The following morning sees them huddled around a twice broken twice repaired rusty table in the desert facility. The base is rarely used as anything more than a prison these days but right now it's bustling with activity, agents running up and down the corridors, armed with enough weaponry to take over a decent size country. They've gathered all their prisoners in a single room, each in their individual cell tubes, and with the addition of cobwebs and their very likely inhabitants on the high ceiling, the resulting ambiance is quite oppressive.

J'onn has joined them for the interrogation. He's standing at the back of the room, ridiculous detective hat firmly planted on his head and Taylor can feel his centuries old gaze on them. They hope he doesn't decide to impart some wisdom on them this morning ; they are certain they wouldn't be able to handle it. A choice had to be made and they made that choice. They'll live with it for now but they'd rather be spared all the advice and the coddling from all these well intended people.

Max is standing close to them, close enough for them to lean on her and hold her hand, property be damned. She's decked her full suit, cape included and sword unfurled and strapped to her side, and she towers over them, regal and impressive. Next to her stands Supergirl, also in full regalia, and together, they make for quite the menacing pair. Beside Kara is Lena, in second hand all black tactical gear, looking both like she'd rather be anywhere else and like she's about to go on a murder spree. The gun strapped to her thigh makes the latter a very certain possibility. She could also hire Ghim as her personal hit woman with the way the Kryptonian stands behind her with the ferocious yet bored expression of an underpaid bodyguard. Brainy and Nia are off in a corner, one monitoring the cells and the other ready for a power nap if needed. Finally, Alex presides over this mismatched assemble, clad in her own tactical suit and with a gruff demeanour that Taylor tries very hard not to find funny.

Taylor themself has not been left out of the costume party, and they've been blessed with clothing they never thought they would see again. Their back-up suit, unearthed from Max's backpack, is a bit too bulky, but it's close enough to the one who burned on them during their failed landing to be comfortable, its weight reassuring and protective. It's a modified version of Crucible Academy's regular uniform and so its blue is darker than Supergirl's, as is the crest embroidered over the heart. It's in great need of modifications, as the padding will find no use under a yellow sun and the cargo pockets are certainly not practical for flying ; but wearing it again, displaying this tangible tie to a less complicated time, makes them feel nigh invincible.

They are not, of course, nigh invincible. In fact, they've been in more cumulated danger since they arrived here than during the rest of their life, and the six prisoners lined up before them are a painful reminder of that. They try to avoid looking at Indigo in particular, the barely visible scar on their stomach a clear reminder of their previous encounter, but she keeps on staring at them, smirking, and it's getting hard to ignore her. Technically, they've been trained to hide their emotions so the enemy doesn't know they're affecting them ; but it doesn't mean they are any good at it, and they have more than a couple of choice words on the tip of their tongue about this whole situation.

"This is quite the jury," Indigo drawls, predictably breaking the tense silence first because she's a piece of shit. "To what do I owe the honour ?"

"To what do we owe the honour, dear," Selena corrects, achieving new levels of creepy by briefly morphing into Indigo before switching back to what must be her more common form, sickly grey skin, inky hair and ever shifting eyes, like two beady oil stains. She, quite frankly, looks terrifying.

"That's right," Indigo replies conversationally, "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. Literally."

"You can't possibly still be mad about that. After the opportunity she gave you !"

"I was taking a well deserved nap."

"You were dead," Selena says blankly.

Indigo remains silent for a second, picking at something under her extraordinarily long fingernails. "A mere detail," she says, flicking away a dead nanite that has everyone taking a step back to her great satisfaction.

She smirks, and before Taylor can do something absolutely pointless like threaten to strangle her, Supergirl takes two steps towards her glass cell. "Listen, if you're going to argue like children, at least keep us in the loop so we're not all losing our time here."

Selena steps closer to the glass, morphs into Kara, ponytail, glasses and collared shirt and smiles ghoulishly, splitting this familiar face up to the ears. Kara flinches, but does not step back, probably because Lena and Alex coming to flank her sides prevent her from doing so.

"Now," Selena says in a deliberately poor imitation of Kara's usual lilt, voice leadened and macabre, "why would we be cooperative ?"

"Because I will make your life a living hell if you don't ?" Lena snaps, slamming her hand hard on the glass. "Just a suggestion," she adds in an overly saccharine tone.

"You ?" the sorceress scoff. "My my ! Lena, I don't think you have it in you."

A beat passes, an excruciatingly long one during which Taylor has no doubt all of their collective hearts stop working. Then, Selena's smile widens, and widens, and widens, until her face folds on itself to reveal a new persona, Lena.

Except it's not Lena, not really. The eyes are here, the nose also, but the jaw is slender, the hair reddish brown, and the face is marked by creased laugh lines. Lena, actual Lena, buckles on herself, knees giving out in a tremor, and only Kara and Ghim's quick reflexes prevent her from hitting the ground.

With no second wasted thinking, Taylor advances towards the cell, mouth already open and ready to deliver several rude expletives, but Alex beats them to it. She remains calm, collected in a cold frightening way and says, "Brainy, up the power dampeners on cell five."

Selena falls down with an ear splitting screech, skin bubbling and melting back to something more akin to a decaying corpse. Taylor throws up a little in their mouth and by the sound of it, so does Max.

When she's back to her true form, Selena coughs something that could be blood or something else entirely, and grins, displaying blue and green teeth that have no business even existing. "Now, why would you do that ? That's not very nice."

"I cannot disobey a direct order," Brainy replies matter-of-factly. "And I don't like you, you hurt my girlfriend."

At that, Nia positively beams, and her smile is much more beautiful than Selena's. She leans on Brainy who, for a moment, doesn't seem to really know what to do with her until Alex explains the situation from afar through a complex waggling of eyebrows and he puts his arm around her. Both Kara and Alex give him synchronised thumbs up and Max, who up until now has made a good show of being a brick wall snorts in delight.

"Can we get back to me ?" Indigo groans with disgust, interrupting the only good thing of the day.

"Excellent idea," Ghim snaps thickly. "I am also incredibly done with this."

From the other side of the room Nia gives her her own double thumbs up and Ghim grins happily, breaking character for a second.

Alex shakes herself up, drawing herself to her full height. "Right," she says, "let's play a little game. One of the six of you has to start talking before I start torturing."

The interrogation is tedious. Though to be completely honest, Kara is not entirely focused on the process. Instead, she's tuned into Lena, monitoring each of her minute reactions.

Lena on her part is still as a statue. She does not look sad, does not look distraught, she does not look like anything Kara expected of her. Her heartbeat is steady and her breathing calm ; but her face is frozen in a heinous mask of hatred unlike anything Kara has ever seen on her before. After her initial quiver, she's regained composure quickly, stepped away from her and sculpted disgust and anger in her features ; and though she doesn't want to, though she wants to present herself as a strong and unfaltering protector, Kara is scared.

It doesn't take a genius to understand what happened, to put a name on the face Selena chose to show to Lena ; but it doesn't mean it's easy to help when Lena's closed herself up entirely and seems averse to the mere presence of others in the room. If Kara and the other weren't there, she might have even killed the witch with her bare hands and no one could have blamed her for it.

Kara remembers what it was like, long ago, seeing her mother's face on her aunt Astra, on someone so intent on killing her. She recalls fear, and exhaustion, and a new kind of deep despair ; but she knows the two situations are in no way comparable, and she shakes herself out of it, sewing up the tiny void that briefly opened in her chest at the anguishing memory.

"I know you think someone is coming to your rescue, I know you think she will be your salvation," Alex says, voice low and menacing, "but I can assure you that this is not the case. For one, these walls are impenetrable. And she also doesn't care. I'm your best bet at getting out of here, so start talking."

A shudder runs through the prisoners. Of fear for the three longest detainees, and of practise disdain for both Selena and Indigo. Solomon Grundy shows nothing, but Kara suspects it's because his brain isn't fully functioning.

Someone, probably Alex, considering the squared and hurried handwriting, as taken to listing a name and some extorted facts on the front glass panel of each cell. It's a good idea, one that Kara might even find useful if she were paying more than the bare minimum attention.

"Lies !" thunders the prisoner farther left, Tharok, if Kara is to believe the listing on his cage. She nearly jumps out of her skin at the sound of his rough mechanical voice and she has to force herself to look in his direction, unfortunately searing into her mind his peculiar mix of exposed flesh and shiny metal. His one organic eye catches her and she holds his gaze, secretly quite proud of herself for showing no further sign of unbalance.

"She's not lying," Kara eventually says, voice even and heroic because this is her job and she has to. "Your Highness," she continues, trying to inject venom in the title, "has already sacrificed one of you. What's telling you you aren't next ?"

"She wouldn't," Tharok sneers with self-entitlement. "She saved me."

"Saved all of us," a gruff voice chimes in from another cell, distorted and doubled due to its owner's current condition of having been cut and preserved in two halves. It is possible that Alex, or one of her agents might have told her his name already but it clearly escaped her mind and she has to read it off the glass ; Mano. His cell is a little different, neatly cut in half by two inches of Nth metal preventing him from reforming and attempting to siphon the universe again.

"I don't doubt that she did," Alex says, "considering that you gave me nothing. What I doubt, what I know, is that she won't do it again. I'm your best, and frankly only, option here."

"I will speak," someone else croaks. "The Empress abandoned me, I cannot remain loyal to her. If you can promise I will be safe, I will speak."

For a second, Kara thinks Grundy suddenly gained enough brain power to produce coherent and complete sentences. The voice emanates from a similar, if better dressed, hunk of rock but the glass panel reads "Validus." Briefly, she marvels at how all of their names are incredibly dreadful, like they've been drawn out from bad sixties comic books, and she considers voicing this aloud before going instead for, "we will keep you safe. I promise."

A ripple of hushed protests washes through the room but Kara silences everyone with a single glare and quietly begs for Alex not to intervene. She holds her sister's gaze the longest, and an entire lifetime passes before she nods, stepping away from the cells and letting her take the lead.

Kara goes to sit cross legged in front of Validus, hovering at eye level and leaning just enough to be able to lay her open palm on the glass. "If you tell me what we need to know," she says, "I will personally ensure that you get the best possible treatment here. The DEO will protect you and review your case."

Validus ponders over this for a full minute, the seconds ticking away loudly on Taylor's antique wristwatch. "Can I get cable TV ?" he asks, his demand not the most incongruous question that has ever been thrown Supergirl's way.

Kara nods, smiling broadly to bring him just a little more warmth and confidence. "You can get cable TV."

"Many, many years from now, Supergirl," Validus starts, "you will lose your mind and wreak havoc on the Empress' home and kill her father."

"Do not speak another word," Tharok spits. "Do not say her royal name."

"Cretins, all of you," comes in a whisper from Kara's right and she gives a cursory glance to Selena's hunched form, flattened against the glass.

"She seeks rightful revenge on you for murdering her only family," Validus continues like no interruption has taken place, "and that is why she assembled us to enact her pure wish. You will answer for your crimes Supergirl, but I will take no part in it, for the Emerald Empress raised me from the gutter to abandon lower than she'd find me, and that is a violation of my people's customs."

A s he speaks, and the icy realisation that she killed someone, took someone's family away from them, washes over Kara, a trickle of blood starts its journey down Validus' chin. She doesn't notice at first the grey liquid dribbling down his ashen face, it escapes her attention completely until he starts choking on it and Brainy rushes to unlock his cell.

Validus falls to his knees and he stares at Kara for a moment, unblinking, before speaking his last words in a gurgle of hot blood. "I wish nothing but death on you Supergirl." The sound of his warm corpse pitching over and crashing on the ground below is covered by a hysterical happy strangled laugh echoing from Selena's now empty cell. Kara feels weak all of sudden, for a multitude of good reasons, one of which, and arguably the most urgent one, being the axe that has come to lodge itself in her spine.

The room explodes into chaos. And it happens much too fast for Alex to really get a good grasp on it. One second Supergirl is getting through a prisoner, providing them with valuable information, the next her unbreachable facility has been breached by two entire persons and a Kryptonite space eye, half her cells have been emptied and her sister is bleeding out on the floor. She's not panicking. She's not. She is not. But what the fuck.

For an everlasting second, Kara remains unmoving, confused by the weapon that now protrudes out of her back. Then, slowly, mirroring Validus, she pitches forward and collapses on the ground in a pool of mixed blood.

She's bleeding out too quickly, her regenerative powers dampened by the amount of Kryptonite permeating the air around her. She chokes, calling out for help around a mouthful of her own blood, but before Alex can take one single step towards her, a tall warrior in golden armour and a horned helmet parts the small crowd of heroes, violently pushes Ghim to the side, crushes Kara's feeble form with one foot and retrieves his axe effortlessly with a terrifying snapping and slurping sound that Alex knows she'll never forget.

"Justice has been served, My Lady," he says, reverently addressing the flying figure that hovers above them, now flanked by Indigo and Selena. "Who's next ?"

Next is apparently Lena, in the sense that in a show of strength fuelled by adrenaline, she flips Kara over, presses the crest on her chest and puts a bullet cleanly between the warrior's eyes. The bullet lodges itself in the nasal of the helmet sparing its owner, but the shock is enough to send him reeling back, right into Max's crushing arms who wastes no time in throwing him to the ground to immobilise him with the point of her sword. He waves the blade aside carelessly and gets back to his feet in an instant, but the commotion is enough to have shaken everyone else out of their daze and for them to rush to action.

With the help of his Legion ring, Brainy leaps up, grabbing Nia with him so she can get close enough to encase the space eye in dream energy. With the flow of Kryptonite cut out by the dream construct, Kara can finally take a clean breath for the first time in a full minute. Taylor, flight liberated by the decrease in radiation, shoots up and crashes into Indigo, taking her through several walls with a satisfying crash ; as for J'onn and Ghim, they work in tandem to trap the sorceress on the opposite side. Lena remains at Kara's side, shielding her recovering body with her own, gun firmly clutched in one hand while the other rests tenderly under Kara's head. This leaves Alex, flightless and previously injured leg still a little weak, to unsheathe her alien gun and do what she does best, shoot.

For a short, but blissful moment, everything goes right. DEO agents fill the room, Taylor comes back in a flying loop, holding a battered Indigo by the collar, Max has the viking-like warrior pinned to the ground and Brainy is going toe to toe with a tall and unfortunately gorgeous woman clad in billowing green garments who can't be anyone other than the aforementioned Emerald Empress. With her team at her side, Alex can see nothing but victory in their future, and, fuelled by this knowledge, she leaps on top of an unsealed cell and takes aim at the source of their problems. But before she can pull the trigger, before she can even finish adjusting her aim, her left arm rising to support her right, a sweet mellow voice booms around the room shattering her eardrums.

"Selena dear, get us out of here."

The world goes white.

Explosions and other life threatening occurrences are routine to Lena. She knows the drill, almost welcomes the piercing shrill in her ears because it means she's alive. She knows when to close her eyes and when it's safe to open them again, and has mastered the art of taking cover and tucking herself into a ball, arms protecting her skull and the soft parts of her neck.

Not this time though.

This time, she's thrown herself over Kara's body, taking no precautions in shielding herself, and kept her eyes open wide, gaze fixated on the blood seeping out the collar of the anti-Kryptonite suit. She's fully blinded and deafened by the blast for what she estimates to be at least two full minutes ; she can't be too sure because when she manages to get a look around, the clock on the wall has been fractured in multiple parts.

The others are starting to struggle to their feet. Nia and Brainy are locked in a peculiar embrace like they've both performed a swan dive to shield each other, Taylor and Maxima are helping each other up, the action rendered difficult by the fact they don't want to let the other go, and Alex is bent in two, supporting herself on a cracked cell and emptying her guts on her feet. Lena averts her eyes, she doesn't want to trigger her own gag reflex and accidentally throw up on Kara. She pushes herself onto her knees and away from the hero, swaying to the point of nausea when her body decides to give up on balance. The world around her is fuzzy for a moment, she concentrates on taking slow deep breaths, pushing the sickness away to the sound of Alex's retching.

When she finally manages to focus on anything for more than a couple of seconds, she brings her gaze down to Kara and finds her eyes wide open, skin paler than it has ever been, even through the tinted visor, lips cracked and parted in a silent gasp. She opens her mouth wider, closes it almost immediately and gulps with difficulty. Her hand fumbles around until Lena grasps it and then Kara squeezes hard enough to hurt. She opens her mouth again and Lena leans closer to her aware, before she's even started speaking, that she won't be able to hear her otherwise.

A long moment passes, Alex staggers up and towards them, Maxima and Taylor are already here, hunched on Kara's other side. Kara's eyes find her sister the moment the reeking agent joins them and finally, she croaks, almost inaudibly, "it hurts," and lets her eyelids slip close.

The rest is a bit of a blur to Lena. Distantly, she's aware that she started screaming but doesn't do much to stop.

Alex yells into a talkie-walkie.

They take Kara away.

Sometime further down the line someone administers her a sedative and she slips into a dreamless state akin to sleep but nowhere near restful.

When she comes to, she's clearly been moved. She opens her eyes to the inhospitable but familiar walls of the DEO's med bay and the mattress underneath her is definitely her usual one.

"Kara is still in surgery," Alex says point blank as soon as she notices she's awake. "Doctor Hoshi said she'll be okay," she adds, a little more gently but still frozen and staring blankly ahead. "The spine took no further damage when you flipped her over and your suit saved her life. I didn't know you'd added a solar generator."

"Last minute modification," Lena mumbles roughly. "It still wasn't enough."

Without waiting for her to ask, Alex pours her a glass of water and waits until she's gulped it down to speak again.

"It was enough to keep her alive until we could get her to Doctor Hoshi. You did a good job."

Lena thinks about saying thank you, but it doesn't seem appropriate.

"Part of the axe broke into her back," Alex continues, "that's why your suit didn't stop the bleeding. She'll have a scar but..."

"Chicks dig scars," Lena coughs.

Alex laughs, sharp and short, breaking her icy demeanour to bump her elbow against Lena's. "I was going to say she'll live but that works too."

Lena doesn't laugh in return. She stares down at her hands, noticing the clean bandages covering them. She doesn't remember the state she was in when they brought her here, and she wonders if she's going to scar too. "Is she really going to be okay ?" she asks.

"She will." Alex reaches out to cover one of her hands with her own. She doesn't squeeze, but simply remains here, providing whatever comfort she can. "The surgery is more of a formality really. Doctor Hoshi thinks Kara's body would have expelled the metal on its own given the right amount of sun radiation. We're just saving her the pain." She marks a pause, falters and grimaces. "She was awake again by the time we got here. I got to talk to her before they put her under, and she was very adamant that I make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine," Lena replies automatically. "Well apart from that," she adds, waving her free hand around.

"She didn't mean physically and we both know it," Alex says quite simply, not even bothering to look at her. "What happened back there ?"

Lena sighs, and even this simple exhale of air is hard to produce.

"If you don't want to talk about it, I understand. But don't lie and say you're fine when you're not."

"I don't remember her face half the time," Lena says so quickly that when she hears the words, she's surprised to find that she's the one who spoke. She glances at Alex, takes note of the unchanging neutral expression that graces her face. It's a little bit too curated to be natural, and mostly, she looks like she's trying hard not to think about Kara. Lena is glad she chose to pass the time at her side and maybe this is why she adds, "I don't know how that happened. I don't know how the witch conjured my mother's face."

"You, you don't remember what your mother looks like ?"

"Of course I don't remember what she looks like," Lena answers rather dryly. "I was four when she died."

"Don't you have...?"

"Pictures ?" A sound not unlike a laugh escapes Lena, but it's dull and short, entirely joyless. "I used to have a whole album. Lillian took it and I never found it. She must have burnt it. The only thing I have left from her is my teddy bear. Lillian took it away too but Lex managed to recover it for me. I stashed it in a drawer somewhere. And I used to have a dog too. A massive Irish beast, taller than me. They put him down before I'd even left the country."

Alex squeezes her hand gently. For a long moment, she says nothing at all, and her presence is more than enough for Lena. Sometimes, the death of her mother feels like a fresh wound, or like a sphacelate scab that's been ripped off enough times to never truly heal. Maybe if she hadn't suffered so much loss between then and now, she would have been able to grieve properly, but she's seen too much death, been abandoned one time too many, and each person who's left her behind has been a stark reminder of the curse that was placed upon her the day her mother drowned. She used to think she deserved every last bit of this, but she isn't so sure anymore.

"I'm sorry," Alex says eventually. "You didn't deserve any of that."

A single tear rolls down Lena's cheek. She can feel it acutely, almost like she's watching it trickle down from the outside. She knows it's perfectly round, knows how shinny it is against her drab pale skin, knows it's the most perfect of tears. It doesn't make it past her lips, Alex wipes it off long before that, but she can still imagine its sharp salty taste much more keenly than if it had been in her mouth.

"We're family," Alex says with an intensity Lena isn't quite sure how to manage. "You're my sister, and my mother is your mother. Not in however many years you and Kara will get married, but right now. From this moment on you're a Danvers and we stick together."

"I've never had a sister before," Lena whispers, rather dumbly she has to admit but she doesn't know what else to say.

"Well know you have me," Alex says firmly. "And I have your back. And that includes kicking Kara's ass if she hurts you."

"You'll kick my ass too if I hurt her, right ?"

Alex laughs, warm and sharp. It is, Lena thinks, the laugh of a sister. "Of course I will," she says. "I'm gonna go check on Kara. Will you be okay on your own ?"

Lena nods, and immediately retcons that by asking for something to sleep. Alex injects her painlessly, and Lena is asleep before she's even crossed the threshold.

She opens her eyes again some time later to the sound of plastic wheels squeaking on the cheap floor. Kara is being brought into the room on a gurney and when she passes by her, she gives her a thumb up and a lopsided grin. It takes four DEO agents in white coats to lift her and lay her on her own bed under the sunlamps.

As soon as they're alone, Lena is out of bed and at her side. "What is it you told me the other day ?" she asks wryly. "Stop getting hurt ?"

Kara laughs, stops immediately and winces. "Don't worry. I'm fully aware of my own hypocrisy. But I'm sorry I keep putting you in this situation."

"It's fine," Lena sighs. "I suppose it comes with being yours."

Kara smiles broadly, and says, half cheeky half hopeful, "mine ?"

Lena shakes her head in disbelief and Kara mirrors her for the sole purpose of being an ass. "You're so dumb. Now scooch, make me some space."

Kara frowns. "You're going to get sunburnt."

Lena however is already climbing into bed, contorting herself to get under the sunlamp and over the small railing in one clumsy motion. "Do I look like I care ?"

Kara rolls her eyes but shuffles aside nonetheless, creating just enough space for Lena to tuck her body against her, hiding her face in the crook of her neck.

"I love you," Kara whispers in her hair.

"I love you," Lena echoes. "So fucking much. Please stop dying, I don't want to live without you."