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If the Sandman and Alex were on Facebook, their status would be “it’s complicated”. It had been like that for most of her life.
Not that sleep was always an issue for Alex. From the time she started sleeping though the night, up until the day Kara joined them, Alex had no trouble with slumber. She fell asleep easily, and (barring an anomaly such as a thunderstorm or a nightmare) slept straight through until she was roused by an alarm (of either the mechanical or parental variety). Getting up early to surf in the rising sun was easy for a well-rested Alex.
Once Kara began sharing her room, sleeping became a little more difficult for Alex. Not that there were any deliberate acts on Kara’s part to steal sleep from Alex. Rather it was that everything was so new and confusing to her new sister, and Alex spent a lot of time after lights out doing some combination of teaching, comforting, and soothing Kara, often into the small hours of the morning. She adapted, learned to function on fewer hours, but the seeds of her perpetual exhaustion had been sown.
(Never mind how as they got older, bed time morphed into science time, with Alex testing Kara’s powers as carefully and discreetly as she could. This fact clearly had no bearing on how much sleep Alex was getting)
The first couple of years of college were not too bad. Sure, Alex was buried under her excessive course load, and often forewent a good night’s rest in favour of spending time in the lab, or the library, or the 24-hour coffee shop (once she’d been forcibly removed from the lab or the library), books and papers strewn about the table, muttering into her notes while the baristas tried to figure out how to gently convince this girl to go home to her bed. Only Kara, whether by phone or in person, could coax Alex away from her work to just shut her eyes for a few hours (never enough hours). Alex just further adapted, becoming a master of micro naps and coffee chasers.
Once the partying started (and the studying ground to a halt), sleep became a nuisance, something that interfered with her nights out. Alex would sleep only when she needed to, and only during the day. Nights were for fun, now, and there was little fun to be had in a bed by yourself (with a willing partner was another story, but that still didn’t involve sleep).
Then the partying stopped, and the training began. Alex didn’t so much sleep as she would pass out from sheer physical exhaustion day after day. 12 hours a day training, and training hard, left Alex barely able to sit through a movie with Kara (which left Alex feeling so guilty, but she kept reminding herself that she was doing this for Kara, learning how to keep Kara safe, how to keep Kara hidden, all for Kara).
Eventually she settled into a decent, if not optimal, sleep pattern. Sure, most nights she couldn’t get to sleep before midnight, but really, who didn’t lie in their bed with their thoughts churning? It was just life; she’d adapted to 5 hours a night almost 15 years ago. This was fine. Sister night was a go again (she was even staying awake all the way through, although she suspected Kara’s prioritizing TV series over movies had something to do with getting Alex home at a decent hour), Kara was safe (the driving force behind Alex’s every action)….everything was fine. Insomnia (once she admitted that’s what it was) became just another demon in her mind. A lesser demon, but it was still there. An time she’d manage to get enough sleep to actually feel rested, she’d get confused, and generally hit the gym or the DEO to spar and work herself back in the state of semi-exhaustion she’d existed in for so long.
(she remembered a song called ‘sleep is for the weak’ from her punk phase; she decided to adopt it as a personal mantra)
Alex continued like this until Maggie came into her life. Suddenly, Alex had a reason to leave work at a civilized hour, instead of finishing paperwork, or running one more test, or “come on Vasquez, just one more round! I’m sure your nose isn’t broken that badly, and I would know; I’m a doctor!” Maggie could lure Alex away from the DEO with just her presence, a text, a simple “come home, babe”.
So instead of working, Alex “what's sleep” Danvers found herself curling up on the couch, leaning into Maggie’s side and trying not to nod off while listening to her love talk about her day. She would stretch out on the chaise side of the couch, with Maggie snugged into her ribs, while they would sleep though the evening news together. She would fall asleep on a Sunday afternoon while Maggie was watching football, head pillowed in Maggie’s lap, fingers combing through her hair, just relaxing in the comfort and safety of her new normal.
Sleep came more easily on a regular basis now as well. Instead of napping on her couch for a few hours before going back into work, Alex was sprawled out on her massive bed, with Maggie fitting beside her perfectly. Instead of laying in that massive bed, awake and alone with thoughts of her failings and disappointments and fears swirling in her brain, now she had Maggie’s strong arms, her soft breath on her neck, sleepy affirmations of love and gentle kisses. It was a marked improvement. For the first time in years, Alex regularly slept soundly.
Eventually, Alex was able to change that imaginary Facebook status to “friends”. Sleep was no longer a complicated mystery for her to solve.
