In all her time at the DEO, there were only a couple of times Alex honestly thought she might be killed. This was one of those times. Everything slowed down. Her eyes grazed over the sight of the alien's claw coming at her.
[He was at least twice her size, with barred pointed teeth and sharp claws the length of her forearm.]
Her hands on her gun, her knees bent, she lifted it up to shoot. Point blank. Whatever it took to survive this encounter.
[there wasn't enough time. He was already on her.]
It happened all too fast. The claw struck across her face like searing fire ripping through her skin. The impact knocked her into the rail. Hard. Something in her crushed against it. A Hard, cold, snap. She toppled over, slammed into a metal dumpster cover. Her right arm, flailed out to protect her head, sliced against its sharp edge and cracked at some angle. Her body tumbled off and against the concrete alley surface. Her head hit against her good and her busted arm, just enough impact absorbed to keep her brain in her head. Her gun skidded across the ground, out of reach.
Alex couldn't move. She fought for breath despite knowing that he'd be on her again in a moment. She had nothing to defend herself with. The fingers in her left arm twitched against the ground. She couldn't move. Alex blinked the blackness and the blood from her eyes. Her heart pounded a haphazard rhythm.
She blinked and blinked again.
Nothing.
He wasn't coming.
He must have thought he put her down well enough.
Alex titled her head just enough to see her phone had slipped out of its' spot on her belt. She reached for it with her left arm and dragged it closer. The screen was cracked, but it worked.
Her hand shook as she worked out a simple message. A pitiful 'help' and an address.
As the sight of Maggie's quick 'OMW are you ok?' faded, the events that led up to this played in her mind as vague unconnected thoughts.
Her father was out there, still alive. No one was putting the time in to finding him. She had leapt at the first lead she found on her own. Now, on the anniversary of his supposed death, she had a second. If she could hold on long enough to see it through.
Maggie tore down the street in her police car, tapping with frustration at her phone. Alex wasn't picking up. A sinking feeling chilled her. She wasn't responding to any further texts. Part of her wondered if she was walking into some sort of trap. Or did Alex mean for her to bring back up? If so, wouldn't she have called the DEO?
She glanced up at a building to her right, the address. An old apartment building over a commercial lot. There weren't any lights on, no obvious signs of anyone present or of where Alex may be. She slowed and pulled to a stop at the entrance to the alley next door.
From the corner of her eye she spotted a lump in the alley. She squinted, leaning over the dash. Alex. "Oh my God." Maggie pulled herself out of the vehicle and around it's front, not taking her eyes off of her.
If that was her. It had to be her.
"Alex!" she hissed, taking her eyes off the body just long enough to scan the area for a threat. Everything looked clear. Maggie ran over and kneeled beside her. Had she been too late? "Alex!" She repeated, louder.
No response.
Maggie looked over her. Her face was almost completely obscured in blood. Her right arm was crumpled beneath her, stark white bone sticking ever so slightly out in a sea of red. Her left arm covered her phone, cracked and splotched with blood. This was why she contacted her.
"Alex," She gently shook her shoulder. "Alex!" Harder this time.
No response.
"Shit, come on…" She muttered as one hand reached to search for a pulse while the other dialed for an ambulance. Maggie felt her own heart go silent as she waited for any kind of life from Alex. She let out a sigh of relief when she felt it. Weak, but her pulse was there.
"911 what's your emergency?"
"Ah! Yes, -" She cut off. Alex hand moved her hand to her wrist. Maggie pulled away from her phone for a moment. "Alex," she whispered again.
Alex moved her head just slightly. "No doctors," Her voice was hoarse and hampered by long cuts across one side of her face and by blood in her mouth. She lurched forward as much as her body would allow and coughed up more than a mouthful of blood. "no DEO," she croaked out.
"Now's not the time to act tough," Maggie managed a half smile. She reached to help hold Alex up. Her head dropped against her lap. Just as she was about to answer the dispatcher, Alex waved her hand absently again.
"I can't."
Maggie pulled the phone away and covered the receiver. "Why can't I call a doctor?" She asked. No answer. It looked like it was painful to speak.
She debated. With Alex, there very well could be a real reason to keep away from a doctor or some other agency, but she looked two steps shy of the grave. With a piercing fear in her gut, she hung up the phone and put ii in her back pocket. "You're going to have to help me then Danvers," she muttered.
She helped Alex to her feet, taking on most of her weight. It seemed like her legs hadn't broken or at least Alex was too exhausted to notice the pain. Maggie gingerly moved Alex's busted right arm so that she could hold her up better. She let out an involuntary shout, her whole body shaking violently.
"Sorry!" Her heart raced. She kept thinking back to calling a doctor or someone for help. Maggie only had basic first aid training from the precinct. Nothing that could help Alex now. Alex leaned further against her. Still, Alex had trusted her to keep her safe and she'd do that to the best of her ability.
It was a task angling her into the back of the police cruiser. Alex was a heavy rag doll with it's stuffing half out, it was all she could do to get her in a position that didn't aggravated her wounds. The DEO agent said nothing, her eyes winced closed and teeth clenched, she only let out a hiss or whimper when she was moved in not quite the right way.
Once that Alex was settled, Maggie moved to the driver's seat and pulled out into the road. Where was she taking her? No Hospital, do DEO, not Maggie's place – her building didn't have an elevator and just getting her in the building would be difficult. Her eyes flicked to the body in the back seat. "You have your keys?"
There was a brief "Mmh" in response. At least she had some proof that she was still conscious.
Her fingers tapped against the steering wheel. What happened? If Alex was refusing a doctor what did that mean for her? She was doing something outside of the DEO's regulations, something dangerous. She swallowed hard, trying to not think of her body limp against the ground. She'll be fine. Maggie told herself. She had to be.
It was hard to keep that thought in mind. She pulled up to Alex's building and went to get her from the back, but Alex was back to being completely unresponsive. God, why hadn't she just called the damn ambulance?
"Alex, come on," She urged her, kneeling against the floor of the car. She couldn't lift her entirely on her own.
It was all she could do to keep her hands from shaking. She had seen a lot of horrible things as a cop, but it was so different when it involved someone she cared about. "Alex," Maggie held the sides of Alex's face. If she didn't respond, she told herself, she was calling screw whatever dumbass reason Alex had. "please."
She uttered a small sound and scrunched the half of her face that wasn't torn up.
"Okay, we're moving," Maggie said, more to herself. She wasn't certain Alex could really register what was happening around her. She rolled her against her shoulder and swayed precariously as she stepped back with Alex out of the car.
Getting her up to her room was a twisted juxtaposition to a drunken one-night stand. She felt every inch of Alex's body against her, ragged breath in her ear. There was a mad sway and stumble to the elevator and the hope that no one saw them get there. They laid back against its corner, filled with impatience and anticipation. Maggie dug through Alex's pockets for her keys while she hung her head against her shoulder and muttered unintelligible things in her ear. The door was ignored and left open as they all but fell in and Maggie laid Alex down on the couch.
Alex vaguely pointed in the direction of a hall closet, where Maggie found an extensive first aid kit. She went to work quickly. A chair grabbed from the kitchen. A pot of water, a handful of washcloths, the kit resting on top. Painkillers. A glass of water. A bottle of wine. God knew they'd both need it.
Maggie knelt beside her, instructed Alex to take the pain medicine and to hold a wetted cloth to the claw marks across her face, and went to work on her arm. There wasn't much she could do other than clean and attempt splinting it. She couldn't set it properly, but she could at least try to stop the bleeding.
She focused in on her task. Focusing on ignoring how the slightest pressure caused Alex to twitch and force herself not to pull back. Focusing on ignoring the pained noises coming from her and instead on the fact that she was breathing, and alive and not on whatever it could have been that lead either of them here.
She moved from the arm to her face. Maggie eased the cloth away murmuring some absent comfort.
Alex looked up at her. There was a mix of shame and fear in her eyes. Sure, her arm had been all but busted in two but this was what hurt the most. It was a painfully visible reminder of how she fucked up.
"It's not that bad." She assured her [it was], "and everyone digs a scar." Maggie flashed her a teasing smile. It didn't help ease the fear in Alex's features. She knew enough to know that Maggie was just trying to be nice and keep her positive.
She dabbed at and assessed each cut. Maggie was far from an expert, but it definitely could be worse. Whatever hit her had three talons. The cut just above her eye was the deepest and most ragged. She had only been joking about it scarring, but this one probably would. The second cut went from just in front of her ear to above the corner of her lip. Luckily, it hadn't torn right through her cheek. The last was across her jawline. Maggie just hoped she wasn't doing a Frankenstein job with the medical tape.
She cleaned off her hands and made a quick mental assessment of her injuries. She knew from moving her here that she must have a few busted ribs. She had made the mistake of placing her hand on Alex's side when they were coming up and the she nearly doubled over. She could have further injuries.
Maggie moved to lift Alex's shirt. Alex tensed up instantly. She stopped, fingers curled around the hem of her shirt, and looked to her for direction. "Arm," Alex said carefully out the side of her mouth.
She nodded, understanding. There was no way she was going to get it over her head with her arm like that. She took out a scissors from the kit and held them up as a suggestion, to which Alex blinked in approval.
Alex watched apprehensively as she cut away the fabric. Perhaps she was worried about what new wound they might find or perhaps shy was just shy. Not like this was remotely the time to be worrying about that sort of thing. Or think about. This was far from how she thought she would ever possibly undress her. Not that it was anything she thought about.
Maggie focused in on the bruising along her side. Her hands hovered over her skin as she looked over her, knowing how sensitive the area was.
"Ale- Oh! Sorry!"
She turned, hand half to her gun. It was Alex's sister, Kara and another older woman by her side. The blonde was starting to turn away from the doorway. It registered in Kara what she was seeing. Her eyes widened. "Alex!" Kara ran to her side. "What happened?"
The older woman held back a little way, standing just past the entryway. Her mother. Alex closed her eyes as if trying to shut them out. Maggie realized, this was what she was avoiding.
Kara placed her hand on her leg. "Detective Sawyer, what happened?" She asked again.
"I don't know." Maggie said with certainty. Kara just looked pensive, she reached to hold her sister's hand, but drew back when she saw the state of her arm.
"We are not doing this." Mrs. Danvers started. Maggie looked up at the woman and saw a severity in her eyes that she had seen many times in Alex. "We are not going to tiptoe around and act like we don't know what you were doing." She started pacing back and forth. "You were going looking for your father!" When Kara gave her a look she added, "why else would the DEO not know where she was or why you wouldn't tell us or why you didn't get a doctor and instead have whoever the hell this is!"
Ouch. Kara glanced at Maggie, but she kept and even expression. She knew a distressed mother when she saw one, and knew not to take anything they said personally. To be fair, they hadn't ever met and Maggie was certain that Alex was far from an open book.
"Goddamnit Alexandra!" Kara flinched at her mother's curse and her intensity. "What were you thinking? This isn't some game! These are dangerous people! You are one person! One regular person! What could you have possibly been thinking to think you could do anything! J'onn said to wait! Directed you to stand down! They've been looking for hours! You could lose your job! What were you doing? God, I hope you do! You never should have started working there!"
Maggie stood up and carefully stepped toward the woman, her hand out in front of her. "Hey, hey. Things are tense." She spoke trying to calm her. "but Alex can't answer the questions you have right now."
Mrs. Danvers looked startled. It was as if she had forgotten anyone else was in the room. "Who are you?"
"Detective Maggie Sawyer. I'm a friend of your daughter's, Mrs. Danvers."
The woman was shaken. She had her arm wrapped around herself and knocked her knuckles against her chin. "My daughter doesn't have friends." It was a bitter statement, defeated. An absent thought. A jab without the intent of a jab.
She decided not to respond to the comment. "Alex has an injury on her face that makes talking very painful right now," she explained the situation to her, "She's in a lot of pain, lost a blot of blood, she needs to rest right now. I'll need help moving –" Maggie half turned around to see Alex was gone. "Oh." She saw Kara re-enter the room and take out her phone. "Did you already…?" it was a moot point. Of course she had helped Alex to her room, where else would she be?
"I can't reach J'onn." Kara said. She was looking and speaking more to her mother, but in her state she couldn't seem to register that she was being spoken to. "I'm going to track him down." She looked to Maggie. "Detective Sawyer, do you mind staying longer to watch over my sister?"
"Of course," She cast both of them a polite smile and slunk back towards Alex's bedroom.
She was a pitiful sight. On top of all the injuries, the exhaustion, she had her good arm across her chest, trying to stop herself from crying.
Maggie lightly pressed the back of her hand against Alex's forehead before sitting down on the edge of the bed. She placed a hand on her leg. "She's just scared," she said softly, "but it still hurts. Parents sometimes forget how much they say affects us." Alex looked like she wanted to say something, but before she could try and hurt herself, Maggie shook her head. "Rest. We can talk later." She smiled and added, "When you have some better medicine."
She spotted Alex looking out the door way. Maggie followed her sightline and realized she was intently watching her mother, still pacing around the room. Her shoulders were tense. It wouldn't be easy for her to relax, but there was a definitive change since her family showed up. It wasn't helping.
Maggie slowly stood up. Alex caught her wrist. "Don't go," she pleaded in a hoarse whisper.
She tilted her head and smiled at her. "You don't feel comfortable with her here, do you?" She asked. Alex looked like she didn't want to admit it but shook her head slightly. "I'll be right back."
Maggie was 85% certain Alex's mom was going to hate her, but it wasn't like she had a good track record with girl's parents. Why start now?
Mrs. Danvers had her back to her, staring into the kitchen apprehensively. She stopped short behind her. " ?" She asked politely, "do you know where you're staying tonight?"
The woman looked at her oddly. "I was going to stay with Kara." She spoke like she wasn't really there.
"Would you like me to call a cab or get an uber?" Maggie asked.
She looked at her as if she had said something ridiculous. "I'm not leaving when my daughter is-" she cut off, looking exhausted. "I should be helping."
"She's apprehensive and stressed with you here and she just needs to rest," Maggie explained, hoping she wasn't sounding completely awful. "Kara said she was contacting the DEO, they'll have top doctors here in no time to look over her."
"I'm her mother."
"And right now she needs space and a little bit of time, ."
The woman reluctantly relented and let Maggie call her a cab. Exhausted, Maggie headed back to Alex's room. She smiled down at her and gave her good hand a squeeze before settling down on the floor. She sat back, resting her back against the side of the bed.
"I'll be here as long as you need."