For the past decade, all she'd wanted was for everything she'd ever been told about her father's death to be a lie. She wanted him to walk through their front door at Midvale and start to cry when he saw them and they'd all be crying too. She'd dreamt of what he'd say. How he'd react to how they'd grown and what they'd accomplished. The feeling of his arms around her as he hugged her tight before pressing a kiss to her forehead. Watching the absolute joy of their parents being reunited...and how overwhelmingly happy her mother would be at this.

Over the past...she didn't know how many days...that had changed…

"I didn't want this for you, Alex," he whispered as he held her hand.

As she looked up into his eyes, Alex felt like for a brief second that that was really her father staring back at her and the words coming out of his mouth. If she could have yanked her hand away, she would have, but she was secured in place. Tears glazed her eyes and she sucked in a shaky breath. "Please...just let us go."

"I wanted you to be in this with me," her father continued. "But they're going to make you stronger...and then you'll see…"

She turned her head away. "Why do you even keep talking to me?" Alex really didn't care what his answer was. "You're not my father anymore. He died in Peru. You're an abomination," she whispered so sadly. It was so hard to think of the father that she'd absolutely adored all that time she was growing up and then remembering what this man had done to her.

He wasn't her father.

Closing her eyes, she just tried to think of being somewhere else. She could feel the medication they were pushing into her IV entering her, making her insides tingle and then feel like they're on fire...Alex bit down on her lower lip as she waited for what was coming, what she knew was coming. She didn't fight the blackness, she accepted it and thought of Kara.

When she finally woke, Alex found that she was in a different room. It was far different than the rooms that she'd been in before. It wasn't sterile looking. There was no medical equipment. It was almost like being home...except brightly decorated. She blinked, taking it all in. It was like some summer colored bedroom ad from some home decorating book.

Sitting up, she ran her fingers through her short hair and looked around, taking in the landscape pictures on the walls that almost looked like windows to the outside world. As she moved to get out of the bed that was actually a proper bed, queen sized even, with sheets and pillows and blankets…

"J'onn?" she whispered as she looked around.

"No."

She froze at the voice. Alex knew that he was behind her and to her left. Why did he continue to bother? Had he pulled these strings? Even though she knew that it looked more like a home and less like a cell, this was still a prison. Had her father somehow convinced them to leave her alone?

"Why won't you just leave me alone?" she asked as her heart was breaking yet again. It seemed like now that's all she felt when she was around her father. It was then as she stood up that she noticed that she'd been changed. Alex was no longer wearing red, but teal. The color seemed to match some of the decor, but she wondered what that meant for her. She and J'onn had theories, but there were so many possibilities. "What have you done?" she whispered as she looked over at him.

What she saw was unexpected. Her father was in the corner, sitting in a chair, and there were tears running down his face. His genuinely appeared to be upset with whatever was going on. "I didn't want this for you, Alex." Jeremiah Danvers broke down and Alex took a step back, her mind reeled. If her father was this upset, then what had happened? What had been done to her? "All I wanted was for you to work by my side...that's the interest I wanted them to take in you...not this…"

"Not what?" she breathed, afraid of the answer.

Her father moved towards her and fell to his knees, his hands scrambling to take hers. "Forgive me, Alex...please…"

She instinctively pulled her hands away and took a step back. Alex honestly didn't know how to respond. "What did you do?"

"I don't know what they did...honestly," he told her through tears, still on his knees. "There are so many possibilities…"

"What does this mean?" she asked as she pulled at the teal tank top she now wore.

He was quiet at first, but after a moment he swallowed before looking right at her. "It means that you're worth something to them. You're valuable… That's why they brought you here. They want you to be comfortable."

"I'm not expendable anymore."

"Alex, please...for-"

"J'onn…" Alex looked all around. The room was obviously set up for one person, or at least that's what it seemed like. There was only a single chair, a single small dresser, and not much of anything else. "I want to see him…"

"They won't allow it-"

"I want to see him!" Alex shouted at her father as tears fell down her cheeks. She wasn't expendable anymore and that frightened her even more after seeing how her father had reacted. She was in this beautiful room and she had a bed and warmth...but was that to be her life besides the poking and prodding? Kara didn't even know where they were...she didn't even have a time for them to check in...how would her sister know where to worry? Where to look? And J'onn...what were their plans for him? She'd been happier in the other cell because at least they were together.

"If I could-"

"You want me to forgive you," she spat. Alex almost immediately softened at the notion that this was her life now. There would be no escape. "Cadmus has taken everything away from me…don't take him from me…"

Her father just stared at her, tears still trickling down his face as he stood. "Alex...you have to know I only wanted what was best for you."

"You're not my father."

"Alex-"

"Leave me alone," she told him angrily and turned away. Her hands balled up into fists as she stared at one of the pictures that hung on the wall, the ocean...and the first thing that came to mind was how it reminded her of Midvale. "Go!" she shouted furiously when she didn't hear him move. She listened as he left and then Alex allowed herself to cry. Was this all she had left? This room? A man who looked and sounded like her father, but wasn't her father?

No control.

No hope.

This wasn't life.

There was no future in Cadmus.

"Alex!"

"J'onn…"

"Alex! Wake up! Open your eyes!"

She groaned and struggled to make sense of what was reality and what was dream. Alex finally snapped her eyes open and her body bolted upwards as her heart raced as horrors flashed again before her eyes. "J'onn!"

"Hey, hey...you're safe," J'onn whispered and Alex realized that he was not only there but he was holding her. She didn't know how he got there, but she remembered that they'd taken her and they'd run what felt like every test humanly and medically possible on her, like they were mapping her entire being.

"We're never going to be safe," she mumbled as she looked up at him. Alex felt like she was completely zapped. She didn't know how long she'd been gone or how long she'd been unconscious, but she just wanted to sleep for weeks.

J'onn's fingers brushed along her cheek. "I would do anything to keep you safe…"

Reaching up, she brushed her fingers along his jaw, almost as if she were testing to make sure that he was really there...to make sure that he wasn't just a dream or hallucination. Alex opened her mouth to say something and then it was like her mind just shut down for a moment because she couldn't remember what she was going to say. Closing her mouth and squeezing shut her eyes, she tried to force her brain to work.

"Alex?"

"I can't concentrate...or think straight…"

"What did they do?"

"I don't know."

He held her tighter. "I've got to get you out of here."

"I was thinking I could help you with that," Jeremiah said.

Alex's eyes snapped open and she just stared up at J'onn. He, however, was staring in the direction of the door. "He's lying," she breathed.

"I'm willing to risk it," J'onn told her as he glanced down at her. "They've changed however they're cataloging you. I don't know if it's for the best or not, but-"

"I'm not going anywhere without you," she put out there. Alex knew him. She knew what he was thinking and what it sounded like Jeremiah was willing to do. She wasn't leaving Cadmus without J'onn. They were in this together and they needed to leave together. Plus, she had already seen enough horrors...she didn't want to know what they might do to J'onn if he was just abandoned in Cadmus. No, she wasn't doing that. There had to be another way.

"Tell me that you can get her out of here...that you can get her somewhere she'll be safe from Cadmus," J'onn said, he wasn't looking at her at all. In fact, Alex was certain that he was purposely not looking at her.

Alex's focus turned to Jeremiah who had moved further into the room. "She should have just agreed to join me...to join Cadmus-"

"Jeremiah, you're her father."

"She doesn't seem to claim me anymore."

"Don't listen to him," Alex told J'onn as she tugged on his arm. All she wanted was for him to look at her in that moment. She didn't want him to look at Jeremiah. She didn't want J'onn to get sucked into that false sense of hope. All of their hope should have been abandoned at the entrance to Cadmus. There was no hope anywhere in there. It was hell on Earth. A place filled with unspeakable evils. "We can't trust him…"

She wouldn't leave without him.

"Please, Jeremiah," J'onn plead.

"There's nothing more I can do...for either of you," Jeremiah said quietly and sadly before exiting the room and leaving them.

Alex just watched him go and knew that she shouldn't be sad or disappointed or feel anything except anger towards him, but she couldn't help it… As much as she'd denied it, he was still biologically her father. That was hard to let go or sincerely push to the back of her head when she looked at him and heard his voice and could only think of the man who had walked along the beach with her as a child, who had read to her, who had checked under her bed for monster...for everything…

"Alex…" J'onn whispered.

"He said he had never wanted this for me," she breathed as she just stared at the door. As she turned to J'onn, he was still dressed in yellow like before, and she sucked in a breath and looked up at him. Tears filled her eyes and her breath hitched as she tried to force the words out. It was something that she didn't want to speak out loud because that would just make it all true. "I don't know what's happening… I don't think they're going to let you stay… I think this is going to be goodbye, J'onn…"

TBC…