Chapter Text
There’s a warning in Alex’s eyes as she looks at her, a question and a plea mixed together with an anger Kara has only rarely seen directed at her since that first year on Earth. She knows that she shouldn’t believe Mon El, knows that going with him instead of staying, instead of sitting and pretending that she isn’t suspicious of Jeremiah, will look like she’s chosen, but she can’t do this. She can’t risk Kal for Alex, can’t risk herself like this.
“You’re either a part of this family or you’re not.”
She pulls away from her hold, moves to the door, Alex’s ultimatum ringing in her ears even after so long. She remembers the twist of her gut, the anger, the loss on hearing those words fall from her lips.
She hadn’t thought about it then, but turning back to look at Alex, Kara has to wonder if Alex had ever really forgiven her for what she’d said when she had been infected with red kryptonite, if she will ever forgive her for leaving now.
“Kara.”
She shakes her head, opens the door and leaves. If she’d stayed, she knows that she would have asked. She doesn’t want to know the answer, doesn’t want to see it confirmed in Alex’s expression as she tries to come up with an answer.
She frowns as she makes her way to the alley next to her building.
Would she even know if Alex is lying to her?
Part of her wants to believe that she would, wants to believe that she knows Alex better than anyone, but she’s not sure of that anymore. She’s not sure if she ever really knew Alex, if she ever really knew more than the other woman wanted her to know.
She doesn’t bother changing as she takes off, not wanting to be nearby long enough for someone to find her. Kara knows that it’s dangerous, that she could be exposed like this, but she doesn’t care, not just then.
Cold wind whips against her face as she flies, not fast enough to reach sub sonic speeds but not slow enough to be seen either. She doesn’t push herself, wanting only to get lost in the feeling that comes when she’s in the air, too far for human eyes to see.
There’s a small pressure on her chest as she barrel rolls into the thermosphere. She can feel the weight of the air pressing down on her, telling her to return to the ground, but she pushes past it, forces herself into a series of complicated maneuvers she’s seen in the recordings of her aunt’s battles with the DEO.
Astra lives in her blood, she thinks grimly as she moves, lives in that hollow place beneath her heart where she keeps her darker thoughts hidden. She’s become another loss, another regret that she can’t get rid of.
She should let go, she thinks as she moves to dive, should stop thinking about that day, about truces with Non and the anger at J’onn she has never quite let go, the anger at Alex. She should stop thinking at all.
The fall from one layer of the atmosphere to another would kill a human, would burn their bodies into dark, charred skeletons telling stories of brutality, of chaos. She remembers stories of Icarus descending from on high, wanting only to touch the sun and failing, of Daedalus having to find his son, to find the remains of a child lost to the harshness of the air.
Once upon a time, Alex made her watch the Avatar cartoons, made her fall in love with Aang and his story as a survivor, as the last son of a dead nation struggling to live with the legacy, the burden of his people and his role. She had liked him better than Icarus, liked that child of the air who had never forgotten the core of his people, of his past. She had liked the hope inherent to his story, the promise of rebuilding what he had lost, making it better.
She had liked it then, but she understood Icarus more, understood how much being too close to the sun could hurt. After all, how many times had she tried to get close to Alex, to Kal? How many times had she burned herself up in the act?
Alex had come around after, had given up everything for her, she now knows, but still, that fear lingers, that pre-emptive feeling of loss every time she looks at her and wonders if this is the day Alex will remember that Kara stole her family away. Still the fear remains that Alex will stop choosing her one day.
She lands with a thud in the tundra of Siberia. There’s so little life there, but what does exist clings to existence with a desperation Kara feels in the very earth. It’s not like the Arctic, so reminiscent of the ice wastes on Krypton, but it’s still barren, lonely.
She sinks to her knees, arms wrapping around her body in futility as she tries to keep the hurt in and fails. There’s a terrible screaming echoing in her ears, a sound that shakes her to the core, even after she realizes that it comes from her.
It’s raw, a release of suppressed rage and grief aimed at her aunt, at Alex, her parents, herself. It is a need to shake off this burden, this legacy of pain that lives inside of her.
Her phone sounds, Alex’s ringtone vibrating against her hip more than the song reaching her ears. She thinks about answering it, about crawling back to her and pretending that everything is okay, that she’s Sunshine Danvers who smiles and smiles and never cries, never hurts. She thinks about acting like she’s in love with Mon El, about acting like everything’s okay again.
She thinks and she decides.
Opening the door, she shoves a carton of ice cream into Alex’s hands before moving to take her seat at the table with a smile. She doesn’t feel it, not really, but she can be here. She can do this.
She doesn’t look at Jeremiah throughout dinner, doesn’t not look at him. She wants to, needs to be reminded of the kind of man he had been before he was taken, of the man who had helped her when she had been captured, but she’s scared of what she will see, scared of what she will know if she does.
If he and Eliza notice, they don’t say anything, too caught up in their reunion to bring attention to her. She’s grateful, not wanting to take that away from them, not wanting to hurt them if it turns out that Winn is wrong.
Alex doesn’t notice, too enamoured with Maggie to see, to care. It stings, a little, to think that Alex could be so oblivious to the image she helped to craft but Kara pushes it aside, forces herself to keep smiling even after it becomes painful.
Or has it always hurt this much? She can’t tell, not really.
Mon El’s hand finds its way to her leg, squeezes. He can’t see through her smile, she knows, but he’s still there, still willing to sit by her when he knows that Jeremiah could be dangerous. She doesn’t want him there but, at the same time, she clings to him, throws herself into the effort of keeping this relationship going when every part of her screams to get away from him, to stop catering to his feelings.
When it moves higher, Kara flinches, moves to push it away. She doesn’t want to ruin this, doesn’t want to break the illusion she’s trying to create, but her skin is crawling.
“Kara…”
She doesn’t miss the warning in his voice, the want, but she doesn’t want to respond to it. She doesn’t want to continue this when every part of her is aching to get away from him.
She makes a weak excuse, walks to the kitchen with enough speed that she almost misses the feeling of eyes on her back. Kara doesn’t look back, doesn’t give Mon El the benefit of acknowledging his gaze as she makes a beeline for the refrigerator.
Somehow, she has leftovers from the night before, potstickers hiding behind boxes of chicken and broccoli. There’s food on the table where she left it but she needs this, needs something that reminds her of home, no matter how little they actually resemble the dumplings her father used to bring her when he returned from exploring the outer edges of Kandor.
“Kara? There’s food out there, you know.”
She looks up from her potstickers at the sound of Maggie’s voice, wonders for a moment if she should say something, anything. She knows that she can trust her, knows that Maggie is a good person, but that’s all she knows about her and right now that’s not good enough, not for her.
Kara knows what she wants, but it’s gone, destroyed by her people’s hubris, by her own family’s secrets.
Suddenly the potstickers don’t taste as good as they once did.