Chapter Text
Out of all the things Alex had imagined she would do on her last morning of freedom, attempting to slow her breathing as her heart insisted on hammering furiously against her chest was definitely one of them. What she hadn’t predicted was that it would be due to waking up with a gun pointed at her, the cold metal of a pair of handcuffs digging painfully into her skin as she pointlessly tried to free herself in a brief moment of panic.
Removing a few strands of hair from her face with her free hand, as her fingers trembled more than she would like to admit, Alex fought the overpowering feeling of nausea creeping up her stomach, forced her lips to part in order to take in less shallow gulps of air.
Alex had always known this was a possible ending to her story; she had never, however, let herself believe it would actually happen. Ultimately, this ending was what her worse nightmares were made off, it was what a devilish part of her subconscious compelled her to see while she slept; this ending was the reason Alex had woken up with wet tear tracks on her cheeks so many times the previous week, her whole body shaking so severely she had been unable to move.
Sadly, if those nightmares made her believe in something it was that she wasn’t strong enough to get through whatever was about to happen. After all, there was a reason she woke up with her hair damp in sweat and her hands grasping the sheets beneath her: she never actually beat the dream to sleep through it. The ex-assassin couldn’t help but wonder what would happen now that her torments turned themselves into reality.
Her eyes were suddenly stinging with unshed tears and Alex was forced to remove her gaze from the unwavering weapon to the ceiling as she hastily blinked them away. Battling the uncontrollable wave of gutting fear that washed over her, Alex wrapped the silky white sheets covering her naked body around herself tighter, as if they could protect her, as if they could stop not the bullets, but the gaze of the person controlling them from piercing her skin.
She had by then given up on freeing herself from the metal bracelet bounding her to the headboard of Maggie’s bed, even though she knew she would be able to if she tried harder, merely because the tiniest bit of fight she had still left in her vanished once her gaze found the one of the person behind the gun.
As she looked deeper into the person’s eyes, Alex finally understood what people meant when they said it was possible to drown without water, because suddenly all the effort she had put in getting her breathing under control was rated useless and she was fighting for air all over again. Alex’s throat closed in on itself, her lungs were on fire and she could feel the tears shimmering on her eyes, begging her to let them fall; and she knew she could get it all to stop if she just looked away, but she found herself unable to avert her gaze.
Because she had only once seen the woman above her look at her like that when she was hidden behind a helmet and now there was nothing separating her from the hostility clouding brown eyes that used to be warm; because not even in Alex’s worse nightmares had those eyes held so much coldness, so much rage, so much of everything that was supposed to make her think their owner wasn’t crumbling with the kind of crushing pain one could only feel with the aid of betrayal; because everything was so deeply and unmistakeably wrong and Alex had never fooled herself with the possibility of them getting to have a happy ending, but she knew for certain that the universe would allow them to have something better than this; because she knew she deserved every bit of the heart-shattering sorrow that was making it impossible to look away, while the woman struggling to keep the gun steady as she watched Alex break deserved nothing but everything Alex couldn’t give her.
Because everything was wrong, wrong, wrong.
No matter how much easier it was to blame the universe for presenting her with the only turn of events she couldn’t handle, Alex knew she was responsible for the way the hard metal of the handcuffs had caused small cuts on her wrist, just as she was for the bruises on Maggie’s heart. The feeling of helplessness that overtook her as she stared into Maggie’s eyes, for what could have been hours, left Alex torn between the need to scream and to look away.
“Cuff your other hand to the headboard,” Maggie managed to get out after throwing another set of handcuffs onto the bed, her voice harsher than Alex had ever heard it, hoarser than she expected it to be and definitely more broken than it should have been.
Alex’s lips parted as the she tried to come up with something – anything – that could wash the pain off Maggie’s features; that could erase betrayal hidden behind the number of walls the detective had put up in a desperate attempt of self-preservation.
All that left Alex’s throat and escaped her lips was a sob, one that shook her whole body like a tidal wave and left her gasping for air. Ignoring the gun pointed at her and instead choosing to look up to Maggie as her free hand patted the empty bed next to her, searching for the familiar coldness of the restraints, Alex knew she should be trying to explain herself, trying to get Maggie to understand she wasn’t the person she had read about on so many police reports anymore.
“I’m so sorry,” was all she was able to mutter before the way the detective’s features were suddenly ignited with anger became too much for her to bear and she was forced to look away.
“You’re sorry? You killed all those people and you’re sorry?” Maggie nearly yelled as her knuckles turned white from holding her service weapon too tightly. “You have to give me so much more than that, Alex,” she said, her voice cracking at the end of the sentence, causing the retired assassin to feel her chest tighten.
A quiet “I’m a detective, I should have known,” escaped her lips as she shook her head with disappointment Alex knew to not be merely directed at her.
As Alex messily tried to cuff her free hand to the headboard, her tears now falling silently from her eyes, leaving wet tracks down her cheeks that shone with the soft morning light coming from the windows, her teeth found their way to her bottom lip and sank down.
The anger, the coldness and the hatred were things Alex had expected from the moment she opened her eyes. The guilt and regret on Maggie’s voice however, that was something she hadn’t been prepared for. As she tasted her own blood on her tongue, savouring the metallic taste, Alex wondered how she had been blind enough not to see it coming, because Maggie was just that good, because of course she would blame herself for not discovering a trained assassin had been working by her side for the past two weeks.
“How did you find out?” Alex asked softly, wishing she could get up, welcome Maggie into her arms and tell her time and time again she hadn’t done anything wrong. No matter how easy it would have been to free herself from the handcuffs with the hairpin she always kept on her, throw away the gun Maggie was still pointing at her and do just that, Alex refrained herself from moving, knowing she couldn’t break Maggie’s trust any further, knowing the little emotional support she had to offer would never make up for the pain she had caused.
“Your scars. Well, the one that isn’t quite healed yet,” Maggie stated simply after a few seconds went by, her voice back to its initial neutral tone. The detective’s pursed lips and stiff posture told Alex she was trying her best to keep it that way and if anything, no matter how selfish it was, Alex was grateful for the effort she was putting into it.
“I guess I had thought about it once or twice, but I couldn’t find a motive for your involvement with the NCPD so I pushed away the idea,” Maggie said, shaking her head with visible regret before continuing. “But then last night I- I saw the scar and it matched the stab wound we knew our suspect to have perfectly,” Maggie swallowed, taking a deep breath and Alex found herself doing the same, trying to push away the thoughts of why Maggie had gotten to see her skin so closely in the first place; of how a moment of intimacy and affection, which Alex swore to be the best thing to ever happened to her, was what ruined her relationship with the woman she cared so much for.
As the memories from the previous night flashed behind her eyelids, Alex’s heart clenched in her chest. She could still practically feel Maggie underneath her fingertips and it was as if the detective’s taste had never really left her mouth. Surrounded by the smell of Maggie’s soft perfume and fruity shampoo, Alex forgot about the handcuffs cutting into her wrists and the gun pointed at her head, ready to fire. Suddenly, all she could see was the mix of emotions reflected on Maggie’s eyes and the way the woman she was now sure she loved was trying so hard not to fall apart. She deserved an explanation and no matter how much it would hurt to provide her one, Alex was determined to give Maggie whatever she still had left.
“I can explain,” the ex-assassin started even though she doubted Maggie would believe anything she said.
“You can explain yourself in front of a judge,” Maggie said, taking her phone out of her pocket with the clear intention of calling her colleagues in blue. “I’m taking you in.”
“Please, Maggie, just listen-”
“No! You don’t get to ask me to listen,” Maggie interrupted, the defensive rage Alex had been working so hard to avoid making a new appearance on her voice.
“If you’re so determined on taking me in, why haven’t you done so already?” Alex asked, raising herself from the bed as much as the cuffs would allow so Maggie could see her, could look at her properly, could recognise the woman she had made love to the previous night in the face of a killer.
“Because I like you, Alex!” Maggie exclaimed in defeat, running one of her hands through her hair as Alex knew she did when she was distressed. “I really like you,” she whispered after a few seconds went by and the only thing they could hear was their own sharp intakes of breath.
In that moment it didn’t matter that Alex’s hands were starting to go numb or that her eyes were stinging with unshed tears or that her lungs were barely taking in enough air to keep her from passing out, because Maggie had just confirmed the impossible, because Maggie liked her back, because Maggie cared enough for her to go against everything she stood for and, for a couple of seconds, Alex had hope. Hope that Maggie had enough faith in her partner to hear her out, hope that Maggie would forgive her, hope that Maggie’s eyes would take back their usual brightness and Alex would get to see her smile once more.
However, just as soon as it invaded her, the feeling of light-headedness and invincibility abandoned her, leaving her imprisoned between the wall that were her own feelings and the sword that were Maggie’s, since she had never seen the woman she had grown to love so vulnerable, so exposed.
To be honest, Alex had never seen Maggie so sad either.
With her vision blurry, Alex watched as Maggie let herself fall down on a chair standing next to her bed, defeated. She watched as big brown eyes got welled up with tears their owner couldn’t quite push back until she was forced to wipe them away from her cheeks. Everything was falling apart and all Alex could do was watch as the love of her life pointed a gun at her.
For the briefest of moments, Alex actually wished Maggie’s finger would slip and accidently hit the trigger, before she was reminded of how much more pain the detective would have to be put through, before she reminded herself of how much there was still to do to ensure Maggie’s safety once she was gone.
“I like you back, you know?” Alex whispered after a while, once Maggie’s crying had subsided and she was sure the other woman would be able to hear her. “I love you,” she said even quieter than before, suddenly invaded by a need to make sure Maggie knew how much she meant to her, a need that screamed at her this was the sort of thing you don’t leave unsaid when you’re unsure of your future.
“I didn’t know assassins were capable of feeling love,” Maggie scoffed, wiping the last of her tears away to reveal a stoic expression that cut deeper into Alex than any knife ever could.
Regardless of how the barely functioning rational part of her told her Maggie’s bitterness was nothing besides a defence mechanism, Alex felt the urge to assure there was more to her than the murderous monster Maggie had been hunting all those years; felt the need to remind her of all the evenings they had spent together, of all the time during those past two weeks where Alex had had her back, not because she was obligated to do so, but because she honestly wanted to; Alex felt the necessity to make Maggie remember how much good they had done by each other’s sides, how much good they could still do.
Maggie’s hardened gaze brought Alex back to that night on the bridge, where the detective had held the same look on those brown eyes Alex would grow to love so much. She realized that until then, the coldness and harshness currently being directing at her had only been used on the killer version of her, not the colleague, not the friend, not the lover.
As her heart hammered painfully against her chest, Alex found she desperately wanted Maggie to believe the assassin was merely someone she could be, not who she was. However, even she was beginning to question where the assassin ended and Alex began.
And so, maybe it was wrong to say what she said next, maybe it was unfair to say what she said next, but the last thing Alex wanted was for Maggie to think what happened between them had been part of some grand scheme related to her side job; the mere prospect of the detective not believing Alex’s love for her was true was unconceivable, at best.
“You know me, Maggie. What I feel for you was real, you and I were real, last night was real,” Alex said and if her voice sounded too desperate, if she spoke a bit too fast and gave Maggie every single tool she needed to destroy her, she didn’t care. No matter how much a part of Alex begged her not to allow Maggie to acknowledge just how deeply she adored her, afraid her feelings would betray her and be used as a weapon, she didn’t care. Because she would never allow her love for Maggie to be turned into one of her weaknesses; because Maggie would never be her kryptonite; because Maggie was her greatest strength.
“Too bad they don’t let cops date killers,” Maggie bitterly remarked, her eyes clouded with something Alex wasn’t sure to be hopelessness or heartache, causing the woman lying on her bed to wonder just how much she wanted to believe what she had been told, wanted to believe she was loved.
“I don’t do that anymore,” Alex stated, wishing she could wipe away the lonely tear sliding down Maggie’s cheek and prove to her just how much she had changed.
“No?” Maggie questioned ironically, her brows rising as she dared Alex to go against her. “You’re telling me this wasn’t you?” the detective defied, holding up a casefile from the first murder they had worked on together, from one of Alex’s last victims.
“Maggie, please let me explain, we’re running out of time,” Alex begged once her eyes found the alarm clock on the bedside table, the numbers 8:45 glowing in their underappreciated red glory, reminding the assassin of Lena’s meeting with Lillian Luthor, of how much there was still left to do. For a moment, Alex was able to push aside how things between her and Maggie weren’t supposed to end this way, how much she wanted the woman she loved to have an untainted image of Alex she could hold onto, how she wished she had never gotten to see the betrayal on Maggie’s eyes. After all, if she didn’t get to that meeting in time, all she had put herself through had been for nothing, Maggie would still end up dead.
Alex didn’t know if it was due to the tangible urgency on her voice, or to the tiniest bit of faith Maggie still had in her, but that time, the detective didn’t stop her from speaking. And so Alex was finally able to tell her what she had wanted to all those times she had been forced to lie. She was able to tell her about how she had been hired by Lillian Luthor to kill her; how she didn’t think Maggie deserved a bullet to the head and chose to get to know her instead, chose to try to save her; how she had fallen for her in the process; how much there was still left to do to ensure her safety and how that involved giving herself up to the authorities.
By the time she was done talking, Alex’s hair was wet with tears that insisted on falling as she gasped for air and stumbled on her words. Despite how hard it had been to tell Maggie the truth, Alex had never felt as light as she did then, without the weight of all the lies she carried on her shoulders and, for the briefest of moments, a tingling warmth settled on her chest.
Looking up at Maggie, Alex found soft eyes staring back at her, glimpses of lingering touches and nervous smiles reflected on caring brown orbs. Even as she sighed sadly, Maggie lowered the gun from Alex’s head to her chest, her eyes searching the room for something, anything that could distract her from the woman in front of her, from how she was looking at her like Maggie deserved the world.
“Why should I believe you?” Maggie asked, once she had found the courage to look back down at Alex, to look back down at the woman she was supposed to hate, but couldn’t. Although her tone was defensive and her arms were protectively crossed over her chest, Alex knew Maggie was desperately trying to let herself believe what Alex told her was the truth.
“Because deep down you already do,” Alex said, longing to cover Maggie’s hands with her own, to take her arms away from her chest and hold her, to tell her everything would be okay, because she was right there, because she would guarantee her safety, no matter the cost. “I’m the same person who bandaged your hand and tried to teach you how to play pool,” Alex continued, smiling softly as the memories came back to her, smiling sadly as she realised they wouldn’t get to make new ones. “I’m the same woman who cried in your arms because I knew I didn’t deserve you and was so scared of what you would do once you found that out,” she finished, wishing she could go back in time to the safety of Maggie’s embrace and stay there for all eternity. “I really do love you,” she added as an afterthought, “And I really am so sorry.”
The silence that followed Alex’s apology seemed to drag itself through time, allowing her to be aware of every little sound in her surroundings, from the rain falling outside and hitting the windows in its ever so comforting way, to the quiet whimper that left Maggie’s throat.
“You killed so many people, Alex,” Maggie whispered as she shook her head absentmindedly and dropped her gaze to the floor, giving Alex the perfect opportunity to free herself from the restraints bounding her to the headboard of Maggie’s bed. “It’s my duty to bring you in,” she continued before she looked back at Alex and her words died in her throat as her heart started racing.
“It’s okay,” Alex reassured as Maggie’s gaze darted between her eyes and her now free hands, her chest tightening at the way Maggie’s eyes were suddenly crossed by something similar to fear and her gun was immediately raised. “I’d never hurt you, I promise.”
“Stay where you are,” Maggie warned before getting up and putting some distance between them, the noise of the rain falling smoothing the sharp edge of her words.
“I can’t, Maggie,” Alex spoke softly, choosing her words carefully as not to spook Maggie even further as she sat up. “If I don’t leave now I won’t make it to the meeting, Lillian Luthor will go free and you’ll be in danger,” she said as she tried her best to keep her voice neutral, to not let it show just how much she wanted to stay, how terrified she was of saying goodbye, how much it would hurt to do so. Alex looked Maggie up and down several times, attempting to commit to memory every single detail of that exact moment, trying to convince herself it didn’t matter if this was the last time she saw the woman she loved in person as long as she had a perfect image of her safely guarded in the depths of her mind.
Getting up from the bed and letting the white sheets covering her body fall on the floor, leaving her bare, Alex slowly walked towards Maggie with a single tear running down her cheek until the detective’s gun was pressed against her heart.
“You have to let me go so I can do this one last thing for you, okay?” Alex asked, fighting the urge to push a few strands of hair behind Maggie’s ear, to hold her hand and kiss her forehead one last time. The cold metal of the gun pressed itself further into Alex’s skin as she stepped closer to Maggie, desperate to eliminate the tiniest of distance between them and feel her warmth one last time.
“You know I can’t do that, Alex,” Maggie denied, her voice raspy from crying and her jaw clenched, before pushing Alex back with the little energy she had left and raising her gun with as much purpose as one could muster when the person they loved was on the other side of the weapon.
And from all the times Alex imagined what losing Maggie would be like, she never thought it would be quiet like that. She expected tears and shaky intakes of breath; she expected heart-shattering pain and desperation; she expected all of that from herself, not Maggie. And so, as much as it hurt to put a couple of feet between them, to step out of reach, Alex allowed Maggie to push her away, thinking she got, at least, to feel the detective’s hand on her shoulder, to revel in the warmth and smoothness of her skin one last time.
Standing in the middle of Maggie’s bedroom with her knees backing into the edge of the bed and her body shivering from the coldness of the air, Alex couldn’t help but keep her eyes trained on her partner, hoping her gaze could convey how she understood what she had to do, how she didn’t blame her. She also hoped it could show Maggie she had no other choice but to do what she was about to.
Smiling sadly as Maggie kicked her previously messily discarded clothes in her direction, Alex got dressed as fast as she could, knowing she had little time to waste before the detective called for back-up. Just as Maggie was reaching for her phone, Alex took a deep breath and stepped closer to her, hoping to get the gun out of the way before it could fire.
Unfortunately, Maggie’s instincts got her to pull the trigger before Alex could knock the weapon onto the floor, causing a loud bang to resonate on both women’s ears and Alex’s left hand to rush to her right shoulder, as blood tainted her fingers and started falling on the wooden floor. Looking back at Maggie as she bit back a hiss, Alex found worried eyes fixated on hers, eyes who were starting to well up with tears even as their owner’s hands closed themselves into fists and her body assumed a fighting stance.
“It’s fine, it’s just a graze,” Alex said, hoping to assure Maggie that she did nothing wrong, to wash away the guilt that had found its way into Maggie’s features. The retired assassin tried to push the pain of the gunshot wound to the back of her mind as she applied pressure to the wound, attempting to think solely of the reason she had to leave, of the fact Maggie wouldn’t be safe as long as Lillian Luthor remained free, of how, if there was a way for trained killers to find redemption, this was it.
And so Alex bit back tears and sobs and screams once Maggie attempted to subdue her, allowing the woman she loved to do what she felt obligated to, letting the detective land a serious number of punches, blocking the attacks which could actually compromise her position and staying true to her promise, never once making a move to strike back.
It all happened faster than Alex expected and soon she had Maggie backed against a wall, knuckles bruised from the blows she delivered to the assassin’s jaw, her chest rising and falling in a quick motion as her eyes shone brighter than usual, reflecting the conflict between what was Maggie’s duty and what was her will.
“Don’t fight me, please” Alex requested, breathing heavily, while a drop of blood made its way down her chin and she pushed her left forearm into Maggie’s chest in order to keep her from moving. “I’m so tired of fighting,” she admitted quietly, weakly not caring about how fragile she sounded, before painfully lifting her hand to Maggie’s face and brushing away a strand of hair falling over her eyes.
Momentarily forgetting about how little time she had left, Alex stared into Maggie’s eyes until they were all she could see, until the painful throbbing on her shoulder faded and tears started falling down her cheeks.
“I have to go now,” Alex whispered, nodding as if to convince herself of what she was saying, running her hand through Maggie’s hair and removing her arm from the detective’s chest, pressing her lips to her forehead one last time and taking in the scent of home.
Walking away from Maggie, battered and bruised, while she could still feel her skin beneath her fingertips, could still smell the lingering scent of her perfume, was the hardest thing Alex ever did. Not because Maggie cried as she did so and her sobs would forever be engraved in Alex’s memory, nor because Maggie grabbed her hand in a last minute attempt to get her to stay before the distance became too great and they were forced apart, but because Maggie was the best part of her and leaving her behind felt like giving up on the only good thing she ever had.
If Alex was being honest with herself, walking away from Maggie felt as if someone was ripping her in half, taking her apart piece by piece until there was nothing left.
It made Alex want to scream.
It made her want to see the world burn.
It was only once she turned around that Alex allowed herself to break, that she welcomed the devastation and let herself tremble with the thought she would never get to see Maggie’s dimpled smile again, would never get to feel her lips curl into a smirk beneath her own.
A quiet “Alex” sounded behind her, making it harder to keep walking further and further away. Alex ignored the agony in that one word, ignored the way she would now remember her name falling out of Maggie’s lips as it if was some terrible thing. Instead she kept on walking until she reached the living room, knowing she wouldn’t be able to keep going if she turned back.
“I don’t want to lose you, Al,” Maggie whispered, suddenly in front of her, as she grabbed Alex’s hand oh so tightly. “I’m not ready to lose you,” the detective said even quieter than before, her thumb coming up to brush away the tears on Alex’s cheek. Covering Maggie’s hand with her own, Alex leaned into her touch and tried not to think of what her words meant, tried not to find a reason to stay.
“You will never lose me,” Alex said as she brought Maggie into her arms and held her soundly, breathing in her scent once more, taking in everything that was Maggie Sawyer as she rubbed soothing patterns on the small of the detective’s back and drowned her sobs on the crook of her neck. “I will always be with you,” Alex promised, unwillingly stepping back from the embrace.
Before she could say anything else, Maggie’s lips were on hers, angry and desperate, as she pulled Alex closer by the back of her neck and ran her fingers through the assassin’s short hair, letting her taste her own blood on Maggie’s tongue, until the need for air became too great to be ignored. With her eyes still closed, Alex rested her forehead against Maggie’s, savouring those last few seconds of what could have been heaven.
Looking down at her bruised wrists, Alex noticed she was still wearing her father’s watch. Blurs of red covered it partially, making it impossible to make out the constellation underneath the crystal, to fully see the dark blue sky it held as background.
“This is not goodbye,” Alex murmured, more to herself than Maggie, as she took off her father’s watch and carefully placed it on Maggie’s open palm, closing the detective’s hand around it protectively before kissing her knuckles. “Hold onto this for me, okay?”
The last thing she saw before she turned around with new found determination were Maggie’s tears falling down on the watch, washing away some of the blood that covered it as the detective’s eager fingertips ran over the leather straps. For a moment, Alex thought she might have seen her father’s favourite constellation, not on the background of his watch, but on Maggie’s eyes and the world felt a little bit more right.