Maggie woke feeling groggy and fought to open her eyes. As she did, she saw Kara there standing next to the bed.

"She's awake," Kara yelled out.

Maggie wasn't sure that was entirely correct as she felt like she could go right back to sleep, but she heard a bustling of activity off to her right, past where Kara was standing. She wasn't sure what was happening though as she struggled back to full consciousness. She wanted to tell Kara what Alex had said. She wanted to hug her, but right now she barely had the strength to keep her eyes open.

Then she heard it – the sound of a flat line sensor.

"Alex!" she cried out and immediately started to rise out of the bed.

She managed to get herself to the edge of the bed when Kara put a hand on her. "It's ok," she said. "This is the plan."

"Huh?"

"Now that you are free, we are going to free her."

"But …" Maggie's mind felt like mush. "She's dying."

"That is the plan. The doctors intentionally stopped her heart. They are going to revive her, but they need to make sure Evo flees first."

Maggie looked at Kara like she was insane, and instead got off the bed, but Kara had to immediately hold onto her so she wouldn't fall.

"Let's get you back in bed."

"No, I need to see her," Maggie said.

Kara reached for the curtain that separated Maggie's bed from Alex and with Kara's support Maggie moved closer. There was Alex on the bed, sensors attached to her head and chest. Some sort of blanket that had blue lines glowing on it covered her. The doctors, including Eliza, were just standing there as the flat line continued. She could see Lena in the background who was intently studying a screen and Maggie observed the artificial brain was also there beside her and there were wires leading from it to Alex's head.

But the strangest thing was J'onn standing there his hand on Alex's head, his eyes closed in concentration.

Evo stared at Alex.

"You aren't going to get to do this to anyone else ever," Alex said. "You will never be freed. You will never feed this way again."

He smiled at her. "You think you have won? Do you think I'm going to leave your mind? I thought you were smarter than this Alexandra. Did you forget that as soon as were connected, I knew all about your plan? They may stop your heart, but your brain is still alive for a bit and I won't leave until it's completely dead and they won't be able to revive you."

"Oh, I know you wouldn't," Alex said. "You may know me, but I also know you. I knew you wouldn't let go. In fact, I counted on it."

Evo studied her for a moment.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "You don't know what is going to happen next? That must be frustrating. To be fair, I don't either. I decided to put my trust in my friends and my family. They will pull me out of this, or I will die. I'm prepared for either eventuality now that Maggie has been released. That was all that mattered. I can die happy knowing she is safe, and knowing you will never hurt anyone ever again."

"What do you think you are going to accomplish here?" he said. "Do you think your DEO can hold me forever?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I don't care to know. Once this is over between us, I don't want to ever know about you ever again. They can lock you in the deepest cell the DEO owns or shoot you into the sun for all I care."

She took a seat back down on the couch. "I'm just going to sit here and wait for whatever the end is," she said.

"You know time works differently in here," Evo said. "Even if you have minutes left out there, in here, I can make it seem longer."

"Go ahead," Alex said. "Show me some other world. You might want to make it a sad one though because right now I feel … happy … yes happy knowing you will never get to experience another person's emotions ever again. I am happy to die knowing I am stopping you."

"Your death will accomplish nothing," Evo said. "They can't keep me a prisoner forever. I will get free and the first thing I will do is take Maggie once more. Or maybe I will see what the Kryptonian has to offer."

Alex looked at him and smiled. "You know I did figure out my mistake," she said. "I died once before remember? I died and then came back and in that haze, I came after you. I made physical contact with you and that is how you re-established the connection. Now, Maggie, you didn't come in physical contact with her, but when she entered my brain, it might as well have been contact. J'onn will make sure you never make contact with anyone again. You think you can do what you did to me and that he wouldn't take measures to prevent it. Between him and Superman, you might just get yourself a one-way trip back to the Phantom Zone. Who knows. I mean I don't which we have already established, which means you don't. You have no move left except to try and torture me for the remaining time we have together, so get on with it if you wish. It doesn't matter to me. You know the funny thing is, you told Maggie I would be begging for death and you weren't far off, so congratulations."

Evo reverted to his form. "I will destroy your mind before you die!" he yelled.

Back at the DEO

"There it is," Lena said as she looked at the monitor. "The brainwaves are starting to separate. Whatever she is doing in there, it's working."

"Come on Alex," her mom said as she waited with the medical team. "Hurry."

Maggie was still holding on to Kara, but her eyes were on Alex. She was beginning to think more clearly and understand that something was happening there, some sort of plan to free Evo from her mind. But the longer her heart was stopped the more Maggie began to worry.

Inside Alex's mind

Alex found herself transported to what was the home she grew up in. She looked down at herself and saw she was a teenager. There was a knock at the door and her mom answered it.

She recognized it for what it was – the day the DEO came to tell them that her dad was gone.

"Really," Alex said. "Is this the best you got?"

She knew Evo was there, listening and waiting, even if she couldn't see him.

"Come on, it's like you aren't even trying," Alex said.

The scene changed and again, Alex recognized it – it was the moment she had broken off the engagement with Maggie. He was trying to use her memories, she realized.

"Again, not sure what you are going for here," she called out. "This happened. I broke up with her. Did I regret it, yes, but she is safe from you now and that is all that matters. Normally, you are more inventive than this. For an end move, it's quite disappointing."

Evo appeared before her. "Disappointing eh? You haven't even experienced all that I can do."

"And here, I thought I was special," she said. "You want to bring your best against me, go ahead. Do your worst."

He screamed in rage and this time touched her. She felt a sharp pain and it drove her to her knees.

"You want my worst Alexandra, take it, take it all."

The pain she felt was like her skull splitting into a million pieces and she couldn't help but scream.

Back at the DEO

"Alex," J'onn said, and he opened her eyes. "I can sense her once more. She's in pain. He's hurting her."

Lena was concentrating on the screen in front of her, watching the brainwaves, they were almost separated and she could tell now which was which. She just needed a few moments and she glanced over at Kara who was watching but clearly nervous as time continued to tick by. Her eyes went back to the screen.

"Come on, come on," she said to herself until it happened. There was the separation she needed. She isolated Evo's brainwaves and sent them into the artificial brain. "She's free!"

As soon as she said it, Eliza gave commands to the medical team and J'onn backed out of the way. The blanket which was used to lower her body temperature, now turned red to bring it back up.

They all stood there and watched as the medical team worked to revive her. They were doing chest compressions on her.

Maggie released herself from Kara. It's taking too long, she thought, she was dead too long. "Please," she whispered. "Please come back."

Eliza ordered the compressions to stop and she took a large needle and placed it over Alex's chest before plunging it in.

Adrenaline, Maggie realized.

She didn't even know she was crying and then the beep from the heart monitor sounded and she gasped. Another beep and then another. Finally, it steadied out.

"We got her," Eliza called out and Maggie, still crying hugged Kara. When she released her, she looked at Alex who was lying there, her heart beating, but still unconscious.

Eliza turned to look at her. "She's going to be ok, but she needs to rest, and so do you."

Maggie did feel exhausted but she didn't want to return to bed. She wanted Alex to be awake, to just know for sure that she was free of Evo and that this was over.

Eliza came over to her. "Back to bed Maggie or I will sedate you."

Maggie nodded, knowing she couldn't stay upright much longer. Kara helped her back to the bed, and she fought to stay awake a little longer, but her eyes finally closed.

….

Alex was dreaming, but her mind told her it was a dream, and once she knew that she started to wake up. She opened her eyes to find she was in the medbay still, the lights off in the room except for one small lamp.

She looked around the room. It was empty – she was alone. She closed her eyes a moment and opened them once more. She was truly alone. It worked, she realized. Evo was gone from her mind and she was still alive.

And Maggie, she thought, Maggie was ok, which was the important part.

She yawned, as she was still tired and she turned over on her side and went back to sleep.

When she woke next, she saw Maggie sitting in a chair, looking at a tablet.

"Hey," Alex said and Maggie looked at her and smiled.

"Hey yourself," Maggie said. "It's about time you wake up."

Alex yawned but sat up in bed. "I woke before, but I think it was nighttime, no one was here so I went back to sleep. How long was I out?"

"Seven months."

"What!"

"Just kidding," Maggie said. "It just felt like that as far as waiting for you to wake up. It's only been three days. How are you feeling?"

Alex took a moment to think about it. "Still tired, and …" she rubbed her chest area. "And that hurts a bit."

"You were a little stubborn in returning to the land of the living – lots of chest compressions and an adrenaline shot directly to the heart."

"That will do it," Alex said.

"And what about um your mind, how is that?"

"Clear," Alex replied. "He's gone from it. What about you?"

"I am also clear, but you knew that," Maggie said. "Thank you. Thank you for rescuing me."

"You're welcome, although I should thank you for doing it first."

"I didn't technically succeed though."

"You got him out of my mind. It gave me the time to at least think of a solution."

"You realize your solution was to kill yourself."

Alex shrugged. "Seemed like the best idea at the time. Besides, I'm here so the others saved me. I had to have faith in that, especially after hearing Kara go on and on about how if I just gave Lena a chance she would come up with something because she was so brilliant."

"Is there something going on between those two?"

"No idea, but if there isn't, there should be."

"Still, I wish her plan hadn't included killing you. It's not how I wanted to wake up, hearing you flatline like that. It was too big of a risk."

"I disagree. Saving you was all that mattered. I couldn't let him have you like that. It's why I told you to stay away from him. He was becoming fixated on you when he was in my mind."

"I don't think I was quite what he expected or wanted," Maggie said. "And I have to say, I'm ok with that. But in all seriousness, I guess I have a better idea of what you must have gone through and I just wanted to say that I'm really happy that you never have to deal with him ever again."

"What happened to him?"

"Do you want to know?"

Alex thought about it. She should know. It was part of her job to know things about dangerous aliens and their whereabouts.

"Not right now," she said finally. "Maybe someday, but not now."

Maggie nodded. "J'onn said that there at the end, that Evo was hurting you. Do you remember any of that?"

Again Alex had to think about it. Like before when she had woken the first time, some of it seemed to be fading in her mind, but now that she thought about it, yes she did remember.

"I'm not sure what he did. It wasn't like before. It was like he was attacking my mind directly without using one of those fantasy worlds to elicit an emotional response. He was so angry, he wanted to hurt me. I think he did want to destroy me there at the end."

"Whatever went on in there, Lena said you were able to get a response out of Evo that allowed her to start seeing his brainwave as it separated from yours."

"For Evo, it was always about control in there. He had to be in control of every scenario so he could dictate every emotion. But he couldn't control the outcome out here, and since I didn't know what was happening either, he was in the dark, and that bothered him. He lashed out in the end, and in doing so, he lost control of his emotions and that is why our brainwaves separated."

There was a moment when neither woman said anything.

"Did you mean what you said in there?" Alex said. "About a second chance."

"I wouldn't be sitting here now if I didn't mean it," Maggie said. "Is it what you want?"

"Yes," Alex said. "I would give anything for that."

"But if we are going to do that, I think we need to take it slow and talk about what it is we both want. I can't promise you that it will magically work out or that we won't discover that we truly do want different things. Still, I would like to try, if you are willing."

Alex didn't say anything at first, just nodded yes. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For this, for a second chance," Alex said. "It's more than I could have hoped for."

Maggie came over to the bed and leaned over and kissed her. "I love you, Alex Danvers."

"I love you, Maggie Sawyer."