Whew! This chapter took longer to write than I expected - it's the longest update I've ever written - but here it is, finally! Thank you for all your lovely reviews since the last update, don't forget to let me know what you think of this one! :)
Maggie stares into a void of nothingness. She blinks through the stinging sensation that burns her straining eyes as she waits for them to focus in the darkness, but they don't, because, she quickly realises, there's nothing to see. She's alone and she doesn't know why, or where everyone has gone.
It's like she's drifting in the gentle current of the deep sea with every ebb fighting its equal flow to tug lightly at her, willing her to follow it. The sensation of weightlessness tickles her stomach and makes her heart flutter in her chest.
Her wavy hair billows behind her as the water weaves its fingers through soft brunette strands and she studies her fingertips, noting the way that they seem to wrinkle more and more the longer she stares at them. She doesn't need to breathe because the water does it for her.
There's a little niggling feeling in the back of Maggie's mind that screams at her that something is seriously wrong. She doesn't know what she's doing in the water or how long she's been there but her mind is hazy and her body is filled with a warm fuzzy tingling and no matter how impossible all of it should be, Maggie doesn't panic. She feels floaty and light and free and even through the fog she senses that this is the most relaxed she's been for a long time.
Maggie doesn't put up a fight as her eyelids begin to droop closed because she's tired. Despite its depth, the water around her is so warm and comforting as it cradles her and rocks her gently, lulling her to sleep. Her brain wills her to fight to stay awake but her body is weary and unresponsive, so she doesn't.
Almost asleep, Maggie's fatigued limbs are finally able to fully loosen into the water's gentle embrace when a loud click pierces her eardrums, shattering the silence that has enveloped her for so long. Her eyes snap open at the noise and search wildly for its source but find nothing.
Click.
Maggie twists to look behind her, though she can't pinpoint exactly where the sound is coming from.
Click.
It's everywhere.
Click.
It's in her ears, it's in her brain, it's all around her.
It ticks regularly like a timer and she wants to swim, to get away from it but her body still won't listen.
Maggie suddenly gets the feeling that there's something sinister lurking in the shadows, cloaked in the darkness. The water around her unexpectedly turns cold and she shivers, her chattering teeth sending vibrations up into her skull and her bottom lip quivers uncontrollably as she wraps her arms across her stomach in an effort to cling to the dwindling warmth that now escapes her, and as a method of comfort.
The repetitive click click click stops but is replaced by something else, something that finally makes sense to Maggie in this confusing underwater world.
Alex.
Alex's voice glides through the water and is like sweet music to her ears.
"I love you, Maggie Sawyer, forever."
These six simple words make Maggie forget the cold that stings against her skin. Those six words tug her just a little further from her suffocating haze because she strains to see the person they've come from.
"It's my turn to save you."
Save? Maggie doesn't need saving, especially if Alex is with her because everything is okay when she's with Alex…
Isn't it?
She was happy before in the water's cocoon too, though its sudden change in nature now makes her unsure, leaves a growing feeling of unease in place of the butterflies in her stomach.
"See you around, Sawyer."
That's not right. Everything feels wrong again, so wrong. She can't see Alex, doesn't know why she's saying the only words Maggie never wanted to hear her say so despondently, so seriously; almost finally. Alex sounds lost and heartbroken and they're feelings Maggie had hoped she would never involuntarily inflict upon her beautiful girlfriend, whom she had promised to love forever. But she doesn't remember doing anything to cause them and that only confuses Maggie more. She doesn't know why Alex is leaving or where she's going or whether she's even here, but Maggie wants to, needs to because she wants to be wherever her beautiful girlfriend is.
Alex is home, Alex is safety, Alex is love.
Alex is her everything, her forever.
Alex isn't here.
An overwhelming sense of panic replaces the warm fuzz that her entire body had succumbed to, though her mind fights it like her life depends on it.
Maggie searches for Alex, stares wide-eyed into the darkness.
And suddenly she's there; she is right in front of her. Her outline shimmers and drifts in and out of focus but she's there. She's wearing a navy body suit that Maggie hasn't seen before, her gun sitting in its holster on her hip and she's doing the only thing that the detective can't seem to; she's swimming.
Refusing to blink in case her love disappears again, Maggie watches as Alex frantically swims downwards. She's desperately fighting the water's resistance to get to something…
To someone.
Kara is pinned to the water's bed by a huge, angry alien. She thrashes and battles against it, but the alien, who looks like one from the park, doesn't relent.
A small switch triggers in Maggie's drowsy brain.
The park…
She knows that the park is important, that whatever has brought her here is because of what happened there. But everything is blank. She has no memory of what happened in the park, if anything did happen at all...
Alex finally reaches the alien, who has her sister in its horrifying grasp. Maggie watches as she clenches her fist and retracts her arm, ready to unleash the strongest attack she can manage under water.
As her fist connects with the alien, it flails its free arm and flings her against something hard, something that Maggie thinks looks like rock.
Alex cries out in pain as her body collides heavily with the wall. The muffled sound cuts through Maggie like a blade, leaves a sting of shock permeating through every vein, every muscle, every beat of her heart, but she doesn't feel any of it because now Alex is gone, consumed by the darkness.
"ALEX!"
Maggie screams her girlfriend's name but the sound is stifled by the dense water that surrounds her. She reaches out towards where Alex had been, just out of reach, willing her to come back. Her body suddenly feels deprived of oxygen; everything is failing her. She wants to breathe but she can't, she wants to get out of the water but she doesn't know how, she wants to help Alex but she's gone.
Alex would never leave her if she didn't have to. Maybe she didn't choose to. Either way, she's disappeared without telling Maggie why.
The detective inadvertently retracts her arm and pulls her knees into her chest, feeling trapped, like a prisoner in her own body, like a captive of the sea. She suddenly wants to make herself as tiny as possible, to curl up into a ball because she's all alone again, except something still tells her that she's not.
The feeling of weightlessness that had cocooned her earlier is now entirely gone.
Now the water is fighting her. It seeps into her lungs as it tightens its grasp around her. Suddenly, she's heavy under its crushing weight. She begins to splutter, each inhalation only filling her struggling lungs as they succumb to the power of the water.
It's got her right where it wants her.
She tries to fight but the water only clutches more and more, dragging her down, constricting her throat from the inside and choking her violently. She's sinking, sinking, sinking, falling impossibly further into the cold depths of the shadows where she fears that no one will ever find her.
She's been drowning for a long time, she just didn't know it.
/
Lena sits by Maggie's bed, her legs tucked beneath her as she checks her watch.
18:07:24
She feels like it's all she's done since Kara and Alex left what seems like forever ago. She feels useless, wishes there was something she could do to help Maggie right now. Even knowing what to prepare before they bring the Drozia leaf back would settle the unease that sits heavily in her stomach.
"All we can do for now is have hope," Eliza had told her a few minutes ago before she disappeared to go get them coffee. "And the belief that our girls will make it back. They're fighters, they always do."
God, Lena hopes that Eliza is right.
Rubbing her eyes tiredly, Lena stifles a yawn and looks up to where Maggie lies. Her ears tune in to the click click click of the ventilator as it fights the rising odds to keep the tiny detective alive. She wills Maggie to fight too, wishes that she could help her to fight.
Lena likes Maggie. Sure, she wasn't too keen when she'd arrested her last year, but a lot has changed in that time and Lena has come to love Maggie like a big sister. She pretends that she's all tough and hard but on the inside she's just as soft and puppy-like as their Danvers girls. Her adorable dimples are the big giveaway, no matter how hard she may sometimes try to hide them. Even Lena can't help but smile when she sees them; to her, they're almost – but not quite – as cute as Kara's crinkle and pout.
Lena especially likes Maggie's fiery side; it's something that she sees a lot in herself and it's definitely needed when those sisters refuse to back down from a fight. She usually takes Lena's side, for which the CEO is incredibly grateful because someone has to tell them how stupid they're being. There's a lot of fire in such a tiny body. The detective knows how to handle herself too and doesn't take crap from anyone, much like Lena.
Lena admires Maggie's drive and determination, the way that she doesn't barrel into anything dangerously headfirst. She analyses the situation and arrives at a solution and is an equal match for pretty much anyone in the field. Someone has to stay level-headed around here when Alex can't.
Lena's favourite thing about Maggie is the love she has for those around her. Lena sees the way she looks at Alex and completely understands it because she knows that she looks at Kara the same way. Maggie would do anything to protect her girls; Lena thinks that she would go so far as to sacrifice herself if it would save them, especially Alex. Of course, Alex and Kara would never let her do that, though if Maggie were here, Lena knows that the detective would be freaking out at the thought of them putting themselves in so much danger, leaving themselves so vulnerable and alone on another planet just for her.
One of the other traits that Lena has noticed about the older woman is her resilience. No matter how tough things get, and they're almost always tough with her and Alex doing the jobs that they do, she always comes back fighting. Although this may just be her toughest fight yet, Lena knows that Maggie is capable of bouncing back, though only if Alex and Kara make it back themselves.
Lena, Kara, Alex and Maggie could all lose everything, lose each other forever over the next eighteen hours.
And Lena would be alone again.
Don't be so selfish, Luthor, Lena scolds herself.
With a disapproving shake of her head, the CEO picks up her book. It feels so wrong with everything that's happening – or not, as is the case on her end – but what else can she do? She doesn't want to leave Maggie on her own; in a way it comforts her to know that someone is constantly keeping an eye on the detective.
Her eyes skim over the words she's tried to read twice today already, but they still don't digest them as her eyelids threaten to droop closed. Lena gives up when her head, which is propped up by the back of the chair she's sat in, lolls against her shoulder and jolts her awake.
"You really ought to get some rest, Miss Luthor," J'onn says as he enters the med bay and sees Lena battling to stay awake.
Lena throws the weighty book back onto the bedside table and sighs. Her eyes are starting to sting from all the rubbing she's been doing. "Lena, please," She tells J'onn, not for the first time.
"I'm sure Eliza will stay with her," J'onn adds upon seeing Lena's hesitation to leave. "The on-call rooms are down the hall, second right. I've had one made up for you."
Lena doesn't move from her comfortable position. She looks from J'onn to Maggie and then at the monitors on the other side of Maggie's bed that show Alex and Kara's vitals. "Do you think they're okay? I mean, we know that they're alive from their trackers, but..."
Lena lets her question trail off and be consumed by the relative quiet of the room. She can't bring herself to say that just because they're alive, it doesn't mean that they're okay. She hates thinking like that but she can't shake the thought from her head.
J'onn takes the seat beside Lena but doesn't give her an immediate answer. He doesn't want to admit that he's worried about Alex and Kara, not even to himself, and he certainly doesn't want to project his fears onto Lena unnecessarily. He can already see the worry etched into her features and can sense the anxiety in her mind even without reading it. After a few moments he gives his honest answer. "I don't know." He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "I wish I did, I wish I could read Alex's mind from here just to know that they're okay. I don't want to tell you not to worry, that would be… naive of me and an insult to you, but I trust that those girls are doing everything they can to get back to you and Maggie."
Lena looks up at the unconscious detective and lets out a long breath she hadn't even realised she was holding. "I just feel so useless. They're out there risking their lives, there are agents fighting the invasion outside right now and what am I doing?" Lena throws her hands up in the air in frustration, looks at the ceiling as she tilts her head back. "I'm reading one of Alex's books about biomedical engineering like it's going to solve all our problems."
"Lena," J'onn says, his voice gentle but assertive. He places a reassuring hand on Lena's shoulder and waits until her tired green eyes flit up to his. He's never seen the CEO so stressed and flustered. "You're forgetting who you are. Your time will come; you have your part to play and just because you're not out there engaging in battle, it doesn't mean that it's any less important."
Lena bites her lip and nods. She has to fight the tears that begin to well up in her eyes as all her worry and stress and frustration finally threaten to overcome her.
Even Lena Luthor needs to cry every once in a while.
But today is not that day, she tells herself.
"I need to return to the front line," J'onn says, getting to his feet. "Rest, you never know when you might need your strength."
"I will, in a minute," Lena says, though they both know that it isn't likely.
J'onn offers Lena a small smile before making his way towards the entrance to the med bay.
"Thank you, J'onn," Lena adds as he reaches the doorway. He nods his head before disappearing.
Lena shifts her legs and feet from beneath her; they're starting to become numb and tingly and uncomfortable from sitting in the same position for too long. Heaving another sigh, she begrudgingly picks up Alex's bioengineering book and flicks it open to a random page, unwilling to try to read the same piece of text for a fourth time.
She begins to study functional vascularised lung grafts, getting lost in the incredible world of biomedical science – and compiling a mental list of things that she can research further and potentially develop into new and exciting projects at L-Corp – when a sudden high-pitched repetitive shriek yanks her from her deep thoughts.
Lena looks up to see Maggie's body flailing on the med bed. Her arms beat hard against its metal sides, her legs judder at its foot and the blanket that has been protecting her from the DEO's cool air conditioning slips to the ground and is left in a crumpled heap.
"J'ONN! DOCTOR HAMILTON!" Lena bellows as she instinctively shoots up from her chair. Alex's book slips from her lap and lies open, faced down and immediately forgotten. The CEO is a little uncomfortable on her feet, her pins and needles still making them feel like they're asleep, but she puts all of her effort into restraining Maggie as much as she can manage on her own. She pins her wrists to the bed. "J'onn!" Her heart races in her chest as the detective unknowingly fights her restraint, the reassuring regular click of her ventilator now long gone.
As she waits for help to arrive – and prays that J'onn hasn't left yet – Lena comes to a sudden heart-stopping, sickening realisation.
Maggie's skin in impenetrable to everything except a Drozia needle and the regular heart monitors won't work on her either, so despite her deteriorating state and the seizure that has overcome her again, that unrelenting beeping isn't coming from her.
It's coming from Kara and Alex.
/
Eliza exits the elevator as the doors ping open, four extremely hot and incredibly strong cups of coffee in a holder in her right hand and a paper bag in her left.
"Ah, Winslow," she says kindly upon seeing the agent sitting slumped at his desk, his head resting tiredly in his folded arms as his eyes study his computer. He straightens to attention and fixes his tie when he hears Eliza's voice. "Here." She offers him a coffee and the bag as he tries to hide a long yawn.
Winn's eyes brighten a little upon seeing the paper DEO bag. It usually means cinnamon rolls or chocolate-chip cookies but right now he could eat anything. "Oh, Eliza, you know me so well," Winn exclaims gratefully, pulling out a box of chocolate brownies. They're his absolute favourite. "Thank you," he splutters with his moth full.
Eliza offers him a warm smile as he stuffs two more brownies into his already-full mouth. "How are things looking?"
Winn's chewing slows as he realises the negative answer he's going to have to give her. He gulps before responding. "Not great. Our agents and the NCPD are doing all they can, but without Alex and Supergirl we're not nearly as effective at fighting the Drazans. Their advanced weaponry is difficult to defend against."
Eliza nods solemnly.
"These brownies are great," Winn says in an effort to lighten the obvious change in atmosphere before reaching for another.
"J'ONN! DOCTOR HAMILTON!"
Eliza and Winn's heads snap towards the sound of Lena's panicked voice that echoes through the hallways from the med bay. They look at each other, concern etched across their faces as they see J'onn practically sprinting through the main room towards the medical area.
Momentarily stunned, Eliza and Winn rush to follow. The scene unfolding in front of them as they step into the med bay is pretty much the worst they could imagine.
Lena has Maggie's arms pinned to the bed while J'onn holds her legs.
"What's happening?" Eliza almost shouts. That's when she sees the screens beside Maggie going berserk. The thin green lines zig-zag frantically as the tiny heart symbols below them show that Alex and Kara's hearts are beating faster and faster and faster.
"What the hell?" Winn splutters.
"Is that… Is that water?" Lena asks worriedly, looking over to Doctor Hamilton. Liquid spills from Maggie's mouth and trickles down her cheeks and chin. It looks like water but there seems to be something more to it. When the light catches it, Lena can see hints of green laced into its usually transparent state.
"Not exactly, but I'll have to take a sample," the doctor responds. "We need to get this ventilator out of her first. She'll drown."
Lena responds immediately. She needs something else to focus on, to take her mind off Kara and Alex's blaring monitors because she knows that right now the only person she can help is Maggie; there's nothing she can do for Kara and Alex and she refuses to fail at helping at least one of them.
"Someone take her hands," Lena instructs. Eliza quickly covers the distance between the doorway and Maggie's bed, her eyes flitting between the detective and her daughters' vitals the whole time.
When Eliza has hold of Maggie, Lena secures the detective's head so that Doctor Hamilton can remove the ventilator. She's careful and meticulous, not wanting to cause Maggie any further internal damage.
"Okay," Hamilton says when the ventilator is out. "Tip her towards me on three. One, two, three."
Lena holds Maggie's head as J'onn and Eliza help to turn Maggie onto her side.
"Oh my God," Lena and Eliza gasp in unison as liquid spills from Maggie's mouth and splatters onto the floor. A puddle of noxious green begins to form at her bedside; it seems like it's never going to stop.
"Okay, I think she's done," Hamilton declares after a few longs moments.
Maggie's body stills and she's rolled onto her back. "We need to re-insert the ventilator."
The group works efficiently together over the relentless sound of Alex and Kara's monitors to ensure that Maggie is stable. Once again, the detective lies motionless, the only evidence of her seizure being the drying lines of spit and green water that stain her cheeks.
Maggie may be seemingly okay for now, but Alex and Kara are definitely not.
Everyone except Doctor Hamilton turns their attention to the screens. Alex's heart rate is 189 beats per minute, but Kara's is even higher.
"What's happening to them?" Eliza almost whispers.
No one answers because no one really can.
They continue to stare at the monitors, powerless to do anything else, unable to move because something unknown is happening the two people who are most important to all of them.
It's come out of nowhere; their vitals have been normal despite the change in atmosphere and the obvious stress they're both sure to be under.
Kara's heart rate peaks at 231 beats per minute; that's high and dangerous even for her alien physiology. As far as everyone back at the DEO knows, Kara may not even have her powers on Drozisia, which could make her current condition even worse.
But when Kara's monitor shows a flatline and emits a never-ending shriek, Lena, J'onn, Eliza and Winn know that the Danvers sisters' situation is a million times worse than they'd initially feared.
Lena gasps in shock, her hand clamped firmly over her mouth. Her teary green eyes are fixed on the straight line that cuts the screen in half. She's completely lost to the world until she feels a warm, supportive hand slip into hers. She doesn't need to look to know who it is. Only a mother would be strong enough to offer reassurance to another when her own children were in danger.
Lena grips tightly onto Eliza's hand, uses it as a grounding to keep her in the here and now, to stop herself from slipping into her own darkening thoughts as the reality of what this means, of the massive significance of that little green line, begins to hit home.
Alex's heart continues to beat wildly according to the monitor next to Kara's. The stark contrast between them only makes things so much worse. If Kara really is dead, Eliza knows that Alex will never forgive herself. She'll blame herself for all of this, for taking Kara with her to Drozisia, for putting her life in danger, for not protecting her better, when none of this is her fault.
It will break her.
And that's if she survives whatever's happening on Drozisia.
Eliza takes a deep breath and forces herself to stop thinking like that. Danvers women are fighters. She just needs to have faith in her daughters, in Alex, and believe that they can come back.
J'onn's eyes are trained to the ground, unable to look at the screens any longer. The world may be about to lose its two finest agents, but he may be about to lose his daughters all over again. The whole situation is almost exactly the same; the Drazans have invaded and are about to tear his entire life apart again. The feelings of anger and loss and desolation and fear are exactly the same now as they were all that time ago on Mars.
For this to happen to him once in his three hundred years is already beyond cruel, but to happen twice…
Winn still hovers in the doorway. He leans against the wall for support, unable to believe what he's seeing. His best friend and someone whom he as come to see as a big – albeit very intimidating – sister, are in so much more danger than he could ever imagine. He can't picture his life without the bubbling blonde there to make it brighter or the determined brunette there to scold him when he's being an idiot. And if they're gone, it means that Maggie will follow and he would miss her and her playful teasing. Kara, Alex and Maggie are the beating heart of the Superfriends. They couldn't be super without them.
A single beep slices through the long screech being emitted by Kara's monitor. The incessant sound is gone. A part of the line briefly flickers into a small sharp point before straightening again. And then it does it again, and again, and again until Kara's heart begins to beat properly.
"She did it!" Winn exclaims, his fist pumping the air in celebration. "Alex did it!"
J'onn breathes a long sigh of relief and offers Doctor Hamilton a thankful smile, which he finds is returned. He gives Winn an over-excited slap on his shoulder, which causes the young agent to flinch, but the smile never drops from his face.
Lena finds that she can't fight the tears anymore. She's too awash with a mixture of emotions. The hand that hovered over her mouth finds it way up to cover her eyes as her tears begin to fall. Her shoulders shake as relieved sobs escape her and she never lets go of Eliza's hand. Lena suddenly finds a pair of comforting arms wrapped tightly across her back, holding her close and rocking her gently. She knows immediately that it's Eliza and this only makes her cry harder.
Lena has never had a mom, not really. Her own died when she was little and too young to remember and Lillian was as far from motherly as she could get, at least with Lena, so to have someone who has come to fill that deep hole in her life means more to the CEO than anyone could ever imagine. To have a maternal figure to hold her right now is more than she could ask for because it's just what she needs, what she's always needed. She lets her tense body relax as she hugs Eliza back and sniffles when the older woman places a motherly kiss into her hair.
"I think this calls for more brownies!" Winn declares before disappearing to go and get them.
Doctor Hamilton picks up her tablet and begins to check through the flood of information that's being transferred from Alex and Kara's trackers. Lena, J'onn and Eliza look at her expectantly.
"Everything seems to be okay," she announces after a few moments. "It looks like there was a lot of stress on Kara's body and, as we know, her heart did stop. I have no idea what caused it but whatever Alex did; Kara is going to be fine. They both are."
The room collectively begins to celebrate, although it's incredibly short lived.
A rumble tears through the DEO, the ground shaking beneath their feet. A siren begins to blare and the agents not already fighting in the city rush past the med bay, scattering in all directions; some towards the armoury and the rest towards the central base.
"CODE RED! WE HAVE A CODE RED!"
Winn's voice just about carries down the hall above the siren's wail, his rapid footsteps thudding against the floor. He suddenly appears in the doorway before skidding into it, coming to a crashing stop. "Code… Red," he pants, crouching, his hands resting on his knees as he tries to stabilise his breathing. "It's a-a… Code Red."
"What's happening, Agent Schott?" J'onn asks, his demeanour now serious.
"It's the Drazans, they're attacking the DEO," Winn replies, still gasping for air. He really needs to sign up for some more field training.
"I thought we were prepared?" J'onn barks, although he's not angry with anyone in particular. In fact, he's more frustrated that the measures he put in place to counter the imminent Drazan attack seem to have been ineffective.
"We were ready, sir," Winn replies. "But they outnumber us now. They're fighting to get in as we speak."
Eliza cradles her head in her hands. First Maggie gets shot, then Kara almost dies and Alex is in just as much danger and now the DEO is under threat. She thinks that the situation can't possibly get any worse until Lena voices exactly what Eliza is thinking.
"Wait, hold on, why are the Drazans attacking the DEO? What do you have that they want?" Lena asks, a frown tugging at her eyebrows as she folds her arms. "What haven't you told us?" She tips her head in Eliza's direction when she sees that the eldest Danvers looks just as perplexed as she feels.
J'onn glances over to Winn, who looks uncomfortable, before clearing his throat and delivering the answer no one wants to hear.
"They want Maggie."
