The silence that followed was the most deafening sound Maggie had ever heard.
And glancing upward, she could see that her wife was watching her with such an unreadable and confused expression that it physically hurt.
"That's the site of the NCPD op." Winn supplied needlessly. Maggie nodded slowly.
"What's going on?" Kara frowned, crossing her arms. "Something doesn't add up here."
Maggie glanced around the room, seeing the different faces staring at her, and realized that she had two choices.
Either lie her way out of it, or tell them the truth.
And both options meant trouble.
"The mission was classified for a reason-…." Maggie began, but she was interrupted immediately.
"You knew."
Maggie's head snapped up to meet J'onn's eyes.
"You knew that they were going to bomb the DEO, you knew that everyone would be killed."
"J'onn…" Alex warned, a stern look on her face as she took a step forward. While Maggie had been yelling at her not even a minute ago about making assumptions, J'onn was accusing Maggie of things that he couldn't prove. A step too far in her book.
"I didn't know all of it. I didn't know enough."
That made Alex freeze and glance back at her wife with wide eyes. The previous fire to defend her had disappeared instantly.
"You don't know what you're up against. Even I still don't know. All I know is that it's better if you guys stay out of it."
"All of my agents are dead." J'onn growled, raising a finger in her direction. "The entire DEO building is in a pile of dust and rubble, and you knew."
Maggie swallowed thickly as she watched his eyes glow red.
"You need to start talking. Now." Kara said, an eyebrow raised. While the heroine didn't look as ready to murder as J'onn did, it was hard to ignore her clenched jaw.
Lastly, Maggie's eyes flitted back to meet Alex's warm brown ones, that looked like they were pleading with her to explain. To make her understand.
"Cerberus was a mission we did, to raid the Lyons Inc. abandoned factory." Maggie said. "Passerby's had complained about loud noises coming from the place, assuming it was squatters. We were called in to investigate. We thought it was just aliens hiding, a routine procedure – arrest them, take them in, lock them up."
Nobody responded, and Maggie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Greene insisted that he led the op. He usually doesn't go out in the field, so it surprised me. Me and two uniforms were his back-up… When we arrived, we saw the portal. Greene ordered one of the officers to go check it out, but the guy was shot in the back… The guy that shot him, it was Barclay."
"You knew Barclay…" Kara whispered.
"As soon as he shot, Barclay ran into the portal. Greene ran after him – I warned him to stay back, but he jumped anyway. So I jumped after him. The portal… led to another dimension. To a room. Some sort of command center."
"Aliens…?" Alex asked.
Maggie shook her head. "Humans. About twelve of them. Everything happened really fast, but I recognized faces. People I knew." She glanced up to meet Alex's eyes again. "Agents."
"DEO?!" Alex's voice seemed stuck in her throat.
"NCPD too. I didn't understand – I thought the DEO had a secret joint taskforce, or… that we stumbled upon another version of Earth. It ended in a shootout, the uniform was shot through the head, I managed to take two guys out before I went down. Greene was the last man standing, and they cut him a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"If he provided them the intel they needed, they would spare him and his family. I was still hanging on to consciousness and I managed to get up. Greene saved my life by telling them that I had contacts at the DEO that he didn't have. We both got away."
Another deafening silence that lasted a few seconds, until Kara broke it. "So… what did they want from you?"
Maggie hesitated. Giving them that piece of the puzzle would mean that they would be able to put everything together at last.
The choice was made for her, however, when Alex whispered the reply.
"You gave them the blueprints."
Maggie clenched her eyes shut, feeling her throat close up. "I didn't know what they were going to do with them."
"And you didn't even consider the fact that this would happen?!" J'onn shot back angrily.
"Of course I did!" Maggie defended. "But it was either that or them killing all of you anyway! They were corrupt agents all around the DEO, they could kill Alex or you or Kara in a heartbeat, I had to."
"You didn't." J'onn spat. "You could have told us."
"I didn't know how deep it went." Maggie shook her head. "Greene has infiltrated them, but I'm convinced that he was actually in on the plan ever since the beginning. So I have to play along with him, I did horrible things, but I don't know who I can trust anymore. If I don't help him, he's coming after you. And I knew that if I did, and you would find out, that would be the end too. So…"
Maggie took a shaky breath, and got up from the couch. "There. Now you know."
As she moved to head out the door, she heard the click of a gun safety, and froze. She turned around slowly, revealing that J'onn had pulled his gun on her. "We're not done."
"Greene told me about the bombing. He faked the message of the decapitation, so that the four of you would be at the airfield, instead of at the DEO." Maggie whispered through tears. "That's all I know. I only gave them the blueprints, I swear."
She moved back towards the door, but J'onn yelled again. "STOP!"
Maggie huffed. "What do you think will happen, J'onn?" She spun around again to chuckle dryly. "I walk out of here, I'm dead anyway. You might as well shoot me now."
"You saw faces!" Winn interjected quickly. "You recognized them. Just give us names, things we can investigate. We can work from there, this isn't the end."
"There could be tens or hundreds more faces that we don't know about."
"J'onn, put the gun down." Alex looked up at her boss. He didn't seem eager to comply, but she saw his hand clench around the gun nervously. "Please."
"Alex…" Kara warned, but her sister ignored her, turning to her wife. "I don't understand why you lied, why you didn't just talk to us. We've fought threats bigger than this."
"Those were guys that were under your command. That you thought you could trust. Greene gave me instructions not to tell you."
Alex glanced down at the floorboards, taking a deep breath. "How do I know you're not lying about this? About any of this?"
J'onn, gun still trained, raised an eyebrow at the question. Maggie met Alex's eyes and pressed her lips together. "The night after that mission, I came home. I was limping, because of the gunshot. You saw it the second I walked through the door, and you started fussing." She chuckled weakly, tears spilling down her cheeks. "… I said that I loved you, that I would never let anyone take you away from me. No matter what. And… you didn't understand what I meant, but you told me that sometimes people do stupid shit for the people they love."
Alex felt her heart stop, as she remembered the exact conversation they'd had on the couch she was standing next to, months ago.
J'onn lowered the gun slowly, seeing Alex's reaction.
"Those hundred people that died, that's on me. You have every right to hate me. I hate me too. Don't worry about it." Maggie moved back towards the door.
"Maggie, wait-…" Kara said, but the detective shook her head, and walked out of the apartment.
Kara moved to stand in front of Alex, and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Go after her."
"I…"
For the first time since first starting out in the field, Alex froze.
She couldn't move.
Maggie had been complicit in killing all of her colleagues. Friends.
If she'd told her, the bombing could have been prevented.
Alex felt numb.
As Kara realized that her sister wasn't moving, she turned around and sped into the hallway herself.
Alex turned slowly to meet J'onn's eyes. The earlier anger had made place for disappointment and confusion.
"Her story checks out." Winn said quietly, breaking the silence, as he was hunched over his laptop.
"Our own agents bombed us." J'onn grunted, steadying himself against the table and lowering his head. "Right underneath us." He looked up. "We need to talk to Lyons. And Greene."
"They're going to get spooked, they'll know that we know something." Alex managed to reply.
J'onn pushed himself up, and balled his hands into fists. "I want them to pay for what they did. Every last one of them. We're going nuclear."
In front of their eyes, J'onn changed into his Martian form, and shot up from the open window before either of them could stop him.
Leaving Alex and Winn in a very awkward silence, both of them processing the events of the last few minutes.
"All of it… She's been lying to me for months." Alex whispered brokenly. "We vowed that there would be no secrets between the two of us…"
"She did it to protect you. Us." Winn tried.
But Alex closed her eyes and shook her head. "It's not good enough."
After that, she ran out the door too.