Chapter Text
Maggie knew who was calling from ten feet away. From the other side of the apartment. While in the middle of cooking dinner.
There was only one person on earth who made Alex Danvers face do that. Threatening the edge of crumbling, guilt already curling around the edges of her expression. Her fingers always twitched, like she was considering a universe where she didn’t answer the phone – where she saved herself the headache.
But she was Alex Danvers. She couldn’t ignore her mother.
“Hey mom,” next to Maggie, Ky stiffened, stirring off the pot forgotten as her head tipped towards the living room. Listening in as Alex patted Lucy’s legs for freedom. Unable to be trapped on the couch during this conversation. “What’s up?”
From the way Alex immediately winced, Maggie knew that, somehow, that was the wrong thing to say.
“No, mom,” Alex stood, rubbing her face. “It’s not that something has to be wrong for you to call. I just meant-” the way her jaw ticked, eyes dragging to the ceiling indicated that the line of argument wasn’t working. “Issomething up?”
A beat.
Maggie reached over Ky and switched off the heat when Alex’s head jerked back, forehead pinched.
“Thanksgiving?” She glanced back at Lucy, still sitting on the couch. “I… We haven’t really talked about it.”
In the small silence that followed, Gertrude trotted over from the patch of sunlight she’d previously been baking in. The German Sheppard quickly found her place next to her Companion, wet nose pressing into bionic fingers.
“No, I know,” her hand disappeared into her hair again, digging hard enough that Lucy and Maggie shared a look. “It’s not- mom, of course I want to see you.” A lie. A bold-faced lie. But Maggie would place good money on her girlfriend not knowing that it was a lie. Alex, even after all this time, was very good at burying her feelings. “It’s just… we haven’t really-”
Gertrude whined, low and insistent, until Alex’s pressed a distracted hand into the tuffs of fur behind an ear. Maggie sighed, seeing the conversation unravel in front of her eyes. She was still meters away, but she could see the guilt weaken Alex’s resolve.
“Oh,” the way Alex twisted the ends of her sleaves spoke volumes. “Kara’s going? Mmmhmm,” a nod, shallow. “Right. Look, mom, we’ll have to talk about it, okay?” A beat. Whatever was said, Alex’s eyes closed, jaw ticking. “No, mom, I don’t need permission. They’re my family, I have to- No, I know. Yeah. Okay. I hear you, alright? I’ll let you know.” Another beat, this one more defeated than anything else. “Yes. Yes, okay, I’ll call you. Jesus, mom, yes, I promise, okay?”
Maggie braced her hands on the counter, watching Alex take whole seconds to compose herself. Breathing slow and steady, very deliberately holding her phone in the fingers not capable of grinding the fragile device to dust
“Al?” Lucy ventured, voice soft, eyes gentle. “Everything okay?”
Alex exhaled through her nose; eyes still closed as she gathered her thoughts.
That was a no then.
“My mom,” she started, voice tight. “She wants to do a family Thanksgiving this year.” Alex didn’t need to do the air quotes around ‘family’, it was audible in the way the word was strained.
“Okay…” Maggie glanced at Lucy, already seeing how badly this could unfold. But, since the disastrous dinner when Alex first got this flat, before Lucy and Maggie moved in, the mother and daughter had been slowly repairing the cracks in their relationship. Well, repair was a strong word. But they’d been talking like normal people again – which meant something else was going on beyond the seemingly innocuous request.
“And she wants to do it in Midvale.”
And there is the catch.
Lucy winced before she could hide it.
“Luce,” Alex took a step towards the couch, agitation abandoned in the face of comfort. “We don’t have to do this. I know… I know that going back to Midvale for Thanksgiving would be… that’s a lot. Given… given everything,” given Eliza still firmly, clearly, outwardly, blamed Lucy for the fact that Jeremiah was on a Wanted List. Seemingly unmoved by the fact that everyone else under the damn sun placed the blame for that firmly at Jeremiah’s feet. “I can tell her no.”
Maggie flinched, but only Lucy could see it.
That wasn’t quite a bold faced lied. More like… Alex lying to herself. Even after four years taking on the entire universe, five years working for the DEO, and now working only for herself and the richest person in National City, Alex could not stand up to her mother. Not in a way that ever stuck. (Not yet).
“I mean, with the clinic and everything, I wouldn’t even know how to take four days off,” Alex continued. “We’ve only been open a couple of months and-”
“You’ve been open over six months and you’ve worked back-to-back shifts almost that entire time,” Lucy countered gently. Even from the distance, Maggie could see Lucy’s decision, could read it in the way her shoulders dropped, but her smile remained, if small. “You need a break, Al. And this is as good an excuse as any.”
“But if we go to Midvale-”
“Then I should probably stay behind,” Lucy finished. “Look, even if you stayed home, I wouldn’t be able to take that kinda time off. Vas can only cover me over the weekend, and if you guys are headed out of town, then I’ll just give her the full break,” Alex didn’t reply, but the way her hands flexed, jaw ticking told her partners what they needed to know. “Hey,” Lucy slid off the couch, softening further as she stepped into Alex’s space, hand coming to squeeze her arm. “Think of it this way – if I give Vas this off, I can actually take some time over December. You can show me how Danvers do Christmas this year.”
Alex’s nose wrinkled, immediately leaning into the gravitational pull Lucy Lane created. “Luce…”
“Hey,” soft – soft – in that way that made Maggie’s heart clench, stomach swooping at the easy intimacy displayed between her partners. “I’ll be fine. I’ve spent most of my life overseas on major holidays anyway. This isn’t something that is going to hurt me, Al. You guys should go,” green eyes flicked over to Maggie, lip curling in challenge. “All of you.”
The Lieutenant straightened, bracing her hands on the countertop. “You sure, Lane?”
“You got the holiday off to spend with the family, Mags,” generous way of saying her Captain practically threw the leave request form at her, “not sit around here waiting for me to get off a 12-hour shift. I’ll be fine,” she fixed Alex with another look, a bit of court leaking into her expression. “Winn and Ella are both working because the assholes wouldn’t take separate time off. Drew and the guys are rostered, and I even have Ve coming in to do some consulting on Saturday – which might actually get done now that Vasquez isn’t around for her to endlessly flirt with-”
Alex snorted, tension breaking across her shoulders. “As if she won’t just focus that energy on you.”
“I can handle, Ve,” Lucy laughed. “And I will be fine. I’ll be surrounded by our annoying family – it might almost be nice to come home to a chaos free house.”
“Rude!” Maggie almost started at Ky’s voice behind her.
“You,” Lucy released Alex to point a finger at the girl, eyes narrowed, “lost that leg to stand on when you flooded the apartment last month.”
Maggie looked over her shoulder, smirking at the flare of heat under Ky’s skin, crossing her arms at her own inability to defend herself. Lucy was right – this house was chaos – didn’t mean she didn’t love it though.
“Hey,” the dip back into comfort had Maggie turning back, stomach swooping as Lucy reached up, palming Alex’s cheek. “If you don’t want to go because you don’t want to go, then we should be having a different conversation. But if you’re hesitating just because you’re worried about me, then don’t.”
“I’m not hesitating because I’m worried about you,” murmured, the pair caught in their bubble of intimacy. “I’ll just miss you.”
Maggie exhaled slow, mentally reorganizing the next month in her head. Logistics and phone calls and, just a little bit, bracing for the impact of Alex and her mother being under the same roof for four days.
“So,” Maggie turned, resting her back against the counter and eyeing Ky. The teenager’s eyes were still on her mom and Lucy, “I guess we’re going to Midvale?”
“Yeah, kid,” she turned the stove back on, gesturing for the alien to retake her post as stirrer. “Looks that way. But don’t worry,” she knocked their shoulders, “I got your back.”