Selah had been at the DEO for over a week, but Alex had scarcely learned anything more than the girl's name. For the first few days, she was very closed off and quiet as the rest of the drugs left her system, but at night she was plagued with nightmares and hallucinations. She would often wake up screaming or writhing in pain, sometimes zapping things with her heat vision. Kara and Alex took turns staying the night with her, to make sure that nothing ever got broken too irreparably. Over time, all of her powers had returned fully, and Alex watched in fascination as all of the girl's cuts and bruises closed up and healed, leaving no sign of any trauma.

She wished it was that easy for the mental abuse that she had clearly faced. Any time she tried to ask her about what happened in the lab, she became mysteriously mute and would stop talking for hours, sometimes days. Having Kara around seemed to help a little bit- she seemed to be ever so slightly more relaxed with the hero, but she still refused to disclose any information about what had happened to her. Alex was trying her best to give her space to recover, and to reassure her that she was safe, but it was evidently going to be a very long process. In the meantime, Selah spent most of the days lying in bed and staring at everything around her, as if she was still trying to convince herself that it was all indeed real.

"Hey," Alex said as she entered the lab on the morning of the eighth day of Selah's stay. "How are we doing today?"

"I'm bored," she replied flatly. "I've been sitting in this bed for days. My arms and my head have all healed up. Please, can literally anything happen now?"

"I know that you're a bit anxious to be leaving," Alex replied, smiling slightly. "However, we still have a lot to do. We don't know how old you are, if you're legally of age, who your guardians are if you're not, where you'll be going once you leave, if that will be a safe situation..." she trailed off, seeing Selah's expression change. "I know it sucks, and I'm really sorry, but you need to start answering some questions if you want to leave any time soon."

"I'm legal," she muttered lowly. "I'm nineteen."

"Thank you."

"They were my legal guardians," she hesitated. "The people at the lab. They got custody when I was fourteen."

"How?" The girl didn't reply, her hands playing with the hem of the bloodstained hospital gown that she was still wearing. "Okay. Well, I come bearing gifts," Alex said, lifting up the duffel bag that she was carrying. "Now that your arms are fully healed up, you're cleared to take a shower. This has fresh clothes, a toothbrush, and a few other things you might need. I picked it all up last night."

"Thanks," Selah said quietly, taking the bag and holding it on her lap.

"The shower is in the bathroom across the hall, and you can use the call button if you need anything else."

"I'm allowed to shower on my own?" she muttered dryly, in feigned surprise. "I've barely been allowed to scratch my own head without one of your nurses jumping me."

"Yes," Alex replied evenly. "You have an hour. We'll check back in with you when you're done."

Selah stood in the bathroom for a long time after the door closed, thinking. It had been a long and confusing few days, filled with dreams and hallucinations of being in the lab, being held down and sliced open again, like a bug under a microscope. From what she could tell of Kara and Alex and the other doctors and nurses, they were all genuine and truly trying to help her, but that's what she had thought at first about the scientists at the lab, too.

She looked at herself in the mirror that hung over the sink, and nearly recoiled at the sight. She hadn't looked at her reflection in ages, and her gaunt face and tired eyes beneath the uneven mop of hair that fell awkwardly into her face seemed so foreign that it was like she was looking at a stranger. She had definitely lost weight, and her limbs looked too long and gangly on her thin frame. She might as well be a walking skeleton.

Still the most shocking was her hair. She knew that they had cut it, and she knew that it was shorter, but she didn't expect it to be this short. It was greasy and matted, with enough dirt and grime in it to make it a dull brown color. She sighed, her hand rubbing over a shaved spot above her left ear.

"You're here to shower," she muttered to herself, snapping back out of her thoughts. Pulling off the hospital gown, she grimaced again at the sight of her bony, bloodstained body. The marks and bruises from where all the tubes had been poked into her skin had long faded, but she still remembered where they had been, and she could almost still feel them. Turning on the shower, she stepped under the spray and allowed herself to cry for the first time in months.

She scrubbed at herself until all the blood had washed off, and her skin was an angry pink. She rubbed shampoo and conditioner into her hair as best as she could, and watched all the blood and dirt go down the drain, wishing it was that easy to be rid of all the time in the lab, all of the memories. Turning off the shower again, she washed her face and brushed her teeth and put on some of the clothes that Alex had brought for her, a green tee shirt and black sweatpants. She was working on combing through her matted hair when a knock came at the door,

"Hey," Alex called, her voice muffled by the wall. "Just checking in, how are you doing?" Selah picked up the bag and went to the door, opening it.

"I'm fine," she said. "We can go back to the lab now." The agent led her over to the med bay, where they found Kara sitting on the counter and eating a donut.

Hey," Alex said to her sister. "I have meetings through this afternoon, but Supergirl is here to make sure that you're okay."

"I don't need a babysitter," Selah grumbled, dropping the bag onto the floor next to the cot.

"I know. I just want you to feel comfortable. You're okay?" She nodded, not making eye contact. "Okay. I'll be back later." She left the lab, leaving Kara alone with the girl.

"Donut?" She offered, holding out the box of donuts, which had already been halfway finished.

"I'm good," Selah replied, sitting down on the bed and beginning to try raking the comb through her hair again. She still had a few mats at the back of her head, and it was quite tangled from her shower.

"Can I help?" Kara asked, jumping down from the counter. The girl looked up at the hero uncertainly, before handing her the comb. She sat behind Selah on the bed and began working it through the girl's tangled hair, trying her best to be gentle.

"They cut it," she said, a little bit awkwardly. "When I was there. They said it was for cell research. And then they shaved it down a few times for surgery. That's why it looks so bad."

"It's not that bad," Kara tried to offer, but the girl just laughed, surprising her.

"It's like a mullet on speed. It's pretty bad." The hero chuckled as she worked out a knot.

"I didn't realize that your hair was so light colored," she said. "I thought that it was brown but it's actually quite red."

"Not being allowed to wash it for six months will do that, I guess." The two sat in silence for a while, as Kara kept carefully detangling the knots and combing the girl's hair out until it was all smooth. Once she was done, she began tying it all back into a French braid, doing her best to fit all of the shorter pieces in.

"You're good," she said once she was finished. "All done."

"Thanks," she replied. "I guess that I should get it cut soon too."

"Only if you want to, and only if you're ready. You don't have to rush into anything." She didn't reply, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.

"Hey, um," she said eventually. The hero looked up, her eyes meeting Selah's. "Thanks."

"Anytime." Kara handed the comb back to her, and she put it into her bag. "I know that it's been a tough adjustment over the past few days, but we are here for you." Selah looked up, her eyes scanning the hero.

"I think that I have most Andromedan powers," she said abruptly, glancing away again. "But I have a few extras, too. I guess that those are from my dad."

"I was wondering about that," Kara replied. "Heat vision isn't a typical power for Andromedans, is it?" The girl shook her head. "Can you remind me what Andromedan powers are, specifically? I've been trying to do research, but we don't have much of anything on file here."

"Well, there's the pretty generic alien powers, y'know, flight, speed, strength." The hero nodded as Alex opened the door to the lab and re-entered the room, taking the last donut that was left on the counter. "And um. Telekinesis, telepathy, accelerated healing,"

"Wait, hang on a second," the agent interjected through a mouthful of sprinkles. "Telepathy? You can't just breeze past that. You can read minds?" Selah looked vaguely guilty.

"Not in the traditional sense," she said, biting her lip.

"What does that mean?" Kara asked.

"For the most part, I can't control my telepathy. I hear people thinking just like how I hear them talking, whether I want to or not."

"So you've been able to read my thoughts for this whole time?" Selah nodded slowly. "And everyone else around you?" She nodded again. Alex sighed, rubbing a hand over her eyes. "You're going to have to sign so many non-disclosure forms. What are your other powers?"

"I can hear and see things, even if they're far away, and I can see through walls. I have freeze breath, and I'm pretty sure you guys noticed that I have heat vision too," the girl replied. Frowning slightly, the sisters exchanged a glance.

"That definitely sounds like your powers are derived from the yellow sun, just like mine," Kara said. "Where did you say that your dad was from?"

"I didn't. I never met the guy."

"Would I be able to do a blood test?" Alex asked carefully, already suspecting the answer. "We can run it through our systems and look for any potential matches to a species." The girl immediately pulled her arms closer to her body and moved her eyes down to the floor, away from Alex and Kara's. "Okay," the doctor said. "Maybe another time. Only if you want to."

.

Alex went home that evening to spend the night at her apartment for one of the first times that week. Throwing her keys down, she pulled out her phone to text Kara.

'Hey,' she wrote. 'Finally home, are you coming over tonight?'

She tossed her phone onto the couch and went to change out of her work clothes, massaging her sore feet as she went. Her old boots were worn out, so she had to buy a new pair of DEO issued steel toed combat boots, and despite her wearing them almost non-stop for the whole week, they still weren't broken in yet. Once she had changed into sweatpants and an old National City University tee shirt, she checked her phone again.

'OMG, yes,' she had replied. 'I'm coming over with a pizza right now.'

'Don't text and fly,' she sent back with a smirk. Going to the fridge, she pulled out a beer for herself and a carton of orange juice for her sister. Just as she was setting them down on the coffee table, Kara pulled open the balcony door, proudly holding a pizza box in one hand.

"Hey," she said, pulling Alex into a hug.

"Did you fly over here in your normal clothes, holding a pizza?" Alex demanded. "You're going to get yourself outed as Supergirl."

"I can fly fast enough that no one would notice. Besides, it's nighttime and it's cloudy." Raising her eyebrows at her sister's disapproving look, Kara added, "Do you want pizza or not?"

"Yes please." The hero dropped her bag onto the floor and brought the pizza to the coffee table, plopping herself down onto the couch.

"How are you?" she asked. Alex sighed, grabbing a slice of pizza. "That bad?"

"It's just been so busy this week, I feel like I haven't had time to breathe, much less to think. I can't stop worrying about Selah."

"Me neither."

"She doesn't trust me. I want to help her, and I think that she knows that, but she still doesn't trust me at all." She took a long sip of her beer, grimacing at the taste.

"She's been through trauma, Al," Kara replied, her voice soft. "I've been reading through some of the files that we confiscated with Brainy, and after what they did to her, it's a miracle that she even talks at all."

"I know. And I know that it will take time, it's just really hard waiting for things to get easier."

"It sucks. I think that I'd forgotten how a lot of aliens are treated every day. If I didn't get taken in by your family, I could have easily ended up in a place like that. It's not fair. I'm really grateful for you."

"You too," Alex replied, throwing an arm around her sister and pulling her into a side hug. "I don't suppose that she revealed any earth shattering information to you while I was in my meeting?"

"Besides the fact that she can read minds?" Kara asked, laughing dryly.

"Yeah, besides that."

"No, but that does remind me," the hero sat up, tossing her half-eaten pizza crust back into the box. "I noticed something today, there's a piece of metal embedded into her skull at the back of her head. It looks like a bolt or a screw or something. I didn't ask her about it, but what could that have been for?"

"Is it a plate, or is it just the one piece?" Alex asked, her forehead crinkling.

"Just the one piece, but there's a wider base that sits on the inside of her skull. It looks like it was made to screw something onto her head and have it anchored down from the inside."

"There's nothing mechanical built into it?"

"No."

"My guess is that they used it to screw a power dampener onto her head." She took another long sip of her beer. "Probably something that restricted her psychic powers, like the one that we used for Psi, but more permanent." The sisters sat in silence, letting the gravity of Alex's statement sink in.

"Poor kid," Kara murmured. "Should we offer to remove it? Can we even remove it?"

"I'd have to take a look at it to know for sure. It's up to her if she lets us take it out, I guess. I don't want to push a brain surgery on her if she's not ready for that. On the one hand, it might make us trust her more, because we'd be unequivocally saying that she's allowed to have her powers here. She'd know that we won't force her to shut them off, no matter," she sighed a little. "How many NDA's she has to sign. But it also might make her guards go up, because she doesn't seem to have the greatest history with people doing surgeries on her." It was quiet again, as both women thought about what could have possibly gone on in the lab, knowing that whatever horrors they imagined were probably not too far from the truth.

"We had better catch the bastards who did this to her," Kara muttered.

"We will," Alex replied, hoping that she was right.

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