Earth Six

Shoutouts aplenty here! Thanks to ironicpotential and performativezippers and Lurkz for the AMAZING conversation we had back in APRIL that launched the idea for this particular Earth. Props to ironicpotential for "Nobody Asked You Patrice" and Zipps for "bag of crap" and props to Lurkz for being kind enough to beta this after I chopped it up and reassembled it.
As always, comments and kudos remind me that, though I write primarily for myself, others do appreciate it when I put my stuff out there. Thanks for reading. :)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

"Kara, you have to get me out of here," Alex said, in a low voice.

"Already?" her sister asked, in disbelief.

"Kara, please."

"Alex, it's only 1900 hours!"

Alex sighed. "Can you please just signal me in like, five minutes, on my pomo, and say it's an emergency so I can leave?"

"Is the date really that bad?"

"Midway through the salad course, she started talking about her toenail fungus."

Her sister was silent for a moment. "Uh. Yeah, sure, I'll call you. Then you can come out with me and the guys."

"Sure. Anything," she said, "thank you." She disconnected and tucked her portable mobile unit into the inside pocket of her blazer. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She wore a simple white button-up shirt with the black blazer, the sleeves of both rolled up, of course, paired with some dark-blue skinny jeans and stylish short, black leather boots, with just a bit of a heel. She ran the fingers of her right hand through her shortish, straight hair and briefly considered how she should probably get that undercut she'd been wanting at some point, before nodding at her reflection. She could last five more minutes with Monique, someone she'd met on some dating locality on the Mesh. She'd been cute, which had been Alex's prime reason for indicating her interest in the other woman. While she was, in fact, quite beautiful, she was exceedingly slow-witted and Alex thought she might actually have to stab herself in the eye with her fork to excuse herself from this pitiful excuse for a date.

With a deep breath, she stepped out of the fancy bathroom and back into the main dining hall of the expensive restaurant.

She forced a smile as she took her seat across from the redhead. "Hey," she said.

"Welcome back, gorgeous," Monique murmured, with a smile.

Alex felt her own smile start to sag and quickly forced the corners of her mouth back up. She had absolutely nothing to say to her, not a thing. "So, the, uh, the weather... It's been pretty rainy, lately, wouldn't you say?"

She nodded. "Glad it's not raining tonight. After dinner, maybe you could walk me home?" she asked, her question laden with meaning.

Alex smiled and reached for her glass of water, taking a large mouthful.

Her pomo signalled and she swallowed quickly. "Oh, sorry," she said, pulling the unit from her jacket and glancing at the display. "It's my sister, I should take this. Do you mind?"

"Go ahead," Monique said, smiling.

"Thanks," she said, answering and bringing the device to her face. "Kara, sister, you know I'm out on a date, don't you?"

"Wait, so is it suddenly going better?" asked Kara.

"Oh no! That's awful! Are you okay?" Alex said, her face crumpling as she looked over at Monique. "Of course, no, it's no bother," she said.

Her sister laughed.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"I'm at that new bar that opened up a couple of months ago, on the corner of Henri-V and Louis-XVIII."

"Right, okay, Notre Dame Hospital," she said. "I'll be right there."

"See you soon," Kara said, still chuckling.

Alex disconnected and sighed heavily. "Monique, I'm so sorry, but my sister's probably got a broken arm and she's at the hospital, waiting to be seen," she said. "I'm sorry, I need to go."

"Oh, I could come keep you company!" she said.

"No!" Alex said, perhaps a little too quickly and too emphatically. "Uh, I mean, no, but thank you, I couldn't ask you to wait hours with me and my kid sister."

"Are you sure?" she asked, leaning forward. "We could go back to my place, after."

Alex smiled kindly and pushed back from the table and stood. "I'm probably going to take my sister home after, you know, take care of her," she said.

Monique smiled. "You're so nice."

She cleared her throat and reached for her wallet, dropping a hundred francs on the table. "That should cover everything," she said.

Her date stood and, to Alex's horror, approached her, arms outstretched. They embraced and Monique pulled back a bit to lean in for a kiss, which Alex dodged by giving the other woman her cheek. "Okay, gotta run, I'll signal you!" she said, backing away and waving.

"I hope so!" she smiled.

Alex smiled back and then turned, letting her face relax, before practically running out of the restaurant.

She arrived at the bar by 1920 and quickly found Kara and the others, Jimmy and Winn. She slipped into the booth next to Winn, across from Kara.

"Worst. Date. Ever," she pronounced.

Winn looked up at that. "That's a good name."

"For what?" Alex asked. "A band?"

Jimmy laughed. "We're about to do bar trivia," he explained. "We need a name, first."

"Oh, man, not bar trivia," Alex whined, slumping over the booth's table.

"Would you rather be at here at trivia night or on that date?" Kara asked.

Alex looked up at her from the surface of the table. "Trivia night," she said, finally, "but only by a tiny margin."

"If you don't want to be here, why don't you go home?" Jimmy asked, confused.

She sighed and sat back up. "My roommate wanted me out of the apartment because he and his girlfriend are celebrating their anniversary." She shrugged. "So I had a date, thought maybe it would end with us going back to her place, and, honestly, it would have, but as gorgeous as she was, there was basically nothing between the ears. She was so dumb, you guys," she moaned, placing her head in her hands, her elbows on the table supporting her.

Kara raised her hand to beckon the waitress. "Double whiskey here," she said, pointing at Alex.

"Thanks," Alex said, gratefully, raising her head and lowering her hands. "So yeah, I guess I'm here for trivia."

"Maybe we won't be awful, this time!" Winn said, patting Alex on the shoulder.

She glared at him. "I know six, different, very painful ways to make you start crying for your mother, using just my index finger."

He paused and carefully removed his hand. "My bad, no touching, got it," he blurted.

Alex looked over at Kara, who was smiling broadly.

"I love it when we're all out together!" her sister laughed. "Okay, but really, we need a name."

"A name? Haven't you been doing this for weeks now? Don't you already have a name?" Alex asked.

Jimmy rolled his eyes. "'Bag of crap' is not a name, it's a stupid joke that got out of hand," he said, shaking his head. "So we're renaming tonight."

"Are we not going with Worst Date Ever?" Winn asked.

Alex simply raised her index finger at him, not even looking at him.

"All right, guess not," he said. "What about Suit Up?"

"From that Have You Met Ted show?" Jimmy asked. "I kind of like it."

Kara made a face. "I like the show, but definitely not Suit Up." She lowered her voice. "It's bad enough that Winn makes references to it when, you know, I..." She mimed pulling her shirt open.

"If the suit fits..." Winn grinned.

Alex groaned at that and was grateful that her whiskey arrived. "I'll take a beer too, please," she said to the waitress.

"Anything for anyone else?" she asked.

"I'll take more water," said Kara, while the boys each asked for another beer.

"Thanks, Patrice!" Kara smiled and then paused. "Oh, that's it. Right there."

"What?" Alex asked, confused.

"Our team name: Nobody Asked You Patrice."

Everyone stared at her blankly.

"Oh pour l'amour du ciel," she muttered, pulling out her pomo and finding a vid segment compilation of Have You Met Ted scenes where one of the characters kept screaming at some poor woman named Patrice.

"Yeah, okay," Alex said, "fine. Now how do we play?"

"Well, the quizmaster will come around and ask for our name and hand us paper and a pen and then we'll have three rounds of ten questions each. After each round, we hand in our sheet and get a fresh one for the next round. Ten francs per person and the winning team wins the whole pot."

Alex raised an eyebrow and sat up straight. "Wait, this is for money ? You should have said so earlier!" She smiled and took a drink of her whiskey. "Let's do this thing."

"Well, we're not going to win," said Jimmy, "because no one ever beats Pigs and CHiPs."

"Who now?"

Winn sighed and pointed at a nearby table. "It's a regular group of five or six cops."

She snorted. "Well, the name is pretty funny." She looked over at them. There were four men and a woman, lounging at the table Winn had pointed out. "So they always win?"

Kara nodded. "Six straight victories as of last week. They're unbeatable."

Alex smiled. "Oh, we'll see about that."

Soon enough, the quizmaster, one of the bar's employees named Charles, had collected everyone's ten francs apiece and gotten their team names.

"Mesdames et monsieurs, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to quiz night! Tonight, our reigning champions, Pigs and CHiPs, will defend their six-week winning streak against... The Quizzards of Oz!" he said, pointing at a table of a few people, who cheered.

"E = MC Hammer!" he pointed at another table, where one representative of the team proceeded to do MC Hammer's signature dance move. Alex snickered.

"I'll Take Beer for 1000, Alex!" The people at the table all mimed buzzing in and shouted "WHAT IS THAT'S WHAT YOUR MOTHER SAID LAST NIGHT, TREBEK!"

Even Alex laughed out loud at that one. Maybe quiz night wasn't so bad.

"And, finally, our regular ‘bag of crap' team has renamed themselves to Nobody Asked You Patrice!" he said, pointing at their table. Alex grinned as the competition turned to look over and she raised an eyebrow at the cute woman from the Pigs and CHiPs team, causing her to quickly look away and back at her beer.

"The grand prize tonight is 180 francs, second place gets ten francs of credit each at the bar and third place gets a free round," he said. "All right, everyone got their papers? Remember to write your team name at the top of the sheet!"

Kara grabbed theirs and wrote out Nobody Asked You Patrice at the top and then wrote "Round 1" next to it, then quickly wrote the numbers one through ten on the sheet.

"All right, the first round is a whole bunch of random questions, no theme. We'll start off with an easy one -- next year will be how many years on the throne for Sa Majesté, Roi Louis XX?"

Jimmy frowned. "Was it ‘88 he ascended?"

Winn considered. "I thought it was ‘89?"

"It was ‘89," Alex confirmed. "Next year's thirty years."

Kara looked at her. "Are you sure?"

Alex looked at her and sighed. "Yes. I'm sure. Same year I was born, so... yeah."

"Okay, okay, just checking," she said, writing it down.

Charles continued. "Question two! Upon which element is life on earth based?"

"Carbon," Winn and Alex answered together.

Kara dutifully scribbled it down.

"Tremblay, would you just trust me and write it down?" the cute woman at the Pigs and CHiPs table said, loudly.

Alex turned towards the outburst and saw the man, presumably Tremblay, write something down. She grinned, understanding the woman's frustration. She took a sip of her whiskey and waited for the next question.

"Question three! Located in the constellation Corvus is a red dwarf star that's said to be the red sun that Krypton, home planet of Superman and Supergirl, orbited. What is its name?"

Kara was already writing down "Rao".

"No, Kara, that's not what people on Earth call it," Alex pointed out.

She frowned.

"Alex is right. We don't call it that," Winn agreed.

"But that's its name!" Kara insisted.

Jimmy chuckled. "Do you want to be right and inform everyone how you know that? Or, do you want to win 180 francs?"

She sighed and scribbled it out. "So what is it, then?" she asked, the frustration evident in her voice.

"Clark told us once, hang on," Alex said, thinking. "It'll come to me. We'll come back to it."

"It's still Rao," Kara muttered, stubbornly, causing Alex to chuckle.

"Question four!" Charles announced, looking at his notes. "Question four: name the five First Nations that make up the Wabanaki Confederacy."

"Oh man, it has been way too long since I've studied history," Jimmy lamented. "All I can remember is Mi'kmaq."

"How do you not know the name of the First Nations people who helped us repel British invasions so we could eventually run Britain out of the colonies?!" Winn asked. "It's Mi'kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, Penobscot, and... uh..." He frowned.

"Maliseet," Alex chimed in.

Kara just handed Alex the paper, trusting her sister to spell things appropriately.

Alex sighed and wrote down the five names of the First Nations. "Honestly, you'd think we don't honour the First Nations regularly," she said, rolling her eyes and sliding the paper back over the table to Kara.

"Question five! What does a phlebotomist extract from a human body?"

"Blood," Alex said.

"Gross!" Kara commented, as she wrote down the answer.

"It's for like, blood samples," Alex explained.

"Oh," she said. "That's marginally less gross."

Winn laughed. "You'd be scared of needles if they could pierce your skin, wouldn't you, Kara?"

"Well, yeah! They're sharp and they put things in you or take things out of you! They're weird!" She shivered.

"Question six! What is Count Dooku's other name?"

"Darth Tyranus," said Winn, without hesitation. He looked around at the questioning faces around him. "What? I like Star Wars!"

Kara wrote it down, dutifully.

"Question seven! In the classic Les Misèrables, by the great Monsieur Victor Hugo, what was the prisoner number assigned to Jean Valjean?"

"That one, I know," Kara said, writing it down. "24601, like in the song, right?"

Alex nodded. "Although Javert never calls him that in the book, that's the number."

"Question eight, what was the name of the shuttle that exploded shortly after liftoff on 31 May 1986?"

Winn considered. "The shuttles were all named Ariane, right?"

Alex nodded and sipped at her whiskey. "Just... which number was that? Three?"

"I wanna say two," Winn said.

"Ariane 2, then?" Kara asked.

Alex nodded. "Sure, yeah. I'm not positive." She paused. "Oh, merde, I had the star name pop into my head and now it's gone again," she complained.

"Question nine, what are the small indentations on a golf ball called?"

"Dimples," Jimmy answered.

Kara raised her eyebrows and scribbled that down.

"Question ten, where was the famous singer Jacques Brel, of ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas' fame, born?"

"Paris?" Winn guessed.

"No, no, I think he's from a territory," Kara said. "Maybe from near the Germanic Lands?"

"Oh, no, wait, the Lowlands," Jimmy added.

Alex snapped her head up. "No, no, it's Brussels, in la Province de Belgique, I'm pretty sure."

"Seems as good a guess as any," Jimmy agreed.

Charles took a moment to recap all the questions and Alex was on her way to hand in the paper, and get something for the table to snack on, when she finally remembered Gliese as the name of the sun that Krypton was said to have orbited. She stopped at the Pigs and CHiPs table on her way to hand the paper in at the bar.

"Hey, can I borrow your pen for a sec?" she asked the table, but while looking at the lovely woman with dark hair and eyes.

"Sure thing, cute stuff," one of the men said, handing it to her.

She forced a smile. "Thanks," she said, before bending down and scribbling the answer down while trying to keep her answers hidden. She handed the pen back, very deliberately, to the woman. "Appreciate it," she smiled at her.

"No, uh, no... problem," she replied, gazing up at Alex.

She winked at her and walked over to the bar, handing in their sheet before ordering two large plates of chicken wings for the table.

A few minutes later, Alex slid back into the booth and placed the wings on the table. Kara immediately reached for them and had eaten three before Alex even finished her first one.

"So now what?" Alex asked, around a mouthful of chicken.

"Charles will do the tally and let us know where we all stand before starting in on round two," Jimmy explained.

She nodded. "And where are you guys generally after the first round?"

Winn laughed. "Dead last unless the round is themed and it's to do with technology."

"Or sports," Jimmy added.

"Or musical theatre!" Kara said, after devouring her seventh wing.

Soon enough, Charles got back up in front of everyone. "That was a bit of a tough round, I see," he said. "In fifth place, with five points, appropriately enough, E = MC Hammer! In fourth place, with six points, the Quizzards of Oz! Moving up to third place, with 7 points, we have I'll Take Beer for 1000, Alex. And, tied for first place, with ten points apiece, reigning champions Pigs and CHiPs and Nobody Asked You Patrice!"

Alex double high-fived Kara and fist-bumped Winn and Jimmy. "Hell yes!" she said, feeling pretty good about herself and her contributions.

"Round two," Charles said, "will be all about science!"

Kara and Jimmy groaned, while Alex got excited.

"Ooh, this is going to be fun!" she said, rubbing her hands together.

"Question one, who was the person who revived the theory that the Earth rotated around the Sun, in 1543?"

"Copernicus," Alex answered, immediately.

"Yeah," Winn agreed. "What she said."

"Question two, which female scientist won two Nobel Prizes and is famous for her work on radioactivity?"

"Marie Curie," Alex said.

"Why haven't you come to bar trivia before?" Jimmy asked.

"No one told me there was a cash prize," Alex quipped.

"Question three, who was the ancient Greek god of medicine, known for his serpent-entwined staff?"

"Asclepius."

Kara frowned and slid the paper over to Alex. "Okay, I can't spell that and also, you know all the answers. You can write this round."

Alex rolled her eyes and scribbled down Asclepius while Kara had the last few remaining wings.

"Question four, where in the body are the metacarpal bones found?"

"The hand," murmured Alex, as she wrote down the answer. She looked up at her companions, who were completely silent. "Seriously, does no one know anything ?"

"You just wait until musical theatre or romantic comedies come up," Kara said with a grin.

"Question five, who came up with the third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?"

"Isaac Newton," she said, writing it down.

She drummed her fingers, waiting for Charles to read them question six and looked over at the Pigs and CHiPs table, where the woman was arguing with the guys again.

"Does that happen a lot?" she asked, pointing her chin at the Pigs and CHiPs table.

"Hm?" Kara followed her motion. "Oh. Yeah. I kind of feel bad for her, because they're always arguing."

"But they always win?"

"Yeah, so I don't feel that bad for her."

Alex looked over at her, pensively, watching her take the paper from someone else and write something down.

"Oh, no," Kara murmured. "Don't even. I'm pretty sure she has a boyfriend."

Alex sighed. "Please don't tell me she's dating one of those... troglodytes."

"No, if it's who I think it is, he typically comes by after the game," Kara said.

"Question six," said Charles, "what is the name of the scale that ranges from zero to twelve that measures the force of wind?"

"Ooh," Alex said. "I'm not sure."

"Beaufort Wind Force Scale," said Winn. He shrugged. "We occasionally got hurricanes up in Nouveau Amsterdam when I was a kid, so I read up on them."

Alex grinned. "Time well spent, apparently," she said, writing it down.

"Question seven, what is the common word for myopia?"

Kara bounced in her seat a bit. "Ooh, I know that. Nearsightedness, right?"

Alex laughed. "Yes. Nearsightedness," she said, writing it down. "And I'd be worried if you didn't know that one."

"Why?"

She reached out with the pen and lightly tapped the capped end of it on the frame of Kara's glasses.

"... oh." She cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses. "Right," she said, causing the table to chuckle.

Alex swigged at her beer and waited for the next question. Trivia night really wasn't as terrible as she'd thought it would be.

"Question eight, and I'm going to be nice to you guys here, how long does it take Pluto to orbit the sun? And I'll accept any value within 50 years of the actual answer."

Alex blinked. "Guesses, anyone?"

Jimmy and Winn just shrugged.

"I think," Kara said, "I think it's like 250 years. Or close to it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

Kara nodded. "I read a lot about the planets of this solar system with Jeremiah when I first arrived."

She smiled, thinking fondly of her father. After all these years, losing him still made her heart ache. "I didn't know that."

Kara smiled back and reached out to take Alex's left hand in her right. "It was back when we still hated each other," she grinned and squeezed gently.

"Figures. So 250 years?"

Kara nodded and Alex wrote it down.

"Question nine, which instrument is used for measuring atmospheric pressure?"

"Barometer," said Jimmy.

Alex nodded. "Right," she said, writing it down. She glanced over at Pigs and CHiPs again. The woman did not look pleased.

"Question ten, how many atoms of oxygen are there in one molecule of water?"

She snorted. "One. God, that's the easiest question all night," she commented, as she wrote it down. She looked up at them. "H 2 O, guys. That's two hydrogens and one oxygen?" She sighed. "Winn, you knew that, right?"

"Sure did," he said, not at all convincingly.

She rolled her eyes and looked up as the woman from the Pigs and CHiPs table slid out of the booth and stormed towards the bathroom. Alex raised an eyebrow. "Hand this in, please, will you? And get me another beer, please," she said, standing.

"Alex, that is not a good idea," Kara said, having clearly deduced what Alex was planning to do.

Alex pushed her sleeves back up over her elbows. "Back in a minute," she said, walking down the hallway.

She entered the ladies' room and saw the woman washing her hands at the sink.

"Hey," she said. "Are you okay?"

The other woman sighed. "Yeah, it's just the guys are jackasses, you know?"

"Totally get it," she said. "Anything I can do?"

She shrugged as she dried her hands with a paper towel. "If you wanna deck my partner's best friend, like right in his face, that'd be great," she joked.

"Your... partner?" Alex inquired, knowing full-well that she meant her work partner.

She looked a bit flustered. "Oh, no, no, not ‘partner' like that," she said, "Phil is my work partner," she clarified.

"Ah," Alex said, nodding, gazing into her eyes.

"But, uh, I, you know, I do have a boyfriend," the other woman sputtered, unprompted, breaking the eye contact and looking down at the paper towel in her hands.

Alex allowed herself a little smirk. "Would your boyfriend deck your partner's friend in the face for you? Because I'd happily do so," she smiled.

The other woman raised her eyebrow as she tossed the paper towel into the trash. "Well, he probably would, if it weren't illegal to punch someone who's part of La Police Nationale."

"Well, you didn't mention he was a cop, too," she said, her words tinged with disappointment.

"Being a jackass doesn't eliminate the possibility that someone's a cop, unfortunately."

Alex stood there for a moment, wondering how to extend the conversation with the lovely woman. "Uh, yeah," she said, "that's too bad." She smiled. "Ever consider a profession change? Maybe to le Deuxième Bureau?" she said, pulling out her ID and flipping it open. "Agent Alexandra Danvers. I could put in a good word for you."

The other woman chuckled. "Appreciate it, Danvers, I do, but I like my job too much. Not the coworkers, obviously, apart from my partner, but the job itself is pretty great." She pulled out her badge. "Inspector Marguerite Rodas," she said.

Alex nodded. "Nice to meet you, Rodas," she said, slipping her identification back into her blazer pocket.

"And you." She smiled. "I should get back out there, now that I'm a little calmer. Round three should be starting in just a couple of minutes." She pulled the door open. "Oh, and hey, Danvers?"

"Yeah?"

"Your team's never done this well before. Good luck in round three."

"Thanks," she said.

"You'll need it," Rodas said, a twinkle in her eye, as she grinned widely, showing off her dimples. She then turned and stepped out of the room, letting the door close behind her.

Alex was left with a dumb grin on her face. She turned and leaned her back against the door, letting her head fall gently against the hard surface. Rodas was smart. She had a sense of humour. She was beautiful. And she had dimples. And a boyfriend. I am in so much trouble.

She took a moment to breathe and to get her feelings, her attraction, under control, then pulled open the door and went back to the table.

"Just in time," Kara said. "Charles is just about to announce the points."

Alex grinned in anticipation. She was assuming they'd gotten the full ten points and, based on Rodas' frustration, she didn't think they'd sweep the second round, too.

Charles cleared his throat. "So what I'm getting from these scores is that we should have fewer science questions next time," he joked, which most people laughed at, to his obvious delight. "Okay, fifth place currently is held by the Quizzards of Oz, with 11 points! I'll Take Beer for 1000, Alex is in fourth with 12 points! Perhaps to no one's surprise, E = MC Hammer! is now in third place with 14 points! In second place, with 19 points, is Pigs and CHiPs!"

Alex smirked as she watched Rodas chew out her table.

"In first place, shocking all of us, is Nobody Asked You Patrice! with 20 points, a perfect score, so far!"

Their table cheered and celebrated and Alex noticed Rodas glaring at her. She answered the glare with a brilliant grin and maintained eye contact until Rodas looked away.

"The next round, round three, is another mélange of all kinds of things!" Charles announced.

Kara had already written their team name on the new sheet of paper and written out the numbers for each question. She picked up the pen and smiled at Alex. "Win or lose, it's been fun having you here tonight," she said.

"Ditto," Alex said, tipping her beer towards her sister before taking a sip.

"All right, first question!" Charles announced. "How many tails does the Manx cat have?"

Winn blinked. "Can cats have more than one tail?"

"It must be just one," said Jimmy. "Like a trick question."

Alex was frowning. "It wouldn't be a question if the answer was one." She considered. "Maybe it doesn't have a tail?"

Kara thought about it. "I think you're probably right. So I'll put down zero?"

Jimmy nodded. "That sounds reasonable."

"Question two! Whose face supposedly launched a thousand ships?"

"Helen of Troy," Jimmy and Alex said together.

"Got it," Kara said, scribbling it down.

She took a sip of her beer and glanced over towards Rodas, who seemed to have stolen the pen and paper from her teammates. Alex couldn't help but smile, admiring the woman's perseverance and determination, not to mention her competitive spirit.

"Question three -- how many bones does an adult human have?"

"206," Alex said.

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "And they specify adult because your bones aren't fully formed when you're a baby, so some of them fuse. You have more bones as a baby than as an adult."

"Learned something today," Jimmy said.

"Question four! Which Australian animal eats eucalyptus leaves?"

"Koala," Winn said.

"Oh, koala bears are so cute!" Kara said, writing it down.

"No, no, just koala. There's no bear."

Kara frowned, a crinkle appearing in her forehead. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's not a koala bear . It's just a koala," he said. "It's not like a grizzly or a black bear or anything like that."

Alex nodded. "Interesting," she said, as Kara scratched out the ‘bear' part of the answer.

"Question five, on a boat, what direction is the opposite of port?" Charles asked.

"Starboard," both Alex and Winn answered.

"Starboard," Kara repeated, taking it down.

Alex was feeling pretty good about their chances of winning.

"Question six!" Charles bellowed. "Where did the sport of football originate?"

Jimmy grinned. "That's England," he said.

"It wasn't France?" Alex asked, in surprise.

"You'd think so, with all the Coupe Mondiale victories over the last 20 years, but no, it's originally from England," he said.

Kara shrugged and wrote that down.

"So strange to be grateful to England for anything," Winn chuckled.

"Right?!" Alex agreed.

"Question seven! What is entomophobia the fear of?"

Alex frowned. She didn't know this, but she felt as though she should.

"Spiders?" Kara asked.

"No, that's arachnophobia," Alex said. "Merde, I don't know this one."

"Winn?"

He shook his head. "Don't look at me," he said.

"Me either," said Jimmy. "Hey, I got football. You can't expect me to get two in a row," he laughed.

"Merde," Alex cursed again. "Maybe it'll come to me," she said.

"Question eight, in which country did the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occur?"

"The Soviet Republic?" Jimmy asked.

"Well, yeah," Winn said, "but they probably want to know what country that is today."

Alex considered. "I don't think it's Russia. Belarus?"

"Oh, maybe Ukraine?" Jimmy suggested.

Winn considered. "I think that might be right."

"Ukraine?" asked Kara.

Alex nodded. "Better guess than Belarus, I think."

"Question nine, who wrote the poem Paradise Lost?"

Alex snorted. "No idea. That's another England-based question right there."

"I think it was Milton," Kara said. "Is that right? Anyone know?"

Winn shrugged, while James considered it. "I mean, I haven't read it, but you mean John Milton, yeah?"

Kara nodded.

"Well, the name's familiar to me. I took one semester of Old English Literature, so maybe that's right?"

"Okay, Milton it is," she said, writing it down.

"Final question!" announced Charles. "In which country is Mount Kilimanjaro located?"

"Oh," Winn said, "I know this. I know I know this," he said, closing his eyes and thinking.

Alex shrugged and took a look over towards Rodas and her table. They'd clearly finished up and Rodas grinned at her, toasting her with her beer bottle. Alex returned the toast and took a swig, not breaking eye contact with her. The look had gone on beyond what was socially acceptable and Alex added that nugget of information to the growing evidence that Marguerite Rodas was not entirely straight. She raised her eyebrow at Rodas, who looked away immediately. Alex wasn't sure if it was the poor lighting, but she swore she saw Rodas blushing.

"Tanzania," Winn said, suddenly, eyes wide open, smacking the table with his palm.

"Whoah," Alex laughed, "easy there."

"It's Tanzania," he grinned.

"Got it," Kara said. "Any guesses for entomophobia before I hand it in?"

Alex shook her head. "Not a clue, sorry."

She nodded. "Okay." Kara stood and took the paper to Charles to be graded.

"Well, this has been fun," Alex said, smiling.

"You should have joined us weeks ago," Jimmy said.

"You guys should have told me there were cash prizes weeks ago," she countered.

"She has a point," Winn said. "If I didn't know about the money, I might not have agreed to come either."

Kara rejoined them.

"Think we've got a shot at beating Pigs and CHiPs?" Alex asked her.

"I think we've got a great shot at coming in first or second," she said. "I think that phobia question is the only one we've gotten wrong all night."

"Gliese was a tough one," Alex said. "Rao," she added, when Kara looked confused.

"Oh, is that what you silly Earthlings call it?"

She laughed. "Yes."

"It's still Rao," she muttered.

"We know, Kara," Alex grinned, patting her sister's hand. "We know."

They chatted for a bit longer before Alex noticed a conventionally attractive, tall man stride into the bar. He was muscular, but not overly so. She judged him to be about two meters tall, maybe 85 kilos or so. He was cute. For a guy. She kicked Kara under the table.

"What?"

Alex jerked her chin towards the guy. "Is that him?"

"Who?" Kara said, turning. "Oh. Oh, yeah, that's who I think it is." She looked back over at Alex. "I'm not sure what you're thinking, but whatever it is, I'm sure it would be a bad idea."

Jimmy had noticed the interaction. "You think the cop's cute, huh?"

Alex laughed and spread her hands out. "What can I say? She's beautiful. Obviously smart. Has a sense of humour."

"Has a boyfriend," Kara pointed out.

"And is probably straight," Winn said. "You know, given the boyfriend thing."

Alex watched the man scan the room before he found the table Rodas was at and he walked towards it, with purpose. Rodas smiled brightly at him as he approached and stood up and embraced him, standing on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his. Alex chewed her lip in thought.

Kara just sighed.

Charles tapped his beer bottle with a utensil. "Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et monsieurs, we have a tie for first place between Pigs and CHiPs and Nobody Asked You Patrice!"

"Oh God," Kara said.

"What does that mean?" Alex asked.

"Lightning round," Jimmy answered. "I volunteer Alex as tribute."

"Ditto," said Winn.

"Same," said Kara.

"Wait, what?!"

"You're going to be our representative for the lightning round," Kara explained. "Oh, come on, you're the only reason we're tied," she said, when she saw Alex's reaction.

"Can't we do something civilized like a duel at dawn?" Alex grumbled.

"Go on, get up there," Kara said.

Alex tipped back the rest of her beer and stood up, heading to Charles where, of course, Rodas was waiting for her. She walked slowly, confidently, gazing directly at Rodas. She noted the other woman part her lips slightly, wetting them with the tip of her tongue. Alex smiled at her and she watched how Rodas swallowed at that. She took her spot.

"All right, and your names are?" Charles asked.

"I'm Alex," she said.

"Alex, got it. And you?"

"Marguerite. Maggie," she added.

"Alex and Maggie, perfect," he said. "We have here," he announced, "Alex from Nobody Asked You Patrice and Maggie from Pigs and CHiPs for a lightning round tie-breaker! On the line is the six-week winning streak for Pigs and CHiPs and, of course, tonight's pot of 180 francs. The rules are simple: You'll each get thirty seconds to answer as many questions as you can. The one who answers the most correctly within thirty seconds wins the tie-breaker for their team." He turned back to them. "Who wants to go first?"

Alex smiled. "After you, ma belle."

"Uh..." She cleared her throat. "Uh, thanks, Danvers," she said, taking a swig of her beer.

"All right, we have thirty seconds on the pomo," he said, his device in his hand. "The time will begin as soon as I finish reading the first question. Ready?"

She nodded, glancing over at her table. Alex followed her gaze, noting that her boyfriend seemed to be uninterested, as he was chatting with one of Rodas' colleagues, instead of watching Rodas. She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the game.

"Out of oxygen, helium and mercury, which is not a gas?"

"Mercury."

"Correct. Out of brown, orange or violet, which is not a colour of the rainbow?"

"Brown."

"Correct. Out of two, three or four, how many strings does a bass guitar generally have?"

"Four."

Alex was starting to be concerned about her ability to answer rapid-fire questions like these. Rodas was doing a great job. She was already impressed.

"Correct," Charles said, "out of banzai, bullseye or bonsai, which is a Japanese tree?"

"Bonsai!" she exclaimed with a grin, her dimples showing.

"Correct. Out of Russia, China and Australia, which is the largest country in area that has only one time zone?"

"China."

"Correct. Out of--" He was interrupted by the timer on his pomo. "All right, Maggie, you went five for five!"

"Nice job," she murmured to Rodas.

"Thanks," she said, distractedly, as she looked over at her table and then over towards the bar.

There was some clapping from Rodas' table, though Alex saw that Rodas' boyfriend had gone to the bar to get a beer. How could this neanderthal not be in awe of the sheer skill and intelligence his girlfriend displayed? She shook her head at that.

"All right, Alex, you're up next, you'll need five to tie and six to win."

"GO ALEX!" cheered Kara, while Jimmy and Winn whistled and clapped in encouragement.

"Same rules, thirty seconds once I finish reading the first question," Charles said. "Ready?"

"Let's do it."

"Of the Parthenon, the Trevi Fountain and La Scala, which landmark can be found in Rome?"

"The Trevi Fountain."

"Correct. Out of Jupiter, Saturn or Uranus, which is the largest planet in the solar system?"

"Jupiter."

"Correct. Out of Kanaan, Homer and Scheherazade, who is supposedly the storyteller of 1001 Nights?"

"Scheherazade."

"Correct. Out of Azerbaijan, Moldova or Serbia, which was not a Soviet Republic?"

She paused. She had absolutely no idea. "Uh... Moldova?" she guessed.

"Incorrect," he said, "it's Serbia. Out of minus 40 degrees, 0 degrees or plus 40 degrees, which is the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit?"

"Minus 40 degrees," she said.

"Correct. Out of--" Once again, his timer went off. "That's four out of five!" Charles exclaimed, pointing to Rodas' table. "Maggie wins for Pigs and CHiPs, bar trivia champions for seven weeks in a row!"

Rodas grinned widely and stepped down to the table, where she high-fived her colleagues. Her boyfriend finally wandered back with a drink and looked completely uninterested in the fact that Rodas had just won the game for her team.

Alex stopped by the table on her way back to her own, as Charles announced the final scores. She stuck out her hand.

Rodas took it and they shook hands for a moment. "Good game, Rodas," Alex said. "We'll get you next week."

She grinned, dimples on display again. "That mean you're gonna be back, Danvers?"

"It's now my mission in life to drag my sister's team to victory."

"Funny, it's now my mission in life to keep winning."

Alex smiled at her and squeezed her hand gently before releasing her grip.

"See you," she said.

"See ya ‘round, Danvers," she said.

***

The next week, Alex showed up early and, in an attempt to assert her team's dominance, snagged the table that the Pigs and CHiPs typically sat at. She was already halfway through her first beer when Rodas and her buddies showed up.

"Danvers," she said.

"Rodas," Alex responded, with a smile.

"Hey, that's our table," one of the guys said. Rodas held up her hand to forestall any other discussion from him.

"I don't suppose you'd please let us sit at what's become our regular table, would you, Danvers?" she asked.

Alex shrugged. "I was here first," she said, "but you're welcome to join Nobody Asked You Patrice."

She stood there and rubbed at her chin with her right hand. "So that's how it's gonna be?"

"Hm?" Alex asked, innocently. "I'm not sure what you mean, Rodas."

Her coworkers had all walked away to claim another table, leaving her alone with Alex. "You're gonna be a sore loser?" She tsked. "I had thought better of you, Danvers."

Alex grinned. "The invitation to join us still stands," she said, gesturing to the empty seat in front of her. "Want to team up?"

Rodas laughed and Alex found it to be a delightful sound, even though she knew it was mostly at her own expense. "Oh, Danvers, why on earth would I want to join the losing team?"

"You'll regret your decision by the end of the night," Alex said with a smile.

"Oh, oh, I see. You sure about that?" she challenged, arms folded across her chest.

"Just stating the facts as I know them."

"You wanna make it a little interesting, then?"

Alex clasped her hands together and leaned forward over the table. "I'm listening," she murmured. She didn't miss Rodas breaking the eye contact or forcing a swallow before she responded.

"Ten francs to the winner."

Alex laughed. "Is that all? Twenty-five."

Not to be outdone, Rodas unfolded her arms, put her hands on the table, and leaned over, almost getting into Alex's personal space. "Fifty."

It was Alex's turn to swallow. "Deal," she managed.

Rodas straightened up and held out her hand.

Alex glanced up at the other woman and grasped her soft, warm hand in her own. They shook on it.

"I take cash and pomo transfers," she said, after a moment, their hands still joined.

Alex laughed. "Good luck, Rodas. You'll need it," she said, tossing the other woman's words from the previous week back at her.

"We'll see about that," she said, releasing Alex's hand. She nodded to her and headed off to join her group.

***

Between the first and second rounds, Alex went to the washroom. After washing her hands, she opened the door and a woman literally fell into her arms. She caught her without even realizing who it was. Of course, it was Rodas. She'd clearly meant to lean on the door to get in at the precise moment Alex had swung the door open to leave.

"Oops, sorry," Rodas said, trying to pull herself upright.

"Uh, no, uh," she cleared her throat, "no problem," Alex said, helping her to stand up, feeling the loss of contact keenly.

She looked up. "Oh," she said, "Danvers!"

"Rodas," she murmured.

They stared at each other for several heartbeats and Alex felt her stomach flip over itself.

"Well, uh, thanks," Rodas said, finally, breaking the moment, casting her gaze downward.

"Of course," she replied. She smiled and backed up, holding the door open for her. "Après toi, ma belle," she said, sweeping her arm grandly.

Rodas laughed. "Merci bien, mademoiselle," she replied, entering the washroom.

Alex nodded. "Good luck in round two," she said, and, without waiting for a reply, quickly headed back to her table, cursing her hormones.

***

After round two, Alex went to hand in the answers and get another round of drinks for the table. While waiting for the drinks, she turned around, looking out at the other assorted trivia players. To her surprise, Rodas was sitting at her team's table, chin propped up on her fist, gazing in her direction. When Alex looked at her, her eyes widened and she immediately busied herself in conversation with a teammate.

Once Alex returned to her table and handed out the beer bottles, she sat down and spent a moment looking over at Rodas. The woman was enigmatic, to say the least. Alex was absolutely certain there was chemistry between them, and that it was mutual. But she was straight. Had a boyfriend.

Rodas looked over at her mid-conversation and stopped speaking for a moment, eyes locked with Alex's, then shook her head and broke contact, continuing the conversation.

She was straight. Right?

***

By the end of the third round, Alex was pretty confident that she, Kara, Jimmy and Winn had turned in another perfect set of ten answers.

"Well?" she asked Kara. "Will you admit it, now?"

Kara sighed heavily. "Fine, fine, I will admit that making us each study various subjects to prepare for trivia night might have been a good idea."

Alex looked at her. "And?" she prompted.

"And I'm sorry for saying that studying for trivia night would suck all the fun out of it."

"And?"

"And you're right, winning is more fun than losing, okay?" She sighed, clearly exasperated with her older sister. "I'm going to take my share of the winnings and buy all the potstickers I can find."

"You do that," Alex grinned. "What about you guys?"

"Well," Jimmy said, "I do enjoy knowing where a country like Azerbaijan is and I do like knowing where the Caspian Sea is," he admitted.

"Winn?"

"All the science in my brain has been replaced by treaties and dates and empires," he grumbled before taking a sip of his beer.

"But I'm pretty sure you pulled out the right answer for number seven last round," she encouraged him.

"The Treaty of Paris was a guess. Do you know how many Treaties of Paris there have been? They go back to the 1200s!"

"Well, now, see, I didn't know that," Alex said, "so I wouldn't have even known that might be a good guess."

He ignored her and concentrated on his beer.

"Ooh, here comes Charles with the results!" Kara said, excitedly.

"Mesdames et monsieurs, ladies and gentlemen, I have tonight's final results, for the 200 franc prize! Drumroll, please!"

As was habit, everyone did a little drumroll on their tables.

"In fifth place, with 18 points, the Quizzards of Oz!" He gestured grandly at the table and people clapped politely.

"In fourth place, with 21 points, E = MC Hammer!"

After more polite applause, he continued. "In third place, with 25 points, I'll Take Beer for 1000, Alex!" He paused as the table in question cheered, quite drunkenly, and sloshed an impressive amount of beer on to the table as they attempted to toast one another.

"Right, okay, and in second place, with 29 points, Pigs and CHiPs, which means WE HAVE A NEW CHAMPION!"

Alex leapt to her feet, shouting "YES!" and high-fiving her sister, Jimmy and Winn.

"With a perfect score of 30 points, Nobody Asked You Patrice has defeated our seven-week champions, Pigs and CHiPs and won tonight's 200 franc prize! Congratulations!"

Alex was all smiles as she sat back down at the table and they ordered a celebratory round of champagne.

Kara had just opened the bottle and was pouring the drinks when Rodas came over.

"Good game," she said with a smile, to her credit. She reached into her pocket and dropped one, two, three, four, five ten-franc notes on to the table, one at a time.

"Thank you, thank you," Alex said, collecting them and aligning them together by tapping them on the table.

"See you next week," she said, turning to leave.

"Hey, hey, what's the rush?" Alex asked. "Got a hot date?"

Rodas turned to face her. "Actually, I do, and I don't want to keep the boyfriend waiting, so..."

"Ah," Alex said, nodding, feeling a tendril of jealousy sprout. "Have a good night."

"Yeah, thanks," she said. "See ya ‘round, Danvers."

***

The next week, Alex arrived early again and was wholly unsurprised to see Rodas already sitting at what she claimed was her team's regular table.

"Rodas," she said.

"Danvers," she greeted.

"I don't suppose you'd want to let my team and me sit there, would you?" she asked. "Please?"

"Nope, but you can join Pigs and CHiPs, if you like," she said, indicating a seat in front of her, as Alex had done to her the previous week.

Alex laughed and shook her head. "Thanks anyway," she said. She gripped the back of the chair in front of her, wanting to spend a couple more moments with her. "So, uh..." She cleared her throat. "How was the, uh, hot date?" she asked.

Rodas' entire demeanour changed. She leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. "It was fine," she said, although her body language was screaming that it wasn't.

Alex frowned and turned the chair around, sitting down on it, ass-backwards, resting her arms on the back of the chair. "That," she said, "is bullshit." She looked at Rodas, who hadn't even reacted to Alex taking a seat. "You wanna talk about it?"

She looked up and sighed. "I kind of don't really want to talk about it," she said, finally.

"Kind of don't really?" Alex pressed.

Rodas scowled. "Okay, I really don't want to talk about it."

Alex raised her hands in surrender. "I get it," she said, "you don't want to talk about it. That's fine." She stood. "But don't think for a second that we're gonna go easy on you tonight," she warned, with a smile.

Rodas arched an eyebrow. "You think we need you to go easy on us tonight?" she challenged.

"Well," Alex said, turning the chair back around and tucking it into place, "we are the reigning champions."

Rodas unfolded her arms and stood, hands on her hips, facing Alex. Once again, Alex was blown away by her beauty, even in casual clothing. She wore black jeans with a loose, grey t-shirt. The leather jacket hanging on the back of Rodas' chair completed the outfit.

"And we'll regain the crown tonight," she said, simply, breaking Alex out of her stupor of appreciation.

She recovered quickly. "Wanna make it interesting again?" she asked. "Fifty francs?"

"A hundred," Rodas said, sticking out her hand.

Alex smiled as she clasped Rodas' hand with her own and they shook firmly for a moment. "Deal." It was with regret that she pulled her hand away. "Good luck," she said, with a smile. She headed off to snag a table for herself and her team, waiting on them all as they made their way from CatCo to the bar.

The night ended with Nobody Asked You Patrice with 29 points and Pigs and CHiPs at 27 points, meaning Alex, Kara, Winn and Jimmy each took home 45 francs. After Charles paid them, Rodas walked up to their table.

"Hey, Rodas," she said.

"Danvers," the cop replied.

"Uh, oh, guys, uh, this is, uh, Inspector Marguerite Rodas. Meet my sister, Kara Danvers," she said, indicating Kara. "And this is Jimmy Olsen and that's Winn Schott."

"You can call me Maggie," she said, greeting them with a general wave. "Good game tonight. We'll get you next time," she smiled. She turned to Alex, pulling out her pomo. "I'm out of cash, you wanna tap me your details so I can transfer you the money?"

"How about double or nothing for next week, instead?" she challenged, hoping to distract Rodas from whatever might be on her mind. She'd noticed that the boyfriend hadn't shown up at the bar.

"You sure?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Thanks, Danvers," she responded, tucking the device back into her leather jacket. She looked around the table. "Nice to meet you all, officially and stuff," she said. "I'm, uh, gonna go and head out." She jabbed her thumb backwards over her shoulder, towards the exit. "See ya ‘round, Danvers."

"See ya," she said, watching the other woman walk away.

"Oh, you have got it bad ," Winn laughed.

Alex glared at him and raised her index finger at him in warning.

***

The next week, Rodas didn't show up. This wasn't usual behaviour for her, according to Kara and the guys. Rodas was always the one who was there, every single week. Without Rodas there, Nobody Asked You Patrice won handily, extending their winning streak to three weeks in a row. Alex celebrated with the others, but part of her was left wondering where Rodas was and if she was okay.

The following week, Rodas joined her team right before the start of the game and left immediately after Nobody Asked You Patrice was declared the winning team for the fourth week in a row, beating Pigs and CHiPs by a score of 29 to 26.

"I'll be right back," Alex said, standing. She hurried down the steps to the street and caught up with the inspector right outside of the bar. "Hey," she said. "Are you okay?"

Rodas stopped and turned. "Oh," she said, "hey, Danvers. Look, I know I owe you like, 200 francs or whatever--"

"It's not about the money," Alex said, interrupting her. "Forget about that. Are you okay?"

She took a deep breath. "I just... I think I just need to go home and lose my cool."

"Rodas... Maggie," she said, "hey, you can talk to me."

She leaned against the hard brick exterior of the building, her hands shoved into the pockets of her leather jacket. "My boyfriend and I broke up," she said, staring at the ground.

"Oh my God," she said, "I'm sorry. What happened?"

She shook her head. "He dumped me."

"He dumped you ?" Alex asked, incredulously. "Who would do that?"

"He did. Convincingly."

Although she knew it wasn't the right time or place to hit on her, Alex couldn't help her next words. "Well, his loss," she said, hoping it didn't sound too flirty, hoping it would give the other woman some measure of comfort.

She looked up and quirked a smile. "Thanks, Danvers." She sighed. "I think what annoys me most about it is that he beat me to it."

"Oh?" Alex asked, interestedly.

She shook her head. "Just wasn't working, you know? There wasn't any real connection, no click."

"No chemistry," Alex provided.

"Exactly."

Wanting to help her take her mind off of things, Alex invited her to come back in and join them for a drink.

Rodas shook her head again. "I'll pass. But thank you," she said. She looked down and back up at her. "And thanks, for talking."

Alex had her pomo out. "Tap me for details," she said.

Rodas nodded and pulled hers out, the two devices seamlessly exchanging contact information upon the tap.

"Signal me whenever, okay?" Alex asked. "I mean it."

"Appreciate it," she said, pocketing the device again. "Watch out next week," she said, "we're gonna retake our title," she smiled.

Alex laughed. "We'll see about that."

Rodas chuckled. "Night, Danvers." She pushed herself off the brick wall and headed down the street.

"G'night, Rodas. Feel better," she called, somewhat ineffectually. She was more convinced than ever that Rodas was somewhat into girls, but the question was, did Rodas know that? Alex headed back into the bar to continue to celebrate with her team, but before she fell asleep that night, she signalled Rodas with a simple message.

"Hope you're feeling better. Signal me if you need or even want to talk."

***

The next week, the afternoon before trivia, Alex's pomo signalled. It was a message from Rodas, which was entirely unexpected. She hadn't yet messaged her, not even in response to Alex's message the previous week.

"Hope you're ready to get smacked down."

Alex immediately abandoned the lab report she was writing and wrote back. "We've got a four-week streak going, remember?"

"Oh, I remember," the response came back, almost instantly. "And I'm looking quite forward to kicking your ass."

"We'll see about that," she replied. She paused for a moment. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," came the reply. "You were right. His loss. What was I even thinking dating that guy?"

She smiled. "I have definitely asked myself that about people in the past."

"It's funny, isn't it? How one minute, you can be like, planning your weekend getaway to Lake Tahoe together and the next, you're wondering how on earth you could even deal with the snoring."

Alex considered. She hadn't outright said she was gay. Should she do so now? She wasn't normally worried about coming out, but something about Rodas made her hesitant to do so. Still, the conversation seemed to lend itself to it.

"My last girlfriend snored so loudly, I insisted she get tested for sleep apnea. You'd think that it would be less of an issue with women, but apparently not."

She drummed her fingers on the desk, waiting for the response. Finally, minutes later, it arrived.

"Oh. I didn't realize."

Alex nodded. And there it was. She probably shouldn't have mentioned it like that, although at least Rodas could absorb it in her own time rather than be forced to do so in person. "What, you didn't realize that lesbians can have sleep apnea too? ;)" she replied.

"Ha, ha," Rodas responded. "Sorry, though, I didn't mean to go on about dudes. Or whatever. Sorry."

Alex laughed. "Rodas, you were talking about your relationship. I could relate. I get it, even if I don't get wanting to date guys. It's not like I haven't dated guys."

"Wait, but... what? Sorry, tell me to shut up, if I'm being insulting, but I'm curious."

She snorted and added that to her list of things that made her question Rodas' sexual orientation. "If you want to stick around after we decimate you and your team tonight, we can have a drink and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

"Good luck, Danvers, we're gonna mop the floor with you... but yeah, maybe a drink tonight would be nice, afterward."

She smiled. "Sounds good. See you tonight."

"See ya, Danvers."

***

After the second round, Alex was pretty sure that both Nobody Asked You Patrice and Pigs and CHiPs were tied at twenty points apiece. Winn and Jimmy had gone up to the bar to get some food, more beer and hand in their answers.

Alex was gazing towards Rodas' table.

"Okay, so what's the deal with you and Maggie?" Kara asked.

She grinned and faced her sister. "We're gonna have a drink after the game."

"Oh really? What about the boyfriend?"

"They broke up."

"Oh my God, is she gay? Is she gay for you?" Kara asked excitedly and turned around to look at Rodas.

"Shh, shh, quiet, knock it off!" she said. "No, it's nothing like that. I don't think. I kind of came out to her via messages today and she has... some questions."

Kara turned back and raised her eyebrows. "Oh, she does, does she?"

"See, now you're encouraging me when I shouldn't be thinking about what this might mean," Alex muttered.

"Oh, sorry," Kara said. She adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat. "Alexandra Danvers, don't even think about it," she said, sternly, in a fair approximation of their mother.

She laughed. "That's not helping," she grinned. "I don't know, Kara, I just... I want to get to know her a little better, let her know who I am... And..." She sighed. "I don't think she's wholly straight, but I don't think she knows that yet."

"Oh boy."

"Exactly." Alex rested her chin on her fists. "Or I could be completely wrong about her. Maybe I'm just the only gay person she knows and she's legitimately curious in the academic sense, not the personal sense."

"Maybe. Either way, have fun," she said, with a smile. "And try not to get your heart broken by yet another straight girl, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Alex said, staring over at Rodas again.

Kara rolled her eyes.

***

Once again, it was an exceedingly close match, with Nobody Asked You Patrice coming in second with 29 points to Pigs and CHiPs' 30.

"Good game, guys," she said, dropping twenty francs on to the table, for her share of drinks and food. "Catch you later," she said, picking up her beer.

She caught Rodas' eye and jerked her head towards a booth. She got a nod, so she slipped into the booth with her beer and took a sip. She was nervous. It was ridiculous. Why should she be nervous?

Rodas slid into the booth across from her and smiled, showing off her dimples.

Oh, right, that's why I should be nervous, Alex thought to herself. The woman was simply beautiful. She could have handled that if Rodas had just been beautiful. She'd managed to handle Monique, after all. But that the beauty was linked to intellect and a sense of humour? She was a goner.

"Hey," she said. "Congratulations."

Rodas kept smiling. "Good game, Danvers," she said.

"Thanks."

The waitress, Patrice, came by. "Get you ladies anything?"

"You want anything?" Rodas asked. "On me."

"A scotch," she said.

"Two scotches, please," she ordered.

"Coming right up," Patrice nodded.

"So, uh, hey," Rodas said, somewhat nervously, "I'm... you know, I'm sorry about prying today. We don't need to talk about your personal life or anything."

Alex shook her head. "It's fine, don't worry about it. You have questions, I have answers," she said, wondering if she was answering another unasked question. "If you're curious about something, just ask."

Rodas nodded. "Okay, so, you're... gay?"

Alex nodded. "Very gay. Super gay. Extremely gay."

She laughed. "Okay. But you've dated guys?"

"Yeah," she said. "But that's because of forced heteronormativity."

Rodas paused at that. "Hetero... normativity?"

"Yeah, it's--"

"No, wait, I think I've got it. Hetero meaning different and normativity meaning making something the norm, the standard, so... forced heteronormativity is the norm being that we're with the gender that's different from us?"

Alex nodded. "Impressive, yeah, that's it exactly. We're taught from a young age that girls marry boys and boys marry girls. There was very little, as I was growing up, that said anything otherwise. Especially with the church being so firmly on the side of heterosexuality."

"So you dated boys because that's what everyone else was doing? And because of the church?"

"Exactly. My best friend, Vicki, was dating boys, so I dated boys."

"Huh."

Their drinks arrived.

"Thanks for this," Alex said, raising her glass.

"My pleasure, Danvers," she said, clinking her glass against Alex's.

They each took a sip.

"I still owe you what, two hundred francs?" she asked.

"Well, since you guys won tonight, let's say you owe me a hundred," Alex said.

"That's fair," Rodas nodded. She remained silent and sipped at her drink.

Alex cleared her throat. "So, uh, yeah, I dated boys well into my early adulthood, although I had an idea that maybe boys weren't for me as early as thirteen? Maybe fourteen," she said, bringing the conversation back to life.

Rodas' eyebrows raised at that. "That young?"

She nodded. "But I know people who didn't have a clue at all until their twenties. Or thirties. I met someone at Fierté last year, she was in her seventies and had just come out that year."

"Her seventies!"

"Yeah, it's crazy what societal pressure dictates." She sipped at her drink. "Of course, with the church having less and less power these days, things are changing."

Rodas rubbed at her chin with the edge of her index finger. "Interesting."

Alex took another sip of the liquor. "So does that help to explain things a bit?"

She nodded. "So how did you know?" She paused. "Uh, if, you, um, don't mind my asking. Of course."

She smiled. "It was Vicki. I fell for her. I didn't even know that I had, you know? I thought we were best friends and that it was... and I hesitate to use this word, but, ‘normal' to want to spend literally all your time with your best friend and to look forward to hugging her and look forward to sleepovers and be super sad when you weren't spending every moment together." She took a thoughtful sip. "That and the fact that I was more excited to tell Vicki about my first kiss with a boy than I was about the kiss itself," she chuckled.

"Huh."

"Yeah, that was kind of something I realized in hindsight," she said, continuing. "I even slept with a couple of dudes in college before I realized it was emphatically not for me. But by that time, I'd realized I was at least somewhat into girls. So once I kissed my first girl..." She trailed off, lost a bit in the memory.

"What happened?"

Alex looked up at Rodas and looked her right in the eye. "Kissing her was like melting into softness and warmth. It was electric and gentle, all at once. I can still almost feel her lips against mine, even now, ten years later." She noticed Rodas swallow at that. "It was... perfection. After years of kissing guys, dealing with stubble, overzealous tongues... Kissing Martine was just divine."

Rodas took a sip of her scotch and Alex noticed the slight tremble in her hand. Should she press? Pry? Just continue to be there?

"What about you?" she asked, throwing caution to the wind. "Ever kiss a girl?"

She tried to put her glass down and fumbled it a bit, causing it to wobble. "Uh," she said, "I mean..."

"No worries, just curious," she said. "You don't have to answer."

Rodas looked up, gratitude in her eyes.

Alex tilted her head and smiled at her. "I might be way off here," she began, "but I think that maybe, just maybe, you're questioning things." She held up her hand to stop Rodas from responding. "And it's fine if you are and fine if you're not." She put her hand back down. "I just want you to know that I'm here. No pressure. No worries. No judgment," she said, looking at her in the eye. "Okay?"

Rodas nodded. She tipped the rest of her drink back. "Thanks, Danvers," she said. "I should get going."

"You don't have to go," she said, gently.

"No, I mean, it's fine, I just..." She took a breath. "It's getting late."

"Maggie, I meant it. No judgment."

Rodas flicked her eyes up to meet Alex's. She nodded, once. "Thanks. I'll message you if I have any other questions. I appreciate it." She pulled twenty francs from her wallet. "Here, for the drinks," she said.

"Thanks again," Alex said.

"See ya, Danvers."

"Night, Rodas," she said, watching her walk out of the bar, wondering if she'd pushed too hard.

Later that night, as Alex sat in bed, staring at her pomo, debating whether or not to send an encouraging message of any kind to Rodas, her pomo signalled. It was a message from Rodas.

"Once."

Alex frowned. Once? Once what? And she was on the verge of typing those questions into the device when she realized Rodas was just answering her question from earlier. She's kissed one girl.

"Want to tell me about it?" she asked.

Even though she waited for several minutes, there was no response, so she sent out another message. "No worries, Rodas. Have a good night. Reach out anytime."

***

The following week, Rodas messaged again.

"Drinks after we beat you again tonight?"

Alex answered quickly. "Sounds great."

"Cool. See you later, Danvers."

Alex put her pomo down and leaned back in her chair, arms folded across her chest, tapping her left bicep lightly. She hadn't messaged Rodas at all during the week, not wanting to pressure her, not wanting to push. It was maddening, though. Rodas was definitely questioning herself, Alex had decided, but Alex didn't know if it was better to push or not. So she hadn't. Everyone's coming out was different. Everyone had to do it their own way. At their own pace. Kara had reminded her of that and how painful it had been for those around her who knew she was struggling with something. Now, it seemed, Alex was somehow in that same position. She'd have given anything to do it for Rodas, to just make everything click for her. And yet, she couldn't do it, annoyingly.

She arrived at the bar just a few minutes before start time, deciding to let Rodas have her favourite table, knowing it would make her happy. That was the other complication, of course. Alex was developing feelings for Rodas, feelings that weren't dissipating because she was certain Rodas wasn't entirely straight.

Kara had snagged a table nearby Pigs and CHiPs, so they were just about a meter away from Rodas' table.

"We're going to have to be very quiet in our discussions," she noted, as she took her seat, to the agreement of everyone at the table. "SO THAT NO ONE OVER THERE CHEATS!" she almost shouted, to ensure that Rodas would hear.

"Hey Danvers," she called, "why would we want to cheat off of you when we beat you last week?" she grinned.

"Are you saying you're going to win tonight, Rodas?"

"The hundred francs I still owe you says double or nothing that we do."

"You're on."

The evening passed quickly and, surprisingly exactly no one, both Nobody Asked You Patrice and Pigs and CHiPs had turned in three perfect sheets. It was time for another lightning round.

Alex finished her whiskey as her team cheered her on and walked up to meet Rodas next to Charles, once again.

"Once again, we have Alex from Nobody Asked You Patrice and Maggie from Pigs and CHiPs!" he announced. "The rules are the same as the last time we did this -- thirty seconds to answer as many questions correctly as possible. Who's going first?"

"After you, ma chère," Alex said.

"Thanks, Danvers," she responded, with a smile.

"Okay, Maggie's up first!" he called. "Your time will start as soon as I finish reading the first question. Ready?"

"Ready."

"Out of Runnington, Ruddington and Runnymede, what is the name of the meadow where King John put his seal to the Magna Carta in 1215?"

"Runnymede."

"Correct. Out of Treasure Island, Lord Jim and Moby Dick, which classic English novel features a ship called The Pequod?"

"Moby Dick."

"Correct. Out of combined, common or computer, what does the C stand for in the COBOL programming language?"

Rodas hesitated. "Uh... Computer?"

"Incorrect, it's common. Out of la Légion étrangère, the brain or the rings of Saturn, where will you find Cassini's Division?"

"Saturn."

"Correct. Out of the --" His buzzer went off. "Okay, that's three correct answers. Alex, you need three to tie and four to win."

She nodded and focused. She could do this.

"Ready?"

"Ready," she said, trying hard not to look at Rodas.

"Out of Prussic acid, sulphuric acid or copper sulfate, which used to be called blue vitriol?"

"Copper sulfate."

"Correct. Out of Lombardi, Tuscany and Umbria, in which Italian region can you find Assisi, Saint Francis' birthplace?"

"Umbria."

"Correct. Out of the heel, the lace or the sole, where on a shoe would you expect to find the aglet?"

"The lace."

"Correct. Out of the ear, the eye or the nose, what part of the human body is protected by the tragus?"

She grinned widely. "The ear."

"Correct!" Charles announced. "That's four! Alex and Nobody Asked You Patrice win!"

Alex shot her arms up in the air in victory as Kara, Jimmy and Winn cheered and clapped wildly.

"Grab us a booth?" Rodas asked, as they headed back to their respective tables.

"Sure," she said. "See you in a minute." She smiled as she sat down at her table, fist-bumping and high-fiving the gang.

"What on earth is an aglet?" Kara asked.

"Oh, it's the bit at the end of the lace that keeps it all together."

"Huh," she said. "And you knew that?"

She grinned. "Yeah."

Charles came over and gave them the prize money. "There you go, folks, 220 francs. Nice job!"

"Thanks," Kara said, dividing it up into 55 francs apiece.

Alex took her share and snagged her bottle of beer. "Catch you guys later," she said.

"Keep me posted," Kara said, softly, with a twinkle in her eye.

"You stop encouraging me," Alex said, standing, pointing at her with her beer.

Kara just grinned.

She walked over towards the booth section of the bar and waited for Rodas to join her. A waitress came up to her and she ordered two scotches as she waited.

After a few minutes, she saw the other cops head to the door and Rodas came down the aisle to join her. She was a vision. Long, dark hair flowed down past her shoulders, in large waves. She wore her regular, black leather jacket over a dark, button-up shirt, blue jeans and black boots, with a slight heel. Once again, Alex noted that her outfit was definitely not your typical straight-girl attire. She'd always attributed it to Rodas' job, but maybe this was what she was comfortable in.

"Good game," she said, dropping a wad of bills on the table as she slipped into the booth.

"Thanks, Rodas," she said, cheerfully, collecting it. "I've already taken the liberty of ordering you a scotch."

"Thanks," she said. "Least you can do is buy me a drink after beating us like that."

She laughed. "If you're real nice, I'll even buy you two drinks."

Rodas smiled, letting one of her dimples show. "How gracious of you, Agent Danvers."

"My, my, aren't we getting formal, Inspector Rodas?" she teased.

"I prefer to think of myself as being playful."

Alex grinned widely. "Oh, I can work with playful," she responded, her words carrying with them a vague, harmless flirtation that, nonetheless, brought a slight blush to the other woman's cheeks.

"Ladies, your drinks," the waitress said.

"And a beer for me too, please," Rodas said.

Alex nodded. "On me."

"Sure," she said. "Back soon."

Alex didn't miss how Rodas took a large gulp of the alcohol right away, how the other woman's hands trembled slightly, how she got quiet.

"Everything okay?"

Rodas' head was down, she was staring at her drink, but she flicked her eyes up to meet Alex's. She exhaled, slowly. "I, uh... I never told anyone... that before."

Alex immediately knew she was talking about the message she'd received the week before. She nodded. "It's okay. I'm not going to tell anyone," she said, smiling. "You can tell me anything. Or, you know, nothing at all. We can just talk. About anything."

She quirked a smile. "How many women have you... helped? Like this?"

Alex nodded, gently. "A few."

"Well, you're good at it."

She shrugged. "I just listen. And sometimes I ask questions that, maybe, you're kind of scared of asking yourself."

Rodas bit her lip and nodded at that.

"Do you want to tell me about... that?"

She drained her scotch and set it down, her hands shaking a bit. She knit her fingers together to quell the motion and took a deep breath. "Eliza Wilkie," she whispered, looking up at Alex, fear in her eyes.

Alex tilted her head to the side, keeping eye contact, and just nodded with an understanding smile.

"We, uh," she swallowed, "we were like, fourteen. And, uh, it just..." She exhaled, slowly. " I just..." She trailed off, pulling her eyes away from Alex's, looking up and past her. "I just, you know, leaned in... and did it."

"And?" she asked, quietly.

A sad smile came across Rodas' face. "It was like you said. Soft. Gentle." She looked over at Alex. "Electric at the same time." She shook her head. "We both knew it was wrong, so..." She took a breath. "So we just never talked about it. It never happened again. And, uh..." She exhaled again. "I've kissed a lot of, uh, of guys, since then. But..."

Alex smiled. "But none of those was like that one. Right?"

Rodas nodded and looked back down at her empty scotch glass, fidgeting with it.

The waitress arrived with the beer and Rodas looked at her gratefully and immediately brought the bottle to her lips and tilted it back.

Alex sipped at her scotch and waited.

Rodas put the bottle down and sighed. "I just don't even know what any of this means. If it means anything," she mumbled, playing with the label on her beer.

"Well," Alex said, gently, "kissing a girl and liking it when you're fourteen is different from being, you know, attracted to women. Falling in love with women. Imagining a life spent with a woman."

Rodas nodded, still trying to peel her label from her bottle.

"Do you, uh..." Alex paused, wondering how to phrase it. "Do you think that maybe you're attracted to some women?"

She stopped fidgeting and looked up. She swallowed. "Maybe."

"Do you think you're attracted to some men?"

She sighed. "I mean, what does that even mean, you know?" she asked, the frustration evident in her voice. "Do I think some guys are cute? Sure."

Alex took a drink of her scotch, as she considered. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

Rodas snorted. "These are all pretty personal," she replied. "But yes."

"Have you ever felt that feeling in your stomach, where you swear it just somersaulted?"

"What, like on a rollercoaster?"

She chuckled. "No. I mean, that moment, back with Eliza. That electricity. Have you ever felt anything like it since?"

"I told you, not, uh, not while kissing a guy."

She shook her head. "What about while looking at a woman? Or when a woman looked at you?"

Rodas paused.

Bingo.

"Oh," she said, softly.

"Or maybe a gentle, casual touch made your stomach flip over itself," Alex continued. "Maybe there's been a hug from someone that you didn't want to let go of."

Rodas swigged from her bottle and set it back down. "All of that," she murmured, not meeting Alex's eyes.

Alex nodded. "There's not like, a test I can give you, Rodas. I can't say ‘okay, yes, this is you'." She smiled, as Rodas looked up at her. "I would love to be able to just answer the questions you have for you. But you know you. You know what, uh..." She faltered for a moment. "What, uh, turns you on," she stammered, feeling a light blush colour her cheeks, "what you find attractive, who you connect with, click with. You do know. Your body knows."

At that, Rodas' eyebrows raised.

"From what you've said," she continued, "I think that you might want to think about who gives you butterflies in your stomach, makes it somersault."

Rodas took another swig from her beer and sighed. "My, uh, my parents were -- are -- very religious," she said. "They'd probably disown me if I... was like that."

She nodded slowly, starting to understand why Rodas was maybe only starting to ask herself these questions now. "I won't lie, that happens. That's part of it. I was lucky that my mom was okay with it. My sister's okay with it. The people I care about most in my life think of my being gay as just something about me, like my eye colour. But," she said, "not everyone is so lucky, especially if the church has been a big influence on their family."

"What about your dad?"

Alex blew out a breath. "My dad died when I was younger," she said, flatly.

"I'm sorry, Alex," she said, quietly. "I didn't know."

She shrugged. "It's okay." She took a sip of her drink. "So, uh, you know, I never had the chance to tell him about me. Just my mom. And Kara. And they were okay." She smiled. "But I like to think my dad would have been okay with it."

Rodas looked down and peeled off the label, slowly. "My papa," she said, "was always the good Catholic boy. He was an altar boy as a kid. Always gave ten percent of his salary to the church. My mother was pretty much the same. Blasphemy was worse than cursing in our house. The worst spanking I ever got from Papa was for saying that I didn't believe Mary was a virgin." She shook her head and looked up at Alex. "I couldn't... let them down. I couldn't, you know, hurt them like that."

She smiled sadly. "What about your happiness?"

The other woman stared at her, dumbly, as though she had never even considered, for an instant, that she wasn't happy, that this wasn't how life was supposed to be.

"Rodas," she began, then shook her head. "Maggie ," she corrected herself, "you're allowed to be happy," she said, gently. "You deserve to have a real, full, happy life. Regardless of what your parents or anyone else in your life thinks about how your life should be."

She blinked. "If..." She took a breath. "If I'm... like that..." she said, "I don't think I could tell them. It would kill them."

"You can't think about your family right now. You need to think about you. You need to think about what you want. What you think will make you happy." She gave her a small smile. "Because as bad-ass as you are, Maggie, I don't think you're particularly happy right now."

"You're annoyingly perceptive, sometimes, Danvers."

She grinned. "I work at it."

Rodas gave her a small smile and then finished her beer. "I'm gonna go."

"You sure? You're okay for now?"

She considered and nodded. "Apparently, I have a lot to think about," she said.

"Okay," Alex replied. "Let me know if you want to talk, all right? Feel free to ask me anything."

She nodded. "Thanks," she said. She turned to slide out of the booth, then stopped. "Actually, I do have a question."

"Hm?"

"What the hell is a tragus?"

Alex laughed and reached out with her right hand. She cupped Rodas' face in it and lightly brushed her index finger across the tragus of her left ear. "That's a tragus."

Rodas swallowed and Alex pulled away.

"Sorry," she said, "I just... it was easier to show you."

"It's, uh, it's fine," Rodas said, quickly, sliding out of the booth, cheeks reddening slightly. "See you next week."

"Night," she said, cursing herself inwardly. She hadn't even thought about it. She'd just reached out and... She sighed, hoping she hadn't made things more difficult for the other woman.

***

"What do you mean, you're not coming to trivia?" Alex asked. She was on her way to the bar when Kara had called.

"I totally forgot to tell you. There's a CatCo thing, so I'm going, Jimmy's going, Winn's going..."

"So you're telling me all three of you are going to this thing and I'm going to be stuck defending our honour, alone, against Pigs and CHiPs?"

"Well, you don't have to go," Kara said.

"Oh, I'm going," Alex retorted. "And I'm going to win." She disconnected the call and walked angrily towards the bar. She wasn't particularly looking forward to being mocked by Rodas. Or, worse, pitied.

She walked into the bar and ordered a whiskey. She sat down at Rodas' preferred table and waited for the interruption she knew was coming. She took a sip of her drink when it arrived. She finished the entire drink and looked at the watch on the inside of her right wrist. It was almost time. Where was everyone?

Rodas arrived a few minutes later, breathless, and frowned when she saw Alex at the table. "Danvers," she said. "Where are the guys?"

Alex shrugged. "I haven't seen them."

She looked around. "That's weird." She pulled out her pomo. "Merde, it was on silent." She read the display. "Well, something's come up at work, apparently."

Alex looked up at her. "Do you have to go?"

She shook her head. "I'm off-duty today. Pulled a double yesterday." She looked at the empty table. "Where's your team?"

"A CatCo thing. Work."

Rodas raised an eyebrow. "You know what this means, don't you, Danvers?"

"What's that?"

"You and me against the entire bar."

Alex grinned. "I'll get the paper. You want a drink?"

"Sure. Beer's fine to start," she said, taking off her jacket and hanging it on the back of her seat.

Alex returned with two beers and a piece of paper. "We need a name."

"Pigs and CHiPs," Rodas said.

"No way, we should go with a new, neutral name."

She sighed as she snagged one of the bottles from the table. "Fine. How about... Grey Matter?"

"Little Grey Cells?" Alex countered.

"Oh, I love Poirot," Rodas smiled. She paused. "Wait. I got it. Are you ready?"

"Go for it."

"Agatha Quiztie."

Alex laughed. "You got it." She started writing it down on the sheet.

Charles came by to pick up their ten francs and register their name and he did a double take. "Uh, aren't you two rivals?"

Rodas smiled brilliantly at him, her dimples showing. "No, tonight, we're Agatha Quiztie."

He laughed. "Excellent," he said, taking the name down and taking the ten francs from each of them.

They were up against the usuals, plus a new team, Here for Beer, so the pot that evening was 200 francs.

The first round was easy. Both of them knew most of the answers and the couple that gave Alex trouble were ones that Rodas knew and the couple that Rodas didn't know, Alex did.

Rodas took the sheet. "Want something to eat?"

"Sure, maybe some fries or something?"

"Coming right up," she said, taking the sheet to the bar to be corrected and getting them some food.

Alex smiled. They'd worked well together. Everything had flowed nicely. There'd been no awkwardness, no hesitation. Just pure cooperation and collaboration, as well as a few laughs.

Rodas returned with fries, chicken wings and two more beers and they clinked bottles as Charles announced that they were in the lead with a perfect score so far.

The next round was as smooth as the first, with Charles announcing they had 20 points after the two rounds.

"Ready for round three, everyone?" Charles asked. "Here we go, question one! A word, phrase or sequence that reads the same backwards and forwards is known as what?"

"Palindrome," Rodas said around a bite of fries.

"Yup," Alex said, writing it down.

"Question two, what is calcium carbonate better known as?"

"Chalk," they both said, simultaneously. Alex smiled as she wrote it down.

"Question three, true or false, snakes do not have eyelids."

Alex considered. "False?"

Rodas swallowed the last of her beer. "It's true. They don't have eyelids."

"Really?" she asked. "Weird."

"Weird, but true," she said. "I desperately wanted a pet snake as a kid so I read a lot about them."

Alex looked up at her after writing true on the sheet. "A pet snake? Really?"

She shrugged. "I like how they move, okay?"

Alex laughed. "Dork."

"Nerd," she replied, easily, a smile on her face.

"Question four, which planet spins faster, Earth or Jupiter?"

"Jupiter," Alex said, writing it down.

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "A day here is obviously 24 hours, but on Jupiter, it's about 10 hours."

"Wow, can you imagine how many sunsets you'd see?"

"Well, if you could survive on a gas giant, yeah, plenty," she smiled. "You like sunsets?"

"Love them," she nodded. "Especially when you can see the rays refracting through the clouds, while the horizon turns a nice orange colour..." She trailed off and returned her gaze to Alex. "Beautiful."

Alex smiled. "Beautiful is right."

"Question five! What is a female fox called?"

"Oh, that's easy," Rodas said. "A vixen."

"A vixen?" she asked, writing it down.

"Yeah, you know, foxy lady? Vixen?"

"I hadn't realized there was a connection," Alex admitted.

"Really? No one's called you either of those?" teased Rodas. "That's surprising."

Alex laughed. "I may have been called both of those things, but not at the same time, not by the same person and definitely no connections were drawn between the two."

Rodas just chuckled.

"Question six, which present-day city was once named Constantinople?"

"Istanbul," they both said.

"I love that song," Alex admitted.

"Istanbul was Constantinople now it's Istanbul not Constantinople," Rodas sang, quietly.

"Been a long time gone Constantinople, now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night," Alex sang back and the two of them giggled.

"Question seven, what is the only zodiac symbol that is inanimate?"

Alex blinked at that. "Any ideas?"

"I'm thinking, hang on," she said. "Taurus is a bull, Gemini are twins, Cancer is a crab, Leo is a lion, Virgo is the virgin, oh, Libra. Libra is a scale."

Alex chuckled and wrote that down. "I know nothing about horoscopes and the zodiac, only where to look for the constellations."

"Well, I'm a Taurus and I'm stubborn as a bull, so..." Rodas said, by way of explanation.

Alex chuckled. "Is that your excuse?"

"It's my destiny, my birthright," she said, trying not to laugh. "Well, I come by it honestly, at any rate," she grinned.

"Question eight, what is a Kelvin a unit of?"

"Temperature," Alex said, writing it down.

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "0 Kelvin is equivalent to -273 degrees Celsius. It's also known as--"

"Absolute zero, right," she said, nodding. "I'd forgotten there was a scale for that."

"Question nine, the largest battleships ever built belonged to which country?"

Alex frowned. "France?"

"Too easy," Rodas countered. "England?"

"They do seem to enjoy English-themed questions," she admitted. "But we crushed their navy."

"True." She drummed her fingers lightly against the table top. "So it would have to be someone we fought in the modern age. Maybe in the Second Great War?"

"Well, it wasn't Germany, since they only had a bit of coast in the north..."

"Oh, Japan?"

Alex considered. "I think you're right, Japan would make sense. Their battleships were a force to be reckoned with, I think."

Rodas nodded. "Go for it."

"Question ten, who was the Greek goddess of love and beauty?"

"Aphrodite," they both said, in unison.

Alex looked up at her and smiled, then scribbled down the answer. "There we go," she said. "How do you think we did?"

"I think we crushed them all," she said, with a grin.

Sure enough, after Charles did the final tally, he announced them as the winners, with a perfect 30 points, destroying the closest competitors, The Quizzards of Oz, who only had 23 points.

They did a double high-five across the table from each other, their hands solidly making contact, perfectly in tune, in sync.

"You know, Danvers," Rodas said, smiling widely, "normally I end up arguing and yelling with my teammates. But I think you and I made a pretty good team tonight."

"Yeah, I guess we did," she smiled back. She fidgeted with her beer bottle, wondering if they'd have their regular drink after the game or not. They hadn't talked about anything serious all evening and Alex didn't want to scare Rodas off.

Charles came by then, giving them each a hundred francs. "Nice job, ladies," he said. "Is this going to be a permanent team-up going forward or what?"

Alex was about to say no, but Rodas answered. "Who knows, Charles? We seem to make a good team." She shrugged. "Could be the start of a beautiful partnership," she said, grinning at Alex.

She couldn't help the smile that made its way to her lips. "Could be," she said.

"Well, congratulations, ladies," he said, once again. "See you next week."

Rodas turned to her. "Wanna get out of here?"

She blinked. "Uh, sure. Yeah."

They put on their jackets and headed down the stairs to the street. Not knowing where they were heading, Alex just followed Rodas' lead.

"I had fun tonight, Danvers," she said, as they walked down the street.

"Me too," she said. "I'm kind of glad my sister and her friends had a work thing."

"I'm kind of glad my team had a work thing, too," Rodas agreed. "Park?" she asked, pointing towards a nearby green space.

"Sure," she said.

Together, they walked into the small park and sat down on a bench by a lovely fountain, where they sat in silence for a moment.

Alex took a breath. "So, uh. How... you know, how are you? Doing?"

Rodas grinned and looked up at her for a second before returning her gaze to the fountain. "I'm, well, I think I'm doing okay," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." It was Rodas' turn to take a breath. She inhaled and exhaled and then turned to Alex. "I, uh, I think... I mean, I'm pretty sure..." She exhaled again. "I'm... gay," she finally said.

Alex smiled. "Yeah?"

"I think so," she said, her voice a little higher-pitched than normal, a slight tremor to it. She turned back to the fountain. "That's, uh... the first time I've said that. Out loud."

"I'm proud of you," Alex said, rubbing her back, gently, over her leather jacket. "You know, you can take your time, and you might decide you're bisexual or pansexual or gay or whatever."

Rodas sighed, softly. "Nope, pretty sure that, uh, it's this. That I'm gay."

"Why the rush to categorize yourself?" she asked. "This kind of stuff, it can be messy, particularly when you first start thinking about it."

Rodas turned back to face Alex and Alex let her arm rest on the back of the bench. "All those things, you know? That you described?"

"Hm?"

"The, you know, somersaulting in my stomach?"

"Yeah."

"The, um... electricity."

She nodded.

Rodas looked up at her. "You're going to make me say it, aren't you?"

"Say what? Maggie, you don't need to say anything you're not ready to say." Alex was vaguely confused.

Rodas laughed. "The reason that I'm sort of rushing to make sense of things," she said, "is because there's someone who's made me feel this way lately."

"Oh." Alex pulled her arm from the back of the bench. "That's, uh, you know, great."

"Well, I think it is," Rodas said, still looking at her. "Because this woman, she's just... smart. And tough. And funny. And beautiful. And I was thinking to myself, you know, life is... life is too short. And we should be who we are, you know?"

Alex nodded, feeling torn between succumbing to her own jealousy and needing to be supportive of her friend in a difficult and confusing time. "Yeah, totally," she said, almost absently.

"And, uh, I think we should kiss the people -- the girls -- we want to kiss. Right?"

Alex swallowed. "Right. Sure. That's a good plan."

"And I really, I just... Alex, I really want to kiss you."

Her attention snapped back to the woman sitting beside her, gazing at her, smiling, eyes sparkling, dimples on display. "Wait, what?"

"I really just want to kiss you, Alex."

And then, gently, slowly, Rodas reached up and took Alex's face in her hands and leaned in. "I really just want... you..." she whispered, and then pressed her lips to Alex's.

Alex felt her eyebrows rise in surprise as her eyes shut and her lips melted against the other woman's. Their lips moved against one another, matching each other's movements perfectly, for a pleasant eternity. Rodas pulled away and as Alex felt the cool air of the autumn evening against her lips, she sighed, opening her eyes.

"Was that... was that okay?" Rodas asked, quietly, a bit of fear in her eyes.

"Rodas..." She chuckled. "I suppose I can probably call you Maggie, now, right?"

"Probably," she smiled.

"Well, Maggie, that was definitely okay for me," she said, cupping the other woman's cheek with her right hand and stroking her thumb lightly across her lips. "How about you?"

"Electric," she said, softly. "Alex, since the moment I laid eyes on you, you're the one who's made my stomach flip." She smiled. "You're the one who I find attractive. You're the one... who turns me on." She turned her head and lightly kissed Alex's thumb. "You were right. My body knew before I did."

Alex lightly brushed a lock of hair from out of Maggie's face. "I want to tell you that you should... explore this, on your own, for yourself," she said. "That I'll be here for you, as a friend, as you work things out." She sighed. "But..."

"But?"

"But the truth is, I wanted you that very first night," she said, softly. "From seeing you sitting at that table to the silly conversation in the bathroom, from borrowing a pen to facing off in the lightning round." She lightly brushed Maggie's lips with her thumb again. "You were constantly on my mind." She smiled. "So what do you want this," she asked, motioning between the two of them, "to mean?"

"I'd kind of like to take you out on a proper date," she said, shyly. "And, look, I mean, I know you're out and you're proud and you're not going to go back into the closet for anyone, and I won't ask you to do that," she said. "But I'm definitely going to have to deal with my family."

Alex nodded. "I'll be there for you."

"Before I do that, though, I'd kind of like to get used to, you know, dating a woman. Dating you. And... all that comes with it," she said, with a slight blush.

Alex laughed. "A date is a great place to start," she said. "This weekend?"

"Saturday? 1900 hours?"

"Sounds good."

***

The next week, Alex and Maggie walked into the bar together, hand-in-hand, and took their own table, ignoring their Pigs and CHiPs and Nobody Asked You Patrice teammates.

Alex looked up innocently when Kara stormed over to their table. "Kara, you remember Maggie?"

"Hi," she said, briefly. "Alex! What's going on? We need you!"

She shrugged. "After both of our teams abandoned us last week, Maggie and I realized we make a great team together," she said, with a smile.

"Yeah, I hear Pigs and CHiPs are also down a member," Maggie grinned.

She stormed back to her table without responding, causing both Alex and Maggie to dissolve into laughter.

Three rounds later, Charles announced that Nobody Asked You Patrice came in third, with 23 points, while Pigs and CHiPs came in second, with 24 and that the winners, and still champions of trivia, was Agatha Quiztie, with 30 points. Alex and Maggie shared a kiss in celebration before being interrupted by Kara, clearing her throat.

"Yes?" Alex asked.

"I'm very happy for you both, don't get me wrong, but you're ruining trivia night for us," she complained.

"Hey, now, you're the one who got me into trivia night in the first place," Alex argued, "and you're also the one who bailed on me last week."

"I'm also the one responsible for you meeting your girlfriend," Kara countered.

Alex paused. "Ooh, that's a good one."

"Can't really argue with her there, Danvers," Maggie agreed. "We do kind of owe her."

Kara stood there, arms folded across her chest, looking annoyingly victorious while Alex thought about it.

***

The following week, a new team was born: Nobody Asked You Agatha Quiztie. They would go on to set the record for the number of consecutive weeks of victory with 38 before Alex and Maggie had to miss a week while they visited Maggie's family in Nebraska.

To Alex's surprise, and Maggie's utter shock, the Rodas family was okay with things and had invited their daughter and Alex to come out and stay with them for a few days. Alex had even managed to win over her father.

They returned home and continued their reign of terror at trivia night for a further 34 weeks when, one night, Maggie reminded Alex that Pigs and CHiPs wanted to borrow her for the evening, since it was the last night for one of their members, Tremblay, before he transferred to Gotham City.

"Oh, right," she said, "I'd totally forgotten. It'll be like the old days," she'd said, kissing her girlfriend gently just before entering the bar. "I'm looking forward to beating you guys."

Maggie laughed. "Already with the trash talk, babe?"

Alex shrugged. "It's not trash talk if it's true," she grinned.

Maggie went to join her coworkers and Alex joined Kara, Jimmy and Winn.

"Just us tonight, folks," she said, sliding into the booth. "Maggie's gonna hang out with the cops tonight."

"Cool," said Winn, "cool, cool."

She gave him an odd look. He was acting more strangely than usual.

They ordered some drinks and then Charles came around to get their team name and entry fee and frowned. "Uh oh. Trouble in paradise?" he asked. "Maggie's back with her old team?"

Alex laughed. "Nah, it's Tremblay's last night here before moving to Gotham. They think they might actually have a chance of winning again, with Maggie on their team."

"Oh good," he grinned and collected their fee. "You two are cute together, you know."

She grinned. "Yeah," she said, "I know."

Kara giggled. "That might be too sweet, even for me."

Alex just stuck her tongue out at her sister.

A few minutes later, he was introducing them. "And then we have the perennial second-place team, Pigs and CHiPs, and tonight, the return of Nobody Asked You Patrice!"

Alex caught Maggie's eye and smiled at her. She smiled back. It was so strange to see her at the table across the room, instead of next to her. It was amazing what could happen in a year and a half.

***

After the first round, which Alex was certain they aced, Kara went up to hand in the answers and get them some food. She saw Maggie heading for the washroom.

"Back soon," she said, excusing herself.

She entered the washroom right after Maggie did.

"Fancy meeting you here," she said gently.

"Oh, Danvers, you scared the crap out of me," she laughed, almost nervously.

"Sorry," she said, bending down and stealing a kiss. "Didn't mean to. I'm just missing you tonight."

"Mmm," Maggie answered, kissing her back. "Me too. But it's fun, right? Competing against each other again?"

"There is a certain something to it," Alex admitted, lightly kissing Maggie's neck.

"Hey, now, cut that out," she giggled.

Alex grinned widely and stood up. "Fine, fine. I suppose I can wait another couple of hours before I take you back home to ravish you."

"Is that a promise, Danvers?"

"Oh, it certainly is." She bent down to steal another kiss. "Good luck..."

"I'll need it?" laughed Maggie. "You guys are gonna need the luck."

"We'll see what the scores are at the end of the evening," Alex grinned. She took Maggie's hand in her own and lightly kissed the back of it. "Later, my love."

"Bye," she smiled, as Alex left the room.

***

Two rounds later, the final sheets were being tallied and Alex knew that they'd gotten a perfect score. "Here we go," she said, as Charles got up to make his announcement.

"Mesdames et monsieurs, ladies and gentlemen, we have something that hasn't happened in a very, very long time... we have a tie! Will Pigs and CHiPs and Nobody Asked You Patrice please send up their representatives to participate in the lightning round?"

Alex blew out a breath. "Oh boy," she said. "Here we go."

Her sister and the boys cheered her on as she made her way up, walking towards Maggie.

"We meet again, Rodas," Alex joked.

"We meet again, Danvers," she replied.

"Alex, Maggie," Charles said, "the rules are still the same. 30 seconds on the pomo, starting from the end of the first question. The most correct answers in 30 seconds wins. Who's going first?"

"After you," Alex said to Maggie.

"You sure?"

"I insist."

Maggie smiled and stole a kiss. "Thanks, babe."

"Of course," she smiled. "I'm going to win, so it's only fair you get to go first."

"Oh, man, are you ever going to regret that," she laughed.

"Maggie, are you ready?" Charles asked, a twinkle in his eye.

"Ready!" she grinned.

"Here we go. Of will, choice or decision, which word is typically paired with ‘free' to mean the opposite of determinism?"

"Will."

"Correct. Of doe, ewe or sow, which is a female sheep?"

"Ewe."

"Correct. What was the other name of Cassandra, a prophetess in Greek mythology?"

"Alexandra," she answered, smiling at Alex.

"Correct. Of Catherine, Victoria or Mary, which one was the Queen of Scots?"

"Mary."

"Correct. Who is the heroine in the great French opera Faust ?"

"Marguerite."

She raised an eyebrow at that, particularly when Charles didn't let Maggie know if it was the right answer.

"Well, Alex?" Maggie asked, pulling something from her pocket and getting on one knee. "Will you, Alexandra, marry Marguerite?"

Alex's jaw dropped as the pieces fit together, realizing that each answer in the lightning round had been part of the proposal. Maggie then offered up a beautiful ring in a black velvet box.

"Way to keep a girl in suspense, Danvers," she joked.

"Oh my God. Yes, of course, yes!" she exclaimed, snapping out of it.

The bar went absolutely crazy at her answer, her sister, Jimmy, Winn and the Pigs and CHiPs guys in particular.

Maggie stood up and slipped the ring on to Alex's finger. "I love you, Agent Danvers."

"I love you, Inspector Rodas." She bent to kiss her gently and then they hugged closely. She pulled back a moment later, a frown on her face. "Wait a minute."

"What?" asked Maggie.

"If Charles was in on it," she pinned him with a look, "then... who won the game?"

"Oh," Charles laughed. "Nobody Asked You Patrice won, 29 to 28. We just decided to go with a lightning round for the proposal," he said, with a grin.

"And Tremblay isn't going anywhere," Maggie added.

"Wait, this was all just... made up to get us to play against each other?" she asked, shocked.

Maggie just laughed. "I may have been planning this for like, two months," she admitted.

"Merde," Alex cursed. "And I didn't have any idea."

"That was kind of the point, babe," Maggie said, patting her shoulder, gently. "Although, when you followed me into the washroom earlier, you nearly busted me. I was going over what I was going to say."

"Really?!"

She nodded. "Hey, Kara!"

"Coming!"

"Wait, what? My sister is in on this?"

"Of course," Maggie said.

Alex looked at her strangely. "But how did you get her to keep her mouth shut?"

"Potstickers."

"Ah," she said, nodding. "Yeah, that's fair," she agreed.

A moment later, Kara was handing out champagne glasses and, very carefully, popped the champagne bottle with a squeeze of the bottle. She served everyone from her team and Pigs and CHiPs and started the toast.

"To my sister and her love," she said, her glass held high. "May they always challenge each other, make one another laugh and, above all, continue to credit me with their getting together." She grinned widely. "To Alex and Maggie."

"To Alex and Maggie!" the others chimed in.

As Alex stood there, her girl-- her fiancée standing beside her, in front of their good friends, where it had all started, she wondered to herself if any of this would have happened if she hadn't come to trivia night that very first time. Was there a world, she wondered, where they hadn't met that night? She kissed Maggie's cheek, impulsively, and decided she never wanted to imagine an existence without Maggie by her side.

Notes:

Each part of the series is a one-shot. There will be no second chapters or continuations within the series, so please don’t ask. :) Once I’m done with all the Earths, I may do a smaller collection based on some of my favourites from this series but that’s a long way off.

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Earth Six

brinshannara

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