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Pumpkin Pie is Postponed (2016)

Summary:

Thanksgiving 2016, National City, California

Alex competes with James and Winn to deliver news at the dinner table, only to be interrupted by the space-time continuum

Work Text:

The scent of roasted sage and cinnamon-spiced pumpkin is thick and comforting inside Eliza Danvers’ cozy, wood-paneled farmhouse. Sunlight, weak but golden, streams through the kitchen window, highlighting dust motes dancing over the dinner table where Kara, Alex, James, and Winn are arranged. But the centerpiece, a majestic fifteen-pound turkey, is stubbornly pale near the bone. Eliza waves a hand, a look of good-natured surrender on her face.

 

"That old gas oven has finally given up the ghost," she sighs. "Kara, sweetheart, you know the drill. A little Martian finishing touch, if you please?"

 

Kara smiles, a genuine, joyful expression that smooths away the edges of her CatCo stress. It is a mundane, wonderful tradition—using her Kryptonian gifts to save a family meal. She focuses the soft, controlled intensity of her heat vision, twin beams of deep crimson light, precisely onto the thickest parts of the bird. The beams are delicate, turning the pale skin a perfect, succulent mahogany that glistens under the heat. While Kara is preoccupied, James subtly nudges Winn with his elbow. They exchange a nervous, conspiratorial glance that Alex immediately intercepts.

 

“Winn, we’ve got to tell them now,” James murmurs, leaning in, his handsome face etched with serious urgency.

 

Alex whirls, her Agent Danvers instincts overriding her sisterly affection. She completely misreads the anxiety in their posture, convinced they are about to announce Guardian's existence. She grabs James’s arm with a firm, practiced grip.

 

"Absolutely not. This is my day." Her voice is a low, dangerous hiss, meant for their ears alone. "I’m finally telling the family my important news, and your big, shiny titanium helmet is not going to overshadow my announcement. You can wait ten minutes, okay?"

 

Winn’s jaw drops. He squeezes James’s hand tightly under the crisp white tablecloth, his eyes wide. She thinks we’re talking about the Guardian? The secret they desperately want to share—that they are dating, happily and completely in love—is completely obscured by Alex’s protective ferocity and the monumental weight of her own secret. They only know she has "important news."

 

A loud, almost theatrical knock on the front door cuts through the tension. It is Mon-El, looking awkwardly charming in a borrowed, ill-fitting suit jacket, clutching a bottle of sparkling cider he clearly bought at a gas station. Eliza’s face softens into an instant maternal beam.

 

"Oh, Mon-El, how wonderful! You’re just in time."

 

Mon-El immediately launches into a series of extravagant, slightly dated compliments, charming Eliza with smooth talk about her "unparalleled terrestrial hospitality" and the "fascinating aroma of burnt sugar." Kara narrows her eyes at the Daxamite. He is absolutely hitting on my mother. He is utterly ridiculous.

 

Eliza, catching Kara’s jealous, judgmental stare, leans over the table and whispers conspiratorially, "He’s doing it for you, honey. He likes you." Kara yips in embarrassment, her face instantly flushing scarlet.

 

The turkey is retrieved, perfect now, and placed proudly on the table. Everyone resettles, the air thick with unspoken secrets.

 

Alex takes a deep, resolute breath, ready to change her life forever. "Mom, Kara, I need to tell you something really important, which is—"

Winn, desperate to interrupt the Guardian misunderstanding and reveal his actual, far softer truth, bursts out simultaneously, his voice high with panic, "We're just—we're trying to say that we’re—"

 

Their voices overlap in a panicked, unintelligible rush of competing vowels and sudden consonants.

 

At the precise moment of their chaotic, dual confessions, a tiny, jagged purple vortex—a fissure in the space-time continuum no bigger than a coaster—snaps into screaming existence directly above the carved turkey. A focused, invisible beam of pure kinetic heat bursts from the rift, striking the center of the beautiful, finished bird. The turkey instantly vaporizes in a puff of acrid, pungent smoke, leaving behind a perfectly circular, obsidian scorch mark on the linen tablecloth and filling the house with the smell of ruined food.

 

Eliza stares at the black mark, utterly crestfallen. "My dinner," she whispers, the life draining from her posture.

 

Kara, her Supergirl instincts instantly engaged, is oblivious to the burnt meal, her gaze locked on the residual energy signature that hangs, humming, in the air. That is not normal convection or heat vision. Winn, however, fixates mournfully on the vanished food. He throws his hands up, a dramatic pout settling on his face.

 

"Well, that just sucks. Guess we're definitely getting pizza."

 

Before anyone can address the lost feast or the overlapping announcements, the special DEO comms line—the one only used for catastrophic events—blares to life on Alex's wrist.

 

Her eyes meet Kara’s over the smoking centerpiece. "I’m guessing this means pumpkin pie is postponed."

 

The four younger adults spring from the table, drawn away from their messy, emotional secrets by the smoking, dimensional rift that has now crash-landed their national crisis onto their family Thanksgiving feast.