455. Chapter 455

Kara hates it.

Watching Alex suffer. She hates it. Being Eliza’s darling child.

She misses Jeremiah, too, but not like Alex does.

She misses Jeremiah, too, but she’s not the one that Eliza expects to somehow both replace him and live up to his memory.

All of that pressure, Eliza puts squarely on Alex’s shoulders.

And Kara can’t help feeling like it’s her fault.

So she trudges through class – advanced junior-level math, even though she’s still only a freshman – trying to fight down tears, trying to fight down the overwhelming depression.

She was the only one who survived her planet. And now she’s the reason that the only person who makes her feel at home on this planet – Alex, her big sister, her world, her salvation, her everything – is suffering.

Now she’s the reason that Alex had spent last night screaming at Eliza, raging and crying and grabbing her surf board and not caring that it was too dark to surf safely.

Kara had watched her from their rooftop, to make sure she was safe. To make sure she didn’t hurt herself. Even if that was, maybe, something she wanted.

Kara sniffles to herself with the effort of holding everything in, with the effort of listening for Alex’s heartbeat – her big sister is in her English class right now – amidst the overwhelming array of sounds that assault her daily at school.

“Need a tissue?” a boy who’s never said two words to her offers in a whisper. She nods gratefully, starting to smile.

“Go to the bathroom and get one, then,” he whispers again in a voice that carries intentionally, carries enough to get all the kids surrounding them to laugh at Kara’s now burning face.

All the kids, that is, except Lena Luthor.

Lena Luthor who turns around from her seat in front of Kara with fire in her eyes and murder in her posture. Lena Luthor who also is too young to be in this class, but too smart to be anywhere else.

Lena Luthor, who passes Kara a tissue from her own bag and raises her hand in one smooth motion.

“Ms. Hernandez, Jacob is violating our class contract against bullies,” she tells her, a smug look on her face as Jacob is promptly sent to the guidance counselor and Ms. Hernandez asks before touching Kara’s shoulder supportively the next time she circulates the room to look at their work.

“You’re doing a wonderful job adjusting to somewhere new, Kara. And it seems you have a good friend in Lena.”

Kara beams as Lena turns around to meet her gaze shyly. “I do, yeah. I really do.”

She wonders why her face burns so hard, with so much pleasure, when Lena’s shining eyes meet hers, when Lena reaches a hand back to offer more support to Kara, and she makes a note to ask Alex about it later.

Alex. Alex.

Alex, who’s having problems of her own, across the hall and one flight down, in her English class. Her fight with Eliza had gotten so intense last night – so painful, so visceral, so agonizing, left her feeling so small, so unimportant, so insignificant – that she hadn’t been able to focus enough, to dry her stinging eyes enough, to do her homework for the day.

And Alex Danvers always did her homework.

“I expect more from you, Ms. Danvers. Is everything alright?” Mr. Pepitone asks, and Alex scowls at him, at the condescension in his question, at the implication that whatever it is that’s wrong, his English homework should take priority.

“Alex was helping me last night, sir,” Maggie speaks up, and Alex – as well as half the class – starts at the sound of her voice. Maggie rarely says anything in class anymore, since her parents… since her parents.

“My truck broke down on my way home from work, and she came out to help me fix it.”

“Those engineering skills paying off, Ms. Danvers, is that right?” Mr. Pepitone grins slightly before nodding and moving on, and Alex nods.

Alex nods, even though she knows full well that Maggie’s truck might have broken on her way home from the after school program for little kids last night, but that Maggie wouldn’t have needed any help fixing it.

“Thank you,” Alex mouths, and Maggie winks.

“What’re friends for, Danvers?” Alex doesn’t say anything about how she’d like to be more than friends with Maggie, about how she’d love to drown in Maggie’s eyes, how she’d…

But then Maggie is slipping a piece of ripped paper onto her desk, and Alex nearly swoons at the beautiful swirls of Maggie’s deliberate handwriting.

“You look beautiful, like always, Danvers, but you also look like you’ve been crying. Can I help?”

Alex looks up at her, wondering whether the burning in her face shows. Maggie’s head is tilted and her eyes are soft, and Alex is gone.

Her hand shakes as she scribbles back.

“My mom was at it again. Apparently I’m not doing enough to protect Kara. Again. I just feel like…” She looks up from writing and stares idly at their teacher as he drones on about Shakespeare. “… I’ll never be able to please her, you know? I mean, I know you know. Sorry. I’m just so miserable. Whatever.”

She waits until Mr. Pepitone turns to write something on the board before she passes the note back.

She watches as Maggie reads it, stops breathing as Maggie reaches for her hand underneath their desks.

“I know the feeling, Alex. And I’m so sorry your mom can’t see how incredible you are. But you know who you’ll always be able to please? Me. Wait, that came out sexual. I mean… you know what I mean. You deserve to be cared for, Danvers. Can I care for you?”

Heat pools between her legs and she gulps and she blushes and she squeezes Maggie’s hand under their desks as she reads her response. She doesn’t bother writing a response. She just catches Maggie’s eye and nods and smiles for the first time.

Nods and smiles for the first time in hours, because yes. Yes, Maggie can care for her. And she’ll care for Maggie.

What are friends for, right?