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When it was all out of her system, she screamed. She screamed like a banshee, or a wild beast that had been inhumanely been tamed. Everyone in her vicinity at the DEO turned their heads and stared at her with wide-eyed expressions. Most were shocked, but a few seemed confused and others scared. As her scream quieted down and she started to shake from the lack of air in her lungs, her fists aggressively clenched at her sides like it had the day she had temporarily blown out her powers, she looked around and saw all those familiar faces focused on her. None of those people that stared at her had ever seen her like that. Sadly, the only two people that had looked at her much the same as everyone else in the room.
J’onn was stoic as ever, but he had a sort of knowing expression on his face. It was as if he knew Kara needed to let it all out, like he’d had to do the same thing at some point in his existence. Maybe after he lost his family on Mars. What Kara felt was just as intense a feeling as that, though it took the events that occurred while she was affected by Red Kryptonite to realize it. Alex, on the other hand, looked surprised and a little heartbroken. Most of all, Alex was concerned. It was the one emotion Kara read easily on her sister’s face in that moment, and every other moment like it.
Kara’s loud scream turned to tears and in an instant, the crushing weight of her emotions brought her to the floor on bended knee. She placed her hands on top of the knee that wasn’t pressed into the floor in the middle of the command center and used it to keep her as upright as possible while she cried. A moment later, she felt a hand on her shoulder that was supposed to comfort her. Instead, it made her tense up and curl further into herself.
“Kara,” Alex breathily said.
It was evident to Kara from Alex’s voice that there were tears in her sister’s eyes as well. That realization made Kara remember herself and that crying in the center of operations at the DEO wasn’t going to do her any good. She had to be better than that. She had to make sure Cat was alright. And Carter. Oh, god. Carter.
She sucked in a deep breath and held it for a few seconds as she tried to regain control of her breathing and calm herself. When she felt she could stand, she exhaled and then pushed herself up onto her feet.
“I have to go,” she told J’onn and Alex in a still partly shaky voice, her previous tears and the urge to continue crying not entirely gone.
She didn’t wait for either of them to stop her or ask her where she was going. She moved past them at a human speed, but picked up the pace before she reached the building’s entrance and then shot into the sky.
As she flew across the city, she felt like falling. She didn’t want to save herself. She just wanted to shut off her abilities and let gravity take effect. Just then, Cat’s scream echoed in her mind before she closed her eyes and saw images of what she’d done play over and over again like a skipping record stuck on the same part of a song. She remembered in vivid detail the way she’d flown right into Cat’s personal space and reached out for her before the other woman was able to react. She pulled Cat close and then spun them around before she pushed her over the side of the balcony and watched her plummet toward the ground.
Gradually as she flew, Kara’s mouth started to fall open as she tortured herself by reliving her hurtful actions. She furrowed her brow and tried to stop more tears from falling. The only way she knew how to do that was to pull her outstretched arm toward herself. She held it against her chest, her fist still closed as it rested above her heart, and relaxed her entire body.
Everything slowed down for a moment and suddenly, she wasn’t moving across the city. She was moving downward through the air, thousands of feet above the ground. She was in freefall. She opened her eyes as she fell and stared down at what awaited her below, just like Cat must have done during her descent. Kara knew she could stop her fall at any time, but Cat only knew she was headed for certain death. The only secret weapon and guardian angel the woman thought she had was the one that had pushed her off her balcony. There was no way Cat thought she would be saved just before impact.
Kara convinced herself she wasn’t going to save herself. She didn’t deserve to be saved. She deserved whatever came next and no one else but her could stop that from happening. In that moment, she didn’t want to be stopped. So she didn’t stop.
Down, down, down she went. Like a fall from grace. She wasn’t above pain or death or any of the people of National City she had vowed to protect before she became their enemy. There were still so many people all around the world, like General Lane and his military followers, that thought aliens were weapons of mass destruction just waiting to go off like a ticking time bomb. After her exposure to Red Kryptonite, she had to agree with those people. She was a threat, not a hero. It didn’t matter how many lives she saved. She was just one bad day away from killing those same lives and more.
She smacked into the ground with enough force to create a gaping hole that surrounded where she landed. She hadn’t landed on concrete, however. She had landed in wet grass, the soil beneath it softened from the recent rainstorm. She immediately ached all over, but she was still very much alive. She was winded, so breathing was difficult. It terrified her, but she also didn’t mind feeling like she was suffocating. It was the least she could have suffered through, especially since her super-strength was something she apparently couldn’t turn off.
If she was normal, she would have died. But she wasn’t normal and no matter how long she managed to keep her job at CatCo—and after what she’d done, she hadn’t expected it to be kept much longer—she never would be. It didn’t matter how much she wanted to be just like everyone else on the planet. She was always going to be a freak with the ability to hurt the people that mattered most to her.
She grunted and hissed as she crawled her way out of the crater she’d made on impact. She would have refrained from flying after that, but she was too far away from where she wanted to be. She needed to get there as soon as possible and despite hating her abilities at the time, she had priorities that were less about her and more about the people she’d failed to protect.
When she landed, she kept herself out of sight for as long as possible on her way to the nearest restroom where she changed into her regular Kara Danvers attire. Her Supergirl suit was hidden, buried, beneath the person she wanted more than anything to be full-time at that point. She put her glasses on and pulled her hair back into a lazy bun, loose wisps of hair falling out of it and the rest of her hair not so tightly held in place. She sniffled and tried to hide the fact that she’d been crying before she emerged from the restroom and used her super-hearing to detect which way would lead her to the right room.
It took her a little longer than she had hoped. The hospital was busy with nurses and doctors alike discussing medial and personal information throughout the building. There were several families either saying their goodbyes or reading to their sick relatives and the constant beeping of every patients’ monitors didn’t help her with her filtering process.
Eventually, she was able to pick up two distant voices. They were hushed and one was a little raspy. Neither sounded too happy about the situation they were in, but Kara rushed toward the room before she crumbled again with the reminder that their situation was her fault. At the end of the hallway, only a few steps away from the hospital room she’d searched for, she slowed her approach. Through the open door to the room, she saw Cat in a hospital gown lying in bed with Carter snuggled against her side.
Cat’s face and arms were scratched up and she looked tired, more tired than she’d ever looked. The older woman had an arm wrapped around Carter while she talked quietly with him. For the first time since she’d met Carter, she saw him frown. He looked almost as drained as Cat did, maybe even more so.
“I can’t believe she would do this,” Kara heard him say, his cheek pressed against her chest and shoulder. He rolled the top of the hospital blanket that covered Cat’s legs and waist between his fingers while he spoke.
Cat took a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes before she said, “Sometimes…people let us down, whether they meant to do it or not.”
“Do you think she meant to do it,” Carter asked.
“I…” Cat trailed off as a look of fear and hurt passed over her face. “Supergirl made a decision. She might have thought that was what she wanted in that moment, but…that doesn’t mean she won’t regret it later. That’s just how things work out sometimes.”
“Like…when Dad wants to spend the weekend with me, but then cancels?”
Cat grimaced, and Kara felt wrong for eavesdropping on a private conversation she had no business knowing about. Especially not after what she’d done. But she couldn’t move forward, couldn’t let her presence be known to the Grants just yet. She wanted to know more and as soon as they knew she was there, the conversation would stop and the subject would change.
“Your father always wants to spend time with you,” Cat answered after a moment. “It’s just that other things come up when he least expects it, which is why he has to cancel every once in a while. So…no. It’s not like that. It’s like, when you say or do something that’s not like you and then you later end up wishing you hadn’t. That’s regret.”
“You think Supergirl regrets, or will regret, what she did?”
“I honestly don’t know, sweetie. I’m not even sure I fully understand what happened. It’s like…something changed in her. She was…different than all the other times she’s visited me.”
“Well, I don’t care why she did it. I don’t even care if she regrets it. She still did what she did and I hate her. I’m taking down that poster of her I have in my room as soon as we get home.”
Cat was usually the first to defend Supergirl if she a reason, but she didn’t reply. She didn’t say a thing, and Kara didn’t blame her. Cat’s only response was to lift her hand from Carter’s side and run in through his curly hair. It seemed to comfort him. After only a few seconds, his eyes slipped closed and he appeared calmer than he was a moment prior.
Kara stared at the two of them for a little while longer before she finally took the remaining steps to the doorway and gently knocked against the metal frame with her knuckles.
“Cat?” Her voice was barely a sound and came out raspy from both her earlier scream and the tears that strained her throat in her struggle to hold them back.
Carter’s eyes popped open just as Cat sharply turned her head to look at her visitor.
“Um, may I come in,” she quietly asked and motioned toward the two of them.
Cat hesitated and looked her over before she answered, “Close the door on your way in.”
She cleared her throat and momentarily ducked her head as she stepped inside. She turned away from Cat and Carter and shut the door as requested before she awkwardly shuffled across the room to grab the chair Carter wasn’t using. She carried it back to the other side of the room with her and sat next to the side of Cat’s bed that the other woman’s son hadn’t occupied. Almost as soon as she sat down, she bowed her head and couldn’t bear to look at either Grant anymore.
She laced her fingers together and rested her joined hands on the edge of the bed. She focused her attention on them instead of Cat or Carter.
“Are you okay,” she asked after a moment, her voice broken as the tears became harder to fight off. “That’s- That’s a stupid question.” Her lip started to quiver and a moment later she sniffled.
“Kara?” It was Carter’s voice, not Cat’s. She shook her head and refused to look up at him. She was only seconds away from another breakdown. Not looking at either of them was her only chance of avoiding a repeat of her outburst at the DEO.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t help it when she felt a hand on both of hers. She looked up and saw Cat staring at her in a way that said so much and yet nothing at all. It was like Cat could see right through her and had figured it all out, that she was Supergirl; that it was her fault they were there. But Cat didn’t say a single word. Everything Kara thought she saw in Cat’s expression came solely from her penetrating, green eyes.
“Uh, whe- where’s your mother,” Kara asked as she looked away from Cat and chose to focus on Carter, who looked sympathetic. That was almost worse. “Does she know you’re here?”
Finally, Cat spoke. “She knows I’m okay. That’s all she needed to hear.”
“She’s not coming,” Kara asked with a furrowed brow and risked looking at Cat again. “Not even for Carter?”
“He’s not the one lying in a hospital bed.”
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t need his grandmother standing with him at your bedside,” Kara argued.
“It’s fine,” Carter said. “And anyway, you’re here.”
Kara looked at Cat with big, guilty eyes after she heard that. Cat seemed to understand everything, just as she had a moment ago, but she still kept her hand on top of Kara’s. It was a strange thing to think Cat knew she’d pushed the woman off the roof and yet, held on to the person responsible like she was still a trusted friend that was wanted there.
That didn’t mean Cat didn’t look pissed, because she did. She stared at Kara with sharp eyes. Cat could have very well understood that Kara and Supergirl were one in the same, but that hadn’t meant Cat had forgiven her for what she’d done. It just seemed Cat wasn’t willing to make a scene. Probably for Carter’s sake.
“Sweetie, will you get me a drink? Preferably bottled water from the vending machine,” Cat said to Carter, as if she’d read Kara’s mind. “You know I won’t touch this tap water they gave me.”
Carter sat up and flashed a quick smile at his mother. “Yeah. Can I get myself something, too?”
“Of course,” Cat smiled back at him.
“Kara?”
She looked over at Carter as he carefully slid out of the bed.
“Do you want anything,” he asked.
She glanced at Cat before she gave Carter her full attention again and said, “No, thank you. I’m okay.”
He nodded and grabbed Cat’s wallet from her purse before he left her alone with the other woman. It seemed that sending Carter off so they could be alone had been Cat’s plan, even though she’d been honest about not touching tap water. She hated tap.
For what felt like a long stretch of time, Kara and Cat remained silent as they stared at each other. Cat looked determined and convinced of something she had yet to share with Kara, while Kara looked guilt-stricken and torn up.
“I’m sorry,” Kara breathlessly confessed before she looked down again. She attempted to pull her hands away, but Cat tightened her grip on them.
“Sorry you did it or sorry that I survived,” Cat asked in reply.
Kara’s head snapped up in an instant. She stared at Cat in shock, her eyes blown wide. “I’m grateful you survived. It wasn’t- I wasn’t really in control of what I did. I… There’s something that can hurt me and there’s something that change me. They’re…like a drug. Sort of. But…even though I didn’t decide to be under its effects, I still did what I did.” She sniffled again and shook her head as more tears slid down her cheeks. “I can’t fix it. I can’t go back and not do it, but I am sorry.”
And just like that, she was overcome with emotion again. She cried and brought her head down toward the bed. She pressed her forehead against the back of Cat’s hand, which continued to stay firmly on top of her own joined hands.
“I’m so sorry, Cat,” she said through her tears. “I could have- Carter could have lost you. And I never meant to hurt either of you.”
The thought of Carter returning to the room to see her pour out her heart to Cat and apologize again and again for something Carter had no idea she’d done sobered her up. She collected herself as best she could in that moment and hurriedly stood up. She yanked her hands out from under Cat’s hand and took a step back from the bed.
“I should go,” she said and turned to leave.
“He’s already lost one hero,” Cat said, and the sound of her voice alone was enough to stop Kara before she could sprint out of there like her life depended on it. “I won’t let him lose another.” Those words drew Kara in. She turned to Cat again and listened as the other woman continued, “He looks up to you, and you’re right. He needs someone here with him. We both know it’s not going to be my mother…or Adam.”
She pursed her lips and brought her chin to her chest at the mention of Adam. That was her fault, too. Everything bad that had happened to Cat in the last few months was all her fault. She cared about Cat and all she’d done for the other woman was hurt her in more ways than one.
“But make no mistake,” Cat added with a strict tone, and Kara looked up again. “Whatever possessed you to come after me like that, you will not lay a hand on my sons. Is that understood?”
“Of course! I would never—” She stopped herself. She never wanted to or thought she would hurt or endanger Cat, but she had. She couldn’t guarantee that she would never do that to someone else important to her, and both she and Cat knew that.
She avoided eye contact for a moment and was two seconds away from kicking herself again for what she’d done. She blamed herself, and would always blame herself, whether she’d been under the thrall of Red Kryptonite or not.
“I may not trust you right now, Kara.” Kara immediately looked up again at the sound of Cat finally pronouncing her name correctly. After a brief pause, Cat added, “But I still believe in you.”
No words had ever meant more to her, aside from hearing Alex—or anyone she was close to—saying “I love you.” Cat’s words brought her relief and hope and she felt herself collapse into the chair at Cat’s bedside without conscious thought.
Her lips quivered again before she quietly said, “Thank you.”
She scooted the chair closer to Cat’s bed. And when Carter came back to the room, she had her head in Cat’s lap and her eyes closed. She heard him make his way across the room before he had another hushed conversation with Cat as the older blonde repeatedly brushed her fingers through Kara’s hair. She was on the verge of sleep, Cat’s fingers soothing to the point that it sent shivers down her spine and helped even out her breathing like it seemed to have done for Carter. It wasn’t until Carter climbed back into bed on the other side of Cat and cuddled up to his mother that Kara was finally able to succumb to much needed slumber.