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Alex kicked away a shard of the shattered coffee mug. She eyed the spilled liquid which had narrowly missed the stack of files on the desk that she was leaning against and spun on her heels.
“Whomever thought they...” she halted her reprimande almost instantly, caught off guard by the unnatural quietness of the command center.
It only hit her a second later, how everyone had stopped in the middle of what they were doing. Most of the DEO personnel's gazes were fixed on the central screens in the middle of the room. The screens that were completely dark instead of showing the usual stream of information.
“What’s going on?” she inquired out loud. Her boots made a sloshy sound followed by a crack as she stepped into the remains of the coffee mug. “Winn?”
“I..” Winn was staring at the screen in front of him, eyes rapidly shooting across the monitor and keyboard as if any of them would hold the answer. His fingers speedily tapped away at the keys and he seemed almost frantic as he scanned the darkened screen.
“Winn?”
“I don’t know...I...it just…”
“Agent Schott?” J’onn’s voice boomed from behind them.
Winn opened his mouth to answer but the deafening crackle of static on every single monitor in the command center drowned out whatever he had wanted to say.
The monitors sprung to life a moment later and Alex felt all her hairs stand on end when the figure appeared on the screen.
“Lillian...” she hissed between clenched teeth, hands balling to fists at her sides.
She was dressed immaculate as ever, hands placed almost casually into the pockets of the long dark grey coat she was wearing. Her hair was tied back into a bun and Lillian’s hard steel eyes were devoid of any warmth as she gazed into the camera. Alex wasn’t able to make out much of the background, the mortar brick wall behind her was nondescript and the only other visible object was a wooden chair directly behind Lillian.
“Ah, Agent Danvers,” Lillian spoke, lips curling into a wicked smirk. “Just the woman I was looking for. I do believe I have something of yours after all.”
Alex gasped when the image on the monitors changed. “Maggie…” she mumbled, her heart clenching violently in her chest when she took in her wife’s appearance.
Maggie had been tied down to some kind of metal chair in a darkened and otherwise empty room. The only light came from the 2 lamps set up at either side of the chair that was bolted to the ground. Blood was caked to the left side of Maggie’s face, a visible gash running up her cheek into her hairline and her eye was swollen shut. She was struggling furiously with the chains and ropes that kept her tied to the chair but seemingly to no avail. Whatever she was trying to say was muted too much by the gag in her mouth held in place by a strip of cloth tied around her head.
Alex’s heart rate accelerated when she noticed the device directly behind one of the lamps. There was no mistaking what it was and she found herself unable to look away from the flashing numbers at the top of it. The number that were rapidly counting down to zero.
“What the hell do you want Lillian?” Alex called out furiously when the image on the screen changed back to show a still smirking Lillian.
“Your first mistake is assuming I want anything at all,” Lillian said on a business-like tone.
“You always want something,” J’onn stated and folded his arms across his chest, eyes narrowing as he looked at the monitors. “And the DEO isn’t interested in any of your mind games.” He glanced at Winn briefly and Alex prayed he was able to find some kind of lead to Maggie’s whereabouts.
“Don’t bother,” Lillian said on an amused tone. “You cannot truly believe we’d make this signal so easy to trace.”
“Enough! Where’s Maggie?” Alex growled out, anger winning out over the anxiety she felt coiling in her gut. “What do you want with her?”
“I don’t want anything with that dearest Detective of yours. She’s merely collateral damage, which is rather unfortunate.”
Lillian’s smirk widened and Alex felt the coil in her stomach wind up even tighter.
“No, what I want is to teach you a lesson. What I want is for you to understand that you and I are more alike than you think.”
A familiar wooshing sound interrupted whatever she was going to say next and Alex swallowed when Kara appeared at her side, dressed in her Supergirl attire.
“Ah, I had been waiting for the other Alien to show up on scene,” Lillian stated.
The image on the screens changed again and showed an overview of a map of National City. Three small red pin pricks were flickering on the map and Alex tried to figure out what kind of game Lillian was playing.
She tried not to think of the image of a beaten down and restrained Maggie strapped to that chair. With the ticking time bomb right next to her.
“You put so much faith in them, and for what?” Lillian continued a moment later. “Because when you’d have them make a choice between saving a few dozen civilians or the love of your life, then we all know what they would choose, wouldn’t we? But deep down inside wouldn’t you resent them for it?”
“What..what are you…” Alex stuttered as she tried to comprehend what Lillian was telling her.
“There’s 3 bombs Agent Danvers and while your two Alien companions will be able to clear two of the bombs and move them somewhere they can’t harm any civilians, they’ll never be on time to get to the third one. Believe me, we have done enough calculations to make sure of that.”
She felt Kara put a hand on her shoulder but Alex continued to stare at Lillian in utter disbelief.
“You should receive the coordinates of the locations of the bombs shortly,” Lillian said, her hawk-like gaze fixed on Alex’s form. She glanced down at something for a moment before looking up again. “The Detective is in the hills just outside National City. I suggest you make your choice quickly, Agent Danvers, time is ticking.”
“Wait…” Alex called out, “No!”
The screens all went dark again, then turned back to normal and Alex started to tremble as everything suddenly crashed down on her. She turned to face Kara and J’onn, hoping, praying they had some kind of solution to this.
“I...I got the coordinates, I…” Winn stuttered, a distraught expression on his face as he typed away at the keyboard.
“Alex..” Kara said.
“I..” Alex stared at the monitors, her mind whirring but unable to come up with anything. She heard Lillian’s last words to her echo around in her head and knew that the choice she spoke of was never a choice at all.
“You need to go,” Alex said as she stared the monitor on Winn’s desk. It showed the coordinates as well as the timer ticking down and she knew they didn’t have enough time to even try and come up with a way to get to all 3 bombs in time.
“Alex I…”
“There’s no time Kara,” Alex said. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she avoided her sister’s gaze and quickly scanned the room around her. “Just go! Jackson, Ryan, with me,” she yelled out as she stormed towards the stairs that lead to the helicopter platform.
“I’m sorry,” Alex heard whispered behind her and then both Kara and J’onn took off.
She barely heard the frantic back and forward conversations on the comms while running to the helicopter. It lifted up in record time but she knew it wasn’t enough. Nothing was going to be enough.
They would never make it in time.
Alex’s heart shattered with the thought and she turned her gaze away from the watch strapped around her wrist.
From the seconds ticking away into nothingness.
They only had minutes and it wasn’t going to be enough.
Tears burned in her eyes and then slid down her cheeks unchecked as she realized the I love you’s they had shared just a few hours ago would be their last.
“P-please…” she whispered to herself as she stared at the landscape passing by. “Just please… I-I can’t...”
She couldn’t stop thinking about Maggie tied down to that chair. The knowledge that she’d be stuck there, alone, with no means of escape, and realizing that no one was coming for her. The knowledge her wife was forced to watch the timer of the bomb slowly count down to zero.
Alex was shaking as she hid her face into her hands. She prayed for a miracle, prayed it was all just another cruel game Lillian was playing.
“Please…” she begged.
She glanced at her watch again and realized there were just seconds left now. And one after the other was slipping from her grasp. Ticking away inevitably.
Alex squeezed her eyes shut, a heart-rending sob rising from her chest as she dug her nails into the leather of the seat.
An explosion sounded in the distance and she turned to see the outline of a small ball of fire rising up from the treeline.
“Maggie…” Alex sobbed out, “I-I’m sorry..I’m s-so sorry.”
She barely registered the helicopter landing. Her vision was blurred with tears and she stumbled out of the helicopter, falling to her knees on the hard packed earth. Someone was saying something to her but she was too consumed by grief to understand.
Anguish pierced her body as if she had been physically struck and Alex shook uncontrollably, heart ripped from her chest.
Time had run out.
Vaguely she heard someone calling her name. “Alex…hey…” Someone sat down next to her and slung an around her shoulder. “Hey...no, shhh.”
“K-Kara,” Alex stuttered out haltingly when she realized her sister was kneeling down next to her. “S-she’s…” Her throat constricted and she let out a whimper, the pain centered around her heart visceral, sharp, all consuming.
“No..she’s..”
“Alex,” a voice interrupted and for a moment Alex’s heart stopped and she thought she imagined it. But even through the haze of tears obscuring her vision she was able to recognize that particular leather jacket.
“M-Maggie..” she whispered softly in utter disbelief. “But..”
“Yes, hey it’s me...shhh,” Maggie hushed her and Alex didn’t even wait for her to reach her. She lurched forward and wrapped her arms around Maggie’s form, sobbing into her shoulder as they both stumbled back down to the ground.
“How is she?” Kara asked as she approached.
Alex flashed her a soft half smile, rubbing tiredly at her still puffy eyes. “Better, I suppose. Doctor Hamilton at least cleared her physically though she recommended Maggie to stay overnight for observation.”
Kara nodded and Alex exhaled shakily when a hand was placed on her lower back, slowly rubbing comforting circles there.
And while Alex appreciated the gesture, it did little to help settle her frayed nerves. And it did little to stop the spool of mental images that had been playing in her mind on an almost continuous loop. Even seeing Maggie lying in the hospital bed a few feet away, sleeping peacefully and snoring softly, a part of her was still unable to believe Maggie was truly alive.
A part of her was still stuck in the woods. Back in that moment where she thought she had lost Maggie forever. Stuck in the seconds she had been counting down until the bomb would explode.
“And you?”
Swallowing thickly, Alex walked up to the far wall of the hospital room and leaned against it. She was unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of Maggie healthy and alive. Even with the darkening bruises at one side of her face she was still the most beautiful sight Alex had ever seen.
“I don’t know,” Alex admitted, voice hoarse from the amount of tears she had shed. “God I..almost lost her, Kara. I-I can’t stop thinking about that. I don’t want to imagine a future like that. If you hadn’t…”
“I wasn’t going to let Lillian win,” Kara stated, something dark passing across her features for a short moment.
Alex briefly gazed down the hallway and smiled softly when she saw Barry waving at her before he turned back to the conversation with James again.
“I’m sorry about not telling you about my plan,” Kara apologized. “I just...I couldn’t risk Lillian possibly having some kind of failsafe in place and detonating the bombs when she found out I contacted Barry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Alex whispered while rubbing at her eyes. “You saved her, that’s all that matters.”
“I will always do everything I can to save you both, Alex.”
“I know,” Alex said, tears welling up in her eyes anew with the thought of how close she had come to losing Maggie forever.
“Hey, come here,” Kara whispered and Alex buried her face into Kara’s shoulder, allowing herself to cry freely.
They stood like that for a while until Alex straightened up again, wiping the tears from her cheeks. The days events were rapidly catching up to her and she felt emotionally drained, only barely stifling a yawn behind her hand.
Maggie shifted around on the bed and Alex smiled at the way her nose scrunched adorably in her sleep.
“Lillian was wrong by the way.”
Alex turned to face her sister for a moment. “About us being alike?”
“Yeah, I know you Alex, I know it might not bother you right now, but I could see the expression on your face when she talked to you.”
“But she wasn’t wrong entirely, was she?” Alex more stated than asked. “I wanted to choose Maggie.”
“But you didn’t,” Kara said with such conviction it made Alex flick her eyes downwards to stare at the tiled floor. “Alex,” Kara continued, the tips of her fingers sliding under her chin so she was forced to meet her sister’s gaze again. “It was a scenario she devised so you would be forced to make an impossible choice. No matter what you would have done, you would’ve lost a part of yourself. That doesn’t make you alike at all.”
“I know that,” Alex sighed out and closed her eyes, feeling too drained to process anything anymore. “I just can’t help but feel guilty about the fact I was thinking about sacrificing possibly dozens of lives just so I could save Maggie.”
“You love her,” Kara stated simply. “You were thinking with your heart and it’s still not a choice anyone should ever have to make. She’s still trying to divide us.”
“And she’ll still keep failing,” Alex said, feeling some of the words resonate enough for a sense of calmness to return to her. “El Mayarah.”
Kara nodded and smiled and Alex enveloped her into a tight hug, breathing deeply as she allowed some of the burden she had carried with her for the day, to fall away.
“Hmm...Alex?” Maggie’s sleep-drugged voice suddenly sounded out.
“Yeah I’m here,” Alex muttered and turned towards the bed, flashing her wife a smile. “Sorry, did we wake you?”
“No,” Maggie said, rubbing tiredly at her eyes and then wincing when she came into contact with the stitched up gash on her forehead. “Though I could feel you hover even when asleep.”
Chuckling, Kara excused herself, “I’ll leave you two alone, besides I did promise Barry to take him out for some donuts.”
Alex snorted but then walked up to the bed and placed a kiss on the crown of Maggie’s head, careful to avoid her injuries.
“Can’t blame me for hovering though, can you?”
“No, I can’t.” Maggie’s smile faltered and they locked eyes for a long moment. “But I’m fine and you need your sleep, so I wouldn’t mind if you went home to..”
“No,” Alex interrupted her. “I almost lost you, Maggie,” she continued with a choked up voice. Even with all the tears she had shed today she still could feel more welling up in her eyes. “I was counting down the seconds that remained. The seconds we..”
She swallowed and let out a shuddery breath when Maggie reached up and pulled her down into a gentle lingering kiss. “It’s alright, I know. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it either.”
“I just don’t want to miss more of those, not tonight,” Alex admitted.
Maggie brushed away a few of the tears that had slipped down her face and Alex nuzzled into the hand splayed against her cheek and jawbone. “Stay with me then.”
“Bed’s kind of small,” Alex said with a frown, while already pulling off her boots.
“We’ll make it work.”
“Hmm,” Alex mumbled with a yawn. “Good thing you don’t take up too much space,” she teased while settling in besides Maggie and pulling her body against her chest.
“Is that a joke about my size?” Maggie grumbled while throwing Alex a glare across her shoulder. “I’m filing for a divorce tomorrow.”
Alex chuckled and nuzzled into the space between Maggie’s shoulder and neck.
“I love you,” she whispered and slung an arm across Maggie’s waist, pulling her in closer still.
“I love you too, Maggie whispered back, their eyes locking and holding. “Forever.”