It had been thirteen hours since Kara had been taken into the med bay, and Adam and Alex had been left outside with morbid realisations. As each second passed, the abominable feeling of responsibility cut deeper, making them quiver out of fragility and exhaustion in its wake. It was like their own personal kryptonite. It was 4am – 4:03, to be exact – and Adam had thought in vain that precision at this point would make him useful, would make up for what he had done, would lift weight off the immense guilt he was hopelessly collapsing under.

Now, he was pacing again – pacing through the grounds, not far from the room where her unconscious body lay. Many of the agents had been sent home now – they were unneeded for the mission at hand. But he hadn't. Many were too afraid of what he would say had they asked him to leave – they had seen how he reacted to her trembling body bleeding out onto the concrete. They would never have pushed it with Alex, and he meant something to her now too. But his pacing was distracting, and his restless movements did nothing to help everyone's anxieties beating as one.

Vasquez marched over in trepidation. "Agent Foster, why don't you have a lie down, or go home for the night? Everyone is doing all they can to help her-"

"I'm not leaving." Adam murmured abruptly in a voice hoarse with drowsiness. His bloodshot eyes widened and begged the smaller woman. "I can't leave her."

Vasquez inhaled deeply through her nostrils as her chest rose. "I know you're distraught, but you're not thinking about anything else. We all saw what happened. You pacing around like a maniac is only going to distract people." Her serious tone took him by surprise, and upon seeing his empty eyes grow hopeless, she softened slightly. "If you want to help her, you can go and lie down. Or, better yet, you can check on Agent Danvers. She's in the bunker. You mustn't forget what she's experiencing right now."

Adam looked to the side of his colleague, biting his lip in understanding, before turning back with a caving slouch. "Okay, I'll go."

The bunker was the lowest point of the DEO, and by far the least glamorous. In case of the base being under attack and the strong underground structure being weakened, the bunker was an indestructible room held at the deepest point whereby bunk-beds were stacked next to each other, a small bathroom was tucked away and compact, dried food supplies gathered in piles in corners. It was to be used only under extreme circumstances, yet everyone knew it was where Alex Danvers lay to think – to feel – if Kara was ever hurt or in danger. She found that simply sleeping in her apartment left her weak and unable to rest. In the bunker, she would not rest much either – but at least she felt more on-hand to help.

Adam walked down the steep and narrow metal steps until he was faced with a door – twisting the password into the lock, he opened it with a creak as he was faced with the dark room. One single light was turned on in the corner, casting shadows on the frames of the bunkers as it flickered. Each quivering blink of light highlighted the frame of the person beneath it. Alex sat on the bottom bunk, her feet on the bed, her back against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest with pale hands cradling her forearms. She stared emptily at the space in front of her, but as the light flooded in from outside, her face turned ever so slightly to the right, eyes casting on Adam. Alex turned her head back to where it was. She said nothing, did nothing. Her fellow agent closed the door behind him as it creaked in lamentation, before taking cautious steps over to her. Each tread echoed through the long room, and any attempts to quieten his footsteps were in vain. Eventually, he reached her, and climbed onto the lower bunk next to her, his back against the wall as he cradled his knees to his torso.

For a while, all was silent, and the only sounds were their drained breathing and the flickering of the dim LED light above them. Both were content with the lack of speech – what was there to say that they hadn't already gone over in their heads? And so they remained, awfully still, with the occasional rise and fall of their chests as they tired of breathing amongst the haziness of 4:09am. And for a while, each minute passed with disregard as they sat, together yet alone somehow, thinking over what had happened as it replayed in their minds.

When Alex finally spoke in a gravelly murmur, Adam felt as though all that was around him had frozen into place as her voice finally pierced slowly through the air. "Hamilton came in just before you. She told me that the kryptonite extraction was taking longer than usual because the dose spread across her body, but it should be done in a few hours – luckily, it didn't get in her main bloodstream or any veins. If it had, it would have killed her." The numbness that had reigned within thirteen hours was shattered as a few single tears rippled slowly down her cheeks, and they spread to her voice in her last few words. Adam looked over to her as she continued looking hopelessly forward. "I should have never made that damn kryptonite…"

"There wasn't any other choice." Adam reassured her weakly, mumbling into the cold air. "The bullet was the best chance we had at taking down Galatea, and it worked. If we had tried something else, Kara would have been hurt more. Galatea was killing her."

"But I hurt Kara." Alex's tears fell as her complexion remained cold, the transformation between unfeeling and feeling getting stuck and confused on her face.

"You aren't to blame. Or at least, you aren't the only one." Adam persisted. As his words sunk in, he realised that now would be the first time he finally spoke of what he had spent hours thinking about. He shook his head and looked down. "I was in the ideal position to shoot. At the time, I was so blinded that I thought it was too close between them – but in hindsight, I had the perfect shot. And I couldn't do it." Adam inhaled deeply, eyes growing ashamed as he relived it all again. "Hank was yelling at me, telling me to shoot… and I couldn't do it." He paused as complete silence beat ceaselessly around him, leaving his words hanging, painful and fresh in the air. "So Hank had to get another agent to fire who wasn't as close. He did it without hesitation… I don't know how. And then, I just watched her go down…"

That last recollection had finally shaken Alex out of any protection she had built up for herself, as her head tilted backwards into the wall and her eyes travelled around the room, lost. Her breath caught in her throat and hitched. Finally, she relived it all out loud. "She was bleeding so much…" At those words, Adam bit his lip. "I'd never seen her like that before… so shaken and vulnerable…"

"That clone can't hurt her anymore." The man clenched his jaw, grasping for any positivity he could find to help her. "It can't happen to her again. It won't."

"I should have never made that damn kryptonite." Alex repeated, her voice mournful. "We could have done something else, we could have worked something else out."

He breathed his reply into the unmoving air. "It wouldn't have worked. Hank was right – there wasn't any time."

"I almost killed her…" The woman persisted desolately.

"No." Adam said, eyes sinking further. "I couldn't save her."

They stayed like that for a few more hours, sitting next to each other, just looking out into the flickering room before them as they had heart-to-hearts for the first time. Even as the two reminisced about happy moments with her, Alex couldn't rid of Kara's voice in her head, whimpering, unsteady as she spoke. Adam could only sit as the feeling of her trembling body in his arms made him shiver. Just a day prior, her voice had been velvety and bright in the presence of her sister, and she had been warm yet still in his arms as he had leaned down to kiss her. Her blood had dried on his shirt. Alex had tried hopelessly to scrub the crimson from underneath her fingernails. They sat, unmoving together as they thought about how they could have so easily lost her all those hours before.

Even as they mutually lay down and tried to rest, their eyes remained open and were haunted by the torture of waiting. Questions persisted and thumped, only rushing faster with a deeper longing to be answered as the door to the bunker opened, and Hamilton walked in with her scrubs hung from her shoulders. At the familiar shadow, both agents hurriedly stood up and rose to their feet nervously. The doctor walked over to them. "I extracted all the kryptonite, but she's still unconscious and her powers are blown out. She's resting on the sun bed until they come back and her arm heals enough for me to take out the stitches. She's still completely out… but you can see her."

Alex and Adam looked at each other, and Adam smiled sadly. "Go. She needs her sister."

Knowing that Kara was safe was enough to calm his restlessness for the moment as the man watched Alex stride desperately out of the room, followed by Hamilton. Sitting back on the bed, he was relieved at last – but the sigh got caught in his throat as that brief happiness vanished. Kara wouldn't get to go home for a while, and she wouldn't wake up yet. She was still drained from the fight, and the loss of blood probably hadn't helped. Adam clenched his jaw. Just because Kara was going to be okay, didn't mean what he did was any better. He lay down after a while, still feeling despondent as he tried to sleep, and couldn't.

It was 7:30am by the time Alex had come back down – she didn't make any movements towards him. She stood in the doorway of the bunker as her quiet voice echoed through the concrete room. "You can see her now if you want."

Adam's pulse spiked in an instant at the thought of seeing her at last. He shifted, moving from the bed as he took slow steps to his fellow agent, looking at her nervously in the doorway. "Is she…?"

Alex sighed shakily, and he could tell amongst the obvious exhaustion that seeing Kara had helped a little bit. "She will be."

The response was still ominous, and his pulse heightened as he navigated past her, up the stairs, through hallways, into the centre of the base. He turned, his eyes finally latching onto the sight of Kara through the glass. Shivering, he took the slow strides needed to the door, then reached forward and slid into the room, trying to make as little sound as possible as he closed the door behind him. Adam's sunken brown eyes were immediately drawn to her body, paler than he had remembered, donned in a sort of hospital gown as the yellow sun rays shined on her skin. Her face rested with eyes shut as her chest rose up and down slightly and she breathed serenely in her unconscious state. He swallowed, feeling even more helpless than before as she rested weakly before him – and so, in his inability to do anything, he slid into the chair next to her bed and watched her face. His eyes drifted to her left arm, where a scar was exposed and the wound had been closed with stitches – presumably after Hamilton had finally managed to extract all of the double-kryptonite. Adam then glanced at the monitor beside her, showing that her vitals were mostly stable, aside from her blood levels, which were lower than the rest. Perhaps more had been lost as the doctor tried desperately to extract the concentrated poison from her body. He closed his eyes and lowered his back, then looked solemnly upwards to her unmoving face again. His pulse quickened as he reached up and finally touched her, grasping her hand gently and tracing his thumb over the back of it. Adam begged for warmth – any kind of warmth that was there at all – and his eyes grew wet with the comprehension that he had a hand in her being in that unmoving state.

Slowly, he brought her hand up to his face as his lips brushed against the soft skin, and his eyes grew mistier and emptier still. "Kara…" He managed to choke out, gripping onto the hope she would be able to hear his apology. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… I should have done it. I know I should have…" He slowly placed her hand back down, but still held it delicately. The man swallowed again. "I just didn't want to hurt you. I couldn't do that." He bit his lip, eyes glancing over her body. "I just want you to be okay. You shouldn't be stuck in here – you should be out there, helping people. And it's my fault… it's my fault…" Now Adam was sniffing as a tear finally fell, long-overdue, onto his cheek and trickled down. He wiped it away, not letting go of her hand, then reached up and slowly stroked a few strands of golden hair. There was a silence for a while as he shed tears for her impassively, biting his lip. "When we get out of here," he murmured, finally breaking the momentary stillness. "I'll buy you all the potstickers you want, for starters. I promise I'll make everything up to you. Anything you want. I'll binge watch your favourite shows with you." By now, he was realising how ridiculous his monologue was, and yet he continued, uncaring. "Anything you want, Kara..." His hand brushed downwards to the soft skin of her face, and a new comprehension trapped him in the most bittersweet feeling he had ever experienced. Feeling his heart beat faster, wondering if Kara could hear it, Adam sniffed again. "Because, I-"

The sound of the door opening behind him caused him to turn his head in vulnerability and see the head of the DEO in the doorframe, an expression of combined sympathy and seriousness spread across his face. The latter overpowered. "Agent Foster, I think it's time we talked."

With that, Adam had no choice but to compose himself and tear himself away from her, following the man as they walked to his office. Closing the door behind him, Adam feared for what was to follow – in that moment, he realised how open he had been about his compassion for Kara – now, Hank wanted to act, and the situation terrified him. The leader himself leaned against his desk. "Take a seat, Foster."

"I'd rather stand, sir." Adam spoke abruptly. Perhaps if he proved his strength and resilience then the repercussions wouldn't be as severe – at that point, he was unaware that his fate had already been decided.

J'onn nodded slowly, then began as Adam took a few steps further into the room. "Agent Foster, have you ever lost someone you cared about?"

Taken aback by the question, Adam stalled, then looked down. "My grandfather, sir. I was young."

Hank closed his eyes, then followed his eyes solemnly. "I lost my wife and children some years back."

"I'm sorry." Adam spoke, eyes drifting up to him in sympathy and questioning.

Again, the man nodded, crossing his arms as his body shifted slightly. "What happened out there yesterday… I hope you can recognise it's hard for me not to blame you for some of it."

The agent clenched his jaw in discomfort. "I apologise, sir. I wasn't thinking."

"You weren't." Hank's deep brown eyes looked up, eyebrows raising slightly.

There was an uncomfortable silence as the chestnut-haired man was driven insane by the questions in his head; the wait until his punishment was handed to him. Eventually, after several long seconds, he attempted to change the topic. Adam glanced at the man before him, who looked deep in some morbid thoughts which he could not comprehend. He bit his lip. "Have you apprehended the agent who shot at Supergirl?"

The man's head sunk slightly between his shoulders as he hunched, looking at the spot of linoleum floor behind Adam. He exhaled through his nostrils uneasily. "He is being relocated also."

Adam's brows interweaved and furrowed. "Also?"

"I'm sending you back to Opal City, Adam." Hank breathed, finally looking to the man before him and watching as his face loosened in sullen realisation. Hank glanced to the left. All things considered, he did not enjoy inflicting this pain on the man before him – doing so meant that Kara would hurt as well, after all, and he had promised her foster father that he would protect her. He straightened and rose from leaning against the desk, though his arms still remained firm around his torso. "You're not thinking rationally by being in love with her."

Finally, Adam responded after seconds of shock and speechlessness. His throat bobbed as his complexion grew frantic and confused. "What?"

"We have to take precautions. I hoped you'd understand that we need to protect her even with all of her superhuman abilities, and when that protection is compromised, we have to troubleshoot." Hank spoke, attempting to remain calm as the man before him inevitably began to protest.

"Everything I do is to protect her. I took precautions yesterday, sir. The bullets could have killed her!" Adam began to raise his voice, desperately clinging to his life there as his eyes blazed with her interest at heart.

"Not where you were standing, Agent Foster. Your feelings for her blinded you." Hank rose his voice to match the agent, taking a step closer, eyes still remorseful and deep in concern. He wanted so badly to protect the sisters, even if it took heartbreak for them to realise that.

Adam shook his head, anger rippling through his body like the poison that had spread through hers. "I will protect Kara, that's what I do. My job is to keep her safe-"

"And you think you're the only one?" Hank finally snapped, silencing the man in front of him as he released his arms from around his torso, leaving fists to ball at his sides. He sank visibly as Adam watched every move; every twitch. "I have lost everyone I love, Agent Foster. I can't lose them as well. I made a promise to protect them both, and if I break it, I'll be damned." He cast his face to the side, crossing his arms again. "I wish I could keep you on this task force, kid. But I can't. I can't take a chance like that again when it could end so badly. I want to keep you here, for her, but I can't do that. I don't have the privilege of being biased, Mr Foster. I hope you understand."

Even with his sincere apologies and regret, the agent was adamant on not giving up. "I'll improve. I'll take time out of the front-line and retrain at the National City base – Alex can help me." Adam begged, his bloodshot eyes growing panicked and pleading. "Please, sir… please, just don't take me away from her…"

J'onn clenched his jaw, watching as the man's eyes begged in exhaustion. Adam had been awake for over twenty-four hours, and now, it was unlikely he would get any sleep at all with his mind hanging in the balance. J'onn knew the change would crush Kara; it would leave her wounded even more than last time. She would hate him for weeks. Nonetheless, with all of the emotions and swirling confusion in the thick, cold air of morning, he had to persist. It was for her protection, and he couldn't let Adam's passion overtake his brain any longer. Hank exhaled heavily through his nostrils again, then looked up at the distraught agent before him. "I'm sorry, Adam. My hands are tied."

As Hank continued and told the man before him to go home and pack, to say goodbye to his family and to Kara once she was admitted from the med-bay, Adam's mind was blurred in his morose and fatigued grasp on all that had unfolded. As the leader's misted commands for the man to get on a plane back to Opal City at dawn ghosted through him, the sound of his pounding head and heart echoed and melted together in painful unison. The man remained unmoving, just staring blankly before him as everything rang true and made him clench his jaw in an attempt to hold onto reality. He was shattered. His mind tossed. His stomach flipped and made him feel nauseous. The bridge of his nose filled with pressure. Hank dismissed him, and as he walked and his disoriented steps echoed throughout the base, his mind was blurred still. His head was throttled at the thought of losing all that he had found here, and the white noise piercing his skull only grew more agonising as he turned to his left, looking into the med-bay. Kara was awake and sitting up, holding Alex tightly as the two women cried into each other's shoulders in great remorse for what had happened. He couldn't join them now – he couldn't even move or flinch as his whole body froze unwillingly to the ground and his eyes could not shift from the distressing sight.

With twenty-four hours' worth of images, sounds and excruciating sensations persisting in his brain, he finally moved past and walked through the hallway, numb as he finally left the base.

There you go, readers – the penultimate chapter, done and dusted in all its angst-filled glory.

If you haven't already guessed, I'll let you down slowly now: the end of this story may well be horribly unfulfilling and/or heartbreaking. There was never meant to be a happy ending from the beginning – even since I first planned this story, about eight months ago. Sorry if that isn't your thing, but (despite this being a superhero story) I wanted to keep it as realistic as possible. Please, please, please still read the ending even with this warning!

Also, I'd love it if you could leave a review. I really want to hear your responses – good or bad – to this chapter or this story so far as a whole. Your feedback is really the only thing keeping me encouraged to write!

Until next time (hopefully within the week, if not two!)