The screams echoed throughout and J'onn found himself pacing even more.

Whatever technology Colonel Harper had used in the truck when they were originally en route to Cadmus was being used there. The bullet had been dug out of him and he'd been pumped with pain medication after it had been patched up and then he'd been thrown into a white cell after being changed into a set of yellow clothes that didn't cover his limbs at all and left him feeling far too vulnerable. So even though they hadn't seemed like savages at first, the symphony of screams that he heard quickly countered that.

All he could think was that any one of those screams could be Alex.

His Alex.

The screams were male and female and hard to distinguish.

Eventually, it drove him to the point of slamming his fists up against the obviously reinforced window on the door. The screams were too much coupled with the possible thought of Alex being harmed. If he hadn't revealed himself...if he hadn't given her cause to be able to deceive Harper and Lane in the first place...all he could do was blame himself…

But it wasn't enough.

"You are most intriguing…"

He was fairly sure that even without his powers that they were scared to enter his cell. They were observing him from outside the room. A panel along the wall on which the door was situated slid back and open to reveal a long rectangular window for observation apparently. J'onn didn't mind it because it also gave him a view of every single person that passed his cell. It meant that he could keep an eye out for Alex as well as study the environment beyond the white box he currently resided in.

He'd learned much already.

Guards wore black and didn't seem to carry anything deadly (as far as he could tell). After all, they would want to keep their prisoners alive (or at least he was fairly certain that most of them were worth more alive rather than dead). The medical staff wore white. The intured residents of Cadmus, however, seemed to wear three different colors: yellow, red, and teal. J'onn wasn't quite sure what the colors were for. Of course they could designate alien versus human, but then why three colors? Were there hybrids there? Or was it more on the scale of who was more dangerous?

All he knew was that he was going to get out of there.

He was going to find Alex.

They would find Jeremiah.

And they'd get out.

"You don't say much J'onn J'onzz…" the doctor continued from outside of the cell. "Do you not appreciate our hospitality?"

He looked over at the doctor. Was he expecting some kind of thank you? Validation that they'd done the right thing? "Thank you for tending to my wound," he said as politely as he could muster. "I would appreciate being reunited with my agent…"

"Right, Agent Danvers…"

The doctor seemed to be studying how he took that name as much as he was waiting to see if the doctor would give something away in regards to Alex. He waited, but the doctor seemed good at his poker face. If only he had his powers-

"But you had another Agent Danvers at one point, didn't you?" the doctor continued a breath later. "Oh wait, that was Hank Henshaw...whose persona you have been assuming for over a decade now. Two Agent Danvers over the course of almost twelve years at the DEO…"

"I knew Jeremiah Danvers, he was a good man."

"I wonder what he'd say about how you've ruined his daughter's career and gotten her mixed up in all of this…" the doctor said before clicking his tongue in disapproval. "I've seen her records. Doctor Alexandra Danvers. Quite intelligent. She could have been a good addition to Cadmus. If only we'd recruited her first."

It wasn't easy for J'onn to hold his temper, but he did.

"I know...we should talk to Agent Danvers," the doctor continued.

J'onn moved quickly, likely too quickly...too eager...to the observation window. Who he saw on the other side, though, wasn't who he expected to see. "Jeremiah," he breathed. The man that he had promised all those years ago that he'd protect his girls...his family...the man he thought had died...he was there...alive and dressed in white like the doctor beside him. "No… It can't be…"

"They found me, J'onn...and brought me here," Jeremiah said with a smile on his face as he moved closer to the glass. "It took them a while to properly heal me...but now...look at me…"

"What did they do?"

"They fixed me," Jeremiah said as if they'd simply slapped a band-aid on him.

J'onn just stared at him. How would Alex respond? He was certain that for Alex's sake, that it would be better to think that he was dead...that he'd been brought to Cadmus but hadn't survived. How he wished he could go back and take back telling her that Jeremiah Danvers was still alive, if only he'd held onto that information and looked for Cadmus and Jeremiah on his own.

"All this time...your family's thought you were dead," J'onn pointed out. He wondered what they'd done to Jeremiah. He hadn't been a man who could have just given up his wife and girls for this...not for a job. He loved them. He loved Alex. No, this wasn't right. They had to have done something to him.

"You kept an eye on them for me, though, haven't you?" Jeremiah asked and then didn't wait for him to respond. "I've seen Kara all over the TV and papers. Supergirl. I know that you have had a hand in that… I can't wait until we can bring her in." He seemed excitedly maniacal at that thought. It made J'onn sick. "And Alex…"

Alex.

"I've kept tabs on her...I had hoped that I could convince my bosses to bring her in...but you reached out to her before I could get them to," he said and seemed almost sad about it. Jeremiah tilted his head to the side. "Oh well… She's here now. I'm not sure how well I can control her, though… Stubborn genes." He shrugged. "Either way, she'll be of some use… She's worried about you, of course, but she was so happy to see her long lost father… That just might be enough…"

Alex must have no idea, he thought, as he just stared at Jeremiah.

"Please, don't hurt her."

"I don't want to, J'onn, but...you've made quite an impression on my girl, haven't you?" Jeremiah questioned. "I'm actually a little jealous...she might have been more concerned with your safety than my miraculously being alive."

"I saw that you were alive."

Jeremiah shrugged at that. "But for a girl who loved her father like Alex loved me...and not seeing me for so long...you would have thought that there would be something more…"

J'onn didn't know what the man expected. They'd been assaulted and separated. Alex was likely as panicked as he was. He couldn't even imagine how confusing it had to have been to see her father. "I'll do anything you want, just let Alex go…"

"Oh, you're going to do anything we want no matter what…"

Before J'onn could say anything, though, the other doctor stepped forward again with a sickening grin on his pale face. He held his tablet towards the glass. What J'onn saw made him sick and made him uncontrollably angry.

"No! Stop! Tell them to stop!" he screamed as he attacked the glass.

The reinforced glass didn't stop, but when the wall slid back in place, they pumped in the audio from the tablet. He covered his ears and closed his eyes as he lowered himself down onto the floor. In his mind, all he could see were the scenes on the tablet...forever engraved in his brain...and now Alex's screams in his ears.

Alex in only a sports bra and shorts strapped into a unique chair that she was strapped to, only her arched back was not covered and the doctor was doing some kind of procedure that looked like a spinal tap of some kind. Alex's tortured face had been perfectly positioned to capture every moment of agony.

"STOP HURTING HER!"

But it didn't stop.

Time passed.

They never turned it off.

His cell was filled with her screams.

And then there was a pop and a hiss.

The room filled with gas.

J'onn didn't even fight it, instead he welcomed it. He welcomed the void and the gift of unconsciousness. He just hoped that Alex's tortured state and screams didn't follow him to his sleep, he'd much rather dream of her smiling and happy.

When he woke, he was still in the room. J'onn was flat on his back on the floor staring up at the white ceiling. He breathed in and then exhaled. He listened and just breathed.

It was silent.

He didn't know if he should really feel relief or not. What if that meant-

The moan that was not his brought him up into a sitting position too quickly as he quickly whipped his head around to see where it was coming from and who it was. "Alex," he whispered in sharp relief and scrambled towards where she lay on the bench in the cell.

Laying curled up on her side, he noticed that Alex was wearing a red tank top over what she'd been wearing before in the video feed, her short dark hair clung to her head but she seemed okay...at least for the moment. Carefully, he lifted the back of her shirt and immediately cringed at the series of bruised puncture sites along Alex's spine. "What were they doing to you?" he whispered with great concern. Lowering her shirt back into position, he sat next to her so that he faced her face. He reached out hesitantly and pressed the back of his hand against her forehead. She was warm, but not overly so. Her forehead was sticky and likely had been sweating before they'd brought her there.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered to her.

He wanted to think that he could protect her, but everything since the incident with the Red Kryptonite had shown him that there was no way that he could truly keep his promise to protect Alex. The promise that had been originally to Jeremiah Danvers, but that he'd made his own...Alex had given him his own reasons to keep that promise for other reasons. As he stared at her, all he could think was that he would give anything to take away any pain that she was feeling or would feel as a result of being there in Cadmus.

Another moan escaped her lips and her watched as her face twisted in pain. She stirred for just a moment. He reached out and gently rested a hand on his shoulder. "Shh… You're safe now. Sleep." Instead of continuing to reassure her that she was safe...which was a lie...neither one of them were safe...he sang something he used to sing at night on Mars as something of a comfort.

J'onn just hoped that it comforted Alex.

It was all he had.

TBC…