Chapter Text
“Alright! See you guys in a jiffy!”
Alex groaned at Kara’s cheery goodbye.
“Jiffy?” she echoed. “Really, Kara?”
Kara’s laugh tinkled through the lab.
“I’ll miss you too, Alex!”
Alex sighed but smiled. “Be careful up there!”
“Say hi to your mom for me!” Lena added.
“Will do!” Kara waved a final goodbye, beaming at Lena and Alex, before she turned around, took a deep breath, and walked through the portal.
And that’s when it all went wrong.
Kara had barely disappeared from the lab, the remnants of her laughter still reverberating through the space, when the portal rattled. Actually rattled. And even though this was the first time they’d used that particular portal, Lena had enough experience with interplanetary technology to know that it absolutely wasn’t supposed to do that. The energy field pulsed erratically, almost like it was glitching. Sparks flew from the field, taking out a light in the process.
Alex and Lena jumped up at the exact same time.
“Lena?”
“On it!”
Lena rushed to the controllers, frantically typing in her codes to override the system.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know!” Lena shouted. “I can’t tell!”
“Well make it stop! Kara’s still in there!”
“I’m trying!” Lena bit back, angrier at herself for messing this up than she was at Alex for yelling at her.
Her fingers flew over her keyboard, opening one security measure after another, trying desperately to shut the entire operation down. She wasn’t trying to find the root of the issue right now, that was all secondary. First she just had to get through to Kara and get her out. If she got stuck somewhere in some random dimension between worlds, Lena would never forgive herself.
“Well?”
The numbers on her screen jumped so fast, Lena could barely keep track. Dozens of security lights flickered, alarming her that several measures were failing. One warning sign after another popped up on her screen – red and yellow triangles warning her of overheating and overloaded systems and everything in between. Lena ignored it all in favor of finding the exit, the loophole in every system she built to shut everything down. Calculations and formulas flashed through her head, overlapping and solving themselves before changing, adapting to new scenarios – but Lena couldn’t say how. She worked on autopilot, her fingers working on muscle memory more than with her actual mind because that was occupied with Kara. Just Kara. Kara, lost. Kara, trusting her, putting her faith in her, while Lena was just letting her down again.
Before she could let the thought fester in her head, the screen suddenly went dark.
Lena’s eyes widened.
“No,” she muttered. “No, no, no, no, no!”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know it just – ”
They both jumped back when a sudden spark erupted from the keyboard. The screen went black, a slow fizzling sound rising up from deep within the computer.
“Shit!”
Then smoke started coming from the monitor.
“No, no!”
Alex quickly took the fire extinguisher from its hold on the wall and blindly started spraying where the smoke had been, while Lena’s hands were tangled in her hair in disbelief.
“No,” she whispered. “No!”
“What the fuck happened?”
“I don’t know! I don’t – it just stopped working!”
She looked away from the computer and found that the portal, miraculously, was still there. Hovering in the air like a dark cloud, one that filled Lena with dread. Disconnected from all her tech – but somehow still there.
Her fingers were trembling, suspended over her keyboard with as little use as the broken monitor before her. All her knowledge, all her precious science… it had failed her in the span of seconds, and all that was left was a monstrous carcass of what should’ve been her magnum opus. Destroyed, with Kara somewhere inside of it.
Alex dropped the fire extinguisher with a loud bang that echoed through the lab.
“Kara,” she whispered.
“Alex wait – ”
Alex didn’t listen. She rushed over to the portal, still shimmering with an unnatural glow, towering over Lena’s lab equipment like it could destroy everything in its path if it wanted to. Like it was a vindictive, sentient being. It made a shiver run down Lena’s spine.
“Alex, get away from there!” Lena yelled, the fear of losing Alex – Kara and then Alex too – clenching its icy hand around her heart.
Alex moved frantically up and down in front of the portal, hands running through her short hair, itching to do something.
“It’s not safe, Alex, back up!”
Alex squinted, leaning in closer to the portal, while Lena stood trembling by the wreck of the monitor, hands flailing uselessly over the powerless keyboard.
“I think I see something!” Alex shouted.
She leaned in closer to the portal and Lena felt like throwing up. She couldn’t lose Alex, she couldn’t. Not Kara and Alex, not both of them, not at all. She wouldn’t survive. The bile rose in her throat at the mere idea.
“Alex, stop!”
But Alex ignored her. She brought a hesitant hand up, and slowly inched it closer to the portal.
“Alex!”
“Lena, someone’s there! It’s got to be Kara – I can get to her!”
Lena could almost see it, Alex leaning in, touching that portal and disappearing too. She could almost picture Kelly walking in later, food in her hand, her expression falling when she’d see Lena’s ruined lab and would realize that her family was gone. That Lena had ruined her life. Lena got so physically sick at the thought that she could feel herself start to shake, feet glued to the floor, unable to do anything.
“You don’t know that!” she shouted. “Alex, please!”
But not even the hysterical tone in her voice could persuade her. The hesitation in Alex’s eyes was replaced with determination, and in one fluid motion, her fingers touched the portal’s pulsing fabric.
“Don’t!”
Lena’s warning had barely passed her lips when the portal expulsed a sudden burst of energy. A flash reflected in Alex’s wide eyes, and before she knew it she was thrown back so hard she hit the wall.
That finally snapped Lena out of her stupor, and without even so much as looking over at the violent portal, she ran over to Alex, curled up in a ball against the wall.
“Alex!”
Her hands ghosted over Alex’s head, checking for any terrible, life-injuring wounds she could find. She could hear the portal rumbling threateningly behind her, but she ignored it. She fought back against the tears in her eyes as she stubbornly went on. Alex groaned, flinching when Lena touched the back of her head.
“Fuck.”
“You’re okay,” Lena whispered. “No external wounds, no bleeding. We should get a head-CT to make sure.”
Alex pushed her hands away, shaking her head.
“Kara,” she groaned, opening her eyes. “Where’s Kara?”
Lena swallowed the lump in her throat, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder and check out the portal behind her.
“I don’t know,” Lena said hoarsely. “She’s not here.”
Lena wanted to run away when Alex’s eyes met hers, filled with so much fear and devastation that Lena – Lena – had let them down. The one who was supposed to know everything and have all the solutions. The brain of the team, Kara had cheerfully called it months ago.
And now Lena had lost Kara, and it had all happened so quickly that she didn’t even know how. She’d single-handedly fulfilled Kara’s biggest fear of getting lost in the universe, and Lena hated herself for it. Every piece of tech that was supposed to ensure Kara’s safe arrival on the planet, every formula and scientific method of calculating how to travel through space and time… all destroyed in a matter of seconds. It would take months, if not years, to build all of it back up. A tedious progress that would take time that Kara simply did not have.
And even if they managed to get everything working again, Lena had no clue, no inkling of where Kara could be. She didn’t even know what had gone wrong. How could she, when there were no warnings, no messages that could have made her doubt that this would go well?
All of that disillusionment was so clearly written on Alex’s face that Lena wanted to cry. Alex didn’t get it yet. She was still taking everything in, she couldn’t comprehend yet that they’d lost Kara somewhere in the universe, and that Lena was the only one to blame.
Lena almost wondered whether Alex would punch her, fight her, wreck her when it finally sunk in. She wouldn’t even care.
“No,” Alex whispered. “No, the portal’s still there – she’s still there!”
She scrambled against the wall and Lena quickly reached down to help her up. Once they were both back on their feet, they turned around and looked at the portal that was still hovering menacingly inside the lab.
“What do we do?”
Lena didn’t know. She just looked at that shimmering field of energy, completely at a loss.
“Lena?”
Lena shook her head. “Maybe if – ”
She didn’t get to finish her thought, a small mercy, given that Lena didn’t have a single thing to say that would make Alex or herself feel better. But right after she’d uttered two words, the portal seemed to contract within itself.
Lena’s eyes widened.
Before she could react, Alex wrapped her arms around Lena, shielding both their faces from a thunderous clap that reverberated through the lab. A flash lit up the room, so bright Lena could almost see it through her closed eyelids. She made herself as small as possible, hid her face as best as she could, feeling Alex wince beside her.
The shock left the entire room shaking, and if it wasn’t for Alex’s steadfast presence and quick thinking, Lena was sure she’d have fallen to the ground. As it were, she could hear beakers and other equipment shatter on the floor, to which Alex moved her arms up higher to protect her from glass shards. Lena flinched when she heard the monitor crash to the ground, biting her lip to keep from screaming.
She told herself it didn’t matter. None of it did. If everything was already broken, it wouldn’t help get Kara back anyway. But it hurt. With every piece of tech Lena could hear shatter to the ground, she knew there was yet another piece of the puzzle she had to recreate, fix and design to get Kara back. Every shard was another hour of her time she’d have to spend
The room suddenly stopped shaking, but neither Lena nor Alex moved a muscle. They stayed frozen, waiting to hear if the worst was over when –
With one last, loud bang, it was over. The lights flickered before turning back on completely. The electricity from the backup generator hummed to life through the lab, analyzing the damage that had been done like Lena had programmed it to do.
Lena could hear Alex’s heartbeat under her ear, and she could feel her own heartbeat hammering against her chest, loud enough that Lena could almost imagine hearing it echo within the walls of her lab. But – it wasn’t her heartbeat she was hearing. There was something else.
Groans. Lena could hear it clear as day, she opened her eyes and quickly gave Alex a look-over, but she was fine. Tense and frozen, like Lena had been until a second ago – but not hurt. She wasn’t making a single sound.
A shiver ran down her spine when she heard a second groan – a little quieter, but still very distinctive – in the space behind her. This time, Alex had heard it too. Her eyes shot wide open and she looked at Lena in silent alarm.
“Where?” she mouthed.
Lena didn’t dare speak. She tilted her head to the side and Alex understood. Alex’s hand left Lena’s upper-arm and slid down her own side to the holster on her hip. Once she had a grip on the gun that was in it, she nodded at Lena, who nodded back.
In one fluid, synchronous move – stemming from an innumerable number of close-calls on missions – Alex and Lena rose up and turned to face the intruding entity in Lena’s lab. Yet in a split second, it all changed. As if she saw everything happening in slow motion, Lena could almost feel time slow down. Her eyes took in the scene before her, and she felt the blood drain from her face. Alex’s hands, still holding onto her gun, rose steadily, ready to aim. Lena watched it all happen like she could see the future unfold before her. Lena knew Alex was well-trained, but she was also hurt and disoriented. If she would shoot… Lena turned, and with all the power she could find within her, she instinctively pushed Alex’s hands down, ignoring the tension in Alex’s arms, ignoring the way she fumed beside her – And then Alex’s hands went slack under hers.
Because she’d finally grasped what they were looking at.
In the back of Lena’s lab, trembling on their legs, were two, very confused-looking teenagers. The groans quieted down as the teens blinked tiredly at the wall in front of them for a few, short seconds before they collapsed onto the floor.
“Shit!”
Alex immediately shot into action, putting her gun back in her holster, and rushing over to the girls lying unconscious on Lena’s white floor. Lena followed one step behind. Her head was a mess –she felt so dazed and disoriented she could barely move. She was waiting for the grief, the excruciating pain of losing Kara to roll over her and debilitate her right where she stood – but the teenagers before her seemed to have stunned the emotional reactionary part of her brain.
“Get a medical kit!”
Lena didn’t question Alex. She went over on automatic, barely registering her actions as she rushed to the other part of her lab, grabbing the big, white kit prominently featured on the rack on the wall.
She ran over to Alex who was feeling for the pulse of a dark-haired girl, lying down on her stomach.
“Still beating,” she said. “Check the blonde?”
Lena passed Alex the kit and went to check on the blonde girl on the floor. She was on her side, curled up like she was just sleeping. Her face was obscured by long blonde curls draped over her face. She was wearing jeans, a blue-and-white striped T-shirt, and a pretty jean jacket decorated with some pink and red, stitched roses. She looked younger than the other girl somehow. Something in the way she was dressed – more like someone else had picked out her outfit for her, while the brunette was clearly in her own rebellious period. Her black, ripped jeans and leather jacket reminded Lena a lot of her time as an angsty teenager and led her to believe that the brunette was slightly older than the blonde.
Lena carefully lifted the teenager’s wrist and put two fingers on her pulse. She sighed in relief when she felt a steady thumping against the tips of her fingers.
“She’s okay!” she said, looking up at Alex.
But Alex wasn’t listening anymore. She was frozen, still on her knees, after having turned the girl on her back. Alex was white as a sheet, her eyes wide as if she’d just seen a ghost.
“Alex?”
Lena looked at the brunette Alex had uncovered, but she didn’t see anything wrong. No large wounds or alarming bruises – no signs that something was terribly wrong. And yet – Alex looked absolutely horrified. When Alex showed no signs of reacting any time soon, Lena quickly scanned the girl’s face. She was still unconscious, a little pale and showing no signs of waking up any time soon, but there was nothing that Lena could see that would cause such a dreadful fear on Alex’s face.
The girl did look oddly familiar, though. Lena couldn’t say how, but there was something fuzzy in the back of her mind that seemed to recognize her. Dark lashes, thin eyebrows, and sparse freckles, dark hair to her shoulders – Lena had no idea how she should know a teenager like that. It wasn’t like she was very comfortable around children of any age – with Ruby being a distinct exception to that rule. So how come the girl seemed so familiar?
“Alex?”
Lena grabbed Alex’s hand, and Alex looked up with a start. Her eyes were wild, almost like she didn’t recognize Lena anymore.
“Alex, what’s wrong?”
“Lena,” Alex whispered. She swallowed, she was trembling, Lena noticed. Her own fear grew as she watched Alex slowly coming back to herself.
“I get that this is an insane situation, okay?” Lena tried. “But I’m going to need you to keep it together. There are two children here who need our help and I have no fucking clue how they got here or where they’re from! I can’t have you breaking down on me right now because I swear to God, I will break down with you!”
When Lena said that, Alex finally perked up, but her attention still wasn’t on Lena. Instead, her eyes moved to the blonde on the floor – and her breath hitched in her throat.
“Alex! Can you at least pretend like you heard what I just said? I cannot be alone in this, you hear me? You have to help me with – ”
“Lena,” Alex interrupted her, eyes still locked on the unconscious blonde before her.
“What?” Lena asked irritably.
Alex finally looked up, looking so scared it knocked the annoyance right out of her, replacing it with a deep, uncomfortable fear.
“What?” she whispered this time.
Alex opened her mouth, no sound coming out. She lifted a shaky finger and pointed at the brunette before her.
“I think that’s…”
“What?”
“I… I think,” Alex whispered. “I think that’s me.”
Lena’s first instinct was to just burst out laughing. The idea of meeting your younger self again was just plain hilarious. Lena had thought about it of course. What would happen if she could just go into the past, give her younger self a fake passport and a million euros in cash and told her to run to Ireland and never look back.
But that was just that. A dream. A wistful fantasy she liked to indulge in when she saw her brother’s face on the television screen again. Proudly boasting about all of his achievements at Luthor-Corp. Operations and inventions which Lena had single-handedly created – all for her brother to absorb in his own narcissistic legacy.
It wasn’t real. It couldn’t happen. It wasn’t possible.
Lena didn’t laugh. Not when Alex’s eyes were haunted, fixed on the two girls before her. Now when she looked so pale, Lena was afraid she might pass out. Before she would let herself worry about Alex potentially needing a CT scan of her brain to check for a concussion, Lena indulged her and looked at the young girl on the floor.
It finally clicked, where she recognized the girl from. There was a beautiful picture in Kara’s living room, right on one of her bookshelves, next to a copy of Romeo and Juliet. In a cute wooden picture frame, decorated with some dried flowers she’d glued on there one rainy afternoon, was a pretty picture featuring a young Kara, Eliza Danvers, and Alex in their backyard, against the backdrop of dewy grass and luscious trees. Eliza looked insanely happy, holding her two daughters close. A happy, bubbly Kara with long, curly, blonde hair – and a young, smiling Alex Danvers.
The same Alex Danvers now unconscious on her very floor.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
And then, she slowly turned her head as the realization set in.
“And then that’s…”
The blonde on the floor didn’t stir.
“Kara,” Alex finished her thought for her.
“Oh my God.”
“You can say that again.”
“Oh my God!”
Lena turned around, looking at Alex as the panic finally, finally set in.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Alex!” she whispered hysterically. “How – I mean – how!”
“Yeah, I’m right there with you,” Alex whispered back.
“Are they alright? I mean – shit!”
“They’re fine! Just knocked out. Lena,” Alex asked lowly, “what the hell just happened?”
“I… I don’t know.” Lena ran a hand through her hair, so many thoughts and options flashing through her head, she just knew she was racing towards a massive headache. “I – at least not for certain.”
“I don’t know, Lena,” Alex said, her voice adopting an equally hysterical edge. “Maybe give me your best guess? Because just in case it hasn’t sunken in – there is a younger version of me right in front of me!”
“I’m well aware of that!” Lena hissed back. “But as of right now, I know about as much as you do!”
“Okay, okay!” Alex raised her hands. “I’m sorry. Please, please just – just tell me what you think happened?”
Lena sighed, shaking her head as she watched the two girls in her lab.
“My best guess?”
“Please.”
Lena wracked her brain going over theory after theory, trying to make everything click.
“I think,” she said cautiously, “that I have one idea.”
Alex looked at her expectantly.
“When the portal started acting strange, I tried to override the system and reverse the course of action, right?”
“Right.”
“But maybe – and this is just a theory,” Lena warned, “there was no Kara to pull back. She wasn’t on our planet anymore, she was already on Argo, but we couldn’t see it because the monitor was all messed up.”
“Okay?”
“So I’m guessing the machine searched for Kara, trying to send her back like I had ordered it to – ”
“And it found her.”
“Just not in our year.”
“Jesus. Did you know it could send people through time too?” Alex asked.
“God no! I mean, it’s not crazy when you think about it,” Lena whispered. “I used the tech from the fortress to build the portal, Kara just told me to use whatever. If the tech in there was able to help me create a portal that could cross dimensions…”
“… why not time too,” Alex whispered. “But how did it get, you know,” she nodded shakily in her younger version’s direction. “Me?”
“That, I think, is due to you touching that portal, which, if I may remind you, I specifically told you not to do,” Lena said with a glare.
“Okay, yes, well I’m sorry,” Alex said irritably. “I panicked! My sister was in there!”
“I get that, but when I built tech that I tell you not to touch, you listen to me!” Lena shot back. “My lab, my rules.”
“Fine! Fine! I’ll never do it again. Just – how?”
Lena sighed again, trying to shrug off the frustration she could feel eating away at her. It was that hopelessly awful feeling of not knowing – not understanding something about the world that she should. And if Kara and Alex had been caught up in something terrible because of her tech – her inability to grasp the science she was supposed to master… Lena clenched her fists, digging her manicured fingernails into her palms in an effort to stay grounded. She couldn’t fall apart now. She couldn’t.
“I think it was your DNA,” she said, as calm and reasonable as she could. “I configured the portal not to reverse the action, but to reverse the action that had included the last person’s DNA. In this case Kara’s. Instead of sending Kara to Argo, it was supposed to seek her DNA, and call her back.”
“Which it did.”
“Yes. And then you touched it. Your DNA was now caught in the system. It was now not only looking for Kara anymore, it was looking for you too.”
“Oh fuck me.” Alex sat down and covered her face with her hands. “Come on!” she muttered into her hands. “This can’t just happen.”
Alex dropped her hands into her lap and shot Lena a pleading look.
“We were doing so well. We had like, no major accidents for over two months! That’s a new record for us! How the hell did it go wrong – how the hell did we screw it up? God, and all for a family visit.”
“It’s more than that,” Lena reminded Alex softly. “You know it is. She needed this.”
Alex sighed, leaning back against the wall, shaking her head tiredly.
“I know,” she sounded exhausted. “But that doesn’t make it better.”
“No,” Lena agreed softly. “It doesn’t.”
Alex paused, just looking at her younger self before she looked at Lena again.
“You really think she made it to Argo?”
“We should know any minute now,” Lena said. “She said she’d send us a message. We just have to wait.”
“God,” Alex’s head bumped against the wall with a soft thud. “I hate waiting.”
“I know,” Lena whispered. “Me too.”
“Do you think she’s okay?”
“I really hope so,” Lena whispered honestly. “But we can’t think about that now. We have a much more imminent problem to deal with.”
“Two,” Alex mumbled somberly.
“Exactly,” Lena said. “We need to figure out a game-plan. If the portal really depleted all their energy, they’ll be up soon. We’ll have to figure everything out by then.”
Alex sat down, supporting her head with her hand as she shook her head in disbelief.
“How the hell is this possible?” she muttered. “What did we do?”
“Look,” Lena said softly, sinking down on her heels beside Alex. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But this actually makes our situation a whole lot better.”
“How?” Alex asked. “How on earth is this better?”
“Because I thought we lost her again,” Lena said, and Alex looked at her with big, hurt eyes, like Lena had just slapped her across the face. “I thought Kara was somewhere lost in the universe again, with no way for us to find her! I thought my machine had wrecked the only door we had to finding her! I thought she was gone!”
Lena’s breath hitched in her throat, and Alex’s shoulders dropped slightly. She allowed Lena a moment to look away, to take a breath and breathe out again.
“I thought,” Lena had to scrape her throat to get rid of the fearful tears trying to force their way up. “I thought we lost her again. But if my theory is correct, then Kara is fine. Then the only thing we have to do is rebuilt that tiny fraction of the machine to send the girls back, and tell Kara to extend her vacation a little longer until I can reverse-engineer my portal watch. Given the alternative, I could thank God for just accidentally having two girls time travel to our world. That’s fixable. That’s doable. That’s the best outcome I could’ve wished for,” Lena whispered, voice shaking with emotion.
Alex swallowed and nodded. A silence fell over them.
“Can’t believe time travel was our best-case scenario,” Alex mumbled.
Lena let out a tiny scoff. “Right? Did you know that five years ago I was just trying to build an alien-detection device?”
Alex laughed, shaking her head.
“Fuck me,” she whispered, looking back at her younger self. “I know my mom always says that she wishes me a daughter just like me so I can experience how awful of a teenager I was, but I doubt this was quite what she had in mind.”
“Oh God, I forgot you were a terrible teenager,” Lena moaned.
“Hey!”
“How awful do you think your younger self is going to be when she wakes up?”
“Okay, I was not awful,” Alex glared. “Don’t believe everything Kara says. I just had some issues.”
Lena hummed. “Glad to see you’ve grown out of them.”
She giggled when Alex threw her a completely undignified look – glaring with all the power she had. It there had ever been a day Lena could have been intimidated by that glare, it was long, long ago.
“Oh ha-ha, Lena. Didn’t you say you started day drinking when you were like fifteen?”
“Bad outside influence,” Lena countered. “I was a perfectly behaved teenager.”
“Oh I’m sure. I bad you did all sorts of stupid shit in high school, you just never got caught.”
Lena laughed, shaking her head – her fear temporarily forgotten.
“God,” she muttered, looking at the younger Kara. “I can’t believe that’s Kara.”
“Right?”
“I can’t believe that’s Supergirl.”
“Okay, she wasn’t Supergirl yet,” Alex reasoned. “She was just a girl. One who at times accidentally burned holes into our bedroom ceiling - but she was still a girl. Still is sometimes.”
Lena smiled softly at that.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “Sometimes.”
Lena’s phone suddenly buzzed, and it shook both her and Alex out of their revery.
“It’s an alert,” Lena sighed in relief. “Oh my God. It’s Kara! She’s on Argo! It worked. Alex!” Lena turned to Alex, to see her running her hands over her short hair. “It worked,” Lena whispered. “It really, really worked. She’s with her mom now. With her cousin and Lois. She’s there. Oh thank you,” she whispered to no one in particular. “She’s there.”
“She’s okay?” Alex checked, fists balled by her sides, jaw clenched – and Lena knew she was holding all her emotions back as best she could.
“She’s okay,” Lena smiled. “She’s really okay.”
“Okay,” Alex muttered, her entire body going slack. “Okay.”
Kara moved on the floor, letting out a sleepy sigh. It made a fearful shiver run down Lena’s spine. When she looked up and caught Alex’s eye, she knew Alex had realized it too. Their moment of pause was over. Their one moment in which the end of the universe didn’t seem so bad anymore was gone. They had a real crisis on their hands, and it was about to become a lot worse. It was under control for now, but Lena and Alex both knew it couldn’t stay like that forever. They had to improvise.
“Kara’s fine,” Alex repeated.
“Yes.”
“They’re going to wake up soon.”
“We need to get started,” Lena agreed.
“Alright,” Alex stood up and extended her hand for Lena to take. “Let’s get to work, Luthor.”
“How is it that when something bad happens, you and I are always the ones teaming up, huh?”
“Please,” Alex pulled her up. “You love it.”
Lena shot her a wry smile.
“You go and gather whatever stuff you can find that still works,” she ordered. “It’s going to be one hell of a puzzle trying to make all of it work.”
“Yes, Miss Luthor,” Alex said teasingly and Lena rolled her eyes.
Her fingers were still trembling slightly and her heart was still pounding way too fast in her chest. But she wasn’t alone. She hadn’t killed the machine. She hadn’t lost Kara. The only thing she needed to do now was reverse-engineer time travel. And out of all the possible horrors she thought she’d face today, Lena still thought she’d gotten off easy. She took a deep breath and shot the girls on the floor one final look, and followed Alex.
She could fix this.
Alex was biting her lip anxiously. It shouldn’t bother Lena as much as it did, but it was really getting on her nerve. That and the pacing around the room while Lena was trying to piece together the scraps of metal and tech she could recover, linking them to the various appliances around the room.
She didn’t have much anymore.
Her access to her lab at LuthorCorp had been pulled almost as soon as she had officially handed in her resignation. Not that it surprised her. She’d been prepared, had some stuff moved to her place in the days leading up to her resignation, but still. It stung. That was her territory, her domain. It’s where so many of her inventions had first known the light of day, where she’d created things to help her friends, and to help strangers all over the globe. And Lex had taken it from her, just like he had everything else.
Lena shook the thought away. There were more important things to worry about. Like the two girls, currently propped up against the wall so they wouldn’t be uncomfortable when they woke up.
“My guess,” Lena said, “is they aren’t hurt from the process of coming here. I think the portal just required so much energy that depleted theirs. Apart from some exhaustion, there’s really not much else that would indicate something more serious.”
“Thank God,” Alex sighed. “We’re in enough shit as it is without our former selves being completely physically impaired from everything else too.”
Lena made a supportive sound, clicking through the old programs she’d used to first launch the portal. She’d connected her L-pad to a loose keyboard she’d found, and was trying – with bits and pieces – to recreate her previous process. With a beating heart, she tentatively clicked on the final link to complete the program… and got a loud, red error message in return.
“Damnit,” she cursed. “Fucking perfect. Truly.”
“Wait,” Alex came closer. “What – what does that mean? What did you do?”
“It means that the quick and easy approach is a bust,” Lena said through gritted teeth. “I basically tried the detour to get the portal up again, but no luck. It was a long shot anyway.”
“So… what now?”
Lena sighed, her shoulders dropping slightly, cramps, and the stress of the day finally taking its toll on her body. She rolled her shoulders slightly, staring hopelessly at the screen.
“We’re going to have to start from scratch,” she whispered to herself.
“But it took you weeks to get the portal up!” Alex said alarmed. “We don’t have that kind of time!”
“I already know what to do, Alex. It would take me a few days, tops. Maybe I can cut that time in two if I just, I don’t know,” she shook her head irritably, “don’t sleep and ask Brainy to come and help.”
“Lena, they’re not going to be out for days! They’ll wake up any minute!”
“I’m well aware!” Lena snapped. “But I can’t make this go any faster!”
Alex nodded.
“Okay,” she said after a beat. “Okay. Then we’re going to need to be smart about this. They can’t know about this – the future. We don’t know how much they’ll retain or remember, it could disrupt everything!”
“Agreed.”
God, those back-to-the-future scenarios had always given her such headaches. She would always break her brain if she thought about it for too long. What the implications would be, how the time-space continuum really worked, how far off those Hollywood movies really were. In the end, she’d always just concluded that it would always be too big a risk, and luckily for her, too unobtainable to ever spend too much of her precious time on.
And now here she was, faced with the dilemma movie makers always salivated over. Would they change the future by manipulating the past? What if Kara found out about her future as Supergirl and decided to jumpstart her career? What if one of them took a piece of L-tech home with them that would draw the company’s attention to Midvale? What if Alex didn’t like her future and decided to just become a doctor instead?
“No,” Lena’s hypotheticals threatened to disrupt her entire work process, so she forced herself to abandon them entirely. “They can’t know. We have to come up with an alternative explanation.”
“We could tell them we’re friends of Eliza’s?” Alex offered.
Lena looked unconvinced. “You think that’ll work?”
“If we can back it up, sure. Why would they question it?”
“We’ll have to keep them here,” Lena realized softly.
“What?”
Lena turned to Alex, her heart heavy in her chest. “We can’t take risk them getting out. If Lex finds out we have a baby Kryptonian here… If he even catches a whiff of what’s going on, we’ll have a much, much bigger problem on our hands.”
Alex sighed. “Right,” she muttered darkly. “So we have to keep them here while making sure they don’t notice we’re keeping them here. Great.”
“Look, you know these kids, Alex!” Lena said. “That’s the advantage we have. If we throw everything we’ve got at them, I’m sure you can convince them? I’m going to focus all my energy on getting this portal up and running again. If you just focus on the girls, we’ll be able to fix this. I know we will be.”
Lena tried so desperately to channel Kara, but she knew she was so far off. By some miracle, it did seem to help Alex. She nodded slowly.
“I’ll do my best,” Alex muttered.
“Thank you.”
“And I’ll call Brainy. And I’ll text J’onn. We might need him to do a little acting of his own. We can’t lie to the girls for long. If I know myself a little,” Alex looked almost bitter, “they won’t stay quiet for long. They’ll get suspicious.”
“Okay.”
“If we’re going to keep them calm, we’ll have to be convincing. If they need to stay here for a longer period we’ll have to call Eliza to jump in, but I’d like to save that as a last resort.” Alex shook her head. “She’s going to murder me the second she finds out about all this.”
“The energy shock will have depleted their energy – they’ll be confused at the very least,” Lena said softly. “That should work in our advantage.”
“You’re talking about a future reporter and a future D.E.O. agent, Lena. Believe me,” Alex cast a weary look down at her younger self, “it’s going to be a tough sell. We’re going to need to know enough to convince them to stay. I’ll call Brainy and then I’ll give you the rundown. Good?”
Lena nodded, but Alex had already stepped back and turned around, dialing Brainy’s number. She let out a breath she’d been holding for a while now, shaky and wavering under the stress of the day. She glanced at her phone screen. No message from Kara yet. Lena swallowed the lump in her throat and forced herself to power through.
She was already on the brink of a breakdown, and they hadn’t even crossed any of the dangerous bridges yet. There were so many issues to keep track of that Lena was only barely keeping it together. Her heart beat erratically in her chest, reminding her just how overworked and under how much stress she really was. And yet, Lena realized miserably as she typed on, the worst was most definitely still to come.
“My head,” Alex groaned, bringing her hands up to hold her head like she had to carry it herself. “What the hell.”
Next to her, Kara stirred. She moved her head from left to right, hearing her neck protest with every movement. She straightened her spine against the wall behind her and leaned her head back so she could look up.
“Mmm,” Kara blinked against the bright lights from the overhead LED lamps. “Alex?”
“Right here.”
Kara squeezed her fingers together, her muscles slow to obey as if she was just too exhausted. Everything felt fuzzy, and Kara had to fight the urge to lie back down and close her eyes again. Funnily enough, though, she couldn’t quite remember what had tired her out so.
“Alex,” she tried again, her throat scratchy and slightly painful. “I don’t feel so good, I think.”
Alex moaned, before taking a deep breath and dragged herself over the floor, closer to Kara.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, no,” Kara shook her head. “Just really tired.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Me too.”
Kara blinked and slowly got used to the artificial brightness of the room. She looked around frowned when she saw the unfamiliar equipment scattered across the space. It consisted of large, white walls, which were filled with glass cabinets containing neatly labeled chemical products and lab equipment, two metal desks, and two big screens attached to the walls. It looked like a high-end lab like one Kara would see on those late-night TV shows. The ones Eliza liked so much, with the detectives poring over murder case after murder case.
“Alex?” she asked softly. “Where are we?”
“Ehm…”
Alex looked around, just as confused as Kara.
“I’m not actually sure…”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a door on the other end of the lab opened, and Kara and Alex quickly stood up, instinctively backing up against the wall. Kara’s head turned from getting up too quickly.
“ – and if Brainy were to get me the modified portal watch then – ”
A woman with long, dark hair, dressed in a black dress and incredibly high heels stopped talking when the other woman who had walked in with her – a tall, intimidating-looking brunette – stopped her in her tracks when she put a hand on the woman’s wrist. The brunette had her eyes squarely on Kara and Alex, an indecipherable swirl of emotions clouding her features before she could finally school them. Kara wasn’t fooled. She could hear her heartbeat going a mile a minute and she instinctively grabbed her sister’s hand.
The woman who had spoken looked up and after a quick glance at the other woman, turned to Alex and Kara.
“Oh!” Her eyes grew wide at the sight of them. “Hi!”
She sounded a little out of breath, and Kara could hear her heartbeat steadily picking up too. She hadn’t quite managed to master the different types of reasons why people’s heartbeats usually quickened, but she knew it meant something was off. That something was different.
Kara could feel Alex tensing up next to her. She quickly glanced over and saw her eyes narrow.
The other brunette seemed to have been shaken out of her stupor. Her features softened, and she smiled softly at the two of them – a smile Kara couldn’t help but hesitantly return.
“Hi,” the brunette smiled. “I’m Alex. That’s Lena. We work with your mom.”
Kara forgot all about her confusion for just a moment and gasped. “Hey, my sister’s name’s Alex too!”
Alex sighed next to her, but Kara was only paying attention to the other Alex. The brunette’s eyes twinkled as she looked at Kara, a soft affection shining through. It made Kara feel a bit shy and she blushed, creeping back beside her Alex, who hadn’t appreciated that.
“Don’t tell her my name! They’re strangers! Hasn’t mom ever told you not to talk to strangers?”
“Yes but it doesn’t make sense,” Kara said. “Everybody in Midvale is a stranger to me. If I couldn’t talk to strangers, I would only ever talk to you and Eliza. Then I would never make any friends!”
Alex sighed, exasperated. “You’re not meant to talk to adult strangers. Those aren’t supposed to be your friends.”
Kara frowned. “Eliza’s my friend, and she’s an adult?”
“Yes. That’s just sad.”
“Hey. Just because you always insist on fighting with her, doesn’t mean that I have to – ”
“Girls!”
Alex and Kara quickly stopped bickering to focus their attention on the women on the other end of the lab.
“It’s okay,” the other woman – Lena – said awkwardly. “We work with your mom!”
“Really?” Alex drawled, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yes,” the other Alex also folded her arms over her chest. “She’s in a meeting with Mr. Johnson to talk about the merger of the lab?” she said. “It was rather unexpected so she asked us to stay with you.”
Beside her, Alex stilled. Her eyebrow went up as she stared the older women down with no small amount of suspicion.
“Mom would’ve told us if she had to leave us with someone else,” Alex said. “And we’ve never met before. Why wouldn’t she just leave us with our neighbors?”
“I don’t know,” the other Alex said. “You guys were at the lab when Mr. Johnson called, right?”
Kara frowned. Was she? She couldn’t quite remember. It didn’t seem un-right? She did remember Eliza rushing through her lab to get the reports that her intern had forgotten to file. She remembered swerving in the office chairs with Alex, bored out of their minds while Eliza was finishing the final touches of her work in the lab.
A quick glance over at Alex confirmed that she was equally confused. It felt like Kara had just woken up from a really deep dream, and she was right on the edge of remembering what it was about. But with every word that Alex and Lena were saying, she woke up a bit more, and the dream was a little further away. It felt so confusing – and yet Alex and Lena did seem to make a lot of sense.
“You two must’ve dozed off,” Lena said. “Busy week?”
“Yeah,” Kara whispered, shaking her head. “Lots of assignments. And Alex had an AP biology class she had to write that paper for, so we’ve both worked late a couple of nights.”
“Kara,” Alex whispered, clearly annoyed with Kara’s oversharing.
“Sorry,” Kara said, but she wasn’t feeling very apologetic. It wasn’t her fault they’d both fallen asleep in Eliza’s lab.
“It was all rather hectic,” Alex explained. “Eliza didn’t want to bother you two. She was with you guys in her lab when the board called, so she just rushed to the meeting. Apparently, things aren’t going well with the merger.”
That did make sense. Eliza had been complaining about the merger for weeks now, stressed beyond belief. It all made a little more sense, and yet Kara couldn’t shake her confusion about the matter.
“She passed Lena and me and asked if we could keep an eye on you guys while she’s in the meeting,” Alex shrugged. “So we said yes.”
“Oh,” Kara looked at the other Alex. “That’s okay. Eliza has let us be alone in her lab a lot when she has to work in another room. We can stay in here by ourselves until she gets back?”
Beside her, Alex nodded, clearly still suspicious of everything around her.
“I’m just doing as your mom told me. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but when my boss asks me to stay with her daughters… I generally tend to do as she says.”
“My mom hasn’t mentioned an Alex or a Lena working in her lab,” Alex said suspiciously. “She would’ve said something.”
“We haven’t worked here long,” Lena jumped in. “I’m actually located in a lab in National City. I’m just here to help with the, ehm, merger.”
“Regardless,” Alex said. “We have some work to do, so she just asked us if you two could stay in our part of the lab, while also making sure you two don’t go off chasing murderers? I don’t even know if that’s a joke, but that’s what she said.”
“That happened one time,” Kara complained, forgetting all about her confusion. “I can’t believe she won’t trust us anymore after that. Can you believe it?” she turned to her Alex, who seemed confused by the other women in the lab.
“Also,” Alex snapped her fingers, “Eliza asked me to tell you to revise your calculus homework, and to tell Kara,” her eyes fixated on the blonde who quickly straightened up, “to work on her English essay.”
“But I finished it yesterday!” Kara whined. “I’ve already looked it over, I swear!”
The older Alex put her hands up. “I’m just telling you what she told me.”
“She must’ve forgotten,” Alex said softly like she didn’t want the other women to know they might be right. “She has been rather stressed about that merger.”
“Yeah,” Kara said. “And she has been feeling bad about not being home for dinner so much? Maybe she didn’t want us to be alone all day again.”
“Still – I… I don’t remember coming here. Do you?”
“I… no,” Kara admitted. “But I’m just really tired. She’s brought us down to the lab a couple of times these last months, right? Remember the other day when she told us to do our homework here when that intern had messed up the labeling of the samples.”
“Yeah, but I remember that. This seems… I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’m just confused.”
“Hey.”
The girls turned around when Alex spoke up again.
“If you girls want we could just call your mom?” she offered. “Would that make you feel better?”
“Yes please!” Kara said quickly.
Alex and Lena exchanged a quick look and again those heartbeats picked up a little, and Kara couldn’t figure out why.
“Alright,” Lena murmured. “I’ll give her a call.”
She typed in the number and held the phone to her ear. Alex looked at the girls expectantly. Kara threw her Alex a half-hearted look, but the other brunette just shrugged, trying to look indifferent, though Kara could tell she was nervous. So she made the decision for both of them. She tugged on Alex’s hand and with one final look, they hesitantly crossed the lab, walking over to Alex and Lena.
“Hi Eliza!” Lena said, a nervous smile on her face. “It’s Lena. Yes, the girls would like to talk to you for a bit. Would that be alright?”
The older Alex smiled at Kara again, and Kara smiled back, until her Alex nudged her with a meaningful glare, and she quickly tried to school her expression again. She usually just did as Alex told her to do, and it had mostly worked out in her favor. So if Alex wanted them to both look stoic, then Kara would do her utter best to do so.
“Okay. Girls?”
They exchanged a look, and Alex seemed to want to be in charge again. She scraped her throat and took the phone from Lena.
“Hello?” she said softly.
She relaxed when she heard Eliza’s voice over the speaker, her shoulders lowering significantly like someone had lifted a huge weight off of them. She immediately sounded so much younger and so much less stressed.
“Hi, mom.”
Kara instinctively shuffled closer to her sister, even though she could hear Eliza’s voice clear as day.
“Yes,” Alex answered confusedly. “They told us. But why didn’t you let us know? I mean,” she turned around, and Kara quickly followed, trying to keep up with her. “I’m old enough to stay at home by myself, I told you this before.”
Kara tugged on Alex’s sleeve.
“Tell her I can stay home by myself too!” she whispered loudly.
Alex waved her away with an annoyed look.
“Also, I don’t need to revise my calculus, it’s a Saturday. I don’t have calc until Tuesday, I wanted to take a day off.”
“And tell her I’ve finished my essay, already, Alex, tell her!”
Alex shushed her and Kara let out an annoyed breath, folding her arms over her chest like she’d seen Alex do a lot.
Kara could hear Eliza give a lengthy, stern response, and she could see the confusion on Alex’s face grow.
“I’m not a baby,” Alex scowled. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need you to tell me how to do my homework, mom. I know what I’m doing! I just can’t believe you dumped us with two strangers without telling us! You could’ve at least – ”
“Alex, I am busy right now. I know you’re upset, and we can talk about your responsibilities later. For now, I am unable to address your issues because I am in the middle of a meeting. Could you please just do as I asked?”
The commanding tone in her voice finally seemed to get to Alex too. She looked unsure of herself and quickly glanced at Kara.
“I… will you be gone long?”
“I’ll try not to be. In the meantime, please behave and let Alex and Lena work. Okay?”
“Okay,” Alex said softly. “Just… I hope things go well with the merger.”
“I hope so too,” Eliza said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome?”
“Okay. I’ll, ehm… see you soon. Goodbye.”
“Bye,” Alex whispered, a confused frown on her face as the call quickly cut off.
“Hey, no fair!” Kara said. “I didn’t get to talk to her!”
“She sounded busy,” Alex said dismissively, handing the phone back to Lena. “She probably had a lot on her mind.”
“Well you could’ve at least asked,” Kara pouted. “I had questions.”
“You always do,” Alex muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Alright, well, you heard your mom,” Alex quickly cut in. “How about you two go and work on your homework?”
Alex barely nodded, walking back to where her backpack had been carelessly thrown against the wall. She didn’t even seem interested in having an argument anymore, clearly bothered by Eliza’s stand-offish attitude on the phone. It had surprised Kara as well. Eliza was usually warmer than that, even when she was angry at the two of them. She always sounded like she cared. She was never just mad, it was always mixed in with motherly concern or disappointment. Neither of which Kara particularly liked, but it did make it easier to understand Eliza. To know where she was coming from. Kara had never been so easily dismissed by her, and she could almost guess Alex hadn’t been either. So now, with that bizarre phone call, knowing they’d just been ditched with two strangers?
Kara tilted her head watching Alex trudge over to the other end of the lab. She didn’t quite know what to say to her. She wondered if it would be rude to call Eliza again, to gently ask what was going on. Eliza never lied to her when she was worried. When she really wanted to know what was going on. She wondered if maybe she should tell Alex that they could just use the cellphone in their backpack and give Eliza another call before she realized she was still alone with the two adults.
“You okay?” the older Alex asked kindly.
She looked… familiar, in a way. Sweet. She looked at Kara with something akin to amazement in her eyes, and Kara didn’t quite know why. She looked really kind though. Trustworthy. Kara could already tell that she was a nice person. But that didn’t change the fact that Kara was just loitering around like some weirdo, the two women’s eyes solely on her. It made her deeply uncomfortable, and her cheeks turned an alarming shade of pink.
Kara quickly nodded. She smiled shyly before she hurried back to her sister who was already bent over her books. She sat down next to Alex, who didn’t even look up from her books. Too occupied by her calculus questions, though Kara could see no answers next to the penciled equations. There was a tiny doodle of a star on the corner of the page. Kara didn’t ask if she needed help. She now knew Alex didn’t like that. At all. So Kara just dug into her own blue backpack and fished out her writing journal. It was a sparkly one, on which Eliza had stuck a cute label with her name printed in pretty cursive letters. Kara opened it with a sigh and went over her writing assignment again.
“This is insane,” Lena muttered, looking at the two girls sitting quietly in the corner of her lab. “Absolutely fucking insane.”
“Tell me about it,” Alex said. “I can’t believe they bought the story.”
“Yes, how did you get them to believe you? They bought it in seconds!”
Alex shrugged. “Lucky guess? I remember that time where my mother was away a lot. She had to work long hours at the lab, and then there was a big merger with another company – I just remember her being stressed a lot. she used to leave us alone a lot, but after Kenny died…” Alex swallowed. “She tried to find people to watch us, even if it was just a neighbor who came by to make dinner for us. She took us to the lab with her a couple of times. She was always there, though.”
“Which is why Alex seemed so put down?” Lena asked softly.
“Yeah,” Alex said absent-mindedly, eyes glancing over her younger self again. “That would be my guess. Also, maybe J’onn needs some acting classes. I don’t think he nailed Eliza’s personality, you know?”
Lena hummed. She looked over at the girls too.
The younger Alex was bent over her papers, her forehead wrinkled up in frustration as she glared at the formulas in her book as if they’d personally offended her. Next to her, Kara was rubbing her eraser all over the page, tongue stuck out in concentration. It was so adorably Kara – so unchanged, as Lena remembered Kara typing out her article with an identical expression on her face – that Lena had to physically look away because it hurt so much.
“I just – I can’t believe that’s me,” Alex whispered. “I mean, I don’t even recognize myself.”
Lena tilted her head.
“Really?” she asked. “I think you haven’t changed one bit.”
She turned around and started typing away on her little keyboard again.
“What?” Alex checked. “How – Lena! I don’t… how can you think that?”
“Oh come on, Alex,” Lena threw her a look. “She looks just as angry and suspicious as you always do. Those eyes? They haven’t changed at all.” She smiled. “You were pretty cute.”
“Alright,” Alex blushed. “Very funny. Hilarious, Luthor, really.”
Lena laughed softly and Alex quickly checked to see if the girls were listening in, but they were caught up in their own heads, still diligently working on their schoolwork.
“Is it mean to say that I really hope a younger version of you shows up so I can get some payback?”
“It’s not mean,” Lena shrugged. “Just too bad for you cause I don’t see it happening any time soon.”
“Yeah,” Alex grumbled. “Let’s not make tearing the fabric of space and time part of our weekly routine. It stresses me the fuck out.”
“You’re telling me,” Lena muttered. “They seem to be getting along for now, though,” she said, glancing discreetly at the two girls in the back.
“For now,” Alex mumbled. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
“Thought you said you and Kara were constantly at each other’s throats?”
“We were. This is a blissful moment of peace. Enjoy it while it lasts. My mom still complains about the two of us whenever she gets the chance.”
Lena chuckled.
“I like it. Remember last Thanksgiving, when you and Kara were fighting over pie? What was it she said again?”
Alex smiled softly. “She told J’onn she wouldn’t get involved. “They’re my kids back in Midvale, they’re your responsibility when they’re in National City.””
“And then she just had that glass of wine?” Lena chuckled. “I loved that. She’s so funny.”
“Yeah,” Alex’s smile dimmed. “I wonder if she’d think this was funny.”
Lena looked over at Alex, eyebrows knitting together with worry.
“Do you want to give her a call?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know,” Alex ran her hand through her short hair, shaking her head slightly. “She’s going to be so upset. She was so mad when we didn’t tell her about everything that happened in the Phantom Zone, I… I don’t know. I think it might be safer not to tell her. Although,” her eyes traveled back over to the two girls in the back of the room, like they had been ever since the girls had woken up. “I think she’d give anything in the world to see them like this again. Even just for a day.”
Lena put her hand on Alex’s bicep and Alex turned her head to look at her.
“Let’s find the way to get them home first, okay? Then we can worry about the rest. Okay?”
“Okay?”
“Ehm, excuse me?”
Lena barely stifled an undignified yelp that escaped her throat when they were so suddenly interrupted. Alex and Lena turned around with a start, to find a guilty-looking Kara in front of them.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Didn’t mean to scare you guys.”
“It’s okay,” Alex was the first to regain her composure. “We just didn’t hear you coming. You okay?”
“Yeah, I, ehm.” Kara looked down at her shoes that suddenly seemed more interesting than explaining why she was there in the first place.
“Yes?” Alex asked kindly.
It surprised Lena, almost. That kindness, that warmth in Alex’s voice when she talked to Kara. Not even just her voice, no. That kindness that shone through in every action, in the way she looked at Kara, and waited patiently for her to find her words. Lena could scarcely remember a time when someone had addressed her with such kindness when she was a child. She could only remember cold glares and difficult terms used to explain to her what she was doing wrong at any given moment. Lex had been by far the kindest person to speak to her, but there was never that same gentle patience in his interactions with her. No, that wasn’t reserved for the Luthor household. Which was why it struck her so when she saw Alex wielding such kindness so effortlessly – so happily.
“I finished my paper,” Kara said quietly. “Like I said before. I reread it twice now. I’m all finished.”
“Oh.”
Alex and Lena exchanged a brief, panicked look, before they both turned to the girl, expectantly waiting for guidance.
“Well, eh, do you have anything else you could work on?” Alex asked.
“Nope,” Kara said, popping the p, “all done. What are you doing?”
“Okay, hold on, let me check,” Alex said. “Can you give me your paper?”
Kara diligently took out her notebook and handed it over to Alex. She flipped through the pages and a soft smile appeared on her face. Kara blushed when she saw Alex pause on one of her drawings.
“I did that when my homework was done,” Kara muttered. “I swear.”
“I wasn’t judging your study ethic,” Alex teased. “I like it.”
“Really?”
“Mmh. You’re very talented.”
It seemed like Kara was flourishing before her. Her eyes widened and a happy flush spread over the apples of her cheeks.
“I have more!” she said quickly. “May I?”
Alex handed her back her notepad, and Kara flew through the pages to find the drawings she liked best.
“Here!” she said, showing Alex a drawing. “That’s my cat! His name is Streaky! I found him on the streets. He was all alone, but I fed him and cared for him, and Eliza allowed me to take him home with me!”
She smiled at the pencil drawing of a sleeping, black cat.
“He’s the prettiest cat in all of Midvale,” she said lovingly. “And the kindest! He even let me swaddle him in a baby blanket one time! I had to practice all afternoon, but Eliza helped and it was so cute!”
“Really?” Alex said with raised eyebrows. “That’s impressive. Is he that nice to everyone?”
“Yes! I mean, well,” Kara cast a cautious look over her shoulder to see if her Alex was listening in. She turned back to the older Alex and leaned in a little. “He isn’t too nice to Alex. They don’t like each other much. He may have scratched her. But besides that, he’s the sweetest cat in all the world!”
Next to them, Lena chuckled, scraping her throat when she was caught, with Alex sending a glare her way.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m not listening. Ignore me.”
Kara looked confused, but then, she often was when it came to conversations between other people. She never quite seemed to get the inside jokes and innuendos that others seemed to catch on to so easily. She looked back at the older Alex, but she just rolled her eyes.
“Come on,” she said softly. “Show me another one.”
Kara smiled brightly and flipped through her pages again.
“This is my sister, Alex,” Kara said. “That’s a sketch I made of her when she was studying two nights ago.”
“Oh my God,” Alex whispered.
“That’s a dead ringer,” Lena cut in. “Look at that!”
The drawing was so lively, from the frustrated frown on Alex’s drawn face, to the freckles on the top of her nose. Lena could almost imagine her stepping right out of the picture.
“Here!” Kara said excitedly, turning another page before Lena had even been fully able to admire the picture. “Those are my adoptive parents! Eliza and – ”
“Jeremiah,” Alex finished for her in a whisper. “I recognize him.”
“Did you know him?” Kara asked. “He used to work here with Eliza too before he died. He was really nice. Everybody liked him.”
“Yeah,” Alex didn’t take her eyes off the drawing. “I knew him. I think you captured him well here.”
Lena walked back over to look.
“Wow,” she said softly. “When did you draw this? It’s like looking at a photograph!”
“Oh no,” Kara blushed. “It’s just a quick sketch. This was when they were cooking dinner together. I sat at the table and I just needed something to draw.”
Alex’s finger traced over the happy crinkles around Eliza’s eyes – the dimple in Jeremiah’s penciled smile.
“It’s really good,” she whispered. “You’ve got talent.”
She wasn’t lying.
Kara had a knack for capturing the smallest details of a person’s face on paper. It made them look eerily real – caught in a snapshot of their lives. Kara never liked drawing cold portraits, she liked to catch moments, and she was getting so good at it. It was almost painful how easily Jeremiah’s portrait could elicit so many feelings. How Alex could almost hear his boisterous laugh reverberate in the lab around them, just from seeing his smile on paper. It took a lot from her not to tear up at the sight of it. Lena seemed to catch on though. She bumped her shoulder against Alex’s, who shot her a small but grateful smile.
“Thanks,” Kara said shyly. “I’m still practicing. But Eliza got me some really nice pencils for my birthday, so I’m drawing a lot these days.”
“That’s good,” Lena said, turning back to her tech. “Practice makes perfect.”
“Yeah,” Kara said, looking over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“She’s working,” Alex said.
“I can see that,” Kara tilted her head. “But on what? Can I see? Can I help?”
“Okay, how about,” Alex said, “you go sit at a desk while the adults work. Maybe you can draw some more.”
“But I don’t have my pencils with me!”
“Well maybe you can – shit.”
Alex’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she quickly fished it out.
“It’s Kelly,” she told Lena. “Can you…?”
Alarm dawned in Lena’s eyes.
“Can I what? No – Alex! No, no!”
“I have to take this! Just…” She motioned her head in Kara’s direction. “Okay? You’ll be great!”
“No, Alex! Alex! I’m not a babysitter!”
Her words fell on deaf ears as Alex waved them away, rushing out the door, Kelly’s voice more important.
“Alex!”
But Alex had slipped out the door, leaving a slightly annoyed Kara behind. Lena slowly turned around to face Kara. The blonde looked thoroughly unimpressed. Gone was the smile that Alex had so easily elicited, and gone was the easy comfort with which Kara had approached her. Her thin arms were folded across her chest in a clear imitation of her sister, and she was scowling at Lena like she’d personally offended her.
Lena didn’t even know how.
She was completely bewildered by the teenager in her workplace. She didn’t deal well with kids. Even if those kids would grow up to be her very best friends. The panic slowly grew inside of her as she stared at Kara, frozen in place, like a mad person. What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t Alex! She didn’t know how to make kids feel comfortable! She didn’t know what to say to make them happy! She wasn’t even really good around adults, let alone a teenager she wasn’t supposed to know.
Lena forced an awkward smile which Kara didn’t return. Her scowl even deepened, making the courage sink right back in Lena’s shoes.
“I, eh,” she pointed at her tablet behind her, cursing herself for being so scared around a literal child. A kid. It was just Kara. Her Kara. And yet, facing her was more terrifying than anything else Lena had ever lived through. It was like Kara was staring right through her. Gone was the veil of jokes and invitations to galas and dinner parties that had entranced Kara – now all that was left was Lena. Naked and vulnerable for Kara’s open gaze. Lena felt like this Kara – this younger, more honest Kara – could almost see her for what she really was. And it scared her. The idea of having to win Kara over again, the idea of the chance being there, that Kara wouldn’t care for her at all – it made Lena want to turn on her stylish heels and race right after Alex.
She didn’t.
“I, eh, I have to get back to work?” her voice went up like she was asking permission.
Kara was still glaring at Lena, her blue eyes narrowed and disappointed. Lena clenched and unclenched her fists awkwardly, unsure of how to proceed.
“Okay.”
Lena nodded, before turning around and tried to ignore the feeling of two familiar blue eyes glaring daggers into her back. She clicked on the program she’d developed with Brainy to study the displacement of matter. Try as she might, she couldn’t focus on that damn screen for one second. Because she could feel that glare, and she could hear Kara huffing behind her.
Lena sighed.
If she wanted to get any work done that would get those girls out of her lab and into their right timeline, she would have to consider a different approach. She looked longingly at the door, praying that Alex would just wrap up her phone call and come back in to entertain Kara – but she didn’t. Of course not, Lena inwardly huffed. Not when she was on the phone with Kelly. Those two couldn’t be apart for longer than an hour before Alex would turn into a lovestruck puppy, glued to her phone as if the universe had personally kicked her, and Kelly would make it all better. It was frustratingly adorable.
“Okay,” she turned back around and faced the teenager before her. “I can’t help but think that we might not have started off on the right foot?”
Kara didn’t say anything.
“Look, if I said anything, or did anything to make you feel bad, I apologize. But I really do need to work, so if there’s something I can give you to keep you occupied…?”
Kara’s scowl deepened, her chest puffing up indignantly.
“Okay, please?” Lena almost begged. “What’s wrong? Do I need to get Alex?”
“I don’t need a babysitter!” Kara said. “I’m not a baby. I can take care of myself! Alex and I have been alone loads of time, and we’ve never (almost never) had any accidents! So I don’t like being spoken about like I’m some child, okay?” Kara said petulantly. “I'm fifteen. I don’t need a babysitter. It's bad enough that we have to spend our Saturday at Eliza's work!”
“Oh. Oh!” Lena’s eyes widened in realization. “Oh, no, I’m sorry!” Lena said quickly. “That is not at all what I meant, I’m so sorry.”
Kara petulantly refused to look at her, blatantly contradicting the point she’d tried to make just seconds earlier.
“Look,” Lena said gently. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you needed supervision. The truth is,” she shrugged, “I’m really not good with kids. Or people my age, really. I just didn’t like it when your s- when Alex left me alone with you, because I’m not that great at talking to people I don’t know. I’m just…” she sighed. “I’m on my own a lot.”
Kara still didn’t say anything, but her head perked up a little bit. She was listening.
“The only way I know how to be around people is by bossing them around, but you’re not one of my employees I can just tell what to do. I don’t really know what to say and it’s making me feel awkward, you know? Honestly,” she shook her head, “it’s a miracle I ever managed to get a group of friends because I am terrible at small-talk and well,” she sighed, “interacting with others, I guess. So I promise you, I really wasn’t trying to make it seem like you were a baby. I just didn’t know what to say. I’m not good at it like Alex is.”
Lena sighed and rubbed the spot between her eyebrows. The headache she’d been dreading had finally manifested itself right behind her eyes at the worst possible time.
“Look, Kara, I’m sorry but – ”
“That’s okay,” Kara said. And when Lena opened her eyes, she found that to her great surprise, Kara was smiling softly at her.
“It is?” she asked tentatively.
“Yeah,” Kara shrugged. “I get it. I have a hard time connecting with other people too.”
Lena could feel her heart beat faster. The scowl had completely disappeared from Kara’s face, and there was only a soft understanding in her eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Mmh,” Kara hummed. “Alex gets frustrated with me a lot because I don’t understand people. Like, I don’t know why we have to be nice to people just to fit in, when they’re not nice people at all.”
“Yeah,” Lena said. “I don’t understand that either.”
“Alex calls it social suicide. Breaking away from people, I mean. Sometimes, she says, we have to choose to stay in a group to ensure survival. Like pack animals. That does kind of make sense to me,” Kara shrugged. “But I still don’t like it. I prefer to choose my own friends instead of hanging out with people that are rude and inconsiderate. It makes it hard to talk to people sometimes. So I get it.”
Lena had to force a proud smile down.
If there was ever any doubt that the teenager before her really was her Kara Danvers, it had definitely been erased now. That statement was so perfectly Kara that it made Lena’s heart soar. Her unwavering sense of right and wrong, her conviction and warmth – it was all there.
Lena wished she could say she was as impressive and kind as a teenager when she was younger, but she knew she would fail to live up to Kara’s standard at any age. She’d been much more careful with her words at that age. Smart and cunning, well-spoken, and always thinking of every possible consequence to her words and actions. Just like her family had taught her. So very unlike Kara, who clearly wore her heart on her sleeve, no matter how it may have looked to others.
“I agree with you,” Lena smiled softly. “I think it’s important to be surrounded by good friends – friends you choose, you know?”
Kara nodded solemnly, and it was so adorable it could almost make Lena swoon.
“I only have three friends on this planet. Alex, Eliza, and Kenny. But Kenny died a couple of months ago and Eliza works a lot, so it’s mostly just Alex and me.”
Lena’s heart felt strangled in her chest at Kara’s matter-of-fact explanation of an event that had left such horrifying scars. Lena had even seen Kara fall apart on the anniversary of his passing once. Maybe Kara was trying to be strong, or maybe she had really internalized his death for now, until it would get too heavy a loss to carry all by herself.
“I’m sorry,” Lena said hoarsely. “That must feel awful.”
Kara’s eyes locked with Lena’s, and Lena could see confusion and a hint of surprise in those light eyes.
“Thank you,” Kara said softly.
Lena tried to smile, and Kara smiled back. It made Lena feel disproportionately happy to see Kara return her smile like she’d earned it. Like her confession and honesty had made her deserving of some tiny part of Kara’s grace and kindness, and Lena felt lighter already.
“So, ehm, now that we’ve established that I’m not babysitting you,” Lena said, and Kara giggled, “could you just tell me what we do now? Cause I do really have to work.”
Kara nodded.
“Maybe you can tell me about what you’re doing?” she asked hopefully. “That would be a nice start?”
“Yeah,” Lena smiled shakily, still so, so relieved that Kara was nice to her. “I could.”
Kara beamed at her, and it made Lena irrationally happy. She couldn’t help but smile back, taking a step aside so Kara could watch with her. And for just a moment, Lena felt completely unafraid.