It's almost a week before the three of them can get together to talk about the sixth Revelation. Work has been intense for all of them, so Alex has only seen Maggie once since that first afternoon together. They'd gone on their first official date, and it had been, without a doubt, the best date of Alex's life.
But it's been four days since the date. Four days since Alex has been able to see her.
The withdrawal has been killing her.
They go to a bar for the conversation with Kara. Not the alien bar, because Alex doesn't quite know how to tell Maggie that Kara would be more comfortable there than anywhere else, but back to Noonan's.
Alex gets there a couple minutes early, and sees Kara already there, sitting in a booth in the back corner. Alex waves, stops at the bar to order a whiskey for herself and for Maggie, and then heads over.
"Did you bring them?" Kara asks immediately as Alex sits down across from her.
"Hello to you too, my darling sister."
Kara rolls her eyes. "Aleeeeex."
Alex laughs. "Yes, I brought them."
"Did you open them?"
"What! Of course not!"
Kara shifts a little bit in her seat. "Do you remember what you wrote?"
Alex shrugs. "The broad strokes, yeah. I don't think you're an abomination, blah blah. But not the details." She narrows her eyes at Kara. "Do you remember?"
Kara shrugs. "Not really, that's what's making me nervous." She leans forward on the table and lowers her voice to a whisper. "What if I said I was an alien?"
Alex narrows her eyes further, leaning forward to match Kara's posture. "Did you?"
"I don't remember, Alex, I just said that. But I was really new to Earth, so…I don't know. It's possible."
Alex sighs heavily, leaning back in the booth and toying with her glass of whiskey. "We'll put out that fire when we get to it, okay?"
Kara nods, a small grimace on her face.
Maggie comes in then, striding toward their booth in the back like she isn't nervous at all. Both Danvers women pop up to greet her. Alex takes hold of her arm and kisses her on the cheek. "Hi," she says softly.
"Hey beautiful," Maggie says, smiling right into her eyes.
Kara squeaks.
Maggie turns her attention to Kara. "Hey Ka—" She's cut off by the force of a Kryptonian body slamming her into a hug. "Oof." Maggie staggers backwards a step, but Alex catches her and Kara was never going to actually let her fall.
Kara squeezes her to within an inch of a cracked rib before pulling back and beaming. "I'm so happy it's you, Maggie!"
Maggie dimples at her and starts to respond, but Kara keeps going, still with the same huge grin on her face and happy tone. "If you even think about hurting Alex, I will actually murder you with my bare hands!" Without even a beat, she pulls Maggie back in, squeezing her again. "Eeeee! I'm so excited!"
And Maggie looks at Alex, her wide eyes asking if Kara's excited that they're soulmates or about murdering her with her bare hands.
Alex takes pity on her and pries Kara off her tiny body. "Kara, if you suffocate her I'm going to be very upset with you."
And Kara nods and apologizes and sits down on her side of the booth, and Maggie and Alex settle into the other side and Kara uses her x-ray vision to see that Maggie immediately finds Alex's hand under the table and squeezes it, and she can't stop her little squeal.
They chat for a little while, Maggie asking Kara about work and Alex about her day, and no one is drinking quickly, so they're only about halfway through their drinks when Maggie takes a deep breath.
"So," she says, clearly nervous. "You guys wanted to talk about the sixth, right?"
Alex nods, and Kara immediately shifts to looking more like a puppy.
"Only if you want," Kara says softly.
Maggie nods. "Sure, yeah. Let's do it."
Alex clears her throat a little. She's pulled something out of her bag, and Kara immediately recognizes it at her Revelations Journal. "We, um, well. Okay. So, Kara came to our family between my fifth and sixth Revelation," Alex says softly, "and I told you the other night, that she was raised differently and she didn't know about soulmates." Maggie nods. "So she was there with me, the morning of the sixth. And it…" Alex swallows, hard.
She doesn't know how she's going to get through this. It's worse now, so much worse. It was bad when her soulmate was a nameless faceless might-be, some boy she might never meet, who was thought to be an abomination. But now? Now that it's Maggie? The sweet, loving, gentle, kind, brilliant, tough, beautiful girl next to her, with the soft eyes and the huge heart? Now that she knows that Maggie's parents thought she was an abomination, that when they thought about Maggie they thought abomination – that's nearly impossible to bear.
Alex just loves her so much.
"It said abomination," Maggie says softly, and Alex trembles with rage. That's not a word that should ever have to come out of Maggie's mouth.
Kara comes to her rescue. "We were really upset," she says softly. "We were scared for you, to be living in that type of environment, where they thought that about you. We were worried about you, and we didn't want you to feel alone."
Alex nods, reaching up to brush her tears away. She wasn't even the one who lived through it, she feels ridiculous being the one crying. This soulmate thing is no joke.
"It was Kara's idea," she says, "to write you letters that morning."
Maggie furrows her eyebrows. "Letters?"
"We wanted you to know how we felt – that we knew you weren't…that." Kara can't even bring herself to say it.
"Even though you wouldn't know it then," Alex says softly, reaching over to tuck Maggie's hair behind her ear, "We wanted you to know. That we cared about you and we were on your side. Both of us."
Maggie blinks back tears as her eyes dart to the journal in front of Alex. She detects. "And you…you still have them? The letters?"
Alex nods. "They're for you. You can read them now, or later, or never, whatever you want. Or we could read them to you, if you want, or whatever."
Maggie cuts off her rambling. "I can't…" She takes a deep breath, absently noticing that her hands are shaking. "No one's ever done anything like that for me before."
"Sure we have." Kara's voice is gentle and tender. "You just didn't know we were doing it."
And Maggie clearly takes a minute to let that settle.
"Your whole life," Alex says softly, "I've cared about you." She pauses for a moment, and then she says something that's probably completely obvious, but something about Maggie's face makes her want to say it. "I've never believed it, not for a second. I've just cared about you."
Maggie's little body shakes with one silent sob, and she buries herself in Alex's neck for a minute, clearly trying to pull herself together. Kara reaches out a hand across the table and Alex takes it, anchoring herself to both of her girls.
After a moment, Maggie unburies her head and straightens some of the way up, still leaning into Alex's body but no longer hiding. "I'd like you to read them to me," she says softly, reaching with one hand to toy with the hem of Alex's shirt.
Kara nods, and Alex kisses Maggie's head. "You sure?" She asks softly. Maggie nods.
Kara and Alex exchange a quick look. "Me first?" Kara asks. Alex nods, and opens the journal to the right page, and pulls out an envelope.
It says "To Alex's Soulmate, From Kara" in messy childish handwriting.
Maggie tucks herself more comfortably into Alex's side, letting Alex's arm fold securely over her shoulders and pull her close.
Kara opens the envelope gently. "I'd like to apologize in advance," she says wryly, "for anything weird I might have put in this letter. I was new to Alex's family, and stuff, so, I make no promises about what's in here."
Maggie nods.
Kara pulls the paper out – wide ruled lined paper, three hole punched, meticulously folded. She clears her throat, and starts to read.
Dear Alex's Soulmate/my future big brother, I guess?,
We learned in school how to write letters, but I already messed it up, cause I didn't put my address up at the top. This is from Kara, okay? Alex's sister.
"Wow," Kara says, looking up from the paper. "Great start, here, young Kara. Definitely reporter material." Alex and Maggie both chuckle before Kara looks back down and keeps reading.
Today is Alex's fifteenth birthday, so it's her sixth Revelation. But for me, it's my first Revelation, even though I'm 13 years old. Because I don't have a soulmate and Alex's family adopted me last year so it's my first time seeing a Revelation. And Alex promised me that I could share you with her, that you'd be like my big brother. ["Sorry," Kara mutters, looking up at Maggie. Maggie smiles at her, knocking her head against Alex's softly.]Because I don't have my own soulmate. The reason for that is complicated but it's also a secret so I won't write it down here.
Alex snorts, but Maggie doesn't ask. "Sorry," Kara says lightly, trying to move past it, "I didn't realize how much of this was about me! Whoops." Her eyes scan down the page. "Oh, okay, here we go."
The important thing is that you know that we don't think you're an abomination. (I had to check Alex's arm to make sure I spelled that right). ["I also underlined that twice, okay, I think thirteen-year-old me would want you to know that."]I know that's the word on her arm, but it's not true. We know that your family are idiots for thinking that about you. Even though I haven't met you, I know Alex, and she's so good to me and so wonderful and smart and thoughtful and generous, that there's NO WAY her soulmate would be a bad person.
"Oh my god, Kara," Alex mutters, blushing.
"All true," Maggie murmurs to her.
And Kara, of course, heard her. "Cheers," she says, holding her glass out to Maggie. They clink before Kara turns back to her pages.
People think bad things about me too, big brother, ["again, sorry,"] but they just don't understand who I really am, or what I've been through, or what it's like to be me. I bet it's the same for you.
But you don't have to listen to them, and you don't have to be alone or scared or sad. Because you're going to love Alex when you meet her. I do, a lot. Alex didn't have to love me (I'm adopted, which I sort of mentioned before) but she LOVES ME, ["also underlined AND capitalized,"] just like a real sister (she'd be mad at me for saying "real sister" because she says that we're as real as it gets). [Alex rolls her eyes and makes a little pfft sound, but both Kara and Maggie saw her tense at "real sister" so they just exchange a cute little look before Kara moves on.] She knows what everyone says about me, all the reasons she shouldn't love me, but she does anyway.
And she's gonna love you too. And me too, I'm gonna love you. I've never had a big brother before, not in any of my families.
"No regrets though," Kara says, looking right into Maggie's eyes. Maggie nods. She understands, she really does.
Kara scans the next line, and laughs. "Oh my god, this is about to get so embarrassing."
Alex grins at her. "I'm ready."
I'm really excited to meet you. I'm sorry your family is poopy. [That startles a laugh out of both Alex and Maggie.] There's nothing wrong with being different.
I know I'm supposed to end a letter with "sincerely" or "cordially" but I don't like that so I'm going to end it differently. ["Oh my god, Kara," Alex mutters.]
El Mayarah (that means Stronger Together and it's kind of like my motto),
Kara Danvers
Your New Little Sister
Kara folds it back up, putting it back in the envelope and handing it to Maggie. She shrugs a little. "Not sure that was worth waiting fifteen years for, sorry."
But Maggie is standing up and coming over to Kara's side and sitting down next to her and wrapping her arms around her.
"That was worth waiting a lifetime for," she says softly.
Kara hugs her tightly, rubbing one hand up and down her back.
"Look," she says softly, when she can feel Maggie starting to pull away. "Alex told me the general idea of what your parents did to you when you were a kid. And I know it's not the same at all, but I lost my parents too. And I learned recently that what happened to them, to everyone I knew, was partly their fault. I've learned that they weren't…totally good people. And it's been really hard, to miss them and mourn them, and also know how ruthless they were and what they were capable of." Maggie's crying now, so Kara finishes as gently as she can. "So if you ever want to talk about anything like that, I'm here for you, okay? We don't even have to invite Alex. We can eat all the good pity-party pizza without her."
And Kara grins at Maggie, and Maggie grins back through her sniffles, and Alex tosses a napkin at her sister but she's so unbelievably grateful. Kara is the best sister in the galaxy.
"You're gonna be a really great little sister, aren't you?" Maggie asks her, giving up and letting her tears come.
Kara nods and holds up her left hand, palm outward, in front of her chest, her face serious. "I solemnly swear to eat all of your food, take and save bad pictures of you, and never let you forget anything embarrassing you ever do in front of me, cross my heart and hope to die." She holds her serious face and pose for a beat before cracking, grinning and winking. "The little sister pledge, you know."
Maggie smiles back at her. "And what's the big sister pledge?" She asks it softly, and Alex can tell there's real weight behind it.
"You solemnly swear to hold my hair back if I get sick, and scare away any boys who aren't good enough for me, and listen to me whine about any and all promotions, before and after I get them. Also snuggle me during thunderstorms." Kara turns to Alex. "Anything I didn't mention?"
"Bring her donuts," Alex adds, her heart swelling painfully in her chest. "For any and all occasions. Also potstickers."
Maggie nods, face just as serious as Kara's was. She holds up her own left hand. "I solemnly swear," she says to Kara. "Cross my heart and hope to die."
And it's stupid and it's clearly not real, but it's also so completely real. And the two of them hug and Alex's heart is definitely exploding in slow motion, and she feels relieved for the first time in a long time, and god, this woman just could not be more perfect.
After a couple moments, in which Kara insists on the two of them creating and memorizing a complicated secret handshake ("an addendum to the pledge," Kara insists, "like the Bill of Rights"), Maggie turns back to Alex.
"Okay, Danvers," she says, her voice steady. "Your turn."
"Well," Alex says, trying to cover her nerves. "I can't promise that mine will have the word poopy in it, but…"
They all laugh.
Alex takes a beat, waiting for Maggie to come back to this side, but she stays where she is, nestled into Kara's side.
Alex slowly opens her envelope, the one that just says "M" on it, takes a deep breath, unfolds her paper (which is graph paper, not normal lined paper, because apparently fifteen year old Alex was an enormous nerd), and starts to read.
Dear M,
I don't really know what to write. It's weird knowing that you won't see this until we're older. I wonder when we'll meet. I hope we do, one day. I'd really like to meet you.
"Nailed it," Maggie murmurs. Kara chuckles and squeezes her even tighter.
Today is my sixth Revelation. I think you probably know what it said on my arm. I won't even write it here, because it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what other people think about you. It doesn't matter because they're wrong.
I don't know what happened to make them think that about you. I don't know if it's related to what I felt when I was 12, in February, or what. [Alex looks up at Maggie and just holds her eyes for a moment before going on.] But I know that, no matter what happened, you're not a bad person. You're not sinful or hateful or disgusting or anything like that.
My favorite subject is science, and my mom says that scientists never jump to conclusions (she and my dad are both scientists) but for some reason this doesn't feel like jumping to a conclusion. This doesn't feel like a hypothesis or a guess. It feels true, like something I know. You're not all those bad things. I don't know how I know, but I know.
"Oh my god," Kara whispers loud enough for Alex to hear. "I had no idea where she was going with that but it's so cuuuute."
Even if it doesn't work out between us, even if we meet and then we don't get married or stay together forever or if you don't want to be with me, I want to you know that I have really liked being your soulmate so far. I really care about you, and that hasn't changed, and it won't change no matter what.
"Alex," Maggie breathes. "Sweetheart."
Alex looks up at her and gives what she hopes is a grin but worries is a grimace. "Always a realist," she says, trying to keep her tone light.
Maggie gets up and walks back over, settling herself next to Alex again. "This is real," she says softly, taking Alex's hand in her own and squeezing it.
Alex swallows back tears and nods, a little jerkily. She's just trying to keep it together for the rest of the letter.
Maggie squeezes her hand again, and Alex takes that as permission to keep going.
My sister says that your family are idiots for thinking this about you. I think she's right. She's really different from everyone else, but I think that makes her wonderful and special and I love her for it.
"She's talking about me," Kara stage-whispers, just to make them laugh. It works.
It's the same for you. I think you're going to be wonderful.
Please be careful, and stay safe, and I hope you don't let it get to you too much, although I know how hard that is. When my best friend says mean things about me, it really hurts, so I can't even imagine what this must feel like for you. But I'm here for you. You're not alone, M.
Alex stutters. She's read ahead, she's read the next line, and she hasn't said to Maggie yet – it's true, clearly, but she hasn't said it – but her fifteen year old self clearly wasn't as afraid, and she owes it to scared little fourteen year old Maggie to say it. So she does.
I know it's weird, because I haven't met you, but I think I love you.
Maggie takes in a sharp breath. Alex doesn't look over at her.
And I think I love you more now that I've had the sixth than I did before.
So even if your family doesn't love you right, or doesn't love you enough, well.
I do. And Kara does – that's my sister.
I wish I could give you a hug that lasted all day. I wish I could show you and tell you how much I care about you today, not just later when we finally meet and you read this letter.
Alex swallows heavily.
I don't know what love feels like, but I'm pretty sure this is it.
I really can't wait to meet you. Hurry up, okay?
Love,
Alex
"Alex," Maggie says softly.
Alex doesn't look over at Maggie, busying herself with folding the letter back up, tucking it back into the envelope it's been waiting in for almost fifteen years.
"Ally."
Alex looks over, the soft word reminding her of how safe and warm and cared for she feels in Maggie's arms. She belatedly realizes that her face is wet with tears.
So is Maggie's.
Alex stutters, her breath hitches. She wants to say it, she does, but this doesn't feel slow, and her heart is slamming around in her body, and she can barely breathe.
"It doesn't have to mean anything, Alex."
Alex shakes her head immediately. She wasn't ready to say it, but she's not going to deny it. She's never going to deny this, this most true thing. "No, it…I meant it, then, but I…" She presses her lips together for a second and tries – and fails – to keep her voice from cracking. "I mean it now, too." She gives in and lets her tears come. "I love you."
Maggie reaches up and, impossibly softly, brushes the tears from Alex's cheeks. "Don't cry, beautiful," she says softly. "I love you too, you know."
Alex can barely breathe, but she smiles. "Yeah?"
Maggie grins at her, full dimple, giving her a signature head tilt. "Yeah."
And Alex pulls her in for a kiss before resting her forehead on Maggie's and just breathing her in.
Kara, from across the table, squeals so loud that her glass cracks, just a little bit.