As Kara came out of the mindscape, she instinctively shut her eyes, hoping against all hope that Selah was coming along with her. She couldn't feel any additional presences, everything felt pretty usual to how it always was, and the anxiety that she had been struggling to keep at bay for the past few months swelled up again.
She gasped back into reality, jerking upright in her chair as she fixed her gaze on Selah's cot. For one, horrible second, the girl stayed unmoving, and her heart sank. But then, the girl's forehead creased, and she took a stuttering breath.
"What's happening?" Alex demanded, walking over to the cot and studying her.
"I think that she's waking up," she replied. The room was hushed with anticipation as finally, Selah's eyes fluttered open.
"Take it easy," the agent urged, crouching beside her. The girl's hand flapped weakly, and Alex took it in her own, grasping it firmly. "You're okay."
"I'm okay," she repeated hoarsely. "Kara too?"
"I'm here," Kara said, putting her hand on top of Alex's.
She looked at the room blearily. "Everyone else?" She asked. "They're okay?"
"Everyone's fine."
"How long was I out?"
"Two weeks." Selah pushed herself up against the wall and sat with her back to it. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed.
"It felt like longer than that." Alex began studying the vitals screen that Selah was attached to, analyzing the girl's heart rate and oxygen levels.
"You're stable," she stated. "Do you feel okay?"
"I feel like I was in a coma for two weeks," the girl replied dryly. Her head twitched to the side sharply and she winced.
"Do you have any pain, do you feel dizzy or nauseous?"
"I just feel tired, and kind of achy." She yawned, digging her knuckles into her eyes and rubbing them. "This is real." She said it like a statement, but still looked to Kara for confirmation.
"It is," she replied. "You made it out." She glanced around the lab, as if looking for anything out of place. Settling her eyes on her hands, she cracked a wry smile.
"My thumbs came back?" she asked.
"They did," Alex replied. "A few days after you passed out."
"Neat. Kal-El will be thrilled." The girl said, and then she began to frown slightly. She shut her eyes again as her head twitched, and her breathing became faster.
"What's happening?" Alex asked. She grunted, grinding her palm into her temple and gritting her teeth.
"Selah," Kara said, doing her best to keep her voice calm. "What's going on?"
"I don't," she breathed, her words trailing off.
"I'm going to check your pupils, okay?" Alex asked. The girl's stormy grey eyes were wide with fear as she nodded, and the agent checked their light reaction with a pen light. The first pupil shrunk back normally at the light, but as soon as the second one met the beam, the doors to Alex's cabinets began shaking, rattling on their hinges, and the pages of Kara's notebook started fluttering anxiously. As the noise swelled, both of the girl's eyes turned ice blue.
Kara froze. That color was familiar, and a chill ran down her neck as she watched blue-eyed Selah lower her chin and raise her eyebrows cockily.
"Selah?" Alex asked slowly. The girl looked at her again, now confident as she gently took the pen light out of the agent's hand. Never breaking eye contact, she snapped it between her fingers and dropped it onto the floor, where it too, began trembling and skittering across the tiles.
"What's happening?" she asked Kara, without taking her eyes off of Selah and her eerie blue gaze.
"I don't know." A filing cabinet drawer flung itself open, hurling papers across the room, which began swirling and twisting in the air like a miniature tornado.
"Selah," the agent said again, much more sharply this time, but the girl merely laughed. Her head snapped violently to one side, spasming and twitching, but her gaze remained firmly trained on the agent. Kara sat on the cot next to her, and she reached out to touch Selah's vibrating shoulder. Before she could, however, the girl's hand flew up, grabbing Kara's arm and forcing it back until pain rose up in her wrist. She turned to Kara, her face filled with glee as she pushed the hero's arm back farther. Alex's hand instinctively went for her gun, and she yanked it from her holster, aiming it squarely at her chest.
And then everything stopped.
Selah's eyes faded back to grey, the cabinet doors stopped banging, and the papers fluttered gently to the floor. She immediately released Kara, shrinking away from her as the elation on her face turned to horror.
"I'm so sorry," she stammered, looking at the disarray of the room and to Alex, who was still holding her gun, albeit a bit more loosely.
"What just happened?" The agent demanded, giving her a long, dangerous look before lowering the pistol.
"You guys have power dampeners here, right?" she asked, glancing between Alex and Kara. "You should go get them." Kara stretched out her shoulder as the pain faded again, and nodded. Using her super speed, she darted down to the vault where she knew that the protective gear was kept. It wasn't a place that she visited often, as most of it was designed for human agents, not her, but she managed to find the power dampeners pretty quickly.
"So what is going on?" her sister was asking yet again, as she re-entered the lab. "Why are we doing this?" she frowned as she watched Kara direct her heat vision onto a pair of power dampening cuffs, slicing them in half down the middle. She then gingerly picked up one cuff, and sat next to Selah on the bed.
"Was it Beta?" she asked, already fearing the answer. The girl looked down at her wrist, stretching it out for Kara to put the cuff onto.
"I think so," she said quietly, chewing on her lip as the cuff was snapped shut.
"Beta is dead." Alex said solidly. Selah looked at her uncertainly and she groaned. "Please tell me that Beta is indeed dead."
"Part of her is alive, inside of me. The chip tied her to me, like a parasite. In my head, she was there, and she kept saying..." the girl trailed off, blinking hard.
"Saying what?" Kara pressed.
"That this is some kind of battle of which one of us is stronger. She said that we were both trapped there until one of us became strong enough to force the other out, and that I wouldn't wake up until I had beaten her."
"So why is she still here?"
"I don't know." Her un-cuffed hand began flapping again, and at first, Kara dismissed it as being one of Selah's anxious tics, until it started reaching out for Alex's broken pen light. The flashlight flickered on as she grabbed it, but Selah's hand didn't seem interested in the light. Instead, she clicked open the opposite end and pushed out the warped pen tip.
"Is that... you?" Kara asked, pointing. She shook her head, clearly unsure of what to do as she stared at her uncontrollably shaking hand.
On a whim, Alex stooped and picked up a stray piece of paper from the floor, sliding it over to the girl. Immediately, Selah's hand began scrawling across the paper, and Kara recognized the spiky, swooping font. It was the same handwriting that had been on the bomb threat letters that felt like they had arrived a lifetime ago.
Once the message was written, she dropped the pen back onto the floor, and her hand fell limply onto the bed again. She slowly lifted it up and flexed her fingers, the tremoring now done. As she examined her hand, seemingly having control over it again, Alex picked up the paper and read what had been written on it.
'The game continues,' she said quietly.
.
"So Beta is alive," Lena stated. Kara, who was seated next to her on the couch, nodded stiffly. "And she is trying to take over Selah's body." She nodded again.
"And we can't do anything to stop her. She has grown herself into Selah's consciousness. We can't remove that, we can't take her out."
"Do the others know yet?"
"They know that she's out of the coma," Kara answered. "I told them that she needs to rest for now, but Kal said he's coming in the morning, and I had to shut down three Brainy holograms and one of Nia's astral projections before they snuck into the lab. We have to tell them soon, they deserve to know what's going on. Selah's sleeping now. It's up to her, I guess, whether she can overpower Beta or..." she let her sentence fade away, not wanting to finish it.
"Alex is with her right now?" The hero nodded again.
"Selah's aunt Lea came as well. She's the only one who knows what's happened. Alex made me go home, she said that she has everything covered, and I haven't slept in a few days, so she told me to rest."
"What should I do?" Lena asked, her mind clearly whirring as she tried to think up solutions. "Does Alex need my help with tests, or with trying to find solutions to anything?"
"No, I..." she trailed off again. She looked up desperately to Lena, who smiled softly.
"What do you need?" she asked.
"Sit with me?" The hero asked quietly.
"Of course." Kara yawned widely as she grabbed the remote and turned the TV on, flipping to an old black-and-white movie, and turning the sound down low, so it just played as a bit of background noise.
"Do you need anything else?" Lena asked, setting down the remote and pulling a blanket off the top of the couch. She handed it to Kara, who shook her head. They sat quietly for a while, both idly watching the movie until they fell asleep on the couch.
.
"The calibration still feels right?" Kara asked, as Alex tightened a screw on one of Selah's cuffs. The girl nodded, gnawing on her lip as she twisted the frayed hem of the blanket on the cot in the lab. Six days had passed since Selah had first woken up, and there had been no other instances of Beta taking over. They had attached both halves of the power dampening cuffs now, though they were still separated down the middle to allow Selah to move more freely. Brainy had also helped to tune them so that the girl still had some of her psychic abilities, but it inhibited her enough to keep Beta shut out.
"I haven't felt her again," Selah replied. "Not since the cuffs have been on. But Nia says that I've been talking in my sleep, and that it doesn't sound like me."
"Well," the hero said brightly. "Soon we'll have figured out how to get rid of Beta, and then you won't need the cuffs anymore."
"Yeah." The girl's voice was flat, and it was obvious that she didn't really agree with what she was saying.
"Hey," she insisted. "We will. You've made it this far, what's a little bit longer?" Selah nodded, keeping her eyes trained on the floor.
"Are you still okay to do another brain scan today?" Alex asked.
"Yeah. As long as I can keep the cuffs on during it," she said.
"That shouldn't be a problem." Kara glanced at her watch and clicked her tongue when she saw what time it was.
"I have to run, I promised Nia that I would help her with an article this afternoon," she said, grabbing her bag. "Keep me updated if anything changes." Alex nodded, and she darted from the room, mentally switching to her to-do list for Cat-co.
Part of her was grateful for the escape from the lab. Being in that room reminded her of the weeks she spent, desperately waiting for Selah to wake up. She thought that it would be easier, now that the girl was conscious and back in reality, but something about her felt... off. She was more guarded, and cautious in everything that she did. A few nights ago, Kara had invited her over for a movie night, but she had made a half-hearted excuse about being too tired. She couldn't even begin to imagine the stress that the girl was feeling, having her mind fused together with the woman who had abused her for half of a decade, but Selah was so reserved with her emotions that Kara couldn't really tell what the girl was thinking.
She mused over this as she continued walking, until she stopped abruptly as she turned a corner and found herself face to face with Selah's aunt.
"Oh," Kara exclaimed, putting a hand to her chest. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you."
"No it's fine," Lea insisted. Kara saw her striking resemblance to Selah as the woman's eyes darted to a far wall and she bit her lip. "I was looking for you, actually."
"For me?"
"I need to talk to you about my niece. I am concerned about her." Kara nodded, instantly serious as she led Lea to a nearby meeting room. She shut the door and turned to face the woman.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Director Danvers explained everything to me, with Beta and the psychic link," Lea began. "And I understand that this might have... changed Selah. But there is something more. She is changing in a way that is very familiar to me, and very dangerous."
"The same way that Lyla did," Kara stated. The creases on Lea's forehead deepened.
"Has she said anything to you?" the woman implored.
"At the facility, where Selah and I were held together. She said that her powers were changing."
"Changing how?" Kara hesitated, uncertain of whether or not Selah would want her to tell Lea about it all. "Please, I'm only asking you because I know she will not tell me. And I am frightened of what could happen." She studied Lea for a few long moments before deciding.
"She thought she was becoming an empath." The woman's face twisted as she shut her eyes in pain.
"What exactly did she say?" she asked.
"She said that she could go into peoples' minds now, and that even when her powers were gone, she still had her telepathy. I don't remember the rest of what she told me. What does this mean for her?"
"She does not fully understand what it means to be an empath. I never told her the specifics, and I cannot imagine that her mother did either. Empaths are far stronger than any other Andromedan. They are dangerously powerful, even among alien standards. After the onset of the powers, their abilities continue to grow over a year or so. They can drain the powers of almost any species, and they can create powerful illusions. With the enhancement of their psychic powers, they are able to easily control another person's mind, and they can even go so far as killing someone with that power. Lyla, even with her flaws, is one of the most restrained Empaths I have ever known. She is not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but she has excellent control over those abilities. Most Empaths cannot hold back their power so easily."
"So you're afraid that Selah won't be able to maintain that same control?" Kara asked.
"It is possible that she could manage it," Lea hesitated. "But I do not wish to watch her go down the same path that my sister did. And she is becoming closed off, she does not let me in anymore. If she isolates herself, her restraint will weaken. She will become susceptible to the temptations of her strength. And..." the woman's words faded. "I cannot bear it if that happens to my niece."
"I'll talk to Alex," she promised. "Selah is important to me, too. I won't let any of that happen to her." Lea nodded, smiling gratefully, but her eyes were still worried.
"Thank you," she said, exiting the room. Kara followed, and she made her way to Cat-co, texting Nia that she might be a little bit late. As she walked, she thought about all that Lea had told her. It scared her, thinking of Selah losing herself in the powers. After everything that they had done to get her back, she couldn't bear the thought of losing the girl again. But something at the back of her mind kept bothering her, something far worse than that.
'If Selah loses,' she thought to herself. 'If she can't overpower Beta, then all of those destructive and terrible powers will be passed on to her. Selah will be gone, and Beta will become one of the most powerful beings on Earth.'
Part of Kara felt ashamed of even entertaining that possibility, as if having the smallest bit of doubt in Selah's victory over Beta would shatter all of the girl's chances. But another, dark part of her mind dug deeper into the idea, and suddenly Kara had visions of having to fight Beta while she was wearing Selah's face, beating the girl down to the ground.
"That's not going to happen," she said aloud to herself, ignoring the man walking next to her on the sidewalk, who shot her a confused glance. "I'm not going to let it happen."
.
Alex shut her eyes, wincing as she stretched out her back for the first time in hours. Several joints popped in her spine, more than what was probably healthy, but she was too tired to even be impressed by it. She glanced at her watch as she shut off her computer, and held back a yawn as she realized it was nearly midnight. Being the director of the DEO came with more work than she had anticipated, especially when she had to work her way through paperwork and forms on top of trying to figure out what was wrong with Selah.
'At least I'm getting plenty of overtime,' she thought to herself. 'Not like it's very useful. I have enough overtime logged for me to get a year of sick days, and yet I never seem to actually use it.' Her boots echoed in the empty halls as she left her office, locking it as she went, and she began heading to the elevator. The DEO was always quieter and emptier at night, making the building seem much larger than it did during the day.
As she walked through the medical wing, she began to yawn for a second time, but she stopped in her tracks abruptly, before the yawn was fully done. A few paces ahead of her, there was a door that had been left sitting ajar. This wouldn't be so strange during the day, perhaps, but the DEO had strict protocols about keeping the labs locked when they weren't in use, and according to the door logs, no one was supposed to be in the medical bay, especially so late at night.
Alex was already mentally writing the email to all evening security staff about making sure the building was properly secured as she walked to the door. Pushing it open, she flicked on the light, looking around the lab for anything amiss. The lights underneath the cabinet kicked on, and her hand instinctively reached to the holster on her hip as her eyes settled on someone sitting on the floor in between the cot and the island, before she realized...
"Selah?" She demanded, dropping her hand down from the holster again. "What are you doing here, I thought that Kara said you'd be at your apartment tonight."
"Uh, yeah," the girl stammered. Her eyes were wide as she began searching for words. "I was there, but I realized that I forgot some stuff here, so I came back to grab it." Alex narrowed her eyes skeptically, taking in the sight of the girl.
"Are you okay?" She asked.
It wasn't really a question, the way Alex phrased it. Something was clearly not right. Selah's knees were tucked up to her chest, her lips tight as she stared at Alex. She pulled her eyes away and focused on the edge of a cupboard instead, but the agent caught something in her eyes before she did, something wild and desperate.
"Selah?" she said again, softer this time. The girl still didn't react, so she carefully approached, and sat with her back to the island, facing her. Everything about her posture was tense, a tendon on her neck looked so tight that Alex wouldn't have been surprised if it snapped right then and there. Her jaw was set, her shoulders firm. One hand was placed over her legs, her hand balled up in a fist, but her other hand, the one closest to the agent, was pressed against the floor, clearly holding onto something that she was trying to conceal- not very successfully.
"What've you got there?" she asked evenly, nodding to Selah's arm.
"Nothing?" the girl replied, her voice flat as she kept her eyes away from Alex. The agent crossed her arms, suspiciously tipping her chin up as she raised an eyebrow and put on her best 'director of a federal agency' face. She was impressed by the girl's resistance, as Selah kept staring evenly ahead of her. That face was usually more than enough to make anyone break. Nodding, she reached out and tapped Selah's tight fist.
"C'mon," she murmured. The girl still wouldn't look at her, but her mouth twitched as she slowly rolled her arm over. Clutched tightly in her fist was a syringe, full of clear liquid. The slight green tint to the needle was enough to confirm that it was Kryptonite. The safety top had been removed, and Selah's thumb was still firmly pressed against the plunger. Alex felt her throat tighten as she looked at the needle, and then she looked up at the girl again. Selah met her eyes, and all the frantic energy in them was now gone, replaced by an even, determined light.
"Where'd you get it?" she asked, doing her best to keep her voice even and non-accusatory. The girl didn't answer, but Alex followed her gaze to the drug cabinet in the corner. It was usually locked, but she could see that it was sitting open. There were three empty vials that were discarded on the floor, each one a full dose of the alien sedatives that she had developed specifically for Selah. A prickling sensation swept over Alex as she felt the nervous energy that radiated off of the girl, but she ignored it, calming her thoughts to an even lull, knowing that would help keep the whole situation calm and stable. Taking a long, deep breath, she refused to look at Selah's hand, and the needle in it. Instead, she focused on her face, and the conflict painted across it.
"Do you remember when I first found you?" She asked abruptly, uncrossing her arms and placing her hands into her lap.
"Yeah," the girl answered shortly, frowning as she glanced up at Alex.
"Like, the very first moment when I saw you? You were in that lab, chained down, and hooked up to who knows what. I thought that there was no way that you were still alive. But I found a pulse. So then I thought, 'No way she makes it out of here. She's not going to survive the ride to the DEO.' You proved me wrong again. And so, when we were in the DEO, we got you into my lab, I sat by your bed and I held your hand. Do you remember that?"
Selah shook her head.
"You were awake, but you wouldn't look at me. I found myself thinking again, 'She's not going to make it.' But then I took another look, and all of the cuts on your arms, all the bruises were disappearing. Right before my eyes, there you were, surviving. That's when I realized that you are as tough as they come. I stopped trying to decide whether or not you'd recover, and instead I watched as you did it all." The girl didn't reply, but her hand twitched on the syringe, loosening by the tiniest fraction. Alex took advantage of that progress and moved closer, now sitting beside Selah on the floor.
"This fight isn't over yet," she said. "But I know you, Selah. I know better than to think that it's something that you won't be able to overcome."
"I'm tired," she whispered.
"I know."
"I thought that all of this would be over, I thought it would be done. But I don't know if it ever will be."
"This will have an end. Before you know it, you'll be in your seventies thinking back on the good old days at the DEO when you were in a mind prison." Selah gave Alex a thoroughly unimpressed look. "That was a joke."
"Hmm. I thought that jokes were supposed to be funny."
"Rude."
"This just feels like it's all too big to fight. And if I lose, the consequences are worse than anything I could have ever imagined."
"Maybe it's too big for you to fight alone. But you're not alone anymore. I am here with you, and I am not giving up. I am never going to give up on this."
"I thought that was Kara's thing."
"Where do you think she learned it from?" She tilted her head, eyebrows still raised expectantly as she held her hand out. The air felt heavy and thick as she firmly stared at Selah, waiting for the girl to make her choice.
Each second that passed was agony for Alex. She watched as Selah slowly passed the syringe back and forth between her hands, clearly weighing her decision. Finally, she sighed, glancing up at her and then quickly away again as she held it out.
"This," the agent said, taking the needle out of the girl's hand and re-capping it, her voice stern. "Is not an option. Understood?"
"Yeah," she whispered, cracking the knuckles on her now empty hand.
"Okay. Good." She stood up and turned on the tap, emptying the syringe into the sink. She watched it wash down the drain and exhaled a slow breath. Then, she dropped the needle into a sharps container and began locking the drug cabinet again. Once it was all finally gone and dealt with, she exhaled again, pushing her hair away from her face.
"Um," Selah began. Alex looked over her shoulder at the girl, who was now sitting on the cot. "Please don't tell Kara about this." She shoved her key ring into her pocket and crossed her arms again, raising an eyebrow. "Please?" she added.
The agent slowly walked over and sat on the cot beside her, shaking her head.
"Fine." She felt relief wash off the girl. "But I am moving all of the alien sedatives down to the vault, and you have to go talk to Kelly first thing tomorrow morning about everything that almost happened tonight. This is not how your story is going to end."
"Okay." Alex looked at Selah for a long while, taking in her tousled curls and sad eyes before putting an arm across her small shoulders. "Besides," she added. "You can't teach Kara how annoying it can be to have a little sister if you're in a coma. I think that she needs that." She couldn't hold back a small smile, and she jutted out her chin.
"I'm not annoying."
"She told me that you keep dropping in unannounced and eating all her ice cream when she's trying to work. Do you know how often she did that to me when we were in college?"
"Probably a lot."
"I seriously considered lining my freezer with lead."
"Like that would stop her." Alex snorted out a laugh, rubbing Selah's arm with her thumb as the girl yawned.
"You need to get some rest. Can I trust you to go home safely, or do I need to call you an escort?" she asked. She rolled her eyes, and Alex pointed a finger at her. "Don't you dare give me that look," she warned.
"I can get home."
"I will be checking in with Nia to make sure you're okay."
"Okay."
"And I mean it. Kelly will be here in the morning, and you are also going to come in, and then the two of you are going to talk. Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." Alex looked at Selah's tired eyes again, and pulled her into a hug. She could tell that the girl wasn't anticipating it, but after a moment, she softened into the embrace. "You're going to be okay, Selah."
"Okay," the girl whispered, and she released her, after squeezing her shoulder one more time.
"Get some rest. Tomorrow, we're all meeting here to work on finding a way to get Beta out, we'll get it all sorted."
The girl didn't move right away, her nostrils flaring as she took a deep breath, staring down at her sneakers. After a long, slow exhale, she stood up and nodded to the agent as she went to the door.
"Hey," Alex said. She stopped in the doorway, turning back to look at her. "I'm serious about tonight. That's never going to be an option."
"Yeah."
The girl turned to leave again, and this time she let her, frowning again as Selah exited.
.
.
.
