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Hemocyanin
he·mo·cy·a·nin
n. A bluish, copper-containing protein with an oxygen-carrying function similar to that of hemoglobin, present in the circulatory system of certain mollusks and arthropods.
Alex has been trained to expect the worst.
She’s second in command at a black ops federal agency and a practiced medic. She’s no stranger to field injuries. She’s more than equipped to deal with them.
But every time her sister dons that cape and takes to the sky, she still worries. She worries that one day there will be something her bulletproof skin can’t handle. Something worse than kryptonite.
So she trains. She designs thorough protocols for every situation the DEO could conceivably encounter, as well as some that could only occur in their wildest dreams (although every day she sees something new that convinces her that the truth is stranger than fiction).
She is prepared for everything.
Everything except Maggie Sawyer.
The very not bulletproof Detective Maggie Sawyer.
She knows the National City Police Department has their own protocols— their own practices for dealing with injuries or worse— but she still frets when she hears the alert come through the police scanner they’d set up at the DEO: Two cops shot downtown.
Then a text message from her girlfriend – Can you come get me at the clinic?
Her blood runs cold.
She’s at the blood donation clinic in minutes, thanks to the DEO tracker embedded in Maggie’s arm. Maggie had finally been given full clearance to the DEO a few weeks earlier— an honor that came with a secure phone and an appointment at the clinic, much to her consternation.
Alex had been the one to perform the short procedure, numbing down her arm and offering little words of encouragement as she installed the subdermal tracker. Maggie had thanked her for her bedside manner with a kiss and a request for Alex’s tracker number programmed into her own phone, a gesture of trust and love that had Alex walking on air.
She just didn’t think she’d have to use it so soon.
She spots her right away, sitting on the edge of a low bed on the far side of the clinic, legs swinging idly.
“Maggie!”
If Alex was in a better mindset she may have even teased that her girlfriend’s feet didn’t quite reach the floor, but she is nowhere near willing to joke now. She darts past others still donating blood, their faces a blur.
“What happened, are you okay?” she asks, frantically scanning for signs of trauma, “I heard on the radio that cops got hurt downtown and…”
She trails off, finally taking in the state of her girlfriend, happily munching on a cookie. The sleeve of her shirt is rolled up, and there’s a bandage on the crook of her elbow, but she’s thankfully in one piece. “Wait, what…?”
Maggie grins around the last bite of her cookie and pats the bed beside her. Still confused, Alex takes a seat, folding her hands in her lap.
“You know those two boys that were shot?” Maggie poses, and Alex nods. “They're from my precinct.”
“I’m sorry.” And she is, but she’s also relieved that Maggie isn’t the one on the operating table.
“Me too, but it happens.”
Maggie picks at the cotton underneath her bandage, flicking the white tufts and letting them drift onto the floor. Alex doesn’t speak, knowing by now that it is best to give Maggie space and time to express herself on her own terms.
“There’s a tradition that when a cop is shot down, the fellow officers from his or her precinct go to the local clinic and donate blood,” Maggie says, her tone huskier, “It isn’t as urgently needed as it used to be, but tradition is tradition.”
“Oh.”
Maggie peers up at her through her eyelashes. “Take it the DEO doesn’t do the same?”
“No.” In the freezer room at the DEO, there are rows upon rows of frozen blood cells and plasma. The room is chilled, sterile. Efficient. “We bank blood for times like these.”
It’s on a set schedule, like clockwork. Every six months when they get a physical. It’s practical. Clinical. Impersonal. Lacking any of the camaraderie the NCPD enjoys.
She considers if she would go rushing to Dr. Hamilton to donate the next time one of her agents is shot.
Maggie slides off the bed and grabs for her jacket, wincing a bit as she stretches her arm out to fit it into the sleeve. “Anyway, thanks for coming down to get me. Will you drop me home?”
“I’ll do you one better.” Alex takes the jacket from Maggie, pulling it over her arm for her. “Let’s go get something sugary. Get your glucose back up.”
Maggie nods her thanks and pulls her hair back over the collar of the jacket. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. My treat.” She strokes her thumb along the soft leather on Maggie’s shoulder. “And Maggie? I’m sorry about those officers.”
Even as the condolence is thick on her tongue, Maggie smiles and kisses her on the cheek. She laces their fingers together and leads the way out of the clinic. With her other hand, she waves goodbye to those sitting on the beds that they pass.
Now that Alex isn’t in such a rush to make sure Maggie wasn’t one of the wounded, she recognises the faces on the other beds. They’re all cops, all from the same precinct. There are even more of them in the waiting room, tapping away at their phones or flipping through magazines, patiently waiting for their turn to give.
Maggie shields her eyes from the sun as Alex digs into her pocket for her keys. “It’s not looking good,” she says, more to herself than Alex.
“You did your part.”
“Yeah.”
She’s quiet, like she isn’t convinced, rubbing the cotton on her arm through her jacket— a reminder of why she was there. Then she takes a deep breath and smiles, a lighter demeanor slipping over her face like a mask. “So.”
Alex raises an eyebrow. “So?”
Maggie nudges Alex’s ribs with her good elbow.
“So, how much sugar are we talking, Danvers?”
Epistaxis
ep·i·stax·is
n. Bleeding from the nose.
Alex wakes up to the damp, sticky pillow and she knows.
She stumbles into the bathroom, fingers pinching the sides of her nose against her septum, and blinks, bleary at the brightness. A glance at her reflection reveals rivers of blood tacked all down her cheek and chin. In the time it takes her to grab a tissue, her tiled floor is spattered with blood— a crime scene in miniature.
She glares at the mirror, squeezing the tissue tight, trying to stem the blood flow. The taste of iron is heavy on her tongue.
“Alex?” Maggie’s voice is distant, laden with sleep.
“In here. Just…” Maggie appears in the doorway, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Alex looks down at her blood-stained tank top, embarrassed. It’s too much. Too soon for Maggie to see her like this. “Just go back to bed, babe.”
Maggie squints at her in the bright light. She’s thinking, calculating something. Alex recognises the look, has seen it on Maggie’s face as she studies evidence, cataloguing every detail. “This happen often?”
Alex removes the tissue from her nose and peers into it, but the bleeding hasn’t slowed. Another drop falls into the sink, sliding down the inside of the bowl towards the drain.
“Yeah, sometimes,” she mutters, shoving the tissue back towards her nostrils.
Maggie walks away into the darkness of the apartment. Alex hears her puttering about in the kitchen, opening and closing the freezer. She sighs as she tosses the soaked tissue into the garbage, a new one already held to her nose. Maggie shuffles back into the bathroom with a bag, half caked in ice.
“Uh, frozen peas?” Her voice comes out clogged and thick and she winces at how unattractive she must sound.
“It’s for your neck, doctor.” Maggie rubs her arm in a soothing motion. “Here.”
She gently places the bag against the back of her neck, and Alex practically jumps out of her skin in reaction.
“ Shit,” Alex gasps. The chill shoots from her neck straight up into her brain, and she instantly snaps awake.
Maggie lets out a little raspy chuckle. “I was two weeks on the job when guy jacked on speed headbutted me and broke my nose.”
“Did you still get him?”
“Course I got him.” Maggie rests her free hand on Alex’s waist and the warmth counteracts the cold. “Cuffed him and marched him right into the precinct, blood still dripping down my chin.”
Alex hums contentedly. “That must have been something.”
“Oh, it was.” Maggie’s smile is soft and comforting, a stark contrast to the fluorescent bulbs above the mirror that cut everything into sharp lines. She hands Alex another fresh tissue. “Anyway, a woman who was working Vice as an undercover hooker grabbed me, took me into the break room and said Honey, who are you trying to fool being the toughest cop in here? You’re barely the height of my knee!”
Alex splutters, the dried blood on her lip cracking and flaking off. She wipes her nostrils and tosses yet another soiled tissue into the trash. The box of Kleenex on the shelf is growing empty.
“She sat me down, grabbed an ice pack and slapped it on the back of my neck.” Maggie shifts the bag of peas a bit higher on Alex’s neck in demonstration. “I was so high off getting that arrest that I didn’t realise my nose was still bleeding.”
“Your nose must have been throbbing like hell?”
“It wasn’t so bad until she tried to inspect it. Then I really squealed.” They share a laugh. Maggie tips Alex’s chin up as she takes the tissue away, clucking her tongue. “She told me that the cold ice would slow the bleeding down.”
“It does, kind of.” Alex thinks about the blood vessels in the back of her neck constricting from the application of the cold pack, and involuntarily shivers.
“Either way, it made me feel better about making a mess of my uniform.”
Alex plays with the tissue in her hands, folding it up to hide the dried blood from Maggie’s eyes. The sooner her nose stops bleeding, the sooner she can change her clothes and make herself more presentable. Any time she’s bled before, it’s been heroic. But this isn’t a battle with a Fort Rozz escapee, it’s just… bodily. It’s different somehow, even if it’s still her own.
When she was young, the only person who saw her like this was her mother, who would come running down the hall when she heard Alex sob after waking up with her mouth covered in blood. She remembers the steady hand on her back, helping her to lean forward, and the cotton swab she’d use to apply vaseline once the bleeding had stopped.
When she got older, she rarely spent the night with boyfriends. It was too intimate. Too filled with expectations. And anytime she was out, she could politely excuse herself to the bathroom. So there was never an opportunity to expose this side of herself.
But here with Maggie…
“Sorry, this is... gross,” she mumbles.
“Hey, it’s fine.” Maggie’s voice is tender and so, so understanding. “Go get some water.”
Alex goes to the kitchen and turns on the faucet, watching as Maggie wipes blood off the bathroom floor. Her girlfriend moves to strip the mucky pillowcase from their bed and Alex realises that she’s never imagined that love is in the small tasks like this.
It’s four in the morning and Maggie is there in her apartment, changing her bedclothes and she’s struck by how domestic it all feels.
She returns to the bedroom and sets the glasses on their respective bedside tables. Maggie hands her a fresh tank top, throwing the bloody one in the hamper. Once changed, Alex slides back into bed and sighs as she feels Maggie snuggle up behind her.
“Don’t be afraid to wake me next time, okay?” Maggie breathes into her neck, winding her arm around Alex’s belly.
“Okay.”
Alex nestles back into Maggie’s embrace and lets the sound of her breathing lull her back to sleep.
Luminol
lu·mi·nol
n. A yellow crystalline organic compound, C 8 H 7 N 3 O 2 , that exhibits blue chemiluminescence when activated by an oxidizing agent such as the iron in hemoglobin.
The first time it happened, Alex had been so weird about it.
She’d never had to worry about periods when she had dated men. Not periods other than her own, at least. She was very used to taking the entire week to curl up in bed alone.
So when she saw Maggie standing in her kitchen, shifting from foot to foot, concealing her bloody underwear in a rolled up towel, she wasn’t quite sure how to act.
“Hey, I got my period this morning and found some Tampax in the drawer. Is that alright?”
Alex had gaped— a fish out of water— and managed to blurt out, “Absolutely!”
“Are you sure?” Maggie had eyed her skeptically.
Alex had nodded wildly in confirmation. “I’m sorry. I just...forgot about...all that.”
Maggie had just smiled in understanding and made a joke about their cycles syncing up, cutting the tension.
Now she’s more used to it. They’ve been together for about four months and Alex barely blinks when Maggie asks if they can postpone going out to dinner. She knows Maggie’s cycle by now so instead she suggests a quiet night in. She’s learned that Maggie never likes to ask for it, but she’s always secretly delighted when Alex pampers her on the worst days, when the cramps have her doubled over on the couch in pain.
That’s where Alex finds herself now, stretched across the chaise of her couch, with her girlfriend’s head in her lap, channel surfing with one hand and stroking Maggie’s hair with the other.
“Anything in particular you wanna watch?”
Maggie adjusts the hot water bottle on her stomach, groaning as the heat spreads. “Nothing sad, unless you want me to weep all over your lap?”
“So not National City Pet ER-”
“Don’t you dare.”
Alex smiles. “Okay.” She can’t see Maggie’s face, but she can hear the pout in her voice. “How about National City Central?”
Maggie perks up at the suggestion. “Oh, yeah. I know a couple of guys who are consulting on that show.”
Alex brings up the information for the episode and reads the description aloud, “Detective Kennedy continues sleeping with her secret FBI lover, but how long will it be until their affair is exposed?”
Maggie hums as Alex scratches the back of her neck. “Kennedy is the gay one.”
“Oh,” Alex replies, her interest piqued. She presses play on the episode, and sets the remote aside. The episode recap shows a passionate affair between two women who seem to hate each other on cases, but cleary begin to fall in love, much to the disgust of Kennedy’s captain.
Alex can’t help but chuckle at the similarity of their situations. She sees herself in media so much more now that she’s out and it’s nice, feeling for once like her story is being told.
Kennedy’s captain chews her out in front of the entire squadroom.
“Uh oh.”
“Uh oh is right.” Maggie wiggles to get more comfortable, wincing at the twinge in her stomach. “Nothing worse for a cop than sleeping with a federal agent.”
Alex looks down in amusement. “You don’t seem to complain.”
Maggie grumbles something about stuck up gorgeous agents and my jurisdiction and huffs. “Where’s the good stuff?”
Alex grins and reaches for the bar of dark chocolate sitting on the side table, breaking off a block to feed to Maggie as the episode plays. Maggie interjects between bites of chocolate to tell Alex little facts her coworkers have told her about the show.
The episode cuts to commercial and the first ad is for Tampax, and Alex snorts at the irony as Maggie groans. They’d had quite the debate about pads and tampons when they first started dating. Alex had always used tampons, since she spent so much time in the water as a teen and she wasn’t about to let her period keep her from surfing. She’d tried to argue that they were better for her active lifestyle as a DEO agent as they were more discrete, but Maggie had laughed and asked if she’d ever had to spend ten hours in a car on a stakeout. She had to work even harder to prove herself to the men that she worked with and she couldn’t be seen taking breaks to change her tampon.
Alex had to concede that point.
“So what do you think’s gonna happen?”
“It’ll get exposed, they’ll break up, then they’ll pine because they realise there were feelings involved. The usual.” Maggie slowly sits up, stretching, and grimaces when her lower back cracks. She frowns and Alex follows her gaze towards her overnight bag on the other side of the room.
Alex kisses her temple. “There’s some in the bathroom. I got them specially for you.”
Maggie kisses her for it, and then shuffles towards the bathroom. She’s wearing Alex’s favorite pair of comfy dark sweatpants and one of her old college t-shirts and when she stops at the doorway to offer Alex an adoring look and a whispered thanks, Alex thinks she might be just a little bit in love.
Transfusion
trans·fu·sion
n. An act of transferring donated blood, blood products, or other fluid into the circulatory system of a person or animal.
They order takeout a lot. Not because neither of them can cook— in fact Alex has surprised her with her prowess in the kitchen— but because their schedules rarely allow for a home cooked meal. Some days they barely have enough energy to reheat Chinese leftovers from the night before.
That’s why Maggie relishes nights like tonight. She’s got her favorite playlist on Alex’s stereo and all the time in the world to impress Alex with her culinary skills.
She’s throwing some thinly sliced steak and spices in a skillet when Alex wraps her arms around her waist and nuzzles into her neck. “Smells good.”
“Yeah, and Kara just texted to say she’ll be here any minute, so keep those hands PG.”
Alex lets out a little huff, but kisses Maggie’s cheek and goes to wash her hands. “You want me to cut up the peppers?”
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Maggie says over her shoulder. She listens as Alex pulls the cutting board out of its drawer and sets to work. The sound of sizzling pots and the rhythmic chopping of Alex’s knife fills the air. Maggie sings along to the song on the stereo and Alex joins in, making up the words when she doesn’t know a line.
Kara arrives halfway through a rousing duet of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”, says her hellos, and then—
“Shit!”
Maggie spins from the stove to see that Alex has chopped the top of her thumb clean off. She’s holding a kitchen towel to the top of it, but Maggie can see that it’s actively bleeding.
“But at least it wasn’t an onion?”
Alex gives her a strange look and heads for the bathroom, but Kara perks up a little, seemingly recognising the reference. She inspects the board, and once determining that there isn’t any blood that would contaminate the food, sets to work finishing the chopping in Alex’s stead.
Maggie glances at the doorway, and raises an eyebrow at Kara. “You know, I figured you’d be more To Kill a Mockingbird than The Bell Jar, what with your quest for all American justice-”
Kara sets the knife down in surprise. “So you were referring to Cut!”
Maggie shrugs. “I had a girlfriend who was obsessed with poetry. It was all she had on her bookshelf. She sneered at my crime novels.”
“Literary snob, huh?”
“You bet.”
The further she gets away from it, the more she realises that she and Emily never really had that much in common. It was her first serious relationship and at the time she’d really thought it would last. And it had. For five years. Until… Well. She’s past that now.
But she knows that even before that— before the fighting and the cheating and the hastily packed bags— their relationship wasn’t perfect. So much of it was built on what she thought she should be for Emily— the perfect girlfriend. When they went out, it was with Emily’s friends, all rich and gorgeous and judgemental. When she cooked, it was always Emily’s favorite foods. She slowly lost touch with all of the people she’d met, the support system she had built up after losing it all in Blue Springs. But most of all, she’d lost herself.
It’s different now, with Alex. They’ve only been together a short while, but already she knows. Alex never begrudges her for the long hours spent at the station, or the nights when she lies awake sobbing when visions of crime scenes dance in her head. She listens. She understands. And it should scare her, the way she seems to just fit with Alex. But it doesn’t.
The sound of Kara clearing her throat shakes her from her thoughts.
“Done.” She motions towards the rows of traffic-light-colored sliced peppers.
“Impressive.”
“It’s easy when you don’t have to worry about chopping your thumb off.” Kara winks and they both share a laugh.
It fades, but the wistful smile on Kara’s face remains. “You know, when I first went to stay with Eliza and Jeremiah, they used to ask me to help with dinner. I could do a lot without being burned or hurt so I think it was pretty practical.”
Maggie nods, pushing some caramelising onions around in a pan. “Yeah that seems smart.”
“One of the first lessons I learned on Earth is the importance of having dinner together.” Kara leans back up against the counter and tilts her head up towards the ceiling. “I don’t know if they knew it or not, but it made me feel like they were including me in their family.”
Maggie knows the Danvers and she thinks that they knew exactly what they were doing.
Family dinners were always very important to her family too. She remembers spending holidays in the kitchen, standing on a step stool next to her mother as she taught her recipes that had been handed down from generation to generation, and she was surprised at how much she missed a simple thing like that when she was thrown out.
She doesn’t remember telling Alex about it, but she thinks Alex must have known, because the first time she visited Midvale, Eliza had welcomed Maggie into her kitchen and taught her one of her own family recipes. Not because it was one of Alex’s favorites, although she later learned that it was, but because that’s what she was now. Family.
She and Alex already have their own traditions too; bickering back and forth about recipes and fun mini-food fights that end with the both of them in each others’ arms covered in flour on the floor. She finds herself wanting to be home more, just so that she can see the shy look Alex gives her when she feeds her a spoonful of something from a pot.
Kara goes to grab some plates from the cabinet and Alex slouches back into the kitchen with her thumb wrapped up. She sidles up to Maggie with a pout on her face.
“Oh, babe.” Maggie lifts the thumb to her mouth and gently kisses it. “Better?”
“A little.”
Maggie runs a thumb across Alex’s cheek and pecks her again on the lips. “Good. Go help Kara set the table.”
She takes the chopped peppers and and listens to the sisters argue over whether the forks go on the left or the right.
Perhaps someday, she could be part of their family for good.
Hemorrhage
hem·or·rhage
n. An escape of blood from a ruptured blood vessel, especially when profuse.
Alex drags Maggie to safety behind some storage crates, hands under her armpits. Even over the roar of gunfire, she hears the scrape of Maggie's boots on the warehouse floor.
Their raid had been ambushed - someone knew they were coming, but that would need to be addressed later. She kneels down over Maggie, and finally looks at the bloody wound on her shoulder. The bile rushes up her throat.
It is much, much worse than she thought.
“Oh god, baby-”
Maggie grips her arm, looking up at her in horror. Her eyes are white, wild. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish flopping about on land, but no sound escapes.
“You're okay,” Alex lies, “I’m not gonna let you die here.” She falls back on her training and applies pressure to the wound, and Maggie's next inhale is a sucking, wet groan of agony. “I promise, you’re not gonna die like this.”
She searches the area, trying to keep her own nerves under control as she screams for a medic, but it gets harder and harder to will her heart to slow its beating when she can feel the hot blood oozing up past her fingers.
She is almost delirious with relief when DEO Field Medic Agent Salisburg slides down next to them and plants a heavy bag of medical equipment on the ground. Salisburg is one of her most trusted agents— a young woman Alex recruited herself from the nearby medical college. She gives her a quick, if shaky, rundown of the situation. Alex knows they need to act fast because backup isn’t coming for another few minutes at least.
“Hey asshole.” Salisburg starts pulling supplies from the bag, snapping on a pair of gloves and chucking another pair at Alex’s chest. “You still supporting the Knights, huh?”
Something explodes overhead and they duck down, Alex partially shielding Maggie with her own body.
Salisburg assesses the injury, brow furrowed. “Gotta say, they’re having a pretty good season. They still suck though.”
Alex can hear Maggie gurgle, and then mumble something unintelligible. She’s pretty sure she can guess what it would have been. She’s been present for more than one of Maggie and Agent Salisburg’s spats about baseball. Every time Maggie visited the DEO on a game day, they would try to outdo each other with smack talk— a veritable sports war of the words. She’s even been on the receiving end of their banter, with Salisburg ducking by the lab to tease her about walking around in her girlfriend’s Knights shirt and panties, not knowing that despite her local team being the Pelicans, she wasn’t a fan. She actually had to thank Salisburg for that one, since Alex did in fact try that the next time she slept over, and Maggie was more than a little pleased.
So really, she could care less about baseball, but if Maggie made it through this, she’d go to a game anytime she asked.
Salisburg rips open a package of gauze and sets to work. There’s blood— so much blood— and it’s not stopping. It’s not stopping and they both know what that could mean. Maggie clutches at Alex with the hand that’s moving, her eyes are back to being saucers, and she’s growing pale.
“No,” Alex murmurs soft words of encouragement. She’s trying to be confident, but she can hear the panic in her voice. Everything sounds so far away, like it’s coming from a television playing in another room. “No, you’re gonna be okay.”
They’re throwing medical terms back and forth, working as quickly as they can, when Salisburg notices that Maggie’s eyes are slipping shut and she’s not making as much noise.
She lightly slaps Maggie’s cheek. “Hey asshole, stay awake!” Another slap. Maggie eyes flicker back open. “You can’t die. Who’s gonna talk about how dumb the name National City Pelicans is— which, by the way, Go Pelicans!”
Alex is engrossed in her work, trying to keep her hands from trembling as she helps Salisburg apply gauze tightly to the packed wound. She’s unable to speak. All she can think of is all of the things she and Maggie planned to do together. They were supposed to go to Midvale next week to see her mom. She was going to take her to the boardwalk to play stupid carnival games and eat cotton candy and kiss on top of the ferris wheel. She hadn’t even had a chance to teach Maggie how to surf yet...
She knows she’s crying— she tastes the salt in her mouth before she even feels the tears streaming down her face— and she’s thankful for Salisburg not bringing it up. She’s not supposed to cry. She’s supposed to be a soldier. Stoic and serious and—
Maggie lets out a sound that’s more of a stilted gasp than anything else and Alex freezes for a second. She has heard rasps and rattles like that before. She knows what it preludes—
“You can’t die cause you’d get a fancy cop funeral. And I’d probably have to go and pretend I’m sad,” Salisburg taunts, trying to keep Maggie awake. “I refuse to wear a dress though. I’d turn up in my Pelicans jersey. One last screw you, huh, Sawyer?”
They’ve got Maggie’s shoulder wrapped and immobilised, her arm splinted. Back-up arrives, and Salisburg helps the two other agents get Maggie onto a stretcher. Alex climbs into the DEO chopper after Maggie, Salisburg right behind them.
There’s two body bags at the back, black and imposing, but Alex can’t think about them. Can’t wonder about who they were or who they might have left behind. Once Maggie is out of the woods, she’ll have to go to their families, but she has to think about her own right now.
Maggie still hasn’t let go of her hand, and even though it’s slick with Maggie’s blood, Alex takes comfort in the fact that her grip is still strong. She rests her forehead on their clasped hands, silently urging Maggie to continue fighting.
Salisburg is watching. Alex knows she is. She wants to thank her for doing her job so well. For taking over when Alex couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. But she doesn’t have the strength. All she can do is hold onto Maggie for dear life and listen to the chopping of the helicopter blades.
Fractionation
frac·tion·a·tion
n. The process of separating whole blood into its various components.
Her injury was tough on them both.
Maggie has never really been a good patient. She tends to look at a doctor’s order as a suggestion rather than a rule. She rarely takes pain meds. They make her feel fuzzy and not herself. The one time she was grazed by a bullet as a beat cop, she checked herself out of the hospital early. Needless to say, the words “take it easy” have never been in her vocabulary.
So, when Dr. Hamilton gave her three months of bed rest and a bottle of Vicodin for the pain after her injury, she had scowled. Three months was an eternity for a cop and she’d tried to bargain her way to a shorter sentence, but Hamilton held firm. She wouldn’t sign Maggie’s clearance papers a day before.
So she’d been stuck in bed with nothing to do but watch daytime television and be coddled by her girlfriend. For three months.
Maggie sighs as she shuffles through the halls of the DEO, coming to a stop in front of Alex’s lab.
She hasn’t seen her in six weeks. Not since they’d broken things off.
In the days after Maggie’s injury, Alex barely let her out of her sight. She insisted on doing everything for Maggie— cooking, cleaning, shopping, even helping her shower and dress. And while Maggie knew that she couldn’t do any of those things by herself, and that Alex was just trying to help, it made her feel useless and weak. She’d lashed out. She’d said awful, horrible things to the woman that just wanted to make her feel special. To make her feel cared for.
Every day since then Maggie has wanted to call Alex and apologise.
Her hand hesitates over the handle of the lab door as she watches Alex work through the glass walls. She’s wearing a lab coat and goggles and it reminds Maggie of the first time Alex stitched her up, all those months ago. She looks tired, slumped over her lab bench, a frown etched on her face as she jots down some notes in her lab book– a far cry from the confident agent Maggie is used to, and she knows it’s partly her fault.
She squares her shoulders and enters, causing Alex to look up from her work.
Alex’s eyes widen in surprise behind her goggles and she fumbles a bit as she pushes them up onto her forehead with her forearm.
“Hey.”
Her voice is an octave higher than normal and Maggie’s heart sinks. This was a bad idea. Alex doesn’t want to see her.
She swallows the lump in her throat, along with her pride, and gives her a small wave. “Hey.”
“You, um…?” Alex motions towards Maggie’s shoulder, which is no longer heavily bandaged and immobilised.
“Yeah. Well, desk for a while. Just until I get the all clear.”
“Good.” Alex gives her a nervous smile.
She can feel the side of her mouth twitch into the imitation of one as well and it’s so, so awkward. They’re standing so close, but there’s an ocean between them and Maggie feels like she’s drowning without her. She wants to reach out. She wants to tell Alex that she’s sorry for all of the things that were said. To bridge the gap between them with apologies and promises and words of love.
Because she does love her. And she’s pretty sure that Alex loves her too. She showed it in the way she laid with Maggie in bed, stroking her hair while they watched Maggie’s favorite show. She showed it in the way that she brought Maggie flowers at the precinct, not because it was a special occasion, but because they reminded Alex of her. She showed it in the way she made her sister fly to Italy to get the best tiramisu in the world, even if there was a restaurant down the street that had it.
They had both fallen so hard, so fast.
And then Maggie almost died. And Alex had cared so much and Maggie was overwhelmed. It was too much, too soon, and it wasn’t until Alex was gone that Maggie realised what she’d lost.
Maggie’s fingers twitch with an ache to pull Alex in by the lapels of her lab coat and kiss her senseless.
Instead she just manages a weak, “It’s good to see you.”
Alex doesn’t reply, just pulls her goggles back down over her eyes and turns back to her work.
“Listen, Alex-”
“Lab coat and gloves.”
The reminder is soft but firm, and Maggie takes it as a sign that Alex doesn’t want her to leave. Her own slightly oversized lab coat still hangs on a hook by the door— a gift from Alex when they first started dating. She folds up the sleeves gingerly and struggles to fit a pair of gloves over her sweaty palms.
“It’s Infernian blood.” Alex motions to the vial on the rack. “They’re humanoid— or maybe we’re Infernioid— it doesn’t really matter I suppose, but I’m interested in studying genotypic similarities.”
Maggie nods, even though she knows Alex can’t see her, or won’t look at her. She knows Alex doesn’t expect, or even want, a response. She rambles when she’s upset– a distraction from her feelings. Usually she’d reach out to Alex, take her in her arms and soothe her until she felt comfortable and calm enough to confront her feelings instead of pushing them down, but she isn’t sure where they stand, so instead she just lets Alex talk.
“I’ve been doing a lot of sequencing lately. Of as many alien species as possible. I know you guys— the uh, the NCPD— have a lot of problems identifying suspects that are non-human...” Alex pauses briefly as she walks over to a computer displaying what Maggie vaguely recognises as one of the electropherograms the forensic techs include in their reports. “I just remembered that case we worked on, with that family of Aldebarans. All that blood… and well, with the nonhuman suspect... I just thought…”
Alex sighs, drumming her fingers softly on the table and Maggie can see the cogs in her head turning.
“Well I thought perhaps it might be useful to compile as much non-human STR allele data as possible so that I could maybe put together some kind of STR panel for casework,” Alex continues.
That catches Maggie off guard. She didn’t think Alex remembered. But here she was, weeks after their breakup, trying to help make a difference not only in the lives of the alien population of National City, but the lives of the NCPD as well.
Alex continues to spout off facts about K’hund blood types and presumptive immunological tests and Maggie plays along, but all she wants to do is apologise and get Alex back. She’s too kind and too smart and too thoughtful and Maggie misses her terribly, but before she can do anything, her phone is ringing and she’s being called back to the precinct.
She’s about to leave when she hears Alex call out her name. It’s a whisper, barely audible, but it’s there.
“Maggie?”
She turns with a hopeful, “Yeah?”
“It’s good to see you, too.”
For just a split second, Maggie sees Alex’s eyes shining with tears. But just as quickly, Alex drops her head and goes back to her work, shutting her out.
The moment had passed.
Back Spatter
back spat·ter
Blood directed back towards the source of the force that caused the spatter.
They half-trot to the medbay, Alex holding a towel tightly around Maggie’s arm, where several talons have buried themselves into her the flesh.
Maggie and her task force had anticipated running into some resistance during their planned NCPD bust. The tenement building was suspected of housing several prominent dealers of Solar Dust , and where there were drug dealers there were sure to be stockpiles of weapons.
Unfortunately, when Maggie kicked in the door of apartment 202, she was met not with some heavily armed criminals, but a very pregnant, very distressed alien, who upon seeing Maggie and her team, went into labor. While her colleagues attended to the rest of the apartments, Maggie called the woman who was the expert on alien physiology. Alex hadn’t asked any questions, just hopped on her bike and was there in minutes, crouching next to Maggie on the floor, whispering softly to the alien as it clawed at Maggie’s arm in pain.
Alex pushes the door to the DEO medbay open with the arm that isn’t supporting Maggie and they both collapse against the door, smiles wide. They’re high on adrenaline and each other, giddy and giggly despite the fact that both they and the towel are soaked in blood.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Maggie says, shaking her head.
Alex helps her onto an exam table and unwraps the towel from her arm. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“The green goo was not what I was expecting.”
Alex snorts. When she had arrived, the sweater she was wearing was splattered with it. Apparently that particular alien species oozes when they’re upset. Maggie’s pretty sure it isn’t dangerous— Alex would have ordered her straight to the decontamination chamber if it was— but the smell certainly isn’t pleasant.
“You did pretty well with those claws lodged in your arm.” Alex motions to the three large talons still embedded.
“The pain is...beginning to come now.” She grits her teeth. Now that they’re standing still, the high has started to fade and she wishes that Alex would hurry up and apply some anaesthetic because her entire arm is throbbing, from her fingers all the way to her shoulder.
Alex raises an eyebrow as she applies the nerve block. “You’ve handled worse.”
They’ve fallen into a happy zone where that isn’t even a heavy statement.
Once the wound is irrigated, Alex grasps the bicep of Maggie’s arm, stroking it gently with her thumb before pulling at the first talon, dislodging it from where it had stuck. Maggie’s fists are tightly closed and she’s trying so desperately not to yelp with each talon Alex removes. The block helps, but she can still feel each one.
“What do you think she’ll call it?” Alex asks in an attempt to distract her as she removes the last claw. It clinks into the bowl next to her and Maggie groans in relief.
“I think she should name it Alex, after the doctor who delivered.”
Alex gives off a little noise of embarrassment and continues to clean and dress Maggie’s wound. “Oh please. She did all the hard work.”
Maggie unclicks her watch to allow Alex the finish with the bandage. She whistles at the time. “I didn’t think it would last that long.”
The blood drains from Alex’s face. “Shoot. What time is it?”
Maggie checks her watch again. “Uh, little after 6.”
Alex huffs, shaking her head. “I’m never gonna be ready in time.” She averts her gaze, suddenly very interested in a lab safety poster on the wall. “Kara set me up with a woman from CatCo.”
“Oh.”
Somehow that revelation stings worse than the talons.
“Yeah, I don’t think…” Alex shrugs, visibly deflating.
“That’s good,” Maggie manages, her tongue too thick in her mouth for anything else.
“Is it?” Her voice comes out hard, and Maggie is reminded of that conversation in the parking garage. No, Maggie, we’re not friends. Alex must realise the same because she immediately backtracks. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“No, it’s fine. I deserved…” she trails off lamely, staring at the floor.
Alex quietly finishes wrapping a bandage around Maggie’s arm. “You really should lie down, stay-”
“No. I really just...I want to go home.” She hops off the exam table. She feels drained, and not just from the events of the day. “I’m gonna need to call my lieutenant and my doctor and...rearrange for another week or so.”
“Yeah.”
Maggie squeezes Alex’s elbow on her way out. “Good for you, Alex.”
She hopes she sounds sincere, but she doesn’t really mean it. And she doesn’t wait around for Alex’s reply.
High Velocity Impact
high ve·loc·i·ty im·pact
n. A bloodstain pattern caused by a a high velocity force to a source of blood, a gunshot for example.
Maggie steps out of her squad car and storms up to the agents stationed around the perimeter, several fellow Science Division officers at her back.
“What the hell?”
One of the agents, a younger man she thinks is called Donnelly, puffs out his chest. “Don’t yell at us!”
Another fits her hands on her hips in a poor imitation of their assistant director. “Yeah, we’re just the back up.”
Maggie sneers up at the first agent, who falters under the intensity of her stare. “We agreed when I became liaison that even covert missions-”
The door to the warehouse whacks open and their heads all turn in unison towards the sound. Supergirl and J’onn emerge, seemingly unscathed, and Maggie starts over towards them, but she stops right in her tracks when she spots the third figure following them out.
She’s carrying a machete-like blade and is caked head to toe in blood.
Alex.
“Lower your weapons.”
Maggie gives the order and there’s a resounding series of clicks as the officers follow her command. Alex just stands there for a few moments— the Final Girl in one of their favorite slasher flicks, grim and stone-faced, the weight of the world heavy upon her shoulders. Her jaw clenches, then she gestures behind her. The DEO agents and Maggie’s team storm the warehouse, heeding Alex’s unspoken order.
Maggie intercepts her as she trudges away from the scene. “You okay?”
She’s seen Alex after ops gone bad before, but this is different somehow. The air is heavier and Alex seems… really out of it. Her eyes are wide and unfocused and Maggie doesn’t need Kara’s super-hearing to know that her heart is racing.
She quickly scans the other woman for any signs of injury, but despite being splattered in blood, she can’t spot any open wounds, so it may not even be hers. Still, Maggie can see that something is wrong. Something happened in that warehouse.
“Lillian Luthor needs medical attention,” Alex answers mechanically, staring over Maggie’s shoulder to where two agents are carrying a black body bag out on a stretcher. “My dad is dead.”
Maggie realises in that moment that she has never told Alex she loves her, and she wants to. She loves every ugly, haunted part of her. Even the dullness in her eyes that descends after violence has been perpetrated.
And she knows that love isn’t just in those three little words. It’s in sharing personal stories and letting someone know the most painful parts of you. It’s in late nights spent changing blood-soaked sheets and stocking favorite snacks. It’s in impromptu duets in the kitchen and becoming part of each other’s family. She’s been showing Alex that she loves her since the moment they met, but she’s never had the courage to tell her.
She reaches up and wipes a trickle of blood from Alex’s cheek, and then kisses a patch that’s untouched. “It’s over now.” Her thumb lingers. “Take care of yourself.”
She hopes Alex can hear all the things she hasn’t said.
Coagulation
co·ag·u·la·tion
n. A process that occurs during bleeding that prevents excessive bleeding, platelets and proteins in the plasma form a clot over the injury to slow the bleed.
Alex shifts on her cot, trying to get comfortable without further injuring the arm she has in a sling. She’s been up for days fighting the latest threat and she would more than welcome a few hours of rest, but the stitches over her eyebrow won’t stop throbbing.
She’s not the only one. There are dozens of agents on makeshift beds up and down the DEO. It had been all hands on deck and the casualty list wasn’t short. Now in the aftermath, Dr. Hamilton and the rest of the medical team need all the space they can get to make sure that list doesn’t grow.
She’s exhausted.
She’s exhausted but she doesn’t want to close her eyes. She can’t close her eyes until she knows that the people she cares about are safe. Kara had been by earlier, and J’onn, but she still didn’t know if...
She sees a figure coming through the triage zone.
Maggie.
She’s covered in grime and limping a little, her leather jacket thrown over her shoulders like one of those silver space blankets, but she looks more beautiful than Alex has ever seen her. She stops to nudge Agent Salisburg in the shoulder and they talk for a bit, but Alex can’t quite make out what they’re saying, even though they keep looking back at her. Salisburg must have said something about the Knights, because Maggie is rolling her eyes and ambling back over towards Alex.
She hovers over her cot. “Nice butterfly bandages.”
Her fingers lightly trace over the small strips of plastic on Alex’s stitches and a few deeper scratches around her tank top.
Alex manages to smile through the dull pain. “Kara thought they’d cheer me up.”
“Room on there for one more?”
Her eyes are soft and hopeful and Alex would never say no.
She scoots over and Maggie lays down. They’re curled on their sides facing each other, like kittens in the sunshine, comfortable even in the most uncomfortable of places. Maggie lets out a small contented sigh that Alex feels echo throughout her body and she finally feels herself begin to relax.
There’s a little seeping cut on Maggie’s cheek and the world could have ended, but they’re still both here. Together. There’s so many things they need to tell each other. So many things that Alex wants to say, but Maggie is warm and safe and they’re both so tired.
“We should…” Alex is cut off with a yawn.
Maggie shuffles closer to Alex on the cot, slinging an arm over her waist.. “Later.”
“But I just…” Alex struggles to fend off the drowsiness that’s setting over her. “I wanted to tell you…”
She wants to tell Maggie that she loves her. She needs Maggie to know and she doesn’t want to wait any longer, but her eyes are growing so heavy.
“There’s time,” Maggie mumbles against her collarbone.
Alex hears the we made it through in that statement, and the promise she’ll be there after, too.
Point of Convergence
point of con·ver·gence
n. The intersection of two bloodstain paths where the stains come from opposite sides of the impact pattern.
A week and a half later, they still haven’t found time to have that talk. Immediately after they’d woken up together on the cot, they’d both been called to their respective jobs. Maggie was required to report to her captain and Alex was needed to assist Dr. Hamilton with her fellow agents.
They’d parted reluctantly, promising to pick up where they left off as soon as possible, but then they both were so busy. No one ever considers how much work the cleanup of a minor apocalypse is. Maggie has been texting her on and off though, little stories about their days, cute pictures of baby animals. The I miss you ’s and I’m thinking of you ’s unspoken, but there. It all felt very college-esque, and Maggie knew they were teetering on the edge of something .
Summertime comes, and with it a rise in crime. Another young cop in her precinct is hurt in a collision with a young student who was driving a little too fast and furious. She settles down in a seat in the waiting room. It has been a year and a half since she was last here, but the staff still remembers her.
She’s pulled from her thoughts when someone takes the set next to her— it’s Alex.
“Hey.” She straightens up in surprise.
“Hey there.”
“What are you doing here?” She’s curious but she’s also secretly pleased. If Alex is here then...
“I heard about Officer Murray.” Alex’s eyes soften and she rests a comforting hand on Maggie’s. “Figured I could get in on this tradition and crack open a vein, too.”
Maggie can feel her heart swell with love and affection for this woman who listens to her. Who remembers when Maggie shares something important to her. She slips her hand into Alex’s, hoping that she’s able to convey just how much that means to her with that one simple action.
“Think the nurse will have butterfly band-aids?” Alex smiles and Maggie thinks that she might just get it.
“I don’t know.” A smile slowly stretches across her own face. “Maybe we should put in a request.”
“Yeah. Butterfly band-aids fix everything.” Alex squeezes her hand and it’s a sign that they’re going to be okay.
She’s called to give blood by the receptionist, and she reluctantly lets go of Alex’s hand. Before she disappears into the back, she pauses by the door. “This time, the donuts are on me.”
It’s a promise of sugar yes, but also something more.
“I’m holding you to that.” Alex laughs and settles in with an old crumbled magazine like the rest of the cops sitting around and Maggie is so in love.
And when they’re sitting in their favorite donut shop an hour later, she tells her that much.