Notes: Someone recognized me from my old "House" days and wondered how I'd been, so I'll give a short recap. The main reason for my disappearance from the fanfic world was the arrival of my gorgeous twin boys who are just about to turn seven years old. Twin boys take quite a bit of time and attention as you might imagine! We had all been very happy and I am now excited to be writing again. As for a third novel in the "Saints and Saviors" universe, I do still think about it. I would love to complete it and round it out to a trilogy.
CHAPTER THREE
Alex Danvers was no stranger to injuries. From stitches at age seven from jumping down the stairs and slamming her head into the wall, to a broken ankle at age ten after a bad fall from her bike while daring another kid to take the jump in the old quarry near the school, to a broken arm from a too exuberant and then horribly guilt-ridden sister at age fourteen, she'd collected scars and bruises with regularity and that hadn't stopped when she'd joined the DEO. But as she slowly came back to herself, lying in med bay one, under the drone of fluorescent lights and the light weight against her shoulder, she couldn't ever remember being in such bone-deep pain. Apparently being shocked to rigor multiple times was worse than running a triathlon with no training. And poorly fitting sneakers. While carrying a hundred pound pack.
The pain seemed worst in her limbs and, strangely, the intense headache pounding behind her eyes and as she slowly opened them, she started to let out a low groan, but quickly stifled it. She'd seen the soft curl of her sister's hair draped across her chest and long-held practice kept her from wanting to disturb the other woman. Instead she took slow, deep breaths in through her nose until the pain slowly ebbed to a more tolerable level, and carefully turned her head slightly to the right and left, trying to gauge how many machines she was attached to and how long it was going to take her to convince Kara - and J'onn - that she was fine. Quite a while, she was guessing.
She tried to move slightly, to judge just exactly what was broken, but the slight movement caused enough pain to steal her breath with a gasp, which of course woke up the blonde Kryptonian currently sharing her pillow.
"Alex!" Kara sprang totally awake in less than five seconds and immediately started looking her sister over for signs of pain and discomfort.
Looking at her sister, Alex was stunned. The preternaturally peppy and bright woman looked as if she had been through the wringer. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes, which Alex had never seen before, and her hair looked dull and her her expression was one of bone-weary fatigue.
Alex tried to clear her throat, and Kara was there instantly with a glass of water from the little hospital tray table.
"Go slow," she advised, helping to hold the cup when Alex's hand shook.
After a few small sips and a long breath, Alex finally licked her dry lips and spoke.
"How long?" was all she said.
"Two days," Kara replied, looking down at the bed, and then at the IV line, but never at Alex's face.
Alex nodded, processing that news while simultaneously trying to figure out just how injured she was and why Kara wouldn't look at her.
"Wanna tell me what all the wires are for and why they kept me asleep for so long?"
Kara shook her head. "I should get J'onn. He can explain everything better," she said, and before Alex could stop her, the woman was out the door.
With a huffed out breath, Alex blew the hair out of her eyes. Then she sighed resignedly. This was not going to be one of her easier recoveries.
Only a few minutes passed before a firm knock on the door let her know that J'onn had arrived.
"C'mon in," she said, none too loudly because she was afraid that calling out would make her cough and she had a feeling that would be extremely unpleasant with all of her muscles currently rebelling against her.
Either Martian hearing was very good, or he simply wasn't going to go away without speaking to her, because the door opened and J'onn walked in. He looked almost as tired and harried as Kara.
"It's good to see you awake," he said with a smile. "The doctors weren't sure if you would come out of sedation before noontime."
"Yeah, well, you know me. I don't like to lie around."
J'onn chuckled. "Yes, that I am well aware of." He turned more serious as he sat down in the chair Kara had recently vacated. "Kara told me you wanted to see me right away. Not that I wouldn't have come the minute I knew you were awake anyway."
Alex wanted to roll her eyes at her little sister's avoidance technique, but her head was still pounding and she just wanted to know what was going on.
"More like I want to know what the damage is, and Kara wouldn't tell me. Or look at me, for that matter." A sudden thought occurred to her, and her eyes widened in a show of alarm. "It isn't about what happened with Astra, is it?" she asked in a rush. "She told me she already knew and already forgave me, but maybe - "
J'onn waved his hand to stop her. "It's nothing like that," he assured her. "She's just feeling... Well, you'll have to talk to you herself about what she's feeling."
"I'd rather talk to you so I don't have to make her cry, because I know her, and I know that's what's going to end up happening."
"Yes, well, you also said you want to know 'the damage', so pick one."
Alex squinted her eyes at him in a clear sign that she was not happy with him and not about to drop her earlier questioning, but then she answered, "Tell me what the doctors said."
Some time later, after J'onn had finished giving her the complete run-down, devoid of the soothing assurances he had given Kara, Alex sighed and turned her head to stare up at the ceiling.
"Well, that explains the full body ache, the headache and the chest pain," she quipped.
"The doctor's have been giving you a pain reliever through your IV, but they lessened the dose to facilitate bringing you out of sedation. The doctor is going to want to check you over, so you can ask for more then."
"Ugh. I hate doctors."
"Yes, well try to be nice to the ones who saved your life."
Alex looked properly ashamed as she looked back at her boss. "Yeah, I'll do that," she told him. "Now, are you going to tell me what happened with Kara? She looked horrible. Hasn't she been using her sun-bed? Did the doctors make sure there was no residual kryptonite in her wound? You know that would prevent proper healing. And has she been eating? She needs to eat to fully recharge."
She knew she was rambling, and telling J'onn things he already knew, but she found it difficult to stop and give him a chance to answer. Perhaps she didn't really want to know why Kara had acted so strangely and left her so quickly. When he gently placed a large hand on her arm, she quieted and looked down at it before meeting his gaze with trepidation.
"Your sister has been down here since you were both brought in."
"What? But she needs real sunlight!"
"Yes, well, she didn't want to leave your side. She spend half the first night recuperating on her sun-bed, and then she moved in here and wouldn't leave."
Alex looked at him in dismay and then confusion.
"She didn't seem to want to stay here once I woke up," she commented dryly.
J'onn felt the almost irresistible urge to roll his eyes in a most human-like fashion. He was definitely too old for this emotional roller coaster shit.
"And why might that be?" he asked.
"I thought maybe... she'd realized she didn't actually forgive me for... for Astra," she replied haltingly, unable to actually say the words 'murder' or 'kill' to describe what she had done, though sometimes both felt like truth to her.
With a shake of his head, J'onn helped dispel at least some of her residual fear.
"She's still more angry at me for perpetuating the lie surrounding Astra's death than at you for doing what you had to in order to save my life," he said.
"Then what? She practically ran out of here and I know she'd been crying, but she wouldn't talk to me or even look at me."
Resisting the urge to shake some sense into the woman he viewed as almost a daughter, he instead looked directly into her eyes before speaking.
"What other reasons do you think your superhero sister with a survivor's guilt and a tendency to take responsibility for everything would have for feeling like she should avoid her seriously injured sister?"
His response was about as subtle as a sledgehammer and Alex's eyes went wide and then took on the sad look he had recently become all too familiar with seeing on her sister's face. She was quiet for a minute, lips tightening into a firm line as she thought before speaking.
"Here's what's going to happen," she told him. "You're going to get the doctor in here so I can make him get all of these tubes and wires off of me. Then you're going to take Kara out of this place so that she can feel some real sunshine on her face. And then you are going to bring her to me so that I can talk some sense into her."
A wry little smile curled J'onn's lips. "As you wish, Agent Danvers," he said, knowing that even Supergirl wasn't going to stand a chance against her formidable human sister.