Chapter Text
Something cracks as Kara slams into the glass tank, and she doesn’t really want to know what sort of creature is held behind the now-weakened barrier.
There’s plenty else to think about—Kara pushes away from the tank and cuts through the air to slam into the Valeronian on guard. The Maaldorians are hurrying tanks onto their ship while he keeps her busy.
The DEO hasn’t yet figured out why they need these creatures—what they’re for—and if Kara doesn’t keep them here until the agents arrive, they may not be able to find these creatures again.
She throws the Valeronian against the far wall and buys herself enough time to shoot some heat vision at the ship’s ramp. It collapses, halting their progress with the larger tanks.
Then the Valeronian is back on his feet.
It still feels odd to bruise. To bleed. To take hits that hurt.
For so long she hadn’t feared anything except kryptonite. For so long she’d never even felt kryptonite. She’s fought as Supergirl for a few years now, and she’s faced a few enemies that left her unconscious in the sun bed.
But that isn’t the majority. Mostly, she faces humans with guns that are little more than bubble wands against her, and other aliens that are more annoyance than threat.
Now, her lip is split and her ribs are bruised. They’ll heal in mere moments.
It’s the ache in her chest that wounds her most. The pain of her absence that may never end.
Lena knows. She should be in the DEO command, or in its lab, dismantling the Maaldorians plans with her brilliant mind.
But Lena knows because she made a great sacrifice trying to help Supergirl, and found out in that sacrifice that nothing was what she thought. That she had done it for a lie.
But it wasn’t a lie.
Yes, parts of it were—but it was never a lie that Kara cares about her. That she has always believed in Lena. That she’ll always do anything to protect Lena, support her.
Kara knows Lena saw that. The way Kara’s gaze always found its way to her. The way she always reached for Lena. She knows Lena felt every touch, from the hugs to the cuddling, to the way Kara would simply rest her hand on the small of Lena’s back to guide her.
The time—how could Lena ever think all that time was a lie?
The Valeronian slams into her and shakes her from her reverie.
The DEO arrives a few moments later, and they capture the Maaldorians before they can abscond onto their ship, taking possession of the tanks as Kara subdues the Valeronian. Alex brings the reinforced handcuffs over, and knocks her hand against Kara’s shoulder.
“You all right?”
Kara grins, hoping to reassure her sister. “Nothing that won’t heal within the hour.”
Alex opens her mouth to answer, worry still in her eyes, when another voice calls out.
“Director Danvers, we’ve got a situation.”
The sisters make their way over quickly, and Kara’s eyes widen at the sight. The sound of glass cracking behind her echoes in her ears as she looks upon the jagged opening in the tank wall.
“Something must have broken out,” the agent says—unnecessarily, in Kara’s opinion.
“I doubt the Maaldorians would put something in a tank that couldn’t hold it,” Alex muses. “Something likely happened to the glass first.”
“Oh, you know fights,” Kara says hurriedly, “things get thrown. Accidents happen. Chaos.”
Alex turns to her slowly, looking rather unimpressed. “Did you hit the glass?” she asks flatly.
“No,” Supergirl answers, too quickly, and in too high a voice.
Her sister sighs. “Do you at least know what was in the tank?”
Kara shakes her head.
Alex lets out another sigh. “We’ll have to find it. Hopefully it’s still in this damn warehouse.”
Facing the room at large, Alex puts her fingers to her lips and lets out that piercing whistle that always makes Kara cringe. But every agent in the room stops.
“There’s a creature missing. Every person not currently handling a Maaldorian or a tank, we’re searching the warehouse. Go in pairs. Have your weapons at the ready, but do not kill unless absolutely necessary. We don’t know what it is. Be careful.”
Which is how Kara finds herself floating amongst the rafters, probing the dark corners for signs of any kind of life. Traces of warmth. Slime. Things that are only better than slime because they aren’t slime.
She wishes she could just run her x-ray vision around the space, but there are plenty of alien species that can cloak themselves in shadows or against walls or project visions. She’d have to check anyway.
So Kara floats.
It happens the way it happened the first time. It isn’t there, and then it is—ambushing her with a speed even her Kryptonian advantage can’t prevent.
She feels it grab her. Feels its tendrils wrap around her.
She feels it pierce her.
And then Kara feels nothing.
~V~
Kara stretches in the warm morning sun, her limbs nearly gliding across the satin sheets, her cheek pressing comfortably against the silk pillowcase.
But it’s the face tucked stubbornly against her neck, the arm wrapped over her waist, that gives her the greatest joy. She arches, pulling away just enough to press a kiss to her wife’s forehead before resettling. Her Zhao draws back toward her as if pulled by gravity.
“How did I let you talk me into placing our bed at the window’s mercy again?” Lena grumbles.
Kara grins. “Because I need sunlight, and you love me.” She punctuates the statement with another kiss. Lena grumbles again at being jostled.
“You could wear the mask I got you,” Kara reminds her, amused.
“But if I wear the mask,” Lena complains adorably, “it sits between you and me.” She nuzzles into Kara’s neck again for emphasis.
And Kara has to agree. Nothing should ever stop Lena’s eyelashes from fluttering against her skin. The soft brush of her wife’s nose.
She rolls, wrapping herself around her Zhao, tucking Lena’s face in the crook of her neck and covering her with shadows.
She playfully—Lena would probably say dorkily—declares, “Then I’ll just have to save you from the evil sun.”
Lena giggles, and it sends a bolt of such, ridiculous joy through Kara that she laughs loudly.
Lena pulls back enough that Kara can see the happiness in her eyes, the mischief. Then her hand slides up Kara’s arm to wrap around her nape, and she tugs. The Kryptonian follows eagerly, into a kiss that still feels like the first.
Lena tastes like home. Feels like the warm rays of the sun when Kara needs them most.
Lena’s tongue slides against her own, and a growl only Lena can elicit rumbles up Kara’s throat.
And there’s this sense, somewhere deep in Kara’s mind, that she should feel uneasy. That she should be wary, and perhaps even a little afraid. But Lena moans when Kara’s growl rolls into her, and Kara only feels the softness of her wife’s skin as she slips her hand beneath her shirt.
She removes the hand quickly though, pulls away in general (but not completely—she can’t stop touching Lena) when she hears a stomping little run approach their bedroom door.
“Incoming,” she warns.
The door slams open, colliding with the adjacent wall with the kind of force Kara knows will leave a knob imprint in it.
“Is’kah,” she scolds, “we must be gentle with our strength.”
“Sorry, Ieiu,” their daughter answers. She comes to the edge of their bed, and with a small burst of flight, flops forward onto the mattress.
Lena laughs, and Kara cheers. The half-Kryptonian’s powers had started presenting themselves only a year earlier. Though she still struggles with her strength, she’s able to keep the others in check rather well.
“Ieiu!” she calls loudly. “You said we can make Mummy breakfast when she got back—you weren’t supposed wake her!”
Kara starts to answer, but Lena darts forward and wraps her arms around their daughter before pulling the girl back down with her. Their daughter squeals happily as Lena peppers her face with kisses.
“Mummy!” she shrieks.
“I missed you, my little darling.”
“Ieiu said next time you go to a conference, we can fly to see you.”
Lena gives her wife a stern look, and Kara tries to project innocence. Her Zhao huffs in that way that means she’s trying not to laugh.
Turning back to their daughter, she scolds, “You are too young to be flying across oceans, my little darling.”
“But I missed you, Mummy,” she whines.
A pained expression crosses Lena’s face, and Kara knows she’s thinking about Lionel and Lillian. Accusing herself of caring too much about her work in her head.
So Kara says, “We both miss her when she’s gone, Is’kah, just as she misses us. That’s what loving someone is.
“But what your mummy is doing is still important. She makes things safer for other kids, too.
“And loving someone also means that when we’re together again, we get to be that much happier.”
The small Kryptonian nods solemnly, and Lena shoots Kara a grateful look.
But then their daughter takes Lena’s face very gently in her hands and tells her seriously, “I will miss you every time, Mummy.”
Her Zhao’s eyes mist over immediately, and Kara loudly declares, “Okay, Is’kah! Time to make your mummy breakfast!”
Their daughter shoots up excitedly. Too excitedly—she propels herself right over the edge of the bed, and giggles when she hits the floor with an impressive thud.
Lena darts around to look over her worriedly, but Kara snorts.
“You should worry about the floor,” she murmurs to her wife, as their giggling toddler gets to her feet and runs out of the room. “That was like landing on a featherbed for her.”
“I am worried about the floor,” Lena says primly, but Kara grins. They both know it’s a lie. She adds dryly, “I should probably be more comforted by her invulnerability.”
Kara can’t help it—how can she, when Lena looks so beautiful? She leans forward and places a sweet kiss against Lena’s lips. Lena hums happily.
But a small, impatient voice yells from the kitchen, “Ieiu!”
They both laugh. Kara gives her wife one last kiss and rises from the bed.
“Wait here, Zhao,” she orders with a grin. “We’ll bring it to you.”
“You’re not,” Lena bites her lip and props herself up on her elbows, “you’re not going to try to cook…?”
Kara laughs and reassures, “It’s a fruit breakfast.”
She releases an overly dramatic sigh that doesn’t quite cover the real relief.
Kara fake pouts, and Lena grins, her dimples appearing.
“I love you, Zhao.”
“I love you, too, darling.”
Smiling, perfectly content, Kara makes her way to the kitchen.
~V~
Genocidal isn’t her best look, but as they wheel Kara into the lab on a stretcher, that horrible thing leeching her life away, Alex swears she’ll wipe every last Black Mercy from the face of the Earth.
Nia, Brainy, and Kelly are already in the lab. Kelly and Nia are readying the equipment necessary for Alex to enter her sister’s dream, but Brainy’s at the bench, working on something Alex has never seen before.
They all turn to the door as Kara’s wheeled in, and Alex follows. Kelly comes to her side immediately, and Alex allows herself ten seconds of her girlfriend’s comfort.
Then she asks, “Brainy, what are you doing?”
He turns in that flowing, intermittent way of his, like a damn butterfly flitting about a tech garden.
“I have created,” he begins, his speech so much like his movement, “an advanced electroencephalogram that will allow us to measure even Kryptonian brain waves and project them onto the monitors.”
Alex waves a hand. “Let’s see it then.”
She isn’t sure how she’s going to do this. Pull Kara from Krypton again. To take her planet from her for a third time. Especially with Lena’s current animosity. Having your best friend hate you is hard on anyone, but Kara is particularly ill-equipped for it.
Loss of any kind is hard for her—how could it not be? And with the little crush she had on Lena burgeoning, well.
Alex wishes she could give her sister a few days in her perfect dream. And if that fucking thing wasn’t sucking her life away, she would.
But it is. And Kara can only find her way back to happy if she’s alive.
Brainy attaches the last of the sensors, and an image flickers to life on the monitors.
Alex blinks. The architecture is unmistakably human. And there’s no red tint to the sunlight streaming through the many windows.
Kara stands in a kitchen Alex has never seen, humming to herself as she unloads several bags of Big Belly Burger. They’re looking through her eyes, hearing what she hears.
They hear the pattering of small footsteps in an excited run. Then a young, joyous voice crying, “Ieiu!”
Kara turns and crouches, holding out her arms with a happy, “Is’kah!”
Alex’s breath catches in a suddenly thick throat. Her eyes burn.
Perhaps she hadn’t understood how unhappy her sister had been, hadn’t seen how much happiness she had lost, because she realizes she can’t remember the last time she’d heard Kara sound like this.
And she recognizes that child. She doesn’t exist—as far as Alex knows—but Alex has only ever seen hair that dark on one person. She’s seen those same dimples, always in Kara’s presence.
So she isn’t surprised at all when a familiar voice says, “You’re home early, darling.”
Kara stands, her daughter balanced on her hip, and when her gaze rises to Lena, Alex mentally echoes Nia’s breathed, “Oh my god.”
Is this how Kara sees her?
Lena has always been a beautiful woman, but in Kara’s eyes, she almost makes that Shakespeare shit make sense. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.
She’s… radiant. Alex can’t identify a single difference in her appearance, and yet she has somehow been made perfect.
If they were to look at Kelly through her eyes, what difference would they see?
“Just for lunch,” Kara answers, and Alex can hear her smile. “I couldn’t get the rest of the day off, but I couldn’t miss the chance to have lunch with my girls.”
Lena smirks, and makes her way forward. “And should I be at all surprised you’ve brought Big Belly Burger? I’ll be keeping them in business, trying to feed my Kryptonians,” she teases.
Kara replies with faux severity, “I can’t allow you to corrupt our daughter with kale, Zhao. It’s just not natural.”
Lena laughs loudly, and Alex hears Kara’s giggle. Then Kara’s leaning forward, and her eyes close, and—
Apparently you never grow out of being grossed out by your sibling kissing someone, even if you don’t exactly see it.
Thankfully, her pseudo-niece squeals, “Ieiu! Mummy!” and they break apart, laughing.
“Okay, okay,” Kara tells her daughter, tickling her stomach and making her squeal again. “Time for lunch.”
Alex sees her sister in the girl while they eat. She has the same eyes—the El eyes. Her hair is the color of Lena’s, but it falls in the same waves as Kara’s.
Still, it’s the gusto with which she eats that brings a fond smile to Alex’s lips. Ketchup covers much of her face, despite Lena’s valiant attempts to contain it.
Alex can’t remember the last time she’d heard Kara laugh this much. This freely. This loudly. She isn’t really even sure what’s so funny. Kara’s just… happy.
And Alex has to take this away from her. It feels almost worse than taking Krypton. There wasn’t anything Kara could have done for Krypton.
She still feels guilt over her planet’s ending—it’s Kara, after all—but there’s nothing concrete for her mind to use. It’s simply a feeling.
Nothing could have been done for Krypton, but she could have told Lena sooner. Perhaps it wouldn’t have changed anything. She still could’ve tried.
Alex has heard her say so a thousand times. She had ignored, each time, Alex’s reminder that Alex had advised her not to.
Kara’s gaze shifts to peer out the penthouse windows. A sound grows—people screaming, A harsh voice demanding they get down on the ground.
“Trouble?” Lena asks lightly.
“It sounds like a bank robbery,” Kara answers mildly.
And then, to the clear and utter shock of the rest of the real room, Kara turns to her daughter, wipes away some of the ketchup, and continues eating.
“Kara,” Lena begins hesitantly, “you can—”
“I know I can,” Kara interrupts gently, “and if the world ever really needs a hero, I’ll don the cape again.”
She reaches across the table and takes Lena’s hand. She rests a finger on the bracelet around Lena’s wrist. A Kryptonian wedding band, Alex realizes.
“Alex and the DEO can handle rogue aliens. The police can handle rogue humans.” The corners of Lena’s lips twitch upward, as if this is a known joke between them. “And there are firefighters and paramedics for those that need help.
“But I made you a promise, Zhao,” she murmurs, with such tenderness that Alex feels guilty for listening, “that I would be here. And here with you, with our family,” she glances at her daughter before returning to Lena, “it’s where I belong. It’s where I want to be.
“National City can get along the way most cities do. This is what’s important to me.”
Lena smiles at Kara with so much love, and Alex’s heart breaks. Because she’s actually seen that exact smile before, directed at Kara.
Alex is mostly sure their relationship remained in friendship—she hopes, at least, that Kara would have told her if it hadn’t.
“Does Kara not want to be Supergirl anymore?” Nia asks hesitantly.
“It’s not about that,” Alex answers impassively. It’s the only way to keep her voice even. “Kara blames Supergirl for ruining their,” Alex falters as Kara and Lena kiss again. She gestures toward the screen instead. “I knew Kara had a crush on her, but I didn’t know it was,” She gestures to the monitors again, helplessly, “this.”
“We must retrieve her, before she is lost,” Brainy reminds them.
Alex sighs, and makes her way to the ready bed. “Send me in.”
~V~
She finds herself before a door. A penthouse, like Lena’s, but made instead for a family. Alex knocks.
There’s a murmur, and then Lena answers with a warm smile, and her daughter perched on her hip.
“Alex,” she greets happily, but Alex can’t take her eyes off her niece. She looks so real here. And Alex knows she’s not, but she can see Kara in the girl’s features. In her chin and the shape of her ears.
Lena leans forward for a one-armed hug that Alex only belatedly returns. There’s a worried frown on the other woman’s lips when she pulls back. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” she says quickly. “I just—I need to talk to my sister.”
Her mouth tightens with concern, but Lena nods. She puts her daughter down. “Go put on your shoes, my little darling. We’re going to go for a walk.”
The girl runs off obediently, and Lena steps aside to let Alex enter.
Her sister is still at the table where they’d had lunch. She smiles at Alex, but the strain in it is easily apparent.
She’s starting to realize, Alex thinks.
Alex waits until Lena and the child have donned their shoes and kissed Kara goodbye. Her throat tightens at the way Kara holds her daughter desperately. At the way she can’t seem to release Lena’s hand. Lena simply smiles, and kisses her again.
The two depart.
Kara stands and begins to collect the trash from their lunch. “Is there something you need, Alex?”
Not the warmest welcome from her sister. And given Lena’s friendliness, she doubts it’s due to any tension between them in this imagined universe.
“I think you already know why I’m here,” she says gently.
Kara’s jaw clenches, the crinkle forming in her brow. “Not this time, Alex.”
“Kara, this isn’t real.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You’re under the influence of a Black Mer—”
“No, I’m not,” Kara snaps, slamming her fist down on the countertop so hard that it cracks. She startles and pulls her hand away, looking at the surface guiltily.
Alex bites her lip, then tries, “I think you already know what this is.”
Her sister sighs. “Maybe you’re the one affected by an alien, Alex, did you think of that? This could be real.”
Could be. She wonders if her sister even caught the slip.
“What’s your daughter’s name, Kara?” she asks as gently as she can.
She hates the stricken look on her little sister’s face. Hates having been the one to put it there.
Kara finally murmurs, “I don’t know what names Lena likes.”
“It’s time to come home,” Alex orders softly.
But Kara’s jaw tightens again. “No.”
“If you stay here you’ll—”
“No.”
“Kara, you’ll die,” she cries.
“Then I’ll die,” Kara snaps. But Alex flinches, and she pleads gently, “It won’t feel like dying, Alex. It’ll be this. I’ll get a life of this.”
“This isn’t real.”
“It’s good enough. I,” Kara falters, “I can’t go back to where she hates me, Alex.”
And she might be the only answer.
“Lena’s hurting, Kara,” Alex implores earnestly. “And you can’t fix it from here.”
She sees the sheen of tears in her sister’s eyes. Sees her waver.
She feels the false world around them shake.
And so she says, “If you’re in here, then the real Lena is alone.”
A pained sound escapes her. The first of her tears.
Then Alex is pulled from her sister’s dream as it crumbles.
~V~
She’s gone.
But that’s not exactly true, is it? Lena isn’t gone—Kara has only lost her.
It’s the dream that’s gone, and Kara can’t bear to open her eyes, cannot bear the confirmation that this pain is her truth.
Tears roll down her cheeks, hot and steady, and feel like an accusation.
Arms wrap around her quickly, and she nearly pushes her sister away. What right does she have to comfort? To tears?
Alex was right—Lena’s alone. She’s hurting.
And it’s Kara’s fault.
Lena had been right when she’d said Kara knew of her sensitivity to lies. But instead of paying her due, instead of offering the truth, Kara only added to her debt. And the greater her debt grew, the greater it would harm Lena. But with this kind of debt, the only way to be free of it was to let it crash.
And it was always going to crash.
Lena paid Kara’s debt with pain, and Kara with guilt. She had known she would lose Lena. Knowing hadn’t helped.
Kara should hurt. She should hurt as Lena hurts, and Lena should have the comfort.
She pulls out of her sister’s embrace.
“It’ll be okay, Kara,” Alex says gently.
“How,” Kara returns, sounding colder than she means to, “is it going to be okay, Alex? Lena hates me. She won’t see me, or speak with me—she wants nothing,” Her voice cracks, “to do with me.”
But Kara finally lifts her head. Opens her eyes.
Real. Terribly, unforgivably real, and Kara aches for that uncertainty in a Black Mercy’s dream, something to declare that this is a nightmare only.
“Does Lena,” Alex begins hesitantly, “know? Were you two…” She gestures back toward Kara, unable to ask.
Kara shakes her head slowly. “No. She didn’t know.”
“You never told her?” she asks softly.
“How could I? Lying as her friend was awful enough. To tell her I love her, to maybe start something if she felt the same,” She shakes her head again. “When she found out, it just—it would have been worse.”
Alex looks as if she wants to say something. Long enough that Kara asks, “What?”
“She may have loved you,” Alex offers carefully.
“I don’t know, Alex,” Kara says miserably, drawing her knees up against her chest, resting her chin on one of them. “But I never needed her to love me. I just…”
“You wanted her to.”
“Of course I wanted her to,” she snaps, wiping furiously as the tears on her cheeks, “But I don’t need her to. I need her to be in my life. I need to hear her laugh and see her smile. I need her at game nights and movie nights, and for us to have lunch together. I need her, Alex, I need her.”
Her voice cracks as a new wave of tears flows. “I don’t care about being Supergirl anymore,” she whispers hopelessly. “I just want her to forgive me.”
~V~
I don’t care about being Supergirl anymore.
Nia can understand. In a different form, in a different severity, she understands how oneself can be the enemy. How hating oneself can be easier than breathing.
So Nia can understand. But she doesn’t agree.
Supergirl matters. To a great many people, for a great many reasons, Supergirl matters.
She turns to Brainy beside her, and says, “I need you to do me a favor.”