So much to learn.
Such a small glimpse into this other place she'd once thought could only produce fear or pain or war.
But no. it turns out it hadn't all been blood-soaked.
There had been pain, yes. So many failures. Each attached video file of accompanying notes she'd forced herself to watch breaking her all over again each time she'd watched the light of hope dimming in that other Maggie's eyes each time she'd recorded another lost attempt.
Until she'd finally made it to the J file, files she'd been told with the strictest of other earthly child-granted confidence was everything she'd ever have to know about Jamie's medical background.
With every new line she takes in, she can hear Winn's voice in her head. 'Seriously, Alex, do you know what this means? What she means? Oh, my Rao, Alex, do you remember watching that Doctor Who episode with me?" before he was already answering his question in her mind. "Of course, you do cause you spent a half hour debating if it were possible to create a real person from a single genetic line. Well, guess what, smarty pants? Jamie is our living, breathing, adorable version only; instead of being a genetic time lord, she's copying Maggie's genetic codes without, you know, being an actual clone."
"Or you could say that Jamie is our world's version of a gender swopped Anakin Skywalker. No need for a father, only needing a badass mama to raise her." She could hear him laughing as she'd watched another medical video log.
Sometimes, her not completely younger coworker brother was such a Syfy nerd.
"I copied them from Papa Winn before Pup, and I left camp. Just in case, like Mama always said." Jamie had shrugged, pushing the bonsai tree-shaped drive into Alex's palm before agreeing to head to the showers to clean herself up before heading to the cafeteria for something to eat.
"God, I miss your smile, Mags." Alex sighed, tears blurring as she stared at the paused video file.
That other-world version of her ex seemed to mock her now, as she'd smiled with such joy and pride when that other Maggie had finally managed to get her latest tweaked test attempt at becoming a mother to work.
"Alex, we talked about this. You promised you'd head home." Kara pouts, bringing in a fresh whooshing gust of fire smoke and ashen forests as she strides confidently towards her huddled sister, sitting with her back against the opposite wall, this time having decided to hide out in the hallway closer to the DEO locker rooms.
"Trying to read here, Kara," Alex complained, not looking away from the cradled tablet propped against her knees, but Kara did notice when her elder sister's eyes flicked upwards just a half second to check on the closed doors across from her before returning her scattered attention to whatever it was keeping her in such wrapped attention that didn't end at the bottom of a liquor bottle.
Progress. Kara guesses, striding a few steps closer.
"Come on, Alex, you can't keep hiding out here." Kara prodded, wheeling to a stop a few steps away from where Alex sat, trying to hide the wetness in her eyes as she jealously attempted to hide what Kara guessed to be her phone. Probably trying to draft yet another text to Maggie as she had been on and off since the pre-viable dust had started to settle since the cross-dimensional fight between them and those of Earth X as they'd decided to call that other world that Overgirl and her gag-worthy Dark Arrow had invaded from.
"Alex."
"I'm alright," Alex argues again, hiding the medical drive from her sister's curious eyes. The saddened agent was still dabbing away the tears, only for more to slide down her cheeks. She lifted her chin to meet her worried sister's gaze.
Deciding not to push things, Kara's eyes cast around before finding something else to discuss. "Alex, what in the name of Rao did you do to that poor dog?"
Alex glared at the heavy accusation in her sister's voice as her tablet-free hand dropped to rest against the patched back of the dog. Jamie had also asked her to watch over her in her short absence. The newly repaired toy also acted on not-so-whispered orders from Jamie to keep Alex safe while the kid took a trip to the showers. "I stitched her back together as best that I could, alright." Alex defends hotly.
"You turned that poor toy into a Franken pup," Kara argued, then suddenly dropped to her knees with a surprised gasp.
"Kara?" Alex asks, looking from the patched-up plaything to her gasping hero of a sister. Kara slumps sideways onto the floor with another pained gasp.
"Stay. Away. From. Her."
She could hear the break of fear in the young voice, but she knew the defensive anger well. She'd heard that tone more than a few times from Maggie.
Jamie visibly trebled in fear despite the building protective anger in her clouded eyes. Her borrowed clothes, half-soaked from the girl, did not properly dry off completely after she cleaned herself up, an obvious sign that the offered clothes had been tossed on in a hurry as the child no older than seven squeezed herself into the hallway with them.
"Are you okay, Alex?" Jamie asks, misunderstanding the reason for Alex's tear-stained eyes. Kara gives another pained gasp as the necklace charm, a deceiving shard of glowing green, is held out closer over the huddled hero.
"Jamie, please," Alex begged, looking from the child to her sister and back again. She could tell from the look in those young eyes Jamie wasn't going to back down so easily. She'd seen the same look in Maggie's eyes more times than she could count when they'd stood shoulder to shoulder, battling whatever came at them. "You're hurting her."
But Alex knew deep down that if she didn't act fast, Jamie would kill her sister right in front of her.
"She made you cry, " the child argues. "And she made fun of my dog," Jamie adds. Kara gulps at another broken breath of air as the sickly green veins gleam even brighter against her paling skin.
"I was crying because of something else." Alex corrects her eyes, ping-ponging between the two, still trying to think of a way to defuse this new threat to her younger sister without harming the child who'd offered such trust to her. "You said you heard me talking about my sister when we were still on your earth, right?" she asks, guilt heavy in her words with another of Kara's pitiful gasps as she tried to crawl away from the deathly green of activated kryptonite swinging from the child's outstretched fist.
Jamie nodded in confirmation, but to Alex's dismay, she didn't drop the kryptonite. "You said you were scared for her, then you talked about your Maggie. About how you were going back to her." The young girl remembered. "My mamma's name was Maggie," she added in a soft whisper.
'Yeah, yeah. I saw. She was your world's version of my-," but she stopped before she was forced to say her ex's name. The pain of not being with her Maggie is too raw. But it was her own fault. She'd been the one to push her away.
"Al-ex—" Kara choked out with her elder sister quietly cursing that even subjected to nearly lethal levels of kryptonite, Kara's mind still had enough energy to put the pieces together when her own mind had yet to fully believe the child standing so close to them wasn't something out of a tempting hallucination like when Kara had been infected with the black mercy.
"Jamie, this is Kara. She's my sister." Alex hurries on, forcing herself to meet the child's gaze. So, like Maggie's, in a growing number of ways, but not all at once. Jamie maybe her mother's daughter, but she also has her own feisty personality.
Jamie's eyes widened, and another time would have made Alex giggle at just how adorable the sight was as the necklace was quickly dropped and then stuffed into the pocket of the young girl's borrowed pants. "I didn't know I—"
But Alex wasn't interested in the child's apologies as she rolled Kara onto her back in the middle of the locker room hallway with pleading whispers of "Come on, Kara." As she checked her sister's pulse.
"I'm sorry." Jamie sniffed before taking off at a dead sprint back up the hallway with a loud departing sob as Alex struggled to pull her barely conscious sister back to her feet.
"Well, at least this time, we finished eating." Her newest attempt at a field partner tried to joke as he licked globs of nacho cheese and chili sauce between his fingers as they hurried back to their waiting car.
She'd recognized the address as soon as the call had come over the crackling radio.
A small mom-and-pop stayed corner shop, having been in an easy location between their job locations on cool nights when either she or Alex would periodically stop by to pick up something for dinner if the idea of takeout or home cooking was a bit too much work after a hard day. The owners were nice enough. A real success story when it came to alien integration into the working class of the busy National City population.
Now, the friendly shop could only rub more pain into the working cop's raw emotional wounds, with the mocking location being right on the unspoken boundary line Maggie had been forced to draw for herself the moment she'd had to beg for those relationship-ending words to fall from her ex's equally trembling lips.
Again, Maggie had to remind herself that she'd done the right thing as much as it still hurt to think about it. Alex deserved a real life, and as heartbreaking as that idea was, that life for her included being a mother.
And she'd been honest when she'd said those departing words. And she stands by them. Alex was going to be an amazing mother.
"Seems our resident black vans are hella lacking for security, huh, Sawyer." The rookie she'd been saddled with mentoring scoffs as they cram back into the car. Spots of cheese sauce were still in the corners of his smirking mouth.
She knew his type. He'd only transferred to the alien entangled sciences division because he'd wanted to show off with his former military ties and his fresh-out of civilian police academy bravado, thinking every alien-related call would be a big fight in the middle of downtown that he could twist facts to make himself seem more important than he was in handling the assignment.
He was not at all who she wanted, even attempting to watch her back when out in the field. Still, it was her penance in a way, given how poorly she'd handled giving up her position as DEO consultant with the NCPD science division following her and Alex's ended engagement.
In her defense, she was more than a little into her second scotch bottle by the time she'd somehow typed out a coherent termination email, so in a way, she was lucky as hell that her bosses had realized it had only been her ties with the DEO, not her full job she wanted to give up. So here she was forced to partner with the most irritating rookie they could find in the ranks and doing her best not to strangle him on a nearly daily basis.
"First, we don't know if this call is alien in origins, so cool your heels, rookie; second, I can already tell you whoever it is. It's not one of theirs." Maggie was quick to defend, not that she had reasons to back herself up since she hadn't set foot at the DEO since she and her ex split not so long ago. "you heard the specs. It seems from the initial call that this was little more than a conveyance store rip-off. And a rarity, one without violence. If it had been a DEO escapee, we'd be gearing for a heavy body count, not for taking a witness statement."
The rookie rolled his eyes as he slumped in his seat, grumbling inaudibly under his breath like a kid being told off for wanting to skip dinner just to jump right to dessert.
"I applied to join those DEO dorks once you know." He'd said only a half beat later as if the almost credentials would make him more interesting to her. "Before I joined up with the NCPD, that is."
"You don't say." Maggie hummed, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice as they slowed for a red light.
"But it seems the new director of the place has more than a few high standards when it comes to accepting new recruits, and apparently, she didn't much care for my impressive credentials." He complained. "So, since it was well known you hooked that hot FBI chick, and they say around the office she worked for the DEO, I thought if I did a few cases with the science nerds, I'd have a better shot next time, I applied."
Maggie's jaw flexed in thinly checked annoyance at the reminder when she caught an added, "Not that you could keep that hot as hell, babe, that is." From her not-so-wanted partner. "Not a mistake I'll make when it's finally my chance."
"Hey- you missed a spot." Maggie had pointed out her hands flexing against the steering wheel rather than giving into the deepening want to break the passenger's jaw. A passenger who was currently and comically rubbing at the staining spots of dribbled cheese or chili sauces spoiling his work uniform as they drove.
Maggie didn't know what she was expecting or, rather, who, but she definitely wasn't expecting to walk into the homely little corner shop to see a nervous Winslow Schott Jr. stammering out an attempted statement to the first officer on the scene.
She saw the man's eyes widen, and something close to guilty fear clouded his gaze when he spotted her coming through the shop door. However, she was stalled in confronting him when her fellow officer turned to clue her in on the most recent updates.
"Sawyer didn't think I'd see you around here after- erm, you know what, never mind."
"Can't be too careful given the area," Maggie answers, feeling her shadowed rookie partner oozing smugness at her unintentional reminder of the shop's proximity to the known headquarters for the D.E.O.
"True, but this isn't even alien-related, so you can breathe easier. According to Mr. Schott, the clerk who made the call was mistaken in thinking our pint-sized suspect was shoplifting."
"I wasn't lying. Just cause the kid dropped those packs of dehydrated cheese powder on the counter before she hightailed it out the door doesn't mean she paid for anything," the bratty Karen personality-typed shop assistant scoffed.
"But Mr. Schott here has already agreed to cover the child's taking and his small purchase for the evening, so really, this was a huge waste of time."
At this, Maggie stills at the grandmotherly bite of the remark. "Hey, Getia." She hums with an attempted smile in greeting.
She shrinks even more at the appraising look she is getting. "Maggie, you've been avoiding poor old Getia for weeks now. Why is that, I wonder?" The elder woman pouts, already pulling the guilty woman in for a warm hug. "I miss you."
"I'm sorry." Maggie mumbles in honest apology, gratefully melting into the offered embrace.
"So uah…. Are we all good here?" Winn asks, looking more toward the second officer rather than at Maggie herself.
"Seems all cleared up if you've already paid the bill." The officer shrugged, looking this time at Getia, who had yet to drop her arms from around Maggie's shoulders.
"Swayer, we got another call about the powder dropper." The rookie she still had to call her partner boomed from outside the shop before the uniformed man himself was stomping more than walking into the shop, still spilling details to her without so much as a care in the world. "The gall of this punk. Hitting up one of those military thrift shops." He adds in a scoffed attempt at a laugh. "Lucky for us, it's over a few blocks, so we hurry. We can get the collar."
"Hey, Maggie wait- uhh you, erm. I know this isn't really the place for this and get it you don't want to but I- I miss hanging out with you" Winn asks before the detective could move far from where her witness; she'd once considered a friend stood.
"Winn-" Maggie gulps. Since he was Alex's friend first, she'd first thought Winn's company was something else; she'd have to give up after breaking her engagement.
"Let me help." Winn offers, seeing the surprise in Maggie's eyes at the suggestion. "I have the next few days off anyways, and this beats just sitting at home. Please, Mags." He pushes
"Detective, he's a civilian." Her fellow cop reminds her, "Not to mention if these cases are connected."
"Then I can point out some usable details about who you're looking for better than anyone else." Winn defends his eyes still on Maggie.
"Alright." Maggie agrees. It wasn't the same as having Alex watching her back, but her ex had trusted Winn's judgment more times than Maggie could count in the too-short time she had been allowed into that closest of 'Superfamily.'
"Yes." Winn cheers, going so far as to punch the air in celebration before schooling his face into something of a cool mask that didn't at all hide his glee at the taken assistance he was offering.
"Screw it, I don't care if this collar is a kid or an alien or both. I'm not letting some other nothing cop snatch it from me." Maggie's meant-to-be partner growled, going so far as to rip the pocket of Maggie's jacket, snatching her keys from her.
"Let's go, Schott." Maggie sighs, turning back towards the door just in time to hear her cruiser roaring back to life with her meant-to-be partner's smug grin flashing at her from the driver's seat before the car peels away from the curb lights flashing and siren screaming.
"Coming." Winn hummed, jogging to catch up with her. The happy note in his voice triggered a soft smile from Maggie at how genuinely glad he seemed to be working with her again. "That army shop he mentioned is just a few blocks away. And I know a few shortcuts." He smiles while nudging his shoulder playfully with hers, reminiscent of a few times Alex had used a similar move before things had gotten too serious between them. "But first, mind if I do a little harmless hacking on the walk over?"
"I'd take it as a personal insult if you didn't, Schott," Maggie confesses, jamming her hands deeper into the pockets of her jeans than her jacket. "Jerk ripped my favorite jacket." She mumbled, nuzzling her cheeks into the turned-up collar against the darkening chill. She chooses not to notice the added spring in Winn's step as he pulls out his phone and starts typing away as they walked.
Maggie will quietly kick herself for her own dazed foolishness when the true weight of realization crashed into her after they'd nearly reached their destination of the real reason: she preferred this particular jacket to others in her small collection when the faintest scent of Alex's preferred shampoo tickled against her nose.
She had every right to be angry with the kid. Jamie had tried to outright kill her sister right in front of her, so what if Alex was rough in telling her off about it?
But the pain in the kid's voice.
Alex's hands closed in reflex, hugging the 'Franken dog' Jamie had left behind closer at the memory painting itself behind her already water-blurred eyes.
Jamie. So guilty. So scared. So heartbroken. And she'd so foolishly let her run away feeling like that.
"I'm…I'm s-Sorry."
She'd heard that same hiccupped note in Maggie's voice right before the separating door had closed between them. A final solid barrier keeping them apart.
She should go after the poor girl. Apologize. Or at least attempt to if she was able to find the clever ninja that was sure to be that other Maggie's military-raised daughter.
Oh, Rao. She'd willingly let a child run unsupervised and already terrified through the DEO.
But she couldn't just leave Kara when her sister was so vulnerable.
"Al—Alex?"
"Kara." Alex sighed in relieved answer.
"Were- that girl—Maggie's-Maggie's daughter." Kara tries to ask, her voice with more groans than true words as she struggles back to the world around her.
"Jamie." Alex corrects, sliding the hand not braced against the still-warmed sunlight radiating table into her sister's hair in her own reassurance that Kara was still there with her. "and she's not our Maggie's kid. She's kind of a stowaway from our not so fun trip to Earth X." the elder Danvers sibling clarifies.
"I want to meet her. Apologize if she'll let me." Kara coughs as she tries her best to sit up with Alex, supporting the attempt.
"I kinda snapped at her after she pulled her kryptonite trick, and she ran off." Alex admits feeling more grounded the longer Kara's head leans against her shoulder in braced support.
'K—Kinda?" Kara repeated, making her elder sister drop her eyes in shame. "Alex, did you really blame her for her first instinct being to attack me when she thought you were in danger?" Kara asks in a husky voice defense. "You said she was from Earth X, right? The same earth as Dark Arrow and Overgirl."
"Kara she could have…"
"She's a little kid, Alex. And hell, from what I heard when the two of you talked before, I blacked out a little at the end; she was even younger than I was when I lost Krypton." Her sister says with another heavy cough.
"Kara, that's not-" Alex tries to counter
"It's it?" Kara argues back, her voice scratchy.
"Kara?" Alex asks, worried when her sister breaks off with a pained intake of breath just as she had seconds before she'd dropped like a broken puppet under that small rock shard of glowing green.
"Winn," Kara says at the same time. She seems to have lost the fight to stay even sitting up any longer as she drops gingerly, under Alex's guidance, back onto the simulated sunlight-warmed tabletop.
"What about him?" Alex asks, puzzled. Again, her hand finds Kara's, and her free one slides back into her sister's hair in offered comfort. "He had more than a few days off to burn anyway, and he deserved some time away from here."
"Aw, I love you too, Alex."
Alex spins around in surprise at the words. Kara's hand moved to her arm in the super's attempt to steady her, but it was another set of arms Alex finds herself falling into in her unsteady state.
"M-Maggie." Alex stammers
"Hello, Alex," her ex says. Alex doesn't know which hurt more: the lack of warmth in the intended greeting or that Maggie looked just as broken, if not more so than she felt at having to be back in such close proximity.
After she was more or less stable, Maggie's fleeting touch dropped away just as quickly as it had been offered as her ex stepped away from her.
"What-what are you doing here, Detective?" Kara asks from behind her. thought Alex was glad her sister didn't attempt to sit up again in her weakened state in some attempted intimidation.
"Easy there Supergirl." Winn answers when it is clear Maggie isn't going to as Winn steps around the shrinking detective to square up to the Danvers sisters himself. "We're here on a case."
"He's right."
Again, Alex winced when it seemed the remainder of her job appeared to be the only thing keeping Maggie together just as she'd been throwing herself into her new role as the DEO's temporary new director to hide the pain of losing the very woman now standing so close to her once again.
"Mind answering a few questions as to why evidence collected from an as-of-yet double theft case traces back directly to you, Agent Danvers?"
"Jamie," Alex whispers, her voice so low that only Kara hears the whispered name when Winn pulls out an NCPD evidence bag from his shoulder bag so she can see the evidence in question. Alex recognized a few of them as ones she'd lent the flighty runaway visitor from another earth.
"Please tell me she's safe." Alex pleads, looking from the discarded clothes to Winn and back again. She had to look at Winn. Meeting Maggie's eyes even when her ex wouldn't understand the connection was too painful.
How could she tell Maggie she'd scared her daughter so much she'd lost her?
"She?" Maggie asks, and no one misses the flashing of jealous pain cutting the question before Maggie had schooled her expression into something of an indifferent mask, "So you know this thief."
"She's not a thief," Alex snapped back. "And yes, I do; she's a newly arrived refugee under the complete protection of the D.E.O."
At this, Maggie rolls her eyes. "Of course." She grumbles, pitching the bridge of her nose between her fingers in building agitation, already dreading the added paperwork that single phrase piled onto her workload.
"and as you know, Detective, Interplanetary protections fall under D.E.O jurisdiction." Alex continued then needing to quickly burry her face against Jamie's 'Franken dog' to hide her amused smile as she pretended she hadn't heard the grumpy muttering when what she wanted was to get on her knees and beg for Maggie's help in tracking Jamie if only to make sure for her own sanity that the child was at the very least physically safe.
Thought how Maggie would react to finding out she had a daughter, even one born and simi raised on another Earth, wasn't a topic Alex was quick to broker as she met her ex's eyes.