Alex Danvers was not accustomed to losing.

And yet, as Maggie started pulling ahead, started putting away stripes faster than Alex could sink solids, she didn't seem to mind.

She didn't mind because Maggie had a habit of scrunching up the skin behind her eyes, very slightly, only for a moment, the corners of her lips pulling up into the ghost of a grin, when she felt cocky; when she felt confident; when she knew a shot had looked particularly sexy. And when she sank something unexpected, her reservations left her, and her dimples came out in full force.

If losing had felt like this all along, maybe Alex would have given up on that whole perfection thing years and years ago.

"Why are you so good all of a sudden?" she questioned after a while, after Maggie started encroaching on getting her money back.

Maggie just shrugged, and Alex got the impression that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't the only one who'd been throwing games to make the other feel good.

She wanted to make me feel good.

Alex could have sung from the rooftops about it.

Neither of them mentioned that they had work in the morning.

Neither of them mentioned that as the night drew on and started to become morning, the sounds they made - their snippets of conversation, their cues striking, eight balls sinking into corner pockets, their groans of frustration, their chuckling at the other's missed shots - were increasingly the only sounds in the bar.

Neither of them mentioned that as they kept sipping on their beers, exhaustion combined with heady giddiness combined with alcohol, their words started slurring. Very slightly, very subtly. Their bodies started tilting into each other's. Very slightly, very subtly.

Once, Alex ran her finger across the small of Maggie's back as she bent down to set up a shot. She hissed in surprise, in attempt to suppress the intensity of arousal that shot through her at the simple insistence of Alex's touch.

Maggie missed the shot.

Once, Maggie let herself get caught staring at Alex's lips. She regretted it instantly, because she recognized the thirst that grew in Alex's eyes - worse, she knew it was reflected in hers.

Alex missed the shot.

In the end, neither knew who won more games. They were both too distracted with the smaller games they played, more and more the more they had to drink.

Like when Alex proposed they get to know each other better. Maggie started, and Alex laughed. Maggie fought down the intensity of being turned on by Alex's confidence, intermixed with her determined uncertainty.

"A game. You tell me something I don't know about you, and I'll tell you something you don't know about me."

Maggie arched an eyebrow, and deadpanned, "I got shot in the line on my first mission out."

Alex looked horrified, and Maggie put her hand to her forearm. "I'm fine." She swept her hands out at her own body. "Obviously."

Clouds of concern still colored Alex's eyes, but she shifted focus as promised; she owed Maggie a tidbit.

"In high school, I had this huge crush on my best friend. Vicky Donahue. I mean, I think I did. I didn't know what it was, then." She drank deeply, and Maggie nodded, with a soft smile on her face.

She learned, until the game fizzled out, that Alex had always wanted a sister; that she secretly loved Kara's N-Sync phase; that she was a huge tomboy in college, where she discovered that flannel shirts under lab coats kept you warmest longest in the lab.

Alex learned, in her turn, that Maggie and her father disagreed on almost everything, except their mutual love of motorbikes and women; that her big sister had bought her the first Triumph she had; that she'd met her first alien in college, and promptly slept with her.

Listening to that one, Alex had licked the beer off her lips a little too slowly. Maggie's determination to keep it in the realm of friendship wavered, but luckily, Alex had gotten distracted by seeing the perfect shot on the table. She took it, and won that round.

The questions game had been replaced by silent touches, subtle glances, and coy laughter. A couple of times, Maggie swore that Alex looked like she was going to just grab her by the forearm and kiss her, but she didn't.

Maggie hated how disappointed it got her.

"Hey, lovergirls! We're closing." Maggie shot daggers at Darla while Alex nodded like she wasn't mortified.

A silence grew between them as they put their cues away; a silence, that is, until Alex blurted, like she'd been having a debate with herself and the impulsive, over-eager side won: "Can I take you to breakfast?"

Maggie looked up, startled for a moment, before she chuckled. "Usually a few dates before we get to breakfast, huh?"

Alex smiled awkwardly, radiantly, overly pleased, no reservations - is she blushing? - and Maggie decided, ex and newly coming out be damned, it was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen.

"Usually other things before we get to breakfast," Alex leaned in conspiratorially like she was a kid in high school whispering across study hall about doing it.

Maggie laughed at that, a solid, hard laugh; the kind she hadn't had since she got dumped.

"Nerd," she teased, and Alex looked pleased.

Against her better judgment, Maggie held out her bent elbow, and Alex wove her arm through it eagerly. Maggie had expected her to - which was why she'd offered her arm to begin with - but she didn't expect what Alex did next.

Brushing their hips together, Alex drew Maggie closer through the crook in her arm, bringing both hands to the place where their arms linked. Like they were... together. Like they were a thing. Like they weren't a fucked up detective still smarting from a shattered relationship and an overly eager, newly coming out extra-legal alien hunting agent.

Darla mimed vomiting on their way out the door, but her smirk might have given her away to the astute observer.

Maggie's brilliant smile would have given her away to anyone.

"So, you a salad girl or a burger and fries girl?" Maggie wanted to know.

Alex observed her over the top of her coffee mug and arched an eyebrow.

"What do you think?"

Maggie almost panicked: she'd done that thing when her voice dropped again, and she thought if she did it one more time, so help me, she would kiss her senseless right then and there, other diner patrons be damned.

The detective stared back, and gulped so subtly Alex almost didn't notice it. Almost.

"I think I just asked you about lunch type stuff, when we're supposed to be here for breakfast." She ran a finger over the glossed menu in front of her and glanced up at the woman across the table from her. Her short hair was more crimped than it usually was, probably the result of such a long time since the last... whatever it was Alex did to her hair. She wondered what Alex did do with her hair. How she chose what she wore every day.

Alex's retort jolted her out of her thoughts.

"Doesn't change my question: which do you think I am? You're a detective, Sawyer: detect." She enunciated both ts, and it drove Maggie mad. She wondered where this sudden streak of confidence in Alex was coming from. Maybe it was the alcohol, the punchiness from the late hour. Maybe it was whatever vibes she was giving off. Dammit.

She squinted at Alex, head tilted to the side as she studied her. Alex's lips opened slightly at suddenly being the object of such intense scrutiny. But she bore it, and well, too.

"At home, you're a whatever will fuel me girl. When it's not takeout, you throw things on a plate and call it a salad. But you'd never order a salad out, because you don't want anyone thinking you don't eat a lot just because you're a woman with a classically gorgeous body. Oh, but when you get a burger, it's veggie. Too much blood at work to have it on your dinner table, too."

Alex blinked and Maggie swore internally.

A waiter with a swish in his step and a small smile on his face approached to ask them their order. Without breaking eye contact with Maggie, Alex said, "Can I please get a veggie burger and fries? Also a chocolate shake. Please."

Maggie smirked. "Your turn," she said. Figure me out like I figured you out, Danvers.

"And she'll have a Greek omelette. Home fries... well done. She can share my shake. Please. And thank you."

Catching on, the waiter smiled deeply, and looked at Maggie for confirmation. Maggie didn't break eye contact with Alex, but she inclined her head toward him, sensing his pleasure in being able to wait on fellow queers. "Whaddaya think, Noah? She a keeper?"

"Got your order right on the head, Mags." He winked at Alex, who sat up straighter, deeply impressed with herself. She cocked an eyebrow and sipped at her coffee as Noah retreated, chuckling to himself, to give their order to the kitchen.

"Are you a regular everywhere?" Alex teased.

"Good to know people when you don't have the DEO's tech," Maggie leveled. Alex shrugged, and Maggie leaned across the table slightly.

"How the hell did you figure that out? I gave you my logic; you didn't give me yours."

Alex shrugged again. "Detectives aren't the only ones who detect." Maggie glared, and even that looked adorable. Alex relented. "You'd mentioned a while ago how you could kill an omelette because you were so hungry, and the Greek part was a guess because they're my favorite blend of salty and savory, and the well-done home fries is because you always go for the crispiest fries when M'gann brings some to the bar." She said this all in one whirl of breath, slightly embarrassed but also reminding Maggie slightly of the girl she might have been in high school; eager, not only to have the right answer, but to tell you exactly how she got it so you could be impressed. Because if she couldn't impress you, you wouldn't know she was there.

Maggie raised her coffee mug, impressed. "Nicely done, Danvers."

Alex grinned. "You got something against first names, Sawyer?"

She left out the part about longing to hear her first name from Maggie's lips, the way it might sound when she was sleepy, or just waking up, or casually in the middle of the day, or screaming under Alex's body in the middle of the night...

"You go somewhere, Danvers?" Alex jumped, realizing that she must have spaced out. She went for her coffee, gulped too quickly, and squeezed her eyes shut as the still-hot liquid slipped down her throat.

"Hot," she whispered, tears involuntarily flooding her eyes as the roof of her mouth burned, ignoring the double entendre floating in the air between them.

Yeah, it is, Maggie almost said. She almost said it, she almost leaned across the table and offered to soothe Alex's burnt mouth with her own.

Almost.

Almost.

Not the time, Sawyer. Not the time.

Not yet.

TBC