanket and then quickly at her watch, and Alex thinks for a hopeful second that she’s going to decide to stay and have lunch with them. But then Maggie says, “Hey, I’m really sorry, but I do have to run. I’ve got a thing later, and I’ve got to have enough time to get back and shower.”

“No, of course,” Alex says. “Enjoy the rest of your run. I’ll see you Tuesday, yeah?”

“Like always,” Maggie says. “It was great to meet you, Kara. Congrats on the Luthor article, by the way. Alex mentioned it.”

Kara beams. “Thanks, it’s been really fun. I think it’s slated to run this week.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Maggie says. To Alex, she says, “Catch you later, Danvers.”

“See you,” Alex says, and Maggie smiles, adjusts her ponytail, and jogs away.

Alex sits down heavily on the grass.

“So,” Kara says, grinning from ear to ear.

“Shut up,” Alex says. She reaches over for the bag of food, aware that her cheeks are flushed pink.

“I see why you like her,” Kara says, and Alex inhales sharply.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kara says. “She seems really nice. And she’s really pretty.” She sits down next to Alex and loops her arm through hers. “It’s okay to be excited to see her, Alex.”

“It’s … she’s the only thing I’m sure of,” Alex says. “In all of this. Everything I thought I knew about myself is rearranging. It’s all so fast. And so confusing. And then I see her, and.” Alex makes a gesture with her hands. “There’s something I know. Something certain.”

“I get it,” Kara says contemplatively. “And I’m going out on a limb here, but I think it’s not impossible that she likes you too.”

“You think?” Alex says, her heart beating fast.

Kara shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know. But you could find out.”

Alex doesn’t respond, just gives Kara a look. Kara grins in response and holds out her hand for the food bag. “Now scoot me some chips, because I’m famished.”

“Yeah, okay,” Alex says, and she passes Kara the Doritos and lies back on the grass. Kara flops down next to her, and Alex stares up at the sky and watches the clouds go by.

If Kara has to say her name twice to get her attention, it’s not because she’s thinking about Maggie and her running clothes and her smile. It’s not that she’s distracted. It’s not that she’s hoping. It’s just that the breeze and the birds and the sun have lulled her into some unusual calm. It’s not anything else at all.

It’s not.

**

Alex’s phone rings, and it’s Maggie.

The buzzing jolts her awake; she blinks sleep out of her eyes as she grabs on the couch next to her for the phone. She’d gone to Kara’s for an early dinner after the park, and then dinner had turned into Netflix, and it was well past sunset by the time Alex had finally made it home to try to get to at least a little work. She’s been reading while on the brink of dozing off for a couple hours. It’s not even that late, maybe ten, but the sun exhaustion must’ve pushed her over the edge. Alex scrubs at her eyes with her arm and answers the phone.

“Sawyer?”

“Danvers,” Maggie says. “Have you heard the one about the price of duck feathers?”

Alex’s brain, still hazy with sleep, does not know what to do with this.

“What?”

“They keep getting more expensive, so now even down is up.” Maggie’s voice is brisk, and it sounds like she’s walking somewhere.

Alex is speechless.

“Nothing? I thought it was pretty good for a popsicle-stick joke,” Maggie says. “Come on, Danvers, it’s okay to laugh.”

“Maggie, what? Can you—hang on.”

“No problem,” Maggie says. Alex gets up and goes to splash some water on her face. Maggie has never called her outside of work before. She might be hallucinating, or still asleep. The cool water is a nice shock; she pours herself a glass and, clearer-headed, walks back over to her couch and her phone.

“Okay, I’m back now,” she says. She can still hear the rustle and tap of Maggie walking in the background. “Maggie, what’s going on?”

“Nothing really,” Maggie says. “Just thought I’d call. That okay?”

“Yeah, always,” Alex says. “It’s no problem, I was just working. I got back one of those final drafts I was waiting for, just reading it over.”

“Oh yeah? Not the one with the dragons?”

“No, this one that’s trying really hard not to be a rip-off of Star Trek,” Alex says. “Dragons are done, thank god.”

“Hey, be nice, everything’s trying really hard not to be a rip-off of Star Trek,” Maggie says. Alex chuckles. “Man, so that gets a laugh, but not the down joke? Tough audience.”

“Not everyone’s meant for comedy,” Alex says. “How was the rest of your run? Did you make it back in time for your thing?”

“Good, the run was good. And yeah. I did. Thanks,” Maggie says, and Alex thinks she might’ve hit on why Maggie’s calling, really. It’s not that it’s not nice hearing Maggie’s voice unexpectedly—Alex loves that calling her is apparently a thing that Maggie does now. But Maggie’s tone has gone all studied-casual, and Alex knows her well enough now to take it as a sign that something’s up.

Her first thought is the book, there’s a problem with the book, because why else would Maggie choose to call her? But no; Maggie would have led with the snag if it were work. It’s personal things where she’s reluctant, where she takes her time before she shares. Alex hadn’t realized she knew that about Maggie, hadn’t realized she’d noticed.

With a stab of understanding, she realizes too that Maggie has never mentioned friends outside of work, not once.

“How was it?” she asks, carefully, and Maggie pauses for just long enough that Alex knows she’s right, that Maggie’s calling because of something that happened this evening.

“It was fine.” Then there’s another pause, and Maggie sighs and says, “Look, Danvers. I’m sorry to call.”

“Maggie, no, of course,” Alex says, leaning forward like Maggie’s there in front of her and not just on the other end of the phone. “What’s going on?”

“You know, the older you get the more you think you’ll have this bullshit figured out, but it turns out thinking doesn’t amount to much,” Maggie says. Her voice is bitter. It doesn’t sound like she’s walking anymore; Alex imagines her stepping into some corner off the sidewalk on her way to the subway, the way only New York can offer privacy in the middle of a busy street. “You remember that woman I was gonna break things off with?”

Of course Alex does.

“We had tickets to the Mets game, she’s big into baseball, and I thought, well, you never know, it’s not great but it’s not bad, right? Good things grow out of fine things. I’ll give it one more date, right? One more.” Maggie exhales sharply. “One more.”

“That sounds logical,” Alex says. “I guess.”

“Yeah, well, she dumped me before I could give it one more anything, so it doesn’t matter how logical it was or wasn’t,” Maggie says. “Apparently, I’m a stubborn workaholic who doesn’t understand how to make genuine connections. All of which, I guess, makes me pretty much undateable.” It sounds like Maggie may have kicked something; there’s a clang and then she swears under her breath.

“Maggie,” Alex says. “No. No, that’s not even a little bit true.”

“I guess,” Maggie says.

“Some of us appreciate stubborn workaholics,” Alex says. She hopes it makes Maggie smile. “And the genuine connection part? What does that even mean? That you didn’t click and she gets off on tearing you down for it? That’s some bullshit. Look, we’re friends. That’s a genuine connection. She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.”

Maggie exhales again, and it sounds like the shadow of a laugh. “Pity you’re straight, Danvers.”

Alex’s hands go frozen on the phone, and she could swear her heart stops. She thinks she’s silent for a beat too long—not even reacting, just keeping herself breathing—because Maggie says, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I was kidding and I crossed a line. Didn’t mean to make things weird.”

“No,” Alex says. “Um. Not weird, it’s fine, it’s.” She wants Maggie to say it again. She doesn’t think she’ll know any better how to respond, but she wants to feel the way it catches just under her heart. Say it again, she thinks, and something boils up in her chest. Say it again. It’s so close to spilling out of her, so close, but she grasps for it to shove it back down, and what comes out of her mouth is, “Yeah. Pity.”

Maggie’s quiet for a moment, and then she says, “I just meant I don’t meet too many people I care about. Is all I meant.”

“Yeah, well, I care about you too, Sawyer,” Alex says. Anxiety and hope and a hundred other things are twisted around her heart, so intertwined that she can’t figure out where one ends and the next begins. She feels like she should be worrying the cord the phone doesn’t have around her fingers. “So keep your chin up, yeah? She doesn’t know anything.”

“Yeah,” Maggie says, sounding somewhat more hopeful. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Alex says. “That’s what make me so good at my job.”

Maggie laughs. “Yeah, okay.” The New York noise in the background gets louder. She must be walking again, back onto a main drag.

“It’s true,” Alex says. “I’ve been told by a very reliable source.”

“That you’re always right?”

“That I’m good at my job. I hear I was even someone’s first choice for a manuscript. It’s gonna be big. The author has a movie with Chris Pine.”

“No, really?” Maggie says. It’s sarcastic, but her voice is fond.

“I swear,” Alex says.

“Well in that case,” Maggie says. “Hey, um. So I should really get on the subway home. It’s getting late. But, uh. Thanks, Alex.”

“Of course,” Alex says. When they hang up, she just stares at the phone in her hand.

She doesn’t go to bed for a long time.

**

Alex has a hypothesis that there is a finite amount of space in a human heart, because it’s starting to seem like the way Maggie makes her feel just doesn’t fit anymore. She’s gone from flutters when Maggie smiles to this persistent ache in her chest. It catches in her throat and monopolizes her thoughts. Their phone conversation is still playing in her head, and it’s been days. She’d use the word yearning if it didn’t sound incredibly fucking stupid.

It’s alarming, she thinks, as Maggie leans over her ridiculous printouts that she’s got spread all over the counter, how new and vivid and big this feeling is. It’s overwhelming. She’s 28 years old and she’s just now feeling this, this bigness, this wanting. She wants more conversations about their lives and their families and the things they both miss and have and love. She wants to brush Maggie’s hair away from her face and she wants Maggie to pass closer into her space when she rounds the pool table, to wrap her arm around Maggie’s waist. It’s almost a compulsion; it would be so easy to reach out, to lean in, to find Maggie’s mouth with her own. She wants to know how Maggie kisses, what it would feel like, if it’s the same way she imagines it. She wants—she wants. She wants Maggie to want her like this, in a way that feels bigger than herself, bigger than fits into her body.

It doesn’t match how Alex has wanted before—how she’s thought she’s wanted before. If she’s being honest with herself, it feels closest to those flashes she keeps remembering, the ones she couldn’t even bring herself to think about at first. It fits with the way she felt on sleepovers in high school: heart-pumpingly, vividly awake while the night got drowsy, hoping Vicky would want to stay up a little longer, tell her another secret, snuggle into to her a little more, so that the night wouldn’t end and the sleepover-closeness would last. Or in college freshman year, staying later at the library with her roommate so that they could walk home together, bleary-eyed. She recognizes the flare of panic she’d felt at first, now, too; there’s an echo of it in every fight she and Vicky had, why she got a single sophomore year. Why she’d fall asleep electric and happy and wake up feeling anxious and itchy and go flirt with the first guy whose smile matched the ones on Kara’s pop star posters.

Kara’s question, that are you gay now, keeps popping into her head unbidden. Alex doesn’t know how to answer it. She jerks away from the thought, from the word, from the truth. It’s why she didn’t spring to correct Maggie on the phone, she realizes; she still isn’t sure she can say it out loud, any of it.

But looking at Maggie, letting everything else fade into the background when she smiles? That she can do.

**

Alex isn’t sure when she became a person who texts, but here she is at work trading messages with Maggie before a meeting. It’s not quite a running conversation, but it’s a message here, an exchange there, and the past week it’s been pushing much closer to constant.

She’s surprised that she’s even finding the time: sales conference is only days away and her office has been plunged into a nightmare of copywriting and run-throughs and last-minute art meetings that leave everyone near boiling over font colors. It’s all-consuming. The rush of it leaves her with no time for any of her other work; she’s behind on everything, even the Lord book. There’s no chance for the gym this week, or for agent meetings or phone calls. There’s barely even time to eat.

Despite it all, though, she and Maggie text, and everything is a little less irritating with Maggie smiling at her through words on a screen.

Of course it’s inferior if you tried to get McDonalds to make you something vegan. You aren’t even vegan, she replies to the latest message, before reluctantly slipping her phone into her pocket and returning her attention to the art meeting at hand.

“I still don’t understand why we can’t use the cover we all agreed on two months ago,” she says. “I showed it to the author and he liked it. I thought it was final.”

“The sales department doesn’t think the reps will like it,” J’onn says. “I think it’s a good idea for us to reconsider all of our options. This could make or break our sales.”

“No, Brian doesn’t think the reps will like it,” Lucy corrects him. “Brian isn’t the entire sales department, he’s just Brian. And he hates all our covers. Sorry, Susan.”

“It’s fine,” Vasquez says, her tone of voice making very clear that it is not fine. “If Brian doesn’t like the covers, then it’s fine if we change them. I only sent it to six designers. What’s a few more? We’re made of money.”

“It’s just a PowerPoint,” Alex says. “What if we don’t even show a cover?” Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and her mind automatically shifts to Maggie. She can already anticipate Maggie’s response to her last text, the protests she’ll make. The thought makes her start to smile, but she suppresses the urge; now is not the time. Right now, she has to remind everyone that they already decided on this goddamn cover in March.

“I think it’s a bad idea not to show the reps anything at all,” Lucy says, scrunching her nose. “What about this one, Susan, but with like… more yellow and red in the sky?”

“Designer for this one is in Iceland,” Vasquez says. “I can try to mock something up this afternoon.”

“In Iceland?” Alex says disbelievingly. “Why the hell…”

“Some people use their vacation days,” Lucy says. “Come on, how about the red?”

“That’ll look like someone is projecting a PowerPoint gradient into a planetarium,” Alex says. “Or like Mars is about to have a tornado.”

Lucy looks thoughtful. “Does Mars have a tornado in this one?”

“No,” Alex says. “Can we just use the old cover?”

“Do we have any old comps with tornados that we’ve never used?” an editor named Demos suggests. “I think there might be one from last spring, but I can’t remember which title.”

“There aren’t any tornadoes,” Alex starts to say, but her phone buzzes and she decides to take it as an excuse to leave the meeting. “Sorry, I’ll be right back.” J’onn raises his eyebrows questioningly at her as she leaves the room, and she gives a nonchalant shrug in response.

The texts are from Kara about some lunch she’s having with Lena Luthor. She seems nervous, asking whether Alex thinks she should bring her reporter’s notebook or not. Alex replies that she should bring the small one—that way she can keep it in her purse and pull it out if they circle around to questions, but if it’s networking then she doesn’t have to take it out at all. Kara sends back a smiley almost immediately, and Alex looks fondly at her phone. Then, since she’s already in the hallway, she texts Maggie.

Please. Save me from art hell.

Art hell? Maggie replies.

Alex steps into an alcove and calls. “Don’t even ask,” she says once Maggie picks up. “You don’t want to know.”

“I absolutely want to know,” Maggie says. “Also, for the record, vegan is healthier. Even if you only eat it sometimes.”

“The entire point of breakfast sandwiches is eggs and cheese. What were you expecting, McDonalds to pull out their stock of fresh avocado?”

“Art hell, Danvers,” Maggie says, and Alex can hear her smiling. There’s a bit of a flirty undertone to it, or at least Alex thinks there is; she hasn’t been able to stop thinking, still, about Maggie’s comment on the phone last week, about how she wishes Alex weren’t straight. It itches under her skin, the possibility it implies pushing at her heart so hard she can almost feel the ache. “Tell me.”

“Oh god, no,” Alex says. “I just left the meeting, I’m not rehashing it again. I can’t wait until this whole conference is over and I can get back to work.”

“It’s only Thursday,” Maggie says. “Got almost a week left before that happens.”

“Don’t remind me. I’m probably coming in some of the day on Saturday.”

“We’re still on for next week, though, right?” Maggie asks lightly. Alex’s heart bucks in her chest, but she shakes her head.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I was going to call—I’ve been drowning here. I think any more edits are going to have to wait until the week after conference.” But then on the impulse of pity you’re straight, Danvers, she adds, “But, um, next week? We could do drinks after the conference ends on Wednesday. If you want. God knows I’ll need one.”

She remembers the comment she made to Lucy months ago, about crushes making people go all distracted like starry-eyed high schoolers, and rolls her eyes at herself. Her heart thumps its way into her throat.

“Hey, yeah, that’d be fun,” Maggie says. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Great,” Alex says. Her cheeks are warm; she’s probably blushing. She rubs her face with the side of her hand, like she can scrub the pink away. Jesus, was it only a month ago that she figured out her feelings for Maggie are what they are? They have a vastness that perplexes her—she doesn’t know if they’ve grown since she realized or if they were always like this, a smooth, massive thing sitting just under her consciousness. It’s not like next week will be a date, but it won’t be for work. It could be a date. It could be—something.

“Listen, I’ve got a meeting in ten, so I should go get my shit together. Sorry to release you back to art hell,” Maggie says.

“I’ll live,” Alex replies. “Are there tornadoes on Mars?”

She can hear Maggie’s grin through the phone, and her heart feels stretched-out and full and hopeful. “Search me. Go kick some alien ass, Danvers.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex says. She hangs up smiling.

**

Friday passes, and Saturday and Sunday dissolve into piles of paper and emails, and Monday folds into meetings. On Wednesday, sales conference hits, and Alex has just enough time between presentations to be relieved that it’s almost over and done. The prep has been a nightmare, but more than that, tonight she has drinks with Maggie. Not work, not a meeting, just—them.

It’s not a date, but. It almost could be.

By the time she’s walking towards Dollywood on Wednesday night, the distracting itch of possibility has taken a hold of her entire heart. It blooms into a deep, heavy ache as soon as she sees Maggie smiling at her from near the bar.

“Danvers, hey!” Maggie says, pulling her into a loose one-armed hug. Every ounce of want rushes into the few places where Maggie’s body is touching her own. Alex almost grabs her arm and reels her back in as she pulls away, almost kisses her right then and there; the impulse jostles in her chest. But then Maggie's stepped back out of her space, and the moment's gone.

“Hey,” Alex says breathlessly.

“How were the sales reps? Any major objections to your pitches? Titles or covers to overhaul? Ordered you your beer, by the way.”

“You're amazing,” Alex says. "Shockingly, no. I got pretty much just good feedback.” J’onn had pulled her aside after to tell her how proud he was of the work she was doing for DEO; the pride is sitting high in her chest.

“Yeah? Alex, that’s fantastic, congrats!”

“It’s nothing,” Alex says. “But yeah, actually, it uh.” She scratches her nose. “It does feel pretty great.”

Maggie grins her brightest grin, and Alex clutches at it; she loves when Maggie smiles like that because of her. “And here I thought we'd be drinking the stress away."

"We can do that too," Alex offers, and Maggie laughs.

"Yeah, okay. But let's play a round of pool first, yeah? I've been practicing and I think I've really got it this time." She nods over in the direction of the pool table. "You're gonna be shocked and awed."

"Shock and awe me, then," Alex says. Inside, her heart lifts, giddy and nervous. It’s not—it could almost, almost be a date. "Lead the way."

Whether or not Maggie has gotten better at pool is immaterial. Alex is too jittery to notice. She’s too jittery to bring her own A-game too; she can’t find the cool, unflappable steel she uses for work. She keeps missing shots that she knows she’s lined up well. It makes Maggie smirk.

“It’s not like you’re playing any better,” Alex mutters after a particularly wide shot.

“Don’t need to,” Maggie says. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing’s up with me.” She intends it to come out casual, or maybe even sharp, but instead it just sounds weird.

Maggie shakes her head. “I was kidding, but now—you sure? I thought you said work went well.” She cocks her head, and Alex’s heart lunges over itself and trips onto the floor. “Kara okay?”

It isn’t ultimately the possibility of Maggie’s interest that pushes Alex to do it; it isn’t the fact that the need for Maggie to know this truth has lodged itself inside her; it isn’t the way her pulse spikes when Maggie’s in her space or the way Maggie sends texts that make her smile. It’s the phone calls and the nights talking across a bar table and the way they all add up to this: Maggie looking at her like she knows her. Like she’s some kind of valuable thing. Soft.

Alex steps forward and kisses her.

She cups Maggie’s jaw and some part of her brain is registering smooth, registering warm, but there’s also Maggie’s mouth and the rest of her brain is gone, fizzing away; she’s only adrenaline, only emotion. Her heart has tripled in size and she’s floating. She just barely has time to wonder whether something in her brain has short-circuited, because it feels a lot like love and a lot like alive.

And then Maggie inhales a sharp breath and steps away.

“Alex,” she says, and that’s how Alex knows something’s wrong.

“I like you,” Alex says, rushing the words out before the adrenaline fades. It’s too late to pretend differently; it’s too late not to go all in. She was all in a long time ago. “I can’t stop thinking about it. About you. All the time. I hope that’s okay, I just—I like you.”

Maggie closes her eyes. “Alex,” she says again. Alex can tell she’s trying to say it as gently as possible, but it still comes out jerky. “I can’t.”

“Oh,” Alex says. “Oh, okay.”

“I told you,” Maggie says, still clearly struggling to keep her voice gentle; there’s an edge to it now, and panic. “I don’t mess around with straight girls.”

“I… when?” Alex says, and as soon as it’s out of her mouth she knows it’s the wrong response. Maggie’s eyes close off.

“Wrack your brain,” Maggie says, her voice steely. “Or did you forget? Elisa? I told you, I—goddammit, I told you. This is the thing I can’t do.”

“Maggie.” Alex tries to put her hand on Maggie’s shoulder, but Maggie shrugs it off, agitated.

“I thought you heard me, Alex,” she says, and now she sounds angry. “If you want to go kiss girls, you need to find someone else to be your experiment.”

“I don’t want to kiss ‘girls,’” Alex says. She doesn’t know how to fix this, what to say that will make Maggie realize how wrong she is. “I want to kiss you.”

Maggie shakes her head once, sharply. “I can’t believe—I have to go.” She puts down the pool cue that, improbably, she’s still holding, and heads for their table and her bag.

Alex follows her to the door. “Maggie, I’m sorry.”

The tense line of Maggie’s shoulders softens a little, and she looks at Alex. “I just need to go,” she says. “Alex. Please.”

Alex nods.

Maggie leaves.

**

What a fucking idiot she’s been.

At least she’s in a bar. She’d rather regret a hangover than every damn thing else.

**

By the time Alex drags herself into work in the early afternoon, she’s over the humiliation and the hangover both. They are not professional. She can reduce them to feeling wrung out, to exhaustion; she can go back to pretending nothing ever happened. It’s better that way. She should never have let herself feel anything to begin with. That’s the whole fucking problem, isn’t it? She’d had her life together just fine and then she’d let herself feel things and what it boils down to is this: she doesn’t know anything, and she’s presumed too much and given too little, and she’s not good enough.

That’s it, really. It’s taken Alex her whole life to get here, and in the end, it isn’t enough. It took her 28 years to figure out that the reason she’s a failure at dating is because she’s been missing something glaring all along; it took her 28 years to feel like this, and she still couldn’t find the right goddamn words when she needed them. It took her 28 fucking years of her life to fall in love, that’s what she was doing, she was falling in love, and it’s too late, and it’s not enough, and she’s not enough.

She doesn’t blame Maggie for not wanting her.

She rolls the thought over and over in her mind until the sharp barb of it has bled into a dull, throbbing ache.

So when she goes to work, it’s not really because she’s gotten over the humiliation and the hangover; that’s a lie. It’s because she needs to be somewhere she feels competent, somewhere she feels like she knows how to do things right. That leaves work and Kara, and she can’t call Kara right now. The idea of being comforted is somehow overwhelming, somehow makes her feel worse.

So: work. Regret has never been soluble in liquor, and Alex knows this never more than when she thinks back on how she got this job. If J’onn hadn’t known her father, if he hadn’t been at that event she’d been bartending—she’d been at her lowest low, and it was DEO that pulled her out. She didn’t deserve her job, but J’onn gave it to her anyway, and she’s proven to herself over and over that she’s good enough. She’s earned it every day for six years. She never wants to stop earning it.

It was the one thing Maggie chose her for. Maggie told her she was a good editor; Maggie told her she had a reputation; Maggie told her she was her only choice.

Alex thinks of the look of hurt in Maggie’s eyes as she pulled away from that kiss. The aching, kicked part of her heart gives another bloom of pain.

She goes to work.

She gets on the train and she goes to work. Her timing wasn’t deliberate, but it’s around the same time everyone else is getting back from lunch. She doesn’t know if anyone will have even noticed the absence. She doesn’t want anyone to talk to her; she wants to put her head down and work, maybe to put the goddamn Lord book aside and get lost in someone else’s story for the afternoon. The thought is unimaginably blissful. She turns on her computer, and then she looks up and Lucy is there.

“Hey,” Lucy says. She puts the bottle of aspirin down on Alex’s desk.

Alex doesn’t say anything, just looks down at the bottle and then up at Lucy, whose face is impassive.

“Third time in a month,” Lucy says.

“I know,” Alex says. “It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”

Lucy just stands there and looks at her, and Alex closes her eyes. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“I have been so patient with you,” Lucy starts, and for a half a second Alex thinks she’s getting fired. She keeps her eyes closed and thinks, serves me right. “But Jesus Christ, Alex. You can’t keep coming into work looking like you’ve been trying to drink Death under the table and not tell me what’s going on.”

“It hasn’t kept me from doing my job,” Alex says. “I’m on top of everything. It won’t happen again.”

“You fucking idiot,” Lucy says. “I’m not checking on you as your boss. I’m checking on you as your friend.”

Alex blinks at her.

“And as your friend,” Lucy says, pulling out the chair on the other side of Alex’s desk and sitting down, “I’m telling you that I am not leaving until you tell me what has been going on.”

“I told you, it’s nothing,” Alex says. “The other week—”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Please, Alex. I know you. This is not what nothing looks like. And don’t tell me it’s work stuff either, because I know what that looks like too. I’ve seen you stressed, and you don’t get drunk and stagger in tear-stained. If you want me to think it’s work stress, go snap at an intern. Or let’s spar a round. But come on.”

“Okay, fine. You know what? Fine. It’s not nothing. But it’s my business, okay?” Alex says. “Happy?”

“Not particularly.” Lucy shrugs, then crosses her arms. “I told you. I’m not leaving.”

Christ. So much for throwing herself into her work. Alex tries to find the energy to be pissed off, but her “Fuck off, Lucy,” comes out sounding sort of flat and empty.

Lucy’s face changes, goes all sympathetic. “Oh, sweetie.”

All of a sudden there are tears biting at Alex’s eyes. Lucy gets up to shut the door, then walks around Alex’s desk and sits on the edge next to her, puts her hand on Alex’s shoulder. Alex shrugs it off—it’s too much—and Lucy lets her.

“It’s complicated, okay?” Alex says.

“I figured,” Lucy says. “I know how this is.”

“No, you don’t,” Alex says, and Lucy shakes her head.

“It’s Maggie, right?”

Alex jerks away. “Lucy, don’t.”

“Because, Alex, I get that,” Lucy starts to say, and Alex stands.

“No, you don’t,” she spits out. “You don’t, okay? Stop acting like this is some typical thing, all right? It’s not. Everyone doesn’t—doesn’t—”

“Doesn’t fall for their friends?” Lucy suggests. “Doesn’t, I don’t know, whatever it is the hell happened with Maggie? Alex, I’m not saying it’s everyone, I’m saying I get it. I’ve been there.”

Alex stares at her, not understanding.

“I thought you knew this,” Lucy says. “Alex, I’m bi.”

“You’re…” Alex takes a step back, thumps down onto her chair.

“Oh my god, you didn’t know.” Lucy looks shocked. “You’ve met women I’ve dated!”

“That’s ridiculous. No I haven’t. What—who?”

Lucy looks like she’s somewhere between amused and concerned. “I mean, to start with, Susan, obviously,” she says, and Alex blanches.

“Vasquez?”

“Well, technically we never dated,” Lucy says thoughtfully, “Just slept together on and off a couple years ago.” She levels a look at Alex. “This went on for months. Seriously, Alex, how did you not know this?”

“You slept with Vasquez?”

“Please yell that louder, Alex, I think there might still be a few people left who don’t know.” Lucy doesn’t seem at all uncomfortable, though; she’s sitting relaxed on Alex’s desk.

“Shit.” Alex puts her head in her hands. “Okay. Just… give me a second.”

“Point is,” Lucy says. “I get it. We’re all queer here. So seriously, Alex, what the hell happened?”

The rock in Alex’s stomach feels a little lighter now; she weighs answering, and finds that she doesn’t even know how to begin to explain.

When the pause has grown sufficiently long, Lucy adds, more gently, “Take your time.”

“She doesn’t like me,” Alex says. She blurts it out because she’s at a loss, and she doesn’t know how else to begin, but as soon as it’s out of her mouth it sounds so young that she hates herself for it. “She doesn’t…” She chokes up.

“Hey, oh, sweetie, no,” Lucy says, and she leans forward to hug Alex. “I’m so sorry.”

“I just feel so stupid,” Alex says when Lucy pulls back again. She wipes her eyes with her arm. “I finally… I finally. You know. Figure myself out and it’s not. It’s not enough. For her.”

Lucy’s eyes widen slightly when Alex says that, about figuring herself out.

“What?”

“No, no, sorry, Alex, I just didn’t realize.” She sounds apologetic, almost. “I didn’t realize… you just figured it out?”

Alex shrugs, the misery folding itself around her. “About a month ago.”

And then the words come tumbling out: about how Lucy’s comment made her panic, made her realize; about telling Kara; about the amazing, terrible way being around Maggie made her feel; about the amazing, terrible way kissing Maggie made her feel; about Maggie’s parents and her breakup and the way she called Alex, the way Alex thought she made Maggie feel less alone; about the are you into girls and the pity you’re straight and the goddamn flirting over a goddamn pool table and kissing Maggie and the way Maggie pulled away from her, the look in her eyes, the things she said.

When she’s done, she looks down.

“So she thinks you’re straight,” Lucy says simply.

Alex looks at Lucy, taken aback. “I—Lucy, that’s not—I told her I had feelings for her and I kissed her.”

“I got that,” Lucy says patiently. “You also told her you were straight once, and didn’t deny it plenty of other times. Including after you kissed her.”

“But—”

Lucy shakes her head, cutting off Alex’s protest. “You mentioned she brought up some college girlfriend, right? Listen. If your girlfriend got you disowned and then changed her mind about ever having loved you, wouldn’t you be a little scared of straight girls kissing you too?”

She remembers Maggie telling her about Elisa; of course she remembers Maggie telling her about Elisa. It just doesn’t make sense that—Alex isn’t—she isn’t straight.

She’s never said that to Maggie, though. She’s never said that out loud at all.

She’s never said it out loud at all.

“But I’m not,” Alex says. The revelation of it takes her breath away, and she shakes her head. “I’m not straight.”

Lucy smiles. “Yeah. There you go. Keep going.”

She didn’t realize how much she’d been skirting around these words. She hasn’t realize how much she’s needed to hear herself say them.

“I have to call her,” Alex says. “Lucy, I’m sorry, but I should tell her first. I should—”

“Yeah, you should.” Lucy gets up, pats her on the shoulder. “You know where to find me.”

Alex is already reaching for her phone, her heart pounding in her ears. “Yeah. I do,” she says. “Lucy—thanks.” It’s not enough, but Lucy seems to understand. She gives Alex a satisfied, proud look as she closes the door.

**

She doesn’t wait when Maggie picks up, doesn’t pause.

“Maggie. Can we talk?”

**

The current of adrenaline has faded into nervous determination by the time she’s waiting for Maggie at the entrance to Prospect Park. Alex is grasping for the conviction she had this afternoon, for the certainty that talking to Maggie would solve everything, but instead she can only find the words she’s waiting to say. She rolls them around in her mouth and ignores the way fear is clawing at her stomach. This isn’t a time for nerves. She’s done being afraid.

The weather is slightly too cool for an evening in early May, and Alex folds her arms, drawing her jacket tighter around herself.

“Alex.”

Maggie appears from the other direction. She looks almost scared, and suddenly the words dry up from Alex’s mouth.

“How’s it going,” Maggie says. She flashes what looks like it’s meant to be one of her usual easy smiles, but it’s tight, and her eyes stay nervous. “Thanks for agreeing to the park. I know Dollywood is more convenient to the office, but I thought...”

“It’s a Friday night anyway,” Alex says. Her heart is stuttering in her chest, but she does her best to sound natural, level. “This is fine. Convenient to home.”

“Good old Brooklyn,” Maggie says. “So, uh, do you want to walk?”

They move in towards the park and its fields and paths. It’s not empty, but there are fewer people than at Dollywood, and Alex is grateful for the privacy. They walk for a minute in silence, then two, and Alex is on the verge of starting to say something when Maggie speaks again.

“Danvers, I owe you an apology.”

“No, you don’t,” Alex says, even though it’s not true, relieved that the conversation is started. “I owe you an explanation.”

“No, I do,” Maggie says. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. It was knee-jerk, and I’m not—I don’t want to pretend it wasn’t justified, because, well.” She shakes her head, and Alex’s chest tightens. “But it was also harsh, and I’m sorry. If you’re questioning, then that’s not easy. I mean, I know what that’s like, and god knows it isn’t easy. And if you want to talk about it, I can do that. But also, Alex, that doesn’t mean that I. Well.” She pauses. “Even if that’s what’s going on, I still can’t—”

“Maggie,” Alex says, and it opens the split-second of pause she needs. She braces herself, and the words are there. “I’m gay.”

Maggie stops mid-step. “What?”

“I’m gay,” Alex says again, and this time the words come out easier. She draws a breath and lets it out, shuddery. She feels light.

“Alex,” Maggie says, turning to face her. “You don’t have to—”

“No, Maggie, listen to me,” Alex says. It’s like what she wants to say has been inside her just waiting for her to catch up. “I wasn’t telling you the truth before. And if I’m being honest? That’s because I wasn’t telling myself the truth before. I tried so hard not to see it. I didn’t want to think about what…” She leaps. “I didn’t want to think about what my feelings for you meant,” and the words are out, and she’s still talking. “I was scared. I was scared of what it would mean. What it could mean.” Alex closes her eyes and thinks of Kara and Lucy and of the fierce, burning look Maggie gets in her eyes sometimes. “But I’m not scared anymore.”

She says the words, and she realizes they’re true.

There’s something like astonishment on Maggie’s face; she’s looking at Alex like she’s never seen her before. Alex wonders briefly if Maggie will kiss her. She doesn’t want to hope, but she does.

“And I’m sorry for any confusion that caused, or any—any pain,” she says. “I, um.”

Maggie’s face flickers through so many emotions—reproach, guilt, something wrenching that Alex can’t read. But when she speaks, it’s gentle. “Danvers. I didn’t know.”

Alex shrugs, because she’s out of things to say. “Now you do.”

“Now I do,” Maggie says, and she pauses for a beat too long, two beats too long.

It’s the longest pause of Alex’s life.

After another moment, Maggie tilts her head at Alex. “To be honest with you, I have no idea what to say.” Another beat. “I had this all planned out, I mean. I was going to talk about, I don’t know, getting out there and figuring yourself out. I wasn’t expecting—” She twists her hands together, looks up at Alex. “You surprised me there.”

Alex bites her lip and hopes.

“But, you know, it stands.” Maggie says it like she’s considering it, and then shakes her head the smallest bit and looks at Alex. “I’m here to talk. This is a huge thing, Danvers, and you don’t have to do it alone. I’ve been there, and you don’t have to—you don’t have to do it alone.” She clears her throat. “And, well. I was going to say—you should get out there. Figure out who you are. What you want. You know?”

“I… yeah, I guess,” Alex says.

“Spend some time figuring yourself out. It helps,” Maggie says. Her voice is gentle, and that makes it worse. “With everything. Date a few girls, you know. Make sure you’re not settling. It’s gonna be really exciting, and you deserve that. It’s gonna be great.”

Date a few girls. Maggie’s telling her to date other girls. Alex has just had the biggest revelation of her life, and Maggie still doesn’t want her.

It hurts. It’s a sharp curve of pain around her heart.

“Of course,” Alex says, and tries her best to smile.

“And Alex? Seriously,” Maggie says. She looks back up at Alex, and her eyes are intent. “I’m here for you. I hope you know that.”

It’s something to hold onto. Maggie is looking at her, her gaze holding strong, and she’s telling Alex she matters. She’s not leaving. So Alex keeps her smile steady, pushes it a little further, and says, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

And it will have to be enough.

**

They meet at Dollywood on Tuesday for work, and Alex tells herself it isn’t even hard, which is a lie. But Maggie’s going out of her way to act normal, leaning into conversation like everything Alex says is goddamn fascinating, and it’s going to have to be enough. She’s still texting Alex, who ignores her for three days and then goes back to replying like nothing ever happened.

She spends those three days being pissed at Maggie for telling her she should be excited to figure all of this out. She downloads Tinder and then deletes it and then downloads it again and swipes left on every woman that isn’t Maggie, which is all of them. She deletes Tinder.

They’re still friends; Alex kissed Maggie, and they’re still friends, and she’s going to learn how to live with that. Maggie’s right, after all—she deserves to date someone who wants her.

When they finish for the evening, their edits are a week away from being done, and then the next draft in will probably be the last. It’s gone so quickly. They’ll be done with the book, and Alex will still be gay, and she still won’t be dating Maggie, and she’ll move on.

Look, Maggie’s still going to be in her life, and that’s the important part.

**

She invites Maggie to game night, and Kara is pissed.

“I’m not pissed,” she says. She’s stabbing at her food with more venom than necessary, and she’s got a furrow between her brows. “I just don’t get it, Alex.”

“We’re friends,” Alex says. Kara gives her a look. “We’re trying to be friends. It’s important to me.”

Kara stuffs a potsticker in her mouth and talks around it. “Right. But she hurt you, and that doesn’t mean I have to, I don’t know, be thrilled about her coming to play Settlers of Catan in my apartment.”

“I’m not thrilled that you invited a mass-murderer’s sister who I’ve never met to game night, but you don’t see me complaining,” Alex says, exasperated.

“That is not fair,” Kara says, much more sharply than Alex would have expected. “Lena’s nice. You’ll see. And don’t you dare mention that to her. It’s not her fault.”

“I don’t actually care. Maggie’s nice too,” Alex says. “And you’ve met her.”

“I’ve also met Lucy, and I’ve been trying to get you to invite her for ages!” Kara’s frustrated expression turns thoughtful. “Actually, Alex, you should invite her.”

“Why?” Alex is suspicious, even though she’s been thinking herself about inviting Lucy. Since their conversation about Maggie, she’s started to realize that maybe they’re better friends than she thought.

Kara shrugs. “I mean, I like Lucy. She’s cool. And if she dates girls too, then maybe—”

“Kara.”

“I’m just saying!”

“I’m not dating anyone right now,” Alex says. “I’m not trying to date Maggie. But I am inviting her to game night.”

“Lucy too,” Kara says.

Alex rolls her eyes. “Lucy too.”

Kara isn’t nice to Maggie, but she isn’t mean either. She’s coolly, sharply indifferent, and Alex can see Maggie notice it from the second she walks in. She gets this hint of uncertainty to her usual calm, and there’s something on edge in the way she’s shifting her weight. Alex gets up to rescue her and make introductions. James and Winn’s eyebrows go up slightly when she tells them Maggie is a friend from work.

“Alex, I didn’t know you had fr… ench fries,” Winn says, changing courses as James elbows him hard in the side.

“Two of us, actually,” Lucy says, appearing from behind Alex. “Lucy Lane.”

“Oh, hey, I’ve heard so much about you!” Maggie says, suddenly brightening. “Maggie Sawyer.”

If Lucy reacts, she doesn’t show it; she just smiles and shakes Maggie’s hand. But when Maggie’s struck up a conversation with Winn about Overwatch and Alex has gone to help Kara set up the snacks, Lucy finds her again.

“So,” she says, leaning against the counter very close to Alex, “Want me to try to make her jealous? Because I bet I can.”

Alex almost chokes. “Do I—no!”

Lucy shrugs. “Fair enough, thought I’d check. You’ve got good taste, by the way. Anyway, I’m going to go talk to James. Do you know if he’s single?”

She leaves Alex sputtering at the counter.

Lena Luthor is the last one to show up, and she seems—fine, Alex guesses. She looks like she’s tried to dress down, but Alex is certain her watch alone cost more than all of the furniture in Kara’s apartment. To her credit, though, she doesn’t seem to register that they’re trying to fit seven people into a Brooklyn studio, just beams at Kara and holds out the wine she’s brought. It’s good wine, Alex has to admit.

They don’t exactly have any seven-player games, so they all end up crowded around a Catan board on teams like it’s summer camp. Lena offers to sit out so that they can be down to the six-player maximum, but Kara won’t let her, so instead they partner up. Winn offers eagerly to be Maggie’s partner, and she gives him this baffled, skeptical look that makes Alex laugh. He’s going to be so disappointed when he realizes he doesn’t have a chance with her.

They play a few rounds of Catan, shifting partners between rounds. Game night is always competitive, and Lucy’s a sore loser and Lena is strategically brilliant, so it’s not until Alex is teamed up with Maggie for the third game that she notices how aggressively Kara is playing. It takes her a while because it’s distracting, sitting this close to Maggie on the couch. Their legs are pressed up together, and Maggie is leaning into her to look at their shared cards. Every time Maggie laughs or whispers to Alex, all the nerves in her body go on high alert. She bounces her leg a little and tries to smile normally.

Kara catches her eye one of these times, and she narrows her eyes and blocks their next three moves.

“Damn, okay, that’s kinda harsh,” Maggie comments.

Kara cocks her head and gives a very artificial smile. “That’s the game.”

“Fair enough.” Maggie shifts her weight as much as possible on the crowded couch, and her leg is no longer touching Alex’s. Alex tries not to be disappointed—they’re friends. This is something that should be fine; she doesn’t need to be touching Maggie. She’s just glad that Maggie’s still comfortable around her, that’s all. Alex shuffles their cards around in her hands, and when she looks up Kara catches her eye with an expression that’s kind and apologetic and fierce.

After Catan they switch over to Dominion, which Winn wins handily, and then finish the night with a couple of rounds of Mafia. They almost never play when it’s just the four of them; Winn and Kara are both terrible at it, while Alex and James are at best decent. But it turns out that Maggie and Lucy are good and Lena is excellent, and after the third time Lena talks them all into voting a protesting and innocent Kara out of the game, Kara seems to have decided to let Maggie be. Alex sits laughing as Kara defends herself with too much vehemence and Lucy tries over and over to redirect their attention to James, and when Maggie grins at her across the circle, she thinks that if whatever current passes between them is friendship, she might be able to get used to it.

When people start to head out at the end of the evening, Lena insists on staying late to help clean up.

“It’s no trouble at all,” she insists. “Really, let me help.”

“It’s fine, Alex,” Kara chimes in, and Alex is annoyed until she realizes she can walk out with Maggie. But Maggie lingers—says she wants to thank Kara and she’ll be right there—and it’s Lucy Alex ends up walking down the stairwell with.

“Thanks for the invite,” Lucy says as they round the second flight of stairs. “That was great.”

“Wouldn’t have invited you if I knew you were always that set on winning,” Alex says, but she smiles. “I’m glad you had a good time. You should come again.”

“Winning’s the whole point,” Lucy says. “But yeah, I’d love to. Also, I was wondering. Are Lena and your sister, like, a thing?”

Alex almost misses the next step. “Are they—”

“Hey guys, sorry about that,” Maggie says, catching up to them on the stairs. “Good game night, huh?”

“That’s—yeah, it was pretty good,” Alex says, still trying to reorganize her thoughts. Maggie raises her eyebrows, and Lucy smirks. “Sorry. Yes. Thanks for coming, guys.”

“Of course,” Lucy says. She pushes open the door, and they’re out on the sidewalk. “Anyone else heading back into Manhattan?”

“No, I’m in Park Slope,” Maggie says. “It was great to meet you. Hopefully again soon?”

“Yes, definitely,” Lucy says, shaking her hand. “If you have any projects I might be interested in, send them my way, too. I hear really great things about the Lord book from Alex.”

“I’ll keep you in mind,” Maggie says. Alex is suddenly overtaken by a wave of completely irrational jealousy.

Lucy grins and waves and heads off, and then it’s just Maggie and Alex.

“Didn’t know you were so bad at Mafia, Danvers,” Maggie says, and Alex rolls her eyes.

“I am not. I’m a perfectly good liar.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“That’s what good liars let you think,” Alex says, her face warm. She turns and starts walking towards the subway. “Anyway, I’m not as bad as Kara.”

Maggie huffs out a laugh. “No, you definitely aren’t as bad as Kara.” Then there’s a pause, and Alex thinks she might mention about Kara’s attitude, starts trying to figure out how to reply. But when Maggie speaks again, what she says is, “So. How are you doing with everything?”

“With everything?”

“Coming out, and all that. They know? Your friends?” Maggie’s tone is sympathetic.

“Kara does,” Alex says. “And Lucy does. Everyone else… no, not yet. I’m working on it.”

“Your mom?”

Alex pauses. In truth, she hasn’t been thinking much about telling people; she’s been so caught up with figuring everything out herself. “Not yet, no. Honestly, I don’t know when I’m going to tell anyone. I mean, I will. But I feel like I’m only just starting to get it myself, you know?”

“Yeah, Danvers, I do,” Maggie says. “And, um. From experience? Go at your own pace. You’ll tell them when you’re ready.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, and she can’t help but bristle, that Maggie is telling her to take her time after telling her she should get out there and date around and figure herself out. It’s not fair. She can’t do everything at once. She can only be one person.

But Maggie’s just trying to help, and they’re trying to be friends. So instead of snapping, she lets out her breath and says, “Thanks.”

“Of course,” Maggie says. They’ve reached Eastern Parkway, and they stop near the entrance to the subway. “For what it’s worth, though, I think it’ll go fine. You’ve got some great friends.”

Alex smiles. “I do.” And then, because she’s trying, she adds, “Including you.”

“Go catch your train, Danvers,” Maggie says. “Yeah. Including me.”

**

Maggie’s something she can’t have. Alex gets that.

She gets it. She needs to start dating, like Maggie said. The more she lets the idea settle, the more she starts to think about it. She’s been realizing recently that she’s been noticing women for years, noticing the pull she feels when someone pretty smiles at her, the heady flip in her stomach. And she’s not going to go anywhere with it, she’s not, but then a cute bartender with a low-cut top and a clever smile hands her a drink, and she’s flirting before she realizes. She burns red as soon the words are out of her mouth, but the bartender colors too, and Lucy looks on approvingly.

The bartender gives Alex her number, and when she gets home, she sits on her bed, looking at the scrap of paper. She could call. She almost wants to call. She thinks about calling Maggie to tell her about the bartender, let her know that she’s taking her advice seriously.

It could be good to get out there. She's curious what it would be like. She deserves to date someone who wants her.

Then she thinks about the way Maggie sometimes looks at her with this intense, serious expression, and how her hand sometimes ghosts Alex’s elbow when she laughs, and her stomach flips. She puts the scrap of paper into her nightstand. She’ll tell Maggie about it later. She’ll call later.

The weeks roll on, and it almost feels like Maggie’s trying to compensate for rejecting her by leaning into their friendship, extending her olive branches over and over. She keeps trying to make plans with Alex, calling her to ask her if she wants to go get drinks or join her for a jog or have lunch. Alex’s heart lifts every fucking time she sees Maggie’s name on her phone.

They go see the new Alien when it comes out, because Alex suggested it months ago and apparently Maggie remembers that, and they get popcorn and Maggie pours in M&Ms, because that’s how Alex eats her popcorn and apparently Maggie remembers that, too. It’s not a date, but Maggie won’t let Alex pay her back for half the popcorn. When Alex protests, Maggie just raises her eyebrows and grins.

It’s not that it’s killing Alex, because they’re friends. She can’t have Maggie, so this is what she wants: they’re friends. But she’s so conscious, so conscious of the space between their arms in the theater. Every time Maggie shifts in her seat, or leans in to whisper something to Alex, it’s the only goddamn thing Alex can focus on. When the movie ends, she can’t remember anything from the entire two hours except the gallop of her own heart and the way it felt when Maggie grabbed her arm at a jump-scare.

She goes home and takes out the scrap of paper with the bartender’s phone number and stares at it, just sits on her bed and stares at it. She could date someone who wants her.

But it’s been weeks and she hasn’t called. Instead she’s gone for drinks and jogs and lunches with Maggie, and she hasn’t told Maggie about the bartender, and she hasn’t called. She tries to remember what the woman even looked like, but instead what comes to her is Maggie clutching her arm at the theater, and buying her popcorn, and smiling at her in the dark with her bright, warm grin. Maggie doesn’t want her. But it’s hard to want anything else at all.

**

May ebbs into June, and Kara gets a promotion.

“It’s not technically a promotion,” she says as she sets the table, but she’s glowing. “It’s just some regular opportunities to pitch articles, and Cat says she’ll put in a word for me if they’re any good. She called me a marvel.”

“And then threw her coffee out and made you get her a new one,” Alex points out, but she’s proud. “But she is offering you bylines. That’s amazing.”

Kara adjusts her glasses and beams. “It’s something. I owe a lot to Lena. For the articles I wrote about her company, I mean, but also, well, everything.”

“So what’re you going to do with your newfound power?” Alex sits down across from Kara with her glass of wine. It’s a celebration dinner, which means dinner at the real table and not pizza on the couch.

“I have an idea for an article about the relationship between the city’s homeless and the MTA,” Kara says. “I already started drawing up a pitch. Actually, if you could look at it later?”

“Of course,” Alex says. “I’m sure it’s fantastic.”

“So how about you?” Kara asks. “Did Maxwell Lord turn his final manuscript in yet?”

“Next week, apparently, and then it goes to production. Which means we finally need to pick a title. Maggie likes Train of Skies, but I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to marketing about it.”

“How is Maggie? Are you doing anything this weekend?” Kara asks. Since last month’s game night she seems to have softened on Maggie, become willing to extend a little more goodwill.

“She’s running a half-marathon,” Alex says. “I thought I might find a spot along the race.”

Kara gives her a look.

“What?”

“Alex! You keep saying that you’re ‘not dating’ her. And that you’re ‘not dating’ anyone. So explain to me which part of what you and Maggie are doing is ‘not dating.’” Kara sketches emphatic air quotes each time. “You’re going to her race! You went to see a movie with her and you keep getting drinks together after work! And I’m pretty sure you talk to her daily, not that you’ve told me that. So what part of that—”

“Well, if we were dating, I’d probably be getting laid, for one thing,” Alex snaps. “Kara, this is my business, okay?”

“That’s what she said too. But come on, Alex.”

Alex blinks. “She said what? When?”

“After game night.” Kara looks guilty. “She hung back to talk for a minute? She didn’t say much, just, you know, that you’re really important to her. And that she’s going to be careful not to hurt you again. I just want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Well, it won’t, because I know where things stand, okay?” Alex says. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Kara.”

Kara looks dangerously close to mutinying, but she clenches her jaw and after a minute says, “Yeah. Okay.”

Alex lets dinner go by, waits until they’re clearing the table to bring it up again.

“Hey. I know what I’m doing,” she says, quiet, and Kara looks up uncertainly at her. “She’s been clear with me too, okay? She and I are just friends.”

“But you wish you were more,” Kara says softly, and Alex shrugs. Of course she does. Some days it doesn’t feel like she’ll ever stop wishing.

“Sure. But that’s mine to deal with. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” Kara says, reluctant. “So… do you want help making her a sign? For the race?”

Alex rolls her eyes at her sister. “No, you dork. I do not want to bring a sign.”

**

She feels ridiculous holding the sign, but when Maggie sees it, she breaks out into a grin so wide that every hopeless part of Alex’s heart turns itself inside out. Alex raises her eyebrows and points at the posterboard, and Maggie shakes her head, laughing and fond.

Alex has been waiting near the race’s end, and when Maggie has continued on, she circles around to the finish line. She doesn’t know if Maggie has anyone else here, and she deserves a congratulations at the end.

“Aww, Danvers,” is the first thing Maggie says once she’s caught her breath. “You didn’t need to wait around.” She moves as if to hug Alex, then catches herself. “Oh, sorry—sweat.”

“No, it’s okay,” Alex says, but Maggie has already stepped back. “But hey, congratulations, you! How was it?”

“Not my best time, but that’s not what I was shooting for, so I think it went all right. Nice to have someone in the crowd.” Maggie taps Alex on the shoulder, and Alex hopes she doesn’t blush. Kara has a point; if what Alex is trying to do is fall out of love, she’s doing a terrible job. She’s searingly aware of it every time Maggie looks at her or touches her or laughs. It feels like being run over by a truck, but never wanting it to stop.

“Hey, you want to get some food or something?” Maggie says, already walking away from the crowd. “I gotta go home and stretch and change, but I’m starving. I could use a burger.”

Alex follows. “You have got to stop slandering burgers by lumping in the veggie kind.”

“Yeah, you’ve made your opinion clear,” Maggie says. “And I still think I’m going to win you over someday. So hey, come on. I don’t think you’ve ever seen my apartment?”

Suddenly Alex feels like she’s had the wind knocked out of her. She shakes her head.

The apartment makes sense for Maggie; of course it does. It’s well-decorated but sparse. There’s a yoga mat in the corner and a deck of cards sitting on the table and an exposed brick wall in the kitchen, which is stocked like Maggie actually cooks in it. Alex fidgets with the few photos sitting out while Maggie is in the bedroom (in the bedroom) and in the shower (in the shower—fuck, no, she’s got to stop). There’s one of Maggie with Dan Turpin, the other named agent at her agency, from what looks like an office Christmas party; there’s one of Maggie’s college graduation with a woman who looks a little like her.

“Hey, you,” Maggie says, reemerging from her bedroom, her hair still wet against her shoulders. “What’re you looking at?”

Alex holds up the last picture, the college graduation one. “Not your mom?”

“Nah,” Maggie says. “My aunt. You’d like her, she doesn’t take bullshit from anyone. I didn’t see her much growing up, but when my parents, well. Anyway, she stepped in. I guess she figured there should be someone from the family in my life. Flew in all the way from Texas just for the weekend.”

“I like her,” Alex says, putting the photo back down.

“Yeah, you would.” Maggie’s giving her that considering look again. It makes Alex feel self-conscious, but also like she’s been found to be doing something right.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Maggie says, and turns and heads for the door. “It’s the kind of thing you would do. And that’s what I like about you, Danvers.”

It’s not how she meant it, but Alex feels a warm burst of pride. Then she shuts it down, because that’s the kind of hope she’s not supposed to be allowing herself. But there’s a spark of it that keeps on burning just the same.

**

They return to the apartment in the late afternoon after their burger run. Alex isn’t sure how Maggie’s still up and energetic after the race, and it turns out she barely is; as soon as they walk back in she drops onto the couch and groans.

“I had all kinds of work I was going to do this afternoon, but honest to god, I just want to watch TV.”

Alex flips it on. There’s some cop show on, probably reruns. She looks back at Maggie, who shrugs, and then nods at the couch next to her.

“Hey,” Maggie says, an hour or so later. Alex looks at her; her mind has been drifting to evening plans and whether she should shape them around being here indefinitely, which takeout she should get if she goes home to eat. So she’s not expecting it when Maggie says, “You. Uh. How’s the dating going? You meet anyone?”

“What—oh, no,” Alex says before she has a chance to think. Even considering the bartender, it’s true. It’s been weeks and weeks, and she still hasn’t called the number she was given. She hasn’t tried any apps; she hasn’t been deliberately flirting. But it’s not the answer she’s sure Maggie’s looking for, so she adds, “Well, not really.”

Something that looks like dismay ripples across Maggie’s face. “Not really?”

Here they are again, with Maggie calling Alex out for not doing enough. She doesn’t understand why Maggie cares if she dates. She wishes they could just drop this. “I got someone’s number. I haven’t called her yet.”

“Oh.” Maggie’s voice sounds… off, somehow. Alex forces her vision back towards the TV and tries not to read into it. It’s none of Maggie’s business if she’s dating enough; she can take this at her own pace. Maggie must be stewing, though, because after a few more seconds she adds, “Any reason why not?”

On the screen, a cop is handcuffing someone against a car. Alex weighs her words before she responds. “Just didn’t think it would work out.”

Maggie doesn’t reply for a long minute, and Alex thinks she’s gone back to watching TV, but then she says, “And you’re... doing okay?”

Alex shifts to look at her. She’s sitting less than a foot from Maggie on the sofa in Maggie’s apartment, and Maggie is asking her about her love life, and Maggie is looking at her with an expression that’s guarded and careful and has something behind her eyes that she can’t read at all.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I’m okay. It wasn’t anything, really.”

She’s expecting Maggie to go on about how she needs to get out there, how it’s important that she figure herself out and go date and… whatever… but instead Maggie drops Alex’s gaze for just a second. “I know I said that it’s important to get out there. But, uh. The dating around thing. It’s not… I mean. It’s worth it to wait until you find someone you feel something for.” She looks up again at Alex and her expression is deliberate.

It stings. It’s unbelievably tone-deaf, and it stings. She did find someone she felt something for, but Maggie’s clearly not interested in talking about that. They’re friends, just friends, so she can’t point how out how totally hypocritical Maggie is being. And besides, Maggie already rejected her once, so no matter what, it’s not like she’s going to suddenly become what Maggie wants in a girlfriend. Which is fine, whatever, it’s fine, but Maggie has got to stop.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“I mean it, Alex,” Maggie says. She’s still holding Alex’s gaze, but something subtle in her expression has shifted; it’s soft, and she could almost be nervous. They’ve been sitting fairly close on the couch, and even though Maggie hasn’t moved, all of a sudden it feels like she’s in Alex’s space. Alex’s breath catches. She doesn’t know what Maggie’s playing at, and she wants her so much, and Maggie has got to stop.

“Okay,” Alex says, mostly to say something, because if she doesn’t break the tension of the moment it will kill her. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Maggie smiles, but her eyes say something more complicated that Alex can’t read. If Alex didn’t know better, she’d think Maggie might—but no. Her heart contracts.

“Good,” Maggie says, and turns back to the TV.

After a moment, Alex does too. The cop show is still on, and she tries to pay attention to it. But her attention keeps drifting, and mostly she watches Maggie, frustrated and confused and longing dangerously.

**

Max’s final draft of the book comes in on Tuesday morning. Maggie texts her to expect it in her inbox, but Alex still feels a burst of excitement when she sees the file. It’s finally done—it’s real. She reads it in between phone calls and meetings and on the train home, and it’s so plainly the best thing she’s ever worked on. Her chest feels tight with pride. This is what she got into publishing to do: to make books like this.

I know what you mean, Maggie tells her, and forwards along a note from Max. It’s as condescending as she’d expect, all about how she and Maggie have augmented his genius. Maggie has annotated it. It makes Alex laugh, but part of it makes her feel good, too; she’s earned respect even from Maxwell Lord.

She types up an email to all of DEO’s staff about the book and what a dream it’s been to work on and what a talented author Max is and how high her hopes are for their sales, and then she sends the manuscript around—the last step in any editorial process. Sometimes she does it with exhaustion, when a book has been a mess to fix up, but today she hits send with resolve and satisfaction.

Jesus, Alex, how dare you send something this good in the middle of the day? I started reading and haven’t done any of my work in like an hour, Lucy emails her that afternoon. Vasquez sends her a note to tell her she’s looking forward to diving in that evening, and even Brian replies to the email about how pumped he is to sell this one.

And J’onn comes by her office twice: once to tell her how much he’s enjoying the read and once again, later, to tell her how proud he is of the work she’s done. “I know you put a lot of yourself into this one, Alex, and I want you to know how much respect I have for your work ethic. These are some results. It’s the best book we’ve got on our list, and it deserves to sell well.” The praise roosts in her heart, but she shrugs, trying not to look too pleased. “In a word,” J’onn finishes, “You did good.”

It’s a nice week.

**

And then it’s the weekend.

Maggie comes over to Alex’s place on Saturday night. They’d originally tossed around the idea of getting celebratory drinks at Dollywood, but it just never came together. They’ve been to Dollywood so often that they’ve basically worn grooves into the pool table, Maggie points out. They should do something else.

The idea sits well with Alex. It’s not so much that she’d rather do something different, just—she doesn’t want to admit it’s over, their Tuesday nights leaning across a sticky table in a West Village dive bar. Capping off the whole thing at Dollywood would feel too much like an ending. So instead she suggests that Maggie come over. They can pop some champagne and then watch a terrible horror movie, or something.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that she’s waiting for Maggie to arrive, Alex is, unaccountably, nervous. She fidgets with the pillows on her couch and walks from her bedroom to the living room aimlessly. She takes the champagne out of the fridge and is about to move it back again when Maggie buzzes up.

“Hey, you!” Maggie says when she opens the door. “Congratulations to us, huh?” She offers Alex a one-armed hug and walks inside.

“Congratulations to us,” Alex says, and holds up the bottle of champagne. “Drinks on the house.”

“Aw, perfect,” Maggie says. “I almost brought a bottle too, actually. Glad that worked out.”

“No chance you brought champagne flutes, is there? All I’ve got is wine glasses.” Alex crosses to the kitchen, takes them down from cabinet. “Don’t have much call for champagne.”

“I know, it’s such a registry thing for people to have,” Maggie says. “I guess that’s why they sell them in plastic for the rest of us. We went through tons when we started bringing authors by the office. Dan finally ordered a glass set like a month ago, which, please. We’ve already filled half a landfill.”

“Maybe DEO will need to get some of those,” Alex jokes. “If we ever see Max again. Maybe we can bring him by when the book pubs. I probably owe him another meeting.”

Maggie takes her glass. “Yeah, maybe.”

“You don’t think?” Alex says. “I guess I should say he owes us another meeting. They set first print run for a hundred thousand copies last week. It’s going to be huge. Everyone is sure about it, and that never happens.” She starts peeling the foil off the top of the bottle. “Did I tell you how many compliments I’ve gotten on the book in the last two days?”

“Glad everyone recognizes genius in—god, what was it—‘all of its glory, even once corralled,’” Maggie says. Alex laughs. It’s a quote from the email Maggie had passed along from Max.

“Here, you should pop it,” she says, holding out the champagne bottle to Maggie. “You’re the one that puts up with him.”

Maggie shakes her head. “Come on, Danvers. This would never have gotten anywhere without you.”

“You’d have found another editor,” Alex reminds her.

“I keep telling you. You’ve always been my first choice,” Maggie says, and then she looks away, like she’s embarrassed by something she’s said. Alex looks away too, busies herself with the cork so she doesn’t let the twist of her stomach spiral into something she can’t control.

When she’s got the champagne poured, Maggie raises her glass. “I’m really not good at these things, I’m warning you. But I’ll give it a go. Here’s to really great sci-fi, and this book selling like hell, and a hell of a time working on a book. The best time.”

Maggie is looking at her with deep, focused fondness, and Alex feels like she is going to burst open at the seams. She doesn’t want this to all be over. It’s been the best thing that’s happened to her since the day Kara came to live with her family, since the day J’onn held out his hand and offered her a job. Meeting Maggie has put her through hell and helped her find herself and it’s wrenching to imagine if it had never happened. It’s wrenching to imagine it being over, to imagine the possibility that once their weekly meetings end, things will change.

“To this book. And to the next one,” Alex says.

Something ripples across Maggie’s face, something almost guilty. But she just says, “Yeah. To our book.”

They clink, and they drink, and Alex tries not to wonder what Maggie’s thinking. She tries to let the happiness sit smooth and calm in her stomach instead of knotting into something more complicated entirely.

She’s semi-successful for almost an hour.

And then Maggie pauses the movie and says, “Danvers. We need to talk.”

“Sure. Okay, sure.” Alex’s heart picks up a jackhammer pace in her chest. She has no idea what this is about, but the ambiguity of that opener is enough to snap her into being hyperaware. If Maggie’s about to call her out for still liking her—

She is not prepared when Maggie says, “There is no next book.”

“What?”

“There’s no next book. Not for DEO,” Maggie says. She looks resolved and pale and sick. “Max is placing his next book somewhere else.”

There’s a long, long pause, and then Alex says, “What the fuck.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you.” Maggie is looking six inches to the left of Alex like there’s something there that will keep the universe from ending, like if she looks intently enough her words won’t hit so hard. Alex thinks she sees her set her shoulders. “It’s not under contract anywhere yet. But—”

“You can’t do that,” Alex says. Something white-hot is starting to push its way into her veins, her throat, her lungs. “We get first refusal on the next book. That’s how this works. That’s how this always works.”

“No, you don’t.” Maggie looks at Alex, now, and Alex turns to glare at the ceiling. “It was the only way I was able to give this to you for a hundred thousand to begin with. Max needed to be sure he’d be able to go somewhere with more money for the next one.”

“Right. But you wanted me,” Alex says, the hurt and fury pushing a spike into her heart. “You wanted me to edit this. It was enough the first time, right?”

“Yeah, I did,” Maggie says, and she starts to say something else, but Alex cuts her off.

“But not anymore, not next time.” It hurts most of all because she should have seen it coming. Because not only does Maggie not want her as a girlfriend, she doesn’t want her at all. Not to edit. Not to work together. Not to move words around on a page and fix stories so they end the way they’re supposed to. The way they’re goddamn supposed to. “I kill myself working on this book and it’s not enough. You tell me it’s great, and it’s not enough. I put everything I’ve got into this and it is not enough.”

“It’s about the money,” Maggie pleads. “It’s Max, come on, you know Max, that’s all it is. Someone at Penguin Random House approached him with an offer—”

“No, you know, I get it.” Alex stands, and Maggie stands too, looking desperate. “I get it. Okay? There’s always something else I could be doing differently. Or better. Or more, or less. I can’t pull money from nowhere to make Max want to stay. I can’t edit this well enough to make you want to stay. And it’s not only this, okay, is it? I can’t have been out for a decade, and I can’t date around and wait to find someone and do everything and nothing all at once—”

“It’s not about you!” Maggie yells, and Alex is so surprised to hear her raise her voice that she stops. Maggie stops too, and shakes her head, presses her lips tight together. After a second, she says again, “It’s not about you, Alex, it’s the opposite of about you.”

“What does that mean?”

Maggie closes her eyes. “It means I have to look out for my author’s best interests. Okay? If he’s set on money above everything else, I can’t tell him to stay at DEO, even if I think you’re the best person for the job. I’m biased, all right? I can’t tell him to stay at DEO just because I want to stick around. Just because...”

Alex’s world falls still, like it’s anticipating what comes next. Like her heart stops beating so she can hear Maggie’s words with absolute, perfect clarity.

“I can’t tell him he has to stay at DEO just because I’m falling in love with his editor.”

Everything goes fuzzy around the edges. Alex is not sure that she’s still breathing.

And then she looks at Maggie and she points a finger at herself. Just to be sure.

“Yeah,” Maggie says. “You.” She looks scared, Alex notices. She looks absolutely fucking terrified. “This isn’t how I meant to tell you. I’m sorry.”

“You’re in love with me,” Alex says, and Maggie nods. “With me?”

“Yeah, Danvers,” Maggie says, and she attempts a grin. “I was gonna buy you a drink or something.”

“You can buy me a drink tomorrow,” Alex says.

And then she’s stepping forward and kissing Maggie, and it’s like Maggie’s the only thing in the world. It’s, oh god, it’s a little messy and it’s urgent and Maggie’s hands slide to her back. She leans in closer, can’t keep track of where her hands are, one is still cupping Maggie’s jaw, and then Maggie deepens the kiss and she can’t keep track of anything at all. They’re in the desert, parched; they’re on fire, in a burst of heat; she is everywhere, they are everywhere, this is everything.

Alex’s knees are weak when she pulls back.

“You’re in love with me,” she says.

Maggie is breathless. She looks like she’s been given the world. She doesn’t let go of Alex’s waist, holds her like she’s never letting go. “Been falling for a while now.”

“For a while?”

“Since you came out.” Maggie lifts her hand and traces Alex’s lower lip with her thumb. A shiver of heat runs down Alex’s core. “Since I knew I was allowed to be. Longer, really.”

Longer. Alex’s mind spins back through the past months, through Maggie’s compliments and contradictory dating advice and hovering hugs. It all looks—different, now. She’s elated.

She leans in and kisses Maggie again, too eager and too fast. Maggie just laughs a little against her lips and slows her down, and by the time Alex pulls back, breathless, the world’s gone electric and glowing and vivid. She rests her forehead against Maggie’s while things slow down, and then she pulls back so she can see Maggie’s face.

“Me, too,” Alex says. “I am, too.”

Maggie’s grin could light up the sun.

And then she curls her fingers into Alex’s hair and kisses her again. It starts slow until it isn’t anymore. Alex gets her hands on Maggie’s waist; she can feel the heat of Maggie’s skin where her shirt rides up. She ghosts the strip with her fingers and Maggie inhales, gasps into the kiss and then pulls Alex’s bottom lip into her mouth. She scrapes her teeth along it and Alex cants her hips forward, almost involuntarily. It shifts them; Maggie’s legs bump the back of the couch, and then in one motion she sits and tugs Alex forwards onto her lap. Alex grinds down without thinking, and she can feel Maggie’s breathing grow ragged. Alex’s isn’t much better; Maggie’s got her hands up under the hem of Alex’s shirt, her hands on Alex’s skin, and in some fractured thought Alex observes that she might actually die here, kissing Maggie on her living room couch.

She shifts without thinking, so that one of Maggie’s legs is between hers, and Maggie makes a noise into her mouth and then pulls back, away from her face.

“Babe,” she says, and something in Alex leaps involuntarily, something twists between her legs, “Alex, babe. Are you sure—”

“I’m sure about you,” Alex says, and Maggie looks at her like she’s given her some kind of gift, like she’s amazing.

“We should talk,” she says, breathlessly. “Before anything—I don’t want to rush you—and the book, we were talking about the book—”

Alex is already shaking her head. “Not rushing me. Can we just—” She leans in, and the rest of her sentence is lost as Maggie curves up to meet her, and all there is is this, this, this.

**

The best part of waking up next to Maggie isn’t Maggie’s sleepy smile, or the way she pulls Alex into the curve of her body, or the way she tucks her chin over Alex’s shoulder and kisses her behind her ear. It’s not the expansive, overwhelming happiness that presses on the inside of Alex’s chest, or the way Maggie’s arms feel around her, or the way Alex can twist around to kiss her. It’s not any of that.

It’s that she’ll get to do it all again.

**

Alex has been at work for less than ten minutes on Monday morning before Lucy corners her in her office asking her why she’s walking three feet off the ground.

“Mm.” Alex tries to shrug casually, but she can’t hide her grin. Nor, if she’s being honest, does she particularly want to. “Well. That is.”

“You never smile this much. I’m starting to think I should be scared.” Lucy narrows her eyes. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Does this mean what I think it means?”

“What do you think it means?”

“Oh, come on, stop being coy. Did you finally get laid or what?”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” Alex says, but she lets her grin turn all the way back into the big, goofy smile that has barely left her face since Saturday, and Lucy pounces.

“Tell.”

Alex pretends to think about it, and then says, carefully, “Well. Maggie came over on Saturday.”

“No.” Lucy sits back, shocked. “Maggie came over, are you saying—”

Alex nods, and Lucy grabs her arm.

“Oh my god, Alex.”

“I know,” Alex says. “I know.”

“You and Maggie!” Lucy says. “I knew it was just a matter of time. Of course. Of course.”

“Well, it surprised me,” Alex says, a little affronted.

Lucy sits back. “You need to tell me everything. Are you two, you know, together now? Or did you just...” She smirks.

“We’re together. She’s my girlfriend,” Alex says. She sort of can’t believe it, still, even though she and Maggie spent almost two hours talking about it on Sunday. Even though she kissed Maggie goodbye outside her apartment last night. It seems too good to be real. And so, just to confirm it, she says it again. “She’s—Maggie’s my girlfriend.”

It’s the best sentence she’s ever heard.

And then once she starts talking about Maggie it’s hard for her to stop. Maggie spent the night at her apartment. Maggie has liked her for months. Maggie’s in love with her. Lucy’s face goes gentle when Alex says this part. She feels like she’s been discovering new pieces of her heart for two days, and every time she thinks she’s found them all it turns out there’s another one for her to examine. Has it been like this the whole time? It’s overwhelming, feeling this many things.

At some point she gets tangled up in all of it and just sits there between sentences, struck dumb by emotion, and Lucy laughs at her and congratulates her again and leaves her to mull it all over.

And then somewhere along the line, sometime between a meeting she isn’t paying attention to and the lunch she’s going to have with Kara to debrief, she remembers: Max.

Shit.

She and Maggie never quite got around to talking about work, about Max leaving; there was too much else to be said. They’ll have to talk about it tonight, they’ll have to—Max is leaving, fuck, Max is leaving. There’s no way that has changed. She’ll—Jesus, she’ll have to tell DEO.

She lets herself sit with the thought for a minute, and then gets up to go talk to J’onn.

He’s on the phone when she walks over, but beckons her into his office anyway. She shuts the door and J’onn cocks an eyebrow at her. Alex hasn’t thought this through; while the phone call wraps up, she tries to figure out what to say.

“So?” J’onn says as he sets the phone back in the cradle. “Is everything all right?”

She doesn’t have an answer, and doesn’t try to come up with one. Instead she says without preamble, “We lost Maxwell Lord.”

J’onn looks alarmed. “We—are you telling me Maxwell has died, Alex?”

“What? No,” Alex says, and he relaxes visibly.

“It might help publicity,” J’onn says, and half-smiles. “But it’s for the best. Please continue as if I didn’t just suggest the death of one of our authors.”

Alex is too tense to laugh. “It’s not good news, though. I spoke to Maggie Sawyer, and Max plans to leave DEO for his next book. I know we’ve been counting on this one. I know it was a big chance for us. I’m sorry.”

She’s expecting J’onn to get angry. She got angry; it would be a reasonable response. And his brow does furrow. She lets the silence sit between them, waiting uncomfortably, and after a moment, he says, “That isn’t good news.”

“No.”

“But this does happen. Often, here. You know that.”

“I didn’t think it would happen this time,” Alex says, and she waits for that rush of betrayal, churning with loss and guilt and shame.

She waits. J’onn looks at her, and she waits. And then she realizes: she doesn’t care.

She’s still pissed at Max, obviously. She’s still pissed at Max and regretful at the loss. But the sense of catastrophe that was hanging on this before, it’s just...

Here’s the thing: it’s not her fault that DEO is losing Max as an author. This is what Maggie was trying to tell her, she realizes suddenly. She’s done a good job with this book. She’s done a really good job with this book, and she’s known it all along. And the contract terms? The lack of first refusal clause? Those have been there since day one, whether she remembered them or not. There was always a chance this would happen. Max being Max, more than just a chance.

“God, though, he’s such an asshole,” she says out loud, and then catches herself. But J’onn’s expression is amused and sympathetic.

“That seems like a fair assessment.”

Max is an asshole, and she won’t have to work on his books anymore. Maybe that isn’t such a crippling loss. She’ll still have worked on this book, and the people who matter in the industry will know that. She’ll know that.

So… Max is leaving. But the work she’s done isn’t going anywhere. And Maggie—

This book has been about her and Maggie from the very first day. That’s it, really. It’s been about the writing, about the story, but it’s really been about Maggie, from that first ridiculous anonymous note on the manuscript to a thousand pool games to weeks and hours of conversations across a bar table. Maggie calling her at night about things that feel important. Maggie valuing her. Maggie wanting her.

And she remembers the press of Maggie’s lips against hers. The look on Maggie’s face when she said she loved her.

Alex’s heart catches, and she feels big.

**

“They took it well,” is what she ends up telling Maggie, later.  “Lucy’s pissed at Max. J’onn’s not thrilled either, obviously, but he understood. Said he knows what authors can be like and I should ask you to keep an eye out for the ones who value quality editors over cash. Since we seem to get along.”

“Mm,” Maggie says, and pulls her down for a kiss. Her eyes are smiling. “Could say that.”

“Could say that?”

Maggie’s dimples are out in full force, and Alex’s heart turns over. “Yeah,” Maggie says. “Could say a lot more, too.”

**

Six months later

It’s snowing as Alex and Maggie make their way to the Strand, emerging from the subway out into the December clamor of Union Square. The Christmas market is bustling with tourists, lit up against the dark of the early evening sky.

“We’re going to be late, babe,” Alex says as Maggie moves towards the row of stalls closest to the subway exit.

“Yeah, but he won’t notice anyway,” Maggie says. She looks enthusiastic, and Alex can already feel her resolve crumbling. “We’ve got at least fifteen minutes.”

“It’s also freezing,” Alex grumbles, but she lets Maggie tug her over to a stall selling pine needle baskets. “Fifteen minutes.”

“That’s my California girl,” Maggie says, and leans up to kiss Alex’s cheek. “Thanks. Look, these are pretty. Think your mom would like one?”

“Probably,” Alex admits. “Nice find.”

“We can come back for it on our way out,” Maggie says. “Last year one of these places was selling some wood coasters I want to look at, let’s go check.”

By the time they arrive at the Strand, sliding slightly on the slushy sidewalk, they’re twenty minutes late. The store looks busier than usual through the fogged windows, and once they’re inside, they can hear that Max has already started speaking. Alex pulls a copy of the book from a pile as they edge through the store, around tables and stacks of books and people browsing. There are dozens of copies sitting around the DEO office, any of which she could've grabbed for free, but she always makes a point of buying a copy of her authors’ books at their launch events. She has an amorphous idea that it will somehow bring the book good luck, which Maggie thinks is cute.

They turn the corner around a shelf, and there’s the crowd, and it’s big. It’s not just a full house; it’s standing-room only. They’re going to sell two hundred copies tonight. They’re probably even going to get real news coverage. It’s not a surprise, but seeing it—it’s still amazing. Alex grins and turns to Maggie, who looks proudly back at her.

There are a couple of seats reserved in the front row for them. Maggie looks like she intends to wait out the event at the side, but Alex shakes her head and maneuvers them quietly around the edge of the crowd. At the front, they slide into the empty seats in the corner next to J’onn, who inclines his head in greeting.

When the Q&A has wrapped up, the crowd folds itself into pockets of schmoozing, and Max gradually makes his way over to them as he drifts from one hand-shaking, congratulatory conversation to the next.

“I’m glad to see you were able to make it,” he says. “Problems with the trains? This is why I always use a driver.”

Maggie rolls her eyes, and Alex only barely manages to keep herself from doing so.

“Had other places to be first, actually,” she says. “But obviously I came. A launch is a launch, and our biggest book is our biggest book.”

“Lots of nice buzz,” Maggie says. “The Union Square theater has a poster up for your movie, we walked past it on the way here. We really should’ve gotten a copy already, actually. I’m going to have dramatic rights reach out to Universal about it.”

“Thank you,” Max says. “So how does it feel to be here? This must be the largest event one of DEO’s books has ever generated, unless I’m mistaken. I heard a rumor the Times is here.”

“The Times is my sister,” Alex says. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Max raises his eyebrows. “So short, Alex. All I’m saying is that I think I’ve done quite well by your company. I was hoping you’d agree.”

“I do,” Alex says “Of course. And I hope we can also agree that it would be to everyone’s advantage for you to leave me alone and stop pretending either of us is interested in having this conversation. I’m not. I’m here for the book, Max, not for you.”

Max looks thrown, which is incredibly satisfying. He takes a half step back and glances at Maggie, who smiles benevolently and settles her arm around Alex’s waist. Max’s eyes widen very slightly, and then he almost nods to himself.

“I see why you like her,” he says to Maggie, and then turns back to Alex. “Very well. I had actually meant to tell you—for what it’s worth... I am sorry.” Alex was half-expecting this, but she wasn’t prepared for how genuine it sounds, nor for how Max trips over the words. She almost thinks she sees something like regret flicker across his face, just for the briefest of moments, and she’s unnerved. “I’m sure you understand.”

Whether the apology was real or not doesn’t change whether she understands. She does. But it also doesn’t change her position, and it doesn’t change her, and so she just looks at Max coolly. He holds her gaze, and she thinks he understands, too.

After a moment, Maggie clears her throat. Max turns to look at her, and any trace of anything real in his expression is gone, his typical smug affect falling back across his face like a curtain.

“In any event,” Max says smoothly, as though he hasn’t paused at all, “I thought that the Q&A went well, and of course the turnout is fantastic. I’ll make sure my personal publicist—I’m hiring a personal publicist, by the way—gets us any coverage that DEO isn’t able to secure. Not that you aren’t trying your best, I’m sure.”

“All right, Max, that’s enough,” Maggie says. “Fuck off and enjoy your party.”

“Message received,” Max says, and he turns to walk away. And then he stops and turns over his shoulder and says, “And Alex, Maggie? Happy holidays.”

“What an ass,” Maggie says comfortably as Max disappears into the crowd.

Alex exhales a bit of a laugh. “He’s still your author,” she reminds Maggie. “And yeah. But he’s also an ass whose book got me a raise.”

“And a girlfriend,” Maggie says, and Alex kisses her.

“That too.”

And her whole life, really, the way it is now. It’s unbelievable how foreign this would all have seemed to her a year ago, but here she is: at a standing-room-only event for a book she worked on, with a calendar full of lunches with agents who finally know her name, with a cushion growing slowly in the bank.

With a woman she’s in love with standing next to her, glowing with pride, her hand in Alex’s.

With Maggie.

She can’t remember the details of the day she got the manuscript in the mail. It was just a day. It was some random Tuesday, and she opened a box, and she went to a bar, and there was Maggie smiling at her and offering her some stupid secret project, and now here she is with Maggie’s toothbrush in her apartment and Maggie’s hand in hers and a happiness sitting so high in her chest that still sometimes takes her breath away. Her life looks everything and nothing like what she could have imagined. It’s incredible, and it’s unbelievable, and it’s real.

She thought she had the career opportunity of a lifetime, Alex remembers. She curls her fingers around Maggie’s hand and squeezes. Not every chance looks like all the things that it can become.

“What’re you thinking about?” Maggie asks her.

Alex looks at her and her heart is full. “You.”

**

They’re in between games at game night, and Alex is in the kitchen of Maggie’s apartment refilling the popcorn and listening to bits of conversation drift in from the living room. It’s full of bickering and banter, with a kind of worn, soft, fond familiarity to the edges. Everyone is gathered around the coffee table. Lucy is on the arm of the couch, and Winn is setting up some complicated-looking board game while James and Kara tag-team tell a story about something that happened at work. Maggie’s shifted to fill the space Alex left when she stood, and she looks up and smiles at Alex across the kitchen. Alex blushes and turns to deal with the popcorn, which is the absurd organic stuff Maggie buys that she has to pop on the stovetop.

After months of cramming seven people into Kara’s studio, they’re test-driving somewhere new. It’s become enough of a regular thing, all of them, that it’s finally time. It took a little persuading for Kara to agree to give up hosting, but as Lena pointed out, the temptation to not be sitting all on top of each other was just too great. “Not that I mind, of course,” she’d added, winking. Kara had, inexplicably, turned faintly pink at this, at which point Maggie and Lucy had obviously and studiously avoided each other’s eyes.

So they’re gathered tonight at Maggie’s, and Lucy is shouting at her from the living room to hurry it up, and James is chuckling, and when she goes to sit back down a spot will open up in the circle for her and she’ll be drawn back into the conversation with that kind of natural, comfortable momentum that comes from being with friends.

Who could’ve foreseen that she’d appreciate a regularly scheduled game of Catan, Alex thinks, fiddling with one of the knobs on the stove, but here she is.

Kara has slipped away from the group, where Maggie and Winn and Lena are now rehashing an argument about the ethics of creating a video game hack, and come over to the kitchen. She makes grabby hands at Alex, who shakes her head.

“Popcorn’s not ready yet.”

“This is the slowest popcorn in the world,” Kara groans, and Alex pats the counter next to her.

“Grab a seat and stay a while.”

Kara positions herself next to Alex. “It was really nice of Maggie to agree to host,” she says. She’s watching Alex’s face. It took her a while to thaw on Maggie, to ease back from overly bright, suspicious smiles and a slight distance. It’s not that I don’t like her, Kara had said after their first dinner all together, when Alex called her out on it. I do. But I don’t want you to get hurt again. Alex’s first response had been to bristle, but she had also understood. In any event, she was relieved when the air started feeling clearer, when the disjoint between her two people started feeling smaller and smaller. Things are even pleasant, now. They’re getting there.

“Yeah, it was,” Alex says. “But I think she really wanted to.” Kara smiles, and they look back out over the living room. Maggie is leaning forward to make a point to Lena, who looks interested, and Winn, who looks a little intimidated, and Alex is hit by a burst of fondness.

Kara shifts her weight. She’s looking at Alex again, her expression thoughtful. Alex blushes. She doesn’t need to mind being obvious anymore, but it’s still embarrassing when people catch her looking so openly in love. Kara’s expression has gone endeared and teasing. “Oh my gosh, Alex, look at you!”

“I just—some days I still can’t believe it, you know?” Alex says. “Most days I can. I mean, every day I can. But I don’t know that I’m ever going to stop feeling lucky.”

“I think that’s probably okay,” Kara says thoughtfully. “As long as she knows that she’s lucky too. And you know? I think she really does.”

Alex smiles, and Kara adds, “And I know I’ve said it before, but Alex? I’m really proud of you. For, you know, taking the leap.”

It’s been six months since Alex started dating Maggie, the better part of a year since she came out to Kara; Alex has no idea why Kara is bringing this up now. But it’s nice to hear, surprisingly so. It slots into some space just under her collarbone and beats there reassuringly. There are days when it’s incomprehensible to Alex that there was a time before she knew she was gay, but there are also days when it still feels new, still feels like she’s just getting her arms around the dimensions of it. On those days, she sometimes can’t believe she’s gotten to where she is today. She’s proud of herself, too.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy,” Kara finishes gently.

Alex wraps an arm around Kara and pulls her into a sideways hug. She doesn’t need to know why Kara’s mentioning it now to appreciate it. “Thank you.”

They stay where they are for a moment longer. Kara’s looking out over the living room, quiet, like she’s thinking. Alex is just starting to let her mind drift to the popcorn, because there is no way anyone will let it go if she burns this as badly as she messed up the bagel bites at Kara’s. It’s been too long; maybe she’s forgotten to turn on the stove. And then Kara adjusts her glasses in the way that means she’s on the verge of saying something, and Alex brings herself back to the moment.

“I think… there’s something I want to talk about, later,” Kara says. She seems hesitant.

Alex follows her gaze across the living room to where Lena is sitting forward on the couch, intently explaining something to James. She looks from Lena to Kara, whose expression has gone wistful, and thinks she has an inkling. “Later?”

Kara bites her lip, uncertain, but then Lena laughs across the room and her expression shifts to that resolve that Alex knows so well. She turns back to Alex, and this time she sounds more decisive. “Later.”

There’s no rush, Alex thinks. It took her 28 years of her life to figure out who she is and what she wants, and now she’s 29 and it’s all finally clicked. She knows herself. She knows herself, truly, and the world feels steadier on her shoulders. She’s got her job and her friends and her sister and Maggie, and there’s nothing missing at the edges. That’s something that’s worth waiting for.

**

And it’s some random night, and they’re in Maggie’s apartment, or Alex’s, or the one they’ll eventually share. Maggie’s at the table, her ridiculous printouts spread across it, and she’s got her hair up messy at the back of her head and a pair of reading glasses, new, perched on her nose. (“Just for at night,” Maggie insists, but Alex thinks they’re cute.) She’s got a pen in her hand and a red one tucked behind her ear, and the fluorescent light of the kitchen lamp is spilling over her, and Alex thinks she has never, never looked more beautiful.

Maggie looks up, then, and catches her staring.

“What?” she asks, a smile already catching at the edge of her mouth. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Alex says innocently, but she closes her laptop. She’s done with work for tonight. “Just looking at you.”

Maggie pretends to look surprised, but underneath Alex can tell that she’s already catching the mood. “At me?”

Alex shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Maggie says. She walks over, slow, saunters more really, and Alex gets caught up in her legs and the fit of her shirt and the curve of her neck. When Maggie stops in front of her she’s grinning, her eyes mischievous. “You are something else, Danvers.”

“Mm,” Alex says, and pulls Maggie closer towards her. She already knows what Maggie will say, but she loves hearing her say it, like she loves the feeling of Maggie’s hips under her hands. Like she loves Maggie. “Am I?”

Maggie leans in and kisses her, slow and steady and real.

“Yeah,” she says against Alex’s mouth. “You are.”