Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter One: A Spitfire of a Woman

Alex’s 1969 Chevy Nova needed work. The belt squealed, it pulled to the left a little too much and most of the rear right wheel well was bondo instead of metal. It had been a solid car for all the years that she had driven it, though. It didn’t look like much, except maybe to the classic muscle car aficionado, which she was not… but at least it was reliable. It was perhaps a bit too masculine for her tastes as well, but it had been her father’s pride and joy and since he was gone, she kept it in good enough shape and had taken it with her when she left town for the big city. With tired eyes and a yawn, she parked it in her usual space and climbed out.

She ran her fingers through her short mahogany hair that fell to the middle of her long neck and pulled open the door to the nightclub. Alex Danvers had been working as security at Sadie Prescott’s Bar & Mower repair for about three months now after having put her tiny hometown in her rearview mirror. It wasn’t actually a lawnmower repair shop and had nothing to do with landscaping equipment at all, but it was a rather peculiar name for a gay nightclub in the middle of downtown Austin, Texas and frankly was what drew her to it in the first place. She appreciated a bit of flair in all things. She admired its regulars and how the LGBT community there was so diverse and welcoming… but what she admired above all, although secretly, was the smiling brunette that worked behind the bar on weeknights.

She usually had her routine of nodding and walking past the bartender on her way to the office to clock in each evening before checking the doors around the building. Sometimes she’d even manage to crack a smile at her, to which the woman always returned one of her own. She was simply the most beautiful creature Alex had ever seen. The sound of her voice was low and earthy, and possessed what Alex thought was the best smile, which was always a perfect display of white teeth behind soft pink lips that sat on honey brown skin. Alex always thought she sort of glowed beneath the warm amber lights that were situated directly above her station at the bar.

I’ll bet she’s just as stunning in the light of day…

The runaway thought apparently lingered longer than it should have, because the next thing she knew the bartender was looking directly at her as she walked past the end of the counter. Then she shot Alex one of those perfect smiles.

“Hi.”

Alex’s face scorched and she shook herself out of her momentary stare, surprised at all to have found an actual word that was in the English language to respond with.

“Hi…”

Either she was losing it, or the bartender blushed at her. Actually blushed at her. She thought for sure it had to be the lighting. Once out of eyesight she shook her head and admonished herself.

Focus. You’re here to work.

She punched her card at the machine in the office and slipped it into her cubby on the wall labeled ‘A. Danvers – Security’. There inside lay a note, which she grabbed and read.

‘Alex, the kitchen has been propping the back door open with a block to come back from smoke breaks, make sure they quit that shit. The door I mean, I don’t care about the smoking.

Thanks. Leslie.’

“Well. You should probably care about the smoking too… lung cancer and all… but whatever.”

Alex folded the note back along its haphazard crease and tossed it back into the cubby to begin her rounds. The building had two large loading doors for stage equipment and two alarmed back doors, one from the kitchen to the outside and the other near the changing rooms behind the stage. The venue hosted live bands, drag shows, comedy nights and other lively forms of entertainment, and on weekends it was typically packed, which is usually when someone else worked the door with her. Saturday nights weren’t her favorite if she was being honest. The club owner Leslie Willis was cool, but she was cheap and liked to outsource private security companies to send a different guy to work the door with her each weekend. They were of the usual toxic male variety who almost always had at least one borderline homophobic jibe or joke to make.

She much preferred a slow Wednesday night where she could sit on a stool and spin to her four o’clock position every once in a while, just to steal a glance inside at the brunette behind the bar. Rarely did she ever have to get physical with customers as a bouncer, but there had been a few altercations over the months that she had worked there. Nothing crazy, just the occasional firm word to leave or even once actually having to toss a patron out who didn’t know the meaning of ‘you’re cut off’ and who also, unfortunately, decided to take a swing at Alex.

It was a good enough gig that paid her tuition costs for the police academy as well as the rent for her small one bedroom above a boxing gym on the other side of town. When she had arrived in Austin with a dream of becoming a cop and nowhere to stay, she had slept in her Nova for almost a week before the gym owner took pity on her and offered her a severely discounted rental rate for the unit above the gym. Since he claimed his knees not only ended his fighting career but also his ability to walk up a flight of stairs. The gym was known to be frequented by police academy initiates and was usually where they trained in their off time, so she figured it was a square deal. Her pay checks as staffed security at the club kept the lights on, as well as food in her pantry, gas in her tank and were paying her way to becoming a cop that was going to make a difference.

As the kitchen staff filtered in, Alex had been leaned up against the back door waiting for them to assemble and start their prep for the evening. She cleared her throat to direct their attention, but not a single head turned. Then she rolled her eyes, folded the tip of her tongue with a thumb and forefinger and let out an ear-piercing whistle. That got their attention, and everybody in the room spun to look at her.

“Thank you. See this?” She held up the palm-sized rectangular block of wood that she had located on the floor near the back door to the kitchen and waved it in her hand animatedly. Then she flung it into a large trashcan against the far wall.

“No more propping the door open during business hours- or any hours. This door is to remain closed and locked except to receive perishable deliveries. Go around the building from the front door to the back parking lot to smoke and then come back around the same way. If I catch y’all going through this door again for anything other than deliveries, I’ll break the key off in the lock and you’ll have to take everything in through the loading dock. This is how we keep y’all safe, as well as the guests. Got it?”

There was a short silence and then a few grumbles from beside the walk-in cooler. “Damn girl why are you such a hardass?”

“It’s my damn job.” Alex flashed a cheshire grin with a wink in the direction of the voice and continued her checks of the building before it was to open to the public.

Twenty minutes or so later she rounded a corner and almost crashed into a dolly stacked with thick, bulky plastic trays full of margarita glasses. “Woah!”

The stack of trays plopped back onto the ground upright and nearly wobbled and fell over on top of Alex, but she managed to catch them with both of her arms instead of her head.

“Oh, shit!” A voice came from behind the stacked glassware. “I’m so sorry!”

Alex chuckled as the trays settled straight again, no longer in danger of falling. “You want some help?”

“That’d be great, thanks so much…” Said the voice again. The hallway from the dishwashing station to the entrance of the bar area was narrow, and it wasn’t until Alex grabbed the top two stacks of glasses off the tower that she saw who the voice belonged to.

Oh.

“Hi, again.” Alex squeaked.

The brunette bartender smiled, no blush in her cheeks to be seen. Damn.

“Hi, again.” She echoed playfully.

Alex stood there for almost a moment too long before her brain could kick back into gear.

“Alex.” She stammered. “Alexandra, actually, is- is my name. But please, call me Alex.”

“Samantha. Call me Sam.” She stuck a hand out, to which Alex merely lifted the glass trays that she had in her arms to display that her hands were too full to shake.

“Oh. Duh. Well, um, thanks! Follow me to the bar?”

I’d follow you anywhere…

Alex nodded, hoping her cheeks weren’t beet red.

The night went on much as expected for a Monday at Sadie’s, with karaoke and two-dollar domestic drafts. Apart from any other night of the week, the dance floor and surrounding tables were filled with friend groups on Monday evenings instead of your randomized singles-looking-to-mingle. Friendly competition almost always was a factor between tables on Karaoke nights. Alex liked to listen to the camaraderie between friends in between songs from where she sat at the door. She had little to do but observe on nights like this, since there was no cover charge or ultraviolet stamp to illuminate. So, listen and observe she did. She kept her eyes forward on the front door in her little alcove at the entrance though, she still needed to maintain the appearance of vigilance. Alex was the one barrier of safety the club staff and its patrons had from violent drunks and roving anti-lgbt groups who had been seen on the news picketing and blockading queer-friendly establishments much like Sadie’s.

But she just couldn’t help herself tonight. Twisting in her stool for probably the fifth time, she gazed at Sam the bartender who was laughing and carrying on with two guests at the bar. Her laugh sounded like a soft break in a hard rain, pleasant and ethereal. God, she could look at her for hours…

“Hate to break it to you but—”

Alex snapped forward on her seat and spun to see Leslie standing at the small podium next to her stool. Her eyes were fixated inside the bar, which Alex followed her line of sight directly toward Sam. Leslie sighed and leaned an elbow on the podium to rest her chin in her hand.

Damn, how did she slip past me?!

“Pretty sure she’s dreadfully straight.” Leslie hummed a melancholy note and straightened her posture, looking hard and narrow at Alex now.

“That being said, I pay you to watch the door- not the staff. Do I have to worry about you? Because honestly, I’ve got so much other stuff going—”

“No! Sorry, I’m here- I’m alert. All good.” Alex recovered, nodding her head firmly and holding her hands out in front of her.

“Good.” The club owner replied, knocking the top of the wooden podium with her knuckles a few times before turning to leave. “I can always count on you Danvers.”

Once she was gone, Alex released a long breath and dropped her shoulders. Leslie was right, she couldn’t be daydreaming about the beautiful brunette named Sam that worked behind the bar. She had a job to do, and people depended on her to keep them safe. Thinking about what Sam’s laugh might sound like closer to her ears was counterproductive. Or what kissing her in the rain might taste like… Citrus, tangerines perhaps-

“Get it together, Danvers!” She muffled under her breath at herself and smoothed her hair back behind her ears. She would not pay the gorgeous ray of sunshine floating behind the bar any more attention that night.

Business picked up into the week as per usual, and this particular Friday evening had the club at capacity before ten o’clock. Alex was having to turn guests away at the door before long to keep in compliance with the building’s fire code in accordance with the city. It was Drag Comedy night, and some big names had flown in from out of state to perform. The show was to begin at promptly ten and she knew no one was on the mic yet, as Leslie was to host the event and still had not yet arrived… but swore she could hear the amplified sound of a voice shouting in the distance. She turned toward the inside of the bar from where she stood in her alcove and saw only the exited movement of bodies flitting from bar to table. The place was absolutely buzzing, though nowhere near as loud as it was yet to be. She turned her head back toward the door and was puzzled. She could still hear the shouting. That’s when she realized it was coming from the front of the building, outside.

She reached inside the small compartment of the podium for her radio and held her thumb over the button on its side to speak. “Call for Will…” Her heartrate began to rise with her anxiousness.

A voice came back after a few moments. “Go for Will, what’s up?”

“Your clipboard with tonight’s call sheet is up front with me, come and get it please.”

The abrupt static after her thumb left the speak button jarred her.

“On my way.”

She didn’t actually have Will’s clipboard, but she needed a reason to get him to her without raising concern for anyone else who might be tuned in to the same channel. William Dey happened to be a large man, who was very well built with muscle and was also the club’s flamboyantly gay stage manager. Though admittedly a pacifist by nature, Leslie had tried to get him to work the door for the club and failed. Will’s heart was rooted in the theatre and would be wasted as club security, but Alex liked to have him around for some situations, just for appearance’s sake.

Will appeared a few minutes later with a curious expression on his face, his clipboard in hand. “What’s going on?”

“Stay on my six please.” Alex said to him, waving her hand for him to follow.

They walked toward the front door of the club which led to the large parking lot where she could hear the voices growing louder as they drew closer. When she pushed open the heavy metal door, the sounds of shouting mixed with obscenities almost overwhelmed her. Two rows of angry, shouting protestors carrying signs with deeply homophobic and religious rhetoric scrawled on them thrummed back and forth as people filtering in from the parking lot attempted to make their way to the door. Alex watched as they turned back toward their cars every time the protestors would choke the path down the middle of them, making it almost impossible for the people to reach the building.

“Damn.” Will said in surprise at Alex’s back.

Alex wanted to spit. She had not packed up and left the only home she had ever known to escape this kind of hate only to be stuck in the middle of more of it. This being louder and more chaotic, outspoken hatred rather than the stiflingly silent, biblically fueled shunning she had left behind.

“What do we do?” He continued.

She clenched her jaw and chose the high road. As bitter as that tasted.

“Unless they’re causing damage, nothing. Technically, I could have them trespassed from the lot since they’re impeding the flow of traffic to a business, but we’re already at capacity and we don’t need cruisers with flashing blue lights in front of the club on the front page of tomorrow’s paper.”

She clenched her jaw to grind her teeth, and then turned to head back inside.

As the night went on, the inside of the club was an entirely different atmosphere than what existed just on the outside of the building. Leslie had arrived in a state just before ten, infuriated with the protestors but managed to carry on with the show. As guests began to leave just after one in the morning, Alex informed them one by one as they passed her podium that there were people on the other side of the front door who would shout at them and to be prepared, but not to engage with them and certainly not to initiate violence.

Once the last customer had exited the building, Alex drew the heavy door shut and locked it, thus beginning her closing round of checks. Everything was more or less quiet inside the club now, and she dragged a cleansing breath in, releasing it with a ten count through her pursed lips.

Seven… eight… nine…

“Alex! Pssst!”

She jumped, the small voice startling her. Her head turned on a swivel from the hallway to the end of the bar, where she saw Sam leaned over the top of the counter and looking at her with eagerness in her eyes. The smallest amount of cleavage could be seen from the neckline of the bartender’s cropped and tied t-shirt and Alex quickly forced her eyes north to the woman’s face again, hoping she had not let her eyes linger in a manner that was inappropriate.

“Are they still out there?”

Alex squinted; her brain trawled through molasses it seemed. “Hmm?” She inquired with a tilt of her head.

Sam lifted an eyebrow. “The assholes with the signs?”

Her brain thankfully registered with reality once again and fired on all cylinders.

“Oh. Yeah. I think they’re leaving though. I can—" She stopped to clear her throat. “I can walk you out through the back to your car when you’re done if you want, just let me know.” She twisted a hip toward the woman behind the bar, displaying the radio clipped there to her belt.

“Would you? Oh, gosh, thanks so much.”

Alex smiled and shot her a wink with her hands cradling her hip bones and continued walking toward the back, then grimaced into a cringe on the other side of the hallway.

Seriously?! A wink? Jesus H. Christ, Danvers.

It was just after three in the morning by the time they were ready to lock up. Tables cleaned, chairs stacked, bar wiped and sanitized, floors swept and vacuumed. Sam had called for Alex on the radio at ten to the hour and met her at the back door near the changing rooms after Alex had punched her card out and locked the office behind her. The bartender had beamed another one of those impeccable smiles at her as Alex wheeled around the corner. With her set of keys in one hand the other on the bar of the door, she pushed it open.

“Thanks again, I—” Sam began to say as they stepped out to exit the building but was cut off with the sounds of loud voices and demeaning insults being hurled at them. There in Alex’s vision bounced more of those awful signs. Were these people seriously this dead-set on harassing them this late into the night?

“You’re officially trespassing on private property, we’re closed.” Alex hollered over their voices and sidled closer to Sam protectively.

“Don’t you people have anything better to do?” Sam’s voice followed in a shout.

One of the loud voices shot back, “Not until you’re closed for good, and your kind are gone from here! Repent unto the Lord, for he shall forgive your sinful—”

The voice trailed off as Sam stopped. Alex felt the hairs raise on the back of her neck.

“You’ll have to be more specific, the brown kind or the queer kind? Because I happen to be both. And we’re not going anywhere, ever—” She began to shout as Alex took her by the elbow and began to trudge through the crowd. Clearly a nerve had been struck in the bartender, because she continued to yell.

“Abrirse, tu homófobo hijueputa! Vete a la mierda, voy a—”

Sam’s Spanish was an angry stream of what Alex was sure to be some very fitting insults as she kept moving to part the swarming bodies in front of them with an arm out. Alex’s Chevy Nova was now in view, and she made the quick decision to pull Sam toward it, unlocking the passenger’s side door first and helping her inside. The crowd descended upon them behind the vehicle, drawing closer and closer as Alex ran around to the driver’s side, unlocked the door, and jumped in. She turned the key in the ignition as a mischievous grin spread across her face.

Alex turned toward Sam in the passenger’s seat and placed a hand on the back of her head rest to help her twist and look out through the rear windshield.

“Watch this…” She said as her full-toothed grin grew wider.

She pushed down on the clutch and threw the gear shift into first, moving her left foot quickly from the clutch to the brake with her right foot full metal on the gas. They didn’t move an inch, but the rear wheels spun fast, screeching their rubber onto the pavement and creating a thick plume of smoke which engulfed the protestors. Sam squealed and laughed as she watched through the rearview mirror. After she was satisfied with her burnout, Alex let off the brake and turned the wheel hard to fishtail them in a tight turn from a standstill and then they were finally moving forward and away from the crowd.

They drove for a few minutes as their laughter subsided when she realized she didn’t know where Sam lived, and that she hadn’t had the intention to drive her home in the first place. The split-second decision to get Sam away from the angry crowd, or rather to get them away from her, ended up with the bartender she had an earth-shattering crush on sitting in her Nova at three in the morning.

What a spitfire of a woman...

Coming back to her senses, Alex finally opened her mouth to speak. “Um… sorry for sort of, kidnapping you, I guess? Should I drop you off at home or do you want to wait and turn back?”

Sam exhaled comfortably and sank into the leather seat. “That’s fine, I don’t live far- just over on eleventh. Could you maybe give me a ride back to my car tomorrow though? I don’t work Saturdays, but I have some errands to run…”

“Yeah, no problem. It might be early though if that’s alright? I have police academy in like four hours—”

“Oh, impressive!” Sam exclaimed.

Alex scrunched her nose and turned to look at the brunette. “Is it?” She chuckled. “I’ve found it’s kind of a hit or miss with some people. But it’s what I want to do, so…”

“Of course.” Sam fluttered her lashes at her. Alex’s insides nearly liquified. “We need more cops like you. Obviously.”

Alex swallowed hard past the lump in her throat and shrugged her shoulders. They drove for a while in silence before Alex decided to speak again.

“Can I confess something to you?”

Sam turned in her seat, this time with the full use of her hips and stared at Alex for a beat before responding. “Sure.”

A little more comfortable now, but with her heart still stuck in her throat, Alex tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “I thought you were straight, like, for the longest time.”

Sam laughed, which helped Alex to relax a little bit. She was thankful the brunette hadn’t taken any offense at the assumption.

“What would a straight woman be doing bartending at a gay bar?”

“Um, I don’t know, we tend to tip better?”

Another laugh.

“Fair point.” Sam batted her eyelashes at her again.

Goddammit she needs to quit that.

The brunette continued. “Technically, I’m bi. If you need a label. But really, I’m just… me, I guess.”

Alex felt bold and tried a joke. “Bi… lingual? I mean that was some pretty colorful—”

Sam swatted the back of her hand against Alex’s shoulder playfully with a small chuckle.

“Bisexual, goof.”

“Ah. Silly me.” Alex replied.

“Can I ask why you want to be a cop?” Sam’s voice was calm and smooth like a lull of thunder during a storm.

Alex shifted in her seat carefully so as not to display how instinctively uncomfortable the question made her. But she bit through it, and after a few short moments, did the best she could to answer.

“I have a sister… who I left back home. We…” She cleared her throat and sat up a little further behind the wheel. The roads were empty, and they weren’t in any hurry, so she took her time. “We come from a small community, a traditional one.”

“I see.” Sam smiled and lifted a finger to circle it in the direction of Alex’s mouth. “I guess that’s where that comes from?”

Alex huffed a small laugh. “If you’re talking about my accent, ‘fraid so.”

Sam hummed and leaned her temple on the headrest. Alex could feel her eyes almost burning into her profile as she drove them to the other side of downtown.

“Things are just… different where I come from, and not all of its right. I want to protect the people I care about, and when I can’t, it makes me feel…” She trailed off, squeezing the hard steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles began to turn white.

“Helpless?” Sam offered.

“Angry.” Alex took in a deep breath and sank back into her seat.

“I can understand that.” Sam said quietly. Then she lifted a hand and pointed to a row of apartments coming into view down the road. “Here I am, just there…”

Alex pulled to the side of the street and brought the Nova to a stop, flipping off the lights as they sat in another, shorter, silence.

“Can I see your hand?” Sam asked as she unbuckled her seatbelt.

Alex puzzled her brow as she lifted her right arm. Sam reached into her small shoulder bag for a pen and then took Alex’s hand in her own, flipping it palm up. She wrote her telephone number at the base of her thumb and then capped the pen, shoving it back into her bag.

“Thanks for tonight, Alex.” The brunette quickly leaned forward and pecked a kiss on Alex’s cheek which elicited a small, surprised gasp. “Instead of staring at me from the front door, why not try just coming over to talk?” She whispered just close enough for her breath to fall on Alex’s ear, making her shiver.

Alex’s mouth immediately went dry. Then she nodded and managed to reply with, “Okay.”

“See you in a few hours?”

She nodded again. “Yep.”

The next thing she knew, Sam had climbed out and shut the door, and was walking toward her apartment building. Alex’s heart was like a hammer in her chest as she sat and waited until she could see the woman safely enter a door and shut it behind her before flipping her lights back on and pulling away from the street. Her mind was a greased, yet wobbly hamster wheel.

Holy shit, I’m in trouble.

The two hours of physical training before class hit Alex like a bus. Normally she could breeze right through PT with plenty of wind still left in her sails thanks to her upbringing on a ranch that attributed to not only her physique but her work ethic as well, but today she was running on fumes. No doubt due to the fact that she hadn’t slept a single wink by the time she made it to her bed after dropping Sam off at her apartment across town. Her cheek still tingled where a kiss had been laid. She had played it over and over in her mind on a loop. Was it appreciative affection? Or romantic affection? She knew one thing for certain… it was definitely affectionate. A simple thanks or hell, even a friendly pat on the shoulder might have sufficed, but Sam had kissed her. On the cheek… but still. She thought of nothing else until the ringing of the alarm from her phone told her it was time to be on her feet again.

“Danvers!”

Alex threw her head forward and nearly out of her chair. As hard plastic and uncomfortable as it was, she must have been dozing off. Stress management classes in her third week course were thankfully the least physically demanding in the curriculum so far. Her instructor, a grizzly man with a hard face directed his attention at her in full force now.

“The time management portion of this course is probably something you should be paying attention to, since it seems you can’t manage your time well enough to stay awake in my class. Or am I boring you?” He barked.

“No sir, sorry sir.” Alex answered, starkly aware of her surroundings now and also slightly embarrassed. She sat up stiff and remained alert for the rest of the class. She had either disassociated her entire drive home or had somehow driven herself there half-asleep, knowing both were incredibly dangerous but nonetheless, she ended up in her bed just after noon.

Closet doors slammed at the ends of their tracks as Alex folded them inward and began gathering handfuls of clothes, stuffing them into a suitcase that was spread open on a bed behind her.

“If you think I’m going to let you leave here like this—”

“What are you going to do, huh?! Are you going to stop me?” She shouted over her shoulder at the other voice just outside of the room and turned to kick a laundry basket out of her path. “I’m taking Kara and we’re leaving!”

“You will do no such thing.” The voice warned.

“She’s eighteen now, she can leave if she wants. She’s an adult.”

“She’s hardly an adult—”

“That’s because you have her trapped here under your boot heel, you’re not doing her any favors by hiding her away from the world. I can’t believe you!” Alex screamed, and threw a picture frame against the wall, shattering its glass.

“Alexandra, stop!”

“You people and your silence, and your way of sweeping everything under a rug, it’s poison. She deserves to know!” Her voice strained with her shouting now.

“I told you, not a word to Kara and I mean that.”

“Oh I know you do- how could you even ask that of me? What is wrong with you!”

Alex zipped up the suitcase and started for the door. “Kara! Kara we’re leaving!”

The body attached to the voice blocked her exit, she couldn’t get around.

“Move.”

“No.” The voice said, firm and resolute.

“Move!!”

She managed to shove past and make her way down a set of stairs, her boots thundering against the wood.

“Kara!”

“I sent her out to the paddock. I won’t tell you again girl, you leave her alone.”

“No- no I won’t.” Alex fought hard to choke a breath down, her chest was heaving, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Alexandra I swear to almighty God that if you breathe a word of any of it to her, not only will you leave this house, but you may never be allowed to return. I will never let you see her again; do you understand me?” The voice boomed over her from the top of the stairs.

She racked a sob finally and felt herself begin to spin. The room, the stairs, and the floor underneath her feet all began to churn and undulate wildly. Then she began to fall. Further and further into blackness she plummeted, as though she had been sucked into a vacuum and the pressure against her body grew tighter and tighter around her, trapping her arms against her torso and then robbing the air from her lungs until…

Alex shot straight up in her bed, drawing a ragged gasp into her lungs. She sputtered and choked for breath and was drenched in sweat. Her hands achingly unfurled from fists as she spread them into the top quilt of her bed, recognizing its knit pattern. It anchored her back to reality. Once she caught her breath and managed to lift a hand to wipe the stinging salt of sweat from her eyes, she swung her legs over the edge of the mattress and planted her toes against the cold floor. Her heart throbbed and her chest felt like it wanted to split in half. All of her emotions welled into a knot in the very middle of her throat and before she could even think about swallowing it back down, her face contorted, and she burst into tears. She wept hard, thinking of home… and her sister, Kara.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: Do I Scare You?

The next few weeks were a subtle ‘cat and mouse’ where Alex would either make her trek to the back office of the club without so much as a glance from the beautiful bartender, or she would receive a very intentional, very seductive flutter of eyelashes as she walked by. Chin-in-palm, elbow on the bar top, the whole nine. After a while Alex found that she enjoyed a bit of slight teasing in the form of hiding Sam’s favorite bottle blade in peculiar places, like hanging it from a lanterned chandelier just above the bar, or suggesting to guests one night as they walked in to try a new drink special she called the ‘Yeehaw & Giddy Up’. The confused look on Sam’s face from the bar sent had her into a fit of laughter. It was innocent, playful, non-verbal banter. Alex had eventually begun to look forward to her nights more than her days.

Mondays would blend into Fridays and before she knew it, the weekends were upon them. She’d spend each Saturday and Sunday kicking herself for not sending a text or walking over to the bar to spark conversation with the woman whose bewitching smile simply would not disappear from her mind. Her thumb hovered over Sam’s name in her phone’s contact list, desperate to reach out, but she was essentially lost as far as words go.

Since when does this shit happen to me? Hm? I can talk to anyone…

“Are you gonna use that or just stand on it all day?”

Alex flung her mind back toward reality and her surroundings came into view again. Shoving her phone back into a pocket of her leggings from where she stood motionless on a treadmill, she spun her head around toward the voice at her back.

“Sorry, yeah- I think I’m done.” Her apology dripped with embarrassment.

She had either gotten too comfortable with the fact that she was pretty much the only person who used any of the cardio equipment in the gym below her apartment or was so lost in thought with Sam that she really did need to just knuckle down and text her. Escaping reality was nice, but not when she was driving herself home dead-tired or making herself an obstacle for others to move around. Alex nodded toward herself, inwardly critical of her daydreaming and made her way toward the back end of the building where an old, wrought iron spiral staircase led to her apartment. She needed to rinse her mind of its wild roving thoughts.

Unfortunately, no amount of steam to open her pores or hot water on the back of her neck could break her free of them. Frustrated with her failure of self-discipline and to ‘police’ her mind, she resolved to spend the rest of the day on her couch in front of her television. She dressed comfortably in her baggy gray academy issue sweatpants and an extra-large sized thrift store t-shirt that came complete with the ridiculous visage of an open-winged bald eagle in flight across a billowing American flag. The four channels that came in clear enough to watch without squinting or crossing her eyes were the local news, a channel that ran infomercials all day and all night, a public broadcast that was oftentimes more tiresome than it was educational, and a channel that played classic noir films and re-runs of 1970’s American sitcoms such as Three’s Company, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley.

Laverne & Shirley typically came on in the afternoons directly after Happy Days, and when she flipped the channel on and saw the credits rolling with images of Henry Winkler as The Fonz, she settled in for a cozy evening with the girls from Shotz Brewery.

Still her mind could not tear itself away from the brunette. Half an hour passed before she grumbled and shot to her feet, swiping her phone from the nightstand next to her bed and plodding her fleet heavily back toward the couch in a huff. She sat back down and drew a knee to her chest, releasing a discontented sigh. She figured, what the hell…

Hey barkeep, what are you up to?

She grumbled lowly and buried her face in her hands, abandoning her phone to her lap.

Hey barkeep? …Idiot.

It had been an almost effortless tapping of letters into words with her thumbs, as if they had formulated a mind of their own and sent the message before she herself had realized it. She was rubbing those same offending thumbs into the corners of her eyes when the phone in her lap vibrated only moments later. She jolted in surprise and turned the screen over to read it.

Hi! Not much, just watching TV. You?

Alex hadn’t expected her to text back so quickly. Hell, she hadn’t even expected to text Sam so nonchalantly in the first place, but there she was, scrambling to formulate a reply.

Same. What are you watching?

Another rapid response came in just seconds after pressing send.

Laverne & Shirley. Ever seen it?

WHAT.

She barked out a laugh and began comfortably sending and receiving another string of quick messages.

Are you kidding? I’m watching it right now. Such a good show.

Right?!

Can I tell you a secret?

Sure

When I was a kid, I kind of wanted them to end up together.

Alex chuckled quietly and continued smiling at the face of her phone as she typed quickly with her thumbs.

Oh, I don’t think that’s much of a secret.
You, me, and hundreds- if not thousands of other women thought the same thing.

She paused. That was more words in a single text message that she had sent to anyone in years, or ever, she supposed. The three dots in the lower left corner appeared on the screen to signal that Sam was typing a reply, and she relaxed.

Well. I guess it was the 1970’s after all.
Apparently queer people didn’t exist before 1980.

Alex laughed out loud again.

Gorgeous and funny.

That and Laverne snored.
So, probably a deal breaker.

There was another pause in between their messages. Perhaps Sam was done chatting and simply went back to watching television. Alex sat her phone face down on the makeshift coffee table built out of stacked cinder blocks and an old door in front of the couch, but as soon as her fingers left it, it vibrated once with another message. She leaned forward again to read it.

Do you snore?

Alex gulped hard. Was she flirting with her again? She backpedaled in her mind frantically. Was all of the playful back and forth teasing they had shared up to now considered flirting? Or had she somehow translated all of that in her mind after the fact to merely be sincere, passing friendliness? Maybe Sam just thought of her as a friend and was wanting to get to know her. Had she confused the two? She started to figure that maybe she was just hopeful and was seeing things that weren’t there… But that night at 3 am in her car certainly felt like flirting…They hadn’t been that physically close in proximity since.

She tucked her legs underneath herself to sit comfortably again and hovered her thumbs over the screen for several more moments before typing.

Maybe if I’m really worn out, I think?
I’m not sure.

She hit send and then quickly followed up with another right after.

Is that a deal breaker?

She had meant for the second text to provide some levity but thought afterward that an emoji might have proved useful in that aspect. She regretted not adding one. Her palms were sweating, and she rubbed them down the legs of her sweatpants waiting for Sam’s reply. It came in sooner than she expected.

No. ;)

It was the next Monday night at Sadie’s when Sam made it abundantly clear to Alex that she was indeed flirting with her.

“Need help?”

Alex looked down from the top of the three-tiered step ladder at the brunette. She had been unscrewing a large decorative bulb from an overhead lantern and could barely grip her fingertips around the glass to twist it free of its socket. She had eventually succeeded and lowered her arms when Sam had called up to her.

“Um, yeah actually, could you hand me the new bulb from that box there?” She answered with a smile at Sam and pointed over to a nearby table.

The grinning bartender retrieved the new low watt bulb and skipped back over to the stool where Alex stood, but instead of handing it to her, she took a step up onto it with her. She went the extra mile and tugged her free hand at one of Alex’s front pockets to hoist herself up the remaining two steps. They were flush against each other now on the stool, and nearly a breath apart. Alex’s heart jumped into her throat.

She found Sam’s smile to be much more brilliant and intoxicating up close. This close. The brunette huffed what felt and sounded like a nervous laugh, or Alex had deduced as much by the way her breath washed upon the side of her face when she did. Sam then put one hand on one of Alex’s shoulders to hold herself steady and lifted the other with the bulb to screw it into the lantern above them.

After the last few squeaky turns of the bulb into the socket, Sam lowered her hand and placed it on Alex’s other shoulder. Her gaze floated downward and was caught by warm, brown orbs. Time seemed to have been suspended for a few seconds when Sam paused, and she was unable to tear her eyes away from Alex. The surrounding noise from the club around them ceased to exist. The only thing Alex could hear was the loud drumming in her inner ears, which was the beating of her own heart, full tilt and screaming toward rhapsody. Sam’s eyelids fluttered momentarily, and her line of sight dropped to Alex’s lips and then back to her eyes, which were blown wide and dark now.

“I’m a little bit taller than you.” Sam’s words were so hushed, as if she only meant for her to hear them and no one else.

Alex’s mouth was a dry as a desert, yet she licked her lips to offer a reply, any reply, back at the brunette. “I see that.”

Sam bit the bottom lip of her smile into her teeth, and then finally pulled away to walk down the steps of the ladder. Her hands slid from Alex’s shoulders and down the length of her arms to do so, making the slightly shorter woman shiver from where she stood at the top of the stool by the time their hands reached one another. She noticed that Sam’s hands felt so natural in her own, like she had been touching them for years.

“Thanks…” Alex said after clearing her throat. She was desperate to return to the land of the living, as she wasn’t sure how long her heart had stopped beating after it hammered into her ears.

“Anytime.” The brunette offered over her shoulder with another small smile as she walked back across the floor of the club toward the bar.

Alex couldn’t believe how up close and personal they had just been. Now that she thought about it, it had been quite a while since she had been up close and personal with anyone. That was made clear by the warmth that had flushed its way from her chest and down her middle to pool in between her legs. She immediately wished she could jump into a cold shower. The doors to the club were to open in less than an hour and her head felt like it was in fucking outer space. Never before had a woman rattled her like this so physically and mentally. But what bothered her the most about it, was how she craved it. 

The next couple of nights went by fast. Alex found herself somehow more invigorated and energized each day during police academy classes and physical training. She had been consistently outperforming her male classmates since their initiation and whether or not that pissed them off or made them feel any certain way other than inspired, they apparently chose to keep it to themselves. Alex spent weeks seemingly waiting for the other proverbial boot to drop. She had gone in almost expecting some emasculated pushback but had received none yet. It didn’t make her drop her guard though, she had lived a life full of sexism and gender prejudice back in the small town where she had migrated from but was altogether satisfied with the lack of it for now.

Alex eventually paid Sam back for her shameless ladder act with a well-timed flirt whilst walking past the end of the bar on a Thursday night. The brunette had made eye contact with her right as she had lifted a glass of water to her lips and took a drink, which Alex had spontaneously decided would be the perfect time to send a wink, if not her best smolder. The unsuspecting bartender sputtered mid-gulp and half-choked as water went cascading down her windpipe. She shot Alex a cute, but frustrated smirk as she wiped her chin.

It was the small victories. The teasing they exchanged over the next week grew in obviousness and intensity with everything from small favors and profuse complimenting to heavy innuendo just out of earshot of anyone else. Alex had noticed that in the time between that night where Sam ended up in the passenger’s seat of her Chevy Nova and now, she hadn’t felt herself get frustrated or pissed off by much of anything. She hadn’t felt her temper run away with itself in weeks, which was remarkable. Was it because she was too preoccupied with feeling giddy and seen by the bartender who worked each weeknight with her? Or were things truly starting to shift in her life enough to where she was able to go weeks at a time without losing her shit?

That question was answered on a Friday night. The club was hosting another Drag Comedy special and everything seemed to be moving along as scheduled. Alex was sitting at the podium in her alcove by the front door taking cover charges as people steadily filtered in from outside when she heard shouting just inside the club behind her. The loud voice was different from the usual raucous laughter that filled the seating area on comedy nights, and after another hollered expletive that was followed by what sounded very much like ‘get away from us’, Alex spun on her heels and moved inside quickly.

She spotted him right away. A stack of pamphlets in one hand, and the wrist of a young woman half his size in the other. Alex thrust herself in between them, breaking his hold on her.

“Sir, I’m gonna ask you to make your way out of the club now.” She said firmly as she moved toward him, motioning her hands in the direction of the front door as though she hadn’t actually asked him a question at all; it had in fact been an order.

“I am here doing God’s work, saving the souls of these—”

“You clearly got lost and ended up at the wrong church, pal, now let’s go.” She cut him off and kept her forward momentum.

The man suddenly tried to juke around her and run back into the crowd, which set off alarm bells in her head. Her hands shot out to grab at his arms. One missed, but the other latched on to him and when he spun, a fist came around and clocked her right in the face.

Alex didn’t falter for a second. Her teenage years had come with many a fist fight and she could sure as hell take a punch without getting her bell rung. She did, however, see red.

Her right leg took his left out from under him, and she dropped her full weight on top of him by the razor-edged bone of her forearm against the back of his head. The side of his face landed against the floor with an almost sickening ‘thud’, and he went still immediately. The lone fact that he was no longer moving was what snapped her back to reality. The smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke filled her nose, and the loudness of the club reached her ears once again. Alex had been expecting a fight and had been filled with adrenaline almost immediately, but instead of trading blows, the man had ended up face down on the floor in a split second. Quite frankly, it took the wind out of her sails.

She reached with two fingers at his neck and pressed down, registering a pulse. Alex hid her overwhelming relief from the small crowd that had begun to form around them as she drew back on her knees. Thankful for her sense of preparedness and training at the academy, she retrieved the zip-tie restraints from the back of her belt and secured his hands behind his back. Then she pulled out her phone to call the local station’s dispatch line for an officer, with whom she would file a report and notice of trespass for the drooling man on the floor. He had struck her after being ordered to leave the premises, which she could also have him charged with assault for; but ultimately decided against it. His pride would be wounded enough. She stayed kneeling beside him until he came to and when he did, he groggily craned his head to look around at his surroundings.

A uniform showed up only minutes after her call and on their way out of the front door, Alex mentioned that he may need to be also checked out by a paramedic since she had technically knocked him unconscious. The officer turned his head and looked her up and down with what Alex read as either surprise or respect… but couldn’t tell which. Then he nodded without a word and pulled the trespasser along and out of the club by an elbow. She knew that it wouldn’t have ended well if she had left that part of the incident out of her report and the man ended up suffering some kind of lingering head injury from the way it had smacked against the floor.

She had just been so overcome with instinct in the moment. Her body took over and her ‘fight or flight’ had kicked in. Which, as always in that scenario, had never once ended up in ‘flight’ in her entire life. The remnants of the adrenaline that had poured into her veins made her visibly shaky, or so she had noticed when she pulled the velvet rope across the entry way from her alcove at the front of the club. She needed a minute to settle her nerves, and she needed to do it somewhere quiet.

Her feet brought her to the small single stall bathroom across the hall from the changing rooms at the back of the club. She shoved the door open with a shoulder and lunged toward the sink. Her heart was still pounding as she yanked the faucet handle to run the water. The altercation played on a loop in her mind, over and over, and soon she couldn’t get his voice out of her head. His voice then turned into another, and then another. All from her past. All spouting the same harmful religious rhetoric targeted toward people like her and before long her jaw clenched, and her hands at the sink squeezed themselves into fists. She shut the faucet back off hard, the sound of the running water only added to her rising temper.

There it was, like an old enemy. Anger.

The door behind her flew open suddenly, which startled her and made her raise her fists. But once she laid her eyes on Sam, she lowered them back down quickly. Sam’s eyes were wide and the expression on her face was one of deep concern. She reached behind and pushed the button on the knob of the door to lock it.

“Are you okay?” Sam’s words were crisp and clear, but also heavily laden with worry.

“I—” Alex gulped. “Yeah. I’m fine.” She nodded her head almost too enthusiastically.

Why am I lying?

The brunette furrowed her brow for a moment, and then crossed the space in the small bathroom between them, stepping gently into Alex’s. There they were, only a breath apart again. Sam’s eyes scanned her face, bouncing from chin to brow to cheek. One of her hands found its way to Alex’s face and gingerly cupped her jaw. Alex had never felt so thoroughly looked over after a brief encounter with danger. Not since before her father died.

“You scared me.” Sam whispered.

Alex watched her eyes zero back in on hers. They were the color of copper, the sharpest brown she had ever seen. They bore into her, desperate for a response. When Alex realized how genuinely unsettled the brunette was, the most interesting reaction came over her; she felt relief. The maelstrom of racing thoughts in her mind pulled back, and she was finally able to able to let a breath out.

“Do I scare you?” Alex had asked without thinking.

Sam stood with that for a long moment, flitting her eyes back and forth between Alex’s darker ones. “No. But you getting hurt does.”

Her thumb brushed over the redness of Alex’s cheekbone where a bruise was sure to form later.

“Sam…” Alex murmured nervously.

The brunette leaned closer slowly, almost agonizingly so. Their lips were close enough to touch if Alex would just fall forward half an inch. She could feel Sam’s quickened breaths cascading into the divot on her upper lip just beneath her nose, and every cell in her body screamed for her to move.

“Sam.” She warned again.

Alex lifted a hand and brushed a length of Sam’s dark hair behind one of her ears, then she pulled away from her slowly. She looked at the brunette longingly, turning her eyebrows up in defeat.

“I think about you too often… I got distracted.” She shook her head slightly at herself and then looked down at her feet.

Sam’s hand scooped downward from Alex’s injured cheekbone to lift her chin. “Hey. Listen to me, it was one slip. You do a great job…”

Alex met her gaze again with that.

“I promise. Nobody blames you. It was a thing that happened, and you did great.”

A loud knock on the door made them both jump. Seconds later, Sam leaned forward and kissed Alex on the cheek for the second time. Alex suddenly felt very warm, and very tempted to tell the person on the other side of the door to go away. But instead, she chose to not cross that line. Not tonight anyways.

“Thanks, Sam.”

The bartender flashed her a smile. “Don’t mention it.”

While Sam had been understanding and even compassionate about the incident, Alex’s boss Leslie wasn’t so easily assuaged. Two in the morning brought her to the back office, where Leslie Willis shut the door hard behind her and rubbed at her temples. She paced anxiously toward the other end of the small room.

“Explain to me what the hell happened…. Slowly.”

By this point in the night, Alex was just ready to go home and crawl into bed. She sighed and rested her hands on her hips, and just decided to get it over with. She couldn’t lose this job. Her anxiety set in.

“He had street clothes on. The guy looked… even though I hate the word, normal. When he came inside, I guess none of my instincts pitched any alarms. I—" Alex shook her head. She was, for the most part, still astounded that someone could have slipped under her radar like that. He clearly had entered the building with the pretense of intimidating the guests with his radical religious interpretations and had to have put money directly in Alex’s hand to do so. She must have looked right at him.

“I don’t know what happened. He got past me; I don’t know what else to say.”

Leslie stopped and leaned back against the edge of the desk at the far end of the small office. She then crossed her arms and trained her eyes on Alex’s face like laser beams.

“Do you know why I hired you?”

Alex paused, slightly taken aback. “Because I came with zero references and a nice smile?”

Her attempt at humor didn’t stick its landing apparently. Leslie’s face remained unchanged and Alex grimaced, full of teeth.

“I chose you out of literal dozens of, quite frankly, much larger, more intimidating, more qualified applicants because… Not only do you make the people inside this building feel safe; you make them feel cared for.”

Alex screwed her eyebrows together in consternation at the woman across the room. Leslie continued.

“Any beefy dude wearing a black t-shirt with the word ‘Security’ printed on the back in big letters can make anyone feel safe, sure, but people are much more likely to believe it when they know the person in charge of keeping them safe cares about them on a deeper level. Danvers, you’re one of us. You’ve experienced the prejudice and the fear, and you’re a damn good judge of character.”

These were quite possibly the nicest things Leslie had ever said to her during her entire time working there. To her face, at least. Alex believed her.

“So, after tonight, I have to ask… Is there something going on with you that I should know about? If this is about the bartender—”

“No.” Alex interrupted. Then she recovered, “No, we’re… friendly. That’s it.”

Leslie narrowed her eyes at her with that. “Sure.” Her voice rang with disbelief. “All I’m saying is… either lock it down and figure that shit out, or one of those ‘beefy dudes’ I mentioned before will be your replacement. And please, for the love of David Bowie, don’t make me do that. They are so boring.”

Alex nodded firmly at her and grabbed her punch card from her assigned cubby on the wall. “I’ve got this.” She stopped for a moment after punching her card and turned back around toward her boss.

“And her name is Sam.”

Leslie looked back up at her from a stack of receipts she had started shuffling through in her hands. “Hmm?”

“The bartender. Her name is Sam.” Alex stated confidently.

Her boss shook her chin and puzzled her brow, slightly perturbed now. “I know that- get outta here!” She tossed a hand at her to shoo her out of the office. Clearly the ‘kind’ Leslie had made her exit and the agitated, near-zero patience Leslie had returned.

With that, Alex smirked and stepped out of the office. Her bed was calling her.

The top quilt on Alex’s bed was scratchier than normal. She tossed herself onto her other side with a huff and kept her eyes closed, worried that if she opened them, she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.

A loud banging noise slammed them open. Her room looked… different. A moment later there was shout. It hadn’t come from inside her room, but outside of it, and it echoed as it traveled its way to her ears. Then she heard another shout. A different voice now; a familiar one.

Alex drew back the quilt from her bed and swung her legs out. She slowly made her way to the door and could hear more shouting back and forth now. Then a repeated, hollow pounding sound drew closer and closer to where she stood. Her hand went to the knob and turned it, even though every molecule in her body was begging her not to. The door opened just as a dark, shadowy figure of a man in a large hat rose to the top of the stairs in front of her. She was unable to see his face as he stood there, and he was whipping his head back and forth in search of something. The lines and edges of him ebbed and flowed like water, but he still held the shape of a man. Hanging low to the floor from one of his hands… was a shotgun. 

“April!” He shouted and stomped down the landing toward another door. “Where you at, girl… I know you’re here!”

The man lifted a large boot and kicked the door at the end of the landing open, splintering its frame and bringing two high-pitched screams out from the inside of the room.

“Daddy!”

Alex knew that voice…

“…Kara?”

She watched, frozen in her doorway as the man threw the broken door aside and entered the room. Another pair of terrified screams rang out.

“Hey! Get out of my house!” The other familiar voice from before thundered up the stairs and when it appeared, the man that came attached to it she recognized as her father. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was him. Her heart began to beat so hard it hurt. She was afraid now, and everything was slowly starting to feel very dangerous. Like something very, very bad was about to happen.

“You hear me? I said get—” The man in the hat burst out of the room, dragging a small body from the top if its head by its hair and he shoved her father hard, sending him crashing into a wall.

Something inside of Alex suddenly snapped. Her arms flung outward, and her hands curled into fists. She ran toward the man who was charging toward the stairs now, the tiny body still caught in his grip flailed wildly to escape, swinging and grabbing at anything it could take hold of. It latched onto the rungs of the staircase railing, desperate to get away.

“Stop it! Let go!” Alex’s voice boomed inside of her own head, jarring her. She slammed her fists into the figure repeatedly, which had absolutely no effect no matter how hard she struck him. It was as if she was hitting a dense pillow, or something entirely inanimate because the man paid her no attention and continued dragging the small kicking and screaming figure down the stairs. Rage filled her. She felt like she could scream loud enough to split the world in half. Her vision suddenly began to darken and blur, and in an instant the wood floor of the landing dropped out from underneath her bare feet.

She was falling again. The air from her lungs was ripped out of her and she tried and failed to take another breath in. She was falling endlessly down, someplace where there was no air, and nothing to grab on to, no Kara… no Daddy… no end in sight, until…

Alex’s body jolted her awake, once again soaked in sweat from the top of her head down. Her chest heaved and drew in breath after breath, making her choke and swallow past the dryness of her throat. She shook violently. Her mind slowly caught up with the panicked state of her body and the still vivid parts of her nightmare began to flash before her eyes. She remembered how terrified she was. How it felt. How angry it had made her that she was unable to do anything.

She growled behind her clenched teeth and pinched her eyes shut.

Make it stop!

The loudness of her own voice in her head infuriated her. She threw the first thing her hand came into contact with, which was her pillow, and sent it flying across her apartment, knocking it into a handful of things on her dining room table which fell and crashed to the floor. She screamed at herself then, balling her fists in front of her eyes.

There was nothing she could do back then. She had been too small, and too afraid.

You can’t do anything.

You can’t help anyone.

She knew the traumatized part of her mind was lying to her, but after six months of the same night terrors over, and over, and over again… she felt like she had no other choice but to start believing it.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three: Baby Steps

Alex had run this same course twice before in preparation for their physical training exam at the end of the month, but this was the first time scaling its barriers and crawling under and over each obstacle in the rain. Mud covered her tactical pants all the way up to her knees as well as much of the course in front of her. She was halfway through when she got the bright idea to pitch her leg out into a slide under a low set of bars meant for her to crawl under and zipped right underneath them as if sliding onto home base. It had shaved several seconds off her overall time and a triumphant grin split across her face as she heard the unmistakable groans and jeers come from her classmates standing on the sidelines of the course. She had a competitive nature and loved to win. The other academy initiates hadn’t been able to beat her time the first two attempts at the course over a period of two months, and her improvisation now assured that she’d top the chart this time as well.

They ran the course in groups of five and despite the mud she recognized the classmate to her left, but the runner on her right, however, was new. He was smaller in size than the rest of the men in their class, and apparently half as coordinated. When he hiked a leg over a hurdle ahead of him at full speed, his back leg didn’t quite get the message and it caught as he went over. His arms flew out in front of him as he smacked the mud on the ground chest first and slid several feet ahead of everyone else. Apparently sliding on the mud worked to everyone’s advantage, not just hers.

Her breathing was controlled, but heavy. The added weight from her clothes being soaked head to toe from the rain not only made it more laborious for her to move her limbs, but they weighted her down which proved to burn more of her energy. She thought about stopping to help the man to her right recover and get back to his feet, but he was up and flailing forward to continue on by the time that she reached him.

Alex was the first to reach the tall wooden barrier at the end of the course. She smacked into it with her forward momentum and grasped at the large woven rope dangling against the wall. Their route choked down to this one last obstacle which required all five runners to climb their ropes up and over to finish. Grunting and choking past the falling rain, she gripped the rope and climbed arm over arm when her boots slipped against the slick wood.

Dammit…

She slipped once more about midway up the wall and noticed the runner to her right had now caught up to her. Her vision was somewhat blurred through the fat raindrops bombarding her face, but she could see that he was red faced and struggling.

Remarkably, they both made it to the top at the same time. Alex could feel the pounding of feet against the wood as the other three runners on the course began their climb from the bottom of the wall. Her arm went over the edge, and she hooked it there to gasp for breath for a few moments before going over. She decided to look to her right one more time and saw that where the man’s face had been cherry red with effort, was now white as a sheet. His eyes bulged at the ground on the other side of the wall. Alex realized he was terrified.

“You have to go over!” She hollered at him through the pouring rain.

He looked back at her and blinked through the wetness pouring into his eyes. “I can’t!”

Confused, she tossed her chin at him. “What do you mean you can’t?”

“I can’t!” He repeated louder, and more frantic.

Alex knew that even though this was a trial run for their upcoming exam, he would still be washed out of the academy if he couldn’t complete the course. She ran a quick series of outcomes in her mind before deciding to move on or stay to help him, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she couldn’t just leave him hanging there. The wall was fifteen feet high at most, so there was no danger of death or serious injury if he fell, unless he were to land at an awkward angle and break something, but that was a risk she decided to overlook. Left with no other option, she reached out and grabbed him by the belt.

“Twist on the ledge when you go over and try to land on your feet!” She yelled.

“What?!”

She hoisted him upward by his belt and he scrambled wildly to hang on. His eyes met hers in a split-second and she could see that within that single moment, he decided to bite past the fear and nodded that he was ready. He twisted on his stomach on the flat four-inch ledge and swung his legs over in a plank. Then he lost his grip, lashed an arm out to catch the ledge as he dropped from it, and went over.

The last thing Alex saw of him was the swipe of a desperate hand at the wood as he went down. She gasped and lunged herself upward onto the ledge to look. Thankfully, she saw him roll out of a tuck on the ground and stand back on his feet. The three runners that had been behind them landed on the other side clumsily just seconds after. She hadn’t noticed that they had scaled the wall and passed her up. She had gone from leading the course, to being the last to finish. When her boots met the grass on the other side of the wall, she rolled into her landing. A flawless finish, but her time had been decimated.

The man that had run the course on her right was off to the side, bent over with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. Today had definitely topped her list of most physically demanding training days to date. Once she regained her composure, she walked on her tired feet and aching knees over to him to introduce herself.

“Danvers, Alex.” She stuck out her hand, which he saw and lifted his face toward her.

He shook it as he wiped the rain from his face with his other hand in a downward swipe. It had cleared some of the mud from his features and enabled Alex see him more clearly now. He had a sharp, square jaw, a dimpled chin and thick dark eyebrows that sat above beady eyes. Some color had even returned to his cheeks now that they were on the ground and no longer dangling from the top of a fifteen-foot wall.

“Schott, Winn.” He sputtered and licked his lips. “Thanks, for… back there.” He threw his head back at the obstacle course exhaustedly. “You wanna get outta the rain?”

Alex laughed. They were already soaking wet and covered in mud, but she figured it would probably be easier to talk when they didn’t need to yell over the loudness of pouring rain. Texas wasn’t exactly known to be a rainy state, but when it did, it sure as hell came down in buckets.

They walked back toward the building just beside the parking lot and stood under its metal awning. The brick insulated the sound of the deafening rainfall and Alex was suddenly thankful for the slight reprieve from the noise.

“I haven’t seen you before today, when did you join the class?” She asked Winn as she untucked her shirt from her belted waist and began to twist it to wring the water out. When she lifted her shirt slightly, she had felt the coolness of the air against her damp hip bones and saw that the man standing across from her who was also wringing out his drenched clothing had seen the quick flash of skin. His eyes hadn’t lingered, which helped to set her more at ease with him.

“Me and the rest of the Sparkies joined your class today. We’ll be graduating together.” He paused and then hung his head morosely. “I guess in my case that’s more of a strong maybe…”

Alex noticed how glum he was. In stature, he was a bit on the underwhelming side. He was lanky, a bit of a bean pole with sticks for legs. What she could see of his arms revealed very little muscle mass… her own actually might even be bigger. Not that her arms were large or defined, certainly not like her younger sister Kara’s. They were toned and lean for the most part but were what she personally regarded as an appropriate amount for her height and weight.

“Sparkies?”

“Bomb technicians. I’m a—” He answered and cleared his throat, scratching at the crown of his head through his short, dark hair. “Well, I’m more of a glorified electrician, really. Except I make things go boom—”

Alex laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to make things not go boom?”

He cracked a smile at that. “Yeah, but gotta learn how to put ‘em together first in order to take ‘em apart.”

Winn did strike her as more of an intellectual. Perhaps even someone who was outrageously intelligent. She wouldn’t be surprised. He screamed ‘bookworm’. She had never considered the fact that bomb techs would be required to take the same courses as her and would learn all of the same traffic and search and seizure laws. She figured it truly was a well-rounded program for all branches of code and law enforcement.

He leaned forward and spoke softly with a hand near the side of his mouth. “I’m not much of a runner.”

“Oh, I gathered.” Alex laughed again.

He cringed slightly with embarrassment. “Sorry I held you up on the course.”

She shook her head at him. “Hey, that was totally my decision. Couldn’t just leave you hanging up there all day, somebody had to get you down.”

He shifted on his feet and seemed to relax then.

“Well… thanks. Looks like I need to find a gym membership if I’m gonna keep up with everyone and not flunk out.”

Her ears perked up at that. “I actually know a gym—” Suddenly, a voice cut over hers from a short distance away.

“Hey Danvers, about damn time you stumble and quit makin’ the rest of us look bad!”

A few of her classmates were walking out to the parking lot under the covered walkway near them. They murmured lowly to themselves as they passed them, clearly now was the time a select few had decided to make their feelings toward her performance these past two months known.

Another voice from the small group rang out. “Yeah, bein’ too busy helping your scrawny boyfriend there cost you top of the class.”

Alex figured if anything, ‘alpha males’ were at least predictable. That was apparently what they had chosen as their first verbal interaction with her, apart from ‘hello’ or ‘excuse me’. It’s as if they couldn’t be bothered to ask ‘hey, can you help me with this’ or even try a ‘how are you’. She was used to it from the small town where she grew up, but it didn’t stop her blood from boiling every time something similar happened. She rolled her eyes and turned back toward Winn.

“Don’t listen to that crap. I’ve been running rings around them since day one and they’re just jealous. They’d probably say anything to get under my skin.” She set her jaw and then pursed her lips. “Which would probably work because I already want to feed them their teeth.”

That made Winn laugh. He perched his hands on his hips and lifted his chin at her, taking a step closer to speak even softer now so that no one else could overhear.

“That’s at least one thing you don’t have to worry about though.” He said as he ran his eyes over her from head to toe, acknowledging her with a subtle vagueness. “You’re not really my type.” He then tilted his head and stared down his nose at her.

She got the message immediately.

“Oh. That’s… great, actually. You’re not exactly my type either.”

They stared at each other in a comfortable silence for a long beat and then burst into laughter. A wave of relief washed over her, and she realized she felt perfectly safe around him now. She felt seen in a way that allowed her to let a few of her walls down. It felt great.

“Okay. Well in that case, d’you wanna hang out sometime?” He asked between a laugh.

Alex beamed. “Yes, actually. I moved here about four months ago and I know this many people…” She lifted a hand and touched her fingertips to her thumb in the shape of a zero.
“Well- except for one. I know one person.” She admitted quietly and felt a warmth flood her cheeks.

Winn hiked an eyebrow knowingly. He appeared to possess an air of curiosity about him. “Oh? Is she cute?” He asked with a full-toothed grin.

Alex stammered and cleared her throat loudly, then she muttered under her breath as if to hide the words, “Very cute.”

The sound of her sister’s voice was a breath of fresh air. Alex tried her best to call every week, but lately it would be two or more that she would go without talking to Kara who still lived back home.

“Mister misses you. He told me so himself.”

Alex laughed. She loved her younger sister’s peculiar and well-timed sense of humor; it was one that she wasn’t quite sure where she picked it up from. Her own humor was a little darker and more on the self-deprecating side and her father Jeremiah simply laughed at everything, not to mention her mother Eliza having no sense of humor to speak of. Not if it wasn’t masked by condescension or belittlement, of course. Perhaps Kara’s funny side was really more of a matter of nature versus nurture after all. Alex’s family had adopted her very young after she lost both of her parents in one fell swoop. Or blaze, rather. They had been consumed by a warehouse fire years ago and Kara had come to live at Danvers Ranch with them shortly after, which was where Alex grew to be fiercely protective of her.

“Oh, he did, did he?” Alex teased her sister. Mister was Alex’s retired breakaway roping horse. A champion stud who lived on the ranch with her sister back in their hometown. They had grown close during their competition years and in truth, she missed him badly.

“Why don’t you just come down and visit? It’s been months… is there something wrong?” Kara asked with a hushed voice from her end of the phone.

Alex froze at the top of the spiral staircase to her apartment. Kara had picked up the phone when she had just meant to leave a quick but heartfelt voicemail simply to say hi on her way down to the gym that day. Now she found herself up a creek without a paddle, treading water dangerously close to a discussion that she just couldn’t have.

She stammered in her attempt at a reply. “I- things are—” She drew a breath in to settle her racing thoughts. “Kara, I’m just not ready—”

Her sister cut her off, “You and Mama fought about a lot of things but was the last one really so bad that you just had to… leave?”

Alex nearly felt her heart split in two. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place, condemned to be spurned by her sister whom she loved more than anything in the world if she continued to keep things from her and damned to never seeing her again if she told her. A secret which not only meant losing her forever, but also turning her sister’s world upside down and quite possibly breaking her beyond repair.

Kara continued, “She took all your ribbons and pictures down, threw ‘em in a plastic tote in your closet. When I asked her why, all she said was that she was makin’ room for more memories.”

Even her sister’s impersonation of her mother’s voice cut like a knife. She couldn’t bear to hear anymore, so she tried her best to redirect the trajectory of the conversation.

“You know you could always come up here and spend a couple of days with me, my couch ain’t that bad.”

“Are you kidding? Leave Clark to run the shop by himself? We’d be backed up for weeks.”

Alex heard a long breath of a sigh on the other end.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t right now. Mama let the last kid go from the ranch and she still needs the help.”

What on earth…

“Why the hell did she do that? What happened?” Alex questioned her sister. Kara had revealed to her during their last phone conversation that their mother Eliza was firing the ranch hands one at a time without cause or warning. This greatly perplexed Alex still, no matter how many times she told herself that the ranch was no longer any of her concern now that she had moved on with her own life.

“She just wouldn’t say. You know how hard it is to get anything out of her, she’s a steel trap.”

Alex sighed.

Ain’t that the damn truth.

“Hey listen, I’ve gotta go but I’ll call you next week okay? I love you.”

“Yeah. I love you too.”

Alex tapped the button to end the call and shoved her phone back into the pocket of her leggings. The steps of the spiral staircase very much resembled the patterned calamity of memories that played on a loop in her mind. Her chest hurt with the weight of her broken heart. Feeling helpless and unable to change things often flared her temper, but she was glad to be heading down to the gym floor in order to relieve some of that. It felt like poison inside of her body the longer she kept it inside. She wondered if it was just a matter of time before it manifested itself into physical illness, rather than emotional.

She was wrapping her hands at a heavy bag hanging along a wall of the gym when she heard familiar jeering laughter make its way through the double doors at the front. She turned her head and recognized three of her academy classmates that had insulted her the day before when she had been talking with Winn. With a roll of her eyes, she finished pulling the wrap around her knuckles and set her eyes back on the bag hanging in front of her.

Alex threw blow after blow into it, returning each forearm to bracket her face and ducked to weave in a ‘U’ shape after each combo. She moved in perfect time with the swing of the bag, left and right, left and right. Soon the noise around the gym filtered into static and only the rush of blood behind her ears could be heard.

Something suddenly pushed her forward into the bag, hard. Or someone. She spun around to see a feigned expression of shock on the face of one of her classmates. She hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names or to interact with them during their classes or any of their physical training. If she was being honest, she hadn’t cared to. She was there to learn and to build a better future for herself, not to join ‘the boy’s club’.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. Did I break your rhythm?”

He had shoved her intentionally and now he was mocking her further. It was obvious that he had no intentions of leaving her alone now. Alex ground her teeth at the thought of dealing with this buzzcut of an asshole for the rest of their nine-month program.

“You see me now, don’t you?” Alex spat back at him. He was still standing a little too close for comfort, but she’d rather die than to back away and allow him to advance on her.

“Unfortunately. You’re not really much to look at.” He ran his eyes up and down at her with a sneer.

“Then look somewhere else.” Her voice lowered and she drew her face closer to his. Her blood pressure rose quickly, and she began to feel the subtle pounding of her heart behind her ribs. Images of him spitting out blood on the floor flashed in front of her eyes and the skin of her knuckles began to burn from how tightly she was clenching her fists.

“I think I’ll stay and observe, unless you wanna keep giving me orders—"

Her vision suddenly blared with a bright white as if she had been staring directly into the sun and had closed her eyes to blink, because that was how quickly it happened. The man standing in front of her was gone, but when she looked down, she saw him again. He was cradling his jaw with a knee on the floor. He spit out a mouthful of blood as he dug his fingers past his lips to count his teeth.

Holy shit. Did I really just do that?

Am I going crazy now?

“Danvers, what the fuck—” One of the three men shouted as he stepped between them.

Alex was immobile, unable to even blink. She couldn’t believe she had just struck someone who hadn’t first thrown a punch at her. The thought of him trying to intimidate her by way of threatening to just stand and stare at her while she continued her work out had triggered her fight or flight response. It had made her skin crawl and made her feel unsafe, and the next thing she knew… he was on his knees. She realized it was either that, or she had hit him purely because she lost control and wanted to hurt him.

The third man bent down to help the injured man back to his feet and stepped too closely to her to do so, entering her space once again.

“Get away from me!” She screamed, more anger than fear. It was a warning.

The two men still on their feet twisted to look at her in surprise and backed away from her as she had demanded.

“Danvers… hey—” One of them reached a hand out as if to ease her.

“Don’t touch me!” She yelled.

He immediately took his hand back and held it up with his other to signal surrender. “Okay! Okay… Alex, right? Just relax, breathe…”

“Crazy bitch…”

“Dude, shut up.” One of them said to the man still spitting blood from his bleeding gums. “We’re going, just calm down.”

They hurried away, bumping into a bench press and tripping over discarded kettle bells on the floor on their way back out of the gym. Alex sat down roughly on a bench along the nearby wall to catch her breath. Her mind jumped from one disaster to another. Getting discharged from the police academy to charges being pressed against her, to having to let go of her dream of becoming a police officer… This was the kind of situation she wanted to help prevent from escalating toward physical violence, and she had somehow just fallen right into it. She was astonished with herself. Never before had she ever punched anyone without having to defend herself first. Sure, she had been provoked, but this time that wall of self-control had crumbled, and she had crossed a line. A big one.

How was she going to ever get her badge if she couldn’t control her anger? How could she turn an entire life of rage and anger towards injustice into one of calmness and the pursuit of helping other people like herself?

She lifted her head out of her hands and instantly witnessed the many pairs of eyes in the gym on her. It made her skin burn to be seen so disheveled and vulnerable. She stood and raced back up the staircase to her apartment and shut herself safely in it until her alarm for work woke her later that evening.

The hinged cabinet door at the bottom of her podium at work always hung open just an inch or so. It had since she first laid eyes on it when she started working there about four months ago. So, it didn’t make it sense to her why tonight of all nights she needed the goddamn thing to stay closed. Every time she pushed it shut against its wood frame; it swung back open slowly with a slight ‘squeak’. God, she wanted to rip it off its hinges and break it in half. It swung open again and she slammed it. Hard.

“Alex…”

She turned on her stool and saw Sam standing in the entryway to the club with a look of surprise on her face.

“Are you okay?” The brunette asked with her sharp eyes focused on her. It made her feel naked, and uncomfortable.

Alex squirmed in her seat and folded her arms. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She sighed and shook her head at the podium in front of her.

When she lifted her gaze back toward the brunette, she saw that her eyes were now squinting at her disapprovingly and her hands were sitting at the tops of each of her hips. In an instant, Sam stepped forward and grabbed Alex by the wrist, pulling her toward the club.

“Hey- what—” Alex protested just in time to see Sam pull the velvet rope across the opening and latch it to the wall, closing off the entry way.

“C’mon.” Sam ordered. Alex followed.

She pulled her along at a quick pace toward the back of the club and down the hallway into the changing room. The room was littered in draped colorful feather boas and fans with bright rows of bulbs above each mirrored station. Two long sets of tall metal lockers were spaced evenly in the middle of the room, and as soon as Sam yanked her through the door and shut it behind her, she gently pushed Alex against one of them.

Alex’s shoulder blades met the metal door of the locker with a soft ‘thump’ and her eyes went wide at the bartender, who stood staring at her with her hands on her hips again.

“Why are you lying to me?”

Her mouth dropped open to reply and then snapped shut several times. She was shocked. Nervous. Perhaps even a little turned on? She shook her head to gather her thoughts in a row.

“I’m…” She trailed off, her words having failed her in a sputtered breath of confusion.

Sam stepped toward her and ran the back of her hand softly against Alex’s cheek. Her eyes scanned her face worryingly.

“What’s going on with you?” Sam asked.

Alex’s shoulders rose and fell in a huff. She didn’t know what to say. Except for the truth, and all of it. But she wouldn’t dare dump all of that on the beautiful woman standing in front of her. She couldn’t do that to her.

Baby steps…

“Remember a while back when we talked in my car, and I told you how it made me feel whenever I’m powerless or scared?”

Sam simply nodded, her eyes never shifting away from Alex’s.

“I kind of lost it earlier today, and I might be in some trouble…” She admitted.

Sam tilted her head. “What kind of trouble?”

Alex’s chin began to quiver, and dammit, her eyes started to water. “I—” Her shoulders rose and fell again at a loss for words and her chest began to heave up and down.

“I’m scared I can’t control it anymore. It’s like everything- absolutely everything pisses me off.” She said and drew in a big breath, releasing it slowly through slightly pursed lips. “Everything except for you.”

She blinked through her tears and zeroed in on Sam’s eyes, jumping back and forth from one to the other.

“I don’t know if I can trust myself. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Alex’s voice strained into a warble at the end of her confession. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hand flat under her ribs to quell the sharp pain there that felt like a twisting knife.

Sam drew her eyebrows together in empathy and wrapped Alex’s face with her palms. “Oh Alex…”

A tear finally fell.

“Let me help you, please?” Sam asked in a whisper. She stepped closer and Alex instinctively drew her arms around her waist, pulling her against her front. With their faces barely apart, Alex drew her eyes back to Sam’s.

“How?” She barely got the word out of her throat. It wanted to seal shut in its effort to stop her from crying. A lump rose in its middle and she tried swallowing past it.

Sam sighed and rested her forehead gently against Alex’s. The exhaled breath from her nose that fell against her cheek somehow began to calm her. “We’ll figure something out.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Four: Silly Things Like Hope

As it turns out, Sam did indeed look just as stunning in the bright light of day as she did under the warm amber glow of Sadie’s bar lanterns. Technically, Alex had already set her eyes upon her in the daylight once before when she picked her up to bring her back to her car across town that late morning some weeks ago… but admittedly she had been so exhausted after not having slept at all the night before that she couldn’t say one way or another how the bartender had appeared to her during the day for the first time.

Now, as she sat across from her at a small outdoor café table with their coffees, she couldn’t take her eyes off her. How Sam’s smile could be even more beautiful under the light of the sun was beyond her comprehension. She was enraptured by her, wholly, irrevocably… and quite possibly forever after. So much so to the point that Alex could very well have forgotten that other women even existed in the world and that still would have been completely fine with her.

Soon she realized that Sam’s eyes were upon her as well. Watching, waiting. Alex snapped forward in her chair and cleared her throat to recover. The brunette smiled and muffled a small giggle from behind her closed lips. Alex was almost sure that her cheeks were bright red by now. To play off her slight embarrassment from having been caught ravishing the other woman with her eyes for what was possibly the umpteenth time over the period of a few short months, she ran a hand through her medium length mahogany hair which shone brightly with its reddish hue.

“So, what did you want to talk about? It sounded kind of important over the phone.” Alex asked before taking a small sip of her coffee.

“I think we should spend more time together.” Sam answered confidently, cool as a cucumber.

Alex nearly sputtered into her cup, the contents of which were still almost too hot to drink comfortably. “Really? I mean—” She started and then shook her chin to catch herself from rambling.

Smooth, Danvers.

“Like, doing what?” Her eyes shifted back and forward around them, slightly nervous now.

“I’m glad you asked.” Sam sat up properly in her chair and put her coffee cup down onto the table before clasping her hands together. “I’ve been stuck in a terrible writer’s block for months now and I’ve learned that sometimes the best thing to do… is to step away for a moment to be a human being again. I think we can help each other.”

Alex screwed her brow together in consternation. “Okay. Though, how exactly?”

“Let’s be human together.”

She had to stop herself from barking out a laugh, which she managed to just barely trap in her chest. It didn’t go unnoticed by the brunette across from her however, who only drew a smile across her face at the slip. Alex paused for a moment before responding.

“I love the enthusiasm, but I’m still not sure I follow you?”

“Let’s hang out outside of work more often.” Sam replied. “You can help me to clear my head and I can help you to learn ways to not be so, forgive my candor, but… explosive.”

Alex sat forward to protest, but after a second leaned back against the seat again and nodded.

“That’s fair.” She grabbed her cup and ducked her head over it to take another sip. “How do you plan to do that?” She asked over the steaming coffee with a playfully raised eyebrow.

Sam shot her a smirk. “By making you sweat.”

That time Alex did end up choking on her coffee.

“You know…” Alex panted as she slowed her jog. “I already get a pretty decent workout with the academy—”

A mischievous grin appeared on Sam’s face as she stopped a few paces ahead and spun to face her. She continued a slow bounce on her toes as she backpedaled, her ponytail swishing back and forth with each step.

“Yes, but I’m almost positive that I’m much better company.” The brunette replied confidently, batting her eyelashes.

Alex raised her brow, turning her lips up in an agreeing frown and then continued forward. “True.”

Since their rendezvous at the coffee shop, they had agreed to run together starting on the weekends, but Alex soon came to find out that they weren’t just occasions to relieve stress in the form of cardio exercise. Sam had been probing her for information about her lack of self-control in the form of cautious and thoughtful questioning, as well as other manners of surveillance, such as situating them to stand next to a somewhat loud and obnoxious crowd one day while they ordered lunch after a jog. Alex had ground her teeth nearly until her jaw began to ache from it, but she hadn’t so much as made a peep during the ordeal. Sam had obviously wanted to measure Alex's limit of frustration in order to better assess what kind of temper they’d be dealing with once she really started to unfold all of the painful, long hidden away creases of her past.

Three months had passed since Alex’s brief, albeit violent lapse in judgement and much to her surprise, no one had called her in for questioning. She had been fully prepared to take responsibility for her actions but apparently neither her drill sergeant or the program director himself seemed to have any clue about the incident. It was safe to say that after a few weeks of walking on eggshells, nothing would come of it. She thanked the heavens above and saw it as a sign to really knuckle down and dig deep into her traumas, which was now made even more possible with Sam’s help. She simply could not afford another slip up. This was her future. If she were to have one at all, she had to rein in her anger and do better. Especially in times of stress or under moments of severe pressure.

It helped immensely that Sam was pleasant, and patient, and never invasive to the point of detriment. For being a complete stranger almost seven months prior, Alex regarded Sam as one of her greatest friends. Never mind the fact that she thought about her day and night, and dreamed about her constantly… Over time they shared some of their deepest fears and aspirations with each other, as well as admissions of guilt. They bonded over their love of music and nostalgic 1970’s sitcoms too, which eventually earned Sam an invitation to Alex’s small, shabby apartment. They sat and laughed together while watching Laverne and Shirley at least one night every weekend. Sam never stayed late enough to become too tired to drive home; at least she appeared to know better by the way their bodies seemed to transmit electricity every time their knees or elbows touched while sitting next to each other on Alex’s couch. Alex had spent months in vain trying to get the thought of nearly kissing Sam out of her head and she feared that offering to let her stay the night would only make permanent the tactile memory of Sam’s breath on her lips… which only currently paraded in and out of her thoughts at random.

Sometimes they would just spend hours talking on a secluded park bench at a jogging trail they frequented. It was the lightest she had ever felt in her entire life, like her shoulders were finally free of an incredible weight and the hollow pit in her stomach seemed to vanish. Well, almost. Any time she spoke about her sister, Kara, those troubles returned in full force.

“Is she a lot like you?” Sam asked her one soft, autumn day when the subject of the youngest Danvers sister had been broached. It wasn’t often that Alex would volunteer information about Kara, but God, she missed her. It proved difficult not to speak about her sister the more time she spent with Sam, as she was subsequently becoming more and more comfortable around her.

Alex chewed on the question for a short moment and turned her hips on the wood planked bench to face the brunette.

“Not an awful lot, but in some ways… I suppose.” It had been an honest answer despite her eyes darting to the corners of her vision.

“You miss her…” Sam had assumed by the sudden but subtle change in Alex’s demeanor.

Another pause. “More than words can say.” Alex admitted. She drew in a deep breath and puffed out her chest to get the full draw of it, then relaxed her shoulders and exhaled.

“I was sort of left without a choice.” The threat of tears stung her eyes. “Something happened to someone my sister cared for deeply and I was sworn to secrecy over it. I couldn’t stay there and look her in the face every day knowing I had this horrible, horrible secret that I had to keep from her. It was just easier to leave… and I hate myself for it. I go back and forth wondering if not telling her would be sparing her all of that pain or if telling her after everything would be selfish… because I don’t want to carry it alone anymore”

Alex’s hand that was laying over the top of the bench squeezed into a fist. Her chest began to grow tight. Sam noticed her anguish and placed a hand over Alex’s tightly clenched fist. It startled her for a split-second, but once their eyes met, Alex settled again.

 “But yeah. I do. I miss her so, so much.” Alex’s confession wavered in pitch as it left her lips.

Sam wrapped her other hand around Alex’s slowly unclenching fist and scooted a space closer toward her on the bench, dropping their hands comfortably into her lap. Their knees rested against each other, and she leaned against the wood, never breaking their gaze.

“I think that’s a very heavy thing to carry inside of you for so long.” The brunette responded calmly while running a thumb over the backs of Alex’s knuckles. She dropped her eyes downward and studied them. They were more scarred than any other hands she had ever seen and had only now noticed after having taken a good, hard look at them. Her heart dropped.

“I want to help make you lighter—” Sam started to admit when Alex suddenly leaned closer.

“You already have.”

Their eyes met again, and they stared at each other for a long while. Hues of red, gold and brown fell around them in the shape of leaves with each gentle gust of wind. The trees were beginning to rid themselves of their foliage for the coming winter months and the ground beneath was covered in their seasonal shedding. They reminded Alex of rebirth, and the transformation that she herself was capable of. She knew that with how badly she wanted to change her frame of mind and to explore and alleviate the underlying symptoms of her trauma, that she could indeed create a better life for herself. Now it seemed it be one that she wished to share with the doe eyed, smiling woman sitting just in front of her.

Despite the improvement in her mood and the fact that her days flowed without a hitch making her waking hours more than tolerable, Alex’s sleeping hours were still as tedious and painful as they had been for several months. The nightmares were ceaseless with their onslaught of torturous memories of home, washing her in guilt and sweat each time she awoke with a start. She had years under her belt of calming her younger sister’s night terrors, but there was no one here to sit at the foot of her bed and breathe with her. She was alone.

Some nights she was too wary to close her eyes, too afraid of what lay on the other side. But most of the time, succumbing to her exhaustion was entirely out of her control. Between working nights at the club during the week on top of four-hour academy classes mixed with the required physical training, not to mention the extra jogging on the weekends with Sam… sometimes she couldn’t even remember letting her head hit the pillow on her bed before being rudely awoken by her next alarm.

When she could help it, she staved off her sleep with thoughts of the smiling brunette that apparently had made a second home in the back of her mind. It was the only time she let her thoughts run wild. Though, she’d never admit it to anyone, probably not even Sam. Oddly enough, it brought her a sort of peace that nothing else could. During the day whenever the beautiful bartender would invade her thoughts, she made it a habit to tuck whatever memory or image away in the recesses of the pillared labyrinth that was her mind. Most of the time she was able to anyway, because she was usually mid-task and meant to be focusing on other things. She had little time to spare for runaway thoughts, but when she wasn’t careful… run away they did.

So, on nights like tonight where she was none too pleased with the thought of sleeping, she instead thought of other things. No holds barred. The memory of Sam’s laugh was infectious, and it bounced off the inside of her skull like a pinball. When had she last heard it? It couldn’t have been that long ago; its specific tones were still so fresh in her ears. Alex let herself think of what it might sound like and feel like for that laugh to be pitched against her neck, or even the shell of her ear. Perhaps it would be followed by a contented hum. Oh, but her eyes… those bright, molten copper pools. She wanted to throw herself into them any time they gazed at her. It was either that, or collapse. Something about Sam’s eyes made her feel so seen, and yet so vulnerable. She had a way of looking inside of her and not just at her. Each time they caught themselves staring at each other during their outings, they’d become stuck for a moment until one of them could shake loose. Which was usually Alex. Sam seemed to be simply unbothered by the intimacy of it all and if Alex had allowed it at any time, Sam would probably be content stare into her until they grew old and gray together.

Now, there’s a thought…

Alex grumbled and sat up under the covers of her bed, burying her head into her hands. She slowly remembered that this was the reason why she didn’t normally let herself think about Sam for too long. She started to do silly things like hope.

She swiped a hand into the darkness toward her wine crate of a nightstand and landed on her phone. The brightness of its screen assaulted her eyes whenever she unlocked it and she squinted to scroll through her messages. She noticed an unread message from Winn received just twenty minutes earlier and tapped it open to read.

Awake?

Alex sighed and drew a knee up to rest her chin on. Her thumbs danced over the screen as she typed.

Yeah. Spot me?

He responded almost immediately.

Be there in fifteen.

Alex had introduced Winn to the gym below her apartment a few months back after having offered to hang out outside of the academy. It was fairly often that he would tag along after classes during the week to get an extra workout in. Alex would stay downstairs to help him train on the bench press for a little while and then head upstairs to shower and sleep before work, and eventually they had become good friends.

Over time, she learned a lot about Winn Schott and found that they had more similarities than they didn’t. Both were raised by a single parent for most of their young lives, and neither of which were too happy about their coming out. Eliza wanted grandchildren, and eagerly so, but she wanted them on her own terms with young men she would impose upon Alex at a moment’s notice as soon as she had graduated high school. ‘Potential suitors’ she called them, with no regard whatsoever for what Alex may have wanted from her own life. She struggled for years with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, as though she had somehow failed her mother as a daughter. She couldn’t pretend to like men even when she tried. Sure, she admired them in a platonic sense, but anything more was simply impossible. All of which were frequent topics of discussion whenever her and Winn spent time together. It was therapeutic to be able to talk about herself with someone she felt safe with, which was a rare person indeed.

“…almost like disappointing her was something that I just suddenly chose to do.” Alex huffed as she locked her elbows where she laid horizontally on the bench press. Her eyebrows were pinched together in a serious expression, and she was red faced with her exertion.

Winn stood over her with his arms at the ready to help her put the bar back on the rack above her head. Her arms bent again, and she gave another rep, exhaling slowly as she pushed the weights at each end up and away from her chest.

“Like I could just pretend to be somebody I’m not for the rest of my life, just so she could be happy.” She continued her rant as her elbows locked again. “What about me? When was I supposed to choose me?”

“Imagine being straight.” Winn said with a sarcastic shiver.

Alex laughed and dropped the bar an inch or so as she lost her focus and started to struggle slightly.

“Oh shit—” Winn grabbed the bar and guided it back toward him above her head to rest it on the rack. “My bad.” He chuckled.

Alex laughed again under her breath and sat up, spinning her hips on the bench to place her feet flat on the floor. The gym was empty at two o’clock in the morning except for them. Just one of the perks of living right upstairs. Alex often came down to jog on one of the treadmills whenever she couldn’t sleep. The peace and quiet suited her.

“I told you, you gotta quit making me laugh when there’s eighty-five pounds hanging over my head. This—” Alex circled a finger toward her face. “…happens to be my best asset.” She finished with a smirk and a wink.

“Hey, I have no control over what you think is funny.” Winn replied, raising his palms outward in playful defense. “Which is like… everything lately. You seem happier.” He paused as he stepped around to swap places with Alex on the bench press.

“That wouldn’t have anything to do with your mystery girl now, would it?” He asked as he ducked underneath the bar and laid flat.

Alex briefly rolled her eyes with her arms crossed at her chest as she waited for him to start his reps.

“We’ve… been hanging out.”

“Really!” Winn exclaimed as he lowered the bar toward his chest accidentally tilting it to one end.

“Pay attention—” Alex quickly grabbed the bar and leveled it, then used both hands at one end to reposition one of his further down. “Remember to spread your hands out enough like I showed you.”

He nodded and concentrated on the weight hovering just above him. “Thanks.”

Alex stood and watched him give two reps before he opened his mouth again. He was not only smart but severely inquisitive by nature, as well as friendly.

“So how long’s that been going on?” He asked.

“Few months.”

“Well, no wonder—” Winn struggled again to extend his arms all the way. Alex almost reached down to help, but he managed to push through it. She narrowed her eyes when he looked up at her. She wanted to admonish him for talking when he should be focused on his breathing but decided to mess with him a little bit instead.

“…we almost kissed.”

“What?!” 

The bar suddenly fell back to his chest causing him to heave out the last of his breath, which deflated his lungs and trapped them behind pinned ribs. Alex’s resulting laugh was loud enough to echo back off the opposite wall of the gym as she leaned down and hoisted the weight back over Winn’s head and onto the rack.

Winn glowered briefly at her as he sat up, rubbing the sore spot on his sternum where the heavy bar had rested. He watched Alex continue to laugh as she walked around the weights and sat down beside him on the bench.

“We’ve really gotta work on your focus.” She said, wiping a tear from an eye.

Winn hung his head and smiled as he scratched at the crown of his head with a slight shade of embarrassment again. “I know.”

Alex sat up straight and inhaled deeply, expanding her chest and resting her hands on her knees. She locked her elbows and lifted her shoulders as she turned to face him.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Her eyes were soft when they met his, and she was no longer laughing.

He paused for a short moment and then shrugged. “Sure.”

“Your job is basically 99.9% pressure… how are you gonna keep your cool under a bomb threat when I can rattle you with a little small talk about a woman I have a crush on?” She faltered for a second and waved a hand defensively. “I mean that in the kindest way possible too, I’m just sort of worried, I guess? It's not that I don’t believe in you… I’ve seen you focus in class—"

“It’s alright—" He stopped her and tilted his head in indifference. “It’s kind of like… I understand transmitters and detonation sequences better than I do actual people. Somehow, explosives are less complicated. You can always count on them to do the things that they’re wired to do. People on the other hand… they don’t always stick to their schematics.”

Alex sighed and cast her eyes downward. “I think you and I are livin’ proof of that.”

Winn nodded agreeingly. “Yeah.” He lowered his elbows to rest them on his knees and clasped his hands together. “My dad was upset for a long time because I didn’t turn out to be the son he wanted. We didn’t exactly part on good terms.”

A chill ran up Alex’s spine. Never had she so deeply connected with someone else like herself before. They were so similar and yet so vastly different, and she felt a great need to protect him now. It struck her that she had only felt like this once before, which was the first night her adopted sister Kara had spent in her house on Danvers Ranch so many years ago. Kara had cried all night long without sleeping for a single minute. She had been terrified, distraught and devastated… and it sparked to life the defender in Alex. Now she had felt it for a second time as she stared at the face of the man sitting next to her. She knew they were bonded now and whether or not Winn realized it, he had just gained a sister.

“Well, mister demolitions expert…” Alex straightened her back proudly. “I’ve got your six from now on.” She patted him on the shoulder gently. “You just gotta get through the rest of the academy and you’ll be on your way to rescuing kittens from land mines and stuff.”

Winn bounced his shoulders with a laugh. “Pretty sure that’s not a thing. Besides, I’ve got six more weeks of specialized hazardous materials and biowarfare training after graduation.”

“What?!”

Alex remarked inwardly at how much dimmer the stars were at night in Austin compared to the same ones she spent her childhood staring at back in the small town where she had grown up.  Here, they were dull pinpricks in a deep blue blanket, probably due to all of the lights the structures of the city gave off mixed with the air quality. Back home they could be seen scattered across the night’s sky in a flurry of constellations and if one sat and stared long enough, wishes could be made on them as they fell toward the earth. As a child, Alex had often wished for a friend that could see her even when she hid from the world; someone to truly love her and care for her in a way that allowed her to finally be herself. She had since convinced herself that such a person simply didn’t exist. Until now, that is.

“This is nice.”

A voice to her left broke her concentration on the sky above. Alex turned her head where she laid on the hood of her Chevy Nova to look at the brunette laying just next to her. She had spoken but still had her eyes fixed on the stars. The soft glow of the moon highlighted the gentle peaks of her facial features and cast shadows in the valleys of her cheeks and the soft divot below her nose. Sam was effervescent and sparkling, and her profile thrummed with a radiant energy so powerful that Alex could have laid there and drank it in for hours.

“Yeah, it is.” Alex answered with her eyes still locked on the other woman’s face, though, she hadn’t meant the night, or the stars, or their surroundings… She meant instead every moment she had spent lying beside her. Every single, solitary second of it.

Lately they had found any and every excuse to spend time together. Tonight, they were parked in their usual spot in the lot just outside of the city fairgrounds. It was quiet and they were rarely bothered, which meant they could relax and talk freely with one another. It was either here or Alex’s apartment, which Alex was becoming more and more wary of having Sam over for the simple fact that every time they touched, she felt like she could burst into flame. She had to be careful not to consume the other woman in a blaze, even though she was almost positive that it would be a welcomed scorching of hands and lips… Once touched by fire, there’s no unburning something.

Neither claimed to have anything better to do that night, so they cleverly agreed to do nothing while in each other’s company. Since it was the sensible thing to do, of course. Each of them continued their farce day in and day out, all the while keeping their true feelings just underneath the surface. When would it bubble over? Alex thought often on it but hadn’t yet had the courage to act. Somehow the uncertainty up until now was almost better. But she knew, and by now she was almost certain that Sam did as well. The stolen glances that turned into lingering looks of affection were proof enough for her. After months of being around the brunette for nearly every day and almost every night, Alex had moved past the ‘if’ and had ventured into the ‘when’. For now, she just enjoyed her. It was the journey, after all, and not the destination. 

“How was your day?” Sam asked after a long sigh and turned her head to face Alex. She blinked slowly at her, fanning her long eyelashes.

Alex’s lips turned up into a slight smile from their corners and she flitted her eyes back and forth between Sam’s.

“Couldn’t sleep much so I got up and studied. Watched some TV. Tried to keep off my feet. The guys downstairs made a hell of a lot of noise, so it was hard to do any of that.” She answered as she rolled her eyes and turned her head back to look up at the sky. “Almost went down there.”

“Did you try breathing like I showed you?”

Alex folded her hands on her stomach and relaxed her shoulders, pausing for a beat before replying. “Yeah.”

“And…?”

Another pause. “I got over it.”

Alex turned her head to look across at Sam again, who was apparently still staring at her. She was admiring her, and it made Alex’s heart want to jump into her throat.

“My dad used to breathe with me when I was little.” Alex admitted quietly.

Sam turned on her hip to lay on her side now while she looked at her. “What’s he like?”

Alex decided to match her and turned on her hip as well to face the other woman. They were close, with their knees nearly touching. The smooth metal of the hood was sturdy and bared their weight with ease. Alex wished she could thank her father for restoring the old car. She had stood next to him for hours as a child as he worked under its hood, which made up some of her most cherished memories.

“He was patient.” She finally answered and drew in a long breath, releasing it through her nose as her mind bounced in and out of childhood memories that made her happy, as well as sad. “I was a bit of a handful as a kid… I fought a lot. But he never got upset with me or told me that he was disappointed with me.” Alex smiled at the thought. “He only ever tried to help me.”

Sam was silent and gave Alex the space to continue being open with her.

“He passed away suddenly when I was younger. It devastated my sister; She blames herself but… she won’t talk about it. She went through a lot before she came to live with us, and I spent a lot of time trying to make her feel safe.”

Sam shifted her elbow underneath her head as if something Alex had said had made an impact on her.

“Your sister Kara, was she adopted?” The brunette asked carefully.

Alex nodded at her.

“So was I.” Sam smiled wide.

A warmth flooded Alex’s chest then. She felt so close to Sam, and not just physically because they were within an arm’s reach of each other, but because she felt more bonded to her now than ever before. Alex realized that Sam had life experiences that her sister could relate to, and somehow that pulled her even closer to her heart now. She was speechless.

“Your sister is very lucky to have you.” Sam finished with another bat of her eyelashes.

Alex was intrigued now, and at the same time saw the opportunity to redirect the conversation away from herself. Twenty-one years on earth and she still hadn’t learned how to take a compliment.

“What about you? Siblings?” Alex asked as she ran a hand through her own hair, pulling some of it behind her ear.

Sam visibly bristled at the question but recovered smoothly. Alex still noticed.

“Nope. Just very traditional, very Colombian parents.” She answered sullenly.

“Ah.” Alex almost regretted having pried, but Sam chose to continue.

“I was too small to remember, but my birth parents gave me to people they trusted to take me out of the country to come here so I could have a shot at a better life.” Sam cast her eyes out at the barely visible horizon, everything still only illuminated by the dull light that reflected off the moon. “But I apparently dashed that dream away when I came out.” Her lips spread thinly into a pained smile.

Alex could sense the hurt in her voice. It was masked by a subtle attempt at self-deprecating humor, but she could tell it was something that still gnawed at the back of the other woman’s mind.

“I’m a college graduate, turned failed writer and failed daughter—"

“Hey…” Alex placed a hand under Sam’s chin and lifted her gaze to meet her own. She rarely ever voluntarily touched Sam because it usually sent shockwaves through her, but her hand had acted on its own and she decided to run with it.

Sam stared at her again, her eyes filled with guilt.

“Don’t do that.” Alex said calmly.

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t do that either. Especially that.”

Alex shifted closer to her now and lifted her head slightly.

“You have nothing to apologize for. You’re a good person.”

Sam propped her head up with her elbow on the hood and rested her temple in the palm of her hand. Her face now hovered dangerously close to Alex’s.

“Alex, you’re the strongest person I know...” Sam’s voice was but a gentle whisper against her cheek.

Alex had to stifle a shiver that threatened to run up the length of her spine from where they laid on the hood of her car. Their foreheads had come to rest upon each other and they stayed like that for a long beat just breathing each other in, neither one of them brave enough to close the distance. Alex wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt. She sensed that Sam did too, but the thought of pressing her lips against hers and imagining how full they felt and how they might taste sent her mind into a spiral. She doubted very much that she would have the strength to stop at just one. So, with a heavy sigh, she reluctantly pulled away from Sam. But just barely.

Alex stopped in her departure to look deeply into Sam’s eyes for a moment. They shined brightly back at her from the warm reflected light of the moon like newly minted copper-plated pennies. If she could count them in twos for each time she had laid her own eyes upon them, she would surely have amassed a fortune. One that she hoped to only grow as time passed.

“I should probably get you home.”

Sam lifted the hand that wasn’t cradling her head and ran a thumb across Alex’s flushed cheek as if to assuage her from any hard feelings. It was a gesture that said, ‘everything is okay, I can wait’.

“Alright.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Five: I’m Right Here

The next couple of weeks were fairly uneventful as Alex continued to let the bubbly bartender commandeer her train of thought. She admired the way that Sam could spark conversation with anyone who approached her bar top. A ‘gift of gab’ was a useful southernism that came to mind, but such was usually met with a not so positive connotation that denotes an annoying person who can’t stop talking even when you want them to, such as a salesman. No, she very highly doubted that anyone who spoke with Sam was anything less than pleased. It all came so naturally to her, and it was quite easy to be pulled into her atmosphere whenever she talked. She was friendly, excitable, well-informed, and seemed to have a way of making people feel comfortable and relaxed around her as soon as she opened her mouth. Alex could sit at one of her bar stools and listen to her go on about anything and everything for hours.

But they had both, however, made a solemn vow not to distract each other while at work. Or rather, Alex had finally gotten Sam to promise not to venture near her alcove at the entrance of the club despite an alarming amount of puppy eyes and not-so-subtle, albeit playful begging. It was on Alex to interact with the brunette while on the job, which in truth, she always seemed to find time for. Whether it was indirect flirting masquerading as helpfulness or stopping by the bar on her way to the back office or to run her checklist of the building’s security… there was always a few minutes here and there to at least flash a smile, or a wink.

It was a normal Wednesday night. The club wasn’t full to the brim with dancing bodies or the deafening roar of laughter. To her benefit, such an easy shift left more time for Alex to glance over her shoulder toward the bar to catch a glimpse of the brunette who was usually mid-smile or stepping into a twirl in time with the music playing. This time she happened to be looking back in Alex’s direction whenever she saw her. Their eyes locked across the distance and Sam smiled, tossing her head suggestively toward the swinging doors behind the bar for Alex to come over.

Alex glanced toward the front door and then around the corner just outside of her alcove to apprise herself of how many people were currently floating around inside the building. She threw her eyes back at Sam and nodded, and then pulled the red velvet rope across to close the entryway to the club temporarily. She reasoned with herself that she could stop by and talk to Sam for a minute or two on her way to the back for a bathroom break. No harm, no foul.

Sam’s beam of a smile hadn’t left her face by the time Alex walked around the end of the bar. Sam propped one of the swinging doors that connected the bar to the kitchen open with a shoulder and pulled Alex in front of it, partially blocking them from the rest of the club. The kitchen staff were just another turn to the right through the doorway and essentially out of view from where they both stood under its frame. Sam quickly thrust a glass of bright green liquid garnished with mint leaves and a small paper umbrella at her.

“Try this and tell me what you think.” She asked sweetly.

Alex tilted her chin and raised an eyebrow cautiously. “I can’t drink while on the clock, you know that—”

“There’s no alcohol in it- just try it! Pleaaaase…?” Sam begged quietly while bouncing on her toes.

Alex chuckled and finally obliged her, keeping her eyes trained on the other woman as she took the glass and raised it to her lips. She swallowed a sip and threw her eyes open wide in surprise.

“Damn that’s good. What’s in it?” Alex asked, licking her lips. Sam lagged in her response for a split-second as she caught herself staring at Alex’s tongue raking over her pink lips, top to bottom.

She cleared her throat. “It’s a secret.” A prideful smirk landed on the woman’s face. “I finished another chapter last night.”

Alex’s brow pinched together in confusion, and then separated with the realization that Sam was talking about her book.

“Oh, that’s great. You know, you’re going to give me whiplash one day with how fast you jump from one subject of conversation to another.”

Sam laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m skilled with my hands.”

Alex had been mid-sip into her second taste of the questionably citrus-infused drink and almost choked.

“I give a hell of a neck massage.” Sam’s smirk returned. She watched as Alex wiped her chin with the back of a hand. The look she was giving her right now… it made Sam bite her lip instinctively. Alex could have sworn she heard the low rumble of an unrestricted moan come from the brunette, but the noise from the kitchen just around the corner had made it hard to tell.

Before either of them could acknowledge the charged intensity between them as each second dragged, an aproned bar back shouted for Sam from the opposite end of the bar.

That effectively snapped them out of their lustful trance.

Right. You’re supposed to be working… not thinking about getting her to make whatever that sound was again…

“Heard!” Sam shouted around the door and then scanned her eyes over Alex’s face one more time. “Thanks for the taste test.” She chimed happily and took the glass from Alex’s immobile hand.

Alex merely gulped her reply and smiled. Sam turned and headed back into the bar area and Alex decided that she would take that bathroom break after all. Perhaps to splash her face with some cold water.

Before she got too far however, she could hear Sam’s voice from just a couple of steps inside the kitchen. It sounded… different. She spent months committing to memory the different melodies of her laughter, as well as the various tones of her speaking voice whether it was excited, surprised, or generally cheerful as she almost always was… this one was new. Alex wasn’t sure why, but her boots begged her to move back toward the bar with an unnerving sense of urgency.

She took the route through the kitchen and along the back hallway of the club to exit in between the seating area and the other end of the bar. When her eyes landed on Sam, she witnessed a look on her face that she had never seen before. It appeared to be an equal mix of apprehension and frustration. Or was it fear? Sam was talking with a man who stood opposite the bar. He had both of his hands flat on the bar top with his elbows locked in a strikingly obvious display of possessiveness. Alex watched Sam toss her head with a ‘no’ twice, which she decided was two times too many. She spied a dolly next to her feet that was stacked with crates of clean glasses and decided to walk over and place one on the bar top loudly next to the man in an attempt to interject and assess the situation. The last thing she wanted was to give this man, or any man for that matter any reason to defend his masculinity. Such was a thing in her experience that never ended amicably; men who feel the need to posture over women for any reason at all was something she found extremely tiresome and nauseating. And in the past, similar situations tended to escalate more times than they didn’t. She didn’t want that here, especially not in front of Sam.

“Here ya go, sorry- the dishwasher has his hands full.” Alex said toward the brunette behind the bar, interrupting whatever it was the man was busy berating her with.

“Oh my gosh, thanks…” Sam played along and leaned over the bar to take the crate.

“Do you mind? I was in the middle of a conversation.” His voice was gruff and impatient. He stood nearly a foot taller than Alex and was twice as broad in his shoulders. Alex wanted to audibly guffaw once she took in the full sight of him. He looked like something straight out of a Sons of Anarchy episode, complete with an obsessively trimmed goatee, shaved head, and leather motorcycle club vest with too many stitched-on patches.

So much for subtlety. Fucking macho man.

“I do, actually!” Alex replied in as much of an overly cheerful voice as she could muster. Not to signal submissiveness, but to irritate the shit out of him. “Would you like to hear tonight’s drink specials?”

“Fuck off bitch, I’m trying to talk to my girlfriend.” He barked at her.

Alex froze instantly, her heart being the only part of her that continued to move as it plummeted down toward the floor.

“Edgar, I’ve told you to not come here. I want you to leave.”

Alex barely registered the sound of Sam’s voice. There was a faint ringing in her ears, possibly from all the blood vacating the now empty part of her body that sat atop her neck. For once, there was absolutely nothing in her head. No thoughts, no feelings, no anger, just a hollow and terrifying void.

She could hear him start speaking to her again, but she couldn’t make out the words. It was Sam’s voice that snapped her back to reality again. It was louder now, and Alex knew she needed to help regardless of the fact that her heart was now on the floor and had been stomped on.

“Alright, this is where I ask you to leave. But you should know, it’s more like a ‘if you don’t get the fuck out of my club right now you’re going to regret it’ kind of request. Are we clear on that?”

As the words left her mouth, the void inside of her head and her chest filled again with an intense burning akin to heartburn, but she knew it to be the familiar feeling of rage boiling up from her toes. With each passing second as he stared her down, Alex recognized the metallic taste on the back of her tongue and the tingling low on the base of her neck as adrenaline flooded her system. This was what she knew to be the deciding moment of whether she would need to employ violence or restraint, and almost always that decision was made in the blink of an eye. Sam’s voice filled the air around her ears again.

“Edgar, that’s not a good idea- trust me.” The seriousness of her tone was laced with a small amount of panic.

Alex was ready for anything. Anything except for the man to actually take a step back, of course. He looked at Alex like he wanted to rip her head off her shoulders and then pointed one of his large fingers over at Sam, turning his head to give her a look that made the brunette visibly shiver.

“I’m not done with this.” His words were as close to a threat as Alex would allow.

It took every microscopic part of her willpower to not try and throw him to the floor and twist him up like she would when roping a calf, for which she had several rodeo medals for. He was much larger than any beast she had ever wrestled, and she was almost positive that he would end up hurting her far more than she could hurt him… but come hell or high water she would give it her best fucking shot. Nothing short of an act of God would stop her from beating the brakes off this man if he made a move on her.

Thankfully, he turned the other way after his menacing of the upset bartender ended and took long strides toward the front of the club. Alex waited until the heavy metal door shut behind him and she turned back toward Sam, who stood with her arms crossed in retreat.

“Are you okay?” Alex at least managed to ask. The gaping hole in her chest had been filled with anger, so she could at least function enough to move her body and speak.

Sam nodded at her and opened her mouth, “Alex, let me explain…”

Alex immediately turned on her heels and started toward the back of the club. There was no way she could stand there and listen to her talk. Even worse, the realization hit her that for the first time in all of the months of knowing her, Sam’s voice in her head was the last thing that she wanted. She herself also didn’t want to say something she didn’t mean to the other woman.

‘When anger spreads through the breath, guard thy tongue from barking.’

No Sappho quote or breathing exercise could calm her down now. Years of practice had turned a defense mechanism into a survival tactic, and now she was stuck with it. The whirlwind of emotions came rushing through her head and filled out to her extremities. She felt each of her footfalls hard against the floor in her boots and her fingertips tickled with their thousands of nerve endings lit on fire. She suddenly heard footsteps draw up quickly from behind her.

“Alex! Please…” Sam reached out and touched the back of Alex’s shoulder to stop her.

Alex flinched instinctively but caught herself before she threw her forearms upward to guard her face. It broke her focus on keeping a lid on the pressure cooker that was her rage.

“Just stop!” Alex’s voice rose dangerously close to a yell. She had come to learn over the years that yelling was a sure sign that she had officially lost her shit, but she wouldn’t allow herself to get that far. Not with Sam. She’d never be able to forgive herself if that were to happen.

“Stop. Not right now.” She stated firmly. “I need a minute.” Her voice paced back towards a calmer tone.

The next look on Sam’s face shook her to her core. She looked hurt.

She hurt her damn self.
 
That was the anger talking. Alex knew better. She’d let Sam explain, but not until she could take a moment to piece together what she thought about the exchange for herself. She just needed a minute to fucking think.

“Alright…” Sam’s chin wobbled despite her obvious effort to hide it. She stopped herself from reaching out toward one of Alex’s hands and crossed her arms again. “Are we okay…?”

It was getting more difficult to place one thought in front of another again. The loudness in Alex’s head only grew with Sam’s question. She was so disappointed... That could be said about a lot of things, but mostly with the fact that she was now looking at the woman standing in front of her in a different light. She wanted so badly to go back to the moments just before when they were staring at each other in the doorway of the kitchen. It had made her heart race, right before it had been hastily ripped out of her chest and discarded like the useless lump of muscle that it was. Good for nothing, her heart. It always let her down.

I fucking knew it was too good to be true.

Alex’s mouth hung open in search of an answer and when she couldn’t find one, she clamped it shut and then turned around to continue out of the back door of the club. She immediately reached for the key ring on her belt to feel for her set of keys as the door flew shut behind her and latched back into its frame, locking itself.

Her hands came to rest on her hips as she took in the chilled night air. Long, deep breaths she pulled into her lungs one at a time, but she knew it would take her days to get over what had just transpired. She was sure that it was a product of the years she spent being subjected to abject sexism and bigotry which made it so difficult for her to let things go, but she wished more than anything she could just get it out of her head for long enough to talk to Sam. Because she did want to talk to her. She wanted to know what kind of fucking person spends months flirting with someone while they have a boyfriend. She wanted to know why she threw all caution to the wind and let herself get too close to someone, especially someone she works with. Most of all, she wanted to know why it hurt her so goddamn bad to find out what she already halfway thought was true… that Sam was only partly into her. Maybe all she was to her was just a bit of fun. That sent another wave of anger through her, which backpedaled momentarily into doubt.

All this time…

Alex sighed exasperatedly and shook her head at herself. This wasn’t going to stop any time soon if she couldn’t master her thoughts. She had the rest of her shift to work, and Sam no doubt was going to want a chance to explain before their next one started.

She tried taking a few more deep breaths to at least calm her nerves and gave it her absolute best attempt to forcibly clear her head of negativity. She could do it… She could talk to her. She supposed that Sam did deserve a chance to explain, at least after the months they had spent together trying to work through a lot of her anger issues in the first place. She couldn’t just let all of that time be for nothing.  

Surprisingly enough, Alex managed to compartmentalize her hurt long enough to complete the rest of her shift and to maintain her focus on her end of night building checks. The kitchen was usually the last stop on her list of security points since it had access to the outside and much to her annoyance, she spied a brick unceremoniously stashed on the floor behind a rolling trash bin near the back door.

“Sonofabitch.”

She kicked the empty bin away from the wall and it skittered to a stop on its caster wheels after almost tipping over. Alex had zero patience for this. Especially not after having made it very, very clear the first time around why this door was not to be propped open, ever. She picked up the brick and threw her weight into the door, sending it flying open and lobbed the brick as hard as she could into the parking lot. It landed on the concrete just under the one lamp post in the middle of the lot where it split in two with a loud ‘crack’. She wanted to scream. Instead, her hands came to rest on her hips as she tried another breathing exercise.

The sound of the door latching itself locked again behind her snapped her attention back to her surroundings. Her hand flew to her belt. No keys.

She was locked out now and felt utterly defeated, as well as confused and somewhat heartbroken still. The only other door on the back of the building, located on the opposite end from where she stood swung open a few minutes later. Out walked Will the stage manager. Alex considered for a moment calling out to him to hold the door so she could get back inside, but she simply didn’t have the energy. All she wanted was to crawl into bed, and maybe cry herself to sleep.

Will waved when he noticed her standing alone at the other end of the lot with her hands still perched on her hips. She sent him a wave back and then watched him climb in his car and drive away. She’d fix her timecard at the start of her next shift; her duties were essentially completed and there wasn’t actually anything left to do. So, she decided to head home. As she walked toward her car, she noticed Sam’s truck was still parked in its spot and she realized that the bartender was still in the building.

Alex knew she couldn’t leave until she knew Sam was on her way home. Not because that was technically her job… but because there was no way she could physically leave without knowing the other woman was safe. Despite the state of her wounded heart and conflicted emotions from the upset that took place earlier that night, she still cared about Sam. Probably too much, especially since now she feared that what she felt for her would only hurt her in the end. It was just her luck to fall for someone who was more than likely unavailable. The one person she allowed to climb past all of her carefully constructed walls… ended up being the same person who had stomped all over the garden of her soul. Then again, she didn’t actually know any of that for certain. She knew what she felt, but the only way she would know any of the truth was if she were to let Sam explain.

Grumbling lowly to herself, she decided that she would hear the other woman out but remained acutely apprehensive.

About twenty minutes passed before Alex saw the brunette exit the building from where she sat on the hood of her Nova. She saw Alex from across the lot and witnessed her with her arms folded over her chest defensively, as if to guard her heart from any more unwanted thrashings, but the stupid muscle thumped wildly as Sam quickened her pace toward her.

“I tried looking for you inside—” Sam said as she jogged the last bit of the distance between them, panting quietly when she came to a stop in front of her. “Alex… please, let me explain.”

Alex did her best to not let her facial expressions give away any of her hurt, but she also knew that overcompensating for the strained muscles in her face might appear to look something like anger. She was angry, but more than that- more than anything in the world she wanted everything to go back to the way it was. She eventually gave a curt nod toward the woman in front of her.

Sam dropped her bag and keys at her feet and took the few remaining steps forward to close the distance between them. She stopped just out of arm’s reach of Alex and was seemingly hesitant to reach out and touch her. Alex could tell that she wanted to and what Sam didn’t know… was that Alex wanted her to. Badly.

“I left him over a year ago, but he comes around every few months to try and convince me to get back together with him. It’s the truth, I promise—”

“I didn’t think you were lying.”

That, in itself, was a half-truth on Alex’s part. Deep down, she knew Sam to be one of the most non-deceiving people she had ever known, but ever since just a few hours ago, there was a strange disconnect in the way she felt about the other woman now. The hurt part of her wanted to jump to conclusions, but she had managed to bite most of it back.

“I need to tell you a few things…” Sam’s voice tremored slightly.

Here it comes…

That nagging negativity in the back of Alex’s mind jumped forward and her heart sank again.

“I was young and naïve, and got swept up by him and his club. I figured out too late that they weren’t just an MC… they had been running the city for years. Mostly methamphetamine and guns. Territory disputes, shootings, stabbings… I wanted out, but there was nowhere to go.”

The three-piece patch Alex had seen on the back of the man’s vest was her first clue. The top crescent patch had read ‘Children of Liberty’ and the bottom signified their club territory as Austin, Texas. In between them was sewn a larger patch depicting a bronze mask. She had only gotten a few seconds to look during the exchange but had taken stock of the other various patches such as the number thirteen stitched near the top seam of a shoulder and a %1 patch on the other. Thirteen, meaning the thirteenth letter of the alphabet ‘M’, denoted a club’s affiliation with drug trafficking and the one percent patch being an outright signifier for a club’s ‘Outlaw’ status. During her time in the academy, Alex had learned of many different criminal organizations that had a history with the ACPD, and suddenly she realized why the name ‘Children of Liberty’ had seemed so familiar.

“Alex… I was the one that put him in prison. He has no idea.”

Oh.

That bit of information got Alex on her feet. Her heart rate picked up as Sam continued.

“I was approached by the feds. I didn’t trust them at first, but they promised they’d help me get out if I gave my testimony about the MC. I informed on Edgar for months behind his back and they eventually took him and the entire club down, including two judges and an assistant district attorney. They assured me that I was safe, but somehow those imbéciles let him out after only a year…”

The brunette had begun to visibly tremble as she carried on with her confession, and Alex’s anxiety for the other woman’s well-being suddenly skyrocketed. All of her previous anger began to dissipate and exit her body in the form of nervous, shallow breaths. She could read Sam like a book and knew that she was terrified. Alex pushed past her emotions and let a hand float forward to take one of Sam’s. When she squeezed it lightly, Sam’s eyes found hers.

“Every time he comes around… I think this is it. He knows.” Her chin began to shake. It was obvious that her ability to hold herself together was slowly starting to wear thin.

It was then that Alex realized that she really didn’t have the full grasp of the situation earlier that night. Not by a long shot. She pulled Sam into her chest and as soon as her body landed against hers, she felt her melt there in her arms. Breaths came out of the brunette in stuttered gasps as she choked back tears. Alex just stood and held her tightly, giving her small shushes here and there. After a few more moments, Sam pulled away just enough to look Alex directly in her eyes again.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you- I was going to, but whenever I’m around you… you just make me feel happy to be free from my past and then it’s like, where do I even start?”

Alex reached up and brushed a length of hair out of Sam’s eyes. It was still dark out at three o’clock in the morning but the lamp post near her car offered enough light to make out the expression on Sam’s face. She looked anxious, as if she was staring at something that was about to be taken away from her forever.

“After all this time, I just want…” Sam’s voice trailed off as her mouth opened and shut several times, like she was on the precipice of saying something but was ultimately unsure of how it would be received.

“What?” Alex pushed.

She saw something in Sam’s eyes switch off and then she witnessed all of the tension in her shoulders just fall away. She looked calm, as one does when knowing all other options are exhausted and the only path left is that final leap of faith. Sam shook her head despondently.

“You.” Her confession fell from her lips in defeated huff. “Just you.”

Alex’s world came to a screeching halt. She froze, jaw slightly agape. For a second or two, all emotion within her save for her surprise had vacated her body completely. It was as if time itself had been suspended, hanging the moment between them in a silent reverie. When her wits returned to her, somehow her hands had come to rest on either side of Sam’s face. She slowly became aware of herself again, feeling the warmth of Sam’s skin against her palms and her nervous, panted breaths tumbling past her lips one after another. Alex finally decided then to speak.

“I’m right here.”

As soon as the words left her, Alex had seen Sam’s eyes dart back and forth between her own and then a hand on the back of her neck drew her the rest of the way forward. When her lips pressed gently against Sam’s, she realized that she had been right all along. They felt exactly how she thought they would. Warm, full, and soft like velvet. A tiny whimper escaped from the back of Sam’s nose and made Alex drop her hands to her waist. This didn’t feel like some uncertain, emotionally compensatory kiss. The way that Sam pressed herself against her and breathed into her mouth as she captured her lips over and over again felt more sure and more certain than anything else she had felt since she had left home.

When they parted, Alex drew in a ragged breath. Her world had been rocked and she felt as if she was floating in mid-air. It was Sam’s voice that brought her back down to earth again.

“I don’t want to go home.”

Alex nodded with empathy. “Okay. Come with me.”

Sam admitted that she just wanted to be held by her and stayed the night at Alex’s for the first time that night. Alex had scooped her up to hold her against her body under the covers of her bed and the exhausted brunette fell asleep without difficulty, exhaling warm, contented breaths against the hollow of her neck.

To her relief, Alex slept more soundly that night than she had in months.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six: Goodnight and Good Morning

Alex never used to whistle. She never used to hum either. Oddly enough, she hadn’t even realized that she was doing either until Leslie mentioned it that Friday evening.

“Is that Patsy Cline?” The club owner asked over the tower of clipboards and receipts that were stacked on her desk. There was hardly any walking room in her office, Leslie’s obsessive record keeping bordered on the pathological with all of the cardboard boxes that lined the long walls of the room. It was one of the first things Alex had noticed about her boss; who was a bit of a luddite if you asked her.

“Hmm?” Alex turned her chin toward the other woman.

“You’re humming.” Leslie replied with her eyes narrowed inquisitively. “Should I be worried?”

Alex scrunched her nose and rolled her eyes. “Worried? Can’t I just be in a good mood?”

“No.” Her boss dead-panned back at her without a single ounce of hesitation.

That lurched a low chuckle forward out of Alex. It had taken her longer than she liked to admit to get used to her boss’s style of humor, but she knew after getting to know her a little better that there was actually a deep well there. Beyond the dry, sarcastic, somewhat prickly exterior that is.

“Well, whatever it is, make sure it doesn’t steal your focus from what you do here. The heat’s still on with these… anti-queer whack jobs.” She grumbled and leaned over to a small wire waste basket on the floor near her desk and reached inside, pulling out a crumpled wad of paper.

“This one was taped to the front door this morning.” Leslie tossed it across the office where it bounced off Alex’s chest and landed in her hands. After more than a decade of cattle roping which sharpened her reflexes to a fine point, Alex was still sometimes surprised by her instinctive sense of agility.

She smoothed out the piece of paper in her hands and noticed it read the same vaguely worded propaganda masked as hateful intolerance. She quickly crumpled it back up into a tight ball without reading any more of it. Alex was more mindful now of her triggers thanks to countless hours she had spent with Sam, who had chosen to explore the winding pathways of her deep-seated anger issues. The brunette had explained that maybe if Alex more readily paid attention to the things that trigger the cascade of her anger, and practiced shielding herself from them more often, that she could begin a road to recovery. Or at least toward something that looked like recovery. Sam had intimated to her one evening while they sat on their favorite park bench that if Alex could manifest a state of mind that only she was in control of, that this was how she would eventually not have to try so hard to avoid the things in life that affected her so severely. Such as unfollowing social media accounts that constantly blasted negativity or removing herself from people, places or even conversations laden with micro-aggressions. She needed to manufacture a calmer atmosphere for herself first before she could walk through life without the looming anxiety of losing her temper. Easier said than done, she had come to realize, but not impossible. All it took was diligence. It had called to mind one of the harsh, albeit invaluable pieces of advice her mother Eliza had imparted to her in her youth,

“If every time you go out into the world expecting people to be randomly cruel to you, I guarantee you that cruelty is what you will find.”

Her mother’s words echoed in her head and further bolstered her decision to return the hate-flyer back to where it belonged; the trash.

“Thanks for letting me know.” Alex replied matter-of-factly as she tossed the wad back into the waste basket across the room where it banked off the rim and fell inside.

She was halfway into a turn to walk back out of the cramped office when she stopped and wheeled back around. “Hey, also—” Alex cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “A couple of nights ago Sam’s ex came in and tried harassing her… what do you want me to do about it?”

Leslie lifted her eyes from the clumsy stack of papers on her desk and furrowed her brow.

“The weeknight bartender’s crazy ex?” Alex clarified.

“Ah. Yeah— he does that from time to time.” Her boss recovered and shook her head, lowering her eyes back to the numbers in front of her. “Leave it alone.”

Alex whipped her head back in surprise. “Seriously? The guy is mental.”

Leslie exhaled her frustration and looked straight at Alex again. “Yeah. And dangerous.” She shook her head once more to convey her seriousness. “Trust me, that is not a tree you want to shake. You’re not gonna like what might fall out.” She held a finger out to point back and forth between them. “You, me, her, the club… it won’t end well for anyone. So leave it alone. Sam’s a big girl- she can take care of herself.”

Days since getting pissed off: Two Zero

Instead of arguing, Alex grit her teeth hard enough to chip and exited the room swiftly. The image of Sam’s face and the expression of fear it wore from that night burned into her mind. As her feet continued to move her forward, they screamed at her ‘go, hurry’. She rushed down the length of the hallway and turned to move through the double swinging doors that led to the bar but suddenly came to face to face with the brunette who was coming through the doors opposite her. Her combat boots squeaked on the tile, stopping her forward momentum just seconds before crashing into her.

Alex reached out and took Sam by the shoulders. “Are you alright?”

Sam chirped a laugh and flashed her a smile. Her cheeks went rosy. “Yes? Geez- are you alright?” She laughed again, taking Alex by her arms now and pushing her gently into the hallway where they were mostly concealed from prying eyes.

Alex sighed in relief. Though, she wasn’t quite sure what had prompted her panic in the first place. All she knew was that she had needed to run to her. That’s what her body told her, and she had listened.

“I—” Her mouth dropped open as she scrambled for words. “I- I’m not sure. I mean, I think so. I just needed to make sure you were alright—" Alex reached up and scratched at the back of her neck with a shade of embarrassment. “Is… that okay?”

Sam pouted her lips adoringly at her and paused for a moment. She just looked at Alex like she was painting a portrait of her upon the canvas of her mind. Then, she leaned back slightly to duck back through the swinging doors and then forward again to look down the hallway. Once she was satisfied that they were alone, her eyes came back to rest on Alex’s face.

“That’s more than okay.” Sam replied calmly as she moved forward, backing Alex into the wall and stepping the rest of the way into her space. “I’m fine… Don’t worry, okay?”

Her words were hushed as they danced over Alex’s lips, making the slightly shorter woman shiver from her tailbone all the way up to the top of her spine. Instead of letting Alex answer, Sam leaned into her with the full length of her body and kissed her firmly, exhaling a held breath through her nose and onto her cheekbone.

There was that small moan again. Alex’s knees wanted to buckle right then and there.

Sam kissed her like she had been dying of thirst and Alex’s lips were made of pure spring water. What was likely meant to be a small show of affection was now pouring out of her in a waterfall. Alex felt happy to let the brunette slake her thirst on the pool of her soul but after a few more moments, she remembered that they were still at work.

She almost hadn’t been able to, but her hands pushed gently at Sam’s hips, urging her away from her own. Immediately she mourned the loss of them against her but straightened her back and searched the other woman’s eyes.

“I’ve gotta work the door…” She confessed with a hard gulp. Sam shot her another pout.

Fuck- when she does that…

Alex inhaled a deep breath and separated them to opposite walls of the hallway now. Sam merely leaned back against the wall behind her and tucked her hands innocently into the front pockets of her frayed jean shorts. Her pout came undone when she bit her lower lip into her teeth. It was sultry and seductive, and nearly drove Alex out of her fucking mind.

“Call me on the radio when you want me to walk you out later.” Alex steadied her focus on the brunette’s eyes that were attempting to bore lustful holes into her own. Apparently, she had more willpower than she had previously given herself credit for.

Sam only nodded, releasing her bottom lip from her teeth with a smile. Alex shook her head playfully at her as she returned to the podium in her alcove at the front of the club. When she got there and sat on her stool at just twenty minutes before opening, she suddenly realized that she was no longer agitated or pissed off at her boss for her clear refusal to protect one of her staff. It was like Sam had wiped clean the slate of her temper, leaving none whatsoever to reside within her. There was no stress in her shoulders and no pinch in her brow, even her palms were laid flat on the tops of her thighs and not bundled into fists. That detail in particular shocked her; the state of her non-fisted hands. They were almost always clenched and had been since she was a teenager. Enough so to the point that it sometimes hurt more to unfurl them than to keep them balled up.

But there was no pain now. There was only Sam.

As promised, Sam’s voice came through on the radio that was clipped to her belt just as she was finishing her final round of building checks. She punched her timecard in the office and shortly after met the brunette who was waiting patiently at the back door of the club. Alex gave the parking lot a quick survey with her eyes as they walked the short distance to Sam’s truck. Then, she huffed a small laugh as they rounded the cab and stopped near her driver’s side door.

“What’s so funny?” Sam asked, tilting her chin with the corner of her mouth turned up in a slight smile.

“It’s just…” Alex shook her head with another short laugh as she perched her hands on either side of her utility belt. She had disrobed most of its attachments into her cubby back in the office but what remained of the small, buttoned leather pouches on each of her hips made useful places to rest her hands.

“I should’ve figured you out a lot sooner when I realized you drive a full-sized pickup truck with a headache rack. It’s very queer.” Alex admitted, laughing a little louder now from her belly.

Sam burst out in a laugh of her own. Her cheeks rose high on her face and they blushed red.

“What can I say? It’s very me.”

Her demeanor shifted as she raked her eyes over Alex from head to toe. Alex caught every bit of it, and her throat immediately wanted to slam shut.

Sam took a step forward and hooked a finger into the front of her belt, pulling her towards herself as she landed back against the door of her truck. She pulled Alex against her by her hips now and leaned forward to nuzzle her face into the crook of her neck. Alex caught the cab of the truck with her hands flat in an attempt to leave an inch or two between them. A tremor ran through her arms and made the brunette that was sandwiched between the front of her body and the pickup hum deeply with her satisfaction.

“What are you doing…?” Alex swallowed hard after a gasp caught in her throat. “There’s cameras—”

Sam interrupted her rambling then by pulling at the collar of her shirt, shortening the distance between their faces. Her lips grazed Alex’s jaw on the way up to her ear.

“I don’t care.”

The breath that ran across the small hollow just below her earlobe was warm, and it made Alex release an uninhibited groan. Her elbows currently keeping her from pressing all the way against Sam with her body weakened with the rest of her resolve.

“I just wanted to say goodnight.” Sam spoke one final time before placing a soft, wet kiss just an inch lower, directly onto Alex’s pulse point.

Her resolve broke.

Alex pushed forward into her causing a small, surprised whimper to leap out of the brunette as her shoulder blades were pressed flat against the door. They were flush against each other now, trembling, and leaving no space for the light from the yellow, flickering bulb of the lamp post above to pass between them. Her hands pulled hard at Sam. She wanted every millimeter of the woman under her palms as she passed them from the back of her neck to her arms, and down to grip at her hips.

Sam breathed loudly against the side of Alex’s face as the other woman’s frantic and impassioned movements spanned the length of her body.

“Alex…”

She brought her face away for a moment to look Sam in her eyes then. They were flitting back and forth hurriedly between her own. Alex realized that she had not yet kissed her and had only up until now ever been kissed by the brunette. That was something she now greatly desired to correct.

A warmth spread throughout her body when her lips met Sam’s. It stilled them both for a moment in their franticness and was a much-needed lull to convey more meaningful emotion besides pure unadulterated lust. Alex needed her to know. She needed her to know that she was safe, and that she cared more for her these past few months than anything else. She hadn’t had the forethought to find the words to explain how she felt about her. Maybe it was the fact that there was no combination of words in the English language, or any other for that matter, that she could string together into full sentences that would even begin to come near what she felt for her. So, she decided to say so with a kiss.

And Sam understood.

A hand floated up into the chestnut-colored hair that fell against the back of her neck and twisted in it gently. Fingers wrapped around its silky length and pulled slightly. Another low rumble of a groan tumbled its way up and out of Alex’s throat. With her passion kicked back into full gear, Alex reached down and lifted one of Sam’s thighs level with her hip, who then wrapped it around her. Sam lurched her hips forward and whether it was involuntary or not, it pressed her center against the hard buckle of Alex’s belt and sent a deep moan directly into her mouth.

Alex wanted to fall apart at her joints. She had never felt like this with anyone, nearly coming undone with just the sounds of panted breath and small moans. She knew that if she were to continue this any longer, both of them would be venturing dangerously close to that little death, and if that was truly a part of herself that Sam was willing to give to her, Alex wouldn’t be taking it in a parking lot of all places.

Breath was finally shared between them as Alex departed from her lips. She watched Sam’s chest heave up and down where it was splotched bright red just at the top of her cleavage. To help bring her back down slowly, Alex leaned in once more and kissed her softly upon a warm cheek, and then she took a step back.

Sam pulled at the hem of her shirt to cover the tops of her hipbones again and smoothed small wisps of her dark brown away from her face that had come loose from her high pony. Alex must have hiked Sam’s shirt upwards on her abdomen a bit; the tactile memory of smooth skin that was hot to the touch under her fingertips flooded her mind. It nearly pitched her forward against the other woman again.

The brunette finally smiled after having caught her breath and picked up her bag from where it had been dropped at her feet on the ground. “Goodnight.”

Alex chuckled. “If that’s how you say goodnight, I’m damn sure interested in how you say good morning.”

Sam bit her lip as she unlocked the door to her truck and climbed in. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out.”

Alex’s heartbeat was drumming in her ears as she smiled back at the brunette who then shut the door and roared the engine of the truck to life. She watched her drive out of the lot and on shaky knees, she walked a couple of spaces over to her own car and drove herself home.

It took until sunrise to finally fall asleep. She had been too stimulated and quite frankly too turned on, but also too exhausted to do anything about it. As the previous weeks had passed, she had come close to giving in and touching herself when Sam’s flirting had become more intense than she could handle, but she had each time denied herself the satisfaction. Firstly, acting on her thoughts and pleasuring herself with the thought of the other woman in her head felt so explicitly sexual that it bordered on the inappropriate. That was before. Now that they had full on made-out in the parking lot after work, Alex had a very clear picture of what the brunette thought of her. Boundaries between them had been safely and comfortably breeched and there was no longer any doubt left. She wanted her.

Her legs felt like rubber as she ran. They clambered downward toward the path in front of her; a wooden, almost rickety staircase whose banister had nearly rotted and fallen away completely. It was clumsy and terrifying, and a panic soon rose within her. It was imperative that she get to the bottom of those stairs as fast as her wobbly legs could take her. Each plank of wood sounded out a hollow ‘thunk’ as she stepped onto them. Some gave way under the weight of her, causing her to plunge a foot through here and there. She wasn’t sure what she was more scared of; what lay beneath each step as her feet continued to fall through, what she was running toward at the bottom of the stairs… or what there was to run from behind her.

She had to reach the bottom; nothing was more important. The steps just kept growing in front of her, further and further down. It was endless. Her vision stretched into a tunnel and the banister she clung to with her hand dissolved into nothing. Soon, the steps under her feet began to dissolve as fast as she could take them, so she quickened her pace, throwing caution to the wind. She stumbled once and began to cry out, “Daddy!”. She managed to climb back to her feet and throw herself down a few more steps as the ones underneath her continued to disappear. “Daddy, help!”

The landing at the bottom of the stairs finally came into view, and there on the floor in front of them lay a figure of a person, face down. They were trying to raise themselves onto their hands and knees but couldn’t. Their head hung low, as if powerless to lift it.

The steps in front of her continued with the scene below in full view now. She feared she would never reach the bottom and would be doomed to watch the figure struggle forever, infinitely just out of reach and unable to help. So close, yet so far.

“Get up!” She screamed with the full use of her lungs. She felt helpless, stuck. “Daddy, get up…” Her breath came out racked with sobs, her words now but a desperate plea. “Please.”

Her knees ached, and calves burned with an intense pain. She was so tired. The figure on the floor continued to pull away from her as she slowed and eventually came to a stop. She held onto the falling away railing as it turned to tiny particles of sawdust and fell through her fingers, then the steps beneath her broke loose… and she tumbled through.

She spun and swiped into the nothingness, feeling the weight of it wrap around her tightly more and more until she could no longer move her arms or legs… then she closed her eyes and welcomed what lay below, accepting the fact that there was nothing else she could do except to greet it.

“Alex… open your eyes, baby girl.”

The voice seemed to come from all around her. She pried open her eyes and was nearly blinded by the intensely bright and blank expanse in front of her. It went on forever, with no end in sight. Just… emptiness, but somehow it felt anything but. She was calm, and now able to stand. She felt a warmth on her skin, as if a perpetual sunlight shined down gently upon her. A subtle breeze blew through her hair, and she noticed then it had grown darker and longer. Or was it always like that?

“Alex.”

The voice called out to her again. She spun to find it and eventually her eyes landed on the figure that she had seen before who was crumpled over in agony at the foot of the stairs. Now it was standing upright in front of her as a man who wore an all too familiar face.

“Daddy…?”

He smiled. “There’s my girl.”

She shot forward on her feet and ran into him with her arms wide open, crashing into his corporeal form. He felt exactly the way he used to; strong, but also gentle. A large hand cupped the back of her head and the other squeezed her tightly around her shoulders. Tears fell like rain from her eyes. She was trying to commit to memory every touch, every smell, every sound…

“I am so proud of you, baby.”

She choked on a sob, barely able to see past her tears now. “I miss you so much…”

“I miss you too.” His voice above her sounded so big and all-encompassing, like he was everywhere all at once. “Listen to me—”

Alex pulled her head away from his chest and looked up at him. That face… she loved that face so dearly and it looked exactly the way that she had remembered. He had the kindest eyes, and warm smile that could calm her down no matter what had upset her. He then lowered himself to a knee and brought his eyes level with hers.

“Be patient with your mother, she’s going to need you. She loves you.”

She wanted to throw herself back into his arms and never let go.

“Do it for me?” He asked.

She nodded sullenly. She would do anything for him.

“Thank you, baby girl.”

His large arms wrapped around her small body and pulled her into another tight hug. She felt the scratchy hairs on his chin tickle her cheek as he squeezed her. How could she have almost forgotten what that felt like? She wanted to stay with him like this forever.

“I love you, Daddy.”

He gave her one more tight squeeze.

“I love you too, Alex. Now it’s time to wake up.”

Her first conscious breath rattled into her airway as if she had been holding it behind her ribs for the entire time that she was asleep. Alex was lying flat on her back in bed with one leg out from underneath the covers, and her eyes stared up at the ceiling in disbelief. She felt… strange. As if she had been pulled out of her body and sent somewhere else, and then thrust back into it without warning. She wasn’t drenched in a cold sweat either, in fact she was barely even clammy. Her heart wasn’t racing inside of her chest either, she was able to more or less breathe normally. But still, something gnawed at her about her dream. Was it even a dream? She felt silly for a moment considering it as anything other.

Thoughts of her father pooled en masse at the forefront of her mind, and suddenly, she wanted to cry. How could it have been a dream when she could still smell him? When she could feel the whiskers on the scruff of his chin? How could a sleeping brain do that- better yet, why would it do that?

No tears fell from her eyes that morning. She instead sat upright in the middle of her bed and simply thought of him. She was thankful that it was a Saturday, and that she had today and the next day to rest. Despite things looking up for her at the academy and at work during the week, she was still tired most days. But running on fumes was something that she was used to. Coffee helped, of course.

First things first...

She set a pot of medium roast to brew while she showered and drank two full cups at her leisure while thumbing through some building code compliance manuals she had checked out at the library for some light reading. All were up to date and actually quite entertaining to read, one of which had some pretty interesting cartoonish illustrations that made her giggle every so often. Who knew louver vents came in so many different shapes, sizes and applications…

A little while later she was brushing her teeth in front of the mirror in her bathroom, which was little more than a shabbily boarded up frame of a room with some sheetrock tacked on for privacy’s sake. No tub to speak of, just the toilet, wall sink, a mirror that she had hung herself and a clear ring curtain around a three-by-three foot raised tile shower pan and drain with a rainfall showerhead situated directly above it. Modest, if not minimalistic. Just the way she liked it.

A knocking sound pulled her attention away from the sink as she spat the toothpaste into it. Confused, she shut the water off to hear it better. Then came another knock. It was coming from her door…

Weird.

She walked out of the bathroom and pressed the button on the side of her phone to illuminate its screen. No messages. It was, however, eight thirty in the morning. Rolling her eyes after a third and louder knock, she headed across the open floor of the apartment toward the door.

So help me God, if that’s Winn and he’s got another boy crisis I’m gonna—

Her inner monologue came to a screeching halt as she unlatched the locks and threw it open.

Not Winn. Sam.

Sam stood there in her open doorway with a look of determination on her face. It was as if she knew exactly where she was and had absolutely meant to be there pounding on Alex’s door at eight thirty on a Saturday morning.

She took a step forward just inside of the threshold.

“Good morning.”

Alex puzzled her brow for a split second before she realized what it was the other woman was really saying.

Oh.

“Good morning.” Alex replied coolly and took a step back to gesture the brunette to come inside.

Sam took her cue without missing a beat and moved forward into her quickly. Alex caught her in her arms as she swung the door closed behind her, reaching for at least one of its locks to turn it. Sam had crashed into her with a searing kiss, and her hands swarmed all over her like pollen drunk bumble bees.

Alex let herself be ravaged for a moment, and then decided it was her turn. She pushed Sam back against the door and tore her lips away from their kiss to run her mouth down the length of her neck, licking and sucking wherever she could find skin.

A gasp broke out between them as Sam lifted Alex’s shirt over her head by its bottom hem. They were moving in a flurry of limbs and excited breath, and her vision had blurred for a moment. When Sam focused her eyes on her again, she saw that Alex was scarred along her collar bones and her ribs. Some were long, dragging tears and others looked more like punctures, but the longer she looked, the more they appeared to her like bold brushstrokes, each one capable of telling a story. To Sam, Alex was completely unmarred and more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. Perfectly imperfect.

Alex’s skin lit on fire with her vulnerability as she stood nearly naked in front of Sam, but it only fueled her desire to have the other woman back against her fingertips and under her tongue. She reached out and cupped a hand around the back of Sam’s neck and pulled her into another kiss as the brunette stepped out of her shoes. Alex made quick work of unzipping Sam’s sweatshirt, pulling her tank top over her head, and unfastening her bra as they stumbled across the apartment to her bed. When the backs of her knees touched the mattress, she spun Sam in her arms and shoved her gently down onto it.

The brunette shivered, either from the cold in the apartment or from her excitement, Alex couldn’t tell. Whichever it was made the stiff peaks of her nipples stand firm on each of her round breasts. Her mouth watered.

A long, swift pull of Sam’s yoga pants down the length of her legs made her whimper quietly. Alex could see how ready she was by the dark patch of wetness that blotted the middle of her panties, which she now wanted nothing more than to pull off of with her teeth. She climbed toward the middle of the bed and hovered above Sam just barely, dotting her deliciously smooth skin that was the color of honey with kisses on her way up. She stopped to lick languidly over the darker brown of her nipples as she palmed at Sam’s hips to keep her from writhing out from underneath her. The sounds she made… it made Alex want to come undone then and there.

With one last suck and flick of her tongue, she moved her mouth upward to Sam’s lips and kissed her softly once, twice, and then a third time before lowering herself back down her lithe frame and catching the top hem of her panties between her teeth. She dragged them so slowly down Sam’s legs it was as if time stood still. The intrusive thought struck her that she may have actually fallen back asleep and might actually just be dreaming again, but the mere touch of Sam’s skin under her fingers lit every nerve ending in her body on fire and yet begged her for more. There was no way she could be dreaming. Not this. She discarded the last bit of Sam’s clothing along with wherever she had tossed the other pieces onto the floor.

Alex took her time placing open mouthed kisses along the inside of Sam’s thighs, swapping one for the other, devouring each small moan that the brunette released as they traveled down toward her ears. With the flat of her tongue, she drew a long and agonizingly slow swipe up through Sam’s sopping wet center, making the woman below her mouth careen into a sharp arch. Alex followed her and continued to swathe her cunt with slick, masterful strokes. She murmured her deep appreciation for the way the brunette tasted, muffling her pleased moans in between her legs as she ran her lips around the sensitive pearl nestled just inside of her folds at the very top.

“Oh my God… don’t stop—” Sam’s voice cracked with the effort it took her to speak in between her cries.

Alex hummed into her again and stretched her arms upward to run her hands across her ribcage, caressing each one of them like the delicate keys of a grand piano. Sam was an instrument that she’d never tire of playing. She could keep this woman in her bed and pull melodic tones from her for weeks without food or drink if she’d let her. Alex would happily share her last breath here with Sam if that were the case.

The brunette began to shake across her entire body, and she palmed frenziedly at Alex’s hands that were holding her down by her ribcage. Alex turned hers upwards and let Sam intertwine their fingers, where she squeezed them so tightly it almost hurt. She could feel Sam’s heels dig into her back and knew that she was close. The more she sucked at her little clit and ran the tip of her tongue around it in a circular pattern, the more it made Sam tilt her hips into her mouth.

The brunette’s cries carried all the way up into the high ceiling where they ricocheted off the bared metal vents and piping that ran above the apartment. She came hard and slow into Alex’s mouth, lunging her hips forward and back with the rhythmic pulses of her orgasm. Her thighs trembled as her movements slowed in repetition, and eventually her legs went slack in the bends of Alex’s arms.

Alex stared up at her from where she rested a cheek on the inside of one of her thighs, panting proudly with a full-toothed grin. Sam struggled to lift her head and look down the length of her body at the woman between her legs. She smiled at the sight of Alex’s pridefulness and then let her head fall back against the mattress again with a small huff of a laugh.

“Oh, I’ve been dreaming about that for months…” Sam admitted.

That struck Alex right in the middle of her chest. Had she really been so doubtful at one point about whether or not this woman truly wanted her? Months, she said. Not weeks. She lifted herself onto her elbows and climbed upward, laying herself to rest on top of the brunette.

“How long exactly?” Alex asked, pulling her reddish-brown hair out of her eyes with a swipe. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her. Her inhibitions were low since just having given a decidedly incredible orgasm to the woman she cared for deeply… She figured she’d give herself a pass.

“Mmm—” Sam hummed her contentedness into the plane of Alex’s jaw and kissed her repeatedly there before answering. “Since the first night you came into Sadie’s, before you even started working there.”

“The first night?!” Alex exclaimed with her surprise.

Sam laughed and nodded. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. Then after you got hired to work the door, I was afraid you’d catch me staring at the side of your perfect, perfect face for the first few weeks.” She admitted as she ran the backs of her knuckles softly across Alex’s cheek.

Alex was floored. She thought maybe she had some kind of clue at first, and then as the months passed she became more and more aware of the other woman’s attraction to her, especially in the most recent weeks… but since the very first night she had stepped foot inside the club? She really did have no idea. She was usually much more perceptive which was what she thought would make her a great detective once she got on the force, but this woman… She had perplexed her thoroughly, and with ease.

She leaned down to capture Sam’s mouth in a slow and meaningful kiss. It was all so wonderful, and she seriously hoped again that she wasn’t still dreaming. But she knew that she wasn’t. Her tongue glided in and around the other woman’s lips, drawing out sweet whimpers every so often from between them. She moved her mouth across her jaw and onto her neck, pecking small, wet kisses as she went.

Sam’s hands pulled Alex closer at her shoulders and then she wrapped her legs around her hips. It was then that an unrestricted, feminine grunt fell from Alex’s mouth near the shell of her ear. It bristled every hair to stand up straight on her body. Sam noticed that she had pressed her center against Alex’s, and that was what had sent the stiff, but pleasured shock running through the woman lying on top of her. One of her hands went to the clasp on the back of Alex’s bra and she cupped the side of her face to direct it towards her own again.

“Can the rest come off?” Sam asked patiently.

Alex nodded, still slightly tremoring with her renewed arousal. “Mhm.” Words were difficult again.

Sam twisted the clasp of Alex’s bra with a thumb and forefinger, snapping it loose and pulling it over her shoulders and down her arms when she lifted upward a bit. She helped her pull down and lift her legs out of her underwear right after, and when Alex came back down to rest the front of her body against Sam’s again, the warm contact of flesh they felt between them had them both writhing almost immediately.

Alex bracketed her on either side with her elbows flat on the mattress and their chests still pressed together, moving her hips slowly upward in a rocking motion. Sam hiked her knees high around Alex’s hips, tilting them to press her cunt against the other woman as she rocked into her.

“That feels so good—” Sam grasped at her wildly wherever her hands could find purchase. “Fuck me just like that…” She begged into Alex’s ear when she had dropped her head into her neck.

The low moans Alex made each time she thrust gently into her were some of the most intimate and sensual sounds that she had ever heard come out of another woman.

Alex pushed hard into her all of the sudden, sending a loud cry from Sam up into the ceiling again. She lifted her head and kissed her once on her chin just below her bottom lip.

“Like that?”

Sam bit back another moan and nodded feverishly. “Yes- yes, just like that.” She answered with a shaky voice, looping her arms around Alex’s back and hooking her hands onto the tops of her shoulders just in time for her next hard thrust. She cried out again in a higher pitch with her mouth held agape.

They undulated at their hips together like that for several glorious minutes, both of them unhesitating in their movements together. They simply let their bodies traverse each other in whatever way they needed, Alex by hiking a knee slightly higher on the bed between Sam’s legs for more leverage and Sam by following Alex’s hips in perfect tempo. Alex at one point reached down and hooked one of Sam’s legs over her shoulder, turning her slightly at her hips and slotting herself diagonally onto her cunt. They moved fluidly over each other for several more minutes, like rolling waves, until the pitch in Sam’s cries was clipped enough behind trapped breath that Alex knew she was about to climax again.

“You’re gonna make cum baby—” A moan broke in between. “Oh, Alex… right there…”

Alex fell forward on top of her again and reached down with one hand, cradling the round of her ass and the other bunched tightly into a fist in the sheets above Sam’s head. She rocked her hips forward again, and then with a third and final thrust into the woman beneath her, she came undone into a trembling, strangled moan of a mess. Sam’s second orgasm rocketed through her simultaneously, and she anchored herself with her hands gripping the backs of Alex’s shaking arms.

After jerking with a few small aftershocks, Alex shifted her body slightly lower on Sam’s curvaceous frame to separate them from each other. Her panted breath chilled the skin on Sam’s stomach where her head rested. They were both covered in well-earned layer of sweat.

“Oh my god… you fuck like a machine.” Sam admitted, her chest bouncing with laughter.

Alex replied with a laugh of her own and a smirk. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should.” Sam giggled. “There are billion-dollar companies who would be very upset to know that I don’t plan to use any of my vibrators as long as you’re willing to do that to me again.”

Alex lifted her head and rested her chin on Sam’s stomach, admiring the smile on the face above her just past those perfectly round breasts.

“As often as you’d like.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven: I Believe You

When she wasn’t working the door at Sadie’s or studying for her traffic enforcement and investigation classes at the academy, Alex was glued to Sam at the hip. Two months had passed, and they had barely spent any time apart. Alex was the happiest she had ever been, and it only grew the more time Sam spent with her. They continued to keep up their friendly but strictly platonic façade during work hours on weeknights at the club, but at the end of every shift Sam was right behind Alex in her truck and they would come crashing together as soon as the door to her apartment was shut and locked behind them.

Everything in Alex’s world was somehow brighter. This did not go unnoticed by her sister Kara, who finally mentioned her chipper tone one morning while on the phone.

“So how is everything?”

Alex continued to lightly pant from her exhaustion after having just ended a run on a treadmill downstairs in the gym and had answered Kara’s phone call immediately after. 

“Fine- everything’s good.”

“Are you sure there isn’t anything else? You sound… different lately.”

Her younger sister’s curiosity drawled into the phone and Alex clammed up for a second. Then she thought to herself…

Why the hell would I keep it from her?

“I’ve—” She stopped to clear her throat for a second. “I’ve been seeing someone.”

“Really?!”

Kara’s voice was shrill and excited, catching Alex off guard as she threw her head away from the loudness coming out of her phone. She laughed for a moment. She missed how easily excitable her sister could be at times.

“Her name is Sam. I think you’d like her; you might find you actually have a few things in common.” Alex admitted.

“Oh yeah? Can she barrel race or toss a sixty-pound bag of feed like a laundry sack?”

Alex chuckled, noting the small hint of jealousy in her sister’s voice. “No… not exactly—”

“How long have you been…” Kara trailed off, seemingly unable to voice the remainder of her words.

“I don’t know, maybe a few months altogether?”

There was a short pause on the other end. “And you didn’t say anything?”

Alex fumbled for words and sat down on a nearby bench, blotting the sweat from the back of her neck with a small towel.

“Kara, I—” She shook her head and stopped to gather the right words. “Things have just been kinda hectic, not in a bad way but, I guess I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure?”

Another pause. She knew her sister. Kara was hurt.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve gotten to spend so much time with Sam, she must be great.”

Alex was taken aback at the venom in Kara’s voice, but as well as she knew her sister, she also knew why it was there to begin with.

“Don’t do that, baby girl.” Alex sighed tiredly. “I’m sorry I haven’t been down to see you, there’s just… things.” Her heart ached. That damn ‘rock and a hard place’ again. She hated it.

“I know.” Kara replied. “I just miss you.”

Alex’s mind reeled at the thought of hugging her sister again and seeing her face in person, and hearing her laugh… They had shared absolutely everything with each other when they were younger. There had been no secrets between them, ever. Alex had shared a bond with Kara as children that was the singular, most defining part of her childhood apart from her relationship with her father. As bad as it sounded to her in her head, if it hadn’t been for the fire that took Kara’s parents, she would not have had a sister. But now… she couldn’t bear the thought of being near her again and continuing to conceal the awful secret that she had been sworn, and even threatened, to keep from her… By her own mother, no less. Just over eight months being apart from Kara felt like a lifetime, and even still it was not enough time to fully come to grips with the situation they both found themselves in now.

How the hell did we get here?

“I miss you too, little sister.” Alex’s voice broke slightly, but she recovered by forcing a small cough over it.

“I’ll let you go.” Kara said coolly. “Clark brought this dumbass mutt into the shop and now I gotta go figure out where Streaky’s run off to.”

Alex chuckled. Never a dull moment with those two. She was glad that Kara still had the company of her cousin back home at least.

“Okay. Hey, I love you... Give Streaky a pat for me.”

“Love you too, I will.”

Alex sat for a while longer with her head in her hands before she stood up and stretched a bit, then made her way back up the spiral staircase at the back of the gym to shower in her apartment. Her key slid into the deadbolt with ease, and she opened the door to find long brown hair cascading over a familiar gray ‘Austin City Police Academy’ t-shirt. The brunette was standing in front of the long-walled kitchen counter staring at the coffee pot, patiently waiting for it to finish its brewing.

“It’s alive.” Alex teased.

Sam shot her a playful smirk over her shoulder as she leaned down to place her elbows on the counter in front of the appliance, resting her chin there and went back to staring at the dark liquid pouring into the pot.

“Your mattress is sooo much better than mine.” Her voice then turned sultry. “Besides, you kept me up late.”

She shook her hips suggestively where she stood in the open kitchen. The top half of her body was leaned down and level with the countertop and her hips were tilted up into the air, covered only in her bright pink panties. Alex’s shirt that she wore fit her torso perfectly, especially where its hem stopped just shy of her hipbones.

Alex’s mouth began to water as her eyes raked over every long and delicious curve of her. She tossed her keys on the small table just next to the door, not caring if they even landed there or not.

“Did you sleep well?” Alex asked as she stepped across the floor toward her.

Sam jumped slightly in surprise when Alex’s warm hands grasped her from behind. Her palms ran smoothly around the top of each hip to the front of her belly, pulling her flush against her front possessively. It was soft and loving, and made every follicle on Sam’s skin come alive. Alex felt a small shiver run throughout the brunette as her hands continued to travel back down to her bare thighs, scraping her nails downward with them ever so slightly.

“Mmm…” Sam’s pleased hum rolled out of her in a breathy timbre as she pushed herself up from the counter, bringing her shoulder blades flush against Alex’s chest. “Mhm.” She answered as she shoved her ass gently into her.

“Good.” The word fell hot on Sam’s jaw just beneath her ear, causing her to shiver once more.

Sam rolled her hips backwards into Alex again and felt the grip on her thighs tighten just a bit. A low groan followed. Sam smiled with her satisfaction and tilted her head back to kiss Alex on the side of her face.

“You make me want you again, baby—”

Alex interrupted her with a gentle bite on the top of her shoulder.

“Fuck…” Sam cursed and sucked the air through her teeth sharply, then she rolled her hips harder back into Alex with a renewed sense of arousal. 

Alex pawed at her eagerly for a moment longer before taking her by the hips and turning her so that they were face to face. The other woman wasted no time in leaning forward and kissing her with another lovely hum on her lips, melting into her arms bit by bit as their tongues danced over each other. She caught a hand that had snaked its way up the inside of her shirt and pulled it to her mouth as she broke their kiss, pushing two of Alex’s long fingers inside to suck on them.

The low coil in Alex’s belly was building slowly with every lap of Sam’s tongue around her forefinger and middle finger, then she released a quiet gasp when the other woman pushed them even further into her mouth, nearly to the back of her throat. After another long moment, the brunette drew them slowly out with a ‘pop’ as they left her lips.

“Tell me how you want it.” Alex said once she regained some of her composure.

Sam moaned with her anticipation as she lowered Alex’s hand into the front of her panties. “Hard. Fast.” She fought past a lump in her throat as she swallowed. “Make me scream…”

Her instructions made Alex want to fall apart on the spot. Instead, she bolstered her confidence and cupped Sam’s center with her palm firmly. The brunette jolted her hips against the counter behind her. Alex’s touch was pure voltage, and she was merely a conduit. Electricity ran throughout her body, causing her to stiffen her hold around Alex’s shoulder as she was hoisted up and onto the countertop with one arm. Her breath stuttered against the shell of Alex’s ear as two fingers pushed deep inside of her. She had been ready for her but was still shocked at how fluidly and confidently Alex moved sometimes whenever she brought this side of her out. This side of her, being the one that absolutely did not hesitate to take what was hers.

Sam looped an arm around the back of Alex’s neck to hold on for dear life as she pumped inside of her hard and her legs came to wrap tightly around her lower back, effectively trapping the other woman in between them.

Her cries and shouts bounced off the nearby cabinets and flooded the rest of the space around them in joyful, toe-curling tones. Alex dug her face into Sam’s neck as she pushed her fingers hard inside of her, twisting them back out each time. She shook with the intensity of it, which was hot, heavy, and full throttle.

Alex dragged her tongue up to Sam’s ear and sucked on its lobe for a moment before whispering into it, “I wanna make you cum so hard you see stars.”

Sam pitched another loud moan above them and smacked the hand that wasn’t clinging onto Alex down flat onto the counter next to her rocking hips.

“Please… yes… yes…” Each word crying out in sync with the rhythm of Alex’s hand moving in between her legs.

Suddenly, the hand pumping into her slowed for a second as it backed out and an added third finger quickly. It took only a few more hard strokes until her cunt clenched tightly around Alex’s long digits as her body spasmed with her orgasm. The warbled cries that filled the apartment were nothing short of heavenly as they emanated lower into a pleasured crooning.

Alex stood firm against the counter letting the brunette writhe and churn into her like quick running rapids until she finally slowed and began to gasp for much needed breath.

“Oh baby…” Sam cooed finally and smoothed down the hair on the back of Alex’s neck where she had mussed it by the fistful. “I’ve never been fucked so good in my life.” She said hoarsely, swallowing past the dryness of her throat.

Alex only muffled her beaming sense of pride with a long kiss on Sam’s collarbone. She pulled a long breath in and turned her face to lay it there with her exhale. “I need to shower.” She turned her eyes up to look at the woman who was still panting lightly through her nose. “Join me?”

Sam smiled at her and then nodded happily.

They both stood under the running water of the shower, exploring each other from head to toe until the water eventually ran cold. Then they were back into bed for the rest of the weekend, their hands only leaving skin long enough to do small, unimportant things like eat or drink.

February in Texas was still chilly enough to wear layers, especially in the nighttime. Alex tapped the toe of a boot patiently into the mixed gravel overflow parking lot near the city fairgrounds. She and Sam had decided to meet there and spend the evening together, with the promise that they would spend the rest of the night cuddled on Alex’s couch in front of her television if it got to be too cold.

Luckily, there wasn’t much wind to chill the skin and Alex had come prepared with a wool blanket in case the brunette were to start shivering. Alex usually ran a little hot anyways; she had ever since she could remember. Getting used to Sam’s irregular body temperature had taken some time though, there were plenty of nights where she had startled herself awake from the other woman’s ice-cold feet on her calves or thighs.

Headlights pulled into the far side of the lot just after eight o’clock and rolled their way toward her. When Sam parked next to her Nova, she got out hurriedly and practically ran into Alex’s arms, landing against her with her full weight. She buried her face into her neck, heaving out a relieved breath there. It struck Alex as odd; the way that she had scurried toward her so quickly without a word.

“Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

Sam shook her head slightly and kept it tucked safely in the crook of Alex’s neck, only barely turning her face out to answer.

“I—” She swallowed. “I don’t know. This is going to sound totally paranoid, but…”

She lifted her head then and Alex was able to see the anxious expression that sat on her face.

“It felt like someone was following me on the way here. I mean- they turned off a ways back, but it was just really weird. Like, I could just feel something was off… it happened a few days ago too.”

The hairs on the back of Alex’s neck stood at attention with that. She squeezed the brunette tighter and gave her a calming ‘shh’.

“You’re alright now, you’re with me.” She reassured her, running a thumb back and forth over one of her shoulders. “I think that’s your gut trying to tell you something, and in my experience, you definitely want to listen to it. Did you see any identifying markers or attributes about the vehicle? Do you think it was the same one as the other day? When was that?”

Sam exhaled deeply again and brought her head forward to rest on Alex’s shoulder.

“No, tonight it was too dark, and the other time wasn’t a car. It was on Wednesday- I was in the Barnes & Noble, you know the two story one just outside of downtown? I was walking in and out of the stacks upstairs and kept feeling like someone was watching me… I’ve been freaked out ever since.”

Alex smoothed a hand down the length of Sam’s dark brown hair that fell out of the back of her knit beanie and turned her chin to place a loving kiss on her forehead. She was entirely unsettled by the thought of Sam being so distraught over something like this. Even worse, she felt like she couldn’t do anything about it. She had already asked her the proper questions to try and investigate whether or not there was any sense of real danger, which she wholeheartedly believed that Sam had every right to feel spooked if it elicited such a reaction; there just wasn’t much more to go on it seemed.

“Everything’s alright now, I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

Sam sniffled through her nose. Whether it was the product of her emotions or merely the cold in the air causing her nose to run, Alex couldn’t be sure. Sam lifted her head away again to look into her eyes.

“I believe you.” Sam confessed. Finally, a small smile spread across her lips.

Alex pressed a small kiss at the corner of it and then opened her arms to drape the blanket around Sam’s shoulders.

“Thank you.” The brunette said, pulling at the edges of the blanket to bring it tighter around her.

Alex turned and looked toward the fenced area of the fairgrounds ahead of them, squinting her eyes for a moment.

“We’ve been coming here how long and have never trespassed once?”

A gentle smack on her shoulder from a matching wool-knit gloved hand made her chuckle loudly in surprise.

“You’re getting your badge in a month.” Sam reminded her playfully.

Alex faced her again with a pout. “Oh, come on, we won’t touch anything. Let’s just go look around…”

Sam narrowed her eyes at her and stared.

“Please? Ten minutes, and then we’ll go home—” Alex caught herself. “I mean… back to my place.”

She asked herself inwardly what she had actually meant. In all fairness, her apartment still felt like home regardless of how much time Sam had spent in it the past few months. She settled on the former. She’d take her home.

Sam loosened the stern expression on her face and caved. “Okay. Ten minutes. Pero yo quiero harto abrazar.”

Alex chuckled. Her understanding of Colombian Spanish had grown somewhat during the time in which she had gotten close to the brunette, but admittedly, she still didn’t get a lot of it. Though, Sam did have a way of making herself understood by how she said things. The intention behind her voice was universal, no matter what language she spoke. Especially if Alex was doing her absolute best to get a rise out of her for fun; the quick string of Spanish curses that usually followed always did something to her insides that few other things could.

“I’ll cuddle you with every inch of me, you will be the snuggliest you’ve ever been. How about that?” Alex offered.

A long sigh drew its way out of the brunette. “Okay.”

Alex grinned victoriously and took her by the hand. Their exhaled breath condensed in the air in small clouds as they made their way toward the gated part of the chain link fence that encompassed the fairgrounds. As fate would have it, the chain that held the gates closed together was slack enough to push open and squeeze through without much of a struggle.

Once inside, they walked along the rows of empty booths that centered in the front of the open field, presumably where food stuffs were sold. Most of the taller rides had been deconstructed and strewn out upon the grounds in their separate pieces, but Alex had her eye on the carousel in the distance. It looked to be untouched, and her curiosity was immediately piqued. She pulled the brunette eagerly towards it as the beige and gold colored paint of the different four-legged beasts that served as seats for the spinning ride grew nearer. 

“Wow, I haven’t sat on one of these since I was a kid…” Alex admitted excitedly, palming the polished muzzle of a Pegasus. The ride was old and had a weathered feel to it, the paint on some of the horses was chipped and falling off in some areas. She offered her hand out to Sam, who took it and climbed up, swinging a leg over.

“I wonder if the city still runs power all the way out here…” Alex said, puzzling her brow. She whipped her head around in search of a junction box in the hopes that she could wake the ride from its long slumber.

“I'm just going to say now that if you break something, I don't know you when the real cops show up.” Sam teased.

Alex barked out a laugh. “Hey! I am the real cops.” She turned back around at the base of the carousel and opened an electrical panel door. “Almost anyway…” She grumbled to herself. With the pull of a lever, the bright overhead lights burst on, and the sounds of machinery roared to life.

Alex hooted a cheerful hooray, clapping her hands together.

Sam's eyes shot open wide and a big smile grew on her face from ear to ear as she marveled at all of the different sparkling lights and mirrors on the platform of the ride. “How did you know where to look?”

Alex simply shrugged her shoulders and grinned. “You'd be surprised at just how many carnival rides share the same mechanical guts as farm equipment.”

 Sam laughed. “Okay then cowgirl, come here and help me giddy up.”

Alex closed the panel and walked over to a console with a small selection of buttons. The smaller green recessed button that sat atop a larger, red-colored plunger style of button seemed to be the one for ‘go’. If she had paid any attention at all to her younger sister’s ramblings about automotive and field utility machinery in the past, she would know that according to Fitt’s Law, the closer and bigger a target is to you, the easier it is to hit, which is why brake pedals are larger and situated closer to a driver should an emergency stop need to be made. When she pressed her thumb into the smaller green button on the console, the platform of the carousel began to turn slowly, pitching the carriage seats and all manner of equine shapes up and down. She grinned proudly and made her way back over to Sam, wrapping a hand around the pole through the middle of her seat to hang on.

She followed her face as Sam looked out at the rest of the fairgrounds. She was still somewhat bothered by how frantic the brunette had appeared to her when she arrived earlier, and she knew that it would continue to be something that bothered her for days afterward. Alex stepped up on a foothold and brought herself closer to Sam's height, placing a hand at her lower back gingerly. Sam turned her face downward to look at her.

“Are you feeling better?” Alex asked her over the faint organ music playing.

Sam nodded with another smile. “Much.”

Alex drew in a deep breath and let it go slowly. Sam's calmer mood eased the tension in her shoulders, but only slightly.

“Hey…” Sam said, cupping Alex’s jaw with a scratchy glove of a hand. “I know I'm safe with you.”

She was looking at her intently, her eyes full of compassion. This connection they shared… it was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Then again, Alex’s life was a myriad of intense human connection. Although, some were a bit rough around the edges while others remained wholly perfect in their briefness. She had known the strong bond that was sisterhood, and what it was to be a daughter to parents that both scorned and cherished her. Every corner of human interconnectedness had been accounted for in her life; all except for the deep and romantic love of a woman who loved her back. Until now, anyway.

“Sam—” Alex moved her lips to continue but it was as if all known words had vanished from her vocabulary. She was struck with a sudden realization.

I love you…

The brunette paused with held breath as Alex just stared at her in wonder. She had to have known. Alex willed the words forward out of her as hard as she could, and before she could express them of her own free will, Sam chose then to speak again.

“Alex… I’ve never met anyone so full of purpose like you. It’s in everything that you do, and everything that you say, like it’s so deeply entrenched in your bones that you just emanate intention with every move you make.” Sam slid her hand to Alex’s shoulder and down the length of her arm to place it on the one that was tightly holding onto the pole between them. “It’s like you don’t do anything, or say anything, unless you mean it with every part of you. That’s why I feel safe with you.”

Alex felt like every second that passed between them did so too quickly. She thought to herself how unfair it was that the human memory could be so imperfect; as she wanted to remember this particular moment, on this specific night, for the rest of her life. She wanted to remember the smell of the damp petrichor in the chilled air around them, the twinkling of lights from above that reflected off Sam’s beautifully rich caramel-colored irises, the exact tones of her voice as they passed through her lips… try as she might, there was no amount of determination that she could possibly possess that would make this snapshot in the filmstrip of her life permanent.

She’d tell her soon enough.

They spent a short while longer amusing themselves with the carousel until Sam’s teeth began to chatter loudly. Alex took it as a sign to wrap up their outing. They eventually strolled back through the grounds and headed home to warm up. After all, she did have the promise of cuddling to uphold. Being at home with Sam in her arms had finally made the apartment she lived in feel like a home. She no longer felt so displaced in the world; she was right where she needed to be.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight: Just Breathe

Drag Comedy night at the end of that week had the club packed nearly wall-to-wall. Alex had roped off the entrance just past midnight when they reached building capacity and steadily began to count bodies as they moved in and out with a tally counter in her hand, feeling it click under her thumb kept her thoroughly engaged in her attentiveness. A line could be seen from her podium all the way out through the front door, and soon people began to cram inside the small alcove, shoving themselves together shoulder to shoulder.

Alex lifted her head and tried hollering over the sound of the stage noise from the club just on the other side of the wall behind her. “Form a line, please!”

No one seemed to hear her. Couples chatted excitedly between themselves as they continued to shuffle further inside filling the space almost entirely, which Alex knew was not only violating an important building fire code, but people could also be at risk of getting trampled if a panic were to break out.

“Hey!” Alex folded the tip of her tongue with her thumb and forefinger quickly and gave an incredibly high-pitched whistle, jarring the crowd in front of her. Each and every one of their eyes were now on her. “Please form a line again, I can’t have you blocking the entry way.”

Everyone then politely nodded and quickly filtered themselves back into a line to wait patiently for guests to leave the club so that they could pay their cover and enter. She even heard some toward the middle of the line shout out to her with ‘Sorry Alex’. It made her smile. She had become a rather well-known installation of the club as she was the first face people greeted when they came in and the last they saw as each of them left.

Just out of her peripheral she saw a single body approach the other side of the red velvet rope that cordoned off the entryway to the club. She turned and unclasped the rope from its latch against the wall and waved the guest goodnight at they left, tapping the tally counter in her hand with a thumb. -click-

“Alright, one?” Alex leaned forward on her stool to peer down the length of the line. A hand raised near the front.

“Alright, come on!” She shouted as music from the stage began to play loudly between acts, the bass from which reverberated into one of her shoulder blades where she sat leaned slightly against the wall. She took a bill from the guest in front of her and placed it in the cash box that lay inside the drawer of her podium, then she pressed a quick ultraviolet ink stamp on the back of one of their hands and leaned over again to unclasp the rope to allow them in. -click-

As she turned on her seat, she caught the sight of Sam smiling at her briefly from the bar in front of a crowd of patrons that shouted their drink orders at her. The bar area was packed and still the brunette managed to focus her attention toward the front of the club. Alex shot her a quick and inconspicuous wink, and it sent a thrill through her when she saw that it made Sam bite her lip momentarily. The brunette mouthed the words ‘I miss you’ and then turned her face back toward the throng of people that lined the edge of the bar top.

Some nights were more difficult than others to keep her mind from wandering and her hands to herself when the club was slow. They hadn’t gone as far as to have sex while on the clock, which both her and Sam knew she would never let happen no matter how hard the brunette tried to turn her on and get her going. They kissed here and there briefly after closing on some nights, and sometimes in the slow hours during the middle of the week if Alex happened to pace around the back of the club coincidentally whenever Sam did, they would share a longer, more emotionally charged kiss or embrace. Once they even managed to make out pretty heavily against the steel locker cage of the changing room for a few minutes before being interrupted by a call on her radio. But for the most part, they did well enough to keep the nature of their ongoing relationship between themselves.

Several more guests came in and out throughout the night and by a little after one o’clock, the people toward the end of the line decided to call it quits and leave. Then it was a steady flow of bodies out of the front door after last call had been announced. On big nights like this there were usually a handful of stragglers who had a bit too much to drink, which Alex needed to procure safe rides for. Tonight apparently was no different. She passed back and forth between her alcove and the seating area in front of the stage to help pour guests into the back of taxi cabs one by one when she eventually noticed something was different. Something felt… missing.

After the last taxi left the front lot, Alex perched her hands on each hip of her belt and sauntered tiredly into the bar area of the club in search of Sam. She must have been somewhere in the back or in the kitchen because she wasn’t wiping down her bar top like she usually was at this time of night. Knowing that the front door of the club was locked tight, and the only people left in the building were the few staff left to close including herself, she started down the long hallway toward the back.

“Sam?” She called out, swinging around the open corner to her left and into the kitchen. No one seemed to be there. She tucked her chin inward in a display of befuddlement. With a sharp turn on her heels, she decided to head toward the changing room on the opposite side of the hallway.

“Sam…”

The metal clang of a locker door rang out, making her jump in surprise.

“I think she’s gone for the night—” Will said as he appeared from around the end of the lockers with a backpack slung over his shoulder.

“She left already?” Alex inquired, trying her best to conceal her dismay.

He simply shrugged. “I mean, I think so. I might have seen her a couple of hours ago.”

She shook her head worryingly. Maybe she had some kind of emergency… Her brain scrambled for anything that even somewhat resembled a rational explanation.

“Is everything okay…? You look weird.” He asked.

She paused to regain a bit of her composure and ran a hand through her hair, pulling it out of her eyes and toward the back of her head. “Yeah, yeah. Just… doing my job.”

Will smiled with the corner of his mouth and tapped the door frame with his knuckles, then continued down the hallway and out through employee exit at the end. Alex was still standing in the changing room with her arms crossed over her chest, trying to decide whether she was hurt that Sam had just up and left without so much as saying goodbye, or if it was something else entirely. She tried being reasonable with herself by admitting that she didn’t actually have any right whatsoever to feel any sort of way if Sam decided to leave work without saying anything to her. It felt overly possessive and clingy and the mere thought of it made her cringe slightly. So why did she feel so intensely about it still?

After a fair amount of admonishing herself for letting her feelings for the other woman overpower her judgement, she went on with her end-of-night building checks starting with the rolling bay loading door behind the stage. The chain was padlocked with the bay door all the way down flush against the floor. Check. Then she made her way back into the hallway and slid her key into the back door there to make sure it was still locked from the outside and only operable from the inside when pushed open. Check. She walked all the way back to the front to make the same assessment of the front door once more. Check. On her way back toward the kitchen, however, she noticed a handful of empty glasses strewn along the top of the bar.

That’s strange…

She knew Sam to have many qualities. Many wonderfully bright and enjoyable qualities, among which were her strong sense of cleanliness and love of routine. Alex knew that she would have never clocked out and left for the night without clearing her bar top and at least doing some of her side-work for the weekend bartender, emergency or not.

Something was off. She was sure of it now.

She paced quickly around the end of the bar and walked the length of it. Empty shot and cocktail glasses were piled high in the sink, and her favorite bar blade was lying in plain sight just on the rubber mat under the taps. Limes and various garnishes were still out and uncovered, damp dish towels were still hung over the sink… it looked as if she had just walked away mid-shift and left everything the way it was.

Alex pulled out her phone and pulled up her contacts list, tapping Sam’s name and bringing it to her ear. It rang for several beats and then went to voicemail. Which wasn’t exactly strange, since the brunette typically kept her phone on silent; she didn’t like to be interrupted while she was writing and usually just left it like that the rest of the time. She spun around behind the bar as she tapped her phone to call again. Alex was starting to feel a creeping anxiety make its way up the back of her neck, bringing with it a heat that flushed her skin.

A bright light flashed under the cash register along the back wall of the bar as the call rang repeatedly in her ear. She moved towards it and discovered that it was Sam’s phone, face down under the drawer of the register. Turning it upwards in her palm to look at its screen, she saw a picture of them both illuminating the bright face of her phone with the word “Bebé” displayed for her name. It was a photo that Sam had taken of them as they sat on their favorite park bench just a few weeks earlier after a jog. She had made Alex laugh and quickly pecked a kiss upon her cheek as she snapped the picture on her phone. It was a fond memory for Alex, but now it only made the aching heart inside her chest want to leap straight out of it.

This wasn’t right. She knew Sam well enough by now to know that she would not have gone anywhere without her phone, and that she also wasn’t the type to just forget about it somewhere either. She lifted her eyes and came face to face with her own worried expression staring back at her in the mirror against the back wall of the bar.

Her mind continued to work double-time for an explanation. When it came up short, she jogged the few steps back toward the swinging doors that led into the kitchen and began to hunt for any sign of the brunette. Her blood pressure was through the roof, making her feel dizzy as she bounced from corner to corner of the kitchen.

“Sam? Anyone here?” She called out. Still no answer.

The office. Maybe she was talking with Leslie, which would mean that she had been freaking out for nothing. If that were the case, she thought to herself that a strict and definitive line needed to be drawn in her own mind as to what was and was not appropriate to react to as far as the brunette was concerned. Still the churning, acidic pit in the middle of her gut told her that something was very, very wrong.

She swept quickly back into the hallway and down toward the end where Leslie’s office was. The door swung open a lot faster than she had anticipated with her forward momentum and simultaneous turn of its knob, but the office itself lay empty. Of humans that is, there was still barely any standing room for all of the boxes and paperwork that littered every surface and much of its floor.

What the hell…?

Although she wasn’t much surprised to not find Leslie on the premises after closing, she was still intensely perplexed as to why Sam would just abandon her bar, and her phone no less, without a word to anyone.

Her phone which, Alex realized, was still in her hand.

Am I really going to look through her phone…

She was still on the precipice of deciding whether or not she was in fact overreacting to something completely innocent or not. Nevertheless, that hollow pit in her stomach screamed the alternative at her. After all, it was her who had given Sam the advice not a week before about the ways a person’s body can signal danger, and that it should always be taken seriously.

With a frustrated huff, she took her own phone out of the leather pouch from her belt and tapped open a text message to her boss.

Sorry to bother you so late, but did you talk to Sam before she left tonight?

She tapped the button to send the message just as quickly as she typed it and shoved her phone back into its pouch. Her feet willed her forward to continue in her search. The realization that she was the only person left in the building made her shudder. It felt so strange; almost wrong. Sure, she was always the last to leave, but she typically watched the people that she was charged to keep safe as they left, either one way or another. She couldn’t stand how weird this felt to her.

Alex’s head spun. Somehow in her confused haze, her feet brought her back into the kitchen, realizing she had not yet checked the door there that led to the back parking lot. Her attention snapped forward toward the door in question in front of her, and she bristled almost painfully when she saw a small gap to the outside where a jagged piece of concrete had propped it open slightly at the bottom.

Suddenly, she burst. An angry scream came bellowing out from the very depths of her soul; a mix of frustration for the door being yet again propped open despite her strict instructions against it, her confusion for Sam’s unexplainable and abrupt disappearance and the fact that she was alone, again, without a single thought of what to do next. This was the feeling of hopelessness and despair that made her turn feral with rage in her youth. It all came flooding back, and her chest began to heave in desperate gasps for breath. When she was like this though, she always used to feel that she would rather die than to be helpless… so her next available emotion was usually anger. Useful as a method for survival or a defense mechanism, but not so much in real world applications when a calm head usually proved to fair better than unrestricted and wild rage. But she was too far gone now. It was too late.

She lifted a foot to kick the door hard, denting its metal interior with the edge of her boot print. Swooping down fluidly, she grasped the chunk of offending concrete in her hand and turned to throw it back into the kitchen where it broke apart loudly against a tiled wall. It cut a deep gash as its jagged edge left the palm of her hand. She winced and sucked a shrill intake of breath through her clenched teeth, gripping her cut palm tight as blood began to stream out of it and onto the floor.

Alex sucked the back of her teeth noisily, realizing all too late that she’d now made a mess of things; one physical in nature and another a biohazard. Perhaps a third one as far as her emotions and the state of her undefined relationship with Sam were concerned, but she decided that she would cross that bridge when she’d come to it.

“Sam!” She called out a final, hopeful shout as she searched for a clean towel to wrap her hand. Everything had gone to shit so fast; it made her want to break down and cry. Months of work tempering her quick-to-anger reactions and all of her breathing exercises, not to mention the amount of intimacy she had shared with the brunette… each morning where she had awoken to the woman beside her who was soft and pliant, as well as each night before where they brought each other to their peaks, both small and insurmountable. She had been so happy, and it angered her that she felt like it had all been for naught. How was it that it was so incredibly easy to fall back into bad habits like this? Would it ever go away? She was disappointed in herself most of all. This was the defining problem with her relationship with her anger. It hurt her. Mentally, emotionally, and physically.

She tied a small dishtowel in a tight knot at the back of her hand to keep the pressure against the open wound in her palm and ran back toward the office to grab her car keys. When she exited the building out through the back, Alex discovered Sam’s truck was still parked in its spot just one space from her own. But the woman was clearly gone without a trace. She would drive the ten minutes across town to Sam’s apartment to pound on her front door for an hour before she finally settled on the fact that the brunette could actually be missing.

The sun had risen, and she was no closer to an explanation for Sam having suddenly vanished from the face of the earth. Several times she had reached for her phone to call her but realized all too soon that she was the one still in possession of it. Her heart sank a little lower each time.

Alex paced the largely empty floor space of her apartment relentlessly as she desperately tried to rationalize the events from the night before. Or rather, the lack of them. She was at a loss. Sam’s phone on her makeshift coffee table pestered the nagging voice at the back of her mind that said to unlock it and search it. She decided against it once more, having lost count of how many times she had considered it previously. Five hours had passed and for all she knew, Sam could just be somewhere sleeping. She could just be overreacting, and her self-doubt began to weigh heavily on her mind.

That was when the thought struck her that Sam might have actually gone home with someone else.

Her stomach flipped upside down in an instant. She began to sweat around her collar and all manner of unsavory or even potentially dangerous scenarios flashed behind her eyes.

She would never…

Had something happened to her that only very few people were aware of? Was it that she was in an emergency room somewhere? Alex shot to her feet and sought to spend the rest of the morning dialing every hospital within a fifty-mile radius.

—Nine hours missing—

Not a single trauma center or emergency room claimed to currently have a patient named Samantha Arias. Alex prodded each of them for any news of any Jane Doe’s in their intake during the early morning hours but was consistently met with zero results each time.

It was just after eleven o’clock, which meant it was a Saturday. Either Sam would be yawning with a big stretch of her arms as they lay in bed together, or she would be eagerly knocking on her apartment door by that time and usually teasing Alex about how she wasn’t ready for their jog even though they had profusely planned ahead.

But Sam was neither of those things right now, and it still didn’t sit right with her. She was certain that Sam hadn’t just vanished without a single word willingly, every aching pore that sat on the expanse of her skin screamed it. And it wasn’t just the fact that she was beyond exhausted, as she had been awake since noon the day before and had completed a rigorous block of physical training in preparation for her final exams… her body was telling her that something was terribly wrong. There was no way that she could sleep without knowing what had happened to the other woman.

The muscles in her neck ached sharply as she hunched over with her head in her hands from where she sat on her couch. Sam’s phone stared up at her again from the table in front of her. Alex apparently had all but forgotten about it. Quickly, she leaned forward and took it in her hands, tapping its screen to life. She tried all manner of numeric password to bypass its biometric unlocking function and groaned heavily when the number of failed attempts ended up locking her out completely.

Tears welled in the corners of her eyes and if not for her overwhelming exhaustion, her repeated failures in locating the woman she loved would have sent her into another spiral. If only she had the technical knowledge to get into the phone without begging a uniform at her local precinct to get in touch with an assistant district attorney, who could then issue a subpoena for information from her service provider. Which, she had already called her station hours ago to try and submit a missing person’s report, where she was unfortunately met with ‘maybe she went and partied with someone else’. She knew full well that twenty-four hours needed to transpire before she could file a report, but to Alex, that was precious time wasted.

Winn. Winn can help…

She knew she could call him for help, she trusted Winn. She pulled out her phone again and after a quick check of her messages to find that Leslie still had not texted her back yet, she grumbled and tapped Winn’s name from her contacts list. He answered immediately.

“Hey! So listen- there’s this new froyo place on sixth that I really—”

“Winn, something’s happened…”

His rambling came to a broken halt with the graveness of her voice. His tone turned serious in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Sam, she’s missing.”

He paused. Alex heard some sort of shuffling on his end of the phone and then his voice came through again, clearer now.

“Did you call the captain?”

Alex sighed with the longevity of her frustration. “Yeah, twenty-four hours before they can file the report, all of that, I know it by heart, but Winn… I never in a million years thought I would be seeing it from this side. You know? We’re trained to handle these kinds of situations from an outside perspective, but this feels horrible. Something’s happened to her- I just know it. She’s not out partying, she didn’t go home with anyone else… Something is really, really wrong and I’m going out of my mind—”

“Hey- okay, slow down and take a breath…” He consoled her with the shrill sound of air passing through his pursed lips on the other end of the phone. “I believe you; you hear me? One hundred percent. What do you need?”

Her lower back and the base of her neck ached, she felt dizzy and still slightly nauseous… her exhaustion piled ever higher the longer she catastrophized about the well-being of the woman who held her heart in her hands.

She quickly explained to Winn the sequence of events that led to Sam’s sudden disappearance, and he agreed adamantly that something was definitely amiss, and then turned up with armfuls of computer equipment at the door of her apartment only half an hour later.

Winn set up several monitors and protected routers on her kitchen table where different cables varying in thickness and color ran in a long bundle to the nearest wall. He spliced into the building’s fiber optics almost effortlessly and got to work, as if he’d been doing it for years. Alex merely watched him move back and forth in between his small atmosphere of controlled chaos with her jaw held slightly agape.

“Is all of this… legal?” She asked him quietly as he wired two monitors together side by side.

He stopped for a moment and stared blankly in thought before answering. “Let’s agree to discuss the legal ramifications of software hacking after we find Sam…”

Alex tossed her brow agreeingly and nodded. She then crossed her arms over her chest and waited patiently for him to finish setting up all of his hardware. When he did, he dragged her one rickety wooden chair along the floor back to the table and sat in front of the mess of monitors in front of him, pressing a multitude of buttons on them to power them on. The computers and different scanning devices beneath whirred to life with the sounds of their small, but powerful cooling fans as he started them up as well.

“Okay…” He said, leaning back into the chair and clapping his hands together. “Where’s her phone?”

Alex stirred on her feet again after having stood still for long enough that she may or may not have fallen asleep standing up and shot toward her coffee table across the open apartment to retrieve Sam’s phone. She paced back to the kitchen quickly and handed it to him.

After a quick inspection of it, he plugged a cable into its base and began typing furiously into a keyboard. Then he noticed Alex hovering just above his left shoulder. He turned with his hips to look up at her in polite protest.

“Maybe it’s best if you don’t actually watch from here on out… it’s more of a the less you know sort of situation. Trust me, I’ve got this. Go get some rest.”

Alex shook her head vigorously. “I can’t- not until I find out what happened.” She turned around and began to pace again but stopped at the table near the front door to reach for her keys. “I’m gonna go back to the club and take a look around again. Call me if you find anything.”

Winn shot her a thumbs up and faced the slew of monitors again, pulling his thick eyebrows together in deep concentration, but just as Alex turned to head for the door his head whipped back up at her and he threw out a hand with a flash drive held in it.

“Hey, wait! If you’re going back- get me any footage you can pull from your security system. Here, take this—”

Alex nodded quickly and took the drive from him. She wouldn’t stop until she knew for sure that Sam was safe, or until she dropped dead from exhaustion.  

—Twelve hours missing—

The drive across town was blur as she pulled into the parking lot behind the club. As soon as she got out, the phone in her back pocket buzzed with a message. Her hands anxious fumbled with it as she unlocked it to read a text from Leslie in response to her previous inquiry if she had spoken with her last night or not.

No.

Alex growled and shoved the phone back into her pocket. She had abandoned her utility belt for the sake of her lower back since she was now running on fumes and expected to be awake on and her feet for however long it took until she found any sign of the brunette.

Her feet carried her forward as she struggled to push her phone where it hung on the lip of her pocket and suddenly one boot slipped forward quickly, catching her off guard and nearly sending her to the ground.

“What the hell—” She exclaimed furiously and peered down toward her boots.

It was rectangular piece of paper with bold, black letters and vague religious insignia, perhaps the stamp of a church or organization. Once it was in her hands and she got a better look at it, she recognized it to be the same anti-lgbt flyer that Leslie had taken down from the front door of the club recently. Her blood began to boil. She stood with her mouth hanging wide open in shock as pieces of the puzzle began to clack together in her mind, forming a bigger picture. One that told her that these awful, cretinous human beings must have had something to do with Sam going missing.

She angrily unlocked the back door of the building and stomped her way into the office. If anything, Alex was at least thankful that Leslie, despite her aversion to technology, had sprung for a decent security set up with four cameras that were strategically placed throughout the building, including the one directed toward the employee parking lot out back that recorded footage for twenty-four hours at a time, which was then logged on a hard drive that was plugged in and nestled next to the system. It was mounted high on the wall of the office with its one screen that displayed real time footage from all four cameras.

Alex stuck the flash drive into the USB port on the main device and pressed a series of buttons on its face to instruct the system to upload the past twenty-four hours of footage onto it. She would come back for more from the system’s storage drive if she needed it. For now, this had to be enough. She needed to get it to Winn as fast as she could, precious time continued to pass and she felt like the more of it that she wasted on potentially empty leads was less time that Sam had. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she knew deep in her gut that Sam was in danger. Especially now that she had found the hate-flyer on the ground of their back parking lot after she had the group trespassed months earlier from entering the club’s property during any time. 

She struggled to consider whether or not they’d be stupid enough to venture back there after being legally served a notice of trespass. She also struggled to imagine if they’d be bold enough or dangerous enough to commit an act of kidnapping. The scenarios ran wild in her head, and she felt a wild panic bubble upward within her. Alex then suddenly heard Sam’s calming voice in her head.

“Breathe, baby. Just breathe.”

Tears blurred her vision as she climbed back into her car and raced home to give Winn the flash drive. The wrought-iron staircase up to her apartment vibrated and resonated with each stomp of her boots as she took the steps as fast as she could.

“I’ve got it—” She proclaimed as she came sweeping in through her door again.

Winn looked up from where he squinted at the screens in front of him and relaxed his shoulders a bit. “Great- give it here.”

Alex practically ran to him and handed it over. He plugged it into a port on a computer which used a machine that had a working console of knobs and switches to zero in, fast forward and rewind video.

“Any luck on the phone?” She panted, leaning a hand on the back of his chair.

“I got in easy enough, now I’m just running background on her messages and all of her contacts to check up on them.”

“You can do all of that…?” She questioned curiously.

He stammered for a second with his reply. “I- well, yeah. Technically, I’m borrowing a program for the time being to get it done faster. Did you know the CIA has the world’s most sophisticated and state of the art data-mining software that’s actually criminally and morally wrong for them to use, but they’ve been getting away with it for years?”

Alex was nodding passively and looping a hand in the air with a circular motion in an obvious gesture to hurry him along.

“Yes, yes, yes… wait—” Her brow pinched together in consternation. “How do you know that? Is the software you’re borrowing just as good?” She asked, hooking her fingers in air quotations around the word ‘borrowing’.

He hummed anxiously. “Mmm yeah- yeah, I’d say it’s the real deal.”

Alex stilled her hands in the air and paused. “What does that mean? Where exactly are you borrowing this software from?”

Winn turned his head upward to face her and scrunched his nose with a somewhat guilty expression. “The CIA?”

“Are you freaking kidding me Winn- you hacked into the Central Intelligence Agency?!”

“Hey! Do you want to find Sam or not?” He asked defensively. “Besides, I did warn you with the whole the less you know the better… did I not?”

Alex clapped her jaw shut again from where it had essentially hit the floor. She tilted her head and then clenched her teeth tightly. He was right, they needed all the help they could get.

“Fine. Okay. Work your magic- I’m gonna go follow up on a lead.”

He nodded and stuck his face back into his screens, his fingers tapping away fast on the keys in front of him again. After cleaning the wound in the palm of her hand again and wrapping it in a proper bandage now, she set out toward the police station across town. She couldn’t hold back the overwhelming feeling from invading her mind that Sam was running out of time, but she knew that she would stop at nothing until she saw her again.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine: All Bark, No Bite

—Fourteen Hours Missing—  

The local precinct was nearly empty at just past four in the afternoon for a Saturday. Alex’s boots echoed loudly on the laminate flooring and bare walls as she reached out a hand to ring a bell on the high counter situated at the front. It’s small, hollow sound was sharp in her ears and was more than what she expected, causing her to visibly wince. Just as she leaned around the tall counter to look into the bullpen, the squeak of an office chair was heard on the other side of the counter and a pair of eyes wheeled around, peering out at her over its top.

“Can I help you?” The voice asked.

“Yeah, can you tell me how I can reach an officer Queen from this station? I need information about an arrest made a few months back at a club downtown—”

“We can’t just give out details on arrests…”

“I know that—” Alex stopped and dragged a hand through her hair for a second to collect her thoughts. She was so tired that her vision was partly blurred.

“I’m an ACPD cadet, I assisted in an arrest at Sadie Prescott’s—"

“So, no badge?”

Alex huffed a small lock of hair out of her eyes with an impatient breath. “No, not until next month, which is when I graduate...”

“Sorry, can’t do anything about it.”

She managed to stifle a growl. Still, something had to be said for how calm she was. Her exhaustion had passed the point of irritability and ventured into a state of numbness; she was simply too tired to lose it right now. That or several months of grueling anger management skills had come into play.

“Let’s start over.” Alex begged, wringing her hands out in front of her. “Can you at least tell me where I can find officer Queen? Or what unit he may be with? Please… I am begging you, it’s very important.”

The voice behind the counter drawled out a long sigh and then the chair underneath squeaked again. After a moment and some distinct sounds of shuffling pages, the eyes returned to stare narrowly back at her with clear indignation.

“Officer Queen has the beat on West End this weekend, try the rec center.”

Alex clapped her hands together loudly. “Thank you, thank you so much.” Her words echoed off the nearly bare walls again as she jogged back out through the front doors of the station. She at least had more now than she did before, which was something that she could cling to when the rest of the world felt as though it was being pulled out from under her feet.

Unlike the police station she had just come from, the recreation center in the West End of Austin was filled to the brim with people of all ages, but mostly adolescent youths. She had to dodge a group of boys darting across the parking lot with a basketball as she made her way to the front desk inside the main athletic complex.

She noted almost immediately that it sure smelled like a rec center should. Disinfectant and sweat… Possibly dirty socks. She stopped clumsily with a squeal from the soles of her boots to speak to the first person she saw with a lanyard and ID.

“Is there an Officer Queen working this area today?” Her voice was hurried and cracked with her tiredness.

The person merely lifted an arm to point toward a pair of wide double doors that led to the courtyard and Alex nodded her thanks as they continued their journey. When she reached the doors on the other side of the building, she found that they were heavy, and she struggled to open them. When they gave way suddenly, she nearly fell through.

“Woah!”

A pair of arms caught her as she stumbled forward. She followed them up to gaze at a somewhat familiar face. Alex recognized the officer from that night so long ago at Sadie’s as she clung on to his arms with wide eyes.

“Officer Queen- oh thank God…” Alex shook her head and chortled out a breathy, embarrassed laugh as she stood straight on her feet again.

“You alright?” He asked as he hooked his thumbs into his belt comfortably.

“Yes… Well, no—” She took in a deep breath and started over. “I need your help, actually. I work the door at Sadie Prescott’s downtown—”

“Oh, the gay bar!” He exclaimed with a smile.

Alex’s brow pinched together curiously at him for a split-second. “Yeah…”

“Cool place. I don’t get to work that area often. But I remember you- how can I help?”

She thanked her lucky stars that he was more in a mood to be helpful than the desk uniform was back at the precinct half an hour ago. It lifted her spirits, but only slightly. Now she just had to explain everything. Again.

“You arrested and served a trespass warning for a gentleman who became physically violent there a few months back and is known to be affiliated with a hate group…”

His face bunched in clear disgust. “Oh yeah, that guy.”

“What can you tell me about him? And have you handled any more like him?” She continued quickly, her heart rate spiking with every second.

The officer grimaced and scratched at the dark stubble on his chin, it appeared as though he was attempting to maintain some semblance of professionalism. The harasser from that night clearly had irked him in some way. That was fairly obvious at the way his brow shot upward as soon as she mentioned him; he must have remembered vividly. Alex finally felt a tiny bit of relief.

“Guy wouldn’t shut up, honestly. Blabbed religious nonsense the whole way to the station, but he started singing a different tune as soon as he saw how many uniforms were in the building that night. That’s how they all are; all bark, no bite.”

“I seem to remember getting my bell rung pretty good that night, dude hit me with a haymaker.” She added with a smirk.

“That’s right!” He chuckled and eyed her up and down for a moment, but not in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.

In her experience, most men for some reason seemed to be impressed with a woman who could take a hit and keep on ticking like a Timex watch. It lowered the barrier between them to one of zero to no pretense. It made her feel like she could be a bit more of herself around him.

“Why do you ask, anyway? That was a while back.”

“Someone I care about has gone missing. Going on—” She raised an arm to stare down at the face of her wristwatch. “Almost sixteen hours, and my only clue right now is this…”

Alex reached in her front right pocket and pulled out the flyer. She unfolded it gingerly at its creases and handed it over to the cop in front of her, who wore an expression that read deep concern now. He looked at it and seemed to recognize its bold lettering and offensive rhetoric.

“Yep. These creeps… they weird me out a little, you know?” He squinted his eyes with a small toss of his head back and forth. “They’re too worried about everyone else and not enough about themselves.”

“So, you deal with them a lot?” She asked, hope clinging desperately to her words.

“Mm, I wouldn’t say a lot, but I can say that they’re definitely just your garden variety bullies. You think they had something to do with your friend going missing?”

Alex nodded sullenly. “Right now, it’s all I’ve got to go on.” She sighed and rubbed at an elbow.

“Sorry I’m not more helpful…” He shrugged and stuck the flyer back out at her.

“Do me a favor—” She took a pen from her shirt pocket and scribbled her cell phone number on the flyer, then pushed the hand that held it back toward him gently. “Hang on to that, and please call me if you hear any kind of chatter about these people? I wanna know where they assemble, and I wanna know who they are.”

The officer gave a tuck of his chin in agreement. “You got it.”

Alex began to turn and reach for the handle of one of the doors when he leaned and opened it for her again. “You’re in this year’s group of academy initiates?”

“I am.” She replied, taking a small step inside and pausing there.

“Pretty sure you’re the cadet who almost cold-cocked a buddy of mine.”

She bristled slightly.

Uh oh.

He only laughed. “Don’t worry, he probably deserved it. Name’s Oliver.” The hand that wasn’t currently holding the large door open shot out toward her.

Alex deflated with a relieved chuckle and shook it. “Alex. And thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

As she walked back to her car, she realized she was no closer to another clue about the hate group, which meant she’d have to go in search of them all on her own since she didn’t have the backing of the police department just yet. But she knew if that were the case, things would most likely be out of her hands at that point. At least she knew that she was putting in the time. She couldn’t exactly trust that anyone assigned to look over her report would give it the same amount of effort as she did. She just had to keep going.

She slid her hips onto the leather of her driver’s seat tiredly. Her head came back to rest on the headrest and her eyes started to flutter shut. The driver’s side door was still hanging wide open, and she still had her left boot flat on the ground. She was finally still, and all at once the world began to zero in to a small pinprick in her vision where everything else began to completely blur out. The blood moving in her inner ears lulled her sleepily toward a slower heart rate and a state of unconsciousness when the buzzing from one of her back pockets startled her, sending her flying forward into the steering wheel. Her heart felt as though it had shot straight out of her chest.

She managed to retrieve her phone from her pocket in a near state of panic and saw Winn’s name flash across its screen when she peeled her eyes open to look at it. She tapped the call to answer it and then another button to put him on speaker, as she was simply too exhausted to hold the phone up to her ear.

“Yeah Winn, anything?”

“I need you to be sitting down for this.” His voice was solemn and serious.

Regardless of the fact that whether or not her heart was actually rolling around in the dirt of the floorboard of her car, it was like it had just been torn in half.

“Winn, please…” She begged.

“Just listen, I checked up on a number that texted Sam’s phone maybe half a dozen times in the past year but didn’t initially think anything of it because each incoming message was in Spanish and no hablo español… and she didn’t reply to any of them. But get this- her last incoming call was a duration of maybe twenty seconds from the same number…”

Alex sat up straight and gripped the steering wheel in front of her tightly with her uninjured fist. “Winn, read me exactly what the last message said.”

“Uhhh… last incoming message was Wednesday at six pm, it says no he terminado contigo…” He sounded the words out slowly and carefully.

“I’m not done with you.” …Edgar?

“Alex, this is the part I need you sitting down for…” His voice broke through the nearly forgotten memory and brought her back to the present.

Her eyes flitted down to the screen of her phone in her lap when it received a video file from Winn.

“I just sent you a clip from the camera at the back of the club. Open it and tell me if you recognize anyone—”

Alex’s thumb tapped the file open before she could think and it downloaded quickly, then the video opened and began to play on her screen. The time stamp at the bottom left read 2:10am, which she realized would have been right at last call. Alex knew this camera and where it was fixed to the back of the building and how it was angled. A few seconds passed when suddenly the back door that led to the kitchen burst open and a large figure came stumbling through it. The video quality wasn’t great, but she could tell that the person was big and had the build of a man. He was wrestling a woman in between his arms and was dragging her further out of the camera frame into the parking lot. The clip had no color and no sound, and the picture was grainy, but she knew it was Sam. Her assailant, however, was apparently smart enough to turn his face away from the camera.

Her heart sunk to the bottom of her stomach and everything in it suddenly wanted to come back up. She leaned out of her seat and wretched what little contents were in it onto the pavement beneath her car. She shook violently as she choked back any more painful heaving and began to gasp desperately for air as her panic overwhelmed her.

Alex—

Alex!

“Alex! Breathe, I can hear you hyperventilating!”

Winn’s voice had been a faraway echo the first few times he called to her through the phone. There was a rushing sound in her ears and the back of her neck was ice cold and drenched with sweat. Slowly, the earth and the sky came back together and time folded back into itself from its suspended, almost limbo state.

“That’s Sam…” She choked against the scratchiness of her throat. The acidic taste in her mouth made her want to vomit again. “Oh my God, someone took her—”

“We need to call the cops—”

“Winn, we are the cops!” She shouted and placed a hand against her chest to try and calm her pounding heart. Then she managed to lower her voice with a few slow, deep breaths. “Let’s keep going… Sam’s best bet is us right now, what more can you give me?”

“I’m working on restoring the video as much as I can but there’s only so many pixels to work with, I need time—”

“Okay, how many things can you work on at once?”

“The video needs time to render each time I enhance it… just tell me what you need.”

“Okay, run a search for one male, late twenties to early thirties, first name Edgar- Echo Delta Georgia Alpha Romeo, last name unknown, convicted felon, served a one year stretch on assault charges with ties to a local MC named Children of Liberty and was released last year—” She cleared her throat to continue and settled back in the driver’s seat, pulling her door shut. “Give me everything. I want an address, I want his place of work, I want his PO, I want to know where his fucking abuela does her grocery shopping… search DMV records, NCIC, CCH, everywhere. Call me with the very first thing you come up with, I’m going back to the club to look around one more time.”

“I’m on it.”

With a second wind, Alex turned the key hard in the ignition cylinder of her Nova and floored its engine with an angry stomp of her boot against its accelerator pedal. She spent the drive back across Austin replaying every millisecond from her interaction that night with Sam’s ex, trying to uncover some clue or connecting piece of evidence to tie him with Sam’s kidnapping. Because that’s officially what she was now… kidnapped.

—Seventeen Hours Missing—

Alex didn’t even bother pulling into a space in the lot when she arrived. She pulled her parking brake hard when she stopped and climbed out quickly to begin looking around. Little had she known before now that she had needed to be paying attention to what was on the outside of the club, and not necessarily what was on the inside. She wouldn’t miss any more clues; hell would freeze over before she would overlook one more detail. No rock would be left unturned, literally.

Her eyes scanned the ground for any other sign of the brunette. Perhaps something had fallen off of her attacker in their struggle which Alex could use to positively identify him. Her eyes began to burn for lack of blinking as she paced back and forth over the pavement. The longer she held her head at a downward angle to survey the scene in front of her, the more the muscles in her neck ached. The image of Sam thrashing and kicking right where she now stood sent a shiver from the base of her spine all the way to her shoulders, and harsh goosebumps rose on her forearms so intensely they were almost painful.

She tried following their path from the video across the camera’s line of sight toward the middle of the parking lot as she glanced up at the device attached to the top of the brick wall at the end of the building. She walked several paces until she felt like she was no longer within the frame of the camera, and then continued walking in that direction with her eyes glued to the ground again.

Nothing. There was just… nothing.

She growled deeply and smoothed both of her hands down the back of her hair. She knew that she needed to keep calm, which was easier said than done as she liked to remind Sam each time they worked on easing away from her triggers. Sam had artfully explained to her, in theory, that if she were able to control how much of each trigger she allowed to affect her, that over time hopefully she would be able to coexist with them without becoming so unsettled that they affected her for days at a time. And that was for each trigger. Which, if she was being completely honest with herself and open with Sam about them, there existed a multitude.

The sounds of Sam’s calm shushing and humming entered her mind in the form of waves, slowly easing the tension out of her shoulders with each passing moment.

I have to do this, for her… I can do this.

Alex shut her eyes and tilted her head toward the sky, taking another long, deep breath. She felt the subtle warmth of the sun on her skin where it hung low in the afternoon sky. People would be showing up for work at the club in a couple of hours, and her crime scene would inevitably be contaminated by more foot traffic other than her own. She had to calm down.

It was when she opened her eyes and lowered them back toward the ground that she saw it. A long, dark skid mark that pointed toward the only entrance and exit of the employee parking lot. She recognized that the tire rubber was transferred to the pavement from a stand-still and could follow its trajectory from where it tapered off and disappeared. It was more of a high-speed start, like a peel-out rather than a skid-to-a-stop kind of mark. She also recognized that it was just one, singular tire.

A motorcycle…

She clenched her jaw hard along with the fists at her sides. The cut in her palm beneath its bandage screamed.

Fucking Edgar.

The motorcycle skid mark had completely confirmed her suspicions that it was in fact Sam’s ex that had taken her. She realized that he must have snuck into the back of the club to grab her, since Alex had discovered later that night that the door to the kitchen had been propped open again with the block of concrete. No one that worked at the club either during the week or on the weekend rode a motorcycle, and there was no reason for a tire mark from one to be in their back parking lot that was reserved for employees only. The flyer from the hate group must have been left as a diversion, and she had completely taken the bait. Precious hours had been wasted following the wrong lead. The anger being held at bay within her wanted to rear its ugly head again, but she smothered it back down and kept it locked away.

One thing was for certain though, she knew what to do with it now. She was going to use it. But where to begin?

Just then, her phone vibrated again from where it rested in her back pocket. It was Winn calling, hopefully with some information she could use.

“Yeah Winn, what do you have?”

“Just saying, I know I’m not your type- but you’re probably gonna want to kiss me after this…”

“Winn!” She hurried him along with as much kindness and patience as she could muster.

“Alright, listen to this- An Edgar Ramos was released early last year after only serving one year of a fifteen-year prison sentence… I got little to no information from his parole officer who was suspiciously tight-lipped about him and then got completely spooked when I started asking about the Children of Liberty. So, I started looking at financials. Everyone’s getting paid, Alex… the assistant district attorney on the case, two prosecutors, several members of the jury, I even linked the same deposits from an offshore account to not the first, and not the second, but the third presiding judge over the RICO case because get this- the first two recused themselves out of the blue… this is serious shit Alex—”

“Where’s Edgar, Winn?”

“I’m getting there… I tracked the same account to some current monthly rent payments on a warehouse in the industrial district on the edge of east side. The last known corporation to inhabit that warehouse via some tax documents I borrowed from the IRS says it was a work uniform overflow warehouse, but those documents ended four years ago when the corporation was liquidated. Now the listing for the building is under an obscure LLC name, and the owner’s a ghost. It’s a front- I’m sending you the address now.”

Her phone buzzed against her ear, and she pulled it away from her face to look at the message containing the warehouse street address displayed on its screen.

“Great work…” Alex sighed heavily as she reached the door of her car. “Hey Winn?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. I couldn’t have done this without you. I mean that.”

“I know. Now go get her. I’m getting you some back up too, but it might take a minute to get anyone to take any of this seriously… so I might have to get creative. I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Alright.”

“And… be careful.”

“I will be.”

Alex hung up the phone and took another deep breath in as soon as she sat back in her driver’s seat. She gripped the steering wheel hard with her good hand and realized she didn’t currently have much in the way of weapons or a means of self-defense other than her fists, which were usually good enough in a scrap, but she only had one of them now. Nothing would stop her, though. She didn’t have much of a game plan, but she sure as hell had a destination.

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten: Fortune Favors the Brave

—Eighteen Hours Missing—

The warehouse and industrial district on the east side was pretty much a ghost town. Alex witnessed no signs of life as she exited the stretch of highway that had brought her across Austin. Even the gas stations on the corners were empty as she drove further into the district. It looked like there hadn’t been any workforce or any kind of established maintenance for any of the complexes scattered through each side street for years. Just vast, empty parking lots and tons of long forgotten shipping containers scattered throughout. Panes of glass were missing from some top floor windows on several buildings, probably having been the result of storm damage and no one along to fix any of it. The sun was setting lower and lower on the horizon and Alex worried that she was going to be continuing her search for Sam in the dark, as she was losing daylight by the minute.

The GPS on her phone rang out to take the next left, and she realized that she was venturing deeper and deeper into a maze of abandoned warehouses and factories. At one time this area may have been a booming center of production and manufacturing, but it appeared as though most of its resident companies or corporations had just packed up and moved out. Turn after turn sent her further into the labyrinth of corporate greed and excess.

How the hell am I ever going to find anything in here?

A feeling of despair crept slowly up the back of her neck as the voice from her phone announced that she had arrived at her destination. She made sure to double back and park near an adjacent building behind a small brick partition to hide her car. She wanted to keep on the side of stealth, for now. The building where her GPS had led her to was large, though slightly dilapidated and possessed no exterior signage whatsoever. Alex reached down for her phone to double check the address once more and confirmed that she had made it to the right place. She checked around in the floorboards of her Nova as well as its back seat for something that she could use to protect herself and cheered inwardly when she remembered the baseball bat that she kept in the trunk. She heaved a grand sigh of relief as she climbed out and retrieved it.

Before moving any closer, she shot a quick text to Winn before crossing the few stretches of parking lots toward the building.

I’m here, backup en route?  

Winn, like always, answered almost immediately.

Working on it

She paused to consider waiting for an additional force to meet her there and to coordinate a strategic sweep of the building from floor to floor in an effort to learn more about the MC and how they operate, but she couldn’t help but think that maybe Sam was here, inside the building somewhere, scared and alone.

Her mouth went dry at the thought, and it ultimately spurred her into action. Alex made sure her phone was switched to silent and shoved it back into the back pocket of her slim-fit tactical pants. She regretted not grabbing her utility belt the last time she had been at her apartment because it had useful things like mace, and zip-tie restraints that may or may not come in handy for whatever it was she was about to encounter. She would just have to settle on hoping for any available nearby units to come to her aid, but ideally, she hoped that she wouldn’t need them at all.

It took several minutes to walk the perimeter of the building around its outside as she checked for a way in, and just when she was about to lose hope of ever finding a point of entrance, she saw a motorcycle in the distance under an outside stairwell that led up three flights to the top floor of the warehouse.

Her skin crawled with the realization that she was not alone now. It was at this point that she was faced with the decision to hang back and wait for backup, or to continue moving forward. Again, she made the same choice as before. There was no time to wait, not in her mind at least. It wasn’t a choice at all, there simply wasn’t one. She needed to keep going.

The steel staircase at first seemed sturdy enough but Alex soon found that it was rust-compromised in areas that gave way slightly under her weight. The resulting metal-creaking noise made her stop in her tracks. She needed to be as quiet as possible so as to not give away her position. She also had no idea of the layout of the inside of the building, which meant there was a much higher risk of her being discovered the further she went. Commercial floor plans were probably something that were easily attainable by Winn, but she was already more than halfway up to the top floor and decided to keep forging ahead. She was essentially going in blind. Her heart pounded like a kick drum in her chest and if not for her tight grip on the wooden bat in her hands, they would be shaking uncontrollably.

Once she climbed to the landing at the top, she peered down at the pavement below and saw how high up she was from the ground. A fall from this height would no doubt be fatal. With a shiver, she continued moving forward. She noticed that the door in front of her was just off-kilter by its hinges and its knob hung loosely out of its bore hole by a single screw. It had been broken into and left not completely closed. The sun had set quickly, and darkness cloaked the concrete jungle of the landscape at her back now. Slowly and carefully, she pulled the door open and stepped inside onto a high metal catwalk. The few dimly lit areas were down below on the ground floor near some rows of roller conveyors and another in a small corner office that she could see just across the top floor, but she needed to move from the catwalk and over to the floor to get there. The third level of the warehouse did not cover the expanse of the building like the ground floor did and was likely the center of operations with the one office being just on the opposite end from her.

Alex kept her eyes peeled for any signs of movement as she tread carefully across the catwalk to step down onto the floor. Her footfalls were soft and slow as she moved closer to the office ahead of her. She crouched to duck behind a long railing to keep herself covered and unseen as she took each step. The office had two windows and a door, the window encased in the longest wall provided the most visibility of what lay inside, and she decided that would be the one to look through. With one hand still gripping the bat and the other flat upon the wall just beneath the glass of the window, she stood slowly and looked inside.

A body with its hands tied to the piping of a wall mounted radiator was slumped over and appeared to be either injured or sleeping. Alex saw long, dark brown hair that covered a red, scraped cheek.

Sam. Oh my God, it’s Sam…

Quickly now, she moved along the outside wall of the office to reach the door around its corner, still ducking slightly to stay out of sight and keeping the sounds of her booted footsteps to a minimum. The door, however, had other ideas. When she pulled at its knob and drew it open, it screeched on its hinges, painfully breaking the silence around her.

Sam shot up and recoiled away from the door reactively, but when she saw that it was Alex who was crouched on the floor with a finger at her lips to keep quiet, her face twisted up and she began to sob through the rag that was tied around her neck and shoved into her teeth as a gag.

“Shh, shh… it’s alright now—” Alex crossed the office floor on her hands and knees and wrapped the brunette in them. Sam quaked violently under her hands with her quiet, gut-wrenching sobs. It felt almost unreal, Alex couldn’t believe that she had actually found her. What twisted, but fortuitous game of fate was it that she would end up at the one place where Sam was being held? Her hands clasped each side of Sam’s face as she smoothed lengths of her beautiful, silky brown hair from her eyes. A nasty scrape spanned the length of the right side of her face all the way from her hairline to her chin. Alex’s heart dropped again to the pit in her stomach as she saw how red and bruised her eyes were from crying.

She pulled the gag out from in between her teeth and kissed her quickly and repeatedly from her lips to the uninjured side of her face. The first words to fall from Sam’s mouth were simply her name, over and over again in between kisses and more quiet sobbing. Alex pulled away from her face finally to assess again the damage that lay there, and she thumbed away streaks of tears as they ran from her eyes.

“You’re hurt—”

“I threw myself off the bike to get away… he caught me.”

Alex felt sick. Just how much of this had she endured while Alex had searched high and low for her?

“You’re gonna be okay now, everything’s going to be okay—”

“I’m so glad you’re here… How did you find me?”

“I had help. I would have never stopped until I found you.” Alex said firmly as she looked into her eyes and began to fumble quickly with the rope that had her wrists tied around the radiator. It was so tight that she struggled to get a grip on it and saw that Sam’s hands had a slight purple hue from the blood flow being restricted to them for so long.

“Please hurry- I don’t know where he is… Alex, he has a gun.”

“He’s still here.” Alex replied with a foreboding tone of seriousness. “When did you see him last? How long—"

In an instant, a loud bang came from behind her and the metal of the radiator next to her head clanged with such a piercing sound that it threw her to the floor. Her ears rang and she tried to make sense of what had just happened, and Sam’s voice began to come in over the static noise of her shock.

“¡Basta! Por favor!” Sam begged over her. “Edgar- por favor, para!” She was pulling her arms as hard as she could from where her hands were still tied at the piping of the radiator.

Alex turned her face toward where the noise had come from and saw a bear of a man standing in the doorway of the office, pointing a gun directly at them. She scrambled back to her knees quickly as the seriousness of the situation struck her. She had just been shot at. Whether he had intended to miss or not was unknown to her. There was one way out, and he stood in its path. She reached out for the bat that lay on the floor between her and Sam with one hand and Edgar waved the gun angrily.

“Ah ah, don’t be stupid pendeja, kick it over to me.” He demanded.

Alex had always known her fight or flight response to almost never land on the side of flight, but she was met this time with a third reaction that was unknown to her. She froze.

“Now, güey!” He shouted.

Her limbs finally regained their sense, and she jumped back into action, sending the bat skittering loudly across the floor toward him. The sound of the wood as it rolled away from her took her last remaining ounce of a plan with it. She decided that she had to be smart and leave no room for bravado with him. Her hands came out in surrender in front of her and she slowly rose to her feet.

Alex began to try reasoning with him calmly. “Edgar… it’s not too late, you can still make a choice to stop now before you do something that you can never come back from—”

“And what do you know, huh?” He sniffed agitatedly through his nose and wiped at it with the back of the hand that was holding the gun. His eyes were wild, and darting from side to side. He had either been awake for as long as she had or was currently as high as a kite. Or both.

“It’s too late for everything, it’s all gone. There’s nothing left…” He rambled almost nonsensically for a moment and then leaned to the side to look behind her.

“I brought you here to get the truth, mi amor. Why won’t you just tell me it’s not true what they say?”

Sam’s voice was small down by her feet. “Por favor, please Edgar, stop this—”

“Deja de decirme qué hacer, bruja! You did this!” He screamed and shoved the gun in his hand out again toward her.

Alex stepped in front of Sam with her hands still raised defensively. “Hey, hey- if you want to point that gun somewhere… point it at me, okay?”

His wide eyes flashed up at her and the hand with the gun followed. He gripped it tightly, gnashing his teeth together. Alex could tell that he was seconds away from a split-decision of firing it again or not. She decided then and there that she’d die before she’d let one more person hurt someone that she loved. She began to step away from Sam to draw her away from the line of fire.

“Edgar, please don’t—” Sam begged again.

“¡Cállate la boca!”

Alex still had her eyes glued to Edgar’s jumping trigger finger on the gun. “Let’s all just calm down now. We can just slow down.”

“Is she the one you care so much about, mi amor?” He asked Sam while continuing to stare hard straight down the slide of the gun at Alex. “I go away for a little while and you leave me for this cochina marrana?”

“It didn’t happen like that, escúchame por favor—”

Edgar dropped the weapon long enough to begin pacing in and out of the doorway. He shook his head frustratingly, scratching at the back of it with the muzzle of the gun, his finger still on the trigger. Alex remarked inwardly that he clearly had no sense or desire to keep from harming himself and recognized him as a man truly left with nothing to live for. He wheeled back around and brought his attention back to Sam on the floor

“¿Por qué no puedes amarme? Huh? Why can’t you just love me back?”

Alex chose then to speak again to try to keep the tension in the small room on her. “Edgar, people like me and Sam… we don’t get to decide, it’s just who we are- it has nothing to do with you.”

Edgar became very still all of the sudden, which scared Alex more than anything else. In that moment, it seemed like something had irrevocably snapped inside of him.

“Well, if you don’t get to decide, I will decide for you. She will belong to nobody now.”

Alex watched the arm holding out the gun sway and point downward back at Sam on the floor and she threw herself back in front of her without a second’s worth of hesitation.

Another shot rang out.

She felt calm for a moment as she knelt on the floor in front of Sam, and then everything went silent as she stared deep into her brown eyes, as if someone had turned down the volume in the small room all the way to zero. The look on her face was one of shock, and Alex didn’t quite register why until the searing pain from her lower abdomen filled her consciousness. A shaky hand floated down and pressed against the wound as blood began to quickly soak into her clothing. Sound suddenly returned to her ears when Sam screamed.

“No!” Sam choked on a gasp. “Alex, no!”

The brunette yanked herself wildly against the radiator, but she was helpless to break free of the rope. Alex’s vision started to tunnel as she wobbled to keep upright on her knees. She lifted a bloodied hand and placed it against Sam’s trembling face in an effort to make her be still for just a moment.

“I love you.”

Sam wept loudly against the hand on her cheek then. “Alex please, please…”

There was just no energy left within her to keep fighting and to keep her eyes open. A day and a half of no food and no rest, along with a mountain of uncertainty and mental anguish over the well-being of the woman she loved more than anything in the world only added more weight to her limbs, and Alex realized that she began to feel heavy, heavier than she had ever felt before in her life. She knew she was about to die. She slumped forward against Sam as the brunette cried and screamed, and just when everything was about to fade out, the last sounds that echoed far away in her ears were the stomping of boots and several loud voices shouting behind her. Then, everything went black.

The wind on her face chapped her cheekbones with the heat that it carried, drawing out every bit of moisture from her skin that it could. Even the earth beneath her feet split open in patterned lines deep within its dirt. Long had it been since any grass had grown there after decades of drought weather had rendered it barren.

It was so hot.

…Am I in hell?

Alex spun her head around in befuddlement as she recognized the baseball diamond around her.

…How…?

Kara’s blonde hair was wild and badly in need of a brush running through it as she stood on the pitcher’s mound; the last to be picked for a team. Again.

No more than twelve years old, her skinny legs jogged quickly to keep up with the boys as they moved across the field. She came to a halt suddenly when one of them stuck their arm out at her from entering the dugout. Blonde hair bounced with her impact as she came to land flat on her back in the red dirt.

“Go home.”

“But I want to play...”

Alex felt her legs burst into a sprint at the sight of her sister on the ground.

“Hey!”

She grasped at Kara’s forearms as she helped her to her feet and dusted the dirt from the back of her shorts and her shirt.

“You afraid she’s gonna hit everything you throw at her again?”

The venom in her words rang true when the boy’s face turned sour.

“Maybe if she quit trying so hard to be like us, we’d—”

“She ain’t trying to be like y’all! She’s too busy being herself. Let my sister play.”

“What are you gonna do if we don’t?” An ugly smirk ran across his face, though she couldn’t tell exactly who it was.

She felt Kara move swiftly behind her at the tone of his voice.

“Let. My sister. Play.”

The boy stepped forward and shoved her hard at her shoulders, sending her a step back. Then she felt a small hand grip at her wrist and pull.

“Alex, don’t—”

But her other hand was already balled into a fist and connecting with the side of the boy’s face. The distinct crack of her knuckles against jawbone rang out, much like a bat against a pumpkin at full swing.

The rest of the boys on the field rushed her, piling one on top of the other to swipe and claw at her as she pummeled them back, giving just as good as she got. She could hear the sounds of Kara’s pleading screams to ‘stop’ and ‘get off’ as Alex fought tooth and nail to keep them at bay. Each blow to her ribs and the back of her head hurt, but it was as if they were only shadows of pain; Like she had felt them before somehow. It didn’t stop them from knocking the wind out of her.

Punch after kick she kept getting back on her feet, screaming in the wake of each blow. “I am so sick of you assholes—” Her knee shot straight into the gut of a boy her size, folding him into a crumpled wheeze of a mess onto the ground. “…thinking that you can just get away with everything!”

The ground in front of her was littered with writhing and crying boys as she staggered back onto her feet in a daze, swaying clumsily from her double vision. Her head whipped around to look at her sister, who was staring at her with wide eyes. Something about her face broke her heart though. Kara wasn’t just shocked, she looked disappointed.

“Let’s go, Kara—”

“Why did you do that!”

Alex shook her head, jarring her already blurred vision. “What do you mean?”

“Now I’m never going to get to bat again! Thanks a lot!”

She saw that her face was beet red in contrast to her golden blonde hair and her eyes glistened angrily with tears.

“Kara…”

“No, you’re right, let’s go!”

“Kara, wait, I’m sorry—”

“Come on, Alex!”

Suddenly, a bright flash of intense white light shot across her eyes.

“Come on—”

Her chest lurched upward and then she felt it being pounded against like a hammer to nail.

“Come on!”

Another flash of white light flooded her vision and expanded to all corners, settling there with a loud and almost grainy noise. She fought to flutter her eyelids open, but it was just too bright at first. A few more moments passed, and she realized that she was calm. Calmer than she had felt in a long time.

She opened her eyes at last and stared out at the vast, welcoming emptiness that was the blank space before her. Time felt as though it had suspended again and lingered somewhere in that serene middle place between a thing’s beginning and its end. 

Where am I…?

She spun so quickly it felt as though she had turned completely around at least twice, as there was no waypoint in the distance with which she could judge her direction.

“Hello?”

It was so strange that her voice didn’t echo back toward her after some time. For what looked like an endless expanse that lay before her, her voice only carried so far as if she were in a small room. Somehow, the place seemed familiar.

“Is anyone there?!”

“Alexandra.”

That voice. She knew that voice. She only had to blink, and he was there.

“Daddy…” Tears welled in her eyes at the sight of him.

“C’mere and hug my neck, baby girl.”

Space and time warped in and out of the present and something else entirely as she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. She sighed as she felt the scratch of the stubble from his chin against her cheek.

“I want to stay here with you this time… please—”

Strong hands gripped her at each arm, moving her backward just far enough to be able to look him in the face.

“No, darlin’.” Her father shook his head. “But I’ll tell you what…” He lifted a hand and placed it over her heart. “All that hurt and anger in there… you can leave it here. That’s the only way you can go back.”

“But I don’t wanna go back—”

“Yes, you do.”

He leaned forward and placed a kiss upon her forehead. He smelled of wood smoke and aftershave, just like he always did.

“The world’s waitin’ for you. I promise.”

It was the chill on her skin that woke her, which tightened with goosebumps at every inch the more she stirred. Her joints ached something awful. Everything was still too goddamn bright. A groan eked its way out past her throat.

Oh…

She realized she had a voice.

The small bones in her hands were what her consciousness recognized next as they extended and flattened, scraping her palms against scratchy cotton fabric. Sounds and smells came next. Neither were pleasing. Everything smelled of either rubbing alcohol or iodine and the ceaseless, monotonous beeping further stirred her awake.

A warmth then enveloped her hand, welcoming her. It felt soft and gentle like the break of day on an early spring morning.

She opened her eyes.

Deep pools of copper were staring back at her, and the eyelids that surrounded them appeared red and puffy as if they had spent a great deal of time crying. The long scrape along the temple and cheekbone near them had turned a slight tinge of blue and purple. The more Alex blinked, the more she recognized where she was, and who was now sitting on the edge of the bed she was laying in.  

“Sam…?”

“I’m here, baby.”

A tear drop fell on her wrist as she raised it to clasp gingerly at the underside of Sam’s jaw and turned her face. The wound there looked painful, but it was healing.

“Are you okay?”

Sam huffed a small laugh and smiled, wiping away some of her tears with the back of a sleeve.

“Am I okay? Alex, you were shot. I’m fine…”

“He didn’t—”

“No.” Sam shook her head immediately.

Alex immediately wanted to burst into tears, but as soon as the muscles in her abdomen contracted, she winced painfully and groaned with an exhale.

“Shot… right. Ow.”

“Alex, you—” Sam’s chin began to quiver. “You scared me… so badly. They had to bring you back. Twice.”

She stared blankly at the brunette for a moment after that, allowing everything sink in.

“I found you.”

“You did. You saved me.”

Sam leaned all the way forward and pressed her forehead against Alex’s. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and Alex felt them tickle her own.

“I love you too.” Sam’s whispered words landed breathily against Alex’s lips.

She didn’t remember much before everything went dark, but what she could recall was the terrifying notion that if she didn’t tell Sam that she loved her before it was too late, that she may never get another chance. It seemed that fortune really did favor the brave, and she swore right then and there that she’d continue to repay it by telling her that she loved her for the rest of her days.

Alex tilted her head up to kiss her softly at the corner of her mouth. She was so thankful to be alive and to have a second chance. She thanked the heavens, the universe, and whatever powers that be that had granted her life. She thanked the very salt in the tears that her lips kissed away as the brunette sighed over and over again into them.

Sam inhaled sharply through her nose after another long moment and lifted her head away to look at her with an expression of concern. Or was it grief? The room buzzed slightly, whatever it was that was in her IV was sure as hell doing its job.

“There’s something that you need to know…”

Alex stilled, and a chill spread through her skin.

“What is it?”

The brunette took a deep breath and sat up to take Alex’s uninjured hand tightly into her own. “The bullet caused more damage than they initially thought.”

In an instant, Alex shot her other hand down to pinch hard at her thigh.

Ouch- fuck.

She sighed in relief and let the back of her head fall back against her pillow again.

Thank God.

“Haz caso, bebé…” Sam squeezed her hand. “I am so sorry.”

“Sam… what is it?” She begged Sam over the sound of her heart pounding behind her ears.

The brunette paused for a beat and then looked her directly in the eyes. “Bone shards from your pelvis perforated your uterus, and they had to remove one of your ovaries.”

Sam saw the color drain from Alex’s face and her voice broke when she finished. “After they stitched you up, they said that it’s unlikely that you’d be able to carry a pregnancy to full term without complications, and that’s even if you’re still able to become pregnant at all.”

Every bit of air in her lungs escaped all at once. Alex was frozen, and unable to breathe. Her ears rang loudly and suddenly everything in the room began to tunnel again. She felt dizzy, and suddenly very nauseous. She faintly recognized Sam placing a hand over her hammering heart, which seemed to hinder her panic long enough for her vision to focus again and come back to her senses. Finally, she pulled a broken, gasping breath in and heaved it right back out into a sob. Her lower abdomen screamed past the numbing effects of the pain-relieving agents in her IV solution every time she folded into another heart-wrenching sob. 

Sam simply held her still and let her expel her sorrow into her hands that were now bracketing her face. Alex gripped each of her wrists there and pulled them closer to her. She was devastated. Becoming a mother had always been one of her biggest dreams and ambitions in life, apart from delivering real justice wherever and whenever it was needed as a cop. Loving and raising a happy, and healthy child that loved her back was something that she’d always wanted. Now she felt like it had been ripped away from her, right out of her very soul.

“I remember you telling me how much you wanted that for yourself, and now you might think the opportunity is gone forever but listen to me—” Sam moved Alex’s face back towards hers and wiped the tears from the dark circles beneath her eyes with her thumbs. “I believe you can still be a great mom. You would be the best parent to the luckiest kid…”

Alex’s slowed her breathing and leaned her face further into Sam’s hands. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks, but she had calmed some.

“There’s something else I have to tell you—”

“Oh, my God, what?” Alex exclaimed with feigned annoyance. She pulled a hand away that had been cradling her face and kissed its palm sweetly.

“Your mother is here.”

Alex’s neck stiffened and her eyes went wide.

“…You’re joking…”

“I’m afraid not. She seems… nice.”

Alex chuckled quietly.

“I met your sister too…”

“Kara’s here?!”

Having already forgotten about the bullet wound and intensive surgery to her pelvis, she choked back a small cry of pain when she had tried to sit up. There were rolled blankets and small cushions positioned strategically around the lower portion of her body to keep her stationary.

“Careful, cariño, your pelvic bone is wired together like a jigsaw puzzle. Just… don’t move. I’ll go get them; I think they were looking for a hotel to stay at…?” She puzzled her brow as she tried to remember. “Things were still sort of crazy when they got here. But Kara said she wants to stay until she knows you’re okay… I don’t think there’s a lot that would stop her at this point.”

“It’s rare that anything does with that one.” Alex smiled at the thought of her sister moving mountains to stay by her side.

Sam leaned forward once more and kissed her on her cheek. “Well, now I know where she gets it from.” Then she kissed her again on her lips. It was full, soft, and slow. Alex sighed heavily with her relief again as their lips continued to press against one another. It felt as though it lasted so much longer than it did. God, she wanted to continue kissing her until the end of time, but after another moment the brunette eventually pulled away.

“I’ll be back.”

Time either pulled in and out relentlessly, playing tricks on her mind or her head was still somewhat of a mess from the pain killers… but it only felt like a few short moments ago that the door to her recovery room had clicked and then suddenly she could hear loud running in the hall just outside of it. Then door swung open, clacking against an empty tray table and almost toppling it over to the floor.

“You’re awake!” Kara proclaimed excitedly as she rushed the bed.

“Jesus how is it you’re still a very adorable bull in a china shop- careful!”

Her younger sister screeched to a halt just at the edge of the bed, her hands hovering just over her body. She practically vibrated with the desire to wrap them around her and hug her.

“Sorry- sorry. Are you alright? You got shot—”

“Yes, I did…”

“You lost a lot of blood—”

“I guess…”

“You frickin’ died! Twice!”

“So I’m told.”

“Would you stop?!”

“Stop what, Kara?!”

The blonde hesitated for a split-second and darted her eyes back and forth anxiously.

“I don’t know! Acting like you’re fine?”

“Little sister, I am fine.”

Alex paused and then bubbled into laughter, and Kara slowly joined her. She had missed the sound of her sister’s laugh so much, and she still couldn’t believe that she was standing there, right in front of her.

“Is this how you’ve been keeping busy all this time? Running down outlaw bikers, chasing bomb threats and rescuing—" Kara stopped suddenly and looked back over her shoulder toward the door for a moment. “Rescuing beautiful women- Alex, she’s really pretty…” She had almost whispered.

Alex chuckled again carefully, trying her best to keep still. “That’s not really a secret, Kara.”

The blonde shrugged.

Then Alex pinched her brow together in confusion. “Wait, bomb threat?”

Kara peered down at her with her own confused look. “Yeah… they said there had been a tip about a bomb when they found you?”

Winn... Holy shit.

“Um. I’m a little fuzzy on the details right now. I did die like, twice apparently. Brain’s a bit foggy.”

Kara laughed and pulled a chair away from the wall to sit next to the bed. “Yeah, how’s the afterlife this time of year? Humid?”

Alex bristled slightly, and her demeanor shifted. Images flashed in and out of her mind of the vast, bright blank space that went on for miles. Then came the sound of her father’s voice, and the smell of wood smoke and aftershave. His smile… she’d never forget it for as long as she lived. She knew everything would be okay going forward because he had given her the greatest gift of her life… Freedom from her anger.

Her eyes settled on Kara’s face again, who was looking at her with deep sincerity now. Perhaps she was scared to find out just what exactly laid waiting on the other side. Alex didn’t feel like she had even really found out for herself, since it had seemed to be more of a middle place. A temporary place. It didn’t actually feel like she had gone anywhere to begin with. It was more like it somewhere that lived just in between what is seen and what is known, a place that somehow lived inside of everything. That was when she realized. He wasn’t gone either.

What is he waiting for…?

Alex stared at her sister hard, contemplating whether or not to tell her. But she knew that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to stop her from telling her everything. And she also knew that Kara had blamed herself for years about what had happened to her father. It wasn’t her fault, but the blonde had long since stopped hearing anyone who tried to tell her that. What came after had been so much worse and was the one thing Alex had been sworn to keep from her. If that ever did come out, then she would eventually tell her about this. But she decided that wouldn’t be today.

“I—” Alex opened and closed her mouth in search of words. She couldn’t find them. “Baby girl, I don’t think I can even describe it. It goes beyond words.” She felt like that was mostly the truth anyway.

Suddenly the door to the room opened again. Pale, yellow hair cascaded around a sharp jaw and grayish blue eyes. Eliza Danvers strode over to her bedside, calm and collected like always.

“How are you feeling?” She asked as placed a hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t often that her mother was physically affectionate, but Alex stifled an instinctive reaction to recoil. It felt strange but comforting still. Her father Jeremiah had always been the one to hug and pat her on the shoulder when she needed it the most.

“Like I’ve been shot.” She tossed her head slightly, admonishing herself for her unintentional curtness. This had been their mode of communication for pretty much her entire life, and habits like that were hard to break.

“I’m okay. I feel… tired still.”

That was better.

“Okay, baby.” She sighed, clearly relieved.

Alex knew her mother loved her. She just hadn’t had the best track record when it came to showing it. ‘Tough love’ was her brand. Mixed with hard life lessons and wisdom in the form of either loss or pain. They were just two completely different people at the end of the day.

“We met your friend Samantha. She’s a sweet girl, and she seems very attached to you. You risked your life for her, Alexandra.”

“That’s because she’s my girlfriend, Mama.”

Eliza cleared her throat as if she hadn’t heard her.

Typical.

Kara held her eyes wide open like a deer in headlights as they bounced back and forth in between the both of them.

“She can come and visit once we get you settled back at home. The surgeon said you need several more—”

“What do you mean back home? I live here now.”

“Don’t be foolish, you’re going to need help while you recover—”

“I’ve got help. I’ve got Sam. And Kara too.” Alex leaned her head around to look at her sister. “Sam said that you wanted to stay for a while?”

Kara bounced on her heels and stammered for a moment. “I- well, I mean… I want to, if that’s okay…”

“You’re an adult, you can do whatever you want—” Alex managed to respond before the sound of her mother’s voice cut over her own.

“Kara honey, will you go out to the car and fetch my handbag for me?”

The blonde tilted her head at the request.

“Right now?”

“Yes, baby.”

“…Okay.”

As soon as the door shut behind the youngest Danvers woman, Eliza stepped closer to the head of the bed and gave Alex a stern look.

“It would not bode well on the state of your sister’s mental health to upset her any more than she already is.”

Alex clenched her jaw to keep her tongue from lashing out. She only halfway succeeded.

“Oh- so you admit she has that?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Mental health.”

Eliza sucked the back of her teeth and tossed her brow. “Oh Alexandra, please. Enough with your vapor—"

“Alex. Just Alex. It’s what Daddy called me, it’s what Kara calls me, it’s what everyone calls me. Why can’t you?”

“Because I gave birth to you and named you, and I will call you by your birth name.”

Alex exhaled a defeated breath and leaned her head back into the pillows. This was how it always was. A snowball effect of disagreements. One thing always turned into another. She never understood how that had always been the way between them. Their dynamic was ceaseless push against a door that clearly said pull, and vice-versa. It was infuriating. Not to mention disappointing.

“For the record, Kara is a lot stronger than you give her credit for.”

“She’s not, Alexandra, and my warning still stands. Don’t you dare do that to her.”

“Yes, she is! She’s not going to break like some porcelain doll, just because you want to keep her on a shelf—” Alex stopped herself and closed her hands together tightly in front of her face.

“I don’t want to do this with you anymore. I won’t say anything to her, but one day… One day she’s going to find out. Somehow. And it’s likely then that she’ll have a harder time forgiving you. And me.”

Eliza turned her nose up and sighed complacently. “If that’s what it takes.”

Alex grumbled and shook her head. Kara came back through the door not a moment later and handed their mother her handbag. Without another word, Eliza thanked her briefly with a nod of her chin and then stepped around her to exit the room. Kara looked back at Alex with a surprised expression and slapped the outsides of her thighs gently with a huff.

“Well—” Kara walked over and plopped herself down into the chair beside the bed. “If it makes a difference, I like her just fine.”

Alex tossed her head at her sister. “Huh?”

“Sam?”

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks Kara, it does actually.”

Alex realized that her sister must have been under the impression that their mother wished to speak to her alone about Sam. There was a long pause between them before Alex decided to speak again.

“I told her I loved her.”

“Really?!” Kara shot forward in her chair and clapped a hand over her mouth at her unintentional loudness.

Kara had been aware of the fact that her sister only liked girls for as long as she could remember. She had shared with her when she was very young that she didn’t think that she could like a boy like that, and that was when Kara had told her for the first time that she felt the same. But to Kara, she was just her sister. Alex hadn’t exactly been in the closet back in their hometown. It had caused her a world of grief, which included acts of violence against her, public shunning, missed job opportunities, and had left her with a very, very shallow pool of friends. Kara had always been there for her though. She had been the only person in the entire world for years who treated her like an actual human being, and never once made her feel like something was wrong with her. The blonde had looked up to her since they were children and thought the world of her. She was the only person that seemed to understand that her anger was a byproduct of the consequences of her being openly queer in such a small and backwards town, as well as all of the fighting she had done so that Kara herself would never have to know what that kind of hurt feels like.

“Yes, is that so hard to believe?” Alex replied playfully.

Kara paused with that for a moment, turning her face downward deep in thought. “No, no it’s not.” Then she looked back up at her sister with another grin. “When did you tell her?”

Alex pursed her lips. “Um. When I got shot…”

“Smooth.”

“Come on, I thought I was gonna die!”

“You did, though.”

“Twice…” They spoke in unison and then laughed.

“She was the reason you moved out here, huh?” Kara asked after another short pause.

Alex gulped past a lump in her throat. Saying ‘yes’ wouldn’t exactly have been a lie. Alex had visited Sadie’s a few times whenever she had needed to escape the stiflingly conservative atmosphere of her hometown. She had noticed the bartender right away the very first time she had stepped inside and was actually what brought her back a second and third time. When she had eventually left home and found herself staring at the highway in front of her through her tears, it was just where she had ended up, as if the universe had pulled her there. She applied for a job and then everything else had just sort of… fallen into place.

“Maybe…” Alex winced slightly from the pain radiating upwards from her hips. “I think whatever meds they pushed into my IV are wearing off.”

Kara jumped up. “I’ll go get someone… Sam ran back to your place to grab you another shirt and some stuff.”

“Hey Kara?”

The blonde turned back toward her with her hand on the door handle.

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re here. Don’t spend your money on a hotel, you can stay at my place.”

“Great! I’m really glad you’re okay.”

“Me too. Someone’s got to be here to keep you in line.”

“Hah.” Kara barked out a laugh as she moved through the door.

As it turns out, having her sister around wasn’t as difficult as she had previously thought it would be. It was like no time had passed between them. They had been so close for so long that it was simply impossibly for them to ever become estranged. Alex was too preoccupied with her happiness to have her sister near again to agonize over the past, and what about it that she had been keeping from her.

Less than a month later Alex was sworn in and made an officer of the law during a ceremony where she happily wheeled across a stage in a wheelchair, still not yet able to walk. For her bravery and diligence throughout Sam’s kidnapping, she was awarded a medal and received a personal commendation from the mayor for her uncovering of a stash house that belonged to the Children of Liberty; a persistent thorn in the city’s side even after the nearly complete take-down of their organization. Edgar Ramos had been captured alive and sentenced to life in prison on a multitude of charges with no possibility for parole. He’d never come after Sam again.

All of her congratulations and supervisory ‘atta girl’s however did not come without a dose of warning concerning police protocol and general procedure. The circumstances throughout the entire situation had been understandable to a point, but Alex was again humbled and reminded that she was now an official police officer and had a badge to protect. Risking it with the same kind of behavior and disregard for protocol would be unwise. She took the advice to heart. Nothing would compromise her future now that she had one.

Kara had stayed on her couch for much longer than the few days that she had originally intended. Alex did need vast amounts of help with a lot of things such as getting in and out of her apartment, which, a narrow spiral staircase was not ideal in regard to her recovery. She was still very glad to have her sister there, though. Eventually, Alex had asked her to stay indefinitely, and to move into a new place with her that had two bedrooms, but Kara declined. It had broken her heart, but after some time she settled on the fact that maybe her younger sister just wasn’t ready to leave everything she knew behind. After all, she didn’t have the anger behind her spurring her along like Alex did. Sam held her as she soaked the front of her shirt in tears. Change would just have to come with time, but she had faith that her sister would find out eventually what kind of world awaited her beyond the borders of that small town. At Alex’s insistence, Sam dragged Kara along with her to work on some nights. The brunette admitted to her that it had been a bit of a culture shock for her sister at first, but each and every time she went along, she had learned to enjoy herself a little bit.

Three more months passed, and Alex was finally able to begin work. With her new salary, it would take half the time to pay her mother back for the three months of rent that she had paid ahead for her without so much as mentioning it to her beforehand. The gym owner who was also her landlord had refused to take any money from Alex one day and when she grilled him in that way that she was so skilled at, he eventually caved and had admitted that an older woman had shown up one morning with an envelope full of cash with strict orders that it was to pay for the apartment upstairs, as well as a wheelchair ramp for the front door of the gym.

When she had swallowed her pride and called her mother on the phone to thank her, Eliza approached it as more of a business transaction. She had explained it away as a loan, of sorts, instead of just saying the words ‘you’re welcome’ or allowing Alex to speak long enough to tell her that she did in fact have every intention of paying her back. But Alex knew deep down that if she hadn’t found out about the money to begin with, Eliza would never have bothered to bring it up either.

Sam had found success with a publisher for her book finally, who began selling copies as fast as the stores could shelve them. She had been secretive about the nature of her manuscript for so long that Alex had long given up trying to get the brunette to explain its story to her. She had claimed that she had scrapped the story and started over several times and simply wasn’t ready to have anyone else other than her to get attached to it until she knew it was the one. It wasn’t to keep her in the dark, Sam admitted that she wanted to make sure that she had the right story with the right characters and was only waiting on her editor to reassure her that it was one that was worth telling.

It wasn’t until Alex was handed the very first printed copy that she discovered the full truth of it. The cover displayed a dark and damp scene with cracked pavement, faded paint lines and two figures embracing under the dim yellow light of a streetlamp. She knew that place, and she knew those people. Alex staggered slightly on her feet as she continued to stare at the cover art of the book in her hands.

“This is us?”

Sam nodded at her, her eyes misty and full of adoration.

“You wrote about us…”

“Please don’t be upset.”

Alex shook her head reassuringly.

“I’m not. It’s beautiful, I mean the cover is—"

“Read the back.” Sam just couldn’t help herself now. She stood there staring her eagerly in the face as she wrung her hands together anxiously. Alex simply smiled and nodded, then turned her face down to the book in her hands and began read the description on the back.

‘Codename: Sentinel’

‘Agent Devereux has a choice to make. Battle the demons who are slowly taking over the town she was sworn to protect or battle the ones inside of her who threaten to consume her. After struggling for so long to find her footing in both the physical and spiritual worlds, her latest assignment tests her resolve when she finds herself falling for the bookish, spirit-obsessed demon expert named Reign and discovers that she’s been taken by the same monsters that her other-worldly organization has been tracking for months.

Nothing will stop her now. Demons, beware.’

Finally, all of Sam’s secrecy concerning her book had made sense. It was their story. Sans the demons and supernatural elements, of course, but it was their journey. More to the point, it was Alex’s journey to finding herself.

“I love it.”

Sam squealed, bouncing on her toes. “Great!”

Alex scooped her up in her arms and lifted her off the floor of her apartment slightly, squeezing another high-pitched squeal out of the brunette. She breathed her in from where her face was buried in the crook of her neck and exhaled all of her thanks to the universe for the second chance that she had been given. When she was placed back on her feet, Sam smiled at her again and looked as if she were about to explode. All of the excitement within her bubbled just under the surface it seemed.

“Is there something else?”

“Yeah.” Sam replied and then bit her bottom lip for a moment before taking both of Alex’s hands in her own.

“I got a huge advance for two more books; I signed the deal this morning. I want to buy a house.”

Alex’s brow shot upward in surprise. “That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you—”

“I want you to move in with me.”

Her brain fizzled with static and shut off for a moment. So many feelings and emotions whirred around in her head; pride, joy, relief… She was of course very proud of Sam and happy just to see her so happy and she knew how she felt about her, there hadn’t been any doubt of that for many months now. Why would she not want to share a life with the woman who she had been so ready to give hers up for? What they had was beyond love. It was fated, chemical, spiritual, biologic yearning to make two halves into a whole. Alex understood that people could spend their entire lives searching for the person that completed them like this and never actually find them, but here she was lucky enough to be standing in front of her, staring her in the face. She knew that not a single day would go by where she wasn’t reminded of just how fortunate she was, and she’d endeavor to spend the rest of her life sending that good fortune back into the world in the form of service to those like her who needed her help. The realization struck her like a bolt of lightning.

I’m meant to be happy. Nobody will ever tell me anything else ever again.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

“Really?” Sam asked as she tugged on Alex’s hands to wrap them around her.

“Really.” Alex kissed her on her temple and once more on her cheek.

Sam sighed and pressed herself against her with her arms tightly wound around her lower back.

“Tú eres la amor de mi vida.”

Alex cupped the back of Sam’s head and felt her body melt into her own.

“Para siempre.”