Chapter 2
“Yes, yes, of course you can leave before sunset for the holiday, Danvers – religious accommodation and all that legal nonsense – but I want that story on my desk before you do!”
Kara adjusted her glasses determinedly and nodded, her forehead scrunching up furiously as she marched out of Snapper’s office, knowing full well that he half expected her to not be able to make her deadline.
And if she didn’t have an inside source in the NCPD that she could ask to spill all the details while going grocery shopping for tonight – because god knew Alex wouldn’t do it, Chanukah or not (fruits and vegetables, Alex always had in the house; things to be cooked? Not so much) – he might be right.
But fortunately for Kara, she had recently added a certain NCPD officer to her speed dial who, she knew from Alex, usually had a lunch break around now.
“Little Danvers!” Kara could hear the smile in Maggie’s voice, but also the thin layer of surprise, of nerves, of stress, and she wondered what kind of demons her job was making her face down today.
“Hi Maggie. Listen, I’m working on a story about police and alien relations since amnesty, and I know you’re really busy, and I don’t want to take advantage of your… of you, but I – ”
“I can meet you in an hour, Little Danvers, no sweat, but look, I can’t talk right now. I’ll pick you up from CatCo in an hour, okay, but I gotta go now. See you in an hour.”
Kara hung up, her brow slightly furrowed and her heart slightly racing. Her sister’s girlfriend – she still had to get used to saying that – made her nervous, and she couldn’t quite figure out why.
She thought it might have something to do with having to really share Alex’s time, attention, and ice cream with someone else for the first time.
She thought it might have something to do with the utter confidence with which the detective held herself, and the way it intimidated Kara, made Kara wish that she were that way, that she was able to own herself, her sexuality, her desires, like Maggie did. Both guarded and right on her sleeve, all at the same time.
She did while she was Supergirl. Not as much while she was Kara.
She shook her head vigorously like she was trying to get water out of her ears, and started scratching away at her notepad – an hour to prep for all the things she needed to ask Maggie. For the article, anyway.
All the things she needed to ask her in general would take much longer.
Kara was so lost in her writing that she jumped when her phone buzzed, nearly capsizing a water bottle onto her notepad.
I’m outside, Little Danvers.
She smiled and she swallowed and she smoothed her dress and she straightened her glasses and she made for the door.
Maggie grinned behind tired eyes and a slightly sunken posture when she saw Kara blinking out into the winter sun, and tossed her a helmet when she was in range.
“We’re riding?”
“I assumed you’d wanna get coffee, and Noonan’s is too crowded for me this time of day.”
Kara shook her head. “Actually, Maggie, I uh… I kind of need to go grocery shopping. For Chanukah tonight. Snapper’s letting me off early so I can make it home for sundown, but with this article I’m not going to have time later – ”
“Say no more, Little Danvers. We can put the groceries in the saddle bags. Hop on.”
Kara hesitated and Maggie cocked an eyebrow.
“I’ve never ridden on the back of anyone’s bike but Alex’s.”
“I’d never let anything happen to you, Kara.”
Kara was at once moved and offended. “I’m not scared.”
Maggie tilted her head and scrunched her face slightly, making her exhaustion at once disappear and become more obvious. “Aren’t you on an article deadline?”
Kara huffed and shoved the helmet Maggie’d given her on her head, mock scowling as Maggie laughed, pulling her own on. She revved the engine as Kara got on, slipping her hands around Maggie’s waist, and Kara couldn’t help but wonder if Maggie was trying to show off to her girlfriend’s little sister.
The thought made her smile.
“So, what’s Chanukah shopping require?” Maggie asked after she parked the bike and they headed into the grocery store.
“You’ll see. So, tell me about the NCPD.”
“Whaddaya wanna know?”
And just like that, Kara and Maggie proceeded to have the strangest conversation anyone had had in that grocery store to date.
“… and I guess there’s some competition, disagreement, between the science division and the rest of the precinct, you know, because your outlook changes when you actually work with aliens versus when you don’t think you know any – Baking powder? Why?”
“Eliza used to make eggless latkes – they’re potato pancakes, you know, did Alex tell you about them? – because Jeremiah didn’t have great cholesterol levels, so potatoes, onion, flour, baking powder, and that weird stuff that comes out when you grate the potatoes – ”
“… potato starch?”
“Yeah! That’ll make them perfect every time.”
“You alright there, Little Danvers? You look like you’re me fantasizing about your sister in a bikini.”
“I was thinking about latkes, not… Rao, Maggie! It – I – so how would you say working with aliens has changed your outlook versus someone who hasn’t?”
Kara wondered if Maggie being in the middle of an apparently rough day at work was lowering her inhibitions, if jokes were her way of dealing with stress, and maybe they were, but Kara appreciated that Maggie didn’t push her mild-mannered, innocence-oriented comfort level too far: she went along with the change of subject with only a smirk.
And then –
“An entire bag of apples?”
“For applesauce!”
“And you don’t wanna just… buy applesauce.”
“Maggie, Alex says you’re a great cook, I thought you’d understand! It’s best when it’s homemade!”
“No arguments from me, Little Danvers, just with all that ordering in you both do, I didn’t peg you as a chef.”
“Well you didn’t peg my sister as a lesbian, either, and look where that got you both for a while there.”
“Rude! Also deserved.”
“You think I’m going to be a wonderful sister-in-law.” Teasing, leaning sideways, a massive, faux-innocent smile on her face.
“I do, actually.” Softly, slowly, deeply, emotionally. Passionately, nervously. Wide eyes when Kara’s smile changed from silly to serious, from teasing to accepting.
“So, go on, a few of you are trying to get your captain to change policy on what counts as a crime for certain species – ”
And then –
“Pillsbury biscuits? Biscuits are a Chanukah thing?”
“Not biscuits, Maggie! Donuts! You carve out the middle and you fry them and you sugar them and Rao they’re incredible!”
“You’re getting that face again, Little Danvers. That me thinking about your sister on her motorcycle face.”
“I thought it was you thinking about her in a bikini.”
“Both devastatingly attractive thoughts.”
“So is thinking about donuts, okay?”
Which made them both double over with laughter, incapacitating them for a solid minute and a half.
Somehow – exactly how was lost on both of them – Kara and Maggie got to the checkout, Maggie carrying all of Kara’s groceries as Kara had been furiously scribbling in her notebook the entire time Maggie talked.
When Kara fumbled for her card to pay, Maggie beat her to it with a grin.
“Consider it one of my contributions to the lighting tonight,” Maggie told her.
“One of your contributions? What’s the other?”
“Getting you home on time by giving you all the remaining info you needed for your article. Also I told Alex I’ll bring wine.”
“Ugh, Alex doesn’t need any more wine.”
“I know. She’s down to a glass, or a bottle of beer – not both – a day now.”
Kara’s eyes lit up when they met Maggie’s. “Really?”
Maggie nodded and thanked the cashier, hauling Kara’s grocery bags off the counter and out of the store.
“You really love her, don’t you, Maggie?”
“How could I not, Kara?”
“Tonight’s gonna be your first Chanukah?”
Maggie nodded again. “Anything I should know?”
“Chanukah’s for family.”
Maggie swallowed and her eyes suddenly stung: she’d thought this had been going well. She’d done Kara a favor in the middle of an impossible work day, even took her in a grocery store to do it, and she’d made Kara blush with her talk about Alex, but she’d also made Kara laugh and she’d paid for everything and... she thought it’d been going really well.
Apparently she’d been wrong.
Apparently Chanukah was for family, and she wasn’t going to make the cut.
She looked at her feet and she tried not to vomit.
Kara bent so she could look up into Maggie’s eyes.
“And since Chanukah’s for family, you’ll be right at home.”
She could swear Maggie sat up a little straighter, a little prouder – she could feel the massive, unwavering smile on her face throughout her entire body, even though she couldn’t see her face – as she made her way to her bike, as she drove Kara back to CatCo, as she sped away.
“Eight hundred fifty words on NCPD and alien relations since amnesty, sir. I’m proposing we make it a series. I have a reliable source, detective rank, in the NCPD who’s willing to do what it takes to make sure there’s accountability on all sides here, starting with what the media reports.”
She waited as Snapper finally dragged his skeptical eyes off her face, chin held high as Cat would want it to be; waited as his eyes scanned the pages she’d presented to him; waited until he looked up and told her gruffly, “Looks like you’ve got yourself a series, kid. Don’t screw it up.”
She practically skipped out of the office, knowing better than to so much as let her mouth open, because if she did, the stream of thanks and excitement that would babble out would surely make him change his mind about the whole thing.
“Oh and Danvers,” he called, and she turned, entire body braced for him to tell her that he changed his mind, that her hook was all wrong and sources too skewed and a series was a stupid idea, anyway.
“Happy Chanukah,” he said, with something that looked suspiciously like a half smile on his face.
Kara bounced on her toes and beamed, but before she could open her mouth to thank him, he waved the back of his hands at her like they were hanging from his wrists. “Out out out out, no need to look at me like I just saved your first born from the wrath of god.”
Kara tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “That’s… Passover…”
"Out!"
She scurried, but with a massive smile re-plastered to her face.
Snapper had liked her story; Snapper had said something nice on a personal level to her (which honestly both made her happy and freaked her out a little); and Maggie liked teasing her without ever making fun of her and Maggie liked spending time with her even when she was having a terrible day and Maggie didn’t think she was just an annoying little sister who would intrude on her time with Alex.
Something must be right in the world for Chanukah, after all.