"W-what?!" Alex breathed, completely caught off-guard by Maggie's confession. The detective was breathing heavily, and looking up at her with tear-filled eyes. "I killed him."

"Why don't you sit back down, Maggie… I think you're in shock." Alex tried, but the other woman was having none of it. "No, Alex! It's the truth, I killed him!"

"How? How did you kill him?"

"I… I was holding something… I put it down his throat…" Maggie flinched. "H-he stopped moving after a few seconds, and I… I don't remember anything, Alex! But I killed him!"

"Mags." Alex put a hand on her cheek in a tender gesture. "… Why would you do that? It doesn't make sense. You didn't kill him."

"P-perform a cognitive interview!" Maggie's eyes widened. "Please, make me remember! I want to know what I did!"

"Okay, okay…" Alex seemed at a loss, but Maggie put a hand on her arm. "Do it!"

"Alright, but let's finish checking you up first, okay? I want to make sure that everything's fine."

Maggie took a seat on the bed, biting her thumb as she allowed Alex to get back to work, and watching her draw a few tubes of blood, and putting them in a rack for research.

Alex, in the meantime, was completely baffled by her girlfriend's behavior. Sure, Maggie could have killed the man in self-defense, but she could have never copied the MO so perfectly and not remember it.

Unless, of course, the killer made her do it, and made her forget about it.

In the same way the Magh'rah had wiped Alice's memory back in February.

Alex wasted no time in bringing the blood samples to the lab and telling one of her colleagues to analyze them, before she walked back into the med bay and escorted Maggie into one of the interrogation rooms. It wasn't exactly a cozy environment, but it'd have to do.

"Just so you know, I've never done a cognitive interview before." Alex admitted, taking a seat at the table and reaching for pen and paper in a drawer nearby. "I know what it is, I just…"

Maggie bit her lip and took a shaky breath as she sat down on the chair on the other side of the table.

"But uh…" Alex tried to find an entry point. "Why don't you tell me what happened after you told me you'd leave the precinct?"

"I switched off the computer and went downstairs, and I talked to the receptionist."

"What was it about?"

"Just saying goodbye. And as I was leaving, I heard a voice call out. It was Hayden."

"Hayden Hayes?"

"Yeah." Maggie nodded, her eyes closed.

"What was he wearing?"

"I-uh… Blue. A blue shirt. And jeans. He's a businessman so he usually wears something much more fancy than that."

"And what did he want?"

"He wanted to talk to me in private. I offered him a ride to my apartment, but he wanted me to get in his car."

"Alright." Alex took notes. "And what did that car look like? Can you remember the plate?"

"Black. Maybe a Lexus." Maggie licked her lips. "I didn't pay attention to the tags."

"What did he want to talk about?"

The detective thought for a second, staring up at the ceiling, but then shook her head. "I don't… I don't remember."

Alex tried to think about every possible technique to interview her, to get the information out of her. "Do you remember how he sat? Was he relaxed? Panicked?"

"H-he was agitated." Maggie leaned forward, putting her head in her hands. "Something in the glove compartment, but I…"

Another gentle push. "Mags, where did you drive to? Did you see the roads?"

It took a while for her to answer, her hands stuck in her hair. Alex's concern grew, but she couldn't estimate how far Maggie could go before breaking. Unless she told her to stop, the agent had to keep going.

"A shady part of town. I remember, uh… Seeing a sign… Winston Street."

Alex frowned. Winston was a long way from the precinct. Why would he drive her there?

"Did you get out of the car at some point?"

Maggie heaved a deep breath. "I don't… It's all flashes…"

"Can you tell me what flashes?" It was her last attempt. Alex could see how much Maggie was suffering in trying to access things she clearly didn't remember. And if her brain started creating fake memories from the strain, they'd be even further away from the truth.

"A street sign. A white room. A… A painting… Paintings of a screaming woman… And then shoving something d-down H-Hayden's throat… oh god…" Maggie broke down in sobs. Alex put down the pen, and shoved the paper away. "Okay, we're going to stop, Maggie. It's okay, it's over."

"Please stop…" Maggie whimpered pathetically. "I c-can't…"

"Shhh, I got you." Alex got up, and wrapped her arms around Maggie's trembling form, holding her.

"How did he make you feel?"

Alex had to take a few moments to think about the answer, looking down at her fingers. She chuckled weakly as she glanced back up to face him. "Terrified. It wasn't so much him as it was the thought of him."

Dr. Fisher nodded slowly. "Obviously, I understand where that fear is coming from. But… can you tell me how it terrified you? What you thought about?"

Alex sighed. "M-my first thoughts were always with Maggie. I knew that she was hiding how much pain she was in. And I didn't want to leave her alone, because I knew that if he'd get her alone, he'd kill her."

"So you were more scared for Maggie's wellbeing than your own?" Fisher looked at her over the rim of his glasses. Alex shrugged. "I suppose, yeah. We were… Away from each other a lot of times. And I… I just kept on thinking that it was the end, you know. Every single time we… That we split up, I thought that it would be the last time I'd ever get to see her again."

Fisher checked his notes, and sat up a big straighter. "What about now? Are you two adapting?"

Alex laughed wetly, and shook her head. "There's no time to adapt. It's even more fucked up than before we began. She pulls me in, and then pushes me back the second after that… And I want to be there for her, I want to help her, but… There's these walls that she put up, and I don't understand why. She can let her guard down with me, she should know that."

"Has she talked to somebody at all about what she's feeling and going through?"

"No." Alex looked down. "She doesn't want to go to therapy. I think it's some sort of emotional trigger for her, she's defensive about it. And she doesn't let me in."

"And other friends? Colleagues?"

Alex took a second to picture Maggie pouring out her feelings to the colleagues that she'd met during precinct events, and the mere thought was ridiculous. Maggie didn't open up, especially not to people that she had to prove her stoicism to. The precinct wasn't a place for feelings. That much Alex knew.

And honestly, the only person she'd ever heard Maggie talk about in a more-than-just-cowokers type of way, was Ian Hayes. And she couldn't exactly go talk to him now. Or anybody from his family.

"She doesn't have anybody but me." Alex whispered, coming to that horrifying realization herself. She never heard Maggie talk about people in any way other than acquaintances or colleagues. She didn't have contact with her family, not even that aunt that she'd mentioned. All of the people they hung out with were Alex's friends.

Maggie was alone.

And instead of letting Alex in, as the one person she could tell anything to without judgment, she'd kept her emotions inside, piling them up. And it was only a matter of time until Maggie would break under the pressure.

The prospect of being responsible for first degree murder was a big, horrible step in that direction.

Because from what Maggie had told her, she had had something to do with Hayden's murder. And that brought Alex in a horrible situation.

She'd bluffed to Holmes that the DEO was taking over the investigation, but the DEO couldn't take the case because there was nothing yet that pointed directly to an alien assailant. It was just a serial murder case. Not even J'onn could help her win that war.

But there was still a body in a dumpster. And she couldn't just let Hayes lie there, rotting away, while tangible evidence could be lost.

Evidence, that could possibly point in Maggie's direction.

All of it was too complicated.

"I'm going to talk to her, the next time she's here." Fisher promised, breaking the silence between them. "I won't push her into talking to me, but I'd like to say some things to her. I can't even begin to imagine the pressure she's under, but she has to understand that sweeping things under the rug like that isn't the way to solve the problem."

Alex rubbed at her face tiredly. "Can we stop for today?"

"Of course, Alex." The psychologist got up, and shook her hand. "Next session tomorrow?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll wait for your text."

After that, she was lead out of the office, and into the DEO hallway, mulling over the things he'd said. Coming to the conclusion that Maggie was truly alone without her was a terrifying thought.

Maybe that's why Maggie was pushing her away – she was scared of losing her too, especially with everything they'd been through in Montana.

That Magh'rah had done anything within its power to destroy their lives, with or without violence. But he'd done all of it out of love. Out of passion, out of his art.

His art.

Alex physically stopped in her tracks, as she remembered how she'd figured out the identity of the Magh'rah in that hospital three weeks ago.

'A friend of Maggie's, from the alien bar. A brilliant artist, could draw and paint things that happened hundreds of years ago from memory. But… she could only do that. Paint from memory.'

The flashes Maggie remembered.

A white room. Paintings of a screaming woman.

How could she have been so blind.

Immediately, she reached for her phone, in the desperate hope that Maggie had already bought a new one. But it went straight to voicemail, and Alex cursed loudly, already running towards the command center barking out orders to assemble a strike team.

She was finally going to get the thing that caused Maggie this much pain.

Maggie was sitting at her kitchen table, by herself, and sipping from a glass of whiskey in her hand.

All of it was on her now.

Even if there still was a killer out there, now there was blood on her hands too.

She didn't remember what happened, but she knew for sure that she'd killed Hayden Hayes.

Ian's oldest son, his proudest achievement.

The one he'd named his boat after, the son that was making it big in the business world.

The one that would never come home to his wife or infant son ever again.

Her fault.

Her fault.

The loud banging on the door barely surprised her. She'd been waiting for them, she knew they were coming.

Her final stop.

What she deserved for taking another human's life by choice.

She walked slowly to the door, glass in hand, and unlocked it.

"Mike." She greeted calmly, seeing Holmes flanked by two uniforms in the hallway.

He flashed his badge once again. God, did he love doing that.

"Margaret Sawyer, you are under arrest for the murder of Hayden Hayes."

She downed the rest of the glass, putting it down on the closest surface, before raising her hands and turning around.

Her last thought before she was escorted to the police car, was of Alex.

A bittersweet reminder of everything she could've never had.