Author's Note: Well, once again, I thought this would be the last chapter of this story and once again this story refuses to cooperate. So I decided to post what I've got rather than make you wait until I managed to finish the story. As I've said before, I know where I'm going with this story so hopefully it wont be too long until the next update. Until then I hope you enjoy this chapter. Let me know what you think.

Note: Italics indicate a flashback.

P.S. Thanks for all the follows, favorites and reviews!


The days went quickly and before they knew it Zee-Na had been with them for over a month. With her facility with languages, which they discovered from Mon-El was unusual but not unheard of for a Daxamite, she was soon speaking in complete sentences. Occasionally she misspoke a newly learned word but she never had to be corrected twice. She seemed to learn from any conversation in the room, not just the ones she took part in.

For the first week J'onn had made sure that Alex had no other duties and Maggie had put in for time off based on a "family emergency". After that, scheduling was a bit more challenging. Maggie had suggested they enlist the help of their friends under the pretense that it would be good for Zee-Na to interact with different people. What she was really doing was preparing them all for the time when Zee-Na would be going home with her and Alex. Not that she'd mentioned that to Alex yet but she had found the time to talk to J'onn early on in their stay at DEO headquarters.

Maggie had managed to slip away from her two favorite girls while Alex was reading Zee-Na a bedtime story, to go talk to J'onn about Zee-Na's future. She found him in his office. The door was open so she knocked on the frame, "Do you have a minute?"

"Certainly, come in Detective. What can I do for you?"

J'onn could tell Maggie was nervous by the way she kept shoving her hands in her pockets and pulling them back out and how she was bouncing on her toes. "I wanted to talk to you about Zee-Na's future. I know you're looking for a family to take her in. I think you should stop."

"Actually I never started." J'onn said looking at Maggie who had started pacing in front of his desk.

"Nobody's better qualified to look after an alien child than Alex and I and she's already bonded with us. Wait what?" she asked as J'onn's statement finally penetrated her brain and broke her out of her well rehearsed speech about why she and Alex should be Zee-Na's foster parents.

"I never started looking for a family for Zee-Na. I had every intention of doing just that until I saw the three of you together. It may have been centuries since I was part of a family but I know what it looks like when I see one." J'onn said solemnly.

"You.., I.., how…" Maggie spluttered. Finally, she collapsed in one of the chairs across from J'onn's desk. "Well it looks like Alex is the only one left to convince."

"Good luck with that." J'onn chuckled, indulging in a rare moment of humor. "You know better than most that Alex has a hard time choosing the path of happiness. You'll have to convince her that it's what's best for everyone else, especially Zee-Na?"

"Yes, yes I will" Maggie said, apparently lost in thought. J'onn was sure she already had an idea how she was going to about it.


Soon Zee-Na was learning about computers from her Uncle Winn and photography from her Uncle James. Nobody knew for sure what she did with J'onn, her honorary grandfather, but they both seemed to look forward to their time together and J'onn's demeanor always softened around Zee-Na.

The first time Zee-Na ran up to J'onn in the ops center shouting, "J'onn, J'onn look what I drew. It's a Mary-around. I got to ride one in the park today!" Alex cringed, expecting J'onn to brush Zee-Na off while directing a disapproving look at her.

You could have knocked her over with a feather when J'onn scooped the girl up and said, "I think you mean 'merry-go-round'.

"Merry-go-round," Zee-Na repeated to herself.

"Let's take a look at that picture. Why yes, that's an excellent picture of a merry-go-round. You are quite a good artist." J'onn beamed at the little girl in is arms and Alex could see what a good father he must have been.

Kara was helping Zee-Na learn about her powers and how to control them, especially her strength. Zee-Na had exceptional control for such a young child, except when she got excited or scared. Once when Zee-Na was in lab with her, Alex thought it would be fun to show the little girl what happened when you mixed Coke and Mentos, two foods Zee-Na adored. The resulting explosion frightened the young Daxamite and she ended up running through three walls before Kara was able to catch her and calm her down.

"I know you were frightened but you really have to be careful about running through walls when you're scared okay Zee? Someone could get hurt."

"Okay Kara, I'm sorry." Zee-Na said contritely.

"Thank God you were here" Alex said when Kara brought the frightened girl back and put her into Alex's outstretched arms. "Maybe an exploding experiment wasn't the best choice considering what happened to Daxam," she continued chagrined.

"Are you alright sweetheart?" She asked rubbing soothing circles on Zee-Na's back.

"I'm okay Alex, I was just surprised. Can we do it again so I can watch it this time? I promise I won't run away this time!"

"Maybe next time, Zee-Na." Alex said with a laugh. "Maggie should be here any minute now to pick us up for dinner. Where would you like to go?"

"Anthony's for pizza then to Morton's Moo for ice cream," the little girl responded without hesitation.

"Why do I even bother to ask?" Alex asked throwing a bemused look at Kara. "Would you like to join us Kara?"

"Yes Aunty Kara, come with us! We can have a pizza eating contest like we did before!" Kara laughed and Alex groaned.

"I'd love to sweetie but I've got a deadline for an article I'm working on and if I'm even a minute late I'll never hear the end of it from Snapper."

As Kara was leaving the lab she passed Maggie on her way in. "You coming to dinner with us?" Maggie asked.

"Can't, deadline," Kara tossed over her shoulder already halfway down the hall.


Dinner went well, Zee-Na was a quick study in more than just languages and had quickly learned that certain things that were okay when she was inside the DEO building were not okay when she was out with others.

Early on there had a been a few slip-ups but fortunately, most folks saw what they expected to see so their minds supplied a rational explanation for anything they saw that didn't make sense. Like a little girl who apparently jumped six feet in the air and plucked a pretty butterfly out of the air on a beautiful spring day in the park. Or the same little girl accidentally knocking over a parking meter when she tried to shake it to see if she could here the change someone just put into it.

"Imagine the city leaving a loose parking meter like that," Alex had said to nobody in particular, desperate to come up with a plausible explanation. "Somebody could get hurt!" she exclaimed as she hustled away with Zee-Na in tow.

On the ride back to the DEO, Maggie took the opportunity of a mishap free outing to move forward with her plan to get Alex to see that they should be Zee-Na's foster parents.

"She did really well tonight didn't she?" she asked Alex who was smiling back at the little girl sleeping in the back seat.

"She did, didn't she. She hasn't slipped up in almost two weeks. I think she's getting the hang of pretending to be human." Alex said, casting another fond glance at Zee-Na.

"Maybe we should take her training to the next level," Maggie suggested innocently.

"The next level?" Alex asked flashing the cutest perplexed look at Maggie.

"Yeah, she's going to have to leave the DEO sooner or later. Don't you think it would be a good idea to see how she handles that? And, I mean, who better than us to help her through it." Maggie was talking fast now, throwing every reason she could come up with at Alex. "She knows and trust's us and we know her better than anyone else. Plus the two of us together know more about aliens than just about anyone. We've got a guest bedroom so she could have her own room. We've already got a great support system with Kara, and Winn, James, J'onn." She trailed off, waiting anxiously to see how Alex would respond.

Alex was silent for a long moment and it was one of those rare occasions when Maggie had no idea what she was thinking. But she knew better than to interrupt. Alex was processing not just Maggie's proposal but how it would affect everyone else involved. Maggie knew Alex would put everyone else's needs before her own. That she would, in fact, discount her own desires in the matter to the point that she might decide against the idea simply because she was suspicious of anything that would so obviously result in her own happiness.

Maggie was about to reiterate how such a move would benefit Zee-Na when Alex broke her silence. "It's a good idea but do you think J'onn will agree to it?" she asked clearly trying not to get her hopes up.

Smiling triumphantly to herself, Maggie refrained from telling Alex exactly how sure she was that J'onn would agree to the plan and simply said, "I'm sure we can talk him into it if we present it to him the right way."


Maggie managed to get J'onn alone long enough to warn him not to be to enthusiastic about the plan when she and Alex presented it to him. He understood it was all part of her long term plan to get Alex to agree to foster Zee-Na and played along.

"You both make good points" he said reservedly when they met with him in his office the next day, "are you sure she's ready to take this step? Are you two equipped to care for a child, especially an alien child?"

"She's such a fast learner, J'onn" Alex responded without hesitation. "She hasn't made any mistakes while out in public in two weeks and she's been out with everyone, you, Winn, Kara, James, even my Mom took her out when she visited last week." Maggie had let Eliza in on her plan. She was thrilled with the idea of a grandchild and as enchanted by Zee-Na as everyone else was.

"You know I came from a big family," Maggie added "and Alex has experience with fostering an alien thanks to Kara."

"That's true but Kara was a teenager when she arrived on earth. Zee-Na is barely more than a toddler" J'onn argued. Maggie worried he was laying on a bit to thick seeing Alex deflate beside her. Apparently J'onn saw it too because he immediately relented "However, we can't in good conscience keep her cooped up in the DEO indefinitely. Let's give it a try and see how it goes."

"Thank you, J'onn!" Alex beamed at him and he had to hide a smile at how relieved she looked. If only she'd know that his answer was a foregone conclusion. But Maggie was right, Alex needed to be brought around slowly or she would baulk at the idea that something that made her so very happy might also be the best thing for everyone involved.

"Let's go ask Zee-Na if she'd like to come stay with us for a while" Maggie said, doing some beaming herself. They had refrained from mentioning it to the little girl until they'd gotten the official go ahead from J'onn.

When they went back to the rooms they'd been staying in for more than a month to ask Zee-Na what she thought about leaving the DEO and staying with them in their home for a while the little girl was so excited she actually did a little jig around them, moving so fast she was nothing but a blur.

"Yes, yes, yes!" she exclaimed, "Can we go right now?" Zee-Na had visited their apartment a number of times and loved the homey feel of it compared to the cold, institutional feel of the DEO headquarters. Alex and Maggie's place may not have looked much like her home on Daxam but it still had that feeling of a home. Their rooms in the DEO felt more like a hospital than anything else Zee-Na was familiar with.

"I don't see why not, we have most of the essentials already. We can get what ever else we need as we go along," Maggie said grinning at the girl who had stopped her jig but was practically vibrating with excitement.

"I agree," Alex added scooping Zee-Na up into an exuberant hug, "let's all pack up our stuff and blow this Popsicle stand!"

"What's a Popsicle stand?" Zee-Na asked cocking her head adorably at Alex.