Archive of Our Own ^beta

Maggie’s used to working long hours. Loves it, if she’s being honest. In her early days on the job, she used to live for the rush that comes after making a breakthrough on a tough case, the heady jolt of energy that cuts instantly through the haze of exhaustion. Now, it’s not her motivation to slog through dead-end leads as much as a pleasant side-effect. Maggie prides herself on being a good detective, and that sweep of adrenaline has become a tool, something she uses to push herself from one clue to the next, that enables her to do her job and do it well.

Admittedly, she’s come to love the intense schedule a little less in the last couple years, and she’s not embarrassed to admit that it’s entirely because of Alex. Maggie loves her job. Really. But there’s just something about the anticipation of going home to someone she loves, who understands what she needs without having to say anything, who always, always meets her head-on with empathy and compassion - someone like Alex - that makes it harder to endure a long day.

But no, that is not what she’s thinking about right now. Maggie is completely, utterly focused on the paperwork spread out across her desk. She is definitely not fantasizing about cuddling with her girlfriend, sleeping for half a day, and inhaling her body weight in takeout. That wonderful and familiar adrenaline rush wore off ages ago, but she keeps telling herself that she only has a few more forms to fill out until she can go home, pass out, and wait for Alex to get done with work.

That thought is the only thing keeping her going at this point. Since getting called in to help apprehend her suspect last night, Maggie’s been on the clock for about eleven hours, and she’s determined to get the hell out of here before she makes it the full twelve.

Leaning her head heavily on one hand, she only blinks tiredly when her phone goes off. She doesn’t even check who’s calling before picking up. “Sawyer.”

“Maggie?”

Her heart jumps into her throat. She knows immediately by the quaver in Alex’s voice that something is wrong.

“Alex?” she says, sitting up, instantly wide awake. “Are you okay? What happened?”

She’s already patting herself down - keys, I.D., jacket on the chair in the corner - she’s got everything she needs to leave the precinct in the next sixty seconds.

“No, I’m fine, I’m okay, I…” On the other end of the line, Alex inhales shakily, which definitely doesn’t do anything to soothe Maggie’s nerves. “One of our teams raided a Cadmus outpost earlier. I wasn’t even there, so I don’t know all the details, I don’t even know how it’s possible -”

“Danvers, what happened?”

For a few moments, Alex is dead silent. Maggie’s brain has already run the gamut of horrifying, life-shattering possibilities by the time she speaks again.

“They found my dad.”

The whole world seems to tilt on its axis.

“Oh my god, Alex,” Maggie breathes. And then a gut-wrenching thought occurs to her: “Is he…?”

“He’s alive.” Alex’s voice is tight, her words clipped. Maggie closes her eyes. “Still unconscious right now. I still don’t - we don’t know a whole lot.”

A pause. She imagines Alex, phone pressed to her ear, staring at her long-lost father’s unmoving body through the glass door of an observation room. Next thing Maggie knows, she’s on her feet, shrugging on her leather jacket, but hesitating next to her desk, waiting for Alex to make the first move.

“I can be there in fifteen minutes, tops. I mean,” she amends quickly, “if you want me to -”

“Yes,” Alex says, before she can even finish. “Please. Kara’s not here yet because there’s - stuff going on - and I just -” She heaves a sigh. “I need you.”

There’s still that tremor, that uncertainty. Maggie grips the phone more tightly in her hand, as though Alex will be able to sense it across the crowded city blocks that divide them, take some comfort in Maggie’s strength.

“I’m on my way,” Maggie says. That rush is flowing through her again, filling her with purpose, a sense of duty. She’s already halfway to the front door of the station. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Yeah. See you soon.”

-

The first time Alex ever mentions her father to Maggie beyond a passing comment, it’s late afternoon on a Sunday. Maggie’s watching the news with the volume on low, squinting at the latest footage of Supergirl saving the day. Alex’s head is resting on a pillow in Maggie’s lap, and she’s out cold, deep asleep. Maggie combs her fingers absently through Alex’s short hair, enjoying the warm weight of Alex against her as she considers Supergirl’s winning grin, thinking hard, stuck with the frustratingly familiar feeling that she’s missing something.

Eventually, Alex stirs in her lap, and Maggie looks down at her, smiles as she sees Alex turn her face into the pillow. She scratches Alex’s scalp with a little more purpose, and Alex hums an appreciative noise.

“Feels nice,” she mumbles groggily, and Maggie’s smile widens.

“Good nap?”

Alex nods, sighing as she rolls onto her back, looking up at her. “Very good.” Her voice is rough, low, and Maggie’s stomach twists. “Sorry, for falling asleep on you.”

She doesn’t look very sorry. Maggie shakes her head, smoothing Alex’s hair back from her forehead.

“Don’t be. I know how it is.” This isn’t the first time one of them has fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon. “Besides” - she smirks a little - “you’re cute when you’re asleep.”

In the few short weeks they’ve been together, Maggie’s come to love doing that - saying things just to make Alex blush. Because Alex always does - she’s doing it now - and she’s so beautiful and it’s so easy, Maggie doesn’t even have to think about it. They haven’t been together very long, but Maggie thinks that maybe this could be -

Well.

She’s not sure what she thinks, but… maybe… she could get used to this. Seeing Alex’s eyes flutter open as she wakes up, looking rested and peaceful, that pretty color creeping up her neck and blooming high in her cheeks. Maggie still gets a thrill from it every time, knowing she can say these things to Alex, knowing that she’s one who gets to make Alex blush like this.

In lieu of sputtering a response, Alex sits up, and Maggie’s lap feels suddenly cold. Thankfully, Alex doesn’t go too far; she just does some maneuvering until she’s curling up against Maggie’s side, leaning her head against her shoulder. Maggie wraps an arm around her, and they’re quiet for a while, watching Supergirl lift a wrecked semi with one hand on the TV, Alex yawning every now and then as she wakes up.

After a bit, Alex extracts an arm to lay it over Maggie’s stomach, fingers curled at her hip. “I had a dream about my dad,” she says, vaguely surprised, like maybe she’s just now remembering.

That gets Maggie’s attention. Alex doesn’t have a ton of pictures in her apartment, and the few she does have are mostly of her and Kara - Alex with her hair grown out past her shoulders, Kara wearing a cap and gown, their arms around each other; the two of them posing in Kara’s apartment, cardboard boxes stacked around the otherwise empty space.

There’s one photo, though, that’s clearly older than the rest. Glancing over the small array of frames on Alex’s mantel, Maggie had barely been able to examine it long enough to determine that the two nearly-unrecognizable kids in it are, in fact, Alex and Kara, and that the couple standing arm-in-arm behind them must be Alex’s parents. All Maggie knows about them is that Alex’s mother is a scientist who lives in Midvale, and that Alex’s father isn’t in any other photos in her apartment.

Now, when Maggie looks at her, Alex’s eyebrows knit together. She doesn’t look upset, necessarily - just confused, like she’s trying to make sense of what she remembers. Maggie skims her fingers across the skin of her upper arm.

“Good dream or bad dream?” she asks.

Alex heaves another big sigh. “Good dream, mostly. I think.” She hesitates. “It’s complicated.”

Maggie gives her a gentle squeeze. “What happened?”

“Well, I was… I was in the lab at the DEO, but I was the only one there. I was analyzing samples from -” Here, another pause, as she tries to draw the quickly-fading details of the dream back to her. “I dunno, Kara’s sweatshirt? Something stupid. And then I looked up, and… he was just standing there. He asked… how long the surgery was gonna take, I think? And then he asked me if I wanted to go surfing next weekend.”

Her tone is wistful, sad. But if there’s some kind of greater significance behind those words, it’s a secret to Maggie. After a second or two, she decides to bite the bullet.

“You never talk about him,” she says. Not an accusation, just an observation.

Alex shrugs. “Yeah. He’s… not really in the picture, I guess. But it’s…” She laughs. It’s not a happy sound. “It’s complicated,” she says again.

And okay, maybe Maggie’s still in the dark on this one, but that forced chuckle, the tight little breath Alex exhales - that tells her enough for now. She pulls Alex more firmly against her, presses a kiss to the crown of her head.

“I wanna tell you about it.”

“It’s okay, Alex.”

“No, seriously.” Alex straightens a little, forcing Maggie to meet her eyes. “I want to. Not tonight, maybe, but I will.”

Maggie holds her gaze for a few more seconds before she nods, smiling softly.

“All right, Danvers,” she says quietly, warm inside. “Whatever you want.”

-

When Maggie gets to the DEO, Alex is nowhere to be seen. At first, she considers heading straight to the medbay - she’s spent enough time there to know the way, after all - but she doesn’t have time to waste; she needs to be with Alex, now. So instead of wandering around looking for her, Maggie makes a beeline for the command center, hoping to run into someone who can tell her where Alex is. Luckily, Winn must have been keeping an eye out for her, because he jumps up the second he catches sight of her.

She forgoes the usual greeting. “Where’s Alex?”

To his credit, Winn seems to understand the gravity of the situation, and doesn’t even try to lighten the mood.

“She, uh, kinda needed a break,” he explains, as he leads her toward the dim hallway outside the locker room, where Alex is pacing in isolation.

“Thanks,” Maggie says. Winn grips her shoulder briefly before leaving her alone, casting a worried glance back at Alex as he goes.

She recognizes that pose: head down, shoulders hunched, wringing her hands. Alex is working herself into a panic by overthinking every detail. Maggie’s not surprised that Alex doesn’t notice her approach, even when she gets halfway down the hall.

“Alex.”

Her head snaps up, eyes wide. She relaxes a fractional amount when she realizes it’s Maggie. “Thank god you’re here.”

Not quite sure where to start, Maggie decides to go the delicate route. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve already called my mom,” Alex continues quickly, hardly even looking at her, almost as though Maggie hadn’t said anything. She starts pacing again. “She’s trying to get the next flight out, but it’s storming in Midvale so it might get delayed, and I’ll have to figure out a way to pick her up, and Kara - I told her what happened, but she’s dealing with an alien emergency in the suburbs outside the city, she can’t get back for a while, and -”

All right, so the delicate route isn’t working out for her. Maggie steps forward and grabs Alex gently by the arms, forcing her to be still. “No, Alex - are you okay?”

For a second, Alex freezes, stiff against her touch. But then she steps toward Maggie and almost falls into her waiting arms, making a sound that’s somewhere between a sigh and a whimper.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles into Maggie’s shoulder, clutching at her. “I should have been there. I just don’t know how -”

Alex takes a shuddering breath, leaving the sentence unfinished. Maggie rubs her back, slow strokes right below her shoulder blades, the way she always does when Alex is stressed.

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” Maggie says, her mouth close to Alex’s ear. “It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna figure it out.”

Alex tucks her face against the side of Maggie’s neck. “Thank you,” she whispers.

And Maggie’s never really thought of her as small - not just because of their height difference, because she usually seems to take up all the space in the room, demand every spare ounce of Maggie’s attention - but Alex feels small now, quivering against her, trying to fold herself up and disappear into Maggie’s embrace.

Maggie tightens her arms around Alex, keeping them both steady. “It’s gonna be okay,” she repeats. “I’ve got you.”

-

Maggie doesn’t remember how they end up talking about what happened to Alex’s dad - god knows they’d established that Maggie’s parents were a bit of a sore subject for her, after the whole Valentine’s Day fiasco - but they’re lounging together in Maggie’s bed, and Maggie’s already lost track of how long they’ve been talking. It’s dark in her room except for the light that leaks in from the streetlamps outside, and Alex has the sheets pulled up to cover herself, although Maggie knows it’s less out of modesty and more to ward off the cold.

“When I was a kid,” she says, “my dad was my best friend. Well,” - she scoffs at herself a little - “until my teenage angst phase, of course.”

Maggie huffs a soft chuckle through her nose, picturing Alex with thick eyeliner and spiky wristbands. “Of course.”

Silent for a moment, Alex sighs. Her profile is just barely outlined against the light from the window, and Maggie watches her eyebrows draw together, clearly weighing her words.

“And - he was my hero, you know? When I was little, I thought he knew everything there was to know about the world. If I had a problem, he had a solution. No matter what.” She pauses. “He taught me everything I ever asked him to. How to play cards. How to surf. All the constellations we could see from our back porch, and all the other ones, too. He was teaching me how to drive.”

Curled on her side next to Alex, Maggie considers her as she speaks, her voice quiet, rough, vulnerable. There’s something about the somber quality of her tone that makes Maggie certain that she isn’t going to like the ending to this story.

“Then Kara came to live with us, and it was… uh, hard for me, I guess. I mean - I expected them to bring home a dog, maybe, not an alien from another planet. And my parents spent so much time making sure she was comfortable and adjusting to life on Earth, and they just told me to watch out for her, so… it kind of sucked, for a while. But at least my dad tried to pay attention to me, too.” And somewhat bitterly: “More than my mom ever did, anyway.”

Then she’s quiet for a long time, chewing her bottom lip in the dark. In the distance, Maggie hears a siren howling, and she wonders if Supergirl is on duty tonight, or if she’s tucked safely away in bed. Maybe she’s dealing with her demons, too, just like her sister.

Maggie takes Alex’s hand, pulling it against her chest, against her heart. Alex gives her a grateful look.

“Sorry,” she says, clearing her throat.

Maggie shakes her head, her already mussed hair rustling against the pillow. “It’s okay,” she murmurs.

There’s another long pause, and then Alex takes a deep breath.

“When I was fifteen, he left on a work trip,” she starts, hollow. “And he didn’t come back. They told us he died in a plane crash.”

Maggie frowns, confused. That’s some very specific phrasing.

“But it turned out that he was… working for the DEO. He disappeared after he saved J’onn’s life, and now, he’s… he’s still alive.” Alex’s jaw clenches. “Cadmus has him.”

Maggie exhales, eyes wide. “Alex,” she breathes, “I am so sorry.” Because god, what the hell is she supposed to say to that?

But Alex’s only acknowledgement is a squeeze of Maggie’s fingers.

“That’s - that’s not all,” she says, and takes another steadying breath. “A few months ago… Cadmus took Kara. And… he was there. He helped her escape.” Alex’s voice breaks; her free hand curls into a fist, clutching the sheets over her stomach, and Maggie feels her heart split in two. “She saw him. She got to hug him. By the time she got back to us and we got a team together, the place was totally cleared out. We came so close to finding him -”

She cuts herself off with a shuddering breath, and Maggie aches all over for this incredible, strong woman as she pulls Alex into her arms. She runs a hand over the smooth, warm skin of Alex’s back. Alex trembles against her, but doesn’t let any tears fall.

“We’ve tried looking for him, but we just don’t have anything to go off of,” she says helplessly into Maggie’s collarbone. “And even if we do find him, we have no idea what’s happened to him. He recognized Kara, he knew about her being Supergirl, but we don’t know why Cadmus has kept him alive all this time. If he’s just been a prisoner, or - or if they brainwashed him or experimented on him somehow, or forced him into working with them, or…” Alex takes a shaky breath, and Maggie can tell that this last possibility is the one that scares her the most. “Or if he’s working with them willingly.”

Maggie tightens her hold on Alex, trying to process all this. “I don’t know what to say,” she confesses.

Alex pulls back with an unhappy, self-deprecating laugh. “Sorry, that’s probably more baggage than you bargained for.”

But Maggie shakes her head again, one hand sliding up to cup Alex’s cheek. “No, that’s not what I meant,” she says, and Alex’s gaze in that moment is almost desperate, raw. “I just - I’m so sorry, that you had to deal with this alone for so long.” Her thumb skims over Alex’s cheekbone. “Thank you for telling me.”

Alex’s eyes search her face in the darkness for a few moments before she lets out a huge breath, all the tension draining from her body as she tucks her head against Maggie’s chest. Her hair is soft against Maggie’s chin, and she closes her eyes, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. Alex presses her lips to Maggie’s breastbone. For a long while, they just hold each other, breathing against one another, feeling each other’s warmth, the tangible proof of the other’s presence.

“When we find him,” Alex whispers - and she seems to hesitate for a second, unsure, before pushing on, “he’s going to love you.”

And that - wow. There aren’t words to describe all the emotions that tumble through Maggie when she hears that. Her throat too tight to speak, she kisses the side of Alex’s head, and hopes that’s enough.

-

Through the glass wall, Maggie studies the man lying prone on the bed. He’s pale, a fact that’s highlighted by his dark hair and thin beard, both flecked with gray. She knows from pictures that if he opened his eyes right now, they’d be darker, too, like Alex’s. It’s funny - Maggie’s always thought, privately, that when Alex stands next to her mother and sister, she looks like the adopted one, the odd woman out, up against their blonde hair and light eyes.

Looking between Alex and her unconscious father now, though, the resemblance is unmistakable. There’s no denying that Alex is his.

Beside her, Alex is staring at her dad, utterly transfixed, with her jaw clenched and her arms crossed so tightly across her body it looks like she’s physically trying to hold herself together - and the look on her face -

Maggie’s heart clenches. Resting an arm lightly around Alex’s waist, she says softly, “Do you - do you wanna go in?”

After a moment of hesitation, Alex shakes her head stiffly, a muscle jumping in her jaw. “I went in for a minute earlier, but it’s - I can’t. Not until Kara gets back.”

Maggie nods, tilting her head as though she could possibly understand, and presses her fingers into Alex’s side - a gesture that’s meant to be grounding, rather than teasing.

“What happened? On the raid,” she clarifies.

Alex takes another couple seconds to gaze through the window before rousing herself, turning her whole body away.

“We got some intel about this place a few days ago,” she says, and as she speaks, Maggie catches a glimpse of Agent Danvers’ steel and cool detachment behind Alex’s worry and exhaustion. “We thought it was just a supply post, no prisoners, no big projects - you know, we’d just take out a few guards, get in and out, a routine hit.”

That, Maggie actually does understand. She nods again. The whole thing sounds pretty standard, no different from the other raids the DEO and the NCPD have launched against Cadmus in the last couple years.

“So I wasn’t - I wasn’t even involved in the planning or on the comms or anything, I didn’t even know it was happening until J’onn told me - god, I should have been there.”

“Hey, hey.” Maggie runs a hand along Alex’s bicep, and her arms seem to uncross by a fraction of a degree. “There’s no way you could have known.”

Closing her eyes, Alex sighs. “Yeah. I know.”

“So, what happened? The team got there, and then what? Is anyone hurt?”

“No, no, it was - it was basically exactly what we expected, except…” She trails off, turns back toward the man on the bed. “Except they found him in a back room, hooked up to some pretty intense sedatives.” And before Maggie can ask: “As far as we can tell, there’s nothing weird about it, no traces of any other chemicals - there’s just no telling why they were keeping him under. If there’s something wrong with him, or…”

The unspoken possibilities hang in the air between them for a moment. This is the kind of thing that makes Maggie’s job almost unbearable sometimes, the missing pieces, the simple fact of not knowing. Alex’s jaw tightens again; Maggie can practically hear her grinding her teeth. She presses her lips together.

“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see?” she says.

“Yeah. Looks that way.”

“Okay.” Maggie exhales a long breath and rubs her chin, thinking. That twisted, pinched look is back on Alex’s face, and god, she is so out of her depth here - what do you even say to someone whose father has basically just come back from the dead? - but all she can focus on is getting rid of that look, even for a moment.

“Tell you what,” she says, gentle but firm, and waits for Alex to meet her gaze. “You can finish compiling those new samples you were telling me about the other day, I’ll come keep you company until Kara gets back, and later tonight I’ll go pick your mom up from the airport. Sound like a plan?”

Casting one last glance at her father, Alex seems to come to a decision, and - there. Her expression smooths over somewhat, and some of the tension drains from her shoulders.

“Okay,” she says, letting herself be led down the hall, with Maggie’s hand on the small of her back. She wraps an arm around Maggie, leans her cheek against the top of Maggie’s head. “Thanks.”

There’s nothing to thank her for. Instead of protesting, Maggie presses a kiss to Alex’s shoulder, and that pretty much says it all.

-

The “keeping Alex company” thing doesn’t go exactly as planned. At first, Maggie plops herself down in the only comfortable chair in Alex’s lab and asks questions as she watches Alex work - what species is that from, what does it look like, holy shit how did you even get that without dying. And at first, Alex seems to appreciate her attention, taking comfort in something resembling a normal conversation. But gradually, her responses become more and more distant, and before long she’s just muttering to herself in the way that she does when she gets absorbed in her work.

Maggie can’t help but smile listening to her, just a little. She texts Eliza, asking for her flight information and an update on the weather in Midvale. When she looks up again, Alex’s mouth is creased in that particular frown that means she’s concentrating hard.

She figures it’s worth a shot: “Still working on that Qarian?”

The only reply she gets is a grunt. If Alex is so focused that she’s gone nonverbal, then Maggie’s done her job right. For now, at least.

She slumps down in her seat, her mind whirring. There’s so much to do, but there are still so many unknowns that she doesn’t know how to even begin preparing for anything. Is Alex’s dad even going to be the same person when he wakes up? What kind of treatment is he going to need? What’s that recovery period going to be like? And if, somehow, everything turns out for the best, then where do they go from here?

Her own brow furrows as she watches Alex, the pensive crease between her eyebrows, the practiced movements of her hands as she makes minuscule adjustments to a microscope, inputs something into the computer. Soon enough, her vision starts to get fuzzy and her eyelids grow heavy, and the last thing she remembers is Alex frowning intently at whatever’s on the screen in front of her.

“Mags?”

Maggie jerks awake, disoriented for a moment before she remembers where she is.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” she mutters, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “I didn’t even realize.” Her neck isn’t too sore, though, so she couldn’t have been asleep for very long.

Alex smiles at her - smaller, more strained than usual, but it’s there - and runs a hand down her arm. “It’s okay, it’s just - Kara just called, she’s on her way in.”

Well, that’s good news, at least. Maggie stands, stretches a little. “What time is it?”

After checking the inside of her wrist, Alex says, “About a quarter to one.”

Nice, so she slept long enough for it to count as a legitimate nap, beyond just dozing off. More than she could have hoped for.

But then Alex bites her lip, looking equal parts guilty and reluctant. “Hey,” she starts. “If you need to go home and get some rest… it’s okay, Kara’s here. I know you must be exhausted after last night.”

“No way, Danvers.” Maggie looks at Alex seriously as she takes her hand. “I’m exactly where I need to be right now.”

And it’s one of those things Alex won’t admit out loud, but that must have been what she was hoping Maggie would say. She presses her lips to Maggie’s knuckles in wordless thanks, and before either of them can do anything else -

“Alex?”

Kara materializes in the doorway. Maggie has just enough time to take stock of her appearance - smudges of dirt (or maybe - is that soot?) all over her face, her hair more windswept than usual, eyes wide with adrenaline and urgency, but otherwise looking no worse for wear - and then Alex is wrapping her sister in a hug.

“Hey,” Kara says softly, and it’s more soothing than a greeting. She rests her chin on Alex’s shoulder, closes her eyes.

Watching them, Maggie realizes that something is different about this particular embrace. She’s lucky enough to be the only other person who gets to share Alex’s unreserved physical affection, but she knows that Alex and Kara hug a lot. She’s seen comforting hugs and casual hugs, desperate I have to make sure you’re actually alive and here hugs.

But she’s never seen anything quite like this, where Alex seems to be leaning on Kara as much as holding her up, where so much seems to pass between them through contact alone. No matter how much time she spends with the two of them, Maggie thinks she might struggle the rest of her life to wrap her head around the depth of their bond.

After a few long moments, Kara pulls back, a crease between her eyebrows. “Where is he? What happened?”

Alex looks back over her shoulder at Maggie, asking silently, reaching for her with her eyes alone. Stepping forward, Maggie threads their fingers together as Alex starts to explain, steering Kara toward the medbay.

-

By the time she’s been brought up to speed, Kara’s chewing on her bottom lip, an oddly vulnerable thing at the center of an otherwise flawless Supergirl pose, with her arms folded across her chest, feet firmly planted shoulder-width apart. She stares unblinkingly at Jeremiah through the glass wall, just like Alex had done.

“Can we go in and see him?” she asks, a note of pleading in her tone.

There’s just a moment of hesitation before Alex answers. “Yeah, I think it should be okay,” she says; and looking a little lost suddenly, she turns to Maggie. “Would you wanna…”

“No, it’s okay, you two go ahead.” She squeezes Alex’s hand. “Come find me whenever you’re done.”

Kara touches her shoulder in thanks as she heads for the door, and Alex squeezes back once, hard, and then lets go, hot on her sister’s heels. For a few moments, Maggie watches them: Kara crosses to Jeremiah’s bed in a couple long strides, but Alex hangs back a little, apparently talking to the doctor on duty - they must still be trying to run some tests, making sure Cadmus didn’t leave them any hidden surprises. Whatever they’re saying is muted by the glass.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to go in. Really. If Alex needed her in there in the next five seconds, Maggie would be by her side in a heartbeat. If Alex had asked her to come in with them, she wouldn’t have even hesitated.

Okay, maybe she would’ve hesitated a little. But Maggie’s no stranger to the bedside vigil routine - that’s not the hard part. What’s more daunting is - well, first of all, the mere concept of meeting her girlfriend’s - any girlfriend’s father, because that’s as close to universally terrifying as anything could ever get. And it doesn’t help that this is so much more than that. This isn’t just any girlfriend, this is Alex, and this isn’t just Alex’s father, it’s her assumed-dead, actual-secret-agent, held-captive-by-an-anti-alien-terrorist-organization father - which, sue her, comes with a few more complications than she’s dealt with in past relationships.

Although, that being said - Maggie’s pretty sure she’s never gonna need to consider any potential future relationships. She’s all in with Alex, has been for a while now. And part of her thinks it just isn’t right for her to meet her girlfriend’s dad for the first time while he’s still drugged unconscious. On principle, or something.

On the other side of the wall, Alex finishes with the doctor and joins Kara, who looks like she’s taken one of Jeremiah’s hands. Neither of them do anything, unless Alex says something that Maggie doesn’t see - they just look at him, and at each other. Kara offers her other hand to Alex across the bed. Alex takes it.

That’s the other thing. Maggie knows that sometimes, things happen that alter the course of your life forever. She can think of two off the top of her head: Valentine’s Day, 2001, and a sunny fall day when a stuck-up Secret Service agent trampled all over her crime scene. Just as easily, she can name two things - or rather, people - that changed Alex’s life forever. And she’s looking right at them.

Maggie knows that becoming Kara’s older sister - being told to protect her, keep her secret safe, no matter the cost; to take care of her, help her bear the weight of an impossible grief - shouldering that responsibility affected every decision Alex made for well over a decade. Being Kara’s sister is the reason Alex became who she is.

But Maggie also knows that her father’s alleged death rocked the very core of Alex’s world, in a way that even gaining an alien for a sister couldn’t. That loss shaped Alex, too, irreversibly, the way loss always does. And look, Maggie’s not in the business of entertaining what ifs or harboring regrets - between her childhood and her job, it’s a habit she kicked a long time ago - so she won’t wonder what would have happened if Jeremiah had never disappeared. But she’s seen how his absence has changed Alex, how it still weighs on her, even now, at his bedside.

And here they are again, standing at the threshold. She’s just glad she’s here to take the leap with Alex, this time. To face the murky unknown together.

With a start, Maggie realizes that she’s intruding. Shaking her head at herself, she averts her eyes and goes to find Winn.

-

As it turns out, Winn doesn’t have to entertain her for very long. She manages to reply to Eliza’s latest text, insisting on picking her up at the airport - because it’s not like Eliza can just take a Lyft to the DEO, of all places, and there’s no way she’s gonna make Alex or Kara leave to go get her - and chat with Winn for a minute or two about the newest tech the DEO’s been developing, and then Alex and Kara are making their way over.

As they approach, Maggie searches Alex’s face carefully, but she looks relatively okay. As okay as she’s been since she called Maggie at the precinct a couple hours ago. As okay as anyone can be when combating the possibility that their long-lost father might have been brainwashed and forgotten all about them.

Winn immediately spins his chair to face them. “Hey, you guys okay?” he asks, looking between the two of them with concern.

Alex nods silently, as Kara says, “Yeah, we’re okay.” She sighs, running a hand through her tangled hair. “I’m gonna go call James, he should probably know what’s going on.”

She shuffles off, almost looking less like a hero than Maggie’s ever seen her. While they’re all turned to watch her go, J’onn strides up to them.

“Any updates?” he asks briskly, all business, as always, but the tension in his shoulders gives him away.

Alex clears her throat. “Arellano says they haven’t found anything to be worried about yet,” she says. “They’re still looking, but the drugs are still draining out of his system, so they won’t know anything for sure until he wakes up.”

J’onn’s frown only deepens at that. “Do they know how long that’s going to take?”

“Maybe till tomorrow morning.” Alex’s voice is quieter this time. “Tomorrow afternoon, at the latest.”

Maggie feels the knot in her chest loosen, barely. It’s always easier to work with a timeline, and she’d rather go off a vague one than off of nothing at all. J’onn doesn’t say anything, though, just shifts his weight and crosses his arms.

Maggie’s not the only one who notices. Alex steps toward him, reaches out.

“J’onn, you know none of this is your fault, right?”

Without looking at her, he clenches his jaw. “If it wasn’t for me, Jeremiah never would have disappeared in the first place.”

He leaves the rest unsaid, but Maggie - along with everyone else, she's sure - hears it clear as day: They wouldn’t be standing around like this, waiting to find out what horrible things Cadmus did to him.

There’s fire in Alex’s eyes. “If it wasn’t for you, Kara and I would both be dead a thousand times over.”

“Me, too,” Winn interjects. At a loss, Maggie just nods.

“You have nothing to feel guilty for,” Alex continues firmly. “This is all Cadmus. Not you.”

J’onn sighs. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that, won’t we?” he says, grimacing, and leaves them. He’s still got an agency to run, after all.

Only a minute or two later, Kara rejoins them. She’s changed out of her suit and put her hair up, and now that she’s been scrubbed clean of soot or whatever she was covered with earlier, Maggie can see just how tired she looks.

“James says hi.”

Well, Maggie’s pretty sure that his response was a little more sensitive than that - but she gets the gist: He passes on his concern, they’re in his thoughts, and so on and so forth.

“Is he coming down here?” Winn asks.

Kara shakes her head. “I told him to stay at work. There’s not really anything he can do here anyway, if all we can do is wait. Oh -” Apparently realizing something, she turns to Alex. “Did you want me to go get Eliza from the airport later, or do you want to do it?”

“I’m going to pick her up,” Maggie says, before Alex can answer. “I already texted her, so she knows to look for me.”

The look Kara gives her then, almost awed, reminds Maggie of the look she usually gets when she shows up to game night with bags full of food.

“Maggie, you are the best,” she says fervently, and Maggie has just enough time to brace herself for the hug Kara gives her, which is enough to stagger her at the best of times.

She meets Alex’s gaze over Kara’s shoulder. Just like always when Maggie and Kara interact beyond exchanging pleasantries as “the sister” and “the girlfriend” - a dynamic they’ve mostly outgrown by now - Maggie’s blown away by the adoration in her eyes, the relief. It’s aimed at both of them, she knows, and it hits her, not for the first time, how damn lucky she is to be one of the most important people in Alex’s life. To be on the receiving end of that affectionate, grateful look.

“Don’t worry about it, Little Danvers."

-

They spend a long, surreal afternoon at the DEO, the lot of them. Winn still technically has work to do, so he keeps himself occupied at his station while Maggie, Alex, and Kara retreat back up to Alex’s lab. Alex picks up where she left off with her myriad of samples, although she doesn’t get sucked into the work quite like she did before.

For her part, Kara pulls out her laptop and tries to work on her latest article, but fruitlessly, it seems, judging by her frequent sounds of frustration and furious backspacing. Every now and then, her head will snap up and she’ll squint out a window, clearly seeing all the way to the street below, before dashing out the door to stop petty crimes and resolve minor disturbances; eventually, she stops bothering to change her entire outfit every time she comes back, letting her pastel button-down hang loose across her shoulders.

And Maggie - well, Maggie dozes off again, intermittently, between checking the weather in Midvale and the status of Eliza’s flight. Maybe she should be a little more embarrassed about it, but when she wakes up the first time, a jacket has been draped carefully over her to ward off the chill of the lab.  It’s unfamiliar, but Alex makes eye contact with her when she notices Maggie’s awake, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and Maggie melts.

Go figure, Alex is still trying to take care of her, even as her entire world is being turned upside-down. Even though she’s still wearing her own leather jacket, Maggie tugs the new one - black, probably DEO-issued - further up her body, feeling like she’s part of something.

By some miracle, Eliza’s flight only ends up getting delayed by a couple of hours, so Maggie gets set to head out well before sunset. She makes sure Alex and Kara are being taken care of - by each other, and by Winn and J’onn, should the need arise - and kisses Alex tenderly.

“I love you,” Maggie says quietly. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“Okay.” Alex tucks Maggie’s hair behind her ear, kisses her again. “Love you.”

On the way to the airport, Maggie turns on the radio - a variety station, something mindless - to drown out the sound of her own thoughts, the little pinpricks of worry at the back of her mind, warning her about all the ways this could fall apart.

Instead, she turns her thoughts to Eliza. Maggie’s met her more than just a few times - mostly around the holidays, true, but she and Alex did spend a long weekend in Midvale last summer, and she jumps in on Alex’s calls home pretty regularly now. She likes Eliza. She’s easy to talk to, and incredibly perceptive, a quality Maggie always admires, and despite Alex’s past issues with her mother, Maggie knows that Eliza would do anything for her daughters. Maggie would do anything for them, too, so she supposes it’s no surprise that they get along.

When she pulls the car into the pick-up lane at arrivals, Eliza is walking toward her down the sidewalk, luggage in hand. Maggie gets out to greet her.

“Hi,” she says, only slightly surprised when Eliza pulls her into a brief, tight hug.

“It’s good to see you again, Maggie,” Eliza says, but she’s breathless, distracted. Considering the circumstances, Maggie sure as hell can’t fault her for that.

“You, too." She offers a small smile as she takes Eliza’s duffel bag from her shoulder (“Oh, you don’t have to - thank you, sweetie”) and puts it in the trunk, hurrying back to open the passenger side door.

“Thank you,” Eliza says again.

“Of course.” She slides into the driver’s seat. “How was your flight? Did you get out okay?”

“Oh, yes, it was fine. Takeoff was a little rough, but at least it’s a short trip.”

Maggie pulls away from the curb. When she glances over, Eliza’s hands are clasped together in her lap, a deceptively calm pose that lets her knead her thumbs into her palms and knuckles - Maggie’s seen Alex do it a million times - and her lips are pursed, her face pale and drawn.

“How are you holding up?” she asks cautiously. “With… everything.”

Beside her, Eliza exhales, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead, focused on the brake lights and flashing turn signals in front of them.

“To be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure,” she admits, with a hollow chuckle.

Maggie puts her signal on. “Alex said the same thing.”

There’s a pause. “Well, how are you, dear? How’s work?”

Recognizing a request for a topic change when she sees one, Maggie says, “I’m good, work’s good,” and she starts telling Eliza all about her last case (conveniently omitting how long she’s been up - god, was it only this morning, that she was still at the precinct? It already feels like an eternity ago). For the most part, Eliza’s quiet except for the occasional “mhmm,” her usual listening noise, but Maggie’s pretty sure that Eliza hasn’t heard a word she’s said, that she’s barely present in the car with her, too busy wondering what’s waiting for them at the DEO.

If it was hard for Maggie to imagine what Alex was feeling, then she doesn’t even want to consider what kind of hell Eliza is going through. The thought of anything happening to Alex, the thought of losing her - and they’ve each had their fair share of close calls; it’s an occupational hazard - that alone is almost enough to make Maggie pull the car over for a minute. But the mere possibility that she could get Alex back after enduring that kind of agony, only to have her ripped away again? It’d be enough to drive her insane.

Maggie realizes that the radio is the only sound in the car. She hadn’t even realized she stopped talking.

Eliza takes a deep breath. “How is he?”

She looks like she doesn’t really want to know the answer, or at least isn’t quite ready to hear it. It’s an expression Maggie’s too familiar with.

“Stable. Still unconscious,” she says, as gently as possible. “The doctors are pretty sure he’ll wake up tomorrow morning, and… we can go from there.”

Eliza nods, more to herself than to Maggie, it seems. Neither of them try to fill the silence.

-

The second Eliza catches sight of her daughters, she wraps her arms around both of them and pulls them to her. The embrace seems to breathe new life into all three of them, despite how unstable everything is. When she pulls back, she just looks at them, seemingly unable to ask her question out loud.

“He’s this way,” Alex says, and she and Kara each loop one of their arms through Eliza’s, pressing in on her from either side, like her own personal guard. Alex looks back at Maggie as they go, making sure she knows to follow.

As they draw within sight of the medbay, what little color that remains in Eliza’s face drains away. She doesn’t seem to lean any more heavily on her daughters, though, holding herself up with her own strength. Well, Maggie supposes, Alex and Kara had to learn it from somewhere.

“Do you want us to go in with you?” Kara asks, so softly, so full of concern, after they’ve been standing outside for a few long moments.

“No,” Eliza whispers. She shakes her head, pulling herself free of their grip. “No, that’s not necessary.”

Alex and Kara exchange a look, obviously just as skeptical of the stricken expression on her face as Maggie feels, but they obediently step away. Alex touches her mother’s shoulder.

“Take as long as you need.”

Eliza nods. Her eyes don’t leave her husband’s still form for even a second as she goes to the door, slips inside. Maggie sees her hands come up to cover her mouth, and she starts to move toward Jeremiah, almost as if in a trance.

None of them should watch this, she realizes, and acting with a sudden certainty, she grabs Kara and Alex by the arms. They both jump, startled.

“Come on,” Maggie says, tilting her head away from the glass walls, the sight of their parents reuniting - sort of - for the first time in almost two decades. She tugs at them. “We should give her some privacy.”

-

They’re barely settled back in Alex’s lab when Winn pokes his head inside.

“James is here,” he informs them. “He brought food.”

Predictably, Kara shoots out of her seat at that news, so the decision is made for them. Winn leads them to a seldom-used briefing room, where James has already laid out an impressive spread of Chinese takeout on the long table. He looks up when they come in.

“I wasn’t sure if you guys would be hungry,” he says, shrugging. “But I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

For a second, Maggie is about 99% sure that Kara’s gonna kiss him, just plant one on him right there. But then her adoring gaze falls on three containers full to bursting with potstickers, and she winds up going for those instead.

Honestly, Maggie hadn’t even realized how hungry she was until the smell of egg rolls and lo mein hit her nose. When was her last meal? She thinks she might’ve shoved a bagel into her mouth at some point this morning…

“Thanks, James,” she says sincerely, before going to make herself a plate, suddenly ravenous. Kara mumbles something that’s probably English around a mouthful of potstickers.

Ever the gentleman, James gestures for Alex to go ahead, but she waves him off. “No, thanks, I’m good.”

Maggie raises an eyebrow at her, looking pointedly between her and the fried rice. “You should eat something, Danvers.”

Not that she can blame Alex for her lack of appetite, but Maggie hasn’t seen her eat anything all day, and she’ll be damned if Alex passes out from starvation, of all things. Alex sighs and serves herself a truly paltry helping of rice. If that’s as good as she’s gonna get, then Maggie will take it.

While they eat, James fills them in on the latest Catco drama, mostly just to fill the silence. Maggie barely hears him, too focused on watching Alex push her rice around her paper plate. Once she notices Maggie’s caught her, Maggie points at the orange chicken with her fork, eyebrows raised. Alex spears one of the smallest pieces and eats it, raising her eyebrows, too, as if to say, Happy now? Satisfied, for the moment, Maggie nods.

They’ve all just about finished - except Kara, of course, who Maggie is pretty sure has never been completely “finished” with a meal as long as she’s lived on this planet - when James falls quiet. Winn cracks open a fortune cookie, shoves it in his mouth without even reading the fortune.

“Ats uhd luhh,” Kara says, and okay, Maggie doesn’t know what language that was supposed to be.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Alex says automatically, and Maggie grins.

Glaring at her sister, Kara chews and swallows. “That’s bad luck.”

Winn shrugs. “Still tastes delicious.”

“Dude, who actually eats fortune cookies for the taste?” James says.

Alex pushes her rolling chair away from the table and stands. “I’m gonna go see if Mom wants anything to eat before the food gets cold. Or before someone eats it all.”

Kara holds her hands up, defensive. “I’ll leave her an egg roll, don’t worry.”

Alex runs her hand along the back of Maggie’s shoulders as she passes, an absent-minded gesture. Maggie grips her hand briefly before it drops away. “I’ll be right back.”

A minute or two later, she’s ushering Eliza ahead of her through the door. Some of the color has returned to Eliza's face, though she looks exhausted. Kara hands her a steaming plate of food, freshly zapped by her heat vision.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Where’s J’onn?” Alex asks Winn.

“I don't know. He was out there” - he gestures vaguely in the direction of the command center - “when James got here.”

Alex frowns. Maggie pulls her down into a seat.

“He’ll be okay,” she says. “He probably just needs some space for now.”

Alex considers that. “Yeah,” she sighs. “You’re probably right.”

“I’m always right."

The teasing elicits a smile from Alex, which is what she was aiming for. She narrows her eyes playfully at Maggie even as she lifts Maggie’s hand to her lips. Eliza is watching them with a strange expression, one Maggie’s seen on her before, only different this time - more pronounced, maybe. Maggie notes that - like mother, like daughter - she’s hardly touched her food.

A brief hush falls over the room then. Kara’s the one who breaks it, sliding her hand across the table toward Eliza, waiting for her to look up.

“Hopefully, this is the last… the last family dinner without him.”

The air grows thick. Like always, Maggie finds herself stunned by Kara’s unflagging optimism, her insistence on believing that everything will turn out for the best, in the end.

Eliza just nods, smiling tightly.

“Hopefully,” Alex echoes, and Maggie squeezes her hand.

-

The briefing room ends up being the best place for them to hole up: it’s fairly secluded from the handful of agents who remain on duty as the night wears on, its walls are actually opaque, and it has the added bonus of a couple decent couches, placed across the room from each other. All things considered, it’s officially the comfiest room at the DEO - but the place was built with function in mind, rather than comfort, Maggie supposes.

Winn and James help them kill a few hours with a deck of cards and some idle conversation, but Kara sends them both home before it gets to be too late.

“I don’t think any of us are gonna get much rest,” she admits. “You should go home, get some sleep.”

“Are you sure?” James says again.

“We’ll be okay.” Kara glances over at Maggie and Alex, and Maggie swears she knows what Kara’s thinking: They have each other, after all. “We’ll call as soon as anything happens.”

He hugs them all - which is always an ordeal for Maggie, given the solid foot of height between them - and says his goodbyes, with Winn following close behind.

They’ve got a long night ahead of them. Maggie settles in on one of the couches, letting Alex tuck herself against her side. Kara and Eliza share the other one for a while, until they both seem to get restless.

“I’m going to go sit with him for a little bit,” Eliza says, and they all watch her go.

Not a minute later, Kara sighs, finally hopping up. “I’m gonna fly around for a while. Yell if you need anything.”

“Be safe.”

How many times has Alex said that to her sister? Maggie wonders. Hundreds? Thousands?

Kara waves at them, and just like that, they’re alone, for the first time since they were in Alex’s lab this afternoon. All at once, Maggie’s fatigue hits her, the lack of sleep from last night only compounded by today’s stress and worry. She lets her head drop to rest against Alex’s.

“How you doin’, babe?”

Alex is tense in Maggie’s arms. Maggie presses her lips to the top of Alex’s head, waiting for her to collect her thoughts.

“I’m so scared.” It comes out in a choked whisper. “I don’t - I don’t know what to do.”

She doesn’t just mean right now, or for the rest of the night. Maggie furrows her brow.

“What’s scary?” she asks softly, looping her arms more securely around Alex. “Talk me through it.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if he wakes up and he doesn’t know who I am,” Alex says, and there are the beginnings of tears in her voice that have probably been building up all day. Maggie’s heart clenches. “We’ve been trying to find him for so long, and if they - did something to him - it’ll all be for nothing. Like we never got him back in the first place.”

And they’ll get through it. It’ll be awful, but they’ll get through it. Maggie doesn’t say that, though.

“And what if he does know who you are? Best case scenario?”

Somehow, Alex seems to curl into herself even further. When she speaks again, her voice is so small, impossibly young.

“What if he doesn’t… like me?”

Maggie inhales sharply. “Alex…”

“No, I mean - what if he’s disappointed in me?” She turns toward Maggie, beseeching. “I haven’t seen him since I was a kid. I was still in high school - Jesus, I didn’t even have my license. And I still don’t know how to drive stick!” She throws her hands up, as though this is an extremely relevant detail. “I thought I wanted to be a doctor, and instead I ended up at the organization that coerced him into working for them so they wouldn’t kidnap Kara - which is why he disappeared in the first place!”

“Breathe, Danvers.”

Alex does. Her eyes are shining, but she swipes impatiently at her cheeks before any tears can spill over.

“So much has changed since I was a kid, between Kara and the DEO and - and - god, of all the things I always imagined saying to him if I had the chance, ‘Hey Dad, I’m a giant lesbian’ definitely wasn’t one of them.”

Maggie tucks Alex’s hair behind her ear, tracing the curve of her jaw. “Would it be easier for you if I wasn’t here?”

“What? No!” Alex grabs at her hands. “No, I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I just meant - I never thought I would have to deal with coming out to him and - worrying about his reaction. If he’ll think of me even more differently.” She looks right into Maggie’s eyes. “I would never be ashamed of you.”

“I know.” They’d established that early on, before Alex was out to her friends, but it’s still nice to hear it. “I just want to help. However I can.”

“You are helping,” Alex says. “Just by being here. That’s all I need. But I - I feel like my life was so crazy for so long, and just when I’m finally getting used to all this” - a squeeze of her hands - “everything’s changing again. I don’t - I don’t want to choose between you. I won’t.”

Tilting her head, Maggie studies her: the serious line of her mouth, the desperation and determination warring across her face, the fire in her eyes that Maggie fell in love with so effortlessly, like she was pulled underwater without a fight. She knows better than to try to make false promises about a parent’s unconditional love and universal acceptance, because that’s just not the way the world works, and they both learned that lesson a long time ago.

“I hope you won’t have to,” she murmurs at length, extracting a hand to stroke the backs of her fingers along Alex’s cheek. “Look, no one knows what’s gonna happen tomorrow. But whatever does happen, I’m with you, okay? We’ll get through it together. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for as long as you want me.”

It’s a sentiment she’s expressed before, but it feels more significant somehow, like it’s the first time she’s really putting all her cards on the table. Saying it while Kara’s recharging in the sunbed, or while Maggie’s arm is in a sling, or while Alex is having a rough night and they’re talking on the couch - that’s one thing. For some reason, it’s entirely another thing now, with Alex looking at her like that, while they’re waiting to find out if Alex’s father is a threat to their safety - if everything really is going to change.

“I love you,” Alex says. The words are heavier, in a way, like gravity’s weighing down on them a little more than usual.

“I love you, too.” Maggie kisses her lips, her forehead. Alex breathes out, resting more fully against her; and holding her tight, never wanting to let go, Maggie drifts off into sleep.

-

Altogether, Alex gets a combined total of an hour and a half or so of sleep, always fitful, filled with blurry, colorful images of the waves by their house and her dad’s old Mustang, a stick shift, the car she never learned how to drive. Around dawn, she jerks awake as Kara and her mother quietly make their way into the room.

“Why’s your hair wet?”

“Shower,” Kara says, by way of explanation. Plopping back down on the other couch, she waves a hand, dismissive. “There was an incident. I took care of it.”

Of course she did. Alex looks at her mother.

“Any news?” she asks, mindful of Maggie, dozing beside her - for the moment, anyway.

Eliza heaves a tired sigh, sitting down stiffly next to Kara.

“Well, they’ve run all the tests they can think of, so now there really is nothing to do but wait,” she says.

“And they think he’ll probably wake up sooner, rather than later,” Kara adds.

Alex feels too many things at once to settle on a single one, so she decides not to feel any of them. At any rate, soon they’ll know for sure one way or another, and… They can deal with it from there. Just like Maggie said.

Maggie wakes up again a short while later, looking surprised to find herself lying on top of Alex, instead of the other way around.

“Doin’ okay?” she mumbles, before she’s even finished rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Alex looks across the room, where her mom has been clutching at Kara’s hand since they came back in together. She kisses Maggie’s forehead.

“We’re hanging in there.”

Eventually, one of the infirmary techs, Fowler, looks tentatively inside. All four of them shoot up.

“Agent Danvers,” she says, addressing Alex, but clearly aware that the whole room is hanging on her every word. “He’s starting to wake up. Once he regains consciousness, we’re going to run an extensive psych eval. We’ll let you know as soon as we have the results.”

Alex’s knees feel weak. “Thank you, Agent Fowler,” she hears herself say, distantly.

Fowler nods at her, then at everyone else, and leaves. Alex practically collapses against Maggie as she falls back into her seat.

The next couple hours are the longest ones in Alex’s whole life. On the other couch, her mom has a white-knuckled grip on Kara’s hand, and she realizes it’s lucky that Kara’s bones are unbreakable. Trying not to think about anything at all, she closes her eyes.

She doesn’t even notice that Maggie's rubbing her back until she suddenly stops.

“You okay, Kara?” she says.

Alex looks over at her sister. Her face is screwed up in a deep scowl, almost like she’s in pain.

“I’m fine, I just -” Kara gestures helplessly at her ears with the hand not being crushed by Eliza. “I’m trying not to listen.”

Alex fixes her eyes on the ceiling. She sighs.

“Remember the popcorn maker?”

In her periphery, Kara and her mother both smile, just slightly. “Remember the camping trip?” Kara counters.

“Remember Beauty and the Beast?”

They go back and forth like that for a while, trading tiny anecdotes, occasionally filling Maggie in on the joke even though she never asks them to elaborate. Even her mother, as strained as she looks, contributes a couple stories of her own, ones Kara wasn’t around for but has heard before. Bizarrely, Alex is reminded of the nights she spent with Kara in the aftermath of Jeremiah’s apparent death, when they'd mourned together, each of them sharing little pieces of the people they’d loved and lost.

Before too long, though, they get quiet again, all of them tense with exhaustion and dread. Kara’s head drops onto Eliza’s shoulder.

Alex swallows past the lump in her throat, thinking of her dad helping her with her sixth grade science fair project, bringing home her first chemistry set, surprising her with ice cream after a bad day. She thinks of his laugh as she sent him sprawling into the shallows, the calm confidence in his voice as she clutched the steering wheel, white-knuckled, and eased the car onto the highway for the first time, his unwavering faith in her. She thinks of his bear hugs and the way his kisses got scratchy when he hadn’t shaved in a couple days.

She breathes deep, trying to focus on the tangible warmth of Maggie’s arm on her back, and thinks of love, of love, of love.

-

The door opens.

Alex stops breathing. The world’s already crumbling around her.

Fowler steps inside, holding up a placating hand as though to stave off their collective terror.

“It’s good news,” she says. Her expression is carefully neutral, but her eyes are kind when she looks around at them. “All the psych tests came back totally normal, aside from some trauma, but that’s not surprising, given what he’s been through. He’s lucid, rational - himself.”

Alex’s heart stops, then kickstarts itself again. Her arm is going numb from how tight Maggie’s holding onto her.

Kara takes a tentative step forward, the first to break out of the haze of disbelief. “So… so he’s…”

Fowler smiles a little, nods. “He’s okay. Still a little groggy from the drugs, but we can have him home by tomorrow.”

Home.

Holy shit.

“You can go see him,” Fowler adds.

In a daze, Alex follows her mom and Kara out of the briefing room, only dimly aware of Maggie still clinging to her. She blinks, and she’s in front of the medbay. And there -

There he is. Her dad. Sitting up in the bed, looking the other way, talking to another agent whose face is too blurry for Alex to recognize right now. She sways a little on her feet, starting when Maggie steadies her.

“Alex,” she says, as Alex’s mother and sister hesitate outside the door, teetering on the threshold, “if you need to just - be with your family right now, that’s okay.”

That’s enough to wake her up. She has no idea what’s happening, she’s pretty sure she’s stuck in a dream, but all she can fixate on for that one second is -

“Maggie. You are my family.”

Maggie just gives her a long, searching, bright-eyed look, and nods. Clasps her hand.

Time seems to slow, then, as they tighten into a kind of formation behind Eliza - as they push, in a single unit, through the door - as Jeremiah turns his head - as his eyes glance over each of them - as they widen, and his mouth falls open -

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he breathes.

Eliza is the first one across the room. “Jeremiah.”

“Hello, beautiful,” he says, just before she buries herself in his arms.

The sight of her parents embracing for the first time in fifteen years is almost too surreal for Alex’s brain to comprehend. Scrambling for purchase, she feels someone grasp her other hand - Kara, of course, always there when Alex is reaching for her, her grip impossibly strong and sure. Maggie squeezes once before letting go, and Alex lets Kara guide her forward.

“My beautiful girls…”

He doesn’t dare let go of Eliza, but he somehow manages to make room for them, all the same. The trick worked better when she and Kara were skinny teenagers, but Alex can’t even consider complaining as her face is pressed into his shoulder, and all she can do is inhale his scent as Kara and her mother tremble beside her. He still smells like clean seaside air. Like sunlight.

Hours, or maybe only minutes, pass before he loosens his hold on them.

“Look at you,” he says, and Alex has never heard her dad’s voice sound like this, not even when her grandfather died when she was ten. He chuckles wetly. “You grew up.”

Alex shrugs. She realizes, suddenly, that she’s smiling.

“Nice glasses, kiddo.”

Kara fidgets with them, the way that she does. All any of them can do is stare. Alex is still only half-certain this is real, and not a particularly cruel figment of her imagination.

Then her dad looks between them and says, “I know I promised to bring back souvenirs, but I - I think they got lost along the way. Sorry.”

Alex remembers the day she said good-bye to him for the last time - or, what she thought was the last time - how he hugged her, said he’d be back from his work trip in a few days, promised to bring back presents for her and Kara, even though Alex was definitely too old to be asking for souvenirs. She’s gone over that conversation in her mind a million times.

Inexplicably, a laugh startles out of her chest, and she finds her voice. “You been working on that one for fifteen years, Dad?”

He sniffs. “I guess I’m a little rusty.”

Eliza lifts a hand to his face, and he leans into her touch. “You’re here,” she whispers. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

“Neither can I,” he admits.

Still bewildered, still breathless, Kara adjusts her hand in Alex’s grip. “How - how are you?” she says, and the sheer absurdity of this, of - of everything, the mundanity of the question, the situation - almost makes Alex laugh out loud again.

“A hell of a lot better now. Still… a little disoriented. They said I’m a little malnourished, too.”

“We can take care of that,” Eliza promises, and Alex grins.

“I have so much to tell you,” she says, but she doesn’t even know where to start.

“I want to hear everything,” her dad assures her. But then he looks past her, and she turns to see Maggie approaching them cautiously. “You’re not one of mine, are you?”

Maggie kind of half-chuckles, hands gesturing in the air. “No, no, I’m - I’m a friend of Alex and Kara’s.”

Not a complete lie, but a very deliberate manipulation of the truth. She glances at Alex, and in that half a second, Alex tries to put every ounce of gratitude and appreciation she has for this amazing woman into her gaze, and hopes Maggie understands.

“Must be a pretty special friend,” Jeremiah says.

Bashful, Maggie smiles and blushes - blushes! Maggie never blushes, Alex is gonna have to tease her about that later.

“I don’t wanna intrude, I just wanted to give you guys some time alone, but I didn’t wanna just - disappear.” This is all mostly directed at Alex. “I’ll be around, okay?”

Her hand rests lightly on Alex’s shoulder, and warmth radiates throughout Alex’s body from the point of contact.

“Okay,” Alex says, and in that one word, she tries to pack in everything else she wants to tell Maggie, her thank yous and her apologies.

But Maggie - wonderful, perfect, patient Maggie - doesn’t look like she needs them. Her eyes are brilliant, her dimples poking deep into her cheeks, and if she’s at all uncomfortable or upset, she’s not showing it. The only thing Alex sees on her face is love.

Then she’s gone. Her mother and Kara exchange a look, something sympathetic, a little awkward. Before Alex can dwell on it, her dad takes a deep, stabilizing breath.

“Well, I think we have a lot to talk about, huh?”

-

The rest of the morning passes in a blur. Alex keeps expecting to wake up, ripped out of this fantasy world and flung back into harsh reality, but it never happens. Her dad fills them in as best he can on what happened with Cadmus, but he doesn’t remember much. His last clear memory is of being knocked unconscious - a few days ago, he says, when they tell him the date - but apparently that wasn’t unusual treatment for a prisoner. And Alex hadn’t even thought about - about what that meant, and she should have, but - Fowler would have told her, if it had been anything else. Anything more threatening.

He supposes they must have put him under after that, but for what purpose, he doesn’t know.

“I guess it’s just lucky you found me when you did,” he says.

Alex doesn’t even want to consider the alternative. Clearly, the possibilities, the knowledge of just how close they’d come to truly losing him, are getting to her mother, too, because she looks just a little overwhelmed as she excuses herself to make arrangements for a hotel room. And Alex wants to protest, wants to insist on them staying with her or Kara, but where the hell is everyone going to sleep? Besides, her parents probably want some time to themselves, she supposes. God knows she would, if she were in their position.

Her dad watches Eliza go with worry in his eyes. Kara pats his arm.

“She’ll be okay,” she says. A second later, though, she tilts her head suddenly, in that way that means she's listening to something in the distance, and stands. “I have to go.”

On instinct, Alex shoots to her feet. “Do you want me to -”

“No, it’s fine, it’s not a big deal. I promise,” she adds, at Alex’s skeptical look. She gives Jeremiah an apologetic grimace. “I’ll be right back.”

He just waves her off, equal parts amused and proud. “Go,” he tells her.

That’s all it takes before she’s striding toward the door, already unbuttoning her shirt as she goes. Alex still feels uneasy, though, and she watches the space Kara had occupied until her dad speaks again.

“You did a great job with her.”

Alex scoffs, sitting back down, ignoring how good it feels to hear that coming from him, instead of from her mother. “It’s not like I raised her or anything.”

Her dad tilts his head, studying her. “You two seem really close.”

She relaxes a little at that. She glances back over her shoulder at the doorway, as though Kara might be standing there. “Yeah, we are.”

“Well, that’s new. I know it’s been a long time, but - how’d that happen?”

He’s prodding, she realizes, trying to get her to talk about herself - which isn’t exactly one of her strong suits. At the same time, it occurs to her how little information she’s actually volunteered.

So she tells him how Kara had clambered out onto the roof one night after his “death” to find Alex staring at the stars, and they’d finally bonded for the first time over constellations and their shared grief; about Kara saving the plane she was on the night she revealed herself as Supergirl; about sister nights. Somehow that leads into her telling him about Stanford, her focus in bioengineering, her mother’s excitement that Alex was going to follow in her parents' footsteps.

But then she realizes what comes next in the story, and she starts to falter. She can gloss over the worst of the disaster that was grad school, but there’s no way to soften the blow when it comes to working at the DEO, the agency that threatened her sister and stole her father and shattered her whole world in one fell swoop. Her heart races. How is she supposed to explain a career switch as dramatic as the difference between a research scientist and a black ops alien hunter?

“Grad school was… kinda rough. Stressful.” Alex clears her throat, her fear of his disappointment pounding in her veins like adrenaline. “I, uh… I almost dropped out, but… J’onn found me. So he could keep his promise to you. He recruited me to the DEO, I finished my PhD while I did my training, and…” She spreads her hands awkwardly. “Here I am.”

Jeremiah is staring at her in silence, his expression unreadable.

“I’m sure this isn’t - what you wanted for me, or - or how my life was supposed to turn out,” she babbles, her nerves getting the better of her. “But I wanted to make a difference - I needed to. I needed to keep Kara safe and protect people and I - I’m sorry.”

Her father regards her solemnly, his dark eyes glinting, but lacking their usual humor. He holds his hand out to her, and she only hesitates for a split second before reaching for him, letting his fingers fold around hers.

“When I helped Kara escape from Cadmus, a couple years ago,” he begins softly, “do you know what she told me?”

Alex doesn’t dare to move. Her breath is coming hot and shallow in her chest, and she knows that whatever comes out of his mouth next, whether he approves or forgives her or not, she’s going to start crying.

“The first thing out of her mouth - the very first thing she said to me - was about how strong you had been. How strong you’d had to be, while I was gone.”

He punctuates his words with a squeeze to her hand, so hard it almost hurts. Alex squeezes back, matches his strength, fighting against the first wave of tears rising in her throat.

“I knew everything would change when Kara came to live with us. I never expected you to sit on the sidelines just because it was safer for you. That’s not how I -”

He stops himself, his eyebrows knitting together. He shakes his head, but Alex fills in the blank: How I raised you. This from the father she hasn’t seen since she was still in high school.

She swallows thickly, and her eyes start to burn when he puts his other hand on top of hers. His hands are just like she remembers - large, warm, rough at the soft parts of his palms and the pads of his fingers. Her own hands, she knows, couldn’t have changed more. They are strong, callused, battle-worn, capable. The hands of a soldier, rather than the hands of a child. Alex fights with these hands. She loves with these hands.

Her dad looks at her seriously, steadily.

“Alexandra Danvers,” he says, in that low rumble that used to lull her to sleep at night, that has haunted her dreams for half her life, “I am so incredibly proud of you.”

It’s the vehemence, the fierceness in his voice that finally does it. As though a switch has been flipped, Alex throws herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck and burying her face in his chest as she sobs, the way she’s wanted to every single day since he left. Jeremiah wraps his arms around her, one hand cradling the back of her head, holding her to him.

“I missed you - so much,” she gasps, because it’s the only coherent thought in her head.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he mutters in a gruff voice. He presses a lingering kiss to the side of her head. “I missed you too. Oh, god, I missed you.”

They stay like that for a long time, long after Alex has stopped crying and is down to drawing deep, shuddering breaths against him. Jeremiah rocks her gently, back and forth. Alex would be content to let him just hold her like this for hours - making up for lost time, and all that - but she’s getting stiff from hunching over him, and there is still so much left to do. So much to say.

Finally, she forces herself to pull back. She sits on the edge of the bed and wipes her eyes, sniffling, and her dad clears his throat. His face is a little splotchy. They smile wearily at each other.

“So,” he says after a minute, in a much lighter tone, “who’s the short one with the dark hair? Did your mother take in another stray?”

Just like that, all the air gets vacuumed out of the room. Alex's heart skips a beat, then thumps painfully in her chest. We’re doing this already? she thinks, panic mounting.

Her dad raises his eyebrows at her, and she forces a nervous laugh, realizing she’s been silent for a moment too long.

“Uh. Not exactly.” She pulls her hands back into her lap so she can fidget, pointing aimlessly toward the rest of the DEO, where Maggie is no doubt waiting patiently for her. “That’s - that’s Maggie.” Even just saying her name makes Alex feel warm.

He hums thoughtfully. “Friend of yours?”

Alex forces herself to meet his gaze, and it’s then that she notices the knowing glint in his eyes, the gently teasing, prodding quirk of his mouth. The expression is so familiar on him, even though his face is so much older, that she can’t help but relax.

“My girlfriend,” she says, and her voice doesn’t shake. She still feels a little thrill go through her every time she says it, equal parts nervousness and excitement and I can’t believe my luck wonder.

Jeremiah smiles at her, the kind of smile that makes his eyes crinkle, pulling at the lines on his face. “How long has it been?”

“It’ll be two years at the end of next month.” The best two years of Alex’s life, by a landslide. She smiles just thinking about it. “I, uh… came out to Mom and Kara a little before that.”

“Wow. That’s incredible,” he says, and stretches a hand out, palm down, on the bed between them. “I’m so happy for you.”

Despite herself, Alex slumps with relief, feeling like a vice has just loosened from around her chest. “Really?”

“Of course.” His expression turns serious, earnest. “Honey, you were still a kid when I left. No one knows who they are and what they want out of life when they’re fifteen - not even a genius like you.” She can’t help but a flush a little at his praise. “I realize that there’s a whole life you’ve lived without me. That I’ve missed out on. And I know that I don’t - I don’t exactly know you, anymore. But I’d like to. If - if that’s okay with you.”

Her dad’s a little awkward, hesitant, caught somewhere between fear and hope. And just when Alex thinks her heart couldn’t break for him any further, it does, because - he thinks that a universe exists where she somehow wouldn’t want him in her life after all this time. As though she hasn’t felt the weight of his absence at every milestone, every family meal. Every time she puts her hand on a gearshift.

She reaches out, covers his hand with hers. “Yeah, I’d really, really like that.”

“And just so you know - it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, or asexual, or only attracted to aliens with more than four limbs -”

Alex chokes an incredulous noise that comes out as a laugh, half tempted to smack him.

Clearly pleased with himself, he raises his hands in surrender, softening as he continues. “It doesn’t make a difference to me. You’re my daughter, Alex, and I love you. Nothing will ever change that. Especially not who you love.”

Even though she’d assumed that was the gist of his feelings on the subject, it’s not any less of a relief to hear it out loud. Lightheaded suddenly, she blinks back a second round of tears.

“Thanks, Dad,” she says softly. “That means a lot.”

He grins. “So Maggie,” he says, like he’s testing the name out in his mouth.

She nods, feeling her cheeks heat up. “Maggie Sawyer. She’s a detective with NCPD.”

“Detective Maggie Sawyer,” he echoes, eyebrows raised. “Sounds like she can keep up with you, Agent Danvers.”

She tries to fight back the smile that spreads across her face, but it’s a losing battle from the start. “Yeah, she - she keeps me on my toes.”

“When do I get to meet her?”

Introducing her girlfriend, the actual love of her life, to her father, returned from the void? Now she’s sure this is a dream.

Except it’s not. Her heart’s fluttering in her chest, and he’s here and looking at her with that light in his eyes, and - this is real. This is real life.

“Soon,” she promises. “I - I think you’ll like her.”

Just as he opens his mouth to reply, he stops, distracted by something behind her. She turns to see J’onn stepping into the room, wearing that fond look that puts all those warm, well-worn creases into his face.

“Jeremiah Danvers.”

Her dad’s brow furrows in confusion, but his expression clears as J’onn shifts, stretching up and out into his true form.

“J’onn J’onzz,” he says, stunned. “Damn if it isn't good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” J’onn says, and the two of them just stare at each other from across the room, J’onn towering over Jeremiah where he’s reclining on the bed.

Alex knows when to make herself scarce. She gets up. “I’ll give you two a minute.”

She leans down and kisses her father’s cheek. His stubble scratches against her lips.

-

Alex finds Maggie curled up in the big chair in her lab, nodding off again. She frowns. Maybe Maggie got less rest last night than she thought.

“Hey,” she says quietly, and Maggie jerks upright.

“Hey."

Maggie fixes her with this tender look as Alex moves toward her, nudges her knee.

“Make room.”

With the both of them in the one chair, it’s a tight fit, so Maggie ends up mostly on her lap. Alex noses into the crook of her neck, adjusting the jacket from yesterday - the one she’d grabbed from her locker for Maggie to use as a blanket - over them.

“How you doin’, Danvers?”

Alex’s sigh moves them both. “Do you have any idea how incredible you are?”

“Mm, you may have mentioned it once or twice.”

“No, seriously.” She kisses Maggie’s neck - lightly, an innocent thing. “Thank you. For being here. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Maggie shakes her head. “No thanks necessary. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

For a few moments, she closes her eyes, just enjoying the feel of Maggie breathing against her.

“So I told him,” she says finally.

“Yeah?” Maggie tilts her head toward Alex so she can catch a glimpse of her dimples as she smiles. “I had a feeling. He took it okay?”

“Better than okay.” And here’s that feeling, like she’s being filled up from the inside out, from her toes to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her hair. Before Maggie, she didn’t even know it was possible to feel like this. “He wants to meet you.”

A beat, two, and then Maggie says, “Oh, like right now?” in that clueless tone that means she knows exactly what she’s doing.

She pretends she’s about to squirm off of Alex’s lap, but Alex locks her arms even tighter around her waist.

“No, not right now,” she says, and it must come out more like a grumble than she intended, because Maggie chuckles as she settles back against her, putting her hands over Alex’s. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Part of her, deep inside, is still scared that she’s going to go back to the medbay to find that all traces of her father have been erased. That he was never even there at all, and this was all an elaborate hallucination - like those moments of terror she has sometimes when she wakes up on Kara’s couch, and isn’t sure if her and Maggie’s apartment is just something she dreamed up. Sometimes, it hits her how precarious it is, this life she’s built for herself. How easily it could all fall apart.

Another part of her, a bigger part, isn’t willing to let that happen. She knows what happy feels like; she knows how to fight tooth and nail to hang onto it, with every fiber of her being. Maggie taught her that.

Alex presses her lips to Maggie’s shoulder, closing her eyes again, breathing her in.

Thank you, she thinks, because she doesn’t trust herself to speak, doesn't think words are gonna cut it, this time. Thank you for everything.