"She panicked when she came to, and she tore some of her stitches. There was a lot of blood, I didn't notice at first…" Alex jumbled the explanation as she walked alongside the nurse, back to Maggie's room.
But when she pushed the door open, she froze in place at the sight in front of her.
An empty bed. And her wife nowhere in sight.
The sheets stained with blood from the mess Maggie had made.
"Mags…?" Alex frowned, knocking on the adjacent bathroom door, and pushing it open when she received no response.
Finding it deserted too.
The nurse behind her frowned as she watched Alex's frantic movements. The agent turned to her. "Could somebody have taken her for tests? Scans?!"
"In this state, right after surgery, they would have just taken her on the bed." The nurse responded, already reaching for her pager.
Alex ran a hand through her hair and tried her best not to panic. "Okay… so… We need to check the floor. She should be somewhere around here, she can only be two minutes away."
If somebody took her…
That man that only Maggie could see… Could he have walked into the hospital and kidnapped her?
Oh god.
Alex looked away, trying to keep a straight face. She had to be strong.
The nurse ran off with the pager, no doubt alerting security to the missing patient.
Alex felt like she couldn't breathe.
Her hand reached for her phone in her pocket, but she found that it had vanished. "What the…"
She turned, and ran towards the nearest person – a woman, probably visiting a patient. "Ma'am! Agent Danvers, FBI. I need to make a phone call, can I use yours?"
The woman's eyes widened at the sight of her badge, but she handed over her phone anyway. Alex typed in Kara's number quickly, and pressed the phone to her ear, praying that her sister would answer.
A click. "This is Kara Danvers, I can't come to the phone right now, but…"
Alex winced at the voicemail message, but waited for the beep nonetheless. "Kara, it's Alex. Maggie is gone, I think someone took her. I lost my phone, but I'm coming back. We need to find her before…" She trailed off with a sigh, not wanting to shock the woman in front of her any further. "Just… wait for me."
She disconnected the call and gave the phone back to the woman, and took a few aimless steps in the direction of the exit, before the full gravity of the situation finally got to her.
Breathing heavily, Maggie stumbled into a supply closet. She looked down at the text she'd received one more time.
Wilson park. 15 minutes.
As she leaned against the door, she winced. Alex's jacket had done little to stop the bleeding. And dressed in a bloody hospital gown, she knew she wouldn't stand a chance of reaching her destination without anybody asking questions.
"Shit…" She whispered to herself.
She looked around, and saw a few cardboard boxes stacked on the shelves around her. She reached for them, and pulled one open. To her relief, it contained boxes of gauze. Immediately, she yanked open a few packets, and stuffed a few pads against the wound in her side, biting down on her hand to prevent herself from crying out.
When she was satisfied, she reached for the other boxes.
After a few fruitless attempts, she finally found a box filled with black scrubs. She pulled out a package, and tore off the hospital gown, pulling on the pants and top. It wasn't ideal, but at least she could walk out without anybody asking questions.
She threw the bloody gown behind the shelf, and closed the door behind her.
Freezing immediately at the sight of Alex handing a random woman back her phone, and looking completely panicked and distraught.
It broke Maggie's heart to see Alex like this – no doubt was the worry directed at her.
But she couldn't dwell on it. She needed to make the rendezvous with Greene.
It was the only way to stop the attack.
Without looking back, she walked in the opposite direction, to the nearest emergency exit.
"Winn!"
The technician looked up to see Kara stumble into her apartment in her haste to get to him. He jumped up at the serious look on her face. "What?! What happened?!"
"Alex called me. Maggie is missing."
Winn paled. "W-what? Missing? But she was…"
"Alex says somebody kidnapped her. Maybe the people that had something to do with the bombing. She's on her way over. Winn, we need to know what that Cerberus operation was!"
"I've been trying to crack the encryption for the past half hour, but… nothing." Winn ran a hand through his hair. "And it's likely they installed a tripwire, so they'd be notified if anybody was digging too deep. I can't risk getting caught, or they'll be one step ahead of us."
They both fell into silence, as Kara glanced at the television. "It's a mess. The people don't know what's happening, they're scared."
"So am I." Winn chuckled dryly.
A loud knocking on the door. Kara squinted, but then speeded towards the door to pull it open.
Revealing a red-eyed Alex, who stepped into the apartment. "We need to find who took her, now."
"Alex, slow down. Tell us what happened."
"She… woke up. She told me about Cerberus, and… I went to get a doctor. When I came back, she was gone. It has to be that guy that she saw at the bombsite. Maybe he came to finish the job, or… I- I don't know." Alex shook her head.
"Wait – she told you about Cerberus?" Kara frowned.
"Yeah, it was a covert op she was leading. A guy that was guarding a portal in an old factory building. The rest of her squad got killed, she doesn't know why they covered it up."
"When was this?" Winn asked, moving to the computer.
Alex took a step in his direction. "A few months ago."
The technician nodded. "I'll cross-reference old factory buildings around town with a running algorithm on traces of portal technology, but it's a stab in the dark – I don't know if it'll get us a location."
"If it has something to do with it, then it's the best guess for finding Maggie." Alex nodded decisively. "Do it."
She turned back, seeing her sister staring at the television – showing a repeat of the President's speech at the bombsite. "I need to go back. If she's a target, then we can't leave her alone. Call me if you know anything, I'll try to look for Maggie as much as possible."
After that, she took off, jumping from her balcony and launching herself into the sky.
Alex reached down into her pocket, but grunted as she remembered what she'd realized at the hospital. "Fuck… Winn, can you track my phone? I think I lost it at the hospital."
"Coming right up…" A few strokes on the keyboard, and Winn frowned. "Uh…"
"What?" Alex took a step in his direction, as he rotated the laptop so she could watch the screen.
A map of National City, zooming in. But to her surprise, it wasn't tracking the hospital.
"Wilson Park…" Winn frowned. "That's like four blocks from National City Gen…?"
Before Winn could say anything else, Alex was already out the door.
Maggie tried not to look down at her shaking hands as she sat down onto the bench, instead glancing around at the people in the park. Playing soccer with kids, picknicking, jogging…
Without a word, a man in a long black coat holding a briefcase took a seat next to her.
She didn't need to see his face to know that it was Greene.
"You alright?" Were the first words that came out of his mouth. Maggie chuckled weakly. "A few more holes than I would like."
"Henshaw asked about Cerberus."
"Yeah, Alex did too."
"I hope you didn't say anything." Greene growled. "You know the consequences."
"You know that they're behind the bombing. The DEO deserves to know."
"If the DEO knows about Cerberus, all that we worked for is ruined." Greene shook his head. "You're not telling them anything."
"Is it really worth it?!" Maggie shot back. "People died, Jeff. Many. People I knew."
"Boo fucking hoo." He grunted. "You listen to me. You keep on feeding Alex that you don't remember what happened. I'm working on it, alright? But I can't have Henshaw breathing down my neck while I do it."
"I saw one of them at the airfield. And again at the bombsite."
Greene nodded. "I need you to keep me updated on their investigation. Don't help them any more than you already have, and if you see the guy again – don't interfere. That almost got you killed."
A beat of silence. "Alex thinks they kidnapped me. I left the phone on, she'll be here soon."
"We'll play into it. Tell her that you don't remember anything, that you went to sleep in the hospital and woke up here. I'll make sure the camera feeds are wiped."
Maggie took a shaky breath. Greene noticed. "Sawyer – you know this is for their own good. You said so yourself. You were the one that wanted to keep it covered up."
"I know."
Greene got up, and walked off into the bushes without another word.
Maggie watched him go, and waited for a few seconds to get up and follow him.
In the bushes, out of sight for passerby's, Greene was waiting. Maggie took off the scrubs, leaving her in her underwear. He clicked open the briefcase in his hands, revealing a single syringe.
He took it out, and stuffed the discarded clothes in. After glancing down briefly to the amateuristic patchjob Maggie had performed on her wound, he yanked the gauze off and tucked it away too.
"Sweet dreams." He grunted, as he plunged the syringe in her neck.
A few seconds later, Maggie's eyes rolled backwards, and he caught her before she could fall and gently lowered her to the ground.
"Good luck." He whispered to her, before stepping out of the bushes.
A small smile appeared on his face as he watched Alex appear on the other side of the park, running in his direction. That woman really loved her to death.
He was long gone when she finally reached Maggie, her eyes widening at the state her wife was in.
"Oh god…"
Alex dropped to her knees immediately, and cupped Maggie's face in her hands. "Hey… Baby, can you hear me? Maggie?!"
She checked her pulse and breathing, and then reached for her phone on the ground.
Clearly, the hospital wasn't safe anymore.
"Kara? I need you, now. Wilson Park- I found her. We need to take her back to your apartment."