V: Basically Poison

Maggie tilted her head and smiled as she watched Alex listen to her heartbeat. Finally, she pulled out her hand, removed the earpieces, and checked the thermometer reading. She slumped and sighed. "Sawyer, your temperature's normal but your heart rate's elevated."

"Of course, it is!" Maggie stood and headed to the fridge. "When you got a pretty girl with her hand under your shirt, your heart's gonna race. Kinky, huh?"

"Sawyer, stop saying kinky!"

Maggie offered her a glass of water. "Calm down, Danvers. I'm fine. You're the one who doesn't seem fine." She noticed the slight tremble in Alex's hands so she held them and warmed them with hers. "Your hands are cold. Breathe. Tell me what happened."

Alex squeezed Maggie's hands for support and talked fast. "I might've spiked your drink last night with Kryptonian poison but I don't want you to die."

"WHAT?!" Maggie had let go of her hands in reflex. "Did I hear it-,"

"I'm sorry! It-it was j-just a replica toy. I thought it meant gassing potion but then Supergirl confirmed that it meant Poison Juice, oh my god I am so sorry. I'll take you to the DEO and we'll run a full workup on you. Don't worry, Maggie." Alex breathing got ragged.

The cop simply smiled.

"I might have or might have not poisoned your system and you're smiling at me?" Alex felt her mouth getting dry.

"You called me Maggie. You never called me Maggie." She held her shoulders and looked her in the eye. "Calm down. You said it yourself: it was just a toy. And I'm fine." Maggie didn't feel any sickness or discomfort all day, and this gave her the assurance that Alex was simply overreacting.

"For now."

"Well, I know I'm gonna be safe and great, because you're here… and the rest of the DEO."

Alex took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I spiked your drink. I was drunk."

Maggie chuckled. "That's a topic for another day. You're tired. You should go home."

"I won't be able to sleep. Can I stay here for the night? I'll check your vitals every hour until morning… just to make sure."

"On one condition, Danvers."

"Anything."

Maggie folded her hands and smirked. "You let me make us my grandma's White Tea mix."

Alex quirked a brow. "Sure? I mean, yes, okay." She sat at the couch and laid back to calm her nerves. Maggie came back with a cup of tea. Alex sniffed the aroma and this alone caused her every muscle to relax. She sat in silence and drank the soothing tea.

Maggie motioned to the desk where Alex had lazily placed her duffel bag and organized her equipment. She zipped it and tucked the bag neatly at the side of the table. "Hey, how did you know where I live, by the way?" She called out to Alex - who didn't reply a sound.

"Danvers?" Maggie tip-toed back to the couch and found the woman peacefully asleep. She retrieved a blanket from her bedroom and put it over Alex's figure. Maggie took one last look at her before dimming the lights and retreating to her own place of slumber.

[The following morning…]

Kara crunched her nose. Her tight lips and glaring eyes scanned through the walls of the DEO until her x-ray vision found Alex. She dashed into her lab and slammed a cup of coffee on her desk - jolting Alex awake from a short nap.

"I kept leaving you messages. No answer! What happened to you last night? You weren't in your unit. I checked!"

Alex yawned. Her tired eyes found the beverage at the corner of her desk. "Is that for me?" she asked rhetorically as she reached for the cup and sipped… then almost spitting out the coffee. "You forgot to tell them to add two espresso shots!"

Kara folded her arms and shook her head. "Nope! Didn't forget. I purposely told them to switch your drink to decaf! That's what you get for not bothering to let your sister know that you're okay."

Alex glared. "This payback coffee's really annoying, Kara."

"Where were you last night?!"

"I was at Sawyer's place."

"Oh," mumbled Kara as she scratched her head. "I didn't know you two were-…" she gestured with her hands making Alex uncomfortable.

"What? No! Pffft! No, we weren't-," Alex shrugged. "I went to check on her because uh, remember that vial I showed you last night? I uh, I poured some into her drink the other night when I was wildly drunk."

Kara's eyes widened - but not in the are-you-freaking-serious kind of way. "NO WAY!" Her mouth fell then curved into a grin. She squealed - causing Alex to furrow her brows.

Kara was laughing. She was obviously overjoyed that Alex had to nudge her to get her attention back. "What does that thing do? Sawyer's vitals were normal all throughout. How potent is it to cause fever and-,"

"Fever? No, no, no. You don't get it, Alex. The signs and symptoms are not physiological… well, not entirely."

Alex gulped from her coffee. "Then what does it do?!"

"Wait, there's a close equivalent of it here." Kara shut her eyes trying to think. "Well, you guys don't have an exact counterpart of the Lacarnoff here on Earth. The closest one I can think of is a love potion."

Alex almost choked on her drink. She coughed and took a breath. "Love p-potion?! Yesterday, you said it was poison!"

"Because it is! When someone ingests the Lacarnoff, the ingredients alter the cognition of certain parts of the brain. It basically poison's the person's thinking. Hence, it makes the recipient amenable and committed to something or to someone… basically like how fiction would have it about love potions."

Alex's jaw dropped. "I g-gave Maggie love potion?! Kara, h-how does it work exactly?" Her voice broke and her breathing - shallow.

Kara raised a brow as she smirked. "Calm down. You said it yourself. It was just a toy." Immediately, the realization hit her. "Or… it wasn't?"

"Oh my god." Alex retreated to a chair as she tried to process the events.

"The vial's real, woah, okay, uh-," Kara paced up and down the lab. "The Lacarnoff unfreezes restraints in cognition, uh-, I know this… Uh, then the recipient accepts a certain thought and accepts it as a huge part of their reality for until the effects of the potion wears off. That's it!"

She faced Alex. "What was she doing when she had the dose?"

"Talking to me? Waiting for her date?" Alex ran a hand through her hair. "So that's why she's been acting strange since then."

"To you? Acting strange to you?"

Alex nodded - making Kara smirk. "Oh. She was totes thinking of you that night… and you're the thought that she's open to right now." Kara grinned - almost to the point of jeering.

The phone on the desk rang - snapping them both. Alex answered. "Hey, Sawyer!… What?... Lunch?… Today?"

She glanced at Kara who was throwing a suspicious smug smirk at her. Rolling her eyes, she smiled listening to Maggie's voice. "You know, Hank's got us locked in here with a long to-do list for today, sorry. Can't do lunch… Alright… Thanks, though!… Okay, bye."

Kara rested her hands on her hips. "Hank isn't even here yet."

"I had to lie to see if the fucking vial was the real deal or not."

Kara giggled. "Ten bucks… she rings you again for happy hour today."

Alex rolled her eyes. "Or… she just lets it go, and the vial was a hoax. I'm betting twenty."

"Bring it!"

"Easiest twenty I'll ever make."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, sis."

Kara left. Alex sipped from her coffee, and recalled Maggie's sudden flirtatious attitude yesterday. She sighed nervously - her breaths deep and even. It looked like Kara was winning the twenty. Just when she thought Maggie had caught up with her clues, came the recent twist.

It wasn't going anywhere after all, Alex thought. It was just the Lacarnoff.