Alex Danvers had always liked Mondays.
She was born on a Monday, in fact.
As a child, Mondays meant returning to school, which Alex could never get enough of. And after school on Mondays. Mom would pick her up and take her to the lab where she'd don her very own lab coat and safety glasses and her mom would teach her how to blow things up.
Mondays meant a fresh start, a return yet a new beginning. Mondays meant high energy, high morale throughout the DEO, pushing Alex forward in her work. Breakthroughs always seemed to happen on Mondays, when her mind was fresh and her eyes refreshed.
They meant waking up in her fiancée's strong arms, calm and warm and secure. Monday mornings in particular came to be a favorite of Alex's. She'd always twist in Maggie's arms, lay gentle kisses all over her face until those soulful brown eyes opened and a mouth kisses her back. They'd lay together in the silence for a few minutes, soft smiles and eyes half open, basking in the glory of waking up to one another. And then Alex would get up to use the bathroom and come out to find Maggie setting coffee on the island for her, filling her own with agave, which Alex would always tease her about. They'd listen to Maggie's masterful pump up playlist over breakfast. Unlike the rest of the week, Mondays were slow and calm, and on Mondays, Maggie always gave her the longest goodbye kiss before the pair went their separate ways to work.
They got together on a Monday. And they got engaged on a Monday. All the big memorable dates drilled into Alex's head: Mondays.
Monday nights always came with a burning desire to leave work on time, to cuddle with Maggie on the couch as they wait for their takeout to arrive and Alex always stumbled through excitement to tell Maggie about her latest breakthrough in the lab, or put her head over Maggie's heart, Maggie's fingers stroking through her hair, listening as Maggie tells the tale of the latest alien species who've made their way into her heart. Maggie's heart always beat the loudest on Mondays.
But she and Maggie broke up on a Monday.
Suddenly, Mondays aren't fun anymore.
Alex wakes up in a bed that never seemed too big until that first Monday without Maggie, shivering and sad. On Mondays, Alex gets out of bed immediately, not wanting to spend more time there than necessary. That very first Monday of waking up alone for the first time in a year, Alex finds herself standing in front of the island with a cup of Maggie's favorite brew in hand, a double toasted bagel on the plate in front of her. She can't stand the silence, so she puts on some music. Cyndi Lauper has never made her feel so emotional, and if her coffee tastes a little saltier than usual, she pretends not to notice.
She doesn't linger on her way out the door anymore.
Now, Mondays include staying late at the lab, though not too late after the time Kara had to fly a beaker into the ocean when Alex absentmindedly mixed two highly reactive compounds because they produced a color so strikingly similar to Maggie's eyes, and nearly blew up the whole of the DEO. Now Mondays include microwave meals and lots of bourbon in a different bar every week because scotch and tequila and the alien bar are tainted by the memory of life she might've lived and a love she asked to leave.
Alex doesn't care for Mondays anymore. Doesn't much care for anything at all.
She's sitting in one of those unnamed bars on another unremarkable Monday, leaned back against the unfamiliar upholstery of a booth she has all to herself listening to the steady thrum of the Top 40 hit playing through the sound system, willing it to lull her to sleep right there the way Maggie's heartbeat once did.
Her ring tone cuts through the synthy pop beat.
She's five shots in and she lifts the phone to her ear lazily, drawls out "Danvers" in a casual tone.
At first, she struggles to hear what's being said over the music, so she closes out her tab and steps outside. Alex recognizes the voice; Maggie's captain. Why is Maggie's captain calling? She puts all of her focus into listening to the man's dry baritone and as her brain puts the pieces together, the flush on Alex's face leaves her and she sobers immediately as he recounts the evening's events for her.
She's got to get to National City Teaching Hospital. Maggie's been shot and it doesn't look good.
AN: Sorry to leave you guys with such a short start. This is also posted to my AO3 account under my username there: mts.I'm going to attempt to branch into multi-chapter fics rather than the one shots I'm used to. I think this story will be three or four chapters, maybe more if I'm patient with myself. Either way, I hope you'll stick with me until the end!