"Anything yet?!"
The second Kara had spotted J'onn standing in the waiting room, his clothes stained with blood and dust from the bombsite, she'd run up to him, ignoring the mass of black-suited Secret Service Agents clearing the room.
"Madam President." J'onn greeted the woman first, as she rounded the corner. He put a hand on Kara's shoulder. "Supergirl. Agent Danvers will be fine, she has some bruised ribs and a bump on her head, but she's not going to have any lasting damage."
Kara recognized the hint he was giving. The President didn't know Kara's identity, and showing too much concern would give things away that were to be avoided right now.
Winn ran into the room, typing away on his phone. J'onn watched him. A worried frown plastered on his face, as his eyes flit up and down the screen.
"Any word on Detective Sawyer, Director Henshaw?"
J'onn turned his eyes back to the president, and shook his head. "Not yet. Last I heard she was in surgery, but I don't know how long that will take."
Kara dropped down onto one of the chairs, and tried to focus. Heartbeats…
She'd learned to memorize them, to pick up on them, even if she was far away. Just in case something was wrong with her family, so she could do something.
She heard Alex's first. Thumping steadily. She squinted, trying to use her x-ray vision to see through the walls.
A few corridors down, in the ER, she saw her sister's shape sitting up on a bed and holding an icepack to her head while talking to a doctor.
Seeing that Alex was okay made her entire frame sag in relief. But then she tried to pick up on Maggie, try to see where she was, how she was…
"Supergirl?"
Kara's concentration was broken by Winn's hushed voice, as he ushered her and J'onn over to the side, away from the agents surrounding them.
He stopped in an adjacent corridor, and checked if anybody was around, before he leaned in. "Uh… right before I got in the car on the way here… Somebody called me. A blocked number."
Kara stiffened, while J'onn glanced around again to ensure that nobody had heard.
"Whoever it was, they announced another attack. At 8, tonight. But they also gave me a hint."
"A hint?!" J'onn folded his arms.
"Yeah. 'Cerberus'."
"Like the dog with the heads?" Kara frowned.
Winn nodded. "It's Greek mythology. A dog with multiple heads that guarded the gates of the underworld."
"Multiple heads…" Kara repeated.
"The decapitation they were referring to." J'onn finished. "They're saying that the DEO was just the beginning."
It stunned them to silence as the weight of the words set in.
"Excuse me…?" A gray-haired doctor rounded the corner to the corridor. "Am I-…"
"No, please." J'onn shook his head. "Is there any news?"
"Yes." The doctor smiled politely. "Agent Danvers is cleared – there's no risk for further complications, and the scans are looking good."
The three let out a sigh of relief.
"Any word on Detective Sawyer?" Winn's unsure voice was first.
"Well, from what I was told, her right side got penetrated by a piece of debris when the explosion hit, and she lost a lot of blood. They're removing it now. After that, we can assess the internal damage. But she's holding on."
J'onn thanked the man politely, as he turned back to Winn and Kara. "I need to go back to the bombsite if the President wants to make a statement. Kara, you stay here and take care of your sister. Winn – I know it's a lot to ask, but I need you to keep looking. Try and trace the phone call. See why they would hand it to us like that. We have less than five hours before they attack again."
"J'onn…" Kara tried, but the man was already walking away. Winn sighed. "Right. I'm going to go get the laptop. You stay here and take care of Alex and Maggie."
Kara wrapped her arms around Winn briefly, before pulling back. "Stay safe. Go to my apartment, the key is under the doormat. Call me if you have something."
"You too." Winn nodded, before running out of the hospital. The men in black followed suit shortly, as Kara saw the President walking next to J'onn.
"Good luck." The woman whispered to her, touching her shoulder briefly. And Kara watched the group disappear, before taking a deep breath and walking towards the emergency room.
She knocked on the open door to the room she knew Alex was in, to announce her presence. The doctor looked up, and his eyes widened slightly. "Supergirl…?"
The blonde ignored him, as she locked eyes with her sister. Though Alex looked tired and the side of her face was full of dried up blood, she saw the relief in her sister's eyes when she noticed that Kara was there.
"Could we have a moment, please?" Kara asked in a soft voice. The doctor got up and nodded. "I'll arrange the paperwork so you can go home, Agent."
Alex thanked him quietly. As he closed the door behind him, she looked at Kara once more, panic now covering her features. "Maggie… Kara do you-…"
"She's in surgery. Something about debris puncturing her side, but they don't know how serious it is yet."
Alex heaved a shaky breath. "God, I can't… oh god…"
"Alex, listen to me." Kara lifted Alex's head so that she was looking at her. "She's going to be fine, the doctor said so. She's a fighter."
"I need her to be… to be okay…" Alex's voice broke on the last word, but Kara felt her tense up completely to not let it show.
"We have a lead." Kara said quickly, to distract her. "They called Winn, they announced that they were going to attack again tonight."
"Tonight?" Alex's eyes widened. "Where?"
"We don't know yet. But they searched contact with us. Winn is investigating it."
Alex nodded, and moved off the table, swaying only slightly when standing on her two feet. Kara put a hand on her waist reflexively. "Easy, easy…"
"I'm fine, Kar. We need to get back to work."
"Okay, but-…"
"I'll give the doctor my phone number, and tell him to call me when they know more. But I can't… help if I'm sitting here worrying."
As much as she knew Alex was right, it hurt to leave Maggie behind like this.
And she didn't want to think about what would happen if something were to go wrong and Alex wouldn't be there…
"Let's go." She finally said. "My apartment. You can take a shower, and we're going to catch this guy."
As the pair moved down to the waiting room area, heading to the reception, Alex smiled politely at the receptionist, and started to fill out the paperwork for her discharge.
"Could you turn that up, please?" Kara said, prompting Alex to follow her sister's gaze, which was locked onto the television screen in the corner of the room. The nurse behind the desk turned up the volume.
"…no announcement was made of the her visit to the disaster site beforehand, so this comes as a surprise, but we expect that President Marsdin will make a speech and thank the rescue workers for all their hard work…"
The sisters watched as the camera picked up on J'onn and the President, stepping out of an armored vehicle.
Kara kept on staring at the live broadcast, while Alex finished up and handed the forms back quickly. With a rushed 'thank you', both sisters walked out. As soon as they were out the door, Kara reached for Alex and launched herself up into the sky, soaring through National City's airspace and reaching her own balcony within a few seconds.
To find Winn already working at the table, laptop open and tie loosened to give him an overall disheveled appearance.
"Alex…" He said, looking up the second they landed in the living room. Kara closed the window behind them.
"Do you have anything?" Alex asked, ignoring the obvious question in his voice.
The man pressed his lips together. "I might have something. But…" He sighed, starting over. "I was thinking – mythology. Cerberus is usually portrayed as having three heads. So maybe… if the DEO was one of them, we need to find the others?"
"There are other DEO sites outside of National City." Kara spoke up. "There's one in Metropolis too."
Winn's fingers raced over the keyboard as he looked it up. "There are five DEO headquarters in the US, not to mention black sites. So – no three."
"What if we're looking at it wrong?" Alex spoke up, leaning forward on the table. The dried blood on the side of her face now illuminated by the lamp above her. "The twelve labors of Hercules – the last one was to capture Cerberus and bring him to the mortal world. It was described as an impossible task - maybe they bombed the DEO because they wanted to release a prisoner? To bring him back to their 'underworld'?"
Her explanation apparently gave Winn an idea, because his eyes lit up as he started typing again furiously. After a few minutes, he spoke up. "I… think I have something."
Both Alex and Kara looked up.
"I found an operation from a few months back called Cerberus. It was a covert op, and any file that has any intel about it is blacked out completely."
"I have the highest DEO clearance level, I can-…" Alex started, but Winn cut her off with a shake of his head. "That won't work, because wasn't a DEO operation."
"Then what was it?" Kara frowned.
Winn looked up. "NCPD Science division."
Alex and Kara shared a look, the both of them realizing what that meant. The agent quickly excused herself to go clean up and change.
"Is she alright?"
Kara turned to Winn and shook her head. "She… had to leave Maggie."
Winn nodded. Alex had to be 'Agent Danvers' now, as horrible as it was.
The technician's eyes darted to Kara's TV, which had been showing the broadcast of the bombsite. But now, the President was apparently in the middle of a speech. He reached for the remote and turned the volume up once more, as Kara turned to follow.
"… thank the brave people that are out here, working hard. We don't have the answers yet, but we do know that this was a vile and despicable act of terror, that we will not let ourselves be defined by. The American people must come together and stand united to face this threat, and prove to these maleficent terrorists that we are not scared, and we will not give in to them."
Kara couldn't help but nod at the words.
The President paused briefly, before continuing. "An investigation has been opened, and I consider it my duty to inform the American people as soon as we have answers to give. Until then, we are-…"
The woman cut herself off because of shouting to her right, and turned her head to look at something off-camera.
Kara took a step in the direction of the window, ready to launch at the next sign of danger.
But when the President turned back to the cameras, she just cleared her throat. "God bless America."
After that, the camera followed her as she ran to where a few rescue workers were surrounding the debris, shouting.
As far as they were away from the reporter, the shouts were still clearly audible through the microphones.
Kara's heart stopped.
"We have a survivor!"