Chapter Text
It took a few minutes for someone to come to the door. The officers didn’t want to cause a scene and try to find an entrance to the back yard where the sounds of music and laughter from the residence resided. In a quick moment of silence between songs from Maggies’ speaker Kara heard the knocking on the front door. Excusing herself she went to go see who it was. Everyone besides Alex and Jeremiah were here; the two of them slipped away earlier to go get some missing items for tonights’ BBQ. Eliza had just said she wondered where they were. They had been gone for nearly an hour. A lot longer then it should have taken to go to the store they said they were going to. Maybe the store was closed? Maybe they didn’t have the brand their mother liked and they went further into town? Maybe they got distracted and ended up on a Alex/Jeremiah adventure and they would return with stories that would make them all cry with laughter?
Kara pulled open the front door with a smirk at the thought and as soon as she did she could feel her breath caught in her through and hear her heart pound through her chest. There stood two uniformed officers, one older balding officer with a stern look on his face looking straight ahead, the other could not have been older than Kara herself. He stood almost shaking as if he was nervous.
"Can I help you officers?” Kara asked looking directly into the eye of the older bald officer.
“Is there a Mrs. Eliza Danvers here? She was listed as the emergency contact to a Mr. Jeremiah Danvers through DMV records?”
“Of course. Let me go get her.” Kara said respectfully and stepped aside so they could come in out of the memorial day weekend heat. “May I ask what for?”
Memorial day weekend was always the one weekend a year the Danvers family set aside to be together. Since college the holiday season was always a busy time one or both of the sisters couldn’t make it back home. The lab and research center didn’t allow Jeremiah and Eliza take extended time off to travel to the city to be with their daughters. They were not religious or overly patriotic, so Memorial Day weekend was their time to be together planned months in advance instead of the last minute drop bys or in some cases flybys.
Over the years more and more people came to their little home by the beach joining in on the family fun. super Friends, bosses, girlfriends and acquaintances with nowhere else to go.
Like the previous three years Alex arrived promptly at the given time with her two girlfriends and their trunk full of suitcases? (“Lucy why do you need to take six pairs of shoes” “No Maggie you do not need to bring your coat it is summer” “Alex you need to bring more than your swimsuit and board shorts”). Kara, always the overachiever, arrived hours earlier with James and Winn. Lena. M’gann and J’onn and first memorial day weekender Lena would be arriving later after finishing taking care of everything back in National City.
Once the door was shut Kara was just about to go to the pool to get Eliza but out of thin air she was only a few feet behind walking towardS Kara and the officers. By the look on her face Kara got the feeling her adoptive mother had sensed that the doorbell signaled something important.
The older officer looked between Kara and Eliza for a moment before speaking. “Mrs. Danvers?”
“Yes. Is there something I can help you with? Is something wrong?” Kara saw her mother slowly start to pale in the face. The music in the backyard had been shut off. An ominous silence took over the house.
“May I speak with you alone ma’am?” Without saying a word Eliza led them into the library right off the front door. Jeremiah and Eliza used this room as a den in the winter. The brick and wood paneled room held a small fireplace lined with odds and ends collected over time. Mix matched furniture and antique books shelved by the entrance made the room a quiet getaway in itself.
“I’m sorry to tell you ma’am there has been an accident about thirty minutes ago on Highway 23, about five miles from here”
“An accident.” Eliza whispers as if she is hearing the word for the first time. Kara gasped in the hall; everything in the world including time itself stilled.
Lucy and Maggie came up behind her trying to get a grasp on the situation. They saw through the patio doors the officers and Eliza stepping into the front den. They watched Kara freeze mid movement in the hallway. Something wasn’t right.
“Yes Ma’am. I am sorry. We wanted to come and tell you in person. There was an incident with a traveling work truck. Some steel pipes got loose and caused a series of head on collisions with nearby vehicles. In this case some of the pipes went through one of the cars. The driver a Mr. Jeremiah Danvers his date of birth July 31st, 1960. You are listed as next of kin with the DMV. I believe he was your husband”
Eliza stood from the green velvet couch “ What do you mean he was my husband? He still is!”
“Ma’am. Mr Danvers… He was killed instantly in the accident. The pipes went through the windshield and ejected him from the vehicle. He was dead on impact.”
There was no way to dress it up, the terms were ugly. If they sugar coat or show too much emotion it doesn’t help the victims family in fact it makes it harder on them.
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god.” Eliza cried out as she fell back into the once comfortable cushions.
The girls could hear the sob coming from in the room, not being able to stand it any longer rushed in. All they heard was dead on impact; they still didn’t know who. Jeremiah? Alex? Both?
“Who is it? What happened?” Lucy was the first to enter the room the other two right behind her.
Kara was already crying, though she didn’t know yet for whom. It was almost like she lost her super hearing after the initial shock of ‘accident’”
“It’s Jeremiah,” Eliza said through choked tears, “there was an accident...a head on collision..steel pipes..” Maggie and Lucy clutched each other's hands as tears filled their eyes.
Maggie turned to the younger officer with a look of panic “ What happened to Alex? She was in the car with her dad!” She couldn’t even fathom the thought of losing one of the loves of her life? She held her breath and braced herself. Squeezing Lucy's hand within hers she stood tall waiting for the answer.
The young officer seemed just as nervous and upset as the family. Taking over after a few beats of silence the older officer takes a step toward the couple, “She is alive. I was going to inform Mrs. Danvers but I wanted to give her a minute to catch her breath.”
Lucy and Maggie, no longer able to control the tears that are streaming down their faces, give up the fight and stumble into the couch behind them. Kara, still standing frozen at the door, eyes wide, breaths shallow. James and Winn make their way behind Kara looks of confusion plastered on their faces not that anyone besides the officers notice them.
“She was badly injured in the accident and they took her to the hospital. She was unconscious when they got her out of the car. It was a miracle. She was the only survivor in all five cars.” The officer continues. In total twelve people died but he didn’t tell the family that.
“What...what happened to her? Is she going to be okay?” Lucy quietly asks, afraid of the answer.
“When we left the scene of the accident. She was in critical condition. She was taken by ambulance to Midvale General. We would be more than happy to bring you down there or we can lead the way with the sirens on if you want to take your car”
A few blurred moments and rushed explanations to the boys later they were all running toward the cars. James takes the wheel behind the first car with Lucy and Maggie huddled together in the back seat. Winn takes the lead with a still frozen Kara in his passenger seat and Eliza in the rear. All Maggie could think of was that maybe Alex would be dead before they even arrived. Lucy was praying to everyone and everything that she’d still be alive having the same thoughts cross her mind.
The officers turned on the sirens before they left and took off at a terrifying speed with James right behind them and Winn taking up the rear. They were at Midvale General in minutes.
“Why didn’t I go to the store for them? I could have done it? I didn’t even think to offer. I was having so much fun.” Kara was blaming herself Winn realized. He didn’t know what to say so he just parked the car and ushered them inside behind James, Lucy and Maggie.
Once they talked to the lady at the front desk they were sent to the trauma unit. Lucy ran down the hall with Maggie and James behind her. Winn holding Kara by the waist a few paces behind them. Eliza in the back slowly following in a daze. It was too much for her to handle.
The chief resident in the trauma unit came out to see them immediately as soon as he heard Alex’s name mentioned by Maggie to one of the passing nurses.
He explained Alex was barely clinging onto life and needed brain and eye surgery as soon as possible to relieve pressure on her brain. But as he looked at all of them he, like the officers earlier, didn't pull any punches and said that Alex’s injury was greatest in the part of her brain that affected her vision.
“I don't know if we can save her sight. Right now I'm more concerned with keeping her alive.”
“So are we.” Maggie agreed, not fully understanding what he was saying. If they could save Alex and keep her alive that would be enough. Anything else they could deal with it. Maggie was sure of it.