Current Day
114 Hours Since Terminal Event
6 hours Since Initial Serum Injection
Lena pokes at the protein bowl from the DEO cafeteria as if the movement might make any of it more appealing. The unseasoned chicken and the vegetables—with the mushy texture that only comes from boiling them to death—sit on a bed of otherwise passable quinoa.
It's criminal.
But...her brain needs energy. With a sigh, she spears another forkful into her mouth and chews mechanically, sparing a wistful look at the stack of pancakes Winn sets down on the other side of Kara's bed.
"Hey—keep your eyes on your own plate, buddy," Winn says around a bite, his words garbled.
"I didn't see those on the menu."
"That's because they haven't updated their menu since Clinton was in office. These bad boys are the Supergirl special."
"And why's that?" Lena asks, her curiosity piqued.
"Because someone kept trying to Grubhub pancakes to the clandestine headquarters of their off-the-books top-secret government organization."
"No...," Lena gasps, a grin spreading across her face. "A potential national security crisis because of pancakes sounds...," Lena trails off before laughing. "Yeah, ok, that sounds like Kara."
"To be fair, she was solar flaring, and they wouldn't let her leave. But. Her persistence got the DEO to buy a couple of pancake makers, and truly, we've all benefited from her selfless fight." Winn stuffs another giant bite into his mouth, grinning.
Whenever Winn appears, food follows. It's sweet, honestly, like he's taken up Kara's mission to make sure Lena remembers to eat. Sadly, she needs it. Her clothes hang a little more on her frame every day she's here. The face that looks back at her in the mirror is gaunt, her eyes haunted. Really adds to her charm. Kara will love it when she wakes up.
(If)
Lena clenches her jaws, correcting her thoughts. When.
Between bites, Winn steadily fills the silence, his voice a constant stream of updates and commentary. He talks about the site—"Site B" as the DEO had dubbed it—and how even though it had been cleared and cleaned before being abandoned by the bad guys, Lena's chemical sniffer had lit up like a Christmas tree. "That tech you sent me with?" he gushes. "Absolute genius! The way it detected the traces of the fake Kryptonite and the fracking chemicals—chef's kiss, Lena." He waves his fork in emphasis, nearly dropping a bite of his food.
Lena nods, but her attention shifts elsewhere. Not that Winn seems to mind. His voice is as much part of the background in this room as the hospital machines, the steady electronic rhythms all interwoven into a familiar song, as familiar now as her own voice.
"So. We're combing through the evidence haul, which is going to take a while. Alex checked another site we thought might be connected, but she ruled it out. I think she and Maggie are knee-deep in the paper trail."
"Hmm," Lena adds non-committally, her gaze focused on Kara's still form aglow beneath the galaxy of sun lamps positioned above her bed, studying, looking for any indication of change or progress since she and Alex had given her the serum. Any sign, no matter how small.
Her eyes shift from wound to wound, analyzing the dark spider-webbing extending from each one. But they look less vivid against Kara's skin now. Or perhaps it's the pallor of the skin itself that has improved. Either way, Lena's eyes move down Kara's arm, along her scarred forearm, down to her hand, remembering the last time those arms had wrapped around her, the last time those hands held her. The safety they offered.
Kara's finger twitches.
Lena freezes in place. Without averting her eyes from Kara's hand, she tries to get Winn's attention, her voice barely more than a whisper, as if anything louder might shatter the moment, might prove the glimmer of hope to be nothing but fool's gold.
"Winn. Did you see that?"
"Hmm?" He answers distractedly, still finishing off the rest of his food.
Lena's tone sharpens slightly. "Winn."
"What?" He finally looks up, noticing Lena's rigid posture and focused stare. His eyes follow hers to Kara. "See what?"
"Her finger moved." Although the words are barely audible over the machines' steady beeping, Winn hears them loud and clear.
Seconds stretch into minutes as the two of them watch Kara in tense silence. Winn's gaze scours her form, searching for any sign of movement.
But there's nothing. Not a flicker.
Lena's shoulders sag slightly, a mix of frustration and self-recrimination washing over her. "I swear she moved, Winn," she pleads, her voice rising ever so slightly, tinged with desperation. The voice of doubt begins to whisper insidiously in her brain, telling her she's simply manufactured a vision of what she wants to see—that she's manifesting daydreams. The voice sounds uncannily like her mother.
Winn raises his hands in a placating gesture. "I totally believe you!" he says quickly, his voice earnest.
Lena's fingers drum on the edge of the bed as her mind works overtime. Then, with purposeful steps, she moves to the whiteboard on the far side of the room, its surface already filled with neat columns of instrument readings, each meticulously timed and logged like a scientific experiment. She grabs a marker and adds a new note: "Twitch observed. Index finger, left hand."
Winn watches her in silence, and when he realizes what she's doing, he steps closer. "Here," he says, glancing at the monitors. "Let me call off the readings for you so you don't have to keep turning around."
Lena nods gratefully, jotting down the numbers Winn relays to her. Once the new data is logged, she pulls out her phone and texts Alex, updating her on the potential development.
Returning to the whiteboard, Lena flips it over to reveal another side filled with diagrams, chemical breakdowns, and equations. After a moment, she wheels into a new position in the room, wanting to ensure Kara always remains in her line of sight.
Fleetingly, she considers an old superstition—tying bells to Kara's fingers, like people used to do when they feared someone had been prematurely buried. She shakes the thought away.
"Now, Winn. There's something I wanted to get your perspective on." She pauses, glancing at him meaningfully. "It's about the suit."
A couple of hours later, the door to the room rips open, and an out-of-breath Alex slides in, freshly returned from her latest excursion. The sudden entrance causes Lena to jump with a squeak at her whiteboard, a wayward strand from her ponytail swinging into her eyes.
"Shit! Alex!"
"Sorry," Alex whispers without even looking in her direction. "Has she done it again?" Her eyes are full and hopeful as she crowds around Kara, scanning her sister for any signs of change.
The machines attached to her body continue their song, a humming melody from the small device on the right, a high-pitched recurring beep from the large one on the left.
The smile on Lena's face is eager. "Once more." She flips her board over to the log she's been keeping on Kara's progress, and Alex studies it greedily.
"This is—this is good, Lena. This is really good." Alex's words carry a hint of pride, and Lena can't help but feel it bolster her own confidence.
"What do you think about another injection? With her physiology, we can as—"
But Alex doesn't need the pitch, doesn't need to be sold on the idea. She's ready. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do it."
"Good. Because I've already started synthesizing another dose," Lena smirks. "It'll take a little while longer for it to be ready, but I can go ahead and start another so that we'll have it in our pocket when—if—we need it."
"How much time until it's ready?"
"An hour. Maybe a little more, but close."
"Good. Good." Alex huffs out a breath. "Because I've got news, too."
Lena stills, waiting and watching.
"Going through the layers of bullshit documentation on the site, the first real name we came to is a white male in his early thirties by the name of Erik Bauer. Just hauled him in."
"That's—that's fantastic!" Lena answers, her mind spinning.
"Yeah, well, it's the weirdest fucking thing," Alex mutters, raking her fingers through her hair. "He was sitting on the edge of his bed looking straight ahead when we made entry to his apartment. Didn't speak, didn't move, just docile as anything. Like a goddamned robot."
Dread pools in Lena's belly, along with the strangest sense of deja vu. "Has he said anything since?"
"Nope." She cracks her knuckles, moving back to the doorway, her expression hardening. "Send word when you're ready for the injection. I'm going to go see if I can hard reboot this guy."
When the alarm on her phone goes off, Lena heads down to the lab to grab the finished serum. On her way back up, she meets an agent in the hallway.
"Do you know where Agent Danvers is at the moment?"
"Interrogation. I'm headed that way, if you'd like to follow me?" Agent Vasquez offers.
As they draw close to their destination, Alex appears in the hallway, her face flushed and her eyes flashing, frustration marking her features. When she notes their approach, Alex nods at them both, directing Lena into the darkened room while she stays a moment in the hall to speak with Vasquez.
Inside, Maggie is standing near the far wall with a group of other agents Lena vaguely recognizes, their attention focused on the scene occurring on the other side of the glass. J'onn is in the center of the adjoining room, seated across from a relatively young man, bathed in harsh fluorescent lights. The man, who wears no handcuffs, repeats the same phrase over and over again as if it's the answer to every single question the agents hurl in his direction: "I'm Erik Bauer. I'm the man you're looking for."
Alex rejoins them in the observation room, her eyes immediately focused on the action on the other side of the glass.
J'onn leans forward, his eyes narrowing, his head tilted slightly, as if listening to something beyond the words. He asks the man a series of questions, varying his tone and pausing after each.
The man's response never changes. "I'm Erik Bauer. I'm the man you're looking for."
Alex leans in close to Lena, her voice low and quick. "J'onn can read minds," she explains. Glancing nervously toward the observation window, Lena's stomach tightens as she tries to recall every errant thought she's had in his presence. The Martian's gaze briefly flickers to the darkened glass, making Lena instinctively avert her eyes.
Moments later, J'onn exits the interrogation room, rejoining the agents. Alex is the first to speak. "Anything?"
The set of J'onn's jaw is anything but encouraging, and he slowly shakes his head.
"It's like his mind has been completely erased. No thoughts, no stream of consciousness. Just the same phrase playing on repeat. It's like he was wiped clean, and this was the only programming he was given."
Maggie checks her watch. "I've gotta go. I'm due to give the mayor an update." She reaches out, tugging Alex's sleeve. "Walk me out?"
Alex nods and tells Lena she'll catch up with her shortly. The two leave the room, walking a short distance down the hall. Once they're out of sight of the others, Maggie pulls Alex into a tight hug, her hand brushing soothingly over the short hair at the nape of Alex's neck. Alex sags into the embrace, tension melting from her shoulders.
A few minutes later, Alex returns to Kara's room, where Lena is prepping an injection site on Kara's arm.
"You ready?" she asks, although it's functionally rhetorical.
Once it's clean, Alex administers the second dose of the serum, disposing of the needle in a sharps container beside the wall with practiced ease.
Without thought, Lena reaches for Kara's hand, holding it gently, her thumb tracing absentminded circles along the ridges of her knuckles. Alex settles into a chair on the opposite side of the bed, her gaze fixed on Kara's face.
The air in the room shifts as both women turn introspective, the silence growing between them. The passing minutes are marked by whirrs and beeps, dissonant and constant—Lena hears them even in her dreams these days.
"It's driving me crazy, just sitting here. Waiting for answers," Alex whispers, her voice rough with emotion. "I feel useless. Like I'm not doing anything for my sister." She rubs her hands together anxiously. "I've always protected her. Always. And now…" She drags in a ragged breath, and although her eyes redden, she doesn't cry. Not Alex.
Lena doesn't respond right away, letting Alex find her footing first before she speaks. "It must have been a hard adjustment when your parents first took her in."
Alex nods, her expression softening. "Understatement. I went from being an only child to babysitting an alien sister trying to cope with her new life, new powers, new everything. It was rough. On both of us."
"Tell me more," Lena coaxes. "I—I haven't heard any stories of Kara's childhood like this." The brief glimpses Kara had given her of childhood was always cloaked in mystery or incomplete.
"I don't know what you were like as a teenager, Lena—come to think of it, never mind. I'm sure Luthor teens are a whole different breed," Alex amends, eliciting a huff of laughter from Lena. "But I'd been a pretty typical teenager up until she arrived. She was weird, you know? Obviously, I understand more now, but at the time, I felt like my parents had devised a new kind of torture just for me."
Alex smiles to herself as she casts her mind back, the memories sliding past one another until the smile falters. "School was hell, especially at first. All of her senses were on high, and the other kids weren't exactly understanding."
"I remember this one time. I got invited to a party on the beach, but I was supposed to be watching her, so I just decided to take her with me. Anyway, while we were there, she heard an accident happen nearby, and well, it's Kara being Kara. She ran towards the accident. A car had flipped over, and smoke was coming from the engine. There was a mother and a child inside. Kara didn't hesitate—she used her powers to rip off the door and pull the mother and child out to safety."
Kara...of course she had done that. "Always a hero," Lena whispers. And god it really does hit her hard just how thoroughly good Kara is, how her first instinct is always to help, to save. Even when it's to her own detriment.
It's one of the reasons Lena loves her...
"Yeah. Well. That's the same day Dad gave her her first pair of lead-lined glasses. To dampen her senses and keep the world around her from being so overwhelming. It's also the same night he told her that the world already had a Superman—that she just needed to be Kara Danvers." Alex casts her eyes over to Kara's still form, sighing heavily.
Lena's voice trembles as she speaks. "You know, for a moment, when I figured out the truth—about the Supergirl thing—I thought maybe she was just using me, you know?" She feels the tears well up in her eyes as she whispers her confession. "And the thought…it shattered me." Alex begins to move, to reach for her, but Lena shakes her head, swallowing harshly, her throat burning as she fights to hold her emotions inside. "It took me a few days to work through my emotions, to think about things rationally. Thank god for therapy," she mutters. "I came to realize that she… she's given me something I haven't had in a long time: the freedom to take down the walls I've spent my whole life building."
Alex smiles softly. "Look, full disclosure? I wasn't happy about you and her in the beginning. None of us at the DEO were. But Kara…she's stubborn. She went to the mattresses to defend your good name. And…I want to apologize for my initial skepticism. Alright?"
Lena smiles in return, grateful for the gesture. They sit together in quiet solidarity.
Eventually, Lena stands again and moves back to the whiteboard, her brain needing to keep working. Alex stays seated, watching Kara even as her own eyes begin to droop and her shoulders begin to drop with exhaustion.
But with a sudden urgency, Alex asks, "Wait, what time is it?"
"Umm...," Lena stalls as her eyes adjust to her watch. "About half past one in the morning." She looks back at Alex quizzically.
"It's officially Kara's birthday," Alex whispers.
Lena puts the dry-erase marker cap back on and steps over to Alex's seat, gently grasping the older Danvers' shoulder.
"She's still here, Alex."
"I just...we always spend them together. Last month, I almost bought tickets for Maggie and me to go see the Barenaked Ladies tonight, but I couldn't do that to Kara. I know how much these days mean to her." Alex stares at her sister, barely blinking, guilt etched across her face. "It's hard not to feel like I've failed her."
Kara's finger twitches.
And Alex is there to see it.
"Oh my god!" she yells, practically leaping from her chair, grabbing Kara's hand and squeezing it tightly. Tears of relief and happiness begin to stream down her face as she turns to Lena, whispering, "She's coming back. She's really coming back."
The brightness of Lena's smile rivals the heat lamps above as she moves next to Alex by Kara's side. "We'll celebrate Kara properly when she wakes up."
Alex nods, her voice thick with emotion. "Yeah. We will."
Current Day
141 Hours Since Terminal Event
32 Hours Since Initial Serum Injection
Alex is back again, this time without Maggie by her side. She's made a habit of napping in the bed next to Kara's while Lena works, and Lena won't leave Kara's room unless Alex is there to take over. It's an understanding they've come to after their talk. Was it yesterday? The day before? Lena can't be sure.
The DEO reminds Lena of a casino in some ways. Both have a way of convincing those inside that nothing exists outside of its walls. That time isn't real. That there's nothing but what's here and what's now.
It's the atemporality—the feeling that she exists outside of time here—that messes with her head the most. With so much of her time spent below ground in the lab and tucked away in Kara's hospital room, she hasn't encountered any windows since she arrived. The passage of time is marked only in the beeping of her alarm, reminding her Kara needs another injection, or in Winn's visits, accompanied always by food of some sort.
Alex's visits are too random to divine the time of day. She's as likely to show up at 2 a.m. as she is at 2 p.m.
The alarm on her phone buzzes, and Lena grabs the next vial, loading up the syringe.
It's been 32 hours since the initial injection, and Kara has twitched precisely 14 times in the intervening hours with increasing frequency and scale. In the meantime, Lena's spent more time in the lab refining her process, each iteration a calculated step towards an improved serum.
A couple of hours ago, they reached a turning point where the visible wounds had begun to recede. It's slow—far too slow for Lena's liking, but Lena's meticulous observation catches what others might miss.
With the syringe ready, Lena wakes Alex, gently shaking her shoulder until the agent's eyes flutter open, recognition setting in.
They don't do this alone unless they have to.
When Alex is conscious enough to give her the go-ahead, Lena cleans a small area on Kara's arm and presses the needle to the skin.
But her hand slips unexpectedly, and it takes her a moment to register why.
The tip of the needle lies on the bed sheet below, and she shifts her gaze to the one in her hand.
The needle has broken.
And Kara's skin has not.
Her eyes meet Alex's, and after a beat, both of them begin to laugh. It's the delirious kind of laughter, the kind that comes out a little too sharp and a touch manic, as though their emotions are too big for their voices, desperate for release.
They're still laughing, tears spilling down their cheeks as Alex scrounges some blotting paper from a nearby drawer and takes the syringe from Lena, MacGuyvering a sublingual dose of the serum for Kara.
"Why does it feel like I'm giving my sister acid?" Alex jokes as she places the dose in Kara's mouth.
They're still laughing a few minutes later when J'onn and Winn arrive, summoned by a text to come see the progress.
For once, the high-tech symphony of rhythmic beeping and low electronic humming fades away, replaced by the joy of shared laughter, the sterile hospital room transformed.
There's hope now. Real, tangible hope, and Lena intends to hold onto it with everything she has.