Prompt: How does Alex adjust to raising baby!Vega before Astra comes back? does baby!Vega have her crib in Alex's room for closer access, does Alex let the baby sleep with her? Does Alex have one of those little baby slings to carry Vega around?
Vega is a few days old at most when she comes out of the pod. Alex has babysat before, of course, but never for a baby this young. To say those first few days were rough would have been an understatement. Kara is a godsend considering she needs a lot less sleep than Alex herself does. Kara takes the shift from eleven to six while Alex sleeps, at which point Alex gets up and lets Kara catch a couple hours before she has to speed through her routine to get her to CatCo on time.
In the tired and stressed haze it takes a while for Alex to really digest the information that for all intents and purposes she just adopted a baby. Legally that's what the papers will say in a few weeks time when the DEOs semi-legal documents come through for the baby. Kara still has to give the baby a name for that to happen. And Alex has to decide if she puts Astra down as dead on the forms or leave her as a parent as well. She saw Astra die, felt the moment where it had been certain, but something just won't let her call it just yet. And while she may know how to take care of a baby for short periods of time and have the medical knowledge to back it up, that's so much different than being a full time guardian to a baby. And suddenly she's terrified. Because she's a fucking mess how is she going to raise a child?
But then Kara is by her side, babbling at the baby in Kryptonese and she takes a breath. She will be able to do this because she has the support of her sister and the support of her friends and Hank. And with help anything is possible. She can do this. Whatever feeling that drew her to this baby was not wrong. She will raise this little girl as best as she knows how.
And the best she knows how starts with a literal metric ton of research into everything that a baby needs for development and various furniture required. The first few days they got by with a loaned crib from one of the staff of the DEO, but if this is going to be the baby's home there has to be more than that. Alex gets everything and maybe the kitchen sink too. She's the equivalent to a first-time mother even if she doesn't feel it yet, and they always seem to be way over prepared. Kara doesn't help with the sheer amount of stuff bought because she keeps adding cute things to the cart and darting away before Alex can say to put them back. She'll never tell Kara that she loves the little hooded towels with monkeys on them.
One of the purchases is a rollable bassinet. Alex rolls it around so the baby always has a place to sleep but she can still see the baby. On nights where Kara is needed for super duty she keeps it right next to her bed and listens for the slightest fuss from the baby. She would sleep with the girl in her bed, but she's read enough to know that co-sleeping is far too dangerous to even think about it as more than a passing thought. Sometimes instead of trying to sleep she just stares at the tiny face and wonders if she's doing the right thing. She really hopes she is.
Alex doesn't really settle into everything until about two months in. Kara finally gave the baby a name a week in and that made it a bit more normal, but it's only the day in and day out that reality that really grounds Alex. She starts to relish coming back from missions having Vega and her ever-rotating assigned DEO babysitter greet her at the door. She misses the baby softness and smell when Vega isn't in her arms. Alex even starts to not hate the ridiculous little baby carrier that Kara got her almost as a joke because hey, at least her hands were free. And having Vega giggling at her funny faces while she walked around didn't hurt either. But that's another thing that Kara isn't ever going to find out either.
All in all by the end of the second month into the beginning of the third she feels like…not a parent per se, not yet, but something like it. The chaos of working and raising a child wears on her as it does all new mothers, especially since she didn't exactly get maternity leave to deal with the first few weeks, but then again, some mothers don't either and Alex can deal. She can provide for the baby and take care of her and love her. Vega is hers. That much she cannot vacillate on even if she is unsure of exactly their relationship as of yet, and she is more than ok with that because Vega is the most beautiful little girl with the happiest toothless smile there is and she is immensely glad that she insisted that she take care of Vega that day when the pod landed and she wouldn't change a thing.