Chapter Text
For you, I leave my light on
To do its best against the storm.
And you came in like the tide and
I knew that we could keep each other warm.
-Braille, Lisa Hannigan
The waves cut into one another viciously creating the crashing sound in which Alex Danvers found her father. She heard as he spoke to her on his boat. It was the reason she came back once he had died. To find him again after too long. She’d been born in this small town on the coast, her and her sister had. And in turn, they had both moved away as well. After Jeremiah died Alex returned to the small house, far past safety to keep the place alive. Alex sailed the boat each day surviving on a day to day wage from selling what little fish she could catch. It wasn’t ideal, but she enjoyed it.
She stood, drenched in the salt water that she assumed by now was in her bloodstream and pulled up her last net for the day. The catch was shameful. There was barely enough, but she’d survive. Recently her catches had been more to do with luck of the day. Consistency was a foreign concept and she was painfully reminded each day at how fragile the whole set up was. Too long will poor results and she’d be begging for a job in town.
She waited patiently as Mr J’onzz weighed her catch and as they handed her the cash with a solemn expression.
Mr J’onzz was one working people in town, and the oldest person Alex could stand at all. He worked in the only fishery in town and had been doing so since Alex could remember back to when she was a little girl. Mr J’onzz had been good friends with her father, and so she had practically been raised by him as well as her own parents. She still saw him as a father figure, and she was certain he knew it. She also knew he wasted his potential here in town. Having originally settled here to be with his wife and raise his daughters, now had been left alone in a town that reminded him every day of what he had lost. Alex felt sorry for him, as it was unlikely he’d leave now. She felt hypocritical thinking of his story as a sad one when she too was in a similar position.
“Oh, I saw your sister’s car in town,” J’onzz said brightly. “How long is she staying?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Alex states taking her earnings, “I’ll tell her to stop by and say hey though?” Alex offered. J’onzz smiles warmly like her father used to do and nodded.
By the time Alex had pulled into the peer outside the house and tied it up, Kara was already sat inside with a cup of coffee and the fire going. Kara, as honest as she was, was still overly nosey and so when Alex looked through the window she saw as Kara was looking through the cupboards and sighing. When Alex walked in, Kara quickly slammed the cupboard door shut and spun found innocently smiling to Alex.
Alex raised an eyebrow.
“You look terrible.” Kara laughs nodding at Alex’s fishing attire. With her waterproof bib and brace trousers, thick boots, and her woolly hat that had been knitted for her by Kara herself and had become scraggly from repetitive wear.
“It’s lovely to see you too.” Alex smiles, “I’ve told you before that you don’t need to keep checking up on me.”
“Actually, I’m just stopping by,” Kara says proudly, but before Alex can refuse this or argue Kara shoos her away. “You go get showered and I’ll cook.”
“You’ll cook?” Alex raises her eyebrows knowing full well that the last time Kara cooked was in home ec class in high school, and even that was a tragedy for everyone involved.
“Okay. I’ll get the takeout I bought ready. It’s from that little place off Caile Street.” Kara says casually awaiting Alex’s excitement. Instead, Alex has already run off to her room to get her change of clothes.
“I love you,” Alex shouts from her room.
Kara should have been used to the way the house felt by now, and yet each time she stepped inside it still had a foreign eeriness to it that she couldn’t shake. She didn’t know how Alex survived here. Well, she did. On determination alone. And determination didn’t heat the small house very well.
By the time Alex comes back, she’s wearing a thick sweater, and her hair is drying from a shower. She sees the food on the table and quickly jumps over, taking a plate and sitting down. Kara’s set the table, which the cutlery will inevitably be the wrong way round for her. Alex misses this routine and when Kara sits down in what was her childhood place around the table she feels comfortable.
“How was today?” Kara shoving what was already her their potsticker in her mouth.
“Shit,” Alex says without even thinking about it. She begins to pile her plate, knowing from experience that if she doesn’t reserve food now then Kara will eat it all before Alex has finished her first mouthful.
“All this and you don’t earn a lot,” Kara mutters to herself so that Alex can hear.
“I earn enough,” Alex says
“Alex, I was raised on the wage you're earning. I know it’s not.” Kara looks at Alex with pitiful eyes, which Alex has grown used to ignoring.
Instead, Alex moves the conversation on and to Kara, “so where are you going then that you’re just stopping by?”
“I’m going South to Metropolis for a few days.”
“To see Clark?”
“I’ll stop by his to see him, but nope. I’m on a business trip.” Kara sits back in her chair beaming with joy.
“You’re an elementary school teacher.” Alex deadpans.
Kara scoffs, “I know. Principal Grant sent me on a trip to other state schools to see about their food programs.”
“Seems appropriate,” Alex says smugly watching as Kara inhales her food. “How is Ms Grant?”
“She’s fine,” Kara says slowly.
“She still treat you poorly?” Alex asks.
“She doesn’t treat me poorly. She just has her own way of showing appreciation.”
“Is that way by not showing appreciation.” Alex quips, quite proud of herself for that one. Kara seems less impressed however. “Let’s face it, that place would crumble without you.”
Kara smiles, “probably. How’s Max?”
Alex groans, “That man is a pig.”
“That man is a pig. I’m glad you finally agree with me on that one. Why were you with him again?”
“He promised me financial security.” Alex states.
“And they say romance is dead.” Kara smiles to Alex who’s looking down at her food refusing to look at Kara who is enjoying this too much. “You know where else offers financial security?”
“I’m not moving to National City, Kara.”
“Why not?” Kara wines.
“You know why.”
Kara reaches across the table to take Alex’s hand in her own. “Dad’s gone.”
“He’s still with me on that boat. I can still hear him.”
Kara nods. She knows this is true, she just doesn’t know how to tell her that is isn’t the sea that allows her to hear their father, it’s his memory. And it follows Kara to National City too.
Kara sets off that night in order to get to her hotel before Midnight; she paid for the room for five nights so she was gonna use it.
Once she’s gone the house hums with emptiness again and as Alex takes herself off to bed she’s whisked off to sleep by the house of the sea building into a storm.