All it took to take the edge off the happy reunion was Alex asking if they could talk somewhere privately. Winn, with wide eyes, led them to the empty conference room C.

Everyone took a seat, the room unsettled by the energy Alex was giving off. Alex, who did not sit down, and instead stood by at the end of the table where the presentations normally took place. She wasn't pacing, but it looked like she wanted to.

Lucy and Maggie sat together, backs to the windows, hands linked under the edge of the table. Kara took the seat opposite Lucy, and closest to Alex, Winn next to her. None of them were able to comfortably take their eyes of Alex – still mostly afraid she would disappear.

"I… I have a lot to explain," Alex started, wringing her hands together. "I just don't want to have to do it more than once. So, Ky's getting J'onn from my ship, and something I need to help," she whirled a hand around in front of her, looking for the right word. "Talk… about everything."

"Your ship?" Winn asked, turning his chair so it was facing Alex more fully.

"Yeah – I'm Captain, so technically it's mine."

"You're the Captain of a spaceship?" Winn's eyes were wide, then he nodded. "Yeah, that tracks."

"Thanks?" And then J'onn was at the doorway – Eyes absolutely fixed on Alex. "J'onn," she breathed.

"Alex," and then he was hugging her. The kind of hug that made your bones warm. The kind of hug a father gives to his daughter, a hug which makes you feel safe. "Thank you," he murmured, squeezing her hard. "I don't even know how to thank you enough."

"You don't have to thank me," she whispered back, squeezing as hard as her injuries allowed.

"You brought him back to me," she could tell he was fighting tears, but this was going to be a long conversation, and if he started crying, she'd start crying. And then everyone would know they could cry. "Thank you."

She pulled away, smiling up at his familiar face. Feeling her heart finally settle, now that the last of the DEO Superfriends was accounted for. "You're welcome."

"Ma?" Ky has hesitated at the door, waiting for the moment to pass.

"Hey, thanks kiddo," she took the offered tech from her hands. "I'll come get you when we're done, alright?"

"'Kay, I'll be with Linc if you need me."

"Ma?" J'onn asked, almost in a whisper, feeling his heart swell at his daughter's obvious joy.

"Yeah, but that's part of the story, so I'll explain in a bit, yeah? Winn, can you upload this to the mainframe?" She held out what looked like a USB. He nodded eagerly, immediately pulling up the room's computer and plugging it in. J'onn didn't sit, choosing to stand behind Kara and Winn's chairs – keeping an eye on all his kids.

"Wow," Winn pulled his hands off the keyboard when his whole screen went blue then filled with code. "I don't know-"

"Administrator access required," a female, but otherwise robotic voice intoned.

"Captain Alex Danvers, Exodus II," Alex answered, voice sure.

"Administration accepted – Welcome home, Captain."

"Thanks Darla," Alex replied, smiling at the still blue screen. She nodded at Winn's questioning eyes, and he went back to his seat, still feeling the curiosity of new tech buzzing under his fingers.

"Um… I don't even know where to start?" Alex suddenly muttered, rubbing at her bad hand with her thumb.

"It is always best to start at the beginning, Captain."

Alex rolled her eyes, but otherwise agreed with the sentiment. "So… it's been, what, a year since I left?"

The room nodded, while J'onn answered "but it's been a lot longer for you, hasn't it?"

Heaving a breath, Alex nodded back. "Darla, how long has it been since the Exodus landed in Takron-Galtos?"

"My records show that you have experienced 1,540 days since the original Exodus left Earth. That approximates 4 years, 2 months and 3 weeks, Earth time."

The room got very quiet. Maggie's grip on Lucy's fingers strengthened. Kara took her hands off anything breakable.

"You've been gone four years?" Winn breathed, half a question, half just expressing his horror. Alex nodded slowly.

"We were… dumped on the other side of the universe. Lillian and Jeramiah," Kara flinched at Alex using her father's name, rather than his title. "They specifically designed the ship and destination so it was nearly impossible to get back. It took… a lot of time."

"You've been trying to get back to Earth for four years?" Kara asked, muscles tense enough that they stood out under her supersuit.

"Me and anyone else who was deported that day."

"All 343 aliens?" Maggie asked, thinking about all the phone calls and meetings she'd taken – the sheer numbers of families torn apart.

"Yeah, plus some strays," Alex shrugged.

"How many made it back?" Because Maggie could read between the lines. Could see Alex's posture, and the way guilt sat at the edges of her words.

Breathing once, Alex's jaw ticked. "Darla?"

"There are currently 53 members active crew members of the Exodus, including Ky Danvers, but excluding Gertrude. A further 90 took a jump ship to earth 11 months ago. Of the 143, 121 are from the original Exodus crew."

"But not everyone who didn't come home died," Alex felt compelled to explain. "In the beginning, a lot of people just settled elsewhere. Or decided to try get back on their own." Didn't alleviate her guilt though.

"Why haven't we been hearing about all these missing aliens turning up?" Maggie asked, but the real question was why didn't someone tell us you were alive?

Alex winced, hesitating for a moment. "The jump wasn't big enough for the entire crew. Those that stayed behind… We didn't want to give families false hope. I thought, it had been two, three years on Earth, since we left. I couldn't… Imagine waiting that long, being told I was alive and coming home and just… never hearing from me again?" No one said anything, but their reactions were exactly as horrified as Alex expected.

"So, I asked my Second at the time to try and keep everything as quiet as possible, for as long as possible. I'm not even completely sure they made it – that's one of the things I was having Drew and Ella look into."

"And Ky? Where did she come from?" J'onn asked, barely containing his desperation.

"That, I can't tell you," Alex answered, shrugging just a little. "She didn't even know she was a Green Martian until I figured it out. She doesn't remember anything about Mars, or her birth parents. As far as she was concerned? She was a foster kid who had something in her file that made no one want to take her in." Alex spoke as if these were simple facts, only her fingers digging into her arm giving away her fury. "She bounced between group homes until Cadmus abducted her."

"So, she was on Earth? Before you left?" J'onn whispered, something clenching in his chest. Alex nodded, waiting for him to breathe through his thinking. "How did you know that she was a Green?"

Alex bit in the inside of her cheek, glancing in the general direction of Lincoln and Ky. "That… isn't my story. You can ask her, if you want. She might not tell you straight away though." J'onn squinted his eyes, but otherwise nodded. He could feel turmoil under the words – but it was not the time.

The moment sat heavily – everyone trying to process the information. Trying to come to grips with a new reality.

"So, the White Martian attack," Winn waved his hands out the windows, as if they were unsure what attacks he was referring to. "That was them finding out Ky was a Green?"

"They've been looking for her for a while," Alex tipped her head to each side. "I guess they were waiting for an opportunity, where I wasn't around… I've encountered Martians before, while I've been gone. I have a… particular reputation with them. Not very amicable."

"I should say so." Kara muttered. "They guy took one look at you and bolted, took me almost an hour to get him into containment."

"What happened to the other Martian, the one following the ship?" Maggie asked, cop voice sneaking in.

"Oh, I told my pilot to let him go after he stopped pursuing you," Alex explained. At everyone's suddenly wide looks, she elaborated. "If they think that four Martians just went missing, they'll send reinforcements. If they know I'm here, they won't send more – and I really am not in the mood to fight anymore Whites."

"I should hope not, given you basically cracked every rib in your body," Lucy muttered, squeezing Maggie's fingers.

"What?" Kara suddenly sat up, turning her body totally towards her sister. "You're hurt?" "No, Kara don-" "Let me-"

And then she x-rayed the Captain.

Lucy, the only one with the context of Alex getting squirrely with the Doc about Supergirl giving her an x-ray, was already on alert. She watched how Alex's left arm twitched, as if it wanted to hide, and how panic seized her shoulders.

"Alex…" Kara breathed, eyes fixed on her sisters' injuries – and not the ones from this afternoon. "What happened?"

And all eyes were on Alex. Alex, who looked like she wanted to hide. Vanish. Sink into the floor.

"Kara…" but she didn't even know where she wanted that sentence to go. Should she just tell the stories? Rip off the Band-Aid? Reveal the fact that her eye is artificial and her arm robotic? Peel away the protective armor around her pain, for everyone to see? But the moment stretched on, and she couldn't do it. It was too raw, too intimate, too… painful for a room of five people – even if she trusted every one of them with her life.

But they were staring, and four of them had no idea what this could possibly be about. The uncertainty would eat them alive, so Alex found herself forcing words from her mouth. "Space isn't very human-friendly, and four years is a long time. I've been hurt." A pause, Alex's hand twitched. "A lot."

No one relaxed, but Alex didn't know how to reassure them without opening up her chest cavity – revealing all the dark and ugly pain she kept inside.

"Captain Danvers has sustained significant injuries which required artificial modification. She does not like to talk about it."

Stuttering a laugh, Alex answered without turning around. "Thanks Darla."

"You are welcome, Captain."

Another pause, before Lucy finally cut through. "You don't have to tell us anything until you're ready, okay?"

Alex thought back to the scars on her back, on her shoulders, that Lucy might have seen in that doctor's office. "I will tell you… just not right now? If that's okay?"

"You have all the time in the world," Maggie answered for the group, smiling lopsidedly at the very uncomfortable woman – who was doing a horrid job at hiding the anxious clenching of her bad hand. Alex smiled back, endlessly grateful for these people and their understanding.

"So, um," Alex scratched behind her ear, suddenly unsure where to take this conversation. It would take days to explain everything that had happened, weeks to unravel the trauma behind it all. She did not have the emotional bandwidth for that right now. "Can I ask what's been going on here?"

All the other people in the room started to look between each other – each trying to determine what was worth sharing. What did they need to tell in this context – what absolutely had to be shared?

"Little Luthor bought CatCo for your sister," Maggie finally declared, shit eating grin immediately mirrored by Lucy.

"What?"

Alex watched Kara unlock her apartment, feeling her heart constrict at every familiar sight. Even the lobby had made her head spin.

Pushing open the door, she held it open for her guests to slip in, locking it behind them.

"Wow," Ky muttered, taking in the, frankly, massive and beautiful space. She clenched her hand around her single bag of belongings.

"Make yourself at home!" Kara smiled, gesturing widely at the entire house, but not moving from the door. "You guys can take the bed, it's just over there on the right." She didn't think she would sleep anyway.

Ky glanced at her mom, who nodded towards the bedroom. Doing as suggested, she investigated further into the space, Gertrude following closely. Meanwhile, Alex dropped her own duffle by the door, going to the familiar counter and curling a leg under her on the stool. Kara just watched for a second, eyes locked on her sister, before finally venturing into the kitchen.

"Thanks for letting us stay," she muttered, accepting the sparkling water held out to her.

"You're always welcome here," but Kara was fiddling with her bottle cap, and even four years didn't strip Alex of her ability to read her sister.

"What's wrong? Did you not want-"

"No! No, I mean it, you guys are totally welcome. For as long as you need," Kara leaned her elbows on the counter, biting her lip. "But… why aren't you home? With Maggie and Lucy, I mean."

Alex peeled away the corner of her label, thinking about that. "I brought home a kid, Kara. And I've… changed. A lot. I can't ask them to just get on board. They need to talk about it. Think about it."

A hand was suddenly on hers, fingers touching the beginning of her wrist. "Alex, I've been with them the last year. I don't know that there is anything that can keep you three apart…. Not unless somethings changed for you."

"Nothing will ever change for me," she murmured back, thinking about the messages she'd recorded for her partners. How four years did nothing to dilute her commitment.

"Then it'll work out," ah, the sureness of a superhero. She missed the optimism – space lacked many things, including certainly.

"Ma?" Ky was leaning out of the bedroom, a hand hooked on the door frame keeping her at the odd angle. "Can I shower and crash? I'm still kinda sore."

"Course love, just say goodnight before you call it," Alex replied with a smile, watching how her kid glanced carefully at Kara before disappearing back into the room.

"She's polite."

"No, she's not," Alex laughed, putting down the bottle. "She's just letting me know that she's giving me space to have adult conversations."

"Oh…" Wide eyes glanced towards the bedroom, then back. "So… she's smart."

"That, she is." She took a heaving breath, steadying herself for what had to come next. "About the arm-"

"Hey, no," the hand was back, this time actually curling under her downturned palm. "You don't have to tell me anything until you're ready."

"It's okay," Alex pulled back her hand, sitting properly in the chair so she could maneuver off the jacket she'd thrown on instead of her armor. Left in just her T-shirt, she rolled up the remaining sleeve. Placing her bad hand on the countertop, she clenched her fist slowly. Once. Twice. A third time.

"I was in an accident a couple years ago… It was mechanical failure. I had to fix something in our engine room while we were doing some dangerous flying. I ah… had my arm under the engine when it collapsed," she flexed her jaw. Kara's eyes did that thing where she was trying not to cry.

"I was trapped there for over an hour before anyone could come. My hand was completely shattered, and a metal rod went right through my forearm. I ah…" Alex swallowed against her own tears. She'd have to tell this story many more times in her near future. Better get better at it. "I was lucky I didn't bleed out. And even luckier that my medics saved a lot of my arm. And it's a miracle that Dryl is who he is."

She hesitated, her sights locked on what looked like a perfectly normal limb, on a perfectly normal person. She closed her eyes, engaging with her neural chip. And she took a long slow breath when she opened them, the cloaking tech disengaging. She didn't look at Kara, instead she watched as the tech gradually disengaged.

The tips of her fingers returning to their naturally detailed metal look, the rods of her fingers appearing. The darker metal that made up the joints and the back of her hand, and the wrist that looked more like a joy-stick mechanism then anything human based. Then finally her forearm and elbow, the longer shafts of metal which made up the strength required to function – including the mechanisms built around her elbow for support.

She even, in the spirit of getting this over with, allowed the patchwork on her skin to become visible – the places where Dryl had to restructure her actual anatomy so she had a hope of a functional arm. The places where she was now alien.

"Whoa," Kara breathed, hands twitching as if she wanted to reach out. To do what, Alex wasn't sure.

"I know its… a lot," Alex muttered, wincing as something still busted in the tech fired up a nerve.

"Does it still hurt?" Her eyes were watery and locked on the metal.

"Sometimes, yeah. I need to get Dryl to do a maintenance, I think I busted something in the fight. But also… sometimes it just hurts, because my arm still hurts under it all."

"Under it all?"

Alex felt her leg start to bounce on the stool's rungs but fought the urge to run. She felt her jaw protesting from how hard she clenched it.

"Um, yeah. Vik saved a lot of my arm, and Dryl used his tech and… DNA to preserve its functionality. But the prosthetic isn't fused to me," swallowing her own feeling about the whole thing, Alex reached around with her good arm, feeling for the slight grooves where three of her fingers could press into just above the elbow.

She held for a moment, eyes still distinctly not looking at her sister. In her head, there was a series of beeps – the chip letting her know that it was safe to disengage.

The prosthetic became deadweight the moment she removed her fingertips. She could suddenly feel the pull of it on her stump, feel how it wasn't part of her anymore. Carefully, feeling the limb was still bruised for her fight today (was that really today?), she pulled the arm gently from her.

Alex gritted her teeth against any exclamation of pain as the arm came away. She still hadn't looked up, but eventually the prosthetic was placed to the side of the counter. Leaving just the scarred, metal-riddled remains of her human arm.

"Dryl's from Tormock," Kara murmured, hands still twitching, rage burning in her chest, but voice soft. Eyes softer. Alex nodded, still not looking up – eyes fixed on the devastated remains of her body. "Alex, look at me."

It took a second. A second of burning eyes, still thinking about the longest hour of her life where she really thought she was going to die. Alone. In an engine room, millions of miles from her family.

She looked up.

Kara had set her eyes on Alex's now, no longer looking at the damage done to her sister – not thinking about the past right now because there would be plenty of time for that. Plenty of time to agonize over what was, what could have been. But Alex's pain and fear were seeping out of her like a toxin. And this was her only opportunity to react for the first time.

"Alex, nothing that happened to you out there is going to change how I, or anyone else, sees you." She kept her voice gentle, and eyes kind, but firm. There could be no room for misunderstanding this time. "This," she gestured at the arm now resting on her kitchen counter. "You," she nodded at her sister who was fighting against the urge to hunch over. "Are still beautiful and amazing and if anyone has anything else to say about it, they can take it up with me."

Alex managed half a smile, eyes flickering to where her arm just… ended. Even three years later, she was still sometimes surprised by the absence. When she traced her eyes over her bicep, down to her elbow then, just a few inches of her forearm remained... then nothing. A slightly rounded off stump, more often painful than not.

She tried to keep the prosthetic off when it wasn't necessary – the pinched nerve gets aggravated by the strain – but she'd yet to truly get used to it.

"Um…" Kara shifted her weight, eyes suspiciously looking anywhere but Alex's now.

"You want to ask about the eye."

"No!" she adjusted her glasses – dead giveaway. Alex just arched an eyebrow until Kara gave up, smiling apologetically. "Only if you're comfortable though."

"It was removed during a raid," this, Alex found easier. The eye wasn't something separate from her anymore. It didn't get removed (unless damaged), and it mostly functioned as a regular eye. It was her arm that made her different (a darker voice in her head added broken). Plus, talking battle wounds was more comfortable territory for her. "Forcibly. I control it via a neural chip, though it had to be reconfigured for that purpose."

Kara hesitated, considering whether to approach the bigger, scarier question. And deciding against it. "You can see fine?"

"I don't even need a prescription for it," Alex smiled just around the edges. "Which is good, because I haven't had accesses to contacts or glasses for years. I rely on the artificial one to read almost exclusively."

"Then why are you always squinting with your good eye?" Alex had been sharing a room with Ky for literal years. And the Exodus wasn't a particularly big ship. So, having a teenager phase through walls to get to you faster really no longer surprised her.

Kara, on the other hand, literally put her hand through the ledge of the counter. The crunch and crash making Ky take a hard step back.

"Sorry! I… ah…" Ky looked at Alex with wide eyes, looking for advice on how to handle scaring your superpowered aunt so bad she caused destruction in her own home.

"No! I'm sorry! I just didn't expect you, is all," Kara stuttered, brushing the crumbled marble from her hands awkwardly.

Ky winced, looking between the sisters, in her Exodus stamped sweats and an old t-shirt.

Alex just chucked to herself, gesturing for Ky to come over. "Good shower?"

Ky hesitated for a moment before walking over to her mother, eyes still flickering to the Kryptonian who was trying to appear casual. Leaning against the counter that she had just crushed, she adjusted her glasses. Looking the picture of panicked, to be honest.

"Yeah," she mumbled, dragging a hand through still damp hair. "It's nice. Not having recycled water for a change."

"I can't wait," Alex grinned, tugging the girl over when she was in arms reach, for a hug. Still seated, so Ky had to step between her legs, she let her mother hold her for just a second too long to be casual. Eventually she pulled back, keeping her only available hand on her daughters' arm, resting her other on her thigh. "How's your breathing?"

"I'm fine," she said, rolling her eyes. Alex suppressed another smile at the attitude.

"No, you aren't," she tucked some hair behind her ear. "But you will be, after some rest. I'll join you a little later."

Ky didn't move though, gnawing on the inside of her lip while her eyes flickered between the women. "Am uą safe to xpadżąv ęli?" Am I safe to sleep here?

Alex's fingers flexed around her arm, jaw tightening for just a moment. The very fact that this was a question to be asked hurt.

"Yeah love," she smiled as reassuringly as possible. "I'm here, Gert will stay with you, and Kara's got our backs, I swear."

Eye's flickering for just another moment, Ky nodded, accepting that her mother would keep her safe. Not really knowing how to address Kara, she just gave an awkward smile before retreating into the offered space where their pet had already made herself comfortable.

"Was that Martian?" Kara asked, finally relaxing from her awkward position.

"Yeahp."

"And she speaks Kryptonese?"

Alex looked up, really looking her sister in the eye. "Of course – she should understand where she comes from, from all sides of her person."

Kara's eyes watered, just a little, but she was smiling.

"Plus, Kryptonese was more useful to speak for the first few years. English is basically useless, and we all had to adjust. I was lucky to have any second non-Earth language – Ky only had rudimentary Spanish to work with."

"Motherhood looks good on you."

Alex laughed, taking back her drink. Kara didn't miss how naturally she twisted the top with just the one available hand. "She… she was the best thing to come out of the last four years. I honestly don't know what kind of person I'd be without her." Alex paused, scratching at her undercut, eyes wondering.

"Actually - this," she waved her amputated arm for a moment. "Happened because… because I didn't think my life was worth as much as anyone else on the crew. I thought… I felt guilty because of Jeremiah and not stopping the ship – So I volunteered to do something I knew was dangerous." She paused, her mouth twisting as she considered how to express herself. "And I got hurt."

She rubbed at the forearm left below her elbow, feeling the muscles protest. "She wasn't… mine yet. Or, she was, but we'd never talked about it. Afterwards," Alex suddenly smiled; eyes wistful. "Afterwards, people told me that they thought I'd taken her on months earlier. But we'd never made anything official. Anyway," she shook her head, suddenly more somber. "I was laid up for a while, and I had to get the neural chip calibrated a bunch. Which isn't pleasant, but what did it matter? I deserved it." Kara bit her tongue hard enough to hurt, but didn't interrupt, sensing this was going somewhere.

"But one session, Ky just forces her way into the infirmary – phased right through the wall, into my room. Dryl told her to leave, that she shouldn't be there. But Ky just set her jaw and squared up to this guy who had like two feet on her, and fifty pounds. And you know what she said?"

Rhetorical, but Kara still shook her head, leaning into Alex's suddenly intense eye contact. "She looked him in the eye and said 'I'm the aonah im zhehd zhor [Daughter of her Heart],' so she should be allowed to stay in the room, even if I was hurting. I… don't even know where she came up with that phrase, but she's used it ever since."

"I… could have lost myself, up there. There was so much distance. And every time we thought we were making progress, something would happen – a raid or a kidnapping or-" shaking her head, Alex pushed on. "But Ky? She gave me something to live for on the ship. I don't know what I would be if the only thing keeping me going was getting back here. I… I don't know what I would have become if I only had that to hold on to. As it is… I'm not sure I'm the same person."

Kara allowed the silence to settle in the room for a moment. Mind whirling around the Kryptonese and her sister's pain and the teenager sleeping just a wall away.

She reached out, touching the tips of her fingers to Alex's cheek, before responding. "As I said, motherhood looks really good on you."

Maggie's keys missed the bowl after she stepped into the apartment. They clanged, loudly, against the glass topped table they kept by the door for this very reason. The sound reverberated in her head for a second, holding her in place, until Lucy's hand on the small of her back urged her forward.

They hadn't really spoken. Not since they'd watched Alex, Kara and Ky leave the DEO, dog in tow. It had taken some wrangling, but Alex had gotten her pilot to settle the ship above the DEO, still cloaked. Meanwhile, a third of the crew had disembarked, off to find their own families. Lucy had not missed the way Alex checked everyone had their comms before they left.

But Lucy and Maggie hadn't really spoken to each other. J'onn was dealing with the fact that his father was around and dealing with some trauma. Thus, Lucy had been tasked with organizing the mayhem of settling the ship. Winn was still dealing with the destruction from the fight, and Maggie had to co-ordinate and check in her with Captain. She also had to get a unit to pick up her car, which was still abandoned by the scene.

But Maggie's car had been retrieved, and the ship had been settled, and Alex had pulled them aside, just for a minute.

"I'm gonna go home with Kara tonight. I want to give you guys some time to think about… everything. And you can just let me know when… if you want to talk, okay? No pressure."

Which felt insane. Having Alex right there. Fingers grazing their arms as she spoke softly, intimately. Touching their arms and cheeks and all around being the tactile dork she was when she missed someone. And then she kissed them both softly, breathing in their space for a moment, before she left. Without them.

"Come on," Lucy murmured, leading her deeper into their apartment. Alex's apartment.

Lucy got her settled on the couch – sitting down on the coffee table in front of her as she pulled one of Maggie's feet into her lap, untying her boots.

"How are you feeling?"

"Um… shocked?" Maggie tried, not really able to articulate everything going on in her chest at the moment.

"It was a lot," Lucy nodded, now pulling up the laces and sliding the boot away. "Are you upset that she didn't come home?" She put the foot down and reached for the other – focusing on the task to make it slightly easier to talk.

"A little," she admitted, biting the inside of her cheek as she tried to deconstruct her scrambled emotions. "But I get it."

"Where would we even put a teenager?" Lucy muttered, pulling up the laces on the second shoe, a little rougher.

"Is that what's catching you?"

"Yes," she pulled up another lace. "No. I don't know." She exhaled, now pulling the shoe off and dropping it to the floor with a thud. "A lot just happened in a small amount of time."

"But Ky's what's tangling you up?" Maggie asked, not pulling her leg away from Lucy's lap, her fingers automatically kneading at the sole of her foot. She still hadn't looked up to make eye contact.

"Is it not with you?"

Maggie shrugged, trying to identify what about it wasn't catching her. What about Ky that didn't scare her as much as she would have thought. "If she'd come home with a toddler or something, sure. That would be a different ball game. But I don't know…" she sighed, pulling her foot away so she could lean closer to Lucy, fingers inches from Lucy's knee's. "It would be an adjustment, but I think we could make it work."

"You think we could make a teenage alien work? In this apartment?" Lucy asked, arching her eyebrows, looking around the stupidly open plan space.

Maggie half smiled but nodded in agreement. "We'd probably have to move."

"And you're ready for that? Uprooting our entire lives for an Alex that has been gone, by her estimation, four years?"

"You're worried she's changed."

"She has."

A silence. Long, but not anxious. More like they were both thinking back through the day. How Alex had been more affectionate in public then they'd ever seen, how she'd gravitated so hard around a teenager. How she had such a comradery with the aliens that she spoke to – how she looked after them like they were her own.

Even suggesting they go away and think about this before jumping in – the old Alex would have dived without checking if the water was deep enough.

"I'm not sure it's all for the worse though," Lucy muttered, scrubbing at her face. Her headache was back, and she'd just gotten rid of it.

"We'll figure it out Luce," Maggie offered, fingers finally bridging the gap between them, pressing into her jeans. She rubbed the thumb over the material, smiling up at the Director, knowing what was really at the core of her fear. "Together."

Alex had finally retired to bed, commenting on how much sleep debt she'd raked up. She'd taken a long shower and had made sure to come back out and hug Kara one last long, lingering time, before crawling into bed – carefully maneuvering around her kid and the dog that was laying along the bottom.

And Kara had grabbed a change of clothes, and an extra blanket and set up on the couch. But she hadn't even attempted the illusion of just going to sleep – instead she'd curled up in the middle of the couch, eyes locked on the gap between the curtains separating the bedroom and listened to her heart.

Hers and Ky's. Just listened to them beat. And when that wasn't enough, listened to them breath. And just stared. Because she felt like, if she relaxed for even one second, Alex would vanish, and she would have to wake up to another kind of living nightmare.

She was so focused on sounds, when her phone went off she almost crushed hit in surprise – It sounded like a cannon going off in her ear.

It was a message into the 'Sister's' group chat.

Maggie (23:39): Hey Little Danvers – you holding up okay?

Kara just stared at the screen. Her eyes flicked between the Sister's header and the visible chain of their last conversation – she'd been asking about Lucy's headache. Offered to come by with dinner. Maggie had responded that she never needed an excuse to come home.

Kara (23:43): I can't sleep.

Maggie (23:44): What's keeping you up?

Kara (23:50): I'm scared, I think

Maggie (23:51): Of?

Kara (23:52): Losing her.

Kara (23:53): Losing you

Kara (23:53): And Lucy.

A long pause followed, and then her phone screen lit up with a facetime call. Lucy.

"Hey," Kara kept her voice low, aware of the sleeping pair just meters away, without a door separating them.

"Hey LD," Maggie murmured, head resting on Lucy's shoulder. They were sitting up, framed by the bed frame, both smiling softly into the lens.

"What's this about losing us?" Lucy asked, eyebrows lifting just at the corners.

Kara didn't immediately respond, eyes drawn back to the sleeping figures in the next room. "Alex is back."

"What, you thinking about dropping the new and improved sisters, just because the original returned?" Kara could hear the whack of Maggie smacking Lucy for the comment, but she didn't take it back, eyes locked on to the screen challengingly.

Kara's eyes widened, horrified. "No! Of course not!" She whisper-yells back.

Kara shoulda smelled the lawyer's trap. "Then why do you think we'd do the same?" Long pause, where Kara just bit her lip, eyes still occasionally darting to the bedroom. "Kara, regardless of what happens between us and Alex, we are always going to be your family, okay?"

Kara nodded, but fear lurked behind her eyes.

"LD, you're our sister," Maggie smiled. "Nothing is going to change that. You will always have a home with us. We love you."

Kara found herself smiling, something settling in her chest enough that she relaxed, just an inch. "I love you guys too."