Oh why hello, my eternally patient readers.

I love you all, and I'm sorry. I honestly never started this story with the intention to have updates this few and far between. I always have expectations for myself and my writing that never really work out, and the time it takes for me to get a chapter out is a huge disappointment for me, especially considering I have no idea of how to actually fix it.

But anyway, if you're willing to bear with me and keep reading, well, I'll be more grateful than I could ever say :) Your follows, favourites and reviews mean the world. So thank you thank you thank you eternally.

Alrighty, mention here once again goes to KaraLena90, my awesome, talented and beautiful friend (can you believe I finally got this chapter out?! What is this madness?!)

Oh! Last thing, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that the "relationship" column has a new variation, in that I finally decided to make this a Supercorp fic (yay!).

...

Chapter Eight:

There's an eternity down here, in this hell.

The world burns, and Alex burns with it, lost in the blaze of a hundred, thousand fires.

If she had a body, she can only imagine what it would look like, can only imagine her cracked and torn skin and blood that would flow a vivid, sickening red.

But she doesn't have a form, just a mere consciousness. And even this is a frayed, broken thing. It whispers to her names, and then names within names. Maggie and Detective Sawyer. Kara and Supergirl. Hank Henshaw and J'onn. Two sides of some of the people she's closest to in the world.

She wants to reach out to them.

She wants to scream.

But she's lost. In this eternity. In this hell.

And Alex suffers alone.

(After the first few shots, Maggie loses sense of time.

There's the telltale sound of the clip running empty and the shooter, obviously realizing the immediate danger he's in, bangs right back through the door he'd just entered to rain terror down on them.

Maggie waits a few more seconds, just to be sure, before moving. Staying safely behind the cover her desk provides, she glances around. Most of the other officers have reacted in the same way she had, ducking down underneath their desks, but as Maggie peers around her cover she gets a heart-stopping glimpse of a hand lying limp against the floor, unmoving and horrifying.

"Korsak," she gasps, throwing herself out from behind the desk towards his prone form. It's astonishingly bad judgement considering the active shooter roaming the building but this is also her partner, the man who's been by her side for countless hours on stakeouts, firefights and alien attacks. The man who's currently bleeding out from a shot to his torso, red blood spilling to the floor below.

He lifts a hand in acknowledgment, waving it absently in the air above him before letting it fall limply back to the ground. "Yeah, kid, I'm good."

The red stain low on his shirt is only growing. "Oh, you're good, huh? This is just you being dramatic then?"

Korsak chuckles, and she breathes a little easier at the fact that it seems to come relatively easily. The bullet may have avoided his lungs then.

"Ah, you know me, it's been too long since I've had a good couple of days off."

"Yeah," she mumbles, "don't I know it." Keeping an eye firmly on the doorway, she presses down hard on the gunshot wound. Maggie doesn't bother apologizing for the breathless moan he gives in response; they're both too realistic for that.

Over her shoulder, she hears one of the desk agents on the radio with dispatch, reporting in the situation and the immediate need for medical support.

"Responders are already clearing civilians from the area," dispatch answers, "and units are assessing the situation. It appears to be only one hostile, we'll confirm that as soon as we're able."

Maggie's own confusion is clear on the other detectives' faces, but the answer comes to her fast, with a sudden surge of emotion. There's no way dispatch could respond that fast to the gunshots unless someone had already alerted them to the situation.

Alex.

She must've called it in as soon as the line had disconnected. Which means that yes, there'll be backup close, that people will be just that bit more prepared because of the early warning they'd received.

The distant sound of more gunshots echoes through the room, followed by a woman's hair-raising scream. Maggie jerks at the sound of them, trying to imagine how many of her fellow officers had been caught off guard, how many civilians had been in the building, innocent and unprepared. And then there's Korsak, catching her eye. And even with his gaze filled with such pain, there's an understanding there as well.

He jerks his head slightly. "Get out of here, kid," he says to her, his words pained and measured.

She scoffs, shaking her head even as she increases the pressure against his stomach. "All due respect, shut the hell up."

"You should be going after him."

She shakes her head again. "The building's already surrounded; backup will get him."

Korsak guffaws, and it's accompanied by just enough movement that immediately after, his eyes slam shut as a wave of pain obviously washes over him. Her heart stutters, but only for a moment as his gaze clears again. "I don't trust the guys in backup. C'mon Sawyer, you and I made a deal a long time ago; avenge each other's deaths and all that, yeah?"

She knows he's joking, like always, but it still hits far too close to home with her hands drenched in his blood. Some of her distress must seep through even with her silence, because one of his hands drops to grip her own. "I'll be fine, Maggie. Now go get that asshole."

She could tell him no, could tell him to shut up and continue keeping pressure with her hands until backup finds them.

That'd be easy. But not, ultimately, in her nature.

"If you die," she tells her partner, "I'm gonna be so fucking mad." She sits up slightly, nodding towards one of the uniforms. "You- come here and keep pressure. Three of you stay here to flag down the medics. The rest of you," she pauses, searching the remaining faces around her and seeing only a determined anger, "let's get hunting."

With her gun in her hand, Maggie's feeling of panic recedes.

What that says about her character, she doesn't care. She's a cop through and through, and a part of that is being prepared for any actions which pose a danger to her city. She doesn't like it, but it's the job.

With that in mind though, it's hard to push away her thoughts of Alex and Korsak. But if she thinks about them she'll lose her cool sense of focus which, if she's being honest with herself, is probably about all that's keeping her going right now.

She signals for the remaining officer that's left with her to clear the breakroom down the hallway. She's reasoned that, due to how far away it is from the stairwell and elevators, the shooter would have passed over it whereas the other officer had reckoned that there would be several other cops who'd have taken refuge there.

And it's for that reason alone- rather than, as will later be speculated, that she'd sought the shooter out, that she'd foreseen or even hoped for this- that she's in this particular hallway.

And she's honestly planning to wait for the other officer to return, or for the other teams to finish clearing the bottom floors and come up and meet her.

But then she sees, out of the barest corner of her eye, a flash of navy- the same colour hat the shooter had been wearing.

And she doesn't think. She just runs.

"Hey!" she yells, sprinting after the man. She rounds a corner mere seconds after he does, finding herself in a long, dark corridor she vaguely knows leads to a fire escape on the other side of the building. He'd obviously been planning on using that as his exit; evidently, he'd been planning on having a few more minutes to get away before any backup arrived.

She raises her gun just as he's a few steps away from the door. "You!" she yells, "stop right there now. Make a move, I swear, and I'll shoot you right now."

He stops, his back to her, and even from this relative distance she can see the rapidity in which his chest rises and falls with each, panicked breath.

"Turn around," she orders, voice like steel, "slow… hands where I can see them."

Her mind is working at a ridiculous rate, processing and analysing (and God, don't think about Korsak, don't think don't think). As he turns, she sees the gun still gripped tightly in his right hand and her reflexes coil even tighter, a loaded spring.

And even as Maggie sees this, she sees the man's eyes flicker towards his gun as well, as if only just remembering it's there. She sees the moment he calculates the gun in her own hand, at her aim, at his distance from the outside door. And she realizes at the same moment he does, that- like practically every other person faced suddenly with the consequences of their impulsive actions- he's going to back himself, take a chance, make the only choice he feels he still has.

"Don't," she warns immediately, even as her trigger finger tightens minutely, "don't do it."

But it's obvious any words she could say are lost to his new determination. His hand lifts slightly, minutely, and Maggie is just about to fire her own gun when a sudden force pushes her from behind.

Maggie's lifted off her feet, slamming heavily into the wall. The breath is forced from her chest, leaving her gasping, her head swimming. What had happened? Had backup arrived? She forces herself to move, shoving past the pain, shutting it away in the back of her mind.

Some alert part of her subconscious has kept her grip on the gun, and she instinctively raises it now.

And then freezes.

"Alex?!"

Her girlfriend doesn't even look up from where she's beating the absolute shit out of the man. There's blood already covering her hand, and even as Maggie watches, Alex draws back her fist and delivers a startlingly hard punch to the shooter's face. He's already long unconscious on the ground, his face a bloody, pulpy mess, and he doesn't react to these furious hits despite the damage they're doing to his body. And despite this, Alex pulls back just long enough to kick him hard- too hard, inhumanely hard- in the chest.

All of a sudden, Maggie knows; Alex will kill him if she doesn't stop.

"Alex!"

But it's like she doesn't even hear her.

Maggie throws herself towards her girlfriend. She reaches her just as Alex is drawing back to deliver another kick. Maggie grabs her shoulder, pulling herself in close.

"What're you doing?!" Maggie demands, "he's down, Alex, stop!"

Alex doesn't react to her words and her shoulder, where Maggie grips it, is practically thrumming with tension. There's a small smattering of blood speckled on Alex's cheek, but easily the most horrifying thing is that when- finally- Alex's eyes meet her own, there's a vacancy in that gaze that spears right through her.

It's like she's not even seeing her.

It's like Alex doesn't know her.

And it's then- perhaps the most unusual of times, but there nonetheless- the words of her earlier conversation with Alex comes back to her.

Or rather, the words Alex had been about to say before this surprise turn of events.

'We found something,' Alex had been saying, 'a vial.'

A vial- of what exactly?!

Barely a moment has passed, and yet in that funny way that time has, the earth could've moved for an eternity without any impact on this moment. An apocalypse could've fallen outside and it wouldn't bear any sense of finality in comparison to this instant, here, with Maggie looking deep into the eyes of the woman she loves and begging for any sense of recognition.

And not finding it.

And then, just like that, Alex pulls violently away from Maggie's grip and is gone, almost instantly, out of that door.

And Maggie's left with nothing but a pounding heart and the bleeding body of the shooter on the ground.)

"What happened after that?"

Maggie forces her face to remain blank, to keep her posture relaxed. Though she was loathe to leave Alex's side, her girlfriend had been wheeled away for more tests and she wasn't anywhere near prepared to deal with Alex's doctor. That being said though, maybe facing J'onn's gathered group was little better. "That doesn't have anything to do with this."

Dr. Hamilton frowns, leaning forward in her chair. "You don't have to be afraid, Detective Sawyer. We're all trying to help Alex and Kara."

"I'm not afraid," Maggie snaps back immediately, sending the doctor a sharp look, "it just doesn't concern anything here." She can feel the weight of everyone's gaze on her, none more so than J'onn's. It's difficult to believe, with his eyes filled with such that sense of otherworldly understanding, that he's able to pass as a human so effectively. She knew that he didn't like to use his Martian powers without her consent, but Maggie still couldn't shake the feeling that he can understand a whole lot more than she was prepared to say.

But God, she thinks, maybe that was just her being paranoid; maybe it was just the result of her unease, maybe-

"They suspended you, didn't they?"

Maggie jerks. And the room falls silent, everyone turning to face Dr. Sarah Marris where she sits stoically, fixing Maggie with the best 'I see through your bullshit' stare she's seen in a while.

"You took the blame for what happened with Alex, and so they suspended you."

There's a moment of harsh, abrasive silence, and when Maggie turns to look at the psychiatrist, her eyes are filled with a cool fury.

(It was a commonly accepted rule that for a cop to be doing their job properly, they must at some point come into conflict with their superiors. It's what marked the difference between a pencil-pusher and those who weren't afraid to piss off the brass by following their instincts. It was a fine line, one Maggie had danced across in many instances. And each time she couldn't help but think whether it would be the one where she'd pushed too far.

As of yet, she'd escaped with no major repercussions- instead, perhaps, with grudging respect.

She's not so sure that'll be the case now.

It's not just Weston- her captain- that's in the office when Maggie knocks and enters. There's two others: Helen Bowman; one of the science division directors, and a man Maggie vaguely knows as belonging to the human resource office.

The instant she sees them all there, waiting for her, she knows what's about to happen.

Still though, she squares her shoulders, nodding respectfully at them all and waiting for an indication before she takes a seat.

Weston isn't glaring, but he's watching her closely, gaze sharp and focused. She's been working under him for close to four years, and she knows him to be a captain epitomizing harsh but fair love. There's no doubt she's excelled working within this unit, but she's never been entirely sure whether that's a direct result of his influence or her own effort.

"Well," he starts, leaning forward in his seat with the accompanying groan of the protesting, cracked leather beneath him, "I think we can all say this was a royal fuck up, wasn't it?"

Maggie stays silent.

Helen Bowman speaks up then. "Detective Sawyer, do you know why we're here today?"

It's horribly, horribly hard to reign in the urge to roll her eyes. This was what Director Bowman was known for; for publicly shaming her employees in a way that made them feel like three-year olds. But Maggie had already made her choice and was prepared to deal with the consequences of that, as horrible as they may be.

She glares back at Bowman. "I think I have some idea," she says.

"Let's be clear, Sawyer," Weston cuts in, "that the Board takes accusations of police brutality very, very seriously. How do you imagine the press would take it if they learned that one of our perps was delivered to the hospital with the severe injuries he had?" He shakes his head, "I like you Sawyer, but this is a fucking mess."

She nods once. "I understand that, sir."

"Good. Then for the record, I want you to tell me exactly what the hell occurred."

And so Maggie tells them about what happened earlier. She carefully describes what the morning had been like, how out of nowhere the perp had entered the room. She doesn't gloss over the facts of how Korsak had been shot, or of her attempts at first aid. She tells them- only because she knows that when he's asked, Korsak will insist that it was his idea- that he'd been the one to suggest she pursue the shooter. She explains how she found the man and she doesn't hesitate when describing how she took him down.

There's just one very important difference though, from the reality of the situation.

She's careful- so, so careful- to ensure that there's no mention anywhere of Alex.

When it comes to describing how exactly the suspect had been found with four broken ribs and a myriad of internal bleeding playing havoc with his lungs and chest, Maggie admits to hitting him, to kicking him, to taking her anger out over her hurt partner on the man who'd caused it.

The words come easy, despite the guilt she feels about dragging Korsak into this, even if it's just by name. And besides, any guilt she could possibly ever feel is absolutely buried beneath a furious desire to protect Alex.

She'd go through this a hundred- a thousand- times if it means her girlfriend's left alone.

Well, not alone, because God knows the first thing Maggie will do when she gets away from here is find Alex and find out just what the hell is going on. But that's between them, not the fucking Board of Directors.

And as far as her bosses are concerned, Maggie Sawyer- with her record and with her well-known defiance- has no reason to lie.

There's an uneasy silence when she finally stops talking, and Maggie doesn't see any reason to break it. She knows what's about to happen, and there's not a whole lot she can do about it now.

Bowman and Weston exchange glances, and Weston sits back in his chair, waving his hand as if allowing Bowman to go forward however she sees fit.

She turns to Maggie. "Well… I see only one course of action here." Bowman spares a second to look towards the man from human resources, who gives a small nod in response. "Let the records show, that pending further investigation followed by a disciplinary hearing, Detective Maggie Sawyer has been suspended without pay until such a time the review board makes a decision on today's events. Do you have any further questions, Sawyer?"

She's stuck in an odd juxtaposition; her mind's numb but there's an odd sort of tingling spreading through her body.

For Alex, she reminds herself, she's doing this for Alex.

Even if it means losing this in the process.

"No. I have no further questions."

Afterwards, Maggie doesn't go looking for Alex; that would be a waste of time.

It's not quite raining as she walks home, but the city air is heavy with moisture that clings to her face and curls her hair in thick, dark tendrils. The sky has long since gone dark, but she relies more on instinct than the dim, hazy streetlights.

She needs to talk to Alex. She needs to call Korsak- or maybe his wife, considering he might still be in surgery.

She needs to find out just what the hell had happened.

She needs… God, she needs a drink.

There's a thousand things on her mind, each thought more troubling and conflicting than the last. But the one thing that she doesn't think she'll ever forget is the memory of Alex's eyes; of how- for even just a split second- Alex had looked straight at her without even the barest flicker of recognition.

Maggie's seen a lot of things in her line of work- ex-work, God- that's scared her.

But nothing quite compares to the vacancy that'd been in that gaze.

And she makes a decision. It's not a drink that she needs, and it's not even Alex. Alex comes with a whole hoard of questions and problems that Maggie feels like she can't even begin to process yet- not alone, at any rate.

And thinking on that, she needs Kara.

It's both ridiculous and gratifying to know that if she ever needs Supergirl, all Maggie has to do is call her name. Alex had explained it to her once, how- if she wanted- Kara would be able to hear every heartbeat, every stuttered breath, from one end of the city to the other. It could be incredibly overwhelming for her, on a bad day when her focus slipped and the weight of millions upon millions of sounds crashed down around her. But on a good day, she could filter it out, narrow down the sounds of panic from the screams of laughter and somehow, amid all that, pick out familiar voices from the swelling sea of strangers'.

Maggie was still hesitant though. Not because she thought Kara wouldn't hear her or, if she did, that she'd be ignored. But because she knew that Alex's little sister had a hard time saying no to anyone, especially when it came to the people she cared about. Supergirl, Maggie knew, had been out of state helping her cousin all day; who was to say that calling her here now wasn't taking her away from saving hundreds of people's lives? The Maggie of yesterday would have waited till she was certain Kara was back in National City on her own terms.

But that was her yesterday, before Alex had lost it completely and almost beat a man to death.

The sounds of the city are distant from the rooftop of Maggie's apartment building, the thrum of traffic fading to a background noise. It's just the police sirens that seem to cut through the air- always the sirens.

Closing her eyes, Maggie tilts back her head and lets out a breath that would rattle the stars if they weren't hidden behind a dense layer of cloud. Exhaustion- sheer, unfiltered exhaustion- pulls at her. She wants nothing more than to let it take her away, to fall from this place into another where her life wasn't this complicated.

If she'd known, all those years ago when she'd made the choice to move away from Gotham to become a cop in National City, that her life would turn out like this, would she have made the same choices?

She knows, deep in her bones, that she wouldn't give up her love for Alex for anything in the world.

But still, the thought remains.

"Kara," she says to the open air. It feels vaguely ridiculous to talk to the sky, but she pushes past it. "Kara, if you can hear me, we need to talk. This is important, Kara, please."

She's still talking- still begging- a few mere seconds later when there's a soft thump as Kara land on the roof behind her.

"Maggie," Kara says immediately, striding closer. "What's wrong? What happened?" Her Supergirl uniform is covered slightly in soot and she carries with her a strong smell of smoke. Maggie had been vaguely aware of the fact that Kara had been helping her cousin with several wildfires all day, but the smudge of ash across her face only makes her blue eyes that much more intense and electric.

"There's…I-" Maggie doesn't know how to explain, and Kara seems to see this. Barely a moment later, Kara has crossed the space between them and pulled her into a tight, uncompromising hug.

The feeling of this girl's arms around her brings such an undeniable sense of safety that for the first time in hours, Maggie lets herself crumble, lets herself fall. She's been pushing away the weight of everything for the last few hours, but it's here that she remembers that she doesn't need to. There's someone else who loves Alex just as much as Maggie does, just in a fundamentally different way.

Kara smells strongly of smoke and ash, and Maggie lets herself belief that it's for this reason that tears prick at the edges of her eyes.

"Are you alright?" Kara asks eventually.

Maggie lets out a breath, gathering herself with the force of it sharp between her teeth. She pulls back, wiping her face with her sleeve before looking up to Kara. "I'm fine, but Alex isn't.")

Silence once again meets the end of her words. Only this time it's heavy with a sense of bitter understanding. There's suddenly no one here who's eyes Maggie feels comfortable meeting. They're all too filled with this horrible understanding or pitying sympathy.

"Who was he?" Vasquez suddenly asks. She's sitting back fully in her chair, but even from her relative distance Maggie can see the rigidity in her posture, in the way she's crossed her arms.

Maggie shrugs. "As far as I know, no one. Someone with a grudge, but he had nothing to do with Alex, Supergirl or K'Nex." She scowls at the table. "It was just a coincidence."

"Are we sure about that?" James asks. "It seems hard to believe that something like that would happen at the same time as all… this." He waves his hand absently before turning to look at J'onn. "Isn't it worth looking into?"

The Director's face is contemplative. "Maybe," he says, "but I'm inclined to agree with Maggie. We'll look into it, but it could simply just have been an unfortunate coincidence."

"So what now, then?" Dr Marris interjects, leaning forward so that her blonde hair falls to gently frame her face. "If that's a dead end, and we get nowhere with the search for the Montgomery's, then what?"

"Alex," Maggie says immediately, looking around as if daring anyone to contradict her. "She's the only one that knows everything that happened. And she's not getting any better. That seizure she had earlier was just the beginning of a steady decline. Medical have no idea how long we have before her system's overloaded."

"So we need a cure or something," James says simply, before her words hit too hard. Typical of his profession, he's moved straight to the heart of the problem. "We need something to counteract whatever that drug's doing."

And that's when Lena speaks up, for the first time in a while.

"I think," she says, "this is where I come in."

(She considers it normal to be at her office this late on a Friday night.

It's not that she wants to be here, exactly- contrary to popular belief, Lena does actually enjoy several things outside of L-Corp. For the past week her evenings have actually been overtaken with charging through two seasons of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, much to Kara's delight. But this afternoon her office had been inundated with seemingly hundreds of pages of contract terms with a new supplier, and the hours had rushed by.

She sighs, rubbing her temples slightly in an effort to wish away the headache pulsing there. She'd sent Eve home hours ago so they'll be no one to berate her for one more cup of coffee, and she's just thinking about making her way to the small kitchen on the floor below when her phone rings.

The familiar voice of one of the security guards that works night shifts at the front desk echoes through the line. "Sorry to bother you, Miss Luthor," he says, "but there's a woman down here who says you know her, name's Alex Danvers?"

Lena frowns. "Did she say why she's here?"

"No, mam, just says she needs to talk to you, says it's important."

Well, Lena reasons to herself, it's unexpected, but there must be a reason behind Alex's presence.

"Let her up," she tells the guard.

There's a slight pause. "Are you sure, Miss Luthor? She was carrying a gun."

Lena barely holds in a snort. "But she also had a federal ID with her, no?"

Another pause. "Yes, ma'am."

"Then it's perfectly explainable. She's a friend. Let her up."

She hangs up the phone, taking a moment to stretch and wonder what, exactly, would make Alex seek her out at such a time. She considers texting Kara, but dismisses the idea almost instantly; better to wait and see what it concerns before bothering her friend this late on a Friday night.

Barely a minute passes before the sounds of Lena's private elevator come from beyond her door. She has another moment before her door creaks open and Alex slinks in.

"I need your help," she says immediately.

Lena pauses from where she was midway through rising from her seat, assessing the woman in front of her. It's not as if her and Kara's sister are complete strangers, but they're not the closest of friends either. Their conversations are usually limited to whenever Kara is present; this would be the first time one's actually sought the other out.

But even she can tell that something isn't quite right with Alex Danvers.

In the dim light of her office, the agent appears pale and oddly shaky, hair drenched from the rain outside. Her hands are stuffed deep in the pockets of her jacket, but she's shifting constantly on her feet, sending odd, furtive glances to the windows.

And it's for those reasons, that the first thing that comes unbidden to Lena's lips is, "are you alright?"

Alex nods immediately, almost ferociously, and her hands remain hidden deep in her pockets.

"I think," Lena says hesitantly, for some reason finding herself tense and watchful, "we should call Kara."

"No!"

Alex's shout is loud and sudden and it stops Lena completely from where she was reaching towards her phone. Unbidden in her mind comes the reminder of the uncertainty her security team had expressed at allowing Alex up to see her, and for the first time, Lena understands why.

Alex seems to realise her out of character behaviour. With the air of someone trying to supress their panic, she raises her hands and takes a steadying breath. "No," she repeats, "this isn't something Kara needs to know."

Lena sits back down slowly in her chair, assessing carefully. "Well… I'll admit you've got my attention."

With another quick glance out to the skyline- honestly, Lena's almost under the impression that she's furtively searching for Supergirl among the skyscrapers- Alex says again, "I need your help."

"My help?" Lena raises an eyebrow, "I was unaware the DEO required civilian aid for anything- unless this isn't for business of course. If that's the case though, I'd really feel more comfortable having Kara here."

"But this is about Kara."

Lena freezes, her eyes narrowing to a sharp glare. Lillian had taught her long ago, about exactly how formidable a penetrative stare could be. It was one of the few lessons she'd ever appreciated. "Is she alright?" Lena asks, forcing her voice calm and her hands to uncurl from where she'd suddenly gripped the armrests of her chair.

But the agent is already shaking her head, lifting a hand to rub at her temple as she mutters, "wait, wait- no, it's not Kara, it's-"

But then she stops, her gaze fixed and unseeing on some distant point. Lena's once again struck mute by uncertainty- and no small amount of fear either. Which is ridiculous, she tells herself, because what could she possibly have to fear from the sister of her closest friend?

When she speaks again, Alex's voice is tight. She reaches into her pocket, withdrawing a small vial of what, even from this distance, Lena recognises undeniably as blood. "I need you to study this; to try and replicate the foreign substance within it."

It's such an odd response- so completely out of the blue- that for an instant all Lena can do is stare in shock. Alex takes this opportunity to take a few steps closer, depositing the small vial full of blood on her desk like a horrible sort of offering. In the bright lights of her office, it's substance takes on a strange, murky depth.

Lena looks up. "And what, exactly, would I expect to find?"

"Something. Anything. Whatever's there that shouldn't be."

"And you want me to replicate whatever this thing is?" Lena's frown deepens. Every instinct in her body is telling her to be cautious, to play along, but she just also can't understand what it is about Alex that is provoking such a feeling. "As I understand it, Supergirl acts with the DEO's oversight. Surely a government agency like that would have the capability of handling something like that themselves. And besides, even if I did all this for you- even if I did- I'm still not sure what exactly this has to do with Kara."

And that's when Alex looks- away from the window, away from whatever had been drawing her attention earlier- right at Lena. There's a moment of silence, uncompromising and eternal, in which Lena realises that she knows exactly what Alex is going to say.

Maybe there's a part of her that's always known, but has shied away from what it means.

Maybe she's been lying, deluding herself with the comfort that Kara brings because it's so much simpler that way.

Either way, it's here now, right in front of her, undeniable.

"Because it would help Supergirl- it would help save my sister.")

Her eyes open to an artificial light.

She can immediately tell the difference; even in her dazed, hazy consciousness she recognises the feel of sunlamps bearing down on her skin, the distinct way in which they mimic- but not entirely copy- the effect that sunlight has on her.

She blinks again.

There's pain- no small amount of it either. But this is something easily pushed aside, insignificant in the growing realisation that she's actually conscious.

She's conscious and all alone.

Kara's not immediately surprised; the presence of the sunlamps means that they're trying to jumpstart her healing by drenching her in UV radiation, making it unsafe for humans to be in the same room with the settings turned up so high.

But even then, in the instances this has happened before, there's usually someone- Alex or J'onn, even Vasquez one time- hanging right on the other side of the door, speaking soft words so that her enhanced hearing picks up on their presence. She can't hear anyone there now, but she's certainly in enough pain for there to be the possibility that she's knocked out her powers.

Or maybe there's no one there at all, but she can't even begin to imagine the level of disaster that would keep Alex from staying with her.

And that's when she remembers.

Everything.

She has many names. Kara Zor-El. Kara Danvers. The Girl of Steel. Supergirl. It's something her friends have questioned her about, many times, on where she draws the line between one person and the other.

She's not sure whether there's such a clear, distinct answer. Maybe instead, Kara has often wondered, her different aliases simply allow her to become the person she needs to be in that moment; a girl to remember her home planet, a reporter to expose the truth, or an alien to fight the battles no one else could. They're not the same in subtle ways, but they're also not entirely separate either. After all, she wouldn't be able to fight as fiercely without a horrible, personal knowledge of what could happen if she failed, and neither would she have ever been able to face the death of her planet without the life that she'd made here on this one.

And now, first and foremost, she's Kara Danvers.

And Kara Danvers will fight for her sister.

Thank you all so much for reading! Any thoughts and feelings you have would be amazing to hear (tips on how to get my lazy ass into gear and actually write would be much appreciated as well, ha).

THANK YOU!

F.