Maggie was definitely falling for Alex – hard.

It was like every day she was discovering something else to fall in love with – like how once you got Alex talking about a subject she was passionate about she would totally geek out about it. Or how cute she looked when she was deep in concentration. And then there was her smile.

Yes, Maggie knew at this point she was in deep.

But she didn't know what to do about it.

They had a good thing going right now – a balance of sorts and if Maggie were to confess how she felt about Alex then it could change things. Not that she wouldn't mind if things changed between them in the way she would like them to, but if Alex didn't feel the same then Maggie would have screwed things up.

She also wasn't sure if she could keep it quiet.

Alex wasn't stupid so there was a good chance that she would pick up on the signals that Maggie must be projecting out.

I'm going to tell her, Maggie finally decided. Or not.

….

Alex was reviewing some medical texts she – beefing up on her knowledge just in case she ever needed to be a medical doctor again.

But her mind wasn't 100 percent focused on it.

Instead she kept thinking about Maggie.

Ever since their spacewalk, her feelings for Maggie had deepened. She wasn't ready to say it was love – at least not out loud.

But she didn't know what to do about it.

What they had going here was a fragile ecosystem. With only the two of them being conscious there was no outlet for them but each other.

To introduce an unknown factor like feelings into this ecosystem could upset the balance.

She thought about her sister and Lena and how happy they were together. She could see it every time she looked at them interacting with each other. And a part of her could admit she was jealous of it. Not jealous in the sense that she was no longer the no. 1 person in Kara's life, but jealous that what Kara and Lena had was something she felt incapable of ever having.

All her life, she found it difficult to make connections with people. Even when she came to the realization she was gay while in med school, it didn't help her figure out how to make those connections once she knew herself better.

But being with Maggie was effortless.

It didn't feel like her other relationships which were admittedly few and short-lived. Those had felt like work, like she had to constantly study for a test yet she didn't really know what she was studying.

It wasn't like that with Maggie. Everything felt - natural.

Still, she had reservations about bringing up the subject and not just because it could upset their balance. She still felt like there was a lot about Maggie that she didn't know. She knew the other woman was holding back when it came to talking about her past – at least about her years growing up, but she didn't know why.

Alex didn't feel comfortable bringing it up though.

She remembered after her father died that she didn't want to talk about it. She felt like if she talked about it, it would make it all the more real to her. So, she simply didn't talk about it. Her mom tried, Kara tried, hell her mother even tried to get her to speak to a shrink about it, but she didn't even want to think about it, much less verbalize it.

For a long while, she threw herself into her schoolwork, into making sure Kara was ok, anything that she could focus on except that.

Then as she grew older, she wanted to know more – know the why of it all.

Her father wasn't supposed to be on the Nautilus that day. He wasn't scheduled to come back home for another few weeks.

She had to know why.

And when she found out it nearly destroyed her.

…

Today is the day, Maggie thought. This is the day I talk to Alex. She finally decided that she couldn't hold it in any longer. She had almost done it last night. They had gone out to another dinner and movie and Maggie just felt like her life had never felt such relaxed comfort with another human being. They were watching another one of the old sci-fi movies that Alex seemed to prefer and part way through it, Maggie glanced over at her and just thought – here she is, the one I've waited for my whole life.

In that moment, she had almost turned Alex's head toward her so she could kiss her.

But saner heads prevailed.

She couldn't keep hiding how she felt though, so she planned on talking to Alex today. Still she delayed throughout the day, even skipping a dinner invite from Alex by giving the excuse she was busy working on something she wanted to get done.

Finally, she went to Alex's quarters that night.

When Alex answered she was dressed as if she was ready to go to bed.

"Sorry," Maggie said. "I guess I didn't know it was that late. I'll just see you tomorrow."

"Wait," Alex said. "Come in."

"Are you sure? I mean if you are getting ready to sleep I can just go."

"I'm not going to bed yet," Alex said, moving out of the way so Maggie could come in. Maggie went in and took the offered seat on the couch. She had been in Alex's quarters several times now and it never failed to surprise her how clean and orderly it was. She probably shouldn't be surprised given what she knew of Alex, but still, nothing seemed to be out of place. It was the complete opposite of Maggie's room.

"So, what brings you by?" Alex asked, taking her own seat on the couch.

Maggie didn't know what to say suddenly. She had thought this all out during the afternoon and early evening. She thought about just being direct with Alex because she thought Alex would appreciate her being straight-forward, but now she felt like she was being put on the spot.

"Are you ok?" Alex asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," Maggie said smiling at her. "I'm sorry I missed out on dinner with you." She winced at how stupid she thought she sounded.

"It was no problem," Alex replied. "I know what it is like to be focused on a project and not want to be interrupted. I do hope you ate though."

"I did yes."

"What were you working on, your cabin?"

"No," Maggie said. "Thinking of taking a break from it. At this point, I feel like I'm just tinkering too much with it. It's supposed to be home, not a project."

"Why did you choose a cabin?" Alex asked. While Maggie had shown her all the schematics of the cabin and the 3-D renderings of what it would look like, she had never said why she chose the design itself. She had said she wanted it to feel like home, but she hadn't said if she had a place like it on Earth.

"My aunt. She had a house in a wooded area. It was so beautiful out there. It was a real forest, not one of the terraformed ones. Anyway, the house had started out as a one-room cabin and someone before her had used that one room as the main room and built a house around it that incorporated that room," Maggie said. "The person who owned the house before her, had plastered over it with drywall, but my aunt, she tore all that out. She wanted the original wood to be seen and it was beautiful. To be able to touch it and know that someone in the past had chopped down those trees and laid out that cabin using the most basic of tools. It's astounding sometimes to think about what humanity has created from the pyramids to spaceships."

"Yes, but we couldn't save our own planet," Alex said.

"The Earth isn't dead."

"No, but do you really believe it's going to get better because segments of the population are leaving?" Alex said. "Even the most conservative estimates of population growth weren't going in our favor."

"No, but did you really leave Earth because you thought it was a lost cause?" Maggie asked. Then something occurred to her – Alex when she was drunk had said she wasn't supposed to be here. It's not something Maggie had brought up again, but now she wondered – why had Alex chosen to leave or maybe a better question was why was she going to stay on Earth?

"I don't think it is a lost cause no," Alex said. "I just hope these new worlds that the colonists are going to don't make the same mistakes that led to the problems on Earth. I hope we've learned that you can't ignore facts and science when they tell you something is wrong – all because it doesn't fit into your world view. When I think about how people denied things like climate change were real – I get angry at the ignorance of it all. Even when we should have all come together when our planet was invaded we couldn't even do that."

"You can't change some people's minds," Maggie said.

"I know," Alex said. "It's just frustrating. We shouldn't have had to leave our home planet like this."

"Did you not want to leave?" Maggie asked.

"When Lena and Kara decided to go, they had asked me to go with them. Kara didn't like the idea of traveling to a whole new world and never speaking to me again or knowing what my life was like. She knew her going and me staying meant the end – that I would be dead by the time she reached Kronos II. When they first approached me about it, I said no. Lena however, she booked this trip for the two of them and included my spot on the ship with it in case I changed my mind."

Alex paused and looked sad for a moment.

"Clearly you changed your mind," Maggie said when the silence stretched on.

"Yes," Alex said giving a small smile. "Kara finally convinced me, and I know how she is. When she wakes up and finds out my pod malfunctioned and everything, she'll blame herself. I think that is what hurts the most about this – the pain my sister is going to feel."

Maggie moved closer and put her arm around Alex who stifled a sob. "Sorry," Alex said. "I really thought I was beginning to accept all of this."

"It's ok," Maggie said. "It's ok to be sad and angry and whatever you are feeling. You don't have to push those feelings down – that'll just cause more harm than good."

"What about you?" Alex asked. "Why don't you feel like this?"

Maggie wasn't expecting this to turn around on her. "But I do feel sad about this and so, so angry. It's just I've been awake longer and I've had you. Before you, well, I was a hot mess all of the time for a while there. I didn't change clothes or shower for days. I would skip meals and just drink and talk to Winn like he was a real person. I … I even thought about taking my own life because I didn't think I could keep going on like this day after day. I had gone out to take a spacewalk and when I came back in I had my hand on the release lever. I knew if I did it, I would just float away and die because surely death would be better than this existence I was living. I couldn't do it though and so I kept living and wallowing in my own self-pity. Then you woke up and I wasn't alone anymore. I think you saved my life Alex Danvers."

Alex looked at her a moment, with an expression that bordered on confusion, but then the next thing Maggie knew Alex was kissing her. It took her only a moment to catch up to this and start kissing back. Things quickly went into overdrive for the both of them, clothes were shed and Alex managed to say, "bed," in between the kisses and they took it upstairs.

Much later …

Maggie held onto Alex as they both laid naked in her bed. Despite Alex being taller, she didn't seem to mind playing the role of the small spoon. Both were awake, but hadn't said a word for a long time – as they both seemed lost in their own thoughts. The sex was amazing – like it may had been a while since Maggie had had sex but she was pretty sure that had nothing to do with how much she enjoyed the experience with Alex.

Suddenly Alex turned so they were facing each other.

"We should probably talk about this," Alex said.

"You don't regret it do you?" Maggie asked, feeling scared all of a sudden.

"No," Alex said quickly. "Not at all. I just think we need to talk about what this means. You know, because we're alone here and I don't know if this was more than just sex for you because it was for me and if it wasn't for you then …. I'm making this awkward aren't I?"

"A little," Maggie said. "But it's cute. And it was more than just sex for me too. That's actually why I came to see you tonight. I was hoping to talk to you about these feelings I have for you. I really, really like you a lot and it goes beyond friendship. And I know that since we're the only ones awake that this could really complicate things but I wanted to tell you that when I'm around you, you make me feel things that I haven't felt in a long time for another person. So yeah, I guess I came here tonight to see if you would be my girlfriend."

"Yes, I would like that," Alex said, giving her a kiss. "I would like that very much."