J'onn's voice in her ear was one of the best sounds she'd ever heard: "Alex, we have Jeremiah. You and Sawyer get out. Now. You've got five minutes before their security systems are back online."
She would have normally been overjoyed, been glad to get out of the most horrific place she'd ever seen; retreat, and run straight into her father's arms.
But that woman - that woman, Lena Luthor's mother, the director of the Cadmus Project - had just struck Maggie unconscious with the long side of a pipe. That woman had inflicted god knows what tortures on her father and countless others for years.
That woman had just stood, ever so casually, over Maggie's limp body and taunted, slowly, so each syllable would penetrate Alex's skin:
"The alien-loving human cop. We've been meaning to get our hands - or shall I say, our equipment - on her. Find out what it is in her pretty little brain that makes her love them so."
It was then that J'onn's voice had sounded in her ear. Then that she'd murmured, "copy", but she hadn't copied at all. Then that in a sudden rage, with a sudden yell, and a sudden spray of Luthor's blood dripping on her knuckles, Alex had the leader of Cadmus defenseless, stripped of weapons, stripped of ways out, stripped of any hope of surviving the two guns Alex was holding, one pressed against her forehead and one against the hollow of her throat.
"You'd better pray that she isn't dead," she spat, unable to yet even glance at Maggie's bleeding form. "Because if she is, I swear to god Luthor, I will end you and everyone you've ever loved. Slowly."
Luthor stayed silent, watching the woman on top of her with equal parts fear of dying and amusement at how riled she'd made Alex just by making her little friend bleed. She, too, hoped the cop wasn't dead. Because what an interesting experiment it would be to see who broke first, listening to the other scream.
But before she could open her lips to taunt Alex further - which, judging by the unchecked fury in the woman's eyes, might not have been a wise idea anyway - there was a rustling to their side, her left, Alex's right. Alex pressed the guns harder into her skin, chest still heaving, thinking the movement was from Luthor or one of her cronies slipping into the room.
It wasn't.
It was Maggie.
She was groaning slightly, and reaching a slow hand to her head. She looked wearily around her, and her eyes widened when she took in the scene beside her: Alex Danvers, straddling the leader of Cadmus, with murder in her eyes, clearly ready to unload not one, but two guns into her at point blank range.
"Danvers," she coughed, and her voice sounded like gravel. She hauled herself up on her elbows, and tried to ignore the swirl of nausea, the way everything, including the agony in Alex's eyes, was in triple.
"Maggie, are you alright?" Alex still couldn't bring herself to look at her, not with that gash on her head, the struggle to stay focused she knew she'd find in her eyes. She kept the guns firmly planted on Luthor.
"Danvers, don't pull that trigger. Those triggers."
"Why the hell not? This woman tortured my father, and she'd gladly do the same to you."
Luthor tried to speak and Alex dug her knee harder into her stomach.
"Danvers!"
"Your girlfriend wants your attention."
"Shut up!" The yell was from both of them, but Alex had yet to so much as look at Maggie.
"Danvers, look at me." The rage in Alex's eyes wouldn't leave. Maggie took a deep breath and swallowed down dizzying nausea. This wasn't how she'd imagined first using the woman's first name in front of her - and yes, she'd imagined it, too often to count - but desperate times.
"Look at me. Alex."
The sound of Maggie's lips caressing her first name like a prayer was strong enough, ragged enough, to rip Alex's eyes away from her prey.
"This is not what you do. This isn't you. You're better than this. This isn't a fair fight, Alex, and it would destroy your soul. She isn't worth that."
"But she - "
"I know, Danvers. Alex. I know. But you're better. Be better. Right now."
The instinct to survive kicked in, so Luthor uncharacteristically said nothing; just waited as she and Maggie watched Alex wage a war in her head.
The war ended with a frustrated yell that came out like a strangled roar. Maggie knew - Maggie always knew - and she lurched forward, fumbling for the zip ties in her belt. She secured Luthor's wrists and ankles before Alex, finally, released her roughly.
Maggie tried to stand, but she stumbled. Worry, and just a flash of the rage that had consumed her moments before, clouded Alex's face as she put her arm around Maggie's waist, holding her up.
"Give my regards to Jeremiah, girls," the temporarily thwarted woman cackled behind them. Maggie gripped tightly at Alex's hand, steadying her just as much as she was being steadied.
When the two of them slipped, finally, into the safety of the DEO van that would take her, at last, to her father - gone ahead in a medical evac - neither J'onn nor Kara commented on the way Alex's arm stayed locked around Maggie's waist, even after they sat down. On the way her fingers gently stroked the skin above and below and alongside Maggie's head wound, even after it had been cleaned and stitched. On the way Maggie tilted her head to rest on Alex's chest; the way Alex closed her eyes and breathed in deep, her face largely hidden in Maggie's hair. The way a faint smile passed across Maggie's lips when Alex shifted so their bodies would be even closer.
Neither J'onn nor Kara commented, but they glanced at each other several times. Each look said the same thing: No matter what happens with Cadmus, they're going to be okay. Both of them.