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"So, Kara," Jeremiah starts, smiling warm and supportive. "What's going on with that boy you've been talking about? Brainy?"

Alex's fingers tighten dangerously around her glass.

Kara clear her throat and sends Alex a quick glance, but her smile is sincere enough. "He's fine. Great, actually. He and his girlfriend Nia are spending the holiday at Lena's lodge on the—sorry, what's it called?"

"Cache La Poudre River," Lena says, French rolling perfectly off her tongue, earning herself good-natured mutters from Lucy and James. "It's near Fort Collins."

Kara snaps. "Right. Catch the powder river," she purposefully mispronounces.

Alex scoffs, swirling her cranberry-juice-pretending-it's-wine. "You're not fooling anyone into believing you aren't fluent in, what, fifteen languages?" She smiles into her glass. "Nerd."

"Alex," Jeremiah says low, eyes level on hers, like she's fourteen. "Don't call your sister a nerd."

The word sister lands hard in the air around them and everyone else at the table shifts, finding their plates just a little more interesting than they did moments before, J'onn and Eliza the only ones bold enough to let their pointed disapproval show on their faces in the man's own home.

"Kara, I'm sorry it didn't work out with Brainy," Jeremiah redirects, his eyes baring just how genuinely sorry he is and seemingly unaware of the atmosphere now settled over the room. "I won't wish him unhappy, but maybe there is still hope for you two down the line."

Fire floods Alex's chest and she tightens her jaw around several snarling words just aching to spill from her mouth, break through the thick ice her dad seems happy to let stand between himself and any possibly-unpleasant thoughts she sees fit to assault him with.

Kara shifts with a tight smile. "I appreciate the sentiment, but neither one of us is interested in being anything other than friends, even ignoring both of our—very happy—situations." She walks a near-indistinguishable line between scolding and respectful, but errs on the side of, he just needs time to adjust; it's just a lot to take in right now.

Jeremiah chooses to hear no deeper implication to Kara's words. "Well, good, because you know, I was just thinking the other day that you'd get along very well with one of the young men at Eliza's lab."

Alex grits her teeth and stares ruefully down at her fake wine, wishing, not for the first time since the festivities began, for just a whole bottle of scotch stamped ALEX along the label for her personal consumption only.

Jeremiah picks at the remainder of the roast beef on his plate. "His name's Kevin; he works more on the environmental side of things there. Volunteers at the animal shelter on the weekends, and makes trips down to National City every other week to see his mom."

She could do it. Just say fuck it and dig into her mom's liquor stash above the fridge. No one would blame her for giving in to the tempting draw of substance-induced lassitude. Hell, her mom, even under the impression that Alex is on her fourth or fifth glass actual wine at this point, has still offered her something stronger no less than three times since they arrived.

More than that, even Kara made sure Alex knew it was okay if she didn't abstain-in-solidarity tonight, given the state they'd known they were walking into.

Jeremiah rambles on. "I'm not sure what constitutes handsome these days, but he looks like James Dean to me." Jeremiah smiles at Eliza, a vie for support.

But judging by the look on her face—one Alex recognizes as we will discuss this later, but you're so grounded for a month—it's only Alex's personal request for her not to intervene that holds her tongue now. A request Alex very nearly regrets making, right about now.

And she doesn't actually need to be sober through this.

She doesn't even want to be sober through this.

There is literally no reason to stay this goddamn sober through this.

Kara squeezes her knee, and Alex lets out a soft breath.

Okay, so maybe there's one reason she'd like to prove she can stay sober through this. And fuck it if she's gonna buckle for something as asinine as her dad.

"He really is a great guy; ask Eliza. And so smart, really driven. You know, he finished his PhD in just over five years." He smiles compellingly like that would get her.

Well, two can play that game, and sober or not, Alex never promised to be quiet.

"Oh, five years; color me impressed," she intones, rolling her eyes. "I finished in less than four. And when there are—one, two, three—four people at this table with at least one PhD, a superhero, two CEOs, and one current and one former director of a government agency, that boy's gotta bring a lot more to the table than a degree he finished very quickly."

Jeremiah's entire demeanor cools when he looks at her, eyes holding just a little too heavy to be strictly casual. "In your case, it should've been closer to three, if you'd shown more discipline and hadn't gotten distracted by the party scene. And that boy shows diligence and compassion in both his work and personal life that stands in line with the kind of partner worthy of your sister's attention."

Ice drops straight through the entire house and Kara stiffens. Hard.

"Jeremiah," Eliza scolds.

Alex waves off her mom's support, eyes unwavering from her dad's. "As her sister, I don't believe anyone is good enough for her." Her lips tip in a smile. "And as her girlfriend, I'm trying very hard to believe her when she tells me I am."

There's more than one hastily hidden smile from their onlookers.

Jeremiah's jaw bunches tight. "Is this really a discussion you wanna start right now, Alexandra?"

She shrugs. "What's there to discuss? You're the only one here who seems to think the matter is open for debate."

"I'm not the only one who sees the problem with it, even if no one else has addressed it," he says, tone virulent. "You're her big sister, and for whatever else you think gives you the right to play with that definition, I know you know what you're doing with her is unintentionally exploitative at best, and willfully abusive at worst."

The words break hard at her edges and rage snarls up Alex's throat so hot her vision sparks with it, knuckles going white, nails cutting her palm. Her vocal cords choke around too many words to string together.

Kara comes tearing to the front line. "Stop, Jeremiah, we're not kids. And even if we were, Alex would never abuse—"

"I'm not saying she definitively is," Jeremiah cuts in, soft for her where he isn't for Alex. "I'm just saying she tends to see what she wants to see in your reactions, and if she was doing something you didn't want—"

"But I do want it!" Kara flushes with frustration, actual ice-crystals forming under her next hard breath and her fork doesn't stand a chance under the knee-jerk clench of her fist.

It's enough to Alex snap out of her rage-induced stupor, one hand on Kara's thigh to ground her, the other brushing up the back of her neck to give her focus.

Kara leans into the touch with a sigh, then pulls up that patented Supergirl resolve. "I have never thought less of you for asking J'onn to remove the past fifteen years from you memory. Not once. I understand, and frankly, there's nothing cathartic in it for any of us to do anything but forget Cadmus in its entirety, and we will help you adjust in whatever way you need. And I get that, for you, I was turning fourteen just three months ago, but I need you to at least try to take me at my word when I tell you I am not actually that child anymore."

Jeremiah sighs, shoulders softening. His eyes flick to Eliza then back. "I know that, sweetheart, I didn't mean—"

Kara shakes her head, firm. "No. You don't know. You think you do because you know I'm physically twice that age, but you don't know what that actually means." She squeezes Alex's hand, sending her a quick look. "I would absolutely follow Alex to the ends of the universe, but honestly, you'd have to be certifiable to think she was the one who led us here. Her biggest fear was pishing me for something I didn't want. It became a literal complex there for a while."

Lucy tips her head, sharing a look with Lena and James. "Understatement," she mutters under her breath.

Alex glares at them.

Kara slips a hand over hers. "We're not asking you to get on board with this just because we tell you to," she continues. "We're asking you to just pay attention. To look at us. To get to know us. To not just write us off as 14-year-olds trapped in 27-year-old bodies, even if your memory is telling you that's the case."

Jeremiah's expression has slowly geared down a little closer to apprehension, now sans the vehemence.

He glances at his wife, then looks back at them—looks back at Alex, considering her.

He sucks his teeth. "She's still your little sister; she still needs you to be her big sister."

The vitriol has drained, but there's a stiffness to him that still wedges him somewhere between contention and concern.

Alex traces the edge of her plate, quiet for a long moment.

She's still got some fight left in her. Still has some want to fight left in her.

She's spent more than half her life holding her ground, blade raised against that always battle-ready opponent; "You're her big sister now. It's your job to make sure she doesn't put herself in danger."

She could strike back against it again now, flaunt and use every inch she gains against them—against him, and use her own victories against them in future battles, the same way they once used them against her.

They could parry this back and forth forever, if she so chooses.

But maybe proving she's infallible to the vulnerabilities they claim in her isn't the most important motivator tonight. And maybe that can take precedence. For all of them.

Alex lets out a breath. "To be honest, at twenty-eight, I can't offer her the answers you think a big sister should be able to give her; I'm as lost in this world as she is. I'm scared of it more days than I'm on top of it, and sometimes that means we're scared together." She raises her chin. "Maybe you remember when I had a whole lifetimes' worth of experience over her, but that's just not true anymore. I need her advice, her input, her support just as much as you think she needs mine; I can't do this—take on any part of this world—without her. And I'm sorry, but I just don't have the ability to do it for her anymore."

Kara squeezes her hand, and Eliza's smile is warm before she turns to give Jeremiah a small, imploring nod.

He sighs, jaw still faintly flickering. "I need—time." He looks at Alex. "But I do remember what twenty-eight felt like. Tougher age than most people give it credit for," he admits, plucking at his fork.

Kara peeks at her, restraining a small victory smile, and Alex lets it unfurl in her chest, leaning forward to press a kiss to Kara's shoulder.

Eliza's smile blooms a little more relaxed, eyes sparkling when she shares a conspiring look with her husband. "Just wait til you guys start talking about kids. That's when life gets really interesting." She stands and starts gathering dishes. "So who's up for dessert?"

Alex and Kara share a short, questioning look and a wordless conversation therein.

Is it the right time?

Well, we have to tell them sometime.

Good; I hate cranberry juice, but grape doesn't look enough like wine to fake them out.

Baby.

"Actually," Kara cuts in before anyone can respond. She clears her throat and straightens her shoulders with a smile. "Um. Speaking of having kids." She glances at Alex. "I, um. We kinda, uhm. We-we wanted to tell you all, that, um. I'm kinda, maybe—"

"Pregnant," Alex finishes for her. "Kryptonian reproduction is...fascinating."

A plate crashes to the ground, and the color drains from Jeremiah's face.

Lucy pulls out her phone. "God, I love holidays with the Danvers."

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