142. Chapter 142
She tries not to think about it. She tries really hard.
She tries not to dwell on it. She tries really hard.
She tries not to show it. She tries really hard.
She fails.
She fails.
And she succeeds.
Until she doesn’t.
Until she can no longer stand under the weight of it, can no longer breathe in the fist of it, can no longer sleep in the midst of it.
It’s nothing in particular.
It’s nothing and it’s everything.
Her planet is gone. Her people. They’ve been gone for years, but still, they’re gone every day, and she’s tired.
They can’t find Jeremiah, they can’t take down Cadmus, and she’s stuck waiting, waiting, waiting.
And waiting is so much worse than fighting, because fighting is something. She can cope with the something.
She can’t cope with the nothing.
And lately, the nothing that is everything is all that she feels.
And it’s starting to chip into her smile, to wear into her laugh, to grate into her bones, to resonate in her voice, to deaden her reaction time to laser beams, to slow her response to punches, to dull her amusement at jokes that she thinks are probably funny, because everyone else is laughing.
Alex notices, and she notices that Alex notices, and that’s when she panics.
Panics because Alex notices, and Alex will try to help, and if Alex tries to help, she will have to talk about it. To deal with it. The nothing that is something, the nothing that is everything.
Kara panics.
And Kara turns to Cadmus for help.
The DEO can’t get a needle into her skin, but Cadmus can.
If she uses the DEO’s kryptonite-impregnated daggers, someone will notice.
But if she uses something scavenged from Cadmus – something that can carve her pain into her arm, something that can hope to reach into her heart, because the weight of everything and nothing is heavy and she can’t escape it, she can’t she can’t she can’t – they won’t notice.
But they do.
Because Kara doesn’t notice Maggie noticing – noticing the droop in her shoulders, the delays in her laughter, the exhaustion behind her eyes – but Maggie notices.
And she nudges Alex’s arm, and Alex nods, because Alex knows, and they watch her closer.
They watch her closer, and they follow her when she steals a Cadmus blade on her own. They follow her, and they find her with the blade in her hand and a tear in her eye, and all Alex says is her name.
Just her name, her name, her name, her name that her parents gave her before they let their entire planet burn, her name that her parents gave her before developing a weapon that could so easily commit genocide, her name that her parents gave her before they exploded and left her, left her, left her.
But that’s not all it is. If it were, she wouldn’t be cradling a blade designed to puncture Kryptonian skin above her arm. If it were, she would be used to the pain.
But this pain, this is something else. This pain is reasonless. This pain is meaningless. This pain will not leave, because it’s not pain, but it is.
And all Alex says is her name, because Alex knows, even though Alex long ago chose a bottle instead of a blade.
All Alex says is her name, and she runs to her, and she takes the blade and she gives it to Maggie, and she gathers Kara into her arms and she rocks her and kisses her hair and she rocks her and she kisses her hair and she breathes her name, her name, her name.
Kara doesn’t know how long they stay huddled on the cold, hard ground, wrapped in each other, wrapped in each other, but eventually Maggie settles down on her haunches next to them, the blade tucked safely into her combat boots, one hand on the small of Alex’s back, one on Kara’s knee.
“You’re never by yourself, Little Danvers. Never.” Kara sniffles and stares and Maggie takes a deep breath and sighs, because Alex is crying and Alex is helping but Alex can’t conjure the words, not yet, so Maggie does, because she lives for the Danvers girls, her Danvers girls.
“Look Kara, you cultivate this image. And a lot of the image is true: your kindness, your generosity, your enthusiasm. You’re sweet and you’re almost frighteningly bubbly and you’re absurdly genuine. You really are. But you don’t have to be all those things all the time. I know you feel like you do, because that’s how people see you, so that’s how you feel like you have to always be, right?”
Kara blinks and tears streak down her face, and Alex and Maggie’s fingers connect on Kara’s cheek as they both go to wipe them away.
“But you don’t always have to be on your game. You don’t always have to be that girl. You don’t have to hide and you don’t have to suffer alone. You don’t always have to wear the same face. I mean hell, Little Danvers, look at your sister. She goes around with this badass reputation to uphold, but we know what a softie she is on the inside.”
Kara chokes out a laugh and she strokes Alex’s hair and Alex shakes her head with a small smile at the two women she loves most in the multiverse.
“But there’s nothing wrong,” Kara objects, because she knows she has more traumas than she has fingers and toes, but that’s not all that this is. This… this.
“There doesn’t have to be something wrong for you to feel like the world is ending, Kara. But you don’t have to feel that way alone. Ever. You get me?”
Kara smiles wetly and Kara nods, and she lets Alex hold her while Maggie presses a kiss to Alex’s temple.
“Anyone ever tell you that you’d make a good superhero, Maggie?” Kara asks as Alex pulls her to her feet, brushes her off, and wraps her arm around her to head away from this place. To head home. Together.
Maggie smiles and bumps her shoulder into Alex’s side. “This one tells me every day, for some reason.”
“Well good,” Kara says, her voice still thick with tears, but lightening now, lightening because she’s not by herself. “She should. Because you are.”
Maggie kisses Kara’s hand and Alex beams.
“Potstickers and pizza?”
“And ice cream?”
“Of course and ice cream.”
“Yes please.”
“Alex? Maggie?”
“Yeah Sis?”
“Thank you.”
“Always, Little Danvers.”
“Always, Kara. Always.”