"How are her vitals?"
"Her EEG finally looks back to normal...her heart rate is back down. It's at human level still...but that's to be expected after everything she's been through."
"Do you think any permanent damage was done?"
"Her reflexes are all normal. She reacting to physical stimuli. I'm hoping that means that everything has cleared out of her system and no nerve damage was sustained."
"J'onn, Winn, What about the other exposure? Is everything contained?"
"We're holding steady right now. No one seems interested in giving away her identity. Partly because they love Supergirl, and she put herself in harms way to save them. Partly because they are all regulars, and they know the kind, happy-go-lucky Kara Danvers. We'll be monitoring the situation closely. I have a task force assigned to containment."
"OK, so...what about suspects? Have we identified the substance? We've been assuming it's alien, since Kara seemed to be familiar enough to warn us of the effects..."
"It's not Earthly. There is nothing in our database that matches anything like what she experienced. We don't even fully know what KIND of substance it was. If it's a toxin...parasite...disease? We have a small amount that we saved for testing, but without a clean room, we can't risk any more exposure. We also aren't sure if it can multiply or reproduce or..whatever..soooo"
"So we're nowhere, with no information, and no leads. Well, we can assume it's probably Cadmus for now..."
"Dax'mm..."
Alex was cut off from her briefing by Kara's mumbled voice.
"Agent Danvers, her EEG is reading activity, and her heart rate is up. She's coming out of it." Dr. Hamilton relayed quickly.
"Kara? Kara? Can you hear me Kar?" Alex hovered over Kara immediately, overanxious to see her sister's eyes, and here her speak. She needed to know she was OK.
Cat perked up from her position where she laid dozing on her couch.
"What's going on, is there a change?" She asked sleepily.
"It looks like she's waking up" Winn added.
"Is she ok?!" Cat rushed over to the table.
"Everybody back up! Relax, and give her some space!" Alex said, commanding, but not louder than a whisper. She didn't want to frighten Kara in case she was experiencing any further effects.
Everybody took a couple steps back, and Alex turned her attention back to her sister. Kara had a familiar crinkle in her brow. Alex recognized that as a sign of stress. Kara was trying hard to get back to full consciousness.
"Kara...can you open your eyes for me? I need to know you're ok. Or just squeeze my hand if you can understand me."
Alex felt an immediate twitch of Kara's hand, then a tight squeeze. Tight enough to be forceful, but not Supergirl tight. 'Well that answers that question. No powers."
"Alex..." Kara whispered, crinkling her brow even more with effort as she slowly blinked her hazy eyes open.
Everything was fuzzy. Blurry would be the only thing that Kara would be able to describe it as. As if everything was a little too bright, and a little too hazy at the same time. As she blinked a few more times, she looked around confused.
"Kara, Hi. Welcome back." Alex said softly, and she rested her free hand over Kara's forehead. Kara raised her other hand to meet her sister's, but winced after the movement. She looked down and blinked again to make out an IV, and a mess of tubes and wires stuck her her arms. She tried to assess her body, but it was taking longer than normal. She was having a hard time focusing on one body part at a time. All she could really register with certainty was a general pain on her entire left and front sides, and a hell of a headache.
"Welcome back to hell, apparently. Ow. This sucks." Kara breathed out, with a hiss punctuating the end of the statement.
"Yeah, you're still healing. No superpowers yet." Alex sympathized.
"You were talking..." Kara closed her eyes tight to try and stave off the haze of the headache. When she opened back up, her vision was clearer. She could see Alex fine, and noticed there were other people in the room.
Alex was a little confused.
"Talking when...like just now?" Alex asked.
"No...before...about the powder..." Kara said with a little more diction.
"Oh, you heard that? We were throwing around theories. But now you're awake, so maybe in a little bit, when you feel stronger, you can help us with a starting point on this stuff. For now, just relax. Get your bearings, and heal." Alex explained.
Kara nodded. "I'm alright. If I'm still here, and lucid, then I'll be alright." She moved to sit up, but her body protested and she flopped back down . The cuts and gashes from the Kryptonite were still fresh, under bandages.
"Whoa, OK Supergirl, take it down a notch. You're just Kara Danvers right now, remember. No Superhealing powers." Alex gently placed the pillow back under her sister's head.
"Ow...again. OK, we'll stick to talking for now." She let out a huff of relief from laying back down, mixed with exasperation of having to lay back down.
"You don't have to talk either, if you're tired. But we do need to give you a little bit of a cognitive exam. To make sure there are no permanent effects." Alex assured.
"I won't. That's not how this shit works..." Kara answered back crassly. No filter comes with the exhaustion with her. Alex recognized it right away, but she was too confused to laugh.
"What do you mean? How do you know? Are you sure?" Alex asked. She had a million more questions, but was trying to contain herself from overwhelming her sister.
"I'm sure...we learned all about it in school when I was a child." Kara explained.
"So it is alien?" Alex confirmed.
"Alien, yes. More... made? Kind of? Fake? There was an event on [Krypton]." Kara was having a hard time with the technical talk in English. She was still pretty slow thinking, having inadvertently spoke Krypton by it's true name in Kryptonese. On top of it, these were complex scientific processes that she hadn't thought about since learning about the attack .
"What do you mean by that? Do you mean this stuff was engineered?" Alex tried to help her sister out. She was hearing an accent that she hadn't heard since the first couple of years Kara was on Earth with them. Kara had eventually perfected her non-regional diction by watching a LOT of television. Apparently right now she wasn't trying as hard to hide it.
"Yes, bio-engineered. By Daxam. A long time ago. Hundreds of years before I was born." Kara indicated to Alex she was going to try and sit up again. Her fuzziness was subsiding as she drank the bottle of water Dr. Hamilton provided. Alex helped her up slowly, and Kara was thankful that she was able to stay upright. With some amount of pain, of course, but she felt better moving around.
"So what is it doing here?!" Alex stated, somewhat alarmed.
"I don't know. Only thing I can think of is the ship. They must have kept it all these years. I can't believe it. There was an...a formal...agreement. AN everything. What's it called..."
"Like a treaty?" Cat offered.
Kara looked up, registering everyone behind Alex.
"Oh! Hi, Ms. Grant...what...?" Kara said confused, but too dull right now to come off as shocked.
"We all know in here Kara, it's fine. But, like a treaty...about the substance?" Cat answered calmly.
"Yeah. Yes, a treaty. Between Krypton and Daxam. Krypton had been harassing Daxam. We didn't approve of their arrogance, and slavery. Everybody was" she sighed, and took a second to think "...they stayed...what they were born into." Kara forced out. She was getting her bearings more, and her speech was clearer. Knowing Cat was listening put her more on guard, and she focused intently on her diction. Even if it took longer to speak.
"Jesus, relax Kara, just talk how you're comfortable. After everything you've been through yesterday, you don't have to worry about me thinking less of you. I've pretty much seen you naked for god's sake." Cat chided, trying to be helpful, but not exactly coming off as soothing. Kara perked up, looking very confused, and looked quickly towards Alex for answers.
"It was a thing...I'll explain later. But she's right, just get out what you need to say, however you have to say it. We'll fill in the blanks." Alex assured. Kara was not entirely put at ease, and looked a little sideways at Cat for a couple seconds until she just rolled her eyes and accepted her situation.
"Ugh, whatever, um no, I'm alright. It's actually...helping to think it all through. Helping focus. Me... focus..." She closed her eyes for a second, thinking about how to word the next part of information she was trying to get across.
"OK...so Daxam was sick of us coming over there and trying to keep them in line. They were so primitive...so selfish. The rich staying rich and powerful by enslaving the poor. The poor were born into slavery, and that's where they stayed. There's more that is...irrelevant. So to retaliate against Krypton Daxam had their military engineer this weapon. I can't really get into all the technical specifics right now, I barely remembered before. I'll have to think on it more. Long story short, they...like...mixed together...you know...a parasite from Krypton that they got a hold of, with a popular drug of theirs, and the stuff from like plant...mold and stuff..."
"Spores." Winn offered.
"Right...so they got it all and made this weapon. Powder. They released it on on of our cities. It decimated the entire city, and anyone within a..radius. Anyone we sent in there, which in the beginning was a lot, all died along with everybody else. We eventually realized what you did, that if we wipe it from our blood then we recover. Once lucid, everyone seemed to recover fully. We used one of our remote terraformers to crack open our crust, and buried everything in, what would pass as our form of lava to destroy the remnants. We learned all about it in school, and they would take us all to the site as an example of what the Daxamites were capable of. After the attack, we made a treaty with Daxam. We would stay out of their ruling practices, and they would destroy the weapon, and any traces of the formula. I guess they didn't keep up their end of the bargain." Kara sighed, and rubbed her brow. That was a lot of thinking all at once.
"I wonder if that's why one of you hallucination nightmares was from Dunsae. OK, well that makes sense. Little Sister, you know more about this than we do, so if you say you'll be ok, then we believe you." Alex promised.
"But." Kara anticipated.
"But, we're still gonna do a full work up. At the very least because of the stress on your body. I mean, you don't have your powers right now, so it must have done a number on you in some fashion." Alex reminded.
"Blech, can I at least take these wires off? This is highly uncomfortable, and not to mention I'm in a sports bra and spandex shorts in front of everyone I know..." Kara requested. The less foggy she got, the more aware of her situation...and the prying eyes trained on her every move.
"Oh! Yes, sorry." Alex said as she quickly started to carefully remove the electrodes, IVs and wires that were monitoring parts of her sisters vitals.
"Alright, moving on. Someone has about 30 seconds to give me a run down of what happened, where I am, and update me on the situation at Noonan's, and the investigation so far." Kara suddenly insisted. "Also...clothes please? It's cold."
"I got the clothes." said a girl Kara realized she didn't recognize. She tried not to outwardly panic.
"Who...?" She got out, before Cat anticipated her distress. She knew her assistant's 'panic' face. She'd caused it several times herself.
"Eh eh! Relax, that Liv...or something. She brought you in. We all signed all your secret government papers. No need to have an aneurysm."
"Oh...'we all'?" Kara questioned.
"Yes, me, Liv, Big John, Steve #1, and the girl who works at Noonan's." Cat listed, of course not bothering to remember irrelevant names.
"Big John and Steve #1 know!? Oh my god..." Kara was overwhelmed, she put her head in her hands and took a deep breath. Two people she didn't even know, and her two favorites of Ms. Grant's security team know her identity. 'Wait...' she thought, about to panic again.
"The explosion! Everyone at Noonan's! They saw, I wasn't in my suit! And there was a man! And other's, with a car! How many people was my identity exposed too?!" She started talking too fast and rambling, as usual.
"Hey!" Cat came over, since Alex had stepped away slightly to converse with Dr. Hamilton about the charts. Alex looked over about to step in, but saw that Cat seemed to have it handled. She knew Kara trusted Cat, and respected her.
"Hey...relax. We've got it all taken care of. Take some deep breaths." Cat said with surprisingly gentle touch. She placed her hand lightly on Kara's very anxious cheek, and looked her dead in the eye. Kara was shocked for a second, but then started to listen, and take a few breaths to calm down. "Listen, my overly excitable, alien, friend...everything is under control for now. No one wants to expose you. We tracked everyone down. They're all on the same page. We all love you, and no one has any interest in hurting you. OK?"
Everyone just started, no one wanted to be the next one to talk.
"Anyway, nobody wants to hear you yelping because you're flailing about, and hyperventilating with a hundred tiny stab wounds all over your annoyingly perfect BMI. Seriously! Couldn't you have at least 1% body fat?" Cat said, as she stood up and walked over to the kitchen to pour Kara another glass of water.
Liz came running in with a pair of workout pants and a tank top.
"Here, this is was best I could think of...considering I don't really...like...know you.. Or what you like to wear. Well, besides what your were wearing earlier. Which...I didn't even consider while picking these out..." Liz said nervously as she handed Kara the clothes. Kara just stared at her, trying to process everything that's happened.
"These are fine..uh..thank you. Was it Liv? I can never be sure with Ms. Grant." Kara asked.
"Liz...actually. She's been calling me Liv all yesterday and last night." She confirmed Kara's suspicions.
"That sounds about right. So, I think I recognize you. Maybe? Headphones Girl?" Kara inquired.
"If by that you mean I always have my headphones on so guys don't creep on me at the shop, then yes, that's me." Liz smiled.
Kara laughed, "Yeah, I know what you mean. But I've been digging the selection recently. Nice summer jams."
"Thanks. Just made the new playlist the other day...wait..." Liz said, confused.
"I creep. Sorry. I like music and I'm always curious what everybody's listening to. It's a bad habit, I know. Sorry." Kara stumbled, realizing that what she was doing would probably be an invasion.
"No, it's cool. If I had super hearing I'd probably do it too." Liz shrugged. Then she leaning in and whispered. "Do you like...use your x-ray vision to like..." She trailed off.
Kara was confused for a second before..."Oh! No! Rao no!" She stuttered and turned bright red.
Cat came back with her water and noticed the familiar red hue. "Oh, must have embarrassed the most embarassable person on the planet. What a shock."
"Sorry, I was just like...curious..." Liz said, now embarrassed as well.
"No no, don't worry about her. She would turn bright red if you told her her penmanship wasn't up to par. Anything dirty and she turns into a 12 year old girl." Cat poked fun at Kara. She saw Kara's face drop a little, and realized that after all of Kara's dreams and hallucinations, she probably didn't want to be reminded of being 12 years old. "Oh, I'm sorry Kara, I took for granted that you were being yourself and didn't think. I was just hurling insults without considering others again."
"Ms. Grant!" Kara stopped her. "It's fine, you were just joking. I know you by now. You don't have to treat me any differently. I would never want that."
Cat just rolled he eyes. "Always the gracious martyr." She said, knowing it would make Kara laugh.
"Alright, enough of all this. Kara you're with me. Do you think you can stand now? Since you sound like you're feeling so much better." Alex ordered. "Ladies, go away." She shooed them away, and they went off to see where Winn was with the new information Kara provided.
"Thank you" Kara said quietly.
"I know when my little sister needs to be bailed out." Alex whispered back. Kara gave her a smile that is usually reserved for only her.
"Let's get you worked up by Dr. Hamilton, and dressed. I'm sure you are loving being half naked in front of everyone." Alex continued.
"Yes please. Also. Ow." Kara admitted.
"Ooo. How bad."
"Like 4?" Kara said shyly.
"So at least 6." Alex answered back. Kara looked away innocently, then grimaced when she stretched her neck the wrong way and twinged her cuts. She instinctively lifted her hand up an felt gauze tapped down her neck. Then felt up to her face and felt more.
"Ew, do I look as good as I feel." Kara groaned.
"Even worse." Alex smiled. "You look like you'd be at an 8, so I think you're pretty lucky kid." She said, as she carefully pulled her sister's head closer to kiss the top of it.
"You're really sure you're gonna be ok?" Alex asked, looking her in the eyes once more.
"I'm going to be ok. Physically. All 3 people that made it out alive were apparently OK once they reached lucidity. I guess that's the last area the Corradreeol infects before it's completely cleared." Kara paused. "Hey! I remembered!"
"Yey, you're definitely more alert. Cognitive function has already improved dramatically. How's your vision?"
"Still a little blurry passed a few feet. Is that bad?" Kara asked.
"Well, obviously it's not awesome. But you're still healing." Alex tried to sound reassuring. "Ok, lay back down. That's enough."
"But you just asked me if I could get up? We haven'y even tried yet." Kara complained.
"Kara..."
"Please...I just wanna try to get my blood moving again. I'm not gonna get better unless..."
"Fine. Fine. Let's give it a shot. We can go in the other room to finish the exam and get you dressed." Alex acquiesced. She put her arm up to help Kara up.
"Ugh...this sucks. Evil, Bio-Genetically Engineered, Parasitic, Magic Mushroom Dust...AND Kryptonite. Great." Kara groaned, as she used Alex's arm as leverage to stand up. She leaned heavily on her right side, as it was less injured. Limping along, they made their way into one of the bedrooms to get Kara fixed up.
