Beep.

The electronic continuous tone made Alex blink her eyes as she tried to take in the world around her. Her body felt numb and yet she was standing and looking around on her own two feet.

Beep.

It took her a minute but she realized that she'd been to this place before.

Beep.

She'd been running through this area as her father had dragged her along. It had been after their escape from Cadmus, before he'd shoved her into the hiding space.

Beep. Beep.

Panic filled her as she sensed something. Alex didn't quite know how to put her finger on the feeling. It wasn't one she had had before. In her experience, she'd felt someone being in the room with her or being behind her...but this was different.

Beep. Beep.

Alex found herself transported to another spot. She closed her eyes and then when she opened them she was just suddenly there. Staring at the rocky crevice that she'd been wedged inside of for hours. Then the gunshot went off-

BeepBeep. BeepBeep. BeepBeep.

"Alex!"

The voice wasn't her father's, but she was having a hard time pulling her thoughts from the fact that she knew that gunshot was for her father. The man that she'd searched all those years for-

"Alex!"

"Alex!"

Her eyes snapped open, her chest was pounding, she couldn't breathe, and so many eyes were on her. Tears streamed down her face and then she suddenly found a way to calm herself. Everything that had happened, it snapped back to her.

J'onn.

Blinking, she tried to make sure that she was really awake and that she wasn't hallucinating. He was still there...and her mother. They both looked so concerned.

"Alex, Sweetheart, say something!" her mother pleaded.

"How long have we been home?" she whispered as she closed her eyes and just focused on breathing. Alex knew that she needed to get her vitals down and to a steady pace. She could hear the beeping from the monitors and she knew that she still wasn't quite there.

"Almost three days."

Three days.

"General Lane-"

"You don't need to worry about him," J'onn said firmly. "Let us worry about him."

"He was here before," Alex pushed. "He had the base watched-"

"He's still out there," J'onn told her. "His people, anyways… Everyone has been trying to act as normally as possible...and if we need to, then we'll hide until they're gone...Kara said you did that before."

Nodding slowly, Alex finally opened her eyes again. "You okay?" She remembered the team getting to him, that was about the point where she'd felt like she wasn't going to be able to take another step. He hadn't looked so great then, but he looked better now.

"Now that you're awake, yes," J'onn told her warmly.

She just smiled and found sleep tugging her away again.

"I heard you're giving Doctor Hamilton a hard time."

Alex just stared at him. She hadn't expected J'onn to come and be the one to talk her into behaving. Her mother was lurking somewhere around the DEO and Kara was always in and out...so she'd expected one of them. J'onn, she expected to be resting. "I've been asleep or resting for...I don't know how long...but it's been too long," Alex replied plainly. She wasn't upset or angry, she was simply frustrated at being kept on bed rest. Alex Danvers didn't do bed rest. "I just want to walk the hall or something...preferably not in this," she said as she pulled at the medical gown.

"I think that your sister brought you a bag from home," he offered.

"Good because I already used my spare set from my locker," Alex said and fiddled with the positioning button to adjust her bed so that she was even more upright than before. J'onn's hand covered hers after a moment and she stopped and stared at his hand on hers before looking back up at him. "I'm going stir crazy."

"I believe it," he said with a tilt of his head.

"Why aren't you on bed rest?"

"Because I wasn't unconscious for an extended period of time and in withdrawal from the drug they were giving you at Cadmus."

"No more drugs."

There was a look and then he looked down, like she wouldn't see it. That only made Alex stare at him more and more intently. "J'onn," she said as grabbed his hand and gently squeezed it. "What aren't you telling me?" And when his eyes met hers, she knew that it likely went beyond him. "Why do I feel like I'm the last to know-"

"You're not."

"Then who else knows?"

Silence.

So, she started to guess. Even though J'onn had spent years deceiving people, ever since she learned that he was J'onn J'onzz...he'd let down his guard in a way with them and he couldn't hide things from her as easily as he once had. "Kara?"

"Yes."

"My mom?"

"Yes."

Alex sighed. "Really?"

"It's-"

"I assume doctors…"

"Doctor Hamilton," he corrected.

"Adler and Benanti?"

"No."

"Adler and Benanti."

He smiled at that. "No," he stood firmly. "Adler and Benanti do not know...yet. I can assure you of that."

"Exactly who's minds do you listen to?" she asked as she narrowed her eyes a bit. She was half serious and half playful about it.

"Everyone's-"

"Except Kara."

He smiled at that too. "Except Kara."

"Lucky her."

Her comment almost seemed to hurt him. "I don't always listen, Alex…" J'onn told her gently. "It's more sensing you…your presence...your frame of mind...your emotional aura..."

"I'm not-"

"You want to know the secret that has been kept from you?" he asked quickly before she could make herself more clear. Alex knew that he had to know what she meant, but she'd wanted to explain herself further. "It's not because you don't deserve to know, Alex, because you should have been the first person to know...it's just that you were so fragile when you first woke up."

"Fragile is not a word I appreciate," she murmured quietly. Alex crossed her arms as she waited for it. For the truth that had been kept from her. "You know that I can handle anything-"

"I thought I could...and then your mother told me...and-"

The look on his face. It was like he'd lost everything. That worried her and made Alex's insides twist. "I'm fine… They said I just needed that drug-"

"You do."

"So, I'll have to take it-"

"It's to keep your body from rejecting what they did to you," he said ever so gently.

Alex found herself squeezing his hand even more now, her eyes never leaving his as those words sunk in. To keep her from rejecting what had been done to her. What had been done to her? She'd been checked out before they'd left for Cadmus, she thought it was just the medicine, what was so wrong with her? "What?" she breathed.

"They manipulated your DNA-"

Her thoughts weren't of disgust, but disbelief. "So, I'm part...alien now?" Her mind reeled because other than being sick, she didn't feel different. "It's obviously not an alien DNA that contains super healing powers…"

"It's not quite like that."

"Why is it so hard for you to say?" she asked in a whisper. Alex didn't understand, he still seemed to torn up about it. "Am I dying?"

"No," he responded quickly.

"I'm not a hybrid."

"No."

Alex just waited. "J'onn-"

"A child," he breathed and his eyes darted down.

A child.

Her mind played with that for a moment. It hit her and she couldn't breathe for a moment.

A child.

The alien DNA...she wasn't the hybrid-

"What DNA did they use?" she whispered as she watched him, his hand being held by hers as tightly as she could hold it because she was afraid he was going to pull away. He didn't respond and she suddenly felt like she knew the answer. "J'onn?"

"Your body is fighting to reject the child within you," he spoke softly, still not looking up at her. "The serum from Cadmus is supposed to level out your body, to keep it from doing that...so it's taking time and that's why the doctors feel that you're so fragile right now...that's why they're keeping you on bed rest." He was quiet again. "The doctors wanted to wait...to tell you...to explain what had been done with you, they didn't detect it before for several reasons...but they wanted you to be well informed before you made any kind of decision." Finally, he looked up at her. "Because it is your decision. It's not your mother's or Kara's or mine or Doctor Hamilton's or even Director Lane's…"

As she stared at him, she knew why he wasn't answering her. Everything that she was hearing was making it all harder. Alex just wanted to hear him say it...to say that the child that she carried with hybrid DNA was part human and part Green Martian. That the child wasn't just hers...but theirs.

"Why can't you say it?" she whispered as she reached out to touch his face.

"A child...it hasn't been something on your mind before this moment," J'onn told her. "I've watched you for so long and I've worked so closely with you, not once-"

"So? What does that have to do with just saying it?"

"Because a child isn't something that you force on someone-"

"Well, they weren't exactly ethical doctors at Cadmus," she tried to break the tension, but it obviously fell flat from the look he gave her. Alex sighed. "It's done, J'onn. You and I didn't have any say in it. We can't go back in time, unless you have a blue box…" She still was winning so much as a smirk or hint of a smile. She looked away for a moment, he hand still tightly gripping his. "You told me that you loved me…"

"I still do," he breathed.

When she looked back at him, she still only saw pain there. "Is it really because it was something that neither one of us had a say in or because you don't feel like you're worthy of a child?" Alex hated to think that J'onn was the last of his kind. Not even Kara was the last Kryptonian and she knew how hard her sister had had it and how hard it sometimes still was for her. But J'onn, he was truly the last Green Martian (unless there was one hiding out there in the universe somewhere).

"This...it has to be-"

Her finger pressed against his lip and she stared at him and spoke quite seriously. "J'onn J'onzz, don't think that I am going to do...whatever I decide to do...unless it's exactly what I want."

"Alex-"

She pulled him with her hand. "Come closer," she told him calmly. "I'm not supposed to be leaving this bed...so you're going to have to be the one to move." Alex watched as he got up from his chair and there was confusion in his face. All she could think about was that last moment she had with J'onn before Jeremiah pulled her from his cell. Everything that had been said, everything that had been left unsaid, everything that she hadn't had a chance to say, and everything that she'd thought to say between now and then.

No thinking.

"Alex-"

No doubt he'd picked up with his 'sensing' of her. Alex pulled J'onn down to her, yanking him by the front of his shirt, and pressed her lips to his. Before, she hadn't had time to properly process what J'onn was saying until she was being dragged away from the cell. He hadn't pushed the fact that he loved her...that he loved her...past saying it and pressing a kiss to her forehead. But she'd had time to think...to search her feelings...and even though she wasn't one hundred percent sure what those feelings were...she knew that she cared about him...a lot more than she was supposed to.

Eventually he relaxed and kissed her back before they pulled apart. They just stared at each other for a long moment. "I love you-"

"Alex-"

"Stop interrupting me," she complained and leaned in to kiss him again. If Adler and Benanti already hadn't heard something, then this was certainly going to be seen by someone and likely spread like wildfire. Alex didn't care. They'd been through hell and back and right now...she just wanted this...for their relationship to be okay...and for it to be something that they had a decision in.

TBC…