A/N: Thanks for sticking with me and thank you to the guest who sent in today's prompt: time is altered and now Alex doesn't exist/isn't Kara's sister. It's up to Kara to fix things.

Right now it's looking like this prompt will be a two part-er. But the poll has been updated, so go vote if you'd like. :)

Thanks and happy (almost) Supergirl Monday! I'm out of my mind excited for the episode, so if you want to talk feel free to message me here or on twitter :)

The streets are lit by dim lamps and DEO vans corral the area.

Her name is Kara Danvers and Alex is her sister.

These primeval truths she has known for years—repeats them at first merely to blend in, leaving a metallic thickness in their wake, until any falseness or asterisks are stripped away by time and closeness. Until Alex's position as her sister is as sure as anything Kara has ever known, more sure at times, than even Kara's own name.

Because her name… well her name changes depending on who you ask and when and where and how. But Alex? Alex is always, always there.

Alex is the one she runs to, the one she's running to when a flash of purple cracks across the night sky and the universe is whirling in Kara's ear and she can't hear her sister screaming, can't hear J'onn telling her to get away, not to touch the sparking, screeching technology dropped from an alien ship during the fight. All she knows is that Alex is always, always there, and the metal is catching fire, deep magentas and soft lavenders licking up at the dark sky and Alex is pinned under debris just a foot away from the flame.

If Kara dives she'll make it in time, will manage to wedge her body between Alex and the wailing tech.

So she does.

Kara throws herself forward, yelling her sister's name and there's a crash and a boom and the ground shakes and Kara feels the solar energy blast out in protest from her cells, feels her powers seep away and it hurts in her bones, in the pit of her stomach, in the back of her skull.

A gush of wind yanks at her hair, rattles her ribs.

Sunlight assaults her eyes when she opens them and a hand comes up to cradle her forehead before she can even think. She closes her eyes again and her body tingles like every limb is asleep, like she's run a thousand miles and her lungs can't catch up.

She blindly pushes against the ground, trying and failing to keep her eyes open, tips toward her side instead as nausea simmers in her stomach.

The axis of the world feels like it's been slanted a few degrees.

"Whoa hey, ma'am, you should probably stay lying down right now."

The voice curls inside her head, sooths something of the pounding there in its familiarity. Kara strains, eyes squeezed shut as she combs through letters in her brain, tries to put together a name to accompany this voice that she knows so well.

"Here, there you go," the voice says and Kara feels hands on her shoulders lower her back to the ground. She feels gravel press through fabric and moves to smooth her cape down beneath her. She gropes at the space above her shoulder and her eyes snap open.

There is nothing there.

She looks down, her super suit has been replaced by a pantsuit and a silk white blouse, coated in dirt and a splotch of blood.

Her heart races, beats against her ribcage. "W-what happened?" she manages and her mouth is dry, tongue against her teeth and tripping over words. She barely recognizes her own voice through the clanging in her skull and the swimming blurs of cityscape warped behind her eyes.

"There was an explosion. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but paramedics are on their way, okay? You're going to be just fine."

Kara eases upward again and tries to turn toward the voice, but the sun is too bright. It isn't supposed to be here.

These clothes are wrong.

"Can you tell me your name?"

It's supposed to be nighttime and she's supposed to be in her Supergirl suit and Alex is… "Alex!" she chokes out, eyes darting around the scene. She can't find her sister, can't find a DEO van in sight, or the alien ship they'd been fighting.

Her breath picks up in her lungs.

"Okay, Alex, well I—"

"No!" She shakes her head and her stomach lurches in protest. " 's my sister."

"Alex is your sister? We can have the hospital call for her. Can I get your name?"

"Kara," she says and her eyelids fall closed, voice slurring because if she isn't Supergirl then there's only one other person she can be. "Kara D-"

Her eyes are closed but colors are spinning behind them, she falls backward.

"Hey careful, stay with me all right, kid?" The woman reaches for her hand, gives it a gentle squeeze. "Just a few more minutes."

"Kar-Kara Danvers."

Maggie.

Kara fights her mouth to stay open at the revelation but it won't and the thought is too heavy and a wayward tear streams forward and consciousness fleets from her as easily, as seamlessly and inevitably, as daytime into night.

The other woman's brows crease in confusion and she lets go of the hand, an ice cold chill sprints down and settles in her core as she turns to spot one of her colleagues. "How far out is that ambulance? I think we're dealing with a TBI… or something… something else, something more maybe."

"Less than a minute, Detective Sawyer."

/

"What have we got?" she asks and an intern falls in step at her side, tilting a clipboard in her direction.

Their steps sync, echoing through the bustling hospital corridor.

"Twenty six year old female, likely TBI, some signs of retrograde amnesia, came in from the explosion just a few blocks over. Detective Sawyer was the one who called it in."

"Oh really?"

"Yep. She was on scene, there was extraterrestrial activity associated with the incident. Patient was unconscious upon arrival but shows signs of waking."

"Hmm, charts?"

The intern hands over the papers as they turn a corner.

"Thanks."

In the room at the end of the hall, bright lights bleed into Kara's consciousness for the second time that day. Kara hears her sister's presence before she feels or sees it. The gentle hum greets her ears, floats above the rest of the hospital clatter and rouses the blonde from sleep.

Kara shifts and the ache in her head forces her eyes back closed, tells her that her powers are still lacking.

"Huh… interesting." The woman pauses outside the door and looks up. "Did Sawyer tell you this?" She drags her finger across the line at the bottom of the page in the box titled 'notes.'

The intern murmurs the end to herself. "Given name didn't match ID on person'… Yeah she's the one that heard it along with a bunch of other weird shit the patient was mumbling got a cousin we don't know about, Dr. Danvers?"

Alex laughs, tucks a loose strand of hair behind her own ear and passes the clipboard back. "Guess we're about to find out, has her family been contacted yet?"

"Other than you?" The intern gives a cheeky grin and Alex rolls her eyes.

"Funny."

Kara's heart sinks with the weight of planetary gravity, screams inside her chest and she bites her bottom lip to fend off tears.

Something is wrong, wrong, wrong.

"They're working on it right now," the intern relents and reaches for the door. "You ready?"

Alex nods. "Let's see what we can do."

Kara sucks in a deep breath and watches her heartrate climb on the monitor, and when the door opens, the pain in Kara's head is nothing to catch sight of her favorite person in the universe. With her standing there, cracking open the door with a soft smile and lab coat over her shoulders, Kara can only think I love you, I love you, I love you.

Alex freezes in the doorframe as something intangible washes over her, as images under her consciousness beats up against her brain: a flicker of sunshine through a window looking down at someone; something soft and blue beneath her fingers, a person pressed warm against her side.

"—for real, Dr. Danvers?"

"Huh?" she whispers back.

"You know her?"

Alex shakes her head, crinkles her brow in a way that parallels the blonde lying in the bed across from her. "No." She dismisses the sentiment and steps into the room, closing the door behind her.

"Hi," she makes her way toward the hospital bed, trying to shake the nagging inside her. "I'm Dr. Danvers, I'll be taking care of you, okay?"

Kara nods and swallows a watery laugh because some things never change—not in different universes or timelines or whatever the hell this is. She shakes her sister's outstretched hand and just barely manages to choke out a "Kara" because the hand feels almost the same, warm and slightly smaller than Kara's. But it lacks callouses from weapons and DEO training, callouses that had to form because of Kara.

Her finger grazes the cool metal band of a ring and her eyes snap upward to the ID badge dangling from Alex's lab coat. Her heart lifts at the picture smiling back at her and beneath it: Dr. Alex Danvers-Sawyer.

She bites the inside of her cheek, tears rising.

"Hey, it's okay." Alex's hand settles on her shoulder and it's the same, it's the same. It's all the same but it's not. "I heard you've been having some memory problems, right?"

Kara shrugs and drops her gaze because she can't look into those familiar brown eyes any longer.

"Well don't worry, you're in good hands. We're going to run a few tests, check for a concussion among other things, so just let me know if you have any questions while we go or if anything's not feeling good."

Kara nods, no longer trusting her words.

It's over two hours later when she's alone in the room again. She twists the edge of the hospital sheet, draws it up toward her face and brushes it across her cheeks, her nose, because it smells faintly of Alex and if Kara closes her eyes for a single piece of a second, she's home.

A knock on the doorframe jostles inside Kara's head and she blinks, shifting upward as she rubs her eyes. The room is shrouded in the blue shadows of dusk and without meaning to, she'd slept for hours.

"Kara?" A nurse cracks open the door and pops her head in. "We got in contact with your family, you up for visitors?"

Kara nods, straightening her posture to try and look over the woman's shoulder. "She'll be here in a minute," the nurse says. "I just have to go grab her from the waiting area."

Kara gives a small tilt of her chin and twirls the hem of the blanket between her thumb and pointer finger, rubs the fabric back and forth until the friction breeds heat and pinkness.

The door swings closed and when it opens moments later Kara feels her whole world crumble and crack in her chest. Her fingers freeze and her knuckles go white gripping the hospital sheet and her voice is heavy.

She chokes over her words and coughs.

Her eyes are wet before she can even blink.

"Aunt Astra?"