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The nightmare had come to an end. Brainiac was gone, and with him the mind control he had exerted over Kara. Kara Zor-El, for the first time, was able to experience silence within her mind. She had found a home alongside her cousin Kal-El. She had made her first two real friends: Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. However, she still felt like she did not quite fit into her new life on Earth. After all, she had not been raised in an environment of peace nor instructed to be kind.
Her childhood, taken from her by the ruthless Brainiac, had been a harsh training ground where even the smallest mistakes had painful consequences. She had been molded into a living weapon destined to subjugate inferior races under the command of her «father», and to eliminate anyone who rebelled against the new Kryptonian Empire. Therefore, being surrounded by a cheerful and peaceful environment at the Kent farm in Smallville felt foreign and bewildering to her. Every time Martha Kent offered her a sandwich or a cup of hot chocolate, Kara could not help but remember the energy bars they used to give her before a mission, and every time Jonathan Kent gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder, her body would stiffen, expecting a blow or a reprimand, because in her previous world, physical contact often used to precede pain.
Although she had destroyed Brainiac with her own hands, deep within her being, Kara still feared that some trace of the «Eradicator» program remained implanted in her mind: what if she was not completely free?, what if that feeling of calm was simply an illusion?, what if Brainiac had some kind of contingency plan for situations like this? After all, he had been a powerful artificial intelligence, could he really have died so easily? That uncertainty gnawed away at what little peace of mind she had. Worse still, what kept her awake at night was not the fear of becoming Brainiac's puppet itself, but the possibility of losing control over herself at the least expected moment and hurting her friends and Clark again.
She still remembered precisely how her body had moved without her consent under mind control, and how she had mercilessly struck her cousin, while he was only trying not to hurt her. It had been a horrible and traumatic experience that repeated itself in her nightmares. She could no longer bear the weight of another guilt; her conscience was already burdened by the lives she had unintentionally taken on Thanagar, Euphorix, and H'lven.
When Clark looked at her with unconditional faith, Kara felt that she was lying to him simply by existing and wondered how long it would be before he, too, saw what she saw in the mirror upon waking: a reformed genocidal killer who still did not know whether she truly deserved redemption.
Of course, Clark, Lois, and Jimmy did not take long to realize how dejected and melancholy Kara was. You did not need to be a professional investigator to notice it; all you had to do was pay attention to the way her shoulders slumped when she thought no one was watching or to the way her gaze drifted toward the horizon. Although she tried to smile and participate in trivial conversations most of the time, there was a veil of sadness in her eyes that was impossible to overlook. They were aware that they needed to help her overcome the trauma Brainiac had left her with. And for that, the first step was for Kara to become familiar with humans and their customs, to learn how to interact with them, and to understand that not everything in the world was a threat.
The first time Kara explored the city was when she received a message from Kal-El through the transmitter. At the time, it was a search and rescue mission that had not felt like one at first, since Jimmy Olsen had gotten in her way, coming between her and her objective. However. Jimmy had welcomed her with an unexpected warmth, as if he had known her all his life, awakening in her a feeling she did not remember ever having experienced before. That sensation had been so powerful that Kara had kept it in a special corner of her memory.
But now, on her second visit to Metropolis, things seemed somewhat different to her. The excitement of something new was no longer there and, instead, there was a greater awareness of her own strangeness.
Kara was a little tense, although she did her best to keep it from showing on her face or in her posture. They had gone to have the same chocolate mint ice cream that Jimmy had treated her to the first time and that she had loved. Afterwards, they had stuffed themselves with hot dogs at a street stand, because Kara believed it was the most delicious food on Earth.
For the most part, the afternoon had passed peacefully, with the occasional minor crime that Superman had solved in a matter of minutes. Sometimes, Jimmy made jokes that Kara did not understand, as she was too naive to grasp the nuances of terrestrial humor. Even so, she looked at him, confused and fascinated at the same time, and nodded her head even though she did not understand the joke.
Until it was time to return home after a rather long and entertaining day.
Jimmy extended a hand to stop Kara when they reached the corner, just as the pedestrian traffic light turned amber. Kara, who was trying to imitate her cousin's relaxed stride, stopped dead, bewildered by the sudden pause. Thinking that some problem might have arisen, she looked around, but everything was in order. Nevertheless, when she looked up at the device responsible for making everyone stop, she watched as the traffic light changed from orange to a deep red.
That simple color unleashed a spark of memory in Kara's fractured mind, crushing the fragile calm she had built throughout the day. Her body stopped responding to her, and she stood motionless, staring at the traffic light without blinking, her muscles rigid and her heart pounding like crazy. The bright red light brought the horrifying image of Primus Brainiac to her mind.
"You are a disgrace, Scion." A robotic voice, filled with contempt, echoed in her ears, sending a powerful shiver down her neck and along her spine.
Kara's eyes widened and the blood in her veins turned to ice, leaving her limbs numb. Suddenly, she was unable to breathe and the world around her seemed to be swallowed by a black shadow. She was no longer in Metropolis, but back in Kandor, wearing her old Kryptonian armor. Panic welled up in Kara's chest, stealing her breath and mercilessly tightening her throat.
"F-Father?" Kara whispered with difficulty, feeling small and helpless. Her legs began to tremble.
Brainiac emerged from the shadows, his robotic form intact. Horror spread across Kara's face, as she refused to believe what she was seeing. She took one step backward, then another and another, until her back collided with a wall that had not been there a second before. Her agitated heart threatened to shoot out through her throat and her pulse hammered against her ribs, wanting to break them.
"Did you think you had gotten rid of me...?" Brainiac's thunderous metallic laughter reverberated through the walls of the ship. He approached her, tilting his expressionless face and fixing his luminous sensors on the Kryptonian's terrified eyes. "...daughter?"
"N-no." Kara frantically shook her head. "You... you're dead." It was impossible for Brainiac to be alive; she had destroyed him and had his CPU in the Fortress of Solitude. What she was witnessing had to be part of a trauma-induced hallucination, but that did not make the vision any less terrifying or the fear freezing her blood any less real.
The survival instinct ingrained in her being drove her to act, causing her heat vision to activate as a defensive response. In the illusion that had trapped her, the incandescent beams easily pierced the robotic body, melting the metal, while Brainiac's maniacal laughter became distorted. However, in reality, the beams struck the traffic light, melting its structure. The glass of the casing exploded and the red light that had triggered the torment went out, pulling her from her nightmare and returning her to reality.
Clark, who was behind her and whom Kara had collided with in her hallucination, remained still, perplexed by his cousin's reaction, while Lois and Jimmy turned to look at her in horror. But they were not the only ones: around them, other passersby were also staring at her. Someone pointed at her with a trembling finger, a mother shielded her child with her own body, and a man dropped his phone to the ground as he backed away in fright. The sirens of a nearby patrol car began to wail and chaos spread across the corner. What had been a peaceful afternoon quickly transformed into an evacuation scene.
Kara continued backing away mechanically, paying no attention to Clark. She did not hear Lois shouting her name nor notice Jimmy's attempt to approach cautiously. Her perception had been reduced to a dark tunnel in which Brainiac's laughter continued to reverberate.
"Kara?" Clark called out to her, concerned, holding out a hand. "What's wrong?" His words sounded as if they were coming through a layer of water, and Kara could not muster the strength to respond. She could not explain what was happening to her, since even she did not fully understand it.
However, it was Lois who noticed the symptoms Supergirl was displaying: dilated pupils, labored breathing that made her shoulders rise and fall too quickly, beads of sweat on her forehead and temples, and trembling hands that opened and closed in a compulsive rhythm. Lois had seen them in coworkers and had even experienced them herself in the past because of her father.
"It's a panic attack." She reached that conclusion aloud, although she was not sure whether Kryptonians experienced panic attacks in the same way humans did, whether their alien physiology processed fear with the same hormones and physical responses, nor whether the earthly rules for calming a crisis would apply to an alien girl raised aboard a warship and indoctrinated by an artificial intelligence.
"A what?" Clark asked, momentarily distracted as he turned toward his girlfriend in alarm.
At that moment, Kara took flight. The power of her legs propelled her upward with such force that she broke the asphalt beneath her feet. She did not look back; she simply ascended desperately. Within seconds, her silhouette became a bright dot that then disappeared into the vastness of the sky, leaving her cousin and friends in the middle of the street commotion she had caused.
"We have to go after her." Lois ordered immediately, watching the place where her friend had disappeared. She clenched her fists at her sides. The worst thing they could do was leave her alone in that state, at the mercy of the demons in her head. Silence and solitude were the worst enemies for someone who had already spent too much time trapped inside her own mind with no one to help her get out.
Clark and Jimmy asked no further questions and nodded without complaint. The three of them took off running, dodging the passersby who were still recovering from the scare. Taking advantage of a dark alley between two buildings, they veered off the main route with the purpose of getting away from curious eyes and allowing Clark to remove his civilian clothes and become Superman.
With Lois clinging to his chest and Jimmy with his arms around his neck, Clark took off from the ground and sped away in search of his cousin. He moved between the skyscrapers of Metropolis, scanning every rooftop and terrace with his eyes. Lois pointed upward with her arm extended, and Clark followed her indication until he finally found her curled up on the rooftop of the Daily Planet. Kara was sitting with her knees pressed against her chest, her arms around her legs and her head lowered. Seeing that image, Clark's heart broke, and he could not help but remember the sad and lonely Kara who had lived her entire life in Kandor.
Superman landed on the edge of the rooftop and carefully set Lois and Jimmy down on the ground. He took a step toward his cousin, but it was Jimmy who, unable to contain himself, called her name with a voice broken by concern, abruptly breaking the silence that reigned over the rooftop:
"Kara!"
The aforementioned girl raised her head, her eyes brimming with tears. Upon spotting the silhouettes of her friends, she instinctively recoiled, dragging herself backward across the cold concrete. Her hands instinctively rose in front of her face to protect herself. A primal terror was reflected in her eyes, preventing her from recognizing her loved ones, since, in her tormented mind, the figures of her friends could very well be an illusion created by Brainiac to torment her.
Upon observing Kara's reaction, Lois raised a hand toward her friend.
"Be quiet, Jimmy." She asked, bringing a finger to her lips as a sign of silence, without taking her eyes off Kara. An unexpected noise or a poorly chosen word could be interpreted as a threat by a mind that could no longer distinguish between what was real and what was imaginary.
The photographer, shaken by the situation, abruptly closed his mouth, realizing that his enthusiasm had been counterproductive. He took a few steps back and bit his lower lip helplessly. For her part, Lois took a deep breath and calmly approached Kara, with her hands extended as a universal sign of peace. She did not want Kara to plunge over the edge or decide to flee again.
"Kara, it's me, Lois Lane." She explained as gently as possible. "You're on the Planet's rooftop. You're safe, Kal-El and Jimmy are here with me. There is no threat."
Kara's chest rose and fell with a constant panting that evidenced her difficulty breathing. One of her hands clung to the railing bordering the rooftop, bending the metal, while her unfocused eyes settled on Lois's face.
"No... I don't know what's happening to me." She articulated between gasps. She swallowed with difficulty and her eyes moved frantically, scanning Lois's face, Clark's, and Jimmy's, searching for some sign that would confirm that this was real. "Father... Father is alive... I saw him." She brought both hands to her head and buried her fingers in her hair. "He's here... in my head." A small, silent sob slipped between her lips.
"That's not the case." Clark stated, having approached slowly. He knelt beside Kara and took one of her cold, trembling hands between his own, squeezing it gently. "Brainiac is dead. You defeated him, Kara, remember?" He intertwined his fingers with hers, offering her a point of contact with reality.
Kara blinked slowly, struggling to reach the memory Clark was offering her.
"I... I defeated him?" She asked in a whisper, her glassy eyes wide open but still unable to focus her gaze completely. Her memory was a tangle of scattered images due to the panic clouding her mind.
Lois acted immediately and held her other hand. Her fingers closed around Kara's, enveloping her hands in warmth and tenderness.
"Kara, I need you to listen to me." Lois spoke, modulating the tone of her voice so that it sounded low and serene. "Focus on me. Breathe with me, slowly, and let the air out when I do, okay?"
Kara hesitated, moving her eyes from one face to another. Her fingers tightened around Lois and Clark's hands, clinging to them. The calm conveyed by Lois's voice and the way her thumbs drew gentle circles over the back of her hand began to gain ground over the panic that dominated her. She nodded weakly and, gathering the courage she had left, tried to follow the rhythm Lois set.
The two inhaled at the same time, with a deep, trembling sigh from Kara, while Lois held the air in her lungs for a moment; then, they exhaled together. They did it once and Kara's trembling decreased slightly; they did it twice and the rhythm of her breathing became a little less erratic.
It was then that Jimmy decided he was not going to stand idly by, watching from a distance as his two friends tried to pull Kara out of the abyss into which she had fallen. He approached with determination, knelt in front of her, and cradled her face with both hands, forcing her to look at him. His thumbs brushed her flushed cheeks, wiping away the traces of dried tears.
"Look at me, Kara." Jimmy murmured with an intimate undertone, seeking those beautiful blue eyes clouded by tears. "I'm here. Everything is going to be okay, understand?" He moved a strand of blond hair that had stuck to Kara's cheek and tucked it behind her ear tenderly. "I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you either." A warm smile spread across his face. "You are a very special person to me."
Kara blinked as she internalized his words and her eyes filled with a new wave of tears that no longer came from panic. The tension that had been suffocating her gradually transformed into a pleasant warmth that originated in her chest and slowly spread, returning mobility to her numb limbs. It was the same feeling she had experienced when she met Jimmy, which dispelled the fog of confusion.
Kara's fingers loosened around the hands that held her, and her rapidly beating heart began to calm, returning to a slower pulse. She recognized her cousin, Clark, kneeling beside her; Lois and Jimmy, whose palms still rested against her cheeks, giving her warmth.
"Kal-El... Lois Lane... Jimmy Flamebird..." She whispered hoarsely, looking at each of those present as if she were seeing them for the first time after a long time. A trembling smile of gratitude slowly curved her lips. "Thank you for being here."
Her eyes focused solely on Jimmy, on that face that had been the first to offer her affection without conditions. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. Jimmy did not hesitate, unlike other times when shyness or surprise had paralyzed him. He returned the gesture with the same intensity, holding her firmly with one hand on her back and the other on the nape of her neck, caressing the base of her hair.
Lois and Clark watched the scene and relaxed upon seeing Kara finally calm. Lois drew a soft smile and Clark sighed deeply, then they shared a look of happiness. They made no comment so as not to interrupt the beautiful moment, simply joining their hands in silence, intertwining their fingers.
"Looks like we have a long road ahead of us, Smallville." Lois expressed with a knowing little laugh, approaching her boyfriend and resting her head on his shoulder. Clark responded by wrapping an arm gently around her waist to draw her closer to him.
"Looks that way." He said with a sweet smile as he looked toward the moon that illuminated his dear cousin, his best friend, and his beloved and cherished girlfriend.