Author's Note: MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE! I'd like to dedicate this randomness to my sweet Anonymous fan who pokes me on Tumblr to check on my writing progress! Thank you, lovely, for taking a minute out of your day to remind me that what I write is appreciated. You (and all of my readers) are absolutely awesome!

Kara wasn't entirely sure what woke her. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and glanced around the darkened loft, but saw nothing suspicious. The shadows were in the right place, the creaks and groans of the older building were all the same. The only thing that was different was the not-precisely-soft snoring of Alex from the couch and even that wasn't extremely out of the ordinary as her sister always tended to snore when she was overtired or had fallen asleep while drunk.

This was one of the latter situations. It was their tradition, to spend Christmas Eve together watching movies, eating cookies, and drinking eggnog. Alex was a big fan of eggnog.

Kara had tried to move her to the bed when the older woman had fallen asleep, but Alex had growled immediately upon being touched and in rather colorful, slurred speech proceeded to threaten an eggnog-vomit spectacular and an inordinate amount of grumpiness if Kara attempted to move her again.

If she'd only been tipsy, Kara would have just rolled her eyes and sped her sister over to the bed before another word could be said, but in this instance, she knew leaving overly-drunk Alex to sleep wherever she dropped really was the better plan. Kara had found out the hard way that puke-covered sheets were not a fun thing.

So, instead she'd propped Alex's head up with a pillow and after retrieving a bucket (just in case), some aspirin, and a big glass of water (which she left on the coffee table), had covered her with the warmest blanket she had and left her sister to sleep it off.

Alex snorted in that moment and Kara could just make out her sister's silhouette as she shifted positions slightly before settling again. Kara smirked and dropped back down into her own pillows, wiggling a bit to get more comfortable. She closed her eyes again…

…But just couldn't shake the feeling that there was… something… off.

She opened her eyes again and frowned up at the shadowed ceiling. There was something different, something unusual, that was setting her on edge, but she really, truly could not… put… her finger on… what… it… wa—

Wait. Was that…?

She focused on her hearing and the moment she did, she realized what was off.

TICK, tick, TICK, tick, TICK, tick.

Kara was confused. She was used to the softer ticks —that was Alex's watch— but the louder, sharper ones…

She didn't have analog clocks for the sole reason that after a while the sound began to bug her. Even without her concentrating on her hearing, her "alien ears" (as she tended to refer to them when around Winn and James) still picked up more than the average human. That was why she kept only digital clocks in the apartment.

Well, no, that wasn't entirely true. She did have the orange clock above her refrigerator, she remembered, but the batteries in it had died months ago and she'd ultimately found that she actually preferred the silence the dead clock had to offer over the tick, tick, tick of passing time.

So where was this other mystery ticking coming from?

Knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep again until she figured it out, she threw the comforter off of her and climbed to her feet. She padded into the living room as quietly as she could so not to wake Alex and stopped a foot or so from the couch. She squinted her eyes (because, for some reason, squinting made her super hearing work better) and listened harder, trying to zero in on the source.

It took her only a few moments and then she frowned, turning her head toward the Christmas tree she and Alex had set up between the TV and the couch, close to the window (but not blocking it, of course, just in case she needed to make a quick exit). All their presents for each other and their (foster) mom had been placed under it earlier that evening, ready for when Eliza arrived in the morning to spend Christmas with them.

She knew the gifts she'd gotten her sister and Eliza didn't have anything that could produce the sound she was hearing. Had Alex gotten one of them a clock or something? It wasn't beyond the realm of possibilities, but something about it still made her uneasy for some reason.

She'd promised Alex she wouldn't peek ("X-ray vision is just as bad as opening them up!" Alex reminded every year), but she just wanted to check. Alex would get over it, she decided.

Kara crouched by the tree and squinted her eyes slightly (okay, so squinting helped with more than one power), peering immediately through paper, bows, and boxes to the gifts inside. She smiled at some, raised her eyebrow at others. She was definitely going to have to have a discussion with Alex about the type of music she clearly thought Kara liked. The "Glee: The Music - The Complete Season 4" CD? Really?

The one present that actually gave her pause, however, was the one inside the lead box. She rolled her eyes at that. Did Alex really not trust her that much? That she'd seriously put a gift inside a lead box? Brat.

Blinking rapidly for a moment as her vision returned to normal, Kara stood back up, crossing her arms, and pursed her lips in thought. She was about to brush off the odd feeling in her gut as her just being weird, but then she noticed something — the present holding the lead box was wrapped in a different paper than all the other presents Alex had brought over. She supposed Alex could have had it gift-wrapped at a store or something, but…

Reaching forward, she picked up the present and turned it over in her hands for a moment before catching the card and tilting it toward the moonlight so she could read it. She frowned slightly at the words. It read:

May you and yours be filled with explosive joy this Christmas.

It didn't, however, say who it was from. Weird, she thought.

"Kara?"

Kara jumped at the sound of Alex's sleep-and-alcohol-thick voice. She turned toward the couch. "I'm sorry, Alex," she said softly upon seeing that her sister was in fact awake and not just talking in her sleep, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't." Alex blinked a few times and focused in on Kara's hands. She frowned slightly. "Are you peeking? You promised."

"No, I know. And I just— I'm not? Not really. I'm just…" She held out the present toward Alex. "Did you bring this one?" She hadn't actually seen Alex bring it, but then she'd been pouring the eggnog when her sister had been putting her gifts under the tree and hadn't really been paying all that much attention. "Because there isn't a name on it."

"What?" Alex scrubbed her face with her hand and then squinted tiredly at Kara, her frown only deepening at the blonde's reply. "Kara it's like—" She looked at her watch and after a couple of moments of intense staring and blinking, no doubt trying to get her vision to blur a little less, continued, saying, "It's like three-something in the morning. Do you really need to know this very second?"

Kara supposed it didn't really matter, but… "Please?"

With a huff, Alex pushed herself up into a sitting position and waved an I'm-not-pleased-but-let-me-see-it-anyway hand at Kara.

Kara held the package out closer to the older Danvers sister so she could see it.

Alex shrugged. "No idea. S'not mine. I didn't bring it." She closed her eyes and rubbed her left temple with her fingertips.

Kara frowned deeply. "But…" she protested, that uneasy feeling in her stomach changing from an ache to a gnawing worry, "If you didn't bring it… how did it get here?"

There was a beat and then Alex reopened her eyes, turning her head back toward Kara. Her frown remained, but Kara could see now that it had less to do with her headache and exhaustion and had turned into an expression of confusion and a hint of concern instead. "Kara, what are you talking about? How could a present magically appear?" she questioned. "You're sure you didn't bring one home from work and forget?"

"No," Kara replied with a shake of her head. "Winn, James, and I exchanged gifts at game night two days ago and Cat, well, the closest she ever gets to giving gifts is almost pronouncing my name right."

"You really need to be more assertive about that," Alex murmured.

"The last time I was more assertive, I ended up having to sit in a bar and drink martinis with her for three and a half hours," Kara pointed out. It wasn't that she hadn't valued the information Cat had imparted on her, but… still…

"You hate martinis."

"That is my entire point."

"Okay, so… what? I don't…" Alex trailed off, shaking her head, and Kara could tell that her sister was now as confused as she was.

"I don't know either. But there's a noise," Kara said, "A ticking sound. It's coming from in here."

"A ticking sound from within the mystery box…?"

"And… well, I used my x-ray vision to check the presents—"

"Kara, you promised!" Alex scolded.

Kara winced slightly. "I know, I'm sorry. But Alex, whatever is in this box is encased in lead."

There was a beat. "…What?"

"I can't see through it." The gnawing began twisting, too, and alarms were going off in her head. Something wasn't right. "And it's not one of my gifts." She took a breath. "So, if you didn't bring it…"

Alex pushed herself up onto her feet, clear alarm written across her face. "I didn't," she confirmed, voice tense.

Kara shifted her weight, uneasy. "And you don't think…you don't think that your mom left it when she was over earlier?" Eliza always spent a couple of days at Christmas with Kara and Alex, but she refused to leave the gifts she had gotten them under the tree for fear that certain "best, favorite, wonderful, but entirely naughty" girls (as she referred to them, the last bit always the addendum around Christmastime) would peek. She always kept them at her hotel until Christmas day, but, Kara thought, maybe this time…?

"I don't know," Alex offered slowly. "Maybe?"

Kara frowned at her sister's tone. Alex clearly didn't actually think so and frankly, Kara didn't either.

"I'm just going to open it," she announced abruptly.

"Kara—"

"No, it's going to drive me insane until I know."

"And if Mom did leave it?"

That gave Kara a moment of pause. "…Well, then I'll explain why I needed to open it. She'll forgive me." She started peeling back the red and gold paper. "And besides, it's the 'What if Eliza didn't leave it?' question that really has me wanting to know for sure what's inside."

"Kara, I don't know if this is a good idea…"

She ignored Alex and took off the rest of the paper, tossing it toward the couch. She saw out of the corner of her eye as her sister picked it up and looked at the tag. She saw the resulting frown, too.

In her hands Kara held the lead box. It was about the size of cinderblock and, from what she could see, had no distinguishing markings on the outside. She reached for the lid.

Alex's head snapped up. "Kara, don't!" she tried to warn.

But it was too late. Kara heard it the moment she pried the lid open — a distinct click-hiss followed by the sudden, rapid speeding-up of the ticking sound.

And then the green light seeped through the crack and the weakness overwhelmed her. She immediately knew what it was — kryptonite.

Kara gasped and stumbled two steps backwards.

"Kara!"

"No, Alex, don't!" she wheezed when she saw her sister begin to move toward her, eyes wide with concern.

She wanted to shut the box again, block the piece of her once-home from digging its poisonous tendrils deep into her skin, but she had to know… had to know…

Ignoring the sound of protest from her sister, she pulled the lid the rest of the way off and after fighting back a second wave of intense weakness, peered inside.

"Oh, God."

The sound she had been hearing, the ticking, had indeed been coming from a clock …and they had just run out of time.

Kara snapped her head back up and met Alex's alarmed gaze. She didn't think, there was no time to, she just dropped the box and used what strength hadn't been ripped from her by the kryptonite to launch herself at her sister.

She tackled Alex a moment before a raging force of heat and thunder slammed into her from behind. Searing, slicing, breath-robbing pain bloomed in a burning rush and then it all went dark.

A/N's: TBC! Muahahahaha! I hope to have the second half of this up tomorrow, as a gift to you glorious people! Cross your fingers that I will have the time in all this holiday madness to wrap it up. HAHAHA I made a pun.

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