An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapter 9: Soulmates and Sisters
Well, my vacation is cancelled, my father-in-law is in the hospital, and there are literally nazis everywhere. If your day is anything like mine, I hope this fluff-monster helps you smile.
Maggie does come over the next day. She brings lunch, and Alex barely slept and put body wash in her hair instead of shampoo twice but she’s never felt so good, so alive, so ready for anything.
Alex hugs her the second she walks in the door, and the second Maggie’s in her arms she feels centered and calm. It’s like her body has been frantically buzzing since the instant she’d let go of Maggie last night, and it’s only quieted and calmed now that she’s back under her hands.
Alex wonders if that’s permanent, but is pretty sure she wouldn’t mind if it were.
They finally manage to let go and they eat lunch and they talk, sitting on the couch, alternating between eating their burritos and holding hands.
After they eat, her life starts tumbling out of her mouth. Alex tells Maggie about Kara coming to live with them (the edited version), and about Jeremiah (the edited version) and about how her mom changed. She tells her about Party Girl Alex and academic probation and about how Hank saved her, and about how she found herself at the DEO, and she apologizes for all of bruised ribs she Resonated to Maggie these past couple of years, offering to make it up to her somehow.
She asks Maggie about her childhood, because Maggie’s never mentioned it much.
Maggie takes a moment and it seems like she’s deciding something, and her hands twitch a little, but she takes a deep breath, and she answers.
She tells Alex about growing up in Blue Springs, Nebraska, a tiny farming community an hour south of Lincoln. About her parents. About her two older brothers. About being the only non-white kid in school.
About realizing she was the only non-straight kid.
She tells her about falling for her best friend when she was fourteen, a tall blonde girl named Eliza Wilke. She tells her about how they played soccer together and how they snuck cigarettes down in Eliza’s basement. She tells her about how she’d realized that was she felt for Eliza was different. She tells her that, on Valentine’s Day, she’d left a note in Eliza’s locker confessing her feelings.
Alex remembers the Resonance, and she’s crying before Maggie even tells her what happened.
But it’s even worse that she imagined.
Maggie tells her about coming home that night for what turned out to be the very last time. She tells her that her parents were disgusted by her, that they kicked her out, that they disowned her, that they didn’t even let her pack.
She tells her that she went to live with her aunt for the rest of high school. She tells her, in as few words as possible, what it was like to have to go back to that tiny high school every day until graduation.
Alex tries to control herself, managing not to call Kara to fly her to Nebraska to commit murder, but rather to gently take Maggie’s face in her hands. “You didn’t deserve that,” she says, but it’s more than that. No person would deserve that, but Maggie is so much better than just anyone. She tries again. “You’re perfect, Mags, just like this. You’re perfect. You couldn’t possibly be better.”
And it’s all true, but it’s not everything. What happened to Maggie should have emotionally crippled her. It should have broken her. But this person – this beautiful, perfect person – has been nothing but kind and gentle and tender and soft with her. Her own family treated her like trash and she has never treated Alex like anything other than a precious gift. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met,” she says, because it’s the truest thing she can say. “You’re the most incredible, the most exquisite person I’ve ever met.”
But then she thinks about the word “abomination,” and she hears herself swearing to rip off Maggie’s parents’ heads with her bare hands.
They take a moment, just pressing close together, before Maggie pulls away a little. She wipes her face, and she keeps going, clearly not ready to dwell on it. Alex lets her, but keeps a hand on her, gently reminder her that she isn’t alone anymore.
Maggie gives Alex only the broad strokes of the next years of her life. She mentions getting to college and finally meeting other gay people, other brown people, even other gay brown people. Maggie apologizes to Alex for all the sex she’d Resonated over the years, and oh, Alex hadn’t gotten around to thinking about the sex yet.
But now she can’t help but wonder what sex with Maggie would be like. If it would be as disappointing as sex has always been, or if, just maybe, it wasn’t sex that was the problem, and it wasn’t her that was the problem, but it was men who’d always been the problem.
Kissing Maggie last night was, without a doubt, the most intensely pleasurable physical experience of her life.
Alex can’t help the blush that floods her face just at the though of what more with Maggie could be like.
Maggie, thankfully, doesn’t mention the blush. She keeps going, haltingly bringing up a girlfriend, Emily, who she was with for a long time. She doesn’t give Alex the details, just that they were together for almost five years and it was the longest and most intense relationship Maggie’s ever had.
Alex remembers her Resonances, and she asks if Maggie had cheated on her at the end.
Maggie hesitates, and equivocates, and stutters, but eventually says yes. And she’s clearly afraid to say it, afraid Alex will hate her for it or judge her for something that happened so long ago.
But Alex isn’t a saint. She’s killed, she’s betrayed, she’s lied, she’s made a lot of questionable sex decisions.
So Alex just tells her, reaching out for her face again, stroking the hair at her temple with a soft thumb, that she understands. She tells her that Maggie isn’t a bad person. She says that she’s here to help Maggie heal from everything the world did to her before Alex was there to stand between Maggie and danger, Maggie and heartbreak.
She tells her the most true thing she knows. That Maggie is safe now, with her.
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