Timborzati.
She'd heard about that before.
Rumors. Whispers.
About a parasitic alien narcotic that was making its rounds around the club scene.
Another fad that had recently sputtered to prominence in a laundry list of date rape drugs that was extrapolated upon by cowards who couldn't manage to get their own lovers.
Another drug irritatingly difficult to pick out and shut down by the police force.
The detective never knew what it did exactly. Just that it had been very under the table.
The topic had never fallen under her jurisdiction.
That had been the responsibility of the narcotics unit.
And there had always been more pressing matters at hand.
Like the war on fucking cocaine.
"Timborzati?"
Alex had echoed.
"Timborzati."
He'd confirmed.
"No.. no. Timborzati doesn't do that. It's a hallucinogenic-"
J'onn interrupts firmly.
"Alex we can talk about this in person. Right now you need to gauge her symptoms and get her back the DEO. It might be worse than we initially thought."
Stricken can't even begin to describe the look that plasters itself across Alex's face.
And Maggie can't necessarily blame her, not with Kara unconscious on the bed behind them.
Not with the upstairs bathroom in shambles.
"Might be- J'onn! Kara… The symptoms are already there! She just had a seizure in my bathroom. I had to use kryptonite on her. Kryptonite! Fucking kryptonite. And I promised… I promised I would never do that to her again. Not after the first time!"
Alex is rambling again. Going off on a tangent.
Her tone isn't excusing, but it's getting damn near close.
And Maggie knows it's time to step in.
"J'onn, what the hell is Timborzati? Why didn't it show up on the scans?"
The darker man ignores both questions, evidently picking up on the distress and the anxiety on their end.
Apparently relieved that someone has some calmness about them.
"Maggie? Maggie, I'll explain in more detail at the facility. First, explain. What happened on your end?"
His authoritative tone is soothing.
Confident and in control even when the situation is pretty much going to shit.
And when it's clear that he isn't going to get a clear response from her emotional girlfriend, the man redirects the question towards her.
So Maggie sits stiffly as she relays the entire night's events on the phone.
Giving him the short, succinct summary of what had happened
She would learn later what the drug was in detail.
Timborzati was apparently a 'feel good' drug cultivated on the planet of Kydezio.
Made from the live spores of one of the plants grown there.
It supposedly gave its users a sense of euphoria, in reality it instilled a mess of symptoms, including lethargy, poor judgement, poorer concentration, short term memory loss, and hallucinations among the many.
On the Kydezio planet and with its inhabitants, Timborzati worked like a basic hallucinogenic narcotic.
Did its thing and faded out in a few hours.
On Earth things were a bit different.
The effect was stronger and the symptoms varied widely among different species.
Which would have accounted for the various accounts of overdoses the narcotics unit had reported.
Which would explain the severe reaction Kara had to it.
It would then become apparent that the yellow sun only revitalized the spores, made them stronger, helped them replicate.
Accounting for the sharper, severe effects new users experienced upon initial use.
Meaning they essentially gave Kara a death sentence when they put her under the fucking sun lamp.
She is with Alex in the DEO, when Agent Vasquez relays this information.
And Maggie can see the painful realization in the elder Danvers sister's eyes.
"You… You said it was okay to bring her home. You said-you said it would be fine!"
The emotion Alex portrays is conveyed in a hushed whisper.
She's still trying to be quiet, trying not to wake Kara.
Even though the amount of kryptonite pretty much guarantees she's down for the count.
When she had finished her summary of events, J'onn had decided to come to them.
Decided to take whisk them all back to DEO under official Green Martian authority.
Because it had been clear that no one had been in a good state to drive.
They had put Kara in her training room.
Dialed up the kryptonion inhibitor as much as they could without bringing about anymore severe damage, in hopes of delaying anymore episodes like the earlier one.
Let the remaining two view everything from the observation deck.
"The Earth technology was too primitive to detect the spores. They didn't show up on the X-ray's or MRI or bloodwork. The symptoms seemed to be delayed as well, the only noticeable one being lethargy, there was no way to discernibly conclude anything was wrong."
The regret and sorrow is evident in the DEO agent's tone.
And Alex must hear it as well because she doesn't bite back.
"The man we have in custody. He has no ties to CADMUS or any other discrimination-based organizations. He claims he didn't intend for anything detrimental to happen. That he merely didn't know the correct dosage."
It's a pathetic excuse that tries to justify what happened.
Because it doesn't hide from the fact of what the true intentions for his use of the drug was.
It doesn't explain why the other one is still in the wind. Why the other one is still running.
Because you only run if you're guilty.
The detective has some choice words she wants to share with that man when she gets the opportunity.
From the way Alex vibrates with fury beside her, Maggie can tell she does too.
"J'onn what can we do? About Kara?"
"There's nothing much we can do. The kryptonite seems to tamper off the more severe symptoms. We can either administer more and fight fire with fire or try and ride it out and see if Kara's immune system can fight off the effects on its own."
The choice the man gives is an impossible one.
… … … … … …
Bright yellowish white floods her vision.
It takes a moment to compensate, adjusting her sight around the light and towards the darkened objects at the edges of her vision.
Both women are silent as Alex moves the penlight to her other eye.
The yellow orb of white lingers for a few moments, before the brunette finally moves the small light away.
Leaving the detective to rapidly blink the confines and colors of the DEO laboratory back into coherency.
"See? Perfect picture of health."
She says this dryly, hoarsely, the sardonic humor having seeped away with the hectic mess of the last few hours.
Alex doesn't see the humor in it either, instead only blinks heavily as she moves around to check her bandages.
And the detective knows the taller brunette's trying to distract herself. That her preferred coping method is keeping busy.
Because it was always in those quiet moments, when she was alone with her thoughts, that things would become to much to handle.
"You really… You really shouldn't have been running."
Silence settles in the room at that.
Alex was right. She really shouldn't have been. But they both know damn well why she was.
J'onn and the others had given them privacy. In an effort to prevent them from becoming more of a spectacle then they already were.
It would be naive to ignore the whispers and glances when they returned for the second time in less than twenty four hours.
Because from what they had already seen… she knew how bad it must have looked.
How bad it looked when J'onn had to physically lift the Girl of Steel, the blonde cradled unconscious in his arms, and had to carry her out of the room, out of the apartment, into the DEO.
How Alex had shuffled behind him like a lost kid, after all the fight had gone out of her.
How Winn's hands had shook, how even when he said nothing the worry, the fear, the trepidation swirled desperately in his eyes.
How Mon-el had lingered further back, trying to disappear in the shadows of grey walls. uncharacteristically quiet, uncharacteristically absent.
She remembers how angry she'd been at him in that moment.
Unwarranted anger as she wonders where the hell he's been in the last few days.
"Maggie?"
Alex's voice pulls her from her thoughts.
Somehow she'd missed that the brunette had finished fixing her bandages.
Maggie readjusts her shirt, stares hard at the plaster dust that stains her shirt for a moment, before she looks up.
The elder Danvers was cross the room now. Facing her, but looking away.
At the ground, at the table, she didn't know what exactly from this vantage point.
Her arms wrapped tightly around herself, as if she's trying to physically hold herself together.
"Kara… It was her that hit you wasn't it? Not Cadmus. Not those… those men."
The detective makes an unconscious movement. Brings a hand to her chest.
Feels the tenderness of her ribs under the chalky ace bandages.
Remembers the sickening crack her bones made when she hit the wall.
And subsequently loses the words that try hard to convey an answer.
Maggie doesn't want to lie, she could never lie to Alex.
But it seems fruitless to add more pain to an already fragile situation.
Her hesitance betrays her unwillingness to confirm an answer.
Indirectly validating the truth she knew Alex didn't really want to know.
The taller brunette moves to rub the crease between her brow.
A sign Maggie has come to associate with frustration.
And it is indeed frustration that laces her girlfriend's tearful tone.
"God Maggie… Why didn't you say anything?"
The detective smiles sadly.
"It wouldn't have made a difference Danvers. We both know it wasn't her fault."
Alex is already shaking her head before the detective can finish.
"No…no this is my fault. I should have… I should have never dragged you into this. It's always… Everyone always gets hurt and-"
Maggie slides of the table she was sitting on. Shuffles closer towards her girlfriend.
"Alex, none of this is your fault. I would have done the same thing, regardless if I had known you or Kara. I'm a cop, remember? It's my job."
She murmurs, imploring the taller brunette to meet her eyes.
"Besides Kara's a puppy. You'd have to be evil or insane not to help her."
That gets a teary chuckle from Alex.
And considering the shitty situation with an even shittier choice, Maggie considers it a win.
"Alex, you really have to stop trying to break up with me every time things completely out of our control try to screw things up. I'm sticking around, for you and for Little Danvers."
Winn opens the door then.
Awkwardly looks between the two of them.
"Uh… Kara's awake. She's asking for you Alex."
The lack of relief and trepidation in the IT expert's tone doesn't make Alex feel any more reassured.
…. … … …. ….
There is a reason Winn was so flustered.
Kara had woken up. Disoriented.
And her disorientation had cultivated fear which in turn had induced terror.
Alex had mentioned Kara's deep-rooted fear of abandonment in passing once.
Her fear of being alone. Of being left behind.
The detective figures that the only reason Kara hadn't torn her way out was because the entire room was encased in kryptonite.
Maggie doesn't go in the room with Alex. Not at first.
Everyone knows that the only her sister can calm Kara down.
The bond the sisters share is a strong one.
Instead, she stays on the outside with Winn and J'onn and Agent Vasquez.
Feels useless with the qualified DEO agents as they try to work out a different solution.
One that doesn't involve injecting a gallon of kryptonite into a kryptonion.
So she doesn't go in. Not at first, not until Alex calls her in almost a full hour later.
"Hey Little Danvers. Feeling better?"
The detective steps cautiously into the room, into its green emitting hue.
The blonde looks wilted in that hospital bed, laying on her side, the machines looming over her as they press against the corner.
A variety of information spouts across the screens. Brain waves. Heart rate. Blood pressure.
They're running through all the tests. Again.
Trying to find something they might have missed.
The blonde's focus is on Alex when Maggie enters, but at the mention of her name Kara sluggishly shifts her sight towards the detective.
The younger Danvers looks at her emptily for a moment.
Eyes as empty as that night a few days ago.
Then Kara blinks rapidly, coherency sparking back into her cobalt irises.
Though the dazed glint in those dark hooded eyes don't go away.
"M-Maggie… Yeah I'm feeling better."
Her name comes out in a raspy slur of a whisper if she can even call it that.
Tinged with exhaustion and defeat.
The green emerald rock has an obvious effect on the younger woman.
Wringing what residual energy is left away from the younger Danvers.
And if this is Kara now, what is worse the Timborzati or the kryptonite?
Maggie takes the empty chair next to Alex, who'd settled down without saying so much as a word.
"I… I just wanted to… wanted to say…"
Kara's sentence trails off.
And she does the thing.
That thing both of the Danvers sisters do when they're nervous or confused.
Tilts her head.
Scrunches her brow.
"Maggie… You're hurt."
Cold twists in her veins.
Yes. She was hurt.
Kara had known she was hurt.
Kara had apologized for being the one that hurt her.
Now she seems to be acknowledging it for the first time.
Maggie glances quizzically at Alex.
And suddenly the rigidness that appears in Alex's shoulders makes sense.
"Yeah, just a little banged up. Nothing to worry about."
Maggie saves face.
She sees Alex biting the inside of her cheek.
Stifling back the urge to say something.
There's a moment when the three of them don't say anything.
But Kara's cobalt eyes don't waver, burrowing holes into the detective.
Trying to poke holes into her excuse.
Then she blinks once. Then twice.
And Maggie watches her focus falter as the alien garners an faraway look.
Two more blinks and the look is gone.
But it is clear that Kara isn't exactly following any train of articulate thought.
"Alex… When can I get out of here?
The alien looks wistfully past the older women towards the closed door behind them, the green emerald hue reflects painfully in her eyes.
"Kara, you can't leave right now, remember?"
Alex says as if she's explaining it to a child.
The waver is detectable in her voice.
"You had a… an episode. The kryptonite's the only thing really keeping that under control."
The younger blonde looks away then, her expression contorting into something akin to exasperation and annoyance.
"Alex, why are are you talking to me like that? I'm not a kid!"
The blonde's tone has an accusatory flare, but it's also the most lively response that the detective had heard from the younger woman since this whole thing started.
"Kara, she's just worried about you."
Kara scoffs, moving an electrode covered arm to rub her temple.
"Worried? I told you guys I'm fine. It's just a headache. Everyone's walking in here like it's a funeral or something."
Maggie wants to smile at that. She really does.
But the decimated upstairs bathroom in Alex's apartment would have some other choice words.
So she does nothing.
Lets the room settle into silence again.
"I hate hospitals."
The blonde slurs eventually and it's strange because this isn't a hospital.
But that doesn't matter to the blonde who begins lazily pulling at the electrodes that pepper her skin.
It takes a full moment to realize what she's doing.
Alex jumps from her chair then.
"You need to stop!"
Her sister ignores her, moving to remove the electrodes from her other arm as the machines begin to scream around her.
Maggie is up now too. Rolling into action.
"Stop it! You can't leave, Kara. Stop!"
The sharpness and anger Alex carries make both of them flinch.
Stunning both the detective and the blonde into motionlessness.
"You're sick Kara! Sick! So you have to stop puling the damn electrodes out!
And you need to let us help you!"
The younger Danvers deflates under Alex's words.
Relaxes as Alex makes quick work of replacing the electrodes she had torn away.
It's a stubborn silence.
An awkward one.
Kara's eyes become unfocused as she flits between the two older women.
Confusion permeating her cobalt eyes once more.
Then the blonde tilts her head.
Scrunches her brow.
"Maggie… you're hurt."
Kara says this with the exact same youthful concern as before.
Acknowledges it as if it were the first time.