Maggie saw the gun pointed at her and for that small speck of time before she saw the shot, she thought about Alex.

…

Alex was sitting on the couch, her left leg stretched out on it and a beer in her hand despite it being just after 11 a.m. It's not as if she had anywhere to go, she figured and no one around to tell her not to drink it.

The television was on, but she wasn't even paying attention to whatever show she had put it on.

A part of her mind told her she needed to stop this, needed to get up, needed to get out of the apartment, needed to do something because that was who she was, someone who was always going full speed ahead.

It wasn't the part of her mind that won out as she took another drink.

There was a knock at the door, but she ignored it. When she heard a key turning in the lock she knew it could only be one person.

Kara came over to stand next to the couch, glancing over at the television. "I take it you haven't seen any news today?"

"No, it's just me and Netflix. Why, is the next alien invasion underway? If it is, I'm going to sit this one out, not that I have a choice in the matter."

"No, it's not that, it's um … there was a shooting at a corner store last night, a robbery attempt gone bad," Kara said. "There was an off-duty cop there and … it's Maggie, Alex, she was shot. She was off-duty so she wasn't wearing her vest. But they said it was a clean shot, went straight through and she's going to be ok, but she is in the hospital."

Alex's mind was stuck on "she was shot."

She didn't say anything for several moments, letting the words repeat in her brain. "You said she's going to be ok?"

"Yes. Winn hacked the hospital files to check on her and she lost a lot of blood but she's going to be fine. It hit her around her shoulder."

Alex merely nodded at this information.

"I thought maybe if you wanted I could go with you to the hospital," Kara said.

This brought Alex's full attention back to her sister. "No," she said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," she said, turning her attention back to the television as if to say the conversation was over.

"Ok," Kara said. "I'll just go. Call me if you need anything."

Alex didn't respond and Kara let herself out, locking the door behind her because she figured if she didn't Alex wouldn't bother to get up and do it. She was worried about her sister, but she didn't know how to help her.

No one seemed to know how to help her.

Kara wished that Alex would have wanted to go to the hospital and maybe her seeing Maggie again would be a good thing. She knew she was probably being foolish wishing that the two of them would get back together, but she wanted it to happen. Maggie made Alex happy – at least she used to and Kara wished she could turn back time to when her sister was happy – before Maggie broke off their engagement, before Kara had gotten caught up so much in her own stuff that she totally missed Alex slipping more and more into darkness, before Cadmus had nearly destroyed Alex because if she was being honest, she wasn't sure that Cadmus hadn't succeeded.

…

Alex didn't know why she was here outside of the hospital. She knew it was probably a bad idea to be here, yet, she needed to see for herself that Maggie was really ok. She hadn't called Kara to get her assistance in coming, instead she had called a cab.

Still, she was pausing, standing outside without moving to go in.

Finally, she started to move slowly to the door, steadying herself and hitting the button for the automatic door to swing open and entering. She got up to the reception desk and the woman gave her a head to toe look before asking, "do you have an appointment?"

"No, not a patient, just visiting one," Alex said. "Can I get a room number for a Margaret Sawyer?"

The woman's attention went back to the computer and Alex heard her typing as she looked around the place. It had been a while since she had been in any hospital that wasn't a DEO medbay facility. And she had spent more than her fair share of time in those.

For a moment her mind flashed to another life – one where she was a doctor in a hospital like this. A life where she hadn't thrown it all away and joined the DEO. One where she didn't even know about the existence of aliens.

"Ms. Sawyer is in room 419," the woman said. "The elevators are just down there."

Alex nodded and made her way to where the woman pointed. She got a couple of odd looks as she was standing there waiting with others, not that she was entirely surprised. She was after all cradling a small bonzai tree against her right side. Most sane people would have just brought flowers, but Alex was questioning her own sanity at this point.

Once she got in the elevator and someone hit the fourth floor for her she waited, again rethinking what she was doing there. She had no business being there. She and Maggie were no longer a couple and hadn't been for nearly seven months.

For her own peace of mind, she had to know though, know that Maggie was still alive, breathing and would be ok.

She thanked the man who held the elevator door open for her to exit and studied the sign directly across from the elevator to figure out which direction to go. Once she got her bearings, she headed down the hall and around the corner and was surprised the room was right there. Shit, she thought. She had hoped to have at least a few more steps before having to make this decision, the decision on whether to go in the room or just leave the damn tree at the nurses desk and ask one of them to deliver it to her.

The door was open to the room and Alex didn't hear anyone in there, at least no one talking. She got closer, almost to the frame of the door before deciding this was indeed a bad idea. She was about to turn around when a woman came out of the door and almost collided with her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the woman said. "I wasn't even paying attention."

"It's ok," Alex said, studying this woman who was clearly not a nurse or affiliated with the hospital, which begged the question of who she was and what she was doing in Maggie's room.

"Are you here to see Maggie?" the woman asked suddenly. Alex didn't speak. "I just assumed you were, since you have a bonzai tree and Maggie loves those little things. I think their size appeals to her."

She was a beautiful Latina woman, long black hair and green eyes – and while she seemed a little younger than Maggie, she didn't carry herself like a cop, which led Alex to the quick conclusion that this was someone who maybe was dating Maggie now.

Alex looked down at the tree in her arm and then at the woman again. "Yes, it's for her," she managed to say. "Maybe you could give it to her."

"Why don't you go on in, I mean she's asleep right now but it probably won't be long before she is awake. I'm sure she would love to have a visitor. Do you work with her?"

"No," Alex said. "I'm … I just heard about the shooting and I can't really stay so if you could, would you just set the tree in there with her."

"Sure," the woman said taking it from her. "I don't see a card, who should I say it's from?"

"Alex."

The woman's eyes registered that the name was familiar to her, and suddenly Alex wanted to be anywhere but where she was standing. "I have to go," she said quickly. "Just um … I hope she's going to be ok."

She turned wishing she could get out of there quickly, even though it wasn't really an option. By the time she reached the elevators and hit the button to go down, she knew this was a mistake. That is all she seemed to do lately – make mistakes. She wanted nothing more than to get another cab and go directly to the nearest bar.

…

Maggie opened her eyes to see her cousin Angela sitting there just as she had been when she fell asleep. "Did you at least get something to eat in the cafeteria?" Maggie asked her, drawing the young woman's attention off of the book she was reading.

Angela shut the book and leaned forward in the seat. "As a matter of fact, I was heading there not long after you started your little nap and almost collided with someone outside of your door."

"You always were the graceful one in the family," Maggie said, yawning as she tried to wake up more fully as she fiddled with the controls to raise the bed up a bit.

"Funny, but it wasn't just someone. It was Alex."

That got Maggie attention. "Alex was here?"

"Briefly. She brought you that bonzai tree there," Angela said, pointing to the tree she had put over by the window sill. Maggie looked at it with a small smile on her face. "She didn't stay long, in fact she never even entered the room to see you. She just gave me the tree and said she had to go."

"She didn't come in?"

Angela shook her head no. "She seemed in a hurry to leave."

Maggie knew she shouldn't even expect a visit from Alex, but the idea that Alex had come here but not into the room, hurt her. When she had first woken up there in the hospital, she had thought almost immediately about Alex and how she was thinking of her right before the bullet hit her. It had been seven months and Maggie was nowhere near the point of being able to move on with anyone else. Every time she had even thought about it, she thought about what she had with Alex.

They had been happy, happier than Maggie had ever felt she had the right to be. But even so, she had given Alex back the ring, and that was not something she could undo. But she had given Alex a choice and in the end Alex hadn't chosen her.

"Maggie," Angela said. "She didn't look well."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, she had a cast on her left leg and was walking with a crutch. Not even sure how she managed that and holding that tree to get up here," Angela said. "She was pale and I know you said she was fit, but she looked like death warmed over or like she was going to audition for the Walking Dead. She looked like she should be lying in one of these hospital beds."

"Where's my phone?" Maggie asked.

Angela got up and retrieved the phone and handed it to her. "Are you going to call her?"

"No," Maggie said. "I'm going to call James Olsen and tell him to get his ass down here, and then when he does, you can get a nurse on standby to help him after I kick that ass."

"Ok," Angela said. "Care to explain that."

"He was supposed to be keeping an eye on her. I ask him to do one thing, keep an eye on her."

"Is he in the FBI with her?"

Maggie sighed. She couldn't tell Angela what Alex really did for a living so she used Alex's FBI cover, which is the one she most commonly used out in the field when dealing with people who weren't in the know about the DEO. "He's a friend of her sister's and I thought he was a friend of mine," she said. "After we broke up, well I didn't really think hanging out with him would be the best idea and I didn't want any awkwardness but I did ask him to keep an eye on her and clearly he didn't."

"You still love her."

"Yes, you know this, I know this."

"But she probably doesn't. So why don't you call her instead of him."

Maggie gave her a look as if it was obvious. "I was shot and she couldn't even come in the room to see me. No, I'm not calling her. "

"But she brought you a tree. That has to mean something."

Maggie looked over at the tree once more, wishing maybe it was an olive branch, but Alex hadn't even stayed here to give it to her. She knew she had hurt Alex by her decision, and she had rethought that decision over and over again since she had done it. But Alex had been headed down a path that Maggie couldn't follow her on.

After things had settled down following the Daxamite invasion, things had been going well for them. She had been surprised by Alex's proposal but as they were standing there facing each other Maggie couldn't think of any reason why she wouldn't want to spend the rest of her life with Alex. Their happiness was short lived though as Cadmus had been ramping up its activities and Alex again became obsessed with finding the organization and taking it on – by herself if need be.

It was after one of these missions that Maggie had gotten a call from Winn to say Alex was in the medbay. She had rushed over and Alex was fine – just a concussion and bruised ribs. She had gotten injured because she had refused to pull back when J'onn had ordered them to. Maggie hadn't confronted her about her recklessness immediately, waiting for Alex to heal up. When she did bring it up, it had sparked a fight between them.

They had gotten through it, but the next time it happened – Alex having gone into a suspected Cadmus facility without waiting for backup – Maggie had given her a choice either stop this solo hunt for all things Cadmus or Maggie was going to walk away. She hadn't wanted to, but she needed Alex to stop and see the situation for what it was. She was obsessed with Cadmus and finding her father once again to the detriment of everything else. She canceled plans on even the rumor of something Cadmus related. She was working more and more hours, sometimes sleeping at the DEO facility or skipping meals.

Maggie thought for sure that Alex would see reason, would take a step back from this and come back to her.

Alex hadn't though and Maggie had given her back the ring and moved out.

Maggie hadn't wanted to give her such an ultimatum but she didn't know how else to stop her. She couldn't even turn to Kara for help because Kara was going through her own crisis of identity.

She knew if someone didn't stop Alex that there was no way this ended well. She knew Alex had this hope, despite what he had done, that her father could be saved, that if she could just get him out of Cadmus' grasp for good then he could be the father that she wanted him to be.

Maggie wished that for her, but she wasn't hopeful that would be the case. And she knew that if it ended like she suspected it would be Alex who would be the one hurting the most.

Now after what Angela had told her, she feared the worst.

…

James gave Maggie a modified hug to avoid her left side where her wound had been bandaged.

"I'm glad you're ok," he said.

"Thanks," she said.

"When are you getting out of here?"

"Tomorrow," she answered. "I wish it were today, but doctor's orders and all. And of course I can't go back to work for several weeks and even then it will be desk duty at first."

He smiled at her, knowing that part of it probably hurt worse than the bullet wound. "We've missed you," he said. "Winn, me, Kara, even J'onn."

She noticed he didn't say Alex. When she had called him, she had merely asked if he would come visit her, deciding over the phone was not the time to bring up why she wanted to speak with him. She had calmed down a bit but she had been unable to get Alex out of her mind. She had asked Angela to go over everything she could recall about her interaction with Alex and how she appeared. She knew she probably sounded like some obsessed ex but despite how it ended, she still worried about Alex, still loved Alex.

"I miss you guys too," she said. "All of you."

"I was happy you called," he said. "I know you thought it would be best to maintain your distance, but I don't see why we can't still be friends."

"Alex came here to see me."

"She did?"

"Yep," she said. "I didn't get to see her or talk to her because I was asleep and she didn't come in here or anything, but she dropped off that bonzai tree there for me. My cousin Angela was here at the time, spoke to her briefly."

She paused to see if James would say anything. When he didn't, she continued. "Angela told me that Alex was walking with a crutch and she didn't look good. What happened?"

"Are you sure you want to know?" he asked. "When you said it would be best for us not to see each other going forward you said a part of it was that you didn't think you could do it. I assume you meant because of Alex."

"Yeah, and I also told you to keep an eye on her and apparently that didn't happen," she said, not appreciating him bringing her own decision up.

"I tried. We all tried, but she wouldn't stop," he said. "After you and her … she was at work all the time. J'onn had to force to leave several times, but even when she wasn't there she was still working, trying to find out any lead on Cadmus. She was responsible for discovering several of their sites and she lead the raids on them, and while they were successful, it was all small-time stuff, not what she was really looking for."

"Her father," Maggie said.

"Or Lillian Luther," James said. "I'm not really sure which she wanted to find more. She even had me keeping an ear out for anything I might hear while being Guardian. Then it happened about a month ago, Cadmus got to Kara. They took her right after she had finished at the scene of that office building fire downtown."

Maggie remembered that. It was a seven-story building that had caught on fire with employees inside, right in the middle of the day. Supergirl had flown in and saved them and put the fire out.

"Did they hurt her?" Maggie asked.

James shook his head no. "They only took her to send a message to Alex. Lillian Luther wanted to meet her alone. Alex, of course, agrees to it despite it being a clear trap. She didn't care. J'onn ordered her not to even though he knew he couldn't stop her. He insisted on her wearing a tracker however, but when she got to location there was only a laptop with a message telling her to remove any tracking devices and wait. She did so and the DEO was still monitoring and J'onn had dispatched a team that was ready to move in and then Alex just leaves. No words, no explanation, she just leaves the site. J'onn had the team tracking her through visual contact but she lost them easily enough. They didn't know it at the time but Luther had given her a second location and told her to get there alone. For five days, nothing. There was no trace of them, no communication from Cadmus, no demands or any contact. Then Kara calls in their location. The team gets there, finds no one in the building but Kara who is weakened from exposure to Kryptonite, Alex who had a broken leg and other smaller injuries and Jeremiah, who was dead on the floor. Alex was just holding onto him, refusing to let anyone attend to her wounds or anything or come near him. She had a gun in her hand and she pointed it at anyone who tried to get close to them. She wasn't saying a word just sitting there holding him. Finally, J'onn used his powers to knock her unconscious so she could be taken back to the DEO. No one really knows what happened. Kara isn't saying and Alex didn't say anything when she woke up in the medbay. She was just there staring at the walls, refusing to speak to anyone. When the doctor said she could be released, she left and hasn't been back. She skipped her follow up appointments, she hasn't answered any calls. Kara told J'onn she just needs some time, but no one really knows. I don't even know that Kara knows. I know she is worried about Alex, but Alex seems to be shunning her company too. She didn't even go to Midvale when they buried Jeremiah. Until you told me that she came here, I wasn't sure she had actually left her place in all this time."

Maggie looked away from James when he finished. Her heart felt constricted in her chest. Poor Alex. Her father was dead and she probably witnessed it, Maggie thought. This was what Maggie had been afraid of – that Alex would push too far and Cadmus would push back. She turned back to James, "I need to see her."