"…Ada?" Maggie whispered silently.
The woman smiled weakly. "Maggie…"
Before Maggie realized what she was doing, she'd run into the other woman's arms, and held her tightly. "You're alive…"
Ada hugged her back, and heaved a shaky breath. "I can't believe you're… I…"
Maggie pulled back, and looked Ada in the eyes. "You survived…"
The woman chuckled. "Yes, so did you."
"What the hell did they do?!"
Ada opened her mouth and looked around the room, and for a second Maggie was convinced that she was actually going to get an answer to all of her questions.
But Ada frowned instead. "I… I don't remember."
The detective's stomach dropped. "They wiped your memory too?"
"We were at a… A party? All the townspeople were there…" Ada trailed off, looking nauseous and pale. Maggie only now realized the shape the woman was in, and took her by the hand immediately, guiding her to a bench in the corner of the room. "Sit down, sit down. Are you okay?"
Maggie crouched in front of her, and looked at her with worried eyes. The blonde put her head in her hands, and moaned. "I think I'm going to throw up."
Upon hearing those words, Maggie looked around for anything that could help, and sprinted for a bucket on the other side of the room, coming back just in time to shove it underneath Ada's head, as the woman vomited. She reached for Ada's hair and held it back, stroking her back softly. "You're okay… You're going to be okay."
"It hurts…"
"What hurts?" Maggie took the bucket and put it down, before taking Ada's hand in her own with a serious expression.
"I feel like I got hit by a truck."
Maggie ran towards the touchscreen mounted on the wall near the door, and sent an alarm to the med bay, knowing that Hamilton would respond if it was about her. She was convinced Alex had given her the lead on anything involving the cult.
She turned back to Ada, seeing that the woman was trying to get up. "Hey… hey, easy. Don't move around, you've been out for at least a day."
"They're all… dead." The blonde whispered, seeing the sea of bodies surrounding her. Maggie nodded slowly. "Yeah. Everyone but the Shepard."
Ada's eyes snapped to her immediately. "He's gone…?"
"He's still around, he asked me to start over with him."
Ada closed her eyes and swayed unsteadily, and for a second Maggie feared that she was going to pass out again, so she ran forward and supported the woman around the waist. She opened her eyes again slowly. "Yeah… We've all heard that one before. It's what he promised her, and look where it lead."
The detective noticed that Ada was staring at the body closest to her, marked as 'Elise' in Alex's neat handwriting.
The door to their right flew open, and Amelia Hamilton rushed inside, a first aid backpack slung across her shoulders. When she saw Maggie holding the woman in white, her eyes widened.
"Is she…"
"Yeah." Maggie nodded quickly. "Help me, she's sick."
Together, they managed to get Ada upon the stretcher that Amelia had parked outside, and wheeled her into the med bay as Maggie filled the medic in on the situation.
"It's probably the toxin, still in her system." Amelia pressed her lips together in thought. "We'll take some samples and see if they match yours."
"Just… take care of her, please."
Amelia frowned at Maggie's plea, but then watched as the detective ran a hand through her hair and walked out of the med bay.
Maggie was lost. Confused, dazed and completely lost because of what had happened in the past ten minutes.
Ada was alive.
The one person that she'd had throughout that month. That had cared for her deeply, that had protected her.
That had loved her.
And now, she was here, in her real life. About to hear that Maggie wasn't who she'd claimed to be. That all of it had been a lie, a cover. To take down the Shepard.
She sprinted to the balcony of the DEO building, and leaned against the railing, trying to catch her breath. How had Ada survived?
She didn't remember anything either about how the entire population of the Settlement had wound up dead. The only thing she had was a connection to the Shepard that Maggie herself didn't possess.
Suddenly, Maggie felt like she was going to throw up too.
She and Ada had history. Things that she hadn't told Alex about, because she was scared. Because she was embarrassed, and confused, and because it hadn't meant more than just being undercover.
But Ada didn't know that. Of course she didn't.
"Maggie?!"
She heard her name being called behind her, and turned around to see Alex running towards her, in her DEO gear and shoving her assault rifle into the nearest agent's hands to have her hands free. Her eyes wide and serious, as she reached her wife. "What happened?!"
Before Maggie could reply, Amelia appeared in the command center, and Maggie rushed past Alex to meet the medic, just in case something was wrong.
Alex trailed behind her closely. Amelia nodded at her, before turning to Maggie. "On first sight, it seems that she was dosed with the same drug we found in your system. Memory loss, nausea… She stayed unconscious far longer than you, though. So her dose must have been higher. Either that, or there were other parameters that we don't know about." She sighed. "Overall, she's doing okay. Better than you when you first woke up."
"What the hell is going on?" Alex now interjected, frustrated at the vague information. "Did somebody wake up?! I thought they were all dead?"
"They were. They are." Amelia corrected herself. "It just seems like one of them wasn't dead to begin with. So we're going to go through all of them again, to make sure that they're all dead, before any more start resurrecting out of nowhere."
"Who is it? Do you know them?" Alex asked Maggie, a fascinated yet confused look on her face.
Maggie nodded slowly. "It's Ada."
"The Shepard's wife?!" Alex's eyes lit up. "That's perfect, she knows all about the Shepard! She can lead us right to him!"
"I don't think so." Maggie shook her head. "She doesn't seem to remember much more than I did. I'll go talk to her, alright? And see if she needs anything."
"She's resting, I gave her some painkillers, and something that'll flush out the drug as much as possible. It shouldn't take long, but I don't think she's going to be much help. You should go rest too, Maggie."
"Yeah." Alex agreed quickly. "I'll go with you, we can-…"
Maggie interrupted her. "-I don't want to leave her, Alex."
The agent seemed taken aback by Maggie's statement. Sure, her wife had told her about how Ada had protected her, and it was obvious that Maggie was loyal to the woman and wanted to take care of her. But she knew that she couldn't do anything but wait for her to wake up. She could do that at home too.
Maggie glanced up at Alex. "Can we stay here? I can debrief with you – did you find anything on North Bridge?"
Alex sighed, and looked at Amelia, who shrugged. Up to you.
With a quick nod, she dismissed the medic back into the med bay, and wrapped an arm around Maggie to lead her into a small meeting room that had a whiteboard. She locked the door behind her with a tap on the touchscreen, and turned to her wife.
"I combed through the entire town." She reached for a black marker, and started drawing an outline of the Settlement, complete with the roads, river and the big forest. Then, she reached for a red marker and turned back to Maggie. "I found five bridges in the town, four of them were over the water of the river…" She drew four arcs over the water on her map, "…the fifth one was in the forest."
Another red arc, this time in the middle of the forest. "That one in the forest was weird, because it looked completely unnecessary. There was nothing underneath it, and it looked more like a decoration than an actual bridge. Do you think any of the bridges have meaning to them?"
"The one in the middle is the one they use for the baptism." Maggie pointed, remembering how Helen had pushed her down into the water. "… But it's called 'North Bridge', so…"
Alex nodded, pointing to the one in the forest, as the most northern one. "I snapped some pictures, and investigated the area, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. No markings, no evidence around it."
"I didn't know it was there." Maggie replied truthfully. "… So I don't know whether it was used for anything. But Ada will know."
"Right." Alex nodded, feeling relieved at the thought of the woman being there. For the investigation, yes, but also to help Maggie heal. It was obvious that Alex was out of her depth, but maybe Ada could be the person Maggie needed right now.
As much as she disliked the thought of her hanging around another woman, she'd set it all aside if it helped Maggie work through her traumas.
The next minutes were spent throwing arguments back and forth about a possible meaning to the term, and what it could possibly entail. Was it a code phrase to indicate something fishy happening without the knowledge of the townspeople? Was it a secret rendezvous location that only the wives knew about?
But Maggie was soon starting to develop a headache. The rush of everything happening that day caught up to her, and she felt exhausted. Alex noticed right away, and apologized for pushing Maggie's limits, promising her that she'd keep her updated on her investigation.
Maggie had excused herself, and walked back to the med bay, hoping to see Ada awake and talking. And if not – to ask Amelia if she could use one of the beds to take a nap.
Thankfully, the blonde woman was sitting upright on the bed, Amelia talking to her in a soft voice. When she saw Maggie enter, her smile brightened. "Hey…"
Hamilton sensed that the two wanted privacy, and excused herself quickly. Now alone, Ada scooted to the side so that Maggie could get up on the bed next to her. But the detective shook her head. "I don't want to hurt you, or make things worse."
"You could never hurt me." Ada smirked, but then her smile faltered slightly. "So… I assume that this isn't exactly Margaret Cohen's workplace…?"
Maggie folded her arms, and shook her head. "We're in the headquarters of a secret government organization, called the-…"
"- the DEO. " Ada finished her sentence with a chuckle. "Shit, I figured you were black ops, but that is something else."
The statement confused Maggie. "How do you know about the DEO?"
Ada laughed dryly. "It's not rocket science. Why do you think the Shepard kept on warning the people of his town about outsiders causing the end of the world? He's an alien that's creating trouble, the DEO handles aliens that create trouble."
"That didn't answer my question."
Ada sighed. "I recognized that you were undercover the second you walked in. So I did my best to keep you out of trouble, especially with the Shepard, just in case you did something stupid and uncovered yourself."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Maggie almost yelled, completely confused at Ada's calm behavior.
Why was the woman not freaking out about Maggie being undercover in the cult? How could she have known?!
Unless…
Ada reached out a hand and laughed weakly. "Adeline Collins. Investigative journalist. I've been tailing that Shepard for over two years now, trying to expose him."