"To find your way home you must face three tests."
"Shocker." Alex sniffed hugging the pillow she'd borrowed from her son's room closer as she mouthed the following list along with the cartooned figure now fading away on the screen.
"Horror, Adventure, and Fantasy."
Alex hiccupped a laugh on the last one as she fumbled for the beer bottle, she'd been nursing slowly ever since she'd allowed her sisters to fly her son to his hastily decided two-day and three-night stay with his grandmother. "Too bad, there's not a book to tell me how to apologize to my son." She sighs taking a large mouthful of beer at the call "and remember this, when in doubt… Look to the books." From the still playing movie.
Her more rational mind reminded her bluntly and in a tone he immediately knew to be that of her mother's more strict tone that actually books on talking with your children are available if she'd stop her wallowing long enough to look them up. As it was Alex only quiets that inner voice with another gulped sip of beer. "Just like with Maggie all over again." She sniffed once again hiding her tears against her son's pillow as her shoulder shook in quiet sobs.
"Alex."
She didn't bother acknowledging the sound of her name as Linda rather than Kara sweeps back through the window as she swallows another smaller mouthful of her chosen drink her red-rimmed eyes fixed on the glowing tv screen in the otherwise darkened apartment.
The newly arrived blonde gave a sympathetic pout into the darkness as she looked between Alex's preferred 'bad day' movie and the curled crying outline of her tough as nails big sister, but rather than press for conversation Linda lets out a long-taken breath as if quietly weighing some kind of options Alex didn't know before her youngest sister moves to fish a glass from the cabinet to fill with water, then push the thing into Alex's suddenly beer free hand with a whispered: "Drink." As the blonde sits down on the other side of the sofa.
Anyone who truly knew Alex Danvers knows this movie was saved for the handful of times the eldest Danvers sister truly felt… broken.
"Ryan hates me." Alex whimpers as if proving Linda's unspoken point for her as she maneuvers herself until she (Alex) was able to lay down across the cushions. Her head was now pillowed against her younger sister's lap with Ryan's pillow hugged tight against her chest as the movie continued playing.
One of the few Alex remembers seeing in theaters with her father Pagemaster had turned out to be the last the father and daughter had been able to share before Jeremiah Danvers's workload had become too great for the father to get away as easily.
Even the family trip a year later when Alex turned six to Japan had been work-related for Alex's scientist parents leaving the little girl feeling lonely enough to start her saddened tradition of trying in her own way to hold on to some of the happier times of her young life.
"No, he doesn't." Linda denies the same time the odd group of animated books and the cartooned human boy made their way into the aptly named 'Land of Adventure' as her fingers card thought her sister's messy tangles in the low glow of the still playing movie. Once again sending a quiet thanks to Eliza flatly forbidding Kara from coming anywhere near Alex's apartment the rest of the night.
Kara herself giving a pained agreement considering she didn't trust herself to keep Ryan's plans for their sister's birthday secret in the face of Alex's broken state.
Only one other time had the twins witnessed their elder sister as broken as she had been when after a tight hug from Ryan the little boy had asked his still shocked mother for permission to spend not only the night but the next few days in Midvale with Eliza.
The day Maggie had stopped returning any of Alex's attempts to reach out to her. Her letters returned unopened. Her phone calls were unanswered due to a change in the number she'd been given as Maggie's own by the girl's father as the younger Alex and Maggie embraced for what none at the time knew to be the last time.
If it wasn't for Alex's outright refusal to hand them over Kara and Linda would have proudly burnt each one of Maggie's letters before the two had met to ashes. Gertrude too if they'd been able. As it was the twin alien siblings held their shared fury back at their sister's sobbed "They're all I have left of her you want to take them from me too?" as Alex held the box Maggie's letters were held in so close to her chest it seemed the crying young woman tittering on the edge of her teenaged years was attempting to push the thing into herself by holding on tight enough.
"Then why did he ask to leave?" Alex sniffed at the same time she gives a watery chuckle at the introduction to the character 'Horror" played on the screen. Her favorite of all the 'books' the movie offered.
"RyRy knows how hard you've been working these last weeks, Alex." Linda sighs once again unintentionally braiding a few more strands of her older sister's hair as she talks. "but he's also been missing his Grams and we all know Eliza misses him too." She goes on.
The upset woman laying across the super's lap can tell Linda was keeping something else from her but unlike Kara, Linda had a better poker face. Probably why their mother had sent her in Kara's place to offer the upset young mother comfort.
"It's just for a few days Alex, not forever." Linda tries to soothe and Alex can tell just from the still of her sister's hands against her scalp that Linda was close to breaking. The slight tremble of her fingers was a slight but noticeable giveaway to the quiet battle in the blonde's mind.
Any thoughts of asking just what it was the super was trying to keep from her stalled when the sounds of a low but noticeable alarm rings out thought the quiet apartment.
The sound bringing one close to amused tears whilst the other tensed in alert.
"I forgot to warn you and Kar I changed Mom's ring tone on my phone." Alex calms the same moment the alarm-like ring drops to a recorded 'Warning, warning it's your mother calling' message before the tone lopped back the longer the phone buzzed across the table next to the locked front door. In the same spot Alex as dropped the device along with her keys to ready herself for the much-needed tackled hug from her son after a hard day of even the most basic of sidelined jobs the DEO offered. Her favored sidearm already passed off to one of her following sisters before the door had even opened.
"HaHa." Linda grumbles putting some extra zip in her steps as she speeds over to grab the thing before it vibrated itself off the small table it had been left on. "Now talk to mother."
"I don't…." Alex pouts as the phone was pushed into her hand
"Tough." Her sister scoffed tapping the accept call button a second before the call was dropped to voicemail.
Alex only glares into the low darkness as she gives a stiff "Hi, Mom." Into the receiver. Linda already smiling proudly from the other side of the couch. She really didn't want to do this right now. Even if it was close to Ryan's bedtime and she really did want to check on him. Alex also didn't want to push him given how quiet he'd been after her surprising acceptance of his request to leave.
"Hi, Mama."
All Alex's earlier fatigue and a little of her sadness fade at the cheerful yet tired note of her son's greeting tone.
"RyRy."
"Why are you sad Mama?" Ryan probes after a millisecond of a pause fall over the open phone line.
Rather than lie to her son Alex gives a partial answer with "I've been watching a movie since you left, kiddo. It's too quiet here without you, and this movie well it's kind of sad in places."
"Hook?" Ryan guesses curiously.
"No, a different one." Alex answers. "It's called the Pagemaster. I saw it once with my dad when I was about your age."
"Oh." Ryan answers and even over the phone Alex can tell her son wants to say something more on the subject but instead, he follows the interjection with a suggestive. "you should watch something else before bedtime Mama. Something happy. What about the Mouse Detective?" her son offers "or Glee." He adds earning mirrored laughter from the twin Kryptonians listening in on the call.
Alex to feels a fond smile curling her lips when she remembers her son's instance that one of the newer characters on the singing show looks similar to his newly gained aunts. Linda and Kara both gave similar responses of "I don't see it" even when Alex had found a song clip with the character in question for evidence. Alex herself instantly regretted the teasing act considering that for the rest of the day she'd had that annoying Miley Cyrus song stuck in her head.
"Hey Ry, wanna see Mama in her punk phase?"
Alex immediately pales at the playful call with a warning. "Kara, don't you dare." That only makes her other sister laugh harder.
"Behave Kara." Eliza sighs but Alex can hear a not-so-hushed "but keep that one. She looks so proud in that one."
"Mom." Alex huffed
"Annie Kara, how much now?" Ryan asks pulling his listening mother's attention from her own mother's attempts to embarrass her with pictures of her younger years.
"How much what baby?" Alex wonders
"Nothing." Ryan says too quickly for the young mother to believe him.
"Ryan what did we say about lying to your family?" Alex reminds.
"Give me the phone RyRy," Eliza coaxes at the obvious sounds of the younger boy's anxious breathing on the other end of the call. "and how about you and Kara go work out the math in the kitchen while Mama and I talk, okay?" The grandmotherly woman soothes, and Alex can tell just by her tone the other woman was currently running a hand through her grandson's hair before adding a suggestive "and maybe if you ask nicely you can help her eat up a few more cookies before you brush your teeth for the night."
"What math Mom? What are you talking about?" Alex questions with a tired yawn.
"Do you not remember a rather important day coming up in a few days, Alexandra?" her mother shoots back earning an amused grin from Linda who'd been quietly scrolling Alex's streaming channels for something else to watch.
"Um…" was all Alex could come up with until her eyes find the hockey match Linda had seemed to have settled on for the moment when her rumbling stomach had paused her endless channel surfing. "No?"
It was only when Linda starts humming a few notes of 'Happy Birthday' under her breath when she comes back to the couch that Alex remembers in a panic. "Crap Mom, did I forget your birthday?"
Eliza and Kara both laugh aloud at this but only one answers her hurried question. "No Alex, you didn't miss my birthday."
"Well, it's not Dad's or Kara's, or Lin's or Ryan's." Alex lists off confusion crinkling her brow as she swirls what was left of her beer around the bottom of the bottle. "and it's no were near J'onn's, or Vaz's." she continues then her eyes find the picture she'd carried over with her in her upset sulking. "Is it Maggie's already?"
At this Eliza chuckles "alright obviously you need to get some actual sleep, Alexandra." She decides then gives a much more directing "Linda dear mind helping me put your older sister to bed?"
"Make sure Mama brushes her teeth first." Ryan reminds from the kitchen. "and have Auntie Lin check for monsters." He adds nothing but honest worry in his young voice.
Rather than argue Alex can already feel her eyes droop in agreeing answer to the thought of sleep despite her husky "Not tired." As she struggles against the fatigue creeping up on her over the sounds of her son's "but didn't we add that other one from the bigger number?" as the phone was carried into the kitchen.
Alex barely heard Ryan's following "Night, night Mama." Or did she notice when the aged picture of her and Maggie's younger selves was propped up against one of the framed pictures of Alex and her son on the small table regardless of her sleepy "Night Mags." At the same time, her head burrowed into her son's stolen pillow as her sister tugged a blanket over her shoulders.