Chapter Text
“Ryan?”
“Sawyer.”
“Warehouse on 16th and Broadway. Ever been there?”
Sitting in her new, slightly dated office in Gotham, Maggie Sawyer watches Detective Olivia Ryan stare at the ceiling—then type the cross streets into Google Maps.
“Nope.”
“Cheater,” she laughs.
“Alright, when I said I was your Guide to Gotham, I didn’t mean I had the entire city memorized.”
“Well what good are you, then?” she teases.
A rubber band whizzes across the room and barely misses her left ear. Before she can retaliate, there’s a knock on the door.
“Sawyer?”
“Yeah.”
“Phone call. Gotham University. Professor…uh… I don’t know. Some biology professor.”
“Professor Stajsovljevich?”
The rookie blinks, “Sure. If you say so.”
“What the hell did you just say?”
“It’s his name, Ryan.”
“Spell it.”
She says it like a dare, but she doesn’t know Maggie already has it memorized, “S-t-a-j-s-o-v-l-j-e-v-i-c-h.”
She sticks out her tongue as her partner flips her off, then picks up the phone and greets the professor, “Good morning, sir.”
She delves into a discussion on the syllabus for her detectives. She’s been in Gotham for about two months, helping the police department put together their own science division. They’d sifted through a stack of recruits when she first arrived, and now they were going to start some classes.
Detective Ryan was her new partner—surprisingly, she actually likes the woman. Despite her appearance, the blue-eyed, strawberry blonde detective was less Barbie than she expected. She was tough as nails and didn’t stand down to anyone she didn’t deem worthy of her respect.
She was not a fan of having a partner, but Olivia was the only woman in her new precinct, and—as far as she could tell in two months—the only competent GPD officer in the building. They had fallen into a decent rhythm, and Maggie had found it easy to be herself in her presence—or as much of herself as she knew how to be without the Danvers-sized wound she was still trying to heal.
It also helped that barely three hours after Maggie’s feet hit the ground in Gotham, Olivia had saved her life.
She found herself thrown to the ground with surprising force, and with half a shrug, Olivia smirked, “Welcome to hell.”
That turned out to be more accurate than she’d expected.
She was definitely not in National City anymore.
Maggie didn’t mind Gotham though. Despite the significantly higher crime rate, it was an interesting city—and it had actual seasons, which was something she didn’t realized she missed until the October chill took over a few weeks ago and the leaves started to change.
It was also nice that no one here knew anything about her life that she didn’t tell them. They didn’t know about her failed engagement, or look at her with pity every time she showed up alone. There was rarely any mention of Supergirl. No one talked about CatCo or Luthors. It was like a whole different planet here, and it was refreshing. She felt like she could restart her life.
When she hangs up with the professor, she throws a paperclip at her partner, “Let’s go check out that warehouse. Could work for training.”
…
The warehouse looks…like a warehouse. But it’s big enough for their needs, and there’s some abandoned furniture inside that they could use, and the rent is reasonable. She calls up her new captain for further approvals.
She’s technically a liaison from NCPD, but she operates under the higher-ups in Gotham while she’s here, and still sends weekly updates back to her own precinct. She occasionally gets involved in cases, but usually only if they would fall under the purview of will soon be the new GPD Science Division.
As they’re driving back, her partner takes a turn that even Maggie knows is not in the direction of the precinct.
“Where are we going?”
“Lunch, Sawyer. You do eat, right?”
“Depends.”
“Floutas?”
Maggie raises her eyebrows.
“Don’t look at me like that, I know what floutas are. I dated this guy once, and—”
But she doesn’t finish her sentence. They’re interrupted by a call over the radio for available officers, and even though Olivia estimates they’re twenty minutes out, she insists on going.
Maggie responds to the call while Olivia flips on the sirens and races through traffic.
…
They pull up to a white bungalow in one of the more decent neighborhoods, and there’s already two other cruisers, a fire truck, and an ambulance at the scene. The activity level of the people outside tells Maggie this case is no longer life or death—it’s either one or the other.
She steps out of the car and follows her partner in the house.
As soon as they step inside, she hears Olivia mutter, “Fuck.”
“Ryan?”
When she moves to the side, Maggie sees the reason for the swearing. A young woman, lifeless, lying in the middle of the living room floor. She looks younger than Maggie. She watches for a second as they check for signs of life, but even she can tell it’s pointless.
She scans the room, watching the cops jot down notes and the techs sweep for prints. Then she sees a photo on the shelf across the room, “Who’s the kid?”
“The what?”
Olivia’s eye follows her finger to the photo, and Maggie notices a few more things—a little blue blanket, a children’s book under the coffee table, a Disney DVD. Although admittedly, not enough signs that it would’ve drawn your attention from the dead body, unless you were really looking.
“Fuuuuuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck…” Olivia mumbles.
A slight sense of urgency takes over, and Maggie turns to one of the other officers, “Is there a kid here?”
“What kid?”
She really hopes this idiot isn’t one of her new recruits, “There are pictures on the wall of a kid. A little girl. Is she here?”
Another officer steps in and glares down at her, “There’s a nursery upstairs, but no one’s here. Must be at daycare or something. You think we didn’t do our job? We cleared the house. There’s no kid.”
“Reynolds,” her partner’s voice is hard and cold, “Did you actually clear the house?”
“We cleared the damn house! Just because we aren’t smart enough for your fancy geek squad doesn’t mean we don’t know how to—”
Whatever rant he was on is drowned by screams—loud, high-pitched, bone-chilling screams.
Maggie and Olivia run toward the stairs, but by the time they get there, another officer is already headed down to them with a screaming, crying, squirming little girl in her arms.
Olivia is barely loud enough to cut through the screaming, “Are you fucking kidding me, Reynolds?!”
“We cleared the house!” he bellows.
The officer holding the little girl looks uncomfortable. Maggie watches the EMTs take turns passing her between themselves, checking for injuries as best they can, but the girl doesn’t stop. Even Reynolds and the other officer—who clearly missed the little girl during their search of the house—try, but nothing helps.
Olivia steps in, and Maggie notices right away she’s calmer than the other officers—she looks like she has more experience with kids—but the little girl is not giving in.
She knows there’s nothing she can do for her, even while every cry cuts like a knife. If six other people can’t soothe the little girl, she certainly can’t do better. She does the only thing she can think of in the moment—she goes outside, “Hey! You!”
She knows the officers from her new precinct, but not the ones standing outside right now. The older guy looks up from his interview with the neighbor, “Hey, sorry. Hi. Detective Sawyer.”
“Garcia.”
“Officer Garcia, is this one of the neighbors?”
“Mary Ann,” the middle-aged woman offers.
“Hi, Mary Ann. I’m Maggie. Do you know the little girl that lives here?”
“Jamie? Oh my God, is Jamie in there? They said Grace was home alone…”
Maggie tries to steady her voice, but she can still hear the faint sounds of screams from the house behind her, “Mary Ann, do you know Jamie well?”
“I babysit from time to time.”
She gives her a small smile, “Do you think you could go with Officer Garcia here, and see if you can try and calm her down for us? I don’t think she’s hurt, but she’s scared. A familiar face might help.”
Mary Ann straightens up and Maggie thinks she might walk into battle for the screaming little girl. Even in the chaos of the moment, it makes her smile.
Garcia leads the way, “Come on, I’ll take you to her.”
Mary Ann takes two steps toward the house, before Maggie grabs the cop’s arm, “Don’t let her see the body. Bring the kid outside.”
He nods, and she stands outside as the coroner’s van pulls up to the curb. She watches Olivia walk out the door with the little girl, hand her to Garcia and the neighbor, and make her way across the lawn.
“Nothing’s working. I’ve seen a lot of kids, but this one…she won’t calm down. She’s going to make herself sick.”
Maggie thinks back, “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this. What about the neighbor? Is she helping? She said she babysits sometimes.”
They both look over to Mary Ann, and she’s now crying almost as hard as the toddler is. Olivia groans, “Well that’s clearly not helping anyone…”
She takes off again, and comes back a second later with the screaming kid in her arms, “Your turn.”
“What the hell am I gonna do that everyone else hasn’t?”
“I don’t know! But we need her to calm down. Everyone else got a turn—you’re not special, Sawyer.”
Maggie glares, “Thanks for that.”
“You know what I mean.”
She hands over the kid, and Maggie slings her onto her hip, and she’s screaming in her ear. She turns to her partner, “See? I told you! Try someone else.”
Another officer is pulling Olivia away from her though, “I—I will. One second. I’ll be right back, Sawyer.”
Maggie stands there in the middle of the front yard, kid screaming, and then her back pocket is vibrating. She slides her phone out and checks the caller ID, “Sawyer.”
It’s the DA’s office. Evidence from their last case has gone missing. Evidence that would put a serial killer behind bars. Not only is she pissed, but this kid is still screaming in her ear, and no one seems like they’re going to give her a hand.
She’s yelling because she’s angry, and she’s yelling because she has to try and be louder than the kid in her arm. She makes sure her anger is directed appropriately though, forcing the secretary to hand off the phone to the idiot lawyer who’s supposed to be in charge.
She yells at him for a while.
“Yeah, well tell your incompetent paralegal that evidence is pretty fucking important in the legal process, so congratulations, he probably single-handedly let a serial killer back out into society!”
She takes a deep breath, “Look—I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but you better find it. Trace every goddamn step. Round up everyone in that office and search them, and their cars, and their houses if you have to. I’m not about to lose this case because of you.”
She shoves the phone back in her pocket, and looks up to see Olivia standing a few feet away, staring at her with wide eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that! I let one “fuck” slip, and you give me that look? You uttered at least seven in the first sixty seconds after we got here.”
She snorts, “No, Maggie, I don’t give a shit about your swearing habits. But…” she reconsiders, “Actually, yeah, you might want to tone it down a little.”
She’s still seething, “Oh? And why’s that?”
But Olivia is staring at her—well, not at her, at her…shoulder? She looks at her own shoulder and nearly jumps out of her skin.
She doesn’t remember hearing the screaming stop—but probably because she was screaming loud enough for the both of them. She looks down her side, and the toddler is quiet. Her head is heavy against her chest, and her fist is tight around the collar of her shirt, pulling it down to the edge of her bulletproof vest.
She lowers her voice so she doesn’t wake the sleeping girl, “Ryan. Here. Take her.”
Olivia backs up, “Hell no, Sawyer. Are you kidding me? She’s yours now.”
Maggie’s stomach lurches. It must show on her face.
“Relax,” Olivia rolls her eyes, “Not yours yours. But you have to take her to get checked out. Ride with her to the hospital.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, Detective. You know the drill,” she’s grins. Maggie would like to say quite a few more four-letter words right now, “Chain of evidence and all that, blah blah.”
“Did you actually just say ‘blah blah?’”
Olivia shrugs, “It’s all very official. Now get your ass in the ambulance, and take that little girl to the hospital. I’ll meet you there and we’ll look for her next of kin.”
“I hate you so much right now.”
She laughs, “I’m very aware.”
…
A couple hours later, she’s sitting in the hallway of the local hospital nursing a cup of coffee, when her partner drops into the empty chair next to her. She hands over a styrofoam container. When Maggie flips it open, she laughs, “Flautas? Seriously?”
“Would you rather have cafeteria food?”
“Definitely not. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
They sit in silence for a few moments while they eat. Olivia stares through the open door in front of them, “How is she?”
“Fine, as far as they can tell. No physical injuries.”
She turns to Maggie, “And how is she really?”
She sighs, “Not great. She was a dehydrated, but she wouldn’t eat or drink anything. So…they had to give her an I.V.”
Olivia winces, “Oh no.”
“You can imagine how well that went.”
“Poor baby…”
“Yeah…” Maggie shuts her eyes, but it doesn’t help. The whole scene replays in her mind: The nurses and doctors pinning the little girl down, her screaming again, the way her eyes kept finding Maggie, seemingly pleading for her to stop all the people from hurting her. She felt helpless and more than a little disgusted with herself—even though she knew there was nothing she could do in the moment.
“That’s rough. Sorry you had to deal with that by yourself.”
She tries to shrug it off, “Whatever. Once the I.V. was in, they gave her fluids and something to help her sleep so they could run more tests. She’s been out ever since.” She doesn’t mention the horrible way she felt the little girl’s body go limp under her hands. A chill runs down her spine, and she blinks the tears out of her eyes.
Olivia drops her head in her hands, “Fuck.”
It’s a warranted response—but a second later, she stands and kicks the now-empty chair. Maggie jumps up and grabs her arm, “Hey! Stop—you’re gonna wake her up! She’s alright now. I’m sure once she rests up, and we get her family in here, she’ll be fine. She’s a tough kid.”
Then Olivia’s face drops, and Maggie’s heart sinks.
Her throat goes dry, “Please tell me there’s someone coming for her?”
The blue eyes looking at her get a little watery, and that’s the only answer she needs.
She slumps back down into the chair, Olivia following suit seconds later, “Fuck.”
…
They work through the next few hours tracking down anyone in connection with Grace Palmer—and they find next to nothing.
Her husband died in a car accident over a year ago. Both of them were only children, and both sets of their parents were also deceased. They had no relatives in the state, and no one that Grace had contacted regularly in the last six months. She had nothing that said what would happen to Jamie if she died.
She was the mayor’s secretary, but the other people in the office barely knew her—she had only started working there a couple months ago.
Olivia is fuming, “It’s impossible that she has no one. How does that even happen?”
“Easier than you think…” Maggie mumbles to herself.
She tries not to think about the roles being reversed…if anyone would show up at her funeral. Her parents? Ok, probably. James Olsen, if someone went through her phone records. Would he tell the Super Friends? Would they even care? …would Alex?
“Maggie?”
She jolts out of her train of thought and looks up at her partner, “Sorry. Sidetracked.”
“You ok?”
“I’m fine.”
Olivia raises an eyebrow, but she says nothing.
Then a fifty-something year old woman walks down the hall, holding a stack of folders, eyes flitting between them, “Detective Ryan?”
Olivia stands, and Maggie does too.
“I’m Detective Ryan. This is my partner, Detective Sawyer.”
She extends her hand to both officers, “Evelyn Sanchez. Child Protective Services. I’m here about Jamie Palmer.”
“Have a seat, Ms. Sanchez.”
They pull up another chair and the three of them start going over the case. Not five minutes into their discussion, a young nurse comes up to the table, “Detective Sawyer?”
She looks up at some guy who’s probably five years younger than her, but looks barely out of high school, “Yeah?”
“Uh…could you…could you come back in the room? She—Jamie—she’s waking up.”
“Sure,” she stands and turns to the other women, “I guess I’ll be in there.”
“It’s fine, Sawyer. Go. I’ll fill in Ms. Sanchez and we’ll be with you in a minute.”
She hears the case worker mumble something, and she can only imagine what she’s saying. As many cases as she’s worked, this is unusual—even for someone who used to deal with aliens on a daily basis.
When she walks in the room, she’s grateful Jamie isn’t crying. But she tries to climb off the bed as soon as she sees Maggie, and the nurse has to hold her back. Maggie sees her bottom lip start to quiver at his touch.
She hurries to her side, “No, no. Don’t cry. It’s ok. They don’t want you to fall down. You’re ok.”
Standing closer, her heart aches. The little girl is swimming in the gown they gave her, and she’s sporting the biggest frown for such a small person, “M—Mommy,” she whimpers.
Her heart shatters. Maggie didn’t know she could talk until now, and she doesn’t know what to say.
The nurse steps in, his voice is calm, “Your mommy’s not here right now. This is Det—”
“Maggie,” she interrupts. She’s about to intimidate the kid. She looks down at Jamie, curious, “Can you say Maggie?”
“Mamie.”
She grins. “Yeah. Maggie.” The girl smiles a little and pops her thumb in her mouth, “You’re Jamie.”
She points to herself, “Me.”
Maggie laughs and looks over at the nurse, “How old is she?”
He glances at her chart, “22 months.”
She does the easy math, “You’re almost two.”
The little girl says nothing. She has no idea what kinds of things a two-year-old knows. Apparently she can talk a little, but she’s not sure how much. She has even less of an idea what she can understand. She doesn’t know anything about kids.
“Up.”
She blinks at the little girl, who now has her arms raised, then looks at the nurse, “Is that…ok?”
He nods, “Just be careful around her arm. We took the I.V. out, but it’s probably a little sore.”
She lifts the girl gently and Jamie settles easily against her hip. She puts her head on Maggie’s shoulder, “Bankie.”
Maggie grabs the little teddy bear blanket on the bed and hands it to her, but she shakes her head.
“No. Boo. Mine.”
She doesn’t follow. She turns to look for the nurse, but he’s gone. Olivia and Ms. Sanchez are now standing in the doorway.
Her partner smiles sweetly, and her voice matches, “You want your blue blankie, sweetheart?”
Jamie nods.
Maggie suddenly remembers the blanket she saw on the couch at the crime scene. She’s surprised Olivia knew about it—and more surprised that she understood what the girl was asking for in the first place.
“It’s not here, but I think we can get it for you.”
Both women step closer, and Jamie tightens her grip around Maggie.
Olivia seems to notice, and guides the social worker to the chairs at the foot of the bed.
Maggie puts some distance between them and sits on the corner of the mattress, turning Jamie so she’s sitting on her lap. The little girl tries to turn around and bury herself in Maggie’s chest, but Maggie turns her back. She wraps her arms around her as tight as she dares, and hopes that’ll comfort her long enough for Ms. Sanchez to get through what she needs to.
…
The social worker says she’ll be back for Jamie tomorrow. She tells them there are a few families on call, and it shouldn’t be hard to get her into a foster home right away. Maggie’s grateful for that.
Olivia heads home for a few hours, promising to get Jamie’s blanket out of evidence, and come back with as much of her stuff as she’s allowed to.
Meanwhile, Maggie can’t leave the little girl’s side.
She tried, once. Jamie was eating Cheerios and watching Sesame Street from the bed while Maggie was working in the chair. Her phone rang, so she shut her laptop and slipped out the door.
The screaming brought her back in at a run.
Despite how calm Jamie was during the CPS interview, she’s now worried that tomorrow is not going to go well. Around 9:30, Jamie falls asleep on her chest, and Maggie finds herself pinned to the bed—which is how Olivia finds her over an hour later.
“Cozy.”
She groans, “I had to use the call button to get the nurse to hand me my phone, because every time I move, she wakes up. And every time I’m out of her sight, she cries.”
Olivia frowns and slides a pizza box on the empty table, and drops a small duffle bag on the floor, “Need some help?”
“Yes, please.”
She rounds the bed and considers the situation, “On the count of three, slide out as quickly as you can. Got it?”
Maggie nods. Olivia counts to three, then she lifts the little girl quickly and carefully while Maggie slips out. She places Jamie back down so she’s cuddling the pillow much like she was just cuddling Maggie. Then she takes the little blue blanket from the duffle bag and throws it over her.
“You found it.”
“I did.” They take seats next to the table, and she flips open the pizza box, “Hungry?”
“Oh my god, I’m starving.”
Olivia scoffs, “Are you telling me those flautas didn’t hold you over?”
Maggie laughs, “Uh, I think around hour seven I got hungry again, and that was…” she checks her watch, “over two hours ago.”
“Long day,” Olivia sighs.
She grabs a slice of pizza and takes a bite, “One of the longest I’ve had in a while.”
“You were amazing today.”
Maggie shrugs, “Just doing my job.”
“I think we both know you did a little more than that… I don’t know what would’ve happened if you weren’t there.”
She shakes her head, “Someone else would’ve done it.”
Olivia grabs a slice of pizza, “I’m not so sure. Either way—I’m glad you were there today. Jamie’s better for it.”
Maggie looks at the little girl clutching the pillow tight, “I don’t know about that,” she mumbles.
“What do you mean?”
Maggie turns to face her, “What’s going to happen tomorrow, Ryan? If I leave to take a phone call, she screams. When CPS tries to take her, what’s going to happen? How much better will she be then?”
She gapes at her, “I—I don’t know, Sawyer. It can be a rough transition—you know that as well as I do. But she’ll be ok. She has a family to go to, and once she settles in, she’ll be fine. Kids are resilient.”
“I hope you’re right.”
She expects her to say I am, but instead, Olivia takes a long look at Jamie, and sighs, “Yeah, I hope so too.”
…
At 5:30am, she wakes up in the chair next to Jamie’s bed. The toddler is still asleep, clutching the pillow where Maggie had been the night before.
Halfway into their pizza, Sanchez called to say she’d be there as early as possible. Maggie was sure that Jamie would not go quietly, so they worked it out so she wouldn’t spend the day with Maggie at her side, and then be forced to leave. They were going to take her first thing in the morning. They all agreed it will be better that way.
A small part of Maggie thinks Jamie might sleep through the whole thing, much like she did with the ambulance ride. The rational part of her brain is pretty sure it’s the dumbest thing she’s ever thought.
She spends the next hour pacing the hallway, occasionally staring at the open door to Jamie’s room. When Olivia and Ms. Sanchez show up, she stops.
“How’s it going, Sawyer?”
“She’s still asleep.”
Olivia nods. Maggie turns to the social worker, “She’s going to a good home, right? These are good foster parents?”
Sanchez smiles, “They’re great.”
“Ok,” she wrings her hands, “Ok. That’s good. She’ll be ok then, right?”
The woman frowns slightly, “We’re going to do everything we can to help her.”
That’s not the answer she was hoping for, but it’s honest. She knows she can’t promise Jamie’s going to be ok—no one can.
Olivia looks between them, “Ready?”
Maggie nods, but suddenly she can’t make herself go into the room. She can’t bring herself to do what she’s supposed to. She can’t make herself go in there and break that little girl’s heart.
Sanchez is at the door with Olivia right behind her, but then she turns to see Maggie rooted to the spot, “Sawyer?”
“Sorry. I—I’m coming.”
She tilts her head, “You don’t have to…”
“It’s fine,” she lies.
Olivia walks back to her, her voice softer, “Maggie. It’s ok. We got it.”
She nods and watches her partner go into the room. A minute later, Jamie must wake up, because the screaming is back again.
And she’s either yelling “Mommy” or “Mamie,” but with her heart pounding in her ears, Maggie can’t really tell—and neither option hurts less than the other.
Tears well in her eyes, and it hurts to breathe. She looks around in panic and sees the door at the end of the hall. She walks as quickly as she can without running, and pushes through the door.
Down the hall, sitting in the empty stairwell, both hands over her ears—she can still hear Jamie’s cries between her own sobs.
…