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When Cat had thought about spending her weekend with Kara, this was not what she had expected to happen. The feeling was overwhelming, she felt like the world was crushing her down, as if every single movement and sound in National City was happening right in front of her, or inside her head.
The plan was for Kara to change bodies with a human so Astra could capture her, but the DEO had come in and saved her before anything else could take place, not without breaking the Kryptonian machine that had made the body swap possible though. ‘It’s only gonna take a couple of days to fix it at most. I will make sure you don’t have to stay in there more than needed.’ The Danvers agent had said, but every minute since then had been torture for her.
Now here they were in Kara’s apartment, lights all off and sitting on the ground beside the bed. Kara was sitting beside her while Cat cradled her head on her hands. “I can’t… Kara I can’t…” Cat said over and over, she was trembling and her words were weak.
“I know its horrible Cat, but you can do this.” Kara put a hand to her shoulder slowly and gently and Cat jumped in shock at the touch. “Come on, look at me please.”
Cat tried with all her strength to gather her thoughts, but everything was so heavy around her, she could hear the taxi driver ten streets from there yelling at a guy who didn’t pay him, the couple fighting on the first floor, the breathing coming from Kara and her heartbeat. She could smell the sweat coming from the gym on the building next to them, the grease coming from the fast food restaurant, the horrible smell coming from the sewers. And she could feel everything, from every little breeze of air to her own body functioning, even her own blood flowing through her veins.
She shook her head in frustration “I can’t” she repeated herself. Kara sighed patiently, it had been 3 hours, they had been sitting there for 3 hours trying to get Cat to control her senses. “I’m not leaving you, come on, you can do this Cat.” She smiled to her. “I know how to do this, if you could just let me show you.”
Cat was not getting any closer to her, so Kara tried something different. “Okay I’m gonna do this and you can watch and listen if you want and if you do, you can try it.”
Kara closed her eyes and took a deep breath “Don’t fight it, don’t fight the inputs. It’s a battle you can’t win. Instead, you have to embrace it, get to know everything that surrounds you, and get in control.”
The other girl opened her eyes and saw Kara, or rather, her own body with Kara in it. It was a strange view but Cat listened closely and tried to follow her every word. Closing her eyes again and taking a deep breath she let herself get taken by the inputs and it was incredibly horrible.
She felt like she was going to be killed by all these things around her and started wondering if Kara knew what she was doing before she spoke up again.
“When you have been taken by it, you start channeling them one by one. Pick one of those feelings surrounding you, preferably one that is close. Focus all your strength on that one. Let’s start with smell, choose a scent of your surroundings that doesn’t bother you, one that you like.”
Cat took a deep breath and started picking all the scents one by one, quickly discarding the ones coming from the sewers. Finally she felt the scent of Kara’s perfume. It wasn’t really an amazing scent, it was as decent as a normal price perfume can get, but it was familiar so Cat decided to settle on that one. She started taking it all in at once, blocking every other smell other than Kara’s scent until it was all she could smell and it was nice, a little relief came to her as she started feeling at home.
“Now,” Kara said almost as if she already knew Cat had done it right. “Let’s go with hearing. Take in all of the noises surrounding you and just block them out until you find the one sound that soothes you.”
For a second Cat felt overwhelmed again, the sounds were far worse than the smells, but finally she focused on Kara’s heartbeat. It was steady and strong, it wasn’t too rushed or too slow. Cat suddenly found the sound of a beat after the other very immersive. She found herself listening intently at the soothing sound and her head had stopped hurting.
“Lastly…” Kara said before getting closer to her and taking her hands in hers very slowly. “Touch. Can you feel my hands Cat? Can you feel my skin touching yours? The slight warm coming from mine and warming yours?”
Cat nodded and Kara waited a second before moving her thumb over the back of her hands “Focus on that, block everything else and take only the feeling of my hands on yours.”
It was the hardest one, but Cat slowly got the hang of it. Feeling Kara’s thumb on the back of her hand, moving slowly and tracing circles on her skin. It was warm and soft, and the slow movement made her calm.
After a long moment the sound of Kara’s voice again broke her from the trance. “Cat? Open your eyes.”
Cat did as she was told and slowly opened her eyes, the room was pitch black but she could somehow still see Kara’s smile and gentle eyes looking at her. She noticed that everything was quiet now, and the world had stopped crushing her. She felt in control.
“How do you do this all the time?” Cat asked, feeling a wave of respect, even admiration, towards the girl sitting in front of her.
“Once you get it, it stays with you.” Kara smiled and planted a little kiss on Cat’s hand.