"Just go as fast as you can, Supergirl. I'm looking at the numbers now and it's less than two minutes." Alex said. Through her com she heard more sounds of fighting. She continually ran her eyes over the numbers and watched them shift around on the screen. And in the next second was when she spotted it, her third miscalculation.
"Oh no." She said, throat seizing in terror. "Oh god. Kara! Get out now!"
"What?" Kara shouted in alarm.
"Kara I was wrong! There's no time left, you have to go! You have to go now! Right now!" Alex cried, panic spiking through her brain, making her forget to address Kara as Supergirl. Kara didn't respond, not to Alex, but she did shout to J'onn that their time was up and they needed to leave.
Alex listened, waiting for the sound of wind rushing that meant that Kara and J'onn were flying. But instead she was hearing more grunts and punches, and there were half seconds left on the clock.
"Kara!" Alex shouted, but she never got a response. There was silence, then the deafening thunder of an explosion. Alex ripped the com out of her ear, flinching and wincing at the sound. But the horror was settling into her bones when she realized what had just happened, and she scrambled to get the ear piece back in. There was nothing but static.
"Kara! Kara! Can you hear me?" Alex hollered into the mic. Nothing. Static. "Kara, please!" Just white noise and feedback. Alex heaved, actually physically heaved, though nothing came up. She was about two seconds from a breakdown in front of the entire DEO, because the radio silence was screaming you killed your sister, Alex.
"Kara?" She tried again, voice breaking and pleading. And still nothing. Alex sucked in a huge gulp of air, she did so without conscious thought, as though her body was preparing for the sobs that would wrack her and deprive her of oxygen. But then there was something, and Alex closed her mouth and trapped the air in her lungs.
Crackling through the coms, came a voice. "Alex?"
"Oh god, Kara!" Alex cried. "Kara, are you alright? Is everyone-"
"J'onn and I, we're fine. We made it out before the kryptonite cloud really dispersed. But we didn't clear the explosion fast enough. Lena's hurt." There was a pause, and more static, and something that sounded like crying before Kara continued. "It's bad, Alex. She's unconscious. There's blood, so much."
"I'm so sorry, Kara. I'm so sorry. Bring her here, bring her to me, I can take care of her." Alex said, voice hitching as she fought the guilt that crested with another wave of nausea.
"You know you're too drunk to treat anyone right now, Alex." Kara said, her words blunt but there was a razor sharp edge to her voice.
"Kara-" Alex choked out. Kara interrupted her there, and what Alex would have followed with was a mystery to Alex herself.
"We're almost at the hospital. Go home, Alex. Sleep. We'll talk tomorrow." Kara spoke with finality, and then there was nothing but static again.
Alex bit down hard on her lower lip, trying hard not to cry in humiliation in front of her coworkers. No one else was equipped with a com right now, so Alex knew no one had heard Kara's words but her. It didn't stop her from irrationally fearing that they had somehow heard it anyways. And suddenly she had to get out of there.
She turned away from the screens and computers, and looked to her fellow agents. Off to the corner stood Winn. A desperate, fearful look on his face, and Alex realized that without his com, and off the main floor, he would have no idea what happened. Of course he stuck around to find out though, Alex wasn't surprised.
"They made it out. Lillian Luthor escaped. They're taking Lena Luthor to the hospital. For tonight, it's over. Go home, everyone. Tomorrow, we start hunting Lillian and Cadmus again." Alex addressed the dozen or so coworkers who had been summoned at the late hour to join the rescue mission. She finished her brief speech, then hung her head, and divested herself of her gear, and her com.
She heard Winn calling after her, asking for more information, but she had nothing left she could give with right now. So she ignored him and walked out of the DEO. The night air was bracing, and as if almost killing her sister, the closest thing she had to a father, and an innocent woman wasn't sobering enough, the fresh air was.
She wasn't even really aware of what time it was. She checked her watch, read the time on the face of it- 2:43 am- but nothing felt connected to what she was experiencing, not even the hour. Everything seemed so surreal, as if she was in some sort of limbo at the moment. With robotic motions, she hailed a taxi, and climbed in as soon as a yellow cab pulled up to the curb in front of her. As she rode home, her brain began to jumble. It became a mess of oddly sluggish panic, where she was too exhausted to become amped up again right now, but the events of the night replayed in a frighteningly distorted manner.
The cab pulled up to her apartment building, and she dug in her pocket praying to find cash enough for the fare. Sighing in relief when she pulled out a twenty, she tossed it to the driver, unconcerned with her change, and shut the door hard. She trudged inside the building, and up the stairs, stumbling here and there on a step.
When she reached her apartment, she unlocked the door and stepped inside. The loft was empty, and dark. She didn't turn on the lights. Instead, she decided she didn't want to be standing anymore. She let her back thud against the door behind her, then simply stopped supporting her weight, and in result slid promptly to the floor.
The first sob hit her when her ass hit the floor. And then she was truly bawling. Her legs were splayed out in front of her, and her arms hung limply at her sides. She was staring around the room in confusion as she cried, not understanding how any of this could have happened.
Eventually her body couldn't continue to cry, the stress of it unable to be sustained and her eyes no longer able to produce tears. She sat there, staring blankly at the wall opposite her then. She didn't know for how long.
Finally, she stood. She hauled herself gracelessly from the floor. And then she made a choice. She walked to her cabinet, withdrew the bottle of bourbon, and walked it back over to the couch. She forewent the tumbler, popped the cork out of the top and swigged from the bottle.
She sighed in relief as she felt the familiar burn, knowing the numbness that would soon wash over her. She drank again, and again. It stopped burning, and the slight sobriety she had reclaimed earlier faded away with each sip. Soon the whole evening faded, and then her consciousness soon after, as she slipped into a deep, bourbon induced sleep.
Something was loud. Ungodly loud. And it wasn't stopping. It was registering in Alex's brain as a source of annoyance. But it still hadn't managed to convince her brain to wake up. Not yet. Until all of a sudden, it had, and Alex shot up from where she had lain sprawled on the couch. She flailed as she went tumbling to the floor in the next instant, and just barely managed to avoid hitting her head on the coffee table.
She sat on the floor, slightly dazed. She looked around and was relieved when she saw she had at least made it back to her place last night. She checked her watch, 11:43 am. She groaned, she was so late for work, and she hadn't called anyone at the DEO. Instead she'd slept drunkenly on her couch.
The loudness hadn't stopped, but Alex's brain had recognized the sound by now. Someone was knocking on her door. Pounding on it, and shouting her name. Disgruntled, Alex huffed and pulled herself off the floor. She winced as each banging sound felt as though this person were knocking directly on her skull.
She reached the door, and didn't bother to check the peephole before ripping it open and shouting, "What?" at whoever she happened to open the door to.
The force of the door opening threw the person outside it off balance as they had leaned forward to deliver another hard knock. Maggie stumbled a few steps over the threshold, and Alex tried to steady her. She wasn't incredibly stable on her own, though, and the two toppled for a moment, before finally regaining their balance and righted themselves.
Maggie tugged on the sides of her open jacket and cleared her throat. Alex stared at her, and ran her hands through her hair as she did so. She was struggling to put the pieces of last night together in her mind, but she knew it wasn't good. And she knew that was why Maggie was there now.
Some of it was blurry, she didn't really remember coming home, or how she ended up on her couch next to an empty bottle of bourbon. She did remember the showdown in the desert, Kara in pain, the synthetic kryptonite, the explosion. And Lena Luthor, who evidently didn't make it out unscathed, and Alex knew it was her fault.
She rolled her shoulders, Maggie was staring at her, as if waiting for an explanation. Her arms were crossed, and Alex couldn't tell if the look on her face was disappointment, anger, disdain, or maybe a combination. Whatever it was, she couldn't take it, and she hugged her abdomen, still dressed in her now rumpled tactical uniform from last night.
"If you came here to make me feel worse about myself than I already do, you can save it, okay?" She said, voice scratchy and eyes bleary.
"Well I can tell you I definitely didn't come here to indulge in a pity party for you." Maggie replied, and Alex recoiled.
"Fine. I assume you heard about what happened last night? That's why you're here, right?" Alex said, and could feel her hackles raising already.
"I came here because we need to finish talking about what we started last night, before everything went down." Maggie said, and Alex just blinked. She thought for sure Maggie had come to yell at her for her near fatal errors in judgment last night, maybe even to break up with her.
"What about it? I told you and Kara, I'm fine." Alex said, her voice carried with it a forced lack of interest, and she shifted nervously where she stood. She realized she hadn't even invited Maggie inside yet, that she stood a few steps over the threshold and the door was still open behind her. So she ushered Maggie inside, and shut the door. The last thing she needed was one of her neighbors overhearing this conversation.
Once Maggie was fully inside Alex's apartment, she took a look around. It looked the same as it always did. But it didn't escape her notice that there lay an empty bottle on the ground by the couch. She walked over to it and picked it up, then turned to face Alex. She held out the bottle, looked at it for a moment, then looked to Alex.
"And I suppose you think it's fine that you got wasted again after you came home last night? Because you were still drunk when you left the DEO, I have no doubt, but you decided that polishing off the last half of this bottle was what, proof of how fine you are?" Maggie said, watching Alex with sharp eyes.
"I'm too hungover for this shit, Maggie." Alex grumbled, giving her a dark, irritated expression, and walked away from Maggie towards her bathroom. Maggie followed after her.
"Oh and that means you're even more fine, right?" Maggie said, and the condescension in her voice made Alex want to cry. She settled for glaring over her shoulder and pointedly rolling her eyes. She walked inside the bathroom, and dropped her pants, then wriggled out of her shirt. She wanted to be out of the sweat and bourbon caked garments. Standing in her underwear, she grabbed a pair of pajamas that she must have tossed on the counter by the sink at some point and pulled them on.
She turned on the tap as she reached for her toothbrush. If Maggie was going to be like this then she needed to get the foul taste out of her mouth in order to deal with her.
As she scrubbed her teeth, she looked at Maggie in the mirror, and the woman's dark eyes connected with Alex's. And she thought she saw a trace of guilt in Maggie's expression, and it just made her feel worse. After all, even if she had ensconced herself in denial, Alex knew she had royally fucked up. And she deserved Maggie's attitude, if nothing else.
She tore her gaze away from Maggie and spit the toothpaste into the sink. She stared at the disgusting, frothy, white blob rather than meet Maggie's eyes again. But then Maggie began to speak, and she could do nothing but close her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Alex. I didn't mean to make you feel bad about having a problem. And I'm not judging you for that. I'm just so pissed about the crap you pulled last night, Alex." Maggie said, voice low and cautious at first, only to crack with ferocity at the end.
Alex wiped her mouth of the toothpaste on it, and turned around. "Look, I know last night was not…good." Maggie scoffed, and Alex rolled her shoulders, and barreled forward. "It was a shit show, okay? A royal, unprecedented shit show. I get it. I made a mistake. But that doesn't mean I have a problem. People make mistakes sometimes. I'm fine."
Maggie looked like she was full of fight and fire and ready to burst with all sorts of arguments. She opened her mouth, and Alex was bracing herself, because the last thing she wanted was to get into a fight with Maggie about this. If she could just make her see, make her understand that she was fine. She knew she'd made some bad decisions last night. And maybe she'd been making a lot lately. But it didn't have to mean anything so dire. It could just mean Alex was a fuck up, something she'd long known about herself after all.
Maggie was poised to argue, but then something seemed to click in her mind. Alex watched a proverbial lightbulb go off, and it dropped a pit of dread in her stomach.
"Get your coat." Maggie said, determination blazing in her eyes.
"What, why?" Alex asked, knowing this wasn't going anywhere good.
"We're going to the hospital. You need to see Lena." Maggie answered, already walking out of the bathroom and to Alex's front door.
"What? She won't want to see me, Maggie." Alex's voiced spiked in pitch, rising with panic as she chased Maggie out of the bathroom. "Maggie? Are you listening?"
Maggie whirled around, and there was this edge to her movements. Alex gulped, and wondered if she'd reached the point where she was too much, and not enough, all at once. She'd felt like she'd been teetering on that edge the past few days. And she feared she'd finally toppled over.
"I'm listening, Alex. I hear you every time you say you're fine. The problem is I don't think you're really listening to yourself. Do you even hear how you sound? When you say that? You sound winded. Like someone just punched you in the gut, and you want to throw up and you can't breathe." Maggie said, gesticulating wildly as she did.
Alex crossed her arms over her stomach, as if to protect it from the figurative blow Maggie had described. "You're being dramatic."
Maggie rolled her eyes, and pressed on. "Alex, have you ever had to face any real consequences for the way you drink? Like something that changed you? Or impacted your life? Anything, that gave you any intimation that maybe you should stop?"
Alex gaped at Maggie. Her eyes glazed over, and she drifted into her own head a little bit. Images of drunken mistakes came to her mind, nights spent drying out in a jail cell, mornings waking up next to men that repulsed her, countless other bad choices she'd made. But she didn't really know how to answer Maggie's question, because while she had numerous drunken regrets, she couldn't say any of them had truly changed her life. And maybe Maggie had made her point, in making Alex realize that, but she would be damned if she'd admit that. And she'd be damned if she'd admit to herself that she might have a problem.
She closed her mouth, hugged herself tighter, and looked at her socks. She mumbled something incoherent, and refused to look Maggie in the eye. Maggie approached her, and Alex still couldn't meet her in the eye. She swallowed hard, not sure if she wanted to hear what Maggie had to say next.
Soft hands landed on her biceps, and squeezed them gently. Maggie's voice was low and gravelly, soft spoken and intimate. She said, "Look at me, Alex?"
Alex bit her lip, and tried to fight the tears that were starting to build pressure behind her eyes. But she couldn't resist Maggie, nor refuse her. So she lifted her chin, and finally looked in Maggie's dark eyes. Maggie smiled then, and nodded.
"Do you trust me?" She asked.
Alex nodded immediately. Of course she trusted Maggie, she trusted her with her life. And in a strange way, she felt as though the gravity of this moment warranted the comparison. As though maybe her life really did depend on it.
"Then come with me." Maggie said. She watched as Alex nodded again. Alex slipped on a pair of sneakers, and grabbed her leather jacket off the floor, where she must have dropped it last night at some point. Together they walked out into the hall, locking the door, and leaving Alex's apartment behind them.
The ride to the hospital was silent. Maggie was driving, and Alex was staring out the window, watching the city fly by them. Thankfully, Maggie wasn't pressing her right now. She needed the quiet to try and pull herself together. Because the closer they got to the hospital, the higher her anxiety rose. She was growing tenser by the second, and she found herself imagining opening the car door, tucking into a roll, and making a break for it.
As the idea rolled around her brain for the fifth time in the short ride, they pulled into the parking garage of the hospital, and Alex knew her chances at a getaway were decreasing. She gripped her hands together, clasping them tightly. She hoped that maybe she could ground herself if she just squeezed them together tightly enough.
Maggie parked the car, and she sat back in her seat. She turned and Alex could feel sharp eyes on her, observing her. She bit her lip, trying not to begin hyperventilating. She looked up then, and big, woe filled eyes stared at Maggie.
"I don't think I can do this." Alex said in a whisper.
"I think you can. I think you need to." Maggie replied, reaching across the console and placing one hand over Alex's where they were still clasped.
"Okay." Alex said in a breathy voice, nodding her head up and down with her eyes fixed on their joined hands.
They stepped out of the car and made their way to the hospital's main floor. Alex watched Maggie, she bypassed the information desk, and marched straight for the elevators. Alex, flummoxed, followed after Maggie.
"You know where we're going?" She asked, voice low, soft, scared. It had been a long time since she'd been in a hospital, she hadn't set foot in one since her days of med school. And now she found herself feeling oddly out of place, like she didn't know how to behave in a hospital setting anymore. Would they get mad at her for speaking too loud?
"Yeah, Kara texted me the room number. And I've been around this hospital before." Maggie said as she pressed the elevator call button. She spoke normally, with no hushed tone, and Alex began to feel a little silly.
"So, she knows we're coming?" Alex said, this time trying too hard to sound normal. The execution was painful, and Maggie gave her a curious glance.
"Yeah, she does." Maggie said. They stepped inside the elevator, and Maggie pressed the button for the fifth floor.
"And she's…okay, with that?" The trepidation was clear.
"She didn't say anything to indicate the contrary." Was all Maggie said, and Alex was left the rest of the elevator ride to ponder what that meant. It wasn't long though, before the doors were opening.
Alex wasn't sure what she had expected when she stepped off the elevator. Maybe to confronted with dozens of bloody people, ashen and dour, stretched out on gurneys, while nurses and doctors worked tirelessly to save their lives. She wasn't sure why, she'd been in ICUs before, she knew how organized and meticulously set up they were. Still, she found herself bracing to walk into a trauma center.
But it was just another hallway, unassuming and small. It led to a little seating area, and then a set of double doors. Maggie walked right over to the double doors, and she put both hands out to push the doors open. She looked over her shoulder, to be sure Alex was still following her. Alex gulped, and she briefly entertained the idea of just turning on her heel and running. She still could. Maggie would never let her live it down, but she could do it.
Maggie seemed to sense this because she turned her whole body, and put her hands on her hips. "You run now, Danvers, and winning my respect back is going to be an uphill battle."
Alex's eyes opened wide, and she opened her mouth to deny her cowardly thoughts of fleeing. But she shut it shortly after, knowing full well that Maggie would know she was full of crap. She rolled her shoulders a couple of times, and tried to steel herself. She tilted her head side to side, working out some of the tension that had beset her neck muscles. She realized these were some of the same stretches and exercises she employed before a session at the gym. And it wasn't lost on her that this might as well be an emotional marathon, so she might as well stretch.
Finally, after shaking out her arms, she stilled herself, and looked Maggie in the eye. She nodded, and Maggie returned the gesture. She turned around again, and this time she did push the doors open. Alex walked through the doors, wide eyed, into the hospital wing.
There were rooms lining the hall, and patients filled most of them. Glass doors separated them from the rest of the world. Some had curtains drawn that prevented anyone from seeing into the room. Alex figured it was probably to provide privacy against people like her, who gawped awkwardly into every room she passed. She knew it was invasive, and she tried to keep her eyes straight ahead, but she was failing miserably. Even as a student she'd had a bad habit of peeking into patient's rooms as she walked down the hall.
They walked past the nurse's station. There were several people, mostly women, dressed in scrubs, typing into computers and bustling about. Alex settled for staring at her shoes. She stumbled after Maggie, feeling like an interloper. Maggie stopped abruptly, and Alex bumped into her back. She looked up and saw the reason Maggie had stopped.
Kara was standing in the hallway, no longer in her super suit, but instead a pair of yoga pants and a grey sweater. She had donned her glasses as well. Kara gave Maggie a small smile, and then she saw Alex. The smile faded, and her brow furrowed deep with worry. Alex watched as the infamous crinkle appeared between Kara's eyebrows. She folded her arms around herself and ducked her head, not able to bear the worried, disappointed look in Kara's eyes.
"Are you okay?" Kara spoke, and Alex thought for a moment she might choke on the lump in her throat, because that same concern and disappointment were leaking out of Kara's voice and Alex just couldn't handle it.
She stared at her shoes, and mumbled, "Me? You're worried about me?"
"Well, yeah. You were wasted. So, are you okay?" Kara asked again. And she was mad, and hurt, and Alex knew it. Kara never hid her emotions well. But she was still concerned about Alex, she still cared about her, and Alex honestly had no idea how to process that.
She looked up, trying to pretend she was brave to people who knew she was a coward. "Um, I'm fine."
"Good." Kara said. And she meant it, sincerity and relief evident in her tone. But it shifted drastically into a hard, severe edge when she continued. "Now you can tell me what the hell you were thinking."
"Kara…" Alex said pitifully, trailing off knowing she couldn't really defend her actions.
Kara persisted. "You knew you were drunk. You knew you were making mistakes. Winn tried to tell you, you benched him. Now Lena is hurt."
"I'm sorry." Alex said, voice tight as tears swam in her eyes. Her arms hugged her chest tighter and her shoulders were drawn taut, high near her ears.
"Tell Lena." Kara said. She gestured to the room behind her, and Alex followed her motion with wide panicked eyes.
For a moment, she froze, every muscle in her body locked. But then she felt the warm, insistent press of Maggie's hand on the small of her back. She snapped her gaze to look at Maggie, who nodded at her. "You can do this, Alex."
Alex took one tentative step forward. Then another, and another, until suddenly she was confronted with the glass door to Lena's room. She stared at it for a long moment, before taking a deep breath and sliding it open.
She stepped inside the room, but didn't pull back the curtain that had been drawn between the bed and the door. She cleared her throat, and was about to ask for permission to come inside the curtain, when she heard a voice. It was raw and scratchy, and spoke low.
"Kara, is that you?"
"Ah, no. This is her sister, Alex." She said, timidly.
"Oh." That was the only response she got.
"Could I come in?" Alex asked, noting the definite squeak to her speech.
There was quiet for a moment, but then a reply murmured in the affirmative. So Alex pulled back the curtain, and stepped further into the room. The sight that greeted her almost knocked her over backwards.
Lena Luthor lay in a hospital bed. A clean white sheet was tucked over her. There were swaths of bandages up and down her arms and hands. But what truly knocked the wind out of Alex was the woman's face. Her hair was limp, and Alex could see patches where clumps of dried blood had formed knots. A bandage was wrapped around her head. It reminded Alex of the bright neon sweatband she wore over her forehead when she went out jogging as a teenager, except this was white gauze. And most alarming of all, were the many angry red lines crisscrossing Lena's visage, and the dark purple bruises, swollen and blotchy, puffing up her face. Dark circles had formed under her eyes, which were bloodshot and red rimmed. Several of the slashes on her face looked jagged and deep, requiring multiple stitches. Little black railroad tracks across her flesh.
Alex knew she was staring, and she tried to reign in her horror. But she was unsuccessful, because Lena gave her an impressively fierce stare for a woman who looked as though she'd lost a fight with a jungle cat. "Shrapnel." Lena said, and though her voice trembled a little Alex still marveled at her strength.
"I'm sorry." Alex blurted out. She clamped her jaw tight after that, and settled for staring at her shoes rather than Lena's face. She could feel Lena's eyes on her, but she didn't want to look up. She didn't know if she could ever face Lena again, not with this guilt settling in the core of her.
"And what, exactly, are you sorry for?" Lena asked.
Alex honestly wasn't sure if Lena knew about Alex's role in her injuries, or if she was genuinely inquiring as to why Alex would be apologizing. Her tone was cool, and expressed with a blunt affect, and if there was an element of disingenuousness, Alex didn't know.
"Because it's my fault." Alex finally replied. Whether Lena knew already or not, she figured she deserved an acknowledgement of that, at least.
Lena was quiet for a moment, then finally she asked, "How on earth is this your fault?"
She was so clearly confused, and then something dawned on Alex. As far as Lena knew, Kara and Supergirl were two separate people. And Alex was a member of the FBI, not the DEO. Kara never explained to Lena just exactly what had happened last night, and Lena had no idea just what Alex had done. An uneasy nervousness creeped up Alex's spine and left a feeling of nausea bubbling in her stomach.
She had no idea how to proceed. She couldn't tell Lena Kara's secret. That wasn't her place. But what was she supposed to do? Lie to the woman who was lying in a hospital bed, half shredded by shrapnel because of her own drunken mistake?
She was floundering. She had finally pulled her chin up to look Lena in the eye, but her mouth was opening and closing as she tried to come up with any way to explain this. A fresh surge of nausea rolled in her gut as she searched Lena's face, eyes roaming over each gash and stitch.
Behind her, the sound of a curtain swishing caused Alex to jolt and whirl around. Kara walked into the room with a try of food clearly supplied by the hospital. She set it down on the table next to Lena's bed, and took Lena's hand in her own. Alex watched as Kara caressed Lena's hand so gently, careful of the woman's fragile skin. Lena looked at Kara, and Kara smiled back at her, and Alex wondered how she'd never noticed the way they regard each other before. Lena's eyes were full of adoration, and Kara's seeped tenderness.
"Oh." Alex said, as though dumbfounded and suddenly enlightened at the same moment.
Kara looked up at her, and the tender expression left her. Replaced instead by exhaustion. She ran a hand through her hair, the one that wasn't still holding Lena's, and said, "Look, I appreciate you coming by, Alex. Lena needs to rest though, and I don't want her lunch to get cold."
Alex took it for what it was, an escape. Kara had to have been listening in the hallway, using her super hearing to eavesdrop. And Alex would be offended, if she hadn't caused this whole situation in the first place. She nodded solemnly to Kara, then offered Lena a feeble smile, and retreated from the room. As she walked through the curtain, and out the glass door, she overheard Lena say, "Kara, your sister just said the strangest thing to me."
Alex slid the door shut behind her. She had no doubt Kara would tell Lena what had happened, and she would have to face the consequences of it. Probably soon. Once the door was shut, she took in a heaving, panicked breath. Then another.
Maggie was by her side then, and rubbing her back up and down. "Alex, focus on breathing for a moment. You're going to start hyperventilating if you don't calm down a little."
Alex looked to Maggie, and realized she was half hunched in the hallway, leaning on Lena's door, and beginning a panic attack. Maggie took Alex's hand, and placed it on her chest. "Feel my breaths, Alex. In, out. In, out."
Maggie breathed in deeply, and calmly, and Alex's hand lifted and fell each time Maggie's chest expanded with her breaths. Alex locked her gaze on the back of her own hand, on Maggie's sternum, and concentrated. In, out. In, out.
After a few moments of this, Alex felt her breathing begin to return to normal. She straightened herself as best she could, but still leaned heavily on the door. With watery eyes and a hoarse voice she asked, "Is she going to be okay?"
"Yes. I talked to Kara. She's definitely going to survive." Maggie answered softly. "But she's going to have a lot of scars."
"Her face though…" Alex croaked out, and it felt like a protest, as pointless as it was to argue against this. The nausea beginning to roil in her.
"Yeah. I mean, the plastic surgeons did the best they could, but on her face too." Maggie said gravely.
This was all Alex's fault, and knowing that flopped her stomach over and over. And suddenly there was bile in Alex's throat, and she was dashing for the nearest garbage can. Maggie followed after her, and held Alex's hair back as she heaved into the trash. A nurse approached them, and Alex heard Maggie explaining what was happening, to a degree, to the concerned woman as Alex continued to empty what little she had left in her stomach.
Eventually, there was nothing left, and the heaving stopped. Alex stood and rested against the wall, eyes half closed. She wiped her mouth on the tissue Maggie had grabbed for her, though she didn't see when.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and Maggie's words from earlier came back to her. Have you ever had to face any real consequence for the way you drink? Her breathing was ragged, and for a moment she thought she might begin to retch again.
She looked up at Maggie, and sniffled over the tears that were starting to fall. "I think I'm ready to get help."