Maggie couldn't breathe. She felt as if her throat had been closed off.
And if Milo wasn't going to tell her this instant whatever the hell was wrong, she'd shove his face against the nearest wall and make him.
"The surgery went well…!" He said quickly, raising his hands. "We attached the leg, and inserted the implant, but something is wrong with the connection, we can't get her to move it."
Maggie nodded slowly, waiting for him to continue. Milo hesitated. "Look, she didn't want to admit it, but she was kind of assuming that everything would go well… She's just… It's…" He sighed. "She needs you right now, detective."
She took a deep breath. The two seconds of silence before his explanation had been absolute horror, and she had to take another few breaths to convince herself that Alex was okay.
"We didn't know where you were, you weren't in her lab." He continued. "So we couldn't tell her where you went to, and she didn't take that too well."
Shit. Well, so much for being back in time.
Milo guided her into the med bay, where the first thing she saw was Alex, lying down on one of the beds, sleeping. A blanket was draped over her body, stopping at her torso, and her head was wrapped in a bandage.
"We had to sedate her." Milo winced, stopping in the doorway. "She had a panic attack, and she was lashing out. I'm sorry…" He looked down, and sighed. "…It should have worked perfectly, but she wanted it so quickly so we didn't have the time to run the tests…"
"I get it. It's alright." Maggie flashed a quick smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I'll stay here with her and talk her through it. How are things looking?"
"We're running diagnostics now, trying to figure out which part is malfunctioning. We can do it from inside the lab, but we brought her here for monitoring, just so be safe. It could take minutes to fix it, or hours. But she has to stay here until we do. And she can't put pressure on the leg, it'll buckle. So no getting up."
Maggie nodded through his instructions, and watched as he ran out of the med bay and back towards the engineering lab. The silence in the room was filled with beeps indicating that at least Alex was stable, and okay, and that the damage wasn't physical.
But Maggie was also sure that with the disappointment, all of the trauma from their dramatic getaway would pour out. All things considered, Alex hadn't shown Maggie any sort of emotion about that night. She'd been keeping a straight face, pretending none of it got to her, but Maggie knew that there had to be a breaking point.
And Alex's had been not even one hour ago.
And despite all the promises and reassuring words of the last weeks, Maggie hadn't been there.
She cursed herself. Dug her fingernails into her palms until she felt blood on her hands, because she hadn't been there.
As she stared out the glass windows, trying to keep her tears at bay, she wished that she'd waited. That she'd stayed. That she'd considered that her girlfriend was more important than the case.
But Maggie was used to fucking up all the good things in her life. So why should this be any different.
"Mag…" She heard a soft whisper behind her. She turned around to see Alex looking at her with soft, glassy eyes.
Maggie tried her best to compose herself, as she walked over to her fiancées side. "Hey, babe…"
The closer she got, the better of a look she got at Alex's red and bloodshot eyes, her trembling chin, and her uneven breaths. "It… didn't work."
It was a statement more than a question, but Alex's voice was shaky and shot up a the end anyway, as if she needed Maggie to confirm what she already knew, but feared to accept. Maggie smiled weakly, and took her hand in her own, kissing the back of it. "Not yet, babe. They're fixing it."
"But…" Alex didn't manage anything else, before she heaved another shaky breath, and started sobbing loudly. Maggie nodded. That was all she could do, as she wrapped Alex into her arms, and held her close to her chest, kissing the top of her head.
She felt her own tears sting, but refused to let them fall once again. She couldn't. She had to be strong for Alex. To show that she was there now, even though it didn't matter.
The damage was done, and she knew it.
When Alex had calmed down enough to form a coherent thought, she looked up at her. "W-where w-were you?!"
"I was…" Maggie was about to lie to her again. She didn't want to lie to her. She couldn't tell Alex that she'd gone out to talk to the one thing that had caused this mess. "… I was working the case."
She watched Alex clench her eyes shut, as more tears slipped out and onto her cheeks. And Maggie knew that those were her tears. That she caused those tears to slip down Alex's face. And there was nothing she could do to take it all back.
"Do you… Do you…" Maggie tried twice, but she honestly didn't know what she wanted to ask. Do you want me to leave? Do you want me to stay?
She watched Alex let go of her hand to wipe her tears away with it, before the agent cleared her throat. "Could you… uh… Tell Milo that he needs to do an MRI, maybe there is a contact issue with the implant."
"Alex…" Maggie frowned sadly. She could practically see Alex's walls raising up in front of her. "Don't do this, please…"
But the agent ignored her, continuing. "…Maybe it's an issue with the feedback loop, tell him to do sensory tests."
Instead of fighting it, Maggie bowed her head and nodded. The four steps to the doorway were the hardest she'd ever taken in her life.
After briefing Milo on whatever she had heard over the sound of her own heart breaking, Maggie wandered back to Alex's lab, and shut the door behind her. Seeing the smiling photos of the women staring back at her, she heaved a deep breath, and started taking them all down.
At this point, she didn't even care if the killer would come after her.
She was going to need booze. And a lot of it, too.
She left the case files on Alex's desk and slipped out of the lab, ignoring the questioning looks the few agents she recognized threw her. She went straight for her car, and drove all the way to the dive bar.
The place was pretty much deserted, except for a few aliens playing poker in the corner, and three playing pool. Maggie walked straight to the bar, and took a seat. She didn't recognize the bartender, though she didn't exactly try to make it a habit to come a lot during the day.
"You alright?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Just… Get me a beer, will you."
The man – Maggie assumed he was human – nodded and reached for a bottle, setting it in front of her. She took a big gulp, and shoved it down with a little more force than she intended.
"Woah." The guy laughed. "Don't take it out on the furniture."
"You new here, or something?" Maggie looked up. The guy raised an eyebrow. "Nah, I usually work the early shifts. Not many regulars at nine in the morning. Not ones that I don't have to carry home, at least."
Maggie managed a small smile. He tilted his head. "But I think I've seen you here before. You're that cop, right?"
"I might be." She shrugged, as she took another gulp. "Though not for long, probably. I've only six days left to live, according to recent developments."
"Ooh." He winced. "You're gonna need something a bit stronger than beer, then."
Maggie looked up. "Got something in mind?"
The guy shrugged, turning around to face his array of bottles. "Well, I could fetch you some alien cocktail, but that would be playing Russian roulette with your insides…" He turned around with a frown. "I got some good ol' fashioned whiskey too. Or…" His eyes lit up. "How about something to forget your troubles entirely for the night?"
The detective sighed. "Hit me. I'm just about ready to fling myself in front of traffic anyway."
He looked around to check if anybody was paying attention to them, and leaned forward on the surface of the bar. "… There's a couple of alien dealers that come by here sometimes to sell some of their stuff. Great quality too. Makes you high for one amazing night, and you wake up with almost no side effects. Far better than that human stuff."
Maggie raised an eyebrow. "What do you have?"
"Whatever you want. Inferno, Narc, Tox… Name it."
She hesitated, before leaning even closer. "Do you have some of Scarlet's stuff?"
"Ooh, good taste." The guy threw down the dishtowel from his shoulder. "A woman of quality, I see. Scarlet only comes by once every week, and her stuff is usually sold out an hour after she's gone, but I saved some for myself yesterday."
He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a ziploc bag filled with a single, red-filled capsule. He smiled up at her. "Here. Have it."
Maggie watched him put it down on the counter. "How much do I owe you?"
"You look like you could use it. It's on the house." He smiled sadly. "Just… Don't tell anyone, or everyone will want to get in on it."
Maggie laughed weakly, as she pulled the capsule out of the Ziploc. "She comes by once every week?"
"Every Friday."
It raised a red flag in her mind again. She had to chase the lead. Talk to the bartender some more, get more information out of him. What was Scarlet like, did he know her name, who were her clients…
Instead, all she could think about was Alex. And how much pain she'd caused her.
How far she was willing to go to pretend that none of it happened, to feel safe in the agent's arms again.
So without a second thought, she brought the capsule to her mouth, and swallowed it. The bartender laughed. "There you go. Now, wait for the magic to happen."
"How long does it t-…" Maggie cut herself off, as she hadn't even finished her sentence before she became incredibly lightheaded. She reached around her, a smirk settling on her face. "Woah… w-where are we?"
"It works best on humans!" The bartender smirked. "Slower metabolism and all that. Just relax. Don't fight it. Enjoy the ride!"
Maggie jumped off the barstool, swaying slightly, but giggled as she managed to keep her footing. "'M gonna… 'M gonna go to Alex… Back to Alex."
"Just don't drive!" The guy yelled after her, but she was too far gone. She exited the bar, and walked back to her car, unlocking it with a beep. "Alex… 'm coming, babe… Hold on. I'm gonna… fix this, fix you, babe."
She pressed down on the gas pedal, and almost hit a trashcan when she backed out of her parking space. But the thought of Alex smiling up at her, pressing her forehead against her and moaning her name… Lying in bed with her, holding her from behind, whispering loving words into her ear…
Maggie giggled, as she raced through the streets, her car swaying wildly, in her haste to get back to the DEO.
When she was only a couple of blocks away, she felt her eyelids becoming heavy. It was hard to keep her head up, and she started to slip away.
Instinctively, she yanked at the steering wheel, sending her car into a spin that drove it off the road, and onto the sidewalk.
With a loud crash, she finally registered that she'd hit something heavy, causing the entire vehicle to halt, and her body to lurch forward into the wheel.
After that, everything went momentarily quiet.
"Mmhm…" She grunted, tilting her head, as she finally managed the effort to open her eyes again. There were voices around her, as she realized that the object that she'd hit was a streetlight, that was now lying in the middle of the road, as her car's bumper had bent it. "Shit…"
"Ma'am?" She heard a voice say next to her. She turned her head to see a civilian looking at her with concern. "Are you okay?"
She didn't have the chance to mutter a weak reply, as a familiar whoosh indicated that she was in a whole lot more trouble.
"Stand back!" She heard the blonde superhero yell, as she pulled the car away from the pole, and bent it back so that it wasn't blocking the road any longer. Then, she turned to the car, and her eyes widened as they met a familiar pair of brown ones.
"Heeeyyyyy…" Maggie dragged out. Kara sped to her side, yanking her door off. "Are you alright?!"
"I'm sorry Alex is mad at me, Kara." Maggie giggled, after that. "Mad… She's maaad. I wasn't there when she got her new leg and now the new leg is broken."
Kara frowned at her jumbled explanation. "Maggie, are you drunk?"
"Noooo. I only had half a beer. Shh, it's fine. Don't tell the cops."
The blonde was about to make the ridiculous counter-argument that Maggie was, in fact, 'the cops', when a siren flashed through the street, approaching them, and a police cruiser stopped in front of them. Out stepped two uniforms, that nodded politely at her. "Supergirl, ma'am."
"It's okay, sir. I got this." Kara said back. Maggie chuckled again, and the blonde hoped desperately that she'd keep her mouth shut.
But the damage was done, as the other officer frowned. "She looks drunk. Go get a breathalyzer, Jimmy."
"Officer, sir, she's a friend of mine. We work together. She's just suffered a concussion recently. I told her not to drive." Kara said quickly, attempting to defuse the situation. "It's a head injury."
"No, blondie!" Maggie yelled back. Kara turned towards her with wide eyes, trying to tell her to shut up. But Maggie didn't get the hint, as she was still too busy laughing. "I'm on alien drugs!"
The two officers shared a look, and Kara realized that it was useless. She stepped aside and watched as they pulled Maggie from the crumpled car. And after a quick injury check, they pulled her to her feet and towards the cruiser.
The first officer turned back to her. "Thanks for your help, Supergirl. She'll just have to stay in holding for a night to sleep it off." After that, he turned to his colleague. "DUI's… When will they learn? And in the middle of the day too!"
Kara covered her face with her hand, as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. She watched the cruiser drive off, and considered following it, but she was far too concerned about Maggie's explanation about Alex. So instead, she settled on flying back to the DEO.
Maybe somebody there could tell her what the hell was going on.