Warnings and Disclaimer in Chapter 1. Enjoy.
"Alex!" Supergirl called out, running into the facility, only to run into a wall.
"Hey," James shouted after her, barely able to keep up. "Calm down. Knocking yourself out won't help her."
"Right," she admitted, pulling herself out of the wall. The steel had a giant dent in it, but it seemed okay.
"Here," James said, taking her hand again. "Let me lead you." They started walking toward the entrance. "I'm sure Alex is fine," he tried to reassure her. She shook her head.
"I can hear her heartbeat," Supergirl said.
"That's good," James smiled until he saw Kara's frown. "That's not good?"
"It's way too fast," she said. "Something happened." James picked up the pace and started to lead them to Command, but Kara shook her head. "She's in her lab. She's not alone." James nearly ran the final leg but stopped short of the door. Winn who was standing there, glanced up when he saw them.
"Kara," he said, throwing his arms around her. "Are you able to see again?" She allowed the hug for a second before focusing on the room.
"More or less," she said, stopping in the doorway. It took her a minute to realize what she was looking at.
"She needs to calm down or else she's going to have a heart attack," Hamilton said clinically.
"The sedative had no effect," Kim said, barely keeping the panic at bay. "If we give her any more it could kill her."
"You have to try something," Maggie said desperately. She and Eliza were right next to Alex, trying to calm her down but having no luck.
"If we had her gun I might suggest shooting her," Hamilton said, finally showing the strain she was under. "Director?"
"Nothing," J'onn said, eyes glowing brightly as he tried to connect with her mind.
"Alex!" Kara shouted, finally being able to focus on her sister. She was curled into a little ball in the middle of the floor, her arms flopping uselessly around her. She rushed forward, not caring if she broke a table or lab equipment in her rush to get to her sister. Arms tried to stop her, but she pushed them away. She pulled Alex away from Maggie and rushed to a quiet corner. She dropped to a sitting position, draped her sister across her lap, and started to rock gently. "C'mon Alex. You know this. You're safe. I've got you." She pressed their foreheads together, never stopping her whispers or the rocking.
"Kara?" Kara glanced up at Eliza's worried voice but didn't stop rocking or whispering. Eliza held out some tissues. "For her nosebleed." Kara was confused until she took a deep breath and smelled the blood. She took the tissues and held them against her sister's nose. She never stopped rocking.
"Her heart rate is falling," Hamilton told the room ten minutes later. Twenty minutes later Alex was nearly asleep in her sister's arms. "Her vitals are returning to normal." She turned to J'onn. "Are you able to read her now?" J'onn focused on Alex, his eyes glowing.
"Still nothing," he told them, shuddering slightly as he refocused on the doctor. He looked to Kara. "How did you know how to calm her down?"
"I used to get panic attacks," she told them quietly, never stopping her rocking movements. "Severe panic attacks. Alex was the one to get me through them. Just like this. I hoped she would remember, even if the roles were reversed."
"It seemed to work," Hamilton said, reaching over and gently tugging the tissues away from Alex's nose. "The bleeding seems to have stopped."
"Do you think this is Storm?" Maggie asked. James had his arms around her as they watched helplessly. "I mean, she was fine three hours ago."
"I'll have to draw some blood to be sure," Hamilton admitted. She motioned to Winn, who held out a tablet for her. She frowned at whatever she saw. "We need to get her to med bay." Kara nodded and tried to get up, but the room shifted before her and she sank back down. J'onn noticed and came over.
"May I?" he asked, holding out his hands. It took Kara a minute to focus before she nodded. He gently took Alex from her grasp then ran out of the room.
"Hey Kara." Kara looked up at the voice, struggling to get the face to focus. She eventually stopped trying and pulled her knees up.
"Winn," she said, resting her head on her knees.
"I take it you're still feeling the effects?" he asked gently, sitting down across from her.
"It wasn't so bad before," she admitted, "but without Alex."
"You don't have anything to focus on," he said knowingly. He was quiet for a few minutes. "Can you hear her heartbeat?" Kara nodded.
"It's the only thing I'm sure of right now," she admitted. He looked on sympathetically.
"Then is it okay if I just sit here with you quietly?" Kara nodded. They were eventually joined by James, then Maggie.
"They're running some tests," Maggie said quietly, nudging Winn out of the way and taking her place by the blonde's side. She gently pulled Kara to her side, cuddling her like she knew she needed. "Is this okay? Can you still hear her?" Kara nodded.
"How is she?" she asked weakly. Maggie ran her fingers through the blonde hair.
"Sleeping," she said softly to the Kryptonian.
"You should be there with her," Kara answered quietly.
"Eliza's there," Maggie told her before lightly punching her side. "Besides, soon we'll all be crowding her room. I think Hamilton is happy to have some space right now." Kara smiled but made no attempt to move. They settled into a quiet vigil.
"Why is Eliza here?" Kara broke the long silence.
"She was with Dr. Hamilton when she got the alert," Winn said quietly. "They took a chopper here. They were here before you were."
"What happened?" Kara asked, lifting her head from Maggie's shoulder. Maggie sighed.
"I was with Winn in Command when the first alert came," she told her. "I rushed out, toward the lab. I found her. She was on the ground, covered in blood. I thought she fell and hit her head, but when I came in I could see she was conscious. She was also twitching. At first, I thought it was a seizure. I was about to call for help when Dr. Kim arrived. He had received the same alert and came running. He was able to tell immediately it wasn't a seizure and said she was having a panic attack. That's when I realized she was trying to hit her panic button."
"Which she did," Kara said, shooting Winn a dark look.
"I'm sorry," he told her sincerely. "If I told you it was Alex you would have left, and we wouldn't have been able to contain the aliens. Innocent people could have gotten hurt."
"I know," she said, the fight draining out of her. She looked around the room, her eyes focusing on a small pool of blood she didn't notice before. "Is that?"
"Her nose was bleeding," Maggie told her, "a lot." Kara nodded.
"Is it starting to clear up?" James asked. Kara focused on him. It took her a minute to realize he had changed from his Guardian suit.
"Yeah," she nodded. "I can hear a lot better too. Can I see her?" They all looked at each other.
"Maybe you would like to change first?" Maggie suggested. Kara frowned, then looked down at her suit. Streaks of red painted the blue fabric.
"Alex?" she asked. Everyone nodded solemnly.
"C'mon little Danvers," Maggie stood up and offered her a hand. "Let's go shower and change and then see your sister." Kara nodded. She let the detective pull her to her feet, closing her eyes when the room flickered again.
"I'm fine," she could practically see their worried expressions. "I'm just a bit under the influence right now."
"Which is why I'm driving," Maggie said as she steered her toward the locker room. Ten minutes later they were approaching med bay. "Eliza," she called out gently. The older woman was sitting next to Alex, stroking her face soothingly. She jumped when she heard her name, turning around and pulling Kara into a giant hug.
"Are you okay?" she asked, pulling away so she could run a critical eye over her youngest, looking for any sign of injuries. Kara smiled shyly.
"I'm okay. The aliens we went after were able to get into my head, make me see and hear things that aren't there. It's just going to take some time for the effect to wear off completely." Eliza nodded at the answer and pulled them closer to Alex. She carefully led Kara to her sister's side, placing her hands on Alex's still ones. Kara gasped when she felt the bandages, squinting to try and get a better view.
"She was clawing herself," Maggie explained, putting her hand over Kara's exploring one. Kara stilled immediately. "Trying to hit the button." She gave Kara's hand a squeeze before moving to the other side of the bed.
"Is it Storm?" Maggie asked, holding Alex's other hand and cradling it gently.
"We think so," Eliza told them sadly. "We're running some tests right now," she started, only for the door to open and Dr. Hamilton and J'onn to enter.
"The tests came back positive," Hamilton said, handing the folder over to Eliza.
"What does that mean?" Kara asked. Eliza scanned the folder before shutting it with a sigh.
"Dr. Storm inserted certain," she hesitated, looking for the right words, "booby traps in your sister's genetic code." Kara nodded. "Through her initial unconsciousness and throughout her first active trap, I've been getting better at reading the signs when her DNA has been tampered with. Now, I'm nowhere near finding a way to undo the things Storm did, but I can now tell when a trap is active."
"And one is," Maggie finished, her hand tightening around her fiancée. Eliza nodded. "Do you have any idea what will happen?" Hamilton shook her head.
"She was in a complete state of panic when we found her," she explained gently. "Anything could have caused it. And until she's awake and can tell us more, we'd just be guessing."
"What was J'onn trying to do?" Maggie asked.
"I was trying to calm her down," J'onn said, suddenly appearing in the med bay doorway. "Dr. Hamilton was forced to resort to a sedative, but that wasn't working. I was trying to connect with her telepathically."
"What does it mean," Kara asked, "when you weren't able to read her?"
"I'm not sure," J'onn admitted. "I was able to read her mind, but all I saw was darkness. I'm still trying to understand it myself." He looked to Dr. Hamilton. "The chopper is ready."
"Chopper?" Kara asked.
"I'm moving her back to National City," Dr. Hamilton explained. "The lab is there, along with the medical team that has been treating her since this started. That is her best chance."
"Then I'm going too," Kara said, tightening her grip on her sister's hand. Hamilton smiled.
"You and Maggie can both ride in the chopper with me."
"Sensory deprivation," Hamilton announced as she ran back into the room. Alex had been awake for a several hours, long enough for Hamilton to run some tests. She handed the folder to Eliza, who was sitting next to Alex's bed. Eliza took the folder and looked through the results, frowning at the numbers. "More complete than anything I have ever seen."
"That makes sense," J'onn told them. "When I tried to read her all I could see was blackness. At the time I thought that was because she was panicking, but I tried a few minutes ago, when she was awake and calm, and saw the same thing. Blackness."
"How?" Kara asked, never stopping her rocking. She was still the only person able to calm Alex down, which meant whenever Alex was awake, Kara was rocking her on her lap.
"I have no idea," Hamilton admitted. "We did an MRI of her brain. The scan shows extremely reduced activity in the areas where we process our senses."
"Is it permanent?" Maggie asked softly, her hand tightly clutching her lover. Hamilton could only shrug.
"I don't think so," she told them. "The affected areas still show activity, just nothing near the level we would expect to see. As far as I can tell her senses are still operating normally, for example, her pupils still contract when I shine a light on them, it just seems the signal is getting blocked somewhere before it reaches her brain."
"Why would he do this?" Eliza asked, putting the chart away.
"It's the ultimate psychological torture," J'onn told her. He looked at Alex. "Without her senses Alex is essentially gone. She's a shell of the person we know she is, and there's nothing we can do to stop her from breaking bit by bit."
"Which gives us a lot of incentive to find Edith's cure," Maggie said darkly. "I really hate him."
"Me too," Kara said, her voice laced with venom it usually lacked. Maggie looked back at Hamilton.
"How long can she live like this?"
"To be honest," she started, "I don't know. Normally, if you lose a sense the others compensate for the loss. People have lost one, even two, senses before and lived productive lives. But to lose them all, all at once. It was no surprise she was panicking. It will depend a lot on her."
"Best case scenario?" Kara asked. Hamilton thought for a minute.
"Best case, she knows what's happening to her, even if she doesn't know how. She knows we're here and working to get her back. She'll hold on to whatever sanity she manages to salvage until we can bring her senses back."
"Worst case?" Maggie asked.
"She doesn't realize what's happening and she fights us, until one day, her mind reaches its breaking point and she shuts down. We can keep her body alive, but she is essentially a vegetable. If it reaches that point I don't think undoing whatever Storm did will even bring her back."
"How much time do we have?" Kara asked. Hamilton sighed.
"I have no idea," she admitted. "Those examples were the two extremes. Likely, she'll fall somewhere in the middle. We can only hope she falls toward the better scenario." She reached over and put a hand on Kara's shoulder. "This is going to be a battle of the mind. And we both know Alex won't give up without a fight."
"Right," Maggie said, squeezing Alex's hand tightly before getting to her feet.
"Where are you going?" Kara asked.
"To talk to Storm," she said. "If he did this, he can undo it."
"Detective Sawyer," Storm greeted Maggie like an old friend. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Whatever you did to take away her senses, fix it," Maggie said, bending over the table but not sitting down. He smiled.
"So that's the next one," he asked for confirmation.
"Like you don't know," Maggie said, banging her fist on the table. He smirked.
"Oh, I know what they all are, and I know how to stop them, but I have no idea which order they will trigger. Except for the first one, of course." He got a wistful look on his face. "I must admit she would have been an interesting case study. I thought I would have been brought back here much sooner. She is incredibly strong, but eventually everyone falls." Maggie growled.
"How do we stop it?" Maggie demanded. "Tell me."
"My dear Detective," Storm said calmly. "You know what you have to do to buy my cooperation."
"I got you the files," she growled, finally taking the seat across from him.
"And the research is impressive," he admitted. "I always knew the answer was alien in nature." He paused and gazed at Maggie. "But impressive isn't a cure."
"Cures don't happen overnight," she countered. They stared at each other for a minute before Maggie broke. She lowered her head into her hands, massaging away the headache she could feel coming. "We're close," she admitted, raising her head to stare at him again. "They've almost got the procedure worked out. But this is not something you want to rush. We could hurt Edith if we try and rush this before we're ready."
"And Alex's condition will give you plenty of incentive," he told her. "Your doctors have done a fine job taking my research to the next level. I have no doubt they will overcome this final obstacle."
"You do know this is just the first step?" Maggie asked him wearily. "It could take years for them to completely cure her. You can't expect Alex to last that long without any of her senses?"
"I doubt she'll have to last that long," he smiled at her. "I'm sure your scientists are working the problem as we speak and soon will have the procedure perfected. When they do, administer the first treatment to Edith, and I will give you the formula to save your lover.