*I'm sure I'm not the only one that was floored with the end of the last episode. So I thought, what the hell and write what most have been thinking and hoping for. I hope in turn, I did you all proud. Let me know if I should continue. ;)

- Enigmea

Chapter 1: Judge and Jury

She stepped up to the torn nerve wracked figure of the one she had stood back and not even dared to defend. She'd been doing it almost all her life and now, when she needed her most, she had stood there like a stone statue following the ghastly orders of someone that only cared about his stats, his politics and nothing more. Her eyes ran along every twitch every ounce of tension reeling from what she'd just witnessed. She wasn't the only one.

"Okay...just give me some time. They'll come around." Who was she trying to convince? She couldn't even swallow down what she was saying. The eyes of the broken soul before her were evidence of the pain inflicted by just simple words to someone whom had done nothing but protect and sacrifice for others.

"Protect this place..and everything it stands for.." She gave one hard attempted to be soft look into her eyes not giving her a moment to respond turning away and flying out. The gust of wind that followed had agents looking the Director's direction but mostly right passed her.

"Dammit.." She turned on a dime and was met with the hard faces the deep stares of her agents. She looked away from them and that's when she saw Brainy approaching. One solid look and nod and she whistled to those around to gather at the center of the command post. Once again her eyes ventured studying each and every one of them. "If any of you need to step away or leave, I will not stop you. I understand what you just witnessed and I grasp your desire to know what he did. I want to know right now if any of you wanted that information he ordered from her." She kept her eyes focused not revealing one ounce of emotion as she scanned the eyes of her fellow agents. "No one?"

"We understand." A younger black haired female agent spoke up. "We do not, at least I do not, hold that against her." Alex smiled but with her smile she saw frowns which shut her own expression down. "What will we do without her with us?"

"What can we do? He expects us to endanger our loved ones our friends, for his personal info?" One man added.

"He expects us to go public with our names?" Another asked with many nodding at that response.

"We will not be going public. He calls this his government agency. So we may have our salaries given to us by the government, but we are NOT his personal assistants. We are the DEO. We protect those that need our aid. We assist in the rights deal with the wrongs of both humans and aliens. We are the soldiers that stand beside Supergirl, not behind. She knows that. So I am asking each and every one of you to stand tall and firm and do not waiver. Do not let this act he has shown define you. I was asked to protect this place.."

"AND EVERYTHING IT STANDS FOR!" One agent yelled out with all of them raising a fist to the air roaring like one solid force. "We will NOT let her down!"

"So what are we?"

"DEO!" Alex smiled and shouted out.

"WHAT ARE WE?!"

"STRONGER TOGETHER!" They all yelled to look out to where their caped hero had flown from. She shook hands with many slapped hands with some. She thanked her agents for their bravery and loyalty. One by one they returned to their posts, their duties. Brainy approached his boss and saw the grim expression. They walked back toward her office and once inside she noticed Vasquez leaning against her desk.

"I need to step out. I need to use the underground garage and take the tunnel with my personal bike." Susan nodded and Alex handed her the keys to the castle. "I may come back with a passenger."

"What do you need of me and them Alex? They know you need to take leave for a few. They don't harbor any ill will." She grabbed her bag and went over to the bookshelf reaching up to where the lever was. "Do you have your com?"

"Our personal one. I also had my tracker set offline. As far as anyone else knows I'm here." She stepped forward and they clasped one another's forearms. "Brainy, be at Susan's side until I return." He nodded and when the bookshelf slid back she waved to them to step through the passageway knowing with the cameras she'd blacked out no one would know of her secret exit nor that she left.

She made haste down the dark hall and slipped the shades over her face adjusting them around her eyes. Night vision toys at their best but it made it easy for her to continue her journey. She waited until she heard the two beeps in her pocket and reached for her phone smiling when it said offline and no service. They didn't need to know that was a ruse. Running down the hall she slid the other com into her ear, her own personal piece and slid her thumb up to a contact labeled 0-VU37-0 pressing call. It didn't take long for the line to pick up and with the hello she immediately shut the other person up. "Hey! I need you to shut up for once and pardon to take a walk. Use the 4th of 7th to bridge to Broadberry. Blue entry and thirty." She heard the response and smiled. "Bye." She had reached the garage and her baby just in time…

Something was up for the Director of the DEO to be calling her like that. Something big had to have happened at that place to warrant the precautions she'd just been addressed with. Speaking of addresses..

"We would be ruthless partners with some of those strategy board games, maaaaan.." She snickered only to arrive where she was told to after removing the battery from her phone, the chip from two of her other devices and wearing a scrambler disguised as a pager on her belt. She was just about to knock when a low growled almost angry voice spoke out from the shadows scaring the ever living daylights out of her.

"Thank you." Green eyes attempted to see the person out of the corner of her eye but she nodded instead to keep looking towards the door. That's when she heard something jingle toward her and she bent down to pick up the bell by her foot that reminded her of something a sleigh would have in the winter. She smirked nodding. "I'll meet you inside." This was a risk she was willing to take with someone whom had tried to be inconspicuous with their rouge government agency. Not very well since she'd figured it out in the long run.

She took the three steps up and slid the bell to the keyhole with the object sliding easily out from the ball. She shook and jingled her own keys in the same hand so as to make it out that the building belonged to her. She was no fool. It did.

"Ohhhhh man. What a day." She announced her presence and shut the door behind her noticing the four locks up top. She quickly clicked each one in place raising an eyebrow shaking her head as jazz began to play in the background. "That paranoid?"

"I've got a stiff drink in here on the rocks for you. Is that understanding enough?" The woman announced and she laughed to venture further in. "There are no cameras in here. No devices accept for scramblers I invented. I kind of had Winn hack into a few of your own gadgets before he went off to the future to play Legion."

"I don't know whether to be annoyed or flattered." She stepped into the vast space marveling at the art deco as well as the fine candle lit fireplace lit space. "Are we having dinner too, just the two of us? I will say Agent, you do look rather stunning in that black suit." The glass was handed to her but emeralds met chocolates that were pooled from tears. "Alex.."

"The president came for a visit." She started and one look back at her warranted her to listen not speak. She brought her own tumbler to her lips taking a sip. "He ordered Supergirl to reveal her identity in front of my agents. In front of the Colonel." The woman's eyes widened in shock. "He went on about how he'd put his own family in the secret service and how no one should be above the rest. She couldn't give him what he wanted, so he dismissed her. He fired her Lena and had the audacity to threaten her in the same breath by telling her the United States doesn't want a war with Supergirl."

"Oh my god." She was floored by the news unable to really say much else just simply stare at this woman that looked so very torn more so than she'd ever witnessed from her. "What did she…"

"She told me to protect the DEO and everything it stands for. She flew off." Alex answered taking another sip. "My agents stand with me and do not blame her for not giving that up. They are more terrified than anything of going out to do their jobs without her beside us. They know that they stand beside her not behind her on the battlegrounds. As do I." Green eyes bore into brown with confusion.

"Why come to me? Why tell me this when your agency is sworn with secrecy?" She didn't understand. "Why trust me after I used kryptonite after you found out I still have some of the Harun-El?"

"Got my message I see. I don't blame you for doing so. I heard about what happened with your trial. I'm a scientist too Lena, and doctor when I need to be. I get your determination." Alex stepped away to stand by the fire with her back turned to the woman taking another drink from her glass keeping her posture firm. "She doesn't hate you. She doesn't blame you. She was scared. She was terrified and acted irrationally." Lena scoffed and took a long drink swallowing down what slightly burned her throat to walk further into the space. "I have never seen her so defeated Lena. I have only seen that look once before."

"What do you mean?" Was she pushing it with these answers? Did Alex know what she didn't? What she yearned to uncover?

"I need to know what I am about to tell you doesn't change your attitude toward her. Doesn't change how you view her. I need to know.." Alex turned to her then and their eyes locked. "I need to know you will not hate her."

"Why would I…"

"Because your mother, during the daxamite invasion, told her when you discover whom she is you would hate her." Lena's eyes widened at that but she slid the mask back on she'd always had to in times of crisis. She nodded. "I've only seen that look once before." Alex stepped forward until she was closer to the woman never breaking eye contact. "I saw it the night of the first storm, when I yelled at her for being a freak. When I told her how she ruined my evening and life by taking over my house." If the shock hadn't hit her before it was making her heart pound roughly in her chest now. The mask fell and her eyes widened with her jaw dropping. "She was shaking and crying and curled tightly in a ball. She was terrified and pressing her hands over her ears as I yelled at her while she tried to make herself the tiniest she could."

Alex studied the woman's reactions and continued. "I walked over and saw the devastation in her eyes. I knelt down and scooted closer to her and took her face in my hands forcing her to look at me. I asked her if she could hear me. I told her to focus on something else. I took one of the hands from her ears and forced it to my chest to where my heart sat. I told her to focus on my heartbeat and drown out all the other noises." Lena had believed she'd stopped breathing by now. "She told me how scared she was of hurting me because she didn't want to. She felt like something wrong, a monster, she didn't want to touch me. She didn't want to hurt me as she cried over and over muttering it over and over. I told her to shut up and not focus on that. I told her to let it out. I learned that night that she had watched her planet burn, had watched her parents and everything she knew burn. She'd been sent away and in her pod she watched helpless as the only home she knew was destroyed. She had been given a mission at 13 years old to look after her baby cousin."

"Superman." She finally found the will to speak. Alex nodded.

"Her pod got knocked off course. She was sent into a place called the Phantom Zone. She was trapped in that darkness, forced to relive the last moments of Krypton in hell in nightmares for twenty-four years." Alex gave the woman a moment to process the information and saw Lena counting only to gasp and look at her again their eyes locking once more. She nodded to confirm that truth. "She didn't age. She was alone and trapped in darkness and silence." She broke the contact and turned around to look down and into the flames letting her gaze be lost in them. "She came to us broken. Her cousin had grown up. She'd failed what her parents had sent her to do. He didn't need her he couldn't take care of her. She was brought to us. I hated her at first. I despised her in all sense of the word." Alex shuttered at the memory. "I was told to look after her. Her needs became first over my own. I loathed her but that night I began to learn of her strife."

"She...she's like the sun personified." Lena gathered her wits about her. "She always is so bubbly." She was acknowledging what she was told and accepting it with a distaste a fear a broken betrayal.

"She has to be. She doesn't want others to lose hope. She doesn't want others to suffer. She was told all her life to hide whom she was. She was told to never show anything of where she came from. I was told to protect her and never allow her to use her powers."

"What changed?" Lena had to know more and once again Alex turned to her.

"That plane she rescued, where she was first seen first using her powers.." Alex needed Lena to understand all of it. "..I was on that plane." The news brought a whole new shock to her and furthermore understanding. "She couldn't tell you because we told her not to. We ordered her not to. She couldn't tell you because she didn't want you in danger." Alex knew the woman was about to protest but she held up a hand to stop her. "I know you have your own enemies. She couldn't tell you Lena. She was so scared you would be hurt or killed for others to get to her. Then Lillian.."

"Thank you for not calling her my mother. She isn't."

"I know. She had told her you would hate her." Alex needed to make Lena understand on a whole other level. "She flew in her regular clothes when you were poisoned." The recollection slammed into Lena like she'd been hit with a freight train. "You were dying. She was so terrified and crying when she flew you in. I had figured out what you had been poisoned with but...you were dying. We had to induce hypothermia. Your brain and heart were shutting down. She used…"

"Freeze breath." Lena understood the bigger meaning behind what Alex was revealing. "The plane…" Alex nodded. "I told her to let me go. She refused to."

"Even after the whole incident with Reign, the kryptonite usage..she believed in you even with as scared as she was." Tears ran down her face with all the emotions breaking through.

"She was dying. My best friend was dying.." Lena had to turn away as the grip on the glass fell but Alex caught it almost as if she had her sister's powers. Her sister. Her sister that was standing here unleashing the secrets she knew, she'd had to hold on to. The suit.. "Kryptonite poisoning. Oh god.."

"I know this is more than you ever expected to take on. I know all this is making you second guess everything. I know it is making you angry at her. Betrayed by her." Lena turned on a dime and snarled.

"You don't know me very well Alexandra."

"Don't pull that card and never use my full name again Luthor." That was warning enough and Lena nodded but gulped when Alex stepped up right into her personal space. The anger was gone that serious look gone. Tears ran down the Director's face. "I just watched our fucking president ask something of her that she couldn't give to protect us ALL. I just watched him destroy her in a way no other has. Not even Reign. I just watched my sister shattered." Her emeralds softened and she nodded. "I didn't come here to destroy what you thought of her. I came her to explain why she did what she did. She didn't mean to lie to your face Lena. She couldn't risk you destroyed like her planet had been."

"She lied Alex. You lied."

"Did you ever stop to think that for once in her life she didn't have to be Supergirl? She didn't have to be that alien girl from a planet that exploded before her eyes? She didn't have to be Kara Zor-El for once. She didn't have to wear a cape or dawn the responsibilities and reveal the sacrifices she'd made on her life. She could be that goofy loveable klutzy girl with glasses that are lead lined so she doesn't have to see everything so clearly with her x-ray vision. She didn't have to hear things so explosive she went deaf from them and died from them. She could just be Kara Danvers with you. She could just be the best friend I know you confided in. The one I hope will continue to do so. I know my sister Lena. She needed that normalcy and the comfort not even I can give her."

They were both shaking both crying and Alex set both glasses down smirking to turn away laughing putting her hands on the mantel along with her forehead. "I don't think we need anymore booze for this." Lena snickered and stepped back to sit down on the rather comfortable couch. "Sorry for taking up this space of yours."

"Thank you for doing so. It was a waste of it in the first place but now it's almost…"

"Comforting." Alex turned and walked over to sit in the chair facing the couch as she rocked in the cushioned lazy boy. "I might have borrowed some funds to furnish it." Lena laughed at that waving it off. "I bought the drinks and food though with my own money."

"Oh? Good to know."

"What we drank cost me two months of my old salary." They both laughed at that.

"Thank you Alex. Thank you for this honesty and trust." Lena looked at her then gulped at the look those hard browns were giving her as the woman leaned forward with a tightness about her.

"Use this in any way against her or speak of any of this again to anyone and I will take you out to a place only I know of and they will never discover your body. I'll hack you into so many pieces they won't ever find any trace of your bones." She nodded gulping again but gasped as that hard look turned soft and the smile returned to her face. "Want something to eat?"

"You are scarier than I've ever had to be." Lena got her shit together again as her pulse calmed down. "Where is she Alex?" They both stood up in a defensive stance hearing the sound of boots then a hard crash to the floor which instantly brought the agent's hand off her firearm. "Oh my god.."

"Kara?!" Alex ran over immediately upon seeing her baby sister on her knees tears dripping onto the wooden planks her body wracked with heavy violent tremors. "Hey hey…"

"I failed…" She sobbed only to look up suddenly into understanding supportive emerald hues. "Lee…" The fear in those cerulean orbs of possible rejection calmed some.

"Don't ever think that. Ever again." She didn't waste another moment and with them both on the floor with her they enveloped her in their arms. They let her cry out everything she needed to holding her through it all until the blonde was laying in their laps exhausted and spent. Lena looked up at Alex and nodded with a promise that meant more than anything else. Eventually a rather loud snore hit their ears and both looked down smiling.

"Thank you." Alex whispered then smirked. "Are you hiring?" Lena looked up and got the biggest grin knowing exactly what the woman was implying. Right now they'd comfort their angel between them. Later they'd discuss employment opportunities..