Kara has never flown so fast in her entire life. A second after leaving the building, she gets frustrated with J'onn slightly slower pace, barrels mid-air and grabs Alex out of his arms. She doesn't bother with landing, instead bursting through a window back first to shield her sister from the shards. When she does land, in the med bay, her feet leave a five inch imprint behind. She hooks Alex up to every machine herself, fast but gentle, and when she's done, she still frets around her, fetching a second blanket, arranging her hands so she isn't uncomfortable. Alex's wide unflappable grin tells her she doesn't notice any of this. As she moves lightning fast, the world around her is left trailing in slow-motion ; but she cannot stop, if she does, she's going to be sick.

A hand appears on her shoulder, pulling her to a shattering stop. "There's nothing more you can do right now Kara," J'onn usually soothing voice says, "now is the time to wait. Rest, she'll need you later."

"I have to do something !" Kara shouts, her voice high, full of fear. She feels small, paper thin in the face of something terrible she can't control. "Or you have to ! Can't you reach in her mind ? Or Brainy ?! Someone has to do something !"

"I tried," J'onn says, calm, measured, and Kara hates the way his gravelly voice washes over her, pulling her to safety against her will. "Brainy did too. The drug closes the user's brain to external stimulation. We have to wait Kara. She's strong, she'll make it."

"I can't just do nothing..."

"You called me, you brought her here," J'onn says, "you did something, you helped. Now let doctor Veritas do her job."

Limply, Kara lets J'onn guide her to a chair next to Alex ; she ends up on the floor, sitting on a pile of wood and metal. She doesn't even register the act of sitting down, one minute she's walking backward, the next she's on the ground. Her brain fizzles with irritation.

"I'm supposed to protect her," she seethes, self hatred seeping from every part of her being to pool into her words. "That's what we do, I protect her and she protects me. I failed."

"You did what you could," J'onn says, reaching out towards Kara's now upright body before thinking better of it and retreating. He blurs before her, and Kara focuses as hard as she can to turn off the beginning of a heat blast.

"You don't understand ! I should have told her. I should have trusted she could handle it. I should have..."

"You can't rewrite the past," J'onn says, unfairly and infuriatingly wise. "You did what you thought was right at the time."

"But it wasn't right !" Kara shouts, screwing her eyes shut to fight the first signs of a headache. "If I'd told her, she would have been ready, and she wouldn't have taken that thing."

"You don't know that. She's been frustrated with this investigation, you telling her what you wanted to tell her might have pushed her over the edge anyway. She might have taken the pill without you and you might not have been able to help her. You did what you thought was right," J'onn says, putting his hand on Alex's and squeezing softly, tracing the outline of her knuckles with his thumb. "Now we have to trust her strength."

Kara wants to argue, wants to tell him that no, she didn't do the right thing, that she's a coward and this is her fault, but rapid footsteps and two familiar heartbeats stop her on her tracks. She takes a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, at least a little, and exhales just as Kelly and Brainy step in the med bay.

"I took the liberty of redirecting Miss Olsen your way," Brainy says, clasping his hands in front of him, "I felt it was important. Now, if you do not require my presence, I'll go take a nap."

Kelly takes a hesitant step, then another. She accumulates a series of hesitant foot in front of hesitant foot until she's standing next to Alex. "What happened ?" she asks, disheveled, shivering, and so unlike her usual pristine self that Kara feels the need to stand taller, stronger, so she can be a rock in her storm. "Kara, what happened ?"

"She. Sam's back in town. With Ruby. And Alex saw them." Kara swallows, a multitude of rocks clogs her throat, but she chooses to disregard the thickness of her voice. "She lost it, completely, and she took some kind of drug."

"She looks happy," Kelly says absentmindedly. She's trembling, but her hand is assured, confident, like it's detached from the rest of her, and it comes resting on Alex's forehead, wiping hair from her eyes and sliding down to caress her cheek.

"I don't think it's the good kind of happiness."

"Oh."

Somehow this simple onomatopoeia both summarise the entire situation and doesn't grasp it at all.

Time wraps itself around them, leaving them stuck in a daze of long seconds and anxiety, short minutes and worried hearts. On the outside, Kelly is the picture of calmness and rationality. One of her hand is lightly resting on Alex's, the other on her own lap, and she seems mostly unaffected, but Kara can hear her heart ragging on the inside, can hear how it spikes up every time she glances at the machine monitoring her brain activity. She notices the quiver of her left eye every now and again, sees the way she shuffles her foot in a discreet motion full of anguish. She's had time to learn her almost sister's tells, can decipher them as well as she can read Alex, and right now, Kelly is only holding herself together because she has to.

Kara herself is thrumming with unreleased energy, her leg bounces up and down, her fingers pick apart the armrest of her new chair, her eyes flicker everywhere around the room, following doctor Veritas' every move. She wishes she could do something, anything. What good is having a super brain, super strength, super everything, if she can't even keep her own sister safe ? Ever the picture of professionalism, doctor Veritas doesn't chastise Kara, but she still looks mildly annoyed by her constant prying and nervous fretting. She knows she's a good doctor, if she herself had to see one, she'd go straight to her with no hesitation, but when it comes to Alex, there aren't many people she trusts to protect her, especially since she herself failed while being the most powerful being on this planet.

The alarm of the DEO going off gives Kara the opportunity to do something, but before she has time to react, she's reminded that she isn't the most powerful being on the planet, she's only one of three, and the second is standing right in front of her.

She grabs Sam by the throat before she has the time to realise it's what she intends to do. She feels her muscles working, contracting to cut her air way as she pushes her out of the room and away from Alex and Kelly. "You shouldn't be here," she groans, her voice estranged to her own ears.

"I needed to see her," Sam stutters, "I followed her heartbeat." She doesn't resist, doesn't try to get out of Kara's hold. She lets herself be pushed further and further away from the med bay until her back hits the banister and Kara pushes her straight through it.

"I don't mean here the DEO. I mean here National City," Kara says, opening her hand and relinquishing her hold on Sam right above the three levels drop.

Sam of course floats back to eye level, standing just outside of Kara's reach. She raises her hand in surrender in a way that makes Kara want to punch her until she bleeds. "I wanted to set things right."

"You're ten years too late."

Sam doesn't have time to avoid her, and Kara's fist makes contact with her face with a satisfying thunder-like crack. Sam doesn't hit her back, doesn't even try to escape, she just looks sad, so so sad, and it's unfair, she doesn't have the right to be sad, she's the one who left. Kara hits her again, barely registering the pain when her unstoppable fist meets Sam's unmovable face. She wants her to hit back, to fight, to give her a reason to keep on punching her until all of her anger is gone. J'onn phases in front of her and her fist collides with him instead. He reels back, taking Sam down with him. He rights himself, avoiding collision with the ground at the last second but Sam doesn't. She lays on the floor for a moment, eyes closed, before she sits up and exhales longly. Kara looks away from the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Who are you ?" J'onn booms, towering over Sam but keeping his agents at bay with a single warning finger.

"Samantha Arias. Or," Sam says, her eyes flickering up to Kara, "or Sam of House Vex."

"We don't know you," Brainy says, popping behind them with a tablet in hand, no doubt already checking the Alien Registry and cross referencing her name.

"Thank you Agent Dox," J'onn says. "I can guess why you're unregistered," he adds, helping Sam off the ground, "and I can respect it. But you need to keep your foolishness out of my facility, or I'll need to arrest you."

"I need to know if she's okay..." Sam whispers in a small heartbroken voice that Kara refuses to acknowledge.

"Miss Arias," J'onn says, his voice bordering on a growl, "I'm trying really hard to keep my personal feelings for Agent Danvers out of this, but you'd do well not to test me. Agent Dox will escort you off the premises. Do not come back uninvited."

Slowly, he turns away from her, and as soon as his face is hidden from her sight, his mask of calm and professionalism falls away. "Kara, you need to take a break. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable and you know it."

"She..."

"Take a break," J'onn sighs, forcefully rubbing the heel of his hands on his eyes. "We all need a moment to breathe."

/

"What's happening ?"

"Shit Kara you scared me !"

"Cover your face, or Agent Danvers is going to lose her proverbial shit when she wakes up."

Kara, Dreamer and Brainy walk into what is most certainly the prologue of the apocalypse. Half collapsed building still smouldering with dangerous heat, families stranded on the pavement, broken bodies. The air is filled with the smell of burnt flesh and blood and Kara's stomach threatens to overturn.

"What the hell did that ?"

"Where you asleep or something ?" Nia asks with a sideway glance. "Isn't that my thing ?"

"I was meditating," Kara whispers, running her hand on a damaged brick wall as she walks past it. Cinder and dust swirls after her.

"Luminous figure showed up out of nowhere, killed a bunch of drug lords and destroyed a crime-ridden neighbourhood in the process," Nia recaps for her, her face contorting grimly as she takes in the destruction before them. "The damsels and kids are all safe. People think it's the newest vigilante in town, or alternatively, the person we've been looking for."

"This isn't a vigilante," Kara spits with far more disgust that she previously believed herself to be capable of. "This is a killer." She feels a surge of anger overtaking her stomach. This person saved Lena's life, breathed the same air, touched her.

"On the bright side, as one might say, this is now a crime free neighbourhood."

"There is no bright side to this Agent Dox," Kara says, turning her head so fast to look at Brainy that she almost gives herself whiplash. "People are dead."

"Do you think it had anything to do with our mysterious drug ?" Nia asks, gently touching her elbow to bring her back to focus.

"Maybe," Kara whispers, walking further and further into the ruins, Nia and Brainy trailing behind her. "We haven't made much progress. They attacked drug dealers before, could have snapped trying to bring attention to this."

"That's one hell of a statement." Nia tries, and fails, to whistle, and then proceeds to trip on rumbles as she tries to walk while rotating. Usually Kara would find this adorable, but she's on the verge of snapping and right now, it's mostly annoying. She shudders, knowing that she has to keep herself in check because she could cause as much, if not more, destruction than whoever did this.

"Do we have clear footage ?" she asks after closing her eyes for a second, "or anything really. So I can identify a species ?"

"The press is all over this," Brainy says, handing her his tablet, "so we do have footage, but it's blurry. There's a glimpse of something that could be heat vision. Or is at least very similar to it."

Kara glances down at the footage, watching as the figure zooms in and out of the screen, breaking bodies like twigs and carrying entire families out of collapsing buildings. Something tugs at the back of her mind, an idea, a feeling that prickles at the back of her neck like hundreds of needles.

"Brainy can work on making it clearer," Nia says with an encouraging smile. She's standing much closer that Kara remembers her being a moment ago. "But you should go, Alex is about to wake up."

Just as she says this, Kara's coms crackle to life with J'onn's voice. "Kara ? Alex is awake. She wants to see you."

Kara doesn't know what she expected to find, how she expected Alex to feel, but giving herself a few minutes would probably have been a wise thing to do. Instead, she rushes to her sister's side, ignoring J'onn's instructions to take back roads so nobody mistakes her for the newest flying individual, and only stopping a foot away from her bed. The distant sound of glass shattering reaches her ears, but she decides her pay check can handle a few broken windows.

Alex is propped up against her pillow, eyes closed, face paler than a ghost. She looks asleep, dead ; the only hint that she really is alive, awake, is the death grip she keeps on Kelly's hand. The gush of air following Kara's arrival ruffles her hair, but she doesn't move, doesn't acknowledge her presence.

"Babe ?" Kelly says, leaning forward to lightly brush Alex's forehead, "your sister's here. You asked for her, remember ?"

Slowly, almost like it's painful, and it probably is, Alex opens her eyes and locks them onto Kara's. She holds her gaze for a second, long enough for her slow heart to move on to the next beat, then averts her eyes to her hands. At a human pace, Kara regains her chair and sits down as carefully as she can. Weariness threatens to overtake her but she wills herself to be strong, stronger, until Alex can fly on her own again. "You scared me," she says gently, reaching out to take her sister's free hand between her owns.

"I'm sorry," Alex whispers thickly.

"It's okay," Kara lies. "It's okay," she says again, lower, to herself. "Do you want to tell me why you did that ?"

"We both now I don't make the best decisions when I'm drunk."

"That's not what I'm talking about," Kara says softly, trying her best to stayed measured and loving when all she really wants is to scream about how scared she is. "Why did you take that pill ? Why were you carrying it around in the first place ?"

"It's stupid," Alex mumbles, "I feel stupid."

"Try me anyway."

"I wanted to figure it out. I was hoping, I guess I was hoping for some sort of miracle solution. Maybe if I stared hard enough at it, I'd figure out what it is about this drug and maybe I could prevent more people from dying. And then." Alex stops, swallowing harshly and ducking her head, trying to hide the tears that are pooling in her eyes. "And then I was out, just at the corner store. We were out of bread. Fucking bread. And I bumped into Sam, and she had this girl with her. Ruby. I saw Ruby Kara, and," she chokes, fat tears rolling down her cheeks, "and the hole I've been trying so damn hard to fill just opened up again and it's so painful. I miss her so much. I've been missing her for the past ten years and now she's here and I don't know what to do. It's like, it's like my insides are cracking and spilling away and I can't breathe and I wanted to feel something, anything other than this. So I thought, God I'm so stupid, I thought 'this pill makes people happy, I want to be happy !' So I just, I took it you know. I'm sorry."

Angrily, forcefully, Alex retrieves her hand from Kara's gentle hold and wipes at her tears, leaving red imprints behind. Her eyes are glistening, bloated, and she looks smaller, weaker, than she ever has.

"You scared me," Kara says again, "and I'm a little bit angry, but mostly I'm glad you're okay."

"I'm not sure I'm okay…" Alex says, looking down at her hands again, "I want to, I want to go back to what I saw. I want to live in this fantasy forever. Kara it's so much better than real life…"

"Is that," Kara says, stopping to gather her spiralling thoughts, "is that what happens when you take that drug ? It shows you your deepest fantasy ?"

"I was married," Alex says, "to you," she adds, turning to Kelly and bringing her hand to her mouth to lay a soft kiss in her palm. "And we had Ruby. We were raising her with Sam and we were all so goddamn happy."

"You were married to me ?" Kelly whispers in disbelief, tears welling up in her own eyes.

"Of course I was," Alex says, choking on a sad laugh. "I love you. Sam was my first love, it's true, but I want you to be my last, and I'll always want that. It's not Sam that I miss, it was never Sam. It's Ruby, it's my daughter I miss. I did my best to move forward, and I did, I healed, and now she's here and I don't know what to do because I could have had it all. There's a whole world in my head in which I can have it all."

"But you can't go back there, you know that right ?" Kara probs softly, "it's dangerous. We've seen people die because of this, and you, you can't die Alex."

"I'm going to need your help," Alex whispers, low enough that it's almost inaudible, "both of you. I'm going to need your help."

"We'll be with you every step of the way," Kelly says, gripping her fiancée's hand and putting it on her heart. "I promise."

"I promise," Kara echoes. She smiles, trying to build a reassuring and strong presence even if she feels as small and fragile as Alex looks. "I wont let you down again."

"You didn't let me down. You couldn't possibly have known that I'd do something that stupid."

"I did let you down," Kara replies through gritted teeth, pushing forward to her confession though she knows she's about to strike her sister when she's already down. "I knew Sam was back in town."

"You..."

"I bumped into her the other day," Kara continues in a breath, rushing to her end point before she can chicken out of it. "She's Lena's best friend, because of course she is, and I was so angry, and sad, and I didn't know how to tell you she was here. I'm sorry."

Alex opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again when all she can produce is a thick gasp. Something flashes across her face and it's not what Kara expected, it's not hurt, nor betrayal, but a deep soul crushing sadness that flickers in and out of existence before Alex schools it into a less weary sorrow.

"I was with Lena, we were having a moment, I think, and then suddenly Sam was there and I got so angry, angrier than I had in a long long time." Even just saying this sparks fury deep in her guts and Kara has to stop talking for a moment. "She was here earlier, and I punched her, just a little because J'onn was not happy about it. She says she want to fix things, and I don't trust her, I don't think I can, but if you need her in your life, I won't stand in your way. I'll be there for you, and for Ruby. I'll be there even if you can't forgive me for keeping this from you."

"You're already forgiven," Alex says softly, her voice hoarse from crying. "Life's too short and frightening for me to waste time being mad at you."

"I," Kara starts, giving up on fighting back her own tears. She's tired, so so tired. "Thank you."

"I know you've got to go back to Lena, but can you stay with me until I fall asleep ? Please ?"

"Sure," Kara whispers, reaching out to take Alex's hand once again. "Until you fall asleep."

Kara does stay until her sister falls asleep, and then a while longer, tuning out anything that isn't the soft beat of her heart and taking the time to think, to ponder, to mull over what she's going to say to Lena. She's not stalling per se, just using her need to be close to her sister as an opportunity to not face Lena just yet. Kara refuses to acknowledge the passage of time, she just knows that at some point during the night, Kelly kicks off her heels and climbs in bed next to Alex ; and that sometime closer to down, she herself finally gets the strength to let go of Alex's hand to leave.

She elects to walk home, her pace faster than a regular human, but much much slower than she can. A part of her wants to go back to her place first, clean up, and only then go talk to Lena ; but this idea goes out the window the moment she steps inside of their building, her ears reaching out to the woman lightly sleeping four stories above her. She starts planning a speech in the ten seconds it takes her to get upstairs, changes her mind entirely while she stands unmoving in front of the door, gets another idea when her fist lightly knocks on the door. She resists the urge to peek inside with her x-ray vision, instead tuning into Lena, synching her wild heart with hers, and waiting, for both infinite and non-existent seconds for her to open the door. Absentmindedly, Kara squares her shoulder, drawing herself to her full height to trick herself into thinking she's okay.

All of her half-assed words evade her the moment Lena comes into view.

Hair tousled, feet bared, she's draped in her suit jacket, the expensive fabric contrasting with the old rock band t-shirt she's wearing underneath. They stand face to face, eyeing each other for a moment, before Lena all but drags her inside, wrapping her in the safest hug Kara has ever experienced. She buries her head in the crook of her neck inhaling her clean smell and revelling in the softness of her skin, velvety even around her tensed muscles and sharp bones. She speaks before she can really decide if she wants to or not. "I need to tell you something," she says, her words muffled against Lena's body.

She wishes she hadn't said anything at all, because Lena steps out of the embrace, unwinding her arms from around her, and leaving her small and cold. She looks at her with eyes that make Kara want to cry with everything she has. "Go shower," she says softly. "Take some time to breathe, think it over, then we can talk. You don't owe me an explanation, I just want to know if you're okay."

It's hard to put one foot in front of the other, Kara is exhausted, and the few steps necessary to reach the bathroom are not unlike climbing a mountain. She does feel better once she stands under the hot stream, scalding water washing away the darkness and pooling at her feet in a torrent of blood and soot. The clothes she puts on don't fit, but they smell like Lena, a peculiar combinaison of white flowers and hot metal, and it's much more important. She pads out of the bathroom, steam curling behind her in an almost supernatural way that has her consider for a short second that maybe hovering above the ground with no explanation would be a sufficient answer to the questions in Lena's eyes. She doesn't, because that would pretty stupid, and instead walks to Lena, gathering her in her arms from behind and breathing deep and slow, once, twice, before kissing the side of her head and stepping back.

"How is Alex ?" Lena asks, turning around to look at her.

"Awake," Kara replies because it's the only thing she can think of saying without spilling her guts about how scared she is.

Lena nods, but doesn't say anything. She stands there open and reassuring, looking at her softly like she has all the time in the world.

Kara fidgets with her glasses for a moment, thoughts whirling in her head too fast for her to grasp any of them, she stays silent for a moment, trying to make sense of her mess, then settles on something she has to say ; "I'm an alien."